Seeing that the US Chief Trade Negotiator, strongly supported by Business Week, openly advocated government redistribution policies of income created through external trade your chronicler recently pointed out that there appears to be a new wave of infiltration of undesirable elements in government and media. None less than Prof. Krugman has now detected similar tendencies. This is a quote from The Death of Horatio Alger in The Nation.
The other day I found myself reading a leftist rag that made outrageous claims about America. ....
The name of the leftist rag? Business Week
Said magazine recently published an article claiming that the US has become more of a class society, where social mobility has come to a halt and "sons are much more likely to inherit the socioeconomic status of their father than they were a generation ago."
And prof. Krugman, typically, doesn't mince his words:
That's where those commies at Business Week come in: As they point out ... America actually is more of a caste society than we like to think. And the caste lines have lately become a lot more rigid.
I wonder how long Gary S. Becker and Robert Barro, two venerable BW columnists, with correct opinions, will want to to remain associated with this kind of big government-social engineering sort of propaganda?
Off topic is not a blog where others are just quoted and then get away with it without scathing criticism by your chronicler. No Sir! (and Madam!) But this is just so good! But terrible.
(Link to and heading stolen from Whiskey Bar, blog by Billmon.)
From ABC-news, link by the inimitable Matt Drudge:
Today in New York City, law enforcement officials began finalizing their plans for the New Year's security package, which will include the welding shut of manhole covers, the removal of post office boxes, and the preparation of a rodeo-like series of pens and gates that funnel backpack-less revelers into the area along Broadway.
Heavy weapons teams, bomb squads, city, state and federal weapons of mass destruction units, bioterror sensors, undercover agents, thousands of uniformed officers and so-called Arch Angel convoys — units trained to remove dignitaries in case of an incident — are all part of the plan.
I have difficulties to visualize "a rodeo-like series of pens and gates" but all this is sad. Very sad. It is good that these things are being done but tragic that they should be necessary.
Were things better during the cold war? A nuclear war might have meant the end of "civilization" as we knew it, but the very apocalyptic dimensions of a conflict may have helped to prevent it. (But, on the other hand, remember Dr. Strangelove!) And surely no Soviet or American leader (with the possible exception of President Reagan) seriously believed that God would like them to bomb the other one to hell, come what may. That meant that there still was a fragment of rationality even in confrontational politics. That is long gone.
The State Department of the USofA, having ensured that all minority rights are fully guaranteed at home, is very concerned over the freedom of religion over in old Europe. Things are not so good there as they are in Texas. The Department has issued an annual report on religious freedom where they don't mince the words:
More specifically, the report, as it did in 2002, took Belgium, France and Germany to task for discrimination against minority religions, including Scientology, the Jehovah's Witnesses and the Hare Krishnas.
"There continues to be concern that some Western European countries pursue restrictive legislation and practices that stigmatize minority religions by associating them with dangerous 'cults'," the department said.
But even worse:
In Germany, the report noted that the government continued to refuse entry to the founder of the Unification Church, Reverend Sun Myong Moon, and his wife
Off topic has received information from an undisclosed source that the EU Commissioner for Religious Affairs, Monsignore T.O. R. Quemada intends to revive the Spanish Inquisition in order to deal with "reverend" Moon (and his wife). And this, despite the fact that State Department has found
that neither the group nor its members have been found to be involved in criminal activity
Your chronicler has some doubt that this kind of coercive measures will lead to the desired results. A better and probably easier way would be to convert scientologists, jehovist and Moonies to the attractive and ancient Norse aasacult. We can offer beer, mind expanding drugs (from poisonous mushrooms) and pork from a pig that is slaughtered every evening and resurrected every morning. We have also a kosher alternative where the pig is substituted for the holy cow Audhumbla. For men, like in Islam, there is a number of willing Valkyries in waiting. In order to go with the times we have also vegetarian and non-alcoholic alternatives. Ladies may save the Valkyries for their boyfriends or brothers unless differently inclined.
Note: Quotes are from unlinkable news agency telegrams, mainly AFP (Agence France Presse - so maybe it is just another anti-american ploy?)
2003 12 17
No business class for European goats
Amidst the chaos caused by the failure to adopt a constitution for the soon-to-be 27 member states of the European Union, other important issues have become somewhat over-shadowed. You may, however, rely on this chronicler (yes, Veronica, there is such a word) always to focus on the real issues. The Honorable Ministers of Agriculture have, for example, just decided that European sheep and goats from now on must be tagged in both ears instead of in only one, as before.
The UK, while agreeing, as usual dragged their feet complaining
that the EU had not conducted a cost-benefit analysis for the whole project.
On the other hand member countries are completely at sixes and sevens over the issue of animal transports. Whereas Sweden wants more emphasis on animal welfare,
Spain, however, reminded farm ministers that animals should not be subject to better conditions than those endured by human passengers travelling across the Atlantic on low-cost carriers
As far as your chronicler can see the Spanish minister, however, utterly failed to bring forward any convincing argument as to why animals should not be "subject" to better conditions than the average Ryan Air passenger. The North-South conflict remains unresolved.
Explanatory note: Yes, constant reader, I know that it should be "Virginia" and not "Veronica". I just wanted to provide you with an opportunity to gloat over the old Europeans for a few moments.
2003 12 16
A moderate view
The ongoing constitutional assembly in Afghanistan represents , in a sense, a step forward for the Afghan women since at least they are represented. The proportion apparently is 1 woman to 4 men, somewhat unbalanced obviously but at least progress compared to older times when the proportion normally was 0 to everybody else.
No woman was elected to any of the more important posts of the assembly as is clear from the article in UN Wire from which I quote.
The female delegates protested, saying that although they represented only one-fifth of the delegation, they stood for half the country's population. Mojadiddi, usually described as a moderate, told the women not to put themselves on the same level with men, as even God had made two women equal to one man — a reference to the Islamic legal tenet that the testimony of two women is equal to that of one man.
(emphasis added)
I have said it before and I will say it again: organized religion (any denomination) is evil. Any non-secular form of government is evil. Afghanistan will become an Islamic Republic. If ever there will be some kind of order in Iraq it will go the same way. And the US administration will have succeeded in establishing 3 theocracies, where the will of the people will be subordinate to the will of God as represented by a self-serving clergy.
In an upcoming article in Business Week Was NAFTA worth it the US Chief negotiator is quoted as follows:
"Trade doesn't educate people. It doesn't provide immunizations or health care," says Carla A. Hills, the chief U.S. negotiator in the NAFTA talks. "What it does is generate wealth so government can allocate the gains to things that are necessary."
And Business Week itself doesn't hesitate to add:
If a government does not allocate the new wealth correctly, the advantages of free trade quickly erode.
My oh my! I understand that the late senator McCarthy is becoming fashionable in the US again. Maybe it is time to start checking for communism in the highest places and in the media again?
