Liu Xiaobo and the meaningless Nobel Peace Prize

Community (This content is not subject to review by Daily Kos staff prior to publication.)

Friday October 08, 2010 · 2:54 AM PDT

2010/10/08 · 02:54

Moments ago, an imprisoned Chinese dissident Liu Xiaobo won the Nobel Peace Prize. In a stinging condemnation of China's human rights record, the Nobel Committee declares China to be in violation of its own constitution.

China’s new status must entail increased responsibility. China is in breach of several international agreements to which it is a signatory, as well as of its own provisions concerning political rights. Article 35 of China’s constitution lays down that "Citizens of the People’s Republic of China enjoy freedom of speech, of the press, of assembly, of association, of procession and of demonstration". In practice, these freedoms have proved to be distinctly curtailed for China’s citizens.

But it won't change anything. More below the fold.

BlaiseP

Community (This content is not subject to review by Daily Kos staff prior to publication.)

Wednesday October 06, 2010 · 12:12 PM PDT

2010/10/06 · 12:12

The recent uproar over ThinkProgress' claims against the US Chamber of Commerce is starting to turn up here here and there.

Here's their donation webpage. Note the International dropdown.

Note the disclaimer at the bottom:

Dues Deductibility:
Because the U.S. Chamber engages in lobbying, under federal law 50% of investments for 2010 is non-deductible; 50% is deductible.

BlaiseP

Community (This content is not subject to review by Daily Kos staff prior to publication.)

Friday October 02, 2009 · 1:00 PM PDT

2009/10/02 · 13:00

Andrew Sullivan, in the latest issue of Atlantic magazine, is more than a bit queasy about the Bush legacy. After a public and sordid tryst with the Bush administration, Sullivan should be more worried about his own legacy.

In a loquacious and rambling open letter (8,544 words), Sullivan begs George W. Bush to make a clean breast of things, quit making excuses and take responsibility for certain unspecified crimes. Sullivan should be the one apologizing, and in part he does. Far too much of his Doublethink remains: this is not Sullivan’s mea culpa. These are the incoherent ramblings of a man with a terribly guilty conscience. At least Sullivan has a conscience. George W. Bush does not and no such apology will be made.

BlaiseP

Community (This content is not subject to review by Daily Kos staff prior to publication.)

Saturday September 19, 2009 · 8:30 AM PDT

2009/09/19 · 08:30

Eulogy is a troublesome essay mode: invariably the writer must lard his work with fulsome praise for his intellectual enemy. De mortuis nil nisi bene be damned. I remember Irving Kristol as a dangerous crackpot who sired another. To understand him, we must first understand his world.

The year was 1947 and the world was sick of war. The wreckage of ancient Europe was still smoking and housewives in kerchiefs trundled wheelbarrows full of rubble to the vast piles. The Red Army was systematically raping every woman they encountered.

BlaiseP

Community (This content is not subject to review by Daily Kos staff prior to publication.)

Friday November 21, 2008 · 7:20 AM PST

2008/11/21 · 07:20

Peter Berkowitz, senior fellow at Hoover Institution presumes to give president-elect Obama advice on how to behave in a bipartisan fashion in the Weekly Standard.

The problems we face are rather larger than our partisan differences. Our problems go to the core of our society, a core George W. Bush and his coterie of rogues damaged in ways we will not fully understand for decades to come. Nor is it something we as a people can undo, we have done our part by electing a decent man. We are a republic, we give mandate to our leaders for a set period of time, and nothing short of an impeachment can oust them from that mandate. Now we know Bush not only authorized the torture in writing but actively lied about it all. Before Obama can consider this Republican wish list, a period of benign pragmatism must elapse, wherein the Augean Stables of the White House, the Department of Justice and many other departments must first be cleaned, hopefully with Republican assistance.

BlaiseP

Community (This content is not subject to review by Daily Kos staff prior to publication.)

Sunday November 16, 2008 · 4:29 PM PST

2008/11/16 · 16:29

In Weekly Standard, P.J. O’Rourke attempts to joke his way through the squandering of conservative opportunity. O’Rourke begins with the usual introductory paean to Ronald Reagan, asking what happened to the world he promised to the children of the Conservative Age, bemoaning lost dreams of freedom and responsibility, knowledge, opportunity and other such virtues he deems to be exclusively of the Conservative heritage. May I quote Mr. O’Rourke himself from his book Parliament of Whores: "Republicans are the party that says government doesn’t work, and they get elected and prove it."

BlaiseP

Community (This content is not subject to review by Daily Kos staff prior to publication.)

Monday October 13, 2008 · 4:49 AM PDT

2008/10/13 · 04:49

Francis Fukuyama, that prodigious fraud and dilettante has again risen to his hind legs to declaim the End of Something or Other. It is his specialty. This time it’s in Newsweek magazine, in The Fall of America, Inc.

Born in the genteel confines of Hyde Park, Barack Obama’s adopted home, Fukuyama would go on to hobnob with the early Neoconservatives. Allan Bloom his mentor once said: "There is one thing a professor can be absolutely certain of: almost every student entering the university believes, or says he believes, that truth is relative." If ever there was a Relative Truthiness, it is to be found in the bromides and jeremiads of Fukuyama, though he would loudly deny it. Let us examine his article in further detail.

BlaiseP

Community (This content is not subject to review by Daily Kos staff prior to publication.)

Tuesday September 16, 2008 · 7:47 PM PDT

2008/09/16 · 19:47

According to Time Magazine the quote from Sarah Palin’s acceptance speech is : "We grow good people in our small towns, with honesty and sincerity and dignity". Though she was careful not to cite the original author, the subsequent provenance of this phrase is a tale unto itself. Here is the source document, page 31

When Truman came into the Presidency, Pegler welcomed him "We grow good people in our towns, with honesty, sincerity and dignity" he wrote, but earlier, Pegler had told his readers the man from Missouri was someone to watch out for "This Truman", he wrote, when Harry was nominated for Vice President "is thin-lipped, a hater, and not above offering you his hand to yank you off balance and work you over with a chair leg, a pool cue or something out of his pocket."

BlaiseP

Community (This content is not subject to review by Daily Kos staff prior to publication.)

Friday July 11, 2008 · 11:42 AM PDT

2008/07/11 · 11:42

Reuel Marc Gerecht asks in the instant’s Campaign Standard

Are we safer now than we were before 9/11? Safer than before we invaded Iraq and toppled Saddam Hussein? Barack Obama insists we are not. Seeing Iraq as the crucible of our growing weakness, the Democratic nominee for president asserts that "we have now spent over $600 billion, thousands of lives lost, and we have not been made more safe .??.??. [and] al Qaeda's leadership is stronger than ever."

This pernicious nonsense deserves a thorough fisking, and I'm just the guy to do it. More below the fold.... drumroll please

BlaiseP

Community (This content is not subject to review by Daily Kos staff prior to publication.)

Thursday February 07, 2008 · 9:52 AM PST

2008/02/07 · 09:52

The rumor has it Chelsea Clinton is circulating Robin Morgan’s reprise of her famous Goodbye To All That essay from 1970. Robin Morgan is an ardent Hillary Clinton supporter, and a radical feminist.

In this essay, she excoriates those who attack Hillary Clinton, and makes a spirited argument for her candidate.

BlaiseP

Community (This content is not subject to review by Daily Kos staff prior to publication.)

Saturday October 27, 2007 · 10:01 AM PDT

2007/10/27 · 10:01

Frederick Kagan, ever a mouthpiece of villainy, has proclaimed a Great Victory over Terror. In his latest screed in Weekly Standard, Kagan opines:

"We turned an imminent victory for Al Qaeda In Iraq into a humiliating defeat for them and thereby created an opportunity for further progress not only in Iraq, but also in the global struggle."

"We" have done no such thing. Al Qaeda has been driven away from the larger cities by Sunni condottieri, the 1920 Brigades, aka Hamas in Iraq. I shall dub them the New Sunni Friends, for they go by many names, and none of them wish to be tarred with the American brush. It is difficult to say who is running these operations, for there are many rump formations left over from Saddam’s old Iraqi Army, usually led by old Ba’athist officers, and they feud among each other. And not all of them are in Iraq: they are also to be found on Terrorist’s Row in Damascus with all the other Islamic mujahid organizations.

BlaiseP

Community (This content is not subject to review by Daily Kos staff prior to publication.)

Wednesday September 19, 2007 · 4:53 AM PDT

2007/09/19 · 04:53

Chris Hitchens, in his latest missive on Slate, opines "It Was Right To Dissolve the Iraqi Army: We broke America’s terrible habit of ruling by proxy through military regimes". Hitchens has surged up best seller list with "god is Not Great", yet when it comes to Iraq, his preaching seems contradictory upon this very point. Iraq’s constitution says Iraq is already an Islamic nation. To paraphrase Lincoln at Gettysburg: Now Iraq is engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation, so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure. Hitchens’ much-ballyhooed Iraqi Democracy is no such thing: it is in fact an Islamic entity. The only remaining question is which form of Islam shall rule Iraq hereafter.

Newer
Older

RSS

Liu Xiaobo and the meaningless Nobel Peace Prize

Chamber of Commerce still taking overseas money.

Sullivan Agonistes: Dear President Bush, assuage my conscience.

Irving Kristol: in memoriam

The Ship of Tarshish: Peter Berkowitz Advises Obama.

Yes, You Did Blow It: a reply to P. J. O’Rourke.

America has Fallen (but it can get up): Contra Fukuyama

Slave of the Dream: Sarah Palin and Peglerology.

Obama and the World: a reply to RM Gerecht

Goodbye to All that Crap: a reply to Robin Morgan

Contra Kagan: what victory over terror?

Reply to Chris Hitchens: America Remains Clueless in Iraq.