Bill's Notes

Follow the money (and the oil). Separate patriotic talk from actions. It should be all too obvious by now.

Global capitalists only judge their benefit by the amount of money stashed in the Cayman Islands and Switzerland. Why do you think they are all to happy run up big debts and sell it off the debt to the Chinese, turn production of even vital military hardware over to cheap labor abroad, encourage domestic energy consumption (tax break for big SUVs), etc. Every step of the way they are raking it in (be it Halliburton, no-bid sweetheart deals, investments in markets abroad that you have no access to).

I guess I could feign surprise at their actions, but their actions comes by to the same old cynical greed and selfishness we've been subject to all along.

Are we insanse? Possibly. Are we suicidal? Possibly. If you can call us insane for giving over our government to people running it for their own personal benefit, then we are insane.

Well, I'm surprised. My hope is we can stop this.

The cynicism of my post makes for better conspiracy theory than I probably intended, but let me try to be grander.

I don't think Bush is in the pocket of the Saudis any more than the Saudis are Bush's pocket. However, I don't think it is an accident these guys all play together and every policy they make always protects them. How can it be that every action, every policy, every law that is supposedly enacted for us, serves them first?

It is not about some coherent scheme for world domination. It is about simple greed and power. It is Mammon.

I was talking about "global capitalist" in the manner in which the moneyed think about markets. They don't care where they make a dollar and believe capitalism will over power ideology. While I believe in the power the market, there are many that value ideology over capitalism. They can certainly use this against us. So, putting our ports in the hands of foreigners (who might be well intended I don't know) seems like opening the door to disaster.

You know, of course, that before the Dubaiqis bought the company that administered these ports, it had been owned by the British. Revolutionary War, burned down the White House a few years later, bad teeth, those guys.

NPR had an excellent report on this last Tuesday, while most mainstream media outlets were focusing on QuailGate or doing specials on the growing secularization of St. Valentine's Day. Their conclusion: There's a lot to be worried about when it comes to port security, and those who are suddenly concerned that some Arabs just bought a contract for some port administration may be missing the larger issue:

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=5205334

D.B.

Perhaps two wrongs don't make a right, but I was aware that we were already contracting the port administration out. I just think you can't be surprised when the White House goes in for these deals. It fits into their world view (or at least one can often use my theory on their world view to accurately predict what they will do (which is no proof that my assumptions are correct, only a validation of the predictive value of that particular model (which makes one more inclined to believe the model or at least not reject it outright (unless you're a Bayesian then you might express your confidence level surrounding the model (but I'm not really a Bayesian (and we all know it's my problem))))).

Super (Math Nerd) G

Add 1 for each open parentheses, subtract 1 for each closed parentheses. Your running total should never be negative, and should always end at zero. Beyond that, I rely on Excel to provide me with color-coded parenthesis, or try coding them myself.

If we do sell them the rope to hang us with, you can rest assured that it will not be U.S.-manufactured rope. Most likely that rope will be coming in on container ships from third-world countries where it's manufactured at slave-wage prices.

Ron: I'm still reading Gun and Olive. It does present a challenging point of view, but whew! David Hirst is a crappy writer. It's difficult to tell when the polemic ends and when the fact presentation begins. It's difficult to follow, especially since he backs up chronologically a lot. So it's 1930. Then it's 1920 a paragraph later. Then it's back to the 30s. He editorializes constantly and often in a vicious way.

An example: If I understand him properly (not easy, because his writing is so disorganized), 130,000 Iraqi Jews up and left their homes and moves to Israel because of three terrorist bombs set off by Israeli agents. That strains credulity. 130,000 people don't up and move because of three terrorist bombs. It sounds like Hirst is leaving out key facts. And a lot of the stories have this "pieces missing" feel.

Hirst has contempt for the Israelis and believe that anyone who disagrees with him is a dupe or willfully ignorant. Not a good way to change people's minds.

I'll finish up and then see if I can get a balanced view elsewhere. The poor quality of the writing, the extreme partisanship, and the sense that this guy isn't quite telling the whole story makes it a difficult task.