Regenerate Our Culture

Saturday, 4 Mar 2006

Arabic administration?

I don’t want to compromise the American peoples’ security. I don’t think anyone that means well would either. But President George Bush, who states he wants to do best for the country, stated last month he would veto legislation preventing Dubai Ports World, an Arabic company centered in the United Arab Emirates (UAE), from gaining administration of six U.S. ports that were previously directed by a British group.

Bush is faced with a series of threatening choices. He is given only two. He can make friends with the Middle East and mediate political differences between us and them; or, he can protect the governed. The option is clear to me, the latter. It is oxymoronic and dangerous to allow otherwise! You can’t go to war with one nation, claiming to be protecting Americans; you can’t breach privacy laws in the name of security; and you can’t take radical measures to ensure security at the expense of national security, while doing this. As I said before, oxymoronic foreign and domestic policy.

Bush is indifferent to common sense and is contradicting himself not for security, but for international cronyism.

Saturday, 4 Mar 2006

Success in the Modern Political Era: Why Bush Failed

The Bush Administration might as well be over. I can’t even recall the last time I heard something positive about the White House, and it’s not an issue of a biased media. We have a president whose political skills are obsolete in this modern landscape. Five years of mistakes, missteps and malaise have taken their toll, to the point where we might as well pronounce this horse officially dead.

If there is a better example of troubles facing a modern politician than the Cheney shooting incident I don’t want to know about it. If there is a worse example of a way to respond to it, I pray to God I won’t ever know about it. Nobody can blame a guy for accidentally shooting his friend, but you can fault somebody for handling it so poorly. I didn’t even think it was possible to get crucified for something such as this, but I guess that’s what happens when you not only neglect to inform the media of a near vice-presidential manslaughter, but the commander-in-chief as well.

Republicans like to think they bring business logic to the government, but the fact that White House Press Secretary Scott McClellan still has a job proves they’re full of it. The days of a press secretary being able to spin a story or shift the blame are long gone. The legions of fact checkers have expanded from the press corps to literally anyone with a computer. The RatherGate incident reflects the reality that faces politicians on a daily basis; the no-spin zone has expanded from O’Reilly’s TV show to the entire Internet; everyone’s a Jon Stewart as they laugh at the excuses.

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Saturday, 4 Mar 2006

A question for Keynes

 Editor’s note: John Maynard Keynes was an early 20th Century liberal economist.

 If Keynes was correct in his economic assessments and massive amounts of government spending can increase consumer demand, investment, and total spending in an economy, why, then, did New Deal price floors on agricultural products create massive amounts of surplus? Wouldn’t the increased consumer spending among the hungered create a demand for the fruit that, in reality, had to be destroyed?

Or is it correct to assert that Keynesian economics is merely an experiment in the ineffectiveness of government allocation of resources, specifically in this instance financial capital?