How To Deal With Egypt

They are again coming out of their hiding places to advise America on how to deal with Egypt. To this end, they are again repeating the same old advice which is this: Act like a jerk, America, because we know precisely what we are talking about. And what we say to you is that these people respect power. Project power in their region, use every leverage you have and they will bend to accommodate your dictates.

Well, my friends, those who speak this language are mostly charlatans; and they do not know what they are talking about but there is wheat in that pile of chaff. Thus, the thing to do is learn how to find the wheat and how to separate the two. The approach they use is to impress you with their power to predict, and yet predicting a future that never comes is where they fall flat on their faces. Allow them to impress you, and you will pay a stiff price like you have been paying for half a century. Think about the matter dispassionately and you will make progress.

In astronomy, you can calculate what the position of a star, a planet, a moon or an asteroid will be a thousand years from now, even a million years after that; thus you can launch a probe into space and have it meet with a designated cosmic body at the predicted position and predicted time. Also, if you have the map of a terrain, you can plot the rout you will take to travel from point A to point Z, passing through any number of points you may wish to inspect in the interim. But what you cannot do is predict how history will unfold, and you cannot determine ahead of time how other people will react to situations that are yet to happen.

Nevertheless, there are people – called pundits -- who make it their business to give advice gratuitously or give it for a fee on how precisely to handle situations that will never happen because no one knows how history will precisely unfold. However, this group of people must be set apart from the legitimate professionals such as the doctors, lawyers, licensed financial advisers and the like who have the duty to give the best informed advice they can to situations that lend themselves to observation. The difference between the two groups is the same as that between the astronomers who observe and the astrologers who fantasize; between the navigators who measure and the wanderers who drift aimlessly.

However, there are pundits who give a good piece of advice once in a while. This happens if and when the pundit is an authentic thinker that is legitimately motivated by a genuine interest to participate in the clarification of situations which are in the interest of the public. Thus, before making use of any advice, whether solicited or given gratuitously, the executives who seek such advice and take them must learn to look for and spot the signs that tell who is giving the advice and why they are giving it. These executives must also have a strategy that will help them avoid the pitfalls should the advice turn out to be toxic. To this end, the strategy must be to start slow and proceed while relying on a system of feedback that allows the executive to measure the progress made every step of the way. Free of dogma, he or she must be amenable to navigating any sort of terrain with ease and without prejudice.

Two examples follow, the first being that of a pundit who is worth listening to; the second being of a pundit whose exposition is nothing more than an exercise in uselessness.

First, Vali Nasr wrote: “What Pakistan Can Teach the U.S. About Egypt” It is an article that was published in Bloomberg News on June 26, 2012. Nasr is a serious pundit who is generally informed about the subjects on which he writes. His latest piece is a well crafted exposition of his point of view; one he makes clear at the beginning is a pessimistic one. However, he gives a hopeful advice though a dubious one at the end of the article on how the situation can be rectified. It is an advice that is entirely based on the analysis he does throughout the article. To get a taste of how the article is structured, here is the beginning, reprinted in a crammed form: “Egypt has elected a president. That hardly brightens the transition to true democracy given that the generals made clear they are in charge.” And here is the end: “That is what set Turkey on its path to prosperity and democracy. It can work for Egypt, too.”

Between the beginning and the end, Nasr tells the tale of two countries, Pakistan and Turkey where the militaries meddled with the work of the elected civilian governments. His view is that the first tale ended badly whereas the second ended well. He discusses a number of reasons for the different outcomes, and he comes up with the advice he predicts will make the Egyptian tale as successful as that of Turkey. Well, this is a useful and legitimate participation in the debate; one that invites not a sharp rebuke but a commentary aimed at shedding more light on the author's analysis. This should help correct the false impression that will be engendered in the reader given that the Nasr advice is directed at an American audience concerning an Egyptian culture, the image of which has been mutilated beyond recognition over the past few decades.

Where Nasr blunders is in his understanding of the Egyptian economy, of the mentality of the people there and of the motivation behind the measures taken by the military. He says the following as reprinted again in a crammed form: “Egypt rejected a badly needed assistance from the IMF which demanded reforms that would impinge on the military enterprises that account for a third of the economy.” This is false on many levels.

The facts are that Egypt did not need a loan from the IMF (let alone assistance which the IMF never gives) and let alone “badly” needed it since, as can be verified, Egypt has not received that loan more than a year later and the economy has not melted as predicted. In fact, Egypt may not want that loan at all because the people have so demanded given that they do not want to see their country indebted to a foreign county or an international organization. As to the size of the military enterprises, it has been shown over and over how absurd it is to say that they account for a third of the economy.”

I do not know if Nasr reads Arabic but if I must guess, I would say he does not because if he did, he would have read the columnists and the letters to the editor that relentlessly attacked the Mubarak government for accepting foreign money and for letting foreign influence meddle in Egyptian affairs. When the people later spoke of a revolution to restore dignity, they meant the dignity of becoming masters at home by pushing out and replacing the influence of foreigners on the decision making process of their leaders. Had the author understood this, he would not have accused the military of being: “behind raids on NGOs working to promote democracy, including three U.S. groups.” The truth is that the people of Egypt were behind that move. And if they will revolt ever again, it will be because someone forgot to keep the country free of foreign influence.

With this in the background, you can now see how and why the approach that Nasr says America should take when dealing with Egypt must be modified to be effective rather than fail yet again. He writes this: “In many of their moves, Egypt's generals seemed to be following the 1988 script of their Pakistani counterparts … When she [Bhutto] defied them, the military … dismissed her. It did the same with her successor and with her again.” What is this? What is he talking about?  The Egyptian president has not yet been inaugurated, how can the writer speculate he will be dismissed by the military this much ahead of time?

He now turns his attention toward the Turkish example and, in doing so, inadvertently points to a huge difference between that country and Egypt. He says this: “Turkey's military also tightly controlled the democratic process … mostly using the judiciary to discipline and control politicians.” Obviously, Nasr has no idea how independent the Egyptian judiciary is. In fact, the supreme court of Egypt not long ago struck down the military's decision to reinstate marshal law in the country. If it can do that, it will not “help the military control a legitimate political process conducted by the politicians.”

Now he asks: “Which way might Egypt go?” To answer the question, he begins with an inaccuracy that would be irrelevant even if it were true. This is what he says: “Egypt's civilian institutions are weaker than those of either Pakistan or Turkey, whose democratic traditions date back to the 1950s.” And this is something that prompts us to ask the following set of questions: What is a civilian institution and what is not? How can a civilian institution be weaker than another institution? How weak is too weak? Still, Nasr goes on to say this: “Turkey's economy in the early 2000s was stronger than Egypt's is now.” Is he talking about the year when Turkey's GDP was downgraded by something like 15 percent because it was discovered it had been grossly overrated? Is he talking about the time when Turkey’s hyperinflation made it so that people carried millions of liras to buy a loaf of bread? One final question in this vein just out of curiosity: How do the Chinese civilian institutions fare when the Nasr method is used to evaluate the progress of that nation?

Then comes the big problem. Having painted a view of Egypt that is incomplete in some places and somewhat distorted in other places, he says this: “What may matter most is the role of the international community.” He expands on this by saying don't do with Egypt what America did with Pakistan; rather do with it what Europe did with Turkey. That is, don't sympathize with the military, but use the $1.3 billion in annual aid as leverage to “protect Egypt's young democracy.” Do that, America and you will have lost the Egyptian people because blackmail never works with them. Instead, recognize that nations forge relationships which are of mutual interest, and then act accordingly.

Second, Tom Friedman wrote: “The Fear Factor” It is a column that was published in the New York Times on June 27, 2012. He begins it by quoting someone called Daniel Brumberg who, apparently, came up with a new theory about the Arabs -- a theory that is not really new but one that is out of the Jewish cultural and political DNA. He says this: “Arab awakenings happened because the Arab peoples stopped fearing their leaders – but they stalled because the Arab peoples have not stopped fearing each other.” Hey guys, all of you Jewish pundits out there, get this once and for all: the Arabs do not fear a phantom existential threat that is permanently hanging over their heads like the Sword of Damocles.

Look around and you will see that the Arabs do not call on their mouthpieces throughout the world to write hundreds of articles aimed at instilling fear in the heart of someone like the Iranian nation or any other nation. They do not instill fear in the hearts of American or European legislators to force them to prostitute themselves and promote the Jewish causes. In fact, while the Jewish DNA is made of the four letters FEAR, the Arab DNA is made of the four letters ACGT like any organic matter you will find on this planet. Thus, you can think of yourselves as being Semites like us if you want, but do not make the mistake of thinking of us as being anything like you. We are not, and we will never be.

Still, my dear reader, Friedman begins with that false premise to go on and create a fantasy world that is neither here nor there; and then reaches this predictable conclusion: “The U.S. has some leverage in terms of foreign aid, military aid and foreign investment – and we would use it … conditioned on certain principles … What principles? Those identified by the 2002 U.N. Arab Human Development Report, which was written by and for Arabs. It said that for the Arab world to thrive it needs to overcome its deficit of freedom, its deficit of knowledge and its deficit of women's empowerment.” Notice that there is nothing here about fear.

But more than that, the report in question was submitted 10 years ago to the United Nations without the approval of any Arab recognized institution after 2 years of writing that was based on research done during a period of time extending between 4 and 8 years before that. Thus, the information in it – however cherry picked -- is a generation old, collected by a self-appointed ad hoc group of activists who meant well but have managed to do nothing more than give a bone for the likes of Tom Friedman to suckle on and to lick. Think of it as being useless ancient remains that belong in a museum.

America needs advice from these people like it needs another hole in the head, the same as the many it has taken already. For your sake and for the sake of your children, America, it is time to say to these people that enough is enough.

The Expectations And The Lamentations

The astounding thing is not that Egypt got itself an elected president but that the pundits in America fail to either stress the most salient points, or they keep falling into the trap of harking back to the old and tired stereotypes only to rehash the old and tired arguments. You can see this trend on the op-ed page of the June 26, 2012 edition of the Wall Street Journal where two articles are published on the subject. The first is titled: “What to expect From the Muslim Brotherhood” and subtitled: “Egyptians deserve a decent interval before Western observers consign them again to a despotic fate,” written by Fouad Ajami. The second is a column titled: “Who Lost Egypt?” and subtitled: “Egyptians, obviously. Obama and Bush, too. And a superficial idea of 'freedom,'” written by Bret Stephens.

Only a few months ago Ajami had written an article in which he mentioned that Egypt used to have a vibrant democracy lasting a number of decades till the coup that overthrew the monarchy in 1952. He seems to have wanted to begin the current article by reminding us of this reality, but then pulled back and went around the historical fact. The reason for the shyness is not surprising; it is that when the people of Egypt cast their ballots this time, a pundit or two in North American began by saying that Egypt had returned to the time when it used to have a democratic system of government; but then something flipped. A reversal happened when one pundit said that Egypt had gone to the ballot box for the first time in its five thousand year history, and everyone after him echoed that same piece of journalistic rubbish. It soon became the dogma that no one dared to contradict.

This turn of the events must have affected Ajami's willingness to buck the trend, but he could not hide his original intention. For proof of this, look how he ends the article: “Many … forget or ignore even recent history, how the Egyptian people had abandoned politics...” Well, when you abandon something it means that you had it previously. And so you ask: When was that? But there is nothing in the body of the article that would answer the question. Instead you have the start of the article which goes this way: “Egyptian history can be said to have closed a circle.” Well, here again, when you close a circle, you make the end join the beginning. If the end (today) is a democracy that has joined the beginning (six decades ago) it means that the country was having a democracy at that time as much as it is having it at this time. But the author held back on that so as not to go against the flow.

When you do this, you inevitably hark back to the old stereotypes. Thus, instead of drawing the parallels between the pre-1952 period and today to give us an idea what we should expect will happen from here on, Ajami repeats the following old and tired refrain: “...a state … its sly leaders understood the limitations imposed by the poverty of Egypt, its need for the kindness of strangers, reliance on foreign aid and the revenues of tourism.” This is to say that the Egyptian economy is a shambles like the echo repeaters have been repeating all along without explaining how or why that is.

But the surprising thing is that instead of encountering an echo of this kind in the Bret Stephens article -- which on the whole relies more on the old stereotypes -- you encounter a more enlightened treatment of this subject. Here is what Stephens says: “The Egyptian economy is in enough distress that the new government could be pliant. But that window won't be open for very long, and the effects of such pressure aren't likely to be long-lived.” What this means is that he is aware the Egyptian economy has such rock solid fundamentals, even a revolution that lasted a year and a half could not shake it enough to make a dent in it. And the moment that the nation will get back on its feet, the economic eagle will fly again in the Egyptian sky. Undoubtedly, this is what is being whispered at this time in the corridors of the Wall Street Journal.

Thus, you can say that choosing the path of stereotype instead of writing an article paralleling the old democracy in Egypt with what the new democracy may come to look like in the country, Ajami missed an opportunity to write a remarkable article that would have been a memorable one for a long time to come. And this is the most regrettable part of that whole exercise because the author could have changed the tenor of the discussion throughout the marketplace of ideas from what it is now to what could have resembled what is being whispered so quietly in the corridors of the Wall Street Journal.

We now look at the rest of the Stephens article. He begins it with the assertion: “Egypt is lost.” To expand on this, he does something that is absolutely typical of modern day Jewish writing in that he goes through a mountain of historical events, grabs a handful of pebbles and compares them with what is happening now. Thus, he warns that we must not console ourselves because: “Iran and Turkey show how easily the conscripts can be bought, the noncoms wooed and the officers purged.” And because of this: “The Brotherhood is … politically skillful, economically literate and strategically patient.” And this too: “Any party that rules street and square makes its own 'democratic' rules.” And finally this: “By degrees, Egypt will … arm Hamas as remilitarize the Sinai … extract concessions from the U.S. … make radical alliances.”

So now he asks the absurd question: “Who lost Egypt?” and he goes around looking for culprits, naming a few of them. The first that he names are the Egyptian people who voted the way they did. The second is the Obama administration because Hillary Clinton said this: “Our assessment is that the Egyptian government is stable.” Yes it is Bret; the fact is that power was transferred from Mubarak to the military, and will soon be transferred to the Morsi administration without wrecking the country. This is stability because, despite all that has befallen the country, people did not seek to exit the country the way they did in Iraq, Libya or Syria. And the world noticed this, the reason why the Egyptian currency did not move as much as the Euro did, for example. Just imagine what would have happened to the Greek or the Spanish currency if these countries still had their own. Their demise would have been a powerful sign of instability.

Thus, we can only conclude that Bret Stephens has memorized what is being whispered in the corridors of the Wall Street Journal with regard to the Egyptian economy but has not fully understood the lesson. Another thing he does not understand is the mood of the people in the region, be they Egyptian or any other Arab. Look what he says: “...just 19% of Egyptians approve of Mr. Obama's leadership, according to Gallup. So much for the Cairo Speech.” Hey Bret, the preoccupation with Obama's leadership is an American preoccupation. Don't go hide behind the Arabs to grind your private domestic ax. What the Arabs took from the Obama speech in Cairo was the promise that he was going to be even-handed with regards to the question of Palestine. But when he vetoed the Palestinian request for membership in the UN, his popularity plummeted. And this has nothing to do with the man's ability to lead America.

He also names the Bush administration. He says that because the American ambassador in Cairo said there was freedom of speech in Egypt at a time when the administration was committed to a freedom agenda, the Bush team participated in the loss of Egypt. He does not explain how or why this is so but he asks a number of questions then says this: “The questions are self-answering.” No, they are not. In fact, they are totally ridiculous, and if he believes that nations can be swayed with a few words uttered by an America president, I have a bridge to sell this guy. Wanna buy the Brooklyn Bridge, Bret?

Lastly, he blames the Egyptian liberal abdicators. What this means is that he would have liked to see the confrontation in Egypt continue till it resembled what he sees in Syria at this time, a horror story where ten to fifteen thousand people have died  already and thousands more rendered homeless. With Egypt's population being four times the size of Syria's, he would have loved to see fifty to sixty thousand dead Egyptians and hundreds of thousands of refugees – which would have fulfilled the still unfulfilled ancient Jewish vision of a Nile flowing like a river of blood.

Instead of seeing this, he expects to see this: “So prepare for an Egypt that likes us about as much as Nasser's did … It's going to be a long and ugly haul.” To him and apparently to all Jews, a Nile in Egypt that looks like a river of blood is a prettier sight than whatever.

We hear you, Bret, we hear you loud and clear.

The Endless Pursuit Of Something For Nothing

Michael Herzog who used to be chief of staff in the Israeli ministry of defense and Soner Cagaptay who is an analyst at an American think tank got together and wrote an article published in the New York Times on June 20, 2012 under the title: “How America Can Help Its Friends Make Nice.” The piece is just another request of the sort that Israel's mouthpieces make of America on a regular basis after Israel craps on the lawn of what used to be the pristine neighborhood of the Middle East but is now a vicinity that is hard to smell due to the oversupply of Israeli fertilizers dumped on it with merciless regularity. What is disheartening in this story is that after each dump, Israel runs to America and cries out for the superpower to come pimp for it, thus reconcile it with its neighbors once again which is what gives the cycle the chance to start all over again.

As you will notice, Israel's mouthpieces in America have outdone themselves this time insofar as the magnitude of the absurd arguments they are using to make their points. For, it is a well known fact that despite the rhetoric about Israel being an asset to America, that thing is now and has always been the killer albatross around America's neck. To wit, each time that America got into a war situation in the Middle East, Israel tried to join the action but America told it to stay out lest it lose the trust of the real nations in that part of the world. The truth is that America always had to choose between the Arabs and Israel, and has chosen the Arabs each and every time. Far from being an asset, Israel is therefore a liability that is steadily eroding America in every field where the latter used to have a competitive advantage over old adversaries and potential new ones.

With this in mind, look how the two authors make their points this time around. They begin like this: “Turkish-Israeli dialogue on Syria could bolster Israel's interest in regime change and enlist Israel to generate American support.” In other words, they are asking the American President to reconcile the two foes because this will motivate Israel to want a regime change in Syria. When this happens, they anticipate that Israel will lobby the American Congress which is something that the American President cannot do by himself – they implicitly admit -- because the Congress is one of disgusting low life traitors not of patriots. The authors of the article do not explicitly express this last part but they expect the reader to understand what they mean. And this prompts us to ask Herzog and Cagaptay: What does that mean in the final analysis, guys? Apparently nothing more than the making of useless noise.

The two authors then go on to say this: “A normalized … relationship would also open opportunities for … the Turks taking the … lead and the Israelis providing ... assets.” But the truth is that Israel can do nothing that America cannot do a thousand times better, and in fact is doing it now by assisting Turkey where the latter asks for help. Thus, the authors go on to argue their point this way: “Any Israeli contribution would, of course, have to be invisible.” So why bother, you ask? And they respond: “This makes Turkish-Israeli cooperation against Assad even more valuable, for it would allow Israel to provide untraceable assets to support Turkey's efforts...” What? What's that again? Are they writing these words for the whole world to see how it is that America, Turkey and Israel can conspire to do the things that must remain untraceable? Hey guys, let me give you a little advice. Go find a four year-old baby, sit with her and she will tell you that your logic is full of holes because everyone interested in this matter will – as a result of your writings -- know what you are up to whether or not you succeed at doing what you hope to do. And after you get this lesson from the mouth of a baby, leave the management of the world to grownups and go play with toys in your rooms. The world has had enough of you, kids; it has had it up to here and cannot take it anymore. Enough is enough.

This tragically hilarious request, my friends, does not come out of nowhere. It comes on the heels of something that took place in Israel not long ago. In fact, two things happened there earlier this month that shed more light on the subject. The first that happened was the release of a report criticizing the government, especially its prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu, for the way that an assault was conducted on a Turkish relief ship taking humanitarian supplies to the Gaza strip. The second that happened was that the Israeli parliament took up the issue of what they call the Armenian genocide – supposedly one that was carried out by the Turks against the Armenian people. To understand the significance and ramification of the two occurrences happening at the same time in Israel, we need a primer in the history and mentality that led to them.

When it comes to the use and the abuse of the word Holocaust, the Jewish organizations have been sucking the driblets out of it the same way that a parasitic leech sucks the goodness from its host to leave it an empty shell for subsequent generations to look at the thing and wonder: What on Earth happened here? Then the Jewish organizations trivialized the system of governance known as democracy, thus rendering the expression “democratic republic” assonant with the pejorative banana republic. After that, they tackled the precept of “acting on principle and not expediency,” thus emptying it of its noble content. Beyond that, they took on the expression “moral imperative” and gave it the Midas touch in reverse, resulting in anything they call a moral imperative transforming into rust instead of gold. And now, they are applying their slimy talent to the task of mangling the word genocide because it is here to be mangled and for no other reason. Will these people ever stop being a pain in the side of humanity? Apparently not from what we see the two authors try to accomplish.

Actually, the Jewish organizations began to work on the word genocide the moment that they started to milk the Holocaust. Loath to equate the suffering of the Jews with that of any other people, they called everyone's holocaust not a Holocaust but a genocide in order to set the Jewish experience apart from all the others. The intent all along had been to make the Jewish experience a unique event that is separate from and never equal to the others. In the meantime, they had a number of countries outlaw or try to outlaw the denial of the Jewish Holocaust. They did not get too far with this project but they remained undeterred and went on to work on making some countries recognize the Armenian tragedy as being genocide. They worked to make the European parliaments outlaw its denial, justifying their effort as being a moral imperative necessitated by the seriousness of the subject matter. These were high minded words but for reasons that will soon become clear, nobody in their right mind believed that the Jewish leaders were motivated by noble sentiments.

It is that something was glaring to the people who devoted time and the mental energy to analyze the subject. In the final analysis they asked the obvious question: Why is it that the Jewish organizations are urging the American Congress and the European parliaments to take up the subject of the Armenian tragedy when they never urged Israel to do the same? This situation alone gave away the reality that the Jewish organizations will use anything and everything as a weapon to engage in the parasitic exercise of getting something for nothing. Their problem has always been that they cannot make a product that has a high enough value they can barter against the goods and services they need to live on. Thus, they developed other means by which to acquire the necessities of life without having to pay for them.

For one thing, they raided their productive neighbors and robbed them blind, or they promised not to raid them if the latter would pay a ransom on a regular basis. This method of making a living (blackmail as it is called) became so ingrained in their mores, it morphed into the culture and the religion by which they are identified. In fact, this is what their bible -- known as the Old Testament -- is all about as you will find when you read this book of horror from cover to cover. To you and me it cannot be a book of religion but one of endless terror. Yet to them, it is a book of prayer and religious meditation.

And where they cannot in modern times raid their neighbors, they have developed a satanic method which happens to work some of the time but not always. What they do is demonize someone they call the enemy of the day at the same time as they designate another someone to be the sucker of the day. This done, they incite the sucker to go fight the enemy in the name of a noble cause, the narrative of which they tailor-make on the spot to suit the moment and suit the times to which it is related.

Of course, it would be in their nature to deny that they are urging someone -- be it the American Congress or the European parliaments -- to consider the subject of genocide, including what they call the Armenian genocide, as a ploy to punish Turkey, a country they have ceased to like until further notice which is probably now that they need Turkey again. And when the time will come – if America gets them to make nice -- they will deny they were then or they are now blackmailing a country they intend to blackmail and ask for a ransom at some point in the future. But this can still happen, believe it or not, whether or not America will succeed at getting the two foes to kiss and make up.

But after the denial is made and has been noted by everyone, the Jewish organizations will take advantage of the opportunities opened to them and will – one way or the other – collect on the windfall that will result from the confusion they have created. In consequence of this, it is logical to expect that these people will continue to incite America and the Europeans to keep Turkey in the cross-hairs of the Armenian genocide at the same time as they seek to convince the world they are doing what they are doing driven by a moral imperative and nothing else. But as always, nobody in their right mind will believe them because the world has had it up to here with them, having been saturated with their lies as much as the Middle East has been saturated with their naturally produced fertilizers.

Nevertheless, in planning for and in setting up that tangled operation, they did what they always do which is to overplay their hand. In this regard, they pushed the American Congress and the European legislatures past the limit of endurance, a situation that resulted in the scheme they were working on to begin the process of unraveling. It is that they failed in the end to get those legislatures to do anything that would punish or blackmail the Turkish nation. And so the Jewish organizations found themselves with no alternative but to get the Israeli legislature to take up the subject of the Armenian genocide and process it in Israel as a way to insult the Turkish people and poke their leaders in the eye. As if this were not enough they, in the meantime, were preparing the arguments they would take to the American President asking him to help mend the old friendship. Can you think of something more Jewish or more ludicrous than this?

Now we ask ourselves: What is the significance of the Israeli parliament taking up the subject of the Armenian genocide at the same time that a report criticizing the government for a botched military operation was released? And what would be the ramification of such a doubleheader? Well, to develop a proper perspective, we first need to know that Turkey had asked Israel for an apology to go to the nation, and compensation to go to the families of the Turkish citizens who were killed by Israeli troops on the ship that was taking supplies to Gaza.

So far the government of Israel has refused to apologize, a stance that resulted in the relationship between the two countries coming to the frozen state where it is today. This development cut off all manners of communication between the two capitals, a happening that did not affect Turkey one iota but had the effect of kicking Israel in the teeth. To understand this part, we must realize that Israel had only Turkey as a true friend in the region. It lost it not because of a dispute that can be settled through negotiations but because Israel murdered the children of its old friend in cold blood because they were taking humanitarian supplies to someone in distress; someone pushed into a deplorable state of existence by none other than Israel. Thus, even if America succeeds in getting the two sides to talk to each other, how could a Turkish negotiator look an Israeli in the eye and be motivated to say something nice?

And so, it was reasoned – like say the authors of the article -- that if Israel apologized, negotiations could start again and things could get to normal once more. What they do not say but everyone knows it is that Israel will once again have the opportunity to use the weapon of the Armenian genocide to extract new concessions from Turkey. This is what the two authors are aiming for even though they don't say so; it is another occurrence attesting to the reality that the Jewish organizations will do whatever it takes to engage in the parasitic exercise of getting something for nothing. These people have not changed in thousands of years and they will not change now. Let it be known that change for the better is something that remains beyond the evolutionary capabilities of these people. They are frozen in time and so they will remain till the end of time.

And so, if you define evil incarnate as being opportunistic and/or hurtful while pretending to be altruistic and/or helpful, you must accept the notion that these people have proven themselves to be evil incarnate beyond any doubt. In fact, it looks like no one is left on this planet who does not believe they are anything but that. However, because there must be an exception to validate the rule, you will find an American Congress where the members sell their honor and the honor of their country to get elected or re-elected regardless as to who does the buying and who does the paying. Being who they are, they remain incapable of distinguishing evil incarnate from a hole in their anatomy, and so they continue to believe that the Jewish leaders are gods that must be worshiped by them and by all Americans.

These would be the leaders who modified the American saying that used to read: “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness” into a locution that now means: suck the life out of the American people, rob them of their liberty and pursue all the things that can be hauled in return for nothing.

When A Solitude Hungers To Lead

In writing these words I violate one of my principles which is not to respond to someone when, in apparent response to something I wrote, run and hide behind a third person. Usually this would be a hyphenated person, almost always the skirt of a woman, but sometimes a male with opinions that differ from mine. It is that when I engage someone, I take direct aim at what they say and tackle it; thus prefer to be treated the same way. But I make an exception this time because I see in Clifford May's article: “The Trouble with Multiculturalism” an opportunity to finally express many ideas I accumulated over the decades and did not have the occasion to express. May's article has the subtitle: “Freedom is the distinguishing feature of Western culture,” and was published on June 21, 2012 in National Review Online (NRO).

Clifford May is hiding behind Salim Mansur, a professor here in Canada who is of Muslim East Indian origin. He wrote a book repudiating multiculturalism I never heard of before. In fact, I never heard of Mansur either but because NRO carries his picture above the article, I remember seeing this face once on television for no more than five seconds. To explain what happened, I must divulge that the cable service to which I am subscribed has between channels 500 and 510 most of the stations that I like to surf. When I do the surfing, I stop at whatever sounds interesting. There is one channel that is never interesting because it is the Canadian pale imitation of the almost always laughable News Fox of America. The way I see things: If you have access to big comedy why bother with amateur comedians?

And so it was during one of these surfs that I saw Mansur for a few seconds. I do not know what he was discussing and I cannot say he made an impression on me one way or the other. But I am not here to discuss a book I did not read or an author I know nothing about. However, I know something about Clifford May, and I have his latest article about which I have a few things to say.

Unlike May who had his first encounter with multiculturalism when someone from the Anti-Defamation League paid a visit to his newspaper, I had my first encounter with multiculturalism in 1964, the day our family landed in Canada. Not one of us; not for a fleeting moment did we entertain the thought of asking where we could find a ghetto, a center, a club or any place where we could meet other Egyptians or Arabs. As far as we were concerned, we came here to be Canadians not to continue being what we left behind. Eventually, I did encounter other Egyptians and other Arabs of the Christian or Muslim faiths at work and in other places. What delighted me was the fact that all these people were scattered throughout the city because they too had come to this country with ideas similar to those of our family.

And then, bit by bit, I learned a few things about Canada that culminated after nearly half a century in me preferring to watch Fox News (which I do not like much) rather than watch its Canadian imitation which bores me to death after five seconds. In fact, I was shocked early on by the Canadian never-ending desire to imitate someone else. This happened when I saw the “long established Canadians” do what the Americans do which was to call on the newcomers to embrace the Canadian way of life then do something baffling. Whereas the Americans welcomed the transformation of the newcomer, the Canadians dissolved into a puddle of insecurities the moment that a hyphenated someone came close to doing something the way they did it. Time after time, I saw them talk the talk but when it came to the walk, they melted like Snowman on a hot Summer day.

Eventually, the inclination to imitate overcame the fear to compete and papered over the insecurities of the long established Canadians who opened the door just a little for the writers and the artists of other cultures to get in and experiment with melting the Canadian Mosaic into what may become an American style Melting Pot. Already you can see that what used to be the “Two Solitudes” of a French Canada separate from an English Canada melting into a blend of Celine Dion quality recognized the world over for being excellent, and not for being of this Canadian solitude or that one.

But the mentality which views the country as being a “Community of Communities” is still with us. When push comes to shove, the established ones go on the offensive as if they were facing an existential threat, and so they reactivate the old habit of tripping the other guy. This is what happened when I started a small newspaper and began to receive advertising from the provincial government. I was told point blank that even though the paper was strictly in English, and that I only dealt with local issues, I shall be pushed out unless I identify my paper as being an ethnic publication. This meant I shall be tolerated as a piece of the Mosaic but not as a melted component of the pot. And you know who led the charge against me? They were the Toronto Star and the Globe and Mail, the two largest newspapers in Canada.

In the process of pushing me out, they committed crimes I reported to the municipal, provincial and federal police forces. Only the municipal police agreed to look into the matter. The investigator who worked on the case was on my side all the way but was overruled by a higher authority, and so they did nothing. When I went to the clerk at the station and asked her for the report, she asked what I wanted it for and I made the mistake of telling her I intended to sue. She said she could not give me the report just now but that I should check with her in two weeks. I did so and she gave me a report that had only one sentence on it; something to the effect that nothing serious happened. Disappointed, I was not surprised because I had been here long enough to know that Canada is like the forest you view from ten miles up. It looks peaceful and quiet till you land and see how savagely the animals and the insects devour each other.

Thus, as far as I am concerned, the key to understanding Canada is to understand the Canadian character of feeling insecure combined with the desire to imitate someone else and the hunger to look perfect. We developed this last trait because we sought at one time to be loved by those in the British Commonwealth who ceased to love Britain. But now, we wish to lead the nations where people are developing distaste for the American way of doing things. No doubt we shall deviate from that mentality someday, and the world will know about it the day we decide to rule ourselves. As of now, however, even though the British monarchy wants to get rid of us having once competed against it, we still cling to the idea of being ruled by it because we do not trust each other and cannot bear the though of one of us ruling over us. This is the nature of our freedom, and the essence of our democracy. Lovely, are they not?

Let me tell why I reject off hand something that Clifford May says Mansur wrote and he totally agrees with. He says Mansur wrote the following: “freedom is the distinguishing feature of the West.” Well, you know now I probably define freedom differently. But then May adds his own comment which is this: “a core value that came under ferocious attack in the 20th century from fascism and Communism.” But fascism and Communism are also Western values according to their own definition of the West. And this makes me wonder why these people still believe the Western culture is superior to any other. Until they resolve this contradiction, nothing they say will make sense to me.

Now let me say something about scientific thought. The people who built the pyramids and the monuments before them must have had the ability to think as rationally as anything that Galileo or Descartes could have thrown at them. In fact, if you study ancient Egyptian mathematics, you find that they knew about the relationship between the circumference of a circle and its diameter, they knew about the Pythagorean theorem before Pythagoras and they had a solution to the quadratic equation. And if you study the phlogiston theory, you will know that the Arabs and the Muslims pioneered the modern scientific research when Europe was still in the dark age. In fact, when the Jews took the Arab scientific discoveries to Europe, the Christians called it black magic and burned the Jews alive. What a lovely demonstration of democratic freedom it must have been! You want to see these days return, Cliff?

Let me tell you something, all of you dogmatic demagogues out there. Art, philosophy, science and all the rest began tens of thousands of years ago the moment that our species started to think. Every time one group of people took something to its conclusion, these people thought they had reached the ultimate nirvana thus rejected anything that upset the existing order. But things keep changing and someone else always comes up with something better and carries the ball of civilization a little further. For example, in modern times, Japan embraced the “Western” ways of doing things while the Chinese rejected it. Japan advanced and so the Chinese rushed to embrace the Western ways as a result of which they are doing better now. As well, the world continues to change while the “West” seems to fall behind. Who knows what will happen next!

You guys can come up with all sorts of examples about some little nobody who says precious little nothing about a subject that does not merit mention, and you can do big write ups all you want to convince the uninformed that the world is about to be run over by a handful of kids who discovered it is more fun to play cops and robbers with Uncle Sam than to play with a local police force, and you will accomplish nothing but pollute the marketplace of ideas with useless noise that will be forgotten as soon as it is digested.

You are wasting your time, suckers.

Blight By Supra Constitutional Action

Karl Rove wrote an article under the title: “Romney Shrinks the Campaign Money Gap” and the subtitle: “Obama ads won't dominate the airwaves like they did in 2008.” It was published in the Wall Street Journal on June 21, 2012. In it, he tells the world how democracy is made to work in American these days. Don't laugh, my friend, or take the man lightly because he knows what he is talking about; credited as he is for being instrumental in getting George W. Bush elected twice.

To show what he will do to get Mitt Romney elected this time, he describes how Obama did it in 2008 then argues that he has a better strategy for Romney. This is what he says: “...in 2008, Mr. Obama won partly because he outspent Sen. John McCain by $325 million.” He lets you know this is a war: “Use the … cash to frame the election after an … exhausted Mr. Romney's war chest.” He reiterates with this: “...the president needs to buy his way to re-election,” and this: “financial muscle made it possible to spread out the battlefield and make a (successful) play for more states." And he foretells victory: “Mr. Romney is successfully marshaling resources so his fall campaign [will be] competitive in every battleground state.”

And so you ask: What does that do to the principle of democracy? A good question that requires a long answer. Here is that answer.

What distinguishes us, human beings from the rest of creation is that we can do things above and beyond what the instinct dictates. We can think in the abstract and act accordingly even if the thought contradicts the nudging of the instinct. The consequence of having this ability is that we can no longer live in a group we call society without expanding on the rules that govern our relationship with the group as a whole and the various relationships we develop with each individual we encounter inside the group. And so we make the rules that go beyond the dictates of the instinct, and we bundle them into a body of laws we call the social contract.

From an early beginning when the contract was no more than the expression of the accepted social norms, we developed more complex interactions by learning new skills and pursuing new activities -- all of which were transmitted down the line from one generation to the next. This expansion in our activities necessitated the addition of new rules to the social contract which kept expanding till it became too cumbersome to handle. The management of the social contract becoming a complicated chore, it required a dose of rationalization. To do this, we relied once again on our ability to think in the abstract, and have devised a limited number of commandments against which the validity of every rule is tested before inclusion into the body of laws.

By the time society had advanced so much that people were compelled to invent the written form of communication and they began to practice it, the commandments had become a Constitution against which the validity of every bill proposed for legislation was tested before enactment. From this moment forward, everything was judged in accordance with the law, a development that reduced the authority of the rulers. In time, the rule of law became so dominant that the rulers themselves were forced to submit to it because they were forbidden from rising above it.

And so, what we have now is a world that is made of something like 200 territories called countries or some other designation -- themselves made of autonomous or semi-autonomous provinces, states or republics -- themselves made of regions or municipalities – all of which are governed by constitutions, laws, by-laws and rules. Ordinary people are expected to obey the laws and the rules of the jurisdiction in which they live whether or not they are aware of them; and punished when caught breaking them. Unless a chaotic situation develops such as a riot, for example – something that can happen from time to time in any jurisdiction -- the administration of the law at this level is never a big problem. What can develop into a big problem, however, are the ambitions of people who go outside the norm and seek to carry out extraordinary feats. This prompts the following set of questions: Can someone be so ambitious as to want to establish dominion over a jurisdiction and rule by authoritarian decrees? If yes, how is it done?

Before we answer the first question, we must distinguish between what is despotic rule -- also known as dictatorship, and what is paternalistic rule -- also known as benevolent authoritarianism. The first kind has been eradicated from this planet almost completely whereas the second is still practiced in a few places. However, as these places industrialize, ordinary people tend to become more materialistic. When this tendency reaches a high enough level, the mystique of a ruler having inherited a supernatural sort of authority fades, and the masses of people begin to reject his rule. They clamor for democracy, a word that has acquired so many definitions; you can make it represent anything you want.

Understanding the nature of this confusion will help us answer the question posed earlier: how does it happen that someone can still manage to establish an authoritarian form of rule in a jurisdiction? The answer is that the confusion about the meaning of democracy allows for someone to pretend he is practicing democracy when in fact; he would be administering an authoritarian form of rule. Most of the time, however, an individual such as that would do what he does in his own country among his people. And most of the time, he would reach a high point where he is dethroned -- sometimes violently -- and replaced by a more palatable form of government.

But there is a phenomenon that started on Planet Earth thousands of years ago. It is sustained by individuals who do the sort of things that people prefer to ignore till they explode in everyone's face and the people then exclaim: how could we not have seen it come!? The individuals in question call themselves Jews even though they come from every race and every religion whereas the original Jews were a nomadic ethnic group that lived in the Middle East thousands of years ago in 12 tribes, 10 of which disappeared several thousand years ago and the remaining 2 tribes disappeared by dilution during the course of the last 3,000 years.

The authentic Jews mistakenly believed that they were chosen by God to rule the world, and they created an epic fantasy called Old Testament which is a book of horror, violence, blood, guts and apocalyptic misery of biblical dimensions. It was their blueprint and their road map meant to show their disciples how to go about taking over the World. Despite the fact that time after time, ordinary human beings have had it up to here with this kind of behavior, and have pogrommed and holocausted the disciples, new recruits kept coming into the fold lured by the promise that someday, they will occupy a prominent place on the throne from where the world will be ruled.

But they alone never had the numbers to conquer the world by force of arms, and so they devised all sorts of tricks by which to infiltrated the superpower of the day and use its armed forces to go after someone else. By force of habit, they attribute to themselves every success that is scored, and attribute every failure to the sucker that follows their instructions. What they do at this time is try to maintain America -- the current superpower – on its feet to finish a job they started a number of decades ago. The trouble is that what they have started got so out of hand, they quake in their boots at the sight of their own shadow knowing that they have depleted America so badly; it is no longer able to protect them as they try to fulfill their fantasies.

The doomed project had its genesis when the State of Israel was established as a Jewish cooperative built according to instructions given by Karl Marx, the Jewish inventor of Communism. Israel as a project was blessed and supported by the well known humanitarian, Joseph Stalin, whose taste for terrorism was so legendary, the Jewish leaders affectionately called him Uncle Joe. By the time he and all those like him had disappeared from the Soviet scene, America the Capitalist had become the acknowledged superpower of the day. To respond to the new reality, the Jewish leaders did something in a typically communistic fashion -- they erased memories of Israel as the entity which stood on the two legs: communism and terrorism.

Israel still stands on those two legs but the Jewish leaders are using the confusion about the meaning of the word democracy to practice the communist form of authoritarianism as well as the terrorist penchant of a Stalin in a way that is difficult to detect. They began by spreading throughout America the Marxist definition of democracy. It is this: When you recruit disciples from all over the world and bring them to a place where they can butcher the natives, steal their properties and vote that they liked what they just did, you have a democracy by virtue of the fact that you took a vote.

In consequence of this, America's nincompoops are now obligated to see that Israel looks very much like America which has the duty to replace Stalin as the primary bankroller of Israel's terrorist activities in the region; activities called self-defense not terrorism. And when Israel fails to defend itself after poking a neighbor in the ribs, America must rush and come to self-defend it. What? What's self-defend it? No, no, don't ask me how this works; it is Jewish logic that I have not parsed as yet. Maybe some other day.

As to the practice of Jewish democracy in America, this is how it works. Parallel to the Constitution that was put together by the founding fathers; you create another Constitution which you may now say is put together by the Jewish founding fathers. That is, they use every trick in the book to make laws and pass them in the middle of the night not only to do specific things, but laws that tie the hands of future congresses from acting in a way they will deem necessary for the benefit of America. A notorious trick of this kind has been the making of a list calling a terrorist everyone that the Israelis do not like, then passing a law that says no American is allowed to even talk to someone on that list.

And so you ask: How is it that someone can pass this kind of law in America, the mother of democracies with the greatest constitution ever devised on this planet? You buy the elections says Karl Rove, that moral twin of the other Karl.

This is where America stands today. Weep all of you lovers of freedom.

Tale Of A Town With Three Mines

Mitt Romney who is running for the presidency of the United States of America has authored a plan he calls: “Believe in America” which he claims will achieve the sought after jobs and economic growth. The plan is made of seven policies, five of which are troubling enough to create doubt that the plan will succeed. For example, Romney wants to reduce the personal tax on savings and investment, abolish the inheritance tax and lower the corporate income tax to 25 percent. Except for his stance on the inheritance tax, the rest might have worked if it were not for the regulatory and fiscal policies he espouses. Indeed, he wants to abolish practically all the regulations, and he wants to put the fiscal policy of the nation on a course that was once called “automatic pilot” and was proven disastrous.

The problem of capping the spending at an arbitrary level is that you do not allow for contingencies. Just think about it: What will happen if and when you have an emergency and you need to spend 2 percent more than the cap. Will you let the old Congress that made the capping law veto the judgment of the new Congress that sees the need to impose a surtax? And what happens if one year you spend 2 percent less than the cap and you are left with a surplus? Will you be forbidden from using this money next year lest you go over the cap? No, this is not a good idea. If you want a Congress of dumb robots that cannot think for themselves but follow old directives, you have one now, and these guys are not something to warm anyone's heart as you can tell. And yes, there is a dogma about government being a problem, therefore the smaller the government the better. But there may come a time when you will need to hire more people to achieve something out of the ordinary. Democracy is to make judgments that suit the moment not to be bound by decisions made beforehand.

And when it comes to his energy policy, you can see that Romney has no idea how the various energy companies operate. The people who run these companies make their own policies; they make them with an eye on the whole world taking into account the available technologies and the existing reserves. The only time they respond to the call of any government is when regulations are put in place or incentives are given out. They will take anything you give them if that's what you want to do, even ask for more. And if you start deregulating, they will take advantage of every missing regulation to do what is good for them without regard as to who will get hurt or who will be helped. In short, there is nothing that Romney can do to create an energy policy that will be tailor-made specifically for America. Several presidents have tried for decades and they all failed.

As to his human capital policy, it is truly a sorry sight. There are now 3 or 4 million jobs in America that employers are unable to fill because they cannot find Americans with the right skills to fill them. Instead of offering incentive to these employers so as to encourage them to hire the unemployed and train them to fill the available positions, Romney wants to direct the incentives toward the foreign workers by raising the visa cap and by giving permanent residency to recipients of advanced degrees.

You can see that this approach fits exactly the current debate in which everyone automatically articulates the ideas that made America great in the past without mentioning the possibility that such ideas may not be adequate for the present. What is ignored in this debate is that for many historical reasons, America used to enjoy a special place in the world, and was able to attract a special kind of people to its shores. But the world has changed and America finds itself competing with rivals that have the ability to produce their own exceptional people and keep them at home. It follows that America can no longer be exceptional by standing on the shoulder of someone else. It will have to train its own people to be exceptional and thus hope to maintain their country's exceptional designation. Dreams of past glories won't do anymore.

And so, with a plan like that, and knowing what his professional background as a “vulture” capitalist has been, what can be expected Mitt Romney will do if he is elected President of the United States of America? A good way to answer this question is to devise a fictitious scenario that will illustrate the various possibilities. What follows is that scenario.

Once upon a time there was a mining town fortunate enough to have three profitable copper mines, a number of healthy manufacturing plants and the usual service enterprises that make a local economy hum such as the restaurants, department stores, bank branches, bakeries, insurance agent, motels, barber shops, the local printer and so on. The good times lasted till the day when the worldwide economic cycle began to take a downturn, an occurrence that caused the demand for copper to weaken and the price to drop. It was an unusual downturn in the sense that it was sharper than anything experienced since the great depression.

The three mines (called Mine A, Mine B, Mine C) got into trouble and so did the whole town because the other industries did business with the mines, some directly and some indirectly. For example, the plants that fed the mines with parts and accessories faced immediate closure while those that used their copper to manufacture products faced the prospect of having to import the raw material from further away at a cost. And without the high paying jobs, there was little else that would sustain the service industries. And so, the town mayor and the other prominent figures in it called on the central government to help save the jobs and prevent the town from turning into a ghost town.

The government answered that under the current circumstances, it can do nothing past the existing programs to assist the unemployed. Consequently, the dreaded scenario started to play itself out, and the bad times began to creep in. One after the other, the mines shut down followed by the other companies, some which reduced the workforce while others shut down the operation entirely, laying off everyone. The town atrophied gradually over the following months as the transient workers that had come from somewhere else left town the moment that they lost the job. Worse, these people were followed by the young from among the long established families who saw no future for themselves in this town or in the mining industry for that matter.

Then one day, a faint glimmer of hope began to flash in the distance when people came from out of town to look at Mine A. The news spread among the remaining town folks to the effect that the parent company of this mine whose head office was in the big city had just been bought by a larger mining company. The new bosses had come to see what they can do to reopen the mine and make it profitable again even during this economic slump. Two days later, rumors began to circulate to the effect that a private company of the vulture kind had bought the adjacent mine known as Mine B.

A few months later, Mine A was back in business with the old equipment being refurbished or replaced. As for Mine B, the equipment in it was taken out for the wrong reason. It came to light that it will be sent somewhere else and that the mine will not reopen. In fact, the equipment was sold to a mining operation in a Third World country where the price of new and modern equipment is beyond their reach but labor is cheap. As to the land claims that were owned by Mine B, they were sold to the company that now owns Mine A.

This takeover alarmed the town folks who feared that the same thing will happen to Mine C, a move that will leave them with an out-of-town company owning a single huge mine and all the land claims. To prevent this from happening, the mayor assembled the prominent figures and the employees that remained in town but were not rehired by Mine A. They discussed the subject and decided to buy Mine C, and run it themselves. But they still needed outside help in the form of financing. Luckily, someone had discovered the existence of a program in the books of the central government to assist industries that open in a remote region of the country and hire local people. They applied for a grant and got a positive response followed by a check.

The white collar and blue collar workers partnered with a number of local business people to form a company that took possession of Mine C. They bought modern equipment and restarted the operation. With Mine B now history, the town was left with two healthy Mines: A and C. Nearly two years pass but the new owners of Mine A have not yet made use of Mine B or its claims even though the world economy has improved enough to absorb the production of a few more copper mines. This was the puzzle that perplexed the town folks who were eager to see the roaring days of the past come back to their town. That was a time when all three mines were producing at maximum capacity, when everybody was employed and everyone making money like a proud member of the middle class.

The puzzle was solved when the news spread to the effect that the owners of Mine A had sold the remnant of Mine B and all its claims to someone else at three times the price they paid for it less than two years ago. Well, what can you say! This is how capitalism works, and the good thing is that there is going to be three mines again operating at maximum capacity, and the good times are just around the corner. Also, the fact that Mine C stands as a cooperative that some people call an emblem of “socialism” does not threaten the functioning of the capitalist system. In fact, the surprise came a few months later when the controlling interest of Mine C – the portion that did not belong to the employees -- was sold at a hefty gain to a foreign mining company that wanted to establish a foothold in this part of the world. No one objected because everyone was too busy making money like crazy.

There are two questions to ask here. One: was there a villain in this story? Two: was there a difference between the action taken by the vulture company with regard to Mine B, and the action taken by the town people with regard to Mine C? The first bought Mine B, sold its equipment to a Third World operation, and sold its claims to Mine A. As to the second, these were local people who partnered with other local people to restart Mine C. When a foreigner offered them a good deal and they ascertained that he will not take away the equipment or try to sell the claims to someone else, they sold their share to him.

It is clear that the owners of the vulture company come out looking like villains for making a bundle of money buying a distressed mine and selling it to a foreign interest at a huge profit. But what about the town folks who also made a bundle of money buying a distressed mine and selling it to a foreign interest at a huge profit? Yes, this is what happened in both examples but there is a difference between the two. It is that the vulture company did not create one local job whereas the town folks did. Also, the vulture company did not intend to produce wealth in the form of copper or anything else whereas the town folks did.

If now, we define capitalism as being the pursuit of profit by producing and selling goods or services, it will be seen that the town folks fit the definition because their primary motivation was to reopen the mine. By contrast, the primary motivation of the vulture company was to make a profit without pretending to produce goods while at the same time – get this now -- produce a service that serves no one but its owners. What must be concluded from this is that vulture capitalism is no capitalism at all but legalized banditry. To say that a vulture capitalist is a successful person may be true but so is a bank robber that gets away with it. This is the kind of success to be ashamed of not proud of.

Think about it now, if Romney gets elected and he does what he promises he will do on the first day, you will instantly have a deregulated America with minimum taxes being collected for the public treasury. This will result in maximum freedom of action being transferred to the vultures as well as the nation's wealth to play with. The net result will be that while Romney will get busy hollowing out the nation of its civil service, they will hollow it of its wealth.

In that regard, they will spirit out its equipment, intellectual properties, cash reserves and where possible the savings of its people. In the end, it will be seen that he, alone stood like a giant that made the Bush, Cheney, Rove triumvirate look like toddlers playing the “wreck America game” they used to play -- causing so much damage already to a nation that used to be exceptional but is no more. What else do these people want?

It looks like Mitt Romney has a great deal of explaining to do before he can convince anyone he will run the affairs of America not like a vulture capitalist that is beholden to a gambler whose wealth is coming from operations in Eastern Asia and whose heart is unashamedly anchored in Western Asia.

There is nothing in this plan about doing what is good for America or the American people. Where things stand now, only China and Israel will benefit from a Romney presidency.

Abducted By Aliens From Inner Space

You will not believe what happened to me the other day. I was sitting in front of my television set watching a science fiction movie about aliens from outer space who were abducting an earthling as he was sitting in front of his television set watching an old movie about aliens from outer space abducting an earthling. And then it happened to me. I felt like aliens had come from my own inner space and abducted me. They took me not to outer space but to Iran where I saw the things that convinced me we, in the West, must bomb Iran to kingdom come. No ifs or buts and no pity.

Here is what I saw and heard in Iran. I saw a man say they possess “sophisticated and continually advancing technologies.” He described them like this: “We can now track and kill enemy combatants without boots on the ground or pilots in the skies. Such missions can be accomplished using unmanned aerial vehicles: drones, of course.” He then lamented: “But there's also a kind of blimp that can achieve dominance on the battlefield – if we'd only deploy it.” And he described the weapon like this: “...a tethered blimp that floats above a battlefield (or potential battlefield) tracking everything below, including air, ground, and surface-water threats, and integrating all that information with missile defense and other intercept systems.” Hot stuff, eh!

The man, who I began to think of as no more than a self-styled armchair general, would not stop here. He went on to assert that the Iranian military had invested huge sums of money in that weapon, and “it would be useful to have this capability in place, as soon as possible over such hot spots as the Strait of Hormuz, a vital corridor for oil from the Persian Gulf.” He explained that the Gulf was more vital to Iran than to anyone else, the reason why the American fleet was threatening it by being in a place where it has no business being. Them are fighting words, man!

And the man would not stop here. Instead, he went on to explain the advantages of the weapon by saying it would fill a vital military need because: “Technology like this levels the playing field and allows our troops to deal with threats, known and unknown [while providing] hundreds of miles of around-the-clock, 360-degree defense against enemy aircraft, cruise missile, and unmanned drones.” See how satisfying it can be when you level the playing field?

And then the good aliens from inner space brought me back to reality where I found myself not in front of the television set like I thought I was but in front of the computer monitor where I was actually reading those words in a column authored by Clifford D. May of the National Review Online. What I reckon must have happened was that inside the inner space of my brain, I imagined the author to be an Iranian character cum self-styled armchair general who was expressing an insatiable lust for war and toys of war. The column was published on June 14, 2012 under the title: “Why We Should Use JLENS” and the subtitle: “The West shouldn't be afraid to use its technological advantages.” JLENS being the acronym for Joint Land Attack Cruise Missile Defense Elevated Netted Sensor System.

Then I felt like a crisis of conscience was beginning to seize me. Having developed the feeling that Iran ought to be bombed to kingdom come because it was harboring a nut who would say such awful things, I felt obliged to develop a similar feeling toward the West now that I know who wrote those words. Unable to do so, however, I felt shame because of my double standard, and felt guilty knowing that I have the ability to imagine an alternative situation by substituting one character for another, yet feel powerless to resolve the conflict I created in my own head. And so, in the hope of erasing my shame and my guilt, I went over the article again looking for a reason that might help me justify the double standard. I thought it would be nice if the author could convince me Iran was inherently bad and the West was inherently good.

A few paragraphs into the column came the discovery I was looking for.  Aha, there it is! I see something interesting. I see the words that will save me. Here they are: “Those defending the West try hard to abide by the laws of war. Those attacking the West say clearly that they will not be bound by any 'infidel' rules. They are committed to what they call a 'Koranic concept of war.'” But no, oh no that's not what I expected. What a disappointment! What the hell is this guy talking about? Is Clifford May the sort of writer who would invent something on the spot to attribute to others and make them look bad?

I thought about it and concluded he must be like that because I have been an avid reader of history all my life, and I learned something that is contrary to what he says. In fact, I used to own the Nineteenth edition of the Encyclopedia Britannica – the most classical edition of all -- and I believe it was in it that I read the only reference I ever saw pertaining to the Arab or Islamic way of doing war. It said that the Arabs invented the artillery but they would not use it because their cultural mores would not allow them to kill someone at a distance. The Arab or the Muslim preferred to face his enemy on the basis of man to man, and have a fair duel.

And that's not the only thing I read about the Arabs and the Muslims. I read the story of Saladin and Richard the Lionheart. Saladin was the man that liberated Palestine from the Crusaders who attacked the Holy Land under the leadership of the Lionheart. Saladin fought with such chivalry, he became a legend in England and all of Europe where they loved him more than they did the man he defeated. No one exactly knows how and why Richard was nicknamed the Lionheart but if there is one act attesting to the nature of his heart, it is the way he treated the Jews. The day he was crowned, he barred them from the festivities but a number of Jewish leaders – perhaps trying to be too cute by half -- slipped behind the guards and brought him gifts anyway.

To show his gratitude, he ordered his guards to strip the Jews naked; had them beaten up and kicked out of the palace. When the news spread among the masses, people all over London seized the opportunity to do what they always wanted to do. They robbed the Jews and massacred them by beating them and burning them alive inside their own homes. After that, they baptized the children who managed to escape the onslaught and survive the ordeal. Thus began the English habit of inflicting pogroms on the Jews, a habit that spread to the rest of Europe culminating in the Spanish Inquisition a few decades later.

Responding to the possibility that the Iranians may want to do to the Americans what the Americans did to them in the realm of cyber warfare, Clifford May wrote the following sarcastic passage: “Yes, and let's start by considering whether it is remotely plausible that Iran's rulers, the world's leading sponsors of terrorism, would conclude that it's not quite cricket to use such weapons.” Well, to see him accuse Iran's rulers of being the world's leading sponsors of terrorism for what he speculates they might do -- which is what he admits America has done already in partnership with Israel, the only recognized terrorist state in the world today -- reminded me of a scene I witnessed a long time ago.

Before I tell the story, I must advise the reader that what is ahead is a description of behavior too difficult to talk about in today's climate of political correctness. But it is an incident I must report the way I remember it while stressing that it is not something I condoned then or would condone now. There was a prominent Jewish lawyer who spoke only English in the Province of Quebec at a time when the Province was turning increasingly French. The lawyer found himself with little revenue, and so he welcomed anyone who would volunteer to go sit in the office and help out where possible. I did so whenever I had the time, and one day something happened that I shall never forget. A client of his came from the city of Windsor, Ontario. They talked for a while then the lawyer asked me if I would drive the client to a place where he was to meet with someone. I said sure.

I took my friend's client to the address, a tall building in a complex of buildings that had a helicopter pad. A man came to talk to us but I was so absorbed by the sight of the helicopters navigating around the buildings as they came to land, I missed the conversation that had begun on a cordial note between them. After three minutes or so, I was shaken by the guy I brought jumping to his feet and shouting to the other guy: “I came to talk to a man but I find myself talking to a fagot.” He started to walk away and so I followed him. I asked: “What was that all about?” And he said: “For years you deal with people you think are like you, but when you meet them, they turn out to be something else.” Considering this to be a non-answer, I tried to prod him further: “He owes you a lot of money but he won't pay?” And the man replied: “They rob you first then accuse you of robbing them.” And ever since that time, I have remembered this scene whenever I saw or heard someone accuse someone else of what they are themselves. This time, it was Clifford May who reminded me of it.

Now, allow me to say something to all of you little eunuchs out there. If you're going to start a fight, be prepared to fight like men not like male bimbos who endlessly complain about the people you nag till they kick you in the ass at which time you moan about being the victim of antisemitism. And certainly don't go around invoking the 9/11 tragedy because all you're going to do is trivialize it the way you trivialized the Holocaust, something you managed to do by milking the thing to the last drop. People are simply tired of hearing you cry out: He hit me. He hit me and he fights the way he wants to fight not the way I tell him to fight. He keeps hitting in different ways, and I cannot hit him back. It's not fair, it's not fair. Pity me, pity me. Gimme compensation, gimme compensation.

Oh shut up or change your tune. You're such a bore; you're annoying all the good people on Earth.

Now let me give you an example on how to fight, Cliff. You say the following in your column: “Of course, such resentments also are raised whenever we speak out against … the burning of Christian churches in Egypt.” Well, as a Christian of Egyptian origin, let me tell you once and for all what is happening in that country. Christian churches are not burning in Egypt; what is burning are the synagogues -- Jewish synagogues. They are not burned by Muslims but by Christians who do so because they know that if the Jews had it their way, they would crucify every Christian on Earth the way they crucified Jesus.

And the Christians of Egypt have what is needed to put two and two together, and form a clear picture of what is happening. They know from experience that when the Jewish leaders of America want to engage in a criminal activity overseas, they incessantly talk about a related subject so as to motivate the Congress of low-life goons to bankroll their plan. When the money starts to come in, the worldwide Jewish organizations recruit local criminals, pay them cash and train them to do bad things the moment that they see the good people they have targeted lower their guards. It is that the good people of Egypt have looked around, and they saw the mountain of verbalized wishful thinking done in America on the subject of a non-existent burning of churches. And so they decided to send you the following message:

We know what you're up to. We've seen you do it to others but you will not succeed here because we're watching you. We know that your minds will not rest, and your hearts will not feel joy till you turn Egypt into another Iraq where bombs will go off on a daily basis in the houses of worship, and people will die by the dozens. We know that this will be the fulfillment of your fantasies. They are the ancient dreams to inflict the worst kind of plagues on Egypt; the dreams you have been nurturing since the days when you thought Moses had declared you a nation. It is the event you have celebrated every year for thousands of years. It is what became your religion and your culture. Like you say it to yourselves and to each other, you cannot be who you are without wishing maximum plague on Egypt, and by extension wish it on the whole world.

This is why the Christians of Egypt, like those of everywhere else in the world, keep reminding each other never to lower their guards given that the Jews among them are a treacherous lot and proud of it. You must admit, Cliff, it is a good thing even for the Jews that the people of Egypt are alert. You know it because you know as well as anyone that when left to themselves, the Jewish leaders don't know where to stop. This is how they made of the gas chamber and the incinerator the natural habitat of Jews. I did not discover this; a Jew told me about it.

However much some of you are again beginning to feel homesick, this is something that will not be allowed to happen ever again. It is the reason why someone must be there to keep an eye on you; be there to protect you from each other, and save you from your own destructive impulses.

Don't you go now and bellyache your entrails out, Cliff. You wanted a war and you got one. Now fight back like a man; not like a sissy boy. It means no more charges of antisemitism and no more mention of 9/11. Only solid ideas rooted in verifiable historical truths.