National Enquirer PECKER HEAD and SAUD ROYAL FAMILY IN BED TOGETHER!
Maybe the Saudis will Khashoggi Bezos!
BOOMERBUSTER
OLD CELLO
Sunday, March 31, 2019
NEW ORLEANS APOLOGY FOR LYNCHING CATEGORY ERROR
I'm fine no apology now by anyone now for lynching anyone back then, white negro or Italian.
it's the negro lynchings that usually command the high profile shame and embarrassment of some fools now.
Often times, lynchees deserved it!
Cattle rustlers, any fricking color, white negro Mexican, often summarily lynched, on the spot, caught red handed! RIP
Bounty hunters usually had to drag their sorry asses in to collect a bounty.
No apologies for that horse shit!
it's the negro lynchings that usually command the high profile shame and embarrassment of some fools now.
Often times, lynchees deserved it!
Cattle rustlers, any fricking color, white negro Mexican, often summarily lynched, on the spot, caught red handed! RIP
Bounty hunters usually had to drag their sorry asses in to collect a bounty.
No apologies for that horse shit!
THE IDEA OF A SOCIAL SCIENCE AND ITS RELATION TO PHILOSOPHY
"The commonwealth of learning is not at this time without master-builders, whose mighty designs, in advancing the sciences, will leave lasting monuments to the ademiration of posterity; but everyone must not hope to be a Boyle or a Sydenham; and in an age that produces such masters as the great Huygenius and the incomparable Mr. Newton, with some others of that strain, it is ambition enough to be employed as an under-labourer in clearing the ground a little, and removing some of the rubbish that lies in the way of knowledge." Locke, Epistle to the Reader, Essay Concerning Human Understanding, in Winch, p 7.
My point, here, or rather one of them, is that revisionism occurred not only in history, typified by Clark, but also in philosophy, exampled here by Winch, which is less well known, and seems to me to have been even less successful. Apparently, those who asked Winch, found that he considered the whole enterprise, as a philosopher, disastrous for his career.
Alice Crary and Rupert Read (eds.) The new Wittgenstein, London : Routledge, 2000.
Winch’s philosophical reputation is mostly due to his famous (or infamous) monograph, The Idea of a Social Science (1958, 1990). This is perhaps the most influential of the ‘little red books’ published by followers of Wittgenstein which briefly held the English-speaking philosophical world in the late 50s and early 60s. However, unlike others of the ‘little red books’, Winch’s was read widely outside academic philosophy.
Winch’s aim in this book was to follow Collingwood’s aim, in his classic work The Idea of History, of attempting to understand human action as ‘from the inside’, as the action of people with ideas, agents, not merely related to each other ‘externally’ as billiard balls are. Winch urged that any philosophy or social science which failed so to understand human action was not succeeding in understanding human action – action with an inevitably social dimension -- at all. However, while Collingwood saw the study of history as by and large a successful effort to understand, Winch excoriated the social sciences for treating human beings as if they were physical objects or some other fit matter for scientific treatment. Winch famously claimed that most of sociology was in truth not any kind of science, but a disguised form of philosophy. His book might easily have been entitled, The very idea of a social science.
Most social scientists were stung or outraged by Winch’s claims. A minority thought Winch’s a fair critique of much of their discipline(s), and praised Winch’s hermeneutical sensibility. A smaller minority still, of ‘Wittgensteinian’ and ethnomethodological sociologists, have tried to foment a new form of ‘social studies’ which explicitly follows the non-scientistic path that Winch intimates.
Winch’s most famous paper was a follow-up to his famous little monograph. It was a treatment of anthropology laid out upon broadly similar lines to the treatment of sociology etc. offered in The idea of a social science. In “Understanding a primitive society” (1964, 1972), Winch argued that the best way to avoid misunderstanding a primitive society – or any other society which seemed seriously different from our own – was to try to understand it as a language-game that was being played, rather than to approach it through our own pre-established standards of judgement. (This conception of his was strikingly similar to Thomas Kuhn’s idea, propounded at the same time, and similarly under Wittgenstein’s influence, of understanding an ‘alien’ science – such as Aristotle’s physics – not as a failed attempt to grasp at what we know, but sui generis, as a ‘language-game’ with its own methods and standards.) Winch further held that approaching the society in question in such a genuinely open-minded spirit was likely to have the fortunate ‘side-effect’ of increasing one’s understanding of one’s own society. The ‘alien’ society could function as a genuine object of comparison which one could learn from, by contrast and possibly later by imitation, and not just dismiss.
In 1990, Winch produced a new ‘Preface’ for The Idea of a Social Science, which is important in that it tries to head off various widespread misunderstandings of the earlier work, and to make clear the parallelism between it and the work of Wittgenstein’s great student, Rush Rhees (a colleague of Winch’s at Swansea). In his last years, Winch became increasingly impressed and critically engaged with the new interpretation of Wittgenstein associated with Stanley Cavell, Cora Diamond and James Conant (see especially his “Persuasion” (1992)), an interpretation of Wittgenstein that parallels closely Rhees’s own views.
Winch made important contributions to ethics, to the understanding of the Holocaust, to the philosophy of literature, to Wittgenstein scholarship, and in translating some of Wittgenstein’s work. He would probably be disappointed to be remembered primarily as ‘a radical philosopher of social science’. His corpus is far richer than that label would suggest.
Select Bibliography
Harold Garfinkel, Studies in Ethnomethodology, London : Prentice-Hall, 1965.
Colin Lyas, Peter Winch, London : Acumen, 1999.
Nigel Pleasants, “The concept of learning from the Holocaust” (forthcoming).
Wes Sharrock and Rupert Read , Kuhn, Oxford : Polity, 2002.
Peter Winch, “Social Science”, British Journal of Sociology 7 (1956), 18-33.
The idea of a social science and its relation to philosophy, London : Routledge, 1958.
(ed.) Studies in the philosophy of Wittgenstein, London : Routledge, 1969.
Ethics and Action, London : Routledge, 1972.
Trying to make sense, Oxford : Blackwell, 1987.
“Persuasion”, MidWest Studies in Philosophy 17 (1992), 123-137.
Collingwood was an important influence on Winch and on J C D Clark, apparently.
Collingwood was an important influence on Winch and on J C D Clark, apparently.
Tuesday, September 19, 2017
BERNARD LEWIS ON IBN KHALDUN 14TH CENTURY ACCOUNT
This account dovetails with Randall Collins omission of Sub Saharan Africa in The Sociology of Philosophies.
It seems I was off the mark in my prior post below, in that the Muslims rejected Sub Saharan Africa as civilized, or susceptible to Islamic Civilization as such, thus they were, for the Muslims, including the very knowledgeable intellectuals among the Muslims, like Ibn Khaldun, fit objects for slavery as uncivilized negroes.
It seems I was off the mark in my prior post below, in that the Muslims rejected Sub Saharan Africa as civilized, or susceptible to Islamic Civilization as such, thus they were, for the Muslims, including the very knowledgeable intellectuals among the Muslims, like Ibn Khaldun, fit objects for slavery as uncivilized negroes.
Tuesday, June 13, 2017
Even relatively good sociologists mouth nonsenses like this..., unfortunately. The Sociology of Philosophies, pb, p 383.
What do you think he means? Skin color is nothing?
Skin color is everything? Skin color is deep? Skin color is shallow? Culture is nothing? Culture is deep? Culture is something important?
Do religion, or, say, history, play any part, or is it just, quote, culture, whatever he decides that means, that is related only to skin color? Culture may not mean very much, to him, I suspect...
Is this anthropology, not sociology, under the skin?
One takes from specialist social scientists what one can, and leaves the husk behind....
The Idea of a Social Science and Its Relation To Philosophy....the underlabourer theory of philosophy,... sweep away the underbrush clogging the march of progress in the exact sciences..
See his entire Chapter 7, "Innovation Through Conservatism: Japan".
The West has thought of its conservatism in the opposite way, or its innovation in the opposite way, however you want to turn it; or is this remark itself just a Western Whig Fallacy: comparing cultures which are, frankly, at least in such senses as this, more or less incommensurable?
I think Collins would claim that his analytical model makes such comparisons not only possible but practical.
I never heard Winch talk in anything like this way, by the way. Some of his writings suggest such things.
Collins asserts by his account that all cultures engender intellectual developments achieving analogous levels of intellectual developments and he gives voluminous examples of this, seemingly across all cultures and civilizations, including those borrowed by one culture from another and then elaborated.
One searches in vain throughout his entire 1000+ pages to find any reference to sub Saharan African intellectual development of any kind, or even a reference to Africa in his index, in spite of the well known fact that there were cultural and religious influences there, mainly from the Muslim world, for a thousand years.
I am guessing that he treats all of sub Saharan Africa as a sort of subset of Islam, although I do not recall him mentioning that anywhere, and his discussion of Islam in Africa is limited to considering it along the coast of North Africa. Sub Saharan Africa certainly does not appear, at least in his work, to have had a separate cultural identity or intellectual history worth commenting on, apart from discussing Islam elsewhere. His brief account of Stagnation and Loss of a Center in Islam, p 510, for example, fails to mention sub Saharan Africa. See Almoravid, Mali, Senegal, etc.
RANDALL COLLINS CULTURE IS NO DEEPER THAN SKIN COLOR WINCH AND PROGRESS
What do you think he means? Skin color is nothing?
Skin color is everything? Skin color is deep? Skin color is shallow? Culture is nothing? Culture is deep? Culture is something important?
Do religion, or, say, history, play any part, or is it just, quote, culture, whatever he decides that means, that is related only to skin color? Culture may not mean very much, to him, I suspect...
Is this anthropology, not sociology, under the skin?
One takes from specialist social scientists what one can, and leaves the husk behind....
The Idea of a Social Science and Its Relation To Philosophy....the underlabourer theory of philosophy,... sweep away the underbrush clogging the march of progress in the exact sciences..
See his entire Chapter 7, "Innovation Through Conservatism: Japan".
The West has thought of its conservatism in the opposite way, or its innovation in the opposite way, however you want to turn it; or is this remark itself just a Western Whig Fallacy: comparing cultures which are, frankly, at least in such senses as this, more or less incommensurable?
I think Collins would claim that his analytical model makes such comparisons not only possible but practical.
I never heard Winch talk in anything like this way, by the way. Some of his writings suggest such things.
Collins asserts by his account that all cultures engender intellectual developments achieving analogous levels of intellectual developments and he gives voluminous examples of this, seemingly across all cultures and civilizations, including those borrowed by one culture from another and then elaborated.
One searches in vain throughout his entire 1000+ pages to find any reference to sub Saharan African intellectual development of any kind, or even a reference to Africa in his index, in spite of the well known fact that there were cultural and religious influences there, mainly from the Muslim world, for a thousand years.
I am guessing that he treats all of sub Saharan Africa as a sort of subset of Islam, although I do not recall him mentioning that anywhere, and his discussion of Islam in Africa is limited to considering it along the coast of North Africa. Sub Saharan Africa certainly does not appear, at least in his work, to have had a separate cultural identity or intellectual history worth commenting on, apart from discussing Islam elsewhere. His brief account of Stagnation and Loss of a Center in Islam, p 510, for example, fails to mention sub Saharan Africa. See Almoravid, Mali, Senegal, etc.
PRODUCING TECH SOFT OR HARD WARE IN CHINA PRIMA FACIE CASE FOREIGN ESPIONAGE TRAITOR MNCS
Range Roundup!
Huawei
See Pillsbury, The Hundred-Year Marathon
Failure, or inability, for whatever reason, to fully vet internet security of partners, licensees, coproducers, independent contractors, etc, is tantamount, under current global circumstances, to criminal reckless disregard for the rights and security of customers, and more importantly, for the national security of the United States and its allies.
In tort, it should now be strict liability.
Huawei
See Pillsbury, The Hundred-Year Marathon
Failure, or inability, for whatever reason, to fully vet internet security of partners, licensees, coproducers, independent contractors, etc, is tantamount, under current global circumstances, to criminal reckless disregard for the rights and security of customers, and more importantly, for the national security of the United States and its allies.
In tort, it should now be strict liability.
FACEBOOK'S DATA DEALS UNDER CRIMINAL INVESTIGATION SEE NYT ARTICLE
My own view is that Jobs should be prosecuted posthumously, and his heirs then hounded down and heavily fined!
I am assuming, for the moment, that nothing in the Constitution precludes such an investigation or prosecution, but perhaps Bobbitt could be consulted....
Posthumous forfeitures; American jurisprudence is great at forfeitures already! Much better, or at least as good, as at taxation.
That would also be a lot of fun to watch!
I am assuming, for the moment, that nothing in the Constitution precludes such an investigation or prosecution, but perhaps Bobbitt could be consulted....
Posthumous forfeitures; American jurisprudence is great at forfeitures already! Much better, or at least as good, as at taxation.
That would also be a lot of fun to watch!
Saturday, March 30, 2019
XI 2017 DAVOS SPEECH
The following is the full text of Chinese President Xi Jinping’s keynote speech at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland:
Jointly Shoulder Responsibility of Our Times,
Promote Global Growth
Promote Global Growth
Keynote Speech by H.E. Xi Jinping
President of the People’s Republic of China
At the Opening Session
Of the World Economic Forum Annual Meeting 2017
Davos, 17 January 2017
President Doris Leuthard and Mr. Roland Hausin,
Heads of State and Government, Deputy Heads of State and Your Spouses,
Heads of International Organizations,
Dr. Klaus Schwab and Mrs. Hilde Schwab,
Ladies and Gentlemen,
Dear Friends,
I’m delighted to come to beautiful Davos. Though just a small town in the Alps, Davos is an important window for taking the pulse of the global economy. People from around the world come here to exchange ideas and insights, which broaden their vision. This makes the WEF annual meeting a cost-effective brainstorming event, which I would call “Schwab economics”.
“It was the best of times, it was the worst of times.” These are the words used by the English writer Charles Dickens to describe the world after the Industrial Revolution. Today, we also live in a world of contradictions. On the one hand, with growing material wealth and advances in science and technology, human civilization has developed as never before. On the other hand, frequent regional conflicts, global challenges like terrorism and refugees, as well as poverty, unemployment and widening income gap have all added to the uncertainties of the world.
Many people feel bewildered and wonder: What has gone wrong with the world?
To answer this question, one must first track the source of the problem. Some blame economic globalization for the chaos in the world. Economic globalization was once viewed as the treasure cave found by Ali Baba in The Arabian Nights, but it has now become the Pandora’s box in the eyes of many. The international community finds itself in a heated debate on economic globalization.
Today, I wish to address the global economy in the context of economic globalization.
The point I want to make is that many of the problems troubling the world are not caused by economic globalization. For instance, the refugee waves from the Middle East and North Africa in recent years have become a global concern. Several million people have been displaced, and some small children lost their lives while crossing the rough sea. This is indeed heartbreaking. It is war, conflict and regional turbulence that have created this problem, and its solution lies in making peace, promoting reconciliation and restoring stability. The international financial crisis is another example. It is not an inevitable outcome of economic globalization; rather, it is the consequence of excessive chase of profit by financial capital and grave failure of financial regulation. Just blaming economic globalization for the world’s problems is inconsistent with reality, and it will not help solve the problems.
From the historical perspective, economic globalization resulted from growing social productivity, and is a natural outcome of scientific and technological progress, not something created by any individuals or any countries. Economic globalization has powered global growth and facilitated movement of goods and capital, advances in science, technology and civilization, and interactions among peoples.
But we should also recognize that economic globalization is a double-edged sword. When the global economy is under downward pressure, it is hard to make the cake of global economy bigger. It may even shrink, which will strain the relations between growth and distribution, between capital and labor, and between efficiency and equity. Both developed and developing countries have felt the punch. Voices against globalization have laid bare pitfalls in the process of economic globalization that we need to take seriously.
As a line in an old Chinese poem goes, “Honey melons hang on bitter vines; sweet dates grow on thistles and thorns.” In a philosophical sense, nothing is perfect in the world. One would fail to see the full picture if he claims something is perfect because of its merits, or if he views something as useless just because of its defects. It is true that economic globalization has created new problems, but this is no justification to write economic globalization off completely. Rather, we should adapt to and guide economic globalization, cushion its negative impact, and deliver its benefits to all countries and all nations.
There was a time when China also had doubts about economic globalization, and was not sure whether it should join the World Trade Organization. But we came to the conclusion that integration into the global economy is a historical trend. To grow its economy, China must have the courage to swim in the vast ocean of the global market. If one is always afraid of bracing the storm and exploring the new world, he will sooner or later get drowned in the ocean. Therefore, China took a brave step to embrace the global market. We have had our fair share of choking in the water and encountered whirlpools and choppy waves, but we have learned how to swim in this process. It has proved to be a right strategic choice.
Whether you like it or not, the global economy is the big ocean that you cannot escape from. Any attempt to cut off the flow of capital, technologies, products, industries and people between economies, and channel the waters in the ocean back into isolated lakes and creeks is simply not possible. Indeed, it runs counter to the historical trend.
The history of mankind tells us that problems are not to be feared. What should concern us is refusing to face up to problems and not knowing what to do about them. In the face of both opportunities and challenges of economic globalization, the right thing to do is to seize every opportunity, jointly meet challenges and chart the right course for economic globalization.
At the APEC Economic Leaders’ Meeting in late 2016, I spoke about the necessity to make the process of economic globalization more invigorated, more inclusive and more sustainable. We should act pro-actively and manage economic globalization as appropriate so as to release its positive impact and rebalance the process of economic globalization. We should follow the general trend, proceed from our respective national conditions and embark on the right pathway of integrating into economic globalization with the right pace. We should strike a balance between efficiency and equity to ensure that different countries, different social strata and different groups of people all share in the benefits of economic globalization. The people of all countries expect nothing less from us, and this is our unshirkable responsibility as leaders of our times.
Ladies and Gentlemen,
Dear Friends,
At present, the most pressing task before us is to steer the global economy out of difficulty. The global economy has remained sluggish for quite some time. The gap between the poor and the rich and between the South and the North is widening. The root cause is that the three critical issues in the economic sphere have not been effectively addressed.
First, lack of robust driving forces for global growth makes it difficult to sustain the steady growth of the global economy. The growth of the global economy is now at its slowest pace in seven years. Growth of global trade has been slower than global GDP growth. Short-term policy stimuli are ineffective. Fundamental structural reform is just unfolding. The global economy is now in a period of moving toward new growth drivers, and the role of traditional engines to drive growth has weakened. Despite the emergence of new technologies such as artificial intelligence and 3-D printing, new sources of growth are yet to emerge. A new path for the global economy remains elusive.
Second, inadequate global economic governance makes it difficult to adapt to new developments in the global economy. Madame Christine Lagarde recently told me that emerging markets and developing countries already contribute to 80 percent of the growth of the global economy. The global economic landscape has changed profoundly in the past few decades. However, the global governance system has not embraced those new changes and is therefore inadequate in terms of representation and inclusiveness. The global industrial landscape is changing and new industrial chains, value chains and supply chains are taking shape. However, trade and investment rules have not kept pace with these developments, resulting in acute problems such as closed mechanisms and fragmentation of rules. The global financial market needs to be more resilient against risks, but the global financial governance mechanism fails to meet the new requirement and is thus unable to effectively resolve problems such as frequent international financial market volatility and the build-up of asset bubbles.
Third, uneven global development makes it difficult to meet people’s expectations for better lives. Dr. Schwab has observed in his book The Fourth Industrial Revolution that this round of industrial revolution will produce extensive and far-reaching impacts such as growing inequality, particularly the possible widening gap between return on capital and return on labor. The richest one percent of the world’s population own more wealth than the remaining 99 percent. Inequality in income distribution and uneven development space are worrying. Over 700 million people in the world are still living in extreme poverty. For many families, to have warm houses, enough food and secure jobs is still a distant dream. This is the biggest challenge facing the world today. It is also what is behind the social turmoil in some countries.
All this shows that there are indeed problems with world economic growth, governance and development models, and they must be resolved. The founder of the Red Cross Henry Dunant once said, “Our real enemy is not the neighboring country; it is hunger, poverty, ignorance, superstition and prejudice.” We need to have the vision to dissect these problems; more importantly, we need to have the courage to take actions to address them.
First, we should develop a dynamic, innovation-driven growth model. The fundamental issue plaguing the global economy is the lack of driving force for growth. Innovation is the primary force guiding development. Unlike the previous industrial revolutions, the fourth industrial revolution is unfolding at an exponential rather than linear pace. We need to relentlessly pursue innovation. Only with the courage to innovate and reform can we remove bottlenecks blocking global growth and development.
With this in mind, G-20 leaders reached an important consensus at the Hangzhou Summit, which is to take innovation as a key driver and foster new driving force of growth for both individual countries and the global economy. We should develop a new development philosophy and rise above the debate about whether there should be more fiscal stimulus or more monetary easing. We should adopt a multipronged approach to address both the symptoms and the underlying problems. We should adopt new policy instruments and advance structural reform to create more space for growth and sustain its momentum. We should develop new growth models and seize opportunities presented by the new round of industrial revolution and digital economy. We should meet the challenges of climate change and aging population. We should address the negative impact of IT application and automation on jobs. When cultivating new industries and new forms models of business models, we should create new jobs and restore confidence and hope to our peoples.
Second, we should pursue a well-coordinated and inter-connected approach to develop a model of open and win-win cooperation. Today, mankind has become a close-knit community of shared future. Countries have extensive converging interests and are mutually dependent. All countries enjoy the right to development. At the same time, they should view their own interests in a broader context and refrain from pursuing them at the expense of others.
We should commit ourselves to growing an open global economy to share opportunities and interests through opening-up and achieve win-win outcomes. One should not just retreat to the harbor when encountering a storm, for this will never get us to the other shore of the ocean. We must redouble efforts to develop global connectivity to enable all countries to achieve inter-connected growth and share prosperity. We must remain committed to developing global free trade and investment, promote trade and investment liberalization and facilitation through opening-up and say no to protectionism. Pursuing protectionism is like locking oneself in a dark room. While wind and rain may be kept outside, that dark room will also block light and air. No one will emerge as a winner in a trade war.
Third, we should develop a model of fair and equitable governance in keeping with the trend of the times. As the Chinese saying goes, people with petty shrewdness attend to trivial matters, while people with vision attend to governance of institutions. There is a growing call from the international community for reforming the global economic governance system, which is a pressing task for us. Only when it adapts to new dynamics in the international economic architecture can the global governance system sustain global growth.
Countries, big or small, strong or weak, rich or poor, are all equal members of the international community. As such, they are entitled to participate in decision-making, enjoy rights and fulfill obligations on an equal basis. Emerging markets and developing countries deserve greater representation and voice. The 2010 IMF quota reform has entered into force, and its momentum should be sustained. We should adhere to multilateralism to uphold the authority and efficacy of multilateral institutions. We should honor promises and abide by rules. One should not select or bend rules as he sees fit. The Paris Agreement is a hard-won achievement which is in keeping with the underlying trend of global development. All signatories should stick to it instead of walking away from it as this is a responsibility we must assume for future generations.
Fourth, we should develop a balanced, equitable and inclusive development model. As the Chinese saying goes, “A just cause should be pursued for common good.” Development is ultimately for the people. To achieve more balanced development and ensure that the people have equal access to opportunities and share in the benefits of development, it is crucial to have a sound development philosophy and model and make development equitable, effective and balanced.
We should foster a culture that values diligence, frugality and enterprise and respects the fruits of hard work of all. Priority should be given to addressing poverty, unemployment, the widening income gap and the concerns of the disadvantaged to promote social equity and justice. It is important to protect the environment while pursuing economic and social progress so as to achieve harmony between man and nature and between man and society. The 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development should be implemented to realize balanced development across the world.
A Chinese adage reads, “Victory is ensured when people pool their strength; success is secured when people put their heads together.” As long as we keep to the goal of building a community of shared future for mankind and work hand in hand to fulfill our responsibilities and overcome difficulties, we will be able to create a better world and deliver better lives for our peoples.
Ladies and Gentlemen,
Dear Friends,
China has become the world’s second largest economy thanks to 38 years of reform and opening-up. A right path leads to a bright future. China has come this far because the Chinese people have, under the leadership of the Communist Party of China, blazed a development path that suits China’s actual conditions.
This is a path based on China’s realities. China has in the past years succeeded in embarking on a development path that suits itself by drawing on both the wisdom of its civilization and the practices of other countries in both East and West. In exploring this path, China refuses to stay insensitive to the changing times or to blindly follow in others’ footsteps. All roads lead to Rome. No country should view its own development path as the only viable one, still less should it impose its own development path on others.
This is a path that puts people’s interests first. China follows a people-oriented development philosophy and is committed to bettering the lives of its people. Development is of the people, by the people and for the people. China pursues the goal of common prosperity. We have taken major steps to alleviate poverty and lifted over 700 million people out of poverty, and good progress is being made in our efforts to finish building a society of initial prosperity in all respects.
This is a path of pursuing reform and innovation. China has tackled difficulties and met challenges on its way forward through reform. China has demonstrated its courage to take on difficult issues, navigate treacherous rapids and remove institutional hurdles standing in the way of development. These efforts have enabled us to unleash productivity and social vitality. Building on progress of 30-odd years of reform, we have introduced more than 1,200 reform measures over the past four years, injecting powerful impetus into China’s development.
This is a path of pursuing common development through opening-up. China is committed to a fundamental policy of opening-up and pursues a win-win opening-up strategy. China’s development is both domestic and external oriented; while developing itself, China also shares more of its development outcomes with other countries and peoples.
China’s outstanding development achievements and the vastly improved living standards of the Chinese people are a blessing to both China and the world. Such achievements in development over the past decades owe themselves to the hard work and perseverance of the Chinese people, a quality that has defined the Chinese nation for several thousand years. We Chinese know only too well that there is no such thing as a free lunch in the world. For a big country with over 1.3 billion people, development can be achieved only with the dedication and tireless efforts of its own people. We cannot expect others to deliver development to China, and no one is in a position to do so. When assessing China’s development, one should not only see what benefits the Chinese people have gained, but also how much hard effort they have put in, not just what achievements China has made, but also what contribution China has made to the world. Then one will reach a balanced conclusion about China’s development.
Between 1950 and 2016, despite its modest level of development and living standard, China provided more than 400 billion yuan of foreign assistance, undertook over 5,000 foreign assistance projects, including nearly 3,000 complete projects, and held over 11,000 training workshops in China for over 260,000 personnel from other developing countries. Since it launched reform and opening-up, China has attracted over $1.7 trillion of foreign investment and made over $1.2 trillion of direct outbound investment, making huge contribution to global economic development. In the years following the outbreak of the international financial crisis, China contributed to over 30 percent of global growth every year on average. All these figures are among the highest in the world.
The figures speak for themselves. China’s development is an opportunity for the world; China has not only benefited from economic globalization but also contributed to it. Rapid growth in China has been a sustained, powerful engine for global economic stability and expansion. The inter-connected development of China and a large number of other countries has made the world economy more balanced. China’s remarkable achievement in poverty reduction has contributed to more inclusive global growth. And China’s continuous progress in reform and opening-up has lent much momentum to an open world economy.
We Chinese know only too well what it takes to achieve prosperity, so we applaud the achievements made by others and wish them a better future. We are not jealous of others’ success; and we will not complain about others who have benefited so much from the great opportunities presented by China’s development. We will open our arms to the people of other countries and welcome them aboard the express train of China’s development.
Ladies and Gentlemen,
Dear Friends,
I know you are all closely following China’s economic development, and let me give you an update on the state of China’s economy. China’s economy has entered what we call a new normal, in which major changes are taking place in terms of growth rate, development model, economic structure and drivers of growth. But the economic fundamentals sustaining sound development remain unchanged.
Despite a sluggish global economy, China’s economy is expected to grow by 6.7 percent in 2016, still one of the highest in the world. China’s economy is far bigger in size than in the past, and it now generates more output than it did with double-digit growth in the past. Household consumption and the services sector have become the main drivers of growth. In the first three quarters of 2016, added value of the tertiary industry took up 52.8 percent of the GDP and domestic consumption contributed to 71 percent of economic growth. Household income and employment have steadily risen, while per unit GDP energy consumption continues to drop. Our efforts to pursue green development are paying off.
The Chinese economy faces downward pressure and many difficulties, including acute mismatch between excess capacity and an upgrading demand structure, lack of internal driving force for growth, accumulation of financial risks, and growing challenges in certain regions. We see these as temporary hardships that occur on the way forward. And the measures we have taken to address these problems are producing good results. We are firm in our resolve to forge ahead. China is the world’s largest developing country with over 1.3 billion people, and their living standards are not yet high. But this reality also means China has enormous potential and space for development. Guided by the vision of innovative, coordinated, green, open and shared development, we will adapt to the new normal, stay ahead of the curve, and make coordinated efforts to maintain steady growth, accelerate reform, adjust economic structure, improve people’s living standards and fend off risks. With these efforts, we aim to achieve medium-high rate of growth and upgrade the economy to higher end of the value chain.
— China will strive to enhance the performance of economic growth. We will pursue supply-side structural reform as the general goal, shift the growth model and upgrade the economic structure. We will continue to cut overcapacity, reduce inventory, deleverage financing, reduce cost and strengthen weak links. We will foster new drivers of growth, develop an advanced manufacturing sector and upgrade the real economy. We will implement the Internet Plus action plan to boost effective demand and better meet the individualized and diverse needs of consumers. And we will do more to protect the ecosystem.
— China will boost market vitality to add new impetus to growth. We will intensify reform efforts in priority areas and key links and enable the market to play a decisive role in resources allocation. Innovation will continue to feature prominently on our growth agenda. In pursuing the strategy of innovation-driven development, we will bolster the strategic emerging industries, apply new technologies and foster new business models to upgrade traditional industries; and we will boost new drivers of growth and revitalize traditional ones.
— China will foster an enabling and orderly environment for investment. We will expand market access for foreign investors, build high-standard pilot free trade zones, strengthen protection of property rights, and level the playing field to make China’s market more transparent and better regulated. In the coming five years, China is expected to import $8 trillion of goods, attract $600 billion of foreign investment and make $750 billion of outbound investment. Chinese tourists will make 700 million overseas visits. All this will create a bigger market, more capital, more products and more business opportunities for other countries. China’s development will continue to offer opportunities to business communities in other countries. China will keep its door wide open and not close it. An open door allows both other countries to access the Chinese market and China itself to integrate with the world. And we hope that other countries will also keep their door open to Chinese investors and keep the playing field level for us.
— China will vigorously foster an external environment of opening-up for common development. We will advance the building of the Free Trade Area of the Asia Pacific and negotiations of the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership to form a global network of free trade arrangements. China stands for concluding open, transparent and win-win regional free trade arrangements and opposes forming exclusive groups that are fragmented in nature. China has no intention to boost its trade competitiveness by devaluing the RMB, still less will it launch a currency war.
Over three years ago, I put forward the “Belt and Road” initiative. Since then, over 100 countries and international organizations have given warm responses and support to the initiative. More than 40 countries and international organizations have signed cooperation agreements with China, and our circle of friends along the “Belt and Road” is growing bigger. Chinese companies have made over $50 billion of investment and launched a number of major projects in the countries along the routes, spurring the economic development of these countries and creating many local jobs. The “Belt and Road” initiative originated in China, but it has delivered benefits well beyond its borders.
In May this year, China will host in Beijing the Belt and Road Forum for International Cooperation, which aims to discuss ways to boost cooperation, build cooperation platforms and share cooperation outcomes. The forum will also explore ways to address problems facing global and regional economy, create fresh energy for pursuing inter-connected development and make the “Belt and Road” initiative deliver greater benefits to people of countries involved.
Ladies and Gentlemen,
Dear Friends,
World history shows that the road of human civilization has never been a smooth one, and that mankind has made progress by surmounting difficulties. No difficulty, however daunting, will stop mankind from advancing. When encountering difficulties, we should not complain about ourselves, blame others, lose confidence or run away from responsibilities. We should join hands and rise to the challenge. History is created by the brave. Let us boost confidence, take actions and march arm-in-arm toward a bright future.
Thank you!
BANNON HAMMERED CHINA IN HOKKAIDO
Why, do you think?
The latest revolutions of the pivots through Asia.
The Sino Japanese Wars, WWII, the Nixon Shock, long forgotten. What Boxer Rebellion, not about Americans!
Taiping, unrecalled.
He knows he can feed Americans any blinkered shit.
The Japanese will butter his bread.
The latest revolutions of the pivots through Asia.
The Sino Japanese Wars, WWII, the Nixon Shock, long forgotten. What Boxer Rebellion, not about Americans!
Taiping, unrecalled.
He knows he can feed Americans any blinkered shit.
The Japanese will butter his bread.
ZUCKERBERG ASKS GOVERNMENTS TO HELP CONTROL INTERNET CONTENT
NOBODY IS AT HOME
MARKET CAPITALISM HAS MOSTLY GOTTEN RID OF GOVERNMENTS
THE INTERNET IS FREE EXPRESSION FREE PRESS FREE SPEECH.
REMEDIES ARE IN CRIME OR TORT, WHERE TORT EXISTS, AND CRIMES ARE STILL PROSECUTED.
FEW PLACES DO EITHER WELL ANYMORE.
MARKET CAPITALISM HAS MOSTLY GOTTEN RID OF GOVERNMENTS
THE INTERNET IS FREE EXPRESSION FREE PRESS FREE SPEECH.
REMEDIES ARE IN CRIME OR TORT, WHERE TORT EXISTS, AND CRIMES ARE STILL PROSECUTED.
FEW PLACES DO EITHER WELL ANYMORE.
RADICAL REPUBLICAN RECONSTUCTION RANGE ROUNDUP OF FREED NEGROES
Wednesday, January 24, 2018
RE IMMIGRATION HISTORY DK POST
"...For the new party, the spread of slavery, rather than the growth of immigration, was the main threat to free laborers in the North...." DK
The Republican Party was certainly founded on white Northern racism, and the issue of slavery alone.
Certainly Northern white racist fear mongering was what swept Lincoln into office and into the Civil War.
But this was always merely false political fear mongering, and everyone except the electorate, especially Lincoln, well knew it.
Douglas pointed it out clearly in the debates, but the Northern whites still ended up eventually electing Lincoln.
Here is DK, on Tocqueville, on Northern white racism prior to the time of the Civil War by decades:
DK ON TOCQUEVILLE NORTHERN WHITE RACISM CAUSE OF CIVIL WAR
' "...race prejudice seems stronger in those states that have abolished slavery than in those where it still exists, and nowhere is it more intolerant than in states where slavery was never known."(AT) Even in the northern states where black citizens theoretically enjoyed equal rights, he reported, they were too afraid to assert them. Those states that had abolished slavery had done so not to help the black man, but to help the white, both by leaving free labor without the competition of slaves and by eliminating the corrupting influence of owning slaves upon the whites.' DK, 2016
I will just add a footnote here, to this prior post passage reprinted above.
Those Northern states that had abolished slavery had done so not only not to help the black man, and to help the white, and not only by leaving free white labor without slave competition, and not only by eliminating the corrupting influence of owning slaves upon whites, but, much more importantly, they did not want negroes around, free or slave, in the North or anywhere else in America.
That is really what Tocqueville had meant in 1830, in the passage DK quoted.
The Northern cause in the Civil War was supposed, according to the electorate, to result in the transportation, not the immediate, or the gradual, assimilation of negroes, slave or free.
They got screwed in every way. The only good, temporary, thing, for them, was that the Radical Republican Party kept the freed negroes in puppet control of only the South, not the North.
I will just add a footnote here, to this prior post passage reprinted above.
Those Northern states that had abolished slavery had done so not only not to help the black man, and to help the white, and not only by leaving free white labor without slave competition, and not only by eliminating the corrupting influence of owning slaves upon whites, but, much more importantly, they did not want negroes around, free or slave, in the North or anywhere else in America.
That is really what Tocqueville had meant in 1830, in the passage DK quoted.
The Northern cause in the Civil War was supposed, according to the electorate, to result in the transportation, not the immediate, or the gradual, assimilation of negroes, slave or free.
They got screwed in every way. The only good, temporary, thing, for them, was that the Radical Republican Party kept the freed negroes in puppet control of only the South, not the North.
STEVE ALLEN AND THE COWBOYS
What a dude.
Andy Griffith, dumb ass cowboy.
Elvis.......too.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1SmoHU4_eY8
Andy Griffith, dumb ass cowboy.
Elvis.......too.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1SmoHU4_eY8
THEY LIKE THIS ONE TOO
Saturday, January 13, 2018
I AM SURE SOME OF YOU KNOW MANY NICE RUSSIAN IMMIGRANTS HERE
America has a sweet tradition of welcoming all hard working and good hearted immigrants of whatever color or religion here no matter how crowded and confusing it might eventually get.
Americans should be aware, however, that some of these wonderful people might have family connections, back in their mother country, which might place them in an awkward position if certain circumstances arose over here.
Russians, in particular, might, some day, be subject to pressure from the mother country to do things or to get things here.
They might be required to do this or that, or face the prospect of having their Russian relative sent to Siberia, the traditional punishment, over there, for malfeasance or incompetence.
Sunday, August 29, 2010
RE COMPLEX FEDERAL AND MANIFOLD STATES' REGULATIONS
Some reasons why America needs reform can be seen in certain technical areas of the law, where federal laws, and individual states' laws, operate on similar topics, with quite complicated, confusing, involved, and uncertain outcomes and results.
One example is environmental laws. Environmental contamination is a hot current topic.
The current Florida Bar Journal has an article dealing with this topic, and with the creation of duties.
(Re private causes of action, if, say, California had similar legislation, might one infer that perhaps the Skipper of 'The Minnow', the pleasure boat on Gilligan's Island, would have had a cause of action, in California, say, for an oil spill off the coast there, resulting in a 'loss of view' for The Minnow's clientele, absent a property right, and absent a showing of negligence? It's complicated, as one might imagine.)
One example is environmental laws. Environmental contamination is a hot current topic.
The current Florida Bar Journal has an article dealing with this topic, and with the creation of duties.
(Re private causes of action, if, say, California had similar legislation, might one infer that perhaps the Skipper of 'The Minnow', the pleasure boat on Gilligan's Island, would have had a cause of action, in California, say, for an oil spill off the coast there, resulting in a 'loss of view' for The Minnow's clientele, absent a property right, and absent a showing of negligence? It's complicated, as one might imagine.)
Tuesday, August 10, 2010
Sir Michael Howard after 9 11
Quoted in Pravda, no less. The last sentence is really my favorite:
But to use, or rather to misuse the term 'war' is not simply a matter of legality, or pedantic semantics. It has deeper and more dangerous consequences. To declare that one is 'at war' is immediately to create a war psychosis that may be totally counter-productive for the objective that we seek. It will arouse an immediate expectation, and demand, for spectacular military action against some easily identifiable adversary, preferably a hostile state; action leading to decisive results.
"The use of force is no longer seen as a last resort, to be avoided if humanly possible, but as the first, and the sooner it is used the better. The press demands immediate stories of derring-do, filling their pages with pictures of weapons, ingenious graphics, and contributions from service officers long, and probably deservedly, retired. Any suggestion that the best strategy is not to use military force at all, but more subtle if less heroic means of destroying the adversary are dismissed as 'appeasement' by ministers whose knowledge of history is about on a par with their skill at political management.
"Figures on the Right, seeing themselves cheated of what the Germans used to call a frischer, frцhlicher Krieg, a short, jolly war in Afghanistan, demand one against a more satisfying adversary, Iraq; which is rather like the drunk who lost his watch in a dark alley but looked for it under a lamp post because there was more light there. As for their counterparts on the Left, the very word 'war' brings them out on the streets to protest as a matter of principle. The qualities needed in a serious campaign against terrorists -- secrecy, intelligence, political sagacity, quiet ruthlessness, covert actions that remain covert, above all infinite patience -- all these are forgotten or overriden in a media-stoked frenzy for immediate results, and nagging complaints if they do not get them.
But to use, or rather to misuse the term 'war' is not simply a matter of legality, or pedantic semantics. It has deeper and more dangerous consequences. To declare that one is 'at war' is immediately to create a war psychosis that may be totally counter-productive for the objective that we seek. It will arouse an immediate expectation, and demand, for spectacular military action against some easily identifiable adversary, preferably a hostile state; action leading to decisive results.
"The use of force is no longer seen as a last resort, to be avoided if humanly possible, but as the first, and the sooner it is used the better. The press demands immediate stories of derring-do, filling their pages with pictures of weapons, ingenious graphics, and contributions from service officers long, and probably deservedly, retired. Any suggestion that the best strategy is not to use military force at all, but more subtle if less heroic means of destroying the adversary are dismissed as 'appeasement' by ministers whose knowledge of history is about on a par with their skill at political management.
"Figures on the Right, seeing themselves cheated of what the Germans used to call a frischer, frцhlicher Krieg, a short, jolly war in Afghanistan, demand one against a more satisfying adversary, Iraq; which is rather like the drunk who lost his watch in a dark alley but looked for it under a lamp post because there was more light there. As for their counterparts on the Left, the very word 'war' brings them out on the streets to protest as a matter of principle. The qualities needed in a serious campaign against terrorists -- secrecy, intelligence, political sagacity, quiet ruthlessness, covert actions that remain covert, above all infinite patience -- all these are forgotten or overriden in a media-stoked frenzy for immediate results, and nagging complaints if they do not get them.
INTERESTINGLY RYLANCE WAS A TREKKIE OF SORTS
Tuesday, August 13, 2013
WESTERN MARKET CAPITALIST CULTURAL SOCIAL CONVERGENCE
I am going to begin to describe various institutions, phenomena, and events, which have accelerated in recent decades for various different reasons.
We have long seen at times, in civilization, tendencies to cross fields of endeavor, so to speak.
It has happened in the arts, in sciences and arts, in politics, for centuries, and millennia, really.
Ideas in one field are adopted, modified, imitated, for other media, another social context, other political or commercial or representational purposes, whatever.
What is new, it seems to me, is the accelerating tendency both to integrate new, and also to disintegrate older, in the process, social and personal experiences, histories, products, interrelationships, ideologies and even physical environments of life, really, based primarily and initially on market capitalistic initiatives.
It represents an unprecedented conjunction of private product commercial marketing and development, ubiquitous government deregulation, public and private social and commercial networking innovations, entertainment initiatives and innovations feeding on these tendencies and on the private media's technical and transnational transformations, and on the resulting willingness of all to promote and purvey anything which is saleable in the media and product marketplace, regardless of quality content or social conscience or consequences.
Now there are whole groups of people who identify with, say, The American Girl, or with the Twilight Series world. And with other converged marketing vehicles, amalgams of motion pictures, products, books, and games, household interiors and apparel, designer houses, even, etc.
In my generation, back 4 decades ago, one perhaps saw the beginnings of it, as Obst points out in passing, with the Star Trek series, and trekkies.
We have long seen at times, in civilization, tendencies to cross fields of endeavor, so to speak.
It has happened in the arts, in sciences and arts, in politics, for centuries, and millennia, really.
Ideas in one field are adopted, modified, imitated, for other media, another social context, other political or commercial or representational purposes, whatever.
What is new, it seems to me, is the accelerating tendency both to integrate new, and also to disintegrate older, in the process, social and personal experiences, histories, products, interrelationships, ideologies and even physical environments of life, really, based primarily and initially on market capitalistic initiatives.
It represents an unprecedented conjunction of private product commercial marketing and development, ubiquitous government deregulation, public and private social and commercial networking innovations, entertainment initiatives and innovations feeding on these tendencies and on the private media's technical and transnational transformations, and on the resulting willingness of all to promote and purvey anything which is saleable in the media and product marketplace, regardless of quality content or social conscience or consequences.
Now there are whole groups of people who identify with, say, The American Girl, or with the Twilight Series world. And with other converged marketing vehicles, amalgams of motion pictures, products, books, and games, household interiors and apparel, designer houses, even, etc.
In my generation, back 4 decades ago, one perhaps saw the beginnings of it, as Obst points out in passing, with the Star Trek series, and trekkies.
Friday, March 29, 2019
DK AND MYSELF RAILING AGAINST THE PRIGOCRACY OF COLOR
Prigier than thou.
BLOWS AGAINST PRIGS OF COLOR
BLOWS AGAINST PIGS OF COLOR
I am pink....
Monday, August 13, 2018
WHITES WILL BE THE MINORITY JEWS IN THE FUTURE GLOBAL ELITE MAJORITY OF COLOR
One can already see this trend developing, here most of all, among disaffected blacks and liberals, who see white males quintessentially as the guilty and marked inheritors of a white supremacist centuries-long imperialist tradition of oppression of people of color.
Americans mostly think that this is mainly the view only of the citizen descendants of freed negroes here!
American liberals have been trained to think that their world will continue, and improve, progress, to higher ground, indefinitely:
"...Liberal Boomers naturally assumed that their legacy--their parents' and grandparents' achievements--would continue indefinitely...." DK
Nothing could be farther from the truth. All people of color, all 7 or so Billion of them, almost the whole planet, now share more or less the same view, based on how the colonial period has been interpreted here, on that colonial heritage itself good or bad, and on how it has been taught by liberals since the 19th Century, especially here, but widely disseminated everywhere, as one of relentless oppression and enslavement of inferior colored races.
In the future, whites will become proverbial Tar Babies, white pariahs among global racial majorities and elites, all are of one nonwhite color or another! We are already seeing this play out, on a small scale, in places like South Africa and Zimbabwe.
Even someone like Professor Kaiser has bemoaned this unfortunate tendency, within a larger discussion of the role of race in American history, to marginalize white males among the liberal media, academia, and intelligentsia. Here are passages from three of his posts, 2016, 2017:
"...This morning's print edition of the New York Times led with an article by Nicholas Confessore arguing that the Trump campaign is fueled by the anger of white Americans who fear losing their preeminent place in American society to minorities and immigrants. Like so many pieces in the mainstream media nowadays, it repeatedly stresses that white people will no longer be a majority in America in a few decades--and bizarrely implies that tha twill solve all our problems. This reflects the kind of zero-sum thinking that has come to dominate discussion on the left as well as the right: history is simply a struggle among races (and genders, and those of different sexual orientations), and straight white males, who have caused most of the oppression and trouble in the world, are, thank heaven, losing their place of pride. At times during the article Confessore and the "authorities" he quotes seem to be saying that Trump voters are angry that they are losing power and influence, and that they are right--they will lose out to other groups--but that's a good thing. How it could escape anyone that this is bound to drive more and more of them into the Trump camp is beyond me. But they don't care. Decades of this cant, especially in universities, have persuaded our educated elite that straight white males are the problem and that anything that works against them must ultimately be good.
"To this I would reply, first, that straight white males aren't the problem--our new economic system is. It benefits a tiny group at the top at the expense of everyone else. Neither presidential candidate, sadly, seems likely to do much about that. But secondly, I would suggest, the United States and its principles of equal rights and equal opportunity cannot survive if we are taught to identify with our group--or with oppressed groups only. We will stand or fall together. That eternal truth seems just as lost on those who cannot get beyond the trope of "systemic racism" as it is on the supporters of Donald Trump...." DK
"...Belonging as I do to the left side of American politics, I am going to focus on what my own side has done to help create this mess. It is not merely that Hillary Clinton specifically rejected Bernie Sanders's class-based appeal during the primaries, arguing that decreasing income inequality wouldn't do much about racism, sexism and homophobia. She is also explicitly running as the candidate of women, minorities, and immigrants, and raising the rhetorical ante this week by labeling Trump as the candidate of racist white Americans. The whole emphasis on racial disparities in the economy, education, and the criminal justice system that began half a century ago has promoted the idea of our economy as a zero-sum game in which white males have too much and everyone else has too little. The increasingly popular concept of "white male privilege" contributes to the same view. In my opinion, this view, which is mainstream in the Democratic party and hegemonic in academia, has done a great deal to bring about the rise of Donald Trump. It has convinced millions of Americans--white, black, and Hispanic--that most poor people are minorities and that most federal programs only help them--two facts that are clearly and demonstrably false. Our problems, which are not racial in origin in my opinion, are invariably interpreted through a racial lens. The effect of this in many cases is obscure both the scope and the depth of the problems we face, and to make it much harder to address them seriously. And to illustrate this I am going to take one of the problems most under discussion: the issue of mass incarceration...." DK
"...The new orthodoxy holds that any attempt to see ourselves as equal citizens in a civic realm is at bottom a fiction designed to preserve the hegemony of white males. It argues that every one of us is defined by our membership in either a dominant group (straight white males), or an oppressed or "marginalized" one (including all white women, all gays, and all nonwhites.) Not only that, but everyone of us is morally and emotionally linked to the perceived historical role of those groups. Every straight white male, bears the guilt for the oppression of all other groups, whatever his personal history may be, and every woman and every nonwhite actively suffers from the scars of oppression. And such oppression is expressed not only, and not merely, through specific, identifiable disadvantages in wealth, income, and opportunity, but through language and culture...." DK
"...1. The new ideology has sprouted in universities because they are safe spaces whose white male administrators adopted diversity and inclusion as their mission 20-30 years ago. That mission has become more important than any purely intellectual function, certainly in the humanities and social sciences. University administrations spend a great deal of time worrying about their facilities (which will affect their U.S. News ranking), their diversity, and the happiness of their minority students. They spent almost no time trying to develop the best humanities curriculum, and they have given up preserving the heritage of western civilization as a major goal.
2. The new ideology has, as I have said, become very powerful in the mainstream media, which accepts the idea, in practice if not in theory, that the problems of "marginalized" groups are more important than anyone else's. But it has obviously alienated more than 100 million Americans who do not live on the East and West Coasts (and a non-trivial number of those who do.) After 30 years of political correctness in the universities, we have a self-identified sexual harasser as President and a very traditional white southerner as Attorney General. Hillary Rodham Clinton in her campaign took pains to make clear that she took the concerns of marginalized groups more seriously than anyone else's. Quite a few Democratic consultants and commentators look forward eagerly to the day when whites will constitute a minority of the electorate. The reaction against all of this has been devastating and it was inevitable.
3. The constant emphasis on the thoughts and feelings of "maringalized" groups--again, everyone but straight white males--is, among other things, a denial of any common value system that unites us all. When I appeared on radioopensource.org a couple of weeks ago, I was immediately followed by a female historian named Arianne Chernok. As you can here, she peremptorily dismissed everything I had to say about Strauss, Howe, and the crisis that the US is obviously going through on the grounds that "there were no women" in the story I had told. This was, to begin with, false: Hillary Clinton had not only come up in my conversation with host Chris Lydon, but he had played a clip from her famous 1969 commencement speech. Professor Chernok was repeating the most common claim of postmodernist historians: that traditional "narratives" of history left out women and nonwhites because they focused on political leaders, who were (in the Atlantic world, anyway) white men. But whether or not that is true, it remains true that we are ALL political beings who live subject to laws and must inevitably be affected by the great political changes that occur every eighty years. Yes, some will in some ways be affected differently than others, but all of us will be affected in the same way by some of the changes that took place. We do share a common experience that is very important to us all...." DK
I am just drawing out the obvious implications, globally, going forward. Of course he would like to see, among other things, a return to a vital center, a thing I see as both impossible and undesirable; and we do not share a S & H enthusiasm.
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