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An old American was reprocessing his old studies of Brezhnev-Soviet-Military thinking and brought back interesting points of discussion that directly relate to Syria.
The old Soviets had a classification for different types of wars:
“Many of these—such as the categorization of wars in ideological terms (including wars between imperialism and socialism, civil wars between the bourgeoisie and the proletariat, wars between bourgeois states, national liberation wars)—now appear quaint and irrelevant for understanding today’s (and perhaps even yesterday’s) world.”
There was one other: wars between the people and a regime of extreme reaction
“What they understood about these conflicts between a dictatorial regime and its opponents was that they were not conflicts between two parties, but among three”
“In wars between the people and a regime of extreme reaction…both communists and non-communists united to fight the dictatorship, with each group hoping later to establish its preferred form of government (dictatorship of the proletariat or republican democracy).
In these conflicts, once the dictator was overthrown, the Soviets knew they eventually had the upper hand because their supported group had outside support, whereas the moderates would be (abandoned by the United States who had been propping up the dictator) forced to fend for themselves. With all factors being equal, the extra force could make a minority within the initial revolt, grab power after all was done.
Back then, it was America supporting the regimes of extreme reaction; the Soviets were seen the revolutionaries. Today it is Russia and Iran, who support these dictatorial regimes, and moderates and a few islamists who are those engaged in making change.
The lesson taught was that once Assad falls, without America’s strong continued support of the moderates, the otherwise strong support of Saudi’s Sunnis behind the Islamists will tip the balance to their favor. For as in the past, when moderates took on an American supported regime of extreme reaction, and the communists joined in the fight, it became viewed as part of the bipolar tug of war between the Communists and Capitalistic USA. Therefore even though the moderates usually far outnumbered the splinter cells of Communists, because the ending conflict was deemed a Soviet victory over the US, the communists had tremendous clout and enough support to take over power.
This certainly makes Syria clear. In their battle against Assad, the Islamists supported by the Radical Sunni movements are few in number compared to the moderates who want a democratic republic after Assad leaves.
If Assad gets pushed out, the Islamists because of their unlimited funding and support can push themselves into power quickly, meanwhile the moderates sit around and try to figure out their next step. In that vacuum the organized faction always wins. The US then as now, could prevent this from happening by throwing its weight behind the moderates after the dictator is removed by being a counterbalancing force.
Our success in Western Europe after the Second World War by doing just that, never translated itself afterwards over to East Asia, Africa, or Central America. Instead of immediately inserting ourselves as a civilian presence when moderates and radicals toppled a regime, we sat on our hands, and only later would then send military hardware in our feeble attempt to contain the outbreak our own inaction created.
The lesson for the US is that we really need to not focus so much first on the war itself and then immediately extricate ourselves after the conflict when we are needed most, but we actually we need to use our debacle in Iraq as a self-taught lesson to create a civilian team we can move in at a moment’s notice with all the backing and assistance exhibited by the Marshall Plan, to quickly mend broken services, return to normalcy, and stifle the unrest that allows civil wars to fester and continue among both factions of winners long after the regime of extreme reaction is overthrown.
We need to focus on reacting immediately with ways to get a nation quickly back on its own feet as soon as the Dictator is disposed.
Our opponents of 40 years ago figured this out. If we can learn this, that may be the most valuable legacy the Brezhnev era can ever pass on to us.
Thanks to a link from Transparent Christina, these just popped up here… Here are questions for Mark Murphy, that in the absence of having a newspaper in this state will be asked right here…. As many of you who want to file an FOIA with Mark, please do.
(Private Note to Mr. Sweeney: The profitability of the News Journal would significantly increase if they would just come here and copy and paste, then print the DOE’s or Jack’s rebuttals… You’d sell a lot more newspapers…)
Here are Mark’s questions….
1) How many of your staffers have worked for the Rodel Foundation? Who are they, and why did you hire them?
2) What role did these staffers and Rodel have on the formulation of the states RTTT and Charter School mandates?
3) How much classroom teaching experience do the principal authors of the Charter School working group have, individually, and as a group?
4) Why are these individuals qualified to make decisions about education policy?
5) Were you, or anyone who works within the Department of Education in contact with any representative or lobbyist representing Pearson Education, McKinsey and Company, McGraw-Hill, or InBloom before or during the writing of the RTTT and Charter School mandates?
6) What is the Broad Foundation? What is your connection to the Broad Foundation? What education policies does the Broad Foundation support? How do these policies support public education? How do these policies support private education? What was the role of the Broad Foundation in the creation of the RTTT mandates? How many employees on Delawares payroll were trained specifically by the Broad Foundation?
7) How many individuals associated with the Broad Foundation helped author the report the two controversial education bills before the General Assembly this session, HB 165 and SB 65?, “
8) Do you know David Coleman? Have you ever had any conversations with David Coleman? Has anyone on your staff had any conversations with David Coleman? Did anyone within the Department of Education have any connection to any of the authors of the Common Core Standards? Did anyone in your Department have any conversations with any of the authors of the Common Core Standards as they were being written?
9) Have you ever had any conversations with representatives or lobbyists who represent the Walton Family Foundation? Has anyone on your staff had any conversations with the Walton Family Foundation or lobbyists representing the Walton Family Foundation? If so, what was the substance of those conversations?
10) Do you know Michelle Rhee? If so, could you describe your relationship with Michelle Rhee? Have you, or anyone working within the Department of Education, had any conversations with Students First, Rhee’s advocacy group, about the dispersal foundation funds for candidates in local and state school board elections uniting-against-common-core-and-race-to-the-top/
If you could be asked these in tomorrows Committee hearing and reply on the record, that would be sufficient…
Thank you.
Did you read the News Journal in depth article about how much damage the Sequester is going to cause Delaware? About how people now, because of a vengeful and traitorous party has gummed up Congress on purpose, that now American servicemen are going to be taking a 20% pay cut?
Are you one? And if not, living here in Delaware, do you know someone who is in the National Guard? The Air Force? Will they stop coming into your business now, in order to make sure they can still keep their house?
How much sales will you lose, 1%? 2%? 5%? 10%? 25%? 50%? 75%? 95%? Will you also go broke for the same reason? Because of a vengeful traitorous party that gummed up Congress on purpose, that now, American servicemen are going to be taking a 20% pay cut?
Everyone knows the deal.
“You didn’t vote for Romney; now we are going to f*ck you up….”
Billionaires are sooooooooooooopoooooooooooo much more important than you………
Btw, you can register yourself tomorrow as a Democrat or Independent here…..
Today in order to capitalize upon the fact that the fourth quarter economy sank (even though it was because of the downward pressure due to the threat of sequestration forced upon Congress by the Tea Party), they wheeled out Arthur Laughter Laffer to make a dire predictions….
He is on their short list of who-to-call-when-we(FOX News)-NEED-a-dire-prediction…..
Because….. He is well known for making “dire predictions”..
“Economist Arthur Laffer told his clients on July 26, 1982, that (Ronald Reagan’s) Tax Equity and Fiscal Responsibility Act, which raised taxes by about one percent of GDP, “will stifle economic recovery,” “retard economic growth,” and undercut “the economy’s ability to enter into a period of expansion.” On August 20, 1982, he told his clients that TEFRA, Tax Equity and Fiscal Responsibility Act, “will tend to lengthen and deepen the recession.”
Instead, ….. No one could have been more wrong…
On August 20, 1993, Laffer told his clients, “Clinton’s tax bill will do about as much damage to the U.S. economy as could feasibly be done in the current political environment.” He said that interest rates would rise and the stock market would fall.
Once again, it would be hard to find a forecast that was more completely wrong….
And now! Today,… well, there he goes again….
“You have the whole output of the economy shrinking. Not just expanding more slowly, it`s absolutely shrinking,” (lol, see by how little, below)… Laffer told Fox News’ Eric Bolling…
“That’s catastrophic,” the former adviser to President Ronald Reagan added. (Did anyone else catch the stupendous irony of that? Oh, Wow. You can’t make stuff like that up).
“You can explain some of that by sequestration, and defense spending was down lot and all that. But you still have a rotten economy. And it’s still too bad. We know how to fix it, by the way, a low rate flat tax, spending restraint, sound money, free trade.” (See George Bush’s Economic Record.) Laffer was responding to reports Wednesday that the U.S. economy contracted 0.1 percent in the last quarter of 2012…
Yes. Laffer was responding to reports Wednesday that the U.S. economy contracted 0.1 percent in the last quarter of 2012. Quote: “You have the whole output of the economy shrinking. Not just expanding more slowly, it`s absolutely shrinking,”
Recalling his years as one of Reagan’s top economic advisers, Laffer said Reagan actually cut the highest tax rates (From 70%-50%; they are 35% now) He said “we made a mistake” by phasing in the cuts, which he said caused the 1981-82 recession. But he said the economy took off in 1983* when the cuts (and 1%GDP tax increase) went into full effect. *
“This place just went like a rocket ship,” he said. “I think we had 7.5 percent growth in 1983 and 5.5 growth in 1984, just this boom that lasted for years and years.”* (*lol)
(Conversational excerpts provided by Newsmax)
Originally published on the Office of Management and Budget blog and picked up here off the Treasury Blog… the magic number of deficit reduced is $737 billion.
Put into perspective.
This is compared to the $4 Trillion Grand deal that was agreed to by everyone back in August 2011, then scuttled by Paul Ryan (Romney’s VP pick), who walked out of the agreement taking the Tea Party Republicans with him… The agreement was there, it was right there on the table; Obama had signed on. Democrats in the Senate had signed on. Republicans in the Senate had signed on. Democrats in the House had signed on. And the Republicans in the House had signed on… But then, to everyone’s surprise! Paul Ryan, said no, it raised taxes, so he and his Tea Party couldn’t vote on it… The deal was scuttled. And we got sequestration, a new debt ceiling, and the expiration of the Bush Tax Cuts all at once… . .
Last Monday, Paul Ryan voted to raise taxes. So what was the Big Deal?
This table shows the relief from last years policy. This year, we will cut the proposed deficit by 4 billion. That is in jeopardy, because the Hurricane Sandy relief which has been promised to be passed by the new House of Representatives sworn in yesterday, is already 60 billion over what was previously budgeted…. Next year we may get some of that back; this bill drops our deficit $42 billion.
The point I’m making is that this bill although a victory, actually saves very little…. Obama originally said we’d go with $1.6 Trillion in new revenue. $2.4 Trillion of cuts would be on top of that. Now, including both revenue and cuts, we have not even half of that. Over 12 years, we save $737 billion with $329 billion coming from the last three years of the second term of whomever gets elected after President Obama!
What we got …. was a deal. That says something. America should be grateful for small wonders. America also got time to debate the cuts. They would have happened immediately without debate had we done nothing. SURPRISE!!! 500,000 ARE UNEMPLOYED AS OF TODAY!! America got unemployment insurance extended. America got the wind credit tax extended, very necessary right now. America got higher taxes on the top half of the 1%.… As they scramble to bury their money into our economy, we could see job growth come out of it… And that is really what was important. That the 2$ Trillion sitting outside the economy, get taxed so it becomes now cheaper to invest in our nation’s infrastructure and not in the stock market…. That was the whole idea for high taxes. Force investment into the economy…. Those 400 people who own the top 1/10th of the top one percent of the wealth, now… have to do something with it.. or lose it…
But as for affecting the deficit, it could actually help if the economy takes off and 12 million new jobs open up as anticipated. Those new jobs will pay tax money too, more than making up what the incomes between $250,000 and $400,000 got to keep.
But Delaware’s Senator Tom Carper is correct here. This bill he voted no for, simply kicks the can down the road, where had it not been passed at all, the laws on the books would have begun to eat up the deficit like bacteria in a sewage tank… Like taking an antibiotic, which makes you initially get sick the first day, then you begin getting better almost immediately, this deal against which Carper voted “no” would have caused a recessionary blip, then pulled us into prosperity.
This flashing, daring, last minute grand compromise, as Carper rightfully states, is the equivalent to opting NOT TO TAKE THE ANTIBIOTIC BECAUSE IT MAKES YOU A LITTLE SICK THE FIRST DAY…..
Isn’t it a bit unconscionable for an administration (Democratic at that), to ask for raises for its staff, because they were effective especially at minimizing raises for everyone else? The surprising answer is … no.
Because yes! Cabinet secretaries under the law, should be getting a raise right now.
The answer also for those underneath, is that ALL state employees, based on their hard work and sacrifice over the past 4 years, now that money is again flowing into our treasury, should also get a raise as well.
Both groups deserve a raise. The money to pay for it should come from those who did well over the past four years,… Our own 1%.
Obviously someone has to be first. By the law specified in Delaware’s code, in order to have any raise for the next term of 4 years, the request for Governor Markell’s staff has to go in now, between the election and prior to the swearing in of the new legislature.
As for the AFSCME union’s rank and file, their request is handled through a different venue, the General Assembly, as those legislators take on the task and divvy up all the resources being spent in 2014.
So if there is any controversy, it can only be about timing… and the attempt to make a comparison of future earnings with the practices of the past. None of us do that in our own lives; we should not do that when messing around with the lives of other people….
How much do these raises cost us taxpayers?
Under the original proposal, as reported in the News Journal, here were the dollar amounts to be raised…. $12,775, $19,780, $9375, $2781, $2781, $2781. Effectively a grand total of…. $100,546.
Theoretically, if this money was spread between all of AFSCME’s employees, 4000 in number, it would amount to an extra $25 dollars per year… That would be an insult. Those workers deserve more.
Every leader or head manager needs to take care of his team; especially when they do well. Obviously the opposite does not fly. “Oh, I stole all your time away from your family, and used your intelligence, effort, creativity, to enable me to get the credit for running one of the best administrations ever, and now, I am going to take everything for myself and give you nothing back for all your effort.”
That statement does not fly in the face of the rank and file, nor should it fly among the top echelons of government.
Keep in mind, that salaries for these positions are set at the beginning of every four year term, specifically to last the duration of the whole term. None of us, who usually get yearly reviews, have our salary levels that well set into stone. Also keep in mind what the Minner years gave us, where we did not keep our cabinet position salaries competitive with those in the private sector, and, settled for the level of talent we paid for..
Salaries at the top are seen in light of investments. “If we, the state of Delaware, invest this much into you, Mr/Ms Secretary, what will be our return?” Smart people give better returns than dumb people. Smart people usually charge more… For example? Really good lawyers charge more than those getting a foot in the door; they do so for a reason.
So what about those on the bottom? How is this fair when they are required to stay at the same level, or as was the case recently, even being asked to work for less when the money became tight from lower revenues?
The answer is: those on the bottom deserve raises as well. And my answer to any questioning of the percentage often in double digits to those at the top, would be… that if you saved Delawarean taxpayers hundreds of millions, then perhaps you too, would be worthy of the same percentage… But most likely you didn’t make that much of a financial contribution to all of us paying your salary… Therefore, your salary increase which is expensive, needs to be proscribed by what we can afford.
For you see, $25 extra dollars a year doesn’t cut it. If 4000 people all got $1000 raises, that would cost an additional $4,000,000 over what we currently take in now. If you make that $2000, still very little, the cumulative total is now $8,000,000. Considering we were once considering an 8% cut of all government employees in times of hardship, then re-giving them that 8% in times of plenty, would be more than fair. Furthermore when you consider a 2% raise was called for and only 1% was given, that too should be tacked on, simply to be fair….
So if we gave $10,000 additional dollars to every one of the 4000 AFSCME employees, the gross cost would be….. $40,000,000. Considering what they have sacrificed, how much they have lost paying into their own pension plans, the level being re-invested into our infrastructure of people, should probably be around $100,000,000 a hundred million a year... After trimming waste and sunsetting programs no longer needed, the funds for this raise still unpaid for, should be made up in the forms of a millionaire’s tax… After all, if you prospered off the backs of those earning far less, then, pay-up time is more than fair.
The nice caveat of paying all these people more, is that instead of justifying the expense of say…. the Route 1/Interstate 95 interchange upgrade as improving productivity by moving goods and services faster, you just invested $100,000,000 right back into the economy… where… it will be taxed again on a) income, b) gross sales receipts, c) real estate and property taxes, d) capital gains and dividend taxes, e) and even though election year is long past and this topic with the loss of Romney’s big mouth is long forgotten, this $100,000,000 will create lots of new jobs at the grocery store, movie theaters, convenience stores care dealerships,etc….as regular government employed citizens all release some of that “pent-up demand.”
People are capital too.
Tim Geithner said today, that the Treasury runs out of money on December 31st. That day we cross the $16.4 trillion debt limit.
Extraordinary measures can be expended to provide a stopgap… The Federal Treasury can raise $200 billion as a stopgap which provides 2 months leeway…
We were here once before, and learned nothing.
This crises is caused by a holdout band of renegade Republicans who for better or worse are out to destroy the United States of America.
There is no other scenario.
Courtesy of New York Times
Here is the sight where you can fix the deficit yourself... Let me know how long it took and what you found to be your biggest surprise?
Indirect link:
http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2010/11/13/weekinreview/deficits-graphic.html?choices=012vn5qj
The number is staggering. $15 million to Newt Gingrich, $70 million to official Republican entities, and reportedly $65 million to dark shady political shell organizations. All, being thrown up against the current President, the man who won.
Rumors floated up that this was in support of Netanyahu and the side of Israel that invests in settlements. It appears that Romney’s fervant support of Netanyahu was the result of his ties with this man… Not long after their first $10 million meeting, Romney restated his support for one of Adelson’s top priorities — his fervent backing of Israel’s conservative government and his opposition to a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Romney’s first foreign trip after his meeting with Adelson included a late July visit to Israel, which included a Jerusalem fundraiser that Adelson famously attended.
However other fundraisers are now saying differently…
Adelson is reportedly to have said he planned to spend about $100 million or “as much as it takes” to defeat Obama and help Republicans in Congressional races. Adelson’s personal wealth has been pegged at $20.5 billion by Forbes, making him one of the world’s richest men and enabling him to open his checkbook wide without worrying much about his bottom line…..
During the election, Adelson told Politico that the Justice Department investigation, and the way he felt treated by prosecutors, was a primary motivation for his investment in Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney and other GOP candidates…
In dark money he shelled out:
40 million to Karl Rove’s Crossroads.
15 million to a grassroots foundation run by the Koch Brothers.
5 million to the US Chamber of Commerce.
6.5 million to the Republican Jewish Coalition. (close to 100% of its entire funding.
It was a disappointing election for Adelson. His nemasis whooped him bad.
In SuperPac money Adelson gave $5 million to Boehner, and $5 million to Cantor and his allies. Which is why, he was in Washington today, meeting with Congressional Republicans to devise methods to disrupt any new tax on his estate… The Sands.
The primary reason for the meeting, is he wants these charges dropped. The Justice Department investigation, and the way he felt treated by prosecutors, was a primary motivation for his investment into the campaign of the Republican presidential nominee. Federal officials are looking into potential money laundering by two shady high rollers at his Las Vegas casinos.
The money laundering investigation, led by the U.S. attorney for Los Angeles, is probing whether the casino broke the law by failing to report to the government millions of dollars of potentially laundered funds that two gamblers transferred to its casinos. (Tax evasion: the same thing that brought down Al Capone.)
One of the two gamblers, Ausaf Umar Siddiqui, is being probed about over $100 million of his transactions through the casinos. Separately, he was arrested in 2009 and pleaded guilty to accepting illegal kickbacks in his job as an executive with Fry’s Electronics in California. He is now serving a six-year jail term.
The other big gambler in the probe is Zhenil Ye Gon, a Chinese-born Mexican-based businessman, who reportedly transferred $85 million to Sands casinos several years ago. Ye Gon was indicted in 2007 for dealing in illegal drugs, but the charges were dismissed in 2009.
So the largess of Sheldon Adelson’s giving experienced the Republican party, was part of the $185 million in laundered money it got from these two people, leaving a cool $35 million in profit. Seen this way, it didn’t cost Sheldon a thing.
Another inquiry by Justice and the SEC has been under way for about two years. It involves allegations that Adelson’s lucrative casinos on the Chinese island of Macau may have violated the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act by paying bribes to Chinese officials to expand its operations there.
Bribing the Chinese was a smart deal, if only the SEC and Justice Department hadn’t been so “hung up” on
regulations… (Can anyone else here a Romney campaign line here?) $700,000 went to a local attorney, Leonel Alves, who was hired by the Sands Chinese subsidiary while he was a government legislator in Macau. The lion’s share of Sands’ corporate revenues now come from Macau. That $700,000 bribe now yields a return of $326 million this past quarter…. As a business proposition, it made very good sense. Unfortunately there is one of those ridiculous regulations that hog-tie real business people called Foreign Corrupt Practices Act
Republicans would simply look the other way as long as they were on the receiving end of millions. Obama’s Justice Department? Well, not so fast.
Hence the determination to throw money away on the flimsiest chance that doing so could defeat him.
Of the billion dollars spent in this past election, 15% of that came from one man. Now, I believe in America, a man should spend his money how he wishers. Had he chosen to give this to fight Breast Cancer, we would all hold him in high esteem…
And the law is so broad, after Citizen’s United, that it appears he violated no rules, no regulations, and all his giving to Republicans was legal and completely within the law….
Seen from hindsight, obviously his influence impacts candidates. Karl Rove was in his box during his election night meltdown. Some fundraisers are pointing fingers at Karl Rove for advising Sheldon not to invest in “their” dark money organization, simply leaving competing interests for Rove, out in the cold. Newt Gingrich out of nowhere came out with an uncharacteristically backing of Israel during the primary. We now know why. Netanyahu figured prominently in the third debate, far more than his importance warrants. We now know why. Republicans against their parties own self interest, are risking losing any loyality with the American middle class over their intransigence not to raise taxes a teeny bit upon the wealthy. We now know why….
Simply put, if you can’t get elected without the help of one man…. and that one man is in your office telling you what you should be doing, you are going to listen to him…
The losers of this method of campaign financing are the American people. In this battle between the wealthy and everyone else, the Republicans are siding with the wealthy for their own self interest…. and their political survival is a pretty darn big self interest. Which means the rest of us are only getting one option to choose from. One party rule will again dominate America, as long as dark money is allowed into politics and there are no caps on one person’s influence.. And that party… will be the one representing the 98%….. and any party, without being repeatedly challenged, inevitably becomes soft and corrupt.
Until soft money becomes dried up, we will continue to have Sheldon Adelson types dropping into Washington with open checkbooks, and the rest of us will suffer these childish posturing battles between Sheldon Adelson supporters, and the rest of America. More grandstanding is guaranteed to be forthcoming by the Republicans….
I’ll bet you $150 million on it….
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