Feb 13 2010
The Pending Implosion Of Liberal Socialism
Marxist, socialist, liberal, progressive – it does not matter what minor distinctions you wish to use, all of them are heading for world-wide implosion as the decay that is built into their public policies finally start rippling through world markets. Left wing ideologies all suppose the government is superior to the market and the individuals operating freely and adapting to change. There policies naturally attempt to stifle the very mechanism used by leading economies to survive tough times, which is why the fail so spectacularly and painfully.
For people who believe in Darwin’s evolutionary processes and forces, lefties seem to forget that they too exist within evolution’s flows. (Note: and those free market, libertarians who shun that branch of science are just as incoherent, given the fact free market competition is the human version of evolution at work).
In the last century, from World War II to the end of the Cold War, the extremes of left wing societies were all defeated in full and open competition with the West’s free market states. The only remnants of these pathetic social experiments are Cuba and North Korea (China is some weird hybrid that is sustained by sheer volume of the human race). Both of which are frozen in poverty and the early 20th century technically, icons of left wing success.
However, the utter destruction of left wing social madness did not die off with the end of the Cold War. It’s robotic followers (incapable of thinking outside dear leader’s box) have been attempting incremental changes to the western societies that so outperformed their state edifices of so-called superior thinking.
This last gasp of the left wing cancer has spread into many countries to varying degrees – including the US. This cancer did serious damage as countries allowed the facade of good intentions to destroy the foundation of their solid economies, which in turn were the underpinnings of the good life so many states provided their people.
Strong economies are the sources of a growth, security – of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. Government programs are not. It’s that simple.
For America the financial collapse caused by runaway liberal social engineering (you too can own a home, even if you really can’t!) was our wake up call that things had gone too far. Sadly, we had also just elected the most left wing government in decades, one unfettered by the clash of East and West. The fact this government’s left wing policies failed and will result in a strong repudiation of said policies is pretty much set in stone. Better late than never.
But we are just one piece of the world in the pending implosion of left wing craziness. Over in the European Union the cancer grew deeper and farther, and so the decay it created was much more severe. Now the left wing destruction of Europe’s economies is becoming glaringly evident:
The European single currency is facing an ‘inevitable break-up’ a leading French bank claimed yesterday.
Strategists at Paris-based Société Générale said that any bailout of the stricken Greek economy would only provide ‘sticking plasters’ to cover the deep- seated flaws in the eurozone bloc.
The stark warning came as the euro slipped further on the currency markets and dire growth figures raised the prospect of a ‘double-dip’ recession in the embattled zone.
I read this (and other stories I will link below) with a bit of a startle. Could the Euro really be in that much trouble? It makes sense, too many European economies have been running unsustainable social programs on top of economic engines that are under powered for such largess. It’s easy to buy votes with extravagant promises using other people’s money – until  the check comes do and those same voters are handed the tab. And we all knew this was where left wing European societies were headed.
But the fall may be more spectacular than the crippling collapse of the American left wing social experiments were. We may have passed a tipping point:
The issues for troubled euro zone countries are straightforward: Portugal, Ireland, Italy, Greece and Spain (known to the financial markets, and not in a polite way, as the PIIGS) had varying degrees of foreign- and bank credit-financed rapid expansions over the past decade. In fall 2008, these bubbles collapsed.
As custodian of their shared currency, the European Central Bank responded by quietly opening lifelines to all these countries, effectively buying government bonds through special credit windows. Europe’s periphery was fragile but surviving on this intravenous line of credit from the ECB until a few weeks ago, when it suddenly became apparent that Jean-Claude Trichet, president of the ECB, and his German backers were finally lining up to cut Greece off from that implicit subsidy. The Germans have become tired of supporting countries that do not, to their minds, try hard enough. Investors naturally flew from Greek debt—Greece’s debt yields rose, and its banking system verged near collapse as investors and savers ran from the country.
But it’s not just about Greece any more. Thursday’s European Union summit ended with vague assurances of mutual support but did not fundamentally change the financial markets’ assessment. Other countries can also be cut off from easy ECB funding, so worries have spread through the euro zone to Spain and Portugal. Ireland and Italy are also up for hostile reconsideration by the markets, and Austria and Belgium may not be far behind.
The response from Greece is one of left wing robotic thinking, and is stunning in its depravity:
George Papandreou, Greek prime minister, said that, in the eurozone’s first big test, Greece had become “a laboratory animal in the battle between Europe and the marketsâ€.
…
His outburst is likely to infuriate the very leaders whose help Mr Papandreou needs. It came as it emerged there would be no more talk of financial assistance until Athens had persuaded the EU that it had a sustainable austerity programme in place.
Emphasis mine. For too long, too many have seen government as superior or in competition with ‘the markets’ – in other words the rest of us outside government. Government should be the servant of the people and their markets, not the enemy. We have let government use the bogey of ‘big business’ to ally with ‘big business’ to keep the average people constrained and stagnant. These power brokers set up barriers to personal success, tax us into oblivion and require legions of lawyers to maneuver byzantine and useless laws, policies, reports, etc. We have been boxed in and cannot save ourselves, let alone work with others.
And it comes to this – Greece feels it is in a battle with the very markets it needs to survive. The only saving grace seems to be level heads in Germany:
Officials in Paris said Ms Merkel’s insistence on additional efforts by Greece to cut its budget deficit came close to thwarting agreement at the summit. According to sources in Athens, she called for a rise in Greek value-added tax of 1 per cent, in addition to extra spending cuts. Herman Van Rompuy, EU president, drafted a compromise before the summit started.
Ms Merkel’s tough stance has overwhelming political and popular support in Germany.
The idea that government needs to live within its means and stop throwing money down waste holes (owned by cronies of the political caste who become rich running these waste holes) is a trend in thinking sweeping the US and now possibly the EU. Living within its means and not making promises it cannot keep. Whodathunkit.
To me politicians promising government solutions (if you just hand over your bank account number for the tax withdrawals) are no better than telephone scammers stealing from the naive. They all make incredible promises and then take your money without making good on the promise.
This has been the modus operandi of the left wing for years and has crippled the free markets, all the while they threw down more and more restrictions on individual creativity, restricting any options for economies to find a way out of the down turn.
It seemed inevitable in the last few decades that the West would have to learn a harsh lesson about the do-good-sounding failures which are left wing policy disasters. At points it seemed we could avoid this, as when Clinton and the GOP succeeded in destroying the addiction of generational welfare here in the US. But the left has been busy on many fronts trying to constrict free choice and insert their vision of proper and improper through command-control dictates. The markets naturally collapsed.
If the dominos start to fall then the left wing will have suffered another global defeat, this time inside the belly of the beast that are free market economies. As long as the voting booths are open, the people will make the proper adjustment. They allowed the left wing to over experiment and now they will trim them back.
It is the give and take of society evolving, learning, growing. It will never be pain free because survival is a fight, not a cruise. But if you believe in the power of the individual and the wisdom of of societies run on individual initiative and choice, then we will work our  way out of this by throwing off the chains of left wing policies.
I always wonder why leftists, who are always environmentalists, never seem to learn the most basic lesson from life. Living systems do not have a boss. There is no government in life. The reason is obvious. No single element of a system can be complex enough to “understand” the complexity of the system as a whole an thus direct it. Life looks like a free market.
AJ,
Any thoughts on this article in the NYT,Obama Making Plans to Use Executive Power http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/13/us/politics/13obama.html
It seriously concerns me so if you or the other intelligent folks that post on your blog regular can explain how he can do this, it would be greatly appreciated. Also have u seen the video of a former Obama Professor from Occidential University, Dr. John C. Drew, discussing Obama’s early marxist-leninist belief and how early he was suprised to see some one his age be that radical in the marxist theology. He also believes Obama is still a socialist. You can find the video on Gateway Pundit.
cj_thespook,
long time since we heard from you! All presidents have the power to implement some policies using executive orders, etc. However, they have no ability to move money, which is where Obama will get into trouble.
Obama is playing a fool’s game here. Whatever the liberals get passed or try to implement will get over turned in the next congress, especially if the Dems lose both houses.
I was about to look at the video, but I am not surprised. Obama is a reject of the private sector (never having worked in it), so of course his ‘world view’ is narrow and tainted.
cj_thespook,
any word on how brennan is fairing? Did you see my post on how I think he and Holder dropped our defenses?
Well said Norm! If you don’t mind I will weave that into future posts, it is an excellent observation of elemental nature.
The left seem to have at least one thing in common “idiot compassion”. Think about it, the left see all the things that others are not doing for the sick, the poor, the animals, those who always have to make hard choices and they think that the government can fix it if only the government directs the money from those who appear not to see or feel or care to the problems. Who doesn’t see or care? Well of course those who have earned more money then the caring folks.
I had a discussion with a friend, who stated that she wasn’t a communist, but that in a perfect world, people wouldn’t suffer, or want like they do today, and communism is designed to alleviate the ills of the world. I reminded her that communism had killed millions of people and as far as we can recall it has been tried and has never worked. I guess the other point is that as long as people have some freedom of choice, there will always be screw ups.
The people who I know that are left are all students of Chomsky and Zinn. They truly believe that the “rich” have raped, and pillaged people and countries, these wealthy people, moral inferiors, need to pay……and I think can never pay enough. This is the basis for left thinking. They hated the Iraqi war because they believed Bush was again pillaging the poor and down trodden, steeling oil. The good war, Afghanistan, had nothing to steel. The fact they attacked us is really a big never mind. If we weren’t such bad people we wouldn’t have to protect ourselves, because the world would see our goodness and leave us alone.
Because Obama talked the talk of the good, the beautiful and the perfect, he tapped into the longing of these people who “hoped” he could bring heaven to earth, by slowing the raising seas (global warming), healing the sick, (embryonic stem cells) I forget the third thing he promised but it too was of biblical proportions. Why did Obama and the left win, because people were tired of reality and needed to hope for nirvana.
[…] Strata ponders The Pending Implosion Of Liberal Socialism. He is a great deal more optimistic than […]
AJ,
Brennan is a political hack as you know, and deserves to be fired. The comment he made was not only outrageous and defamatory, but self serving and hypocritical. Brennan’s proclamation that republicans are aiding Al Qaeda by publically disagreeing with Obama’s foreign policies is ridiculous, considering the very thing he accuses republicans of doing, he himself is guilty of by this public display of stupidity and political incorrectness? True, the cave dwellers definitely chuckle at the childish behavior of their advisory (US); yet the very people who proclaim professionalism is the very ones undermining our national defenses. Obama administration knows they have majorly screwed up and are doing some fast back tracking. I think we will soon witness Erick Holder being thrown from the big ‘Open and Change’ bus . It is incredibly dangerous that these pinheads refuse to see and admit that the US is not at war with ISLAMIC EXTREMIST. There is nothing Obama can say, bow to, orate from, toss kisses at, or knowingly cater to, that will change these radical minds that hate us. The longer they run from reality, the deeper in doo doo US national security sinks in. Next we have 10,000 TSA managers receiving secret clearances so they can go home gab to their wives (puff out their chest as to show their importance) about what they were told that day, and then of course, the wives rushing to chat on the phone with Jan and Deb about the big secrets their husband confided in them but remember, it’s a secret so don’t tell. Other than that, I am happy to announce the wonderful achievements our military in Afghanistan is making. To bad our media doesn’t feel it important enough to give American citizens information on the outstanding projects that are being created and put to work in Afghanistan. My husband is lucky to be apart some truly great projects, working with the Afghan Army and police daily. However, he would be the first to say, it is not an easy task but a rewarding one. Furthermore, he has created a new blog for the CJ6 folks who are trying to get the word out there about the current projects they are working on. Major Jacquot also a private blog that can be accessed through the CJ6 website called Data Points. The website is http://cj6anpcomm.wordpress.com/ Please note that it is the first website he has created, and please understand his inability to keep it current right now. It’s just very busy over there right now as you can guess. Lastly, I read you blog every day AJ, and I copy and I send your postings by email to my hubby since he cannot access blogs from government computers. WE both enjoy your writings and opinions very much. Keep up the great work!!!
Excellent, excellent post, AJ. Right on the money, pun intended. 🙂
Mark Levin who I know you dislike says that obama is a particular kind of Marxist…I can’t remember the name. And he says obama knows it.
There is just no way that this destruction cannot be intentional considering all the people who are circling around America’s power center and their ideology.
Cloward Piven….the discussion was brought out again in 2008.
And let’s not forget Maurice Strong and George Soros, who recently said, “watch out for a double dip recession”. How does he know? (a sarcastic rhetorical question)
Demoralize
Crisis
Destruction
Take Over
These are ideas I have been pondering for years now, and I am gratified that you are writing so coherently about them, AJ.
Yes, the Euro is dead – they may keep it propped up zombielike for a year or so, but in the end it is going to be too costly to keep up. The core problem is the idea that a group of nations could have economic union without political union is nonsense. It can appear to work when everyone is having good times and money is easy, but in hard times it is guaranteed to rip itself apart.
But spend some time thinking about the consequences of this – there is going to be, there *has* to be a wave of defaults. A well respected analyst, Marc Faber, has recently angered and shocked people with his opinion that over the next few years, all Euro denominated debt will default and in turn all US Dollar denominated debt, including US treasuries, will default. I reluctantly must believe that, because I see no other way out of the enormous debtload.
This means that sometime within the next 10 years both Europe and America are facing the total destruction of the financial system as we know it and it’s replacement by something else, as yet unknown. This sounds crazy – and yet things have already gone so far that we have left ourselves no other alternatives. This doesn’t mean the end of the world, we will rebuild from the ruins just as those who lived through the depression of the 30’s rebuilt. But we literallly have decades of very hard times ahead of us, and as of yet we are nowhere near the bottom.
excellent post as usual. and … great observation, Norm. thanks for that.
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WWS,
Dude, you are sounding like Glenn Beck! LOL
cj_thespook,
truly honored. Our Lance Cpl Marine will be heading there sometime (probably after he makes cpl) and we are grateful for all your husband and his colleagues are doing to prepare the way.
Our prayers are with you in this for sure. We have other friends over there in the Army and NATO and we know how much is being accomplished.
Back to Brennan and Holder if you don’t mind. In that post I linked to I mentioned the possibility of new rules for ‘extremists’ verses established rules (and a a hair trigger response) for ‘terrorists’ or ‘al qaeda’. Want to jump in here at all?
I don’t agree with Beck on many things, but he’s willing to ask the hard questions that no one else, right or left, dares to ask.
In this case it’s a simple one that no one dares to answer: How will the debt be paid? Every conventional answer involves much hand waving and no real answers – somehow it is all supposed to go away someday.
But it won’t, and you know it and I know it. What’s worse is that even attempting to pay it will bankrupt our economy. That’s why we will inevitably come to the point that default on government obligation, no matter how terrible, is going to look less bad than any other option.
And before you scoff consider that California may be looking at defaulting on its state obligation in less than 12 months. The only way to pay any of these obligations at all levels is to keep borrowing more and more and more, in a giant ponzi scheme – but what happens when confidence is lost? We are looking at a cascade failure, the kind of systemic unraveling in which all of the weaknesses play off of each other.
A worldwide systemic failure needs only the proper catalyst – and that could easily be the death of the Euro. Here’s how – the Euro finally falls apart as bondholders quit buying Greek debt and Germany and France refuse to bail Greece out, leading to a Greek default. Spain and Portugal, seeing no hope of a bailout for themselves, also default. Since major banks around the world, but especially in Europe, own these bonds this leads to a new credit crisis probably culminating in the final nationalization of all the European banks. (either that or colllapse) Since American banks are so tied in to them, this will lead to the same choice in America, which may not have the nerve to do another trillion dollar bank bailout.
There’s a lot of ways it could play out from there, but all of them lead to default of some kind. Sadly, the most likely of those is slow default through deliberate hyperinflation of the monetary supply, which will just make us a large, english speaking Argentina.
The real point is that once this system begins to collapse it will collapse very quickly, and there is no good way out of the position we have gotten ourselves into.
The only hope I can bring out of this is that maybe the complete collapse of our financial system will make it easier to rebuild along the lines that Paul Ryan is suggesting.
But before we get there we are all headed towards a great time of darkness.
“”The real point is that once this system begins to collapse it will collapse very quickly, and there is no good way out of the position we have gotten ourselves into.””
I agree that it will happen quickly, but what I haven’t yet figured out is the “how” it will manifest. What goes awry first here in the US. IE: Do we get trucking companies unable to deliver goods through lack of credit to buy fuel? i wish others, with better understanding of the mechanisms of trade, would lay out their thoughts in an easily understood manner.
Look at what happened to Iceland over the last year or so to see how the collapse plays out. On the one hand, society still looks superficially the same, and life goes on in many ways much as before.*But* – all the retirement accounts are gone, all of the savings accounts are gone, all of the credit people once used to take vacations and luxuries is gone, and people who once ate steak brought in from around the world now eat cold mackerel.
Standards of living took a massive and immediate drop. Now Iceland is a small, racially monochromatic place that can almost be seen as one very large extended family. They did not suffer civil unrest from the hardship because of this. The US will not be so lucky, and our greatest danger will be when the various groups that are able to organize go after each other over the shrinking pieces of the pie. Not only will it make all politics toxic, but once things start to get scarce the guns will come out, on all sides.
WWS, isn’t that EXACTLY what these global socialists have planned to happen-destruction and chaos?
I think it’s more honest to accept that we have all stood by and allowed the creation of this tragedy together. As conservatives, we should never have meekly accepted the deficits during the Bush years – as much as I supported Bush, I still admit that was a huge mistake. Just because Obama has doubled down on that mistake, bringing the end that much closer does not mitigate the original mistake. We could have been energy independant by now – sure, the dems blocked it but no one on the right pushed very hard to change things because it was too easy to make a lot of money by keeping things the way things were. We could have had national tort reform, but no one even bothered to try when the GOP had majorities in both houses. We could have reformed Social Security by now, but no one supported Bush when he stuck his neck out and tried to get this done. This disaster has been a long time coming, and Republicans did indeed have their chance to do something about it and chose to do nothing.
But if the socialists have planned this they have planned very badly, because they have no clue as to how this is going to play out in real life. It’s going to play out the way these kinds of things always do – the people who’ve stockpiled the most guns and ammo ahead of time are going to be the ones calling the shots, and as far as the socialists go, that ain’t them.
AJ,
Your article is excellent as usual and dead on. If I may, I would like to add some other information to strengthen your argument.
Obama’s NSC Will Get New Power is an article in the Washington Post that was written in February 2009. The article summary is information on the changes Obama plans on making to the NSC, which in my opinion was a bad mistake. The IC doesn’t need more levels of bureaucracy. The recent intelligence failures are due in part to this problem. The so called *connecting the dots* is a bad phrase that truly doesn’t explain how analysis is performed and it does a disservice to analyst. Furthermore, the multiple levels are what adds to the watering down effect of the final product. You work in the government so you would know firsthand. I believe as well, one of the largest if not largest and wide spread problem in the IC is political correctness. As many journalists have pointed to in many of their articles covering Ft Hood, military officers were afraid to point out Major Hasan and his strange behavior. Why is that? For one, when President Obama entered office, he came in with the idea he was going to change the perception of how Muslims were viewed and Holder’s protection of their civil liberties. Through his directive, profiling was no longer used. This was a HUGE mistake as you know and well, we have 11 dead service members as a result. Holder also omitted certain key words that are triggers for those who work in the NSA wire tapping program to have the authority to listen to legal phone taps. I do not think I need to express how serious that mistake is and will be.
He came into this presidency badly informed, preset attitude, and obvious bias against the US military complex. He states in many of his apology speeches, that the US doesn’t have the right to be superior over any other nation. That said as a Commander in Chief of the US Arm Forces is wrong and dangerous for several reasons. It signals to our adversaries he is weak in defense, naïve, a fool, and they are going to have a great deal of fun for the next 4 years. Notice at the level he continues to be tested. His ignorance, arrogance and naivety on history, foreign policy, national security, and just about every major title a world leader would have to cope with it, is an obvious defect he projects in which the entire world can witness. A great leader does not talk out of both sides of his mouth, and expect his people to follow and trust him. More and more are seeing him for what he really is, an empty suit with no integrity to boot.
Like you said, they have put ridiculous policies above US national security. In all the Intel classes I have thus far, I have NEVER EVER read any expert expressing Global Warming as a possible threat to Nation Security. That is utterly absurd and all should be ridiculed; although, it does make for some embarrassing commercials for the opposition. I believe too, the threat of prosecution to the IC interrogators was a threat to attempt to keep them in check. In another words, if you leak on me, you will pay a heavy price. He does not want to piss off the CIA; a fight I believe he will lose. In closing I sometimes wonder if Obama is seriously trying to destroy this country, and remake it in the image he has fantasize over most of his life.
In closing three terrorist attacks in less than one year on his watch; Arkansas murder of 2 US soldiers, Fort Hood massacre, and the attempted murder of 300 passengers aboard a US bound plane. He states first attack was a lone wolf, and how many days did it take for him to address it? Second attack, was another lone wolf and refers to Hasan as an extremist. He refuses to use Islamic terrorist. The third, he again jumps to a lone extremist, and again refuses to state the terrorist affiliation. What the country needs to be asking is WHY? What has he changed in one year in his leadership, and why does he insist on calling a spade a spade? Lecture over, CJ out.
Oh yes, one last thing..check out Brennan’s comment on detainees being released from Gitmo and returning to terrorism.