EURIPIDES IN EUROPE
Like a tragedy from Euripides, the long struggle between Greece and Europe's creditor powers is reaching a cataclysmic end that nobody planned, nobody seems able to escape, and that threatens to shatter the greater European order in the process.
Greek premier Alexis Tsipras called Sunday’s (7/05) referendum with the expectation - and intention - of losing it. To his party’s consternation, it won, igniting the great Greek revolt of 2015, the moment when the people finally issued a primal scream, daubed their war paint, and formed the hoplite phalanx.
Events are now spinning out of control. The banks remain shut. The ECB has maintained its liquidity freeze, and through its inaction is asphyxiating the banking system.
Factories are shutting down across the country as stocks of raw materials run out and containers full of vitally-needed imports clog up Greek ports. Companies cannot pay their suppliers because external transfers are blocked. Private scrip currencies are starting to appear as firms retreat to semi-barter outside the banking system.
Yet if Greece is in turmoil, so is Europe. Don’t be surprised if Europe starts begging America once again to save it from a disaster of its own making.
THE NO DEAL DEAL
I don’t want to be the sole bearer of bad news for Ben Rhodes, Obama’s guru on Iran, but here it is: the Iranians at Vienna won’t sign anything, per their instructions from Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei.
Full credit for this diplomatic accomplishment goes to President Obama, Secretary of State Kerry, Guru Rhodes and the rest of the administration strategists.
Their constant offer of more–more money, more gold, more limits on annoying inspections, more cooperation in the air and on the ground with Iranian forces, etcetera etcetera–solidified Khamenei’s conviction that there is no reason for him to approve a hated deal with the devil.
Keep reminding yourself that Khamenei has two fixed principles: no “new relationship” with the Great Satan, and relentless pursuit of the atomic bomb.
Obama/Kerry/Rhodes won’t take “no” for a definitive answer, so we’re probably going to see a new form of creative appeasement. Short version: It will be a “no deal deal.”
CHINA AND WILE E. COYOTE
While all Western eyes remain firmly focused on Greece, a potentially much more significant financial crisis is developing on the other side of world.
In some quarters, it’s already being called China’s 1929 – the year of the most infamous stock market crash in history and the start of the economic catastrophe of the Great Depression.
In the past three weeks, the Chinese stock market has lost $3 trillion, while Beijing’s interventions to stem the panic have been unsuccessful.
Yet the pantomime of the Greek debt talks, together with the tragi-comedy of will they/won’t they leave the euro, has relegated the story to little more than a footnote - even though 1,400 companies, some 40%, have now suspended trading on China’s two main indices.
The parallels with 1929 are, on the face of it, uncanny. As are those with Wile E. Coyote.
WHY ARE THERE SO MANY FAILED STATES NOW?
The greatest threat to global security is the rapidly increasing number of failed states.
Even though there is no agreed-upon definition of a failed state, it is generally understood that when a government can no longer provide basic security to its people due to a rise in violence or extreme poverty, or loses control over part of its territory to domestic or foreign terrorist groups, the state has failed.
A major reason to be concerned about the increasing number of failed states is that they are natural breeding grounds for local or international terrorists.
And given the increasing proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, including chemical and nuclear, the more failed states, the higher the probability of the bad actors being able to develop or acquire very lethal weapons. All of this leads to an increased probability of terrorists hitting targets in Europe, the United States and elsewhere.
There’s a baker’s dozen of failed states around the world now, with more to come. Let’s look at them.
BLACK OWNED BAKERY SUED BY HOMOSEXUAL CONFEDERATES
Lawrence Williams, the African-American owner of Tasty Treats Bakery™ near Marietta, Georgia, has found himself in legal trouble for refusing to bake a cake for two homosexual customers.
"It's not only against my religious convictions," said Williams, "but I can't bring myself to bake a Ku Klux Klan-themed cake festooned with Confederate flags. I told them firmly, but respectfully, that I couldn't serve them, but that they should be able to find another bakery in the area that would."
However, that answer wasn't good enough for homosexual Confederate Civil War reenactors Chester McElroy and Delmont Elkins. "I can't tell you how hurt we was," lamented Chester. "All we wanted was a cake to celebrate General Forrest's birthday comin' up next week, and he done turned us down flat."
"It was gonna be a real beauty of a cake, too," added Delmont. "We was lookin' forward to celebratin' the birthday of the founder of the KKK with a white cone-shaped cake an' tiny Confederate flags all over it, but now that ain't happenin'. Chester here even got the wood at Home Deppo fer the cross burnin'." Chester nodded while restraining tears.
When asked why not find another bakery or even make their own cake, Delmont answered ...
HALF-FULL REPORT 07/03/15
Sandpoint, Idaho. It is excruciatingly ironic to be writing this Fourth of July HFR in a place that epitomizes Norman Rockwell America while our country is being engulfed in anti-American fascist insanity.Voted by Rand McNally as the Most Beautiful Small Town in America, Sandpoint is a perfect place to celebrate the Fourth. For beyond its beauty and charm, it is peaceful, friendly, and patriotic. People here are deeply proud to be Americans, and they'll express it with joyful enthusiasm tomorrow.Notice, however, I said Sandpoint is a perfect place to celebrate America's creation, not the. For there are an uncountable number of similar places in our vast country - peaceful, friendly, patriotic, proud to be American. Norman Rockwell's America still exists, no matter how much the Fascist Left wishes to exterminate it.Their extermination efforts went into overdrive this week, with John Roberts being blackmailed yet again to uphold Obamacare, followed by what is is unquestionably the most perverted - morally and legally - decision in SCOTUS history at least since Roe v. Wade, if not ever.Here are specific solutions on how to take the offensive, to refuse to obey in every way we can, and most importantly framing our refusal as opposition to fascism, as an issue of freedom vs. fascism.Here's our mantra for the fight: Just say No to the Gaystapo!
BLACK LIVES DON’T MATTER TO DEMOCRATS
To the "Black Lives Matter" crowd, most black lives don't. About 7,000 blacks are killed each year - more than 90 percent by other blacks. To most Democrats, only those shot by white police officers or white bigots matter. Just 25 percent of about 400 local police killings a year involve a white cop and a black victim, an FBI study found. Shootings of blacks by police have been cut in half since 1981. For every black killed by a white cop, black criminals murder 70. It is 25 times more likely a black will commit a crime of violence against a white than vice versa. There's so much crime in black communities because they're poor, Democrats say. They have it backward. Crime causes poverty, not the other way around. Businesses flee violence-riddled neighborhoods, taking jobs with them. Property values fall. Democrats prefer nostrums designed more to enrich themselves than to help the poor. One clear example is the Dems' "War on Poverty," on which we've spent more than on all of America's real wars combined. As social service spending exploded, urban decay accelerated. Here are other examples:
THE GREEK BOTTOM LINE
What's going on regarding Greece? Here's one bottom line: The people who run the EU and the Eurozone have suffered a reputational catastrophe. The EU/Eurozone has shown itself unable to manage its basic moral responsibilities Oxi Day (pronounced oh-hee, the Day of No) has totemic significance in Greece. It commemorates the defiant Greek "No!" to Mussolini's ultimatum in October 1940, and the heroic acceptance of war against a vastly bigger military machine. Churchill's praise was: "Greeks don't fight like heroes - heroes fight like Greeks." It is the same word - Oxi, No! - that will top the ballot sheet when Greeks vote in a snap referendum this Sunday (7/05) on creditor demands, and prime minister Alexis Tsipras is not shy in evoking the same spirit of wartime resistance. Ambulances in parts of northern Greece have run out of fuel. The Greek Chamber of Commerce warns of "serious shortages" of basic goods and pharmaceutical supplies within days. The radical-Left Syriza government is skating on very thin ice. If Europe's creditor powers have succeeded in bringing Greece to its knees, they have paid a fearful price themselves. As Pyrrhus of Epirus said after the battle of Asculum in 279 BC: "Another such victory, and we will be utterly ruined."
THE LEFT EXISTS TO DESTROY YOU
Republicans are still trying to figure out a truce on gay marriage. They retreated to civil unions, then accepted a full defeat on gay marriage and then acted baffled when Christian bakery owners were dragged into court for refusing to participate in gay weddings. The left does not care about gay rights. If you doubt that, consider how many of the left's favorite Muslim countries have gay rights. The left has recently divided its campaign passions between gay marriage and defending Iran. Iran denies the existence of gays and hangs them where it finds them. To understand the left, you need to remember that it does not care about 99 percent of the things it claims to care about. Name a leftist cause and then find a Communist country that actually practiced it. Labor unions? Outlawed. Environmentalism? Chernobyl. The left fights all sorts of social and political battles not because it believes in them, but to radicalize, disrupt and take power. The left does not care about social justice. It cares about power. That is why no truce is possible with the left. Not on social issues. Not on any issues. The bottom line is that the left exists to destroy you.
WHAT IS THE POPE AFRAID OF?
Why are people so afraid of technological progress? Pope Francis complains in his new encyclical about "a blind confidence in technical solutions", of "irrational confidence in progress" and the drawbacks of the "technocratic paradigm." He is reflecting a popular view, held across the political spectrum, from the Unabomber to Russell Brand, that technology, consumerism and progress have been bad for people, by making them more selfish and unhappy. But however thoroughly you search the papal encyclical, you will find no data to support the claim that as people have got richer they have got nastier and more miserable. That is because the data points the other way. The past five decades have seen people becoming on average wealthier, healthier, happier, better fed, cleverer, kinder, more peaceful and more equal. Global inequality has been plummeting for years as people in poor countries get rich faster than people in rich countries. The vast preponderance of these improvements has come about as a result of innovation in technology and society. So what precisely is the problem with technology that the Pope is complaining about? What is he afraid of?