Communications – John Malcolm

Obama’s Big Economy Speech: No Hope, No Change

June 14, 2012 by John Malcolm 1 Comment

By Ben Shapiro | June 14, 2012 | Breitbart News

President Obama’s campaign speech on the economy today was an utter disaster for him. It was a bromide of tired old arguments, pathetic blame-placing, and shopworn con tricks. And even liberals like Jonathan Alter had to admit that it was, overall, a dramatic failure.

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Marx’s Ghost

June 13, 2012 by John Malcolm 4 Comments

By Ion Mihai Pacepa | June 9, 2012 | PJ Media

I grew up with the picture of the U.S. president hanging on the wall of our house in Bucharest. My father, who spent most of his life working for the General Motors dealership in Romania, loved America, but he never set foot in this country. For him, America was just the place of his dreams, thousands of miles away. For him, the American president was its tangible symbol. At the end of WWII, we had President Truman on the wall. For us and for many millions around the world, he had saved civilization from the barbarism of Nazism, and he had restored our freedom — for a while. From the Voice of America and the BBC we learned that America loved Truman, and we loved America. It was as simple as that.

A few days after the 2004 Democratic National Convention ended, Teresa Heinz Kerry, the wife of the Democratic contender for the White House, stated that four more years of the Bush administration meant four more years of hell for America.[i] Like Teresa, I am also an American immigrant, and I have spent my 34 American years under six presidents — some better than others — but I have always felt that I was living in paradise.

I still keep the picture of the American president on the wall in my home, and I will continue to keep it there until the end of my days. To me, the meaning of his office transcends the views of its occupant. The president of the United States symbolizes this greatest country on Earth, and he embodies the essence of our unique democracy: a government of the people, by the people, and for the people. He is also the leader of the free world, and the commander-in-chief of the most powerful military and intelligence force on Earth.

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Has the Communist Manifesto replaced the Constitution?

June 9, 2012 by John Malcolm 6 Comments

By George Hawley | June 9, 2012 | Young Americans for Liberty

When the Berlin Wall fell and the Soviet Union imploded two years later, Americans sighed a breath of relief. Seemingly overnight, our debilitating fear that a horde of T-72’s would blitz through the Fulda Gap evaporated; the world realized a nuclear holocaust would not be the Cold War’s coup de grace. What’s more, the Cold War’s conclusion freed millions of souls from Soviet oppression. We were right to be relieved. American conservatives, who were eager to take credit for USSR’s demise, were feeling particularly triumphant at that time. We had finally reached the “end of history,” and “democratic capitalism” reigned supreme. It remains to be seen, however, whether post-Cold War conservative chest thumping was truly justified.

Although all freedom lovers should celebrate the downfall of the dictatorship of the proletariat, the peaceful death of the Soviet Empire did not necessarily indicate the demise of Marxism as a force in the world. In fact, a strong case can be made that the United States is more Marxist now than ever before. It is true that a socialist revolution did not occur, as Marx predicted, via an apocalyptic struggle between workers and the bourgeoisie, but a socialist revolution of sorts nonetheless occurred. To those who believe Marxism has been relegated to “the dustbin of history,” I can only point to the words of Marx himself. The world we inhabit is not so different from the one Marx envisioned.

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The Big Picture: Our Curiously Failing Civilization

May 7, 2012 by John Malcolm Leave a Comment

By Jack Curtis | May 7, 2012 | American Thinker

Governments around the world are in various stages of financial failure, all seemingly trying to be Argentina. Curious, no? Look at debt and deficits; you see government spending issues; most of the few exceptions have other problems. Look then at global migration patterns showing people leaving poor places for places going broke, an unhappy trend line. Look anywhere; we can’t seem to govern ourselves worldwide, while people protesting are multiplying everywhere.

The U.S. and the EU can’t stop borrowing and spending, though no one can expect their stultified economies to bear the debt they’ve run up. Arab riots and civil wars reflect those countries’ corrupt dictators’ inability to sufficiently subsidize the citizens. Armed insurrections and massive demonstrations plague Russia, India, China, and Latin America; Africa has more than its share of failed and failing states. The Global Incident Map shows worldwide terrorism and both underlines instability and helps explain the migrations. Predictable civil order seems lost.

For “rich” Europe and North America, it’s the famous doom of all democracies: the citizens have learned to vote others’ wealth to themselves via a devil’s compact with demagogues. Once in place, such deals can’t be controlled (Who’s re-elected for shutting off the goodies?) until they outrun available resources and impoverish the economy. “Kick the can down the road” (meaning past the next election) is the U.S. mantra for postponing the end-game; in the EU, it’s quasi-austerity. It’s the same game in both places: Save the Banks. The people? Let them eat cake…

For everybody outside the rich world, it’s the same thing at one remove. That rich world has been such an engine of the world economy that most of the rest are, in varying degrees, dependents. When the rich customer cuts back, the dependent suffers. For those living hand-to-mouth in the first place, the suffering is worse; that puts those governments at more immediate risk. If we really look, much post-WWII stability has been a wire-walking façade.

Civilization: a state of social culture characterized by relative progress in the arts, science, and statecraft. Start with the Babylonians; the picture is later expanded by the multicultural Romans (equal opportunity conquerors) and expanded again by the widely differing but integrated Europeans, Indians, and Chinese. Perhaps it’s time we recognized an additional element in the mix that now defines civilization: technology.

Modern transport, communication, and information technology have linked the whole planet into a functional unity irrespective of language, culture, religion, or other differences. Whether very poor or wealthy, educated or illiterate, nearly everybody on earth is in reach of a network of information and services via a common, worldwide technology. The only obvious threats to that lie with paranoid governments insistent on controlling it and various Luddites intent on its destruction to preserve interests under threat.

Such miracles, like free lunches, carry costs. One cost of the world’s economic integration: a cold in the rich world quickly produces sneezes everywhere else, an unsung partner of things like just-in-time inventory control. Another cost is the greater awareness of events and conditions everywhere. The whole world knows at once of riots anywhere; if cell phones organize the rioters, the world knows that, too. And how a local dictator reacts will appear quickly on YouTube, with any blood in full color. Poorly informed people are becoming much more knowledgeable and sophisticated, seeing how others live, and developing greater expectations that their governments aren’t prepared to accommodate. As citizens’ expectations rise, governments facing them before a world audience find their control of events affected, more so when such strategic interests as oil are involved. An event anywhere can light a fire under a planetary pot; the technology that spreads civilization also expands risk.

When considering political collapse, we look for the signature social meltdown; a strong civilization may work through bad finances. Before they’re swept from history’s stage, civilizations rot from inside. What do we see?

Western civilization was the Judeo-Christian replacement for failed Classical Europe. Its centrality was the general acceptance of Christian morality, built on widespread religious belief and embedded in governments and law. In what’s being called a post-Christian era, that’s dissolving; Western citizens are struggling with each other over such basics as human rights, obligations, behavior, and the value of human life.

Read the full article here.