Obama and the Dems see Kulaks...

... and want to destroy them as a class (or at least humble their pride before God and the unions) and dispossess them of more of their unfairly gotten wealth -- all in the name of fairness.

Just like Lenin and Stalin before him, Obama has a ready made group to demonize for all his failures.  For him the kulaks ("fist" in Russian) are an elastic class that encompasses Wall Street tycoons, opposition politicians, hardworking folks making above 200,000 dollars, and generally any who oppose his policies.

America's credit rating is downgraded, and his profligate spending can't be responsible.  No! it must be the new kulak class at fault.  The housing bubble pops and it can't be due to the government's pressure on banks to loosen loan rules and the government's buying of bad loans that encouraged foolish practices.  It must rather be the Wall Street kulaks who in their greed forced the proletariat to take out loans they knew they would be unable to pay.

The economy fails to improve that way the five four year plan promised (recall that unemployment was never supposed to rise much above  8%), Obama shouts "kulak!", and the Cheka (in this case ably played by the national press) dutifully locates kulak conspirators and wreckers.

Obama is increasingly open to flying his anti-kulak flag. Witness his earlier unguarded moments when he expressed regret that the SCOTUS had yet to take up "redistributive change", his desire to use the tax code to "spread the wealth", and his admonishment to many that at some point folks had made "enough" money -- presumably on the back of the proletariat.  Those feelings slipped out and at the time he did some backtracking and was at pains to reassure that he had nothing against the wealthy.  Compare that to  his more recent attacks on millionaires, billionaires, corporate-jet owners, and a slew of others.

It may be that the improving economy means that he doesn't have to whip his base and the modern Cheka into a frenzy to get reelected.  So we may not see him in full throated denunciation of society's kulak class during the campaign season -- although Bain Capital will certainly come in for some kulak-style class hatred.  Given that the reelection theme so far is justice and equality, the kulak bashing has already made itself known.  But he will doubtless return to the theme more fully once January 2013 rolls around and he can finally put his feelings into legislation without fear of being turned out of office.

Andrew Sullivan brings his usual facility for illogic while complaining of illogic in others

Andrew Sullivan in his Newsweek cover story puzzles over the "internal incoherence" of Republicans claiming that Obama is both incompetent and a threat to the nation.

He somehow can't conceive that an incompetant person in a position of great authority and power can be a threat.  According to him, the incompetence would prevent the person from doing harm.

Certainly such a thing is possible.  We went through it with Carter and many on the left would say we went through it more recently with Bush.

It's therefore hardly surprising that Sullivan is puzzled: such a possibility is beyond his ability to grasp.  Which may also explain his continued writing for a Newsweek under Tina Brown's incompetent but authoritative hand.

Another area where Andrew "whose baby is Trig" Sullivan might want to tread lightly is complaining about others' connections to reality, as he does just a line later in his piece.

This is why Obama is a shoe-in for reelection

The economy was his greatest threat to reelection, now he'll go into November with more than a year's worth of fine job growth, increases in manufacturing and a strong economic outlook for the next decade.  And 200,000 jobs a month is looking more and more likely to be easily exceeded as the recovery rolls on.  Lucky for him that economic downturns rarely last four years and that even poorly thought out political choices can't keep our economy down for very long.

No matter that the unemployment rate stays above or near 8%.  People vote based on their pocketbooks and their view of the future.  The condition of both are getting better.  And so long as Obama makes skillful use of his redistributionist rhethoric -- designed to appeal even to the middle class he'll soon begin plundering, he'll sail to another term.

So without having learning anything of value about how to govern, he'll get another shot at installing his version of America.  More taxes and higher spending, with few results and a darker long term economic outlook.

China's Monroe Doctrine moment coming?

With the death of North Korea's Dear Leader, and the succession of his youngest son ( the great successor - natch!) moving forward but yet to be assured, China holds the key to what N. Korea's future will be.  Any legitimate successor to the throne must secure China's acceptance of their rule in addition to the agreement of N. Korea's military.  This should be a simple matter as China is thought to have a fair bit of influence over its southern neighbor.

However, if N. Korea's powerful military balks and proposes a powersharing arrangement, things could degenerate quickly.  And it won't take much to collapse the shaky edifice that N.K. has become.  Should that happen, the US and S. Korea have contingency plans to rush north and stabilize things as best as possible -- and to take control of any nukes the North has.  China understandably has similar plans to rush its forces south to forestall a massive refugee influx spreading chaos into China.

As N. Korea has long been China's client state -- China even fought for the North -- it's likely that China will see N. Korea as its special project and will not accept "meddling" from the US in what amounts to China's backyard.  Such a conflict could well see the emergence of an official Monroe Doctrine-like statement for N. Korea, which China will later seek to expand to more of Southeast Asia.  Any such declaration would be unassailable.  China has a huge military whereas the US has fewer than 30,000 troops stationed in S. Korea.  At the most the US and S. Korea would venture a few tens of kilometers north to set up refugee camps as well as rounding up as many WMDs as possible.  Thankfully, most WMDs are thought to be close to the DMZ, so this can be accomplished without too much interference assuming China doesn't become overly prickly.

How the US responds will be telling.  Certainly both sides will be discussing and coordinating responses to a sudden collapse of N. Korea.  Let's hope that China is fully forthcoming about its intentions.

The death throes of the new New Left

Yeah, they thought they would change the world. Now they find out they're just a side show, so what do they do? Why, riot, of course. Some things never change.

The last New Left took to the barricades in cities around the globe in the late '60s, and came astoundingly close to tipping the world into chaos. When that failed to happen, we witnessed the movement's death throes: more riots and destruction; the true believers increasingly turned to terror.

We had the inept Weather Underground, but Europe had the deadly Red Brigades, Action Directe and the Red Army Faction (which began as the Baader-Meinhof Group), while Japan had the Red Army. Most of these groups were filled with middle and upper class students and young adults protesting the banality of their life and the diminished prospects they felt they faced.

Sound familiar? Sure they put a revolutionary gloss on their actions, and liked to view themselves as the vanguard of the coming revolution and as the "redeemer class" prophesied in their revolutionary tracts, but in the end they were just morons playing at being revolutionaries.

Which is what we're witnessing again -- only on a smaller scale. This time around the morons are present, their image of themselves as vanguard revolutionaries is the same, even the barricades are back, but their movement's end won't be as spectacular or as violent. A few statement riots and marches, and then they'll disperse back to their jobs and woman's studies classes. Winter will demonstrate the hollowness of their claims of revolutionary fervor, and an improving economy will increasingly have the rest of America viewing them as spoiled brats unwilling to do an honest days work.

Obama explained

Add this to other attempts to explain Obama's meteoric rise from mildly unsuccessful community organizer through mildly ineffective (but present!) state and US senator to failed president.

This is a pretty succinct explanation of how he rose to such dizzying heights (his supporters were gulled by his narcissistic self confidence) only to fail abysmally (plain old incompetence):

Narcissists rise to the top. That's because other people think their qualities-- confidence, dominance, authority, and self-esteem -- make them good leaders.

Is that true? "Our research shows that the opposite seems to be true," says Barbora Nevicka, a PhD candidate in organizational psychology, describing a new study she undertook with University of Amsterdam colleagues Femke Ten Velden, Annebel De Hoogh, and Annelies Van Vianen. The study found that the narcissists' preoccupation with their own brilliance inhibits a crucial element of successful group decision-making and performance: the free and creative exchange of information and ideas.

Although Obama plays the part of a non-partisan advancer of worthy ideas, it often seems to be when he faces resistance that he doesn't understand and doesn't want to deal with. He may compromise too readily and duck tough decisions, but he sure does think the world of himself. Just count the number of times he refers to himself in speeches to see that not only does he think the world revolves around him, he thinks it ought to.

I imagine that if asked, he would publically downplay the great man theory of history, but privately sees himself as one of the select few tapped to alter his nation's destiny.

The take away from the study? I leave it one of the co-authors: "You have to ask: Are the competencies they project valid, or are they merely in the eyes of the beholder?"

In this case, the beholders were duped, but hopefully not lastingly.

Bad news for the Obama household

Oops, Bo, the supposedly hypoallergenic dog brought in to the Whitehouse with great fanfare, and subsequently largely abandoned, may not be so allergy friendly after all.

From Science Daily:

[...] "We found no scientific basis to the claim hypoallergenic dogs have less allergen," says Christine Cole Johnson, Ph.D., MPH, chair of Henry Ford's Department of Public Health Sciences and senior author of the study.

"Based on previous allergy studies conducted here at Henry Ford,
exposure to a dog early in life provides protection against dog allergy
development. But the idea that you can buy a certain breed of dog and think it
will cause less allergy problems for a person already dog-allergic is not borne
out by our study." [....]

Will Bo see the underside of the bus? Probably not as he's still a pretty good stage prop. But extended banishment from The Obama's presence seems a given.

Shades of Russia 1917 as Muslim Brotherhood moves into vacuum

After having sat on their hands during the February revolution that overthrew the Czar, Russia's Bolsheviks were not going to let another opportunity slip by when October brought renewed strikes and unrest to Petersburg. They took over in a largely bloodless coup with relatively few men.

Seen what's happening in Egypt? The NYT has the details:

In post-revolutionary Egypt, where hope and confusion collide in the daily struggle to build a new nation, religion has emerged as a powerful political force, following an uprising that was based on secular ideals. The Muslim Brotherhood, an Islamist group once banned by the state, is at the forefront, transformed into a tacit partner with the military government that many fear will thwart fundamental changes.

It is also clear that the young, educated secular activists who initially propelled the nonideological revolution are no longer the driving political force — at least not at the moment.

During the movement to topple Mubarak, the Brotherhood were nowhere to be found. Now they are on the cusp of capturing power in a followup revolution.

Well, done, President Present. Way to use America's influence. Those last minute phone calls to Mubarak were doubtless expected to sway him with your charm (which worked so well with your own electorate), but sadly failed to set Egypt on a course of moderization and political freedom.

So we see history being made by a foolish president. The way things are going, it is not surprising that he launched an attack on Libya. At least there he can produce the bloody head of Col. Crazy as a sort of trophy (and make no mistake, now that he's attacked, leaving Kaddafy in power would be to invite another Lockerbie, only this time on a grander scale. Kaddafy's head on a pike will forestall that outcome). Kaddafy is literally a dead dictator walking unless he leaves for exile.

Saw the article first at Hot Air