Today’s broadsheet from the FM website pressroom. There are 4 sections, all with hot news.
- Links to interesting news and analysis
- Quote of the Day — Goldman’s contempt for us
- Another quote of the day — Capitalism is dead
- Featured article of the day
- Plus, an Afterword
(I) Links to interesting news and analysis
(a) “The Army’s Suicide Prevention Efforts“, conference with 4 Army Generals, 17 November 2009 — These articles often spur comments from America’s “love the wars, ignore the troops” scum.
(b) “Vet Shrinks That ‘Get it’ Get Sacked“, Kelley Vlahos, American Conservative, 16 November 2009 — Excerpt:
There are snowballing reports of war heroes belittled and shamed by commanders and fellow comrades for daring to fix themselves. They are “set apart” as freaks by those who don’t understand, and who have bought into the institutional mindset that real warriors don’t cry — that is, until someone close to them blows their head off, or puts a bullet into somebody else.
… Now comes Dr. Kernan Manion, a contracted psychiatrist with the Marines at Camp Lejune in North Carolina, who was sacked last summer for repeatedly warning of a coming “Columbine-style attack” on base if the mental healthcare there wasn’t improved. Mark Benjamin, a writer for Salon who has been living and breathing these issues for sometime in an attempt to call attention to this military crisis, wrote about Manion and his alarms in this report, published on Sunday.
(c) “Drug Violence: Reaching a New Pinnacle“, Alejandro Schtulmann, RGE Monitor, 17 November 2009 — More about Mexico.
(d) “Why Pakistan is winning ITS war against the Taliban“, Daily Mail, 14 November 2009 — Note how easily Pakistan routs the Taliban, despire the hysterical warnings a few months ago by geopol experts (working their rice bowl, as always). Such as Kilcullen in April: “Warning that Pakistan is in danger of collapse within months“. Juan Cole provides more examples of Pakistan’s success here.
(e) “Poll: Majority Of Republicans Think Obama Didn’t Actually Win 2008 Election — ACORN Stole It!“, TPM, 19 November 2009 — Best follow-up comment was at the Daily Kos:
“One last thought: pause for a moment and ponder how they’d be handling things if they’d lost the election by, say, 500 votes. In a state run by Obama’s brother.”
(f) “Is There a Palin Doctrine?“, Annie Lowrey, Foreign Policy, 18 November 2009 — “If the former would-be veep’s memoir is any indication, the answer is no.” More evidence that much of the conservative movement has lost their marbles.
(g) “The Mod Squad“, Mark Steyn, National Review, 7 April 2008 — A classic about the difference between the fading vitality of Christianity and the growing strength of Islam. Such contrasts remake the world in a few generations.
(II) Quote of the Day
A ten-year veteran from Goldman Sachs explains how they see the world” “Don’t Apologize for Anything, Goldman Sachs“, Evan Newmark, blog of the Wall Street Journal, 18 November 2009:
“The public anger towards Goldman is just too hardened. In an economy full of losers, everyone is fixated on hating the winner.”
Dozens of ex-Goldman partners as high public officials, feeding Goldman info and caring for its interests (ex-Goldman in the sense of ex-KGB. As Russians know, there are no “ex-” KGB agents). Massive subsidies from the government, cheap loans, aggressive government action to protect its interests. That makes them winners, in the sense that all public corruption produces winners.
They work the system better than most, and of course are contemptuous of those lacking their greed and skill.
(III) Another quote of the Day
“Maybe the government will simply retain its policy of artificially supporting the market with taxpayer money. After all, when the U.S.A. feels compelled to run with a headline titled “Government Won’t Run Automakers“, you know that the book on capitalism has been closed for good.
— David Rosenberg, economist, report 19 November 2009
(IV) Featured article of the Day
“Your Sobering National Security Thought for the Day“, Michael Cohen, Democracy Arsenal, 19 November 2009:
Sometimes it’s worth putting American foreign policy – and the military decisions we have made and continue to make since 9/11 – in a proper and sobering context.
Eight years and two months since America was attacked on September 11th, and 3,000 Americans were killed, the United States has approximately 168,000 soldiers stationed in two Muslim counties, In neither of these countries is there any al Qaeda presence – and there has not been any such presence since 2002. Indeed, since the fall of 2001, al Qaeda has not launched a single major attack on US targets or the US mainland.
Yet, instead of having a national debate on how we got ourselves into such a bizarre and pointless predicament — and squandered so many lives and so many billions of dollars in the process — the current debate in Washington is focused on how many more troops we will send into harm’s way to pursue an enemy that is down to about 200 core operatives.
Do you ever get the queasy feeling sometimes that somewhere in a cave in Pakistan, Osama bin Laden is having a bit of a chuckle about this?
He’s to kind to us. Spending multiples of a nation’s GDP to occupy it is nuts. We could lease the entire place for less.
(V) Afterword
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