Happy Memorial Day!

Salute to all who have died for this great nation.

More on China...

Will the China Bubble Burst?
China's Corporate Leninism

Dragon Has Made It!!

     They did it! The Dragon capsule was captured by the robotic arm of the ISS and has now for the most part been berthed. The crew wil lbe performing tests on bolts, a pressurization test, etc...but for the msot part, the mission was successful. Tomorrow the crew will open up the capsule. NASA TV will be showing it live starting at 5:30 AM EST. They covered the berthing today as well (for anyone who missed it, they probably have it recorded for a person to watch). This marks a very historic day, as it proves the viability of private commercial spacecraft and is the only private company to have launched and docked a spacecraft at the ISS, something that beforehand was only accomplished by NASA, the European Space Agency, the Japanese Space Agency, and the Russian Space Agency. If all goes according to plan, we will be able to start launching astronauts to the space station on this spacecraft in a few years. And then there's NASA's future spacecraft for deep space missions, SpaceX's planned Falcon Heavy rocket, and quite a few other private space companies working on their own spacecraft. Provided they are successful, we will have entered into a new era of private spaceflight.

Huge congrats to both SpaceX and of course its founder, Elon Musk. One HELL of an accomplishment to make in only a decade!

Congrats (So Far) to SpaceX!

I just caught the launch on television and got to watch it live! The Dragon capsule is now in orbit and is headed for the International Space Station, which will take a couple of days, but if all goes according to plan, then Space X will become the first private company to successfully launch a payload to the International Space Station. The Falcon 9, one of their rockets (and used on this mission), provides the lowest cost per pound/kilogram and does so with huge improvements in reliability. It is also a reusable rocket. On Thursday, the Dragon spacecraft must demonstrate its guidance, control, and communications systems. If successful, then on Friday it wil lbe allowed to fly within 10m of the ISS, where the crew will grab it. The company was launched by tech entrepreneur Elon Musk. What is really amazing is that all the critics said what Musk is trying to do is impossible, that he doesn't know what he is doing and was doomed to fail. Each time he'd meet a goal, successfully launching a rocket, they'd then say, "Okay, he made it that far, but he won't make the next goal." When SpaceX started up around a decade ago, no one gave it much serious thought, that it was just the fantasies of a tech entrepreneur but never something that would become a serious contender for space launching, but it seems like now it will be a serious contender for giving America the ability to launch its own astronauts back into space without having to rely on other countries like Russia (and also not having to rely on other countries to launch our satellites and supplies to astronauts in space).

NASA in 2008 selected SpaceX's Falcon 9 launch vehicle (rocket) and Dragon spacecraft capsule for resupplying the International Space Station, although first SpaceX must complete a set of milestones established by NASA to win the contract. Prior to this, the business of launching satellites has been dominated by the big defense/aerospace companies and as such, they haven't had much need to innovate as there was a lack of competition. SpaceX's rockets, which it seems will be both cheaper and more reliable, are going to give them a real run for their money though it seems. The cost of launching satellites has been increasing each year, so if successful, Space X will really lower the cost, allowing NASA to spend more money on other things. SpaceX's biggest planned rocket is called the Falcon Heavy and that will be able to lift neary twice the payload of the Space Shuttle and more than twice the payload of the Delta IV Heavy. The next few days will tell if they are successful or not in reaching the ISS, but there was HUGE applause though as the rocket got into orbit and then they showed live the solar panels on the spacecraft deploying. The Falcon 9 rocket and Dragon spacecraft are designed to carry astronauts to the space station as well. Once they complete a mission in which astronauts are launched, Musk will have really done our nation a truly national service, giving us space launch capability and private-sector to boot! He already has done a national service I think, but when they start launching astronauts will be really cool.

It is really neat in the sense that the modern world as we know it is a result of the space program. The computer, the Internet, the GPS system, modern electronics, and a whole host of other things too numerous to list here, would literally not exist or would exist in a much more primitive form, had it not been for the space program. But now we see the private sector, utilizing the technologies that have come about from the space program, advancing America's space launch capabilities. Maybe America will again make it to the Moon and back, through a combination of NASA and private enterprise.

Here is the statement from the White House from John P. Holdren, Assistant to the President for Science and Technology:

"Congratulations to the teams at SpaceX and NASA for this morning’s successful launch of the Falcon 9 rocket from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida. Every launch into space is a thrilling event, but this one is especially exciting because it represents the potential of a new era in American spaceflight. Partnering with U.S. companies such as SpaceX to provide cargo and eventually crew service to the International Space Station is a cornerstone of the President’s plan for maintaining America’s leadership in space. This expanded role for the private sector will free up more of NASA’s resources to do what NASA does best -- tackle the most demanding technological challenges in space, including those of human space flight beyond low Earth orbit. I could not be more proud of our NASA and SpaceX scientists and engineers, and I look forward to following this and many more missions like it."

The policy of relying more on the private-sector is great, but I disagree with the President for cutting the funding for NASA, as that is the one government program that actually is partially self-sustaining because it continues to pump out new research and development that the private sector takes advantage of. It's probably the one government program that should not see any real cuts, as it is already a miniscule protion of the budget. And until the private-sector proves its mettle, we want NASA to continue working on its own replacement spacecraft (currently the Space Launch System and Orion Multi-Purpose Crew Vehicle). Thie Chinese have made it clear that they want to be the first back to the Moon, and if the U.S. did it with 1960s technology, I'm sure the Chinese could eventually pull it off.

As a side note (and something I mentioned in a post some ways back), James Cameron recently made a record-breaking dive to the bottom of the Marianna Trench (in a submersible which he designed too, he also has worked at designing special camera, both for movies and space exploration), making it the fourth time any craft has successfully dived down that far. He spent three hours down there, the longest ever (the last time any person went to the Challenger Deep (deepest part) was the U.S. Navy in 1960, two men for twenty minutes). Cameron was the first solo dive and the longest manned dive. The dive was the culmination of seven years of planning and the design and construction of a special submersible (Cameron is very big on ocean exploration, hence the movies The Abyss, Titanic and also the aquatic-based world of Avatar). This dive was really big-time as well in that not only is his craft revolutionary in design as far as submersibles go, but it is also private-sector, not government. And the deep sea is harder to explore than outer space (more humans have walked on the Moon, and for far longer, than have explored the bottom of the ocean), so that was also a big deal.

Good times for human exploration!

Time for a Rant

New York State Democrats Seeking to Increase State's Minimum Wage from Current $7.25/Hour to $8.50/Hour

::::BANGS HEAD::::

REALLY!?!?

     We are in the middle of a recession, youth unemployment is at an all-time high, and these guys want to increase the minimum wage all the way up to $8.50/hour!? The minimum wage is a price control. It artificially increases the cost of labor to businesses in the same way placing a tax on gasoline increases the cost of it and gets people and business to purchase less of it, provided the increase is high enough. LABOR IS NO DIFFERENT. You artificially increase labor's cost, and you are going to see a spike in the unemployment rate. Yes, you can increase the cost of labor artificially without seeing a spike in the unemployment rate if the increases are minimal, but this depends on the type of unemployment rate as well. In terms of the overall unemployment rate, the minimum wage probably doesn't increase it that much. Where the minimum wage increases tend to have a bad effect is on the youth, which are the people that the media are always pointing out are suffering through a very high unemployment rate right now (in order for the minimum wage itself to really begin to raise the overall unemployment rate, you'd probably have to implement something like a "living wage" as many on the Left desire).

     Well what do these Democrats think will happen if you raise the cost of cheap labor (often youth) to business? They will higher less such workers. Thus, we have another case of the left putting the working person up onto a pedastal and then, well-meaning or not, trying to push through a policy that is only going to send the economy even further into the crapper. Note how House Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver says the following:

Silver said the issue was about "a full day's pay for a full day's work."

"When push comes to shove, this is a moral issue," he said.
Note the phrasing, "A full day's pay" (whatever that is supposed to mean) "for a full day's work." Words that are very arbitrary in meaning but that are meant to appeal to the empty-headed on this issue. The amount you make as a laborer depends on what skills you have to offer. What value can you provide to employers on the labor market. Obviously if you have a Ph.D in computer engineering and know how to design microprocessors, you are not going to just start off at minimum wage. Minimum wage is because such laborers are generally unskilled. They have virtually nothing to offer except very basic labor skills. But this is fine for youth, such as teenagers, who are able to get jobs and thus garner work experience and begin their foray into adulthood.

     Saying that the minimum wage should be increased not only prices youth out of the labor market, but it also is entitlement-minded. No one is entitled to a decent-paying job that allows you to live a nice life. If you want to live a nice life, then you need to research what skills are needed in society, then acquire said skills and this way you will be more highly-valued in the labor market. Or you can start a business and produce goods and/or services. Either way, the economy works where you have to produce something of value to society, which is determined by the market. That is when you are then traded money, which you then can trade for other goods/services. If you have a nice home and car, it means you have a skill that is valued highly or own a business that produces enough of some good or service that you make enough money to own those things. Saying the minimum wage increase is a "moral issue" relies on the entitlement mindset and ignores economics.

     Some say, "The cost of living in New York State is very high." Yes, it is. But you aren't supposed to just make minimum wage for the rest of your life. Thinking that you should be able to just get a job and be paid minimum wage, but that minimum wage should be adequate to afford you a nice lifestyle and raise a family and all that, is an entitlement-mindset in the extreme. It's basically saying, "I am too lazy to acquire any skills or do anything whatsoever to make myself valuable in some way to society, so I want to use the force of the government in order to legally increase how much an employer must pay me." If all you can continually earn is minimum wage, then you have virtually nothing to offer to society. It is up to YOU to acquire the skills to create value in some way to offer to society.

     I think the truly moral thing to do (albeit not necessarilly politicially popular as too many people do not know any better) would be to eliminate the state minimum wage (and the national minimum wage) outright. This would lower the price of unskilled labor to the market level and allow more people to actually get work. And the Republican party seems utterly idiotic in how they are counter-arguing the issue. They aren't pointing any of this out, but instead are using the argument that the minimum wage hike will result in higher taxes and reduced social services. Well maybe, but they could completely turn this issue on its head with the Democrats by making the argument that the truly moral thing to do is to leave the minimum wage fixed where it is at, or else risk raising the unemployment rate further, and in particular the youth unemployment rate.

     They could say, "At the end of the day, this IS a moral issue, and as such, we do not want to be artificially increasing the cost of youth and unskilled labor to businesses, which will result in them having fewer opportunities for employment in this economy." I don't know for sure, but I would be willing to bet that this push for an increase in the minimum wage is also tied to the unions, who push for minimum wage increases because the minimum wage protects unionized labor from cheaper non-union workers, and also a lot of union contracts are tied to the prevailing minimum wage, which means that an increase in the minimum wage increases the amount of money the workers, and hence the union, will make, which thus increases its power.

Then we get this:

Myrna Capaldi, a single working mother of a teenager from Kingston, led two dozen demonstrators with the Workers Justice Center to Skelos' office. After a 25-minute wait, the bilingual family social services worker was happy to meet with Skelos' aide.

"Every dollar I earn is already spent before I get my paycheck," Capaldi said.

MAYBE YOU SHOULDN'T HAVE POPPED OUT A CHILD WHEN YOU DIDN'T HAVE ANY SKILLS, AND STILL DON'T HAVE ANY SKILLS, TO MAKE YOURSELF VALUED MORE HIGHLY AS A LABORER.

Rant over.

Government Study of Government Study of Government Studies

Yes, you read that correctly. Back in 2010 the Pentagon issued a study to learn how much all the studies that the Defense Department was being inundated with cost. However, that "study of studies," if you will, hasn't been producing results and is still on-going, so the Government Accountability Office was ordered to perform (you guessed it!) a study of the study of studies: LINK

Should Police Be Allowed to Use Drones?

     This is a subject that gets into the area of letting the police do the things they need to do to enforce the law and prevent crime versus protecting people's rights. The Left and the Ron Paul libertarians are generally opposed to the use of drones, but some among the neoconservative right, who are usually okay with more expanded governmental powers for stopping terrorism (for example the Patriot Act, which many on the left and libertarian right are against) and maintaining a strong standing military, are also against this.

     The reasoning is that drones are an instrument of war, and their use will end up being abused, even if they try to create safeguards to protect against such a thing, and thus that police forces should not be allowed to utilize such tools of warfare. Just like the standing military, modern police forces are militarized a lot more than they used to be. With the problems of terrorism and modern weapons and so forth, and in major cities in particular, the police forces are in some ways paramilitary forces, some capable of counter-terrorism, complete with highly-trained fighting units that wear helmets and body-armor, are equipped with high-powered weapons, snipers, armored vehicles, etc...but at the same time, just as with granting the government some extended capabilities to deal with terrorism, there is a limit, after which you really begin infringing on people's rights and freedoms. With police, it's the same. Police may be more militarized today, but there's still a limit in terms of just how much capability they should be given.

     Charles Krauthammer, a prominent neoconservative, believes usage of drones by police should be outlawed completely, which I find very interesting. This is one of the things that has made me interested in this issue, as usually the folks like Krauthammer are the ones arguing about how the Left, the ACLU, and the Libertarians are blowing things out of proportion and that America is not becoming a police state as they often claim. But in this case, he agrees completely with them.

Should Mark Zuckerberg Wear a Suit?

     So Wall Street was not very impressed last week with Mark Zuckerberg's wearing of a hoodie as he launches the campaign for Facebook's IPO. It has started a debate about whether Zuckerberg should or should not wear a hoodie. Some say he shouldn't have to, that by now he has earned the right to dress how he pleases, that it's results that matter, not appearance, and that he may even purposely be thumbing his nose at the establishment if you will. Others say that not wearing the hoodie is a mark of immaturity and very disrespectful and unprofessional, and that if you want investors to hand you lots of their money to a company, then you need to show them some respect.

     I do agree that results matter more than looks, that just because someone is dressed nice has absolutely nothing to do with what skills they have. While I have no empirical proof of it, I have a hunch that techie culture also tends to be wary of dressing nice because many techies were the "uncool" kids in high school that were ignored or made fun of by the "cool" kids (who usually are nicely dressed). Techies respect one another not by fashion or looks, but by brains and accomplishment. The thing is though, Zuckerberg has already proven himself a great deal, so why not just be respectful to the investors and show up in a suit?

     I think another reason many techies disdain the suit is because they see it as too constricting and too conformist. If you are used to dressing comfortably, and not necessarilly even grooming much as is the case with lots of long-haired and/or bearded techies, the idea of putting on a uniform (just the word there, uniform, says it all for them) that requires wrapping a thing around one's neck and tying it, and then having to have a haircut, be clean-shaven, etc...it just goes completely against their psychology. To them, the whole get-up represents comformity, standardization, lack of creativity, boring, and so forth. They see the suit as the clothing of the bureaucrat, whether corporate or governmental.

     While it is true that a lot of people who wear suits are conformist, non-creative types, I disagree entirely with the notion that the suit represents such a person. And except during very hot days, a suit and tie should not be uncomfortable at all unless it is fitted wrongly. But a person could very much be an individual-thinking, creative person, but yet still wear a suit. Suits can be individualized as well. The most common-looking suit that all the politicians wear is the black suit, which I don't care much for myself for this reason. But there are other colors, such as blue, gray, brown, etc...in different shades, and in different patterns and materials, that one can wear. There's tweed, herringbone, linen, cotton, there's pinstripe, Glen Plaid, Prince of Wales, and so on. In terms of designs, there's the two-piece suit, of which there's one-button, two-button, and three-button two-piece suits, there's single-breasted and double-breasted, and there's also the classic three-piece suit, which I think is really cool:

The above doesn't look like a conformist to me. To the contrary, it's a very classical and timeless look (all suits used to be three-piece until World War II, when due to fabric shortages, they started making them two-piece).

     And there are all different kinds of ties, with all sorts of different patterns. One can individualize the suit through wearing different shirts, ties, cufflinks, etc...you could technically wear the same suit day after day, but make it look different each time via a different color of shirt, tie, different cufflinks, and so forth.

     One of the things I find interesting is that, in the techie world, they don't like to wear suits because they consider them conformist. But the thing is, SO MANY of them dress in plain clothes, that if you saw a guy like Mark Zuckerberg actually wearing a suit, one could reason that THAT would be a truly individual, non-coformist thing to do. It's a case of people doing something considered radical, but then so many people begin doing it, that what was once radical becomes the norm, and what was once the norm becomes the new radical. Dressing in plain clothes used to be rebellious, but now it's the norm among many of those guys. A twenty-something techie wearing say a three-piece suit, now that would be unique.

     If I was Zuckerberg, I would wear a suit, but try to really individualize it with a special custom tie, say a tie with a pattern on it that somehow relates to Facebook. A lot of ties have playful patterns to them, of small animals for example and other colorful and playful things. Hermes started this trend in ties I believe back in the 1980s. So Mark could wear a suit to show the Wall Street investors respect and look professional, but at the same time, retain that techie rebelliousness by wearing a tie patterned in some playful way that relates to Facebook or social networking or whatnot.

     I think one other reason Zuckerberg should wear a suit is that while Facebook is a huge social network and is valued very highly, in terms of actually earning lots of money, it has yet to do this. Facebook's revenue in 2011 was $3.71 billion. That's not much for a company that is going to be valued perhaps as high as $100 billion dollars. If Facebook's actual revenue and profits matched such a valuation, then I could more see Zuckerberg's wearing the hoodie if he feels like it. But he has yet to really make Facebook earn the big money. Until this happens, he should be humble and respectful to the investors I think. None of this is to take away from what he has accomplished, but there is still a lot more that he must accomplish and you need to come across as respectful when you are expecting investors to give you lots of money for what is still an unproven company at the moment.

China Again

 Jim Chanos on China: LINK1

New York Times article: LINK2

Fascism - Left-wing, Right-wing, or Both?

     This is unrelated to any current events, but a subject that I nonetheless find very interesting. It is also among the most controversial political subjects in existence: namely, is fascism ultimately a system of the left-wing, of the right-wing, or of both? Many people over the years have tried to tackle the question of just what defines fascism, with differing conclusions. According to the political Left, the standard rhetoric is that fascism is of the right-wing, and that the modern Republican party are the inheritors of quasi-fascist concepts. The storyline is generally that Soviet communism (and other similar socialisms) were of the far-left and that the fascist systems were of the far-right. This is also the view held by certain left-wing historians of fascism who often like to criticize the political right as being fascists.

     However, many people, in particular those on the political right, have a problem with this point-of-view, as anyone on the right-wing who studies the fascist systems of the early 20th century in-depth finds little in common between them and the modern right-wing. For the most part, this view of socialism = leftwing, fascism = rightwing went pretty much unchallenged for years. There were multiple challenges to this opinion written by others in the past, but these are not very known outside of those into studying subjects such as economics, political science, and so forth.

     One such example was the economist Friedrich Hayek's book "The Road to Serfdom," in which he made the argument that fascism, rather than being a reactionary movement of the right-wing against socialism, was actually, unto itself, a socialist movement, and of the left. This book enraged the political left at the time and has since always been controversial. In the book, Hayek points out in detail how the philosophical roots underpinning the fascist movements were the same as those underpinning the socialist movements. He points out how during the 1930s, many people could not decide whether they were communists, socialists, fascists, or whatnot, but just that they hated capitalism. And so forth (it is a very good book, one all people should read).

     It was not until 2007 however, with the publication of Jonah Goldberg's book Liberal Fascism that the subject really came into the limelight. Goldberg makes the argument, long-held by many conservatives and libertarians (and people adherent to classical liberalism such as myself), but never widely expressed to the public, that fascism is of the political left and that there is very little, if anything, right-wing about it. The book became a best-seller and sparked intense debate. What is interesting is how lacking in knowledge at the time many people, even conservatives, were of this argument. So many people regarded the book as a radical new theory, when really there was nothing new about it. Others found it highly-insulting, and the political left were (once again) enraged.

     What I personally found really interesting, and odd, was how some people, including professional historians of fascism, who are supposed to be experts in the subject of fascism, in reviewing the book and criticizing it (some of the leftist ones very harshly), showed an utter lack of knowledge about the subject of just what fascism is. One such journalist, David Neiwert (a man who regularly accuses Republicans of being on the verge of fascism), accused Goldberg of writing a book akin to the history of fascism what the Da Vinci Code was to religious history and of essentially being the equivalent of a Holocaust denier. He also criticized Goldberg as lacking credentials in that Goldberg was a not a formally-trained historian. Well three things on this:

1) Attacking the credentials, or lack thereof, of someone when they make an argument is usually what professional gurus do when challenged and unable to counter the argument of the person challenging them. This happened to Albert Camus when he wrote a book critical of communism. The criticss panned it on the basis of his lacking credentials (when Raymond Aron wrote the book "The Opium of the Intellectuals" which was highly critical of communism, they were unable to do this as Aron had formal credentials). So it is a lousy and classless way to go about having a debate.

2) What exactly makes a historian qualified to define exactly what fascism is anyhow? The question of what fascism is is a question of political science/political theory, not history. In their critiques of Goldberg's book, many historians, while very knowledgable on the history of fascism and fascist regimes, seem to lack a lot of very basic political and economic knowledge regarding just what fascism was/is (I will get to this in a bit). But in this case, that means that they, as historians, are technically no more, or less, qualified than Goldberg to write a book on the subject of fascism.

3) One of the most seminal and widely-cited works of historical scholarship, "The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich," was written by a man, William Shirer, who wasn't a credentialed historian either. He was a journalist. Two other great writers on the subject of social thinkers were Albert Camus and Eric Hoffer (who worked as a dockworker and then longshoreman for twenty-five years and was completely self-taught; Eisenhower cited his work "The True Believer" in one of the first televised broadcasts, and Hoffer was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1983).

Another critic, who was more moderate in tone, Robert Paxton, also made a few major mistakes of argument in his review of the book (I will get to these a little later).

     So much of the rage over the book seems to be over the argument that fascism isn't right-wing, but left-wing. However, too many people, for whatever reason, have interpreted this as saying that if fascists are leftists, therefore leftists are fascists. That is not the case, and something that Goldberg repeats throughout the book. Myself, I have always found this odd that so many leftists think this. Arguing that an oppressive system is leftist is not calling all leftists oppressors.

     A prime example is socialism. No one ever gets upset over it being pointed out that Stalin or Mao were leftists. And there are multiple type of leftists and socialists. Some socialists believed in liberal democracy and were pacifists. Fabian socialists for example believed in liberal democracy and supported the gradual implementation of socialist institutions into society. Other socialists support violent revolution and the implementation of a dictatorship. Yet, all of these people would be classified as leftist. George Orwell, author of "Animal Farm" and "1984," was himself a socialist. But he was a democratic socialist. YET, if one decides to make the argument that fascism is also on the left, immediately sparks start flying.

     Some have compared "Liberal Fascism" to being the equivalent of an Ann Coulter book, as in basically a book written to insult the left and please the right in a purposely provocative manner. A work akin to when some left-wing highly-political person writes a book attacking the right-wing as being fascists. But the problem is that "Liberal Fascism" is no such book. It is a very serious work of scholarship, with a tremendous amount of footnotes and sources (something that irked some of the reviewers, as if Goldberg should have written a big fat book saying fascism is of the left without bothering to cite any sources).

     So what is the central argument as to why fascism is ultimately of the left, and not the right? Well, the main factor that almost everyone seems to miss in trying to define fascism is that it is always about expanding the power of the State over the individual. And in the political sphere, political movements generally can be boiled down to two things: those movements that seek to expand State power at the expense of the individual and those that place a primacy on the sanctity of the individual and thus seek to limit the power of the State.

     In modern America at least, our general definitions of "right" and "left" rely on this core belief. Most of the other things are just side issues. In order to try to figure out what fascism is, scholars have thus relied on issues such as militarism, nationalism, racism, sexism, and so forth. It is these issues that lead many to see fascism as being of the extreme right-wing, because many far-right-wing movements in both the United States, and throughout the world, are racist and admire the Nazis. Also, the political right are known for being very patriotic and for being for a strong military. One could argue that one could also look at the type of govenrment supported as well.

     In this sense, it almost seems like a no-brainer to those who don't know any better. Republicans are for a strong military and patriotism, so therefore fascism, with its nationalism and extreme militarism, must be the extreme version of the right-wing beliefs the Republicans adhere to. Nazism, being a fascism that was also extremely racist, also fits this when people see right-wing racism.

     The problem here is that the people using all of these things to try and claim fascism is right-wing are making four major mistakes:

1) They ignore that one can find every single one of these things among certain factions on the political left as well; that something is racist, nationalist, militarist, sexist, etc...really doesn't tell us anything about whether it is right-wing or left-wing; both the right and the left have extremists that are racist

2) They show a tremendous lack of understanding about just what the right-wing's political philosophy is and what it actually stands for

3) They completely ignore the economic aspects of fascism

4) They seem to not understand the collective mindset of a fascist

     On issue one,  the examples here are legion. Racist left-wing movements? Look at the likes of the Black Panther Party. Or the anti-Semitics found among many on the political left. The Soviet Union had a lot of anti-Semitism. One of the most infamous examples, which Goldberg makes sure to point out in the book, are the Progressives of the early 20th century, the forebears of the modern "liberals" of America, who were major supporters of the eugenics movement. Something that isn't widely known, in fact, is that the eugenics movement was started in America and influenced the Nazis greatly, as if gave scientific (well pseudo-scientific, but at the time it was considered science) legitimacy to what they were intending to do. The political right, on the other hand, tends to be very opposed to anything even remotely eugenic, to an almost extreme degree. The abortion issue here is a good example. The history of the abortion movement is tied up with the history of eugenics (many prominent supporters of abortion were also eugenicists, Planned Parenthood was run by a eugenicist up into the 1960s, etc...). The issue is the State and the ability of the State to determine the intrinsic value of human life. In its light-hearted forms, it can be abortion and euthanasia, in its more severe forms, it can be the forced sterilization of people (along with the forced unmarryings of interracial couples and the forced commitment to mental institutions of certain individuals), which happened in the United States from the early 20th century all the way up into the 1960s---California, being the most progressive state, performed more forced sterilizations (of women deemed "unfit" to reproduce) then any other state in the union.

     The one exception here, which I think also adds to the confusion, are those portions of the political right, who are among the extreme right, that are racist (as said, there are racist movements on both sides). These people on the extreme right can be the complete opposite of the early Progressives regarding military and economic policy (no foreign wars, no strong standing militaries, no strong central government, no Federal Reserve, etc...) but can be okay with "purifying" the race. These people do not believe in the sanctity of the individual in the way the classically-liberal right-wing does.

     Nationalism? The Soviet Union was very nationalistic. So is North Korea (North Korea's form of socialism entails a very strong nationalism). Militarism? During the early 20th century, it was the right-wing that was very suspicious of a strong standing military, and very much against American military interventions overseas. To this date even, this faction of the right still exists among many conservatives and almost all Libertarians (who disdain the neoconservatives, who are for a very strong standing military and active foreign intervention). It was the Progressives of the early 20th century who supported American involvement in both World Wars I and II (something Goldberg points out in his book as well). And of course, the Soviet Union, which was Russia the master nation holding a bunch of smaller nations to it by force, thus forming an empire. In addition to this, it had a slew of overseas colonies, actively funding communist uprisings all over the place. Sexism? There was only one woman who ever made it into the Politburo in the Soviet Union. And on and on.

     Even social conservatism. This is generally associated with the right-wing. But there are plenty of leftist, blue-collar workers, who are socially-conservative. They may be for labor unions, communism even, but they will be against gay marriage and be religious. One can also look at much of African-American culture and Hispanic culture, which tends to be very socially-conservative and religious, yet economically, more left-wing.

     On issue two, too many on the left seem to have no understanding of the political philosophy of the right. The right believes in the principles of classical liberalism, i.e. liberal democracy, market capitalism, limited government, fiscal conservatism, either no or a limited welfare state (depends on the type of right-winger), responsible citizenship, charitable giving, and so forth. They believe in the sanctity of the individual, individual rights and freedoms, and in limiting the power of the state. They generally believe in a strong national defense and are patriotic. They also tend to be very suspicious of the welfare state as a tool with which to solve poverty, seeing it as at best not fixing poverty and at worst making it even worse. Too many on the Left are unfortunately completely clueless of all of this though. To them, the right just "don't care." Two areas where the Left also make a major mistake is in confusing maintaining a strong military and being patriotic with militarism and nationalism.

     As pointed out above, the right used to be very suspicious of a strong standing military, and to this day, many on the right are. Ron Paul for example is always giving speeches about how America must stop maintaining its "empire" of military bases all over the world. The policy of maintaining a strong military mostly comes from the neoconservatives, who are usually accused as being fascists, and generally hated by both the old-fashioned right-wing (who will often proudly say, "We are right-wingers, but we are not neocons!") and the left-wing, who see them as one step short of being outright Nazis. But the reason for this view from neoconservatives is that neoconservatism arose as a response to the horrors of Nazism and Soviet communism. It is a form of conservatism that recognizes that, in the modern world, the old-fashioned conservative view of maintaining a military only adequate for defense, and staying out of world affairs for the most part, is not realistic. Another contributor to neoconservatism were disaffected leftists, people who became disillusioned with the left over the violent nature of the communist regimes.

     Maintaining a strong military to counter the imperial ambitions of a Nazi Germany or a Soviet Union is completely different to wanting a strong military for the sake of conquest. The other misunderstanding is regarding nationalism versus patriotism. Although they may seem similar, the difference is that nationalism is generally a collective movement. It is a mania, a "wave" if you will, that people get caught up in. That is generally what powers it. Yes, there can be exceptions, people who are devoted, lifelong, radical nationalists, but those are rarer. In addition, generally nationalists tend to think of their own country/culture/people as superior to others. Patriotism, on the other hand, is something individualistic and not elitist. Patriotic is something that someone will be whether it is popular or not. It is the person who loves their country, culture, people, etc...and has great pride in them, but who does not think they are better or superior to any other country/culture/people necessarilly (and if so, only for legitimate reasons---for example, the patriotic American who sees American culture as superior to a culture that sends children off with bombs strapped to them to blow themselves up and kill others).

     A really great example of patriotism I think could be when many on the Left, during the Bush administration, said that the most patriotic thing one could do was to dissent. Obviously this mindset, even if one disagrees with the policies supported by the left regarding how to deal with terrorism, was not a collective mania that people on the left were caught up in. It was a legitimate disagreement regarding what direction to take the country in.

     On issue three, this has to be one of the most oft-missed aspects of fascism, in that too many people flat-out do not understand the economic aspects of the fascists states (it seems that the left in particular do not understand the economic philosophy of either the classically liberal rightwing or the fascist regimes). Simply put, they were socialist systems. There was nothing right-wing about them. This point is crucially important I think, and a major one that puts a large hole through any argument trying to claim fascism is right-wing. The major fascist systems have always been dictatorships that entailed an economy which was controlled by the government.

     Something many people also never take into account is what the actual right-wing economists of the time said about fascism. For example, the infamous Austrian economists (definitely NOT socialists!) Friedrich Hayek (who I have mentioned already) and then his mentor, Ludwig von Mises, who said:

The usual terminology of political language is stupid. What is

"left" and what is "right"? Why should Hitler be "right" and Stalin, his
temporary friend, be "left?" Who is "reactionary" and who is "progressive"?
Reaction against an unwise policy is not to be condemned.
And progress towards chaos is not to be commended. Nothing should
find acceptance just because it is new, radical, and fashionable. "Orthodoxy"
is not an evil if the doctrine on which the "orthodox" stand is
sound. Who is anti-labor, those who want to lower labor to the Russian
level, or those who want for labor the capitalistic standard of the United
States? Who is "nationalist," those who want to bring their nation
under the heel of the Nazis, or those who want to preserve its independenc

---from Mises's book Interventionism: An Economic Analysis, page 90, at the end of Chapter VII

     Some may question whether there is such a thing as a "right-wing dictatorship," as some will argue that if a dictatorship exists in conjunction with a free-market economy, that this makes it a right-wing dictatorship. On this, there probably could be some right-wing dictatorships, but they would most certainly not be (classically) liberal, as no dictatorship can exist with classical liberalism. Whether in China or Dubai (both dictatorships with market components to their economies), free speech is oppressed. This is because you can't maintain a dictatorship if you are going to allow people to openly criticize the dictatorship. You will get lots of people questioning why the government is a dictatorship, and why the ruler or ruling party doesn't allow competing political parties that people can vote on. This repression of free speech and jailing of dissidents is extremely illiberal and a violation of human rights.

     One thing that is debated is whether or not a dictatorship can exist in conjunction with a market economy. Some say that it can temporarily, but that otherwise a market economy will always lead to the dictatorship being replaced with a democratic system of government or the dictatorship will replace the market economy. This is because in order to maintain a dictatorship, generally the government must grab control over the economy. Others say that it can exist with a market economy, but just will not be liberal. There are many people on the right-wing who are illiberal in certain ways while being fine with a free-market, for example people who want to combine church and state in government, while at the same time being for economic liberalism. Generally, a nation's economic system is a result of its economic institutions, which themselves are a result of its political system, which then is a result of its political institutions. The natural urge of most people in a government is to seek to expand their power, which is usually why dictatorships and free-markets don't work out too well. Because the politicians will seek to bring aspects of the economy under their control and influence so as to enrich themselves.

     It is much easier to accomplish this in a dictatorship then with a liberal democracy, because in a liberal democracy, with a free press and free speech, the people will criticize the politicians for attempting to do this and the politicians want to be able to remain in power. Now if one looks at countries like China or the city-state Dubai, this type of thing is done quite a bit, with various state-owned enterprises that compete alongside private enterprises, or with whole sectors of the economy being strictly state-owned (such as banking and finance).

     China does have a market component to their economy, but the majority of their economy is still-state-run and the Chinese government has not taken any steps to further free up their economy, likely due to fear that it will cause the Communist Party to lose too much power. Also, many of the leaders in the Communist party in China do not want to change a system that allows them to enrich themselves so much right now. The Chinese financial and banking system is entirely state-run and many other aspects of the economy are also state-run. Dubai is a very interesting case. Dubai is a dictatorship that is part of the United Arab Emirates, and the UAE as a whole rates a 69.3% on the Economic Freedom Index, which is maintained by the Heritage Foundation (definitely not a bastion of leftism): LINK

If one scrolls down to the section labeled "Background," one will see the following quote:

Dubai is the fore­most center of finance, commerce, transportation, and tour­ism. Free trade zones that offer opportunities for 100 percent foreign ownership with zero taxation help to diversify the economy, but UAE nationals rely heavily on public-sector employ­ment and subsidized services. Hydrocarbons still account for roughly 80 percent of total government revenues.

     So while a dictatorship and with a decent amount of economic freedom, most of the actual UAE (and I'm assuming thus Dubai) nationals themselves are employed by the government. And oil accounts for most of the government's revenue. What this would mean is that while Dubai may have a lot of economic freedom, it is primarily for foreigners it seems, as opposed to being for the people of Dubai itself. This could explain how Dubai can maintain an oppressive dictatorship in which Sharia law is dominant and free speech is oppressed, yet still have a decent amount of economic freedom.

     Getting back to the discussion of the fascist systems however, none of them entailed a dictatorship with a market economy. They were all economies that were controlled by the government. In Nazi Germany, the government had a central bureaucracy that directed all businesses on prices, wages, production, and so forth. Any businesses that refused to cooperate were nationalized. Some Nazis wanted to outright nationalize certain parts of the economy anyway, for example the major German banks. The big banks were willing to go along with the government's orders, but resisted outright nationalization. And the fascists looked at the economic policies of the Progressives in America at the time and vice-versa. Hitler's National Socialism called for what is known as dirigisme, which allows for continued private ownership over most businesses, but requires that those businesses be regulated in accordance with the collective interests of the State. So things like price controls, wage controls, investment controls, job security, dividend controls, production quotas, and state-directed trade were enacted. Germany at this time also had the largest state-owned and operated company in Europe at the time, the Reichswerke-Hermanne Goring. 
.
     What I think confuses many, and where the historian Robert Paxton makes a major mistake in criticizing Goldberg's work, is that he says that since the Nazis allowed for private property ownership, that this thus wasn't really socialism (and that therefore Goldberg is wrong to call fascism a form of socialism). But this is only true is one goes by the Marxist-Leninist definition of socialism in which no private property ownership of any kind, whatsoever, is allowed. To the Marxists, any socialism that allowed this (such as the German National Socialism or the British Fabian socialism) was heresy and did not constitute "real" socialism). The Soviets themselves actually had to violate their own principle however, with regards to their agriculture industry, by allowing partial privatization of farms, because collectivized farming was such a complete and total failure that they had to do this to prevent the whole country from starving.

     The more appropriate definition of socialism is an economic system in which the means of production are controlled by the government, regardless of who actually owns them. Because control is what counts ultimately, not ownership. If the government outright owns and runs the steel industry of a nation, versus allows private ownership of the steel industry while having a central economic planning bureau that gives out constant orders directing the steel companies on things like prices, wages, production quotas, etc...is there really a difference between the two in terms of the overall ultimate outcome for the economy? If the government allows Wal-Mart to remain publicly-traded and private-sector, but otherwise directs Wal-Mart regarding the wages it can pay, the prices it has to sell its goods at, what it can sell, etc...you're not going to see much difference then if the government directly owned the operation.

     Now some might argue, if there is little difference between the government controlling an enterprise versus the government outright owning and running the enterprise, then why would the German banks have resisted nationalization? How would it have been any different? The difference is that by allowing private ownership, the major executives who run the firm can still make big profits and thus become, or remain, very rich. Outright nationalization would end this. We see this with the big health insurance companies of the United States. Many think the major health insurance companies were against Obamacare, but they actually supported it, because it guarantees their profits. If you are a high-level executive of a major health insurance company, Obamacare means that yes, your company gives up a lot of control to the government, but in exchange, you get security. No more competition. Now your profits are guaranteed because everyone is mandated to purchase health insurance, those who do not purchase it are fined, and those who outright cannot afford it are subsidized by the government.

     However, had the government proposed to outright nationalize the major health insurance companies, the health insurance companies likely would have very fiercely resisted this. The situation was likely the same with the major German banks. So while the economic outcome for the customer/consumer will be the same, for the executives running the operation, there still is a difference between private ownership with governmental control versus outright government ownership.

     Another misconception I have seen some make is in confusing the existence of private businesses, or capitalism, with a free-market. The existence of private businesses, even if they are not controlled by the government, does not constitute liberal, free-market capitalism. For example, I was debating with a person who said that the Nazi government handed control of the German economy over to the German big business. This isn't true, but for the sake of argument, let's assume that it was. That still wouldn't have been right-wing. Such a move would have entailed a complete infringement on the free-market. It would mean that the government essentially would have had to wrest control over the economy away from the market, and then hand it over to the big businesses, as those big businesses would need special protections from the government to prevent any other businesses or entrepreneurs from competing with them. So the existence of private businesses controlling the economy without any government direction still does not make the system right-wing at all, because government is required for their protection. It would be a weird socialism by proxy essentially.

     Other things not paid attention to are that the Nazis and the fascists overall were no fans of market capitalism and limited government, or ideas such as the sanctity of the individual (fascism entailed the glorification of the State, a collective form of mindset). The Nazis agreed with many of the Progressives at the time that market capitalism was on the way out. One of the things that led to West Germany adopting a market economy after World War II ended was that the German people did not want anything to do with the Nazis by that point, and socialism was associated with the Nazis. So the German government (against the wishes of many German economists at the time who said it would be disastrous) adopted a market economy (and went on to become one the most prosperous nations in Europe).

     And finally, regarding issue four, many people do not seem to realize the collective mindset of the fascist. Fascism emphasizes the glory of the State and the central leader. The life of the individual, of businesses, etc...is to be devoted to the State. The ideal person in such a system is the equivalent of a human automaton, not an individual, thinking human being. So essentially you had a political philosophy that was collectivist in three areas: nationalism (a collective mindset that people were caught up in), socialism (albeit a nationalist form of socialism), and glorification of the State over the sanctity of the individual.

     Regarding the historian Robert Paxton, Paxton makes a few mistakes in asserting that it is wrong to call the Nazis leftwing because the Nazis crushed labor unions and the Nazis also hated and killed socialists and communists. But crushing labor unions does not mean the movement is itself right-wing, nor does fighting other versions of leftist. Labor unions didn't fare well in Stalin's Soviet Union, for example. In addition, different versions of fascist fought one another (Gregor Strasser's versus Hitler's), and socialists fought one another (Stalin's versus Trotsky's). Leftist political philosophies share a lot in common with religions in this sense (indeed, some of them essentially are religions, such as Marxism). Like religion, they tend to be utopian and all who do not agree must be slaughtered. In religion, we see how Christians and Muslims fought one another. Different versions of Christians also fought one another. No one would say that Protestants are not Christian because they fought Catholics, or vice-versa. Different versions of Islam fight one another to this day, such as the Sunni and the Shi'ite.

     David Neiwert, a heavy-duty critic of Goldberg, who also likes to imply that the right-wing in modern America are just shy of being fascists, criticized Goldberg's work by saying that the fascists hated liberals. He seemed to be unaware of the fact that the liberals fascists hated were those of the classical variety (human rights, individual liberty, market capitalism, limited government, etc...), not the modern American term of liberal as we know it.

     Something very important I think that should also be kept in mind when researching fascism is that no where does one find the intellectual roots of the fascist movements inspired by the likes of John Locke (natural rights), Charles Montisquieu (separation of powers), Adam Smith, Thomas Jefferson Alexander Hamilton, Alexis de Tocqueville, and so forth, the people that influence the modern right-wing Republicans and libertarians in the United States. And their economic philosophy was not inspired by the right-wing economists of the time, such as von Mises. How could movements that completely reject right-wing economics be considered right-wing? As I mentioned above, the fascists saw such economic policy as a failure and a thing of the past, with socialism being the wave of the future. Many at the time thought the Great Depression represented the final blow to market capitalism and that socialism would now finally begin taking over. The question was what kind of socialism.

     This also leads to another point people should consider more about these totalitarian movements. Usually such movements occur during very harsh economic times. If you have a prosperous free-market, democratic society going, it is pretty hard to convince people that they need to rise up, revolt, and establish a dictatorship (or grant the government dictatorial powers). Radicalism in the form of racial and ethnic hatred, religious hatred, etc...is also hard to stir up.

     In order to get such movements going, the economy has to really be in the toilet, with the people suffering badly. John Maynard Keynes, the late great economist, was one of the first people to recognize this. Keynes was one of the people to predict that a second world war would likely occur from the very harsh reparations that were imposed on Germany by the Allied powers as revenge for World War I. Keynes said that such reparations would only wreck the German economy, which would make the country ripe for radical politics.

     Keynes outlined this in his book The Economic Consequences of the Peace. It is also for these reasons that Keynes supported his policies of large governmental intervention into the economy. Keynes was not a socialist, but he saw it that without government adjusting the economy in certain ways, and providing safety nets, that it could make a country ripe for radical politics and thus susceptible to a real, hardcore socialist gaining power. In this sense, he was correct to a degree. FDR pursued a very left-wing economic agenda with his New Deal, and when the Supreme Court began declaring much of it unconstitutional (they saw that it was combining the powers of the executive and the legislative), he then threatened to stack the court. On this, both the Republicans and the Democrats revolted, and FDR backed down, but the threat worked, and the SCOTUS then began approving the New Deal legislation. The public accepted much of his policy because he also began establishing safety nets (unemployment insurance, Social Security, etc...).

     One of the reasons America likely did not swing to the left as many on the left thought it would with the 2008 economic crisis and ensuing recession is because of all the social safety nets in place. Without the likes of Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, food stamps, unemployment insurance, etc...modern America might right now look like a repeat of the Great Depression, and thus politically find itself susceptible to voting in a really far left-wing person (one that owuld make Obama seem right-wing). But with those safety nets in place, the recession's effect is more cushioned, and thus people want the government to get the excessive spending, debt, and deficit under control. They do not demand larger government.

     As an aside on Keynes, Keynes was not the socialist leftwinger that many on the right accuse him of being, although many adherents of Keynesian economic policy have been on the far left and oftentimes quasi-socialists as well, or believers in socialism as an alternative workable economic system (Paul Samuelson for example). Keynes saw government intervention in the market economy as a tool with which to prevent socialism from occuring. The German government during the 19th century followed a similar policy, enacting various social safety net programs so as to prevent the socialists from being able to gain any real influence.

     But to get to my major point here, in a society in which the economy is in the toilet, has anyone ever seen far right-wing economic policy really take hold with the masses in countries? This virtually never happens. If the economy completely tanks, and people are starving and homeless and so forth, this creates an ideal environment for socialism of some form to take hold. It usually even creates an ideal environment for knocking on market capitalism. No politician can get up in such circumstances and start talking about the greatness of market capitalism and free trade when the financial system is collapsing or the economy in a depression. As such, it would be very odd for any truly far right-wing politician to grab hold of power in such a situation. To myself, this thus also puts another very large hole into the argument that the fascist movements were right-wing at all. People don't want to hear anything about why the government shouldn't do anything in such conditions, they instead want to hear what the government is going to do to help.

     To conclude, one thing that is really fascinating is how offended so many on the left have been by this book, as Goldberg very clearly is not calling modern leftwing Democrats fascists, no more so than anyone pointing out that Stalin was a leftist is calling leftists Stalinists. So many on the left have been fine to throw this term at the right-wing, but seem unable to handle it when it is pointed out that fascism is just another totalitarian leftwing movement. Some really conclude that they themselves are being compared with the likes of Hitler and Mussolini (and seem strangely oblivious to the point about Lenin-Stalin-Mao also being on the left), while others, in particular people who regularly call the right fascist, seem really bent-out-of-shape over it.

     One criticism I'd also like to address that is made about Goldberg's book goes like this: "Goldberg 'claims' he isn't really calling leftists fascists, but he writes this repeatedly throughout the book. If he really isn't calling leftists fascists, then why must he repeat himself so much throughout the book?" Basically this implies that Goldberg really IS calling leftists fascists, but just doesn't want to admit it. Well the reason I'd say he repeats this so much throughout the book is because of how overly sensitive so many on the Left are with regards to this subject. Writing such a book is kind of like filling up a water balloon with gasoline, tying it up, then tossing it into a fire. There are going to be some big flames. The right tend not to be as sensitive, being used to this kind of attack from the left (just Google "Bush Hitler" or "Republicans Nazi"). But the left are very reactive to it, and Goldberg foresaw there would be hell to pay.

     I think one thing that really irks a lot of leftists as well is how Goldberg points out the connections between the ancestors of the modern American left, the early 20th century Progressives, who were very racist, created the eugenics which the Nazis adopted, supported many of the same economic policies as the fascist regimes, and openly admired the fascist leaders. The modern left evolved off of these Progressives, but are not at all the same animal. Their version of eugenics consists of abortion and euthanasia. Their support for "war" is for a national program to fight something like climate change for example or poverty. And so forth. Goldberg once made the point that calling oneself a "modern Progressive," is in many ways like calling oneself a "modern Confederate." One would ask such a person if they knew anything about what the Confederacy stood for.

     But even with this argument, I do not see the point of the fire-through-the-ears responses. So the modern American left are descendants of a group of people who were racist and warlike. So what? Elements of the Democratic party once supported Jim Crow laws as well but that doesn't make the modern Democratic party racist at all. What Marxists, fascists, Progressives, modern leftists, libertarians, neoconservatives, etc...all show is that there are different flavors of both left-wing and right-wing, multiple ones of which are bad and multiple ones which are good. Pointing out that one evolved from another isn't saying they are the same.

     As an aside, another book to check out which is less-known is called The Primacy of Politics: Social Democracy and the Making of Europe's Twentieth Century in which fascism, socialism, and modern social democracy are all pointed to as cousins. But adherents of social democracy are not fascists.

JPMorgan's $2 Billion Loss

     So a debate is raging right now over whether the big Wall Street firms need tougher regulations in the wake of JPMorgan's losing $2 billion dollars. For those interested in this issue, financial regulation is really a fascinating subject. From looking at the history of the financial system, we see that if you regulate too little, all sorts of corruption and chaos ensues. Regulate too much though, and you end up stifling and hamstringing the financial system.

     We saw, in the aftermath of the 1929 crash, how a lot of corruption had occurred in the financial system, and legislation was passed to address the problem (which included the creation of the SEC). Then, in the 1980s, when the Reagan administration sought to deregulate the financial industry, some of the most ardent oppoenents of the deregulation were the big banks. The reason was because the extensive banking regulations protected these banks from competition. Undoing them opened them up to new competitors. At the same time, however, this meant limiting innovation and creativity in the financial system. One such innovation was high-yield debt, which was really brought to the forefront by Michael Milken, and derisively called "junk bonds."

     So the question then is how to go about regulating these big financial institutions we have now in a way where they can remain large and competitive, but at the same time, not be too big to fail. Some question whether this JPMorgan loss is really a big deal, as it wasn't taxpayer money or customer money that was lost, it was the institution's (shareholder's) money, but the concern is that it was lost on something that was supposed to be about managing risk, which would mean the institution doesn't know how to really manage risk.

     Critics of regulation point out though that if a big bank has trouble managing risk, how is a government regulator going to be able to spot it? Some also question whether you even can legislate risk out of the system. The loss is a blow for the firm's CEO, Jamie Dimon, who has been a major critic of further regulation over the financial system. It has hurt his credibility a lot, which had been built up in the aftermath of the 2008 crisis in which JPMorgan did not struggle much to maneuver its way through the crisis.

President Obama Backs Gay Marriage

     So this is interesting, as many thought he would wait until after the election to do this, so as to avoid alienating the rather socially conservative black and Hispanic votes. I guess not though. Maybe his campaign is doing it so as to rally the liberal part of his base while calculating that by doing it this early, it will mostly be forgotten by those Democratic voters who would disagree with it come November. Or, they figure that those inclined to vote Democratic party will still vote for Obama regardless of this stance. Myself personally, I do not have a problem with this stance. I have no problem with lesbians, gays, bisexuals, or transgendered people at all.

France Elects Socialist President

So France has ousted Nicolas Sarkozy and replaced him with the Socialist Francois Hollande. Well that'll sure repair the country's economy (eye roll).