Category: Foreign affairs

On Japan’s Continuing Demographic Hysteria

According to Henry Ford, “History is bunk!” He was wrong. A good knowledge of history is useful for any number of reasons. Perhaps the most important is the insight it provides into human nature. Think of it as a vast psychology experiment carried out over a period of several millennia. It’s also a great help for putting things in perspective. Among these is the ongoing hysteria over Japan’s low birthrate. Instapundit just linked one of the many articles on the subject, and others may be found here, here, here, and here.

According to one article Japan’s prime minister, Fumio Kishida, issued a “dire warning” that the problem must be solved “now or never.” He announced that a new government agency would be set up to deal with the issue in April. His aide, Masako Mori, chimed in, “If we go on like this, the country will disappear.” According to another article, “Japan’s population crisis nears point of no return,” and is “…following the worst-case scenario.”

I posted an article about the absurdity of this alarmism a few years ago. Allow me to quote at length. Noting the prevalence of similar articles on the subject at the time I wrote,

The amazing thing about these repetitious articles is their utter lack of any historical context.  It turns out that Japan’s population has been a “ticking time bomb” for well over a century.  However, back in the day it was ticking in a different direction.  For example, according to an article that appeared in the April 1904 issue of the British Edinburgh Review, discussing the conflict in the Far East that would soon culminate in the Russo-Japanese war,

“In 1872 the population of Japan amounted to only 33,110,793; in 1900 it was 44,805,937, already too great for her territory.”

A few decades later the “time bomb” was still ticking in drive instead of reverse.  As noted in an article at the website of Australia’s Pacific War Historical Society,

“Between 1918 and 1930, Japan’s population had expanded dramatically and outstripped the capacity of the nation’s resources to support it. To sustain its population blow-out, substantial food imports were essential, but foreign tariffs imposed on its exports of manufactured goods limited the capacity of Japan to pay for its food imports. Japan had tried to deal with its population problem by encouraging emigration of Japanese to countries such as the United States, but had met resistance from Americans who feared the loss of unskilled jobs to cheap immigrant labour.”

This time, of course, the “time bomb” led to Japan’s disastrous decision to attack the United States.  Even after the war there was much wringing of hands about its rapid forward progress.  For example, from an article that appeared in the December 1950 issue of the American Mercury,

“Our exceedingly efficient Public Health and Welfare Division has succeeded in driving down Japan’s death rate from 29.2 per thousand in 1945 to only 10.9 per thousand in 1949.  The birthrate, meanwhile, was rising to 32.8.  Thus, with our help, Japan’s population is now increasing at the rate of 1,800,000 per year.  Every morning there are 5,000 more Japanese than yesterday… How can we say that we have helped Japan when Japan is less self-sufficient today than she has ever been.”

Which is exactly the reason I pointed out that Japan should be overjoyed about her declining birthrate. Japan is self-sufficient with the population of something over 30 million she had back in 1872. The need for substantial food imports and fear of starvation was one of the main reasons she plunged into disastrous wars when her population was half what it is today. Now, with a population of over 125 million, she’d better hope for world stability, continuing production of large surpluses of food in other countries, and the ability to pay for it into the indefinite future. This is what I’m talking about when I refer to historical perspective.

Of course, the idea that the Japanese will become extinct is absurd. Birth rates can and do change drastically in periods of decades. One must hope that, for her sake, the population will be much lower than it is today by the time births again catch up with deaths. Another, somewhat more plausible, reason given for the claim that Japan faces a “ticking time bomb” is her imagined inability to support her aged citizens “in the style to which they have become accustomed” without a rapid increase in the number of taxpayers. The “quick and easy” solution to this “dire” situation proposed in virtually all these articles is a massive increase in immigration by culturally and/or racially alien foreigners.

I really can’t imagine anything more disastrous for the Japanese people. If they follow this sage advice, they will eventually cease to be a nation at all. Instead, as has already happened in the western “liberal democracies,” the country will lose its national character and become yet another mere geographical entity inhabited by mutually hostile tribes. Nations have suffered calamities a great deal more dire than a decline in the living standards of the aged, such as the black death and many similar plagues, famine, civil war, and even decapitation by fanatical Communists as happened to Russia and Cambodia. In spite of this they have retained their national character.  As we have seen, both recently and in the distant past, this has not always been true in cases of massive invasion, whether hostile or not, by alien foreigners.

This begs the question of why so many people, both inside and outside of Japan, seem to seriously believe that massive immigration is a great idea. Of course, much has been written about the nefarious conspiracies of our ruling elites, and their promotion of Woke propaganda advocating such things as the brotherhood of all mankind, equalism, the elimination of national borders, and the liquidation of nations in general, all for supposedly selfish ends. I doubt that this is the only reason, or even a major reason, for the current dominance of Woke ideology. Its fanatical adherents, like the Communists of old, aren’t just all dupes of elite propaganda. Rather, their ideology makes a strong appeal to the moral nature of our species. In this case, as in so many others, that nature has become self-destructive outside of the environment in which it evolved.

In the case of Japan and that of many other current and former nations, it is self-destructive because coherent nation states have been the sources and drivers of virtually all human technological, scientific, and social progress. What, then, can explain this persistent desire to eliminate them? Perhaps the World Wars of the 20th century had something to do with it. Witnessing the carnage, many intelligent people came to the conclusion that it was all because of nationalism, and if national borders were eliminated, warfare would be at an end.

They were wrong. World Wars I and II were certainly wars between nations that perceived each other as outgroups. However, the ubiquitous human tendency to classify others as ingroup or outgroup won’t disappear along with national boundaries. It will simply find a potentially even more destructive outlet elsewhere. Indeed, it already has. Nationalism didn’t drive the murder of a quarter to a third of Cambodia’s population or the decapitation of Russia by fanatical Communists. It was not the reason for Civil War in the United States and many other countries. It was not the driver behind the religious fanaticism that has taken tens of millions of lives over the years. Elimination of nations won’t put a stop to such disasters. It will merely direct them elsewhere. We will never put a stop to them unless we finally learn to understand ourselves, and the innate, emotional traits that are the ultimate cause of all our behavior.

As for Japan, one must hope that her people will not become yet another victim of massive immigration, in reality just good, old-fashioned colonialism by another name, as a “solution” to her problems. I doubt that her population will shrink back to the 30 million of the 19th century, but she would be much better off if it did. Such a population is sustainable, not to mention a great deal more environmentally sound, than one of 125 million on such a small archipelago. In an age of high tech and nuclear weapons, Japan would potentially be a great deal stronger, not weaker, with a smaller population, in spite of her hostile neighbors.

Let her take a close look at the example of the “liberal democracies” of the West and consider whether that’s really the future she wants for her own people. I lack any standing to tell the Japanese people what they “ought” to do. However, such a future looks singularly unattractive to me.

I note in passing that I don’t mean to suggest that you, dear reader, have fewer children. Quite the opposite! If there is any danger of your overpopulating the planet in the process, I will let you know in due time.

Of Pearl Harbor and Clouded Crystal Balls

Some people seem so fond of the thought of shocking or cataclysmic events that they manage to convince themselves they will happen tomorrow. Consider, for example, the predictions of civil war, “just around the corner,” we’ve seen on social media for the last decade and more. Recently our media have regaled us with stories about “imminent” invasions of Ukraine by Russia, and Taiwan by China. I won a dollar bet with a friend a year ago who had convinced himself that release of the Covid virus would inevitably result in the fall of the Chinese government. Of course, shocking and cataclysmic events do happen once in a while, and since the myriad Cassandra’s out there generate enough predictions to suit every occasion, some small number of them must inevitably come true. A case in point is the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, that took place 80 years ago today.

Consider, for example, an article entitled “Stop Japan Now,” that appeared in the December, 1941 issue of “Flying and Popular Aviation” magazine. The author was James R. Young, who had worked as a journalist in Japan for the previous 13 years. It starts with the following quote by Senator Allen J. Ellender of Louisiana:

Several months ago I stated that, before this war was over, our Government would have to engage in war with Japan. I know of no better time than now to do the job.

It didn’t take long for his wish to come true. Young agreed, advocating a quick, surgical preemptive war against Japan in order to release our Pacific naval squadrons for convoy duty in the Atlantic, thus averting a British defeat. According to the first paragraph of his article,

Japan’s threat in the Far East is perpetuated by an Axis plan to keep our Pacific Fleet from being released for immediate convoy duty in the Atlantic. America can and must call Nippon’s bluff and free our Naval squadrons in the Pacific, if we are to get the necessary aid to Britain in time. This is the hour to act. Japan is vulnerable to an attack by our Army and Navy air units operating from bases in Alaska, the Philippines, and even China. Almost single-handed our air power, as it now stands, can cut the lifeline of Japan’s only real menace – her navy – destroy her crowded cities, demoralize her army and render the nation worthless to the Axis.

Beneath a picture of a Japanese aircraft carrier one reads the caption,

U.S. Navy experts long have considered Japanese air and sea power third-rate.

Such hubris was probably similarly common among Russian naval experts back in 1904, before their attitudes about Japan’s “third rate navy” were adjusted by Admiral Togo in the Battle of Tsushima. A bit later on we read,

Less than 1,300 miles away from her industrial centers near Tokio, at Alaskan air bases, are U.S. Army Air Force bombardment groups, standing ready for action. And facing her Gibraltar of the Pacific, Formosa (largest island in the Japanese group), are strong U.S. land, sea and air forces in the Philippines. Japan could not withstand the highly developed and speedy striking ability of America’s new Pacific might. She would quickly crumble.

Indeed, we could knock out the feckless Japanese with one hand tied behind our backs. According to Young,

One effective attack from an American aircraft carrier, bombers from Siberia, or a squadron from China could cripple Japan’s transportation system. Night attacks on any part of Japan will leave her practically helpless… Important naval bases also will be vulnerable to bombardment, in view of the fact that antiaircraft defense cannot function until the attacking forces are over their objectives. Such airports as Japan has could be bombed completely out of commission as they have few such bases and cannot move freely to newer fields, due to the condition of the terrain.

As Young pointed out, the Japanese were particularly helpless when it came to military aviation:

In aviation, as in the auto industry, the Japanese have always had something of everything from everywhere. A big handicap is the development of carburators to contend with notoriously bad Japanese weather conditions. The have French carburetors, American piston rings, German and Italian cylinder heads, Swedish ball bearings and all kinds of machine tools – plus American cotton, Dutch rubber, and imported aluminum… For a number of years the Japanese have developed aircraft through adopting a type purchased through a manufacturing license from some other country. These licenses and designs have become obsolete by the time they have gone into production.

The Zero fighter had become operational in April, 1940, and had been used extensively in China for more than a year before Young’s article appeared, but, apparently, he hadn’t noticed. When war did begin in the same month as the article was published, Japanese fighters and bombers made short work of opposing air forces as they swept south through the Philippines and southeast Asia. Young continued,

The answer in dealing with such a nation is to take Vladivostok, Dakar and Martinique – and do the arguing afterward. If we find we do not need the bases, we can hand them back. (!)

Right! I’m sure Comrade Stalin would have meekly accepted our seizure of Vladivostok while his nation was fighting for its life against Nazi invaders. And, after all, it would only take a few days for Japan to crumble beneath the hammer blows of our vastly superior military, and then we could just hand back the city, good as new.

The same magazine had an article by Major General L. H. van Oyen, head of the Dutch air force in the Netherlands East Indies entitled, “The Netherlands Indies are Ready.” According to the general,

The Netherlands East Indies has two air forces, army and navy, The army air corps, which I head, is equipped with Rayan trainers, made in the United States, a formidable array of Brewster Buffalo fighters, Fokker reconnaissance planes (now used only for training), and Curtiss interceptors, known over here as the CW-21. We also have many Curtiss P-36 fighters.

Japan’s air force would soon make short work of the general’s Brewster Buffalos and P-36 fighters. Eventually, of course, nearly four years and two atomic bombs later, Japan did crumble beneath the weight of U.S. military and industrial might, but the job was somewhat more difficult and protracted than Young imagined. I find little about what happened to him and his “expertise” after the war. However, if our own times are any guide, he made out just fine. Consider, for example, the case of Gordon Chang, who predicted that the Chinese government would collapse in 2011 in his “The Coming Collapse of China,” published in 2001. Now, a decade later, the Chinese government seems to be doing just fine, and yet I continue running into articles citing him as an “expert” on China.

According to Julius Caesar, “Men willingly believe what they wish to believe.” It’s as true today as it was 2000 years ago.

Of Historical Illusions and Vain Predictions

Without venturing a guess about how and when the current election will end, I note in passing that predictions about its aftermath are all over the map.  They range all the way from a panacea of globalism to a dystopia of one party tyranny. Since there is an oracle for virtually every possible scenario, a few of them are bound to utter prophecies that more or less approximate what will actually happen. History attests to the fact that this can generally be attributed to good luck. Today’s lucky prophets tend to press their luck and expose themselves as charlatans the next time they venture to read the tea leaves.

Of course, the vast majority of predictions turn out to be dead wrong. Often, they can be dated according to the ideological fashions that happened to be in vogue at the time they were made. Consider, for example, the confident predictions of one Brooks Adams, published in an article entitled The New Industrial Revolution in the January, 1901 issue of the Atlantic Monthly. Adams was an eminent political scientist and historian of the day, and a great-grandson of President John Adams. Wikipedia has a blurb about him. Evolution was all the rage in those days and, like many other social Darwinists of his day, Adams apparently sought to apply the great man’s theory without ever bothering to read what he wrote. Among other things, he imagined that “natural selection” took place at the level of modern nation states, causing “lesser” states to perish, and “higher” ones to replace them.

Adams’ deductions were suitably cloaked in “scientific” mumbo-jumbo such as the following:

The law regulating human development may possibly be formulated somewhat as follows: Nature favors those organisms which, for the time being, operate cheapest; but organisms are wasteful which, relatively, lack energy. An organism may fail in energy either because it is deficient in mass, or because it has been imperfectly endowed with energetic material. In either case the result is the same: organisms which, compared with others, are wanting in energy are wasteful, and, being wasteful, nature rejects them. Applying this law to recent social phenomena, certain deductions may be made which are not without interest regarding the past, and may be worthy of consideration in view of the future. An inquiry of this kind must begin with Europe, which until lately has been the focus of activity.

According to Adams, efficient means of transportation were a critical source of this “energy.” Europe had led the way into the “first” industrial revolution because, “…before railroads, its physical formation lent itself in a supreme degree to cheap transportation by water.” However, an even more abundant source of “energy” had appeared with the introduction of modern rail systems. Adams noted that, “…the introduction of the railroad permitted the consolidation of larger and more energetic masses than had theretofore existed.”

Germany had been the first European state to complete a consolidated rail system between 1866 and 1870, leading to, “…the downfall of France and the transfer to Berlin of a large treasure, in the shape of a war indemnity.” The United States could only build such a system by massive borrowing abroad, resulting in debts that seemed impossible to repay. According to Adams,

Perhaps no people ever faced such an emergency and paid, without recourse to war. America triumphed through her inventive and administrative genius. Brought to a white head under compression, the industrial system of the Union suddenly fused into a homogeneous mass. One day, without warning, the gigantic mechanism operated, and two hemispheres vibrated with the shock. In March, 1897, the vast consolidation of mines, foundries, railroads, and steamship companies, centralized at Pittsburg, began producing steel rails at $18 the ton, and at a bound America bestrode the world. She had won her great wager with Fate; society lay helpless at her feet; she could flood the markets of a small, decentralized, and half-exhausted peninsula with incalculable wealth.

Suddenly, Europe faced an existential threat:

The end seems only a question of time. Europe is doomed not only to buy her raw material abroad, but to pay the cost of transport. And Europe knew this instinctively in March, 1897, and nerved herself for resistance. Her best hope, next to a victorious war, lay in imitating America, and in organizing a system of transportation which would open up the East.

And what was meant by “opening up the East?” Nothing less than carving up China and divvying it up among the European states after the fashion of Poland. Adams continues,

Carnegie achieved the new industrial revolution in March, 1897. Within a twelvemonth the rival nations had emptied themselves upon the shore of the Yellow Sea. In November Germany seized Kiao-chau, a month later the Russians occupied Port Arthur, and the following April the English appropriated Wei-hai-wei; but the fact to remember is that just 400 miles inland, due west of Kiao-chau, lies Tszechau, the centre, according to Richthofen, of the richest coal and iron deposits in existence… A convulsion in China has long been anticipated as the signal for a division of the empire by an agreement of the Powers, somewhat as Poland was apportioned a century ago.

However, Europe had been foiled in its attempt to expand eastward. Russia’s trans-Siberian railroad could not supply the necessary “energy,” as later became painfully clear in the Russo-Japanese War, and the United States had blocked the alternative route by sea by seizing the Philippines. Thus,

…while caging Europeans within their narrow peninsula, she is slowly suffocating them with her surplus. Any animal cornered and threatened will strike at the foe; much more, proud, energetic, and powerful nations. Nevertheless, war is an eventuality which each can ponder for himself.

Adams was hardly unique in suggesting the possibility of a pan-European war against the United States at the time, either here or in Europe. He did suggest something close to the alternative that was finally tried many years later, after two devastating World Wars:

Obviously, great economies may be effected by concentration. Disarmament, more or less complete; the absorption of small states, like Holland, Belgium, Denmark, and the like; the redistribution of the Austrian Empire; the adoption of an international railroad system, with uniform coinage and banking; and, above all, the massing of industries upon the American model, may enable Europe to force down prices indefinitely, and possibly turn the balance of trade.

Meanwhile, however, things looked a great deal more apocalyptic:

Americans must recognize that this is war to the death, – a struggle no longer against single nations, but against a continent. There is no room in the economy of the world for two centers of wealth and empire. One organism, in the end, will destroy the other. The weaker must succumb… In the stern struggle for life, affections, traditions and beliefs are as naught. Every innovation is resisted by some portion of every population; but resistance to innovation indicates, in the eye of nature, senility, and senility is doomed to be discarded. When a whole nation becomes senile, like the Chinese, it perishes. That nation thrives best which is most flexible, and which has the fewest prejudices to hamper adaptation…Should America be destined to prevail, in the struggle for empire which lies before her, those men will rule over her who can best administer masses vaster than anything now existing in the world, and the laws and institutions of our country will take the shape best adapted to the needs of the mighty engines which such men shall control.

Such was the illusion of reality in the mind of a proud social Darwinist a bit over a century ago. To say the least, the 20th century resulted in an “attitude adjustment” regarding the future of mankind. China no longer seems quite so close to “perishing,” and Pittsburg is no longer the epicenter of the “New Industrial Revolution.” We have a different perception of reality today, but who is to say that our versions, and our confident predictions about the future, aren’t even more befogged than those of Adams? If anything is true, it is that our species tends to vastly overestimate its own intelligence. It is also true that, then as now, individuals survive or they don’t. That is the real question of “to be or not to be” facing each of us, regardless of the nature of the societies we happen to live in.

I note in passing that the issue of the Atlantic Monthly linked above has some articles about the ordeal of Whites in the South during the Reconstruction era following the Civil War that portray a somewhat different version of their plight than that taught in universities today. One of them was written by future President Woodrow Wilson.

Der Spiegel and the Relotius Affair

In case you’re reading this on another planet, the Relotius Affair is a particularly egregious instance of Fake News. Claas Relotius was a star reporter for Der Spiegel, the number one German news magazine. On December 19 an article appeared at the Medium website entitled Der Spiegel journalist messed with the wrong small town. It documented the fact that a story Relotius had written about a small town in Minnesota by the name of Fergus Falls was actually a pack of lies. An article admitting as much appeared at Der Spiegel’s website the same day.

The lies in question were remarkably crude. For example, according to Relotius, who claimed to have arrived on the bus from Minneapolis,

“After three and a half hours, the bus bends from the highway to a narrow, sloping street, rolling towards a dark forest that looks like dragons live in it. At the entrance, just before the station, there is a sign with the American stars and stripes banner, which reads, ‘Welcome to Fergus Falls, home of damn good folks.'”

In the following quote from an article at Der Spiegel by Chief Editor Ullrich Fichtner, we learn that Relotius embellished this account as follows:

In his story about Fergus Falls, Relotius tailored his report in a harmful and arrogant manner. To get the ball rolling, he told how he saw that a second sign had been set up right next to the welcome sign at the entrance to the town, half as high, but plainly visible. On this sign, made of thick wood driven into the frozen ground, stood in large, painted letters, “Mexicans Keep Out.”

In the first place, it apparently never occurred to the editors at Der Spiegel to ask an actual American how likely it is that an expletive such as “damn” would appear in a welcome sign. I’ve driven hundreds of thousands of miles through all parts of the country, and have never seen anything of the sort. As far as the “Mexicans Keep Out” sign is concerned, the chances that it would be found “driven into the frozen ground” in Minnesota, home of the extreme left-wing Farmer Labor Party, of all places, is vanishingly small. More to the point, did it never occur to their fact checkers to do something as elementary as taking the bus ride into town themselves using Google Street View? According to Der Spiegel,

Any text that appears in the weekly SPIEGEL, whether printed or digital, is read by many colleagues before its publication: by at least one department head and one editor-in-chief, by staff in editing and the legal department. But the heart of quality control is the in-house documentation. The more than 60 colleagues – physicists, historians, biologists or Islamic scholars – ensure that names, dates and facts are correct, they verify every word and every number. Hardly any other news medium makes such an effort to live up to the claim: What we write is true. In the days of Fake News, documentation is something we take very seriously.

I hereby offer my services to Der Spiegel to replace all those “60 colleagues,” and I’ll even work for half of the total that was paid them! Using my extraordinary computer skills, I accessed Street View, something apparently unheard of among the “physicists, historians, biologists, and Islamic scholars” working for them. It took me all of a few minutes to find that on the bus route into town there are no forests and no dragons. As far as I could tell there wasn’t even a welcome sign, not to mention one with a smaller sibling advising Mexicans to keep out. As for the “bus station” it appears to share an address with a local Tesoro gas station.   If one exists at all, it would seem to be remarkably unpretentious. It’s more likely that the bus merely makes a pit stop in Fergus Falls.  

The real Fergus Falls welcome sign shown in the Medium expose is not even on the bus route into town, unless the bus driver is in the habit of taking the “scenic route.” It sits next the to Applebee’s on Kennedy Park Road just off W. Lincoln. As seen in the accompanying image, it’s not exactly on a par with St. Louis’ Gateway Arch. You’d miss it if you happened to blink at the wrong time. If you squint you’ll see it just to the right of center in the image.

 

Consider for a moment the above along with all the other lies documented in the Medium expose. The only fact checking it would have taken to debunk any of them would hardly have amounted to more than a few phone calls. Is it even barely credible that a reporter with an international reputation to protect, like Relotius, would have dared to try to get away with even one of these lies if he so much as suspected that anything even remotely worthy of the name of “fact checking” was going on at Der Spiegel? Would he have risked his career in that way if he thought there was even a slim chance that his employer would call him out on his lies? I think not. Indeed, he did get away with it as far as Der Spiegel is concerned. Relotius knew the Spiegel narrative by heart. He knew what the editors wanted to hear, and he delivered. The one thing he forgot is that the media in the US isn’t quite as firmly in the grip of their clones here as it is in Germany. When they realized they were going to lose control of the message, they threw him under the bus with alacrity.

However, in spite of their ruthless reckoning with Relotius, it would seem the Spiegel editors have never heard the good advice to stop digging if you find yourself in a hole. Instead, they have invented a whole new fairy tale according to which a newly anointed Sherlock Holmes by the name of Juan Moreno, who works for them, was the “real” knight in shining armor who exposed Relotius. Evidently this threadbare lie is intended to prop up the myth that their system is “self-correcting.” Unfortunately, a couple of alert citizens of Fergus Falls who happened to notice the hit job on their town, and probably swallowed their gum in the process as they read through all the lies, have published a timeline on Twitter documenting the fact that they brought the matter to Der Spiegel’s attention as far back as April. They were stonewalled until the editors realized that the story was going to come out whether they liked it or not. That’s when their “Sherlock Holmes” appeared on the scene.

Of course, since they are obviously unconcerned with fact checking, this begs the question of what all those department heads, editor’s in chief, lawyers, physicists, historians, biologists, and Islamic scholars at Der Spiegel actually do. The answer is obvious enough. If you’ve read Der Spiegel for any length of time, you should have no trouble seeing that each one of Relotius’ lies supports at least one of the quasi-racist stereotypes of Americans that are a prominent part of the favored narrative there. The imaginary “Mexicans Keep Out” sign emblazoned with the Stars and Stripes actually kills several of those birds with one stone, portraying us as obnoxiously patriotic, racist, and xenophobic all at once. All the other favorite Spiegel stereotypes appear like so many ducks in a row. Americans as gun nuts? Check! Americans as religious fanatics? Check! Americans as prudes? Check! Americans as thoughtless polluters? Check! Americans obsessed with violence? Check. The fact that these bigoted stereotypes have been enduring themes at Der Spiegel for many years is documented in a collage of Spiegel covers that appeared on the Davids Medienkritik website more than a decade ago. In short, it is far more likely that what all these “fact checkers” really do is make doubly sure that nothing slips by that doesn’t fit the narrative. Presumably this also conforms to the definition of “fact checking” favored by the prestigious Columbia Journalism Review, which recently praised Der Spiegel for having the largest “fact checking” apparatus in the world. The CJR describes itself as “the voice of journalism,” which, given the current state of the art, is entirely plausible.

It is hardly true that all Germans hate the United States. There, as here, however, the mainstream media is under the firm control of the “progressive” Left, and scorn for the United States and its people, with the exception of their fellow leftists and a few favored identity groups, forms a prominent plank in the ideological box they live in. It is one of the markers that defines their ingroup, if you will. Indeed, in spite of the German fantasy that they have “one of the most free presses in the world,” the reality isn’t even close. There is no equivalent in Germany of prominent conservatives on talk radio and TV with huge audiences, influential websites that push back against leftist propaganda such as Instapundit and Breitbart, or major news outlet that don’t always play along with the narrative, such as Fox. The Left has almost complete control of the message. No matter where you turn, whether to Spiegel, Focus, the Süddeutsche Zeitung, the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, ARD, ZDF, or what have you, the message on such critical international issues as immigration is virtually identical. 

The same, of course, is true of the MSM in the United States, but they enjoy nowhere near the hegemony of their German equivalents. However, the leftist narrative is virtually identical whether here or in Europe, and one often finds stories in MSM outlets in the US such as CNN and The New York Times that are as similar to their European equivalents as so many peas in a pod. Indeed, these organizations are as committed to the narrative and as indifferent to the truth as Der Spiegel, as evidenced by their award of prestigious prizes to Relotius for “excellence in journalism.” What Marx said of the proletariat is certainly true of the globalist media; they have no country. Their “country” is their ideology, and that is where their true loyalty lies.

Regardless, it has certainly been amusing to watch Der Spiegel squirm and struggle in a futile attempt to restore its lost journalistic virginity. “Schadenfreude” is the appropriate German expression. Of course, virginity is hard to restore once it’s lost, and no one capable of taking a step outside the leftist ideological box referred to above is likely to believe the now familiar cant about “layers of editors and fact checkers” at this point. At some level, even the editors at Der Spiegel must suspect that the rest of the world sees them for the bold faced liars they so obviously are. A large part of the German population has been aware of the fact for some time. I’m sure many more will swallow the red pill in the aftermath of this affair. For that, perhaps, we should be grateful to Herr Relotius.

UPDATE: Apparently the Spiegel fans have an even bigger problem with the truth than even I imagined. I was locked out of Twitter overnight after posting this story.

Trump and the “Russian Hackers”

I’ve just read the unclassified version of the U.S. Intelligence community’s report on “Russian hacking,” entitled, “Background to ‘Assessing Russian Activities and Intentions in Recent US Elections’: The Analytic Process and Cyber Incident Attribution.” A pdf version is available online, and I hope my readers will have a look at it.  It is almost unbelievably lame.

The document begins with the assurance that it is an unclassified version of a “highly classified assessment.”  This, of course, begs the question of how some of this “highly classified” information was leaked to the press.  I personally think this is the most important take-away from the whole “Russian hacking” flap.  Our intelligence community in general and the CIA in particular are still infested with leakers who apparently had their fingers crossed behind their backs when they swore to protect this “highly classified information.”  Any potential human intelligence source who seriously expects them to protect his or her identity must have a death wish.

As we read on, we learn about the “analytic process” that was used to produce the report, its scope, the sources of information used, etc.  Eventually, we come to a section entitled “Key Judgments.”  We shudder as we learn that,

Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered an influence campaign in 2016 aimed at the US presidential election.  Russia’s goals were to undermine public faith in the US democratic process, denigrate Secretary Clinton, and harm her electability and potential presidency.  We further assess Putin and the Russian Government developed a clear preference for President-elect Trump.

If the goal of the document was really to inform our political leaders, it’s odd that no attempt was made to put the above in context.  By “context” I mean the “clear preferences” of other government leaders.  For example, French President Hollande revealed his “clear preference” by announcing that Trump gave him a “retching feeling.”  Then British Prime Minister David Cameron publicly announced his opinion that Trump is “divisive, stupid, and wrong.”  The British Parliament seriously debated banning Trump from travel to the UK because of his “hate speech.”  The President of the EU Parliament, Martin Schulz, declared that “Trump is a problem for the whole world.”  Germany’s Economy Minister, Sigmar Gabriel, called Trump a threat, and German Chancellor Angela Merkel openly praised Hillary Clinton.  Mexico’s President Nieto didn’t stick at violating Godwin’s Law, comparing Trump to Hitler.  Apparently, these expressions of “clear preferences” by other government leaders are not considered a threat by the people who run our intelligence agencies, because their “clear preferences” were for the correct candidate.  In short, then, such a preference was only deemed objectionable if it happened to be for Trump.

As far as actual “hacking” is concerned, the content of the document is of the flimsiest.  Basically, it was supposed to have consisted of “intrusions into US state and local electoral boards,” which were apparently conducted for the purpose of collecting information and had no impact whatsoever on the outcome of the election.  In addition to that, as we all know, the Russians were supposed to have gained access to the DNC emails, and have passed damaging information therein to WikiLeaks.  According to the document, “Disclosures through WikiLeaks did not contain any evident forgeries.”  In other words, the “hacked” information was true, and should have been reported by our own media, but wasn’t, because it didn’t fit the narrative.  Apparently the message here is that the U.S. voting public should have been “protected” from the truth, but was “unfairly” subjected to it by those nefarious Russians.

Beyond that we have the assurances of Julian Assange and WikiLeaks that the information involved was so poorly protected that it could have been hacked by a 14-year old; no Russian meddling was necessary.  Given Hillary’s adventures with classified State Department information on her personal server, I suspect there’s little reason to doubt the WikiLeaks version.  I note in passing that the “progressive Left” considered Assange such a hero that they saw fit to release a movie about his exploits (Underground; The Julian Assange Story – 2012), and another in which he played a major role (The Fifth Estate – 2013).  No doubt they’re feeling very ill-used at this point.  They never suspected that Assange would be capable of divulging information that didn’t fit the “correct” narrative.  In any case, paltry as it is, that’s the extent of the actual “hacking” alluded to in the document.

Reading on, we finally discover the identity of the “real culprit.”  It turns out to be none other than RT America, a Russian funded news channel.  Much of the document proper and a whole, five page appendix are devoted almost entirely to RT!  We shudder to learn that “RT’s coverage of Secretary Clinton throughout the US presidential campaign was consistently negative.”  It devoted extensive coverage to the “Occupy Wall Street” movement, that known bastion of right wing conservatives and Trump deplorables.  It dared to mention the existence of election fraud and voting machine vulnerabilities in the U.S.  Even more damning is the document’s assurance that RT ran “anti-fracking programming highlighting environmental issues and the impacts on public health.”  As we all know, Hillary and the “progressive Left” have always been “yuge” supporters of fracking.  NOT!!!

No kidding, dear reader, the meat of this “assessment” is nothing but a rant about RT’s vile criminal act of exercising its right to freedom of speech.  When I was done reading it I didn’t know whether to laugh or cry.  The entire mainstream media in the U.S. was utterly in the tank for Hillary from the start.  I have never come across a single article about Trump therein that couldn’t be characterized as “negative.”  The same can be said of another “state-funded news channel,” the BBC.  There was a negative article about Trump on the BBC website every single day I happened to look for the last three months before the election.  The same can certainly also be said of both the English and German versions of the German media.  I follow it daily, and never found anything therein about Trump that could not be characterized as “negative.”  What can I say?  To outweigh all that, RT America must be a more effective propaganda tool than anything ever heard of since the days of Barnum and Bailey!  Hitler himself would have been green with envy!

Apparently this is the sort of drivel we’ve been getting for the $80 billion we invest in our intelligence services every year.  It would seem they’ve degenerated into hidebound bureaucracies that are no longer even capable of being embarrassed by the transparent stupidity of such “highly classified” assessments.  It could hardly hurt to start over from scratch.  We might ask the Russians for help with that.  I suggest we take the 1918 Cheka as a model.  I’ve heard that their methods were somewhat harsh, but by all accounts they were able to collect intelligence that was actually worthy of the name, and at bargain basement prices.  We could use a man like Felix Dzerzhinsky again!  Someone should tell Trump.

UPDATE:  Mild-mannered Czech physicist Lubos Motl has a similar take at The Reference Frame.

Felix Dzerzhinsky

On Losing Our “Moral Compass” in Syria

It’s important to understand morality.  For example, once we finally grasp the fact that it exists solely as an artifact of evolution, it may finally occur to us that attempting to solve international conflicts in a world full of nuclear weapons by consulting moral emotions is probably a bad idea.  Syria is a case in point.  Consider, for example, an article by Nic Robertson entitled, From Sarajevo to Syria: Where is the world’s moral compass?, that recently turned up on the website of CNN.  The author suggests that we “solve” the Syrian civil war by consulting our “moral compass.”  In his opinion that is what we did in the Balkans to end the massacres in Bosnia and Kosovo.  Apparently we are to believe that the situation in Syria is so similar that all we have to do is check the needle of the “moral compass” to solve that problem as well.  I’m not so sure about that.

In the first place, the outcomes of following a “moral compass” haven’t always been as benign as they were in Bosnia and Kosovo.  Czar Nicholas was following his “moral compass” when he rushed to the aid of Serbia in 1914, precipitating World War I.  Hitler was following his “moral compass” when he attacked Poland in 1939, bringing on World War II.  Apparently it’s very important to follow the right “moral compass,” but the author never gets around to specifying which one of the many available we are to choose.  We must assume he is referring to his own, personal “moral compass.”  He leaves us in doubt regarding its exact nature, but no doubt it has much in common with the “moral compass” of the other journalists who work for CNN.  Unlike earlier versions, we must hope that this one is proof against precipitating another world war.

If we examine this particular “moral compass” closely, we find that it possesses some interesting idiosyncrasies.  It points to the conclusion that there is nothing wrong with using military force to depose a government recognized as legitimate by the United Nations.  According to earlier, now apparently obsolete versions of the “moral compass,” this sort of thing was referred to as naked aggression, and was considered “morally bad.”  Apparently all that has changed.  Coming to the aid of a government so threatened, as Russia is now doing in Syria, used to be considered “good.”  Under the new dispensation, it has become “bad.”  It used to be assumed that governments recognized by the international community as legitimate had the right to control their own airspaces.  Now the compass needle points to the conclusion that control over airspaces is a matter that should be decided by the journalists at CNN.  We must, perforce, assume that they have concocted a “moral compass” superior to anything ever heard of by Plato and Socrates, or any of the other philosophers who plied the trade after them.

I suggest that, before blindly following this particular needle, we consider rationally what the potential outcomes might be.  Robertson never lays his cards on the table and tells us exactly what he has in mind.  However, we can get a pretty good idea by consulting the article.  In his words,

Horror and outrage made the world stand up to Bosnia’s bullies after that imagination and fear had ballooned to almost insurmountable proportion.

Today it is Russia’s President Vladimir Putin whose military stands alongside Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s army. Together they’ve become a force no nation alone dares challenge. Their power is seemingly set in stone.

It would seem, then, based on the analogies of Bosnia and Kosovo, where we did “good,” that Robertson is suggesting we replace the internationally recognized government of Syria by force and confront Russia, whose actions within Syria’s borders are in response to a request for aid by that government.  In the process it would be necessary for us to defeat and humiliate Russia.  It was out of fear of humiliation that Russia came to Serbia’s aid in 1914.  Are we really positive that Russia will not risk nuclear war to avoid a similar humiliation today?  It might be better to avoid pushing our luck to find out.

What of the bright idea of replacing the current Syrian government?  It seems to me that similar “solutions” really didn’t work out too well in either Iraq or Libya.  Some would have us believe that “moderates” are available in abundance to spring forth and fill the power vacuum.  So far, I have seen no convincing evidence of the existence of these “moderates.”  Supposing they exist, I suspect the chances that they would be able to control a country brimming over with religious fanatics of all stripes without a massive U.S. military presence are vanishingly small.  In other words, I doubt the existence of a benign alternative to Bashar al-Assad.  Under the circumstances, is it really out of the question that the best way to minimize civilian casualties is not by creating a power vacuum, or by allowing the current stalemate to drag on, but by ending the civil war in exactly the way Russia is now attempting to do it; by defeating the rebels?  Is it really worth risking a nuclear war just so we can try the rather dubious alternatives?

Other pundits (see, for example, here, here, and here) inform us that Turkey “cannot stand idly by” while Syria and her Russian ally regain control over Aleppo, a city within her own borders.  Great shades of the Crimean War!  What on earth could lead anyone to believe that Turkey is our “ally” in any way, shape or form other than within the chains of NATO?  Turkey is a de facto Islamist state.  She actively supports the Palestinians against another of our purported allies, Israel.  Remember the Palestinians?  Those were the people who danced in the streets when they saw the twin towers falling.  She reluctantly granted access to Turkish bases for U.S. airstrikes against ISIS only so she would have a free hand attacking the Kurds, one of the most consistently pro-U.S. factions in the Middle East.  She was foolhardy enough to shoot down a Russian plane in Syrian territory, killing its pilot, for the “crime” of violating her airspace for a grand total of 17 seconds.  She cynically exploits the flow of refugees to Europe as a form of “politics by other means.”  Could there possibly be any more convincing reasons for us to stop playing with fire and get out of NATO?  NATO is a ready-made fast track to World War III on behalf of “allies” like Turkey.

But I digress.  The point is that the practice of consulting something as imaginary as a “moral compass” to formulate foreign policy is unlikely to end well.  It assumes that, after all these centuries, we have finally found the “correct” moral compass, and the equally chimerical notion that “moral truths” exist, floating about as disembodied spirits, quite independent of the subjective imaginations of the employees of CNN.  Forget about the “moral compass.”  Let us identify exactly what it is we want to accomplish, and the emotional motivation for those desires.  Then, assuming we can achieve some kind of agreement on the matter, let us apply the limited intelligence we possess to realize those desires.

Morality exists because the behavioral predispositions responsible for it evolved, and they evolved because they happened to promote the survival of genes in times radically different than the present.  It exists for that reason alone.  It follows that, if there really were such things as “moral truths,” then nothing could possibly be more immoral than failing to survive.  We would do well to keep that consideration in mind in determining the nature of our future relationship with Russia.

On the “Good Guys” and “Bad Guys” of World War I

More than a century has now come and gone since the start of World War I.  Numerous books and articles have been published to mark the centennial, often differing sharply with each other in their interpretations of the events and personalities concerned.  My personal favorite is The Sleepwalkers, by Christopher Clark.  I’ve been reading quite a bit of the source material myself lately.  As I speak German, these have included memoirs of many of the key players on the German side.  In reading his book, I noticed that Clark was very familiar with everything I’d read.   I also noticed that everything I’ve read was a drop in the bucket compared to the rest of the material he quoted in detail.  Clark also generally refrains from categorizing every historical personality as either a “good guy” or a “bad guy.”  I avoid reading histories written by journalists, because so few of them manage to avoid this moralistic pigeonholing.   It’s much easier to understand historical events if, as Clark puts it in his introduction, one “remains alert to the fact that the people, events and forces described… carried in them the seeds of other, perhaps less terrible, futures.”

Not everyone agrees with Clark.  Even a century later there are others, even among professional historians, who remain obsessed with the question of “war guilt.”  For example, John C. G. Röhl, Emeritus Professor of History at the University of Sussex, recently published a life of Kaiser Wilhelm II, in which he insisted that Germany’s last Kaiser managed to concoct World War I almost single-handedly.  I’ve also seen several articles, such as this one that appeared on the conservative Australian Quadrant website, that are still harping about “German militarism” as if the war had ended yesterday.  If the Quadrant author is to be believed, the “ideological and cultural pathologies” of Wilhelmine Germany were direct forerunners of Nazism.

I doubt it.  Germany could certainly have broken the chain of events that led to war.  So could Austria-Hungary, and so could Russia.  The question of who, among these three, not to mention the other belligerents, was really the chief culprit was hardly as obvious in the days immediately preceding the clash of arms as the historians of the victorious powers so often asserted when it was over.  Writing two days after Russia had begun her “partial” mobilization in response to Austria’s ultimatum to Serbia, Lord Bertie, at the time British ambassador in France, wrote in his diary,

It seems incredible that the Russian Government should plunge Europe into war in order to make themselves the protectors of the Servians.  Unless the Austrian Government had proofs of the complicity of Servian officials in the plot to murder the Archduke (which they did, ed.) they could not have addressed to the Servian Government the stringent terms which the Austrian Note contained.  Russia comes forward as the protectress of Servia; by what title except on the exploded pretension that she is, by right, the protectress of all Slavs?  What rubbish!  And she will expect, if she adhere to her present attitude, France and England to support her in arms.

A day later he wrote,

I cannot believe in war unless Russia wants it.  The Military party in Germany may think the present moment more favourable for Germany than it is likely to be later, when the reforms in the Russian Army will have been carried out and the strategic railways, converging on the Russo-German frontier, will have been constructed, but I cannot think that the German Emperor and his Government desire war.  I do not believe that they were accessories before the fact to the terms of the Austrian Note to Servia.  If, however, the Emperor of Russia adhere to the absurd and obsolete claim that she is protectress of all Slav States, however bad their conduct, was is probable, Germany will be bound to support Austria, and France will have to help Russia.

In fact, that’s exactly how it looked to Kaiser Wilhelm himself.  As he noted in his memoirs, it was clear that if Germany fulfilled her treaty obligations to defend Austria against a Russian attack, it would certainly bring France into the war.  The Germans knew they would be facing a two front war, and reacted accordingly.  He also confirmed Bertie’s surmise about the conflict between the German civil and military officials in the days leading up to war.  In his words,

The foreign office… was so hypnotized by the idea of “peace at any price,” that it completely ruled out war as a possible element of Entente policy, and was therefore unable to correctly assess the signs that war was possible.  Therein lies yet another proof of Germany’s desire to preserve the peace.  This attitude of the foreign office gave rise to certain contradictions between it and the General Staff and the Admiralty, who gave warning as their duty required, and advised preparations for defense.  These difference persisted for some time.  The Army could never forget the fact that it was the fault of the foreign office that they had been surprised.  And the diplomats were piqued that war had come in spite of their efforts.

The memoirs of the Kaiser and some of the other key players in the war and the events leading up to it are often dismissed with a wave of the hand as mere justifications after the fact.  In fact, while self-justification is a typical motive, memoirs can’t simply be invented out of whole cloth, and invariably reveal a great deal about the character of the authors, regardless of how they choose to construe the facts.  Wilhelm was no angel.  He was paranoid, a narcissist, became an anti-Semite, especially after the war, and had an unfortunate penchant for bombast and bluster.  However, he was not the rabid warmonger portrayed by Röhl and many others, either.

Perhaps the most damaging indictment of Germany was written by her ambassador in Great Britain before the war, Prince Karl Lichnowsky.  His assessment, currently available under the title, The Guilt of Germany for the War of German Aggression, pointed out the folly of Germany’s crash naval building program in alienating England.  He saw the British foreign secretary, Sir Edward Grey, as a man dedicated to preserving the peace, and an honest broker in his dealings with Germany and the other European powers.  Grey had suggested a conference of the powers, similar to the one that had preserved the peace of Europe during another spat over the Balkans a couple of years earlier, as a way to avoid war.  Lichnowsky considered Germany’s decision to refuse this offer suicidal, and a major contributing factor to the onset of war.  His assessment of Grey and British policy in general was probably a great deal more accurate than that of the Kaiser and the German foreign office.  Their paranoia about the supposed perfidious, anti-German intrigues of England’s King Edward VII and his foreign secretary is evident in the Kaiser’s as well as several other memoirs.  However, in spite of that, one cannot simply ignore the reply of von Jagow, German foreign secretary at the time, which is also included in the volume referred to above.  According to Jagow,

We could not agree to the English proposal of a conference of Ambassadors, for it would doubtless have led to a serious diplomatic defeat.  For Italy, too, (Germany’s ally at the time in the Triple Alliance with Austria, ed.) was pro-Serb and, with her Balkan interests, stood rather opposed to Austria… The best and only feasible way of escape was a localization of the conflict and an understanding between Vienna and Petrograd.  We worked toward that end with all our energy.

In retrospect, this “way of escape” may have appeared a great deal more “feasible,” in view of the fact that the actual alternative turned out to be Germany’s crushing defeat in the World War, but that outcome did not yet seem inevitable.  In fact, Germany did seek to localize the conflict, as is evident from the source material.  As for the German naval building program, I doubt that its aim was really to outstrip or seriously threaten British domination of the seas.  Again, one cannot simply dismiss what has been written about the subject on the German side.  According to the one man most often associated with the program, Admiral von Tirpitz, Germany’s battle fleet was necessary in order to protect her coast against a combination of France and Russia or any other two naval powers other than Great Britain.  She never aimed at more than an 8 to 5 ratio of naval power in favor of England, and would have been satisfied with 3 to 2.  There is no credible evidence that Tirpitz or the Kaiser aimed at anything beyond this.

There is a great deal of additional material in Tirpitz’ memoirs of interest to students of events leading up to the outbreak of war.  For example, he could not understand why Germany had not simply mobilized in response to the Russian mobilization, and left the moral odium of an actual declaration of war to its enemies.  In his words,

Did not (German Chancellor, ed.) Bethmann really consider the enormous disadvantages which were created for us by our not leaving the act of declaration of war to the enemy?… my feelings revolted at our having to assume the odium of the attacking party in the face of the world, on account of the jurists of the Foreign Office, although we could not at all intend to march into Russia, and although we were in reality the attacked party.  I therefore asked the Chancellor, as the meeting broke up, why the declaration of war had to coincide with our mobilization?  The Chancellor replied that this was necessary because the army would immediately send troops over the frontier.  The reply astonished me, because at the most it could only be a question of patrols.  But through these days Bethmann was so agitated and overstrained that it was impossible to speak with him.  I can still hear him as he repeatedly stressed the absolute necessity of the declaration of war, with his arms uplifted, and consequently cut short all further discussion.  When I asked Moltke afterwards the actual relation between the crossing of the frontier and our declaration of war, he denied any intention of sending troops over the frontier forthwith.  He also told me that he attached no value to the declaration of war from his own point of view.

Thus the riddle, why we declared war first, remains unsolved for me.  It is to be assumed that we did it out of formal legal consciousness.  The Russians began the war without any declaration, but we believed that we could not defend ourselves without such a statement.  Outside Germany there is no appreciation for such ideas.

That’s for sure!  In retrospect, it’s hard to find fault with his reasoning.  Unfortunately, I can’t write a complete history of the start of World War I in a blog post.  Suffice it to say that I agree with Clark that the notion that it was all Germany’s fault, with Kaiser Wilhelm the “bad guy” extraordinaire, is nonsense.  There was plenty of blame to go around.  What’s the point?  I suppose that I tend to be dubious of the value of morality tales posing as history.  In reality, there are no good guys and bad guys.  The terms “good” and “bad” are artifacts of the human tendency to attribute objectivity to moral judgments.  In fact, they do not exist as things-in-themselves, but are better understood as subjective impressions in the minds of individuals.  I read history to gain an understanding of why things happened the way they did, and what motivated individuals to act the way they did.  That information is often lost in works that seek to portray certain individuals as “good,” and others as “bad.”  Understanding of real human beings and the complexity of human motivations and behavior are sacrificed when one seeks to create a collection of wooden puppets that all fit neatly in one of these two moral pigeonholes.

worldwar1

Warmongering at “Der Spiegel?”

Pity the poor President.  He can’t do anything right!  Or at least not according to Der Spiegel.  After furiously condemning him for lethal drone attacks, murdering civilians in Afghanistan, and personally eavesdropping on German phone conversations via a direct line from the NSA, the editors are now upset with his pusillanimous lack of warlike spirit in Syria.  In an article on the Spiegel website entitled “Barack Obama’s Syria Policy:  President for Procrastination and Delay,” Washington correspondent Sebastian Fischer dolefully informs us that after not one, not two, but three really serious, we mean it this time, warnings from Obama, Assad blew him off and attacked his own people with chemical weapons anyway.  Assad “gives a whistle” about US threats.  Wringing his hands, Fischer wonders, “How can this be?  Is Obama too weak?”

It would seem so, as Fischer continues, “Particularly alarming for Obama:  The indifference of the dictator Assad isn’t an anomaly.  The US President isn’t getting through to Egypt’s military, either.  He can warn and scold as much as he wants, but the new rulers in Cairo pay no attention to him.  And what of Russia’s President Putin, the only one who might still have a shot at reigning in Assad?  He’s done his best to show how unimpressed he is with America.”   Spiegel’s man on the spot goes on to tell us that, “In Washington, this kind of impotence is received with bitterness.”  Ending his piece with a bit of humor, Fisher writes, “On Wednesday Obama’s press secretary was asked just where the President’s ‘red line’ was located in the case of Egypt.  ‘Well,’ joked Josh Earnest, ‘I didn’t bring along my red pencil.'”

Aficionados of US-German relations will remember wistfully how we were assured at the end of the Bush Administration that the advent of Obama would usher in a golden age in relations between the countries.  I can assure the lay reader that the honeymoon has been over for a long time.  Readers of German who need a good laugh should look at the comment section after the article.  In keeping with the time-honored German tradition when it comes to articles about the US, it contains numerous revelations of various “plots” by our government, many of which are mutually contradictory, yet, we are assured, “proved” by oodles of evidence.  In this case, the commenters are as full of novel insights as ever.  One HäretikerX assures us that Obama is a “Bush puppet.”  Ihawk explains that any intervention in Syria “must and should be under the leadership of Russia,”(!) apparently because Syria belongs to the Russian sphere of influence.  Eppelein von Gailengen chimes in, “A toothless tiger has come undone.  That’s especially true of Obama and his policy.  No bite, no concept of the future, no recovery in the job market as a result of a lack of any economic growth worth mentioning.”

Well, what of it?  Should we write off Germany yet again?  Far from it, dear reader!  Even at the peak of the latest high tide of anti-Americanism in Germany at the end of the Clinton and start of the Bush Administrations, when the media there from right to left was full of furious anti-US propaganda every day, and it was often difficult to find anything on the Der Spiegel website about Germany because of the number of incredibly vile, hatemongering, foaming at the mouth attacks on Amerika, there were always a few decent and honest German bloggers and commenters who defended us.  As a good atheist, I can only say, “God bless them!”  It seems to me there has always been more of that type in Germany than in any other country, and especially more than in the US.  Now there seem to be more of them than ever.  Here are some examples from the comment section of Fischer’s article:

From a Spiegel reader on Facebook:

When the US attacks, bad!  When the US doesn’t attack, bad!  As far as some people are concerned, America can never be in the right, and is always responsible if anyone is killed.  What about Europe and its responsibility?  Oh, right, European politicians don’t have a clue.  Well then.

From eknoes:

According to the comments in forums like this, Obama is a “toothless tiger” if he doesn’t do anything, and “interfering in the internal affairs of other states” if he does.  As far as the usual Spiegel commenter is concerned, he can never do anything right.

From Ruhepuls:

When the American’s play “big brother,” and intervene – if necessary with armed force – in some conflict, then they are accused of striving for hegemony (imperialism).  But if they stay out of it, then they are accused of failing to use their power to pursue “humanitarian” goals.  What the heck!  No matter what the Americans do, it’s always wrong!

From omarius:

So this time the Americans are standing aside… and they still can’t please anyone… apparently the professional leftists have discovered a problem that doesn’t have a political solution.^^

…and many more similar entries.  Write off the Germans?  I don’t think so.  Taken one commenter with another, they’re saner than most.

Artifacts of the Defenders of the Faith

Pundits on the right have been less than pleased by what they view as a timid defense of freedom of speech and appeasement of radical Islamists by both Obama Administration officials and public intellectuals on the left in the wake of the murder of Ambassador Stevens and the accompanying violence in the Mideast.  See for example, this piece by Ann Althouse, and this by Victor Davis Hanson.  If the wobbly stuff emanating from the L.A. Times, The New Republic, and MSNBC is in any way representative, they have a point.  In fact, the Left in the US and Europe has been exchanging admiring glances with the Islamists for some time.  It’s not surprising.  Following the collapse of Communism, radical Islam is the only game in town if your tastes run to extreme ideologies and you like to imagine yourself as a savior of the world.  Unfortunately, it takes a very flexible intellect to abandon the ideological shibboleths embraced by the Left for the last couple of decades in favor of a misogynistic and fundamentalist version of Islam.  Hence, the love affair has been carried on from a distance for the most part.  If it’s any consolation to Professors Althouse and Hanson, things have been worse.  Much worse.

It’s instructive to occasionally step back from the flood of information about current events that constantly pours in over the public media and look at the equivalent sources of information and opinion from times gone by.  Consider the first half of the 1930’s, for example.  The Great Depression had a strong tendency to adjust the attitudes of the public intellectuals of the day.  Many of them were also fascinated by, and strongly supportive of, the totalitarian regimes that had recently appeared on the scene, some leaning to the Communist and some to the fascist variants thereof.  I found interesting examples of both while thumbing through an old copy of The Atlantic Monthly.

The issue in question, dated November 1934, began with a piece by Vincent Sheean entitled “Youth and Revolution.”  I highly recommend Sheean’s books, such as Not Peace but a Sword and Personal History to interested readers.  Sheean was an excellent writer and journalist, and had a knack for turning up at key places just as events that shaped history were happening.  He was also a forerunner of what a whole generation of later journalists became; a self-appointed champion of noble causes who saw the world in stark black and white, with few shades of grey in between.  He had no illusions about Hitler at all, and witnessed and wrote about Nazi brutality against the Jews at a time when many “experts” who should have known better were dismissing such stories as “atrocity fables.”  Hitler was a “bad guy.”  Stalin and the Bolsheviks, on the other hand, were “good guys.”  When it came to the bloody deeds of the likes of Hitler, Mussolini, and Franco, Sheean didn’t miss a trick, but was strangely blind to the ample evidence of similar mayhem available at the time if the perpetrators happened to be Communists.

In the article he wrote for the Atlantic, Sheean describes a trip to China in 1927.  To set the stage historically, he arrived in China during the Northern Expedition, in which Nationalist forces under Chiang Kai-shek triumphed over a coalition of warlords and succeeded in uniting most of the country in 1928.  Nanking had fallen to them in March 1927, a couple of weeks before Sheean arrived, and tensions between Chiang and the Communists in the Kuomintang (Chinese Nationalist Party) were coming to a head.  They would soon culminate in Shanghai Massacre and the purge of Communists from the party which, until then had been supplied with arms and money from the Soviet Union.  The Soviet envoy, Mikhail Borodin, was allowed to “escape” from the country.  Here are a few excerpts from Sheean’s article:

The moment of triumph was inevitably the one in which the two elements among the Cantonese victors would separate.  Genuine revolutionaries – those who wished to change the conditions of life in China, and not simply the forms or names of government – found themselves obliged to cling to the Left Wing of the Kuomintang, in which Russian influence was paramount.  The others – those who took part in the revolution for their own advantage, or were prevented by the tenacity of middle-class ideas from wishing to disturb the established arrangement of wealth – collected around the treasuries of Shanghai and Nanking, under the patronage of the Chinese bankers of those cities and their new ally, Chiang Kai-shek.

…the difference between an academic acquaintance with Communism and an actual perception of its spirit is very great.  The step required to pass from the first state to the second is so easy that it may be accomplished in a moment, and so difficult that it may involve the effort of a lifetime… but when the step has at last been taken, the barrier passed, we enter a world in which all parts of the structure of existence are so related and harmonized, so subjugated to a sovereign system, that its ordered beauty and majesty give us the sensation of a new form of life, as if we had moved off into space and taken up our abode, for a time, on another star… The world of Lenin (which is, in effect, all around us) can be entered in a moment, but only if the disposition of circumstances, persons, influences, can conquer the laziness of a bourgeois mind.  The required combinations occurred for me at Hankow, and were given force and form, particularly, by Michael Borodin and Rayna Prohme (Russian editor of the left wing Kuomintangs newspaper).

Borodin, a large, calm man with the natural dignity of a lion or a panther, had that special quality of being in, but above, the battle that seems to me to deserve, in itself and without regard to the judgment of the world, the name of greatness… As I knew him better I perceived – or, rather, he showed me – how his political philosophy made breadth and elevation inevitable in the mind that understood it.  He was an Old Bolshevik.

Such were the musings and reminiscences of a “mainstream media” journalist in 1934.  As the reader will gather, Sheean was singularly ill-equipped intellectually to give his audience a balanced view of the Stalinist regime in Russia, or an understanding of the real nature of Communism.  I encourage anyone who thinks he was the only one writing the sort of stuff cited above in 1934 to look through a few of the intellectual journals of the time.  The question among many of the authors who contributed to them was not whether capitalism was dead, but which flavor of socialism would replace it, and whether the “inevitable” transition would occur violently or not.  For the record, Borodin disappeared into the Gulag in 1949, and died in captivity in 1951, having escaped that fate much longer than most of the old Bolsheviks.  The current state of the “worker’s paradise” in China should be familiar to most readers.

Apologists for the other brand of totalitarianism extant at the time, fascism, were fewer in number, but hardly uncommon.  One of them, William Orton, a professor of economics at Smith College, contributed an article to the Atlantic entitled “New Wine in Germany.” It soothed readers’ “irrational” fears about Adolf Hitler and the Nazi regime that had seized power in that country in January 1933.  Orton had no more problem with Hitler’s suppression of “bourgeois” freedoms than Sheean had with the suppression of those freedoms by the Communists.  He wrote at a time when much of the propaganda about atrocities perpetrated by the Germans in World War I had been debunked, spawning an attitude among intellectuals that all reports of atrocities were to be taken with a grain of salt.  This instance of “learning the lessons of history” was particularly unhelpful at a time when the Communists and Nazis were competing for the title of greatest mass murderers of all time.  The many eyewitness reports coming out of Germany and the Soviet Union were dismissed with the sage observation that, “It’s necessary to break a few eggs to make an omelet.  Orton applied this logic to the violent Nazi persecution of the Jews that Sheean, among others, had already described in great detail.  Here are some of the things he had to say about the “New Wine in Germany.”

It is not difficult, after three thousand miles of travel in Germany, to recognize in one’s mind a certain general impression; but it is almost impossible to convey that impression in speech or writing.  One has the sense of a tremendous spiritual or psychological fact – overwhelming in its magnitude, urgent in its significance.  But since the ingredients of this fact are primarily neither personal nor political, it eludes the scope of both the ordinary news story and the ordinary article.  Perhaps the film could do it justice.

A sound film, of course, it would have to be.  Drums – no, not the drums first.  Silence – the silence that surrounds a great ship coming into harbor; and, somewhere up above, a band playing the new national anthem, the ‘Horst Wessel Lied’ – a fine music, reserved, steady, powerful in its measure, swinging out in the sunshine over the massed decks, over the narrowing water, over the crowded dock, over thousands of arms held motionless in the splendid gesture of the Fascist salute.  Swing the camera along those lines of hands, held tense, not flaccid; close up to the faces; look at the lips, look at the eyes, shining, shining…

Confronted by this transition from party to government, British and American opinion exhibits a reluctance to face the facts that amounts to a positive refusal.  Atrocity stories are played up, blunders magnified, oppression emphasized, …until a fair estimate of Hitler and his system is out of the question.  There was the same display of stubborn short-sightedness in regard to the Italian and the Russian revolution, but in neither case was the myopia as acute as in this one.  The roots of the disease must be exposed, since it renders a realistic attitude to modern Germany impossible.

Evidently Orton considered himself just the man to cure the “myopia,” and convey a “realistic attitude” about Hitler.  He continues,

Germany is completely united in the determination to assert her equality of status with other powers; she has the means to do so, and there exists neither the right nor the possibility of preventing her.

Whether we will or no, we must take the risk of believing in the German people.

Germany has no present desire to provoke a war; and she has given certain tangible evidences (as Mussolini did not) of this fact.  Hitler said, a few weeks ago, that ‘no colony was worth a single German life.’  His lieutenants have repeatedly said that with the return of the Saar there will remain no further cause of quarrel with France.  There is good ground for accepting these assurances.  But more weighty evidence is supplied by the ten-year treaty with Poland and the agreement recently concluded by Danzig with that state.  To anyone who knows at first hand what conditions are like on the eastern border, those two settlements are an impressive demonstration of the will to peace.

Anti-semitism had been a problem, but Hitler had wisely put a stop to it:

Anti-semitism got altogether out of hand; until, when Streicher’s organ, Der Stürmer, attacked the President of Czechoslovakia, that too had to be temporarily suppressed.

It was with such stories of Hitler’s “will to peace” and his “suppression of anti-Semitism” that Orton reassured and “enlightened” the  great democracies on the eve of the greatest existential struggle in their history.  It is not recorded that he suffered any ill consequences for this “service.”  As far as one can tell, it was forgotten, and he continued as a respected professor at Smith until his death in 1952.  Searching the Internet, one learns that, “Russell Kirk praised Orton as a “humane economist,” “at once liberal and conservative,” seeking to “liberalize and humanize the Dismal Science.”

In a word, conservatives frustrated with the Left’s flirtations with radical Islam should take heart.  Things have been worse.  At the moment, at least, the United States and the European democracies don’t face an immediate threat to their existence.  Meanwhile, there is no reason to believe that we will not continue to be “enlightened” about similar threats as we move into the future.  Whether such “enlightenment” will be a significant contributor to our eventual downfall only time will tell.

A European Liberal Interprets the French Election

Jakob Augstein is the quintessential European version of what would be referred to in the US as a latte Liberal.  Heir to what one surmises was a significant fortune from his adopted father, the Amerika-hating founder of Der Spiegel magazine, Rudolf Augstein, he nevertheless imagines himself the champion of the poor and downtrodden.  His writing is certainly not original, but he is at least a good specimen of the type for anyone interested in European ideological trends.  His reaction to the recent election in France is a good example.

As those who occasionally read a European headline are aware, that election resulted in the victory of socialist Francois Hollande over his austerity-promoting opponent, Nicolas Sarkozy.  While certainly noteworthy, such transitions are hardly unprecedented.  No matter, the ideological good guys won as far as Augstein is concerned.  He greets Hollande’s seemingly unremarkable victory with peals of the Marseillaise and Liberty leading the people:

It is not just a piece of political folklore that France is the land of the revolution.  No other European country has such a lively tradition of protest.  La lutte permanente, the constant struggle, is part and parcel of the French civilization.  In France, the centralized state historically formed an alliance with the people against feudalism.  Now the time has come for that to happen again.  The fact that the French picked this particular time to vote a socialist into the Elysee Palace is no coincidence.  A revolutionary signal will now go forth from France to all of Europe.  The new feudal lords who must be resisted are the banks.

Great shades of 1789!  Break out Madame Guillotine.  What can account for such an outburst of revolutionary zeal in response to what is ostensibly just another garden variety shift from the right to the left in European politics?  It is, of course, “austerity,” the course of belt-tightening prescribed by Sarkozy and his pal, Germany’s Chancellor Angela Merkel, for Greece and some of the other more profligate spendthrifts in the European Union.  Has austerity worked?  Augstein’s answer is an unqualified “No.”

…Can one overcome a recession by saving?  The answer is:  No.  those who save during a recession deepen the recession.

I personally rather doubt that anyone knows whether austerity “works” in a recession or not.  Modern economies are too complex to simplistically attribute their success or failure to one such overriding factor and, in any case, serious austerity measures haven’t been in effect long enough to allow a confident judgment one way or the other.  Certainly the opposites of austerity, such as the recent “stimulus” experiment in the US, haven’t been unqualified successes either, and have the disadvantage of leaving the states that try them mired in debt.

No matter, Augstein goes on to teach us some of the other “lessons” we should learn from the events in France.  It turns out that some of these apply to Augsteins’s own country, Germany.  The German taxpayers have forked over large sums to keep the economies of Greece and some of the other weak sisters in Europe afloat.  Germany’s robust economy has served as an engine to pull the rest of Europe along.  German’s should be patting themselves on the back for their European spirit, no?

Not according to Augstein!  As he tells it, what Germans should really be doing is hanging their heads in shame.

The Germans are poster boys of the market economy.  Never have interest rates been more favorable for Germany.  It’s a gift of the market at the expense of the rest of Europe.  She (Merkel) isn’t concerned about the European political legacy of Adenauer and Kohl.  Those are such western ideas, that mean little to the woman from the east.  Driven by cheap money from the international finance markets, the German export industry has scuttled European integration – and Merkel lets them get away with it.

Ah, yes, the socialists of the world have no country.  We’ve heard it all before, haven’t we?  If you’re successful, you must be evil.  The proper response is guilt.  Poor Germans!  They just can’t ever seem to catch a break.  Somehow they always end up in the role of villain.

According to Augstein, without the support of France, Germany and her “saving politics” are now isolated in Europe.  What’s that supposed to mean?  That Germans are now supposed to fork over even greater funds, this time with no strings attached in the name of “European integration?”  If I were a German taxpayer, I know what my response would be:  “Let the other Europeans spend and spend to their heart’s content, just as long as they don’t reach into my pocket to do it.”

Well, we’ll just have to wait and see how this flight back to socialism turns out.  Who am I to say?  I’m no economist.  There’s an election in Germany next year.  If the socialists return to power there as well, things might really get interesting.  We’ll finally find out just how European socialists plan to go about ending austerity after they’ve run out of other people’s money to spend.