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  • The Visegrad Group – as NATO disintegrates, Poland steps up

    George Rebane

    A little noticed rearrangement of Europe’s security apparatus will have a great impact on how ‘old Europe’ will finally react to its historical threats from the east (Russia) and south (Islam).  NATO had the con on defending Europe against international communism (USSR) during the Cold War.  With the collapse of the USSR and the rehabilitation of communism – it is now an openly pursued alternative form of governance in the US and the rest of the world – NATO entered its muddled decline that has become a farce with its forces arrayed tentatively and far from the territories it was intended to protect.

    VisegradGroup In this interval, European countries have reduced their defense expenditures to nil, letting Uncle Sam be the world’s policeman and do all the heavy lifting – literally.  The German Bundeswehr – son of Wehrmacht, the inventor of the mechanized army and blitzkrieg – could not even transport its soldiers to the Polish border if they would reprise their attack of September 1939, the troops would have to hitchhike.  In the meanwhile Germany has decided, that for its economic survival, it must make nice with the thugocracy that today is Russia.

    And that leaves Poland and the other central Europeans to again play the role of buffer and pawns.  They have been screwed, blued, and tattooed many times over the centuries by their neighbors, and they see it coming again.  Their latest experience was the defection of Great Britain and France who signed mutual aid and guarantee of borders treaties after WW1 with the Baltics, Poland, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, … .  When Stalin and Hitler attacked (per their secret Molotov-Ribbentrop pact signed in the spring of 1939), all these countries called for the military aid they had been promised.  What they got was a fistful of diplomatic cables from the west that in essence said, ‘just kidding’.

    Polish national memory recalls that it was that country which halted the tide of Islam’s Ottoman Turks in 1683 at the Battle of Vienna.  Under the command of Poland’s King Sobieski the Muslims were thrown back into the Balkans where they have retained their European toehold to this day.  Minarets on Europe’s skylines were postponed for three centuries.

    Recently Poland, Hungary, Slovakia, and the Czech Republic have quietly united to revive the historic Visegrad Group.  Under this union these countries recently announced the formation of a military force that is totally independent of NATO, and charged with the defense of central Europe.  Expect the Visegrad Group to soon include the Baltics, Rumania, Bulgaria, Austria, and (here come the fireworks) the Ukraine.  Eventually, the Christian remnants of Yugoslavia would also become natural members of this alliance, or assume the role of new pawns between Islam and Europe.

    Stratfor has focused on tracking this development, and reports on it in ‘Visegrad: A New European Military Force’  by George Friedman (nearby map from that article).  Those of us on these shores who are not mollified by the politically correct views of Islam should pay particular attention as this is the beginning of the renewed polarization of the next regional hegemons, Turkey and Poland.

    As a footnote here, keep an eye on how Turkey will break its silence on the Arab Spring.  Turkey cannot stand on the sidelines of this growing Islamic parade.  It must step in there to take a leadership position when it sees that a caliphate-like coalescence is starting among the revolting countries of north Africa and the Middle East.  President Obama’s 19may11 speech also laid the groundwork for that.

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  • Ruminations – 19may2011

    George Rebane

    - Global warming solutions are no solutions
    - How Democrats plant to beat Repubs again in 2012
    - The American intifada

    The hilarity or tears, take your pick, on the entire issue of global warming just don’t stop.  Given that any of the AGW propaganda happens to be true, the cost effectiveness of attempting to stop it with the currently known alternative energy solutions is essentially nil.  A reader sent a link to a humorous, short, and but fairly detailed look by Christopher Monckton at the numbers involved (here).  Enjoy.

    One of my spies in California politics sent this little piece of intelligence from the Democratic Party.  It’s an 8-page glossy brochure (Download California Democratic Party Election Recap) of how the Dems beat the bejeezus out of California’s GOP last November, and “actually tightened their grip on the statehouse.”  All the world now knows what that has done to the state over the last decades (here).  And they expect to do it again in 2012.  Given the state’s political and demographic realities, this is not an unreasonable expectation.  The Republicans cannot afford to ignore this strategy.

     “We are Mexicans and the Americans stole our land.” is the cry that students in colleges are now using to unite themselves with the Palestinian case against Israel to bring the simmering Reconquista movement back onto the front burner of American politics.  The Arab Spring has turned militant against Israel in the latest attempt to start the third intifada.  Mock walls are built on campuses to represent the US and Israeli borders (more here).

    Reconquista is gaining momentum with the help of anti-American progressives.  This faction is fronting radical students to link the current attacks on Israel’s borders and the illegal alien onslaught on our borders.  Both are protests against the invasions of the “occupiers” – the one in 1948 and the other in 1848.  The lamestream is silent about this attempt to start an American intifada.  (more from RR search on ‘reconquista’).

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  • Sharia Creep – while we’re not paying attention (updated 18may2011)

    George Rebane

    IslamSharia One way to deconstruct a nation-state is to have its citizens divided into cohorts each answerable to a different set of laws.  The Islamic settlements in Europe are on their way to such a legal construct.  Great Britain already has a Sharia dual in its legal system to which Muslims are bound and under which their justice may be dispensed.

    Islamic organizations in Australia united under AFIC (Australian Federation of Islamic Councils) are now petitioning the government to do the same.  AFIC states that it “strongly supports that multiculturalism should lead to legal pluralism . . . and twin tolerations”.   This is perhaps the most blatant demonstration that Islamic societies, as they spread across the world, have no intention to assimilate into their host societies.  (more here and here)

    On the current path of progressivism in America, we are on course to soon entertain similar appeals on our shores.  Strong arguments will be made and explained to the rest of us by the left that the natural maturation of multiculturalism must needs embody a legal pluralism and multiple tolerations specific to who belongs to what group.

    As argued before in these pages – societies remain cohesive to the extent that its members can reliably predict each others’ behavior.  A common language and a common body of law contribute to such cohesion.  Legal pluralism does not.

    (H/T to RR reader.)

    [18may2011 update]  A reader’s email contained this strong exhortation by conservativeactionalerts.com regarding some relevant legislation – HR973 – on Sharia law now before Congress.

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  • Vestiges of Understanding, perhaps toward a Consensus?

    George Rebane

    Debate The lengthy comment streams on RR, each containing several comment threads dissecting various ideas, are a joy to behold.  In these pages we join to discuss weighty propositions and happenings that range from the nature of the universe to the why, what, and how of the critters that inhabit our planet.  Mostly we are like the blind men, each groping a part of the pachyderm attempting to describe the whole from what they grasp.

    Intuitively we know that we can better discover the overall ‘nature of the beast’ if we accurately communicate our own observations to others, and in turn correctly understand what others are perceiving from their points of vantage.  (‘No Harry, that’s my leg.  The elephant is over here.’)

    There are many dimensions to such discussions and/or debates.  And not everyone comes to hug the elephant with a common objective.   Some are there to present and defend their long held idea against all comers.  Some come just to denigrate an idea, or to denigrate the class of people who value the idea, or worse, to simply denigrate the individual who holds to the idea without much concern for the idea itself.

    The saddest exchanges are those in which a discussant, out of whole cloth, ascribes to his opposite a position (usually simplistic) that is not supported by any careful read of the other’s words.  Then the discussant proceeds at length to attack and vilify that auto-ascribed position, and doubly so his intended target.  The astute reader recognizes this as the algorithmic basis of political dialogue and debate.  It frustrates the intelligent, and merely plays to the gallery of idiots.  The goal is not greater understanding, but to gain the march on the other.  Most media debates, commentaries, and blogs – sadly including RR – have generous dollops of such back and forth. 

    Then on rarer occasions we witness a thread in which the participants begin to productively build a mutually shared understanding, each contributing what they know and civilly pointing out what they believe are errors in the previous contributions, independent of their contributors.  In my mind, that is the sought for elixir of blogs that traffic in ideas.  Don’t get me wrong, productive results do not come only from full agreement or consensus.  Because there are an uncountable number of coherent systems of logic, there can be an equivalent number of ideas (propositions) that are correctly supported by such logics.

    And to me at least, discovering such differences, and how they can stand, is itself an illumination and a giant step toward greater understanding in diverse societies.  Such discoveries made in good faith allow the discussion to go to a meta-level where, perhaps, a new and more powerful consensus could be achieved, or at least understood why it still eludes.

    From a perusal of RR’s comment streams over its relatively short tenure, I believe that bit by piece we may be moving toward such a forum here.

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  • Ruminations – 15may2011 (updated 16may2011)

    George Rebane

    - It’s not your father’s inflation
    - Obama’s birth is too hot to handle (updated)
    - Global warming disguised as a mid-May snowfall

    We know that part of the government’s tactic to keep us in the dark on the true fiscal and economic parameters of the country is not limited to the daily lies that we’ll default on our debt service payments if we don’t raise the debt limit and continue profligate spending as usual.  Another major messing with our heads is their assurance that the country’s inflation rate is very low as measured by the inflation metric they re-fiddled in 1990.  The actual inflation rate measured the old way, and the one we experience daily in our expenditures, is closer to 11+% than the 2% number that we are fed almost daily.  Russ Steele on NCMW has the details here.

    My post ‘Birth Certificate from Hell’ gave rise to quite a discussion in its comment stream that launched a number of left/right charge counter-charge exchanges.  The issue is apparently way too hot to handle by even the tea party backed champions we sent to Congress recently.  It is clear that politics triumphs inside the Beltway, no matter the stated good intentions before jumping into that ring.  My own experience with our Congressman Tom McClintock on this matter is documented in the 15may11 update to the above post.  [16may2011 update – Tom McClintock's chief of staff Igor Birman spells out the reasoning behind the strategy of silence.  See the original post that is linked above.]

    This morning’s surprise snowfall in Nevada County left a lot of people wondering about the arguments for and against global warming, global cooling, and ‘it’s only weather’.  We lost a major part of a beautiful 30-year-old maple tree.  It shaded the west side of the house.  Regardless of how True Believers and Skeptics argue the matter, this summer is going to make the Rebane house hotter in the afternoons.

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  • Morganza Spillway Decision (updated 16may2011)

    George Rebane

    MorganzaSpillway This afternoon the Army Corps of Engineers opened a spillway in a massive containment levee (dam) to flood the few in order to save the many (see nearby AP photo).  From wsj.com –

    A steel, 10-ton floodgate was slowly raised Saturday for the first time in nearly four decades, unleashing a torrent of water from the Mississippi River, away from heavily populated areas downstream.

    The water spit out slowly at first, then began gushing like a waterfall as it headed to swamp as much as 3,000 square miles (7,770 square kilometers) of Cajun countryside known for small farms and fish camps. Some places could wind up under as much as 25 feet (7.5 meters) of water.

    Opening the Morganza spillway diverts water away from Baton Rouge and New Orleans, and the numerous oil refineries and chemical plants along the lower reaches of the Mississippi.

    What puzzles me is that this massive piece of flood control infrastructure was built for the precise purpose of saving those 3,000 square miles of Cajun towns and farms from exactly this level of Mississippi flood waters.  It is a fairly simple problem of flood control engineering to calculate that given a so-and-so river level at Morganza will mean that Baton Rouge and New Orleans are going to be flooded.  Yet no appropriate flood control infrastructure has been built to protect those major population areas from flood levels that are provided for at Morganza.

    It had to be known that the Morganza levee would never be used for its purported purpose unless and until the Baton Rouge and New Orleans flood control infrastructures were in place to handle the level of floods that Morganza can handle.  Yet the decision was made to build Morganza first, and decades passed without a finger being lifted to protect the cities downstream.

    Would it not have been more sane to use the monies to first protect the cities to the extent possible, and let the Cajun countryside suffer what floods may come, because the Morganza spillway, to obviate its purpose, would have to be opened in any case to save the unprotected Baton Rouge and New Orleans?

    The media have not picked up on this little question.  Maybe a reader can supply the simple explanation that eludes just me.  Or is this another example of government overwhelmed?

    [16may2011 update]  The map below from the 16may11 WSJ gives an idea of the scope of the decision’s effect to flood the Atchafalaya River basin.

    MorganzaFloodMap
     

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  • Our Students Need You

    George Rebane

    [This is the submitted form of my May column in the 14may11 Union (here).]

    The classroom format of teaching requires that students are in a more or less tight group as far as progress and learning ability are concerned.  The larger the class, the less chance the teacher has to bring along the slower learners and individually challenge the faster ones.  As a consequence both ends suffer when teaching resources are limited.

    With today’s economy and government cutbacks in the headlines, we have just such a situation in our public schools.  To help alleviate this, a couple of years back the Sierra Environmental Studies Foundation (SESF is a 501c3 non-profit organization) launched the TechMentor project to introduce qualified mentors and tutors to high school students in science and math classes.  The aim is to provide science and math teachers in Nevada County with an expanded resource of qualified individuals to tutor students and mentor them in the various school science projects.

    A TechMentor relationship starts with the classroom teacher contacting SESF or Mr John McDaniel, NUHS physics teacher and head of the TechTest Scholarship Committee.  (TechTest is SESF’s annual merit scholarship exam taken by Nevada County high school seniors who are headed for careers in science and technology.  Scholarships are awarded strictly on test scores.  Juniors can take TechTest for practice.)   Mr McDaniel then gives SESF the teacher contact information and student requirements, and we go to work finding one or more candidates who can fill the bill.  The mentor/tutor candidate is then identified and put in contact with the teacher.  The teacher makes the final determination as to the suitability of the candidate, and sets up the work program with the student.

    (more…)

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  • An Eerie Feeling re the Great Divide

    George Rebane

    Is the Great Divide already under way?  RR readers are familiar with the Great Divide discussion in these pages (RR search ‘great divide’).  The basis for the idea of a structural change in these United States is an old one, one that is provided for by our Constitution, and one that was in lively national discussion even before The War for Southern Independence (aka The Civil War).  Today the debate has again become compelling due to the seemingly irreconcilable polarization between the factions of the Left and those of the Right.

    BoeingNLRB One ‘solution’, to the indisputable fact that both sides live in their own universe, is a peaceful separation of the two cohorts into a confederated assembly of the current states.  One that would enable open practice of limited government, Founders’ constitutionality, fiscal prudence, and free markets.  The other would continue the current collectivist path to socialism and whatever may follow that folly.  The actual division of territories is among the several problems that need a good-faith dialogue to solve peaceably.

    Another and perhaps more serious problem is the asymmetry with which both sides view the Great Divide.  The people on the Right see themselves in a growing bondage of restraints, constraints, unlimited taxation, and loss of liberties.  Their general response is ‘let us go our own way.’  The Left’s general response is ‘oh no you don’t!’, the direct implication being that they would then very quickly run out of OPM, the fuel that always powers progressivism.

    But for completeness, I have to add that there are a few progressives who firmly believe that their social order does not need money from other people; they can generate the necessary wealth themselves.  In fact, some of them even claim that it is the Left that is generating the country’s wealth and dragging along the worthless Right.  (Such progressives should be complemented for their keen insight, and the conversation taken to the next stage of how the Great Divide can remove from them the burden of having to carry the Right.)

    A useful path toward the Great Divide is the re-establishment of states’ rights.  Removing such constitutional rights from the states has been a proto-progressive passion at least from the time of Lincoln.  Many recognize that the expansion of the Interstate Commerce Act (1887) and central banking (Federal Reserve 1913) have been the prime tools for reducing states to administrative districts of a strong federal government.

    Today a last bastion of states’ rights is how they divide themselves into ‘right to work’ and ‘forced union’ states.  For all intents and purposes this already is a step toward the Great Divide, with the proviso that, if properly handled, such a divide may not even be necessary.  But here’s the rub.  The Left is lying to all ignorant enough to believe them that not forcing workers to join unions is actually denying workers their rights.  This twisted logic is one of the insane pillars upon which collectivism proudly stands.

    (more…)

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  • On the Road to Denver (updated 8may2011)

    George Rebane

    We are on our way to visit our month-old great-granddaughter Lucy Pearl in Denver.  On the outward bound we chose ‘The Loneliest Road’, better known as US50, out of Reno.  It is a wonderful way to re/introduce yourself to some of the most picturesque country in this beautiful land.  The route took us to an overnight in Ely, Nevada.  And from there we hit the real scenery big time.  All day and in all directions it looked like we were in a John Ford western spectacular.

    Tonight we are in Grand Junction, Colorado and just back from dinner.  Jo Ann picked WW Peppers from the AAA book, and did we luck out.  The place is 35 years old and an icon of good eating in the greater Grand Junction area.  It is owner operated by a husband and wife team – he handles the kitchen, and she is the hostess and handles the customer contact duties.

    Awesome food – I had a burrito stuffed with New Zealand elk and all the fixins that was out of this world, Jo Ann’s was a sirloin tip burrito with equally outstanding flavors – wonderful service.  The ambiance and dining furniture are exceptional and comfortable.  The place was packed with regulars.  Just off I-70 and worth stopping for even if you’re not staying over.

    WW Peppers
    753 Horizon Ct
    Grand Junction, CO 81506
    (970) 245-9251

    Tomorrow we see our little Lucy Pearl!

    [Footnote:  We had a few words with Debbie, the Mrs Owner-Operator, before leaving.  I complimented her for the food and service, and invited her to consider our neck of the woods if she and her husband ever decided to move operations to California.  She in turn thanked me for the invitation, but said that they would have to decline because “California has some (business, regulatory, and tax) issues” that would be pretty hard to overcome.  Can’t say I didn’t try, but the word is definitely out.]

    LucyPearl_8may2011 [8may2011 update]  We have spent the last two days with Lucy Pearl and her parents Claire and David here in Denver.  The weather has been perfect, and between all the holding and cooing and feeding and nappy-poos and periodic sanitary maintenance operations, we had a chance to take a picture or two (why do you think God invented JPEG?).  Nearby I present photographic evidence that Lucy Pearl is a real photogenic sweetie.  No visit to the first great-grandchild should be accepted without such evidence in these days of instant technology.  To complete the modern times component of this milestone Mother’s Day, four generations got together on Skype for a long confab when our daughter Teine, Lucy Pearl’s grandmother and her remaining brood (our grandkids all) joined us from southern California.  Blessings abound.

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  • California’s “Dysfunctional Democracy”

    George Rebane

    [This is the transcript of my 6may11 KVMR radio commentary broadcast earlier tonight.]

    The spate of serious articles, reports, analyses, and commentaries on California’s disaster-in-progress reached a new plateau this last week with the prestigious (23apr11) Economist featuring a major survey of the state.  The world’s oldest international ‘newspaper’ traces California’s problems back to the start on its road to a “dysfunctional democracy”.  Students of history learn early that almost all democracies become dysfunctional sooner or later.  California’s experiment with direct democracy has implemented the ‘sooner’ option that has taken less than forty years.

    Wiley politicians know that they can become comfortable wards of the state with sinecure jobs when they successfully pander to the voter that it is his direct voice that should be heard in the halls of the state capitol.  In California direct democracy allowed our elected representatives to duck the high hard decisions through referendums, initiatives, and propositions.

    A referendum allows us voters to gainsay the legislature by going through a second step of accepting or rejecting a legislative proposal or law already on the books.  An initiative allows the citizens through a petition, or legislators directly to put a measure on the ballot.  This puts the onus of passage or rejection on the electorate and leaves the elected representatives unaccountable for the result.  A proposition is simply a stronger form of an initiative or legislative measure that the powers that be decide should be placed on the ballot for an up/down vote.

    To these three, the California voters have also added the power of direct recall of elected officials.  In short, we voters can do damn near anything we want through the ballot box that affects our governance.  But can we really?

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13 comments on The Visegrad Group – as NATO disintegrates, Poland steps up