A Political Season

War and Bluff: Iran, Israel and the United States

noreply@blogger.com (Aaron Laramore) — Wed, 12 Sep 2012 19:43:00 +0000

By George Friedman ~ Honorary Political Season Contributor
For the past several months, the Israelis have been threatening to attack Iranian nuclear sites as the United States has pursued a complex policy of avoiding complete opposition to such strikes while making clear it doesn't feel such strikes are necessary. At the same time, the United States has carried out maneuvers meant to demonstrate its ability to prevent the Iranian counter to an attack -- namely blocking the Strait of Hormuz. While these maneuvers were under way, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said no "redline" exists that once crossed by Iran would compel an attack on Iran's nuclear facilities. The Israeli government has long contended that Tehran eventually will reach the point where it will be too costly for outsiders to stop the Iranian nuclear program.
The Israeli and American positions are intimately connected, but the precise nature of the connection is less clear. Israel publicly casts itself as eager to strike Iran but restrained by the United States, though unable to guarantee it will respect American wishes if Israel sees an existential threat emanating from Iran. The United States publicly decries Iran as a threat to Israel and to other countries in the region, particularly Saudi Arabia, but expresses reservations about military action out of fears that Iran would respond to a strike by destabilizing the region and because it does not believe the Iranian nuclear program is as advanced as the Israelis say it is.

The Israelis and the Americans publicly hold the same view of Iran. But their public views on how to proceed diverge. The Israelis have less tolerance for risk than the Americans, who have less tolerance for the global consequences of an attack. Their disagreement on the issue pivots around the status of the Iranian nuclear program. All of this lies on the surface; let us now examine the deeper structure of the issue.

Behind the Rhetoric

From the Iranian point of view, a nuclear program has been extremely valuable. Having one has brought Iran prestige in the Islamic world and has given it a level of useful global political credibility. As with North Korea, having a nuclear program has allowed Iran to sit as an equal with the five permanent members of the U.N. Security Council plus Germany, creating a psychological atmosphere in which Iran's willingness merely to talk to the Americans, British, French, Russians, Chinese and Germans represented a concession. Though it has positioned the Iranians extremely well politically, the nuclear program also has triggered sanctions that have caused Iran substantial pain. But Iran has prepared for sanctions for years, building a range of corporate, banking and security mechanisms to evade their most devastating impact. Having countries like Russia and China unwilling to see Iran crushed has helped. Iran can survive sanctions.

While a nuclear program has given Iran political leverage, actually acquiring nuclear weapons would increase the risk of military action against Iran. A failed military action would benefit Iran, proving its power. By contrast, a successful attack that dramatically delayed or destroyed Iran's nuclear capability would be a serious reversal. The Stuxnet episode, assuming it was an Israeli or U.S. attempt to undermine Iran's program using cyberwarfare, is instructive in this regard. Although the United States hailed Stuxnet as a major success, it hardly stopped the Iranian program, if the Israelis are to be believed. In that sense, it was a failure.

Using nuclear weapons against Israel would be catastrophic to Iran. The principle of mutual assured destruction, which stabilized the U.S.-Soviet balance in the Cold War, would govern Iran's use of nuclear weapons. If Iran struck Israel, the damage would be massive, forcing the Iranians to assume that the Israelis and their allies (specifically, the United States) would launch a massive counterattack on Iran, annihilating large parts of Iran's population.

It is here that we get to the heart of the issue. While from a rational perspective the Iranians would be fools to launch such an attack, the Israeli position is that the Iranians are not rational actors and that their religious fanaticism makes any attempt to predict their actions pointless. Thus, the Iranians might well accept the annihilation of their country in order to destroy Israel in a sort of megasuicide bombing. The Israelis point to the Iranians' rhetoric as evidence of their fanaticism. Yet, as we know, political rhetoric is not always politically predictive. In addition, rhetoric aside, Iran has pursued a cautious foreign policy, pursuing its ends with covert rather than overt means. It has rarely taken reckless action, engaging instead in reckless rhetoric.
If the Israelis believe the Iranians are not deterred by the prospect of mutually assured destruction, then allowing them to develop nuclear weapons would be irrational. If they do see the Iranians as rational actors, then shaping the psychological environment in which Iran acquires nuclear weapons is a critical element of mutually assured destruction. Herein lies the root of the great Israeli debate that pits the Netanyahu government, which appears to regard Iran as irrational, against significant segments of the Israeli military and intelligence communities, which regard Iran as rational.

Avoiding Attaining a Weapon

Assuming the Iranians are rational actors, their optimal strategy lies not in acquiring nuclear weapons and certainly not in using them, but instead in having a credible weapons development program that permits them to be seen as significant international actors. Developing weapons without ever producing them gives Iran international political significance, albeit at the cost of sanctions of debatable impact. At the same time, it does not force anyone to act against them, thereby permitting outsiders to avoid incurring the uncertainties and risks of such action.

Up to this point, the Iranians have not even fielded a device for testing, let alone a deliverable weapon. For all their activity, either their technical limitations or a political decision has kept them from actually crossing the obvious redlines and left Israel trying to define some developmental redline.

Iran's approach has created a slowly unfolding crisis, reinforced by Israel's slowly rolling response. For its part, all of Israel's rhetoric -- and periodic threats of imminent attack -- has been going on for several years, but the Israelis have done little beyond some covert and cyberattacks to block the Iranian nuclear program. Just as the gap between Iranian rhetoric and action has been telling, so, too, has the gap between Israeli rhetoric and reality. Both want to appear more fearsome than either is actually willing to act.
The Iranian strategy has been to maintain ambiguity on the status of its program, while making it appear that the program is capable of sudden success -- without ever achieving that success. The Israeli strategy has been to appear constantly on the verge of attack without ever attacking and to use the United States as its reason for withholding attacks, along with the studied ambiguity of the Iranian program. The United States, for its part, has been content playing the role of holding Israel back from an attack that Israel doesn't seem to want to launch. The United States sees the crumbling of Iran's position in Syria as a major Iranian reversal and is content to see this play out alongside sanctions.

Underlying Israel's hesitancy about whether it will attack has been the question of whether it can pull off an attack. This is not a political question, but a military and technical one. Iran, after all, has been preparing for an attack on its nuclear facilities since their inception. Some scoff at Iranian preparations for attack. These are the same people who are most alarmed by supposed Iranian acumen in developing nuclear weapons. If a country can develop nuclear weapons, there is no reason it can't develop hardened and dispersed sites and create enough ambiguity to deprive Israeli and U.S. intelligence of confidence in their ability to determine what is where. I am reminded of the raid on Son Tay during the Vietnam War. The United States mounted an effort to rescue U.S. prisoners of war in North Vietnam only to discover that its intelligence on where the POWs were located was completely wrong. Any politician deciding whether to attack Iran would have Son Tay and a hundred other intelligence failures chasing around their brains, especially since a failed attack on Iran would be far worse than no attack.

Dispersed sites reduce Israel's ability to strike hard at a target and to acquire a battle damage assessment that would tell Israel three things: first, whether the target had been destroyed when it was buried under rock and concrete; second, whether the target contained what Israel thought it contained; and third, whether the strike had missed a backup site that replicated the one it destroyed. Assuming the Israelis figured out that another attack was needed, could their air force mount a second air campaign lasting days or weeks? They have a small air force and the distances involved are great.

Meanwhile, deploying special operations forces to so many targets so close to Tehran and so far from Iran's borders would be risky, to say the least. Some sort of exotic attack, for example one using nuclear weapons to generate electromagnetic pulses to paralyze the region, is conceivable -- but given the size of the Tel Aviv-Jerusalem-Haifa triangle, it is hard to imagine Israel wanting to set such a precedent. If the Israelis have managed to develop a new weapons technology unknown to anyone, all conventional analyses are off. But if the Israelis had an ultrasecret miracle weapon, postponing its use might compromise its secrecy. I suspect that if they had such a weapon, they would have used it by now.

The battlefield challenges posed by the Iranians are daunting, and a strike becomes even less appealing considering that the Iranians have not yet detonated a device and are far from a weapon. The Americans emphasize these points, but they are happy to use the Israeli threats to build pressure on the Iranians. The United States wants to undermine Iranian credibility in the region by making Iran seem vulnerable. The twin forces of Israeli rhetoric and sanctions help make Iran look embattled. The reversal in Syria enhances this sense. Naval maneuvers in the Strait of Hormuz add to the sense that the United States is prepared to neutralize Iranian counters to an Israeli airstrike, making the threat Israel poses and the weakness of Iran appear larger.

When we step back and view the picture as a whole, we see Iran using its nuclear program for political reasons but being meticulous not to make itself appear unambiguously close to success. We see the Israelis talking as if they were threatened but acting as if they were in no rush to address the supposed threat. And we see the Americans acting as if they are restraining Israel, paradoxically appearing to be Iran's protector even though they are using the Israeli threat to increase Iranian insecurity. For their part, the Russians initially supported Iran in a bid to bog down the United States in another Middle East crisis. But given Iran's reversal in Syria, the Russians are clearly reconsidering their Middle East strategy and even whether they actually have a strategy in the first place. Meanwhile, the Chinese want to continue buying Iranian oil unnoticed.
It is the U.S.-Israeli byplay that is most fascinating. On the surface, Israel is driving U.S. policy. On closer examination, the reverse is true. Israel has bluffed an attack for years and never acted. Perhaps now it will act, but the risks of failure are substantial. If Israel really wants to act, this is not obvious. Speeches by politicians do not constitute clear guidelines. If the Israelis want to get the United States to participate in the attack, rhetoric won't work. Washington wants to proceed by increasing pressure to isolate Iran. Simply getting rid of a nuclear program not clearly intended to produce a device is not U.S. policy. Containing Iran without being drawn into a war is. To this end, Israeli rhetoric is useful.

Rather than seeing Netanyahu as trying to force the United States into an attack, it is more useful to see Netanyahu's rhetoric as valuable to U.S. strategy. Israel and the United States remain geopolitically aligned. Israel's bellicosity is not meant to signal an imminent attack, but to support the U.S. agenda of isolating and maintaining pressure on Iran. That would indicate more speeches from Netanyahu and greater fear of war. But speeches and emotions aside, intensifying psychological pressure on Iran is more likely than war.

"War and Bluff: Iran, Israel and the United States is republished with permission of Stratfor.

An Ambassodor Murdered: Understanding the Muslim Mind

noreply@blogger.com (Aaron Laramore) — Fri, 14 Sep 2012 02:11:00 +0000

America woke up to the tragic and shocking news that one of our ambassadors, Christopher Stevens, and 4 other Americans, had been killed in mob violence in Libya. Mob violence supposedly triggered by outrage over a video made in America which portrayed the prophet Muhammad in a disrespectful, insulting manner in the eyes of Muslims.

As Americans, we are completely appalled at this type of response to an admittedly offensive video (if you are a practicing Muslim). Christians endure no small amount of ridicule and demeaning speech aimed at denigrating or diminishing the Christian faith, right here at home. However, no one in America would consider this kind of murderous response to be justified in any way. Ambassador Stevens was killed and his body carried through the streets. We are all confused, outraged and simply at a loss to understand how Muslims could behave this way in response to a video, offensive to their religion as it might have been.

Muslim rioters carry Stevens dead body through streets

But understanding this reaction is I think actually really important. So what's going on here? Responses to the incident from people in Libya are interesting. Many people, when asked by NPR news reporters what they thought of what happened, asked first "why didn't the US government not suppress this video?" and then indicated that they did not condone this response. Why didn't the US government suppress this they ask? That's instructive. Remember, this population in Libya has only recently been released from life under a dictator who routinely suppressed speech for decades. They don't have a civil tradition of free speech as we have known and practiced it for 400 years. As a citizenry, they lack the coping skills to tolerate free speech which is offensive, coping skills which we as American take entirely for granted. The civil societies in places like Libya and Egypt don't know how to do it. And their response pretty much tells you that they think the US government does or should suppress speech, at least this kind of speech which offends them.

There is another element at play here as well in terms of the generally uneducated, illiterate and poor characteristics of those involved in the attack. No tv, no internet. The video which is supposed to have incited this violence was probably not seen by the majority of people in the attack. In Egypt, where riots ostensibly spurred by the video are underway also, protesters who were asked if they had seen the video said no they had not, they had merely been told about it. It's all been word of mouth which was accelerated when Arab extremist media across the middle east began giving this video airplay, a video that most Americans didn't even know existed.

We think to ourselves "how can they hold the US government responsible for a video made by some bigot?", but they do hold our government responsible because their dominant experience of government for decades has been one speech suppressing dictatorship after another. That's what they think governments do. And so for these Arab Spring countries, transitioning to real, functional democracies which respect and protect free speech, especially speech they don't like will take a substantial amount of time while they learn to deal with it.

A population of people poorly educated and with little access to alternative info sources is fertile ground for manipulation by extremists. If you're an extremist, its not hard at all to aim angry people at the US. Don't forget that we supported for decades some of the dictators that Muslims have only recently overthrown in places like the Middle east, in the name of stability. The evidence appears to be mounting that the consulate attack in Libya was coordinated and planned, with the stirred up protests used as tactical cover. In Egypt and other middle east states, embassy attacks occurring appear to have a definite aspect of coordination and planning too. Protests On 9/11, all in response to a video that most people, inside and outside of the Arab world, knew nothing about until recently? Doesn't pass the smell test.

Middle East Turmoil and the Election

noreply@blogger.com (Aaron Laramore) — Mon, 17 Sep 2012 04:30:00 +0000

I'm watching Fox News Sunday and I find it a little funny. The pundits roundtable keeps asking the question of why Romney doesn't lay out his policies. In the context of this mid east riots for example, he has criticized Obama strenously, implied he would do things differently (He would lead), but does not lay out what that would be. Same thing on the economics side as well. He brought Ryan on to the campaign, but hasn't laid out his economic strategy in anything more than
platitudes since then, though I think many would have expected it. If I had been on the panel, I could have given them a good answer; they are not talking about it because the results of the policies they are implying they would implement will not be broadly popular among the electorate. Romney's foreign policy nor the economic policy he is implying. That's why they are not laying it out in specifics.

I digress from my topic though. The administration is now doubling down on the explanation of the attacks inthe middle east as entirely due to the vido. While its been a spark, it's not the fuel that's driving this train and the administration is going to sound incredibly niave if they maintain that line. I think its clear that the different extremist groups in that part of the world are using this to advance their various and sundry jihadist aims. If they keep claiming its all about the video, they will give traction to Romney's charges of a weak and vacillating foreign policy. On the other hand, Romney is treading thin ice himself. All his bellicose talk of getting tough on Iran, China, not withdrawing from Afghanistan, not any of it is popular among thinking membes of the electorate. The implications of his rhetoric would seemingly have us at war all over the place. That messages isnt going to sell. If Obama decides to go hard on him and dare him to spell out what he would do, he does not havea great hand.

The Romney campaign is within the margin of error in many of the polls, but the narrative that seems to be emerging with 7 weeks to go to election day, is that he is losing. Not a good look.

The Emerging Doctrine of the United States

noreply@blogger.com (Aaron Laramore) — Tue, 09 Oct 2012 19:40:00 +0000

By George Friedman ~ Honorary Political Season Contributor
(emphasis in bold italic are mine)

Over the past weekend, rumors began to emerge that the Syrian opposition would allow elements of the al Assad regime to remain in Syria and participate in the new government. Rumors have become Syria's prime export, and as such they should not be taken too seriously. Nevertheless, what is happening in Syria is significant for a new foreign doctrine emerging in the United States -- a doctrine in which the United States does not take primary responsibility for events, but which allows regional crises to play out until a new regional balance is reached. Whether a good or bad policy -- and that is partly what the U.S. presidential race is about -- it is real, and it flows from lessons learned.

Threats against the United States are many and complex, but Washington's main priority is ensuring that none of those threats challenge its fundamental interests. Somewhat simplistically, this boils down to mitigating threats against U.S. control of the seas by preventing the emergence of a Eurasian power able to marshal resources toward that end. It also includes preventing the development of a substantial intercontinental nuclear capability that could threaten the United States if a country is undeterred by U.S. military power for whatever reason. There are obviously other interests, but certainly these interests are fundamental.

Therefore, U.S. interest in what is happening in the Western Pacific is understandable. But even there, the United States is, at least for now, allowing regional forces to engage each other in a struggle that has not yet affected the area's balance of power. U.S. allies and proxies, including the Philippines, Vietnam and Japan, have been playing chess in the region's seas without a direct imposition of U.S. naval power -- even though such a prospect appears possible.

Lessons Learned

The roots of this policy lie in Iraq. Iran and Iraq are historical rivals; they fought an extended war in the 1980s with massive casualties. A balance of power existed between the two that neither was comfortable with but that neither could overcome. They contained each other with minimal external involvement.
The U.S. intervention in Iraq had many causes but one overwhelming consequence: In destroying Saddam Hussein's regime, a regime that was at least as monstrous as Moammar Gadhafi's or Bashar al Assad's, the United States destroyed the regional balance of power with Iran. The United States also miscalculated the consequences of the invasion and faced substantial resistance. When the United States calculated that withdrawal was the most prudent course -- a decision made during the Bush administration and continued by the Obama administration -- Iran consequently gained power and a greater sense of security. Perhaps such outcomes should have been expected, but since a forced withdrawal was unexpected, the consequences didn't clearly follow and warnings went unheeded.

If Iraq was the major and critical lesson on the consequences of intervention, Libya was the smaller and less significant lesson that drove it home. The United States did not want to get involved in Libya. Following the logic of the new policy, Libya did not represent a threat to U.S. interests. It was the Europeans, particularly the French, who argued that the human rights threats posed by the Gadhafi regime had to be countered and that those threats could quickly and efficiently be countered from the air. Initially, the U.S. position was that France and its allies were free to involve themselves, but the United States did not wish to intervene.

This rapidly shifted as the Europeans mounted an air campaign. They found that the Gadhafi regime did not collapse merely because French aircraft entered Libyan airspace. They also found that the campaign was going to be longer and more difficult than they anticipated. At this point committed to maintaining its coalition with the Europeans, the United States found itself in the position of either breaking with its coalition or participating in the air campaign. It chose the latter, seeing the commitment as minimal and supporting the alliance as a prior consideration.

Libya and Iraq taught us two lessons. The first was that campaigns designed to topple brutal dictators do not necessarily yield better regimes. Instead of the brutality of tyrants, the brutality of chaos and smaller tyrants emerged. The second lesson, well learned in Iraq, is that the world does not necessarily admire interventions for the sake of human rights. The United States also learned that the world's position can shift with startling rapidity from demanding U.S. action to condemning U.S. action. Moreover, Washington discovered that intervention can unleash virulently anti-American forces that will kill U.S. diplomats. Once the United States enters the campaign, however reluctantly and in however marginal a role, it will be the United States that will be held accountable by much of the world -- certainly by the inhabitants of the country experiencing the intervention. As in Iraq, on a vastly smaller scale, intervention carries with it unexpected consequences.

These lessons have informed U.S. policy toward Syria, which affects only some U.S. interests. However, any U.S. intervention in Syria would constitute both an effort and a risk disproportionate to those interests. Particularly after Libya, the French and other Europeans realized that their own ability to intervene in Syria was insufficient without the Americans, so they declined to intervene. Of course, this predated the killing of U.S. diplomats in Benghazi, Libya, but it did not predate the fact that the intervention in Libya surprised planners by its length and by the difficulty of creating a successor regime less brutal than the one it replaced. The United States was not prepared to intervene with conventional military force.

That is not to say the United States did not have an interest in Syria. Specifically, Washington did not want Syria to become an Iranian puppet that would allow Tehran's influence to stretch through Iraq to the Mediterranean. The United States had been content with the Syrian regime while it was simply a partner of Iran rather than Iran's subordinate. However, the United States foresaw Syria as a subordinate of Iran if the al Assad regime survived. The United States wanted Iran blocked, and that meant the displacement of the al Assad regime. It did not mean Washington wanted to intervene militarily, except possibly through aid and training potentially delivered by U.S. special operations forces -- a lighter intervention than others advocated.

Essential Interests

The U.S. solution is instructive of the emerging doctrine. First, the United States accepted that al Assad, like Saddam Hussein and Gadhafi, was a tyrant. But it did not accept the idea that al Assad's fall would create a morally superior regime. In any event, it expected the internal forces in Syria to deal with al Assad and was prepared to allow this to play out. Second, the United States expected regional powers to address the Syrian question if they wished. This meant primarily Turkey and to a lesser degree Saudi Arabia. From the American point of view, the Turks and Saudis had an even greater interest in circumscribing an Iranian sphere of influence, and they had far greater levers to determine the outcome in Syria. Israel is, of course, a regional power, but it was in no position to intervene: The Israelis lacked the power to impose a solution, they could not occupy Syria, and Israeli support for any Syrian faction would delegitimize that faction immediately. Any intervention would have to be regional and driven by each participant's national interests.

The Turks realized that their own national interest, while certainly affected by Syria, did not require a major military intervention, which would have been difficult to execute and which would have had an unknown outcome. The Saudis and Qataris, never prepared to intervene directly, did what they could covertly, using money, arms and religiously motivated fighters to influence events. But no country was prepared to risk too much to shape events in Syria. They were prepared to use indirect power rather than conventional military force. As a result, the conflict remains unresolved.

This has forced both the Syrian regime and the rebels to recognize the unlikelihood of outright military victory. Iran's support for the regime and the various sources of support for the Syrian opposition have proved indecisive. Rumors of political compromise are emerging accordingly.

We see this doctrine at work in Iran as well. Tehran is developing nuclear weapons, which may threaten Israel. At the same time, the United States is not prepared to engage in a war with Iran, nor is it prepared to underwrite the Israeli attack with added military support. It is using an inefficient means of pressure -- sanctions -- which appears to have had some effect with the rapid depreciation of the Iranian currency. But the United States is not looking to resolve the Iranian issue, nor is it prepared to take primary responsibility for it unless Iran becomes a threat to fundamental U.S. interests. It is content to let events unfold and act only when there is no other choice.

Under the emerging doctrine, the absence of an overwhelming American interest means that the fate of a country like Syria is in the hands of the Syrian people or neighboring countries. The United States is unwilling to take on the cost and calumny of trying to solve the problem. It is less a form of isolationism than a recognition of the limits of power and interest. Not everything that happens in the world requires or justifies American intervention.

If maintained, this doctrine will force the world to reconsider many things. On a recent trip in Europe and the Caucasus, I was constantly asked what the United States would do on various issues. I responded by saying it would do remarkably little and that it was up to them to act. This caused interesting consternation. Many who condemn U.S. hegemony also seem to demand it. There is a shift under way that they have not yet noticed -- except for an absence that they regard as an American failure. My attempt to explain it as the new normal did not always work.

Given that there is a U.S. presidential election under way, this doctrine, which has quietly emerged under Obama, appears to conflict with the views of Mitt Romney, a point I made in a previous article. My core argument on foreign policy is that reality, not presidents or policy papers, makes foreign policy. The United States has entered a period in which it must move from military domination to more subtle manipulation, and more important, allow events to take their course. This is a maturation of U.S. foreign policy, not a degradation. Most important, it is happening out of impersonal forces that will shape whoever wins the U.S. presidential election and whatever he might want. Whether he wishes to increase U.S. assertiveness out of national interest, or to protect human rights, the United States is changing the model by which it operates. Overextended, it is redesigning its operating system to focus on the essentials and accept that much of the world, unessential to the United States, will be free to evolve as it will.

This does not mean that the United States will disengage from world affairs. It controls the world's oceans and generates almost a quarter of the world's gross domestic product. While disengagement is impossible, controlled engagement, based on a realistic understanding of the national interest, is possible.

This will upset the international system, especially U.S. allies. It will also create stress in the United States both from the political left, which wants a humanitarian foreign policy, and the political right, which defines the national interest broadly. But the constraints of the past decade weigh heavily on the United States and therefore will change the way the world works.

The important point is that no one decided this new doctrine. It is emerging from the reality the United States faces. That is how powerful doctrines emerge. They manifest themselves first and are announced when everyone realizes that that is how things work.

"The Emerging Doctrine of the United States is republished with permission of Stratfor."

Women spends year literally following Bible’s rules for women

noreply@blogger.com (Aaron Laramore) — Tue, 16 Oct 2012 19:01:00 +0000

Rachel Held Evans (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Rachel Held Evans embarked on her project to challenge evangelical leaders and advocate an increase of women within church leadership.

I am a Christian. My reaction to this effort is that its an interesting conversation starter, with at least one point being what is the value of taking these literal interpretations and applying them now? I think it's an extreme approach to read every piece of the Bible as requiring literal adherence with no acknowledgement or discernment applied regarding the time in which the Bible was written and whether it makes human or spiritual sense to apply something written therein literally now. That's a very legit discussion to have about how we understand the Bible and if she was trying to raise that up, then I think this was an intellectually and spiritually provocative thing to do and beneficial to provoke thinking about faith. People who want to denigrate faith and belief and reliance on the Bible for moral guidance often seize on the adherence or advocacy of some people for literal interpretations of the Bible. I think people in that camp often look for opportunities that permit them to discard moral guidance in the Bible which they find inconvenient to apply to their lives. They would likely find much to jump on in what Ms. Evans has done, but I think that would be the wrong way in which to absorb and interpret her effort. I think what she's doing here ought to be looked at as an opportunity to grapple with our faith and how we apply it some of the most serious issues of the day and how we relate to each other as men and women. I'm talking about it here, so I think Ms. Evans has already accomplished something significant.

Colin Powell's Endorsement of Obama: Race Based?

noreply@blogger.com (Aaron Laramore) — Sat, 27 Oct 2012 21:13:00 +0000

Colin Powell (Photo credit: jdlasica)

John Sununu

John Sununu went after Colin Powell for his endorsement of Obama with a retread of an argument made against Colin in 2008, namely that he only supported Obama because he was black. This charge leveled against Colin is simply a more specific version of an insult to the intelligence of black folk in general, namely, that we vote on skin color, not on the issues or policy positions of the candidate. The falseness of the premise is made very clear by all the black candidates we don't vote for: Lynn Swann, Al Sharpton, Ken Blackwell, Michael Steele. With the exception of Sharpton, those examples clearly demonstrate that party ID is actually more salient than skin color. The argument is so offensive because it assumes that for white voters, the default behavior is a searching analysis of the issues and policy positions and for blacks an unintelligent reflex vote on race. It assumes that bias, or stereotype or skin color as a proxy for shared beliefs and ideas never enters into the voting decision equation for whites. We could have a whole debate around that. But really, why bother? As far as I'm concerned, its irrelevant.

The thing is, the starting point is a false narrative question. Do blacks vote for candidates based on race? Do whites? Let's assume they do. SO WHAT? This is America. As Americans we have the right to exercise our vote in whatever manner we see fit. Being an American means that we can vote for whoever we want for any reason we want. We can vote for a candidate because we like their haircut, because we like their policies or because we like the color of their skin.

As Americans, we are free to exercise our franchise on any basis we please. Whether that's Colin Powell or a low info black voter, or Andrew Breitbart (RIP) or a redneck white voter. If you are a U.S. citizen, you don't have to defend the reason you voted for any candidate. Its among the most basic of the freedoms we enjoy, that we can exercise the franchise as we see fit. It is our birthright as a free people.

Being a free American means we get to vote for whoever we like for whatever damn reason we like. Point blank and simple as that. God bless America.

The Election

noreply@blogger.com (Aaron Laramore) — Tue, 06 Nov 2012 10:49:00 +0000

Official Political Season election prognistication 5:39 am:

President Obama will win re-election with a definitive share of the electoral college and a slim plurality of the popular vote.

Lessons Unlearned

noreply@blogger.com (Aaron Laramore) — Wed, 07 Nov 2012 13:32:00 +0000

A few things the GOP better start catching a clue about:

You can no longer win with election strategies that seek primarily to maximize the white vote.
You cannot demonize hispanics on immigration and expect to win their vote.
It is stupid to ignore the most consistent and committed group of Christian voters, blacks, as a political constituency.
It is even more stupid to nakedly attempt to suppress the black vote. It sorta pisses them off.

There are other lessons learned for the GOP in this election, but if the above isn't clearly coming through to the party leaders and its rank and file, then the GOP doesn't deserve to have its political ideas gain any currency, because it is a lousy and fickle messenger of conservative values and policy.

Why the GOP Should Embrace America's Diversity If We Want to Maintain US Global Hegemony (We Do)

noreply@blogger.com (Aaron Laramore) — Thu, 08 Nov 2012 21:19:00 +0000

)

Thomas Barnet, author of Great Powers, spoke to the website China US Friendship.
back in 2009 about the coming of a so called "post America" world and in his comments articulated something about our diversity that ought to be a tremendous guide to the GOP for why it should be rushing to embrace America's diversity instead of being hell bent to keep it at arm's length. Barnet makes it clear that as the creator of globalization's rule sets, we have put an American stamp on the planet and our diversity is among our greatest strengths in creating the next American century.

"I believe this is still a most "American" world because we have purposefully shaped globalization's rise to be modeled on the American experience of states uniting, economies integrating, networks growing, mass media content flowing freely, and religions competing peacefully with one another for adherents.

Do I pretend the entire world has reached these same levels of peaceful integration? No, I do not. Do I pretend that if the world follows in these footsteps, the regions of the world will all become carbon copies of the United States? That would be foolish in the extreme. I state merely that America has the longest experience as the world's first multinational political and economic and security union, meaning we have the longest experience in creating all the rules, institutions, regulations, procedures, etc. that make such deep connectivity possible among our 50 member states--all of whom has distinct identities and all of whom feature significant and growing non-European populations.

So even when we speak of a post-American world, as Zakaria does, I find this amusing. I definitely see a post-Caucasian world, but that is hardly a post-American one--even in America! Already our biggest cities see European descendants no longer constituting a majority. This is also true for our biggest state, California. It is also true for our population under the age of five--the truest indicator of our future. So if we're talking about a world that intermixes all the world's populations, is there a better example of this phenomenon on the planet than the United States? And if this is the case, do you not recognize that we have a tremendous asset in our diversity? Not just in the people we attract from all over the world but also in the rules we have created to make that diversity possible and profitable and harmonious?"

When an Apology Rings Hollow

noreply@blogger.com (Aaron Laramore) — Sat, 01 Dec 2012 15:12:00 +0000

From the brutal 1944 Alabama rape case of Recy Taylor, who wastaken from her car and gang raped by 7 white men, all of whom the state declined to hold accountable (twice).

The state of Alabama in 2011 issued the following apology which I came across today.

1 HJR194
2 127665-1
3 By Representatives Grimsley, Ball, Melton, England, Holmes,
4 Colston and Mitchell
5 RFD: Rules
6 First Read: 24-MAR-11
Page 0
1 127665-1:n:03/22/2011:MCS/mfp LRS2011-1549
2
3
4
5
6
7
8 EXPRESSING REGRET FOR THE STATE OF ALABAMA'S
9 INVOLVEMENT IN THE FAILURE TO PROSECUTE CRIMES COMMITTED
10 AGAINST RECY TAYLOR.
11
12 WHEREAS, on September 3, 1944, in the small Town of
13 Abbeville, Alabama, Recy Taylor, a young Black mother was
14 walking home from church with her companions when she was
15 confronted by a car of seven white men; the men forced Ms.
16 Taylor into the car at knife and gunpoint, drove off, and six
17 of the seven men brutally raped her in a deserted grove of
18 pine trees; and
19 WHEREAS, Taylor's younger brother, Robert Corbitt,
20 of Abbeville, said he remembers the day his sister was raped
21 67 years ago like it was yesterday, saying the police tried to
22 blame his sister, and the family was harassed so that he was
23 not allowed to play in the front yard; and
24 WHEREAS, an all white, all male grand jury failed to
25 bring any charges for indictment; and then Governor Chauncey
26 Sparks ordered a second investigation, and the grand jury
27 again failed to indict; and
Page 1
1 WHEREAS, the case got the attention of NAACP
2 activist Rosa Parks, who interviewed Taylor in 1944 in
3 Abbeville and later recruited other activists to create the
4 "Alabama Committee for Equal Justice for Mrs. Recy Taylor";
5 and
6 WHEREAS, in an interview last year with the AP, Recy
7 Taylor, who now resides in Florida, said she eventually gave
8 up trying to bring charges against the men; and
9 WHEREAS, this deplorable lack of justice remains a
10 source of shame for all Alabamians; now therefore,
11 BE IT RESOLVED BY THE LEGISLATURE OF ALABAMA, BOTH
12 HOUSES THEREOF CONCURRING, That we acknowledge the lack of
13 prosecution for crimes committed against Recy Taylor by the
14 government of the State of Alabama, that we declare such
15 failure to act was, and is, morally abhorrent and repugnant,
16 and that we do hereby express profound regret for the role
17 played by the government of the State of Alabama in failing to
18 prosecute the crimes.
19 BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED, That we express our deepest
20 sympathies and solemn regrets to Recy Taylor and her family
21 and friends.
22 BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED, That it is the specific
23 intent of the Legislature that reparations shall not be
24 considered or made regarding past actions of the government of
25 the State of Alabama concerning the lack of prosecution of the
26 crimes committed against Recy Taylor, and that this resolution
Page 2
1 shall not be used or construed in any manner whatsoever as
2 support for such reparations.

It read okay right up to that last little bit.

Demanding Proof of God's Existence: It's Silly

noreply@blogger.com (Aaron Laramore) — Mon, 10 Dec 2012 18:59:00 +0000

The atheist demand for proof that God exists is a little laughable and makes me want to turn it around. Prove God exists? Prove to me He doesn't.

Prove to me that the Universe as we know it was not created by God. This intellectual approach to the question reminds me of a joke I heard a pastor tell once. Man said to God, "Hey you're not special. We can make Man just like you did". God replies "Really? Okay, let's see it". Man says "Okay, I will" and bends down to scoop up a handful of dirt. God says "hey, wait a minute. Get your own dirt".

Graham: Stop Talking Like a Weenie

noreply@blogger.com (Aaron Laramore) — Mon, 10 Dec 2012 19:37:00 +0000

Guantanamo Bay (Photo credit: AslanMedia)

The administrations idea that closing Gitmo removes a recruiting tool from the terrorist tool belt is to my mind sort of stupid and naive. The better and more factual argument is that the whole thing was an extra judicial setup for interrogation that sidestepped pesky international laws that got in the way of prosecuting the war on terror. But the need for that has long since passed. Al Qaeda is a much diminished entity now and we know a lot more about what we are doing. Gitmo is not all that necessary and there are perfectly good reasons to shut it down and move the people there to prisons stateside and good reasons to leave it be too.

Why not make the case on whatever those level headed arguments are, rather than the purely political claptrap argument being made by Lyndsey Graham that these people are essentially too dangerous to put in a prison on American soil? That’s just a bullshit argument and every time I hear a republican make this sort of panty waist argument, I throw up in my mouth a little. These guys are not the X-Men.

The American prison system is more than capable of locking them down and keeping them there. In America, you go to prison, you pretty much stay there until you get let out or you die. Simple as that. These guys are not any more dangerous than the assorted serial killers, rapists, psychopaths and other evil bastards we have locked up. Rural communities compete to have prisons in their backyard for Pete’s sake. Why? Because you don’t get out of jail in this country. I live in Indianapolis and right here in Metro Indy there is a prison across the street from a senior living facility out in the far burbs.
It’s a purely political argument that’s only about partisan warfare, not a discussion being had on the cold hard pros and cons of Gitmo’s utilization. Those few hundred guys or whatever is left can obviously be housed in American prisons. Maybe there are good practical reasons to keep using Gitmo. I wish Graham would make those and stop sounding like a panty waist and trying to scare people that those guys are somehow super criminals that can only be contained at Gitmo. Thats comicbook talk, not the conversation of a clear eyed grownup, and shows its a political argument, not a factual one.

We can Stop the Next Sandy Hook and Preserve The Right to Bear Arms:

noreply@blogger.com (Aaron Laramore) — Sat, 29 Dec 2012 07:53:00 +0000

Snowflakes for Sandy Hook (Photo credit: Nica Wolf)

The atrocity at Sandy Hook Elementary School has sparked a new round of discussion about gun control. That discussion has ranged from talk of gun confiscation on the one hand to a serious conversation about arming school personnel on the other. As it is with everything about our political discourse now, the conversation is full of extremes. So you get the NRA telling everyone that any attempt to regulate the type of firepower available to average citizens is a blatant attempt to destroy our rights, while activists on the left are pushing for every regulatory measure from the reasonable to the ridiculous. The Newtown funerals are only recently over.

The thing is, preventing the next Sandy Hook doesn't have to be a zero sum game of our rights vs. our children. It's a fact that illegally acquired weapons have played a role in several of the 60 odd mass shootings since 1982. Determining whether that's a failure of enforcement of the current gun laws or evidence of the need for additional regulation is a question that we likely already have the answer to.

Third Way has a series of recommendations for gun regulation. None of them merit dismissal as left wing attempts to destroy our 2nd amendment rights. Several seem useful, some a bit lightweight. But listen to conservative voices like the American Conservative, and you get ridiculous arguments that essentially posit that we ought to deregulate gun ownership completely. The same people would not advocate similar deregulation of car ownership, but blithely push that viewpoint for weapons specifically made for mowing down humans.

There is a reasonable approach to gun regulation and protecting our 2nd amendment rights. Arguing that there is no reasonable approach to it is whats unreasonable.

Movie Review: Django Unchained (Spoilers)

noreply@blogger.com (Aaron Laramore) — Sun, 30 Dec 2012 02:18:00 +0000

So the Hot Little Number and I rolled out to catch the first showing of the day for Django Unchained, the latest Tarantino flick. For those of you who don't know me (most of you), I'm an avid movie fan, especially of action, sci-fi and good thrillers. I had seen several trailers for Django already and was interested in the movie. As some initial reactions began to roll out about the film, including Spike Lee's declaration that it was disrespectful to his ancestors and he would not see it, I began to suspect there was a bit of stealth advertising going on.

Movies with racial themes to them sometimes smartly sell themselves as something else. Best example in recent history I can think of is "Remember the Titans". Watch the trailers and you mostly thought it was a football movie. Once you got in your seat, you found it it was a lot more than a football flick. Very smart marketing. Django does a bit of the same. The trailers leave you thinking its a kind of dark comedy with a crazy revenge fantasy premise; a former slave turned bounty hunter with a license to kill white people, a kind of of black 007 operating in the antebellum South. The film does deliver a bit of that. But like Remember the Titans, Django has an additional task it seems to set itself, namely graphically portraying the accepted and casually cruel callousness of the "peculiar institution".

It does this in two particular ways, neither of which are for the squeamish. First and foremost, the copious use of the word "nigger" by whites directed at blacks. The word is a constant verbal denial of the humanity of blacks in the film and its spewed forth continuously from the lips of the film's white characters. This is jarring, even disturbing to some I imagine for a variety of reasons, not all easily explainable. These days, your average decent white person has a real sense of avoidance of the "N" word. People even describe the term "nigger" as "the N word" in quotes and say it hesitantly, almost gingerly. If you are white, letting that word so much as cross your lips today is more than enough to instantaneously brand you as a racist in the mind of others. At the same time, "nigger" gets bandied about all the time in the popular culture via rap music, urban themed movies and outrageously vulgar and funny comics like Katt Williams ( a personal favorite, brotha seems to be having some problems lately). We have debates about who can say it and who can't. All that tension and angst gets messed with as the films white characters say "nigger" over and over. Some people criticize Tarantino about the copious use of "nigger" in the film and I felt a little put upon about it myself. Tarantino calls such criticism ridiculous and while it was a bit uncomfortable, I can't fault his comeback: that's how they talked to and about black people in 1858, two years before the Civil War. Even the actors were not immune. DiCaprio reportedly began to shrink from its constant use until he was hemmed up on set by co-star Samuel Jackson. Kerry Washington in a recent appearance on the Tonight Show noted the difficulty of being called "nigger" for pretend for eight months of filming.

The second tactic the film employs is the sometimes graphic depiction of the brutality of bondage routinely visited upon slaves. Oddly enough, while many people have characterized the film as full of brutal violence, I actually feel like the film pulled its punches in this respect. The scene in which DiCaprio's character has one of his slaves ripped apart by dogs to make a point is the one which most react to. It's a brutal scene, no doubt, but Tarantino doesn't give you a long look at it and cuts to and from the gore and blood quickly enough that you can keep your bile down. As someone who routinely watches very violent movies, the movie isn't doing anything extraordinary in this department. I think what takes people aback is watching this brutal violence in the service of subjugation and dehumanization. This is the element of the film that gets you a bit by the throat, the truth telling portrayal of what's possible when one set of humans operates a system that confers life and death ownership over another set of humans. The barbarity that the film does depict hints at the depravity which most certainly must come to inhabit the souls of all who profit from such a system.

For all the film's supposed head on portrayal of the brutality of slavery, I actually think it wimps out a bit on this point. It doesn't shy away from the violence of control visited upon men, but seems surprisingly shy about doing much more than hinting at the brutalization of women. The brothel scenes, the mention of the passing of Broom Hilda to the Mandingo fighters and the German bounty hunter, the near whipping of the egg breaking slave girl, all are hints at the many ways sexual brutalization was visited upon slave women. The film by and large shys away from trying to portray any of this head on however.

The Hot Little Number had mixed feelings about the film. Its tendency to boomerang from scenes of intense brutality or dehumanization to humor made it hard for her to be entertained by it. That said, she had an appreciation for what it was attempting to do, and what kept her engaged was the love story. We both faulted the movie for not giving much humanity to any of the other blacks in the film outside the main characters. She didn't care for the somewhat passive aspect of Broom Hilda, whose strength was there but extremely understated in the film (when Django gets to Candieland, he learns she's in the box for trying to escape for example). I found a certain amount of fault with the slack jawed dim witted demeanor of the slaves around Django in the opening scenes and at the end. The whites were all ignorant, degenerate beasts and the slaves all slow witted oafs. With some more narrative discipline, I imagine Tarantino could have given the slaves a more nuanced demeanor and there was an exploration to be had right there. What kind of double mask is being worn by people surviving day to day in such a system? People doing even more than that; loving, marrying, bearing children, worshiping God. If I have a major fault with the film, that's probably it. It doesn't reach for the heights in this way, and it could have.

Other quibbles? The film is overlong. When the bullets start flying the first time, he could have won the fight and gone on, but then we go all that bit with going to the mine and coming back. That said, I enjoyed the film. Spike Lee says its disrespectful of our ancestors. He is offended by the treatment of the subject with humor and packaging it in a spaghetti western envelope. I understand his point, but I have a hard time believing he would offer the same critique if a black director like Melvin Van Peebles had helmed it. Despite Spike's far greater knowledge of film and film history than mine, the critique also seems a bit trite considering Spike is condemning it without having seen it. I don't understand how you can comment intelligently on it simply because you know the wrapper it comes in.

Bottom line? I like the film. It's both though provoking and entertaining. Especially since it delivers the spaghetti western payoff at the end, because I was certainly thinking to myself, if we are doing this film on the formula, then dammit, Django better get the girl and kill every one single one of these degenerate racists pigs. You get exactly that. Go see it. Judge for yourself.

Creating a Tea Party Inspired Movement in the Black Community: A Thought Experiment in Ideological Regime Change

noreply@blogger.com (Aaron Laramore) — Thu, 17 Jan 2013 20:14:00 +0000

I originally posted these thoughts as a Prezi several months ago. I actually think its more fun to read that way and I encourage you to check out that version. If slightly unfun text is cool for you, read on.

Inspiration

The inspiration for this ideological regime change initiative in the black community came from two places. First, serious shout out to blogger Constructive Feedback who pens the blog Politics, Priorities, Psychology and Hope WITHIN The Black Community. The phrase "ideological regime change" is one I first heard from him and I think it aptly describes the challenge before us.

Secondly, inspiration comes from an analysis of the organizational structure of the Tea Party movement, published in the National Journal by Jonathan Rauch, titled "How the Tea Party Organizes Without Leaders". It's a deep dive on the structure of the Tea Party movement, highlighting the Tea Party's self description of itself as not a spider, but a starfish structure movement (cut off a piece, it grows back, and a piece can generate a new starfish vs. a spider which if you knock it in the head, you kill the whole organism). Tea Party members take their inspiration on this from the book The Starfish and the Spider: The Unstoppable Power of Leaderless Organizations, a business book by Ori Brafman and Rod A. Beckstrom, published in 2006.

What We Must Create
A radically decentralized political and social movement focused on the pursuit of our permanent interests which can end run the entrenched, captive office holders and national organizations to re-orient the political culture of the black community.

Why this Structure?

First, radical decentralization sidesteps the dangers of over centralized authority; external co-option, internal corruption, and gradual calcification, all three of which prevail with most of the mainstream black organizations. Decentralization is inherently resistant to all three of these strategies.

Second, the system is self-propelling and self-guiding. If a good or popular idea surfaces in one part of the network, activists talk it up and other groups copy it. Bad and unpopular ideas fizzle out and the movement lives on even as people come and go.

Third, the network is unbelievably cheap. Everyone is a volunteer. Local groups bring their own resources. Coordinators provide support and communication, but the heavy lifting is done by the grassroots.

Why Should We Do This?
We've got to move from our current ideological dead end to disruption of the ideological status qou, followed by education and activism to re-establish a shared multi-generational understanding of our permanent interests and the capacity to effectively pursue them.

We've Done it Before
The Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) of the 1960s attempted a movement using this same type of organizational structure. In 1964, SNCC switched from small groups of activists acting independently to a more centralized structure, after which SNCC eventually dissolved from internal dissension and a healthy dose of FBI/Government surveillance and repression. SNCC's more decentralized beginning didn't have the benefit of the tools we enjoy today, namely the internet and other forms of instantaneous, cheap, person to person communication to fuel the movement. We do.

Downsides

Headless organizations are better at opposing things than agreeing on the right affirmative alternative.
It's difficult if not impossible to negotiate compromise because there is no leader.

Who is Available to Populate This Movement?

Working class/Middle class African Americans?
Rationale: This group has tangible political/financial interests at risk in real time, an active frustration with the status qou that has nowhere to go and the requisite time and financial resources to engage. A significant portion are deeply embedded in the existing democratic party political structure and could be the subversive insurgent vanguard or the first line of counter insurgency defense. Nonetheless, a large portion is ideologically available to an effective movement.

African American college students?
Rationale: Potentially the shock troops of the movement? Willing and able to engage in protest actions first group cannot/will not? More flexible, more activist?

Who is Not?

The underclass/the very poor
Rationale: They are not equipped for the fight - lack of education, resources and preoccupation with surviving in an economy they can't participate in renders them missing in action, though potentially ideologically available?

What Are Our Permanent Interests?

"Black people have no permanent friends, no permanent enemies, just permanent interests. ~Congressman William Clay

1. Education that enables (education levels us up, not out)
2. Meaningful economic competency (we are competent capitalists)
3. Effective political literacy (permanent interests drive policy results)
4. Enforced socio/cultural accountability (viable family structure, safe communities)

What Should We Call It?

"Tea Party" as a moniker for this movement doesn't really resonate in the black community. What else could we call it? Coffee Hour?
Black Tea (submitted by twitter user @marshallfsmith)
I'm open to suggestions, though admittedly, this may be the least important thing to figure out early on.

Okay, What Do We Actually Do? What is our Action Step? What does starting this movement from square one look like?
That is a damn good question. I'm still noodling on it. I started this talking about ideological regime change. I don't entirely care for that formulation because I like tangible outcomes. By definition, this is pushing for intangible outcomes that eventually manifest themselves in different political action and policy outcomes.

In my mind, the action step must be action that intelligently and effectively challenges the policy status qou currently supported by mainstream black organizations and black politicians embedded in the democratic party structure As I noted earlier, the star fish organizational structure is geared more to opposing bad outcomes than affirmatively supporting good ones, so perhaps we start with identifying funky outcomes of the current status qou and come up with actions that challenge them?

One of those areas might be disrupting the traditional policy formulation process of the democratic party to move it more towards supporting our permanent interests. The Tea Party has effectively moved GOP politics (you can question the utility of where they've moved it, but you can't question their effectiveness in moving it). If we created a movement that was equally successful, we will have done something major.

What have you got?
This is a thought experiment and one that really requires audience participation and engagement. So this is one I really need you, the reader to step up to the plate on and comment. Have at it.

The Sad Saga of Kwame Kilpatrick Comes to a Pathetic Close

noreply@blogger.com (Aaron Laramore) — Tue, 12 Mar 2013 04:36:00 +0000

Kwame Kilpatrick, former mayor of Detroit, was found guilty on Monday of a slew of charges, including racketeering, fraud and extortion, a sad, pathetic end to a five-month public corruption trial against him and two co-defendants. I lived and worked in Detroit during the Kwame years and I have to tell you that today's verdict left me feeling hollow and unsatisfied. I left Detroit six years ago. It's taken this long for some measure of accountability to be meted out? Kwame ran the city of Detroit for six years. Six years in which he was allowed by a foolish and divided city council, a too often complacent city electorate and a willingly complicit business community to loot and pillage using the power of his office. Handing contracts to his cronies, diverting grants for low income people into contracts for his wife, sleeping with his chief of staff and generally living the high life on the people's dime. Meanwhile the city of Detroit was going down hill the entire time, picking up speed like a boulder down a hill, held back by a totally dysfunctional city government beset and besotted with a culture of incompetence and petty corruption, a culture created by the behavior of the man at the top, Kwame Kilpatrick.

Some hailed this verdict as a blow for ethical conduct in office. Barbara McQuade,

United States

attorney for theEastern District of Michigan, said the case was about the future. “This verdicthas sent a powerful message that corruption will not be tolerated in thiscommunity,” she said in a news conference. “Candidates should seek office tomake a difference, not to make money for themselves.”

*blink* Really?!! I'm sorry, thats baloney.

McQuade might have a point if this accountability had come back when Kwame was busy looting the city for his own benefit and that of his cronies. But it didn't. Kwame was looting the city in plain sight and there was no accountability. The people didn't demand it, the city council was often complicit in it and the business community looked the other way until the whole thing became too blatantly and obviously criminal to ignore with a straight face. Where was the accountability when Kwame's pastor called up my former colleague Donna Williams to tell her that Kwame wanted her to hire his wife for $75,000?

The time for all this accountability was when he was robbing the city blind and screwing over the citizens of Detroit with his foolishness. The time for accountability was when police officers investigating the death of Tamara Greene were fired. The time for accountability was when his culture of corruption had city officials engaged in petty thievery and his chief of staff ultimately destroying her life due to misguided love. That was when he should have been brought up short. Six years later, the city is circling the drain and this conviction does nothing for them. It might have made a difference back when he was in office. It means little to nothing now, other than a form of sad, sorry and pathetic closure to a sordid and juvenile saga of abuse of power and corruption in office.

The Desperate Identity Politics of the GOP

noreply@blogger.com (Aaron Laramore) — Wed, 20 Mar 2013 04:50:00 +0000

The GOP has released its Growth and Opportunity Project report. This is essentially the big post mortem on why they lost the White House in 2012 by a decisive margin. The report attempts to address one of the key failures of the 2012 campaign; the resounding rejection of GOP presidential candidate Mitt Romney by a whopping 80% of the minority vote across all groups. That's an eye opener, or at least it should be. But the GOP still seems to want to cling to a willfully selective point of view about what must be done to woo certain ethnic voting blocks. It's very apparent for example in reading the report that after 2012, the GOP REALLY REALLY wants Hispanic voters. Black voters? Not so much.....still.

Oh come on you say? They say right in the report they want to do better with black voters. Yeah, they do, but they have been saying that for quite some time. Its not been sincere in the past and its not sincere now.

I'll repeat for the record my basic conclusion about the GOP and black voters, which I challenge ANYBODY to definitively refute. To wit;

The Republican Party is fundamentally disinterested in black voters as a political constituency. The GOP does not believe that the black voter bloc is necessary or essential to its aspirations for governance. That is a sentiment held by both its leadership and by its rank and file.

Simple as that. They don't think they need us to win. Point blank. They used to feel the same way about Hispanics, until they got gobsmacked by the 2012 election results and opened their eyes to the demographic reality of Hispanic population growth. Now they want Hispanics. They want them bad. We'll ultimately find out just how bad soon enough.

How do I arrive at this conclusion? It's not difficult. All you have to do is read the report and see the way that the GOP selectively defines its problems in a way that requires addressing the issue with Hispanics but ignoring the same with blacks.

It's right there, plain as day. The report leads with the issue of messaging:

"We have become expert in how to provide ideological reinforcement to like-minded people, but devastatingly we have lost the ability to be persuasive with, or welcoming to, those who do not agree with us on every issue"

Dead accurate. The GOP talks to itself. All the time. It has some of the worst practice when it comes to communicating persuasively conservative values or approaches. It's chief tactics are demonization, ridicule, and attack. Now, mozy on down to the section of the report covering Hispanics where it says the following:

“Message matters. Too often Republican elected officials spoke about issues important to the Hispanic community using a tone that undermined the GOP brand within Hispanic communities. Repairing that relationship will require both a tone that “welcomes in” as well as substantial time spent in the community demonstrating a commitment to addressing its unique concerns. As one participant in a regional listening session noted, “The key problem is that the Republican Party’s message offends too many people unnecessarily. “ [emphasis mine]

Once again, dead on accurate. Republicans were willing to message their views on immigration in a way that offended and scared Hispanics. They championed the kind of measures being taken in Arizona as measures to be used everywhere. And they did it using a tone that said from leadership down to rank and file, rhetorical and policy hostility towards Hispanics is not only necessary, its justified. They appear to come to some level of recognition of this in the report and call for it to be corrected. They actually correctly analyzed the source of Hispanic ambivalence towards the GOP party as their own behavior. You could replace Hispanic with African American in the above quote and it would remain 100% accurate.

However, travel a little further into the report to the section on GOP relations with African Americans and all this searching introspection grinds to a halt. The section on this relationship is devoid of any analysis of GOP behavior and how that behavior is received by this voting group. The mere three paragraphs that address the issue essentially suggest that its merely a marketing problem, a sort of "if we just spend more time explaining it to them, they will get it eventually" approach. It's not GOP behavior, they just need to be more visible. When it comes to Hispanics, the GOP is willing to look at and possibly change its messaging behavior. For blacks, not so much. In both the sections on Hispanics and Asians/Pacific Islanders, the recommendations include this one:

"The Republican Party is one of tolerance and respect, and we need to ensure that the tone of our message is always reflective of these core principles. In the modern media environment, a poorly phrased argument or out-of-context statement can spiral out of control and reflect poorly on the Party as a whole. Thus we must emphasize during candidate training, retreats, etc., the importance of a welcoming, inclusive message in particular when discussing issues that relate directly to a minority group."

That's great. I could not agree more. Tolerance and respect in how you communicate. It's great. Oddly however, this recommendation is not copied in the section on African Americans. Tolerance and respect is apparently not necessary when dealing with us. Repeated word for word in the list of recommendations for Hispanics and Asians, wholly absent from recommendations for African Americans. Sorta like the way the GOP behaves in real life.

The report says more than once that they are not a policy committee, but when it comes to Hispanics, the report explicitly says that the GOP must address immigration reform. So, for Hispanics, oh, we got policy. For black folk, not much.

Mediatite makes the point well:

There was one group, however, that didn’t even get a bland promise of some sort of policy consideration. Can you guess which one? Rather than even think about changing their policies to attract black voters, the RNC’s answer is to infiltrate black organizations, because black voters are just in the bad “habit” of ignoring awesome facts: (emphasis mine)

Establish a presence in African American communities and at black organizations such as the NAACP. We are never going to win over voters who are not asked for their support. Too many African American voters have gotten in the habit of supporting Democrats without hearing anyone in their community making a case to the contrary.

As condescending and simple-minded as the report is to every other group. black voters are the only ones who are portrayed as the ones who have the problem; it’s not the GOP’s failure, it’s the black voters’. Their other big idea is to get in there and edumacate them:

Engage historically black colleges and universities (HBCUs) with the goal of educating the community on Republican ideals and the Party’s history.

Perhaps my favorite bullet point for black voters, though, is this one:

The RNC should work with the RSLC to develop best practices of Republicans who were successfully elected in districts with a high population of African American voters.

Yeah, like that awesome Shelby County “best practice.”

It's the worst, most desperate and cynical of identity politics. The GOP is ready to consider an about face on immigration reform as an explicit and baldly stated ploy to woo Hispanic voters. I recall Romney saying that Obama had essentially bought off, bribed minority voters with Obamacare. If you agreed, how is the GOP's effort to deliver immigration reform for hispanics any different? They don't value Hispanics as a political constituency. They just want their numbers to win elections and they will even fess up to some of their own nasty behavior to try for them.

But when it comes to black voters, its business as usual. No acknowledgment of how GOP messaging behavior has and continues to destroy opportunities for engagement with blacks. More of the same platitudes about outreach.

Smell the desperation.

Current Events Roundup OR What the Hell is Going On?

noreply@blogger.com (Aaron Laramore) — Wed, 20 Mar 2013 04:55:00 +0000

I'm off my game. I admit it. Post frequency is way, way down. Part of it is just the simple fact that hey, I got a life. Beautiful kids, interesting, challenging job, lovely wife, church and more. Things to do. My little blog effort has been getting increasingly neglected. And the thing is folks, I can't say its gonna get any better. But its not over.

Since everything doesn't have to be a long form post deal, I figured I would just do some quick hit and run reactions to some of the news of the day.

The Pistorious Murder Case

What the heck is going on? This was a shocker. The athlete formerly hailed as "Bladerunner" and held up as an inspiration now stands accused of murder in the absolutely tragic killing of his girlfriend, Reeva Steenkamp. His story? That he awoke in the night and believed there was an intruder in his home and shot her by accident......with 4 bullets, fired through the door of his bathroom. Give me a for real break. He killed her. There is nothing believable about his story. The why of it we may never really know, but his story is totally bogus. But I won't be surprised if he walks free. So far the police case seems to mostly Keystone Cops caliber. The primary officer is now off the case facing seven attempted murder charges for shooting at a mini bus while drunk. It's tragic. She was beautiful. He's got demons and they ate her.

The Sequester

We got sequestered. It happened because the yokels we call our representatives can't do their jobs. Obama created the sequester as a strategy to get a deal with the GOP. Earlier this year he won election and got himself some revenue boosts soon thereafter. O clearly thinks he's got the GOP on the ropes and he's trying to press his political advantage for all its worth. An approval rating at 55% in some polls, I guess he's feeling froggy. So he has been busy trying to scare the bejesus out of everybody about the budget cuts if he can't convince Congress to put the kibosh on them in a manner he likes and making it look like it's the GOP's fault the sequester exists in the first place. And succeeding at least to some degree. I'm thinking though that he may be over playing his hand a bit. Add to that a GOP that is less unified now that the election is over with many in the House living in safe districts and immune to ginned up pressure from their publics, and it meant the trigger got pulled on those cuts. Now, some people make it sound like the cuts are no big deal relative to the size of the government spending behemoth and while that may be a fair statement, it doesn't mean those cuts won't be felt. When they are, I'm not sure O will find himself immune from the blowback.

Guns, Guns, Guns,

The gun debate is raging, pushed back into the national consciousness by the Newtown atrocity. I'm okay with people having guns. I don't care for the idea of the general populace being armed with high powered weapons of war when it comes to guns and I don't consider it reasonable that regular citizens who are just doing the normal course of business in the world need to stockpile such things, but to a certain extent, I guess I'm cool with the status qou. If I was an NRA member though, I might start asking for my money back, because NRA Chief Wayne Lapierre is about the most inept and wack advocate for gun rights I've ever seen. You think Obama is fear mongering the sequester? He has nothing on LaPierre, who is selling Armageddon and post apocalyptic America as right around the corner if we give one inch of gun control. Gun control advocates make their arguments the same whether they are talking to people who think like them or to people who don't. Very unsmart way to carry out the debate.

Project 21 and the Frederick Douglas Society: GOP's Designated Race Card Players? Is This What Being a Black Conservative is All About Now?

noreply@blogger.com (Aaron Laramore) — Fri, 22 Mar 2013 17:18:00 +0000

Project 21 and the Frederick Douglass Society teamed up for an event at the National Press Club back in February to decry gun control proposals and declare the racist origins of gun control. Freedom Outpost covered it. Yeah, I know its March. I just saw it, I got a life, what can I tell you. I'm here now and here's my reaction to this event.

Columnist Star Parker said,

“We know that gun control laws have racist origins.”

Parker then introduced Stacy Swimp, President and CFO of the Frederick Douglass Society, who elaborated on those origins.

“The first gun laws were put into place to register black folks to make sure they would know who we were, that we could not defend ourselves,” Swimp said. “If you look at the Emancipation Proclamation, what was going on down in the Southern States, it’s very clear that the ‘Dixiecrats’ wanted to disarm black people to keep us from defending ourselves against the Klansmen, who were murdering white and black Republicans to control the ballot box.”

“There’s a direct correlation between gun control and black people control,” he added.

The Founder of God, Guns and the Constitution William Owens, Jr. said, “This current administration is far from the truth.” “When they take our guns, they will also seek to take our God, and that’s when Americans will fight back,” he added.

------------------------------------------------------

I'm black and conservative and I find this a non credible bunch of drivel, even assuming that they have all their history correct. For the record, I don't have a problem with reasonable gun control measures. I also don't have a problem with gun ownership. I'm a bit uncomfortable at the idea that its desirable to live in a society where everyone carries a gun or that that is somehow a really good thing. If you are my neighbor out here in the burbs where I live and you have a mini arsenal in your house and seem enamored of high volume magazine automatic weapons, I'm sorry, I'm gonna be worried about you. But I don't favor taking away people's right to own and possess guns, which is not being proposed anyway.

I do seriously question the efficacy of the proposals on the left, I've yet to be convinced they really get us anywhere. When it comes to gun control, I would have been more impressed with these black conservatives if they had said, here's is what we favor to address gun violence and here's why we think the democrat's proposals are ineffective. Instead, they engage in the same level of ridiculous fear mongering that Wayne Lapierre is doing. Coming for our guns is akin to coming for our God? That's just hysterics.

What this group of black conservatives is doing is what conservatives have decried for years, playing the race card. But conservatives apparently have no problem when they think it serves them. What's the purpose of alluding to the racial dimensions of the history of gun control in this context? They play the race card to suggest that the Obama administration and the left in general is out to suppress blacks and keep them from having weapons because they are racists? Its a ridiculous premise, as ridiculous as such charges are when the race card gets played on other things. But since its being played here to support a conservative opinion, it's okay to suggest people are racists or there is a racist agenda when you know full well there is not? Suddenly, that's okay? Now we're going to laud such behavior and applaud these guys as examples of good independent thinking black folk? You have got to be kidding me.

Furthermore, they don't sound like independent thinkers at all. They didn't articulate a single original thought. They just regurgitated talking points and hysterical ones at that. Is this the kind of silliness that black republicans have become complicit in now, providing race based rhetorical political cover for conservative positions? And don't be fooled. This kind of shilling is not intended to be persuasive with black voters. It's aimed at the GOP base and at the party as a way to garner support and raise money from the party. Another example of republicans only talking to each other, with people who agree with them. Most black voters live in the cities where gun violence is experienced and they have a different take on the utility of easy availability of guns, one which is rational. You could craft gun control proposals that they would agree with that also lined up with conservative positions on gun rights.

But black voters in the cities who experience gun violence will not be receptive to a message that seems to hysterically argue that we MUST have guns everywhere to be safe. So this is utterly stupid messaging if you were actually trying to get the attention of black voters. And that's how you know that's not the goal of this silliness. They are talking to the GOP base and far right. They are not trying to actually persuade black voters at all, not with this nonsense.

This behavior is a pitch perfect example of the type of black conservative I do NOT aspire to be, a black conservative that regurgitates talking points without reference to whether they are actually in the permanent interests of black people in the first place.

Kim Brown: From Russia to CPAC With Love

noreply@blogger.com (Aaron Laramore) — Fri, 22 Mar 2013 19:01:00 +0000

I don't really have a whole lot of comment about Kim Brown's experience at the CPAC panel hosted by black conservative activist K. Carl Smith, called “Trump the Race Card: Are You Sick And Tired Of Being Called A Racist When You Know You’re Not One?”. Her experience at the event was no surprise and I think she's naive to think she could roll into CPAC and have an experience different than that. Although Carl Smith claims she was disruptive, I think I will call a little bit of check on how she was dealt with when her political stripes became clear. It was kinda harsh. Mr. Terry with his openly segregationist views does not appear to have been shouted down. He seems to have been treated real nice for stating his silly ideas in that soft southern voice. Smith seemed to try to work real hard to engage that young man. He and the other cat at the podium didn't seem to work that hard for the sista, who wasn't acting in any way I would call disruptive, unless you define disruptive as not agreeing with the other people in the room. Frankly, if you want to have a forum on the most incendiary topic in America and you can't engage in a dialogue with one sista, maybe you should leave the forum gigs to people more skilled in having a dialogue:

Watching the video and looking at the title of the event, I would have advised Kim she could have saved herself the time and aggravation. This was a forum put on by black conservatives with the apparent intent to help white conservatives get comfortable with expressing their views on race, which often include broad and offensive generalizations about the self reliance, work ethic and enslavement to the democratic party of black people. This seems like an event put on by black conservatives to provide white conservatives with cover for their political disinterest in blacks and the whys and ways they express it. Like the anti gun control event put on by Project 21 and the Frederick Douglass Society in February, it seems to me another example of black republicans becoming complicit in providing the conservative movement cover for the politically disinterested messaging and often hostile rhetoric it uses towards African Americans as a political constituency. It's a form of shilling that in my opinion, serves the personal interests of some black conservatives in selling books and raising money, but doesn't do squat for the permanent interests of black folks. I note Carl sold that young segregationist Mr. Terry a book later. I'm betting he didn't get a dime from the lovely Ms. Brown.

But mostly, I just think its really funny sounding that there is a sista with a radio show on the Voice of Russia.

UPDATE: Below is a largely complete video of Carl Smith's presentation. You can assess the content of his message.

Quote of the Day

noreply@blogger.com (Aaron Laramore) — Fri, 22 Mar 2013 19:15:00 +0000

Chidike Okeem,

"the GOP has not articulated why conservative policies are in the interest of blacks, whereas the left expertly promulgates their message in a carefully packaged way...conservatives imprudently dismiss race altogether, without understanding that they are missing a critical opportunity to promote conservative ideas to populations that have traditionally eluded them."

Tips to Win the Black Vote#1 Lose the Democratic Party as Plantation Metaphor

noreply@blogger.com (Aaron Laramore) — Wed, 03 Apr 2013 00:56:00 +0000

Among the political rhetoric which has become obscenely overused by white conservatives (and all too often parroted by black conservatives), the "plantation" metaphor ranks right at the top of rhetoric which should be urgently retired. I'm like as not to find myself guilty of using this egregious analogy if I peruse my prior posts enough. But it should be banished from the rhetorical dictionary.
Let's get it straight here and now: Living under the liberal policies of the Democratic Party willingly embraced by most blacks is ABSOLUTELY NOTHING like living under a racist terror state where your labor is stolen from you under the threat of violence and your family can literally be sold to punish you. Choosing to vote for and support the liberal agenda of the democratic party DOES NOT REMOTELY resemble being owned by another person, treated like an animal, forbidden to marry, bred like an animal, beaten like an animal, being sold away from your family or forbidden to learn to read & write on pain of death or torture.
This metaphor is moronic and ignorant in the extreme and it is beyond unfortunate that it has become a standard rhetorical trope of the right. If you are a white conservative and you use it, you immediately brand yourself as someone who is more interested in pummeling black folk with your political ideas than engaging them. If you are a black conservative and employ this metaphor, you show yourself to be not only ignorant of your history, but dismissive of it, for the sake of being provocative.

GOP: Time for a New Calculus

noreply@blogger.com (Aaron Laramore) — Wed, 03 Apr 2013 04:57:00 +0000

"The calculus of the GOP has been that they do not require the support of the black community to win governance. In an America of changing demographics, a political practice that seeks to overpower and ignore minority political constituencies is not a winning formula. The GOP will have to squarely confront the issues of concern to black voters in an effective way (Latinos as well) to harness the political power of these constituencies. Conservative ideology is more than equal to the task, but what passes for GOP/conservative political practice is not."

Steubenville's Inconvenient Truths

noreply@blogger.com (Aaron Laramore) — Sun, 07 Apr 2013 06:21:00 +0000

Pictured at left: Now convicted, Ma'lik Richmond and Trent Mays, both age 16.

The Steubenville rape case has been the subject of outrage and angst across the country as the facts of an ugly case have increasingly come into the public consciousness. My better half, the Hot Little Number was moved to write on the case recently. In her post, Three Ohio Victims - The Stuebenville Lesson, she laments the lost potential and the changed trajectory of the young lives involved and points out what she would have highlighted if the MSM were hers to control:

1. Minors with access to drugs and alcohol make really stupid choices.
2. Unsupervised teens without a moral compass or value base, or good judgement, make poor choices.
3. Amidst a bad situation, technology used as a tool to create further harm for Ohio teen.
4. Violation of basic decency leads to life lessons for youth and parents.

I think all of the above are valid points and really highlight the tragedy of this situation and the manner in which the lives of the young people involved and their families have been sledgehammered. I feel a sense of compassion about the way this has played out as well. But......my sense of compassion for the victim and in particular for the guilty (they have now been convicted) is tempered by some inconvenient truths about this situation that we avoid talking about. I didn't agree with my better half's title for her post. I think Stuebenville only has one victim.

Inconvenient Truth #1 - If you drink and become intoxicated past the point of being able to comprehend whats happening to you, you put yourself at risk

Part of what makes this case so volatile is that many people, myself included, have a real problem with Jane Doe's behavior on that night in August of 2012, indeed, that she was even there. She's a 16 year old girl. By all accounts, like the other teens at the party she was attending, she was drinking and ultimately she got extremely drunk. She's 16, so I'm not surprised that she can't remember what happened afterwards. She's basically a kid and its no surprise that her body can't handle alcohol. But 16 is old enough to know better, old enough to know you ought not be out drinking like that. We live in a culture that is okay with drinking, we all know that underage drinking goes on. Smaller towns and cities like Stuebenville, this sort of a party is not at all an uncommon thing. So there are two failings here in my view, Jane Doe's lack of judgement, no surprise in a young girl, and on the part of her parents. The Momalog blog asks a relevant question "where the hell were the parents?" and I have to agree. I have a daughter and she is not going to be out to the wee hours of the morning across the river somewhere and out of contact with me and I don't know what's going on with her. Bottom line: if you are a woman or a girl and get drunk beyond the point of comprehension surrounded by people you don't know, you are at risk. We live in a society in which women and girls are already very vulnerable and the risk of victimization is increased with this kind of behavior by Jane Doe and on the part of the adults responsible for her.

Inconvenient Truth #2 - If you take sexual advantage of a vulnerable girl or woman, you have crossed a line and deserve to face consequences.

I have a beautiful daughter and two handsome sons. For both their sake we have to become a society that says very clearly that sexual violence against women is not only wrong, but it won't be tolerated. Some have argued that Jane Doe's drunken behavior put her at risk. That's true. But some go further and say that what happened to her next was therefore her responsibility. That's not true. We have a real problem in our society when two young men, ostensibly good upstanding kids, can take advantage of a utterly helpless girl in this way over the course of hours and never question what they are doing. We have a real problem in our society when several other kids watch it happening and don't attempt to stop it, indeed, egg it on, joke about it, document it and holy mother of God, share it with each other.

The verdicts have now been rendered against the accused. The judge found them guilty of having "digitally" penetrated the girl. Based on all I've read of the case, its my belief much more than that likely happened to her. But even if that was the extent of what occurred, we have to become a society that looks at that kind of behavior and says "thats across the line". Some have argued that what they were found guilty of doesn't justify the sentences of jail time they were given, nor branding them as "sex offenders" for the rest of their lives. Perhaps. But if you make that argument, then I want to know where the line gets drawn? I can't say I object to these sentences or find them to be out of proportion to the offence. The message has to be sent to parents and to young boys and men that there are severe consequences to crossing these lines. I want my beautiful young daughter to live in a society where there are very bright lines about this sort of behavior. I want parents telling their sons, there are lines you must never cross, lines you don't even want to approach.

Here then perhaps lies Steubenville's most inconvenient truth; that this debate, trial, verdict, punishment and fallout is a painful and necessary step in re-establishing the bright lines necessary for a decent society where our children don't practice or participate in shared depravity.

Beyond the Post-Cold War World: Excerpts

noreply@blogger.com (Aaron Laramore) — Sun, 07 Apr 2013 07:17:00 +0000

George Friedman of Stratfor opines on the post cold war world we now inhabit. A few select quotes from his essay that I found most interesting:

the United States has emerged from the post-Cold War period with one towering lesson: However attractive military intervention is, it always looks easier at the beginning than at the end. The greatest military power in the world has the ability to defeat armies. But it is far more difficult to reshape societies in America's image. A Great Power manages the routine matters of the world not through military intervention, but through manipulating the balance of power. The issue is not that America is in decline. Rather, it is that even with the power the United States had in 2001, it could not impose its political will -- even though it had the power to disrupt and destroy regimes -- unless it was prepared to commit all of its power and treasure to transforming a country like Afghanistan. And that is a high price to pay for Afghan democracy.

The United States has emerged into the new period with what is still the largest economy in the world with the fewest economic problems of the three pillars of the post-Cold War world. It has also emerged with the greatest military power. But it has emerged far more mature and cautious than it entered the period. There are new phases in history, but not new world orders. Economies rise and fall, there are limits to the greatest military power and a Great Power needs prudence in both lending and invading.

The defining characteristics of this new era? [emphasis mine]

.......several defining characteristics to this era we can identify.

First, the United States remains the world's dominant power in all dimensions. It will act with caution, however, recognizing the crucial difference between pre-eminence and omnipotence.

Second, Europe is returning to its normal condition of multiple competing nation-states. While Germany will dream of a Europe in which it can write the budgets of lesser states, the EU nation-states will look at Cyprus and choose default before losing sovereignty.

Third, Russia is re-emerging. As the European Peninsula fragments, the Russians will do what they always do: fish in muddy waters. Russia is giving preferential terms for natural gas imports to some countries, buying metallurgical facilities in Hungary and Poland, and buying rail terminals in Slovakia. Russia has always been economically dysfunctional yet wielded outsized influence -- recall the Cold War. The deals they are making, of which this is a small sample, are not in their economic interests, but they increase Moscow's political influence substantially.

Fourth, China is becoming self-absorbed in trying to manage its new economic realities. Aligning the Communist Party with lower growth rates is not easy. The Party's reason for being is prosperity. Without prosperity, it has little to offer beyond a much more authoritarian state.

And fifth, a host of new countries will emerge to supplement China as the world's low-wage, high-growth epicenter. Latin America, Africa and less-developed parts of Southeast Asia are all emerging as contenders.

Read more: Beyond the Post-Cold War World | Stratfor

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