Feeling less suicidal than usual, Greek voters have opted for the conservative (for Greece) New Democracy party in parliamentary elections, beating out the radical-left Syriza, which insisted Europe keep shoveling money into the black hole that is the Greek budget, but rejected even the fake austerity the Eurocrats demanded. New Democracy leader Antonis Samaras has his work cut out for him, convincing the Eurocrats that yes, this time, they really are implementing austerity. This time for sure!
Look for this to help forestall the inevitable “grexit” for, oh, maybe three months. Which is when I bet Greece will find out it can’t pay it’s bills again after the latest infusion of cash, the money Europe kicked in will have strangely disappeared without seeming to have been spent on any fundamental government services, and insiders will have managed to transfer another few months of funds into their out-of-country banks accounts in advance of the next crisis…
So Greeks head off to the polls this weekend to (theoretically) choose whether to muddle along with a “right” (for Greece) government that will actually attempt to carry out something vaguely resembling austerity, or for Alexis Tsipras’ far-left Syriza party, who intends to re-enact Clevon Little’s scene from Blazing Saddles: “Drop the austerity demands, or I’ll drop out of the Euro and refuse to let Germany bail us out anymore!” “Do what he says, do what he says, that Greek’s crazy!” It’s anybody’s guess whether Greece will opt to keep the farce going for another few months, or finally set the whole house of cards tumbling down.
My guess is that there are still enough insiders who can benefits from dumping PIIGS bonds onto various sets of European taxpayers, so I expect that, one way or another, the Eurocrats will find a way to keep the charade up for another two or three months.
In light of that, here’s a roundup of Euro debt news:
How the Euro will end: “Greece will simply run out of cash. Then Spain’s real-estate bubble will ruin an economy that really matters.”
Still not completely depressed about Europe’s prospects for escaping the trap created by their bankrupt cradle-to-grave welfare states? Well then, here’s some Mark Steyn to cruelly stomp on those last flickering embers of hope.
Some people have wondered why Egypt’s high court, doing the military leadership’s bidding, just invalidated the Egyptian parliament, even though the Muslim Brotherhood’s popularity, though strong, seemed to be on the wan. I think the simplest explanation is not that they were afraid of losing their grip on Egyptian society (though that’s probably part of the equation), but that the Egypt’s military leadership prefers not be be killed. I don’t mean this in a metaphorical sense, I mean that there was real (and probably justified) fear that a government lead by Muslim Brotherhood would lead, in very short order, to the liquidation of the military leadership. I think they were facing not one but two existential threats.
First, as shown in Turkey, when a nation’s existing military leadership also acts as an independent power base, islamists are only willing to tolerate potential threats to their own rule as long as they have to. Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s islamist AKP has moved to put vast swathes of Turkey’s previously independent military leadership on trail for blocking Islamist aims in the past. Egypt’s military is just as strong a power center (albeit one considerably less scrupulous than Turkey’s); how long do you think it would take the Muslim Brotherhood to move against the military leadership after they had consolidated power? My guess is not long at all, and the military knew it too.
Second, if we take the Muslim Brotherhood at their word, it’s obvious they’re itching for another war against Israel. And why not? They regard the “Zionist Entity” as a literal affront against God, one that must be wiped off the face of the earth. Moreover, what better way to tighten control over the levers of governmental powers than with a war against a hated enemy? There are are all sorts of ways to use “emergency wartime decrees” to eliminate opposition figures and seize direct control of businesses and ministries when everyone’s focused on the military action.
And who would bear the brunt of any war against Israel? The hated military. Win, and members of the Muslim Brotherhood government are heroes to Muslims all over the world. Lose, and it could only be attributable to traitorous disloyalty by the military leadership, which would be immediately purged.
The Egyptian military knows it would lose any war against Israel for the foreseeable future (even discounting Israel’s likely nuclear weapons arsenal), and it knows the best way to prevent one is to prevent the Muslim Brotherhood from coming to power. Strangely enough, in this instance the Egyptian military leadership is actually acting in the best interests of the nation, even if the end result also happens to be saving their own hide.
Well, things are about to get very interesting indeed. Does the Muslim Brotherhood think it can take on the army in a full-blown civil war? I tend to doubt it, if only because potential sources of money and arms outside the country are somewhat preoccupied with the Syrian civil war right now (on both sides). On the other hand, this is as close to real power as the Muslim brotherhood has ever tasted; they may not want to give up without a fight.
For some reason, I feel a lot more braindead than usual after a one hour bike ride, so today seems like an excellent day to perform that long-contemplated update of the blogroll.
Today’s additions:
Rick Perry vs. the World: You might previously remember Evan from Texas Iconoclast, a local political aggregator until it went into hibernation earlier this year. Now he’s back blogging at this, his original blog. Well worth a look for Texas politics. And speaking of a local political aggregators:
Push Junction offers up a forest of Texas political links. Don’t know who runs it, but I’ve grabbed many a link from it.
More Lane: National blogger and indefatigable tweeter. He also turns out to share my affection for Peter Gabriel and Ogre (the board game), so he’s obviously a man of taste and discernment…
Ann Althouse: Another national blogger I’d frequently read when linked from Instapundit, but one who was absolutely essential for Wisconsin Recall coverage.
Michelle Malkin: Still another national blogger I’d read when linked by Instapundit, but more recently she’s not only been a driving force to expose convicted felon Brett Kimberlin, she’s also the Queen of the Conservative Twitterverse, which lead her to launch Twitchy, a Twitter roundup blog, which is also worth checking out.
Now that a week has passed since Scott Walker’s decisive victory in the Wisconsin recall election, I wanted to touch on one issue that helped contribute to the left’s defeat in the recall, namely the narcissistic infantilism displayed among a small, but highly visible, set of Wisconsin liberals. Their actions helped Walker win the recall election.
First up, let’s take a look at their whiny self-regard, as exemplified by Crying Man:
“We worked so hard.” Well, too bad; Republicans worked harder, out-hustled and out-voted you. It’s like a member of Generation Participation asking for a good grade just because they showed up and tried, even though they got the answers wrong. “I worked so hard! Can’t you just give me an A?” And complaining that it’s “the end of Democracy” because your side lost is such pure narcissistic, drama queen behavior that I’m surprised to hear it from anyone over the age of twelve. Did he shout “You’re the worst dad in the world!” the last time his father refused to let him borrow the car keys?
Or take the liberals shown here the day after the election:
So, while all of you in the People’s Republic of Madison were having your Happy Singalong Drum Circle, Republicans were manning phone banks, registering voters, and running Get Out the Vote drives. Maybe the first two or three days of singing and drumming helped the cause by drawing attention to the fight; after that they were an exercise in petulant self-indulgence.
And speaking of self-indulgence, drama queens and that video, what did the two liberals haranguing CNN’s bus driver think they were accomplishing? You lost. Whining about them calling the election earlier than you thought they should, especially after they were proven correct, is like an eight year old throwing a temper tantrum because she doesn’t want to go to school.
Also, notice something else about those two videos: all the use of personal pronouns. I, my, we, etc., as though the results of the election were a personal affront. Here’s a hint, Dorothy: It’s not about you, it’s about good governance and the will of the voters in a democratic republic.
Of course, don’t forget about how liberals kicked off their pro-union, anti-Walker protests last year:
Was there not a single adult among all the recall supporters to go “Hey, wait, acting like complete assholes might alienate voters”? Did they forget that they were in the Midwest, where “direct action” isn’t considered cute or “empowering,” but as rude jackassery?
A certain class of liberals seems to miss the excitement of the early civil rights protest era, missing the fact that Madison in 2011 is not Selma in 1959. Your actions aren’t aimed at convincing voters, but at drawing personal attention to yourself for throwing a hissy fit. “Look at me! I’m a college radical! My ideas are more important than yours, and I’ll scream and shout until I get my way!”
Here’s Amy L. Geiger-Hemmer describing all the ways recall supporters alienated voters:
Without your tantrums, outbursts and boorish behavior we might have stayed home for this election. Without your filthy, pot smoking hemp-headed minions occupying and violating the Capitol we might have been complacent. Without your obnoxious protests, boycotts and other actions from your union playbook, we might have sat this one out.
But you couldn’t hold back. You couldn’t restrain yourselves and behave like adults. You couldn’t accept the 2010 election results. We sat and watched as you erupted in a juvenile hissy fit that embarrassed Wisconsin . The spectacle you created is what motivated us. And thanks to your ill-mannered behavior, we won.
Read the whole thing.
Still another sign of their infantile infatuation with 1960s radicals was their use of Socialist Realism iconography for their signs:
Did they really think signs that could have been created under the regimes of Joseph Stalin or Fidel Castro were a swell way to win over independent voters? Or did they just not care? (Psst: Here’s a hint guys: The real solidarity was fighting communist puppets, not democratically elected state officials.)
But what it all boils down to is bunch of privileged, white, well-to-do radicals, many in their 20s, more interested in politics as a form of external therapy and personal attention than with actually accomplishing anything. All their screaming, drum-banging tantrums not only failed to accomplish anything, but like the similar actions of Occupy Wall Street, they were counterproductive exercises that alienated independent voters and potential allies.
And judging from the blog posts of people who hang out in places like Daily Kos and Democratic Underground, they still don’t seem to have learned a thing.
I’m seeing Twitter reports (including one from what appears to be the Egyptian Minister of the Interior) that former Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak has died. Waiting for confirmation.
Mubarak was right around the 50-yard line for brutality and corruption for Arab dictators, more a symptom of the sickness in Arab politics than a cause. He actually observed the treaties his country signed. He was notably worse than Anwar Sadat, but almost certainly better than whoever ends up following him.
Updated to add: That Twitter account is pretty new, so this could well be a hoax. Also, why would the official Twitter feed for the Interior Minister of Egypt be following 320 accounts less than a day of starting up?
I would try to find confirmation on the official Egyptian Interior Ministry webpage, but their server doesn’t feel like working right now…
I put off putting up the latest Texas Senate race update until the Republican Party of Texas convention in Ft. Worth concluded. Good thing, too, since a lot of news came out of it, almost none of which was good for Dewhurst, but some of this news may be a bit old.
Ted Cruz appears on Fox News:
Dewhurst claims he wants more than five debates with Cruz. Since Dewhurst did extremely poorly in the ones he did have, color me skeptical.
The Cruz campaign says it’s raised a lot more Texas contributors and small donors than Dewhurst does. While I think they’re probably correct, honesty compels me to point out that comparing Cruz’s internal June 4 donation stats with Dewhurst’s May 17 FEC stats is not an apples-to-apples comparison for many reasons, not last of which is that FEC reports only show donations over $200, so the 69 number for “donations under $250” is simply misleading. (When I pointed this out to the Cruz campaign, they noted that Dewhurst is free to release his own small-donor statistics. Which is true.)
A look at various reasons Dewhurst couldn’t win without a runoff. Ahem: “Just about everybody bet on Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst to win outright.” yeah, Ross Ramsey, everyone except those of us who were actually paying attention to the race.
And as far as I can tell looking at the stats on his official page, the most people who have listened to any David Dewhurst YouTube radio interview posted in the last month is…35.
Still more Wisconsin recall tidbits continue to trickle out. I may have a more substantial reaction to a particularly egregious type of liberal self-delusion regarding the results later, but here’s a nice sampler of links:
“Public employee unions insist that dues money be deducted from members’ paychecks and sent directly to union treasuries. So in practice, public employee unions are a mechanism for the involuntary transfer of taxpayers’ money to the Democratic Party.”
The unions’ defeat marks a historical inflection point. They set out to make an example of Walker. He succeeded in making an example of them as a classic case of reactionary liberalism. An institution founded to protect its members grew in size, wealth, power and arrogance, thanks to decades of symbiotic deals with bought politicians, to the point where it grossly overreached. A half-century later these unions were exercising essential control of everything from wages to work rules in the running of government — something that, in a system of republican governance, is properly the sovereign province of the citizenry.
“The left picked this fight, on the issue and in the place of its choice; it chose to recall Walker because it believed it could win a showcase victory. That judgment was fatally flawed.”
The Walker reforms hurt AFSCME in Wisconsin almost as badly as Ronald Reagan hurt PATCO, the air traffic controller union he famously crushed in 1981. Public sector workers have deserted their unions in droves since the state clipped union bargaining rights and stopped automatic collection of dues. After a string of bitter, humiliating and expensive defeats, labor in Wisconsin will now be a shadow of its former self, lacking the troops, the money and the morale.
The public sector unions are critical to what remains of the American left. The power of the public service unions in Democratic politics pulls the entire party to the left and gives ideas that are important to the left an access to power that they would otherwise lack. But more important than that, they provide a kind of center to a movement that otherwise threatens to fragment into antagonistic cliques.
It is not clear the left was outspent in its attempts to reverse Gov. Walker’s reforms. And the widely-repeated claim that the left was outspent by more than 7-to-1 in the most recent recall election is clearly false.
