Looks like I'm the first to comment. Now I just need to think of something clever to say...

You can still call 'em cowards. You just can't call Al-M. and I cowards. ;-)

OK, I'll start in. "Constantine"? I had high hopes, but it was more like "Angel," reloaded.

sure is quiet over here. I didn't vote on this one. Where are all the people who voted for it?

Oh, Constantine is a movie. As father of a todler, I don't get out to movies much anymore.

White guy benefits from affirmative action

More here

Anyone saying those kind of things isn't really white.

Yeah, Campos needs to calm down.

"As someone of generally liberal political inclinations, I support affirmative action in principle."

Willim F. Buckley and other conservatives used to say something similar when Jim Crow laws were in effect. They would say that in principle they were opposed to such laws but that we (no, they didn't mean black people) needed to understand the south's customs and ways. Reading Campos' piece only serves to reinforce my belief that every single word that Mao Ze Dong wrote criticizing liberals was on target.

They would say that in principle they were opposed to such laws but that we (no, they didn't mean black people) needed to understand the south's customs and ways.

Sounds a lot like some of the pro-AA arguments I've encountered.

"In principle, we oppose government enforced racial bias, but you need to understand ..."

They would say that in principle they were opposed to such laws but that we (no, they didn't mean black people) needed to understand the south's customs and ways.

Sounds a lot like some of the pro-AA arguments I've encountered.

Which means white folks are no more noble than Black folks, I guess.

I have a question: you've heard solid reasons supporting affirmative action and you've heard bad reasons. Do the bad reasons invalidate the good ones?

I'm not sure how a bad argument in favor of something could invalidate a good argument.

Now a good argument against is a different thing.

I suggest that a color blind government won't go too far off track. That when the government starts picking fortunate races, regardless of intention, that it can go way off track. Popularity contest winners and losers change over time.

What do you mean by "popularity contest winners"? How does that figure into affirmative action and how it is actually implemented?

What do you mean by "popularity contest winners"?

I mean which race has enough political support to gain government favor over some other race.

Implemented as Jim Crow. Government dictated AA. Chinese can't own land until 1952. Because the votes were there.

If you're trying to make a point, spell it out. You are being so terse as to be unintelligible. What was implementd as Jim Crow? What's the relation between affirmative action (is that what you were abreviating?) and racism against Chinese Americans? What votes when?

What was implementd as Jim Crow?

Government enforced racial preference.

What's the relation between affirmative action

Government enforced racial preference.

What votes when?

These programs were both in place because they had the contemporary votes to put them in place.

And it's not surprising we went almost directly from one to the other, as one lost votes and the other gained.

Jim Crow = affirmative action? You're gonna have to lay that one out in terms of specific equivalent policies. Saying it's all preferences and therefore all the same is um, well, imprecise.

When you lay this one out, you may also want to talk a little about equivalent methods of enforcement.

What was implementd as Jim Crow?

Government enforced racial preference.

What's the relation between affirmative action

Government enforced racial preference.

Okay, that's what they have in common.

How are they different?

If you're honest you'll see the differences are the defining characteristics of the two, not the one strained similarity you can must.

How are they different?

Time went by, and the popularity contest picked a different winner.

Time has a way of doing that.

If you're honest you'll see the differences are the defining characteristics of the two

I'm honest P6. Always have been, on your forum.

The problem is, the defining characteristics always seem reasonable to a majority of the people. And the majority of the people are fickle. All manner of atrocities seemed reasonable to the majority of Germans in 1939. Without a constitutional rudder, who knows where we end up?

Questions you've avoided so far:

From me (Ben G.).

Jim Crow = affirmative action? You're gonna have to lay that one out in terms of specific equivalent policies. Saying it's all preferences and therefore all the same is um, well, imprecise.

When you lay this one out, you may also want to talk a little about equivalent methods of enforcement.

From P6.

How are they different?

Do you intend to discuss facts or remain in the ahistorical realm of "popularity contests" and "contemporary votes"?

The problem is, the defining characteristics always seem reasonable to a majority of the people. And the majority of the people are fickle.

I didn't ask if the characteristics seem reasonable. I asked what they are. Judgments come after identification, otherwise you don't know what you're judging.

DW, are you honestly saying that Jim Crow and President Johnson's order to act affirmatively to counter discrimination differ only in who was to benefit? What religion, philosophy or ethical system teaches that bullshit?

The bad reasons, in my opinion, don't in the least invalidate the good reasons but they possess a curious power to make obscure and eventually subvert and drive out the good ones. This is especially true when the reasons for supporting affirmative action are constructed around a moral edifice. This leads inevitably to the kind of conundrum expressed by DW regarding the government's role in favoring one group of citizens over another on the basis of race.

It is a historical fact that African Americans in this country were subjected for hundreds of years to an invidious and oppressive form of racism that ranged far beyond anything that any other racial or ethnic group, save, perhaps, Native Americans, have ever experienced in the United States. The treatment of African Americans was sanctioned and supported by all three branches of the Federal government and all critical sectors of American society including state and local governments, the business sector, labor unions and educational institutions to name but a few.

Since the emergence of the modern civil rights movement (it is not an accident that this period concurs with the arrival of the modern world, i.e., the end of World War II and the dying pangs of colonialism) it has become customary to collectively describe these acts as the great moral failure of the country. This description, although quite apt in many respects, has also tended to make the problems African Americans face as a result less transparent and more opaque.

When Lyndon Johnson famously declared that you couldn't shackle a person at the beginning of a race and then remove the restraints and declare that the race can now be evenly run he was stating an obvious truism. Contrary to popular belief, in my opinion, President Johnson was not making a moral statement but a political one. In effect, he was saying that since all sectors of American society had been united against the Negroes (as a southern white man he knew this to be absolutely true) for generation after generation down to the present day, that it was incumbent on all sectors of American society to put a halt to these practices and give the Negroes a fair chance to get even in the race. And the only sector of American society Johnson knew that could command this turnabout was the federal government.

The idea that the cumulative effects of centuries of slavery and racial segregation would be lessened or removed through the adoption of race-neutral policies on the part of the government could only work as a final step in eradicating the stain of racism from American life. The intermediary or second step, Johnson recognized, would have to entail the government adopting policies aimed at ameliorating the effects of its former longstanding and multifaceted racially discriminatory practices.

When opponents of affirmative action and those who say that they support affirmative action in principle assert that the government should not sanction the use of race as a determinative factor in providing, for example, jobs and contracts their use of the logician's scapel to justify their stance is more than simply disingenuous. When they drag in their presumptions about the goals of the civil rights movement and the perorative phrases of Dr. King to further justify their cause they are engaging in a form of behavior that is really designed to protect and preserve the centuries old advantages of having a white skin in Anerica.

To claim that it is morally unacceptable for the government to favor whites over blacks and that it is equally morally unjustified to promote government policies that favor blacks over whites would be true if whites had never used to the power of the government to harm the economic, political and social activities of African Americans. In fact, whites went even further by not only engaging in the most horrific forms of violence against blacks whenever they felt justified but they also used the taxes, fees and other service charges that blacks paid into the public treasuries to enrich and enhance their communities while simultaneously refusing to even provide equitable, but separate, services to blacks.

Now less than 50 years after the passage of several landmark civil rights bills whites want to claim that the distance between the runners on the track is much less than it had once been despite the fact that in every significant statistical category of achievement and well being blacks lag behind whites. What is far worse, however, are the efforts to promote a permanent cleavage between the black middle class and the black lower classes on the basis, of all things, moral failings. That is, the chief reason that poor black people have not succeeded to date in joining the affluent society is that they have failed to adopt a more morally uplifting lifestyle.

Jim Crow = affirmative action? You're gonna have to lay that one out in terms of specific equivalent policies.

Sorry for ignoring your question, Ben G.

I didn't say "=".

What I said was that it's bad for the government to treat one race more favorably than another, and I used both AA and Jim Crow as examples of that.

What they share is that they both violate the same principle: the government should treat its citizens the same. Now you or P6 might not agree to such a principle, but I do. Further, I'm making an argument that the Jim Crow we knew won't be the last Jim Crow, so long as we make this kind of decision by contemporary popular opinion. The passage of time results in changes of popular opinion.

We codify such principles in our constitution. The constitution can still be overridden by popular opinion, but not easily so.

So the best way to avoid any future Jim Crow era is to create a constitutional amendment which requires the government to avoid treating people of different races differently. That stops Jim Crow, and it also stops some forms of Affirmative Action.

At some point in this long post I wanted to insert that mny of the arguments heard today against affirmative action are similar to the arguments made in the 1870s against the Freedman's Bureau and other agencies that were created to help former slaves adjust to the rigors of emancipation. Whites claimed, for example, that if you had a bureau to help the colored then why couldn't you have a bureau to help the Irish or the German immigrants. The fact that neither the Irish or any other group of European immigrants had been enslaved for 250 years did not seem to count for very much in the reckoning among white Americans of what former slaves would need in order to be made reasonably whole for their troubles.

I didn't ask if the characteristics seem reasonable. I asked what they are. Judgments come after identification, otherwise you don't know what you're judging.

We'll agree P6, Jim Crow was motivated by simple bigotry, and AA was motivated by altruism.

DW, are you honestly saying that Jim Crow and President Johnson's order to act affirmatively to counter discrimination differ only in who was to benefit? What religion, philosophy or ethical system teaches that bullshit?

No, I'm not saying any such thing. I tried to lay that out in my answer to Ben G.

A libertarian lie: "...and AA was motivated by altruism."

The impetus for Affirmative Action was not based on that overused phrase "altruism". Lyndon Johnson did not propose to correct some of America's sins because, to steal a line from the composers Lerner and Lowe, in his body "there flowed the milk of human kindness, a quart in every vein."

The fact that neither the Irish or any other group of European immigrants had been enslaved for 250 years did not seem to count for very much in the reckoning among white Americans of what former slaves would need in order to be made reasonably whole for their troubles.

I always read your analyses PT, because they're always really well laid out, presenting easy to grasp concepts. I seldom match your skill, but I keep trying.

In this case, I think we met a similar question a few weeks back. Was the Emancipation Proclamation a proud moment in American history? I saw it as a crucial progress point for American civilization. You saw it primarily as something which should never have been needed.

And I think our analysis of both the question you present now, as well as our analyses of Affirmative Action derive from that difference in how we view history.

We're certainly going to agree that slavery was wrong, evil. Where we might disagree is that I see slavery as an example of lack of civilization. And the end of slavery as an advance of civilization.

It doesn't follow that every advance of civilization creates a governmental burden to make amends to those who suffered in the past, for the same reason that other individual or group suffering does not create a governmental burden to do something.

Now I can see where if you believe that the pre-Lincoln US government wronged slaves, that you might believe that the post-Lincoln US government was burdened with a requirement to make amends. As wrong as I believe slavery was, I don't believe that the pre-Lincoln US government wronged the slaves simply by allowing slavery. And I don't believe the post-Lincoln US government owed freed slaves anything.

What we can separate is two questions.
1. Were freed slaves in need of some assistance?
2. Was the US federal government compelled to offer such assistance?

I say, yes, they needed assistance, and it may have made sense for the US federal government to help out somewhat, but that there was no compulsion involved in this analysis.

A libertarian lie: "...and AA was motivated by altruism."

Jeez PT, at least grant that I wrote what I was thinking.

What do you think motivated the creation of AA?

Do me a favor, dwshelf, read P6's post, Where We Stand. Since you do not seem to know anything factual about the history of slavery or racism, this will provide you with a nice, quick crib to refer to before you dig yourself in any deeper.

I expect you to disagree with me on some things, Ben, and maybe to agree on others. If you state your disagreement in a way which allows engagement, I'd enjoy exploring your analysis.

I've now read your recommended citation. It actually encompases several opinions regarding history, some rational, some a bit paranoid, but all interesting. In particular, I find the evidence of any conspiracy to alienate whites and blacks from each other to be lacking. I believe that, then as now, slavery laws were motivated by money rather than anything mysterious.

So can you explain your analysis a bit?

Check it out: the NAACP and me on the same side.

The laws and policies geared towards separating whites from Blacks in the Colonial period were motivated precisely by money. It was most profitable to create a system of permanent servitude (rather than indentured servitude) and theire were decided economic advantages to having the slave class be imported Africans. At this point, in the mid to late 17th century, alliances between poor whites and poor blacks were extremely threatening to the system that was being put into place. Nothing mysteriously conspiratorial about it. It was brutally pragmatic.

I would add that I haven't written anything at length because you have not been stating your case in a way which allows engagement. When asked to discuss the specifics of your claims about Jim Crow and Affirmative Action, you retreat into generalities and abstractions--popularity contests, contemporary votes, lack of civilization, advance of civilization.

In particular, I find the evidence of any conspiracy to alienate whites and blacks from each other to be lacking.

Now you're being stupid.

"Jeez PT, at least grant that I wrote what I was thinking."

Okay, DW, I'll give you an honesty point but it is important for you to understand that from my perspective the very existence of my people in the American Diaspora is at stake. I also think that you and other libertarians have so great a tendency to toss the term "altruism" around that it's usage is really tantamount to a dismissive sneer. If the behavior of President Johnson and others were motivated by altrusim why do you believe that black folks after so many years were not entitled to a little altruistic behavior from a majority of their fellow Americans? I can't see where it may have caused any harm to the Republic or lessened the country's Domestic National Production.

The overwhelming majority of African Americans in this country, which the sainted Ayn Rand called the only nation in the history of the world dedicated to the Rights of Man, had worked for more than 250 years for no compensation. When they were emancipated the government allowed their former masters to impose such draconian laws and requirements that many of them were literally forced back into conditions of involuntary servitude for nearly a hundred years more. I think some altruism was in order by 1964 and 1965.

I also think that you and other libertarians have so great a tendency to toss the term "altruism" around that it's usage is really tantamount to a dismissive sneer.

I meant no such sneer, PT. I believe that altruism is at the core of civilized behavior. I personally aspire to be more altrusitic.

If the behavior of President Johnson and others were motivated by altrusim why do you believe that black folks after so many years were not entitled to a little altruistic behavior from a majority of their fellow Americans?

I believe that black folk, both then and now, are entitled to more than just a little altruistic behavior. I never intended to suggest anything to the contrary. I simply disagreed that the selected reaction was appropriate.

At this point, in the mid to late 17th century, alliances between poor whites and poor blacks were extremely threatening to the system that was being put into place.

You mean potential alliances beteween poor whites and free blacks?

Can you describe the threat a bit?

Why do you tell me I mean "potential"? And no, to the second half of your question which betrays historical ingnorance on your part. Bonded whites and bonded Blacks had about the same status: both were non-Christian servants. The fear was of their running away together (economic loss) and of revolt.

I'm still waiting for you to make some specific comaprisons between Afirmative Action and Jim Crow that demonstrate their similar function.

"I believe that black folk, both then and now, are entitled to more than just a little altruistic behavior. I never intended to suggest anything to the contrary. I simply disagreed that the selected reaction was appropriate."

Okay, DW, what then do you suppose should have been offered as a remedy not for the ongoing discrimination but the expropriation of the value of black people's labor and contrbutions to the public treasuries. How should they have been compensated in your judgement?

Okay, DW, what then do you suppose should have been offered as a remedy not for the ongoing discrimination but the expropriation of the value of black people's labor and contrbutions to the public treasuries. How should they have been compensated in your judgement?

I don't believe ex slaves were owed compensation.

I believe they were entitled to be treated as equal citizens.

I believe that they had special needs. That something resembling a long term tsunami relief effort would have been appropriate. That's pretty much what I think we should be doing today.

I believe that they had special needs. That something resembling a long term tsunami relief effort would have been appropriate. That's pretty much what I think we should be doing today.

Details, man.

How does one decide who gets help for those special needs?

"I don't believe ex slaves were owed compensation."

Does this mean that you believe that their former owners who had also engaged in treasonous acts against the Republic were entitled to keep all the property and cash assets they had acquired even during their so-called acts of rebellion against the Union?

Why do you believe that former slaves were not entitled to receive forty acres and a mule?

How does one decide who gets help for those special needs?

You identify the special need (tsunami knocked down house, beached boat, killed parents), you identify people with that need, and you deliver appropriate relief.

In 1865, the special need was "many freed slaves don't understand how American life works, and generally lack education". Identifying peoplw with that need wouldn't have been too difficult. Appropriate relief would have included some crash educational courses.

So, dwshelf, what do we do about that fact that a) such relief was never adequately delivered and b) after they closed up shop on Reconstruction your favorite, good old Jim Crow, came to town as a method not of suspending relif but of institutionalizing the denial basic human rights for African Americans? If the US government didn't deliver relief and in fact further disenfranchised and harmed former slaves, why doesn't some responsiblity follow, once it's agreed upon that Jim Crow is not civilized? And what does it say about our government that the admission that Jim Crow is not civilized had to be wrung out of it by the Civil Rigghts Movement?

DW, former slaves understood how America worked as well as most of the general populace understood how America worked. In fact, they knew all too well how America worked. What they were mostly in need of was land, education and protection of their civil and constitutional rights. The federal government reneged on its promise to them in all three of these critically important areas. You and I are living with the results of this backsliding today. What has remained constant is that America is still trying to deny that it has any responsibility for these conditions.

In 1865, the special need was "many freed slaves don't understand how American life works, and generally lack education".

The special need.

THE special need.

If you can reduce the situation to one need, your analysis is naive to the point of uselessness. Seriously.

So is that it? Because the way you say it, it sure sounds like that's it.

Sorry I'm unable to keep up today. It's not for lack of will.

So, dwshelf, what do we do about that fact that a) such relief was never adequately delivered

There's not much we can do today, those people are long dead.

and b) after they closed up shop on Reconstruction your favorite, good old Jim Crow, came to town as a method not of suspending relif but of institutionalizing the denial basic human rights for African Americans?

We could and did get rid of Jim Crow, and its companion, rule by thugs.

If the US government didn't deliver relief and in fact further disenfranchised and harmed former slaves, why doesn't some responsiblity follow, once it's agreed upon that Jim Crow is not civilized?

The government is never, and should never be responsible for simple neglect, for leaving people alone.

There were a lot of other kinds of neglect; for example, people were regularly killed on the job with very little consequence to the hiring company. We've now decided that this threat is large enough that the federal government should not neglect job mortality, but the government is not responsible for deaths before such regulation was put in place.

And what does it say about our government that the admission that Jim Crow is not civilized had to be wrung out of it by the Civil Rigghts Movement?

It says that popular opinion is not to be trusted to choose really bad government. It says that we should put our faith in the constitution.

If you can reduce the situation to one need, your analysis is naive to the point of uselessness. Seriously.

We've been around more than a couple of issues by now, p6. You know that I don't see the world in overly simple, naive terms. I didn't suggest that this was the only problem, I was trying to work with your previous question. I hope that others add complexity by adding their own analysis.

DW, former slaves understood how America worked as well as most of the general populace understood how America worked.

What percentage of them could read, PT?

We've been around more than a couple of issues by now, p6. You know that I don't see the world in overly simple, naive terms.

You shouldn't discuss things that way, then. It can only cause misunderstandings.

DW, former slaves understood how America worked as well as most of the general populace understood how America worked.

What percentage of them could read, PT?

What percentage of white people could read?

Reading isn't what tells you how your life works. Living your life does that. The slaves lives depended on understanding the American way.

"There's not much we can do today, those people are long dead."

DW, you're running away from an argument that we're not having. No one is proposing to do anything for these departed souls and the unimaginable suffering they endured. What we are saying is that the broken promises, intentional neglect and hostile government actions that were visited on these individuals created problems in our society that continue to persist today. What do you believe should be done today to address problems that were created when former slaves and their descendants were not embraced as part of the American family?

What do you believe should be done today to address problems that were created when former slaves and their descendants were not embraced as part of the American family?

We've been here before. Before we can figure out how to help, we need to figure out what is going wrong now. Then we might look to see if or how it might be associated with the end of slavery.

The problems resulting in failed black kids today are largely the result of inferior parenting.

Inferior parenting is largely the result of the parent having been raised by inferior parenting.

Can we trace this chain back to 1865?

Maybe, but it gets real muddy.

We can easily trace it back to 1965, and the emergence of the black middle class, and resulting deterioration of black communities as they bailed out for the integrated suburbs.

When a kid doesn't spend time with life's winners, the kid becomes alienated from winning. It doesn't even look possible. And when most of the winners head for the suburbs, what's left may not survive as a civilized community. Rule by thugs emerges. Old ladies who call the police on drug dealers get their houses burned down. There is little chance that a kid raised both geographically and culturally in such a setting is likely to avoid the temptation of crime. Crime has the attraction that it obviously works.

What should be done involves presenting a real choice of success in life.

And the absolute suppression of those thugs.

What do you think, PT? Would you agree we need to start at this end, and not at the emancipation end if we're going to do any real good?

Hey there Prometheus6, and Al_Muhajaba, c'est moi from Resource.full and Open Source Politics. Nice to see you and I've been enjoying reading progressive friend's blogs for quite a while. Life got in the way so I've not been blogging much, but I am passing along the great stuff you've been posting. Much thanks!

"The problems resulting in failed black kids today are largely the result of inferior parenting."

Failed or failing parenting results from a broad confluence of factors. In my opinion the black community suffers both from the massive disinvestment and imposition of Jim Crow practices throughout the whole of the United States that began with the demise of the Reconstruction period; and, the failure of American society to fully invest the necessary resources to rebuild and revitalize these same communities in the wake of the Civil Rights Movement. The result is that we now have communities whose problems cannot be simply addressed through stronger parenting activities or fatherhood initiatives.

Hey Cobalt. I remember you had a lot on your plate. I'm glad things are settling down for you.

What should be done involves presenting a real choice of success in life.

And the absolute suppression of those thugs.

What do you think, PT? Would you agree we need to start at this end, and not at the emancipation end if we're going to do any real good?

We been here before.

You're looking for a bridge from (say) my position to yours. I will give you a strong hint.

Suppression (or as you said before, domination) is a non-starter.

Truthfully, I'm not sure flesh can support more force than has already been appied. There is a limit. A physical, not psychological or spiritual but a physical limit beyond which you are a destroyer…no matter your intent.

And (collective) your intent is to solve (collective) your problem, not ours…even though helping us solve our problem would ultimately eliminate yours.

What would happen if drugs were de-criminalized and all of a sudden, the illicit profits at both the top and bottom selling ends and the violence force domination and punishment ends of the drug-fueled spectrum of American life were eliminated?

I mean, the banking and financial services industries would lose a major cash cow, the street dealers would lose their criminal cottage industry, law enforcement and the prison industrial complex would have to lay off a ton of non-productive and primarily white male employees on the punishment dole, what would become of a HUGE chunk of non-gainfully employed Americans?

Might all them be freed up simultaneously to pursue American imperial interests abroad? Seems to me it would be a military recruiters wet dream. Wouldn't this be a good and unifying thing in the perennial war on terror that the administration has launched? Kind of like a Kelly's Heroes 21st century stylie?

I'm just thinking out loud in a practical Malthusian libertarian terms..., since you boys are going around in circles with neither side gaining discernable increments of additional evolutionary ground....,

We'd get a new revenue flow from taxing the drug too.

As for not making headway though, I'm suggesting something new--rule out dominating Black folks. In all the solutions offered so far that has been a constant. It's damn near the only element that hasn't changed...and the only one no one seems to want to give up.

quite right, and, significant numbers of people would be willing to pay a premium for new FDA controlled nutriceuticals so the tax revenue potential would be non-trivial - 85% of criminality vanishes nearly overnight and everybody's Amsterdam happy.

why do you suppose that anti-drug and anti-criminal propaganda has always been and continues to be so overtly racialized?

Why does the reality of blackness coincide with the reality of altered states of consciousness in the surreality of the American collective unconscious in such a way that both must be violently suppressed and dominated out of existence? I know the history of the thing, I'm wondering what you think about the *architecture* and its continuing use as a primary instrumentality of governance in America.

Deliberate and overt engagement with either subject comprises a 3rd rail in U.S. politics leading one to wonder what psycheconogenetic potential is embodied in altered states of consciousness and *blackness* that obviate rational or sympathetic solution approaches?

Neither guile or deception will do to engage this 3rd rail, and the facts are zealously, religiously, and utterly irrationally taboo - I mean you JUST CAN'T EVEN engage on these topics in the mainstream of the collective - here in the land of the FREE.

Speaking of blackness and altered states....,

Watch it brah, the synchronic funk wave is liable to self-org and commence to damaging shit...,

Why does the reality of blackness coincide with the reality of altered states of consciousness in the surreality of the American collective unconscious in such a way that both must be violently suppressed and dominated out of existence?

I don't think there was a decision to make such a linkage. It's more like two waves that reinforce each other as they merge.

The following quote was lifted from a book review written in 1997 by James Taub for the New York Times. He was reviewing Nathan Glazer's latest book at that time, which was entitled "We Are All Muliculturalists Now." Glazer is often identified and correctly so as one of the leading intellectual lights of what later came to be called the neocon movement that emerged in the late 1960s.

I will say, however, that many of those who disagree with his views regard him as being far less belligerent and bellicose in his views than, say, Irving Kristol or Norman Podhoretz. Despite this fact, many, many black intellectuals, again correctly so in my opinion, hold him and others in a degree of contempt, for their dismissal of blacks views regarding the limits of the so-called American melting pot. The last sentence of this particular paragraph has a direct bearing, in my opinion, on our discussion.

"We Are All Multiculturalists Now should be read as a book-length postscript, an agonized reconsideration. Glazer is the last person one would expect to applaud the kind of ethnic chauvinism and myth-mongering that often go under the name of multiculturalism, and he doesn't. "I feel warmly attached to the old America that was acclaimed in school textbooks," he writes. But Glazer concludes that his side has lost--hence the title. He cites the ubiquity of the multicultural curriculum in the schools and the blithe acceptance of it even by teachers and administrators with no ethnic or ideological ax to grind. Multiculturalism, he finds, though with only the most anecdotal evidence, has been institutionalized. Glazer appears to be conceding that the postwar liberal faith was misguided, and that the pluralistic community he envisioned in Beyond the Melting Pot has not--and perhaps will not--come to pass. But that's not quite so. Glazer observes that while the multicultural curriculum is being propagated in the name of the new wave of immigrants, the immigrants themselves want to succeed on more or less the same terms as the European newcomers of 75 years ago. We Are All Multiculturalists Now has a hidden subject; it almost seems hidden from Glazer himself. Toward the end of this short book, Glazer observes that it is blacks, not immigrants, who have pushed hardest for the multicultural curriculum. And when Glazer asks why this is so, he finds not the obscurantism of black academics like Leonard Jeffries or Asa Hilliard, but the hard fact of black experience, and "the fundamental refusal of other Americans to accept blacks, despite their eagerness, as suitable candidates for assimilation."

I'm with you cnulan and p6. Legalizing drugs would be highly useful. If I could throw a switch and legalize drugs, I'd do it instantly. To starve the violent underculture of drug dealing.

But I'd also throw the switch which would keep girls from getting pregnant until they're 21.

Neither of these switches exist, and aren't going to get thrown. We need to advance in the context of illegal drugs and potential teenage mothers.

P6 rejects any solution which includes "domination", and so designates my earlier proposal to forcefully remove children from parents who persist in unacceptably bad parenting. I accept this is likely another one of those switches I'm not going to be able to throw, and thank P6 for clarifying why that is so.

So at least for the moment, we're accepting a context which includes the lure of drug dealing, teenage mothers, and no potential to apply force.

Yet at the core of the problem remains this cyclic engine of bad parents creating bad parents creating bad parents. Entire multi-generational dysfunction, leaving children with few role models for success, and lots of role models for failure. If we're to go any good at all, we have to break that cycle. Somehow.

better supply the violent *underculture* of drug dealing with more sophisticated methods and increased firepower then..,

frankly, until and unless the encompassing hegemon is forcibly brought to terms with its own insanity, breaking a centuries old cycle of increasingly covert yet ubiquitous oppression, i'm not interested in seeing any further assimilation to its norms.., oppositional culture can be seen as a praiseworthy insurgency viewed in this light.

with its imperial force projection capabilities stretched to the max, its currency devaluing like a pricked balloon, and its debt load stretched to the point where dollar dumping will become routine, it strikes me as VERY plausible that the cycle of American imposition by force and fraud will come screeching to a shuddering halt quite soon

You know cnulan, there's been times when my argument didn't encompass reality.

And there's been times when yours didn't either.

Hegemon is one of those things which is real on its own terms. By definition, it is not insane.

Wishing that force away is your basic wish in one hand and shit in the other, see which one fills up first.

Failed or failing parenting results from a broad confluence of factors. In my opinion the black community suffers both from the massive disinvestment and imposition of Jim Crow practices throughout the whole of the United States that began with the demise of the Reconstruction period; and, the failure of American society to fully invest the necessary resources to rebuild and revitalize these same communities in the wake of the Civil Rights Movement. The result is that we now have communities whose problems cannot be simply addressed through stronger parenting activities or fatherhood initiatives.

So tell me PT. If you were King, what would you do?

I agree it is valuable to point out where past programs went wrong, but surely there is a better solution than national angst.

Yet at the core of the problem remains this cyclic engine of bad parents creating bad parents creating bad parents. Entire multi-generational dysfunction, leaving children with few role models for success, and lots of role models for failure. If we're to go any good at all, we have to break that cycle.

I agree.

White parents need a lot of training and discipline. I'm tired of Columbines. Wiggers pouring so much money into the psychologically destructive commercial rap. Pouring money into illicit drugs at the same rate as everyone else but with far less scrutiny...we need to turn up the heat on white kids. By focusing on Black perps you send the message that destructive behavior is okay for white kids--that's bad parenting. If they didn't buy so much drugs, the illegal drug market wouldn't be profitable. And white parents have been raising kids that binge drink, smoke weed, have dangerous sex...And all the parents of the skinheads, all the kids in California sporting the Iron Cross, those fucked-up Goth kids with the safety pins in their noses, we need to take those kids away from their parents...

White parents are funding the social degradation of the nation. What shall we do, oh LAWD, what shall we do?

Hegemon is one of those things which is real on its own terms. By definition, it is not insane.

as bad as things may often seem to be for black people in the American asylum, coming to terms with what it must be like to be white and experience fleeting moments of lucidity [recognition of the American predicament] - staggers the imagination.

That must be why the church calls it, "the terror of the situation".

"I agree it is valuable to point out where past programs went wrong, but surely there is a better solution than national angst."

I was not pointing out where past programs went wrong. You need to get up off of that kick the "New Deal, New Frontier and Great Society Syndrome."

I was not pointing out where past programs went wrong.

So here is what I was reacting to:

Failed or failing parenting results from a broad confluence of factors. In my opinion the black community suffers both from the massive disinvestment and imposition of Jim Crow practices throughout the whole of the United States that began with the demise of the Reconstruction period; and, the failure of American society to fully invest the necessary resources to rebuild and revitalize these same communities in the wake of the Civil Rights Movement. The result is that we now have communities whose problems cannot be simply addressed through stronger parenting activities or fatherhood initiatives.

I observe some suggestions as to what went wrong, which is fair enough. But some suggestions as to what would work now would be welcome as well.

White parents need a lot of training and discipline.

Of course. Bad white parents are pretty much the same as bad black parents. However, if one is looking to improve things, it's seldom useful to look around for someone else doing badly. How would it help a black child in a dysfunctional home to know that many white children also live in dysfunctional homes?

In the first place none of these initiatives can be called failures simply because they were never broadly initiated. We have already explained what we believe will work and, more importantly, what is to be done. You want to be absolutely convinced on the correctness and efficacy of our proposals before you consent to get on board.

More powerful than bad parenting:

"...[Nathan] Glazer observes that it is blacks, not immigrants, who have pushed hardest for the multicultural curriculum. And when Glazer asks why this is so, he finds not the obscurantism of black academics like Leonard Jeffries or Asa Hilliard, but the hard fact of black experience, and "the fundamental refusal of other Americans to accept blacks, despite their eagerness, as suitable candidates for assimilation."

How would it help a black child in a dysfunctional home to know that many white children also live in dysfunctional homes?

I'm not telling Black children.

I'm telling the white people whose choices and purchases drive the system. I'm telling the people who can do something about it.

The reason I'm not telling Black kids is, they already know. And they see (editorial) you as hypocritical for not addressing your own kids and will disregard you.

The reason I ignore economists, by-and-large - is that economists tend to ignore thermodynamics.

"Despite the persistence and pervasiveness of this doomsday prophecy, U.S. hegemony is in reality solidly grounded: it rests on an economy that is continually extending its lead in the innovation and application of new technology, ensuring its continued appeal for foreign central banks and private investors. The dollar's role as the global monetary standard is not threatened, and the risk to U.S. financial stability posed by large foreign liabilities has been exaggerated....The biggest threat to U.S. hegemony, accordingly, stems not from the sentiments of foreign investors, but from protectionism and isolationism at home."

This fool is either ignorant of, or, in malicious just-so-storytelling denial of the thermodynamic reality of Peak Oil and an awful lot of people believe the just-so-stories because they're not acquainted with the infrastructural facts.

From the Mirage of Conscious Evolution by John Gray;

According to E.O. Wilson, conscious control of human evolution is not only possible but inevitable:

... genetic evolution is about to become conscious and volitional, and usher in a new epoch in the history of life. ...The prospect of this 'volitional evolution'—a species deciding what to do about its own heredity—will present the most profound intellectual and ethical choices humanity has ever faced ... humanity will be positioned godlike to take control of its own ultimate fate. It can, if it chooses, alter not just the anatomy and intelligence of the species but also the emotions and creative drive that compose the very core of human nature.

The author of this passage is the greatest contemporary Darwinian. He has been attacked by biologists and social scientists who believe that the human species is not governed by the same laws as other animals. In that war Wilson is undoubtedly on the side of truth. Yet the prospect of conscious human evolution he invokes is a mirage. The idea of humanity taking charge of its destiny makes sense only if we ascribe consciousness and purpose to the species; but Darwin's discovery was that species are only currents in the drift of genes. The idea that humanity can shape its future assumes that it is exempt from this truth.

It seems feasible that over the coming century human nature will be scientifically remodelled. If so, it will be done haphazardly, as an upshot of struggles in the murky realm where big business, organised crime, and the hidden parts of government vie for control. If the human species is re-engineered it will not be the result of humanity assuming a godlike control of its destiny. It will be another twist in man's fate."

While Gray is quite right as far as he goes, he too has been sheltered from the awareness of looming thermodynamic realities and the twists of war for stability in that context which will also and perhaps more certainly seal the fate of our species of pathetic bipedal genomic puppets

And they see (editorial) you as hypocritical for not addressing your own kids and will disregard you.

I must protest, p6. I'm not bothered if you consider "black man" as one of your important descriptors, but "white man" is not among mine. I don't see white children as my own and black children as someone else's. I'm as concerned about bad white parenting as I am about bad black parenting, for exactly the same reasons.

This fool is either ignorant of, or, in malicious just-so-storytelling denial of the thermodynamic reality of Peak Oil and an awful lot of people believe the just-so-stories because they're not acquainted with the infrastructural facts.

cnulan, people have been writing things like this since about 1920.

They all ignore one important facet of life: money motivates change.

Here's some predictions.

$5 (2005 $) gasoline: gas guzzlers lose appeal, but driving and life is basically unchanged.

$10 gasoline: gas guzzlers are gone, and an affect is observable, but essentially life is the same. Petrochemical industry is largely unchanged.

$20 gasoline: changes are real and severe. Rural life has become a luxury, and downtowns revitalize. Petrochemical industry is beginning to economize, but remains largely unchanged.

$40 gasoline: private automobiles are a luxury (think about it). The petrochemical industry has begun to lose some products as uneconomical, but most remain mainstream.

Now why it's silly to project past that is two reasons.

1. We won't see $40 (2005$) gasoline during the current century.
2. Somewhere around $10 gasoline we will begin a fundamental, permanent shift to transportation with electicity at some phase of the energy path. This will mitigate the upward climb in the price of oil.

So in summary, while we might observe energy price jumps in our lifetime, they will even out to a gradual increase which will drive changes without destroying the economy.

And when Glazer asks why this is so, he finds not the obscurantism of black academics like Leonard Jeffries or Asa Hilliard, but the hard fact of black experience, and "the fundamental refusal of other Americans to accept blacks, despite their eagerness, as suitable candidates for assimilation."

He's entitled to speak his opinion, of course. But that doesn't make it so. I for one observe near ubiquitous willingess, eagerness wouldn't overstate it, to assimilate blacks into the American mainstream (to the extent that they're not already assimilated).

We all have to learn to disregard those who feel they have something to lose by that happening, because they're the ones claiming that the other side is unsuited.

We have already explained what we believe will work and, more importantly, what is to be done. You want to be absolutely convinced on the correctness and efficacy of our proposals before you consent to get on board.

PT, I can claim with all the credibility I can muster that I don't understand what you believe would work. I'm more than willing to come toward ideas presented here, but such things as "what whites got after WWII" simply don't illustrate in enough detail. I don't know what that might mean in the contexts I understand in 2005. I'm not adverse to that as the title, but without the explanation, I don't know what it means.

Lastly, sorry for what might seem to be drive by postings.

It's not my intent. I truly enjoy my interactions on p6, and I value all of you for your reactions. Sometimes other things become intense.

Sometimes other things become intense.

You have a life?

WTF is YOUR problem??? That sets a bad example...

There are opinions and then there are informed opinions. While I might disagree with many of Nathan Glazer's opinions particularly as they relate to African Americans, his position on the possibility and speed into which blacks are welcomed into the American melting pot represents a complete reversal of his earlier positions. I would imagine, given the circles that Glazer travels in, that his new opinion is not only supported, in his view, by various kinds of socio-economic data but, sadly enough, by his listening to, observing and interacting with a substantially privileged and, at least, educationally elite class of white, Jewish, Asian and Hispanic Americans. I suspect that it is their seldom, if ever publicly voiced, attitudes and beliefs about African Americans that has led Mr. Glazer to this reversal.

"..."what whites got after WWII"

Well, DW, it is extensively documented, for example, that white veterans were able to use their GI bills to purchase homes in the newly emerging suburban subdivisions such as Levittown that were then being built all over America in the late 1940s and early 1950s. The federal government then diverted substantial portions of federal funding to construct roads, highways and other infrastructure improvements to allow the residents of these communities significantly greater ease of access to towns and cities where good paying jobs were available. Over the years the value of these homes, for example, have increased several thousand fold.

Black veterans were not allowed to use their GI benefits to purchase homes in these developments. If they were interested in buying a home the only places where they could do so was in the cities and then only in certain neighborhoods many of which were being abandoned by whites who were buying homes in the suburbs. Suburbs that were made possible by generous subsidies and tax write-offs that were not extended to cities and black neighborhoods.

The result of this and other related activities is that blacks fell even further behind whites in terms of the value of assets they held and this disparity continues today. In short, blacks were not allowed to participate in grabbing a share of the American Dream but their tax monies were diverted and used to build and enhance the value of white communities in the suburbs.

"I don't see white children as my own and black children as someone else's."

As Poppa Ray used to sing, "...somehow your story don't sound true." I wrote this because of the speed at which you wanted to attribute these problems to bad parenting on the part of black parents.

cnulan, people have been writing things like this since about 1920.
They all ignore one important facet of life: money motivates change.

Sometimes quite dramatic change. I take the devaluation of the deutschemark following WWI as an exemplar of how profoundly a *civilized*, industrialized, and scientific culture can be changed by sudden depreciation of its national symbol for human energy (money)

In response to your predictions DW, would you ever have thunk it that U.S. foreign policy would do a 180degree turn in principle to facilitate the unprovoked invasion of Iraq for the purpose of securing and appropriating its sweet light crude?

I love to imagine the soft landing scenarios like the ones you describe, but all available evidence and historical precedent seem to suggest something less gradual and sedate is afoot

WTF is YOUR problem???

Well like I told that guy a while back, I started out smoking marijuana, and this is where I ended up. It's not my fault.

PT, it's not that I don't believe that whites got a better deal after WWII than blacks did.

It's that I don't know how to translate that into actions for today which would break up the bad parent cycle. I presume no one is seriously proposing that we redline whites into the center of cities and make them sit in the back of the bus, while moving blacks to the newly vacated suburbs. Indeed, I don't see how that would help.

I take the devaluation of the deutschemark following WWI as an exemplar of how profoundly a *civilized*, industrialized, and scientific culture can be changed by sudden depreciation of its national symbol for human energy (money)

Germany had recently lost a major war, and had a financially burdensome settlement imposed upon them. That they struggled economically is surely not an example of something counter-intuitive.

In response to your predictions DW, would you ever have thunk it that U.S. foreign policy would do a 180degree turn in principle to facilitate the unprovoked invasion of Iraq for the purpose of securing and appropriating its sweet light crude?

I'm not buying the premise, but to the more abstract point: I can imagine scenarios where it would make sense to most Americans to appropriate, by force, Saudi Arabia, while watching Russia do the same with Iraq.

It's that I don't know how to translate that into actions for today which would break up the bad parent cycle.

You probably missed this one.

I wrote this because of the speed at which you wanted to attribute these problems to bad parenting on the part of black parents.

Surely I'm guilty of impure thoughts PT, and sometimes they appear in my writing. But in the end I'm compelled by factual observations and logical derivations from such.

I do observe, in West Oakland, a mostly black area which has a higher degree of dysfunction than any mostly non-black area I'm familiar with. Intuitively, one belives that this dysfunction feeds upon itself, by pushing out good role models and supplying losers. Somehow the non-black areas manage to not cross that line, where it appears that the bad guys are in charge. The bad guys are there of course, but they don't run out all the good guys. People aren't scared to call the police.

As I agreed with P6 before, this isn't a "black problem", but it is a problem which afflicts some black neigborhoods like no non-black neighborhood. From that observation, one can sometimes make unsupportable generalizations, and sometimes come to appropriate conclusions but express them badly. Sorting through that kind of stuff, to see which ideas survive and which are quashed, to work out how to communicate ideas rather than just piss everyone off, is something which blacks and whites have immense difficulty doing in person.

Germany had recently lost a major war, and had a financially burdensome settlement imposed upon them. That they struggled economically is surely not an example of something counter-intuitive.

Point taken, the U.S. is still in process of losing this one, and if the willful vanity of the neocon policy makers is any guide, aggression still has a ways to go - so it's a timing thing more than anything else before we find ourselves in a position identical to Germany's. There is also the probable factor of redenomination of oil off the dollar and onto the euro that would spell catastrophic collapse; appetizer; excerpted below, Dr. Sondra Ebron's enlightening full monty suggesting practically and materially why blacks should've opposed G-dub's misbegotten adventurism...,

The United States stands isolated and alone on the globe, a truth that American corporate media exert Herculean efforts to obscure. Everywhere, and according to every poll, the overwhelming preponderance of the people of the world say No to George Bush's War. The next word on six billion lips is, Why? Why is Washington intent on shredding an international order that has served the United States so well for more than half a century? What compels Bush to risk the wrath of a billion Muslims, shred strategic alliances with Europe, and so terrify the human species in general that cohabitation on the same planet with the United States becomes dreadful to contemplate. Could easy American access to oil be worth such a horrific price?

Last summer, an OPEC executive confirmed what the elites of the world already suspect. "It is quite possible that as the bilateral trade increases between the Middle East and the European Union, it could be feasible to price oil in euros considering Europe is the main economic partner of that region," said petroleum market analyst Javad Yarjani, addressing a gathering of the European Union, in Spain.

I'm not buying the premise, but to the more abstract point: I can imagine scenarios where it would make sense to most Americans to appropriate, by force, Saudi Arabia, while watching Russia do the same with Iraq.

Which premise has butted into your denial filter? Given what you freely imagine here, all it seems to me that you've suggested is that attacking Saud more closely adheres to the neocon structured narrative than attacking Iraq. Unfortunately, it's the dollar flow narrative that matters, not the mythologizing for overly spun and factually isolated American sheeple who get too much of their news from Fox and Rush Limbaugh. Furthermore, the Gawar oil field has peaked, whereas Iraq is the world's last remaining largely untapped reservoir of low hanging fruit.

Maybe we could do reverse redlining. This time instead of redlining black neighborhoods and preventing, for example, black homeowners from getting home equity loans so that they could upgrade and improve their properties and then, later, declaring their neighboods slums and marking them for redevelopment programs, i.e., Negro Removal Programs, we could use a redline to designate these communities as areas where the government should invest resources to revitalize and rebuild these areas.

Maybe we could do reverse redlining.

Like "empowerment zones," but for real. Subsidize infrastructure development and long term low interest homestead-type mortgages for residents already in the area. Credit counciling (not like I really want to feed that beast but it's necessary under current conditions).

And a side thought just occurred to me: interest on secured credit cards is stupid because the bank assumes no risk at all.

I do observe, in West Oakland, a mostly black area which has a higher degree of dysfunction than any mostly non-black area I'm familiar with.

I knew I had something for you.

Jesse Douglass Allen-Taylor writes for the Berkeley Daily Planet. Oakland is a major focus of his work.

His articles are archived at his personal site.

Jesse Douglass Allen-Taylor writes for the Berkeley Daily Planet. Oakland is a major focus of his work.

I bookmarked it, thank you. Pretty good.

So now that we've moved to the 2nd page, can we have the 2nd open thread?

"An OPEC switch from the dollar to the euro would bring a quick and devastating dollar and Wall Street crash that would make 1929 look like a $50 casino bet."

Huh? The dollar and euro are freely convertable. Quoting a dollar price is implicitly quoting a euro price. The only context which this quote would make any sense in is a long term contract at a fixed dollar price, but that's not what is going on. There may be some short term contracts like that, but the sellers of oil aren't idiots, they enter contracts which allow the price they receive to rise as the spot price rises.

I'm not disagreeing that the price of oil, in dollars, is headed up. However, OPEC quoting a price in euros would not much affect the US.

Which premise has butted into your denial filter?

As badly motivated as the Iraqi war was, I don't believe it was an attempt to grab oil.

Given what you freely imagine here, all it seems to me that you've suggested is that attacking Saud more closely adheres to the neocon structured narrative than attacking Iraq. Unfortunately, it's the dollar flow narrative that matters, not the mythologizing for overly spun and factually isolated American sheeple who get too much of their news from Fox and Rush Limbaugh. Furthermore, the Gawar oil field has peaked, whereas Iraq is the world's last remaining largely untapped reservoir of low hanging fruit.

This peaking stuff has a lot to do with money. That's what was wrong with the first guy you quoted. His argument implictely claimed that everyone is pumping oil as quick as they can. In truth, there exists a lot of oil which is not being disclosed, let alone aggressively pumped. That keeps the price up in the short term, and minimizes the temptation of other countries to steal it.

If you think of it from the money side, and assume that people are trying to maximize both money and power, you see a different picture than the one presented by the catastrophists. It's in the oil sellers' best interest for oil to be seen as less available than it is.

we could use a redline to designate these communities as areas where the government should invest resources to revitalize and rebuild these areas.

I've seen "revitalization", but it's surely not what you have in mind, because it doesn't do much for black people beyond making their homes more valuable as they sell them to non-black new buyers. This is good for the homeowners, but they're not the problem we're discussing.

But let's go with p6's expansion:

Like "empowerment zones," but for real. Subsidize infrastructure development and long term low interest homestead-type mortgages for residents already in the area.

Do you really think there's an important number of people who can afford, or nearly afford a mortgage, but can't get one, and that making such mortgages avialable would cause a widespread break in the bad parent cycle and end rule by thugs?

I am ignoring your concern over bad parenting.

As badly motivated as the Iraqi war was, I don't believe it was an attempt to grab oil.

Do tell - what was the actual motive?

In truth, there exists a lot of oil which is not being disclosed, let alone aggressively pumped.

Please share the data supporting your assertion?

I must say, I'm finding it increasingly difficult to grant benefit of the doubt to very much of what you say.

I'm not disagreeing that the price of oil, in dollars, is headed up. However, OPEC quoting a price in euros would not much affect the US.

Information about Iraq's oil currency is censored by the U.S. media as well as the Bush administration & Federal Reserve as the truth could potentially curtail both investor and consumer confidence, reduce consumer borrowing/ spending, create political pressure to form a new energy policy that slowly weans us off middle-eastern oil, and of course stop our march towards war in Iraq. This quasi "state secret" can be found on a Radio Free Europe article discussing Saddam's switch for his oil sales from dollars to the euros on Nov. 6, 2000 (2).

"Baghdad's switch from the dollar to the euro for oil trading was intended to rebuke Washington's hard-line on sanctions and encourage Europeans to challenge it. But the political message will cost Iraq millions in lost revenue. RFE/RL correspondent Charles Recknagel looks at what Baghdad will gain and lose, and the impact of the decision to go with the European currency."

At the time of the switch many analysts were surprised that Saddam was willing to give up millions in oil revenue for what appeared to be a political statement. However, contrary to one of the main points of this November 2000 article, the steady depreciation of the dollar versus the euro since late 2001 means that Iraq has profited handsomely from the switch in their reserve and transaction currencies. The euro has gained roughly 17% against the dollar in that time, which also applies to the $10 billion in Iraq's U.N. "oil for food" reserve fund that was previously held in dollars has also gained that same percent value since the switch. What would happen if OPEC made a sudden switch to euros, as opposed to a gradual transition?

"Otherwise, the effect of an OPEC switch to the euro would be that oil-consuming nations would have to flush dollars out of their (central bank) reserve funds and replace these with euros. The dollar would crash anywhere from 20-40% in value and the consequences would be those one could expect from any currency collapse and massive inflation (think Argentina currency crisis, for example). You'd have foreign funds stream out of the U.S. stock markets and dollar denominated assets, there'd surely be a run on the banks much like the 1930s, the current account deficit would become unserviceable, the budget deficit would go into default, and so on. Your basic 3rd world economic crisis scenario.

Greenspan on the real world vs. the idealized world you appear to have invoked below;

Huh? The dollar and euro are freely convertable. Quoting a dollar price is implicitly quoting a euro price. The only context which this quote would make any sense in is a long term contract at a fixed dollar price, but that's not what is going on. There may be some short term contracts like that, but the sellers of oil aren't idiots, they enter contracts which allow the price they receive to rise as the spot price rises.

I am ignoring your concern over bad parenting.

Why?

In any case, check out this story. I don't know the race of the individual at the focus of the story, but observe that Oakland already has a subsidized plan for people to buy houses in bad areas.

Check out one result.

Neighbors, cops back 'snitch' in shooting

I am ignoring your concern over bad parenting.

Why?

Because it's not useful to Black folks.

You can't even identify the "bad parents" that cause the problem until after the problem has happenned...most kids of "bad parents" will be okay and some number of formally "good parents" will have bad kids and become by definition bad parents. It's totally reactive, punitive rather than proactive.

And domination is a non-starter, remember?

Do tell - what was the actual motive?

A combination of:
1. GW Bush's personal desire to finish what his father started.
2. GW Bush's believe that he could do some good, that some spark of democracy would trigger the movement of the middle east into modern life.
3. Because we could get away with it at that time.

Take note that I personally opposed the war, and don't find those motivations to justify the significant loss of American lives. But if stability of the oil markets was desired, that was happening reasonably well.

I did read your citations cnulan, and thank you for presenting them.

Further, I fully agree that the dollar is in trouble, and this won't be good for Americans. We have benefitted from the interest free loans which we are granted when others hold dollar reserves. An expected decline of the dollar, sort of universally expected, makes holding such reserves costly, and thus such reserves will decline. Changing a dollar reserve into a euro reserve has the effect of calling in that loan.

And I even agree that the nature of the oil business today creates yet another one of those interest free loans which are likely to be partially called in as the involved parties become dissatisfied with holding declining dollars.

However, the result of such changes will be inflation, not economic collapse. Inflation in and of itself is economically neutral. It increases economic friction by requiring all lenders to protect themselves, but inflating economies have worked it all out pretty well. Interest paid every day, for example, becomes the norm, but computers are pretty good at doing such calculations.

So I am concerned about the issues you're raising. What I don't see is a collapse, beyond the supply of long term loans.

most kids of "bad parents" will be okay

Ok, I now see where your observations are different than mine.

I'm willing to believe I've been mistaken. What I observe is parenting so bad that the odds that a kid will be ok, as defined by "joins society as a participant", are less than 20%, and that's being generous with who we count as a society participant. I've observed entire school classes where 80%+ of the students are failing. It's not that there are no kids coming out of this mess and doing fine, it's that they are rare, and it is that they tend to have someone successful around who is a role model.

You apparently observed something different, bad parents with mostly good kids. Can you describe your observation in a bit more detail?

No, because I am ignoring your concern over bad parents.

Since this is the open thread, I think I should say that everyone here should contribute to the BlackContract.com wiki.