Sleepycatz

It’s Raining Money

The Fed today decided to drop the target rate for Federal funds by 50 base points, to 4.75 percent. The board felt as though this was necessary to help stabilize investments in the mortgage and stock markets after the recent unpleasantness related to default rates and MSO devaluations. Of course, this sent the stock markets into a buying frenzy — putting the DOW at +300, as I write this. Wall Street loves cheap money that can be bandied about and thrown into risky investments. But at the same time stock trading surged, the global ramifications also became apparent: the dollar dropped to a record low and gold is approaching a record high — two signs that overall confidence in the American economy are waining. As borkafatty succinctly stated on Calculated Risk:

Consider this: In 2000, when Bush took office, gold was $273 per ounce, oil was $22 per barrel and the euro was worth $.87 per dollar. Currently, gold is over $700 per ounce, oil is over $80 per barrel, and the euro is nearly $1.40 per dollar. . . According to economist Martin Feldstein, “The falling dollar and rising food prices caused market-based consumer prices to rise by 4.6% in the most recent quarter.” (WSJ). That’s 18.4% per year—and yet, Bernanke is cutting interest rates and further fueling inflation?!?

With this cut, it appears the Fed is propping up a failing economic model. For the past several years, the American economy has been built on consumer spending and financial shenanigans. 70 percent of US economic activity is related to this consumer spending which has been fed by low interest rates resulting in ever rising consumer debt. As real world wages have remained stagnant, and food and transportation costs continue to rise, this system becomes unsustainable. At some point creditors will have to be paid and consumer spending will have to decline significantly. Without artificially high consumer spending a large portion of service jobs will disappear causing further recession. Our present economic situation is built on an illusion of free markets and a never ending, never inflating, money supply. This is the Bush policy of neo-reality applied to economics — “If I say everything is good, then by nature it is good”. This administration has tried to force their reality on the American people for years whether is was with regards to Iraq, Afghanistan, the War on Terror, Global Warming, or the economy.

Why America Will Not Leave Iraq

I don’t usually write about the situation in Iraq primarily because I feel that there are so many others who express my own feelings more eloquently then I seem capable of. Also, my views on the situation are a bit more pessimistic than those of most activists and pundits, and I have been told that it’s not helpful to voice such views to the public. Recently, however, there has been a lot of consternation about Gen. Petreaus’ upcoming report to congress and the question of will American forces stay in Iraq or leave. To understand the answer to this question — and US-Iraq policy in general — we have to look back nearly five years ago to the surge to war and understand the reasons and hopes surrounding the initiation of the invasion and the political philosophy which made it a necessity for this administration.

When the Bush administration came to power it had a single foreign policy goal: to establish America as the dominant world power of the 21st century. Seeing the only threat to this goal as the world’s lesser superpowers (Russia and China) the administration focused heavily in its first year on the deployment of an anti-ballistic missile system (aka SDI) and on excising itself from the 1972 ABM Treaty. A deployed anti-missile system, they believed, would have given America a strategic advantage in pressing its will throughout the world for years to come. Then came September 11th, 2001.

When the administration states that 9/11 changed everything, for them, it is no hyperbole. Their notions of projecting a strong, nearly invincible, America on the world were called into question that day. The way the administration viewed it, America’s allies and enemies had seen a small, disorganized, group of fanatics cause massive damage to America’s infrastructure and economy with little money or effort.

The administration responded first by inflating the perpetrators of the attacks. For instance: as Jason Burke has pointed out, prior to 2001 al-Qaeda was a loose association of violent jihadi who received much of their funding from a Saudi businessman named Osama bin-Laden, and who rarely, if ever, used the name al-Qaeda to identify themselves. The administration, however, quickly elevated the perception of al-Qaeda as a powerful leading Islamist terrorist organization. A definition al-Qaeda was egotistically eager to adopt.

The administration’s next responded by prioritizing its original goal of a world dominated by America; however, direct action was now necessary in addition to simple coercion. In 2003 during an interview with Charlie Rose, columnist Thomas Friedman said:

I think it [the invasion of Iraq] was unquestionably worth doing, Charlie.
We needed to go over there, basically, um, and um, uh, take out a very big state right in the heart of that world and burst that bubble, and there was only one way to do it.

Despite Friedman’s lack of eloquence, his viewpoint was shared by most Americans, but particularly so by those who believed in the one-world, one-superpower philosophy of the administration. In order to save-face and press America’s will around the world a strategic invasion was needed. Afghanistan provided little global strategic value, but Iraq was the goldmine. The perfect choice to begin a Pax-Americana.

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Of ‘ists’ and ‘isms’

I have been slowly catching up on some of my online reading, and was struck by an apparent argument occurring between Glen Greenwald, Ann Althouse, and others regarding the use of term ‘Christianist’, as a Christian version of the popular usage of ‘Islamist’. I don’t wish to re-hash the entire set of arguments (please read the posts and their links, if you are interested), but in summary the argument is that Althouse and Glen Reynolds, and other conservatives, find the term insulting to Christians, while Greenwald, and other liberals, believe this is hypocrisy. Greenwald sums up his argument thus:

Are Althouse and Reynolds (and their like-minded comrade, Hewitt) really incapable of comprehending it? “Christians” (like “Muslims”) are those who believe in the religion. “Christianists” (like “Islamists”) are those who believe that their religious beliefs ought to shape politics and dictate the law. “Christian fascists” (like “Islamofascists”) are those who believe in the use of violence and terrorism to achieve those goals. The term “Christianist” has nothing to do with violence, only with a desire to compel others to adhere to Christian religious views via the force of politics, state power, and secular law.

Unfortunately, and it pains me to say this to Greenwald, all of you are wrong.

In my younger days, I was a bit of a stickler for using the proper terms for their intended objects - as I grew older I began to appreciate the fluidity of meaning more, and gave most of this habit up. However, there are still instances where the proper definition of a term allows for the more granular subtlety one finds in the real world. Twenty-some years ago when I did my studies in poli-sci, the terms ‘Islamism’ and ‘Islamist’ were not pejorative but referred to a specific political doctrine. The definition was/is that Islamism is a conservative political movement to bring together all Muslims under a single unified Islamic state. Thus, it is a pan-national movement, opposed to nationalistic, or socialist goals. It is pan-national as it seeks to unite, not encumbered by geographic boundaries, but by religious practice. It is conservative in that it supports a rigid social structure and is opposed to market regulation — within the limits if its theological boundaries.

Islamism was nurtured by both the British and American governments throughout the region after WWI, in order to counter pan-arab nationalism, and to deter a Soviet foothold in the Middle East. As I recall, and I am not a Middle East scholar, the acknowledged grandfather of the movement was Jamal al-Afgani, who was directly followed by such luminaries as Hassan al-Banna - one of the fathers of the Muslim Brotherhood.

The term ‘Christianist’ — as a derivation of ‘Islamist’ — cannot not apply to the American conservative Christian movement. The movement, as it exists today, is not pan-christian, but relies strongly upon nationalism and American exceptionalism. The term ‘Christian Nationalist’ does seem to apply well to many American fundamentalist Christians, and most will not strongly deny their desire for a theocratic state; while others will suggest, or even cry out, the need for a theonomic state. But this is not Christianism, as it still relies upon a particular national identity or national mythos at its core.

For those like Reynolds, and their ilk, who seem to use the word ‘Islamist’ the way a petulant child uses a word he believes is naughty, and whose parents are too indulgent to correct him, I would point out that not all terrorists are Islamists, nor are all combatants in Iraq. The PLO, for instance, — which many have named a terrorist organization — is/was more of a nationalist movement then an Islamist one. Men like Muqtada al-Sadr in Iraq, have shown themselves to be far more nationalistic then pan-Islamic.

One of the great and unfortunate losses in recent years has been the loss of subtlety and meaning. Too many wish to see the world as black or white, while it is inevitably grey. To paraphrase — somewhat ironically: There are more things in heaven and earth, Ms. Althouse, than are dreamt of in your philosophy.