Racist critics?

A bomb has been dropped, with former President Jimmy Carter calling Obama's critics racist. He considers that some in the US don't think a black man should be President, no doubt he is right that some do, but to brand most of the criticism as being racist is a very cheap shot. A shot that will backfire, anger the opponents of Obama further, and do little to protect Obama from criticism. It will sadly give the Democrats a simple weapon to bash over the head of opponents - "you're criticising Obama? Oh it's racism."

A better insight would see that opponents of Obama fall into a range of camps, some of which have obvious philosophical and political opposition to his principles and policies, others who are part of a lunatic fringe. It is important to separate out those who use ridiculous hyperbole from those who have genuine concerns. So who does criticise Obama?

Liberal Republicans/libertarians: Obama has had a long political career of advancing more government intervention and spending, support protectionist and spending proposals in Congress and being a generally acknowledged left-wing Democrat. Anyone who believes in less government spending, less barriers to trade, lower taxes and more free market/individualist solutions is likely to oppose Obama. Racist? Anything but. Their rhetoric is likely to fear higher taxes, interference in individual health care plans and the like. However, they have had few friends standing for the White House in a while. I would be in this group obviously, as I believe Obama has some Marxist leanings, a some scepticism about capitalism and individual freedom. A nazi or a communist? No. This SHOULD form the base for opposition to Obama, but is only one part of it.

Mainstream Conservatives: Obama's fairly liberal position on social issues rankles with conservatives, and his belief in a new government health insurer raises some of the same concerns of liberal republicans/libertarians. However, they are also more likely to regard a leftwing Democrat as not being one of them, with different values. They form the Republican base, essentially more willing to believe critics than believe Obama, as they don't trust the Democratic Party. This base, occupied by many religious conservatives, are those who would typically vote Republican.

Hardline fringe conservatives: These are the one who are willing to believe the "birther" rhetoric, fear he is really a Muslim, and believe that he is a communist. This is truly the lunatic fringe wingnuts who are convinced he is willing to hand the USA over to Iran or some other Muslim state, and surrender. They are willing to accept conspiracy theories, and see the great fear as being Obama as a foreign Muslim spy who is "un American" because he is seen to be foreign born. Underlying racism probably contributes to a willingness to believe this. White supremacists, though tiny in number, will encourage this rhetoric.

So it is, naturally, more complicated than Carter says. I've been strongly opposed to Obama, not because of race - indeed his election was a positive sign about the state of racism in the US - but because of his policies. Discussion about his policies and philosophy have long been shrouded by the over enthusiasm for his ability to speak. The content of what he says has been secondary. He campaigned on change, but rarely mentioned what that was, with his own Senate record being one of following almost every leftwing Democrat to vote. None of that showed independent thinking or a willingness to be open minded, rather a basic level of partisanship.

The Obama hype has produced a backlash, from some it is a genuine opposition to a President who believes more government is good, for others it may shroud wider xenophobic and racial suspicions, but I suspect a good part of the opposition represents the dividing line in US politics between the liberal coasts and the conservative centre and south. A dividing line that those who benefit from it seek to emphasise, which exacerbates it. Attacks on George W. Bush and Sarah Palin have long been venal, sometimes I have agreed, but for those who peddle such attacks to claim attacks on Obama are racist is somewhat disingenuous. It is also unwise.

The Republican Party is going through a degree of philosophical discovery at the moment, as it is clear than the evangelical conservative wing is declining in popularity and influence. As that happens, it is the wingnut conservatives that are shouting the loudest, when they are the ones who will permanently deny the Republicans the White House. Republican need to win small government liberals on the coasts to rebuild a wider base. That is the biggest threat to the Democrats. However, branding both the wingnuts and the small government liberals as racist may well be the best thing Democrats can do to bolster Republicans. Many have good reason to be unhappy about Obama. Dismissing them out of hand and insulting them wins no friends.

A true hero for the world passes away

I had heard of Norman Borlaug only a couple of times before, not enough of course, and so his passing should come with the sort of news coverage that now gets given to vapid celebrities and simpleton politicians.

I am guessing if you still don't know who he is, you could boil it down to this:

He used his mind, and his passion for solving problems, to save lives on a grand scale. He did it through science

More than politicians, more than bureaucrats, more than the environmentalists or the so called peace activists, he saved hundreds of millions of lives, mostly in developing countries. More than he did, or he did, or this organisation or that organisation.

As the Daily Telegraph obituary today says:

"Perhaps more than anyone else, he was responsible for the fact that throughout the postwar era, except in sub-Saharan Africa, global food production has expanded faster than the human population, averting the mass starvations that were once widely predicted.

But Borlaug’s “Green Revolution” was not “green” in the modern sense. High yields demanded artificial fertiliser, chemical pesticides and new soil technology. As a result of this he was vilified by many in the environmental movement in the securely affluent West, some of whom argued that higher food production sustains more people and thus poses a threat to the natural environment."

You see he is a hero in India, where he banished mass famine to history, by developing "dwarf wheat" which was hardy and high yield:

"By 1968 Pakistan was self-sufficient in wheat production; India followed a few years later. Since the 1960s, food production in both countries has outpaced the rate of population growth and, in the mid 1980s, India even became a net exporter. In 1968, the administrator for the US Agency for International Development (USAID) wrote in his annual report that the phenomenal improvement in food production in the subcontinent looked like "a Green Revolution" – which was how it came to be known. "

He did the same in China, but in Africa he faced opposition. Why?

" Notwithstanding the fact that Borlaug's initial efforts in a few African nations yielded the same rapid increases in food production as did his efforts on the Indian subcontinent, environmental lobbyists persuaded Borlaug's backers in the Ford Foundation and the World Bank to back off from most African agriculture projects."

Yes, you see those people, those very groups who claim to give so much of a damn about the air, the water, the environment, don't give damn all about people. The new religion of our times - environmentalism would be put up against the science, the productivity and how Borlaug could save lives - and the earth worshippers would win.

That is why the Greens or Greenpeace, or other supercilious anti-reason worshippers of the planet over humanity wont cheer him on. No. A man of science, not a man of superstition treated appallingly because he didn't fit into the trend. He damned subsidies for agriculture in developed countries whilst obesity was the growing problem.

However, he did get much recognition. The American Medal of Freedom in 1977 and umpteen honorary doctorates, he was known in his field, and well known in some countries, if not the fickle ephemeral image worshipping developed world. Many more people are alive today because of him. Perhaps, that is why the environmental movement are cold towards him?

Not PC has done a superb post about Borlaug whose death I heard of from the BBC World Service - which gave an extended report on his achievements. Something I gather the NZ media, so dismissive of the blogosphere, couldn't. However, I am sure if virtually all NZ reporters and journalists were asked who he was, they wouldn't know.

So it's worth saying now how I share PC's disgust, that TVNZ does not have anything about him on its "news" website, neither does the NZ Herald or Stuff. TV3 did of course, to its credit.

So just think next time the mainstream media (bar TV3) criticise the blogosphere for not being "real journalism", ask yourself how many of these onanistic "copy a government press release" monkeys can hold down a sustainable debate on anything of substance that doesn't involve celebrity gossip, political scuttlebutt or sport?

UPDATE: WSJ has one of the best statements yet on Borlaug

"Today, famines—whether in Zimbabwe, Darfur or North Korea—are politically induced events, not true natural disasters.

In later life, Borlaug was criticized by self-described "greens" whose hostility to technology put them athwart the revolution he had set in motion. Borlaug fired back, warning in these pages that fear-mongering by environmental extremists against synthetic pesticides, inorganic fertilizers and genetically modified foods would again put millions at risk of starvation while damaging the very biodiversity those extremists claimed to protect. In saving so many, Borlaug showed that a genuine green movement doesn't pit man against the Earth, but rather applies human intelligence to exploit the Earth's resources to improve life for everyone."

Ask yourself whether those that call themselves Green are of the former or latter category in that sentence.

Shrinking the state popular in the UK

The Sunday Times reports a poll that says 60% of voters want government spending cut to shrink the size of the state to plug the £175 billion budget deficit.

That should give the Conservatives the testicular fortitude to be tough if they win, to abolish regional development agencies, cut countless programmes, scrap grand projects like high speed railways and stop funding expansion of housing in a dud market.

Only 21% of voters would prefer tax increases over spending cuts. So much for more socialism.

Yet Gordon Brown continues with the lie that Labour will "protect core spending" against "Tory cuts", when he knows that he wont be PM after the election, knows he wont need to cut spending, so can pretend that when the Tories actually DO have to cut heavily, he "told you so". It's vile, and fortunately against exactly what the majority want.

Government is too big in Britain, and the public want that to end. However, whether it means finally taking the knife to the national religion - the NHS - is another thing.

The editorial makes the point that doing this involves confronting the unions:

"The unions are all but irrelevant in the private sector, however, with only 16% of workers signed up as members. The public sector is the last bastion of union power, where nearly three in five state employees are members. That is why most industrial disruption is in the public sector, including a damaging series of Royal Mail strikes.

More disruption of this kind may be the price we have to pay for cutting the public sector down to size."

"Just as voters knew instinctively in 1979 that the unions had grown too powerful and elected Margaret Thatcher to cut them down to size, so they know now that the size of the state, spending the equivalent of 50% of gross domestic product, has to be tackled."

So it should - it's time for half of the British economy to stop bludging off the other half.

Phil Goff is sorry?

He's sorry for a focus on "politically correct issues" like smacking, light bulbs and shower heads. Then he's sorry that the electricity SOEs make profits and pay dividends to the government (he wants to end this, but forgot there are a few privately owned electricity generators too). He could fix the dividends to the government by privatising it, like how he helped privatise Telecom.

It's more than that Phil - it is an attitude of "we know best", one that saw an enormous expansion of the welfare state with Working for Families instead of just giving people back their own money. An attitude that threw a fortune away on buying back the railways, well over the market price, just for control. A belief that private property rights didn't really matter, and most disturbingly an attempt to censor electioneering, because it would disadvantage Labour.

Frankly, I'd be sorry for the cheerless bunch of mediocre control freaks that comprises most of the Labour caucus since 1999. So good were they that Clark ran it like a tight ship, trusting only a tiny handful like Cullen and Hodgson, whilst regarding most Labour MPs as making up the numbers.

Most of all, be sorry that you gave the National party so many policies it wont reverse, so much spending it will continue with, and the philosophical basis for how it governs - political pragmatism.

What's he proud of?

Kiwisaver - a policy that encourages the myth that you are better off if the state invests your money for retirement than if you did (oh and if you die before national superannuation eligibility, tough luck your estate gets nothing).

Working for Families - the idea that low to middle income working families are entitled to welfare payments, shrouded as tax credits higher than the tax they paid in the first place. A massive extension of the welfare state from the needy to core floating voters... ahh I get it now.

Lowering unemployment - Expanding the state sector is a sneaky way of doing that, but beyond that you're not responsible for private sector job creation. Unless, of course, you remember you did participate in the reforms of the 1990s.

Oh dear Phil. You do have something to be proud of, you introduced serious university fees for students, making them think about whether they study or not. However, you don't want to say it too loud - the Labour party has made a jump to the left since then.

Immigration policy rewards lazy kiwis

That is what THIS case is about.

The woman has a job, her employer says it has been unable to find anyone else suitable and Sunita Khan "has proven to be a very competent and caring person who delivers care to the elderly with expertise and commitment.

"Sunita's empathy and enthusiasm ... exceeds that of those we currently see in the market."

In other words, because locals are too lazy and not competent enough by comparison, she is invaluable to the employer, and by implication the employer's customers (who are elderly). She works 6 days a week, as does her husband (quick tell the unions, there are people who work harder than they do and are pleased to do so).

However, immigration bureaucrats think otherwise. None of them with productive jobs themselves, they want to deport a woman and her husband who are.

So if the bureaucrats (and by implication the politicians who made the law) have their way, out they go, just so the employer can hire someone second rate who is a keewee.