28-Apr-11 News-Palestinian factions announce reconciliation

[John]

*** More on racism and xenophobia

There have been widespread charges from the left that people on the
right identified as 'birthers' are racist.

In this discussion, I'll refer to birthers as the "loony right," and
I'll refer to those who accuse them of racism as the "loony left,"
even though there are a number of mainstream people in both
categories.

I'll refer to this article from last year:

** American xenophobia on the Left and on the Right
** http://www.generationaldynamics.com/cgi ... 07#e101107

In that article, I drew an equivalence between the following:

• The loony right's irrational hatred of all Muslims,
  triggered by terrorist acts by a small group of Muslim Islamists
• The loony left's irrational hatred of all Tea Partiers,
  triggered by widespread anger among Tea Partiers to many of
  President Obama's policies

But the following examples are distinctly different in nature:

• In Europe there is a great deal of xenophobia directed towards
  Roma Gypsies, even though they haven't committed terrorist acts.
• The Irish Republican Army has committed numerous terrorist acts,
  but there is no irrational xenophobia directed towards all
  Irishmen or all Irish Catholics.

So now the problem is to fit the accusations of birther racism
into the above set of examples.

Here are two examples to consider:

• The loony right's alleged racism / xenophobia because of their
  irrational hatred of President Obama, because of his election victory
  and his policies. This has continued for 3 years.
• The loony left's alleged racism / xenophobia because of their
  irrational hatred of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, because he
  stood up to the feminist ideologues and beat them. This has continued
  for over 20 years.

Right away, you can see a clear difference between these examples and
the previous examples of hatred / xenophobia. In the previous cases,
the xenophobia is related to an entire CLASS of people -- Muslims, Tea
Partiers, Roma, Irish Catholics, etc.

But in the last two examples, the hatred is directed at a SINGLE
PERSON, not an entire class.

Nobody, to my knowledge, is accusing Donald Trump and others on the
loony right of hating all blacks because of their irrational hatred of
President Obama; and nobody, to my knowledge, accused Senator Ted
Kennedy and others on the loony left of hating all blacks because of
their irrational hatred of Justice Thomas.

Therefore, these cases do NOT qualify as racism or xenophobia. The
hatred in both cases, as far as I can tell, is based on political
victories of particular individuals who happened to be black. It's
almost certain, in my opinion, that the same hatred would exist if
these particular individuals were white, indicating that the hatred
stems from politics, not from racism.

People tend to get upset at me whenever I write about xenophobia,
because they're comfortable with their own xenophobia and consider it
to be fully justified and rational, while they mock and ridicule the
xenophobia on the "other side" as being totally irrational and
emotional.

However, this subject is important to Generational Dynamics because of
the growth (and I would want to say "alarming growth") of xenophobia
around the world in a generational crisis era. Hatred of a particular
individual, like Thomas or Obama, can occur in any era, but widespread
hatred of entire classes of people is something that's most prevalent
only in generational Crisis eras, and that's how generational crisis
wars get started.

John

[John]

Well, David, I know you were hoping that the birther issue would
disappear. But the birther issue and Donald Trump were all the
president could talk about last night, and the birther issue and
Donald Trump are all they can talk about on this morning's news talk
shows. Looks like the president and the MSM want it to continue for a
while.

John

[OLD1953]

I'll throw in a couple comments here, and we'll see what happens.

First, anything whatsoever disappears into a fog of uncertainty if you examine it too closely. All we EVER have is the approximation of accuracy, and that's all this universe allows us to have. That is the way the place is made, if you want to complain about it, I suggest prayer. Examples of this abound, from quantum physics, to the physics of naked singularities, to the assassination of any President (you think you understand Lincoln's death? Really? ) the theories (ridiculous) about the way the twin towers fell and a host of other things. It's a basic principle of General Semantics that we CANNOT have total understanding of ANYTHING WHATSOEVER, and that principle has never been challenged since the foundation of that science. We have abstractions of the real world that exist in our brains, that's all we have and that is all we can EVER have, and the best we can do is make those abstractions as accurate as possible.

Someone mentioned the flat earth, would you be shocked if I said the flat earth theory is 98% correct? If you stand on a reasonably high point, you see flat. This is not unexpected, the curvature of the earth to the visible horizon in such an instance will be about 2%, and the human eye can't pick up that small difference. So the flat earth theory is about 98% correct from direct observation. The Greeks calculated the size of the earth and deduced that it was a sphere, this theory is accurate to about 99.5%, however, the earth is not a sphere. Due to being a rotating approximate sphere covered with water, the earth bulges in the middle, therefore more closely approximating an oblate spheroid. HOWEVER, it's not an oblate spheriod, because it bulges more on one end than the other. And guess what, if you examine the satellite data to refine it further, you get to count in mountains and so forth down to a surface of 3 or four meters, and that's where fuzzy comes in, because the ocean has waves. I can break down ANY, and I do mean absolutely ANY real world phenomena in a similar manner.

The perfect abstraction does not exist in nature, belief that one does exist is an artifact of human thinking processes. Of course Obama's birth certificate cannot be "absolute" proof of his birth in Hawaii, no such thing exists in the real world for ANYONE or ANYTHING. I happen to own a very valuable dog, product of two grand champions and I think a lot of her. Have I a whit of absolute proof that she is actually the product of that pair? Sans DNA analysis I do not, and GUESS WHAT, DNA analysis gives only probabilities, not absolutes. FUZZINESS!

To ask for absolute proof of anything whatsoever is both unscientific and unreasonable. Don't do it. In any case where absolute proof is being asked for of anything, the proper response is to ignore the question and the debate, because it will never and can never progress - it's simply meaningless in any real terms. (For that exact reason I ignore the debate over "evolution vs creationism", it's meaningless in real terms and has meaning only as a social phenomena.)

The correct question in the case of Obama's birth certificate is "why is he being asked for proof of a different standard than former presidents?". That's the correct question, it's a properly formatted social question, and the answers are a good bit more complex than simple "racism", though some racial attitudes do seem to be a factor in some people refusing to believe from him what they accept in others.

Second, he's playing this nonissue for political gain, and that's fairly self evident. I think he wants to run against Trump if possible.

Can someone explain to me why you would like someone experienced in business in the office of the President? I hear that all the time, and I've never heard any answer that made sense. "Meet a payroll", why? What does that have to do with governance? There is no connection at all that I can see. Nor is the purpose of government similar to that of business, for one example, business wants profit, government does not. For another, governments make war, business does not. Some of the people management skills cross over, granted, but they'd do the same from managing the EPA or the FBI, and I never hear anyone say "I want a civil service GS-15 who has headed up a major agency for president". Which would make at least as much sense.

As a personal preference fine, you don't have to explain it. However, it's usually stated as a general principle, and general principles have to stand up to examination. I can't see how this one does. Can anyone name a successful president who came from solely a business background? (NOTE: neither Bush, Clinton or Bush qualify, so you'll have to go back further. CIA, governor, governor)

[Higgenbotham]

The correct question in the case of Obama's birth certificate is "why is he being asked for proof of a different standard than former presidents?". That's the correct question, it's a properly formatted social question, and the answers are a good bit more complex than simple "racism", though some racial attitudes do seem to be a factor in some people refusing to believe from him what they accept in others.

In my view the correct question is "why is this issue so much hotter in 2011 than it was in 2008, 2009, or 2010?" My answer is that in general people feel increasingly comfortable speaking out and questioning the legitimacy of government and government officials. I'm saying things about Bernanke I wouldn't have dared say in 2008.

Can someone explain to me why you would like someone experienced in business in the office of the President?

Yes, business experience develops positive characteristics that are more difficult to develop otherwise. Leadership skills, hard work, organization skills, accurate thought processes, creativity, financial skills, and maybe a sense of urgency are just a few that come to mind. I've been self-employed, worked for several Fortune 500 corporations, and worked in state government. Working in state government didn't develop positive characteristics in anybody I saw. It seemed to make people more stupid and irresponsible.

[Jack Edwards]

I'll throw in a couple comments here, and we'll see what happens.

OLD - thanks for an insightful and intelligent post. One of the reasons I read and occasionally post here is because there are several people that make meaningful posts and answer from a perspective other than the dogmatic conservative/liberal view points. You just can't find that most places. THANKS.

Second, he's playing this nonissue for political gain, and that's fairly self evident. I think he wants to run against Trump if possible.

Perhaps - I think this issue will play out in a short period of time though, so maybe he just wants to keep people focused on something other than Libya, Afghanistan and the economy. Even then, I don't see how this is a winner issue for him. It makes him look reactive and a tad ridiculous. Love to hear other people's theories on why the birth thing continues to be an item of major discussion for the press and the President. I see a distinct lack of discussion of it on conservative leaning news websites now.

Can someone explain to me why you would like someone experienced in business in the office of the President?

All I can offer is my opinion, I have no experience with government, only business.

1. The office of President requires someone who is good at setting vision and delegating. The most effective business leaders do this (this is still a rare thing in business though). I've had the privilege of working with one such leader in my couple decades of experience. He came into a situation where the staff was disgruntled, disorganized, overworked and ineffective. In a short time he was able to instill a distinct vision of where we were going and why. Those that didn't or couldn't buy in to the vision left. He instilled a set of values in us that let us understand with a high level of accuracy exactly how to make decisions that he would approve of. After a time, we became immensely more successful and came to enjoy our jobs much more. Our work hours declined and the leader was able to dedicate his energies into other areas because we knew how to deliver exactly what we needed to without him telling us what to do. I've heard that President Carter was an extremely intelligent fellow, but a micro-manager and in my mind, pretty ineffective as President. President Reagan seemed a far better delegator. Can you learn the skills of being good at setting a vision and delegating outside of business? Sure, but business has a way of going straight to the bottom line. Politics are still very present in business but aren't as important as results. Those that are the best at this will have a very tangible track record. As I stated in a previous post - the best predictor for future success is past performance - please, give me the option of voting for a President who has actually created jobs, made tough decisions and has a strong track record of financial success in his chosen field of business!

2. A person who has worked in business has a better grasp of the real world and what people do day in and day out for a living. He can relate to "the common people" better, particularly someone who has started and ran their own business. Of course, there are Harvard MBA's who become CEO's without any grasp of what common people do to, but I would think the odds are better than someone whose career has been that of an Ivy League lawyer with a political career.

3. A person who has worked in business has had to deal with managing budgets and conflicting priorities - in government you can get away with running a perpetual deficit, not so in business.

I just don't view the Presidency as an entry level management job. I've learned from every managerial job I've had and made plenty of mistakes along the way. Thank heavens I started off small and learned and grew as I went. I want a President who has made the learned from the school of hard knocks before he gets into the Presidency.

Now, I don't believe a strict businessman can be an effective President if they have no experience with Government. Running a political organization is entirely different than running a business. I just think that having business experience will make them more effective at running a political organization.

Regards

Jack

[Jack Edwards]

One last thought on the Qualifications for President subject that I started several posts back. All of my thoughts on the subject really are moot. Where we are politically – or perhaps generationally is so polarized that I can’t see my theoretically ideal candidate ever being nominated. You can’t get nominated unless you fit the ideals defined by conservatives or liberals – which are seldom pragmatic. The Press (who doesn’t have a whole lot of experience with the real world either) doesn’t value real world experience as a pre-requisite for the job of President. They want someone flashy and controversial so they can sell their product – news. Alas, we could do better.

Regards, Jack

[John]

> One last thought on the Qualifications for President subject that
> I started several posts back. All of my thoughts on the subject
> really are moot. Where we are politically – or perhaps
> generationally is so polarized that I can’t see my theoretically
> ideal candidate ever being nominated. You can’t get nominated
> unless you fit the ideals defined by conservatives or liberals –
> which are seldom pragmatic. The Press (who doesn’t have a whole
> lot of experience with the real world either) doesn’t value real
> world experience as a pre-requisite for the job of President.
> They want someone flashy and controversial so they can sell their
> product – news. Alas, we could do better.

I want to add a thought that I posted in the web log a couple
of weeks ago. The reason that Donald Trump has become so popular,
I believe, is because he's highly nationalistic, at a time when
people want someone who's highly nationalistic. This is true
in many countries around the world, and it's one of the reasons
that we're headed for world war. That doesn't mean that Trump
will win, but it's quite possible that some very nationalistic
candidate will come out of nowhere and win.

John

[Higgenbotham]

The Press (who doesn’t have a whole lot of experience with the real world either) doesn’t value real world experience as a pre-requisite for the job of President. They want someone flashy and controversial so they can sell their product – news. Alas, we could do better.

Regards, Jack

I made a comment to someone yesterday that the press will love Mitt Romney because they can spend 8 years talking about his Mormon underwear.

[OLD1953]

Higgs, that's really the same question about Obama restated to the general form. And your answer is in line with a breakdown in social norms, as John has predicted.

There is a recognized social phenomena by which virtually everyone has a desire to be led by persons similar to themselves, as their own sense of self importance causes them to believe their own field of work is the most important and necessary to the continued functioning of society. Polling scientists will always result in a desire for a scientist for president, polling businessmen will result in a desire for a businessman for president, etc. And nearly everyone says military leaders as a second or third choice, because they make them feel safer/more secure. While it would be ideal to have a president who was a scientist, military leader, successful businessman, and generally experienced in other fields the president must deal with, such persons are rare or nonexistant. (We did have a President who took time out from campaigning to write a short paper that was published in a scientific journal, that's quite unusual though.)

Re the above, I found it interesting that both Jack and Higgs gave reasons for preferring businessmen that would apply more to small businessmen or to a middle manager than a CEO. Generally speaking, we organize around the general staff principle in these complex times, and the CEO simply sets policy, and depends on the staff, under his direction, to accomplish the goals the policy sets forth. The CEO job is much more in line with the job skills demanded by the presidential office, but the CEO isn't at all in tune with the common man. The first Bush was very much the CEO type of president, and he probably did that as well as anyone could from that perspective.

Martin van Buren was the only businessman with no other experience that I can recall (and I may be wrong as I'm not checking) being elected as President, and he is not considered to have been successful.

General officers who have served during time of intense war usually have all the skills needed to do the office as well as can be expected, (we haven't nominated any former general officer in decades) but anyone who is familiar with the principle and practice of general staff command structure should manage an adequate performance. Just MHO, Obama's weakness (and the weakness of many serving political figures on the national level) is simply that he'd never been in charge of that kind of staff before and didn't understand it. Senators and Members of Congress do have a staff, yes, but it's an entirely different matter.

To look at an individual, does Trump micromanage or does he actually apply the general staff principle? And that's hard to answer for me, not being a Trump fan, I've paid little attention to him personally. From the little I know, he seems to set goals more than policies, and the means of reaching the goal when you are dealling with political structures may be more important than the goal itself. (Sure, we could kill Gaddafi by nuking Tripoli, but that would NOT be a smart move.) Does he understand that, or is he totally goal oriented? And I really don't know.

[Higgenbotham]

Back to the birth certificate flap.

Old in my opinion is correct in saying that Obama has provided reasonable evidence that he was born in Hawaii. Earlier, I mentioned the fact that everybody knows that any document can be faked up and sold for less than $100 and referred to Obama's "so-called birth certificate". This was more in reference to how the "birthers" will typically verbalize the issue going forward. The fact that Obama can't irrefutably prove that he was born in Hawaii is the reason why the "birthers" have chosen this. I will describe here why I think that's the case, why they are using this issue and will continue doing so.

To do that, I'll turn to the economy, which is that area I've studied the most, but any area of policy could be used. Here, we have Obama, upon renominating Bernanke, stating that Ben acted and saved the economy from certain ruin, that things are so much better due to actions taken by the administration than they otherwise would be. As I've mentioned previously, we have Warren Buffett saying that the bailouts were to the benefit of 309 million Americans and not for the elite. Americans are aware that Buffett is buddy-buddy with Obama and has been advising him. And I could go on and on.

The public doesn't buy this nonsense. They know that Buffett is nothing but a "chief-looter" (one of many) and that Obama is a "looter-in-chief" in that he has condoned looting and has facilitated additional looting to the detriment of the average citizen. However,the public as a whole is not equipped to debate these issues as they don't have the expertise or knowledge of the technical terms that are required to be used in such a debate. And the looters can always make the argument that they have secret and specialized knowledge that the public just doesn't have, that the public "just doesn't understand" what's involved with these "complex" decision making processes that are, of course, done "for the greater good of everyone involved".

So instead of getting themselves bogged down in such a debate, the public turns to something easier, something that the "looter-in-chief" is unable to defend with the smoothness and technical terms with which he can defend the reappointment of Bernanke, for example. The public can use the birth certificate issue to say in so many words that "you are an illegitimate bastard". I found it ironic that when Obama presented his so-called birth certificate that he then said we need to move on and get on with the important issues. Yeah, like finding and implementing new ways to loot and destroy the American middle class.