Unbelievable. The London Review of Books publishes an excellent piece by Neal Ascherson on Abkhazia advocating independence for that nation*.
The Abkhazians and South Ossetians followed the post-colonial model of separatism. A colony or de facto colony gains its independence (in this case, we are replacing the USSR's republics with colonies, which is problematic, but the model works the same way).
As soon as independence is declared, the new nation attempts a nation-building exercise and says that it is a coherent whole, typically without consulting the parts of its own body politic.
There are parts of the new nation that may have desired independence from the colony or larger whole (But maybe not; note that Abkhazians so feared Georgian ultranationalism that they voted to retain the USSR.).
Anyway, as soon as the new nation is declared, separatists emerge and announce that they are not part of this new nation, which has barely existed in history anyway, and hence has little to no legitimacy in terms of "territorial integrity".
The former ferocious independence fighters quickly transform into fascist-like ultranationalists safeguarding the fake sacrosanct borders of the new nation with no historical existence.
In most cases, we progressives need to side with those who chose to break away from the very start.
It is little known, but this is the typical model for separatism in the world today.
This is the model that is operative in multiple separatist conflicts in Burma, India, Pakistan, China, Sudan, Angola, Turkey, Morocco, Indonesia, Papua New Guinea, Ethiopia, Russia, Georgia, Moldova, and any number of other places. These movements never entered into a national compact upon decolonization. They were fighting from Day One.
The article notes that while the South Ossetians may well be comfortable joining Russia, the Abkhazians are not. The Abkhazians want an independent state and have had a de facto one for about 16 years now, but no one wants to give them one. Why not? Because Russia supports the Abkhazians. Russia opposed the Kosovars, so the West lunged to support the Albanians of Kosovo, the only reason being "screw Russia".
As Georgia is little more than a US (and partially, EU) vassal state, it figures that neo-imperialism in its EU and NATO form are backing up this state's fake claim to territorial integrity. The article makes clear that incorporating Abkhazia into Georgia at this late date is a lost cause.
Neither are South Ossetia and Abkhazia being colonized by Russia, which is how the idiot Western press puts it. Neither place wants any part of Georgia, and that's that.
For the moment, they have entered into a completely free marriage of sorts with Russia. Free associational agreements are never examples of colonialism, neo-colonialism or imperialism. They are simply alliances among free actors, states in this case.
This was the error in the ridiculous Cold War model that saw a free and independent Cuba as a colony of some imperialist (to US Cold Warriors) or social imperialist (to silly Maoists) USSR. Cuba was free to leave at any time, and if anyone was exploiting anyone, Cuba (the "colony") was making out a lot better than the "colonizer", the USSR.
Colonialism has always been all about the loot, putting the conceit of the British-inspired White man's burden self-serving model aside for the moment. When the colony is getting the meaty end of the deal, and there is no exploitation of the colony and no coercion by the colonizer, there can be no colonialism or imperialism. Real simple.
The article discusses a particularly idiotic instance of Cold War insanity. Poland grabbed quite a bit of Germany after WW2, to the approval of a vengeful West, who also donated bits of Germany to other states. Germany is lucky to have survived at all. Germans were ethnically cleansed from Poland, and many never lived to tell about it. All in all, it is pretty sordid stuff, but paybacks are a bitch, as they say on the street.
German revanchism would seem to be the rallying cry of the very Nazi sympathizers and German nationalists that had been smashed into discredit by the war. So who would think that as soon as Poland fell into the Warsaw Pact, the West would suddenly throw all its weight behind a German nationalist-revanchist movement with Nazi roots?
Yes, the same West that delightfully chopped up Germany and donated hunks to Poland and twiddled thumbs while 100,000's of German Poles died in the process, now suddenly decided that the evisceration of Germany and donor operation to Poland was an outrage verging on casus belli for war. Insane? Of course. Realpolitik? You got it.
For decades, the West de facto sided with German neo-Nazism and agitated for a return of Pomerania et al to Germany. Willy Brandt finally put an end to this nonsense once and for all in 1971.
The West's embrace of Georgian fascist-like ultranationalism falls into this same quicksand of folly.
Recognize Abkhazia.
*The article downplays the differences between the Mingrelian - Georgian languages and the Abkhazian language, describing them only as mutually unintelligible. Mingrelian and Georgian are related and are members of the same family, but they can't understand each other at all, as Mingrelian and Georgian split 3000 years ago. Beria, Stalin's famous assassin, was a Mingrelian speaker, while Stalin himself spoke Georgian.
The family is known as Kartvelian and has no known relatives. Abkhazian, on the other hand, is Northwest Caucasian. Northwest Caucasian also has no known relatives, but I suspect a relationship at least with Basque and Yeniseien, as I did quite a bit of research on that a while back.
Despite living in close proximity to each other for centuries, Abkhazian is as different from Georgian - Mingrelian as English is from Chinese. And Mingrelian - Georgian and Abkhazian are as different from Turkish, Russian and Arabic (three closely neighboring languages) as English is to Chinese.
Georgian and Mingrelian are written in the very strange Georgian script. Here is an example of it, in this case Mingrelian. Kudos to any reader who can actually read this stuff:
რუსეთ რე ქიანა ბჟადალ ევროპას დო ჩრდილოეთ აზიას. რუსეთ ფართობით მსოფლიოშ უდიდაშ ქიანა რე. ცხოურენს კოჩი. რუსეთც გეშართუნს დიდ გეოგრაფიულ რეგიონეფ: ბჟაიოლ ევროპაშ ხორგული, ბჟადალ ციმბირიშ რზენი, ცენტრალურ ციმბირიშ ნარაზენი. ტერიტორიაშ თია უკებუ გვალამი რეგიონემც: ალტაი, ჩრდილოეთ კავკაცია, კოლიმა, საინი, ურალი. უმაღალაშ კოკი რე იალბუზ
Sunday, November 30, 2008
Model For the Mumbai Assault: Mike's Place, Tel Aviv
You have to take Debka with a bucket of salt, but they often have some pretty good insights. The Mumbai operation bore some striking resemblances to the Mike's Place assault in Tel Aviv in 2003, which is now acknowledged to have been conceived by Al Qaeda. Based on the evidence, I am rejecting the calls by many pundits and experts that Al Qaeda had nothing to do with this attack.
Both attacks used British Pakistanis. Both attempted to attack Israelis and Americans. Both attempted to land the operatives by sea, seize a major hotel and take as many hostages as possible, while killing everyone in their path.
The Mike's Place attackers, Asif Muhammed Hanif and Omar Khan Sharif were supposed to attack the US Embassy, but that never came off. Both operations utilized attackers who were trained for long periods outside the country they were attacking. Hanif and Sharif were trained in Syria and the Gaza Strip.
In Gaza, their trainers were Hamas, so this really was a Hamas-Al Qaeda joint operation. The casualties were much fewer at Mike's Place - 3 dead and 60 wounded.
In May 2007, US forces captured Al Hadi al Iraq, an Al Qaeda operative, in Iraq. He confessed to having trained Hanif and Sharif, cementing the suspected AQ link.
In contrast, the Mumbai attackers utilized 30 attackers in teams of seven or more and attacked seven targets inside Mumbai. The locations to be attacked had been meticulously cased prior to the attacks, to the point of possibly setting up prior bases inside the Taj Majal Palace Hotel.
They were also in contact with handlers outside India (apparently in Pakistan) and seem to have had a support network inside Mumbai working with them during the operation.
Al Qaeda has advanced quite a bit in five years, from bomb vests to commando tactics, careful reconnaissance and attacking from third countries were hallmarks of both operations.
One of the terrorists' names has been released. He is Azzam Amir Kassab, age 21. Nothing more is known about him. He is one of the terrorists seen in a number of photos of the attack.
The terrorists used a very interesting cell structure. Each terrorist was linked to a handler outside of India. He only knew his handler. If caught, he could only give up one person, his handler, who has a code name and isn't even in India anyway.
With 30 attackers and 30 different handlers, the attackers probably met for the first time, like many of the 9-11 attackers, on the day of the attack.
This is an excellent use of the cell structure. In traditional cell structure, you only know the people in your cell. In a cell of three, three people know each other, possibly only by code names. If caught, they can maybe give up the members of their cell, but maybe not. Surely they can't give up anyone else.
At times, they are instructed to meet a courier or a messenger. They meet the person at the assigned place, transfer whatever needs to be transferred, and then part, never to meet again. If caught, there is no way to give up the messengers or couriers, because the cell members don't even know who they are.
I am quite certain that Al Qaeda was heavily involved in this attack. Other groups like SIMI or the Indian Mujaheddin (internal Indian Islamist terrorists) may have also been involved, but at a lesser level. The scale and the nature of the targets seems to rule out LeT or other Kashmiri separatists out of Pakistan, whatever their tenuous links to Al Qaeda.
Anyway, LeT is never shy about claiming responsibility, and they strongly condemned this attack in a statement. As Hamas is all about Palestine, LeT and JeM are all about Kashmir. What do they care about Americans, British and Israelis? Not much. That's Al Qeada's purview.
Since Al Qaeda has also declared total war on the Pakistani government, it makes little sense to blame the Pakistani regime for this attack. Both governments are being attacked by the same group.
The name Maulana Abdul Bari, an Indian Muslim based in Saudi Arabia, keeps coming up. He is suspected of bankrolling the attack. That makes perfect sense to me - Indian Muslims and Saudi Al Qaeda, with a British connection to boot. Saudi Arabia is after all, Al Qaeda's home territory, and traditionally, 80% of AQ's core were Saudis, though that may be changing in recent days.
Pundits and experts says that AQ is down to 100 or so members along the Pakistani-Afghan border, and is in such disarray that they are incapable of mounting any serious operation.
I disagree. Further, I feel that "macro-Al Qaeda" may have up to 70,000 "members and associates" worldwide. Keep in mind that when we discuss Al Qaeda, our theories about traditional hierarchical organizations or even "organizations" period go out the window.
Both attacks used British Pakistanis. Both attempted to attack Israelis and Americans. Both attempted to land the operatives by sea, seize a major hotel and take as many hostages as possible, while killing everyone in their path.
The Mike's Place attackers, Asif Muhammed Hanif and Omar Khan Sharif were supposed to attack the US Embassy, but that never came off. Both operations utilized attackers who were trained for long periods outside the country they were attacking. Hanif and Sharif were trained in Syria and the Gaza Strip.
In Gaza, their trainers were Hamas, so this really was a Hamas-Al Qaeda joint operation. The casualties were much fewer at Mike's Place - 3 dead and 60 wounded.
In May 2007, US forces captured Al Hadi al Iraq, an Al Qaeda operative, in Iraq. He confessed to having trained Hanif and Sharif, cementing the suspected AQ link.
In contrast, the Mumbai attackers utilized 30 attackers in teams of seven or more and attacked seven targets inside Mumbai. The locations to be attacked had been meticulously cased prior to the attacks, to the point of possibly setting up prior bases inside the Taj Majal Palace Hotel.
They were also in contact with handlers outside India (apparently in Pakistan) and seem to have had a support network inside Mumbai working with them during the operation.
Al Qaeda has advanced quite a bit in five years, from bomb vests to commando tactics, careful reconnaissance and attacking from third countries were hallmarks of both operations.
One of the terrorists' names has been released. He is Azzam Amir Kassab, age 21. Nothing more is known about him. He is one of the terrorists seen in a number of photos of the attack.
The terrorists used a very interesting cell structure. Each terrorist was linked to a handler outside of India. He only knew his handler. If caught, he could only give up one person, his handler, who has a code name and isn't even in India anyway.
With 30 attackers and 30 different handlers, the attackers probably met for the first time, like many of the 9-11 attackers, on the day of the attack.
This is an excellent use of the cell structure. In traditional cell structure, you only know the people in your cell. In a cell of three, three people know each other, possibly only by code names. If caught, they can maybe give up the members of their cell, but maybe not. Surely they can't give up anyone else.
At times, they are instructed to meet a courier or a messenger. They meet the person at the assigned place, transfer whatever needs to be transferred, and then part, never to meet again. If caught, there is no way to give up the messengers or couriers, because the cell members don't even know who they are.
I am quite certain that Al Qaeda was heavily involved in this attack. Other groups like SIMI or the Indian Mujaheddin (internal Indian Islamist terrorists) may have also been involved, but at a lesser level. The scale and the nature of the targets seems to rule out LeT or other Kashmiri separatists out of Pakistan, whatever their tenuous links to Al Qaeda.
Anyway, LeT is never shy about claiming responsibility, and they strongly condemned this attack in a statement. As Hamas is all about Palestine, LeT and JeM are all about Kashmir. What do they care about Americans, British and Israelis? Not much. That's Al Qeada's purview.
Since Al Qaeda has also declared total war on the Pakistani government, it makes little sense to blame the Pakistani regime for this attack. Both governments are being attacked by the same group.
The name Maulana Abdul Bari, an Indian Muslim based in Saudi Arabia, keeps coming up. He is suspected of bankrolling the attack. That makes perfect sense to me - Indian Muslims and Saudi Al Qaeda, with a British connection to boot. Saudi Arabia is after all, Al Qaeda's home territory, and traditionally, 80% of AQ's core were Saudis, though that may be changing in recent days.
Pundits and experts says that AQ is down to 100 or so members along the Pakistani-Afghan border, and is in such disarray that they are incapable of mounting any serious operation.
I disagree. Further, I feel that "macro-Al Qaeda" may have up to 70,000 "members and associates" worldwide. Keep in mind that when we discuss Al Qaeda, our theories about traditional hierarchical organizations or even "organizations" period go out the window.
Saturday, November 29, 2008
An Easy Way to Raise the IQ's of 100's of Millions
Get rid of iodine deficiency. Amazingly, even moderate iodine deficiency causes IQ declines of 10-15 points if it's in a pregnant woman or an infant. It looks like Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan, India, Ethiopia, Sudan, Guinea, Senegal and Sierra Leone all have moderate to severe deficiency.
It would be interesting to see a better rundown of the severity of the deficiency in each place so we could figure out how much collective IQ could go up with iodine supplementation. In India, 500 million (50% of the population) get too little iodine, 54 million have goiter (severe deficiency) and 2 million are cretins due to extreme deficiency.
Yet another failure of Indian capitalism to provide for the very basics in human needs in India, and one more reason I support the Maoist revolutionaries in that country.
Many other nations have mild deficiencies. I don't know what a mild deficiency does to your IQ, if anything. 16% of the world's population has goiters, which are apparently caused only by iodine deficiency. That's ridiculous. 1/6 of the world's population.
International Council for the Control of Iodine Deficiency website.
It would be interesting to see a better rundown of the severity of the deficiency in each place so we could figure out how much collective IQ could go up with iodine supplementation. In India, 500 million (50% of the population) get too little iodine, 54 million have goiter (severe deficiency) and 2 million are cretins due to extreme deficiency.
Yet another failure of Indian capitalism to provide for the very basics in human needs in India, and one more reason I support the Maoist revolutionaries in that country.
Many other nations have mild deficiencies. I don't know what a mild deficiency does to your IQ, if anything. 16% of the world's population has goiters, which are apparently caused only by iodine deficiency. That's ridiculous. 1/6 of the world's population.
International Council for the Control of Iodine Deficiency website.
The Most Anti-Immigrant Ethnic Group in the US
The American Indians of USA.
Obviously, they are all a bunch of ranting, raving, seething, vicious, genocidal, hate-filled scum, right? No, wait. They can't be. Only White people can be racist. I forgot. Silly me.
So where are the Nutcase Liberal-Left and the Minority Professional Victims when it comes to abusing these vicious, evil US Amerindians? Nowhere to be seen. Why is that? They're all busy beating up on those vile White folks.
Why are US Amerindians so anti-immigration? Think about it. Real hard.
Obviously, they are all a bunch of ranting, raving, seething, vicious, genocidal, hate-filled scum, right? No, wait. They can't be. Only White people can be racist. I forgot. Silly me.
So where are the Nutcase Liberal-Left and the Minority Professional Victims when it comes to abusing these vicious, evil US Amerindians? Nowhere to be seen. Why is that? They're all busy beating up on those vile White folks.
Why are US Amerindians so anti-immigration? Think about it. Real hard.
Best Article Yet on the Mumbai Attacks
This sums it up better than any others I have read yet. Keep in mind that the Indians always blame Pakistan every time something like this happens.
Pakistan is blamed 100% for the revolt in Kashmir, which has local roots and is based on imperialist India's colonial occupation of Kashmir, which even the UN says is illegal. India blames Pakistan for most of its other separatist rebellions too, even those in the Far East. Pakistan was blamed for the mass rebellion in the Punjab in the 1980's.
For these reasons, you need to take anything that the Indian government, its "counterterrorism scholars", or really any Indian Hindu author on this subject with a pound of salt.
Your average middle class Indian buys this load of horse manure 100%. I've spoken to a few Indians, and I haven't met one yet who isn't shaking with rage at Pakistan and utterly livid about Kashmir.
India can't even feed or house its own population and is for all intents and purposes a failed state with a wealthy elite sprinkled on top. Why does India need even more people? It doesn't.
Pakistan has no right to Kashmir either. The legal future of Kashmir is up to the Kashmiri people themselves.
Keep in mind that the Kashmiri people never agreed to join India in the first place. The place was 90% Muslim, and they wanted to go to Pakistan. Kashmir had some idiot Hindu governor who insisted that Kashmir go to India, and that's the root of the whole stupid rebellion that has nearly propelled these two powers into a nuclear war.
I have no idea if Pakistan's ISI played a role in all of this. The LeT Pakistani Kashmiri fighters are a bunch of scumbags, but they have denied involvement, and they usually claim responsibility for this stuff.
Lately, LeT are fighting US troops in Afghanistan. That's probably mostly for combat training.
There seems to be a very strong connection to British Pakistanis, 50% of whom are from Kashmir. At least seven of the terrorists were British Pakistanis. Juan Cole suggests that this is the real source of the attack. British Pakistanis in particular are very exercised over the US occupation and wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and over the Palestinian cause.
The attackers hijacked an Indian trawler to conduct the attack and used it to come onshore via sea. The entire crew of the Kubar (others put the ship name as MV Alpha), a trawler adrift in the Indian Ocean, was missing. Only its headless, bound captain was found aboard. The attackers left incriminating evidence on the tanker before disembarking.
Hostages in general were released unharmed, unlike unfortunate folks just walking, standing or sitting in the paths of the attackers. However, an exception was made for six Israelis and two US Jews, all of whom were bound and executed in an attack on the Chabad-Lubivitcher offices in Mumbai.
15 Indian commandos and police were killed in the counterterrorist operation. The death toll is 195 and likely to rise, probably to 350 or so.
Keep in mind that these same jihadis are wreaking horrible havoc inside Pakistan itself, tried to kill Musharaff over and over, killed Benazir Bhutto, have killed many Pakistani troops, blew up a hotel in Islamabad, and seem to be threatening the very government of Pakistan itself, yet another failed state.
So saying they came from Pakistan doesn't say a whole lot. The militants tearing Pakistan itself apart "come from Pakistan" too. Does that mean they are part of the very state they are blowing up and shooting at all the time? Hardly.
All nations blame all insurgencies on outside actors. Flush with idiot patriotism and jingoism, vast numbers of the ultra-gullible fall for it every single time. It all boils down to psychological defenses. What nation can admit that its own people are rising up in rebellion against it? No nation can admit this painful fact, hence lies are cooked up about the whole insurgency being imported from abroad.
Our own "field nigger" citizens are cheerful and satisfied on the plantation called the nation. God forbid the slaves should rise up. Such ingrates. Denial plus projection away from the root cause. Blame other people. What works in the individual ego works in the conglomeration of millions of egos called the nation.
The problem with this typical Indian denial and projection subterfuge is these lies have the possibility of setting off a major war between two nuclear powers who seem prepared to actually use their nukes against each other.
I don't mean to support this outrageous crime, but a little context might be nice. India treats its Muslims like crap. The fact that Pakistan treats its Hindus like crap is no excuse.
The roots of this attack are right inside India itself, despite all of India's BS finger-pointing and head-shaking.
The field niggers on the Indian plantation are not so happy after all. Deal with it, India.
Pakistan is blamed 100% for the revolt in Kashmir, which has local roots and is based on imperialist India's colonial occupation of Kashmir, which even the UN says is illegal. India blames Pakistan for most of its other separatist rebellions too, even those in the Far East. Pakistan was blamed for the mass rebellion in the Punjab in the 1980's.
For these reasons, you need to take anything that the Indian government, its "counterterrorism scholars", or really any Indian Hindu author on this subject with a pound of salt.
Your average middle class Indian buys this load of horse manure 100%. I've spoken to a few Indians, and I haven't met one yet who isn't shaking with rage at Pakistan and utterly livid about Kashmir.
India can't even feed or house its own population and is for all intents and purposes a failed state with a wealthy elite sprinkled on top. Why does India need even more people? It doesn't.
Pakistan has no right to Kashmir either. The legal future of Kashmir is up to the Kashmiri people themselves.
Keep in mind that the Kashmiri people never agreed to join India in the first place. The place was 90% Muslim, and they wanted to go to Pakistan. Kashmir had some idiot Hindu governor who insisted that Kashmir go to India, and that's the root of the whole stupid rebellion that has nearly propelled these two powers into a nuclear war.
I have no idea if Pakistan's ISI played a role in all of this. The LeT Pakistani Kashmiri fighters are a bunch of scumbags, but they have denied involvement, and they usually claim responsibility for this stuff.
Lately, LeT are fighting US troops in Afghanistan. That's probably mostly for combat training.
There seems to be a very strong connection to British Pakistanis, 50% of whom are from Kashmir. At least seven of the terrorists were British Pakistanis. Juan Cole suggests that this is the real source of the attack. British Pakistanis in particular are very exercised over the US occupation and wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and over the Palestinian cause.
The attackers hijacked an Indian trawler to conduct the attack and used it to come onshore via sea. The entire crew of the Kubar (others put the ship name as MV Alpha), a trawler adrift in the Indian Ocean, was missing. Only its headless, bound captain was found aboard. The attackers left incriminating evidence on the tanker before disembarking.
Hostages in general were released unharmed, unlike unfortunate folks just walking, standing or sitting in the paths of the attackers. However, an exception was made for six Israelis and two US Jews, all of whom were bound and executed in an attack on the Chabad-Lubivitcher offices in Mumbai.
15 Indian commandos and police were killed in the counterterrorist operation. The death toll is 195 and likely to rise, probably to 350 or so.
Keep in mind that these same jihadis are wreaking horrible havoc inside Pakistan itself, tried to kill Musharaff over and over, killed Benazir Bhutto, have killed many Pakistani troops, blew up a hotel in Islamabad, and seem to be threatening the very government of Pakistan itself, yet another failed state.
So saying they came from Pakistan doesn't say a whole lot. The militants tearing Pakistan itself apart "come from Pakistan" too. Does that mean they are part of the very state they are blowing up and shooting at all the time? Hardly.
All nations blame all insurgencies on outside actors. Flush with idiot patriotism and jingoism, vast numbers of the ultra-gullible fall for it every single time. It all boils down to psychological defenses. What nation can admit that its own people are rising up in rebellion against it? No nation can admit this painful fact, hence lies are cooked up about the whole insurgency being imported from abroad.
Our own "field nigger" citizens are cheerful and satisfied on the plantation called the nation. God forbid the slaves should rise up. Such ingrates. Denial plus projection away from the root cause. Blame other people. What works in the individual ego works in the conglomeration of millions of egos called the nation.
The problem with this typical Indian denial and projection subterfuge is these lies have the possibility of setting off a major war between two nuclear powers who seem prepared to actually use their nukes against each other.
I don't mean to support this outrageous crime, but a little context might be nice. India treats its Muslims like crap. The fact that Pakistan treats its Hindus like crap is no excuse.
The roots of this attack are right inside India itself, despite all of India's BS finger-pointing and head-shaking.
The field niggers on the Indian plantation are not so happy after all. Deal with it, India.
Muslim Separatists Kill Vladikavkaz Mayor
Vladikavkaz is the capital of North Ossetia. A group called Kataib al-Khoul (Jama'at Kata'ib al-Hawl ) claimed responsibility on the Kavkaz website of the Chechen rebels. This is the name of the Ossetian Muslim guerrillas. Considering that Ossetia is majority Christian, I can't understand their agenda , which is an Islamic Republic in a place where the population is 70% Christian.
North Ossetia is the Russian republic in the North Caucasus where the Beslan Massacre occurred. There have been some bombings there lately, and there was a suicide bombing at a bus stop by a Muslim woman that killed 12 people.
This popular post of mine goes into the Beslan Massacre and some of the ethnic issues that seemed to drive it.
In short, there are conflicts between the Ossetians and the Ingush. The Ingush were expelled by Stalin in 1944, and 1/3 of them died. When they came back in the mid-1950's, Ossetians had taken much of their land. Also, North Ossetians for the most part back the genocidal war that Russia has waged on the Chechen people.
The war in the Caucasus is not over at all, and has actually been spreading. The situation in Ingushetia is now being described by experts as "full-scale civil war." Heavy fighting is still ongoing in Chechnya, and the situation in Dagestan is spinning out of control. There is also low level fighting in Nalchik, the capital of Kabardino-Balkaria.
It would be best if Chechnya and any other Muslim republics in the Caucasus were simply granted independence. Why Russia wishes to hang on to these problematic Muslims is beyond me.
The Russian imperialists and their backers regard this as a war between Western civilization and fundamentalist Islam. Nonsense. It is simply a separatist rebellion by some nations who wish to separate themselves from the Russian Empire into which they were forced after decades of war and have never really agreed to join.
North Ossetia is the Russian republic in the North Caucasus where the Beslan Massacre occurred. There have been some bombings there lately, and there was a suicide bombing at a bus stop by a Muslim woman that killed 12 people.
This popular post of mine goes into the Beslan Massacre and some of the ethnic issues that seemed to drive it.
In short, there are conflicts between the Ossetians and the Ingush. The Ingush were expelled by Stalin in 1944, and 1/3 of them died. When they came back in the mid-1950's, Ossetians had taken much of their land. Also, North Ossetians for the most part back the genocidal war that Russia has waged on the Chechen people.
The war in the Caucasus is not over at all, and has actually been spreading. The situation in Ingushetia is now being described by experts as "full-scale civil war." Heavy fighting is still ongoing in Chechnya, and the situation in Dagestan is spinning out of control. There is also low level fighting in Nalchik, the capital of Kabardino-Balkaria.
It would be best if Chechnya and any other Muslim republics in the Caucasus were simply granted independence. Why Russia wishes to hang on to these problematic Muslims is beyond me.
The Russian imperialists and their backers regard this as a war between Western civilization and fundamentalist Islam. Nonsense. It is simply a separatist rebellion by some nations who wish to separate themselves from the Russian Empire into which they were forced after decades of war and have never really agreed to join.
Friday, November 28, 2008
Sexmaniacman On Seduction
Sexmaniacman just told me the following:
Hey Bob, a woman just told me that I have a take it or leave it attitude. I was interested, but obviously, I said, "Yeah, so what?" Then she said, "See? That was take it or leave it right there." I said, "Sure, I know. So what." Then she said that was what she loved about me (this take it or leave it attitude that she says she actually dislikes), and then mentioned how she wants to have sex with me.
For some reason, I thought, "Ho-hum, she wants to have sex with me, yawn." And I like this woman. But this "I can take it or leave it" attitude towards sex feels really liberating. Make them work for it. I'm a privileged catch and you have to work to get me. I think women really despise guys who crawl all around trying to kiss up to them and accommodate them.
I never realized I had such a dicky attitude, but I think it's the best. On the other hand, you should also try to be accommodating to others to some extent, and I do.
I'm reading this guy's blog here, which is all about picking up chicks. It's for young guys in their 20's who are upper middle class yuppies. Everyone else needn't bother to read.
I disagree with some of the stuff he says, but he does have some good points.
He says never complain about a lousy kiss from a woman. I disagree. You go to kiss a woman at the end of the date and she turns her cheek and lets you peck her cheek. Lean back and say, "Wow," real sarcastically.
Most of the time, that will get her back up and she'll start kissing you for real. If that doesn't work, make fun of her. Say, "You call that a kiss? Where'd you learn how to kiss? You don't even know how to kiss." But say it humorously, not angrily.
Women actually like to be provoked. It works pretty good to suggest they can't kiss worth a crap or they are probably frigid and lousy in bed. That's a direct challenge, and a lot of the time, they will respond to it by showing you, "Damn right I know how to kiss/fuck, etc, baby!"
The mistakes he is talking about are guys who don't know how to read women. You have to read women. You need to be an expert in verbal and nonverbal communication. I'm still learning this stuff every day, and I figure it's a Lifetime Course. I can't emphasize this strongly enough, because you really do need to learn this stuff in order to deal with women.
Here the guy asks his date to kiss him. I've always thought that's the stupidest thing in the world to do. Never ask a new woman if she wants to have any kind of sex act. Don't even ask your girlfriend if she wants to have sex. Let her ask you or take the initiative.
I've always just been a Rapist and an Attacker. I just grab at them or needle them with my feet or make rude sexual remarks. I always make a big joke out of it and I'm laughing and screwing around the whole time.
It's hit or miss that way, but I've had sex with scores of women. The only new woman you should ask if she wants to have sex with you is a whore. Any other female is probably going to say no, and they don't get better as they get older.
Generally, you have to wait until you get the proper signals that it's ok to assault her. You might have to wait a while. The signals might never come, in which case you probably don't assault her. Just figure she's a lost cause and don't date her anymore.
If you try to assault her and she pushes you away or threatens to call the cops (Yes, it's happened to me) just shrug your shoulders, forget about her, and then act mildly put out the rest of the night. She'll feel bad and try to make up for it. Act like, "Gimme one reason why I should date you again?" Not angry or anything, just "take it or leave it."
Assault can be very soft, slow-motion and tender, like a movie that's in slow motion, or you can just push her up against the wall and kiss her really hard. I've done both many, many times, and I do recommend this approach.
Bob, I remember one time I was out with this rock band. I was trying to screw the lead singer, whose name was Ann.
I won't give you the name of the band because there were sort of big around LA for awhile (she's still kind of famous and there are pics of her on the Net)and this might get back to me.
I just Googled her and it turns out that later she went solo and formed her own band and released some albums. She also played with some of the big LA punk bands. You can order her records on Amazon and some other places. She's still performing up til 1989, then she's gone.
There was another woman there, Linda, and I'd already had sex with her, but now we were sort of through. I think Linda and Ann were having sex at some point.
They were all a bunch of goth rockers and I was a punker with a leather jacket and an attitude. The goth guys were mostly fags or bi or might as well have been. If you were good looking, confident, cocky and didn't act like a total queer, you could clean up with the goth chicks, who were mostly bi themselves, by the way.
You just had to play this role of arrogant, old-fashioned guy disgusted by all the rampant homo/bi-sexuality in the scene. The chicks all thought that mean and horrible and disgusting, but then they wanted to have sex with you too, because you know, you were really the only real man around.
I was in the back seat in a car full of this punk band's members, and I kept reaching up in front and grabbing Ann. She was reaching back and we were playing games with fingers and grabbing or some shit.
Everyone else was talking and watching us like, "What are they doing, anyway?" I was partly doing this to piss off Linda, and she didn't like it too much. But she wasn't putting out anymore anyway, so I was a free man, and she needed to avert her eyes and shut up.
We were walking into this Denny's at like 2 AM and I finally realized how pissed I was at Ann. She'd been teasing me like this for way too long. As we walked into the doorway, I suddenly grabbed her and shoved her up against the wall and kissed her real hard. Then, just as quickly, I let her go and smiled like nothing had happened.
The whole party (the band members) was like, "Whoa!"
Linda asked with a weird smile, like I was acting extremely weird, "Sexman, what do you think you are doing?"
Duh. What do you think I'm doing? Ann acted like she didn't know what hit her, but she liked it of course. The guys in the band were like, "Whoa, this dude's hardcore, man."
We went to the table and everyone made sure Ann was out of reach of me because now I was a confirmed public assaulter-rapist, and they didn't want any more scenes. But Ann was smiling and chatting me up the whole meal.
It's good to give women orders too, Bob. Have you ever done that? Do. I picked up this woman in a bar once within like three minutes of walking into the joint. It was a place called the Anti-Club in Hollywood. It was 1985, the show was Christian Death, and it was too awesome.
Three minutes, I bought her a drink, had my arm around her and was feeling her up. We left the club for a while, drove around and sort of had sex in the car while driving around Hollyweird, then went back to the club.
At the end of the show, the date had gone sour, and she tried to ditch me.
I looked at her and said, "Hey, look, you don't understand. You're not going home with them. You're going home with me." Smiling the whole time.
That got her back up good. "Oh yeah? Who says?"
"Says me." Still smiling.
"Wait a minute. Let me try something." She tells me to stand up straight on the sidewalk and looks me up and down lasciviously for about a minute like it's some kind of test.
"OK," she said. So I drove her home from LA to Orange County and we managed to have sex in the car on the 5 Freeway in downtown LA going 55 miles an hour at 2 AM, which is always interesting.
She had the same name as my Mom. I told her that, and she acted disgusted, like, "Fuck your Mom, you wimp. Obviously you're abnormally attached to her."
Another time I had a new woman in my bedroom. I had her top off and was feeling her tits.
She whimpered, in this totally lame voice, "Please let me go home."
Obviously she didn't mean it.
I said, "No way, you're staying right here." Not real psycho-like, but firm nevertheless.
She was free to leave, as the cops say, and her car was in the driveway. At some point there was an argument.
I said, "Get over on that bed right now." Same way, not real crazy, but firm nevertheless. She was free to say no.
Of course, she scurried over to the bed very obediently like a little puppy. Then, later, at some point, she didn't want to have sex or something.
I just got out of bed, walked over to the couch and said, "Fine, if you don't want to fuck, I'll just sleep on the couch. You sleep on the bed. See you in the morning."
And closed my eyes.
Not two minutes went by and I heard this little bird chirping, "Come on over to the bed." You can guess what happens next.
So a proper mixture of assertiveness and indifference can sometimes work wonders.
I'm sitting here, Bob, thinking that I have to get rid of this take it or leave it attitude, but the major part of me says, "Who cares? This is the way I am, and I'm not out to kiss up to or accommodate everyone else. This is me and this is my style, like it or not, I'm not making any major changes to suit you or anyone else."
This Roissy guy is going on and on about alpha males and beta males. I confess I don't get it. What's the difference? Do betas get lots of women, or is that impossible? I have a huge ego, I strut around like a rooster, I'm cocky and vain, and I think I'm Joe Hotshot With the Chicks and King of the World combined, even though it's not true at all anymore. So is that alpha or what? I'm not sure I understand what he's getting at.
Hey Bob, a woman just told me that I have a take it or leave it attitude. I was interested, but obviously, I said, "Yeah, so what?" Then she said, "See? That was take it or leave it right there." I said, "Sure, I know. So what." Then she said that was what she loved about me (this take it or leave it attitude that she says she actually dislikes), and then mentioned how she wants to have sex with me.
For some reason, I thought, "Ho-hum, she wants to have sex with me, yawn." And I like this woman. But this "I can take it or leave it" attitude towards sex feels really liberating. Make them work for it. I'm a privileged catch and you have to work to get me. I think women really despise guys who crawl all around trying to kiss up to them and accommodate them.
I never realized I had such a dicky attitude, but I think it's the best. On the other hand, you should also try to be accommodating to others to some extent, and I do.
I'm reading this guy's blog here, which is all about picking up chicks. It's for young guys in their 20's who are upper middle class yuppies. Everyone else needn't bother to read.
I disagree with some of the stuff he says, but he does have some good points.
He says never complain about a lousy kiss from a woman. I disagree. You go to kiss a woman at the end of the date and she turns her cheek and lets you peck her cheek. Lean back and say, "Wow," real sarcastically.
Most of the time, that will get her back up and she'll start kissing you for real. If that doesn't work, make fun of her. Say, "You call that a kiss? Where'd you learn how to kiss? You don't even know how to kiss." But say it humorously, not angrily.
Women actually like to be provoked. It works pretty good to suggest they can't kiss worth a crap or they are probably frigid and lousy in bed. That's a direct challenge, and a lot of the time, they will respond to it by showing you, "Damn right I know how to kiss/fuck, etc, baby!"
The mistakes he is talking about are guys who don't know how to read women. You have to read women. You need to be an expert in verbal and nonverbal communication. I'm still learning this stuff every day, and I figure it's a Lifetime Course. I can't emphasize this strongly enough, because you really do need to learn this stuff in order to deal with women.
Here the guy asks his date to kiss him. I've always thought that's the stupidest thing in the world to do. Never ask a new woman if she wants to have any kind of sex act. Don't even ask your girlfriend if she wants to have sex. Let her ask you or take the initiative.
I've always just been a Rapist and an Attacker. I just grab at them or needle them with my feet or make rude sexual remarks. I always make a big joke out of it and I'm laughing and screwing around the whole time.
It's hit or miss that way, but I've had sex with scores of women. The only new woman you should ask if she wants to have sex with you is a whore. Any other female is probably going to say no, and they don't get better as they get older.
Generally, you have to wait until you get the proper signals that it's ok to assault her. You might have to wait a while. The signals might never come, in which case you probably don't assault her. Just figure she's a lost cause and don't date her anymore.
If you try to assault her and she pushes you away or threatens to call the cops (Yes, it's happened to me) just shrug your shoulders, forget about her, and then act mildly put out the rest of the night. She'll feel bad and try to make up for it. Act like, "Gimme one reason why I should date you again?" Not angry or anything, just "take it or leave it."
Assault can be very soft, slow-motion and tender, like a movie that's in slow motion, or you can just push her up against the wall and kiss her really hard. I've done both many, many times, and I do recommend this approach.
Bob, I remember one time I was out with this rock band. I was trying to screw the lead singer, whose name was Ann.
I won't give you the name of the band because there were sort of big around LA for awhile (she's still kind of famous and there are pics of her on the Net)and this might get back to me.
I just Googled her and it turns out that later she went solo and formed her own band and released some albums. She also played with some of the big LA punk bands. You can order her records on Amazon and some other places. She's still performing up til 1989, then she's gone.
There was another woman there, Linda, and I'd already had sex with her, but now we were sort of through. I think Linda and Ann were having sex at some point.
They were all a bunch of goth rockers and I was a punker with a leather jacket and an attitude. The goth guys were mostly fags or bi or might as well have been. If you were good looking, confident, cocky and didn't act like a total queer, you could clean up with the goth chicks, who were mostly bi themselves, by the way.
You just had to play this role of arrogant, old-fashioned guy disgusted by all the rampant homo/bi-sexuality in the scene. The chicks all thought that mean and horrible and disgusting, but then they wanted to have sex with you too, because you know, you were really the only real man around.
I was in the back seat in a car full of this punk band's members, and I kept reaching up in front and grabbing Ann. She was reaching back and we were playing games with fingers and grabbing or some shit.
Everyone else was talking and watching us like, "What are they doing, anyway?" I was partly doing this to piss off Linda, and she didn't like it too much. But she wasn't putting out anymore anyway, so I was a free man, and she needed to avert her eyes and shut up.
We were walking into this Denny's at like 2 AM and I finally realized how pissed I was at Ann. She'd been teasing me like this for way too long. As we walked into the doorway, I suddenly grabbed her and shoved her up against the wall and kissed her real hard. Then, just as quickly, I let her go and smiled like nothing had happened.
The whole party (the band members) was like, "Whoa!"
Linda asked with a weird smile, like I was acting extremely weird, "Sexman, what do you think you are doing?"
Duh. What do you think I'm doing? Ann acted like she didn't know what hit her, but she liked it of course. The guys in the band were like, "Whoa, this dude's hardcore, man."
We went to the table and everyone made sure Ann was out of reach of me because now I was a confirmed public assaulter-rapist, and they didn't want any more scenes. But Ann was smiling and chatting me up the whole meal.
It's good to give women orders too, Bob. Have you ever done that? Do. I picked up this woman in a bar once within like three minutes of walking into the joint. It was a place called the Anti-Club in Hollywood. It was 1985, the show was Christian Death, and it was too awesome.
Three minutes, I bought her a drink, had my arm around her and was feeling her up. We left the club for a while, drove around and sort of had sex in the car while driving around Hollyweird, then went back to the club.
At the end of the show, the date had gone sour, and she tried to ditch me.
I looked at her and said, "Hey, look, you don't understand. You're not going home with them. You're going home with me." Smiling the whole time.
That got her back up good. "Oh yeah? Who says?"
"Says me." Still smiling.
"Wait a minute. Let me try something." She tells me to stand up straight on the sidewalk and looks me up and down lasciviously for about a minute like it's some kind of test.
"OK," she said. So I drove her home from LA to Orange County and we managed to have sex in the car on the 5 Freeway in downtown LA going 55 miles an hour at 2 AM, which is always interesting.
She had the same name as my Mom. I told her that, and she acted disgusted, like, "Fuck your Mom, you wimp. Obviously you're abnormally attached to her."
Another time I had a new woman in my bedroom. I had her top off and was feeling her tits.
She whimpered, in this totally lame voice, "Please let me go home."
Obviously she didn't mean it.
I said, "No way, you're staying right here." Not real psycho-like, but firm nevertheless.
She was free to leave, as the cops say, and her car was in the driveway. At some point there was an argument.
I said, "Get over on that bed right now." Same way, not real crazy, but firm nevertheless. She was free to say no.
Of course, she scurried over to the bed very obediently like a little puppy. Then, later, at some point, she didn't want to have sex or something.
I just got out of bed, walked over to the couch and said, "Fine, if you don't want to fuck, I'll just sleep on the couch. You sleep on the bed. See you in the morning."
And closed my eyes.
Not two minutes went by and I heard this little bird chirping, "Come on over to the bed." You can guess what happens next.
So a proper mixture of assertiveness and indifference can sometimes work wonders.
I'm sitting here, Bob, thinking that I have to get rid of this take it or leave it attitude, but the major part of me says, "Who cares? This is the way I am, and I'm not out to kiss up to or accommodate everyone else. This is me and this is my style, like it or not, I'm not making any major changes to suit you or anyone else."
This Roissy guy is going on and on about alpha males and beta males. I confess I don't get it. What's the difference? Do betas get lots of women, or is that impossible? I have a huge ego, I strut around like a rooster, I'm cocky and vain, and I think I'm Joe Hotshot With the Chicks and King of the World combined, even though it's not true at all anymore. So is that alpha or what? I'm not sure I understand what he's getting at.
Great Article on Illegal Immigration
Here, by the fine writer Heather MacDonald. The Sanctuary City laws (list of Sanctuary Cities ) issue is admittedly complex, and many police chiefs do support them.
The idea is that cops want illegals to cooperate as crime victims and witnesses to crimes. But my observation is that illegals don't cooperate even if they are crime victims. I watched one car full of illegals hit a van with a couple of illegals in it in town recently. I asked the people who got hit if they wanted to go to the cops, but they turned around, got back in their vehicle and drove away.
It's well known that the local gangbangers around here prey on drunken illegals, who are often wandering around at 3 AM with pockets full of cash. It's called "rolling drunks." The victim never goes to the cops.
It seems like 50% of this stupid city of 50,000 people are illegal aliens and their awful children. If in general they acted like Danes or Japanese, I honestly don't think people would care that much. They don't, and that's part of the whole problem.
We could easily modify Sanctuary City policies to say that cops may not ask witnesses and crime victims of their immigration status.
Heather MacDonald offers some commonsense solutions to the admittedly difficult quandary of whether or not cops should get involved with immigration law - local cops should be able to arrest known criminals who have been deported and are back in the US - that's a felony anyway.
I was stunned that many cities don't even try to figure out if the criminals they arrest are illegals. At the very minimum, police ought to check immigration status of everyone they arrest. They sure do here in this town. A check of the county jail site reveals a vast number of criminals who are remanded to the INS.
I think the ethnic lobbies need to be called out as traitors. The Hispanic Lobby is a treasonous lobby with far worse dual loyalty issues than the Jews. At least Jews don't form street gangs that lay waste to hundreds of square miles of cities, and they're generally pleasant, intelligent and civilized in person.
The truth is that an overwhelming number of recent immigrants from Mexico in the past 20 years (Almost all recent immigrants from Mexico are illegal aliens - 85% of those who immigrated from Mexico in the past 18 years are illegals) are loyal first to Mexico and then, if at all, to the US. That's not acceptable.
Probably very large numbers of Mexicans and Mexican-Americans think that the Southwest belongs to Mexico, and they have a right to walk across the border the same way they can walk across the border from Oaxaca to Michoacan. Fact is, they don't think that border has a right to exist.
That's a completely unacceptable and downright treasonous attitude, and it ought to be condemned by patriots every time it rears its head.
The entire Hispanic Lobby in the US is basically a Treason Lobby which is loyal to a foreign state and disloyal to America.
Furthermore, the Hispanic Lobby and their moron allies on the Left really do advocate something resembling Open Borders. Once you sit down and talk to them, it quickly becomes apparent that they think anyone ought to have a right to walk across the Mexican border into the US no questions asked. And right away, they should have the right to ask to be legalized, and that right should be granted.
That's completely insane. Not only is there a terrorist question involved, but Mexico is screaming with a mad Drug War that is starting to look like Iraq. Sooner or later, this insanity is coming to the US. Open Borders would only hasten the day.
People seem so puzzled about why I am so militant on this issue. Let me tell you, only three years ago I supported full amnesty for all 12-20 million illegals in the US. Why? I didn't live with them. I heard stories from my friends about how illegals had laid waste to whole vast urban areas in my state, but I shrugged my shoulders. Like Black crime, it didn't effect me.
Moving to a Valley city that feels it's it's about 50% illegals tipped me over into near-psychosis on this issue real fast. It's kind of the liberal-until-mugging story.
One more thing whenever anyone tells you how wonderful illegal aliens are. Just remember:
Illegal aliens did 9-11!*
*It's a little-known fact, but several of the 9-11 terrorists were illegal aliens - VISA overstayers. We really need to publicize this issue more - Illegal Aliens Did 9-11 is one kickass slogan.
The idea is that cops want illegals to cooperate as crime victims and witnesses to crimes. But my observation is that illegals don't cooperate even if they are crime victims. I watched one car full of illegals hit a van with a couple of illegals in it in town recently. I asked the people who got hit if they wanted to go to the cops, but they turned around, got back in their vehicle and drove away.
It's well known that the local gangbangers around here prey on drunken illegals, who are often wandering around at 3 AM with pockets full of cash. It's called "rolling drunks." The victim never goes to the cops.
It seems like 50% of this stupid city of 50,000 people are illegal aliens and their awful children. If in general they acted like Danes or Japanese, I honestly don't think people would care that much. They don't, and that's part of the whole problem.
We could easily modify Sanctuary City policies to say that cops may not ask witnesses and crime victims of their immigration status.
Heather MacDonald offers some commonsense solutions to the admittedly difficult quandary of whether or not cops should get involved with immigration law - local cops should be able to arrest known criminals who have been deported and are back in the US - that's a felony anyway.
I was stunned that many cities don't even try to figure out if the criminals they arrest are illegals. At the very minimum, police ought to check immigration status of everyone they arrest. They sure do here in this town. A check of the county jail site reveals a vast number of criminals who are remanded to the INS.
I think the ethnic lobbies need to be called out as traitors. The Hispanic Lobby is a treasonous lobby with far worse dual loyalty issues than the Jews. At least Jews don't form street gangs that lay waste to hundreds of square miles of cities, and they're generally pleasant, intelligent and civilized in person.
The truth is that an overwhelming number of recent immigrants from Mexico in the past 20 years (Almost all recent immigrants from Mexico are illegal aliens - 85% of those who immigrated from Mexico in the past 18 years are illegals) are loyal first to Mexico and then, if at all, to the US. That's not acceptable.
Probably very large numbers of Mexicans and Mexican-Americans think that the Southwest belongs to Mexico, and they have a right to walk across the border the same way they can walk across the border from Oaxaca to Michoacan. Fact is, they don't think that border has a right to exist.
That's a completely unacceptable and downright treasonous attitude, and it ought to be condemned by patriots every time it rears its head.
The entire Hispanic Lobby in the US is basically a Treason Lobby which is loyal to a foreign state and disloyal to America.
Furthermore, the Hispanic Lobby and their moron allies on the Left really do advocate something resembling Open Borders. Once you sit down and talk to them, it quickly becomes apparent that they think anyone ought to have a right to walk across the Mexican border into the US no questions asked. And right away, they should have the right to ask to be legalized, and that right should be granted.
That's completely insane. Not only is there a terrorist question involved, but Mexico is screaming with a mad Drug War that is starting to look like Iraq. Sooner or later, this insanity is coming to the US. Open Borders would only hasten the day.
People seem so puzzled about why I am so militant on this issue. Let me tell you, only three years ago I supported full amnesty for all 12-20 million illegals in the US. Why? I didn't live with them. I heard stories from my friends about how illegals had laid waste to whole vast urban areas in my state, but I shrugged my shoulders. Like Black crime, it didn't effect me.
Moving to a Valley city that feels it's it's about 50% illegals tipped me over into near-psychosis on this issue real fast. It's kind of the liberal-until-mugging story.
One more thing whenever anyone tells you how wonderful illegal aliens are. Just remember:
Illegal aliens did 9-11!*
*It's a little-known fact, but several of the 9-11 terrorists were illegal aliens - VISA overstayers. We really need to publicize this issue more - Illegal Aliens Did 9-11 is one kickass slogan.
Thursday, November 27, 2008
Broken Windows Theory Proven
Good stuff.
I used to not believe in that theory, but it looks like there is something to it. Perhaps by promptly removing litter, graffiti, etc., we can reduce crime in general.
I used to not believe in that theory, but it looks like there is something to it. Perhaps by promptly removing litter, graffiti, etc., we can reduce crime in general.
IQ Is a Meaningful Construct and Measurement
IQ tests have been designed for a century now, and there is little real controversy anymore among psychometricians and psychologists about how accurate they are. The notion that they are culturally biased or inaccurate has largely been manufactured by the Cultural Left because unfortunately, the scores have not worked out very well racially in terms of upholding egalitarian principles.
Much is also made of what IQ tests measure, and whether they measure anything important. Surely they measure the brains necessary to compete effectively in a modern society.
They also line up well with many other things.
The lower the IQ, the more likely the person is to do stupid things - go to jail or prison, commit crimes or lots of crimes, have kids out of wedlock or as a teenager, parent multiple children by multiple partners, be a lousy parent to your child if you're female or refuse to support the kid if you're male, go on welfare, engage in domestic violence, have poor to low morals, join a street gang, shoot someone or get shot, refuse to plan for the future, drink or take drugs, die young, never go to the doctor, engage in extremely risky behaviors, fall victim to injurious or life-threatening accidents, refuse to engage in healthy behaviors such as eating properly and exercising, etc.
The lower the IQ, the stupider humans tend to act. The higher the IQ, the smarter humans tend to behave. These differences are most marked in a modern industrial capitalist urban society, and may not be so relevant in a tribal or village culture with strict behavioral norms.
Studies in prisons confirm that prisoners have lower IQ's than the norm. In particular, they tend to have lower verbal IQ, while their performance IQ may be normal. This performance IQ > verbal IQ pattern is also seen in sociopaths.
These correlations hold across races, at least for Whites, Amerindians, Polynesians, Hispanics and Blacks (I'm not sure about Asians). It's not just a Black thing.
Holding IQ constant, the Black violent crime rate does not differ dramatically from the White rate (Gordon 1987). This is one reason I strongly support efforts to raise Black IQ.
IQ is meaningful. If you meet someone with an 80 IQ, they won't come across as a rocket scientist. If you meet someone with a 140+ IQ (like all of my siblings and my mother), they won't come across as retarded or slow.
If IQ were the fallacious, nonsensical and worthless measure the Cultural Left says it is, we would regularly meet 150 IQ people who were dumb as rocks, and the universities would be crawling with 80 IQ Phi Beta Kappas.
That doesn't happen.
Much is also made of what IQ tests measure, and whether they measure anything important. Surely they measure the brains necessary to compete effectively in a modern society.
They also line up well with many other things.
The lower the IQ, the more likely the person is to do stupid things - go to jail or prison, commit crimes or lots of crimes, have kids out of wedlock or as a teenager, parent multiple children by multiple partners, be a lousy parent to your child if you're female or refuse to support the kid if you're male, go on welfare, engage in domestic violence, have poor to low morals, join a street gang, shoot someone or get shot, refuse to plan for the future, drink or take drugs, die young, never go to the doctor, engage in extremely risky behaviors, fall victim to injurious or life-threatening accidents, refuse to engage in healthy behaviors such as eating properly and exercising, etc.
The lower the IQ, the stupider humans tend to act. The higher the IQ, the smarter humans tend to behave. These differences are most marked in a modern industrial capitalist urban society, and may not be so relevant in a tribal or village culture with strict behavioral norms.
Studies in prisons confirm that prisoners have lower IQ's than the norm. In particular, they tend to have lower verbal IQ, while their performance IQ may be normal. This performance IQ > verbal IQ pattern is also seen in sociopaths.
These correlations hold across races, at least for Whites, Amerindians, Polynesians, Hispanics and Blacks (I'm not sure about Asians). It's not just a Black thing.
Holding IQ constant, the Black violent crime rate does not differ dramatically from the White rate (Gordon 1987). This is one reason I strongly support efforts to raise Black IQ.
IQ is meaningful. If you meet someone with an 80 IQ, they won't come across as a rocket scientist. If you meet someone with a 140+ IQ (like all of my siblings and my mother), they won't come across as retarded or slow.
If IQ were the fallacious, nonsensical and worthless measure the Cultural Left says it is, we would regularly meet 150 IQ people who were dumb as rocks, and the universities would be crawling with 80 IQ Phi Beta Kappas.
That doesn't happen.
References
- R. A. Gordon 1987. SES versus IQ in the race-IQ-delinquency model. International Journal of Sociology & Social Policy 7:30-96
Organized Vs. Unorganized Violence (Crime Vs. War)
A commenter, Perry, questions whether or not the Japanese of the 1930's or the ancient Vikings had criminogenic genes, given their high rates of wartime plunder. Unstated but assumed, he seems to be ridiculing the notion because both Scandinavians and Japanese now have very low levels of crime and pathology in general.
To this, I say that regarding the Vikings and Japanese, see the difference between organized violence (war, imperial plunder, colonialism, etc.) and unorganized violence (crime, etc.) from Arthur Hu's very un-PC page. This is a post from Steve Sailer's ill-fated Human Biodiversity mailing list, and the post is written by Louis R. Andrews of the Stalking the Wild Taboo website.
Andrews is a racist ass, but he's also very smart, and he makes some good points here. Here the Sierra Club condemns Andrews, on admittedly silly grounds, in a horrible editorial attempting to justify the Club's unjustifiable and totally insane stance refusing to condemn mass or illegal immigration.
Andrews refers to this as legitimate versus illegitimate violence. Cultures can continue to exist and even thrive while waging regular warfare, while mass crime seems to be destructive to the glue of any civilization.
In my opinion, organized violence, even extreme organized violence, can unfold in any society, even very highly civilized ones with little crime or pathology within their own culture. In fact, these societies may be more prone to mass organized violence based on the premise of supremacy (Nazis, Japanese).
Hu's page is a gem on crime and race, and I will deal with it more in depth shortly.
To this, I say that regarding the Vikings and Japanese, see the difference between organized violence (war, imperial plunder, colonialism, etc.) and unorganized violence (crime, etc.) from Arthur Hu's very un-PC page. This is a post from Steve Sailer's ill-fated Human Biodiversity mailing list, and the post is written by Louis R. Andrews of the Stalking the Wild Taboo website.
Andrews is a racist ass, but he's also very smart, and he makes some good points here. Here the Sierra Club condemns Andrews, on admittedly silly grounds, in a horrible editorial attempting to justify the Club's unjustifiable and totally insane stance refusing to condemn mass or illegal immigration.
Andrews refers to this as legitimate versus illegitimate violence. Cultures can continue to exist and even thrive while waging regular warfare, while mass crime seems to be destructive to the glue of any civilization.
In my opinion, organized violence, even extreme organized violence, can unfold in any society, even very highly civilized ones with little crime or pathology within their own culture. In fact, these societies may be more prone to mass organized violence based on the premise of supremacy (Nazis, Japanese).
Hu's page is a gem on crime and race, and I will deal with it more in depth shortly.
Crime Rates For Hispanics, Polynesians and Amerindians
In the comments section, an anonymous commenter notes:
I have already discussed this in some of my other posts. It is true that elevated rates of crime among Asian-derived groups are somewhat mysterious.
However, no one knows what the testosterone levels of any of these groups are, nor do we have much information about personality styles, although Richard Lynn claims that numerous studies show that Amerindians have elevated rates of sociopathy.
However, they all have relatively low IQ's (Hispanics = 92*, Amerindians = 90*, Polynesians = 89*) and in modern industrial capitalism, lower-IQ groups resort to mass crime, probably due to failure to achieve the successes that society tells them they deserve and the resulting extreme frustration.
This failure is probably to a great degree due to lowered IQ levels. Lower IQ groups generally do not do well in modern urban societies.
Hispanics have high crime rates in all of the capitalist nations of the Americas. The more Amerindian blood, the higher the crime. Pure Amerindians also seem to commit a lot of crime in Latin American urban areas. These people evolved in tribal societies and lately in small villages. Modern urban capitalism is just something they can't cope with. They didn't evolve with it, culturally or otherwise.
I doubt of Amerindians are persecuted much at all in most of the US (although there is a lot of anti-Indian racism in North Dakota at least). In this part of the country, AMERICAN (not Mesoamerican) Indians are highly regarded, and many Whites around here want to be Indians (Indian wannabes).
There are lots of California Indians living in these foothills here, and racism against them seems to be about zero, although there would seem to be grounds for some because their levels of pathology are unbelievably high and some of them live in nearly unimaginable filth and squalor, apparently deliberately. Most of their problems is this part of the country are self-inflicted.
Some tribes around here became very wealthy with casino money.
One tribe was giving out $7000/month checks to members, but they didn't seem to act much better. Most of the young ones blew every nickel of the money on dope, alcohol, gambling and whatnot, did not invest in or improve housing stock (you drive by there and see 20-30 Indians of all ages lounging about with chickens running everywhere in a trashed-out front yard).
However, a few of them did save and invest the money. I know one fellow who is a millionaire who invests in many business ventures.
In this part of California, there is no discrimination against Hispanics at all. My city is majority Hispanic. They run the whole place. The only racism in that town is against White people. Hispanics are in charge in large swathes of this state. From my POV, they experience little or no discrimination or racism as a dominant group.
There is little to no discrimination or racism against Samoans or Tongans here either.
I can't speak of Hawaii.
I really don't think that any of these groups qualify as persecuted minorities, at least not in California. Other than lower IQ's, I don't have a good explanation for elevated crime rates though.
American Samoa has very high crime, while Western Samoa next door, with a traditional Polynesian lifestyle, is nearly crime-free. Clearly, Polynesian crime is predicated to a large degree on culture.
I understand that Mexico, especially in smaller villages, did not use to have a lot of crime. This has certainly changed recently.
It is extremely difficult to generalize about Amerindian behaviors. The Amerindian behavioral phenotype, like the Polynesian one, seems to be quite plastic and is capable of expressing itself in many different ways depending on the environment.
It's well-known that there are Amerindian tribes, especially in the Amazon, who are so pacifistic that it's almost comical. I can think of at least one in Venezuela. Curiously, they live near the Yanonamo, long thought to have the highest homicide rate on Earth. I doubt if their genes are much different.
With a relatively plastic behavioral phenotype, Amerindians are possibly highly susceptible to culture. In a pro-violence culture they can become ridiculously violent and criminal. In a culture that promotes pacifism and non-violence, they can become so peaceful that that it is almost a caricature. These are tribal people who evolved culturally to strictly abide by tribal cultural norms.
I suspect Polynesians also may have a plastic behavioral phenotype. The differences in the two Samoas suggest that Polynesian criminal behavior is heavily mediated by culture.
This is discussed in greater depth in the previous post, The Moriori and the Dangers of Pacifism.
Crime is about a Hell of a lot more than testosterone.
Criminology is traditionally a black hole for theory.
*Three points were added to each score due to the recent renorming of US IQ scores.
Hispanics, Amerindians, and Polynesians are all Asians or have Asiatic roots (and thus presumably lower testosterone) and still their crime rate is higher than Whites...this suggests that there is a social element to crime rates as well, probably related to the status of these groups as 'persecuted minorities.'I respond:
I have already discussed this in some of my other posts. It is true that elevated rates of crime among Asian-derived groups are somewhat mysterious.
However, no one knows what the testosterone levels of any of these groups are, nor do we have much information about personality styles, although Richard Lynn claims that numerous studies show that Amerindians have elevated rates of sociopathy.
However, they all have relatively low IQ's (Hispanics = 92*, Amerindians = 90*, Polynesians = 89*) and in modern industrial capitalism, lower-IQ groups resort to mass crime, probably due to failure to achieve the successes that society tells them they deserve and the resulting extreme frustration.
This failure is probably to a great degree due to lowered IQ levels. Lower IQ groups generally do not do well in modern urban societies.
Hispanics have high crime rates in all of the capitalist nations of the Americas. The more Amerindian blood, the higher the crime. Pure Amerindians also seem to commit a lot of crime in Latin American urban areas. These people evolved in tribal societies and lately in small villages. Modern urban capitalism is just something they can't cope with. They didn't evolve with it, culturally or otherwise.
I doubt of Amerindians are persecuted much at all in most of the US (although there is a lot of anti-Indian racism in North Dakota at least). In this part of the country, AMERICAN (not Mesoamerican) Indians are highly regarded, and many Whites around here want to be Indians (Indian wannabes).
There are lots of California Indians living in these foothills here, and racism against them seems to be about zero, although there would seem to be grounds for some because their levels of pathology are unbelievably high and some of them live in nearly unimaginable filth and squalor, apparently deliberately. Most of their problems is this part of the country are self-inflicted.
Some tribes around here became very wealthy with casino money.
One tribe was giving out $7000/month checks to members, but they didn't seem to act much better. Most of the young ones blew every nickel of the money on dope, alcohol, gambling and whatnot, did not invest in or improve housing stock (you drive by there and see 20-30 Indians of all ages lounging about with chickens running everywhere in a trashed-out front yard).
However, a few of them did save and invest the money. I know one fellow who is a millionaire who invests in many business ventures.
In this part of California, there is no discrimination against Hispanics at all. My city is majority Hispanic. They run the whole place. The only racism in that town is against White people. Hispanics are in charge in large swathes of this state. From my POV, they experience little or no discrimination or racism as a dominant group.
There is little to no discrimination or racism against Samoans or Tongans here either.
I can't speak of Hawaii.
I really don't think that any of these groups qualify as persecuted minorities, at least not in California. Other than lower IQ's, I don't have a good explanation for elevated crime rates though.
American Samoa has very high crime, while Western Samoa next door, with a traditional Polynesian lifestyle, is nearly crime-free. Clearly, Polynesian crime is predicated to a large degree on culture.
I understand that Mexico, especially in smaller villages, did not use to have a lot of crime. This has certainly changed recently.
It is extremely difficult to generalize about Amerindian behaviors. The Amerindian behavioral phenotype, like the Polynesian one, seems to be quite plastic and is capable of expressing itself in many different ways depending on the environment.
It's well-known that there are Amerindian tribes, especially in the Amazon, who are so pacifistic that it's almost comical. I can think of at least one in Venezuela. Curiously, they live near the Yanonamo, long thought to have the highest homicide rate on Earth. I doubt if their genes are much different.
With a relatively plastic behavioral phenotype, Amerindians are possibly highly susceptible to culture. In a pro-violence culture they can become ridiculously violent and criminal. In a culture that promotes pacifism and non-violence, they can become so peaceful that that it is almost a caricature. These are tribal people who evolved culturally to strictly abide by tribal cultural norms.
I suspect Polynesians also may have a plastic behavioral phenotype. The differences in the two Samoas suggest that Polynesian criminal behavior is heavily mediated by culture.
This is discussed in greater depth in the previous post, The Moriori and the Dangers of Pacifism.
Crime is about a Hell of a lot more than testosterone.
Criminology is traditionally a black hole for theory.
*Three points were added to each score due to the recent renorming of US IQ scores.
The Moriori and the Dangers of Pacifism
The saga of Moriori is instructive.
The Maori have long been known as ferocious headhunters and cannibals who had one of the cruelest and evillest cultures on Earth. The Moriori seem to be a Maori split dating back to about 1500 or so. They left New Zealand and colonized the Chatham Islands. The Chatham Islands are small, very cold and isolated, and there is not a lot of food other than from the sea.
Moriori legend has it that initially, widespread tribal warfare, headhunting and cannibalism was practiced as the normative cruel Maori culture. On such a small island, this savagery was disastrous, and soon the population plummeted to near extinction. A leader arose among the Moriori, Nunuku-whenua, who preached a new doctrine of extreme pacifism, Nunuku's Law. Nunuku's Law was strictly adhered to 300 years.
Fighting was allowed between males, but it had to be conducted with each armed with a stick the width of a finger. At the first sign of blood, the duel was called off, and the beef was considered settled. Homicide, rape and other crimes were reportedly rare to absent among the Moriori for centuries.
In 1835, the Chatham Islands were invaded by Maori warriors, who promptly proceeded to slaughter, cannibalize and enslave the Moriori. The Morioris gathered for a meeting to decide whether or not to fight the invaders. Many young men argued for fighting back, but the elders decided that Nunuku's Law could not be violated for any reason.
The Moriori ran away and hid and were found and dealt with by the Maori.
Rightwingers have used this episode to exemplify the folly of pacifism.
Morioris were forbidden to marry each other, and Moriori women were forced to marry Maori men. It was a true genocide. From 1835-1862, the population declined from 1,600 to 100. Tommy Solomon, the last pure Moriori, died in 1933.
Tommy Solomon on his yearly visit to Christchurch. He was definitely a big fellow! He married a Maori woman, so his descendants are technically not pure Moriori.
Although popular myth says the Moriori were exterminated by the Maori, several thousand mixed-race Moriori still exist today. The Moriori language is extinct, but efforts are being made to raise it from the dead.
The saga of the Moriori gives the lie to the notion that race is destiny, at least among Polynesians.
It is commonly thought that Polynesians selected for extreme aggression on their long sea voyages to colonize distant islands. Food may have run low on these voyages, and the survivors may have killed others and cannibalized them to survive.
Perhaps the biggest and strongest were the ones most likely to survive the voyages, and this explains the huge size of Polynesians, probably the largest race on Earth, and possibly their high levels aggression and outrageous cruelty.
In modern Westernized societies, Polynesians characteristically become an Underclass with high crime, violence, gang membership and general pathology. In traditional societies, they often do well.
Whatever Polynesian genes look like, the saga of the Moriori shows that they are not doomed to high crime rates or Underclass pathology.
Genetics is the clay, culture is the sculptor.
The Maori have long been known as ferocious headhunters and cannibals who had one of the cruelest and evillest cultures on Earth. The Moriori seem to be a Maori split dating back to about 1500 or so. They left New Zealand and colonized the Chatham Islands. The Chatham Islands are small, very cold and isolated, and there is not a lot of food other than from the sea.
Moriori legend has it that initially, widespread tribal warfare, headhunting and cannibalism was practiced as the normative cruel Maori culture. On such a small island, this savagery was disastrous, and soon the population plummeted to near extinction. A leader arose among the Moriori, Nunuku-whenua, who preached a new doctrine of extreme pacifism, Nunuku's Law. Nunuku's Law was strictly adhered to 300 years.
Fighting was allowed between males, but it had to be conducted with each armed with a stick the width of a finger. At the first sign of blood, the duel was called off, and the beef was considered settled. Homicide, rape and other crimes were reportedly rare to absent among the Moriori for centuries.
In 1835, the Chatham Islands were invaded by Maori warriors, who promptly proceeded to slaughter, cannibalize and enslave the Moriori. The Morioris gathered for a meeting to decide whether or not to fight the invaders. Many young men argued for fighting back, but the elders decided that Nunuku's Law could not be violated for any reason.
The Moriori ran away and hid and were found and dealt with by the Maori.
Rightwingers have used this episode to exemplify the folly of pacifism.
Morioris were forbidden to marry each other, and Moriori women were forced to marry Maori men. It was a true genocide. From 1835-1862, the population declined from 1,600 to 100. Tommy Solomon, the last pure Moriori, died in 1933.
Tommy Solomon on his yearly visit to Christchurch. He was definitely a big fellow! He married a Maori woman, so his descendants are technically not pure Moriori.Although popular myth says the Moriori were exterminated by the Maori, several thousand mixed-race Moriori still exist today. The Moriori language is extinct, but efforts are being made to raise it from the dead.
The saga of the Moriori gives the lie to the notion that race is destiny, at least among Polynesians.
It is commonly thought that Polynesians selected for extreme aggression on their long sea voyages to colonize distant islands. Food may have run low on these voyages, and the survivors may have killed others and cannibalized them to survive.
Perhaps the biggest and strongest were the ones most likely to survive the voyages, and this explains the huge size of Polynesians, probably the largest race on Earth, and possibly their high levels aggression and outrageous cruelty.
In modern Westernized societies, Polynesians characteristically become an Underclass with high crime, violence, gang membership and general pathology. In traditional societies, they often do well.
Whatever Polynesian genes look like, the saga of the Moriori shows that they are not doomed to high crime rates or Underclass pathology.
Genetics is the clay, culture is the sculptor.
Wednesday, November 26, 2008
Dr. Frederick K. Goodwin, Hero
Goodwin, a psychiatrist, was head of something called the Violence Initiative, intended to reduce the insane violence in our, ahem, (Black and Hispanic, but mostly Black) inner cities. He made the following extremely controversial comment, which I heartily endorse:
Goodwin was condemned as racist and a Nazi for saying that. If believing that makes you racist and a Nazi, I guess I'm a racist Nazi then. The best way to answer this abuse from the Cultural Left is to simply agree with them.
First, rephrase the comment that upset them. Ask, for example, "Really, so saying that Black IQ's are 13 points lower than White IQ's is racism?" The idiot will usually say, "Yes, it is." Then calmly nod your head and say, "OK, well, if saying that means I'm a racist, I guess I'm a racist." Say it with complete aplomb, as if one were commenting on the weather.
We really need to take the sting out of some of these abusive words the Cultural Left is throwing at the sane people. Sure there's plenty of racism around, but there's less and less all the time. Most of the time anymore, "racist" is a just a term of abuse leveled against Whites. It's just hate speech against Whites, like calling Blacks niggers.
Goodwin's comment was outrageous, but it does seem to make a lot of sense, does it not?
The only alternative theories for the insane violence in our Black ghettos are bullshit notions like poverty, bad schools, bad neighborhoods, lack of education, lack of hope, lack of jobs, White racism, discrimination, oppression, on and on the bullshit piles.
The only thing bad about our ghettos is the humans who live in them. The neighborhoods, schools, etc. are lousy because the humans in the ghetto have destroyed them. There's no jobs because the horrible behavior and mass crime of the humans in the ghetto has driven all the employers away.
The humans in the ghetto are poorly educated because they don't want to get educated. There's no hope in the ghetto because the humans who destroyed the neighborhoods also have to live in them, and that's pretty hopeless.
About racism, discrimination and oppression, about the only racism, discrimination and oppression in our ghettos is against any non-Black person stupid enough to venture into them. The residents of the ghettos aren't experiencing any real oppression or discrimination at all. Who's oppressing them, beside the criminals they live with?
Who's discriminating against them? Whites? They aren't any White people in the ghetto to discriminate against anyone. Residents of the ghetto probably experience little racism too. They hardly see any Whites, and the only ones they do see are liberal do-gooder types. Blacks in suburbs live much better than ghetto Blacks and surely experience far more racism.
Yet this is what passes for sane discussion of one of the most important issues in our nation - utter nonsense.
Recent efforts to ameliorate the mess in our ghettos have involved tearing down or shuttering public housing and giving ghetto residents vouchers to go live anywhere they want.
As a socialist, I support these efforts. Ghetto residents ought to be able to live anywhere they can afford to, and packing lots of ghetto Blacks together tightly can't possibly be a good idea. Blacks have moved out of the projects and into better neighboring areas.
The results have been mixed at best. The former ghetto residents act somewhat better, but not dramatically so. Crucially, they continue to have serious pathologies. This reinforces my view that the problem in the ghetto was always the humans who live there, not the buildings, the streets, the schools, or whatever.
If you look, for example, at male monkeys, especially in the wild, roughly half of them survive to adulthood. The other half die by violence. That is the natural way it is for males, to knock each other off and in fact, there are some interesting evolutionary implications of that because the same hyperaggressive monkeys who kill each other are also hypersexual, so they copulate more to offset the fact that more of them are dying.Goodwin screwed up by using the monkey - jungle metaphor. That implies that Blacks are monkeys who live in the jungle. There's no place in civilized discussion to call Blacks monkeys. They aren't monkeys. They're human beings. US Blacks have been out of the jungle for 200 years. And around the world, plenty of well-behaved folks live in jungles, so living in a jungle doesn't automatically make you act like an animal.
Now, one could say that if some of the loss of social structure in this society, and particularly within the high impact inner-city areas, has removed some of the civilizing evolutionary things that we have built up and that may be it isn't just the careless use of the word when people call certain areas of certain cities jungles, that we may have gone back to what might be more natural, without all the social controls that we have imposed upon ourselves as a civilization over thousands of years in our evolution.
Goodwin was condemned as racist and a Nazi for saying that. If believing that makes you racist and a Nazi, I guess I'm a racist Nazi then. The best way to answer this abuse from the Cultural Left is to simply agree with them.
First, rephrase the comment that upset them. Ask, for example, "Really, so saying that Black IQ's are 13 points lower than White IQ's is racism?" The idiot will usually say, "Yes, it is." Then calmly nod your head and say, "OK, well, if saying that means I'm a racist, I guess I'm a racist." Say it with complete aplomb, as if one were commenting on the weather.
We really need to take the sting out of some of these abusive words the Cultural Left is throwing at the sane people. Sure there's plenty of racism around, but there's less and less all the time. Most of the time anymore, "racist" is a just a term of abuse leveled against Whites. It's just hate speech against Whites, like calling Blacks niggers.
Goodwin's comment was outrageous, but it does seem to make a lot of sense, does it not?
The only alternative theories for the insane violence in our Black ghettos are bullshit notions like poverty, bad schools, bad neighborhoods, lack of education, lack of hope, lack of jobs, White racism, discrimination, oppression, on and on the bullshit piles.
The only thing bad about our ghettos is the humans who live in them. The neighborhoods, schools, etc. are lousy because the humans in the ghetto have destroyed them. There's no jobs because the horrible behavior and mass crime of the humans in the ghetto has driven all the employers away.
The humans in the ghetto are poorly educated because they don't want to get educated. There's no hope in the ghetto because the humans who destroyed the neighborhoods also have to live in them, and that's pretty hopeless.
About racism, discrimination and oppression, about the only racism, discrimination and oppression in our ghettos is against any non-Black person stupid enough to venture into them. The residents of the ghettos aren't experiencing any real oppression or discrimination at all. Who's oppressing them, beside the criminals they live with?
Who's discriminating against them? Whites? They aren't any White people in the ghetto to discriminate against anyone. Residents of the ghetto probably experience little racism too. They hardly see any Whites, and the only ones they do see are liberal do-gooder types. Blacks in suburbs live much better than ghetto Blacks and surely experience far more racism.
Yet this is what passes for sane discussion of one of the most important issues in our nation - utter nonsense.
Recent efforts to ameliorate the mess in our ghettos have involved tearing down or shuttering public housing and giving ghetto residents vouchers to go live anywhere they want.
As a socialist, I support these efforts. Ghetto residents ought to be able to live anywhere they can afford to, and packing lots of ghetto Blacks together tightly can't possibly be a good idea. Blacks have moved out of the projects and into better neighboring areas.
The results have been mixed at best. The former ghetto residents act somewhat better, but not dramatically so. Crucially, they continue to have serious pathologies. This reinforces my view that the problem in the ghetto was always the humans who live there, not the buildings, the streets, the schools, or whatever.
Tuesday, November 25, 2008
More Race in Latin America
Following on the heels of a couple of posts on the racial composition of Hispanics and Latin America in general, let us look a little further into the issue.
First of all, let us look at the racial breakdown of Puerto Ricans. Genetic studies of Puerto Ricans have shown that they are on average 53.3% White (Spaniard), 29.1% Black, and 17.6% Amerindian, or, to put it another way, those numbers reflect their total genetic base.
So you can see that Puerto Ricans are very much mixed-race people, but on the other hand, they are mostly White, or at least much more White than Black or Amerindian. The predominance of White over Amerindian and/or Black genes is common in Latin America.
Rather than being a continent primarily of Amerindians or Blacks, the story of Latin America is one of mestizaje, the marriage of two great races - the White European and the Amerindian. In many cases, especially around the Caribbean, there are varying degrees of Black too, but they do not tend to predominate.
This sort of Black - Amerindian - White mixed race phenomenon is actually pretty common in and around the Caribbean. This is the predominant phenotype in Venezuela (Hugo Chavez is a good example), Panama and Brazil, and is also common in Cuba and Colombia. It is also common along the Caribbean coasts of Mexico, British Honduras, Honduras, Costa Rica and Nicaragua.
Studies of race in Brazil has produced some interesting results.
For one thing, the concept of "White" in Brazil, and probably in Latin America in general, is not the same as in the US. Latin America is a mixed-race continent. White often means simply lighter-skinned than other folks. The concept of social race is also common, whereby a Black man with money becomes White simply by acquiring cash, education and upper class status.
In Brazil, a majority of the population refers to themselves as White, but as I said, that does not mean the same thing as in the US. Towards the southern end of Brazil, you do have some American-style relatively pure Whites.
A study of self-identified Whites in Rio Grande do Sul did find one group that was almost 100% Caucasian - they were mostly descendants of Italian immigrants. But another group of self-identified Whites had 18% Indian and 8% Black genes, all on the mother's side. Therefore, they were 87% White, 9% Amerindian and 4% Black.
It is common in Latin America for non-White genes to be on the mother's side, reflecting the common practice of European males taking Black or Indian spouses.
Whites in Brazil are not necessarily White in an American sense.
I spent a lot of time at One Drop Rule going over many studies of race in Latin America.
The results are variable and confusing, but one thing became clear. Race is not as clear-cut a category in Latin America as in the US. Latin American Whites typically had more Amerindian or Black blood than US Whites. Even Amerindians were rarely pure, at least in Mexico. However, Amerindians from Oaxaca, Chiapas, Guatemala and the Andes of Peru, Ecuador and Bolivia are probably pure Indian or close to it.
In one study, a Mexican Indian tribe was significantly mixed in with White at ~20% or so. Keep in mind that someone who is 80% Indian will look very Indian. We have a local Indian tribe where I live, and there is one full-blood left out of 800 Indians. Yet many of those who are a little mixed look very Indian.
With a mulatto President, mass immigration from Latin America, and increasing racial intermarriage, the story of the continent - mestizaje, and to a lesser extent, mulattoization, figures to be increasingly America's story too in coming decades. As always, it promises to be interesting.
First of all, let us look at the racial breakdown of Puerto Ricans. Genetic studies of Puerto Ricans have shown that they are on average 53.3% White (Spaniard), 29.1% Black, and 17.6% Amerindian, or, to put it another way, those numbers reflect their total genetic base.
So you can see that Puerto Ricans are very much mixed-race people, but on the other hand, they are mostly White, or at least much more White than Black or Amerindian. The predominance of White over Amerindian and/or Black genes is common in Latin America.
Rather than being a continent primarily of Amerindians or Blacks, the story of Latin America is one of mestizaje, the marriage of two great races - the White European and the Amerindian. In many cases, especially around the Caribbean, there are varying degrees of Black too, but they do not tend to predominate.
This sort of Black - Amerindian - White mixed race phenomenon is actually pretty common in and around the Caribbean. This is the predominant phenotype in Venezuela (Hugo Chavez is a good example), Panama and Brazil, and is also common in Cuba and Colombia. It is also common along the Caribbean coasts of Mexico, British Honduras, Honduras, Costa Rica and Nicaragua.
Studies of race in Brazil has produced some interesting results.
For one thing, the concept of "White" in Brazil, and probably in Latin America in general, is not the same as in the US. Latin America is a mixed-race continent. White often means simply lighter-skinned than other folks. The concept of social race is also common, whereby a Black man with money becomes White simply by acquiring cash, education and upper class status.
In Brazil, a majority of the population refers to themselves as White, but as I said, that does not mean the same thing as in the US. Towards the southern end of Brazil, you do have some American-style relatively pure Whites.
A study of self-identified Whites in Rio Grande do Sul did find one group that was almost 100% Caucasian - they were mostly descendants of Italian immigrants. But another group of self-identified Whites had 18% Indian and 8% Black genes, all on the mother's side. Therefore, they were 87% White, 9% Amerindian and 4% Black.
It is common in Latin America for non-White genes to be on the mother's side, reflecting the common practice of European males taking Black or Indian spouses.
Whites in Brazil are not necessarily White in an American sense.
I spent a lot of time at One Drop Rule going over many studies of race in Latin America.
The results are variable and confusing, but one thing became clear. Race is not as clear-cut a category in Latin America as in the US. Latin American Whites typically had more Amerindian or Black blood than US Whites. Even Amerindians were rarely pure, at least in Mexico. However, Amerindians from Oaxaca, Chiapas, Guatemala and the Andes of Peru, Ecuador and Bolivia are probably pure Indian or close to it.
In one study, a Mexican Indian tribe was significantly mixed in with White at ~20% or so. Keep in mind that someone who is 80% Indian will look very Indian. We have a local Indian tribe where I live, and there is one full-blood left out of 800 Indians. Yet many of those who are a little mixed look very Indian.
With a mulatto President, mass immigration from Latin America, and increasing racial intermarriage, the story of the continent - mestizaje, and to a lesser extent, mulattoization, figures to be increasingly America's story too in coming decades. As always, it promises to be interesting.
References
- Marrero, AR, Das Neves Leite, FOP, De Almeida Carvalho, B, Peres, LM, Kommers, TC, Da Cruz, IM, Salzano, FM, Ruiz-Linares, A, Da Silva Júnior, WA, Bortolini, MC. 2005. Heterogeneity of the Genome Ancestry of Individuals Classified As White in the State Of Rio Grande Do Sul, Brazil. Am J Hum Biol. Jul-Aug 17(4):496-506.
More on the Biology of Crime
This subject is absolutely deadly for progressives because there is a fear that an examination into the biology of crime will tend to focus on race. As is, in the US, Blacks, Hispanics, Amerindians and Polynesians have crime rates, 8, 3, 2 and 2 times higher than Whites, respectively. Asians have crime rates 5 times lower than Whites.
Leaving aside race for a moment, it is reasonable to pry into the extra-racial aspects of crime. For the moment, let us look at testosterone and MAO-A levels.
MAO-A inhibits the production of catecholamines, in particular serotonin. Persons low in MAO-A tend to be low in serotonin.
Persons low in serotonin have elevated rates of impulsive violent behavior, including homicidal and suicidal attempts and successes. These studies have been done on successful suicides and impulsively violent criminals behind bars. Serotonin is an inhibitory chemical. It follows that low levels of an inhibitory chemical would make a person less inhibited in some ways.
A UK study on abused children found that those who had good MAO-A levels did not develop antisocial behavioral problems. Those who had low MAO-A levels did become antisocial. In this way, chemical levels in the brain interacted with negative environmental effects to either promote or inhibit antisocial behavior. It's clear that abuse alone is not enough to cause antisocial behavior de novo.
In Aggression: The Testosterone-Serotonin Link , Berger et al attempted to synthesize studies showing links between low serotonin and high testosterone to better explain the enigma of criminal behavior. With regard to testosterone, they noted that results indicated a positive correlation in boys between testosterone levels and serious aggression in social situations, but no correlation with playful aggression.
This is interesting. Boys with normative testosterone can be quite aggressive in play, but they are able to turn it off and keep from going over the edge into actual serious aggression. High-testosterone boys were aggressive in both play and in serious aggression.
A study of 4,462 men revealed that the overall picture among the high-testosterone men is one of delinquency, substance abuse and a tendency toward excess aggressive behavior. This is the classic picture of the teenage delinquent, gang member, etc.
These men have more trouble with people like teachers while they are growing up, have more sexual partners, are more likely to show disciplinary problems during their military service and to have used "hard'' drugs, particularly if they had a poor education and low incomes.
As we can see, poor educational outcome and low income serve as additive effects for high-testosterone men who display antisocial or sociopathic tendencies.
Measurements of testosterone saliva levels in 692 adult male prisoners showed that inmates who committed violent or sexual crimes had higher testosterone levels than inmates who were incarcerated for property crimes or drug abuse. Therefore, theft and drug abuse is not necessarily related to high testosterone. Anyone can be a thief or a doper, but not anyone can be a rapist or commit violent assaults.
This study also showed that inmates with higher testosterone levels violated more prison rules, especially those involving overt confrontation.
When salivary testosterone levels of young adult delinquents were compared with levels of a group of college students, matched for age, gender and race, the delinquent subjects had higher testosterone levels than the student controls, a finding that was true for both male and female subjects. It is interesting that even female young adult delinquents tend to have higher testosterone levels.
It can thus be concluded that high testosterone levels play a role in some criminal behavior.
In a previous post, I suggested that interventions to lower testosterone may be one avenue with which to attack testosterone-driven crime and antisocial behaviors.
These interventions would involve Black females taking a drug to lower the testosterone of their fetus 20%. Or giving the same drug to their young sons with the same effect. Or, offering it to young Black males who display repeated antisocial behavior, have gotten into serious trouble due to this behavior, want to change, but can't seem to. All of these interventions would have to be strictly voluntary.
Commenters have noted with horror the possibility of messing with the sex drives of Black males, but a 20% reduction would lower Black testosterone down only to the White male level. White males seem to be awfully horny last time I checked.
Now for the racial angle. Yes, Blacks do have higher testosterone than Whites. And Asians have the lowest levels of all. Precisely as we might expect from the crime findings.
Hmmm.
Leaving aside race for a moment, it is reasonable to pry into the extra-racial aspects of crime. For the moment, let us look at testosterone and MAO-A levels.
MAO-A inhibits the production of catecholamines, in particular serotonin. Persons low in MAO-A tend to be low in serotonin.
Persons low in serotonin have elevated rates of impulsive violent behavior, including homicidal and suicidal attempts and successes. These studies have been done on successful suicides and impulsively violent criminals behind bars. Serotonin is an inhibitory chemical. It follows that low levels of an inhibitory chemical would make a person less inhibited in some ways.
A UK study on abused children found that those who had good MAO-A levels did not develop antisocial behavioral problems. Those who had low MAO-A levels did become antisocial. In this way, chemical levels in the brain interacted with negative environmental effects to either promote or inhibit antisocial behavior. It's clear that abuse alone is not enough to cause antisocial behavior de novo.
In Aggression: The Testosterone-Serotonin Link , Berger et al attempted to synthesize studies showing links between low serotonin and high testosterone to better explain the enigma of criminal behavior. With regard to testosterone, they noted that results indicated a positive correlation in boys between testosterone levels and serious aggression in social situations, but no correlation with playful aggression.
This is interesting. Boys with normative testosterone can be quite aggressive in play, but they are able to turn it off and keep from going over the edge into actual serious aggression. High-testosterone boys were aggressive in both play and in serious aggression.
A study of 4,462 men revealed that the overall picture among the high-testosterone men is one of delinquency, substance abuse and a tendency toward excess aggressive behavior. This is the classic picture of the teenage delinquent, gang member, etc.
These men have more trouble with people like teachers while they are growing up, have more sexual partners, are more likely to show disciplinary problems during their military service and to have used "hard'' drugs, particularly if they had a poor education and low incomes.
As we can see, poor educational outcome and low income serve as additive effects for high-testosterone men who display antisocial or sociopathic tendencies.
Measurements of testosterone saliva levels in 692 adult male prisoners showed that inmates who committed violent or sexual crimes had higher testosterone levels than inmates who were incarcerated for property crimes or drug abuse. Therefore, theft and drug abuse is not necessarily related to high testosterone. Anyone can be a thief or a doper, but not anyone can be a rapist or commit violent assaults.
This study also showed that inmates with higher testosterone levels violated more prison rules, especially those involving overt confrontation.
When salivary testosterone levels of young adult delinquents were compared with levels of a group of college students, matched for age, gender and race, the delinquent subjects had higher testosterone levels than the student controls, a finding that was true for both male and female subjects. It is interesting that even female young adult delinquents tend to have higher testosterone levels.
It can thus be concluded that high testosterone levels play a role in some criminal behavior.
In a previous post, I suggested that interventions to lower testosterone may be one avenue with which to attack testosterone-driven crime and antisocial behaviors.
These interventions would involve Black females taking a drug to lower the testosterone of their fetus 20%. Or giving the same drug to their young sons with the same effect. Or, offering it to young Black males who display repeated antisocial behavior, have gotten into serious trouble due to this behavior, want to change, but can't seem to. All of these interventions would have to be strictly voluntary.
Commenters have noted with horror the possibility of messing with the sex drives of Black males, but a 20% reduction would lower Black testosterone down only to the White male level. White males seem to be awfully horny last time I checked.
Now for the racial angle. Yes, Blacks do have higher testosterone than Whites. And Asians have the lowest levels of all. Precisely as we might expect from the crime findings.
Hmmm.
References
- Birger M, Swartz M, Cohen D, Alesh Y, Grishpan C, Kotelr M. 2003. Aggression: the Testosterone-Serotonin Link. Israel Med Assoc J 5: 653-658.
Funny Motivational Posters
The problem with the PC Left is they have no sense of humor. Most humor is sexist, racist or just plain cruel in some way or another. PC humor is pretty much an oxymoron. In the spirit of offending everyone without getting this blog a content warning, check out some great motivating posters. There's something here to offend just about everyone.
From the Pirate 4X4 ORV Forum, a lot of Photoshop work in the spirit of motivational posters. You will need to click each pic to enlarge it and see it better.
My favorites so far are the Boobs and Seal posters. Runners up - MySpace, 58 Drunk and Horny, Sometimes, Rope and Bathroom Mirror.
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From the Pirate 4X4 ORV Forum, a lot of Photoshop work in the spirit of motivational posters. You will need to click each pic to enlarge it and see it better.
My favorites so far are the Boobs and Seal posters. Runners up - MySpace, 58 Drunk and Horny, Sometimes, Rope and Bathroom Mirror.
Click to enlarge.
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Click to enlarge.Venezuelan Garbage From the New York Times
I admit to being mystified by this New York Times article about the latest elections in Venezuela. All of the articles I have read so far said that the elections were a win for Chavez.
Bizarrely, this weird NY Times piece seeks to cast the elections as a crushing blow to Chavez. I haven't the faintest idea how they are justifying that, other than sheer blatant propaganda. They are seeking to turn what was a smashing victory for Chavez into a humiliating defeat.
Chavez' forces won in 17 out of 22 states in Venezuela. That means they won 72% of states. Somehow, a crushing 72% victory is being spun as a disastrous defeat. The article states that this defeat is the second for Chavez in less than a year. The previous defeat was for an overly ambitious attempt to rewrite the Constitution that was nevertheless only narrowly defeated by less than 1% of the vote.
How was this a loss for Chavez? Because Chavez only won 17 out of 22 states, and not 22 out of 22 states, that means it was a devastating blow for Chavez. Propaganda or what?
Truth is that Chavez' party, PSUV, won about 60% of the vote and the opposition won about 40%. That is about the way it has been going for some time now. Furthermore, the PSUV gained 1 million votes over their last election and the opposition lost 300,000 votes.
It is true that the opposition now controls 6 states, as opposed to 2 states before. The real reason for that is that the idiots finally started contesting some elections. They only won 2 states last time because the morons decided to boycott the elections.
This time around, the opposition won Zulia (long the opposition stronghold), Miranda (a wealthy state) and Neuva Esparta (the wealthy tourist island of Margarita). They also won the mayor's office in Caracas. However, this was more of a parochial campaign about Caracas issues and not a referendum on Chavez. The voters seemed to feel that the opposition candidate would do more to fight crime.
The PSUV candidate in Miranda was a very weak compromiser, and not a real revolutionary supporter of Chavez. There are plenty like that in the party, and it's high time they took off. I'm happy to see him go. The opposition also won Carabobo, an industrial state and Tachira, on the Colombian border. Much has been made of the fact that the opposition now controls Caracas and "won the cities", but the truth is that 81% of the mayoral races were won by the PSUV.
Furthermore, winning opposition candidates used such socialist rhetoric in their victory speeches that one wonders why they don't just join the PSUV. The fact that rightwing rhetoric is so unacceptable in Venezuela nowadays that even the rightwing opposition must at least campaign as socialists is itself a victory for the Chavistas.
This already is being spun as civilized and modern (urban) people versus backwards and I guess uncivilized (rural) folks. The PSUV tended to win rural areas, while the opposition made some gains in the urban areas, in contrast to the situation in the US.
Truth is the election was pretty much of a wash for both sides.
Chavez' opponents won in Zulia state, long a stronghold of the opposition, where opposition-linked death squads have killed scores of peasants throughout Chavez' reign.
The article is full of negatives.
Venezuela has inflation of 30%. Indeed, this is due to an overheating economy with the highest growth rate in Latin America. Sure there's inflation. What do you expect?
However, unlike previous governments, Chavez' government has tried to soften the blow by providing low-priced foods for the poor. Further, part of the inflation is being caused by asshole producers, such as milk and egg producers, who are deliberately withholding their products from the market to create artificial shortages and drive up prices.
The NY Times direly warns that Venezuela may soon fall on hard times due to crashing oil prices. Yes, and this is true in all oil states.
The article points out that there is a serious crime problem, especially with violent crime. Caracas has a violent crime rate four times that of Bogota, Colombia. This figure is a bit of a lie. Colombia has a far worse crime rate. By dishonestly focusing on capital cities, the Lie York Times hopes to fool readers into thinking that crime is worse in Venezuela than in Colombia.
Crime, even violent crime, like corruption, is a very long-standing problem in Venezuela. There was horrible crime before Chavez, there is horrible crime under Chavez, and it will doubtless continue after Chavez leaves. The opposition has not offered the slightest evidence that Chavez has somehow caused crime or violent crime.
One of their arguments is that by helping the poor and railing against the corrupt oligarchy, Chavez has helped fuel class war. Played out on the streets, this means poor people robbing rich people in a form of revolutionary direct action masquerading as crime. The problem with that is that there is no truth to it. Most of the crime is in the poor areas. It's poor preying on poor, like all over the damned world.
Chavez has dramatically improved the lives of the poor majority in Venezuela (80% of the population was poor when he took office). One would think that would reduce crime, but Venezuela's poor still do not live well. There is only so much one can do. What exactly is Chavez supposed to do to reduce crime. What exactly is the opposition going to do to reduce crime?
Chavez supporters control the executive, legislative and judicial branches of the government. Pretty good for a defeated party reeling from crushing blows.
An former official with the PDVSA, the state petroleum company, is quoted making statements against Chavez. The PDVSA is the favorite of the US media (Amazing how US elites suddenly fall in love with state-owned businesses sometimes.)
In truth, their union, beloved by the US ruling classes (Don't you love it how the ruling classes can suddenly become "pro-union" sometimes?) was nothing but an organization of crooked middle-class office workers.
The PDVSA was an incredibly corrupt company. Much of the money produced by the oil company was simply siphoned off by the corrupt PDVSA. The workers in the union were the criminals who were involved in this theft of the patrimony of the Venezuelan people. These were no downtrodden proletarians.
The article also focuses on some of the admittedly heated rhetoric in the election. What's not said is that the opposition routinely uses rhetoric that is just as bad as Chavez' supporters do. It's more a reflection of a profoundly polarized political environment in a country full of Latin hotheads.
It is true that the opposition won in some of Caracas' slums. This is most unfortunate. Chavez has dramatically increased people's expectations. For decades, the corrupt ruling parties had never done the slightest damned thing to help the people, so people lost hope. Now Chavez has stirred people's hopes and lit a light in their hearts. If you can't deliver on the voracious demands that flicker stirs, that can be a dangerous thing.
More along the same lines from the New Lies Times again here, by the same liar, Simon Romero.
Much more sensible analysis here, here and here.
Bizarrely, this weird NY Times piece seeks to cast the elections as a crushing blow to Chavez. I haven't the faintest idea how they are justifying that, other than sheer blatant propaganda. They are seeking to turn what was a smashing victory for Chavez into a humiliating defeat.
Chavez' forces won in 17 out of 22 states in Venezuela. That means they won 72% of states. Somehow, a crushing 72% victory is being spun as a disastrous defeat. The article states that this defeat is the second for Chavez in less than a year. The previous defeat was for an overly ambitious attempt to rewrite the Constitution that was nevertheless only narrowly defeated by less than 1% of the vote.
How was this a loss for Chavez? Because Chavez only won 17 out of 22 states, and not 22 out of 22 states, that means it was a devastating blow for Chavez. Propaganda or what?
Truth is that Chavez' party, PSUV, won about 60% of the vote and the opposition won about 40%. That is about the way it has been going for some time now. Furthermore, the PSUV gained 1 million votes over their last election and the opposition lost 300,000 votes.
It is true that the opposition now controls 6 states, as opposed to 2 states before. The real reason for that is that the idiots finally started contesting some elections. They only won 2 states last time because the morons decided to boycott the elections.
This time around, the opposition won Zulia (long the opposition stronghold), Miranda (a wealthy state) and Neuva Esparta (the wealthy tourist island of Margarita). They also won the mayor's office in Caracas. However, this was more of a parochial campaign about Caracas issues and not a referendum on Chavez. The voters seemed to feel that the opposition candidate would do more to fight crime.
The PSUV candidate in Miranda was a very weak compromiser, and not a real revolutionary supporter of Chavez. There are plenty like that in the party, and it's high time they took off. I'm happy to see him go. The opposition also won Carabobo, an industrial state and Tachira, on the Colombian border. Much has been made of the fact that the opposition now controls Caracas and "won the cities", but the truth is that 81% of the mayoral races were won by the PSUV.
Furthermore, winning opposition candidates used such socialist rhetoric in their victory speeches that one wonders why they don't just join the PSUV. The fact that rightwing rhetoric is so unacceptable in Venezuela nowadays that even the rightwing opposition must at least campaign as socialists is itself a victory for the Chavistas.
This already is being spun as civilized and modern (urban) people versus backwards and I guess uncivilized (rural) folks. The PSUV tended to win rural areas, while the opposition made some gains in the urban areas, in contrast to the situation in the US.
Truth is the election was pretty much of a wash for both sides.
Chavez' opponents won in Zulia state, long a stronghold of the opposition, where opposition-linked death squads have killed scores of peasants throughout Chavez' reign.
The article is full of negatives.
Venezuela has inflation of 30%. Indeed, this is due to an overheating economy with the highest growth rate in Latin America. Sure there's inflation. What do you expect?
However, unlike previous governments, Chavez' government has tried to soften the blow by providing low-priced foods for the poor. Further, part of the inflation is being caused by asshole producers, such as milk and egg producers, who are deliberately withholding their products from the market to create artificial shortages and drive up prices.
The NY Times direly warns that Venezuela may soon fall on hard times due to crashing oil prices. Yes, and this is true in all oil states.
The article points out that there is a serious crime problem, especially with violent crime. Caracas has a violent crime rate four times that of Bogota, Colombia. This figure is a bit of a lie. Colombia has a far worse crime rate. By dishonestly focusing on capital cities, the Lie York Times hopes to fool readers into thinking that crime is worse in Venezuela than in Colombia.
Crime, even violent crime, like corruption, is a very long-standing problem in Venezuela. There was horrible crime before Chavez, there is horrible crime under Chavez, and it will doubtless continue after Chavez leaves. The opposition has not offered the slightest evidence that Chavez has somehow caused crime or violent crime.
One of their arguments is that by helping the poor and railing against the corrupt oligarchy, Chavez has helped fuel class war. Played out on the streets, this means poor people robbing rich people in a form of revolutionary direct action masquerading as crime. The problem with that is that there is no truth to it. Most of the crime is in the poor areas. It's poor preying on poor, like all over the damned world.
Chavez has dramatically improved the lives of the poor majority in Venezuela (80% of the population was poor when he took office). One would think that would reduce crime, but Venezuela's poor still do not live well. There is only so much one can do. What exactly is Chavez supposed to do to reduce crime. What exactly is the opposition going to do to reduce crime?
Chavez supporters control the executive, legislative and judicial branches of the government. Pretty good for a defeated party reeling from crushing blows.
An former official with the PDVSA, the state petroleum company, is quoted making statements against Chavez. The PDVSA is the favorite of the US media (Amazing how US elites suddenly fall in love with state-owned businesses sometimes.)
In truth, their union, beloved by the US ruling classes (Don't you love it how the ruling classes can suddenly become "pro-union" sometimes?) was nothing but an organization of crooked middle-class office workers.
The PDVSA was an incredibly corrupt company. Much of the money produced by the oil company was simply siphoned off by the corrupt PDVSA. The workers in the union were the criminals who were involved in this theft of the patrimony of the Venezuelan people. These were no downtrodden proletarians.
The article also focuses on some of the admittedly heated rhetoric in the election. What's not said is that the opposition routinely uses rhetoric that is just as bad as Chavez' supporters do. It's more a reflection of a profoundly polarized political environment in a country full of Latin hotheads.
It is true that the opposition won in some of Caracas' slums. This is most unfortunate. Chavez has dramatically increased people's expectations. For decades, the corrupt ruling parties had never done the slightest damned thing to help the people, so people lost hope. Now Chavez has stirred people's hopes and lit a light in their hearts. If you can't deliver on the voracious demands that flicker stirs, that can be a dangerous thing.
More along the same lines from the New Lies Times again here, by the same liar, Simon Romero.
Much more sensible analysis here, here and here.
Monday, November 24, 2008
Legal Question
Given the situation above, I have some questions.
1. Has a crime occurred?
2. If so, is it a statutory offense?
3. If so, is statutory rape?
4. If so, it is a moosedemeanor?
The Flynn Effect and "g"
The Flynn Effect (FE) is a secular rise in IQ over time that has been occurring throughout the West for 80 years now. All ages and ethnic groups are effected. Preliminary evidence indicates that it is also occurring in the Caribbean (Dominica), South America (Brazil) and Africa (Kenya).
An overview of the FE itself goes beyond the scope of this post, but if you click on the Flynn Effect category at the end of the post, you can read up on what I have written about it.
The FE is quite complex, and many people do not seem to understand the concept properly, hence are not able to discuss it, much less debate it. However, most people of reasonable intelligence, if interested, seem to be able to grasp the basic implications of the FE.
Hereditarians, most of whom are White racists, are very upset by the FE (Talk about being opposed to human progress!) because they have a strong emotional investment in White intellectual superiority and the intellectual inferiority of Blacks, Hispanics and other groups. We know that the major hereditarian researchers on intelligence are racists because almost all of them support getting rid of all anti-discrimination laws.
The agenda is clear for both lab coat racists and White nationalists: if we can prove that Blacks, Hispanics and others are intellectually inferior to Whites, we can legalize discrimination, especially job discrimination, against them.
A particularly frightening lab coat racist endeavor is attempting to prove that Blacks are inferior employees to Whites on average. If they prove this scientifically, then they will have a logical reason to support discriminating against Blacks in employment.
Almost all of these folks are White, and most of them call themselves race realists. They spend a good deal of time screaming and yelling about why Blacks and Browns will not accept that they are intellectually inferior (Steve Sailer specializes in this). Why would anyone want to accept, or accept, such a thing?
Furthermore, given the nefarious agenda behind those promoting these theories that seeks to legalize discrimination against Blacks and Browns, any Black or Hispanic person who gets behind this would have to be out of their minds.
I have ritually added "Hispanic" after Black above, but in general, Hispanics are being left out of this debate. The real effort here is directed by racist Whites against Blacks, not Hispanics. It is against Blacks that these Whites seek to legalize the right to discriminate.
The Flynn Effect has been hard to argue against, but the hereditarians have tried hard. They have shown that the FE is not on g. G is a hypothesized common correlational factor that supposedly measures pure intelligence. Everything outside of g is "not real intelligence".
However, according to one paper, the very concept of g is tendentious to say the least, and possibly nonsensical. The paper is titled G, A Statistical Myth, by an admittedly brilliant mathematician named Cosma Shalizi. I read through the whole thing but I couldn't really make sense of it. Perhaps someone who knows math better than I do can have a go at it.
A schematic of the g, or general intelligence, factor. The ovals represent subtests on an intelligence test. G represents the totality of the areas where the purple subtests shade into the pink circle, and the degree to which they correlate (line up) with each other.
G is a correlation coefficient of various tests. It measures the tendency of superior test takers (and someone who has a brain that works a bit better), if they do well on one test, do also do well on all other tests. The FE is generally not on g because some tests have risen dramatically, others moderately, and still others little or not at all.
Therefore, intelligence has not risen in a general, across-the-board kind of way. However, certain aspects of intelligence have definitely risen, and those aspects have quantifiable benefits in modern society, occupationally, academically and in other ways.
The argument of whether or not the FE gains are on g or not is very complex, about as complex as the FE itself. First of all, the FE gains have not been across the board. In general, they have focused on verbal analysis, visual analysis, verbal intelligence, and problem-solving. Gains have been few to none in basic things like general knowledge, mathematics, mathematical analysis, spelling and reading comprehension.
G is a hypothesized and problematical construct that is a correlational factor all of the subtests on an intelligence test. It is thought to be highly heritable and physiologically based, and this is why the hereditarians have gone nuts over it.
It measures how someone with a somewhat more neurologically efficient brain will tend to score better across an entire range of subtests than someone who with a less efficient brain.
The reason the FE is not on g is because it is limited to a subset of intelligence subtests, and gains have been small to none across another subset. Therefore, there is no g gain.
However, Raven's Progressive Matrices has shown larger gains than any other test. Raven's was designed to measure pure g and nothing else. Raven's scores are not thought to be effected by environmental factors outside of pregnancy and the first few months of life, and are thought to be purely neurologically, physiologically or genetically based.
Given the pure g basis for Raven's, the wild secular gains on it on the FE are most puzzling.
However, recently James Flynn has shown that the FE does show a .5 correlation on a factor analyzing fluid g.
There is fluid g and crystallized g.
Fluid g is thought to peak early in life. This is why things that require raw brain processing power tend to peak in young people. Creative persons - artists, musicians, poets, novelists, filmmakers, mathematicians, physicists - often do their best work as young people (usually as young men). Fluid g is really a measure of how well, fast or efficient your brain works.
Crystallized g is another matter altogether. Crystallized g may be seen as "what you know" as opposed to "how fast of a brain you have." While fluid g peaks early, crystallized g often goes up throughout life, and people can still score high on crystallized g in their 50's, 60's, 70's and even 80's.
This is what we might call "accumulated knowledge" or "wisdom." The old person's brain does not work as fast, but the accumulated knowledge makes up for that in that they can see connections between things easier.
The young person's brain works very fast, but with the lack of accumulated knowledge and life experience they are not able to put things together as well to arrive at the correct conclusion. This is why no society has ever put the 18-23 year old's in power, no matter how zippy their brains are.
Instead, the old men have always been put in power. The accumulation of a life of learning is thought to lead to a wisdom that will manifest itself as the ability to make "wise," correct and proper decisions.
The concepts of crystallized and fluid g are complicated, but hopefully that explanation helped you understand it.
The FE is on fluid g, not crystallized g. Visual intelligence and analysis, problem solving, verbal analysis and analytical thinking in general, on intelligence tests, is in the realm of fluid g. Those are those little puzzles that ask you to decide which figure goes next in the series.
On intelligence tests, crystallized g measures accumulated knowledge and the degree to which one has learned basic tasks of modern life. The gains on mathematics, math analysis, reading comprehension, vocabulary and general knowledge are small to nil, and all of these tests measure crystallized g. To sum, these are the sorts of things you learn in school.
This is why, despite skyrocketing IQ's, we cannot read a book, add and subtract, or calculus any faster than our grandparents. We also do not know any more than they did, and we know no more words than they did.
This is obvious in the many reports on "idiocratic" state of high school seniors, college students or college grads. And this is how a puzzle is solved - how IQ's are surely rising at the same time as idiocracy is.
From Flynn's chapter summary:
But Flynn shows here that the FE (a purely environmental gain) also correlates with inbreeding depression, a purely hereditarian score. Flynn uses this to say that the B-W IQ gap is not necessarily genetic.
Flynn notes above that the FE cannot possibly be caused by brains that actually work better physiologically than the brains of our grandparents. Genetics doesn't work that fast.
Therefore, what does the FE measure? Flynn says it measures "intelligent behavior". So our brains don't work any better than our grandparents' brains, but we show improved "intelligent behavior" over them.
Therefore, another mystery is solved, how massive IQ gains can occur without concomitant improvement in the physiology of our brains.
Since hereditarians use g as a measure of physiological efficiency of our brains, Flynn calls this into question by noting that g gains can occur too fast to be accommodated for by physiologically improved brains. Therefore, Flynn suggests chucking g as a measure of pure brain physiological efficiency.
Therefore, the White nationalist and hereditarian argument that the FE is not on g has been proven wrong.
An overview of the FE itself goes beyond the scope of this post, but if you click on the Flynn Effect category at the end of the post, you can read up on what I have written about it.
The FE is quite complex, and many people do not seem to understand the concept properly, hence are not able to discuss it, much less debate it. However, most people of reasonable intelligence, if interested, seem to be able to grasp the basic implications of the FE.
Hereditarians, most of whom are White racists, are very upset by the FE (Talk about being opposed to human progress!) because they have a strong emotional investment in White intellectual superiority and the intellectual inferiority of Blacks, Hispanics and other groups. We know that the major hereditarian researchers on intelligence are racists because almost all of them support getting rid of all anti-discrimination laws.
The agenda is clear for both lab coat racists and White nationalists: if we can prove that Blacks, Hispanics and others are intellectually inferior to Whites, we can legalize discrimination, especially job discrimination, against them.
A particularly frightening lab coat racist endeavor is attempting to prove that Blacks are inferior employees to Whites on average. If they prove this scientifically, then they will have a logical reason to support discriminating against Blacks in employment.
Almost all of these folks are White, and most of them call themselves race realists. They spend a good deal of time screaming and yelling about why Blacks and Browns will not accept that they are intellectually inferior (Steve Sailer specializes in this). Why would anyone want to accept, or accept, such a thing?
Furthermore, given the nefarious agenda behind those promoting these theories that seeks to legalize discrimination against Blacks and Browns, any Black or Hispanic person who gets behind this would have to be out of their minds.
I have ritually added "Hispanic" after Black above, but in general, Hispanics are being left out of this debate. The real effort here is directed by racist Whites against Blacks, not Hispanics. It is against Blacks that these Whites seek to legalize the right to discriminate.
The Flynn Effect has been hard to argue against, but the hereditarians have tried hard. They have shown that the FE is not on g. G is a hypothesized common correlational factor that supposedly measures pure intelligence. Everything outside of g is "not real intelligence".
However, according to one paper, the very concept of g is tendentious to say the least, and possibly nonsensical. The paper is titled G, A Statistical Myth, by an admittedly brilliant mathematician named Cosma Shalizi. I read through the whole thing but I couldn't really make sense of it. Perhaps someone who knows math better than I do can have a go at it.
A schematic of the g, or general intelligence, factor. The ovals represent subtests on an intelligence test. G represents the totality of the areas where the purple subtests shade into the pink circle, and the degree to which they correlate (line up) with each other.G is a correlation coefficient of various tests. It measures the tendency of superior test takers (and someone who has a brain that works a bit better), if they do well on one test, do also do well on all other tests. The FE is generally not on g because some tests have risen dramatically, others moderately, and still others little or not at all.
Therefore, intelligence has not risen in a general, across-the-board kind of way. However, certain aspects of intelligence have definitely risen, and those aspects have quantifiable benefits in modern society, occupationally, academically and in other ways.
The argument of whether or not the FE gains are on g or not is very complex, about as complex as the FE itself. First of all, the FE gains have not been across the board. In general, they have focused on verbal analysis, visual analysis, verbal intelligence, and problem-solving. Gains have been few to none in basic things like general knowledge, mathematics, mathematical analysis, spelling and reading comprehension.
G is a hypothesized and problematical construct that is a correlational factor all of the subtests on an intelligence test. It is thought to be highly heritable and physiologically based, and this is why the hereditarians have gone nuts over it.
It measures how someone with a somewhat more neurologically efficient brain will tend to score better across an entire range of subtests than someone who with a less efficient brain.
The reason the FE is not on g is because it is limited to a subset of intelligence subtests, and gains have been small to none across another subset. Therefore, there is no g gain.
However, Raven's Progressive Matrices has shown larger gains than any other test. Raven's was designed to measure pure g and nothing else. Raven's scores are not thought to be effected by environmental factors outside of pregnancy and the first few months of life, and are thought to be purely neurologically, physiologically or genetically based.
Given the pure g basis for Raven's, the wild secular gains on it on the FE are most puzzling.
However, recently James Flynn has shown that the FE does show a .5 correlation on a factor analyzing fluid g.
There is fluid g and crystallized g.
Fluid g is thought to peak early in life. This is why things that require raw brain processing power tend to peak in young people. Creative persons - artists, musicians, poets, novelists, filmmakers, mathematicians, physicists - often do their best work as young people (usually as young men). Fluid g is really a measure of how well, fast or efficient your brain works.
Crystallized g is another matter altogether. Crystallized g may be seen as "what you know" as opposed to "how fast of a brain you have." While fluid g peaks early, crystallized g often goes up throughout life, and people can still score high on crystallized g in their 50's, 60's, 70's and even 80's.
This is what we might call "accumulated knowledge" or "wisdom." The old person's brain does not work as fast, but the accumulated knowledge makes up for that in that they can see connections between things easier.
The young person's brain works very fast, but with the lack of accumulated knowledge and life experience they are not able to put things together as well to arrive at the correct conclusion. This is why no society has ever put the 18-23 year old's in power, no matter how zippy their brains are.
Instead, the old men have always been put in power. The accumulation of a life of learning is thought to lead to a wisdom that will manifest itself as the ability to make "wise," correct and proper decisions.
The concepts of crystallized and fluid g are complicated, but hopefully that explanation helped you understand it.
The FE is on fluid g, not crystallized g. Visual intelligence and analysis, problem solving, verbal analysis and analytical thinking in general, on intelligence tests, is in the realm of fluid g. Those are those little puzzles that ask you to decide which figure goes next in the series.
On intelligence tests, crystallized g measures accumulated knowledge and the degree to which one has learned basic tasks of modern life. The gains on mathematics, math analysis, reading comprehension, vocabulary and general knowledge are small to nil, and all of these tests measure crystallized g. To sum, these are the sorts of things you learn in school.
This is why, despite skyrocketing IQ's, we cannot read a book, add and subtract, or calculus any faster than our grandparents. We also do not know any more than they did, and we know no more words than they did.
This is obvious in the many reports on "idiocratic" state of high school seniors, college students or college grads. And this is how a puzzle is solved - how IQ's are surely rising at the same time as idiocracy is.
From Flynn's chapter summary:
IQ gains over time were calculated for each WISC (Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children) subtest and the subtests ranked by size of gain. Verbal Similarities led at 20 points per generation - larger than gains on Raven's Progressive Matrices. Similarities measures on-the-spot problem-solving (something akin to fluid g ); verbal subtests that do not measure this show low rate of gain.The Similarities test has risen faster than any other test. It measures analytical thinking and is thought to be a good measure of raw fluid g. The final paragraph is interesting. The Black-White IQ gap is correlated with something called inbreeding depression score, a purely heritable measure. Hereditarians use this to say that the B-W IQ gap is genetic.
WISC subtests were also ranked by their correlations with Raven's, the latter being used as a marker for fluid g. The r between the two hierarchies was calculated to approximate a correlation between IQ gains and fluid g.
The result of 0.50 contrasts with the negative correlation between IQ gains and the g generated by factor analyzing the WISC battery itself, which is generally viewed as predominately a crystallized g.
In sum, it appears that human groups can make massive fluid g gains in a period too short to accommodate radical change in the speed and efficiency of neural processes. Moreover, once gains in intelligent behavior over historical time are seen to be independent of brain physiology, does g really provide a criterion for assessing their significance?
Finally, not only a measure of fluid g (which is highly heritable) but also inbreeding depression are shown to be correlated with IQ gains - gains overwhelmingly environmental in origin. Therefore, correlations between such genetically influenced factors and the size of the black/white IQ gap do not show that the gap has a genetic component.
But Flynn shows here that the FE (a purely environmental gain) also correlates with inbreeding depression, a purely hereditarian score. Flynn uses this to say that the B-W IQ gap is not necessarily genetic.
Flynn notes above that the FE cannot possibly be caused by brains that actually work better physiologically than the brains of our grandparents. Genetics doesn't work that fast.
Therefore, what does the FE measure? Flynn says it measures "intelligent behavior". So our brains don't work any better than our grandparents' brains, but we show improved "intelligent behavior" over them.
Therefore, another mystery is solved, how massive IQ gains can occur without concomitant improvement in the physiology of our brains.
Since hereditarians use g as a measure of physiological efficiency of our brains, Flynn calls this into question by noting that g gains can occur too fast to be accommodated for by physiologically improved brains. Therefore, Flynn suggests chucking g as a measure of pure brain physiological efficiency.
Therefore, the White nationalist and hereditarian argument that the FE is not on g has been proven wrong.
References
- Flynn, James R. 2000. IQ Gains, WISC Subtests and Fluid g: g Theory and the Relevance of Spearman's Hypothesis to Race, Chapter 12 in Bock, Gregory R., Goode, Jamie A., Webb, Kate. Novartis Foundation Symposium 233 - The Nature of Intelligence, pp. 202-227. Novartis Foundation. Published online.