Perhaps he believes that we would be imperialists, but not oppressors. After all, as long as nobody is living in the oil fields that we seize, there wouldn't be anyone to oppress, and we could allow whoever lived near the oil fields to govern their patches of worthless sand in whatever manner they saw fit.

Does Glenn think that if we seized all the world's oil fields we wouldn't be imperialist oppressors?

Not if we set up a free and democratically elected government at the oil fields as we did in Iraq. Note to Kevin Drum: if the government is elected by the people it is not imperial or oppressive.

It would inherently be an imperialist act; it wouldn't necessarily be an oppressive one...arguably it would be the exact opposite. (Please note that I am not advocating this course for any number of reasons.)

If we really were imperialist oppressors, the critics would be sucking up.

such a stupid stupid man.

Chavez is a dictator? I had been led to believe that he had been popularly elected.

Boot is an idiot.

See the thread on this over at Eschaton.... we already tried this in Iraq.

Worked beautifully there, dint' it?

Glenn is an asshole.

What comes out of assholes?

'Nuff said.

I thought Max Boot liked/supported/apoligized for dictators.

Right Seth, because I'm sure that those folks living in and around the oil fields don't harbor any silly notions about property rights or self-determination regarding their own natural resources, etc. Those ideas are so quaint...so 18th century, as it were. We've come a long way since the Enlightenment.

Someone is assuming that we would be as competent at running the pumps full speed in Saudi Arabia and Iran following an invasion and occupation as we've been in Iraq. And you know what happens when you assume...
--
HRlaughed

Al nails it! Glenn and Max clearly show that the U.S. isn't concerned about oil, only FREEDOM and DEMOCRACY, and anyone who doesn't support George W. Bush is, by definition, a terrorist and/or dictator!

Seizing the world's oil fields, monopolizing them for US corporations, would not lower the cost of gas for any users, but it would eliminate paying those pesky royalties that prevent the oil corporations from making even greater profits.

On another note:

Does anyone really believe that Oil prices would plummet if we seized the Saudi and Iranian Oil fields?

It is an accurate reflection of how stupid the right-wingers are if their most well known and heroic blogger can utter such amazing idiocy.

Indeedy.

In any event, the premise behind Reynolds' "full speed" comment seems rather questionable.

Global oil demand has taken up most of the slack in extra OPEC capacity. Consumption is now believed by many analysts to be pressing up against the limits of what the world can produce. Saudi Arabia is the only country believed to have any surplus production left, and even then the Saudis are pumping close to 90 percent of capacity, according to the U.S. Department of Energy.

Is there some sort of competition among our pals on the right to see who can write the most moronic thing?

Must be.

How else do you explain such a rapid and simultaneous drop in their collective group intelligence.

He says it's not a "call for invasion," but the only objection he offers to invasion is one he considers empty.

"I'm for it, except there's a reason against it that isn't a good reason against it."

That's logic!

Glenn Reynolds never fails to find a new low in intellectual and moral observation. He's maybe the world champ at Civilization Limbo.

It's been objectively obvious for so long that I am continually amazed at the number of people who are surprised by the writings that emanate from the likes of Boot, Reynolds, et al: there is an entrenched body of opinion within the U.S. that thinks the U.S. is entitled to whatever the hell it wants in the world.

Who was it who said that (paraphrasing), "Once in a while the U.S. needs to throw another country up against the wall for its (the other country's) good?"

And why? Well, the U.S. is the *best* country. Because the U.S. is inherently good then it follows that whatever it does must be right. And this should be intuitively obvious to everyone.

And if countries that the U.S. invades in the name of democracy or whatever somehow don't see it this way - well, that's clearly their fault.

End of discussion.

I was always slow in school, so it is no surprise that I finally figured out that either 1 - Glenn Reynolds does not know what he is talking about, or 2 - he is insane.

"Vacuity? Does Glenn think that if we seized all the world's oil fields we wouldn't be imperialist oppressors? Maybe we should seize the law schools instead."

Perhaps, we should just content ourselves with seizing Glenn Reynolds computer and call it even.

Does anyone really believe that Oil prices would plummet if we seized the Saudi and Iranian Oil fields?

Well, I suppose if we magically made all the Saudis and Iranians disappear without damaging the oil fields, and then walked in and started operating them, its possible oil prices would drop somewhat just from the increased stability.

Now, if we attempted to seize them by any means available in the real world, oil prices would probably rise because of the increased insecurity in the region.

Enough space wasted. This is just fighting-keyboarder wankery, advocating tough action by manly men without any messy real-world consequences. It's from the same manual as "surgical air-strikes" and Tom-Clancy-esque "special operations" in which all the fancy equipment works and nobody innocent gets hurt.

I think it's also of a piece with the "I'm a conservative, not a Republican" retreat of the neo-cons and their armchair allies. "Real" conservatives would do this, but alas, the Bush administration has failed the test of history, and we can only shake our wise heads and mourn for the halcyon days of yore.

Wanker.

We'd also ensure that the end of oil came long before we were ready with a replacement. How did this man get a degree, much less a professorship?

Vacuity? Does Glenn think that if we seized all the world's oil fields we wouldn't be imperialist oppressors? Maybe we should seize the law schools instead. —Kevin Drum

I think, at least, that Reynold's employers ought to pay a bit more to what he writes in his blogs. I can't imagine even the most coservative law faculty, which would tend towards pre-Reagan style Republicanism, wouldn't be embarrassed to be working in the same builing as him. He's clearly not that smart. Spends a lot of time with his foot in his mouth. There's conservative then there's John Birch conservative. Reynolds definitely leans towards the latter.

Glenn writes: "if we seized the Saudi and Iranian oil fields"

Kevin says: "Does Glenn think that if we seized all the world's oil fields"

Nice, Kevin. That's the reality-based community for ya!

Sure, if we seized Saudi and Iranian oilfields, prices would plummet, if you allow for certain assumptions:

1) Both countries willingly and without struggle give us their oil fields - no sabotage, no sinking ships at the mouth of the Persian Gulf, no popular uprising against the seizure and occupation.

2) Nobody else on earth (e.g., the Chinese) decides that this is an undesirable situation and acts militarily.

3) US oil companies don't decide to take advantage of the newfound militarily protected monopoly on the world's richest oilfields and jack up prices, selling to the highest bidder.

Besides those factors (and maybe a couple others) it's a complete "slam dunk" in the George Tenet sense of the term.

Could it be that Glenn, like El Presidente in his illustrated speech, "Our First Mexican President," feels that there is an imperative, even an upside, to violating U.S. law? And if that is the case, why be so picky about International Law, especially as it applies to Islamo Mafioso?

Of course, if we seized the Saudi and Iranian oil fields and ran the pumps full speed, oil prices would plummet, dictators would be broke, and poor nations would benefit from cheap energy.

Yeah, just look at what happened when we seized the Iraqi oil fields and prices plummeted....

Of course, if we seized the Saudi and Iranian oil fields and ran the pumps full speed, oil prices would plummet, dictators would be broke, and poor nations would benefit from cheap energy.

Like we'd even be militarily capable to invading and seizing Saudi Arabia and Iran. We can't even control Iraq, for fuck's sakes, after three years of trying. Reynolds might as well wish for a pony....

Glenn's premise (not his point, clearly) seems to be that resource management is invariably done better in democratic societies (our, at the very least, our republic); this is false. Chinese emperors and Romanian dictators maintained large wildlife preserves. That's not to say that dictators are environmentalists, it is to say that the incentives of a democratically elected leader don't necessarily align with wise resource management, while sometimes the incentives of an autarky do - Saudi Arabia is a prime example of this.

Saudi Arabia historically had massive unused capacity - in an effort to maintain prices somewhat higher than they otherwise would have been, but with the ability to jump in to lower prices if they got too high.

The Saudi royal family has a long-term incentive to maintain oil at as high a price as possible without triggering a search for alternate sources of energy.

Why stop with Saudi and Iran? Let's annex Mexico and Canada as our 51st and 52nd states. Russia looks ripe for invasion, too. All of this military action will keep Halliburton in business for decades to come.

It would be another 2 trillion out of the treasury, more people blown to bits and who would really benefit?

I am so sick of these people with their snap-your-fingers-and-the-problem's-solved solutions to every problem. Just seal the borders and expel all the illegals! Just overthrow all the tyrants and seize their oil! Just bomb all the (many, concealed) Iranian nuclear sitres! It's all simple. It will all go perfectly and there'll be no negative consequences. Yeah, right.

I suspect that comparing Reynolds and the Birchers is most unfair to the Birchers. In fact I think they're less imperialist than the New Republic or the Washington Post.

cmdicely: if we magically made all the Saudis and Iranians disappear without damaging the oil fields

No magic necessary. Neutron bombs. That's what they were designed for.

Does Glenn think that if we seized all the world's oil fields we wouldn't be imperialist oppressors?

That's not how I interpret his comment. The nativist governments in many countries are worse oppressors than the "imperialists" ever were. Zimbabwe may be the most extreme example now, but there was also Uganda under Idi Amin, VietNam under the Communists, Sudan under its Islamist thug, Nigeria and Congo under a succession of governments [though Congo under King Leopold was possibly the worst governance ever, even worse than the USSR under Stalin and China under Mao -- possibly tied with Cambodia under Pol Pot], Indonesia under Suharto, Iraq under Saddam Hussein and Iran under the Mullahs, Pakistan under most governments since the British left.

Iraq since OIF is a work in progress, but it's probably better governed than Syria and Iran, and certainly better governed than under Saddam Hussein.

Post WWII anti-colonialism was a nice liberal idea that was butchered in the execution (so to speak.) The only really good outcome was in India, and there the transition was awful. Philippines also turned out not so bad, with a low period under Marcos.

The "vacuity" is the implied criticism that imperialism was and is necessarily worse.

The Amreicas are more complex cases. There the anti-imperialist movements were mostly led by Europeans and European descendants, and the resultant government have been dominated by European descendants. that includes Canada, the US, Mexico, Cuba, and all the nations southward from there. There are other immigrant nationalities (Japanese, Chinese) but indigenous people are not prominent in the upper levels of government. This includes places like Bolivia and Venezuela where leaders of predominantly European descent purport to represent the people of mostly indigenous descent.

Stefan:

although I think it would be an atrocious idea for any number of reasons...from an immediate military standpoint it wouldn't be a problem...why? because the actual oil fields are in a compressed, easily occupied region.
this is basically true of Saudi Arabia, and very true of Iran (90% of Iran's oil production lies near the Iraq border and is actually separated from the rest of Iran by the Zagros Mts.)
that would be the easy part. (and no, China doesn't have the capability to intervene in the Persian Gulf -- they don't have a blue water navy, yet, and don't have any heavy lift capability).

with that said, the ramifications would be awful.

If we just seized the Saudi and Venezuelan oil fields, the locals would blow them up every night, world oil supply would crash, prices would go to $300 a barrel and the CEOs of Exxon and Chevron would take home $500 million each in bonuses.

But then I suppose people would call us "imperialists" or something. Ungrateful bastards.

oops, I forgot to add that the the official languages in the Americas are the languages of the imperialists, not the languages of the indigenous peoples. This includes most prominently our neighbor Mexico, where people of nearly 100% indigenous descent, who speak Spanish as their second language, are required to study in public school in Spanish.

Where is McGyver when you need him? He could solve this pesky oil problem with a half-eaten bar of chocolate and some belly button lint. Then he could get Glenn his pony. Finally, he could solve the Iran problem before the end of the hour with a belt buckle, a bent nail and a roll of duct tape.

Kevin if you want to write about the wankery of the week, consider the Shelby Steele's embarassing article in WSJ Opinion Journal.

VietNam under the Communists

On what basis do you claim that Vietnam under the Communists was (is?) worse than Vietnam under French, Japanese, or American colonial domination were? Would you call some kind of special time-out to excuse the deliberate famine of 1944-5, when the Japanese requisitioned all the rice from the Red River delta and left half a million to starve to death? Or would you try to argue that South Vietnam, which was created purely through American and French diplomatic maneuvering in 1954, propped up for 20 years by American money and armed force, and collapsed 2 years after its American garrison left, was anything other than a colonial puppet regime?

although I think it would be an atrocious idea for any number of reasons...from an immediate military standpoint it wouldn't be a problem...why? because the actual oil fields are in a compressed, easily occupied region.

From an immediate military standpoint if you mean within the first 24-48 hours, perhaps. But anytime longer than that and you've got a hell of a problem. For one thing, what would happen to the 150,000 American troops in Iraq once the Shiites turned on us?

C'mon, this entire discussion is stupid. Right now we're no more capable of invading the Saudi and Iranian oil fields and actually running them than we are of waving a magic wand and making it rain chocolate.

I think what Instabloviator is getting at here is that if we were imperialist oppressors that is what we would be doing. Though the guy's fondness for keeping latitude of action by not actually stating what his argument is makes it difficult to know for certain.

Does Glenn think...?

No.

"Just to seize the entire coastline of Iran and prevent them from raining down missiles and artillery on the Persian Gulf would take a bit more of an Army than we actually have in our possession right now."

actually no. simple counterbattery fire and tac-air. no reason to actually hold territory.

Vacuous Indeed!

Where exactly is the substance of Reynold's comment?

He denies it is a comment on the idea of taking over all Middle East oil by force, but rather he is ridiculing a manufactured hypotethetical criticism by unspecified hypothetical critics on a hypothetical possible invasion done in an unspecified fashion which he says he is not commenting whether or not would be ulitmately a good idea.

Ridiculing hypothetical stramen criticisms about invasions done by unspecified means to ends which may or may not be a good idea, is vacuous indeed. If such criticism is necessarily always vacuous why not try illustrating it with something other than manufactured and vague situations?

Stefan:
"From an immediate military standpoint if you mean within the first 24-48 hours, perhaps. But anytime longer than that and you've got a hell of a problem. For one thing, what would happen to the 150,000 American troops in Iraq once the Shiites turned on us? "

Agreed. Actually, we could hold the fields easily (these are not heavily populated areas)...operating them and shipping the oil out would be a pain...but probably doable. its the repercussions throughout the ME that would be unbearable.

Look, it'd be an asinine idea...I'm just trying to point out that certain of the immediate tactical objections raised (as opposed to strategic ones) aren't in fact, accurate.

I'd suggest that you look up Khuzestan on a map. (hint, it's flat and it holds 90% of Iran's oil.)

The area in Iraq that holds Iraq's oil is also flat -- how well have we been able to control that?

Of course, a RISK board is also flat, and that seems to be where many of these idiots have acquired their knowledge of military strategy....

I think what Glenn meant to illustrate was the folks on the left tend to romanticize and idolize are the likes of Hugo Chavez, Fidel Castro, Yasser Arafat, Tookie Williams, Mumia Abu Jamal, Saddam Hussein, etc...

I like it when people call Glenn Reynolds stupid.

That's some really, really, really good crazy.

All commentary here aside, Reynolds was not advocating the seizure of Saudi or Iranian oil fields. I suspect he was merely observing that dictators who control oil fields have no more legitimate claim on that natural resource than does an invading nation, and that depending on what the invading nation does with the resource once it has seized it, it may well turn out to be less oppresive than the dictator.

Stefan says:

"The area in Iraq that holds Iraq's oil is also flat -- how well have we been able to control that?"

Well, if we weren't occupying the rest of Iraq and simply placed all 135,000 troops in the oil fields and on the pipelines to the coast...we'd probably control it pretty darn well.
Controlling the oil fields has never been the issue...
heck, the only reason why the Soviet Union ran into trouble trying to get to Khuzestan is because it lacked the amphibious and heavy lift capability (combined with sufficient naval aviation) to get there without going through Afghanistan first.

I think what Glenn meant to illustrate was the folks on the left tend to romanticize and idolize are the likes of Hugo Chavez, Fidel Castro, Yasser Arafat, Tookie Williams, Mumia Abu Jamal, Saddam Hussein, etc...

While those whom the folks on the right tend to romanticize and idolize are the likes of Benito Mussolini, Adolf Hitler, Francisco Franco, Chiang Kai-Shek, Synman Rhee, Ferdinand and Imelda Marcos, Suharto, Mobuto Sese Seko, the apartheid government of South Africa, Rafael Trujillo, Anastasio Somoza, Efrain Rios Montt, Alfredo Stroessner, Augusto Pinochet, Papa and Baby Doc Duvalier, Zia ul-Haq, the Saudi royal family, Pervez Musharraf, Islam Karimov, Saddam Hussein....

Man, my fingers are getting tired from typing. That's one long list....

Funny how almost everybody in your list, tyrants all, were in and of the intellectual Left.

BM - socialist
AH - socialist
FF - communist
etc.

Love me some crazy...

Shorter Glenn Reynolds:

"The war in Iraq is not about oil. We are there to liberate and spread democracy to people who are oppressed.

Hey- you know what would solve a lot of problems? Invading Iran and Saudi Arabia and stealing all the oil."

The Iraq justification chain has now been set to:

1. Revenge
2. Liberation
3. Security
4. Proliferation Control
5. Colonialism
6. Necessary Genocide

I give it six months before #6 comes into vogue. Shelby Steele is just a preview of coming attractions.

"FF - communist"

Francisco Franco was a COMMUNIST!!?!?! He's probably one of the most extreme and famous anti-communists who ever lived. His supporters would beat the snot out of you if you ever said such a thing in their presence.

How are things on Earth-2, Birkel? Sorry to hear the Golden Age Superman died.

Yes, all those famous leftists like Stroessner, Pinochet, and the Marcoses. Good lord.

'actually no. simple counterbattery fire and tac-air. no reason to actually hold territory.'
--Nathan

Connies just get sprung talking military lingo, don't they? - the sick perverts.

Just because you don't invade, occupy, and administer a land doesn't mean you aren't an imperialist oppressor. For example, you could have a client state do all of that for you.

Alternatively we could reduce world demand with a few well placed neutron bombs. Oil prices would plummet, dictators would be broke, global warming would stall, rain forests would regrow, and poor nations would benefit from cheap energy. But we'd be called imperialist oppressors, then too.

Best comment so far on Glenn's posting.

The problem with Mr. Reynolds' paragraph is that it's poorly written and his "if" clause is implausible. As people mentioned above, if we seized oil fields, we wouldn't be able to run them any faster.

His bigger point seems to be that "we" would be great benevolent despots. Since I have no desire to be a despot of any sort, he must mean a different "we" than all of the American people. Anyway, it's a strange attitude for a self-identified libertarian to take.

Stefan:

Who is/was Efrain Rios Montt?

And to be fair, you shouldn't have mentioned Hitler since the poster you were responding to didn't mention Stalin, Mao or Pol Pot. This is also the first I've ever heard of conservatives (of any stripe) backing the Duvaliers or Trujillo.

There are many highly intelligent commenters here far more conversant in the vagaries of the world oil markets so maybe they can clear up some questions I have. In Max Boots LA Times article he mentions this:

"Of the top 14 oil exporters, only one is a well-established liberal democracy — Norway. Two others have recently made a transition to democracy — Mexico and Nigeria. Iraq is trying to follow in their footsteps. That's it. Every other major oil exporter is a dictatorship — and the run-up in oil prices has been a tremendous boon to them."

Now, is Canada not one of the top 14 oil exporters and doesn't the majority of the U.S.'s oil imports come from Canada? And, if this is so, when did Canada become a dictatorship? I know they recently voted out their liberal government and put in a more conservative one but I had no idea how radical the changeover was.

I know they recognize the Queen of England as their constitutional monarch but as far as I knew they still elected their leaders democratically. Doesn't that make them a liberal democracy?

I would be very appreciative if someone could enlighten me on this.

Who is/was Efrain Rios Montt?

US backed dictator of Guatemala.

And to be fair, you shouldn't have mentioned Hitler since the poster you were responding to didn't mention Stalin, Mao or Pol Pot.

Why not? Hitler was quite popular with the right wing in this country before we entered the war.

This is also the first I've ever heard of conservatives (of any stripe) backing the Duvaliers or Trujillo.

Really? You should read more history. Trujillo was a US puppet; when the US Marines pulled out of the Dominican Republic in 1924 they left Trujillo in charge of the National Guard, from which position he took over the country. He conducted a pro-US foreign policy and let US companies in to loot the country, and in return the US supported him militarily with several interventions. US Secretary of State Cordell Hull famously said of Trujillo "he may be a son of a bitch, but he's our son of a bitch" -- which is 50% of American foreign policy in a nutshell right there.

The Duvaliers, too, were the recipients of long-time support by successive US governments on the grounds that they provided "stability" and were a bulwark against Communist infiltration. In 1958, US Marines landed in Haiti to support the elder Duvalier's regime and stayed for five years to train his military, in return, Duvalier allowed US economic interests relatively unfettered access to Haitian resources and cheap labor.

To paraphrase Porfirio Diaz, poor Hispaniola -- so far from God, so close to the United States.

Lurkiloo:

Boot was correct.
"Ten of the 14 countries exporting more than one million barrels per day of total oil (net) in 2004 were OPEC members. Russia, Norway, Mexico, and Kazakhstan are the world's largest non-OPEC net oil exporters. The United States is the world's largest net oil importer. China is also a net oil importer, while Canada and the United Kingdom are smaller net oil exporters."

http://www.eia.doe.gov/emeu/cabs/nonopec.html

Stefan:

Fine, then add Stalin, Mao and Pol Pot to the liberal list. That's somewhere between 50 and 100 million total victims...which more than outmatches the conservative side of the list. cheez...all of this is juvenile...

As for Trujillo and the Duvaliers, to be more exact, although they were initially supported by the U.S....conservative support for them also definitely faded.

Fine, then add Stalin, Mao and Pol Pot to the liberal list.

Stalin, Mao and Pol Pot were liberals??? Identify, please, which of their positions were consistent with liberalism.

As for Trujillo and the Duvaliers, to be more exact, although they were initially supported by the U.S....

That's rather different, though, from what you said first, which is that you'd never heard of any conservative support for Trujillo or Duvalier.

conservative support for them also definitely faded

Yes, indeed, after many decades, once their crimes were exposed and they became less useful as puppets, conservative support did indeed fade. Never let it be said that conservatives won't do the right thing when it becomes politically expedient and convenient to do so.

The top 14 oil exporters are:

(http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0922041.html)

1. Saudi Arabia
2. Russia
3. Norway
4. Iran
5. Venezuela
6. United Arab Emirates
7. Kuwait
8. Nigeria
9. Mexico
10. Algeria
11. Iraq
12. Libya
13. Kazakhstan
14. Qatar

Now, the interesting thing Boot does not mention is WHERE the exports go and WHO imports them. Russia could be selling all its oil to unfree China, right? Let's see where we get our oil.

Here is where the USA gets its imported oil, according to the Department of Energy:

http://tinyurl.com/7ldt

1. Mexico
2. Canada
3. Saudi Arabia
4. Nigeria
5. Venezuela
6. Angola
7. Iraq
8. Equador
9. Brazil
10. Algeria

Those evil dictators are mainly selling to other dictators, since the USA, by far, is the largest consumer of oil and we aren't buying most of theirs. The top 5 countries account for 75% of imports. Mexico and Canada combined account for more than double what Saudi Arabia provided.

Mexico, Canada, Equador, and Brazil are not problematic nations. Angola, Venezuela, and Nigeria are marginal, and, except for Venezuala, improving. That only leaves Saudi Arabi, Iraq, and Algeria as the 'evil dictator' states. And our imports skew pretty heavily towards S.A. and we are already in Iraq trying to install a more friendly, freer government.

So, according to this data, a more intelligent geopolitical strategy would work on a Western Hemisphere Free Trade and Resource Zone, and investigating Brazil's success with sugarcane fuel, not spending billions to blow up faraway dictators to take their oil that they aren't selling us anyway.

This took me 2 minutes with Google to find out.

This took me 2 minutes with Google to find out.

It's fine to try to confuse us all with facts, Alderaan, but what does your gut tell you?

Alderaan: So, according to this data, a more intelligent geopolitical strategy would work on a Western Hemisphere Free Trade and Resource Zone, and investigating Brazil's success with sugarcane fuel, not spending billions to blow up faraway dictators to take their oil that they aren't selling us anyway.

Billions?! Neutron bombs are pretty cheap. The problem with Rummy's "shock and awe" is that it isn't shocking and awful enough. Screw his half-hearted approach.

oh for fuck's sake Stefan:

How was Hitler a conservative then? Heck, he was a socialist.

That there were liberal apologists for Stalin, Mao and Pol Pot isn't in dispute.

You just changed the terms from "supported by" to "were"...which empties out half of your list as well.

Of course, if we seized the Saudi and Iranian oil fields and ran the pumps full speed, oil prices would plummet, dictators would be broke, and poor nations would benefit from cheap energy. But we'd be called imperialist oppressors, then.

As if Bush really wanted oil prices to fall. I see that Glenny is still living off-planet, (not that I ever thought Glenn lived in real world).

I sure like this headline:
Is George W. Bush the worst president in 100 years? from the MACLEAN magazine.

I have to wonder if poor old Glenn put all his loser gossip into his university lectures to all his unfortunate students that had to sit there and listen to Glenn's cult worship idiocies. Glenn will surely live long in infamy for all his fanaticism with Bush and this administration. Glenn wasted a whole blog over Bushie worship, so I don't know why Glenn was worry that the name of instapundit would be taken or copied by someone because its much to comparable to word instastupid these days.

What is our oil doing under their sand?

brooksfoe: Vietnam under French, Japanese, or American colonial domination were? Would you call some kind of special time-out to excuse the deliberate famine of 1944-5, when the Japanese requisitioned all the rice from the Red River delta and left half a million to starve to death?

good point about Japanese colonialism. the French and Americans governed VietNam somewhat more liberally than the Communists have. Among other things, they permitted more Vietnamese to study in foreign nations (e.g. Ho in Paris), and were less restrictive on businesses, professions, and upward mobility. the VietMinh takeover of N. Vietnam was about as murderous as you describe the Japanese governance -- exact counts of the starved are not known for either case, and the figure of a half million is used for both.

I didn'twrite that governance under the colonial administrations was good, only that in the cases I listed the post-colonial governmentw were worse.

Uh, Hitler wasn't a socialist.

comments like this are reynold's occasional acknowledgement to his redstate base, with a wink and a nod, that he is indeed just as racist and genocidal a motherfucker as any of them, despite his law degree.

... whatever that's worth in tennessee, anyways.

Hitler was not a socialist. To make the claim that he was, by virtue of "Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei" containing the word "sozialistische", is to completely ignore history. It's akin to claiming the GDR was in any way democratic, based solely on its name.

The Nazis' main opponents were the communists and the socialists. Once in power, the Nazis abolished trade unions, collective bargaining and the right to strike. The Nazi "Charter of Labor" established the employer as the "leader of the enterprise," and read: "The leader of the enterprise makes the decisions for the employees and laborers in all matters concerning the enterprise."

To claim, as many current right-wing would-be demagogues do, that Hitler and the Nazis were in any way "leftist", is so patently false as to weaken whatever argument you might be trying to make.

Maybe we should seize the law schools instead.

Then we'd have to pay Glenn's salary.

Oh wait . . .

How was Hitler a conservative then? Heck, he was a socialist.

Why, because his party was called the "National Socialist Party"? Hitler wasn't a socialist -- he was a right-wing totalitarian fascist.

By the way, the Democratic People's Republic of Korea is neither democratic nor a republic.

oh please.

redistribution of income was always part of the Nazi platform. its true that Hitler made a deal with business interests in the 1930's...but to assert that socialism was not part of Nazi economic ideology is a blatant denial of history.

Maybe it was all the nationalization of industry so that the central planners made all the decisions about business (and retarded the growth of the Spanish economy) that had me thinking Franco was a communist. Clearly I was wrong. He only acted like one but was labeled a fascist. Hey, maybe that means Uncle Joe was of the Right as well!?!

See, where I'm from if it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck it's probably good eatin'.

If a leader acts like a socialist/communist I'm willing to call them what they are...

"See, where I'm from if it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck it's probably good eatin'.

If a leader acts like a socialist/communist I'm willing to call them what they are..."

See, where I come from being totally ignorant of the facts involved in what you are discussing makes you a fool. Shut up and read a book instead of wasting people's time with your nonsense.

Birkel:

um, no Franco was never a Communist. on economic policies he was a socialist, like most fascists.

you're as much an embarassment to the right as Cheryl is to the left.

I would very much appreciate a list of what things make one "of the Right" in all of your views. Apparently calling somebody a fascist without respect to the policies implemented is enough to form the ahistorical opinion that such a person is of the Right.

The Left is about collectivism and central control of the economy. The Right is about individualism and decentralization.

The Left is necessarily about State control because that's the only way to redistribute wealth -- the ultimate goal of Leftists everywhere. The Right rejects the idea that the State is a better judge of individual need than the individuals involved.

brewmn,
You're breaking me up with your insults.

From Wikipedia:

Communism refers to a conjectured future classless, stateless social organization based upon common ownership of the means of production, and can be classified as a branch of the broader socialist movement. Communism also refers to a variety of political movements which claim the establishment of such a social organization as their ultimate goal.

Early forms of human social organization have been described as "primitive communism." However, communism as a political goal generally is a conjectured form of future social organization which has never been implemented. There is a considerable variety of views among self-identified communists, including Maoism, Trotskyism, council communism, Luxemburgism, and various currents of left communism, which are generally the more widespread varieties. However, various offshoots of the Soviet (what critics call the "Stalinist") and Maoist forms of Marxism-Leninism comprise a particular branch of communism that has the distinction of having been the primary driving force for communism in world politics during most of the 20th Century. The competing branch of Trotskyism has not had such a distinction.

Marx held that society could not be transformed from the capitalist mode of production to the communist mode of production all at once, but required a state transitional period which Marx described as the revolutionary dictatorship of the proletariat. The communist society Marx envisioned emerging from capitalism has never been implemented, and it remains theoretical. However, the term "Communism", especially when the word is capitalized, is often used to refer to the political and economic regimes under communist parties which claimed to be the dictatorship of the proletariat.

Now I know you'll all tell me that in no way fits with what Hitler, Franco, etc did.

All three paragraphs above should be in italics.

Politics run the gammut. To put socialism and communism in the same definition would be the same as putting our present socialist/capitalist state in the same definition as unfettered capitalism. Funny that there is no single word for that idealogy.

Stalin ran a totalitarian state, effectively a dictatorshop, as did Mao. Marx would not have recognized those states as close to communism. Stalininst Russia was a total command economy with production and investment targets set from the center. Quotas were "always met or exceeded" and supply magically always met demand. Shortages were rarely admitted.

If there has been a communist state I can't recall it.

Hitler always kept the figleaf of public popularity but ran a fascist dictatorship, as did Franco and Mussolini, with heavy use of the police in all forms and close cooperation with industry, therefeore a dictatorial plutocracy. It was only run as a command economy in the latter years of the war.

Which brings us to the US. Unitary Executive. National "security" spying. Excessive influence for the benefit of industry. Fat cats. Which way are we trending?

At least there's no crown. Yet.

Birkel: "If a leader acts like a socialist/communist I'm willing to call them what they are."

I have a reading assignment for you. Please note the very relevant observation that is highlighted below in bold:

"Anti-individualistic, the Fascist conception of life stresses the importance of the State and accepts the individual only in so far as his interests coincide with those of the State, which stands for the conscience and the universal, will of man as a historic entity.

"It is opposed to classical liberalism which arose as a reaction to absolutism and exhausted its historical function when the State became the expression of the conscience and will of the people.

"Liberalism denied the State in the name of the individual; Fascism reasserts.

"The rights of the State [express] the real essence of the individual. And if liberty is to he the attribute of living men and not of abstract dummies invented by individualistic liberalism, then Fascism stands for liberty, and for the only liberty worth having, the liberty of the State and of the individual within the State.

"The Fascist conception of the State is all embracing; outside of it no human or spiritual values can exist, much less have value. Thus understood, Fascism, is totalitarian, and the Fascist State - a synthesis and a unit inclusive of all values - interprets, develops, and potentates the whole life of a people.

"No individuals or groups (political parties, cultural associations, economic unions, social classes) can exist outside the State. Fascism is therefore opposed to Socialism to which unity within the State (which amalgamates classes into a single economic and ethical reality) is unknown, and which sees in history nothing but the class struggle.

"Fascism is likewise opposed to trade unionism as a class weapon. But when brought within the orbit of the State, Fascism recognizes the real needs which gave rise to socialism and trade unionism, giving them due weight in the guild or corporative system in which divergent interests are coordinated and harmonized in the unity of the State."

-- Mussolini, Benito and Gentile, Giovanni, The Doctrine of Fascism (1932)

Please enlighten yourself a little before offering any more unhinged commentary.

Oh, I should have added foreign adventurism. Probably closer to Mussolini, eh?

The word "Communism" was adopted in Russia and China to convince people "the revolution" was in their intersts, and in the US and the West toscare small children and their parents. Calling a chickena duck doesn't make it so.

Glad Birkel agrees that these states were never like Marx envisaged. Wonder why he's called the "father of communism"?

Perhaps Birkel is engaging in a little preemptive rationalizing, ergo:

When the shit really hits the fan, as it has already begun to do, he and his compatriots can claim, "Well, look at what Bush did. He was really a leftist all along. No wonder he was a colossal failure."

Er, I don't mean "ergo." "To wit" would've been better.

The Right is about individualism

I'm sure that notion comes as a surprise to the evangelical faction.

As far as I can tell, Birkel defines "Communism" as "any form of authoritarian government", rather than a specific type of authoritarian government with a specific political and economic structure. Therefore, there is, in his mind, no such thing as a rightist Dictatorship, and calling Franco 'communist' makes a little more sense. It's still wrong, though. This is like all the people who complain Bush is 'liberal'. To them, Liberal just means something bad that they don't like, not adherence to a particular philosophy.

"Birkel: 'If a leader acts like a socialist/communist I'm willing to call them what they are.' "

Q.E.D.

I think the folks at theoildrum would point out that the problem with Glenn Reynolds statement is that the oil producers ARE at full blast. So, if we seized these countries and great things DIDN'T happen for the world, we would definitely be labled imperialist oppressors.

If the Chinese or the Russians seized all the oil fields, opened the taps and let the oil flow I'm sure Glenn Reynolds would be the first one to say thank you.

Franco's a communist, Hitler's a socialist, conservatives never supported Trujillo, we can seize and run the Iranian and Saudi oil fields -- "Vacuity Watch" is indeed the right title for this thread....

nathan:>"redistribution of income was always part of the Nazi platform."

Yeah, they redistributed everyone else's money into the leaders pockets.

The Nazi's were socialists like the Holy Roman Empire was holy.

Don't just believe the label, Nathan, look inside the box.

What a crackup! You ask if Reynolds is the stupidest man alive, and Birkel comes along and says "NO! I'm stupider!"

Of course Hitler was a communist who intended to nationalize all the industries- that's why Bush's grandfather invested in a steel mill under Hitler after Hitler invaded Poland. All the smart capitalists invest where the socialists are planning to nationalize the industries.

That's also why Henry Ford hired one of Hitler's Nazis to run Ford's private police force in Detroit- Ford just couldn't wait to get himself some of that communist goodness.

I tell you, they're everywhere.

The funny thing is, the modern Republican is the mirror image of the remaining Stalinists in Russia. Maybe they'll embalm George Bush and worship him for a thousand years.

It's just a little bit of "lebensraum". Hardly worth talking about.

In 1999, IIRC, the James A. Baker Institute issued a report that virtually predicted the Iraq War. It seems that the late 90s were bad ones for the oil industry since Iraqi oil kept development money out of the game: nobody wanted to invest since nobody knew how much oil was going to be in the market. Now, we still don't. And nobody is investing in refineries. And we hit Peke Oil back in December.

Invading Saudi Arabia (et alia) would be the stupidest move ever made. Unless, of course, they're planning on exterminating every Muslim on the planet. Then, the invasion would be the first step in the most evil move ever made AND part of the stupidest move ever made.

Egon said in Ghostbusters, "Print is dead." Well, oil is dead. The money has to go to alternate fuels now or we're all dead.

(If this is a ramble, I'm typing this through a haze of insomnia. If insomnia has a haze.)

The Right, as currently constituted, continues to defend classical liberalism. The Left, as currently constituted, defends identity politics and redistributive policies.

When you guys move so easily between historical classifications and modern-day politics with such ease you confuse terminology.

But hey, that's fine. Whatever you like.