Of Course They Do

By your friends are you judged:

Barack Obama’s Gallup approval rating of 52 percent may well be lower at this stage of his presidency than any US leader in recent times with the exception of Bill Clinton. But he is still worshipped with messiah-like adoration at the United Nations, and is considerably more popular with many of the 192 members of the UN than he is with the American people.

And why would that be?

It is not hard to see why a standing ovation awaits the president at Turtle Bay. Obama’s popularity at the UN boils down essentially to his willingness to downplay American global power. He is the first American president who has made an art form out of apologizing for the United States, which he has done on numerous occasions on foreign soil, from Strasbourg to Cairo. The Obama mantra appears to be – ask not what your country can do for you, but what you can do to atone for your country. This is a message that goes down very well in a world that is still seething with anti-Americanism.

And it’s not hard to see why the American Left, and its lickspittle Press and academia, would also adore this President: because they, too, are still seething with anti-Americanism, and have been since the 1960s.

– Sticks Drummond

Shining Jewel

I wonder if the citizens of the Czech Republic realize just how lucky they are in their choice of President? Vaclav Klaus is probably the finest example of a clear-thinking, no-nonsense leader who comes along only a couple of times in a generation. His speech to the New University in Aix-en-Provence is a model of clarity, and should be required reading for everyone. Here are a few notable excerpts:

This year’s main topic of your gathering is “Markets and Morality.” I only hope that by choosing this title you wanted to say that there is no morality, at least in the public arena, without markets. It is an important and, again, a very old message. In our early post-communist years, I was being often patronized that what we needed then was morality, whereas I stubbornly repeated that what we needed were markets. My critics argued that a strong, ex-ante infusion of morality is necessary – with the implicit expectation that it would be them, who’d be supplying it.

Also:

Europeism is – for me – an inconsistent, evidently heterogeneous, but in principle neosocialist doctrine, which characterizes the current thinking in Europe. It believes neither in freedom, nor in spontaneous evolution of human society. It is a “conglomerate of ideas” that includes

– economic (or social) views based on the concept of the so called social market economy (which is the opposite of the market economy);

– views on freedom, democracy and society based on collectivism, social partnership and corporatism, not on classical parliamentary democracy;

– views on European integration, which favor unification and supranationalism;

– views on foreign policy and international relations based on internationalism, cosmopolitism, abstract universalism, multiculturalism and on denationalization.

To my great regret, I am afraid the same speech should be repeated today. Europe is more and more dominated by this way of thinking despite the fact that it is an extremely naïve, unpractical and romantic utopism, not shared by European silent majority, but predominantly by European elites.

Klaus also does a complete and brilliant refutation of climate change alarmism, too long to be included here, but which can be encapsulated (in his own words) thus:

“[My question is:] Which is in danger: our climate or our freedom? My answer to this question is clear and straightforward: It is our freedom which is in danger. The climate is doing just fine.” [my translation]

And of course, he’s right. I just wish that our own leadership could be more like him. Instead, we’re getting Euro-sympathizers and all their Europe-ism. With, I would suggest, predictable results.

– Sticks Drummond

Of Course

Talk about a “dog bites man” story. Apparently, automobile traffic volume is dropping in Vienna, Austria:

The Austrian Traffic Club (VCÖ) said today (Thurs) traffic on the capital’s roads shrunk 930 million kilometres from 2004 to 7 billion kilometres in 2008 – meaning every car on the road in Vienna covered an average of 12,666 kilometres last year, a decrease of 1,100 kilometres compared to 2004. The number of cars on the roads also fell by 24,000 to 552,000 over the past four years, the VCÖ said.

The change, apparently, is because of “the ongoing development of a “multi-modern mobility” mixing walking, cycling, public transport and cars and covering short distances by bike or by foot.”

As someone who has actually driven there, I would suggest several other reasons not to drive in Vienna. Firstly, Vienna features an insane progression of one-way streets with no reciprocal one-way streets, meaning that a wrong turn can take you several blocks out of your way, and requires going around in circles before you can fix your mistake. Did I say “circles”? Viennese city streets are not laid in a grid pattern of any discernable design — I think a handful of discarded raw spaghetti was used as the blueprint — and the thing is complicated still further by a profusion of “bus-only” and/or “pedestrian-only” roads, which appear in your windshield without warning.

Then, of course, you have the quaint Austrian custom of placing street signs not at ground level on signposts, but halfway up the sides of city buildings — and, as an added bonus, not putting a sign on each corner, which means you have to swivel your head around and try to look up in several directions before you can see the street sign you need. But your trial doesn’t end there, oh no. The signs are written in a point size which might work quite well on a printed page at twelve inches’ reading distance, but which are practically illegible from the street. Add a little night time and rain (which is a combination not unknown in Vienna) and you have the final element of the Viennese driving experience.

And, of course, because the Viennese hanker after the good old Hapsburgian days, they would prefer horse-drawn transport over cars anyway, so they make street parking impossible (more yellow lines than can be found at a dogsled race rest stop), with tiny, cramped public garages which charge, in the best Viennese tradition, parking fees which would make a merchant banker blush. Indeed, I think you have to be a merchant banker to be able to afford Vienna’s off-street parking.

And finally, speaking of charges, buying gasoline in Vienna requires some kind of clairvoyance and/or blind, lottery-winning-scale luck, because gas stations are so sparse as to be non-existent. And you’re fined (an exhorbitant amount, natch) if you run out of gas in Vienna. Oh, and did I mention that Viennese gas prices, assuming you can find a place to buy gas, are the highest in Europe?

So yes, the volume of traffic in Vienna is dropping. As the French would say: Un chien mord un homme. Quelle surprise.

– Sticks Drummond

Realpolitik

Here’s an interesting example of politics in action.

• Iran is preparing to complete its nuclear missile capability.
• Even though Iranian ICBMs could not reach the U.S., former President George W. Bush initiates a missile defense system in Europe, planning the installation thereof in Poland and the Czech Republic (the only two countries, to forestall any chance that Iranian missiles could threaten Europe (and most especially, those European nations on our side in the War On Terrorism.
• While the Polish and Czech governments welcome the missile defense installations (because they would be an excellent deterrent to Russian aggression, the recent memory of which is still quite fresh in the minds of Eastern Europeans), popular support among the Poles and Czech is minimal.
• The missile defense system causes considerable irritation to the Russians, who aren’t comfortable with American missiles so close to the Rodina, and it puts a strain on Russian-American diplomatic relations.

That’s the background.

Now here’s the interesting part about President Obama’s decision to cancel the European missile shield installation.

Some people will claim that this is a bold move, which will improve relationships with Russia (to be honest, a decent objective), while generating popular support in Poland and the Czech Republic. (The governments of these two countries, needless to say, are not too pleased at this development.) But while Obama’s decision may seem cold-blooded, it’s a simple fact that good relations with Russia are more important than with the Poles or Czechs.

Of course, not installing the missile defense systems will save the U.S. taxpayer billions of dollars — and in these economic times (to paraphrase the late Senator Everett Dirksen), a billion saved here, a billion there, and pretty soon you’re talking serious money.

And let’s be honest: if Iran were ever to send a missile into Europe, the U.S. response would be massively destructive.

It’s also clear that European support for the War On Terrorism is flagging — most notably, in places like Afghanistan where the Europeans have to expend actual blood and treasure — and if the Western Europeans are going to be lukewarm allies in this struggle, why should the U.S. spend taxpayer money and anger a major power, for little or no gain?

So all in all, Obama’s decision, in coldly pragmatic terms, is not altogether a bad one. Strategically, of course, it’s a blunder of monumental proportions.

Let’s just hope we’re not faced with the smoking ruins of Vienna, Prague or Athens before we learn whether Obama’s decision was, in fact, the correct one.

– Sticks Drummond

UPDATE: I have just noticed that this announcement was made on precisely the same date — September 17 — when Russia invaded Poland in 1939, after Hitler’s Wehrmacht had occupied the western part of Poland. Think it’s a coincidence? I bet the Poles think it is. And either it is just an unfortunate coincidence (more evidence of the Obama Administration’s cluelessness) or the date was chosen deliberately — an act of unbelievable malice. So… malice, or stupidity? Your call.