Deflation: John Mauldin
Inflation: Ambrose Evans-Pritchard
Both of these well-written articles make for sobering reading. See also my March 2010 post an architect of hyperinflation.
Germany
Enabling Political Thuggery
J Christian Adams, formerly an attorney with the US Department of Justice:
On Election Day 2008, armed men wearing the uniforms and jackboots of the New Black Panther Party were posted in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, at the entrance to a polling site. They brandished a weapon and intimidated voters. After the election, the Civil Rights Division at the U.S. Department of Justice brought a voter intimidation case against the New Black Panther Party and these armed thugs. I, and other Justice lawyers, obtained an entry of default after the defendants ignored the case against them.
Before a final judgment could be entered, however, our superiors ordered dismissal of the claims.
For some time, I have been concerned about the rise of political violence and intimidation in America. This has been most apparent in universities, where administrators have too often allowed leftists and Islamic radicals to interfere with the expression of opinion by others. For example, in this post I cited the behavior of some “anti-war” and anti-Israel activists:
At Concordia College (Toronto), Benhamin Netanyahu was prevented from speaking by a riot of Palestinian students and their supporters. Thomas Hecht, a Holocaust survivor, was pushed against a wall, spat on, and reportedly kicked in the groin. A woman said that during the same incident, attackers “aimed their punches at my breasts.” Two weeks later, at the same college, a Jewish student was beaten bloody by an Arab student.
At Berkeley, someone thre a cinder block through the glass door at the Hillel (Jewish) center, and wrote “F___ Jews” on the wall. At San Francisco State University, a rally of Jewish students and other was disrupted by pro-Palestinian students screaming “Go back to Russia,” and “We will kill you.” Some students were reportedly shoved against the wall, and the Jewish group had to be escorted out by police. Laurie Zoloth, a campus Jewish leader, summed up the campus situation in these words: “This is the Weimar republic with Brownshirts it cannot control.”
Dark Thoughts
Things are spinning out of control
Robert Avrech has a story about blatant anti-Semitism in Holland, the land of Anne Frank:
Anti-Semitism has gotten so ugly in The Netherlands that Jews walking along Amsterdam’s street are being harassed by young Muslims who yell insults or give Nazi salutes…A TV programme broadcast on Sunday by the Jewish Broadcasting Organisation showed rabbi Lody van de Kamp confronted by Moroccan youths giving the Hitler salute.
and
“Jews are deserting Antwerp,” headlines De Standaard. The Belgian newspaper predicts that in fifty years there will be no more Jews living in the city. Due to an increase of Anti-Semitism, many young Jews are leaving the city to study in London, New York or Israel, where “working with a skullcap (kippah) isn’t a problem”, and they never return.
The sharp increase in anti-Semitism is only one among many indicators of social disintegration and dysfunction throughout the Western world. It is increasingly clear that (although there are individual honorable exceptions) our political elites lack the wisdom and courage to deal effectively with the problems confronting our societies. The ongoing appeasement of jihadism is one primary example; the orgy of financial irresponsibility is another.
Reading Robert’s post, I was reminded of a passage from Sebastian Haffner’s memoir. Haffner, as you may recall from my review here, grew up in Germany between the wars and wrote an indispensable book about his experiences and observations.
The PIIGS Who Fell to Earth
In her office in Berlin, Angela Merkel waited by her phone. A small group of advisors waited with her, unusually quiet. Their eyes moved back and forth between the clock and the telephones. Finally, a ring shatters the silence. The defense minister picks it up. He listens, nods, barks an acknowledgement into the phone, and hangs it up. He turns to the chancellor.
Der Rubikon ist gekreuzt worden.
This is from a great post by Jim Bennett.
In the form of a thriller, he shows one way the current Euro currency crisis could play out.
Schadenfreude is a German word, but we in the Anglosphere occasionally feel a twinge of it … .