Asymmetrical Information

I beg your pardon, but a substantial fraction of that 16% is out here in Seattle trying to gum up the progress of their fellow citizens along the 'public' streets (everyone knows that paved areas with center stripes are just stages for Direct Action capers). And spitting on the clueless police who try to reopen the streets to the public.

This war is going swimmingly well and will be over with quickly. Vietnam had dragged on for years before serious protests mounted.

More significantly, though, is the fact that we've had an all-volunteer military since 1973. Everyone in now chose to be there and, more to the point, no one who didn't choose to be there is. Much of the Vietnam-era student protest movement had much more to do with the very real fear of being drafted and forced to go to Vietnam than it did any philosophical objection to that particular confict or to war in general.

Colege was cheap for the boomers. They grew up in a world where a part time summer job could earn teenagers enough money to go to college and rent a shared apartment all year. The parents just threw in some spending money. And even blue collar parents could earn enough in those days to really help.

Now middle class comforts are much more expensive. Whether by bad urban planning or the shift of wealth from the middle class to the rich, I don't know.

And college tuition is much, much more expensive.

Plus, recreational drugs have become much more expensive.

So the sort of college student who protested against the war in 1968 is working full time at a dead end job hoping to get that college degree soon so he can afford to live on his own.

Jane,

What if the students are supportive of the war? What if the students realize that this is the right thing to do? Or at least neutral? Why do we have to believe that students must be anti-war and anti-intellectual? Lots of students are organizing IN SUPPORT of the war. Your post, thoughtful as usual, points heavily that the pro-Saddam-in-power protests are mostly made by people who hate Bush (and really don't care about Iraq etc). I highly encourage students getting involved but why must it always be anti-government/institutions? (reguardless of who's in power Dem or Rep)

A random (and perfectly objective) sampling of the lounge/club scenes in D.C., NYC, and Chicago have demonstrated that the new "hip" thing for college/post-graduate attractive, thin, professional women is to be very, very, very Republican.

And this survey also showed that single, professional men, in the 21-35 age range, who frequent these establishments, will pretty much think and say whatever these women believe is "smart" and "likely to get them laid." Because, honestly, men don't care if women have a right to an abortion or if poor children can't read.

So, I concur with your assessment of a realignment.

James is right. If you want to see more student protesters, bring back the draft.

Jane Galt is right, too, when she predicts the doom of anti-war sentiment. People tend to like war. That's why we have them so often. And what could be better than a war that doesn't really affect you, that you can watch on TV or turn it off if you get tired of it?

As a senior high school science teacher I can testify that the anti-war movement on our campus is deader than a dodo. If anyone is anti-war, it's some parents. And - ironically - they are being rebelled against.

I agree with Mr. Joyner. The passing of the draft was more conclusive than anything else. Note, too, that Rangel et al. are now huffing and puffing to revive the draft. Not that they want a larger military, but because they realize that there's no resentment and fear to build upon.

Now - I do teach at an upper middle class school at an upper middle suburb. But other colleagues at other location around our county agree: The Movement jest ain't what it was. No one's interested.

By the way, the strongest feeling is hatred of the French. Enrollment in French courses is way down and Japan and Asia are replacing Europe as places to go for exchange students. It's now fashionable to take German and Spanish.

Local colleges see the same thing. Some have had ill attended protest meetings, but - until the last snow storm - students are more interested in dating and mating.

Protest groups are not longer the place to get yourself laid, Thumper. The passing of an era...

Among other good things, an all-volunteer military acts as a real constraint on the state. It is much more difficult for the state to pursue unpopular military action when it has to constantly attract new people. Proposals of mandatory service for young people, even if non-military options are available, need to be vigorously opposed.

yeah campuses are pretty conservative...

i'm a radical, but most people i know aren't all that far off me... essentially they don't see the need to starve government employees.. just fire them... and they only want 50% reductions in taxes...

i think, as mentioned above, kids are hitting the real world earlier (you need to work your ass off, whether at a job or school, to get ahead... grad school is ridiculously tough to get into for the good programs of law or business)

also, having teachers strikes and all sorts of union bs tends to drive people away...

When looking at numbers, I think you need to be very careful trying to compare the Vietnam protests to today's anti-war protests. The Vietnam protest were very often part of a much larger cultural phenomenon. They closed out an entire decade of protest that encompassed the social as well as the political. They often were as much about the social as they were the war itself. My sister-in-law is a govt worker and a life-long Democrat. She has said that a lot of the protests by her fellow students at Wm & Mary were seen as a good excuse to have a "party". A sit-in downtown to shut down traffic not only protested the war, but served as a great excuse to cut class, do some drugs, reject parental values and generally irritate the hell out of anyone over 30.

Second point -- today's protests are as much about nostalgia and self-esteem as they are about Iraq. For many of the aging hippies, they see their Vietnam protests as the most moral acts of their lives. The war against Saddam has given them the chance to relive their "glory" days and reaffirm their sense of moral value. Protesting war (this war, Gulf I, any war) touches the very core of their being.

Also -- we need to remember that the institutional organization and culture of today's Democratic party were set up in the restructuring caused by the McGovern campaign in 1972. While I think we would expect political activists in the minority party to tend to want to oppose anything Bush does [with this tendency greatly exacerbated by the intense hatred Dems feel for Bush], I think the argument can be made that some Dems feel that protesting war is fundamental to party principles. So there is almost an institutional imperative involved.

When I read this at Kevin's blog this morning, I found the juxtaposition curious: " . . . but the bottom line is that these protests are unusually large and should be taken seriously."

I hope that Kevin is not suggesting that they should be taken seriously because they are big. (And I don't think that he is, but he might be.) That's just the old argumentum ad populum, and it's never useful. Scientology, after all, is pretty big, but I doubt he'd suggest we take that seriously. So the proposition that there are a lot of people at the protests is both uncontroversial and irrelevant.

As to the second part, the protests should only be taken seriously to the extent that they offer useful ideas and alternatives. With the U.S. Army sitting in Saddam's palace in Baghdad, the very idea of continuing to protest the war seems a little trite. But beyond that, if there's one thing I have noticed coming from the protests (as distinguished from the anti-war side in general) is a complete dearth of ideas and alternatives. I mean, what are we supposed to do with "Bush=Hitler?" How is that a useful policy statement?

Taking all the "I know what it all means" stuff with the deserved grain of salt, I do agree with the observation that an older crowd now opposes the war than in past wars. Some of that is just the march of time. It was Vietnam that really divided us. There were splits over prior wars, but not since the War Between the States has the division been as, well, divisive. Those who have held on to their opposition serve as a graying anti-war element that was not as gray in other wars. They also represent the baby-boom, so demographics are on the side of gray. The rightward swing among those of Jane's age cadre and younger is pretty well documented.

I also know that this war is different, in a non-rigorous sort of way. My father, in his mid-70s, asked me if I had attended any anti-war rallies. In the past, he was either worried that I had or just curious. Now, he encourages attendance. He is ex-Navy, elected to office as a Republican and a political appointee under Reagan - not the war opponent you would have expected for prior wars. He has a number of friends of his age who also oppose the war. At his age, that just may be most of them.

For God's sake, at least post-1970's, the left's never been a place to get laid.

Most young men on the left (like me), lusted quietly after the cuties in the black leggings at the Anti-whatever campaign meeting, but had read too much Andrea Dworkin to do anything as *sexist* as asking them out for a coffee or a drink - because that would be participating in patriarchial oppression and objectification.

Instead we hoped maybe that we might win their hearts sometime (while leafleting for the Campaign to Support the Miners/Oppose the Poll Tax/End Apartheid, etc.), by e.g. asking them what they thought of Gramsci's ideas of hegemony.

So, not surprisingly most of our college years were celibate. Faking an interest in feminism because you were interested in a particular feminist was a singularly ineffective way of sowing one's oats.

(Which meant the guys hanging round left groups who *did* hit on women by the standard method of getting drunk and making passes at them made out like bandits, while we wimpy PC men wondered why self-described feminists always went out with absolute bastards)

Meanwhile, all the Thatcherite Conservatives were having *much* more fun.

One factor that seems to have been overlooked in all the discussions of pro-war/anti-war sentiment (in the US, anyway) is the changing nature of warfare itself as far as we are concerned- at least in the post-Vietnam era. This change tends, IMO, to deflect or defuse whatever public sentiments against a particular conflict (vs. oppposition to "war" itself as an abstract)- namely, the wars that the US fights nowadays aren't really long enough or damaging enough (to us) to generate any significant opposition.
After the wind-down of the Korean War in 1952-3, the US military only became involved, at intervals, in short, localized, "police-action" type conflicts (Lebanon 1958, Dominican Rep. 1965) - until our involvement in Vietnam began to ramp up to a major commitment of forces (from mid-1965 on). Despite, I am sure, the fond reminisces of a whole (my) generation, the fact (borne out by opinion polls at the time) was that anti-Vietnam-War sentiment was mostly a fringe phenomenon for several years, until, IIRC, late '67 or so. It really only became a significant factor in American life after we had been subject to the bloody, circular meat-grinder war for about 2-1/2 years; and the Tet Offensive showing us that we were still far from the "victory" that the government and military had assured us was just around the corner. And again, memory notwithstanding, anti-war positions were never quite so universal - even at the "end" in 1972.
Contrast, though, the actions the US military has undertaken in the more recent past: Panama 1990, Gulf War 1991, Yugoslavia 1999, Afghanistan 2001, and now Iraq. Short duration, low casualties, overwhelming power (through application of high technology),luckily, leading to mostly successful outcomes.
One can only hope that the occupation of Iraq will NOT turn into another Vietnam - for their sake AND ours - whatever the public mood and attitude towards this conflict is now, there is no guarantee we would feel the same after two or three years of losing troops to a bloody guerrilla war a long way overseas. Fortunately, this does not seem to be likely now: but only time will tell.

Jane: "You can't keep a movement going on Centrum Silver."

Of course not. It takes Metamucil. ;-)

Stan wrote, "She has said that a lot of the protests by her fellow students at Wm & Mary were seen as a good excuse to have a "party."

Well, you have to understand that skeleton costumes are too expensive to just sit in the closet until Halloween.

I'm surprised no one has mentioned this yet... younger people are perhaps less conditioned to seek meaning in large collective events as opposed to individualistic expression. Ergo, weblogging as opposed to marching. Wasting a bunch of hours being herded along in a sea of flesh when you can fax your Congresspeople, post to your blog, make a donation to a suitable charity, and participate in a poll -- all online, from the comfort of your own Aeron -- seems just plain stupid.

After failing with the Peace is Patriotic gambit, they're now wondering what to do after the U.S. wins. Links to my pics and reports of "peace" protests here.

Past wars were fought in a distant land. The events of 9/11 and terrorist declarations of hatred for all things American have really brought a sense of danger home to the doorstep of today's kids who need to see the US strong to feel safe.

"That's just the old argumentum ad populum, and it's never useful. Scientology, after all, is pretty big, but I doubt he'd suggest we take that seriously. So the proposition that there are a lot of people at the protests is both uncontroversial and irrelevant."

Yup. I'll bet a lot more people don't believe that the earth goes around the sun than believe that the war is wrong. But even if we should go by numbers, why should we go by the numbers of people are are willing to march in the streets, as opposed to, say, the number of people who profess to support the war in opinion polls (the latter being vastly larger, of course)?

I ignore the protestors for essentially one reason: they are clearly the same anarchist/marxist anti-capitalist semi-professional protestor retreads. The protests may be large but they are not a large cross-section. I don't pay attention to these people because all of their ideas are discredited.

I've never given a rat's ass who protested what or how many of them showed up. Protests are, basically, shows of force intended to intimidate your ideological opponents. I can't imagine why any rational person cares at all about them, to tell you the truth.

Ideas should make a difference, but protests do nothing, really, to articulate and communicate ideas. Votes make a difference, but protests aren't voting. Disrupting daily life and making an ass of yourself shouldn't make a difference.

Obviously, you people have completely lost all touch with the youth of America. Im 22, and i'll tell you, vietnam is a long distant memory, and that hippie movement has had our teachers feeding us communist, socialist bullshit for my entire lifetime. We're sick of your shit, is basically what im trying to say.
Your equal rights movement has us losing jobs and school positions based on our race instead of our merit(equal opportunity my ass). Your bastion of liberalism, Berkeley California, has us working 3 jobs to afford to pay for our electricity. What im trying to say is, everything a liberal has touched in the span of my lifetime has turned to shit, and we have noticed. And now, you have a bunch of kids glaring in horror at a pile of rubble that used to be the World Trade Center, and we see the government and the media pointing over toward Iraq saying "he helped pay for it". The youth of today is not like in your glory days folks; the world is a much more restricted, much more PC place, and we're not happy about that one bit. Add to that a great deal of anger, angst, and rage. Do you really think we would be against punishing the men responsible for 9/11, or even the people(saddam hussein) who cheered when it happened? If you do, then your either incredibly stupid, or completely insane. America's youth is pissed, and we want justice. If you accept that fact, and keep it in mind whenever you plan to deal with the young people of this country, then you may get some success. Continue to deny it, and you will continue to alienate us all.

John's comment raises an interesting point:

Many who came of political age in the early 1980s point to Jimmy Carter's fumbling w/ the Iranian hostages (coupled w/ the misfortune of being President during a period of ~20% inflation) as a key factor in pushing them towards the right.

Almost certainly, the specter of Vietnam, including the draft, Tet, etc., helped push an equivalent generation to the left.

One has to wonder: Did the events of 9-11 push another generation rightwards?

I think we tend to underestimate the impact of "themes" in news and events on the younger folks' political shaping.

anyhow, on a different note: it is hard to protest when so few have died, and when those in the military age bracket are not asked to serve. my guess is that protests increase in proportion to the rate at which american families and those asked to serve suffer real (and perceived) hurt as a consequence of war. example: how popularity and support for this war went up and down like a yo-yo with perceived success and setbacks. i am sure that john's passion and clarity will direct him to offer his services for his country in some capacity, as opposed to a civilan private enterprise job. good on you john.

I have quite a few left-wing, antiwar friends. But I don't get the impression that a lot of them are protesting. They're online expressing their opinions, they're planning to vote their feelings at the next possible opportunity, but they don't seem inclined towards taking the streets.

I'm not sure why that is -- admittedly, my sample size is tiny.

Interesting that some people are still so Marxist that they can't admit that many civilian private enterprise jobs are actually great for the country.

I'm with you, John. I became an anti-antiwar protestor by delaying my PhD program (a sure deferment at the time) and joining the Air Force to fly in VietNam. I was sick of those drugged-up freakoids and believed at the time, and still do believe, that most of them were cowards trying to save their silly a$$es by avoiding the draft. They have spent the last 30-35 years trying to forget their cowardice and justify their positions by glomming on to some half-baked anti-American "philosophy." Most have been in denial so long that they don't even realize it. A simple explanation? Perhaps, but simple explanations are often the most likely. And now, many of these "gentle people" and appeasers of murderers and dictators are my "colleagues" at the University!

I concur with John's statements. Young(er) people today (i'm a half-dozen years older than him) are conservative/libertarian in their leanings. Far more than the Boomers.

some reasons I'll put forth:

1) rebellion. Yep, no surer way to get teenagers to disagree with you than to have a bunch of graybeards telling you how to think.
Not only that, but as we've all seen, the Left is not....TOLERANT of dissent these days. They ARE the establishment in schools etc.

2) Liberals have accomplished the "noble" goals of their movement. Really...what else is there to fight for in the USA? We don't remember Jim Crow--why--it was FORTY YEARS ago, people (Civil Rights act of 1964). Jeez.

Women's rights? Please--men's sports are getting cut right and left, women dominate school from elementary school through college. What else is there for them to fight for? Just punitive measures--no more equality, instead it's "some people are more equal than others"--i.e. "victims."

3) Kids coming out of school today are pissed at Clinton too. Why? They remember (unlike the Boomers) that the recession started on his watch, and policies instituted under HIS watch exacerbated the current crappile of an economy. Now they're sitting on a worthless, but expensive degree (and a pile of debt) looking for a job pulling espressos.

And France sucks too.

Quite frankly the protesters have not said anything worth saying. I am not young (i have 4 kids) and I have move steadily rightward from HS grad (83) on. I saw the mess that Carter made of Foriegn Policy first hand, I saw a bunch of leftists saying that the problem was the rich, but I could see things getting better with lower taxes, quite frankly when I hear people like Chomsky or Kerry or Kennedy or Pelosi speak, I am appalled that anyone is so simpliste to even follow them. They bring nothing to the table. Young people see that. Quite frankly I think the protesters are a bunch of slackers going from cause to cause (free Mumia, no globalization, no war for oil) without bathing and throwing temper tantrums becuase they lost the debate. Go home before I run you over in my minivan you whiney ungrateful a-hole

The demographics of the protest movement look mixed to me. There are several parts:

1. Aging boomers. Vietnam was the major event in their life, and everything after that is viewed through that prism. This is heavily tinted with nostalgia.

2. The professionally outraged. There's some overlap with (1). Protest is a force that gives their lives meaning. It doesn't matter much what it is; they want to get out carry signs, and carry on.

3. Youth segment: There's a whiff of anarchy and disorder, which is catnip to any self-respecting 19 year old. The black bloc anarchists fit in here; they're really just yobs looking for an excuse to smash stuff. It's soccer hooliganism with a thin veneer of ideology.

4. Youth segment: nostalgists. An annoying part of boomer imperialism. The boomer generation created a template for what college aged people are supposed to act like. They defined youth culture, and there's been a long hangover ever since. This looks mildly pathetic to me; they're pining for an age that's passed.

I'm surprised no one remarked on an interesting comment by Tom. "Faking an interest in feminism because you were interested in a particular feminist was a singularly ineffective way of sowing one's oats. "
Based on his first-hand exposure (or lack of) to the left here is my theory: The current crop of protesters was never born. If 1970's leftist were not mating and creating the next generation of leftist how could they ever hope to continue the species?
It just took a generation for attrition to catch up.

Jeez, did it really take three hours for someone to come up with the Metamucil gag?

I teach state and local govt and public administration at a regional state U. My student's major interaction with the govt consists of 4 things: 1) driving (when do I get my license?); 2) drinking (when can I buy a drink?); 3) what will they do if they catch me doing 1 & 2 together?; and 4) where the Hell is my aid check??

Most of them see the government as too big, too intrusive, and too inept. They are wildly unwilling to listen to old farts (like me) if they try to peddle that Marxist BS.

They also typically work 20+ hours per week in a crappy job. Our local student protesters (all dozen or so of them) are supported in fair style by a combination of parents and (in many cases) extra scholarships and loans for diversity. Oddly enough, the first group resent the second and find them less than appealing.

In addition, at least half are _still_ pissed off by 9/11. (I told them at the time that I'd only believe it really made a difference if people were still mad through Thanksgiving of that year. Whoo! More attention span than I thought.)

Finally, as a Vietnam Era vet and a student in the late '60's, that protest bunch _never_ was a majority in the sense that most of what they wanted was supported by a majority of citizens. What they had was a majority of media exposure. My students today are sometimes hopping mad about the difference between media reports done by those in the States and by those in Iraq.

"Ideas should make a difference, but protests do nothing, really, to articulate and communicate ideas. Votes make a difference, but protests aren't voting. Disrupting daily life and making an ass of yourself shouldn't make a difference."

Well taken. To put it in terms I once used in dissing someone who thought protest was The Great Pursuit:

Protest is to debate what television is to art.

Two weeks ago, after protesters blocked the streets in San Francisco, my daughter interviewed a former Vietnam War resister who remains active in pacifist causes. (It was for her honors thesis.) He was furious at the SF protesters for discrediting the anti-war movement. I think she said the phrase he used was "fucking morons."

Good topic and lots of interesting comments. As Gulf War II looks better and better the stake goes deeper and deeper into the heart of the anti-war Hesperophobic Left. As the facts of Iraqi crimes against humanity and military incompetence unfold what little credibility they had will fall away like the autumn leaves. I was of the Vietnam generation, USMC, and I remember that for most educated men of my generation, the story is one of cowardice and shame, of finagling deferments so some poor schnook goes in your place. Of course, those wretches are now anti-war: how could they not be and not blow their brains out. It's over now. It's behind us as a people. No more Vietnams--more Iraqs.

People tend to like war. That's why we have them so often. And what could be better than a war that doesn't really affect you, that you can watch on TV or turn it off if you get tired of it?

If every war turned out as well as this one, we would never stop. That is, of course, why anti-war activists were hoping this war would go very badly.

My 2c: the Left really died in 1989 as a credible ideology, but it's kind of rattled on mechanically, but nearly wound down now. This war may actually have destroyed its credibility for good. The "antiwar" (actually just plain old "anti-American") movement may well have been its last gasp. An ideology that is nothing but "anti-" is no longer an ideology. The "hardcore" of these marches were either vile old Commie fucks and their young "anarchist" muscle, or Islamofascists. Most of the young people who were on those marches were either confused but well-meaning, and/or merely wary of the US (which is, after all, understandable: it's important that the world's greatest power not become a tyranny) and expressing it.

Serious, intelligent, radical, progressive thinkers (people who want things to positively improve, not just stay stable) are returning to a robust sense of classical liberalism: revolutionary liberalism, the liberalism that humbled kings, brought simple (non-absolute) democracy, rule of law, individual rights (of association, free speech, property, etc.) This liberalism was a hit in Europe; but for one reason or another, it didn't spread to the whole world. But maybe now, the Progress (with a capital "P") of what Lord Acton (famous for the "absolute power corrupts absolutely" quote) called "permanent revolution", can continue more or less as it was, before it was interrupted by WWI and the monumental distraction of socialism.

Socialism, as a radical, progressive ideology was actually a halt on the progress of true liberalism. Socialism was kind of plausible and seductive in its day (and after all, classical liberalism in practice didn't always live up to its noble theory, and many early socialists justifiably criticised this); but I think we can now safely admit that socialism was wrong in almost every way, and that we should have carried on as we were at the end of the 19th century.

We would have had far less megadeaths worldwide since then.

with all due respect, since there is a reasonable chance that we will be in a new war somewhere (syria, iran, north korea) sometime relatively soon, the war protesting is not likely to go away. my guess is that if things go badly in that case (north korea anyone?) that there will be a wider coalition of protestors out there, and not just middle class middle aged "geezers."

I think my generation (I am 26) is more realist than idealist. That would tend to make them more conservative than democrat. As for the protesters I feel nothing but disgust at there antics. They speak for no one but themselves and often reveal to be the most selfish and decadent of people who inhibit this earth. I did three years of refugee work (bosnian/kosovar) and the people that made a real and lasting difference in their lives wasn't the UN or EU or UNHCR or even me. It was the US who militarily and diplomatically got involved and stopped the killing. The fundamental truth is people like Milosevic and Hussein will never stop because they are sick on a level many of use can't contemplate or begin to understand. The protests were about how America used its power not about Iraq. What does that say about a person where the principal of international theory is more important than the reality of saving these people from a monster? Regardless of our reasons for going into Iraq that will be a positive outcome. Whatever the left says about "warmongers" like me I have at least put my life and time on the line and will continue to do so when I join the navy in two months (scary- talk about a lifestyle change). Anyway I think that I am more indicative of my generation than the protestors who will fade back to there lives where they say much and stand for very little.

Dean, re: pivotal politcal events in one's young life.

I'm 23, which makes me too young to remember the hostage crisis or anything significant about the Reagan presidency first-hand. The first memorable political event for people around my age was the 1991 gulf war--The nervous buildup, the Vietnam comparisons: "if this war lasts as long as Vietnam did, you'll be old enough to have to fight in it before it's done." (in a sense they were right), the stunning victory of "Desert Storm" and giant wave of patriotism, and then the bizarre and inexplicable retreat from actually getting the bad guy we'd been told about for lo those many months. Even 11 year olds knew there was something messed up with that.

So, at the risk of claiming to speak for everone of my age, the "unfinished business" aspect of this war probably sticks in our mind more than it would someone who had already experienced their fair share of fickle foriegn policy first hand.

I wonder if there are any polls regarding support among various age groups for invading Iraq from before Sept. 11...

--
Benjamin Coates

Jane your comment:

"Or are today's kids just a bunch of indolent, ungrateful bastards who don't appreciate what the previous generation fought so hard to secure for them?"

No one was more self absorbed than the baby boomers. And we continue to be to this very day.

My own pups view the left as hypocrites, particullarly college professors. More libertarian than conservative, more interested in drinking coffee in the local dinner than having a beer in the parking lot.

Americans support armed conflict, when we plan to win and have a sound rationale. We don't support conflict when our troops are cannon fodder.

If every war turned out as well as this one, we would never stop. That is, of course, why anti-war activists were hoping this war would go very badly

I'm not sure that characterization of anti-war types is quite fair.

As an anti-war person, one fear I have is that if this war goes well, it will embolden us to undertake further adventures that may not go well; for us in terms of blowback and for others in terms of realpolitik.

Realpolitik first: While I hope that we will do right by the Iraqis afterward, I also worry that we won't, given our willingness to sacrifice people in the past when realpolitik demanded it (Turkish and Iraqi Kurds come to mind, as do Iraqi Shia).

I'm not saying realpolitik is unjustifiable. Rather, I recognize that there were compelling reasons to, for example, support Hussein originally in his war against Iran, despite the deaths that caused; or to support the Turks even as they slaughtered tens of thousands of Kurds.

We didn't do these things because we are evil, but because we faced tough choices and tried to choose the lesser of evils.

My fear is that if we face such tough choices again, supporting democracy and liberty for conquered peoples may take a back seat to security and realpolitik -- as it has in the past.

I hope we don't abandon our rhetoric of freedom and liberty, but there are certainly reasons to fear that we may. If those fears are borne out, then I wouldn't want us to repeat the process somewhere else after Iraq.

Blowback next: The point of toppling Hussein is to make us safer, but there is certainly an argument to be made that doing so could make us less safe and actually increase anti-US terrorism.

To someone who believes this argument, more foreign intervention leads to more blowback, and so we should only intervene militarily when there is no better option.

If September 11th is read in part as blowback for bases put in place for Gulf War I, then it appears that blowback takes time. We may engage in two or three more wars after Iraq before reaping what we sow and realizing that there is a negative consequence to our easy conquests.

Believing this argument, I'd prefer we not fight more optional/preventive wars after Iraq.

This is not to say that anti-war people want the war in Iraq to go badly. What that would literally mean is that our soldiers die and that our security is drastically reduced once other potentially hostile nations see that we were beaten.

I don't think anti-war people want this.

We wanted to stop before Iraq, and we'll want to stop right after. Most of us want this because we think it's best for the U.S., not because we hate the country. Losing in Iraq would be bad for us too.

While it is fun to argue against the wackiest fringe of the anti-war side, most people don't want their country to be hurt. The ~27% of Americans who are still against the war can hold the rational position that while starting it was a bad idea, losing it would be a disaster.

As to protests of now vs. yesteryear, the two most salient points have been made, I think:
(1) There is no draft
(2) The big Vietman protests occurred well into the war

If this war lasts as long as Vietnam, goes as poorly, and you force people to go fight it, you'll see more protests. Otherwise, you won't, and that's rational.

Jim,

That was one of the most cogent arguments against the war that I've read anywhere.

My sincere congratulations to you, on laying out your side as clearly, plainly, and w/ no vitriol as anyone anywhere.

Reading your piece (and hopefully reading some of the opposite side's) should make it clear that the REAL line separating the pro-war/anti-war sides are matters of calculation, guesswork, and estimation.

Just as you say that you are worried about the realpolitik and blowback sides, so, too, are the pro-war folks (of which I'd number myself) concerned about similar issues, similarly titled.

The realpolitik concern of allowing other states to perceive us as weak, or indecisive. The realpolitik benefit (which we may be seeing in China's attitudes towards NK) of a strong, decisive leadership. (FYI: The Chinese, long claiming they had no levers on NK actions, are now restricting NK oil access and warning them to cool it on issues such as w/drawal from NPT and further missile tests.)

Blowback concerns that some of us express include the need to end wars cleanly. Thus, the failure of the Bush-I admin to topple Saddam when he had the chance---for fear of what the UN and allies might say. Conversely, perceived benefits, including the possibility that places like Iran will see a successful Iraq (by no means guaranteed) as a reason to chart a new path, one not dominated by the mullahs.

Are these bennies guaranteed? By no means, any more than the pitfalls you outlined.

But at least you recognize that everyone is playing this by the seat of their pants (rather than the BFEE's machinations or somesuch nonsense).

Again, kudoes to a great post.

As far as the "Centrum Silver" remark goes, I wouldn't go so far... the elderly have a powerful lobby.

Of course, that's also going to create a lot of resentment, which also bodeth unwell for the protest clique...

Personally, I'm quite the conservative. It's one of the few things I disagree with my other young friends about, and also one of the few things I do agree with most of my family about. But of my anti-war friends, I will say this: they seem to want to express their feelings in a sort of feeble hand-wringing way. I hear "Oh, this isn't good," and "I'm so worried," a lot, though they typically sound more cynically threatening than genuinely concerned. Sort of like Sheryl Crow's remark about karma... if we don't eat our vegetables and quit waging war on other countries, we'll be sorry later (insert finger-wagging)!

It's a similar to the symptomatically apathetic "Not in Our Name" movement (or lack thereof). They have just about as much enthusiasm over this war issue as your average reality tv spectator, and friendly fire between Americans and Brits holds only as much significance to them as the sniping of their least favorite couple on Temptation Island.

I don't think it's laziness, either. Nor do I think it's conservative rebellion. The true rebellion against liberal idealism isn't conservativism; it's cynicism. Cynicism is also the truest rebellion against the stereotype of fiery, passionate youth.

It fuels a movement even less than Centrum Silver.

*deposits two cents*

I'd have to agree with some of the comments up top. The younger folks are decidedly more conservative/libertarian. The anti-war rally on our campus (~25,000 population) a couple weeks ago drew ~100 people with a lot of gray hair to be seen. In addition, a couple dozen of those 100 were anti-anti-war protestors. The support the troops (nominally pro-war) rally last week drew ~800. The NY Times had a good article about the differences between faculty and students a few days ago.

Those differences are starting to show up in the faculty as well. I work every day with at least a half dozen colleagues who have pictures of Bush as Hitler in their offices, and a lot of others who are only somewhat more subtle in expressing their opinions. I gave up debating with them after the first couple days because it's pretty much like talking to a wall. The other 2 pro-war faculty that I know in my department are also junior faculty, both under 35 (I'm 29). When one colleague got indignant with me about how an "educated" person such as myself could possibly be conservative on the war or anything else, I told him that he better get used to it, because I am on the leading edge of a demographic that will tilt to the right and will eventually hit the university as well. He went away absolutely depressed muttering things like "what has happened to our children?"

We're now seeing the twilight of the Vietnam Generation, aka the last hurrah of all those for whom opposition to the war and to the US govt defined their political markers for life. Those of us who were too young to remember Tet do not assume that US military intervention abroad inevitably leads to the dread quagmire, or that 3rd world anti-americanism is invariably part of a progressive anti-colonial, liberation movement.

But it's even worse for Howell Raines and the other gray-haired Vietnam nostalgics clogging up the senior ranks of western news organizations. The defining event for today's youth is 9/11, and the defining war is Gulf War II. Forget Hanoi Jane--try Private Jessie. Already the teenaged girls view Jessica Lynch as a hero and role model for fighting while wounded and for killing so many Iraqis before she was captured. When the movies come out, the pro-patriot tide will swell even more.

Vietnam era--good riddance. Kudos to our extraordinarily skilled, competent, and brave troops!

a couple of quick comments:
those who forget the lessons of history are doomed to repeat them.

i cannot get over the anger with which many of the pro war folks speak of anti-war folks, especially those who put their bodies on the line in protest (as opposed to those folks who put their bodies on the line in battle--both iraqi and americans). the irony of this is that pro-war hawks during the vietnam war felt just as strongly about anti-war folks back in that era protesting for peace, and used plenty of the same rhetoric that many of you are using now.

also, when i read this,

"As for the protesters I feel nothing but disgust at there antics. They speak for no one but themselves and often reveal to be the most selfish and decadent of people who inhibit this earth."

i would like to remind you that this kind of sentiment was thrown around by the british back 240 odd years ago to describe some whacko americans who had some silly notion that they could be--get this--an independent country. what a laugh! bloody liberal wimps!

"I was of the Vietnam generation, USMC, and I remember that for most educated men of my generation, the story is one of cowardice and shame, of finagling deferments so some poor schnook goes in your place. Of course, those wretches are now anti-war: how could they not be and not blow their brains out."

or maybe, today, they are prominent members of congress, the administration, & media personalities, who helped bring us to war with iraq?

David wrote:

"Kids coming out of school today are pissed at Clinton too. Why? They remember (unlike the Boomers) that the recession started on his watch,"

They better send a letter to the NBER, who date the recession from March 2001:

http://www.nber.org/cycles/november2001/

"The NBER's Business Cycle Dating Committee has determined that a peak in business activity occurred in the U.S. economy in March 2001. A peak marks the end of an expansion and the beginning of a recession. The determination of a peak date in March is thus a determination that the expansion that began in March 1991 ended in March 2001 and a recession began. The expansion lasted exactly 10 years, the longest in the NBER's chronology"

You better get a bit more fluent with economics if you're gonna work at a VC firm (is it Soffinova, BTW? Mike Powell is a good guy).

" and policies instituted under HIS watch exacerbated the current crappile of an economy."

Longest expansion in 10 years. Pretty damn low misery index, too. Perhaps you might compare Levitt's record as SEC regulator compared to Pitt. Or the effect the 1996 law limiting shareholder lawsuits - hmmm, whose "Contract in America" was that in, then?

Here's an exercise for you, as you're a PhD: go to the Bureau of Economics website. Download the real GDP growth data. Take the post-1948 data (as the methodology changed in 1947, plus the economy in 1945-1948 was affected by post-war demobilization). In a spreadsheet, compare the mean & median real growth growth rate for Republican versus Democratic presidents. Take the standard error, if you like. Hell, you could even adjust the data to take account of congressional control. Ponder the results.

[If you want to include the war years, go ahead; but you should also include then all the Roosevelt and Hoover years (think the data goes back to 1929.]

Alternatively, saunter over to the Haas school of Business, go to their spiffy library with the comfy chairs, find a copy of Greg Mankiw's (Bush's current head of the CEA) "Macroeconomics", and look up in, oh, chapter 4, where in an interesting sidebar he looks at the statistics for the GDP growth relative performance of Republican-versus-Democrat presidents. Adjust your worldview as necessary.

I'd make more comments on the left, student activism, and demographic trends (having worked for a year for the National Union of Students in the UK), but they're wasted here; I've no particular desires to explain what I see as the trends on the left when straw-man abuse via telepathic implants is the favored activity du jour.

tom,
i don't think you are going to convince folks with facts. even if the average rate of growth is greater under democrats than republicans (due in part to more expansionary policies), this doesn't fit the world-view expressed by many folks, and so it will be discarded.

has anyone done any work on the economic cycles in the us in the absence of stabilizing gov't policies--say the 1890s?

"You can't keep a movement going on Centrum Silver."

NOPE! You need Ex-Lax to keep a movement going!

tom,
"i don't think you are going to convince folks with facts. even if the average rate of growth is greater under democrats than republicans (due in part to more expansionary policies),"

That's what Mankiw says, but I'd say the differences in rates of inflation aren't that great (IIRC, the mean CPI inflation rate was higher under Democrats, but the median was higher under Republicans, when I crunched the numbers).

However, Mankiw's the guy with the PhD and string of publications, not me.

"this doesn't fit the world-view expressed by many folks, and so it will be discarded."

Yeah, I know.

"has anyone done any work on the economic cycles in the us in the absence of stabilizing gov't policies--say the 1890s?"

No idea, to be frank - I'm not an economist, just a shit-sucking MBA (though my wife is an economist).

I do dimly recall looking at figures for the 1880s that the economy was more volatile, and recessions were steeper and lasted longer - but you could blame the crappiness of the economy on *really, really* bad monetary policy rather than the absence of automatic fiscal stabilizers.

I'm sure much work has been done on it, but probably the relative paucity of economic data from that time compared to now makes drawing conclusions problematic.

"I was of the Vietnam generation, USMC, and I remember that for most educated men of my generation, the story is one of cowardice and shame, of finagling deferments so some poor schnook goes in your place."

If the government is setting out to force you into a war that does nothing to enhance the safety of your countrymen, thwarting its efforts is perfectly reasonable, and not a sign of cowardice. If the government then snatches someone else for the same purpose, I don't see how those who successfully escaped that fate can be held responsible for the actions of the government.

"We're now seeing the twilight of the Vietnam Generation, aka the last hurrah of all those for whom opposition to the war and to the US govt defined their political markers for life. Those of us who were too young to remember Tet do not assume that US military intervention abroad inevitably leads to the dread quagmire, or that 3rd world anti-americanism is invariably part of a progressive anti-colonial, liberation movement."

What we are seeing is the government still struggling to regain the trust of the American people, after having cruelly betrayed that trust in the 1960's and 1970's. For decades, when the government called people to war, most people trusted that their service was really needed, and their sacrifices would actually help preserve the country they loved. By 1975, that trust was destroyed, guaranteeing that even necessary military activities would be looked upon with deep suspicion for many years to come.

That distrust has its good points and bad points. It is probably the reason that Clinton didn't waste the lives of ground troops in Kosovo; on the other hand, it is behind the reluctance of many to support the current effort to deal with a real threat to this country.

But, all in all, it is not as bad as it could be. After a previous betrayal in 1917, not only could the government not get support for a badly needed preventative war, it could not even adequately arm itself without sparking suspicions tthat it was plotting to follow in Wilson's footsteps. Echos of this attitude manifested themselves during Reagan's military buildup; fortunately, they were not decisive the second time around.

"has anyone done any work on the economic cycles in the us in the absence of stabilizing gov't policies--say the 1890s?"

Well, as I recall, the downturns were rather short compared to the first serious use of "stabilizing gov't policies"... in the 1930's.

Christ on a pony, cas, could you be a little more simplistic?

> Realpolitik first: While I hope that we will do right by the Iraqis afterward, I also worry that we won't, given our willingness to sacrifice people in the past when realpolitik demanded it (Turkish and Iraqi Kurds come to mind, as do Iraqi Shia).

One of the reasons that the US ends up doing realpolitik things is that no one believes that the US will act militarily until way too late.

Part of the reason that that's true is the anti-war movement. It is so expensive to undertake "small" actions that the US delays until only big actions will do.

It would be nice if there was some evidence that delay has (in some cases) succeeded, that is, made action unnecessary.

"Christ on a pony, cas, could you be a little more simplistic?"

sorry mate,
there is a lot of emotion on the comment list. assuming that you are not being sarcastic or ironic (who knows) i guess that the issue raised is a favourite of the comentators here: that big tax cuts will help the economy (through supply side effects). well, why not look at a time when there were no fed income taxes, like the 1890s, and see how the economy operated then. lots of ups and downs. it would be worth exploring to see if it shed any light--in favour or against---big tax cuts (and on business cycle volatility). i did a little looking: http://www.j-bradford-delong.net/TCEH/1998_Draft/seven/Cyclical_Variability.pdf
has an interesting look at cycle variability. but he is not someone many folks here like to read. as for the length of the 1890s depression, 1893-1895, brief rebound, 1897-1898. i read five years in all, but i am open to correction on this.

Gee, Tom & Cas. I don't have a MBA or a Ph.D. in Economics, but I can spot examples of "How To Lie With Statistics".

And I too can knock off a superficial (superfiscal?) rant on who's responsible for the present state of the Economy.

Um, when did the Stock Market begin to drop? In early 2000, while Clinton was Pres, it seems to me. I held on to my stocks then, 'cause I thought Clinton would somehow keep the market up through the election. Silly me. But you knew what was coming & sold, right?

Also, assuming that we accept March 2001 at the start of your Recession, Bush then was in office less than two Months! D'oh.

What was the name of the library you recommend? The Library of the Democratic Party?

To get back on track re Wars but to keep lying with stats, & supplying a synopsis as slickly superficial as yours, the Johnson people blamed Viet Nam on the Kennedy people, the Nixon people blamed it on the Johnson people, & in '76 The Dems, now under the control of the youthful "antiwar movement" blamed our ultimate defeat there on Nixon (Richard The Evil) & Kissinger. And so we got the Carter people, "McGovernism without McGovern" & in 1980 the voters blamed our situation on the Carter people & we got Ronald The Actor. The aging McGovernites then protested everything done by the Govt. from 1981-1992, forgetting to note that Ronald The Actor had ended the Evil Empire or as you do that a mild Recession had ended in '91 while a Republican was Pres.

Thereafter, they, aging further but not growing in wisdom, protested no govt. action except Congressional ones 'til 2001, when they, now aging even further, rediscovered poverty & the horrors of a strong military under the command of a Republican (George The Moron), & proclaimed that unto us a Recession hath been born which we shall blame on the incumbent who happens to be a Republican. Yea, verily clucked the true believers. And some of them even have the stats to prove it!

Hey, 9/11 happened on Bush's watch also, & don't let me blame that on our Clintonite "Holiday from History", which allowed our hostess to be "a quasi-isolationist civil liberties purist when [she] thought that Fortress America was invulnerable". The anti-war movement's main point now seems to be that the "Attack on Iraq" was caused by the failure of Bush as a diplomat; if only he'd have kept talking.... And since peace has failed they can act unpeacefully in the streets & relive their lost youth and, hey where are all the real youths?

Tom Com

Gee, Tom & Cas. I don't have a MBA or a Ph.D. in Economics, but I can spot examples of "How To Lie With Statistics".

And I too can knock off a superficial (superfiscal?) rant on who's responsible for the present state of the Economy.

Um, when did the Stock Market begin to drop? In early 2000, while Clinton was Pres, it seems to me. I held on to my stocks then, 'cause I thought Clinton would somehow keep the market up through the election. Silly me. But you knew what was coming & sold, right?

Also, assuming that we accept March 2001 at the start of your Recession, Bush then was in office less than two Months! D'oh.

What was the name of the library you recommend? The Library of the Democratic Party?

To get back on track re Wars but to keep lying with stats, & supplying a synopsis as slickly superficial as yours, the Johnson people blamed Viet Nam on the Kennedy people, the Nixon people blamed it on the Johnson people, & in '76 The Dems, now under the control of the youthful "antiwar movement" blamed our ultimate defeat there on Nixon (Richard The Evil) & Kissinger. And so we got the Carter people, "McGovernism without McGovern" & in 1980 the voters blamed our situation on the Carter people & we got Ronald The Actor. The aging McGovernites then protested everything done by the Govt. from 1981-1992, forgetting to note that Ronald The Actor had ended the Evil Empire or as you do that a mild Recession had ended in '91 while a Republican was Pres.

Thereafter, they, aging further but not growing in wisdom, protested no govt. action except Congressional ones 'til 2001, when they, now aging even further, rediscovered poverty & the horrors of a strong military under the command of a Republican (George The Moron), & proclaimed that unto us a Recession hath been born which we shall blame on the incumbent who happens to be a Republican. Yea, verily clucked the true believers. And some of them even have the stats to prove it!

Hey, 9/11 happened on Bush's watch also, & don't let me blame that on our Clintonite "Holiday from History", which allowed our hostess to be "a quasi-isolationist civil liberties purist when [she] thought that Fortress America was invulnerable". The anti-war movement's main point now seems to be that the "Attack on Iraq" was caused by the failure of Bush as a diplomat; if only he'd have kept talking.... And since peace has failed they can act unpeacefully in the streets & relive their lost youth and, hey where are all the real youths?

Tom Com

cas,

Here's a scary thought for you. What if Gulf War I, Afghanistan, and Gulf War II mean that the US could go to war w/ impunity?

What if, just if, the US now has such a military superiority that it could even take out North Korea in a couple of months? You know, end the reign of one of the nastiest regimes out there?

Would there be protests? SHOULD there be protests? And if we succeeded, how long will the protests last then?

Just a thought....

Socialism as a brake on true Democracy, as a previous poster suggests, is also confluent and dangerously present in "modern" reactionary Muslimism. Most of the Muslim theorists and West haters like bin Laden and others have had a lot of contact with the West and with Western political theory. Socialism is the most corrupting influence of all on Islam mixing, as it does, utopian idealism with a religio-state apparatus.

"The very idea of Revolution, of revolutionary struggle, and of state run economics, not to mention the uniforms, the weapons, and the military organization, is derived from Western ideology and history...principally, in the 20th century, from the Russian Revolution. When Palestinian organizations began trying to practice guerrilla warfare, all of the rhetoric and precedent for this was borrowed from "national liberation" movement practices in Cuba, Vietnam, etc." http://www.friesian.com/afghan.htm

Similarly:

'Daniel Pipes says of "Islamism": "Wherever that seditious and totalitarian ideology has gained a foothold in the world, it has wrought havoc, and some societies it has brought to utter ruin" [op.cit. p.24]. All that lies at hand for an alternative explanation are the hoary cliches of Marxism-Leninism. Everything can be blamed on colonialism, imperialism, and the international conspiracy of Americans and Jews to exploit the oppressed and thereby dominate the world economy -- seamlessly blending Marxist analysis with the tradition of Tsarist and Nazi anti-Semitism.' ibid.

Cheers

ekw

What I find curious is why the U.S. campus/media indoctrination has seemingly failed to flower after thirty some years of almost zero competition. Is it just the contrary pressure of the political pendulum? Or truth trumping error?

Coming late to the discussion... Ken: Milton Friedman has a whole book contrasting the severe economic depression of the 30's with earlier milder, briefer economic downturns and blaiming the arrival of inept government intervention in the 30's for the difference. He argues that private control of the economy before had been more effective.
Throughout the day the arguements against the war seem to come mostly from those old enough to have protested against the Viet Nam War but no comments from those who recall Korea. That war also became unpopular when we didn't seem to be winning. The difference, I think, was that an election came sooner and that Eisenhower who was elected on the promise he would end the war there rapidly did so while Nixon who came in after things had gotten much more heated did not.
A final comment. The Boomers were raised by parents who had gone through the dangers of the Depression and WWII and were very over protective of their children. As a group the Boomers felt secure and resented constraints. As parents they were often more concerned with their own needs than the needs of their kids. Those GenX kids are more cynical, less trusting, and more concerned about security. I think that difference is reflected in today's discussion. (The GenX kids by the way seem to be more protective parents.)

I think the end of the Draft helps explain why the age profile of anti-war protesters has changed. Funnily enough, Frank V (above comment) refers to Milton Friedman. Friedman played a key role in lobbying to kill the draft.

More proof that Prof. Friedman is one of the great men of our time.

hi dean,

"Here's a scary thought for you. What if Gulf War I, Afghanistan, and Gulf War II mean that the US could go to war w/ impunity?

What if, just if, the US now has such a military superiority that it could even take out North Korea in a couple of months? You know, end the reign of one of the nastiest regimes out there?"

we would all celebrate, except for the part of me, that i suspect you also have as well, that would grieve for the hundred of thousands of probably dead north and south koreans caught in a nuclear exchange. maybe even a million or two japanese.

"Would there be protests? SHOULD there be protests? And if we succeeded, how long will the protests last then?"

at that point, i do not know whether protesting would be of any use whatsoever, just grieving. would it happen? i really do not know. but do you want to take that risk? would that possibility sit with you as an acceptable risk?

Brian,

College is more expensive because it is government subsidized.

For drugs the government has a different price support mechanism.

In reading through this thread, it seems to me that an element of the Vietnam anti-war movement has been brushed up against but not tackled directly - trust in your government.

IIRC (from an adolescent perspective at the time and subsequent books), during the early stages of the war, there was still a cozy relationship between the press and the government. (Think back a few years earlier about the wink-wink, nudge-nudge 'reporting' on JFK's dalliances.) Government statements about the course of the war weren't generally challenged. We would fight communism, and we would win.

Unfortunately, the war began to bog down (less euphemistically meaning that a lot more people started to die). However, we were still 'winning'. Heck, every week the nightly news showed the latest scorecard - KIA, MIA, POW. How could we lose with those stats ?

I think you get my drift. Inflated casualty counts, the 'Five o'clock Follies', and - increasingly - tales from the front lines about the FUBAR all became part of a groundswell of public questioning. Why are we over there fighting ? And if we can't hear the truth from you about the details, why should we believe you about the broader picture ?

Now, to take the rightist view, let's just suppose that the Vietnam protests started with a cadre of radicals looking to tear down America. Lots of hippies signing on for the drugs and free love. Pretty unpalatable mix. But let's tack on the government's obfuscatory tactics. And a funny thing happened. Questioning moved toward the mainstream. A tipping point, in the vernacular.

My question is this: If today's rightists so hotly proclaim their disdain for government, why would they find protesting against government lies so ignoble ? Why wouldn't they find that element of that 'peace' movement much to their liking ? And to take the point a bit further, could it be that some of today's anti-war dissent (and by that I mean the simple act of questioning the government about the war) is latent mistrust ?

I hope we don't have to go down the 'Leftists simply hate Bush; there's no reason not to believe his administration' path. Maybe this government is above diddling the truth. But what in the world is wrong with questioning the presumption ? After all, WWARD ? (What Would A Rightist Do)

I don't think the draft is the explanation.

The Vietnam era student riot-style peace movement grew out of an earlier civil rights and peace movement that in turn grew out of student activism on the left and some parts of the religious left/right, as well as a tiny libertarianish fringe from the right. But all of those movements, with the possible exception of the Friends, were young. There were not a lot of Freedom Riders toting pictures of their grandchildren.

I can't think of a movement in American history where the aged skipped a generation and then suddenly began recruiting again. If you want to get college kids in, what you need is slightly older kids -- not Grandma inviting you down to the protest hall. If the antiwar groups don't reverse course soon, they'll be permanently locked out.

THat's not to say that there will never be another anti-war protest on US soil or anything silly. But the core of the movement is an establishment. If they're still relying on the same people to organize these protests as they did for kosovo, haiti, Gulf I, panama, grenada, Libya, and Vietnam, they're badly in need of a Bill Buckley to start a new anti-war movement that can pull some numbers.

I was anti-war in the 60s and I'm a greying pro-war today.

The difference between then and now is not that my ideals have changed. I've just learned a couple of things.

The most important is that liberals mean well but wish to obtain their dreams at the point of a gun.

As a late-boomer, born in 1958, I can tell you, it's cute watching the children of today trying to attach some sort of deep meaning to motivations of their favorite aunts, uncles and mentors. "It is through this moral prism that they see the war".

What a bunch of bullshit! 96.0% of them went to war protests the war for the same reason that I once went to a Fog Hat concert. I didn't really care about Fog Hat, but it was what everyone else in my little circle was doing that weekend.

While this is indeed encouraging, I would not presume to call the anti-war movement 'dead' yet...or even waning. There are forces at work who are taking this moment in history as opportunity to further their cause. They may decide they will not voice against the war or the US, but they are still exposed to Marxist elements. And that is all the crack in the stone that the Marxists need. Front Page Magazine and Michelle Malkin point this out.

I have posted a couple of articles on my blog today that will spell it out. What those two authors write is what *I* see.

i do not think that you can say, "its not the draft, its the confluence of historical forces". it was the emerging radicalism of the sixties-civil rights, etc. it was the draft that brought home the cost to the generation avoiding/bearing the cost of the war. it was the emergence of a new way of reporting the tv war and its impact on voters. it was a demographic of entitlement. it was time. it was... (put in any i missed). so, the question is, do we see these issues today? is there a confluence of forces that will lead to a sustained level of activism? maybe there are some candidates, but it is still nascent.

with all due respect, americans love winners. if america gets its nose bloody, and we see young american folks going off to die in large numbers in a foreign adventure (war of choice), and for an extended period of time, the anti-war movement will pick up steam (and public opinion will head south). how many of you seriously disagree with that observation? the key is that with such technological superiority that the us has, and given the folks we currently want to take on, that is not likely to happen. so the antiwar movement will not be able to feed from those it really needs to sustain it. quite honestly, it won't matter if "the members of the younger generation" are conservative or liberal if there is a sustained foreign disaster. they will be "comrades in arms" on the protest barricades.

Following this discussion yesterday it amazed me how unquestioningly everyone accepted the notion that most protesters were from an older generation. This seemed counterintuitive just because marching around in a crowd trying to stir things up is more a young peoples' sport.

Using “protest” in a Google image search I chose the first thumbnail that looked like Americans with signs. It turned out to be New Yorkers protesting the Afghanistan war. I zoomed in and marked each face with a different symbol for over/under 40. I didn’t mark any that were too unclear or too borderline. The result? 34 “young” and 4 “old” protesters. Maybe this is another case of the Washington sniper phenomenon: you’re more inclined to see what you’re looking for than what’s actually there.

Thumper's back!

And here I thought you had left your last comment here.

Elderly protesters?

The pictures in the papers of the local - Pennsylvania suburban/semi-rural - anti-war rally I just rescued from the trash.

I would say they look 2:1 old:young. And I count two or three young who are holding hands with what look like parents.

But the grey element definetely predominates.

And in the background people are going by (protest was held outside a local federal building {IRS and the like}) without giving much of a glance. Ignored, for the most part.

At 17 I *led* the anti-Gulf War protest march in my town. At 18, I voted for President Clinton. Then I got college, a few years of work, law school, and a few more years of work under my belt -- and now I'm a Republican with decidedly libertarian leanings. I concur with George Stewart, waaay up in the comments that it seems it's a return to old-school Liberal politics (big "L" Liberal) for me. I simply cannot take seriously and anti-war movement that can't come up with ANY viable alternatives to the use of force in this case (I will concede there are exceptions to this generalization -- just not in my sector of town). I understand the hesitation, and the fear. I feel them to. I just can't understand the rote repetition of "War is not the Answer." It really depends on what damn question you're asking.

We sent advisors into Vietnam in 1960 and pulled the last troops out in 1975. If the war in Iraq lasted 15 years and it looked like we were losing, the protests would dwarf the Vietname era. But they'd never get that big, because America would never stick it out that long. No one in this country has the stomach for a never-ending war, not anymore. We like short, victorious wars. If the Queda and the other terrorists manage to turn post-war Iraq in the muder-American-soldiers capital of the world, we will get the hell out of there. And the anti-war movement will claim victory.

Tom Com wrote:

"Gee, Tom & Cas. I don't have a MBA or a Ph.D. in Economics, but I can spot examples of "How To Lie With Statistics"."

Well, take it up with the NBER. David said the recession started on Clinton's watch. The NBER differs in its opinion.

"And I too can knock off a superficial (superfiscal?) rant on who's responsible for the present state of the Economy."

You sure can.

Oh, by the way, I didn't quote any statistics, just encouraged other people to crunch their own, or to read Greg Mankiw's "Macroeconomics" book (Third Edition, p 371) if they don't have the time. Go ahead, try it.

Here's a quote from Mankiw:
'Notice that growth is usually low, and often negative, in the second year of Republican administrations. Six of the seven years in which real GDP fell are second or third years of Republican administrations. By contrast, the economy is usually booming in the second and third years of Democratic administrations.'

You might want to Google to find out what job Dr. Mankiw has now.

"Um, when did the Stock Market begin to drop? In early 2000, while Clinton was Pres, it seems to me."

The Stock Market Is Not The Economy. As Paul Samuelson said once "The Stock Market has successfully predicted nine out of the last five recessions."

" I held on to my stocks then, 'cause I thought Clinton would somehow keep the market up through the election. Silly me. But you knew what was coming & sold, right?"

Nope. I don't hold individual stocks. My 401k is wholly in stock funds, but too much of it in overseas for me to have benefited much from the 1990s US bull market.

A lesson my finance professor taught: Unless you're a professional, don't pick stocks, don't try to time the market. I'm not a complete believer in efficient market hypothesis, but I know that the professionals know more than I do. And that NASDAQ is a poorly-diversified index (at the peak, ~15-20% of the value of the NASDAQ was Cisco).

Tom, if your wife is an economist, and you hold an MBA, you know that the policy cycle time on the economy is about 18 months. Thus, while it is technically true that the recession did not start during the Clinton years, it is not true in the sense that you are implying, which is that Clinton's policies had nothing to do with it. The stock market is a leading indicator, and its decline confirms the view that by the time Bush took office, the recession was already inevitable.

Now can we get back onto the topic of the thread?

Cas,

You're a decent chap, and some of your comments are cogent, but really you, like so many on your "side" don't really get what's been happening. The US is NOT going to go gung-ho for more and more wars. Although this war was (amongst other things, including, yes, the securing of a healthy proportion of the world's oil supply) a war for democracy and liberality, don't go getting the idea that the US is going to throw its sons and daughters on some sort of sacrificial heap to try and "spread" democracy, etc.

Part of the point of having _this_ war was precisely because Iraq was, at the end of the day, a relatively "soft" target. Yet the idea was to get a certain message across; and the point of getting the message across was so that the US (and UK, etc.) wouldn't _have_ to do more of this war stuff. The point was to _prevent_ worse scenarios in the future.

I think the instincts of Bush et. al. are fundamentally isolationist, and the US is now going to enter a relatively isolationist phase, while at the same time increasing its ability to project power anywhere on the planet, without having to rely on flakey countries for bases, without having to be where they aren't wanted.

From what I have seen of the anti-war crowd it is the same coalition of the loonie-left that I witnessed during Vietnam. The biggest difference is the leadership has been exposed for what it is. The demonstrations are both less frequent and smaller. In DC the demonstrations are characterized by puppets, fringe groups, and people who seem more interested in a good time than the cause. One reason is cable tv and blogs which have served as jungle drums. The mainstream media has become a joke and some like the NYTimes have become irrelevant, dealing more with propoganda than the news. It will be harder for the WWP to mobilize people now that people are aware of who organizes these organizations and who funds them.

The Democrats have also placed themselves in an dangerous position by opposing the war and attacking Bush. This election looks like a replay of 72 rather than 92.

hi george

"You're a decent chap, and some of your comments are cogent, but really you, like so many on your "side" don't really get what's been happening. The US is NOT going to go gung-ho for more and more wars. Although this war was (amongst other things, including, yes, the securing of a healthy proportion of the world's oil supply) a war for democracy and liberality, don't go getting the idea that the US is going to throw its sons and daughters on some sort of sacrificial heap to try and "spread" democracy, etc."

you also seem to be a decent chap. i just hope you are right. but don't you feel just a smidgeon of tension, when you also say:

"I think the instincts of Bush et. al. are fundamentally isolationist, and the US is now going to enter a relatively isolationist phase, while at the same time increasing its ability to project power anywhere on the planet, without having to rely on flakey countries for bases, without having to be where they aren't wanted."

after all, what are you going to project your power on? and how? will the us rely on the "threat" of an arse-kicking to keep the locals from getting restless? of course, things might settle down re north korea, syria, and iran of their own accord. but the proof, as they say, is in the pudding. and, i don't think anyone can yet say, with confidence, whether the pudding has been fully baked yet.

could you be seen to be suggesting, if i read your comment's implication right, that 9/11 is a blip re foreign affairs, and that it will be back to "business as usual?"

I certainly hope for a replay of '72. Remember what happened in '74?

"Tom, if your wife is an economist, and you hold an MBA, you know that the policy cycle time on the economy is about 18 months."

Fiscal or monetary? Monetary, yeah, 18 months is right. Fiscal, shorter cycle time - maybe 6 months, but you've got the whole budget cycle.

"Thus, while it is technically true that the recession did not start during the Clinton years,"

Cheers. Thanks for agreeing with me on that point. David appeared to have a problem with that.

" it is not true in the sense that you are implying, which is that Clinton's policies had nothing to do with it."

Maybe you can point out which specific policies those were. Maybe running too high a surplus? (Actually, that'd be plausible, IMHO).

If you're talking about over-leverage of balance sheets, or the after-effects of aggressive accounting, then I'd put the responsibility for those in the private sector (including us investors in the market), or on the GOP congresspeople who stymied Levitt's program to separate auditing & consulting.

"The stock market is a leading indicator,"

Not necessarily, cf. the Samuelson quote. Weren't you not a week ago disparaging those reading tea leaves from the fluctuations of the market?

" and its decline confirms the view that by the time Bush took office, the recession was already inevitable."

Sorry, I don't buy it; I think that Bush was talking up the recession before taking office, and that helped contribute to the slowdown in business investment; nor were the economic policies he advocated seen as sufficiently short-term stimulative, but, in the long-term, were seen as putting a drag on the economy from deficits.

Look, you're in NY city, you hang out with Wall Streeters, and you know what the chief I-banking economists' opinions are of the current policies and of the economic future. My impression is that the economist talking heads, even in I-banks are less plussed with current economic policy than under Clinton, and certainly have much less faith in the individuals on the Bush economic team (O'Neill was no match for Summers or Rubin). What's your read?

I certainly don't buy, given the 18-month policy cited above, that the current weakness of the labor market (lowest labour participation rate in nine years) can be blamed on Clinton, as David did above.

"Now can we get back onto the topic of the thread?"

Sure, my thoughts:

1. Youth of Vietnam protests was the exception, not the rule, because; (a) the social democratic left in the US (like SD-USA or ADA) supported the cold war (b) the old revolutionary left (like, say the CPUSA or the WWP) were discredited fromt heir support of the Soviets in 1953, 1956, and 1968. Hence the reason "New Left Review" is called "New Left Review". The radicals of SDS had relatively little connection with the old left.

2. The cohort radicalized in the anti-Vietnam movement are still around. My impression, though, is that the anti-globalization movement had attracted more younger people, and more so with the anti-war movement, so compared with the early 1990s, the median age of protestors has dropped.

3. In the 1960s, when higher education was still transistioning from an elite rite-of-passage to a mass system, it was possible to imagine that a degree would grant you a very prosperous future. Now, the role of a first degree is set; it will get you a modest-paying job, but to get into the elite, you need to be able to get into either an elite grad school, or make some stellar moves in your first few years of working. So, if you're a student taking a bachelor's, you know that to make a good future for yourself, you have to hustle even after you get your certificate. That dampens down radicalism; the most competitive major to get into in Berkeley is (drumroll please); Business Adminstration!

Let me clarify, Tom: Clinton's policies caused the recession to the same extent that they caused the boom in the preceding eight years.

You can't seriously believe that the recession was caused by Bush po-mouthing the economy. There is no even vaguely reputable economist that I am aware of who would seriously attempt to argue that the first twelve-to-eighteen months of a Gore administration would have been significantly different, economically speaking. The folks on Wall Street that I know think that the "Clinton caused the boom by being tough on the deficit" is the funniest joke they've heard in centuries.

woah,

"You can't seriously believe that the recession was caused by Bush po-mouthing the economy.... There is no even vaguely reputable economist that I am aware of who would seriously attempt to argue that the first twelve-to-eighteen months of a Gore administration would have been significantly different, economically speaking."

hold on. yes there are plenty of economists who would argue otherwise. you miss the point tom raises about the way the first tax cut was structured. given that most economists see bush's eco policies as wrong-headed today (why were these policies all so very right back then?-Answer: they wern't), why is it so hard to believe that other policies, perhaps as palatable as "supply side" friendly tax cuts (tax incentives on NEW investment), or as non-palatable as extra gov't spending would have had a better impact on the current situation?

as for expectations--you lost me on that. it doesn't have to cause the recession, but it can be one factor that helps lead to it. for example: do you think that markets take into account greenspan's utterances, as to try and divine interest rate movements and then act accordingly in bond markets? if yes, then statements by those with the power to shape economic policy affect markets. is the president a major player in formulating eco policy? if we believe what we read in the press, the answer is yes. so why is this different? is it because monetary policy works in "surer channels," is implemented more swiftly, and is less subject to political pressure, even if its affects take longer to wind through the economy? so why is it so hard to believe that the presidents' views can't impact the economy in a negative way. i am reminded of the comments of an australian treasurer, who warned that australia was heading for banana republic status if it did not get its act together. the currency plummeted. still not great today, and that was over ten years ago...

"Let me clarify, Tom: Clinton's policies caused the recession to the same extent that they caused the boom in the preceding eight years."

Then I don't have a problem with your position.

"You can't seriously believe that the recession was caused by Bush po-mouthing the economy."

Well, one economist friend who's now high-up in Schab's economic team believed that Bush was playing with fire when he talked down the economy in late 2000-early 2001. Expectations matter, especially in more speculative areas of the economy, where intangibles are more significant components of value.

I do think it affected business investment, and certainly (from personal experience) affected the atmosphere & expectations for IPOs, which in turn Venture Capital community, which in turn affected the technology sector. It has been *miserable* for folks trying to raise $$$ for tech & biotech companies on the West Coast, even if your idea is great and you have a bunch of contracts & customers lined up.

"There is no even vaguely reputable economist that I am aware of who would seriously attempt to argue that the first twelve-to-eighteen months of a Gore administration would have been significantly different, economically speaking."

But what would they say about the current situation?

My position: Bush affected business confidence in early 2001 with the aim (1) to get the recession over with early (2) to build support for a large tax cut. I don't think he (or his economic team) understood the effect of the overinvestment in the business sector.

The fiscal policy we got was insufficiently stimulative in the short term, but raised the spectre of large deficits in the future. Ideologically, he was unequipped to deal with the corporate governance scandals and the energy crisis in CA. In those ways, I think his policies have exacerbated what could have been a milder and less severe recession & slowdown. It seems a real stretch to me to blame the current labor market weakness on Clinton's policies.

"The folks on Wall Street that I know think that the "Clinton caused the boom by being tough on the deficit" is the funniest joke they've heard in centuries."

Is it as funny as Forbes telling its readers to pull their money out of the Stock market after Clinton's tax-increase in 1993, to avoid the coming recession?

Jane:"You can't seriously believe that the recession was caused by Bush po-mouthing the economy."

Tom:Well, one economist friend who's now high-up in Schab's economic team believed that Bush was playing with fire when he talked down the economy in late 2000-early 2001. Expectations matter, especially in more speculative areas of the economy, where intangibles are more significant components of value.

You're confusing cause and effect. Bush switched the rationale for his tax cut from a means of dealing with too-tempting surpluses to a means of dealing with the softening economy *because* there was a general recognition that the economy was softening.

I do think it affected business investment, and certainly (from personal experience) affected the atmosphere & expectations for IPOs, which in turn Venture Capital community, which in turn affected the technology sector. It has been *miserable* for folks trying to raise $$$ for tech & biotech companies on the West Coast, even if your idea is great and you have a bunch of contracts & customers lined up.

Nothing Bush did or said had as much effect as the dot-com meltdown. Billions of dollars gone poof, hundreds of companies sliding into bankruptcy, VCs reviewing business plans and saying "what in God's name were we thinking?!"...

"Nothing Bush did or said had as much effect as the dot-com meltdown. Billions of dollars gone poof, hundreds of companies sliding into bankruptcy, VCs reviewing business plans and saying "what in God's name were we thinking?!"..."

But that was also an effect of the choices by investors. When you (or I) checked the box to invest our Fidelity/Prudential/whoever in XYZ venture fund, said investment firm went to the VC community to . Now, there's only so many firms an individual VC firm can handle. So the increased flow of $$$ into venture capital meant the creation of a lot of new VC firms with people with little or no track records.

Plus, the high returns in the high-tech sector meant a lot of VC firms kicked out their partners who invested in biotech. In 1998, you had biotech firms like Genitope unable to raise money from VCs, despite having a prospective cure for lymphoma, because they didn't have "dot-com" in their name (Genitope had to go to 50-odd angel investors instead). So the VC sector became less diversified by industry.

Some VCs are good, but it is an outrageously difficult job - you need the skills of a technologist, an i-banker, an entrepreneur, and a politician. The Kleiner Perkins, the Versants, the Sequoias, the Mayfields, etc., who had a good enough reputation to attract the best entreprenuers will survive, despite sinking money into some absolute dogs.

But most of the VC firms that were started up in the late 1990s will go away. VC & private equity are based on arbitrage between the private equity market and the public equity markets. If too much capital flows into the VC and private equity space, the arbitrage opportunity disappears.

The fault of dumb VCs? Or your and my fault for trying to stuff too much of our nest eggs into a sector that couldn't process that much capital efficiently?

Given that the left has a far greater concentration from the gay and lesbian community, perhaps it's a case of natural selection that is eliminating them from the gene pool. The right is reproducing in greater numbers. The left is not.

Cas,

All I meant was that the US will scale down its reliance on land bases and scale up its reliance on maritime and air power - probably in ways we can't now foresee (i.e. it will require military innovation).

Nobody can be sure, of course. But FWIW, take it from somebody who predicted this war (and I mean the "hot" phase) would last a few weeks, and that the US would indeed be welcomed by a reasonable majority of ordinary Iraqis (this prediction being made in the teeth of incredulous astonishment from my leftish friends, and at some cost in friendly relations with them).

(And at the end of the day, bringing it back to the subject of this thread, that's what's going to have the biggest impact of this affair in the long run in terms of Western ideology. As some blogger said recently, if you relied on people like the anti-American crank Fisk for your actual predictions, both in this war and the Afghanistan war, you must be sorely puzzled. Why should we listen any more to ideologies that are capable of getting things _so_ badly wrong? Surely it's obvious that either there was a lot of wishful thinking going on (and wishful thinking of a seedy and disreputable kind, at that), or the estimation of human nature and other realities - e.g. the mentality of the neocons - by people like Fisk was woefully skew-wiff?)

Socialism, transnationalism, Greenism, etc., are now revealed as fantasy ideologies, just like Islamofascism: ideologies unmoored from reality, ideologies that have the same sort of quaintness and disconnection from reality as some of the antisemitic nonsense emanating from the "Arab street". Less murderous ideologies in terms of intent, perhaps (although even that is debatable in some cases ...), but still crank ideologies.

I say again: intelligent, thoughtful, progressive people, people who _really_ care about suffering in the world, are going to start disassociating them from their own extremes (socialism, transnationalist progressivism, etc.), and return to a robust sense of classical liberalism. The "fire in the belly" is returning to liberalism, so that it is becoming as it was before progressivism split into liberalism and socialism in the 19th century: revolutionary liberalism.

There are plenty of _real_ tyrannies in the world to get exercised about, without worrying overmuch about a US that has surely proved itself enough by pulling the world's collective fat out of the fire enough times. The US isn't perfect, by any means, and has indeed made terrible mistakes; but the propaganda that it is somehow morally equivalent to murderous regimes must surely be seeen, by now, as being at best ridiculous hyperbole, at worst actively malicious propaganda from ideolgies with sinister agendas. Time to ditch that whole cliched way of thinking.

Gee, again Tom & Cas, you're gonna argue the Economy no matter what the subject of the Blog. Good political tactics, maybe, but not good debating skills even in a HS debate. The subject is anti-war protests. Ah, but I forget, the subject is always anti-Bush.

That's the trouble I see with the antiwar people, they never saw any trouble in Bombing Kosovo, Somolia, etc. 'cause there was a Dem Pres then.

BTW, maybe we can tie this together; seems The Hon. Pelosi is now arguing that 2+ yrs into the Bush Presidency, it's still Bill Clinton's Army & so she must feel that it's still Clinton's Economy. Maybe you can set her straight.

hi jane,
on the economists supporting the current bush plan (or not as the case may be)

http://www.nytimes.com/2003/04/12/business/12ECON.html

I didn't say that there was no reputable economist willing to condemn the Bush tax plans; clearly there are. I said there was no reputable economist who would seriously attempt to argue that the current recession is better explained by Bush's fiscal policy than a combination of the contracting wealth effect due to the collapse of the bubble, cyclical fluctuation, monetary policy, and heightened risk premiums due to 9/11, the accounting scandals, and a temporary effect from the war. None of the permanent effects are more attributable to Bush than Clinton. But to the extent that you absolve Clinton from policy culpability, you also have to absolve him from credit for the boom, since it's pretty clear that what's driving the depth of the boom is that collapsing wealth effect and the business cycle.

Personally, I don't think that presidents have a very big effect on the economy, short of not signing egregiously stupid regulations. Nor, really, do economists. The largest part of the variation in the economy, good or bad, is always driven by variations that are exogenous to the legislative process (some of FDR's shenanigans excepted). I think Reagan gets some credit for the 80's because of deregulation and tax simplification, but not for the things he's remembered for, which are largely tax cuts and hog-wild military spending, and the costs of the S&L scandal possibly ate all the short term gains to the citizenry. I didn't think Clinton was making the boom happen, and I don't believe that Bush is making the bust. And if there's another boom, and Bush is still in office, the Democrats who have been trying to so claim are going to have to do some very fancy tap dancing to explain why Clinton gets credit for the nineties, but Bush doesn't get credit for the oos. They largely won't notice because they'll be preaching to the choir, but the rest of us are going to laugh our asses off.

"Gee, again Tom & Cas, you're gonna argue the Economy no matter what the subject of the Blog."

I did put my $0.02 in, but you didn't engage with what I'd said re: Student Activism (The three numbered paragraphs after "Sure, my thoughts:" above). If you want to respond on what I wrote, then go ahead; I'd have thought my point on the maturation of higher's educations role in society, and the rise of vocational subjects, would have been worth a few armchair sociology posts.

Otherwise, kindly don't beat up on me for not following the supposed thread topic if you aren't particularly interested in the topic yourself.

"I didn't say that there was no reputable economist willing to condemn the Bush tax plans; clearly there are. "

I'll meet your Kudlow and raise you a Solow & a McFadden.

"Personally, I don't think that presidents have a very big effect on the economy, short of not signing egregiously stupid regulations. Nor, really, do economists. The largest part of the variation in the economy, good or bad, is always driven by variations that are exogenous to the legislative process (some of FDR's shenanigans excepted). "

FDR's shenanigans? You mean like having a mean real GDP growth rate of 9.2% in 1934-1945 (lagging one year here to keep you happy). What about the war, you ask? Well, even excluding the war years, the mean real GDP growth rate was 8.5% from 1934 to 1941. Name one GOP president who matched that in just *one* year.

I can see why you would want to believe that a president has little effect on the economy.

When I crunched some numbers back in 2000, the mean real GDP growth rate from 1948-1999 was 4.4% under Democratic presidents and 3.3% for the GOP. (That's excluding the transition years between Democratic to Republicans and Republican-Democratic presidents). That's a *big* difference. If the reverse were the case, would you be arguing the same position as you are now?

"And if there's another boom, and Bush is still in office, the Democrats who have been trying to so claim are going to have to do some very fancy tap dancing to explain why Clinton gets credit for the nineties, but Bush doesn't get credit for the oos. They largely won't notice because they'll be preaching to the choir, but the rest of us are going to laugh our asses off."

That's a nifty tachyon particle receiver upgrade you've got on your telepathic implant.

Tom

You say to me

"kindly don't beat up on me for not following the supposed thread topic if you aren't particularly interested in the topic yourself."

I am interested in the topic itself to the point of actually commenting on it, but you are so intent on the economy that you apparently missed that.

Also, are you gonna be consistent & set the Hon Pelosi straight?

Tom Com said:

"You say to me:"
'kindly don't beat up on me for not following the supposed thread topic if you aren't particularly interested in the topic yourself.'"

Actually, I didn't say that to you. I was replying to Megan.

"Also, are you gonna be consistent & set the Hon Pelosi straight? "

In 1998, at a ceremony where I work, I saw a researcher given an award. Most of his work was classified, so he couldn't present it, but he did show work he'd been doing for DARPA on the "wired battlefield", where soldiers working behind enemy lines could call in precise coordinates for air support using a leg-mounted computer. (Other work included using a type of piezoelectric material for recharging batteries to power all the electronics carried). My colleagues who saw this all agreed it was Cool Shit, and that we wouldn't have believed it if we'd read it in a Tom Clancy novel.

Let me repeat: this was in 1998.

Tom

Your techno story in response to my note about you claiming that anything after 1/01 is Bush's fault & the Hon Pelosi claiming that even 2 yrs. after 1/01 it's Clinton's army: And your point is?