The Left can’t give up its operating theory of terrorism, no matter how tattered.
By Rich Lowry
Tuesday, January 05, 2010
Umar Farouk Abdul Mutallab couldn’t ignite the bomb in his underwear on Flight 253 on Christmas Day.
All he managed to blow up was a worldview.
His failed attempt put paid to the notion that terrorism is the byproduct of a few, specific U.S. policies and of our image abroad. This view dominates the Left and animates the Obama administration. It informs its drive to shutter Guantanamo Bay, to get out of Iraq, and to cater to “international opinion.” If we are only nice and likable enough, goes the theory, the Abdul Mutallabs of the world will never be tempted to violent mayhem.
Only the young Nigerian didn’t appear the least bit moved by Pres. Barack Obama’s commitment to close Gitmo in a year. He didn’t seem to care that Khalid Sheikh Mohammed will get a civilian trial in New York. He didn’t appear to be fazed at all by Obama’s Cairo and U.N. speeches, or a year’s worth of international goodwill gestures. He just wanted to destroy an airliner.
It shouldn’t be hard to fathom why. Abdul Mutallab was in the grip of a violent ideology with an existential hatred of the United States at its core, an ideology promoted by a global terrorist conspiracy under the loose rubric of al-Qaeda. This is the essential fact that the Left tends to minimize or deny.
Obama called Abdul Mutallab an “isolated extremist” in his initial statement on the incident, and left the same impression about Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan, the terrorist of Fort Hood. How coincidental that we are beset by isolated extremists believing the same things and inspired by the same people — in the cases of Abdul Mutallab and Hasan, the radical Yemeni cleric Anwar al-Awlaki.
A totalist rejection of the United States, this ideology will never lack for particular reasons to hate us. For years, we were told that the Iraq War was al-Qaeda’s best recruiting tool. Now, new recruiting tools are at hand. Hasan reportedly was disappointed that Obama stayed in Afghanistan. In taking responsibility for Abdul Mutallab’s attempted attack, al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) claimed it was in retaliation for a U.S.-sponsored strike against its leadership in Yemen.
If we pull our troops from Afghanistan, they’ll object to our missile strikes in Pakistan. If we stop the missile strikes, they’ll object to our training of foreign militaries. If we stop that, they’ll object that we have the temerity to maintain a blue-water navy. Nothing short of suicidal abdication will suffice.
The other great reputed recruiting tool was Gitmo. But what’s worse — holding terrorists in a facility condemned by the world’s scolds, or releasing them to re-invigorate al-Qaeda’s franchise operations? AQAP got a critical boost from one former Gitmo detainee who, according to the New York Times, is “the rising star of the local movement,” and another who is “the mufti, or theological guide.” The Wall Street Journal says eleven Gitmo returnees have joined the ranks of Yemeni militant groups, making the detention facility AQAP’s farm team.
No matter. Just before Christmas, the Obama administration returned six more Gitmo detainees to Yemen, home to about 90 of the 200 remaining prisoners. Obama counterterrorism adviser John Brennan pledges to keep sending them back, and insists that “several” or “many” of the six latest returnees are in Yemeni custody. Whatever that means. Yemeni government is not a model of Prussian precision. In February 2006, AQAP managed a mass break from a Yemeni high-security prison. The environment there is so treacherous that we were just forced to shut our embassy temporarily.
The administration is loath to admit that vacating Gitmo has itself proven a powerful tool for the terrorists.
It can’t give up its operating theory of terrorism, no matter how tattered. Instead of designating Abdul Mutallab an enemy combatant and interrogating him, we have granted him all the protections our justice system provides a civil defendant. Whatever comes of this foolish act of generosity, we can be sure that the next Abdul Mutallab will be singularly unimpressed.
Tuesday, January 5, 2010
Monday, January 4, 2010
An Awful First Year
But Obama can still succeed.
By Conrad Black
Monday, January 04, 2010
This has been an astonishing presidential year. President Obama bounded into office with a quiver full of soft-pointed arrows for every policy area. A whole year has been wasted buying, senator by senator and influential congressmen one at a time, a health-care bill that is almost certain to be hideously expensive and to lower the level of health care for millions of people. The key was to unite the payer to the consumer, so there was some incentive for reducing costs without rationing access, and reducing the attached legal costs, and the administration failed both tests. Organized labor was protected in its medical-benefit sinecures and, for good measure, the UAW was rewarded for decades of greed and shoddy work habits by being handed most of the detritus of the U.S. auto industry.
The stimulus bill was $787 billion of straight political payoffs to prominent Democrats close to the next election and will be more a retardant than a stimulus; it has already failed every prediction of job creation its sponsors made for it. Workfare employs people; stimulus removes as much stimulation in borrowed money as it generates.
Cap-and-trade was an insane concept from the start, and after being greased through the House in a way that assured heavy costs to American homeowners, it emerged as not likely to reduce carbon emissions, nor to raise government revenues. It has died an unhonored death before arrival at the Senate and been banished to an unmarked grave.
The administration is boldly facing the cold winds like Washington (the general) crossing the Rappahannock, as it leads America to an economic miracle of Biblical proportions: increased taxes, faster economic growth, 50 to 100 percent annual increases in money supply without inflation for a decade, a decade of trillion-dollar annual budget deficits without seriously raising interest rates or devaluing the dollar. Obviously this is a fable, especially as the president solemnly announces, as he did last week, that he will reduce spending.
Since all numerate people know that the economic plan in its present form will destroy the dollar and revive the recession, I suspect that Ben Bernanke will walk on eggshells through his confirmation and, after a brief interlude, announce that the Federal Reserve will no longer buy the federal government’s Treasury notes to finance these scandalous deficits; that we have doubled the money supply in the last year; that the dollar will be devalued by about 15 percent, whatever the Chinese think of it; that interest rates will rise to about 6 percent; and that Congress and the administration have to cut the annual deficit by an initial 50 percent and show a plausible road-map to, or at least toward, fiscal responsibility.
The president and Treasury secretary will scream of betrayal, but eventually some bipartisan procedure will be arrived at for increasing sales and transaction taxes and addressing the gathering crises in some of the entitlement programs; this will convince serious observers that the mindless profligacy is being addressed. Unfortunately, a value-added tax seems to be in the country’s future. It is a fraud, as little that it applies to has any value added, but it can be largely hidden and is essentially a sales tax on goods and services. It is a better solution than increased taxes on incomes. A carefully conceived and managed program of these and other elements (including serious pursuit of alternate domestic energy sources, which means more drilling and not pouring billions into the mirage of clean energy) would stabilize the economy. It would permit market forces to reduce the size of the legal and imported-luxury-goods components of the economy, increase the number of savers and manufacturers, and clean up the ramshackle conditions that have gradually grown, festered, and metastasized for 15 years.
Bringing in such a plan without tumbling back into recession will require more dexterity than anyone in this administration has demonstrated, and the president, to sell it, will have to stop straining credulity by constantly revolving between all four directions on most issues in saturation appearances before the 24/7 media. He is rolling the dice, but he seems to be lucky, and it could work.
With few exceptions, the administration’s foreign policy has been a fiasco. The simultaneous pursuit of nuclear disarmament, drastic reduction of carbon emissions, engagement with Iran, appeasement of Chávez, pandering to the Arab radicals, and imagining that the U.S. has any ability to influence the world while undergoing total debt immersion and with almost all of its ground-forces military capability mired in the Near East, is as mistakenly ambitious as the domestic effort to revolutionize the country with no mandate or plausible game plan to do so.
The spectacle of Obama entreating the Chinese premier unsuccessfully for a meeting, and claiming to promise a huge fund to deluge the world’s most odious and corrupt regimes with huge dollops of money to promote clean energy, was painful, tempered only by its absurdity. The commitment of the Copenhagen meeting was to limit the rise of the world’s temperature to two centigrade degrees by 2050. Given that it has risen only one degree in the last 35 years, and none at all in the last ten, this should be achievable. But there is no convincing evidence that carbon emissions, or human activities generally, have anything to do with climate change.
The whole effort is mad: a canard, supporting a solemn hoax, gravely subscribed to by people who must have some idea that the underlying premise is nonsense, and that the Mugabes and Chávezes, led by China as head of underdeveloped countries — when its leaders weren’t strutting about announcing their imminent primacy in the world — will receive hundreds of billions of dollars to squander and embezzle.
Nor is complete nuclear disarmament attainable or desirable. To try to move the Middle East peace process, the administration claimed there had been no agreement with Israel about settlements and the evacuation of Gaza. There was an agreement, which caused Ariel Sharon to set up a new political party and fight an election, and the U.S. tried to violate it, and then backpedaled. To appease Russia, the U.S. unilaterally scrapped a missile-defense treaty with the Czechs and Poles, and received no discernible assistance from the Russians about the Iranian nuclear threat, which was the objective. To appease Chávez, Castro, and the Sandinistas, the U.S. agreed that constitutional activity by the Honduran Congress and Supreme Court was a military putsch. The U.S. public has been indulgent, but the Obama foreign policy has been a protracted version of The Gong Show.
Dwight D. Eisenhower came into office determined to end the Korean War and begin de-escalating the Cold War. He did both, the latter with a revival of summit meetings and his Open Skies proposal. Richard Nixon entered office with a plan to open relations with China, extract the U.S. from Indochina without bringing down the non-Communist government in Saigon, and pursue better relations with the USSR, arms control, and a peace process in the Middle East. All this happened. Ronald Reagan entered office with a plan to end the Cold War by outspending the USSR on defense, reducing Soviet income by inducing the Saudis to cut the world oil price, stopping Soviet industrial espionage, and working with the Vatican to destabilize the satellite countries, while reinvigorating the U.S. economy with tax cuts. It happened and it worked. George W. Bush protected the nation from terrorists.
The foreign-policy pattern of post-Truman Democratic presidents has been less encouraging. John F. Kennedy and Lyndon B. Johnson abandoned the Eisenhower doctrine of “more defense bang for the buck” and massive retaliation, for the policy to “pay any price, bear any burden” while acquiescing in Mutual Assured Destruction. The Bay of Pigs, Vietnam War, and Soviet nuclear parity resulted. Jimmy Carter renounced “the irrational fear of Communism” until the Soviets invaded Afghanistan. Bill Clinton under-reacted to successive terrorist outrages, and 9/11 was the consequence.
Obama’s pursuit of instant gratification in the most complicated areas — arms control, the environment, the Middle East — and his feckless apologies for great statesmen of the recent past, including Roosevelt, Truman, Churchill, and Eisenhower, have dismayed America’s allies and delighted its rivals. It has been a year of naive amateurism, but it has ended well. The Afghan commitment should be a sizeable success. Pakistan is not going to be taken over by Islamic extremists; the U.S. can always outbid anyone for that country’s official affections, whether it has a military or elected government. The rag-tag of Taliban and kindred terrorists will not be able to resist an offensive on all sides from 250,000 NATO and Pakistani soldiers, with heavy air support, for long. Mr. Obama should emerge, like Polk and McKinley, as the popular victor of a “splendid little war.”
The president is intelligent, but vain and cocksure — yet he is also lucky. If his luck — which Napoleon thought the principal criterion for promotion to command positions — holds, his intelligence could prevail over his ego and he will be a successful president. It is now a long shot, but it didn’t seem likely that he would take the Democrats away from the Clintons either.
By Conrad Black
Monday, January 04, 2010
This has been an astonishing presidential year. President Obama bounded into office with a quiver full of soft-pointed arrows for every policy area. A whole year has been wasted buying, senator by senator and influential congressmen one at a time, a health-care bill that is almost certain to be hideously expensive and to lower the level of health care for millions of people. The key was to unite the payer to the consumer, so there was some incentive for reducing costs without rationing access, and reducing the attached legal costs, and the administration failed both tests. Organized labor was protected in its medical-benefit sinecures and, for good measure, the UAW was rewarded for decades of greed and shoddy work habits by being handed most of the detritus of the U.S. auto industry.
The stimulus bill was $787 billion of straight political payoffs to prominent Democrats close to the next election and will be more a retardant than a stimulus; it has already failed every prediction of job creation its sponsors made for it. Workfare employs people; stimulus removes as much stimulation in borrowed money as it generates.
Cap-and-trade was an insane concept from the start, and after being greased through the House in a way that assured heavy costs to American homeowners, it emerged as not likely to reduce carbon emissions, nor to raise government revenues. It has died an unhonored death before arrival at the Senate and been banished to an unmarked grave.
The administration is boldly facing the cold winds like Washington (the general) crossing the Rappahannock, as it leads America to an economic miracle of Biblical proportions: increased taxes, faster economic growth, 50 to 100 percent annual increases in money supply without inflation for a decade, a decade of trillion-dollar annual budget deficits without seriously raising interest rates or devaluing the dollar. Obviously this is a fable, especially as the president solemnly announces, as he did last week, that he will reduce spending.
Since all numerate people know that the economic plan in its present form will destroy the dollar and revive the recession, I suspect that Ben Bernanke will walk on eggshells through his confirmation and, after a brief interlude, announce that the Federal Reserve will no longer buy the federal government’s Treasury notes to finance these scandalous deficits; that we have doubled the money supply in the last year; that the dollar will be devalued by about 15 percent, whatever the Chinese think of it; that interest rates will rise to about 6 percent; and that Congress and the administration have to cut the annual deficit by an initial 50 percent and show a plausible road-map to, or at least toward, fiscal responsibility.
The president and Treasury secretary will scream of betrayal, but eventually some bipartisan procedure will be arrived at for increasing sales and transaction taxes and addressing the gathering crises in some of the entitlement programs; this will convince serious observers that the mindless profligacy is being addressed. Unfortunately, a value-added tax seems to be in the country’s future. It is a fraud, as little that it applies to has any value added, but it can be largely hidden and is essentially a sales tax on goods and services. It is a better solution than increased taxes on incomes. A carefully conceived and managed program of these and other elements (including serious pursuit of alternate domestic energy sources, which means more drilling and not pouring billions into the mirage of clean energy) would stabilize the economy. It would permit market forces to reduce the size of the legal and imported-luxury-goods components of the economy, increase the number of savers and manufacturers, and clean up the ramshackle conditions that have gradually grown, festered, and metastasized for 15 years.
Bringing in such a plan without tumbling back into recession will require more dexterity than anyone in this administration has demonstrated, and the president, to sell it, will have to stop straining credulity by constantly revolving between all four directions on most issues in saturation appearances before the 24/7 media. He is rolling the dice, but he seems to be lucky, and it could work.
With few exceptions, the administration’s foreign policy has been a fiasco. The simultaneous pursuit of nuclear disarmament, drastic reduction of carbon emissions, engagement with Iran, appeasement of Chávez, pandering to the Arab radicals, and imagining that the U.S. has any ability to influence the world while undergoing total debt immersion and with almost all of its ground-forces military capability mired in the Near East, is as mistakenly ambitious as the domestic effort to revolutionize the country with no mandate or plausible game plan to do so.
The spectacle of Obama entreating the Chinese premier unsuccessfully for a meeting, and claiming to promise a huge fund to deluge the world’s most odious and corrupt regimes with huge dollops of money to promote clean energy, was painful, tempered only by its absurdity. The commitment of the Copenhagen meeting was to limit the rise of the world’s temperature to two centigrade degrees by 2050. Given that it has risen only one degree in the last 35 years, and none at all in the last ten, this should be achievable. But there is no convincing evidence that carbon emissions, or human activities generally, have anything to do with climate change.
The whole effort is mad: a canard, supporting a solemn hoax, gravely subscribed to by people who must have some idea that the underlying premise is nonsense, and that the Mugabes and Chávezes, led by China as head of underdeveloped countries — when its leaders weren’t strutting about announcing their imminent primacy in the world — will receive hundreds of billions of dollars to squander and embezzle.
Nor is complete nuclear disarmament attainable or desirable. To try to move the Middle East peace process, the administration claimed there had been no agreement with Israel about settlements and the evacuation of Gaza. There was an agreement, which caused Ariel Sharon to set up a new political party and fight an election, and the U.S. tried to violate it, and then backpedaled. To appease Russia, the U.S. unilaterally scrapped a missile-defense treaty with the Czechs and Poles, and received no discernible assistance from the Russians about the Iranian nuclear threat, which was the objective. To appease Chávez, Castro, and the Sandinistas, the U.S. agreed that constitutional activity by the Honduran Congress and Supreme Court was a military putsch. The U.S. public has been indulgent, but the Obama foreign policy has been a protracted version of The Gong Show.
Dwight D. Eisenhower came into office determined to end the Korean War and begin de-escalating the Cold War. He did both, the latter with a revival of summit meetings and his Open Skies proposal. Richard Nixon entered office with a plan to open relations with China, extract the U.S. from Indochina without bringing down the non-Communist government in Saigon, and pursue better relations with the USSR, arms control, and a peace process in the Middle East. All this happened. Ronald Reagan entered office with a plan to end the Cold War by outspending the USSR on defense, reducing Soviet income by inducing the Saudis to cut the world oil price, stopping Soviet industrial espionage, and working with the Vatican to destabilize the satellite countries, while reinvigorating the U.S. economy with tax cuts. It happened and it worked. George W. Bush protected the nation from terrorists.
The foreign-policy pattern of post-Truman Democratic presidents has been less encouraging. John F. Kennedy and Lyndon B. Johnson abandoned the Eisenhower doctrine of “more defense bang for the buck” and massive retaliation, for the policy to “pay any price, bear any burden” while acquiescing in Mutual Assured Destruction. The Bay of Pigs, Vietnam War, and Soviet nuclear parity resulted. Jimmy Carter renounced “the irrational fear of Communism” until the Soviets invaded Afghanistan. Bill Clinton under-reacted to successive terrorist outrages, and 9/11 was the consequence.
Obama’s pursuit of instant gratification in the most complicated areas — arms control, the environment, the Middle East — and his feckless apologies for great statesmen of the recent past, including Roosevelt, Truman, Churchill, and Eisenhower, have dismayed America’s allies and delighted its rivals. It has been a year of naive amateurism, but it has ended well. The Afghan commitment should be a sizeable success. Pakistan is not going to be taken over by Islamic extremists; the U.S. can always outbid anyone for that country’s official affections, whether it has a military or elected government. The rag-tag of Taliban and kindred terrorists will not be able to resist an offensive on all sides from 250,000 NATO and Pakistani soldiers, with heavy air support, for long. Mr. Obama should emerge, like Polk and McKinley, as the popular victor of a “splendid little war.”
The president is intelligent, but vain and cocksure — yet he is also lucky. If his luck — which Napoleon thought the principal criterion for promotion to command positions — holds, his intelligence could prevail over his ego and he will be a successful president. It is now a long shot, but it didn’t seem likely that he would take the Democrats away from the Clintons either.
Oh Lord, Please Don’t Let Me Be Misunderstood
Mike Adams
Monday, January 04, 2010
Whenever a liberal says she’s been “taken out of context” you had better look out. It means she intends to inflict an intentional harm and claim it was accidental. But the trick seldom works with conservatives because we are generally brighter than liberals assume we are – although I shouldn’t brag too much. After all, it’s been said that even a dog knows the difference between being tripped over and being kicked.
But the reason liberals are so likely to cry “out of context” these days has not, in my opinion, been addressed adequately by any conservative columnist. It should not surprise readers that I intend to do so. Nor should it surprise anyone that I intend to do so by reflecting on my experiences in higher education.
Some years ago, a graduate student in the English department came to me with a serious concern. He said he was being prevented from graduating due to an ideological conflict with a professor. He had written a thesis on art and architecture and had prepared to defend it before a committee of professors. A part of the thesis involved analyzing the structural characteristics of centuries old bridges.
During the course of describing one particular bridge the student stated that not all of its characteristics were artistic. Some of its characteristics were “essential” to the basic functioning of the bridge. The professor directing his thesis objected to the use of the term “essential.” In fact, she said the term “frightened” her.
The problem between the professor and the student was that the former subscribes to a philosophy of postmodernism, which is largely a rebellion against the certainty of objective efforts to explain reality. It is a philosophy that stems from a belief that reality is not mirrored in human perception but, instead, is “constructed” as the mind tries to comprehend its own personal reality.
This is the reason postmodernists are so critical of explanations claiming to be valid for all groups, cultures, and races. It explains why the postmodernist focuses on the “relative” truths each person allegedly adopts. In the postmodern mind, interpretation is everything. Nothing can be essential because nothing contains its own essence. Everything is contingent upon human perception.
Professors who adopt this philosophy are dangerous because they are so dangerously arrogant. They deny that anything has any objective meaning because they want to be the ones assigning meaning to all things. In other words, they wish to be gods. That is why so many of them are atheists.
Postmodern professors are also dangerous because they impart their arrogant philosophy upon students who are often ill-equipped to detect its pitfalls. I ran into just such a student a few years ago after I ran a column criticizing one of the professors in the postmodern English department.
The professor had publicly defamed some conservative students in a Letter to the Editor of our local New York Times affiliate. The local McTimes ran the letter, already knowing it was defamatory. I tore the letter to shreds – line by line – in a nationally published column in which I reprinted the original letter word for word.
The professor did not attempt to defend himself. He lied, and got caught. But one of his students wrote and accused me of taking his words out of context. I wrote back and asked her how I could have taken his words out of context if I reprinted them in their entirety. There was no evidence that she even understood my rebuttal.
But that is really as far as it goes in the postmodern liberal mind. If you were upset by something the postmodernist said you simply misunderstood his meaning. There was nothing objectively wrong about the postmodernist’s statement. You just assigned a different meaning to it. There can be no objective defamation if there is no objective truth or falsity.
In other words, the postmodernist didn’t really kick you. It was all an innocent misunderstanding. Someone just tripped.
Some weeks ago, I got a little taste of what things will be like after our first postmodern generation finally graduates and assumes control of the workplace. I sent a request to teach a couple of summer courses at our extension campus at Camp LeJeune in Jacksonville, North Carolina (about fifty miles from our main campus). My email specified the courses and the sessions and the location with the specific words “at Camp LeJeune.”
There was no reference to the Wilmington campus to be found anywhere in my email. That is why I was perplexed to see a single course assignment on the Wilmington campus, rather than the one on Camp LeJeune fifty miles away. I made a polite inquiry about the mix-up. In response, I was told that my courses were put in the schedule as my email was “interpreted.” It “wasn’t clear” that I had requested Camp LeJeune – despite the words Camp LeJeune – so they assigned me to Wilmington.
The point of this account is not to claim that I was somehow victimized. I was not. I simply canceled the course that was assigned in error before the schedule was finalized. Within 48 hours I made up the lost income by accepting a series of summer speaking engagements in Colorado.
There is far more at stake here than a “misunderstanding” regarding my summer schedule. Put simply, the very functioning of civil society is threatened by the uncritical acceptance of the postmodern philosophy. If someone can claim to have seen the word “Wilmington” when looking at the word “LeJeune” someone else can just as easily claim to have see the word “go” when looking at the word “stop.” Or he may claim to have seen green when looking at the color red. Or (has the feminist ever considered this?) claim to have heard “yes” after hearing the word “no.”
The recent growth of acceptance of postmodernism on the American campus is bad for society and bad for the student who aspires to function in a real world governed by real rules enforced by real consequences. It is only good for the dishonest liberal who wishes to inflict intentional harm and claim it was accidental.
Those are all of my comments for now on the subject of postmodernism. I hope they won’t be taken out of context. After all, I’m just one soul whose intentions are good.
Monday, January 04, 2010
Whenever a liberal says she’s been “taken out of context” you had better look out. It means she intends to inflict an intentional harm and claim it was accidental. But the trick seldom works with conservatives because we are generally brighter than liberals assume we are – although I shouldn’t brag too much. After all, it’s been said that even a dog knows the difference between being tripped over and being kicked.
But the reason liberals are so likely to cry “out of context” these days has not, in my opinion, been addressed adequately by any conservative columnist. It should not surprise readers that I intend to do so. Nor should it surprise anyone that I intend to do so by reflecting on my experiences in higher education.
Some years ago, a graduate student in the English department came to me with a serious concern. He said he was being prevented from graduating due to an ideological conflict with a professor. He had written a thesis on art and architecture and had prepared to defend it before a committee of professors. A part of the thesis involved analyzing the structural characteristics of centuries old bridges.
During the course of describing one particular bridge the student stated that not all of its characteristics were artistic. Some of its characteristics were “essential” to the basic functioning of the bridge. The professor directing his thesis objected to the use of the term “essential.” In fact, she said the term “frightened” her.
The problem between the professor and the student was that the former subscribes to a philosophy of postmodernism, which is largely a rebellion against the certainty of objective efforts to explain reality. It is a philosophy that stems from a belief that reality is not mirrored in human perception but, instead, is “constructed” as the mind tries to comprehend its own personal reality.
This is the reason postmodernists are so critical of explanations claiming to be valid for all groups, cultures, and races. It explains why the postmodernist focuses on the “relative” truths each person allegedly adopts. In the postmodern mind, interpretation is everything. Nothing can be essential because nothing contains its own essence. Everything is contingent upon human perception.
Professors who adopt this philosophy are dangerous because they are so dangerously arrogant. They deny that anything has any objective meaning because they want to be the ones assigning meaning to all things. In other words, they wish to be gods. That is why so many of them are atheists.
Postmodern professors are also dangerous because they impart their arrogant philosophy upon students who are often ill-equipped to detect its pitfalls. I ran into just such a student a few years ago after I ran a column criticizing one of the professors in the postmodern English department.
The professor had publicly defamed some conservative students in a Letter to the Editor of our local New York Times affiliate. The local McTimes ran the letter, already knowing it was defamatory. I tore the letter to shreds – line by line – in a nationally published column in which I reprinted the original letter word for word.
The professor did not attempt to defend himself. He lied, and got caught. But one of his students wrote and accused me of taking his words out of context. I wrote back and asked her how I could have taken his words out of context if I reprinted them in their entirety. There was no evidence that she even understood my rebuttal.
But that is really as far as it goes in the postmodern liberal mind. If you were upset by something the postmodernist said you simply misunderstood his meaning. There was nothing objectively wrong about the postmodernist’s statement. You just assigned a different meaning to it. There can be no objective defamation if there is no objective truth or falsity.
In other words, the postmodernist didn’t really kick you. It was all an innocent misunderstanding. Someone just tripped.
Some weeks ago, I got a little taste of what things will be like after our first postmodern generation finally graduates and assumes control of the workplace. I sent a request to teach a couple of summer courses at our extension campus at Camp LeJeune in Jacksonville, North Carolina (about fifty miles from our main campus). My email specified the courses and the sessions and the location with the specific words “at Camp LeJeune.”
There was no reference to the Wilmington campus to be found anywhere in my email. That is why I was perplexed to see a single course assignment on the Wilmington campus, rather than the one on Camp LeJeune fifty miles away. I made a polite inquiry about the mix-up. In response, I was told that my courses were put in the schedule as my email was “interpreted.” It “wasn’t clear” that I had requested Camp LeJeune – despite the words Camp LeJeune – so they assigned me to Wilmington.
The point of this account is not to claim that I was somehow victimized. I was not. I simply canceled the course that was assigned in error before the schedule was finalized. Within 48 hours I made up the lost income by accepting a series of summer speaking engagements in Colorado.
There is far more at stake here than a “misunderstanding” regarding my summer schedule. Put simply, the very functioning of civil society is threatened by the uncritical acceptance of the postmodern philosophy. If someone can claim to have seen the word “Wilmington” when looking at the word “LeJeune” someone else can just as easily claim to have see the word “go” when looking at the word “stop.” Or he may claim to have seen green when looking at the color red. Or (has the feminist ever considered this?) claim to have heard “yes” after hearing the word “no.”
The recent growth of acceptance of postmodernism on the American campus is bad for society and bad for the student who aspires to function in a real world governed by real rules enforced by real consequences. It is only good for the dishonest liberal who wishes to inflict intentional harm and claim it was accidental.
Those are all of my comments for now on the subject of postmodernism. I hope they won’t be taken out of context. After all, I’m just one soul whose intentions are good.
The bigotry of low expectations in D.C.
Ashley Herzog
Monday, January 04, 2010
Democrats’ favorite method of shutting down debate is to accuse Republicans of secretly promoting racist agendas. Opposing socialized medicine is racist, stopping illegal immigration is racist, and—if you listen to liberal bloggers who wrote endless gasbag analyses of the incident—Rep. Joe Wilson yelling “You lie!” during President Obama’s speech on health care was racist. But forcing thousands of black kids to return to substandard public schools is apparently all good.
Two weeks ago, Democrats defunded the Washington Opportunity Scholarship Program, which serves a city that is 54 percent black and 20 percent impoverished. The high school graduation rate is 58 percent, one of the worst in the country, and in 2006, half of the public schools failed to meet basic federal education standards.
The Opportunity Scholarship Program offered poor children a quality education at half the taxpayer expense: $7,500 as opposed to the $14,000 Washington currently spends per student. In response to the Democrats’ decision, former DC councilman Kevin Chavous said, “This successful school voucher program—for D.C.’s poorest families—has allowed more than 3,300 children to attend the best schools they have ever known.”
Substandard education at twice the cost? It makes no sense—until you realize that Democrats only care about paying off greedy teachers’ unions, not quality education for poor black kids. In March, the National Education Association fired off threatening letters to members of Congress, claiming the voucher program was a “failure.” (This was an ironic accusation from a union whose members can’t get half of DC students to graduate from high school.) The NEA’s solution to failing public schools was the same as always: give teachers more money.
There is zero evidence that raising public school teachers’ salaries benefits children, let alone poor children in failing districts. Barack Obama knows this. In his book “The Audacity of Hope,” he recounts a visit to a poor, predominantly black school in Chicago. As he described it, “Their number one issue was this: Because the school district couldn't afford to keep teachers for a full day, they let out every day at 1:30 in the afternoon. There was no time for students to take science lab or foreign language classes. ‘How come we're getting shortchanged?’ they asked me.”
Here's the answer: the average teacher at the school was making $83,000 per year, and over one-quarter were making more than $100,000. They didn't think they should have to work for any less. With such exorbitant teacher salaries, it's no wonder the school couldn't “afford” to stay open.
The Democrats defunded the scholarship program over the objections of DC’s residents, 70 percent of whom support it. But what do the Democrats care? They’ve ensured that teachers’ unions will continue giving millions of dollars to their campaigns. Sasha and Malia Obama, apparently the only black children in DC entitled to a decent education, will still attend Sidwell Friends (annual tuition: $30,842). Meanwhile, public school teachers will be paid $80,000 to leave work at noon, shortchanging their already impoverished students.
Who doesn’t care about black people now?
Monday, January 04, 2010
Democrats’ favorite method of shutting down debate is to accuse Republicans of secretly promoting racist agendas. Opposing socialized medicine is racist, stopping illegal immigration is racist, and—if you listen to liberal bloggers who wrote endless gasbag analyses of the incident—Rep. Joe Wilson yelling “You lie!” during President Obama’s speech on health care was racist. But forcing thousands of black kids to return to substandard public schools is apparently all good.
Two weeks ago, Democrats defunded the Washington Opportunity Scholarship Program, which serves a city that is 54 percent black and 20 percent impoverished. The high school graduation rate is 58 percent, one of the worst in the country, and in 2006, half of the public schools failed to meet basic federal education standards.
The Opportunity Scholarship Program offered poor children a quality education at half the taxpayer expense: $7,500 as opposed to the $14,000 Washington currently spends per student. In response to the Democrats’ decision, former DC councilman Kevin Chavous said, “This successful school voucher program—for D.C.’s poorest families—has allowed more than 3,300 children to attend the best schools they have ever known.”
Substandard education at twice the cost? It makes no sense—until you realize that Democrats only care about paying off greedy teachers’ unions, not quality education for poor black kids. In March, the National Education Association fired off threatening letters to members of Congress, claiming the voucher program was a “failure.” (This was an ironic accusation from a union whose members can’t get half of DC students to graduate from high school.) The NEA’s solution to failing public schools was the same as always: give teachers more money.
There is zero evidence that raising public school teachers’ salaries benefits children, let alone poor children in failing districts. Barack Obama knows this. In his book “The Audacity of Hope,” he recounts a visit to a poor, predominantly black school in Chicago. As he described it, “Their number one issue was this: Because the school district couldn't afford to keep teachers for a full day, they let out every day at 1:30 in the afternoon. There was no time for students to take science lab or foreign language classes. ‘How come we're getting shortchanged?’ they asked me.”
Here's the answer: the average teacher at the school was making $83,000 per year, and over one-quarter were making more than $100,000. They didn't think they should have to work for any less. With such exorbitant teacher salaries, it's no wonder the school couldn't “afford” to stay open.
The Democrats defunded the scholarship program over the objections of DC’s residents, 70 percent of whom support it. But what do the Democrats care? They’ve ensured that teachers’ unions will continue giving millions of dollars to their campaigns. Sasha and Malia Obama, apparently the only black children in DC entitled to a decent education, will still attend Sidwell Friends (annual tuition: $30,842). Meanwhile, public school teachers will be paid $80,000 to leave work at noon, shortchanging their already impoverished students.
Who doesn’t care about black people now?
Sunday, January 3, 2010
Wake Up Calls and Snooze Buttons
David R. Stokes
Sunday, January 03, 2010
On December 7, 1941, United States Senator Gerald Nye looked over his notes for a speech he was about to deliver to a packed house in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Nye was a Republican, but part of a progressive element in the GOP and he was no-doubt influenced by the politics of the late Robert M. La Follette. In other words, he was a fiscal liberal in domestic matters and a fierce isolationist when it came to foreign entanglements.
So speaking before a group known informally as the “America Firsters” (sponsored by the America First Committee, of which he was a member) was a piece of cake for him and he knew the lines that would draw the biggest applause. He only wished his hero could be there: Charles A. Lindbergh.
These men were part of a highly popular movement in those days, this success being reflected in Gallup Polls showing that less than a quarter of Americans favored entering the fires of war then engulfing much of the world. This group was largely anti-Semitic (and therefore, pro-German), and was joined by other luminaries of the day, including: flying ace Eddie Rickenbacker and movie actress, Lillian Gish.
During the first days of the last month of that tense year, their present preoccupation was the potential of war with Japan. To them, this was merely an excuse to enter the war in Europe through a back door. Therefore, the headline of their then-very-popular tabloid, the America First Bulletin, on December 6, 1941 was: “BLAME FOR RIFT WITH JAPAN RESTS ON ADMINISTRATION.”
After a glowing introduction, followed by furious applause, Nye, the Senator from North Dakota, plunged into his theme. But before he had gotten very far, he noticed someone in his peripheral vision approaching him from the stage wing bearing a piece of paper. He paused and read the note, which informed him of the breaking news about a Japanese attack on our fleet at Pearl Harbor.
Buzz kill.
After fumbling and hemming and hawing for a moment he mumbled: “I can’t somehow believe this…” – and then proceeded to finish his speech. Telling the crowd about what the note said, the Senator ventured his own take, which included the predictable: “We have been maneuvered into this by the President," and the old reliable: “This was just what Britain had planned for us.”
A few days later, on December 11th, members of the America First Committee met in Chicago and decided to disband. Lindbergh didn’t attend, but sent a telegram begging them not to go out of business. He was now isolated himself, though – by his own ignorant bias.
Pearl Harbor was many things: an infamous attack, an example of unspeakable treachery, a telling moment of vulnerable denial, but ultimately it was the one thing the Japanese had not counted on – a wake-up call.
Literally overnight, opinions changed and so did the course of history, because in moments of great peril, it is foolish, immoral, and ignorant to hit the snooze button when the alarm rings.
September 11, 2001 was a wake-up call, one that kept us vigilant for a period of time roughly equivalent to the length of our involvement in World War II. We had been attacked, we knew who the enemy was, and we were resolved to find and annihilate him.
But that was then.
Some understandably suggest these days that we are in a “pre-Sept. 11” mindset. This is, of course, somewhat true, but the clichÈ doesn’t tell the whole story. Because before that dreadful day when the world changed forever – or as so many of us thought – there had been other ominous moments and indications of terror to come. The bombing of the USS Cole and attacks on our embassies in Kenya and Tanzania, for example. However, these obvious acts of war were preceded by one on our very soil – the bombing of the World Trade Center in 1993. And the very mistakes we made following that attack (and those that followed before Sept. 11, 2001) we seem to be determined to make again.
History rhymes one more time.
The day after – September 12, 2001 – Daniel Pipes, director of The Middle East Forum (www.meforum.org), wrote passionately about how, though the moral blame for what happened fell upon those who planned and carried out the attacks, the tactical blame actually fell on the U.S. government, “which has grievously failed in its topmost duty to protect American citizens from harm.” His list of mistakes back then included:
8. Seeing terrorism as a crime
9. Relying too much on electronic intelligence
10. Not understanding the hate-America mentality
11. Ignoring the terrorist infrastructure in this country
Can anyone with a brain possible grade our efforts in these areas, now more than eight years later, as anything higher than, say, a D+? Bear in mind that self-given marks don’t count and in matters of life and death there is no grading on a curve. It’s the same principle that says “almost” doesn’t work in horseshoes or hand grenades.
We are not really just in a “Pre-Sept.11th” mindset, we are actually approaching current Islamism-driven horror in ways reminiscent of how we did things in the 1990s.
How’s that working for you?
Sunday, January 03, 2010
On December 7, 1941, United States Senator Gerald Nye looked over his notes for a speech he was about to deliver to a packed house in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Nye was a Republican, but part of a progressive element in the GOP and he was no-doubt influenced by the politics of the late Robert M. La Follette. In other words, he was a fiscal liberal in domestic matters and a fierce isolationist when it came to foreign entanglements.
So speaking before a group known informally as the “America Firsters” (sponsored by the America First Committee, of which he was a member) was a piece of cake for him and he knew the lines that would draw the biggest applause. He only wished his hero could be there: Charles A. Lindbergh.
These men were part of a highly popular movement in those days, this success being reflected in Gallup Polls showing that less than a quarter of Americans favored entering the fires of war then engulfing much of the world. This group was largely anti-Semitic (and therefore, pro-German), and was joined by other luminaries of the day, including: flying ace Eddie Rickenbacker and movie actress, Lillian Gish.
During the first days of the last month of that tense year, their present preoccupation was the potential of war with Japan. To them, this was merely an excuse to enter the war in Europe through a back door. Therefore, the headline of their then-very-popular tabloid, the America First Bulletin, on December 6, 1941 was: “BLAME FOR RIFT WITH JAPAN RESTS ON ADMINISTRATION.”
After a glowing introduction, followed by furious applause, Nye, the Senator from North Dakota, plunged into his theme. But before he had gotten very far, he noticed someone in his peripheral vision approaching him from the stage wing bearing a piece of paper. He paused and read the note, which informed him of the breaking news about a Japanese attack on our fleet at Pearl Harbor.
Buzz kill.
After fumbling and hemming and hawing for a moment he mumbled: “I can’t somehow believe this…” – and then proceeded to finish his speech. Telling the crowd about what the note said, the Senator ventured his own take, which included the predictable: “We have been maneuvered into this by the President," and the old reliable: “This was just what Britain had planned for us.”
A few days later, on December 11th, members of the America First Committee met in Chicago and decided to disband. Lindbergh didn’t attend, but sent a telegram begging them not to go out of business. He was now isolated himself, though – by his own ignorant bias.
Pearl Harbor was many things: an infamous attack, an example of unspeakable treachery, a telling moment of vulnerable denial, but ultimately it was the one thing the Japanese had not counted on – a wake-up call.
Literally overnight, opinions changed and so did the course of history, because in moments of great peril, it is foolish, immoral, and ignorant to hit the snooze button when the alarm rings.
September 11, 2001 was a wake-up call, one that kept us vigilant for a period of time roughly equivalent to the length of our involvement in World War II. We had been attacked, we knew who the enemy was, and we were resolved to find and annihilate him.
But that was then.
Some understandably suggest these days that we are in a “pre-Sept. 11” mindset. This is, of course, somewhat true, but the clichÈ doesn’t tell the whole story. Because before that dreadful day when the world changed forever – or as so many of us thought – there had been other ominous moments and indications of terror to come. The bombing of the USS Cole and attacks on our embassies in Kenya and Tanzania, for example. However, these obvious acts of war were preceded by one on our very soil – the bombing of the World Trade Center in 1993. And the very mistakes we made following that attack (and those that followed before Sept. 11, 2001) we seem to be determined to make again.
History rhymes one more time.
The day after – September 12, 2001 – Daniel Pipes, director of The Middle East Forum (www.meforum.org), wrote passionately about how, though the moral blame for what happened fell upon those who planned and carried out the attacks, the tactical blame actually fell on the U.S. government, “which has grievously failed in its topmost duty to protect American citizens from harm.” His list of mistakes back then included:
8. Seeing terrorism as a crime
9. Relying too much on electronic intelligence
10. Not understanding the hate-America mentality
11. Ignoring the terrorist infrastructure in this country
Can anyone with a brain possible grade our efforts in these areas, now more than eight years later, as anything higher than, say, a D+? Bear in mind that self-given marks don’t count and in matters of life and death there is no grading on a curve. It’s the same principle that says “almost” doesn’t work in horseshoes or hand grenades.
We are not really just in a “Pre-Sept.11th” mindset, we are actually approaching current Islamism-driven horror in ways reminiscent of how we did things in the 1990s.
How’s that working for you?
Muslim Condom Bomber Attacks America on Christmas Day
Doug Giles
Saturday, January 02, 2010
While the Thought Police want us to trip over ourselves trying not to offend poor, misunderstood Muslims in the classroom, the newsroom or on the battlefield, another one of their privileged and educated peace lovers, Umar Abdulmutallab, attempted to “bother” 289 Americans (I’m guessing mostly Christians) on a flight bound for Detroit on the day we celebrate Jesus’ birth.
I have a message for Umar: Dude, what were you thinking? You’re kind of whizzing on Obama/Napolitano’s “Islam is Awesome! Campaign” by trying to ignite your crotch at 20,000 feet on a Christmas flight packed with innocent folks. That “man-made disaster” would likely have forever derailed Barack’s BS Express as far as Islam is concerned.
Yep, Abdulmutallab, if you had succeeded at “troubling” those passengers and “inconveniencing” many, many families, Obama and his ilk would have had a helluva time keeping up the chipper vocab when it comes to explaining away you and your … uh … nonviolent … um, religion . . . especially considering that it hasn’t even been two months since your brother from another mother, Nidal Malik Hasan, killed 13 American military men and women and wounded 30 others on our own military base.
Indeed, Umar, Obama and his boys have had a brutal time trying to divert attention from Hasan and his murderous Muslim mayhem, and then here you go again jamming jihad in everybody’s face.
You’re not helping BHO with his PR. People are getting suspicious. People are beginning to think that Barack is lying through his purple lips, Napolitano is a nabob, and that the exact opposite of what they say about Islam is the truth. In addition, people are starting to, how should I put it . . . get concerned . . . that this PC smack regarding Islam is setting our nation up to get our butts handed to us—as in big time.
Another thing I can’t figure out, Mr. Umar, is why you attacked us on Christmas day. What the heck is up with that? Haven’t you read the new Candy Ass Rule Book? Didn’t you know you’re not ‘sposed to attack us on our sacred holidays because we don’t attack you on yours? Didn’t you get that wall post on Facebook?
In case you didn’t hear about the Polite War we’re trying to wage with you, the gist of what we’ll do for you and your people who are trying to slaughter us is this: We will not attack you during your sacrosanct celebrations.
Matter of fact, we’ll go a step further and court martial our troops when they play a game of pin the tail on Mohammed at Gitmo, or flush a Koran, or accidentally serve Achmed Jell-O. Not only that, but we’ll prosecute our intel ops who ferret out your Islamic mass-murderous plots, and we’ll promote Muslim maniacs to major within our own ranks.
This sensitive approach to war is supposed to have the intended effect, if you wouldn’t mind, of preventing you from blowing up planes full of American Christians on Christ’s birthday, thank you very much. It’s just a suggestion. And it would be nice if you would play our game, as well.
However, if you don’t capitulate to our level of niceness, we will continue to maintain that level because we want to prove to the world that we’re pleasant even if thousands more Americans have to be killed. Again, we’re not pressuring you to stop the Christmas attacks, we’re just trying to give you something to think about while you’re screaming in tongues and burning our American flag.
Until then we might have to inconvenience some of you who wish to fly our friendly skies. Yep, you might start getting profiled because everybody and their dog think you suck and don’t trust your type much anymore. No offense, of course.
Oh, and for your information, I hear Kevin Jennings has volunteered to do the TSA pat downs and cavity searches on those who fit the “man-made disaster” profile. I hear he’s very thorough.
Saturday, January 02, 2010
While the Thought Police want us to trip over ourselves trying not to offend poor, misunderstood Muslims in the classroom, the newsroom or on the battlefield, another one of their privileged and educated peace lovers, Umar Abdulmutallab, attempted to “bother” 289 Americans (I’m guessing mostly Christians) on a flight bound for Detroit on the day we celebrate Jesus’ birth.
I have a message for Umar: Dude, what were you thinking? You’re kind of whizzing on Obama/Napolitano’s “Islam is Awesome! Campaign” by trying to ignite your crotch at 20,000 feet on a Christmas flight packed with innocent folks. That “man-made disaster” would likely have forever derailed Barack’s BS Express as far as Islam is concerned.
Yep, Abdulmutallab, if you had succeeded at “troubling” those passengers and “inconveniencing” many, many families, Obama and his ilk would have had a helluva time keeping up the chipper vocab when it comes to explaining away you and your … uh … nonviolent … um, religion . . . especially considering that it hasn’t even been two months since your brother from another mother, Nidal Malik Hasan, killed 13 American military men and women and wounded 30 others on our own military base.
Indeed, Umar, Obama and his boys have had a brutal time trying to divert attention from Hasan and his murderous Muslim mayhem, and then here you go again jamming jihad in everybody’s face.
You’re not helping BHO with his PR. People are getting suspicious. People are beginning to think that Barack is lying through his purple lips, Napolitano is a nabob, and that the exact opposite of what they say about Islam is the truth. In addition, people are starting to, how should I put it . . . get concerned . . . that this PC smack regarding Islam is setting our nation up to get our butts handed to us—as in big time.
Another thing I can’t figure out, Mr. Umar, is why you attacked us on Christmas day. What the heck is up with that? Haven’t you read the new Candy Ass Rule Book? Didn’t you know you’re not ‘sposed to attack us on our sacred holidays because we don’t attack you on yours? Didn’t you get that wall post on Facebook?
In case you didn’t hear about the Polite War we’re trying to wage with you, the gist of what we’ll do for you and your people who are trying to slaughter us is this: We will not attack you during your sacrosanct celebrations.
Matter of fact, we’ll go a step further and court martial our troops when they play a game of pin the tail on Mohammed at Gitmo, or flush a Koran, or accidentally serve Achmed Jell-O. Not only that, but we’ll prosecute our intel ops who ferret out your Islamic mass-murderous plots, and we’ll promote Muslim maniacs to major within our own ranks.
This sensitive approach to war is supposed to have the intended effect, if you wouldn’t mind, of preventing you from blowing up planes full of American Christians on Christ’s birthday, thank you very much. It’s just a suggestion. And it would be nice if you would play our game, as well.
However, if you don’t capitulate to our level of niceness, we will continue to maintain that level because we want to prove to the world that we’re pleasant even if thousands more Americans have to be killed. Again, we’re not pressuring you to stop the Christmas attacks, we’re just trying to give you something to think about while you’re screaming in tongues and burning our American flag.
Until then we might have to inconvenience some of you who wish to fly our friendly skies. Yep, you might start getting profiled because everybody and their dog think you suck and don’t trust your type much anymore. No offense, of course.
Oh, and for your information, I hear Kevin Jennings has volunteered to do the TSA pat downs and cavity searches on those who fit the “man-made disaster” profile. I hear he’s very thorough.
Dear Bank of America, I'd Like to Schedule a Default
Austin Hill
Sunday, January 03, 2010
Dear Bank of America;
Hi, it’s me, your customer Austin. I’m writing to schedule my mortgage default.
That’s right, I’m ready to schedule my mortgage default. Does that sound strange?
Well, believe me, Bank of America, I had hoped that our relationship wouldn’t come to this. But after months of trying to do business with you, I’ve decided that it’s probably in my best interest to just, you know - “walk away” from my mortgage.
How could it ever be in anyone’s best interest to default on a mortgage? And why would anyone ever want to default on a mortgage?
Well, here’s the deal: I have one of those now-famous “Option ARM” loans on my residence – the interest rate is adjustable, and the loan provides optional payment plans. And yes, Bank of America, you inherited my loan when Countrywide Lending went down the tubes in 2008, and you merged your company with theirs.
And here are some other details about me, Bank of America: I am fortunate to have a great job with a solid income, and I work under a long term employment contract. While my full time occupation is being a daily talk show host, I am also a writer and a public speaker, so I have multiple streams of income. I own real estate in multiple regions of the U.S., and I’m a big believer in real estate as a long term investment. And perhaps most interesting for you, Bank of America, I have a great credit score, and I’m current on all my debt payments.
During the recent real estate “boom,” I took some equity out of my home. Now, in the aftermath of the real estate “bust,” my house is slightly “under water” – not by much, but a little. And the interest rate on my loan won’t begin to move upward for another two years, so I’m not in any crisis right now.
The value of my property has actually begun to move upward a bit in the past few months, but it’s going to be a few years before the value reaches parity with my debt. And that’s why I was thrilled to get that little note you sent me in the mail last summer, Bank of America. Remember? You sent me that nice letter asking if I’d like to have my loan modified to a 30 year, fixed rate mortgage.
I responded quickly to that letter, Bank of America. And I’ve called repeatedly for over half a year. But here’s the sad truth that I’ve discovered about you: you’re not really interested in working with me, because I’m not behind on my payments.
With each and every call, Bank of America, I get the same treatment. Once your customer service representative checks the data base and realizes that I’m current on my payments, they “transfer my call” to “another department” – and from there, I’m left on hold. If another representative picks up, they want to transfer me again. And if I actually have a conversation with anybody, I’m treated to a person reading through a litany of “assessment questions” and surveys and evaluations. And then I’m transferred again.
After repeatedly being told that there is immediate help available to Bank of America customers who are delinquent, I finally started asking, “so will you talk to me about a loan modification if I stop making payments?” And to that question, I’ve repeatedly heard the same answer: “I could never advise you to not make your payments Mr. Hill” the representative will say, “I’m just telling you that if you become delinquent we have help available…”
I’m not the only person who has this disturbing kind of relationship with you, Bank of America. I discussed this on my talk show in Boise, Idaho, and was inundated with calls and email detailing the same sad story. I even addressed this over the holidays on a radio talk show where I was guest hosting in Phoenix, Arizona – one of the most tumultuous real estate markets in the country – and got the same response.
I’ve also talked with lots of personal friends about this, Bank of America. People from Los Angeles to Chicago to Washington, D.C., and from all walks of life. People with high school diplomas and M.D.’s and MBA’s and Ph.D’s and J.D.’s. We’re current on our payments, have great credit, and want to continue our relationships with you. But you’re not taking our calls.
It’s sad to realize that as you focus on your “troubled assets,” and ignore those of us with good credit, you’re likely creating more troubled assets in the process. But that’s the system you’ve put in place, Bank of America. It’s a system that rewards people’s bad behavior, while punishing other people’s good behavior.
So after spending half a year trying to take advantage of the offer you extended to me in the mail, I now understand what your actual system entails. And I’ve calculated the risks of working within the system you’ve put in place.
I’m ready to schedule my default. What would you like to do next?
Sunday, January 03, 2010
Dear Bank of America;
Hi, it’s me, your customer Austin. I’m writing to schedule my mortgage default.
That’s right, I’m ready to schedule my mortgage default. Does that sound strange?
Well, believe me, Bank of America, I had hoped that our relationship wouldn’t come to this. But after months of trying to do business with you, I’ve decided that it’s probably in my best interest to just, you know - “walk away” from my mortgage.
How could it ever be in anyone’s best interest to default on a mortgage? And why would anyone ever want to default on a mortgage?
Well, here’s the deal: I have one of those now-famous “Option ARM” loans on my residence – the interest rate is adjustable, and the loan provides optional payment plans. And yes, Bank of America, you inherited my loan when Countrywide Lending went down the tubes in 2008, and you merged your company with theirs.
And here are some other details about me, Bank of America: I am fortunate to have a great job with a solid income, and I work under a long term employment contract. While my full time occupation is being a daily talk show host, I am also a writer and a public speaker, so I have multiple streams of income. I own real estate in multiple regions of the U.S., and I’m a big believer in real estate as a long term investment. And perhaps most interesting for you, Bank of America, I have a great credit score, and I’m current on all my debt payments.
During the recent real estate “boom,” I took some equity out of my home. Now, in the aftermath of the real estate “bust,” my house is slightly “under water” – not by much, but a little. And the interest rate on my loan won’t begin to move upward for another two years, so I’m not in any crisis right now.
The value of my property has actually begun to move upward a bit in the past few months, but it’s going to be a few years before the value reaches parity with my debt. And that’s why I was thrilled to get that little note you sent me in the mail last summer, Bank of America. Remember? You sent me that nice letter asking if I’d like to have my loan modified to a 30 year, fixed rate mortgage.
I responded quickly to that letter, Bank of America. And I’ve called repeatedly for over half a year. But here’s the sad truth that I’ve discovered about you: you’re not really interested in working with me, because I’m not behind on my payments.
With each and every call, Bank of America, I get the same treatment. Once your customer service representative checks the data base and realizes that I’m current on my payments, they “transfer my call” to “another department” – and from there, I’m left on hold. If another representative picks up, they want to transfer me again. And if I actually have a conversation with anybody, I’m treated to a person reading through a litany of “assessment questions” and surveys and evaluations. And then I’m transferred again.
After repeatedly being told that there is immediate help available to Bank of America customers who are delinquent, I finally started asking, “so will you talk to me about a loan modification if I stop making payments?” And to that question, I’ve repeatedly heard the same answer: “I could never advise you to not make your payments Mr. Hill” the representative will say, “I’m just telling you that if you become delinquent we have help available…”
I’m not the only person who has this disturbing kind of relationship with you, Bank of America. I discussed this on my talk show in Boise, Idaho, and was inundated with calls and email detailing the same sad story. I even addressed this over the holidays on a radio talk show where I was guest hosting in Phoenix, Arizona – one of the most tumultuous real estate markets in the country – and got the same response.
I’ve also talked with lots of personal friends about this, Bank of America. People from Los Angeles to Chicago to Washington, D.C., and from all walks of life. People with high school diplomas and M.D.’s and MBA’s and Ph.D’s and J.D.’s. We’re current on our payments, have great credit, and want to continue our relationships with you. But you’re not taking our calls.
It’s sad to realize that as you focus on your “troubled assets,” and ignore those of us with good credit, you’re likely creating more troubled assets in the process. But that’s the system you’ve put in place, Bank of America. It’s a system that rewards people’s bad behavior, while punishing other people’s good behavior.
So after spending half a year trying to take advantage of the offer you extended to me in the mail, I now understand what your actual system entails. And I’ve calculated the risks of working within the system you’ve put in place.
I’m ready to schedule my default. What would you like to do next?
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