RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://www.manhattancontrarian.com/blog/2020-5-23-europe-is-firmly-committed-to-economic-suicide

In various posts over the years, I have argued that the long-term economic prospects for the likes of China and Russia are not very good. Among other reasons, the dictator-for-life governance model leads to inherent instability that undermines incentives for investment and growth. And then there’s the inevitability of state-directed capital allocation leading to massive investment in boondoggle projects that fail spectacularly. See as a couple of examples, from March 2018, “Is It Possible For A Dictatorship To Be A Top World Power?”, or, from July 2015, “In Case You Thought The Chinese Knew What They Were Doing.”

Therefore, Europe should have a huge leg up on these successors to Stalin and Mao. After all, the European countries basically have market economies, although overlain with bloated and unaccountable regulatory bureaucracies. They have a solid base of creative entrepreneurship. Really, how badly could they go wrong?

But the big problem for Europe is that most of their governments are firmly committed to economic suicide. This is particularly true for the countries with the largest economies, Germany and France. Among data points from just this week, here are a few:

From Deutsche Welle, we learn (May 20) that the European Commission is circulating a draft plan for massive support of the auto industry — 100 billion euros or more — that has been very hard hit by the virus crisis (sales down as much as 97% in April). However, the Commission intends to use the money to subsidize, in its words, “clean” modes of transport:  “[T]he paper proposes that €40 to €60 billion of the package come in the form of investments dedicated to “clean cars” such as electric vehicles, and other new technologies that do not rely on fossil fuels. The Commission is also seeking to have 2 million public charging ports across the EU by 2025. However, the plan does not touch on the fact that there is still massive debate on how clean small occupancy private vehicles can really be, electric or not.” The rest of the industry will be out of luck.

‘Islamist separatism is incompatible with freedom and equality, incompatible with the indivisibility of the republic and the necessary unity of the nation.’

“In the republic, it is not acceptable to refuse to shake hands with a woman because she is a woman. In the republic, we cannot accept that someone refuses to be cared for or educated by someone because she is a woman. In the republic, it is not acceptable to drop out of school for reasons of religion or belief. In the republic, one cannot demand virginity certificates to get married. In the republic, we must never accept that the laws of religion can be superior to the laws of the Republic. . . .

And now that I have said all this, this isn’t a question of stigmatizing any religion. And what we have to do is not, as I have sometimes heard from some people, a program against Islam. That would be a profound mistake. There are millions of fellow citizens, French citizens, who . . . believe in Islam and who live according to the laws of the republic and who want to live as French citizens. What we must fight is the separatism I have just mentioned and all the practices I have just mentioned with great calm, with great determination, with great respect. . . . The risk is that the whole society will say “the problem is our Muslim fellow citizens,” which would be a huge mistake. But this Islamist separatism is incompatible with freedom and equality, incompatible with the indivisibility of the republic and the necessary unity of the nation.

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/16051/china-religion-persecution

One member of [The Church of Almighty God], who had been released, said that the police had “threatened to send her to the coronavirus epicenter in Hubei Province to be infected if she continued practicing her faith.” — From Bitter Winter, May 6, 2020.

Members of CAG are imprisoned in education camps alongside Uyghurs and other Muslims, Christians and Falun Gong practitioners. One CAG member said that the Xinjiang camp she was sent to had 400 inmates, mostly Uyghurs, Christians and Falun Gong members. She was beaten, nearly raped and subjected to all sorts of torture as part of the indoctrination effort. — From Bitter Winter, March 18, 2020.

When the elderly man in charge of the church asked why the government had destroyed it, the police viciously beat him. In April, authorities demolished a Three-Self church in Xining for being “illegal”. Throughout the coronavirus outbreak, the Chinese regime continued to remove crosses from Three-Self churches in Anhui, Jiangsu, Shandong, and other provinces. — From Bitter Winter, April 11 and 23, 2020.

“Independent experts estimate that between 900,000 and 1.8 million Uighur, Kazakh, Kyrgyz, and other Muslims have been detained in more than 1,300 concentration camps in Xinjiang.” — United States Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCRIF), April 28, 2020.

“Meanwhile, authorities in Xinjiang and other parts of China have destroyed or damaged thousands of mosques and removed Arabic-language signs from Muslim businesses.” — United States Commission on International Religious Freedom, April 28, 2020.

“Human rights advocates and scientists presented evidence that the practice of harvesting organs from prisoners—many of whom are believed to be Falun Gong practitioners— continued on a significant scale.” — United States Commission on International Religious Freedom, April 28, 2020.

Since early 2020, China has been doubling down on its already extreme suppression of religious freedom, and the Covid-19 outbreak has done nothing to curb the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) enthusiasm. If anything, the virus outbreak has served as an excuse to crack down even more on freedom of religion.

In February, for instance, officials came to inspect whether a church in Henan province was implementing lockdown instructions, but, according to one church member interviewed by Bitter Winter, “seeing some bible verses written on a blackboard they said, ‘China is the land of the Communist Party, and we are not allowed to hold religious beliefs'”. The officials then “smashed everything in the venue and left, locking the door…”

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/16055/iran-tom-and-jerry

The mullahs have threatened “dire consequences” if the US does try to stop the tankers. Since the Islamic Republic lacks the naval power to escort the tankers right down to Venezuelan ports, the “dire consequences” would not come in the form of a naval battle in the Caribbean. Instead, as the daily Kayhan, expressing “Supreme Guide” Ali Khamenei’s views, said in an editorial Monday, retaliation may come in the form of a seizure of one or more US oil tankers in the Strait of Hormuz. Another option is targeting all oil tankers in the waterway for a fixed period as Iran did in 1988.

Last week, the ayatollah called for the formation of a “young Hezbollahi government”, serving notice that President Hassan Rouhani and his “New York Boys”, now old and not Hezbollahi enough, are moving towards the exit.

Khamenei has compared his struggle with the American “Great Satan” with the Tom and Jerry conflicts in the word of Hollywood cartoons. On many occasions viewers think that the playful mouse is done for, only for him to dodge the cat and bounce back with a new trick.

Four decades of Tom & Jerry Iranian-style was made possible by the gullibility and impatience of Americans who always wanted quick results, took their wishes for reality, and allowed the mischievous/playful mouse to live another day for another adventure.

Is a military clash between the United States and Iran inevitable? Since January, when the Americans assassinated Tehran’s top general, Qassem Soleimani, policy circles in major capitals have grappled with the question without reaching a consensus.

At the time of this writing, the question is bouncing back as Iranian tankers carrying oil to Venezuela risk running into an American cordon designed to keep them away.

The mullahs have threatened “dire consequences” if the US does try to stop the tankers. Since the Islamic Republic lacks the naval power to escort the tankers right down to Venezuelan ports, the “dire consequences” would not come in the form of a naval battle in the Caribbean. Instead, as the daily Kayhan, expressing “Supreme Guide” Ali Khamenei’s views, said in an editorial Monday, retaliation may come in the form of a seizure of one or more US oil tankers in the Strait of Hormuz. Another option is targeting all oil tankers in the waterway for a fixed period, as Iran did in 1988.