Gucci Little Piggy

Kicking. Squealing.

Links

1.  On the flipping and flopping of democratic drive between the U.S. and Russia/China.  I’ll note that among the alt-right, Russia and Vlad Putin seem to be held in relatively high esteem:

It is fitting that so many of the older generation of American neoconservatives started life as communist enthusiasts in the 1930s and ’40s. For today’s neocons are really neo-Trotskyites promoting the old, doomed enthusiasms under a new label.

By contrast, Russia and China are led by pragmatic governments guided by the concepts of profit and self-interest. They support and want to do business with existing governments and governing systems around the world. This has made them the 21st century’s major global powers of the right.

2.  Secrets of getting into an Ivy League school from an admissions officer.  Here’s one:  it’s not a good thing to be middle class and white.

3.  Brink Lindsey believes there aren’t enough helicopter parents.

4.  More evidence of female voters’ hard swing towards Romney.  Fickle.

5.  Obama’s plan to fix the student debt problem provides a back-loaded benefit to wealthier graduates.  Also, it provides incentives for students to take out huge debts and for schools to ramp up prices.

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21 Responses to Links

  1. PA 10/16/2012 at 2:19 pm

    One post-Cold War reversal is that USA is an exporter of materialist values and Russia is a traditionalist Christian country. In throwing the book at Pussy Riot, Putin is sending a strong statement Russia will not roll over for globalism.

  2. anonymous 10/16/2012 at 3:06 pm

    helicopter is a dog whistle for white

  3. Heartiste 10/16/2012 at 3:08 pm

    “helicopter is a dog whistle for white”

    i think we can dispense with the detailed categorization at this point and just admit that anything nice in life is pretty much a dog whistle for white.

  4. RomanCandle 10/16/2012 at 3:19 pm

    I think Romney’s huge surge among women is mostly to do with the fact that the media/Obama campaign overplayed their hand by painting him as a backwards religious nutjob. When women instead saw a normal, well-spoken man – and not a woman-hater intent on outlawing abortion and birth control pills – they reassessed their views accordingly.

    Now Romney and Obama are tied among women, and Romney holds a double-digit lead with men.

    Maybe this is just confirmation bias, but how delicious would it be if Sandra Fluke actually ended up costing Obama the election?

  5. Lara 10/16/2012 at 3:25 pm

    I am tired of hearing about helicopter parents. I don’t know why encouraging people to be good parents is bad for society. For me, it’s generally a good thing to be pushed to be less lazy and selfish and do more with my kids. When it gets to the point where they are becoming too spoiled and selfish themselves, that’s when maybe I need to do a little less for them.

  6. needname 10/16/2012 at 3:27 pm

    “how delicious would it be if Sandra Fluke actually ended up costing Obama the election?”

    That would be awesome as Ms. Fluke is the most worthless cunt in the political arena and that’s saying something with “women” like Jessica Valenti and Amanda Marcotte around.

  7. Lara 10/16/2012 at 3:29 pm

    On other words, most women are lazy and selfish and would rather sit around watching reality T.V., and eating bon-bons rather than cook dinner for or read to their children. Let’s not encourage their worse tendencies.

  8. K(yle) 10/16/2012 at 3:33 pm

    From what I understand Putin is seen as some kind of centrist domestically, and isn’t all that well liked by Russia’s own far right. I think the English language Alt-Right is blinded by how terrible and traitorous our own leaders are when looking at Putin, because objectively he’s much more globalist than nationalist.

    I also think a lot of the pro-Nationalist stances that Russia has struck are 100% for show and don’t reflect that countries actual policies at all. It’s just like all of the recent “Multiculturalism has failed!” pronouncements from Europe, with the end result being a doubling-down in the current policy.

  9. PA 10/16/2012 at 3:38 pm

    My older son (3y.o.) can confidently climb on playground equipment, throw and catch a football or a tennis ball and kick a soccer ball with authority, strum an electric guitar (I do the chords for him), name different types of aircraft and cars, and not take shit from women. All of it comes from a combination of his natural qualities and MY happily spending much of my free time showing him stuff. His mother dotes on him and takes care of him and teaches him to read and takes him to play with other kids. If that’s helicopter parenting, then I’m the friggin Boeing AH-64 Apache.

  10. Lara 10/16/2012 at 3:41 pm

    From what I can tell spending time with SWPL parents, is that their kids lead similar lives to non-SWPL American kids. I’m just not seeing this major difference in everyday activities.

  11. culdesachero 10/16/2012 at 3:58 pm

    The term helicopter parent was originally coined to desribe parents who hover to the point wher the child loses the ability to fend for himself because mom or dad always steps in to help when the slighest thing goes wrong.
    Like all useful terms, its application expands until it becomes meaningless. Now good parenting is called helicoptering to make Lindsay’s point about smart, competitive parents in 2 parent families.

    Helicopter parents won’t let their kids play in their own yard alone or wall to their friend’s house two doors down without an escort.

  12. Lara 10/16/2012 at 6:41 pm

    I’m sure Russians have their complaints about Putin. However, he is the leader of a huge and diverse country, which is no easy task.

  13. amac78 10/16/2012 at 7:22 pm

    Re: Dartmouth admissions, it’s either “plus ca change” or recycled revelations. Business Insider’s anonymous source sounds a lot like Michelle Hernandez, who left that college’s admissions office to write a kiss-and-tell book, and founded a Manhattan consulting practice based on her experience. The 2009 revision of “A Is For Admissions” is on amazon etc. It’s a very useful read for the parents of aspiring attendees of Ivies and other elite U.S. private universities.

  14. RomanCandle 10/16/2012 at 7:54 pm

    The Russians view their leaders like women view their men: they think its better to be cruel but strong than generous but weak.

  15. SHTF 10/16/2012 at 10:21 pm

    PA 10/16/2012 at 3:38 pm

    And at a certain point, teach him the usage of firearms. Trouble coming…

  16. Phillyastro 10/17/2012 at 10:23 am

    Why do we have to resort to calling U.S. foreign policy “Neo-con Trotskyism” when “Wilsonian” works just as well?

  17. Black Death 10/17/2012 at 12:18 pm

    The linked article doesn’t specifically mention Putin, although it does express general agreement with Russian foreign policy. Here’s a link to another current article discussing Russia and China and their looming leadership crises (http://www.worldaffairsjournal.org/article/coming-collapse-authoritarians-china-and-russia-face-endgame).

    Putin is, well, what you get in Russia. He’s not Stalin or Brezhnev, but he’s not Thomas Jefferson either. His government is authoritarian (but not as bad as under the Tsars or the Communists), and very nationalistic and corrupt (very much like the Tsars and the Communists). The author of the article I linked doesn’t think he’ll last too much longer. Is he right? Who knows? But the author of the “American Conservative” article, Martin Sieff, makes the valid point that the US is following the same trajectory that the USSR followed – bankrupting itself in a largely futile attempt to spread its ideology around the world. Of course, the USSR tried to spread communism, which is evil, and the US is promoting democracy, which we generally regard as a good thing. The collapse of communism led to the spread of democracy throughout the former Soviet empire in Eastern Europe, but the US has been spectacularly unsuccessful in promoting democracy in places such as Afghanistan, Egypt and Iran. To most Muslims, democracy means fundamentalist Islam, good and hard.

    The US is pursuing the same futile Trotskyite quest that Stalin rejected (and, of course, Stalin didn’t just reject Trotskyism, he rejected Trotsky by having him exiled and then murdered).

    Years ago, when I studied the Russian language in college, one of my teachers, a native Russian woman, told me that the history of Russia from its murky beginnings to the present, could be accurately discussed without mentioning communism. I think that still holds true.

  18. Lara 10/17/2012 at 1:25 pm

    Communism is an ideology, and once people stop believing it, it’s gone. When I picture Russia, I picture scenes from Anna Karenina or Doctor Zhivago, not some ideology.

  19. Lara 10/17/2012 at 1:45 pm

    I remember reading an article years ago, and a Russian woman was quoted as saying Russians aren’t suited for democracy. It struck me, because I thought everyone was suited for democracy at the time.

  20. Freeman 11/24/2012 at 3:57 am

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