Archive | June 19, 2009

Reviewing the Encyclopedia, Part 2

Check out Martin Wooster’s review of the Cato Encyclopedia.

Incidentally, I can’t agree with Wooster’s claim that “the leading thinkers among the Progressives… were generally free of racial prejudice.” Perhaps the three names he cites were; I don’t know. But racism played a large role in a great deal of Progressive thought (Theodore Roosevelt and Woodrow Wilson are obvious examples). Wooster’s contrast between racism and eugenics is also puzzling, given how deeply pervaded eugenics was by racist ideas (and vice versa).


In Triumph Through Persepolis

Sheldon makes some good points about the u.s. and Iran here. It would be interesting to know how much involvement the u.s. already has in what’s going on there. The Iranian government says that foreign influences are involved – but you’d expect it to say that. The relevant foreign influences deny that they’re involved, but you’d expect them to say that too. The u.s. government certainly has an incentive to intervene covertly – though they’re also so incompetent and clueless that they actually might not have.

That Twitter delayed its downtime until nighttime in Iran in order to avoid interfering with coordination among the protesters is great, but the fact that the u.s. govt. asked them for the delay makes me wonder what else the u.s. govt. is doing? That the u.s. govt. could simply have created this situation out of whole cloth as the Iranian govt. would have us believe is ludicrous; but to what extent did the u.s. actually promote this situation and to what extent are they simply trying to exploit an independently arising situation?

The protests also seem to be coinciding with a power struggle within the Iranian leadership. (I mean the actual leadership, not the presidency.) So the same question can be posed there: to what extent did dissident factions within the ruling council actually promote this situation and to what extent are they simply trying to exploit an independently arising situation?


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