I published this in April,2016 in another blog I had and I reprise it now prompted by Dr. Nick Waddy's latest post on his courageous and well argued blog Waddyisright.com., concerning climate change and America's considerable achievements so far in addressing this concern. The big difference is, of course, that we now have a loyal American and his direct appointees in charge of policy in this regard, so though that doesn't change my original theme, I did update some wording :
Original title - Crushing Dissent: A Leftist Goal. In this post I will describe an ongoing, relentless, purposeful process enacted by the American left to destroy dissent from its views to aid it in achieving a dominance it cannot attain legislatively. With its inspiration being the successful Federal legal effort against the tobacco industry, which was enabled by a true scientific consensus based on overwhelming empirical evidence, the left attempts, in its proposals to take to law industries and some individuals who express doubt about "global warming" and its ostensible human provenance, to employ a new, far less rigorous standard for scientific consensus. ("The Enlightenment be damned".) Once established, this new model, based on the concept, already shamefully rampant in the American academy, of "social scientific consensus" (my term for forced unanimity among social "scientists" about ideas deemed "correct" by the leftists who dominate most social science faculties), would give future radical governments wide latitude and consequent full power, to discourage and punish dissent from irresponsible government measures based on badly supported conclusions. Once the left turns any issue into a social issue, the sanctimonious engine of "political correctness" kicks on with characteristic fuss, fume and totalitarian vindictiveness.
The Obama administration explored the possibility of prosecuting both some researchers who express doubts about possible "global warming" and its origins, and fossil fuel corporations which
uncooperatively encourage such doubt in hopes of defending their financial viability and that of their employees and stock holders from questionable concerns. I would assume that many fossil fuel corporation executives have science degrees and that, being human, they have exercised a reasonable and conceivably honorable belief in the virtue and the soundness of their companies' enterprises. This is naturally denounced by such as Al Gore,with all their experience in the real world of free enterprise, despite Al's conspicuous enjoyment of the fruits thereof.
The left still, despite its monumental setback in the election of a man who knows it and does not fear it, yet seeks the dismantling of free enterprise, capitalism, and the "undeserved" well being they generate. Successful Federal prosecution of the tobacco industry provided useful precedent and practice for confronting powerful industries and for this purpose.. The government argued that researchers were unanimous in finding tobacco smoke consumption addictive and poisonous. The public, using common sense and experience, eventually agreed. I remember my 9 year old classmate in the '50's telling his father "here are your cancer sticks". The present day left is loath to trust such a democratic process and looks longingly to the fact that Federal courts convicted several tobacco companies under the RICO statute; it would dearly love to do the same to the fossil fuel producers and the heretics who doubt Ol' Al .
The standards of proof and credibility satisfied by scientific inquiry into the dangers of smoking are not satisfied by current research about possible global warming. Much credible dissent from the view that it is happening and that it is caused by humans, is readily available in creditable informational resources and direct personal experience of human culpability is impossible. Who can claim to have actually witnessed human warming of the good old earth? But we've all seen smokers coughing their lungs out.
The human provenance of "global warming" is devoutly to be wished for by the left because it provides justification for yet another hellish trek toward a perfect world with the left at the helm. That's where it becomes a social issue for them.
Can it be that the left's scientific objectivity (it is, after all, the child of Marx) is yet to be doubted? Not by its lights to be sure. Its breathless and essentially emotional idealism having been tragically and thoroughly discredited in the laboratory of the murderous 20th century, the always predominantly very far left nonetheless glimpses vindication in this issue.
Within the left it is consensus - it just "feels" right and so is, as in all issues on which radicals have "fallen in" in unserried ranks, unquestionably true and just. This visceral conviction informs and motivates the left's determination to destroy the still quite legal and perhaps even beneficial fossil fuel industry in hopes of seriously wounding the real America. Should it reacquire governmental sway, it will again seek to make researchers and doubters fear Federal lawsuits and criminal prosecution . In doing so it would suppress open minded inquiry and debate and thereby, reduce the possibility of convincing empirical evidence contradicting its views ever being gathered and freely disseminated. The consequent establishment of a new, far less empirically rigorous definition of "scientific consensus" , requiring nonetheless, the draconian measures taken against big tobacco, would set for the left an incalculably useful precedent as an outcome even beyond the defeat of "global warming" doubters. Here is how it would be used:
Most government decision makers and all lawyers are college educated. The American academy is dominated , at the very least in the social sciences and humanities, by leftists who view dissent from their unquestionably just outlook as incorrect, morally reprehensible and deserving of punishment and suppression. This is the fruit of the boomer '60's, where painfully evolved and established verities were dismissed, out of hand and overnight. Already well regarded in perhaps the majority of such "university" departments is the concept of "social science consensus" (again, my term). And its infection of the physical sciences is apparent. After all, scientists need gainful employment too. But the social sciences are not as beholden to empirical evidence are they? Could a sociologist have caused Saturn V to lift off? In the politicized anti intellectual atmosphere in today's academia its not a very long step, is it, from "scientific consensus" to "social science consensus" to "consensus", especially when it serves already resolved "social justice" ends. If you have no compunctions against excoriating those who disagree with you and have the means to do them material dirt, why you're good to go. Those who imprudently depart from the leftist view won't be hired or promoted and will be ridiculed and marginalized in their discipline.
All this is only to be expected; the totalitarian essence of the American left is long established and has already turned much of the American "university" into a swamp of bigotry infested with a determination to force leftist change by any means and by an appalling hostility to academic freedom. Check out SUNY New Paltz these days.
It is from this setting that lawyers and Federal bureaucrats have and will have graduated into settings which may afford them unlimited power to intimidate and coerce (eg. with taxpayers' money). A marriage, at their disposal, of a new and corrupted definition of consensus would give government what it needs to shut down opposition to its fiddling and meddling with American life and could in the hands of its progenitors, the America hating left, permanently tip the balance in the conflict in our country between democracy and a "scientific" totalitarianism of which Stalin and his terrified factotum, "biologist" T.D. Lysenko, would have approved. Jack
Sunday, July 29, 2018
Wednesday, July 18, 2018
My take
After having resolved never to venture upon the campus of the "University" of Minnesota, lest I commit capital blasphemy by uttering any word hinting at difference between the sexes (dare I use even that word?) and be denounced first to the tender mercies of the Inquisition and then to deserved public immolation prior to the Minnesota/ Wisconsin game - after all that - I got thinking about the summit conference.
We don't really know much yet about what went on during the four hours of private conversation between the Presidents. Perhaps significant progress was made toward the preservation of relative concord between the nations. Within peaceful parameters there is much wiggle room and if I had to go only on the look on Putin's face when they entered upon the news conference, maybe our President did a little more wiggling than he did. Still, wiggling is better than marching sometimes and this was not Vienna in 1961.
President Trump committed an embarrassing verbal faux pas when he appeared to place more credence in the word of a former KGB guy than in our intelligence services . Ecstatic denunciation from the usual suspects can be discounted because the form of it, if not the content, was (yawnnn) preordained. The President swiftly and credibly explained himself, to the satisfaction of discerning critics like Newt Gingrich; Rush Limbaugh correctly pointed out that the consequences of the private conversation are very much more important. Sorry Nancy, I'm not coming over.
I believe, because it has come from credible sources, that Russia did meddle in the 2016 election but I don't think it made a bit of difference to the real America, which stood up and sent Hillary packing (or unpacking, I should say). We should take note of it, assure the Russians we are fully aware of it and let them wonder what our next move might be. They've been fiddling around with our culture and our politics ever since Trotsky had his pipedream of world revolution and Uncle Joe seduced some of the nuke scientists. The Dems, who are their apologists and their avatars in many ways, especially since 1972, are just catching on to that? Ask Van Jones about it.
Also, I understood President Putin to say, in his post news conference interview on Fox, that any move toward drawing Ukraine closer to NATO would be met with a "very negative" reaction on the part of Russia. Uh huh. Jack
We don't really know much yet about what went on during the four hours of private conversation between the Presidents. Perhaps significant progress was made toward the preservation of relative concord between the nations. Within peaceful parameters there is much wiggle room and if I had to go only on the look on Putin's face when they entered upon the news conference, maybe our President did a little more wiggling than he did. Still, wiggling is better than marching sometimes and this was not Vienna in 1961.
President Trump committed an embarrassing verbal faux pas when he appeared to place more credence in the word of a former KGB guy than in our intelligence services . Ecstatic denunciation from the usual suspects can be discounted because the form of it, if not the content, was (yawnnn) preordained. The President swiftly and credibly explained himself, to the satisfaction of discerning critics like Newt Gingrich; Rush Limbaugh correctly pointed out that the consequences of the private conversation are very much more important. Sorry Nancy, I'm not coming over.
I believe, because it has come from credible sources, that Russia did meddle in the 2016 election but I don't think it made a bit of difference to the real America, which stood up and sent Hillary packing (or unpacking, I should say). We should take note of it, assure the Russians we are fully aware of it and let them wonder what our next move might be. They've been fiddling around with our culture and our politics ever since Trotsky had his pipedream of world revolution and Uncle Joe seduced some of the nuke scientists. The Dems, who are their apologists and their avatars in many ways, especially since 1972, are just catching on to that? Ask Van Jones about it.
Also, I understood President Putin to say, in his post news conference interview on Fox, that any move toward drawing Ukraine closer to NATO would be met with a "very negative" reaction on the part of Russia. Uh huh. Jack
Sunday, July 15, 2018
Now its Crimea?
Gimme a break. What is this, 1853? Is the Sultan back on the throne? Is the Light Brigade saddling up? Are the Brits and the French sending their new ironclads? Is Major McClellan on his way as an observer to prepare for his undoubted future as the savior of the Union? But why is Crimea so much in the news now?
First, does anyone honestly think Russia would reconsider its 2014 reacquisition of a region which has been part of Russia since Catherine the Great and which contains the port of Sevastopol on the Black Sea? Russia may no longer aspire to be a world class naval power, which they almost accomplished before Lech Walesa, Ronald Reagan and Saint John Paul II bankrupted them. They'd still like access to the Mediterranean though.
In 1954 the Soviet Union transferred Crimea to Ukraine, both regions being then and staying within Soviet borders. That's sort of like giving Maryland to Virginia. Maybe it was a condition of Ukraine retaining its then preposterous seat in the U.N.;ahhh, just kidding.
An expert on Russia told a radio audience that a very high Russian official told him , prior to Russia's takeover of Crimea in 2014, that it was just a matter of time. I've gone on at length before on what I consider the importance of fully understanding Russia's cultural, economical, military and geographical relationship to Ukraine. After the breakup of the USSR a Russian officer was quoted: "I will never think of Kiev as a foreign city". If I understand what I know of the views of Dr. Stephen Cohen, former Professor of Russian History at NYU, I believe he maintains that we ignore these terribly and deeply historical ties at our peril. The transfer of Crimea should be viewed in that light, I think; its Russia's, Crimea's and Ukraine's matter, not ours.
Suppose Virginia were to depart the Union, taking Norfolk Navy Base with it? Would we not consider that our own matter, not Russia's? For that matter, what did we do about it in 1861?
Crimea may well be brought up at the conference between President Trump and President Putin but I hope and trust President Trump will be circumspect and diplomatic. Connected as it is to the Russia/Ukraine affinity this matter could have the gravest of implications for the U.S., should we be unwise. Fox News interviewed the CIA's former top man in Moscow today and asked him "what is Putin's worst fear?" He said " a free Ukraine inclined to the West and NATO". Ukraine's political evolution since independence has shown little to distinguish it from most other now free Eastern European countries and they certainly have "inclined to the West and NATO". Russia has, remarkably, tolerated that. But it has taken action with respect to Ukraine and we must pay very close attention to that fact in thinking about Crimea. Jack
First, does anyone honestly think Russia would reconsider its 2014 reacquisition of a region which has been part of Russia since Catherine the Great and which contains the port of Sevastopol on the Black Sea? Russia may no longer aspire to be a world class naval power, which they almost accomplished before Lech Walesa, Ronald Reagan and Saint John Paul II bankrupted them. They'd still like access to the Mediterranean though.
In 1954 the Soviet Union transferred Crimea to Ukraine, both regions being then and staying within Soviet borders. That's sort of like giving Maryland to Virginia. Maybe it was a condition of Ukraine retaining its then preposterous seat in the U.N.;ahhh, just kidding.
An expert on Russia told a radio audience that a very high Russian official told him , prior to Russia's takeover of Crimea in 2014, that it was just a matter of time. I've gone on at length before on what I consider the importance of fully understanding Russia's cultural, economical, military and geographical relationship to Ukraine. After the breakup of the USSR a Russian officer was quoted: "I will never think of Kiev as a foreign city". If I understand what I know of the views of Dr. Stephen Cohen, former Professor of Russian History at NYU, I believe he maintains that we ignore these terribly and deeply historical ties at our peril. The transfer of Crimea should be viewed in that light, I think; its Russia's, Crimea's and Ukraine's matter, not ours.
Suppose Virginia were to depart the Union, taking Norfolk Navy Base with it? Would we not consider that our own matter, not Russia's? For that matter, what did we do about it in 1861?
Crimea may well be brought up at the conference between President Trump and President Putin but I hope and trust President Trump will be circumspect and diplomatic. Connected as it is to the Russia/Ukraine affinity this matter could have the gravest of implications for the U.S., should we be unwise. Fox News interviewed the CIA's former top man in Moscow today and asked him "what is Putin's worst fear?" He said " a free Ukraine inclined to the West and NATO". Ukraine's political evolution since independence has shown little to distinguish it from most other now free Eastern European countries and they certainly have "inclined to the West and NATO". Russia has, remarkably, tolerated that. But it has taken action with respect to Ukraine and we must pay very close attention to that fact in thinking about Crimea. Jack
Wednesday, July 11, 2018
Listen up Charles!
The redoubtable and regrettable Sen. (would that it were not so) Charles Schumer from my state of NY, I am ashamed to say, laments today that the nomination of Judge Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court raises the specter of the "reproductive rights of women being in the hands of five (yeeechhh) men on the Supreme Court." Why now, "here's a change i' the commonwealth indeed", (from Shakespeare's Measure for Measure, a dramatization of the misapplication of law).
Gee Charles, Roe v. Wade, decided by seven justices (is it the difference of two which raises your hackles?) has sealed the fate of some tens of millions of unborn humans since 1973 with your enthusiastic approval. Not only were they denied the free exercise of life itself in this highly favorable U.S. setting, but the approximately half of them who were female were denied an opportunity for reproduction which most of them would have exercised by now.
Now, stick with me here Charles: Verbal opposition to the summary ending of their lives was impossible for these already brain, arm, leg and torso endowed creatures to express because the use of the tongue to project intelligible audible communication requires access to the atmosphere. Oh they might have had time for a couple of squeaks as they embarked on their involuntary rendevous with eternity but you would agree it would be unreasonable to expect any more of them. They could not have bid those justices "hey, gimme a chance at life" now could they?
But those for whom you now stand do have power of expression, having been born. And should SCOTUS limit their power to deny the open air itself to human beings conceived by actions far beyond the fetuses' ken or control, they would retain their ability to petition the more democratic organs of our government, legislatures and Congress, for succor. Now they may be denied - after all, how many legislators are there vs. how many judges - but as a master legislator yourself I know you understand, Charles.
You're also a lawyer Charles and I know you know that "the law" comprises and that it is reasonable for a competent judge to consider, many sources of legal authority. Statutes, legislative intent, the texts of decisions, learned commentary on the text of decisions, the fate of statutes and cases after enactment, amendment or decision, are some examples. In a future case involving Roe v. Wade it is conceivable that some little credible authority may have expressed doubt as to the legal soundness of the original decision. A principled jurist might consequently conclude this case is as legally weak as to be undeserving of continued deference. Such a principled person, if seated on SCOTUS, might well vote that way; a candidate possessed of such integrity has just been nominated. If he follows "the law" he may well consider himself constrained to vote this way regardless of any prejudice he may or may not harbor as to the moral or social issue involved. He might well be inclined to leave law making to elected law makers.
But I know you are first and foremost a politician, Charles, and that you must be realistic in shepherding your flock. You have of necessity then to reflexively excoriate him by urging the certainty that Judge Kavanaugh is utterly insensitive to the needs of pregnant women and may well take pleasure from harming them. Your excitable avatars are buzzing like hornets in a busted nest already. But the real America has done and is ready to do again what it takes to frustrate you - out vote you and out vote you. Jack
Gee Charles, Roe v. Wade, decided by seven justices (is it the difference of two which raises your hackles?) has sealed the fate of some tens of millions of unborn humans since 1973 with your enthusiastic approval. Not only were they denied the free exercise of life itself in this highly favorable U.S. setting, but the approximately half of them who were female were denied an opportunity for reproduction which most of them would have exercised by now.
Now, stick with me here Charles: Verbal opposition to the summary ending of their lives was impossible for these already brain, arm, leg and torso endowed creatures to express because the use of the tongue to project intelligible audible communication requires access to the atmosphere. Oh they might have had time for a couple of squeaks as they embarked on their involuntary rendevous with eternity but you would agree it would be unreasonable to expect any more of them. They could not have bid those justices "hey, gimme a chance at life" now could they?
But those for whom you now stand do have power of expression, having been born. And should SCOTUS limit their power to deny the open air itself to human beings conceived by actions far beyond the fetuses' ken or control, they would retain their ability to petition the more democratic organs of our government, legislatures and Congress, for succor. Now they may be denied - after all, how many legislators are there vs. how many judges - but as a master legislator yourself I know you understand, Charles.
You're also a lawyer Charles and I know you know that "the law" comprises and that it is reasonable for a competent judge to consider, many sources of legal authority. Statutes, legislative intent, the texts of decisions, learned commentary on the text of decisions, the fate of statutes and cases after enactment, amendment or decision, are some examples. In a future case involving Roe v. Wade it is conceivable that some little credible authority may have expressed doubt as to the legal soundness of the original decision. A principled jurist might consequently conclude this case is as legally weak as to be undeserving of continued deference. Such a principled person, if seated on SCOTUS, might well vote that way; a candidate possessed of such integrity has just been nominated. If he follows "the law" he may well consider himself constrained to vote this way regardless of any prejudice he may or may not harbor as to the moral or social issue involved. He might well be inclined to leave law making to elected law makers.
But I know you are first and foremost a politician, Charles, and that you must be realistic in shepherding your flock. You have of necessity then to reflexively excoriate him by urging the certainty that Judge Kavanaugh is utterly insensitive to the needs of pregnant women and may well take pleasure from harming them. Your excitable avatars are buzzing like hornets in a busted nest already. But the real America has done and is ready to do again what it takes to frustrate you - out vote you and out vote you. Jack
Tuesday, July 10, 2018
Thank you, thank you, Michelle Wolf.
Michelle, I just read about your recent "Salute to Abortion" on your NetFlix show The Break with Michelle Wolf. I was mad at you for the way you trashed Sarah Huckabee Sanders at the White House Correspondents' Dinner, to which you could not have been invited had you not earned some significant recognition. The, eh, painful metaphors you used to describe the President's daughter Ivanka were even more objectionable. But you've redeemed yourself, baby, oh have you ever, by providing us a clean, clear and revealing window into the very soul of the "pro-choice" movement, yes you have!
I've always been especially disgusted by parades of pro choicers celebrating their present legal ability to scald or dismember unborn human beings, if not yet at will then ever closer to that as Hillary takes the oath. Yeah, celebrating! But OOOOPS!
Parades though, are seen by relatively limited audiences, yes? Not so NetFlix and your defining opus. For you have expressed, graphically, openly and honestly and to the limitless ether , the depraved essence of a movement which has revelled in the deaths of many tens of millions of unborn babies.
What's next? Will you sojourn at Auschwitz to rejoice in the slaughter of all those potential Israelis and to suggest that a renewal of that campaign is in order ? That would follow from the logic of the radical left, of which you are surely an eloquent and reckless spokeswoman.
And oh, those red, white and blue costumes; clever clever knock on the real America. And your timing, well now that couldn't be better. Senate Dems are working up to a real gutterwhumper over the President's insensitivity to the crying need in their lives for the aforementioned festivities. I mean, he had the nerve to nominate to the Supreme Court a man (that in itself an infamy ,by definition) who in following what every legal professional knows to be the entirety of the law, may find fault (FAULT!) in Roe v. Wade and the bacchanalia it periodically inspires. Gonna be a brawl. Then there are those midterm elections which loom ever larger through the summer miasma.
Thanks Michelle, for helping us to get our minds right on the paramount issue in both fights. After all, what evil are those who sleep better knowing thousands of feti have gone down the drain - of what further horror are they capable should their power be restored? Jack
I've always been especially disgusted by parades of pro choicers celebrating their present legal ability to scald or dismember unborn human beings, if not yet at will then ever closer to that as Hillary takes the oath. Yeah, celebrating! But OOOOPS!
Parades though, are seen by relatively limited audiences, yes? Not so NetFlix and your defining opus. For you have expressed, graphically, openly and honestly and to the limitless ether , the depraved essence of a movement which has revelled in the deaths of many tens of millions of unborn babies.
What's next? Will you sojourn at Auschwitz to rejoice in the slaughter of all those potential Israelis and to suggest that a renewal of that campaign is in order ? That would follow from the logic of the radical left, of which you are surely an eloquent and reckless spokeswoman.
And oh, those red, white and blue costumes; clever clever knock on the real America. And your timing, well now that couldn't be better. Senate Dems are working up to a real gutterwhumper over the President's insensitivity to the crying need in their lives for the aforementioned festivities. I mean, he had the nerve to nominate to the Supreme Court a man (that in itself an infamy ,by definition) who in following what every legal professional knows to be the entirety of the law, may find fault (FAULT!) in Roe v. Wade and the bacchanalia it periodically inspires. Gonna be a brawl. Then there are those midterm elections which loom ever larger through the summer miasma.
Thanks Michelle, for helping us to get our minds right on the paramount issue in both fights. After all, what evil are those who sleep better knowing thousands of feti have gone down the drain - of what further horror are they capable should their power be restored? Jack
Friday, July 6, 2018
Really Charles?
When I was in the Navy, a good friend, a guy from the South, would sometimes walk around our living compartment grinning, giggling, shaking his head and saying "Ah swear, ah swear!" Well, today I've been doing the same, ah swear, ah swear and all thanks to Charles Schumer. The news today said he called President Trump and urged him to nominate Merrick Garland to the Supreme Court. I can just imagine how that call went:
"Hello, Donal. . . uhh, Mr. President, this is Chuck Schumer." "Oh hi Chuck, pretty nice day huh, at least in my 'judgement' ". " Oh, well I suppose so but lets get down to business shall we? Now 'fair's fair', I think and Nancy and I realize you're not going to delay the nomination, even though this being an election year, you should, you know. I mean if we are going to lose the confirmation battle it would have hurt less to lose it 55 to 45 you know. So look, why don't you cut us some slack and nominate poor old Merrick Garland. He took a big political hit for Barack; I mean, imagine being a lawyer and being nominated to the pinnacle of our profession, SCOTUS, of all things and knowing its a sham. Now I know I'll never be nominated so I don't have to worry about being disappointed. I'll settle for defacto President when my little Kirsten girl beats you in 2020. Anyway, Mr. President, c'mon you know its the right thing to do. Do this for me and I'll owe you ok? Aw you know we'd pay you back. After all, its not as if elections have consequences now is it?"
"Well gee, Chuck, I don't know that I could see clear to doing that. If you remember, Mitch threw in the monkey wrench on Merrick's situation because we had good reason to expect you guys would turn SCOTUS into a somewhat leftist ehhh, 'tribunal', so to speak, I mean say it ain't so, right? And, well, we weren't about to let that happen. You'll remember you supplied us the procedural precedent to do that just a little while back. You and I are both old enough to remember how your side raised the stakes over the last 50 years and how you've gone for the jugular you know. We're on kind of a tear right now and we may have the means to keep your people away from our jugular. You don't really think we'd pass that up do ya? Now you guys would have gone for it if Hill hadn't fluffed. And, ya know, youse haven't been very nice to me since I won. But wait, you know all that don't ya? Oh you kid! You always were a joker back in those Bronx vs Brooklyn days. I remember the time you put the stink bomb in my lunch box. Oh man, you were a kick!"
"I see what you're doing. You know its a stretch now don't you, that you have any chance of denying me my thing - to restore the Court to its proper role and you know what a downer that will be for you all because you really don't have much of a knack for getting the real America to go for your crazy ideas through their elected representatives. So you're willing to try anything right? I have to admit I've been looking forward to seeing you squirm; you have caused me some bad times. Oh, you might just succeed in Borking my nominee but I'll just send another one with the same convictions and I'll wear ya down Chuck. So, thanks but no thanks and I'm sure that's what you expected to hear. Bye now."
Can Schumer derive any advantage from this preposterous proposal? I doubt it; he's getting desperate. He knows this appointment , paired with the departure of one of the four radicals likely before 2024, probably seals the deal; there won't be an "October Revolution" in America. And what else has his ilk been been working for, I ask you?
We just learned EPA Director Scott Pruitt was a casualty of the relentless leftist ad hominem onslaught. In war there will surely be casualties and I do not grudge Mr. Pruitt his retirement from it. He did much good. But now surely, the President will, in the throes of despair, appoint Al Gore as his successor. Now that the dragon has been slain the good old earth and all its minions rejoice in final victory. EPA is theirs!Global warming manifestos will take their place alongside the Declaration of Independence in hermetically sealed display cases as we follow, in childlike rapture, Al's clarion call out of town. Goodbye coal, goodbye oil, goodbye natural gas, hello 10th/22d century. Right! Jack
"Hello, Donal. . . uhh, Mr. President, this is Chuck Schumer." "Oh hi Chuck, pretty nice day huh, at least in my 'judgement' ". " Oh, well I suppose so but lets get down to business shall we? Now 'fair's fair', I think and Nancy and I realize you're not going to delay the nomination, even though this being an election year, you should, you know. I mean if we are going to lose the confirmation battle it would have hurt less to lose it 55 to 45 you know. So look, why don't you cut us some slack and nominate poor old Merrick Garland. He took a big political hit for Barack; I mean, imagine being a lawyer and being nominated to the pinnacle of our profession, SCOTUS, of all things and knowing its a sham. Now I know I'll never be nominated so I don't have to worry about being disappointed. I'll settle for defacto President when my little Kirsten girl beats you in 2020. Anyway, Mr. President, c'mon you know its the right thing to do. Do this for me and I'll owe you ok? Aw you know we'd pay you back. After all, its not as if elections have consequences now is it?"
"Well gee, Chuck, I don't know that I could see clear to doing that. If you remember, Mitch threw in the monkey wrench on Merrick's situation because we had good reason to expect you guys would turn SCOTUS into a somewhat leftist ehhh, 'tribunal', so to speak, I mean say it ain't so, right? And, well, we weren't about to let that happen. You'll remember you supplied us the procedural precedent to do that just a little while back. You and I are both old enough to remember how your side raised the stakes over the last 50 years and how you've gone for the jugular you know. We're on kind of a tear right now and we may have the means to keep your people away from our jugular. You don't really think we'd pass that up do ya? Now you guys would have gone for it if Hill hadn't fluffed. And, ya know, youse haven't been very nice to me since I won. But wait, you know all that don't ya? Oh you kid! You always were a joker back in those Bronx vs Brooklyn days. I remember the time you put the stink bomb in my lunch box. Oh man, you were a kick!"
"I see what you're doing. You know its a stretch now don't you, that you have any chance of denying me my thing - to restore the Court to its proper role and you know what a downer that will be for you all because you really don't have much of a knack for getting the real America to go for your crazy ideas through their elected representatives. So you're willing to try anything right? I have to admit I've been looking forward to seeing you squirm; you have caused me some bad times. Oh, you might just succeed in Borking my nominee but I'll just send another one with the same convictions and I'll wear ya down Chuck. So, thanks but no thanks and I'm sure that's what you expected to hear. Bye now."
Can Schumer derive any advantage from this preposterous proposal? I doubt it; he's getting desperate. He knows this appointment , paired with the departure of one of the four radicals likely before 2024, probably seals the deal; there won't be an "October Revolution" in America. And what else has his ilk been been working for, I ask you?
We just learned EPA Director Scott Pruitt was a casualty of the relentless leftist ad hominem onslaught. In war there will surely be casualties and I do not grudge Mr. Pruitt his retirement from it. He did much good. But now surely, the President will, in the throes of despair, appoint Al Gore as his successor. Now that the dragon has been slain the good old earth and all its minions rejoice in final victory. EPA is theirs!Global warming manifestos will take their place alongside the Declaration of Independence in hermetically sealed display cases as we follow, in childlike rapture, Al's clarion call out of town. Goodbye coal, goodbye oil, goodbye natural gas, hello 10th/22d century. Right! Jack
Monday, July 2, 2018
Trump and Putin
I have been very hesitant to express the following view; I did not want to risk alienating conservatives, with whom I gladly agree on almost all issues. I'm not a doctrinaire conservative; I usually don't embrace a view on any specific subject simply because I see it as conservative consensus. With the Trump-Putin summit approaching I think its a good time to express this now in all frankness:
A very recent column by Martin Schram expressed the opinion that President Trump is being bested by Vladimir Putin in the conduct of the American relationship with Russia. In reaction, my main premise is this: let's ever keep in mind Putin's prime concern always, a conviction which, I think, guides Russia's conduct toward us; he does not want war with the U.S. (why would anyone want war with us?) and he will be forced into it if we rashly push Russia too far on Ukraine. If we do, we could present him with a casus belli directly analogous to that with which Khrushchev unwisely presented President Kennedy in 1962 when he put nuclear tipped missiles within 5 minutes of the U.S. mainland in a country tyrannized by a man who eventually urged the Russian Premier to launch them. Kennedy obviously didn't want to risk incineration of major American cities but he had no choice but go to war had not Khrushchev backed down.
A lecturer on U.S. policy in Europe, who I viewed last night, recalled how George F. Kennan, the immensely influential author of the containment policy toward Soviet aggression in 1947, urged President (sic) Clinton in the '90's to be careful, oh so very careful, about incorporating the newly delivered former Soviet satellite states into NATO, lest still terribly powerful Russia feel unendurably threatened. This from the father of the containment doctrine. That matters and though Kennan is gone, assuredly still does! Stalin was a Marxist believer but he successfully harnessed the intense pride and love Russians have for their country in defeating the Nazi monster. They affirmed this by winning the hardest existential fight any nation ever faced. Putin is, essentially, a Russian nationalist . In his KGB days was he a convinced Marxist?Probably not , he may well have been an opportunistic 33 year old factotum.
Mr. Schram maintains that a remarkable incident in Putin's life , his being trapped by a mob in the KGB office in Dresden after the Berlin Wall came down, symbolizing the Soviet Union's downfall for him, is his motivation for taking action against Ukraine for "spurning Mother Russia". I doubt that. 1300 years of history, including Kievan Rus, the historically seminal Russian entity, and the gargantuan WWII battles fought in the Ukraine, link Russia and Ukraine in historical, military , geographical and economic bonds which we slight at our peril. Vladimir Putin's ostensible personal resentments pale before these considerations. What Russian leader could ignore historical verities like those? We cannot wish Great Russian dominance on any country but this goes beyond wishes and hopes; it has to do with essentials of the shared history of Russia and Ukraine and the necessity of our full attention to them.
Mr.Schram portrays a President Trump flim flammed by President Putin and offers as proof Trump's "strange attraction to Russia." I think our President is being pragmatic. Here are some verities which the President must consider: 1. Since the end of WWII we have dealt with the Soviets and Russia, against the background of a wide range of events, from Stalin's attempt to strangle West Berlin in 1948, to a very near miss in 1962 which nonetheless brought sound thinking on both sides to the fore eventually, to President Nixon's heightened alert of our nuclear forces during the Yom Kippur War. War was avoided.2 Russia has never attacked a NATO country; it doesn't want the maelstrom which would certainly follow. Say what you will about them, the Russians know war in all its incalculable horror. 3. They have tolerated an approach to their borders by NATO in Poland and the Baltic Republics which they could never have been expected to countenance; but surely they have limits, to which we MUST not drive them.
Plausible argument may be advanced that Putin wishes to reestablish Russia's sway over Eastern Europe. We may help resist that in many ways short of backing the rugged Russian nation into a corner. The lecturer on Kennan displayed a map he said shows the Russian view of nearby Europe. In it, North was at the bottom and the Russian view South was of a vast, readily driven plain, extending from Eastern Germany through Poland and Ukraine; its great tank country and an invasion route used repeatedly in the 19th and 20th centuries. A united Germany, the country which did Russia wrongs exceeding those ever done one country by another, within living memory, is now a key member of NATO, has a powerful military and is closely allied with us. Is it fair or plausible to expect Russia to disregard this?
Its possible that President Putin could outnegotiate President Trump but I do not think that our President goes into this meeting like Bleeding Chuck Wepner facing Muhammad Ali. He may well take a realistic view of our relationship with the Bear As long as the President gives Russia what it can consider a reasonable assurance that we will not promote Ukrainian membership in NATO (if ever Russia perceives that Ukraine is bound for NATO it will issue an ultimatim with great dispatch) then we can continue the modus vivendi we have had with them for 73 years now, with varying degrees of advantage or disadvantage to us but without war. Ukrainian membership in NATO is a vital national security concern for Russia; it need not be for us; NATO is more than strong enough already. Jack
A very recent column by Martin Schram expressed the opinion that President Trump is being bested by Vladimir Putin in the conduct of the American relationship with Russia. In reaction, my main premise is this: let's ever keep in mind Putin's prime concern always, a conviction which, I think, guides Russia's conduct toward us; he does not want war with the U.S. (why would anyone want war with us?) and he will be forced into it if we rashly push Russia too far on Ukraine. If we do, we could present him with a casus belli directly analogous to that with which Khrushchev unwisely presented President Kennedy in 1962 when he put nuclear tipped missiles within 5 minutes of the U.S. mainland in a country tyrannized by a man who eventually urged the Russian Premier to launch them. Kennedy obviously didn't want to risk incineration of major American cities but he had no choice but go to war had not Khrushchev backed down.
A lecturer on U.S. policy in Europe, who I viewed last night, recalled how George F. Kennan, the immensely influential author of the containment policy toward Soviet aggression in 1947, urged President (sic) Clinton in the '90's to be careful, oh so very careful, about incorporating the newly delivered former Soviet satellite states into NATO, lest still terribly powerful Russia feel unendurably threatened. This from the father of the containment doctrine. That matters and though Kennan is gone, assuredly still does! Stalin was a Marxist believer but he successfully harnessed the intense pride and love Russians have for their country in defeating the Nazi monster. They affirmed this by winning the hardest existential fight any nation ever faced. Putin is, essentially, a Russian nationalist . In his KGB days was he a convinced Marxist?Probably not , he may well have been an opportunistic 33 year old factotum.
Mr. Schram maintains that a remarkable incident in Putin's life , his being trapped by a mob in the KGB office in Dresden after the Berlin Wall came down, symbolizing the Soviet Union's downfall for him, is his motivation for taking action against Ukraine for "spurning Mother Russia". I doubt that. 1300 years of history, including Kievan Rus, the historically seminal Russian entity, and the gargantuan WWII battles fought in the Ukraine, link Russia and Ukraine in historical, military , geographical and economic bonds which we slight at our peril. Vladimir Putin's ostensible personal resentments pale before these considerations. What Russian leader could ignore historical verities like those? We cannot wish Great Russian dominance on any country but this goes beyond wishes and hopes; it has to do with essentials of the shared history of Russia and Ukraine and the necessity of our full attention to them.
Mr.Schram portrays a President Trump flim flammed by President Putin and offers as proof Trump's "strange attraction to Russia." I think our President is being pragmatic. Here are some verities which the President must consider: 1. Since the end of WWII we have dealt with the Soviets and Russia, against the background of a wide range of events, from Stalin's attempt to strangle West Berlin in 1948, to a very near miss in 1962 which nonetheless brought sound thinking on both sides to the fore eventually, to President Nixon's heightened alert of our nuclear forces during the Yom Kippur War. War was avoided.2 Russia has never attacked a NATO country; it doesn't want the maelstrom which would certainly follow. Say what you will about them, the Russians know war in all its incalculable horror. 3. They have tolerated an approach to their borders by NATO in Poland and the Baltic Republics which they could never have been expected to countenance; but surely they have limits, to which we MUST not drive them.
Plausible argument may be advanced that Putin wishes to reestablish Russia's sway over Eastern Europe. We may help resist that in many ways short of backing the rugged Russian nation into a corner. The lecturer on Kennan displayed a map he said shows the Russian view of nearby Europe. In it, North was at the bottom and the Russian view South was of a vast, readily driven plain, extending from Eastern Germany through Poland and Ukraine; its great tank country and an invasion route used repeatedly in the 19th and 20th centuries. A united Germany, the country which did Russia wrongs exceeding those ever done one country by another, within living memory, is now a key member of NATO, has a powerful military and is closely allied with us. Is it fair or plausible to expect Russia to disregard this?
Its possible that President Putin could outnegotiate President Trump but I do not think that our President goes into this meeting like Bleeding Chuck Wepner facing Muhammad Ali. He may well take a realistic view of our relationship with the Bear As long as the President gives Russia what it can consider a reasonable assurance that we will not promote Ukrainian membership in NATO (if ever Russia perceives that Ukraine is bound for NATO it will issue an ultimatim with great dispatch) then we can continue the modus vivendi we have had with them for 73 years now, with varying degrees of advantage or disadvantage to us but without war. Ukrainian membership in NATO is a vital national security concern for Russia; it need not be for us; NATO is more than strong enough already. Jack
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