" … the activity reflects alarm over Trump’s calls for the United States to pull back from its traditional role as a global guarantor of security.
“The American-led international order that has been prevalent since World War II is now under threat,” said Martin Indyk, who oversees a team of top former officials from the administrations of Obama, George W. Bush and Bill Clinton assembled by the Brookings Institution. “The question is how to restore and renovate it.” The Brookings report — a year in the making — is due out in December.
Taken together, the studies and reports call for more-aggressive American action to constrain Iran, rein in the chaos in the Middle East and check Russia in Europe.
The studies, which reflect Clinton’s stated views, break most forcefully with Obama on Syria. Virtually all these efforts, including a report released Wednesday by the liberal Center for American Progress, call for stepped-up military action to deter President Bashar al-Assad’s regime and Russian forces in Syria.
The proposed military measures include calls for safe zones to protect moderate rebels from Syrian and Russian forces. Most of the studies propose limited American airstrikes with cruise missiles to punish Assad if he continues to attack civilians with barrel bombs, as is happening in besieged Aleppo. Obama has staunchly resisted any military action against the Assad regime." Greg Jaffe
————
Yes, my fellow Canadian citizens, our time is approaching.
Brookings is hosting a gathering of the Borgist clan. Papers are being written, tentative personnel selections made, discussion are held as to which military officers are to be retired and which advanced.
These preparations will fit nicely into the Clinton transition team's preparations for inaugural day when Queenie will preside over an inaugural parade that should be a mighty spectacle of "stronger together." What a sight it will be as such marching units as Stonewall Inn Memorial Drill Team and Women Veterans for Promotion Equity pass in review.
I was in the Kennedy inaugural parade. I think this will be different. pl
Indyk’s “containment” prescription for Iraq and Iran isn’t going to work this time around, given Russia’s presence on the scene. It will be brutally interesting to watch whether HRC will challenge any of the interventionists she’ll have hired (or, cynically speaking, contracted for) throughout the DoD/DoS ranks.
If memory serves, Indyk lost his laptop on his way to the middle east a long while back…and got his security clearance returned very shortly thereafter. He’ll fit in well with the team of kleptocrats on their way in.
All,
Andrei Raevsky – aka ‘The Saker’ – is a figure about whom I have mixed feelings.
However, it appears that ‘the Borg’ are determined to vindicate his claims about the ‘Anglo-Zionist Empire’.
It is a quasi-Soviet structure.
And, like the old Soviet system, it will perish because of its inability to sustain its claim to – as Babak Makkinejad would put it – ‘legitimate authority.’
A relevant question is whether – as with the Soviet empire – the legitimacy crisis produces an at least relatively peaceful collapse, or something much worse.
As regards barrel bombs and other Syrian memes. Correspondents might be interested in this interview with Assad conducted by Swiss television. The interviewer is polite but his thrust is hostile. It is fascinating to watch, I think, as Assad patiently attempts to deconstruct the presenters’ Borgist pre-conceptions and frankly unrealistic notions on the nature of State, leadership, and war. This interview is typical of many by western press which Assad has sat for over the long years of, from his point of view, siege. One day you are dining with the Kerrys, while your wife is featured on the cover of Vogue. The next you wake to find you have become a monster.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b-ZU-r5sDeY
David,
” inability to sustain its claim to – as Babak Makkinejad would put it – ‘legitimate authority.’”
I believe that this was on full display last night at the Al Smith memorial dinner. The full thing should be viewed but the most damning part was the reaction of crowd of the tuxedoed and their diamond encrusted compatriots to the leader of the Deplorables as he showed himself a traitor to his class. Hilary, corrupt? How dare you say that here.
“A relevant question is whether an at least relatively peaceful collapse, …”
These are the people who enriched themselves by brining creative destruction to the social safety net when the USSR collapsed. The Soviets at least had the smarts to round up the guns before collapsing. That will be the Borg’s first order of business.
including a report released Wednesday by the liberal Center for American Progress, call for stepped-up military action to deter President Bashar al-Assad’s regime and Russian forces in Syria.
CAP !!!
Founder : John Podesta
President:Neera Tanden (on the 5 on Hilary transition team)
A hawk who wants to appropriate Libyan oil revenues “Libya should be forced to turn over its oil revenue to the U.S. as compensation and gratitude for the U.S. having “liberated” Libya.”
Likes to flash herself as a NRI – same as some in TurtleBay so that they can get up the ladder at the UN instead of proving their capability (ies)
and she is scared “merde” of the Israeli Firsters and AIPAC inside the beltway.
Now we just have to wait and see where Jeffrey Feltman and former Ambassador Ford will be elevated to in HRC cabinet so that the “BOMB BOMB BOMB” will be heard once again in DC and NYC.
Col, That was a cold but bright and cloudless day. Thanks for evoking memories from long ago. The snow storm the day before left close to a foot of snow as I recall, but you wouldn’t know it from the picture along Pennsylvania Ave. Expect the SIMDT will be a colorful unit, although I’m not sure the drills will be G rated.
David
Your Soviet analogy is spot on. We’re seeing the west get into the Soviet model in a number of spheres. Propaganda is clearly at Soviet levels. Government interference in the economy and finance is well past the approaches that brought the west a large middle class. Now, we have the alliance between big business and big government to the detriment of small business that was the bedrock for growth.
The Borgist mindset of intervention is taking the world to the precipice of global conflict with all its horrific ramifications. Our election is laying bare the deep divide between the Borgist group and Les Deplorables and creating the environment for social conflict. Are the implications of Howe’s Fourth Turning going to become more apparent with the ascension of the Borgist Queen?
Great photo. VMI? Which classes?
Brian Katulis gets one thing right. Rebuilding a more muscular and more centrist internationalism is decidedly not “where the public may be right now.” Especially among those people who’ll be pulling the lever for HRC in November. She’d better understand that and resist the Blob if she wants to see a second term.
trent
VPI band in foreground, Our two Bns in middle ground, color party between. this was 1961. Kennedy. pl
Lefty
You were in the Corps then? pl
EA
The convention here is “Borg.” pl
Edward
Are you buying the she’ll act in accord with “where the public may be right now” as you pull the lever for the Borg Queen? If you are I’d appreciate to know what you’re smoking. Seems like some potent stuff.
Edward,
She is the borg.
for those who are not yet aware, Brookings is not credible–they got $14.8+ million donation from Qatar (who fund/arm Al Queda Nusra Front, ISIS & other jihadists)
&
former Brookings employees confirm they are NOT allowed to write anything critical of Qatar or Qatar’s policies (despite their theocratic Wahhabist Sharia criminal law idential to Saudi Arabia)
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/09/07/us/politics/foreign-powers-buy-influence-at-think-tanks.html
I found this interview fascinating also:
https://www.almasdarnews.com/article/full-video-syrias-first-lady-interview-russia-24/
“Syria’s First Lady, Mrs Asma al-Assad delivers her first public interview with foreign media in 8 years.”
She is very involved with helping the Syrian soldiers and their families deal with their injuries or the loss of their loved ones both the physical and mental aspects.
She does this alone without escorts or protection! She refuses to leave the country even though she has been offered the chance as she feels it is important as the 1st lady to show solidarity with the Syrian people. And to face down fear and continue on doing what is necessary. A strong woman for sure.
for sure Indyk will get a high position in Borg Queen’ cabinet, COS, or NSA
kooshy
NSA is headed by a general or admiral. pl
Col Lang
In the linked to article, the Obama WH refers to D.C.’s entrenched FP “community” as the Blob, which I believe is different than the Borg.
Jack,
Yes. I am. For the easy to grasp reason I gave in my comment.
And if you’re gonna try to insult me, at least please try to be original. The references to what I may be smoking to come up with my comments is really old and IMO pretty lame unless you’re in grade school.
Fred,
Whatever. I stand by my comment that if she decides to go militarily and FP-y to places the American public doesn’t wanna go, she’ll be a one-term president. The awfully large Bernie left-wing part of the Dem Party will be paying as much attention to this, if not more so IMO, than the GOP.
Is any think tank or group going to put out a report to counter this Brooking Institute “Freedonia Goes to War” tripe? Now is not the time to be sitting by the side of the road with our thumps up our asses. At a minimum, there will be a strong minority in Congress that will want to oppose a Clinton Executive wether it be for ideological, practical or political reasons. Somehow we have to goad those sons of bitches into taking action to limit Executive ability to wage war.
Oops. That’s thumbs, not thumps.
Edward Amame
We need to have some clarity in terminology. For me the Blob is the WH/Obama Admin. term for the Washington/NY City branch of the international globalist Borg. Obama also calls it the “Foreign Policy Establishment.” Same thing. pl
I would suggest that Democrats stopping pushing the “diversity is our strength” idea down people’s throats.
It has reached the point where I now argue back.
I say to myself, if vast demographic change in 40 years or less is such a wonderful thing, then why isn’t the rest of the world (outside of what used to be white-dominated First World countries) following our example?
I look at the places sending us the most new people and ask, what are their plans to further diversify themselves as they want to further diversify us and I see no such thing being contemplated.
Repetition can be a dangerous thing.
Yes it can make new and strange ideas seem more acceptable but it can also push people from noncommittal stances into disagreement and resentment.
Oh yeah, that’s another funny thing about diversity.
There’s a point where there’s so much diversity, so many differing and opposing views that unity and harmony become close to impossible. Also governing.
Are we setting ourselves us to become an ungovernable nation? I ask myself that now, I never did before.
Edward,
The Bernie wing are the same type as the ones that were flapp’n their lips over the Iraq war but are now dutifully voting her into office to enact no-fly zones and a war in Syria.
JCJ,
As Victor Lazlo (Paul Henreid) put it in Casablanca – welcome to the fight.
fred
Yes. Think of Jean de Villiers. pl
“if she decides to go militarily and FP-y to places the American public doesn’t wanna go”
She’s already done that. Iraq, Libya, Syria, Ukraine. Now she wants a No-Fly-Zone in Syria and Martin Indyk is helping her staff all the ziocons to wage more war. There is no more evidence required to determine that she will go BOMB, BOMB, BOMB AWAY as soon as she steps foot in the Oval office.
There will always be enough guys like you who will support her. She’s your warmonger. The only one that guys like you will oppose is a warmonger from the other party.
And who you kidding about Bernie Bros. They got screwed royally in the primary in the rigged Clinton power play. How many will vote against her? Not many.
Edward,
I would like to believe that she will feel constrained by public opinion opposing foreign military adventurism, but unfortunately there seems to be a PR/propaganda apparatus in place to deal with that. As Col. Lang has established here, it’s already a well-tuned machine having honed its blades on the Trump and Sanders campaigns, and you can be sure that once she takes office, it will need a new mission to sustain itself. There will be no level of mendacity and manipulation to which these people won’t stoop in order to get the public to acquiesce to their insatiable desire for war. If they can’t manage to gain public acceptance of endless war for the benefit of KSA and Israel, then she and her cronies will simply drag us along kicking and screaming. Furthermore, there is the very possible scenario that should she go there, by 2020 there will not be a United States for anyone to preside over. Sadly, the writing is on the wall. However, I commend you for your optimism, misplaced though it is.
The machinations of the financial services sector and its input into the staffing of a new Administration ought not to be forgotten if the linked article following about the composition of the Obama Administration is any guide:
http://wallstreetonparade.com/2016/10/wikileaks-citigroup-exec-gave-obama-recommendation-of-hillary-for-state-eric-holder-for-doj/
I imagine $2.7 trillion represented a decent return.
Colonel,
Hillary Clinton’s surge is propaganda from globalist corporate communication center. There are many silent irredeemable Donald Trump voters. But, yes, I expect she will walk up Pennsylvania Ave for a few blocks towards the Capitol because women want it and the elite demand it.
Her health is compromised. She is facing a world revolt against the bloody Western military interventions and corrupt financial rule. She is no Abraham Lincoln. China’s One Belt One Road is the alternative. Her use of identity politics assures that the primary ethnic and gender group who guard the gates will be scapegoated. Even if she avoids escalating the world war that is ongoing in Ukraine and Syria, a revolt by the West’s Les Deplorables is probable. Perhaps, this is why Prime Minister May is going forward with Brexit to make the UK a sovereign nation once again that will protect and serve its citizens even at the risk of economic dislocation.
The nicer/richer places are doing the same. South Korea, Singapore, the Gulf states, Russia, Thailand, South Africa are all doing it.
I just listened to Chris Hedges tell an audience that the corporatist domination of US can come about only in the way that occurred in East Germany -“a most totally repressive regime” — military & police will refuse orders to shoot their fellows.
I think Hedges’s analysis is wrong: US is not “totally repressed” like the East Germans; rather, I think US is brainwashed and deliberately misinformed (propagandized), as were the West Germans post-WWII.
Fred
That is total bs.
I’m afraid, as far as I can tell, an aggressive internationalism is the ONLY thing that HRC will pursue vigorously once she takes over the White House.
Domestically, the Democratic establishment is not interested in upsetting the socioeconomic status quo. If, as is likely, the Republicans retain the House, they will have the perfect excuse to do nothing, even of the scaled down promises she has made. People say a lot about the Supreme Court, but chances are that she will simply keep Garland as her nominee (or, possibly, replace him with a “minority” clone like Srinavasan). Perfectly competent lawyers, for sure, but they are all exactly the same–they buy into the same ideas of what is proper and what is not and very much guardians of the status quo, except on the perfectly choreographed agreed-to differences between Republicans and Democrats–not exactly “giants” with their own personalities like Brandeis, Warren, Hughes, or even Rehnquist, whether one likes these folks or not. I don’t really see such a huge difference between a likely Republican nominee and a potential Clinton nominee–especially if, as I expect, Senate becomes Democratic. On the matters of politics, like Bush v. Gore type events, no doubt they’ll vote simply as Democrats and Republicans. Everyone is a clone, behaving exactly as they “should.” Wonderful. The bottom line is that the Democratic establishment, especially the Cleveland, I mean, Clinton wing of the party, cares for nothing that would cut into the Wall Street-Silicon Valley bottom line, i.e. keep things pretty much as they are.
Where President HRC has potential traction to take significant action is on the matters of foreign policy, where an activist policy stands to attract support from the “establishment” Republicans as well as the Democrats. There are enough AUMF’s out there that she will have free enough hand to unilaterally escalate tension in sensitive spots anyways, and once things get hotter, but not too hot, very few elected politicians will dare publicly call for deescalation. Then they will ask, tauntingly, would you have voted for that horrible Donald Trump? (However horrible Trump has been, that so many people are willing to vote for him, even as they acknowledge that he is not exactly a very nice person to say the least, should make people think. As I read somewhere earlier today, what if the next Trump was not a trash talking groper with orange hair?)
I think TTG has exactly the right idea: there should be significant Congressional actions to roll back all these AUMF’s so that the next president, whether HRC or Trump, should have to start the process fresh if they want to do something crazy and formally make the case not just before politicians, but before the American people. The bill to roll all these monstrosities back should be jointly sponsored by a liberal Democrat and conservative Republican, and should be supported by bipartisan, if nonmainstream coalition. But this will never fly–the mainstream Republicans who currently run Congress and will continue to control the House will run interference for HRC, as long as she is happily pursuing the bipartisan internationalist agenda. Without a serious popular movement to demand accountability that the Democratic establishment cannot ignore, which many people dutifully pulling levers for HRC is not, HRC will happily go on bombing and toppling “nasty” governments in faraway places. If anything, I think liberals, if they are not mere cloned Democratic hacks, especially in states like California and New York, which will definitely not go Republican, have a duty to vote for third party, write in Sanders, or do something other than vote for HRC. But I’m not a liberal and definitely not a Democrat, especially not now.
Sam Peralta
Your last two paragraphs indicates you have a reading comprehension problem.
AK
I think that Clinton has the know how and brains to take on DC’s FP establishment. I hope she has the desire. I don’t think Trump has any of those things.
Col Lang
Thanks. Sounds good to me.
jerseycityjoan
Take a walk down Grove Street any weekend. Looks pretty diverse to me. Do you think that’s weakness for Jersey City? If so, I suggest you move to Monmouth County, where I was raised. You’ll love it.
Edward,
One subtle difference between the Blob and the Borg is that many here consider Obama WH to be part of the Borg, even as it fancies itself as somehow different from the Blob. To his credit, Obama has been willing to not follow the Blob completely in lock step, as witness his refusal to get involved deeper into the Syrian morass or willingness to make the deal with the Iranians, but he is still happy to engage in foreign military adventurism, just not to the same degree as the others. Maybe a Lyndon Johnson, in terms of foreign policy, rather than a Curtis LeMay? At least speaking for myself, someone who tries to cut too much middle path in foreign policy seems to exacerbate and prolong unpleasantries through indecisive half measures that’s neither war or peace–and makes US foreign policy unpredictable and unreliable. Obama may only be half assimilated, but he is still a happy interventionist Borg, and even worse, you can’t tell if he is a Borg or a human at any given time. Of course, HRC is fully assimilated, part of both the Blob and the Borg. Without a massive show of public disapproval, if she is to be elected, I don’t see her curbing advernturism abroad.
Fred
I’m afraid that ship has sailed. No matter how hard you fight, you’re not gonna be able to Make America White again.
Edward Amame
In re your response to Fred. You accuse him of racism because he disagrees with you? you Clinton people approach the tactics of the Bolsheviks. Is little Donny Deutsch your hero? pl
The presidential election will be decided by the programming of the software and hardware microcode in the electronic voting machines, and (especially) in the tabulating computers and counting machines. Another weak spot is how the vote totals from the tabulating computers and machines for each county or city are then transmitted to the state office in each state to declare the vote totals for the state. Who does that? Each local election office? A private company? Since “all votes are to be counted”, and “every vote counts”, are the results going to wait until that is done, including the “provisional ballots”?
The U.S. Congress promoted the use of electronic voting machines in the Help American Vote Act (HAVA).
All the talk on radio and television is about voter fraud in the form of unqualified voters showing up at a precinct polling place to vote (a little of the talk), but mostly it is about unqualified voters who may be on the voting rolls, such as dead people, illegal immigrants, etc., but what matters is who shows up to vote. And even if phony voters vote, the issue is whether more fraudulent votes are cast in a particular area in an election than the margin of victory for a candidate. If you prove that there were 500 unqualified voters in your election and you lost by 1,500 votes, do you get a new election?
From the end of the Democratic National Convention until now, just about every day, there is constant talk about what opinion polls say. The race is “close”. Hillary is ahead a little. Trump is ahead a little. But are the polls valid? Do they have truly random samples, etc. etc.? Nobody knows because there is no explanation of the details of each attitude survey and opinion poll so that they can be checked. Trump draws large crowds constantly. Hillary does not. Are the numbers of prospective voters nearly the same or in Hillary’s favor when the visible crowds are not?
This is all misdirection–
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kdfLlh15iYI
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GZGY0wPAnus
The number of unqualified voters on the voting rolls and the results of opinion polls are irrelevant. Even the number of fake voters who vote on election day is irrelevant, because rigged electronic voting machines will produced the desired result whether all the voters are qualified or all the voters are dead people and other phony voters.
It is almost a certainty that the only reason the Brexit vote in Britain to leave the European Union was successful is that Britain uses paper ballots and not electronic voting machines, and the result correctly reflected the vote.
Electronic voting machines produce no individual paper ballot. No recount is possible. No audit is possible. Any voting fraud is undetectable.
With such a perfect crime being possible for the big prize, does anyone believe no such attempt will be made? How will we know?
The beauty of it is that you cannot know.
Kooshy –
Here is the latest hairbrained American scheme regarding Syria. Not from Madame Clinton and her ilk, but from the most conservative Tea Party Republican in Congress.
http://foreignpolicy.com/2016/10/21/hill-staffer-floats-solution-to-syria-war-assassinate-assad/
Scary – Congressman Lamborn could make it happen. He is on the House Military Affairs Committee and is Co-Chairman of the House Republican Israel Alliance. He has taken big bucks from AIPAC and from NeoCon organizations. Mike Pence was also a member of the Republican Israel Alliance when he was in Congress. These are the warmongers that
youwe should be worried about.Repression Stasi style will only arrive if Les Deplorables start to truly challenge the Borg’s handle of power. Right now their propaganda is working well. Look at this election and the number of people backing the Borg Queen who were up in arms when Dubya was prancing on the deck of a carrier. There is no need for repression. People fall in line on their own accord. Orwell was prescient. It’s amusing to see how folks rationalize that the Borg Queen will suddenly not be a warmonger if elected president when her record in public office is consistent, as a callous warmonger.
Sir
The Clintonistas are definitely very bolshevik in their smear tactics on their opponents. They have the big talk of being very proletarian but like the apparatchiks in Soviet times with their dachas, they are all about exercise of power for self aggrandisement. There’s a lot of big money funding the Borg Queen to Imperator.
Fred,
That remains to be seen. If you are correct, then various flavors of Not Clump and Not Trinton will get nearly zero votes. The higher the numbers of votes for Stein or more obscure parties or Bernie write-ins, the more clear it will be that the Bernie wing and the Clinton wing were two different wingfulls of people.
But we won’t know till we know.
http://www.tabletmag.com/jewish-news-and-politics/184713/martin-indyk-qatar
“Martin Indyk, the man who ran John Kerry’s Israeli-Palestinian negotiations, . . . cashed a $14.8 million check from Qatar. . . . In his capacity as vice president and director of the Foreign Policy Program at the prestigious Brookings Institution, Martin Indyk took an enormous sum of money from a foreign government that, in addition to its well-documented role as a funder of Sunni terror outfits throughout the Middle East . . .”
Joan,”They” are setting us up so we can best be governed by a big government boot on our neck.
No, I was 14, but attended the inauguration. I grew up in Falls Church, and was raised on the civilian side of DoD. Had a Lt. Col. uncle you may have run into at DIA and you used my dads comm gear. I met a lot of good service people, but I’m thoroughly civilian.
I appreciate your insights, and others here, into the world and intelligence. You’ve assembled a remarkable unit. It keeps me coming back. Thank you for the opportunity.
Thanks too for bringing back my memories of that cold bright day long ago with the cloudless blue sky, sun glinting off the fresh snow, and inspiration that made a young man think there was hope for the future. “Let the word go forth from this time and place, to friend and foe alike, that the torch has been passed to a new generation…” What a long and crooked path it has been since.
I am sorry, but it suffices for the Borg Queen to lay her hands on the rod of power; she will then act with absolutely no constraints, as to her, four years away and a run for a second term will possess no – ZERO – importance in comparison to the intoxication that will come with having all that POWER. It will be the same with her purported acceptance of the party platform. Furthermore, she will surround herself with the worst, the most bloody-minded and delusionally power-mad cohort of NeoCons and NeoLiberals who will serve only to reinforce her sociopathic predispositions.
Edward,
You are projecting your bigotry.
Colonel, I was referring to National Security Adviser and not the agency, like Rice, or chief of staff like Emanuel, I think he can get one of those jobs, i don’t think lobby will accept anything less for him.
Ed,
“Nice argument but look at these gymnastics!”
You’re delusional
My school band went down from Maine to march in the JFK inaugural.
It was so cold their breath condensed and froze the valves in their brass wind instruments. It was a fine occasion, full of high spirits and optimism; 1961 was perhaps the peak of the halcyon days for the USA. maybe the fault lines were there, but not yet visible.
Our (or the borg’s) situation has become rather a predicament and predicaments have been historically perceived from within as solvable problems instead, to the sorrow of those trapped in them.
I cannot find the reference now, but I once read a quote from Conrad Adenauer back in the fifties where he referred to British behavior as that of a formerly rich man who had lost all his money, but whose behavior hadn’t adjusted to his changed circumstances.
We can’t get it back. We lack the resource base now to be able to regain the economic and industrial preeminence that enabled the post WW2 dominance. Are we to squander what remains in the coming years in a futile attempt to be “king of the hill”? History suggests we will and, indeed, have been doing so. We seem to be in the process of creating a coalition of other countries who may form an alliance strong enough to thwart our “revanchist” moves.
The stumbling and faltering Hillary Clinton as next president is almost a living parable..
Massive shows of public disapproval don’t happen by themselves. I guess we better get on it. One of the first tasks would be massive public education (we could distill and export the wisdom often displayed on this blog). Another would be un-massive shows of public disapproval, the history of non-violent civil disobedience records an incredible variety of tactics and strategies. Some of them have even worked.
A. Pols,
As Clyde Wilson put it “The rulers of America are real optimists. They think they can continue to enjoy a First World economy and military with a Third World population.”
APols & Lefty
Yes. It was damnably cold and there was about an inch and a half of salty slush in the street on Pennsylvania Avenue. the naval academy were just ahead of the VPI band in the line of march. they had rubber galoshes on and the muck sucked them off so that they littered the street and we marched through them kicking more than a few into the crowd. I remember the cadet RSM commanding the color party counting cadence loudly to hold us together. that worked. it was one large, moving, completely synchronized grey machine. the VMI contingent won the competition for best marching unit in the parade. we had been brought up from school in the midst of semester exams and were more then a little irritated about that. I remember doing “eyes left” in front of the WH and there they were, JFK with Jackie standing beside him. pl
Fred,
Please explain.
Col Lang
Diversity: the state of having people who are different races or who have different cultures in a group or organization.
Fred congratulates jerseycityjoan for joining the fight. Judging from her comment, I can only assume that the “fight” is against the diversity that “vast demographic change in 40 year” has brought.
That suggested to me a pining for the old days, when we were less “diverse.” Is that racism? I’m not gonna put that name to it. But as I said, that ship has sailed. The fight to make this country white again, if that’s what was being discussed and I think it was, is lost and I suspect we will have to come to terms with that when Trump loses.
kao_hsien_chih
The Elizabeth Warren/Bernie Sanders wing of the Party is ascendant. If Clinton is any kind of politician, she will try to tend to that wing. As for the House, there will be disarray on the GOP side. Will Ryan stay on as Speaker? Will the minority Freedom Caucus continue to have a stranglehold on the GOP and the Speaker? There are so many variables, I have no idea how you or anybody else is so sure about what will happen in the wake of a Clinton victory, assuming there is one. We will see.
Tyler
Hah ha, coming from the guy who thinks Trump’s gonna crush it in Nov.
Clinton is just blowing hot air on military matters. Between Globalism gutting American industry, tax relief for the rich, and socialism for corporations our economy is “in the can”. You only get the military that you can afford.
We have been cutting way back. The Joint Chiefs in Congressional testimony have said that we now take great risk in fighting a peer state competitor. The days of planing for two opponents, or two opponents sequentially are over. We will need “luck” to take on even one.
If you look at how many places we are engaged in already, I maintain that we have a serious problem of “imperial over reach”. We are also way over committed to getting involved in multiple wars by dozens of treaty obligations.
The problem in American strategic power (DIME) is not military, it is economic. I see little chance of Clinton fixing it.
I hope that no one calls Clinton’s military “bluff”.
Vic
Edward Amame
“I can only assume that the “fight” is against the diversity that “vast demographic change in 40 year” has brought” Ah, a more White America was a bad thing! You apparently think the “old America” was a bad place and you seem to have left Monmouth County, New Jersey to live on Manhattan island to avoid the “old America?” You actually don’t like the community in which you grew up, do you? I guess you are just self hating. I have a neighbor lady down here who is very liberal and very white. Her ancestors knew mine in New England nine generations ago. Actually, we are distantly related in the founding of the America that you disdain. She has a pretty, blonde, blue eyed daughter who was at Smith College last year as a freshman. She is not a legacy and has a competitive academic scholarship. She has been repeatedly told by students and faculty that she should not speak up in class because the “vast demographic change” should have priority in the educational experience. “It is OUR TURN NOW,” she has been told. I guess you like that. I do not. pl
In reply to VietnamVet who states:-
“Perhaps, this is why Prime Minister May is going forward with Brexit to make the UK a sovereign nation once again that will protect and serve its citizens even at the risk of economic dislocation.”
Does Mrs May know that? Might be worth checking.
And Brexit need not involve economic dislocation, though no doubt it will if we let the continental Europeans set the terms. Many of us who voted for it had economic regeneration in mind, however unlikely that may now seem.
May I also reply to Robert Willman, who regards our English voting system as fraud proof. I’m afraid it isn’t, as Baroness Warsi pointed out a little while ago and as some recent cases show. In addition the system of postal voting is open to abuse.
A typo error: HAVA is the Help America Vote Act, and not the Help American Vote Act.
Thanks Mike, from what I have learned and read through the years, I have come to believe US foreign policy will not change significantly with swap of administrations between the two parties. IMO, when people like me, or majority of folks fallowing Colonel’ site criticize US’ foreign policy, they are not criticizing an specific party’ policy, they rather are criticizing the trajectory and direction of US’ foreign policy, which IMO generally is not in long term interest of this country. My understanding is, that majority of commentators on this site including the host are not even partizan to a specific party, but rather partizan to the country.
Edward Amame,
There is some interesting ‘social science’ research which bears upon this topic.
A report by John Lloyd in the ‘Financial Times’ from October 2006 on the work of the Harvard scholar Robert Putnam is headlined ‘Study paints bleak picture of ethnic diversity.’
(See https://www.ft.com/content/c4ac4a74-570f-11db-9110-0000779e2340 .)
As the report is behind a subscription wall, I will take the liberty of quoting it in full:
‘A bleak picture of the corrosive effects of ethnic diversity has been revealed in research by Harvard University’s Robert Putnam, one of the world’s most influential political scientists.
‘His research shows that the more diverse a community is, the less likely its inhabitants are to trust anyone – from their next-door neighbour to the mayor.
‘This is a contentious finding in the current climate of concern about the benefits of immigration. Professor Putnam told the Financial Times he had delayed publishing his research until he could develop proposals to compensate for the negative effects of diversity, saying it “would have been irresponsible to publish without that”.
‘The core message of the research was that, “in the presence of diversity, we hunker down”, he said. “We act like turtles. The effect of diversity is worse than had been imagined. And it’s not just that we don’t trust people who are not like us. In diverse communities, we don’t trust people who do look like us.”
‘Prof Putnam found trust was lowest in Los Angeles, “the most diverse human habitation in human history”, but his findings also held for rural South Dakota, where “diversity means inviting Swedes to a Norwegians’ picnic”.
‘When the data were adjusted for class, income and other factors, they showed that the more people of different races lived in the same community, the greater the loss of trust. “They don’t trust the local mayor, they don’t trust the local paper, they don’t trust other people and they don’t trust institutions,” said Prof Putnam. “The only thing there’s more of is protest marches and TV watching.”
‘British Home Office research has pointed in the same direction and Prof Putnam, now working with social scientists at Manchester University, said other European countries would be likely to have similar trends.
‘His 2000 book, Bowling Alone, on the increasing atomisation of contemporary society, made him an academic celebrity. Though some scholars questioned how well its findings applied outside the US, policymakers were impressed and he was invited to speak at Camp David, Downing Street and Buckingham Palace.
‘Prof Putnam stressed, however, that immigration materially benefited both the “importing” and “exporting” societies, and that trends “have been socially constructed, and can be socially reconstructed”.
‘In an oblique criticism of Jack Straw, leader of the House of Commons, who revealed last week he prefers Muslim women not to wear a full veil, Prof Putnam said: “What we shouldn’t do is to say that they [immigrants] should be more like us. We should construct a new us.”’
(See https://www.ft.com/content/c4ac4a74-570f-11db-9110-0000779e2340 .)
Of course, the article is also interesting because Putnam inadvertently reveals the combination of evasiveness, lack of integrity, and ‘soft totalitarian’ mentality characteristic of a certain kind of ‘progressive’ intellectual.
But that does not invalidate his empirical conclusions.
English Outsider,
I agree that voting by paper ballots can be manipulated by fraud, and that has of course happened in the U.S. before. This year, a new presidential election was ordered in Austria after problems were discovered with ballots that were mailed in–
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-36681475
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/sep/12/austria-presidential-election-rerun-to-be-postponed-faulty-glue-ballot-papers
The re-run of the Austrian election was to be this month, but the glue for mail-in ballots was likely to come un-stuck and so the new election has been delayed until December 4.
What is so insidious about electronic voting machines is that any fraud is undetectable. There is nothing with which to do an audit. Everything is hidden within the computer. The machine spits out a vote total, and that is the end of it. Plus, the machines can be rigged in advance, and using data from previous elections by precincts, you can adjust the percentages so that the result does not look too obviously rigged, with respect to political party, demographics, and so forth for particular voting areas.
Paper ballots offer the best opportunity to minimize fraud. People can sit down and work out a system of paper handling, vote counting, and writing down the vote totals that reduces the probability of fraud. Video technology has greatly advanced, including the small size of cameras, such that a ballot box, tracking its movements, opening it, and counting the votes can all be recorded from the moment the voting location opens until the votes are counted.
Now, that’s an unduly dismissive talk. We have a pretty good preview of what a Clinton presidency might look like–we had one before. We know the likely configuration of who will control what in the federal government and have a good idea about their proclivities. While not perfect, these are pretty good clues to what we can expect.
I would hardly think the allegedly “liberal” wing of the Democratic Party are ascendant. Sanders’ showing in the primaries means that times are hard (in terms of economic- and social-distribution) and there are many people who are left out and that many of these people are still willing to take a chance on the Democrats, if they have the right candidate–which HRC is not. To the mainstream Democrats, these voters are a threat to their power, even more than the (mainstream) Republicans, who at least, are willing to continue the same well-choreograhed game. Mark my words: the mainstream Democrats will do everything in their power to break and disenfranchise the Sanders supporters at any and every chance they will get. If you don’t think they will, then you are not seeing what is taking place now. Not just a Democratic thing either: the whole rise of Trump came out of decades of infighting between the Republican factions: two party system means that taking control of one party is more important than defeating the other party, so intraparty fight is far more intense than interparty fight. The former is the real deal, the latter is just stage acting for mass consumption.
Edward,
“I can only assume…”
You assume incorrectly and are covering your slander with Clintonesque language. You are the same kind of demagogue who tried to burn a few of my ancestors during the Salem witch trials.
Edward,
I will give no explanations. You have called me a racist. I demand an apology.
Ethnic “diversity” is a peculiar problem, I suspect, of which there is massive misunderstanding.
One group of people that I had found especially annoying are people who pride themselves on being multicultural who are very quick to place people in cultural boxes and are confused when people on the other end don’t behave as expected. It’s something out of personal experience: I’ve had too many run-in’s with people who insist on putting me in “East Asian” box and are seemingly quite offended when I don’t fit their expectations. On the other hand, I’ve found a lot more genuine “muilticultural” sensibilities among my other people in Louisiana–as I mentinoed before, the closest thing I have to SWMBO is a Cajun, and I’ve found the company of her people far more accepting and welcoming than the self-claimed multiculturalists. I conjecture that the cultural millieu of Louisiana, where different tribes are so thoroughly mixed that nobody is just what they seem superficially contributes to this. At the same time, of course, the much ballyhooed “obvious” multiculturalism is really tribalism, where everyone belongs to “obvious” tribes, behaves as expected, and the “tribal elders” (self claimed ones) speak for their entire tribes. What is this? Ottoman Turkey? That ain’t America that I believe in.
The kind of multiculturalism that breeds the sort of problems that Putnam speaks of are the latter, the tribal kind. If the “tribal elders” can knock heads and smooth everything out, that can be sustained, but if they fail, if they lose the trust of their own peoples (and replaced by jingoists), things can only go downhill. Tribal members don’t know each other beyond the stock stereotypes. They don’t have reasons to trust one another much, other than whatever deals the leaders make. If the leaders don’t cut deals that they can believe in, everything is off. This is what happened, on grand scale, in Yugoslavia, no?
I deal with the future in my job everyday. I deal directly and intimately with the people changing the demographics of America (foreign and U.S. born). Let me tell you what America will be like in the near future. Violent, brutal, scheming and scamming, and uncompassionate to fellow people and especially animals. I think most nice, white liberals don’t understand and/or can’t comprehend the true nature of those from these “diverse cultures”. At a party I had to listen to a colleague of my wife, an upper-middle class professional, lament how her kids did not have the benefit of growing up in a diverse town. Uncharacteristic of me, especially at a party, I didn’t let this comment go unanswered. I recounted a VERY small part of what I deal with each day and explained it in my usual dispassionate, matter-of-fact way. I could see the blood drain from her face. These people have no idea what their children and grandchildren will be facing. But, alas, I’m sure they will adapt to the brutal, uncivilized country that will be arriving ahead of schedule.
Yes, “Modern Educayshun” is already here!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iKcWu0tsiZM
(not sure if this hasn’t been already posted, but it is worth a repeat)
Kooshy –
I do love this country, and am partizan towards it. So I will take that as a compliment. Thank you.
Mike thank you, I never doubt your love for the country you served.
Fred, who is sitting between Hilary and ‘the’ Donald. The bishop of NY?
Besides is Al Smith the Fourth slightly hoarse starting at 23:00 approximately?
The full thing should be viewed but the most damning part was the reaction of crowd of the tuxedoed and their diamond encrusted compatriots to the leader of the Deplorables as he showed himself a traitor to his class.
Well yes, they people on the camera spent up to 23:00 minutes of celebrities watching, maybe after too, but now I am going to watch the rest. 😉
One of my internet acquaintances, a Southern liberal who now lives/works in New York, made a curious and, I think, a very astute set of observations:
“The South is individually selfless, collectively selfish. The North individually selfish, collectively selfless.”
“Many Southern whites have very diverse personal friendships, but vote for policies that traffic in racism.”
“Meanwhile I used to (sic) very well intended northern liberals who freaks out when dealing with minorities.”
This fits my experience to the tee: as individuals, I found the typical Southerners, of all races, as warm, generous, and wonderful people, whereas I found far too many Northerners, liberals AND conservatives, offputting, condescending, arrogant, and, quite frankly, insulting and offensive in their presumptuousness. Curious if others had similar experiences.
Colonel,
So you’re convinced that the Borg machine and their Queenie Hillary will prevail.
I hope that you are wrong, alas the Queenie forces are fast at work fixing the upcoming election with their vote flipping software.
The “multiculturalism” that the liberal elites subscribe to is the Disneyworld version, where everyone looks and acts the same, except the costumes, without the “real people” on the inside. The only set of “real people” they have much experience dealing with (and even then, through sanitized history books) are the “whites” (whoever they are–I have trouble imagining my sort-of-kinfolk in Louisiana and the liberal elites in academia as part of the same people) and that they do not like–and imagine that others are not like them.
I’d like to echo Mike Allen’s sentiment about being partisan to the country, rather than partisan to the party. Thank you!
J
IMO the Clinton machine backed by the DNC has the propaganda process under complete control and have manufactured the coming result. pl
Question the bit about witch burning demagogue- maybe more enabler of same e.g.
https://www.pinterest.com/pin/419257046533471021/
Intent here is Rectification of Names-ish; some might see it as an ad hom violation.
If I might add, this “party nonsense” is what is preventing the much needed change. Both Democrats and Republicans are run by people who are superficially different, but substantially the same. The path to political power runs through the outsiders in either party capturing one or the other, but, if that does take place, the “mainstreamers” flock to the other side, while the “outsiders” remain divided by the party divides: Sandersites and Trumpites don’t mix, even if they are alike in their opposition to the status quo and collectively, they probably make up the majority–neither wants anything to do with the other for reasons that are, ultimately, symbolic and superficial.
Preventive Education (PrevEd) saves the costs of and eliminates the need for re-education camps.
KHC
Well said. The liberal idea of diversity is to place every “group” in a box who are supposed to act true to type. Then their quota system so that boxes can be checked off. This is exactly the problem that is going to achieve the opposite as Habakkuk is pointing out. This notion of assimilation into an “American” culture is lost when demographics are rapidly chsnged as we see now.
It’s amusing if it weren’t so tragic when everyone that opposes this ghettoization of America into hyphenated people are considered racist and xenophobic.
there
ismay be method in it: look at it as basic training for the Rainbow Guards of our very own Cultural Revolution.Yes, I missed the point in my reply to you. Sorry. Of course electronic voting does introduce a whole new dimension of potential fraud and it’s scary that there seems to be no effective check.
But the old standbys of impersonation and voter intimidation, that I don’t think were that significant here in the past, have been given a new lease of life by the greater use of postal voting.
Maybe equally significant is the fact that the party organisations now have more sophisticated methods of identifying areas where the vote is marginal. That enables them to target those critical areas so a little fraud now goes a long way.
More important by far than all this, however, is the fact that the pre-selection of candidates pretty well cuts out voter choice anyway. It would take a political earthquake of Trump-like proportions to alter that. That leaves elections in England firmly under control – apart from the occasional mistake such as allowing us to vote directly on Brexit – and I don’t think there’s much chance of that changing anytime soon.
“This fits my experience to the tee: as individuals, I found the typical Southerners, of all races, as warm, generous, and wonderful people, whereas I found far too many Northerners, liberals AND conservatives, offputting, condescending, arrogant, and, quite frankly, insulting and offensive in their presumptuousness. Curious if others had similar experiences.”
Yes, this is why after Uncle Samuel sent me south I had no desire to return north except for a visit.
Fred
You are not getting one. Please see my reply to Col Lang below.
Colonel,
Sadly what we have evolved into thanks to runaway corporations and tainted bankers, is no longer a Constitutional republic but a plutocracy run by bankers and corporations which in olden times was called fascism.
The American Political Science Association published an article in 2014 reached such a conclusion. That average citizens no longer have independent influence on U.S. Government policy.
David Habakkuk
Interesting. Putnam himself is a little upset that his research is being used to make the case that diversity is bad. He admits that in the short haul there are challenges, but over the long haul he says that diversity has benefits for a society and that distrust can be overcome. Putnam cites the integration of institutions like the US Army as proof that diversity can work.
kao_hsien_chih
I’m Irish/Italian Catholic. When we were growing up in my almost all-white neighborhood in NJ, my brother had a best friend who’s of Korean descent. His friend wanted to have his eyes “fixed” because of the taunts he got at school. That was in the 1970s. My brother married a girl from Vietnam. Their two kids are in grade school now, also in NJ. I have heard of no problems on that front. So far anyway.
I do volunteer work about a weekend a month here in NYC. A lot of the people I work with are young and college educated, in their 20’s and 30s. It’s an unbelievably mixed bunch, except for the fact that they all are very liberal. A half Puerto Rican/Italian girl is dating (as it were) a Korean guy. A number are African-American, a lot are from regions all over the world including the Middle East. Some are native NYers, some aren’t. There are of course cliques, but they usually have little or nothing to do with ethnic/racial differences, it’s usually gender/sexuality based. I doubt that conservatives would be accepted by them. It’s not a study, but at these kids get along.
Edward Amame —
First of all I should say that while I still my long term Internet name “jerseycityjoan”, I left there over a year ago and returned to the small city of my birth in PA.
Now, on to diversity and Jersey City. That’s a vast topic.
Like the rest of the NYC area, rents near Grove Street in Jersey City — where I used to live, by the way — have skyrocketed. When I left there was newly renovated building a few blocks away (with no waterfront views despite advertising to the contrary) that was going for $6,000 a month.
Yes, $6,000 in Jersey City.
You will hear Mayors Fulop of Jersey City and de Blasio of New York City talk a good game about diversity. In the meantime, everybody who isn’t making lots of money or getting help from family is getting priced out.
Soon there will be the rich and poor and nobody is doing a thing to stop it.
While many of the newcomers and purchasers of property are white, they are pushing other white people out as well as blacks.
Gentrification is taking place in all areas of NYC, including the worst of the worst neighborhoods in the five boroughs.
Many of the rest of you around the country will start seeing “refugees” from big city and inner ring suburbs showing up in your towns and cities looking for lower rents and opportunities.
Of course that will exert pressure on rents to go up and on wages to stay the same or decrease.
There’s a lot of people will rethink their notion that bringing in new people at a high rate year after year would be a great thing with no negative consequences — at least none that would affect them.
It’s a big wake-up call to realize that even if you’re [stupidly] willing to pay half your earnings on housing it’s still won’t be enough.
I should note that even out here in the bookdocks of PA, between the frackers and Philly, NYC and other transplants we ourselves have a severe housing crisis. In our city 55% of households are renters and about 25% of these renting households shell out over 50% of their income for housing. I now hear Spanish being spoken in stores. It’s a diversity I could have easily lived without. We also have a sizeable group of heroin addicts and drug sellers. There’s more diversity for us too.
Diversity is starting to mean “another way to spell disaster.”
It has nothing to do with not liking people, it’s a matter of numbers — how many people we need for available jobs, how many people can can afford to take care of and provide for at a reasonable cost.
Candidates have always been pre-selected by their parties. I think what seems to be the issue is that the electorate and elected seem to have different interests.
I do not know the mechanism of this divergence in UK – what happened to the Back-Benchers? In US, as far as I know, the process of gerrymandering has served to create narrowly safe electoral districts for the members of US House of Representatives. And my understanding has been that such elected officials have very little incentive to consensus-building (alliance-building) if it goes against the interests of their narrow constituents.
Both parties in US support gerrymandering, which leads to voter marginalization and voice-less-ness. The sensible (in my opinion) proposal to redraw electoral districts via ruler and protractor will be opposed and killed by both parties.
Babak
Before the early ’70s the parties, which are private associations, chose their candidates with minimal input from the broader citizenry. It was a calculated process that sought to produce reliable candidates who would represent broad interests within the parties. After the transition to a selection process truly rather than cosmetically based on “beauty contests” in primary elections, the PR industry saw its chance to sell its demonic services to the highest bidder. You see the result. Someone accused me here of being an “old patrician.” I am flattered at the thought, The old patricians and the “Tammany Hall” types did a better job than the memetic disaster we have now. pl
Sir
Since the Clinton machine in collusion with the Borgist media and the full backing of the duopoly establishment as well as big money are manufacturing the election result, what do you think are the implications for Les Deplorables, social harmony and our relationships with the rest of the world?
I fear large swathes of our country will consider the Borgist Queen illegitimate with unknown consequences. And her coterie of ziocons in charge of the levers of state will push with much vigor her Jacobin dreams, again with unintended consequences. I expect a racheting up of strife.
jack
FWIW I agree. Just follow the money through the PR/propaganda process and you will find the people really running the show, banksters, plutocrats, and special interests with money. Trump, Sanders, Warren, Johnson, people like that are the enemies of the system as it is now and you see what happens to them. pl
It seems to me Trump is a zany borgist, judging from his plans to revive the economy, starting with a supply-side tax cut tilted toward the banksters, plutocrats, and special interests; and, including his plan to create a safe haven in Syria, torture people, and, then there are the well known facts of his biography that support this same conclusion.
I suspect Trump would love to engage the system ‘he isn’t really against’ in some money-making opportunities were he to be elected POTUS. This would be consistent with his lifelong approach to his single main goal.
So, if I understand you correctly, gerrymandering has had minimal impact and propaganda the most?
Jack,
The Podesta e-mails have revealed that the Rothschild banking empire had already ‘chosen’ and were ‘grooming’ Queenie Hillary for U.S. President ‘before’ she announced her Presidential candidacy.
I think you wound up making my point about the paradox of modern “multiculturalism” better than I did.
I had asked earlier, rhetorically, what is so different about Srivanasan, if he is the replacement nominee for the Supreme Court, by a Pres. HRC. The short answer is probably nothing, compared to the standard issue Harvard lawyer of neoliberal variety. He subscribes to all the usual requisite worldview. He is conventionally very competent, I’m sure. And he wears the superficial “Indian” hat, to show off how “multicultural” he is, even if under the hood, he’s exactly like every other liberal Harvard lawyer. I’m not picking on just the liberals–the same applies to the conservatives too, with their own multicultural types, like Neel Kashkari. They are all the same, except for the hat, and the hat has nothing to do with the real substance. People like Brandeis, Warren, Hughes, and Rehnquist, love them or hate them, were nothing like that: they were unique personalities that didn’t fit inside a box neatly–they were not “standard issue white men” and they had distinct worldviews that couldn’t be summarized into a neat 3 liner, that actually had to be listened to carefully.
So modern multiculturalism operates on two seemingly paradoxical tracks: people all look superficially different, all the better so that they can be used as props to show how enlightened their white friends are, but they all think the same thing so as to not offend the sense of moral superiority of their white friends. In my experience, I found the role of being used as props for others’ sense of moral superiority insulting and offensive, so I refused to wear the multicultural hat, which apparently offended others, and that I did not buy into the same creed that they subscribed to as the worldview did not exaclty endear me to them either. And these are the same people that I used to associate with in the academic universe.
Back in 1990s, when I was in college, there was something like this brewing already: ironically, the only people who did not subscribe to this peculiar multicultural paradox (wearing the superficial ethnic hat but subscribing to the same interchangeable worldview) were the really bright kids who were int’l students, who didn’t buy into all the nonsense. Some time in the past decade, though, I noticed that this has changed: international students seem to buy into the same multiculturalist sacred cows as the American elites do. Actual cultural differences are reduced to just theme park versions that wear to a social gathering, while, underneath all, they all think the same. The only exceptions to this that I found were among “American ethnics,” white kids from rural areas, black kids from inner cities, etc., people who knew something about the world other than the theme park version and were willing to question the received wisdom.
jerseycityjoan
I’m familiar with out of control rents and gentrification. So sorry for you that hearing Spanish being spoken in stores is a problem.
Col Lang
I am not self-hating. I am proud of my Irish/Italian heritage. I was born in a city and spent my first years there. I did not like living in the suburbs later and found, and find, “diversity” much more enjoyable.
Was white America a bad thing? Not for me. But not so much apparently for my gay friends and friends of color. And no, I don’t disdain America. We’ve come a pretty long way and things are not so bad these days for my “diverse” friends and family members.
what is total bs? Fred seems right to this observer. Bernie’s supporters will, mostly, vote for Hillary. She is gearing up, in my opinion, to create a NF Zone over Syria. Does not seem very controversial to me.
J
Now Dems are employing “vote flipping software?” What’s next, Brooks Brothers riots? Oh, wait…
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brooks_Brothers_riot
She’ll play the so called Left Wing, a joke in and of itself, like a violin. “Triangulation” brother, “that’s the Mother F’n key”, as Stone has his character say in JFK.
Babak
IMO, and I have said this before here, gerrymandered districts do in fact represent actual populations as seen by the two parties, whether they are screwing the other party or not. OTOH the PR driven political process represents nothing but money and the creation of creatures like Obama. pl
johnst
An NFZ is not controversial? pl
Col Lang,
All she had to do was perform well in the debates and let him shoot himself in the foot. Then the other foot. Then his arm. Then his other arm. Etc.
Your hatred of HRC has blinded you. And all this BS about rigged elections is groundwork-laying for the attempted de-legitimization of another elected Democratic pres, a la Clinton I and Obama.
Possibly the Bernie wing voting for Hillary is similar to those Christians voting for Trump. It is as much about the Supreme Court as anything.
kao_hsien_chih
“…So modern multiculturalism operates on two seemingly paradoxical tracks: people all look superficially different, all the better so that they can be used as props to show how enlightened their white friends are…”
That could be the case among people of my age, to whom diversity cam late. I don’t the above applies to the kids I talked about who grew up in it.
Oh for heavens sake. Don’t you get it?
There never were Spanish speakers here before.
We’ve already have influxes of people here. We can’t take another one. That we’re going to get it, prepared or not, is probably true but it doesn’t make it any less unfair to the sitting duck people here.
This is a low wage, low cost area in which wages are still low but the cost of housing (as well as other things) are not.
What are the Americans who can’t afford to live a First World life right here in Fairly Empty PA supposed to do?
Are you willing to pay for them to get a big tax credit so their net rent is only 25% of their income, instead of 50%?
Money spent on housing that should have gone to retirement and other things means that succeeding generations of Americans will be much poorer and will need far higher levels of government support. Where’s that money coming from?
The disaster is coming for people who make below average or average wages, if it isn’t already here. We need to realize what’s going on — and at the very least, stop digging the hole deeper!
Edward Amame
You just don’t get it. I don’t hate her at all. “You are a hater” is memespeak. IMO she is a menace to the Republic and was manufactured by the money and PR. After the meetings I had with her, I thought her charming. I arranged with Sid B’s intervention to have her accept an award as Diplomat of the Year from my beloved alma mater, something for which I should apologize to them. I have a letter from her thanking me for that. pl
Edward Amame,
As noted just above, Clinton will not want or need a second term to do what she wants to do. She will go for it all in Term One.
The Catfood Clintonites and the Catfood Democrat Party have gone out of their way to mock, deride, insult and dismiss the Bernie Wing.
Slicky Bill recently said in a speech that the coming President Clinton really should reach out to the Trump supporters. Neither he nor anyone else has even suggested reaching out to the Bernie Wingers. If Trump supporters are the Deplorables, what does that make US? . . . . the Ignorables? the Discardables? The Dismissables?
The only way the Bernie Wing will get the Clintonites’ respectful attention is if the Bernie Wingers withhold so many votes from Clinton as to cost her the election. And that would mean accepting a President Trump. I know very few Bernie Wingers are prepared to actually vote for Trump, but are enough of them at least prepared to acCEPT the RISK of a President Trump that they would vote for some other Not Clinton? In all their millions?
Edward Amame,
Clinton IS the DC FP establishment. She aspires to BE the DC FP establishment’s Maximum Leader.
EA
I take my hat off to you. Throughout these past months you have been steadfast in your support for HRC and have bantered in her behalf to many. It seems not one of the many public announcements of her failings has deterred you, the fact that others are facing jail time for similar misgivings though to lesser degrees does not seem to shock you. I could continue on HRC but recently saw a caricature of a brick wall between an HRC and a DT supporter with each yelling at the wall.
As a DT supporter I still see and feel his support strengthening, even as he weakens. it will be interesting to see the outcome and I wish you great happiness but it will be good to get this election behind us.
Oh, I have never read anyone’s comment on this site speaking of hatred of an individual till yours.
Edward Amame,
A philharmonic symphony orchestra contains a wide diversity of instruments with diverse musicians to play them. But they all play from the same score. If each one ( or each group of several) decides to play its very own piece of music, they don’t create philharmony. They create cacaphony.
E diversitus unum.
So it is good to suspend the arrival of more immigrants until the current numbers and groups have all learned to function in the Common Overculture. Or Common Underculture. Or whatever we want to call it.
(On the bright side, if American Chinese wish to talk to American Japanese wish to talk to American Koreans with to talk to American Vietnamese wish to talk to American Cambodians . . . they will all have to learn English as their Common Neutral Territory Language.)
jerseycityjoan
There’s probably going to be more of that as places like NYC become so expensive that middle and working class Americans, including Spanish speaking and others, move to more affordable places in America.
David Habakkuk,
Many decades ago, this country’s political-economy was based on various industries and pursuits which needed a large to huge labor force. A wide diversity of mutually alien and mutually liguistically unintelligible grouploads of people came here to help fill all those jobs. The Dominant Anglophone culture-keepers made sure all the new immigrant groups learned the same English. Between that and the lack of any looming fear of multi-million mass jobicide, the diverse groups learned to trust eachother and work together in pursuit of common social interests.
I wonder if the distrust going along with present day diversity is caused by the diversity or is caused by the steady rollout of deliverately engineered protracted mass jobicide. A possible way to test for that would be to see if the same distrust occurs among all the ethno-racially diverse groups of class-privileged people among the degree-credentialed professional class. If it does, then my suspicion may be false. If it does not, then my suspicion that ongoing mass jobicide is what is causing the ethno-racially diverse members of the precariat distrust eachother.
I remember seeing very recently a few-second video of an older-middle-aged black barber named “Fred the Barber” I think. What he said was this: ” If you have ten dogs and three bones, something will go wrong. And we only have three bones in this hood.”
There is also a genetic component to it as well. We naturally select mates based on societal and cultural biases. It isn’t 100% though as genetic diversity is a requirement to enhance the immune system and to address genetic defects caused by too much in breeding. This is partially why rapine is so common in warfare as it forces diversity and many scientists believe warfare is a necessary part of the evolutionary process. The selfish gene theory has gained acceptance to explain this phenomena.
Historically though, we do tend to isolate into similar communities but even the there is a great deal of gene mixing among local populations. The regions with forced inter-community ties generally break down, usually violently, once the organizational system breaks down. There are tons of examples if which Yugoslavia is a good recent example. Something similar is occurring in Ukraine and Syria/Iraq as well. The ME borders are all artificial and are slowly coalescing back to pre-Ottoman lines.
I can only think of Brazil as the best example of racial homogeneity but they have enormous problems, many related to racism. So, even there it isn’t a perfect example of successful globalism. Up until the US messed them over so well, they were the only country in the world 100% self sufficient. We couldn’t tolerate that so have now destroyed their government in a soft coup. So, the one decent example of potential globalism success we destroyed. Mostly, as they decided to be in the BRICS in defiance. That was short lived.
Ed, that example of the military is more hype than truth. The military in general are a forced environment with strict adherence. But get into situations where you are the only white amongst a group of latinos or blacks, and you will have your eyes opened wide. If you secretly speak Spanish it is amazing what racist comments you will hear. I also speak ibanic (I was part of forced busing of whites into black schools in Los Angeles so it was a survival skill) as well and communication is essential to overcoming these kinds of problems. But the happy integration is superficial. Yes, there a lot of success stories but it is still a huge problem. I haven’t worked for the military since 2012 so cannot speak to the gender issues which I suspect have replaced racism as the main discrimination problem now. But, I wouldn’t rave about how successful it is in the military. Under close supervision yes, it appears fine, but away from that it is another story altogether. However, I haven’t personally seen white racism in many years. I am speaking of the minorities racism against whites and strangely orientals. If you serve in the enlisted ranks you will see it, particularly in those MOS’s with low GT scores like transportation, MPs, cooks, etc. In the infantry it is less of a problem due to the tribal nature of squads and platoons that overcomes these kinds of racial biases. Again, it is a survival skill. In higher GT level MOS jobs it is virtually nonexistent. Institutional racism is alive and well in the military as the GT test problem remains a societal problem and follows the educationally disadvantaged even into the military.
You are saying 600 billion dollars a year isn’t enough?
If they are American-Chinese/Japanese/Korean/Vietnamese, their first language probably already is English anyways. There’s one thing from Steinbeck’s East of Eden that gets overlooked by non-Asian readers: when Lee, the Chinese-American servant of the Trasks, says he did go “back” to China (“back” is in quotation marks b/c he was never in China himself before), he realized he’s less foreign in America than in China. Hyphenated Americans are Americans first. It is an insult that there should be many who think we should put hyphen-ness before American-ness, both of the left and the right–but there are, sadly.
I think your characterization of Trump summarizes the sentiment of many. The best one can say about Trump is that he is not (obviously) part of the machinery that has built the status quo, but not someone who has credibly shown that he has serious ideas about rolling it back and is trying to build a winning coalition behind those ideas. Not exactly an inspiring combination.
PS. An excellent analogy, philharmony vs. cacophony, that is.
Nancy K,
An interesting conjecture. Do you think there will be any Christians voting for Hilary?
Edward,
I am simply following the proprieties of courtesy. I don’t expect one knowing you are simply a political hasbara on behalf of the left. The resort to personal attacks is a sign of the weakness of your ideological arguments.
Edward,
“There’s probably going to be more of that as places like NYC become so expensive that middle and working class Americans….”
Why do you support the economic policies that are making that a reality?
rjj,
What happened in Salem and what is happening with PC-ness of the selectively defined “diversity” of the left are concerned with political power. I recommend “Three Sovereigns for Sarah” to give you a taste of what is in store.
Bobo
Thanks for the comment, esp your last line. And I’ll be glad when the election is over too.
My apologies, Col Lang. My remark about “hatred” of HRC was out of line and uncalled for.
My quibble was not about the trajectory we are on.
It was about over rating EA’s urban parochialism.
You might be interested in reading “North Toward Home” by Willie Morris, the Yazoo City, Mississippi-born writer who served as the editor of Harper’s Magazine in the 1960s, and subsequently returned home to Mississippi years later.
The book extensively discusses the “generosity of spirit” that he associates with the South, as opposed to the lack of such in the North.
If I were English, I would tell my mate: A “New Us” he wants now, does he?
– Indeed! Why must we change? They can go back and be their own “Them” while we remain here in our own country being our own “Us”.
In Yugoslavia, 3 religious faults were being abridged, Sunni Islam, Orthodoxy and Catholicism.
May be the nation-building that started under the Monarchy and continued under the Republican Communism could have succeeded in time – only if the Cold War had lasted a few more decades.
Personally, as a matter of opinion, I do not think multi-religious states can long exist – the cohesion for it is not there. Somehow, religious diversity cuts more deeply than linguistic diversity.
You wrote: ” We naturally select mates …”
Nah, women do the chosing and we are just like stray dogs following their inducements…
The music score analogy actually is a good one since it presumes that “Music” is the same or could be the same. There are, however, many modal systems of music and those listeners are, musically, rarely conversant with other systems of music.
South Indian music is incommensurable with grunge, or rap or any of that stuff.
Such diverse listeners, over several generations, cannot stay long within the same community – they will separate.
Those young people are living in a protected bubble – created and sustained by the City of New York and by the United States. Nowhere else on Earth that experience exists in any way shape or form.
Korean visitors to Iran are invariably taunted or otherwise insulted and harassed; especially young women – sometimes leading to fights.
sillybilly,
The Borg cares not. Today Paul Wolfowitz arose from his coffin, looking fully the part of Nosferatu, and appeared on Fox News, endorsing Clinton and talking much madness about his ideas on containing/attacking Russia in various ways. He indicated that he would be in some kind of policy advising capacity in a Clinton presidency.
This can only be seen as a most ominous portent of things to come.
That they shamelessly summoned forth the disgraced Wolfie as the messenger tells me that they don’t care what we think. They aren’t even trying to hide it. Protest away. It will change nothing.
kao_hsien_chih,
A prefect example of putting people in boxes was on the home page of 2004 Kerry presidential website. To find out what his stand was on the various issues, one had to click on links that were labeled not by issue, but by ethic/race/gender/sexual orientation where the details were given on the clicked on web page. I was infuriated by the condescension that they knew what a person should be interested in who had a given ethic, race, gender or sexual orientation.
On the Republican Presidential webpage, the links were simply labeled by issue with no assumption that they know what a person should be interested in who had a particular background.
Diversity, absent unity, is a danger. Are we there–at that danger point, yet? Perhaps. Perhaps not. In any event–if for no more than economic reasons, it would be wise to be cautious in our immigration polices. However, I expect the opposite from the Admin State, and its dependents. It is in the Admin State’s interests to encourage disunity. Who rules here? the Admin State? Or “The People”? I think we are seeing the answer to that question.
It is EXTREMELY controversial to me! And dangerous. No, my point, awkwardly expressed, was, what did EA think was controversial (debatable)about Fred writing that in his opinion, Bernie supporters would vote for Hillary, and Hillary would impose a NFZ if she got in. As I recall, EA, seem to dispute that prediction. If I have that wrong EA, my bad.
Col Lang,
I get it. And I agree with your comment to Jack about who’s running the show.
Again, my apologies about the “hatred” remark.
” – what happened to the Back-Benchers?”
They got pre-selected. The party organisations now have more control over the panel of candidates the constituency parties are allowed to choose from. And politics is now more of a career so the prospect of promotion tames any mavericks who might get through.
As in the US the two major parties are more or less interchangeable – Mr Corbyn’s attempt at a breakaway still leaves his party in the Westminster bubble even if successful – and there is little prospect of this changing.
We’ve only had two serious attempts at a breakaway from the mainstream parties in recent times. The BNP received around a million votes a few years back and for a time it looked as if that might lead to the unrepresented being given a voice. The ostensible program – reducing immigration, getting the banks under control, leaving Europe, bringing jobs back to the country – struck a chord, particularly in the North. But it turned out that the leadership of the BNP had other fish to fry and were more or less closet Neo-Nazis.
Unlike the continental Europeans we don’t do Neo-Nazism. I doubt there are more than a thousand or so genuine Neo-Nazis in the country. That’s no sort of voter base so the BNP faded with remarkable speed.
The other breakaway attempt was by UKIP. But a party founded on a negative
must necessarily have difficulty putting together any positive or constructive programme and so it turned out.
Isn’t that the difficulty, here and in the US. It’s easy enough to say no and there’s certainly a lot to say no to, but putting together sensible and constructive alternative politics, and getting that through the stranglehold of the old parties, seems to be beyond us.
Edward Amame
Don’t worry about it. I won’t. pl
He indicated that he would be in some kind of policy advising capacity in a Clinton presidency.
Wolfowitz: Now that our Pax Americana test run in the unruly regions of Afghanistan/Iraq and thus got relevant empirical data, we feel very, very well positioned to update and readjust the Empire’s approach
I no doubt could try to be kind, at least theoretically. After all deep down he could have found wisdom and realized that he helped to fuck up matters beyond recognition in an already pretty delicate state of affairs on a global level.
Unfortunately on some matters I am not a kind and tolerant person. The OSP would be such a central matter. I will not ever be able to forget or forgive Iraq. …
*************
containing/attacking Russia in various ways
Well, why not? Once the masses have finally grasped one central enemy, it must be easy to add another; even more a historically well established foe. The earlier enemy of Wolfi I understand. …
Not that it is much better over here. The game of the day seems to be to shame the Russians into surrender: More sanctions to force them into line/surrender? …
Max Lieberman: “I could not possibly eat as much as I would like to throw up.” (translation from Wikipedia)
Thank you for your comments.
Yes, putting a credible positive program certainly is not a trivial or easy task; anywhere in the world.
Of course there will be!
That’s my point!
My question to you is, what are your plans to handle all this? Don’t have any? Well, you and the rest of the people who think the rest of us will just have to reconcile themselves to giving up their First World existence in America had better realize “reconciliation and acceptance” is not an option.
Also, I would ask you the same thing Fred does below: “Why do you support the economic policies that are making that a reality?”
We still have choices to make. While we are stuck with the people we already have, we can what we do in the future. We can realize and face up to the consequences of the changes already set in motion.
Vic
I sense that we have pretty nearly “shot our bolt” on the ground. SOF guys don’t count. Whatever drives us does not necessarily apply to the line. Reconstitution would take a while. I don’t think that HC and the neocons understand that. pl
Sam,
I haven’t gotten over the treatment of Sanders or the things Hillary HAS DONE. I voted for Trump and don’t regret it. I know other AA Democrats and Greens who plan to do the same thing. She has to be stopped
EA,
Coming from the guy who thinks polls with a +30 Dem oversample are reliable.
Olympic quality gymnastics from you.
jerseycityjoan
Handle what exactly? Almost 60% Americans think diversity makes our country a better place to live. Less than 10% of us think diversity makes the US a worse place to live.
http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2016/07/12/in-views-of-diversity-many-europeans-are-less-positive-than-americans/
Regarding immigration. Americans calling for reduced immigrant inflows is at 38%. Americans calling for immigration to stay constant is also at 38%,and Americans calling for increasing immigration is at 21%.
http://www.gallup.com/poll/1660/immigration.aspx
Other polls show very similar results.
https://niskanencenter.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/Niskanen-Americans-Favor-Immigration.pdf
Colonel,
An à propos:
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/10/25/world/middleeast/united-states-president-politics-middle-east.html?smid=tw-share&_r=0
All over Washington, foreign policy specialists have spent the fall busily crafting their own suggestions for the next president to consider in the Middle East. Organizations like the Brookings Institution, the Atlantic Council, the Middle East Institute and the Center for American Progress are issuing reports or holding conferences. Most of them are predicated on the bipartisan conclusion that Mr. Obama’s approach to the region has not worked and requires a reboot.
Babak Makkinejad,
If there are Chinese, Japanese, etc. visitors to Iran, are they equally invariably taunted or otherwise insulted in the same way? If not, why not?
robt willmann,
And in fact, digitally fraudulated false-counting and/or false-reporting of recieved casted votes is not even “voter” fraud. It would be post-voting election fraud.
Do not the voters still have free access to the ballot box. We are not being forced to vote one way or another. Possibly both sides have drunk their parties Kool-Aid. Be are all bombarded by propaganda. We gave up TV many years ago and I’m always happiest around election time when I don’t have to listen to all the garbage.