We won't bother to discuss the GOP nomination for president.
OTOH, the Democrats; Social Democrats, Socialists, Greens, Anarcho-Syndicalists or whatever they are, be interesting.
- Joe Biden -he says he is a " union guy," and a lower middle class/working class man of the people. He does not seem to have ever had a job that would fit that description. Well, he has now abandoned support of the Hyde Amendment which he has supported for 40 years. This bar to the spending of federal appropriated dollars on abortions is near and dear to the Catholic and other pro-life population. I wonder what Cardinal Dolan (a version of Joe, but clad in red) will say about Joe's defection from Catholic teaching on the murder of children. Probably nothing would be the most likely occurrence. Joe has also adopted a program for de-industrialization of the US in order to "save the planet." The Leftos in the party have demanded that and he accepted their demand. Such a program is, of course, in direct opposition to the needs and interests of his fellow union men and women. Alas! Poor Joe! I knew him and he always was a dummy.
- Bernie! Bernie! How could you and your lovely bride have thought that an Intourist Soviet government guided tour of the USSR was a good idea for your introduction to wedded bliss? How could you have thought that? The photo of you singing bare chested at a picnic in Russia during the Cold War is a crushing burden to carry. Tiny Vermont is a charming place but it ain't America writ large. The Lefty 60s refugees, the flinty "leave me alone" old Yankees and my French Canadian relatives make up a heady but unusual brew of voters. You won't find anything like that in many states.
- "My parents said I was an Indian!" Oh, come on! Have you never looked in a mirror? The essential dishonesty of her many claims to minority status , and therefore deprivation of privileged majority status when combined with her animosity toward business are obvious burdens. The Indians don't claim her as one of their own If the economy doesn't "tank," her plaintive cries of jealousy against the banks will sound mighty hollow. Remember. This is a wealthy and tenured Harvard professor, who, like Comrade Bernie, is a millionaire rentier. That's Marxist techno talk folks.
- The mayor of little South Bend, Indiana is a clever fellow, well spoken, well dressed, and handsome in a diminutive sort of way. He must have been very popular at Oxford University, the centerpiece at every party. Unfortunately, he, too, has burdens. He said yesterday that it was inaccurate to ask that America should be made great again because America was "never that great." In that statement he mimics the NY Cuomos and other Lefty people. Well, pilgrims, most of us dumb cluck Americans do think that America was always great and deserves a chance to be better yet. And then, there is his Queerness. The gay folk, many of them in the media, are exulting in increasing acceptance by Americans of Gay people. IMO, they are counting their chickens early. A fact lurking behind Romney's many defects as a candidate was the nasty truth that a lot of people said they would vote for a Mormon for president but did not. That combined with his snobbishness, haughtiness, etc. was just too much for many. Mormons are Christians? OK. I'll take their word for it, but many do not. This phenomenon will IMO carry over to mar the chances of the Buttigieg couple occupying the residence in the White House, no matter how photogenic and in love they may be. BTW, Mayor Pete is Maltese in ancestry. The Maltese speak a dialect of Arabic in which his surname means "father of chickens." (Abu Dajjaj). So, it would seem that someone in his family was once in the chicken bidness.
And these are the leading four … pl
Colonel,Years ago National Geographic had a long article about the Phoenicians.The researchers for the article were very surprised at the high level of Phoenician dna found in the MalteseYou write that Senator Warren should look at her face in the mirror regarding her roots.Have you seen a picture of Buttigieg’s father face.He definitely has a very semitic look.Only his deceased father was Maltese,Catholic also…………Like the Sicilians say about their Greek cousins………One face,one race
Trump has been a Likud wet dream. A Bernie/Tulsi ticket is the only chance I see to check the likes of Bolton. Go Bernie.
Great synopsis. If these are the top 4, the chances of defeating Trump seem slim.
It was telling that candidate and former CO Gov. Hickenlooper was recently booed by a crowd of CA Democrats for saying socialism isn’t the answer. He’s in good company though, since God was booed at the 2012 DNC convention.
On the bright side, if ever there were a candidate who might be inclined to rethink our relationship with the Saudis, it’s Buttigieg.
Oh, who am I kidding? He would be given a lavish reception in Riyadh, where he would deliver a speech thanking our Saudi allies for leading the brave fight against “Iranian homophobia.”
Pithy, Colonel, pithy. Biden, the union guy. Well, private sector unions are a vanishing species with most these days suckling off the public sector. Not that there’s that much difference with large corporations and their regulatory capture.
Love your Marxist techno talk. I used to pick up “Political Affairs,” the CPUSA rag, every year or so just to see what alternate universe they were living in.
I often wondered if the Soviets pushing lefty causes in the USA, including unions, was strategic as they had a deeper understanding of just how stagnating a command economy, or union constrained industry, was outside of a national crisis. Or, perhaps it was just a natural impulse of their indoctrinated true believers. Likely a mixture of both.
Colonel, you may be something of an iconoclast but perhaps you are now in the Vanguard.
Phil Csttar – I don’t quite get your points. Yes, Warren’s particular distribution of genes might result in her overwhelmingly Anglo looking face being perhaps more Anglo looking than her siblings, if any. You know the bit about the tall peas and the small peas, but it is unlikely that she would look this Anglo with a significant amount of Indian DNA. If she did have some Indian blood it would have to be a hell of a long way back. In any case it is her dishonesty and identity profiteering that matters. Nobody gives a damn about her ancestry. Concerning the Maltese, what’s your point? Is it that there are Christian Arabs? Don’t we all know that here? I just think his name is funny. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maltese_language
At first I thought the Buttigieg name was pronounced “Butt a gig” – which struck me as funny considering he’s openly gay and, well, gays….
Now I know better. However, the first impression lingers. I’m sure it is at least subconsciously perceived similarly by many. Agree. The guy has no chance.
Sir
My impression of Democratic primary voters which could very well be wrong is that they mostly vote as if betting on a horse race. Rather than vote their beliefs and conscience they tend to vote for the perceived winner. The anointed one is usually who is backed by the primary voter.
I think it will pay to watch who the special delegates are in determining the outcome.
While I’m a registered independent I have and will continue to contribute to the Tulsi Gabbard campaign even if she has no chance.
What is especially interesting to me is Peter Buttigieg’s father, Joseph A. Buttigieg. He grew up on the Island of Malta, and went to college there and in Britain, and received his PhD doctorate at the State University of New York at Binghamton. He got a job teaching at Notre Dame University in 1980. Now brace yourself, because his main academic interest was Antonio Gramsci, a member of the Italian Socialist Party who was also said to be a contributor to Marxist theory!
Buttigieg the father is the primary editor and translator of Gramsci’s “Prison Notebooks”, which is a three-book set–
https://cup.columbia.edu/book/prison-notebooks/9780231157551
It appears that Joseph Buttigieg did not just look at Gramsci as an academic interest. He was one of the founders of the International Gramsci Society, and was its president until he passed away in January 2019–
http://www.internationalgramscisociety.org
There is some audio of Joseph Buttigieg at the Gramsci website–
http://www.internationalgramscisociety.org/audio-video/index.html
Notre Dame published an article about him at the time of his death this year. It includes a description of Buttigieg’s interest in Gramsci–
“He is also the editor and translator of the multi-volume complete critical edition of ‘Antonio Gramsci’s Prison Notebooks,’ a project that has been supported by a major grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities. Several of his articles on Gramsci, the Italian philosopher, writer and politician, have been translated into Italian, German, Spanish, Portuguese and Japanese. He was a founding member of the International Gramsci Society, of which he was president, and the Italian minister of culture appointed him to a commission of experts to oversee the preparation of the “edizione nazionale” (national edition/complete works) of Gramsci’s writings.”
https://news.nd.edu/news/in-memoriam-joseph-buttigieg-kenan-professor-emeritus-of-english/
Since Peter Buttigieg is an announced candidate in the Democratic Party for president of the United States, a reasonable issue for consideration and investigation is to what extent his father passed on the ideas of Antonio Gramsci about socialism and Marxism to young Peter, and what the candidate knows about Gramsci and what he thinks about all of it.
The New York Times newspaper published lengthy articles focusing on the entrepreneurial Fred Trump, father of Donald Trump. Will such diligent journalistic digging be done as to Joseph Buttigieg as the campaign progresses?
“father of chickens.” That is funny. I bet it explains his aversion to Chick-fil-A.
James T –
How about Tulsi on the top of that ticket? I like all her positions. Unfortunately RT and Sputnik are recommending her, which will kill her chances of getting the Democratic nomination.
No way will I vote for Donald again. His kissing of Prince bin Salman’s ring, doing Netanyahoo’s bidding, and starting trade wars are a disaster IMHO. I’m voting for Billy Weld. Too bad he won’t get anywhere close in the primary.
Sad to see Gabbard doesn’t have much traction with voters.
Warren’s “wealth tax” comes with the claim that it’s not burdensome because “it’s only 2%” of wealth over a certain amount. That claim might be valid it it was a one-time tax, but it’s a 2% tax every year, and over some years that adds up to quite a burden.
If you have not read the “Accountable Capitalism Act” which Warren submitted in the 115th Congress, you really should do so. It will convince you that she is completely insane in her determination to put American business into the grave. The text of it can be found at, https://www.govtrack.us/congress/bills/115/s3348/text
Ian
I would back her to the hilt if she had a chance. There is something about a woman in uniform.
Colonel – they are saying over here, in relation to a party leadership race, that “the front runner never wins”. Having read your list of the virtues of the Democratic front runner I find that a comforting thought.
Then I went on to No. 2. Remembered that Bernie had had a spot of bother last time round so checked to see how much bother –
https://nypost.com/2016/04/10/if-youre-jewish-dont-vote-for-bernie-sanders/
Lots. AIPAC’s got him in its sights so he’s out.
The others don’t look that impressive either. Just hoping you’ll continue whittling the list down till you get to Tulsi Gabbard.
Public employee union get to sit on both sides of the bargaining table. This is a huge and dangerous difference.
Public employee union members own us, have access to our most private lives, and control the business of the nation by internal sabotage. Time to reconsider the recent growth of the public employee union (aka Democrat) agenda.
Never, never confuse them with corporate interests. Take some time to think this through. Self-preservation is the primary job of public sector unions, to the point the biggest beneficiary of open borders are the teachers unions.
Apply this analysis to every intractable problem this country continues to face, and you will find the self-interest of one public employee union or another. Or private sector unions who feed off public contracts.
Who promises the most to the massive public employee unions and has the most chances of actually delivering those promises gets the DNC nod. View every candidate and every utterance by the Democrat establishment, learn their buzz words and you will see this embedded pattern.
The public employee union bosses decide who will get the DNC nod. Kamala Harris put on her knee pads for the unions but they apparently don’t think she is electable. They remain coy at this point, but at some point when they finally sniff both union pandering and electability you will have your DNC candidate.
How can anyone forget SEIU sticking a knife in Clinton’s back in 2008 and going with the unknown Obama. Who chooses to forget Clinton lining up the big public sector unions first before taking her 2016 plunge. She assumed that is all she needed to do.
Unions are very reluctant to lose another billion in campaign fund raising again in 2020. Super Tuesday in March 2019 will be the very earliest the unions will finally play their hand.
Gabbard should switch parties – she has more fundamental connections with conservatives than out of touch “progressives”.
And I thought it couldn’t get any worse than Obama.
I don’t like being wrong.
Bill,
All very nice but that will not affect any of the mega-rich whose wealth is in tax sheltered trusts. This requires corporations with more than a billion dollars of revenue to obtain a federal charter. Which also grants personal immunitiy to all officers and employees who make decisions “in good faith”. Besides violating the Commerce Clause of the Constitution it is little more than a grant of immunity along with an empowerment to government meddling. Didn’t we see enough of that with Department of Educattion employees issueing “guidance” to universities and colleges? No thanks.
LOL……Pat,,,Your Humor is getting Better with Age…You are Beginning to Sound like Our Friend Farrell…Well Done….
They’re going to sandbag her at the debates, but she has 1 chance to stand tall and she’ll need to put away her soft-spoken approach and comes out swinging.
While undoubtedly worthy of scholarly interest, notice the GLARING OMISSION of either of the adjectives Marxist or communist in reference to Antonio Gramsci in Mr. Buttigieg’s Notre Dame obituary. One could be excused for suspecting the university didn’t want to draw attention to the politics of its professor’s main area of expertise.
She is specifically being opposed by the Democratic establishment, who are less interested in winning than maintaining their donation stream. At the debates she will hopefully connect to the larger public beyond the DNC gatekeepers.
Gramsci is important, in the history of marxism, because he is the first who stressed the major role of “cultural hegemony” in the power-taking processus. Especially in USA.
Colonel,
Let me introduce the General Khatool Mohammadzaï, an Afghan female paratrooper.
https://afghanistanonmymind.blogspot.com/2012/06/khatool-mohammadzai-yes.html
She does have quite high cheek bones (tongue firmly in cheek). I read somewhere that her native ancestry was 1/64 or about 1.5%. That is roughly the same as one grandparents, grandparents, grandparent. Or put another way, her grandmothers, grandmother’s grandmother was a native.
I suspect a lot of Americans can say the same.
Given that real interest rates are zero, I think your point is very strong. Incidentally, on an NPV basis the nature of the tax becomes much clearer. Over 20 years it would amount to 50% of the initial principal.
Thats certainly one way of dealing with the inequality issue in the US.
JT
I wasn’t attempting humor and Alan has given it up in a tragic world.
Factotum,
This is the second time you’ve mentioned a billion dollars and SEIU. They, and unions both in general and in total did not spend a fraction of that amount.
I would love to see her as POTUS – but we all know it can’t happen. The “bernie bros” smears won’t work so well if Bernie has Tulsi on the ticket. and the “Tulsi is a toady of Assad” smears won’t work so well if she is at the bottom of the ticket. The media are killing her by ignoring her, she needs to get on TV for her decency and charisma to show through. Bernie can make that happen.
It is unfortunate that identity politics matters so much these days (Tulsi is a woman of colour), but if Tulsi can use this to do some good in the world then that will be lemons into lemonade from my point of view.
ascetic methods and mileages vary, but abstaining from expectations can be/usually is more rewarding than abstaining from humor ….
unless [!!!] giving up humor is part of an STFU-and-Pay-Attention regime.
[/tangent]
My point Colonel is that she does not appear to have any significant amount of American Indian dna in her.The democrats have a problem.Their ticket must have a female on it.It also needs a “person of color”preferably black on it.The black vote was down in the last election and probably cost Hillary a win.A winning ticket for the democrats could well be a Warren/Booker ticket.He is very ambitious, and young enough to be the vice president for the almost 70 year old Warren, and then run for president.He also has executive and legislature experience.He is also black enough ………..Kamela Harris who refers to herself as “person of color” is half Asian ,her Jamacian born father is a college professor and she is married to very rich, very white businessman.I am not a fan of either Warren or Booker but I can see them helping the democrats carrying states like NC,PA,MI and maybe even FL.These all went for Trump.Hillary’s VP selection did NOTHING for her ticket in 2016,IMHO……………
Factotum, the RNC would never accept her. Her stance on a range of issues are anathema to Republicans and especially Trump acolytes. She accepts the science of human driven climate change and calls for cutting all subsidies to fossil fuels and moving to an eventual ban on those fuels. She supports universal, government provided health care for all. She calls for free community college. She supports protecting LBGTQ rights, as well as abortion rights. She’s called for a ban on assault weapons. She supports DACA, immigration rights and is highly critical of Trump’s treatment of asylum seekers. On these issues she is about as progressive as they come.
She is best known to us SST correspondents for her antiwar stance. She wants the US to dial back the growing tensions with Russia and China and seek areas of cooperation with those countries. In addition to getting out of Afghanistan and Syria, she calls for withdrawing all support from Saudi Arabia. Gabbard has called that Kingdom a hub of anti-Western extremism.
Like Colonel Lang and many others here, I’d back her to the hilt.
That’s only if she makes it to the debates. The goal posts for that keeps changing. First, it was 60K donors, now they’ve upped it to 150K.
I am backing her with a monthly donation. This week, my wife and I are going to attend our daughter’s graduation from USMC basic training at Parris Island, so I have very personal reason for supporting Major Gabbard.
(If you like her in uniform, you should check her out in her surfing wetsuit…bad Peter, very bad Peter ;-). She knows the value of her looks: in most public appearances, she wears a striking red suit, and contrasts it with her thoughtful words).
”I suspect a lot of Americans can say the same. ”
Probably so. I was in the horse show circuit as a teen in the 50’s and met and made friends with a girl whose mother was a full blood Cherokee. The girl married and has children so Indian ancestry is still circulating to this day.
The msm is deliberately blanking out Tulsi as if she doesnt exist..so that’s a clue.
I could vote for Tulsi or Elizabeth Warren. I am impressed with the way Warren details what is in her policies.
Will NOT vote for Biden.
Will NOT vote for Trump.
So if that’s what it comes down to I’ll skip the election again.
From Black conservative YouTuber Anthony Brian Logan (who is occasionally interviewed on RT, and has been at the Whitehouse for black leadership events)…
Mayor Pete Drinks LIQUOR From A BROWN BAG For The Black Vote! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fkeI7fwgRGs (<8 min)
Pat…I know Humor was the Wrong word..But it Reminded me of The Satire Alan Used in His Movie reviews”and other writings.He sent me His Book “High Cheek Bones and Pouty Lips” And “Expended CArtridges” Signed…He always told Me He was Maintaining The “Status Quo” And Finished His Notes with “Boots and Knees Together..Eyes on the Horizion..”I Wish him Well…..Tragic World Indeed..Pat…We spent Memorial Day at The Graveside of Our Son In Law..a Navy Seal.Killed just before His Baby was Born..And at Our Old Military Cemetery At one of Ten Tomb of the Unknown Soldiers in the United States and Visiting the Remains of 56 Marines and Sailors whose bodys Came back Here on th USS Saratoga during WW 2..I still have HOPE..and will keep my eyes on the Horizion..
He has a chance on Biden’s coat tails. I think it is a great ticket for the Democrat party. Biting – Butt 2020!
Where is spell check when you need it?
March 2020!
Gramsci, can be used by whoever wants to use him. Over here he influenced the neo-right in France and Germany and I am sure in Italy too.
Never mind that the Italian fascists incarcerated him probably exactly for that reason, but I don’t think it is legitimate to reduce Gramsci to Marxist. And strictly I would choose neo-Marxist or cultural Maxist anytime before joining whatever neo-fascist faction.
joanna/Leander
Which member of the team are you?
I’m betting on the Chicken Man.
After watching some vid of the Top (for the moment) Four, Father of Chicken’s succinct eloquence will be a big asset. He appears to be the best thinker of that bunch. The Faithful will be attracted by the one who appears to be the most precise opposite of Trump, damn the torpedoes. Biden? First loser…as Hillary was to Obama.
I think Hillary should change her mind give it another run. As we all know, only Hillary can beat Trump.
I, for my life, can not see in what way could Gramsci influence the French, Italian and German “neo-right
Maybe Valissa can help you out here. At one point, to the extend I recall, she was fascinated by power. Maybe that’s the link you’ll need.
He had a lot of time in prison to reflect on the politically powerful of his time that got him there. And you feel this wouldn’t be of interest to their political ancestors? Well you are misguided.
It’s not Marxism that interests them, it’s the updates to Machiavelli he provides. Maybe?
Gramsci was hardly the only case were ideas, methods and tools change from left to the right. Human, isn’t it?
Well, that’s a useful correction. I had always thought the “Long March through the Institutions” was Gramsci. Not reflecting that Mao’s “Long March” occurred not long before Gramsci died. But it’s Dutschke, who was heavily influenced by Gramsci –
“To extend the base of the student movement, Rudi Dutschke has proposed the strategy of the long march through the institutions: working against the established institutions while working within them, but not simply by ‘boring from within’, rather by ‘doing the job’, learning (how to program and read computers, how to teach at all levels of education, how to use the mass media, how to organize production, how to recognize and eschew planned obsolescence, how to design, et cetera), and at the same time preserving one’s own consciousness in working with others.” (Wiki, and the origin of the phrase seems to check out elsewhere.)
Wherever it came from it was a catchphrase among the more conscious of the Progressive Left in Germany from the 80’s on and is still used as such. Is that your impression? Also surfaces elsewhere and is often regarded as a tenet of the “Frankfurt School.”
But surely, “Left” or “Right”, “Progressive” or “Populist”, all recognise that control of the education system, the media, and other institutions is central to shaping our mind-world. We need no thinkers to teach us that. We know it instinctively. I know it whenever I listen to the BBC or look at the NYT, or see how our children are taught. And this “Control of the narrative”, the shaping of the very way we think, long predates the modern world. It has always been so. The wars of religion of the past – and for some of the present – were about just that; and the fact that today we in the West call them wars of ideology instead serves only to conceal that it’s the same war in modern dress.
The Muslims who demonstrate outside English schools protesting against the “Progressive” education our children are getting and the native English who, more timidly and circumspectly, express the same objections, have probably never heard of Gramsci or Dutschke, and likely few of those inside the school system who are enthusiastically enforcing that “Progressive” education. In the battle of Weltanschauungen that is the central battle of our times and of every other we are not in truth inspired by this or that philosopher or thinker. We simply reach for them occasionally as a convenient label or definition of what we’d be thinking or doing anyway.
Don’t worry dear friend, you’ll get your own alternative cherry blossom king:
Isabel Hardman: Boris Johnson’s campaign team has been so well-organised that it predicted exactly the number of votes he would get in today’s secret ballot, I understand. According to WhatsApp messages between his supporters, one member handed Johnson a sealed envelope with ‘114’ written in it before the result, telling him to open it once the official numbers had been declared.
He’ll take care Albion is safe.
Yes, that was a slogan, but considering the place were I watched matters, and I was slightly late (Dutschke was half a generation older then me). Most forgot about it once they had their degrees, and that was easy to see before. To not go into intrinsic of activist university policies e.g. in Berlin. Most were following cattle at the time anyway. But that may be a much too complicated story for your taste.
But yes, I can see how that slogan might fit into your larger narrative. Notice, I didn’t use ideology here.
Joanna. Looks like you’re an admirer of Boris Johnson. Honestly, I’d give that a miss. Mr Johnson is a symptom, not a cure.
interesting response. You feel I am a fan of the man? Admire him? Since he promises to get the Brits out of the EU finally? Get it over with once and for all?
********
Nick Cohen, I would lie, if I would claim to be a fan of his. Quite the opposite really in the time frame i watched him:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nick_Cohen#Views
But here he goes. i wonder what David Habakkuk thinks.
https://blogs.spectator.co.uk/2019/06/boris-johnson-everything-about-you-is-phoney/
********
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeremy_Hunt#Foreign_Secretary_(2018%E2%80%93present)
Spectator, Coffee House, Boris Johnson: everything about you is phoney, Nick Cohen: Boris Johnson: everything about you is phoney
https://blogs.spectator.co.uk/2019/06/boris-johnson-everything-about-you-is-phoney/
*******
might be systemic though:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeremy_Hunt#Foreign_Secretary_(2018%E2%80%93present)