It is depressing. But I take solace in that we didn't elect Gore or Kerry back in that post-Soviet era when all good things seemed possible to the weak-minded. That was the same era that Robert Bork (a prophet) wrote Slouching Toward Gomorrah, which presaged our current state of affairs. We dodged some bullets then but didn't silence the gun. We are not now as commie as we could have been. There might still be time for a firmer hand on the helm.
"...Look at the opinion of our military amongst multi-generational serving families...."
This. Fathers, me, sons and daughter.... I cringe at the very idea that my grandsons (daughters) might continue in pursuit of ANY military service. such a sad state.
"China is clearly not only an ideological rival, firmly committed to Marxism-Leninism and one-party rule. It’s also a technological competitor—the only one the U.S. confronts in fields such as artificial intelligence and quantum computing. It’s a military rival, with a navy that is already larger than ours and a nuclear arsenal that is catching up fast. And it’s a geopolitical rival, asserting itself not only in the Indo-Pacific but also through proxies in Eastern Europe and elsewhere."
And guess who is pumping fentanyl over our borders to kill more people "than were killed in three major wars: Vietnam, Iraq, and Afghanistan." We are at war and few have the guts to call it what it is! and We are getting our clock cleaned. They are slaughtering us and our fighting age productive age generation, and we have laid out the red carpet at the border to assist them. Because it is the same Bolsheviks in DC that are ideologically wed to the old school Bolsheviks that once peopled the Kremlin. They LOVED "Russia Russia Russia" until Russia collapsed and gave up on Communism and tried to revert to its Christian heritage. Meanwhile, "Our team on the left is now marching on the right.... " And it isn't that we COULDN'T win against Afghans any more than we COULDN'T WIN against the Viet Cong. It's that we WOULDN'T, because too many in DC make their fortunes to pay for their absurd houses in Loudoun, McLean, Clifton and Potomac from the never-ending wars. They WOULDN'T win. They refuse to. It's treasonous and disgusting beyond belief. Very few people have the guts to say that the gerontocracy that is willfully destroying our Republic needs to be making big rocks into small rocks at Gitmo and Leavenworth till they finally die, if the devil would take them.
Trump is the only one who seems to see this clearly and call out who the real enemy is, because China hasn't bought and paid for him. (P.S. do not be so sure his conflation of "Nancy and Nikki" wasn't entirely intentional. Both have profited tremendously from these never-ending wars.)
Great observations, Phib. We are the old time Soviet Union, without the cool subway though. The absolute crime of not bringing Russia into the community of nations in 1992 as a full trading partner and helping them weather the storm in becoming a market economy is to our everlasting shame. The peoples have much in common, and it could have been the economic partnership to dwarf all economic partnerships. Instead, we insisted on driving our father's Cold War Oldsmobile right into the ditch. 33 years later we pay the price for demonizing a nation that was ready to play the game more our way. We sure are stupid. Because now, we still can't see who the real enemy is. You've been ringing that bell for 2 decades and no one listened. Sad!
"The absolute crime of not bringing Russia into the community of nations in 1992 as a full trading partner and helping them weather the storm in becoming a market economy is to our everlasting shame." I used to think of that as a missed opportunity. Now I see it as some nefarious move in a big chess game.
After reading this, some may require anti-depressants. However, these anti-depressants may cause further depression, suicidal thoughts, oily discharge, explosive diarrhea, nausea and vomiting. I think I’ll take my reality on the rocks and continue to remain prepared.
Nope. His ambitions are much more limited. The objective of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics was, after all, the overthrow of Capitalism and the installation of Socialism worldwide. At worst the transition of USSR to Russia is something like "two steps forward, one step backward".; it's progress if not perfection.
Exactly. This is what the "Russia Russia Russia" press doesn't understand. Without the ideological impetus to spread Communism all over the globe, Russia knows it has quite enough real estate already and doesn't need to expand anywhere except to maintain its buffer zone. WE are the ones who violated THAT agreement. Russia has an endless supply of land, natural resources and oil and minerals. The Russian objective is sustainment, not expansion.
Sorry, but Putin is taking the regime back into a Soviet Status. many of the same strictures are now in place, and Putin is headed for more. What you don't realize is that Putin is part of teh apparatus that ruled the USSR from the time of Andropov. Gorbachev and Yeltsin were allowed by that apparat as long as he was properly controlled. Yeltsin was, essentially, forced out to allow Putin to take over.
The CPSU still controls things. It never ceased to be communist. The USSR simply went underground. It is in process of coming back above ground.
But it should give pause when a county we sat back and watched slip into a state of oligarchical corruption for decades can credibly attack western leaders for being even more corrupt, satanic and evil. I call it the super yacht test. Find out who owns all those super yachts out there and research how they got their starts. NOBODY comes by those honestly. And some of the most egregious super yachts around belonged to Russians and Ukrainians. And yet here we have our very own former speaker of the House and her ilk... what is she worth? $350 million from her inside trading. I'm sure Putin knows exactly why the Mayor of Moscow's wife gave Ol' Joe Buyden $3.5 million. We have no leg to stand on to criticize anyone.
Ukrainian Oligarchs have been hit pretty hard. Almost all the super yachts held by Russia or Ukraine, were Russian.
Bezos came by his wealth from Amazon, and honestly, as did the former owner/CEO of Oracle. There are several others. If they want to waste their wealth on such things, that's their long term problem. But, you are correct about both Russian and Ukrainian oligarchs. None of them came by their wealth honestly. That includes Putin who is the Oligarch to beat all oligarchs. His wealth is estimated at$200+ billion.
Post-Soviet Russia is not the same entity as the USSR. Of course, it is a successor state, with all the pernicious legacy that entails, but it is a gross simplification to see the two states as analogous. Like us, the Russians are the product of their own history, worldview, biases (for good or ill), external factors (e.g., NATO expansion), etc. One doesn't have to "like" Putin, Russia or Russians, but if one doesn't seek to understand how they view (and react to) the rest of the world (and, in particular, what they call their "near abroad") then that person doesn't know what he/she is talking about.
I would add in innumeracy as well since we seem to be on a collision course with fiscal insolvency and the electorate doesn't seem to terribly concerned.
The railing of the coastal elites in wealthy zip codes against those homeschooling is less about Evangelicals and more about controlling free thought, reading comprehension, and numeracy. Lest someone end up like John Adams writing to his wife from the Home Isles circa July 1, 1774.
"I am so idle, that I have not an easy Moment, without my Pen in my Hand. My Time might have been improved to some Purpose, in mowing Grass, raking Hay, or hoeing Corn, weeding Carrotts, picking or shelling Peas. Much better should I have been employed in schooling my Children, in teaching them to write, cypher, Latin, French, English and Greek.
I sometimes think I must come to this -- to be the Foreman upon my own Farm, and the School Master to my own Children. I confess myself to be full of Fears that the Ministry and their Friends and Instruments, will prevail, and crush the Cause and Friends of Liberty. The Minds of that Party are so filled with Prejudices, against me, that they will take all Advantages, and do me all the Damage they can. These Thoughts have their Turns in my Mind, but in general my Hopes are predominant."
The revolutionary to be feared is not the rabble in the street with a glass bottle of flammables. It is the educated individual who wishes to be left alone, to head their family, and to rise in the world through their own hard work.
I recently displayed a rifle, still in my family's possession, used by my ancestor in the Regulator Rebellion and later the Revolution. And down through 10 generations we've served in the War of 1812, the Civil War, the Spanish-American War, WWI, WWII, Korea, Vietnam, and Iraq. We're of Scottish descent, always looking for a fight. But I'm relieved my son never considered service. Until a fair number of people are sent to prison, I wouldn't counsel anyone to join up.
Regulator Rebellion, huh? In the 21st century we get corrupt courts and compromised judicial bureaucrats flaunted in our faces. Your ancestors from the Carolinas would understand.
The political class and dare I say half of oxygen breathing NPC Americans are not worthy of of our recommendation to serve in the current US Military. When China attacks, it will be existential. A completely different horse of a different color. I only hope our caretakers in the military that think as we do can hold on.
I only just retired 2 years ago after doing the 30-year full meal deal, but I tell all my buddies who are of similar age and situation that we need to try to stay in somewhat decent shape as we can expect to be recalled if "it" goes down in the next five years. If nothing else to at least "shine a seat with our asses" (as COL Sam Trautman would say) at the Pentagon (or whatever alternate national command center is used) so the younger folks can get to the front line fight.
Quoting from the conclusion: "The optimistic case looks like the fall of the Soviet Union: an end to an unnatural external imposition and a reversion to the historic norm which for us, unlike Russia, is actually democratic. But that assumes that America remains what it once was: a high-trust commercial republic of merchants and gentleman farmers. The pessimistic case is that we now look more like the historical Russia: with an indigestible ethnic patchwork, alienated urban proletariat, and stagnant rural poverty. A people fit only for despotism."
IMHO it boils down to trust. Out here in the Fly-Over Zone we are not yet an ethnic patchwork. I am a small town councilman and at the local level I find people are willing to work together and be reasonable once you can get them away from whichever news feed/social media silo they are in and stop looking at things as a Manichean struggle. I remain an optimist.
I read the Niall Ferguson piece when it originally appeared at The Free Press and was impressed by his observations and reasoning. So happy that you decided to feature it here so that others, who might otherwise have missed it, can see it. And, I appreciate your added insight and the comments of your followers. What we're seeing now: is it more sad or is it more scary? Whatever, I hate it and pray for a shift toward sanity.
Older Japanese are nodding their heads with Ferguson's indictment and Wicker's report. They named their malady after they initiated WWII: "Victory Disease." We have demonstrated we are not immune from this seemingly endemic disease. While I do not have a problem with Ferguson's Soviet - US comparison, I believe an apt, though ancient, comparison is equally clear: Sparta - Athens in the run up to the Peloppensian War. Graham Allison called it The Thucydides Trap, in which an up and coming power challenges a status quo power. For Thucydides, Athens was the new fellow on the block where Sparta represented the status quo. Now, we are not only Soviets, but also Spartan in our political culture (although hardly in our societal culture.) China and its Axis of Autocracy represent the new challenger. In the ancient case, Sparta eventually won, although at terrific and ultimately tragic cost;
they sold their soul to the Persians who eventually called in the debt. One wonders what path our short term future holds for us, for it is quite depressing to see our society so unfit to bear the costs of future freedom.
"One wonders what path our short term future holds for us..." I used to worry about us Norteamericanos becoming just so much fodder for some neo-Mayan heart-harvesting ritual, but no more. With the huge numbers of diverse ethnicities coming across the border unimpeded now, whose customs and practices might seem a bit off to middle America, I can visualize things far worse than having my chest cut open with an obsidian knife and my heart yanked out by some feathered nacom. I cannot take heart in any speculation about the future.
"U.S. President George Washington understood this well. “If we desire to secure peace, one of the most powerful instruments of our rising prosperity, it must be known, that we are at all times ready for war,” he told Congress in 1793."
This address is from his 5th state of the Union address, his first after being re-elected to a second term. From his opening statement, it is plain to see that he stands before them when he would rather be back at his plantation. The Sovietzation of the Republic with the lack of actual principled leadership, going hand-in-hand with yesterday's Tiberius post.
Except for the porch this is little more than a recap of the reality that we recognize. The public at large may be waking up only because the rate of change has accelerated recently.
Reacting to your comment about "we won the war but lost the peace." Back when the Belin wall had just fallen, my best friend was sitting with me in my study, visiting. Referring to that Berlin wall and to a president, here, who was ex-head of CIA (and all that single-string of mucus in the spittoon that is Washington D.C. that goes with such a link), my friend (three tours in nam, ex Phoenix, ex SF, ex two year Border Patrol, Dallas Police dectective, O-6 in reserves) remarked to me: "Well, we'll have to find a new threat now." Hindsight, now, realizes that we all ready had a new "driver" if not necessarily a threat, although one can argue that might be in the mix there, and that threat was Old Ironsides' proclamaition of the New World Order (explains Trump's problems)......Eisenhower's farewell POTUS warning to us to beware of the "Military-Industrial-(deleted from final speech)-Academic complex. Note: news today about a new factory down the road from me at Mesquite TX, our new Turkish-designed production line for 155mm projectiles (and other candy). Keep the money flowing in a great Mandella from us to them, back to us, but re-distributed from middle class tax payers to the upper 1% protected class here. And there. Human nature, we are wired by our creator -- our father's dick -- to be that way.
Except that many were, and are, too lazy or unimaginative to look for a new threat, so they stay with the old one; Russia. Russia is, as the saying goes, a mere shadow of its former self, and its former self was, as we learned after its breakup, was a mere shadow of its reputed strength.
And the national debt is in a positive feedback loop - money is being borrowed (or created by strokes on a keyboard) to pay interest on existing debt. That feedback loop eventually gets to the point where we end up like Tanzania - but at some point before that, the interest on our national debt will be the only thing paid for by sharply increased taxes - and we will suffer the fate of the previous Soviet Union, where the central government falls, and states secede, slowly and then en masse, in order to protect their own citizens from a fraudulent, corrupt, and rapacious central government.
As for "China is clearly not only an ideological rival, firmly committed to Marxism-Leninism and one-party rule. It’s also a technological competitor—the only one the U.S. confronts in fields such as artificial intelligence and quantum computing", by having 250,000 Chinese "students" over here in the fields you mention, they steal what we produce. Very few of them (in my experience as a post-doctoral fellow doing neural nets research back in the 1990s) have the intelligence and freedom to create on their own, by virtue of living in a society where free thought and creativity are dangerous. The US - and the West - freely give the Chinese the technological rope which they intend to use to hang us, paraphrasing V I Lenin...
Depressing, ain't it?
It is depressing. But I take solace in that we didn't elect Gore or Kerry back in that post-Soviet era when all good things seemed possible to the weak-minded. That was the same era that Robert Bork (a prophet) wrote Slouching Toward Gomorrah, which presaged our current state of affairs. We dodged some bullets then but didn't silence the gun. We are not now as commie as we could have been. There might still be time for a firmer hand on the helm.
This is merely an Executive Summary for some of us.
for others... the needle on a turntable that reaches a scratch in a vinyl record
"...Look at the opinion of our military amongst multi-generational serving families...."
This. Fathers, me, sons and daughter.... I cringe at the very idea that my grandsons (daughters) might continue in pursuit of ANY military service. such a sad state.
So, now what?
Tree of liberty is parched and dry?
"China is clearly not only an ideological rival, firmly committed to Marxism-Leninism and one-party rule. It’s also a technological competitor—the only one the U.S. confronts in fields such as artificial intelligence and quantum computing. It’s a military rival, with a navy that is already larger than ours and a nuclear arsenal that is catching up fast. And it’s a geopolitical rival, asserting itself not only in the Indo-Pacific but also through proxies in Eastern Europe and elsewhere."
And guess who is pumping fentanyl over our borders to kill more people "than were killed in three major wars: Vietnam, Iraq, and Afghanistan." We are at war and few have the guts to call it what it is! and We are getting our clock cleaned. They are slaughtering us and our fighting age productive age generation, and we have laid out the red carpet at the border to assist them. Because it is the same Bolsheviks in DC that are ideologically wed to the old school Bolsheviks that once peopled the Kremlin. They LOVED "Russia Russia Russia" until Russia collapsed and gave up on Communism and tried to revert to its Christian heritage. Meanwhile, "Our team on the left is now marching on the right.... " And it isn't that we COULDN'T win against Afghans any more than we COULDN'T WIN against the Viet Cong. It's that we WOULDN'T, because too many in DC make their fortunes to pay for their absurd houses in Loudoun, McLean, Clifton and Potomac from the never-ending wars. They WOULDN'T win. They refuse to. It's treasonous and disgusting beyond belief. Very few people have the guts to say that the gerontocracy that is willfully destroying our Republic needs to be making big rocks into small rocks at Gitmo and Leavenworth till they finally die, if the devil would take them.
Trump is the only one who seems to see this clearly and call out who the real enemy is, because China hasn't bought and paid for him. (P.S. do not be so sure his conflation of "Nancy and Nikki" wasn't entirely intentional. Both have profited tremendously from these never-ending wars.)
Great observations, Phib. We are the old time Soviet Union, without the cool subway though. The absolute crime of not bringing Russia into the community of nations in 1992 as a full trading partner and helping them weather the storm in becoming a market economy is to our everlasting shame. The peoples have much in common, and it could have been the economic partnership to dwarf all economic partnerships. Instead, we insisted on driving our father's Cold War Oldsmobile right into the ditch. 33 years later we pay the price for demonizing a nation that was ready to play the game more our way. We sure are stupid. Because now, we still can't see who the real enemy is. You've been ringing that bell for 2 decades and no one listened. Sad!
“Total war”. China practices it.
Good to hear from you, DB. Spot on as usual!!
She’s getting the band back together!
A wonderful band. Good times.
"The absolute crime of not bringing Russia into the community of nations in 1992 as a full trading partner and helping them weather the storm in becoming a market economy is to our everlasting shame." I used to think of that as a missed opportunity. Now I see it as some nefarious move in a big chess game.
I don't think the Clintons ever forgave the Russians for leaving them without a master, nor the "deep state" for removing a convenient adversary.
But they got the lion's share of the Haiti grift. Bet they felt compensated.
After reading this, some may require anti-depressants. However, these anti-depressants may cause further depression, suicidal thoughts, oily discharge, explosive diarrhea, nausea and vomiting. I think I’ll take my reality on the rocks and continue to remain prepared.
Deliberately nefarious.
I can usually proofread better than that. Thanks for the catch.
"P.S. do not be so sure his conflation of "Nancy and Nikki" wasn't entirely intentional."
My thought as well. Hyperbolic perhaps, but not necessarily unintentional
Putin is doing no better. He's gone back to being the Soviet Union, deep corruption and all.
It really is hard to demonize someone when they are dong the same stuff we criticized the USSR for. The truth is quite enough.
"He's gone back to being the Soviet Union, "
Nope. His ambitions are much more limited. The objective of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics was, after all, the overthrow of Capitalism and the installation of Socialism worldwide. At worst the transition of USSR to Russia is something like "two steps forward, one step backward".; it's progress if not perfection.
Exactly. This is what the "Russia Russia Russia" press doesn't understand. Without the ideological impetus to spread Communism all over the globe, Russia knows it has quite enough real estate already and doesn't need to expand anywhere except to maintain its buffer zone. WE are the ones who violated THAT agreement. Russia has an endless supply of land, natural resources and oil and minerals. The Russian objective is sustainment, not expansion.
Read what I just said to timactual.
Sorry, but Putin is taking the regime back into a Soviet Status. many of the same strictures are now in place, and Putin is headed for more. What you don't realize is that Putin is part of teh apparatus that ruled the USSR from the time of Andropov. Gorbachev and Yeltsin were allowed by that apparat as long as he was properly controlled. Yeltsin was, essentially, forced out to allow Putin to take over.
The CPSU still controls things. It never ceased to be communist. The USSR simply went underground. It is in process of coming back above ground.
But it should give pause when a county we sat back and watched slip into a state of oligarchical corruption for decades can credibly attack western leaders for being even more corrupt, satanic and evil. I call it the super yacht test. Find out who owns all those super yachts out there and research how they got their starts. NOBODY comes by those honestly. And some of the most egregious super yachts around belonged to Russians and Ukrainians. And yet here we have our very own former speaker of the House and her ilk... what is she worth? $350 million from her inside trading. I'm sure Putin knows exactly why the Mayor of Moscow's wife gave Ol' Joe Buyden $3.5 million. We have no leg to stand on to criticize anyone.
Ukrainian Oligarchs have been hit pretty hard. Almost all the super yachts held by Russia or Ukraine, were Russian.
Bezos came by his wealth from Amazon, and honestly, as did the former owner/CEO of Oracle. There are several others. If they want to waste their wealth on such things, that's their long term problem. But, you are correct about both Russian and Ukrainian oligarchs. None of them came by their wealth honestly. That includes Putin who is the Oligarch to beat all oligarchs. His wealth is estimated at$200+ billion.
Post-Soviet Russia is not the same entity as the USSR. Of course, it is a successor state, with all the pernicious legacy that entails, but it is a gross simplification to see the two states as analogous. Like us, the Russians are the product of their own history, worldview, biases (for good or ill), external factors (e.g., NATO expansion), etc. One doesn't have to "like" Putin, Russia or Russians, but if one doesn't seek to understand how they view (and react to) the rest of the world (and, in particular, what they call their "near abroad") then that person doesn't know what he/she is talking about.
Read what I said to Timactual above. The USSR simply went underground. Putin is bringing it back above ground.
Does it surprise us that the Chicoms export the precursors of Fentanyl to kill and neutralize the military age citizens of the USA?
Who we gonna draft?
In America, everything regress toward average. In Russia, everything progress toward average.
Well that kind of depends on what you define as "average" because I don't think illiteracy is a benchmark for "average."
It is not. Deficient reading comprehension, that may be average.
I would add in innumeracy as well since we seem to be on a collision course with fiscal insolvency and the electorate doesn't seem to terribly concerned.
The railing of the coastal elites in wealthy zip codes against those homeschooling is less about Evangelicals and more about controlling free thought, reading comprehension, and numeracy. Lest someone end up like John Adams writing to his wife from the Home Isles circa July 1, 1774.
https://www.masshist.org/digitaladams/archive/doc?id=L17740701ja
"I am so idle, that I have not an easy Moment, without my Pen in my Hand. My Time might have been improved to some Purpose, in mowing Grass, raking Hay, or hoeing Corn, weeding Carrotts, picking or shelling Peas. Much better should I have been employed in schooling my Children, in teaching them to write, cypher, Latin, French, English and Greek.
I sometimes think I must come to this -- to be the Foreman upon my own Farm, and the School Master to my own Children. I confess myself to be full of Fears that the Ministry and their Friends and Instruments, will prevail, and crush the Cause and Friends of Liberty. The Minds of that Party are so filled with Prejudices, against me, that they will take all Advantages, and do me all the Damage they can. These Thoughts have their Turns in my Mind, but in general my Hopes are predominant."
The revolutionary to be feared is not the rabble in the street with a glass bottle of flammables. It is the educated individual who wishes to be left alone, to head their family, and to rise in the world through their own hard work.
I recently displayed a rifle, still in my family's possession, used by my ancestor in the Regulator Rebellion and later the Revolution. And down through 10 generations we've served in the War of 1812, the Civil War, the Spanish-American War, WWI, WWII, Korea, Vietnam, and Iraq. We're of Scottish descent, always looking for a fight. But I'm relieved my son never considered service. Until a fair number of people are sent to prison, I wouldn't counsel anyone to join up.
Regulator Rebellion, huh? In the 21st century we get corrupt courts and compromised judicial bureaucrats flaunted in our faces. Your ancestors from the Carolinas would understand.
The Regulators lost the Battle of Alamance because they ran out of ammo just as they were getting the upper hand. That should be familiar as well.
Oh, and my spouse was in Afghanistan. So I guess we have all the bases covered.
The political class and dare I say half of oxygen breathing NPC Americans are not worthy of of our recommendation to serve in the current US Military. When China attacks, it will be existential. A completely different horse of a different color. I only hope our caretakers in the military that think as we do can hold on.
I only just retired 2 years ago after doing the 30-year full meal deal, but I tell all my buddies who are of similar age and situation that we need to try to stay in somewhat decent shape as we can expect to be recalled if "it" goes down in the next five years. If nothing else to at least "shine a seat with our asses" (as COL Sam Trautman would say) at the Pentagon (or whatever alternate national command center is used) so the younger folks can get to the front line fight.
I did 29. I'm sitting the next one out. I don't even feel I'm part of this country.
This seems t be a familiar theme lately. Here is an link to a discussion of Solzhenitsyn's "Letter to the Soviet Leaders" that reaches much the same conclusion about where our nation is headed: https://mail.google.com/mail/u/0/#inbox/FMfcgzQVxHjdNDLdfmhqcSQnSkkQLHpr
Quoting from the conclusion: "The optimistic case looks like the fall of the Soviet Union: an end to an unnatural external imposition and a reversion to the historic norm which for us, unlike Russia, is actually democratic. But that assumes that America remains what it once was: a high-trust commercial republic of merchants and gentleman farmers. The pessimistic case is that we now look more like the historical Russia: with an indigestible ethnic patchwork, alienated urban proletariat, and stagnant rural poverty. A people fit only for despotism."
IMHO it boils down to trust. Out here in the Fly-Over Zone we are not yet an ethnic patchwork. I am a small town councilman and at the local level I find people are willing to work together and be reasonable once you can get them away from whichever news feed/social media silo they are in and stop looking at things as a Manichean struggle. I remain an optimist.
I read the Niall Ferguson piece when it originally appeared at The Free Press and was impressed by his observations and reasoning. So happy that you decided to feature it here so that others, who might otherwise have missed it, can see it. And, I appreciate your added insight and the comments of your followers. What we're seeing now: is it more sad or is it more scary? Whatever, I hate it and pray for a shift toward sanity.
But the Optimates assure me Fergurson is wrong!
It takes an honest man to look himself in the mirror and not lie. Good post Phib.
Older Japanese are nodding their heads with Ferguson's indictment and Wicker's report. They named their malady after they initiated WWII: "Victory Disease." We have demonstrated we are not immune from this seemingly endemic disease. While I do not have a problem with Ferguson's Soviet - US comparison, I believe an apt, though ancient, comparison is equally clear: Sparta - Athens in the run up to the Peloppensian War. Graham Allison called it The Thucydides Trap, in which an up and coming power challenges a status quo power. For Thucydides, Athens was the new fellow on the block where Sparta represented the status quo. Now, we are not only Soviets, but also Spartan in our political culture (although hardly in our societal culture.) China and its Axis of Autocracy represent the new challenger. In the ancient case, Sparta eventually won, although at terrific and ultimately tragic cost;
they sold their soul to the Persians who eventually called in the debt. One wonders what path our short term future holds for us, for it is quite depressing to see our society so unfit to bear the costs of future freedom.
"One wonders what path our short term future holds for us..." I used to worry about us Norteamericanos becoming just so much fodder for some neo-Mayan heart-harvesting ritual, but no more. With the huge numbers of diverse ethnicities coming across the border unimpeded now, whose customs and practices might seem a bit off to middle America, I can visualize things far worse than having my chest cut open with an obsidian knife and my heart yanked out by some feathered nacom. I cannot take heart in any speculation about the future.
Damn. I thought Thursday was the day for truly depressing news. Well said, but I truly cringe.
Don't worry, it will be.
Uh oh....
Another great article. https://www.foreignaffairs.com/united-states/return-peace-strength-trump-obrien
From the second paragraph of the linked article.
"U.S. President George Washington understood this well. “If we desire to secure peace, one of the most powerful instruments of our rising prosperity, it must be known, that we are at all times ready for war,” he told Congress in 1793."
And yet the paragraph, from which this sentence is skimmed for the authors purpose, holds so much more meaning. https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/documents/fifth-annual-address-congress
This address is from his 5th state of the Union address, his first after being re-elected to a second term. From his opening statement, it is plain to see that he stands before them when he would rather be back at his plantation. The Sovietzation of the Republic with the lack of actual principled leadership, going hand-in-hand with yesterday's Tiberius post.
never let it be said that Phib does not exceed our expectations, no matter how bad they may be.
Oh good... I still have time to toddle over to the liquor store and purchase a fifth of Knob's Creek.
Except for the porch this is little more than a recap of the reality that we recognize. The public at large may be waking up only because the rate of change has accelerated recently.
He buried the lede on why we're the Soviets now: everyone's a potential zampolit.
It is hubris to think that any nation could defeat and hold Afghanistan.
When you're wounded and left on Afghanistan's plains,
And the women come out to cut up what remains,
Jest roll to your rifle and blow out your brains
An' go to your Gawd like a soldier.
Hubris is something this country's "elites" have in abundance.
Concur on "hold" and that should never have even been considered. "Get in, get out, quit muckin' about, yaho, yaho yaho."
One of Kipling's best short poems IMO.
Kipling had many other things to say, but he generally is ignored like everyone else that doesn't accept bad news.
Always keep the last round for yourself. IIRC, that came from the French Foreign Legion while they were still based in Sidi Belle Abbes.
Oh no worries Jonah Goldberg is going to do a podcast debate with Niall and set things straight.
Reacting to your comment about "we won the war but lost the peace." Back when the Belin wall had just fallen, my best friend was sitting with me in my study, visiting. Referring to that Berlin wall and to a president, here, who was ex-head of CIA (and all that single-string of mucus in the spittoon that is Washington D.C. that goes with such a link), my friend (three tours in nam, ex Phoenix, ex SF, ex two year Border Patrol, Dallas Police dectective, O-6 in reserves) remarked to me: "Well, we'll have to find a new threat now." Hindsight, now, realizes that we all ready had a new "driver" if not necessarily a threat, although one can argue that might be in the mix there, and that threat was Old Ironsides' proclamaition of the New World Order (explains Trump's problems)......Eisenhower's farewell POTUS warning to us to beware of the "Military-Industrial-(deleted from final speech)-Academic complex. Note: news today about a new factory down the road from me at Mesquite TX, our new Turkish-designed production line for 155mm projectiles (and other candy). Keep the money flowing in a great Mandella from us to them, back to us, but re-distributed from middle class tax payers to the upper 1% protected class here. And there. Human nature, we are wired by our creator -- our father's dick -- to be that way.
I though "congressional" was what Ike deleted?
You may be correct: I got my statement from that Fox news reader's book about Eisenhower's farewell speech: Bretbear.
"Well, we'll have to find a new threat now."
Except that many were, and are, too lazy or unimaginative to look for a new threat, so they stay with the old one; Russia. Russia is, as the saying goes, a mere shadow of its former self, and its former self was, as we learned after its breakup, was a mere shadow of its reputed strength.
And the national debt is in a positive feedback loop - money is being borrowed (or created by strokes on a keyboard) to pay interest on existing debt. That feedback loop eventually gets to the point where we end up like Tanzania - but at some point before that, the interest on our national debt will be the only thing paid for by sharply increased taxes - and we will suffer the fate of the previous Soviet Union, where the central government falls, and states secede, slowly and then en masse, in order to protect their own citizens from a fraudulent, corrupt, and rapacious central government.
As for "China is clearly not only an ideological rival, firmly committed to Marxism-Leninism and one-party rule. It’s also a technological competitor—the only one the U.S. confronts in fields such as artificial intelligence and quantum computing", by having 250,000 Chinese "students" over here in the fields you mention, they steal what we produce. Very few of them (in my experience as a post-doctoral fellow doing neural nets research back in the 1990s) have the intelligence and freedom to create on their own, by virtue of living in a society where free thought and creativity are dangerous. The US - and the West - freely give the Chinese the technological rope which they intend to use to hang us, paraphrasing V I Lenin...
WE trained their nuke engineers as well. They couldn't build a natural circ reactor until their people graduated here and went home to build weapons.