BACK AND TO THE LEFT. BACK AND TO THE LEFT: Biden delays release of JFK assassination records, blaming COVID-19 pandemic.
Archive for 2021
October 24, 2021
ROGER KIMBALL: The Farce of American Despotism.
Marx famously adapted Hegel’s observations about history repeating itself, noting Hegel forgot to add that it does so first as tragedy, then as farce. That is the mode of American despotism at the moment. The Soviets had the gulag, we have “cancel culture” in our universities and a brittle obsession with race and weirdo sexuality everywhere. Are we supposed to be proud or alarmed that Rachel Levine, (né Richard) is the first “transgender” Assistant Secretary of Health and four-star admiral? Tocqueville saw the essentials of our peculiar servitude in his brilliant analysis of “democratic despotism.” Naturally, though, he missed some of the more farcical aspects for who, in 1830, could have predicted “International Pronouns Day” or phenomena like Rachel Levine?
Montesquieu put his finger on our situation when, in Considerations of the Causes of the Greatness of the Romans and Their Decline, he noted that “in a free state in which sovereignty has just been usurped, whatever can establish the unlimited authority of one man is called good order, and whatever can maintain the honest liberty of the subjects is called commotion, dissension, or bad government.” Montesquieu was talking about the moment when the Roman republic gave way to the autocracy of Augustus. Mutatis mutandis, what he says applies equally to our situation in which sovereignty has been usurped and concentrated in the hand of a tiny oligarchy that mouths clichés about “our democracy” the better to subvert it.
America’s Newspaper of Record explains what happened early in Ron Klain’s Biden’s administration: Oh No! Someone Replaced Joe Biden’s Copy Of The Constitution With A Copy Of 1984.
(The Babylon Bee’s headline will be very confusing to those who work at the Atlantic, where 1984 is viewed as a how-to guide for efficient government.)
STILL POPULAR: The Dying Citizen: How Progressive Elites, Tribalism, and Globalization Are Destroying the Idea of America. #CommssionEarned
JACK DUNPHY: Progressive Overlords Relish the Opportunity to Purge First Responders Who Refuse to Bow the Knee.
In the Covid pandemic, our progressive overlords have found their crisis that will allow them to cast off significant numbers of these conservative and nettlesome first responders, those who, for various reasons, decline to be vaccinated against the virus. In Chicago, for example, Mayor Lori Lightfoot, as feckless a person as ever bore the title, is threatening to terminate any police officer or firefighter who doesn’t roll up his sleeve for the jab, and several members of both departments have already been put on “no-pay” status for their failure to submit. Police officers and firefighters in Los Angeles, whose mayor is surpassed in incompetence only by Lightfoot, are facing a similar threat, though their deadline has been extended to December.
In the state of Washington, some first responders have already been shown the door for refusing the vaccine, with one now-former state trooper expressing his opinion of Governor Jay Inslee in his final radio broadcast. Robert LaMay, a 22-year veteran of the Washington State Patrol, filmed himself as he signed off on his last shift. “I wish I could say more,” he said over the radio, “but this is it, so state 10-34, this is the last time you’ll hear me in a state patrol car. And Jay Inslee can kiss my a–.”
Sad to say, but surely Governor Inslee is happy to see him go. Better to have a smaller force, he would argue, composed of reliable sycophants than one laced with insurrectionists so obstreperous as to imagine they should decide what medicines they should take. And in Chicago and Los Angeles, it seems the mayors would sooner accept the bloodshed that would surely follow the decimation of their police and fire departments than the continued employment of people who refuse to be brought to heel.
There is hope for Chicago policemen who want to keep working, however: No vaccine, no problem: Indiana recruits Chicago cops upset by COVID mandates.
REALLY BOLD SOCIETAL CHANGE WOULD INVOLVE ABOLISHING THE IVY LEAGUE TO PROMOTE EQUALITY: Harvard panelists want ‘bold societal change’ which includes ‘equality of outcomes.’ Also, participation in Harvard panels should be determined by lottery.
WELL, NOBODY’S TEACHING THEM JUDGMENT OR PROPORTION: UConn student bias complaints show students will report just about anything.
WELL, HE WOULD KNOW: Palantir’s Peter Thiel thinks people should be concerned about surveillance AI.
DR. FAUCI MORPHED INTO MICHAEL VICK SO SLOWLY, I HARDLY EVEN NOTICED: Bipartisan legislators demand answers from Fauci on ‘cruel’ puppy experiments.
America’s Newspaper of Record predicts Fauci’s likely response: Fauci Says Attacking Puppy Torture Is An Attack On Science.
TWO AOCs IN ONE! AOC condemns Dem leaders for ignoring ‘very real’ threat of fascism.
To be fair, she has a lot of experience in this department:
● AOC rocks Black Panthers shirt, touts group’s free food program.
● AOC chief of staff criticized for wearing shirt touting Nazi collaborator:
VIRGINIA CLOWN SHOW UPDATE: Insane Summer 2019 Response From Terry McAuliffe on Ralph Northam Blackface Scandal Resurfaces.
Maximum. Cringe. I am not exaggerating in the slightest. Watch:
Here's the video of Terry McAuliffe defending and downplaying Ralph Northam's Blackface/KKK photo in 2020. #VAgov pic.twitter.com/yMq7es96F8
— Team Youngkin – Spirit of Virginia (@TeamYoungkin) October 22, 2021
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I wrote yesterday about how even if Terry McAuliffe bought a new cringe-meter to replace the one that already exploded, the new one likely would have exploded by now, too. Well, I think it’s safe to say that it has indeed exploded.
I don’t know who dug up this video (likely Youngkin’s campaign) but in my opinion, the release of it was brilliant and perfectly timed. This potentially could be the next pivotal point in this race and further turn the tide against McAuliffe.Though black voters in the state, for the most part, appear to have forgiven Northam and have moved on, seeing McAuliffe so casually dismissive of Northam’s most shameful moment as his state’s CEO and then proclaim that there were no racism issues in Syracuse when he was growing up when we know that’s not true could have the effect of rubbing just enough black voters the wrong way. This could prove catastrophic for McAuliffe considering this race is coming down to the wire.
Will McAuliffe be asked about his comments by local reporters? If so, will he stomp off in a huff as he did earlier this week when he cut an interview short because he thought the reporter “should have asked better questions”?
While McAuliffe is defending governors who dress in blackface and say that parents have no role in their kids’ education, Barack Obama, campaigning for him, is his usual tone-deaf self: Obama tells Virginians we don’t have time for ‘trumped up culture wars’ and ‘fake outrage.’
THIS IS ALWAYS GOOD ADVICE, OF COURSE:
THE WOKE STASI: A Worrisome Peek Inside Yale Law’s Diversity Bureaucracy. “Have you ever wondered what deans of diversity do behind closed doors? Until last week, the public had little visibility into their methods. Then covertly recorded audio emerged of Yaseen Eldik, Yale Law School’s director of diversity, equity, and inclusion, and Ellen Cosgrove, an associate dean, pressuring a student to issue a written apology for emailing out a party invitation that offended some of his classmates. . . . Irrespective of whether the invitation was racially offensive, the behavior of Yale Law’s diversity bureaucrats was unethical, discreditable, and clearly incompatible with key values that the elite law school purports to uphold.”
Plus: “Failing to adequately protect free speech was just the beginning of what Yale Law’s diversity administrators got wrong in Colbert’s case. Never mind the office’s question-begging name. Withholding important context from the community, exploiting asymmetries of information to pressure a student, pretending to be acting on his behalf, obscuring clear conflicts of interest, and ghostwriting apologies in an academic setting are all ethical failures that—contrary to Gerken’s wishes for her institution—cultivate neither respect nor inclusion.”
This is from The Atlantic.
GREAT MOMENTS IN DISPASSIONATE OBJECTIVITY: Fox News’ Chris Wallace: Jen Psaki is ‘One of the Best Press Secretaries Ever.’
ANALYSIS: TRUE. Joe Biden’s Taiwan Policy Is Now A Total Disaster.
THE NEW SPACE RACE: TRUMP’S SPACE FORCE NOT SO SILLY AFTER CHICOM HYPERSONIC MISSILE TEST.
By one peer-reviewed estimate, just one section of the seabed — stretching from Hawaii to Mexico — contains more manganese, cobalt and nickel than all known terrestrial sources, as well as huge amounts of copper. The problem is that it’s challenging and expensive to retrieve metals embedded in rocks in environmentally sensitive areas, sometimes miles below the surface (which is why no one has yet done it on a commercial basis).
But the difficulty of the challenge has only seemed to increase China’s determination. In the 1980s, it began working on exploration contracts for deep-sea mining. In 1990, it established a research institute to work on the needed technology. Over the next three decades, the government’s ardor for deep-sea resources didn’t abate. “The deep sea is filled with treasures that aren’t even close to being understood or developed,” said President Xi Jinping in 2016. “If we want these treasures, then we must master key technologies for exploring the deep sea, surveying the deep sea and developing the deep sea.”
For Xi, the goal isn’t just the exploitation of resources. Over the decades, China has developed a roadmap for fulfilling complex technical ambitions that also have political objectives. Often, the first step is creating an entity to connect tech companies with state research institutes. As one recent example, the National Deep Sea Center in Qingdao has helped develop Haidou 1 and other AUVs, while also researching mining submersibles.
In parallel, China has long pursued benign-looking research projects that can have multiple uses, including military ones. Since the late 1970s, it has undertaken an ambitious effort to map the seabed. These surveys are often conducted by oceanographers with purely scientific goals. But their intentions might not always match those of their employers. In 2017, researchers on the country’s most advanced survey ship conceded that they share their findings with the military and other government departments. Tom Shugart, an expert in submarine warfare at the Center for a New American Security, told me that “having a really good detailed map of the sea bottom, especially in areas you think are areas for future war fighting, is very useful militarily.”
Do tell.
October 23, 2021
CORTEZ AND THE LIBERATION OF MEXICO FROM AZTEC IMPERIALISM.
Many historians argue that without the participation of the Tlaxcalans and other indigenous soldiers, Tenochtitlán might never have fallen to the Spanish.
They are also revising the accusation of treachery, arguing that Tlaxcalans and other city states were in fact fighting a war of liberation against the oppressive Mexica (as the Aztecs were known).
“It wasn’t 600 to 800 Spaniards who conquered [Tenochtitlán]. It was thousands and thousands of Tlaxcalans, Huejotzingas or other peoples, who were under the Mexica yoke and wanted to liberate themselves,” archaeologist Eduardo Matos Moctezuma told Radio Formula.
“Cortés had 30,000 to 40,000 Mesoamericans fighting with him,” said Aurelio López Corral, an archaeologist in Tlaxcala. “He couldn’t have done it on his own.”
The conquest is a singular event in Mexican history, seen both as a moment of national trauma and the founding act of the nation – and it remains deeply controversial.
Events to mark the anniversary have been met with tepid enthusiasm, as Mexico struggles with the coronavirus pandemic. A towering replica of the Templo Mayor – the Aztec civilization’s most sacred site – is being erected in Mexico City’s central Zócalo plaza.
President Andrés Manuel López Obrador has called on the Spanish Crown and the Vatican to apologize for their roles in the “so-called conquest”. Spain declined; Pope Francis apologized while visiting Bolivia in 2015.
Spain was right to decline. Francis is, well, Francis.
Jim Bennett emails: “The entry of allied Tlaxcalan and Spanish forces into Mexico CIty should be viewed in the same manner as the entry into Berlin of allied troops in 1945. A bloody death cult that had subjugated its neighbors and rounded up mass civilian prisoners for execution and ghastly butchery was overthrown by its victims with the help of technologically advanced allies from overseas. Its ideology that justified these grotesque deeds was banned and its propaganda destroyed. Sure Cortez had his rough edges, but so did Stalin.”
To be honest, I think comparing Cortez to Stalin is unfair — to Cortez. But I take the point.
BEST TO BE PREPARED: Jackery Portable Power Station Explorer 500, 518Wh Outdoor Solar Generator. #CommissionEarned (Bumped)
OPEN THREAD: They’re runnin’ with the dogs, afraid to die.