An intelligent article apart from the following stupid statement:
"Meanwhile, battle-scarred Donald Trump is a heavy favorite to become the Republican presidential candidate: this would pit a septuagenarian against an octogenarian in the 2024 contest, each of whom can be expected, if he wins, to try to put the other in jail. It’s enough to make one wonder whether the Zoomers have a point."
If you want to encourage nihilism, then, conflating the persecution of Trump on blatantly contrived charges with the failure to prosecute Biden and Co despite overwhelming evidence, is a good way to continue the downhill slide. This is morally on a par with saying that both Hamas and the Israelis have killed people and both should stop.
Because most fair minded people know that the so called evidence used against him is contrived by a “deep state” of dirty power hungry players willing to compromise the American justice system in order to bar anyone they deem unfit for the Oval Office. If it weren’t Trump it would be any free citizen who dared aspire to lead the country.
People who believe in Justice, await for evidence obtained legally and presented in an unbiased forum so hey can make one’s own rational conclusions. Thank God for fair minded citizens who know that the American media serves as a propagandist arm of our “unjust” DOJ leaders. They know that the corrupt media have succeeded in convincing the public (you included) that Trump is “guilty as hell.” Your comment is a prime example of such broken institutions.
Most fair minded people wouldn’t touch Donald Trump with a 10 foot pole. They are sick of Biden and Trump and would love nothing more than to see a new name on the ballot.
You aren't fair minded, mate. You are delusional. Donald Trump actually executed or tried to execute the ticket he was elected on. He was far more successful, and far more in tune with America than, I would argue, even Ronald Reagan.
I agree with you about execution of policy. I just also agree with about 90% of the people who USED to work with him who are now “losers” like Rex Tillerson, John Kelly and Nikki Haley.
Unfortunately, Trump doesn’t seem to be able to handle having two functioning brains in the same room. When someone disagrees with him, he throws a tantrum, calls them a bunch of names, and acts like a jerk until he gets his way.
Also:
“The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research, found that 53% of Americans say they would definitely not support Trump if he is the Republican nominee next year”
In addition, only 37% of Republicans thought Trump has done the best job as president over the last 40 years. (More thought Reagan was better, so your views are the minority of a minority)
In about a year, we will know who is delusional, but I don’t think it’s me. If you’re wrong, I guess you can go storm the Capitol again.
Simply referring to "storm the Capitol" shows who is delusional. The endless hours of video, previously concealed by Pelosi but just released, prove beyond any possible doubt that the few violent clashes on Jan 6 were the tiny exception, and that the overwhelming majority of Jan 6 demonstrators were orderly, peaceful, interacting politely with Capitol police, and far less of a threat than any of the Democrats' pet "peaceful protesters" over the past four years, from BLM and Antifa to today's ignorant and demented pro-Hamas, anti-Semitic mobs.
Good points, Chuck: and let us all now wait for the actual criminal trials, each one of them, where the evidence will be presented calmly in the room, and the juries will decide. If the Trumpistas STILL say he’s being persecuted if any (or all) of the juries vote to convict, then there is nothing more to be said. They would be beyond reason, and Trump is a cult.
I'm an interested as an in "Washington sneezes; we get Kung Flu nonsense" furriner, here with my feet up and a big tub of popcorn enjoying the schadenfreude and laughing hysterically as you loons confirm all my prejudices.
Much as I'd have enjoyed the guided tour the Capitol Police gave on 1/6 '21, with so much paint to watch dry I've no incentive to look in on your benighted country in person. That's your pickle to sort out; I'll just kibbitz from the bleachers, tah. ;-)
At least you would know who’s making decisions! Between Biden’s speech writing committee and Trump’s inner 3 year old, we have no idea what’s going to be said in the next 5 minutes.
This is too important an election to consider voting for a third party. I would bet my bottom dollar that these third partiers are being backed by deep pocketed Republicans who have no qualm about destroying our Republic. Probably the best kept secret since who assassinated Kennedy. A vote for a third party candidate is a vote for fascism.
I totally disagree. The self-serving political duopoly must be humbled at the ballot box. Independents are by far the largest “party” already. We have to stop falling for this narrative that the other party is evil.
I would argue that there are not actually many fascists in America. Classical fascism would be right wing socialist, and we don’t have any main stream parties like that. Hitler and Mussolini were all about government control, which Republicans are not. Democrats are more in favor of government control, but obviously not having the extreme right wing views.
Aside from Antifa’s paranoid view, there just doesn’t seem to be anyone in the US who fits the mold.
I think many pro Trump people are really anti Deep State more than anything. JFK’s decision to allow Federal workers to unionize (FDR was strongly opposed to this for self-evident reasons) has proven to be calamitous to good governance in D.C.
Maybe it is a fight fire with fire scenario then. I think the unelected, unaccountable career bureaucrats in the executive branch are the true threat to the Republic. And they are not loyal to ANY duly elected President. As evidenced in spades this week with all the letters condemning the very malleable one they ordained. I do not see any one other than Trump with the will to bring them to heel.
This is where we disagree. I don't think Trump produced the climate. I think the career bureaucrats in the executive branch produced it. I think at this point Trump has more awareness of that than most anybody in the country and knowledge is power. Think about it - the suppression of the Hunter Biden laptop story (coupled, maybe, the covid misinformation ) by those bureaucrats means that they hand-picked their boss, President Joe Biden. Not that they believed in him, they just knew he would be easy to manipulate. Now they are turning on him as evidenced by those letters critiquing his position on Israel. Constitutionally speaking, executive branch employees serve the executive - the President. And far, far too many of them are no longer loyal thereto. Congress is AWOL and has been for decades. That means this country is being ruled - ruled, not governrd - by executive mandates drawn up by people not accountable to the President, much less you or me. I say give Trump his shot at them. They are a true threat to the Republic. He can only do one term anyway. Then we can move forward.
Absolutely. But my experience of the other side is a complete hypocrisy and unwillingness to judge “their” guy objectively. Those willing to judge Trump from the right side look for a corresponding willingness on the other side to judge Biden.
You people just can’t accept that democrats are liars and evil because you voted that way so long. This article should show you why. But you are too brainwashed.
I know!! The poor man!! All those top-secret classified documents Trump moved to Mar-a-Lago and defended as "mine and mine alone?" It's a contrivance of the "deep state" that employs jackbooted thugs with black helicopters to whisk Trump to a FEMA re-education camp to silence him! He didn't take any classified docs, those videos and photographs and voice recordings are Deep Fakes by Big Tech on the Payroll of Demoncrats!
But puzzle me this: if the Justice Department was silencing him, why won't he shut up?
Wow, you really make my point. This isn’t about Trump at all. You can hate him if you want. I understand the visceral reaction; we are all human. I have the same feeling every time I hear Hillary Clinton comment on anything. My comment was about blind justice. Because the media feeds the public a soundbite without context, or staged photos of supposed evidence, the public has already convicted the accused. True justice for any accused citizen (including a former President) should always be applied fairly.
Justice isn't blind. It can only be fair, because jurors live in the real world, absorb tons of media, and in the trial of a President, can't enter a courtroom "blind." Unless they've been living on remote islands with no media, they will have a personal opinion on the matter. Their job is to suppress that and look only at the evidence presented in court. I have the luxury of knowing evidence that might or might not be admitted. Which is why I can confidently predict convictions--I've seen enough facts to know it's going to happen, and unless a judge suppresses the admission of those facts, Trump will be found guilty.
I'm not rendering a legal verdict here on The FP. I'm proffering my opinion on whether he will be convicted. I have as much right to do that as Trumpers have to insist the opposite is true, that he will be exonerated. If you didn't object to the latter, you cannot object to the former.
To the rest of what you say here, I mostly agree:
"True justice for any accused citizen (including a former President) should always be applied fairly."
One hundred percent this. Trump is entitled to his day(s) in court on the legal presumption of innocence, and jurors need to abide by that in order to avoid a kangaroo court. And, they will. Jurors will convict or exonerate Trump based on the evidence, not personal love or hatred. Some juries get verdicts wrong in hindsight, but most get it right, in my opinion.
If the jury declares him not guilty, I'll accept that as his legal exoneration, free to run for office and all that.
But my personal opinion remains that he will be found guilty of most of those charges, Elizabeth. I base that on having read all the indictments and verdicts of cases in which I choose to comment--ALL of the Trump indictments; Kyle Rittenhouse in Kenosha; several shootings of black Americans by police--and comparing it to the evidence and legal arguments (and videos) available online.
They convince me that Trump will be convicted on most--but not all--counts in all the indictments. Since I am not a juror, I have every right to say that publicly, and will. Those who think he's not guilty of anything but "mean Tweets" have spent years saying the opposite with nobody questioning their right to say so.
I hesitated to respond to you, but thought better. I agree that anyone on this thread is entitled to his/her opinion and welcome the free exchange by all. My original comment was a response to a poster who claimed that Trump was “guilty as hell” and was questioning why everyone else hadn’t shared his conclusion. I offered that most people are “fair minded” and will wait for a fair legal process to conclude before agreeing with him. Those people know that rumor, propaganda and baseless accusations are being leaked by corrupt government institutions to an equally willing media who are giddy to present them to the public and destroy the fair defense of an accused defendant.
You claim, in your sarcastic response that you have special access to so called facts that if are revealed in a courtroom will convict Trump. If that is the case then you make my point about corruption. No one outside of those entrusted with confidential reports containing so called evidentiary facts should be sharing them with you. Unless, of course, you are working on the legal case. If you are, you certainly should not be personally commenting on a public forum claiming you know a defendant is guilty.
I don’t know what your credentials are to make these claims, but seems a bit foolhardy to risk your reputation this way. The only other thing I will say, is you have no idea who is reading your comments. Many of the commentators on Substack are educated professionals with inside experience or knowledge of privileged information. They tend to be able to make their points with way more discretion than you do.
I don't think I can recall a single high-profile police killing that didn't turn out to be justified on account of the corpse actually being a bang-to-rights criminal or bollocks when I reviewd the video evidence. I followed the Kenosha goings-on practically in real-time courtesy of the NYT Visual Investigations team, which blew their lords' and masters' narrative out of the water practically as it saw print. But you keep chugging the Kool-Aid, mate; we'll just continue laughing and pointing at you.
Exactly the point. Free and fair elections,freedom of speech and equal treatment under the law. People better see leftists gave no intention of Amy if the above.
Would Leftists like to change some our freedoms? Of course. So would Rightists. It doesn't mean they can. Our freedom of speech remains robust. Elections are free and fair. Equal treatment under the law? Not so much, since the law treats the rich far better than the poor.
Oh please. You please. Are you people totally without reasoning power? A free society has free e press ion, free and fair elections and wait for it equal treatment under the law. Thanks to leftists we have none of that. Get real.
I'm sorry, but this ongoing concept that "Trump is guilty" is confusing. Guilty of what? He is persecuted relentlessly and has been for the past 8 years, since he announced his run in 2015. Of the 91 charges against him, and 4 + indictments and other multiple charges, there is no sane person that should feel Trump is guilty, of any CRIME. He is in some folks minds, guilty of being brash, saying some mean things, and certainly being Pro-America. I am Pro-America too, and I am proud of that. I stand for our national anthem, and say the pledge of allegiance. I raised our kids with strong moral values and honesty, (I hope those stick), and I fly our American flag on our house every day.
Are we perfect in all ways in America, certainly not, if hind-sight is the measure of perfection. I prefer to acknowledge that we have erred in some ways during the past 250 years of our existence. I compare what we do and have done, to what other countries "do and have done" and we should continue to learn from our mistakes.
I see the broad success we have enjoyed as a country, as well as the hurt we have caused to some of our population. Today it is popular to "swing the pendulum" back the other way, and try to placate all the victims who have been or perceive they were wronged. I say, "man up", "show some sack" , "pull your head out of your ass" and get to work.
If you break a law, you should be punished for that. If you don't like a law, use our process to get it changed, not just evaded or ignored.
Latest news is the rash of personal bankruptcy filings by supposed "adults" to avoid paying off their student loans. Happening why? because our current admin could not shove a mass loan waiver thru, so now student loans can be grounds for filing bankruptcy, when student loans were previously exempt from this option. It is another way to placate supposed victims, despite their own ignorance of business and "how it works" and has worked for many years. The real issue is with colleges and their cost structure.
The Israeli - Hamas war is another example, in my mind of trying to placate Gaza "victims". Jews have been trashed and spit upon for hundreds of years. The Jewish nation were given, fought wars and won those wars, to keep their country/state of Israel. Now the Palestinians cry victim, even as they gave control of their lives over to Hamas. Gazans, if they really don't like Hamas, should be helping the IDF root out and finish Hamas as a leadership. Hamas only knows violence, and it shows. Yet many young Americans support Hamas, which is confounding to me. History is there, read it (before wikipedia gets their keyboard on it) and understand history, and perhaps folks will have a change of view in many areas of our world.
"Of the 91 charges against him, and 4 + indictments and other multiple charges, there is no sane person that should feel Trump is guilty, of any CRIME."
I'm quite sane, and believe Trump is guilty not of just some of these charges, but almost all of them.
Since neither you nor I are his judge and jury, however, I am willing to wait for both to pronounce his guilt or lack thereof. Why aren't you?
I appreciate your question Shane. You seem to be a very thoughtful participant in these exchanges on TFP. Your beliefs are yours, and you are entitled to them.
I will not debate if your "sanity" is in play here. This figure of speech I used ("no sane person") has been around for ages, and I can use it as I see fit, and today I believe it fits quite well in the many cases re Trump.
You also state your opinion re Trump's guilt of the charges, and it seems you, as with me, are NOT waiting for the pronouncements.
As you ask me, why are you not waiting for all these accusations to play out? In the meantime, my comment stands.
My biggest issue is the double standards we are seeing in all of these charges being tossed at Trump. ie Civil suit in NYC, "documents case", questioning voting processes in GA, inciting Jan 6 protests/riot etc.
For example, The first case in NYC, a civil lawsuit, is a sham to me. There had not been one witness called, no complainants came forward crying "foul" , nor any other evidence presented to the public, before Engoron "ruled" that the Trump Corp/Family had committed fraud. The judge alone determined there was fraud. Legal scholars have all said, "there has to be a victim of fraud, for fraud to occur". Now we are in the penalty phase of the case, and the judge is considering how much $ the State of NY will get from Trump Corp. I will say again, would any sane person think this is legitimate? I sure don't, as well as with the other cases coming our way.
Thanks for this, Rich, I appreciate your graciousness and the compliment, and hope to return both here.
You make a good and fair point--since we are both stating personal opinions about Trump's guilt or lack thereof, I cannot claim I'm "waiting for the court to decide." My bad, you're right. And stating such is appropriate. As I told Elizabeth elsewhere, we are neither the judge nor jurors, so we can issue personal opinions as we deem appropriate.
On the tax fraud case:
"Legal scholars have all said, "there has to be a victim of fraud, for fraud to occur.'" Yes, and there was a victim: the State of New York. It lost millions of property tax revenue when the Trump Organization's misstated the value of its properties in New York, and it sued to get the money it was owed.
The evidence was in the documents provided by the Trump Organization, so there's no question of authenticity: T.O. provided an inflated set of assessments to the banks in order to secure loans, while giving county tax assessors in New York deflated assessments in order to reduce T.O.'s tax bill.
The state argued that action was tax fraud and filed suit. The judge issued summary judgment based on those numbers--the legal equivalent of "you can't have it both ways"--which he has the absolute power to do.
So I stand behind my judgement that sane people can and do believe this court action is legitimate, that T.O. was fairly convicted of tax fraud (civil court, not criminal), and that T.O. should be required to pay its back taxes with penalties, as anyone else convicted of tax fraud is required.
As for the criminal cases, I find nothing illegitimate. Trump may or may not be convicted on any charge; nobody knows what the juries will do. But the state fairly indicted him and scheduled him for trial.
I said "fairly" because I read the indictments and charging documents when they were issued. I find them very detailed and legally sound. Both state and federal prosecutors used grand juries instead of direct charges, further protection for defendant Trump against prosecutorial misconduct. The feds and Georgia made strong enough cases for me to conclude Trump will be found guilty of most of the charges in all three cases.
My conclusion that Trump is guilty does not stem from my personal dislike of him. I didn't personally like Kyle Rittenhouse, either, but I posted my opinion before his trial that the man was NOT guilty of homicide in Kenosha, because the evidence and videos overwhelming indicated his shootings were self-defense, not crimes.
So yes, you are free to say Trump is not guilty of anything, I am free to say he is, and I was too inartful in challenging the "sane" comment. Again, thanks for your graciousness and compliment, I appreciate both. Happy Thanksgiving.
re the NYC tax case. i did not see the judges rulings specifically, What is off to me is this, the state I live in has a tax assessors office, as does every state and city in the US, I believe. The typical tax assessor does not leave it up to the tax paying entity (TO) to declare the value of its assets, and pay the tax on those stated values. My tax office sends out annual tax bills, based on the values they come up with. I pay as noted, or I am able to contest. I dont think NYC is any different.
RE the other side of the coin, inflating values to "get better loan rates or lower insurance etc", to me, is absurd. Same thing applies to me as to the TO. I apply for a loan or insurance etc, and the lender is not obligated or compelled to accept my valuation and base my interest rate or collateral on my figures. They do their own assessment of their valuation, I negotiate, agree or contest and see what happens. example from this NYC case which the judge/Engoron is using to leverage his ruling: Mar a Lago was valued at $18mil by the judge/court in NYC. I don't live in west palm, and "I'm not a smart man", but that valuation is BS to any sane person.
Re timing of these tax issues, I believe they are also outside of the statute of limitations for federal tax penalties, not sure to be honest. Consider what the IRS and the "special prosecutor" Weiss is trying to do for Hunter Biden and his tax issues, drag the case on long enough for the statute to run out. Without the two IRS agents coming forward, this issue would have gone into the ether.
Richard, by your comments you seem to be a considered, reasonable man, so I’m puzzled how you can possibly say Trump has committed no crimes. He took Top Secret documents (including war plans on how to deal with Iran), lied about what he’d taken, refused to return them when asked and then showed them around at his NJ country club to other members. Even his arch lackey Bill Barr has said he is cooked on this charge. Then in Georgia, “find me 11,000 votes”. On tape. If you think that is not interference with an election, please tell me what it takes to ever do so. And I’ll not even start on January 6, 2021. Or do you think that what he did was NOT incitement?
you as are others, are entitled to your opinions, re Trump and anything else.
Re the Docs case, as I understand it, A sitting President alone, can decide what is classified or NOT. Trump said he declassified the docs he possessed. NARA wanted them back. There is no accurate way to account for what or when a doc is declassified apparently. So it is a he said-she said issue. What is clear re classified docs; Biden, Pence, Clinton were all unable to declassify the docs they possesed, as they did not hold the office of President. WHY is there no prosecution of these folks/situations? Re war plans on "How to deal with Iran", maybe Biden and Obama should read those and learn from their ongoing mistakes. Seems like Trump dealt with Iran quite effectively vs our current state...
Georgia, listen to the entire recording and not just "find me 11,000 votes", there is much more context and multiple people on the line who were involved. To indict 18 people or RICO charges is insane, and is being used to get one or more to flip on Trump. I find it highly unlikely there will come anything from Ellis or the others.
Yes, don't get me started on Jan 6. The rally was planned by a support group for Trump, and he was one of several speakers that day. Trump offered Natl Guard and addl security to Pelosi and Mayor Bow-wow-ser, who refused to accept the support. Even the Cap Police chief confirmed this offer of addl security. Listen to the entire speech and it is clear (to me and most logical listeners) that Trump advised marchers to go "Peacefully and Patriotically" and let your voices be heard. He is not the reason folks became violent and skirmishes broke out that day. He perhaps could have stepped in earlier to calm things, but he did not. Does not make him guilty of anything. What should piss folks off, are the 500+ riots during 2020 re Floyd and the fallout from that. $1.5 billion in damages alone, vs $1.5 mil in est damages to the capitol,,, wow. 22 people and police killed in the 2020 riots. One person, Ashley Babbit murdered by a DC policeman Byrd,( with no open investigation of his actions) , with no other deaths or significant injuries on Jan 6. The livelihoods and families ruined by the 2020 riots is the real crime, and virtually no one held accountable for any of that. The 1000+ people investigated after Jan 6, is the other crime here. Some still in jail and have not had a trial.
And yes, I feel the capitol was full of antifa and other instigators trying to make the day turn out worse than it did.
I was listening as he spoke, specifically telling his supporters not to play into the hands of his enemies; behave themselves; protest peaceably; and then go home. That those that swarmed the barriers; got themselves a guided tour courtesy of the Capitol Police; and indulged in some mild, and tbh silly, political theatre either weren't listening, or not tuned in to what he was saying in the first place, is hardly the President's fault. I heard no "incitement" whatsoever.
re the bankrupcy(cies). the law is or was in place to allow that. If the law was bad, or is bad, lobby to change it. Simply having the Biden admin waive the law, is not the way things are done. This latest effort to wipe away student debt, taken on knowingly, will be struck down in my opinion. thanks rich
Trump c;laimed he was, among a myriad of other things, going to "drain the swamp." The swamp still stinks and needs draining, and it's never going to happen.
Because the swamp fought back. From.day 1. I am certain that is why his second term had to be derailed at all costs. At least we can put names and faces to the swamp creatures now. People think Trump is some sort of tyrant, but consider if you will swamp creature Comey slithering in to the oval and after a meeting saying "A word in private Mr. President". Then telling him about the Steel dossier including pee tape story S if it were genuine. When swamp creature Comey knew that it was paid for by Hilary Clinton. It was a Machiavelian tactic to divert Trump from.the real wrongs being done. This followed by four years of the Russia collusion myth. If you do not understand that the executive branch career bureaucrats are rotten and need to go, I can't help you. Trump is the only one who can drain it. Haley and Christie are swamp creature wannabees. DeSantis is too nice. Ditto Ramaswamy, plus wholly inexperienced.
"Trump is also guilty as hell, on many charges. Why is that not obvious to everyone, at this point?"
Well, let me count the ways. The massive investigation of his "Russia Collusion" came up empty-handed after two years and a zillion dollars wasted. And the source of the funds for producing the phony Steele Dossier was eventually traced to the DNC. And the FISA warrant that was obtained to spy on Trump—both before and after he was already in office—was obtained fraudulently. These are facts, not opinions. So, there is ample evidence that Trump's political enemies have not hesitated to use every dirty trick in the book to undermine him and falsely accuse him.
That's why I'm a bit suspicious when I see him indicted by left-wing activist prosecutors and judges who could have brought up these charges against him two or three years ago—but instead chose to wait until election season to force him to waste his time and effort defending himself instead of campaigning for the Presidency.
Why is that not obvious to everyone, at this point?
Being 'obvious' is not how our law system works. But if it IS obvious, it should be super easy to show things like evidence and then convict. that fact that the trials don't seem to be doing this might indicate that while it may SEEM obvious, there may not be much to actually PROOVE that it is obvious....which is what is needed to convict someone.
Trump is "guilty as hell" of what exactly? We're all aware of the flimsy accusations by his enemies, so go ahead and tell us what, exactly, his incontrovertible crimes are.
He's guilty of crimes of law and "crimes" against the republic. The latter don't matter in court, but they are of far greater consequence: He lost, but wouldn't concede that he lost even when it was "incontrovertible" to everyone including himself.
Of the 90+ charges against him (since the last election; I'm not counting his innumerable run-in's with the law as a private citizen nor before the 2020 election), two stand out to me.
First, he defied a federal subpoena to submit secret documents, then tried to hide them. That's criminal, and arguments about that he SHOULD have been able to keep them are irrelevant. He defied the law.
Second, he used extra-legal means to try to change the results of the election. Bullshit judicial lawsuits? Fine. He tried, he lost, whatever. Twisting arms of executive branch people like the GA guv? Nope.
I thought it was insulting tripe. The media leap. The Republican Party is a label.masquerading as an organization. Mike Johnson is a "generic" name is a pretty telling statement. As is previously only famous to his family. Tripe. Tripe. And more tripe.
I agree. Not sure why the author decided to attach Mike Johnson for not being famous. Why would any party want to select a speaker on how famous they are?
Sam, if you back and watch an address by Eisenhower or watch a debate between Reagan and Bush, Sr., it's painfully obvious how inept and inarticulate our leaders are today.
Many people despise Trump because he is not articulate, and they would prefer to have someone well-spoken with refined manners representing them on the international stage. Nevertheless, while Trump may be inarticulate, he can hardly be accused of being inept. Consider a few details: Trump facilitated peace agreements between Israel and four neighboring Arab countries—the first and only President to achieve that in the past 75 years. He cut off funding to Iran and had them on the ropes, whereas Biden just sent them $8,000,000,000 with more on the way. No new foreign wars started on his watch. Hamas knew better than to invade Israel while he was in office. Gas prices were way lower, and inflation was not an issue. I could go on, but the point is this: There is a huge difference between being inarticulate and being inept, and people tend to overlook this all-important distinction.
Sam, sorry to rain on your “greatest hits” parade but: Kushner’s peace deal looked great except that it played to his Orthodox Jews mates (read, settlers) and totally ignored the Palestinians...and stored up the resentments for the explosion on October 7;
Obama recognised the harsh reality that even the US’s bunker buster bombs would not reach the Iranians’ underground nuclear facilities so he had to negotiate. The $6billion (not $8 bn) is Iran’s own money, frozen in South Korea for years; Biden reasoned that he could release it to a safe account in Qatar in return for Iran’s release of six U.S. hostages. Naive perhaps, but what would you have had him do?
No new wars? Well done! But Trump set the terms of the Afghanistan withdrawal and handed that poisoned chalice on to Biden, and he backed Bibi all the way, so much that Bibi and his ultra right wing fanatics are arguably as much to blame for October 7 as is Hamas, by provocation and negligence rather than intent.
Not to me, mate. What is obvious to me and has been for something like 25 years is there is no sharing the world with Islam and the Ummah hates Jews for hatings sake. There is no squaring the circle; the so-called "Two State Solution" was already 20-25 years a non-starter when it was first floated. The real colonisers occupiers, and settlers came out of the desert east of Jordan about 1400 years ago. This will only end with the "Palestinians" realising and acknowledging the Jews are going nowhere and either becoming Israelis or emigrating to places that will have them. If they remain in arms and hostile, they will either be chucked out with nothing in one fell swoop or chucked out in dribs and drabs over the next couple of decades. Again with nothing. The definition of madness is trying the same failed nonsense over and over again expecting a different outcome.
Great point, MC. It’s humbling to go even farther back and see how many of our former presidents were incredibly articulate, thoughtful and well-read compared to many of the grifter-politicians of today.
Rhetoricians many ain't; but I judge DeSantis,Trump, et.al on their records; not how they speechify. Cicero and Demosthenes are cited and acclaimed for their rhetoric to this day; the enemies of freedom still saw them dead though.
“the persecution of Trump on blatantly contrived charges with the failure to prosecute Biden and Co despite overwhelming evidence”
Both statements are wild oversimplification and demonstrably false.
There is some evidence of wrongdoing on both Trump and Biden. Gurri’s point is accurate in that electing either one of them will do nothing but continue to make these legal issues the focus of either administration when there are many more larger issues to tackle.
Of course, we all agree with common sense issues, as long as they flatter our tribe. Anything against our tribe (in this case, the Cult of Trump) is “stupid”. Yes, I tend to be less optimistic than the author of the article.
WOW! I did not think it was possible to fit that much nonsense in one essay . Martin Gurri is possibly the all- time honors graduate of the Israeli school of Hasbara. Indeed a master of sophistry .
Of course, it makes sense that he was an analyst at the CIA the ultimate specialists in deceit, trickery, disinformation, and Orwellian Newspeak. he starts off his piece by listing all the dastardly deeds that Hamas was said to have done
Most of which were debunked. There were no rapes. There were no babies burned in an oven nobody was tortured and most of the civilian deaths -as new information and data has come to light- we’re largely caused by the Israeli Air Force, striking the area indiscriminately killing Hamas resistance fighters as well as Israelis
There is undeniable truth, proof that Israel also strafed their own army base. Killing their own soldiers. They were conforming to the IDF policy called the Hannibal strategy. (You can Google it) where basically says it’s better to kill your own people and to have them become a liabilityIf they are taken hostage.
Then he takes liberty with reality by calling the protesters of the Israeli massacre that has been ongoing for over 40 days as supporters of Hamas. The millions of people that showed up because of the unspeakable heinous actions of Israel against the people of Gaza
Official numbers to date are over 13,000 civilians and approximately 6000 children have been murdered by Israel. Its bombing up hospitals, schools, churches, masks, and civilians fleeing from north to south can be characterized as pure evil. The cutting off of water, Internet, food, medical supplies fuel is considered war crimes as many organizations have deemed it to be the United Nations Amnesty International,American Friends, Human Rights Watch , B’Tselem, JVP , If Not Now Red Cross , Save the Children Doctors Without Borders as well all those who have eyes and a brain. Mr Gurri the alchemist has managed to turn the millions of peaceful protesters against the continued genocide(look it up it’s what Israel is perpetrating )into supporters of terrorism. a majority of the world is in shock, and awe by Israel’s relentless cruelty.
Yet he insists on having you believe that what you see is false. That is an amazing feat, especially in this age of communication.
Unlike other historical crimes, such as the Holocaust, Cambodian killing fields Mao Tse Tungs cultural revolution ,the Armenian genocide etal. This particular event is being”televised”
you have people like Mr. Gurrii disingenuously spewing alternative facts and asking you to believe him. Yes you can believe him or you can believe your own eyes -you pick .
Morality? In this section I think he's saying we can just expect more inane battles between and about politicians from the same old farts when there are more important things at hand. Am I missing something, or did you bring a completely different axe to grind?
I am more pessimistic. The initial response (on the 7-th) of the university heads was very revealing. The moral backbone is gone, even they don't know which way is up. The fish is rotting from the head. The course corrections after that is just triangulation, money worries and the like - they don't matter that much.
Yes, once they reveal themselves, the rest is just positioning.
They revealed, and when attacked for it they backtracked a bit but there was no shame.
Now they are actively trying to normalize their obvious hate as free speech even though they have spent years repeating the nonsensical “silence is violence” and “words are violence”.
But actual violence is fine if it’s used against the evil Jew.
Many of the most high-profile incidents marking the progress of the Cult of True Victimhood in academia seem to come from two sources: 1) lower-level administrators who are Adepts in the Cult who take over student affairs and diversity offices, and 2) upper-level administrators who lead with their finger in the wind - hyper-alert to anything that might affect the flow of money from alumni - who were taken by surprise by the power of social media to ruin reputations in a matter of hours.
All of this allows a small number of hard-core Cultists to exert outsized influence on even large and prestigious institutions, sometimes abetted by relatively small cadres of Cultish faculty and students, who happily join in the social-media and - in the worst cases - in-person mobbing.
I can only imagine how confusing the post-10/7 "donor revolt" must have been to the presidents of elite schools, who thought that siding with the Cult would always protect the flow of money into the endowment!
Saving academia may be a matter of stiffening the spines of faculty and students who are not adherents to the Cult, and finding ways to ensure upper-level administrators are not so easily spooked by what's trending on TikTok.
Did I say anything about "burning it all down"? We get the hell out of Dodge and Darwin will do the rest, irrespective of if we set up a competing academia with in-built bullshit detecting. If we do set up in competition, along with those unis that have signed up to https://universitiesunitedagainstterrorism.org/ and similar; the quicker Wokist Academia goes the way of the Neanderthal. That is how the West works; the world joins us or flushes itself.
Even Sunni and Shia political thinkers like Muhammed Abduh and Ruhollah Khomenei understood this. They didn't really understand the circle couldn't be squared unless they went back to basics and pinned 95 theses to the doors of the Al Aqsa Mosque, but that is bye the bye.
Staying in Wokist Academia will only postpone the Second Coming of the West.
We cannot afford to focus just focus on universities. Graduates from these fell sociology disciplines are infiltrating public schools for children and trojan horsing their ideology into the curriculum. The current trojan horse in places like California and Minnesota is "Ethnic Studies:" https://education.mn.gov/MDE/dse/stds/EthnicStudies/index.htm
I would argue that it's even more important to make public school K-12 the Normandy Beach then treat academia like it's an isolated Berlin, not leaving out Ed Schools. (No violence implied here, just how to turn the tide on the left wing identitarians.)
Yes! This is critical too. There’s a NYC pre school teacher teaching the 4 year old public school students to hate.
From the NY post- Siriana Abboud is teaching 4 year-olds to hate Israel. Pure indoctrination in public schools. "I is for intifada, J is for jihad." And she's won the 2023-24 early childhood Big Apple Award which puts her on an advisory council to spread her ideas to other teachers.
"Siriana Abboud, 29, a city Department of Education teacher at PS 59 in Midtown, offers social-media guides on how to talk to 4-year-olds about “land theft, displacement and ethnic cleansing.”
She encourages parents to take them to pro-Palestinian protests — while blasting Israel as a “fascist ethnostate” in her Instagram stories, even in the wake of the Oct. 7 terror attacks by Hamas terrorists."
They are just a bit out of water and unsure of a leadership game plan. U Chicago has it right. Stay out of the opinion business and let your professors and students freely (and civilly) talk and research it through.
Yes, very revealing. But the rot has been progressing steadily with dystopian "thinking" becoming standard in media, education, government, and especially social media.
Everyone is thinking selfishly in one-dimensional tunnels. No one is thinking about the PROCESS of America: The Golden Rule, Constitution, Bill of Rights, Rule of Law, controlled international relations, careful policing, efficient government services, internationally competitive education of knowledge (history, civics, sciences,...) and ESSENTIAL SKILLS (3Rs, heading below #25 in world).
A main roadblock to a pivot toward democratic culture may be the self-serving collaboration between legislators and media. Legislators have limited energy for "the people's common interests" when they have no term limits and are spending over 50% of their time working the phones and media to get reelected for life. Not sure what the solution is for that, but it's certainly a roadblock to quality consensus thinking and productive working in Congress.
Term limits would be a great start. Politics should never be a career, but rather a temporary call to service. However, Congress itself would have to vote in term limits. What’s the over/under on THAT happening?
"The American people have lost their way before and always returned to a place of decency and sanity."
I don't think we have ever lost our way so completely as we have now. And with our youngest adults, as a generation, rejecting decency and sanity as the values of "oppressors," how can we possibly hope to have a future that is sane and decent?
Hope was stronger then. The young protested an unjust war and fought racial discrimination. The brain dead youth of today obsess about their pronouns and vandalize posters of kidnapped children.
The young were faked into protesting a just war; the Whitehouse was faked into fighting that just war stupidly. The fox was already in the henhouse. Now it is obvious our kids are got, we need to acknowledge our parents and grandparents were too. Don't bleat their bullshit.
I was born in 1960 and I don't remember there being much chaos either - because I was so young. However, being born in the 60's and actually living through the 60's are two different things. You'd have to read about the 60's to know.
I was born in 1939 and lived through the 60s. It was not as chaotic or dangerous as it is now. You could participate or not and no one cared which choice you made. It's much different today.
How so. The difference now is that the media, and social media (including bots and foreign powers), inflate EVERY issue to make something seem more prevalent than it actually is. For example, there are 12,000 professors in the University of California System and you can count the handful who have been spouting B.S. about the Palestinians. Same with students. There are almost 300,000 students in the same system. How many participated in pro-Palestinian protests?
The vast vast vast majority of people just go about their daily lives. I mentor students at my company. Most of them just want good grades and a decent career and don't give two s****s about politics.
As you say, Scott, the media fans flames far more today, which is why it isn’t trusted and why we’re all here on Substack.
But, unlike the 60’s, today we have a “woke” military and a FBI and CIA that clearly suppressed information they knew to be true, and did so many times. That’s a big difference from a bunch of hippies running around Haight Ashbury.
I wasn't in the US during the DNC convention. Today we have the Jan. 6th whatever you want to call it, shootings daily, riots in cities, they aren't called riots anymore, I don't recall anyone being interested in what choices I made. We had a different experience.
I lived through the 60’s, Sam. Student riots, the SDS, Weather Underground, Black Panthers, anti-war rallies. The difference with today is that nobody back then questioned the value of America itself, and the extremist fringe was a fraction of today’s. This country today looks a lot like Russia in 1917, which collapsed due to a combination of wars, mismanagement and hubris. Sound familiar? Importantly, and contrary to what most Americans think, the people did not support the Bolsheviks - they merely took advantage of the chaos to engineer a coup and cemented their power over a few years. It could happen here.
I agree that there was no question about America's core solidity back then. Viet-Nam was seen by many as a wrong turn, but there was no wholesale demonization of America itself. Except for fringe groups like the Symbionese Liberation Army, the Black Panthers, and the Weathermen who were violent and all spelled AmeriKa with a "K". Somehow, the survivors of these 60s fringe groups wormed their ways into academia, cloned themselves, and the clones begat a new generation of journalists, lawyers, administrators and politicos who went forth and "changed the system from within." And Bill Ayers became best buddies with a guy named Barack Obama...
Hi, I'm not understanding. Are you saying the hard left of the 60's didn't question the value of America? That's not correct. The 60's was the era of the demonization of capitalism / individual rights and the enshrinement of collectivism on so many major college campuses. It's clear we still have the same demonization of capitalism individual rights and the enshrinement of collectivism but this time it's coming from both the old hard left and the new authoritarian right. But you're right, it could happen here so we have to be vigilant.
Well, there was some of that, but it was almost more of a libertarian mishmash - drugs were cool, love was "free", long hair, rock and roll.... that's what most demonstrators were about, along with ending the Vietnam war. There wasn't a lot of support for the SDS, Bader Meinhoff, FALN, etc.
Not much chaos?! I was born in 1968, so I missed the big show, but even a casual glance at the decade shows a mass movement of young people either checking out or becoming militant, a string of high-profile assassinations - including the murder of a front-runner for the presidency! - waves of demonstrations on campuses sometimes brutally repressed by authorities (e.g., the Kent State shootings), the rise of a more radical and violent offshoot of the civil rights movement, violence surrounding the political convention of a major party, and the ascension of one of the most corrupt administrations in U.S. history.
But, hey, I guess if you can drop acid in a field while listening to Jefferson Airplane, everything's just groovy, right?
I am old enough to remember 1968, a year marked by hundreds of riots, assassinations, and all of the catastrophic events that you mentioned. I do think that was the beginning of the "March through the institutions" that has been so successful. In my view, what we are seeing today is the bursting forth of a mindset that has been in the making for decades. The people dropping acid in the fields were not the problem. The problem is, and was, the extremists and their utopian plans to burn it all down. We hippies were a naive bunch, but we didn't advocate violence.
You did note Kent State is a Uni, and most of those folks protesting students? The Long March had happened decades before. When Walter friggin Cronkite is shiilling for Charlie on National Telivision, your nation is more than a bit lost.
Did the adults really stay in charge? I’m a Boomer and remember that time well, although I was only a child. Look back on photos of many of the politicians from the 60’s and 70’s. The adults of the Biden/Pelosi generation wore flare pants, wide ties, and long-ish hair. They didn’t try to lead the young, they tried to copy them. They were all-in on “finding themselves”. Gail Sheehy’s “Passages” about adult navel gazing was a huge best seller. It was pathetic.
You may be correct about Congress. That may well be where Congress went off the rails. But the executive branch and the military stayed pretty adult. Even Carter was a grown-up just a misguided one. Clinton was the first of my generation and while I was embarrassed at his conduct in retrospect he looks like a genius compared to subsequent Presidents. And of course the Warren Court was in full liberal bloom.
Yes Lynn. My perspective on Clinton as President has changed greatly as I have gotten older. Hated him for a long time but now I am more like you. His conduct was horrible however he was a very smart politician. Changed course when he needed to and did some good. I'd take him over our current front runners now and that is saying something.
An adult executive and an adult military would have driven Charlie over the Chinese border well before LBJ had to decide to run or not. An adult executive and an adult military would have cottoned on something was very, very, wrong in the USA and concentrated a sight more on the 'domestic' part of the Oath of Allegiance.
True. IMO the push for a federal behemoth has been underway for about a century and a half. But they still looked like Solomon compared to the current and recent crop of yahoos.
Without going through the entire biography that's impossible. If you're serious about the subject, you can read the paperback edition. Tweed ran the NY Democrat party, nothing happened without his approval. He was a con man and collected money from his constituents.
The first principle of argumentation is "onus probandi" - that the person making a claim is responsible for providing evidence to support that claim. If someone makes an assertion, it is their responsibility to prove or support it, rather than shifting the burden to others to disprove it.
Your assertion was, "The days of Boss Tweed in NY. If you read his biography you will see a striking resemblence [sic] to Trump."
The burden - and the ball - is in your court. I'll give you a leg up:
I think it's a cyclical event usually preceding global change in dynamics.
1900, 1920, 1940, 1960, 1980, 2000, 2020 all experienced global events that enacted serious change, either through decolonization, war, or social upheaval. Keep going backwards....
I find it telling that a former CIA analyst can’t see that we’re witnessing the purposeful and “fundamental transformation” of America put in motion the day Barack Obama was sworn in.
Only a complete outsider had a chance at putting a stop to the process in place, but that hope born in November of 2016 was thwarted before it even began. The powerfully entrenched and generously enriched of our nation, whose hubris and greed were effectively harnessed, were set to destroy that hope the renegade administration brought.
The intelligence agencies - including that of Mr Gurri (once CIA, always CIA) gleefully targeted the renegade with bizarre stories of prostitutes peeing and clandestine activities with Russkis that haters were all too eager to believe.
Bizarre machinations of gender and race infected college campuses - which spread the disease down to the littlest among us and now we have grownups arguing that porn is acceptable shelf stock for elementary schools.
The inmates have loosed their bonds and are marauding a town near you! Don’t worry, they’ll be close enough for you to see very soon!
Don’t you see that the Emperor-in-waiting is sitting back, naked, enjoying the show, just waiting while he surveys all that he put in motion?
I'd be shocked to find a CIA "analyst" who knew their arse from a hole in the ground tbh. Long history of spouting blatent nonsense and failing to see what should've been bloody obvious to an Intelligence "professional".
We've been shown the exit from one hundred nine nations so far. Why does anyone think this is new. As my Father used to say, the only new thing tomorrow will be the date.
Meanwhile the proactive way to go for me is to understand that the US Federal government is an abject failure and in no way beneficial to me.
Due to the time I have left I'm fairly nonplussed regarding the inevitable collapse the imbecilic leftists will force. In discussions with my progeny I say look to the saner States. God will judge the American people. Change is coming as change is the only constant.
So much of what we are seeing today has been seen before in civilizations that have come and gone: That history is no longer a part of the educational curriculum at any level. An absence of understanding of the human condition inevitably results in the same outcome. Unfortunately, I sense that the awakening in this age of mankind’s evolution will come only in the form of shock treatment, the likes of which the world has never seen. If we are being honest with ourselves, it is not a question of whether, but rather about when. While horribly pessimistic, a look at the world’s last serious wake-up call predated the nuclear age, social media, AI, and communications traveling at the speed of light. Given these advancements, I am not so sure that the outcome we are facing today will be so tame as to resemble the beaches of Normandy and the ruins of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. I pray for my children and grandchildren that they will enjoy the freedoms and life delivered to us on the shoulders of those who came before us and seem to have been forgotten so quickly. Having lived long enough to see crises come and go, I would never have believed I would witness the current rot within our own country and around the globe expand to the point we are witnessing today among a majority of decent human beings who simply want to live a happy life.
We are still earthbound so the full impact of social media, AI, etc. are still limited thereto. Also I find it telling that the Ukraine Russia war is heavily reliant on ammunition. Which means humans are still in control.
"Meanwhile the proactive way to go for me is to understand that the US Federal government is an abject failure and in no way beneficial to me." --- Thank you for this honest and well thought out response! I've been saying this for quite some time. The sooner we realize this, the sooner we can come up with real solutions.
Read Lincoln. His gig was "Preserve the Union"; with or without slavery. Everyone misses that he actually freed no slaves while the war was on. Before the war you were "These United States"; after the war you were "The United States". Big difference. I'd argue Lincoln's efforts critically fucked-up the Founders' intentions in ways you all mostly miss to this day.
Lincoln absolutely fired the most damaging shot which is currently completing the destruction of the Republic. I never expected to see it in my lifetime but here we are. The next iteration will be autocracy. There will be a right wing dictatorship and you can expect citizens becoming subjects. Many will be unceremoniously tossed from aircraft into the oceans. I'll go listen to "Life During Wartime" now.
| the US Federal government is an abject failure and in no way beneficial to me. |
I think this is a bit extreme. The Federal Government is certainly bloated and Congress has become afraid to do its job, leaving it for the Executive and the Courts, but I still see personal benefit from many agencies that require some type of coordination at a high level: air traffic control, interstate highways, etc.
The problem is that the government responds to campaign donors and only to the will of the people in the rare cases the will of the people corresponds to what campaign donors also want. If they responded to the will of the people we wouldn't have, for example, giant hedge funds buying up the nation's housing stock, medical and veterinary clinics, etc.
Jacinto is Jewish and just stating the facts and the truth regarding themselves and their kindred. Me, I'd have INS Leviathan parked off the Hudson to apply instant sunshine to disinfect US anti-semitism if it gets too out of hand.
The fight for America needs to come from those younger than about 50. People with kids, people with 30+ years ahead of them. But here’s the rub, I don’t think enough will step up. They are too consumed with their lives to notice, or in the case of the 20 somethings, they are fine with having the whole thing collapse. So all I can say to them is, I’ll probably be dead. This is your problem. But they are in denial and totally unequipped to face it. Amazon’s Black Friday sale is happening soon, so.....
✅ Indeed, this is all so. Unfortunately for me, this is becoming my children's problem, as well, which frankly sucks. (They are 12 and 16.) Cannot dare imagine what their lives and their world will become.
If you paint with a broad brush and use capital letters, the Grand Institutions of our society seem Beyond Hope, especially Academia.
But here on the ground, in the classrooms and offices of lower-case academia - my own stomping grounds - the situation is much more complex, and there are more opportunities to restore what is best about essential institutions than stories like this might suggest.
Yes, the Cult of True Victimhood has made serious inroads in many places, and many of the most elite colleges and universities may be all but lost, at this point. But it's important to pay attention to where precisely the problem is coming from, and where the points of resistance are . . . and note well a lot of us are all but immune to the enticements and inducements of the Cult, even in the humanities.
While stories from Harvard and Yale and Oberlin and Hamline might feed the narrative of Institutional Decay, giving us all a most gratifying sense of Impending Doom, it might be worth looking at your own nearest public college or university, to see what's actually going on there. Or look at the Chronicle of Higher Education. or Inside Higher Ed, or the FIRE report on campus free speech for a more nuanced view.
Or, if you want something really bracing and encouraging, check out Heterodox Academy.
My son (23 yr old) and his friends all reject the victim hood identity nonsense and seem to have mostly conservative values. I credit their families and upbringing in a close knit community- but also- they all went to schools that weren’t the big names but a good value. I doubt any of them become a tech billionaire or cure cancer, but I’m proud of all of them and they give me hope!
I would settle for my own kids rejecting the victimhood nonsense and embracing old-school liberal values!
My younger one (almost 21) may be tending that way, a little, and has fled a small liberal-arts school that is awash in the Cult for a large state university. My older one (just 24) has been attending a large public university and is a True Believer in the Cult, but more, I think, from spending too much time online than from the university.
I do have some friends whose children’s minds are infected by the virus and it is causing relationship issues. One friend was showing us videos of his 3 yr old grandson who loves to play with trucks (his take) but is wearing a rainbow tutu, had purple streaks in his long hair and painted fingernails…he says it’s all his daughters doing. I’m not sure that there’s any one prescribed path for these kids!
Well, I think old school liberal values are more like todays “conservative” values. They aren’t a bunch of bible bangers, that’s for sure. In regards to the internet, I was shocked when my son started talking about Ben Shapiro one day. Shapiro is brilliant for getting on tic tok!
That is the essence of conservatism: conserving the best of the old school and asking, after Chesterton "Wait what is this fence FOR, exactly?" when somone wants to rip it down.
To give you a sense of how weird things can be in the fine grain of lower-case academia, consider two things I saw while walking onto campus, just now.
First, I walked past one of the Christian ministries for students, which has two flagpoles projecting from the front of the building. On one hangs a Black Lives Matter flag, from the other a pride flag stylized to resemble the Palestinian flag, with rainbow stripes and the blue-white-pink of the transgender flag arranged in a wedge.
A sign in front of the ministry declares it to be an "inclusive space" for "safe inquiry."
(I need to see my colleagues over in the literature department about stepping up their game in teaching students what 'irony' is.)
Second, I walked past one of the larger fraternity houses, which is draped with an Israeli flag and a bedsheet-banner painted with the slogan, "We Stand With Israel".
Most of the other fraternity and sorority houses were decked out with slogans against my institution's big football rival, in preparation for an upcoming game . . .
A thousand times yes, nuance is very important here. While I'm angry at some other bad choice my college is making, I'm glad they haven't had any pubic celebrations of terrorist. In fact, I also got a list of 100 colleges that haven't caved to any pro Hamas narratives. Some of them are actually pretty big, like Notre Dame and West Virginia! https://universitiesunitedagainstterrorism.org/
Bob, Just want to say "thank you" for your mention of Heterodox Academy, someplace I have never heard of, but am quite happy to now know about. I'm deeply committed to the pluralistic vision, and it's encouraging to discover that there's a small army out there fighting the good fight.
Thanks for the post, Bob. I wish it were so, but I have attended two public universities in the past few years and they both are all in for far left indoctrination. It is prevalent in every class and there is no escaping it. That is the real reason that Republicans keep losing. The mail in voting and decades of leftist indoctrination has caught up with us.
I base my post on more than 35 years of studying at and then working in public universities in the Midwest, the Northeast and the Southeast. In that time I have spoken and collaborated with colleagues across disciplines and across institutions. I’ve followed news from elsewhere in academia, and grappled with the meaning of liberal education in the present day.
Seems as though you had a bad experience at a couple of schools, and that doesn’t surprise me. There is bad stuff happening out there; I won’t deny it. I’d be interested to know where those schools are and which courses were involved.
I’m just trying to keep a larger and more nuanced perspective on the whole thing.
For some, foretelling doom brings with it an odd kind of satisfaction. Partly it’s a matter of pretending to have some inside line on the Truth that others don’t have, and partly it’s the secret, shameful hope that a good apocalypse would finally teach those stubborn fools a lesson. I see this on the left - among climate doomsayers, for example - as much as on the right.
I mean “apocalypse” does literally mean “out of hiding”, and it’s gratifying to be among the elect who already know what is hidden!
If a lot of people resist the appeal of an instructive apocalypse, then so much the better.
How can anyone have faith that our country will heal from this when the American left despises fundamental Christianity, but supports fundamental Islamism? I always come back to identity politics. I think the American left looks at Palestinians as nothing more than people of color, and Jews as whites. So they will never be objective about anything that involves the Jews. To them the white man is the devil. Therefore, the Jews are devils. This is what American academia has done for the past fifty years. They have divided us by infiltrating education.
I don't understand why these leftists hate a group of people that at worst can be overly judgemental and preachy, but support a group of people that that wants to murder everyone that's not like them... including the leftists that support them.
How they can support this after seeing how extreme Islam treats women baffles me. Didn't they all read "I am Malala" like everyone else in the 2010s? I think where they get confused is that the Western Muslim women they know are allowed to have jobs, education, and be in public without men. That is far from the case in actual Muslim countries.
Because the leftists are themselves "a group of people that that wants to murder everyone that's not like them... including the leftists that support them." This isn't rocket science. /s
Seems crazy to say all Jews are white while many are middle eastern jews, teach some history already! Throw in some biology while you are at it. It’s an ideology that is out of control and just what do they think the outcome will be😡 meritocracy is the only way to achieve greatness and foster brilliant people to go out and do what they do best. We aren’t all supposed to be the same we all have our own special gifts to contribute to society. Just a side note we the American tax payer in any given year pay 35+ billion to middle eastern countries that hate us all in the name of world stability. Crazy
A brilliant review of our current dystopia that ends with “there is always hope.” As has been said many times before, however, “hope is not a strategy.” The fact is that World War III began in the 60’s when the education industry embraced the works of Karl Marx as a framework to indoctrinate the young into a Manichaean world of oppressed and oppressor. In the pursuit of better profits, the business community shipped the future of the working class young overseas, effectively eliminating hope in vast parts of the country. The creation of the internet and social media destroyed the guardrails of community standards as guides to acceptable behavior and personal responsibility. Worst of all, meritocracy as a criteria of electing those who run the government disappeared, producing demonstrably incompetent individuals selected because they represented an “oppressed” community. We live in a time best described by another as one of “intellectual sloth and moral cowardice.” This will not be addressed by arguing over who is more dangerous: Biden of Trump. It will require far more drastic action. We must stop electing and appointing demonstrable idiots, we must stop supporting business that utilize slave labor and fill their management ranks hoping to gain approval from the DEI believers (who will never approve, thanks the point). We must recognize that social media has resulted in far more deaths that drugs or guns, which are prohibited to those under 18. Most important of all, we must stop allowing our children to be indoctrinated and stupefied by a demonstrably Marxist education system. The real question is whether we have the will to do this. That remains to be seen.
Much as I can clap and shout "Bravo!" to most of this, you'll have to present actual evidence for the social media claims; especially when kids as young as ten sell drugs to their schoolmates (Or not-in-school mates as the case might be!) and even kids seem to have no problem getting hold of firearms; prohibited to them though both may be.
I think you prove my point, Steven. Prior to the spread of social media, Tik Tok, WhatsApp, etc., teenage suicide was rare and young kids going on rampages and killing schoolmates was unheard of. Sneaking a beer with your friends was really stretching the boundaries. Today, kids are gobbling pharmaceuticals like breath mints and dying of fentanyl overdoses. This is not due to the internet itself, it is due to the alternate reality that it creates.
There is another possibility you didn't countenance as out institutions collapse:
Civil war and a breakup of the United States. The right half of the country feels powerless as all our institutions are now controlled by the far left. For all intents and purposes, we are now a Communist country. Even if Republicans control the government - the government bureaucracy, news media, Big Tech, educational and cultural institutions (all controlled by the radical left) and the leftist states effectively can and will veto whatever they do. For Free America to regain control, it has to create its own institutions. And the only way to do that now is to create its own country.
I think it is beyond doubt that the differences between Free America and Marxist America today is greater than those between the North and the South in 1860. We can't even agree on what a woman is. The North and South essentially had the same Judeo-Christian belief system, although there was a problem in that one side saw fit to include slavery as part of their belief system.
Our differences now are both cultural and religious - and Leftism/Marxism is a brutal, intolerant religion. We can't survive in a place where it is the state religion.
The Civil War was about more than slavery. Slavery was the catalyst but it was not the whole story. None of this rampant federalism resulting in a massive, bloated federal bureaucracy too unwieldy to manage that is intent on micromanaging every element of human existence could have occurred without the annihilation of states rights. Look at monetary policy for example. Then consider that slavery was financed by New York financiers. Slaves were transported on ships owned by northerners and ships transported the slave grown cotton to the overseas textile mills. I am not condoning slavery. I am saying it was far from.those evil southerners (not even evil plantation owners). As the old saying goes "Oh what a wicked web we weave when first we practice to deceive.".
A serious conversation about American slavery should include the context that slavery is a millennials old scourge practiced in every corner of the Earth, one which continues to this day, particularly in the Islamic world. What makes America special is our willingness to confront our history, to dissect it, to grieve our shortcomings. Is Xi critical of Mao’s purges, or Putin of Stalin’s purges? No - they CELEBRATE them. This is why the American experiment is so important and worth defending. If the U.S. collapses, the world won’t be ruled by Denmark. The word “darkness” does not describe what awaits us that day, including those who insist on destroying the U.S.
I agree. But I also think a genuine conversation needs to be had about slavery. About who profited, and arguably does to this day. About how those good folks who freed the slaves then cast them aside like trash to fend for themselves in a bitter and broken world. I cannot help but think the way New York, City and state, have reacted to the 4 migrants they have received is likely the way freed slaves were received. I call BS. I think people virtue signaled about slavery the same way they do about migrants today. Until they are in the signalers' neighborhood, then it's Katy bar the door. Literally.
I agree. Only 7% of Americans had slaves, and that included some black slaveowners as well. For most Southern Farmers, the plantations were like competing with a factory from an economic standpoint. And the Democrat-led Jim Crow South is a story most young Americans know little of, with Andrew Johnson completely undermining Lincoln until Grant re-established the parameters of Reconstruction.
As for the Liberals who are all about Sanctuary Cities as long as it doesn't affect them, I agree - time to call B.S. As someone said on one of these posts recently, you don't see BLM signs in South Central (L.A.), but they're all over the tony white neighborhoods, along with their gated homes and private security, of course.
Who died and made you God? A BIG part of your problem is thinking you have the God-given right to park your tanks on my lawn. You have to address ALL the failings Wokists and their ilk glom onto; or this will keep coming back and biting you on the arse. Claiming to not have a clue about why we, the Rest of the West FFS, might hate you has gotten a bit of a moth-eaten nonsense now. Get a clue, mate.
Oh, I don't question that it is more than about slavery. It was many things, but I think above all, it was a dispute about the direction of the country in the wake of the changes being brought about by industrialization. Industrialization meant that the population growth was overwhelmingly in the North, and the South feared being overwhelmed both finanically and politically. Even if you could keep dividing states so that one free state entered and one slave state entered (thus keeping the Senate even), the vast population of the North was giving it overwhelming dominance in the House of Representatives.
Furthermore, pre-industrialization, IIRC, it was the South that generated most of the nation's foreign revenue via its exports; a dominance which was fading as the factories went up. The South ultimately split because it feared being overwhelmed by the North and losing its agrarian way of life. And yes, that meant that they wanted slaves; they did not want black freemen.
However, I seriously doubt the war was about slavery as a moral issue; Northerners simply were not that enlightened when it came to Blacks - witness the violence of NYC's anti-draft riots, when a number of blacks were killed.
“We are now a communist country”.. Seriously? Please find yourself some Konstantin Kisin to see what real totalitarian communism is like. I highly recommend his book “An immigrant’s love letter to the West.”
I occasionally will look at Triggernometry, but alas, there are so many podcasts worth watching that I simply don't have time now to devote to them that I would like (maybe when I retire in a couple of years).
However, if you compare use to the modern day CCP with its Social Credit system, we pretty much have that now - the only difference is that the present regime in Washington has outsourced the monitoring to private companies closely aligned with them. The CCP merely omits the outsourcing, but for all intents and purposes, Silicon Valley and the DNC are all part of the same Party structure.
So - are there Gulags? Not yet, but as the left consolidates power, they WILL happen. But modern Communist states can effectively control the populace through mass surveillance rather than mass murder.
Everyone who proposes a civil war never seems to think about the details. Who would we have to kill? Student Protestors? College professors? Every Democrat in our town, even if they're family? Do we draft up an "army" based on party affiliation? Are YOU gonna personally fight in it? Do we just take all the Republican leaders from the House and Senate and build our own capital? Elect our own president, because that worked out so well for the Confederacy? Or are you imagining it's gonna all be about self defense?
Between this and all the 50+ people gloating about how they'll be dead before things get actually bad, I wish people could propose an actual answer to our problems. And you wonder why my generation are such nihilists.
Eric isn't proposing a civil war; he is making known the high probability of of one; that it is not in anyway unthinkable, and that we have to take it into account.
In dissing him you diss America.
"When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation."
Okay. You start. Do you have any solutions to propose? Or are you just going to criticize others for saying they will die soon? The way I look at it your generation created this monster.
What I'm saying is if we're gonna criticize my generation for nihilistically destroying ourselves, maybe we should find a solution that can create an actual future, one that can inspire them to have actual hope and meaning in their lives. And it would be better to turn to older, wiser people for that solution then for those people to check out and confirm our feelings that death (wether by suicide or killing others for political gain) is better than life. I admit my idea for a solution doesn't go much beyond creating alternative schools and media sources. But both of those things are growing exceptionally fast, with homeschooling rates increasing and sites like The Free Press and Breaking Points being more successful than anyone could've imagined even 10 years ago.
Not everyone in Gen-Z caused or embraces the current state of things, and actively want to change it. And imo, telling young people "at least *I'll* be dead soon" vaguely implies suicide would be preferable to these wannabe changers than living in this world. If you want things to get better, invite the Gen Z who are struggling to your church. If they're questioning the current narrative, let them freely debate the issues they'd get canceled for by their leftie friends. Show them compassion comes from US, not progressives who changes the meaning of the word every week. Nihilism is what got us into this mess, so we need to not embrace it ourselves.
Two years mandatory public service after high school. Could be military. Could be AmeriCorps. Could be deferred if proposed higher education allows for a greater contribution -- such as teaching or practicing medicine in an underserved community. Regardless, everyone earns the same wage for those two years.
Good ideas all FF. Thanks. To that I would add you need to reach out to your peers because you sound like a very insightful person. The folks saying I will be dead soon feel powerless and shoved aside. I saw a good FB post yesterday on Einstein's letter to his daughter about the power of love. I was genuinely moved. Check it out if you have not seen it already.
The role of a prophet includes holding a mirror up to society, and this article brilliantly does so.
One of only a few positive developments over the past few weeks is that some college students, who have lost job offers, etc., have learned their actions can have consequences--that's a step in the right direction. This situation has also revealed the blind stupidity of the "oppressed" and "oppressor" binary. The fallacy of that world-view must continue to be hammered.
Not so good is that the MSM and certain independent journalists, who do wield influence, are still striking a strong anti-Israel tone which doesn't draw a very clear distinction between "we just don't like Bibi" and "Israel is an occupier with no right to exist." We're also seeing the presentation of very selective "history." If you're going to talk about Palestine in the last 100 years (looking at you WAPO), it's fair game to include the Palestinians' support for HItler and the Holocaust (see Simon Sebag Montefiore's "biography" of Jerusalem for more on that).
But there will always be someone to offer those college students who’ve lost job offers new jobs and reward them. That’s how it seems to work today across the board.
Just be wise to the smuggled-in fuckwittery in there that the naive might find themselves nodding along with. He's alphabetti spaghetti and lies for a living.
That's why we need to either find non corrupt institutions to ally with, or make our own. I used to fall for the trap that Conservative institutions can never have enough capital to be successful, until I looked at the Daily Wire. They were going to offer 15 million+ dollars to have Steven Crowder on their roster, and he actually turned it down for reasons too dumb to explain here. So there IS a culture who wants these alternative media/institutions, and are willing to pay handsomely for it. If your looking for some ally institutions (on the Isreal-Hamas front specifically), this list of colleges is a good place to start. Kinda want Bari to report on them, especially since both religious and liberal schools have joined together on this! https://universitiesunitedagainstterrorism.org/
We're reminded daily of the abject failures of our leaders, but little attention seems to be paid to the fact that the crumbling of America is also physical. A decade ago the idea of a freeway catching fire so severe it had to be closed would be unimaginable. People working 2 or 3 jobs just to make the basic essentials of life is now a current reality. And enough people are here illegally to equal the size of our largest cities. We don't know where they are from, or what they plan to do, but we give them food, housing, and medical care, as well as a mobile phone. These are the things that will motivate the public to force a change. It won't be pretty.
Your faith that we will wake up and demand a return to sanity is misplaced I fear. There is one factor that has led us to the brink of chaos. Our moral foundation has completely rotted. The traditional family has been largely abandoned, marriage is ridiculed and the role of the church in our society has declined to a level of irrelevance as a result of cowardly leadership and societal hubris. Protecting the right to abortion is more important to most people than stopping the flow of fentenal into our country. Getting my debts forgiven is more important than having a financially accountable government. What’s wrong with selling influence everybody does it? One side defends and re-elected a President having an affair with an intern and then claims the moral high ground when opposed by a 3x married playboy whose womanizing reputation is legendary. We debate free speech and the need to control fake news while pornography flourishes and school teachers quit to star on TikTok. History shows that moral decay is only reversed through tragedy and if it is our guide Our day of reckoning is near.
To better understand the 'short march through the institutions' that this philosophy has had, I would recommend reading The Identity Trap by Yascha Mounk. He gets just about right -- he did miss the significance of the first Maya Forstater verdict in December 2019 when the tribunal judge incorrectly determined that a belief/fact held by an overwhelming majority of citizens namely that one can not alter one's biological sex was not a worthy belief to hold in a democratic society. Because of the slowness of the British judicial system, it took until June 2022 for this to be overturned. In the meantime, it appeared that age old belief systems could be arbitrarily declared unworthy through concerted efforts from people who believed in Strategic Essentialism and Progressive Separatism. This held to lay the ground for what happened in 2020/21 imho.
The book does explain about the abandonment of the belief in universal truths, including the ability to understand people who might have a different background (thus the need to be told what these people and how they should be treated by the 'experts'). It also explains why the research on in/out groups since WW2 has been completely ignored and overlooked.
From the book's blurb: "Mounk has built his acclaimed scholarly career on being one of the first to warn of the risks right-wing populists pose to American democracy. But, he shows, those on the left and center who are stuck in the identity trap are now inadvertent allies to the MAGA movement."
Just another deranged loon with TDS. The "Right" has never posed a problem, except in leftyloon imagination. Even then it has been seen more as a solution; a most useful distraction while commies steal the silver. I hope you read the thing from a position of deep skepticism; this guy sees where the wind is blowing and is jumping ship. We won't be fools again.
I always read from a Mills trident standpoint. His thinking on much of it chimes with mine particularly where universal values and neutral rules are concerned.
When he defines right-wing populism, he is really defining authoritarianism. The real problem as Natalie Wales Latham pointed out in 1947 when she founded Common Cause, a short-lived moderate anti-Communist movement (ended when her third husband died) which attracted people like Albert Schlesinger Jr and Dorothy Thompson (and indeed my grandmother) is that authoritarianism whether it comes from the right or the left is opposed to liberal democracy. Liberal democracy puts the most demands on its citizens.
The other problem which Mounk doesn't mention in the book (possibly because it is outside its scope) is that if you look at Weimar Republic -- both the far left and the far right fed off each other. Ben McIntyre's Agent Sonya in part deals with this. It is the biography of the Soviet spy Ursula Kuczynski. A German Jew, she left Germany in 1931 for Singapore, convinced her side had won.
It is why the centre who believes in things like free speech, freedom of expression and the right of dissent has to be prepared to stand up and take the moral high ground -- to say yes, progress has been made toward affording people opportunity. In a free society, people must be allow to forego that opportunity because of choice. In my humble opinion, it is why you can never equality of outcome in a free society because some choices have consequences.
An intelligent article apart from the following stupid statement:
"Meanwhile, battle-scarred Donald Trump is a heavy favorite to become the Republican presidential candidate: this would pit a septuagenarian against an octogenarian in the 2024 contest, each of whom can be expected, if he wins, to try to put the other in jail. It’s enough to make one wonder whether the Zoomers have a point."
If you want to encourage nihilism, then, conflating the persecution of Trump on blatantly contrived charges with the failure to prosecute Biden and Co despite overwhelming evidence, is a good way to continue the downhill slide. This is morally on a par with saying that both Hamas and the Israelis have killed people and both should stop.
Trump HAS been persecuted in some ways. Trump is also guilty as hell, on many charges.
Why is that not obvious to everyone, at this point?
Because most fair minded people know that the so called evidence used against him is contrived by a “deep state” of dirty power hungry players willing to compromise the American justice system in order to bar anyone they deem unfit for the Oval Office. If it weren’t Trump it would be any free citizen who dared aspire to lead the country.
People who believe in Justice, await for evidence obtained legally and presented in an unbiased forum so hey can make one’s own rational conclusions. Thank God for fair minded citizens who know that the American media serves as a propagandist arm of our “unjust” DOJ leaders. They know that the corrupt media have succeeded in convincing the public (you included) that Trump is “guilty as hell.” Your comment is a prime example of such broken institutions.
Most fair minded people wouldn’t touch Donald Trump with a 10 foot pole. They are sick of Biden and Trump and would love nothing more than to see a new name on the ballot.
You aren't fair minded, mate. You are delusional. Donald Trump actually executed or tried to execute the ticket he was elected on. He was far more successful, and far more in tune with America than, I would argue, even Ronald Reagan.
I agree with you about execution of policy. I just also agree with about 90% of the people who USED to work with him who are now “losers” like Rex Tillerson, John Kelly and Nikki Haley.
Unfortunately, Trump doesn’t seem to be able to handle having two functioning brains in the same room. When someone disagrees with him, he throws a tantrum, calls them a bunch of names, and acts like a jerk until he gets his way.
Also:
“The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research, found that 53% of Americans say they would definitely not support Trump if he is the Republican nominee next year”
In addition, only 37% of Republicans thought Trump has done the best job as president over the last 40 years. (More thought Reagan was better, so your views are the minority of a minority)
In about a year, we will know who is delusional, but I don’t think it’s me. If you’re wrong, I guess you can go storm the Capitol again.
Simply referring to "storm the Capitol" shows who is delusional. The endless hours of video, previously concealed by Pelosi but just released, prove beyond any possible doubt that the few violent clashes on Jan 6 were the tiny exception, and that the overwhelming majority of Jan 6 demonstrators were orderly, peaceful, interacting politely with Capitol police, and far less of a threat than any of the Democrats' pet "peaceful protesters" over the past four years, from BLM and Antifa to today's ignorant and demented pro-Hamas, anti-Semitic mobs.
Good points, Chuck: and let us all now wait for the actual criminal trials, each one of them, where the evidence will be presented calmly in the room, and the juries will decide. If the Trumpistas STILL say he’s being persecuted if any (or all) of the juries vote to convict, then there is nothing more to be said. They would be beyond reason, and Trump is a cult.
I'm an interested as an in "Washington sneezes; we get Kung Flu nonsense" furriner, here with my feet up and a big tub of popcorn enjoying the schadenfreude and laughing hysterically as you loons confirm all my prejudices.
Much as I'd have enjoyed the guided tour the Capitol Police gave on 1/6 '21, with so much paint to watch dry I've no incentive to look in on your benighted country in person. That's your pickle to sort out; I'll just kibbitz from the bleachers, tah. ;-)
My fear is those new names will be even worse.
Haley4president! Love her ❤️
Consider the third party option Manchin and Cheney
Cheney? The military industrial complex darling? Thanks but no thanks.
At least you would know who’s making decisions! Between Biden’s speech writing committee and Trump’s inner 3 year old, we have no idea what’s going to be said in the next 5 minutes.
You must be freaking kidding.
This is too important an election to consider voting for a third party. I would bet my bottom dollar that these third partiers are being backed by deep pocketed Republicans who have no qualm about destroying our Republic. Probably the best kept secret since who assassinated Kennedy. A vote for a third party candidate is a vote for fascism.
I totally disagree. The self-serving political duopoly must be humbled at the ballot box. Independents are by far the largest “party” already. We have to stop falling for this narrative that the other party is evil.
God help the Republic.
I would argue that there are not actually many fascists in America. Classical fascism would be right wing socialist, and we don’t have any main stream parties like that. Hitler and Mussolini were all about government control, which Republicans are not. Democrats are more in favor of government control, but obviously not having the extreme right wing views.
Aside from Antifa’s paranoid view, there just doesn’t seem to be anyone in the US who fits the mold.
No, the Democrats have it worse: extreme left-wing views.
You've had it too good for too long my friend.
What garbage. Keep lapping up the kool side. It isn’t conservatives brainwashing our youth.
You aren’t fair minded.
Agreed
I think many pro Trump people are really anti Deep State more than anything. JFK’s decision to allow Federal workers to unionize (FDR was strongly opposed to this for self-evident reasons) has proven to be calamitous to good governance in D.C.
Just listen and read what Trump says. He convicts himself with his ignorance and predjudices. He doesn't have the intelligence of a pissant.
We’ll he’s smarter than you are.
Lots of people are. He might even be smarter than you are. "One never knows, do one?"
Nope, one never knows.
People cannot grasp the notion that BOTH Trump and the DOJ/deep-state are rotten to the core.
Embrace the power of "AND"—it will set you free.
Maybe it is a fight fire with fire scenario then. I think the unelected, unaccountable career bureaucrats in the executive branch are the true threat to the Republic. And they are not loyal to ANY duly elected President. As evidenced in spades this week with all the letters condemning the very malleable one they ordained. I do not see any one other than Trump with the will to bring them to heel.
And how would Trump do that, legally? In the climate he has produced? If only.
This is where we disagree. I don't think Trump produced the climate. I think the career bureaucrats in the executive branch produced it. I think at this point Trump has more awareness of that than most anybody in the country and knowledge is power. Think about it - the suppression of the Hunter Biden laptop story (coupled, maybe, the covid misinformation ) by those bureaucrats means that they hand-picked their boss, President Joe Biden. Not that they believed in him, they just knew he would be easy to manipulate. Now they are turning on him as evidenced by those letters critiquing his position on Israel. Constitutionally speaking, executive branch employees serve the executive - the President. And far, far too many of them are no longer loyal thereto. Congress is AWOL and has been for decades. That means this country is being ruled - ruled, not governrd - by executive mandates drawn up by people not accountable to the President, much less you or me. I say give Trump his shot at them. They are a true threat to the Republic. He can only do one term anyway. Then we can move forward.
Absolutely. But my experience of the other side is a complete hypocrisy and unwillingness to judge “their” guy objectively. Those willing to judge Trump from the right side look for a corresponding willingness on the other side to judge Biden.
You people just can’t accept that democrats are liars and evil because you voted that way so long. This article should show you why. But you are too brainwashed.
I haven't voted for a Democrat since Jimmy Carter.
I know!! The poor man!! All those top-secret classified documents Trump moved to Mar-a-Lago and defended as "mine and mine alone?" It's a contrivance of the "deep state" that employs jackbooted thugs with black helicopters to whisk Trump to a FEMA re-education camp to silence him! He didn't take any classified docs, those videos and photographs and voice recordings are Deep Fakes by Big Tech on the Payroll of Demoncrats!
But puzzle me this: if the Justice Department was silencing him, why won't he shut up?
Wow, you really make my point. This isn’t about Trump at all. You can hate him if you want. I understand the visceral reaction; we are all human. I have the same feeling every time I hear Hillary Clinton comment on anything. My comment was about blind justice. Because the media feeds the public a soundbite without context, or staged photos of supposed evidence, the public has already convicted the accused. True justice for any accused citizen (including a former President) should always be applied fairly.
Justice isn't blind. It can only be fair, because jurors live in the real world, absorb tons of media, and in the trial of a President, can't enter a courtroom "blind." Unless they've been living on remote islands with no media, they will have a personal opinion on the matter. Their job is to suppress that and look only at the evidence presented in court. I have the luxury of knowing evidence that might or might not be admitted. Which is why I can confidently predict convictions--I've seen enough facts to know it's going to happen, and unless a judge suppresses the admission of those facts, Trump will be found guilty.
I'm not rendering a legal verdict here on The FP. I'm proffering my opinion on whether he will be convicted. I have as much right to do that as Trumpers have to insist the opposite is true, that he will be exonerated. If you didn't object to the latter, you cannot object to the former.
To the rest of what you say here, I mostly agree:
"True justice for any accused citizen (including a former President) should always be applied fairly."
One hundred percent this. Trump is entitled to his day(s) in court on the legal presumption of innocence, and jurors need to abide by that in order to avoid a kangaroo court. And, they will. Jurors will convict or exonerate Trump based on the evidence, not personal love or hatred. Some juries get verdicts wrong in hindsight, but most get it right, in my opinion.
If the jury declares him not guilty, I'll accept that as his legal exoneration, free to run for office and all that.
But my personal opinion remains that he will be found guilty of most of those charges, Elizabeth. I base that on having read all the indictments and verdicts of cases in which I choose to comment--ALL of the Trump indictments; Kyle Rittenhouse in Kenosha; several shootings of black Americans by police--and comparing it to the evidence and legal arguments (and videos) available online.
They convince me that Trump will be convicted on most--but not all--counts in all the indictments. Since I am not a juror, I have every right to say that publicly, and will. Those who think he's not guilty of anything but "mean Tweets" have spent years saying the opposite with nobody questioning their right to say so.
I hesitated to respond to you, but thought better. I agree that anyone on this thread is entitled to his/her opinion and welcome the free exchange by all. My original comment was a response to a poster who claimed that Trump was “guilty as hell” and was questioning why everyone else hadn’t shared his conclusion. I offered that most people are “fair minded” and will wait for a fair legal process to conclude before agreeing with him. Those people know that rumor, propaganda and baseless accusations are being leaked by corrupt government institutions to an equally willing media who are giddy to present them to the public and destroy the fair defense of an accused defendant.
You claim, in your sarcastic response that you have special access to so called facts that if are revealed in a courtroom will convict Trump. If that is the case then you make my point about corruption. No one outside of those entrusted with confidential reports containing so called evidentiary facts should be sharing them with you. Unless, of course, you are working on the legal case. If you are, you certainly should not be personally commenting on a public forum claiming you know a defendant is guilty.
I don’t know what your credentials are to make these claims, but seems a bit foolhardy to risk your reputation this way. The only other thing I will say, is you have no idea who is reading your comments. Many of the commentators on Substack are educated professionals with inside experience or knowledge of privileged information. They tend to be able to make their points with way more discretion than you do.
I don't think I can recall a single high-profile police killing that didn't turn out to be justified on account of the corpse actually being a bang-to-rights criminal or bollocks when I reviewd the video evidence. I followed the Kenosha goings-on practically in real-time courtesy of the NYT Visual Investigations team, which blew their lords' and masters' narrative out of the water practically as it saw print. But you keep chugging the Kool-Aid, mate; we'll just continue laughing and pointing at you.
Exactly the point. Free and fair elections,freedom of speech and equal treatment under the law. People better see leftists gave no intention of Amy if the above.
Would Leftists like to change some our freedoms? Of course. So would Rightists. It doesn't mean they can. Our freedom of speech remains robust. Elections are free and fair. Equal treatment under the law? Not so much, since the law treats the rich far better than the poor.
Oh please. You please. Are you people totally without reasoning power? A free society has free e press ion, free and fair elections and wait for it equal treatment under the law. Thanks to leftists we have none of that. Get real.
My two cents:
I'm sorry, but this ongoing concept that "Trump is guilty" is confusing. Guilty of what? He is persecuted relentlessly and has been for the past 8 years, since he announced his run in 2015. Of the 91 charges against him, and 4 + indictments and other multiple charges, there is no sane person that should feel Trump is guilty, of any CRIME. He is in some folks minds, guilty of being brash, saying some mean things, and certainly being Pro-America. I am Pro-America too, and I am proud of that. I stand for our national anthem, and say the pledge of allegiance. I raised our kids with strong moral values and honesty, (I hope those stick), and I fly our American flag on our house every day.
Are we perfect in all ways in America, certainly not, if hind-sight is the measure of perfection. I prefer to acknowledge that we have erred in some ways during the past 250 years of our existence. I compare what we do and have done, to what other countries "do and have done" and we should continue to learn from our mistakes.
I see the broad success we have enjoyed as a country, as well as the hurt we have caused to some of our population. Today it is popular to "swing the pendulum" back the other way, and try to placate all the victims who have been or perceive they were wronged. I say, "man up", "show some sack" , "pull your head out of your ass" and get to work.
If you break a law, you should be punished for that. If you don't like a law, use our process to get it changed, not just evaded or ignored.
Latest news is the rash of personal bankruptcy filings by supposed "adults" to avoid paying off their student loans. Happening why? because our current admin could not shove a mass loan waiver thru, so now student loans can be grounds for filing bankruptcy, when student loans were previously exempt from this option. It is another way to placate supposed victims, despite their own ignorance of business and "how it works" and has worked for many years. The real issue is with colleges and their cost structure.
The Israeli - Hamas war is another example, in my mind of trying to placate Gaza "victims". Jews have been trashed and spit upon for hundreds of years. The Jewish nation were given, fought wars and won those wars, to keep their country/state of Israel. Now the Palestinians cry victim, even as they gave control of their lives over to Hamas. Gazans, if they really don't like Hamas, should be helping the IDF root out and finish Hamas as a leadership. Hamas only knows violence, and it shows. Yet many young Americans support Hamas, which is confounding to me. History is there, read it (before wikipedia gets their keyboard on it) and understand history, and perhaps folks will have a change of view in many areas of our world.
sincerely rich
"Of the 91 charges against him, and 4 + indictments and other multiple charges, there is no sane person that should feel Trump is guilty, of any CRIME."
I'm quite sane, and believe Trump is guilty not of just some of these charges, but almost all of them.
Since neither you nor I are his judge and jury, however, I am willing to wait for both to pronounce his guilt or lack thereof. Why aren't you?
I appreciate your question Shane. You seem to be a very thoughtful participant in these exchanges on TFP. Your beliefs are yours, and you are entitled to them.
I will not debate if your "sanity" is in play here. This figure of speech I used ("no sane person") has been around for ages, and I can use it as I see fit, and today I believe it fits quite well in the many cases re Trump.
You also state your opinion re Trump's guilt of the charges, and it seems you, as with me, are NOT waiting for the pronouncements.
As you ask me, why are you not waiting for all these accusations to play out? In the meantime, my comment stands.
My biggest issue is the double standards we are seeing in all of these charges being tossed at Trump. ie Civil suit in NYC, "documents case", questioning voting processes in GA, inciting Jan 6 protests/riot etc.
For example, The first case in NYC, a civil lawsuit, is a sham to me. There had not been one witness called, no complainants came forward crying "foul" , nor any other evidence presented to the public, before Engoron "ruled" that the Trump Corp/Family had committed fraud. The judge alone determined there was fraud. Legal scholars have all said, "there has to be a victim of fraud, for fraud to occur". Now we are in the penalty phase of the case, and the judge is considering how much $ the State of NY will get from Trump Corp. I will say again, would any sane person think this is legitimate? I sure don't, as well as with the other cases coming our way.
take care
rich
Thanks for this, Rich, I appreciate your graciousness and the compliment, and hope to return both here.
You make a good and fair point--since we are both stating personal opinions about Trump's guilt or lack thereof, I cannot claim I'm "waiting for the court to decide." My bad, you're right. And stating such is appropriate. As I told Elizabeth elsewhere, we are neither the judge nor jurors, so we can issue personal opinions as we deem appropriate.
On the tax fraud case:
"Legal scholars have all said, "there has to be a victim of fraud, for fraud to occur.'" Yes, and there was a victim: the State of New York. It lost millions of property tax revenue when the Trump Organization's misstated the value of its properties in New York, and it sued to get the money it was owed.
The evidence was in the documents provided by the Trump Organization, so there's no question of authenticity: T.O. provided an inflated set of assessments to the banks in order to secure loans, while giving county tax assessors in New York deflated assessments in order to reduce T.O.'s tax bill.
The state argued that action was tax fraud and filed suit. The judge issued summary judgment based on those numbers--the legal equivalent of "you can't have it both ways"--which he has the absolute power to do.
So I stand behind my judgement that sane people can and do believe this court action is legitimate, that T.O. was fairly convicted of tax fraud (civil court, not criminal), and that T.O. should be required to pay its back taxes with penalties, as anyone else convicted of tax fraud is required.
As for the criminal cases, I find nothing illegitimate. Trump may or may not be convicted on any charge; nobody knows what the juries will do. But the state fairly indicted him and scheduled him for trial.
I said "fairly" because I read the indictments and charging documents when they were issued. I find them very detailed and legally sound. Both state and federal prosecutors used grand juries instead of direct charges, further protection for defendant Trump against prosecutorial misconduct. The feds and Georgia made strong enough cases for me to conclude Trump will be found guilty of most of the charges in all three cases.
My conclusion that Trump is guilty does not stem from my personal dislike of him. I didn't personally like Kyle Rittenhouse, either, but I posted my opinion before his trial that the man was NOT guilty of homicide in Kenosha, because the evidence and videos overwhelming indicated his shootings were self-defense, not crimes.
So yes, you are free to say Trump is not guilty of anything, I am free to say he is, and I was too inartful in challenging the "sane" comment. Again, thanks for your graciousness and compliment, I appreciate both. Happy Thanksgiving.
Back at ya, thanks for the reply,
re the NYC tax case. i did not see the judges rulings specifically, What is off to me is this, the state I live in has a tax assessors office, as does every state and city in the US, I believe. The typical tax assessor does not leave it up to the tax paying entity (TO) to declare the value of its assets, and pay the tax on those stated values. My tax office sends out annual tax bills, based on the values they come up with. I pay as noted, or I am able to contest. I dont think NYC is any different.
RE the other side of the coin, inflating values to "get better loan rates or lower insurance etc", to me, is absurd. Same thing applies to me as to the TO. I apply for a loan or insurance etc, and the lender is not obligated or compelled to accept my valuation and base my interest rate or collateral on my figures. They do their own assessment of their valuation, I negotiate, agree or contest and see what happens. example from this NYC case which the judge/Engoron is using to leverage his ruling: Mar a Lago was valued at $18mil by the judge/court in NYC. I don't live in west palm, and "I'm not a smart man", but that valuation is BS to any sane person.
Re timing of these tax issues, I believe they are also outside of the statute of limitations for federal tax penalties, not sure to be honest. Consider what the IRS and the "special prosecutor" Weiss is trying to do for Hunter Biden and his tax issues, drag the case on long enough for the statute to run out. Without the two IRS agents coming forward, this issue would have gone into the ether.
the other cases I guess we will see what happens.
til then
all around, it stinks to me.
No longer a Trump fan here but do tell how you come to the belief that he is guilty of "almost all of them"?
Thanks for the gratuitous willingness to wait for verdicts.
You're welcome. Glad to be of service.
Richard, by your comments you seem to be a considered, reasonable man, so I’m puzzled how you can possibly say Trump has committed no crimes. He took Top Secret documents (including war plans on how to deal with Iran), lied about what he’d taken, refused to return them when asked and then showed them around at his NJ country club to other members. Even his arch lackey Bill Barr has said he is cooked on this charge. Then in Georgia, “find me 11,000 votes”. On tape. If you think that is not interference with an election, please tell me what it takes to ever do so. And I’ll not even start on January 6, 2021. Or do you think that what he did was NOT incitement?
I’m puzzled.
hi
you as are others, are entitled to your opinions, re Trump and anything else.
Re the Docs case, as I understand it, A sitting President alone, can decide what is classified or NOT. Trump said he declassified the docs he possessed. NARA wanted them back. There is no accurate way to account for what or when a doc is declassified apparently. So it is a he said-she said issue. What is clear re classified docs; Biden, Pence, Clinton were all unable to declassify the docs they possesed, as they did not hold the office of President. WHY is there no prosecution of these folks/situations? Re war plans on "How to deal with Iran", maybe Biden and Obama should read those and learn from their ongoing mistakes. Seems like Trump dealt with Iran quite effectively vs our current state...
Georgia, listen to the entire recording and not just "find me 11,000 votes", there is much more context and multiple people on the line who were involved. To indict 18 people or RICO charges is insane, and is being used to get one or more to flip on Trump. I find it highly unlikely there will come anything from Ellis or the others.
Yes, don't get me started on Jan 6. The rally was planned by a support group for Trump, and he was one of several speakers that day. Trump offered Natl Guard and addl security to Pelosi and Mayor Bow-wow-ser, who refused to accept the support. Even the Cap Police chief confirmed this offer of addl security. Listen to the entire speech and it is clear (to me and most logical listeners) that Trump advised marchers to go "Peacefully and Patriotically" and let your voices be heard. He is not the reason folks became violent and skirmishes broke out that day. He perhaps could have stepped in earlier to calm things, but he did not. Does not make him guilty of anything. What should piss folks off, are the 500+ riots during 2020 re Floyd and the fallout from that. $1.5 billion in damages alone, vs $1.5 mil in est damages to the capitol,,, wow. 22 people and police killed in the 2020 riots. One person, Ashley Babbit murdered by a DC policeman Byrd,( with no open investigation of his actions) , with no other deaths or significant injuries on Jan 6. The livelihoods and families ruined by the 2020 riots is the real crime, and virtually no one held accountable for any of that. The 1000+ people investigated after Jan 6, is the other crime here. Some still in jail and have not had a trial.
And yes, I feel the capitol was full of antifa and other instigators trying to make the day turn out worse than it did.
take care
rich
I was listening as he spoke, specifically telling his supporters not to play into the hands of his enemies; behave themselves; protest peaceably; and then go home. That those that swarmed the barriers; got themselves a guided tour courtesy of the Capitol Police; and indulged in some mild, and tbh silly, political theatre either weren't listening, or not tuned in to what he was saying in the first place, is hardly the President's fault. I heard no "incitement" whatsoever.
"[Trump] is in some folks minds, guilty of being brash, saying some mean things, and certainly being Pro-America."
That's the only reason he is being persecuted—for being pro-America. That's it.
(On bankruptcy, Trump's hotel and casino businesses were declared bankrupt four times between 1991 and 2009.)
re the bankrupcy(cies). the law is or was in place to allow that. If the law was bad, or is bad, lobby to change it. Simply having the Biden admin waive the law, is not the way things are done. This latest effort to wipe away student debt, taken on knowingly, will be struck down in my opinion. thanks rich
No he was persecuted for threatening the Swamp. And it needs to be drained.
Trump c;laimed he was, among a myriad of other things, going to "drain the swamp." The swamp still stinks and needs draining, and it's never going to happen.
Because the swamp fought back. From.day 1. I am certain that is why his second term had to be derailed at all costs. At least we can put names and faces to the swamp creatures now. People think Trump is some sort of tyrant, but consider if you will swamp creature Comey slithering in to the oval and after a meeting saying "A word in private Mr. President". Then telling him about the Steel dossier including pee tape story S if it were genuine. When swamp creature Comey knew that it was paid for by Hilary Clinton. It was a Machiavelian tactic to divert Trump from.the real wrongs being done. This followed by four years of the Russia collusion myth. If you do not understand that the executive branch career bureaucrats are rotten and need to go, I can't help you. Trump is the only one who can drain it. Haley and Christie are swamp creature wannabees. DeSantis is too nice. Ditto Ramaswamy, plus wholly inexperienced.
"Trump is also guilty as hell, on many charges. Why is that not obvious to everyone, at this point?"
Well, let me count the ways. The massive investigation of his "Russia Collusion" came up empty-handed after two years and a zillion dollars wasted. And the source of the funds for producing the phony Steele Dossier was eventually traced to the DNC. And the FISA warrant that was obtained to spy on Trump—both before and after he was already in office—was obtained fraudulently. These are facts, not opinions. So, there is ample evidence that Trump's political enemies have not hesitated to use every dirty trick in the book to undermine him and falsely accuse him.
That's why I'm a bit suspicious when I see him indicted by left-wing activist prosecutors and judges who could have brought up these charges against him two or three years ago—but instead chose to wait until election season to force him to waste his time and effort defending himself instead of campaigning for the Presidency.
Why is that not obvious to everyone, at this point?
You can't charge a sitting President.
Ok, fine, but none of that makes Trump LESS guilty for other things.
Everyone is stuck in this binary trap. "His enemies are horrible, so Trump must be...."
Or "Trump is a liar and a horrible human, so the DOJ and media must always be right that...."
Nope. Neither one.
On the Gripping Hand, the Shane Gerickes and KAMs of this world just might be delusional oiks.
Being 'obvious' is not how our law system works. But if it IS obvious, it should be super easy to show things like evidence and then convict. that fact that the trials don't seem to be doing this might indicate that while it may SEEM obvious, there may not be much to actually PROOVE that it is obvious....which is what is needed to convict someone.
Meet back here in two years?
Trump is "guilty as hell" of what exactly? We're all aware of the flimsy accusations by his enemies, so go ahead and tell us what, exactly, his incontrovertible crimes are.
He's guilty of crimes of law and "crimes" against the republic. The latter don't matter in court, but they are of far greater consequence: He lost, but wouldn't concede that he lost even when it was "incontrovertible" to everyone including himself.
Of the 90+ charges against him (since the last election; I'm not counting his innumerable run-in's with the law as a private citizen nor before the 2020 election), two stand out to me.
First, he defied a federal subpoena to submit secret documents, then tried to hide them. That's criminal, and arguments about that he SHOULD have been able to keep them are irrelevant. He defied the law.
Second, he used extra-legal means to try to change the results of the election. Bullshit judicial lawsuits? Fine. He tried, he lost, whatever. Twisting arms of executive branch people like the GA guv? Nope.
Guilty of what charges? How do you know this?
Oh bull. Guilty of what?
I thought it was insulting tripe. The media leap. The Republican Party is a label.masquerading as an organization. Mike Johnson is a "generic" name is a pretty telling statement. As is previously only famous to his family. Tripe. Tripe. And more tripe.
I agree. Not sure why the author decided to attach Mike Johnson for not being famous. Why would any party want to select a speaker on how famous they are?
Because they view the world as a popularity contest which is nothing more than a numbers game. Which is dehumanizing.
Sam, if you back and watch an address by Eisenhower or watch a debate between Reagan and Bush, Sr., it's painfully obvious how inept and inarticulate our leaders are today.
Many people despise Trump because he is not articulate, and they would prefer to have someone well-spoken with refined manners representing them on the international stage. Nevertheless, while Trump may be inarticulate, he can hardly be accused of being inept. Consider a few details: Trump facilitated peace agreements between Israel and four neighboring Arab countries—the first and only President to achieve that in the past 75 years. He cut off funding to Iran and had them on the ropes, whereas Biden just sent them $8,000,000,000 with more on the way. No new foreign wars started on his watch. Hamas knew better than to invade Israel while he was in office. Gas prices were way lower, and inflation was not an issue. I could go on, but the point is this: There is a huge difference between being inarticulate and being inept, and people tend to overlook this all-important distinction.
Sam, sorry to rain on your “greatest hits” parade but: Kushner’s peace deal looked great except that it played to his Orthodox Jews mates (read, settlers) and totally ignored the Palestinians...and stored up the resentments for the explosion on October 7;
Obama recognised the harsh reality that even the US’s bunker buster bombs would not reach the Iranians’ underground nuclear facilities so he had to negotiate. The $6billion (not $8 bn) is Iran’s own money, frozen in South Korea for years; Biden reasoned that he could release it to a safe account in Qatar in return for Iran’s release of six U.S. hostages. Naive perhaps, but what would you have had him do?
No new wars? Well done! But Trump set the terms of the Afghanistan withdrawal and handed that poisoned chalice on to Biden, and he backed Bibi all the way, so much that Bibi and his ultra right wing fanatics are arguably as much to blame for October 7 as is Hamas, by provocation and negligence rather than intent.
Right, it is all the JEW's and the JEWS fault. You, "sir", are an anti-semite middle-wit and can go boil your head.
Short, sweet and to the point. Thanks for a good chuckle!
That’s an easy slur to sling about. I’m not anti-Semitic, I am anti-settler and anti-Bibi. The difference should be obvious.
Not to me, mate. What is obvious to me and has been for something like 25 years is there is no sharing the world with Islam and the Ummah hates Jews for hatings sake. There is no squaring the circle; the so-called "Two State Solution" was already 20-25 years a non-starter when it was first floated. The real colonisers occupiers, and settlers came out of the desert east of Jordan about 1400 years ago. This will only end with the "Palestinians" realising and acknowledging the Jews are going nowhere and either becoming Israelis or emigrating to places that will have them. If they remain in arms and hostile, they will either be chucked out with nothing in one fell swoop or chucked out in dribs and drabs over the next couple of decades. Again with nothing. The definition of madness is trying the same failed nonsense over and over again expecting a different outcome.
Nodding to Belloc:
Whatever happens, Israel have got
The ICBM, and they have not.
Great point, MC. It’s humbling to go even farther back and see how many of our former presidents were incredibly articulate, thoughtful and well-read compared to many of the grifter-politicians of today.
Rhetoricians many ain't; but I judge DeSantis,Trump, et.al on their records; not how they speechify. Cicero and Demosthenes are cited and acclaimed for their rhetoric to this day; the enemies of freedom still saw them dead though.
“the persecution of Trump on blatantly contrived charges with the failure to prosecute Biden and Co despite overwhelming evidence”
Both statements are wild oversimplification and demonstrably false.
There is some evidence of wrongdoing on both Trump and Biden. Gurri’s point is accurate in that electing either one of them will do nothing but continue to make these legal issues the focus of either administration when there are many more larger issues to tackle.
Of course, we all agree with common sense issues, as long as they flatter our tribe. Anything against our tribe (in this case, the Cult of Trump) is “stupid”. Yes, I tend to be less optimistic than the author of the article.
Thank you for saying this so I didn't have to.
WOW! I did not think it was possible to fit that much nonsense in one essay . Martin Gurri is possibly the all- time honors graduate of the Israeli school of Hasbara. Indeed a master of sophistry .
Of course, it makes sense that he was an analyst at the CIA the ultimate specialists in deceit, trickery, disinformation, and Orwellian Newspeak. he starts off his piece by listing all the dastardly deeds that Hamas was said to have done
Most of which were debunked. There were no rapes. There were no babies burned in an oven nobody was tortured and most of the civilian deaths -as new information and data has come to light- we’re largely caused by the Israeli Air Force, striking the area indiscriminately killing Hamas resistance fighters as well as Israelis
There is undeniable truth, proof that Israel also strafed their own army base. Killing their own soldiers. They were conforming to the IDF policy called the Hannibal strategy. (You can Google it) where basically says it’s better to kill your own people and to have them become a liabilityIf they are taken hostage.
Then he takes liberty with reality by calling the protesters of the Israeli massacre that has been ongoing for over 40 days as supporters of Hamas. The millions of people that showed up because of the unspeakable heinous actions of Israel against the people of Gaza
Official numbers to date are over 13,000 civilians and approximately 6000 children have been murdered by Israel. Its bombing up hospitals, schools, churches, masks, and civilians fleeing from north to south can be characterized as pure evil. The cutting off of water, Internet, food, medical supplies fuel is considered war crimes as many organizations have deemed it to be the United Nations Amnesty International,American Friends, Human Rights Watch , B’Tselem, JVP , If Not Now Red Cross , Save the Children Doctors Without Borders as well all those who have eyes and a brain. Mr Gurri the alchemist has managed to turn the millions of peaceful protesters against the continued genocide(look it up it’s what Israel is perpetrating )into supporters of terrorism. a majority of the world is in shock, and awe by Israel’s relentless cruelty.
Yet he insists on having you believe that what you see is false. That is an amazing feat, especially in this age of communication.
Unlike other historical crimes, such as the Holocaust, Cambodian killing fields Mao Tse Tungs cultural revolution ,the Armenian genocide etal. This particular event is being”televised”
you have people like Mr. Gurrii disingenuously spewing alternative facts and asking you to believe him. Yes you can believe him or you can believe your own eyes -you pick .
Sent from my brain
Morality? In this section I think he's saying we can just expect more inane battles between and about politicians from the same old farts when there are more important things at hand. Am I missing something, or did you bring a completely different axe to grind?
Ex CIA. I knew there'd be bullshit built in.
Funny I thought that was the best line in the whole article
I am more pessimistic. The initial response (on the 7-th) of the university heads was very revealing. The moral backbone is gone, even they don't know which way is up. The fish is rotting from the head. The course corrections after that is just triangulation, money worries and the like - they don't matter that much.
Yes, once they reveal themselves, the rest is just positioning.
They revealed, and when attacked for it they backtracked a bit but there was no shame.
Now they are actively trying to normalize their obvious hate as free speech even though they have spent years repeating the nonsensical “silence is violence” and “words are violence”.
But actual violence is fine if it’s used against the evil Jew.
Pat, they “backtracked” a bit, but only AFTER some of their powerful donors began to complain!
You are correct, “they have no shame” and they’ve indoctrinated thousands of students to have none, either, and no moral compass!
Many of the most high-profile incidents marking the progress of the Cult of True Victimhood in academia seem to come from two sources: 1) lower-level administrators who are Adepts in the Cult who take over student affairs and diversity offices, and 2) upper-level administrators who lead with their finger in the wind - hyper-alert to anything that might affect the flow of money from alumni - who were taken by surprise by the power of social media to ruin reputations in a matter of hours.
All of this allows a small number of hard-core Cultists to exert outsized influence on even large and prestigious institutions, sometimes abetted by relatively small cadres of Cultish faculty and students, who happily join in the social-media and - in the worst cases - in-person mobbing.
I can only imagine how confusing the post-10/7 "donor revolt" must have been to the presidents of elite schools, who thought that siding with the Cult would always protect the flow of money into the endowment!
Saving academia may be a matter of stiffening the spines of faculty and students who are not adherents to the Cult, and finding ways to ensure upper-level administrators are not so easily spooked by what's trending on TikTok.
Nope, the those faculty and students need to walk away and create and enrol in NEW universities. Academia delenda est.
I could not agree more! I think the current universities are not salvageable 😬
Isn’t that the mistake all revolutionaries make? “Burn it all down! We’ll come up with something better to replace it! We promise!”
Seems to me some chap named Burke kept going on about what a terrible mistake that was for the French after 1789 . . .
Did I say anything about "burning it all down"? We get the hell out of Dodge and Darwin will do the rest, irrespective of if we set up a competing academia with in-built bullshit detecting. If we do set up in competition, along with those unis that have signed up to https://universitiesunitedagainstterrorism.org/ and similar; the quicker Wokist Academia goes the way of the Neanderthal. That is how the West works; the world joins us or flushes itself.
Even Sunni and Shia political thinkers like Muhammed Abduh and Ruhollah Khomenei understood this. They didn't really understand the circle couldn't be squared unless they went back to basics and pinned 95 theses to the doors of the Al Aqsa Mosque, but that is bye the bye.
Staying in Wokist Academia will only postpone the Second Coming of the West.
They start very early in some places. For example, in my home city of Minneapolis, there is a magnet school for "humanities" which teaches Critical Theory, Pre-K-8: https://exploremps.org/School/ella_baker_global_studies_and_humanities_school
We cannot afford to focus just focus on universities. Graduates from these fell sociology disciplines are infiltrating public schools for children and trojan horsing their ideology into the curriculum. The current trojan horse in places like California and Minnesota is "Ethnic Studies:" https://education.mn.gov/MDE/dse/stds/EthnicStudies/index.htm
I would argue that it's even more important to make public school K-12 the Normandy Beach then treat academia like it's an isolated Berlin, not leaving out Ed Schools. (No violence implied here, just how to turn the tide on the left wing identitarians.)
Yes! This is critical too. There’s a NYC pre school teacher teaching the 4 year old public school students to hate.
From the NY post- Siriana Abboud is teaching 4 year-olds to hate Israel. Pure indoctrination in public schools. "I is for intifada, J is for jihad." And she's won the 2023-24 early childhood Big Apple Award which puts her on an advisory council to spread her ideas to other teachers.
"Siriana Abboud, 29, a city Department of Education teacher at PS 59 in Midtown, offers social-media guides on how to talk to 4-year-olds about “land theft, displacement and ethnic cleansing.”
She encourages parents to take them to pro-Palestinian protests — while blasting Israel as a “fascist ethnostate” in her Instagram stories, even in the wake of the Oct. 7 terror attacks by Hamas terrorists."
https://nypost.com/2023/11/04/metro/a-manhattan-pre-k-teacher-is-spreading-anti-israel-hate-to-the-citys-youngest-learners-and-offering-parents-and-teachers-tips-to-indoctrinate-kids-to-her-left-wing-agenda-educators-and-insiders-told/
My god. It’s like Jesus Camp but for Wokies.
Was this curriculum developed by Islamic Jihad and approved by Hamas?
They are just a bit out of water and unsure of a leadership game plan. U Chicago has it right. Stay out of the opinion business and let your professors and students freely (and civilly) talk and research it through.
St Johns in Annapolis and Santa Fe!! Wonderful “great books” institution that DOES NOT indoctrinate.
Yes, very revealing. But the rot has been progressing steadily with dystopian "thinking" becoming standard in media, education, government, and especially social media.
Everyone is thinking selfishly in one-dimensional tunnels. No one is thinking about the PROCESS of America: The Golden Rule, Constitution, Bill of Rights, Rule of Law, controlled international relations, careful policing, efficient government services, internationally competitive education of knowledge (history, civics, sciences,...) and ESSENTIAL SKILLS (3Rs, heading below #25 in world).
A main roadblock to a pivot toward democratic culture may be the self-serving collaboration between legislators and media. Legislators have limited energy for "the people's common interests" when they have no term limits and are spending over 50% of their time working the phones and media to get reelected for life. Not sure what the solution is for that, but it's certainly a roadblock to quality consensus thinking and productive working in Congress.
Term limits would be a great start. Politics should never be a career, but rather a temporary call to service. However, Congress itself would have to vote in term limits. What’s the over/under on THAT happening?
LOL. I wouldn't make that bet.
They do matter, because they are training (indoctrinating) the people who will populate and eventually control all the institutions that govern us.
"The American people have lost their way before and always returned to a place of decency and sanity."
I don't think we have ever lost our way so completely as we have now. And with our youngest adults, as a generation, rejecting decency and sanity as the values of "oppressors," how can we possibly hope to have a future that is sane and decent?
Apparently you've never read about the 60's...
Hope was stronger then. The young protested an unjust war and fought racial discrimination. The brain dead youth of today obsess about their pronouns and vandalize posters of kidnapped children.
The young were faked into protesting a just war; the Whitehouse was faked into fighting that just war stupidly. The fox was already in the henhouse. Now it is obvious our kids are got, we need to acknowledge our parents and grandparents were too. Don't bleat their bullshit.
Your paranoia is noted
I was born in the 60s. The U.S. was not nearly as lost then as we are now.
I was born in 1960 and I don't remember there being much chaos either - because I was so young. However, being born in the 60's and actually living through the 60's are two different things. You'd have to read about the 60's to know.
I was born in 1939 and lived through the 60s. It was not as chaotic or dangerous as it is now. You could participate or not and no one cared which choice you made. It's much different today.
How so. The difference now is that the media, and social media (including bots and foreign powers), inflate EVERY issue to make something seem more prevalent than it actually is. For example, there are 12,000 professors in the University of California System and you can count the handful who have been spouting B.S. about the Palestinians. Same with students. There are almost 300,000 students in the same system. How many participated in pro-Palestinian protests?
The vast vast vast majority of people just go about their daily lives. I mentor students at my company. Most of them just want good grades and a decent career and don't give two s****s about politics.
As you say, Scott, the media fans flames far more today, which is why it isn’t trusted and why we’re all here on Substack.
But, unlike the 60’s, today we have a “woke” military and a FBI and CIA that clearly suppressed information they knew to be true, and did so many times. That’s a big difference from a bunch of hippies running around Haight Ashbury.
You should watch Citizen Kane; this is not new.
Respectfully disagree; no rash of assassinations and riots like during the entirety of the 60s.
And EVERYONE cared what choice you made, and would protest/fight against you. Do you forget "America Love It or Leave It"?
68 DNC convention comes to mind
I wasn't in the US during the DNC convention. Today we have the Jan. 6th whatever you want to call it, shootings daily, riots in cities, they aren't called riots anymore, I don't recall anyone being interested in what choices I made. We had a different experience.
My friends tell me I had a great time in the '60's, but I can't remember much of it....
:)
I lived through the 60’s, Sam. Student riots, the SDS, Weather Underground, Black Panthers, anti-war rallies. The difference with today is that nobody back then questioned the value of America itself, and the extremist fringe was a fraction of today’s. This country today looks a lot like Russia in 1917, which collapsed due to a combination of wars, mismanagement and hubris. Sound familiar? Importantly, and contrary to what most Americans think, the people did not support the Bolsheviks - they merely took advantage of the chaos to engineer a coup and cemented their power over a few years. It could happen here.
I agree that there was no question about America's core solidity back then. Viet-Nam was seen by many as a wrong turn, but there was no wholesale demonization of America itself. Except for fringe groups like the Symbionese Liberation Army, the Black Panthers, and the Weathermen who were violent and all spelled AmeriKa with a "K". Somehow, the survivors of these 60s fringe groups wormed their ways into academia, cloned themselves, and the clones begat a new generation of journalists, lawyers, administrators and politicos who went forth and "changed the system from within." And Bill Ayers became best buddies with a guy named Barack Obama...
Hi, I'm not understanding. Are you saying the hard left of the 60's didn't question the value of America? That's not correct. The 60's was the era of the demonization of capitalism / individual rights and the enshrinement of collectivism on so many major college campuses. It's clear we still have the same demonization of capitalism individual rights and the enshrinement of collectivism but this time it's coming from both the old hard left and the new authoritarian right. But you're right, it could happen here so we have to be vigilant.
Well, there was some of that, but it was almost more of a libertarian mishmash - drugs were cool, love was "free", long hair, rock and roll.... that's what most demonstrators were about, along with ending the Vietnam war. There wasn't a lot of support for the SDS, Bader Meinhoff, FALN, etc.
Not much chaos?! I was born in 1968, so I missed the big show, but even a casual glance at the decade shows a mass movement of young people either checking out or becoming militant, a string of high-profile assassinations - including the murder of a front-runner for the presidency! - waves of demonstrations on campuses sometimes brutally repressed by authorities (e.g., the Kent State shootings), the rise of a more radical and violent offshoot of the civil rights movement, violence surrounding the political convention of a major party, and the ascension of one of the most corrupt administrations in U.S. history.
But, hey, I guess if you can drop acid in a field while listening to Jefferson Airplane, everything's just groovy, right?
I am old enough to remember 1968, a year marked by hundreds of riots, assassinations, and all of the catastrophic events that you mentioned. I do think that was the beginning of the "March through the institutions" that has been so successful. In my view, what we are seeing today is the bursting forth of a mindset that has been in the making for decades. The people dropping acid in the fields were not the problem. The problem is, and was, the extremists and their utopian plans to burn it all down. We hippies were a naive bunch, but we didn't advocate violence.
You did note Kent State is a Uni, and most of those folks protesting students? The Long March had happened decades before. When Walter friggin Cronkite is shiilling for Charlie on National Telivision, your nation is more than a bit lost.
Lived through the 60's, "same old,same old."
But the adults stayed in charge throughout the 60s. Now the Tik-Tokers are in charge.
Did the adults really stay in charge? I’m a Boomer and remember that time well, although I was only a child. Look back on photos of many of the politicians from the 60’s and 70’s. The adults of the Biden/Pelosi generation wore flare pants, wide ties, and long-ish hair. They didn’t try to lead the young, they tried to copy them. They were all-in on “finding themselves”. Gail Sheehy’s “Passages” about adult navel gazing was a huge best seller. It was pathetic.
You may be correct about Congress. That may well be where Congress went off the rails. But the executive branch and the military stayed pretty adult. Even Carter was a grown-up just a misguided one. Clinton was the first of my generation and while I was embarrassed at his conduct in retrospect he looks like a genius compared to subsequent Presidents. And of course the Warren Court was in full liberal bloom.
Yes Lynn. My perspective on Clinton as President has changed greatly as I have gotten older. Hated him for a long time but now I am more like you. His conduct was horrible however he was a very smart politician. Changed course when he needed to and did some good. I'd take him over our current front runners now and that is saying something.
The lesser evil is still EVIL.
And he would and could work across the aisle.
An adult executive and an adult military would have driven Charlie over the Chinese border well before LBJ had to decide to run or not. An adult executive and an adult military would have cottoned on something was very, very, wrong in the USA and concentrated a sight more on the 'domestic' part of the Oath of Allegiance.
True. IMO the push for a federal behemoth has been underway for about a century and a half. But they still looked like Solomon compared to the current and recent crop of yahoos.
Yes - including the eighteen-sixties.
The days of Boss Tweed in NY. If you read his biography you will see a striking resemblence to Trump.
In what way? Be SPECIFIC.
Without going through the entire biography that's impossible. If you're serious about the subject, you can read the paperback edition. Tweed ran the NY Democrat party, nothing happened without his approval. He was a con man and collected money from his constituents.
The first principle of argumentation is "onus probandi" - that the person making a claim is responsible for providing evidence to support that claim. If someone makes an assertion, it is their responsibility to prove or support it, rather than shifting the burden to others to disprove it.
Your assertion was, "The days of Boss Tweed in NY. If you read his biography you will see a striking resemblence [sic] to Trump."
The burden - and the ball - is in your court. I'll give you a leg up:
In what way? Be SPECIFIC.
I wish I had a good answer.
I think it's a cyclical event usually preceding global change in dynamics.
1900, 1920, 1940, 1960, 1980, 2000, 2020 all experienced global events that enacted serious change, either through decolonization, war, or social upheaval. Keep going backwards....
IMHO
I find it telling that a former CIA analyst can’t see that we’re witnessing the purposeful and “fundamental transformation” of America put in motion the day Barack Obama was sworn in.
Only a complete outsider had a chance at putting a stop to the process in place, but that hope born in November of 2016 was thwarted before it even began. The powerfully entrenched and generously enriched of our nation, whose hubris and greed were effectively harnessed, were set to destroy that hope the renegade administration brought.
The intelligence agencies - including that of Mr Gurri (once CIA, always CIA) gleefully targeted the renegade with bizarre stories of prostitutes peeing and clandestine activities with Russkis that haters were all too eager to believe.
Bizarre machinations of gender and race infected college campuses - which spread the disease down to the littlest among us and now we have grownups arguing that porn is acceptable shelf stock for elementary schools.
The inmates have loosed their bonds and are marauding a town near you! Don’t worry, they’ll be close enough for you to see very soon!
Don’t you see that the Emperor-in-waiting is sitting back, naked, enjoying the show, just waiting while he surveys all that he put in motion?
Nailed it. God, I wish I could write like that.
I am humbled.
Yup, I second the emotion!
I'd be shocked to find a CIA "analyst" who knew their arse from a hole in the ground tbh. Long history of spouting blatent nonsense and failing to see what should've been bloody obvious to an Intelligence "professional".
Slight correction. Porn is not just acceptable shelf stock for elementary schools. It is mandatory, otherwise we are “book banning”.
Ah yes, all those lies that his inauguration crowd wasn’t bigger than Obama’s. The delusion started right then...
We've been shown the exit from one hundred nine nations so far. Why does anyone think this is new. As my Father used to say, the only new thing tomorrow will be the date.
Meanwhile the proactive way to go for me is to understand that the US Federal government is an abject failure and in no way beneficial to me.
Due to the time I have left I'm fairly nonplussed regarding the inevitable collapse the imbecilic leftists will force. In discussions with my progeny I say look to the saner States. God will judge the American people. Change is coming as change is the only constant.
So much of what we are seeing today has been seen before in civilizations that have come and gone: That history is no longer a part of the educational curriculum at any level. An absence of understanding of the human condition inevitably results in the same outcome. Unfortunately, I sense that the awakening in this age of mankind’s evolution will come only in the form of shock treatment, the likes of which the world has never seen. If we are being honest with ourselves, it is not a question of whether, but rather about when. While horribly pessimistic, a look at the world’s last serious wake-up call predated the nuclear age, social media, AI, and communications traveling at the speed of light. Given these advancements, I am not so sure that the outcome we are facing today will be so tame as to resemble the beaches of Normandy and the ruins of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. I pray for my children and grandchildren that they will enjoy the freedoms and life delivered to us on the shoulders of those who came before us and seem to have been forgotten so quickly. Having lived long enough to see crises come and go, I would never have believed I would witness the current rot within our own country and around the globe expand to the point we are witnessing today among a majority of decent human beings who simply want to live a happy life.
We are still earthbound so the full impact of social media, AI, etc. are still limited thereto. Also I find it telling that the Ukraine Russia war is heavily reliant on ammunition. Which means humans are still in control.
So true!
Amen!
"Meanwhile the proactive way to go for me is to understand that the US Federal government is an abject failure and in no way beneficial to me." --- Thank you for this honest and well thought out response! I've been saying this for quite some time. The sooner we realize this, the sooner we can come up with real solutions.
For example, I'd bet that very little know that the Carnegie, Ford, and Rockefeller stage a coup of the US government back in the day (https://unorthodoxy.substack.com/p/donating-to-a-good-cause-how-billionaires). If that was then, imagine what's happening now.
These are the topics I discuss in my book and the sooner we can wake up to our reality, the sooner we can come up with real solutions:
https://www.amazon.com/Unorthodox-Truth-Theoretical-Discussion-Reality/dp/B0CL3J51JZ/ref=sr_1_1?crid=1ZB0UKUCQ6PU9&keywords=an+unorthodox+truth&qid=1698936173&sprefix=%2Caps%2C132&sr=8-1
Most people think the Civil War was just about slavery.
Read the CSA articles of confederation
Read Lincoln. His gig was "Preserve the Union"; with or without slavery. Everyone misses that he actually freed no slaves while the war was on. Before the war you were "These United States"; after the war you were "The United States". Big difference. I'd argue Lincoln's efforts critically fucked-up the Founders' intentions in ways you all mostly miss to this day.
Lincoln absolutely fired the most damaging shot which is currently completing the destruction of the Republic. I never expected to see it in my lifetime but here we are. The next iteration will be autocracy. There will be a right wing dictatorship and you can expect citizens becoming subjects. Many will be unceremoniously tossed from aircraft into the oceans. I'll go listen to "Life During Wartime" now.
| the US Federal government is an abject failure and in no way beneficial to me. |
I think this is a bit extreme. The Federal Government is certainly bloated and Congress has become afraid to do its job, leaving it for the Executive and the Courts, but I still see personal benefit from many agencies that require some type of coordination at a high level: air traffic control, interstate highways, etc.
The problem is that the government responds to campaign donors and only to the will of the people in the rare cases the will of the people corresponds to what campaign donors also want. If they responded to the will of the people we wouldn't have, for example, giant hedge funds buying up the nation's housing stock, medical and veterinary clinics, etc.
Jacinto is Jewish and just stating the facts and the truth regarding themselves and their kindred. Me, I'd have INS Leviathan parked off the Hudson to apply instant sunshine to disinfect US anti-semitism if it gets too out of hand.
The fight for America needs to come from those younger than about 50. People with kids, people with 30+ years ahead of them. But here’s the rub, I don’t think enough will step up. They are too consumed with their lives to notice, or in the case of the 20 somethings, they are fine with having the whole thing collapse. So all I can say to them is, I’ll probably be dead. This is your problem. But they are in denial and totally unequipped to face it. Amazon’s Black Friday sale is happening soon, so.....
✅ Indeed, this is all so. Unfortunately for me, this is becoming my children's problem, as well, which frankly sucks. (They are 12 and 16.) Cannot dare imagine what their lives and their world will become.
If you paint with a broad brush and use capital letters, the Grand Institutions of our society seem Beyond Hope, especially Academia.
But here on the ground, in the classrooms and offices of lower-case academia - my own stomping grounds - the situation is much more complex, and there are more opportunities to restore what is best about essential institutions than stories like this might suggest.
Yes, the Cult of True Victimhood has made serious inroads in many places, and many of the most elite colleges and universities may be all but lost, at this point. But it's important to pay attention to where precisely the problem is coming from, and where the points of resistance are . . . and note well a lot of us are all but immune to the enticements and inducements of the Cult, even in the humanities.
While stories from Harvard and Yale and Oberlin and Hamline might feed the narrative of Institutional Decay, giving us all a most gratifying sense of Impending Doom, it might be worth looking at your own nearest public college or university, to see what's actually going on there. Or look at the Chronicle of Higher Education. or Inside Higher Ed, or the FIRE report on campus free speech for a more nuanced view.
Or, if you want something really bracing and encouraging, check out Heterodox Academy.
My son (23 yr old) and his friends all reject the victim hood identity nonsense and seem to have mostly conservative values. I credit their families and upbringing in a close knit community- but also- they all went to schools that weren’t the big names but a good value. I doubt any of them become a tech billionaire or cure cancer, but I’m proud of all of them and they give me hope!
I would settle for my own kids rejecting the victimhood nonsense and embracing old-school liberal values!
My younger one (almost 21) may be tending that way, a little, and has fled a small liberal-arts school that is awash in the Cult for a large state university. My older one (just 24) has been attending a large public university and is a True Believer in the Cult, but more, I think, from spending too much time online than from the university.
So, results may vary . . .
I do have some friends whose children’s minds are infected by the virus and it is causing relationship issues. One friend was showing us videos of his 3 yr old grandson who loves to play with trucks (his take) but is wearing a rainbow tutu, had purple streaks in his long hair and painted fingernails…he says it’s all his daughters doing. I’m not sure that there’s any one prescribed path for these kids!
Well, I think old school liberal values are more like todays “conservative” values. They aren’t a bunch of bible bangers, that’s for sure. In regards to the internet, I was shocked when my son started talking about Ben Shapiro one day. Shapiro is brilliant for getting on tic tok!
That is the essence of conservatism: conserving the best of the old school and asking, after Chesterton "Wait what is this fence FOR, exactly?" when somone wants to rip it down.
To give you a sense of how weird things can be in the fine grain of lower-case academia, consider two things I saw while walking onto campus, just now.
First, I walked past one of the Christian ministries for students, which has two flagpoles projecting from the front of the building. On one hangs a Black Lives Matter flag, from the other a pride flag stylized to resemble the Palestinian flag, with rainbow stripes and the blue-white-pink of the transgender flag arranged in a wedge.
A sign in front of the ministry declares it to be an "inclusive space" for "safe inquiry."
(I need to see my colleagues over in the literature department about stepping up their game in teaching students what 'irony' is.)
Second, I walked past one of the larger fraternity houses, which is draped with an Israeli flag and a bedsheet-banner painted with the slogan, "We Stand With Israel".
Most of the other fraternity and sorority houses were decked out with slogans against my institution's big football rival, in preparation for an upcoming game . . .
Thank you. It takes courage to see clearly in these times. Any fool can say the end is near...
A thousand times yes, nuance is very important here. While I'm angry at some other bad choice my college is making, I'm glad they haven't had any pubic celebrations of terrorist. In fact, I also got a list of 100 colleges that haven't caved to any pro Hamas narratives. Some of them are actually pretty big, like Notre Dame and West Virginia! https://universitiesunitedagainstterrorism.org/
Bob, Just want to say "thank you" for your mention of Heterodox Academy, someplace I have never heard of, but am quite happy to now know about. I'm deeply committed to the pluralistic vision, and it's encouraging to discover that there's a small army out there fighting the good fight.
Thanks for the post, Bob. I wish it were so, but I have attended two public universities in the past few years and they both are all in for far left indoctrination. It is prevalent in every class and there is no escaping it. That is the real reason that Republicans keep losing. The mail in voting and decades of leftist indoctrination has caught up with us.
I base my post on more than 35 years of studying at and then working in public universities in the Midwest, the Northeast and the Southeast. In that time I have spoken and collaborated with colleagues across disciplines and across institutions. I’ve followed news from elsewhere in academia, and grappled with the meaning of liberal education in the present day.
Seems as though you had a bad experience at a couple of schools, and that doesn’t surprise me. There is bad stuff happening out there; I won’t deny it. I’d be interested to know where those schools are and which courses were involved.
I’m just trying to keep a larger and more nuanced perspective on the whole thing.
“Gratifying sense of impending doom?” Not gratifying for me and I suggest many others as well.
For some, foretelling doom brings with it an odd kind of satisfaction. Partly it’s a matter of pretending to have some inside line on the Truth that others don’t have, and partly it’s the secret, shameful hope that a good apocalypse would finally teach those stubborn fools a lesson. I see this on the left - among climate doomsayers, for example - as much as on the right.
I mean “apocalypse” does literally mean “out of hiding”, and it’s gratifying to be among the elect who already know what is hidden!
If a lot of people resist the appeal of an instructive apocalypse, then so much the better.
How can anyone have faith that our country will heal from this when the American left despises fundamental Christianity, but supports fundamental Islamism? I always come back to identity politics. I think the American left looks at Palestinians as nothing more than people of color, and Jews as whites. So they will never be objective about anything that involves the Jews. To them the white man is the devil. Therefore, the Jews are devils. This is what American academia has done for the past fifty years. They have divided us by infiltrating education.
I don't understand why these leftists hate a group of people that at worst can be overly judgemental and preachy, but support a group of people that that wants to murder everyone that's not like them... including the leftists that support them.
How they can support this after seeing how extreme Islam treats women baffles me. Didn't they all read "I am Malala" like everyone else in the 2010s? I think where they get confused is that the Western Muslim women they know are allowed to have jobs, education, and be in public without men. That is far from the case in actual Muslim countries.
Because the leftists are themselves "a group of people that that wants to murder everyone that's not like them... including the leftists that support them." This isn't rocket science. /s
"...a group of people that at worst can be overly judgmental and preachy..." wtf?
Seems crazy to say all Jews are white while many are middle eastern jews, teach some history already! Throw in some biology while you are at it. It’s an ideology that is out of control and just what do they think the outcome will be😡 meritocracy is the only way to achieve greatness and foster brilliant people to go out and do what they do best. We aren’t all supposed to be the same we all have our own special gifts to contribute to society. Just a side note we the American tax payer in any given year pay 35+ billion to middle eastern countries that hate us all in the name of world stability. Crazy
Fundamental Christianity and Islam are both beliefs in magic. Neither of these offers any solution to the current situation.
Being anti-Jew was those types thing well before there was such a thing as a "palestinian".
White people have to wake up.
A brilliant review of our current dystopia that ends with “there is always hope.” As has been said many times before, however, “hope is not a strategy.” The fact is that World War III began in the 60’s when the education industry embraced the works of Karl Marx as a framework to indoctrinate the young into a Manichaean world of oppressed and oppressor. In the pursuit of better profits, the business community shipped the future of the working class young overseas, effectively eliminating hope in vast parts of the country. The creation of the internet and social media destroyed the guardrails of community standards as guides to acceptable behavior and personal responsibility. Worst of all, meritocracy as a criteria of electing those who run the government disappeared, producing demonstrably incompetent individuals selected because they represented an “oppressed” community. We live in a time best described by another as one of “intellectual sloth and moral cowardice.” This will not be addressed by arguing over who is more dangerous: Biden of Trump. It will require far more drastic action. We must stop electing and appointing demonstrable idiots, we must stop supporting business that utilize slave labor and fill their management ranks hoping to gain approval from the DEI believers (who will never approve, thanks the point). We must recognize that social media has resulted in far more deaths that drugs or guns, which are prohibited to those under 18. Most important of all, we must stop allowing our children to be indoctrinated and stupefied by a demonstrably Marxist education system. The real question is whether we have the will to do this. That remains to be seen.
Bill Emerson: Thank you for speaking the truth about our times.
All Please read the above! One Thousand Likes!
Much as I can clap and shout "Bravo!" to most of this, you'll have to present actual evidence for the social media claims; especially when kids as young as ten sell drugs to their schoolmates (Or not-in-school mates as the case might be!) and even kids seem to have no problem getting hold of firearms; prohibited to them though both may be.
I think you prove my point, Steven. Prior to the spread of social media, Tik Tok, WhatsApp, etc., teenage suicide was rare and young kids going on rampages and killing schoolmates was unheard of. Sneaking a beer with your friends was really stretching the boundaries. Today, kids are gobbling pharmaceuticals like breath mints and dying of fentanyl overdoses. This is not due to the internet itself, it is due to the alternate reality that it creates.
Mr. Gurri:
There is another possibility you didn't countenance as out institutions collapse:
Civil war and a breakup of the United States. The right half of the country feels powerless as all our institutions are now controlled by the far left. For all intents and purposes, we are now a Communist country. Even if Republicans control the government - the government bureaucracy, news media, Big Tech, educational and cultural institutions (all controlled by the radical left) and the leftist states effectively can and will veto whatever they do. For Free America to regain control, it has to create its own institutions. And the only way to do that now is to create its own country.
I think it is beyond doubt that the differences between Free America and Marxist America today is greater than those between the North and the South in 1860. We can't even agree on what a woman is. The North and South essentially had the same Judeo-Christian belief system, although there was a problem in that one side saw fit to include slavery as part of their belief system.
Our differences now are both cultural and religious - and Leftism/Marxism is a brutal, intolerant religion. We can't survive in a place where it is the state religion.
The socialist revolution is here and well under way.
Atlas must shrug. Do not work for them and do not give them your money.
Atlas must shrug. Perfect.
The Civil War was about more than slavery. Slavery was the catalyst but it was not the whole story. None of this rampant federalism resulting in a massive, bloated federal bureaucracy too unwieldy to manage that is intent on micromanaging every element of human existence could have occurred without the annihilation of states rights. Look at monetary policy for example. Then consider that slavery was financed by New York financiers. Slaves were transported on ships owned by northerners and ships transported the slave grown cotton to the overseas textile mills. I am not condoning slavery. I am saying it was far from.those evil southerners (not even evil plantation owners). As the old saying goes "Oh what a wicked web we weave when first we practice to deceive.".
A serious conversation about American slavery should include the context that slavery is a millennials old scourge practiced in every corner of the Earth, one which continues to this day, particularly in the Islamic world. What makes America special is our willingness to confront our history, to dissect it, to grieve our shortcomings. Is Xi critical of Mao’s purges, or Putin of Stalin’s purges? No - they CELEBRATE them. This is why the American experiment is so important and worth defending. If the U.S. collapses, the world won’t be ruled by Denmark. The word “darkness” does not describe what awaits us that day, including those who insist on destroying the U.S.
I agree. But I also think a genuine conversation needs to be had about slavery. About who profited, and arguably does to this day. About how those good folks who freed the slaves then cast them aside like trash to fend for themselves in a bitter and broken world. I cannot help but think the way New York, City and state, have reacted to the 4 migrants they have received is likely the way freed slaves were received. I call BS. I think people virtue signaled about slavery the same way they do about migrants today. Until they are in the signalers' neighborhood, then it's Katy bar the door. Literally.
I agree. Only 7% of Americans had slaves, and that included some black slaveowners as well. For most Southern Farmers, the plantations were like competing with a factory from an economic standpoint. And the Democrat-led Jim Crow South is a story most young Americans know little of, with Andrew Johnson completely undermining Lincoln until Grant re-established the parameters of Reconstruction.
As for the Liberals who are all about Sanctuary Cities as long as it doesn't affect them, I agree - time to call B.S. As someone said on one of these posts recently, you don't see BLM signs in South Central (L.A.), but they're all over the tony white neighborhoods, along with their gated homes and private security, of course.
Who died and made you God? A BIG part of your problem is thinking you have the God-given right to park your tanks on my lawn. You have to address ALL the failings Wokists and their ilk glom onto; or this will keep coming back and biting you on the arse. Claiming to not have a clue about why we, the Rest of the West FFS, might hate you has gotten a bit of a moth-eaten nonsense now. Get a clue, mate.
Oh, I don't question that it is more than about slavery. It was many things, but I think above all, it was a dispute about the direction of the country in the wake of the changes being brought about by industrialization. Industrialization meant that the population growth was overwhelmingly in the North, and the South feared being overwhelmed both finanically and politically. Even if you could keep dividing states so that one free state entered and one slave state entered (thus keeping the Senate even), the vast population of the North was giving it overwhelming dominance in the House of Representatives.
Furthermore, pre-industrialization, IIRC, it was the South that generated most of the nation's foreign revenue via its exports; a dominance which was fading as the factories went up. The South ultimately split because it feared being overwhelmed by the North and losing its agrarian way of life. And yes, that meant that they wanted slaves; they did not want black freemen.
However, I seriously doubt the war was about slavery as a moral issue; Northerners simply were not that enlightened when it came to Blacks - witness the violence of NYC's anti-draft riots, when a number of blacks were killed.
“We are now a communist country”.. Seriously? Please find yourself some Konstantin Kisin to see what real totalitarian communism is like. I highly recommend his book “An immigrant’s love letter to the West.”
I occasionally will look at Triggernometry, but alas, there are so many podcasts worth watching that I simply don't have time now to devote to them that I would like (maybe when I retire in a couple of years).
However, if you compare use to the modern day CCP with its Social Credit system, we pretty much have that now - the only difference is that the present regime in Washington has outsourced the monitoring to private companies closely aligned with them. The CCP merely omits the outsourcing, but for all intents and purposes, Silicon Valley and the DNC are all part of the same Party structure.
So - are there Gulags? Not yet, but as the left consolidates power, they WILL happen. But modern Communist states can effectively control the populace through mass surveillance rather than mass murder.
See Bret Weinstein on Selective Totalitarianism.
Everyone who proposes a civil war never seems to think about the details. Who would we have to kill? Student Protestors? College professors? Every Democrat in our town, even if they're family? Do we draft up an "army" based on party affiliation? Are YOU gonna personally fight in it? Do we just take all the Republican leaders from the House and Senate and build our own capital? Elect our own president, because that worked out so well for the Confederacy? Or are you imagining it's gonna all be about self defense?
Between this and all the 50+ people gloating about how they'll be dead before things get actually bad, I wish people could propose an actual answer to our problems. And you wonder why my generation are such nihilists.
Eric isn't proposing a civil war; he is making known the high probability of of one; that it is not in anyway unthinkable, and that we have to take it into account.
In dissing him you diss America.
"When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation."
Okay. You start. Do you have any solutions to propose? Or are you just going to criticize others for saying they will die soon? The way I look at it your generation created this monster.
What I'm saying is if we're gonna criticize my generation for nihilistically destroying ourselves, maybe we should find a solution that can create an actual future, one that can inspire them to have actual hope and meaning in their lives. And it would be better to turn to older, wiser people for that solution then for those people to check out and confirm our feelings that death (wether by suicide or killing others for political gain) is better than life. I admit my idea for a solution doesn't go much beyond creating alternative schools and media sources. But both of those things are growing exceptionally fast, with homeschooling rates increasing and sites like The Free Press and Breaking Points being more successful than anyone could've imagined even 10 years ago.
Not everyone in Gen-Z caused or embraces the current state of things, and actively want to change it. And imo, telling young people "at least *I'll* be dead soon" vaguely implies suicide would be preferable to these wannabe changers than living in this world. If you want things to get better, invite the Gen Z who are struggling to your church. If they're questioning the current narrative, let them freely debate the issues they'd get canceled for by their leftie friends. Show them compassion comes from US, not progressives who changes the meaning of the word every week. Nihilism is what got us into this mess, so we need to not embrace it ourselves.
Two years mandatory public service after high school. Could be military. Could be AmeriCorps. Could be deferred if proposed higher education allows for a greater contribution -- such as teaching or practicing medicine in an underserved community. Regardless, everyone earns the same wage for those two years.
Good ideas all FF. Thanks. To that I would add you need to reach out to your peers because you sound like a very insightful person. The folks saying I will be dead soon feel powerless and shoved aside. I saw a good FB post yesterday on Einstein's letter to his daughter about the power of love. I was genuinely moved. Check it out if you have not seen it already.
Inexorable, inevitable result of the bush-cheney-obama-biden-harris uniparty.
Only one solution in the current political milieu and it isn't any democrat that has it.
The role of a prophet includes holding a mirror up to society, and this article brilliantly does so.
One of only a few positive developments over the past few weeks is that some college students, who have lost job offers, etc., have learned their actions can have consequences--that's a step in the right direction. This situation has also revealed the blind stupidity of the "oppressed" and "oppressor" binary. The fallacy of that world-view must continue to be hammered.
Not so good is that the MSM and certain independent journalists, who do wield influence, are still striking a strong anti-Israel tone which doesn't draw a very clear distinction between "we just don't like Bibi" and "Israel is an occupier with no right to exist." We're also seeing the presentation of very selective "history." If you're going to talk about Palestine in the last 100 years (looking at you WAPO), it's fair game to include the Palestinians' support for HItler and the Holocaust (see Simon Sebag Montefiore's "biography" of Jerusalem for more on that).
But there will always be someone to offer those college students who’ve lost job offers new jobs and reward them. That’s how it seems to work today across the board.
Just be wise to the smuggled-in fuckwittery in there that the naive might find themselves nodding along with. He's alphabetti spaghetti and lies for a living.
The American people will either save us, or destroy us.
Isn’t this why we have institutions ?
I’m a little more than fearful in relying on my fellow American given recent events.
After all, people are what make institutions.
If these institutions are rotting from the inside, what makes you think the same people will save us ?
"If these institutions are rotting from the inside, what makes you think the same people will save us?"
They won't.
You might want to brush up on "rhetorical questions". ;-)
And you might want to brush up on unpleasant truths. :-(
Whoosh!
Oh, no..it was not over my head. But based on that response, I think my answer went over yours.
I agree, I was asking the author of the essay.
That's why we need to either find non corrupt institutions to ally with, or make our own. I used to fall for the trap that Conservative institutions can never have enough capital to be successful, until I looked at the Daily Wire. They were going to offer 15 million+ dollars to have Steven Crowder on their roster, and he actually turned it down for reasons too dumb to explain here. So there IS a culture who wants these alternative media/institutions, and are willing to pay handsomely for it. If your looking for some ally institutions (on the Isreal-Hamas front specifically), this list of colleges is a good place to start. Kinda want Bari to report on them, especially since both religious and liberal schools have joined together on this! https://universitiesunitedagainstterrorism.org/
Yes. Amplify this link 👆
Yes, I fully agree.
Thanks for the attached link.
Very good development.
My Alma mater is not on the list.
But no harm, I stopped giving a long time ago.
We're reminded daily of the abject failures of our leaders, but little attention seems to be paid to the fact that the crumbling of America is also physical. A decade ago the idea of a freeway catching fire so severe it had to be closed would be unimaginable. People working 2 or 3 jobs just to make the basic essentials of life is now a current reality. And enough people are here illegally to equal the size of our largest cities. We don't know where they are from, or what they plan to do, but we give them food, housing, and medical care, as well as a mobile phone. These are the things that will motivate the public to force a change. It won't be pretty.
Yes, this craziness must stop!
Your faith that we will wake up and demand a return to sanity is misplaced I fear. There is one factor that has led us to the brink of chaos. Our moral foundation has completely rotted. The traditional family has been largely abandoned, marriage is ridiculed and the role of the church in our society has declined to a level of irrelevance as a result of cowardly leadership and societal hubris. Protecting the right to abortion is more important to most people than stopping the flow of fentenal into our country. Getting my debts forgiven is more important than having a financially accountable government. What’s wrong with selling influence everybody does it? One side defends and re-elected a President having an affair with an intern and then claims the moral high ground when opposed by a 3x married playboy whose womanizing reputation is legendary. We debate free speech and the need to control fake news while pornography flourishes and school teachers quit to star on TikTok. History shows that moral decay is only reversed through tragedy and if it is our guide Our day of reckoning is near.
To better understand the 'short march through the institutions' that this philosophy has had, I would recommend reading The Identity Trap by Yascha Mounk. He gets just about right -- he did miss the significance of the first Maya Forstater verdict in December 2019 when the tribunal judge incorrectly determined that a belief/fact held by an overwhelming majority of citizens namely that one can not alter one's biological sex was not a worthy belief to hold in a democratic society. Because of the slowness of the British judicial system, it took until June 2022 for this to be overturned. In the meantime, it appeared that age old belief systems could be arbitrarily declared unworthy through concerted efforts from people who believed in Strategic Essentialism and Progressive Separatism. This held to lay the ground for what happened in 2020/21 imho.
The book does explain about the abandonment of the belief in universal truths, including the ability to understand people who might have a different background (thus the need to be told what these people and how they should be treated by the 'experts'). It also explains why the research on in/out groups since WW2 has been completely ignored and overlooked.
From the book's blurb: "Mounk has built his acclaimed scholarly career on being one of the first to warn of the risks right-wing populists pose to American democracy. But, he shows, those on the left and center who are stuck in the identity trap are now inadvertent allies to the MAGA movement."
Just another deranged loon with TDS. The "Right" has never posed a problem, except in leftyloon imagination. Even then it has been seen more as a solution; a most useful distraction while commies steal the silver. I hope you read the thing from a position of deep skepticism; this guy sees where the wind is blowing and is jumping ship. We won't be fools again.
I always read from a Mills trident standpoint. His thinking on much of it chimes with mine particularly where universal values and neutral rules are concerned.
When he defines right-wing populism, he is really defining authoritarianism. The real problem as Natalie Wales Latham pointed out in 1947 when she founded Common Cause, a short-lived moderate anti-Communist movement (ended when her third husband died) which attracted people like Albert Schlesinger Jr and Dorothy Thompson (and indeed my grandmother) is that authoritarianism whether it comes from the right or the left is opposed to liberal democracy. Liberal democracy puts the most demands on its citizens.
The other problem which Mounk doesn't mention in the book (possibly because it is outside its scope) is that if you look at Weimar Republic -- both the far left and the far right fed off each other. Ben McIntyre's Agent Sonya in part deals with this. It is the biography of the Soviet spy Ursula Kuczynski. A German Jew, she left Germany in 1931 for Singapore, convinced her side had won.
It is why the centre who believes in things like free speech, freedom of expression and the right of dissent has to be prepared to stand up and take the moral high ground -- to say yes, progress has been made toward affording people opportunity. In a free society, people must be allow to forego that opportunity because of choice. In my humble opinion, it is why you can never equality of outcome in a free society because some choices have consequences.