Ruminations – 10jan20 (updated 13jan20)

George Rebane

The Dems’ Chorus of Cacophony is now shrieking at Trump for taking out Soleimani the terrorist as a prophylactic for imminent acts of terror, exactly the same thing they blamed and still blame Bush2 for NOT taking out Bin Laden in order to prevent 9/11.  We recall it was Bill Clinton who declined to take out Bin Laden when he was actually in our cross-hairs.

More liberal worthies are also blaming Trump for Iran’s downing of the Ukrainian airliner, claiming that our president caused the deaths of the innocent passengers.  No doubt all subsequent atrocities committed by the rump ISIS contingents will now be blamed on our president since he also took out ISIS leader al-Baghdadi.  Such accusations are a daily testament to the anti-American propaganda of our progressives who promote the longevity of every leftwing tyrant across the globe.

Our voting teenagers should make US foreign policy a “higher priority” argues a learned 17-year-old in the 10jan20 edition of The Union (here).  The young man appears to have been successfully inculcated in our public schools to embrace TDS as the proper political support for voting decisions (he likes Buttigieg), while ignoring the capacities of his much less knowledgeable and more malleable peers.  His point would be better made were our schools really a forum for open discussion of ideas instead of founts of mind-melding progressive propaganda.

'Tax the robots' is the new cry arising across the land as a way to slow down automation and save the jobs of the un- and less-skilled.  This, along with universal basic income (q.v.), appears to be the half-way solution to the advent of systemic unemployment.  Other deep thinkers are of the mind that smart machines will be like all other past innovations, they’ll create more new jobs as they change and take away old jobs.  No one yet knows how to tax this latest advance in what used to be called automation.  And you can be sure that nothing promising about all this will come out of our polarized legislatures.  The real problem of systemic income was outlined in these pages some years back (here, here, and here).

[12jan20 update] The winds of woke.  Oh it’s hard to be a progressive without getting daily instructions from PC Central.  For years they taught us about the benefits of adopting cross-cultural artifacts, arts, and affectations into our supposedly banal and racist western culture - inclusivity and globalism and all that.  Now suddenly it has become ‘misappropriation’ to do any of that - a definite no-no for all the woke folks.  The latest is that white women should no longer wear hoop earrings which were originally connected with African women’s adornments.  Gotta stay current.

"The ongoing turmoil in U.S. politics is part of a larger political crisis that is shattering old alignments of left and right in North America and Western Europe. On both sides of the Atlantic, embattled establishments are besieged by populist insurgents. The rebellion takes different forms in different countries—the election of Donald Trump in the U.S., Brexit in the U.K., the revolt of the yellow vests in France. But the underlying dynamic is the same: the revolt of alienated, mostly but not exclusively native and white working-class voters against post-national metropolitan elites."  So argues University of Texas Prof Michael Lind in a major 11jan20 WSJ essay (here).  New insights, definitely worth a read for those paying attention.

[13jan20 update]  ‘Stack & Pack’, an important objective of Agenda21 (now Agenda2030), takes a huge step forward in California under SB50 which Gov Newsom will sign into law.  Here’s the headline – “Senate Bill 50 tramples over local control to push densification”.  Our leftwingers will again sing the A21 conspiracy song.  And again I reply that with Sacramento’s one-party system of governance, there is no conspiracy needed to promote collectivist central planning and control.  (H/T to reader)  Oh, and did I mention AB5?

Comments

[Waldo'sNemesis]

,,,Attention world travellers,,,

Many airliners have been shot down in the past...

Trump set the ball in motion by gunning down Soul Man...

Only the Americans and Iranians appear to be incompetent enough to shoot down airliners accidentally...

Hey, we have something in common!!!

Iran, wants our help to figure out what brought down the Ukrainian flight...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_airliner_shootdown_incidents#2003_Baghdad_DHL_attempted_shootdown_incident

[Bill Tozer]

Re: “The Dems’ Chorus of Cacophony is now shrieking at Trump for taking out Soleimani the terrorist as a prophylactic for imminent acts of terror, exactly the same thing they blamed and still blame Bush2 for NOT taking out Bin Laden in order to prevent 9/11. We recall it was Bill Clinton who declined to take out Bin Laden when he was actually in our cross-hairs”—Dr. Rebane.

Cacophony: Loud harsh noises.

Time warp from not that long ago. No loud harsh noises.

“Flashback: Pelosi Said Obama Did Not Need Authorization to Attack Libya”

https://townhall.com/tipsheet/bronsonstocking/2020/01/09/flashback-pelosi-said-obama-did-not-need-authorization-to-attack-libya-n2559285

[Waldo'sNemesis]

,,,No Biggy Bill,,,

,,,The founders understood that power corrupts, which is why they made sure not to invest it in a single person or body. Congress usually only remembers — and tries to restore — its power when the executive branch is held by the opposite party. But principles should come over party, and never more so than when the stakes are as high as war,,,

[fish]

Posted by: Waldo'sNemesis | 10 January 2020 at 04:03 PM

But principles should come over party, and never more so than when the stakes are as high as war,,,

Everyone enjoy the comedy stylings of local dingbat......dugsKKKi!

Let's bring him out!!

[Waldo'sNemesis]

,,,at least po ol Doug Collins apologised...

https://www.yahoo.com/news/republican-apologizes-for-saying-democrats-are-in-love-with-terrorists-183051354.html

[Waldo'sNemesis]

,,,apologies Oosik,,,

I should have mentioned the author of the above quote is a right wing bimbo...

https://www.nbcnews.com/think/opinion/nancy-pelosi-s-vote-war-powers-resolution-rein-trump-iran-ncna1113236

[Waldo'sNemesis]

,,,damn... missed!!!

https://news.yahoo.com/us-tried-failed-iranian-quds-190925906.html

[fish]

Posted by: Waldo'sNemesis | 10 January 2020 at 04:31 PM

Dismissive of women, minorities and argues for policies that hurt workers......

Careful dugsKKKi neither you nor any of the sock puppets will be invited to Nevada City most progressive soirees any more!

:-(

#SaddugsKKKi

[Bill Tozer]

“Such accusations are a daily testament to the anti-American propaganda of our progressives who promote the longevity of every leftwing tyrant across the globe.” Dr. Rebane

Recommended: Iran’s Fawning Western Apologists

FIRST PARAGRAPH: The last Shah of Iran, ousted by revolution in 1979, often warned of “the accursed alliance of the red and the black” that threatened his country. By this he meant the union between the radical left and Islamist reactionaries, two ideological camps that, in theory, should have little common ground.

LAST PARAGRAPHS: It is true that war brings out the blinkered jingoism of the right. But it also brings out the inverted racism that has emerged as a by-product from the combination of Marxism and social-justice ideology that now constitutes the house creed of online progressive activism. In this conception of foreign affairs, those who act in opposition to Western interests—whether they kill thousands, such as Soleimani, or a mere dozen, as with the Charlie Hebdo killers—cannot exist on the wrong side of history.

In the late 1970s, a temporary alliance between Iran’s leftist, pro-Soviet Tudeh party and Khomeinist theocrats spelled doom for the Shah of Iran. But Western progressives would be wise to remember that when the Islamists were finished with the Shah, they turned their guns on the left. By 1982, Tudeh members were being purged from positions in government. Thousands of party rank-and-file were arrested, and the Tudeh leadership turned up on government propaganda videos, praising the one-party dictatorship created by their theocratic overlords. The left may have its “useful idiots.” But as recent events show, so, too, do the Ayatollahs.

https://quillette.com/2020/01/08/irans-fawning-western-apologists/

[Bill Tozer]

Re: The winds of woke

Cracks in the Concrete: Is PC Culture in Danger of Extinction?

That today’s progressives see themselves as embattled, and that progressive politicians know they are facing formidable opposition in the culture wars, can be seen in their attempts to impeach Donald Trump by any means possible. The Democrats in the House have gotten behind impeachment measures that even some within the fold recognize as bogus.

One reason? They have no choice. They are beginning to understand that they and the programs they propose appeal to few Americans outside of their base.

As we enter 2020, will we finally see some sort of return to common sense?

Maybe not. But those cracks in the concrete are growing.

https://www.intellectualtakeout.org/article/cracks-concrete-pc-culture-danger-extinction

[Bill Tozer]

Winds of Woke

Reflections on Intersectionality

“Intersectionality also presupposes that people of color have unified interests, because they are all similarly oppressed by “white supremacy.” Since Hispanics, blacks, and Asians all suffer from white supremacy, the thinking goes, they’re united in opposition to the interests of whites. But consider immigration—anti-immigration measures have been popular among blacks and whites, but not among Hispanics. As the political scientist Eric Kaufmann observes in his book Whiteshift, in 1986 two-thirds of blacks in California voted “yes” on Proposition 63, which made English the official language of the state. Less than a decade later, a majority of both blacks and whites voted to deny public benefits to illegal immigrants under Proposition 187. In short, contrary to what intersectionality predicts, blacks have tended to align more with whites than with Hispanics on one of the most important political issues of our time.

Or consider affirmative action, which benefits blacks and Hispanics but disadvantages whites and Asians. Because Asians are included in the umbrella term “people of color,” intersectionality indicates that their interests ought to be aligned with blacks and Hispanics. But reality is more complicated, as evidenced by the affirmative action lawsuit filed against Harvard by a group of Asian students (with support from conservative whites).

As Haider argued in her thread, intersectionality’s intellectual flaws translate into moral shortcomings. Importantly, it is blind to forms of harm that occur within identity groups. For a black woman facing discrimination from a white man, intersectionality is great. But a gay woman sexually assaulted by another gay woman, or a black boy teased by another black boy for “acting white,” or a Muslim girl whose mother has forced her to wear the hijab will find that intersectionality has no space for their experiences. It certainly does not recognize instances in which the arrow of harm runs in the “wrong” direction—a black man committing an anti-Semitic hate crime, for instance. The more popular intersectionality becomes, the less we should expect to hear these sorts of issues discussed in public.“

https://quillette.com/2020/01/14/reflections-on-intersectionality/

[Bill Tozer]

Get Woke, go broke. The Empire strikes back.

THE WASHINGTON COMPOST STRIKES AGAIN

“But the Post has yet greater reserves. Did you know that Star Wars is — wait for it — racist? Of course it is:”

“And it’s not just the characters, but the music itself!”

https://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2020/01/the-washington-compost-strikes-again.php

[George Rebane]

re BillT 921am - Indeed, as per Rebane Doctrine - It's culture not color that coagulates and cleaves. An enduring principle totally invisible to progressives.

[Bill Tozer]

The Dems’ Chorus of Cacophony

One Reason for Donald Trump’s Success

“Pondering the sour response of Democrats to Soleimani’s death brings another realization. Many progressives spend so much time bashing the president and criticizing our country that their relationship with America and Americans comes across as loveless. They are like that sour-faced teenager who grouses about school, complains about chores, and bickers with her parents to such an extent that a casual observer might justifiably conclude she despised life itself.

These are the people – not just politicians, but sports figures, actors, and other celebrities –who are always going on and on about racism without acknowledging that America is the most racially diverse country in the world. These are the folks who rage without irony about the oppression of women in a country where women have greater freedom and opportunities than ever before in history. These are the critics who work to undermine the Constitution, apparently unaware that this document is the very cornerstone of their liberties. These are the haters who denigrate Western history, and are ignorant of the fact they live in a culture and society whose framework of morality and law was built from Greece and Rome, Judaism and Christianity.

Rarely do they celebrate the good done by America in the world. Rarely do they praise American virtues or the American past. Rarely do they seem proud to be citizens in our republic. If we listen to some of our politicians, we might believe America is a seething mass of oppression”.

https://www.intellectualtakeout.org/article/one-reason-donald-trumps-success

It is sorta of the President’s job to put America first. What a concept.