The 51st State ... Valentin Vatsev

 

"Mr. Vatsev, the major US media that is openly sympathetic to Hillary Clinton is already talking about her as the next US president. What can we expect from Clinton on foreign policy? What is your forecast?

I would be happy if Trump wins, because his victory would be very symbolic. That would be proof in practice, that the monopoly on power in the United States (US) – an absolutely great country, could be broken by an ordinary person because in terms of the establishment of the US, Trump is an ordinary man, despite being a millionaire, an eccentric, and he has even been married to Slavic women, which is the tip of the eccentricities in the Anglo-Saxon world, but he is an absolute outsider to the high elite of America. So, here we have the question of principle: can an ordinary miserable outsider (bad unclear origin, laughable education, non-prestigious background, “new vulgar money,” he has not built any library or church or cultural centre, he does not speak French, he is not even gay etc.) enter the Bohemian grove in the world that defines the future of the great country? And it really is a very narrow and closed world of several thousand people with tribal traditions, cultural ancestry, old families and “old great, albeit invisible, money.” Literally, a few hundred families coordinate for years ahead who will be next. And suddenly, here comes some Trump. How vulgar! But I think that he cannot become a president and if his chances increase enough, troubles and mishaps might start happening to him because the stake is too high. It is too much power, we are talking about great power. Those, who are in power now managed until recently, albeit indirectly, to control the Republican Party. In other words, the tribal union that defined the Clintons as the favourite for the real power of the United States (though indeed, there was a time when they did not allow them into  the Bohemian Grove), controlled the leadership of both the Democratic Party and the Republican Party. The Republicans managed to emancipate themselves from the effects of this non-partisan leadership and shifted, but I think that their potential will not be sufficient to bring Trump to the presidential position. Again, I would love to see Trump elected, but I think the stakes are so high that for such things, some shoot and kill. For smaller things, the Kennedy clan (a really old, rich and influential family) was almost completely destroyed. So it is more probable that in reality, Mrs. Clinton will be the next president. From her, I expect a forceful conversion of the European Union into the 51st US state. I expect an extremely acute and forceful politics, not because Hillary Clinton is a special person. She is a complicated, sharp, rude person and psychologically ready for this type of activity, but the explanation is not in the soul …"  Vatsev

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Something for the Euros to munch on, I am still contemplating the idea of mooseburgers, moose tourtiere,  moose chile, etc.  How about a standing moose rib roast?  pl 

https://southfront.org/hillary-will-make-the-eu-the-51st-us-state/

Comments

[Fred]

Old Microbiologist,

".... Americans fail to understand the pride that the peoples of countries like this have in their unique values and customs and forcing change is extremely difficult...."

Back in the US we are under constant attack by the Cultural Marxists. American history (under their ideology) can be summed up as - slavery, Jim Crow, the Great Depression (caused by capitalism) and the repression of LGBT and lest we forget the ongoing oppression of women.

[johnf]

Badger.

[mike allen]

JohnF -

Hope it was good. Thought you were pulling our leg at first, but then I googled 'badger recipe' and saw that there is plenty of badger cooking going on in our State of Wisconsin, which is nicknamed appropriately enough the Badger State.

[charly]

The rest is, or was at least a few years ago obviously much weaker (and in Russia case, had the gas weapon) so it was unlikely they would attack military

[johnf]

Latest developments in Urope. In a follow up meeting to the recent US/Russia summit on Syria, Kerry with his faithful side-kick (and how many more kicks can he take) Boris, tried to muster the Uros for slaughter, and if not slaughter, sanctions.

NFZs - or, as they seem to be known now, Non Bombing Zones - were ruled off the table from the start.

"At the end of four hours of talks in London among the countries backing the Syrian opposition, the British foreign secretary, Boris Johnson, was forced to declare that “there is a lack of political appetite, to put it mildly” among western nations for going to war in Syria.

Johnson has been canvassing support for a no-bombing zone, but there is little support for the proposal either in the White House or Downing Street, largely due to fears it will lead to a Russian counter-strike and a deeper conflagration. Syrian opposition figures are hoping to persuade Hillary Clinton to adopt a more robust attitude, should she become US president next month."

Kerry tried for yet more sanctions but didn't seem to get any traction there either:

"It is understood that the German chancellor, Angela Merkel, a key figure in EU sanctions, is willing to countenance tougher measures, but she is having difficulty persuading her SPD allies in the coalition that they work...

(Johnson) added: “No option is in principle off the table, but be in no doubt that these so-called military options are extremely difficult and there is, to put it mildly, a lack of political appetite in most European capitals and certainly in the west for that kind of solution at present."

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/oct/16/us-and-uk-consider-tougher-sanctions-against-syria-and-allies

Without Britain there to enforce discipline within the EU, Hillary is going to have difficulty getting any sort of support.

[johnf]

A local market town, Castle Cary, held an annual Badger Dinner until 1965.

Now, according to the metropolitan middle classes, badgers are the most cuddlable mammals on the planet after meercats and cats.

[Kooshy]

What is the benefit of reason for having US bases all over Europe almost in every country, why don't you European members of NATO are. It allowed to have your military bases in USA.
Frankly, Iranians had the same frustration with regard to thier sovereignty as an old nation State, (at least on thier forign affairs) that is, before they revolted for self determination, IMO, just for thier pride, so they don't have to be upset if someone brought that up.

[turcopolier]

kooshy

There actually are a few NATO country bases in the US for the purpose of administering their military programs and training. http://www.congressionalresearch.com/96-462/document.php?study=German+Military+Presence+in+the+United+States+The+Case+of+Holloman+Air+Force+Base There is also a German sovereign base at Dulles Airport and I think there used to be one at Ft. Bliss at El Paso. pl

[Tidewater]

Tidewater says to Dubhaltach and Babak Makkinejad,

It seems to me that the ten rules of Danish Jante Law, plus the punitive clause, "Perhaps you don't think we know a few things about you," reflect the persistent Euro-dithering in re standing up on one's own hind legs.

And just how far-reaching is Jante Law in Europe? And Socialist Britain? One thing--Post Brexit Britain is not going to put troops into the old base near Tripoli (Wheelus) to protect another long term incursion.

I think Valentin Vatsev should read what Digby Baltzell wrote about "The Protestant Ascendency." I don't think "Anglo Saxon," as Vatsev uses it, refers to anything but the folks in the northeast who won the Civil War, and built up enormous treasure and power the century afterwards. "Anglo-Saxon," as referring to America, is only a regional term! Baltzell was from an old Main Line Philadelphia family, and he is the one who invented the term "WASP." I have heard one of these nice and perceptive people opine that John O'Hara, born a Protestant, who spent his life writing about 'uppercruster pukka' (JP Donleavy on the Anglo-Irish) WASPdom, didn't get Philadelphia Main Line society quite right. I could guess he ignored the Quakers, Quaker schools, and noblesse oblige. Some of these old Quaker schools take some of the initiative and competitive getaheadedness out of their students. So it's not easy to analzye WASPdom, but then contemplate the larger picture, all the way across the rather different Protestant states of the Old Confederacy, all the way to the Sabine River in Texas, and then argue that a numerically few, relative to their power, mostly 'Anglo-Saxon' families run America.

I wonder how Vatsev got his information. That family remark is pretty much a cliche, I think. Has he been reading Cleveland Amory? Steven Birmingham? Maybe he ought to read Alvah Johnston's 'The Legendary Mizners', which is a good start on Palm Beach. (And which I just ordered to play it safe.)

Valentin Vatsev also has it backwards about Willi and Nikki and the phone call that never came. They communicated by telegraph. Why, if so concerned, did the Kaiser nearly get himself interned in Norway, after he went off in absentia during the crisis on a cruise through the fjords on his pitching tub of a yacht, 'Hohenzollern'. It was Willi who wanted war; not Nikki. I think some of Nikki's telegrams have come to light that were suppressed.

The idea that the Establishment killed JFK and Bobby Kennedy is, in my view, all wrong. Noone seems to want to focus on how reckless both of these men were. Bearing in mind that JFK had a remarkable journey through Germany just before the war began, how could he be comfortable riding around in an open landau like the Grand Duke Franz Ferdinand. They would shoot down into open automobiles in Berlin during the street battles between Communists and Nazis in the run-up to Hitler's accession to power. And JFK had heard about that first hand. The first time I ever saw JFK he was riding up Broadway in an open convertible. At some point,during that parade, I think he even sat up on the back seat of the convertible. The first remarks made between me and the fraternity brother I was with, seeing this President of the United States for the first time in real life, were something like, "Isn't that a bit risky!' A sudden, sharp surprise that there was the possibility of a rifle shot from a building. I think that for a moment or two I glanced up at the windows of the buildings around. Funny about that! That was the first time I ever saw him and that was the first thought I had, nothing about his good head of hair or his suntan. I saw him, felt something was wrong, said it, and later on saw his coffin come down the Capitol steps, so the last time in real life. How could I have been surprised when it all happened? I don't think JFK thought he was going to make old bones.

As for Bobby Kennedy, his entire conduct in the buildup to yet another crisis over Cuba with the Soviet Union scheduled to start in December, 1963, was as a get-it-done task master, a young man in a big hurry, with shirt tail hanging out and tie half-tied, which told his staff he worked harder than they ever did, who was going to move mountains and conquer Cuba. (Instead his boys conquered Laos.) He was inexperienced and contemptuous of routine government-type standard procedure. He created an alternate second line of communication with important, purported players in the counter revolutionary group. He communicated with top counterrevolutionaries from a home phone and had these not entirely vetted or known entities visit him at Hickory Hill. In the end, the whole Cuba group was completely penetrated. Noone knew what was really going on except that like the white rabbit, it had to be in a hurry. Willam Harvey is said to have blasted both JFK and Bobby in the Oval Office for this and other hazardous conduct. Thereby completing the destruction of his career.

Bobby Kennedy continued his recklessness while running for president. He put together an amateur security detachment. A football player on it? Rafer Johnson? Who were the others? I've never heard anyone say how stupid the whole game-plan was. The hotel kitchen where he was shot could have been cleared in about a minute just before his arrival, and again before his departure. Professional chefs and staff are that good. I've heard of a head chef clearing out his entire kitchen to argue with his girlfriend on a cell phone. They go out fast and come back in fast, and one minute later everything is continuing smoothly. Robert Kennedy should never have gone into that crowded, completely unknown, unexamined space. It was crazy! There is always insinuating innuendo about who did what to whom in the Kennedy brothers disaster. They did it to themselves.

Trump's education was just what he wanted --he specialized in real estate. Wharton ranks with Harvard and Stanford on GMAT scores. (In 2017 the average GMAT score at Wharton was 732.) Wharton is the toughest business school in the US to get into, though Darden likes its students to have been out in business, done something, and come back to school for fine tuning. I admit, though, I can't help wondering where Trump's travels have taken him, besides 'serious' Scotland. He has had the money. He has even had his own plane. I've looked at his golden quarters in the tower, which is probably where he gets his glow, but I have not seen a library. Perhaps Vatsev is talking about over all humanistic intellectual curiosity? Still, Trump's education is not ridiculous.

I don't get it about the "Owl." Owl, to my mind is a Harvard club. It is said to be for rowers and lacrosse players, in other words, a jock house. What is that about? It's still at Harvard.

I don't think Vatsev has much of a clue as to how America works. His idea that a number of families run the show reminds me of South Carolina before the War. Where some four hundred families held the power. But that was different. If you had three hundred slaves you had three/fifths of a vote from each slave. Add up a few plantations. Who needs a tedious, argumentative, town hall meeting? When all you need are just a few gentlemen's agreements about whose turn is next.

My idea how America is run is probably very naive, but nevertheless I believe that political power must most often start, as with Tim Kaine, with City Council and then the state legislature. Lose one of the eight hurdles that Kaine got over--he could have been finished. People tend to forget men like Henry Howell.

I hope this is not the flower beneath the foot.

[kooshy]

Thank you sir I did not know

[johnf]

Where Germany goes Europe goes:

"Germany Struggles to Find United Stance on Russia

Russian aggression in Syria has divided Merkel's coalition government. The chancellor isn't opposed to more sanctions, but the Social Democrats favor a conciliatory approach -- and are preparing to use the issue in the coming election campaign...

It isn't yet clear who will be the SPD's lead candidate in next year's general election, but a fundamental policy decision has already been made: The center-left Social Democrats intend to distance themselves from Merkel's Russia policies and to invoke their tradition as a party of peace.

They are doing so out of age-old conviction, but also out of tactical considerations. Large segments of the German population, particularly in the eastern part of the country, feel closer to Russia than to the United States. And many -- in western Germany too -- fear a new Cold War. As such, the SPD leadership believes that voters would be amenable to revisiting a policy of détente with the government of Russian President Vladimir Putin...

Many governments in the European Union would also like to see a new approach to Russia. Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi has managed to get the issue on the agenda of this Thursday's dinner meeting of EU heads of state and government. On Monday, EU foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini said that Europe is not considering new sanctions on Russia...

The SPD isn't just interested in avoiding new sanctions on Russia due to its role in Syria. The party would also like to see the lifting of sanctions imposed two years ago after the Russian annexation of Crimea and Moscow's support of separatists in eastern Ukraine...

Surveys regularly show that more than half, and sometimes up to two-thirds, of Germans believe that sanctions on Russia should be loosened or lifted completely. Sympathies for Putin are likewise astoundingly high."

http://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/german-political-leaders-divided-on-approach-to-russia-a-1116979.html

(The new right wing party in Germany, the AfD, is likewise keen on a deal with Putin.

[Fred]

Tidewater,

"I believe that political power must most often start, as with Tim Kaine, with City Council and then the state legislature. Lose one of the eight hurdles that Kaine got over--he could have been finished."

That is a good way to have people who may actually know how government functions and not bring too much stupid to higher office. Now you can skip a bunch of steps when running for Federal office by being a small city counselor then Mayor (Corey Booker), academic (Elizabeth Warren) or wife of a politician (Debbie Dingel and that other woman) or by being a community organizer (Barack). Of course we open things up for comedians, too (Al Franken).

[turcopolier]

fred

Kaine made his way at each successive level by being an inoffensive well-mannered SJW. Good manners count for a lot in Virginia and his wife's family coached him in that. He is actually much more Left than HC. A lack of "breeding" is a major disadvantage here along with Blacks, Latinos and unmarried Type A women in the Washington 'burbs. pl

[mike allen]

Can't be any worse than the roast dog, snake soup, or 100-year-old eggs I sampled in the far east. Next trip east I'll have to stop in Wisconsin and try out the badger stew.

[Tidewater]

Tidewater to Fred and turcopolier,

The Richmond Times Dispatch sponsors a town hall meeting called Public Square. The 52nd one was held a couple of years back, as I recall, at the University of Richmond. Tim Kaine gave a forty minute lecture, more of a conversation, without notes, on the history of presidential and congressional war powers. I have watched a lot of it. I found the whole thing fairly interesting, inasmuch as I paid attention to the way the young audience seemed to be trending. I think that you can get a sense of Kaine's style, how he carries himself, talks, and connects with people. I can't help wondering why he never took up jogging.

I found out about the 'Public Square' by checking out an article by A. Barton Hinkle, who is on the editorial board of the T-D. This article is published on Reason.com and is titled "Tim Kaine, the Affable Idealogue/ Not a centrist as described by some." Reason.com gives a series of useful links to Kaine's background and career.

Hinkle says about Kaine: "But is he the centrist recent coverage has made him out to be? Hardly."

Now I don't know enough to really try to assess Tim Kaine. It needs to be said that there is something in Richmond called "Project Exile." This was a federal initiative that I suspect Helen Fahey pushed forward. Helen Fahey is the now retired United States Attorney of the federal district of Northern Virginia that includes Alexandria and Arlington. Kaine backed this initiative, as did other Richmond leaders. If you had a felony conviction-- or was there a little bit more to it? --and if you were caught with a gun, you got an automatic, five year federal conviction. Boom. Five years. Not to be whittled down. So, good for Kaine, on that one. That's centrist. But he doesn't get the credit for that, that others, including Helen Fahey, should get.

Incidentally, Helen Fahey prosecuted a black guy from SW Washington, D.C. named Charles Satcher, who murdered a young woman named Elizabeth Borghesani (sp.) This is a peculiarly disturbing case; and, of course, we here remember "Jackie"-- UVA's fabulous fabulist of Rolling Stone fame? (Who I would love to get a peek at. But only the jury, and that in a video deposition.) Jackie and her Sisters had taken the Satcher case to heart; in one demonstration she was holding a sign with reference to a stair-well, where this unbelievable horror was enacted. The sign seemed to me to indicate that she,too, had been a victim. For the last day or so, the lawsuit brought by the UVA student advisor (Eramo) involved in the "Jackie" incident, has been in Federal court here in C-Ville. This is the case against Rolling Stone and Sabrina Rubin Erdely.(sp?) You may already know this; I gave my tv to my Russian friend. I don't miss it yet except for the crime/detective programs, though internet video is OK.

Another connection here is interesting, at least to me. There is a lawyer here in C-Ville who is, or was, involved in a Rolling Stone civil lawsuit; there are a number of them. This lawyer is from an old Richmond family, and not, I guess, all that interested in local politics; he was robbed on a Richmond street by black kids, it is years ago, now. I don't know the details. I know some of his classmates. At a 50th reunion they were all stunned to catch up. He told them his story. After he was robbed, he was shot several times, for no reason, and left to die on the sidewalk. It may have been after dark. It may have been winter. He was noticed, lying in the shadows, taken presumably to MCV, and barely survived. (I used to be familiar with that emergency room. There was a dumpster around the side in the alley that a lot of horrid hospital stuff went into; I had to watch for some cats that hung around back there where I hurriedly parked. I used to wonder, what exactly was the diet?

He had a long time in rehabilitation. After he was able to begin to put his life back together, he decided to run for city council. He won a seat. Don't know how many years he served. Or what he accomplished. (I can guess what he focussed on.) But he was the one who was defeated by Tim Kaine in Kaine's bid for city council. By one hundred votes. I assume he just went back to his law practice and resumed his previous social life. But he had had an American political career.

I was talking to a younger member of the House of Delegates, who came from an old political family, who had represented an area, perhaps more than one county, to the east of Richmond, on the Chesapeake Bay, for a number of years. I couldn't help noticing how he had come to be genuinely interested in all kind of complicated agricultural matters. Listening to a conversation between him and the young man who married my niece--the writer Mary Winston Nicklin-- the Virginia agricultural matters were also of great interest in France. I went and got another drink.

But I managed to ask him a few questions later. He had said something that I noticed about his maiden bill. If they call it that. This was the first time he stood up in the Virginia House of Representatives and put forward a bill. I asked: Did he have a Young Winston moment? Did foam fleck his mouth and were there strange male grunts and noises made, perhaps shouts, etc. He said 'Yeah, they did do something." What they --the smart and scary old guys-- began to do was to ask questions which required him to display a basic knowledge of their reality--revenues, taxes, appropriations, the budget, monies available, what was possible...Like a kind of orals exam. They were brisk and polite; but the questions just came coming, and he began to sense he was in a kind of test-match. In fact, I came away from that thinking, Wow, it actually WAS a kind of Young Winston moment. He got his bill passed.

My take on Tim Kaine is that he may indeed be an SJW, but having a very real determined commitment to making very sure that he is representing African-American interests in his bailiwick, the black people who have after all elected him there, seems to me to be both ethical and plain common-sense in a largely black old southern city which only recently has returned to a slim white majority. I think that there may have been at least four black members of Richmond City Council who voted for him for mayor; as well as a few more white council members. So he was acceptable to the black leaders. That gave him the job. I assume he continues to hold their approval. The black community of Richmond, incidentally, I think, is quite serious about its leadership.

Barton Hinkle is an interesting writer. I haven't read enough of his work to form an opinion of his left/right stance. There seems to be an edge to what he has to say; he seems, how to say it, a bit magisterial; he seems to have a large quotient of WARINESS! ;) I am curious to read more. (So I have just resubscribed to the T-D, and I am glad.) The T-D seems to me to be a pretty good newspaper these days. I came to realize that I have been missing out on one of the real pleasures of my past existence. This was to be sprawling out on a sofa with the Sunday editions of the NYT, WashP, RichTD, Columbia State, and sometimes Atlanta Constitution, Charlotte Observer, and Charleston Post and Courier)piled around me. I always read at least three every Sunday. Also, contrary to what people say, I found the old newspapers very comforting to have around in many different ways. (Rolling on some paint, for example.) And they are going to come in very useful now that I seem somehow to have become associated with three very fine cats. Didn't E.B. White write about the powerful pull of the Sunday newspaper?

Tim Kaine was Lt. Governor when Mark Warner was Governor of Virgina. They were old friends before Kaine got there! I think it is correct that they became friends at Harvard Law. Kaine said he was Governor Warner's Ed McMahon. :)

I wish that Mark Warner was running this year. With Tim Kaine still as his Ed McMahon. Get his turn later. Warner's older, anyway. That's fair. Will Mark Warner one day, four years from now, take the nomination away from Tim Kaine?

Ivy Day in the Committee Room. That just went by. October 8, I think. Has to do with Parnell.

[Tidewater]

Tidewater to Tidewater,

Ivy Day is October 6.