Open Thread - 12 October, 2020

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Comments

[Fred]

Happy Columbus day everyone, especially to all our Hispanic readers. Where would we be without him?

[Degringolade]

Colonel:

I read both the books (nine and eleven) and both of them have some merit. Both seem to come out of academia, with the usual gloss and prejudices therein, but neither are terrible and there is food for thought there.

The Red-Blue divide is real. The difference is that the blue seems bent on making all the country blue while the red seems to just want to be left alone.

American Nations: A History of the Eleven Rival Regional Cultures of North America: Colin Woodard

The Nine Nations of North America: Joel Garreau

What the left can't seem to accept is that the country is constituted as a Federal Republic, Not a Democracy

[Laura Wilson]

Is anyone else watching the hearing in the Senate?

[turcopolier]

degringolade

IMO, the left and its relative, the neocons, are not interested in either the federal republic or democracy. What they want is power, just power so that can move to a global state.

[turcopolier]

Laura Wilson

I gave up after the semi-hysterical performance of Klobuchar. The quavering voice, the sentimental talk of her second grade teacher mother's honesty. How sad! I had thought that she was one of the more rational Democrat politicians. i read just now that Harris says that Ginsburg's legacy is in jeopardy. Well! Well! That is the idea. She was a decent person but sadly deluded as to what the law was written to be.

[Ed Lindgren]

Not being terribly familiar with the life and written work of Sir John “Pasha” Glubb, I was not aware that he had developed a theoretical framework to explain the rise and fall of empires.

In his essay The Fate of Empires and Search for Survival, he outlined six stages to describe this process: The Age of Pioneers; Age of Conquests; Commerce; Affluence; Intellect; and finally the Age of Decadence.

The website Quillette posted an essay at the end of September which attempts to apply Glubb’s vision of how empires evolve to our contemporary world. Readers here may find it of interest:

https://quillette.com/2020/09/30/pasha-glubb-and-avoiding-the-fate-of-empires/

A pdf copy of Pasha Glubb’s essay will be found here:

http://people.uncw.edu/kozloffm/glubb.pdf

[turcopolier]

Ed Lindgren

Glubb Pasha, not Pasha Glubb. Lt Gen Sir John Bagot Glubb. Served in Iraq and Jordan for about 35 years. He wrote half a dozen very readable books in ME history.

[TV]

Col:
Ginsburg's judicial philosophy was very simple:
"If I don't like it, it's unconstitutional."

[Deap]

Indigenous Americans celebrate Open Borders Day.

[Deap]

Do any former female POTUS candidates still wonder why they got no traction; and why the most eager loser amongst actually got the Biden VP slot? And why they too should believe in the power or prayer that they dodged the Biden bullet.

[Daniel Lennon]

Degringolade

I recently read a good one called Revolt of the Elites by Christopher Lasch, that makes the case that the America's elite class now more closely identifies with European/international values than it does middle America, are embarrassed by the rest of America, and need to change the rest of the country to suit their purposes.

Amazingly the book is from the 90s and remains entirely relevant - they've been doing it for 30 years now, we're just at the point where its become unavoidably obvious.

[rho]

Erdogan is increasing Turkey's military involvement in Azerbaijan while the Turkish lira is tagging new record lows almost every day.

https://www.nasdaq.com/articles/turkish-lira-at-record-low-on-geopolitical-worries-2020-10-08

I think he will drive Turkey into bankruptcy before he can establish his Neo-Ottoman empire.

[gaikokumaniakku]

Some amateur historians of my acquaintance have observed that Rod Rosenstein bears an uncanny resemblance to Reinhard Gehlen.

https://files.catbox.moe/0mxm3e.jpg

Some of these amateur historians claim that Nick Noe is a legitimate whistleblower with regard to Benghazi.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f_VQ0CP2S5U

[Deap]

Benghazi --Benghazi -- Benghazi -- the story that still will not die - a new twist or a new tweak? https://djhjmedia.com/kari/explosive-cia-whistleblower-exposes-bidens-alleged-role-with-the-deaths-of-seal-team-claims-to-have-documented-proof/

[vig]

Posted by: gaikokumaniakku | 12 October 2020 at 08:29 PM

I understand that Michael Flynn wanted to prove deeper Iranian connections to 9/11 and/or Al Qaeda. ... But one way or another was fired? Or resigned.

Hillary and Biden concocted this plan to keep Osama Bin Laden in Iran to then deliver him to Pakistan for the staged killing? Which then helped Obama to win the election?

And as Trump always said, America had to pay loads and loads to the Iranians to deliver Osama to Pakistan for the killing? That weren't ever Iranian frozen assets to start with, as they claim, America had to pay billions to make that happen! Not sure I understand.

You feel this could be the October surprise?

[Richard Morchoe]

rho,

"The first panacea for a mismanaged nation is inflation of the currency; the second is war. Both bring a temporary prosperity; both bring a permanent ruin. But both are the refuge of political and economic opportunists."

Ernest Hemingway

Who knows? One of the Sultan's gambits may work well enough that he can loot something to rebuild the Lira. Maybe not.

[jonstan]

Col, I noticed something wrong with Senator Amy K as well.

[Deap]

Animated SuperTrump defeats the China virus: https://www.louderwithcrowder.com/trump-parody?rebelltitem=1#rebelltitem1

[fakebot]

Daniel Lennon,

I think all of us can be made to believe in a planetary government akin to the one in Star Trek and that such a development is inevitable. My biggest bone is why many of our "betters" ascribe to a world government so fundamentally against basic American values and principles--or perhaps more generally speaking, why they favor positive rights over natural rights. What they peddle is a "benevolent serfdom" and think the rest of us are too backwards to appreciate what's best for us.

[Account Deleted]

Colonel Lang wrote: "IMO, the left and its relative, the neocons, are not interested in either the federal republic or democracy. What they want is power, just power so that can move to a global state."

The question I have is: Can we survive as a nation by being part of a global state or does it require that we dominate and control the global state?

[BABAK MAKKINEJAD]

fakebot

I am opposed to planetary government.

As for Star Trek, in that show, only primitive people have a revelatory religion; everyone else has so moved on!

The two religious orientations that receive some positive press in that show are the Bajorans that finds its Naturalistic explanation in the Denizens of a nearby Lorentzian Worm hole, and the other is the shamanistic rites that the character Chakotay practices.

I must say, however, that Star Trek has been, over the last 50 years, the only TV programme which had consistently portrayed a positive view of the future - for the techno-scientific elite.

[turcopolier]

Mike46

Neither.

[Deap]

Mike, as an elected school board official for 20 years I made it a rule ..never give up the district's autonomy to any outside group.

That meant for me voting no or abstain on any cockamamy "resolutions from outside groups that came before the board - make the campus nuclear free - sign this petition in support for world peace -- etc.

I also voted against and LEED building projects because i was not going to abdicate autonomy over even construction projects voluntarily to some outside "green building" guru, just to get an expensive plaque in return.

One can get to desired outcomes without being joined at the hip to a third party entity over which one has no control or later find initially common paths have diverged. Or the supporting agency was not really who you thought they were. I say play close to home and close to your chest.

One can work in harmony when and where one can; just no a fully committed but vague partnership. Unless it is a very specifically defined in-writing mutual compact, with a bonded liquidated damages clause.

But then I was a guardian of tax dollars on that school board so I did not want to burden taxpayers with even the hint of later unintended consequences. (In this state, this was not the majority thinking and I no longer serve at the "will of the people".

And now the institution is in serious debt and over-staffed with a white elephant LEED building whose "green roof" captures rain run off in a state where drought is our problem, not bioswales to decontaminate what paltry percipitation we actually get.

Meanwhile the LEED demanded "green roof" demands precious water to keep it green, while waiting for its few moments when it will filter even fewer raindrops before it runs out to sea (and past massive vagrant camps who are dumping who knows what every day into our creeks, oceans and groundwater.)

Notes from a "progressive" paradise. Who gave up its autonomy to Democrat special interests almost exactly two decades ago.

[Fred]

Babak,

Star Trek is the place where the one commandment, the prime directive, was generally the first thing to be violated. It progressed from there to worse, except, as you point out, for the techno-elite.

[Account Deleted]

Re: Neither

How would all those Americans survive & what would they do? There are limits to growth and natural resources.