FEW LAWYERS HAVE TO RELY ON RICOCHET

He was a drug dealer. He was in an almost empty baseball field.

 

His adversary was there on the field before him, unarmed, but at a distance. My client shot at the State's victim witness, more than once, as I recall. The details are vague for me now.

 

I made the argument, perhaps among others, that the victim was somehow hit by ricochet, and that my client was probably only trying to scare him, at the time.

 

There aren't that many defenses open, under such circumstances...

 

I could not put my client on the stand at that time, to firm up this defense, or rather lesser offense, argument...

 

OTHER COUNTRIES AND INDIVIDUALS CAN BASICALLY COLONIZE ONE'S BLOG

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COLONIZATION AFTER EMANCIPATION

The last paragraph of Ch 6, "Paradoxically..."

 

This was not, technically, a paradox.

 

It was an ongoing blunder.

ABRAHAM LINCOLN FROM THE LINCOLN DOUGLAS 4th DEBATE

 "I will say then that I am not, nor ever have been in favor of bringing about in any way the social and political equality of the white and black races,-- that I am not nor ever have been in favor of making voters or jurors of negroes, nor of qualifyling them to hold office, nor to intermarry with white people; and I will say in addition to this that there is a physical difference between the white and black races which I believe will for ever forbid the two races living together on terms of social and political equality." AL.  See also 1st Debate, Unexpurgated, p 63.

This was the rhetoric and the platform that got him elected President 2 years later.

He utterly betrayed these Northern supporters by freeing the negroes without having in place a way of getting rid of them as advertised. That was, after all, the main thing he had been elected to do. Freedom for the slaves was not, after all, at that time, for hardly any white people, the most important issue.

The most important issues for them were avoiding a believed slavery nationalization conspiracy which would mean permanent racial mixing risks and fears; and getting rid of the negroes, free or slave, but get rid of them one way or another.

It would probably have been better, according to his own Northern electorate, if he had lost the war than that he had won the war and freed the negroes without colonizing them elsewhere. That was their thinking at that time. At least they could then be kept out of the North by secession of slave holding states. 

Emancipation was an enormous, irreversible, blunder, according to the politics of that time, without a colonization program firmly in place beforehand.

It probably furthermore did little to advance the Union cause militarily as Lincoln certainly hoped.

Lincoln's blundering into the Civil War and how he conducted it is very analogous to how the US has conducted most of its military encounters throughout its brief history.

Iraq is only the most recent example of blundering on many different levels at once.

That was quintessentially how the Civil War played out, especially in the so called Reconstruction era and long after.

THE MENU SPAGHETTI HOUSE LONDON

A classic festive structure, Goodge Street. Not great food, back then, but wonderful atmospheric building, windows on every floor. Ambience.

THE BRITISH LEGATION VIEW OF THE EMANCIPATION PROCLAMATION AND NORTHERN WHITE RACISM

'The legation recognized its significance only as a political gamble and speculated about its feared effect of sparking a violent backlash among northern whites....'

Lincoln betrayed the very people who had elected him, Northerners who wanted black slaves to be sent somewhere else.

Lincoln violated that trust. Basically he committed what I have called The Kennedy Fallacy.

Although he was killed by a sympathizer with the Confederate cause, he might just as easily have been done in by a Northern white racist after the betrayal of their cause too by the Emancipation Proclamation.

PORK PASTRAMI IMPROV

I do roast pork rather Provencal, Mediterranee, or Languedocienne.

 

Then, sometimes afterwards, it gets a little edgy.

I might do what I will call pork pastrami leftovers.

 

This is simple enough.

 

I take the remaining pork roast (not the leftover vegetables), maybe some juice from the roasting pan, find a glass jar somewhat larger than it, and then almost fill the jar with the roast, and some pan juice to taste with some room still remaining; stir in some smoked liquefied smoked bacon fat.

 

Add, say, some nonpareil caper juice, from a bottle of capers in the fridge, there is usually some vinegar water there to be used or thrown out. Why not use it?

 

You can add a splash of mild Greek pepperoncini jar juice. Powdered coriander, allspice, to taste. 

Add some kind of garlic preparation, your choice, pickled garlic juice or oil, powder, fresh pressed, whatever. 

 

If this sits in the fridge for a day or so, and then brought to room temp and warmed, it can resemble, with enough chardonnay under my belt, pork pastrami.

 

Why not make it with beef the next time? Call it Roumanian, only the pros will know the difference.

 

RE LINCOLN EMANCIPATION PROCLAMATION COLONIZATION

Apparently, American scholarship generally takes the view that, with the Emancipation Proclamation,  Lincoln either gradually or abruptly abandoned his long held view of the necessity for transportation of freed black slaves elsewhere as colonists.

 

This view, either way, has been a lynchpin in so much of liberal American social thinking since the Civil War.

 

That turns out not to have been correct at all....

 

Colonization After Emancipation, Lincoln and the Movement for Black Resettlement

THE MENU THE NATRAJ INDIAN RESTAURANT LONDON

This Charoltte Street establishment, frequented by students at the University of London, was there, even back in the 70s. 

I thought the food was fine. The naan, papadums, chutneys, the chicken livers masala, tandoori chicken, vindaloo, rice dishes, vegetables, were great and quite reasonable.

 

Of course, one wondered, sometimes, when this or that chicken dish came in cuts, with joints, and structures, which a chicken cook such as myself, had never seen.....

Oneal Ron Morris medical expert

The Toxic Tush.

Great stuff.

Re Predatory Production Costs

See prior post: RE TRUMP RUSSIA

From Predators to Icons, pb, p 87, has a useful passage debunking age old technical and economic arguments based on effectiveness and efficiency,  discussing the plain truth about Adam Smith's famous pin factory illustration in The Wealth of Nations....

 

This had also long been, even in 1776, a plain truth of colonial labor costs.

 

it is also the way that developmental states with lower labor costs have taken over gullible Western entrepreneurial states over time in the 20th Century, lower labor costs, not technical or efficiency or entrepreneurial risk taking advantages.

Incidentally, it had also become a plain truth for Thomas Jefferson in the early 19th Century, in the production of nails rather than pins, at Monticello. See this blog, terms search Unmasking Thomas Jefferson. 

THE MENU SAUERBRATEN IMPROV

I made this today, and used pickle juice from various jars previously mentioned. It worked well. I used only part of the marinade. It is still salty enough. One can add water and olive oil at the end, in lieu of a gravy.

 

Carve it across the grain to steep in the juice and to serve. i cooked vegetables separately.

I would not have this with mustard, since it is already spicy enough, but everyone to his taste. One might even have a little sour cream instead...

RE TRUMP RUSSIA

This is a topic which has mesmerized the US.

 

In a post I edited only today, I referred to a book I had partially read, From Predators To Icons.

 

I recommend especially the conclusion of that book.

 

Of special interest to Americans, wondering now about Trump's apparently serious agenda to bring back business to the continental US, and about the role of the entrepreneur in our tradition, now as President, take a look at a book which I have only today ordered from the library, referred to in a fn in the conclusion: Godfather of the Kremlin: Boris Berezofsky and the Looting of Russia

The other thing to note is that they suggest a broader more interdisciplinary approach to such a topic, Conclusion, last 2 pages.

RE NYT TRUMP ADMIN WAR ON SCIENCE RISK TAKING AND INNOVATION CHIMERAS

There are so many ways to comment on this article, one hardly knows how to begin...

 

One point is that they want government to step up to big spending on basic research, to promote innovation.

What has been the history of big government investment in basic research? It has usually gone to big corporations which then take advantage of the average American at government expense, while claiming that they don't like government, and it should get out of their way, while on the other hand claiming to benefit a national economy and work force.

 

Also, there are entrepreneurial free riders on government  programs, subsidies, tax breaks, deregulation, trade advantages,  as a predicate for their private investment in this or that technology, which they then usually license and or manufacture in some other country, in order to reap huge profits worldwide, while American workers languish in burger jobs, etc.

The critical point here is that, contrary to the American gospel of entrepreneurship and risk taking, these folks normally only like to bet on sure things, first subsidized in different ways by government, such as government funded research at taxpayer expense, things like that.

The underlying problem is that we as a nation are not set up to pursue a coherent national industrial commercial and economic policy, so one ends up with ad hoc advantages for predators who feed on government programs while at the same time claiming that government cannot do anything right, without systematic progress aimed at the general welfare of average American citizens.

The pattern has repeated itself for the last several centuries, back to when government bonds were the main investment banking tool. Governments were the least risky investments, although they were sometimes spoilers for even savvy investment bankers. For a long time, only the bankers made the money on government obligations. Finally the bond market went public, but it is still very much a game for specialists, as stocks also are.

 

The NYT trots out Peter Thiel, who plugs for more government spending on basic research. Where do you think the profits from such taxpayer investments have gone under our system? They have often gone mostly elsewhere, at least since WWII. There are a lot of books explaining this, but Americans seldom crack such books.

How do success stories actually happen? It is almost always a combination of luck, family connections, and money, often the money comes with the family connections, trial and error, a lot of error, not risk, just error, risk avoidance, and on predations of various kinds, predations on weaker competitors, on customers or suppliers at a disadvantage, predations on  government funded research programs, especially subsidies, specialized tax breaks, and guarantees, that reduce risk, etc. They especially love guarantees.

The other fascinating aspect of the picture that very few people seem to know is that the concept of innovating to success is a complete fabrication.

Almost all success stories are in fact based on predation first. Only later, when already in a commanding or at least fairly secure successful position, do companies then elect cautiously to spend money on innovation both to boost profit and to ward off possible competitive pressure based on competitive innovation.

So, entrepreneurial risk taking and up front innovation, total chimeras.

No doubt, some think I pulled these conclusions and others in what is set out above and elsewhere on this blog, out of my derriere. Here is a book I looked at recently, re the chimeras, found it from a fn in one of Randall Collins' posts, great case studies of the most prominent recent success stories: From Predators To Icons. One could multiply such stories back into the history of the most famous success stories of Western capitalism. Various names spring to mind. 

I have discussed industrial policy in a number of prior posts. Terms search: industrial policy, and also see terms searches in those posts for further related posts.

Here are some other related terms to search: trading places, trading american interests, Opening America's Market,  developmental state, Steingart, attacker state, Faux, Manufacturing Matters, Chalmers Johnson, MITI, van Wolferen, Steingart, bashing, competitiveness, Friedman LeBard, Michael Porter, Huntington, war for survival, rail to rail, Rodrik, Thurston

I HAVE OFTEN MINGLED NATURAL RESOURCE FOOD POLITICAL THEMES HERE

Terms search: Clifford Wright, A Mediterranean Feast

RE THE CONSTITUTION FALLACIES

Robert Palmer discussed the way in which the proposed Constitution was drafted, at the Convention in Philadelphia.

 

He pointed out that the Convention's delegates' own actions were themselves a species of political revolution, in that they violated the specific instructions which all delegates to the convention had been given by their respective state assemblies, and which they knew they were legally bound to obey at the Convention.

 

Be that as it may, they developed the draft constitution, and also a way to conceptualize how it might be interpreted and put into place by later ratification by each state assembly.

 

One problem is that the method conceals an inherent chicken or egg dilemma, in terms of authority.

I haven't read enough Rawls to know that he commits the fallacy, but bet he does. Goes back to Locke, at least, really. 

The Philadelphia convention, not we the people.

Going back to the states, not themselves created by we the people in the first instance, for ratification of the constitution, a conceptual no no.

Here, I am reading this into Palmer's account, or reading between the lines, perhaps.

It is hard to see how one could ever get, in the first instance, after the state of nature, to a ' we the people '. One could not even get to a conceptually flawed  "original position", in anything other than a tiny city state, or better yet, a village. The city state, or a village, are, of course, not an original state of nature position.

See Palmer, The Age of the Democratic Revolution, The Challenge, the section entitled "A Word on the Constitution of the United States", pb, p. 228.

Dual state federal citizenship creates another layer of conceptual inconsistency.

Does the federal we the people trump an individual state's, or even collective, states', we the people? I doubt whether Jefferson thought it would, if he even saw the problem at all. It seems certain that Lincoln did.

RE DISCIPLINARY FALLACIES ARE LEGION

Recent post, edited:

"ECONOMICS AND SOCIAL SCIENCE AND THEIR RELATIONS TO PHILOSOPHY

One of the huge problems for economics, as a scientific discipline, and as a social science discipline, is that its subject matter, its objects of study, and its methodology, has omitted, in the processes, of academic specialization, so many dimensions of reality.

 

This has not been a failing specific to economics....

 

One can go down a list of failed disciplines which segregated a chunk of reality for a subject matter, and then applied a truncated methodology to it.

 

Each discipline quickly became vested in the veracity of its account, its methodology, and its turf."

 

 

One can go through every specialized so called exact scientific, and frankly all inexact social scientific, disciplines and find the same anomalies of reasoning, methodology, and fragmentation of reality by subject matter.

 

Psychology, a byword, historically, in this regard...;sociology, more or less the same; political science, ditto; it had made more sense as political economy, something like that, wider field of investigation and insight; history, similarly fragmented and adrift.

 

THE MENU FRENCH TOAST IMPROV

Use whatever bread you want. It is better if it is more absorbent.

 

For sweet french toast, don't use savory bread like rye, or onion rye or onion pumpernickel. You can use egg bread, or even something like panettone. You can use leftover cake...

 

You are not limited by just milk and egg for the batter.

 

You can mix jam or marmalade into the milk and egg. I often even swirl in some bacon fat, too.

 

You don't need syrup over this toast, really, just maybe butter, or powdered sugar.

For the more adventurous, you can even use thick sliced bread for the French toast, say one inch thick, and slip through a deep wide slit through one edge of the slice of bread a flattened, precooked, whole hog sausage pattie, or even a piece or two of pre cooked smoked bacon, in there. That would be good.

THE MENU IT DIDN'T LOOK LIKE THIS BACK IN THE 70S

This place used to be full of RADA students. I was not one of them myself, just noticed them in groups on a number of occasions.

THE SADNESS OF DONALD TRUMP

"Donald Trump's first reaction to facing the public in his new role as President-elect was sadness. Sadness for what he was leaving." Randall Collins

Be careful what you wish for. Old Adage

THE MENU LEEK CHICKPEA CHICKEN BROTH SOUP

My wife made this. Wonderful.

 

She had checked out Robin Ellis' cookbook from the library...

 

Sad to report that Tasha, our female bobtail, short for Natalia Makarova, found a way to sprinkle it, the book, the other day...

 

There are few places in the house, downstairs, truly safe from her imprimatur.

ECONOMICS AND SOCIAL SCIENCE AND THEIR RELATIONS TO PHILOSOPHY

One of the huge problems for economics, as a scientific discipline, and as a social science discipline, is that its subject matter, its objects of study, and its methodology, omitted in the processes of academic specialization, so many dimensions of reality.

 

This has not been a failing specific to economics. One can go down a list of failed disciplines which segregated a chunk of reality for a subject matter, and then applied a methodology to it.

 

Each discipline quickly became vested in the veracity of its account, its methodology, and its turf.

THE ECONOMIST FALLACIES WEALTH CONVERGENCE AND DIVERGENCE NATURE AND CONVENTION

There are so many......

 

Here is a good one.

 

People get caught in this one all the time. People like Keynes, Thurow, Piketty, Krugman, etc. 

 

They say, on the one hand, following, say, Keynes, etc., things like 'wide income and wealth disparities between rich and poor, and concentration of wealth at the top of a national economy (whatever that means under globalization)  is bad.

 

So they are against large wealth divergence, rail against it, say government is not doing its job, and something more should be done about it by government.

 

They isolate it artificially to a domestic economy level, and then blame nation state du jour officials for dropping the liberal ball by not regulating this terrible wealth aberration. It is visible, and evil, and controllable, so they argue as pundits. They also say that government can spend for social welfare programs, and act as an engine for recovery from slumps in a domestic economy, arguing that government is smart enough to do that sometimes, and it can even pick winners among choices about how the domestic economy will behave or react to a government stimulus or restraint. They argue that it is the role of government to affirmatively act as a social safety net mechanism for poorer citizens as part of its very job as a government.

 

Now, on the other hand, they take a sweeping view of inexorable global economic tendencies for equalization of economic opportunity, and raise the banner of bringing up all boats by free and open trade everywhere, greatest good for the greatest numbers, comparative advantage, laissez faire, things like that. They don't want governments to try to stand in the way of this benevolent  and in any event inevitable natural process.

 

If it happens to lead to gross wealth convergence across national lines, between rich and poor countries, that is an unavoidable consequence of forces which in any event cannot be stopped or regulated properly by any government. Governments which try only get in the way of unstoppable market forces.

The Economists' Nature and Convention Fallacy: Wealth divergence is conventional, wealth convergence is natural.

One might also point out that defining wealth divergence as national, while defining wealth convergence as global, is a different, but related, Economists' Fallacy.

We can save this different economists' fallacy, and further discussion of it, for a later post.

It brings into play the conservative economists' side of the nation versus globe distinction very nicely.

RE BROOKS' EXODUS THEME IMMIGRATION REFUGEES TRANSHUMANCE SLAVERY JEWS GUEST WORKERS ISRAEL

See my prior post: BROOKS THE EXODUS STORY

Brooks calls it The Unifying American Story

That puts him, and us since our beginnings as a separate nation, squarely in the post Milner Group globalization crusade.

Make no mistake, it has been a long, since the late 18th Century, and very seriously fought, crusade.

These are just some related thoughts, today:
If enough people, from each civilization, leave, exodus, their respective civilizations, into other civilizations, for whatever reasons, and there are many reasons, both seemingly good or bad, guess what one then ends up with at the end of the day?

 

Ad hoc globalization.

 

Globalization, such as we have had so far, has not been, so far, and will not in the future be, pretty.

It has not and will not result in peace for its populations; it has not and will not result in prosperity for the wealthier Western Civilization populations, but rather relentless gathering impoverishment and unrest.

 

Historical examples, so far, have not been and are not now, promising politically, including our own so called nation state.

Blowback from colonialism, and transhumance, among other things, refugees, foreign students, guest workers, intermarriages, etc., have ruined Europe, even now. 

SEE RANDALL COLLINS' POST TODAY

TRUMP'S SAD FACE

LINCOLN THREE TRICK PONY THE LINCOLN FALLACY

House Divided cannot stand.
All men are created equal.
No racial mixing, anti conspiracy to nationalize.

Do you begin to see any inconsistencies?

Conceptual (not rhetorical) problems with Lincoln's position:

If the South really secretly wanted to nationalize slavery, as Lincoln had repeatedly claimed, why then did they take measures to secede, even before he took office?

If one seceded, how then could one carry out a conspiracy to nationalize slavery?

Only in the South? That was not what nationalization meant to them then. 

If slavery was then only in the Confederacy, why then should Northern white racists, who had supported Lincoln, object to a divided house? That would solve the slavery nationalization bogey, which Lincoln himself had also sold them.

If the argument were to liberate black slaves, certainly northern white racists did not want them staying in the South, the very thing Loncoln's emancipation did.

 

They certainly had no idea of them ever moving to the North. Wasn't that, after all, the main reason they elected Lincoln, to get rid of the slaves? That was certainly how many of them viewed it.

Very few of them, certainly, took the Declaration of Independence argument literally. Certainly Jefferson himself hadn't.

Call it: The Lincoln Fallacy
It is huge, really.

Here is my comment on DK's current post:

Professor

This is a very informative and engrossing post. There is one point I want to discuss briefly, since you still think that most white racists have always been in the South.

You appear to say that they were in only the Democratic Party, in the South, as they are seemingly now only in the Republican:

"...Given that we have certainly not eliminated white racists from American political life, is it really better than virtually all of them now vote for one party? That is also what happened on the eve of the civil war, and it is very bad for America...." DK

This seems to be what most people, not just you, in the US, have been taught since the Civil War itself and still think as an article of faith.

That was not at all the case, back then, even if it is more so, perhaps, now.

One can look, for example, at the fine book, "The Unexpurgated Lincoln-Douglas Debates".

Lincoln made extensive use of Northern white racism, white racist fear, worse even than Southern white racist fear of emancipation, based on a supposed conspiracy to nationalize slavery,to get elected, although he lost the senate election, the subject of the debates,to Doublas.

Look especially at the Index, Slavery, Conspiracy to Nationalize. It was this fear among Northern whites, of racial mixing, stirred up by politicians and preachers like Lincoln, probably more than anything else, that later got him elected President. He literally traded on and won the Presidency based on Northern white racism.

All the best

A SCHOLARLY REFERENCE

People don't necessarily believe my account of the decline of the West, and the rise of the rest, as a self inflicted wound.

 

They have been sold various conflicting stories of how it has come about, why they should have wanted a LIEO, and how it was inevitable in any event anyway, by both liberals and conservatives, whatever those terms now mean.

 

This is a reference to a book I am currently reading. It sheds some more light on what I have been describing here, and also tells this different story, a story seldom told, of how the 20th Century came out, how the 21st Century is now, of course, panning out, and why.

 

The Last Thousand Days of the British Empire, Churchill, Roosevelt, and the Birth of the Pax Americana 

RE OLD CELLO

Some viewers seem to come here to view this old thing...

 

Here is a post gathering these images in one place:

OLD CELLO OLD IMAGES TOGETHER

Just copy and paste this post title into Bing.

RE THE CONQUERORS

Beschloss always seemed to me more of a historian pundit matinee idol than a serious historian, but I use him, where it suits my purpose.

THE MENU ELEGY RATHBONE PLACE LONDON

GERMANY DEPORTS TWO ISLAMIC STATE GUYS BORN IN GERMANY BORN THIS WAY

Great stuff!

No doubt children of Islamic guest workers, whom the US first foisted on Germany, long ago.
Prior related posts:
WHY DO GERMANY AND AUSTRIA NOW HAVE SO MANY WIDELY DETESTED MUSLIMS?
SENIOR GERMAN GOVERNMENT MINISTERS SEEK BAN ON BURQA AND DUAL CITIZENSHIP

Here's a prior post CFR reference. Great stuff, Council On Foreign Relations...

 

http://www.cfr.org/religion/europes-angry-muslims/p8218

Just think of all this as a another David Brooks Exodus Story.

Think of these Muslim emigrants as Hebrews, getting out of Egypt, or later Britain, to yet another New Jerusalem, Germany...

SOMEONE SAW THIS POST HUMAN RIGHTS TRAP

SAMANTHA POWER PAUL KRUGMAN CARTOON DIALOGUE SYRIA IS TOO BIG TO FAIL

BROOKS THE EXODUS STORY

Where to begin with such an essay?

 

He sets America's proper story firmly within an Old Testament tradition of exile and promised land.

 

The Puritans, rebelling against the corruption of Catholicism as well as the Popish Anglicanism of Baal's Britain, called the New World the New Jerusalem, and their emigration here an Exodus of chosen people from bondage in the land of the Pharoah, England and its Anglican King, and from Catholicism on the continent.

 

But, the Puritans weren't Jews.

 

Maybe that's enough for one post. To be continued....

SOMEONE SAW THIS OLD CARTOON POST TRUMP EMINENT DOMAIN

This really captures the sentiments, or at least the rhetoric, of the Property Rights Lobby. It is really run by interests for whom the welfare of the little property owner are their last actual concern:

TRUMP EMINENT DOMAIN CARTOON

THE MENU CONDIMENTS IMPROV

Why not continue this condiment saga?

 

I have many Dutch readers. I don't know why, really. They are just there.

 

The Dutch, traditionally, if one can call such a thing traditional in Holland, put mayonnaise, if anything, on French fries, or pomme frites. I am sure it has a long and chequered history.

 

Americans, Philistines that they always were, have long poured catsup on them.

 

What I am going to suggest is that some Dutch might add a little catsup to their mayonnaise, for pomme frites; and that some Americans, not many, might add a little mayonnaise to their catsup, for french fries.

 

My own personal preference, for such culinary innovations, might involve adding a little mustard to mayonnaise for pomme frites, if catsup were too roguish a concept for the Dutch. I would suggest adding a fair amount of mayonnaise to catsup for american french fries. These are just my thoughts.

 

The types and quantities of mustard, catsup, and mayonnaise are of course, subject to individual creative improvisational flair.

Call me irresponsible, but I would suggest, if you happen to use steak sauce, that you mix mayonnaise, made the way you want, with various prepared steak sauces on the market. You can also make steak sauce yourself; it would not be that hard.... 

One thinks of the traditional Lea & Perrins, McCormick, HP, A-1, 57, Worcestershire, etc.

I would not ruin a really good steak this way, but many, down through the ages, have. Frankly, I wouldn't even use a bearnaise, even if I bothered to make one...

 

RE DK CURRENT POST HOW BANNON HAS USED AND ABUSED S & H

"Steve Bannon, as I pointed out back in November, believes in great wars as an inevitable part of a Fourth Turning." DK

 

I can't imagine that S & H theory subscribes to such a thing, but it is fluid, and that is why Bannon has been able so readily to harness it.

 

A great war, between and within rival civilizations, would itself last several generations, and would certainly, by itself, without getting into other already existing S & H theoretical problems, render S & H generation theory obsolete, in my judgment.

 

Bannon, of course, is not going to address that possibility, going in. That is not part of his agenda, in using S & H theory, in the first place.

JUST CALL IT THE PAX CHINGOLIA

LIBERAL GLOBAL ECONOMISTS' MODEL FOR THE GLOBAL FREE TRADE SYSTEM IS THE PAX MONGOLICA

The Japanese are going to love this new global trade regime! They will make a great prosperous and obedient vassal state!

The Russians really loved it back when Genghis Khan came over, to help them with trade.  A real peaceful economic diplomat and deal maker...rather like Don Corleone, "He made em an offa dey culdnt refuse."

The Middle East, they were thrilled with Genghis too! They will like this even more!

ENLIGHTENMENT MODEL OF A HUMAN BEING

An android with willful and irrational passions.

FN TO MY COMMENT ON DK SITE

Re my comment on DK's "It didn't start with Trump"

Fn: It was a crisis brought on in great part by enlightenment ideas, but of course one which they could then never solve, and which, the pursuit of a solution therof by enlightenment principles, has only worsened it, going forward.

THE GLOBALIZATION TRAP

Someone saw this today:

ONE OF MY BEST OLD ONE LINERS RE WHAT I CALL THE GLOBALIZATION TRAP

 

I have a lot of post touching on the subtopic of globalization as a trap.

 

Terms search: globalization trap.

LIBERAL GLOBAL ECONOMISTS' MODEL FOR THE GLOBAL FREE TRADE SYSTEM IS THE PAX MONGOLICA

That is their ideal.

RE THE PROBLEM OF CHANGE TONY BLAIR LET'S JUST CALL IT

The Problem of Protagoras

 

RE THE ENLIGHTENMENT AGE OF THE DEMOCRATIC REVOLUTION

 

Re The Fifth Century Enlightenment, clearly, Plato already saw the problem. He had no good solution for it, and I think he actually knew this at the time. His radical counterrevolutionary and conservative political ideas, and innovations, in The Republic merely fed it.

 

Aristotle sidestepped it while acknowledging it as best he could, it seems to me. He grappled with change, too, in even more general terms. He also knew, in my judgment, that it was insoluble.

 

The problem was still there, whether one held to the Greek gods, or abandoned them, whether one held one view of the physical or metaphysical world, or another.

THE DIRTY LITTLE SECRET OF LIBERAL DEMOCRACY

is that even it requires a nation state class structure, albeit a faux class structure, composed of a leisured and literate faux middle class, a not very wealthy or very powerful faux upper crust, and a socially cohesive society from top to bottom, with the faux lower eschelons held contentedly in place by relative prosperity, that is, a prosperity relative to lower eschelons in less wealthy nonliberal societies, nation states, and civilizations elsewhere.

 

Globalizing economic and wealth convergence and divergence, and globalizing anti civilizational and anti nation state initiatives, have eroded all of even this little bit that was still left of Western Civilization since 1760.

RE DK excerpt THE 1930S AND THE 2010S

 Not a favorable or hopeful comparison, the way I read it, although he does not draw such a conclusion. 

I will draw them for you.  My underlining and parenthetical remarks:

"Both coalitions were in part protesting long-term economic and cultural changes.(Not good at all.) 

 In the German case these changes included the growth of great retail chains like department stores, the development of world agricultural markets, and the disruption of currencies caused, ultimately, by the First World War. (All of these were bad for the West.) 

 The contemporary United States is at a completely different stage of development. (Not really.) 

Our small farmers and small shopkeepers ceased to be a political force decades ago, (Not good, but we were also exporting grain and beef back in the 19th Century only to Europe, which was the only poace which could afford it.)  

 the working class has been devastated by foreign competition, outsourcing, and automation, and service workers, not office workers, are the fastest growing part of our economy. (Not good, our own fault.) 

In addition, although both 1930s Nazis and today's Republicans rail against minorities, the immigrant presence in today's United States is much, much larger than the minority population of Germany in 1933.(Not a good thing at all.)

As a matter of fact, successive German governments had used high tariffs to insulate Germany from some of the impact of globalization for more than 50 years by the time Hitler took power, (Germany looks better. We had also used high tariffs and protectionism back in the 19th Century for industrial products, and it had worked beautifully. The Germans had actually copied us, Friedrich List. Of course, the South was for free trade, to sell cotton, etc., the North protecting its infant industries.) and the Nazis went even further in that direction by trying to create an autarchic German economy. (Good try. We never even tried, although our endowments actually made it feasible for us, not for them.)

The United States on the other hand has been moving towards freer and freer trade for about 80 years now, (Not good.) and it is very unclear whether Donald Trump will actually be able to change the role of trade in our economy to any significant extent.(Not good. Not feasible. Will lead almost immediately to global civilizational war.)

MY OWN VIEW DECLINE OF WESTERN CIVILIZATION

is that the death of Western liberalism, LIEO at its end, 1789 at its beginning, civil wars of the West, Napoleon, then Franco Prussian, Crimean,  then WWI, in the middle, then fighting against Russian Revolution, fighting against Japan imperialism in East Asia, WWII and the end of Western dominance, Vietnam, Korea, countless other partially covert ones, will be a very violent death.

 

Has already been very violent for substantial parts of its existence and now violent toward its end. Why should its end be different?

It is not at all a matter of what pundits here call terror; or a war by anti terror on largely undefined so called terror.

That is liberal nonsense.

 

The Vital Center, a Jacobin internationalist feel good consensus, about the wrong principles, animating in many ways the globalizing West in the Age of the Democratic Revolution from the start, and only now evaporating before our eyes.

RE DK CURRENT POST AND MY COMMENT HERE TOO LONG TO BURDEN HIS SITE WITH

"Fueled by a post-Cold War fantasy of ruling the world, a resentment of Arab states that would not obey the US, and devotion to the interests of the State of Israel, the Bush Administration also seized upon 9/11 as an excuse to begin a string of endless wars in the Middle East.  These wars, too, could have brought the country together and created a new consensus--if they could have been successful. Broad strategic problems, however,. doomed them almost from the start.  Overthrowing the Taliban in Afghanistan and Saddam Hussein in Iraq was well within our capabilities, but establishing stable, friendly regimes in those countries--much less democracies--was far beyond them.  Sixteen years and many trillions of dollars later, our side is losing the war in Afghanistan, while the sectarian Iraqi government is destroying the country's second-largest city, Mosul, in order to save it.  But that was not all.  The fantasy behind those wars: that we could solve terrorism, and other problems as well, by replacing Middle Eastern autocrats with democracies, has continued to be a principle of our foreign policy ever since, with increasingly disastrous consequences." DK

 

"These wars, too, could have brought the country together and created a new consensus--if they could have been successful."

 

I don't think that this is true. I doubt that wars, even those which have commonly been touted as bringing a nation together, for us WWI and WWII are the classic examples, actually themselves did this.

 

They did also a lot of other things, simultaneously, and after, which, over time, cut very strongly against domestic social integration, and resulted in an American led globalization which frankly could care less about American domestic social integration.

 

It is also openly anti Western Civilization oriented, so we are a longstanding pariah within Western civilization itself as well.

 

Vietnam, similarly, was both very socially divisive for us while it was happening, unlike WWI and WWII, but much more importantly, disastrous for us, as they too were, in the long run, in a global hegemonic sense, in terms of their tendency to distract, and to enrich and empower so called allies in Asia, encouraging Americans to think, to this very day, that blindly booming noncommunists, both ideologically and for short term profits, was somehow good for America in the long run.

 

Korea had some very similar tendencies too.

Places where proxy wars like this have been fought have of course since ancient times been turned into wastelands.

FDR wanted to render Germany and in fact most of Central Europe, in general, pasturage, after WWII, until sense was talked into him, and into his successors.

England, before us, had long mostly been the same way, also throwing France into the mix of throw away buffer areas between Britain and Russia, its natural ally.

THE MENU INDIAN MAYONNAISE

One could flavor, or color, mayo with say, minced green coriander (cilantro), or even some off the shelf savory minced chutneys.

 

One might use fresh ginger juice (might work as an emulsifier, in combination) or pickled ginger or pickled pepper vinegar, to actually make an Indian style mayonnaise.

THE MENU DOG'S BREAKFAST

Our bobtail lost his breakfast, for the hundredth time.

He never returns to it.

THE MENU MUSTARD IMPROV WITHOUT RECIPES

I don't make it. I just eat it. But...

 

I avoid mustard brands made with health food cider vinegar...

 

I like Grey Poupon. But...I like it only in a glass jar.

 

I used to use Guldens, but they only do plastic bottles now, it seems.

 

I can even do ' yellow ' mustard, if well made and good ingredients.

 

Depending on what it goes with, I mix mustards together....

 

It is an improv. I don't have a recipe for this. This, I know is a species of two kinds of sacrilege: I mix together carefully crafted products, and I totally fail to provide recipe proportions.

 

I like a mixture of spicy brown and Dijon, for example, but not just any spicy brown or any Dijon. Furthermore, the proportion can vary, as I say, depending on the use.

 

You have to take a shot in the dark here.

For spicy food, spicy sausages, I might use a mild spicy brown, with some yellow. One can also blend mayonnaise with mustard...another separate topic really. Check this recent post, (and also the one about barbecue mayonnaise): THE MENU MAYONNAISE PALETTE OVER PALATE IMPROV

For mild food, brats, etc., I might use Dijon, with some yellow and or spicy brown... It is a matter of mood, and of the wine or beer to go with it.

Those who put the same type of mustard on everything, I think of as mildly retarded.

BACK IN THE 19TH CENTURY SICK MAN OF EUROPE SICK MAN OF ASIA

These were terms for nation states or empires in decline. They usually were being gradually eaten out, often divided up, by their more aggressive neighbors.

China, or Austria Hungary. The Ottoman Empire, sick man of the Middle East and South East Europe.

Now, we have what I call sick civilizations. Islam has been in retreat for centuries...Ottoman Empire, Persia, etc.
Now, the Arab Spring....

Huntington talked about torn countries, those straddling contending civilizations...

DK CURRENT POST IT DIDN'T START WITH TRUMP

I ignore the main S & H theme of it, except to note, in passing, Bannon's use and abuse of it.

 

Bannon is capitalizing, it seems to me,  on identifying his regime's apocalyptic agenda, as DK also notes, with a convenient S & H liberal, escapist, unfalsifiable, cyclical, theory.

 

My favorite passage here: "Shi'ite and Christian Syrians, as it happens, believe that Assad's fall would mean their massacre, and the evidence of Iraq suggests that they are correct."

Almost all of these Christians are Orthodox Christians. Most Orthodox Christians there emigrated elsewhere in the 19th Century.
Christianity In Syria, Wikipedia

This is one reason why Orthodox Russia has been supporting Assad, the Orthodox Christians that are still left, but only one reason of course. The US has been opposed to Assad, from what little I know, for other reasons altogether.

That is also a side of the story the American media seldom mentions in bashing Putin for supporting Assad, not that he doesn't need, incidentally, to be bashed, but for the other reasons.

RE RUSSIA CONSIDERS JEHOVAH'S WITNESSES BAN

This is a great thing. I think Siberia is a good place for them.

 

Why not a blanket ban on Jews in Russia? They always wanted to do it. Send them to the pale, that was the mantra. 

Mongolia is nearby, if Siberia for one reason or another doesn't work out for the Jehovah's Witnesses.

My question is, can we get the Russians to house ours there too?

I am sure they would be dependable workers and good Siberian, or Mongolian, citizens, once settled in there.

Frankly, I don't see why someplace like Africa wouldn't also benefit from a generous influx of Jehovah's Witnesses.

We have an enormous load of Scientologists here, just waiting to proselytize somewhere, I am sure, as well.

Siberia, Mongolia, or Africa must be tempting for them too!

I would also love to see Mormons further expand their horizon.