SOUTH KOREA SUDDENLY HUGE!

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TOCQUEVILLE DEMOCRACY IN AMERICA

"A democracy can only with great difficulty regulate the details of an important undertaking, persevere in a fixed design, and work out its execution in spite of serious obstacles."

 

Amen.

Tocqueville didn't even get to see the Civil War, baby.

MY READERS WHICH ARE MORE IMPORTANT?

ROOSKIES CAMEO APPEARANCE

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TRUMP ORTHODOX JEWS HAVE QUEERED NYT LIBERAL JEWS

You can quote me. Say "Boomerbuster said." Rather like Simon says.

Say no more.

Terms search: you been queered, pivot

SOME MAY MISTAKENLY SUPPOSE THAT I FAVOR BANNON ECONOMIC NATIONALISM

That would be a big misunderstanding.

Although I tend toward economic nationalism, the time to have built such a nation, within a still dominant Western Civilization, is long gone, a century or so gone, now.

 

Bannon is a sort of Alcibiades.

He at least knows he's been queered by Asia, and he is mad as hell. That's how you feel when you been queered.

My favorite endgame, for Bannon, and for Snowden, would be if Putin were able to put both Snowden and Bannon in the same cell somewhere in Russia.

THOMAS L FRIEDMAN COPIED MY SAYING IN PART IT SEEMS

A few readers of my blog may note that my version had been a paraphrase of a famous line of Churchill's, about the role of the RAF in The Battle of Britain.

My version has broad application to Friedmanesque American led globalization.

Friedman's version in the article applies only to China and Israel, and only to Trump's giveaway to them.

My phrase "so quickly" can be omitted by Friedman, for his version, since what he is describing happened very recently indeed anyway.

You will note that Friedman kept my "for so little", a phrase missing, of course, also in Churchill's original.  The reason is that Friedman, as well as myself, turned Churchill's statement from a debt owed into something given or almost given away.

That is also how you know that Friedman copied my statement, because he transformed its essential meaning in the same way I had done.

He also omitted "Never in the history of human conflict", since he doesn't want to get into what I mean, as against his own globalist flat world giveaway agenda in general.

Perhaps he can come out with a Michael Pillsbury Fallacy mea culpa, book, saying something like "I preached globalization for the last 30 years but, only now, do I realize I was wrong".

Terms search, also: Steingart

TRUMP RECOGNIZES JERUSALEM ISRAEL'S CAPITOL 2000 YEARS LATER

Judgment of history, verdict of history....

Who was on the wrong side of history?

Pagan Roman Empire, apparently. Muhammad, ditto.

Many, quite justifiably, anti semitic Christians, Catholic, Protestant, or other, who, as an article of faith, believe that the Jews killed Jesus, and that the destruction of Jerusalem of the Jews by the Romans was sanctioned by God himself.

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SCHLESINGER LIPPMANN ETC

Scientific humanism...

All seemingly very nice ideas...1914

HOBSON'S CHOICE

Poor but upright

or

Bourgeois but depraved?

WHAT MATTERS THIS OR THAT REASON

Monday, September 7, 2015

GLOBALIZATION AS THE CAUSE OF WAR NOT AS THE CAUSE OF PEACE

Let's focus on this theme for a while here, what do you say.

Back in the days of mercantilism, they could not really even distinguish trade from war. "What matters this or that reason..." At least they, back then, had a clearer concept of the relationship than contemporary specialized economics and other experts in other fields now do. Sad commentary on knowledge, specialization,  and history.

"As General Monck put it with military directness in demanding a renewal of war against the Dutch in 1662: ‘What matters this or that reason? What we want is more of the trade the Dutch now have.’ Trade meant wealth, wealth enabled one to wage war, war made possible yet more trade: who could resist the lure of this logic?”

“The British Way In Warfare: A Reappraisal”, The Causes Of War, Howard, 1983.

DUMB AND DUMBER LIBERALISM

You really have to look at the article below, in the context of European and world history, to see how bad it got, over the decades after 1760, until the culmination of dumb Western liberalism in the 20th Century.

If the European liberals, or what was left of The Old European Order, were dumb, their American spawn, at all times, were still dumber.

"Saturday, December 2, 2017

OLD KENNAN ARTICLE RE LIPPMANN

"Walter Lippmann, The New Republic, and the Russian Revolution", in Walter Lippmann and his Times"

BLACK HOLE GLOBALIZATION DOOMSDAY MACHINE

Early Star Trek.

SODOM AND GOMORRAH CELEBRITY LESBIAN ABUSE NEXT ON THE LIST

BLACK HOLE GLOBALIZATION AND THE LOGAN ACT

What sense does it make to talk about the Logan Act when your foreign adversaries now make most of your products and equipment, for either government or the private sector, and Americans must deal with them, at the highest levels, of either public or private correspondence, on a daily basis, often touching on matters of foreign affairs policy and commerce, both executive and legislative, of the United States?

SOROS' ENLIGHTENMENT FALLACY VERSUS MINE

See the post below from 2013.

 

I would add that Soros' distinction, for purposes of his concept of The Enlightenment Fallacy, between natural phenonena and human affairs, is erroneous.

 

My concept of an Enlightenment Fallacy is fully as applicable to the study of natural phenomena as to human affairs, since for certain purposes, the study of natural phenomena and human affairs are both prone to similar Enlightenment related weaknesses. This fact has revealed itself in spades in recent discussions of global warming, creationism, fake facts, fake news, etc.

Take a look also at books and lectures on the history of science as well. See for example The Teaching Company course entitled "Science Wars". That is rather good. "It touches some themes I have broached here, re terms search: compartmentalization, junk science, experts, multi disciplinary issues, disciplinary foundations, politics, philosophy of social science, Wittgenstein, metaphysics, history of science, ethics, religion, sophistry, and anti intellectualism."

Another trend which I have noted here in the past has been the cooptation of university science, as well as liberal arts, faculties by those whose agenda is dictated either by new more aggressive anti intellectual, or more aggressive market dominated, programs, or both.


Sunday, July 27, 2014

RE 1984

" I know it is the fashion to say that most of recorded history is lies anyway. I am willing to believe that history is for the most part inaccurate and biased, but what is peculiar to our own age is the abandonment of the idea that history COULD be truthfully written. In the past people deliberately lied, or they unconsciously coloured what they wrote, or they struggled after the truth, well knowing that they must make many mistakes; but in each case they believed that 'facts' existed and were more or less discoverable. And in practice there was always a considerable body of fact which would have been agreed to by almost everyone. If you look up the history of the last war in, for instance, the ENCYCLOPAEDIA BRITANNICA, you will find that a respectable amount of the material is drawn from German sources. A British and a German historian would disagree deeply on many things, even on fundamentals, but there would still be that body of, as it were, neutral fact on which neither would seriously challenge the other. It is just this common basis of agreement, with its implication that human beings are all one species of animal, that totalitarianism destroys. Nazi theory indeed specifically denies that such a thing as 'the truth' exists. There is, for instance, no such thing as 'Science'. There is only 'German Science', 'Jewish Science', etc. The implied objective of this line of thought is a nightmare world in which the Leader, or some ruling clique, controls not only the future but THE PAST. If the Leader says of such and such an event, 'It never happened'--well, it never happened. If he says that two and two are five--well, two and two are five. This prospect frightens me much more than bombs--and after our experiences of the last few years that is not a frivolous statement." 1984 DK excerpt

Unfortunately, a war, even, won't get one automatically toward objective facts or truth. The old adage history was written by victors has some truth to it.  According to Orwell's reasoning, the last thing he would have said, were Hitler to have won, was that this German history was thus now historical truth.

Re scientific truth, as an objective standard, Stephen Goldman had some good lectures on the history of science, and its controversies,  within the context of European intellectual, mostly physical science and astronomy: "Science Wars", Teaching Company.

Re philosophy of social science, Winch had some useful essays, in Ethics and Action, struggling with problems of truth, method, and morality, through historical, scientific, and social transformation, what I would call, in one sense, a struggle for neutral scientific, and moral, explanations, across disciplines, academic and political factions, wars, civilizations even, and time, etc.,: "Man and Society In Hobbes And Rousseau", "Nature And Convention", "Witchcraft And Magic Among The Azande", "Understanding A Primitive Society",  etc., etc. Winch, of course, read and spoke both German and French; things which I, unfortunately, did  not.

Wikipedia: philosophy of social science, Peter Winch

 

"Saturday, June 8, 2013

See A kindred spirit

David Kaiser's post, some time ago, re Soros, etc.

This was my favorite quote from Soros (in Kaiser's post):

 "Popper’s hidden assumption that freedom of speech and thought will produce a better understanding of reality is valid only for the study of natural phenomena. Extending it to human affairs is part of what I have called the 'Enlightenment fallacy.'"

A great insight. Commenting on Kaiser's current post, one might also call it the Free Press Fallacy, or even, say, The Drew Pearson Fallacy.

I would just call it The Karl Popper Fallacy, and let people wonder how far I mean to go on that.

I would add, to the elements of Soros' Enlightenment Fallacy, a faith in free, open, Smithian, (and eventually global), markets.

Yet, this addition sets me off from Soros and his, otherwise, and in other contexts, quite globalist tendencies.

Most liberals are not nationalists, deep down, but rather anti nationalist globalists, nowadays. It was not always so.

Let's put it this way, the Nazis gave nationalism an unnecessarily ugly rap.
(The Bolshevics somehow avoided this type of bad rap, largely because of the gross ignorance and naivete of Western regimes, and their conservatives, and their liberals.)

I would just advert, momentarily, to a great small book by Butterfield, in the enlightenment context, The Whig Interpretation Of History. (Maybe I'm just stuck, Tory like, on Regius Professors of History, or just stuck on Regius anything.)

In a similar vein, the ideas of the Founding Fathers, as Bailyn has pointed out, owed more to radical Protestantism, and the common law, (one could also add commercial self interests, including, preponderantly, smuggling, tax evasion, and slavery) than to enlightenment ideas per se.

Term search, if so inclined eg: Popper, Lorch"

 

 

 

THUMBING THROUGH THE MONEY CULTURE 1991

When he published this, I was still a Public Defender...

Especially good is "Leveraged Rip-Off"

NYT SAYS LOGAN ACT CLEARLY APPLIES TO FLYNN AND TO ANYONE ELSE NYT CHOOSES

§ 953. Private correspondence with foreign governments.

Any citizen of the United States, wherever he may be, who, without authority of the United States, directly or indirectly commences or carries on any correspondence or intercourse with any foreign government or any officer or agent thereof, with intent to influence the measures or conduct of any foreign government or of any officer or agent thereof, in relation to any disputes or controversies with the United States, or to defeat the measures of the United States, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than three years, or both.

This section shall not abridge the right of a citizen to apply himself, or his agent, to any foreign government, or the agents thereof, for redress of any injury which he may have sustained from such government or any of its agents or subjects.

1 Stat. 613, January 30, 1799, codified at 18 U.S.C. § 953 (2004).

Subsequently, Logan himself was appointed and then elected as a Democratic-Republican to the United States Senate from Pennsylvania, and served from July 13, 1801, to March 3, 1807. He was unsuccessful in getting the Logan Act repealed. Despite the Logan Act, he went to England in 1810 on a private diplomatic mission as an emissary of peace in the period before the outbreak of the War of 1812, but was not successful.

See Wikipedia for a discussion.

It seems to me that the Act would be a useful tool, in the proper hands, for cleaning up the media itself!

Powerful media companies doubtless violate this law countless times in a week, on the international desks, and through foreign correspondents.

Politicians, and especially former politicians now lobbyists, not just Trump, but especially private corporate executives, violate it, constantly. Think tank guys, second nature to violate it....
Here is Trump:

In July 2016, U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack accused Donald Trump of encouraging the Russian government to hack the email of Hillary Clinton, Trump's opponent in the 2016 presidential election. Several other Democratic Senators claimed Trump's comments appeared to violate the Logan Act

In 2006, the United States House Committee on Ethics warned departing members of the terms of the Act in an official Memorandum. The Committee commented in the Memorandum that the Act, "...has never been the basis of a prosecution, and this Committee has publicly questioned its constitutionality... Members should be aware, however, that the law remains on the books.

It is obviously a piece of shit, as drafted.

However, it seems ripe for wider, if unconstitutional, use, in a wide post McCarthyite sting, against rogue liberal journalists, and all politicians.

In 1975, Senators John Sparkman and George McGovern were accused of violating the Logan Act when they traveled to Cuba and met with officials there. In considering that case, the U.S. Department of State concluded:

The clear intent of this provision [Logan Act] is to prohibit unauthorized persons from intervening in disputes between the United States and foreign governments. Nothing in section 953 [Logan Act], however, would appear to restrict members of the Congress from engaging in discussions with foreign officials in pursuance of their legislative duties under the Constitution. In the case of Senators McGovern and Sparkman the executive branch, although it did not in any way encourage the Senators to go to Cuba, was fully informed of the nature and purpose of their visit, and had validated their passports for travel to that country.
Senator McGovern’s report of his discussions with Cuban officials states: "I made it clear that I had no authority to negotiate on behalf of the United States—that I had come to listen and learn..." (Cuban Realities: May 1975, 94th Cong., 1st Sess., August 1975). Senator Sparkman’s contacts with Cuban officials were conducted on a similar basis. The specific issues raised by the Senators (e.g., the Southern Airways case; Luis Tiant’s desire to have his parents visit the United States) would, in any event, appear to fall within the second paragraph of Section 953.
Accordingly, the Department does not consider the activities of Senators Sparkman and McGovern to be inconsistent with the stipulations of Section 953

How bout SNL/ Alec Baldwin? Etc., the whole cast really.

Although the title of the act says private correspondence, the actual body of the law, which is the operative part, fails to so state.

This law is not limited, by its terms, only to private correspondence, whatever even that now can be taken to mean, at all. 

 

 

 

OTHER DETERMINATION MARKET DETERMINATION SELF DETERMINATION

Why not counterpose something worthwhile to Self Determination?

 

The West did a horrible job of Other Determination, re WWI. Modern State of Israel, spawn of this, along with dismemberment of the Ottoman Empire, etc, etc, etc.

 

Ditto re WWII, leaving Eastern and Central Europe in Russia's hands, de facto Other Determination.

 

But hey, Self Determination has not worked either.

 

Believe me, Market Determination has been coming to a very very bad end.