Open thread 7/30/21
Just a few relaxed minutes of playing acoustic guitar and joking around – oh, and harmonizing:
The New Neo
A blog about political change, among other things
Just a few relaxed minutes of playing acoustic guitar and joking around – oh, and harmonizing:
Those brothers all had a ton of talent and harmonized effortlessly, but Barry had those looks, the flowing mane, and the pure charisma to be the front man.
Here’s another reminder of just how deep a hole we are in:
https://www.outsidethebeltway.com/bidens-vaccination-speech/
That’s a blog post about Biden’s COVID speech on Thursday, praising the wonderful leadership it demonstrated.
Anyone who bothers to read it can argue with me, but I’d be willing to bet money the doofus who wrote it…
Didn’t watch Biden give the speech live.
Didn’t watch video of the speech afterward.
Didn’t read or watch ANY of the news coverage of the speech.
It literally reads to me like he just found out about the speech this morning, read the transcript from the White House website, and wrote up a puff praise piece that contained almost ZERO political or evidential context.
And this isn’t just some yahoo with a goofy screen name. This is a member of America’s credentialed elite. How do you deal with someone that far inside an isolation chamber of his own making?
Mike
MBunge:
I wouldn’t call it an isolation chamber. It’s a propaganda unit, and it’s a group thing.
The case of a writer who apparently has discarded any understanding the books she previously wrote because she feels safer doing so and the money is better on the Left.
https://pjmedia.com/instapundit/464818/
I’m curious as to how many people who visit Neo’s site also visited the Taiwanese mogul’s web site – or any other for that matter – presenting the contents of Hunter Biden’s lap top.
And alternatively how many refrained from a sense of delicacy, or a sense that it was inappropriate somehow too peer to boldly into the degenerate life of Biden’s crack-head miscreant son.
I was noticing recently that stating Eric Ciamarella’s name is still considered verboten by some [ probably few] bloggers; and that put me in mind of the inhibitions conservatives still seem – though to a lesser degree than in the past – to respect when it comes to their political adversaries.
geoffb, so sad. Anne Applebaum, what happened to her. I keep trying to make sense of it all. Is all ambition driven solely by the hunger to be liked? Once status is achieved the threat of losing the approval of peers eclipses everything else. It’s telling that Rush Limbaugh kept as far away as he could from the Washington/NYC crowd. Even as principled as he was, he needed to keep temptation away.
https://jamesjoyner.com/bio/
The man to whom Bunge refers is this fellow. What’s disconcerting is that among the opinion-leader element, one might wager this Joyner fellow is waaay above the median.
JUST WONDERFUL 🙂
geoffb, Eva Marie:
Yes, I have wondered what happened to Applebaum too. Her “Gulag: A History” (2004) was an excellent book.
Re Applebaum & Friends:
https://thezman.com/wordpress/?p=24523
“The Journey Home:
Way back in the Reagan years, the people taking over the foreign policy establishment were often accused of being Trotskyites. The reason is many of them had been Trotskyites into the 1960’s and 1970’s. They were men of the far left until they were drawn into the neoconservative movement. Most were drawn into the movement through opposition to Stalinist communism. Some broke with the Left over the state of Israel, while others were concerned over the domestic issues.
The accusation was not without roots in reality. Trotsky was the leader of the left-Bolsheviks in the 1920’s. His faction opposed Stalin and Bukharin, who led what was known at the time as the right-Bolsheviks. Of course, Stalin’s faction won the dispute, driving the Trotskyites out of the party and eventually driving an ice ax through the head of Trotsky himself. Stalin’s later suspicion of Zionism would only add to this old dispute between the founding generations of the Left.
The Left-Right dynamic within radical politics is something that gets very little attention, because it does not serve ruling class interests. In 1920’s Russia, the Left side promoted radical reorganization of society, while the Right side wanted to take a gradualist approach. Critics of the conservative movement in America have relied on this comparison to chide them over their diffidence. The paleo criticism of Buckley conservatism was that it was just the slow version of Progressivism.
What this means is that the ruling dynamic of America since the middle of the last century has been a form of party rule. The communist had informal factions within a formal party structure, while the liberal democrats prefer formal factions within an informal party structure. The Democrats are the left-liberals while the Republicans are the right-liberals. They have the same goals, but disagree on the best approach for achieving those goals. They also serve the same interests.
Looked at in this light, the alliance of former radicals with the Buckley conservatives makes much more sense. It was not simply over opposition to the Soviet Union or even communism itself. It was a lesson learned from experience. The Trotskyites were slow to realize the danger of Stalin and it cost them their lives. The neocons were not going to make the same mistake twice. In other words, the shift from the Left to the Right within the ruling party was a continuation of an old struggle.
Within this framing, the recent break between the neocons and their former allies in the decaying Buckley coalition is a journey home, of sorts. Their alliance with the right-liberals, whose appeal was always to the heritage stock of America, was always about the old struggle. The crusades against Islam in order to secure Israel’s dominant position in the region was a natural consequence of winning the Cold War. Now that those battles are done, the Trotskyites are heading home.
This political Aliyah is why someone like Jonah Goldberg are pulling out all the stops to present himself as a grotesque antiwhite fanatic. He dresses it up in anti-Trump sentiment, but his rhetoric would be at home on MSNBC. Bill Kristol, of course, sounds like a socialist history teacher in the 1960’s now. His new venture, The Bulwark is underwritten by a Persian. One suspects that they secretly call him Cyrus and they think of him as freeing them from the right-wing captivity.
The most egregious of the crew, with regards to the bomb throwing at their old friends on the Right, is David French. His physiognomy suggests there are a few surprises in his 23andme, but putting that aside, he now sounds like an adjunct professor teaching critical race theory. It is as if he has been tasked with making it clear to all that the old Trotskyites are not only breaking with the Right, but they are ready to come home and take up their position on the Left.“
It goes on. If you don’t like this excerpt, you probably won’t like the rest either.
Comments at the Instapundit post included this link to an aggregation site for election fraud evidence.
https://hereistheevidence.com/
And this comment:
“Anne Applebaum (shorter): We stole the election and we are going to keep it.”
Charles Murray has had enough:
https://twitter.com/charlesmurray/status/1421237892664471552
Recently bumped into this question. And identified the absolute correct answer.
Question of the Day…
You’re offered $1,000,000 to sing an entire song, with no mistakes.
What song do you sing?
CORRECT ANSWER:
Inna Gadda Davida.
Go ahead, tell me I sang it wrong.
😀
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hNBgEirKxq8
@OBloodyHell:
That’s the song you wish you had to sing and here is the song some cold-blooded Actuary decided you’re really going to have to sing:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TKDXr_fimQ8
Zaphod – last time I heard that song there was a Wascally Wabbit involved.
This is a mash-up of two shorts, but it covers most of the aria.
https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x3v0dx4
One of the originals – Long Haired Hare.
https://www.ebaumsworld.com/videos/long-haired-hare/81563951/
Some commentary.
https://gemmadeealexander.com/the-looney-tunes-world-of-marriage-of-figaro/
Ya gotta love the webz.
AesopFan:
I like the Mid-Century Modern Long Haired Hare!
Between Figaro and Cosi fan tutte, there’s not too many male/female stones left unturned.
But if we’re looking to Mozart for Lyrical Pornography, have to go with La ci darem. Extra points for getting a mention in Ulysses.
Bryn Terfel does a pretty good Bill Clinton here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NqPcb1nKZYg
From Zaphod’s link to Charles Murray via Twitter:
“3/3 I haven’t changed my mind. America is self-destructing, discarding its founding ideals, unwilling to confront specious allegations with facts. We could have had it all, just as the song says. We lost the thread 50-odd years ago. I hope others can retrieve it.”
And who will retrieve it and how will it be done?
I’ve searched and the usual sites. But a story up at newsammo linked to the DailyCaller.com.
The report was on a survey with an unfamiliar combo helming it. But the scream in the headline was a familiar one: nearly half of Republicans believe their complaints cannot be addressed without violence.
47% of Republicans by one measure; 55% by another.
The survey was of 1700 some registered voters. A good sample.
And it suggested that sentiment for secession was strong in Southern states, 2 of 3 RS, and 50% of independents; and similarly strong by the Left on the Left coast, at 47%.
I’m astonished not to find a link or discussion about this somewhere.
It added furious fire to the themes from other newsworthy headlines that speak to a quickening Constitutional Crisis:
First, Biden Administration is dieing to prevent Texas State Patrol from stopping Bidens illegal alien invasion. (If that wasn’t Daily Caller, it was a DC newspaper story, but I’ve seen several others cover it).
Second, see Lt. Gen. Mike Flynn at the Western Journal. This summarizes the flags of election fraud, culminating in the pending exposure in Maricopa County, AZ.
If election fraud is strongly reinforced In coming state audits, and this leads to filing SCOTUS lawsuits and reworking of state electoral counts, Flynn runs through several possible outcomes, including the duck and cover standing one.
I cannot see how a serious and fundamental Constitutional Crisis does not arise.
Now can I see how the building and boiling scream from the Right does not lead to a violent or edge of violence mass mobilized march on Washington, DC.
And make the old “Insurrection” of Jan 6th look like a dress rehearsal.
Combat is coming. Most Rs (or half in the survey above) believe this is the only way to protect our patriotic way of life is through violence.
It’s coming. And the strength of Rscin Congress to confront and defy Pelosi on mask fascism is yet another data point towards a building national crisis. And for the working man, the fall in Biden support with rising inflation indicators and inflationary expectations (ie, psychology) is yet another.
Violence is coming.
Rcsin = “Rs in”