Obama’s press conference: takes one to know one

The New Neo Posted on by

You can watch it for me. I’m not into that much self-punishment.

William Jacobson reports on it at Legal Insurrection. Obama is riding high, demonstrating most of his now-familiar techniques: impugning the motives of the opposition, saying they spread misinformation about the deal, scolding (“that’s nonsense, you should know better”) reporters who ask embarrassing question like why he seemed okay with not asking Iran to release their American prisoners, and claiming that his opponents (that’s Republicans, not Iranians) didn’t offer any alternatives to the deal.

Here’s more:

When asked if support for the deal by Middle East dictators””and opposition by the majority of Congress and Benjamin Netanyahu””gave him pause, the President “It does not give me pause that Mr. Assad or others in Tehran may be trying to spin the deal in a way that they think is favorable to what their constituencies want to hear. That’s what politicians do”¦

.

Obama, of course, is a politician.

[ADDENDUM: More here on the sycophantic press’s reaction to the reporter’s “disrespectful” question about the hostages.]

A few more of my post-Iran-deal predictions

The New Neo Posted on by

For a person who tends not to make too many predictions, I’ve certainly been making some lately.

So here are a few more, for what they’re worth:

I don’t think the Israelis will bomb Iran’s facilities unless they get some direct intelligence that Iran is contemplating attacking them with a nuclear weapon and it is imminent. I think they will go a different route, because bombing is too risky or perhaps even precluded by Russia’s selling Iran defensive weapons.

I don’t think Iran will choose to actually use nuclear weapons on Israel. Too provocative, too obvious. They will be far more likely to give a smaller type of nuclear weapon (suitcase bomb?? I don’t know all the technical possibilities) to terrorists. They will most definitely use the threat inherent in their mere possession (or imminent possession) of nuclear weapons to increase their dominance in their entire mideast region and the world.

The Iranians will also use the money they get from the lifting of sanctions to finance terrorist operations around the world, to spread the message of fundamentalist Shiite Islam, and to solidify their power at home.

The mullahs will stay in power in Iran, and they will continue to use moderate puppets in high government positions as a front to soften their image on the world stage. They will continue to stomp on human rights at home, and the US and the west will do nothing about that.

Obama and his supporters will continue to spin all these results as the greatest thing since sliced bread. A great many listeners will think that the fact that Iran hasn’t used nuclear weapons proves that the Republicans were just fearmongers creating a tempest in a teapot in order to undermine Obama. The real results of the deal (such as the above list) will be more subtle than a bombing, and less easily connected to it as being results of the deal.

And what of Israel? It will continue to exist but be increasingly isolated by the rest of the world, and increasingly under terrorist attack. I believe Israel will continue to fight against Iran’s nuclear development—not by bombing Iran, but through cyberattacks on those systems and through other covert means.

Will the next US president continue the anti-Israel stance of Obama? If a Republican, certainly not. If a Democrat (we’ll assume Hillary Clinton), I’m actually still not sure. Although I believe she would be more anti-Israel than a Republican president would be, she might be a bit less anti-Israel than Obama has been. But as I said, I just don’t know about that one.

Lastly, will Iran’s government ever become more liberal (in the sense of increased human rights and less support for terrorism)? I don’t see it happening except perhaps on a very long time scale, something like forty or fifty years or more, and perhaps not even then.

[NOTE: This piece by Mark Steyn on the Iran deal is recommended.]

And to go back to that SCOTUS decision on same-sex marriage

The New Neo Posted on by

I realize this is a bit late, but somehow I missed the day that PJ published my latest article there, and therefore I neglected to link to it here.

So here it is, my most recent (from July 7th) PJ article for your perusal.

[NOTE: By the way, although it touches briefly on the issue, that article is not the promised piece on why so many conservative justices change their minds and end up voting liberal either consistently or on certain cases. That one is still coming, and I think it’s a fascinating topic.]

Selling Iran the rope

The New Neo Posted on by

A quote from Lenin that’s been running through my head, post Iran deal:

“The Capitalists will sell us the rope with which we will hang them.”

Several commenters here have pointed out the ramifications of the Iran deal, particularly to Europe. Europe was chomping at the bit to get access to trade with Iran, and for many Europeans sticking it to Israel into the bargain would be a feature, not a bug.

Russia was already about to trade with Iran, by the way, as announced in April. But the reason Russia was going to do this was that the Iran deal was already in the offing, and Russia knew sanctions would be lifted and wanted to get the jump on the action before the West did. The missiles Russia is selling Iran are defensive in nature only, but:

…[T]he Kremlin is lifting a ban on selling a powerful air defense system to Iran that would render an airstrike on Tehran’s nuclear weapons facilities nearly impossible.

The delivery of the new weapon, called the Almaz-Antei S-300PMU-1””known as the SA-20 Gargoyle in NATO parlance””would effectively force the U.S. to rely on its small fleet of stealth aircraft to strike targets inside Iran in case the mullahs make a dash for the bomb. But even those aircraft might have a difficult time.

So, the diplomatic machinations of the Obama administration have made it impossible for most nations to attack Iran’s weapons facilities, and has made it very difficult even for us to do so. Nice.

And please recall that this was a missile system that, in Obama’s first term, he had fought against letting Russia give to Iran:

The U.S. government has lobbied Russia hard for years to prevent the sale of the S-300 to Iran. In 2010, convincing Putin to suspend the sale of the S-300 to Iran was heralded as a major foreign policy coup by the Obama administration. In many ways, it was one of the central achievements of the so-called reset in relations with Moscow, said Heather Conley, a Russia expert at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington.

Those were the days, my friend.

Even if Obama had wanted to hang tough in the Iran negotiations (and there is no indication that he did), this Russian missile deal announced in April would have made it very difficult to do so:

“I find it almost hilarious that the Russians are saying, ”˜It’s an entirely defensive system and cannot attack anyone, including Israel,’” the [an Air Force commander] said. “But it also essentially makes Iran attack-proof by Israel and almost any country without fifth-gen [stealth fighter] capabilities. In other words, Iran, with the S-300, can continue to do what they want once those systems are in place without fear of attack from anyone save the U.S. Brilliant chess move”¦”

It seems to me that Israel will have to attack before these systems are in place, if it attacks at all. What a horrific dilemma for them—a dilemma that should be giving Obama no end of pleasure, since it will be putting his most detested head of state, Benjamin Netanayhu, on the hot seat.

And about that rope to sell. From commenter “Cornhead”:

So now Europe gets some oil and gas and the French and Brits sell cigarettes to the Iran. Nice deal in light of the fact that Iran will turn up its terrorism funding. And the terrorists will be sent to Paris and London.

And other countries in the Mideast—and most likely the US, the Great Satan.

The political aftermath of the Iran deal

The New Neo Posted on by

Anyone who thought Hillary Clinton might part company with Obama was betting on the wrong horse: she’s given tentative approval to the deal, leaving herself a tiny bit of wiggle room.

Obama and the MSM will spin the Iran deal as great victory, something like Obamacare writ large and on a world stage. The American people will be sold a pack of lies (as with Obamacare) about what the deal entails: lots of checks on nuclear proliferation and the like. There will be a lot of self-congratulation on the left. The actual results of the deal won’t be clear for years, probably after the 2016 election—like a time bomb (literally).

As I wrote before, the reaction I’ve seen from blogs on the left is approval, and crowing about the defeat of the conservatives and Republicans. From the right, I’ve seen a lot of this sort of thing (found in the comments at Instapundit):

But but, I voted for republicans! And they won! Does that mean that they are useless? And weak? And on the same side as the mad mullahs?

I wish I had known – I would have voted to keep that democrat twinkie in office – at least I knew whose side she was on.

In other words, blame the Republicans.

Those who think I’m into kneejerk defense of Republicans don’t know me very well. I follow wherever logic takes me. I couldn’t care less about defending Republicans. I’m not a party member, and I’m certainly not a party operative. I find most of them lacking in courage and vision, as well as sometimes corrupt, and I find the current leadership to be especially awful. But blaming Republicans for this particular thing is just plain wrong (sometimes I think that comments like the one I quoted above are actually posted by leftist trolls; and does anyone think the election of Romney wouldn’t have prevented this?).

I’ve gone into the following before, but it bears repeating:

(1) Why do you think the Iran deal is always referred to as a “deal” rather than a treaty? Because Obama would never have called it a treaty and submitted it to Congress for approval, and in fact, as a multilateral arms agreement, there’s actually precedent for his position (although not precedent for going against the basic interests of the US and the opinion of a majority in Congress).

(2) Corker-Menendez actually introduced a way for Congress to vote on it and disapprove of it, particularly and especially the lifting of sanctions, which it delays. What’s more, any ability Congress may have had to block it as a treaty still remains open to them, as far as I can tell.

(3) If and when Congress fails to act on this, I will consider them craven cowards and/or collaborators. But if they do act and vote to refuse to lift sanctions and/or refuse to approve the deal, they may only have a simple majority. Obama has already made it crystal clear he will veto their disapproval, which means they need 2/3 (I think in both houses) to override. Will they get it? That depends on…

(4) …Democrats. What will they do? It’s an opportunity for them to show themselves to be patriots and people of principle, but they’ve shown no such propensities for a very long time, and I don’t see them showing them now. I hope I’m wrong. But my prediction is that although Republicans and some Democrats will vote against the deal, not enough Democrats will join in order to successfully override Obama’s veto.

(5) The same thing is true of conviction re the 2/3 vote. The Republicans have the votes to impeach but not convict, the latter of which needs 2/3 of the Senate. Can anyone envision conviction receiving that many Democrat votes? I truly can’t.

(6) And no, Boehner did not rule out impeachment. See this post from March. At the end of that post, I also added this prediction:

[Republicans in the House] will not impeach Obama unless they think they can win a conviction [in the Senate], and I think that’s wise.

I actually think there’s a small chance that Obama’s actions on Iran could force their hand, depending on what he does and how awful it is. How likely do I think it is that enough Democrats would turn on Obama, and that the Republicans would then act? Highly unlikely.

But it has not been ruled out.

The same is still true. I think Obama is guilty of more than enough to justify his impeachment and then conviction, but I do not think enough Democrats would turn on him. Until that happens, impeachment would only bolster sympathy and support for him.

I don’t like those facts. I actually think they are disastrous.

[ADDENDUM: Some details here on how Congressional review would work.

Here are sixteen reasons why the deal is a catastrophe. Obama and Kerry have abandoned virtually all of the things they had said would be dealbreakers. Wonder how many people who call themselves “liberals” will notice.]

Von Rothbart and the Iran deal

The New Neo Posted on by

You may think I’ve gone stark raving mad. What could Van Rothbart, the evil magician in the ballet “Swan Lake,” have to do with the Iran deal?

Answer: not all that much. But in the wake of the Iran deal I keep having an image of a moment from the third act of that ballet.

Let me set the scene. Most people know about Act II of the ballet, in which Swan Queen Odette has been cast under a spell by the evil magician von Rothbart. He has turned her into a white swan, only allowed to resume her human form at night, and then only semi-human because she retains some of her swan characteristics. This makes for some lovely dancing when we meet Odette, she meets the Prince, and they fall in love.

Now, as with many spells, there’s a catch—an escape hatch, if you will. If a man falls in love with her and declare his eternal love, she becomes free unless his vow is broken. If he betrays her, she’s stuck forever in swanland.

The ballet never explains why Rothbart has it in for her; he is evil, and he just does. But when Odette and the Prince look as though they’re on their way to freedom, he can’t let that happen. Since he’s into spells, he disguises his daughter as the Swan Queen, only this time she wears a black tutu rather than a white one and is named Odile—just to help the audience out, unless it would get too confused. She arrives at a party at the castle and beguiles the Prince though her beauty, her dancing, and her crafty imitation of Odette. Although in most versions I’ve seen she emanates evil and should hardly fool a child into thinking she’s actually Odette (even though both roles are danced by the same ballerina), somehow the gullible Prince (who must want to believe) is fooled.

That’s when the moment comes: Rothbart makes it clear to the Prince (in mime) that he must vow eternal love (in mime, which involves hand on heart and other arm raised, with two fingers pointing upwards) to Odile. Our silly Prince happily makes the vow, at which point von Rothbart and Odile laugh in triumph and run off to the accompaniment of various stage effects that vary with the productions, but which often involve flashes of lightning, small explosions, and smoke, and more of their raucous “I fooled you!” laughter. After this, even the dumb-but-well-meaning Prince realizes he’s been had, especially as the figure of Odette has appeared, mourning, through a window and behind a scrim. The scene closes with the Prince racing off in panic to find her, and then with the Queen, his domineering mother, fainting at the shock and horror of it all. This was not what she had planned for the party.

I’m making light of it, perhaps because I’m in a bitter mood, and also because it’s extremely easy to make fun of such over-the-top schmaltz. It looks especially silly on video. But let me just say that when you are in a theater and watch a really good version, where the principles carry conviction as well as technique, the denouement is one of the most dramatic moments on the stage, almost guaranteed to send a literal chill down one’s spine.

I looked for a definitive version on YouTube that highlights the triumphant and derisive laughter, but unfortunately I couldn’t find one with camerawork that focused on von Rothbart and Odile. The video-takers are usually too busy looking at the Prince and all the general hubbub to notice. But this 2005 production of American Ballet Theater will give you a bit of the idea (I’ve cued it up to automatically start at the right point):

Now to get back to the Iran deal analogy, who’s who? Between Obama and Kerry, who’s von Rothbart and who’s Odile? Well, it’s not a perfect match, but I think I’ve put them in the right order. However, the hapless Prince would have to be the American people and the Western world, although they (like the Prince) bear some guilt for bad judgment.

Those who ascribe to the “fool rather than knave” theory of Obama (I do not) would say that Obama is the Prince as well, with the Iranian mullahs von Rothbart and perhaps Rouhani as Odile.

I haven’t mentioned the way the ballet ends. You may already know: Odette and the Prince kill themselves, and are united in heaven. In the Soviet version, which didn’t cotton to that sort of thing, the Prince killed von Rothbart and broke the spell, and the couple lived happily ever after in a large and state-furnished apartment on vodka and caviar.

I made that last little bit up about the apartment, but the rest was true.

[NOTE: I have a feeling this will be the only post I’ll ever write that is listed under “Dance” plus “Iran.”]

[ADDENDUM: Just now, only a few minutes after publishing this post, I noticed this at Powerline by Scott Johnson: a photo of Iranian Foreign Minister and negotiator Javad Zarif yesterday, standing on a balcony at the nuclear talks venue and laughing. The post is entitled, “How to think about the Iran deal in one photo.” Indeed—same as von Rothbart and Odile.]

Iran deal is reached

The New Neo Posted on by

We knew it was coming. We’ve known it for a long, long time.

So here it is (lots of articles and reactions at the link).

These are my initial thoughts (I plan to write more a bit later in the day):

(1) From what I’ve read, the administration has backed off from many of even the minimal guarantees and checks it initially swore it would have in place. And although this is no surprise whatsoever, it is still shocking (that sentence is something I could say about the entire deal).

(2) I checked a liberal blog, HuffPo, to see the reaction there. I found the usual combination of jubilation and mockery of the conservative reaction and of Netanyahu. I’ll take this as typical. I assume there are some Scoop Jackson Democrats left in the world (after all, there are a few in Congress, such as Menendez), but I certainly didn’t see them there.

(3) I haven’t read much about what caused other countries such as France, which I seem to recall was raising some objections, to issue its approval. But here’s an interesting article from a different perspective—Agence France-Presse—that describes some of the international hurdles ahead in its implementation.

(4) I agree with this at Patterico:

Basically, we caved in every single aspect of the negotiations. Iran will get in excess of $150,000,000,000 in sanctions relief. Although the Liar in Chief says we get anytime anywhere inspections, that is not even remotely hinted at in the information released, as Iran can veto and deny access, and appeal to a panel, dragging this out for weeks and months. Iran can sell their oil on the world market, which will give them even more cash to fund their terrorist proxies throughout the region.

All this does is delay Iran getting full nuclear capability until someone else is in office.

Their legacy achievement is that we have basically given up on the region, and abandoned our partners in the region.

(5) If you think my affect is calm, it really isn’t. But this news is in the nature of hearing that someone who’s been on life support for several years has died. There was virtually no doubt that Obama would do whatever it took to get a “deal.” If one side is prepared to capitulate, the outcome is a foregone conclusion, and the only question is exactly what will be given up.

(6) Should the US put itself on the terrorist list, now that we’re funding terrorist organizations?

[NOTE: I plan to write another post today on the political ramifications and possible reactions from Congress.]

Meanwhile…

The New Neo Posted on by

…Scott Walker declares himself a candidate:

Now the criticism will resume at a new pace—including from the right.

I like Walker. He’s one of my favored candidates, and has been for a long time. He combines conservatism with the ability to win in a blue state. He’s a bit bland, but he’s got that midwestern affability that I think will come across quite well, especially when conbined with his record of accomplishment in an executive role.

What’s more, he’s very young-looking. Don’t knock it. Of course, he’s not the only young-looking candidate, Rubio being a prime example.

[NOTE: I’ve written about Walker’s change of stance on amnesty before, here.

I believe that the first time I wrote about Walker with approval as a possible national candidate might have been in this 2012 article, when I described him as one of several up-and-coming conservatives from blue states: “Reagan’s Children.”]

We do have a deal—about Greece

The New Neo Posted on by

It’s a proposal for a deal, anyway. The Greek Parliament has to approve.

Here’s what it looks like so far:

Monday’s deal requires Greece to give access to bailout monitors on the ground in Athens — including officials from the IMF, a point Tsipras resisted to the last.

He was elected on promises to reverse austerity and end intrusive monitoring, and the agreement will raise questions about whether he can continue in his post.

I keep reading the negotiations being referred to as a “marathon.” Apropos.

An Iran deal edges closer

The New Neo Posted on by

There have been no special announcements today regarding the Iran talks, at least as I type these words. But there are such deeply ominous rumblings that I feel I must start a new thread, because reports since yesterday are that an Iran deal is nigh.

David Gerstman has a post about it at Legal Insurrection entitled “Awaiting historic sellout of Israel by Obama-Kerry.” Yesterday at Powerline, Scott Johnson introduced his post on the matter this way:

As we reach the round number of 10 in this series of email reports by Omri Ceren from Vienna, we approach the catastrophic conclusion that has been implicit from the beginning…

I want to pause for a moment to admire the succinctness of that phrase, “the catastrophic conclusion that has been implicit from the beginning.” That says a lot, not just about the nuclear talks with Iran but about so many things that have happened during the Obama administration—from the first faroff rumblings of trouble, to the slow steady approach, to the fights between those who would support and those who would oppose—with the latter every now and then thinking that maybe, just maybe, the attempt to prevent whatever dreadful thing the left was pushing this time would somehow prevail.

Sometimes the efforts did prevent it (remember card check?), but far more often they did not. And even when the opposition did manage to block a plan of Obama and his supporters, he often would accomplish his goals anyway through some other method, usually involving executive action or secret sabotage (IRS investigations of Tea Party groups, for example).

So here we sit, waiting. When will the announcement come? And what will the details involve? No reports—even from those who support Obama—mention the sort of things one would want to see in any deal, so there is no reason whatsoever to imagine they will be there.

Scott Johnson of Powerline has been on the case for quite some time, and you would do well to read two pieces he wrote today, this and this. From the latter:

Like the Munich Agreement, this deal is a disgrace, but it is worse. We don’t have the excuse of a lost generation that persuaded the British to avert their eyes from the grim necessity to confront Hitler’s evil intentions. We have no such excuse and we understand Iran’s evil intentions. Indeed, they may be harder to miss than Hitler’s…

The deal will finance Iran’s development of nuclear weapons and other terrorist activities. Despite the vacuous talk of a ten- or fifteen-year period of protection, the deal will leave Iran free to take the money and run. It therefore facilitates Iran’s acquisition of nuclear weapons.

Iran will become a nuclear power with our assistance…The deal in process must be the worst agreement in history; it is certainly the worst agreement in American history.

I agree with almost everything in that quote. Unfortunately. And I hope we’re wrong about the dire consequences, both to America and the world.

I wrote “almost everything.” With what do I disagree? This: “We don’t have the excuse of a lost generation…” He is correct that we don’t have the same type of lost generation. We are not recovering from World War I. But our younger generation is lost in a different way. It was voters under 30 who voted for Obama in such high numbers that they made the difference in the 2012 election. Those are the voters who have been most deeply marinated in the leftist educational system, and it has rendered them “lost” in a way that may have irrevocably changed this country and the world.

[NOTE: For opinion from Israel, see this and this.]

Marriage Newspeak

The New Neo Posted on by

Aleister at Legal Insurrection reports on a campaign to eliminate the words “husband” and “wife” from federal statutes:

More than two dozen Democrats have proposed legislation that would eliminate the words “husband” and “wife” from federal law.

Those “gendered terms” would be replaced by “gender-neutral” words like “spouse” or “married couple,” according to the bill from Rep. Lois Capps, D-Calif.

“The Amend the Code for Marriage Equality Act recognizes that the words in our laws have meaning and can continue to reflect prejudice and discrimination even when rendered null by our highest courts,” Capps said. “Our values as a country are reflected in our laws. I authored this bill because it is imperative that our federal code reflect the equality of all marriages.”

I can well imagine a time—and that time is probably not too far away—when the words themselves will be considered unacceptably bigoted. I have noticed a trend in that direction, with plenty of liberals I know referring to husbands or wives, boyfriends or girlfriends, as “partners.” Several times I’ve been confused by it, thinking the person to be referring to a business partner or a gay relationship, and been mistaken. In one case, I knew a women for several years, during which she had always referred to her live-in significant other (whom I’d never met) as her “partner.” Imagine my shock when I discovered, after years of assuming she was in a lesbian relationship, that the partner was a man!

In the title of this post I mention Newspeak, Orwell’s name for the language changes fostered by the totalitarian regime in his dystopian novel Nineteen Eighty-Four. The purpose of Newspeak was to limit freedom of thought and label unacceptable concepts as “thoughtcrime” and almost literally unthinkable. But in recent years I’ve often felt that our society is going more in the direction of Huxley’s Brave New World, in which the dystopia is clothed in a kinder, gentler facade:

Mothers and fathers, brothers and sisters. But there were also husbands, wives, lovers. There were also monogamy and romance.

“Though you probably don’t know what those are,” said Mustapha Mond.

They shook their heads.

Family, monogamy, romance. Everywhere exclusiveness, a narrow channelling of impulse and energy.

“But every one belongs to every one else,” he concluded, citing the hypnopé¦dic proverb.

The students nodded, emphatically agreeing with a statement which upwards of sixty-two thousand repetitions in the dark had made them accept, not merely as true, but as axiomatic, self-evident, utterly indisputable.

* * * * * *

“But after all,” Lenina was protesting, “it’s only about four months now since I’ve been having Henry.”

“Only four months! I like that. And what’s more,” Fanny went on, pointing an accusing finger, “there’s been nobody else except Henry all that time. Has there?”

Lenina blushed scarlet; but her eyes, the tone of her voice remained defiant. “No, there hasn’t been any one else,” she answered almost truculently. “And I jolly well don’t see why there should have been.”

“Oh, she jolly well doesn’t see why there should have been,” Fanny repeated, as though to an invisible listener behind Lenina’s left shoulder. Then, with a sudden change of tone, “But seriously,” she said, “I really do think you ought to be careful. It’s such horribly bad form to go on and on like this with one man. At forty, or thirty-five, it wouldn’t be so bad. But at your age, Lenina! No, it really won’t do. And you know how strongly the D.H.C. objects to anything intense or long-drawn. Four months of Henry Foster, without having another man”“why, he’d be furious if he knew ”¦”

* * * * * *

“Think of water under pressure in a pipe.” They thought of it. “I pierce it once,” said the Controller. “What a jet!”

He pierced it twenty times. There were twenty piddling little fountains.

“My baby. My baby ”¦!”

“Mother!” The madness is infectious.

“My love, my one and only, precious, precious ”¦”

Mother, monogamy, romance. High spurts the fountain; fierce and foamy the wild jet. The urge has but a single outlet. My love, my baby. No wonder these poor pre-moderns were mad and wicked and miserable. Their world didn’t allow them to take things easily, didn’t allow them to be sane, virtuous, happy. What with mothers and lovers, what with the prohibitions they were not conditioned to obey, what with the temptations and the lonely remorses, what with all the diseases and the endless isolating pain, what with the uncertainties and the poverty”“they were forced to feel strongly. And feeling strongly (and strongly, what was more, in solitude, in hopelessly individual isolation), how could they be stable?

Nineteen Eighty-Four was written in 1947-8 and published in 1949. Brave New World was written in 1931 and published in 1932, but set about five centuries from now; I think Huxley underestimated the pace of change.

Masterpieces, both.

[ADDENDUM: It occurs to me that I may need to make explicit something that I think is already implicit here but might not be at all clear. This change in the traditional terms “husband” and “wife” is not supported by all gay people, many of whom are happy to finally be able to use the word. But the change in terms—spearheaded by the left, make no doubt about that—is part of a general plan of the left to change the definition of marriage and all it implies, and to reduce the power of the individual family and of individual choice as a whole, while adopting the guise of supporting the family by extending the right to marriage to gay people.

It’s an interesting act of jujitsu. After all, won’t extending marriage to gay people enhance the traditional concept of monogamy in marriage? Doesn’t it strengthen marriage?

It may strengthen something called “marriage,” but that “something” is less and less likely to include either the practice of faithfulness or even the goal of faithfulness as part of marriage. Of course, this trend was well underway long before marriage was something to which gay couples aspired, but the anti-family trend (as Huxley well recognized in the early ’30s, as seen in the excerpt from his work) has long been part of lefist social engineering. Many gay couples are not even aware of this, but leftist activists certainly are.

Countries which have legalized gay marriage are also countries in which the marriage rates had already fallen, cohabitation rates risen as well as unwed births, and marriage had more often been delayed till after children are born. Stanley Kurtz and others attribute the continuation of this trend to gay marriage, but I actually tend to interpret the statistics along similar lines as this author in Slate, who crunches the same numbers and asserts that these changes had been happening for quite some time anyway and that gay marriage was not particularly causative. I think statistics bear that argument out, but it is irrelevant to my point, which is that these trends are part of an inexorable assault by the left on traditional ideas of marriage and all it has stood for.

And the fact that fidelity has always been something that a significant number of people violate doesn’t change the fact that infidelity has been increasing, and that gay marriage probably will have the effect of undermining fidelity further if male gay activists such as Dan Savage get their way and there are more of what he calls “monogamish” relationships (here’s a summary—at a Christian website—of gay activists’ arguments for infidelity in marriage).

It’s all part of the same trend that has resulted in the legalization of same-sex marriage, and language changes are used to solidify the process.]

“Etudes”: dueling mazurkas

The New Neo Posted on by

I’ve written about the ballet “Etudes” before, but now I want to hone in on one of my very favorite parts of it, the mazurka, in particular one of the male solos.

“Etudes” is a ballet choreographed in 1948 by Harald Lander, a Dane, and originally performed by the Royal Danish Ballet. I like the music. I like the slightly folkdance-y feel of some the choreography (a mazurka was originally a Polish folk dance) mixed with the strict and demanding classicism.

And I always like to compare and contrast one dancer’s performance to another.

So first we have the Royal Danish Ballet’s 2005 performance, featuring a man I believe is Kenneth Greve (all big hunky Danes look alike to me, although they all look pretty good). The Royal Danish Ballet has a long tradition of elegance, clean and simple lines, and restraint, and this clip shows off those qualities. The whole video is well worth watching, but I call your attention to the part that has the variation I’m going to compare, minutes 0:51 to around 2:40. Note that at one point in the middle of his variation he seems to be getting a mite behind the music and has to play a bit of catch-up:

Now we have his Danish predecessor Eric Bruhn, from the mists of antiquity: 1969. I remember Bruhn well; he was considered one of the greatest dancers of his time. His style was very different from that of today’s dancers—very restrained, very precise, very refined and controlled. It’s seemingly unemotional, but I prefer to call it Apollonian as opposed to Dionysian. Unfortunately this clip is of abominable quality, so much so that even I—as familiar as I am with Bruhn and his work—am not completely sure it’s Bruhn I’m watching here who does the main solo. At any rate, whether it’s Bruhn or Flindt (more likely the former), observe how he never sacrifices musicality for the sake of technique (the part to focus on begins at 1:38; for some reason I was unable to change the start time when I embedded it):

Bruhn is one of very few dancers in all the versions of the variation that I’ve watched (and I watched tons more than appear in this post) who does his double air turns on the music (at 2:13, for example) and doesn’t lag behind. Also, watch him finish the pirouette sequence and then have the presence and balance to do a little developpe to the front with an accent right at the end of it, smack on the music at 1:50.

The following is a 2007 performance by the Russian dancer Vladimir Shklyarov of the Mariinsky Ballet (the sequence begins at 0:15). In the Russian style, he is very flamboyant and dramatic; exciting. In the modern style, he is very exaggerated and elastic yet strong. However, in his eagerness to strut his stuff, his musicality suffers and he sometimes lags, especially towards the latter part of the variation, where at moments he appears to tire. This causes a disconnect (for me, anyway) rather than expressing the seamless whole of dance, dancer, and music:

Lastly, we have Jeffrey Cirio of the Boston Ballet, whose performance I’ve seen in person and enjoyed tremendously. He doesn’t have the natural advantages of some of the other dancers—he’s short and doesn’t have that elegant long line. Alas, this video (the only one of him doing this that I could find) was taken from a bad angle and has extremely poor lighting, too, so you can only see only a pale (literally) version of what made his performance so fine. Nevertheless I think you can still tell how musical he is; he doesn’t fight the music at all like some of the others. He also demonstrates an impressive combination of expressiveness, excitement, strength, and ease of technique (he never ever seems to be straining for his explosive effects) that is rare. And he lends the dance that slight “character” folkdance-y flair that gives it a special oomph:

Do you have a favorite?