Everywhere Marxism has been tried, its left destruction and death in its wake. Yet Marxism lives. From environmentalism with its rejection of free markets to Critical Race Theory which sees white patriarchy as the source of all evil, you’ll find Marxism at its root.
In this three-part series, C. Bradley Thomspon, Professor of Political Science at Clemson University, explores why Marxism has endured — even flourished — in the face of unremitting failure. Author of “The Redneck Intellectual” on Substack, and America’s Revolutionary Mind: A Moral History of the American Revolution and the Declaration that Defined It.
“First broadcast 4 June 1989. Chinese troops opened fire on pro-democracy protesters in Beijing’s Tiananmen Square on Saturday evening. The collection of students and labourers had been occupying the site for several weeks. Despite the outbreak of “unremitting gunfire”, the protesters refused to leave. The BBC’s Kate Adie reports from the scene.”
Nikos Sotirakopoulos author of Identity Politics and Tribalism: The New Culture Warsexamines how “From politics to the ‘culture wars,’ tribalism has added to the toxicity of the public sphere. But there is one other field where tribalism, i.e., the viewing of the world through the prism of a group, can be even more insidious: in one’s own thinking. Nikos will talk about how tribalism can poison our mind, and discuss what the remedy is.”
A very important essay on the gradual insertion of Marxist gender indoctrination in American schools over the past decade, and its goal of placing a wedge between children and their parents to replace the family with the almighty state. There is no such right to hijack schools and indoctrinate five-year-olds in Marxist gender ideology contrary to the wishes of parents. Such “love” is hatred of children.
The primary function of teachers today is no longer to be the transmitters of knowledge but to serve as agents of social and political change. This is what they are taught to be in the teacher-training institutions or the so-called “ed” schools. It is a well-known fact that America’s Education Deep State (i.e., federal and state education departments, the teacher-training institutions, the teachers’ unions, curriculum designers, textbook publishers, local school boards, and even now the College Board which administers the SAT), has invested enormous time and resources in pushing the ideology and agenda of what is often called cultural Marxism and what is more narrowly known as “Critical Theory.”
[…]
Sex in the schools—by which I mean the sexualization of children on issues related to sexual orientation and gender identity—is America’s twenty-first century kulturkampf. This is the subject about which very clear lines have been drawn, and this is where the final cultural battle of our time is to be fought.
[…]
The battlefront comes down to two core questions: first, who shall determine the sexual mores taught to America’s young children—parents or government teachers, and, second, what sex- and gender-related values should be taught to children in America’s government schools?
And yet these fundamental questions still don’t quite capture what’s at stake in this conflict. There’s an even deeper, metaphysical question that represents the new battleground between parents and America’s Education Establishment: What is the sex-gender “identity” of each and every child? To put the issue in even simpler terms, the question is: what is a boy, and what is a girl?
For tens of thousands of years, the answers to these two questions were self-evidently obvious the moment a child was born. Today, however, the answers are uncertain until the child answers them with the assistance of government school teachers and administrators. The question is no longer settled by nature and science and nurtured by parents.
To put a sharper edge on the matter, the question might be: how is it that 9-year-old girls can be encouraged by school officials to take puberty blockers and 15-year-old girls can be encouraged to begin a course of testosterone treatments and 17-year-old girls can be encouraged to ready themselves for double mastectomies without their parents’ knowledge and permission?
We have entered a Brave New World. This is the penultimate stage of western nihilism.
Visual Capitalist has a graphic showing the decrease in the cost of space flights before and after Elon Musk’s private initiative SpaceX.
The message:
“In the last two decades, space startup companies have demonstrated they can compete against heavyweight aerospace contractors as Boeing and Lockheed Martin. Today, a SpaceX rocket launching can be 97% cheaper than a Russian Soyuz ride cost in the ’60s.”
The transportation mask mandate, imposed January 21, 2021 as part of 100 days of masking to crush the virus, and that has ruled transportation throughout the country for well more than one year, has been struck down in Federal Court: Health Freedom Defense Fund, Inc. vs. Joseph R. Biden, Case No: 8:21-cv-1693-KKM-AEP, Judge Kathryn Kimball Mizelle presiding and writing the opinion.
This means that for all this time, passengers and transportation employees have been forced to follow a mandate, enforced with criminal penalties, that has been illegal. Countless millions have been threatened, victimized, hectored, barked at, thrown off buses, trains, and planes – with even young children forcibly muzzled as their parents are denounced – when in fact, it has been the federal government itself that has been violating the law.
Alaska, American, Southwest, Delta, and United Airlines all announced within hours that they would no longer enforce the mask mandate. Amtrak and all other airlines joined. The transportation mask mandate is effectively gone, following 16 months of brutal enforcement of an edict now declared to be illegal.
The New York Times, which has editorialized in favor of the now-condemned mandates, comments: “Still, the ruling also comes at a time when new coronavirus cases are sharply rising again….” – which sets up another round of propaganda to blame the judge for a seasonal wave.
As travelers have been reminded for more than a year, federal law requires wearing a mask in airports, train stations, and other transportation hubs as well as on airplanes, buses, trains, and most other public conveyances in the United States. Failure to comply may result in civil and criminal penalties, including removal from the conveyance. This masking requirement – commonly known as the Mask Mandate – is a Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) regulation published in the Federal Register on February 3, 2021….
Within the past two years, the CDC has found within § 264(a) the power to shut down the cruise ship industry, stop landlords from evicting tenants who have not paid their rent, and require that persons using public conveyances wear masks. Courts have concluded that the first two of these measures exceeded the CDC’s statutory authority under §264. …
No court has yet ruled on the legality of the third. At first blush, it appears more closely related to the powers granted in§ 264(a) than either the sail order or the eviction moratorium. But after rigorous statutory analysis, the Court concludes that§ 264(a) does not authorize the CDC to issue the Mask Mandate….
As the list of actions suggest, the federal government’s use of the quarantine power has been traditionally limited to localized disease elimination measures applied to individuals and objects suspected of carrying disease…. Though the government once conceded that § 264(a) merely “consolidates and codifies” this history, see id., it now finds a power that extends far beyond it to population-wide preventative measures like near-universal mask requirements that apply even in settings with little nexus to interstate disease spread, like city buses and Ubers. Such a definition reverses the import of history as well as the roles of the States and the federal government….
The opposite of conditional release is “detention” or “quarantine.” Anyone who refuses to comply with the condition of mask wearing is – in a sense – detained or partially quarantined by exclusion from a conveyance or transportation hub under authority of the Mask Mandate. They are forcibly removed from their airplane seats, denied boarding at the bus steps, and turned away at the train station doors-all on the suspicion that they will spread a disease. Indeed, the Mask Mandate enlists local governments, airport employees, flight attendants, and even ride-sharing drivers to enforce these removal measures.
In short, their freedom of movement is curtailed in a way similar to detention and quarantine. See BLACK’S LAW DICTIONARY (11th ed. 2019) (defining “detention” as “confinement or compulsory delay” and “quarantine,” as the “isolation of a person … with a communicable disease or the prevention of such a person . . . from coming into a particular area, the purpose being to prevent the spread of disease”). Neither detention nor quarantine are contemplated in§ 264(a) though-the section the CDC relied upon to issue the Mask Mandate….
As a result, the Mask Mandate is best understood not as sanitation, but as an exercise of the CDC’s power to conditionally release individuals to travel despite concerns that they may spread a communicable disease (and to detain or partially quarantine those who refuse). But the power to conditionally release and detain is ordinarily limited to individuals entering the United States from a foreign country….
One definition it relies upon is even broader, defining “sanitation” as the “applying of measures for preserving and promoting public health.” If Congress intended this definition, the power bestowed on the CDC would be breathtaking. And it certainly would not be limited to modest measures of “sanitation” like masks. It would also justify requiring that businesses install air filtration systems to reduce the risks from airborne contagions or install plexiglass dividers between desks or office spaces. So too, a power to improve “sanitation” would easily extend to requiring vaccinations against CO VID-19, the seasonal flu, or other diseases. Or to mandatory social distancing, coughing-into-elbows, and daily multivitamins….
The CDC issued the mandate in February 2021,almost two weeks after the President called for a mandate, eleven months after the President had declared COVID-19 a national emergency, and almost thirteen months since the Secretary of Health and Human Services had declared a public health emergency. This history suggests that the CDC itself did not find the passage of time particularly serious….
Although a closer question than the failure to properly invoke the good cause exception, the Mask Mandate fails this reasoned-explanation standard. Beyond the primary decision to impose a mask requirement, the Mask Mandate provides little or no explanation for the CDC’s choices. Specifically, the CDC omits explanation for rejecting alternatives and for its system of exceptions. And there are many, such that the overall efficiency of masking on airplanes or other conveyances could reasonably be questioned.
The Mandate does not address alternative (or supplementary) requirements to masking, such as testing, temperature checks, or occupancy limits in transit hubs and conveyances. It also does not explain why all masks – homemade and medical-grade – are sufficient. Nor does it require “social distancing [or] frequent handwashing,” despite finding these effective strategies for reducing CO VID-19 transmission…
Even if these alternatives were not so obvious that the CDC had to explain its decision to reject them, the Mandate fails to explain other significant choices. For example, the Mandate relies on studies explaining that “universal masking” reduces transmission of COVID-19 at the community level. 86 Fed. Reg. at 8028.
But the Mandate does not require universal masking. It exempts individuals who are “eating, drinking, or taking medication” and a person who is “experiencing difficulty breathing” or who is “feeling winded.” It also excludes individuals who cannot wear a mask due to an ADA-recognized disability and all children under two years old. The Mandate makes no effort to explain why its purposes-prevention of transmission and serious illness-allow for such exceptions. Nor why a two-year-old is less likely to transmit COVID-19 than a sixty-two year-old….
In sum, irrespective of whether the CDC made a good or accurate decision, it needed to explain why it acted as it did. Since the CDC did not explain its decision to compromise the effectiveness of its Mandate by including exceptions or its decision to limit those exceptions, the Court cannot conclude that the CDC “articulated a ‘rational connection between the facts found and the choices made.”
[T]he Mandate exceeded the CDC’s statutory authority, improperly invoked the good cause exception to notice and comment rulemaking, and failed to adequately explain its decisions. Because “our system does not permit agencies to act unlawfully even in pursuit of desirable ends,” the Court declares unlawful and vacates the Mask Mandate.
Here is the contentious “Don’t Say Gay” portion of the just over 3-page bill:
3. Classroom instruction by school personnel or third parties on sexual orientation or gender identity may not occur in kindergarten through grade 3 or in a manner that is not age-appropriate or developmentally appropriate for students in accordance with state standards.
Wars are fought over land and money—never ideology. Ideology is what those that are in power use to convince those beneath them that they should be willing to lay down their lives on behalf of.
Virtues and values are never practiced by those that demand we die for it.
Wars are fought over land and money—never ideology. Ideology is what those that are in power use to convince those beneath them that they should be willing to lay down their lives on behalf of. Virtues and values are never practiced by those that demand we die for it.
From the Declaration of Independence:
“And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of Divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes, and our sacred Honor.”
Writes Ayn Rand on ideology:
“A political ideology is a set of principles aimed at establishing or maintaining a certain social system; it is a program of long-range action, with the principles serving to unify and integrate particular steps into a consistent course.”
“It is only by means of principles that men can project the future and choose their actions accordingly.”
“Anti-ideology consists of the attempts to shrink men’s minds down to the range of the immediate moment, without regard to past or future…above all, without memory, so that contradictions cannot be detected, & errors or disasters can be blamed on the victims.”
“In anti-ideological practice, principles are used implicitly and are relied upon to disarm the opposition, but are never acknowledged, and are switched at will, when it suits the purpose of the moment. Whose purpose? The gang’s.”
“Thus men’s moral criterion becomes, not ‘my view of the good—or of the right—or of the truth,’ but ‘my gang, right or wrong.’ ” [“The Wreckage of the Consensus,” Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal]
According to Levin, “Isolationists believe that Russia’s invasion of Ukraine doesn’t affect us. Nothing could be farther from the truth. As Putin storms Ukraine, history teaches us that appeasement of madmen like Putin only encourages more genocide. And as Mark illustrates, evil exists in more places than just in Russia. And America’s security starts overseas.”
“To combat petty larceny as a crucial danger, at a time when murder is being committed, is to sanction the murder.” – Ayn Rand
***
Trump on Putin’s Invasion of Ukraine: Sarcasm or Approval?
From a radio interview with Clay Travis & Buck Sexton:
BUCK: Mr. President, in the last 24 hours we know Russia has said that they are recognizing two breakaway regions of Ukraine, and now this White House is stating that this is an “invasion.” That’s a strong word. What went wrong here? What has the current occupant of the Oval Office done that he could have done differently?
PRESIDENT TRUMP: Well, what went wrong was a rigged election and what went wrong is a candidate that shouldn’t be there and a man that has no concept of what he’s doing. I went in yesterday and there was a television screen, and I said, “This is genius.” Putin declares a big portion of the Ukraine — of Ukraine. Putin declares it as independent. Oh, that’s wonderful. (sarcastic)
The word “sarcastic” was included in the written transcript by the interviewers but is not included in those who use the quote to condemn Trump. Was Trump being sarcastic? Much of those condemning Trump’s statements quote it as if Trump was not being sarcastic.
Trump continues:
So, Putin is now saying, “It’s independent,” a large section of Ukraine. I said, “How smart is that?” And he’s gonna go in and be a peacekeeper. That’s strongest peace force… We could use that on our southern border. That’s the strongest peace force I’ve ever seen. There were more army tanks than I’ve ever seen. They’re gonna keep peace all right. No, but think of it. Here’s a guy who’s very savvy… I know him very well. Very, very well.
The “No, but think of it” indicates Trump does not believe Putin’s hype about independence.
Trump then goes on to say that Putin would never even think of invading Ukraine if Trump were in office:
By the way, this never would have happened with us. Had I been in office, not even thinkable. This would never have happened. But here’s a guy that says, you know, “I’m gonna declare a big portion of Ukraine independent,” he used the word “independent,” “and we’re gonna go out and we’re gonna go in and we’re gonna help keep peace.” You gotta say that’s pretty savvy. And you know what the response was from Biden? There was no response. They didn’t have one for that. No, it’s very sad. Very sad.
If Putin’s moves were so “savvy” and “smart”, why would they be “not even thinkable” under a Trump administration? This is because Putin’s, “smart,” “savvy” and “genius” for sending military forces into Ukraine, is not that he invaded Ukraine (which would not be “smart” in Trump’s estimation if done during his term in office), but that Putin did so under a Biden administration.
On a fundamental level Putin, by invading Ukraine is not “smart”, or more precisely, is not rational. Where he is “smart” to do so, is to select the timing of the invasion: under a Biden administration. This is like a thief who has made the irrational decision to rob a bank but uses his engineering “smarts” to successfully do so.
In Russian literature, there is a great novel: Dostoevsky’s The Idiot.
Biden is the idiot.
The reason this happened is because the Biden administration slowed down deliveries of armaments to Ukraine, lifted the sanctions on the Nord Stream 2 pipeline that was supposed to bypass Ukraine, signaled to Russia that the U.S. would not support Ukraine militarily, and therefore made it clear to Putin that he had an opportunity to take military action with only sanctions to fear.
In regards to Biden in Afghanistan, Trump states:
[…]
After 21 years, I wanted out of Afghanistan.
We were gonna be out. I got it down to 2,000 we were getting ready to pull them out, but we were pulling them out with very great strength. We were gonna keep Bagram, not because of Afghanistan. We spent billions building this base, has the biggest and longest runways in the world, and it’s one hour away from where China makes its nuclear weapons. So I was keeping that and keeping it in full force.
But I was getting out of Afghanistan, and we would have gotten out with tremendous strength and dignity and power and respect. Instead, we look like we surrendered — and you know we didn’t lose an American soldier in Afghanistan for 18 months. I had a talk with Abdul, who’s the leader — the current leader also. He was the leader and now he’s current leader.
And we had a very strong talk. And from the time I had that talk, not one American soldier was killed. And it was an amazing thing. Biden actually said that. He said not an American soldier was killed in 18 months, and his people were screaming at him, “Well, keep going! Find out something that was wrong,” and he didn’t do that. No, I was…
We were gonna pull out with great strength, we were gonna keep Bagram, and we were pulling out of other locations, too, where there’s no reason for us to be there. They hate us. We don’t particularly like them.
In regards to NATO, Trump says:
And you look at NATO, I called it a paper tiger. I said, “As soon as a problem comes up, you’re gonna have people that pull away,” and I got them to pay $400 billion. You know they were all delinquent.
Not all. There were eight countries out of 28 that were paid up, including us. We were paid up. We were more than paid up. We were making up the difference. But we have 28 countries, and eight were paid up, and you had 20 countries that were not. And I was asked a question by one of the presidents of one of the countries in a closed meeting, “Does that mean…?”
And the press goes wild over this: “Does that mean that something happened and Russia…?” ‘Cause it used to be the Soviet Union, but Russia. It’s close enough in terms of militarily (chuckles), as you’ve probably noticed this weekend, but, “Do you mean to say that you wouldn’t protect us?” And I said, “You mean you’re not paid up and you want us to protect you?” I said, “That’s right. We will not protect you if you’re not paid up.” You know what happened? The next day, billions of dollars flowed in.
On Biden sending Troops to Eastern Europe:
Well, I’d rather see them send soldiers to our southern border. I’d rather see them… In three weeks, you could finish it. They won’t even let Texas use our military, which is all bought, sitting there waiting to be put up. It could have been erected in less than three weeks. It could have been two and a half years to get started ’cause we had to win 11 lawsuits. I’d rather see our southern border protected. But I don’t like the idea he’s sending a small number of troops.
Remember — I put something out this morning — Russia is becoming very rich because the oil price has been driven up so much and that’s their primary source of income.
So much that those army tanks you see going back and forth all over the place, that’s peanuts compared to the amount of money they’re making: $40 a barrel when I was there, $1.86 a gallon of gasoline and now you have some places where it’s over $7, and it’s going up a lot higher.
For all his fawning over Putin, Donald Trump, back in 2018, defied diplomatic protocol to call out Germany publicly for its dependence on Moscow. “Germany, as far as I’m concerned, is captive to Russia because it’s getting so much of its energy from Russia,” Trump said. This prompted Germany’s then-chancellor, Angela Merkel, who had been widely praised in polite circles for being the last serious leader in the West, to say that her country “can make our own policies and make our own decisions.”
The result has been the worst global energy crisis since 1973, driving prices for electricity and gasoline higher around the world. It is a crisis, fundamentally, of inadequate supply. But the scarcity is entirely manufactured.
Europeans—led by figures like Greta Thunberg and European Green Party leaders, and supported by Americans like John Kerry—believed that a healthy relationship with the Earth requires making energy scarce. By turning to renewables, they would show the world how to live without harming the planet. But this was a pipe dream. You can’t power a whole grid with solar and wind, because the sun and the wind are inconstant, and currently existing batteries aren’t even cheap enough to store large quantities of electricity overnight, much less across whole seasons.
In service to green ideology, they made the perfect the enemy of the good—and of Ukraine.
[…]
The reason Europe didn’t have a muscular deterrent threat to prevent Russian aggression—and in fact prevented the U.S. from getting allies to do more—is that it needs Putin’s oil and gas.
***
It’s important to note that Trump is not the only one who makes fawning statements about dictators. For example, COVID fascist Justin Trudeau’s praise of the Chinese dictatorship:
“There is a level of admiration I actually have for China because their basic dictatorship is allowing them to actually turn their economy around on a dime…having a dictatorship where you can do whatever you wanted, that I find quite interesting.”
This is not to approve of Trump’s fawning language over dictators which gives them moral sanction.
Compare this to Ronald Reagan’s condemnation of the communist Soviet Union, or Bush’s identification of the “axis of evil”, though I wonder how sincere it really is, given Trump’s policies, left Putin at a distinct disadvantage. Putin only had to wait for a Biden administration, to implement EU “green” energy policies, that crippled U.S. energy and filled up Putin’s coffers. One also notes, with Putin’s evasion, the EU has changed course and is implementing policies that “dumb” Trump was advocating during his Presidency as Germany-sans Merkel is dramatically increasing military spending.
As Barr notes in his book “One Damn Thing After Another,” Trump could’ve beaten Joe Biden in 2020 if he had “just exercised a modicum of self-restraint, moderating even a little of his pettiness.” Trump tends to be a “stream of consciousness” speaker, which at times means he can be interpreted in many different ways. This is his own fault.
Unfortunately, others are the so-called nationalist, “right” are not open to such a charitable reading.
“Whatever we may think of Putin, he is no Stalin. He has not murdered millions or created a gulag archipelago. Nor is he “irrational,” as some pundits rail. He does not want a war with us, which would be worse than ruinous to us both. Putin is a Russian nationalist, patriot, traditionalist and a cold and ruthless realist looking out to preserve Russia as the great and respected power it once was and he believes it can be again.”
Putin is no “patriot” — a lover of freedom. His idea of nationhood is one where he can use his political power – the power to legally use force – to extract billions from the Russian people: crony politics (falsely identified as “crony capitalism.”) His tradition, are the methods he learned as a KGB agent for communist Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. His anti-free market, highly regulated state is setting the Russian economy back a century. His great fear is that the countries that “border” Russia will undermine his iron-fisted rule. Writes Buchanan:
When Russia’s Vladimir Putin demanded that the U.S. rule out Ukraine as a future member of the NATO alliance, the U.S. archly replied: NATO has an open-door policy. Any nation, including Ukraine, may apply for membership and be admitted. We’re not changing that.
On what grounds, or principle, can the Russian de facto dictator, dictate the foreign policy of another country? There is none. Yes, Putin is not Stalin, in practical result (Stalin and Lenin killed far more people than Hitler), but operates under the same principle: observe Putin’s absolute devastation of Ukrainian cities, and the killing of men, women, and children.
Putin is no creator like American businessman Elon Musk but is a destroyer.
***
Unfortunately, a similar tact to Buchanan is taken by Candace Owens (whose views on domestic policies, though not perfect, are far better):
“I suggest every American who wants to know what’s actually going on in Russia and Ukraine read this transcript of Putin’s address. As I’ve said for months—NATO (under direction from the United States) is violating previous agreements and expanding eastward. WE are at fault.”
I suggest every American who wants to know what’s *actually* going on in Russia and Ukraine, read this transcript of Putin’s address. As I’ve said for month— NATO (under direction from the United States) is violating previous agreements and expanding eastward. WE are at fault. https://t.co/NDmou8I36H
Again NATO’s “expansion” is only possible by mutual agreements between nations. A foreign leader has no say in what a sovereign, semi-free country like Ukraine, agrees to. That they wish to form closer alliances with Europe, as opposed to Putin’s Russia, is no grounds for invasion.
Tucker Carlson: Why Do You Hate Putin?
Ask Tucker Carlson, on his number one political TV show:
“Has Putin ever called me a racist? Has he threatened to get me fired for disagreeing with him? Has he shipped every middle-class job in my town to Russia? Did he manufacture a worldwide pandemic that wrecked my business and kept me indoors for two years? Is he teaching my children to embrace racial discrimination? Is he making fentanyl? Is he trying to snuff out Christianity?”
Much as the “left” is using Putin’s aggression to deflect from their domestic failures (such as COVID fascism of government vaccine mandates and scientifically unjustified lockdowns of the healthy), Carlson’s argument ends up deflecting blame for Putin to attack those failures. The Putin-lite failures of COVID fascists are something that needs to be attacked, but not at the expense of attacking Putin as the two are not mutually exclusive, but are manifestations of the same, anti-freedom, statist principles.
Tucker Carlson is right in condemning rights-violating actions (to the extent they are rights-violating) on the domestic front, but his line of thought is no defense of the dictator Putin.
What Putin did do is kill/imprison people who disagreed with him, rob Russians of billions of dollars through political cronyism, and annihilate entire cities in Ukraine.
One wonders if Mr. Carlson is in fact the one on fentanyl.
Why do Democrats want you to hate Putin? Has Putin shipped every middle class job in your town to Russia? Did he manufacture a worldwide pandemic that wrecked your business? Is he teaching your kids to embrace racial discrimination? Is he making fentanyl? Does he eat dogs? pic.twitter.com/xYEvapjbNT
To combat petty larceny as a crucial danger, at a time when murder is being committed, is to sanction the murder.
The otherwise intelligent Carson should know better. Thankfully in later shows he has shifted from condemning “petty larceny” and is using his platform to go after the “murderer.”
Mark Levin: Putin is a murdering, genocidal maniac
As conservative-constitutionalist, Mark Levin, author of American Marxism (recommended by Leonard Peikoff) notes:
Isolationists believe that Russia’s invasion of Ukraine doesn’t affect us. Nothing could be farther from the truth. As Putin storms Ukraine, history teaches us that appeasement of madmen like Putin only encourages more genocide. And as Mark illustrates, evil exists in more places than just in Russia. And America’s security starts overseas.
(Though I agree with Levin on the U.S. being involved in battling dictatorships, this should not involve shedding American blood in other countries where the U.S. has no self-interest. Levin does not advocate sending troops into Ukraine.)
In 2008, Russia invaded Georgia. Shortly after, President Obama announced a “reset” policy with Russia. This was consistent with President Bush, who found Putin “straightforward and trustworthy.” In 2014, Putin punished Ukraine for ousting its pro-Russian puppet president by annexing Crimea. The West responded with tepid sanctions. President Trump equated Putin’s killings of journalists and dissidents with the actions of the United States not once, but twice. “There are a lot of killers,” Trump told Bill O’Reilly in a 2017 interview. “You think our country’s so innocent?” In 2015, he said, “I think our country does plenty of killing also, Joe, so you know.” He continued to describe Putin as a leader and someone whom he respects.
No, the United States isn’t perfect. But the lack of moral clarity when equating a country that has representational government, freedom of speech, real elections, a mostly free economy, and a separation of church and state with the monstrosity of a dictator like Putin emboldens the Kremlin and does real damage. Putting Putin on an equal footing affects the way we think of our relations with him.
If someone were your moral equal, why would you hesitate to become largely dependent on him for natural gas? To Trump’s credit, he did in fact warn Europe that this was not a good idea. But the point is that the lack of moral clarity dilutes our thinking.
[…] So what’s wrong with the precedents set by all these administrations? The common denominator is that they negate the nature of Russia. The West views these events — the invasion of Georgia here, attacking American troops there — as episodic. Westerners haven’t connected the dots.
When the highly infectious Omicron variant reached Asia a few months ago, India and Indonesia had a major gap in their defenses: Two-thirds of their populations were yet to be fully vaccinated.
But the countries are emerging from their most recent Covid-19 waves with a fraction of the deaths they recorded during the onslaught of the earlier Delta variant. Their deaths per capita are even lower than more vaccinated places that have better healthcare systems such as South Korea, Japan and Hong Kong.
A big part of the reason, epidemiologists say, is that developing nations hit hard by the Delta wave last year acquired high levels of immunity through infection. And that protection appears to have endured. Studies in India, Indonesia and South Africa show widespread prevalence of Covid-19 antibodies, far outstripping their vaccination rates.
[…]
Natural immunity, which refers to antibodies acquired through infection, was widespread in Indonesia when Omicron arrived. One study from October to December of roughly 20,000 Indonesians found that 74% of unvaccinated Indonesians had protective antibodies, according to Pandu Riono, a University of Indonesia epidemiologist who worked with government researchers on the study.
[…]
Government serological surveys in India conducted last year have similarly shown that 97% of New Delhi residents and 87% of Mumbai residents have antibodies against Covid-19.
[…]
Some research suggests that immunity from infection lasts longer than immunity from vaccination. Dorry Segev, a professor of surgery and population health at NYU Langone Health, an academic medical center, led a team that published a research letter last month in the Journal of the American Medical Association that found that unvaccinated people maintained natural immunity up to 20 months after infection. He said that further research under review shows that this immunity was substantially protective against Omicron. Research from Israel and the U.K. show waning immunity from vaccination after a few months.
Reigning Roland Garros champion Djokovic will be permitted to defend his crown in May after the French government announced it will end mandatory masking indoors and COVID-19 vaccination pass requirements on March 14th.
That ruling means the unvaccinated Djokovic, who was booted from Australia and unable to defend his Melbourne crown, can play the clay-court major starting May 22nd and the Rolex Monte-Carlo Masters set for April 10-17th provided governmental protocol stands.
French Prime Minister Jean Castrex announced vaccine passports will no longer be required to enter venues or arenas as of March 14th.
The COVID-negative Djokovic was deported from Australia for being an “icon” for body autonomy (“anti-vaccination sentiment”) by Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison — who as I write this has tested COVID positive “but will continue his official duties while isolating.”
“I look to a day when people will not be judged by the color of their skin.” – Martin Luther King Jr.
“The person I nominate…will be the first Black woman nominated to the United States Supreme Court.” – U.S. President Joe Biden
The nominee, is a Democrat Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson, a capable candidate (any rejection of her would be due to the political bent of her judgments, and not because of her IQ).
I don’t have an opinion on Jackson, but her skin color or that she has a womb and XY chromosomes (is a woman) should have no bearing on whether one is nominated as a U.S. Supreme Court Justice. Such “affirmative action” hires only stigmatize those selected as not being able to earn their position based on merit.
As for the Republican Speaker of the House, Paul Ryan, here is what he has to say:
Janna and I are incredibly happy for Ketanji and her entire family. Our politics may differ, but my praise for Ketanji's intellect, for her character, and for her integrity, is unequivocal.
62 percent of those polled believed Putin would not be moving against Ukraine if Trump had been president
“A majority of American voters say that Russian President Vladimir Putin would not have invaded Ukraine had former President Trump still been in office, according to a new survey released on Friday.
“A new Harvard Center for American Political Studies (CAPS)-Harris Poll survey released Friday found that 62 percent of those polled believed Putin would not be moving against Ukraine if Trump had been president. When looking strictly at the answers of Democrats and Republicans, 85 percent of Republicans and 38 percent of Democrats answered this way.
“However, 38 percent of all Americans polled believed that Putin would have invaded Ukraine even if Trump had been president.”
The majority believe Putin Saw Weakness in Biden
“A majority of Americans polled — 59 percent — also said they believed that the Russian president moved on Ukraine because Putin saw weakness in President Biden, while 41 percent said that it was not a factor in Putin’s decision to invade Ukraine.
U.S. “Selective” Sanctions Does Not Kick Russia Out of SWIFT
“The U.S. has imposed sanctions on Russian financial institutions, Russian elites and their family members, the Nord Stream 2 AG — the parent company of the Nord Stream 2 pipeline — and, the White House confirmed Friday, Putin himself, among other entities.
“However, the U.S. has resisted calls to kick Russia out of the SWIFT international banking system, despite appeals from Ukrainian officials and some U.S. lawmakers.
Tucker Carlson: Why Do You Hate Putin?