Category Archives: War

UPDATE II (1/27/021): NO. IT’S NOT JOHN McCain: Celebrating The Life Of A Great American Who Brought Joy To The World

Donald Trump, Elections, John McCain, Music, Neoconservatism, Republicans, War

HER casket lies in state, TODAY. She brought joy and happiness to many millions across the world, without waging non-stop war to make the world in the image of her America. She is Aretha Franklin. Let us celebrate the life of this truly great American:

Aretha Franklin (who also had fighting words for the Brothers in her life), sang for the love of Jesus. “She was singing to God, just as when she screamed out her passion as a sinner cleansed by the blood of the Lamb: When my soul was in the lost and found/You came along to claim it. And when she threw out her arms wide under the spotlights, it was not to thank the fans who clamoured for her as much as to say, Precious Lord, take my hand.”

“Aretha Franklin died on August 16th: America’s undisputed Queen of Soul was 76”:

AT POINTS in her concerts, which enthralled America for 50 years, Aretha Franklin would fling her arms out wide. Sometimes it was to shrug her strong shoulders out of some satiny or feathery dress, or to throw away her long fur coat, like any diva (though she was the ultimate diva) who by the end of her career had won 18 Grammys and sold 75m records. Sometimes it was to embrace America, all colours, as when she sang “Precious Lord” at Martin Luther King’s funeral, or gave her rapturous version of “My Country ’tis of Thee” in a big-bow-statement hat at Barack Obama’s inauguration. Or possibly those arms just demonstrated how her voice, the whispering or crying height of it and drop-jaw depth of it, seemed to pass any limit that people might imagine.

Open arms suggested love, but more often Everywoman’s frustration, black or white. For every super-sharp man she daydreamed of, Turns me right on when I hear him say/Hey baby let’s get away, there would be ten who let her down: You’re a no-good heartbreaker/You’re a liar and you’re a cheat/And I don’t know why/I let you do these things to me. They messed with her mind, as she fumed in the Blues Brothers film in 1980, pummelling her palms into her big man’s stupid chest: Just think/Think about what you’re tryin’ to do to me. After all, it don’t take too much high IQs. Men in general didn’t begin to give her what she wanted, just a little respect when you get home…R-E-S-P-E-C-T/Find out what it means to me. This, her most famous song, wasn’t just about a put-down woman and a do-wrong man; it became the anthem of every liberation movement because of her roof-raising style. It was her personal anthem, too. She wished to be called “Ms Franklin”, to be paid cash and to be spared air-conditioning. All I’m askin’, honey.
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Those wide arms also showed how her whole body sang. When she accompanied herself on the piano, big rampaging chords picked up from Oscar Peterson and Art Tatum, she sang with the stomach as well as heart and head. As a child of ten she’d understood that, hiding her chronic shyness behind the instrument while she sang “Jesus be a Fence Around Me” with the voice of an angel, or a grown woman. …

The Tucker Carlson Show Is Meaningless Without Mr. Carlson In The Anchor’s Chair

Environmentalism & Animal Rights, Media, Paleoconservatism, War

Face the facts: “Tucker” is unwatchable without Tucker Carlson, who is the only paleoconservative on Fox News. By that I mean that Tucker questions all America’s recreational wars and has a strong anti-neoconservative sensibility. He also doubts the US’s current immigration intake, legal and illegal, as is he inclined to be ethical about animals and the environment. Most Republicans have the crass, Yankee killer instinct toward the natural world.

Mostly, Tucker is more intellectually curious than any of the other showboats on Fox News. He listens to guests who’ve got something to impart.

On the other hand, did Alan Dershowitz get a chance to teach Hannity’s audience about the law, vis-a-vis the Mueller Special Counsel? Never. He can’t get a word in. Not with Sean Hannity in the anchor’s chair. Ditto the unedifying Laura Ingraham. She talks over her guests non-stop.

Nothing to learn from these noise-makers. Other than Tucker, each is an ego in an anchor’s chair.

When does Tucker get back from vacation?

“Liberal Brains Are Pickled In The Formaldehyde Of Identity Politics”

Constitution, Democrats, Donald Trump, Ethics, Law, Left-Liberalism And Progressivisim, libertarianism, Republicans, War

THE NEW COLUMN IS “Liberal Brains Are Pickled In The Formaldehyde Of Identity Politics.” It’s now on WND.com and on the Unz Review.

“There are no more civil libertarians left,” warned celebrated attorney Alan Dershowitz.

The topic was the left. The location was Tucker Carlson’s TV studio, May 30.

Dershowitz, a life-long liberal and civil-libertarian, has refused “to allow partisan politics to pre-empt his views on the Constitution,” in general, and in the matter of Grand Inquisitor Robert Mueller and his tribunal, in particular.

Conversely, the American Civil Liberties Union has supported the FBI’s manifestly unconstitutional raid on Michael Cohen’s offices, even asserting that the seizing of client-attorney privileged files from the Trump attorney was kosher.

“… all indications thus far are that the search was conducted pursuant to the rule of law,” crowed the ACLU, in “stunning rebuke to the basic concepts behind the [organization’s] mission.”

To ACLU silence—and in contravention of that quaint thing called the Fourth Amendment—Mueller had previously taken possession of tens of thousands of emails exchanged among President Donald Trump’s transition team.

The meek, weak Jeff Sessions has failed miserably to bust these sham, kangaroo-court proceedings, leading former House Oversight Committee Chairman Jason Chaffetz to carp: “The attorney general is just not up to the job.”

In the absence of an effective legal counterweight, Mueller, of course, is getting away with it.

On TV, Dershowitz has been joined by the talented Mr. Turley (Jonathan Turley, Esquire), in protesting the warrantless theft of the Trump campaign’s emails.

Let the record show that Dumbo Napolitano (Fox’s Judge Andrew) seconded Mueller’s legal authority, declaring, on December 18, 2017, that, “Mueller did not improperly obtain Trump’s transition emails.”

Talk to the hand, Judge Napolitano, because this face ain’t listening to you any longer.

“The left is less interested in civil liberties,” observed Tucker, ruefully, to which Alan Dershowitz quipped: “The ACLU is dead in the water when it comes to defending the civil liberties of people they don’t agree with.”

Do “the shoe is on the other foot test,” Dershowitz instructs. Ask yourself: “If the shoe were on the other foot, would you be taking the same position you’re taking today?” Everyone has to pass it.

Having taken the test, you’ll sympathize with the intractable positions against the partisanship of justice, taken by civil libertarians like Alan Dersh and libertarians like this writer. …

… Another near-extinct political animal is your old-school, antiwar liberal. …

… READ ON. THE NEW COLUMN IS “Liberal Brains Are Pickled In The Formaldehyde Of Identity Politics.” It’s now on WND.com and on the Unz Review.

The Old Left Loves Trump’s North-Korea Peace Initiative, Mocks Mad Max Boot & Jennifer Rubin

Conservatism, Donald Trump, Foreign Policy, Left-Liberalism And Progressivisim, Neoconservatism, Old Right, War

Neoconservatives, on the one hand, and neoliberals, on the other, are both united in war. Each faction, respectively, is what passes for Right and Left, these days.

Like the authentic Old Right, the authentic, Old Left used to be enthusiastic about peace, and not war.

It is in this older tradition that Tim Shorrock of The Nation praises the “Historic Korean Summit” and condemns “US Pundits for Reacting With Horror.”

“They were spinning the meeting, and Kim Jong-un’s outreach in particular, as a dangerous event,” he mocks:

April 27, 2018, was a historic day for Korea, and for the millions of people on both sides of that tragically divided peninsula. In a meticulously planned event, Kim Jong-un, the 34-year-old hereditary dictator of North Korea, stepped carefully over the border running through the truce village of Panmunjom and clasped hands with Moon Jae-in, the democratically elected president of South Korea.

Kim’s action marked the start of a remarkable day in which the two nations “solemnly declared” an end to the Korean War, which ripped the country apart from 1950 to 1953. “When you crossed the military border for the first time, Panmunjom became a symbol of peace, not a symbol of division,” said Moon, the son of two North Korean refugees who fled south in 1950. A former student activist and human-rights lawyer who was chief of staff to former president Roh Moo-hyun, Moon ran for office in 2017 on a pledge to make that moment of reconciliation possible.

Over the next few hours, accompanied by top aides and diplomats, generals and intelligence chiefs, the Korean leaders discussed an agreement that would lead to what they both described as the “complete denuclearization” of the peninsula. The two also “affirmed the principle of determining the destiny of the Korean nation on their own accord,” a signal to both the United States and China that the days of great-power intervention in their divided country may be waning. …

… “Yada, yada, yada,” the perennial hawk Max Boot wrote disparagingly in The Washington Post about the “Korea summit hype,” adding that “there is very little of substance here.” Similar hot takes were offered by Nicholas Kristof and Nicholas Eberstadt in The New York Times, Jennifer Rubin in The Washington Post, Robin Wright in The New Yorker, and Michael O’Hanlon in The Hill. Their doubts were repeated and amplified as gospel by the usual critics on cable TV.