China

Open Thread

Mark Noonan20 Comments

I think that quite a few Americans don’t realize how large the United States is. I’ve seen MSMers and some regular folks on X wondering where we will get lumber if we place a tariff on Canadian lumber? I get that we Americans are an insular folk but, my goodness, do people in the cities ever get out into the country? I did look it up and from what I can tell, in our national forests there are a trillion square feet of lumber. This doesn’t count all possible lumber sources in the USA. We don’t lack wood, people. Like not even a little bit. Maybe its all the decades of Environmentalist lies? People think we’re down to our last tree or something? There is more forested land in the USA than when Columbus arrived in the Americas. We’ve got lumber coming out of our ears…we just don’t harvest it. Until now: Team Trump is reviving logging.

Trump is pausing the tariffs on everyone but China – where he’s jacking them up even higher. This is good. The official word is that with everyone but China coming to the table, its time to make nice (except to China)…the quite rumor is that it is this plus some GOPers in the Senate were wetting their panties over the stock market. This is probably true. I’m hoping that Trump is trying to completely decouple us from China…but if we must have relations with them, then I want some hard-nosed deals. Like this:

China is still building coal-fired power plants like there’s no tomorrow. China doesn’t have much coal in their ground and what they do have is about the worst in the world…doesn’t burn very hot and it pollutes horribly. Meanwhile, we’ve got some of the largest coal reserves in the world and our coal is among the best: burns nice and hot and very clean even before you put devices on the chimneys to cut down on pollution even more. If I were in charge, any trade deal I made with China would include China exclusively using our coal. I don’t want to screw them over – I’d sell it to them at the market rate, but only our coal…ten year deal. Ten percent of the estimated price up front. The Chinese are using 5 billion metric tons per year; $102 per ton times 5 billion is $510 billion per year.

This is the kind of deals we have to make with predatory powers like China. If we are to buy from them, they must also buy from us. I’m sure China imports lumber. We know they import oil and natural gas. Feeding China’s population requires massive imports. All from us until the value we buy from them is met…and if it can’t be met by Chinese purchases of our goods, then we cut back on imports from China until the exports/imports come into rough balance. No more free ride – and do keep in mind that China needs that free ride. It is how the PRC sustains itself; taking in US dollars and using that money to essentially bribe sufficient amounts of China’s population to remain in control. If they have fair trade with us that will be disastrous for the PRC’s future – but that is their problem, not ours.

I saw a report that in the UK more British people attend Catholic Mass each Sunday than any other Christian service…that’s the good news. The bad news is that from what I can tell, probably not a tenth of Britain’s population is actually Christian. That sort of thing is doom for Britain – with the Muslim population rapidly rising and Muslims not being shy about asserting dominance once they reach that 20 percent or so of the population. What will happen is unknown – I’m doubtful of good outcome…but no matter how you slice it, the Britain which emerged from the Reformation is dead and it will not come back…the UK will become Catholic/Evangelical (which is also rising fast in the UK) or Muslim…the Church of England pretend-Christianity is gone and with it will soon go its trappings…the Monarchy, the nobility…the whole system. This, by the way, was fated to happen the moment Henry VIII broke with Rome…he thought he could keep Catholicism without the Pope (he was actually very deeply Catholic in his core dogmas)…he was wrong. I mean, it had a good run and the world will always have a place in its heart for people like the Duke of Wellington and Churchill…but the system that made them has died.

Speaking of Brits the world owes a debt to – and this is entirely off any topic – I was thinking not too long ago about Montgomery. We Americans have inherited Patton’s disdain for the man – his preening self confidence irritates and he’s rated as the poorer commander to Patton. But I happened to notice that in 1940 when the British were trying to get their army to Dunkirk to evacuate, Monty (then a major general) kept his Third Division intact during a fighting retreat – and that division was the only one to arrive back in Britain ready to fight. Anyone with knowledge of military affairs will tell you that any fool can attack…the real genius of command is shown when you have to retreat. How did Monty do this while everything was disintegrating around him? Simple: he saw it coming and vigorously trained his division in both attack and retreat so that everyone knew their job and all he had to do when the guns went off was calmly give the orders. That’s first rate generalship, guys. And it casts in my mind new light about how magnificent El Alamein really was and, furthermore, shows that Monty really screwed the Germans hard in Normandy – pinning them to useless positions around Caen while Patton got all the glory breaking through weak German defenses to the west.

And, once again: we all need to think carefully about what we think we know. Maybe it is true – but maybe its just a story we’ve been told?

Foreign Affairs

Mark Noonan10 Comments

Wenzel Anton, Prince of Kaunitz (and known by all in his time simply as “Kaunitz”) was effectively chancellor of the Austrian Empire (within the framework of the very reduced Holy Roman Empire) from 1753 to 1792. I have mentioned him before mostly because he’s one of the most fascinating figures in history, though little known these days. But in his time he very much strode the world as a colossus … everyone listening to him, wondering what he’d do next, that sort of thing. He served a total of four Hapsburg Emperors but he’s most famed for his service to Maria Theresa. It is something he did there that I want to bring up.

A lot of nonsense is being written about foreign affairs since the Trump-Zelenskyy meeting. Lots of people are considering it a disaster and that it’ll encourage Russia and China and we’re really screwed now unless we somehow get Ukraine to victory over Russia. But among the hand-wringing dramatics a couple voices have whispered: “you know, we need Russia as an ally against China”. These voices are ridiculed – yet more accusations of being a Putin stooge and so forth because, as these people say, Russia and China are friends and the only way to deal with them is to show them we’re tough…by backing Ukraine to the hilt!

It is like nobody can read a map or has even cursory knowledge of history.

To be sure, Russia and China are friendly today – China providing lots of help to Russia against Ukraine. While the war goes on, Russia will be careful to keep China happy. The quid pro quo everyone expects here is that since China supports Russia against Ukraine (which Putin states is a renegade province of Russia), Russia will support China against Taiwan (which China considers to also be a renegade province). And that does make sense. But there’s one fly in the ointment: China doesn’t need Russian help against Taiwan. Not even in the UN where China holds the same veto power as Russia. Sure, Putin issuing a diplomatic note supporting China’s annexation of Taiwan will be nice for China at the time, but it will also be quite meaningless…the merest gesture.

One does have to actually think about things and in the Russo-Chinese case given that Russia needs China right now but China needs Russia not at all, try to figure out why China is being so helpful. It becomes blazingly obvious with just the least bit of thought: a conflict between Russia and the West means there’s a conflict between Russia and the West and that suits China right down to the ground. The western world concentrating its military and diplomatic efforts over the Donbas is a West not paying attention as China builds a blue water Navy and deeply economically penetrates Africa and South America. It is a no brainer for China to help Russia – just as its a no-brainer for Russia to accept Chinese help. But because their interests coincide today doesn’t mean they always will.

And that brings us back to Kaunitz. He was made first minister by Maria Theresa because she thought him the man to cobble together an alliance which would undo the result of the War of the Austrian Succession. This had occurred just after her father had died when Prussia had invaded Austria’s province of Silesia. Entirely without justification – a mere power grab by the Prussian king who felt his army the stronger and himself the superior to any woman on a throne. In the event, after 8 years of war, Prussia did manage to keep her stolen goods in the form of Silesia, but Maria Theresa had proved herself a woman of courage and good sense, more than a match for the Prussian king. And she hadn’t given up on getting back what was stolen…but she needed a man of brilliance and tact to rework the European balance of power in her favor. That man was Kaunitz.

Part of the problem Austria had in the previous war was that Prussia was allied with France, which was Austria’s ancient enemy (French and Austrian rulers had engaged in wars for centuries). As long as Prussia could count on the large French army attacking Austria from the west and south then things would go well for Prussia. Kaunitz had the skill and he carried out Maria Theresa’s instructions – France was detached from alliance with Prussia and entered alliance with Austria (it actually was in France’s best long-term interests to curb Prussian ambition…as was proved in 1870). Getting Russia to join the Franco-Austrian alliance just made it even more powerful. This diplomatic tour de force has been called “The Reversal of Alliances” and it was an earthquake in diplomatic affairs. And it almost worked – when the war between Prussia and Austria resumed the combination overwhelmed Prussia with sheer weight of numbers…until the very untimely death of the Russian Empress at the time pulled Russia out of the war. But that is neither here nor there for our purposes today: what we’re doing is pointing out that alliances aren’t permanent. That you don’t conduct your foreign affairs based on sentimental attachments but on the cold, hard facts of your situation. The problem for the USA is that since the fall of the Berlin Wall, sentiment has governed our actions. It is time for facts to come to the fore.

The biggest fact we have right now is that China is far and away the biggest foreign challenge we face. Our foreign policy should be geared primarily towards curbing Chinese ambitions. If you take a look at the map of the world and all the strategic points on it, there will be one rather glaring absence: Ukraine. It has no strategic importance in global affairs. It is a geographic irrelevancy. To Russia it is important. Poland, too. But if you don’t border Ukraine then Ukraine doesn’t matter. Whoever holds it will not harm your own strategic position. Not for nothing have the Dardanelles just south of Ukraine been fought over for centuries while Ukraine has slumbered in obscurity for almost all its history. The former is a crucial strategic point…the latter is just a bit of flat land really good for farming. There is no upside for the USA in fussing over Ukraine – it does not help us contain China.

Another glance at that map and you’ll notice that China and Russia share a huge land border in Siberia – which is 5.1 million square miles with 37 million people living on it. Do that bit of math: that is 7.25 people per square mile. China, just south of Siberia, has a density of 381 per square mile. Siberia has vast reserves of gold, silver, lead, tin, zinc, oil, diamonds, nickel, natural gas…like some of the largest reserves in the world for these materials. Oh, and huge chunk of Siberia was under Chinese rule until the late 19th century.

Do you see what I’m getting at? Russia has this gigantic territory – larger by itself than the USA or China – which is largely unpopulated, stupendously rich in natural resources and part of which used to be Chinese…which sits south of the border with 1.2 billion people, limited natural resources and a crucial need for cheap and easy economic growth to keep their people from questioning Communist party rule. In other words, while Russia and China have a community of interests today, it doesn’t mean they always will. And, truth be told, the only way Russia can be certain of holding Siberia is in alliance with the USA. There are, then, fertile grounds of a new reversal of alliances…detaching Russia from the Chinese connection and adding her to a consortium of nations (USA, India, Vietnam, Korea, Japan) united to keep China under control.

But how can we ally with Putin?!?!? You Putin stooge!!!! Yeah, whatever. We allied with Stalin against Hitler so allying with the far less unsavory Putin against China is within the realm of possibility. And this alliance with Russia remains valid even if Putin – or any Russian leader – tries to cobble together the entirely of the Czarist Empire. It would not alter America’s strategic position. It would gravely alter Europe’s, of course, but that is an European problem…and so far only Poland and Italy are acting like Russia is a problem by vastly increasing their defense spending. But no matter how it goes over there, it isn’t an American problem.

But we can’t let aggression stand! Sure, whatever – that boat sailed in 1950 when North Korea invaded South Korea and we accepted stalemate. The two World Wars were very much fought on the ground that you can’t shoot your way into power. The Allied victory in both wars placed that ideal as an absolute in global affairs. Heck, we even hung and imprisoned Nazis on the charge of plotting aggressive warfare. But at the very first challenge to the principle in Korea, we and the rest of the West folded like a cheap suit. We actually had Nazis sitting in jail for aggressive war at the time we decided that North Korea’s aggressive war was something we’d just have to live with. Don’t blame me that the main point of the world wars was wasted…that while the great good of stopping Nazism occurred, all other fruits of the victory were thrown away within a decade of the end of the war. That was done by others, not by me. And I won’t adhere to a standard rejected before I was born. Whether or not I’ll try to stop aggression is entirely dependent on whether or not that aggression negatively impacts the United States. And, sorry, but a Russian invasion of Ukraine doesn’t qualify.

I don’t advocate for a pullout from NATO out of petulance but simply because I can’t see the slightest need for it. A Russian invasion of Ukraine doesn’t matter to me. Those whom it does matter are quite powerful enough to build an army to repel a Russian invasion. I also know that in the primary challenge my nation faces – China – the Europeans are far more likely to back China than the USA. There is little community of interest between the USA and the EU…and as Europe is arresting people for social media posts, I can’t see how a stand for Europe is a stand for liberty…sure, a German prison is much nicer than a Russian prison, but both are holding people who said things offensive to the government. This is very alien to the American experience – it makes Europe no longer America’s cousin, but a very strange, malevolent place that Americans better not travel to any longer, lest we run afoul of their Orwellian speech laws.

As in so many things, it is time to enter the real world. The real world is that the USA has maybe one or two friends in the world (Israel and Japan? Maybe a couple others). Everyone else wants us dead or at least to play us for their own ends. We might have a sentimental attachment to France because of Normandy but we must start to understand that the French government will piss on our graves over there if they felt it was in France’s best interests to do so. Nobody else in the world acts on sentiment, and we must stop it.

NATO Must Go

Mark Noonan41 Comments

The Parties agree that an armed attack against one or more of them in Europe or North America shall be considered an attack against them all and consequently they agree that, if such an armed attack occurs, each of them, in exercise of the right of individual or collective self-defence recognised by Article 51 of the Charter of the United Nations, will assist the Party or Parties so attacked by taking forthwith, individually and in concert with the other Parties, such action as it deems necessary, including the use of armed force, to restore and maintain the security of the North Atlantic area. – Article 5, North Atlantic Treaty, 4/4/1949

This is the teeth of NATO – the part where all contracting Parties agree to come to the aid of any Party attacked by a Third Party. But do note the wording: it does not require any NATO member to use military force in support of an attacked NATO member. I think this was put in place to make sure that the Europeans could weasel out of helping the United States if we weren’t attacked by the Soviet Union. The treaty, of course, had the purpose of keeping the USSR out, the USA in and the Germans down. It was built for the very particular circumstances existing in Europe in the immediate aftermath of WWII. I would like to note that WWII ended 78 years ago.

There are hardly any people left alive who can even remember the war.

But here it is, 2023 and NATO is going strong – expanding. There’s talk of even letting Ukraine in. This has caused some comment about it immediately triggering WWIII but as you can see from the text of the treaty, it would only do that if Russia decided to treat it as a de-facto declaration of war by NATO. But if Russia refrained from attacking outside Ukraine it is almost certain that no other NATO member would declare war on Russia in support or Ukraine. In other words, Ukrainian membership in NATO would be symbolic. Kinda like the whole NATO exercise has been since the fall of the Soviet Union.

Ronald Reagan once said there is nothing so akin to immortality as a temporary government program. This has been true ever since government programs were invented. But the newest innovation of this is to keep treaties going eternally, regardless of changed circumstances. And just as we must at last kill off the idea of an eternal government program, so much we kill off the idea of an eternal treaty. Government programs are to be used to deal with a particular need or problem. So, too, are treaties.

In the aftermath of WWII with that horrendously bloody conflict and its shameful origins fresh in mind, what the leaders of the free world wanted was some assurance that they wouldn’t have that problem again: that is, a megalomaniac launching wars of conquest and extermination. In retrospect: figure the odds. Hitler was unique: never had been one like him, can’t imagine a set of circumstances where we get another. But you can at least see the logic of the people who signed the NATO treaty in 1949. Stalin was also a megalomaniac and the USSR was committed to carrying Communism all over the world. It was felt – reasonably – that a bit of collective security by the non-Communist powers would guarantee against the USSR launching a war of conquest.

We should have been paying a little more attention to Stalin’s history on that – it was Stalin who shut down the Leninist/Trotskyite project of using direct force to spread Communism. Stalin – correctly – felt the USSR lacked the power to do that and, also, that direct conflict had incalculable possibilities which could easily end in disaster for the USSR. Stalin would grab what he could, subvert as much as possible: but he was never going to launch a direct attack on the West…and his successors, sitting pretty with swell lives, were even less inclined for any direct conflict. And if they had been a bit frisky, the fact that it was the mid 1960s before the USSR recovered from WWII was also a restraining factor.

Be that as it may, the NATO treaty was signed and we had our collective security against the remote possibility of the USSR launching an attack through the Fulda Gap. NATO provided zero security against internal subversion by the USSR of NATO States and as this was the primary means of Soviet attack that is…kinda strange that it wasn’t integral to NATO. Almost like, just maybe, some of the people in charge of crafting NATO put together something only useful at stopping what wasn’t going to happen but did nothing to stop what was already happening in spades. Weird, huh? But, the Cambridge Five were still active as NATO was created – as were various spy networks in the US State Department…and it isn’t like even to this day we’ve uncovered everyone who was working for the USSR at the time. Interesting thing to look into, but it need not detain us here for long. Though I would like to point out that the Cold War would have been over in a few years if NATO was a replacement for the UN with all NATO members breaking off relations with the USSR and allies and refusing to have any dealings with them. But, such was not seen as the thing to do at the time.

At all events, we had our defense against the 8th Guards Army – we were definitely ready at a moment’s notice to stop it from driving to the Rhine. But just FYI, the 8th Guards Army – currently constituted as Russia’s 8th Guards Combined Arms Army – isn’t in the Fulda Gap preparing to drive to the Rhine. It is, in fact, in Ukraine. It is, then, nothing we need to be too concerned about. It would take a rather stunning bit of Russian military success to bring the 8th Guards Combined Arms Army into a position threatening NATO. And yet we still have NATO as if the 8th Guards Combined Arms Army were an imminent threat (which is never really was, even way back when). So, why are we keeping NATO?

Same reason we are keeping the government programs: vested interests. Financial and political powers obtain a great deal of their money and political influence via NATO. They will keep it going forever if they can – and just like the government bureaucrats inventing new problems for bureaucrats to solve, so NATO keeps finding new security threats to guard against. But still nothing about the internal subversion of the West. NATO didn’t care about that then, doesn’t care about it now. We’ve got Marxist nimrods destroying our nations but NATO isn’t fighting against that! Nope: gotta worry about the 8th Guards Combined Arms Army trying to conquer the Donbas. As if that matters when domestic threats are trying to destroy family, faith and property.

It is time for a bit of a reality check.

59% of the world’s population lives in Asia. 17% lives in Africa. Only 9% lives in Europe. It is just a fact that Europe is not remotely the most important region on Earth. By far it is Asia with Africa coming in second. American political, trade and military thought should be geared towards dealing with the risks and rewards of Asia and Africa. Europe is a backwater. Declining share of global GDP. Declining population. Militarily nearly impotent. There is absolutely zero chance that Europe would send an army to help us fight a major war in Asia or Africa, let alone help defend American territory here in North America. There is nothing we need in Europe. World War Two was a long time ago. There will not rise in Europe a Hitlerian monster to threaten the world…no matter how much NATO propagandists try to make out Putin to be Hitler’s mini-me. And even if Putin were a Hitler…Russia’s GDP is along the size of South Korea’s. They simply don’t have the physical power to threaten the USA.

Whatever use NATO ever had for the United States is long past now. We don’t need NATO. In fact, by remaining in NATO and keeping significant military resources in Europe we actively weaken our ability to influence the course of policy in Asia and Africa. To put it bluntly: remaining in NATO is tailor-made to help China flex muscle in Asia and Africa. And the Chinese are flexing that muscle. Just look up how deeply Chinese money and influence have penetrated Africa (and now moving into South America) and you can see how downright asinine our concentration on Europe has been. If our foreign policy was directly controlled from Beijing they wouldn’t do it any different than we are right now. It is time to move in a new direction.

It is time to leave NATO. Pull out of it: give our notice and leave. Our risks and rewards are in Africa and Asia. But cutting our ties to Europe we’ll no longer have the political disadvantage of ties with those Powers who colonized Africa and Asia. We’ll be able to craft policy based entirely on identified mutual needs with Asian and African nations. Rely on it, India doesn’t want a powerful China. Russia doesn’t, either, but we’ve burned so many bridges there it will be a while before we can sensibly talk to the Russians. But not being in NATO would be an immense relief to Russo-American relations. If you look at a map of the globe, the USA and Russia are natural allies. It was a shame we came into conflict with Russia. Well past time to bury the hatchet. But even absent that – Vietnam, Singapore, Japan, South Korea, Australia and a host of other Asian nations have a vested interest in curbing Chinese ambitions. An alliance with the USA – with our absolute pledge to remain out of their internal affairs – is just what they need…just as what we need is a collection of powers bordering or near China tying down Chinese power which would otherwise be directed against us. Meanwhile, over in Africa and freed from our connections to the former colonial overlords, we’ll be able to work deals with Nigeria, Egypt, Kenya, etc to build up their economies and tie them to us rather than to China (much more valuable to us to build an Interstate quality highway in Nigeria than to spend money on NATO). A China directly challenged by the USA and allies in Asia and Africa will have no resources to spend on penetrating South America. It is all win. If we change with the times.

Or we can hang on to the antique NATO alliance, be tied down uselessly in Europe while China builds alliances with India and Russia against us.

Open Thread

Mark Noonan51 Comments

Democrats have a Feinstien problem. No, its not her lifetime of corruption or that she employed a Chinese spy for years. For the Democrats, none of that is a problem! Their problem is that she’s 900 years old and is ill – can’t get to the Senate to vote the way she’s told and its holding up Biden’s horrific judicial nominees. Naturally, they want the GOP to get them out of this jam by voting to suspend the rules and allow some other Democrat to temporarily fill her seat. McConnell has come through for us on this and not allowed it – as they can’t get unanimous consent, they’ll need a floor vote and that takes 60 votes to happen. Can they get GOP votes for it? Perhaps some, but I suspect not enough. This does provide some real leverage for the Senate GOP…but one thing McConnell has never liked is using leverage against Democrats. Naked exercises of power are ok with him, but making them pay a price for something never enters into his head. OTOH, McConnell is clearly not in the best of health, himself, and as GOPers start jockeying for position, maybe they can force Mitch’s hand here? With the debt ceiling looming, this is the perfect time to take a pound of Democrat flesh.

There’s several videos of a completely looted Chicago Wal Mart. This isn’t just some high value items – the store is pretty much cleared out. The most heart wrenching was put out by a Chicago mother who was simply shopping for food for the kids and there was none left. And she does blame her fellow black people for it – pointing out that she is not a thief, but now because of them she can’t get what she needs. The bad news: it just gets worse from here. Chicago’s new Mayor is a full-blown Leninist who figures that looting is just “loot the looters”. But you can’t sustain this: businesses can’t remain in business if at any moment their whole stock of goods is to be stolen. And think about it: a whole Wal Mart was cleaned out. Even the neighborhood Wal Mart stores are pretty darn big. Think how long it would take even for a sizeable mob to clean it out…which means the police weren’t even called on a “why bother?” attitude or they didn’t come after being called (and why should they? If they did and tried to make arrests, they’d just be setting themselves up for accusations of racist brutality with the mayor siding with the looters). In a short while, the only retail outlets in Blue cities will be fortresses with only limited goods and high prices to pay the costs of security. And without any easy targets to loot, it isn’t like the mobs will then settle down and get a job…they’ll just start moving out into the rich, white suburbs with their BLM flags (that last bit will be a little funny, tho…)

China appears to be opening police stations in the USA in order to monitor and harass Chinese dissidents residing here. The two cops here were arrested but I have my doubts will really put a stop to this: the PRC has so entirely penetrated the American establishment that this might merely have been the signal for them to keep it more low key.

The latest comic book turned movie has become another in a long string of flops. Get woke, go broke as they say. But really its more “go boring, go broke”. Fun movies are supposed to be fun. Perhaps a bit ridiculous and heavy on special effects and explosions, but that is all part of the fun. But they become a drag if you have to bootstrap social commentary into them. I’m no genius author but I always consider the story before anything else. A character first introduced in Kings and Queen is gay, though not obviously so. If you’re paying close attention, you’ll notice it. But that fact also plays no role in the story. My characters have always appeared to me full grown as soon as I need them: there is character development as time goes on, but the gender, looks and basic motives of them are all there, whammo, as soon as I need them. This character, who shows up in a battle scene, showed up gay. In The Crimson Blade (Book VIII which will be released after Empress) this character becomes a secondary character in the overall story and so I tell more of his backstory – with him remaining gay, but that fact remaining utterly uninteresting in his role. Because something like that is primarily uninteresting. Its like hair color: something that just is. It is what your characters do in the story which makes or breaks them, and decides if the story is interesting. As it turns out, I liked this character so much that in Book IX (Home World), he becomes a main character.

What I’m saying here is that you can have in your stories non-traditional character roles. In fact, having a few odd balls in there is kinda fun. Anyone who reads my stories knows I favor strong female characters – I’ve never liked shrinking violets and I didn’t marry one. Mousy women have always irritated me. The girls I’ve got are gutsy broads who aren’t afraid of anything…but I’m also not going to please modern absurdity by having one of them take down a 250 pound warrior in hand to hand combat (Rossalyn slicing the unwary up with a sword is another matter entirely, of course). You can have just about anything you want in your story – but its got to be fun, not be boring because you had to shoehorn in the latest social mores as decreed by the ultra-woke. The sooner the movie makers figure this out the sooner they’ll get back to making money.

Open Thread

Mark Noonan22 Comments

Daniel Barry defended himself against Communist BLM/Antifa terrorists and so a Soros-backed DA in Austin, TX bamboozled a jury of cowards into convicting him of murder. This is in Texas, guys: not California or New York. What is being said here is that you are not allowed to defend yourself wherever Democrats have power…if you fight against their paid thugs, you will be dragged into court and destroyed.

I’m confident that the Texas GOP will step up here – people are already calling for them to reform Texas’ pardon law so that Abbott can just spring this man from jail – but the bottom line is that we have in our country whole areas which are no-go for us. And we can’t allow that to continue. Especially we can’t let it happen in the blue cities of the Red States. Where we have the power we have to start enacting laws allowing Republican governors and legislatures to remove local DA’s who abuse their power on behalf of the Democrat party. We must let the Democrats know that we won’t let them bully us into silence.

After the TN GOP expelled those two commie thugs from their legislature, Democrats tried to make it about race because the two expelled happened to be black. This is nonsense because we judge on the content of character, not the color of skin. Stupid commies are stupid commies no matter what their race, ethnicity, gender or creed. As it turns out, the white woman involved in the insurrection didn’t get expelled – because she managed to bamboozle one GOPer into voting against her expulsion and so the vote fell just one short. How did she reward her GOP benefactor? By calling him racist, of course! The GOPer in question did issue a mea culpa and I do hope the lesson is learned: Never give the Democrats an inch. They are not good people.

House committee subpoenas Biden bank documents – we’ll see if this leads anywhere. But the fun part of this is that any argument the Democrats want to make against this is going to fail because the GOP is using the same rationale as the Democrats used for getting Trump’s tax records – which I guess were extremely clean as a whistle as they haven’t been leaked.

China is implementing restrictions on the export of Rare Earths – a key ingredient in lots of high tech things. Now, this is only a problem because our environmentalist morons (likely funded by China) won’t let us mine our own Rare Earths. But, meanwhile, we might find that we can’t build our fancy missiles because we simply lack the materials to do so. Side note: China is building a blue water Navy so they can challenge us and, if successful, blockade us during war…you know, cut us off from all the supplies we obtain in foreign countries because we refuse to produce them here at home because the Weather god would get angry if we did.

Up, Up and Away Open Thread

Mark Noonan11 Comments

Did not have “Chinese balloon rings death knell for the USA” on my bingo card.

Jesse Kelly points out that this is all our own fault – we have paid for the rise of China from worthless Commie backwater to evil Commie superpower. And when you really think back on it all, just what was the point of normalizing relations with China? It is held up as Nixon’s signal foreign policy triumph but what, really, was the benefit of it? And I mean to the USA, to China and to the world?

It sure in heck didn’t help us in Vietnam. Nixon went to China in 1972 and that didn’t stop North Vietnamese tanks from rolling into Saigon in 1975.

It didn’t help bring down the USSR. “Play the China card” was supposed to be some super-trump in global foreign relations…but as far as getting rid of the USSR, China might as well not even been there.

China’s ruthless exploitation of poor and naive third world nations isn’t doing anyone any good.

China’s ruthless dumping of third rate goods and fentanyl into the USA is kinda a bad thing, right?

China’s corruption of the global Ruling Class is probably not working out as a net plus.

And then there is China, as such. Sure: Marco Polo bringing back the concept of pasta did wonders for dinner. Paper money? Maybe not such a good thing. Chinese music, art and architecture can’t hold a candle to the West. Philosophy? Confucius wrote down copy-book maxims designed to perpetuate his class in power…China has nothing to compare to Aristotle or Aquinas…not even anything as good as Ashoka or Averroes. Just what are we supposed to get out of China? Where’s the benefit? They’ve grafted onto the stump of Maoism the industrial Midwest…goody for them. What’s in it for us?

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: there is no point in the United States having relations with nations like China. It is poison. Perhaps a free China would be worthwhile, but while China is under tyranny, we should be completely separate from them.

Pudding Brain’s people are claiming 517k new jobs in January.

This did not happen.

I’m telling ya: they’re just making the numbers up. We had report after report of major corporations downsizing all month and they pop up with 517k. Yeah, right. Keep in mind that even under the honest, the jobs number is a guess based on particular assumptions…for the dishonest, its any number they want…and in this case they wanted a number for China Joe to puff for his SOTU next week.

The MSM is already getting into “DeSantis is worse than Trump”. We all knew this was coming – the only question is how ready RDS is for it? Especially if it looks like he’ll be the nominee, they will pour garbage all over him…and he will be the subject of multiple federal and State criminal investigations. It doesn’t matter what about – they made it all up about Trump, they’ll make it all up about RDS. It will take real guts to overcome it – and we’ll see if RDS has that.

It is Black History Month and I guess Disney is running a bit for the kiddies asserting that America was built by slaves and other 1619 Project drivel. If you are not in favor of eliminating Woke corporations then you haven’t been paying attention.

Open Thread

Mark Noonan40 Comments

Elon Musk announced that he was going to release the info about how the Hunter laptop story was suppressed on Twitter and everyone got al excited. Except me.

The crucial thing we need to know – the only thing we need to know – about how Twitter suppressed the story is who outside Twitter ordered it done. Now, do I have proof that someone outside Twitter gave the order? Of course not. But the bottom line is that as soon as the Post released the story federal law enforcement, almost all the MSM and all major social media platforms suppressed it. You don’t get that sort of uniformity of action without coordination – and you can’t coordinate that sort of action on the fly. People way up high in power in the USA were aware at least some days in advance that the Post story was coming and they swung into action to make sure it had as little effect as possible. They had their talking points all lined up – it was Russian disinformation. They got 50 former intel guys to sign a letter stating it was a Russian op. Doing this sort of thing takes a few calls, ya know?

So what I want to know is who called Twitter. Someone did. There’s no way it didn’t happen. If I can find out who made the call then I can find out who was ultimately behind the suppression effort by working backwards from that person and seeing who they did or do work for. And I called it before Musk released the info – 100-1 against us getting that crucial bit of information. And, sure enough, when the data was dropped, it lacked that. All it told us was what we already knew – that Twitter came up with an absurd excuse out of the Safety group and the story was gone.

Now, to be sure, they did say that political operatives – including some Republicans – had made various requests to suppress this or that account. But they still didn’t name any names. Likely because if we had an idea who had been calling before Laptop, we could eventually figure out who called for Laptop. Because as far as that goes, it had to be someone who knew about it – so, likely DOJ and/or Team Pudding Brain made that call.

And keep in mind that even if you want to say that fraud played no role in 2020, the suppression of this story did. It is absolutely hideous. Had it been about Don, Jr then Trump would have been lucky to crack 40% on election day. China Joe’s son is hip deep in federal crimes based on info on that laptop…and the pictures are downright disgusting. It was a candidacy-killer. Had it been given the normal play a story like that gets, these days Joe’s lawyers would be arguing he’s senile and so isn’t fit to stand trial. It was killed because to save Biden and get Trump out, it had to be killed. And, yes, this does make it even money that senior GOPers played a role in suppressing the story.

Until we get that info, its all pretty pointless. Musk says there is more to come – so, let’s hope. But I have my doubts that the truth will come out…because, remember, a lot of laws get broken in campaign offices and law enforcement agencies when you coordinate with media to favor one party over the other in a political campaign. A lot of well-placed people will be in jeopardy if it all comes out.

Apple CEO Tim Cook dodged questions about Apple’s relationship with China – because what else could he do? You do business in China and the Chinese own you. They have your factory. They control your labor force and supplies. If you don’t toe the PRC line, you’ll lose everything. And that is before the PRC gets you in-country, indulges any perversions you have and gets it all on video.

I’ve thought for decades that America having relations with tyrannical regimes is a huge mistake – we poison ourselves when we do that. Either we believe in our Declaration or we don’t. If we do, then we can’t hold that the PRC is a legitimate government – it is a mafia with an army. And you can’t make honest deals with the mob. We should, step by step, de-couple ourselves from all unfree nations.

Open Thread

Mark Noonan79 Comments

Biden falling off his bike is the perfect symbol of his Administration. Really hope it was voter fraud because if 81 million voted for him, we’re doomed.

I’ve been getting a bit doom and gloom about the economy – the official stats are still showing health out there, but inflation is galloping (official 8.6% is bogus – using the 1980 formula, its about 17%…and that is what we’re all seeing at the pump and the grocery check out), housing is looking more and more like a bubble (and Team Pudding Brain is doing bubble things now to encourage more home ownership among those who can least afford it – shades of 2008), we can’t make anything (the MSM lauds shipments of baby formula to us as if its a good thing that the United States has to import food)…it is all just falling apart. I’m genuinely concerned about the onset of a Great Depression with more than a quarter of the population out of work. I hope it doesn’t get that bad – but I think it might.

That aside, the political prospects for the GOP continue to brighten. Winning TX-34 is the writing on the wall – a majority-Latino district going GOP in the first time since forever. Democrats are trying to ignore it by saying it was a special election and so not predictive…which is just what people say when politics predicts their demise. They’re doomed, they know it – and they don’t seem to care. As things come crashing down, Democrats are set to die on the “drag queen story time” hill. It has continually amazed me how fast the most radical parts of transgenderism have become dogma on the Left. It is something which they not only can’t question but which they must loudly support. Team Pudding Brain is set to officially approve providing hormones and surgery to trans kids as young as 14…this while they are urging a ban on rifle purchases to 21. So, you’re old enough to decide if you want to be a different gender seven years before you can decide if you’ll defend yourself. It makes no sense. It is, in fact, insane.

But that’s where we’ve been heading, isn’t it? Some Lefty on Twitter was upset that San Francisco has several times the homeless population of Detroit. The assertion was greedy landowners in San Francisco not doing what was necessary to end homelessness…no consideration that when you subsidize homelessness (as SF does) you’ll get more of it. There is also no consideration on the Left about how monstrously cruel it is to allow people to live in the streets, wallowing in their own filth and making life unlivable for everyone else. I get it – even lunatic, tweaking, homeless people have rights…and I demand those rights be respected. But you don’t have a right to be whacked out on drugs and sh** on the sidewalk. And if you do that, I have the right – and the moral obligation – to restrain you until you no longer hit the crack pipe and figure the corner of Fifth and Main is your bathroom. It is sheer insanity that we allow insane, drug-addled people to ruin the public square. Sanity – and the dignity of the homeless crackhead – requires that we stop them from doing that. But, we don’t – we instead allow grifters to build “low income housing” which won’t, of course, help the insane crackhead because, being an insane crackhead, he doesn’t want to live in a house. Can’t live in a house. Would like as not wreck the house in short order if by some means he could be induced to move in.

We’re essentially allowing insane people (ie, those who set up “drag queen story time” and who allow lunatics to defecate on the street) to run our lives. And Democrats can’t pull back from it – the least failure to support the most insane thing leads to immediate social destruction. And, so, here we are: hoping not just for a big GOP win, but that the GOP winners will see the problem and proceed to legislate a ban on insanity from being in power.

The American Bar Association is proposing an end to testing for law school admissions. Standards are being dropped everywhere because where there are standards you cannot ensure that today, at this very minute, your school or corporation has the proper level of diversity. That’s what it is all about. If, however, you dispense with standards, then you don’t have to worry about who can do the job – you only have to make sure you check off all the diversity boxes. That is, that you have the “correct” number of POC, gay, trans or whatever the heck group it is the Left is whining about at the moment. This isn’t the death of expertise: it is a suicide.

But here’s the problem – it isn’t just getting them access which requires you to drop standards. You must also get the proper results. If the American population is 13 percent black, then you’d damn well better have 13 percent of the lawyers at your firm be black…and if there aren’t enough qualified black attorneys to make up that number, then you’d better fill the slots with unqualified. And even if they’re unqualified, they better be given the prestige assignments that qualified people get. See where this is heading? In the name of diversity, whether or not you’ll have a qualified person will start to be a roll of the dice. But eventually it’ll be a certainty that nobody is qualified…because any qualified person simply won’t put up with it and will find something else to do. And this doesn’t just stop with law – it is already moving into medicine and engineering and the firm designing bridges for us better have the “right” number of diversity hires and they better work on the prestige projects…which means you’ll eventually be getting products designed by incompetents and finding out your doctor is functionally illiterate. I’ve been saying that if we let this continue, we’ll eventually be treating cancer with goat entrails…and we’re moving right along on that.

China has launched her first domestically designed aircraft carrier. It is significantly smaller than a Nimitz or Ford class carrier – and not much is known about the specifications. But it shows that (a) propaganda against carriers is likely orchestrated by Chinese agents who want us to abandon them and (b) that China is building a fleet with the sole purpose of challenging American naval supremacy. China is still about ten years away from a credible challenge to us – but, also, maybe sooner as our own Navy decays from neglect. They want us gone. And understandably so – heck, if Catalina Island was a breakaway part of the United States and a foreign power was able to patrol at will off our west coast, we’d probably want to do something about it. I get it: I’ve no complaint about China doing what its doing. It is precisely what I’d do if I were Chinese.

But, I’m American…and I recognize that American naval supremacy is key to ensuring that war doesn’t come to American shores. And so much as I understand and even sympathize with Chinese ambitions, I want them stopped. But, right now, there is no will to stop them…and each year we lack the will the take up the challenge, the weaker we become in relation to China. We’re rapidly approaching the point where we cannot physically stop an invasion of Taiwan. A few years from now, we might not be able to stop an invasion of Guam and a few years after that, Hawaii.

War

Mark Noonan34 Comments

With Ukraine in the news I’ve been pondering a lot about our general view of the world. One thing that has been striking a jarring note for me is the assumption that we bear some sort of responsibility for Ukraine. That Ukraine as an independent nation is something that we must secure.

Why?

To be sure, some say that in Ukraine’s deal to give up nuclear weapons, we pledged ourselves to Ukraine’s defense. But, we really didn’t: we pledged to rush right off to the UN if Ukraine was attacked – a UN which, of course, has a Russian veto and so the whole thing was quite toothless from the get-go. But even supposing we had an agreement to come to Ukraine’s defense, does this then relieve Ukraine from the obligation to defend herself?

Seems to me that if I were a Ukrainian patriot with a neighbor like Russia, I’d put a high priority on national defense. I realize that Ukraine is poor, but the Israelis were dirt poor in the 1950’s and their first priority was a military second to none because they had hostile neighbors who could attack at any moment. A Ukraine filled with people committed to the Ukrainian national ideal would have a very powerful army, thickly layered defenses and a reserve force made up of the entire adult population in arms. You know – be so well armed that even a successful foreign invasion would drown in blood. Do that, and the chances of that foreign attack diminish remarkably.

Ukraine’s active military is a little more than 200,000. Reserves about 250,000. To defend 230,000 square miles and 41 million people. That’s not a lot. That’s not nearly what you need. It isn’t nearly what you’d have if the Ukranian people really gave a damn. To give you a comparison, when Israel was attacked in 1973, out of an Israeli population of about 3 million, the Israelis mobilized about 400,000. That’s 13 percent. That can’t be sustained for long (your civil economy starts to collapse), but when your life is on the line, you do it. You’d think that 41 million Ukrainians could have 4 million ready to mobilize in a life-and-death emergency. And they would, if Ukrainians really cared – because Russia is right next door and the President of Russia believes that Ukraine is an integral part of Russia.

And if the Ukrainians won’t do it – won’t even show willing to do it – why in heck does anyone else have to care? Because wars of aggression are wrong? Well, yes they are – nobody ever has a moral case for starting a war, or setting things up so that the only way out is for someone to start shooting. But lots of things are wrong – the way some Arab countries treat women is wrong. What China is doing o the Uyghurs is wrong. The slave trade in Africa is wrong. The drug lords running rampant in Mexico and Central America are wrong. Lots of things are wrong which war, successfully prosecuted by good guys, could set right. But do you want to?

Who wants kids from Ohio and Alabama to head off to the Donbas to keep the Russians out of lands largely populated by ethnic Russians? Or send them off to Xinjiang to liberate the Uyghurs from China? Or even clear out the drug lords from Ciudad Juarez? If anything, I’d rather help the Mexicans dispose of the cartels – but before I hazard American blood on anything, I’d like to know for certain why we’re doing it and what we get out of it.

The first thing to keep in mind about the world is that it isn’t neat and tidy. There isn’t a completely right answer in purely human affairs. Often, there’s just a least-bad answer. The unification of Italy and Germany into nation-States was an utter disaster for the world and, most especially, Italy and Germany. The freeing of the peoples of the Austrian Empire was a disaster for the peoples of the Austrian Empire. I mean, I dig that Poles didn’t like officious Austrian overlords (who would?) but the officious Austrians kept a cavalry barracks at Oświęcim, not a death camp at Auschwitz. I guess what I’m saying here is think carefully about what you want before you act.

What I want, first and foremost, is a free and independent United States. If I’ve got that, then I am very satisfied with the world. Naturally, I understand that the United States cannot live in isolation from the world. People and trade flow around and ambitious people with wicked minds are here, there and everywhere. I do have to keep an eye on things. I will, at times, be forced to fight. But when I fight and how I fight must refer back to my first principle: a free and independent United States.

Now, as I consider Ukraine I note that it was firmly under Russian rule from 1776 until 1917 and then, again, from 1921 until 1991. At no time during those periods was Russian rule in Ukraine a threat to American freedom and independence. It just wasn’t. Sure, from a geopolitical standpoint it would have been advantageous to the US to have an independent Ukraine all through the Cold War…but it wasn’t a necessity as proved by the fact that all through the Cold War we didn’t have an independent Ukraine. If Russian rule is reimposed in Ukraine, what ill effect will this have on American freedom and independence? I can’t see any.

“But Russia might go on and attack more!”

They might. Baltic States, Poland. On and On. I note that Poland was under Russian rule from 1791 to 1918 with no ill effect on American freedom and independence. I’m very sympathetic to the Poles as they have put up with a lot. But does my sympathy for Poland extend to sending American kids to die there? Make your case, if you’ve got one. I can’t. I could not look an American kid in the eye and tell him that his death along the Bug River will keep America free and independent. I couldn’t say it because it wouldn’t be true.

Don’t get me wrong, there can be existential, global threats. Communism was such, as was Nazism. They both proposed the whole world as their jurisdiction. Fantastic as it sounds, the USSR considered the American Communist Party as the legitimate American government and Hitler had named Goebbles to be Gauleiter of America. Fighting such things anywhere is what you have to do because if they win anywhere, they are step closer to overthrowing American independence and freedom. But Putin is no Hitler or Stalin. He does not represent a global ideology at permanent war with all dissenters. He may be a bastard twenty different ways, but he’s not an existential threat.

I agree there are non-existential threats which still must be confronted. Radical Islam. Chinese imperialism. And even a bit of Russia’s aggression are causes of concern, sometimes grave concern, which could make fighting them necessary. While I don’t think Ukraine rises to such a level, I do hold that Russian meddling in the United States is a problem. But far more than Russian meddling I find the threat in Chinese and Islamist meddling to be a huge threat – especially given how much money Islamists and Chinese have to bribe Americans to betray their own.

In wanting to contend with such threats, I can agree to enter into mutual defense pacts with other nations. I can agree to military action and even full scale war. I do believe that if China attacked Taiwan, that is worth us going to war over – because of China’s meddling in the United States such a conflict, successfully concluded by China, would simply put us in a worse position vis a vis China and so allow them to interfere in our internal affairs even more.

It would, naturally, be to Taiwan’s advantage to accept our aid against China. If we win, they win. But even in such a clear cut case of fighting for American interests, I still want a clear goal and a clear payoff for our expenditure of treasure and blood. We can’t go out to bleed and die just to help – we have to be compensated for our efforts.

Suppose we had to go to war with China. Fine. It would be a years long and very expensive war in blood and treasure. I believe that even as ruined as we are right now, we would prevail in the war (China isn’t nearly as powerful as advertised). And that would be good. But we can’t do it like we did after WWII. That was a horrendous mistake: we helped our defeated enemies return to the world of competition with us. No. No, no, NO!. They had to pay. Heck, that war cost so much they should still be paying. We go to war with China and win, then for a century China should be paying us.

I’m deadly seriously here – after a war with China, I’d want every bit of gold and silver and art turned over to us and a 10% tax on China’s GDP for a century paid to us. Maybe even take some land from them: move the Chinese out and Americans in. The main thing is that they pay us for putting us through the trouble. We do not want to own the world. We do not want the world to do what we say. Yeah, maybe from mid-century on we’ve had some jerks who dreamed of such, but that wasn’t the American people. We just wanted to be left alone to hold our own. My view is that if you do things to us which force us to go fight you, then you’re going to pay. You’re not just going to lose the war, you’re going to be humiliated and then forced to work very hard to send money to us for a very long time.

It is time we got out of the dream world. All this UN, NATO, treaties and arms limitation garbage since WWII has been the answer provided by dimwits who never understood the world. The world is a real place. People do things in it. Good and bad. We can’t cure all bad and we don’t have the right to, anyway. Our primary duty is to look after ourselves – to make only temporary alliances at need, to make sure they are reciprocal (our blood to defend them, their blood to defend us) and when we defeat an enemy we don’t occupy and rebuild them…but we do make them pay. Through the nose. With usury. In blood and treasure.

Open Thread

Mark Noonan39 Comments

Secret Service is saying that $100 billion in Covid relief has be stolen. Rely on it: it is orders of magnitude higher than that. We do have to fault Trump a bit here as well – as this thing came in, the money spigot was turned on full blast. Pudding Brain has put that into overdrive, but we have to admit where it started.

Of course the money was going to be stolen. The primary purpose, for those in the know, was to steal. We didn’t really need to spend much on this – we did, after all, have a perfectly functioning economy and health care system when this started. At most we just needed a slight boost in what we were already spending. But the bonanza of cash simply thrown out the Treasury windows was and is the opportunity of a life time. Couple years from now and we will see a few indictments – people who stole beyond their station or who didn’t divvy up the way the bosses wanted. But my bet is that half, at least, of what has and will be spent was nothing but graft.

The dirty little secret of our government is that it spends so much money that nobody really knows what is going on. How can anyone keep an eye on trillions of dollars being spent? Do you realize how easy it is to divert hundreds of billions when you’ve got a flood of money that large?

Some rumors that Team Hillary is in Durham’s crosshairs. Hope so, but I’ll believe it when I see it.

Cocaine Mitch, talking with Hugh Hewitt, basically said he’s asking Manchin to switch to the GOP – adding that he’s discussing whether Manchin would keep his chairmanship of Energy. I’m a bit surprised – not that it might be happening, but that it would happen now. I’d have thought Mitch would wait until well into 2022. OTOH, the Democrats are already a toxic brand and McConnell back in the Majority Leader spot shuts down all Democrat legislative programs. We’ll see how it comes out.

Donald Trump says he’ll hold a press conference on January 6th. A lot of people are downright frightened of this – I’m not. What better way to take the entire spotlight away from whatever the DNC/MSM will be doing that day? If he calls for the release of the 1/6 detainees, then I’ll figure its for sure that he’s running in 2024.

Since Covid hit, 5 million Americans obtained firearms. The people are arming in a replay of the Great Fear of 1789 in France. America is a tinder box right now – keeping in mind that our side is mostly made up of people who just want to be left alone. The problem – for the Left – is that if such people ever decide it is time to fight or die, then they tend to be quite brutal in settling accounts.

China bought Hollywood and then helped Hollywood destroy itself. It is the Chinese business model. China merely wanted to get itself going – so that it can provide pop-culture product on the global market…not so American pop-culture could come to dominate China. Now that China has got what it wanted, the Hollywood dreams of releasing American movies in the Chinese market have faded away. Hopefully this will force American studios to start making product designed for specifically for the American market. No more Superman who refuses to fight for the American way, as it were.