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Saturday, January 5, 2019

The World as 2019 Dawns

Everyone knows my sunny, positive, optimistic personality. So, at this New Year's, let's remember not the sugar-coated Hallmark Cards world, but our actual reality. For example:


One was filmed being decapitated (she was in her underwear as they sawed her head off; they don't do it in the old-time classic fashion with a heavy, long scimitar, sharp as a razor):
An excerpt:
The bodies of Louisa Vesterager Jespersen, 24, from Denmark and Maren Ueland, 28, from Norway were discovered at their camp site on Monday near Imlal, a small village on a hiking route to Mount Toubkal -- the highest peak in North Africa.
The women, who were studying outdoor life, culture, and eco-philosophy at the University of South-Eastern Norway, were on a month-long trip through North Africa.

From Measure for Measure:
"If I must die,
I will encounter darkness as a bride,
And hug it in mine arms."
(Act III, Scene I, Line 82)

Islamic Death brought darkness to these two, in classic Islamic fashion -- hugging them about the neck. (And I'm seeing that photos of the girl being murdered keep getting sent to her mother.)

A cynic -- which I am in many ways -- would say they "won" the "Darwin Award". What young woman in her right mind would "hike" in any Islamic country? Any of them? Insane. (If they hadn't murdered them, they'd been raped and suffered to endure "female circumcision". Or perhaps, such happened. We probably won't find out.)

Meanwhile:
The details are just astounding -- and sickening. George Orwell's 1984 sort of stuff. Talk about propaganda and so on...I expect serious Internet restrictions soon in many Western nations. The Net gets the news out and around the mainstream media watchers.

Tolkien knew about such 'watchers', such 'gate-keepers':
Inline image
An excerpt:
In yet another act of anti-Conservative bias by Twitter, Breck Worsham, a popular Conservative woman with nearly 83,000 Twitter followers has been permanently suspended by Twitter.
Worsham’s account was banned on Christmas Eve after she posted tweets critical of pedophiles and Twitter’s decision to allow for pro-pedophile accounts to still remain active while deeming Conservative accounts to be “violations of terms of service”.
The author who was banned quoted the old saying "Kill them all and let God sort them out" but of course the Twitter people have no clue to where that came from, etc. (It was actually made up by a Medieval historian; it was never actually said.)

Then there's this: http://thefederalist.com/2018/12/21/the-tucker-carlson-boycott-is-bad-for-everyone/
"The left really seems to want corporations to play speech police. That’s the logical conclusion of the boycott campaign aimed at Tucker Carlson."
Free speech for me, not for thee. The Powers-that-Be just have to control the information flow. They had a plan in place but the Internet opened up many new ways of getting information out. They're still fighting that. Desperately.

The Big News in the U.S. (which has massive international implications) is Trump's pullout of Syria (and draw-down in Afghanistan) and Jim Mattis resignation relating thereto, on the one hand, and the partial government shut down over the border wall (actually a ridiculous fence), as well as a court case in which the Supreme Court lets stand a lower court injunction of Trump's trying to reform "asylum" for hose who cross the borders illegally. Closely related to this is the Republicans in the U.S. Senate have "shown their colors", globalist colors. See: https://amgreatness.com/2018/12/22/obstructionist-republicans-vs-trump/
An excerpt (great article! The author actually quotes Sun Tzu!:):
Thanks to the ongoing shutdown theater, two things are now obvious.
First, Republican leadership in Congress had no intention of even trying to fund Trump’s wall, much less actually doing it, despite repeatedly promising to do so.
And second, Trump is being exactly who he said he was, and doing exactly what he said he’d do, and all of greater Washington is still shocked—shocked!—by it.

Establishment Washington has believed for years that it can run on platform issues like repealing Obamacare, defunding Planned Parenthood, and reforming the immigration system, but then provide dozens of excuses as to why these objectives can’t be met.
First, Republicans said, they needed the House. Then the Senate. Then the White House. But of course, once all of those were delivered, it still wasn’t enough. Now they need 60 votes in the Senate or nothing can happen! They believe that voters are, in fact, dumb enough to keep buying what they’re selling.


(That's a great pun, BTW, the "bloom is off the ruse" -- chuckle.) An except:
Think carefully about what Mitch McConnell is doing here. It’s not President Trump’s job to write legislation. McConnell is desperately trying to retain a UniParty ruse, by passing the buck to the White House. McConnell doesn’t want the American people to see republican senators supporting a bill against voter interests.
Wall Street, corporate and special interest lobbyists own the legislative process. Lobbyists actually write the laws. Lobbyists pay congress to sell laws they write. Lobbyists funding both left and right wings of the UniParty do not want border security. This is ultimately what McConnell is trying to hide.
Look at what he’s doing. Senate Leader McConnell is telling the executive branch (President Trump) if they want an appropriations bill, the President must write the legislation with his democrat colleagues. Please – Think About This.

An Préachán again: I read a very interesting comment in one of the blogs somewhere that Trump could send in to the Senate his Vice-President, who is, under the Constitution, supposed to be the leader of the Senate. That's why Mitch McConnell is only "majority leader" of the Senate: Mike Pence is actual president of the Senate; so Trump could send in Pence and have him do the needful. Now, that would be SO cool! Disraeli would rise from his grave to applaud that one! Cicero, too. And it would so humiliate McConnell that he'd resign in disgrace. 

So the domestic U.S. system is a mess. Trump and the MAGA Repubicans are opposed by the Uni-Party/Globalists. Nasty.


In the Mideast, Syria is a total mess, as is Libya and Afghanistan. Iraq is a borderline mess, essentially, as well.
  • I want to point out that in the entire of the U.S. history, until the Globalist Bush family got into the White House, the only war any Republican administration got us in was the "glorious little war" of 1898, the Spanish-American War. All the others, starting with the "War of 1812" on down, until the Bushes, were Democrat wars. Including the Civil War, which started when the unruly Democrats started a war rather than accept the 1860 election (and they'll start a war again to get rid of Trump too, if they can't get rid of him some other way; they simply refuse to accept his election -- 1860 has come again).
  • Remember the old saying: “Democrats want a small army, and they want to send it everywhere; Republicans want a BIG army, and they don’t want to send it ANYWHERE.”
Trump on Syria:
Mainstream Media political pundits are in hysterics over Mattis leaving, but he's lasted longer than three men Obama had put in the same office (funny that you don't hear about that, isn't it?) Though people I respect greatly are against Trump in this: https://www.nationalreview.com/corner/james-mattis-departure-and-engagements-in-the-middle-east/ and also: https://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2018/12/the-keane-critique.php I still think, provided Trump get us out of Afghanistan, as well, this is the right move. See: http://thefederalist.com/2018/12/21/trumps-syria-withdrawal-policy-is-correct-but-communicated-horribly/
An excerpt:
“Trump Criticized For Breaking With Longstanding American Tradition Of Remaining In Middle Eastern Countries Indefinitely,” joked the Babylon Bee upon the news President Donald Trump is bringing troops home from Syria, but the joke wasn’t far from the truth at all.
The news deeply angered the Washington foreign policy consensus, which argues that troops should stay in the region indefinitely even though the stated mission of defeating ISIS has been accomplished.

This is a Mollie Hemingway essay and quite good reporting. Highly recommended. Lots of facts you might not have heard of. It is amazing how the "neo-conservatives" get us into a war for one reason, and before long, that reason morphs into others. "Mission-creep." Take the time to read through Hemingway's article.

An excerpt:
Today Trump is behaving with the shrewdness and self-awareness of a civilian commander-in-chief who knows, with Clemenceau, that war is too important to be left to the generals. Trump recognizes too, with another French leader, Charles de Gaulle, that the cemeteries are full of indispensable men.
(General James) Mattis, it must not be denied, is a patriot and a man of learning and intellectual discipline. But he’s not infallible. Military and civilian leaders with comparable qualities have disagreed and will disagree with him.
As the Trump Administration implements the president’s promises to get troops out of Syria and Afghanistan, the wisdom of one of the great Cold War scholar-generals should be a major policy guide.
Army Lt. General William E. Odom (1932-2008) was one of the bravest and most brilliant military intelligence officers of his generation. An expert on the Soviet Union with a doctorate in political science from Columbia, he was President Ronald Reagan’s director of the National Security Agency, the electronic spying outfit. A thinking man as well as a fighting man, he was one of the architects of what Margaret Thatcher remembered as Reagan’s winning the Cold War “without firing a shot.”
Odom taught at Yale for two decades following his retirement, and his warnings about U.S. military deployments in the Middle East were wise and prophetic.

In August 2005, Odom wrote “What’s Wrong with Cutting and Running?”—an article that made him persona non grata in the George W. Bush administration.
“If I were a journalist,” Odom began, “I would list all the arguments that you hear against pulling U.S. troops out of Iraq, the horrible things that people say would happen, and then ask: Aren’t they happening already? Would a pullout really make things worse? Maybe it would make things better.”

This is an interesting "Paleo-Conservative" piece of Gen'ral Mattis:
The raw drive to insta-hate everything Trump does is misleading otherwise thoughtful people. So let’s try a new lens: during the campaign Trump outspokenly denounced the waste of America’s wars. Pro-Trump sentiment in rural areas was driven by people who agreed with his critique, by people who’d served in these wars, whose sons and daughters had served, or, given the length of all this, both. Since taking office, the president has pulled U.S. troops back from pointless conflicts in Syria, Afghanistan, and Iraq. Congress may yet rise to do the same for American involvement in Yemen. No new wars have been started. Though the results are far from certain, for the first time in nearly 20 years, negotiations are open again with North Korea. Mattis’s ending was clumsy, but it was a long time coming. It is time for some old ideas to move on.


Ron again: And let us remember that old Douglas MacArthur, before he died, told JFK not to get involved in a land war in Asia. Jack might have listened. Lyndon Johnson was far too stupid, unfortunately.

As for Gen'ral Mattis, much praise from many sources for the Marine, especially now from the Democrats and the American Left, who are utter hypocrites. https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2018/12/flashback-media-silence-after-obama-fires-general-mattis-without-even-a-call/ Sunday, in a series of Tweets, Trump pointed out that Obama fired Matthis and that he, Trump, gave the general a second chance. Also, that any other president bringing troops home would be cheered by the media -- but not him. Also very TRUE.

There are those less tactful who point out Mattis had his faults, too, especially that disaster, the F-35 and his "slow-walking" the removal of sex-change people from the military: https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2018/12/mattis_was_no_good.html The "No Dood" title is a disaster but the essay is quite enlightening. One has to remember something I've been seeing in a lot of comments, that for an individual to reach high rank in the U.S. military, one has to kowtow to the Democrats. Again, incredibly, this is also reflected in the U.S. military in the pre-Civil War years. Robert E. Lee, a staff officer in the Mexican War (a very Democrat war, btw) ended up commandant of West Point whereas U.S. Grant, who performed heroically under fire in that war, was forced out of the army. Jefferson Davis, president of the traitorous Confederacy, had graduated from West Point, served in the Mexican War, and been Secretary of the Army at one point, 1853 to 1857, just before the Civil War erupted!

Some things just never change.

His advice wasn't always correct:
Funny that the liberal media did not mention that Mattis warned Trump of security concerns if he moved the US Embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem as he promised.
Mattis was wrong and Trump was right.


That "Mattis is no good" article also clued me in to something I had entirely missed: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2018-12-19/bankruptcy-on-the-table-as-boy-scouts-confront-sex-abuse-claims

Wow. How stupid are modern people? I remember it widely commented on at the time that "mainstreaming" homosexuality in the Scouts would lead to precisely this. It has! Absolutely, totally, completely. unmitigatedly insane. Of course, apparently most of the abuse occurred before making "Gay Okay" in the Scouts. So if they couldn't control this before, how are they going to control it after?

It's as stupid as two European women "hiking" in Morocco, in fact.

This New Year's, I just despair of "Modernism", in all its forms, ecclesiastical, civil, moral, whatever. No doubt Modernism/Political Correctness cost the lives lives of those two young women. They didn't want to be 'judgmental'. It is flooding Europe with angry young Muslim males of military age. It's wrecking the Catholic Church, too, of course.
and
The "problem" of the Vatican II Church will be solved by law enforcement -- arresting its leaders and liquidating its assets.

Here's a profound, and desolating article about the current state of the Church: https://www.theamericanconservative.com/dreher/christmas-cracked-temple-armenian-genocide/
An excerpt:
Every week on this blog, somebody in a comments thread writes about the mass falling away from the Catholic faith that they’re seeing in their family or community. At the very beginning of the scandal, my wife and I were in the Netherlands, one of Europe’s most secular countries, and met a family at mass. They were the only others there besides us who didn’t have grey heads. We introduced ourselves, and found ourselves invited to dinner.
Turns out the father of the family was one of 11 kids in his family — and the only one left still practicing the Catholic faith in which they were raised. Can you imagine that? The Catholic faith had been handed down through that family’s line over many centuries, but in a single generation, it died (except for our host and his wife and kids). Those siblings and their children still live, but they are lost to the faith — and depending on God’s mercy, perhaps lost to eternity.

In general, Modernism's understanding of Man and its reading of "the signs of the times" are incredibly defective. For example:

General Mattis, in his resignation letter, noted: " It is clear that China and Russia, for example, want to shape a world consistent with their authoritarian model gaining veto authority over other nations’ economic, diplomatic, and security decisions to promote their own interests at the expense of their neighbors, America and our allies."

Well, yes, Gen'ral. That's true. Every bit of it. They want a "world consistent with their authoritarian model" and so has just about EVERY GOVERNMENT IN WORLD HISTORY. Dar Crom! Why should Russia and China be different? And we, here in the U.S. and Europe, also submit to the authoritarians among us, whether the Globalists and "Neo-Conservatives" or the university campus thought police. (The notorious "Gaystapo" is a force unto itself.) Looking at the the social, political and cultural trends in "The West" as 2019 dawns, one can easily say the indicators are clear: "liberal" western-style governance is on the ropes and will probably succumb to some sort of Authoritarianism. Authoritarianism certain already reigns on U.S. university campuses, throughout the Arts, and in the Democrats, so....

Gen'ral Mattis, you yourself are part of this Modernist matrix in flux.

It's an old story. The Athenians wanted democracy for themselves but wouldn't tolerate it in subject city states of their short-lived empire. Same with the Spartans. Same with the Romans and hyper-true of Ancient Persia and all the rest. China, for all the high IQ of the Chinese, has never, ever in its fabulous 5,000-year history ever produced anything remotely like Periclean Athens or Republican Rome, let alone the Republic of Venice, Florence in its heyday, or for that matter, Switzerland. If China does take over the world, it won't be fun.
and
Cyberspace is considered the fifth strategic domain of warfare, along with land, sea, air, and space. And the Chinese are on the verge of dominating this domain. The Chinese government is heavily investing in 5G networks and significant state subsidiesare part of the communist regime’s comprehensive industrial blueprint to beat competition and cement global dominance in the 5G race.
Declan Ganley, an Irish telecommunications entrepreneur and founder of Rivada Networks, likens China’s threat to Pearl Harbor. Seventy-seven years ago, the Japanese attacked the U.S. naval base at Pearl Harbor in Hawaii, drawing the United States into World War II.
“We’re at one of those moments in history where you need to know what’s right in front of you,” Ganley said.

Consider:
  • Medieval Italian city states, exiling Dante and endlessly fighting each other, were freer than our "cultural elites" are today. Dante was light-years freer than any modern poet or playwright who wants his works to see the light of day. So was Aristophanes. Only, perhaps, Will Shagspeare (as he spelled it) might sympathize with a modern playwright, as he had to walk a tightrope when writing his plays in murderous Elizabethan England.
  • Mattis concluded that paragraph up above with, "That is why we must use all the tools of American power to provide for the common defense." Whoa, Gen'ral, whoa!! Europe is about as rich as the U.S., or would be if they adopted better economic and civil polices. Brazil could be one of the major players in the world scene if they, too, adopted better economic and civil policies, which under their new president, they might -- and as for China, Japan and India between them have the potential to stand up to China. And Russia. If they truly side with the Chinese, they'll be signing their death warrant -- for it was from the East that total obliteration came to the Rus in the form of the Mongol Hordes. China could take Siberia tomorrow if they wanted to. Russia couldn't stop them except with nukes.
  • And today's China has to be one of the most unstable social and cultural powerkegs in all of wold history. Literally 100s of millions of young men without any hope whatsoever of finding wives? Barking mad.

And as for Syria -- a hellhole largely created by Obama's feckless polices -- Saudi Arabia is already stepping up to the task: https://theconservativetreehouse.com/2018/12/21/checkmate-saudi-crown-prince-mbs-sends-replacement-troops-to-defend-kurds-in-syria/#more-158042
Saudi Arabia!
An excerpt:
Now let’s consider the brilliance of this move.
First, remember Turkish President Recep Erdogan was the antagonist in the Kashoggi matter and Erdogan orchestrated the blame toward Saudi Crown Prince MbS. There is no better motivated mid-east ally to protect the Kurds against any military action by Turkey other than MbS. No doubt MbS and UAE will send their best forces.
Secondly, what military equipment will MbS and the UAE be shipping along with their military troops? Those would be military purchases directly from the U.S.
Third, who stood up against international pressure and refused to condemn MbS over the Kashoggi matter? That would be a strategic U.S. President Trump. MbS owes a favor; see how that works?
Fourth, what leverage does U.S President Trump have toward Turkey in order to further facilitate no hostile action? That would be the economic leverage of current sanctions against Iran; and the option of controlling/punishing any economic engagement therein.
So to summarize: President Trump withdraws U.S. troops from Syria, and leverages his relationship with MbS to step up to replace them, thereby eliminating any concern that Turkey might take hostile action toward our Kurdish allies in Northern Syria.
Our troops come home; and a stable transition is ensured by a regional ally.
How do you like them apples !

Interesting take on it, and I hope it works out. Lovely Machiavellian maneuver-counter maneuver. Talleyrand and Richelieu (and Bismarck and Disraeli and...) would be fascinated. From before the murder of Kashoggi on to the latest development, all this really is a complex play between Qatar and the Saudis, their fellow Salafis. N.B. Only Bahrain is a majority Shia country on the Arab side of the Persian Gulf -- it used to be a center of Nestorian Christianity, and in general, where you find Shia, they were originally Nestorians. 70 percent are Shia in Bahrain but the ruling family and most of the elites are Sunni. However, Shia even exist (20 percent) in Saudi Arabia in different areas, mostly in the eastern oil provinces but in interesting pockets in the Hijaz down to Yemen, and the whole story is quite fascinating for a historian -- but of course I shamelessly digress here.

  • Anyway, no Mideast policy will have much success until Erdogan is overthrown (and thrown out of) Turkey, or Turkey is thrown out of NATO, A, and B, the Twelver Shia (Ithnā'ashariyyah) cult regime in Iran is overthrown, and let's not forget C: an independent Kurdistan. "The Three Necessaries." Simple as that.
The Unhappy Fate of Islam
As for Islam in the longer term, sooner or later, they'll be nuked. I've said that for years. (For years I've said Bergoglio will be declared an anti-pope, too; it'll happen probably after he dies and a pope of a Trad Church in schism with the Progressive Church will so declare it -- the Prog Church will be to busy at their gay orgies to notice). But sooner or later, some power with nukes will do the deed regarding Islam. I expect China. The Middle Kingdom doesn't suffer fools gladly and they've never been Christian and persecute Christians shamelessly today. The "Chi-com" regime is pitiless. Ming the Merciless in a highly tailored three-piece ensemble. But it will happen. Islam is just too dangerous for the world. Authoritarian regimes envy and fear it and will eventually crush it.

  • There's an old saying that "You can't kill an idea" but you can; as the counter-saying puts it: "You can kill an idea if you kill everyone who holds it."

Whatever.

Gen'ral Mattis, Nine out of ten Americans -- average, everyday folks -- don't give a damn about the rest of the world and Trump's disengagement (to the extent he does that) will NOT cost him any votes. Building the wall will not cost him any either. And how in the name of God can we "defend freedom" in Afghanistan when we can't even defend our own borders? https://www.nytimes.com/2018/12/21/us/politics/supreme-court-asylum-trump.html Notice how John Roberts voted with the Leftists. That was widely foreseen in the blogs, that Roberts would become the "swing vote". Something else we can thank a Bush president for. (BTW, I saw a headline that former Democrat Big Cheese Howard Dean says now that the U.S. has to stay in Afghanistan in order to "spread feminism." I'm not making that up!)

So, this is a small take the world. New Year's, 2019.


An Préachán

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