Friends, this week's Newsmaker Show breaks new ground. In particular, you won't want to miss our "This Day in History" segment, where I (seriously) entertain the notion that we might have gotten along better with those commie bastards (said with love) if only we made more effort to talk out our problems. Who knows -- a good bear hug might have worked wonders on Stalin! Okay, okay -- maybe not, but the fact is that many Russians fear us in the West, even to this day, and we need to do what we can to assuage their paranoia. It's in their interest, and ours too!
In addition to the estrangement between the U.S. and the U.S.S.R. in the early stages of the Cold War, Brian and I talk about the role of American air power in the Vietnam War, and the degree of corruption in U.S. politics. I argue that "corruption" is all in the eye of the beholder, and that much of it has been legalized in our political system, making it all the more pervasive.
When it comes to current events, Brian and I cover a lot of ground. We consider the vendetta that New York Attorney General Letitia James is pursuing against the Trump family, the growing list of countries that are abandoning COVID mandates and lockdowns, the political machinations surrounding Congressional redistricting, and the obscene bigotry of "President" Biden's approach to filling the latest vacancy on the Supreme Court.
Whoa! That's a lot of top-flight analysis in just one show. You'd be crazy NOT to listen in, don't you think? No? Well, who cares what YOU think -- you're crazy!!!
https://wlea.net/newsmaker-february-2-2022-dr-nick-waddy/
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And here's an article that addresses one of my key points in the Newsmaker interview: that we need to try harder to communicate constructively with Russia.
And, believe it or not, I side with Whoopi Goldberg, the world's least likeable person, on the issue of whether her recent suspension is justified. I mean, come on! We all know what she was trying to say, and she has a point, even if she somewhat overstated her case. Sure, Whoopi deserves to be fired, not suspended, but let's do it for the right reasons: because she's insufferable!
Dr.Waddy from Jack: Last things first: Stalin embracing a child! Thank you for posting it because it manifests INTENSE irony!I recall with almost unspeakable horror seeing a picture of a child, butchered and publicly offered for food, during Stalin's casual, ideologically "justified" imposition of famine on Ukrainian farmers to feed regions he thought more politically deserving. To see that hellish thing embrace a child is of indescribable terror that humanity can be, demonstrably, so VIOLATED! Your comment that in the late '40s and the '50s we might have benefitted from some degree of empathy for Russian and Chinese perceptions and intentions has merit. But, I think, a thoroughgoing sociopath like Stalin might well have interpreted such relative latitude as weakness. We were right to form Nato because without it that thing would have invaded Western Europe, especially after he larcenously acquired the H bomb. Mao? His son was killed by Americans in the Korean War and he was a monster but he did demonstrate willingness to tolerate his bete noire, President Nixon. And that eventually opened the door to the Chinese prosperity which is a good thing!
ReplyDeleteDr. Waddy from Jack: Biden openly promised a black woman as a Scotus candidate. What he did not promise, but which is certain, is that the candidate will also be a radical leftist. Are all black women by definition so oriented? Certainly not!
ReplyDeleteDr. Waddy from Jack: Present developments support the following views: NY AG James ongoing efforts against President Trump are purely political. Why she thought to present this as consistent with her effort against Dem Gov. Cuomo. But that effort was plainly intended to support her political ambitions, even unto the ultimate! I do not, from the effluent pool of NY politics, expect anything redeeming other than the discreditation of Andrew Cuomo.
ReplyDeleteDr. Waddy from Jack: That NY AG James seeks reelection to her august office confirms her total dismissive contempt for the millions of NY ers who disapprove of her onslaught, using their tax funds, on President Trump.It is of less than nothing to her! Take heed America! Resolve to deny her national office! Because of NYC and its many, many votes, we of good sense in NY state, cannot deny her.
ReplyDeleteOh, I totally agree about NATO, Jack. It was a necessity during the Cold War. Nowadays, I believe it does more harm than good. Russia pulled back from Eastern Europe long ago. We didn't pull back from anything. We pushed forward, closer to the Russian Bear. That was dumb.
ReplyDeleteWould Stalin have regarded dialogue as a sign of weakness? Maybe. I think it all depends on who was doing the talking. Case in point: Stalin scrupulously kept his promises to Hitler. He respected Hitler. He even respected von Ribbentrop! Maybe he would have done the same for...Eisenhower? Truman, I dunno.
Yes, Biden's pick will be a reliable vote for left-wing "jurisprudence". That we can rely on. Are there black female judges who toe a more centrist line? Probably. Black women, though, ARE the most loyal and leftist demographic, from Biden's perspective. It makes sense that he would want to placate them.
It'll be interesting to see what Letitia James's political future is. My guess is that stepping aside in the Governor's race will garner her some kind of reward, and the only reward I can think of that would be persuasive is...a Senate seat. I know: my spine is tingling too!
Ray: I don't care much about the cast of The View either. I do care about the principle of free speech, however, and the spreading cancer of cancel culture.
ReplyDeleteI see my comment on this was deleted. In any event, remarks about The Holocaust are inappropriate, period. I venture to say that this stupid woman knows NOTHING about the details of this mass murder that occurred in Europe 80 years ago. They should have fired her ass! Remarks like she made about The Holocaust are way out of order.
DeleteDr.Waddy from Jack: Good, good point about Stalin. I think it possible that the dark, perhaps close to catatonic, low he sank into after the Nazi invasion was due in part to this betrayal by a Hitler he honestly thought he had befriended. I do not suggest that he personally craved reechy Adolph's personal affection but he thought he had secured the benefits of nominal friendship . These may have been imagined by him to include : a moratorium on murderous Nazi anti Marxism, a free hand in territories he craved in Eastern Europe and time to identify and annihilate his largely imagined domestic enemies. Of course, obvious fear for his own sorry ass was a factor!Its often said "it takes one to know one". Perhaps as an essential sociopath he perceived the cruelty of which a sociopath even worse than him in dissembling, was capable! Did he fear for its effect on the Russian people? Well, maybe; it just may be that his fiendish measures during collectivization were justified in his measurelessly degraded mind, perhaps still distantly chastened by his Seminary experience, that he was doing good. Fear of hell may have haunted him and the description of his face at its moment of death, given in Robert Conquest's Stalin: Breaker of Nations, is of a face inhumanly distorted with fear of death and perhaps, of a vision of hell awaiting him!
ReplyDeleteDr. Waddy from Jack: How might this fevered mind have regarded Truman and demonstrated American power (eg. the Abomb, America's baby until 1949 -though knew his bomb was in process) and an America proven willing to use it. Much evidence is to be had in the Berlin Blockade, where Stalin EVENTUALLY backed down from his gamble on a pusillanimous post war America's resolve and in obvious USSR support for and participation in customarily Marxist N. Korea's onslaught on relatively human S.Korea. So much for Truman, who Stalin had met and perhaps presumptuously sized up.
ReplyDeleteHe met Ike too just after the victory at which he regaled a yawning Ike with an endless parade of Russian legions. Had he acquired the Hbomb he might have tested Eisenhower but Hell summoned him back to his real home! I doubt that Ike would have backed down . He had seen, in scenes of unimaginable horror, the corporal results ot 20th century technologically enabled sociopathic tyranny in the Nazi camps and the image seared him as it would any human being. He had to have known by then that Stalin's Russia afforded fully comparable abominations!
Dr.Waddy from Jack: In '89 everything was so unprecedented, unexpected and unimaginable that the West didn't know WHAT to expect! We chose to take advantage of Russia's temporary dissolution and reorganization to take understandably perceived advantage. And we got away with it! Against Russia, a very powerful nation! A miracle!OK so far; but Russia has recovered its resolve and is now determined not to tolerate incursions and offenses (Poland in Nato, Nato being a force Russia has always known better than to challenge) in UKRAINE it self? Ukraine?!
ReplyDeleteDr.Waddy from Jack: Having been closely involved in the projection of American air power into Vietnam, from the carrier I served on, this of special interest to me. We were often informed of how many trucks, armored vehicles and invaders our pilots had eradicated. Still, the sociopathic commies eventually triumphed, due to the efforts of the traitorous American left and its capture of far too much of my credible boomer generation
ReplyDeleteDr. Waddy from Jack: In STARK contrast, from the often brilliantly and politically courageously advanced Desert Storm assault: President Bush suffered for this from disdainful far leftists who bombarded his sleeping quarters with sleep destroying cacaphony!
ReplyDeleteDr.Waddy from Jack: Obviously American air power, sans, thank you from "American" challenge,prevailed! That is as is it should be!
ReplyDeleteDr. Waddy fromJack: American air power was terribly effective in Desert Storm. It rendered much of Iraq's ground force prostrate with shattered morale. A correction to my jabberwocky about Russia's renewed resolve not to tolerate Nato's eastward advance: ". . .(eg like Poland was). Russia has never attacked Nato but a prospectively Nato bound Ukraine? Russia will never countenance that!"
ReplyDeleteDr.Waddy from Jack: The American far left is terrified by the resiliency of President Trump. They know he has their number and doesn't give a tinker's damn about their attempted intimidation. He has reserves of fortitude perhaps unperceived before his rise by anyone.They know he is not scared of them and, much to the contrary, is probably more determined than ever, after their unrelenting, unprecedented, vicious ad hominem attack on him and his family since he dared to oppose them, to stymie them. "Anything goes" is their watchword in their desperate campaign to discredit and disempower him! NY's AG is a soldier in that fight, in her misuse of state taxpayer funds in directing purely partisan legal hazard at President Trump, an onslaught the far left sees as having existential consequences. Let the real America see this for what it is and vote accordingly this year and in 2024. Let the far left realize its worst nightmares, as it so richly deserves!
ReplyDeleteRay, I just don't see it the same way. Whoopi didn't deny the Holocaust or minimize it. She was just suggesting that it wasn't based on race. Well, that depends on what you mean by "race". Based on the ADL's recent definition of race, she would have been right!
ReplyDeleteWow! Jack, those are some interesting speculations on Stalin's mindset, but I would hazard the observation that an equally compelling explanation of Stalin's mien as he met his demise was...fear of death itself, or fear of physical helplessness in the hands of people who had every reason to despise him. As I understand it, he was, in a sense, left to wither and die without adequate medical care, so his visceral alarm might have been justified!
Now, I don't know how Stalin felt about Truman, but the evidence is pretty clear that he never took America lightly. He was crazy, but not stupid.
Did Ike loathe Stalin as he did Hitler? That I couldn't say, but I doubt it: he experienced Nazi barbarism firsthand. He never did so with respect to Stalinism. That's a big difference.
Jack, the perseverance of the Viet Cong and the NVA, DESPITE their horrendous losses to American air power and ground forces, is still astounding. Morale -- it goes a long way!
You know, I'm not surprised that the Left is seeking to prosecute DJT for...something, anything. That's to be expected. They should reflect, though, that endlessly poking the bear while consistently failing to neutralize him could be the worst of all possible worlds for them. I mean, he's got to be damn annoyed at this stage, but he's not even remotely hobbled. Lefties, are you listening?
Dr.Waddy from Jack: Oh they aren't listening. They hate Trump because he butted in on their expected pivotal moment of triumph in 2016. And he manifested no Rino equivocal and obsequious apology for his conviction that America does NOT need "fundamental transformation", especially on a Marxist model. Such insolent contradiction is unbearable for an emotionally unstable American left fanatically convinced of its own irrefutable justness. And this is manifested in their insane hatred for President Trump (oh yes, they presume the term "hate" as a reflexive automatic condemnation but disingenuously so, since they are suffused with true hate for any who doubt them!). It blinds them to the hazards they run in tasking a man as formidable as President Trump and his Trump nation!
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