Friends, this week's Newsmaker Show will knock your proverbial socks off. Brian and I consider Elon Musk's shocking move to take over (?) Twitter, and whether the tech billionaire can salvage the company's tarnished brand. We also discuss the twists and turns in the Russia-Ukraine conflict, the role of tactical nuclear weapons in modern war, the deteriorating situation at the U.S.-Mexico border, whether or not the "Biden crime family" now finds itself in serious legal/political jeopardy, and the significance of Viktor Orban's big win in Hungary.
It's a humdinger of a radio show, folks -- one not to be missed!
https://wlea.net/newsmaker-april-6-2022-dr-nick-waddy/
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In other news, I've said for a while that we ought to be focusing our attention on China as a strategic rival and as a rising, adversarial superpower. Instead, we're cultivating a neo-Cold War with Russia, which poses little long-term threat to us. That said, check out this article, which confirms that China is rapidly expanding its nuclear arsenal. Now, who do you think the Chinese might contemplate nuking? YOU -- that's who!!!
https://www.bloombergquint.com/politics/u-s-sees-rising-risk-in-breathtaking-china-nuclear-expansion
What does DNC Chairman Jamie Harrison think of Senator Tom Cotton, and of the Republican Party as a whole? He isn't shy about sharing his POV! The name-calling and the attempts to delegitimize the GOP as the opposition party are kicking into high gear right now, and presumably that's partly a reflection of the Dems' desperation as they confront the prospect of historic losses this fall. It's also a sign of the absolute contempt in which they hold those who dare to disagree with them, and I would hasten to add that the fidelity of people who think like this to the democratic process cannot be assumed.
Dr. Waddy from Jack: Oh gads, the longstanding American leftist murderous contempt for ANY expression contrary to its view, is long since established. We must freely assume it in all our actions! That is it is our fundamental enemy is certain!
ReplyDeleteJack, Marxists have long called for the obliteration of all dissent, it's true, but the American left, broadly speaking, seems to me to have had a marked devotion to the principles of free speech and freedom of conscience not so long ago. The shift more recently to vehement endorsement of censorship and ostracism reflects the Left's seizure of most of the reins of power, in my view. Tactically, they can afford to endorse authoritarian NOW, because they're the ones in authority. They're not dummies, these so called "liberals"...
ReplyDeleteDr.Waddy from Jack: Re: the broadcast: a most provacative dialogue! The border: I think our ever increasingly cataclysmic open border is the fully purposeful product of American far leftists in the thrall of whom Pino Biden reposes in 1965 Kumbayaa dreams of consummate good free of unintended (for him and his ilk) but realized catastrophe, to the advantage of the American left and to the destruction of the real America. I'm convinced of this: civil war (already joined) between those who think America to be fundamentally unjust and those who believe in our ON BALANCE historically redeemed, yes, impossibly perfect nation to be consummate!y just!
ReplyDeleteDr.Waddy from Jack:Consider this: to talk "Nazi" today is to invite an onslaught from all political sides. Rightfull so! Why not then the same withering, dismissive excoriation on on all who express outspoken or suggested Marxist convictions? Marxism in power has historically, thoroughly, demostrated its Marxist, proven sociopathic,subhuman , murderous
ReplyDeleteuuu INTENT! What more do be we of human nature need to disp
rove the left of its "scientific", so discredited motivations, to mandate a fully imagined perfect society? The very effort to realize this in the 20th century produced unspeakable injustice! ! ! !.oou
Dr. Waddy from Jack: Orban may have established a polity in which leftist dictate is summarily disdained. Ok: I think we must in our view of this try to envision what it was to be ruled by Marxist totalitarians! Can we? If it took domination of the perceptual organs of Hungarian society and polity to prevent a
ReplyDeleteneo Marxist revival (such as that Poland experienced) then it may have been well worth any measure! There can be NO aspect of Marxist rule which redeems it in any way as is fully comparable with its Nazi exemplar!
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Dr. Waddy from Jack: How much can we know about tactical nukes; they have never been used!
ReplyDeleteDr. Waddy from Jack: They might well have been used by the Rus on the Cuban invasion beaches in Oct. '62. In a crowded setting like that they might have been murderous. tImagine one used by the Boche at Omaha Beach. rBut I think very much more use is made of vertical envelopment now as opposed to surface borne amphibious operations.
ReplyDeleteDr. Waddy from Jack: In early post war tests,using nukes
ReplyDeleteof relatively low yield ( I would assume tactical nukes are similar) WWII ships showed surprising survivability. But then many of them were heavily armored; today's ships make far greater use of electronic defenses.
Dr.Waddy from Jack: On land? Who knows how effective they could be against spread out forces? My Uncle was in those (again relatively low yield) tests they did with troops entrenched within a few miles. He said they actually saw their trenches undulating but they survived, at least for then . He died of cancer in his '60s but said he would have been willing to do it again, even after the diagnosis. Imagine though, if tactical nukes had been used against that massive stalled column outside Kiev a few weeks ago!
ReplyDeleteDr. Waddy from Jack: If Russia was to use tactical nukes against Ukraine ,would Nato, the US alone or even another nuclear power give tactical nukes to Ukraine? If so what then? For own part I think it likely that Ukraine has nukes. How Ukraine, as TERRIBLY SAVAGED as it was by Russia in the 20th century(an obvious argument against Putin's,in some senses,plausible, assertion of Russian-Ukrainian affinity)); how could it trust ever nearby Russia enough to surrender all its supply of these fearsome weapons? Solzhenitsyn, a Russian , said that Stalin was condemned as much as by anything, by the pitiable uprising of Ukrainians in desperate alliance with the Nazis, to somehow throw off demonic Russian Stalin led tyranny and unthinkable sociopathy. No, I cannot believe they trusted the temporarily disabled Rus as much as to give up all their nukes. Present day apallingly sociopathic Rus behavior in Ukraine but affirms their apparently unchanged inhumanity. Throughout the 19th and the best part of the 20th centuries Russia was regarded as a somewhat European but perhaps yet atavistic Viking and Mongol horde! They may well be affirming that in their apparent gratuitous murerousness in Ukraine today, yes, TODAY!
ReplyDeleteJack, the purposeful and methodical dismantling of border security measures sure looks like an affirmative decision on the Dems' part. Of course, they can ALMOST get away with it, since they can count on their media allies to conceal the costs and suffering it engenders. Or maybe they CAN get away with it? A scary, but plausible, thought.
ReplyDeleteJack, I wouldn't deny that "Marxists" should stand condemned, but the problem is that almost none of our modern day Marxists admit publicly to being Marxists, or even admit it to themselves. It would be nice if we had a "Bolshie test" that could we could deploy that had the reliability of a COVID test -- actually, more relability than a COVID test, since those seem a little shaky. Couldn't you see every Democrat being forced to pee on a stick, and, if a red dot appears, well, you might just be a commie!
Jack, my take on Orban is: he shows what's possible when a nation's key institutions are taken out of the hands of Marxists and degenerates. There's not a doubt in my mind that, if our major institutions were simply pluralistic and open-minded (a goal far short of conservative domination), Donald Trump would have been reelected in a landslide. Alas, America is not Hungary.
Interesting ruminations on tactical nukes, Jack. Yes, they easily could have been used in Cuba -- against us -- with consequences that we can (happily) only guess at. True: tactical nukes are only useful against large masses of enemy forces. Would the Russians find good targets of this sort in Ukraine? I rather doubt it, unless vaporizing the holdouts in a place like Mariupol was their goal. No, I think if the Russians use nukes in Ukraine, it will be strategically, against big cities. It would be a desperation play, but one rather hard to answer. Does Ukraine have nukes? No one, and I mean NO ONE, seems to think so, and if no one KNOWS you have nukes, then what, pray tell, is the point of having them? No, I believe they were trusting/naive enough to dispense with their nukes. They may be regretting it now! Having said that, they probably wouldn't have much difficulty in building a small nuclear arsenal double-quick.
I see you believe all the allegations of atrocities against the Russians. I reserve judgement, but even assuming that hundreds of civilians have been summarily executed, I wouldn't necessarily further assume that that is an expression of state policy. This war is bound to get uglier and uglier, but it seems to me that -- by Russian standards -- the Russians have so far treated the Ukrainians with comparative mildness. I mean, compare the fate of Ukrainian civilians so far with, say, that of Syrians in their long-running civil war. As the Russians perceive that their (admittedly highly imperfect) efforts at restraint have been poopooed by the world as a whole, though, they may decide to go "all in" and attack civilians purposefully and on a much wider basis. I mean, if you're going to be called a "butcher", why not earn the distinction?
Dr.Waddy from Jack : I do think reservations about apparent proof of Russian depravity in Ukraine are plausible and creditable; perhaps a very well constructed PR campaign, combined with the "Russophobia" you have noted, which does at times defy objectivity, has yielded a distorted image ripe for presumptuous belief. Perhaps! Its hard for me, ignorant as I am of the capabilities of satellite photography, to credit satellite pictures discerning bound hands. But creditable photographic evidence and personal witness of summary Russian dispatch of Ukrainian captives is rife. Were some of them civilians engaging Russian troops? If captive that is anathema but it has always carried great risk in all wars for obvious reasons. I TEND to believe that the Russians have been unjustifiably "expeditious" but I do believe all objective factors are germane and not yet fully considered.
ReplyDeleteDr.Waddy from Jack: It is plausible that the Russians, perhaps seeing Ukrainians as yet fellow Slavs (a determination which in WWI, for Balkan Slavs, might have guaranteed the subsequent catastrophe) could be practicing a kind of restraint for ethnic fellows? Given the history of the 20th century, Ukraine may be from Missouri on that!
ReplyDeleteDr. Waddy from Jack: I maintain that Russia's only objective in Ukraine has to been toCERTAINLY eliminate any possibility of Ukraine in Nato and remains their sole objective. Perhaps they considered capture of Kiev to be fulfillment of that goal. They may well now have decided that, all things considered, conquest of Russian speaking Ukraine and a land bridge to the Crimea (yes, a historically demonstrated base for invasion of Russia even unto the Ottoman burning of Moscow) may be adequate fulfillment of their purpose and recompense for their economic, diplomatic and human costs. Most news reports I have read predict an imminent consummate Russian onslaught to that end. That ,perhaps minimizing the possibility of internal irregular threat and trifurcation of the Ukraine salient which does plausibly engage Russian concern, is I think, the present most creditable prospect.
ReplyDeleteDr. Waddy from Jack: You are right, my prediction of Ukrainian possession of nukes, tactical , or God forbid, strategic ,is completely speculative though, with full respect for your notation of its lack of objective support, still barely plausible. And I note you admit some possibility of Ukraine having them from other sources.If they have thermos, then goodbye Moscow if the Rus yet seek to engulf the entirety of Ukraine! But prior to that,tactical use by Ukraine? Who can say? It might have been a consequence of Russian investment of Kiev! And Ukraine MAY now have reconciled itself to the loss of the East. Perhaps, just perhaps, they may even grudgingly welcome it. We will see!
ReplyDeleteJack, I don't know who killed whom, or why, but I do know one thing: no one is even asking whether any Ukrainian has ever killed or manhandled or even said mean things to a Russian. War is messy, and when one confronts only one side of the atrocity ledger, one can easily spin a fairy tale about good and evil.
ReplyDeleteYes, I think it very plausible that the initial Russian impulse was to maintain the good will of ordinary Ukrainians by treating them mildly. It's equally plausible that, faced with bitter and effective resistance, the Russkies will grow more bloody-minded by the day.
Russia may well conquer Donbass, but I would question whether doing so secures any real security for Russia, especially since, in the meantime, the Western world has grown to despise Russia, and the Ukrainians have too. I would think a Ukraine that is mostly intact, and fully under the control of Zelensky and Co., would represent a very serious threat to Russian security, in the long term. That doesn't mean the Russians won't accept a compromise settlement, though. They may decide it's best to live to fight another day.
Jack, I think it unlikely that Ukraine has nukes, but, if they have them and Russia knows it, that would explain why the Russians are in full retreat in the north. The Russians may have calculated that Ukraine can afford to lose the east. It can't afford to lose its capital city. Again, I don't believe this explanation, but it's "barely plausible", as you say...
Dr. Waddy from Jack: Some historians believe that Boche atrocities in WWI (some of them perhaps exaggerated, though 20 years later the Germans showed themselves capable of all evil) stemmed from outrage at unexpected Belgian resistance. Japanese savagery toward Chinese wherever they found them probably was similarly motivated. I wonder how ethnic Russian Ukrainians have received the Rus and how they have fared at the hands of the invaders.
ReplyDeleteI wonder, too! Almost all wars show the same pattern: brutality escalates steadily as time goes on. However nasty the Russia-Ukraine conflict seems now, therefore, give it a few months and it will surely get much worse!
ReplyDelete