Friends, we all know how the Left loves diversity...by which it means ABSOLUTE CONFORMITY to its agenda of, among other things, promoting discrimination based on gender, race, ethnicity, religion, sexual orientation, etc. One of the tools that leftists in higher ed are using to achieve this level of conformity is the requirement that new hires and/or long-time employees take oaths or write essays to demonstrate their love for "diversity, equity, and inclusion". In other words, academic employees are expected to show enthusiasm for the DEI agenda, to subscribe to its underlying neo-Marxist philosophy, and to become leaders in the movement to actualize its theories. Check out this very interesting article on the phenomenon by a friend of mine, as well as an actual "DEI rubric" from Cal-Berkeley. The rubric comes very close to mandating that academics commit to discriminating against people of certain backgrounds -- in other words, it assumes that anyone who intends to treat people the same, regardless of race, gender, and what not, is a DEI dunderhead who has no place in the academy. I hasten to add that giving people preferential, or inferior, treatment based on the demographic categories they belong to is illegal. According to leftists, however, it is also a moral imperative.
In other news, as I discussed yesterday, the rapid accession of Finland and Sweden into NATO is a potentially game-changing development for European and world security. One consequence of Ukraine's humiliation at the hands of Russia in 2014 was clearly a massive increase in Ukraine's commitment to modernizing and strengthening its military forces. Could that be a consequence of Russia's humbling in 2022 as well? Could Russia become, in other words, the grave threat that we now only claim it is? I would be shocked if Russia didn't undertake concerted efforts to strengthen its air and land forces, starting now. Of course, NATO countries are allegedly doing the same. Will they follow through? Does any of this even matter, given the unwillingness of NATO and Russia to contemplate war against a nuclear power?
https://www.npr.org/2022/05/12/1098456961/finland-leaders-seek-nato-membership
https://www.newsmax.com/world/globaltalk/nato-finland-sweden/2022/05/12/id/1069543/
When you stop listening to all the white noise generated by the talking heads, in many ways the 2022 election comes down to one overriding issue: the declining purchasing power of the typical American family. When inflation tops wage increases, as it is doing every single month, Americans feel poorer, because they are! Biden's only chance of avoiding political accountability is therefore to shift the blame for this depressing development to someone else.
https://www.foxbusiness.com/money/inflation-erode-american-wages-april-2022
Need more evidence that inflation is the top concern for U.S. voters? Take a gander at this poll. The top three issues -- inflation, crime, and illegal immigration -- are, in fact, all matters that are likely to help Republicans and hurt Democrats. Note that "insurrections" aren't a top concern for anyone, except the pundits, of course.
Finally, as I alluded to earlier, Biden's only chance to is change the subject -- to get Americans to focus on an evil greater than Democratic misgovernance. "It's Putin's fault" might seem like a promising line of attack, since seemingly no one likes Putin, but the believability of that gem, if one is focused on, say, inflation, crime, or the U.S. border, is questionable. That leaves Sleepy Joe with only one hope: Trump! If the 2022 election can be Trumpified, and if the Trump haters can be motivated to turn out one more time to vent their rage at Orange-Man-Bad, then maybe, just maybe, the Dems can avoid an electoral apocalypse. That's a big "if", of course, but ask yourself this: why is the ACLU suddenly pushing for Trump to be allowed back on Twitter? The answer may be that quite a few leftists see an upside in increasing the visibility of a man who they perceive to be toxic and offputting. In other words, in an ironic twist, the Dems are looking to Trump to save their bacon this fall. Can he do it? Will he? Stay tuned and find out!
https://www.newsweek.com/biden-ramps-trump-insults-midterms-prospects-democrats-1705925?piano_t=1
Dr.Waddy from Jack: We may have reached a critical moment, with danger analogous to that we lived through in 1962! Will Russia, in a bind similar to that Japan perceived in late 1941, risk all? Its demonstration of inferior conventional power in Ukraine must say to Russia that they cannot so yet confront a triumvirate of the tough Ukrainians,, Finns and Swedes. Yet the latter two bid fair to become Nato soon. Will the Rus endure this? If they choose not to; what then? Perhaps they will declare full conventional mobilization as a bid to give Nato pause? Perhaps they would immediately try to turn the Baltic into a Russian lake. That presents Nato with a hard, hard decision".Until they are in Nato, can we back them up? After all, Russia has never attacked Nato, even when we gloried in jerking their chains in a fantastically reunited Germany and in their Warsaw Pact shield." The Baltic could be a naval graveyard for Nato due to the proximity of Russian ship killing land based power. What? Would we attack Russia itself? This is getting really dicey. Maybe the Rus will back down, lick their wounds and turn Russia itself into a garrison state against further Nato encursion(lets face it, the Rus DO have good reason) But if they see NOW as a once only turning point, well, fasten your seatbelts. You have made plausible points, historically supportable, about the ineffectiveness of the Russian soldiery. But dang, there are so very many of them!
ReplyDeleteDr. Waddy from Jack: It is abundently apparent that Gov Hochul is very much leftist. Should she be advancing a sham, hoping with election to revert to common se
ReplyDeleteDr.Waddy from Jack: to continue, ad nauseum; " common sense, we have seen no signal thereof. So we must assume this Governor promises us no relief from state backed radical presumption!
ReplyDeleteDr.Waddy from Jack: Well, now of course pore ol' Pino Joe(President in name only Joe) has what he thinks is a sure winner! "Rise up America against those Maga fiends who would defend unborn children by daring to prevent unfettered convenient butchering of, well yes, unborn children!Why this insolent prevention of such a sainted right is. . . why. . .the very incarnation and hellish imposition of essential evil on us all!. Inflation, crime, a counterintuitively(oops, forget I gaffed that) open border. Pish tosh; they are less than nothing compared to the comprehensive return to 1859 purposed by the Maga infested ehh, 'real' America which we all surely love to hate, yes!!??"
ReplyDeleteDr. Waddy from Jack: If the dems are looking to their visceral bete noire, President Trump, for some succor, however unintended by him,then they are pitiful, though lets not waste the virtue of pity on them just yet.
ReplyDeleteDr.Waddy from Jack: A person whose informed opinion I much respect suggested to me: "Russia is going to be militarily defeated in Ukraine; Sweden ,Finland and yes Ukraine, will join Nato and Russia will have to suck it up." Nuclear escalation may not afford the Rus any advantage. They may well regroup though, eventually, if they can avoid interior collapse even unto dissolution and civil war.Sweden and Finland are as much as IN Nato now, sans any ceremonial symbolism. Turkish opposition to their formal esconsement, though creditable, will probably prompt Nato " assurances" to the Turks for their Kurdish concerns. After all, what could have prompted Turkish membership in Nato other than the existential threat of the bear even if that may be, temporarily, alleviated?
ReplyDeleteJack, true -- there USED to be a whole lot of Russian grunts ready and (minimally) willing to crush the near abroad (and not-so-near) underfoot. These days, though, they seem to have trouble scraping together 100,000 combat-ready men to fight in Ukraine. I would highly, highly doubt that they have the manpower to contemplate messing with Finland or Sweden...but give them a year or two and they could have ten million men under arms, if they really wanted to.
ReplyDeleteI guess Hochul might be a "moderate" some of the time, but probably not in the eyes of very many fetuses!
This "MAGA" business really wears thin and when you get to an issue like abortion. Abortion was never one of the key drivers of support for Trump, although he did say the right things, as far as most pro-lifers were concerned. In fact, the abortion issue isn't all that partisan or ideological. There are MANY Dems who aren't pro-abortion extremists. The Dems have been mocking and insulting them for several generations now. Maybe someday they'll take offense?
I doubt that Russia will "lose" in Ukraine. I also doubt that Ukraine will join NATO. Russia may be perceived as a loser in the present conflict, all the same, and that, I trust, will cause the Russians to circle the wagons, as only Russians can. As for Finland and Sweden, my guess is that Russia would use the tactics of economic warfare, destabilization/disinformation, espionage/sabotage, and the like. You can't escape the conclusion, though, that, if Russian foreign policy has been designed since 1999 to inhibit the growth of NATO or the strengthening of Russia's potential enemies, it's been a gigantic failure.
Dr.Waddy from Jack: So far it seems almost unimaginably true. But believe me, we Cold War vets have seen so much, since '89, of that timbre.
ReplyDelete