Friends, file this one under "the truth is stranger than fiction". Kanye West, who is black (although the NAACP may revoke his blackness any day now), is praising Adolf Hitler, who was not black and didn't particularly like anyone who was. Now, Kanye is right that not everything Hitler said and did was bad, but how many brownie points is anyone going to earn by coming to Hitler's defense? Answer: not many. I'll give "Ye" credit, though -- he really knows how to stir the pot!
https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2022/12/01/kanye-west-praises-hitler-on-alex-jones-show-nazis/
In other news, as I predicted, the PRC is backing off on its "zero COVID" obsession, and none too soon if it wishes to keep its writhing multitudes in line. The bigger problem for the Chicoms is that their country's economy, which was been going gangbusters since the late 70s, may finally be hitting the skids. Ergo, their problems may be just beginning.
https://www.reuters.com/world/china/china-softens-tone-covid-severity-after-protests-2022-12-01/
The January 6th committee has had its fun trying to pin the dastardly "insurrection" on Trump and on Republicans in general, but now it appears that the House GOP is planning to turn the tables and put the committee itself under the microscope. Bully for them! The January 6th committee was a travesty from the start, and I'm sure many aspects of its behind-the-scenes machinations will be an embarrassment to the Democrats and to democracy itself, but did anyone on or around the committee break the law? Let's find out, shall we?
Finally, artificial intelligence is on the way, whether we like it or not. So too, one imagines, is the synthesis of human intelligence and computing. That is to say, sooner or later, people will have their brains hooked up to computers, which will enhance their memory, perception, and/or cognitive function. Polls say most people aren't thrilled about this prospect, but when you consider how many millions of Americans are more or less symbiotic with their smartphones already, I suspect our doubts will quickly fade. It's a brave new world, friends, and it's about to get a whole lot braver.
RAY TO NICK AND JACK
ReplyDeleteKanye needs a new image. I think an SS uniform is the solution. Ha!
Dr.Waddy from Jack: Praise of Hitler is depraved! The evil he wrought is beyond calculation or comprehension. Would that anyone who thinks the nazis or commies cute be made to witness but one instance of their subhuman savagery.They would WILT!
ReplyDeleteRAY TO JACK
DeleteAnd don't forget Stalin, who was the idol of American intellectuals for at least two decades. And now their favorite country is the PRC, and the memory of Mao. Both Mao and Stalin killed many more millions than Adolph could ever hope or dream to kill. YES! Praise of Hitler is depraved. However, whenever Stalin or Mao is mentioned for their crimes, the Lefties get a blank look on their sterile pedestrian faces.
Ray, Kanye is one step from getting an SS blood group tattoo on his arm, but I shouldn't give him any ideas -- tattoos are all the rage, after all. It will be interesting to see what trajectory his career follows from now on. In the short term, no doubt he's taking the express elevator to the PR basement, but could he make a comeback? I mean, he's black -- that's a plus...
ReplyDeleteRay is right: our outrage meters are strangely tuned these days, and the Left, as always, arrogates to itself the authority to decide which personages and ideas are "beyond the pale". Suffice it to say that dictatorship and mass murder don't actually mortify the Left -- conservatism mortifies the Left. Or, more broadly, dissent. We can bend over backwards to distinguish ourselves from Hitler and the Nazis all we like, but to the lefties we're all one big basket of deplorables. C'est la vie.
Dr.Waddy from Jack: A.I. Its unavoidable and it will bring perhaps unimaginable change. We can be certain it will have positive and negative consequences. Which will prevail? For medical advance it will no doubt bring spectacular progress and raise our standard of living yet again. But for those of totalitarian intent it may offer possibilities making the 20th century look like kindergarten
ReplyDeleteDr.Waddy, Ray, et al from Jack: An undeniable truth it is that Stalin and Mao were, unthinkably but surely, even worse than Hitler! I had a college acquaintance who had a picture of Stalin on his wall. He cannot have understood the immeasurable hellishness he was endorsing! It beggars all our senses and comprehension.
ReplyDeleteDr.Waddy from Jack: The present day american left would sniff, "well we wouldn't be like that ! "Well now, Hitler, Mao, Pol Pot, Fidel and Uncle Joe were actually also part of the human race at some time in their lives. The left bids us trust them not to be like those whose thought they emulate, in expression ,intent and increasingly totalitarian administration of power they already have in our country. Of course we would never afford neonazis any benefit of the doubt;the american left deserves the same degree of anathema. Why is it not getting it? Because of the disingenuous corruption of so many in the baby boom generation by marxists in university, unions and entertainment. The effect of the marxist traitors thrives, through their terribly naive boomer factoti and two consequent generations.
ReplyDeleteDr.Waddy from Jack: Many mega dittos on the disingenuous.Jan.6 tribunal. Let a grimly determined GOP.majority hoist this characteristic Pelosi dictated 1930s Soviet style entity on its own petard and let it experience to the full, this time richly deserved disempowerment. Let the GOP.leadership faithfully vigorously embody the outrage of the real America at leftist.arrogance, presumptuousness and willingness to usurp our Congress as a training ground for totalitarianism!
ReplyDeleteJack, A.I. in the hands of would-be totalitarians is indeed a scary thought. Who knows, though -- maybe artificially intelligent entities will have more common sense than we do, and maybe they'll tell the ruling elite where to stick it...
ReplyDeleteJack, at least we don't see many modern leftists endorsing or idolizing Stalin. Most have conveniently forgotten who he was.
One wonders whether the new Republican House majority has it in it to create a star chamber like the January 6th committee, and to exclude the Dems from it altogether. Part of me hopes not, because the precedent is atrocious. Then again, the precedent has been set, and there's an argument for fighting fire with fire. The problem is that such a gambit wouldn't work as well for us, because the media would castigate it daily, instead of amplifying it, as they did for Crazy Nancy. But is it worth a try? I dunno.
Dr.Waddy from Jack: Judging by the paucity of historical knowledge we find these many days, maybe Stalin is as obscure to the younger as El Cid.No matter, Kim Jong Un would keep them in fine fettle, I warrant.
ReplyDeleteJack, it always strikes me that most leftists are ignorant of and unconcerned about the intellectual origins of their own worldview, or the moral or metaphysical foundations on which it stands. For them, it all flows magically out of their own superiority, and that suffices.
ReplyDeleteDr.Waddy from Jack: That is what Marx bade them do without misgiving and right merrily do they, the lazy things!
ReplyDeleteJack, to me it's an open question what Marx would make of his present day adherents. I suspect quite a few of them would make the old coot retch...
ReplyDeleteDr. Waddy from Jack: Though the French Revolution could have been exemplary, it was perhaps unprecedented; it might not have given the pause that the incalculably harrowing experience of 1917 - , of his tidy ruminations in actual practice, might have lent his 19th century mind. Was he sociopathic? I'm confident that has been considered in an intellectually solid way and I'm going to look for it. I believe I read an account that he advocated the extermination of all Jews. It takes an exceedingly cold person to countenance the corporal evils proven essential to marxism in practice. Perhaps he was incapable of imagining the wrongs , eventually, he wrought.
ReplyDeleteAh, but, Jack, you assume that "Marxism in practice" has something to do with Marxism in theory. I guess it must, but it seems to me that modern Marxism is just an intellectualized excuse for more or less random hatred and meanness (and of course self-righteousness and the abuse of power). To put it another way, Marxism is just a costume that bloody-minded people wear. Marx may never have meant it as such. It hardly matters now.
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