Friends, this week's Newsmaker Show is Grade A analysis, as always! Of course Brian and I break down the unrest in America's cities, and I lay the blame right where it belongs: with the leftist politicians and journalists who have been whipping up reverse racism and hatred of the police for decades. So many Americans have been hoodwinked by leftist/Marxist delusions and genuinely believe that they live in an oppressive police state. Now we're reaping the whirlwind of those delusions.
In "This Day in History", Brian and I cover the marriage of the Duke of Windsor in 1937 and the sacrifices that royals have to make to fulfill their public duties; the first American spacewalk in 1965 and its connection to the first private sector human spaceflight last Saturday; the Chicoms' crackdown at Tiananmen Square in 1989 and how little it affected U.S. policy towards the PRC; and the fate of Paris in WWII.
You won't want to miss a single second!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h5fI0LtxNQU&feature=youtu.be
Dr. Waddy: So very much of substance to discuss here - thank you.
ReplyDeleteLast things first: I lived an avid witness to the space race from 1957's Sputnik on. We were appalled when the Russians, several times, preempted us and it did generate some plausible national security concerns and also fear that the world would see the tyrannical Soviet Union as redeemed and accredited. The Cosmonauts are to celebrated, yes, for their gutsy forays into space on crude platforms. But by 1969 we were clearly ahead and our less adventurous strategy was redeemed.
Our first space walk is a poignant memory; Ed White, one helluva man, one who some think might have been the first man to step on the moon had he survived the Apollo fire, had a dicey time out there and his courage was exemplary and redeeming.
I fully agree with you that the advent of private enterprise into the heart of our space program promises great results. It has built the most humane, rewarding economy ever and it will surely keep us in the midst of the renaissance of manned space travel which is at hand!
Dr. Waddy: Police reform (but not criminal reform) that is the hue and cry! Foolish reactionary Biden promises immediate action to disarm the police.
ReplyDeleteYou are entirely right that the concept of widespread racially motivated police brutality is a myth. From 20 years experience, I KNOW it is. You are correct in maintaining that today's police are the best trained ever and I can affirm that that includes much assurance that "racism" on duty will be dealt with summarily and without tolerance. Most of the police are regular people who value their fairly well paid work and benefits. And they have many minority colleagues who of course share those advantages and very often, their mutual respect for their professionalism. And I KNOW for sure that blatantly race hostile personnel in police and corrections are widely avoided in their profession as being "big trouble".
Who benefits from disempowerment of the police? Why, criminals of course (I mean, does this verity need further support? C'mon!) and thugs are very obviously deeply involved in the present disorder. Then there are those of good will who sincerely believe the police to be condemned; they are tragically mistaken. Their outrage at the crime committed in Minneapolis is understandable and creditable but their alliance with an American left determined to disingenuously use this crisis, in concert with the amoral, cynical and often sociopathic criminal element so evident now in its celebration of this chaos, is tragically wrongheaded. Their perception of the police as fundamentally unjust is profoundly mistaken and its realization would be anarchic and then productive of a new police of consummate leftist totalitarianism as many times proven in the 20th century.
Dr. Waddy: I do have misgivings about public union excess but I laud our State Police Union for standing up to leftist police hating Cuomo. He is skillful in communicating agreement by refraining from criticism. He bids the State Police force preserve order but refuses them his unwavering support.I think the NY State Police to be the most professionally sound police I have seen and Cuomo's disingenuous orders to them, paired with condemnation by very faint praise, is typical leftist dissembling. Luckily, the officers are organized and motivated to resist his misuse and may they prosper and promote the reality of our Governor as one contemptuous of any in "his" state who oppose him!
ReplyDeleteDr. Waddy: Why, of course the left is essentially, fundamentally VIOLENT; corporally, legally, governmentally, argumentatively. extragovernmentally and yes, consummately when in power. Politically correct disdain is their weapon now in the U.S. but they but wait the opportunity to employ far more decisive means of forcing their views on the unwashed.
ReplyDeleteDr. Waddy: Tienanmen I know we have discussed this in a mutually courteous manner before but here I go again but to engage with you in discussion of this issue.
ReplyDeleteThe Chinese Communist party circa 1989 was not monolithic. After Mao's death the relatively sane within it had beaten back an effort by radicals led by Madame Mao to continue the madness. That insanity was exemplified by the Mao provoked '60's "Cultural Revolution" which savaged, even unto death and surely to profound disgrace, many of the stalwarts of the Communist cause in the '30's. Most notable was their survival of the "Long March", the ordeal of which is almost incredible. Teng Hsiao Ping,a survivor of that epic event, was done to most terrible abuse by Mao incensed radical youngsters in the '60's. But by 1989 he was charge and, also being the son of a culture which deeply respects age and experience, was determined not to allow young punks to prevail again. He gave them some latitude, some chance to back off but when they seemed intransigent, he took action. We may recoil from the thought of it but the Chinese historical experience is beyond our ken.
Communism in China is dead.China could not have reached the economic prominence it has reached (to the benefit of its long suffering people) without such a rejection. I'm glad we did not interfere.We are a nation based on economic competition and we can benefit from a relationship with the Chinese giant. Even if they threaten us, we have the power to defeat it.
Dr. Waddy: Newsweek's characterization of George HW Bush as a wimp reflects badly only on them. Not one of those vacuous and disdainful "journalists" could have comprehended Bush's experience and visceral courage. He probably learned very much in his China Ambassadorship and had the guts to use it. Newsweek indeed; let's see those wimps parachute out of a plane in Japanese infested waters!
ReplyDeleteYes: hats off to the cosmonauts! It takes guts to get in a Russian-built car. It takes epic courage to get in a Russian spacecraft!
ReplyDeleteJack, you are so right that the widespread disinformation about the police, and thus the widespread disdain for law enforcement, is a huge tragedy for our country, and for no one more than for the people who live in poor, crime-ridden neighborhoods. The police are their greatest allies in the fight to make their lives livable...and sadly the voices of hate and fear are determined to drive a wedge between the American people and the "thin blue line". You would think, as the police become steadily more "woke" (and steadily less white!), that the Left would see the police in a more positive light. But that would require the Left to give up one of its cherished bugaboos: the "police state". It will never happen.
Jack, I personally don't care either way about the suppression of the pro-democracy demonstrators in China. That's China's business. It was in 1989, and it remains so now. What I do mind is the fecklessness of US politicians and diplomats in their dealings with China, who have not stood up and demanded fair treatment for American exporters and American workers. Really, my problem is not with China at all. It is with American elitists who take China's side over ours.
HW certainly wasn't a wimp. Truthfully, though, he was a disappointment as President. Both he and his son were politically in very strong positions after the Gulf War and 9/11, respectively, and neither one used those opportunities very well, in my opinion. They even had the media on the run -- and acting patriotic for a change -- but they let them wriggle free and return to their calumnies.
Dr. Waddy: Especially regretable for Bush I, a superb war leader and our country was his RINOesqe (read my lips) fall to, yeech! William Clinton. At least Bush II kept Jean Paul Kerrie' out of the White House.
ReplyDeleteMany of today's leftists embrace China because they think it their ideal. Their ignorance is manifest!. I'll mention it again: I recall a mindlessly Maoist fellow student in the revolutionary maelstrom of the Hudson Valley in 1972 stalking out on a Chinese Professor of Chinese history, one demonstrated to be empathetic to some Communist perceptions of China's needs, at that Professor's frank disabusement of many of his smoky delusions. That kid is probably an influential leftist now. Together with Russians and Cambodians, the Chinese are best able to bear consummately damning witness to Marxist evil.
I will give Dubya this, Jack: he appointed some excellent conservative judges and Supreme Court justices. Bush Sr. was unreliable in that sense.
ReplyDelete