Friends, I don't know Elie Mystal from Adam, but I must say I applaud his candor. He calls the U.S. Constitution "trash", since it was written by wicked slaveowners and such. He's speaking for a substantial segment of the Left, of course. He doesn't call for the Constitution's abolition, mind you. He merely suggests that we interpret it "in a way that makes sense for our modern world". In other words, we should ignore all the parts that leftists don't like! It may sound like an abomination of a judicial philosophy, but I'll bet you Ketanji Brown Jackson doesn't think so, and she's about to become a Justice of the Supreme Court. Yikes!
In other news, realizing that their control of the House and Senate is likely to slip away this November, Democrats are starting to build a firewall around their purple state Governors. There's method to their madness, too: they figure that Governors, plus Attorneys General and Secretaries of State, are in a position to adjust the terms of the 2024 presidential election in ways that will benefit the eventual Democratic candidate. They're right! Look what they accomplished in 2020...
https://www.politico.com/news/2022/03/06/democratic-party-priority-save-governors-00014364
Here's an olive branch offered by the government of Russia, should Ukraine wish to take it up. The Russians are describing the terms under which they would be willing to suspend their invasion of Ukraine. Basically, the core demand is that they want Ukraine to be permanently committed to neutrality, and thus they want the country to eliminate any possibility that it will ever seek membership in NATO. Since there are some signs that such an accommodation could be agreeable to Ukraine, I say: get it done! It's an open question, though, whether the Russians will insist on achieving some of their key military objectives first, like the storming of Kiev.
https://www.newsmax.com/headline/peskov-terms-russia-ukraine/2022/03/07/id/1059982/
Here's the best map I've seen so far of the progress of Russian forces in Ukraine. It hasn't exactly been the Blitzkrieg we expected, but it's also not a map that spells victory for Ukrainian forces. How much of Ukraine must Russia occupy before the Zelensky-ists cry uncle?
https://twitter.com/remilitari/status/1500503131049897985/photo/1
Mr. Mystal is a bit late on his evaluation of The Constitution of The United States of America. The America historian Charles A. Beard (died 1948) kicked this controversy off (in 1913 as I recall) with the publication of his "An Economic Interpretation of The Constitution".
ReplyDeleteLefties like Mystal usually don't engage their brains before opening their pie holes. They think they are the original inventors of "Attack The U.S. Constitution". Their real "constitution" is Marx's "Communist Manifesto" with a woke and cancel culture twist, flavored with large dollops of perversions of various sorts.
Time to congratulate our glorious leader President Biden and his team for initiating the new Cold War With Russia. The American people can now rejoice and have technicolor wet dreams knowing that inflation, rising prices at the pumps are no problem, nor is woke or cancel culture. Now we really have something to live for as we go forth united against the arch enemy Vlady Daddy Putin and his gang of demon possessed agents of Satan. I personally am so happy that we have regressed to a Cold War mentality that I could just shit. I have to go now, I am so overcome with emotion.
ReplyDeleteDr. Waddy from Jack: This is out of context but I have to comment: Cuomo, with unconqerable cheek, has reentered public life with a lugubrious denunciation of "cancel culture". 'Nuff said ,in more ways than one. Today Pino Biden banned Russian oil and warned of higher gas prices. Why, the hell you say!" . . . and I thank thee, . . .that not only givst me cause to wail but teachest me the way to lament the cause". What a shill this man is! We had achieved energy independence and he gave it away at the bidding of classically dreamy Bernie Sanders. The casually counterintuitive '60s have not finished their baleful influence, manifested in the persons of these two: the vindictively America hating always dissembling (in order to reassemble in most totalitarian fashion) Bernie and his pitiful presidential factotum!
ReplyDeleteDr. Waddy from Jack: Since Putin's fundamental purpose is to put an end to any, by definition, unendurable Ukraine membership in Nato, he might be open to a decree of neutrality. Medieval Princes often held hostages against nonperformance of agreements. So also, might Putin do with some Ukrainian territory. Powerful power politics are at work here; its inescapable.
ReplyDeleteSERIOUS BREAKING NEWS. Coke, Starbucks, and McDonald's are leaving Russia. My God! No! Ahhhhh!!!!! Shit!
ReplyDeleteMany years ago I read "Endless Enemies: The Making of an Unfriendly World" by the late Jonathan Kwitny (died 1998). Kwitny was an investigative journalist, and tended to the Left, but I always enjoyed reading his books, because he was honest. His premise in that book was that U.S. foreign policy promotes some sort of crisis and long lasting hostility most of the time in many places on the globe. Recent events of provoking the leader of another country to war is an excellent example of this. This is not always the case, but it certainly applies here, in my opinion.
ReplyDeleteThe only people who will profit (literally) from starting another Cold War (now in the making) is that a few elites will make a ton of money in the coming years, and the American public will be left holding the bag as usual.
Kwitny was right (no pun intended) about this, and is probably rolling over in his grave now.
Dr. Waddy from Jack: I think we can safely assume that prospective Justice Jackson will in office manifest consummate leftist bigotry and all standard woke principles, including a cavalier attitude toward the Constitution (except its shamefully construed protection of casual infanticide). How could it be otherwise? This must be the reason she was nominated. Thanx again to President Trump and Mitch McConnell that she will enter a deep, frustrated minority; may this powerless status soon extend to her enablers in Congress and the executive branch!
ReplyDeleteTrue, Ray -- Mystal isn't the first to criticize the U.S. Constitution, and he's right that it wasn't authored by God Himself, so it's fair, to a point, to subject it to critical analysis. My view, though, would be: like it or hate it, it IS the Constitution, and we ought to follow it, based on a strict constructionist/original intent framework, not on a post-modern, neo-Marxist, words-mean-whatever-we-want-them-to basis.
ReplyDeleteRay, you jest, but there is a certain charm in (re)embracing an us-versus-them Cold War mentality, despite the fact that we and they may not be as morally distinct as many would like to pretend. I must say, I'm heartened by all the articles I'm seeing questioning the suddenly-dominant pro-Ukrainian, anti-Russian party line. A lot of Americans are still thinking with their brains on Russia-Ukraine questions, and that gives me hope.
Jack: yeah, Biden sure did obliterate our energy independence in a hurry! He's fortunate that Putin came along to take some of the heat off him, too, although I doubt it will save his cronies in November. $5/gallon gas speaks for itself, and much louder than Jen Psaki!
Ray, it's depressing to see so many Western corporations hop on the bandwagon and excommunicate Russia from the Church of Capitalism. Be that as it may, the Russians may be better off without their lattes and their McNuggets. They'll need to stay fit if they're going to lick those plucky Ukrainians!
Ray, Kwitny had a point, and really it's a timeless one: almost all great powers throughout history thrive on conflict, or the ever-present danger of new and bigger conflicts. And, when general wars arise, they almost never serve the interests of common people. Some elites profit, and other elites are sidelined. War is properly understood as a sorting process by which various factions in the global elite decide who gets to live highest on the hog. That's my view.
Jack: yes! Thank heavens that the lefties are in the minority on SCOTUS. As we've said before, a "conservative" Supreme Court is bad enough. A progressive court would be our collective undoing.