Friends, this week's Newsmaker Show makes history, as per usual. Brian and I talk over the looming clash between Trump and DeSantis, and whether there's anything that can dent Trump's seemingly unstoppable momentum (emphasis on "seemingly"). We also discuss India's newfound status as the world's most populous country and what it means for the balance of power, the global problem with low fertility, the extraordinary resilience of the Dems' Duo of Dullards, Biden and Harris, Trump's potential preferences vis-a-vis his own running mate, as well as the deteriorating situation at the southern border and whether or not Joe Biden will ever pay a political price for it. When we get to This Day in History, we briefly analyze President Truman's dismissal of General Douglas MacArthur, and whether the West missed key opportunities to obliterate imperialistic communism.
https://wlea.net/newsmaker-may-3-2023-dr-nick-waddy/
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In other news, is Fox News selectively leaking material to try to discredit Tucker Carlson? It wouldn't come as a shock.
According to Donald Trump, Jr., Fox hasn't shown the slightest interest in talking to him in nine months. That's a rather interesting omission! It will be fascinating to see what sort of line Fox takes when Ron DeSantis joins the fray. Will Fox go all in for DeSantis? Right now they seem smitten with Haley and Scott, but perhaps their real preference is...anyone but DJT?
https://thehill.com/homenews/3984066-trump-jr-complains-fox-news/
Is it possible that Hunter Biden could actually face indictment for (some of) his various crimes? I tend to doubt it, but I guess miracles do happen!
https://www.newsmax.com/newsfront/charges-doj-hunter-biden/2023/05/03/id/1118448/
What's that "giant sucking sound", you ask? It's thousands of people, especially the well-off, leaving expensive, high-tax blue states for greener pastures in the Sun Belt. And who can blame them???
https://www.cnbc.com/2023/05/02/new-york-california-lose-billions-in-income-to-low-tax-states.html
This is is an interesting perspective on trade. Do we need an "industrial policy" that encourages/subsidizes the manufacture of critical technologies in countries that we (hope we) can trust? There's an argument here that merits our consideration, even if we conservatives hate government intervention in the free market.
Finally, this is a warning that all conservatives need to heed. Youngsters nowadays are shockingly leftist, socialist, and woke. The youngest of our American whippersnappers are so bonkers for Bolshevism that you really have to wonder whether the damage that the progressives have already done to the rising generation could ever be undone...
https://amgreatness.com/2023/05/02/the-gop-has-a-gen-z-problem/
Dr.Waddy from Jack: Re: the broadcast: very perceptive of you to note how the doubling of the commie horde with the fall of China made our new policy of containment of the Soviets appear exceedingly more difficult. That bespeaks a history pro at work.Communist rule was at that time seen as monolithic and had engulfed most of Eastern Europe too. And the Soviets had the bomb.But my wonderful former Nationalist officer Chinese history prof. admitted, in words to this effect, that Mao outrevolutionized Chiang. A group of American China scholars known as the China Lobby had warned of this but were castigated in the early '50s as procommunists(some of them were to some extent). One thing that may have bred American contempt for China was the poor performance of Chinese arms against the Japanese ( except of course for the Reds, who fought the Japanese well, despite continuing Nationalist attacks on them) which
ReplyDeletemight have made our support for Chiang half hearted.
Dr.Waddy fromJack: Imagine oneself living in post WWII America: "we won, no more crushing telegrams and gold stars in the window, no more dread of an invasion of Japan, no more rationing etc."Now its 1950:our atomic dominance didn't last long, now hellhound Stalin (no more "Uncle Joe" fantasy) had it and incredibly,we were back on the battlefield again. "Say what? Another damned world war? Uh uh, no way!!" Truman was a veteran of intense combat in WWI; he knew war and he was a down to earth guy.Could MacArthur's proposals for
ReplyDeletecarrying the Korean War into China precipitated another WW? Could have, its plausible. Stalin would have commanded from one of his dachas and poo pooed more millions of Rus dead. MacArthur was a very great General but that banty rooster in the WhiteHouse did right to reign him in.We had contained the Korean commies.
Dr.Waddy rom Jack: Patton was a superb battlefield commander but he was given to intemperate expressions. A suggestion of immediate engagement with the Red Army in '45, if he ever seriously said it, was of course impossible to ask of America. And by the way, what about the gravely wounded, incalculably savaged Russian people?
ReplyDeleteDr. Waddy from Jack: Germany in the '30s manifested intense hostility to Marxism and eventually launched the most massive concerted direct military assault on it. The consequence was unthinkably evil. It was already too late; the world had to wait for traditionalMarxism's astonishing implosion in the '80s, brought about(it seemed improbably) by American determination to contain the monster.Given the precipitate history of anarchism and radical socialism in the last third of the 19th century, would that Marx and Engels had fallen in front of a train!
ReplyDeleteDr.Waddy from Jack: Naturally the well off have the means to find homes in other states and I'm going to guess that though lower taxes are probably dominant incentives, they are also fed up with being
ReplyDeletetreated as pariahs in the sophomoric communes which blue states have become.The wealthy are most often productive and generous people whose enterprise creates economic opportunity and who pay prolific taxes. So they utilize legal ways to insolently pay less; more power to 'em.Enlightened self seeking guarantees prosperity. It does not provide the equality of results so proven catastrophically demanded by leftist totalitarians who deny human nature even as far as to try to eradicate it.
The intentional and/or de facto Marxists running states like NY and CA, whose baleful doctrine reflexively mandates forced and artificial "equity" , view the highly constructive souls as ranging from cash cows to candidates for the tumbrels. And as always, the left's definition of excessive material well being is regularly ratcheted downward until it engulfs entire populations(excepting of course those individuals"more equal") The history of the left in power
shows that confiscation through taxation is just for openers. A test case of ever accelerating unrestrained leftist presumption and class hatred is evident in irrefutably one party NY state ,where common sense is as bucksnort to the urban downstaters who disdainfully prevail. "So we take away all your natural gas using devices when most other states don't. Whatcha gonna do about it anyway ?!So we'll build a bubble over NY to keep out the nasty effluents that flyover country wallows in. And you'll pay for it and like it. If you leave, good riddance;as lamented Prince Cuomo sniffed, you're not welcome in New Yawk anyway".
Dr. Waddy from Jack: What a great day to be a Brit! After seeing all that I have no fears for the vital continuation of the Monarchy. Rule Brittania! GOD SAVE THE KING!
ReplyDeleteDr.Waddy from Jack: I had hoped that with the departure of my generation that the cultural ills far too many (not all) of us casually and ungratefully forced on America since the '60s would gradually disappear. So far that appears not to be happening. The marxism seen in today's youth appears to be essential , reflexive and inherent.The 60s anger at our parents for "not telling us the terrible truth" about the country and generation which did after all defeat or contain three totalitarian monsters ,propelled many of my contemporaries to seek self righteous vindication from their cynical commie sages. So many of today's youth seem to take this tragically counterintuitive dreck simply for granted. It bodes much dysfunction to come barring some form of "great awakening".
ReplyDeleteJack, you may be right that our foreign policy and defense elite regarded the Chicoms (right after the war) as heroic, and the Nationalists as pathetic. Well, I say plenty of Nationalists died fighting the good fight too, and in any case far too much was at stake to let Mao (and Stalin) get a foothold in the world's most populous country. That was a dumb idea, even if it's generous to call it an "idea", since it was more the lack of one.
ReplyDeleteJack, the question would be: what EXACTLY did MacArthur want to do in China, and how, and when? And in what form did he propose it? I wouldn't jump to the conclusion that Truman was justified. What do we really know about the circumstances of his dismissal?
Hmm. What would the world be like today, if the Nazis had managed to smother Marxism in its Russian crib in 1941-42? Well, we might not have Marxism to worry about...but we probably would have some version of fascism still extant. But, according to the Dems, we already have that, and how! So maybe we'd be better off?
Jack, please note that states like California and New York, which claim to adore and aspire to "equity", have achieved nothing of the kind in terms of wealth or income distribution. Our bluest states are also, in many cases, our LEAST equal -- and that's not entirely accidental.
Yes, indeed -- the monarchy is alive and well. I only saw snippets, but it was rather depressing to see woke subtexts emerge, if not remotely surprising. I trust Charles will maintain his "momentum", such as it is, by remaining steadfastly bland, or, if he does ever pronounce on any vaguely controversial issue, it will be to tell leftists what they want to hear. Alas, he's a good man and a fine symbolic leader, but he's no solution to the existential crisis that British and Western Civilization face.
Jack, that the young are currently deluded is clear. But that their wokeism is "essential, reflexive, and inherent" is not, at least to me. Most young people are leftists merely because they are going with the flow. Some of them are strident. Most of them are ambivalent and apathetic. Bottom line: they show a marked tendency to acquiesce in leftism, and very little inclination to think critically or challenge their elders, but we can't rule out the possibility that they could see the light -- or that someone, somehow, could convince them that obedience and submission are not as "cool" as they presently seem to think.
Dr.Waddy fromJack: Re: I'm going to sit down with my copy ofManchester's American Caesar and I'll get back to you. I recall from various readings that MacArthur wanted to engage Chinese forces in China, at least in the air. Some sources say he wanted to use nuclear weapons, perhaps even on Chinese cities. But Idon't yet recall accountsof how he expressed his advocacy. He was an insufferable prig but he was supremely intelligent; on balance his generalship justfies comparisons to Napoleon or Grant although he spent lives with far more restraint than them. His stewardship of Japan was one of world historical ,immeasurable brilliance and humaneness.Took alot of sand for Truman to sack him. Perhaps MacA could have saved N. Korea from its subhuman domination by the porcine Kims but he could not have unseated the Chicoms.Mao was too tough a nut to crack. He meant it when he called the Abomb "a paper tiger".
ReplyDeleteDr.Waddy from Jack: Yeah, the left presumes to bandy the term fascism to describe any insolent opposition. They should read Shirer's Rise and Fall of the Third Reich, a book the reading of which can actually induce nausea!
ReplyDeleteDr.Waddy from Jack: I don't think the idea of letting Mao take China was anything other than irrelevant. There was no way we could have stopped him in China. He had learned through very bitter experience to base his revolution in China's historically essential and definitive rural areas.Before very recent extensive industrialization China's cities were most importantly agricultural market towns with vast green areas very close aboard due to the use of human excrement as fertilizer.Everybody knew rural life.He had survived almost unimaginably harrowing hardships of which most of America's leadership had little understanding. Re: Edgar Snow's Red Star over China. His sincere expressed disdain for nuclear weapons amounted to this: "Go ahead and nuke our cities; we'll survive and what good would your bomb be in our vast land,we are country folk". All that said: he was one of the worst monsters ever to have cursed humanity with savage imposition of a historically condemned screed on a long, long suffering populace.Would that he had croaked no later than1949
ReplyDeleteJack, I am very far from being an expert on Truman or MacArthur, but this Wikipedia entry offers a lot of important context. From my reading, it appears that Truman fired MacArthur mainly because he believed he was publicly undermining his policies -- not because he supported or undertook any specific rash action towards China.
ReplyDeleteAgain, I don't know much about Mao, but I'm inclined to reject your assessment that the power of the United States of America was irrelevant to Mao's conquest of power, or his ability to keep that power once he had it. Was Stalin irrelevant too? Sure, Mao was a skilled revolutionary leader and may have understood how the Chinese peasantry ticked, but that doesn't change the fact that the forces arrayed AGAINST communism in China must have been immense. I reject the idea that communist victory in China was inevitable.
Dr.Waddy from Jack: Your objections are plausible. I would guess that the specific undermining of Truman policy was that of limited war. But for two men who had experience with vital military discipline, undermining itself should have been mutually understood as intolerable, especially by an American officer toward the highest civilian authority.
ReplyDeleteDr.Waddy from Jack: Perhaps a mutual Nationalist- US onslaught on Mao would have driven the Reds back to the caves of northern Yenan province. Might also have divided China and fostered unending guerilla war.
ReplyDeleteDr.Waddy from Jack: In the event, Stalin supported Mao's China in the Korean War. But before that I don't know; have to do more reading. During most of the Chinese Red vs. Nationalist war Stalin had his hands full with the Nazis, the Finns, the Japanese and with allies who declined to satisfy his every whim.By the time the Rus and the Chicoms clashed along the Amur and Ussuri Rivers in the late '60s, Stalin was back in hell.
ReplyDeleteJack, I agree with you in this sense: a communist victory in the Chinese civil war was very likely, because Stalin was much more willing to expend resources to assert communist hegemony there, than we were to defend the imperfect Nationalist regime. I wonder if we ever contemplated a commitment like the Marshal Plan or NATO in China? And, if we didn't, was it because of contempt for the Nationalists, or could good, old-fashioned racism have been at the bottom of our thinking?
ReplyDeleteDr.Waddy from Jack: The "starving, hapless Chinese" image was one supported by an atypical period of Chinese dissolution from 1820 - 1949 which was all even most educated westerners knew.Chinese history reveals several periods of temporary chaos bracketed by high civilization.I would guess that China experts might agree that 1820-1990 was another such interlude, ended by a return of typical Chinese viability.
ReplyDeletety
Dr. Waddy from Jack: General Marshall , a great statesman, went to China in the late '40s to try to mediate. But he came back completely frustrated. I do not know what American aid he may have offered.e
ReplyDeleteapproximately the