Friends, this week's Newsmaker Show covers a ton of ground, as per usual. I will admit, however, that this week my analysis was only 98.5% awesome. That's because I've been feverishly exploring the beautiful country of Peru, and -- trust me -- being a tourist really takes it out of you. I was probably not at the top of my analytical game. Of course, even half a Waddy is worth ten or more ordinary commentators, so you'll still be honored and blessed to listen in to what I have to say...
In terms of current events, Brian and I cover: whether a true journalist can refuse to talk to newsmakers with whom they disagree ideologically, international and domestic migration and their long-term political impacts, the "uniparty" and interventionist foreign policy, the prospects for Mike Johnson's survival as House Speaker, the salience of January 6th in the upcoming presidential election, whether Donald Trump can get a fair trial in New York City (or anywhere else), and the significance of the recent Iranian attacks on the Israeli homeland.
In our segment on This Day in History, we ponder the refusal of former New York Governor Andrew Cuomo to disavow Christopher Columbus and Columbus Day, the strange misadventures of Columbus himself, and the incredible bravery and unprecedented effectiveness of "Solidarity" as an opposition movement in communist Poland.
https://wlea.net/newsmaker-april-17-2024-dr-nick-waddy/
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In other news, the impeachment of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas has died a quick death in the Senate, where Democrats, who control the chamber, dismissed the charges and refused to proceed with a trial. This naturally comes as no surprise. Expect many more (political) impeachments in the years to come, and many more (political) refusals to act on impeachments or to remove the relevant officials from their positions. These days, all you really need to know, on questions of impeachment, is: which party controls the House, which party controls the Senate, and whether the party in power in the Senate can muster a two-thirds majority. In the absence of that last condition, we can safely assume that more or less every federal official and officeholder will be able to keep his or her job and evade responsibility for even the most heinous of offenses.
Finally, the social and philosophical and even the spiritual implications of Elon Musk's "Neuralink" project demand our full attention. Like it or not, we appear to be entering a new phase in the history of humanity when the capacities of the brain will be enhanced by linking it directly to computers. In the short term, this can and will be a godsend for people with disabilities, and in the long term the hybridization of man and computer could change the nature of humanity itself -- possibly for the better, and possibly for the worse.
Dr. Waddy from Jack: Re your Newsmaker broadcast: lots to discuss! Can a progressive be open minded? Plenty of people of good will subscribe to left wing views such as the justice of affirmative action, legal right to abortion , control of carbon emissions and gun control and can make honorable and plausible argument in favor of these positions. They would not willingly support obvious totalitarians. BUT: they do appear to manifest the scorn for opposite views so viciously practiced by the radical left; they believe conservative views to be both mistaken and morally reprehensible. AND most alarming, they countenance office holders dedicated to the "fundamental transformation" of a US for which such radical change is unneeded and would be terribly destructive. Their "Democrat " party is a vehicle for those who embrace the most catastrophically discredited credo ever, that of Marxism. An "open mind" is not necessarily a virtue. Experience and accumulated understanding can creditably close one's mind to concepts one is convinced are utterly unacceptable. Activists are the prime movers of our politics and it would be impossible to be one without closing one's mind to some views. The antiamerican left smugly denounces a "close mindedness" of which they are blatantly exemplary and which they would enforce with dictatorial resolve should they acquire the power to do so. They have falsely persuaded many of their good willed supporters that they do not have such inhuman intentions.
ReplyDeleteDr. Waddy from Jack: My my, so the dems think that in DJTs case an alleged sexual affair is of decisive importance . But, but. . . they were the ones who castigated anyone who they say unjustly tasked Slick Willy for his adventures in that realm. "Why, that aspect of his life is nobody's business, haarrumph!"They did so of course disingenuously because they were fully aware that his travails were necessitated by his having disdainfully and perjuriously denied an American citizen a meaningful day in court when she courageously took him to law.
ReplyDeleteDr. Waddy from Jack: Your consideration of the probability of Texas eventually being subjugated by the dem horde raises appalling prospects. If we lose Texas I think we lose America.
ReplyDeleteDr. Waddy from Jack: Surely Italian Americans can find a better advocate than disgraced Andrew Cuomo and I'm sure many do. Also, it is unfortunate that some in that community consider Columbus worth celebrating. As the technology of Western Europe advanced, its discovery of America became inevitable. The brutality of the Western Civilization of the day and its inability to control infectious diseases guaranteed that the primitive inhabitants would be presumptuously and very badly used. Though it could not have been otherwise it is untoward ,I think, to celebrate its characteristically cruel progenitor. Even on his first voyage, Columbus reflexively noted the passivity of the Taino people he encountered and speculated in writing, for the benefit of powerful monarchs, their suitability for conquest and enslavement. He savaged and kidnapped terrified natives for transportation over an ocean and to a land which must have seemed hell on earth to those unfortunates. OK, it happened, its past and we are better people now but for God's sake, lets not celebrate this evil man. Leave the statues be, I say, they are an historical record but lets give up a holiday in his honor.
ReplyDeleteDr. Waddy from Jack: I can't think of a superlative adequate to describe the courage and resolve manifested by Lech Walesa and Solidarity with the sublime spiritual support of justly Sainted John Paul II. It was so astonishing to see the apparently unbreakable Soviet bloc defied in a manner seemingly certain to have ended in the historically proven inhuman manner which defined marxist regimes. For those of my early boomer generation, which had grown up convinced of Soviet and Chinese communism as profound existential threats to civilization, the internal dissolution of such massive oppression being the stuff of dreams, what the '80s manifested was almost beyond belief. For anyone interested in history it was compelling to live through such redeeming world history and to have lived at the same time as towering personalities like those who wrought this miracle and survived to see it done!
ReplyDeleteDr. Waddy from Jack: The loathing of DJT displayed even by otherwise decent people is visceral; it is to its proponents self evident. Anyone who has contended with leftists in the arena of ideas is very familiar with their easily aroused scorn for any opposing view and their obvious motivation by dominating and intensely bigoted emotion. It adds up to a reflexive fanaticism upon which they insouciantly and with full consciousness laud themselves. Their current and revealing antisemitic onslaught is also fundamentally exemplary of this execrable conviction on their part.
ReplyDeleteDr. Waddy from Jack: To revisit the observation you made in a previous post that we should never have let the Chicoms take over. I don't think we could have prevented it. Prior to 1949, to do the corrupt and unwilling Nationalists any good we almost certainly would have had to put American boots on the ground .After 1949? The invasion of Japan was an appalling prospect; an invasion of Commie China would have been far worse. Use of the Abomb ? Again, Mao would have done what he was so good at; he would simply have retreated into the country and bidden his time. The Reds had endured hardship which beggars comprehension ,since the '20s. Besides, as my wonderful Modern Chinese History prof., a former Nationalist Officer, said" Do not think we Nationalists were against change, we simply did not realize how much was needed; China had hit absolute rock bottom". The Commies presented what appeared a far better prospect of lifting the great Chinese nation from its degradation. Of course once in power, they catastrophically betrayed their "revolution" as do all Marxist regimes, and extended China's agony into the 1980s before China became once more China itself. I don't think Truman or Eisenhower would have attempted to mobilize the necessary WWII style political will in the country to try to invest China; they would have failed had they tried.
ReplyDelete. . . bided, not "bidden" Jack
ReplyDeleteTrue, Jack: "open-mindedness" and "closed-mindedness" are not necessarily virtues in themselves. We're all open to some things and closed to others. How could it be otherwise?
ReplyDeleteYes, the hypocrisy of the Dems pursuing Trump for what is, at bottom, an alleged coverup of an affair is OBSCENE in itself. But then hypocrisy isn't an issue, if pointing it out is verboten.
Jack, I can tell you from recent experience that Peruvians, for instance, celebrate indigenous rulers who did far worse than Columbus did, and North American leftists would not be far behind them, would they? The point with Columbus, to me, is that he symbolizes and personifies the "Columbian exchange", i.e. the meeting of Europe and America. How can we, as Americans, denigrate THAT???
Very well said re: the collapse of communism. That the Marxist-Leninists beat themselves in the end (everywhere but Harvard) was indeed something of a miracle. We Americans can only take partial credit.
Jack, you introduced a very good idea there: nuke the Chicoms in their crib, i.e. in 1945-49. I like it! Yeah, they would have retreated to their lairs. So be it. Let them fester there as long as they like, and bash them on the head with more A-bombs if they emerge...
Dr. Waddy to Jack: The European investment of the Americas was surely inevitable. As such, it may transcend moral judgement in favor of or against it. It is long accomplished fact now and the European acculturation of North America has manifested a very high civilization. But why celebrate the presumptuous and reflexive cruelty which defines Columbus's immediate reaction to contact with the Tainos and was reprised for centuries with savage regularity. Let it be, I would submit unless we should happen to meet other civilizations; if that happens lets resolve to act better or hope we are not similarly oppressed by a technologically superior civilization.
ReplyDeleteAh, now that would be rich, wouldn't it? An insectoid "Columbus" from Ceti Alpha VI shows up in Times Square and starts cooking us humans with a giant magnifying glass for sport... There would be some justice in it, I'll admit.
ReplyDelete