Friends, I know many of you have posters of Ho Chi Minh plastered next to your bunk beds, and I can't say I blame you. I mean, any guy who can kick the Great Satan's butt (that's you, you impudent Americans!) deserves our respect, and possibly our votes... I suspect old Ho could win a race for Alderman in San Francisco with little trouble. Be that as it may, on this week's Newsmaker Show, Brian and I reflect on the death of Ho Chi Minh and the surprisingly minimal effect this had on the conduct and trajectory of the Vietnam War. We also consider the decline of television as a political medium.
In terms of current events, Brian and I consider the Left's loathing for men such as Donald Trump, Viktor Orban, and Vladimir Putin and the degree to which it is motivated by ideology, or even rationality. We analyze the high stakes of the recent moves in Brazil and France, respectively, to crack down on Twitter/X and Telegram. I argue that the future of pluralism and free speech on social media is on the line. We ponder the blisteringly negative tack that campaigns for president have taken in recent cycles. We ask whether the 2024 election has existential implications for American democracy. Finally, we read the tea leaves re: the state of the race and Harris and Trump's prospects, and I know everyone is desperate to know how that will shake out...
https://wlea.net/newsmaker-september-4-2024-dr-nick-waddy/
***
In other news, the New York Post is echoing my sentiments regarding Musk, Twitter/X, and the fragile state of our free speech rights:
If you don't know what's happening at the New College of Florida, you should. It's a test case for whether conservatives can purge a college or university of wokeness and get it back on track.
https://christopherrufo.com/p/the-difficult-work-of-academic-reform
Finally, I personally find it pretty silly when conservatives call Democrats and leftists "communists". It's especially silly given how hazy most Americans seem to be on concepts like fascism and communism. What are you thoughts? Does the epithet fit?
RAY TO DR. WADDY
ReplyDeleteFirst thoughts on Fascism and Communism, is that The United States has nothing really comparable to those parties and ideologies, as say Europe. We have left and right oriented "militias" if you want to call them that. These are my initial thoughts.
Dr. Waddy from Jack: Some nominal dems and leftists are communists who see the american left and its captured dem party as the only practical means for exercising power . . . yet.
ReplyDeleteI agree that to label those many of good will who are dems or hold some leftist views as communists is hyperbolic and unjust. Given communism's consistently monstrous history, a deserved evaluation as a communist today is incomparable excoriation. It is fully equal in shame to upholding the views of the nazis and is ever so much worse today because of communism's terribly demonstrated essential and guaranteed inhumanity.
Unfortunately there are many of good will on the left who do not perceive that their side is far too tolerant of the true commies who use their party to advance their incipient totalitarianism : the former are the people Lenin sneered at as "useful idiots" and who Stalin casually enslaved once he acquired the power to do so.
Dr. Waddy from Jack: New College's redemption provides a useful and hopeful example. It demonstrates that the political WILL to contradict antiamerican leftist takeover of our predominant institutions is VITAL and indispensable.
ReplyDeleteAs it was in NYC in the "90s , it is enabled by a courageous public executive. Gov. DeSantis is determined not to tolerate that left presumptuously misusing taxpayer resources to force indoctrination in counterintuitive America hating principles, which are anathema to the vast majority of taxpayers, on our youth. The marked turnover in faculty has shown that the well administered return to academic integrity has made the college a very unrewarding place for the vicious marxists who have cuckooed such a terrible extent of the American Academy.
Our NY state university system is shamefully and reflexively dominated by far left thinking and imposition. Utterly unapologetic, open affirmation of a conviction that it is quite just to force taxpayers to pay for education which requires of its "trainees"hatred of the society (including the state university)purposely built by those solid citizens, is very obvious. Because of NY's one party dem dictatorship, relief from this injustice and a return of our university to faith in our civilization is a dim and distant apparent chimera in our benighted state.
At contest in our national election is whether such incipient totalitarianism in all things will be suffered to advance further on America. The powerlessness of we of common sense in NY state should be an appalling example and a powerful warning to the country.
Dr. Waddy from Jack: Re the 9/4 Newsmaker broadcast:
ReplyDeleteTrump, Putin , Orban. A most unlikely triumvirate. But all three are pragmatic nationalists I think.
Putin has responded to a fundamental and unendurable threat to Russia's national security, prospective Ukrainian membership in Nato, in a very pragmatic manner - military action - though he has conducted it with great evil. Orban has responded to a possible reprise of the far left dictatorship which ravaged Hungary with the simple pragmatism manifested in a resolve to prevent such a tragic and avoidable development.
DJT has responded unapologetically and objectively to the frantic , smoky idealism of the antiamerican left by frankly denouncing it and disabling it (eg.in Scotus ). That left develops its positions by unfettered imagination of empirically unproven future possibilities. Once envisioned, these views become conviction defended by the left with characteristically aggressive and vindictive excoriation and material attack upon any who dissent (eg. "green new deal"). The opposite of such irresponsible and destructive idealism is pragmatism, which DJT exemplifies. He fully recognizes the essence of the antiamerican left: hatred for America and a determination to punish it and force an unwanted and unnecessary "fundamental transformation" on America and he stands, at terrible personal price, against it and for conserving and preserving our way of life. How else can it be stopped? By asking the antiamerican left to be nice?!
Dr. Waddy from Jack: You have well expressed the importance of the attack on free speech in social media being carried out in Brazil.Your conclusion: that should it succeed it will significantly advance the onerous possibility of very widespread government censorship of this medium which could eventually finish free speech and organized resistance to incipient leftist totalitarianism even in the US.
ReplyDeleteThe directly related threat of government demand for full access to information on users of social media certainly is a terribly ominous development. The emergence and prospective standardization of lawfare against political opponents of the American left is already a presently demonstrated profound danger to the well being of such enablers of technologically prolific free speech as Elon Musk and in the foreseeable future to all of us.
Thank you for emphasizing the critical significance of this development. As is fully to be expected, the totalitarians everywhere are moving to harness the stupendous power of social media. Next of course for them will be AI.
Dr. Waddy from Jack: I would expect a President Harris to be a factotum of the same antiamerican leftists who gamed pore ol' BIden, who actually thought them just to be '65 style kumbayaa well wishers. What would take real guts on her part in the very unlikely instance of her being a long suppressed moderate would be to resist those who sent Biden out to pasture. Oh she has nerve alright, she is showing it with her spectacularly disingenuous campaign. But if she wins she would have to kiss the rings of the Obamas.
ReplyDeleteDr. Waddy from Jack: I was on a carrier in the Gulf of Tonkin when our Captain announced the death of Ho Chi Minh in '69.Our Cap't was a scholar but he said "I'm not sure what this will mean". We know now that N. Vietnamese determination to force communism on S. Vietnam continued unabated. In 1954 when Vietnam was divided, 400,000 N. Vietnamese fled south; they knew full well what was in store for them under marxist monsters. No records I know of of a great flight north.
ReplyDeleteI was on that ship in the Gulf during the massive May, '72 N. Vietnamese offensive. Our ship had been turned around on our way home. It was routine to have 3 carriers in or near the Gulf. That summarily increased to 7 and some came all the way from the Atlantic. The S. Vietnamese were not ready to stop the onslaught and I'm sure the commies were convinced they would never muster the will to fight them successfully. S. Vietnam still needed very much help from us; let me put it this way: I know our planes were far more busy in May '72 than I had ever seen them.
The war was lost because traitors in the US sustained the commie effort by working aid and comfort to them. They called themselves "antiwar". Nonsense! They celebrated the war effort of people who tied other people up and fastened plastic bags on their heads so they suffocated. "Ho, Ho, Ho Chi MInh!" was their battle cry, those tragic and unimaginably naive dreamers. They disgraced themselves beyond measure and delivered an entire nation to Marxist depravity. The S. Vietnamese were never able to do with less US aid, I think.
Dr. Waddy from Jack: First its malls, now its TV as a political medium that is on the slippery slope. In the early '60s FCC Commissioner Newton Minow famously termed TV " a vast wasteland". But it did help to elect JFK over 5 oclock shadowed Nixon. What's next? Oh I know, all infernally conceived natural gas spewing devices. Forced perfection continues on the march.
ReplyDeleteRay, I quite agree: nothing like fascism or communism exists in modern America, and so the (mis)use of these terms by our politicians is almost always specious.
ReplyDeleteAs Jack points out, Marxism has legs, which Soviet-style communism has lacked. There are plenty of leftists who are neo-Marxists, whether they know it or not.
Jack, I agree: it is high time we reversed the trend of leftist domination of all our leading institutions. Let Florida lead the way!
Jack, I can think of one very important difference between Trump, Orban, and Putin. The latter two have succeeded in molding their societies and their leading institutions and putting the imprint of their nationalist ideology on virtually everything and everyone in Hungary and Russia. Trump manifestly failed to reorient America in a conservative or nationalist direction, except insofar as he stacked the high court with conservatives. In every other sense, his presidency strengthened, rather than weakened, the forces opposing him.
Jack, alas, the lefties already dominate A.I.!
Jack, you're right that the South Vietnamese only prevailed in '72 with U.S. airpower, special forces, military aid, etc., but consider that this is what we offered them in the early 60s and it wasn't nearly enough. In '72 it was enough. That says something!
The decline of tv as a medium, I think, is less significant politically than the present lack of ANY medium that can unite the American people. Now THAT is a development that bodes ill.
Dr. Waddy from Jack: Good points on your part. I don't think , though, that in the early '60's that we purposed aiding S. Vietnam to the extent we eventually did (eg. a million boots on the ground) or in our aerial onslaught of '72. The perceived need for that kind of force evolved, as S. Vietnam consistently failed to muster the will to fight as hard as the commies did.
ReplyDeleteI'm sure the average NVA didn't read Marx and Lenin at night and had he refused conscription he would have gotten the plastic bag treatment. But his morale appears to have been superior. Precolonial VIetnam was not always united. Perhaps there are significant cultural differences at work between north and south when it comes to readiness to endure war. (?)
Jack, I've never understood the poor morale down south either. Seems like they had plenty to fight for! Perhaps it was their government that let them down, rather than their culture? The government did improve over time, as did ARVN's effectiveness.
ReplyDeleteDr. Waddy from Jack: I know an American who commanded ARVN troops. He considered them good soldiers but said his unit was very badly defeated in what included a bayonet fight. Perhaps the S. Vietnamese simply assumed that alliance with the most powerful country in the world guaranteed them victory and that they needed simply to lend a hand. It appears we assumed they just needed some help for a limited period. They knew we were there in our own national interest but they should also have realized that, historically, ours is the flag which ,nonetheless, sets you free. S. Korea was a recent example.
ReplyDeleteMaybe in a commie country it wasn't any worse to be in the army than to be a civilian, maybe better.
Jack, why the slave-soldiers of Ho Chi Minh were willing to fight and die for him and his movement is an eternal mystery, but of course Stalin's soldiers did the same. Never underestimate the depths to which any people will sink to expel hated foreigners, and the lengths to which they will go to overlook the crimes of their fellow countrymen/co-religionists/racial brothers.
ReplyDelete