Friends, our courts have struck another severe blow to President Trump's authority and the MAGA movement in general. The "Court of International Trade" has ruled Trump's sweeping tariffs (paused and unpaused) unconstitutional/illegal. Needless to say, if this ruling stands, then all Trump's efforts to renegotiate trade terms with countries around the world will grind to a halt. Note that the trade court took no issue with Biden's tariffs, but neither did the establishment as a whole. It's looking increasingly likely that one of two things will happen in 2025: either the powers of the judiciary will be curtailed, by order of SCOTUS or at the insistence of President Trump himself, or most of Trump's agenda will go nowhere, and the powers-that-be will...keep on wielding power indefinitely. Yikes!
Dr. Waddy from Jack: I once asked my parents, who lived through WWII, what it was like to see it progress. I said "to me its all history; I know the results but how did it look to you? Did you think we might lose? And what would defeat have manifested?"
ReplyDeletePerhaps witnessing this historic present struggle in our country between the "American " far left's determination to misuse government power to establish its totalitarian rule and common sense America's resolve to preserve our democratic balance of powers, is analogous to the experience of a prolonged event like WWII, in which the outcome was not always clearly perceptible.
There will of course be setbacks but they need not be decisive if we remain true to the persons, organizations and truths which delivered our country to this very possibly redeeming realignment and restoration to verities bizarrely threatened by multitudinous and irrational dreamers over the last 60 years.
RAY TO JACK
ReplyDeleteAmerican bred Leftists have been around a lot longer than 60 years. When you get time, check out John Reed, our very own Communist, who wrote "Ten Days That Shook The World" and check his life out. And of course you saw the movie about him, "Reds". Leftists were at work here in the U.S. even before The Russian Revolution, as you know.
RAY TO JACK
ReplyDeleteSocialist, and related ideology was introduced into the U.S. during the 1880s when large numbers of immigrants from East Europe came to the U.S. en masse. Check out "World of Our Fathers" by Irving Howe.
Ray from Jack: By the time I heard about John Reed I had already been regrettably schooled by Edgar Snow (Red Star Over China) and a William Hinton (Fan Shen) who I heard personally declare himself a marxist ,how hellish marxism can be portrayed eloquently as being somehow good. Those two were intelligent, perceptive and persuasive authors who sincerely believed in inhumanly proved Chinese communism . Gads, what folly!
ReplyDeleteAfter realizing how terribly discredited they were I had no interest in John Reed. We have the benefit of over one hundred years of empowered marxism and we know it has ONLY intensely negative consequences. Commies and Nazis: "same - same as they say in the Philippines, BTW which successfully destroyed its own commie "revolution", the Hukbalahap. They knew full well what to expect from commie totalitarianism after having endured Japanese authoritarianism and oppression.
Anyone who willfully retains Marxist ideals or intentions today, after its consistently murderous historical record in power is as objectively discredited and intellectually shamed as the pathetic modern Nazis are. But thanx in large part to the '60's youthful overidealists who are now in their 3rd seditious and ungrateful generation, they have gained a shameful hold in important sections of our civilization (eg. the arts, education, law, government, even the military). Finally we have an Administration which is fully alarmed by this unbearable threat to all we value and cherish, THE threat which history proves guarantees only mass oppression ,economic dysfunction and the reduction of humans to infinitely malleable or dismissable ciphers.
Ray from Jack: Recently I read a very perceptive comment to the effect that Marxism, aside from being a philosophical consequence of Hegelian dialectics, was written after observation of the harsh conditions which DID obtain for workers in the nascent industrial revolution. And socialism gained much of its considerable strength in the late 19th century (re Tuchman's The Proud Tower) by marxism's assertion that capitalism was untenable and could never bring widespread well being.
ReplyDeleteHistory of course disproved that : capitalism reformed and was reformed and is now the source of the historically unimagined material well being, with all of its many blessed benefits(let those who think not try living without) so much of the world enjoys. And Marxism persists only in terribly oppressed and suppressed regions like N. Korea.
What person of any common sense could laud such a thoroughly disproven creed ? Unfortunately, in the U.S. , they are to be found in greatly influential and powerful positions. Three of them have resided in our White House.I do not include Slick Willy , whose mind is always below his middle, in this suggestion. But his "mate" and the Obamas!?
Dr. Waddy from Jack: A Fox report on Friday said that the DOJ is paying special attention to "sanctuary cities" for their contemptuous open opposition to the enforcement of our immigration laws. Included is New Paltz, N.Y. which longtime conservative stalwart David Horowitz once termed "the most communist place east of Berkeley.
ReplyDeleteI graduated from SUNY New Paltz in '75; it was very far left even then and has continued so despite disingenuous protest to the contrary from administration of the college. Several years ago I asked a New Paltz President who appeared to be willing to address this bias to invite Horowitz to campus. I'm still holding my breath.
That(BTW tax payer funded) college dominates the culture of New Paltz. So its no surprise to me that it has attracted AG Bondi's dutiful attention to its support of the latest radical power play, illegal immigration. I would hope her investigation expands to the many campuses of the "State University" of NY which are shamed by officially tolerated and even enabled far left incipient totalitarian misuse. NY taxpayers' interests in this outrage are contemptuously dismissed by NY's one party government. Its time for the Feds to intervene and convince an ever recalcitrant legislature that NY has far more to lose by countenancing this widespread injustice (eg. Federal funding) than by (gasp!) complying with our Immigration Law.
That body of law was established through a democratic process which included free exchange and full consideration of views, including those these "sanctuary" entities now lawlessly insist upon forcing. Just like the criminals for whom they display such heartwarming regard in NY, the far left commanded Dems consider abiding by law to be a choice, governed by whether or not they like it. Sorry Dems; ya can't do that anymore!
RAY TO JACK
DeleteThe late David Horowitz is (in my opinion), the most reliable writer on The Left. He would know, BECAUSE he was for some time, a prominent leader of The Left. His authoritative work(s) on American Communism (which is what The Left in the U.S. is all about), is: "The Black Book of The American Left" - The Collected Conservative Writings of David Horowitz in 9 Volumes.
Ray from Jack: I haven't read any Horowitz for awhile; I'll have to get back to it. I didn't know he had passed. Might well be that the MSM "forgot" to report on it.
ReplyDeleteHe was a stalwart courageous opponent of the far left and was especially creditable at it because, as you mentioned, he was once a prominent leftist as the Editor of the the journal Ramparts in the seditious '60s. With "unconquerable constancy" (Churchill) he endured the vicious excoriation specially reserved for apostates by totalitarians; he gave as well as he got.
His warning of the close association of radical Islam with the "American" far left in his book Unholy Alliance has been well borne out on "elite " campuses since the Oct. 7 onslaught. I don't know when he passed; it would have been redeeming for him to see America's present stand against this infernal force.
RAY TO JACK
DeleteHorowitz passed on April 29, 2025. He was born in 1939.
Jack, that's a good point that the outcomes of major conflicts always look inevitable in hindsight, but, for those in the thick of it, nothing seems guaranteed and all sorts of terrifying possibilities loom. I question, at any rate, whether the danger(s) of utopian ideology will ever truly be defeated or vanquished. Might leftism not be based on a flaw in human nature that will always be with us, to a greater or lesser extent?
ReplyDeleteRay is right that socialism has been percolating in the US and the West for a very, very long time. Seems to me that many of its goals, like the expansion of governmental authority and institutions, are steadily being fulfilled, no? If Marxism is in its death throes, I'd hate to see it in its prime!
Did capitalism spawn oppression and misery? I wouldn't say it created it, no, and in fact in the medium and long term capitalism is the solution to most such problems, but early capitalism certainly tolerated a good amount of beastliness, and thus it's understandable that sensitive and compassionate souls might have condemned the capitalist system and looked for alternatives. The problem is that Marxism is by no means the only or the most obvious alternative. Christianity, for instance, offers a framework for overcoming, or at least mitigating, inequality and squalor, so why plunk instead for a radical creed like Marxism? Why destroy the social order when you could simply ameliorate it instead? The answer, I think, lies in the ambitions and arrogance of the (allegedly) enlightened elite.
Defunding sanctuary cities (and campuses) would be great, but it will be some time before we know whether the courts, in their infinite wisdom, will countenance it.
Dr. Waddy from Jack: I think Marx thought that religion was failing to console many of those who left their rural lives behind to make a living in early industry.
ReplyDeleteIt must have been a very hard way to live; I know that getting up on a frigid morning in February in Buffalo in the '60s to work in the dirty, cold and dangerous steel plant was rough enough. Working a twelve hour day in a far worse setting or walking 6 days a week over a mountain to spend 12 hours in a mine and then return, out of absolute grim necessity, had to be harrowing.
But Marx was utterly mistaken in the conclusions he drew and the egg headed intellectually imbued remedies he urged. In practice they generated incalculable human misery and catastrophe.
I agree, certainly the reason for the continued influence of this hellish doctrine inheres in the intellectual arrogance and the vested interests of those who enable and empower it. It cannot be objectively defended and those who advance counterintuitive justification should know better and should be held answerable for the intense injustice and dysfunction they generate. Our present Administration is doing that with its assault on DEI and far left intolerance.
Dr. Waddy from Jack: I don't know enough about perfectionism to understand it adequately. Is it a neurosis? If so, is it inherent in many humans? What generates it, both from within and without?
ReplyDeleteThat said I suggest a kind of perfectionism may be obvious in Marxist doctrine. It relies on a unfailingly j predictable, perfectly just future the nature of which cannot be proven or disproven by empirical evidence. The young naive radicals of the '60s were strongly motivated by such misapprehension and their legacy is a US civilization very much degraded by their malign influence. Today's far left continues in their "tradition" and in some settings (still, potentially, the US) offers a plausible threat of totalitarian takeover. Their passionate wish for the complete destruction of Israel may be perfectionist in its perverted way. The word totalitarianism itself suggests a belief in the possibility of perfect government.
Hmm. What an interesting question. All idealism tends towards perfectionism, I suppose, and any ideal, taken to an extreme, can become dangerous. Is this part of human nature? I would say yes. We have powerful rational faculties that can dream up any number of ideological paradigms and imagine the wonderous blessings that each can bestow on humanity. Our imaginations are also vivid, so these paradigms need not be grounded in reality, in any meaningful sense. What's more, our fantastic capacity for self-deception allows us to believe in these fairy tales and employ them as convenient excuses for silencing or even eliminating our enemies, real and perceived, and in the process our self-interest becomes indistinguishable from our ideals. I'd say the particular form these delusions take is pretty arbitrary, and maybe even unimportant. The real question is how much we give ourselves over to these shibboleths, and how much we're willing to sacrifice, and how much we're willing to destroy, in order to serve them. Unfortunately, the sky's the limit, all too often.
ReplyDelete