THE LESS SECRECY THE BETTER

All the attention currently directed towards purloined presidential documents raises a larger question. Why are they secret in the first place and how is this determined?   Few terms have been abused more than “top secret,” often for ulterior motives and obscure, unexplained reasons. Secrecy frequently gives unchecked power to faceless bureaucrats without any accountability. That kind of power is easily subject to abuse that is devoid of any consequences. Many people have been apprehended for violating secrecy, but has anyone ever been held to account for designating something secret improperly, withholding or distorting information, to the detriment of truthful deliberation? This security umbrella has enabled our intelligence institutions to become politicized, and weaponized into hitherto unthinkable abuses. Meanwhile most of the media that once might have raised loud objections and alarms about this have instead ignored, or more inexcusably, collaborated in suppressing the truth for ideological reasons. Secrecy excesses have provided much convenient cover and the whole subject now desperately needs some serious reconsideration. 

 

Secrecy is what has enabled one administration after another to lie to us, make disastrous and costly mistakes, while concurrently spinning the narrative to evade responsibility. But often enough it blows up on them, and worse, terrible damage occurs that could have been avoided had there been full disclosure in the first place. Further, secrecy is fundamentally at odds with the notion of a free and open society.  But that only works when there is a media that sets aside partisan considerations instead of participating in them.

 

Moreover, it is no “secret” that secrecy is something we are not particularly good at. Our government leaks at a greater rate than a pot full of holes, whether intentional or not. Washington is simply terrible at keeping secrets. The reality is that our officials are simply unable maintain much secrecy for long. It is also quite likely that our adversaries know more of our “secrets” than we do, given how porous our institutions are. This should also put to rest any notion about some nefarious hidden trove of information about aliens, assassinations or anything else consequential. It simply isn’t there or it certainly would have leaked. Otherwise, you would have to believe that every president since Harry Truman through Joe Biden were part of some great conspiracy suppressing the truth, or that Donald Trump would not have blown the lid off if anything were there.

 

Leaks involve intent on the part of someone to pass information out publicly. They are more embarrassing than damaging. What is far worse is when secrecy is maintained on false premises in order to protect the powerful, to cover up and lie on their behalf, prevent the revelation of avoidable mistakes, and distort or suppress the truth. Withholding information is more egregious than exposing it, even when ill-advised. 

 

There is only one possible justification for government secrecy and that is national security. But that being case it can also be stretched to unjustifiably transform something trivial into something consequential enough to be secret, or to cover up ineptitude. The temptation for abuse is hard to avoid when something is inconvenient, embarrassing, violates accepted assumptions, etc. none of which can possibly justify secrecy. As with anything that is overdone it ultimately trivializes and diminishes what otherwise might be important. 

 

There is obviously a need for secrecy in military affairs. It is also justified to a lesser extent, with diplomacy and intelligence services, but there is always a downside. The more something is secret the less it is open to scrutiny, alternative interpretation, alteration, or critical questioning that comes from open and free discussion. We have stumbled into disasters too often in recent times due to “faulty intelligence,” which usually means any serious questioning or consideration of any contrary evidence or alternative views. For that matter if diplomacy prior to World War I had been more open, the bumbling uncertainty that unleashed a terrible war and all the disasters which followed in the last century could have been avoided.

 

This has always been the great weakness of repressive regimes as information is unreliably skewed and eventually undermines the worst kind of state. That is why free societies have been able to triumph in the end, despite all their untidiness. The more things are out in the open the less chance there is of miscalculation, or worse, being fed lies to suppress some inconvenient truths and mislead the public. The more we emulate our adversaries the more likely we are to share their eventual fate. Experience has shown us that secrecy has too often been pointless or counterproductive.

 

Fortunately. perceptions have changed. When Ellsberg lifted the Pentagon Papers many of us reacted angrily at the time at what we perceived to be an act of disloyalty rather than to the substance of what was being revealed. But by the time of Snowden and Assange or the Iraq war things became more nuanced. It no longer is all that clear as to who the bad guys really are. However, the high level of institutional distrust the public currently maintains is also not healthy. This could easily be assuaged with much less secrecy, and more plain truth. The less politicians lie the better they will sleep at night and the more effective they will be during the day.

 

Now that the secrecy canard has come back to bite two presidents, we must wonder just how critically secret many of these documents really are. We really need new standards that provide a clear rationale and justification before anything is blacked out by secrecy. This should be stringent, minimal, and subject to review, both initially as well as subsequently. Secrecy of any kind is at odds with the tenets of a free society, frequently suppresses the truth, or makes things worse and ought to be sparsely applied. For history has clearly shown that the more things are out in the open and subject to scrutiny the less chance there is for avoidable mistakes. By now one thing should be very clear- the less secrecy the better. 

 

  

ELECTION RESULTS 2022

 Two factors contributed heavily to what should have been a landslide victory for Republicans fizzling out. First the “red wave” essentially was aborted.  (I do so hate that color dichotomy that was originally foisted on us by NBC news a couple of decades ago, maliciously sticking the right with the “red” label previously always associated with the left). Although abortion did not rank high as a issue compared to the economy, inflation, etc. it clearly boosted turnout among one group strongly concerned about it, namely single women, 70% of whom voted for Democrats. Even though there was in reality no serious threat to abortion rights, the scare campaign worked. 

The second factor was a series of relatively weak candidates chosen by Donald Trump, in otherwise winnable races. My earlier warning that his penchant for celebrity candidates would backfire was unfortunately realized, along with candidates who were still sounding off about the 2020 election to please him instead of focusing on more salient current concerns. Trump accomplished a great deal despite unrelenting constant opposition, and deteriorating conditions across the board since he left office prove he was right about virtually everything.  He certainly does not deserve the political persecution he has been subject to since leaving office, and from direct experience I can say with certainty  that he is not the ogre he has been depicted as, but is on a personal level kind and considerate individual. 

Nevertheless, his behavior and remarks since the election have fatally compromised his viability as a candidate going forward, along with his refusal to let go of the last election. I  fully understand his rage and frustration with that outcome, given the gross unfairness of the forces arrayed against him. That election was not “stolen,” but it certainly was rigged, given the hostile, partisan major media, their calculated suppression of the truth (i.e. Hunter Biden laptop), the collaboration of “big tech,” (which is a misnomer- most are fundamentally just Internet companies), powerful partisan bureaucrats, over 400 million in Zuckerbucks, etc. etc, all of which must be held to account. Thus it is understandable that he feels cheated, but his reaction only underscores his lack of self-control and inability to keep his mouth shut, which is what cost him re-election in the first place. It is because of this that Trump himself is liked far less than his positions and policies, which proved to be successful and popular. But given his continuing diatribe, and most recently his unhinged attack on Ron DeSantis, essentially for simply existing, have made a repeat candidacy untenable, and many Republicans are increasingly realizing this. 

This election also exposed the lie about “threats to democracy” conjured up by Democrats and their collaborators in the media. That one is really rich given that Republicans got 6 million more votes than Democrats, yet picked up relatively few House seats.

Here in New York Lee Zeldin lost an election he should have won, largely due to the weight of New York City, because outside of that, Long Island and upstate New York are much like the rest of the country, and in fact are largely Republican and the party actually gained House seats in those areas. Unfortunately the prospects for the city where I have spent most of my life increasingly seem hopeless. After rising to 8.8 million from a prior low thanks to a period of relatively competent government, the city is again now rapidly losing people, mostly middle class taxpayers, and as conditions deteriorate further that may only increase. 

Another legacy of the disastrous radical DeBlasio administration were odious amendments to the city charter which passed, to change the preamble to reflect “racial justice,” and the creation of an Office of Racial Equity in the city  (note the term “equity” not “equality)” throwing fairness out the window, and which is only going to make doing business here more of a nightmare. Is there anything more ludicrous in a city where three of the four top officials are black, including the Mayor and Speaker of the City Council? Or a state where the Senate Majority leader and Assembly Speaker are both black, never mind the Attorney General? Worse with no relief from high taxes, rising crime, and progressive lunacy the outlook for the future of this place is pretty grim. 

IS NEW YORK OVER?

 Like many others, I’ve often thought about leaving New York due to deteriorating conditions that have steadily gotten worse following a long, continuous period of decline. Indeed I even wrote a monograph called The Decline of the Empire State when I was the founding director of the NY State Republican Policy Committee, and generated some programs to reduce the burden on taxpayers the last time we held any power here. But that was over two decades ago, and for most of this century things have steadily gotten worse. Taxes are high, crime is rising, the quality of life is declining, and we have been hemorrhaging people for decades, mitigated slightly only by immigration. One can only wonder if there is any future left here now?

The decline is heartbreaking because it didn’t have to happen, and would not have happened had there been better stewardship, but the corrupt mismanagement and political rot runs so deep that the chances of ever reversing the trend grow dimmer. When I wrote of the decline in the past I was looking at the relative position of the state. Once it truly was the Empire State, the biggest and most dynamic in the nation. When I was a kid it seemed as though everything was here,  including the headquarters of most large corporations, many now long gone. New York was first in everything. But in the 1960s California passed it by, then Texas, and now even Florida has a greater population. But it is telling that the budget of the latter, despite a larger, growing population is half that of New York.

Despite the abysmal degree of chronic incompetence and corruption, for the longest time I have been reluctant to seriously consider leaving places I know so intimately and such great detail, and if you’re from the city, everywhere else seems slow. So I think this has always been my home and I should stay and fight for it. While Democrats have a big advantage in party registration in New York, it is in no way as “progressive” as many people think. It has little of the far out lunacy of places on the west coast, and there is still a significant segment of conservative Democrats who stay registered as such so as to be able to vote in the primary elections, especially in New York City.  

But if Lee Zeldin can’t win this election then no Republican ever can, and we are doomed to unfettered one party rule. There will be no check on the irresponsible legislature, no barrier to the ever-expanding state with ever diminishing resources as the most productive taxpayers and enterprises accelerate their departure. This will inevitably lead to insolvency- and yes, New York State can and will go bankrupt, crime will continue to increase, and day to day life will become ever more miserable for most people remaining here. 

That is why the upcoming election is the most critical in the history of the state. It is our last chance to stop, and even reverse the decline, and truly begin a new era of renewal and reform. Many Democrats know this as well, but it is going to require that they abandon the party regime responsible for the awful situation we find ourselves in, and vote this time around for Lee Zeldin. He is appealing on so many levels, facing a weak candidate and unusually favorable prospects based on objective conditions. He is an outstanding candidate who is poised to save our state from the disastrous prospects awaiting us. 

Things don't have to be the way they are now.  We can become so much better. New York is a vast and beautiful state with abundant resources and great historic places, and extraordinary, untapped potential. With competent leadership  it would still have a good chance of recovery and renewal. Electing Lee Zeldin as Governor is the only way forward now, and voting this Election Day is critical for all our futures. 

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DON'T DRIVE IN NEW YORK III

 Every time I drive back into the city from Long Island I manage to get a ticket, usually for “speeding;” except that in NYC speeding means driving say 34 mph on a main thoroughfare; not a side street but a multilane main road,  because the speed limit is 25 mph in the city. On residential side streets I drive even slower than that because you never know when a kid might dart out between parked cars. But on parkways, main streets, etc. the limit is ridiculous. The last one I got was for “speeding” at 37mph on an approach to a highway, where anyone would normally start accelerating to join the traffic, and where pedestrians are nowhere to be found.  

There have always been speed traps. When you cross the line between Nassau County and Queens on the Northern State Parkway the speed limit suddenly drops. As long as everyone else is exceeding the speed limit there is little they can do, but if you happen to accelerate to pass another car they will get you, and that one cost me nearly $1000 due to a creative “surcharge” the state adds to the already high ticket cost, not to mention increase insurance (which I had to take a course to undo). But now the entire city is a speed trap. There are cameras everywhere and “school zones” have been extended to places where no school is remotely visible. So this is really about revenue in this horribly managed city and state. 

Now Long Island has gotten in on the act. I have never passed a stopped school bus in my life. Nevertheless I got one driving all the way in the left lane to make a turn while the bus was actually parked two lanes over on the right and there were no flashing lights! But as I read the ticket it basically said in so many words there is no way you can fight or appeal this ticket so that cost me another $250.  These governments are hardly concerned about safety in realit, but do have an insatiable appetite for revenue. Thus in New York in addition to high property taxes, income taxes, and sales tax they have creatively increased all sorts of nuisance fees on things like permits for things that in a normal world would not require permits. Unfortunately it is only going to get worse because high taxes are driving people to move away while spending just keeps climbing.

New York has a visceral anti-car policy. But these rules are made by well-to-do people living in Manhattan and nearby high rises who believe that people don’t need cars and therefore should be punished for owning or driving one in the city, never mind that most of it still consists of low-rise residential neighborhoods.  It is almost impossible to find free parking on the street anymore. There are meters everywhere. Worse there are fewer and fewer lanes for traffic as they have expanded bike lanes all over the place, along with a weird arrangement on some streets where the metered parking is now somewhere near the middle of the street. Further space has been lost due to “temporary” pandemic-related outdoor restaurant facilities that aren’t going away any time soon. 

They are trying to make this Amsterdam where your life is in danger if you carelessly step into the street while bicycles are whizzing by, but at least there they have some order to it. In New York bike riding is chaotic, traffic rules are ignored, and you are in as much, if not more, danger of being hit by a bike whizzing by than cars, which are usually stuck in traffic moving at a glacial pace. So naturally, in typical “progressive” fashion, they then come up with a “solution” to a problem they created in the first place- congestion pricing. That means that if you drive into the central city you will have to pay an extra fee for the privilege. They haven’t been able to pull that one off yet but don’t be surprised when that kicks in. 

The bottom line is avoid driving a car if you’re visiting New York (although I don’t know why anyone would want to these days). But those of us stuck living here are out of luck. 

SEPTEMBER BRIEF NOTES

 THIS CACAPHONY HAS TO END

I have decided to refrain from any further partisan political remarks because I no longer want to contribute in any way to the self-destructive hellhole we have managed fall into. Since most people are basically apolitical and sensibly engaged with their day to day lives, when I say “we” I mean that 20% or so who regularly follow politics and the even smaller minority that are ideologically passionate about it, because their perspective is based more on emotion than reason. The more intensity increases the more unhinged they become from reality, to the point where they start de-humanizing the opposition, opening the way to a potentially very dark result. This is tragic because the ongoing political cacaphony is clouding so many other, sometimes wonderful aspects of life.

For most of my life I have been optimistic about the future of this country, but that is increasingly fading and I am truly worried about our future. This insanity has to stop or we are doomed, and sadly for fundamentally foolish reasons. For whatever differences we may have, they are minor alongside of those we have with external powers that increasingly threaten us all. The only saving grace is that it involves a minority of the population, but they tend to be people in influential or decision-making positions who think they know what is best for everyone else and are determined to impose it upon them.

We haven’t quite reached the point of no return, but the trajectory is accelerating. Having pondered this phenomenon for decades from the 1960s onward, going forward I will have a lot to say about how we got here, as well as how we can possibly get ourselves out of this mess.

*. *. *.

FOR OLD HOLLYWOOD FANS

My favorite streaming service is among the least expensive and most informative- Curiosity Stream. Even if you favor"entertainment" venues, you have to check a really interesting feature about the original Hollywood movie moguls- Titans: The Rise of Hollywood. If you have some knowledge and expertise in that area you are still going to be surprised by many fascinating nuggets I don't think have been articulated anywhere before.

It tells the story of the birth of the American movie industry, and how, ever so haphazardly, the great studios came to be in the form of a docudrama that succeeds in bringing it all alive. Many people may still be familiar with Louis B. Mayer or Jack Warner, whose careers lasted much longer, but here you also have the others in ways I don’t think anyone has seen before.

This isn’t the usual narrative about “the talent,” but how they came to be in the first place.

I once read a book that referred to William Fox as “film's forgotten man;" well here he is. I only thought of Adolph Zukor as some little old guy at Paramount but now understand who he was as a young man. Who knew that Carl Laemmle (Universal) pretty much got the feature film concept rolling, or the extent to which Mary Pickford (United Artists) was a savvy working executive? How about the other two Warner brothers, or the fact that The Jazz Singer was supposed to be played by George Jessel, who originated the role on Broadway, not Al Jolson?

It also shows how Mayer’s position and power were a lot more precarious than everyone once assumed. The series ends just before the golden age of Hollywood most people are more familiar with, (the death of which really started when Louis B. Mayer was unjustly ousted, in my opinion). You also see how and why they wound up in Hollywood in the first place, then the middle of nowhere when there was nothing much there besides fruit orchards and farms.

Now Curiosity Stream is no big budget production company, yet with far fewer resources they have managed to present a really good product. Consequently there are some limitations, so some settings are more emulated than authentic and many of the actors bear little physical resemblance to the real characters they are playing, and some accents are missing, but nevertheless they provide convincing performances. I think they went a little too far portraying Thomas Edison as a nasty villain, in a way I suppose is designed to augment the mogul’s viewpoint, and the term “movie moguls” came about much later on, but aside from those quibbles it’s a really good undertaking. If you love the old Hollywood and the movies, you must see this program.

                                                                    * *. *

A BRIEF ASIDE ABOUT 9/11

THE events of 9/11 are still very much with us, and still have a living presence in our consciousness. But think of a 21 year old today. For those of us who were around circa 1961, the equivalent comparable event was the bombing of Pearl Harbor! How different it was, for the attack that brought us into WWII by then was already something out of a more remote world of black & white newsreels.

This belies the notion that things always changing faster and faster. The contrast between the world of 1941 and 1961 was immense, but between 2001 and today, not very much.

HOLLYWOOD TOUGH CHICKS

 In recent years we have had to sit through endless scenes of women beating up men in productions coming out of Hollywood although that rarely, if ever, is to be found anywhere in the real world. They can get away with this in endless comic book/super hero/fantasy productions, but not in anything closer to reality, or supposedly more serious. The other night I came across a movie on Netflix so awful I couldn’t simply ignore it. But neither could I sit through it, and instead fast-forwarded so as to see enough to justify what I’m saying here. 

The name of the movie is Ava. It is about a female assassin who goes around physically taking out men much of the time, and not just one on one, but several  big, armed military men at once. Ava is laughably played by Jessica Chastain, miscasting herself in her own production. To provide more “authenticity” blood is splattered all over the place, including on her face, but it is so sloppily and ineptly applied that it is dabbed on places where no blow was ever struck. Never mind though, for, none the worse she can quickly just wipe it all off,  and go about taking out more guys, yet without any bruises left over from the brutal blows.  Seriously? Oh so liberating to portray a “strong” woman, but if there was any substance at all in this kind of portrayal, then logically  these me-tooing women should have been able to punish  the lecherous pigs on their own. 

If this was simply bad entertainment it wouldn’t be worth a mention because we get that all the time. But when false themes are repeatedly endlessly to the point where they are accepted norms, especially among the young and impressionable, something is wrong. Older people grew up with the belief and expectation that a real man never strikes a woman. But the ubiquity of this garbage now makes it okay to hit a girl, while at the same time encouraging male-like behavior among females. 

It’s bad enough there are few real men left in Hollywood, but it now occurs to me that the same applies to women. There is little in the way of femininity left, with actresses who are oh-so-professionally serious and refer to themselves as “actors.”  Few of them are attractive enough to inspire masturbating teenagers. They are part of the preferred pronoun crowd, who view people symbolically emerging from some sort of check-box that is devoid of any resemblance to the real world. They are ironically obsessed with “representation;” but represent not reality but categories. Enough already!

A LEGISLATIVE ABOMINATION

 The bill preposterously labeled the “Inflation Reduction Act” concocted by the Democrats will do exactly the opposite, which is unsurprising given their inclination for redefining and labeling terms like inflation, recession, woman, etc. Among other things they are seeking to double the number of IRS agents in an effort to obtain more revenue so they can continue to profligately spend it. But the thing that really infuriates me is the disgustingly corrupt “green energy” boondoggled that has been sought and paid for by crony capitalists seeking to profit from it. This is clearly what this is all about whether it is good for the country or not. If it were any other industry they would be howling about it, but somehow because it is allegedly “green” it must be good so it is exempt from scrutiny. 

But it shouldn’t be. These are disgusting hypocrites who want to pretend they are serving the public interest when all they are serving is their own pockets or interests. It is  blatantly and profoundly offensive, yet shamelessly done out in the open because the corrupt media is not going to question it. So these “entrepreneurs” are lining their pockets at public expense. They are the ones pushing it most intensely, and trust me it is not out of civic-mindedness. They are less concerned about “climate” than profiting from it. It is getting close to passage because they were able to buy off Joe Manchin by promising projects in his state, never mind that the overall effect is detrimental to West Virginia.

We have already squandered half a trillion dollars on supposedly green energy projects with not much to show for it beyond enriching those able to cash in on it. Remember Solyndra? Multiply that several times over. Yet the result of all of this is that less than 5% of our energy comes from unreliable “renewable” sources. At the same time they are trying to ruin natural resource extraction industries that actually do work for people and that have uplifted the lives of countless millions around the world, and push them to electric cars they can’t afford, or for that matter easily charge. These “future” technologies are nothing of the sort and are simply not any where near ready for prime time. I guarantee you without question that many of them will be obsolete five or ten years from now and money will have pointlessly thrown away instead of being spent on things like education, medicine, basic research, defense, and real future technologies, or for that matter directly mitigating the consequences of climate change. 

This cabal includes many lunatics that also want to ban cow farts. You can’t take them seriously, yet the damage they are doing is very serious. None of this is meant to deny there are problems with changing climate but simply to highlight the massive amount of corruption involved in this particular approach. Nor does it mean that there may not be some good elements in the legislation, but this devious tactic of combining unrelated matters in bills has got to stop. Proposed projects must be able to stand and pass scrutiny on their own. In the end if this goes through inflation will get higher, the deficit will expand, and you personally will be that much poorer.

AN UNMITIGATED CATASTROPHE

 No one voted for Joe Biden; they voted against Donald Trump, who only lost the election due mostly to his lack of self-control and inability to keep his mouth shut, in spite of a record of considerable accomplishment. Like most people I was prepared to accept what promised to be a bland, gray, moderate administration. It was obvious he would be the dumbest president since Gerald Ford, but otherwise relatively harmless. So after many decades of struggle I looked forward to turning my attention to long-delayed more satisfying pursuits, leaving it to younger people to carry on. 

Instead we found ourselves in the unusual position of having a government to the left of all of our allies. From the outset  there has been an ever-accelerating disaster unfolding along with the loss of everything we fought for, everything we achieved over many decades of effort with a great loss of blood and treasure that I never dreamed would ever happen. 

-From day one Biden began his reign with a series of boxes to be filled by every conceivable minority regardless of merit, to the point where supposedly “under-represented” groups are now over-represented! He wanted to be able to announce as many irrelevant “firsts” as possible while implementing blatantly anti-white policies across the board, creating yet more division. The result has been most mediocre, incompetent cabinet in American history. 

-He empowered the radical left that hardly any one supports to run rampant across our institutions with offensive, insane “woke” policies. 

-With his blessing they knowingly and deliberately ruined our economy by sabotaging our oil and gas industries in the name of a phony “climate crisis” without any remotely feasible alternative. This was a precipitous attack on the lifeblood of the world economy and along with incredibly massive, unnecessary, and wasteful spending they  instigated the inflation that we are now experiencing, while spreading misery around the world due to their fanatical ideological blindness.

-They managed to ruin our standing in the world via weak fecklessness. Sadly the horribly bungled withdrawal from Afghanistan is fading in memory, even though he basically handed the country over to the Taliban, left them billions of prime military hardware, ignored our allies, and royally screwed a lot of people who had cooperated with us. 

-If not for Joe Biden the Russians would not have invaded Ukraine, which he blithely dismissed as just a small incursion initially, and effectively gave the go-ahead for that disaster. 

-The ascendance of the radical left has resulted in a sharp increase in crime in all of our large cities while undermining and demoralizing the police and allowing criminals to rampage with little fear of punishment.

-Worst of all he not only dismantled our southern border, but allowed, encouraged, and even provided to support for millions of people to flagrantly break our laws and illegally enter the country.  He has handed effective control of the border to Mexican cartels, who now profitably traffic in humans as well as narcotics, including the flood of Chinese produced fentanyl, resulting in the death of over 100,000 Americans in a single year.  

The deliberate failure to maintain our territorial integrity alone is clearly grounds for the impeachment of both Biden and Harris, and this is on the Democrats for failing to do so themselves, or invoking the 25th amendment.* They have been consistently wrong about everything. Now, most people know how incompetent this regime is, and the radical left cannot now distance themselves from the monstrous disaster they themselves have engineered. Biden only facilitated their power grab, but the suffering now being experienced is primarily due to their unbound ideological lunacy, and they must be held accountable and never be allowed anywhere near power again. 

All this without even getting into the politicizing of “justice,” Hunter Biden’s antics, or a host of other infractions. When a government is this incompetent, it no longer has any legitimacy. Nor should anyone feel sorry for Biden’s cognitive decline, because he has proven himself to be little more than a nasty old grouch without any redeeming qualities. Unfortunately we aren’t even half way through this term, and unless we find a way to mitigate this catastrophe, more, and probably worse, is yet to come. 

*Regarding removing a president via the 25th amendment, it has to be seriously reconsidered. I don’t think anyone anticipated a situation where the President, the Vice-President, and the third in line Speaker of the house would all be unsuitable. If at least the congress changes hands then we might stand a chance with Kevin McCarthy instead of Pelosi but that’s the best we could hope for. 

WRONG TIMING ON CHINA

There is a near-universal chorus shouting “We can’t back down now,” in the face of threats and aggression, but in the case of Nancy Pelosi’s planned trip to Taiwan it is lunacy to tempt fate with a conflict that we are currently ill-prepared for. Even the Pentagon knows this. We have a lamentable pattern in this country of stumbling into war without fully thinking out the consequences. We are ever prone to short-term thinking in long-term situations. 

The Chinese do not suffer this handicap. They pursue long-range strategies with careful consideration, while we tend to react precipitously. Thus the Chinese Communists have long planned to bypass the USA in terms of world power, and further, to undermine us at every possible opportunity, which we have yet to fully grasp. All this time, and especially since the rise of the current leadership in China, they have in fact been engaged in a subtle, low-intensity war against this country. They have penetrated and compromised many of our institutions, including universities, corporations, and and politicians themselves, the extent to which we still barely recognize. In fact, the next big scandal to erupt in this country’s likely to be “the great betrayal;” i.e. degree to which we have been seriously compromised by an inept, greedy, and rotten elite. 

The Chinese Communists know a lot more about us and our vulnerabilities than we do in reverse. This is a result of chronically short-sighted leadership across the board, and a near total inability to develop and maintain a long-term strategy about anything. This has been brought about by the ephemeral nature of our politics; ever shifting and always subordinate to the “issues of the day.” 

With regard to Taiwan we have put ourselves in an untenable position.  We have, all along maintained that it is part of China, which of course is the Chinese position, which puts us on shaky ground in any potential conflict. At the same time it is true that Taiwan has been democratically self-governing long enough to have developed into an advanced democracy, with an increasing identity of its own, just as Ukraine has developed over the space of a few decades a comparable identity, or sadly, the way Kabul had changed in Afghanistan before they were shamefully abandoned. 

Furthermore we are currently in a position where we and the western world are have become dependent on Taiwan for some advanced technology and can ill afford to see that gone before it has been relocated, duplicated, or otherwise secured. Furthermore the acquisition of Taiwan will certainly put China on top in short order as things currently stand. These are hard-core, amoral realpolitik concerns. At the same time there is the basic reality that an island this close to home is clearly much more in the core interests of the Chinese, and they will go after it in total while we will at best be half-hearted about a place on the other side of the globe. The smart move would have been to simply arm the Taiwanese to the point where they could act in their own self-defense; but not enough has been done.

The problem is that we are currently woefully  ill-prepared for any sort of military conflict with China. It is one thing to not “back down” when you have the advantage, and another to do so from a weakened position. That doing so would send a bad signal to allies is just short-sighted, because it would only be temporary and the wise thing is to step back until we are prepared and have the power to prevail and strike at the right time. They think that way and we don’t, and if we don’t become more Machiavellian, or even godfather-like in our strategies we will be in deep trouble. There are just too many things wrong at this time, namely:

1. Incompetent leadership. Does anyone want to get into a military conflict with Joe Biden as commander-in-chief? 

2. A military that has been badly damaged by idiotic “woke” policies and vaccine dismissals and is simply not ready for any kind of serious conflict at this point. 

3. In even entertaining any kind of conflict have we tightly coordinated with allies like Japan and Australia to have a joint strategy and preparation for conflict?  Unlikely. 

4. Can we enter a full-blown military conflict, which will rapidly supersede everything else, without serious damage at home? 

5. We have no clear idea of the extent to which the Chinese Communists have penetrated our society, taking advantage of our political divisions and disarray.

6. Have we done anything substantial enough to decouple from China without harming ourselves?

7. Do we even know who has managed to penetrate our defenseless, abandoned southern border?

8. Do we know what the Chinese are up to in buying up farmland near military bases?

9. Do we have any inkling of how many self-serving elites have been bought by China?

Changing Pelosi’s schedule is hardly “backing down.” In fact it removes any pretext for China to act under conditions that are currently favorable to them. That doesn’t mean we surrender or give up; it is a tactical move to enable us to finally begin to take this threat seriously and prepare, with the rest of our allies, for circumstances that will be more in our favor. Furthermore, short of that we haven’t even done anything to try and undercut Chinese influence around the world, in places like Africa, whose inhabitants are increasingly chafing under Chinese domination, or to respond in kind to continuous covert aggression against our country. We have allowed ourselves to be played. 

This is currently a country where a scoundrel like Eric Swallwell was found to be sleeping with a Chinese spy on his staff, but instead of being expelled from congress, Pelosi put him on the intelligence committee!  Yet we are supposed to not “back down” on behalf of Pelosi. We have been asleep at the switch, oblivious to the threat right in front of us while facing internal disintegration that leaves us ill-prepared for anything serious. It is vital we get our own house in order before adapting  a posture that is oblivious to our own sorry condition. It is time to get our act together before it is too late.

WEIRD WEATHER AND CLIMATE HUBRIS

While temperatures have risen to over 100^o  in areas west of here, in New York it has been unusually chilly. It is now June 19th and temperatures are currently still in the 50s. This has made for great gardening weather, but terrible swimming weather. Meanwhile late yesterday rains arrived which no one had predicted. 

If nothing else this shows us two things: first, weather is precarious and at best only partially predictable even now, and less and less accurate the further ahead we look. This only makes claims of certainty about “climate” many years from now simply ridiculous despite what the “experts” tell us. For the only certainty in life is uncertainty. It is just another instance of people claiming to know far more than they actually do know, and that is too often the source of much of the damage we do ourselves. Time and again things are grossly mismanaged and end in failure because of this sort of conceit. But because we are now a resolutely humane and ever-indulgent society, heads never role even after they have bungled everything.  What we really need is a big dose of humility, and a healthy skepticism about any claims of certainty. 

This does not mean denial of “climate change;” (which is a bit of an oxymoron), for the simple reason that if you have millions upon millions of more people coming online in a better standard of living based upon fossil fuels there are inevitably going to be consequences. The trouble is most of them are located on the other side of the world, and yet we have idiots insisting that we shoot ourselves in the foot  to correct something that is increasingly attributable to other places. There are things we can, should and will do to ameliorate all of this short of self-destruction, but they are more on the order of simple things, like planting trees, rather than dubious schemes telling us what to do and how we should live, or crash “crisis” programs towards this end that only cause other problems because they are fundamentally based upon ideological principles that vary sharply from reality.  The truth is that climate change is a constantly evolving process, with or without us, that is of an order of complexity far beyond our actual capabilities- again because we have people, who in Socrates terms, claim to know more than they actually do know.

The second thing to note is that given the great variations in weather, temperature, etc. just in this country, it is preposterous to seek to impose “one size fits all” policies on everyone that are out of touch with the realities on the ground that people actually  face. These conditions are inherently varied and complex, and cannot logically adhere to a single standard. Ye that is what we face with inept policy-makers seeking to impose uniform solutions on all of us in places where they simply do not apply. In the area where I live there is an abundance of water resources, while out west there are serious drought conditions. But the latter is the result of what few will yet admit, namely overdevelopment beyond what the region can sustain in terms of water resources, and ludicrous overdependence upon a single river across several states. Meanwhile in California where the consequences are going to be more severe, instead of investing in desalinization technology, or channeling water resources from the Pacific Northwest where they are abundant, they throw away money on mass transit boondoggles than no one is going to use. 

This is all a result of hubris on the part of an elite that is running out of credibility across the board, and rather than more prescriptions from them as to how we should go about things, what we really need is considerably more silence, restraint, and humility on their part.