ANTI-SEMITISM EVEN IN NEW YORK

I am truly astonished at the spectacle of anti-Semitic demonstrations in the 21st century, in New York City of all places. These appalling activities are yet another indication of the moral and intellectual bankruptcy of what passes for “higher education” in this ever more dumbed-down society, and that entire system needs a complete overhaul.

Having been born and spent much of my life here, including college and graduate school, at a time when there was a very substantial Jewish presence among both students and faculty, it never occurred to me that things could possibly change so much. It is just mind-boggling to see the extent to which these failing institutions have degenerated into wellsprings of anti-semitism. Anti-semitism New York!  That is absolutely is what we are seeing because there is no rational analysis going on here. For even if a normal person disapproved of some aspect of Israel’s strategy they would express it in a civilized fashion. This is something else, something very sinister and deep. 

On top of that they are already claiming that the atrocity photos, that Hamas themselves took are “fake.” Worse there are people dumb, blind, or hateful enough to give this nonsense possible credence. Given these tactics this is not ordinary people objecting to a policy, but dedicated, despicable, unapologetic campaigners for evil.

Whatever moral legitimacy of human concern might once have been there on the left, it is gone now. I have been struggling against them all my life, but in earlier times you could at least take them seriously and even have a civil discussion. That hasn’t been true for a long time now, and in graduate school I had my own problems with them, had to abandon an academic career, and saw all this emerging decades ago. What we have now is beyond even that; it is pure evil and the political will must rise to crush it once and for all.

If nothing else all of this certainly confirms the utter lunacy of believing in nefarious Jewish cabals, secretly all-powerful and controlling things behind the scenes, etc.  It isn’t there, never was, and the way these events have unfolded,  it is clear that “the Jews” are nowhere near as powerful as hateful psychopaths have imagined over the years. Not when anti-semitic demonstrations are blithely accepted in New York. Not when there is no retribution, no sanction, no cost, no strong pushback. 

But beyond that it isn’t just the Jews, it’s Christians as well. You can’t have a public event even as innocuous as lighting a Christmas tree without it being ruined, or attempted to be ruined by these devils. This is nothing less than a civilizational struggle directed against everything we have achieved and built over many centuries- our exceptional, and yes great, western civilization. This is not only an assault on religion of ages, but everything that came of Greek rationalism, considered critical thought, and reason itself. We’ve sat still for more than a generation of academic nonsense and relativism  disparaging the concepts of reason and truth which is the fundamental basis of anything being “academic” in the first place. Along with this fuzzy-headedness our standards not simply degenerated, they have collapsed. 

For too long we have allowed people who don’t represent anyone take the initiative and set the agenda. This has to end now, once and for all. What has been unmasked in all of this is the darkest impulses of human experience, always festering below the surface, now arisen nakedly in the open and spreading. The solution is not in passing more laws or resolutions on these things, which only address symptoms of a deeper malady rather than the disease itself. It is a cancer, and like a cancer it must be completely excised. That can only be done at this stage with the re-establishment of legitimate authority that people can again trust, with confidence to resolutely act strongly and decisively to root out this evil wherever and however it appears.  

SHORT TAKES AFTER AN ABSENCE

INFLATION: I am so sorry that I turned out to be right about inflation, (https://www.georgesarant.com/2021/12/funny-money.html) which will only get worse before it gets better, for the simple reason that it is now on everyone’s mind and incorporated into selling and purchasing decisions going forward. When I first wrote about it there was little sense of its imminent presence, and we were told that it was “transitory” by the “experts.” But now that we are all fully conscious of it, the effects are compounded, and it will build on itself the way it did in the 70s.  The damage that has been done by bad policies cannot be undone overnight, and we will likely face another recession before things level out. Mind you this is an entirely man-made phenomenon due to an incompetent administration that has been wrong about everything and is fully responsible for engendering it from a rock-solid, stable period created by the previous administration; and no, it’s not Putin’s fault.

UKRAINE: I still believe what I wrote about the ultimate demise of the Putin regime (https://www.georgesarant.com/2022/02/how-tough-guys-fall.html) will ultimately come to pass, due to the disastrous invasion of Ukraine. That is the bright side; the dark side is the possibility that he may become totally unhinged, say the hell with everything, and take the whole world down with him in a nuclear catastrophe. We would then be reliant on the good sense and decency of Russians tasked with implementing this to disobey.  But otherwise we are witnessing the self-destruction of the geographically largest country in the world, a culmination of chronic bad government. 

Our eyes have clearly been opened by exposure to the Ukrainian reality. Beforehand I think many of us had a vague picture of some sort of drab, post Soviet reality, along with Chernobyl, etc. Instead what we now see is a beautiful city, and a heroic people, many of whom speak English better than many Americans these days. Again, tragically, this too could have been avoided if we had a different administration. 

INDIVIDUALS AND HISTORY; It should be clear now that it is individuals that matter in life, from the uniqueness of each and every one of us, to those at the pinnacle of power. If someone with the humane instincts of a Gorbachev had been in charge of Russia instead of Putin, how different things would have been. Instead one malevolent actor holds the whole world hostage. Or, suppose the Ukrainian leader were someone who, in the face of danger, absconded in a pattern going back to the Byzantine Emperor facing the Fourth Crusade up to the last President of Afghanistan, resulting in the collapse of the government? Fortunately for the Ukranians, Zalinsky was the man who instead held things together. 

There are no grand “causes,” no “laws,” no great “theories” governing history. There are only events and individuals, and how they respond to them. There are endless “if only-s” throughout history that would have resulted in completely different outcomes given different players. We need only think of the virtually miraculous accomplishments of Washington, without whom this country would not exist. Or our present sorry state under a grossly incompetent administration of old radicals going off the rails. 

THE ROTTEN LEFT: It should be crystal clear now the extent to which we have been subject to a morally bankrupt Left, that across the board destroys everything they come into contact with. Think simply of any interest group online, and how often they ruin things by injecting politics into subjects that have no connection with it, or how our media have been corrupted, education system destroyed, biological facts rejected, endless racializing of everything, language itself purloined, etc. because they view all aspects of life as political, while the rest of us live in the real world. Look tellingly, at the reaction to Musk buying Twitter and restoring free speech, which they cannot abide, in keeping with their ongoing censorship because they cannot bear to hear anything that conflicts with their warped world view. This repressive reign must end and true freedom restored to all our institutions or we are doomed. 

ARE WE REALLY “DEEPLY DIVIDED?”

We are not as divided as some commentators assume. To be sure there are political differences, but those differences are most intense among the people (around 20%) who regularly follow politics. An even smaller number are passionate partisans. Most others are pretty apolitical and more attuned to the day to day life around them, which may turn out to be the more sensible use of one’s limited lifespan.

There are always divisions of opinion about any topic you can think of, i.e. sports, music, movies, tv, hobbies, local organizations, which way the toilet paper roll should face, etc., etc. In fact those other things are what life is really about, and people who may be at loggerheads politically nevertheless share common ground in many other areas, while their political cousins may be oblivious to, or on another side in different areas.

The people who fret most about “division” are themselves frequently part of the problem, although to them it is  those other people who don’t see things the right way. It is only possible to buy into the idea of deep division if you believe that everything in life is political. There is some of that on all sides, but it is especially pronounced on the Left (as distinct from “liberal” in this case), where true believers don’t see any distinction between the political and the social, which in turn then applies to state and society. To them everything is political, and they take the measure of things through an ideological continuum. They inject politics into all aspects of life, ruining much of it for everyone else. Ironically they are the gift that keeps on giving for the Right, for they engender far more annoyance than sympathy. That is why personally I am not so much “Right” as I am anti-Left, for the reasons indicated above.

Excess political passion is like a social disease. The fundamental basis of any ideology is virtually always irrational because its foundation can be distilled to a hierarchy of values. Values are what’s left when we can’t agree on the facts. A civilized society can address many problems based upon a common understanding of the facts, which at any given moment are true or false, and involve some degree of rational resolution. But why doesn’t everything work this way? It is because the remainder are based not on facts, but values.

Society functions because there is a common consensus regarding the way many things work. We can agree on the time of day, or turning right when the sign points that way, or noise coming from some direction, but not whether it is good or bad, because that involves a value judgement.  When division of opinion occurs that is based upon values, or where a particular value belongs in the hierarchy, there is no obvious, easy rational solution and because of that we have conflict. Then the problem will have to be addressed either democratically and peacefully, through compromise, or otherwise through force, which often involves violence or repression. Some  at the extremes become so incensed with regard to others that they will consider the latter as justified if it is in keeping with their viewpoint.

But we know that in the long term nothing is permanent and the future is unknowable. Excess passion is simply wasted energy. As things change continuously we may find ourselves strange bedfellows under new circumstances, and yesterday’s opponent may be today’s friend. The political spectrum is not carved in stone and the issues of the day often change. This is common sense to people who are less politically inclined, so most of the “division” the dividers fret about is happening on some other planet.

THE RUSSIANS, THE DEMOCRATS AND THE MEDIA

There was a time when Russia was the enemy, back when the Russian people suffered under the communist yoke. Then opposition to the Soviet Union was the right position, while many on the Left were outright communist sympathizers or treasonous pawns of that evil empire. The Russian people were never the enemy.  The enemy was the odious regime that murdered millions of its own people. But the Soviet Union is long gone and communism belongs in the dustbin of history.

Russia has come a long way, and today under Putin is anti-Bolshevik.  Is it democratic in the way of the west? No, but it is an infinite improvement over the communist regime. When the Russians were behind the expansion of communism there was reason to consider them the enemy. But the Left instead was reliably anti-anti-communist, ever promoting “peaceful coexistence” and understanding where none could be had. But today the new theme of the Left, and the Democratic party in the US, is anti-Russian. Perhaps they mourn the old Soviet regime and resent its replacement, no longer of the “left,” but one that has restored Russian tradition, culture, and religion. This is not meant as an apology for the Russian regime, which in many respects is mismanaging the country to the detriment of its long-term interests, and with its low tolerance of opposition, but these are self-inflicted wounds.

Today the Democratic party in the United States has gone totally off the rails in its delusions about Russian involvement in our elections and government. At this point it is pure hysteria, not even so much because of anything the Russians might have done but that it might be used to undermine the Trump administration. This is unadulterated hatred seeking a target aided by a compliant and partisan media.

If you were skeptical of the criticism of the media in the past, the current kerfuffle over Attorney General Sessions supposed contacts with the Russians proves the point. From Democratic operatives the word was passed to the media that Sessions met with the Russians twice and didn’t mention it in his Senate testimony. But what were these meetings? The supposed contact with the Russian ambassador consisted of questioning him with other senators in a hearing, and an otherwise casual and trivial passing conversation at a reception. To any objective observer this is nonsense, and a truly honest media would have passed it over or concluded that there was nothing there. Instead we have a bogus “scandal” without substance that most people can parse out on their own. The only real offense of Sessions is being a southern white man; talk about prejudice and hatred!

Now they are finding, or rather looking for Russians everywhere under the bed without a shred of evidence. A responsible media would stick to the facts, but they have degenerated into a partisan opposition, relying on embittered holdovers from the Obama administration.

This Russomania is going nowhere. It is the last gasp of scoundrels who have nothing left in their arsenal.Their only objective is to undermine the Trump administration. It isn’t just the Democrats, but the Bush-league Republicans who failed miserably when in power. These old cold warriors have now made common cause with the new cold warriors of the Left. In the complete absence of factual evidence and endless innuendo, the net effect of this behavior is to drive more and more people into the Trump camp.

HELPING THE FEW BY PUNISHING THE MANY

The Obama administration forced through a radical overhaul of the health care system despite public opposition, and the results have been disastrous. Not only does the system not work, but it is actually causing real harm to people, particularly individuals who purchased their own health insurance. Under this dysfunctional system they are being dropped from their existing policies since their existing coverage does not conform to Obamacare, thus losing their coverage while facing steeply increased premiums. But it gets worse. Since the website does not work they cannot even get a new policy at the Obamacare “exchanges,” leaving them with no coverage at all. All of this is happening while the president promised that people could keep their existing plans under Obamacare, but he knew, it now develops, as far back as 2010, that this was not true.

This is a sad example of the consequences of the warped thinking of the left, which demanded that the entire system of coverage for 80-85% of the population be upended because a minority did not have health insurance. Never mind that the overwhelming majority of people were satisfied with what they had, and the number of people lacking coverage was fluid; it didn’t matter, because the left-wingers cannot abide any distinctions. In other words, they insist on disrupting society if a minority (pick any one you want) is somehow allegedly not included in what prevails among the majority of the population. So we must endure continued social, cultural, and political disturbance for some misconceived sense of justice. The state must ameliorate any discrepancies, no matter what the cost. In addition, the true cost has been buried, for in order to pay for the minority in this instance, the costs for the majority must inevitably go up, bearing what effectively amounts to an additional tax.

It is also part of the liberal delusion that they know what is good for you better than you do yourself. For the left, government is an instrument through which they can impose their policies, values, and beliefs on other people. If the government manages more of our lives and the world around us, they think it is good. For them any flaw in society can only be changed for the better by the state, usually with some costly, vast new program. This faith in government planning and supervision remains unshaken by the facts.

To achieve such ends it is apparently okay to misinform, mislead, and even to lie to reach a desired goal. In the case of health care, the administration was, at the very least disingenuous in its claims. Given the foreknowledge of what was going to happen to individual coverage, suspicion can only be aroused that the intention all along was to force everyone into government health care program. I cannot subscribe to the notion that Obamacare was somehow designed to fail to achieve this end, because I think the people responsible thought they were doing good. It is rather a glaring case of ineptitude, overreach, and an example of what happens when ambitions far exceed the abilities that are applied to them. No, what is insufferable here is the conceit that they still know best and the continued smugness of the administration in the face of cascading failures.

They continue in damage control mode, while the rational answer would be to pull the plug on this monstrosity and cut their losses, or at least postpone implementation until they are presumably able to do so competently. The latter is unlikely to ever occur given the ill-conceived nature of this whole fiasco. The Democratic party will likely pay heavily for this, having forced it through when they controlled the congress, at least in the next election. The media also have a lot to answer for as well. They have been carrying water for the administration since its inception. Only now are they beginning to report on the magnitude of the problems, although they still have not come to grips with the fundamental flaws of the whole endeavor. What we need now is some public humility, if not contrition, across the board.