I keep offering 'judo moves' for those we depend-upon to save civilization.
One such move might have let Joe Biden demolish the entire Kremlin kompromat ring in DC. (Three Republican Congressional reps have attested that their GOP colleagues hold "orgies" and one of them made the blackmail charge explicit.) Alas, that idea - along with every other agile tactic in Polemical Judo - was never taken up.
Okay, let's try another one. An impudent proposal - or else a potential magic move for the Faramir of the West, desperately holding the line against the modern Mordor.
I refer to Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelensky, who faces an excruciating dilemma because the the U.S. election.
Almost every aspect of the current, proposed 'ceasefire' would benefit Putin and disadvantage Ukraine. But Zelensky cannot be seen 'obstructing' a truce, or Ukraine will suffer in the arena of world opinion - and some of his own suffering populace. Hence my modest proposal.
To be clear... if Zelensky were to present this concept to the world, there is no way on Earth that Putin or Trump would accept it!
And yet, it will appear so clearly and inherently reasonable that those two would have a hard time justifying their rejection.
== A Modest Proposal ==
President Zelensky, just say this:
"Our land, our cities and towns, our forests and fields have been blasted, poisoned, and strewn with millions of landmines, while our brave men and women suffer every day resisting the aggressors, both on the front lines and on the home front. Meanwhile, every day and everywhere, our skills and our power-to-resist grow.
"The aggressor has no long term plan. Even should he occupy all of our country, the heat of our rage and resistance would make Kabul in 1980 pale, by comparison. Occupied, but never-subjugated, Ukrainians will turn the next hundred years into hell for the invaders.
"Then why does this outrageous crime continue? Because the despotic Kremlin regime controls all media and news sources available to 135 million Russians, who have no way to know the following:
-- That there was no "Nazi" movement in Ukraine. Except for a few dozen gangster idiots sporting swastikas for shock value. (There are far more such fools in both the USA and in the reborn USSR!) Otherwise, there was never any evidence for anything like it.
-- There was no ' invader army building in Ukraine' before either the full scale Russian invasion of 2022 or the 'green man' putsches of 2014. That was pure fantasy and we can prove it.
-- There was no irresistable momentum for Ukrainian NATO membership before 2022. Up to then, NATO itself had been atrophying for years and Ukraine might have been kept out of the alliance through diplomacy. Now? NATO is growing and gets stronger in potency every day. And Ukraine's alliance with the rest of Europe is now absolutely guaranteed, thanks to Mr. Putin.
-- We were always willing to negotiate assurance and provisions for the comfort and security and prosperity of Russian speaking citizens of Ukraine, especially in the Donbas. That offer still stands. And hence we ask them, are you truly better off now, dear friends?
I could go on and on. But doing so just leaves this as another case of "he-said, she said." And we are done exchanging heated assertions.
It is time to check out which side is lying!
OUR PROPOSAL IS SIMPLE:
Before any ceasefire takes effect, we call for a Grand Commission to investigate the truth.
Instead of world elites or politicians, we propose that this commission consist mostly of:
-- 100 Russian citizens...
-- 100 Ukrainian citizens living in unoccupied territories...
-- 100 citizens from a random pool of other nations.
Members of this Grand Commission will be free to go anywhere they wish, in both Ukraine and Russia, wielding cameras and asking questions and demanding answers. Let them video the trashed and ruined towns and farms and forests everywhere that Russian armed forces claim to have 'liberated.'
And yes, the commissioners will be welcome to sift for evidence of pervasive "naziism" in our country... so long as they are also free to document Vlad Putin's oligarchy and their relentlessly violent drive to rebuild the Orwellian Soviet empire.
== How would it work? A FAQ ==
Why such a large group?
A large and diverse commission helps to ensure maximum coverage and to minimize coercion by their home governments. Among so many commissioners, some will certainly ask pointed questions! And they will return home in numbers that cannot be kept squelched or repressed.
How to ensure the members aren't just factotums of either regime?
They will be selected randomly from the paper pages of old telephone directories! Sure, that might be clumsy. But those paper volumes cannot be meddled with, especially old phone books currently archived in - say - Switzerland. For all its faults, this method ensures that the selection process will pick many citizens who are not beholden to the masters in the capital.
Won't the governments of Russia or Ukraine be tempted to coerce commissioners anyway?
Yes, and that is why they will be invited to bring along their immediate families! Arrangements will be made for spouses and children to stay at nice resorts along the Black Sea, while the commissioners do their work. And incidentally, those families will talk to each other, too. We welcome that. Do you?
Won't some of the commissioners defect - during their tours of Ukraine or Russia, refusing to go home?
Of course some will! We are not afraid of that. Are YOU afraid of that, Mr. Putin?
Won't such a huge endeavor be expensive?
Sure it will be. So? Russia and America brag about how rich they are. And so do the host nations of recent 'peace conferences,' who could easily pony up the expenses, for the sake of ending a dangerous and destabilizing war.
Why not ask the world's billionnaire caste to foot the bill? For the sake of actual communications and genuine peace and prosperity?
There are many of the uber-rich who talk a good game. This would be their chance to prove that they believe in the future, after all.
Won't there be dangers?
Sure they will be, especially wherever resumed fighting breaks out near the inspectors, during or after a ceasefire. The commissioners should possess some grit and courage and world civic-mindedness. Why? Is that a problem? Compared to the possible good outcomes from such heroism? From the most-genuine kind of patriotism?
Do you honestly expect Vladimir Putin to agree to this?
Why wouldn't he? If this will let him convince skeptics around the world and in Ukraine that all of his justifications for this slaughter and ruination of a beautiful country are valid and true?
Of course that was a bitter jest. Because there is no way that Mr. Putin or his supporters would agree to such a Grand Commission, digging deeply into things that are called Facts and Truth.
Then why did you make the proposal, if you don't think it will be accepted?
Because nothing better demonstrates the most basic difference between the two sides of this conflict.
One side slavishly follows a murderous liar, because of the hypnotic power of his lies. Lies that would be so-easily disproved, if the tyrant agreed to allow light to flow to his people.
The other side is a nation of people who love Russian poetry... but we are not and never have been Russian. People who know intimately well Russia's cruelly-depressing history, and who want no further part of it.
We all had friends across the former USSR... but Ukraine is not and never has been Russia.
And we can prove it, as we daily prove our utter determination never again to suffer under Moscow's boot heel.
Are we outnumbered? Certainly. But we have special regiments on our side.
Honor. Decency. Resolve. Democracy. The friendship of all free peoples around the World. And science, too.
But above all -- the Truth.
231 comments:
«Oldest ‹Older 201 – 231 of 231For every "voter" that the wager method converts several thousand voters will end up with "A Pox on BOTH your houses" (and NOT vote) because of the overall situation with the Social Justice Fundamentalists
Cowards in all directions. The Foxites are probably right that masculinity is going extinct.
Prove it. Prove that it will change voting outcomes. Prove it with a study, and with a sample size large enough to be significant.
I bet you can't.
But until you do, I won't speak of the subject anymore.
On courage: I have seen the corporations, media, law firms and now universities, and even congressional Democrats surrendering, all needed for an effective resistance. You were one of the first conceiting defeat to the oligarchy, (at least, it can be interpreted that way.)
You all forgot about Timothy Snyders rule number one: Do not obey in advance.
And you wasted precious time on finger pointing, aggravating the difficulties to build an effective resistance later on.
Also, interesting how you link courage and masculinity. That says much.
You're right about my distaste for trying to manipulate someone through accusations of cowardice. I see defying such accusations as signs of security and maturity. Spurning a challenge is not in my eyers fleeing.
I agree about the necessity of trying to expose evasiveness. What needs to be demonstrated is that they have no way to test the truth of their beliefs. I'm not sure what the best way of doing that is. The one that comes to mind is asking them how they tested their ideas and persisting until they come up with an answer or show that they didn't.
This is difficult to do online, especially in a forum that you don't control. It is more likely to work in person.
Sensible people will be put off by the GOP's "fundamentalism"
UNFORTUNATELY they will also be put off by the Democrats "Social Justice Fundamentalism"
So they didn't VOTE!
The thing is, though, that the "social justice" fanatics you describe are not representative of the Democratic Party. They're prominent in some academic or entertainment circles, and they show up at protest rallies and on social media. But no actual Democratic officeholders or candidates talk that way. If anything, the fundamental sin of the Democratic Party is to accept Republican framing on all issues in order to avoid any hint of just that association.
A more productive effort could be to somehow de-power the small minority of Dems who are the Social Justice Fundamentalists
Any idea how to do that?
It should have begun 30 years ago. We need fact-based media out there as accessible as right-wing propaganda outlets. And the part I don't know how to accomplish is...it needs to walk the line between being attractive enough to get people to voluntarily consume without itself becoming an obvious lying propaganda vehicle.
The justice warriors remind me a LOT of the social conservatives who I literally saw arguing that they had to double-down on their conservativeness after being whupped by Obama years ago.
As far back as my college years in the 1980s, I noticed that the Republican answer to every electoral setback was to assert that they need to go even further to the right. I used to wonder what it would take for them to decide they've gone too far. In 40 years, that hasn't happened yet.
It's right-wing media--FOX, talk radio, Twitter, etc--that has their audiences firmly convinced that Democrats favor de-funding the police and open borders and such. And the problem with that is that right-wing media is ubiquitous.
Alfred Differ:
Mcsandberg is incorrect. Any one of the sensitive things might have just been ‘secret’.
McS is bordering on more sealion than troll. He seems to be making (or echoing) a semantic argument that the revealed information wasn't classified--that verb being used in the active sense. Or perhaps that King Donald declassified it with his brain as he has been wont to do.
In any case, it's amazing that a movement which ignores legal barriers whenever it chooses to rests its case on a lawyer's definition of the word "classified". That's not what's important here. Information that should have been kept away from enemy eyes and which could have caused grave damage was treated as a barroom conversation on a commercial app that probably any other intelligence service could see.
Der Oger:
interesting how you link courage and masculinity. That says much.
Well, the right itself makes a big point of being the "real men". So demonstrating that they are less so--by their own definitions--is a legitimate judo move.
* * *
Alfred Differ:
Courage is an old-school virtue. A lack of it is a vice we call cowardice.
Here, I'm not sure I'm using the terminology the same way you are, but to me, "courage" is intrinsically linked to morality. What I mean is, I can grant that someone who refuses to denounce the religion he truly believes in, even in the face of torture and death is displaying "courage". I'm less willing to accept the Paul Ryan assertion that it takes "courage" to take from the poor to enrich the wealthy. Taken to the extreme, that boils down to "It takes real courage to exhibit cowardice!"
I'm not sure I can justify the distinction legalistically, but I know it when I see it.
Putting on my Tocqueville hat for a moment. Some of the town halls in ruby states are getting near rabid, with shouts of "Tax the rich!" and "Traitor!" hurled at stunned Reps, while the Dems play Tiddlywinks. Both RP and DP have moved right of the populace.
I merely point out why not a single broadband hookup has happened https://twitchy.com/samj/2025/03/28/jon-stewart-flips-out-build-back-better-funding-ezra-klein-n2410589 and I'm "a raving lying loony like Locum". Sheesh.
Larry Hart said...
"The thing is, though, that the "social justice" fanatics you describe are not representative of the Democratic Party. They're prominent in some academic or entertainment circles, and they show up at protest rallies and on social media."
I don't think that's accurate. True, the democratic party is a pretty wide tent, but SJFs have been quite influential in recent years. They have been able to get policies enacted that don't just offend those on the right but also offend many on the left, and that are IMO genuinely bad policies.
Larry, he should know by now that I am not of the right. Besides, that is not how he formulated it; he specifically wrote Cowards in all directions. The Foxites are probably right that masculinity is going extinct.
He is not completely wrong. One of the few life signs of political resistance in the US comes from a woman - AOC. Oh, and Bischof Budde.
Yet, this sentence reeks of the incel views so common in STEM circles and now may be one of the driving reasons why so many terminally underfucked nerdy young men have run in droves to Musk. Sexism was a part of that millieu all the time.
Can you be specific, though? What is there, that is really a big deal? I definitely think that there are fanatics on both sides, but if there wasn't something to what they were pushing for, how do they get a majority?
Courage is an old-school virtue. A lack of it is a vice we call cowardice. Too much of it is a vice we call foolishness. This is where Goldilocks steps in and advocates for the just right amount.
Nicely said, Alfred.
Now, do 'Empathy' and maybe 'Tolerance'.
Best
Tolerance is best seen as a social contract rather than a moral standard. It is a mutual tacit agreement to put up with things about each other that you wish were otherwise. Intolerance is a breach of that contract. This framing of the issue deals with problems about tolerating the intolerant.
Empathy is not the only virtue or the basis of all morality as some claim. There are multiple other moral goods, and they cannot all be acted on to the maximum degree in every issue at the same time. Moral goods have to be balanced against each other.
But what is wrong is dividing the World into the worthy and the unworthy and suppressing empathy towards those that you deem unworthy. Dividing the World into the worthy and the unworthy is morally questionable. Moral superiority should not feel good. If it does then you are trying to gain from others' moral failures. And this leads to a desire to see others as having morally failed.
Looks like VP J Divans has been sent to Kyril Island. Unfortunately he'll probably be coming back.
Ref: "The Weatherman" in Bujold's "The Vor Game."
Duncan: “The level "3" - will NOT "flee" - he/she is willing to argue - but not to be persuaded
The level "4" also will not "flee" - he/she is the "Zealot" - will not listen or pay any attention to anything an "unbeliever" has to say…”
Opposite to true! They will… and do… flee from cognitive dissonance. Have you done the experiment? I have, very very often.
“Tim Urban's point is that the levels 3 & 4 have completely taken over the GOP” This is true.
“Swaying level 1 & 2 people from the GOP will make no difference - they are NOT in charge”
Again with cynical BS. Peeling away the remaining fact folks can reach a critical level where the category 2 &3 folks finally can no longer rationalize that “We have our own fact people.”
I may be wrong or right. The problem is that guys like you give up without ever even trying.
LFlack is suddenly making sense: “I have noticed how often Progressives in the US misunderstand their opponents' motivations and it usually is in a way that helps them feel virtuous. And that makes it easier for their opponents to dismiss their criticisms.”
LarryHart: "True, the democratic party is a pretty wide tent, but SJFs have been quite influential in recent years. They have been able to get policies enacted that don't just offend those on the right but also offend many on the left, and that are IMO genuinely bad policies."
The Big Tent coalition built by the Roosevelteans was a spectacular success and when America was Great. But
1. a wide coalition is hard to maintain, especially in an era of change and necessary progress, enabling for example Nixon's Southern Stratego and Reagan's social war... exacerbated later by idiot lefties being lured into reflex self-destructive coalition wrecking.
2. The worst political sanctimony poisoning is demanding all-at-once. If you dream of an ideal world (the left's teleology) then incrementalism is betrayal. And the American Project's slow incrementalist steps toward justice and progress HAVE been terribly frustrating and sloth-like...
...except compared to every other major society across all of time. Moreover, most revolutions that sought huge overnight transformation soon devolved into chaos and horrors. ONLY incrementalism has ever created decades that were markedly and decisively better than those that came before.
But liberal transcendentlism is vASTLY better than the right's cult fetishes of 'cyclical history,' doomcasting and obeisance to priests and inheritance brats and savanarolas.
Dr Brin
It is not so much "give up without trying" as trying to get the big guns (like you) pointing in a more useful direction!
A third of American registered voters did not bother to vote
Tim Urban - IMHO - points to the REASON why they did not vote
I have always said that "Both Sides Do It" is the GOP's biggest lie
Tim shows that as far as a LOT of voters are concerned its actually TRUE!
The GOP has its mindless doctrines (less tax for the rich) - but so do the Democrats as they continue to support the Social Justice Fundamentalists
To most voters the SJF is actually more noticeable and more harmful than the GOP - it's their kids that are attending the schools where the SJF bollocks is being forced into the teachers and into the kids
They are the ones being told to demonstrate their SJF credentials when applying for a job
Being "against" - Social Justice - sounds terrible! - but it has been distorted and deformed in such a way that anybody who thinks about it is unable to support it
We see the GOP being against "DEI" - and it seems horrible - how can anybody support them against "Diversity, Equity and Inclusion"??
Only "Equity" is being interpreted as "Equality of OUTCOME" - not "Equality of Opportunity"
Equality of Opportunity is a superb goal - we need to work towards that
Equality of Outcome - is back to the Harrison Bergeron bollocks
We need the "Big Guns" to try and get the Dems to push back on the bollocks
THAT would be thousands of times more effective than picking off a few individuals with wagers
SJF is at minor nuisance levels here in Australia. When I have sought jobs at universities there has been one selection criterion that was social justice related. It was always treated as a formality and was the last criterion in the list. Generalities about treating everyone fairly were enough to deal with it. I could have added making allowances for disadvantages if needed.
The moral display required seems to be much worse in the US and to be required in more areas than here. I can understand how it might cause more resentment there. But even so the Republican reaction is so over the top that it looks like a justification for picking a fight.
Lloyd
The SJF requirement in the USA is at the start of the procedure - you need to qualify - be an activist! - before they look at your education and experience
It's also massive in education and schools
AND as you say it's causing a horrible reaction!
You guys are incredible. While brownshirts burn down the US, you still mutter about civil rights activists being somehow worse.
Der Oger
The "Brownshirts" are much worse -
But it's because of the "Civil Rights Activists" that they are in a position of power
And the route back to sensible politics in the USA requires the "Civil Rights Activists" to be removed
It's like trying to put the fire out while some idiots keep switching the water off because it may damage the carpets
Bah. Radical centrists are the problem. In fear of loosing favor of their billionaire leash-holders and delusional concepts of "decorum" they have stalled progress enough that the working class has lost faith in them and democracy itself.
A human mind is like a ball perched on a hill. An initial movement triggers a rapid acceleration in one direction. Just like gravity, confirmation bias & feedback do the rest.
That initial movement is (almost) everything.
"It's the set of the sails, and not the gales..."
- Ella Wheeler
And the route back to sensible politics in the USA requires the "Civil Rights Activists" to be removed
While not entirely discounting your point, I would assert that the negative opinion toward social justice and diversity is force-multiplied by right-wing media. The same way that one immigrant murdering a girl becomes perceived as an invasion of rapists and murderers, the outrages of the most extreme lefties are hung around the necks of the liberal establishment and Democratic Party. Even the outrages of Republicans (i.e., the two who threatened Trump rallies last spring) are hung around the necks of the liberal establishment and the Democratic Party.
And were the Civil Rights Activists to magically be removed, the right-wing mediasphere would simply make them up. Or report on false-flag operations made to look like they were done by the left.
So I'd assert that what the route back to sensible politics in the USA actually requires is the removal of the right-wing near-monopoly on media in this country.
Start of the Isar Spectrum rocket, with expected unplanned rapid disassembly. Number two and number three are already under construction.
(I had to think of all that jokes that were made when the governor of Bavaria announced "Spaceship Bavaria One" a few years ago ...)
Der Oger, you incomprehension of whaty we are saying is disturbing. It cannot be explained just by cultural or linguistic differences.
"You guys are incredible. While brownshirts burn down the US, you still mutter about civil rights activists being somehow worse."
Stunning absolute bullshit. I am fighting the madness Vastly vastly harder and more effectively than you are, sir. And when we complain that idiots on our own side have betrayed the grand coalition for civilization by imposing upon us crazy TACTICS that is the very opposite of what you said.
Refusal to adapt failed tactics is our side's madness and it led to a defeat that might kill all our hopes. Those who destroyed the American liberal coalition by driving away millions of union workers, Blacks, Hispanics and others are screeching that we must double down on the doctrinaire bullying that GHeorge Orwell described in HOMAGE TO CATALONIA.
READ THAT BOOK! And see how the left makes circular firing squads, allowing horrors like FGranco, Stalin, Hitler and Trump to happen.
onward
onward
@Der Oger
“You guys are incredible. While brownshirts burn down the US, you still mutter about civil rights activists being somehow worse.”
You are not the only one amazed by this.
Artemi Glazkov
Post a Comment