Child Warriors

I have had deep concerns about the fusion of Islamism and the New Left for some time.  The BDS movement, the election of Rashida Tlaib and Ilhan Omar, the refusal of mainstream Democrats and the Women’s March to categorically reject Louis Farrakhan have pointed to an implicit alliance between the New Left and Islamism.

And over the past year, one aspect of this alliance has alarmed me- the willingness of the New Left to adopted the Islamist tactic of using children as combatants to further their cause.

Hamas often uses children rather effectively as a defensive measure.   They create terrible dilemmas for the Israelis by using them as human shields to launch rocket attacks from Gaza.  Palestinians routinely deploy children to fling rocks at and taunt the IDF.  Last year, a video of a 16 year old girl slapping and kicking an IDF soldier went viral.  Offensively, Hamas has deployed booby trapped balloons and kites with incendiaries to terrorize Israeli children in playgrounds.

The New Left has caught on.

The New Left has now escalated its battle on a number of fronts and is using children both offensively and defensively.  Almost as if it were pre-planned, the New Left has deployed a single spokeschild in each of the discrete areas that is of most importance to it--climate change, gun control, sexuality and the economics.  The reason is simple.  As Hamas has learned, it is folly to attack a child on rational grounds, with evidence and data.  Children argue exclusively by appealing to emotion, and they can ruthlessly attack pollical opponents and they can’t be hit back, even when their arguments run contrary to fact and, in some cases, the U.S. Constitution.

Greta Thunburg (climate change)
Greta Thunburg is a 16 year old Swedish climate change “activist.”  At 16, she is not old enough to be a real scientist, do any modeling or analyze any modeling, nor is she qualified to do any economic analysis.  Yet there she is on a podium at Davos, telling world economic leaders that she will hold them accountable if they do not bend to her will.  “I want you to panic…and act as if the house was on fire,” she implored.  With no facts, no data and no practical solutions to support her other than “emissions must halt now,” she blamed the Davos elite for making “unimaginable amounts of money.”  The organizers of Davos had plenty of choices to address this issue—scientists, economists, statisticians—but they chose to put a child with no qualifications whatsoever on the podium.

David Hogg (gun control)
In the immediate aftermath Beginning with the Parkland shooting, young Mr. Hogg was ubiquitous on cable and in social media.  Hogg went after everyone, relentlessly and in a most nasty, acid, and often fact free fashion.  He accused Republicans of being in the bag with the NRA, smeared Dana Loesch, and then Marco Rubio foolishly agreed to debate him.  We have since learned that Broward County Sheriff’s department failed miserably in its response as did the F.B.I. (the shooter should have been locked up long ago).  But no matter, the New Left had their young, untouchable gun control spokesperson, who was rewarded for his efforts by admission to Harvard, despite having boards scores well below its normal admission standards and despite having been rejected by a dozen or so less prestigious colleges.

Desmond (LGBT)

Fresh off its marriage equality victory in Obergefell v. Hodges in the Supreme Court, the LGBT activists never slowed down.  The next battlegrounds were bathrooms, the military and youth sports for transgenders.  With the Trump administration putting up resistance on those fronts, the LGBT activists pivoted to the next frontier—the sexualization of children.   The New York Times began to float op-eds that talked about how pedophiles were really born that way and how criminalization of it should be softened.  Then little cross dressing 11 year old Desmond made his debut on Good Morning America to a cheering crowd (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-w5X4aD6mo8), followed soon thereafter by another pre-teen appearing with a nude male on social media.  Little Desmond is all over social media proclaiming that RuPaul is his hero and that RuPaul is the future.  In another era, the parents of both would have been arrested for child abuse. This is a deliberate and calculated attempt to connect pedophilia to the LGBT movement and to normalize it.

Alexandria Ocasio Cortez (Economics)

Alexandria Ocasio Cortez or AOC is she is now known burst on to the scene by upsetting Democratic stalwart Joe Crowley in the primary and then winning the general election in a solidly blue New York district.  Ocasio-Cortez (or Occasionally Cortex as her detractors call her) is an unapologetic and strident socialist that, like David Hogg, is everywhere.   And, like Mr. Hogg, AOC has no inhibitions about taking potshots at the president and respected and seasoned politicians like Joe Lieberman.

Although she is 29 years old, she has no practical experience beyond waitressing.  Although she has an economics degree from Boston University, it is apparent that she is either lying or that she sleepwalked through basic econ.  Why do I have her on the list of child warriors even though she is 29 years old?   I have included her because she thinks, reasons, talks, acts and carries herself like a child, and not a fully functioning adult.  She complained that she couldn’t rent an apartment in D.C. because she didn’t have the money to do so before she started her job as congresswoman.  She refers to top earners as the “tippee tops.”  Just as a pre-teen would, she was broadcasting about her pajamas and skin care regimen over social media.

Without any experience in anything beyond pouring wine, she is aggressively pushing her agendas: Medicare for All, the Green New Deal, a 70% tax rate.  When questioned about how she will finance it, she childlike brushes skepticism aside and says “you just pay for it.”  Her childlike beliefs are disconnected from any basis in reality, speaking of her proposed programs as a child talks about Santa Claus.  Even Left-friendly CNN could not get her to answer basic questions about how to finance all of her fantasies, yet she is undeterrable.  When questioned about her facts, she dismissively says that she is morally right, so her factual omissions and misrepresentations are forgivable.  She may be in her late 20’s, but her language, demeanor and ability to reason say that she is mentally and emotionally about 13 or 14  years old.

But then the New Left overreached.   It switched from defense to offense, and focuseda group of teenage boys from a Catholic high school.  In partnership with the mainstream media, it sought to demonize those boys and make them the target of attack.  And it worked… for a few hours.  Almost all of social media bought the narrative that these boys encircled poor old Native American Nathan Phillips and were taunting him based on his race and ethnicity.  Fired up by the MSM, the internet mob swarmed, slimed and doxxed the boys, who, among other things, receiving death threats. 

And it was all wrong.  The entire MSM reported the events precisely backwards-- NBC, NPR, CNN and the New York Times.  They lured the diocese into apologizing to Mr. Phillips (it later apologized to the kids).  It was the Covington kids that were being taunted by the Black Israelites and it was Nathan Phillips that got in their faces.  Scott Adams spun out his apology to the kids on Periscope after carefully reviewing the videos (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X1DrAeUNPU0).   And quickly, people learned that ol’ Nate has a history of public rabble rousing and lied about his status as a Vietnam veteran.  It turns out that the boys did absolutely nothing wrong.  The howling internet mob reached peak absurdity when it pounced on young Mr. Sandmann for the dastardly deed of –get this-- smirking. 

The Covington episode will not be the last of its kind.  Until Covington, the New Left has primarily deployed children defensively.  Now we will see children become an intended target of the New Left. used a standard tactic here – Get in their faces, disrupt, hope to provoke a reaction, and if you don’t, make up a narrative.  But here, the boys of Covington were saved by technology.   The film didn’t lie and there was plenty of the whole episode to discredit ol’ Nate.  And the ability to check his background quickly further undermined his credibility.

And now, they will fight back.  Nick Sandmann, the lead boy in the photo has engaged one of the top libel lawyers in the country, and has assemble a team of several law firms.  They have announced that several lawsuits will be filed against multiple parties.  Winning these suits is not common.  Carol Burnett won against the National Enquirer.  Hulk Hogan drove Gawker into bankruptcy.  I cannot predict the outcome here, but the film of the incident is pretty clear and several versions were taken from several different perspectives.

Hamas taught the New Left the benefits of engaging children in combat.  Hamas understands that it cannot defeat the IDF conventionally, so it deploys children as a defensive measure…and attacks them as well.  The New Left likewise understands that its pet  positions are a minority position and are difficult to argue rationally – confiscatory taxes, government run health care, cessation of all emissions, gender fluidity.   All evidence (just look at Venezuela), practicality and common sense cuts against them.

So the New Left has resorted to asymmetric warfare.

One of my favorite gangster films is Scarface with Al Pacino.  Pacino played Tony Montana, a wash up from the Mariel boat lift who, through ruthlessness and ambition, climbs to the top of the Miami drug trade as an assassin and drug dealer. In the climactic scene, he is hired by a Colombian drug lord to put a hit on a government official that threatens to expose him.   When the government official gets in his car, he is unexpectedly joined by his kids and Montana cannot bring himself to blow up the car with the kids in it, and aborts his mission (which results in his undoing). (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZcQtUdZ5Afs).

 As amoral and vicious as Montana was, he had boundaries, at least some semblance of a moral code--- no wife, no kids.  He would not destroy children. 

The New Left has no such boundaries.

The Best A Man Can Get

If I didn't know better, I might think that these things were coordinated and sequenced.  First, an 11 year old boy in drag was celebrated on Good Morning America.  Then, the American Psychological Association (APA) released its statement on "traditional masculinity."  Almost immediately thereafter, Gillette released its new ad aimed at destroying the "boys will be boys" epithet and moralizing about male behavior, and although Gillette did not use the term "toxic masculinity" the MSM filled it in when it described the ad campaign.

What is going on here?

It amounts to a big push from the Left to normalize the pathological and make the normal pathological.  Under the guise of tolerance and equal rights, the Left is eating at the core of the characteristics that made our country great-- strength, independence, achievement oriented, enduring. Of course, there are instances in which some men act atrociously (but so do some women).  But the Left doesn't care about throwing the baby out with the bathwater.  It really wants the baby thrown out.

I want to focus primarily on the APA statement and the Gillette ad.  While cheering on a young drag queen is part of this phenomena, I wish to treat this sickness and perversion in a separate post.

The APA has declared "traditional masculinity" to be harmful and pathological.  Traditional masculinity, according to the APA, is marked by "anti-femininity, achievement, eschewal of the appearance of weakness, and adventure, risk and violence."  The APA strings out these attributes  and deprives them of any context, and assumes they are negatively correlated with masculinity.  Aside from the first (for which no data is provided), whether these traits are positive or negative is wholly dependent on context.  There is a time and place for each one and being a man means you know when it is appropriate to exhibit such attribute.  There is a time to be adventurous.  There is a time to take risk.   And, yes, if a thug is shoving an old lady front of you, trying to steal her purse, there is a time to be violent, and it is entirely appropriate to be that way.   Many of the attributes that the APA delineates in its statement are associated with healthy, progressing, exciting and ALIVE people.

Traditional masculinity, the APA asserts, is marked by "stoicism, competitiveness, dominance, and aggression-- is, on the whole, harmful."  Really?  What exactly does the APA find objectionable about the cool competence of  Chester "Sully" Sullenberger?  Or the competitiveness of Steven Jobs? Or the take-charge attitude of the New York firefighters on 9/11?  Each of those "masculine" attributes marked by something the APA as harmful was instrumental in achieving something great and sometimes saving lives.  Under those guidelines, Theodore Roosevelt, Winston Churchill and George S. Patton were all pathological. 

Not to be outdone, corporate America jumped in.  Gillette introduced its preachy, virtue signaling "We Believe in the Best In Men" ad campaign, stereotyping male behavior and imploring, "It's been going on far too long.  We can't laugh it off.  Making the same old excuses."  The ad then throws in a snippet about sexual assault and sexual harassment as if it automatically follows that this impulse is an immutable aspect of male identity.  The words and imagery of the ad is unmistakable. 

Things may have changed since I studied marketing in business school.  In my class, we studied topics like market segmentation, product positioning, and ad campaigns that flattered the consumers in your target market or promised a sexier, slimmer, smarter, or more chic consumer.  It would have been unthinkable to propose an ad campaign to hector its target market or tell them how deficient they are.  But Gillette's ad doesn't say, "Our product will improve you," but rather that "You need to improve." 

And along with the stereotyping, Gillette opened itself up to charges of hypocrisy.  Within hours of the release of its ad, social media was filled with earlier ads of Gillette that objectified women-- one with beautiful young women in skin tight pants with "Gillette" prominently displayed across their backsides.

But aside from the stereotyping and hypocrisy, what is most disquieting about the APA and Gillette is that they both have taken it upon themselves to be the standard bearers of values.  The APA is supposed to be devoted to the promotion of mental health.  Gillette is supposed to sell shaving products.  Instead, each drifted out of its lane into roles that do not belong to them.

Who appointed them and why are they taking on this role?

In my view, it's because the Left has largely been successful at attacking, diminishing or dismantling the social structures that have been vital to the formation of men.  The family unit, especially the black family, is under siege.  A full quarter of men grow up in a single parent household.  Over 70% of African American births are to single women.  70% of teachers are women.  The Left has turned on football, another bastion of maleness.  The CTE hysteria has reduced participation rates in this activity that emphasizes teamwork, sacrifice, and accountability.  The Boy Scouts, another traditional structure for the formation of men and values has been attacked.  They finally caved in, took in girls and changed the name to "Scouts."  It may not make it anyway and is flirting with bankruptcy.  Organized religion, which the Left openly scorns has been another vehicle for teaching virtuous men.  With the erosion of these structures, others have attempted to fill the void.

But corporate America and the APA are ill equipped to fill this role.  Male virtue should not be taught by the marketing department at P & G.  And I certainly would not want the APA guidelines forming the core set of beliefs of my son.  I do not want an organization telling him there is something wrong with appropriate risk taking or competitiveness.  Now, you're intruding on my turf and I resent that. 

The misplaced stereotyping and false messaging from the APA and Gillette was revealed last week when a young state trooper was killed in an accident near my home.  Off duty officer Chris Lambert (an Iraq War veteran) stopped to help at the scene of a crash during a snowstorm when he was hit and killed by another car.  The family's statement to the press summarized his life, "he left this world in the way in which he lived: putting the well-being and happiness of those around him before his own."

Now THAT was a man- voluntarily putting himself in harm's way under dangerous conditions to protect others.

We really don't need Gillette or the APA or their cheerleaders in the APA lecturing us about fake and empty phrases like "toxic masculinity" or "the patriarchy."  We need to strengthen the structures that produce men like Officer Lambert and then celebrate them.   The reality is that men like Officer Lambert are actually quite the norm.  The Left isn't paying attention.

The New Kids In Town

The exchange this week between Joe Lieberman and Democratic rock star Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez was highly instructive.  The retired and moderate former Senator and Vice Presidential candidate said in an interview that he hopes that Ms. Ocasio-Cortez was not the future of the Democratic party, that she is getting a lot of attention because she is “controversial” and “different”.  AOC as she is known by shorthand fired back in a tweet, “New party, who dis?”

The changing of the guard was on full display this week in the wooden and oddly staged response by Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer to Donald Trump’s address on border security.  The American Gothic memes immediately went viral.   Schumer looked like a tired, old undertaker with kidney stones and Pelosi’s odd, twisted expression told that her time has passed.  Folks like Elizabeth Warren increasingly look desperate and ridiculous as time on their political clock relentlessly ticks away.

The old dinosaur liberals are giving way to the next gen.   I believe that Mr. Lieberman is entirely incorrect.  This generation IS the future of the New Left and will, over time, take over the Democratic party.  The pretense is over and this generation is bringing a transparency that the old guard could not.  Now, it’s all going to be on the table, cards face up.

One of the better biographies of Barack Obama was The Bridge: The Life and Rise of Barack Obama by David Remnick.  The title is the important piece.  In retrospect, Obama was a bridge to the New Left.  He was pretty careful to shade his views and carefully cultivated a moderate tone, even if his world view was not.  He was smart enough to know that the country would reject much of his agenda.  But his sympathies were clearly anti-business, anti-Israeli, pro-big government, lurching toward the nirvana of a command and control economy and a multicultural, borderless world based on a post-modern world view.  Black Lives Matter, the environmental totalitarians, and CAIR and the Muslim Brotherhood always had a place at the dining table while Bibi ate alone downstairs.  But there is little doubt about his desire to “fundamentally transform America” despite his more moderate tone.

This generation doesn’t bother with the pretense and it’s a good thing.

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez

AOC as she is known was anointed very early by Tom Perez as the “future of the party.”  You should pay attention when people say things because they just might mean it.   AOC is young, pretty, energetic and brash.  Going from a barista to media darling in a matter of weeks, she is boldly laying out the agenda of the New Left.  She has adopted the worst attributes of Donald Trump—using social media to message, exaggerating facts and snidely hitting back at her political enemies, both inside the Democratic party and across the aisle.  And, like Trump, the mocking of her sorority girl assertions and style seems to fuel her image. 

Undeterred by challenges from the friendly crew at CNN, AOC is the perfect figure for the future.  A product of our left captured higher education system, she has increased her salary by about seven times by working for the government, has already violated workers comp regulations (laws and regs are for the little people), and has exaggerated and misled about her background.  But she is an above board socialist (unlike Obama) and fearlessly puts out markers for the New Left (70% marginal rates for “tippee tops,” “Medicare for all,” and “Green New Deal”). 

Those that don’t take her seriously and fail to recognize the danger will live to regret it.

Ilhan Omar and Rashida Tlaib

Obama’s pro-Islamist, anti-Israel and anti-Jewish leanings were also camouflaged to a great degree, mostly because of his denials, but Omar and Tlaib have put their views out in the open.   Tlaib screeched “Impeach the m***f**cker” during her celebration party and a map in her office has a post-it with “Palestine” pasted over a map of Israel in her office.   She showed up in Palestinian garb for her swearing in ceremony while posting a tweet accusing Jews of having dual loyalties (Ms. Tlaib appears to be more interested in representing Palestinians than the constituents in her district).    If there is a substantive difference between having Tlaib in Congress and anti-Semite Linda Sarsour in Congress, I fail to see it.  They appear at the same functions like sorority sisters.

Likewise the first initiative taken by Ms. Omar was to change the House rules to permit the donning of that international symbol of women’s oppression -  the hijab.  Her twitter post “Israel has hypnotized the world, may Allah awaken the people and help them see the evil doings of Israel” tell you all you need to know about Ms. Omar.

Omar and Tlaib, like AOC are not aberrations.   They figure to have a prominent position with the New Left and the future Democratic party.  I will have more to say on this topic in future posts, but their ascendancy and affiliations are very troubling ….and their goals are very transparent.

And if that isn’t enough to give one pause, prominent Democrats appeared on stage with virulent anti-Semite Louis Farrakhan at Aretha Franklin’s memorial service last summer.

There is lots of evidence to suggest that just as the New Left conflates legal and illegal immigration, it is evidencing an anti-Israeli posture, which is drifting into anti-Semitism.

Leana Wen

For years, Planned Parenthood sold itself as a “women’s health” organization and kept repeating the mantra that abortion services are only 3% of what it does.  Even WaPo admitted that the 3% figure was misleading.  Planned Parenthood does about 321,000 abortions per year, representing about half of U.S. abortions.   So Planned Parenthood is in other lines of business in the same sense that the Mob is in the olive oil business.  Worse, the undercover filmings of abortion professionals showed a callous disregard for abortion and evidenced that it was also in the baby parts wholesaling business.

Then, just this week, I saw an ad posted for a job at Planned Parenthood with the title “Director, Judicial Nominations.”   What in the world does that professional position have to do with women’s health?

New director Leana Wen tweeted out this week that ….”our core mission is providing, protecting and expanding access to abortion and reproductive health care.”

No more hiding behind the “it’s only 3%” talking point.  Wen is out in the open, leading with its lead product.   The reality is that Planned Parenthood’s core identity is abortion, selling baby parts and lobbying for fewer restrictions to do more of the same.

Sarah Jeong

Ms. Jeong obtained a highly sought after and prestigious position on the New York Times editorial board even after her highly racist and nasty Twitter posts were revealed, such as:

“oh man it’s kind of sick how much joy I get out of being cruel to old white men” and

“Dumbass fucking white people marking up the internet with their opinions like dogs pissing on fire hydrants”

It is hard to imagine any white person being hired after having posted similar things about African Americans or Hispanics in any professional venue.   Yet the New York Times blithely washed it all away, rationalizing that she was simply responding to racist comments that were directed at her and that they were ancient history.  The directness of her tweets and obvious racism could not be whitewashed.  And it can only be concluded that the New York Times is happy to have someone who holds her views determining editorial content.   It is a well known truism that people like to hire people like them.

Most conservatives and libertarians would be chagrined to see the boldness and radicalism of the New Left.  I am not.   I am actually pleased to see it.  It is refreshingly honest for a change.   AOC, Ilhan Omar, Rashida Tlaib, Leana Wen and Sarah Jeong are the New Left.  The New Left has proclaimed that “the future is female” and, indeed, this is what it looks like.  There is no more camouflaging, obfuscating, or misdirecting.   They are quite open about their positions and affiliations and are being quite transparent. They are the leaders of the New Left and are laying down their markers.

Now, choose your future.

Confessions

I do New Year resolutions.  I write them down and look at them at the end of the year.  In 2018, I actually nailed or at least came close on a number of them (one of which being to do 52 blog posts no matter what). 

This year, two of my resolutions are to listen more carefully to people with different political leanings, and critically examine my own judgments, especially when they have been incorrect.

As to the second, I want to work harder at identifying where I have taken a wrong turn and why.  One of my intellectual heroes is Eugene Fama.   When anomalies turn up in his models, he changes his theories and upends his models. 

So, here are my top 3:

1.      Mitt Romney.  I supported Mitt in the 2012 election, not because I was enthusiastic about him, but I was pretty much uniformly opposed to Barack Obama’s policies.  Yet Mitt’s “47%” comment, “There are 47% of the people who will vote for the president no matter what … who are dependent on government, who believe they are victims….These are people who pay no income tax…and so my job is not to worry about these people”  was politically suicidal and foreshadowed Hillary’s Clinton’s “Basket of Deplorables” comment.  Mitt ran a terrible campaign, could not connect with the common person,  and now we see the real Mitt, publishing an op-ed lambasting Trump’s character just months after asking for Trump’s support.  Romney will never be president and should not be.  The op-ed triggered a backlash that apparently caught Romney by surprised and he ended up training to explain himself—which is why he is not president.  He was always explaining.

      Romney’s op-ed could have been written by any of the Trump bashing columnists at the New York Times.  Except for one small paragraph in which he conceded that “not all of the president’s policies have been misguided” and ended with the usual litany of accusations hurled by CNN, MSNBC, WaPo or the NYT, “I will speak out against significant statements or actions that are divisive, racist, sexist, anti-immigrant, dishonest, or destructive to democratic institutions.”  He did not have Nancy Pelosi, Corey Booker or Rashidi Tlaib in mind when he wrote those words.  It was a mistake to support Romney, and if Romney tries to primary Trump, count me with the 47% that will not vote for him.

2.      The Iraq War.  Yes, I bought it and the rationale for it.  9/11 and Saddam’s cat and mouse game persuaded me that he was likely to have a WMD program and there was little doubt that he would seek eventually seek retribution against the U.S. if he did.  Desert Storm’s success convinced me that it would be a quick war and that we would be able to impose some sort of democratic, if imperfect regime there.  I failed to recall that we were best off when Iraq and Iran were too busy beating the heck out of each other to bother with us or Israel much.  Not only did we not get the results we wanted, our foes were no longer scared of us.  We taught them how to turn an amazing 100 hour techno war into a long stalemate.  It was a costly venture that cost us moral authority and prestige along with thousands dead and wounded.   As I posted a couple of weeks ago, despite the response from conservatives and liberals alike, getting our military presence out of the Middle East entirely is not an irrational policy choice on Trump’s part.  The Iraq and Afghanistan engagements taught us the limits of military solutions (apparently a lesson not learned by Hillary Clinton as she pushed to depose Gaddafi.

3.      China.  I wasn’t alone in this one.  I was indoctrinated in the benefits of free trade, and I still adhere to that view.  And generally, the numbers support a free trade regimen.  Since Nixon’s opening with China, world poverty has declined from 44% to less than 10% today.  As with the Iraq War, the premise that as China grew richer, a middle class would emerge and demand more individual freedom turned out to be false.  As late as the fall of 2016, even Eugene Fama was convinced of that.   In fact, the reverse has happened.  Xi became president for life.  The regime is committing terrible human rights abuses against the Uighers and is now threatening Taiwan.  I will have a full blog post or two later in the year on China, but suffice it to say that our hopes that China would evolve into a more liberal and more democratic state have not been realized.  In fact, it’s going in the other direction.

       Last summer when I had lunch with economic historian Deirdre McCloskey, she said of the tariffs imposed on China, “It’s just stupid.”  And from her point of view, a purely economic one, she is correct.  But this is a narrow view, I believe.  I heard University of Chicago political science professor John Mersheimer speak last summer.   Once sentence stuck with me—“You do not want China to become rich.” 

I will have more to say on China in later blog posts, but China is NOT a normal trading partner.  While reasonable minds can disagree with whether the tariffs Trump has leveled are the correct tactic, but previous administrations have not gotten their attention.

Those, I think, were the bigger ones.  I’m sure there were smaller ones and there will be more in the future, but owning up to the ones you do make will hopefully improve your batting average in the future.

2018 - It's a Wrap

What a wild year it was.  Among other things I got accomplished, I stuck to my goal of posting weekly to my blog.   Some weeks were better than others, but I plan to continue this into 2019 and hope to write more interesting posts, or at least write about pedestrian things in a more interesting way.  I was very pleased with a few of my posts, which were of professional quality and I have attracted a nice little core of regular readers.  My goals are to post weekly, revamp my blog a bit, and not disappoint.  

Anyway, here are my thoughts on the best of 2018, and here's to a Happy 2019 to my readers.

Music

Live

I did have an opportunity to see a fair amount of music this year…and a great deal of variety, from rock to jazz to classical and sacred music, a bit of country and folk, and even a fusion bluegrass and rap group called Gangstagrass.   I opted mostly for smaller venues, although I did take in a few concerts at Ravinia (ZZ Top).   I saw a lot of tribute bands--- Brit Floyd at the Chicago Theater was wonderful and almost indistinguishable from Pink Floyd.   Deacon Blues, a Steely Dan tribute band is quite good and features the talented niece of Koko Taylor in the chorus. Time Traveler, a Moody Blues tribute band was also quite good.   Schola Antiqua, a choral group that sings music of the Reformation is a can’t miss.

But my favorite performance of the year was Eddie “the Chief” Clearwater, who played with Ronnie Baker Brooks at Evanston Space on his birthday in January.   I had a front row seat and Eddie, at 86 could still play.  I was able to snap a photo (featured) which I have titled “Two Boys Having Fun.”  I loved this performance and I loved this photo as it captured these two musicians in a moment of pure joy.  Brooks gushed with praise for Eddie as his mentor and sadly Eddie passed away in June.  I was happy to be able to see one of his last Chicago performances.

New Artist

Greta Van Fleet.   This band caught my attention right away.   There have been some new performers that I have liked (Arctic Monkeys, Cage the Elephant, Florence + the Machine), but none that can deliver classic rock.  Greta Van Fleet is what you would get if Led Zeppelin were reincarnated.  The lead singer sounds astonishingly like Robert Plant and the rhythms, although original are unmistakably Zep influenced.   It is sobering to see a YouTube video of them and see how young they look.   I hope they have staying power for they are fresh faces playing some classic licks.

Books

Fiction

My fiction book of the year is not going to go to a contemporary writer.   Much of the fiction I read this year was good, but didn’t wow me.  The Friend by Sigrid Nunez about a woman who adopts a Great Dane left behind by a friend and former lover that committed suicide won the National Book Award and I liked, but didn’t love it.  Lake Success by Gary Schteyngart.   None of them knocked my over, though (my librarian said I just didn’t read the right ones and shoved 4 more in my book bag).

My best read this year goes instead to My Antonia by Willa Cather.   2018 was the 100^th anniversary of the publication of this novel about Bohemian immigrants adjusting to life on the Great Plains.  It is even more relevant now because of the current political turmoil over our immigration policy and the difficulty people from a distant land have adapting to a new life.  In Cather’s novel, Mr. Shimerda simply cannot adjust and commits suicide.   I loved this novel because of Cather’s talent in describing place as well as character.  I read her novel at the same time I read Prairie Fires by Caroline Fraser --- the biography of Laura Ingalls Wilder, so I was immersed for some time in the harshness of pioneer life on the prairie, especially for women.   I did write an email to the Willa Cather Foundation telling them how delighted I was to discover Cather’s talents a bit late in life and received a nice email back from them. 

Pressed to name a contemporary novel that I liked best, I would go with Gary Schteyngart’s Lake Success. Schteyngart has a knack for creating a little sympathy for otherwise unsympathetic characters.  Lake Success does just that and rolls elements of The Great Gatsby, A Man In Full  and On the Road into a dark, sometimes comic novel about a deeply flawed character whose successful, but fragile life comes unglued.

Nonfiction

Bad Blood by John Carryrou was absolutely my favorite.  Bad Blood is the story of Elizabeth Holmes and Theranos, and is more fascinating than the Madoff affair.   Bad Blood is actually two stories wrapped into one.   It is the story of how this driven young woman fooled a host of seasoned investors, board members, and directors.  People like George Shultz, Jim Mattis and senior executives at Walgreens got snookered.  But it is also a story of the tremendous courage and persistence of the Wall Street Journal writer John Carryrou himself, who uncovered the fraud and risked his career to pursue the story.

Film and Television

The paucity of quality film coming out of Hollywood this year left me with few recommendations.   I liked A Quiet Place, although it received some criticism.   I also kind of liked The Death of Stalin, although  this comedic take on the Stalin terrors was a bit weird and quirky.  My favorite film of the year was Leave No Trace, which I reviewed last summer. (http://commonsense-mark.blogspot.com/2018/07/best-summer-film-leave-no-trace.html).

I have even less authority to recommend television programs, but I do like The Last Alaskans.   It is a reality show that portrays the handful of people that were grandfathered into living in an Alaskan wilderness area.   They show depicts their day-to-day lives and it is probably the last group of individuals living as pioneers depicted by Willa Cather and Laura Ingalls Wilder.  There is something about this show that brings me peace.

Best Lecture

I was fortunate enough to attend a number of very high quality lectures and presentations this year of fascinating people in a variety of fields, and had the opportunity to have lunches with economist Deirdre McCloskey and historian and Middle East expert Daniel Pipes.   In addition, I heard interesting lectures by University of Chicago economist Casey Mulligan, Frederick Douglass descendant Kenneth B. Morris, Jr., New York Times religion columnist Ross Douthat on the state of religion in America, economist Martin Feldstein, author Stuart Dybeck, former Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson on the Great Recession and back to back lectures on free expression by Jason DeSanto of Northwestern and Geoffrey Stone of the University of Chicago.

But the most interesting lecture was by Jordan Peterson.  As I  wrote in my blog post of May 10,   Jordan Peterson (http://commonsense-mark.blogspot.com/2018/05/jordan-peterson.html) may be the most influential public intellectual since William F. Buckley and he is focused more on social rather than political or economic issues.  Peterson is also part of the Intellectual Dark Web, a group of independent thinkers and writers such as Eric Weinstein, Sam Harris, Ayaan Hirsi Ali, and Camille Paglia (see NYT article https://www.nytimes.com/2018/05/08/opinion/intellectual-dark-web.html).  These are thinkers that abhor the notion of an intellectual safe space.

The Silenced Voices

Many publications have their tributes to those that have passed during the year, and I would like to call out two voices that I will miss the most—Aretha Franklin and Keith Jackson.  Aretha, of course, was the Queen of Soul.  Keith Jackson was the Voice of College Football.  Both were sui generis.   Who could forget Aretha’s performance of Think in the film The Blues Brothers (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vet6AHmq3_s) and who will forget Keith Jackson’s signature “Whoa Nellie!” after a long touchdown run.  I was fortunate enough to attend Aretha’s final Chicago performance at Ravinia at the end of the summer of ’16.   It was a great sight to see a number of fathers dancing to Respect with their little daughters on the lawn—a sight I won’t ever forget.   I will miss these two great voices.

On Second Thought

Last week, I wrote a strong rebuke of Trump’s policy in the Middle East.  A sudden withdrawal of troops in Syria led to the abrupt resignation of General Mattis and drew harsh criticism from both the left and the right.  Moreover, the decision lent credence to the narrative that he is an impulsive, out-of-control president that is unfit for the office.   Mattis was tremendously popular and many conservatives were lined up against Trump on this one.

But slow down a minute.  Is his decision to vacate Syria and Afghanistan a monumental strategic blunder?  I’m not sure it’s as clear cut as it appears.

First of all, in Syria, we are putting troops in the crosshairs of Russian and Turkish forces.  There is risk that U.S. troops would come into contact with either Russian or Turkish forces.  Once Obama invited the Russians in, it was going to be damn near impossible to get them to leave.   As in Afghanistan, there is also a risk of mission creep and that our troops would be there indefinitely.  While I am sensitive to the plight of the Kurds, and do not take that aspect of it lightly, the purpose of our troop deployment was never to protect the Kurds.

It is timely that I just finished John Mersheimer’s book, The Great Delusion: Liberal Dreams and International Realities.  Mersheimer’s central thesis is that “American policymakers would be wise to abandon liberal hegemony and pursue a more restrained foreign policy based on realism and a proper understanding of how nationalism constrains great powers.”  Further, he asserts, “Under Presidents Bush and Barack Obama, Washington has played a key role in sowing death and destruction across the Middle East, and there is little evidence the mayhem will end anytime soon.”  The Iran-Iraq War should have been a lesson for us.  Those two countries were two busy beating the heck out of each other to be too bothersome to anyone else.   Especially now that we are not dependent on the Middle East for energy, minimizing our involvement might be the best option.   We have spent trillions and thousands of lives for little benefit.  Twenty eight years later, we must conclude that our successful intervention to eject Iraq from Kuwait was an exception rather than the rule and George H.W. Bush was correct to leave as soon as that was accomplished (despite the moral tug of leaving the Kurds at the mercy of Hussein).

Assad is not going to go.  Obama set that as a policy goal, but if there is one thing we should have learned from our experience in the second war in Iraq and the Libya intervention, that what follows may be much worse.  Assad, like his father, and like Hussein, is ruthless and bloodthirsty enough to deal with the Islamists and terrorists.  With the Arab world’s posture toward Israel somewhat fractionated, Assad might be the least bad option.  Other than Israel, there are no good guys or dependable allies in the Middle East.

Trump campaigned on ending these wars, as did Obama.  Not only did Obama not end Middle Eastern wars, he promptly repeated Bush’s mistake in Iraq in Libya (albeit at a lower cost).  Obama’s America was at war during the entire stretch of his two term presidency and Americans are weary of it, especially when the goals are not clear and there is no end in sight.

Finally, as to Mattis, as much as I admire and respect him, generals do not make policy.   And Mattis himself has had mistakes in judgment.  As I noted in my prior post, he supported Elizabeth Holmes and Theranos.  Theranos is liquidating and Holmes may go to prison.  He warned that moving the U.S. embassy to Jerusalem would inflame the Arab world, and that has been a big nothingburger.  We would do well to remember another popular and revered general--- George S. Patton.  At the end of WWII, Patton wanted to keep our forces in Europe,  take on the Russians and drive them out of Eastern Europe, rationalizing that we would have to fight them sooner or later and that he believed that our goal was to make ALL of Europe free.  That goal had some appeal and we ended up with a 45 year period of Soviet domination of Eastern Europe.  But a military confrontation with the Russians would likely have cost millions of lives and we were  war weary.  Not following Patton on policy may have been the least bad option.

We should likewise keep in mind that we do not have good options available to us in the Middle East or Afghanistan.  Trump’s position may not be entirely irrational at all.

Wrong Turn

I have been generally on board with much of Trump in matters of foreign policy.  I didn’t mind him calling out European leaders for not living up to their commitment on defense spending (just as they haven’t lived up to their Paris Accord commitments).  I was not adverse to pulling out of JPCOA—the idea of giving Iranians cash (to finance terror) and having sites off limits to inspectors was repulsive.  Inflicting some pain on the Chinese was appropriate (I will have more on that in a later post).  After 8 years of treating Israel like dirt, I was pleased to see Trump recognize Jerusalem as its capital.  His speech in Saudi Arabia on his vision for the Middle East and his speech in Poland were both visionary and magnificent.  While North Korea has not disarmed, I thought his efforts were worthwhile.  He was softer on Russia than I would like, but I see focusing on China as a more important long term strategic problem.

But events this week have caused me to re-examine my views.  The abrupt announcement that we are pulling forces out of Syria and Afghanistan along with General Mattis’s resignation are serious blunders in judgment—so serious that my entire view of Trump has been tainted.

My view of Trump has been as a Chief Restructuring Officer.  In business, when a company is failing, a chief restructuring officer (CRO) is sometimes appointed.  The job of the CRO is to shake things up, sometimes rather dramatically.  He or she is necessarily a transitory figure.  CRO’s are not good at managing things in a steady, happy state.  They either manage chaos or intentionally create it to reset the gameboard.  And everyone hates the CRO.  They are often brash and obnoxious, blunt and discourteous, because the company simply no longer has the luxury of business as usual.

I initially thought that my analogy to a CRO fit pretty well.

But now I see I may have been mistaken.

A better analogy might be that sexy, somewhat crazy boyfriend/girlfriend you dated just after college and before you got married (hopefully, you didn’t marry him or her).  He or she was fun for awhile, tremendously fun and exciting because their id overrode their superego a lot.   When you are 24, that’s fun for a bit, until about the 5^th time they go off and do something insane and/or betray you.   Then you decide you just can’t put up with it anymore.

Now, there is a case to be made for curtailing U.S. military involvement generally.  John Mersheimer makes a cogent case for a more realistic foreign policy in his recent book, The Great Delusion: Liberal Dreams and International Realities.  In it, Mersheimer argues that we have been engaged militarily more or less constantly since the end of the Cold War with little to show for it.  Committing troops is especially counterproductive when we engage in nation building, which expensive in blood and treasure and almost never works.  He argues for a much more constrained foreign policy.  This point of view is adhered to by many libertarians, including Rand Paul, Deirdre McCloskey, and John Stossel.  That was the position that Obama actually campaigned on, yet failed to execute.  For all his carping about Bush in Iraq, he did exactly the same thing in Libya – regime change without adequate follow through (albeit at a lower cost).   And it was never made clear what the goals were in Afghanistan or Syria.  In Syria, U.S. troops were originally dispatched to liberate Raqqa from the Islamic State, and gradually troop strength increased to 4.000 and controlled about a third of the country.   There was increasing risk of engagement with Russian or Turkish troops, which could have dire consequences.

But Trump never made a strong case for withdrawal, at least not strong enough to convince General Mattis and others.  Of course, it is possible that the generals are wrong.  It certainly was the case in Vietnam, and General Mattis, while well respected, does not have perfect judgment.  He backed Theranos and Elizabeth Holmes and even served on Theranos’s board of directors.

But the weight of things weighs strongly against withdrawal in Syria.  If you have Jim Mattis, Victor Davis Hanson, Jack Keane and Daniel Pipes pushing back at you and Vladimir Putin cheering you on, you are probably doing it wrong.  As every Catholic knows, a practice of premature withdrawal does not always have the consequences that you expect.

As we learned to our chagrin in Afghanistan, Islamists don’t go away.  They disappear into the woodwork until the coast is clear and then they re-emerge.   Our intelligence agencies are telling us the same thing will happen in Syria.

Another compelling reason for maintaining some force in Syria is to support and protect the Kurds.  They have fought side by side with us against ISIS, and I understand U.S. forces are demoralized and sorrowful over leaving their allies in the lurch.  They are tough, brave and resourceful fighters and we have repeatedly turned our backs on them, beginning with the aftermath of the first Gulf War.  Abandoning them again to be cut up by Erdogan is immoral and sends a signal to any nation or group about our commitment to our allies.

The argument of Mersheimer and the libertarians has some appeal and some force to it.  The flaw in their argument is that technology coupled with our leaky borders means that nonstate actors and less powerful states can reach and hurt us.  9/11 proved that a handful of guys with limited technology can inflict tremendous casualties and North Korea has demonstrated ability to potentially kill millions of Americans.  Denying them territory and constantly harassing them may be a better path than leaving them to plan and operate operate unmolested.  As Ben Crenshaw stated (or restated George W. Bush), “We fight them over there so we don’t have to fight them here.”

In the ensuing Twitter explosion, the most common comment about Mattis is that “he made us feel safe.”  Given Trump’s lack of experience in government and foreign affairs, he very much needs to rely on the steady voices of experienced and reliable professionals.   Losing Mattis is a tremendous blow to an administration that badly needs credibility.   If you have lost Jim Mattis, you have probably lost me.