Gen. Lloyd Austin, on the Raytheon Board, is yet another high-level Biden nominee enmeshed in D.C.'s corporatist "revolving door" of legalized influence-peddling.
I mean this is identity politics at its finest. I'm all for expanding the positions of power to people whose backgrounds have traditionally kept them away from it. Variety of backgrounds and ideas is a strength in democracy... but I definitely don't want the same DC and corporate swamp creatures that once again have reared their heads to jump headfirst into the cesspool.
As an interesting anecdote, I am currently home for the holidays and my mother (a pretty liberal woman - convinced her to support Bernie in the primary) watches MSNBC for 90% of her news. She'll watch NBC or CBS nightly news on the weekdays for the other 10%.
When it was announced that General Austin was being nominated as Secretary of Defense, my mother later told me it was good that Biden was putting in the first African American in this position. Which I then asked, what are his politics or background? And, of course, my mother couldn't really answer because that information is not important in the MSNBC family. As Glenn harped on in an earlier post - this is purely a "cynical exploitation of identity, diversity and biography to distract from their ideology and substance."
This is the final stage of "The Resistance," which was never radical and was always conventional. The Resistance was a top-down centrist revolution to go back to the "status quo ante Trump." Identity politics will deceive Democrats and Republicans into believing that historic changes are happening when all that's really happening is a "P.C." rebranding of the same old imperialism.
Nah, this is just the beginning. Wait until the next severe economic crisis and they get to really use all the tools they’ve been constructing right in plain view.
Glenn, you've completely missed the point of yet another historic nomination from the Biden-Harris transition team. Yes, Mr. Austin is an ex-"general" who now works for a "defense contractor," but he's Black (with a capital B!), so it's all good. The biggest problem with the military-industrial complex is that it's not diverse enough. Don't be so racist.
I hope that I'm missing some sort of joke here. The problem with the military-industrial complex isn't that it's not yet "perfected." What's needed is substantive intellectual diversity as a check on groupthink, not superficial racial/sexual "diversity" to check off boxes. I'd rather have an identitarianally homogenous government which is ideologically heterogenous than an identitarianally heterogenous government which is ideologically homogenous.
Regular readers know that NSC is a comedian and we appreciate the wit it requires to turn out the posts though NSC may disavow any knowledge of such action.
Why is increased diversity a sign of progress? Because when wedding parties are bombed on the orders of commanders who "look like America," all involved -- including the relative of the unfortunate collaterally-damaged -- will understand that the intention is to promote freedom and democracy. Suspicion of racism and ethnocentrism will be off the table.
It's not a new world. It's "our" standard operating procedure and has been since the 17th century. There's always excellent justification, of course. See, for example, the Mystic Massacre.
I did think this statement was meant to be humorous, but truthful. I gave up thinking that women would make the world a better place once in positions of power. No one convinced me I was so wrong as did Hilary Clinton. There was a part of me that voted for Obama because well, black people would be more empathetic, since they no doubt were more aware of the struggles of their own people, and all people who are struggling in this world. Well, I should have listened to a journalist who wrote a column in the Progressive that claimed Obama was no progressive in his political life in Chicago. I thought he was being too harsh, but then realized he was right when I saw Obama's cabinet picks and chose Biden as his vice president.
Why would people call you a sexiest, or a racist because you're a libertarian? As for Gabbard, I really liked her, thought she was honest. I wonder how many start out that way, and as they say wind up selling their souls to the devil of power.
I really hate what I learn about people on the Internet sometimes. Did my comment really need a disclaimer for sarcasm? Does everything have to be spelled out nowadays?
It seems like the Deep State can't win. When they control the government covertly, they are called undemocratic and unaccountable. When they are openly appointed to cabinet, people complain about lack of civilian control of the military. It's a thankless task.
Unfortunately our political discourse has deteriorated to the point where I don't know if you are being sarcastic. You're reading Greenwald so I guess I should assume so.
At some point, Americans may realize they're witnessing the first revolution conducted from the top down, not the bottom up. And since, like every revolution, it's about the acquisition and maintenance of power--by any means necessary--hypocrisy, intellectual dishonesty and rank double-standards are perfectly acceptable as long as they serve that agenda.
In America, the military was thought to be the last bastion of opposition against a nation-state-despising globalist agenda. One suspects that going forward, it will be far more interested in protecting those interests rather than America itself.
The establishment will likely continue to split in its approach to China. On the one hand are the globalists who greatly profit from having communist China oversee the biggest sweatshop in the world. They need the military to make sure the Chinese still give them their bargain from a controlled working class and fewer environmental regulations. On the other hand are those who are less tied to the Chinese economy and focus more on the shifting balance of power from the US to China as China’s long term plan for global leadership slowly succeeds. The military, like the rest of the country, indeed the world, will be caught in the middle. It’s going to make WWII look like a gentlemanly Napoleonic battle.
On Friday the PBS Newshour moderator Judy Woodruff asked Mark Shields and David Brooks if they agreed with some on "the left" that the Biden cabinet picks just aren't diverse enough. It was clear her question meant that "the left's" top concern was with the identity of the nominees. It didn't seem to dawn on Ms. Woodruff that "the left" might be concerned with the nominees' policies, or past work performance, or history with the public/private revolving door, or questionable public statements.
This is why things never change. The public isn't being informed by our "trusted news sources" but rather led by the nose.
If one can stifle one's vomit long enough to watch the first several minutes of it, it's pretty clear who is really funding the "Newshour", although they at least bother to thank "viewers like you" after the long list. Last night's episode had Judy and top sycophant Yamiche lauding Austin's melanin, before then questioning whether it was really fair to women to not be getting the nod... no sign that they recognized the foolishness.
Last week had a an ex-CIA woman positively giddy at the prospect of Flournoy, and the desirable effect of the grand partnership between big tech and DOD that would follow.
Thanks for the edification. I have not watched the "Newshour" since right after the 2016 election. Just to show how they have sunk to new depths, consider what Mark Shields said the day after Trump won. His words were essentially these: "the same white blue collar voters in the upper Midwest, who voted for Barack Obama, twice, this time switched and voted for Trump. And it's time we stop calling Trump supporters racists, and look at ourselves for an explanation." Can you imagine him saying that now? Or what would happen to him if he did? I'd bet they have deleted that segment from their archives. One minor point I'd raise with you: the term "ex-CIA" is an oxymoron. It's all the same company.
No disagreement here on CIA; poor choice of words on my part. I'm trying to find the video; if memory serves, she was in Congress until fairly recently.
And I certainly cannot imagine Shields getting within a light year of that sort of comment now. It might as well be MSNBC these days. At least it keeps me from overeating at dinner... although alcohol consumption is up.
Note the media silence about major wins for democracy in Bolivia and Venezuela, "godless" socialist countries against CIA is actively conducting illegal coups, sanctions and regime changes.
Since Biden will likely be Obama-2 remember the astonishing statement by Obama:
“Venezuela is fundamental threat to USA” -- declared Obama formally initiating regime change.
What he meant is “Socialism is a threat to capitalism”… hence imperial War-party endless wars -- against Bolivia, Nicaragua, Venezuela, Syria, Cuba, China, and 20+ other countries…..
We've seen the deleterious effects of affirmative action and social engineering in higher education and corporations across the country. But to allow - indeed, applaud it in national security is truly foolish and dangerous. As is far too often the case in democratic regimes, the tail is once again wagging the dog in the most dangerous of arenas, failing logic, reason, and our security.
There is good reason for the law and the tradition. To subvert it for color or profit is a gross betrayal and the most heinous display of arrogant disregard that partisan politics has mustered since ...well.. since the obama years
The most qualified man or woman for the job should always be the concern for any role, especially one this important.
But that is not really the crucial issue here. The article lays out the crucial issue quite well: a defense department that is intertwined with defense contractors to the point at which they are only separate entities on paper. It’s disturbing to say the least. But what is perhaps equally disturbing is a Congress who simply bypasses prior legislation to eliminate checks and balances. Do we really want a government run by a military-defense contractor alliance? Because that is exactly what is happening, irrespective of party.
Solid piece of journalism here on numerous fronts.
You and Glenn are of course spot on! Ike's famed warning more than half a century ago seems to be more quaint and less heeded with each new administration. And that bodes poorly for our soul, but well for the empire.
Haven't you people heard? Words like "qualified", "merit" and "equality" are racist. Equity is the new commandment. Thus, Pharrell Williams should get reparations - it must be true, he said so himself.
I know this stuff looks hairy, but all you need to know to fix this is a few simple codes. They hid the bare YouTube link inside the long creepy link, and I noticed the "youtube.com" part inside your link, so I could see how to pull it out. When they embed one link inside another like that, you can just look at the long link and pull out the relevant stretch of text from it -- that stretch will consist solely of letters, digits, and % signs, and you pull out as long a stretch of text as you can without running into any other punctuation symbols. Then you take that stretch of text and decode each of the 3-character bits that begin with a % sign, according to the following key:
%3a means :
%2f means /
%3f means ?
%3d means =
%26 means &
%3b means ;
%23 means #
%40 means @
%25 means %
That's all you need to know, and it's all I did. This way of coding symbols is called ASCII but you don't need to know that.
Not presently being on a board of directors or working in a contractor would be a good start. Not having taking money from them in any way would also be a good start.
But couldn't there be situations where it is in our long-term interests to not choose the best candidate at that moment - because it will lead to a larger pool of candidates in the future.
For example, I suspect we have better medical doctors today than we would have if only white men were allowed to be doctors (as would have been the case at one time). If affirmative action of any kind helped us get to the larger pool more quickly might that not be an argument for not always choosing the 'best' person?
Your assertion was that it was not a fact that it was a value (as if those two concepts are mutually exclusive, which they are not).
Now you are asking if there is some unusual exception to selecting the most qualified person (which is what I said). Here you are simply playing semantics. It’s an attempted sleight of hand. But the answer to your question is still no. Why? Because if there were some future position you had in mind, you would effectively be placing someone there (conceptually), which still then means the original position we are speaking of would go to the most qualified person for THAT job, the the other individual would be pre-placed in a role you had in mind for him or her. Yet, none of this is even relevant to your original assertion, it it is just a red herring to keep an argument going. Probably initially under the assumption that you could pull it off. Maybe you are a philosophy professor or some academic (my guess) who either for sport or for money is planted simply for the purpose contradicting. It’s logically possible you are genuine, but unlikely.
Hi Chris, you're right - the point I made about exceptional cases did stray from my original comment. I wasn't deliberately trying to move the goalposts, sometimes I dash off a quick rebuttal and miss the mark, and in this case I did.
I don't agree with a couple of the follow up arguments but we can save that for another time.
There is never a reason - NEVER - not to choose the best person available BUT that choice should not be limited to those inside or based on the politically "best". It should always be the best, most competent, person irrespective of persuasions.
isn't that how we got to kamala harris? not "the best" or "most qualified" but "the best black woman" which de facto removes anyone who isn't a black woman.
Any specific examples of the deleterious effects of affirmative action in higher education and corporations? And other than affirmative action what other social engineering are you referring to?
Absolutely. NASDAQ just made a "diverse" board a requirement for trading. The deleterious effect will be either a company is no longer traded, or they'll appoint board members "based on the color of their skin, not the content of their character", something even MLK knew to be a bad idea.
The UC system does not practice affirmative action (by law) but if they were required to revise acceptance based on "diversity" quotas, it would suffer the financial impact of losing lucrative foreign students who are qualified and can pay, to "diverse" local students who require subsidies and local tuition/fees.
Hollywood is now bound to make films that have a socially engineered crew and cast if they hope to be considered for academy awards - always a boost to box office for both the film and the stars marquis value going forward. Awards are now to be based on racial and "diverse" make up, not quality of film, direction, acting etc.
You haven't provided evidence that insisting on a diverse board results in a bad outcome. Quoting MLK is no evidence at all. I doubt MLK knew much about who should sit on company boards. Evidence would be that this policy resulted in company performing worse than if they hadn't insisted in a diverse board. If the company performs just as well or better under the diverse board as under the non-diverse board, how has it been deleterious?
As for, your UC example, if the objective of the university is to make money then this might be a deleterious effect but most universities are non-profits...their primary objective is not to make money. Evidence of negative impacts on the universities primary objective - producing informed and productive citizens - would be that affirmative action resulted in less informed, less productive citizens. I don't think we have any evidence of that.
As for Hollywood, Does insisting on racially diverse casts and crew result in lower box office receipts and worse movies? I don't think we have any evidence of that. Maybe we will - but so far, I don't see a link. In my opinion, you've provided no evidence.
"Evidence of negative impacts on the universities primary objective - producing informed and productive citizens - would be that affirmative action resulted in less informed, less productive citizens. I don't think we have any evidence of that."
Yeah, definitely no evidence of that.............
please.
forcing diversity is racist. It's wrong because of that. it's also extremely shallow. People should be chosen based on merit. It's not hard. And the reason that it's simple is because people will choose other people based on the things that THEY are looking for, not some outside force dictating what they must do, and that will beget the most interesting and diverse results - because it's coming from a persons own identity, their free will is leading. It's extremely condescending to all minorities - like parents forcing a kid to choose the lame one for their team. But they don't need this crutch. People will find their place in society without an outside authoritative parent type figure forcing people to be racist. It's just so wrong, and inhumane, and antithetical to ideas of liberty. And there are plenty of qualified minorities who find their own, based on the individual choices that they make and that others make. If people need to cover their tracks and have a token minority to show to the world how non racist they are, as if that makes it real, okay, that's the society you're choosing to live in. Only shallow shows of diversity.
" It's wrong because of that. it's also extremely shallow. People should be chosen based on merit."
Never has been the case, and isn't now. And not because of affirmative action:
>>....legacy preferences, a widespread and increasingly controversial factor in admission to top colleges. Many US colleges admit “legacies”, or students with a family connection to the university, at dramatically higher rates than other applicants. They are widely seen as a reliable source of alumni donations. “They do tend to be white, and they do tend to be wealthier,” Bian said in an interview. “I think that’s kind of unfair.”
At Harvard, the acceptance rate for legacy students is about 33%, compared with an overall acceptance rate of under 6%. Countless powerful Americans have followed their relatives to elite universities. In 1935, when John F Kennedy applied to Harvard, the first page of the application form asked where his father had graduated from college. “Harvard 1912,” he wrote. He was admitted, though his academic record was not especially strong. In 1964, George W Bush followed his father and grandfather to Yale, despite lackluster grades.<<
Legacy admissions are about15% of Ivy League admissions, and are overwhelmingly white and rich.
African-Americans suffer an enormous wealth gap with whites, due to obvious historical circumstances. Affirmative action is one way of offsetting the unfairness of legacy admissions.
i don't disagree that Harvard is elitist trash. but what i mean by merit is merit that is completely subjective, which merit always has been, and always will be when chosen by an individual, or a group of private individuals, separate from the state. so yes, Harvardian merit means your dad gave a lot of money to the school. But so what? Merit for another private entity will mean something else. And so on, and so forth. That's what brings about the most diversity - it's based on our own private realities, which are all different, and bring our unique vision forth, amongst millions of other unique visions. so when i say merit, I mean individual choices, and individual liberty, and respect for innate humanity and imperfection of an individuals free will.
So, again, down with the mandated "diversity". It's no different than mandating that 9 out of 10 employees should be old white guys.
This is a very sincere question - how is my response trolling and not just an honest attempt to have you support the assertions you make with evidence?
The "value" held by "Resistance" subscribers was contempt for democracy itself. They hurled transparently Orwellian labels at Trump and his supporters, such as "fascist" (while they gleefully abolished free speech on campus and in the media), "racist" (despite what Alevda King et al. said and despite the large numbers of minorities who supported Trump), misogynist (while ignoring the large numbers of women supporting Trump, and while cheering Biden's groping of endless women and including minor girls). Soon they can start a bunch of wars and gloat once again about being "really good at killing people" as Obama (a/k/a "my [Joe's] boss") boasted.
I have been telling all my family and friends we will be involved in a new war within 12 months of Biden taking office. No doubt and the left will claim Trump is at fault. Thank you for your comment, very articulate.
How inverted is this? Trump Conservatives (I exclude RINOs) want to stop the wars, bring the troops home from the 142 damned countries they are occupying, shutter the FBI, extinguish the CIA, prosecute the NSA spies, fix inner-city corruption, have clean elections, free the hundreds of thousands of unfairly incarcerated Americans of all races, and punish the guilty. Secure our borders against people smuggling, drug smuggling, the child and adult prostitution that is fed by illegal immigration. Bring back the millions of blue collar jobs that were shipped out in the last 40 years by our Barons and Earls in DC and our State capitals.
We are going back in time with this new lot coming in. Obama talked about hope and change. Trump gave us hope and change. So here we are again back with no hope and the same old changes over and over.
Those "Trump conservatives" still vote for Republicans who don't believe in that stuff, just like leftists who agree with all that still vote for Democrats. The only path forward in electoral politics is a populist 3rd party with leaders that can coexist while disagreeing on culture issues.
There's a re-alignment under way Jack. The 3rd party mantra leads to a 4th, 5th and 6th party, all of which are different brands for political Kelloggs or GM. We have to destroy the GOP and rebuild it as the American party for the 80%.
Not sure there is a GOP anymore. Unlike Bernie, Trump will continue to push and leverage his political power, especially if he buys into a broadcast network that leverages the 40% of the electorate that follow his brand of populism. Unlike Joe Biden, he has a vocal following.
The Deep State is clearly re-asserting itself. The political class will now focus all of its power on making sure no “outsider” ever has a snowball’s chance in hell of getting elected president. Watch for both the DEMS and REPS to “update” their party primary process to make it virtually impossible for an “outsider.”
BTW, Mattis was a board member of General Dynamics before he became SecDef and after he left DoD, he was back on the General Dynamics board before his seat even got cold.
For Democrats that do not understand the history of civilian control over the military and why the Defense Department should not be run by a recent ex-military person, remind them of the Cuban missile crisis. Gen Curtis LeMay wanted to bomb the missile installations and the joint chiefs wanted to invade. We later learned there were tactical nuclear missiles in Cuba that would have been used against any invasion thus precipitating an escalation to a general nuclear war with the Soviet Union. McNamara a civilian technocrat did not outright support the militaries recommendations and Kennedy was able to use divisions amongst his advisors to pursue a diplomatic solution. Putting the Defensive Department under military control would limit what the President could do in any similar situation. In practical terms during the Cuban missile crisis US bombers were circling Cuba, a friend of mine was in one, on alert ready to go and we were digging bomb shelters in our backyards and trying to figure out where the Russians would drop a nuclear bomb in relation to where we lived. Those whose world revolves around talking heads on MSNBC should grasp this reality—putting a military man in charge of the Defense Department is an institutionally bad idea with history to prove it.
Democrats are setting themselves up for a big internal fight down the road. The Pentagon has been eating up huge resources of late and always they are wanting more. With growing progressive needs and demands on Federal spending there will be a time, all too soon, where Democrats newfound love of all things military, and endless war, are going to collide head on with insistent demands from the progressive left regarding priorities, and regarding the deep needs rooted in American society.
Not that the Pentagon is going to make this easy on Democratic policy wonks and lawmakers. Over at the U.S. Navy institute site (USNI News) and other Naval media there has been talk that the Navy needs are so great that the Army and Air Force budgets need to be trimmed in order to fund the Navy's rapid expansion. A recent article bemoaned the firing of Defense Secretary Mark Esper at right about the time that Naval lobbying had converted him to their cause. The article continues that now the work has to begin again to convince and sell the Biden team. The appointment of an Army General means that the task will now be that much harder, so if Washington and recent Democratic party history provides any guide it probably means that the Army gets an expanded munitions budget and the Navy has it's full expansion funded too. These nearly inevitable developments would leave both progressive voters and future debt paying taxpayers out in the Biden era cold.
New Washington, same as the old Washington. With $27.4 Trillion in stated Federal debt and underfunded social security and medicare funding for future outlays to the tune of between 20-32 Trillion Dollars. Good Times.
I was a Political Science major in college back before the Soviet Union fell. There was a concept we explored called "guns or butter." The idea was that a stable, strong country has to tend to the butter/services side of public policy for its people, not over-serve the guns/military side of its economy, or a government would lose its support and its power. We learned that the Soviet Union was spending too much on armaments to the detriment of the "butter" its populace needed. My professor predicted the Soviet Union's fall way before Ronald Reagan came into the White House. That's why I know his taking credit for the fall of the USSR has always been bogus. We're staring down the same future having learned absolutely nothing from the USSR's demise.
That's not entirely true. We learned well from the USSR how to make the press a mouthpiece OF the state, rather than a guardian to protect us FROM the state.
To be fair, I did not say we learned nothing. I said we learned nothing "from the USSR's DEMISE." Its propaganda and censorship did not factor into that great power's defeat. An unbalanced economy and a political class that ignored the needs of its people did. I appreciate your wry humor though.
Furthermore, your analysis in incorrect. Reagan rode Thatcher's coattails, and she leveraged his power, to destroy the USSR economically. Everyone else was still on Kissinger's program (no surprise to see him crawling out of the woodwork).
China's economy is similarly over-manufactured - a Potemkin economy - but they were given a free ride that the USSR never had, with admittance to the WTC on free terms.
The turning point of the Cold War was the Falklands War, and the subsequent end of the fascist Argentine regime, which demonstrated the willingness of the UK to fight globally.
The courage of the Poles was the match that lit the fuse which destroyed the Warsaw Pact - the USSR was a bankrupt economy, collapsing under Marxist contradictions that were presaged during the initial failures of the Plymouth Settlement on 1620.
The Marxists and Maoists swapped coarse cloth for Gucci and Armani, took mistresses, learned to love the high life without guilt (Xi, Barrossa, Merkel, Sanders) and took over the West, whilst the winners retired and died.
The next crisis always arises when those who resolved the previous one are dead.
Donna, "guns or butter" was Hitler's call to arms. Of course, he was a National Socialist, as opposed to the pseudo-International Socialism of the USSR. The call was to sacrifice butter on the bread of the people at the table, in order to have a rearmed Fatherland that could avenge the disgrace and humiliation of Versailles.
Thanks for keeping an eye on the War Party. We never get told the details by Panderson Cooper and friends...maybe because they are all owned by the same interlocking groups...
Check out Sharyl Attkisson's new book "Slanted". It goes into a lot of detail of how these "interlocking groups" work together to craft, coordinate, and disseminate their Narratives. Quite an eye opener...
"Panderson Cooper"...LOL... I never grow tired of the names tossed around... from w to shrub to obie to maobama to shrillary to wretched madcow to demtards to drumpf...Panderson is a new fave though. I'm going to have to file that one with feminazis and kameltoe harris
I mean this is identity politics at its finest. I'm all for expanding the positions of power to people whose backgrounds have traditionally kept them away from it. Variety of backgrounds and ideas is a strength in democracy... but I definitely don't want the same DC and corporate swamp creatures that once again have reared their heads to jump headfirst into the cesspool.
As an interesting anecdote, I am currently home for the holidays and my mother (a pretty liberal woman - convinced her to support Bernie in the primary) watches MSNBC for 90% of her news. She'll watch NBC or CBS nightly news on the weekdays for the other 10%.
When it was announced that General Austin was being nominated as Secretary of Defense, my mother later told me it was good that Biden was putting in the first African American in this position. Which I then asked, what are his politics or background? And, of course, my mother couldn't really answer because that information is not important in the MSNBC family. As Glenn harped on in an earlier post - this is purely a "cynical exploitation of identity, diversity and biography to distract from their ideology and substance."
This is the final stage of "The Resistance," which was never radical and was always conventional. The Resistance was a top-down centrist revolution to go back to the "status quo ante Trump." Identity politics will deceive Democrats and Republicans into believing that historic changes are happening when all that's really happening is a "P.C." rebranding of the same old imperialism.
Nah, this is just the beginning. Wait until the next severe economic crisis and they get to really use all the tools they’ve been constructing right in plain view.
The "Resistance" wants to go back further, to pre-1776 America, a la present-day Europe where the countries are no longer democracies.
This is a historic post.
Dems: “We desperately need more Black, women and trans war criminals.”
Watch CNN shut down a congressman criticising Rahm Emanuel (HT Jimmy Dore):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dBS-OCadcYY
But wait - there's more!
See Twitter remove tweets reminding people of the war criminals in the Obama-Biden White House.
My friend put it perfectly last night when I asked him --
"It's a super-diverse group of awful people."
Glenn, you've completely missed the point of yet another historic nomination from the Biden-Harris transition team. Yes, Mr. Austin is an ex-"general" who now works for a "defense contractor," but he's Black (with a capital B!), so it's all good. The biggest problem with the military-industrial complex is that it's not diverse enough. Don't be so racist.
The military-industrial complex is not yet perfect, but increased diversity is a sign of progress.
I hope that I'm missing some sort of joke here. The problem with the military-industrial complex isn't that it's not yet "perfected." What's needed is substantive intellectual diversity as a check on groupthink, not superficial racial/sexual "diversity" to check off boxes. I'd rather have an identitarianally homogenous government which is ideologically heterogenous than an identitarianally heterogenous government which is ideologically homogenous.
Intellectual diversity is an impediment to achieving common goals. Groupthink is a sign of progress.
Hope that's simply more tongue-in-cheek...
Of course it is. NSC always makes me chuckle.
JRR, I hope NSC is tongue-in-cheek, there. You're comments are not ad hominem, heterogeneously speaking. Wordplay joke, but I do identify!
Regular readers know that NSC is a comedian and we appreciate the wit it requires to turn out the posts though NSC may disavow any knowledge of such action.
I feel satirist is a more accurate description than is comedian. And long may he reign!
Thanks for helping my regularity! (or should I ask "No sh!t?")
Why?
Why is increased diversity a sign of progress? Because when wedding parties are bombed on the orders of commanders who "look like America," all involved -- including the relative of the unfortunate collaterally-damaged -- will understand that the intention is to promote freedom and democracy. Suspicion of racism and ethnocentrism will be off the table.
🤪🤣😂
Absolutely, and before their executions they will have "due process, just not judicial process". The Brave New World of Holder and Obama!
It's not a new world. It's "our" standard operating procedure and has been since the 17th century. There's always excellent justification, of course. See, for example, the Mystic Massacre.
I did think this statement was meant to be humorous, but truthful. I gave up thinking that women would make the world a better place once in positions of power. No one convinced me I was so wrong as did Hilary Clinton. There was a part of me that voted for Obama because well, black people would be more empathetic, since they no doubt were more aware of the struggles of their own people, and all people who are struggling in this world. Well, I should have listened to a journalist who wrote a column in the Progressive that claimed Obama was no progressive in his political life in Chicago. I thought he was being too harsh, but then realized he was right when I saw Obama's cabinet picks and chose Biden as his vice president.
It's ironic that as a libertarian people call me racist and sexist all the time but I would have voted Tulsi Gabbard in a heartbeat.
I might have even voted Biden if Gabbard was his running mate.
But she's ACTUALLY anti-war, so she must be buried.
Why would people call you a sexiest, or a racist because you're a libertarian? As for Gabbard, I really liked her, thought she was honest. I wonder how many start out that way, and as they say wind up selling their souls to the devil of power.
That's what people do when they don't have an answer.
PLEEZZE!! Just because you don't agree with Glenn doesn't mean he is racist. Use some tact.
I really hate what I learn about people on the Internet sometimes. Did my comment really need a disclaimer for sarcasm? Does everything have to be spelled out nowadays?
You're joking!!!
So glad you left the Intercept.
Yes now we can have real reporting that is not censored. I like to hear all sides. I don’t want to be told what to think.
It seems like the Deep State can't win. When they control the government covertly, they are called undemocratic and unaccountable. When they are openly appointed to cabinet, people complain about lack of civilian control of the military. It's a thankless task.
LOL...what's a poor military industrial complex to do?
Unfortunately our political discourse has deteriorated to the point where I don't know if you are being sarcastic. You're reading Greenwald so I guess I should assume so.
At some point, Americans may realize they're witnessing the first revolution conducted from the top down, not the bottom up. And since, like every revolution, it's about the acquisition and maintenance of power--by any means necessary--hypocrisy, intellectual dishonesty and rank double-standards are perfectly acceptable as long as they serve that agenda.
In America, the military was thought to be the last bastion of opposition against a nation-state-despising globalist agenda. One suspects that going forward, it will be far more interested in protecting those interests rather than America itself.
The establishment will likely continue to split in its approach to China. On the one hand are the globalists who greatly profit from having communist China oversee the biggest sweatshop in the world. They need the military to make sure the Chinese still give them their bargain from a controlled working class and fewer environmental regulations. On the other hand are those who are less tied to the Chinese economy and focus more on the shifting balance of power from the US to China as China’s long term plan for global leadership slowly succeeds. The military, like the rest of the country, indeed the world, will be caught in the middle. It’s going to make WWII look like a gentlemanly Napoleonic battle.
On Friday the PBS Newshour moderator Judy Woodruff asked Mark Shields and David Brooks if they agreed with some on "the left" that the Biden cabinet picks just aren't diverse enough. It was clear her question meant that "the left's" top concern was with the identity of the nominees. It didn't seem to dawn on Ms. Woodruff that "the left" might be concerned with the nominees' policies, or past work performance, or history with the public/private revolving door, or questionable public statements.
This is why things never change. The public isn't being informed by our "trusted news sources" but rather led by the nose.
And we taxpayers get to pay for this "Newshour" a/k/a Democratic Party propaganda. The GOP in its impotence did not even stop funding PBS and NPR.
If one can stifle one's vomit long enough to watch the first several minutes of it, it's pretty clear who is really funding the "Newshour", although they at least bother to thank "viewers like you" after the long list. Last night's episode had Judy and top sycophant Yamiche lauding Austin's melanin, before then questioning whether it was really fair to women to not be getting the nod... no sign that they recognized the foolishness.
Last week had a an ex-CIA woman positively giddy at the prospect of Flournoy, and the desirable effect of the grand partnership between big tech and DOD that would follow.
Thanks for the edification. I have not watched the "Newshour" since right after the 2016 election. Just to show how they have sunk to new depths, consider what Mark Shields said the day after Trump won. His words were essentially these: "the same white blue collar voters in the upper Midwest, who voted for Barack Obama, twice, this time switched and voted for Trump. And it's time we stop calling Trump supporters racists, and look at ourselves for an explanation." Can you imagine him saying that now? Or what would happen to him if he did? I'd bet they have deleted that segment from their archives. One minor point I'd raise with you: the term "ex-CIA" is an oxymoron. It's all the same company.
No disagreement here on CIA; poor choice of words on my part. I'm trying to find the video; if memory serves, she was in Congress until fairly recently.
And I certainly cannot imagine Shields getting within a light year of that sort of comment now. It might as well be MSNBC these days. At least it keeps me from overeating at dinner... although alcohol consumption is up.
Note the media silence about major wins for democracy in Bolivia and Venezuela, "godless" socialist countries against CIA is actively conducting illegal coups, sanctions and regime changes.
Since Biden will likely be Obama-2 remember the astonishing statement by Obama:
“Venezuela is fundamental threat to USA” -- declared Obama formally initiating regime change.
What he meant is “Socialism is a threat to capitalism”… hence imperial War-party endless wars -- against Bolivia, Nicaragua, Venezuela, Syria, Cuba, China, and 20+ other countries…..
Defund US military terrorism
We've seen the deleterious effects of affirmative action and social engineering in higher education and corporations across the country. But to allow - indeed, applaud it in national security is truly foolish and dangerous. As is far too often the case in democratic regimes, the tail is once again wagging the dog in the most dangerous of arenas, failing logic, reason, and our security.
There is good reason for the law and the tradition. To subvert it for color or profit is a gross betrayal and the most heinous display of arrogant disregard that partisan politics has mustered since ...well.. since the obama years
The most qualified man or woman for the job should always be the concern for any role, especially one this important.
But that is not really the crucial issue here. The article lays out the crucial issue quite well: a defense department that is intertwined with defense contractors to the point at which they are only separate entities on paper. It’s disturbing to say the least. But what is perhaps equally disturbing is a Congress who simply bypasses prior legislation to eliminate checks and balances. Do we really want a government run by a military-defense contractor alliance? Because that is exactly what is happening, irrespective of party.
Solid piece of journalism here on numerous fronts.
You and Glenn are of course spot on! Ike's famed warning more than half a century ago seems to be more quaint and less heeded with each new administration. And that bodes poorly for our soul, but well for the empire.
Haven't you people heard? Words like "qualified", "merit" and "equality" are racist. Equity is the new commandment. Thus, Pharrell Williams should get reparations - it must be true, he said so himself.
https://search.aol.com/click/_ylt=A0geKYkGH9Bfh0YAtW1pCWVH;_ylu=Y29sbwNiZjEEcG9zAzEEdnRpZAMEc2VjA3Nj/RV=2/RE=1607503751/RO=10/RU=https%3a%2f%2fwww.youtube.com%2fwatch%3fv%3dFGGoKCbbsqU/RK=0/RS=sGEBEd11e.PXWE9qsCu5oKAv3uM- Maybe you would like to listen to Tulsi Gabbard talk on this issue.
Personally, I happen to prefer sending links without all the tracking codes. So in this case the bare YouTube link would be: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FGGoKCbbsqU
I know this stuff looks hairy, but all you need to know to fix this is a few simple codes. They hid the bare YouTube link inside the long creepy link, and I noticed the "youtube.com" part inside your link, so I could see how to pull it out. When they embed one link inside another like that, you can just look at the long link and pull out the relevant stretch of text from it -- that stretch will consist solely of letters, digits, and % signs, and you pull out as long a stretch of text as you can without running into any other punctuation symbols. Then you take that stretch of text and decode each of the 3-character bits that begin with a % sign, according to the following key:
%3a means :
%2f means /
%3f means ?
%3d means =
%26 means &
%3b means ;
%23 means #
%40 means @
%25 means %
That's all you need to know, and it's all I did. This way of coding symbols is called ASCII but you don't need to know that.
Thank you. She is so remarkable...absolutely extraordinary. We suffered a sad setback when the apparatchik and their media lapdogs torpedoed her.
Here's to hoping she runs as an Independent in 2024
Yeah but too bad she is a Kremlin operative - that's what Hillary "revealed".
Is there even a viable and qualified candidate for Defense Secretary who is not intertwined with defense contractors?
It would be rather surprising if there was not.
Not presently being on a board of directors or working in a contractor would be a good start. Not having taking money from them in any way would also be a good start.
"The most qualified man or woman for the job should always be the concern for any role, especially one this important."
Just as long as you recognise, Chris, that this is a value not a fact. You believe this but it isn't necessarily true.
It is a fact that it should be a value
But couldn't there be situations where it is in our long-term interests to not choose the best candidate at that moment - because it will lead to a larger pool of candidates in the future.
For example, I suspect we have better medical doctors today than we would have if only white men were allowed to be doctors (as would have been the case at one time). If affirmative action of any kind helped us get to the larger pool more quickly might that not be an argument for not always choosing the 'best' person?
Your assertion was that it was not a fact that it was a value (as if those two concepts are mutually exclusive, which they are not).
Now you are asking if there is some unusual exception to selecting the most qualified person (which is what I said). Here you are simply playing semantics. It’s an attempted sleight of hand. But the answer to your question is still no. Why? Because if there were some future position you had in mind, you would effectively be placing someone there (conceptually), which still then means the original position we are speaking of would go to the most qualified person for THAT job, the the other individual would be pre-placed in a role you had in mind for him or her. Yet, none of this is even relevant to your original assertion, it it is just a red herring to keep an argument going. Probably initially under the assumption that you could pull it off. Maybe you are a philosophy professor or some academic (my guess) who either for sport or for money is planted simply for the purpose contradicting. It’s logically possible you are genuine, but unlikely.
Hi Chris, you're right - the point I made about exceptional cases did stray from my original comment. I wasn't deliberately trying to move the goalposts, sometimes I dash off a quick rebuttal and miss the mark, and in this case I did.
I don't agree with a couple of the follow up arguments but we can save that for another time.
There is never a reason - NEVER - not to choose the best person available BUT that choice should not be limited to those inside or based on the politically "best". It should always be the best, most competent, person irrespective of persuasions.
You mean experiment for the sake of diversity?
isn't that how we got to kamala harris? not "the best" or "most qualified" but "the best black woman" which de facto removes anyone who isn't a black woman.
Any specific examples of the deleterious effects of affirmative action in higher education and corporations? And other than affirmative action what other social engineering are you referring to?
Absolutely. NASDAQ just made a "diverse" board a requirement for trading. The deleterious effect will be either a company is no longer traded, or they'll appoint board members "based on the color of their skin, not the content of their character", something even MLK knew to be a bad idea.
The UC system does not practice affirmative action (by law) but if they were required to revise acceptance based on "diversity" quotas, it would suffer the financial impact of losing lucrative foreign students who are qualified and can pay, to "diverse" local students who require subsidies and local tuition/fees.
Hollywood is now bound to make films that have a socially engineered crew and cast if they hope to be considered for academy awards - always a boost to box office for both the film and the stars marquis value going forward. Awards are now to be based on racial and "diverse" make up, not quality of film, direction, acting etc.
Good point.
You haven't provided evidence that insisting on a diverse board results in a bad outcome. Quoting MLK is no evidence at all. I doubt MLK knew much about who should sit on company boards. Evidence would be that this policy resulted in company performing worse than if they hadn't insisted in a diverse board. If the company performs just as well or better under the diverse board as under the non-diverse board, how has it been deleterious?
As for, your UC example, if the objective of the university is to make money then this might be a deleterious effect but most universities are non-profits...their primary objective is not to make money. Evidence of negative impacts on the universities primary objective - producing informed and productive citizens - would be that affirmative action resulted in less informed, less productive citizens. I don't think we have any evidence of that.
As for Hollywood, Does insisting on racially diverse casts and crew result in lower box office receipts and worse movies? I don't think we have any evidence of that. Maybe we will - but so far, I don't see a link. In my opinion, you've provided no evidence.
"Evidence of negative impacts on the universities primary objective - producing informed and productive citizens - would be that affirmative action resulted in less informed, less productive citizens. I don't think we have any evidence of that."
Yeah, definitely no evidence of that.............
please.
forcing diversity is racist. It's wrong because of that. it's also extremely shallow. People should be chosen based on merit. It's not hard. And the reason that it's simple is because people will choose other people based on the things that THEY are looking for, not some outside force dictating what they must do, and that will beget the most interesting and diverse results - because it's coming from a persons own identity, their free will is leading. It's extremely condescending to all minorities - like parents forcing a kid to choose the lame one for their team. But they don't need this crutch. People will find their place in society without an outside authoritative parent type figure forcing people to be racist. It's just so wrong, and inhumane, and antithetical to ideas of liberty. And there are plenty of qualified minorities who find their own, based on the individual choices that they make and that others make. If people need to cover their tracks and have a token minority to show to the world how non racist they are, as if that makes it real, okay, that's the society you're choosing to live in. Only shallow shows of diversity.
" It's wrong because of that. it's also extremely shallow. People should be chosen based on merit."
Never has been the case, and isn't now. And not because of affirmative action:
>>....legacy preferences, a widespread and increasingly controversial factor in admission to top colleges. Many US colleges admit “legacies”, or students with a family connection to the university, at dramatically higher rates than other applicants. They are widely seen as a reliable source of alumni donations. “They do tend to be white, and they do tend to be wealthier,” Bian said in an interview. “I think that’s kind of unfair.”
At Harvard, the acceptance rate for legacy students is about 33%, compared with an overall acceptance rate of under 6%. Countless powerful Americans have followed their relatives to elite universities. In 1935, when John F Kennedy applied to Harvard, the first page of the application form asked where his father had graduated from college. “Harvard 1912,” he wrote. He was admitted, though his academic record was not especially strong. In 1964, George W Bush followed his father and grandfather to Yale, despite lackluster grades.<<
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2019/jan/23/elite-schools-ivy-league-legacy-admissions-harvard-wealthier-whiter
Legacy admissions are about15% of Ivy League admissions, and are overwhelmingly white and rich.
African-Americans suffer an enormous wealth gap with whites, due to obvious historical circumstances. Affirmative action is one way of offsetting the unfairness of legacy admissions.
i don't disagree that Harvard is elitist trash. but what i mean by merit is merit that is completely subjective, which merit always has been, and always will be when chosen by an individual, or a group of private individuals, separate from the state. so yes, Harvardian merit means your dad gave a lot of money to the school. But so what? Merit for another private entity will mean something else. And so on, and so forth. That's what brings about the most diversity - it's based on our own private realities, which are all different, and bring our unique vision forth, amongst millions of other unique visions. so when i say merit, I mean individual choices, and individual liberty, and respect for innate humanity and imperfection of an individuals free will.
So, again, down with the mandated "diversity". It's no different than mandating that 9 out of 10 employees should be old white guys.
LOL. Your denial suggests a greater interest in trolling than in discussion.
Tell me, do you live under a bridge? Or just a rock...
This is a very sincere question - how is my response trolling and not just an honest attempt to have you support the assertions you make with evidence?
“deleterious effects...” Examples?
Here's a recent example: https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2020/11/inside-the-new-york-times-heated-reckoning-with-itself.html
Obama
Not Colin “WMD” Powell?
Ask California - they just banned it for the second time - by a larger margin than the first back in 1996!
I asked for an example.
And I told you where to find it
In other words, you had nothing.
The "value" held by "Resistance" subscribers was contempt for democracy itself. They hurled transparently Orwellian labels at Trump and his supporters, such as "fascist" (while they gleefully abolished free speech on campus and in the media), "racist" (despite what Alevda King et al. said and despite the large numbers of minorities who supported Trump), misogynist (while ignoring the large numbers of women supporting Trump, and while cheering Biden's groping of endless women and including minor girls). Soon they can start a bunch of wars and gloat once again about being "really good at killing people" as Obama (a/k/a "my [Joe's] boss") boasted.
I have been telling all my family and friends we will be involved in a new war within 12 months of Biden taking office. No doubt and the left will claim Trump is at fault. Thank you for your comment, very articulate.
Well, at least Raytheon is an equal opportunity employer.......
LOL. Yes, there's that
How inverted is this? Trump Conservatives (I exclude RINOs) want to stop the wars, bring the troops home from the 142 damned countries they are occupying, shutter the FBI, extinguish the CIA, prosecute the NSA spies, fix inner-city corruption, have clean elections, free the hundreds of thousands of unfairly incarcerated Americans of all races, and punish the guilty. Secure our borders against people smuggling, drug smuggling, the child and adult prostitution that is fed by illegal immigration. Bring back the millions of blue collar jobs that were shipped out in the last 40 years by our Barons and Earls in DC and our State capitals.
Democrats? None of the above.
We are going back in time with this new lot coming in. Obama talked about hope and change. Trump gave us hope and change. So here we are again back with no hope and the same old changes over and over.
Those "Trump conservatives" still vote for Republicans who don't believe in that stuff, just like leftists who agree with all that still vote for Democrats. The only path forward in electoral politics is a populist 3rd party with leaders that can coexist while disagreeing on culture issues.
There's a re-alignment under way Jack. The 3rd party mantra leads to a 4th, 5th and 6th party, all of which are different brands for political Kelloggs or GM. We have to destroy the GOP and rebuild it as the American party for the 80%.
Not sure there is a GOP anymore. Unlike Bernie, Trump will continue to push and leverage his political power, especially if he buys into a broadcast network that leverages the 40% of the electorate that follow his brand of populism. Unlike Joe Biden, he has a vocal following.
Good column.
The Deep State is clearly re-asserting itself. The political class will now focus all of its power on making sure no “outsider” ever has a snowball’s chance in hell of getting elected president. Watch for both the DEMS and REPS to “update” their party primary process to make it virtually impossible for an “outsider.”
BTW, Mattis was a board member of General Dynamics before he became SecDef and after he left DoD, he was back on the General Dynamics board before his seat even got cold.
For Democrats that do not understand the history of civilian control over the military and why the Defense Department should not be run by a recent ex-military person, remind them of the Cuban missile crisis. Gen Curtis LeMay wanted to bomb the missile installations and the joint chiefs wanted to invade. We later learned there were tactical nuclear missiles in Cuba that would have been used against any invasion thus precipitating an escalation to a general nuclear war with the Soviet Union. McNamara a civilian technocrat did not outright support the militaries recommendations and Kennedy was able to use divisions amongst his advisors to pursue a diplomatic solution. Putting the Defensive Department under military control would limit what the President could do in any similar situation. In practical terms during the Cuban missile crisis US bombers were circling Cuba, a friend of mine was in one, on alert ready to go and we were digging bomb shelters in our backyards and trying to figure out where the Russians would drop a nuclear bomb in relation to where we lived. Those whose world revolves around talking heads on MSNBC should grasp this reality—putting a military man in charge of the Defense Department is an institutionally bad idea with history to prove it.
Democrats are setting themselves up for a big internal fight down the road. The Pentagon has been eating up huge resources of late and always they are wanting more. With growing progressive needs and demands on Federal spending there will be a time, all too soon, where Democrats newfound love of all things military, and endless war, are going to collide head on with insistent demands from the progressive left regarding priorities, and regarding the deep needs rooted in American society.
Not that the Pentagon is going to make this easy on Democratic policy wonks and lawmakers. Over at the U.S. Navy institute site (USNI News) and other Naval media there has been talk that the Navy needs are so great that the Army and Air Force budgets need to be trimmed in order to fund the Navy's rapid expansion. A recent article bemoaned the firing of Defense Secretary Mark Esper at right about the time that Naval lobbying had converted him to their cause. The article continues that now the work has to begin again to convince and sell the Biden team. The appointment of an Army General means that the task will now be that much harder, so if Washington and recent Democratic party history provides any guide it probably means that the Army gets an expanded munitions budget and the Navy has it's full expansion funded too. These nearly inevitable developments would leave both progressive voters and future debt paying taxpayers out in the Biden era cold.
New Washington, same as the old Washington. With $27.4 Trillion in stated Federal debt and underfunded social security and medicare funding for future outlays to the tune of between 20-32 Trillion Dollars. Good Times.
I was a Political Science major in college back before the Soviet Union fell. There was a concept we explored called "guns or butter." The idea was that a stable, strong country has to tend to the butter/services side of public policy for its people, not over-serve the guns/military side of its economy, or a government would lose its support and its power. We learned that the Soviet Union was spending too much on armaments to the detriment of the "butter" its populace needed. My professor predicted the Soviet Union's fall way before Ronald Reagan came into the White House. That's why I know his taking credit for the fall of the USSR has always been bogus. We're staring down the same future having learned absolutely nothing from the USSR's demise.
That's not entirely true. We learned well from the USSR how to make the press a mouthpiece OF the state, rather than a guardian to protect us FROM the state.
To be fair, I did not say we learned nothing. I said we learned nothing "from the USSR's DEMISE." Its propaganda and censorship did not factor into that great power's defeat. An unbalanced economy and a political class that ignored the needs of its people did. I appreciate your wry humor though.
Indeed; good call out.
Furthermore, your analysis in incorrect. Reagan rode Thatcher's coattails, and she leveraged his power, to destroy the USSR economically. Everyone else was still on Kissinger's program (no surprise to see him crawling out of the woodwork).
China's economy is similarly over-manufactured - a Potemkin economy - but they were given a free ride that the USSR never had, with admittance to the WTC on free terms.
The turning point of the Cold War was the Falklands War, and the subsequent end of the fascist Argentine regime, which demonstrated the willingness of the UK to fight globally.
The courage of the Poles was the match that lit the fuse which destroyed the Warsaw Pact - the USSR was a bankrupt economy, collapsing under Marxist contradictions that were presaged during the initial failures of the Plymouth Settlement on 1620.
The Marxists and Maoists swapped coarse cloth for Gucci and Armani, took mistresses, learned to love the high life without guilt (Xi, Barrossa, Merkel, Sanders) and took over the West, whilst the winners retired and died.
The next crisis always arises when those who resolved the previous one are dead.
Donna, "guns or butter" was Hitler's call to arms. Of course, he was a National Socialist, as opposed to the pseudo-International Socialism of the USSR. The call was to sacrifice butter on the bread of the people at the table, in order to have a rearmed Fatherland that could avenge the disgrace and humiliation of Versailles.
And so many Americans do not have “butter” after this past year.
GG,
Thanks for keeping an eye on the War Party. We never get told the details by Panderson Cooper and friends...maybe because they are all owned by the same interlocking groups...
Check out Sharyl Attkisson's new book "Slanted". It goes into a lot of detail of how these "interlocking groups" work together to craft, coordinate, and disseminate their Narratives. Quite an eye opener...
Is it non partisan?
I don't think it is. If you are a traditional Liberal or Libertarian I think it will resonate with you.
Ugh...I meant to say "Yes, I do think it is NON partisan."
Purchased.
real good so far
"Panderson Cooper"...LOL... I never grow tired of the names tossed around... from w to shrub to obie to maobama to shrillary to wretched madcow to demtards to drumpf...Panderson is a new fave though. I'm going to have to file that one with feminazis and kameltoe harris
Don't forget O'Biden. "I'm an O'Biden Bama Democrat" quoth Joe. He remembered Palin's slip from the 2008 VP debate - and adopted it!