Will Trump get the nomination?
Loyal readers of this blog with good memories will recall that
seven years ago I carried out a series of speculations and calculations about
the Republican nominating process based on information I found online
concerning the rules of the various states for selecting delegates to the nominating conventions. The rules governing the selection
of delegates in the Republican states, which I do not believe have been
changed, give an outsized advantage to an individual who wins a mere plurality of
the votes in primary elections. If Trump really has a 35% to 40% block of faithful
supporters who vote in primaries, my guess is that he can lock up the
nomination before enough people leave the field so that he is only competing
against one or at most two opponents in later primaries. If he gets the nomination, he will lose the
election in a landslide. If he does not get the nomination, my guess is he will
persuade enough of his supporters not to vote to throw the election to the
Democrats,
Speaker of the House
You have all, I am sure, read of the problems Kevin McCarthy
is having assembling 218 votes for his bid to be Speaker of the House. He has the support of a majority of the
Republican House members, but he needs all but two or three of them because the
entire House votes to choose the Speaker.
Recall that one does not have to be a member of the House of
Representatives to be chosen as Speaker.
If the 214 or so Democrats in the House can pull four or five
Republicans with them, they can choose someone to serve as Speaker who is not a
member of the House. Is there someone
who might fill that bill?
Let me propose Liz Cheney. To be clear, Cheney’s politics
are what used to be called right wing Republican, so there is no way that she
would agree to serve as Speaker in order to advance a progressive legislative
agenda. But she might very well be prepared to agree to use the power of the
Speakership to block efforts, for example, to impeach Biden and other members
of his administration.
Just a thought.
65 comments:
No, I don't think Trump will get the nomination this time. Ron DeSantis will be the un-Trump, and enough votes will coalesce around him that he'll defeat Trump. All other Republican candidates will draw small percentages of the vote.
McCarthy has to be the favorite to become Speaker, and I'm sure he'll do what it takes to secure the MTG wing of the party. A real showdown will come over the debt ceiling. There are Republicans who would welcome crashing the world economy.
"Let me propose Liz Cheney."
OMG. Prof Wolff has jumped the shark.
"I'm honored that my first speech on the floor of the U.S. House was in defense of life."
https://twitter.com/RepLizCheney/status/825076297336549376
"We have a moral obligation to stand up and fight to defend the most vulnerable among us.
Protecting these innocent lives shouldn't be partisan — and we must never stop fighting for the unborn and the sanctity of life."
https://twitter.com/RepLizCheney/status/1355150649328099330
Trump derangement syndrome is when you are so afraid of Trump that you would vote for a Nazi if you thought it would help keep him out of office.
Except that Liz Cheney is not a Nazi (rather, a non-Trumpist conservative Repub from Wyoming).
Let's be clear.
Liz Cheney voted with Trump about 95% of the time. (Including to block the Russiagate-related impeachment efforts.)
Other than Jan 6 & the 2020 election, what did Liz Cheney vote against Trump on?
https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/congress-trump-score/liz-cheney/
-Increasing the COVID stimulus checks from $600 to $2000. (Trump supported, Cheney opposed)
-Raising the debt limit/supplemental appropriations for Hurricane Harvey relief. (Trump supported, Cheney opposed)
-Trump's attempt to withdraw US forces from Syria.
-A bill disapproving of Trump's plan to lift sanctions on 3 Russian companies.
-Imposing sanctions on Iran, North Korea, & Russia. (Trump opposed, Cheney supported)
-The Republican "compromise" immigration bill June 20018. (Trump supported after initially opposing?, Cheney opposed*)
-Trump's opposition to the National Defense Authorization act because he wanted a provision to limit social media companies' protections from liability for content published on their websites (including material biased against him).
-The fiscal-2017 appropriations bill voted on in May 2017.
*not sure exactly what Cheney's reason for opposing that immigration bill was.
She certainly wasn't taking a progressive position on immigration:
https://twitter.com/ahuguelet/status/1009537173945835520
https://www.rawstory.com/2018/06/dems-bring-migrant-kids-house-floor-protest-family-separation-shouted-gop-decorum-breach/
If Trump is really a threat to democracy in the U.S. and a fascist, as Professor Wolff and most of the commenters here believe and if the Western democracies were willing to ally themselves with Stalin to defeat Hitler, then why not ally oneself with Liz Cheney to defeat Trump?
Liz Cheney, for all her sins, has a lot less blood on her hands than Stalin did.
A plutocrat as Speaker wouldn't be an improvement over a kleptocratic stooge. The republic is still on knife edge because plutocrats never understand that kleptocrats see them as prey not allies. Cheney has her uses but Speaker is a non starter and she and dad are too sharp anyway.
Apologies for the repost but with the house going to the Rethugs, we can't afford a tied Senate. A solid GOTV is going to be essential.
May be of interest for the Georgia runoff:
https://balloon-juice.com/2022/11/16/within-the-margin-of-effort-27-pairs-of-boots-on-the-ground-in-ga/
@Eric November 17, 2022 at 11:52 AM:
Trump derangement syndrome is when you are so afraid of Trump that you would vote for a Nazi if you thought it would help keep him out of office.
Apparently in response to criticism of the July 1941 Anglo-Soviet agreement, Churchill is supposed to have said in private conversation,
“If Hitler invaded hell I would make at least a favorable reference to the devil in the House of Commons.”
This suggestion is most likely along the same lines.
(I see that S. Wallerstein has had a similar thought)
Anyway, I'm glad to see that with Rep. K Clark (born 21 years after the aforementioned Anglo-Soviet agreement), Boomers are finally getting a chance to be part of leading the House of Representatives (Boehner is/was a boomer but can hardly be said to have led the House).
s.w., it's the 95% (rinsed and repeated over the past several decades) that Eric references that led to a Trump. Conservatism has no game beyond culture war kayfabe and by now it's clear that neoliberalism leads to an unsustainable death spiral. Cheney's devotion to a constitutional order and the rule of law is admirable but the republic survives only if the Republican House (and party) fails. McCarthy is a malign doofus - let him crash and burn and his party with him.
aaall,
I would suppose that any alliance with Cheney would be quite temporary, perhaps 2 years until the Democrats can regain control of the House in 2024.
Tonight, PBS had a moving tribute to Michael Gerson, who passed away today at the age of 58. Even those who did not always agree with his politics, admired his superb writing skills, with Ruth Marcus stating that he wrote like an angel. He was man of deep Christian faith, who condemned Donald Trump, and the Republican Party which embraced him. Mr. Gerson struggled with severe depression, and suffered from Parkinson’s disease and cancer, the latter condition being his cause of death. In February, 2019, he gave a poignant speech at the Washington National Cathedral, describing his battle with depression. You can read it at the link below.
https://www.pbs.org/newshour/health/read-michael-gersons-sermon-sharing-his-struggle-with-depression
Sigh. This anybody who reads this blog imagine that I do not know all of that about Liz Cheney? Letr it pass.
Marc, Rutgers had the most bizarre class schedule. I taught there early Monday mornings and then Thursday afternoons. It was weird.
Marc,
I was listening to PBS NewsHour on radio this evening but turned it off before the segment on Michael Gerson -- so thanks for the reminder about it. I may look it up online.
LFC (and others),
You can watch the PBS tribute to Michael Gerson at the link below. It starts at around 41:00:
https://video.thinktv.org/video/november-17-2022-pbs-newshour-full-episode-1668661254/
This might not be appropriate here, but can I ask you some questions regarding Kant's philosophy? (And if I can, where can I send along questions? If not, I apologize in advance)
Thanks. (Actually easier for me to go directly to the NewsHour site.) I did follow the link to his sermon; was just curious about what he had said.
Above was directed to Marc.
Anon @11:50 RPW has an email address at top of page. (That might be a surer way of getting an answer.)
Thank you. Google would not allow me to publish my user name.
LFC, I imagine what would happen is what happened in the 1850s when the Whigs crashed and burned and the Republican Party came to be. Wasn't pretty then and won't be now but the present situation is unsustainable. Wisconsin Republicans came within one seat in the statehouse of ending democracy in that state. The so-called moderate Republican governor of Virginia campaigned for Lake and has gone racist on the school curriculum. DeSantis is a racist and a bully with fascist instincts. Investigating Hunter Biden seems to be a priority for the new House majority and it seems we will be soon be faced with a choice of gutting social programs or crashing the world economy. While the Republican plan has been an eventual one party state since Gingrich and Rove, the last time we had a few cycles of Democratic legislative dominance we got Social Security and Medicare, so there's that. If the possibility of a one party state and all that involves disturbs you, you should view the end of the Republican Party as a good thing.
Considering recent history and the Republican field, if you see a different path that doesn't wind up with some variety of fascism, please share. BTW, you might consider that if the Republican Party hadn't decided to go for the white racist vote beginning in 1964, we wouldn't be where we are now.
This is very painful to watch.
https://www.cnn.com/videos/world/2022/11/18/russian-army-ukraine-infrastructure-recession-pleitgen-pkg-ebof-vpx.cnn
What is Russia’s objective? What do they gain by obliterating Ukraine and beating the Ukrainian people into submission?
This is reminiscent of Rome’s objective regarding Carthage -Carthago Delnda Est - Carthage Must Be Destroyed – but in that case, Carthage had invaded the Italian peninsula and had defeated the Romans in battle. Ukraine has done nothing to threaten Russia.
And what will Russia inherit? The Romans made a desert, and called it peace. Russia is creating a pile of rubble and will call it victory. There is no end in sight, and our hands are tied by Russia’s threat to use nuclear weapons.
Russia was once a great Empire of superb literature, beautiful music and ballet, great chess-players, and outstanding thinkers. It has turned into a nation of thugs.
What, if anything, can be done to save Ukraine?
Tonight, the champion of the Jeopardy Tournament of Champions may be crowned. The first contestant who wins three games wins the tournament. The current standings are: Amy Schneider (who is transgender and absolutely brilliant) has won 2 games; Andrew He has won 2 games; and Sam Buttrey, winner of the tournament of professors, has won none.
Last night’s Final Jeopardy question was fascinating:
Ridley Scott’s first feature film, “The Duellists”, was based on a story by this author to whom Scott’s film “Alien” also pays tribute.
I guessed Philip Dick. Buttrey answered A. C. Clarke; He answered Dick; Schneider answered Lovecraft. All three were incorrect.
The answer?
Joseph Conrad. In “Alien” the name of the spacecraft was Nostomo.
Correction: Nostromo
Post-Script:
“Nostromo” is listed No. 47 on The Modern Library’s list of 100 best English-language novels of the 20th centuy.
F. Scott Fitzgerald said, ” “I’d rather have written ‘Nostromo’ than any other novel.”
The Ukrainian people are suffering death, deprivation, starvation, freezing cold, and utter despair.
And what are many young Americans outraged about? That Ticketmaster crashed and they have been unable to purchase tickets to Taylor Swift’s upcoming tour.
Sickening.
Marc,
For a different perspective on the war, try reading Kos and Mark Sumner on the Daily Kos. Here is a sample:
https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2022/11/16/2136639/-Ukraine-update-What-s-left-of-Russia-s-sputtering-offensive-efforts-are-failing
David,
Thank you for the link.
I hope that the author is correct and that Russia’s was offensive is sputtering. But reports indicate that Russia has just moved 3 cruise missile launching vessels into the Black Sea, which has been described as “a large bathtub,” and are expected to pummel Ukraine with hundreds of more missiles. There is a military risk in Russia’s doing this, because the vessels may be sitting ducks for Ukrainian rockets. I hope that the Ukrainians are able to sink all three Russian vessels.
On a separate note, my above reference to Amy Schneider as transgender raised in my mind the following semantical question: Does the word “transgender” refer to the individual’s current gender, or former gender? For example, if I say, “Mary is a transgender woman,” since I have used the present tense I mean that Mary is currently a woman and transgendered from being a man. But what if I change the tense and say, “Mary was a transgender woman,” and Mary is still alive. The use of the past tense suggests that “Mary” was the individual’s former name. So, amd saying that Mary was formerly a woman who transgendered into being a man, and that “Mary” is not the individual’s current name?
Even if Ukraine gets all the weaponry it's asking for and then some, there will probably come a time when the Ukrainians realize they have to negotiate, unless Russia actually runs out of missiles, which seems unlikely, or unless Ukraine is able to shoot down the large majority of Russian missiles. However, that time (for negotiation) may not arrive for a few years. I tend to agree w the view that the U.S. and Europe, while not forcing Ukraine to do anything it doesn't want, shd be nudging diplomacy more to the forefront.
Which nudging is best done in private.
LFC,
There is a third option: Putin is either assassinated or dies of natural causes. I don’t think his successor would be eager to continue Putin’s military campaign, which has turned out to be a disaster.
(In the video of the jail in Kherson which the Russians converted into a torture chamber, I noticed that there was a chess set present. Reminiscent of the Nazis listening to Beethoven and reading Goethe, as they gassed and incinerated concentration camp internees.)
Regarding negotiations, Zelensky has stated that under no circumstances will Ukraine concede Russia’s territorial claims on the Crimea or eastern Ukraine, and the Ukrainian people appear, as of now, to support him on this. This is not because the U.S. and Europe are instructing Zelensky not to negotiate.
Marc, I'm not 100% familiar with all this (I'm shaky on the usage of e.g. "nonbinary"), so someone can and should correct me if I'm wrong; but "transgender" just means having a gender identity different from that assigned at birth. I think the latter is more-or-less the same thing as anatomical/biological sex (male or female, typically).
So, "transgender" is an adjective that can modify the nouns "man" or "woman" (or various other alternatives), which refer to a person's gender identity, as distinct from their birth-assigned sex. I don't think the question of past-versus-present normally factors into it, or if it does, then it's preferable to speak to the present. "What is your gender identity?" means "Do you identify as a man or woman, and if so, which?" ("No" is a valid answer, as for e.g. nonbinary persons.) Also, "transgendered" is frequently considered offensive.
Marc,
Let me be clearer, since I apparently was not clear enough.
I know what Zelensky's current position is and that it has wide domestic support among Ukrainians. What I am suggesting is that if, two or three years from now, the situation remains somewhat stalemated, the impetus for negotiations will increase and domestic support in Ukraine for a no-compromise position may decrease. (This is assuming Putin remains in power; there is a possibility he won't, but I'm assuming for the moment that he will.)
Of course the U.S. and Europe are not "instructing Zelensky not to negotiate." This misses my point. My point is that while the U.S. and Europe are publicly saying that the question of war aims and negotiations is entirely up to the Ukrainians, in private they should be making noises -- not coercive noises, but suggestive noises, or perhaps raising questions is a better phrase -- about what conditions might occur or could be "developed" that would make negotiations a less unattractive option for the Ukrainians than it is now. That sounds convoluted, partly because these things are often convoluted. I'm not a professional diplomat, to whom I'll leave the details. (This is, for lack of a better word, a sort of subtle point, which is also why it sounds somewhat vague and convoluted. But since you are a lawyer whose livelihood depends partly on his reading comprehension, I trust you will get the gist of what I'm trying to say. You don't have to agree w it, needless to say.)
Lest you think what I've said here represents only my own views and is supported by no one whose views may carry greater weight, I'd point out that at least one person (namely Charles Kupchan, of Georgetown Univ.) has said pretty much the same thing (btw, he was on the NewsHour recently). Of course not everyone agrees w him, and his might even be a minority view in the so-called U.S. foreign-policy community. But that's neither here nor there. I don't know him personally (nor do I have any particular interest in knowing him personally) but I've read some of his work.
"Russia was once a great Empire..."
NSM, the empire was brutal and genocidal, ditto the USSR and the Federation. Folks living in a given place can produce all sorts of impressive cultural goods regardless of goverance. That is irrelevant. One can make the same points about pre-war Germany and Japan. They still needed to be crushed.
On a more positive note, I've seen pics of Israeli military vehicles in Ukraine and rumors of Israel getting off the fence on other aid given the increasing alignment between Russia and Iran. Russia's air force has been mostly MIA and I see a clear difference between shooting down manned aircraft and intercepting missiles.
As for those three cruisers: The Moskva was but a down payment on another Tsushima Straits.
This is just embarrassing:
https://www.newyorker.com/news/q-and-a/john-mearsheimer-on-putins-ambitions-after-nine-months-of-war
@ aaall
"the empire was brutal and genocidal"
I was certainly not taught that the empire of Peter the Great or Catherine the Great, say, was *more* "brutal and genocidal" than the Ottoman Empire, the Austro-Hungarian Empire, or for that matter and in its own way, the British empire. Most 18th and esp 19th-century European empires were brutal and somewhat genocidal. Perhaps you learned European history from different books.
When I was a high school, I had an optional Russian history course.
It was supposed to be "know your enemy", "why we fight", to train future CIA agents and Army officers, but our teacher was quite good.
The first day we walked into class we saw a documentary "Peoples of the Soviet Union".
The next day we saw exactly the same documentary, but the soundtrack was totally changed.
Our teacher asked us to write an essay comparing and contrasting the two versions.
Obviously, the first soundtrack was recorded during World War 2 and was very favorable to our then allies, the Russians, good guys like us. The second soundtrack was from the early Cold War and the Russians were sinister, aggressive, brutal and genocidal. Even the background music had been modified from a "Victory at Sea" type of triumphal optimistism to threatening Hollywood menace.
We are now at soundtrack 2 moment. Buy your popcorn, sit back and enjoy the movie.
s.w., both can be true. Simo Häyhä and Lyudmila Pavlichenko were both admirable. Hitler made a bad decision and it was in our interest to take advantage.
Your example is inapt as Russia's invasion of Ukraine was clear unprovoked aggression and is motivated by imperialist aspirations.
LFC, I'll agree with your assessment and raise you the United States, Portugal, Spain, and to an extent Canada. However, Russia seems stuck in that destructive imperialist/theological ideology. Back in the 18th and 19th centuries this was world class:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Circassian_genocide
Your other examples have moved on; Russia is still happily doing genocide and other war crimes as doctrine.
Just to round things out we shouldn't forget China's actions in Tibet, India, and Bhutan.
We're in a new cold war with Russia. The same level of brainwashing and propaganda is going on, in fact perhaps more, because the media are now more totalizing than they were in 1962. You no longer have to wait for the evening news or for the morning paper to be told what you are supposed to think about Russia: you are bombarded 24 hours a day with cold war propaganda, a mixture of truth, fake-news, half-truths, slanted coverage, image management, pure bullshit which is difficult to sort out.
I give up.
s. wallerstein,
I understand that you were being sarcastic, so this is not meant as a scolding, but I do not want to watch this movie, especially not while eating popcorn, and I do not think you do either. There are some movies at which it is not appropriate to eat popcorn, like Schindler’s List and Saving Private Ryan, and The Russian Destruction And Devastation Of Ukraine is one of them.
It has finally begun!
Today, Attorney General Merrick Garland appointed a Special Prosecutor to evaluate whether Donald Trump should be charged and prosecuted with regard to is role in the January 6th insurrection.
Prof. Wolff, I believe you are going to have your wish fulfilled. Hang in there!
Query: If Trump is indicted, as I expect he will, should the federal judge allow him to post bail, or would he be a flight risk? Probably no a flight riskt, given he will be running for President and could not turn tail and run – I think that would send the wrong message to his base.
s. walerstine, THIS is a movie I would be willing to buy popcorn for to watch.
I assume he would have to surrender his passport and possibly get an ankle monitor. I'm sure Putin would give him shelter and I believe he has a golf course in Malaysia. If guilty I'd assume a fine and commutation/home confinement or a full pardon depending on who is president. If home confinement uniformed Secret Service could be used for security. At some point upon or after indictment I'd assume some level of narcissistic collapse and perhaps that may affect competency?
Most Republicans predict McCarthy will ultimately overcome his opposition and win the speaker election in January. I also recall Liz Cheney's historic margin of defeat.
s. wallerstein said...
'We're in a new cold war with Russia.'
Russa has a GDP of 1.776 trillion. The United States is 23 trillion. I have some trouble picturing 'cold war, part 2' under these circumstances.
'You no longer have to wait for the evening news or for the morning paper to be told what you are supposed to think about Russia: you are bombarded
24 hours a day with cold war propaganda, a mixture of truth, fake-news, half-truths, slanted coverage, image management, pure bullshit which
is difficult to sort out.'
You're describing this blog? ;)
Danny,
Me, you, the mainstream media, the alternative leftie media, almost everyone who talks politics.
I except LFC. He makes a genuine effort (I believe) to find out the truth about politics and has the intellectual resources to do so. That is commendable and very infrequent. Not that he doesn't err at times of course.
Some others who comment here may convince themselves that they make a genuine effort to find out the truth about politics, but their political passions and commitments are so
strong that they often trump reality.
Me, I gave up. I don't remember exactly when.
s.w.,
I would be the first to admit that I err quite a lot. I'm reminded all the time how much I don't know and often I haven't formulated a firm opinion about something for one reason or another.
I live in a city (or technically, the suburbs of a city) where some people, often in think tanks, are paid to follow developments in a particular area closely, develop and hone their expertise in that area, and disseminate their resulting views. That is not me. I don't work for a think tank and I've never held myself out as an Expert on any particular region or topic, because I'm not. I consider myself an IR (international-relations) generalist, which could be taken as a very polite way of saying that I don't know that much.
With these various remarks out of the way, I do appreciate your kind words. I think most of us are probably trying our best and most of us are making mistakes (including me for sure).
s. wallerstein,
There is a reality out there, and there are truths which reflect that reality. Those truths can only be discerned by our applying our sense perceptions, consulting various sources of information, and applying our intellect to determine which sources of information are the most reliable. Your fallback position of total skepticism, while it prevents you from making mistakes, yields no truths and no understanding.
Marc,
I don't see you doing that on most issues.
I rather see you as dominated by a political passion and commitment for left of center Democratic values and searching for data which confirm your preconceptions and ideals.
On subjects like Ukraine and so many others you accept the version of the "liberal" mainstream media without consulting other sources and if you do consult them, you do it only to bring your considerable debating talents into play to refute them and to confirm your previous political commitments, which are can be best described as "liberal".
I see a consistent narrative in what you have to say, but you're rather a lawyer or even salesman for a certain position than a seeker after truth and still less after understanding.
I know that the above sounds harsh, but you gave me the simplistic sermon and got one back. You make very little attempt to understand what others like me, who may be a bit less conventional than you are, are trying to get at or above all, to escape from.
Signing off for tonight...
I was very struck 20 years ago in reading the political philosopher John Dunn's The Cunning of Unreason: Making Sense of Politics by his statement (that I remember as something like) that a basic problem with making sense of politics is that no human being lives long enough to understand it.
OK s.w., what are you trying to get at or escape from? It seems to me that knowing which side one is on and being able to tell steak from sizzle resolves most things.
Politics, as currently practiced, makes people more dogmatic, more tribal, more manichean, more close-minded, more gullible (to the messages which "our" side uses to manipulate us), more self-righteous, more sanctimonious, etc.
I don't feel comfortable being like that. Some of you may.
I realize that in this binary, tribal conflict, one side is preferible to the other and I'll continue voting for the left.
However, when a war like that in Ukraine occurs, with a complex set of causes and with news being manipulated by both sides, one really knows little about what is going on except that there are atrocities on both sides and that Putin "started it".
There are those like LFC who study the situation in detail, who read all the sources and strive to come up with a balanced "objective" point of view and that, as I said above, is admirable.
However, I don't have the time and energy for that. I'm lazy, but while I've already joined the leftist and the feminist tribes and it's a bit late in life (age 76) to change,
I'm not about to the join the Zelensky fan club, which is promoted in the mainstream media as if he were the coolest new pop star since Elvis.
Putin's invasion of Ukraine is condemnable. The causes of this horrid situation are complex and one needs to study a lot of history to understand them, which I haven't done. One only need to read the threads in Leiter's blog to see that there are people, like LFC, who have done so.
So in the interests of sanity, my own sanity, not yours which is your responsibility,
I'm striving to live a bit less politically, less tribally, less binarily, in a less manichean form.
That's my advice to myself, not to you, although I realize that you have difficulties understanding that I'm not preaching to others.
s. wallerstein,
I am quite astounded by your response. And this rejoinder is a rebuke. At the inception of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, there was a vigorous debate on this blog, and elsewhere, whether Russia’s invasion was justified. Some, including you and my attorney colleague friend, took the position that Russia had legitimate reasons for invading, and that Americans and Europeans were essentially being brain-washed by the Western media into taking Ukraine’s side. The argument was that the U.S. and the European Union had breached a promise to Russia, after the dissolution of the Soviet Union, not to expand NATO; that they had breached that pledge by inviting the eastern European nations to join NATO and were actively encouraging Ukraine to join NATO; and that this breach instigated Putin to launch the invasion. You, and I think Eric, cited sources which supported that position, including Prof. Mearsheimer, and, after reading many of those references, I still was not convinced that their arguments justified Russia’s invasion. Other voices on this blog, i.e., aaall, Achim Kriechel, Prof. Zimmerman, to some extent LFC, and others took the position that Ukraine was a sovereign nation, and, as such, was entitled to determine its own foreign policy, and to decide for itself whether to join, or not join, NATO, without Russian interference.
All that is now irrelevant. I am willing to concede, just for the sake of argument, that Russia did have a legitimate right to invade Ukraine. That said, if Russian had a right to invade Ukraine, the Ukrainian people certainly had a right to defend themselves, to resist the invasion, and to launch a counter-offensive, which is what they did – and they were successful. And Putin has decided to punish them for their success – to bomb them into submission, to obliterate their infrastructure, to destroy their homes and apartment buildings, to kill their men, women and children by the thousands, and you see this as some sort of movie, which you are looking forward to watching it while eating popcorn. And you tell me that I am still being duped by the Western media, that the videos that I see on television are not really accurate, that the film of dead bodies and weeping Ukrainians is all a manufactured mirage, projected by some evil genius.
You will recall that when Robert Kennedy was running for President, he was wont to state, “The hottest places in Hell are reserved for those who in a period of moral crisis maintain their neutrality,” a quote which his deceased brother also frequently quoted, and which they both attributed to Dante (apparently erroneously - https://quoteinvestigator.com/2015/01/14/hottest/). Whether genuine, or apocryphal, the quote has merit. And here’s another quote, which is not apocryphal:
“The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.” Theodore Roosevelt
You always want to maintain your neutrality, on this topic and others, so as not to be accused of having been in error. Those who do not maintain neutrality, who take a position and stand by it, you accuse of having drunk the Kool Aid, and assert that only you, and those whom you anoint as seers, are being truly objective and above the fray. Well, I don’t see this as being objective. I see what you regard as some sort of moral neutrality as no more than intellectual cowardice.
Last night, watching Jeopardy, I learned a bit of literary trivia I had been unaware of. During a break in the competition, Ken Jennings was asking each of the contestants a question, and when he got to Amy Schneider, who, as I have stated above, is transgender, he asked her the significance of the tattoo on her upper right arm, a tattoo which she did not have during her earlier appearances before the Tournament of Champions. She explained that the tattoo was of Princess Ozma, who appears as a character in several sequels to the Wonderful World of Oz which L. Frank Baum wrote. Princess Ozma was given as a child to an evil witch, who raised her as a boy. After being raised as boy for many years, the Good Witch Glinda liberates Ozma and returns her to Oz as a young woman. Amy, who disclosed that she was transgender during her appearance on the earlier competitions, decided to obtain the tattoo in recognition of her emergence as her true self. I had not known there was such a character named Princess Ozma, and that Baum had written many sequels to his first book.
Amy, who played brilliantly, was on the verge of winning her third game, and therefore winning the tournament, when she made an uncharacteristic blunder. Towards the end of the game, as the Final Jeopardy question was going to be disclosed, Amy was in the lead by several thousand dollars. Andrew He was in second place; and Prof. Buttrey was in third. The Final Jeopardy question was:
William the Conqueror’s son built a fortress on a key Northern river in 1080, giving this city its name.
I guessed the answer was Newcastle. Buttrey answered Newcastle and had made a wager which doubled his amount, putting him in the lead. He did not come up with an answer, and since he had wagered everything, dropped down to 0> So, if Amy answered Newcastle, it was almost guaranteed that she would win the tournament. She revealed her answer: Newcastle. Under these circumstances, the standard game strategy would be to have wagered $1 higher than double the amount of money of the contestant who would win if s/he waged double the amount s/he had, as the rules allow – which is what Buttrey had done. Everyone expected that Amy’s wager would be that amount, plus $1. To everyone’s astonishment, she had not done that. She wagered an amount lower than $1 higher than double Buttrey’s amount and lost the match. Why she did this, given how brilliantly shehad played, is inexplicable except to say that she had a lapse of judgment under the pressure. So now the tournament stands at 2 games apiece for Schneider and He, and one game for Buttrey. The tournament resumes on Monday.
^Very minor correction (possibly wrong), but I thought Andrew wagered all but $100. (Not to mention: Didn't he get back-to-back Daily Doubles, wagering everything as usual, but failing to respond correctly to the second clue?) Maybe that's another game I'm remembering. But yeah, it would've been quite cool for Amy to have won last night in particular - I just found out via NFL.com* that this week (Nov. 13-19) is Transgender Awareness Week.
*in its article on the league's first openly transgender cheerleader, also news to me:
https://www.nfl.com/news/first-openly-transgender-nfl-cheerleader-justine-lindsay-a-face-of-the-possible
Marc,
First of all, I don't recall justifying Putin's invasion. I may have refused to condemn it, which is not the same as justifying it and I did try to understand it, to put it in the international context of a new cold war.
Intellectual cowardice: I don't see that condemning Putin from a computer in Chile or in Michigan is exactly an act of courage. I could even describe it as "moral grandstanding". Condemning Putin in Moscow takes courage.
As a matter of fact, if I got vehement enough in my condemnation of Putin and my support for Biden/Zelensky, I might win some points with the U.S. embassy here and they might let me skip the line the next time I have to renew my passport.
Neutrality: The most horrid atrocities in this world don't come from the neutrals (Switzerland, for example), but from those with a big "moral" idea: from the Hitlers,
Stalins, Maos, JFK's (Bay of Pigs Invasion, Cuban missile crisis, buildup in Viet Nam), LBJ's (Viet Nam), Nixons, RFK's (working for Joe McCarthy), Bush 2's (invasion of Iraq), Osama Bin Ladins, etc.
The neutral and the indifferents generally mind their own business and don't bother anyone else.
MS is evidently a devotee of the TV quiz show “Jeopardy.” I’ve never seen it myself (when I tried to recall it, I realized that I was thinking about a dreadful thing called “Wheel of Fortune”) but I guess “Jeopardy” is a contest about trivia. So, in the spirit of MS’s recurrent comments about “Jeopardy” here is a philosophy trivia question: Who complied the Index to the First Edition of Walter Kaufmann’s “Nietzsche—Philosopher, Psychologist, Antichrist” (1950)? (This Index was used again in the Third (1968) and Fourth Editions (1974) of Kaufmann’s book, and Kaufmann thanked and praised the compiler for his contribution. Obviously, Kaufmann thought that the “exceptionally fine index” did justice to the Nietzsche book. When the Third Edition of Kaufmann’s book appeared the index compiler had not yet published a book himself. But by the time Kaufmann’s Fourth Edition showed up the complier had only recently published his first book.) So, again, Who was this index compiler?
“The hottest places in Hell are reserved for those who in a period of moral crisis maintain their neutrality,” a quote which his deceased brother also frequently quoted, and which they both attributed to Dante.
John said to Robert:
"Hurry up and sneak Ms. Monroe through the back door against her better judgement: We don't want to burn in the nine circles of Hades for being neutral on this topic!"
Interesting, Fritz! I had to cheat and look it up. Hint: It's someone Prof. Wolff has critiqued and corresponded with. (Give up? See also Prof. Wolff's appearance in Existential Comics.)
Michael,
You are correct, Andrew dropped down to 0 when was unable to answer a Double Jeopardy question on time. On the Final Jeopardy question he answered “Avon” and dropped down to $100.00.
Amy bet only $1,800 on the Final Jeopardy question. She should have wagered $4,801, which would have put her at $22,401, $1 over Buttrey’s total of $22,400. You could see on her face that she realized she had made a major mistake. There is something very charming about her – she is never arrogant or smug about her success. She even mentioned that she loves baseball, even though she was terrible at it when she played on the Little League as a boy. I have nothing against Andrew He or Prof. Buttrey, but I hope she can pull of a third victory next week and win the tournament.
@ Fritz / Michael
Rawls would have been a grad student when he compiled the index, so that makes sense. (Not that I had any clue what the answer was.)
Btw, that Existential Comics segment, as has been mentioned before here, is a misrepresentation of Rawls's views.
"The causes of this horrid situation are complex and one needs to study a lot of history to understand them..."
Not at all and that applies to most, if not all, truly "horrid situations." Now solutions are usually complex and may involve difficult decisions but that's another matter. In the instant case the contingencies didn't work out. The assertions of iron clad promises not to expand NATO are simply disinformation. One would expect that academics would have learned by now that malicious actors with actual power can easily upend their pet theories.
As there are folks in the US Congress who oppose Ukraine aid and, in what passes for conservatism here, who are constructive, if not philosophical, allies to Putin's brand of extreme Russian nationalism, taking a stand on Ukraine, while safe, may still be consequential.
BTW, Switzerland is preventing Germany from providing weapons, purchased by the latter but manufactured by the former, to Ukraine. We can also reflect on Switzerland's role during the Holocaust.
LFC: According to Kaufmann's acknowledgement on p. 503 of the 3rd edition, Rawls was an "instructor" at Princeton (so, yes, he could have been a graduate student--he got his PhD in that year) when he prepared the 1950 index. By the way, Kaufmann and Rawls were born in the same year--1921. Time flies.
What an odd, irrelevant remark about Switzerland and the Holocaust. Especially since Germany occurs in the same short paragraph. Are we any longer permitted to remark on the role of some Ukrainians in the Holocaust? I'd guess not!
Anon, it was prompted by another post, read the thread. Also, you guess wrong and you can throw in the isolationists, etc. in the U.S. if you wish.
s. wallerstein said...
Marc,
'First of all, I don't recall justifying Putin's invasion. I may have refused to condemn it..'
I wouldn't think it particularly difficult to 'condemn' it, but at least, let's juxtapose the point that Time runs such as 'World Condemns Russian Invasion of Ukraine'. I pull that from Feb 24, and again, I figure it was clear by then that world leaders strongly condemned etc. Also around then, one might have noted Trump largely isolated in praise for Putin, as GOP condemned it. Just in case it's at all controversial, I could go on to describe an outpouring of condemnation from scientists and research organizations worldwide. It does seem, that we are living in one of those rare historic moments in which a discrete, regional event has rippled around the world. Now, this is just offered for whatever it is worth, and maybe Qatar, Senegal and Turkey call for peace talks, or somesuch. Of course there must be negotiations at some point — but I have a hard time imagining that the chief negotiator for Russia at that time will be the war criminal who is Russia's current president. Perhaps it is not true of me as it is true of Han Solo, that 'I can imagine a lot'.
Reall, I want to get to this:
'Neutrality: The most horrid atrocities in this world don't come from the neutrals (Switzerland, for example), but from those with a big "moral" idea: from the Hitlers, Stalins, Maos, JFK's (Bay of Pigs Invasion, Cuban missile crisis, buildup in Viet Nam), LBJ's (Viet Nam), Nixons, RFK's (working for Joe McCarthy), Bush 2's (invasion of Iraq), Osama Bin Ladins, etc.'
This list strikes me as rather bizarre, I ponder 'informal fallacy', or I mean, it seems here that the reasoning is flawed because it distorts issues. What is this about when Robert Kennedy and Joe McCarthy crossed paths? But "McCarthyism" had peaked in 1953. Now, Robert Kennedy would go on to become his brother's attorney general, and he was just 35. So apparently, we are going back from there, to contemplate when RFK honed his anti-communism working side-by-side with the nation's leading red-baiter. Bobby Kennedy worked for Joe McCarthy. True, but it seems considerably more interesting and relevant to me that for RFK, Lyndon Johnson was one of his biggest enemies. Nevertheless, sure, Robert Kennedy, like most Americans, despised communism, in the 1950s. At the time, the Soviet Union was "Enemy #1."
Since you seem to be suspicious of moral crudades here, is your point, I guess a larger context might picture how RFK He waged moral crusades against dangers including not only foreign enemies such as communism and Fidel Castro and the U.S.S.R. but also: domestic adversaries (corrupt unions, the Mafia); specific people (Jimmy Hoffa, "Big Steel" bosses); and abstract concepts (racism, poverty).
s. wallerstein said...
'when a war like that in Ukraine occurs, with a complex set of causes and with news being manipulated by both sides, one really knows little about what is going on except that there are atrocities on both sides and that Putin "started it".'
I do not, actually, know that there are atrocities on both sides, and indeed, I detect sarcasm in the other thing about who 'started it'. What appears to unite both of these points is actually a sort of 'Children are like dogs' idea, or 'bananas and the sun appear yellow'.
Ukraine: war crimes on both sides? First, on one side, I gather that Russian authorities and armed forces have committed multiple war crimes in the form of deliberate attacks against civilian targets, massacres of civilians, torture and rape of women and children, and indiscriminate attacks in densely populated areas. As of late October, the attacks had resulted in the documented death or injury of more than 10,000 civilians including the deaths of 430 children, although the actual numbers are likely much higher. Looking this up, I find that by late October, the Ukrainian Prosecutor's office had documented 39,347 alleged Russian war crimes. Of course, the United Nations suspended Russia from the UN Human Rights Council. The UN Human Rights Monitoring Mission in Ukraine, deployed by the leading United Nations entity in the field of human rights, employs nearly 60 UN human rights monitors. Make me look it up, what does Amnesty International have to say about this? I guess, with confidence. The World Health Organization? I am again, willing to guess but you tell me, if you like -- I seem to recall, actually, that The World Health Organization has warned of a potential humanitarian crisis. Since October 2022, Russia has increased the intensity of attacks on power stations and other civilian infrastructure, right? As of 20 October 2022, up to 40% of Ukraine's power grid has been attacked by Russia.
You can document almost all war crimes with mobile phones, so I wonder what you are distracted by, while I am looking at how the whole world was able to view the shocking footage from Bucha. I think you're way out of tough here frankly, if you don't perceive how the Kremlin is increasingly isolating itself from civilized Europe.
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