Tuesday: Hili dialogue

October 10, 2023 • 6:45 am

Welcome to Tuesday (the Cruelest Day), October 10, 2023, and National Angel Food Cake Day. This is one of my favorite cakes, but I don’t think I’ve had it in, say five decades. My mom used to make me one, iced with strawberry or coffee frosting, as a special treat, but those days are long gone. A specimen:

It’s also Ada Lovelace Day, World Homeless Day, National Tic Tac Day, Squid and Cuttlefish Day, World Porridge Day, World Day Against the Death Penalty,  World Mental Health Day, and and World Day Against the Death Penalty.

Readers are welcome to mark notable events, births, or deaths on this by consulting the October 10 Wikipedia page.

Da Nooz:

*The NYT editorial board, mirabile dictu, has an editorial-board piece firmly in support of Israel and damning of Hamas, with no equivocation. You can read by clicking, “The attack on Israel demands unity and resolve.”

*Horrors upon horrors are mounting in the Israeli Gaza war, with the Palestinians now threatening to kill a hostage every time there’s an Israeli airstrike. I’m not at all sure that a siege is a good idea.

Israel’s defense minister ordered a “complete siege” of the long-blockaded Gaza Strip on Monday, as Hamas, the militant group controlling the territory, threatened to execute a civilian hostage every time an airstrike hits Gazans “in their homes without warning.”

At least 150 Israelis have been taken hostage by Palestinian assailants since the brazen incursion Saturday, which incited three days of border battles and Israeli retaliatory strikes that, on Monday, hit a mosque and a marketplace in Gaza.

Defense Minister Yoav Gallant said that “no electricity, no food, no water, no fuel” would be allowed into Gaza, in effect trying to cut off the crowded coastal territory already under a 16-year blockade imposed by Israel, along with Egypt. Egyptian officials did not immediately say whether Israel’s announced siege of Gaza would affect their policy toward the movement of goods and people in and out of the territory.

The continued violence has added to the stunned disbelief enveloping Israel, where families are watching men and women who had finished their main military service called back to serve and where the names of the dead have scrolled across television screens. About 800 people have been killed in Israel and nearly 2,400 wounded.

The chief military spokesman, Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari, declared that the army had regained control of border communities but acknowledged that “there may still be terrorists in the area.” And Lt. Col. Richard Hecht of the Israel Defense Forces acknowledged in a briefing on Monday that the fighting was ongoing, saying: “We thought by this morning we’d be in a better place.”

Israeli forces have launched hundreds of airstrikes into Gaza since the incursion, including one on Monday that ripped through a marketplace in northern Gaza, killing dozens.

Israeli officials say the strikes have targeted sites linked to Hamas. U.N. and Palestinian officials say a hospital, homes and mosques have been hit. At least 687 Palestinians have been killed, according to the authorities in Gaza, and at least 3,700 others have been injured.

As Israel mobilized 300,000 reservists, it sent troops and tanks to the south to prepare for what military officials said would be the next stage of the war, which analysts said could involve a ground invasion of Gaza.

This is the bit that burns my onions:

Antonio Guterres, secretary general of the U.N, said he recognized the legitimate grievances of Palestinians but that it did not justify violence against civilians. He also urged Israel to conduct its raids in Gaza according to international rules of conflict and refrain from attacking residential targets. He noted the conflict had a long history. “The reality is that it grows out of a long-standing conflict, with a 56-year long occupation, and no political end in sight,” he said. “It’s time to end this vicious circle of bloodshed, hatred and polarization.”

Seriously? This guy warns Israel to adhere to the international rules of conflict and refrain from attacking residential targets when Hamas has already broken both of those sanction!  But of course Guterres doesn’t warn Hamas of anything! Israel will surely abide more by those rules than will Hamas, but one thing is clear: Guterres, a UN stooge, is an equivocating weasel.

Biden will speak on Israel at 1 pm today Eastern time. So far there has be no signs of an Israeli ground offensive in Gaza, but that may come.

*The Free Press has two articles relevant to the war. The first is a War Primer, “Hamas’s war on Israel: everything you need to know” (co-published with Tablet.) Lots of questions. Here’s a version of one I wanted to ask.

But why attack now? I thought Israel and Saudi Arabia were moving toward peace.

Exactly.

What happened most recently was that an emerging Saudi-Israeli peace agreement began to take shape—which would have offered a potentially powerful counterweight to Iran’s ambitions to regional hegemony. Needless to say, the Iranians don’t like that.

Iran’s thinking seems to have been that if the Hamas attack was brutal and deadly enough, the Israelis would have no choice but to strike back extra-hard in Gaza, generating thousands of photographs and videos of destroyed buildings, dead bodies, and crying children that will inflame the so-called “Arab Street,” making it impossible for the Saudis to publicly ally themselves with Israel and leaving Iran in control of the region.

I’d like to think that the brutality of the initial Hamas attack would make the Saudis even more willing to normalize relations with Israel, but that’s what I’d like to think, not what I do think.

*And the other one from the Free Press: “Delusion in the White House. Bloodshed in Israel.”  (h/t Rosemary). An excerpt:

 . . .  this [Biden] administration has a serious problem. While the official rhetorical response to the attack has been strong, there is a wide chasm between the president’s words and his administration’s actions.

Since taking office, the Biden administration has taken numerous steps to relieve pressure on Hamas and its international patrons as a means of restoring U.S. foreign policy to the way it was under Barack Obama, complete with a resurrected Iran nuclear deal.

Until last week, the Biden administration considered its approach to the region a success. Speaking at an Atlantic magazine event on September 8, National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan boasted, “The Middle East region is quieter today than it has been in two decades.”

After this weekend, the administration’s Middle East strategy is in tatters. And the self-delusion among our foreign policy establishment is at the root of the problem.

. . .But even more troubling for the Biden administration is the situation in Iran, which has funded and trained Hamas since the 1990s. On Sunday, The Wall Street Journal laid bare the Islamic Republic’s deep involvement in this weekend’s bloodshed, reporting that “Iranian security officials helped plan Hamas’s Saturday surprise attack on Israel and gave the green light for the assault at a meeting in Beirut last Monday, according to senior members of Hamas and Hezbollah, another Iran-backed militant group.”

Just last month, Biden allowed the release of $6 billion in oil revenues back to an Iranian bank account in Qatar in exchange for the release of five hostages. That money had been frozen because of U.S. sanctions on Iran’s oil exports.

No evidence has emerged that any of that money went toward the Hamas operation. . .

. . . That said, it’s clear that the ransom paid to Iran will free up funding for its regional proxy war against America and its allies. That proxy war will almost certainly involve helping Hamas perfect its use of long-range rockets and killer drones.

The Biden administration must now reckon with the fact that it has done a deal with Hamas’s most powerful and important patron. Biden’s efforts to restore a nuclear deal with Iran and its lax enforcement of secondary sanctions have freed up capital for the Islamic Republic to invest in its terrorist proxy.

I have long emphasized that Biden’s pas de deux with Iran has always been a mistake to people with working neurons, and now the chickens have come home to roost. It’s time that the Biden administration declare Iran a supporter of terrorism and break off ties with it. Iran will never stop its efforts to build a bomb, and only a moron would think that.

*Not so great news for Democrats: Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has decided to run as an independent, not as a Democrat. That, of course, may draw votes away from Biden, depending on how many supporters RFK Jr. has and how many of them would have voted for Biden otherwise.

Speaking to a crowd of supporters outside the National Constitution Center in Philadelphia, Mr. Kennedy, a leading vaccine skeptic and purveyor of conspiracy theories, said he represented “a populist movement that defies left-right division.”

“The Democrats are frightened that I’m going to spoil the election for President Biden, and the Republicans are frightened that I’m going to spoil it for Trump,” he said. “The truth is, they’re both right. My intention is to spoil it for both of them.”

Since announcing his candidacy in April, Mr. Kennedy, 69, has been a sharp critic of Democratic leadership, which he has accused of “hijacking the party machinery” to stifle his challenge to Mr. Biden. He has also said, in interviews and in public appearances, that the party has abandoned its principles and become corrupted.

Running as an independent will entail an expensive, uphill battle to get on the ballot in all 50 states. Last week, Cornel West, a liberal academic and presidential candidate, said he would run as an independent, abandoning his efforts to secure the Green Party’s nomination.

Remember, though, that Kennedy’s anti-vax stance makes him more appealing to Republicans.  But Cornel West, a black Leftist, would definitely draw votes away from Biden, though I doubt West has much support. So far no Democratic candidate looks to have enough clout to swing the election away from Biden, although the election right now looks evenly split between Biden and Trump.

You might think that the Kennedy name would lure Democrats, but enough of us know what a loon the guy is to not vote for a name. And even his family opposes his candidacy:

Mr. Kennedy, the scion of a liberal political dynasty, has alienated his own family members and many Democrats with his promotion of conspiracy theories, his rejection of scientific orthodoxies and his embrace of far-right political figures.

“Bobby might share the same name as our father, but he does not share the same values, vision or judgment,” four of Mr. Kennedy’s siblings — Rory Kennedy, Kerry Kennedy, Joseph P. Kennedy II and Kathleen Kennedy Townsend — said in a statement on Monday. “We denounce his candidacy and believe it to be perilous for our country.”

Good!

*Jesse Singal has his own slant on the war in a piece called “Not defending Hamas is a very, very low bar for decent humans to clear.” (Subscribe if you read Singal often.)

. . . I want to rant briefly about how disappointed and disgusted I was by the response from organizations like the Democratic Socialists of America.As a bunch of you probably know by now, the DSA decided to respond to the hundreds of deaths, God knows how many kidnappings, and sundry war crimes Hamas inflicted on Israelis over the weekend by tweeting that it was all justified and by that they’d be holding promoting a rally to make sure that point was sufficiently emphasized. Said rally occurred yesterday in Times Square. (Correction: The national DSA organization tweeted, at length, about how this attack was Israel’s fault, and the New York City chapter promoted the Times Square rally. But I overstated in originally claiming that DSA organized it. Apologies.)

Here’s some (unfortunately sideways) video from it:

https://twitter.com/Laura_E_Adkins/status/1711072009512260060

On the one hand, I know it’s silly to focus on something like this. Oh great — you’re responding to a massacre by focusing on internecine fighting on the left. On the other hand, I think there are important principles at stake here. It’s the easiest thing in the world to criticize Israeli policies toward the Palestinians, and to view the occupation of the West Bank and the isolation of Gaza (the result of a combination of Israeli policy, Egyptian policy, and the fact that Hamas rules Gaza) as fundamentally unjust, while also condemning the murder of civilians.

You don’t even need to stray from your belief that the people of Gaza deserve to be free, and to live in much better circumstances, to do this! Not only did Hamas inflict a horrific toll oninnocent Israeli civilians; they also guaranteed that life will get worse for Palestinian civilians in the Strip. That took ten seconds to write.

Instead, there is, on the part of some lefty groups, this bizarre, self-defeating compulsion to take the most performatively anti-Israel position possible at all times, even in those rare instances where there is zero grounds for complexity-mongering or bothsidesing (to be fair, I am broadly in favor of complexity-mongering and bothsidesing when they are warranted). Hamas massacred kids at a music festival. Hamas kidnapped civilians, including children. Whatever your problems with Israel, if you’re a decent human being, you need to be able to openly condemn that.

*Finally, I’ll leave the decision whether to watch this 71-minute video by Ben Shapiro for yourself. He DEMANDS that you watch horrible scenes of what Hamas did, feeling (and I really share that), arguing that you can’t fathom how evil Hamas’s deeds are unless you see what they did. But I recognize that some people just can’t take that, so watch the following only if you have a strong stomach. I put it up because it’s the best one-place collection of videos that I’ve found (h/t Rosemary)

Though I have strong ideological differences with Shapiro and think his Orthodox Judaism is delusional, in this video his purpose is mainly to show you the “face of evil”. And he does. Shapiro is angry and wants others to share his anger, but not everyone will get angry rather than nauseated by watching some of the video.  Again, watch if you want; you can always click off before the videos begin.

I watched it because I have a strong stomach and because, for me, like Shapiro I can’t fully grasp situations like these unless I see them; reading alone does not suffice. The parts that I as an atheist ignored ignore in this video are the religiosity. You needn’t believe in the myths of Judaism to see the immorality of Hamas.

So: TRIGGER WARNING!

Meanwhile in Dobrzyn, Hili is weary:

Hili: I got tired.
A: With what?
Hili: I was lying in one place for too long.
In Polish:
Hili: Zmęczyłam się.
Ja: Czym?
Hili: Zbyt długo leżałam na jednym miejscu.

*******************

A funny wedding announcement from BuzzFeed:

From Thomas:

From The Foillies of God via John, a crocheted Exorcist:

From Masih, not a good hostage for Hamas to take:

From Barry, “a cat with perfect pitch” (I’m not so sure):

From Luana, who shows the rot is spreading:

Two tweets from Simon about Tr*mp:

From the Auschwitz Memorial, a four year old Jewish girl gassed upon arrival:

Tweets from Dr. Cobb. Listen to those stags!

Chickens (especially roosters) can be quite aggressive:

Speaking of birds, here are two movies with warblers on the move:

21 thoughts on “Tuesday: Hili dialogue”

  1. On this day:
    1492 – The crew of Christopher Columbus’s ship, the Santa Maria, attempt a mutiny.

    1780 – The Great Hurricane of 1780 kills 20,000–30,000 in the Caribbean.

    1846 – Triton, the largest moon of the planet Neptune, is discovered by English astronomer William Lassell.

    1903 – The Women’s Social and Political Union is founded in support of the enfranchisement of British women.

    1913 – U.S. President Woodrow Wilson triggers the explosion of the Gamboa Dike, completing major construction on the Panama Canal.

    1918 – RMS Leinster is torpedoed and sunk by UB-123, killing 564, the worst-ever on the Irish Sea.

    1933 – A United Airlines Boeing 247 is destroyed by sabotage, the first such proven case in the history of commercial aviation.

    1957 – U.S. President Dwight D. Eisenhower apologizes to Ghanaian finance minister Komla Agbeli Gbedemah after he is refused service in a Delaware restaurant.

    1957 – The Windscale fire results in Britain’s worst nuclear accident.

    1963 – The Partial Nuclear Test Ban Treaty comes into effect.

    1964 – The Tokyo Summer Olympics opening ceremony is the first to be relayed live by satellites.

    1967 – The Outer Space Treaty comes into force.

    1970 – Canada’s October Crisis escalates when Quebec Vice Premier Pierre Laporte is kidnapped by members of the Front de libération du Québec.

    1973 – U.S. Vice President Spiro Agnew resigns after being charged with evasion of federal income tax.

    1985 – US Navy aircraft intercept an Egyptian airliner carrying the perpetrators of the Achille Lauro hijacking, and force it to land in Italy.

    2002 – Iraq War: The United States Congress approves the Authorization for Use of Military Force Against Iraq Resolution of 2002.

    Births:
    1684 – Jean-Antoine Watteau, French painter (d. 1721).

    1731 – Henry Cavendish, French-English chemist, physicist, and philosopher (d. 1810).

    1813 – Giuseppe Verdi, Italian composer and philanthropist (d. 1901).

    1870 – Louise Mack, Australian journalist, author, and poet (d. 1935).

    1910 – Julius Shulman, American photographer and environmentalist (d. 2009).

    1911 – Clare Hollingworth, English journalist and author (d. 2017). [She was the first war correspondent to report the outbreak of World War II, described as “the scoop of the century”. As a rookie reporter for The Daily Telegraph in 1939, while travelling from Poland to Germany, she spotted and reported German forces massed on the Polish border; The Daily Telegraph headline read: “1,000 tanks massed on Polish border”; three days later she was the first to report the German invasion of Poland.]

    1917 – Thelonious Monk, American pianist and composer (d. 1982).

    1923 – Nicholas Parsons, English actor and game show host (d. 2020).

    1923 – Murray Walker, English journalist and sportscaster (d. 2021).

    1924 – Ed Wood, American actor, director, producer, screenwriter (d. 1978). [In the 1950s, Wood directed several low-budget science fiction, crime and horror films that later became cult classics, notably Glen or Glenda (1953), Jail Bait (1954), Plan 9 from Outer Space (1957), and Night of the Ghouls (1959). He was played by Johnny Depp in Tim Burton’s 1994 biographical film about him.]

    1930 – Harold Pinter, English playwright, screenwriter, director Nobel Prize laureate (d. 2008).

    1935 – Judith Chalmers, English television host and actress.

    1938 – Oleg Gordievsky, Russian intelligence officer and author.

    1941 – Ken Saro-Wiwa, Nigerian author and activist (d. 1995). [A non-violent environmental campaigner, his execution by the military dictatorship of General Sani Abacha provoked international outrage and resulted in Nigeria’s suspension from the Commonwealth of Nations for over three years.]I

    1946 – Charles Dance, English actor, director, and screenwriter. [An RSC friend of dad’s once described a performance by Dance as “so wooden he should have been carried off the stage and burned”.]

    1946 – John Prine, American singer-songwriter and guitarist (d. 2020).

    1946 – Chris Tarrant, English radio and television host.

    1947 – Giant Haystacks, English wrestler (d. 1998).

    1953 – Fiona Rae, Scottish painter.

    1953 – Midge Ure, Scottish singer-songwriter, guitarist, and producer.

    1954 – David Lee Roth, American singer-songwriter and producer.

    1956 – Amanda Burton, Northern Irish actress and producer.

    1958 – Tanya Tucker, American singer-songwriter and guitarist.

    1959 – Kirsty MacColl, English singer-songwriter (d. 2000). [Killed by a speedboat that shouldn’t have been in the designated diving area she was in. She saved one of her sons, but was fatally struck. A boatman employed on the yacht of the millionaire who owned the speedboat claimed responsibility and was fined 1,034 pesos (about €63, £61 or US$90) in lieu of a prison sentence. He was also ordered to pay approximately US$2,150 in restitution to MacColl’s family, an amount based on his wages. It is claimed he was reimbursed by his employer.]

    1963 – Daniel Pearl, American-Israeli journalist (d. 2002).

    1964 – Sarah Lancashire, English actress and director.

    1967 – Gavin Newsom, American businessman and politician, 40th and current Governor of California.

    The timing of death, like the ending of a story, gives a changed meaning to what preceded it:
    1876 – Charles Joseph Sainte-Claire Deville, French geologist and meteorologist (b. 1814).

    1963 – Édith Piaf, French singer-songwriter and actress (b. 1915).

    1964 – Eddie Cantor, American singer-songwriter, dancer, and actor (b. 1892).

    1966 – Louise Thuliez, French school teacher, resistance fighter during World War I and World War II and author (b. 1881).

    1983 – Ralph Richardson, English actor (b. 1902).

    1985 – Yul Brynner, Russian actor (b. 1920).

    1985 – Orson Welles, American actor, director, producer, and screenwriter (b. 1915).

    2004 – Christopher Reeve, American actor, producer, and activist (b. 1952).

    2010 – Solomon Burke, American singer-songwriter and preacher (b. 1940).

    2010 – Joan Sutherland, Australian-Swiss soprano and actress (b. 1926).

    2013 – Scott Carpenter, American commander, pilot, and astronaut (b. 1925).

    2015 – Sybil Stockdale, American activist, co-founded the National League of Families (b. 1924).

    2021 – Abdul Qadeer Khan, Pakistani nuclear physicist and metallurgical scientist (b. 1936). [The “father” of Pakistan’s atomic weapons programme.]

  2. The U.S. has been fighting and not winning wars or conflicts since I was born more than 73 years ago. I read about these things and come to a few conclusions. One is that we should not get into anymore conflicts. We could do so much more if we stopped the losing madness of the last 73 years and spent the money on other things. We won’t do any of these things I offer but at least I put them out there. They are my recommendations for this country or what is left of it. I think Israel should look at all the history and make their own decisions. Our country has been in some of the dumbest and most useless conflict a person can imagine. Israel has been in one basically for much longer. Who can argue that both do not need change.

    1. Taking into account that Israel’s neighbors share the Hamas’s desire to do to those over 7 millions Israeli Jews what Hamas just did to over 1000 of them, the only change Israel can do is to commit collective suicide. Moving to any other country in the world (and who would take 7 millions Jews?) is not a solution. The world is full of people who share Jihadists’ burning desire: to kill all Jews, to the last one.

      1. I am sure you are correct about the first parts of your comments. I would not suggest moving is a possible correction. There are many really smart people in Israel and I bet they could come up with some alternative path to consider. This change is actually much easier for the country I live in but I also believe they will never take it.

        1. You said that Israel has been involved in some “dumb conflicts”, and then take it back. Now you say Israel is smart and could come up with some “alternative path” to avoid war. They tried that by offering two-state solutions FIVE TIMES. It didn’t work.

          No need to reply to this comments.

        2. I agree that it’s not only much easier but possible for U.S. to isolate itself from the world (until some passanger planes fly into your skyscrappers). But this is totally impossible for Israel. And no matter how many smart people live in Israel there simply is no other solution than strength and constant vigilance against surrounding peoples who dream about finishing what Hitler started and raise their children in burning hatred to the Jews.

    2. The “conflicts” involving Israel have been defensive: preventing attacks from surrounding countries. Would you suggest that Israel not fight back and allow themselves to be taken over?

      Your comment seems pretty oblivious to the facts about Israel’s “wars”.

      1. I do not suggest that Israel not fight and never would. I am aware of many of the past conflicts just as I am of ours. To suggest doing the same or nothing is certainly not the answer. As I said before, Israel must decide for themselves.

  3. Celebrating Joe Green’s (😉) birthday, I hold him as a shining example of an artist whose creative powers only increased as he aged. He created two towering masterpieces of operas, to wit, Otello and Falstaff, in his late seventies and early eighties. He’s also an exemplar of philanthropy. The home for retired musicians that he founded and funded, Casa di Riposo per Musicisti, is still going strong. https://www.casaverdi.it/

    1. That explains the “and philanthropist”, which I wasn’t aware of until I compiled today’s list and didn’t have time to explore. Thanks, Stephen!

  4. I’m not sure that putting Gaza under “complete siege” is a good idea either. It’s true that Netanyahu needs to send a clear message to Israelis that Israel will lock Hamas in a vice so that this cannot happen again. Furthermore, after experiencing and continuing to experience the carnage wrought by Hamas, Israelis rightly seek revenge. So, a strong statement is required by the circumstances and by his fellow Israelis. “Complete siege” is a strong statement.

    Regarding the stoppage of fuel, food, and water in Gaza—a very real manifestation of the “siege”—Israel can only hold to this for a short period of time, as the international community will soon pressure Israel to stand down. I’m anticipating that this part of the siege will end once Israel has sufficient control of the situation.

    My hope and expectation is that the Israeli response will be rational and smart. Israel needs to destroy Hamas as a governing organization: its officials, its infrastructure, and its propaganda apparatus. There will be civilian casualties. But Israel may be the only country in the world that actually warns civilians to take cover in advance.

    Yes, Antonio Guterres is an “equivocating weasel.” That said, Israel needs the support of the international community (U.N. excluded), so it needs to respond in a way that is acceptable to the international community. Given the crazed and evil rampage that we witnessed—and that the whole world can see in all its gory detail in videos and other media—I think that Israel has a lot of latitude to make a muscular response. Guterres can and will be ignored.

    1. Yes, the UN has lost its moral compass. UN Women still haven’t found the time to condemn Hamas’ appalling atrocities (but did manage to celebrate heterosexual men who identify as lesbians on International Lesbian Day). Truly appalling.

    2. I’m not so sure the blockade/siege of Gaza is unsustainable, Norman. Israel has declared war on Gaza. Closing the border and imposing a naval blockade of the enemy’s sea-going commerce is what you do in a war, the goal being to erode your adversary’s ability to make war on you. Israel should no more let baby formula and drinking water into Gaza, or people out, than the United States should have refrained from directing its submarines to sink ships bringing food, fuel and raw materials into Japan after 7 Dec 1941. Japan’s civilians and its relationship with their government were Japan’s problem, not America’s.

      Only a country run by fools would precipitate war with a country on which it is entirely dependent for the necessities of life and against which it cannot contest a sea blockade.

      My hope is that Israel will be successful in persuading its allies that its blockade of Gaza is exactly what all of them would do, and did do, when they declared war on a pariah state that wouldn’t listen to reason. If Gaza can’t be pacified, there is no reason (other than Western fears of their own Muslims) why Israel should negotiate with it as long as it has the capacity to conquer it and garrison it until it mends its ways, as the Allies did to both Germany and Japan in 1945.

      Sadly there is too much cheering in the streets of Western countries for Hamas’s atrocities for me to be optimistic. But I try.

  5. The inability of certain Leftist organizations of pass the very, very low bar of not defending Hamas reminds me of the inability to pass another very low bar: that of not blaming the Russian aggressive war on Ukraine on the mere existence of NATO. These failures are spectacularly self-defeating for the organization and for the ideas the organization claims to represent. The Democratic Socialists of America seem oblivious to the fact that making themselves the Detestable Socialists of America does not exactly help the public repute of Socialism as an idea. Could it be that low-bar outfits on the Left are merrily copying their Trumpian counterparts on the other end? Is there a competition to see who can sink the lowest?

    1. Jon, since I nearly always agree with you and I chuckle frequently over your comments about that galaxy far, far away, I’ll take now a moment to disagree. Those of us who opposed NATO expansion long before the current war can simultaneously believe it was a foolhardy project certain to provoke the Russian leadership once they were in a position militarily to respond while still holding Putin accountable for the war and his atrocities and while supporting Ukraine in its defense. The issue has, unfortunately, quickly been reduced to the all-too-facile left-right polarity of nearly every other issue of contemporary political importance in America. But when George Kennan (and many of the political mainstream left) advised against expansion, they were not doing it as Trump supporters, isolationists, conspiracy theorists, moral cretins, or apologists for Putin. From Kennan’s NYT opinion piece of February 5th, 1997:

      “But something of the highest importance is at stake here. And perhaps it is not too late to advance a view that, I believe, is not only mine alone but is shared by a number of others with extensive and in most instances more recent experience in Russian matters. The view, bluntly stated, is that expanding NATO would be the most fateful error of American policy in the entire post-cold-war era.

      Such a decision may be expected to inflame the nationalistic, anti-Western and militaristic tendencies in Russian opinion; to have an adverse effect on the development of Russian democracy; to restore the atmosphere of the cold war to East-West relations, and to impel Russian foreign policy in directions decidedly not to our liking.”

      I will add that I must not be the only person posting on this site who is not a determinist. Or perhaps I just cannot yet understand why determinists insist on using the language of free choice coupled with moral responsibility. I mean, after all, how else could people insist that Putin could have done otherwise? And if he could not have done differently, then why all the grousing about Ukraine? Is such bellyaching and condemnation of Putin simply all an attempt to influence the decisions of other Russian leaders in the future? Really?

      1. Doug, I take the point you make, but I think it has two weaknesses. (1) NATO did not
        order the Baltic states and Poland (among others) to join NATO; they applied. Should NATO have passed a rule that it would reject applications for membership from any nation stipulated by Russia to be without agency? (2) The “nationalistic, anti-Western and militaristic tendencies in Russian opinion” have been there since the 15th century, and clearly have a momentum of their own, independent of Western actions. How much must the West coddle sociopathic tendencies of that galaxy far away?

        1. Jon, As you are aware, endless ink was spilled over the last two and a half decades on the wisdom or folly of expansion; there are reasonable points to be made on both sides. We won’t settle those arguments here, in part because many of the assertions are not falsifiable to those who hold them. (“We told you that Ukraine meddling was a redline for Putin.” “He would have invaded anyway.” “He has been warning about this for 20 years.” “That’s propaganda.” And on it goes.)

          For what it is worth, here was my preference: 1) Have a clear, post-Cold War mission for NATO before expansion; 2) limit expansion to those who can provide credible contributions to the defense of the alliance or otherwise provide key strategic assets and locations to existing NATO forces; 3) limit expansion to countries for which the political, intellectual, and business leadership of the existing NATO countries will, in defense of, volunteer the lives of their own children and grandchildren; 4) neither unnecessarily antagonize a nuclear power with strong anti-Western tendencies and understandable insecurity about its former western borderlands nor give that country effective veto power over expansion.

          As it now stands, many of the members are net drains on the alliance. Additionally, I believe that the Article 5 commitments to defense have been so diluted as to be no longer credible. Adding either Ukraine or Georgia would have simply been macho, foolhardy posturing of the “we did it because we could” variety—largely supported by the same crowd who was going to remake the Middle East for democracy. I reserve the right to change my mind when I start seeing waves of American college students volunteering either to fight in Ukraine or staff the munitions factories rather than posting little blue and gold flags on their social media accounts.

          1. Someone will always be a drain in an alliance. That’s the nature. The Baltic states have adopted democratic norm and made a somewhat successful transition into the western world. I see NATO primarily as an alliance defending the western world and its norms. Should Ukraine be on a path to realistically join the West, their application should be strongly considered.
            Plus you run into problems, when EU members are not NATO members.

          2. Doug, I would agree there are reasonable points to be made on both sides. As a side matter, here’s an anecdote from my US city. For many years, I’ve been an occasional customer of a delicatessen/restaurant that I always thought of as Russian (I know a smidgen of Russian, as it happens). After February 22 of last year, the store revealed itself as Ukrainian rather than Russian, with blue/yellow flags, places to donate to Ukrainian relief, and so on. I guess the immigrant family that owns the place are typical Russian-speakers from Ukraine. When I was there a few days ago, I asked one of the owners about cooking kasha I had bought there, and she went on and on about it with enthusiasm.

  6. Maybe in a few weeks time I will watch the videos of the savagery but at the moment the whole thing is just too upsetting. Reading about what they did is enough for me.

    Thank you for highlighting the atrocities and keeping a much needed conversation going about anti-semitism.

    People today self congratulate themselves on their enlightenment and how they are so kind and understanding etc etc but this veneer is a mask. Underneath it all they can justify and indeed condone the most appalling behaivour in the name of whatever cause they believe in.

    How many steps away from being brutal savages are a lot of people? Far too few tbh.

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