Jeb Bush’s Strange New Ad

by Andrew Rosenthal

DECEMBER 1, 2015 2:15 PM

http://takingnote.blogs.nytimes.com/2015/12/01/jeb-bushs-strange-new-ad/?comments#permid=16827713

Jeb Bush is desperate and should try and save what dignity he (and the Bush clan in general) have left and withdraw from the race.

However, to be clear, many, many of our elected representative, from the President on down, cynically use members of the armed forces, our "heroes", as backdrops for political messaging, and then turn right around and prevent the necessary VA spending bills to properly take care of the huge number of physically, mentally and emotionally damaged heroes.

This kind of self-serving, politically motivated "hero-worship" is, unfortunately, standard practice in American politics. Given that, Mr. Rosenthal's wonderment at Jeb's blatant misuse of heroes is somewhat odd.

Donald Trump’s Appeal

by Thomas B. Edsall

Dec 2, 2015

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/12/02/opinion/campaign-stops/donald-trumps-appeal.html?comments#

I think the answer to the question of Trump's appeal is much simpler: we, the US, have become a country that believes what is shown in "Reality Shows" is actually "reality".
The media, and especially the "milk toast" group that passes itself off as "journalists", are part and parcel of this phenomenon. Every day CNN, MSNBC and the others ask in wonderment about the sustained popularity of Trump, when it is they themselves that ensure that sustained popularity. Every time Trump says something outlandish, the media spend hours and hours for days on end, with all sorts of talking-head "experts" filling the screen, speculating about this non-issue, which is exactly what keeps Trump at the forefront in our media-centric society.
For example, after an initial report of the "thousands of Muslims in New Jersey" cheering on 9/11, is the endless speculation about this really justified, given the boat-load of real issues which need and should be raised by "journalists" (if we still had them)?
But this type of stuff is easy for the taking heads to speculate about - it takes no actual knowledge and no work to inform oneself about real issues, and it fills the endless hours of 24hr news shows during which they can sell ads.
So there is no mystery here about the sustained popularity of Trump - "it's the media, stupid" - paraphrasing "it's the economy, stupid" - not calling anyone names.

Putin’s Syrian Misadventure

by Thomas Friedman

Dec 2, 2015

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/12/02/opinion/02friedman.html?comments#permid=16822471

As usual, Friedman's analysis of the Middle East is half-baked.

It is easy to make fun of Putin's bumbling into the Middle East morass, but everything, and more, one can critique in Putin's steps can be held against the US's efforts in the region in the past 20 years - again, which Friedman supported. He points to the two Russian soldiers and the 224 airline casualties as "proof" of Putin's folly - what about the 5000 US soldiers killed and 100's of thousands maimed for life?

Whatever may be wrong with Putin's approach, he is spot on in maintaining that just "defeating" ISIS and pushing Assad out of power will leave a power vacuum, leading to more radical groups creating their own little fiefdoms - Libya is a case in point.

The US especially has this crazy view that just by getting rid of un-democratic leaders (BTW, the US has installed its fair share of despotic leaders when it suited its economic and political objectives) will miraculously lead to liberal, democratic governments. Iraq, Afghanistan and Libya are objects lessons in the fallacy, yes idiocy of that approach.

The fallback position of the nutty neocons is the crazy notion that "the world is better off without Saddam" - ask most of the Iraqis now living in the smoldering remains of what was once a stable, even liberal country - women were treated much better by Saddam than by today's leaders - or ask the 100's of thousands of Iraqis now dead as a result of the US's "nation building" effort.

Laquan McDonald and the ‘System’

by Charles Blow

Nov. 30, 2015

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/11/30/opinion/laquan-mcdonald-and-the-system.html?comments#permid=16803460

"While police departments definitely have distinct cultures, in a way they are simple instruments that articulate and enforce our laws and mores, which are reflections of our values.

The only reason that these killings keep happening is because most of American society tacitly approves or willfully tolerates it. There is no other explanation. If America wanted this to end, it would end."

Mr. Blow, you are focusing your ire on the wrong group, the police!
That is the same as blaming the soldiers that go to war at the behest of ignorant politicians for all the killing that goes on in war.

Yes, there is prejudice and injustice in society, but the root cause does not lie with police, it lies with society in general and with the politicians who we elect to manage our society. Blaming the police for these broader ills in our society is completely counter productive - the veneer of civilization in all societies, even in the so-called "advanced" societies - is very thin. The police are the main guarantors of order, and that includes order within black communities.

The people who have taken over the "Black Lives Matter" movement want to exclude any discussion of black-on-black violence and murder from the discussion through the mechanism of political correctness. But if you really care about black lives, you would focus at least some of your outrage on the killings which are taking black lives daily through mindless violence.

Terror in Paris

By THE EDITORIAL BOARDNOV. 14, 2015

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/11/14/opinion/terror-in-paris.html?comments&_r=0#permid=16667214:16667688

What exactly do the wise persons of the NYT Editorial Board mean when they piosly decalre "This attack will harden the resolve of the French against the savagery of the Islamic State, as it must the world’s"?

From the first three commentors it is obvious that even among the NYT readers the predicable knee-jerk Linsey Graham-esc response of "boots on the ground" will be the dominant reaction. 

Supposedly reputable publications like the NYT need to stop with the hyerventilating, irresponsible and polemicizing characterizations like "incomprehensible barberism", which only serve to prevent rational search for solutions.

Virtually every week we have "incomprehensible acts of barbarism" in the US, mass shootings in schools, in the work place, and senseless drive by shootings. The US has committed "incomprehensible acts of barbarism" in Iraq and Afghanistan" which are coldly characterized as "collateral damage".

We, the US, are the primary cause of the instability in the Middle East, which has spawned the terror. We have proven that military action, "boots on the ground" cannot pacify, stabilize, or democratize countries and societies which do not have the internal will or capacity to do so. So let's not make the same mistake we made in Afghanistan, where we thought that "killing Osama bin Laden" would be the miracle cure.

Marcos59

 mht NH 23 hours ago

Brave words, Klaus! They suggest that you don't believe that what happened in Paris (or New York or Madrid or London) is barbarism. And you don't want us to "make the same mistake we made in Afghanistan." But you fail to suggest any course of action other than hand wringing about America's responsibility in spawning this Islamic terror (isn't Islamic terror by definition barbaric because it specifically targets innocents?). My question to you is: what now?

@Marcos59
No, obviously, what Islamic fanatics are doing all over the world is barbaric. But you don't respond to barbaric acts of others with barbaric acts of our own - one would hope that that kind of thing was left in the Dark Ages - where, unfortunately, much of the Islamic Middle East still resides.

"What now?", you ask. Well, first, if you have nothing sensible, with any chance of success - "boots on the ground" have been proven not to work - then lets take a breath and THINK a little while before DOING something stupid.
We know, for example, that the roots of fanatic Islam are found in our "ally" Saudia Arabia, and to a lesser extent in Pakistan. Can we perhaps start by being honest with ourselves and with others by putting pressure on our "allies" like Saudi Arabia to stop exporting, fostering and financing fanatic islamists?

There are lots of things short of we ourselves committing barbaric acts which can be done to re-stabilize the Middle East. But bombing the hell out of them is not one of them...

What exactly do the wise persons of the NYT Editorial Board mean when they piosly decalre "This attack will harden the resolve of the French against the savagery of the Islamic State, as it must the world’s"?

From the first three commentors it is obvious that even among the NYT readers the predicable knee-jerk Linsey Graham-esc response of "boots on the ground" will be the dominant reaction. 

Supposedly reputable publications like the NYT need to stop with the hyerventilating, irresponsible and polemicizing characterizations like "incomprehensible barberism", which only serve to prevent rational search for solutions.

Virtually every week we have "incomprehensible acts of barbarism" in the US, mass shootings in schools, in the work place, and senseless drive by shootings. The US has committed "incomprehensible acts of barbarism" in Iraq and Afghanistan" which are coldly characterized as "collateral damage".

We, the US, are the primary cause of the instability in the Middle East, which has spawned the terror. We have proven that military action, "boots on the ground" cannot pacify, stabilize, or democratize countries and societies which do not have the internal will or capacity to do so. So let's not make the same mistake we made in Afghanistan, where we thought that "killing Osama bin Laden" would be the miracle cure.

Further Speculations on White Mortality

by Russ Douthat

NOVEMBER 12, 2015 12:55 PM

http://douthat.blogs.nytimes.com/2015/11/12/speculations-on-white-mortality/?comments#permid=16650339

Having lived in Europe for many years (Switzerland, Germany and France) I can't escape the feeling that the root cause fir the spike in death among whites is the sense of hope- and helplessness that has settled on large parts of the former middle class in America, brought on by what we are told is the "new normal" - stagnant growth, actually declining income among the middle class - without, contrary to the European model, a solid and dependable social safety net for guaranteed heath care and guaranteed minimum income. It is difficult to explain to Americans the deep sense of security one feels, especially for families, by knowing that heath care is always available, no matter what.
The reason this seems to have less of an impact on non-whites is that African-American and Hispanic minorities were already accustomed to this pervasive malaise from generations of living with it.
Why are women seemingly more affected? Possibly because more woman, especially among lower income groups, have become the primary supporters, so they are feeling the brunt of this new economic reality in the US.

Here we go again … Gun Control vs. Individual Right to Bear Arms

It is predictable that this debate flares up again and again: A mass shooting of one kind or another occurs in the US on average on an almost daily basis. And this does not even include all the senseless killings of drive-by shootings and accidental shootings in the home. And these repeated hand-wringing debates always seem to completely miss the main point:

 The cause of most of these senseless deaths is the uncontrolled proliferation of firearms in the US.

As the President pointed out in his impassioned plea to the nation, the US does not have a higher proportion of mentally ill than other first-world nations, yet our rate of gun violence and deaths from firearms is exponentially higher than in all other first-world countries. The difference is that all other first-world societies have strict laws controlling the ownership and use of firearms.

Again we see the raising of bogus straw-man arguments about the role of mental illness and the benefits of expanded background checks in order to deflect from the real issue: uncontrolled proliferation of firearms of all sorts in the US.

This endless cycle of senseless violence and death, followed by a burst of hand-wringing debate, will not be resolved until the core issue is resolved: Does the 2nd Amendment guarantee an individual’s unrestricted right to arm himself to the teeth, independent of his (or her) current membership in “a well regulated Militia”?

As described in a New Yorker piece by Jeffrey Toobin (http://www.newyorker.com/news/daily-comment/so-you-think-you-know-the-second-amendment), written after the Sandy Hook massacre, the interpretation of the 2nd Amendment in the US until well into the 1970’s accepted the ability of the Federal Government to regulate the ownership and use of firearms. No one seriously objected, for example, when in the 1930’s federal laws were passed to prohibit ownership of machine guns and sawed off shotguns, favorite weapons of Mafia gangs. However, in 1977, according to Toobin, the NRA was taken over by a group of conservative extremists, who then initiated a concerted effort to change the interpretation of the 2nd Amendment.

This effort by the NRA culminated in the 2007 ruling in “District of Columbia vs. Heller” (http://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/07pdf/07-290.pdf), where expert testimony, academic research, and “Friend of the Court” briefs funded by the NRA constituted important underpinnings for Justice Scalia’s contorted ruling in favor of individual, uncontrolled gun ownership.

Justice Scalia first addresses the rather odd formulation of the 2nd Amendment, consisting of a “prefatory clause”, or statement of purpose (A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State,..), and the “operative clause” (… the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.) Although Scalia states that his interpretation was guided by the principle that “[t]he Constitution was written to be under­ stood by the voters; its words and phrases were used in their normal and ordinary as distinguished from technical meaning”, a generally accepted standard of constitutional interpretation, Scalia then proceeds to use convoluted arguments, in conjunction with esoteric, and doubtful “academic” and linguistic studies, to “prove” that the “prefatory clause” does not limit in any way the “operative clause”, and bingo, we have the unconstrained statement that “[T]he right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.“

This interpretation is completely contrary to Scalia’s supposed guiding principle that “[t]he Constitution was written to be under­ stood by the voters;…” No one with the reading and comprehension skills of the average fifth grader would discard the statement of purpose (A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State,..) as irrelevant and meaningless.

Although at this point, having invalidated (in his mind, anyway) the constraining effect of the “prefatory clause”, Scalia is essentially home free. However, showing the full extent of his perverse intellectual arrogance, he still engages in unbelievably convoluted arguments, all contrary to the principal that “[t]he Constitution was written to be under­ stood by the voters;…”, to further eliminate any possibility that the “operative clause”, “…keep and bear Arms…” might implicitly imply limitations to a militia only.

Even Justice Scalia has retained a certain amount of “common sense”, and recognizes that allowing individuals to “keep and bear Arms” cannot be allowed to include all kinds of modern weaponry. So again he engages in perverse intellectual masturbation to come up with the quite arbitrary constraint that this “preexisting right” to keep and bear Arms applies only to those type of weapons “in common use at the time” - at what time? at the time of writing the Constitution, or, since these rights are supposedly pre-existing, at some previous historic period? So is the allowed weaponry restricted to primitive stone-age clubs, bows and arrows, swords, or primitive pistols and muskets in use in the Constitution writing period? Certainly weapons “in common use at the time” do not include automatic or semi-automatic handguns.

Even though the crazy fringe of the “gun lobby” consistently makes the argument that the unconstrained right to keep and bear Arms is necessary to protect us from “the government”, nothing in Justice Scalia’s opinion supports that view. On the contrary, in his concluding paragraph he refers only to “…handguns held and used for self-defense in the home.” Thus, we are to believe that the framers of the Constitution and Bill of Rights, whose overriding concerns were in protecting citizens from arbitrary powers of “the state” and of balancing States rights against federal powers, including the right of States to maintain their own Militias, that these framers were worrying about the ability of individuals to have handguns in their home to protect themselves, and that the thus wrote an Amendment specifically for that purpose.

On balance, as stated by Toobin, even with this “District of Columbia vs. Heller” ruling, which seems to restrict the meaning of the 2nd Amendment to an individual having a handgun in the home for self-defense, there is ample leeway for federal legislation to control the types and spread of firearms. But our political elite, and even most of the media, have been so cowed by the NRA that the current political and public dialog is restricted to extending background checks and diverted to the issue of mental health.

One final note: there exists a strong argument, originated by the German philosopher, sociologist and jurist, Max Weber, that a state can only exist if it holds a “monopoly of violence” (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monopoly_on_violence); anything else will inevitably result in anarchy. The situation in the US today is rapidly approaching anarchy: there are large areas, especially in our cities, where the “rule of law” is a fiction; young children are not safe in their homes (drive-by shootings) or in their schools (mass shootings), and the populace in general is not safe from gun violence in theaters, shopping malls or even in the central business districts during daylight hours. The “solution”, according to 2nd Amendment absolutists, is to arm everyone. With that, our society would devolve into one huge “Gunfight at the O.K. Corral”.