Patterico's Pontifications

11/1/2017

In Defense of John Kelly

Filed under: General — Patterico @ 8:30 am



I don’t think anybody else is going to write this, so I will. John Kelly’s recent comments on Robert E. Lee and the Civil War received jeers from pretty much the entire Internet. When Internet mobs form, it’s sometimes worthwhile to explore whether there is another point of view that people are too nervous to articulate. Allow me to be a lonely voice, then, to step up and say that Kelly had an arguable point.

Let’s review Kelly’s remarks:

I think we make a mistake, though, and as a society, and certainly as individuals, when we take what is today accepted as right and wrong and go back 100, 200, 300 years or more and say, ‘What Christopher Columbus did was wrong.’

You know, 500 years later, it’s inconceivable to me that you would take what we think now and apply it back then. I think it’s just very, very dangerous. I think it shows you just how much of a lack of appreciation of history and what history is.

I would tell you that Robert E. Lee was an honorable man. He was a man that gave up his country to fight for his state, which 150 years ago was more important than country. It was always loyalty to state first back in those days. Now it’s different today. But the lack of an ability to compromise led to the Civil War, and men and women of good faith on both sides made their stand where their conscience had them make their stand.

Kelly’s point about judging historical figures according to modern-day attitudes is well taken. We’re at the point where we are ready to remove plaques to George Washington, the father of our country and one of the greatest Americans who ever lived, because he owned slaves. So: everyone in the late 18th Century was inherently evil? Is that what you think? If so, realize that two hundred years from now, if we have not been nuked, you (yes, you!) will be judged evil by many people for something you do every day and take for granted. It might be eating meat, driving a car, using an exterminator, asking for plastic bags at the grocery store, or God knows what else. But Kelly is exactly right that it is short-sighted to judge one generation entirely according to the moral standards of a later generation.

What’s more, history is often more nuanced than the comic-book versions we are taught in grade school. It might be worthwhile to note that Robert E. Lee once wrote: “There are few, I believe, in this enlightened age, who will not acknowledge that slavery as an institution is a moral and political evil.” How many critics of General Lee know that?

True, he went on to say that he believed that slavery was a “greater evil to the white than the colored race,” saying blacks were better off as slaves in the U.S. than in Africa. Outrageous, right? Hardly any more outrageous, given the times, than Abraham Lincoln making the following statement:

I will say then that I am not, nor ever have been, in favor of bringing about in any way the social and political equality of the white and black races, [applause]-that I am not nor ever have been in favor of making voters or jurors of negroes, nor of qualifying them to hold office, nor to intermarry with white people; and I will say in addition to this that there is a physical difference between the white and black races which I believe will forever forbid the two races living together on terms of social and political equality. And inasmuch as they cannot so live, while they do remain together there must be the position of superior and inferior, and I as much as any other man am in favor of having the superior position assigned to the white race.

That is from the Fourth Lincoln/Douglas debate. What? You didn’t realize Lincoln was a white supremacist? Tear down his monument! Topple his statues!

What about Kelly’s claim that “the lack of an ability to compromise led to the Civil War”? It’s true! There were compromise options on the table. Lincoln opposed the Crittenden Compromise that would have likely avoided war. The real complaint of historians is that the ways to avoid war “would have enshrined slavery.” And the compromises of the time would have.

But not necessarily forever.

Another historical fact to keep in mind is that most Western societies ended slavery without major bloodshed. How did Britain, France, Spain, and other Western countries end slavery? As historian Jim Powell explained in his book Greatest Emancipations: How the West Abolished Slavery, the strategies employed by these countries included the encouragement of slave rebellions or slave escapes, government compensation to slaveholders to pay for slaves’ freedom, and abolitionist campaigns including the election of antislavery politicians.

It might seem fanciful to believe that slavery could have collapsed on its own, without war. But, as Powell notes, it was once thought fanciful to believe that the communist Soviet Union would collapse on its own.

What’s more, it is possible that blacks’ integration into society would have been less rocky if Southern states had been allowed to make the choice to abolish slavery on their own. And compromise would have avoided a very brutal and bloody war, in which at least 620,000 and perhaps as many as 750,000 people died.

My point here is not to argue that compromise was the better option, or that war was not necessary. My point is to argue that reasonable people can disagree on this point. History has a tremendous bias towards the point of view that if events happened a certain way, they had to happen that way, and only that way. If war ended slavery in the U.S., then by God, nothing else could have! But abolition happened peacefully in almost every other Western society, and it is impossible to say with certainty that it could not have happened here.

So, my friends of the Internet mob, get off John Kelly’s case. Go find someone else to swarm. Better yet, disband altogether.

[Cross-posted at RedState and The Jury Talks Back.]

227 Responses to “In Defense of John Kelly”

  1. Mr. Kelly is correct. (They used to teach stuff like this at West Point.)

    happyfeet (28a91b)

  2. I wonder how Harvey Weinstein will fare by next century.

    I like Kelly, but he struggeld to find some touchstone for a rationalization and failed. He was in a tough spot yet he accepted the job.

    Ben burn (b3d5ab)

  3. In other words, Kelly knew what he was signing up for

    steveg (e8c34d)

  4. There were a number of compromises on slavery that led up to the Civil War, from the drafting of the Constitution to the addition of new states to the Union.

    “Any serious person who knows anything about this,” Blight said, “can look at the late 1850s and then the secession crisis and know that they tried all kinds of compromise measures during the secession winter, and nothing worked. Nothing was viable.”

    “All of these compromises were about creating a division where slavery already existed and where for a time they conceded that the Constitution shackled them in their ability to attack it,” McCurry said. Before the war, the strategy for dealing with slavery was to contain it. By 1860, she said, the North’s economic success and expanding population and the South’s loss of representation in national politics put slavery at risk. The election of Abraham Lincoln in 1860 allowed Southern slaveholders — who had $4 billion in wealth in the form of enslaved people, McCurry said — to argue that the threat to slavery was imminent.

    https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/politics/wp/2017/10/31/historians-respond-to-john-kellys-civil-war-remarks-strange-sad-wrong/?tid=a_inl&utm_term=.19cc5e026891

    Ben burn (b3d5ab)

  5. > And compromise would have avoided a very brutal and bloody war, in which at least 620,000 and perhaps as many as 750,000 people died.

    The entire history of the antebellum period is one of compromise. The compromises failed.

    Note that Lincoln’s platform in 1860 was not one of abolition in the states; it was one of abolition *in the territories*. That was a compromise between the hard line abolitionist position and the hardline pro-slavery position, and the North was on board with that compromise.

    In 1860, it was *the South* who wouldn’t compromise, not the North.

    aphrael (3f0569)

  6. That said, *of course* it’s true that the lack of an ability to compromise led to the civil war. That’s true of almost all wars, definitionally – we only fight if we can’t find a way to compromise or resolve our differences without fighting. For most people, for most *countries*, fighting is a last resort.

    aphrael (3f0569)

  7. Exceptional comment all respects.

    shipwreckedcrew (56b591)

  8. Another historical fact to keep in mind is that most Western societies ended slavery without major bloodshed. How did Britain, France, Spain, and other Western countries end slavery?

    These countries all ended the salve trade, or the importatonof slaves, at the same time they ended slavery.

    The United States ended the slave trade alone in 1808. (it actually had been halted and re-started a few times in South Carolina, mostly as a speculative maneuver by some people to drive up the price of slaves)

    That set a clock ticking of about 25 years, after which slavery could seem to be the natural condition of some people.

    Sammy Finkelman (20d02d)

  9. I thought the South compromised in 1850, despite opposition from SC Senator John Calhoun. Does that not count as compromise?

    DRJ (15874d)

  10. One of the interesting things about the antebellum period is that, over time, support for abolition in the south dwindled — there was more anti-slavery sentiment in the south in 1810 than in 1850. A big part of this is that support for slavery became intertwined with southern identity over time.

    That intertwining would have made voluntary abolition much, much harder.

    aphrael (3f0569)

  11. What about Kelly’s claim that “the lack of an ability to compromise led to the Civil War”? It’s true! There were compromise options on the table. Lincoln opposed the Crittenden Compromise that would have likely avoided war.

    More to the point, the proximate cause of the Civil War was the purported secession of South Carolina and several other southern states due to the outcome of a entirely fair and legal presidential election.

    Lincoln insisted that he had no plans, and no power under the constitution, to interfere with the institution of slavery where it existed. And obviously, since the states in question attempted to secede months before Lincoln took office, it could not be justified on the basis of any official act on Lincoln’s part (the upper south – including Lee’s Virginia – did later claim to secede in reaction to the Lincoln’s efforts to fulfill his oath of office).

    So I actually agree with that part of Kelly’s statement. The failure of the Southern slave-holding minority to accept that they could not continue to control the federal government as they had for decades – in effect a failure to compromise – was the proximate cause of the war.

    I do not agree that Robert E. Lee was an honorable man, however. He (and others) took up arms to destroy the country he had sworn an oath to defend, without the slightest justification. There are aspects of Lee’s character that – in isolation – are admirable, just as one could point to one or more positive traits of people like Benedict Arnold, Rommel, Yamamoto, Trotsky, Ho, etc.

    But in the final analysis, someone who fights brilliantly for an evil cause remains an agent of evil.

    One of the great tragedies of the war was that so many Americans in the south were deceived and manipulated by a demagogic and hysterical minority interest into taking up arms against their country, which, had they not done so, would have done them no wrong. Lee was one who should have known better, and set the right example by remaining loyal to his country. Instead he failed the most important moral test of his life, utterly.

    Dave (445e97)

  12. I think we make a mistake, though, and as a society, and certainly as individuals, when we take what is today accepted as right and wrong and go back 100, 200, 300 years or more and say, ‘What Christopher Columbus did was wrong.’

    That is moral relativism.

    Whatever is wrong is wrong for all time or it isn’t wrong. Do we say something is wrong in the United States but not in Brazil or China?

    Furthermore, in his own time it was thought it was wrong. Columbus was arrested and taken back to Spain. (he was later rehabilitated, but ordered to stay away from Hispaniola)

    Now there are unintended consequences, and there are also social pressures and expectations, which can be mitigating factors.

    Sammy Finkelman (20d02d)

  13. Putting things in historical context has never been favored by the left.

    And when things get really truthful, they erase history altogether. This is why people extolling the magical unicorn wonders of communism are not laughed off college campuses.

    harkin (05cfd8)

  14. Very cogent point, Sammy, with regard to the European powers there was not the mass importation of slaves onto/into one’s provinces as in the U.S. (Yorkshire, Aquitaine, and Granada were not the touchstones of large plantation based economies cheek to jowl with fellow states, departments, and provinces). The continuation of slavery from 1808 forward was probably a response to not doing a sudden release of slaves with the Haitian rebellions still fresh in minds (and a small but vocal cadre of white former Haitians warning their southern US hosts).

    urbanleftbehind (5eecdb)

  15. “Kelly’s point about judging historical figures according to modern-day attitudes is well taken. We’re at the point where we are ready to remove plaques to George Washington, the father of our country and one of the greatest Americans who ever lived, because he owned slaves. So: everyone in the late 18th Century was inherently evil? Is that what you think? If so, realize that two hundred years from now, if we have not been nuked, you (yes, you!) will be judged evil by many people for something you do every day and take for granted. It might be eating meat, driving a car, using an exterminator, asking for plastic bags at the grocery store, or God knows what else. But Kelly is exactly right that it is short-sighted to judge one generation entirely according to the moral standards of a later generation.”
    – Patterico

    Hoo boy. I’ll go point by point:

    1) I disagree. There are plenty of ancient acts that can be judged perfectly well by modern-day attitudes, and slave-holding is one of them. 2) It’s a point worth debating. 3) No – and who has made that claim? There were plenty of people in the late 18th century who opposed slavery. 4) Yeah, I probably will be – and they may well be right. The examples you use are “tragedy of the commons” problems, but does that make my complicity any less blameworthy? And even so, none of the examples you use is remotely akin to enslaving another human being. 5) I disagree. He’s not right at all. He is epitomizing the strange American tendency to refuse to subject our country’s past to close scrutiny.

    Leviticus (efada1)

  16. Sometimes you can’t kick the can down the road again. Slavery was like that, and after Dredd Scott, where the Supreme Court ruled that slavery was effectively legal nationwide, there was no useful compromise available.

    And “Maybe not forever” is cold comfort to the man then enslaved.

    Now, was John Kelly wrong to say that Lee was an honorable man, even though he took up arms in a cause some found unjust at the time, and nearly all do now? No. Lee was not fighting for slavery, he was fighting for Virginia.

    But the rest of it, where he repeats the arguments of the antebellum slaveholders about bringing the benefits of civilization to savages, is unbelievable. It’s the kind of statement that rightly destroys careers.

    Kevin M (752a26)

  17. General Lee was being disingenuous, and Abraham Lincoln was being disingenuous, because he really did believe in equality. Look at his reasons for inequality. They are not principled at all.

    However, he was no crusader, and he wasn’t so interested in more minor points. His only point was that there was a conspiracy by the south to make slavery legal everywhere in the United States, and it should be opposed. (Yes, he was what you could call a conspiracy theorist)

    He wanted it firmly fixed in people’s minds that slavery was on its way toward ultimate extinction. He would be content with that. His hope was complete abolition by the year 1900.

    Sammy Finkelman (20d02d)

  18. “Whatever is wrong is wrong for all time or it isn’t wrong. Do we say something is wrong in the United States but not in Brazil or China?”

    There are plenty of folks saying The Handmaids Tale is an indicator of where the US is headed under Trump and yet excuse the actual parallel in the Islamic world because they “just haven’t caught up to the modern world yet.”

    harkin (05cfd8)

  19. “Kelly’s point about judging historical figures according to modern-day attitudes is well taken.”

    It should be. In the current climate, Dr King’s behavior with women would destroy him. Yet at the time, his womanizing was nothing particularly unusual. Are we to judge the man by our standards today?

    This one reason we don’t allow ex post facto laws.

    Kevin M (752a26)

  20. Where’s Pervywood in relation to these handmaid tails?

    Colonel Haiku (61b436)

  21. He wanted it firmly fixed in people’s minds that slavery was on its way toward ultimate extinction. He would be content with that. His hope was complete abolition by the year 1900.

    If slaves have been useful as industrial workers, that would never have happened. As it turned out, they weren’t and that was, in part, why slavery was doomed.

    Kevin M (752a26)

  22. Where was the legal community vis-a-vis slavery back then? Defenders of the right to own them? Or vociferous opponents?

    Colonel Haiku (61b436)

  23. It is said that, before the Civil war one said “These United States.” After the war, one said “The United States.”

    Kevin M (752a26)

  24. Excellent post, Patterico. I agree with you and with Kelly.

    nk (dbc370)

  25. but the rest of it, where he repeats the arguments of the antebellum slaveholders about bringing the benefits of civilization to savages, is unbelievable. It’s the kind of statement that rightly destroys careers.

    perhaps the President realized the one way to kick out the schoolmarm was to let him strangle himself with his own opinions – first, empty barrel and 2 the civilization of savages – this may have more relevance know that kneelers have been kicked off the front pages by jihadis, who might get kicked off tonight by raucous “Doyer Fans”.

    urbanleftbehind (5eecdb)

  26. Also remember that most Confederate officers were pardoned with full citizenship restored. Many mid level Confederate officers, graduates of West Point, went off to depopulate future Indigenous People’s Day rallies by engaging in a war of extermination against Mongolians displaced by global warming.
    They returned to serve their country during any and all military tasks the President asked for.
    The future USA has been in a near constant state of war with French, British, “Musselmen” in Tripoli, Indians, Mexicans, itself, Nicaraguans, Spaniards, Germans, Germans, Japanese, Koreans, Chinese, Cubans, Vietnamese and (Russians), Grenadians, Iraqis, Afghans, Iraqis, Iranians and Musselmen now known as ISIS.
    The military studies who served well and honorably in those times, (And who served poorly), but the left studies everything through the lens of todays PC culture forgetting that every group does some ignorant things that history laughs at, mocks, cringes over.

    I think future generations will cringe at the lefts “Red Guard” and “Dignity Battalion” tactics, mock Hillary, study the DNC’s coverups, laugh at Trumps tweets, wonder what might have been done if the GOP wasn’t torn apart by the tension between the never Trumpers and the disruptiveness of Trumps victory. Future generations will study the Trillions poured into Iraq, Afghanistan and the lives lost, the undecisive outcome and probably have some harsh judgements.

    In construction we often come face to face with ugly history in the form of workmanship that is baffling, dangerous, below code etc. I used to judge prior builders harshly and say derisive things, but now I try to simply say that this was done in a previous time under different rules and also I was not there for the conversation as to the why or how this needed to be done so lets decide how or even if to fix it to todays standards and then move on, realizing that some future builder is going to open up a wall on our project, or dig a hole, and go “what the hell happened here”. Humble people will realize that “blame” is a waste of time and move quickly to solution.

    steveg (e8c34d)

  27. There was not a legal community per se as no large economy had arose around the pursuit of torts. Lawyers were tools and mouthpieces of their clients or of the constituencies that elected or appointed them to positions of political power.

    urbanleftbehind (5eecdb)

  28. 10. aphrael (3f0569) — 11/1/2017 @ 9:41 am

    One of the interesting things about the antebellum period is that, over time, support for abolition in the south dwindled — there was more anti-slavery sentiment in the south in 1810 than in 1850.

    That was not an accident. That was the doing of John C. Calhoun.

    He realized that there was no prospect of abolition in the south, mainly because slaveowners would suffer economic losses, and putting the issue aside was not possible because of the rise of an abolitionist movement in the 1830s, who mailed arguments against slavery into the south.

    So long as slavery was viewed as evil, slaveowners or supporters of slavery, or southerners who were not prepared to advocate abolition (which none of them could – nobody like that could get elected even dogcatcher in the south) would be held in disrepute outside the south and might not aspire to national office.

    He then began a campaign to argue slavery was a positive good, and to try to get people in the North to agree, and to enforce and strengthen the fugitive slave laws. This directly involved the north in slavery and tore the country apart.

    The victory of the Republican party in 1860 meant the time was over when politicians from the south could aspire to Cabinet positions or any position for which northern approval was necessary.

    Sammy Finkelman (20d02d)

  29. Where was the legal community vis-a-vis slavery back then? Defenders of the right to own them? Or vociferous opponents?

    Both. Former President John Quincy Adams defended, and secured the freedom of, the Amistad slaves going against then President Martin Van Buren who had hair just like Trump’s without the Aqua Net.

    Later, it was Justice Taney’s overblown dicta in the Dred Scott case which scared the abolitionists and hardened their position, leaving no room for compromise and leading to the Civil War.

    nk (dbc370)

  30. Kevin M (752a26) — 11/1/2017 @ 9:54 am

    If slaves have been useful as industrial workers, that would never have happened. As it turned out, they weren’t

    That actually started in Virginia.

    They say that slaves could not be used as industrial workers, but I don’t believe that. It just didn’t happen, that’s all. Maybe industrial work does require a little bit of education, and work without constant supervision.

    Today, North Korea sends slaves abroad, and some Twentieth century dictatorships didn’t have problems with that..

    Sammy Finkelman (20d02d)

  31. I thought the South compromised in 1850, despite opposition from SC Senator John Calhoun. Does that not count as compromise?

    Both sides compromised in 1850 – the north with great reluctance – but then the Democrat slave party, in the Kansas-Nebraska bill, and the Supreme Court (which pro-slavery Democrats controlled), in the Dred Scott decision, tore up the compromise a few years later.

    It was northern reaction to Kansas-Nebraska that created the Republican party, which lit the fuse that would eventually, inevitably, lead to an opponent of slavery (Lincoln, as it turned out) being elected president once public opinion in the north became sufficiently incensed.

    The Dred Scott decision said that Congress could not prohibit slavery ANYWHERE, and implied that slaves brought into states or territories where slavery was prohibited would remain enslaved indefinitely – effectively making slavery legal everywhere.

    Douglas tried to claim that as a practical matter, slavery could not exist where the police and courts would not enforce it, but this was a very shaky argument, and in fact fugitive slave laws required free states to cooperate in the apprehension of runaway slaves – further inflaming northern opinion and giving the lie to Douglas’s attempt to finesse the problem.

    Dave (445e97)

  32. “I will say then that I am not, nor ever have been, in favor of bringing about in any way the social and political equality of the white and black races, [applause]-that I am not nor ever have been in favor of making voters or jurors of negroes, nor of qualifying them to hold office, nor to intermarry with white people; and I will say in addition to this that there is a physical difference between the white and black races which I believe will forever forbid the two races living together on terms of social and political equality. And inasmuch as they cannot so live, while they do remain together there must be the position of superior and inferior, and I as much as any other man am in favor of having the superior position assigned to the white race.”

    – Abraham Lincoln

    Isn’t it worth asking whether or not we actually want that guy’s monument at the center of our nation’s capitol, given sentiments like these? Or are we too invested in making our history sacrosanct?

    Leviticus (efada1)

  33. It’s interesting that Lincoln’s quote is being used to defend Lee, rather than indict Lincoln. Given sentiments like the ones expressed in his quote (which were far from universal at the time), and Patterico’s arguments that Lincoln was a pivotal player in a devastating war that possibly could have been avoided, what exactly are we lauding in the man? The Gettysburg Address?

    Leviticus (efada1)

  34. 19. Kevin M (752a26) — 11/1/2017 @ 9:52 am

    Dr King’s behavior with women would destroy him. Yet at the time, his womanizing was nothing particularly unusual.

    Among the few people who knew about it. And that was a modern, Twentieth Century attitude.

    Even those who disapproved, like say Coretta Scott King, thought there were things that were more important, and the effort to tell her this was cynical.

    Regarding Washington etc: There is another thing: What is somebody known for:

    The common wrongs of his time, or something else?

    Anyway, Kelly really has his history wrong. Almost nothing about his history is right. (he’s still a lot better than some people in academia.)

    Sammy Finkelman (20d02d)

  35. …or just limit his iconography to Illinois, Leviticus, which would be the most injurious form of banishment.

    urbanleftbehind (5eecdb)

  36. 33, Fremont was the real deal, but also far closer to a potential actual dictator.

    urbanleftbehind (5eecdb)

  37. Lincoln always said he was bound by his oath to preserve, protect and defend the constitution of the United States. ow maybe that’s valuing that too high. But he also believed that the future of the idea of self-government was at stake (for the entire world.)

    Sammy Finkelman (20d02d)

  38. That intertwining would have made voluntary abolition much, much harder.

    aphrael (3f0569) — 11/1/2017 @ 9:41 am

    Or it was the beginning of the end of support for slavery. Positions harden before they start to break down. We saw the same thing happen with SSM, didn’t we? We didn’t go to war over that. The problem in with slavery is that there were economic and other issues that made both sides willing to go to war instead of compromise.

    DRJ (15874d)

  39. Impatience and intolerance to other views does that to people.

    DRJ (15874d)

  40. “If they weren’t bad, how can we be good? If they weren’t backwards and unenlightened, how can we be advanced and woke?” So reason the Judges Of The Dead, and beat up our ancestors. Bite me, “holier-than-thous”! You should have picked a better history to be born with.

    As for Martin Luther King, he knew what women were for. We could use a little bit more of that, today. Any evidence that any of them didn’t want it?

    nk (dbc370)

  41. Thx, nk and ulb

    Colonel Haiku (61b436)

  42. @32

    Isn’t it worth asking whether or not we actually want that guy’s monument at the center of our nation’s capitol, given sentiments like these? Or are we too invested in making our history sacrosanct?

    That speech was in 1857, I believe. I think Lincoln gets some deserved credit for evolving toward a more enlightened position.

    I just finished reading The Republic for Which it Stands, a new history of Reconstruction and the Gilded Age in the Oxford History of the United States series.

    It’s a fascinating, and unanswerable, question whether Lincoln could have achieved a better outcome after the war, had he lived (although it is hard to imagine an outcome worse than the historical one…).

    Lincoln was not one of the radicals, and up to his death, his reconstruction policy looked like it was going to be extremely lenient to the south. On the other hand, I think Lincoln would have likely evolved further, had he lived. Unlike Andrew Johnson, who was (and remained) an unapologetic racist, Lincoln had empathy for the freed slaves, and I suspect he would have eventually accepted the logic and necessity of the 14th and 15th Amendments.

    Whether he (or anyone) could have made equal rights stick in the face of KKK terrorism is doubtful, though.

    Dave (445e97)

  43. “Needless to say I disagree that a man who attempted to destroy this nation [Lee] should be characterized as ‘honorable.’ * * * [Moreover and more broadly] [ul]timately, Kelly’s understanding of the war and even Robert E. Lee is a product of an outdated and discredited view held by his generation.” Very true.

    Q! (86710c)

  44. I wonder if the billion or so of Chinese slaves who require permission from their state owners to travel, change jobs, reproduce, etc., will ever achieve emancipation? Is it a greater evil for the state to own slaves than it is for an individual to own slaves? Are gulags morally superior to the lash? Did Russian serfs feel emancipated when they were released from being bound to private estates and assigned to collective farms?

    It requires a particular form of progressive blindness to presume to judge the past while steadfastly ignoring the present.

    Rick Ballard (6a5693)

  45. Christian abolitionists were at the heart of the anti-slavery movement, although we remember Lincoln’s more cautious approach. But those same principled Christians would be appalled at gay rights and same sex marriage. Shouldn’t we take down all the statues honoring abolitionists, too?

    DRJ (15874d)

  46. Good point, Rick. A map of modern-day slavery:

    This map shows where the world’s 30 million slaves live. There are 60,000 in the U.S.

    DRJ (15874d)

  47. We should definitely have a civil war with China.

    Davethulhu (fab944)

  48. There was not a legal community per se as no large economy had arose around the pursuit of torts. Lawyers were tools and mouthpieces of their clients or of the constituencies that elected or appointed them to positions of political power.

    One might say that there was a legal community, and it was called “Congress”. Nearly every major politician of the era was a lawyer – even Andrew Jackson.

    12 out of the first 16 presidents (up to and including Lincoln) were lawyers. James Madison was the only one of these who wasn’t a lawyer *or* a general.

    In their famous debates, Lincoln referred to Stephen Douglas as “Judge Douglas” despite Douglas being the incumbent Senator…

    Dave (445e97)

  49. Finkleman wrote: “These countries all ended the salve trade, or the importatonof slaves, at the same time they ended slavery.”

    Not really true. Many countries agreed to end the slave trade, some with their fingers crossed, before ending slavery. Indeed, the United Kingdom was spending huge amounts of money and manpower in deploying the Royal Navy to intercept slavers even while slavery persisted in some of their colonies, the last of which ended slavery in 1833 if memory serves.

    SPQR (240837)

  50. Q! – no, its nonsense. Indeed that person you quote is doing exactly what Kelly is describing. He dishonestly misrepresents Lee’s motives. As for Lee being “honorable”, I am pretty certain Levin does not understand the word, especially as it was understood in the mid 19th Century. Almost all of Lee’s contemporaries, including his enemies, considered him honorable.

    SPQR (240837)

  51. Lee was not fighting for slavery, he was fighting for Virginia.

    This is the fundamental issue of conflicts like the Civil War; put simply, do we assume that the very act of defending a status quo for the sake of its good elements amounts, in and of itself, to morally condoning that status quo’s evil elements as they stand at the time you defend it? Is to fight for Virginia ipso facto to fight for slavery? Were the Russians at Stalingrad fighting to defend the gulags and the Ukrainian famines by definition? Can a Catholic today defend the Church as a worthwhile and holy institution without being accused of de facto condoning sexual abuse? And so on and so forth.

    If defending anything from particular types of violence is taken as a tacit proclamation that we hold it wholly immune from any criticism at all, nobody could ever defend anything with a clear conscience. (Which is, conveniently, a state of affairs the modern Left finds very useful.)

    Stephen J. (f77922)

  52. Stephen J – my sense is that while *Virginia* was fighting for an immoral cause (the preservation of slavery), *Lee* was fighting for a moral cause (the love of his country — in this sense, as was common in the antebellum world, his ‘country’ was Virginia). He disagreed with the cause for which Virginia fought, but felt that honor compelled him to stand at her side regardless.

    This is a difficult thing for many modern Americans to wrap their head around, both because we no longer think of states in the way our ancestors did, and because the two world wars, for a lot of people, threw that kind of “stand by my country even if I believe its cause is wrong” honor into disrepute.

    aphrael (e0cdc9)

  53. =yawn= Lawyers do love to argue.

    Let’s be clear: Robert E. Lee was not an ‘honorable man’ as CoS Kelly stated for numb-minded Fox TV viewers. Lee was a traitor to the United States of America, willfully took up arms against it and led an army to defeat, slaughtering hundreds of thousands of American citizens in the process. End of story.

    More revealing is yet another tell by CoS Kelly of his mindset– which is decidedly mediocre for a former four-star, and speaks volumes of the low caliber of third, fourth or fifth tier talents a President Trump has been able to recruit. A ‘normal’ presidency would not have found Kelly on the short list for the civilian CoS spot– an appointed ‘gate-keeping’ position which is among the most powerful in our government. Kelly has stated that his favorite job in life was as a sergeant– and it shows. As a four-star general he may have been a good organizer but as a civilian CoS, he’s a weak manager. But he knows how to salute and say: ‘Yes sir!’ — which is exactly what our Captain was looking for in a Chief of Staff.

    DCSCA (797bc0)

  54. in dixieland i’ll take my stand and then on saturday we can go to smoothie king!

    happyfeet (28a91b)

  55. > Robert E. Lee was not an ‘honorable man’
    > Lee was a traitor to the United States of America

    It is possible that Lee was both a traitor to the United States *and* an honorable man.

    Given antebellum political beliefs, Lee had a duty of loyalty to the United States *and* a duty of loyalty to Virginia.

    Once those duties of loyalty were in conflict, he had to *choose*. EITHER CHOICE HE MADE would have been a betrayal of his duty and of his loyalty, but he did not have the option to not choose.

    Making a choice in that moment does not per se mean he was dishonorable. Making a choice in that moment that seems incomprehensible by modern political standards does not per se mean he was dishonorable.

    He was in an impossible position, once Virginia seceded — an act which he opposed prior to the decision being made.

    aphrael (e0cdc9)

  56. I agree with aphrael.

    DRJ (15874d)

  57. Lincoln was not one of the radicals, and up to his death, his reconstruction policy looked like it was going to be extremely lenient to the south.

    There’s a compromise. Many wanted Reconstruction Heavy, to Lincoln light.

    Ben burn (b3d5ab)

  58. …the two world wars, for a lot of people, threw that kind of “stand by my country even if I believe its cause is wrong” honor into disrepute.

    Partly because the World Wars were, for the first time in history, examples of a conflict where remaining loyal to a country in war despite personal doubts actually led to more damage overall for most of those nations than the alternative would have, because of both changing technological power (in WW1) and what were, for Europe, unprecedentedly violent ideologies (in WW2).

    One thing I’ve noticed about human nature is that any virtue makes more sense when it happens to line up with the practical exigencies of its time. The virtue of chastity was much easier to see when rampant promiscuity not only spread disease and ruined lives, but could actually set off wars thanks to inheritance problems. Loyalty to a country right or wrong makes more sense when it is seen as causing less damage in the long run, however flawed one’s current temporal rulers, than the collapse of law and order facilitated by mass disloyalty.

    Stephen J. (f77922)

  59. He was in an impossible position,

    Just like Gen. Kelly.

    Ben burn (b3d5ab)

  60. @55. Rubbish. The tell is about Kelly.

    DCSCA (797bc0)

  61. @51 Lee was not fighting for slavery, he was fighting for Virginia.

    To be clear, Lee was manifestly fighting for disunion & against the Union of the States, in championing the course chosen by Virginia, and in dedicating his energies and talents in favor of secession and against the Union. And of course Lee knew why Virginia and her southern sisters had chosen the course of disunion. To wit: their fanatical attachment to the institutionalized slavery of “an inferior race”. That is the unmistakable nub of the matter, as really cannot be contested by anyone who has expended even a modicum of effort in actually studying the question with a moderately open mind. So, of course it is true that “Lee was fighting for slavery”; slavery was the very raison d’etre behind secession, and secession (and the subsequent attack upon the Union by the secessionists) was the precipitating cause of the Civil War.

    Q! (86710c)

  62. Lee consistently opposed secession prior to Virginia’s declaration of secession.

    Once Virginia seceded, he had to choose: does he betray Virginia, or does he betray the United States?

    He believed that Virginia was his country, and that he had a duty to stand by her *even when she made a decision he thought was wrong*.

    Yes, slavery was the raison d’etre behind secession. But it’s *not* why Lee fought. He fought because his country had made a decision and he felt compelled by honor to stand by it — even though he *disagreed* with that decision and would pay a steep personal price for doing so. Slavery was irrelevant to his decision-making process, in that regard.

    aphrael (e0cdc9)

  63. @59. Nobody forced Kelly to take the civilian CoS gig. If Kelly himself believes he’s in ‘an impossible position’ he put himself in it– which speaks to his management skills.

    DCSCA (797bc0)

  64. (Which is, conveniently, a state of affairs the modern Left finds very useful.)

    You guys do make it convenient..

    Ben burn (b3d5ab)

  65. 63. He knew what he signed onto.

    Ben burn (b3d5ab)

  66. @ Leviticus, who wrote (#36):

    Isn’t it worth asking whether or not we actually want that guy’s [Lincoln’s] monument at the center of our nation’s capitol, given sentiments like these? Or are we too invested in making our history sacrosanct?

    My friend, I urge you to consider whether this is a false choice. I believe it very definitely is. I’m very invested in studying history, not in making it sacrosanct. As part of that process, all consequential historical figures should be studied with clear eyes — which means a realistic appreciation of both the times and mores in which they lived, and the ways in which those times and mores have changed.

    I have no difficulty whatsoever, for example, with criticizing Lincoln for inconsistency. He advocated sending American slaves back to Africa, for example, with the federal government compensating their owners. His wife, Mary Todd, owned slaves inherited through her family — a situation that also faced George Washington. So did Grant’s wife, and Grant owned a slave in his own capacity. I am utterly against any whitewashing of history to conceal these ugly facts — an ugliness that was not at all lost on Washington, Lincoln, Grant, or Lee at the time.

    I nevertheless likewise have no difficulty with recognizing that Lincoln, despite his flaws and inconsistencies, changed his views regarding slaves and slavery while in office, and that those changes were in a direction that abolitionists approved of in 1861-1865 and that modern Americans, for the most part, recognize to have been constructive. He saved the Union, Leviticus, and that’s not just an adequate reason, but a superb reason, for his monument to grace our nation’s capital.

    Absolutely no one is stopping you or anyone from pointing out the warts on America’s heroes, nor the extent to which they may be deemed in hindsight to have had feet of clay. And no one forces you to revere or respect people whom you may not find worthy of that, regardless of whether yours is a minority or majority position.

    I admire Robert E. Lee as a soldier and military leader, despite my ready acknowledgement that the cause for which he fought was utterly wicked. Earlier in his career, Lee was a model — indeed, the model — of American military excellence, during his service in another controversial war (the Mexican-American War of 1845) and during a series of later appointments, including as head of West Point. Despite his military excellence, though, I wouldn’t support giving Robert E. Lee the kind of prominence that Lincoln earned in our nation’s history.

    We’re a flawed species at best, but in fits and starts we have made, and might yet make, progress in overcoming those flaws. I don’t disagree that it’s “worth asking whether or not we actually want [Lincoln’s] monument at the center of our nation’s capitol,” but I think the answer to that question is that we do want him in that position. You’re free to disagree, though, even if that puts you in a tiny minority. If Lincoln doesn’t qualify for your respect and admiration based on the consequence of his actions and life, I can’t imagine who might.

    Beldar (fa637a)

  67. Once Virginia seceded, he had to choose: does he betray Virginia, or does he betray the United States?

    You can’t serve God andMammon

    Ben burn (b3d5ab)

  68. Among my personal heroes, by the way, is Sam Houston — who made the opposite decision of Lee’s when Texas purported to secede from the Union, as a consequence of which a mob evicted Houston by force from the Texas governor’s mansion. And yet, Houston too was a sometimes slave-owner. I can admire both Houston and Lee as military leaders, but I only admire Houston as a political leader.

    Beldar (fa637a)

  69. Errata #66: The Mexican-American War was in 1846-1847, not 1845 (which is when the Republic of Texas joined the Union). Mea culpa.

    Beldar (fa637a)

  70. Why do you not admire Houston as a military leader, Beldar? He was the leader of the army that secured the revolution, during the decisive battle; surely that is deserving of some respect and admiration.

    aphrael (e0cdc9)

  71. Get rope!

    “Washington (CNN)President Donald Trump called for “quick” and “strong” justice for terror suspects in the wake of the deadly New York City attack, saying that it is not surprising terror attacks happen because the way the United States punishes terrorists is “a laughing stock.”

    http://www.cnn.com/2017/11/01/politics/trump-justice-laughing-stock/

    Ben burn (b3d5ab)

  72. @62

    Slavery was irrelevant to his decision-making process, in that regard.

    It shouldn’t have been.

    Dave (445e97)

  73. Lee wouldn’t allow women and funny queers in his ranks neither. Or Jews or Musslemen . Although colored fellers fought for both sides. Some folks called them negros.

    Pinandpuller (a2c4d2)

  74. That’s pretty offensive, pin.

    Ben burn (b3d5ab)

  75. @15. L, this isn’t really about ‘history’ anyway– it’s merely another dump along a trail of recent droppings; a ‘tell’ on the judgment and mindset of the current CoS.

    DCSCA (797bc0)

  76. Every War ever would have been prevented non-violently if women were in charge. Sure, your saloons and whisky barrels would have been smashed by ax-maidens. But other than that.

    Pinandpuller (a2c4d2)

  77. Hundreds of thousands of men died so black people would have the right to separate studies programs and separate dorms and separate lunch tables. And to keep Ben Shapiro from speaking.

    Pinandpuller (a2c4d2)

  78. Beldar,

    I think it’s fair to characterize my prior comment as a false choice. It’s a rhetorical question. I believe Americans as a group are far too invested in making our history sacrosanct. What is a monument – particular a monument like the Lincoln Memorial – if not the State’s invitation/attempt to make the individual and his or her history sacrosanct? And what qualities do we see in a man like Robert E. Lee that we didn’t also see in men like Erwin Rommel or Mao Tse Tung?

    Leviticus (efada1)

  79. I do admire Houston, aphrael, as both a military and political leader. Lee never purported to be a political leader, and while I understand his decision to side with Virginia against the Union, I don’t approve of that decision, and wish instead that he’d have done what Houston did — stand on his principles regarding the preservation of the Union.

    Beldar (fa637a)

  80. Does Lee cheer for the Pittsburgh Steelers or the Super Bowl Champion?

    Pinandpuller (a2c4d2)

  81. Rommel actively conspired to take down Hitler and why did nobody put Chang Kai-shek on a Tshirt?

    Pinandpuller (a2c4d2)

  82. Jeff Sessions continues to lie under oath about what he knows about Trump campaign surrogates interacting with Russians.

    https://www.emptywheel.net/2017/11/01/jeff-sessions-unforgets-the-discussions-with-russians-he-twice-swore-didnt-happen/

    Ben burn (b3d5ab)

  83. Leviticus asked (#78):

    What is a monument – particular a monument like the Lincoln Memorial – if not the State’s invitation/attempt to make the individual and his or her history sacrosanct? And what qualities do we see in a man like Robert E. Lee that we didn’t also see in men like Erwin Rommel or Mao Tse Tung?

    I don’t think a monument is an attempt to make an individual or his history “sacrosanct.” I think erecting a national monument to a historical figure is a recognition of something great in his personal history in worthy service to the nation.

    Rommel was a tactical genius as a soldier, but an utter failure in his politics. He deserves study and credit as part of the teaching of military history, but not otherwise, and he deserves no monuments, national or otherwise, beyond a simple headstone.

    And Mao doesn’t belong in this discussion. He’s no hero of any stripe, political, military, or otherwise; he was a thoroughgoing monster. I have no idea why you mentioned him in this context, because his military victories had more to do with a willingness to sacrifice hundreds of thousands of soldiers needlessly while waiting for the nationalist Chinese government to collapse under its own corruption and internal rivalries.

    Beldar (fa637a)

  84. @76. Aristophanes’ Lysistrata, eh.

    “Admirable. We might all profit from a closer study of classical literature.” – ‘Trader’ Winston [Fred Clark] “White Heat” 1949

    DCSCA (797bc0)

  85. @66

    He advocated sending American slaves back to Africa, for example, with the federal government compensating their owners.

    “Colonization” (as it was called) of the slaves was one of the earliest abolitionist blueprints, going back to the last days of Ben Franklin’s life.

    It was the same basic idea that was proposed by Thomas Jefferson in regard to removing the Indians from their homelands.

    Initially both ideas (in effect, racial segregation) were proposed out of genuine concern by the tiny handful of “enlightened” advocates/activists who wanted to do right (as they saw it) by the minorities in question, and who were alarmed at the “degeneration” of the black and aboriginal races, which they blamed on contact with whites. (This is the opposite of the self-serving “positive good” nonsense that southern apologists for slavery tried to peddle.)

    For an interesting account of how the Indian removal and slave colonization ideas evolved in parallel, I recommend Bind Us Apart.

    Dave (445e97)

  86. @81. Is Adolph’s Meat Tenderizer used on Trump Steaks?

    DCSCA (797bc0)

  87. The past should always be looked at in the context of the times, e.g., what were the policies and practices employed elsewhere at that time? This whole concept of youth and inexperience somehow being considered “woke” is amusing to me. Even the worst mistakes, and errors in judgement can also result in key learnings, remedial action and progress.

    As Americans, we are all fortunate that our country came together after the Civil War… yes, it took longer than what was hoped for, but it did come together, and we are stronger, better and blessed for it. Our military is made ever more formidable by the traditions and people of the South… has been the case for over one hundred years. They should never be disparaged.

    Colonel Haiku (61b436)

  88. “At least Admiral Boorda had the decency to commit suicide.” Rep Tom Lantos-Guess the Party CA

    Pinandpuller (a2c4d2)

  89. Mexicans have no problem naming their kids Jesus and Adolfo.

    Pinandpuller (a2c4d2)

  90. who likes to tear down monuments is the taliban and the national democratic socialist party of failmerica

    happyfeet (28a91b)

  91. Looking back on Snapchat I think we will find that 25% of them are people smoking blunts and driving while lip syncing songs we’ve never heard of before.

    Pinandpuller (a2c4d2)

  92. Lee wouldn’t allow women and funny queers in his ranks neither. Or Jews or Musslemen .

    The Confederacy’s Secretary of War was Jewish.
    He let Lee serve in his ranks.

    nk (dbc370)

  93. And Mao doesn’t belong in this discussion. He’s no hero of any stripe, political, military, or otherwise; he was a thoroughgoing monster. I have no idea why you mentioned him in this context, because his military victories had more to do with a willingness to sacrifice hundreds of thousands of soldiers needlessly while waiting for the nationalist Chinese government to collapse under its own corruption and internal rivalries.

    Mao was a monster, surely, but I wouldn’t dismiss his military record in the Sino-Japanese War. (As chief executive of his proto-nation, Jefferson Davis is a better Confederate than Lee to compare with)

    Mao fought the Japanese more vigorously than the Nationalists did, under greater adversity, and with fewer outside resources but much greater success.

    Dave (445e97)

  94. DCSCA

    Ford pardoned Lee so if you really believe in The Constitution he’s not a traitor. You had your chance in 1975 to throw some really sweet Broadway tickets over The White House fence in protest.

    Pinandpuller (a2c4d2)

  95. The historical context for Mao was the British invading the Forbidden Palace and, at bayonet point, forcing the Emperor to allow the importation of opium. He lifted China’s face out of the mud and from under the foreign boot heels and made her into a world power again. That might make us no never mind, but it makes him hero in the history of his country.

    nk (dbc370)

  96. Maybe the problem is humans looking for “heroes.”

    Leviticus (efada1)

  97. @94 Ford pardoned Lee so if you really believe in The Constitution he’s not a traitor.

    Among many other things, Pin really doesn’t understand what pardoning is.

    Q! (86710c)

  98. nk

    Joe Lieberman Jew or Larry David Harvey /Weinstein Jew?

    Seriously, thanks. Like Dennis Miller says my reference cabinet is huge but the drawers are shallow.

    Is Tom Bodet a Shabbos Goy?

    Pinandpuller (a2c4d2)

  99. It’s like you bumping into me in line never happened and your sins are white as snow.

    Pinandpuller (a2c4d2)

  100. It means Lee was free to vote for Terry McAuliffe.

    Pinandpuller (a2c4d2)

  101. @94. ROFLMAO PP: =yawn= Ford pardoned the Big Dick, too, while still alive no less, so if you ‘really believe in The Constitution,’ he ‘was not a crook.’ And he pardoned Iva Toguri D’Aquino, too- a popular radio personality who warmed the hearts of tens of thousands of GIs, warmly remembered with fondness as ‘Tokyo Rose.’

    DCSCA (797bc0)

  102. Leviticus, there’s an interesting depoliticized philosophical conversation here:

    is it good, or bad, to promote the knowledge that our heros have feet of clay?

    One side argues: it’s important to our unity as a people and our sense of ourselves that we have heroes whose heroism is unchallengable. Who exemplify virtue in our minds, and give us something to aspire to be, *even if that exemplification is a myth*. Because that myth challenges us to become better versions of ourselves.

    The other side argues: it is important to see our heroes for who they were, both in their virtues in their flaws, for that is how we come to realize that flawed people can be virtuous, and that we all struggle with our own flaws, and that it is possible for mortals to overcome their flaws and be good — that seeing the flaws in our heroes, and knowing that they were heroes despite their flaws, gives us the ability to imagine ourselves overcoming our flaws — and therefore is a much better inspiration than someone we believe to have been flawless.

    I’m much more of the latter camp. Where do you stand?

    aphrael (e0cdc9)

  103. If you get convicted of a felony you are a felon. If you get pardoned from a felony, what are you?

    If you commit treason you are a traitor. If you are pardoned from treason what are you?

    But if you’re like Q and you suck one d***…

    Pinandpuller (a2c4d2)

  104. You’re welcome, Pinandpuller.

    One of the guys who helped romanticize Mao in the pulps was L. Ron Hubbard, the founder of Scientology. Like in this book.

    nk (dbc370)

  105. @103

    As Arpaio learned to his dismay, being pardoned does not erase the underlying crime. He’s still a felon, as is any other felon that gets pardoned.

    Davethulhu (fab944)

  106. Ideas are bulletproof…people are not.

    I think that’s in the Bible.

    Ben burn (b3d5ab)

  107. @103 If you get pardoned from a felony, what are you?
    … A pardoned felon

    If you are pardoned from treason what are you?
    … A pardoned traitor

    And if you are PinandPuller, and react like a badly-reared and petulant 12 year old, in responding with ignorant obscenities, are you not a badly-reared and petulant 12 year old, at heart?

    Q! (86710c)

  108. Colloquialism has corrupted the word “hero”. A hero is not a person who is worshiped by many people. That is an idol. A hero is someone who has performed difficult tasks, which conferred substantial benefit to mankind, under great adversity, that few others are capable of.

    nk (dbc370)

  109. Furthermore, pinandpuller, calling someone a traitor is *not* a technical legal description. It’s an opinion about the morality of the man’s actions.

    A man who has betrayed his country and who has been pardoned and protected from legal punishment for the act is still, always and forever, a man who betrayed his country.

    Just as a man who has committed murder and been pardoned for it is always a murderer.

    aphrael (e0cdc9)

  110. 97

    What’s to understand? A little song, a little dance and he shuffles off victorious. Self-awareness has tanked on the DOW for some time now.

    Ben burn (b3d5ab)

  111. Most effective Chief of Staff in my lifetime: James Baker.
    Runner-up: Howard Baker.
    Worst- a tie: H.R. Haldeman & Don Regan.
    Runner-up: Hamilton Jordan.

    DCSCA (797bc0)

  112. 111

    Apples/kumquats…there is no precedent to Kelly’s situation.

    Ben burn (b3d5ab)

  113. 111. You don’t think John Sununu was bad?

    And was Don Reagan worse than Reince Priebus or are we talking only pre-Trump? Why was Don Regan so bad anyway, in your estimation?

    Sammy Finkelman (20d02d)

  114. 102. aphrael and Leviticus

    There’s also – and this applies mostly when telling that to children – that if you don’t say they have “feet of clay” then when they find out what they did, they’ll think that that was right.

    Sammy Finkelman (20d02d)

  115. As challenging as the pathologies of Nixon were, he was only scarily incapacitated when on a binge. Trump is a dry drunk 24/7 and Kelly has latrine duty.

    Ben burn (b3d5ab)

  116. I’m as guilty as any privileged white male of ignorance. And I’m as guilty as any of punching down. But I learn something every time I read here. From some of the mid level trolls all the way up to the host.

    But some of you commenters might as well be auto tune because auto tune teaches you nothing about singing on pitch.

    Pinandpuller (6293b7)

  117. nk @92. Mao or any tyrant may make something he did, for his reasons, into making himself a hero. The British were long past encouraging the importation of opium into China.

    This is what Mao did (up to about 1963)

    https://archive.org/stream/escapefromredchi013588mbp/escapefromredchi013588mbp_djvu.txt

    It’s really been suppressed, and if Xi has his way, it’ll continue to be. He’s now trying to counteract belief in liberty and freedom with the “Chinese Dream” (as opposed to the American Dream. He’s setting things up so that he’ll have no successor in approximately twenty years.

    Sammy Finkelman (20d02d)

  118. @113. It’s about management. Priebus was boxed going in; he wasn’t allowed to do the job w/Jared, Ivanka and Bannon going around him. Like Kenny O’Donnell- he managed the WH staff but JFK’s go-to SOB in a crisis was RFK, not O’D. Regan was a corporatist who operated more as a PM than a CoS but mostly, he couldn’t manage Mommie whereas Howard B., ‘worked the problem.’

    DCSCA (797bc0)

  119. oh dear we have a local incident

    ugh

    why can’t grown-ass adults handle things between themselves

    i disdain everyone involved in this

    happyfeet (28a91b)

  120. 115. Ben burn (b3d5ab) — 11/1/2017 @ 2:04 pm

    e. Trump is a dry drunk 24/7 and Kelly has latrine duty

    He just plays one on Twitter, and in certain other public occasions. And he never drank. Bush II was a dry drunk, to tell the truth.

    The latest from Trump: he announces he’s setting in motion the process of abolishing diversity immigration visas. You know what’s he’s doing? Sending a letter to Congress. (it could theoretically mean something, but Congress will sooner change tax law very much very quickly than this, and they are not going to do it do so fast with tax law.

    Sammy Finkelman (20d02d)

  121. @115. “… Kelly has latrine duty…” ‘And he’s the best dang sergeant in the whole dang air force.’ 😉

    DCSCA (797bc0)

  122. >You know what’s he’s doing? Sending a letter to Congress.

    Seems like he could issue an EO instructing the state department to suspend the program pending further study, or some such, and then fight it in court for a couple months before losing.

    I thought that was his preferred mode.

    aphrael (e0cdc9)

  123. the whole “dry drunk” concept is just AA pablum i think

    happyfeet (28a91b)

  124. 93. Dave (445e97) — 11/1/2017 @ 1:16 pm

    Mao fought the Japanese more vigorously than the Nationalists did, under greater adversity, and with fewer outside resources but much greater success.

    What!? The exact opposite.

    https://thediplomat.com/2014/09/the-ccp-didnt-fight-imperial-japan-the-kmt-did/

    http://www.latimes.com/world/asia/la-fg-china-taiwan-nationalists-20150901-story.html

    Communists’ version of China’s wartime record frustrates Taiwan

    Where’d you get your information?

    Sammy Finkelman (20d02d)

  125. Dry drunk is not the correct term for people who exhibit alcoholic behaviors even though they never drank, I realize Sammy. But it seems to apply.

    Ben burn (b3d5ab)

  126. What then of “dry drowning“? Is it the new SIDS? A convenient out for infanticide?

    urbanleftbehind (35f328)

  127. aphrael @102: I’m much more of the latter camp as well, almost to the extent of being in a third camp which believes that the whole notion of a “hero” is counterproductive. We should have influences and teachers, but it seems to me that the whole notion of a “hero” (particularly in the modern sense of the word) is designed to cloud judgement and obscure critical assessment.

    Put differently, I think people frequently and purposefully use the word “hero” to evoke the first sense of the word that you have described, while falling back on the second sense of the word when challenged.

    Leviticus (efada1)

  128. I see that I missed nk’s more-eloquent statement that “colloquialism has corrupted the word ‘hero.'” I agree with that, to the point that I think we should push back on the use of the word in its colloquial sense until it is restored to more precise usage.

    Leviticus (efada1)

  129. I’m glad you suggested that Leviticus, you’re my hero.

    Rev.Hoagie® (6bbda7)

  130. “Where’d you get your information?”

    Re-writing history, it’s what they do.

    The same types who say Japan and the USA were really no different in WW2, one just had a superior resource and manufacturing base.

    harkin (05cfd8)

  131. Slightly OT but have you guys seen this neat bit of mockery?

    https://youtu.be/ynO-bqU6tUk

    Rev.Hoagie® (6bbda7)

  132. Between the time they arrested Papadopoulos and the time he pled guilty, he became more forthcoming about his extensive efforts to broker a meeting between the campaign and the Russians, something Mifsud made clear was a high priority for the Russians. Mueller is perfectly happy — after securing the testimony of people like Clovis — to let everyone know that.

    But Mueller is still hiding the pretty obvious answer to the question about whether Papadopoulos lied about Mifsud specifically to hide that he told people on the campaign that Russians had emails to deal in conjunction with such meetings.

    https://www.emptywheel.net/2017/11/01/the-false-statements-george-papadopoulos-made-about-dirt-were-designed-to-hide-whether-he-told-the-campaign-about-the-emails/

    Ben burn (b3d5ab)

  133. Off the topic — Andy McCarthy has a GREAT article today from the perspective of a former federal prosecutor about all the things that are odd about Mueller’s indictment of Manafort.

    His points play into my theory that Mueller opted to file at this time because of what seemed to be building pressure on him to show something for his work after 6 months. At the 6 month mark he has to provide a report on his spending to DOJ, and that report is made public. My guess is they are going to be north of $10 million.

    You also had the explosion of the Uranium One case, with the bribery prosecution of Rosatom officials that was never disclosed while the Uranium One sale was undergoing CFIS review. Mueller, Rosenstein, and Weissman were all personally involved in the investigation/prosecution, and now the information from the FBI informant is going to be provided to Congress. Mueller is already facing suggestions that he recuse himself in the press, but it was the suggestion by Judiciary Chairman Chuck Grassley last Thursday that probably got his attention the most.

    The shortcomings of the indictment — especially the structuring a “scheme and artifice to defraud” predicate which is always present when you charge bank fraud, wire fraud or mail fraud, which is not followed by any fraud counts — will cause a lot of head scratching on the part of the district judge who gets this case. Judges have seen those kinds of fraud schemes dozens or hundreds of times depending on their length on the bench. I suspect the judge has probably never seen an indictment that goes to the trouble of setting up a “scheme and artifice to defraud”, and then didn’t charge fraud.

    Seasoned federal criminal defense practitioners will also go right at the points raised by McCarthy.

    And fronting out Papadopolous is a cooperating defendant is NOT going to intimidate anyone.

    If I had a client in the mix, and I was asked to give my view, I would say that my suspicions are that Papadopolous likely has little to offer given his background when he came into the campaign, and if Mueller had a better bullet to fire in terms of a cooperator, he would have fired it.

    shipwreckedcrew (56b591)

  134. There were plenty of people in the late 18th century who opposed slavery.

    The overwhelming majority of people (like upwards of 90%) in the late 18th century thought homosexuality should be illegal (sodomy was punishable by death in the British navy). And pretty much everyone back then would have been opposed to same-sex marriage.

    Someone who takes those stands now would be called evil. Were the people then evil, even if they opposed slavery?

    Chuck Bartowski (bc1c71)

  135. CI’s are typically minor players so how that would intimidate is lost on me.

    Ben burn (b3d5ab)

  136. 135 — how many cases have you prosecuted or defended that involved a CI?

    Your answer will suggest the meaningfulness of your comment.

    shipwreckedcrew (56b591)

  137. sometimes i think if it weren’t for Mr. shipwreck we’d have very little informations about the FBI corruption scandal

    happyfeet (28a91b)

  138. “…how that would intimidate is lost on me.”

    As is nearly everything else.

    Colonel Haiku (61b436)

  139. Greetings:

    One of my criticisms of the recent Ken Burns “Viet Nam War” docudrama was that it starts off with Les Français sont arrivée. Obviously, there was an “ante” and, I’m guessing, it was probably less than Edenic. Socio-economic oppression didn’t begin only in France.

    I have a similar impulse in regard to slavery. I don’t think it started in Europe. And, perhaps, those taken out of Africa may have been the luckier ones if not initially, certainly, looking at today’s Africa, over the generations.

    Allowing historical discussions to begin where and when those of a certain demographic show up is a good indicator of who is on trial.

    11B40 (6abb5c)

  140. 131… that’s good stuff, Hoagie!

    Colonel Haiku (2601c0)

  141. @134

    This is a pretty disingenuous argument. Just because A is bad and B is bad doesn’t mean that they’re equally bad.

    Davethulhu (fab944)

  142. 136

    I defer to your experience. Perhaps you can relate an example, just in layman’s terms I you don’t mind.

    Ben burn (b3d5ab)

  143. 142 — it all depends on how close a minor player is to the action.

    Someone can have little or no actual involvement in the criminal activity, but nevertheless be present when a bunch of criminal activity is discussed or takes place.

    For example, a mafia boss’ driver.

    OR — MOST SIGNIFICANTLY — EX FOOKING GIRLFRIENDS!!!

    You could never in your wildest dreams imagine the number of drug trafficking cases that get made based on info obtained from ex-girfriends whose drug dealing boyfriends cheated on them. After you do it for a few years, it really can get comical.

    shipwreckedcrew (56b591)

  144. Allowing historical discussions to begin where and when those of a certain demographic show up is a good indicator of who is on trial.

    And I would surmise we know who that is, 11B40.

    Rev.Hoagie® (6bbda7)

  145. 143

    Yes I understand. Say, for example, one spouse is secretly engaged in criminal activity and lives a bit higher than her husband’s profession but turns a blind eye. What’re her options if she’s swept up in a bust?

    Ben burn (b3d5ab)

  146. On the other end of the spectrum are main conspirators. Recently involved in a case where a main conspirator — co-leader of group moving 100 lbs of meth a month — was video taped personally handling 1 lb of meth to someone he knew for a long time. Unfortunately for the main guy, his “friend” had been flipped a month earlier on a small buy-bust.

    So the main guy gets brought in and is shown the tape, and played the audio from his 1 lb delivery. He’s screwed since it will be his second conviction — mandatory 20 year jail term — so he flips on 12 other people involved. He remains out of custody and records a bunch of meetings and deals as they go down.

    That’s a CI who can BLOW UP everything because he knows everything.

    Mr. Papadopolous is not in that class.

    shipwreckedcrew (56b591)

  147. Admittedly he’s not Capones bookkeeper, but he could be a driver. It could be nothing and Mueller is needing a win, but it could also be very damaging.

    Ben burn (b3d5ab)

  148. Say, for example, one spouse is secretly engaged in criminal activity and lives a bit higher than her husband’s profession but turns a blind eye. What’re her options if she’s swept up in a bust?

    Ben burn (b3d5ab) — 11/1/2017 @ 4:41 pm

    You’ll have to pay him at least a dollar to get some help with your situation and ensure confidentiality, beenburned.

    Colonel Haiku (2601c0)

  149. True the French conquered indochina in the mid 19th Century. It took longer than the 8 year interval, of the next iteration. It was the other bookend to their north African conquest of course burns is still stuckin 1975 for perspective. His coffee table references moyar in the sources but not the notes

    So when you strip lee of the equation. Who has a professional soldier. More brutal characters like Nathan bedrord forest of ft. Pillow come to light, of course we know what his post war project was, the confederate version of Islamic state

    narciso (d1f714)

  150. I have a similar impulse in regard to slavery. I don’t think it started in Europe. And, perhaps, those taken out of Africa may have been the luckier ones if not initially, certainly, looking at today’s Africa, over the generations.

    Slavery has existed in just about every culture from the dawn of time. When one group defeated another, they would either kill the men or castrate them, and enslave the women and children. It was barbaric, but about the only way to ensure that the defeated group didn’t rise up against yours.

    Chuck Bartowski (bc1c71)

  151. So the last administration provided nuclear material, created a venue for high level information management (skulkovo village) slashed our defenses including missile defenses, disarmed our forward resource development by forcing constraints on cracking, looked the other way practically when a jet was shot out if the sky, made entreaties to at least two of Russians allies, Iran and Cuba. Versus what exactly

    narciso (d1f714)

  152. It was barbaric, but about the only way to ensure that the defeated group didn’t rise up against yours.

    And it took an evil, white supremacist, racist, imperialist crap country to come up with The Marshall Plan to rebuild its enemies rather than subjugate and enslave them in defeat. You know, America. Now take a phukin’ knee.

    Rev.Hoagie® (6bbda7)

  153. There is a new Black List and this time everyone is on it.

    Ben burn (b3d5ab)

  154. Mao was a warlock , albeit of mandarin stock, now general Marshall and the clique of foggy bottoms useful idiots couldnt realize this.

    narciso (d1f714)

  155. 123. 125. 126. I think some people maybe just like the word dry used in a paradoxical way, and they like labeling people or things.

    Sammy Finkelman (20d02d)

  156. It is trying to make a vicevout if virtue, and its not like we don’t have uni\go of that. It takes great willpower to force yourself into abstaining.

    narciso (d1f714)

  157. Don’t ever say the Metroplex doesn’t help Houston.

    urbanleftbehind (07659c)

  158. Eschewing heroism is a bad course forva society, think of how churchills shortcomings are focused on,
    (He imbibed good grief. There was even a recent tome devoted to his terrible personal finances) so ate we to side with abstemious chamberlain. Or the latest dustup against admiral nelson.

    narciso (d1f714)

  159. Couple of thoughts wrt slavery and the Civil War.
    Cotton monoculture had at least three aspects which comported with slavery; picking cotton, chopping cotton, ginning cotton. The processes were simple, the results measurable easily and individual initiative and attention beyond keeping out of trouble was not required.
    Cotton wore out the soil and more was needed. Hence the filibuster in Nicaragua and the interest in moving west.
    If we take an arbitrary number that the war killed or crippled 400,000 young southern men…then without the war they’d have needed someplace to go. The big shots had the good land which left the ragged hills and hollers.
    So, say, ten percent of the number not killed or crippled, 40k in my figuring, tried to go west.
    Slavery would have gone with them, and the 40k would have been the muscle for the expansion.
    The question would have been…slavery in the territories?
    We’d probably have had a civil war ten years later, anyway. Only way around it would have been a particularly predatory boll weevil or a collapse in cotton prices.

    Richard Aubrey (98ff29)

  160. How could those people over 150 years ago be so racist and exclusionary?

    Meanwhile in 2017:

    The Daily Wire has obtained an internal Democratic National Committee email listing several open IT positions that openly says that it does not want white males.“

    http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2017/10/democrats-to-white-males-youre-not-wanted-here.php

    harkin (05cfd8)

  161. More than likely. As with an another feudal regime that could not ultimately acvomodate their worker class, the peoples will devolved to the social revolution, which pursued direct action only which was bested by the okrana.

    narciso (d1f714)

  162. Heh! Fair enough. White males told the Democrats they don’t want them, a year ago.

    nk (dbc370)

  163. White females too!

    harkin (05cfd8)

  164. Mind you, this what the wet tories, across the pond, mostly did for most if the last six years, when appatently they werent propositioning staff.

    narciso (d1f714)

  165. Preferring an outlier cohort, over their natural allies, because thatcher was condiderd too mean or something.

    narciso (d1f714)

  166. And it took an evil, white supremacist, racist, imperialist crap country to come up with The Marshall Plan to rebuild its enemies rather than subjugate and enslave them in defeat. You know, America. Now take a phukin’ knee.

    Yup. And you look at eastern Europe, where the Soviets pretty much subjugated everyone. Their economic growth was miniscule compared to western Europe, and they couldn’t wait to throw off the Soviet yoke.

    Chuck Bartowski (bc1c71)

  167. Kelly doesn’t need defending. Doing so just feeds into and legitimizes all of the current nonsense.

    Colonel Haiku (2601c0)

  168. And more than likely they would have done the same with France and Italy. Not to mention the UK.

    narciso (d1f714)

  169. @124

    Where’d you get your information?

    Well, just about every scholarly history of Sino-Japanese War notes that Chinese Communist troops had superior leadership and morale, and performed better in combat against the Japanese than the bulk of Chiang’s forces.

    Here’s what Encyclopedia Britannica says:

    The communist armies were growing rapidly in 1943 and 1944. According to U.S. war correspondents visiting the Yan’an area in May 1944 and to a group of U.S. observers that established itself there in July, the communists professed allegiance to democracy and to continued cooperation with the Nationalist government in the war effort. There was convincing evidence that the areas under communist control extended for hundreds of miles behind Japanese lines in northern and central China.

    This situation was the result of many factors. Communist troop commanders and political officers in areas behind Japanese lines tried to mobilize the entire population against the enemy. Party members led village communities into greater participation in local government than had been the case before. They also organized and controlled peasants’ associations, labour unions, youth leagues, and women’s associations. They linked together the many local governments and the mass organizations and determined their policies. Because of the need for unity against Japan, the communist organizers tended to follow reformist economic policies. The party experimented with various forms of economic cooperation to increase production; one of these was mutual-aid teams in which farmers temporarily pooled their tools and draft animals and worked the land collectively. In areas behind Japanese lines, some mutual-aid teams evolved into work-and-battle teams composed of younger peasants: when danger threatened, the teams went out to fight as guerrillas under direction of the local communist army; when the crisis passed, they returned to the fields. The party recruited into its ranks the younger leaders who emerged from populist activities. Thus, it penetrated and to some extent controlled the multitude of villages in areas behind Japanese lines. As the Japanese military grip weakened, the experienced communist armies and political organizers spread their system of government ever more widely. By the time of the CCP’s Seventh Congress in Yan’an (April–May 1945), the party claimed to have an army of more than 900,000 and a militia of more than 2,000,000. It also claimed to control areas with a total population of 90,000,000. These claims were disputable, but the great strength and wide geographical spread of communist organization was a fact.

    The links you provided note that the CCP did not fight division-sized battles, and that is certainly true. The Japanese didn’t attack the relatively barren and remote area where the largest CCP “regular” formations were deployed to defend their main base of Yenan.

    The Hundred Regiments Campaign was one notable victory where relatively large-scale CCP forces went on the offensive in 1940. In response, the Japanese adopted an even harsher occupation policy known as the “Three Alls” (“kill all, burn all, destroy all”).

    By the end of the war, Mao’s forces controlled vast areas of the country-side behind Japanese lines, and had almost a million men under arms. Obviously one key aspect of guerrilla warfare is that you avoid set-piece engagements where larger enemy forces would have the advantage. The Viet Cong learned this lesson the hard way in the Tet Offensive a few decades later.

    My original point was simply that however repugnant Mao’s political policies and crimes after taking power, he succeeded in building a large, disciplined and effective fighting force, with very little outside support.

    Dave (445e97)

  170. A less hagigographic take”

    http://pwencycl.kgbudge.com/C/h/Chinese_Communists.htm

    narciso (d1f714)

  171. Civil wars are nasty things in England case it leads to Charles beheading and the cromwell dictatorship, in Spain Franco’s victory,

    narciso (d1f714)

  172. So John reed got a. Lot of mileage out of kerenskis mishandling of kornilov, which divided czarist forces allowing lenin to succeed that October.

    narciso (d1f714)

  173. I do recommend that excellent fall of heaven, that showed how much of the black legend about the shah, contributed to khomeinis revolution.

    narciso (d1f714)

  174. Another reason she want 50 points ahead

    https://mobile.twitter.com/davereaboi/status/925890907714543616?p=v

    narciso (d1f714)

  175. Greetings, Dave: ( @ 169 (445e97) — 11/1/2017 @ 7:06 pm)

    I’ve been watching a fair amount of Asian movies lately via the internet. What I would like to pass along is that WW II has not been purged from the medium over there. Obviously, the Japanese are deservedly the most hated, but it’s not just the folks from the CCP who are hanging on to their hate. South Korea and Taiwan are also pumping out their own hits. I recently watched a two-parter from the latter called Rainbow Warriors about the Japs fighting the local indigenous tribes.

    Somewhat surprisingly, there seem to me to be less progressive propaganda even in the CCP ones. Multiculturalism and the dreaded diversity are scarce like hen’s teeth.

    11B40 (6abb5c)

  176. Well their identity is tied up in the matter, the Kim dynasty seems to havevgotten much undereserved mileage out of that, where as there is some criticism of the parknfamily pattiarch

    narciso (d1f714)

  177. Off-topic without apology:

    Congratulations to the Dodgers for taking this year’s World Series to seven games. No one should doubt that these were the two best teams in pro ball this year. The Dodgers showed poise, class, grit, and talent. I’ve heard from many Astros fans who’ve been at the games in Dodger Stadium that without exception, the Dodger fans were as classy as their team.

    This was an amazing season for the Astros, who may be said without too much hyperbole to have been a team of destiny. I will always remember this season, and especially this post-season, as exemplifying the very best of this sport — players, management, and fans.

    Beldar (fa637a)

  178. Congratulations to the Astros, the Dodgers and especially Major League Baseball for one of the most exciting and entertaining seven game World Series in years, fielding two teams of little interest to me. Well played, gentlemen! Excellent baseball all ’round!

    Take a knee, NFL– and weep.

    DCSCA (797bc0)

  179. 170 – “A less hagiographic take:”

    Rather than fight the Japanese, most Communist forces struggled simply to feed themselves.

    Nice to know some things never change.

    harkin (05cfd8)

  180. Tough break, Beldar. I was rooting for the Astros — astroturf, dome, DH and all. But they still have the Pennant and that’s not small potatoes, either.

    nk (dbc370)

  181. Great series but horrible game 7 for us Dodger fans.

    Congrats to the Astros, the best team won.

    harkin (05cfd8)

  182. Egad! I’m losing it.

    nk (dbc370)

  183. Congratulations, Beldar!

    nk (dbc370)

  184. @175

    What I would like to pass along is that WW II has not been purged from the medium over there.

    Well, the Japanese have certainly purged it from their media…

    During the 1980’s, on my first trip to Japan, I visited the atomic bomb museum in Hiroshima. The main format of the material consisted of over-sized photographs on wall, with nearby panels that narrated the course of events in chronological order. The first photo/panel in the museum showed B-29’s fire-bombing Japan in 1944.

    As if that was the beginning of the story! Nothing about Japanese aggression against China, nothing about Pearl Harbor and Japan’s attacks across the Pacific, etc. Nope. Apparently one day, American planes just appeared in the skies and started fire-bombing Japanese cities for no reason…

    One of my Japanese colleagues was visibly shocked when I explained to him that only about 30% of the US war effort was directed against Japan.

    Dave (445e97)

  185. Major League Baseball is the real winner tonight.

    Two teams just showed up and played; no knees, no distractions.

    Just baseball. Wonderful week of escapism.

    DCSCA (797bc0)

  186. Breaking- mass shooting at Denver Walmart tonite; early reports- 3 dead.

    Reality bites.

    DCSCA (797bc0)

  187. Isn’t it worth asking whether or not we actually want that guy’s monument at the center of our nation’s capitol, given sentiments like these? Or are we too invested in making our history sacrosanct?

    And this is really the ongoing question still. David French has a great response to this, and Kelly’s remarks over at National Review. To paraphrase his answer to Leviticus’ question, we have too little history remembered as it is, that we should be erasing some. Instead, note those voices that were ignored at the time, or who were themselves erased by intervening purists.

    My vote would be for Thaddeus Stevens*, the leader of the Radical Republicans who wrote the 13th, 14th and 15th Amendments, got them passed, and attempted to integrate the freed slaves into American society. In that they failed and later Republicans disowned them, but now would be the time to honor their “Lost Cause.”

    ———
    * the actual hero of Spielberg’s Lincoln, played by Tommy Lee Jones.

    Kevin M (752a26)

  188. From Wikipedia, regarding Steven’s death in 1868:

    Stevens’s body was conveyed from his house to the Capitol by white and African-American pallbearers together. Thousands of mourners, of both races, filed past his casket as he lay in state in the Rotunda; Stevens was the third man, after Clay and Lincoln, to receive that honor. African-American soldiers constituted the guard of honor.

    After a service there, his body was taken by funeral train to Lancaster, a city draped in black for the funeral. Stevens was laid to rest in Shreiner’s Cemetery (today the Shreiner-Concord Cemetery); it allowed burial of people of all races, although at the time of Stevens’s interment, only one African-American was buried there.

    The people of his district posthumously renominated him to Congress, and elected his former student, Oliver J. Dickey to succeed him. When Congress convened in December 1868, there were a number of speeches in tribute to Stevens; they were afterwards collected in book form.

    Kevin M (752a26)

  189. Enjoy the victory Astro fans, you deserve it.

    mg (31009b)

  190. If football players could read, they would have never lost all those fans.

    mg (31009b)

  191. Dahlia Lithwick (surprise) and Mark Joseph Stern had written probably the dumbest article yet about the Manafort indictment. its up at slate

    shipwreckedcrew (56b591)

  192. The wonder twins of legal analysis, stern is just an sjw hack who would embarass the cast of “glee”

    narciso (d1f714)

  193. 169.

    , just about every scholarly history of Sino-Japanese War notes that Chinese Communist troops had superior leadership and morale,

    Thought control. George Orwell’s 1984 could have been modeled on it.

    and performed better in combat against the Japanese than the bulk of Chiang’s forces.

    Well, maybe, but that’s not saying much.

    The Chinese government kept on losing territory until the atomic bombs were dropped, and Japan surrendered, if I am not mistaken. There were no gains being made against Japan in China in 1945. (not counting when Soviet troops invaded Manchuria after Hiroshima but before Nagasaki.)

    The Encyclopedia Britannica says “According to U.S. war correspondents visiting the Yan’an area in May 1944 and to a group of U.S. observers that established itself there in July, the communists professed allegiance to democracy”

    The Communists were lying, not the war correspondents I mean they might have been lying, rather tahn dupes, if they reported that as true but this really was Communist Chinese propaganda. I wonder what the reason is for this strange language. Probably an earlier version of this article simply reported this allegiance to democracy as fact. I think Ho Chi Minh also claimed to be a believer in democracy. So did Fidel Castro. And people who make excuses for them claimed that hostility from the U.S> turned them against democracy. Today, the government of Burma is claiming that opposition to their treatment of the Rohingya might push them into the arms of China and Russia. It’s the same thing. They go where they want to go. They go where there is no support for human rights.

    “and to continued cooperation with the Nationalist government in the war effort”

    Which maybe both happened and didn’t happen..

    Sammy Finkelman (20d02d)

  194. continud Dave @169.

    My original point was simply that however repugnant Mao’s political policies and crimes after taking power, he succeeded in building a large, disciplined and effective fighting force, with very little outside support.

    They were repugnant before he took power.

    Yes, he succeeded in building a disciplined army. That was not a good thing. Nor was it a good thing how he did that.

    Sammy Finkelman (20d02d)

  195. I know sammeh they lie just like timochenko, who president Santos has enabled, would do much the same, were he to take power in colombia.

    narciso (d1f714)

  196. It’s a Gang of Many thing, Sammy. Mao’s fans are the flowers that sprang from the barrel of a gun

    Colonel Haiku (61b436)

  197. Remember the time that fired FBI Director James Comey testified that during a private White House dinner, President Trump had told him: “I need loyalty, I expect loyalty”?

    Well, Axios can reveal that Comey refers mischievously to that conversation in the title of his book out May 1, “A Higher Loyalty: Truth, Lies, and Leadership.

    https://www.axios.com/james-comey-book-title-a-higher-loyalty-2505339540.html

    Ben burn (b3d5ab)

  198. Well the rakhine are standing on resources promised to China, of course there is this whole kingdom/isi proxy war going on down there.

    narciso (d1f714)

  199. Strikingly clovis emails don’t say what papafob alleged shocker, it’s about as real as those two women floating for 5 months.

    narciso (d1f714)

  200. If you would like to start the day with a warm chuckle, read Donna Brazile’s attack on Hillary. The nasty white woman really put one over on the innocent and gullible black woman.

    The Bolshevik/Menshevik schism is very amusing and I understand the desire to make Hillary a non-person but Brazile needs to work on her delivery.

    Rick Ballard (6a5693)

  201. What was Manafort buying with those loans?

    The indictment (PDF), unsealed on Monday, includes an extensive look into Paul Manafort’s byzantine financial dealings. In particular, it details how he used a company called Lucicle Consultants Limited to wire millions of dollars into the United States.
    The Cyprus-based Lucicle Consultants Limited, in turn, reportedly received millions of dollars from a businessman and Ukrainian parliamentarian named Ivan Fursin, who is closely linked to one of Russia’s most notorious criminals: Semion Mogilevich.

    https://www.thedailybeast.com/mueller-reveals-new-manafort-link-to-organized-crime

    Ben burn (b3d5ab)

  202. Hillary is not POTUS but I understand. I would LOVE to send Bush/Cheney to the Hague

    Ben burn (b3d5ab)

  203. Figluzzi said there’s “clearly a pathway that he’s got planned out.”

    “One of the things that I think we’re all realizing is that the Mueller team is much farther along in this investigation and much closer to the Oval Office than many of us realized.

    “And what we’re learning even today is that people that I call the formers, former White House chief of staff Reince Priebus, former White House spokesman Sean Spicer, former interim national security advisor Keith Kellogg, all voluntarily working with or being interviewed by the Mueller team.

    The investigation has ‘penetrated into the White House’

    http://crooksandliars.com/2017/11/ex-fbi-official-mueller-probe-has

    Ben burn (b3d5ab)

  204. The Chinese government kept on losing territory until the atomic bombs were dropped, and Japan surrendered, if I am not mistaken. There were no gains being made against Japan in China in 1945. (not counting when Soviet troops invaded Manchuria after Hiroshima but before Nagasaki.)

    The Chinese communists were making gains – not in the sense of firm military occupation, but gaining political and economic control of the countryside.

    The Encyclopedia Britannica says “According to U.S. war correspondents visiting the Yan’an area in May 1944 and to a group of U.S. observers that established itself there in July, the communists professed allegiance to democracy”

    What the article says is true – the CCP did “profess” love for democracy to the US envoys. Stalin, at times, made similar (and equally disingenuous) noises about democracy in eastern Europe during the war. It is irrelevant to the point at issue, as I never suggested Mao operated democratically. I left it in the quote simply to preserve the continuity of the text.

    The Communists were lying, not the war correspondents I mean they might have been lying, rather tahn dupes, if they reported that as true but this really was Communist Chinese propaganda. I wonder what the reason is for this strange language. Probably an earlier version of this article simply reported this allegiance to democracy as fact. I think Ho Chi Minh also claimed to be a believer in democracy. So did Fidel Castro. And people who make excuses for them claimed that hostility from the U.S> turned them against democracy. Today, the government of Burma is claiming that opposition to their treatment of the Rohingya might push them into the arms of China and Russia. It’s the same thing. They go where they want to go. They go where there is no support for human rights.

    I said that some of Mao’s military accomplishments in the face of adversity – taken in isolation (as confederate apologists ask us to do for Lee) – could be viewed positively. I never suggested he was a nice guy, or a democratic leader, or praiseworthy in any general sense.

    Yes, he succeeded in building a disciplined army. That was not a good thing.

    And my point is precisely that the same is true for Lee.

    Dave (445e97)

  205. They billed themselves as the bulwark again Japanese imperialism, the truth ended up something different.

    narciso (b573b8)

  206. If the Mexican drug cartels invaded Texas and forced the governor and the legislature to legalize heroin; took over the main commercial centers as their own territories; and broke up the rest of the state into little fiefdoms controlled by gangs and “militias” whom they armed and did business with in order to have perpetual chaos; what acts to restore Texas’s sovereignty, peace, dignity and prosperity would be too monstrous, and which political and economic philosophies too unacceptable?

    nk (dbc370)

  207. Their militarism and tyranny was much worse than that of the Japanese.

    Sammy Finkelman (20d02d)

  208. Their militarism and tyranny was much worse than that of the Japanese.

    Really, Sammy?

    nk (dbc370)

  209. nk, you sound as bad as that Chicago Crime Commission who hit on the “macro” of cartels from the south of the border as the biggest threat within City Limits while ignoring all the crime that originates from the black areas of the South Side.

    urbanleftbehind (5eecdb)

  210. I worked at the Chicago Crime Commission. We did focus mostly on organized crime and the corrupt government officials in its pocket. That has been the CCC’s misssion since its founding in 1919. And you don’t think that most of the gang crime in the South Side is fueled by the drug trade?

    nk (dbc370)

  211. When I hear Chicago and crime, besides the wholesale slaughter on the south side, I also think of the previous admin. and it’s laughable idea of what constitutes a threat:

    “”In some ways, [climate change] is akin to the problem of terrorism and ISIL,” Obama said, using an alternate acronym for the terror group.

    Both threats, Obama said, require a long, sustained effort by the United States to assess and neutralize them.

    The administration has long maintained that the effects of climate change — like rising sea levels, extreme weather, drought and crop problems — could create more harm and unrest than terrorism, and require a similar response.”

    harkin (05cfd8)

  212. I dont deny its cause and its effect, but it seems that much more of the crime that can reach out and touch you on a daily basis is committed for the simple satisfaction of one’s wants apart from whether the proceeds get flipped into drugs or if it is serving some sort of tribute for participation in an cartel-based drug enterprise. The hispanic “what you be about?” and block-by-block battles have been their since the 60s and 70s and would probably be there without a robust drug trade to contest. (And by the way, “ramming” by vehicle as a tactic unfortunately had its genesis in these neighborhoods as far back as the 80s – I knew a guy whose role in the neighhorhood gang was to procure used station wagons, SUVs, Vans and Pickups for this purpose) I at least give the CCC credit for transitioning out of hassling what would appear to be octogenarian persons of Italian extraction and their various associates.

    urbanleftbehind (5eecdb)

  213. “….but it seems that much more of the crime that can reach out and touch you on a daily basis is committed for the simple satisfaction of one’s wants apart from whether the proceeds get flipped into drugs”

    “In 2002, in the U.S. about a quarter of convicted property and drug offenders in local jails had committed their crimes to get money for drugs, compared to 5% of violent and public order offenders. Among State prisoners in 2004 the pattern was similar, with property (30%) and drug offenders (26%) more likely to commit their crimes for drug money than violent (10%) and public-order offenders (7%). In Federal prisons property offenders (11%) were less than half as likely as drug offenders (25%) to report drug money as a motive in their offenses.”

    US Bureau Of Justice.

    https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drug-related_crime

    harkin (05cfd8)

  214. > about a quarter of convicted property and drug offenders in local jails had committed their crimes to get money for drugs

    I’m baffled by the phrasing of this. A quarter of drug offenders had committed their drug offenses to get money for drugs? It just seems like a bizarre wording.

    aphrael (3f0569)

  215. Also, those statistics are problematic, because they’re statistics regarding *who is in jail*, but it seems to me that you are trying to use them to glean insight about *who commits crimes*.

    Statistics regarding who is in jail are a bad proxy for information about who commits crimes, unless you can figure out how to control for the fact that investigatorial decisions, prosecutorial decisions, and convictions, will result in a statistical divergence.

    The population of those who are convicted and in jail is *not necessarily* a statistically representative sampling of those who commit crimes.

    aphrael (3f0569)

  216. Their militarism and tyranny was much worse than that of the Japanese.

    212. nk (dbc370) — 11/2/2017 @ 8:35 am

    Really, Sammy?

    Yes, yes.

    Just like the rule of Lenin and Stalin was worse than that of the worst Czar, and Hitler was worse than Kaiser Wilhelm.

    How many Chinese did the Japanese kill, and how many did Mao kill? Which army sacrificed killed more of its own soldiers?

    Sammy Finkelman (20d02d)

  217. Robert Mercer, the hedge fund billionaire who has come under media scrutiny for his role in helping elect Donald Trump, announced today he would step down from his role as co-CEO of Renaissance Technologies. The decision, announced in a memo to Renaissance employees, followed a BuzzFeed News exposé revealing the connections of Breitbart News — partially owned by Mercer — to white nationalists and neo-Nazis.

    https://www.buzzfeed.com/josephbernstein/hedge-fund-billionaire-robert-mercer-steps-down-from-his?utm_term=.bdPJJK5xD#.drallyN1D

    Ben burn (b3d5ab)

  218. 213. urbanleftbehind (5eecdb) — 11/2/2017 @ 8:36 am

    all the crime that originates from the black areas of the South Side.

    AND WHY DOES THAT CRIME EXIST?

    Well, of course, first of all there was housing segregation. Because for the next thing to happen you had to have acres of all black neighborhoods.

    That goes back maybe to 1893, but really the time around World War I.

    Before, you had poorer people living on side streets, not in entirely different neighborhoods. This was the pre-condition. It was probably itself some sort of an attempt to manipulate and drive up real estate prices.

    Then there was a decision made by the Outfit to sell heroin mainly in Negro areas, and to have the addicts pay for it by stealing. They were especially pushed into it by the end of Prohibition. They reached the scale they did Prohibition, but the these organizations didn’t go away with its repeal, and they couldn’t break into the legal liquor business..they were not all that good businessmen and needed huge profit margins.

    Heroin had first been injected by sailors and actors, who adopted the idea of injecting things from diabetics, but that was a limited market. Now they were going after a mass market (but one which might be ignored by the powers that be.)

    In order for this to work, they had to stay out of jail, and in order for that to happen they had to corrupt the police to ignore crime, ALL sorts of crime, and they also had to corrupt politicians who appointed either corrupt judges or useful idiots (liberals who favored not putting people in jail.)

    Getting rid of the Outfit at that point doesn’t really change what was created.

    These high crime black neighborhoods have existed only since the 1930s. They exist in almost every city in the country (for a long time Las Vegas was an exception, although now it’s not.)

    People like to blame illegitimacy for the crime, (which in turn they blame on welfare programs of the mid-1930s) but the truth is the crime came first and the illegitimacy came second, and it took several generations for it to peak or taper off.

    The timing is pretty much given away by two books on the Negro family, one of which ends in 1925 and the other one of which ends in 1930.

    Because something happened then

    That something was drug dealers who also had political influence.

    Sammy Finkelman (20d02d)

  219. > about a quarter of convicted property and drug offenders in local jails had committed their crimes to get money for drugs

    218. aphrael (3f0569) — 11/2/2017 @ 10:05 am

    I’m baffled by the phrasing of this. A quarter of drug offenders had committed their drug offenses to get money for drugs? It just seems like a bizarre wording.

    The whole thing means that people who need money for drugs are more likely to commit nonviolent crimes.

    This statistic is probably based on convictions, and it probably minimizes the percentage amount of crime caused by addicts, since addicts have to steal large amounts of money over and over again, so they probably committed more crimes per conviction. It’s generally true anyway that violent crimes are more likely to land someone in jail sooner.

    The percentage of crime committed by addicts has to be high because the crime rate began to go down within about a year or two of when large numbers of heroin addicts were infected by HIV, and it went down more in places (like New York) where the percentage of addicts who were infected was higher. (it wasn’t abortion that caused the drop in crime)

    It’s not all or most heroin addicts getting sick – it’s also the crime rate going down so that law enforcement could catch up. In other words, creating a virtuous cycle (the opposite of a vicious cycle) It got to be such a virtuous cycle that eventually the number of people in jail in New York went down, even though the probably of winding up in jail if you committed felonies went up..

    Even when a treatment for HIV was developed, and needle exchange programs took off, the virtuous cycle continued because now law enforcement was ahead of the curve. And there are other things that can make law enforcement more efficient. Just don’t let the trend start going the other way. Don’t let the equilibrium level rise.

    This (the infecting of heroin addicts by the AIDS virus) was not done on purpose, Louis Farrakhan, notwithstanding. (Farrakhan claimed that doctors were giving people they considered bad the AIDS virus. He probably did so, in order that addicts should continue using drugs a while longer. I think he was getting some of his support from drug dealers.)

    Sammy Finkelman (20d02d)

  220. Black illegitamcy hovered around 20% in the USA till the mid 60s.

    https://www.urban.org/sites/default/files/publication/23696/412839-The-Moynihan-Report-Revisited.PDF

    harkin (b32ce9)

  221. Forgot to paste quote:

    “In the early 1960s, about 20 percent of black children were born to unmarried mothers, compared with 2 to 3 percent of white children. By 2009, nearly three-quarters of black births and three-tenths of white births occurred outside marriage. Hispanics fell between whites and blacks and followed the same rising trend (historical data on Hispanics are more limited).”

    harkin (b32ce9)

  222. 212 220 @nk

    ZSee this web site:

    http://hawaii.edu/powerkills/CHARNY.CHAP.HTM

    the 1937 Japanese rape and pillage of Nanking (which probably killed some 200,000 people).

    http://hawaii.edu/powerkills/DBG.TAB1.2.GIF

    China under the PRC from 1949 through 1987, murdered abo 35 milllion people. (The KMT from 1928 through 1949) 10 million, and otgehr warlords about 1 million.

    Japan, from 1936 through 194,5 murdered only about 6 million non-Japanese foreign citizens. So, yes, Mao was worse for China than the Japanese.

    Now these estimnates may be off, (he doesn’t seem to give any sources for the KMT so I wonder if the sources are honest, although Chiang did preside over some brutal reprssions) and they don’t account for the number of people under the rule of a government and the length of the rule, but the contrast between Mao and Japan is clear.

    Sammy Finkelman (02a146)

  223. That Mao was worse tan the Japanese is no brainer, but R. J. Rummmel’s. table has Japan being less bad even than the KMT, which just doesn’t seem right. He may be counting soldiers lost in military conflict, and possibly diseases, famine, floods and earthquakes, but still…

    Also, of course counting only deaths doesn’t compare suffering.

    Sammy Finkelman (20d02d)


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