"What utter pukes."

For John, BLUF:  When I was in high school, contemplating college, the only institutions in the Northeast I thought of were the Coast Guard Academy (accepted) and Webb Institute (rejected).  I had no idea about the Ivy League.  Nothing to see here; just move along.

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Ain't No Privilege Like the Harvard Privilege

From Hot Air, by Beege Welborn, 24 October 2023, 2:01 PM.

Here is the lede plus three:

Once upon a time, there was a hallowed aura about even the word, “Harvard.”

People might kind of snicker at replicating that atrocious, grating Massachusetts accent while saying it, but it was still “Harvard.”

And you weren’t getting anywhere near it.

It was one of those special places nestled firmly in American lore.  One of those iconic giants so established in the collective national picture where even just the word conjures up deep thinkers of the past.  The birthplace of movers, shakers and a incubator for brilliance.  John Adams – those kinds of guys.

I will say, the one Harvard Graduate I know, my Wife's Cousin, is a fine fellow, engaging to talk with and very educated.  On the other hand, he was there with another student from Illinois, Ted Kaczynski.

Someone referred to Harvard as a Hedge Fund with a University Attached.

The good news is Harvard is down county.  Down in Cambridge, with strange people, with strange ideas.  We live in the North end of the County, almost on the New Hampshire border.  Praise God.

Hat tip to the InstaPundit.

Regards  —  Cliff

The Internet and Freedom

For John, BLUF:  When I first cmer scross the Internet the watchword was "Informstion Wants to be free."  Todaay the industry leaders, and their academic supporters, are dvocztes for "Information needs to be curated."  Nothing to see here; just move along.

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Elon Musk’s vision for the internet is dangerous nonsense

Here is the sub-headline:

Musk now faces no limit on how much of Twitter’s stock he can buy. He’ll buy as much as he needs to gain total control

From The Guardian (UK), Professor Robert Reich, 12 April 2022, 06.31 EDT.

Here is the lede plus three:

The Russian people know little about Putin’s war on Ukraine because Putin has blocked their access to the truth, substituting propaganda and lies.

Years ago, pundits assumed the internet would open a new era of democracy, giving everyone access to the truth.  But dictators like Putin and demagogues like Trump have demonstrated how naive that assumption was.

At least the US responded to Trump’s lies.  Trump had 88 million Twitter followers before Twitter took him off its platform – just two days after the attack on the Capitol, which he provoked, in part, with his tweets. (Trump’s social media accounts were also suspended on Facebook, YouTube, Instagram, Snapchat, Twitch and TikTok.)

These moves were necessary to protect American democracy.  But Elon Musk – the richest man in the world, with 80 million Twitter followers – wasn’t pleased.  Musk tweeted that US tech companies shouldn’t be acting “as the de facto arbiter of free speech”.

Reviewing the fourth pargraph, Mr Musk is correct. "US tech companies shouldn’t be acting 'as the de facto arbiter of free speech.'"  Isn't that how dictatorships work?  As Citizens, we get to decide who is telling the truth.  For example, every four years, when we vote for President.  We don't need tech compnies telling us how to vote.

This is from Mr Ed Driscoll, blogging at the InstaPundit:

ROBERT REICH IN THE GRAUNIAD:  Elon Musk’s vision for the internet is dangerous nonsense. “Musk has long advocated a libertarian vision of an ‘uncontrolled’ internet.  That’s also the dream of every dictator, strongman and demagogue.”

Because if there is one thing that Iran, CCP China, North Korea, and Putin’s wartime Russia are all famous for, it’s the sweet, unfettered, free flow of information.

Sadly, Professor Reich sounds like a member of the elite who is now affraid that the masses are about to turn out the politicians he favors.

In his book Guns, Germs and Steel, author Jared Diamond says that early on in writing language the way of writing was complicated and restricted to a small group of scribes and was a system for keeping the mjority down.  However, when writing came back with Guttenburg's printing press it turned into a tool for democracy for the maasses.  People like Professor Reich and their Lordships in high tech want to go back to the scribe mode, to control the masses.  As a member of the masses I oppose and resent this way of doing business.

And this assault on the Internet, and on free speech, will impact how I vote.

Hat tip to the InstaPundit.

Regards  —  Cliff

Very Important People

For John, BLUF:  Poet Rudyard Kipling understood, as he wrote "You will do your work on water, An' you'll lick the bloomin' boots of 'im that's got it."  Nothing to see here; just move along.

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The People Our Loser Elite Look Down Upon Are Saving Our Bacon

From Town Hall, by Writer Kurt Schlichter, 23 March 2020.

Here is the lede plus two:

Here are some people who are useless, especially now:  Performance artists, diversity consultants, magic crystal healers, sociology TAs, members of the mainstream media, and gender-unspecified entities who brew kale kombucha.

Here are some people who matter, especially now:  Soldiers, nurses, truckers, cops, the guy who stocks the shelves at Ralphs, farmers, and that dude rebuilding your roof.

The Chinese Bat Soup Flu has certainly clarified some of the blurred lines between what is important and what is frivolous garbage.  Yet, in a time when millions of Americans are at risk of dying as a direct result of ChiCom conspiracies and the bizarre need of its serfs to eat any weird thing that crawls or slithers within reach of their chopsticks, our useless elite is fixated on making sure we don’t hurt the feelz of the very people who stuck us in this predicament.

I do think Mr Schlichter is a little hard on the Elite in American society.  Don't you think that it is a very decent way to distance oneself from those kind of people, by categorizing them as elite and letting them self-isolate?

To the more important point, yes, the important folks in society, the "essential" workers, are those who keep things running.  Yes, the truck driver and the shelf stocker are key to our continued functioning.  Even the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania recognized it when it reopened Service Plazas on the Pennsylvania Turnpike, for truckers.

Hat tip to the InstaPundit.

Regards  —  Cliff

The Anti-Gun Culture

For John, BLUF:  Our betters believe they have to save the rest of us from our ignorance.  Nothing to see here; just move along.

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Guns and the ‘New Class’

Here is the sub-headline:

Column:  Why the debate over gun control is so polarized

From The Washington Free Beacon, by Mr Matthew Continett, 9 August 2019.

Here is the lede plus three:

The pattern was established long ago. A killing spree happens.  The Democratic Party and mainstream media erupt in calls for gun control.  Republicans shy away from cable news for a few days. Various fixes to the background check and mental health systems are proposed, video games are criticized, and eventually our attention turns elsewhere, until another spectacular attack restarts the cycle.  President Trump increases the volume and heightens the perceived stakes.  The advocates of gun control, such as Elizabeth Warren, say he's a "white supremacist.  Opponents of regulation say he's the only thing that stands between them and dispossession of their Second Amendment rights.

Disentangling the various threads of argument in the debate over guns, mass shootings, mental illness, white nationalism, and domestic terrorism would take volumes.  What interests me, as someone who is inclined to support some gun controls, is why the debate takes the shape it does.  Indeed, the fact that I, a child of the D.C. suburbs and graduate of Columbia University, am a self-confessed squish on guns points to a possible explanation.  For the argument over firearms is not really over any of the specific proposals floated in the aftermath of mass murder.  It is over who shall direct the shape of American society, and by what means.

Beginning in the 1970s, some of the writers and editors who became known as neoconservatives observed changes in the American elite.  The tradition of liberal internationalism, which held individual liberty as the preeminent value and believed in equality of opportunity, as well as a safety net, was under assault.  A rising generation of activists charged liberal internationalism with hypocrisy: not only abroad, where intervention in Vietnam had run aground, but also at home, where formal equality under the law had not produced substantive results.  Something was wrong with America, the students said. Only a fundamental transformation of our nation would set things aright.

Neoconservatives called this incipient elite the "new class."  It consists, Irving Kristol wrote in 1975, "of scientists, lawyers, city planners, social workers, educators, criminologists, sociologists, public health doctors, etc.—a substantial number of whom find their careers in the expanding public sector rather than the private." To that list one might add journalists, professors, post-docs, adjuncts, foundation officers, and a great number ofprogrammers, managers, human resource officers, and CEOs.  The neoconservatives never defined the "new class" precisely—something their critics pointed out.  The category was meant to be a catchall, a handy description of the well-schooled professionals who began their long march through America's academic, media, entertainment, government, and corporate institutions in the aftermath of 1968.

The New Class is an excellent term, but it wasn't invented here.  Yugoslav intellectual Milovan Đilas, who defined the Communist apparatchiks as The New Class in his book of the same name.  Per Wikipedia:  "He proposed that the party-state officials formed a class which 'uses, enjoys and disposes of nationalised property'".

Here is how the article ends:

No amount of evidence showing the inefficacy of gun control, or the virtues of alternative policies, will convince the new class to drop its crusade for regulation.  That is not just because guns are safety hazards.  It is because guns remind the new class that it has not succeeded in imposing the values of one part of the country, and one segment of the population, on the rest.

Isn't that the truth!

Hat tip to the InstaPundit.

Regards  —  Cliff

Delaying the Inevitable?

For John, BLUF:  The British voted to leave the European Union and the British Elites can't stand it.  Nothing to see here; just move along.

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MPs 'checked with EU chiefs over Brexit delay' before passing bill

Here is the sub-headline:

MPs prepare for legal battle in case PM attempts to defy law forcing him to ask for extension

From The Manchester Guardian, by Mr Michael Savage—no, not that Michael Savage—7 September 2019.

Here is the lede plus one:

Senior MPs opposing a no-deal Brexit sought assurances from the EU that their bid for a three-month delay would be granted, it has emerged.

European leaders were sounded out before MPs, including the “rebel alliance”, passed a bill, which is expected to receive royal assent on Monday, forcing Boris Johnson to ask for an extension.  However, those involved said there were no guarantees in a process that was changing by the day.

It comes as the rebels, including former Tories who have been thrown out of the party, prepare for a legal battle in case the prime minister attempts to defy a law forcing him to ask for an extension on 19 October.  The UK is due to leave the EU on 31 October, but the new law would envisage a Brexit extension until the end of January 2020.

Opposition parties have agreed to block a general election before a Brexit extension has been agreed.

I especially like the fourth paragraph, where the British Elites, the Remainers, pledge themselves to NOT seeking the will of the people through a national election.  Think of Climate Change and how the Elites of the Democratic Party want you to stop eating cheese burgers and using plastic straws, not through persuasion, but by force.  It’s for your own good.

As Writer Bertolt Brecht wrote of the East German uprising of 1953:

After the uprising of the 17th of June
The Secretary of the Writers Union
Had leaflets distributed in the Stalinallee
Stating that the people
Had forfeited the confidence of the government
And could win it back only By redoubled efforts.

Would it not be easier
In that case for the government
To dissolve the people
And elect another?

It will be interesting to see how BoJo deals with this problem.  He can't dissolve Parliament, but he can send them home, so they do no more mischief.

It does seem a tad disloyal for Members of Parliament to be negotiating with the EU Elites in Brussels in their fight with the Prime Minister.  And careless to let their disloyal actions leak.

Hat tip to the InstaPundit.

Regards  —  Cliff

Who Are The Protesters

For John, BLUF:  This is about the protests over the last four weeks in Paris, France, but it is also about other voters.  Those other voters would include Les Deplorables And the Brexiters. Nothing to see here; just move along.

---

From Twitter:

Glenn Greenwald    @ggreenwald

The inability of rich neoliberal centrist elites in western capitals to understand - or even hide their scorn for - the anger & grievances of rural and working-class people over their economic suffering is one of the 2 or 3 most important causes of contemporary political changes:
Quote Tweet

Neera Tanden    @neeratanden

I don’t understand why any progressive is cheering French protesters who are amassing against a carbon tax.

7:54 AM · Dec 9, 2018 · Twitter Web Client

The climate change folks seem to not understand there are other equities out there.

Hat tip to InstaPundit.

Regards  —  Cliff

What Is Going On In Paris?

For John, BLUF:  It is more than Paris, and it is more fundamental that just Donald J Trump.  I think Columnist Fareed Zakaria best captures what is going on.  The elites need to be paying attention or they will be replaced.  Nothing to see here; just move along.

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The new dividing line in Western politics

From The Wash Post, by Columnist Fareed Zakaria, 13 December 2018.

Here is the lede plus three:

For Stephen K. Bannon, the way to create an enduring populist majority is to combine forces on the left and right.  That’s why he was in Italy this year, where parties representing those two sides joined together in a governing alliance.  That’s why Bannon hopes to lure some of Sen. Bernie Sanders’s (I-Vt.) supporters away from the Democratic Party.  But the next place we might be watching the rise of a new left-right populism is France.

Thus far, the “yellow vest” protests in France have lacked a party, structure and leadership.  But lists of demands have been circulating.  At their heart is an unworkable fantasy, such as a constitutional cap on taxes at 25 percent, coupled with a massive increase in social spending.  What is striking about these manifestos is that they combine traditional wish lists from the left and right.  No wonder, then, that nearly 90 percent of people who back the major far-left and far-right parties view the movement favorably, compared with only 23 percent of people in President Emmanuel Macron’s centrist party.

The “yellow vest” uprising has also spread to Belgium, where the fragile governing coalition has collapsed, largely over the issue of immigration.  But there again, the protests have the feel of generalized discontent coming from left and right.  Just as in France, the United States and Britain, the movement appears to be a rural backlash against urban elites.

The fissure between relatively better-educated urbanites and less-educated rural populations appears to have become the new dividing line in Western politics.  “Outsiders” feel ignored or looked down upon and feel deep resentment toward metropolitan elites.  It’s part class, part culture, but there is a large element of economics to it as well.

Yes, this is about ten days old, but this best captures, in my mind, what is going on.

Hat tip to the InstaPundit.

Regards  —  Cliff

Political Unhappiness in France

For John, BLUF:  Government elites not paying attention to the Masses is a several hundred year problem in France.  Nothing to see here; just move along.

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In praise of the Gilets jaunes

From The Spectator, By Mr Brendan O'Neill, 3 December 2018.

Trumpism isn't just an American phenom.

Hat tip to the InstaPundit.

Regards  —  Cliff

remembering President G H W Bush

For John, BLUF:  I believe Mr Douthat is on to something.  Nothing to see here; just move along.

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Why We Miss the WASPs

Here is the sub-headline:

Their more meritocratic, diverse and secular successors rule us neither as wisely nor as well.

From The Old Gray Lady, by Opinion Columnist Ross Douthat, 5 December 2018.

A nice look back by Mr Douthat.

Hat tip to the InstaPundit.

Regards  —  Cliff

The National Divide

For John, BLUF:  There are arenas where the likes of us will never play.  Nothing to see here; just move along.

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'Front Row Kids' and values have taken over our courts: Glenn Reynolds

Here is the sub-headline:

The problem is not just that Back Row America’s values won’t be considered — it’s that the Supreme Court may not even realize it’s ignoring them.

From USA Today, for 23 October 2016, by Law Professor Glenn Harlan Reynolds.

In the wake of the 2016 presidential election, we heard a lot about America’s division into two mutually hostile camps:  A largely coastal, urban party run by educated elites, and a largely rural and suburban “Flyover Country” party composed of people who did not attend elite schools and who do not see themselves as dependent on those who do.  This divide is more fundamental than mere partisan identification, as there are Democrats and Republicans in both groups.

One of the best formulations of this division comes from photographer Chris Arnade, who has spent years documenting the lives of America’s forgotten classes.  In his characterization, America is split between the “Front Row Kids,” who did well in school, moved to managerial or financial or political jobs and see themselves as the natural rulers of their fellow citizens, and the “Back Row Kids,” who placed less emphasis on school and who resent the pretensions and bossiness of the Front Row Kids.

While teaching constitutional law after the election, it occurred to me that while the Back Row Kids can elect whomever they want as president, senators or representatives, there is one branch of the federal government (and all state governments) that is, more or less by its nature, limited to Front Row Kids: the judiciary.

Speaking of "check your privilege".  There are levels of elitism in the Law.  West Coast Law Grads need not apply for East Coast jobs, including in DC.  There are exceptions, but, as the French would say, "The exception that proves the rule."  Even amongst East Coast Law School Graduates, there is a hierarchy.  Look at which schools produce the membership of SCOTUS.

Hat tip to the InstaPundit.

Regards  —  Cliff

The Elites Can't Save You, or Themselves

For John, BLUF:  When the Elites are the problem, the People look elsewhere for help.  Nothing to see here; just move along.

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Removing Trump Won’t Solve America’s Crisis

The sub-headline:

The elites are the problem.

This is Mr Robert W Merry, in The American Conservative, on 18 May 2017.

Here are two early paragraphs:

When a man as uncouth and reckless as Trump becomes president by running against the nation’s elites, it’s a strong signal that the elites are the problem.  We’re talking here about the elites of both parties.  Think of those who gave the country Hillary Clinton as the Democratic presidential nominee—a woman who sought to avoid accountability as secretary of state by employing a private email server, contrary to propriety and good sense; who attached herself to a vast nonprofit “good works” institution that actually was a corrupt political machine designed to get the Clintons back into the White House while making them rich; who ran for president, and almost won, without addressing the fundamental problems of the nation and while denigrating large numbers of frustrated and beleaguered Americans as “deplorables.”  The unseemliness in all this was out in plain sight for everyone to see, and yet Democratic elites blithely went about the task of awarding her the nomination, even to the point of employing underhanded techniques to thwart an upstart challenger who was connecting more effectively with Democratic voters.

At least Republican elites resisted the emergence of Trump for as long as they could. Some even attacked him vociferously.  But, unlike in the Democratic Party, the Republican candidate who most effectively captured the underlying sentiment of GOP voters ended up with the nomination.  The Republican elites had to give way.  Why?  Because Republican voters fundamentally favor vulgar, ill-mannered, tawdry politicians?  No, because the elite-generated society of America had become so bad in their view that they turned to the man who most clamorously rebelled against it.

Then the author proceeds to list the areas where the elites have their own crisis, in that the votes think that the solutions offered by the elites are not working for those voters.  This is the crisis.  The elites can claim those voters are Les Deplorables, but unless they become discouraged voters, they are a problem.

Then we see the "slow motion coup" in action.  Not the solution.

Now comes the counterrevolution.  The elites figure that if they can just get rid of Trump, the country can return to what they consider normalcy—the status quo ante, before the Trumpian challenge to their status as rulers of America.  That’s why there is so much talk about impeachment even in the absence of any evidence thus far of “high crimes and misdemeanors.”  That’s why the firing of James Comey as FBI director raises the analogy of Nixon’s “Saturday Night Massacre.”  That’s why the demonization of Russia has reached a fevered pitch, in hopes that even minor infractions on the part of the president can be raised to levels of menace and threat.

Ross Douthat, the conservative New York Times columnist, even suggests the elites of Washington should get rid of Trump through the use of the Constitution’s 25th Amendment, which allows for the removal of the president if a majority of the cabinet informs the Congress that he is “unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office” and if a two-thirds vote of Congress confirms that judgment in the face of a presidential challenge.  This was written of course for such circumstances of presidential incapacity as ill health or injury, but Douthat’s commitment to the counterrevolution is such that he would advocate its use for mere presidential incompetence.

Good luck to us.

Hat tip to the InstaPundit.

Regards  —  Cliff

The Elites Never Listen

TRIGGER WARNING:  In which I suggest that the elites can be wrong from time to time.

For John, BLUF:  What is Local Girl Makes Good's line?  "Fasten your seatbelts, it's going to be a bumpy night!"  Nothing to see here; just move along.

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The Shallow State

Here is the sub-headline:

Forget the conspiracy theories. Something much more dangerous is seeking to gut our government and change the character of our society.

This is from the magazine Foreign Policy, which, in this Trump Era, has become relentlessly anti-Trump.  The author is Mr David Rothkopf and the dateline is 22 February 2017. A friend of mine noted that "This could be read as a defense of the elite."  Yes, the bien-pensant.

Here is an except:

The shallow state is in many respects the antithesis of the deep state.  The power of the deep state comes from experience, knowledge, relationships, insight, craft, special skills, traditions, and shared values.  Together, these purported attributes make nameless bureaucrats into a supergovernment that is accountable to no one.  That is a scary prospect.  But the nature of bureaucracies, human nature, inertia, checks and balances, and respect for the chain of command makes it seem a bit far-fetched to me.  (The bureaucracy will drive Trump, like many presidents, mad, and some within it will challenge him, but that's not the same thing.)

The shallow state, on the other hand, is unsettling because not only are the signs of it ever more visible but because its influence is clearly growing.  It is made scarier still because it not only actively eschews experience, knowledge, relationships, insight, craft, special skills, tradition, and shared values but because it celebrates its ignorance of and disdain for those things.  Donald Trump, champion and avatar of the shallow state, has won power because his supporters are threatened by what they don't understand, and what they don't understand is almost everything.  Indeed, from evolution to data about our economy to the science of vaccines to the threats we face in the world, they reject vast subjects rooted in fact in order to have reality conform to their worldviews.  They don't dig for truth; they skim the media for anything that makes them feel better about themselves.  To many of them, knowledge is not a useful tool but a cunning barrier elites have created to keep power from the average man and woman.  The same is true for experience, skills, and know-how.  These things require time and work and study and often challenge our systems of belief.  Truth is hard; shallowness is easy.

So, darned if you do and darned it you don't.  The elites think they know what is good for the rest of us.  But, their track record isn't so great.  Think of all the nations they have led into ruin.

If a bunch of people think their nation is going in the wrong direction they can vote the politicians out, and if that isn't possible (my wife just asked me "Can't the people of Venezuela do anything about their Government?) the only thing left is Revolution, and you know how that usually turns out.  We were lucky, as were the British.  Others not so much.

And speaking of the Elites, what is that line from Oliver Cromwell?  "I beseech you, in the bowels of Christ, think it possible you may be mistaken."

Regards  —  Cliff

Is Literature Dead?

For John, BLUF:  Will it still be OK to read the literature of other people?  Nothing to see here; just move along.

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Will the Left Survive the Millennials?

From the pages of The Old Gray Lady we have an OpEd by Novelist Lionel Shriver.

We have Law Professor Ann Althouse examine some of the issues, including the ACLU defense of Neo-Nazis marching in Skokie, Illinois.

But, to the issue, Ms Shriver gave a talk in Australia, to the Brisbane Writers Festival.  In the audience was Ms Yassim Abdel-Magied, born in Sudan and now an engineer and memoirist in Australia.  Ms Abdel-Magied walked out, because she was offended by what she saw as cultural appropriation.  The ever cranky Guardian picked up the story and the rest is history.

So, apparently, we can only write about our own small circle of life, within our race, religion, gender and socio-economic milieu.  We can only write about those things that represent our own cultural background.  The rest is cultural appropriation.  To put it in terms Ms Abdel-Magiedmight understand, if she writes fiction she can talk about engineers, but she would be out of her element writing about chemists.

This, if adopted, would mean the end of literature.

Ms Shriver notes that…

Now the role of oppressor has passed to the left.  In Australia, where I spoke, Section 18C of the Racial Discrimination Act makes it unlawful to do or say anything likely to “offend, insult, humiliate or intimidate,” providing alarming latitude in the restriction of free speech.  It is Australia’s conservatives arguing for the amendment of this law.

And here is Ms Shriver's sad conclusion.

Protecting freedom of speech involves protecting the voices of people with whom you may violently disagree.  In my youth, liberals would defend the right of neo-Nazis to march down Main Street.  I cannot imagine anyone on the left making that case today.

This reminds me of Turkish President Erdogen and his statement that Democracy is like a street car.  When you get to your destination you get off.

Hat tip to the Althouse blog.

Regards  —  Cliff

Explaining the Comey Presser

For John, BLUF:  The facts are now out there, so it is really up to the voters.  Nothing to see here; just move along.

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From the Lawfare Blog we have "Jim Comey's Statement on the Clinton Emails: A Quick and Dirty Analysis" by Benjamin Wittes.  There has been a lot of "explaining".  This is pretty good, except, like many, the author thinks that the reactions are all on the Right.  My reading of Facebook is that the Bernie Crowd is also outraged, maybe more so.  To miss that point is to continue to not understand this election, a problem that is rampant.

Regards  —  Cliff

A House Divided

For John, BLUF:  Abraham Lincoln, a house divided can not stand.  Nothing to see here; just move along.

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A Party Divided, and None Too Soon

Ms Peggy Noonan, writing in The Wall Street Journal at the beginning of the month, says "Beltway Republicans will have to come to terms with how they lost Middle America".

Too right.

Regards  —  Cliff