To go beyond all the outraged wailing and shocked gnashing of teeth over the MTV Super Bowl Half-Time Show, and understand what is really going on culturally, the place to begin is with William Strauss & Neil Howe’s 1991 book, Generations: The History of America’s Future-1584 to 2069.
When, seven months ago, I finished writing my book, The West's Last Chance, London had not been attacked by Islamist terrorists, the Tate Museum in London had not removed an art exhibit because it offended radical Moslem sensitivities, and France had not yet experienced the explosion of violence from elements of its Moslem population in its "no-go zone" communities.
The fact that I predicted all those events in my book was not the result of clairvoyance. It was merely the result of a normally intelligent person looking at the facts, and their rather obvious implications, without the blinding effect of a politically correct mentality.
Today is the 93rd birthday of the greatest American of the 20th century: Ronald Reagan. More than any other American of our day, he embodied the moral ideal personified by Aristotle as the man of Megalopsychia, the Great-Souled Man
The Great-Souled Man had a character of such integrity, inspiration, and achievement in the real world that his life expressed, for Aristotle, the Kalon, Moral Beauty.
Five years ago, I wrote the following tribute to this extraordinary man. It will be published in To The Point on every February 6th from now on.
This week we introduce a new feature to To The Point: The Members' Forum, selected articles submitted by TTPers themselves. We launch this feature with TTPer Wayne Daniels. Publication of such submissions does not imply To The Point's full agreement with them. ---JW
June 30, 2004 marked the "Official" end of the Iraqi occupation. Yes, we will have troops on the ground there for years. Remember it is 59 years and counting that we have had troops stationed in Germany and Japan; 50 years and counting in Korea, etc.
I will argue that the only US strategic interests in Iraq are (1) that the Iraqi government not fund or otherwise support terrorist groups; (2) we need military bases on the borders of three of the primary state sponsors of terrorist groups - Syria, Iran and Saudi Arabia; and (3) that enough oil reaches the world markets to keep the price of crude in the $25 to $40 range. As long as these interest are satisfied, we really don't care who controls the streets or the government.
Even in a time of an unceasing barrage of demagogic drivel from the Bush-haters, the manufactured flap over the “missing WMD” has got to set some kind of world record for red herring chutzpah.
Sometimes, when I'm weary of the intifada, the occasional terror attacks, the stumbling economy or the political scandals that seem to dominate the public agenda in Israel, I look at the weekend's newspaper magazines and start to breathe again.
Ariel Sharon’s announcement on February 4, that the 7,500 Jews hunkered down amidst 1.5 million Palestinians in the Gaza Strip have to leave, is giving heartburn to Israel supporters like Mort Klein, head of Zionists of America.
Mort thinks Arik (Sharon’s nickname) has lost his nerve and is selling out. The reality is that Mort only sees the settler’s trees and not a sovereign Israeli forest. Sharon is a strategic genius and just as Machiavellian as ever.
What Sharon’s critics and all supporters of Israel need to understand is this: Sharon is building his Security Fence in order to precipitate a Palestinian Civil War.
One of the meta-reasons America won the Cold War is that Russians play chess, while Americans play poker.
Chess demands great skill and intelligence, particularly at developing complex long-range strategies and anticipating your opponent's moves. But it bears little resemblance to life in the real world. It is completely static and open. Nothing is hidden. Poker is very different. You have to guess what your opponent has and the extent to which he is bluffing. In business, in politics, in life in general, the folks who know how to play poker will almost always fare better than those who know how to play chess.
Something had better jog the liberal mind from its obsessive Bush-hatred. The liberals, on both sides of the Atlantic, are in imminent danger of repeating the great shame of many of their ideological grandparents in the middle of the last century, who became unthinking apologists for Stalin's terror and tyranny.
This coming Sunday, the Iraqi people are holding an election -- the first real election in the 6,000-year history of this ancient people. But the cynicism and indifference of liberals to this extraordinary event should shock the conscience of decent people, because Iraqis are marching through shot and shell to gain this first chance at self-government.
A year from now you and I will be celebrating George W. Bush’s re-election. It’s in the bag, and the reason why is deeper than the economy or Iraq. It’s because GW figured out Bill Clinton’s secret while the Dems forgot it.
As Tony explains here, the just-passed intelligence reform bill is a dog’s breakfast. The best news about its passage is that Duncan Hunter (House Armed Forces Committee Chairman) managed to neuter it at the last moment. By inserting the wording that the NID - the new National Intelligence Director or Intelligence “Czar” -- in carrying out his duties "shall respect and not abrogate the statutory responsibilities of the heads of the departments," Duncan made sure that a good General Counsel from a subordinate
Agency/Department can drive a Humvee through an NID directive if need be. --JW
So it is to be a Czar of all the Intelligence Services. All the president's men have engulfed the remaining opposition to the intelligence reform bill and seen it passed with strong bipartisan support. Like its namesake, The Czar of all the Russias, our new czar is likely to begin what will become a very mixed record.
This is a black day, a day for anyone associated with the Republican Party to be ashamed and embarrassed. Piling a new trillion-dollar Medi-Pander entitlement to appease geezer-beggars on top of all the others that the Republicans should be busy eliminating is way, way beyond scandalous. Why, then, has the Republican Party from President Bush on down become determined to betray its basic principles?
If you think the fighting has been rough in Fallujah, wait until you see Washington in the springtime. President Bush's early personnel decisions for the second term suggest that he is preparing, unilaterally, to take on not only our foreign enemies, but also the Democrats and Washington's most cunning and vicious bureaucracies-all at the same time.
With the nominations of Condoleezza Rice at State, Porter Goss at CIA, Donald Rumsfeld (or an equally tough replacement) at Defense and Stephen Hadley at NSC, the president has created an all-Patton foreign and defense team. Moreover, he has a team that understands that among the necessary targets of their firepower must be, not only our foreign enemies, but also the slouching, sly, insubordinate bureaucrats under their chain of command.
Let’s play fill-in-the-blanks. In general, Americans and Europeans are Christians. Arabs are Moslems. Indians are Hindus. Chinese are _________?
If you have trouble filling in the last blank, it’s because the answer is blank. From time immemorial, the Chinese have been the least religious of any of history’s major civilizations. Daoism, Confucianism, Chinese Buddhism are rationalistic quasi-religions lacking any personal relationship with a transcendent deity or deities. The ancestor- and spirit-worship of Chinese folk religion is individualized to families only.
Whether he intended it or not, John Kerry's much commented upon statement - that terrorism should be reduced to a nuisance like prostitution or gambling -- has engaged the central issue of this presidential campaign. His statement was neither an accident nor as easily dismissed as many people have asserted. Rather, it reflects the institutional policy of the CIA, and is at the heart of the almost open warfare between the Bush White House and the CIA.
