Sunday, April 7, 2019

Aggressive & Mean



I must begin with a disclaimer.  The research on which Colbert's recent monologue is derived from E-Poll (www.epoll.com) on whose board I have served for many years.  E-poll does a tremendous job on gathering useful marketing data.  It was their data that led to the New York Times article which came to the attention of Colbert and his writing staff.  Here is the article...www.nytimes.com/2019/04/01/us/politics/trump-e-score-rating.html.

The problem with Colbert and the New York Times article is not the data which is sound.  The problem lies in the interpretation of this data.

When Americans go into a voting booth they know that they are not going in to select a friend, a spouse or someone they would like to have a beer with.  They are not voting for the person who do best as a clown for  their child's next birthday party.

Americans know that they are selecting the nation's Commander in chief who has principle responsibility for the nation's security.  Americans know that they are choosing the person who must deal with Xi's China, Putin's Russia and, at least for now, Maduro's Venezuela. Most Americans know that a good President must have the characteristics of a good junkyard dog -- they must be aggressive and mean.

Consider some of the great American Presidents in our amazing history.  George Washington, the father of our country, proved his mettle in the American Revolution.  He was an outstanding commander who endured hardships alongside his troops at Valley Forge and aggressively led his forces in an attack the day after Christmas 1776 at the Battle of Trenton.  Lincoln lacked military experience but ultimately emerged as a superb Commander in Chief in the American Civil War.  He even took extraordinary measures such as suspending habeas corpus to safeguard the Union.  He authorized and approved aggressive strategies such as Sherman's March to the Sea.  Franklin Delano Roosevelt was also an aggressive Commander in Chief who ordered the Doolittle Raid in April 1942 and the assassination of Admiral Yamamoto by a flight of P-38s in April 1942. All of these men aggressively acted to defend the interests of the United States.

The "mean" adjective ascribed to Trump by E-Poll respondents seems initially a bit more problematic.  But, again, consider Washington, Lincoln and FDR.  King George III and the many American Tories who supported him undoubtedly believed that Washington was a "mean" man.  Jefferson Davis and most in the Confederacy felt that Lincoln was a hard-hearted and mean individual.  Hitler and the Nazis were convinced that FDR was a mean guy too.

This is not to imply that Trump now belongs in the pantheon of great presidents.  The mere possibility that Trump might someday earn a high place in historic esteem is anathema to the left.  But the truth is that only time can tell on this score.

History does clearly teach us that aggression and perceived "meanness" are no barriers to presidential greatness.



Winston Churchill famously said: "You have enemies? Good. That means you've stood up for something, sometime in your life."  All those who stand up for anything will make enemies and will, therefore, be accused of being "mean".

Winston Churchill was not "sexy" or "physically fit" when he led Britain during World War II.  But he was a remarkable and inspiring leader.  FDR was, of course, disabled due to polio yet he too was a great President.

The qualities of aggressiveness and meanness lend themselves not merely to war but also to peace and prosperity.  When it comes to international trade negotiations aren't these qualities superior to the passivity and wimpiness that has governed our strategy for decades?  Ditto for border security.

The headline writers at the New York Times got it exactly wrong (Trump Lives by Ratings. He won't like this one).  The E-Poll research shows that Trump owns aggression and meanness and, if he runs on it in 2020 as America's favorite junkyard dog, he will coast to victory.  He should love this research which is, in fact a blueprint for victory! Let the Democrats be the party of Mister Rogers.

We Americans know that we inhabit a dangerous world, a world filled with dictators and tyrants, a world where journalists are executed and American students abroad can wind up brain dead like Otto Warmbier.  We absolutely need a President who will be "aggressive" and  "mean" to those who wish us ill.



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Tuesday, March 26, 2019

How the West Colluded with Russia to Win WW2



Two recently published books shed light upon a period when the West colluded (productively) with Russia during World War II.  Winston Groom's The Allies: Roosevelt, Churchill, Stalin and the Unlikely Alliance that won World War II is a triple biography of the three principle Allied wartime leaders that was published in 2018 (www.amzn.com/1426219660.  The Kremlin Letters: Stalin's Wartime Correspondence with Churchill and Roosevelt, edited by David Reynolds and Vladimir Pechatnov was also published in 2018 (www.amzn.com/0300226829.  The West did far more than merely collude with Russia -- they cooperated and coordinated with the Soviet Bear to win the world's bloodiest war.



Three titanic egos guided the destinies of the world on the Allied side in World War II.  Winston Groom, the author of Forrest Gump and an acclaimed historian, has written a fascinating study about the diverse lives and backgrounds of the architects of Allied victory.  Churchill was a Victorian soldier, journalist and historian who would lead Britain during her finest hour.  Churchill's impassioned speeches would give a roar to the British lion.  Roosevelt was an eloquent and formidable politician from a patrician family in New York who, in spite of being crippled by polio, managed to be elected an unparalleled four terms as president and to guide America through the Depression and the Second World War.  Stalin, the vaunted "Man of Steel", remains the most mysterious of this triumvirate.  He was Georgian who was abused by an alcoholic father, became a Marxist at age sixteen and robbed banks to help finance the Bolshevik Revolution led by Lenin.   Stalin was a ruthless leader (far more so than Putin) who slaughtered the Kulak farmers, had thousands Polish officers butchered in the Katyn massacre and bears responsibility as prime author of World War II on account of the Molotov-Ribbentrop agreement which allowed Hitler to invade Poland in 1939.  In spite of his blindness to coming Nazi threat (he ignored many warnings from Churchill among others), Stalin ultimately proved to be a highly capable leader of the vast Red Army.


These three men believed in different ideologies.  Churchill was an unapologetic Imperialist.  Roosevelt was an Atlanticist with a Groton/Harvard background, a pragmatic liberal who hired many Republicans to help win the war (Knox, Stimson, MacArthur, Donovan, etc.).  Stalin's education in the school of Revolution left him paranoid and brutal.

Each of thee men had their weaknesses.  Churchill could be swept away by the flow of his own formidable rhetoric.  Roosevelt was self-confident to the point of arrogance -- in one message to Churchill, FDR declares "I can handle Stalin" though the two had never met at the time.  Stalin was cold-blooded not only with his people but even with his own family.  He refused, for example, to bargain after his son Yakov was captured by the Germans. Yakov was shot while trying to escape.

The Kremlin Letters reveals that all three men could be vain, arrogant and, frequently, deceitful in their correspondence.  Stalin blustered when confronted by the facts of Katyn massacre.  FDR was not always candid with Churchill despite their special relationship.  And so forth.

But these points miss the really central insight of The Kremlin Letters -- The Allies won the war in large part because they did communicate and coordinate their strategy.  The timing of Operation Bagration, a massive Soviet offensive of 1944 was set to coincide with the D-Day landings.  This made it impossible for the Nazis to effectively respond to the crises erupting on their Eastern and Western fronts simultaneously.

No Axis version of The Kremlin Letters will be forthcoming.  Neither Hitler nor Mussolini ever met Hirohito face to face.  There were no Axis wartime conferences such as the Allies held in Tehran and Yalta.  The Pearl Harbor attack of December 1941 was as great a surprise to the Germans and Italians as it was to the Americans.  The Axis dictators never really trusted each other.  Mussolini invaded Greece in October 1940 without having consulted in advance with Hitler's Reich.  Nor did Hitler coordinate his September 1939 invasion of Poland with his Italian and Japanese allies.  All of the Axis leaders functioned essentially as lone wolves revealing the essence of dictatorship.

All successful alliances, whether they are marriages, business partnerships or military alliances require frequent communication.  During WW2 the Allies principle mode of communication was the telegraph.  Stalin was afraid to fly.  Face to face gatherings of the Big Three were rare.

FDR, recognizing the importance of face to face communication and lacking full mobility due to his affliction, made use of trusted representatives such as Harry Hopkins to act as surrogates.  In 1942 Roosevelt even tapped Wendell Willkie (the losing 1940 Republican presidential nominee) as a representative to Stalin's Moscow.  The contrast with our own poisoned political atmosphere is startling.  It would be unthinkable today to imagine Trump appointing Hillary Clinton to a diplomatic role or vice versa.

It remains difficult for us in the West to appreciate the staggering scale of suffering which the Soviet Union endured in World War II.  Over 27 million Soviet soldiers and civilians were killed in the conflict that became known as the Great Patriotic War.  Moreover, four out of five German soldiers were killed on the Eastern front in the war.  It is no wonder that Stalin was constantly howling for a second front to be opened in Europe.  Western leaders of democratic and representative governments would have been politically unable to absorb these horrendous casualty figures.  Churchill was right to delay D-Day for as long as possible sparing thousands of Allied lives that would have been lost in a 1942 or 1942 invasion of France.  In spite of the massive Soviet bloodletting, a sitting American president has never attended the annual May Day victory commemorations in Moscow americanconservativeinlondon.blogspot.com/2012/03/moscows-65th-anniversary-victory-day.html).

Groom's work, (though slightly marred by poor editing as on page 267 where he means to discuss the Spanish "Blue" division which fought in Russia instead of Spanish Communist fighters) is a worthwhile introduction to the collaboration of these three wartime titans.  The Kremlin Letters is a wonderful resource for those who wish to go deeper and explore the correspondence of these men who shaped the war and our world.



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Thursday, February 28, 2019

Trump & Truman

Truman & Trump

At first glance Trump and Truman were very different men and very different US Presidents.  Truman was a Democrat and Trump is a Republican.  Truman was a failed businessman (Haberdasher) and farmer from Missouri while Trump was a real estate promoter from New York.  Trump had a wealthy father while Truman did not.  Truman served honorably as an artillery captain during World War I while Trump seems to have evaded the draft with bone spurs during the Vietnam War.  Truman was a founder of NATO while Trump is a frequent critic of the Western Alliance.  Truman used to start the day with a shot of bourbon (he was partial to Old Grandad) while Trump is a teetotaller,  And so on.

Look a bit deeper, however, and one can discover many parallels and similarities between Truman and Trump that go far beyond the first four letters of their surnames.  Consider the following ten points...

2 Harvard men
preceded Truman and Trump

1) Both Truman and Trump were preceded in office by multi-term winning Democratic presidents who had run on Change platforms in tumultuous economic times.  Both of their predecessors had Ivy league educations and well deserved reputations for eloquent public speaking.  FDR was a Harvard undergraduate who went to Law School at Columbia while Obama was a Columbia undergraduate who went to Harvard Law.

2) Remember the famous Dewey Defeats Truman headline from the Chicago Tribune?  Both men were widely expected by the media and pollsters to lose the one Presidential election that each man won.  The many similarities between Truman's victory in 1948 and Trump's in 2016 are, in fact, uncanny.  Both men ran against opponents who had more presidential campaign experience than themselves.  Dewey had been the Republican nominee against FDR in 1944 while Hillary Clinton ran unsuccessfully in 2008.  Both Dewey and Clinton ran lackluster campaigns that were perceived to be mere coronations.  Dewey and Clinton both enjoyed tremendous media support for their campaigns.  Truman launched his famous whistle-stop cross country campaign with an armored train called the Ferdinand Magellan; Trump flew by plane to his many rallies.  Both delivered partisan red meat for their respective audiences.  Truman hammered the "Do-Nothing congress" while Trump attacked "Crooked Hillary".  Both Truman and Trump were tireless campaigners who simply out hustled their respective opponents to gain their electoral victories.  Oddsmakers placed Truman as a 4 to 1 chance in 1948 with Trump around 7 to 1.  Both men carried the state of Missouri and lost the state of New York in their winning campaigns.  The media of 1948 and 2016 ate massive amounts of crow following the unforeseen victories of these two men.

Boss Pendergast went to the Big House

Manafort and Cohen are headed for the Big House

3) Both Truman and Trump had unsavory political associates who got into trouble and did (or will do) prison time.  Thomas Joseph (T.J.) Pendergast was Truman's principal sponsor and mentor who guided Harry to his first political office -- a judgeship.  Pendergast was implicated in voter fraud in Kansas City and convicted of tax evasion.  Boss Pendergast spent 15 months in Leavenworth.  Truman still chose to attend his 1945 funeral.  Trump's political associates, Paul Manafort and Michael Cohen, have both been convicted of white collar crimes and will begin prison sentences in 2019.

4) Truman and Trump both have faced charges of racism.  Truman frequently used the "N" word, adored Robert E. Lee and even paid $10 for a KKK membership card in the 1920s before changing his mind (Source: Truman, David McCullough, 1992, p 164).  Trump made thoughtless and insensitive remarks following the tragic 2017 Charlottesville riot.  Simultaneously, both men materially advanced the causes of minorities -- Truman with reforms in the US military and Trump with improved minority unemployment figures.

5) Both Harry and Donald were extremely critical of the media.   In an October 1948 Newsweek poll of political reporters, 50 out of 50 picked Dewey to win the election.  Truman dismissed Roy Roberts of the Kansas City Star as "a no-good can of lard".  He referred to Walter Winchell and Drew Pearson as "newsliars"and he nicknamed the Alsop brothers as "the Sop Sisters".  After a Washington Post music critic panned his daughter Margaret's concert recital he wrote a letter to him declaring that "you'll need a new nose" if they met in person (Source: Truman, David McCullough, 1992, p 819 and 829).  Trump has, of course, been relentlessly hostile to the "Fake News" media throughout his political career.

6) Truman and Trump could each be economical with the truth.  In 1946, for example, Truman hosted and introduced Churchill to a Fulton, Missouri audience.  Winston Churchill, prior to his famous "Iron Curtain" speech had provided Truman with the text of his upcoming speech which he read with interest.  In the initial media furor which followed the speech (Churchill as a warmonger, etc.), Truman told reporters that he never knew what Churchill was going to say  (Source: Truman, David McCullough, 1992, p 490).  Trump has a well-deserved reputation for hyperbolic statements and inaccuracies.  At the same time, both men have a reputation for "Plain Speaking".  Truman and Trump told or tell it like it is.  What you see is what you get with both men.  They are among are most transparent presidents.

7) Both men have made serious errors of judgement.  In 1952 Truman nationalized the Steel industry in a clear example of presidential overreach that was overturned by a liberal-dominated Supreme Court.   Wags even taunted him with the phrase, "To err is Truman".  Robert Taft called for Truman's impeachment following his sacking of General MacArthur.  Trump, for his part, has made numerous blunders.  The most recent has been the Trump-initiated government shutdown over wall funding which expired with little to show for it.

Truman Little White House
Key West, FL

8)  Truman and Trump shared a love of Florida.  Truman would retreat many times to the "Little White House" in Key West, Florida.  Trump retires to his real estate development at Mar a Lago.  Florida went for Truman in 1948 and for Trump in 2016.

9)  Truman and Trump have made important determinations on national security that remain deeply controversial to this day.  Truman employed two atomic bombs in the final stages of the war against Japan (americanconservativeinlondon.blogspot.com/2012/09/trumans-decision-to-use-atomic-bombs-on.html) in order to spare the lives of American soldiers who were poised to execute a bloody invasion of the home islands.  In 1951 he sacked Douglas MacArthur for insubordination during the Korean War.  Trump, meanwhile, has insisted that the wall on America's southern border is a vital part of American security.

10) Trump and Truman have each proven surprisingly credulous with totalitarian dictators.  Truman at the Potsdam Conference in 1945 thought he was telling Stalin about the existence of the atomic bomb though we now know that the dictator was well aware of the Manhattan Project as a result of Soviet espionage.  Trump, for his part, readily seems to accept the word of Kim Jung Un that he had no prior knowledge of the brutal treatment meted out to the American student Otto Warmbier.

CONCLUDING THOUGHTS
It is interesting to note that Truman and Trump both share Celtic ancestry.  Truman had Scotch-Irish ancestors while Trump's mother was of Scottish descent.  Both of them are pugnacious and feisty Celts.

Truman's reputation has risen after leaving office and after his death.  Only time will tell whether Trump's historical estimation rises or falls.

 In 1950 Kim Jung Un's grandfather initiated the Korean War with an attack into south Korea to which Truman was forced to respond.  Now in 2019 Trump is attempting to negotiate a final peace on the Korean peninsula.  Truman and Trump have more in common than you might suppose.



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Saturday, February 23, 2019

A Valentine for Captain Cook...?



February is the romantic month in the calendar with Valentine's Day falling on the 14th of the month.  On Valentine's Day 1779, two hundred and forty years ago this month, Captain Cook's "Invasion / Exploration" of Hawaii would come to a tragic end.  Two hundred and forty years ago Captain Cooks' goose was cooked by the Native Hawaiians many of whom did regard him as an Invader.

We wrote about this in the Hawaii chapter of America Invaded: A State by State Guide to Fighting on American Soil (www.americainvaded.com)...


"In 1778, with the arrival of Captain Cook at Waimea Bay on the island of Kauai, two warrior cultures collided in mutual misunderstanding.

Captain Cook of Britain’s Royal Navy was on his third voyage of exploration. His preferred technique for dealing with native populations was a combination of bluff, hostage taking, and firepower.

In his Journals, Cook explicitly described how his exploration method could be construed or misconstrued as an invasion:

Cook Plaque Westminster Abbey, London
We attempt to land in a peaceable manner, if this succeeds its well, if not we land nevertheless and maintain the footing we thus got by the Superiority of our  firearms, in what other light can they than at  first look upon us but as invaders of their Country; time and some acquaintance with us can only convince them of their mistake.

 At  first the Hawaiians regarded Cook with reverence. Many prostrated themselves at his feet, and some may have taken him for the god Lono. Some of the women were eager to trade sex for nails. His two ships were restocked with fresh water, fruits, and vegetables. Cook christened Hawaii the Sandwich Islands in honor of his patron, the Earl of Sandwich.

Cook departed the islands to voyage north to Alaska, but returned to Kealakekua on the Big Island in February of 1779. His ship, the Resolution, had a broken mast that needed repairing. Cook described the native Hawaiians in glowing terms: “these people trade with the least suspicion of any Indians I ever met ... It is also remarkable that they have never once attempted to cheat us in exchanges or once to commit a theft.”

Cook Monument, Big Island of Hawaii

The death of Cook on February 14, 1779, in Hawaii remains something of a mystery to this day. His crew had earlier taken some sacred wooden palings from the Hawaiians for use as firewood.  This distressed the native people. Cook’s attempt to seize a local priest mis red badly.  A mob of Hawaiians gathered. Cook  red his two pistols. He was stabbed with an iron dagger, which must have been procured or stolen from one of his ships. Four royal marines were also killed in the skirmish. Cook’s body was seized by the Hawaiians, mutilated, and partially devoured. Today, a white obelisk commemorates the spot near where Cook fell."



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Friday, December 28, 2018

Spike Lee's Fake Klan History



The New York Times writes that "BlacKkKlansman is a furious,...blunt and brilliant confrontation with the truth."

In fact Spike Lee's Black KkKlansman avoids the truth by distorting history and the true story from which it was derived in a transparent attempt to score political points against the Trump administration.  In 2014 Ron Stallworth, the first black detective in the Colorado Springs Police Department, published his memoir about his amazing life (www.amzn.com/1250299055).  Stallworth is an American law enforcement hero who managed to infiltrate the Ku Klux Klan and embarrass the Klan's Grand Wizard David Duke.

Movies are not documentaries and one understands the need for dramatic license.  But Spike Lee fundamentally altered Stallworth's account in order to create a clumsy leftist agitprop against the Trump administration and all Republicans.

What did Spike Lee get wrong?  Nearly everything.

The first sentence of Stallworth's memoir gives us a clue -- "All of this began in October 1978."  The events in the film take place in 1972 with Nixon and Agnew election signs prominently featured with the Klan supporters.  In fact, however, Stallworth's undercover operation and David Duke's visit to Colorado took place in the late 1970s during the Carter administration long after Nixon had resigned from office.  Clearly the time was shifted in an attempt to blame Republicans for the despicable race hatred of the KKK.  The central historic fact about the Klan is that is that this organization was the extremist wing of the Democratic party in the South.  The KKK was a response by Southerners to the Reconstruction imposed after their defeat in the Civil War.  It was Democratic President Wilson who, after screening Birth of a Nation in the White House described it as "writing history with lightning...my only regret is that it is all so terribly true."  Harry Truman paid $10 for his brief Klan membership in the 1920s.  David Duke himself was a member of Democratic party at the time of his visit to Colorado in 1979 and he ran for President in 1988 as a Democrat.  (It must be noted that Duke, a convicted felon, was a political opportunist and chameleon who has affiliated himself with the American Nazi Party, the Democratic Party, the Populist Party and the Republican Party.  His only electoral victory over the course of his sordid career was a one term as a Republican in the Louisiana State legislature.)

Read the book, Skip the movie!

According to Spike Lee's film, Klan members plant explosives and blow up a vehicle in Colorado Springs.  Thanks to the Black Klansman arrests were made.  This is all nonsense.  Stallworth explicitly notes that by the 1970s David Duke had, ironically, taken a page from the playbook of Gandhi and Martin Luther King by adopting the tactics of non-violence in his effort to fashion a new image for the Klan.   There were no explosions or violent incidents during Duke's visit to Colorado.  No arrests made as a result of Stallworth's investigation (though two stupid klansmen working for NORAD were re-assigned by their black Colonel).  And the overweight Klan wife and mad bomber portrayed byAshlie Atkinson was, in fact, based on a woman who was Mexican.

Spike Lee cast Adam Driver as Stallworth's white Jewish partner despite the fact that Stallworth's real partner, "Chuck" (a pseudonym) was gentile.  Lee portrays the KKK accurately as being rabidly antisemitic.

Spike Lee depicts Stokely Carmichael as a righteous Civil Rights activist with a bit of vaseline around the lens to preserve his halo.  Black KkKlansman features Carmichael protesting the Vietnam War during his 1974 visit to Colorado Springs ignoring the fact that the last American troops actually withdrew from South Vietnam in March of 1973.  Stallworth more accurately depicts Carmichael as a "Marxist revolutionary" who sought to "destroy the American political system."  Stallworth depicts Stokely accurately as an advocate of violence who told him "we're gonna have to kill whitey."  Neither Lee nor Stallworth mention Carmichael's virulent anti-semitism.  Carmichael infamously said, "I have never admired a White man, but the greatest of them was Hitler."  Carmichael even blamed the FBI for infecting him with the cancer that killed him.

It becomes very clear why Lee made this film towards the end.  Black KkKlansman has Klansmen chanting "America First" and even one of them muttering "Make America Great Again".  Lee is trying to impose a Trumpian construction on the events of Stallworth's account.  Lee is using Stallworth's account to launch, as the NY Times called it "a direct, furious protest against the Trump era."

We can admit that Trump's ham-fisted and tone deaf reaction to the 2017 events at Charlottesville were the moral low point (thus far) of his administration.  If Spike Lee was upset about Charlottesville he could have made a movie about Charlottesville.  Instead he chose to inject Charlottesville into a movie about events that took place during the Carter era.  If Donald Trump is guilty of all acts of racial hatred that occur anywhere in America, then surely Jimmy Carter was equally guilty of allowing David Duke to visit Colorado Springs in 1979...?

Ron Stallworth

Lee's many distortions of reality in this film rob what could have been a fascinating look into the life of man caught between his racial identity and his professional career of its central point.  In the late 1970s a pioneering black police officer made a fool of white supremacist David Duke and joined the KKK.  The truth shall make us free but Hollywood lies and distortions will keep us in bondage.




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Tuesday, December 11, 2018

American and British Politics 2018



We Americans, on both sides of the aisle, tend to believe that we are mired in the worst of all political landscapes.  The country is bitterly divided.  Some Americans strongly support Trump while others feel he should be impeached.  The Midterms gave us divided government and nothing seems likely to get done about any of the urgent issues confronting our nation.  The prospect of Special Counsel reports and potential impeachment hearings make the political prospects for 2019 messy at the very least.  Only the death of a kind and gracious former president (GHWB) bought us the briefest of reprieves from the incessant political division within the USA. And so on.

But we need only look across the pond to see that this is essentially an illusion caused by our perennial national insularity.

The current British political scene is MUCH WORSE than anything we face in America right now for several reasons.

1) THE POPULARITY CONTEST
Theresa May's popularity, in spite of not having cavorted with porn stars, is far LOWER than Trump's range.  In fact only about 25% of Britons approve of the current British Prime Minister (https://yougov.co.uk/topics/politics/articles-reports/2018/07/12/theresa-mays-favourability-score-plummets-new-low).  Trump's popularity, on the other hand, hovers in the 40s (https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/trump-approval-ratings/)

2) THE ECONOMY
America confronts a potentially dangerous trade war with China and Trump is determined to play his game of chicken with President Xi.  But Britain has already lost a self-inflicted trade war with the European Union due to Brexit.  The Pound has been hammered and is now hitting a 20 year low with regard to the dollar (www.express.co.uk/finance/city/1057276/Pound-US-dollar-exchange-rate-GBP-USD-20-month-low-Brexit-vote-tfx).  Property prices, a cornerstone of the UK economy, are now actually falling since the 2016 Brexit referendum www.telegraph.co.uk/property/house-prices/house-price-growth-falls-six-year-low/.  By contrast, growth in the US economy has accelerated since 2016 and we have recently seen 3.6% unemployment - the lowest since the 1960s.

3) SECESSION?
The media breathlessly inform us that some blue states in America such as California are so miffed with Trump that they are looking to leave the Union (www.cnbc.com/2018/04/24/calexit-plan-to-divorce-california-from-us-is-getting-a-second-chance.html).  While Cal-Exit is laughable fairy tale, there is a very real possibility that the United Kingdom could lose both Scotland and Northern Ireland over the next ten years (www.ft.com/content/6d02d3a4-fa24-11e8-8b7c-6fa24bd5409c). Scotland could renew its call for a referendum while Northern Ireland could be driven into the arms of the Irish Republic which was provided for in the Belfast accords that ended The Troubles in the 1990s (www.politico.eu/article/united-ireland-after-brexit-reunification-vote/) .  Would England and Wales really amount to a Great Britain?



4) WAITING IN THE WINGS...?
Given the Republican control of the US Senate, it is highly unlikely that Trump will be impeached by Congress in 2019.  But even if he were successfully impeached, we all know that the result would be...President Pence.  The same Pence who recently did an outstanding job speaking at the Bush funeral service.  Pence, regardless of whether you like or agree with his politics, is a highly credible individual with a lifetime of public service experience.

Jeremy Corbyn: The Devil we don't Know

Who is waiting in the wings in the UK should (as now seems likely) the May government fall?  The distressing answer is...Jeremy Corbyn.  If you want to understand Corbyn just imagine a virulently anti-semitic humorless version of Bernie Sanders (www.theguardian.com/news/2018/dec/10/britain-has-worst-record-for-antisemitism-in-europe-says-report).  The prospect that May's foundering over Brexit could lead to a Corbyn premiership has the UK financial markets spooked for the best of reasons.  There may still be a hundred pence in the Pound but I'd take Pence over a pounding by Corbyn any day!  Corbyn (and not really Brexit) is the guillotine poised to drop on the British economy.

5) FRANCE...?
Speaking of guillotines, the political and economic situation in France under Macron is arguably even worse than the turmoil in the United States or Britain!  Violence is spilling into the streets of Paris with the Yellow Vest protestors with every sign that much worse is to come (www.nytimes.com/2018/12/08/world/europe/france-paris-riots-yellow-vest.html).

CONCLUSION
As we pause in the US to celebrate the 2018 holiday season, perhaps, rather than sparring with our in-laws about politics over the Christmas turkey, we should count our political blessings and be comforted a bit by the waves of political shadenfreude wafting across the Atlantic!



Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays and 
Peace on Earth from the Commander!








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Friday, December 7, 2018

Churchill: Walking With History



Andrew Roberts' latest work, Churchill: Walking with Destiny (www.amzn.com/1101980990), is a monumental biography on Winston Churchill.  Just when you thought everything possible had been exhausted on the subject along comes Roberts with a host of new sources on Churchill, new insights on the man who is considered to be the greatest Briton of all time; all delivered with the masterful grace we have come to expect from Andrew Roberts.

We live in an age that loves to tear down and devour its heroes.  Churchill, due his larger than life stature, has been subject to many conspiratorial attacks for many years.  He allowed Coventry to be bombarded even though he knew about it to protect the Ultra secret.  He, along with FDR, sold out the interests of the West at Yalta.  Even the Washington Post has published editorials alleging that Churchill was a mass murderer who "caused" the 1943 Punjabi famine (www.washingtonpost.com/news/global-opinions/wp/2018/03/10/in-winston-churchill-hollywood-rewards-a-mass-murderer/?noredirect=on&utm_term=.b6c6ba91dd6f).  Roberts demolishes all of these and much more "Fake History" that surrounds the figure of Winston Churchill.

If, however, you are seeking a mere hagiography of Churchill then Roberts book is bound to disappoint.  Churchill's many public policy mistakes are laid out fully in this new biography -- the Gallipoli campaign, return the the gold standard, opposition to dominion status for India, unwavering support for Edward VIII are just a few.  Nor are Churchill's personal shortcomings neglected.  Churchill had a lifelong infatuation with his pretty rotten father.  He could be excessively loyal to some of his cronies.  He had virtually no party loyalty crossing the aisle multiple times (a weakness and a strength).  He did have undeniably racist attitudes and did, pretty much, worship the British Empire.  He was a man of his time -- a Victorian who lived to see the Beatles.

In a sense Churchill needed to get many things wrong in order to get the most important things right.  Churchill was always an independent minded thinker who was willing to voice unpleasant truths regardless of the consequences.  In the 1930s he warned of the rise of Adolph Hitler and the rearmament of Germany when much of his nation was embracing a dishonorable pacifism.  In 1940, rather than offering consolation, he told the British people that they could expect "blood, sweat and tears" in the war that threatened to engulf their island.  At Fulton, Missouri in 1946 he raised a political firestorm when he told the world that "from Stettin in the Baltic to Trieste in the Adriatic and iron curtain has descended cross the Continent."

WSC's grave, Bladon

As an American reader I particularly enjoyed Roberts' illuminating discussion of Churchill's complex and evolving relationship with the United States of America.  His mother, Jenny Jerome, was American.  After World War I Churchill had an extensive anti-American period.  Churchill grew to love FDR but did not attend his funeral.  Churchill and Eisenhower worked closely together but Churchill had grave reservations about Ike's strategic ability.  Churchill was more willing than Eisenhower to trade Allied casualties for political gain (e.g. capturing Berlin).  Churchill's strategic instincts were usually excellent making him the ideal wartime prime minister and a principle architect of Allied victory in WW2. Churchill sensibly resisted Stalin's call for a cross channel invasion in 1942 and 1943 -- a concept that undoubtedly save many Allied lives.

At the end of the day, many myths are peeled away and it is Churchill's humanity and good humor that shine forth from Roberts' new biography.  Churchill was eminently quotable and Robert offers many examples of the man's extraordinary wit. It is difficult to argue Roberts' conclusion that the battles this great and greatly flawed man won "saved liberty".









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