Home » Open thread 11/14/23

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Open thread 11/14/23 — 53 Comments

  1. Just read that over 400 “officials” in the Biden admin signed a letter to Biden demanding an immediate cease fire in Gaza.
    “The Tuesday letter, first reported by the New York Times, includes officials from the State Department, White House, National Security Council and the Justice Department. The signatories of the letter remained anonymous to protect against professional retaliation.”

    Is that an act of rebellion? Well it is against Biden.
    The rot goes deep doesn’t it. You can bet if such a letter was penned about a Rep like Trump the list of the signatories would be in the Times within a day.

  2. “The signatories of the letter remained anonymous to protect against professional retaliation.”

    Here we go round the prickly pear
    Prickly pear prickly pear
    Here we go round the prickly pear
    At five o’clock in the morning.

  3. Just read that over 400 “officials” in the Biden admin signed a letter to Biden demanding an immediate cease fire in Gaza.
    ==
    An ‘open letter’ with anonymous signatories is a nonsense exercise. There’s another one which asserts that 10% of the staff of the Agency for International Development have placed their ‘X’ mark on it.
    ==
    Of course the administration should fire them; they’re clowns. First you have to prove they exist, of course.

  4. they would be back with sinecures at Carnegie Endowment see mr ciamarella, or Ford Foundation or Middle East institute faster than you can say Jack Robinson,

  5. Gaia’s also a tad upset…

    “Iceland ‘is on edge’ waiting for volcanic eruption amid fears river of lava could hit power plant after giant crack tears through town, thousands are evacuated and over 700 more earthquakes since yesterday, with ‘unholy sounds’ coming up from the earth;
    “More than 500 quakes were recorded in the Reykjanes Peninsula yesterday…”
    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-12746707/Iceland-volcanic-eruption-crack-tears-town-thousands-evacuated-hundreds-earthquakes-unholy-sounds-earth.html

  6. “The signatories of the letter remained anonymous to protect against professional retaliation.”

    They should have courage in their convictions! If they really believe what they claim to, they should be willing to lose their jobs over it. But I guess they’re all too comfortable with having their trotters up on the government feeding trough. This isn’t surprising given the weak character so often displayed by your typical DC bureaucrat.

  7. Well consider the bright side. Now maybe you’ll no longer be subjected to your annoying liberal neighbor explaining to you that the 1st amendment only protects one from actions/retaliation by the government.

  8. OH G*D how I LOVE THE AUSSIES !!
    Saddened to see the US libs doing some hard work down there to turn the population as they have here in the states.

    In 2018 met a US gay guy from here going down there to teach them how to put gay obedience into the Anglican church schools. Met a second guy–older out of work Australian who was also indoctrinated, trained, and paid to harass local private schools and force them to teach homosexual obedience. It’s tragic to see these good people being targeted by anyone from the US LEFT!

  9. Just trying to figure out how an anonymous person signs a letter. Not identifying the author(s) the letter can be simply ignored, I’d even question its authenticity.

    The only honorable thing to do for anyone in the Biden administration that disagrees with the policies is to make the disagreement known, advocate for a different policy, and if no change is made, resign.

  10. In the last open thread I mentioned St John Cantius church in Chicago. Writing that post kind of got me jazzed up. I hope you don’t mind me spreading a bit of the gospel in this open thread.

    It is one of the most beautiful churches in the city, which is saying something, as evidenced by this Chicago Tribune article:

    https://www.chicagotribune.com/news/breaking/ct-st-john-cantius-most-beautiful-catholic-church-photos-20160419-photogallery.html

    If you find yourself in Chicago I’d highly recommend a visit. It is in a safe, largely Polish neighborhood. Every time I’ve gone I’ve heard Polish spoken. And at 12:30 every Sunday they still perform a High Mass in Latin.

    https://parishesonline.com/publication-page/st-john-cantius-parish?selectedPublication=https://container.parishesonline.com/bulletins/01/2151/20231112B.pdf

    It is quite something to behold – wonderful choir. Even if you’re not Catholic (all are welcome) a High Latin Mass is something you should see at least once in your life. Arrive early. You’ll want to spend some time touring that beautiful church, and by the time the Mass starts it will be standing room only.

  11. I’ve seen several photos of kangaroos standing upright in ponds and other water sources.

    Eerie! Really creepy.

    Since you only see them waist (or chest) up, their upper bodies look eerily human, but then they have those animal heads. And in every photo I’ve seen they have an emotionless stare on their face that seems to convey something very sinister is going on behind their eyes.

  12. “…very sinister…”

    Hmmm.
    “He’s a Communist Trust Fund Baby Who Inherited Millions. Now, He’s Using Daddy’s Money To Harass Jews.
    “James ‘Fergie’ Chambers wants to make Israel’s supporters ‘afraid to go out in public’ “—
    https://freebeacon.com/israel/hes-a-communist-trust-fund-baby-who-inherited-millions-now-hes-using-daddys-money-to-harass-jews/
    He’s also a liar. (SURPRISE!)

    Guess “Hate Crime” has just been redefined…OFFICIALLY.
    (Just like “Crime” has….)

  13. Rufus T Firefly:

    Yes, to your observation. But even more importantly when you see them up close they are very tall and powerful. Easily 6 feet plus, some get up to 8 feet and weight 200+ pounds

  14. West TX, Rufus T. Firefly, and Mike Plaiss — thank you so much for your kind wishes on the previous open thread. It means a lot to me.

  15. its a war for civilization, it’s rather striking how many seemingly educated people miss that,

  16. Axios reports that a junior State Department employee in the Middle East bureau has been using the “Dissent channel” on the department’s classified network to solicit and organize opposition while advertising internal dissent on social media. Since internal cables on the dissent channel are not for attribution that’s probably explains how anonymous people can sign a letter. This is not what the Vietnam era dissent channel is intended to be used for but no surprise.

    https://www.axios.com/2023/11/04/genocide-biden-gaza-ceasefire

  17. RE: Dr. Shaun Kirkpatrick waves goodby to AARO

    Well, the good Doctor has announced that he is going to retire from the Federal service next month having, he said in a statement to Politico, “accomplished what he set out to do”–listed by Politico as looking into some 800 UFO cases, scouring the government for information on UFOs, and finally getting the website–where current or former government or contractor employees can report what they know about government or contractor programs dealing with UFOs which they worked on, or had knowledge of–up and running; all this after around two years of effort.

    One would think that if UFOs were a major and very troubling mystery–increasingly sighted vehicles which were zooming around our skies, diving into and out of our oceans, out into Earth orbit and perhaps further yet, into our Solar System, an “anomalous phenomenon” which has caused physical injury to those “Experiencers” who happened to get too close to these apparitions, and a mystery which was interfering with our military exercises, our military and commercial aircraft, and a mystery whose solution might–just might—reveal to us if we are alone in the Universe, that Dr. Kirkpatrick would stay hot on the trail, but, apparently, not.

    Some of the kinds of government and contractor personnel—who say that they have first hand experience with the deeply buried surreptitious UFO crash recovery and reverse engineering programs alleged to exist by whistleblower David Grusch–one would think Dr. Kirkpatrick and AARO would be particularly interested in have reportedly gone to AARO and Dr. Kirkpatrick with their information, with no result.

    Yet, all Dr. Kirkpatrick has been saying is to repeat statements like the one from this April i.e. “I should also state clearly for the record that in our research, AARO has found no credible evidence thus far of extraterrestrial activity, off-world technology, or objects that defy the known laws of physics,” *

    See https://www.politico.com/news/2023/11/07/pentagon-ufo-boss-00125883

    See also https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/ufo-head-steps-down-after-acknowledging-evidence-of-activity-being-investigated-by-u-s-government/ar-AA1jJcbn

  18. Snow On Pine

    …”no credible evidence thus far of extraterrestrial activity, off-world technology, or objects that defy the known laws of physics…”

    Condon Committe redux. So tiresome.

  19. Raccoons will do the same thing. Purposely head to the water, grab a hound by the neck and hold it under.

  20. “Is that an act of rebellion!”

    Maybe.
    Or maybe it’s a welcome development for “Biden”, PROOF—when “he”’ll have to play that card—that “he” stood behind Israel against fierce opposition from “his” own party…so that when the time comes for “him” to shove the “two-state solution” down Israel’s throat, “he”’ll be able to call in “ his” chits, play the old “quid pro quo”, tell Israel that “he” did the right thing by Israel and it was the toughest thing “he” ever had to do in all “his” years as a politician but “he” held firm; and so NOW it’s time that Israel do the right thing. NOW it’s time for Israel to do its damned best—more than its damned best—to pull out all the stops and make that “two-state solution” WORK.

    (Heh, it’s called “leverage”…)

  21. Seeing the back of that guy’s hand, and images of kangaroo paws with talons at least an inch long is another reason to carry arms in other parts of the world.
    BTW, how are Israelis doing on their way to arming their civilians? I’d not want to be making a living in Indian territory without a 6-shooter.

    https://imgur.com/gallery/czW4P

  22. Le Mot Juste—Yeah, it appears that Kirkpatrick was put into place by the Secrecy faction in the DOD to say, “nothing to see here, move on.”

    Somehow, I don’t think that Kirkpatrick has covered himself with glory here and, if it turns out that UAPs are off world, Alien tech, and that NHIs exist, Kirkpatrick’s reputation will just be shot.

  23. The fact that people from the State Department are opposed to official policy is not surprising. The President bitching about Foggy Bottom goes back at least to Truman. “Going native” is a thing there – it’s the diplomatic equivalent of regulatory capture.

    “miguel cervantes on November 14, 2023 at 10:22 am said:
    they would be back with sinecures at Carnegie Endowment see mr ciamarella, or Ford Foundation or Middle East institute…”
    If we do it enough, it would be a form of Cloward-Piven. Those organizations may be flush, but having a lot more “mouths to feed” has to hurt. The guys being tossed are not going to be productivity enhancers – they were government employees. So, in sufficient quantities, they’ll be a drag.

  24. “…official policy…”

    Which is precisely the point.
    The official policy of the “Biden” administration is to empower Iran and its proxies and clients—which those naive, surprised (shocked, actually) State Dept. wonks are “MERELY” pointing out.

    IOW what “Biden” has decided to do GOES AGAINST official “Biden” policy.

    So why has “Biden” decided to do this?
    Because Hamas (remember: NOT IRAN—NEVER IRAN) has forced “his” hand; and “he”‘s panicking; that is, “he” has to make it appear as though he’s a strong supporter of Israel—HAS ALWAYS BEEN A STRONG SUPPORTER OF ISRAEL, yadda, yadda.

    In other words, “Biden”‘s decisions, since Oct. 7 are all part of a huge coverup.
    A huge continuing coverup (the First Commandment of the Obama/”Biden” nexus being “Cover Thy Ass”…). And also why “Biden” has been sending Israel some bizarre-sounding (as in, “What world is ‘he’ living in?”) warnings.

    Those State Dept. wonks don’t realize what “Biden”s’ been doing—don’t understand what “he” feels “he” must do—so they are, in their surprise and naivete, MERELY reminding of “his” official policy.

    The person to keep your eye for a more accurate indication of “Biden”‘s insidious intentions would be Jake Sullivan (oh, and Obama, the Great Man himself, whenever he deigns to open his great mouth)…

  25. Ouch. Some corrections:
    ‘…reminding of “his” official policy…’ should be,
    ‘…reminding “him” of “his” official policy…’

    ‘…keep your eye for…’ should be,
    ‘…keep your eye on for…’

  26. @ crasey > “Since internal cables on the dissent channel are not for attribution that’s probably explains how anonymous people can sign a letter”

    The Axios post was very informative about the way State functions (or not). If you correct for their generally-left tilt, they can be a useful source.
    I did think this was a telling factoid:

    “In two decades, I’ve never seen State Department management make such a fuss about employees’ purported emotions and feelings, to the extent that dissent is essentially being encouraged,” said an official in the Near East Bureau, who asked not to be identified because the official wasn’t cleared to speak with the media.

    Three White House and State Department officials said most of the criticism comes from staffers who are not directly involved in the work on the Gaza crisis.

    Hopefully, the people who ARE working on the Gaza crisis are more historically literate, but they are unlikely to be any less anti-Israel despite that. Maybe it depends on age and “lived experience” as older Democrats (are there any Republican-conservatives left at State?) still retain a pro-Israel stance.

  27. @ David Foster > “a historical analogy about Biden”
    The excerpt in which you quoted Joe about the “River” was another way of describing Lewis’s “Inner Ring” that we’ve been commenting on lately.

    “There’s a river of power that flows through this country. . . . Some people—most people—don’t even know the river is there. But it’s there. Some people know about the river, but they can’t get in . . . they only stand at the edge. And some people, a few, get to swim in the river. All the time. They get to swim their whole lives . . . in the river of power. And that river flows from the Ivy League.”

    @ J.J. on the Trump thread > “In a democratic republic politics should not be a Game of Thrones.”

    Odd coincidence – that simile shows up in a comment to another of David Foster’s posts that referenced the “River” Biden described.

    https://chicagoboyz.net/archives/70051.html#comment-1065936
    Philip Sells September 25, 2023 at 12:14 am
    “Rather strongly reminiscent of the “Chaos is a ladder” speech from Game of Thrones”

  28. Riffing off the Game of Thrones connection: I was thinking earlier today that Biden’s presidency negated what had been one of the advantages of a Republic (or even Democracy) over a hereditary monarchy, which was that you didn’t have to be stuck with a doddering old fool or corrupt tyrant just because he inherited the crown.

    Silly me.

    https://chicagoboyz.net/archives/70221.html#comment-1066368
    Sgt. Mom November 14, 2023 at 1:04 pm

    And what a humiliating experience for us, knowing that our so-called allies in the west are looking at Biden, and thinking “OMG, what have the Yanks done, to settle for this dementia case as the highest elected official in the nation?”

    Of course, some of our not-allies are ecstatic about it.
    Especially the ones who paid so much to help get him elected, so as to not waste all their bribes.

  29. The next-post-down from David’s was this one, in which I found an observation that extends to society and politics in general, along the lines of today’s discussion.

    https://chicagoboyz.net/archives/70228.html
    The Vonnegut-Lewis Theory of Modern Art
    November 12, 2023 by Alan K. Henderson

    I looked on with horror at this news story about a fountain recently unveiled in Vienna, Austria. A city that for centuries has been associated with some of the highest works of art paid actual money for an amateurish sculpture that ranks with that ruined fresco in Borja, Spain.

    I immediately thought of Diana Moon Glampers, the Handicapper General featured in Kurt Vonnegut’s 1961 short story Harrison Bergeron.

    One wonders if Vonnegut had read C. S. Lewis’ “Screwtape Proposes a Toast,” published by the Saturday Evening Post only two years earlier.

    I think the Vonnegut story has made the rounds here several times, but I hadn’t caught the connection with Lewis before.

    You remember how one of the Greek Dictators (they called them “tyrants” then) sent an envoy to another Dictator to ask his advice about the principles of government. The second Dictator led the envoy into a field of corn, and there he snicked off with his cane the top of every stalk that rose an inch or so above the general level.

    The moral was plain. Allow no pre-eminence among your subjects. Let no man live who is wiser, or better, or more famous, or even handsomer than the mass. Cut them all down to a level; all slaves, all ciphers, all nobodies. All equals. Thus Tyrants could practise, in a sense, ‘democracy’. But now ‘democracy’ can do the same work without any other tyranny than her own. No one need now go through the field with a cane. The little stalks will now of themselves bite the tops off the big ones. The big ones are beginning to bite off their own in their desire to Be Like Stalks.

    With any luck, and some Divine Providence, the Stalks will take down each other before they destroy the West and the rest of the world.

    Lewis was amazingly clear sighted about a lot of things.
    https://www.saturdayeveningpost.com/wp-content/uploads/satevepost/screwtape-proposes-a-toast-SEP.pdf

    The excerpt is on “page 88”; the “Be Like Stalks” is an analogy to the desire of the relatively intelligent or talented persons to Be Like Folks, or at least to give that illusion.

    Good old Joe from Scranton would qualify if he had been either intelligent or talented.

  30. On another tangent, Matt Taibbi referenced this post from Jacobin in a recent Racket article covering the CCDH. I disagree with 100% of the very-far-left positions of that site, including their inside-out view of reality on display here, but (as Matt said) they are getting something right.
    The bulk of the essay is insider-baseball for the British.

    https://jacobin.com/2020/06/anti-corbyn-blair-censorship-google-labour-uk

    Censorship is a dangerous game.

    No one with liberal or left sympathies wants to give hate and bigotry a platform. But dealing in terms so malleable and easily contorted means that attempts to simply banish unpleasant things from our discourse by decree often means letting people with vastly different ideas of what those words mean decide what should and shouldn’t be allowed to say.

    A recent case illustrates this conundrum. Google’s decision to demonetize libertarian website Zero Hedge, and put the right-wing Federalist on notice over offensive content in their respective comments sections received a lot of attention last week. The Right was unsurprisingly furious, seeing in the move yet more confirmation of their vastly overblown theory of an anti-conservative bias among social media companies. Yet the move also saw well-reasoned pushback from the Left. After all, the Federalist may publish some appalling dreck, but do we really want unaccountable tech giants threatening media outlets over content they deem unacceptable, particularly when it’s in their comments sections of all things?

    The pitfalls of this dilemma only get clearer when one looks at the organization responsible for mustering the pressure that led Google to act in this case: the Center for Countering Digital Hate (CCDH). Despite the Americanized spelling, CCDH is a British nonprofit headquartered in London. More to the point, several of the figures involved enjoy links to the right wing of the UK Labour Party, which for years cynically used accusations of antisemitism to undermine the party’s former left-wing leader, Jeremy Corbyn.

    It’s not that anyone left of center will lose sleep over what the CCDH has done so far. They made a handbook for how to deal with online trolls, got far-right troll Katie Hopkins and conspiracy theorist David Icke (of reptilian shapeshifter fame) kicked off some social media platforms, and sounded the alarm over online misinformation about coronavirus.

    But as with any push for censorship, the question isn’t about the widely reviled figures or organizations that — for now — constitute the targets of groups like the CCDH, but where this campaign will stop — and which legitimate but politically controversial views could eventually be caught in the net. And based on the careers of those involved in the group, there’s good reason to be concerned.

    Be Careful What You Cheer For
    This is far from a British-specific problem. As Glenn Greenwald has amply documented, seemingly well-meaning laws and measures that purport to go after hate and bigotry are routinely turned against activists fighting for Palestinian rights around the world. In the United States, the ostensibly “liberal” party opposes even a movement of peaceful protest against Israeli apartheid, which its presidential candidate, Joe Biden, blithely labels antisemitic.

    He’s not the only one to take that leap. Marc Lamont Hill was fired by CNN in 2018 because his words in defense of Palestinians were construed as antisemitic, and the Simon Wiesenthal Center declared a UN resolution condemning Israel’s illegal settlement construction the number one most antisemitic incident of 2016 — higher, even, than a group of neo-Nazis gathering in Washington DC to celebrate Trump’s victory. The elasticity of words is easily abused by those with a political agenda.

    While there are clearly partisan incentives at play when it comes to the CCDH, you don’t have to view the exercise as a purely cynical affair to be concerned that it and efforts like it could end up targeting legitimate political speech. Malicious intent isn’t always a necessary ingredient for bad outcomes; plenty of people can, and have, done tremendous damage because they were ideologically blinkered, ill-informed, or simply not very bright.

    You might cheer the ability of such groups to muster outrage and force corporations to censor views they don’t like as long as you agree with them. But whether they’re cynical, misguided, or a dollop of both, you won’t always agree with them. And by the time you realize that, it may well be too late.

    It’s hard to beat this as a nearly exact negative of the conservative view of current events, and I note that the Jacobins are perfectly happy with censorship if they can guarantee being the ones to control it.
    At least they are still realistic enough to realize that may not be the case — and that they are in as much danger from their own Stalks as they are from the conservatives.
    Or more danger, actually, since true conservatives are not that into censorship, so long as they are not prevented from having their own say on equal footing with the opposition.

  31. }}} Of course the administration should fire them; they’re clowns. First you have to prove they exist, of course.

    Why? Fire ’em anyway… they’re in the government. 95% of them are excess wastes of taxpayer dollars sucking at the public teat. And the remainder are almost all Deep State members.

    😀

  32. 95% of them are excess wastes of taxpayer dollars sucking at the public teat.
    ==
    You’re welcome to talk like that to amuse yourself. You’ll also succeed in persuading people that you are senile and given to railing at clouds.

  33. La Mote Juste–The announcement of Kirkpatrick’s departure said that his assistant would be temporarily taking over his place, pending them finding a new head of AARO.

    I wonder who the next “scientist” they’ll find to head AARO will be?

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