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Now, that was a week. We try to put it all in some perspective — the protests, the riots, the looting, and the politics and we do so with the help of our guests, Andrew C. McCarthy and Victor Davis Hanson. And yes, the Lileks Post of The Week is back to blow the lid off knitting clubs. And, Rob outs himself as a super hero, Peter deals with civil unrest induced anxiety by reading biographies, and James, well, we’re not sure what James does.
Music from this week’s show: The Dream Police by David Byrne
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It is always good to hear from Mssrs. McCarthy and Hanson.
I am with James Lileks all the way. Why can’t we express outrage at the looters without about ‘legitimate concerns’ or ‘systemic oppression’.
This is worthy of inclusion here too:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vVVHrvbXzd0
I greatly appreciate the shout out on my knitting post. It was also a lovely surprise to find that I’d been honored with the Lileks POTW sticker. Thanks.
They hide police officer’s identities when they deal with drug cartels and organized crime as well. In a riot situation you can make up for it with video surveillance. It’s a good practice for the reasons VDH described.
There are even judges who have to wear masks in Mexico so they won’t be targeted.
Boss Mongo was the head of Sears?
What are you folks talking about?
I hate all of those military abbreviations, and the military seems to be the worst at this sort of thing.
Speak English, please.
When Heather Wilson was the Secretary of the Air Force, she had an Acronym Jar in her office. If you used an acronym, money went in the jar. She especially hated it when people couldn’t define the acronym.
I once worked in the RSC. It stood for Research, Development, Test, and Evaluation Support Complex. RSC was easier to say.
The rule on acronyms is you’re never supposed to use one with a new audience until you’ve clearly defined it at least once.
Glenn Loury on Bloggingheads.tv
https://youtu.be/Xym3kFuBX3Y?t=1458
Glenn would be a great guest on this podcast.
This sounds so nuts to me:
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/white-silence-on-social-media-why-not-saying-anything-is-actually-saying-a-lot/
Keeping in mind that each podcast “episode” could be 50% or more new audience.
JSOC — Joint Special Operations Command
“One agency to rule them all and in the darkness bind them.”
When did Loury become semi-sensible? This is the most surprising thing I’ve read on Ricochet in months.
Almost exactly 49 years ago I was selected in the first ’round’ of USAF Race Relations Officers and was one of the very,very few whites selected as well. I am almost 74. Grew up in NYC so I saw localized as well as national race riots from the mid 1960s on….and never have I been more depressed, to the point of near despair, than where these past 12 days have taken me. Despite the SPECTACULAR measurable progress made by this society I watch ‘leaders’ from the culture engage in a weak, obsequious orgy of self-flagellation that is disturbing to that point of despair. Trump is at times odious BUT neither he nor A SINGLE Trump policy has had an iota of causality of the recent killing and subsequent explosion of violence,mayhem and hate —a rogue cop in a lousy police force in another hard-Left led city killed a man. Should he have been stopped? Of course. Is 99%+ of the Nation in agreement that the murder was heinous? Of course…but the Radical Left has so captured the narrative that for them it’s not 2020—it’s 1865…it’s 1868…it’s the Day of the KKK (Which is /was the military arm of the Democrat Party)…it’s looking away when Wilson resegregates the military….it’s the murder of Goodman and Schwerner in the Deep South…It is not 1968 when MLK Jr was assassinated and when this Nation—NOT just Black American Citizens— were torn apart and angered —but The Nation did not kill him………BUT IT’S NOT. It is 2020….we (bizarrely) elected and re-elected B H Obama. He pledged to ‘fundamentally transform America’ and until these past 12 days I did not appreciate just how MUCH HIS FAILURE OF LEADERSHIP did in fact fundamentally transform us.
Not for the better.
For that I will never forgive Obama or the American Left—The cancer has grown so that THE most racist Nations on Earth—China and Japan and Korea to name the tip of that iceberg— are holding protests over the killing of (Saint?) George Floyd while ignoring the we are a Nation in which each and every one of the inhabitants of THOSE Nations could become an American Citizen whose children could even grow up to be POTUS. Try to emigrate TO China or Japan…if you’ve got the IQ of a gnat you’ll realize you’ll NEVER be accepted in their cultures as Chinese or Japanese,regardless of whom you marry or what your language skills are.
Enough….the next few days could be the days that decide the next election AND therefore decide the fate of the Republic—I for one am not encouraged.
(May I add that the 25 or so minutes with VDH was about as important a Ricochet segment as I have ever heard.)
I like Doctors on Ricochet. I suggest checking out the American Mind Podcast. They have no interest in excusing the sheer nonsense going on everywhere.
Me, too, man. Me too.
My daughter works at NAWC-WD. She started as an ESDP. She used to work in the AWL but at the moment she’s at ASIPT.
If you held a gun to my head I could probably tell you what those stand for. Probably.
To see public officials kneeling in front of the crowds is just too much to take. What have we come to ?
Monarchy of the damned.
Monarchy of the damned was an underrated vampire novel. Not enough homoeroticism in it though.
VDH has become one of the most intellectually dishonest people on the American right. The guy is a walking advertisement for how whataboutism wilts your brain. How much misgovernment are the American people obliged to put up with because Obama got away with it prof. Hanson? Because Andrew Jackson was a crude authoritarian every president we like has to get a free pass or it’s just not fair? That’s the moral logic of children. Pathetic.
I had been dismissive of the Chinese people. That they are too unwilling to challenge the ruling party. Too few had stood up and opposed the cultural revolution. Thinking of them as cowards, actually. That view is changing. I am seeing how unwilling Americans are to question the BLM authorities. We have a cultural revolution brewing and, so far, no one in the public space is willing to step forward and counter it.
The media is especially at fault. Jeanine Pirro last night condemned the 4 Minneapolis police officers. Calling them murderers. A terrible virtue signalling performance by her. This, despite the fact that the public has been given little account of why the officers did what they did.
Have a few drinks, put your Minder to sleep, and then tell us what you REALLY think.
Whatever one thinks of VDH’s opinions he has the guts to talk about them to everybody. More of that needs to happen.
I don’t even think it was whataboutism, really. The point was that much of what the left is crying about as “unprecedented” – when they really mean “you shouldn’t be allowed to stop us!” – is, in fact, NOT unprecedented. Nor “unconstitutional” (which doesn’t seem to matter to them until it does), or “outrageous” or “outrageously unconstitutional” or “unconstitutionally outrageous” etc.
This is intended to confuse foreign spies.
It’s like how the roads in New Jersey were designed to foil enemy invaders.
For example, East Saddle River Road and West Saddle River Road are different roads, running North to South.
Here’s a phrase that may be useful in the present context: “lynching by proxy”.
Of course, being lynched doesn’t mean you’re innocent.