RUTHFULLY YOURS

There is a relentless driving sound in America. It is a pneumatic drill pounding away at the nation’s moral anchors. The mediating structures that maintained equilibrium are the targets.

Schools that once transmitted knowledge about the republic are now repositories of ignorance, even hateful ignorance about America’s “malignant” role in the world. The flag once a synecdoche of what our citizens believe and admire has been transformed into a symbol of evil. On top of the misguided and one-sided treatment of the past, is the dumbing down of the population so that very few Americans can find Egypt on a map or calculate 8 times 9 without a calculator. We spend more for less effect each year. Teachers claim they need additional funds, but attainment lags. It is an odd economic model in which new resources achieve predictably dismal results.

The family – the bedrock of the Republic – is in dire shape. Divorce is still at an all-time high level and illegitimacy is a staggering proposition of new births, e.g. 72 percent of black children are the products of out of wedlock homes. Gang leaders are surrogate fathers in many ghetto communities. This isn’t Boko Haram in Nigeria which kidnaps children from parental lairs; these are children ensnared by men who offer guidance and friendship. But the result isn’t so different.

Churches once established the moral parameters for behavior. They were a guide to right and wrong, the superego for young minds searching for existential truths. How quickly they have been submerged in the tidal wave of relativism. Truth is now what you want it to be and morality is a question of sentiment. The tablets of natural law frozen in the sphere of human existence crumbled like pie crust. Even the Ten Commandments have become the Ten Recommendations. If there is a God, he should be held secretly within the cavity of one’s heart. Public displays of religious sentiment have been largely banned through the avatars of church-state separation.

On May 13, 2014, Franklin Miller, Principal, Scowcroft Group, delivered an important address on “The Emerging Nuclear Deterrent Challenges: Thoughts on the Nuclear Triad and Arms Control” at the Congressional Breakfast Seminar Series on Nuclear Deterrence and Missile Defense, (in its 34th year) sponsored by the Air Force Association and hosted by Peter Huessy. This is a critically important subject that needs greater national attention especially how China and Russia see their nuclear arsenals and the role such weapons play in geostrategic relations.

MR. FRANK MILLER: Thank you, Peter. Nice to see you again. I want to thank Peter on two counts: first, for inviting me back to conduct my annual revisit to the wonderful world of nuclear policy; and second, for keeping this series going lo these many years to provide a forum for those of us whose views are not consistent with what the Politically Correct believe.

I would like to spend my time with you this morning talking about three subjects: Russia, Arms Control, and the Administration’s need to come to grips with the serious problems we face in our strategic arsenal.

First, Russia. It is essential that we come to grips with the fact that Russia under Czar Vladimir the bare-chested has become a very dangerous threat to global security. If you have not yet done so, I urge you to read Putin’s March 18 speech to the Russian parliament. It is a chilling statement of perceived historical wrongs and slights mixed with a thinly veiled warning of his intent to redress them. Truly, Churchill’s magnificent 1940 description of Adolf Hitler comes to mind: “This wicked man, the repository and embodiment of many forms of soul-destroying hatred, this monstrous product of former wrongs and shame.”

Putin augments his dangerous world view with a menacing military capability. I have been pointing out for several years from this podium that Russia is engaging in a massive modernization of its entire strategic Triad. It is deploying two new types of ICBMs while developing a third, a follow-on to the heavy, heavily MIRVed, SS-18. It is deploying two new types of SLBMs and a new type of SSBN.

It is in the final stages of development of a new long-range air-launched nuclear tipped cruise missile. It has built a new ground-launched cruise missile which violates the INF treaty (more on that later). It is maintaining a vast and bloated arsenal of shorter-range nuclear warheads and systems, including a nuclear tipped short-range ballistic missile [SS-26] which violates Russia’s commitments under the 1991 and 1992 Presidential Nuclear Initiatives.

The Russian government’s response to President Obama’s 2009 plea that nuclear weapons be accorded a reduced role in nations’ security policies has been to maintain a nuclear doctrine which calls for the use of nuclear weapons in local and regional wars. If you perused You-Tube in December 2013 and again last week you would see president Putin ostentatiously presiding over nuclear force exercises featuring live launches from all legs of their strategic triad. As the Soviets were fond of saying: “This is no accident comrade.”

What should we make of this? First, Putin does not accept Mr. Obama’s view of the role of nuclear weapons. Second, contrary to the politically correct apologia, Putin’s intended audience is not an internal one but us and our allies: he uses Russia’s nuclear weapons to try to intimidate and blackmail.

Add to this Putin’s policy of flying strategic bombers close to the national airspace of the UK, Norway, the Netherlands, Denmark, Japan, and the United States, Russian military exercises which simulate nuclear strikes on Poland and the Baltic states, and the repeated pronouncements by senior Russian officials about targeting the West with nuclear weapons and you get a fairly complete picture.

Democrats brag their Party is comprised of people from myriad and diverse backgrounds. They are, but then, for the sake of political convenience, individuals are compartmentalized into easily defined subgroups that are monotheistic in terms of thoughts. For example, if one is poor one must think like a poor person; if one is Hispanic, one must act Hispanic; if one is Black, do not think like a conservative; if one is a young, twenty-something female, one must behave like all other young, twenty-something females; if one is old, one must conform to the wants of the aged; if one is of the “99%”, one must stand against the venomous one percenters. Democrats assume that a young, Black, female conservative must be demented or brainwashed. Such attitudes may fire-up the electorate, but they are insulting to the individual and sanctimonious in the assumption that people cannot think for themselves.

The Republican Party, despite detractors’ claims, also includes people from across the spectrum. But, more important, it tends to be polytheistic in ideas and opinions. That gives it, at times, the cacophonous look of an asylum, but in reality it provides a forum for the sharing and free expression of ideas. But, for such apostasy the Party gets ridiculed by mainstream media. Tea partiers are racists, evangelicals are anti-gay, Midwestern blue-collar workers are narrow-minded and prejudiced, dopey, old white men are prejudiced, dopey, old white men.

Liberal Democrats – at least those in the highest elective offices – believe in a government of the elite by the elite, for the masses. It is only the elite that have the intelligence, empathy and sophistication to understand the needs of the less fortunate. “I feel your pain,” Bill Clinton might say to a medley of suffering poor, as he reaches for a plate of fried oysters and heads out to make another $200,000 speech. “We are five days away from fundamentally transforming the United States of America,” called out Barack Obama in rock-star fashion at the University of Missouri in late October 2008 to youth influenced by Mr. Obama’s charisma, but unconcerned as to his use of the word “transforming.” Recently, Black Democrat Representative James Clyburn chastised Black Republican Senator Tim Scott for not voting the color of his skin, inferring that Mr. Scott was an “Uncle Tom,” implying that he does not have a mind of his own and ignoring the fact that Mr. Scott represents all the people of South Carolina. Trust us, these political leaders are saying, just don’t ask us to explain.

Democrats claim to be liberal, but what is liberal about college students refusing to hear speakers that have views contrary to their own? Might not the students at Rutgers, Brandeis and Smith College have learned something from women like Condoleezza, Ayaan Hirsi Ali, and Christine Lagarde? What moral turpitude the president and trustees of these universities expressed in giving in to a few students’ intolerant demands!

The Cancer of Common Core — on The Glazov Gang

http://www.frontpagemag.com/2014/frontpagemag-com/the-cancer-of-common-core-on-the-glazov-gang/print/

This week’s Glazov Gang was joined by superstars Basil Hoffman, a Hollywood actor (“Rio, I Love You”), Ann-Marie Murrell, the National Director of PolitiChicks.tv and Ernie White, a Civil Rights Activist.

The Gang discussed The Cancer of Common Core,analyzing how Mao’s Cultural Revolution has now reached America’s public schools. Don’t miss it!

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY: The Ukraine crisis has created a catalyst for Sino-Russian rapprochement. Events in Ukraine have persuaded Russia that it cannot rely on Western Europe as its primary market for hydrocarbon exports. Consequently, after decades of negotiations between Moscow and Beijing for a long term natural gas mega-contract, it seems that Russia has finally relented to China’s terms, with China becoming the senior partner in a lopsided China-Russia relationship.

There is broader context to the struggle over sovereignty in the Ukraine, and China may emerge as the victor. After a decade of negotiations between Moscow and Beijing for a long-term natural gas supply contract, it appears that Russian President Vladimir Putin is likely to sign a 30-year deal during his state visit to China next week. Events in Ukraine appear to have persuaded Russia that it cannot rely on Western Europe as its primary market for hydrocarbon exports. It has therefore chosen to turn towards China. Evidently, Russia is willing to make price concessions that China has long demanded and Russia has long resisted.

China’s “New Silk Road” investment program is one of the most ambitious undertakings in world economic history. Beijing plans to build high-speed rail and broadband networks from China through to Turkey, with major spurs to Southeast Asia in the South, and through Israel and Egypt in the West. China will spend $7.3 billion to build a 3,700 kilometer pipeline from Turkmenistan, as well as shorter energy pipelines through Pakistan and other areas.

China’s economic presence in Russia’s Central Asian “near abroad” now dwarfs that of Russia. According to a report by GlobalRiskInsights,

Due to its proximity and reliability, Central Asian energy is increasingly important to Beijing. Turkmenistan is already China’s largest natural gas supplier, and Beijing invested $45 billion in energy projects in Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan, including oil, gas and uranium deals. Chinese-built pipelines have helped CA countries reduce their energy dependency on the Soviet-built pipelines running through Russia for oil and gas distribution. In addition, China overtook Russia as the region’s largest trade partner in 2010, with deals reaching $46 billion in 2012, compared to Russia’s $27 billion.

http://carolineglick.com/our-world-letting-go-of-abbas/ What makes PLO chief and Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas tick?   In 2008, when Abbas rejected then prime minister Ehud Olmert’s expansive offer of Palestinian statehood, he did so for the same reason that Yassir Arafat rejected then prime minister Ehud Barak’s expansive offer of Palestinian statehood at Camp David in 2000.   […]