I’m by NO IMAGINABLE MEASURE a Victor Davis Hanson fan.  He’s too Right, too conservative and too contemptuous of those who are not likewise.  And I’m sure he’s a front man for his own set of interest groups.  Which makes him just as self-interested as others of his ilk.

That said, he’s nailed the list of wokesters below BUT GOOD.  In fact, totally OUTED THEM.  Which is why it makes sense to be a centrist.  You not only get to pick your battles but your allies of the moment as well.  And life is, after all, more a square dance than a duel.

But smart people already understand that.

Here are some remarks of Hanson’s from a recent piece of his — all of them money-shot caliber.

“Our own woke, year-zero revolution is now in its second year. Yet last year’s four-legged revolutionaries are already strutting on two legs. They are not just hobnobbing with the ‘white supremacists’ and ‘capitalists,’ but outdoing them in their revolutionary zeal for the rarified privileges of the material good life.

“The Marxist co-founder of BLM, Patrisse Cullors, is now on her fourth woke home. She has moved on from the barricades to the security fences of her Topanga Canyon digs in a mostly all-white, all-rich rural paradise–the rewards for revolutionary service.

“Professor Ibram X. Kendi has evolved from the edgy revolutionary work of flying all over the country, hawking his Orwellian message of ‘All racism bad! But some racism good!’ Now he has mastered the art of zooming the wannabe woke for his $20,000 an hour avant-garde hectoring.

“What of Colin Kaepernick, the mediocre second-string quarterback turned sudden firebrand? He refused to stand for the national anthem and spread his ‘take a knee’ kitsch throughout professional sports.

“Kaepernick became a boutique revolutionary multimillionaire. For $12 million a year, he pitches Nike sneakers, often made in Chinese forced-labor camps.

Woke NBA star LeBron James, from his $23 million Brentwood mansion, blasts America for its endless unfairness–in service to his totalitarian Chinese paymasters who will ensure his good life with an eventual lifetime $1 billion payout for hawking their goods.

“Our other elite wokists navigating around the revolution are even more cynical. The corporate and Wall Street capitalists feel that a little virtue signaling, showy diversity coordinators, and woke advertising will more or less buy off the latest version of Al-Sharpton-like shake-down artists.”

Zing, Zing, Zing, Zing, Zing.

Trump voters are somewhat more extreme, but, frankly, not that much.  The Left is, broadly speaking, as intolerant of the other side as is the Right.  If this doesn’t spell RUPTURE, what does?

Bill Blain with whom I seldom agree is right on point with this one.

The Looming Energy Crisis: People Are Going to Die This Winter

Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) is a noble and aspirational way to conceive of investing, but it’s simply not grounded in reality.

The heart of the matter and the piece:

“Fund managers claim to be investing in our futures. If that is true – how do they expect the world can transition seamlessly from dirty hydrocarbons to clean renewables overnight? It takes 20 years to get planning and build a nuclear power station – while wind is proving fickle, unreliable, far less efficient and difficult to maintain.

“The brutal reality is we can’t decarbonize the global economy overnight. Over 30 years . . . perhaps! Through the transition period we will still need power and energy derived from the old dirty hydrocarbons. Powering up EVs, making the fuel for hydrogen planes and trains will all require hydrocarbon derived energy. That’s fact.

“Instead, ESG investment compliance means all the gas in our offshore waters that could have powered the UK to becoming a truly carbon-neutral, energy secure state in 20-30 years time is untapped and un-investible. For now – the skills to tap it are already disappearing.

ESG has evolved into a religion, a high church of environmental orthodoxy. Its heretical to suggest ESG can’t work unless we evolve towards a cleaner energy ecosystem by continuing to burn hydrocarbons. A crisis this way comes: for all the posts on Linked-In boasting about green investments, or the industry awards for Green Bond of the year, or the multitude of certificates one can earn on ESG investments – it will all count for nothing this winter.”

Frankly, I’ve never seen anything quite so QUIXOTIC as ESG.  No action plan, no timetables but just a kind of SPIRALING FAITH not seen since perhaps The Crusades.  And we all know how THAT went.

. . . by Country

War for the sake of war? Or war for the sake of $$$$?

OR IS THERE A DISTINCTION?

Anyone surprised that we’re still polling ahead for homecoming queen?

Seriously, who likes China and would want to live that way?

We need police to police streets not pronouns.  Especially in Chicago or Baltimore.  You think a gangbanger cares how you IDENTIFY?  PUHLEEZE!

Gender is entering its Baroque/Rococo phase and stands little chance of surviving some kind of Modernist guillotining if the current NONSENSE continues.

Here’s Jonathan Turley’s latest which discusses “misgendering” — man, can these wokesters crucify language — and its compelled-speech implications.

How “Misgendering” Is Becoming the New Battleground Over Discrimination

Here’s for me where the absurdity of the rubber hits the bedrock of the road:

“Students today identify from a growing list of gender identities including, but not limited to, genderfluid, third-gender, amalgagender, demigender, bi-gender, pansgender, and a-gender. Pronouns can include, but are not limited to: He/She, They/Them, Ze/Hir (Ze, hir, hir, hirs, hirself), Ze/Zir (Ze, zir, zir, zirs, ze), Spivak (Ey, em, eir, eirs, ey), Ve (Ve, ver, vis, vis, verself), and Xe (Xe, xem, xyr, xyrs, xe).”

Is this some kind of street Chinese?

MEANWHILE, THE REAL CHINA, THE SCO AND BRI ARE EATING OUR LUNCH.

What’s next?  Genders displacing angels on the heads of pins?  Hope you’re not reading this, Thomas Aquinas.

A discourse on imperialism.

And a call for the US to join with China and Russia to prevent Islamic terrorism from again taking hold in Afghanistan.

Plus, a call for the US to work with China on environmental issues, pandemics, and the nuclear dilemma, including a warning that if we don’t, HUMANITY IS DONE.

As usual, strong words to which few will pay heed.

Collapse of Afghanistan

The Woke won’t like this.

The Experts Somehow Overlooked Authoritarians on the Left

The Left?  Authoritarian?  I mean, who cares about Lenin, Stalin or Mao?  So-called aberrations, right?  OR . . . ENTIRELY EXPLICABLE.

A few nuggets from this timely piece in The Atlantic:

• Researchers at Emory University have found some “common traits between left-wing and right-wing authoritarians, including a ‘preference for social uniformity, prejudice towards different others, willingness to wield group authority to coerce behavior, cognitive rigidity, aggression and punitiveness towards perceived enemies, outsized concern for hierarchy, and moral absolutism.‘”
• While calls to “de-platform controversial speakers and online campaigns to get people fired for heterodox views suggest that a commitment to open democratic norms is eroding, at least in some quarters, on the left . . . further along the authoritarian continuum, people purporting to be antiracist or antifascist protesters have set fires and committed other acts of violence since the summer of 2020.”
• “In psychology, the belief that only conservatives can be authoritarians, and that therefore only conservative authoritarians warrant serious study, has proved self-reinforcing over the course of decades.”

Good to see The Atlantic reminding us of something we should already know from history.  But then, the Left in the US owns academia, and academia writes history.

A European view post-Afghanistan

2021-2040: Back to the Future

Key points:

• The Taliban is back.
• The German SPD is back.
• Nord Stream II is a reality.
• Gaullist France is back.
• Europe’s strategic sovereignty is again relevant.
• The Euro-Russian relationship is again relevant
• The “clash of civilizations” is still a challenge.
• Controlling technology may be a greater challenge.

Quick translation:  the US’s moment has passed.

You can’t cut hydrocarbons without KNOWING that there are sufficient alternatives to FUEL GROWING DEMAND.  Because the way we roll, once fuel demand stops, so does GROWTH, i.e. DYNAMIC CAPITALISM as we’ve come to know it.

Not only the real economy but Wall Street and EVERYTHING ELSE is tethered to ENERGY ECONOMICS.  For instance, without enough energy, we can’t pay the interest on our massive debt.  So, an energy shortfall not only short-circuits everyday life, it also DESTROYS the financial system.

All of this is TOTALLY INTERCONNECTED.  But I bet NO ONE EVER TAUGHT YOU THAT.  Energy was simply an ASSUMED CONSTANT when in fact it’s the MOST CRITICAL VARIABLE to civilization, barring none.

With that in mind, check out this FOCUSED piece from Adventures in Capitalism:

Will ESG Create the Next Lehman Moment . . . ???

Money shot paragraph:

“I am increasingly convinced that we’re about to have a global energy crisis. Almost every day, we hear of a different policy plan to reduce energy production. We learn of new mandates, new taxes, more cancelled pipelines, more cancelled permits, and more penalties. What we don’t hear about is where the replacement energy comes from. The wind doesn’t always blow and sometimes it is cloudy. My car won’t drive on unicorn farts and billions of people in developing economies want a Western standard of life—complete with a Western level of energy consumption. These people refuse to pay for ‘green energy,’ especially when the ‘carbon economy’ is so affordable. Or maybe, they have the pragmatism not to build ‘green energy’ while the technology isn’t fully proved-out. Maybe they’re looking at spiking gas prices in the UK, spiking electricity prices in Europe, factory shut-downs in China, rolling blackouts in California and asking if the ‘green economy’ is right for them. Developing nations intend to consume more. Western nations intend to consume more. China intends to consume more. At some point, declining production will slam into rapidly increasing demand. It will only be solved by higher energy prices. The clearing price will stun people.”

Could that be any clearer?