First let me add to the “literature” on the fascist Michael Anton, to what Warren said:
"Recently, he attracted considerable controversy by warning of a potential Democratic coup in 2020. Like many in the Trump moment—from former White House chief strategist Steve Bannon, to current White House senior counselor Stephen Miller, to Tucker Carlson, to the late Andrew Breitbart and his successor, Alex Marlow—Anton is from the California diaspora.” Which Mills places himself in with his Bannonite/Straussianism ideology.
“You’ve got the “primacists”—these are hawkish both about Russia and China. In that set you have former Trump administration officials and plausible future presidents Mike Pompeo and Robert C. O’Brien, among others, as well as old-school conservative policy shops, like the Heritage Foundation and, in particular, the Hudson Institute. But then you’ve got the “prioritizers”—realists on Russia, and more hawkish on China. Examples: Tucker Carlson, defense wiz Elbridge Colby, Steve Bannon, and (at least by rhetoric) Donald Trump himself. This was the grounding influence of the “Up From Chaos” conference put on by TAC and American Moment.
At least Curt Mills, as much as I despise him as a Bannonite, and Straussian, is honest enough to take note that “some” Conservatives” are more hawkish than others, with the most hawkish being the latter group. But please pardon me, we on this List aren’t supposed to take notice of that!
But Warren noted that Anton sounded like a “fascist,” which I have no doubt is true, as he is one, down to his duplicitous writings, as the article I shared earlier on he and Israel should have mad clear, to all except ZioCons, which is what I’m up against here, I know. But here’s one for Tom Pauken, and his observation that “Todd just can't resist tainting all on the Right of center as Straussians and/or neoconservatives.” Given Anton has such pride of place within The American Conservative/National Conservative camp, as many other TAC and NatCon piece show, and stands in such good stead throughout Conservativism, like Warren pointed out, to include the Philadelphia Society, this piece by Anton serves as outstanding into to Strauss and Jaffa, and Anton their successor, sitting astride TAC and CUA in teaching the “Constitution!” https://www.theamericanconservative.com/fellows/
"In 1996, Charles Kesler—Jaffa’s successor in Claremont in so many ways, and my principal teacher—was hosting a conference. Charles, who had studied with Harvey Mansfield, had secured Mansfield as a speaker for the conference. It so happens that I have had a small number of intellectual heroes. Jaffa was one. Harvey Mansfield is another."
Graham, I agree with much of what you say about Quincy, in general. But I criticize them when they present fallacious information about the most “Hawkish” of the two parties “traditionally,” and in the present, the Republicans (as bad as the Democrats are currently, and as minimal anything they do “positively,” actually is, but I supported the JCPOA, and I oppose the Republican/Koch led attacks on free speech in defense of the Palestinians, BDS, which Republicans and Koch funded group worked so hard to virtually criminalize. An in that, per this article:
But only when QI wasn’t shilling for the Republicans, as peddling a lie of the “Conservative peaceniks,” like the extremist China War Hawk Matt Gaetz. And selling that to people like Stephen Kinzer, in working to get Republican Warhawks elected, with their always monstrously large military budgets!
This event epitomized that, which I won’t listen to again as that degree of lying is just intolerable to me. But it was largely disseminating the "Big Lie” that the Republicans were always the “Party of Restraint:” https://quincyinst.org/event/the-new-right-ukraine-marks-major-foreign-policy-shift-among-conservatives/. In it, as I’ve shared before, especially Mollie Hemingway and Saurabh Sharma, both as Trumpite as you can get, putting out some absolute whoppers, of the Republicans and Conservatives always having been the party of peace and "non-interventionism.”
Unless like me, you went through Marine Corps boot camp and learned about all of our “Banana Wars, mostly fought under Republicans from 1921 to 1932, until FDR came in and wanted to stop ticking off the Latin Americans.
So you have to know lies like that are pure B.S., as anyone who has followed U.S. politics since the end of WW II knows when the “Who Lost China Republicans” of Joe McCarthy, James Burnham, Willmoore Kendall, Bill Buckley, et al., came on the scene. And thereafter fought every POTUS, beginning with Truman and Eisenhower, for being too “weak.” And not building up our armaments ever enough. In fact, Republican's first choice had been MacArthur for President; no right-wing peace-nik was he, just right-wing. Goldwater as standing in for Gen. LeMay would be their next favorite candidate. In fact, I bet Chas Freeman could tell a story or two of how it was the Republican right-wing who made the most trouble over issues like China, Formosa, etc.
"To flesh out this concept the Marines have been busy investing in new technologies and refitting units, with $6.4 billion allotted in the 2023 budget for FD2030 items. Their priorities include new mission specific Marine Littoral Regiments (MLR), mobile vehicle mounted anti-ship missiles, unmanned resupply ships, tracking and targeting radars, drones, and communications networks to link the battlespace together.”
Which are never questioned by the “military experts” of QI that I’ve seen, and definitely not by the Trumpite “military experts” Mollie Hemingway and Saurabh Sharma of TAC and QI 🤣 (forgive me but I can’t take their sh** seriously.
Whatever the circumstances of Daniel Larison leaving, he was the last TAC editor who promoted a sound foreign policy relying on diplomacy and intellectual intelligence. The Straussians Johnny Burka, Curt Mills, and all the other TAC editors with connections to Hillsdale College and the Claremont Institute (the “Straussians,” see Michale Anton above) were and are simply Warhawk propagandists but constrained by the post-Iraq War era of “war weariness,” so they must use duplicity to incite the war against China the West Coast Straussians always desired (I know, I hobnobbed with them at one time). With all at most at the the intellectual level of Mollie Hemingway with her Trump crush.
When these Conservatives get together with QI, QI’s average IQ drops at least 50%. And QI like TAC, becomes a “New Right” campaign infomercial, in my opinion. And the more success that has, the more the Democrats mimic that policy, as they so often have.
The one thing I agree with Kendall on is the need, though unlike him, not exclusively, of a “political theory” approach, to intelligence analysis, but also domestic policy analysis. With that approach, I knew this was insane, as events have proven me correct:
Republicans just don’t cut military spending; never, no how, unless they haven’t a chance in hell of avoiding that. And holding the House is not that situation anyone of ordinary intelligence should have known Republican wouldn’t allow the military to be cut. Nevertheless, Republicans have been screaming like banshees that the end of the world is upon us! So yeah, trying to get Republicans elected by disinformation of they being the “Party of Peace,” is not only so much B.S., but also a preparatory act to going to war, especially when the Democrats are following the lead Trump started in 2017, as even they admit, proudly. On Jun 18, 2023, at 12:22 PM, graham <bozorgg@aol.com> wrote:
Todd, you have performed some interesting ideological contortions here — God knows to what end. In a Washington groaning with think tanks that all perpetuate in virtual unison what is essentially the American imperial/ hegemonic narrative, you call out the Quincy Institute as “conservative”? I am not interested in ideological genealogies or pedigrees that you like to track. It should be plain to any informed observer that the Quincy Institute is virtually, the only serious major think tank in washington, perhaps in the US, that pursues a basically progressive view of US foreign policy issues. If decrying war, opposing massive military budgets, criticizing provocative US approaches to Russia and China, and promoting the need for peaceful negotiations and the embrace of a more multilateral world isn’t progressive, then I don’t know what is—especially in a Washington that seems otherwise trapped in an ideological bubble of hegemonic uniformity.. You seem to perceive the Good here as the enemy of the Perfect. I, for one, I am grateful for small blessings of rationality that the Quincy Institute brings us that just may eventually nudge the Washington bubble into a more rational vision of the world.
graham fuller On Sunday, June 18, 2023, 9:49 AM, Todd Pierce via Salon <salon@listserve.com> wrote: Chas just shared this article asking: "How long can Israel keep insulting its benefactors?" That’s easy to answer. As long as we, the U.S., has Republican Conservative ZioCons calling themselves “Realists,” and claiming to be for “restraint” in foreign policy, as a monumental “Big Lie,” a “Deception Campaign.” With them leading the way in support for, and establishing the minimum level of support for Israeli fascism they’ll deem acceptable, for one to avoid being denounced as “anti-Israel/anti-Semitic, while simultaneously working to “outlaw” speech in support of the BDS Movement. A “Realism” propagated most prominently and forcefully by The American Conservative magazine, but often by that other “Conservative/Realist” foreign policy promoter, the Quincy Institute, as well. And by the politicians/“political theorists” whom they always trot out to “re-orient” TAC’s past-readers, and to inculcate the current generation of “New Rightist” in the “direction” they’re now supposed to follow. As Trump (and Hillsdale/Claremont/CUA laid out, in favor of war on China (as motive for this type to “oppose” war on Russia, as war on China taking precedence for them, and saving Russia as a “mopping-up operation), in opposition to the “actual” Constitution, and demanding even more obsequiousness to Israeli fascist “interests.” As laid out by TAC’s favorite Straussian political theorist Michael Anton: (https://jewishinsider.com/2020/09/former-trump-nsc-official-michael-anton-speaks-out-on-foreign-policy/). Quote: “America has allies out of shared conviction and shared interests… Some of these alliances that you have are simply because of a natural affinity to democracies that share common values, and so on and so forth, and relationships built up over decades. And you don’t necessarily ask the question, ‘Hey, what am I getting out of this today?’ It’s not a calculation at every step of the way in foreign policy.” With those “Traditional Conservatives” working along with like-minded “libertarians” to cut U.S. domestic spending, like USPS as one glaring example, in order to create more “room” in the budget for increased military spending, and more “aid” for Israel, as the NY Post article here disingenuously promoted, by the Republicans its author enthused over: With this showing the “interests” uppermost in Republican Mace’s mind: https://nancymace.org/issues/stand-with-israel/ and this in Republican Chip Roy’s, and other “Realist’s” defined “interests:” https://cc.org/congressman-chip-roy-leads-house-effort-to-cut-funding-to-anti-israel-u-n-office/co-sponsors: Mike Lee (R-Utah), Warren Davidson (OH-8), Dan Bishop (NC-8), Matt Gaetz (FL-1)
Not at all coincidentally, these “Conservative Realists” all have one thing in common: they’re adored by The American Conservative magazine as “Foreign Policy Experts,” and falsely described as being for “Realism and Restraint” (though not in an Orwellian way). While doing their utmost as well, without “Restraint,” to reducing the taxation of the Oligarch”s whose “interests” they seem to prioritize almost equal to Israeli fascists, and War on China! And, I would note, in a “Military Occupation,” as Israel’s is of Palestinian Territory, every Palestinian house destroyed, every Palestinian family displaced as ethnic cleansing, every illegal Settlement created or expanded, every bit of Palestinian land expropriated, every Palestinian ordered into “Military Detention,” etc., constitute “Acts of War.” Of which Trump fully joined in as a “co-belligerent,” without even the minimal “restraint” that Obama/Biden showed, and demonstrated with the “restraint” of the JCPOA. P.S. I will leave it to you to search "Rep. Rob Good Israel,” to complete this. To include Rand Paul as a necessary “symbol” of “Restraint,” shown by joining in this deception (in my opinion) while fully engaged in enabling all the War Party’s Oligarchs to maximize their wealth, to maximize their war-profiteering. And maximizing his fund-raising by “protecting his brand.”
![A picture containing text, human face, person, screenshotDescription automatically generated.jpeg]()
Salon mailing list
Salon@listserve.com
https://mlm2.listserve.net/mailman/listinfo/salon
|