Let’s check in with one of our favorites
It’s been a busy year for me, but I am going to make an effort to post more often. It’s not like the usual gang of idiots has quit shooting their mouth off in ignorant and offensive ways. So lets turn our eyes dear reader to one of this blogs oldest and most reliable sources for getting it wrong and getting well paid for it: Victor Davis Miles Gloriosus Hanson. In his most recent post on his web site (I hate to give him the link or the page views, but for the benefit of those following along at home: http://victorhanson.com/wordpress/?p=8524#more-8524 )he asks, “Is the world becoming fed up?” I’m glad he asked. He asks if Europe is fed up with immigration. He asks if Europe is tired of socialism. He asks if Trump is really so outrageous? He asks if Americans are fed up with the alleged hypocrisy of Hillary Clinton. Victor is truly mailing this one in.
And so, let’s ask ourselves, is the world becoming fed up? You bet your ass. But it’s a curious kind of world for Professor Doctor Hanson, who after breezily mentioning European socialism and immigration, spends the rest of his time talking up Donald Trump, scaremongering about murders committed by undocumented Mexican immigrants, and criticizing Hillary Clinton and President Obama. Why you’d almost think that Victor Davis Pyrgopolynices Hanson’s view of the world was the view from his front porch as seen through lenses of nativism and paranoia. Hanson may not agree with me on many things, but he is right that change is coming. He is old enough to recognize that pressure is building, and smart enough to know that America is going to have to make a serious choice as to what kind of nation it wants to be. And like the lifelong toady that he is, he chose the wrong side. He once again has taken as good a look at current events as his biases allow, and has learned they confirm everything he already believed.
For example, immigration. Ever since the US conquered and stole the entire American southwest from Mexico, and finished the subjugation and displacement of the Native Americans to it’s most desolate corners, Mexicans and Americans have been crossing the border, in both directions seeking jobs, freedom from oppression, and a place to call home. Official US policy has brought guest workers from Mexico to California to work in the fields for decades, only to bus or fly them back when the crops were harvested. It’s possible Hanson’s own family farm has taken part in this program. And even the Hanson family didn’t participate, I would put down money that many of his neighbors have. Hanson doesn’t seem to care where the poor, the homeless, and the starving masses of the 21st century go, as long as they don’t come to the US or Europe. It’s funny how when famine, war, plague or economic depression strikes the far off corners of the world how quick people like Hanson are to say that the inhabitants should leave their backward, war torn, homes and go somewhere less prone to the depredations of the four horsemen. And when the tired, the poor, the huddled masses yearning to breathe free queue up at the golden door, people like VDH gleefully slam it in their face. Because to VDH nothing is more important to civilization than law. Hanson thinks that undocumented immigrants are this country’s greatest threat. I’m not mind reading, I’m not putting words in his mouth. http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2015/jul/8/victor-davis-hanson-hillary-clintons-disregard-of-/? his opening paragraph is particularly rich
Barbarians at the gate usually don’t bring down once-successful civilizations. Nor does climate change. Even mass epidemics like the plague that decimated sixth-century Byzantium do not necessarily destroy a culture.
Because for an alleged historian, he manages to cram a heaping helping of wrong into those three sentences. I’d like to hear what the Romans, the Carthaginians, the Israelites, the Celts, the peoples of India, the pre-Belgian people of the Congo, and a list of other civilizations very nearly too long to mention have to say about invasions of barbarians not being a serious threat. Likewise, plague can and has been the final blow to multiple civilizations of which a Professor of history ought to be aware, for example the Aztecs, and nearly every other Native American nation that was thriving in 1491. Climate change too has put paid to more than a few civilizations. For example, Assyria, Babylon, and every other ancient civilization of the fertile crescent. Right goddamn now, Syria is a current country imploding under climate change as displaced farmers revolted under the Assad regime’s refusal to provide relief in the midst of the longest drought in recorded history in that area. And in that area recorded history goes back more than 2000 years. So he’s repudiating the evidence of basically all of recorded history so he can fear monger about people from Mexico and further south coming here to not starve to death? He spends breathless paragraph after breathless paragraph excoriating immigrants, the Greeks, the IRS and prominent Democrats for breaking laws, for creating a ‘culture of lawlessness’ that threatens to end the USA forever. He fails. He fails to show that there is any kind of causal connection between ‘lawless’ behavior and civilizational collapse. He cherry picks and as far as I can tell, invents, perfidious acts by Democrats, and fails to say how they are worse than the totally unmentioned crimes of republicans. Like for example wasting a few trillion dollars on a war justified by intelligence whose kindest description is “wildly exaggerated” and whose actual description would be more like “utterly fabricated bullshit made to order by the direct command of the president and vice president”. Or even if we give the previous administration the biggest mulligan in history, and sweep the death of thousands of Americans and a few hundred thousand (or just over a million, sources differ) Iraqi deaths under the carpet, we could point at things like Wall Street and the biggest banks in the world running a pump and dump scheme with sub prime mortgages, bundled in to worthless securities, and sold to unsuspecting customers and insured with credit default swaps that meant giant windfalls even as banks collapsed. Now I’m just a simple private citizen with no greater understanding of the complexities of finance than I do of rocket science, but I can’t see how that is anything but deliberate, massive, systemic, premeditated fraud and plunder on a historically unprecedented scale. And so when VDH complains about lawlessness, it rings kind of hollow to me. It almost seems like he’s trying to distract people by suggesting and implying that lawlessness comes from and is only perpetrated by people to his political left, and that his own chosen team is pure as the driven snow, because otherwise a person as wise, as informed and as fair minded as he imagines himself to be would clearly have mentioned any faults they may be even suspected of possessing. I mean give him this, he’s no David Broder writing column after column of false equivalence, so he has that crumb of ‘integrity’ he can claim.
But you’d think a guy whose entire life has been devoted to reading the classics would have more than a passing familiarity with the concept of ‘hubris’ and maybe, just maybe be able to recognize it, even when the people most deluded by it are his closest ideological allies. Or maybe, he’s just bored with the idea of peace and prosperity. Maybe government that isn’t crushing dissent at home and conquering enemies abroad, seems like laziness to a man whose dearest wish seems to be recreating Sparta in the supposed land of the free. Sparta, where there were ten slaves to every citizen, where every healthy male citizen was drafted into the army at around 10, and had to spend 2 years living off the land as a bandit preying on slaves and the defenseless, before taking his place in the phalanx fr then next thirty years or so. Sparta, where they didn’t do abortion, because infanticide worked better for them. Well, to give Sparta it’s due, there’s almost no way they’d willingly suffer under lectures from VDH. If they didn’t toss him down a well shortly after birth, they certainly wouldn’t have listened to the tedious drone of a slave lecturing his ‘betters’. Because in ancient Sparta, he and everyone he knows would have been dead or enslaved. That’s what 10 slaves for every citizen means.
I’m certainly puzzled by his antipathy toward Mexican immigrants. There’s nothing more traditional in California than Mexican immigration. You’d think he’d want his family’s crops harvested.
Like all American right wingers, he takes the EU’s failings as evidence against “socialism” (because Europe = socialism) while somehow ignoring the fact that it’s precisely the EU’s capitalist tendencies that its growing armies of critics are pissed about.
He asks if Trump is really so outrageous?
Aaaand that’s all the further one need read to see what an asshat is VDGH.
I note with glee that Trump is now leading the GØP field. Oh frabjous day to have Donald Trump the R standard bearer. Yay for Donald Trump! Dear FSM make sure he gets LOTS AND LOTS of press noting that he’s the fucking bearer of the Republican standard.
Lawlessness is okay when rich white guys engage in it.
“Nice post, but we demand shorter paragraphs!” cried the commentariat.
Because in ancient Sparta, he and everyone he knows would have been dead or enslaved. That’s what 10 slaves for every citizen means.
ha…i bet vdh’s math no work that way…
I’m certainly puzzled by his antipathy toward Mexican immigrants. There’s nothing more traditional in California than Mexican immigration. You’d think he’d want his family’s crops harvested.
i still lol every time i hear someone say that mexicans (or pick your ethnic group) are taking jobs away from ‘muricans…yeah, go pick those fields! and i’m sure slaughterhouses have always been on your top 10 list of dream jobs! and the hospitality industry is notoriously full of soul-satisfying, highly respected career choices!
i still lol every time i hear someone say that mexicans (or pick your ethnic group) are taking jobs away from ‘muricans…yeah, go pick those fields!
http://www.oregonlive.com/business/index.ssf/2012/08/farmers_blame_tight_immigratio.html
I recall reading of a couple white citizens who, going through desperate times, signed on as farm laborers. None of them lasted more than a day or two. Sorry, that will gave to remain anecdotal as I can’t be arsed to find a cite.
I’ve heard a similar story. Except the way I heard it, they were prison inmates offered a chance to work in the fields. And, none of them lasted more than a few days either.
The thing is, as recently as fifty years ago, native born Americans could get hired on in the fields. They could be trained to do the work. They could go home and afford a beer and a roof afterwards.
Is that true today? Fuck no. My dad worked in fields as his summer job while he was in high school and college. Fieldworkers get paid less than minimum wage. Remember how minimum wage doesn’t get you an apartment or tuition?
Ugh.
Fieldworkers in Canada where I live are Mexicans or Jamaicans or others from the Caribean who enter the country to work on short term visas.
They make less than minimum wage and although they have unemployment insurance deducted from their wages, they cannot ever make a claim because they would be deported.
Their employer provides them with dormitory “housing” in trailers.
This policy has been so successful that plutocrats in other industries, such as fast food and banking, have successfully lobbied the Conservative government to bring in offshore workers, usually from India, to flip burgers and do IT work for Canada’s five extremely profitable banks.
While most Canadians don’t really know or care that this is happening, the Conservatives got a black eye in the media when the bank workers protested the fact that before being fired, they were forced to train their own low-wage replacement workers.
The Conservatives then claimed to be surprised and yes, shocked! that such surprising corporate abuse of their foreign worker policies was occurring, and vowed to do something about it… sometime.
(Note that shorter paragraphs are easier to read…)
I remember ole’ VD from the Iraq War days. O what a glorious time. Islam had been finally crushed. W had transferred the oil wealth of Basra to Houston. People with a proven record of morality and integrity — Dennis Hastert, Dick Cheney, Anne Coulter, Rush Limbaugh, Eliot Abrams, Ahmed Chalabi — were setting the national discourse.
The budget was balanced, the economy was booming, there was no illegal immigration.
If only W could have run for a third term.
I’d like to hear what […] the Israelites […] have to say about invasions of barbarians not being a serious threat.
Actually, we have record of what the Israelites had to say and at least those writing the record agree with VDH: “barbarians” (well actually it was more “advanced” civilizations that did the invasions anyway) were not the real threat. G-d let Israel be invaded because (round I) Israelites did not keep the Sabbatical year and because (round II) of “senseless hatred” and “excessive piety”. IOW, it wasn’t barbarians that were the real threat, it was environmental catastrophe wrought by over-using the land and dis-unity caused by religious nuts that led G-d to say “fuck this shit, I’m not doing any more to protect Israel”.
tl;dr: VDH is correct that barbarian invasions are not a threat but rather social problems are the real problems. It’s just that he is part of the problem, not the solution.
I aint nebber had a kat afore so I doan no nuttin bout dat stuffs. So here’s what I don’t get: is it “litter” when it goes into a waste container?
DAS, I think we’ll have to agree to disagree on whether or not barbarians can be a serious threat to civilization. Maybe in ancient Israel, they considered all of the civilizations that kept invading and conquering the place to be evidence of divine displeasure, but I think that many civilizations did consider barbarians to be a threat, and would point to things like Hadrian’s wall and the Great Wall of China as evidence to support my conjecture.
Also in the future, I will try to organize my writing better and break it down into coherent paragraphs, rather than indulging in a stream of consciousness style rant.
Helmut, I certainly will not only agree to disagree but also think that we can manage to agree that VDH knows less even about his ostensible areas of expertise than a chemistry professor at a second tier state school and than an egg laying mammal.
Also, what’s wrong with stream of consciousness style ranting?
VDH is a scholar of the classics. Unfortunately he’s also a scholar in the classic mode of pedantry, prudery and pomposity. His columns seem to indicate the only thing he learned is “Dulce et decorum est, pro patria mori”. What’s the point of studying anything if the only goal is to reinforce one’s prejudices?
pedantry, prudery and pomposity.
Ahhhhhha! I always thought the “p” was for pajamas!
I aint nebber had a kat afore so I doan no nuttin bout dat stuffs. So here’s what I don’t get: is it “litter” when it goes into a waste container?
since the grandcat has come to live with us, I am finding myself stumped and repulsed by litter box duties (heh…doodies!).
g.c.’s dad supplied us with 2 massive bags of natural clay litter which I’m assuming he purchased for its cheapness…not a big fan of it since this cat seems to pee copious amounts which creates lots of soggy clay pellets. I would love to get box cleaning down to once/week. any suggestions aside from doing away with the cat would be welcomed.
I am aware that VDH is a scholar of the classics. It’s just that to read his columns, it seems he knows less about the classical era than your average platypus.
Anyway, I feel compelled to object to your defamation of pedantry, prudery and pomposity, which have a fine tradition of being guiding lights for the stodgier members of the academy. Any association of the noble triptych (or tryptic if you are a biochemist) of pedantry, prudery and pomposity with VDH is to demean a great academic tradition.
it seems he knows less about the classical era than your average platypus.
Where does he demonstrate that he knows anything at all about platypodes?
Also, Oklahoma GØP keepin it classy. The War on the Poors shall not be abated!
Well, you’ve already eliminated the best option (second best — first is properly banishing the demonic creature to any of the various levels of hell). So you could make it live outside. Just make sure to put a bell on it so it doesn’t kill everything and completely destroy the ecosystem like “domestic” cats were designed to do.
barry: Obama won. That’s pretty darn close to a third (and fourth) term in all important policy areas.
So you could make it live outside. Just make sure to put a bell on it so it doesn’t kill everything and completely destroy the ecosystem like “domestic” cats were designed to do.
well grandkitteh is a 12 year old city cat who is not an outdoorswoman…think I could toilet trAin her? I know the adage about old dogs, but dunno about old cats…
DAS: it seems he knows less about the classical era than your average platypus.
PM: Where does he demonstrate that he knows anything at all about platypodes?
Evidently I just shot an elephant in my pijamas.
bbkf, I had a kitty who lasted 16 years and the last several were devoted to DAILY litter cleaning because:
– He was 25 lb at his fighting weight and probably closer to 30 at his peak. Even dis-orbed he was the alpha tom of the neighborhood. Thus his earned name of Boojum (it started as Snark, but some snarks are boojums, you see).
– The Boojum hated clumping litter because I was too cheap to buy it when he was a wee kitty.
– He came down with feline diabetes by age 13, which, even with special diet, caused his kidneys to work in overdrive, and
– If the litterbox was wet when he went to use it, he’d use the carpet in the living room.
Not much I can say. Poor Boo got relegated to being an outside-only cat after he destroyed the living room carpet. It had to be replaced, pad and all, and not without cleaning and disinfecting the slab underneath. Glad my wife had the wisdom NOT to put down wood flooring under the carpet in that room (most of the ground floor is travertine tile over concrete slab). And I still have a 50 gallon trash can in the back 40 filled with old, used litter that I was using as critter repellent around the vegetable garden when we attempted that catastrophe.) Mrs bughunter refuses to this day to adopt another cat because of this experience.
Anyway, maybe try a system with two layers: a box with a screened bottom filled with clay litter above a second solid lower box with clumping litter. Top tray will just have tiny wet spots where grandkitty’s urine stream passed thru on its way to pooling in the lower box where it will clump. And poops. Cleanup is just lifting the top tray and dumping the clumps out of the lower tray, and scooping the poops out of the top.
Several things may require tuning, including 1) kitteh’s preference for the depth of the top tray litter, 2) kitteh’s aversion to getting claws caught in the screened bottom of the top tray, 3) size and weight of the bottom tray to keep things stable, 4) pitch of the screen in the top tray to keep too much clay litter from passing thru… and probably other things I haven’t thought of.
What? Why yes, I are an ingineer. I just spent the last hour of my day attempting to solve an important feline engineering problem instead of designing a news helicopter video downlink for a TV station.
Oh, and HM, I had no problem following your stream of consciousness rant. If having to pause to hit ‘Enter’ interferes with your output, don’t change a thing.
And finally, FYWP.
Make him an outside cat, huh? Superficial wisdom, my good sir.
Have you thought about winter, hmmm? Zinzi is an indoor/outdoor cat. I maintain a patch of ground under the name of a garden simply to provide her with a convenient outside toilet. Leave a window open for access and she spends most of her time inside. But, come winter, squatting in mud in the pouring rain in order to pee somehow does not appeal.
This year, she has decided the sittingroom curtains which droop a little on the floor will do her nicely for peeing purposes. I have never caught her at it, so no punishment has yet been meted out.
I did catch her that time she wet my bed with me in it, napping peacefully until the warm flood hit me. Cat grabbed, thrown heartlessly out into the cold, had to strip the bed down to the mattress and sleep upright in my chair until it dried. I steamed but that has not stopped her doing it a few more times. The worst !
I am about to cave and buy goddam kitty litter like
an urban person. Sigh.
Our abode lies in arid Southern California. Cold was seldom a problem but I did provide him a bed with an electric heating pad. On the few occasions when it rained, plenty of shelter was available on the back porch… where the heating pad lie.
Believe me, he was a badass. I didn’t worry about him until the very last few months, when the diabetes had destroyed his kidneys and he became visibly feeble. He went to dreamland for the final time in Jan of 2006.
Yep, still tears. If I need to cry on cue all I have to do is think of that day. He was my roommate and only companion for 14 of those years.
ObFYWP: FYWP
As a history teacher I have certain rules. One of them is if VDH is in a documentary then the documentary is flawed and I can not in good conscious show it to my students. The man is an example of what is wrong with our academia today.
Bugs, sweetie, you and I lie in the same climate zone (Mediterranean, rite?). But if you are in the desert part, then yep, we do not have the same rainy winter problems.
Tears ? Right there with you. I can still shed a few for Smudge, my sole companion and roommate for about 16 years who died last year, after struggling home after a car did its worst on her. I am left with only Zinzi who pushed and pleaded her way into my house a coupla years back and is about 12 – so not an indefinite period to go with her either.
I always swear never to let another cat into my home and heart, but..
You understand. Snif.
penis
pups…i’m lookin’ at you…
I lived in the Philippines about 20 years. I have also lived in China a short time, and Indonesia a while longer. Of those I met there (I lived in poverty there) I feel I could safely say that 90% of those over 15 and under 60 would migrate to the USA if they could.
To put your ideas about (starving masses, written by a Frenchman) to the real test of fairness, invite those who must swim here to equal treatment as those who can just walk here. Or, explain to me why the ability or walk here as opposed to swim, changes the pity we must show them. Lets suggest that 4 Billion want to come here for starters.
The world has its ugly places, its profound lack of pity. Its regions where stupidity/ignorance, outright unapologetic bigotry, thinking that a stolen dollar is an earned one, is the rule not the exception. I suggest that crossing a border will not change this thinking.
Do we take control of our borders or don’t we? You, Helmut, suggest that we base our immigration policy on who can sneak here in the night, who have ignored laws they agreed to, who corrupt employers by offering to work at low wages. Am I really such a villain to suggest that America is free to, or even obligated to, define itself by maintaining consistency of culture, not electing overpopulation, or simply setting standards for immigration?
i’m sure slaughterhouses have always been on your top 10 list of dream jobs!
It actually used to be a decent paying, union job.
Then they busted the unions and sped up the lines until it became a very dangerous, low-paying job.
They made it into a “job Americans won’t do”.
They made a lot of jobs jobs Americans won’t do.
Were I to be uncharitable I’d say you built yourself a might nice straw man, but didn’t actually manage to land a punch on it. Instead, let’s examine your arguments.
Done. Everyone gets in with the exception of violent criminals.
It doesn’t. That’s why we let them in.
This is a number you have
pulled straight out of your assinvented to make your argument sound scary. However, even if a billion people decide they want to move to the USA, there is room, and provided we make big changes to the way we feed ourselves, chiefly if we quit using half our crop acreage to grow cattle feed, we have enough agricultural capacity to feed an extra billion.We already have those places here. Wall street is the easiest example, but Ferguson MO, and the University of Chicago Economics Department are close runner ups.
Obviously not. Rupert Murdoch didn’t become any kind of bleeding heart liberal after becoming a US citizen did he? And yet we already have dozens or hundreds of millions of people right here that think along those lines. What’s a few more going to hurt?
Of course we do. After all, we wouldn’t want violent criminals or undiagnosed Typhoid Marys running around. The biggest way to do that is to convince everyone to come in through the front door, where they can be checked out. The way to do that is to give people the confidence to use the front door by not turning anyone away. Even Typhoid Marys should be assured of medical care (in quarantine if necessary like for antibiotic resistant TB).
This is a straw argument. I say we base our immigration policy on who wants to be an American citizen. And then we let them come here and be American citizens.
The ones that if they followed them, would condemn them to a life of oppression, grinding poverty or death unless they came here?
See, I see that issue differently. I’d like to vigorous, enthusiastic enforcement of labor laws. Lets end the absurdity of lower minimum wages for agricultural and restaurant workers and raise the nationwide minimum wage to at least $15 an hour. Let’s indict and convict individuals that break labor laws and sentence them to prison terms commensurate with the seriousness of the offense. We should revoke the corporate charter of companies that engage in wage theft. One guy getting any job he can to put food on the table doesn’t threaten me. Entire industries that exploit their workers impoverish us all.
Well, unless I miss my guess, you aren’t personally throwing immigrants off the dock to swim home or drown, so no, you aren’t *exactly* a villain. You are just trying to preserve an idealized version of the USA that has as much chance of returning as Atlantis.
You may have noticed the world is changing. Politics is no longer dominated by bipolar Cold War era mindsets. The threat of nuclear war doesn’t only come from Russia. Global warming is going to redraw the map. Maybe the richest coastal cities in the world will get the multi-billion dollar seawalls, dikes and pumps it will take to keep the carp off main street, but most won’t. 634 million people live within 30 feet of sea level (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sea_level_rise#Effects_of_sea-level_rise). 634 million people are going to have to grow gills, or move. We need to take our share, cause a few hundred millions of those displaced will be Americans if we’re building brand new cities to house them, and we’ll have to, we might as well make some extra. Partly because it’s the right thing to do, and partly to inspire other nations to do likewise. The 21st century is going to be a bumpy ride, but it’s going to be a hell of a lot bumpier if we try to maintain ideas about national identity that were formed when killing Native Americans and enslaving Africans was business as usual. Frankly we’ll need every extra pair of hands we can get if we want to successfully deal with the coming shitstorm, and I for one don’t particularly care what color skin the person next to me has if we are both filling sandbags as fast as we can.
Note that when most of our ancestors came here “legally” there was no such thing as “illegal immigration”.
Except for the Chinese Exclusion Act, there were no immigration laws until the 1920s.
who corrupt employers by offering to work at low wages.
HAHAHAHAHA
maintaining consistency of culture
Damn, now you’ve got Bagoas all stirred up.
As to the dildo plague, I moved to Texas. I can not possibly be held accountable for some people who I don’t even know I’m sure throwing those things around. YOU CAN’T TIE ME TO IT / THEM!!!
As to the dildo plague, I moved to Texas. I can not possibly be held accountable for some people who I don’t even know I’m sure throwing those things around. YOU CAN’T TIE ME TO IT / THEM!!!
oh, i know you moved to texass, mr. and you still have my deepest condolences on that…however, the dildo plague just has your name written all over it.
I’m curious.
If failing to preserve “consistency of culture” against the Irish-Catholic wave in the 1830s, the Italian, Polish, Greek, Jewish wave at the turnof the century, and all the refugees from the communist bloc in the middle of the twentieth century didn’t bring down the republic (nor did the original mishmash of British and German culture at the time of the Revolution), why should this wave be any different?
There’s a Lincoln for every Jefferson Davis and a Harlem Children’s Zone for every K.K.K. — and usually vastly more than one.
And for every racist cop that arrests you for no reason and beats the shit out of you, there are vastly more non-racist cops to blow the whistle on the racist cops…
Well, it totally COULD happen!
“And so when VDH complains about lawlessness, it rings kind of hollow to me. It almost seems like he’s trying to distract people by suggesting and implying that lawlessness comes from and is only perpetrated by people to his political left”
I mean, it’s not like a movement focused on national “redemption”, warrior spirit and a well-stoked fear of “the other” has ever come from the right and done horrible shit after all. o_O
Tho in VDH-land, *those* guys presumably count as “defenders of civilization” and not “lawlessness”.