September 17, 2015

Just plain weird: Hillary to hold fundraiser at former house of Gambino boss.

http://www.buzzfeed.com/jimcallaghan/hillary-clinton-expected-to-fundraise-at-the-mobs-old-white#.drbm3W0gxG

The boss whose house it was, Paul Castellano, was considered to have been a relatively greedy and yet feckless mobster who most of his subordinates never quite respected. The job came to him not through significant personal exploits or popularity, but largely through personal connections with his predecessor, the founder Carlo Gambino. His greed, weakness, and disregard for subordinates opened the door to a coup by idiot street thug John Gotti, whose narcissism led more or less to the downfall of the Mafia in America, so indirectly Castellano himself can be credited with setting the stage for his organization's collapse.

The house is now owned by someone with no connection to Castellano or the Mafia, so this isn't a comment on that exactly. But when I hear Hillary Clinton and Paul Castellano's names mentioned in the same sentence, somehow it seems thematically appropriate. Not because it's the mob, but because it's someone who obtained a position of importance in their organization entirely via personal connections rather than merit and then disgraced themselves by being simultaneously selfish and weak.

Fortunately we still have a choice whether to let this particular version of "selfish and weak" hold the fate of everything we care about in her hands, because with Hillary Clinton the question is not whether she will fail, but when and how many people she drags down with her. Right now it's just her campaign. If she is nominated, it will be the entire Party and likely the entire country when (not if) she manages to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory in the general election - which she will do sure as the Sun rises, no matter how insane or inept her Republican opponent is.

Character is destiny. Hers is a matter of historical record, and nominating her in the face of that record is the proverbial definition of insanity.

September 6, 2015

Putin's escalating Syria involvement: A weapon pointed at European unity?

Various news sources have been reporting recently that Russia is building up its military involvement in Syria on behalf of the Assad regime. The alliance between the two is nothing new, but in light of recent consequences of the Syrian civil war - namely, the large and rapidly growing waves of refugee emigration to Europe, which are driving internal political divisions in the EU - one has to wonder just how darkly cynical Putin's agenda in Syria may become.

As a regime characterized by "divide and conquer" strategy - employed most conspicuously in the manufacture of a civil war in Ukraine seemingly out of thin air to enable and justify the annexation of major territories - the political strains in Europe caused by the migration crisis cannot have escaped Kremlin attention.

The authoritarian government of Hungarian leader Viktor Orban, who was already a squeaky wheel on European sanctions against Russia, has been the loudest and most vehement critic of permissive Northern European attitudes toward asylum-seekers. Meanwhile the brutality, naked xenophobia, and rampant corruption of the Hungarian response to the crisis has caused Western EU members to reevaluate their view of Hungary given its radical deviations from stated EU values.

Is it beyond the depravity of the Putin regime to deliberately escalate the horrors in Syria in order to unleash greater migrations and further increase political tensions within the EU? Or, even if not, is that actually his intention? We have now seen multiple examples of Putin's strategy of unleashing chaos as a means of proxy war. Is this another example of it?

September 3, 2015

So, looks like (knock on wood) the Iran deal is done. Nobel Peace Prize #2, anyone?

This President...

1. Completely reversed the course of US policy toward Iran that he inherited, which had been marching directly toward war on the same fabricated bases as Iraq.

2. Defied the very powerful AIPAC and the raving blowhard currently in control of the Israeli government.

3. Brought one of the most anti-American governments on Earth to the table in concert with other nations and created a consensus for peace that will protect the region both from nuclear proliferation and Republifascist aggression.

4. (Apparently) created enough Congressional support for the deal to cement it, again knock on wood.

Oh, and let's not forget that other thing...

5. Reestablished relations with Cuba after half a century.

I say it would be an outrage to not give Barack Obama another Nobel Peace Prize. One for Kerry too.

We can't know for certain whether peace will be achieved because of the deal, but that's always been true of all peace deals. Nobody could know if the Camp David Accords would hold. Nobody could know if the United Nations would continue to exist or just dissolve in a few years in chaos like the League of Nations had. But Nobel Peace Prizes are awarded to those who build the roads to peace, whether or not people walk them.

Maybe the Iranian government is the cartoon character of evil they are portrayed as and that their actions often suggest. Maybe the US government is so full of frothing, psychopathic Republican murderers that they will erase the deal and start a war the next time they are in control. Maybe both. Or maybe, just maybe, this is enough to do the next thing, and the next, and the next that heals the wounds of time between two nations.

If this deal holds and yet does not result in Nobel Peace Prizes, it will clearly be a politically-motivated oversight by people who do not hold the values they claim.