Since the advent of Trump the New York Times has gone all in for defending the meritocracy status quo. Partof the duty is taken up in defense of global trade. It’s all good. Tariffs are bad.
This [tariff installing] approach could result in higher barriers to imports that would end America’s decades-long status as the world’s most open large economy. This could lead to slightly higher prices in the United States for everything from Chilean grapes to iPhones to gasoline. But it could also provide a boost to companies and workers who make things in the United States and sell them abroad.
Heavens, more expensive iPhones! And Chilean grapes! I know for a fact grapes are grown in California. I’ve seen them!
The Times goes to great lengths to show that trade is good even though it has done bad things to the American worker. Unfortunately, the Times’ own illustrations mostly refutes its approach. The trade deficit is shown as hu-u-u-ge with China. And getting worse. China is, unlike this country, protectionist. It uses value added taxes on imports to protect its own manufacturing base, something the US does not do.
The extraordinary plunge in manufacturing jobs in the years 2000 to 2007 was due to the explosion of the trade deficit … It is incredible how acceptable it is for our elites to lie about trade rather than deal with the issue candidly. “
“This level of dishonesty separates trade out from most other areas of public debate,” Baker states flatly.
I enjoyed Marvel’s “Iron Fist” on Netflix. Since the early reviews were all horribly negative I figured I’d like it. I could care less Danny Rand wasn’t Asian. Doesn’t the script make it obvious? Rand was the first “outsider” Iron Fist.
Iron Fist’s maker, the character is four decades old and minor in the Marvel pantheon, said he didn’t care, either. It was apparently the worst thing he could do: Another Stan Lee age white guy reiterating that the kung fu master was white, yes, and he didn’t care that it was cast that way.
Currently, the new Iron Fist comic — on issue number one — well, the hero is still very white and old school Marvel. Like almost all decades old Marvel characters.
So someone named Kendra James writes another hit piece at the Guardian, so over the top it’s to laugh.
Marvel’s latest Netflix show is a staggering disappointment but despite its star’s assertions, it can’t be blamed on our growing distaste for rich white privilege …
No one in Iron Fist has earned anything – whether it’s their money, their powers or even our grudging respect.
(Actually, Danny Rand, once he inherits over half his dad’s company, immediately declares the firm’s drug that cures elephantiasis in Africa will be sold at cost, a move that horrifies board members. That’s worth respect considering the way corporate America prices drugs. And he pays to improve his girlfriend’s dojo.)
Avengers: Age of Ultron was a movie entirely about why more white men should be told “No.”
[All the white characters] stand in stark contrast to Claire and Colleen, two women who wield skills that they’ve had to perfect over the course of their lives. The idea that Colleen has had to work at her skill, martial arts, while Rand relies mostly on a given power is obvious throughout the series. (According to the story he was in a plane crash that killed his parents and spent many years as a kid getting beaten with sticks during martial arts training before he became Iron Fist).
The Guardian publishes often great investigative journalism. And Owen Jones alone, infrequently in the opinion section defending the working class and ridiculing England’s toffs, is reason enough to turn to it daily.
But the Iron Fist takedown is lousy reviewing and so late to the party it’s only a me too. It’s such a poor piece of work it crosses over into unintentional humor. The critic’s analysis: Iron Fist is a terrible show, not because Danny Rand is distastefully white and wealthy but because … uh, he’s white, rich and undeserving, compared to the girls. And all the other white characters stink, too. But the not-white girls are great. Did I tell you that?
By the way, the new Invincible Iron Man, who is an African-American teenage girl named Riri Williams, has nothing on the original. I’ve read this is a lousy opinion to have. Eventually it will flop and Stark will be back from the near dead.
After World War II, Hitler’s top commando, Otto Skorzeny — the man who rescued Il Duce, became a globe-trotting businessman and general purpose p.r. man and re-entry resource for old Nazi soldiers. He even promoted movie-making on them to slight success. While a biographical war movie about himself was deep-sixed, Skorzeny was successful in helping gather interest for making a Hollywood blockbuster, The Battle of the Bulge, a partial character study of a leading German panzerman, and getting a retired Wermacht officer a job as a consultant to it.
Robert Shaw, years later better known as “Quint” in Jaws, was cast as ruthless German army tank commander “Martin Hassler.” But “Hassler” was a dodge. The part was originally to be Jochen Peiper, a Waffen SS tank commander whose unit was responsible for the Malmedy massacre of American prisoners of war. Realizing members of the VFW-American Legion wouldn’t think highly of such a movie, the Peiper part was replaced by a composite ringer, Hassler, who was portrayed in the regular Germany army. The Battle of the Bulge was an atrocious bomb redeemed by the odd twist that it can now be viewed as comedy, a monument to stumblebum movie-making employing Hollywood’s A-list.
Starring Henry Fonda, Charles Bronson and Telly Savalas as American heroes, the battle starts in the winter. Or at least shows snow and pine trees. By the end though all historical pretense is abandoned. A climactic tank battle takes place on what looks like a dusty summer plain — in Franco’s Spain. Where there were plenty of American tanks to use as German panzers.
NAVY SEALS attempted to conduct another raid inside Yemen earlier this month but aborted the mission at the last minute, according to a senior U.S. military official.
Members of SEAL Team 6 deployed to Yemen in early March for a ground assault targeting suspected members of al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, a group U.S. officials view as the most dangerous branch of the terrorist organization. The aborted mission followed a botched January 29 raid in the village of al Ghayil, in al Bayda province. That raid left a Navy SEAL dead and two others seriously injured, and killed more than two dozen Yemeni civilians, including at least 16 women and children.
But why Otto Skorzeny, the reader may ask. Why not? If you need a reason: Because SEAL Team 6 has degenerated into nothing more than a deadly and never-ending shaggy dog story.
In a bunch Skorzeny’s men ran into the entrance of the hotel and collided with a stream of Italian soldiers, struggling with their weapons and helmets, trying frantically to get outside. The Germans cut right through them and booted the support from beneath a machine gun set up in the hall.
Skorzeny ignored the Italians. He butted his way through them: they were too close and too intermingled with his own men to allow him to use his machine pistol safely. He ran up the nearest flight of stairs, and at the first turn of the landing saw Mussolini, guarded by two young Italian officers.
Skorzeny hesitated. The two Italians were similarly hesitant. Lieutenant Schwerdt came through the door behind the CO. At the nearest window two faces appeared, surmounted by the brimless German paratroop helmets. His men had shinned up the lightning conductor. The Italian officers realized that they hadn’t a chance of fighting it out, and raised their hands in surrender.
The Italians were hustled out and Skorzeny posted Schwerdt as the Duce’s new bodyguard. Now dragging in the two men, Holzer and Benz, he stared out at the scene below. Radl, followed by his team, was running towards the hotel, and behind them crawled Obersturmführer Menzel, who had broken his ankle during the landing. Some way off the men from Glider No. 5 were also rushing towards the hotel …
There was some bewildered shouting, then a bareheaded, moustached colonel appeared.
‘I ask your immediate surrender,’ Skorzeny said in French. ‘Mussolini is already in our hands. We hold the building. If you want to avert senseless bloodshed you have sixty seconds to go and reflect.’ Skorzeny waited anxiously, watching the terrain for signs of further Italian resistance. But he need not have worried. Before the minute was up, the Italian colonel reappeared, and in both hands he carried a glass of red wine. With a slight bow he proffered the big German commando the token of surrender. ‘To the victor,’ he said simply.
Skorzeny thanked him and drank the wine; he was thirsty anyway. Outside there was the sound of cheers. Someone had flung a white bedsheet out of an upper window as a sign of capitulation, and the hotel was theirs.
Skorzeny thanked him and drank the wine; he was thirsty anyway. Outside there was the sound of cheers. Someone had flung a white bedsheet out of an upper window as a sign of capitulation, and the hotel was theirs.
At last Skorzeny had time for Mussolini. The Duce was unshaven and wearing a blue-grey suit that was too big for him, but there was no mistaking the joy in his broad face. Skorzeny clicked to attention. ‘Duce,’ he proclaimed formally, realizing that this was an historic moment, ‘I have been sent by the Leader to set you free.’
From Otto Skorzeny: The Most Dangerous Man in Europe by Charles Whiting.
Otto Skorzeny, the Third Reich’s top commando, didn’t go on missions for fifteen years. After the war ended he became a globe-trotting businessman, consultant and something of an ombudsman and one man p.r. operation for old Nazi soldiers. But more on this a bit later.
From the New York Times a couple days ago when Andrew Bacevich, one of the few military men who writes honest pieces on the state of the greatest nation in world history, contributed:
What are we to make of the chasm between effort expended and results achieved [in Afghanistan]? Why on those increasingly infrequent occasions when Afghanistan attracts notice do half-truths and pettifoggery prevail, rather than hard-nosed assessments? Why has Washington ceased to care about the Afghan war?
The answer, it seems to me, is this: As with budget deficits or cost overruns on weapons purchases, members of the national security apparatus — elected and appointed officials, senior military officers and other policy insiders — accept war as a normal condition.
That our impulsive commander in chief may one day initiate some new war in a fit of pique is a worrisome prospect. That neither President Trump nor anyone else in Washington seems troubled that wars once begun drag on in perpetuity is beyond worrisome.
Andrew Bacevich is just about the best writer we have on the modern US military and its never-ending employment in decade-and-a-half-long campaigns.
When “worrisome” is the best word NYT editors will let him employ in describing the state of everlasting war that runs itself, everything can be said to be broken. Language fails. There really is no way out and no end in sight.
From Hitler’s Warrior, on Otto Skorzeny (he’s not the book’s primary subject):
Thw SS colonel was still in touch with Otto Skorzeny, who was wheeling and dealing in the scrap metal business from Spain when not jet-setting with his wife, Ilse, to South America, Paris or the Alps. Even if unspoken, Skorzeny always made it known to Jochen Peiper that should things get too bad in Germany, there was always a haven for him under Franco’s protection in Madrid. For his part, Skorzeny was living completely open, unafraid, and a publicity hound. Amazingly Skorzeny was working with a literary agent in Los Angeles, attempting to bring his life story to the big screen in Hollywood: Commando Extraordinary! Warner Brothers and United Artists nearly bit on the script. But such cinematic planning halted suddenly when focus groups revealed a shortcoming in brilliant contrast to the box office smash of George C. Scott as Patton; the new story would glorify a Nazi hero! In the end Skorzeny’s efforts to portray himself as an apolitical commando hero disintegrated…
Even as Russia insists that RT is just another global network like the BBC or France 24, albeit one offering “alternative views??? to the Western-dominated news media, many Western countries regard RT as the slickly produced heart of a broad, often covert disinformation campaign designed to sow doubt about democratic institutions and destabilize the West. — the NY Times
RT, the controversial Russian state propaganda network that has extended its tentacles into the United States and Europe … –Politico
If you’re wondering what Larry King is doing these days – and let’s face it, somebody, somewhere might be wondering – he’s on the channel RT (Russia Today) … Watching it is a bizarre journey into the mind of the Russian government and, at times, the journey is a strange mirror image of the main message emanating from the Trump White House. — the Globe and Mail
Why, then, does the DNI’s report rely so heavily on RT as evidence that Russia hacked the election, influencing voters enough to call the results into question? It most likely has to do with availability. RT is publicly accessible, so the DNI could point to its segments without fear of divulging classified material. And it’s pretty good insight into how the Kremlin wants to portray the United States: “grim, divided, brutal, decadent, overrun with violent immigrants and unstable.??? — the Washington Post
Maybe because the United States is grim, divided and brutal?
Larry King is on RT. This can only mean, according to US big media, that he’s one of the new Lord Haw-Haws.
From one of the on-line outlets that delivers daily pieces advocating war, describing future war with China or Russia, describing past war with Germany or Japan (not Vietnam) and doing baseball card-like profiles of weapons, both imagined and real.
Title from the National Interest:
How China’s Mad Scientists Plan to Shock America’s Military: Super Lasers, Railguns and Microwave Weapons
No.
Excerpt:
The researchers propose building a 5-ton chemical laser that will be stationed in low-earth orbit as a combat platform capable of destroying satellites in orbit. Given funding by the Chinese military, which is in charge of China’s space program, the satellite-killing laser could be deployed by 2023.
Giant orbiting exotic one use untested chemical bomb.
Journalist advocates a space arms race so the space dominoes don’t begin to fall in China’s favor.
There are other suspect details in the U.S. version of events. In the days after the raid, the Pentagon claimed that the women killed were armed and fought the incoming U.S. special operations forces from “pre-established positions.??? Yet all of the witnesses to the attack interviewed by The Intercept in al Ghayil strongly challenged this accusation, citing a culture that views the prospect of women fighting, as Nesma al Ameri put it, as “eib??? — shameful and dishonorable — and pointing out the practical implausibility of women clutching babies while also firing rifles.
A month later, amid an unprecedented uptick in U.S. military activity in Yemen last week, the helicopters and drones returned to Yakla. Apaches descended on al Ghayil before dawn on March 2, carrying out “indiscriminate shelling,??? according to Sheikh Aziz al Ameri, one of the few residents who remained in the village. Later that day, the Pentagon took responsibility for more than 20 airstrikes carried out in the early hours of the morning across three Yemeni provinces, including al Bayda.
The Intercept piece, which is long and detailed, goes on to say: “[Further] developments last week indicate the Trump administration is no longer abiding by the [Obama} condition of ‘near certainty’ that civilians will not be killed or injured in operations.”
“This means that all of those much-vaunted ‘standards’ the Obama administration said they were using to minimize civilian casualties in drone strikes in Yemen have been chucked right out the window…”
If you consider hairsplitting standards significant.
I’ve not much to say about the return of the Red Scare as a substantial force driving the US. For the Democrats who refuse to accept their candidate was lousy, it’s a dog-ate-my-homework excuse. For everyone else in opposition, it’s a many-pronged effort to reignite the Cold War, potentially move toward starting a hot one with a nation still a nuclear superpower and a tool to stifle dissent and label anyone who fails to “see” it a Russian sympathizer, traitor and fool. An enemy of freedom, too. Keep in mind freedom here means freedom to shop.
Consider these words from President Trump at his February 16 news conference:
* “Look, it would be much easier for me to be tough on Russia, but then we’re not going to make a deal. Now, I don’t know that we’re going to make a deal. I don’t know. We might. We might not. But it would be much easier for me to be so tough—the tougher I am on Russia, the better. But you know what? I want to do the right thing for the American people. And to be honest, secondarily, I want to do the right thing for the world.???
* “They’re a very powerful nuclear country and so are we. If we have a good relationship with Russia, believe me, that’s a good thing, not a bad thing.???
* “By the way, it would be great if we could get along with Russia, just so you understand that. Now tomorrow, you’ll say ‘Donald Trump wants to get along with Russia, this is terrible.’ It’s not terrible. It’s good.???
Rather than being applauded and supported, such talk from Trump is routinely depicted as further indication that—in Krugman’s words—Trump “is in effect a Putin puppet.???
And how could President Trump effectively allay fears and accusations that he’s a Kremlin flunky? How could he win cheers from mainstream newsrooms and big-megaphone pundits and CIA headquarters? He could get in a groove of decisively denouncing Russian President Vladimir Putin. He could move U.S. military forces into more confrontational stances and menacing maneuvers toward Russia.
This, entitled by a line that everyone wishes they could have written: Trump Can Prove He’s Not a Putin Puppet by Blowing Up the World.
Add what you will in the noise about how Russia allegedly has taken over the US via the Trump administration but it’s developed into a most dangerous kind of bullshit. The increase in the defense budget desired by Trump — 54 billion — exceeds the Russian defense spending on its own.
War with Russia. Always a bad idea now turned into a supposedly good idea mostly thanks to the collapse of the Democratic Party’s many failures.
The past weekend was the 40th anniversary of the movie Slap Shot, now considered a classic. At the time of release it was more-or-less critically shunned. Over the decades opinions were revised upward.
There was a good deal of coverage of a celebration in Johnstown, Pennsylvania. For example:
JOHNSTOWN, Pa. — The streets of this small town are littered with relics from the iconic movie “Slap Shot” filmed here 40 years ago.
There’s the statue of the dog that, in the movie, saved the people of fictitious Charlestown from the 1938 flood. There’s the park in the center of town with the fountain where Paul Newman and Lindsay Crouse shared a memorable scene. There are familiar storefronts. The Aces restaurant is still in operation. The steel mills are still standing. Then there’s the Cambria County War Memorial ice rink.
People in this town take pride in the movie, but Johnstown is somehow different than it was 40 years ago.
It’s depressing.
The rust-belt town took a massive hit to its economy when Bethlehem Steel Corporation, America’s second-largest steel producer, closed its mill in 1982. The town’s population was well over 70,000, but after the mill closed, the downturn began.
“The steel mill left. The jobs left. The people left,” said Johnstown police Capt. Chad Miller.
No one embedded with the Hollywood royalty at tonight’s Oscars or even in the global television audience is likely to spare a stray thought for the worst injustice in the history of the Academy Awards, probably because almost no one shares the following opinion:
“Slap Shot??? got jobbed.
A loving cinematic monument to the raw essence of hockey, framed by the ribald lawlessness of the minor league game in the 1970s, the film that starred Paul Newman as an end-of-the-line player/?coach and Johnstown, Pa. as itself was released 40 years ago this weekend.
As you might never imagine from Saturday’s commemorative celebration in and around the Cambria County War Memorial, home of the long-defunct Johnstown Jets on whom Nancy Dowd’s rollicking script was not-all-that-loosely based, “Slap Shot??? was not Best Picture of 1977.
“Now make sure when you’re watching this, you’re drinking a grape and orange, but none of that stinkin’ root beer,” actor Dave Hanson said.
And back at the Cambria County War Memorial Arena, fans got the chance to meet and greet with the Hanson brothers and other cast members.
“It’s fun to talk to people all over the United States, I said, and Canada,??? actor Steve Carlson said. “It’s their favorite lines, their favorite movie.”
Carlson, one of the three famous Hanson Brothers, says it’s a very special event to be a part of.
“This is where one of the greatest sports movies of all time, you know, one of the greatest hockey movies of all time (was filmed,) so it’s great to celebrate it in a place that we started at,” Carlson said.
Dave Hanson agrees.
“It’s always a treat to come back here for any reason, but to be able to come back to help celebrate the 40th anniversary of “Slap Shot” is just a special treat,” Hanson said.
“Hey, the boys are back in town man. We’re putting on the foil,” Carlson said.
I’ve been storing up the energy to for a review of “Slap Shot,??? the Seventies movie with Paul Newman as the player coach of the Charlestown Chiefs (modeled on the Johnstown Jets) of western Pennsylvania. I have an old videotape and have had it on replay. “Slap Shot??? can also be viewed through the lens of America’s forty year slump, a movie framed at the time big business resurrected a devotion to unrestricted preying on its human labor, and — as it turned out — hundreds of millions of future livelihoods.
The backdrop for “Slap Shot??? is the perfect picture of it. The steel mill is set to close in “Charlestown,??? laying off thousands.
“Ten thousand people put on waivers,??? says Ned Braden (Michael Ontkean), the Charlestown Chiefs’ leading scorer, to Paul Newman, as both stand outside the steel mill waiting for a ride from Lily (Lindsay Crouse), Braden’s wife.
“What’s going to happen to them???? Newman, as Reggie Dunlop, the Chiefs’ player/coach asks.
It’s every man for himself, replies Braden.
Or the beginning of the root hog or die economy in the Rust Belt. Donald Trump should have marked it last Saturday.