For the first time in the 1,000 days of bloodshed since the Russia-Ukraine war began, more than half of Ukrainians want to see a swift, brokered resolution to the conflict — and even support making territorial concessions to reach peace.
Most Ukrainians — 52% — said the country should seek to negotiate an ending to the war as soon as possible, while 38% want to see Ukraine continue fighting until it defeats Russia, according to the latest Gallup survey on the conflict.
This is an appreciable shift from the early days of the war that began in February 2022, when 73% wanted to fight until Ukraine reached a victory. Support for that position slipped to 63% last year, but this is the first time support for negotiated peace eclipsed a majority among Ukrainians.
Remarkably, more than half of Ukrainians who favor negotiated peace even believe Ukraine should be open to making some territorial concessions as part of a deal to end the war.
The Gallup survey also reveals a moving target for what Ukrainians consider “victory” in the war.
In the previous two years, more than 90% believed victory constituted regaining all territory lost since 2014, including Crimea. That’s down more than 10 points in the 2024 survey.
While Gallup collected survey responses in October, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky hawked his proposed “victory plan,” which Western allies met with mixed reactions — perhaps influencing the views of his constituents who responded.
The plan involves Ukraine formally joining NATO and granting it permission to use Western long-range missiles to strike military targets in Russia.
Biden gave Zelensky the go-ahead to use those missiles over the weekend, and Ukraine fired its first barrage into Russia Tuesday morning. In turn, Russian President Vladimir Putin announced he’s lowering the threshold for Russia’s use of its own nuclear weapons.
That sets up quite a conundrum for incoming President-elect Donald Trump, who famously said on the campaign trail that he could end the conflict “in 24 hours” when he retakes the role of commander in chief.
Zelensky, however, appeared eager to work with Trump to end the war in an interview last week, echoing Ukrainians’ desire to use diplomacy to achieve an expeditious end to the years-long conflict.
“It is certain that the war will end sooner with the policies of the team that will now lead the White House. This is their approach, their promise to their citizens,” he said of Trump’s re-election, adding that Ukraine must do everything in its power to end the war next year.
Putin, meanwhile, maintains that he’ll only talk with Ukraine if Kyiv surrenders Ukrainian territory — which so far has been a non-starter for Zelensky.
Politics turned Parody from within a Conservative Bastion inside the People's Republic of Maryland
Thursday, November 21, 2024
Time for Peace?
Wednesday, November 20, 2024
Ukraine Can No Longer Fight Effectively - The Stench of Desperation Grows Stronger
KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — The Biden administration will allow Ukraine to use American-supplied antipersonnel land mines to help it slow Russia’s battlefield progress in the war, U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said Wednesday, as the U.S. and some other Western embassies in Kyiv stayed closed after a threat of a major Russian aerial attack on the Ukrainian capital.
Speaking to reporters during a trip to Laos, Austin said the shift in Washington’s policy on anrtipersonnel land mines for Ukraine follows changing tactics by the Russians.
Austin said Russian ground troops are leading the movement on the battlefield, rather than forces more protected in armored carriers, so Ukraine has “a need for things that can help slow down that effort on the part of the Russians.”
Russia’s bigger army is slowly pushing Ukraine’s outnumbered army backward in the eastern Donetsk region.
Antipersonnel land mines have long been criticized by charities and activists because they present a lingering threat to civilians. Austin countered that argument.
“The land mines that we would look to provide them would be land mines that are not persistent, you know, we can control when they would self-activate, self-detonate and that makes it far more safer eventually than the things that they are creating on their own,” Austin said.
Nonpersistent land mines generally require batteries, so overtime they become unable to detonate, making them safer for innocent civilians than those that remain deadly for years.
He noted that Ukraine is currently manufacturing its own antipersonnel land mines.
The U.S. already provides Ukraine with antitank land mines. Russia has routinely used land mines in the war, but those do not become inert overtime.
The American diplomatic mission in Kyiv said it had received a warning of a potentially significant Russian air attack on the capital and was staying shut for the day. It anticipated a quick return to regular operations.
The Spanish, Italian and Greek embassies also shut to the public for the day, but the U.K. government and France said that their embassies remained open.
The precautionary closure came after Russian officials promised a response to Biden’s decision to let Ukraine strike targets on Russian soil with U.S.-made missiles — a move that angered the Kremlin.
Austin’s announcement was likely to further vex Russia
The war, which reached its 1,000-day milestone on Tuesday, has taken on a growing international dimension with the arrival of North Korean troops to help Russia on the battlefield — a development which U.S. officials said prompted Biden’s policy shift.
Russian President Vladimir Putin subsequently lowered the threshold for using his nuclear arsenal, with the new doctrine announced Tuesday permitting a potential nuclear response by Moscow even to a conventional attack on Russia by any nation that is supported by a nuclear power.
That could potentially include Ukrainian attacks backed by the U.S..
Western leaders dismissed the Russian move as an attempt to deter Ukraine’s allies from providing further support to Kyiv, but the escalating tension weighed on stock markets after Ukraine used American-made ATACMS longer-range missiles for the first time to strike a target inside Russia.
Western and Ukrainian officials say Russia been stockpiling powerful long-range missiles, possibly in an upcoming effort to crush the Ukrainian power grid as winter settles in.
Military analysts say the U.S. decision on the range over which American-made missiles can be used isn’t expected to be a game-changer in the war, but it could help weaken the Russian war effort, according to the Institute for the Study of War, a Washington think tank.
“Ukrainian long-range strikes against military objects within Russia’s rear are crucial for degrading Russian military capabilities throughout the theater,” it said.
Meanwhile, North Korea recently supplied additional artillery systems to Russia, according to South Korea. It said that North Korean soldiers were assigned to Russia’s marine and airborne forces units and some of them have already begun fighting alongside the Russians on the front lines.
Ukraine struck a factory in Russia’s Belgorod region that makes cargo drones for the armed forces in an overnight attack, according to Andrii Kovalenko, the head of the counterdisinformation branch of Ukraine’s Security Council.
He also claimed Ukraine hit an arsenal in Russia’s Novgorod region, near the town of Kotovo, located about 680 kilometers (420 miles) behind the Ukrainian border. The arsenal stored artillery ammunition and various types of missiles, he said.
It wasn’t possible to independently verify the claims.
Tuesday, November 19, 2024
PA Supreme Court Stops the Steal
They tried to steal it. They failed. It was a weird dynamic where this event in Pennsylvania’s Senate race was shocking but also not too surprising given liberal America’s penchant for engaging in election shenanigans when results don’t go their way. Republican Dave McCormick defeated incumbent Sen. Bob Casey (D-PA), but he refused to concede. Even with no path given how much vote is left and how provisional ballots land, with most being rejected due to not meeting the benchmark requirements for authenticity, McCormick’s lead was viewed by both Republicans and Democrats as insurmountable. Most of the outstanding ballots were in red counties, like Cambria. It was over, but Casey and lawyer Marc Elias were finding ways to steal it.An update on the PA Senate Recount: There's approximately ~50,000 potential ballots still to review. Philly is done. If trends hold at most there would be at most 40,000 valid ballots left to count most likely less. McCormick has a lead of 29,000 votes. Again no path for Casey.
— Mark Davin Harris (@markdharris) November 13, 2024In Bucks County, the Democratic commissioners obliged, defying the courts and declaring that illegal ballots would be counted. The Republicans’ legal team filed a challenge, and the Pennsylvania Supreme Court issued its ruling. They ordered the immediate cessation of counting illegal ballots in the totally unnecessary recount.The Democrat Bucks County Commissioners just voted to count misdated and undated mail in ballots to try and help Bob Casey and one of them straight up says that she knows it's illegal but simply does not care.
— Greg Price (@greg_price11) November 14, 2024
Dems are trying to steal an election in PA.pic.twitter.com/7KP4Qoy31bBREAKING: In case over undated/incorrectly dated mail ballots, the PA Supreme Court says the ballots “shall not be counted” for the Nov. 5 election. pic.twitter.com/C167Rb6jX3
— Carter Walker (@ByCarterWalker) November 18, 2024In case you missed it, this is what Pennsylvania Democrats wanted to get counted in this circus:It was a 7-0 decision not to count the votes that Casey and his D allies tried to slip through. This is a sad way for Senator Casey to end his career.
— Ari Fleischer (@AriFleischer) November 18, 2024
He should have spoken out against this. So too should Governor Shapiro. https://t.co/vKVnsgtujOThe GOP stopped the steal.#Pennsylvania #Casey’s lawyers are actually in court arguing for the following “votes” to be counted: (1) ballots of NON-registered “voters;” (2) un-signed mail in ballots; (3) mail-in ballots w/o dates; (4) ballots cast in a county where the Voter does NOT live. #CmonMan🤦♂️ https://t.co/UQ0A4EM2CQ
— Guy Ciarrocchi (@PaSuburbsGuy) November 13, 2024
Or DID They?
Monday, November 18, 2024
Sunday, November 17, 2024
Deep State Moves to Start WWIII Before Trump Enters Office
Cullen Linebarger, "BREAKING: Joe Biden Authorizes Ukraine to Strike INSIDE RUSSIA with Long Range Missiles in Major Policy Reversal, Two Months Before Trump Takes Office"
The Biden Regime is determined to start World War III before Donald Trump takes office again.
The Washington Post reported that Biden will allow Ukraine to use a powerful American long-range weapon for strikes inside Russia, supposedly in response to North Korea’s recent aid Russia. Ukraine will be specifically be allowed to use the Army Tactical Missile System (ATACMS) to hit targets inside Russia.
As The Post notes, ATACMS is a supersonic-guided missile system that can be used with either cluster munitions or conventional warheads. It has a maximum range of about 190 miles.
The Post elaborates that Ukraine is expected to focus on and around the Kursk region at first but could expand its targets. Officials did not elaborate of what other targets this could include.
Until now, the Regime refused to allow Ukraine to fire these ATACMS into Russian territory, correctly warning that the move could lead Vladimir Putin to retaliate in an even more severe manner.
In fact, Putin has warned for months that Russia would be “at war” with the United States and its NATO allies if they allowed Ukraine to use of long-range Western weapons like ATACMS. He added that all options would be on the table in response to such an attack, including nuclear weapons.
So one of Biden’s last acts as ‘president’ is to risk an all-out war with Russia just before his successor takes office? What is his real end game here?
The Regime may claim this in response to North Korea’s but the timing should not be lost on anyone. Especially since Trump has pledged to end the Ukraine-Russia war upon taking office.
Safe to say, his goal will become far more difficult.
Friday, November 15, 2024
How Deep is My Golden Ricebowl?
Many are dancing an Irish jig – even non-Irishmen whom one would not expect to know such dances – over the prospect of Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy heading up a new “Grace Commission 2.0” of sorts, cheerfully nicknamed a Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE.
They intend an 18-month project, hopefully to conclude by our nation’s 250th anniversary, in which they will apply standard American manufacturing cost-cutting techniques such as LEAN and Six Sigma tools, to find out how much fat is in every federal department, bureau and agency, and cut it out as fast as possible.
Such fat might be identified in surplus personnel, surplus office costs, unnecessary perks, redundant systems, and more. It is assumed they can cut ten percent of the federal workforce without it even being noticed; with such diligent chiefs as these at the helm, there’s no telling how much more money they will be able to save the taxpayer.
In preparation for this project, Mr. Musk has been reminding the public of our massive national debt, and of the fact that interest on the debt alone already exceeds our military spending. To say this situation is unsustainable is putting it mildly. All Americans should wish the DOGE team well.
There is no need, incidentally, to feel sorry for the people to be cut in this process. The DOGE team knows the law, and fully understands the rules about terminating civil servants. These people will likely get an enviable mix of cash buyouts and federal pensions that reward them more handsomely than they deserve for their years of bureaucratic pencil pushing.
We can expect the DOGE team to save an enormous amount of money for the American taxpayer, which will provide a noticeable bump to the economy.
However, if all the government does is continue to do what it does today with just 80%, or 70%, or even 50% of the employees, that will still not be a victory.
Why not? Because the usual targets of such a project – “waste, fraud and abuse” – are not America’s main problem with our federal government.
Our problem isn’t that the government is too big or too costly.
Our problem is that it has gone rogue.
Even if we cut the Environmental Protection Agency, for example, from its current 14,500 employees to just one single overworked guy, we won’t have helped the country at all, if that one guy continues to issue the regulations that the EPA currently issues every year.
In the end, the salaries, benefits, perks and office supplies that we spend on our federal agencies aren’t America’s cancer. Our cancer is the Federal Register, that monstrous stack of regulations to which federal bureaucrats contribute every day.
The federal bureaucracy had no right to ban the American-made incandescent lightbulbs that we’ve used happily for over a century; but they used an ill-advised law requiring greater bulb efficiency as grounds for an outright ban, and now our homes are full of expensive Chinese LEDs -- and those old American bulb factories are shuttered and empty.
The federal bureaucracy had no right to issue a ban on single-stage natural gas furnaces, requiring Americans (starting next year) to make and buy the dual-stage models that cost twice as much. But the bureaucracy issued the ban anyway, massively increasing the cost of American housing at a single stroke of the pen.
The federal bureaucracy had no right to mandate special low-flow shower heads, but they did, forcing plumbing fixture manufacturers to change the way they design bathroom shower fixtures, forcing them to unload their old perfectly-good products at discount and start selling new compliant products at greater cost, often now made abroad.
Shall we go on? All over the federal government, we find outrageous, unconstitutional, destructive regulations.
Legally, every federal agency is limited in two ways: the agency can only exercise the powers granted to it by Congress, and Congress itself had to have the Constitutional authority to grant it such power in the first place.
But the government stopped honoring these two restrictions over a century ago.
Once Congress sets up an agency, it loses interest in what that agency does, so its oversight is usually limited to a brief moment of funding discussion when the annual budget fight comes along. Because of this lack of real oversight, far too many of the nation’s bureaucrats soon discover that their power to overregulate is limited only by their own Napoleonic imagination.
It doesn’t take 15,500 employees and a $10 billion budget for the EPA to regulate American businesses out of existence, to regulate factories out of the country, and to regulate American citizens into poverty. The EPA could do all that with 10,000 employees and a seven billion dollar budget. Heck, considering the feverish dedication of some of the climate extremists in that movement, they could probably do just as much damage with a quarter the people and a fifth the budget.
So cutting direct management and personnel costs should not be our primary goal if we seek true government reform.
The DOGE needs to look first at every department in the context of the Constitution of the United States, alongside the legislation that authorized the existence of the agency.
The real question isn’t “How many bureaucrats can we cut?” – it’s “How thoroughly and quickly can we restore this agency’s obedience to the rule of law?”
And in the case of the many rogue agencies – probably too numerous for the casual reader to believe – that simply cannot be reformed, how closely can the DOGE team and the Congress work together to sunset those agencies for good, and thereby free the American people from their tyranny?
It’s a natural assumption, especially from a businessman, that waste, fraud and abuse must be our biggest problems, but they aren’t. Illegality is our problem. Tyranny is our problem.
The costly, destructive, un-American technocracy of the nanny state – unhinged and unlimited for generations now -- is the massive nest of termites eating away at the foundation of the American way of life.
Let us pray that with the guidance and blessing of Divine Providence, the DOGE team finds a way to thread that needle, and restore the Constitutionality of our federal government again, just in time for our 250th Independence Day.
Thursday, November 14, 2024
Liberal Relief
Don’t Cry, Cryo! 😂 Need a Break from Trump’s Term? Freeze Yourself for 4 Years! #Trump #ElonMusk #meltdowns pic.twitter.com/pEZXc0Hdqw
— newzy.com (@realnewzy) November 13, 2024
Tuesday, November 12, 2024
John Podesta, Energy Influencer, Green Energy Clown
One of the most common critiques you’ll hear from conservatives and Republicans when it comes to their ideological and political opposition is that Democrats and liberals literally hate America.
Is it a completely fair criticism?
Actually, yeah. It is.
And if you needed yet another example of this maxim, look no further than noted Democrat lackey and shill, John Podesta.
As Axios reports, Podesta — a noted climate zealot — showed off his anti-American plumage on a national stage, and it just has to be called out.
Speaking at a UN climate summit in Azerbaijan, Podesta, in his official U.S. capacity as the lead climate diplomat representing the country, made sure to make America and President-elect Donald Trump look as bad as possible.
“In January, we’re going to inaugurate a president whose relationship to climate change is captured by the words ‘hoax’ and ‘fossil fuels,'” Podesta told his fellow delegates on Monday.
According to Sky News, he added: “This is not the end of our fight for a cleaner, safer planet.
“Facts are still facts. Science is still science. The fight is bigger than one election, one political cycle in one country.”
Podesta, not quite done trashing the good ole U.S. of A, also said, “I know that this disappointment is more difficult to tolerate as the dangers we face grow ever more catastrophic, but that is the reality.”
And like any good whipping boy, Podesta groveled in front of delegates and apologized that the U.S. climate policy appears to radically change from one administration to another.
Look, nobody is going to confuse Podesta with Captain America or professional wrestling legend “The Patriot,” but did he really have to go out of his way that blatantly to trash this great nation? And in front of other nations, no less.
It’s one thing for Podesta and his ilk to whine and complain about the U.S. election on most platforms. Even when Democrats and leftists go on shows like “The View” or whatever dreck is airing on MSNBC these days, sure, go wild with your hatred for this great nation. One of the reasons this is the greatest nation on earth is because of freedom of speech, and you’re allowed to trash the government as you see fit without concern of reprisal.
But, again, did you really have to do this in front of world leaders and delegates?
It makes America look foolish, weak and spinless — which, ironically, would be a great description of the incumbent presidential administration (See? You can definitely blast America) — and it frankly feels like a dereliction of duty from Podesta.
Think about it: The majority of Americans voted to elect Trump as the 47th president of the United States. Podesta’s rhetoric isn’t just denigrating Trump, but it’s denigrating over half of the country.
What sort of despicable American does that to his fellow countrymen? Democrats and leftists, apparently.
This article appeared originally on The Western Journal.
Europe needs to learn to ignore this corporate paid energy investor and liar.
Monday, November 11, 2024
Sunday, November 10, 2024
Donald Trump on Jan. 7 2020...
"On wrongs swift vengeance waits"- Alexander Pope
Cornell West Debriefs his Voters
It should come as no great surprise that a Democratic Party which has abandoned working class people would find that the working class has abandoned them.
— Bernie Sanders (@BernieSanders) November 6, 2024
While the Democratic leadership defends the status quo, the American people are angry and want change.
And they’re right. pic.twitter.com/lM2gSJmQFL
Saturday, November 9, 2024
New York's Prelude to Insurrection
🚨#BREAKING: Thousands protesters and Immigrants are marching and protesting of Donald Trump’s election to 47th President of the United States of America
— R A W S A L E R T S (@rawsalerts) November 9, 2024
📌#Manhattan | #NewYork
At this time, New York City law enforcement is actively monitoring as thousands of immigrants,… pic.twitter.com/Tu0rWnnlvf
Not waiting for January 6... the Prelude to Insurrection begins!
An Army of Invaders Let in & Enabled by Democrats Begins an Escalating Rebellion!
The Arizona Senate Seat Steal Continues....
Just like we witnessed in the 2022 Arizona election, election officials are openly changing the ballot totals remaining to be counted without explanation.
In 2022, Democrats swept the state-wide elections despite Republicans having the strongest set of candidates in recent history.
Kari Lake was so impressive and polished that she made a name for herself nationally prior to the race. But on election day, Maricopa County officials sent the wrong-sized paper to the precincts, essentially shutting down voting across the metro areas but especially in deep-red districts. Democrats were somehow able to pick up over 50% of the votes that day despite having only a 17% turnout on Election Day.
Then, following Election Day, 25,000 mysterious and still unexplained ballots were inserted into Maricopa County’s totals. This was never investigated or explained.
Kari Lake filed a historic lawsuit on Friday to nullify the Stolen 2022 Midterm Election for Governor.
The Gateway Pundit reported that Kari Lake filed her lawsuit against Katie Hobbs and the corrupt Maricopa County elections officials to nullify the election for Governor and approve a full audit of signatures and machine failures.
It was revealed by a Runbeck whistleblower in Lake’s filing that HUNDREDS OF THOUSANDS of ballots did not have any chain of custody documentation.
This is similar to a 2020 election finding that hundreds of thousands of 2020 election ballots also lacked the necessary chain of custody documentation.
The filing also states that 25,000 ballots were added to Maricopa County's totals after election day.25,000 ballots were added to Maricopa County's totals after election day.
— Kari Lake War Room (@KariLakeWarRoom) December 11, 2022
Do you think that might explain this?
"Following Election Day, Democrat candidates won more than 50% of the votes despite only recording 17% of the turnout on Election Day."
- @ConradsonJordan https://t.co/7hubeZYEr4
This could explain why Democratic candidates won over 50% of election day votes despite only recording 17% of the turnout on election day.
This finding is similar to a Maricopa County 2020 election report from Verity Vote that used public records requests to discover that more than 20,000 2020 election ballots were illegally counted.
The Gateway Pundit reported on these illegally counted ballots during the 2020 election investigations.
Some Things Never Change
Election officials in Arizona are once again changing the ballot totals as the US Senate Seat has yet to be called.
President Trump won the state 52.7% to 46.4% over Kamala Harris.
But the officials in Arizona want you to believe that a majority of Arizona voters voted for Trump, and then a majority voted for the open borders communist Ruben Gallego, the son of a cartel attorney.
The Kari Lake campaign fired off a letter on Friday to Pima County officials after they were caught changing the ballot totals this week!
The letter reads:On behalf of Kari Lake for Senate, my client requests the county provide complete transparency as to the ballots tabulated and the ballots awaiting tabulation. Further, my client demands a complete accounting as to discrepancies that have been identified in the publicly reported data.
Specifically, the estimate of uncounted ballots went up by 14,666 today (Nov. 8) between the reports listed as uploaded at 1:23pm MST (Exhibit B) and 3:23pm MST (Exhibit D).
But even more strange than the number of uncounted ballots increasing, at one point, the report purported to be uploaded at 3:23pm (Exhibit C) was initially identical to the report uploaded at 1:23pm (Exhibit B). Without changing the time stamp, two hours later (around 6:00pm MST), the 3:23pm report (Exhibit D) reflected the numbers listed above.Read the full letter here:
Kari Lake for Arizona demands that Pima County provide an immediate explanation of the discrepancies in the numbers combined with complete and accurate accounting of how the number of uncounted ballots increased between the 1:23pm report and the 3:23pm report.
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Leftist groups in Arizona sued state officials on Saturday to extend the time to ‘find’ more ballots.
The groups behind this latest Saturday lawsuit are the ACLU and the United Latin American Citizens – Arizona.
According to anonymous sources to The Gateway Pundit, the left is concerned that it doesn’t have enough votes to win the US Senate seat in Arizona.
Republican Kari Lake is currently in a close race and is catching open-border communist Ruben Gallego.
President Trump was declared the winner in Arizona earlier this week. The media wants you to believe that several thousand Trump voters in Arizona then went and voted for the communist running for the US Senate seat against the uber-talented Kari Lake. Highly unlikely.
Arizona Senate President Warren Petersen stepped up on Saturday and authorized the Arizona Senate to intervene in the case.
Petersen posted a statement earlier today.
Here’s the tweet.The left is suing to extend the time to determine the election. I just authorized the AZ Senate to intervene and defend existing law so we can determine the outcome as soon as possible. It has already taken too much time! And next session will re-introduce bills to get…
— Warren Petersen (@votewarren) November 9, 2024
Here is the suit filed by the ACLU and the United Latin American Citizens – Arizona.
Leftist reporter Jen Fifield has more.BREAKING: ALCU and Campaign Legal Center just petitioned the Arizona Supreme Court asking to extend the deadline for voters to respond to problems with their mail ballot signatures, because of delays counting ballots & notifying voters.
— Jen Fifield (@JenAFifield) November 9, 2024
UPDATE, with link: https://t.co/qLYpE8kcWe pic.twitter.com/rKKrZkUduv
The University - Fascism's Great Incubator & Nursery
The German model of higher education, also known as the Humboldtian model, has been a major influence on American universities since the late 1800s:
Research and teachingThe model combines research and studies, and emphasizes that professors should be excellent in both areas. Teaching methodsThe model introduced new teaching methods like lectures and seminars. Graduate schoolThe model established graduate school training as a mark of a true scholar. Research techniquesThe model taught new findings based on experimental and empirical research techniques. Land grant universitiesThe new model was adopted by land grant universities, which deemphasized classical Latin and Greek in favor of science, technology, and other fields.Wilhelm von Humboldt was a key figure in the development of the modern university in both the United States and Germany.However, there are some differences between the German and American models:
- Research focus: In the 19th century, German universities focused more on pure research than applied research.
- Number of professors: German universities have fewer professors per university than the United States.
- University autonomy: US research universities have more autonomy than German universities.
From the video above:
The great German sociologist Max Weber argued in a very important essay that I also used to teach at Oxford, this essay, "Science as a vocation" written in 1917, that political activism should not be permissible in a lecture hall or another University Building "Because the prophet and the demagogue do not belong on the academic platform." And this was also the argument of the University of Chicago's 1967 Calvin Report, which you may have heard referred to recently that universities must "Maintain an independence from political Fashions, passions, and pressures". But that separation between scholarship and politics has been entirely disregarded at the major American universities in recent years. Instead, the elite institutions have embraced the kind of institutional change that Gay championed as Dean and president (of Harvard).
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Fascist turning point for the American University, "The Port Huron Statement" (1962) by the Students for a Democratic Society (SDS), written by Tom HaydenThe University and Social Change
There is perhaps little reason to be optimistic about the above analysis. True, the Dixiecrat-GOP coalition is the weakest point in the dominating complex of corporate, military and political power. But the civil rights, peace, and student movements are too poor and socially slighted, and the labor movement too quiescent, to be counted with enthusiasm. From where else can power and vision be summoned? We believe that the universities are an overlooked seat of influence.
First, the university is located in a permanent position of social influence. Its educational function makes it indispensable and automatically makes it a crucial institution in the formation of social attitudes. Second, in an unbelievable complicated world, it is the central institution for organizing, evaluating, and transmitting knowledge. Third, the extent to which academic resources presently are used to butress immoral social practice is revealed first, by the extent to which defense contracts make the universities engineers of the arms race. Too, the use of modern social science as a manipulative tool reveals itself in the "human relations" consultants to the modern corporations, who introduce trivial sops to give laborers feelings of "participation" or "belonging," while actually deluding them in order to further exploit their labor. And, of course, the use of motivational research is already infamous as a manipulative aspect of American politics. But these social uses of the universities' resources also demonstrate the unchangeable reliance by men of power on the men and storehouses of knowledge: this makes the university functionally tied to society in new ways, revealing new potentialities, new levers for change. Fourth, the university is the only mainstream institution that is open to particippation by individuals of nearly any viewpoint.
These, at least, are facts, no matter how dull the teaching, how paternalistic the rules, how irrelevant the research that goes on. Social relevance, the accessibility to knowledge, and internal openness—these together make the university a potential base and agency in a movement of social change.1. Any new left in America must be, in large measure, a left with real intellectual skills, committed to deliberativeness, honesty, reflection as working tools. The university permits the political life to be an adjunct to the academic one, and action to be informed by reason.But we need not indulge in illusions: the university system cannot complete a movement of ordinary people making demands for a better life. From its schools and colleges across the nation, a militant left might awaken its allies, and by beginning the process towards peace, civil rights, and labor struggles, reinsert theory and idealism where too often reign confusion and political barter. The power of students and faculty united is not only potential; it has shown its actuality in the South, and in the reform movements of the North.
2. A new left must be distributed in significant social roles throughout the country. The universities are distributed in such a manner.
3. A new left must consist of younger people who matured in the post-war world, and partially be directed to the recruitment of younger people. The university is an obvious beginning point.
4. A new left must include liberals and socialists, the former for their relevance, the latter for their sense of thoroughgoing reforms in the system. The university is a more sensible place than a political party for these two traditions to begin to discuss their differences and look for political synthesis.
5. A new left must start controversy across the land, if national policies and national apathy are to be reversed. The ideal university is a community of controversy, within itself and in its effects on communities beyond.
6. A new left must transform modern complexity into issues that can be understood and felt close-up by every human being. It must give form to the feelings of helplessness and indifference, so that people may see the political, social, and economic sources of their private troubles and organize to change society. In a time of supposed prosperity, moral complacency, and political manipulation, a new left cannot rely on only aching stomachs to be the engine force of social reform. The case for change, for alternatives that will involve uncomfortable personal efforts, must be argued as never before. The university is a relevant place for all of these activities.
The bridge to political power, though, will be built through genuine cooperation, locally, nationally, and internationally, between a new left of young people, and an awakening community of allies. In each community we must look within the university and act with confidence that we can be powerful, but we must look outwards to the less exotic but more lasting struggles for justice.
To turn these possibilities into realities will involve national efforts at university reform by an alliance of students and faculty. They must wrest control of the educational process from the administrative bureaucracy. They must make fraternal and functional contact with allies in labor, civil rights, and other liberal forces outside the campus. They must import major public issues into the curriculum—research and teaching on problems of war and peace is an outstanding example. They must make debate and controversy, not dull pedantic cant, the common style for educational life. They must consciously build a base for their assault upon the loci of power.
As students for a democratic society, we are committed to stimulating this kind of social movement, this kind of vision and program in campus and community across the country. If we appear to seek the unattainable, as it has been said, then let it be known that we do so to avoid the unimaginable.
Friday, November 8, 2024
Can Democrats Ever Put Democracy BACK Into their Party?
Thursday, November 7, 2024
Some Senile Ragin' from an Old Over the Hill Corporation Lovin' Cajun...
15 Million Democratic Voters Raptured Before Nov 5 Election?
Before the election I wondered if this would happen. After universal mail-out ballots had been curbed in some places for the 2024 election, and despite same-day registration and voting and even outlawing voter ID in California, would America have the same numbers of voters as 2020? Would they show back up?
At this point, it looks as if there could be a significant reduction in Democrat voters from 2020 to 2024. Votes are still being tabulated, however. Some of these votes may reappear.
Questions abound. Take a look at one of the graphs put out on X by ZeroHedge:It's a serious concern. Explanations poured in all day Wednesday after the election.Sorry to beat a dead horse, but can we go back to what happened here? pic.twitter.com/FkScNHivuU
— zerohedge (@zerohedge) November 6, 2024
Did those voters go over to Trump? Was there a lack of voter excitement for Kamala?
There are a lot of questions for the bean-counting data diggers to churn through. That will take awhile, however. So, for the moment, we're stuck with speculation.
This is a particular favorite from Carpe Donktum, from whom I stole the idea for that headline.Don't leave yet because these numbers are dynamic and this X user put forward what he considered to be a reasonable answer for the disparity.That's one explanation, @CarpeDonktum
— Victoria Taft, The Adult in the Room, FITF Squad (@VictoriaTaft) November 6, 2024
Why am I still here, though? pic.twitter.com/OqDWdferWdWhen he got pushback, he related that there were more citizens naturalized and it was a high turnout election. He wasn't sure, though.Sorry to beat a dead horse, but can we go back to what happened here? pic.twitter.com/FkScNHivuU
— zerohedge (@zerohedge) November 6, 2024Another thing to ponder: Did enormous early Republican turnout make the election "too big to rig"?Don’t believe Kamala took more votes than those ‘given’ to Biden in 2020
— Rustler (@TheRustler83) November 6, 2024
There were less serious suggestions about the disparity of the votes from 2020 to 2024.
Sorry about the potty talk.We know what you may be thinking: that something that shall not be named happened in 2020.Sorry to beat a dead horse, but can we go back to what happened here? pic.twitter.com/FkScNHivuU
— zerohedge (@zerohedge) November 6, 2024This guy thinks COVID is responsible for the disparity.Sorry to beat a dead horse, but can we go back to what happened here? pic.twitter.com/FkScNHivuU
— zerohedge (@zerohedge) November 6, 2024It depends what he means by that because COVID was used as an excuse by Democrats to use emergency powers to change election laws, illegally in some cases.Sorry to beat a dead horse, but can we go back to what happened here? pic.twitter.com/FkScNHivuU
— zerohedge (@zerohedge) November 6, 2024
These new laws resulted in sending out millions of mail ballots to everyone on the voter rolls to their last known address.
In Arizona and Nevada and likely other states that pulled those shenanigans, the Public Interest Legal Foundation, which exclusively fights for voter integrity, found many places such as casinos, bars, and the like used as "home" address for what are probably not legal voters.The Public Interest Legal Foundation (PILF) hasn't commented on ZeroHedge's graph and makes no representations about it. They didn't ask me to say that, I just want to put that out there and plan to have PILF back on the Adult in the Room Podcast.I think the abandoned mines was my "favorite" registered address where ballots were sent by #Nevada.@PILFoundation @adultinthe room podcast.
— Victoria Taft, The Adult in the Room, FITF Squad (@VictoriaTaft) November 7, 2024
find the full episode at Rumble, YouTube, Spotify, #ElectionDay https://t.co/lX3vEfvC59 pic.twitter.com/BJkGaVq7QG
Watch my recent interview with J.Christian Adams of PILF about some of shenanigans that voters should be aware of. We also show PILF's hilarious videos where they go to "voter" addresses.