Categories
international affairs

Posting Past Armageddon 

Donald Trump, Richard Nixon, madman theory, madman strategy

“I call it the Madman Theory, Bob,” President Richard M. Nixon told his chief of staff, H.R. Haldeman. 

“I want the North Vietnamese to believe I’ve reached the point where I might do anything to stop the war. We’ll just slip the word to them that, ‘for God’s sake, you know Nixon is obsessed about communism. We can’t restrain him when he’s angry — and he has his hand on the nuclear button’ and Ho Chi Minh himself will be in Paris in two days begging for peace.”

It’s not a theory, of course. It’s a ploy — and one that did not work out great for Nixon.*

So how’s it working for Donald Trump?

Buried in his book about being a wheeler-dealer, Mr. Trump notoriously advances a notion eerily similar to Nixon’s Madman strategy. Trump likes to keep those with whom he is negotiating “guessing.”

He says this often. We cannot be shocked, then, if we’re all kept guessing about his Iran strategy.

His litany of flip-flops from early March to the present day has been breathtaking, even for Trump. “We won the war.”; “We defeated Iran”; “You never like to say too early you won. We won. In the first hour it was over.”; “If NATO doesn’t help, they will suffer something very bad.”; “We neither need nor want NATO’s help.”; “I don’t need Congressional approval to withdraw from NATO.”; “The Strait of Hormuz must be protected by the countries that use it. We don’t use it, we don’t need to open it.”; “Open the fuckin’ Strait, you crazy bastards, or you’ll be living in Hell — JUST WATCH! Praise be to Allah.”

Upping the ante on Tuesday, Trump posted that “a whole civilization will die tonight.” Then he agreed, a few hours later, to “suspend the bombing and attack of Iran for a period of two weeks.”

Did the madman ploy work?

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

* When Nixon and Trump corresponded years ago, Dick told Donald that Mrs. Nixon thought Trump would win if he ran for office. Did Pat sniff another practitioner of her husband’s infamous ploy?

NOTE: See H.R. Haldeman, The Ends of Power (1978), p. 122.

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Thought

Lafferty

Science Fiction has long been babbling about cosmic destructions and the ending of either physical or civilized worlds, but it has all been displaced babble. SF has been carrying on about near-future or far-future destructions and its mind-set will not allow it to realize that the destruction of our world has already happened in the quite recent past, that today is “The Day After The World Ended.” . . . I am speaking literally about a real happening, the end of the world in which we lived till fairly recent years. The destruction or unstructuring of that world, which is still sometimes referred to as “Western Civilization” or “Modern Civilization,” happened suddenly, some time in the half century between 1912 and 1962. That world, which was “The World” for a few centuries, is gone. Though it ended quite recently, the amnesia concerning its ending is general.

R.A. Lafferty, from “The Day After the World Ended,” notes for a speech at DeepSouthCon’79, New Orleans (July 21, 1979), later published in It’s Down the Slippery Cellar Stairs (1995).
Categories
Today

The 17th Amendment

On April 8, 1913, the 17th amendment to the Constitution, providing for the popular election of U.S. senators, was ratified.

Prior to this, senators had been appointed by state legislatures. It was John Dickinson of Delaware who suggested that the Senate be selected by state legislatures. “The combination of the state governments with the national government was as politic as it was unavoidable,” he argued. But as early as 1826, resolutions calling for direct popular election of senators appeared in the House of Representatives, but none succeeded. Following the Civil War, disputes among state legislators over Senate elections resulted in deadlocks, leaving some Senate seats vacant for long periods — Delaware remained without representation in the U.S. Senate for two years. In light of such problems, reformers in many states began calling for a change to the system of electing senators. In 1906, publisher William Randolph Hearst, a proponent of direct election, hired novelist David Graham Phillips to write a number of articles on the subject. Phillips’ series, “The Treason of the Senate,” portrayed senators as pawns of industrialists and financiers — with no small amount of hyperbole (to put it politely). The articles further galvanized public support for reform. 

Senator Joseph Bristow of Kansas offered, in 1911, a Senate resolution to amend the Constitution. In two years the Constitution was amended.

Categories
initiative, referendum, and recall partisanship

Gerrymandered Hypocrisy 

Virginia, referendum, fairness, voting, democracy

“Gerrymandering is detrimental to our democracy,” declared Virginia Governor Abigail Spanberger . . . back in 2019.

“Let voters decide, not politicians,” former President Barack Obama offered just last month. 

The problem? They’re correct!

And Republicans are now sharing the statements by these two high-ranking Democrats with Virginia voters. Why? They oppose the April 21 constitutional referendum that, if passed, would allow the legislature to gerrymander the state’s congressional district lines to likely turn the federal delegation from its current six- to five-seat Democratic majority into a ten to one Democratic majority.

How dare opponents repeat the precise words previously uttered by Spanberger and Obama as Virginians go to the polls!

WUSA-TV in Washington, D.C., headlined its report: “Anti-redistricting mailers in Virginia are misleading, critics warn.”

“This has been misconstrued,” explained Gaylene Kanoyton, the Political Action Chair for the Virginia NAACP. “This does not pertain to these unusual, unprecedented times that we are in right now.”

“It is true they made these statements years ago,” a fellow from my hometown was quoted, “but the situation has changed.”

“They don’t like it because we’re exposing their leaders for their hypocrisy,” argues former Republican Delegate A.C. Cordoza with Justice for Democracy PAC. 

Democrats can of course blame Republican gerrymandering efforts in other states to justify their own, but it is a race to the bottom for voters. 

But, as I pointed out last week, Democrats deserve all the blame. The language on the ballot is completely slanted, telling voters the measure will “restore fairness.” This is so outrageous that even the liberal Washington Post editorialized last month that “Democratic politicians are presenting the proposed amendment to voters in the most brazenly dishonest way imaginable.”

Partisans will always be self-serving. But can’t they even try not to appear blatantly hypocritical?

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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Thought

Heinlein

How can I possibly put a new idea into your heads, if I do not first remove your delusions?

Robert A. Heinlein, “Life-Line,” Astounding Science-Fiction (August 1939).

Categories
Today

Prohibition Begins to End

On April 7, 1933, Prohibition in the United States was repealed for beer of no more than 3.2 percent alcohol by weight — eight months before the ratification of the 21st amendment, which repealed the 18th (or Prohibition) Amendment.

The enabling legislation was the Cullen-Harrison Act, which figured the low alcohol content as the excuse to get around the 18th Amendment’s prohibition of intoxicating beverages. The act passed Congress on March 21, 1933, and was signed into law by Franklin Delano Roosevelt the next day.

Categories
judiciary litigation regulation

Justice Delayed Forever

Boeing, justice, liability, crony

In 2023, the families of persons who had died because of Boeing’s lies about safety were told that it was too early to challenge the Justice Department’s deferred prosecution agreement (DPA) with Boeing. Now, in 2026, the same Fifth Circuit says that their challenge is too late.

When was the perfect Goldilocks moment? When was lawyer Paul Cassell supposed to challenge, on behalf of his clients, “the Justice Department’s 2021 deferred prosecution agreement and 2025 non-prosecution agreement (NPA) with Boeing”?

Cassell reports that several years ago, Boeing “lied to the FAA about the safety of its new 737 MAX aircraft.” After Justice investigated, it charged Boeing with a criminal conspiracy — yet immediately signed a “sweetheart DPA” that let Boeing avoid a criminal conviction so long as it paid penalties and compensation to the families. 

And promised to do better.

In court, the families proved that the Justice Department had hidden the agreement from them even though legally obliged to consult with them. The same judge who acknowledged this in 2022 went on to rule, in 2023, that there was nothing he could do.

Appealing that decision, Cassell was next foiled by the Fifth Circuit, which ruled in December 2023 that any relief for the families was “premature.” Now, many complications later, the Fifth Circuit has “simply ignored its previous promises.”

With Boeing suffering no proportionate consequences for its incompetence and dishonesty about safety, it is just a matter of time before similar cases are repeated.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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Thought

William Hamilton

The primary principle of education is the determination of the pupil to self-activity — the doing nothing for him which he is able to do for himself.

Sir William Hamilton, Ninth Baronet, as quoted by Josiah Hotchkiss Gilbert, Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), p. 573.

Categories
Today

Salt Rebel

On April 6, 1930, Mohandas K. Gandhi raised a lump of mud and salt, declaring, “With this, I am shaking the foundations of the British Empire.”

Thus began the Salt Satyagraha.

Categories
Update

How Weird Can It Get?

Yesterday’s update was about what we are now supposed to call the “UAP” question, but which in times past was known popularly as “UFO” for “Unidentified Flying Object.” The coiner of the term, Air Force Captain Edward J. Ruppelt, wanted it pronounced “you-foe,” not “you eff oh,” but that stalled at lift-off.

And it wasn’t the only term that had trouble at the beginning. Its replacement term, “UAP,” started life as “Unidentified Aerial Phenomena,” but because no small part of UFO lore had objects going into and out of bodies of water, the term was expanded to mean “Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena.” Not a few people who are known as “ufologists” suspect that the name change wasn’t for accuracy but as part of some propagandistic effort to hoodwink the masses, to pretend that the phenomena are new, not very, very old.

And one of the problems with all the disclosure talk in Congress is they never seem to ask pertinent historical questions, say about the infamous “Twining Memo.”

As yesterday’s update was published, a new story broke. Shane Galvin produced another article for the New York Post, “Congress demands Dept of War release 46 secret UFO videos: ‘You’re gonna see some weird f–king s–t’.”

“Those with knowledge of the long list of videos — which include titles like ‘Several UAP in vicinity of Columbus OH airport” and “UFOs in formation over Persian Gulf’ — said the clips are shocking,” Galvin’s article explained. “‘You’re gonna see some weird f–king s–t,’ a source who has viewed the videos told The Post.”

To ramp up to X-Files levels of paranoia, the article concluded that “Congress is not going into this request blind — with two sources telling The Post moles within the intelligence community have eyes on the files being requested and they’ll blow the whistle if the videos are moved, altered, or deleted by anyone.

“The Department of War is expected to hand over the clips by April 14, according to the letter.”

It may be worth noting that last year’s “drones” panic, while no longer making the news, continues. That is, mysterious drones continue to be seen on the eastern seaboard and over military bases, and the several debunking articles devoted to the “drones” subject, heavily promoted last year, seem to be quite off point. 

In February the President had instructed the Pentagon to prepare to release UFO files. We’ll see if that happens. President James Earl Carter, Jr., had promised UFO disclosure, and did next to nothing; Hillary Clinton ran on disclosure and somehow failed to be elected. UFOs have been subjected to official denials, curious silences, and contradictory psy-op affirmations over seven decades. Many people have no hope for government to come clean. Events, they think, must force a disclosure. 

But amidst all the contradictions, what of substance could be said? For most of us, it is all guesswork. But note: if this is all a big nothing, some folks behind the scenes have been cooking up a lot of something about nothing.