Rebane's Ruminations
July 2018
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George Rebane

The Opioid insanity.  We now are in courts suing the big pharma makers of opioid pain killers, accusing them of being the cause of the tragic opioid deaths epidemic across the land.  Big pharma neither delivers nor gratuitously promotes the delivery of opioids to those who die from their reckless use.  In the dissemination chain, the distributors and prescribing physicians are getting a pass from the righteous Left; why?  Because the Left is only interested in deep pockets which big pharma enjoys, and the leftwing sleazebag lawyers will enjoy a big hunk of those monies if they get the desired verdicts from stupid juries.

Big high-tech corporations lean markedly to the Left.  Most people with 3-digit IQs know that. So now we have these leftwing corporations bolstering their leftwing agendas by “shadow banning” conservative tweeters.  A list of Republican congress critters who promote Trump have already presented evidence of exactly this when they discovered that suddenly their accounts could not be found on Twitter.  Meanwhile the land’s lamebrains still believe the Zuckerbergs and Dorseys claiming that these social media sites are “platforms for free speech”.

The current Song of Socialists performed by talking heads is that ‘We’re not there yet’, when asked to talk about Trump’s progress toward everything from rapprochement with Russia, to denuclearization of the Fat Kid, to the promise of a new world trade order that benefits the US.  These deep thinkers are trying to convince their audiences that the administration and all Republicans are out there busy stocking up on firecrackers for the big celebration tomorrow night on the Capitol Mall, when that is not even close.  Bad mouthing what Trump gets done every day is the only thing left that they have to offer, because the Left has nothing short of Plan Venezuela to offer Americans.  And about that they know to keep their mouths shut.

[update] Speaking of the Great Divide, H.W. Crocker III writes ‘America’s Next Civil War Will Be Worse Than Our Last’.  He brings out some good comparisons between the America of 1860 and what we are today, but he does not call out the real important differences that have brought us beyond the tipping point.  And most significantly, if people break out their shootin’ irons this time, then the war will truly be a civil war and not the War for Southern Independence misnamed.  (H/T to reader on the article)

[27jul18 update]  Prescribed burns make all the sense in the world, and are worth the risk of unexpected losses.  But our federal and statewide governments are literally too stupid, and their politicians too cowardly to plan and execute prescribed burns.  It is a simple trade-off that politicians and lawyers have purposely made complex, and for them, profitable.  Through over-zealous fire abatement policies, we have let our public lands become over grown to an extent that nature has never permitted.  So when the expected wildfires come, they cause extraordinary damage to life and property at costs orders of magnitude above what controlled prescribed burns would cost.  And yet we continue year after year to spout fire prevention pabulum to homeowners in fire areas and suffer the ensuing wildfire, without doing anything to attack the fundamental cause of the fires – too much fuel too densely distributed in easy reach of the foolish and felonious.  (All this in the last great century of Man.)

Anti-Kavanaugh hyper-hysteria grows.  Sen Corey Booker (D-NJ) announced today (FN) that he opposes Judge Kavanaugh’s nomination on the basis that both the judge and his nomination to SCOTUS are “evil”.  He stongly exhorts his fellow Dems that there is “no middle ground” on opposing this nomination, you’re either for or against “evil”.  This is truly a twofer for Republicans – another Dem shows himself to be deranged in his service in Washington (why elect more of them?), and the confirmation that the Team Schumer/Pelosi has run out of substantive ammo, which they never had, to stop Judge Kavanaugh’s confirmation by the Senate before the midterm elections.

Posted in , ,

80 responses to “Ruminations – 27jul18 (updated 28jul18)”

  1. George Rebane Avatar

    Re SteveF’s 544am – Mr Steve Frisch swings through here occasionally to grace us with his presence and to set straight a grievous error or two, and sprinkle around some indecorous appellations so that we understand clearly at whom his remediating wisdom is directed. Correspondents and commenters tell us that he more regularly takes us to task on other venues. The occasional RR reader is reminded that Steve is one of, or even possibly, the leading intellectual light of Nevada County’s population of progressives. He is a champion of distal central planning and the proximal control of lives lived for the greatest good.
    As again demonstrated in his referenced dissertation along with his many contributions that decorate these pages, Steve is also a clairvoyant – no matter your spoken or written word, Steve has always been able to peer underneath it all to extract and report what you were really thinking and what you really meant. His semantics brook no dispute; like the Queen of Hearts, his words mean exactly how, when, and what he wants them to mean – and here he considers my (our?) understanding of America’s ‘civil war’, and, again, his pronouncement that I, and many of us, are thereby again confirmed racists.
    First, let us be clear that for Steve anyone is a racist simply because Steve says he is a racist; that is sufficient on its face (or prima facie in lawyer talk). And when a man speaks mostly ex cathedra, he is not to be trifled with. In his current comment he deigns to draw a slight tendril from my “use of the ‘War of Southern Independence’ (that) is a reflection of his racist world view.” How he uses his manifold skills to connect those dots is not for us to ask.
    On some of Steve’s substantive comments he correctly reminds us that “the entire economic system the agrarian south was fighting to retain was built on human bondage and white supremacy”. And that it indeed was so in 1860 is a given of American history. But then his progressive revisionist history begins to depart from the rails. Where for him, the causes of the war were the North’s intense and singular desire to abolish slavery in the land, the actual causes were several (which most well-read students of American history can cite). And of those, slavery entered in primarily as a factor in the effects of its non-containment in the South. Save for the zealous abolitionists and their considerable anti-slavery propaganda, almost all northerners were quite sanguine about the South’s slave-based agrarian economy that reliably fed feed, fiber, and cloth to the North’s mills and farms, as long as it remained contained.
    The North didn’t want to lose control of the economic benefit the South provided, and relinquish the strategic gateway seaport of its great Mississippi-Missouri agricultural and commercial basin and riverine transport system, and anticipate continued competition for control of its western lands. Of course, the South’s wealthy elites did not want to go through the social risk of freeing their slaves and the commercial risk of increasing their labor costs, and the South’s poor did not look forward to a newly freed cohort on the labor markets to depress already low wages. So they discovered secession in the Constitution, and opted for becoming a sovereign nation-state. Nevertheless, most southern thinkers knew that slavery was on its way out no matter what hand history would deal them.
    So when the South lit the match at Ft Sumter, there was no northern unanimity in going to war. Nor was there from the outset much unanimity for preserving the Union, and most certainly not for freeing the slaves – all that even after serious combat started between large marshalled forces. Moreover, students of history know that the conflict was visibly opposed and called by large factions of northerners and the president’s political foes as ‘Mr Lincoln’s War’, the first ‘modern war’ that devastated the manhood of the North’s farms and factories.
    Perhaps the most persuasive argument about the war’s causes and its economic portents is gleaned from the clear sentiment of the times, the North would have attacked the South in order to prevent secession (i.e. Southern independence) even if the latter had promised to emancipate its slaves.
    Steve Frisch and his ideological contemporaries see none of this, because it is not permitted in today’s progressive narrative of America’s dastardly past that has given rise to the perpetual victimhood the Left has implemented on our minorities to cultivate, succor, and grow its reliable political constituencies – what the Right calls ‘perpetuating the plantation’. America’s Left-controlled schools have spewed out this new history that is now firmly resident in the minds of two generations of public school students.
    In such debates, we can expect no polarized minds to depolarize. The coming Great Divide just draws confirmation and strength from these exchanges that illuminate the wasteland of no shared thought that separates our distinct and disparate worlds, facts, histories, and visions.
    Finally, as all’s said and done, I always welcome Steve Frisch to these pages when he is able to share his thoughts within the (rather loose) bounds of civility we observe around here. In addition to his illumination of the progressive mind, the man also often provides both diversion and sport in the dharma battles he instigates.

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  2. fish Avatar
    fish

    Posted by: Steve Frisch | 28 July 2018 at 10:17 AM
    Why are you so spun up? I mean there is no reason for such a happening “mover and shaker”, a man with his finger on the pulse of the nation to go into such over the top histrionics as this post. You look like my ex-wife being told she can’t have that new car! We are just 7 or 8 guys with opinions that differ from yours…..and truth be told most of the upcoming demographic….take solace in the fact that you should have some success with them.
    At least until Washingtons checks stop clearing and then hide….they are a bunch who you don’t really want to piss off!

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  3. Scott Obermuller Avatar

    I know I’ve asked before, but since Frisch has brought it up again – does anyone out there know how I can get a copy of the ‘white racist dog whistle’ dictionary? Or possibly an online version? Some folks seem to have the official version and know all the secret words and phrases to avoid.

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  4. fish Avatar
    fish

    Posted by: Scott Obermuller | 28 July 2018 at 11:22 AM
    That’s the beauty of it Scott…..there is no official version! It’s whatever happens to make you upset at the time!
    A Living Document if you will!

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  5. fish Avatar
    fish

    Posted by: George Rebane | 28 July 2018 at 11:13 AM
    Finally, as all’s said and done, I always welcome Steve Frisch to these pages when he is able to share his thoughts within the (rather loose) bounds of civility we observe around here. In addition to his illumination of the progressive mind, the man also often provides both diversion and sport in the dharma battles he instigates.

    Now I like to think that “our side” has comported itself well today…..with only a minimum of “inane humor” on my part and the sufficient decorum as Scenes has called for given that, and as he stated “at least Steve responds in complete sentences” where as the usual suspects seem unable to do so…..even with one having a masters degree from Northwestern!

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  6. Walt Avatar

    Stevey leaves out a VARY impotent part in his rant.
    DEMOCRAT.
    How come Stevey? Forget Lincoln was a Repub? (or a closet DEM?)
    Never mind your LIB side still tries to keep the minorities on the ol’ plantation. ( Out of work, and on welfare.. And the promise of free shit. That Obama-phone worked wonders)
    Just checking the SBC tax docs,,, Hummm… Uh,, how many paid employees?? And not vary transparent as a (HA!!) “non profit” should be.
    Looks like you fit into the “hiding in a dark basement, sitting at a computer alone, in one’s underwear” kind of “council”.
    (
    : shell corp.)
    Useless Tax leaches like SBC will be on Trump’s radar soon enough.

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  7. Bill Tozer Avatar
    Bill Tozer

    Steve @10:17 am
    Have to disagree, not split hairs. You seem to insert the word (bad word?) White as an adjective preceding the nouns. Nationalism? No, it’s White nationalism. Supremacy? No, it’s White supremacy. Nationalism is bad, I reckon, often confused with that dog whistle “patriotism.”
    Now, this one is one I cannot sweep under the carpet because it’s sticking one’s head in the sand.
    “claim the right to have George’s utopian enclaves of like cultured people…which is code for segregation.”
    That is simply choosing to turn a blind eye. Steve, you have been around. Go to LA. You have the groups of those of like culture living in the same neighborhoods by choice. Armenian communities, Jewish communities, Russian communities south of Portland, Korean communities in Tacoma, Chinese communities in the San Gabriel Valley, Myong communities in the San Joaquin Valley, and on and on it goes. Birds of a feather flock together. Nothing new. Heck, the small Latino community is clustered together in Kings Beach.
    Nevada City would have a conniption fit is someone tried to put up a big stucco building with a Spanish tile roof next door on the corner of E. Broad St and 49. Why? Culture. What is all this talk about “cultural appropriation” that the likes of Lena Dunham was screaming about in school and after college? What, a Mexican can’t make sushi and a Irish lady can’t peddle burritos? What is that fuss about? Is it not cultural segregation?
    Why are we building black only dorms across our land? Because the black students have demanded it. Why? Because they feel more comfortable being around folks like them with a shared background and life experience….and culture. Why, for example, are certain campuses providing “safe places” for blacks only or LGBTQQ students only?Their safe place for them only, no one else allowed? Why, why not use the other safe places? Because they feel more comfortable and safe with “their own kind (a trigger phrase) than anywhere else, including the other safe places.
    I have sounded the alarm that we are moving more towards segregation for months, gleamed by not only what is happening on campuses widespread across our nation, but seeing what is going on in communities across the fruited plains. Our melting pot is being replaced with a tossed salad. And it’s not because we are a generous country where all are equal under the law. It’s culture. It’s tribal. It’s not even xenophobic. Everyone seems to be put in a group, a herd, and it’s dangerous out there when you leave the herd. This is not me that is saying the above sentence. It’s what our society is saying.
    One point I strongly agree with Dr. Rebane on is when one lives with those of the same culture is there is a degree of expections and familiarity of the behavior of others. If I go down and sleep in a homeless camp, I know I may (will) get hit up for a plug off the jug or ripped off of some meager material possessions, but I also know I won’t have my throat slashed while I sleep. In a weird way, I know we have each other’s back…at night. They are watching out for me, and I them. Not a paradox at all. All are in the same boat, sub-culture if you will, no repector of persons, race, or creed. Being familiar with that culture. I expect to be ripped off during the day when I am not around. There is a comfort to it all because it is familiar. And they have an expectation of me to share what I have. It’s a cultural thang. Not the best example, but you get the drift. Look around at your neighborhood or community, Steve. Is it not birds of a feather flock together all in all? Is not there a degree of familiarly and expectations of those you run concerning values, behavior, and common norms? That be culture, your herd, your group. And, is it not in the larger picture, the choices where you choose to live and who to run with not a act of self segregation?

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  8. scenes Avatar
    scenes

    Mr. Frisch: “Scott & Scenes with their twist on semantics and historical revisionism…the southern economy was based on white supremacy, it is what made the south agrarian, slavery was not a symptom it was the cause…”
    BS. Although you are hell on wheels for fighting strawmen.
    The South was agrarian before the plantation system. I have plenty of ancestors who died trying to farm there back when the colonies were thin strips on the coast. It’s just that it’s cheaper to buy labor than to hire it, plus the original locals made crummy slaves.
    It isn’t like those folks had a bunch of slaves and then cast around for a way to earn a living on them. You also run into the unfortunate truth that big leagues slave ownership was a fairly limited pasttime. Typically, people would have a dozen children and would consider themselves well off to own even a single black human.
    The real revisionism is yours, sir. These are complex systems, don’t lend themselves well to simple causalities, and are fraught with the Historians Dilemma. I realize that the temptation is strong to cast the present in terms of the past (Trump = Hitler, Republicans = plantation slave owners, etc.) but it doesn’t do you credit. Try again. Probably the best understanding is to read documents written at the time, not modern interpretations. Fill in your own blanks.

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  9. scenes Avatar
    scenes

    re: GeorgeR@11:13
    It’s a good post, but largely falling on deaf ears.
    Mr Frisch did a nice sideways move from “why did the civil war start” to “was slavery important in the South”.
    The answers of course are “lotsa reasons” and “yes”, but these are the types of arguments built to win a third, somewhat hidden, point. The fact that he lives in a whiteopia and is surrounded by white co-workers is a fun thing to bring up, but really is besides the point.
    I’ll post this up again, since I’m rather attracted to the idea. Building a new religious culture is tough work and it’s interesting to think about how it happens.
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NanumqpBDtA

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  10. fish Avatar
    fish

    Posted by: scenes | 28 July 2018 at 12:37 PM
    The fact that he lives in a whiteopia and is surrounded by white co-workers is a fun thing to bring up, but really is besides the point.

    Yes…..but it is so satisfying to bring it up! Not a single poster here is in favor of slavery and are dare I say embarrassed that as a nation founded upon personal liberty tolerated the institution as long as it did. Steve uses “racism” as a rhetorical cudgel and seems to lament that it doesn’t work as well as it once did. Indicative of this is his use now of “Supremacism”, a word used in serious tones only on college campuses and by vapid female actresses when trying to assure the world at large that they are “serious thinkers” thinking goodthinkfully!
    I don’t know why Steve gets so worked about this….I don’t think any of the regulars here are racist. At least not qualifying for the white sheet racist…..given the sloppiness of the definition everybody is racist….white guy cuts you off in traffic….racist! A white guy isn’t interested in reading the last Ta Nahesi Coates offering…..racist! Doesn’t’ go to see “Black Panther” movie more than once….racist! Complain about 10 200K “Diversity Officers” fueled by tax dollars at the local community college….racist!

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  11. George Rebane Avatar

    scenes 1237pm – You are, of course, right Mr scenes, and I acknowledged as much. But as a point of passing interest to recall is that for me (and a close circle of others in which you may or not wish to be included) RR and its comment streams are a record of how such issues and sentiments were discussed in this day and age. SteveF may be and probably is a drive-by commenter who gains some pleasure in posting his repartees, but really has no longer term investment in what he writes or how he is here remembered. For us his value is his service as an existential sample of current sentiment, belief, and thought.

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  12. scenes Avatar
    scenes

    re: GeorgeRebane@1:07PM
    I suppose the main problem is that it just burns Mr Frisch’s ass that someone like me doesn’t feel the slightest bit guilty about slavery and, as history problem, tries to think about it in context.
    No doubt most of this is tied up in simple modern politics. You can manipulate voters through simple morality tales to do what you currently want, it’s not much different than a church sermon. Personally, I get tired of non-domain experts lecturing on something like this when they have something like white guilt in mind. It gets tiresome
    It’s interesting to think about the economics of slavery in the South given the high quality of records (as compared to, say, the Roman Empire).
    http://cliometrics.org/conferences/ASSA/Jan_00/rosenbloom.shtml
    It’s funny to consider the distortion in an economy you get when capital assets (in this case, bought and paid for humans) are themselves subject to speculation.

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  13. scenes Avatar
    scenes

    re: Fish – “I don’t think any of the regulars here are racist. ”
    If someone defines the term, I’d be happy to own up to it or not.
    The first hit on goduckgo on the term states: “A person who believes a particular race is superior to others”
    A problem arises. In every IQ study I’ve seen, at it’s probably the best studied thing in sociology, East Asians have a higher average intelligence than other racial groups.
    So what happens when facts, or a good approximation to a fact, runs up against an epithet?

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  14. Gregory Avatar
    Gregory

    “Greg with an attack on my business affiliations….”
    -Frisch 1017am
    Steve, that wasn’t an attack on your “business affiliations”, it was an attack on your choice to staff the SBC with white people (nearly 100%) while claiming the people hosting and commenting here at RR are racist.
    Your hypocrisy is showing. Again. In a fair word fight, you lose.

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  15. George Rebane Avatar

    scenes 129pm – For the record, I and all native Estonians are direct descendants of ‘slaves’ which is how the Swedes then Russian landowners in Estonia treated us natives. We were called serfs, but the economic, social, and punitive strictures on us were equivalent to the South’s slaves – we were simply economic assets to be worked and traded as our masters determined. In czarist Estonia serfdom was (coincidentally) also ended in mid-19th century. But that only removed some of the more onerous parts of the relationship with our previous owners – nothing changed for us re our mobility and economic fortunes. For comparison, no Estonians today view themselves as victims of that era. This is not to be confused with Estonians’ extreme distrust of Russia’s demonstrated history and perpetual designs to again dominate them.
    Re southern slaves. The discussion of their economic impact must always be considered strictly as commercial labor assets in an agrarian economy. This is very different from the use of slaves in ancient times where they were mainly employed in households. There was no major economy like the South’s King Cotton based on mass employment of slavery. The only exception one could cite was the Romans north African salt mines worked by slaves, and motive power of galleons provided by slaves. But these slaves were derived mainly from conquests and criminal punishments, and did not involve a pejorative racial component.

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  16. George Rebane Avatar

    For those interested, the definition of racism and considerations of ethnic-dependent IQs have been extensively discussed on RR. This is not this blog’s first week in existence – citations and references to previous posts and commenters’ contributions are always welcome. I give you an example or two –
    http://rebaneruminations.typepad.com/rebanes_ruminations/2010/07/who-is-a-racist.html
    And the definition of racist has always been in the RR Glossary. Readers should recall that I actually make a fetish of defining my terms, it was something that I was taught in the schools I attended, and something I put to extremely good use in my professional career. I don’t intend to give it up now.

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  17. fish Avatar
    fish

    Posted by: scenes | 28 July 2018 at 01:34 PM
    If someone defines the term, I’d be happy to own up to it or not.

    ….and that’s just it…..there is no agreed upon definition in common use! And by common I mean day to day use. Like obscenity…..they just know it when they see/hear it! Racism it seems is just the term one uses when they want to end the argument now and get a good group chant going!
    Anyway…is the mere subscription to the notion: “A person who believes a particular race is superior to others” sufficient to be racist? If so the group who seems to like hurling the term so freely are in the deepest of trouble……1.2 billion Han Chinese trouble! I’m pretty that the Chinese as a group don’t think particularly highly of white America! I can only guess what they think of black America (not very highly I imagine) and from what I read things aren’t going all that well where the Chinese interact with actual African Africans!
    Do I think that makes them “Racist”?
    No….I think that makes them Chinese with all the attendant cultural quirks! Not just the Chinese…..most of East Asia seems to qualify for the DuckDuckGo definition. So it ain’t just Whitey who has a problem though we are always portrayed as such!
    So what happens when facts, or a good approximation to a fact, runs up against an epithet?
    Seems like the facts lose rather handily!

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  18. Gregory Avatar
    Gregory

    I nominate the following photograph to define “racist” or “white supremacist” when written by Stephen Frisch, six figure CEO of the wretchedly misnamed Sierra Business Council:
    https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0077745/mediaviewer/rm1070213376

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  19. Don Bessee Avatar
    Don Bessee

    It smells so frishy in here I thought this was the sandbox! 😉

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  20. Bonnie McGuire Avatar

    Lincolns wife had seances in the White House on Friday nights. Lincoln was told that slavery in the United States was an abomination and to get rid of it. A nation of, by and for people, where as Lincoln put it….”ordinary people could achieve their dreams.” Obviously slavery was a Constitutional contradiction that he had to deal with…regardless of what some say about it to make themselves look better. Surprising what you learn when you get out of the intellectual rut.

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  21. Bill Tozer Avatar
    Bill Tozer

    Re: Speaking of the Great Divide; the next Civil War will be worse than the last one….
    “History is the present talking to the past.”
    I will sidestep the last dust up over the primary cause of the Civil War with one sentence:
    After reviewing tons of sites (most triggered by the Texas history “rewrite” textbook controvestary in 2015) ranging from editorials on Root to scholarly works to in between, I can see why many (most) see the the Civil War was fought to end slavery. The end.
    —From a 1989 NYT editorial based on studying the five history textbooks used in 2/3 of the high school classrooms in the USA (at that time):
    “One textbook that offers no biography of Lincoln devotes 24 of 43 pages about the Civil War to pictures, maps and special features. The longest profile of the 16th President in any of the volumes is six paragraphs.”
    With that out of the way and no big fight to end slavery on the menu, I still wonder what the next Civil War will look like and what the most important major reason why it will be fought, be it bloody or bloodless. Like the State of Jefferson or Calexit, it is now more of an exercise of the imagination than anything else. Lumping it all under the heading ‘The Great Divide’ works for me (and most) at this moment it time. Like the last American Civil War, the seeds that led to Fort Sumter look decades in the making. At some point, it will only take but a mere spark to start the Inferno, whatever the particular event or circumstance will be. Akin to a police shooting in an already tense black neighborhood filled with distrust and strife.
    So, here are the seeds that have been sown as of today, IMHO.
    http://buchanan.org/blog/will-tribalism-trump-democracy-129792
    Which brings me to a news item that came out yesterday. In view of the above link, it makes sense.
    “Because most of the federal land would include conservative-leaning portions of California, the plan also would create a “buffer zone between Donald Trump’s America and the new independent California Republic,” another co-founder of the initiative, Marcus Ruiz Evans, said in a statement.”
    http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2018/07/31/calexit-supporters-revamp-campaign-with-plan-to-convert-half-california-into-autonomous-native-american-nation.html
    Another quote in the common vernacular: “We are always fighting the last war”.

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  22. Russ Avatar

    Governor Brown:
    “since civilization emerged 10,000 years ago, we haven’t had this kind of heat condition, and it’s going to continue getting worse and that’s the way it is.”
    https://sierrafoothillcommentary.com/2018/07/11/if-planet-is-warming-why-are-ca-max-temperatures-declining/
    He does not know what he is talking about, it was warmer in the 1930s that it is now. July 2018 in CA was only the 18th warmest according to Joe Bastardi at Weather Bell.
    Fake News from the Governor.

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  23. Gregory Avatar
    Gregory

    Besides the 1930’s, it was hotter during the Holocene Climate Optimum (like 8000 to 5000 years ago) and the Roman Warm period (oh, 2500 years ago), but Brown listens to Bill McKibben (a journalist by training before he pulled 350ppm out of his arse to name his group) over geophysicists.

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  24. scenes Avatar
    scenes

    re: The US Civil War.
    It seems to me that a good compromise on all of that would be to write histories that simply report the facts of the matter and don’t spend a minute of time ‘interpreting’ it. The Historian’s Dilemma is probably impossible to avoid entirely, but you can sure chop away at it.
    Doubtless, bias can still be introduced by exactly what you report, but it’s a darned sight better than finding faces in clouds. The whole notion of ‘why’ seems bankrupt to me when you consider the complexity of the aggregate actions of millions of people. ‘Why’ is the kind of thing an individual thinks, not a group.
    Of course, the Frisch’s of the world will go on thinking ‘Civil War’ = slavery, end of story, but there’s nothing I can do about that. It’s their loss. I suppose we all need to think in terms of models in order to grasp the world.

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  25. George Rebane Avatar

    scenes 806am – What you are suggesting is the banishment of history. We recall that the recording of “simply facts of the matter” was/is the job of chroniclers, but it is the job of historians to relate such facts/events to their antecedent causes and then to subsequent facts/events to paint an integrated picture of the flow of human events. In olden times chroniclers from both sides would often set themselves up on some vantage high ground to observe the battle and record it, compare notes, and then go their separate ways. Their safety was honored by both sides since the information they provided was valuable in its own right for further strategizing, accounting, and, of course, propagandizing.

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  26. Bill Tozer Avatar
    Bill Tozer

    The changing face of Lincoln to fit the times…via textbooks.
    “A better balance began to appear in schoolbooks by the late 1990s. Historians recognized that social history without political history is only partial history, and that leadership sometimes does indeed flow from the top down. In this altered historiographical context and the altered historical context after September 11, 2001, a new perspective on Lincoln has emerged in the schoolbooks. As always, the current Lincoln reflects historical scholarship and contemporary American life. For all our protestations that historians are “originalists,” that is, we study historical figures only within the context of their times, we are affected by the world around us. This enables us to view historical figures from shifting perspectives and to ask new questions of them and of the documents they have left behind. As long as the present does not become the agenda for the past, such presentism can be informative and helpful, especially for students who are constantly asking us, “why is history relevant to our lives?”
    Last paragraph:
    One thing is certain and that is the image of Abraham Lincoln in American schoolbooks will continue to evolve. In America, we write history backwards. We begin with the needs of our students and the great issues of contemporary American life and we ask how history can help us understand both who we are and what is happening to us. It means that the history in schoolbooks is never static, but always serves a contemporary purpose.
    http://www.asjournal.org/53-2009/lincolns-image-in-the-american-schoolbook/
    From another site I found this letter more in line with my personal POV early in the war.
    “Abraham Lincoln had long been under pressure to make the war into a crusade against slavery. But he had resisted. To Horace Greeley, whose newspaper strongly criticized him for not freeing the slaves, Lincoln had written in August 1862:
    My paramount object in this struggle is to save the Union, and is not either to save or destroy Slavery. If I could save the Union without freeing any slave, I would do it; and if I could save it by freeing all the slaves, I would do it; and if I could do it by freeing some and leaving others alone, I would also do that. What I do about Slavery and the colored race, I do because it helps to save this Union; and what I forbear, I forbear because I do not believe it would help to save the Union.”
    ———————————————————
    But in 1863, after volunteering had slackened off, Congress passed a federal conscription law for the first time on a nationwide scale in the United States. . .
    The draft was especially damned in the Democratic strongholds of the North, notably in New York City. A frightful riot broke out in 1863, touched off largely by underprivileged and anti-black Irish-Americans, who shouted, “Down with Lincoln!” and “Down with the draft!” For several days the city was at the mercy of a burning, drunken, pillaging mob. Scores of lives were lost, and the victims included many lynched blacks. Elsewhere in the North, conscription met with resentment and an occasional minor riot.15
    —My thoughts: As the election (reelection) approached and the North finally won a couple of desperately needed victories on the battlefield. the moral issue of slavery in a Christian Nation took on a larger role, theme, and importance. As the War progressed, the cause against slavery also progressed. So, my thoughts are that slavery evolved into the central theme of the Civil War, as did public opinion, later during the War and more so as the War was drawing to a conclusion. But it wasn’t always the central theme.
    https://americanvision.org/15212/textbooks-dont-tell-lincoln-war/

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  27. scenes Avatar
    scenes

    “It means that the history in schoolbooks is never static, but always serves a contemporary purpose.”
    That is a sentence worth considering.

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  28. Bill Tozer Avatar
    Bill Tozer

    @Scenes
    Yep, included on purpose and directed to you and Dr. Rebane (hoping you would find it) after reading the Medieval Studies link you so graciously provided. I got that one stuck in my mind and will go back to it again and again. Saved it in favorites. Also included in my mini-essay from the first link is another sentence worth considering,
    “As long as the present does not become the agenda for the past, such presentism can be informative and helpful, especially for students who are constantly asking us, “
    That is from the writer’s point of view, but in today’s SJW world, how do we keep the present from becoming the agenda of the past? Or how do we keep the past from becoming the agenda of the present? Tear it down! Burn, baby, burn.

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  29. Bill Tozer Avatar
    Bill Tozer

    Opps
    Present becoming the agenda for the past….not agenda of the past….

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  30. Bill Tozer Avatar
    Bill Tozer

    Concering update: prescribed burns make sense
    “Our forests are dramatically overcrowded,” said Krystal Beckham of the Little Hoover Commission, an independent California oversight agency that has called for major changes in the state’s forest management practices.”
    “We’ve yet to see the worst of forest fires. The climate is drier and warmer, and that leads to more fires,” said Rep. Bruce Westerman, R-Ark., a licensed forester. “But the forest doesn’t stop growing, and the trees don’t start crowding each other. Until we realize that, we will continue seeing the devastation we are seeing right now.”
    “The federal government has only so much power in fighting and preventing fires.
    Of the dozen or so wildfires currently burning in California, National Interagency Fire Center spokeswoman Jessica Gardetto said, only five are on Forest Service land. Others are on state or private land, or a mix of jurisdictions.”
    https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/policy/energy/mismanaged-overcrowded-forests-provide-fuel-to-historic-california-wildfires-experts-say
    Well, carbon taxes will prevent forest fires in CA, lol. In the bigger picture, can anyone name on thing the State manages well? Roads, bridges, dams, voting, fighting crime? The homeless scourge? Affordable housing? Illicit drugs? The only thing CA does well is levy and collect taxes. Besides the Franchise Tax Board, can you name one State Department that is managed well and, in turn, manages its charge well?

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