In 1986, historian Arthur Schlesinger, Jr, wrote The Cycles of American History, which included a chapter on the cycle of American politics. Schlesinger viewed America’s political cycles as alterations “between public purpose” (which as a liberal, he favored) and “private interest.” He claimed that since the late 19th century, each cycle has lasted about 40 years. Trump astounded the political world by defeating Hillary Clinton … the political establishment of both parties, and every “right-thinking” person. Schlesinger’s heroes were Theodore and Franklin Roosevelt, Woodrow Wilson, and later John F. Kennedy and Lyndon Johnson — all shaped by the Progressive Era in U.S. politics. He asserted that presidential administrations that emphasized the “public purpose” were less corrupt than those who emphasized “private interests” — in reality, the opposite is true. The book was typical Schlesinger — using history to promote liberal politics. Instead of cycles, American political history has been divided into eras that were and are shaped by political movements and political leaders. We are today living in the Trump Era. Since 2016, Donald Trump has dominated American politics whether he was winning or losing elections. Trump has led a populist revolt against the Progressive Era, which dominated American politics, except during a few brief interludes, for more than a century. Trump did not start the political movement that seeded the revolt against progressivism, but he did embrace it as his own and lead it to political victory. Let’s see how we got here. The Founding Era of American politics was shaped by the War of Independence and differing perspectives on federalism. The political leaders that most defined that era were George Washington and Alexander Hamilton, who promoted domestic unity, foreign policy neutrality, mercantilist economics, and Manifest Destiny. That era was eclipsed by the Jacksonian era, when populism and sectionalism emerged to reshape American politics. Schlesinger, in a much better historical work, called this era the “Age of Jackson.” The Jacksonian Era lasted until the Civil War. The next political era could be called the Capitalist Era, when the industrial revolution and the titans of American business dominated American society. The leading figures of this era were men like John D. Rockefeller, Andrew Carnegie, J.P. Morgan, Cornelius Vanderbilt, Thomas Edison, and Henry Ford. This era lasted until the early 20th century, and during this period the business of America was business (to borrow a phrase from Calvin Coolidge, who tried to revive the era in the 1920s). There was no political movement or political figure that dominated the politics of this era. The abuses of the Capitalist Era led, however, to the next political era — the Progressive Era — which, with several bumps along the way, lasted until today’s Trump Era. The Progressive Era was shaped by Theodore Roosevelt and Woodrow Wilson, and was a movement promoted by intellectuals. In domestic politics, progressives spoke and wrote and legislated on behalf of the working man. In foreign policy, progressives looked beyond the national interest to promote the good society abroad. The movement and the era culminated in the election of Franklin D. Roosevelt to the presidency. FDR’s legacy is government activism to improve the lives of less fortunate Americans at home and to remake the rest of the world in America’s image. Nothing symbolized the hubris of progressivism better than FDR’s “four freedoms” — freedom of speech, freedom of worship, freedom from want, and freedom from fear. The Progressive Era saw the enormous growth of the federal government to a size and for purposes that would have astounded the Founders of our country. It included the creation of the national security state as part of the growth of what President Eisenhower called the “military-industrial complex.” It also included the creation of government bureaucracies that regulated businesses and increasingly intruded into the lives of American citizens. It reached a crescendo during the administration of Lyndon Johnson which engaged the government to simultaneously wage war in Southeast Asia and promote the Great Society at home. The Johnson administration was the essence of progressivism, and a colossal failure. Even progressives revolted against Johnson’s presidency — but they did so because they viewed it as not being progressive enough. During his and Nixon’s presidencies, progressives took to the streets to attempt to transform American society into a progressive utopia, but when that failed the progressives began to infiltrate America’s key institutions — schools, universities, the media, Hollywood, scientific institutions, political parties (especially the Democratic Party). That is why the Reagan presidency — for all of its conservative accomplishments — was only a brief interlude in the Progressive Era. By 2008, the progressives succeeded in getting one of their own in the White House — Barack Obama, who promised to fundamentally transform America. Obama’s presidency was the triumph of the counterculture of the 1960s and early 1970s. Progressives advanced their transformational agenda during his presidency and Biden’s presidency (which in essence was Obama’s third term). This agenda included apologizing for America’s past sins abroad; continuing endless wars started by the neoconservatives in the Bush 43 administration; promoting the LGBTQ+ agenda; institutionalizing “Diversity, Equity and Inclusion” throughout federal agencies, including the Pentagon; demonizing police forces around the country; promoting illegal immigration in unprecedented numbers; subsidizing a green energy revolution; paying homage to schemes for “global governance”; decrying “white Christian nationalism”; labeling parents concerned about the oversexualized content of their children’s education “domestic terrorists”; colluding with social media platforms to censor conservative voices; and calling those who supported their political opponents “deplorables,” “garbage,” and “threats to democracy.” The Seeds of Trump Even before Obama was elected, the seedlings of the Trump Era began — first with the populist candidacies of Ross Perot and Patrick Buchanan, then with the rise of the Tea Party movement and alternative media outlets. Perot and Buchanan were unconventional populist candidates who attracted a surprisingly large following. The 2010 midterm elections were a harbinger of things to come. Republicans — including Tea Party-backed candidates — gained 60 seats in the House of Representatives and gained seats in the Senate. Populist-nationalism was on the rise, and in 2015 Donald Trump recognized this and made it the overall theme of his 2016 campaign — which was even more unconventional than Perot’s or Buchanan’s. Trump astounded the political world by defeating Hillary Clinton despite being opposed by the media, the political establishment of both parties, and every “right-thinking” person. But as Walter Russel Mead explains in a fascinating piece in Tablet, even after losing the 2020 election and being subjected to unfounded and politically-motivated investigations and prosecutions, Trump not only regained the White House in a decisive electoral victory over the Democrats on November 5th, he also “achieved a domination of the Republican Party that no previous Republican president has ever enjoyed.” Mead concludes that Trump is “a political genius, a once-in-a century talent combining an instinct for showmanship with the ability to read the frustrations and longings of potential supporters.” He is, writes Mead, a “towering figure in American politics.” Historians, if they hew to the truth, will one day write about the Age of Trump. READ MORE from Francis P. Sempa: National ReviewTries To Jump on the Trump Bandwagon The National Endowment for Democracy Should be Defunded on Principle The post We Live In the Age of Trump appeared first on The American Spectator | USA News and Politics.

Many persons have dismissed Pres. Trump’s claim that he can end the Russo-Ukrainian War in 24 hours. Trump was vague about the details, and he was likely exaggerating the speed, which is characteristic of him as a salesman. Though remember, he does have a tendency to see his promises through. Just as important for Russia, it will cease being a pariah politically and economically. Trump does not buy into the anti-Putin propaganda that Putin is trying to conquer Europe or the world. This is the traditional song that is bandied about to justify entering into armed hostilities (in this case, the EU). Admittedly, Putin does have a Sudetenland mentality and has wailed about Russians living abroad in “hostile” countries. He would also like to see Belarus and Ukraine reabsorbed into Mother Russia (just prior to invading Ukraine, he gave a rambling historical lecture on why in his mind Ukraine is an artificially created state that should not exist). Both Belarus and Ukraine have made it clear that it’s not going to happen. Putin was even deluded into thinking that Ukrainians would welcome the Russians with open arms. By now, he has turned the page on that dream. He is, after all, a realist (if nothing else, the lack of Chinese support opened his eyes). There has been a lot of propaganda from both sides (or by proxy) that one side or the other is running out of manpower, and that each side is playing for time — Europe and America will get tired of supporting Ukraine and will get distracted by the next shiny object, or, conversely, Putin will be overthrown because of the meatgrinder the war has become or his whole army will defect. Independent, Non-NATO Ukraine The deal that Trump would probably propose is going to be a logical one, and it would be one where both parties can claim victory, thereby saving face. First, there would be a ceasefire while negotiations take place. (As we went to press Dec. 8, Trump is reported to have called for a ceasefire after a meeting with Ukraine’s Zelensky.) Second, Trump would demand that both sides return to their original borders. If Russia does not agree, America could take the leash off and European troops can participate in the war strictly within Ukraine, beginning in the spring (“Cry havoc! And let loose the dogs of war!”), but America will not get involved. Since Russia has recruited troops from other countries to help out in the war (North Korea, Cuba, etc.), Trump will point out what is good for the goose is good for the gander. Putin is well aware that if his troops have not smashed the Ukrainians by now, it certainly cannot resist the combined forces of Europe. The same goes for Putin’s nuclear threat, an spineless prattle that gets put forward every other week. Third, although Ukrainians would legitimately demand that kidnapped Ukrainian children and POWs be exchanged, it could not make any other demands (such as reparations to help rebuild the extensive damage). Fourth, and this is the key, Ukraine cannot join NATO, nor the EU, but will remain a buffer state. This will be guaranteed by a formal treaty instead of the verbal assurances made a decade ago that NATO would not expand eastwards. Said assurances have been broken and made Russian paranoia hit the roof. This treaty will also include a guarantee of Ukrainian independence. Stationing NATO forces in Ukraine without formally joining the organizations would be an obvious violation of the treaty. Thusly, Ukraine could boast of having retained its independence, though it would regret not having membership in the EU or NATO. On the other hand, Russia could boast of having taught Ukraine a lesson and of having achieved the goal of arresting NATO expansion. Just as important for Russia, it will cease being a pariah politically and economically. Russia will try hardest to retain Donbass and the Crimea for one extremely important reason. Those regions are rich in natural gas and gas has become a powerful weapon in Russia’s aim of disrupting unity in Europe. If Ukraine also acquires those gas fields, then a potential weapon would be lost, not to mention the income therefrom. We shall see what happens. READ MORE from Armando Simón: Transgender ‘Care’ in North America: The Island of Dr. Moreau This Should Be Feminists’ Worst Nightmare Armando Simón is a  trilingual native of Cuba, a retired psychologist and historian, author of The Book of Many Books and When Evolution Stops. The post Trump Will Force a Compromise on Ukraine appeared first on The American Spectator | USA News and Politics.

When Julius Caesar was repeatedly stabbed in a Senate meeting in 44 B.C., it wasn’t just Brutus, Cassius, or the other 60 “liberators” who were killing him — it was, in their minds, “the people.” While the Senators miscalculated — the “people” were furious at them for killing Caesar — their goal in acting together is one often associated with collective action: the diffusion of responsibility. When more people become involved, the less accountable each individual will feel. “Society,” the Senators wanted people to believe, was culpable in Caesar’s murder. Meritocracy and individualism, even when pursued imperfectly, were once the core values in Western society. The modern West has been plagued by a shared mindset that normalizes blaming society for individual failures. Instead of “liberators,” we now have “liberals” who cite systemic discrimination as the cause of marginalized groups’ struggles, while ultimately creating a culture of stagnation and helplessness. (READ MORE: The Surprising, Uplifting Truth About Inequality) It is often the case that when a group of people are “underrepresented” — have small numbers of people from that group — in certain jobs or educational institutions, it is because few people from that group have performed at the same standard required of others. Rather than delve into how or why we see these outcomes, intellectuals have preferred to discuss “glass ceilings” or “opportunity bias” in order to explain them. This has perpetuated the belief that the system is fundamentally unfair to individuals in certain groups. In Life at the Bottom, Theodore Dalrymple describes how intellectuals and activists have taught the underclass to blame society for their struggles. Such a pernicious mindset reflects a diffusion of responsibility, where stagnation is attributed to external forces like inequality, rather than internal ones, making individuals feel less accountable for what is often, as Dalrymple terms, socially destructive behavior. Doing well in underclass neighborhoods has become something that often carries stigma from others within the same place. Working as an emergency room doctor, Dalrymple recounts experiences of treating young people from these neighborhoods who were beaten up for simply doing well in school. Economist Thomas Sowell, in response to these observations, compares this to the experiences of black Americans, where academic success is often dismissed as “acting white.” Dalrymple contrasts this troubling trend with the experience of his father, who also grew up in the slums. In earlier generations, underclass neighborhoods placed a strong emphasis on education as a means of escaping poverty. Before the rise of the modern rhetoric of “understanding poverty,” there was a shared belief in the power of personal effort and learning. Today, however, a new generation of the underclass has not only been denied these tools but has also been conditioned to see their circumstances as entirely “society’s fault.” With decades of powerful civil rights law enforcement, this has occurred at a time when failure is less likely to be the result of society than it has ever before been. The welfare state heightens a “non-judgment” rhetoric by treating the underclass as what Dalrymple calls “livestock.” Socially destructive or self-destructive behaviors have been removed from the realm of personal responsibility, shifting responsibility to “society” to chip in for the consequences for such behaviors. Hence, there should be more focus on true compassion in holding people to higher standards and treating them as personally responsible human beings, not “livestock.”(READ MORE: Misleading Statistics on Income Inequality) Merit and Responsibility Performance standards have increasingly been trivialized and even condemned. Thomas Sowell notes that there is a growing belief in universities which have implemented Affirmative Action policies that holding individuals to performance standards fails to account for how the playing field has been “tilted.” According to this view, the skills that foster success have systemically excluded disadvantaged minorities. This reflects how the term society has been weaponized to evade personal responsibility, functioning as a modern equivalent of “The Devil made me do it.” Similarly, success and achievement are often scrutinized after the fact and dismissed as mere “privilege,” ignoring the personal effort required to attain them. In Asian American communities, often cited for “‘overachieving” or reaching disproportionate levels of success, discipline instilled at an early age and a strong belief in meritocracy have helped large numbers of individuals attain success. For some critics, there is an aura of mystery that surrounds the achievements of Asian Americans, especially given the lack of policies specifically designed to lift them up. The explanation for this is actually quite simple: they outwork everyone else. Independent educational traditions within Asian American households foster the importance of work, as it was found that Asian Americans from low-income families scored higher on the SAT than white and black Americans from upper-income families. While government policies have nearly destroyed the independent educational traditions in black Americans from low-income families — traditions now more commonly seen in Asian American and Jewish American communities — it is undeniable that individual effort plays a crucial role. Recent government policies in ghettos have made it more difficult to attain quality education like the education Thomas Sowell received in the ghetto roughly 80 years ago. However, as Sowell would put it, society cannot be blamed for this disparity, nor can it solve it. Meritocracy and individualism, even when pursued imperfectly, were once the core values in Western society, but have been greatly undermined by the half-century of collectivist intellectuals who claim that society is to blame for individual struggles. The diffusion of responsibility arising out of this societal blame produces a culture that incentivizes and subsidizes inaction and personal irresponsibility. The post The Poisonous Erosion of Personal Responsibility appeared first on The American Spectator | USA News and Politics.

The prescription painkiller OxyContin was released by Purdue Pharma in 1995; the six-part TV series Painkiller, created by Micah Fitzerman-Blue and Noah Harpster and directed by Peter Berg, was released by Netflix in 2023. During the intervening 28 years, Purdue’s flagship product brought even greater riches to the company’s already rich president, Richard Sackler; brought relief to a good many patients suffering from severe pain that was otherwise untreatable; and brought tragedy to countless families as legitimate patients became addicts and then death statistics and as perfectly healthy people, many of them very young, began using the drug recreationally and, caught in the grip of its addictive power, ended up in morgues all over America. Painkiller is four hours and 42 minutes long…. I watched the whole thing in one sitting. Out of this grim history, Fitzerman-Blue, Harpster, and Berg have made a remarkably captivating drama. It recounts the story of OxyContin by following the lives of several characters, most of them fictional composites. Edie Flowers (Uzo Aduba), an investigator for the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the western district of Virginia who has seen the lives of her mother and brother destroyed by the crack epidemic — and who serves as our narrator — recognizes early on that OxyContin is leading America down a similar path. Glen Kryger (Taylor Kitsch), a mechanic, is put on OxyContin after suffering a workplace accident. And Shannon Schaeffer (West Duchovny), recruited just out of college to join Purdue’s army of pretty, perky, and pushy young sales reps, is brainwashed by the firm, and by her mentor, Britt Hufford (Dina Shihabi), into believing fervently in the little blue pill’s ability to deliver happiness to patients — and wealth to its merchants — until, eventually, reality comes crashing in on her. The one major character drawn from real life is Richard Sackler (Matthew Broderick), president of Purdue Pharma, who himself also starts out as a true believer in the magical powers of OxyContin. Purdue was purchased jointly by Richard’s father, Raymond, and Raymond’s brothers, Mortimer and Arthur, all of them doctors and all of them partners in an array of businesses. The most formidable of them is Arthur (Clark Gregg), who is famous for making Valium a record-breaking success and whose name, at the time our story takes place, adorns museums, university buildings, and hospital wings around the country. (There’s a whole Wikipedia page titled “List of things named after the Sackler family.”) In a flashback, we see Richard as a schoolboy, hearing from Arthur the story of how Alfred Nobel transformed his image from “merchant of death” to “man of peace” by establishing the Nobel Prize; by making big donations to important institutions, explains Arthur, he’s doing the same thing for the name of Sackler. He’s a fascinating character, and so, in his own eccentric (indeed, rather goofy) way, is Richard, who, when Purdue faces the prospect of financial catastrophe after Arthur’s 1987 death, is inspired by his uncle’s Valium triumph to formulate and market the ultimate wonder drug. When that drug, OxyContin, proves to be far more powerful than morphine, Richard’s father and uncle are wary. “Abuse is gonna be a real issue,” one of them says. But Richard’s eyes are on the prize. “We’re gonna give a lot of people their lives back. We’re gonna take away a lot of pain.” Cut to an auditorium full of pretty — and utterly ignorant — twentysomethings being trained to push the product. Until recently, they’re told, pain hadn’t been seen as “something to treat in and of itself.” Indeed, “doctors don’t respect pain.” But the reality is that “pain is no longer something we have to tolerate. It’s something we can overcome.” Cut to these girls calling on doctors, flashing broad, winsome smiles while distributing discount coupons and blue plushies designed to look like giant OxyContin pills. One of those doctors, dismissing this sales army in high heels as a bunch of “cute little dandelions,” tries to tell Shannon the truth about the concoction she’s pitching: “You’re dangerous, and you’re dumb…. You’re a f******g drug dealer.” But he’s the exception to the rule; other physicians tend to be more like Glen’s GP, who blithely keeps upping his dosage as his resistance inexorably builds. After all, who doesn’t trust the FDA? Ah, the FDA, the story of whose approval of OxyContin makes up much of Painkiller’s second episode. The FDA, we’re told, is “a small government agency” that trusts pharmaceutical firms to file honest reports about the results of clinical trials and that more or less rubber-stamps their applications. But one man at the FDA, Curtis Wright (Noah Harpster), does have serious questions about OxyContin, and keeps denying it approval. Robert does his best to massage the man’s ego, even arranging for a scientific paper by him to be published, but Wright holds firm: unfortunately for Purdue, they’ve been stuck with “the one guy [at the FDA] who gave a shit.” But finally, after Purdue puts Wright up in a luxury hotel suite — and, it’s implied, supplies him with sex — the approval comes through. A year later, Wright leaves the FDA to work for Purdue. With FDA approval secured, Purdue launches a staggering marketing blitz. We’re shown excerpts from TV news stories calling it “the fastest growing drug in America” and “the most heavily prescribed narcotic in the country.” We see Purdue reps telling doctors in a hotel conference room that if they don’t prescribe OxyContin they’re committing malpractice. But we also see the dark beginnings of the opioid crisis. We see two girls snorting OxyContin in a car outside a pharmacy, then driving off and crashing the car. We see people being prescribed OxyContin who obviously don’t need it. We see a long line outside a drug store, and a truck driver shipping “OxyContin mules” to another drug store. We see OxyContin addicts committing crimes to support their habits. We hear that this whole ugly business has gotten to be too much for local police departments to handle and that more and more doctors are raising the alarm. During a harrowing visit to a morgue, Edie witnesses the dreadful toll that Richard’s wonder drug has taken. Glen, who’s tried unsuccessfully to quit OxyContin, ends up buying it illegally and snorting it. Eventually the crisis hits the national news, and the bosses at Purdue respond by blaming it on abuse by “junkies.” The firm bribes doctors with trips to pain-management seminars — i.e., free vacations — and with paid speaking engagements. One bought-off pill-pusher declares that OxyContin is addictive in only one percent of cases, causing a doctor at one hospital to comment: “I’ve got an ER full of the one percent.” Summoned to testify in Congress, a Purdue official prevaricates about what the company knew about abuse of OxyContin and when it knew it. This lie, told under oath, provides Edie with a crime for which Purdue can be indicted. What she doesn’t count on, alas, is the ability of rich companies to escape responsibility by hiring well-connected lawyers. Painkiller is four hours and 42 minutes long — almost an hour longer than Gone with the Wind — and, unable to turn it off, I watched the whole thing in one sitting. That’s how engrossing it is. The sequences about Glen and his family alone could be spliced together into a fine movie of normal length. What makes them work is that they’re written and directed in a self-assured, low-key manner: the filmmakers know that they have solid material here and that they need only present it as straightforwardly as possible in order to make an impact. In other sequences, however, one has the impression that the filmmakers are insufficiently confident in their material and feel a need to pep things up. For example, there are needless flashbacks, lasting only a second or two, to scenes we’ve already seen; there are busy, noisy montages that are intended to drive home points that have already been made; and there are deliberately herky–jerky cuts that are meant to ramp up the tension, which doesn’t need ramping up. Some bits reject realism entirely: in one scene, Richard is accused by the ghost of his late uncle Arthur of destroying the family reputation (whose importance to Richard has already been adequately explained to us); in another, Edie’s boss and his male colleagues at the District Attorney’s office, apparently smelling Purdue’s blood, break out into bizarre wolf calls. As for Edie herself, she’s a useful storytelling tool, although in the first episode she pays tribute at length to government bureaucracy in a fatuous speech (excerpt: “I’m a bureaucrat. There’s no civilization without bureaucracy”) that I dearly wish the writers had omitted. No, as a rule, government bureaucrats aren’t the heroes, and private corporations aren’t the villians. Broderick, for his part, is mostly admirable, if sometimes rather cartoonish. (In one scene, riddled with angst and consoled by an uncle, he’s suddenly Leo Bloom again in The Producers being buoyed by Max Bialystock.) All in all, however, Painkiller does an impressive job of telling a dark and gripping story about a tragic chapter of modern American history — a chapter that ended only with the reformulation of OxyContin to make it harder to snort or inject; with the advent of fentanyl, which is even more powerful — and lethal — than Purdue’s product; and with the removal, over the course of the years 2022 and 2023, of the Sackler name from buildings all over the country. READ MORE from Bruce Bawer: A Quarter Century of Entertainment — and Propaganda Sandra Gilbert and Feminism’s Endless Rage The post The OxyContin Story appeared first on The American Spectator | USA News and Politics.

“The Golden Submarine” was how the I-52, a Japanese World War II submarine, came to be known after it vanished in 1944 while carrying gold to Germany as payment for technology and goods. In the decades since her mysterious disappearance, various theories about her possible fate and what else she might have been carrying cropped ...

from Man in America: TRUTH LIVES on at https://sgtreport.tv/

from WND: ‘She knew since birth,’ said mom of her 10-year-old, a biological male who says he identifies as a transgender female and goes by the name ‘Violet’ After the Supreme Court heard oral arguments Wednesday in U.S. v Skrmetti, the case that will determine whether states may ban transgender medical procedures for kids, one mother told […]

Including The Wildhearts, Larkin Poe, Dorothy and five other guardians at the rock'n'roll gates

In this years Vatican Nativity Scene, the Pope Francis approved a baby Jesus shown laying on top of a Palestinian/Hamas kefiyyeh scarf, right after calling for an investigation into what he called a ‘genocide’ occurring in the Gaza Strip. Two months before, he suggested that the extent of Israel’s defense in Lebanon and Gaza is […]