Trotsky in Mexico

If you are familiar with Communism, you have probably heard the name "Trotsky."  Leon Trotsky was the founder and commander of the Red Army during the Bolshevik Revolution.  You might have learned that he had to run for his life after Stalin took over and that Stalin's assassin finally found him in Mexico and murdered Trotsky there.

Here is a vignette, a depiction of Trotsky in Mexico.  This is from an article in the Sunday March 22, 2020 New York Times, Sunday Review section, page 6.  The online edition is dated March 21, 2020.

Lessons From My Grandma on Art, Sex and Life By Bret Stephens

 My father once asked his mother, the artist Annette Nancarrow, what she thought of Leon Trotsky. It wasn’t a political question. He just wanted her impression of the exiled Bolshevik, whom she had first met in Mexico City in the late 1930s, in the studio of her close friend (and, my father suspected, future lover) Diego Rivera.

“Well, I was surprised to see the leader of the proletariat so elegantly dressed,” she recalled, many decades after Trotsky’s murder by a Soviet agent in 1940. “His attire was impeccable, and I was particularly struck by the Parisian calf-skin gloves he took off of his beautifully manicured hands.”

The answer was vintage Annette. As a painter, she saw the part of the surface that revealed the inner man — the bourgeois fop within the fiery revolutionary. As a judge of character, she sensed why he had lost his power struggle with Joseph Stalin for control of the Soviet Union — people who take care of their fingernails don’t usually enjoy getting them bloody. And as a connoisseur of style, she appreciated good leather.

Here is a link to the article
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/21/opinion/sunday/annette-nancarrow-art-mexico.html

I have not said much about Communism, but I should.  The last time I wrote about Communism it was because the news media was pushing "resistance" and that made no sense until you study and discover that resistance is part of Communist ideology.  I wrote about it in this previous post:

What is this Talk About Resistance?  December 28, 2017
https://texasascendant.blogspot.com/2017/12/what-is-this-talk-about-resistance.html

Robert

Always Have Had Fake News

We have always had a problem with fake news.  Read what Thomas Jefferson said in a letter to John Norvell, 1807:
Nothing can now be believed which is seen in a newspaper.  Truth itself becomes suspicious by being put into that polluted vehicle.  I really look with commiseration over the great body of my fellow citizens, who, reading newspapers, live and die in the belief that they have known something of what has been passing in the world in their time.

These means we have always had fake news in this country.

I found this on page 210 of Lapham's Quarterly, Volume XIII, Number 2, Spring 2020.  The issue is labeled "Scandal."

Robert

You might read my earlier post:
Is the Press Our Enemy?   July 4, 2017
https://texasascendant.blogspot.com/2017/07/is-press-our-enemy.html

The Arc of History

You have heard the quote from Martin Luther King, "the arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice".  When he used it, he put it in quotes.  It  had been used by many people, but originated in a longer form by Theodore Parker, an abolitionist.  That might have made sense originally at the time of the Civil War, but after World War II and the rise of totalitarian governments, I would say the moral arc of the universe is bending towards Totalitarianism.  Here is a description of Totalitarianism:  "Totalitarianism is a ... mode of government that prohibits opposition parties, restricts individual opposition to the state and its claims, and exercises an extremely high degree of control over public and private life."

You can see that Hitler and Stalin traditionally fit this role, but when you think of the mind control practiced by radical Islam and its practice of killing all opposition, I think it is fair to put radical Islam in the same category as Stalinist Marxism: another totalitarian form of government.  Both the radical Islamists, like ISIS, and the Stalinist Marxists believe history is on their side and their victory is inevitable.

Here is a quote from the forward to Rise of Isis by Jay Sekulow:  "the Enlightenment dream of inevitable human progress grounded in the claim that we are all born free and equal in dignity and rights premised on hope that the arc of history bends toward justice, is now in tatters. This outcome fundamentally challenges Americans’ endless pursuit of individualism and tolerance. Readers of this book will discover that in our postmodern era, certain things are indeed intolerable. The failure to face the facts richly addressed by the authors of The Rise of ISIS: A Threat We Can’t Ignore, exposes democratic nations to the rising danger that they—perhaps misled by the persistent fecklessness of the United Nations and other institutions, which refuse to recognize the obvious threat to Western civilization posed by radical Islamist jihadists—will capitulate to the prospect of appeasement, disaster and death."

The quote is from Harry G. Hutchison, J.D., law professor at Regent University.  I agree with Professor Hutchison.  Based on my observations, the arc of history bends towards Totalitarianism.

I think Ronald Reagan said this in a number of speeches:  "Freedom is never more than one generation away from extinction. We didn’t pass it on to our children in the bloodstream. It must be fought for, protected, and handed on for them to do the same, or one day we will spend our sunset years telling our children and our children’s children what it was once like in the United States where men were free."

The arc of history might bend towards Totalitarianism, but we can stay free in America if we are vigilant.  However, how safe can we be if too much of the world is ruled by totalitarian governments dedicated to destroying our liberties?

Robert

The Reagan speech was "Encroaching Control," March 30, 1961.  It was an address to the annual meeting of the Phoenix Chamber of Commerce:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SDouNtnR_IA
You can access the entire forward written by  Professor Hutchison at this website: https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2498269

Qualities for a President to Have

A college professor devised a list of qualities for assessing the effectiveness of U.S. Presidents:

1. Public communication
2. Organizational capacity
3. Political skill
4. Vision
5. Cognitive style
6. Emotional intelligence

Professor Fred I. Greenstein  mentioned these in his book, The Presidential Difference: Leadership Style from FDR to Barack Obama, 3rd Edition.  Of these he said emotional intelligence was the most important quality.  Dr. Greenstein said emotional intelligence could be measured by “the president’s ability to manage his emotions and turn them to constructive purposes, rather than being dominated by them and allowing them to diminish his leadership.” [1]

President Eisenhower was disparaged by the U.S. press, but Dr. Greenstein studied him and discovered he was very effective as a president.  You can read the professor's obituary [1] to hear more about Eisenhower.  That is quicker than reading his book, The Hidden-Hand Presidency: Eisenhower as Leader.

You can also learn a lot about Eisenhower by reading the book Three Days in January: Dwight Eisenhower's Final Mission by Bret Baier.  Besides describing how Eisenhower conducted business in the White House, the book gives nice, succinct biography of Eisenhower.

Encouraging good leadership is a key part of the Texas Ascendancy Campaign.  You can read related articles about leadership here:  Summary of Leadership Articles.  Our country desperately needs better leadership, and this need has been with us for years.  I started this Texas Ascendant blog back in 2008 after the financial crash of 2008 with better leadership as a primary goal of this effort.

From an individual perspective, the qualities for assessing the effectiveness of U.S. Presidents gives us ideas on qualities we might all want to include in our plans for personal growth.  From a larger perspective, as we seek to improve our pool of potential leaders we can consider this list in grooming and selecting our future leaders.

Robert

Reference
1. Obituary for Fred Greenstein: in the New York Times:  "Fred Greenstein, 88, Dies; Political ‘Psychologist’ Assessed Presidents"
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/12/14/obituaries/fred-greenstein-dead.html

What is Globalism and Why Does It Matter?

Economic Globalism
There are many descriptions and definitions of globalism.  The simplest definition says it is "the operation or planning of economic and foreign policy on a global basis."  This is a simplistic definition.  A better economic perspective  of globalism can be seen as the free flow of capital, labor, and products.  Some like to call this globalization instead of globalism, although one can say there is a difference.  There is much complexity to economic globalism, but I will mention only one point:  the free flow of capital leads to economic bubbles that burst.  The 1997 Asian financial crisis is one example.  The free flow of capital is great for speculators who can play "pump and dump" on an international scale, but financial bubbles are bad for any country that experiences them.

The Difference Between Globalization and Globalism
It is fair to say globalization is the physical manifestation of improving business efficiencies on a global scale. Then we can say globalism is the intent residing in the minds of those who marshal the forces of globalization.  For example, free flow of capital is a mechanism, but "pump and dump" is an intent.  We will elaborate soon.

Political Globalism
For many years there has been an interest among elites with a cosmopolitan inclination to move towards a single world government.  What comes with this is intentionally diminishing patriotism within our schools.  The reasoning used to promote political globalism is the argument that our world wars were caused by nationalism and patriotism.  The thinking goes that to promote world peace we need to move past the concept of a nation state and we need to abandon patriotism.  I am not agreeing with this point, I simply repeat it to explain why some people have been removing patriotism from American society.  The people who control American public schools have been doing more than chasing Christianity out of the public schools, they have also been removing patriotism from our children's education.  I have found that older people can sing "God Bless America," but younger people do not know the words. The International Baccalaureate (IB) program promotes "international mindedness."  Besides the IB program, multiculturalism is taught in the Plano, Texas, public schools to promote political globalism.

The President of France, Emmanuel Macron, disparaged patriotism in Paris at the 100th anniversary of the Armistice, on November 11, 2018, saying "... patriotism is the exact opposite of nationalism: nationalism is a betrayal of it."  Marcon insulted all the people of the world who love their countries because he is a globalist.  Marcon might seem to be a contradiction, being an investment banker at Rothschild bank and a member of the Socialist Party in France.  Socialists are not against capitalism, but rather are for crony capitalism under the control of a Socialist state. 

Probably the biggest push for political globalism comes from the elites of the Western countries, the graduates of Harvard, Yale, Oxford, Cambridge, and the French Ecoles.  What we see at work, as evidenced by Hilary Clinton calling half the country "deplorable," is the belief among the elites that they have a right to rule the masses.  When Hillary Clinton said in Brazil in 2013 that she was for open borders, she was affirming the globalist ideal of the free flow of labor.

Finally, we should be aware that a long term goal of political globalism is a one world government, a socialist ideal. One example of this socialist ideal is in the book A Modern Utopia by H. G. Wells that describes a utopian society with a single world wide government.  Yes, H.G. Wells was a socialist.

Conclusion
The ultimate result of economic globalism would be world wide global cronyism dominated by international bankers, like Emmanuel Marcon.  The ultimate result of political globalism would be a single socialist government dominated by international elites who find the people they rule deplorable.

Robert

Additional resource: TED Talk on Nationalism vs. Globalism: The New Political Divide (February 21, 2017)
featuring Yuval Noah Harari

National Security and the War Colleges

Continuing the line of reasoning of how we might better prepare people to serve on the National Security Council, we will now consider the war colleges.  The Army has the U.S. Army War College, the Air Force has the Air War College, the Navy has the Naval War College, and the Department of Defense has the National War College.  All of these institutions permit a number of civilians to enroll with the stipulation that the civilians are high ranking federal employees.  The Air War College also permits civilians who are senior members of the Civil Air Patrol to enroll.  There are even more related colleges and institutions.  For example:  the National War College is a part of the National Defense University and the U.S. Army War College contains a Strategic Studies Institute.

If a few positions for civilians at the various military graduate programs and war colleges could be made available for nominees from state governors or U.S. senators, then America would have a deeper pool of talent available to support those governors and senators who some day might be President of the U.S. and would look to people they know and trust to provide council.

The next time a Texan becomes President, it would be good if he or she had a pool of talented Texans to give advice on the National Security Council, or related positions.

Robert

This is part of a series of articles on National Security.  The rest of the articles are listed in National Security Council Part 1,  June 11, 2018

National Security and Economic Intelligence

Economics is a very important part of national security.  So it is reasonable to use economic intelligence for both strategic and tactical purposes.  You can see an example of economic intelligence in the paper "Economic Intelligence" by Paul W. Howerton.  Here is a link to a PDF file Economic_Intelligence_by_Paul_Howerton.pdf. It is an old file that has been declassified.  Economic Intelligence is vital for our nation in many aspects.  One example is that Germany lost World War I and the German people were shocked.  They felt betrayed because they had not lost a battle, so how could they lose the war? They lost because of economics.  Some Germans believed they were betrayed and blamed the Jewish people.  These examples establish the importance of economic intelligence.

An example of tactical economic intelligence from page 10 in the PDF file of "Economic Intelligence" is "markings analysis." To assess German tank production during WWII, a technique called markings analysis was used.  When industrial products are manufactured, they are marked with serial numbers or lot numbers.  Paul Howerton discusses this technique was used and compares marking analysis to other approaches.  If you want to prepare to work in the National Security Council, you should understand economic intelligence.

Robert

PS:  "Economic Intelligence" by Paul W. Howerton is a gem.  You should read it.  It is only 18 pages long.

This blog post is part of a series on National Security.  The rest of the articles in this series are listed in  National Security Council Part 1,  June 11, 2018