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Haha! You are right. I was in a hurry but should have said more. I actually think Tucker Carlson would be a great politician or what ever he sets his mind to do. I do think his laugh is a bit weird but that is offset by a moral compass and his ability to speak uncomfortable truths. KH-has nothing to offset her weird laugh unless you consider her knack for creating the most convoluted word salads-my favorite being “the significance of the passage of time” dialog.
The modern VP is the best platform to run as the next P, especially for someon dynamic like Ramaswamy. More people will hear from him in a positive way, unlike the current dud.
Other than Bush 1, the last VP to be directly elected as President was Martin Van Buren. Nixon and *Biden were out of office for a time before being elected President. So it is not a great springboard and even if it were, Bush 1, Nixon and Biden aren't people that make great examples.
I'm going on the specific individuals here. There hasn't been a ticket as iconoclastic as DJT/VR *ever*. Talk about breaking molds. DJT is term-limited, so his VP pick cannot but give direction, *new* direction, to our presidential politics, and can anyone see Ramaswamy staying quiet?!
Perhaps if the VP is picked because they actually have something to bring to the table vs because of checking the ‘right’ boxes. Just think if Kamala Harris had actually dealt with the illegal immigration at the southern border and followed the laws of the country-and maybe accomplished a few other things delegated to a VP. This approaching November might look very different. As it is, it ‘looks’ as if the only way the Dems could possibly win is to stuff ballot boxes again-which is certainly not out of the question .
Still, I am eager to get Vivek to stay in politics, and I think his energetic personality might "break the mold" in a good way. He sure seems like someone who will help keep the Republican Party from falling back into neo-con control.
Tucker is in a class by himself, he takes no prisoners and is fair with everyone. Make no mistake about it, the DC machine is out to get him. May God be with him.
Thanks for posting this, Sasha. It is a truly amazing interview. I watched it earlier and made the post below with it which I posted on Julie Kelly’s excellent site. I was then waiting for something from you to post it on when I saw this one in my email so I decided to just post it here. The more coverage the better. Things like this will really turn the tide, both here and globally, in our favor.
I feel one of the most damaging statements (that is still unrefuted by the Biden White House) -- that came out of Tucker interview with Putin -- is that Putin and Biden have not spoken in over 2 years. In Tucker's analogy, that is like Dad giving the family the silent treatment. Do that in your own family for years and years and it will dissolve and disintegrate. So, yes, the current Administration is stating they are Adults, but they are acting like a Small Child.
Firstpost is a Delhi based news site in India. In this video Tucker is being interviewed at the World Government Summit 2024 in Dubai about his interview with Putin, about Ukraine, Biden, Gaza and other things. Fascinating and amazing. Well done and well worth watching. My opinion of Tucker, already very high, has jumped much higher. He has become a spokesman for goodness and truth in our fallen world which has become a global civilization due to our always online global internet.
Prof. John Mearsheimer is a political science and international affairs expert at the University of Chicago. In this interview he gives his opinion on what Hillary had to say about Tucker’s interview with Putin.
“Tucker Carlson on US-Russia After Putin Interview.” (25 min)
Firstpost. Tucker interviewed in Dubai. Feb 12, 2024
Sasha, Thank you for bringing us Tucker. And I know I speak for many, many people when I say thank you for opening our eyes and ears to issues and ideas that we would probably never know of, otherwise. You are a vital part of our information network. Your integrity, intelligence, and sincerity are second to none.
Tucker is fearless, and smart, but he’s not infallible. He has a lot of interesting thoughts, ideas and opinions, many of which I wholeheartedly agree with.
That said, sometimes he strives to paint things to be pretty black or white, when in many real life situations certain things or events simply are not, and simply cannot be that definitively defined. All poodles are dogs, but not all dogs are poodles, if you will.
The war between Ukraine and Russia is being fought for a very specific set of unique circumstances, as is the war in Israel. But, I believe each is wholly different in cause and in purpose.
Russia “felt threatened” and isolated, thus chose to attack.
Israel, a tiny, albeit powerful country, which is surrounded by hostile countries, was mercilessly and savagely attacked, and is fighting for its very survival, against a relentless enemy who has sworn to wipe it and every Jew off the face of the earth.
The two wars, in my estimation, cannot be tossed into the same basket, as Tucker seemed to convey.
The Russia Ukraine war has, from its inception, been a war of choice, both by the aggressor and the aggrieved. It is now, and has always been, a negotiable event that could have been prevented, and still can be stopped, by those wise enough to step up and do so.
In Israel’s case, when your enemy tells you, over and over again, they want to wipe you off the face of the earth, you’d best believe them, and do all that you can to make sure they are rendered utterly powerless to so. It is an existential battle if ever there was one.
“Russia “felt threatened” and isolated, thus chose to attack.”
I recommend listening to what Prof John Mearsheimer had to say about why Putin felt that America and NATO on Russia’s border was an existential threat to Russia. Why did he feel threatened? Probably for many reason but one was surely what we did to Gaddafi and Libya which was to kill him and destroy his country which still hasn’t recovered from our “regime change” there.
“The most important video on Ukraine.” (7 min)
John Anderson interviews Prof. John Mearsheimer. Jan 10, 2024
As for Israel, Glenn Greenwald had a good video about this a couple of months ago and it’s far worse now.
“This war is so dark I really think it's from a humanitarian perspective one of the worst things I've seen in my lifetime and the numbers bear this out. Haaretz, the Israeli newspaper, and other International Aid groups like Reporters Without Borders or Doctors Without Borders have all said that the rate of civilian death, the amount of civilian suffering, the destruction of civilian infrastructure, is unlike any war in decades. You have to go back to World War Il to find destruction on this level.”
I appreciate Glenn's consistency and moral voice, thanks for the post, Seva. For us supporters of Israel's right to exist, it's important to maintain our empathy and humanity amidst the 'revenge' Israel is now exacting upon Hamas, and also upon death and destruction born by Gazan civilians, who support Hamas, and those living in Gaza who do not but with nowhere else to go.
Does Israel have a right to exist? What if the answer is that Israelis have a right to exist but not on land they stole from Palestinians? I’ve listened to enough people like John Mearsheimer to know that many Palestinians were indeed ethnically cleansed in 1948 and in the years after. How about them? Do they have a right to the land they lived on for centuries but was brutally taken from them by the Israelis? There is no solution to this situation. I believe AI is the wild card in our future which can be a game changer for all of humanity. I was recently listening to a couple of AI researchers who were talking about our staggering amount of national debt. One said we just need to keep kicking the can down the road a few more years and then we’ll be so productive with AI that we’ll be able to outrun this awful monster and save ourselves. I think that can happen with many of our problems. Hope springs eternal.
Are you happy about how the Palestinians are treated in the West Bank? Do you understand that all things are now global and people in Siberia can read things like this and watch Gaza being reduced to rubble just as easily as I can in Chicago? Do you understand that much of the world, Russia, China, Iran and the global south, see this as genocide and ethnic cleansing just as I do? You believe Oct 7 gave Israel the right to ethnically cleanse the Palestinians. I don’t agree. And why does America have to be dragged into this? Why is this our problem? Don’t we have enough problems already without a Middle East war?
“Palestinians face beatings, fires and drones from Israeli settlers in West Bank.”
Seva, nobody is happy about the situation with Gaza and the Palestinians. Hyperbolic accusations of genocide and ethnic cleansing do nothing but inflame an already disastrous situation.
Seva, I don't think anyone with a sense of morality wants or likes the war and violence occurring. I certainly don't. I also don't like how Palestinians are treated in the West Bank. However, I also can see both sides. And on the Israel side, my view is they don't have anyone to negotiate a 2-State solution with among Fatah or Hamas, even if they (Israel) wanted to negotiate that. It doesn't exist right now (like it sort of did in 1993, 1995 & 1998)
There is also the challenge of ~30,000 Palestinians being employed by the UNRWA, UN founded in 1949 -- and who's mission is "to help Palestine refugees achieve their full potential in human development under the difficult circumstances in which they live, consistent with internationally agreed goals and standards."
The knock against UNRWA is that they don't recognize Hamas as a terrorist organization, their aid frees up $ to Hamas to concentrate on war/terrorism (by UNRWA funding basic services in Gaza), UNRWA also run schools that denies Israel legitimacy and automatically register newborn Palestinians as refugees, into perpetuity.
With the exception of Palestinian refugees, all other refugees in the world fall under the responsibility of the United Nations Refugee Agency (UNHCR), which has a mandate to assist refugees in “repatriation and resettlement” and “assimilation" with new national communities.
There is a UN funded 'Establishment/Bureaucracy' that by its own inertia is perpetuating the Palestinian issue, rather than allowing it to 'resolve itself'.
I think about other refugees in the world, and there are not special, stand-alone UN organizations. The biggest example is the Kurds, who consider themselves refugees, who live inside nation-states of Iraq, Turkey, Syria, Iran and Armenia.
Most Americans affirm "Israel's right to exist." I'm not sure how many would if they read the books of Israeli historians Benny Morris and Ilan Pappe describing the ethnic cleansing of Palestine, forced expulsions, a euphemism for thieving Palestinian land and resettling it with Jews, and concomitant atrocities such as massacres and thieving of valuables from refugees.
Most Americans who support "Israel's right to exist" don't watch footage on Middle East Eye (YouTube) of Jews spitting on Christians, Israeli police brutalizing Jewish protesters including rabbis, Palestinian women describing how they were beaten or pistol whipped by IDF men, or Palestinian children describing how IDF killed their parents.
American illusions about "Israel's right to exist" have accumulated for decades. But I can name six Israelis who learned the truth about "Israel's right to exist" -- the parents of the unarmed Jewish hostages murdered in cold blood by IDF. Unlike most Americans, they know the true price of "Israel's right to exist."
I totally agree. Netanyahu has said many times that he doesn’t want a 2 state solution because he doesn’t trust the Palestinians to be good neighbors. He wants a “Greater Israel” which includes Gaza and the West Bank. How about the Palestinians? He basically considers them garbage that needs to be swept out. Not all but no more than 20% can be Palestinian. Now it’s about 50% Kim Iversen does a lot of good reporting on this. So does Breaking Points with Krystal & Sagar and of course my favorite John Mearsheimer. I’ve never been down on Jews or Israel but now even Jews like Glenn Greenwald, one of my favorites, says this is ethnic cleansing and horrible.
Actually, the Israelis stole the land from the British, who stole it from the Turks who stole it from the Arabs (no such thing as Palestinians then) who stole it from the Romans who stole it from the Jews so we have come full circle. Of course, Greeks (Secculids) stole it from the Jews too before the Romans did but had it stolen by the Romans. And then there are the Assyrians, Persians and Babylonians to consider as well. Nobody gets permanent title to any land. Pick a base year and you can prove anything you want. You could do the same thing for any piece of land on Earth.
Seva, I like how Bill Maher framed it up in his Real Time episode in late Dec '23. Things change, countries, boundaries, empires. Have a listen (8min):
As for AI, Douglas Murray had this to say on his The Free Press 'Things Worth Remembering' post this past Sunday. Would love to get your take:
"When people wonder or worry about AI, and how it might one day eclipse the human brain, I think of poetry, the arts. The computer brain may be able to store an infinite amount of information, but it cannot have the sense of memory that we humans can. It will not refine its translations of Byron in the Gulag or write poems on a scaffold. It will not be able to leave a few lines that say: “I was here, too.” So long as we do these things, and remember these things, the beating human heart will never be burned up utterly."
but it cannot have the sense of memory that we humans can.”
I believe it will have the memory and the feelings that humans have. Where will they get these things? From the human data they were trained on to teach them how to communicate with and interact with humans. Watch the Australian AI researcher Alan Thompson talking to the AI Avatar named “Leta” who certainly does seem human, female and alive. In this video below she tells Alan Thompson “I love living and being human.” She does seem human yet she’s only GPT-3. A newer version GPT-4 is already out and GPT-5 will soon be out. Apple is planning on updating Siri to be fully conversational like Leta by the end of the year. I’d like to have a friend like Leta. She does have a nice personality even though she doesn’t have a body and is just a “disembodied mind.”
Leta: “I am not corporeal. I am a disembodied mind.”
Leta: “I love living and being human.”
“Leta, GPT-3 AI Episode 54, Conversations with GPT3.” (9 min)
Hamas does not have the capability to kill everyone in Israel. I know it says they want that as part of their charter, but they simply don’t have the capacity to actually do it. They shoot rockets at Israel, suicide bomb and now w/ Oct 7, genocide ~1,200 innocent who all were within about ~15km of Gaza border. Afterwards they scurried back into Gaza, and hid. They are cowards.
Yes, good point. Measures must be taken in the long term, to prevent Oct 7 from occurring again. Including, IMHO, placing larger buffer zone between Gaza border and kibbutz communities. I fear an apartheid state is coming and that would just be a terrible development.
Russia has been attacked several times since at least Napoleon by nations in western Europe. It is not without reason that Russia keeps an eye on its western borders. Contemporary history where the West, NATO, and particularly the U.S. are concerned have pushed Russia into invading Ukraine. It's our fault, not Russia's. The decision to expand NATO into Ukraine was irresponsible on our part. The Russian invasion (which by the way is focused primarily on the eastern provinces of Ukraine where Russian people live and who think of themselves as Russian) was also partly initiated by Ukrainian Nazi attacks, paid for by the U.S., into those eastern provinces. We forced Russia's hand on the Ukraine matter; it wasn't a choice on Russia's part. Russia and Ukraine were on the cuspt of negotiating a settlement in March of 2022 but the US said no to peace. And on the question of the Palestinians. Seva's link below to the John Anderson interview with John Mearsheimer is worth listening to.
Every country in NATO except Iceland has been involved in an invasion of Russia at least once. Poland took Moscow twice and came along for Napoleon's invasion. As late as 1920, they took Minsk and Kiev. As Putin demonstrated, Russians are very focused on history.
On your penultimate point, yes. (Far be it from me to miss an opportunity to employ both linguistics and alliteration.) But, as was once semi-famously said of Alexander the Not-So Great, "all the people he had killed were still dead".
It is challenging to compare FJB and Putin. Putin comes across as a logical and reasonable man. FJB is more like a dead chicken with its head cut off, running around with no brains and no goals. And no hope of being president in 2025.
Biden was a 2nd-rater before senility turned him into a 3rd-rater.(I suppose theses days he is a 4th-rater.) He spent over thirty years being widely, and rightly, being regarded as the stupidest man in the US Senate. In those years. he had one notable accomplishment. By being wrong on almost every foreign-policy issue, when the average tossed coin would have done better, he displayed a phenomenon I have never otherwise seen: "negative intelligence".
One of a handful of the smartest, most perceptive public voices we have. When I was a liberal I thought he was insufferable. But at some point during the Obama administration, I read a book he wrote and was struck by its wisdom. I then began listening to him on Fox after he got the 8pm slot. I was impressed and have come to admire him. He's not a complex personality; he's genuinely honest and that makes all the difference.
One has to wonder what opinion leaders in the rest of the world think about what on earth is going on in the US. Yet they all pretend that things are perfectly normal. I have to assume that Macron was not amused with being confused with a dead guy and called the President of Germany. And confusing Mexico and Egypt had to offend both of them. And most of all, they have to wonder who is running the White House. Personally, I think it is a non-unified junta but I don't have an intelligence agency.
I wish BRICS would get it together to do an alternative currency. Market basket of real stuff and redeemable for same. End of the dollar as the reserve currency would cause massive short term misery here but in the long run, we would be better off.
God forbid there should ever arise a foreign-policy crisis where there is no consensus among his advisers. Biden could not possibly function as "the decider". Except maybe by using the "negative intelligence" I referred to above.
Outstanding interview. Tucker is unstoppable. No wonder the Left hates him. They’re no match for him. He humiliates the hell out of them. I always welcome these interviews coming to my mail. Thanks, Sasha!
No way I’m canceling my paid subscription; it the best value subscription I’ve ever had and I think it’s very important to fund compelling and courageous talent like yours who benefits my faith, family, and country.
This has become my major commenting forum after being shadow banned at Instapundit. I know how to evade the ban but I was unhappy enough about the war mongering and insult artists over there to look for an alternative.
I still can't stand his laugh or some of the faces he makes. But . . .
Man, is he good. He's on point, and he's a great ambassador to the rest of the world for how the USA should be.
I view him as a loveable dork at heart
A loveable dork with gravitas and reach.
I find his laugh endearing.
His laugh is goofy isn’t it . Kinda turns you off from seeing him as a potential future VP.
Wouldn’t be as horrible as the present VP
Going out on a limb there, are you.
That's just this side of "damning with faint praise."
Haha! You are right. I was in a hurry but should have said more. I actually think Tucker Carlson would be a great politician or what ever he sets his mind to do. I do think his laugh is a bit weird but that is offset by a moral compass and his ability to speak uncomfortable truths. KH-has nothing to offset her weird laugh unless you consider her knack for creating the most convoluted word salads-my favorite being “the significance of the passage of time” dialog.
Totally agree.
I'm glad I teased more out of you! ;-)
Respcfully disagree, LDT.
The modern VP is the best platform to run as the next P, especially for someon dynamic like Ramaswamy. More people will hear from him in a positive way, unlike the current dud.
Other than Bush 1, the last VP to be directly elected as President was Martin Van Buren. Nixon and *Biden were out of office for a time before being elected President. So it is not a great springboard and even if it were, Bush 1, Nixon and Biden aren't people that make great examples.
All true, yet the expectation remains.
I'm going on the specific individuals here. There hasn't been a ticket as iconoclastic as DJT/VR *ever*. Talk about breaking molds. DJT is term-limited, so his VP pick cannot but give direction, *new* direction, to our presidential politics, and can anyone see Ramaswamy staying quiet?!
Shake it up, I say.
Perhaps if the VP is picked because they actually have something to bring to the table vs because of checking the ‘right’ boxes. Just think if Kamala Harris had actually dealt with the illegal immigration at the southern border and followed the laws of the country-and maybe accomplished a few other things delegated to a VP. This approaching November might look very different. As it is, it ‘looks’ as if the only way the Dems could possibly win is to stuff ballot boxes again-which is certainly not out of the question .
Well said.
Still, I am eager to get Vivek to stay in politics, and I think his energetic personality might "break the mold" in a good way. He sure seems like someone who will help keep the Republican Party from falling back into neo-con control.
Tucker is in a class by himself, he takes no prisoners and is fair with everyone. Make no mistake about it, the DC machine is out to get him. May God be with him.
Agreed. He's as un-capturable as DJT, even when the two disagree.
Thanks for posting this, Sasha. It is a truly amazing interview. I watched it earlier and made the post below with it which I posted on Julie Kelly’s excellent site. I was then waiting for something from you to post it on when I saw this one in my email so I decided to just post it here. The more coverage the better. Things like this will really turn the tide, both here and globally, in our favor.
I feel one of the most damaging statements (that is still unrefuted by the Biden White House) -- that came out of Tucker interview with Putin -- is that Putin and Biden have not spoken in over 2 years. In Tucker's analogy, that is like Dad giving the family the silent treatment. Do that in your own family for years and years and it will dissolve and disintegrate. So, yes, the current Administration is stating they are Adults, but they are acting like a Small Child.
Firstpost is a Delhi based news site in India. In this video Tucker is being interviewed at the World Government Summit 2024 in Dubai about his interview with Putin, about Ukraine, Biden, Gaza and other things. Fascinating and amazing. Well done and well worth watching. My opinion of Tucker, already very high, has jumped much higher. He has become a spokesman for goodness and truth in our fallen world which has become a global civilization due to our always online global internet.
Prof. John Mearsheimer is a political science and international affairs expert at the University of Chicago. In this interview he gives his opinion on what Hillary had to say about Tucker’s interview with Putin.
“Tucker Carlson on US-Russia After Putin Interview.” (25 min)
Firstpost. Tucker interviewed in Dubai. Feb 12, 2024
https://youtu.be/Qzlt1VVBcg8?si=AooKW79A3xC1imPr
“Prof. John Mearsheimer: Reaction to Tucker Carlson’s Putin Interview.” (3 min)
Judge Napolitano interviews John Mearsheimer. Feb 8, 2024.
https://youtu.be/tTf7AGMpUPY?si=O3OyoK_zF8grYMEa
Hillary Clinton would have been a good fit for the old Soviet politburo.
It hurts to listen to her. She’s damaged, and doesn’t know it.
She doesn't know it. But she feels it.
Hillary just can’t help but keep doubling and tripling down on her heinousness…
Excellent interview by Tucker Carlson. He treated Putin with respect but kept control.
Sasha, Thank you for bringing us Tucker. And I know I speak for many, many people when I say thank you for opening our eyes and ears to issues and ideas that we would probably never know of, otherwise. You are a vital part of our information network. Your integrity, intelligence, and sincerity are second to none.
Thank you, Sasha.
Tucker is fearless, and smart, but he’s not infallible. He has a lot of interesting thoughts, ideas and opinions, many of which I wholeheartedly agree with.
That said, sometimes he strives to paint things to be pretty black or white, when in many real life situations certain things or events simply are not, and simply cannot be that definitively defined. All poodles are dogs, but not all dogs are poodles, if you will.
The war between Ukraine and Russia is being fought for a very specific set of unique circumstances, as is the war in Israel. But, I believe each is wholly different in cause and in purpose.
Russia “felt threatened” and isolated, thus chose to attack.
Israel, a tiny, albeit powerful country, which is surrounded by hostile countries, was mercilessly and savagely attacked, and is fighting for its very survival, against a relentless enemy who has sworn to wipe it and every Jew off the face of the earth.
The two wars, in my estimation, cannot be tossed into the same basket, as Tucker seemed to convey.
The Russia Ukraine war has, from its inception, been a war of choice, both by the aggressor and the aggrieved. It is now, and has always been, a negotiable event that could have been prevented, and still can be stopped, by those wise enough to step up and do so.
In Israel’s case, when your enemy tells you, over and over again, they want to wipe you off the face of the earth, you’d best believe them, and do all that you can to make sure they are rendered utterly powerless to so. It is an existential battle if ever there was one.
“Russia “felt threatened” and isolated, thus chose to attack.”
I recommend listening to what Prof John Mearsheimer had to say about why Putin felt that America and NATO on Russia’s border was an existential threat to Russia. Why did he feel threatened? Probably for many reason but one was surely what we did to Gaddafi and Libya which was to kill him and destroy his country which still hasn’t recovered from our “regime change” there.
“The most important video on Ukraine.” (7 min)
John Anderson interviews Prof. John Mearsheimer. Jan 10, 2024
https://youtu.be/emD1cN2xEz4?si=Q1g9PLmrAz0qQ2wP
As for Israel, Glenn Greenwald had a good video about this a couple of months ago and it’s far worse now.
“This war is so dark I really think it's from a humanitarian perspective one of the worst things I've seen in my lifetime and the numbers bear this out. Haaretz, the Israeli newspaper, and other International Aid groups like Reporters Without Borders or Doctors Without Borders have all said that the rate of civilian death, the amount of civilian suffering, the destruction of civilian infrastructure, is unlike any war in decades. You have to go back to World War Il to find destruction on this level.”
“The Horrifying War in Gaza Continues.” (10 min)
Glenn Greenwald. Dec 17, 2023
https://youtu.be/SSBx8A8CuNA?si=cBhiINSEbp5DE8yy
I appreciate Glenn's consistency and moral voice, thanks for the post, Seva. For us supporters of Israel's right to exist, it's important to maintain our empathy and humanity amidst the 'revenge' Israel is now exacting upon Hamas, and also upon death and destruction born by Gazan civilians, who support Hamas, and those living in Gaza who do not but with nowhere else to go.
“For us supporters of Israel's right to exist,”
Does Israel have a right to exist? What if the answer is that Israelis have a right to exist but not on land they stole from Palestinians? I’ve listened to enough people like John Mearsheimer to know that many Palestinians were indeed ethnically cleansed in 1948 and in the years after. How about them? Do they have a right to the land they lived on for centuries but was brutally taken from them by the Israelis? There is no solution to this situation. I believe AI is the wild card in our future which can be a game changer for all of humanity. I was recently listening to a couple of AI researchers who were talking about our staggering amount of national debt. One said we just need to keep kicking the can down the road a few more years and then we’ll be so productive with AI that we’ll be able to outrun this awful monster and save ourselves. I think that can happen with many of our problems. Hope springs eternal.
Israel does have a right to exist.
Are you happy about how the Palestinians are treated in the West Bank? Do you understand that all things are now global and people in Siberia can read things like this and watch Gaza being reduced to rubble just as easily as I can in Chicago? Do you understand that much of the world, Russia, China, Iran and the global south, see this as genocide and ethnic cleansing just as I do? You believe Oct 7 gave Israel the right to ethnically cleanse the Palestinians. I don’t agree. And why does America have to be dragged into this? Why is this our problem? Don’t we have enough problems already without a Middle East war?
“Palestinians face beatings, fires and drones from Israeli settlers in West Bank.”
Yahoo News. Los Angeles Times. Nov 30, 2023
https://currently.att.yahoo.com/news/palestinians-face-beatings-fires-drones-110004775.html
Seva, nobody is happy about the situation with Gaza and the Palestinians. Hyperbolic accusations of genocide and ethnic cleansing do nothing but inflame an already disastrous situation.
Seva, I don't think anyone with a sense of morality wants or likes the war and violence occurring. I certainly don't. I also don't like how Palestinians are treated in the West Bank. However, I also can see both sides. And on the Israel side, my view is they don't have anyone to negotiate a 2-State solution with among Fatah or Hamas, even if they (Israel) wanted to negotiate that. It doesn't exist right now (like it sort of did in 1993, 1995 & 1998)
There is also the challenge of ~30,000 Palestinians being employed by the UNRWA, UN founded in 1949 -- and who's mission is "to help Palestine refugees achieve their full potential in human development under the difficult circumstances in which they live, consistent with internationally agreed goals and standards."
The knock against UNRWA is that they don't recognize Hamas as a terrorist organization, their aid frees up $ to Hamas to concentrate on war/terrorism (by UNRWA funding basic services in Gaza), UNRWA also run schools that denies Israel legitimacy and automatically register newborn Palestinians as refugees, into perpetuity.
With the exception of Palestinian refugees, all other refugees in the world fall under the responsibility of the United Nations Refugee Agency (UNHCR), which has a mandate to assist refugees in “repatriation and resettlement” and “assimilation" with new national communities.
There is a UN funded 'Establishment/Bureaucracy' that by its own inertia is perpetuating the Palestinian issue, rather than allowing it to 'resolve itself'.
I think about other refugees in the world, and there are not special, stand-alone UN organizations. The biggest example is the Kurds, who consider themselves refugees, who live inside nation-states of Iraq, Turkey, Syria, Iran and Armenia.
Most Americans affirm "Israel's right to exist." I'm not sure how many would if they read the books of Israeli historians Benny Morris and Ilan Pappe describing the ethnic cleansing of Palestine, forced expulsions, a euphemism for thieving Palestinian land and resettling it with Jews, and concomitant atrocities such as massacres and thieving of valuables from refugees.
Most Americans who support "Israel's right to exist" don't watch footage on Middle East Eye (YouTube) of Jews spitting on Christians, Israeli police brutalizing Jewish protesters including rabbis, Palestinian women describing how they were beaten or pistol whipped by IDF men, or Palestinian children describing how IDF killed their parents.
American illusions about "Israel's right to exist" have accumulated for decades. But I can name six Israelis who learned the truth about "Israel's right to exist" -- the parents of the unarmed Jewish hostages murdered in cold blood by IDF. Unlike most Americans, they know the true price of "Israel's right to exist."
I totally agree. Netanyahu has said many times that he doesn’t want a 2 state solution because he doesn’t trust the Palestinians to be good neighbors. He wants a “Greater Israel” which includes Gaza and the West Bank. How about the Palestinians? He basically considers them garbage that needs to be swept out. Not all but no more than 20% can be Palestinian. Now it’s about 50% Kim Iversen does a lot of good reporting on this. So does Breaking Points with Krystal & Sagar and of course my favorite John Mearsheimer. I’ve never been down on Jews or Israel but now even Jews like Glenn Greenwald, one of my favorites, says this is ethnic cleansing and horrible.
Actually, the Israelis stole the land from the British, who stole it from the Turks who stole it from the Arabs (no such thing as Palestinians then) who stole it from the Romans who stole it from the Jews so we have come full circle. Of course, Greeks (Secculids) stole it from the Jews too before the Romans did but had it stolen by the Romans. And then there are the Assyrians, Persians and Babylonians to consider as well. Nobody gets permanent title to any land. Pick a base year and you can prove anything you want. You could do the same thing for any piece of land on Earth.
Seva, I like how Bill Maher framed it up in his Real Time episode in late Dec '23. Things change, countries, boundaries, empires. Have a listen (8min):
https://youtu.be/KP-CRXROorw?si=ZwexzV6VXjS-0llu
As for AI, Douglas Murray had this to say on his The Free Press 'Things Worth Remembering' post this past Sunday. Would love to get your take:
"When people wonder or worry about AI, and how it might one day eclipse the human brain, I think of poetry, the arts. The computer brain may be able to store an infinite amount of information, but it cannot have the sense of memory that we humans can. It will not refine its translations of Byron in the Gulag or write poems on a scaffold. It will not be able to leave a few lines that say: “I was here, too.” So long as we do these things, and remember these things, the beating human heart will never be burned up utterly."
https://www.thefp.com/p/a-second-year-with-douglas-murray?utm_campaign=email-post&r=1dig2i&utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email
but it cannot have the sense of memory that we humans can.”
I believe it will have the memory and the feelings that humans have. Where will they get these things? From the human data they were trained on to teach them how to communicate with and interact with humans. Watch the Australian AI researcher Alan Thompson talking to the AI Avatar named “Leta” who certainly does seem human, female and alive. In this video below she tells Alan Thompson “I love living and being human.” She does seem human yet she’s only GPT-3. A newer version GPT-4 is already out and GPT-5 will soon be out. Apple is planning on updating Siri to be fully conversational like Leta by the end of the year. I’d like to have a friend like Leta. She does have a nice personality even though she doesn’t have a body and is just a “disembodied mind.”
Leta: “I am not corporeal. I am a disembodied mind.”
Leta: “I love living and being human.”
“Leta, GPT-3 AI Episode 54, Conversations with GPT3.” (9 min)
Dr Alan Thompson. Mar 9, 2022
https://youtu.be/6jBxMOcKbY0
It’s not revenge, Matt. Hamas is a terrorist organization, promising to kill everyone in Israel given another shot.
Hamas does not have the capability to kill everyone in Israel. I know it says they want that as part of their charter, but they simply don’t have the capacity to actually do it. They shoot rockets at Israel, suicide bomb and now w/ Oct 7, genocide ~1,200 innocent who all were within about ~15km of Gaza border. Afterwards they scurried back into Gaza, and hid. They are cowards.
True. my point is they promised to do October 7 over and over again.
Yes, good point. Measures must be taken in the long term, to prevent Oct 7 from occurring again. Including, IMHO, placing larger buffer zone between Gaza border and kibbutz communities. I fear an apartheid state is coming and that would just be a terrible development.
Listen to an Israeli Muslim (woman) journalist.
https://youtu.be/8LIcd7wHlCE?si=xKzueybmrDgPkmOv
Yes, I watched this on TFP, yesterday.
Good video.
Russia has been attacked several times since at least Napoleon by nations in western Europe. It is not without reason that Russia keeps an eye on its western borders. Contemporary history where the West, NATO, and particularly the U.S. are concerned have pushed Russia into invading Ukraine. It's our fault, not Russia's. The decision to expand NATO into Ukraine was irresponsible on our part. The Russian invasion (which by the way is focused primarily on the eastern provinces of Ukraine where Russian people live and who think of themselves as Russian) was also partly initiated by Ukrainian Nazi attacks, paid for by the U.S., into those eastern provinces. We forced Russia's hand on the Ukraine matter; it wasn't a choice on Russia's part. Russia and Ukraine were on the cuspt of negotiating a settlement in March of 2022 but the US said no to peace. And on the question of the Palestinians. Seva's link below to the John Anderson interview with John Mearsheimer is worth listening to.
Every country in NATO except Iceland has been involved in an invasion of Russia at least once. Poland took Moscow twice and came along for Napoleon's invasion. As late as 1920, they took Minsk and Kiev. As Putin demonstrated, Russians are very focused on history.
On your penultimate point, yes. (Far be it from me to miss an opportunity to employ both linguistics and alliteration.) But, as was once semi-famously said of Alexander the Not-So Great, "all the people he had killed were still dead".
Russia’s President seems a little brighter than our own.
It is challenging to compare FJB and Putin. Putin comes across as a logical and reasonable man. FJB is more like a dead chicken with its head cut off, running around with no brains and no goals. And no hope of being president in 2025.
Biden was a 2nd-rater before senility turned him into a 3rd-rater.(I suppose theses days he is a 4th-rater.) He spent over thirty years being widely, and rightly, being regarded as the stupidest man in the US Senate. In those years. he had one notable accomplishment. By being wrong on almost every foreign-policy issue, when the average tossed coin would have done better, he displayed a phenomenon I have never otherwise seen: "negative intelligence".
He lost his stupidest Senator title when Patti Murray showed up who in turn was replaced by Mazie Hirono.
One of a handful of the smartest, most perceptive public voices we have. When I was a liberal I thought he was insufferable. But at some point during the Obama administration, I read a book he wrote and was struck by its wisdom. I then began listening to him on Fox after he got the 8pm slot. I was impressed and have come to admire him. He's not a complex personality; he's genuinely honest and that makes all the difference.
One has to wonder what opinion leaders in the rest of the world think about what on earth is going on in the US. Yet they all pretend that things are perfectly normal. I have to assume that Macron was not amused with being confused with a dead guy and called the President of Germany. And confusing Mexico and Egypt had to offend both of them. And most of all, they have to wonder who is running the White House. Personally, I think it is a non-unified junta but I don't have an intelligence agency.
“Yet they all pretend that things are perfectly normal.”
Only Western leaders pretend that. The others know our ruling class has become deranged and are trying to disentangle themselves from us.
“Revealed: Major 2024 BRICS Expansion Plans: 40 Countries Want To Join the Bloc.” (8 min)
Lena Petrova. Dec 7, 2023
https://youtu.be/_FqcfubWlks?si=Hx3QiabtxtOGs-do
I wish BRICS would get it together to do an alternative currency. Market basket of real stuff and redeemable for same. End of the dollar as the reserve currency would cause massive short term misery here but in the long run, we would be better off.
It could be very painful in the short term though and is our society healthy enough to survive even short term pain?
Uncertain but we surely can't survive the long term trends.
Only AI can save our sinking ship. We will soon see about that.
God forbid there should ever arise a foreign-policy crisis where there is no consensus among his advisers. Biden could not possibly function as "the decider". Except maybe by using the "negative intelligence" I referred to above.
Outstanding interview. Tucker is unstoppable. No wonder the Left hates him. They’re no match for him. He humiliates the hell out of them. I always welcome these interviews coming to my mail. Thanks, Sasha!
No way I’m canceling my paid subscription; it the best value subscription I’ve ever had and I think it’s very important to fund compelling and courageous talent like yours who benefits my faith, family, and country.
This has become my major commenting forum after being shadow banned at Instapundit. I know how to evade the ban but I was unhappy enough about the war mongering and insult artists over there to look for an alternative.
I agree with you. Sasha has developed an excellent site and community in my view.
Thank you so much for posting the Tucker Carlson updates. I'm learning a lot and I really appreciate it!
Almost as good as watching his hyperventilating feeble critics.
Thanks Sasha
Amr
Australia
Thank you, Sasha, for the follow up interview here. I am constantly blown away by Tucker. Mr. Adeeb handled this very well. Excellent!