Edtor’s note:
Once again as in years past, I’ve found my inbox filled with messages from longtime readers who wonder if I’m going to be re-posting “A Bithead’s Christmas”, and begging me to do so.
As I believe I’ve told you in previous years, I get more email about this one single post, these 2900 or so words, then I have about anything else written here. And it happens every single year. Either this one post is particularly good, or the rest of it is comparatively bad. You’ll forgive me if in my vanity, I believe the former. I take that they’re using Email, instead of simply leaving comments, to mean that I’ve struck a very personal and private nerve. Touching people in that fashion is a very rare thing, and one I take very seriously, so the answer to the question is “Yes, of course I’ll run it again”.
Understand going in, it may not be politically correct. I seek no absolution, no forgiveness, for it’s being overtly Christian in nature, any more than I seek absolution or forgiveness for anything else that I put into these spaces. It is what it is, because Christmas is what it is, and because I speak my mind on the topic at hand, whatever that is.
Christmas, and thereby, Christianity itself, has been going on for a little over 2000 years, in spite of all the naysayers, protesters and government regulations that history has managed to toss up in those 2000- plus years. It does so, because at the core of it all, is a message…….. a message that all the naysayers, protesters and government hacks will never understand, much less conquer. It is a message that will survive the ravages of time, government, and liberals, fascists, and anything and everything else, long after you and I are no longer even a memory in this world. The Christmas message, you see, is eternal, and ever green.
(Evergreen. I am suddenly struck with the symbolism here)There is something of a journalistic precedent for this as well. . . I do not pretend to hold myself quite so high in the world as these media outlets who have such traditions as “Yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus”… but they’ve been getting away with such things for well over 100 years, so I suppose I can get away with it, here.
One of the things that man has always found fascinating about the Christmas story, is that you can reread it all your life, and every time you reread it, you find a new truth buried within it, so perhaps that’s WHY we get away with repeating such stories. It’s perhaps where such traditions come from.
So with all this in mind, and with the hope of helping you find new meaning in this season… and peace… a personal peace… in these troubled times, I will offer once again this year:
A Bithead’s Christmas
I find myself wanting to take more seriously, the challenge of writing to the subject of Christmas, today, than I have in years past. It’s not clear in my mind as to why, but this isn’t unusual… I never really do have a firm grip on why I want to attack a subject in these spaces. In fact, the writing of a coulmn for me has becomes more an effort of exploring a subject; the codification of random thoughts. The act of putting those thoughts into words on a screen allows me to think about, and RE-think about the subject at hand. My thoughts on a given subject often do not fully take shape until such time as I’ve re-written them twice. Often, indeed… usually, the ideas are already there, waiting to be cast into words, but not fully defined until the act of sitting down and typing them out. I suppose this subject is no exception.To this effort, some blogs, this time of year will quote the great Gospels of Christ’s arrival, and expound on that. And that’s worthy, and right. Some others will take the secular angle of the holiday and go off on that. That too, is fine, though frankly it’s always for me missed the core of the topic, a little.But not me, for either of those tacks. Not this year. I’m going to go off the beaten path, for this post, at least in context of this blog, given it’s Christmas, and off the beaten path in terms of the Liturgical calendar, given it’s me. I’m going to stick with the meaning of Christmas, but to point it up, I’m going to turn to something a little later… about 30 years later… for my subject. I trust you’ll see why when I’m done.This story is in Matthew, Mark, and Luke. We’ll use Luke’s version for the purpose.
In Luke 18 it reads:
15 Now they were bringing even infants to him that he might touch them; and when the disciples saw it, they rebuked them. 16 But Jesus called them to him, saying, “Let the children come to me, and do not hinder them; for to such belongs the kingdom of God. 17 Truly, I say to you, whoever does not receive the kingdom of God like a child shall not enter it.”
Now, all three versions add a little something to the story, and I suggest you read them yourself to get it all.
Most times that Christians hear this text or read it, a child is being baptized. The apparently intended thrust of reading it in those situations is to make a loose connection with the Children being accepted by Christ. And, that’s a valid angle for the story. But, think about the story line, here, so you can get the flavor of what I’m going to describe to you. There’s a far bigger angle that many miss.
See, Christ has been playing “superstar” for a while, now. He’s been attracting flat out huge crowds wherever he goes. The disciples are starting to become concerned for the (human) well being of Christ. Children are, then as now, a source of some stress to adults already under stress, so the disciples decide, wordlessly to give the Lord a break. But Jesus says.. “Hey… No.. Let ’em come… It’s OK. ”
Apparently, seeing some remaining resistance in their eyes, he reinforces the command with a statement that must have shaken them badly. “It’s to the likes of these as belongs the Kingdom of God.”
Now, It’s not hard for us to imagine what’s going on in the minds of the disciples…. They must have felt a little put back… While not saying so, they must have figured they had an inside track to Heaven. (Shrug) It’s human nature.
The passages don’t record if they said anything, but you just know what they’re thinking, here… “Comon, Jesus… We’re tryin’ to give you a break here! And you elevate these lowest of low, mere children, into the ownership of heaven? You raise a polite nothing to a path to heaven and eternity? What’s THAT about?”And you know, Jesus knows it too. He knows full well what they’re thinking, because watch what he comes back with: “I’ll tell you the truth;”, he says, “Unless you change… Unless you transform, and accept the kingdom of heaven like a child, you’ll never enter it.”
But what does he mean, here? He’s talking, I’m afraid, about how you lose touch with happiness and the sense of wonder, as you become an adult. That loss prevents us from seeing the Kingdom of heaven as it is.
For most of us, the happiest times of our lives was when we were children. When we’re younger, we have less in the way of cares, and troubles. Let’s admit, too, that as we get older, we become aware of, and allow more and more sadness into our lives.It’s true; It’s a hard world out there, and being adults we’ve come to understand this, in a way of understanding that only long exposure and experience… and lots of scar tissue, can bring.It seems that every year we have more worries and concerns.
Oh, yeah, do we EVER worry. We worry about our health, and those concerns increase with advancing age. We worry about our jobs, about our investments, our savings, about the future in general. Retirement is a concern. Will we have enough? We’re too fat, we’re too skinny.
We’re too tall, we’re too short, our once wavy hair is still waving… Only, it’s waving bye-bye. We worry about the future our kids will have and the normal growing up problems, but we also worry about the future that we’ve left our kids. We look at the news, and we wonder what kind of a world have we left them? We even worry if we worry too much.We’ve seen marriages and relationships we thought would pass the test of time, pass away, instead. Things we had hoped would come to pass, didn’t, and those we’d not dreamed, in our wildest nightmares would happen, did. We see loved ones die. Jobs disappear. Hearts get broken.
And friends, those are just the hum-drum… The everyday worries that every generation has had, since Cain bopped his brother’s bean with a rock. Then you get into the problems particular to us and our times; AIDS, oil shortages, cancer, drugs, the way our own technology seems to be spiraling out of our control…
And Islamofacists.
Ah, yes, there’s nothing at all, to my mind, like the specter of 3000 plus people dying on national television, in Washington, NY and Pennsylvania… while we watch, to remind us that we’re not in control.And yes…. it’s all about control, if you think on it for long. All these things I’ve listed are worries about things we cannot control, try as we might.
The list of these reverses, these scars, gets longer as the years progress, and it starts eventually, to break down the positive outlook in every one of us… Each according to their ability to resist. Each step, each worry, each bit of emotional scar tissue, if you will, moves us farther away from the relative joy of our comparatively carefree childhood.
By now the sharper among you will notice where I’m going with this; This is where Christmas comes in. This is why Christmas holds a special place in our hearts, and our traditions.
You see, even for the not-so-religious, it is a time of renewal of our fragile human spirit. All of the hurts, small and large, become less pronounced, and fade under the soft glow of the lights, the candles, the fireplace, and the smile of the children.
Have you ever noticed that it’s the children, in fact, that do us the most healing? Christmas, it’s said, is for the children. Presidential speechwriter and WSJ columnist Peggy Noonan noted recently about some of the qualities of children:
“They are susceptible to wonder. A child can look at a red toy car in the red-green glow of Christmas tree lights and imagine an entire lifetime.
A child can play with a new doll and smell good things being cooked and hear sweet music and it can make that child imagine that life is good, which gives her a template for good, a category for good; it helps her know good exists. This knowledge comes in handy in life; those who do not receive it, one way or another, are sadder than those who do.”
Of course, we move away from that ability as we grow older. Our long experience has hardened us to the realities of the world around us, and perhaps jaded our point of view. But here comes Christmas, which gives us, individually and collectively, the chance of looking at the world through the wonder-filled eyes of a child once again… Becoming childlike ourselves in the process, and becoming healed and renewed.
The experience is a far deeper one for those who have accepted the Christmas promise, and it’s meaning. Reacting to that promise includes allowing someone else to run the controls of our lives. Remember I said it was all about control? Well, I want you to think about the features of being a child.
It was Randall Jarrell, I think, who once quipped:
“One of the most obvious facts about grownups to a child is that they have forgotten what it is like to be a child.”
Well, let’s remember.
You’re NOT in control of much of anything. Someone who knows better, and is by far more powerful than we, is running things. And looking back, I’m sure most of us would conclude that having that situation back would be of comfort to us. Haven’t we all wished to resign from the world of adulthood at times?
I guess this would be a good place to slip in a parallel story.
Consider the fictional person of Ebeneezer Scrooge. Think about how the story develops;
He’s had some serious emotional setbacks in early life… and those have become a self-feeding, never ending circle by the time we meet him, 7 years after his best friend’s death.
All these setbacks have made him cold, and hard, and for all outward appearances, non-feeling. He’s covered with emotional scar tissue. Being hard, is his way of dealing with what he cannot control.
Only after his overnight experience do all these cares get swept away, along with his anger of not being able to control his situation…. The realization comes to him that he never really WAS in control in the first place, so stop fretting about it all… Think about what are essentially the first words out of his mouth as he realizes that the weight of his worries.. Not unlike worries you and I have had, are gone;
“I’m as light as a feather….” The weight of that scar tissue… And all the concerns they represent having been lifted off his shoulders…
“…and as giddy as a Schoolboy!”
Like.
A.
Child.
“I’ll tell you the truth”, he said, “Unless you change.. Unless you transform, and accept the kingdom of heaven like a child, you’ll never enter it.”
Amazing parallels, aren’t they?
I’m reliably informed that Charles Dickens was not as a rule what one would call very religious. Yet, in looking at the parallels in these two story lines, I must wonder in all honesty if he didn’t have some help with “A Christmas Carol”.
Now, you’ll notice I took some liberty with the way the Biblical text was quoted. Some liberty, I say, but not very much, really, since it’s long been pointed out by Bible scholars that the word that earlier versions of the text had as ‘change’ were really translated from the ancient Greek word for “transform”.
This is a major point, because it demonstrates what the first step is, and whose it is… yours.
And no, change and transformation are not the same thing. The best description I’ve ever thought of to explain the difference between the two, runs along these lines:If I take a rock, and in the other hand I take a large hammer, and I hit the rock with the hammer, and break it, I’ve changed that rock. If I take that same rock, and take a small hammer and chisel, and very carefully, perhaps over a period of decades, sculpt that rock into a flower, I’ve still merely changed that rock.
Transformation, on the other hand, is when the rock itself, as a matter of responding to it’s own will, becomes a flower. And of course that’s beyond the normal power of the rock, by any standard we know.
What Christ therefore is saying is, that we must become children, as of a matter of our own will. Which is, as I say, impossible by any standard we know…. Which in turn leads us to the source of all things, who teaches us how, and gives us the power to do it.
You see, the externalities I mentioned, the lights, the fire, the children…and that which Dickens writes of… the giving, the being open to what joys are around us, and so on, helps toward the goal of understanding the Christmas promise, but it’s not the whole deal.
At the core of it all… (and this is a connection that, alas, many people never make…) is that the one whose birth is being celebrated every December the 25th, is the one who takes over that long list of worries. But understand, here…THAT’S WHY WE CELEBRATE!!
With those worries removed, lives get changed, hearts mended, child-like perspectives restored in a way that the lights, carols and greenery can never do on their own. And the newly remade Children find that the authority and responsibility and all the ponderous weight connected with them, are taken away by the one who said “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me”.
Now, I must warn you; There are those who will resist being told all of this… to the point of removing such joy as they find, wherever they may find it, often using the power of governments, and force of arms to have it removed from town squares and schools, mocking, persecuting and yes, even killing those responsible for the spreading of the news of this miracle.
It’s a sad truth, that a world used to darkness, you see, will continually fight to see the darkness continued.
That warning given, however, I will say to you also, that it’s no accident, Christmas being called the season of light, and that Christ is called the light of the world.
If I have one wish for this Christmas, it is that you will be open to the light…. With the wondering eyes of a child.
For those of you who don’t know, I spent a number of years in the broadcast business. Back in the seventies and eighties, when I was cutting a career path here in Rochester Keith Olbermann was doing the same thing in LA and basically trashing his own career.
Yeah, no kidding. He was working the local stations out there as a sportscaster. Let’s just say the reputation he got out there even in nutty California, was not a good one.
About that time, the LA Times, which was still a newspaper back then, had a Sports TV Critic named Larry Stewart. His comments on Olbermann made it clear that he thought Olberman was best described as a pompous jerk. He took pleasure in ripping him a new one at every opportunity.
Of course even then, Olberman would reply with other nonsense a lot of hate, a lot of bile, a lot of spittle and little else.
So now by way of Red State, we see nothing has changed.
A lot of people on the left are melting down over Twitter suspending some members of the liberal media, allegedly for doxxing Elon Musk by passing along a link to someone who was tracking him in real-time. Musk had already announced that doxxing was a suspendable offense after someone he called a “crazy stalker” went after his family. Some decided they wanted to test that anyway. But Musk let them know they weren’t “special” — if they were involved in doxxing, they were going to be treated just like everyone else.
Among the people hit with a suspension was Keith Olbermann. I think he was the one person that folks on both sides of the aisle weren’t particularly disturbed to see get the temporary boot. Although I think my colleague Jim Thompson is missing him because he makes a perfect template for mocking cartoons.
Personally I can’t think of a better candidate for being taken off social media. There was a time when good old Keith was good for a laugh. That, however, ended quite a while ago.
His recent tirades indicate rather clearly that he can’t operate in a fair society. I would be a liar if I didn’t say it’s fun to watch a loathsome creature like that implode. Just keep your hands and feet away from his mouth, kids. The rather foamy mustache is the first clue.
Meantime I wonder if Elon Musk actually understands the service that he has provided the country?
Addendum:
I find it very amusing that the left is now complaining about the suspension of journalists. Does nobody remember one Twitter suspended an entire newspaper for the crime of doing actual journalism?
Understand this if nothing else: it’s not Trump per se that they’re after.
Postulate a Ted Cruz presidency. Do you think for a moment that he wouldn’t be getting the same treatment Donald Trump is? You know better.
And why do you suppose they are filling their diapers now over Elon Musk?
In each case, we’re talking about somebody who’s willing to give freedom a chance.
That’s what they’re trying to shut down.
From Billy Beck over at Facebook. My comments, after him.
Cathaleen —
I had written: “I’ve often said that Americans would bring their native ingenuity to tyranny and write new pages in its annals.”
“To my mind, this Twitter thing is the most menacing development along these lines that I’ve ever seen.”
You asked: “which Twitter thing? There are so many parts… By which I mean please explain it like I’m 5.”
~~~~~
I have only read through one of the drops: Taibbi’s first one. I’ve glanced them after that, along with ancillary commentary here & there. The first thing that I want to say is that this was badly mis-handled by Musk, and I’m sure that I know why: he was playing it for traffic at Twitter.
This was not “Twitter Files”. Hotep Jesus called it “Twitter Screenshots,” and that was right. This should have been a comprehensive, Wikileaks-style *file dump*, for anyone to look through at the raw email and Slack (internal messaging) files.
It’s been argued that “there’s so much that there wasn’t time for that” and I’m not buying it. If that’s true, then the only reason is that Musk was in a hurry to get this out in order to stimulate traffic. The consequence, in any case, is that the data is mediated: we’re only seeing what they’re showing us.
~~~~~
What they’re showing us should be horrifying to every single American.
Federal “law enforcement” and “intelligence” agencies were meeting with high-level executives at Twitter, more than weekly — as if it were a regular, formal liaison — for the purpose of pointing out tweets and whole accounts that they wanted suppressed, and they were almost all conservatives or “right wing”.
That’s the kernel of it. The United States government had found a willing partner in an ostensibly private company, ready to do the dirty-work, leaving these agencies with the plausible denial that it was a “private company” doing it.
I’m just going to point out that to this day, seventy-seven years after The Jewish Holocaust in Nazi Germany, International Business Machines — the world-famous “IBM” — is righteously condemned for its complicity: they supplied mechanical tabulators and punch-cards to the Nazis for purposes of census, ethnic identification, and concentration camp management.
This is not a comparison between Twitter’s political suppression of unwelcome traffic and mass ethnic murder. The principle here that unifies these two cases is: the voluntary complicity of private companies with governments for explicitly political motives. The *implication* is necessarily logical: if they would do that, then there is no real answer to any question of what they *would not* do:
Where were their moral limits? No one knows, and no one would have ever known if Elon Musk had not turned this rock over for everyone to see the worms.
This is the *essence* of fascism: exactly what those degenerates were saying that they were afraid of in Trump, and “right wing” politics in general, all while they were *doing it*, themselves. They were doing it with a new technology that had gripped the whole world with its promises, and on a scale and with precision and ability never before seen in human history.
Can you understand this?
Billy’s got this exactly right. Read the whole thing.
To his points I will add two things. First, the reason it’s not as shocking as it might be to some is because we’ve always known this was precisely what was happening deep in our heart of hearts. None of us are surprised at just how deep this thing goes.
The other point I’m going to make is I can’t help but make a connection between these events and the bank bailouts and bailouts of automakers and so on. The word fascism applies very directly here because with that action under Obama those Banks and those companies were bought and paid for by the federal government. It didn’t begin during that., But it certainly took a large step in that direction.
From The Federalist:
According to a now-unavailable LinkedIn profile discovered by journalist Andy Ngo, Jeff Carlton, whose prior work included serving as a federal intelligence officer, became the leading member of Twitter’s Strategic Response Team (SRT) last month. As revealed in a batch of “Twitter Files” released by reporter Bari Weiss on Thursday, SRT is one of the main groups at Twitter tasked with shadowbanning conservative accounts and tweets on the platform.
Guys name is Jeff Carlton. And look what I found:
He’s not the only one, as is being pointed out by the discussion Ngo started. The New York Post point up another example the other day:
And as I go to publish this, word is Jim Helminski, ex-Director of the Secret Service says the Secret Service is not being honest regarding January 6.
It’s down to the point now where only the useful idiots can deny the connections. Which of course, they’re now down to doing, since there is no other defense.
Consider, though:
Should all of the news outlets that denied shadow banning was occurring be banned for disinformation? And what is to be done with all of the news outlets that denied shadow banning was occurring? Should they themselves be banned for disinformation? If you can be jailed without due process for simply being in the capitol on J6, shouldn’t there be serious consequences for this kind of election interference?
As for the need for a proven conspiracy?
No, it’s both less and more complex than that. All you really need is a bunch of people,similarly indoctrinated with the misbegotten notion that government is, and should be, the end all and be all. Government run education, for one thing. Their heads have been filled with the toxic notion that government should be all powerful. Law schools, J schools, etc, same problem.
How could the output of such orgs be anything else?
They’ll act on those ideas on their own, since that’s now what they think… That’s who they are….No actual conspiracy required.
After years of conservatives being purged from the military and from the Intel fields, and the ever increasing influence of the federal government in education, is the trend we see here, that so many from those fields are involved in such actions, really such a surprise?
Enough said.
I have been saying for a long time now, that it was no accident that Vladimir Putin waited until such time as Joe Biden was in the oval office before he invaded Ukraine.
But let’s look a little deeper at that. What specific actions of Biden brought about the invasion of the Ukraine?
Two things.
First, Putin understands that unlike Trump, Biden will never responding to direct fashion militarily to Russia’s expansionism.
The other reason is the price of oil.
Do a little research on the time frames when Russia invaded one of its neighbors, the Crimean region for example. If you’re Sharp enough, you may noticethat every time the price of oil went up, Vladimir Putin invaded somebody.
8 years of Obama, oil prices high, (mostly because of the myth of global warming and the government responding to that with after having created that myth.) We all know Vladimir Putin’s actions during those years.
Donald Trump comes along, and opens American production of domestic oil and gas causing not only providing a very strong American economy, but the price of oil worldwide drops precipitously. Vladimir Putin stays home.
( And by the way, even with oil consumption up America’s carbon footprint still went down quite a bit. It’s going back up since the shortsightedness of the Democrats has taken hold of our government.)
Joe Biden who like Obama, worships on the altar of the myth of global warming, that tells us no more oil companies.. no drilling, no fracking, no permits. The government starts pushing at his behest, electric cars. And in his myopic vision everything runs off of electricity.
What happens? Price of oil skyrockets, and along with that happening Vladimir Putin getting militaristic and invading Ukraine.
If I remember correctly it was John McCain who once remarked that Russia was it gas station masquerading as a country. In my view, it’s one of the few things at that idiot ever got correct. That said, Vladimir Putin understood that equation long before John McCain did.
In reality the same thing can be said about Iran, Saudi Arabia and so on. Each has certainly been more active on the world stage with the increased price of oil.
Put another way, with cheap oil to megalomaniacs and the dirt scratchers in those countries are contained. When the price of oil starts going up in response to the shortages created by our government, they’re able to fund their warlike intentions.
My friends, the conclusion is obvious that the world is a much more dangerous place because of the energy policy of the Democrats. It’s really that simple and that’s straightforward.
Add to that the consequences to these United States and the rest of the world economically, and you have ample reason for turning the situation around by turning the valves open on American oil and gas.
The Democrats aren’t going to let that happen while they have the power to stop it.
It certainly pertinent to ask whose side they are on. Certainly, not yours or mine. Certainly, not America. Certainly, not a peaceful world.
An interesting talk, from the always-worthy Victor Davis Hanson.
I don’t think the question in the title was the intended thrust but he does touch indirectly on the question asked.
I have always admired general Patton. I have seen, (and apparently Hanson has as well) a number of personal qualities that the two share.
The talk is approximately 32-35 minutes.
It’s amazing… suddenly the Democrats are concerned about the Constitution. And unsurprisingly, the establishment GOP is going along with them.
The problem is this:
The Constitution was written with the assumption that it would be dealing with Honorable people. People who wouldn’t think about altering vote counts for example. The founders never dreamed of today’s Democrat party in their worst nightmares.
For that matter, who would have dreamed 2 years ago that the Democrat party would become a bunch of raving flag waving constitutionalists? Certainly not anyone who was watching what they were saying… And doing… At the time, and since. Wasn’t it just a week ago that we heard the Democrats telling us that the first amendment is not? absolute? And don’t get me started on is their attitude regarding the second amendment, or the 10th.
Certainly, Donald Trump is treading on dangerous ground when he starts talking about bypassing the constitution.
Actually, you need to read what he actually said, and actually understand it.
However the question becomes, what, then, is the remedy for the level of fraud that we are exposed to? I suggested 2 years ago that we were going to see a constitutional crisis out of this. It just took a little longer than I figured to surface.
I would suggest that we look at the Chad counts in Florida a few years back as an example of situations that neither the federal constitution, and in the case of Florida, the state constitution, never addressed.
It seems to me likely that this is only going to be resolved with USSC rulings.
I find myself increasingly disillusioned with the chances of the GOP getting a working majority going and winning the White House in 2 years time.
40 years ago give or take, I watched as the GOP establishment spent an awful lot of time money and effort to disassociate itself from the legacy of Ronald Reagan and the lessons that he taught. My perception is that that history is repeating itself in this cycle.
The establishment of the party has never quite figured out that there was a serious reason why the GOP voter, the rank and file sat on their hands for Romney and McCain, and why they completely rejected Jeb Bush.
At this point my perception is they’re going to try to set us up with another establishment critter in 2 years which of history is in a judge is a guaranteed loss.
I had occasion to be in a restaurant where “The View” was on the other day and I have a few observations from that disheartening experience.
Joy Behar is evidence that placenta CAN survive outside the womb.
I’m convinced that the only reason that anyone would hang around Whoopi Goldberg anymore is that she’s large enough to have her own gravity field.
It’s totally beyond me how anyone thinks that watching these ponderous poultry flap their lips is of any interest, beyond the laxative effect.
Perhaps with the leadership change at Disney, some changes could be made.
We couldn’t see this one coming.
Yeah, right.
FROM URUMQI in the north-west to Shanghai in the east, demonstrations and protests have rocked China in recent days. They have varied in size, tenor and composition, but all have been united by one theme: demands for an end to the harsh lockdowns and arbitrary controls of the country’s “zero-covid” campaign. Taken together, they represent a broad-based and diverse bellow of frustration of a sort very rarely heard in China. Though not all protests are explicitly political, they are an unmistakable rebuke for President Xi Jinping, hailed by state media as “commander in chief of the people’s war against covid”.
Just how bad is it?
Many people are increasingly fed up with that war. The latest trigger came on November 24th, when a fire at an apartment block in Urumqi, the capital of Xinjiang region, killed at least ten people and injured nine others. Local residents claimed that doorways and fire exits in the building were sealed to control covid.
It’s remarkable that the American press hasn’t been covering this nearly as much as the story warrants.
Yes I’m aware there’s animosity at the moment between the two, but I’m going to give you several ideas to think about.
Author Mark Twain once observed that if you take a stray dog in and make him prosperous, he won’t bite you. This, he observed, is the principal difference between men and dogs.
The difference between a starving dog and Governor DeSantis is that DeSantis will bite you after you make him prosperous, as Donald Trump has been recently finding out.
So there is no mistaking my thought here, I will tell you flat out that I think the actions of Governor DeSantis as regards Donald Trump opportunistic and ungrateful, and frankly I have difficulty putting any degree of trust in such an individual. I suspect and will suppose that I am far from alone in this. The governor wouldn’t even be in that position absent Trump’s involvement and backing.
National elections, particularly the contentious ones as 2024 Doubtless will be, are a crucible in which we burn away candidates who are not qualified. At least, that’s how it’s supposed to work.
Teamed up, those two could do great things together but to make that happen the governor needs to get over himself and realize that neither he nor Trump can bring about the policies on a national scale that both he and Trump … And the voters…want.
The governor has two years to mend some fences to make this happen, and frankly I wonder if he has the integrity to do it.
If the governor decides that he can’t bring himself to do that, not only will he fail in the 2024 election but so will the GOP. And believe me, the Democrats are salivating with that thought… Because they know there is nobody else that the GOP establishment is going to push through the primary process who will get any better response from the rank and file voters than Mitt Romney, Jeb Bush, and John McCain got.
The message for the governor and for the GOP establishment is precisely the same message: embrace Trump, or fail. There are no other options.
So in the end, that raid on Trump’s house was nothing more than a political exercise.
As I originally told you.
Nobody should be surprised that the mainstream media sat on the story until after the midterms.
