“The mass-man has no attention to spare for reasoning; he learns only in his own flesh.” – Jose Ortega y’Gasset, The Revolt of the Masses (1930) In the United States, prima facie, presidential elections represent a core fixture of democracy. Nonetheless, though necessary – and never more so than in the just-completed defeat of Donald [...]
“Hic Sunt Dracones” – the Hunt-Lenox Globe, 1504 “Friction is the difference between war on paper, and war as it actually is.” – Carl von Clausewitz, On War Once again, on October 9, 2020, with immodest displays of tangible hardware, North Korea mocked Donald Trump’s lingering expectations of “denuclearization.” Here, in Pyongyang, President Kim Jong [...]
“The goal is to dominate the street.” – US President Donald J. Trump, June 1, 2020 There are disturbing connections. Before openly embracing the “Proud Boys” during his first debate with Democrat opponent Joe Biden, Donald J. Trump praised the value of “good genes” in Minnesota. Though such a seemingly “positive” evocation might not normally [...]
“Everything is very simple in war, but even the simplest thing is difficult.” – Karl von Clausewitz, On War There is palpable wisdom in Clausewitz’s classic observation about war. Where this wisdom is understood in terms of current United States national security challenges, one overarching extrapolation comes immediately to the fore: It would be trouble enough [...]
“All people…who dare not defend themselves when they know they are in the right, who submit to punishment not because of what they have done but because of who they are, are already dead by their own decision; and whether or not they survive physically depends on chance. If circumstances are not favorable, they end [...]
“The Button recounts the terrifying history of nuclear launch authority, from the faulty 46-cent microchip that nearly caused World War III to President Trump’s tweet about his “much bigger & more powerful” button. Perry and Collina share their firsthand experience on the front lines of the nation’s nuclear history and provide illuminating interviews with former [...]
“The masses have followed the magicians again and again…Socrates and Plato were the first to take up the struggle against them in clear awareness of what was at stake.” – Karl Jaspers, Reason and Anti-Reason in our Time (1952) On absolutely all matters of existential survival, individual or collective, candor is indispensable. In connection with [...]
“The enemy is the unphilosophical spirit which knows nothing and wants to know nothing of truth.” – Karl Jaspers, Reason and Anti-Reason in our Time (1952) Even in this grievously faltering United States, presidential elections are praised as essential evidence of a law-based democracy. This ritualized practice continues although “We the People” are suffering at [...]
“It must not be forgotten that it is perhaps more dangerous for a nation to allow itself to be conquered intellectually than by arms.” – Guillaume Apollinaire, “The New Spirit and the Poets” (1917) In his commencement address at West Point on June 13, 2020, US President Donald J. Trump presented a narrowing view of [...]
“Tis bitter cold, and I am sick at heart.” – Hamlet For an afflicted American nation, it never seems to end. On June 1, 2020, President Donald J. Trump once again openly defiled US Constitutional protections of free speech and assembly, on this occasion by gratuitously violent treatment of law-abiding civilian demonstrators. A week later, [...]
