I'm quoted in The Washington Post, talking about the ways in which the media overlies on generals and the government officials to explain what has been happening in Afghanistan, and the deference they're given. washingtonpost.com/media/2021/09/…
TV appearances recently
McMaster-7
McCaffrey-13
Petraeus-6
Keane-16
Lute-5
Bolton-at least 2
With almost no questioning of their records. Each of these people has been spectacularly wrong at one point or another, and in some cases have conflicts of interest too.
More great reporting from The Post. "The eight generals who commanded American forces in Afghanistan between 2008 and 2018 have gone on to serve on more than 20 corporate boards, according to a review of company disclosures and other releases." washingtonpost.com/politics/2021/…
Stanley McChrystal "is the runaway corporate leader. A board member or adviser for at least 10 companies since 2010.. he also leverages his experience to secure lucrative consulting contracts on topics distant from defense work, such as managing the coronavirus pandemic."
Stanley McChrystal: Corporations want me because I'm a good guy with leadership qualities, and I'm proud of what I've done.
One of his companies defrauded the military and had to pay a fine of $50 million. For a speech at U of Nebraska, he required $80K and a private jet.
McChrystal eventually did it for $70K and without the jet, blames the Speaker's Bureau. That's leadership.
All of this is on top of a $150K a year pension from the government.
One of the companies McChrystal worked for paid him around $1.3 million. They ended up defrauding the Marine Corp of $1.28 billion, paid a fine to the government of $50 million. Why would you not just defraud the government and hire a general?
Note that McChrystal was leading the Afghan war effort during the time when it most clearly fell apart
For that record of competence, he was rewarded with no-bid contracts to help governments deal with COVID. His health "experts" include two former Yale football players.
I took @SamHarrisOrg to task a few weeks ago for getting all his information on foreign policy from a closed circle of elites. McChrystal was a recent guest. These people have shown competence in nothing but self-promotion, but even smart people are taken in by it.
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The selection of JD Vance can be seen as a triumph for the Tech Right. I explain where they came from and what makes them different from others in the GOP. They're socially liberal, anti-egalitarian, and ultimately for dynamism and progress. 🧵 richardhanania.com/p/understandin…
Ironically, there is a group of leftists who saw this coming. They came up with the acronym TESCREAL, which is so ugly that it's actually catchy. The leftists paying the most attention knew that tech elites were different from other elites in academia and journalism.
If you believe in technology and progress, it's going to put you in conflict with the ruling class if it doesn't believe in those things. In most societies that may be religious authorities. In the modern West, it is wokes, driven by an egalitarian vision that discounts progress
The time Israel sent a commando team into downtown Beirut that assassinated three high-ranking members of the PLO and got out. The team was led by Ehud Barak.
Westerners hate Israel because it fills them with a sense of inferiority by showing that heroism is still possible.
Stop and read about the Entebbe Raid, after a plane was hijacked and taken to Uganda. The Israelis secretly flew a team from Suez to Uganda, slaughtered the Palestinian terrorists, their German allies, and Idi Amin’s soldiers, bringing almost all of the hostages home alive.
What were the Palestinians doing during this time? They had their own version of heroism. They were blowing up synagogues, killing random Jews all over the world, massacring flight crews, and getting the Gulf Arabs to pay them ransom money.
Fascinating analysis of the trendiness of baby names.
Since the 1960s, the endings of names rise and fall together, especially for boys. The fates of Mason, Jackson, Grayson, etc are all linked.
What names sound good to parents depends on subtle signals they’re not aware of.
This is associated with the decline of traditional names. The lesson here is people really feel the need to conform on a very deep subconscious level! If they don’t conform to tradition, they’ll look for arbitrary signs of trendiness.
But you don’t want to conform too much. So names that are too common get scratched off the list, while you need to pick a name for a boy or girl that sounds right in the current year.
Why not beginnings of names then? Makes the choice too conscious?
Time Magazine in 1958: Blacks are 10% of the population in 1,551 cities but commit 60% of violent crime. Northern mayors consider this their biggest problem and are afraid to talk about it. Black leaders blame racist law enforcement.
Black problems didn’t start with LBJ.
Time in 1958: NAACP tries to get people not to talk about black crime. Many whites are uncomfortable about the subject, and newspapers go out of their way not to mention a crime suspect’s race.
Time: Many blame poverty, but poor immigrants don’t commit crime like blacks do.
Change a few words around and this whole thing could’ve been written today. The media wouldn’t publish it of course but nothing has changed in 66 years!
Since October 7, many of us have been asking how we can be better allies to Israel.
I explain that what Israel needs is not better PR, or "hasbara," but pushback on narratives that are hostile to civilization itself, which Israel represents. richardhanania.com/p/article-in-t…
Israel doesn't have an "optics" problem because the rest of the world hated Israel before this war, and one can see this in the obsessive focus on its flaws compared to everything else in global politics. The problem is with Israel's existence.
There are three pillars of anti-Israel hate
1) Anti-western sentiment 2) Third worldism 3) Classic antisemitism
Unfortunately for Israel, it's the one place where all these ideological orientations converge.