Throughout its history of international relations, Russia has proven that the longest distance between any two points is the distance between conciliatory statements out of the Kremlin and an actual agreement to which Moscow will confirm. Beware of disinformation: the Russians made it an art form decades ago.
Asides
Mantra 2019
My new mantra: “Enable democracy.”
Agriculture
It is a mistake to tar our entire modern agriculture and food distribution system with the worst behavior of its meanest participants.
The proper response to the excesses of industrial agriculture is not to destroy it in favor of small scale farms and locovore culture, but to punish the miscreants, remove perverse incentives, and generally to redress the problems in the system.
Fix big ag. With a hammer. And the threat of an alternative.
Transparency
Bureaucrats tend to shortchange the people when the opportunity arises to do so.
Transparency doesn’t make that impossible, only harder, and then only in a functioning democracy.
The Wake-Up
Let’s get something straight: when the Wall fell, it was a triumph of freedom over statist oppression.
The short-sighted attempt to reduce the Cold War to a battle between free markets and breadlines is the work of corporatists who still believe that the primary task of government is to serve the interests of the industrial corporation.
MAGA
We all miss the real meaning of the acronym when Trump types “MAGA.”
It apparently is supposed to mean Make America Gag Again.
And again.
And again.
Don and Jeff
Let’s be honest: what really drives Donald Trump batsh*t crazy about Jeff Bezos is that the Amazon founder is so much smarter, so much more respected, and so much more successful than Trump ever will be, and for the life of him, Donald cannot understand why.
