1) Daniel Hannan, “The Church of England is replacing its Christian nature in a fit of woke frenzy; A new holy trinity of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion has usurped the old, The Telegraph, March 9, 2024 (5:00 pm);

The Church of England is replacing its Christian nature in a fit of woke frenzy

A new holy trinity of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion has usurped the old

The State of tge Union this March is terrible. Absolutely terrible.

One should not make the same mistake which led Germans, looking at economic indicators in 1939, to conclude that the state of the union in Germany was great.

What is the State of the Union in the United States in March 2024?

The country faces the greatest anti-democratic movement since the Civil War.

A fascist movement led by Donald Trump is leading consistently in the polls, and has a very good chance of winning the presidential race on November 5, 2024. The newly fascist Republican Party could well win majorities in both the House and the Senate at the same time.

The Supreme Court is politically corrupt, and consistently favors Donald Trump and the Republican party in its decisions. In its recent decision in Trump v. Anderson it eschewed serious legal and constitutional analysis in overruling the Colorado Supreme Court decision barring Trump from the ballot in application of Section 3 of the 14th amendment.

It’s decision will live in infamy, as the last proof that the the Court has been politically corrupted, and is not capable of fairly adjudicating constitutional question of the utmost importance.

The only way one can accept the Trump v. Anderson as legitimate is to rrcognize the power of the Supreme Court to make up constitutional law as it best sees fit.

The State of the Union in 2024 is one in which the concept of Truth, the very standard of truth, has been demolished in the minds of half the population.

What should be a democratic press in a vibrant democracy has been corrupted by private commercial interests, and by the gathering impacts of a technological revolution in which the fleeting and disconnected images of television and social media have replaced the logical content of the written word.

 

On January 8, 2024, outgoing president Jair Bolsonaro led an attempted coup, in a manner similar  to Donal Trump’s attempted coup in the U.S.on January 6, 2021.

The courts in Brazil banned Bolsonaro from running for public office for 10 years.  In that manner, the Brazilian courts defended the country’s democracy against those who would overthrow it.

The U.S. Supreme Court in Anderson was unable to show the courage and the dedication to upholding the Constitution the Brazilian Supreme Court manifested in dealing with Bolsonaro.

In this sense, democracy and the rule of law are better protected in Brazil than they are in the United States.

The State of the Union includes the State of the World.  Here the situation is also absolutely terrible.

The Republican Party has been taken over by the MAGA cult of Donald Trump.

It has become an openly pro-Russian party subservient to the foreign policy directives of Donald Trump, who openly supports Russian President Vladimir Putin.  Trump is leading efforts to block $60 billion of military aid for Ukraine, which is urgently needed as the country is running out of artillery ammunition and losing ground every day to Russian forces as a direct result.

In Gaza, Israel continues to bomb and attack targets in Gaza, where it has killed over 30,000 people since the Hamas attacks on Israeli civilians on October 7, 2023.  President Biden continues to run interference for Israel, gaslighting the American public with task of a truce being only days–or even hours–away.

In the meantime, Biden refuses to use any of the real levers of U.S. influence over Israel, such as withholding the veto of U.N. Security Council resolutions, or halting shipment of U.S. arms to Israel because of restrictions on their use in existing U.S. law (self-defense only, not for commission of war crimes or human rights abuses.  Instead, he urges restraint on Israel and concocts a plan for sea delivery of humanitarian aid.  Instead of forcing Israel to open up multiple border crossings.  In tge meantime, tge ooerative command for thecIsraeli armed forces is “Bombs Away”, as hundreds of thousands of Gazan civilians starve.

By its actions in Gaza, the United States has greatly weakened the force of International Humanitarian Law, and lost all all credibility, particularly in the Global South,  in accusing Russia of war crimes in Ukraine.

Elsewhere, the civil wars in Sudan (where the rebel  RSF forces are backed by Russia), and in Tigray Province in Ethiopia rage unchecked.

With this increasing breakdown in international order, prospects for effective international action on urgent global problems, such as global warming, regulation of artificial intelligence, the mikitarization of space, and nuclear proliferation, are dim indeed.

All things considered, the State of the Union like the State of the World, is terrible.

 

 

 

 

 

1) Richard Kemp, “It’s hard to admit, but Macron is beating Britain on Ukraine; Will the other Nato leaders now keep clinging to the ‘spirit of defeat’ that Macron describes or will they realise they must get behind him?” The Telegraph, March 6, 2024 (10:33am);

2) Manuel Altozano (Mikolaiv), “Un proyectil ruso cae a 150 metros de Zelenski y Mitsotakis durante la visita del primer ministro griego a Odesa; Ninguno de los mandatarios ha resultado herido, pero el ataque con drones de Moscú mata a cinco personas en la ciudad portuaria del sur de Ucrania,” El País, el 6 de marzo 2024 (17:38 CET);

3) Manuel Altozano (Mikolaiv), “A Russian projectile falls 150 meters from Zelenski and Mitsotakis during the Greek Prime Minister’s visit to Odessa; None of the leaders have been injured, but Moscow’s drone attack kills five people in the port city of southern Ukraine,” El País, March 6, 2024 (17:38 CET);

4) Sylvie Kauffmann, “Le débat sur l’envoi de soldats en Ukraine révèle les profondes différences de vision de la guerre parmi les alliés; L’enlisement du conflit ukrainien et l’appel du président Macron à un « sursaut stratégique » face à la Russie amène les Occidentaux, unis sur l’objectif de faire échouer Moscou, à affronter leurs divergences de culture sur le rôle que chacun doit jouer, analyse Sylvie Kauffmann, éditorialiste au « Monde’,” Le Monde, le 6 mars 2024;

5) Roger Cohen, “Opposition Blasts Macron for Risking Escalation in Ukraine; The French president attempted to forge a united front on a harder line against Russia. But few were persuaded,” New York Times, March 7, 2024 (updated 1:41 pm EST);

It is time for the U.S. and NATO allies to pull out all thevstops, and take thevwar to Putin.

Emmanuel Macron has usefully broken the taboo against considering sending troops to Ukraine from individual NATO countries.

As Michel Tenser argues in his impressive book, Notre Guerre (2024), the West is faces a frontal challenge from Russia, which under Putin is relentlessly embarked on a mission to destroy international law, the U.N. Carter- based international legal order, and ultimately our civilization as it currently exists.

Connecting many dots, Tenser make an overwhelming case that the war against Russian aggression in the Ukraine is “Our War”, not mere the war of Ukraine.

Pulling together the various threads in the argument, he persuasively concludes that Vladimir Putin and Russia today represent pure “Evil”, just as Adolf Hitler and Nazi Germany did some 85 years ago when the launched World War II by invading Poland on September 1, 1939.

Tenser is right. It is only because the psychological mechanism of mental occlusion has kept us from seeing a reality right in front of us that is so horrible we cannot even look at it that Western leaders have failed to acknowledge that reality through deeds, not merely words. They mouth catastrophic warnings, and then go back to doing nothing to effectively meet the challenge.

It is time for NATO and the West to get serious about winning thecwar with Russia.

Before it may become becessary to send grond troops to Ukraine, there is much the West can do if it gets serious about winning “our war” against Russian aggression and its assault on our civilization.

What can be done?

First, the U.S. and nato countries can lift all restrictions on the use by Ukraine of weapons it has supplied to hit targets in Russia, and to knock out the Kerch Strait Bridge.

Second, it can transfer to Ukraine large numbers if F-16 fighter aircraft, with numbers rising as quickly as pilots can be trained. These training programs should be expanded and accelerated to the maximum degree possible.

Third, the U.S. should flood Ukraine with long-range ATACMS artillery rockets and the unmodified HIMARS artillery units needed to launch them.

Fourth, NATO and other countries should send to Ukraine as many air defense systems and missiles as they can.

Fifth, Western countries should immediately send all the artillery shells the can to Ukraine. It is illusory to maintain that they need to maintain stocks for their self-defense in Russia invades them. The war is already underway. The best use for these weapons for their own self-defense is in Ukraine.

For maximum effect, these measures should be announced and undertaken simultaneously.

Vladimir Putin will huff and puff, and threaten nuclear attacks against countries participating in such measures.

It is best to call his bluff all at once, rather tan affording him muktile opportunities to threaten nuclear war.

Western governments should remind him that NATO countries have nuclearvweapons, too. More importantly, they should remind tge Russian population of tge likely effects on their cities of a nuclear strike. Ifbthis information does not alreadubexist in declassified form, it should be prepared as quickly as possible.

Sooner or later, the U.S. and NATO will need to call Putin’s nuclear bluff, risking a confrontation. The sooner that happens, the better.

In the meantime Biden and other government leaders should ban references “World War Three”, which has been Putin’s very effective psychological warfare tool. It has been particularly effective against Biden and Scholz.

Rather, what we need is more open discussion of how to manage a nuclear confrontation with Russia. Now is a good time for that discussion. It won’t be any easier after Putin seizes the Suwalki corridor (connecting Russia to its exclave Kaliningrad, and the Baltics to Poland), or invades Estonia, Latvia or Lithuania.