There's quite a few well-meaning liberals in Toronto soiling their undergarments at the prospect of the vile Steve Bannon beshitting their fair town. Today the Sunday Star had an opinion piece by Amira Elghawaby and the indefatigable Bernie Farber, who are aghast that Bannon is coming to The Munk Debates to take on David "Axis of Evil" Frum.
That's bound to be as fake a "debate" as any in history, but both these guys are seasoned media veterans who know how to put on a show. Frum long ago abandoned the Canadian liberalism that he imbibed with his mother's milk, to embrace the siren of American Exceptionalism. He's a hard-right, free-market, America first, (right after Israel) kind of Republican.
Bannon is a Navy veteran who joined Goldman Sachs after an honourable discharge. He worked his way up the corporate ladder, and walked away as a Vice President of Goldman Sachs.
He was rich. He was bored.
Rich and bored... a toxic combo if ever there was one. Some guys handle it OK. They spend their time boinking bimbos, snorting pharmaceutical-grade coke, buying sports teams, and commissioning super-yachts. It keeps them busy and the general public is relatively unscathed.
Other guys, unfortunately, think they need a different kind of hobby. Politics.
These are the guys who crave the spotlight, and Big Media certainly has provided Bannon with plenty attention. Here's a backgrounder on Bannon in Forbes. The guy owns a slice of the residuals from the Seinfeld show, for fuck's sakes!
All this press he gets is just free advertising for his political consultancy. He's another Podesta or Manafort. He's a hustler flogging a product. Isn't that what made America great?
Steve Bannon is every bit as much a devotee of American Exceptionalism as is David Frum.
They just have different marketing strategies.
Showing posts with label David Frum. Show all posts
Showing posts with label David Frum. Show all posts
Sunday, September 9, 2018
Saturday, July 14, 2018
Axis of Evil redux
Whatever else David Frum accomplishes in his charmed life, he will be forever remembered for coining the phrase "axis of evil."
The son of a Toronto dentist who gave up pulling teeth for a far more lucrative career developing strip malls, Frum has become a leading Republican NeverTrumper. Can't say I blame him. After all, there's a new Axis of Evil loose in the world today, and Donald Trump is its quarterback. His go-to receivers are MBS and Bibi.
This is a far more toxic axis of evil than the Iran-Iraq-North Korea combine Frum was talking about. Two out of three have nuclear weapons and the other one has more money than God, a fact both Trump and Netanyahu fully appreciate.
It's hard to believe that any serious person imagines any good could possibly come from such an alliance, yet I don't see a lot of calling-out in our mainstream media. No, MBS is cast as a "reformer,"and when IDF snipers pick off unarmed Palestinians at the Gaza containment fence, we are solemnly reminded that Israel is the only democracy in the Middle East. As such, we must never impair her ability to "defend" herself by shooting dead unarmed protesters.
Any criticism of Israel is of course antisemitism, and no right-thinking journo who values their career is gonna go there.
And for all the splashy protests the NeverTrump resistance has pulled off, there's been not the slightest sign of a course correction from the White House, nor has the anti-Trump crowd offered any genuine critique of the over-arching arc of US foreign policy, which by far pre-dates Trump.
Instead, we see all manner of hand-wringing over the fact that America, under Trump, can no longer be relied on to lead and protect Europe!
Well, it's about time!
Europeans are a remarkably stupid people. Except for a few voices on the fringes of polite society, they haven't figured out that their "refugee crisis" is the direct result of US foreign policy. Instead, they natter about Trump being twelve minutes late for his date with the Queen.
Seriously?
Get the f@ck outta here!
A few years ago I set up a petition on one of those petition websites to get Canada out of NATO. Unfortunately, I was somewhat into my cups at the time, and I could never recall the password I used, so I was unable to check on its progress.
But I think we're at another crossroads where the time may be ripe for a lot of NATO members to ask themselves who they're following and where they're headed.
By the way, all the big US military contractors (Boeing, Lockheed Martin, General Dynamics, Raytheon, etc) enjoyed a nice spike in their share prices last week after Mafia Don suggested NATO members aim for spending 4% of GDP on defence instead of 2%. If you want to know who Trump is really representing, look no further.
The son of a Toronto dentist who gave up pulling teeth for a far more lucrative career developing strip malls, Frum has become a leading Republican NeverTrumper. Can't say I blame him. After all, there's a new Axis of Evil loose in the world today, and Donald Trump is its quarterback. His go-to receivers are MBS and Bibi.
This is a far more toxic axis of evil than the Iran-Iraq-North Korea combine Frum was talking about. Two out of three have nuclear weapons and the other one has more money than God, a fact both Trump and Netanyahu fully appreciate.
It's hard to believe that any serious person imagines any good could possibly come from such an alliance, yet I don't see a lot of calling-out in our mainstream media. No, MBS is cast as a "reformer,"and when IDF snipers pick off unarmed Palestinians at the Gaza containment fence, we are solemnly reminded that Israel is the only democracy in the Middle East. As such, we must never impair her ability to "defend" herself by shooting dead unarmed protesters.
Any criticism of Israel is of course antisemitism, and no right-thinking journo who values their career is gonna go there.
And for all the splashy protests the NeverTrump resistance has pulled off, there's been not the slightest sign of a course correction from the White House, nor has the anti-Trump crowd offered any genuine critique of the over-arching arc of US foreign policy, which by far pre-dates Trump.
Instead, we see all manner of hand-wringing over the fact that America, under Trump, can no longer be relied on to lead and protect Europe!
Well, it's about time!
Europeans are a remarkably stupid people. Except for a few voices on the fringes of polite society, they haven't figured out that their "refugee crisis" is the direct result of US foreign policy. Instead, they natter about Trump being twelve minutes late for his date with the Queen.
Seriously?
Get the f@ck outta here!
A few years ago I set up a petition on one of those petition websites to get Canada out of NATO. Unfortunately, I was somewhat into my cups at the time, and I could never recall the password I used, so I was unable to check on its progress.
But I think we're at another crossroads where the time may be ripe for a lot of NATO members to ask themselves who they're following and where they're headed.
By the way, all the big US military contractors (Boeing, Lockheed Martin, General Dynamics, Raytheon, etc) enjoyed a nice spike in their share prices last week after Mafia Don suggested NATO members aim for spending 4% of GDP on defence instead of 2%. If you want to know who Trump is really representing, look no further.
Saturday, January 13, 2018
The view from the top of the hill
Interesting contrast in the two stories on the front page of the Globe's Opinion section today. Neocon David Frum gets the top half of the page and uses it to give us a nostalgia bath in America's golden age - the "before Trump" era; ie before Trump started "sabotaging the institutions and agencies that protect the United States and sustain the peace of the world."
Yup, that's what America's been up to; sustaining the peace of the world.
In North Korea from 1950 on.
In Vietnam.
In Laos.
In Cambodia.
In Grenada and Panama and Iraq and Afghanistan and so many other places...
Sustaining the peace in the world?
I marvel at how far one must have one's head up one's arse to make such a statement.
Yanis Varoufakis gets the bottom half of the page for what is essentially a eulogy for the same neoliberal order that brought us all that peace that Frum laments the passing of.
Perhaps they're both right.
Strapped on the snowshoes and made my way to the top of the hill this afternoon, just me and the hounds. Bought a pair of those newfangled metal and plastic jobs at Crappy Tire recently because they were on sale. I was an old-school wood and leather guy till last winter, when I blew a binding on a hike around Bass Lake. Took fifteen minutes to get in and an hour and a half to get out.
From the top of our hill I can see the Meaford Tank Range, aka the "4th Division Training Centre Meaford," a good twenty or thirty miles distant. As much as we revel in being out of harm's way, I can't help but wonder if that might become a target in a worst case scenario.
Another reason to say bye-bye to the NATO gang and forge a future as a neutral nation as far as I'm concerned.
Elsewhere in the Globe you'll find a huge thumbs-up from David Shribman for Frum's latest book. Shribman shows up a lot in the pages of the Globe & Mail these days. I know it's hard times in the newspaper biz, and maybe they don't actually pay a real salary in Pittsburgh any more and he pays his bills with this free-lance stuff we see in the Globe.
According to Shribman, Frum's book is "a masterful diatribe against Trump's presidency." Shribman is another guy who believes America's golden age ended last January. Nothing like fobbing off a book review to someone who is on the same page of the hymnal as the guy whose book you're reviewing.
I enjoyed how he pegs Frum as "Canadian royalty." Interesting to see ourselves through the eyes of an outsider. What is Canadian royalty? Why, you're Canadian royalty when mom was a marquis name at the CBC and your sister is in the senate. Shribman forgot to mention that Papa Frum's mega millions helped that other stuff happen.
But maybe I'm being too cynical. I always had the highest regard for Barbara Frum's journalism, and while Murray Frum may not have invented the strip mall, anybody who can build a fortune out of such a pedestrian concept has my undying respect.
Finally, I have to admit to being alarmed by something Jeremy Freed wrote in what used to be called the "Style" section of the paper before all those high-priced consultants prevailed in the G & M makeover battles. Apparently ugly fashion is in! Yup, serious people who know the latest trends are looking at folks who dress like me and asking "are they really cool or is that just an ugly outfit?"
So if you see an old geezer in baffed out SAS shuffleboard shoes and baggy jeans loitering about the U of T campus, it's just me visiting. Say hello if you want, but trust me; I'm NOT cool.
Once I got them on and properly adjusted, the new snowshoes worked out OK. The problem is it took a good twenty minutes for the "adjustment" part of the process. That's because the plastic bindings are wonderfully pliable in the store at room temperature, but virtually impossible to manipulate in the cold.
I would consider that a major shortcoming in snowshoes.
Yup, that's what America's been up to; sustaining the peace of the world.
In North Korea from 1950 on.
In Vietnam.
In Laos.
In Cambodia.
In Grenada and Panama and Iraq and Afghanistan and so many other places...
Sustaining the peace in the world?
I marvel at how far one must have one's head up one's arse to make such a statement.
Yanis Varoufakis gets the bottom half of the page for what is essentially a eulogy for the same neoliberal order that brought us all that peace that Frum laments the passing of.
Perhaps they're both right.
Strapped on the snowshoes and made my way to the top of the hill this afternoon, just me and the hounds. Bought a pair of those newfangled metal and plastic jobs at Crappy Tire recently because they were on sale. I was an old-school wood and leather guy till last winter, when I blew a binding on a hike around Bass Lake. Took fifteen minutes to get in and an hour and a half to get out.
From the top of our hill I can see the Meaford Tank Range, aka the "4th Division Training Centre Meaford," a good twenty or thirty miles distant. As much as we revel in being out of harm's way, I can't help but wonder if that might become a target in a worst case scenario.
Another reason to say bye-bye to the NATO gang and forge a future as a neutral nation as far as I'm concerned.
Elsewhere in the Globe you'll find a huge thumbs-up from David Shribman for Frum's latest book. Shribman shows up a lot in the pages of the Globe & Mail these days. I know it's hard times in the newspaper biz, and maybe they don't actually pay a real salary in Pittsburgh any more and he pays his bills with this free-lance stuff we see in the Globe.
According to Shribman, Frum's book is "a masterful diatribe against Trump's presidency." Shribman is another guy who believes America's golden age ended last January. Nothing like fobbing off a book review to someone who is on the same page of the hymnal as the guy whose book you're reviewing.
I enjoyed how he pegs Frum as "Canadian royalty." Interesting to see ourselves through the eyes of an outsider. What is Canadian royalty? Why, you're Canadian royalty when mom was a marquis name at the CBC and your sister is in the senate. Shribman forgot to mention that Papa Frum's mega millions helped that other stuff happen.
But maybe I'm being too cynical. I always had the highest regard for Barbara Frum's journalism, and while Murray Frum may not have invented the strip mall, anybody who can build a fortune out of such a pedestrian concept has my undying respect.
Finally, I have to admit to being alarmed by something Jeremy Freed wrote in what used to be called the "Style" section of the paper before all those high-priced consultants prevailed in the G & M makeover battles. Apparently ugly fashion is in! Yup, serious people who know the latest trends are looking at folks who dress like me and asking "are they really cool or is that just an ugly outfit?"
So if you see an old geezer in baffed out SAS shuffleboard shoes and baggy jeans loitering about the U of T campus, it's just me visiting. Say hello if you want, but trust me; I'm NOT cool.
Once I got them on and properly adjusted, the new snowshoes worked out OK. The problem is it took a good twenty minutes for the "adjustment" part of the process. That's because the plastic bindings are wonderfully pliable in the store at room temperature, but virtually impossible to manipulate in the cold.
I would consider that a major shortcoming in snowshoes.
Wednesday, November 1, 2017
Mericans even dumber than we thought
The latest chapter of Hillary's "Putin-made-me-lose" gambit is playing out in DC this week, where corporate nabobs from twittergooglefacebook are 'fessing up on how Putin's henchmen stole the election with $100,000 worth of Facebook ads.
The CBC even had David "Axis-of-evil" Frum on the other day explaining how this sinister "industrial scale" propaganda campaign worked. The ever-cunning Ruskies would put up adverts that subtly sowed seeds of doubt in the minds of gullible Americans. Even though the ads did not appear to be about the election at all, their cumulative effect was to sub-consciously guide the viewers to a place where they found themselves questioning American Exceptionalism.
You know what happens then; once that doubt reaches critical mass, unsuspecting Hillary voters suddenly find themselves getting aroused by Trump campaign slogans.
"Ya, I get it now! We really gotta make America great again! I'm voting Trump, dammit!"
Yup, that's how things went down. The most expensive election campaign in the history of democracy was blown out of the water by $100,000 in Facebook advertising.
The CBC even had David "Axis-of-evil" Frum on the other day explaining how this sinister "industrial scale" propaganda campaign worked. The ever-cunning Ruskies would put up adverts that subtly sowed seeds of doubt in the minds of gullible Americans. Even though the ads did not appear to be about the election at all, their cumulative effect was to sub-consciously guide the viewers to a place where they found themselves questioning American Exceptionalism.
You know what happens then; once that doubt reaches critical mass, unsuspecting Hillary voters suddenly find themselves getting aroused by Trump campaign slogans.
"Ya, I get it now! We really gotta make America great again! I'm voting Trump, dammit!"
Yup, that's how things went down. The most expensive election campaign in the history of democracy was blown out of the water by $100,000 in Facebook advertising.
Saturday, July 8, 2017
The thing about Trump
What a lot of folks don't seem to get their heads around is the fact that Donny J is just a symptom. He is not the disease.
Those folks tend to believe that if we had a suave operator in the Oval Office everything would be hunky-dory. It's only due to the short-fingered vulgarian that America has become a laughing stock.
Suave like Hillsy.
Suave like Barry O. Barry was even better than Hillary; he allowed a lot of liberal white folks to congratulate themselves about how racially inclusive America has become.
Oh lookee! We have a black president! Everything is beyond cool!!!
Sure it is.
Don't look now, but countries like Croatia and Iran are giving America a good run on prosperity metrics like infant mortality and percentage of population working in poverty.
America continues its inexorable slide into decrepitude in all aspects of society save one; the illustrious military-industrial millstone around her neck.
Don't know if you caught Trump's speech in Poland the other day. Yup, America and her allies will prevail in the clash of civilizations. Pure PNAC boilerplate from end to end. I have no idea why PNAC stalwarts like Robert Kagan have such a hate on for Trump. After all, that Poland speech could have been written by some pro-empire twit like "axis-of-evil" maestro David Frum.
Maybe it's because they know that when Trump spews PNAC boilerplate he's just talking shit. His heart is not in it. He'd just as soon build condo towers in Tehran as nuke the place. That's not the kind of self-dealing opportunist that the PNAC crowd wants to see in the Oval Office.
They want a true believer in manifest destiny and American exceptionalism.
Donald J. Trump is not their man.
Those folks tend to believe that if we had a suave operator in the Oval Office everything would be hunky-dory. It's only due to the short-fingered vulgarian that America has become a laughing stock.
Suave like Hillsy.
Suave like Barry O. Barry was even better than Hillary; he allowed a lot of liberal white folks to congratulate themselves about how racially inclusive America has become.
Oh lookee! We have a black president! Everything is beyond cool!!!
Sure it is.
Don't look now, but countries like Croatia and Iran are giving America a good run on prosperity metrics like infant mortality and percentage of population working in poverty.
America continues its inexorable slide into decrepitude in all aspects of society save one; the illustrious military-industrial millstone around her neck.
Don't know if you caught Trump's speech in Poland the other day. Yup, America and her allies will prevail in the clash of civilizations. Pure PNAC boilerplate from end to end. I have no idea why PNAC stalwarts like Robert Kagan have such a hate on for Trump. After all, that Poland speech could have been written by some pro-empire twit like "axis-of-evil" maestro David Frum.
Maybe it's because they know that when Trump spews PNAC boilerplate he's just talking shit. His heart is not in it. He'd just as soon build condo towers in Tehran as nuke the place. That's not the kind of self-dealing opportunist that the PNAC crowd wants to see in the Oval Office.
They want a true believer in manifest destiny and American exceptionalism.
Donald J. Trump is not their man.
Saturday, February 25, 2012
How to avoid saying sh*t when you're choking on it
I'm spending the afternoon going back and forth between the Nationwide race at Daytona and the news channels. My idea of a perfect day.
I like this Ali Velshi character who hosts a program on CNN called "my money" or "your money" or whatever. Turns out he's from Obama's tribe in Kenya, which took me by surprise because I thought I was googling a fat white guy. That new flat screen really does distort stuff sometimes.
Anyway, while Danica is slipping back in the field Ali's got David Frum on and they're having a chit-chat about the supposedly explosive new book by Charles Murray, Coming Apart.
Murray likes to make waves by writing books wherein he proposes ludicrous explanations for self-evident phenomena. Coming Apart focuses on the relative decline of America's working class since 1960. Oddly enough I've pegged the high-water mark for America's working class to the Teamsters Master Freight Agreement of that era. If Murray read this blog he wouldn't have had to write this book.
Frum apparently has a few bones to pick with Murray about his analysis of the decline of America's working class. He makes the point that there's really nothing new in Murray's book. He's right on that one.
Frum also makes the interesting point that there needs to be an analysis of why the lot of the working class improved so much from 1910 to 1960, and has been in a slow fade ever since.
Not once was the word "union" mentioned in the chat with Frum.
Exit Frum and here comes Ali's next guest, demographer-sociologist-all-round-smarty-pants Richard Florida.
Wouldn't you know it, but Velshi then has the exact conversation with Florida he just had with Frum, except he doesn't seem to realize it.
The conversation turns to how our society could turn tens of millions of shit jobs into good jobs. They dance around the problem for a few minutes. After exploring re-education and life-long learning and all the usual claptrap about the brave new world and the knowledge economy, they hit a dead end of sorts.
While any given individual can be educated for a high-skill well paying job, it just means somebody else is doing the shit job; the minimum wage stuff in nursing homes and restaurants and so on. How do we turn those into "good" jobs?
To my shock, Florida finally uttered the word "union". I was aghast!
The mainstream media is on the cusp of discovering something that's been painfully obvious for at least a hundred years;
UNIONS IMPROVE THE LIVES OF WORKING PEOPLE!
I like this Ali Velshi character who hosts a program on CNN called "my money" or "your money" or whatever. Turns out he's from Obama's tribe in Kenya, which took me by surprise because I thought I was googling a fat white guy. That new flat screen really does distort stuff sometimes.
Anyway, while Danica is slipping back in the field Ali's got David Frum on and they're having a chit-chat about the supposedly explosive new book by Charles Murray, Coming Apart.
Murray likes to make waves by writing books wherein he proposes ludicrous explanations for self-evident phenomena. Coming Apart focuses on the relative decline of America's working class since 1960. Oddly enough I've pegged the high-water mark for America's working class to the Teamsters Master Freight Agreement of that era. If Murray read this blog he wouldn't have had to write this book.
Frum apparently has a few bones to pick with Murray about his analysis of the decline of America's working class. He makes the point that there's really nothing new in Murray's book. He's right on that one.
Frum also makes the interesting point that there needs to be an analysis of why the lot of the working class improved so much from 1910 to 1960, and has been in a slow fade ever since.
Not once was the word "union" mentioned in the chat with Frum.
Exit Frum and here comes Ali's next guest, demographer-sociologist-all-round-smarty-pants Richard Florida.
Wouldn't you know it, but Velshi then has the exact conversation with Florida he just had with Frum, except he doesn't seem to realize it.
The conversation turns to how our society could turn tens of millions of shit jobs into good jobs. They dance around the problem for a few minutes. After exploring re-education and life-long learning and all the usual claptrap about the brave new world and the knowledge economy, they hit a dead end of sorts.
While any given individual can be educated for a high-skill well paying job, it just means somebody else is doing the shit job; the minimum wage stuff in nursing homes and restaurants and so on. How do we turn those into "good" jobs?
To my shock, Florida finally uttered the word "union". I was aghast!
The mainstream media is on the cusp of discovering something that's been painfully obvious for at least a hundred years;
UNIONS IMPROVE THE LIVES OF WORKING PEOPLE!
Monday, February 6, 2012
What's next for Gingrich?
I figure, go back to "not lobbying." After all, not lobbying has made him a wealthy man. Don't know how he does it. I don't lobby either and I'm constantly right next to flat broke.
If he'd done Sugar Daddy Adelson a little prouder maybe he could have found a sinecure in Sheldon's casino empire. As it stands, Adelson has already told the NYT that the next dollar he spends on Republican candidates will go to Romney, so that's not looking like a viable option.
David Frum has a plan for Gingrich. You remember Frum? Canadian kid. Dad was a Toronto dentist who figured out there was more money in strip malls than root canals and rode the late 20th century wave of real estate inflation to a tidy fortune.
David grew up surrounded by the rich and politically well-connected, and eventually parlayed his advantages into a speech-writing gig for W. It was he who coined the phrase Axis of Evil. (Just to toot my own horn here it was me who coined the phrase "other axis of evil" as a reference to the US/NATO hegemon, but as is obvious I owe Frum three quarters of the credit for that.)
Frum was so pleased with this turn of phrase that he couldn't stop taking public credit for it, which led the White House to send him packing. Apparently W's handlers wanted the President and only the President to take credit for that clever bit of wordsmithing. He landed at the American Enterprise Institute as a "resident scholar".
That gig ended in acrimony in 2010, with suspicions that Frum may have the vocabulary of a conservative but the heart of a unreconstituted liberal. But back to Frum's career plans for Gingrich.
Frum says Newt should bow out of the race now, while he doesn't look quite like a complete loser yet, and then work behind the scenes to ensure an Obama victory. Then Newt would have an entire four year run of being able to shout "if only you'd voted for me" from every town hall lecturn in the land.
"I'm the real conservative; Romney was just a richer and whiter Obama!"
So there you have it; cut and run today, run again for 2016.
If he'd done Sugar Daddy Adelson a little prouder maybe he could have found a sinecure in Sheldon's casino empire. As it stands, Adelson has already told the NYT that the next dollar he spends on Republican candidates will go to Romney, so that's not looking like a viable option.
David Frum has a plan for Gingrich. You remember Frum? Canadian kid. Dad was a Toronto dentist who figured out there was more money in strip malls than root canals and rode the late 20th century wave of real estate inflation to a tidy fortune.
David grew up surrounded by the rich and politically well-connected, and eventually parlayed his advantages into a speech-writing gig for W. It was he who coined the phrase Axis of Evil. (Just to toot my own horn here it was me who coined the phrase "other axis of evil" as a reference to the US/NATO hegemon, but as is obvious I owe Frum three quarters of the credit for that.)
Frum was so pleased with this turn of phrase that he couldn't stop taking public credit for it, which led the White House to send him packing. Apparently W's handlers wanted the President and only the President to take credit for that clever bit of wordsmithing. He landed at the American Enterprise Institute as a "resident scholar".
That gig ended in acrimony in 2010, with suspicions that Frum may have the vocabulary of a conservative but the heart of a unreconstituted liberal. But back to Frum's career plans for Gingrich.
Frum says Newt should bow out of the race now, while he doesn't look quite like a complete loser yet, and then work behind the scenes to ensure an Obama victory. Then Newt would have an entire four year run of being able to shout "if only you'd voted for me" from every town hall lecturn in the land.
"I'm the real conservative; Romney was just a richer and whiter Obama!"
So there you have it; cut and run today, run again for 2016.
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