Utopia, you are standing in it!

(Lincoln’s Second Inauguration Address)

Recently I read Ted Widmer’s new book LINCOLN ON THE VERGE: THIRTEEN DAYS TO WASHINGTON.  In Widmer’s narrative he explores a number of Abraham Lincoln’s most important speeches given during his odyssey across America to his first inauguration in 1861.  When I came across Edward Achorn’s equally new book EVERY DROP OF BLOOD: THE MOMENTOUS SECOND INAUGURATION OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN I expected the author to focus more on Lincoln’s iconic speech in March 1865.  Much to my disappointment the book focuses on events, personalities, and the politics surrounding Lincoln’s effort in addition to a narrative that focuses in minute detail on the prevailing attitudes that existed in Washington for the twenty four hour period leading to the speech and the state of the city during that time as opposed to Lincoln’s development of the speech.  I was also somewhat disappointed in that much of what…

(Alexander Hamilton)

The popularity of the Broadway musical “Hamilton,” has rekindled interest in Ron Chernow’s 2004 biography of our nation’s first Secretary of the Treasury.  I read the original when it was published and I found it to be an amazingly comprehensive study which included incisive analysis and a fairly objective approach to its subject.  Since I will be teaching a course entitled, “Hamilton: The Musical, Historically Accurate or Not” I decided to revisit Chernow’s work.   My opinion has not changed and I still find it to be the best study of Hamilton’s private and public life that includes the major events and issues that he experienced, discussions of his economic proposals and plans, evaluations of those who opposed him, and placing Hamilton in the proper historical context as the Founding Father most responsible for America’s economic development.  Since the publication of ALEXANDER HAMILTON, Chernow has written an excellent…

I used to think that “black propaganda” was something like “propaganda pushing a black legend” or “libelous propaganda”. But like so often, there is a difference between (often vaguely defined) usage of a phrase in ordinary conversation, and its precise definition as a “term of art”.

Thispaperon propaganda during WW II washighlyinformative. Briefly, in the “business”, “white propaganda” is defined as propaganda “under true flag”: it reveals its origin and does not purport to come from a neutral or opposing side. Examples on the Axis side are the Tokyo Rose and Axis Sally radio broadcasts, as well as the “Germany Calling” broadcasts of the pseudonymous Lord Haw-Haw.

In contrast, “Black Propaganda” is defined as propaganda under false flag: originating from the opponent’s side but disguising itself as friendly, for the purpose of sowing misinformation, confusion, demoralization, or all of the above. The term “Grey Propaganda” is used for cases…

So now we have the climatists calling for attributing many more deaths to warmer temperatures in order to blame CO2 emissions. No doubt they noticed how powerful were the Covid19 death statistics in getting the public to comply with lockdown regulations. Their logic is clear: When people die with multiple diseases, pick the one that’s politically useful. (“Never let a crisis go to waste.”) Never mind that 90+% of Covid deaths were people with cancers, chronic lung disease, obesity, diabetes, and so on.

Ideological Perversion of Science

This push for climate death certificates demonstrates a recurring pattern: reducing life’s multitude of factors and values down to a single dimension as the be all and end all. Environmentalism puts nature first, ignoring that humans are a part of nature, and have a managerial role to play. Many naturalists have reduced further into climatists, who extrapolated the 1978 to 1998 warming into…