Vladimir Putin has shown great patience and restraint in not reacting to the U.S. government’s criminal attack on his country. He is hoping that a change in government in the U.S. will avoid catastrophe. For this the world and America should be grateful. Unlike any American leader, Putin is a genuine statesman.


If Trump manages to settle the Ukrainian debacle, that will justify his election. Will he be able to clean up the diseased police agencies of the government? Will he be able to reduce the federal bureaucracy that contains, largely unknown to the citizens, many thousands of parasites with six and seven figure salaries, who are either useless or destructive? Will he be able to get rid of the Woke generals and admirals, bureaucrats and not soldiers, who have degraded the U.S. military and replace them with good men?


Perhaps most important, will he be able to eliminate inflation and restore a real working economy to the American people in place of the paper regime that now dominates? The Deplorables are waiting for help.


Although Trump has made vague comments of support for Southern symbols, his is not a Southern administration. I can’t think of any Southerner in an important position with him. They are all Yankees of the common-sense Unwoke kind, not bad people but not like us. It remains to be seen if Making America Great Again will be of any benefit to the South.


Besides Yankees, the American political scene now includes a considerable segment of Indians, something that would have been unthinkable a few years ago. Somalia Harris is half-Indian, JD Vance’s wife is Indian, and an Indian is the nominee to head the FBI. The U.S. has received a fraction of the top 1% of the huge Indian population. Should we worry about the patriotism of those who left their own needy country for a bigger paycheck here?


Trump faces major obstacles to accomplishing any of his announced goals. The primary obstacle is the Republican party. With small majorities in Congress, a few Republicans can join the Democrats to kill any good legislation. In fact, this has been regularly happening for years, especially in regard to immigration.


The Republican party is now Trump’s at the grassroots, but the Washington element remains what it has always been. The ordinary Republican congressman is an empty suit without any ideas or principles. He only wants to hold on to his power and pelf by clinging onto the establishment, and he is deathly afraid of the press, which can damage his cherished respectability and moderation.


One would like to see criminal prosecution for some of the worst high-placed criminals in the Biden regime, but mainstream Republicans are always afraid to do what the Democrats regularly do to them.


One would also like to see a lot of pardons for wrongly persecuted and imprisoned populists like the Charlottesville and Jan. 6 “insurgents.” However, a lot of the persecution has been done at the state and local levels, where the foreign billionaire criminal Soros has considerable control of the personnel and Presidential pardons do not apply.


And the federal judiciary remains a majority Obama-Biden cohort. Any federal judge can almost instantaneously block any constructive action that Trump undertakes. He will have to have the courage of Andrew Jackson to ignore the orders of bad judges and that will be a serious Constitutional issue.


​For my money, I am holding out on my humble support of Trump until I see the Reconciliation Monument back in its rightful place.

Sometimes something good happens when you aren’t expecting it. I have discovered, quite by accident, a 1959-1961 television show, “The Rebel,” which I have been streaming with pleasure for several weeks. The show is a wonderful contrast to the ignorant, vile, and dishonest portrayals of Confederates that have appeared in the “entertainment” media in recent decades.


“The Rebel” reminds us that hate-Dixie was not always the prevailing case in American popular culture. In better times all the major Hollywood stars played admirable Confederates in the movies: John Wayne, Ronald Reagan, Gary Cooper, Martin Sheen, Allan Ladd, Charlton Heston, William Holden, Victor Mature, Henry Fonda, Tyrone Power, Clint Eastwood, and many more I could mention. And I am not even counting the Southern-born like Randolph Scott, Joseph Cotten, or Audie Murphy.


“The Rebel” ran for 2 seasons with 76 half-hour episodes. The main character is an ex-Confederate roaming the wide West. He is still in Confederate clothes, which are probably among the few clothes that he has, and thus is recognizable by friend or foe wherever he goes. He is satisfied that the war is over but has no apologies for his proud service in the Confederate army.


He is a good man. He always helps out people in trouble and only kills Yankees and Indians when it is unavoidable. He keeps a diary of the stories he experiences in his wide travels. Perhaps he will be a writer someday.


The plots are mostly quite good. The historical settings of the rough West and its people are mostly authentic, which cannot be said about most War Between the States or “Westerns” shows even from earlier days. Jefferson and Varina Davis even appear in an episode. Johnny Cash does the theme song: “The Rebel, Johnny Yuma.”


“The Rebel” is Nick Adams, the screen name of a Ukrainian-American from the Pennsylvania coal fields. He does not have the accent but many of the characters do. He plays very well and convincingly, a good man—modest and independent but just and charitable, as well a good fighter with fist, Colt, and sawed off scatter-gun. The fine actor, born Nicolas Adamshock, died at 36 under unclear circumstances.

The election of Somalia Harris as President will enable us to move forward in erasing America’s racist and slave-holding past. A lot has been done recently in eliminating signs and symbols of the evil white-supremist regime, but much more is needed.


The Washington monument is named after a slaveholder. And it is white—a symbol of white supremacy. The monument needs to be painted in rainbow colors to represent the new tolerant America. After all, all our embassies abroad already fly the rainbow flag.


Of course, the capital is named for a white supremacist slaveholder. It is time to move on. The capital should be renamed. Tubman City? John Brown City? Obama would be a good name to signify America’s diverse origins and outreach to the nonwhite world.


What might we do about the monument to the slaveholding white supremacist Jefferson? Perhaps it ought to simply be demolished and certainly closed to view until it is put in a context that will explain his evil legacy.


Most Americans don’t know that the author of “The Star-Spangled Banner” was a slaveholder. It has never been a satisfactory national anthem. A new one is needed. I suggest the great Civil Rights song “We Shall Overcome.”


​Great progress has been made in recent years in destroying memorials to racists and traitors, as well as changing the names of forts and ships. As you can see by these remarks there is much more to be done. We will soon have the opportunity to move forward in erasing the evil American past. We can expect the new President to get serious about reparations for slavery.

Why do the heathen rage, and the people imagine a vain thing? Psalms 2:1


Trump is making major gains in support from Hispanic voters. Recent polls indicate that recent immigrants are in favour of limits on new immigration. Something similar is happening in Australia where recent immigrants are among the strongest supporters of immigration limits. What do they know that our rulers don’t?


If you think the Dark State is going to allow a free and fair Presidential election, I have some nice land in Florida I would like to interest you in. Our only hope is in their general delusionary view of the world and their incompetence. What sensible person would put Kamala near the nuclear phone?


Many Americans seem to believe that we are a great democratic, peace loving, benevolent country. It takes an above average attention and perception to understand that “America” is a decaying empire.


Tocqueville in the 1800s and Solzhenitsyn in the 1900s pointed out that Americans (meaning the Yankee breed) were conformists and strong believers in their own virtue and superiority. We are now living through the inevitable collapse of the Yankee Empire established at Appomattox.


Unusual experience. On the TV ads the other evening I actually saw an all-white family.


For several decades, testosterone levels, IQ, and Christian faith have been declining in the U.S. Not a good sign for a country that thinks it’s Number 1.


The illegal alien “refugees” that U.S. and European governments are allowing into our countries, are mostly military age males.

​
America’s rulers care far more about the welfare of illegal aliens than they do about yours. After all, you are only one of the “deplorables” while they are noble examples of democracy at work. Southerners shouldn’t mind---we are very used to being “deplorables.”

Black ghettos are a Northern not a Southern invention.


Put in the plainest terms, the War of 1861-1865 was an invasion and conquest of the South by fellow Americans in control of the U.S. government—Republicans with no more than 40% support of the American people. It could not and did not save the Union. It turned the Union of the forefathers into something else. It was not a war to free the slaves. That was only an opportunistic move that never took into consideration whatsoever the welfare of African Americans.


Between 1860 and 1890, African Americans suffered a ten-year decline in the span of life and suffered many other declines in their welfare. Put that in your pipe and smoke it.


Satan is real. He is quite active these days in Washington, D.C.


A large proportion of the members of the U.S. Congress are intellectual and morally shallow people whose actions are entirely self-referential and self-serving. Their only interest in the people they are supposed to represent is maintaining their own popularity by federal payoffs of one kind another.


If you look carefully at all the atrocities that have been done to symbols of Confederate heritage, you will find that Southern Republicans have played a major role in the atrocities every time.

Trump is making major gains in support from Hispanic voters. Recent polls indicate that recent immigrants are in favour of limits on new immigration. Something similar is happening in Australia where recent immigrants are among the strongest supporters of immigration limits. What do they know that our rulers don’t?

If you think the Dark State is going to allow a free and fair Presidential election, I have some nice land in Florida I would like to interest you in. Our only hope is in their general delusionary view of the world and their incompetence. What sensible person would put Kamala near the nuclear phone?

Many Americans seem to believe that we are a great democratic, peace loving, benevolent country. It takes an above average attention and perception to understand that “America” is a decaying empire.

Tocqueville in the 1800s and Solzhenitsyn in the 1900s pointed out that Americans (meaning the Yankee breed) were conformists and strong believers in their own virtue and superiority. We are now living through the inevitable collapse of the Yankee Empire established at Appomattox.

Unusual experience. On the TV ads the other evening I actually saw an all-white family.

For several decades, testosterone levels, IQ, and Christian faith have been declining in the U.S. Not a good sign for a country that thinks it’s Number 1.

The illegal alien “refugees” that U.S. and European governments are allowing into our countries, are mostly military age males.

America’s rulers care far more about the welfare of illegal aliens than they do about yours. After all, you are only one of the “deplorables” while they are noble examples of democracy at work. Southerners shouldn’t mind---we are very used to being “deplorables.”

The everyday world into which I was born and have lived most of my life is disappearing. This codger finds it frustrating and disagreeable. So much for a peaceful old age.

I recently made the mistake of making a phone call about a computer issue. I spent the next day and a half attached to the phone, straining to understand Hindu gibberish from five different people, some of who thought I was their servant. With long waits in between. I finally canceled the whole thing, never having received any answer to my problem.

I recently learned that my local heating and air conditioning firm, with whom I had a long and happy association, is now owned by a Texas corporation, as are now most of the other such firms in my South Carolina town. I started receiving bills for advance payments for services months in the future with threats for non-payment. Contacting Texas by phone I realized that I was dealing with crooks who tried piling on thousands of dollars in bills for services never received.

Believe it or not, my local trash collection is now owned by a Canadian company that I find it impossible to deal with usefully either by phone or online. I am sure many people are having the same experience of pushing through an endless line of recorded choices, picking the one that sounds most likely, and getting to the end to find there is no way to get an answer to your question.

I have decided that I will no longer talk to or take orders from a machine. Should a free American take orders from a machine?

The knockout blow was delivered when my mortgage was sold to another holder. The material I received from the new company included six different addresses in four different States. I sent in my first payment to the most likely address. A few days later I received a call from another one of the offices, rudely threatening with drastic action for a missed payment—a payment which I had already sent. With land letters, email messages, and online efforts I finally got the matter fixed—I think.

I have wearied you already too much, Dear Reader, so I won’t even get into the car insurance fiasco.

All these companies want you to set up an account with them where they have access to your bank account for payments. Not for me.

I recently had to see about turning on the water in a little neighbouring town. I found that one cannot sign up with a phone call in this town. You must sign up either in person or online. The online application is lengthy and overly intrusive and not very clear as to how to proceed.

​I am thinking of selling up, giving everything to the children, and joining a monastery for what remains of my time.

Growing old ain’t much fun but there are certain benefits. 

I don’t have to shave every day. 

I don’t have to sit through faculty meetings, an exquisite torture. 

I no longer bother to shine my shoes. 

I don’t feel required to sit through boring “scholarly lectures.” 

​I seldom need to put on a tie. 

I don’t feel obligated to change my own oil and take care of my own yard.  I don’t worry about weeds in the yard or raking leaves. 

I can answer the many enquiries and requests for help only from those scholars and students I know deserve it. 

When I read internet articles I no longer feel obligated to read  the Comments which with rare exceptions are ignorant and abusive statements made by clueless, obsessed people who never actually do anything but complain. 

​I can enjoy the blessing of adult children and fantastic grandsons. ​

It does not do to be too sympathetic to Muslims. They fight among themselves, seldom help their co-religionists, and (like Americans) are often betrayed by their own leaders. They harbour strong elements of murderous jihad and abominable sharia.

Yet there are many millions of them, they occupy a large swath of the earth’s surface, and their tainted religion does encourage decent behaviour and peace among a lot of otherwise primitive people.

In normal times, they would be U.S. friendly (as they used to be) and happily sell us their oil, without bothering us much. But for more than a half century they have been the victims of serious injury by the U.S. establishment. In Palestine they have been invaded and occupied by foreigners, had their land ruthlessly stolen, been herded into camps, and become second-class inhabitants in a land that has been theirs for centuries. And the invader has harmed the ancient community of Palestinian Christians as badly as the Muslims.

“Terrorism,” though ugly war against the innocent, is a natural response of the weak facing overwhelming power. An overwhelming Israeli power massively subsidized by the U.S. state which for decades has provided Israel with more support than all other countries put together, including the best weapons.

In that circumstance, Hamas takes on the character of the resistance of an occupied people. Now, in response to a military attack, the Palestinians are being driven from their homes and subjected to a massacre of women and children. Is this war, or simply war used as an excuse for something long desired by the ruling power?

Can any decent American doubt that this an evil thing for which we ought to expect the wages of sin? Can any decent American fail to condemn the suffering on the innocent? A few lonely American voices who have questioned our position have been quickly silenced. Our establishment is callously, and sometimes in a celebratory mode, cheering on this evil. What ever happened to what so many thought of as our benevolent national character and sympathy for the underdog?

The Republicans are the worst of all. They complain about Palestinians protesting on our own soil, although they have abetted mass immigration for decades. The newly-elected Republican leader in the House of Representatives says that he is supporting Israel because he is a Christian. Intelligent people who want to can cause a lot of evil. But we should remember that stupid people are capable of terrible evil also without even knowing what they are doing.

Mr. Lovett has provided us with useful commentary on this site on the situation, including suggestions for reading. I can add that there in fact quite a few movies sympathetic to the occupied Palestinians, usually made by Europeans.

I’ll suggest two that have moved me. They came out around 2008 before the current troubles. Neither is the least shrill or militant. They are quiet and gentle in portraying the life of occupied Palestinians.

Laila’s Birthday might be called “A Day in the Life of a Palestinian.” A taxi driver, struggling for a living in an occupation well below his educational level, is trying to find a gift and a cake for his daughter’s birthday. In addition to the normal problems of daily life, he faces the normal abnormal realities of explosions, checkpoints, and routine humiliation. His experience is almost a classic odyssey.

The Lemon Tree, based on a real event, is a poignant account of the tribulations of a Palestinian woman. Her lemon tree, her only inheritance and living, is targeted for destruction by the Israeli army, who declare it a threat to “state security” because it blocks a short section of their view. The victimised lead character is a Palestinian lady. She has a maturely beautiful and subtly expressive face such as we associate with great actresses. No civilised human can fail to be moved.

With the recent court decision in New York, the U.S. has entered a new era on its downward path to destruction.

Trump’s sentencing on absurd technical “crimes” that harmed nobody is scheduled just before the meeting of the Republican presidential nominating convention. Nobody with “two grains of sense to rub together” (as Grandmother used to say) thinks that is unplanned.

The Republican elite may very well use Trump’s “felonies” as an excuse to repudiate their most popular candidate and their voters and give the country a “respectable” ticket - one of them. We are hearing of Nikki Haley as a Vice-President - a ridiculous opportunist who has never done one constructive thing but who is a darling of the Republican wing of the Dark State.

Assuming Trump is allowed to run, it is possible that with multiple candidates the decision will be thrown into the House of Representatives. This will give the Republican elite another opportunity to collaborate with the Left and block Trump. That is what they always do. It m atters not to them that they trash their most popular candidate. He is not one of their posed “respectable,” moderates.

Meanwhile, the Republican leaders in the Senate and House declare giving money to the corrupt Ukrainian government is America’s greatest challenge at the moment. It is hard to tell whether they are that stupid, blinded inside the D.C. bubble, or whether they are merely lying to keep their “respectability.”

People are always complaining that the Dark State gets away with everything it wants. Why? The answer is simple. There is no opposition. The Republicans are not a political party but merely an electoral machine for those who benefit from it. They are certainlynot an Opposition party. Any one of a hundred top Democrats could be prosecuted for crimes greater than Trump’s. But the Republican leadership has no interest in doing right. Their concern is to keep their moderate and respectable stance. Perhaps they are now badly miscalculating the situation.

The most positive thing that can come out of the pending debacle will be the collapse and destruction of the Republican party in its present form - perhaps allowing the emergence of a genuine Opposition party.

I have never been enthusiastic about Trump, but have given him the benefit of the doubt as the only game in town. His moral transgressions are more publicised but probably behind him and less than most politicians and rich men. A wise man once told me that you can evaluate a politician by looking at his children. Trump scores high on that measure, compared with Biden or any other national figure I can think of.

He is a genuine American type, not one I admire, but at least he is the real thing, and unlike any other national figure, capable of good, old-fashioned straight talk. Every attempt to stop him results in an increase in his support and donations. I have to admit that my level of enthusiasm has been declining lately.

​I am disappointed in some of his possible appointees that are mentioned, but that may just be empty speculation. I am even more disappointed in his callous support of Israeli genocide. I would like to think that he has learned something since his last term and stolen re-election and will actually be able to make some progress in draining the Swamp. But that is just a hope, not a certainty.