His thinking makes no sense. Let me hold forth at length explaining why his views are removed from reality.
China - there can be no war with China because it would go nuclear and that would be the end. There can also be no war with China because almost everything Americans buy is from China. If you don't believe this, do as I have done and look at all the things around your house from knick-knacks to white goods (washers, dryers, fridge) to electronics, right down to plastic flowers and the wooden spoons you may have in the kitchen. Please, do look, it is phenomenal. Now, with this complete dependency we are going to show China who is boss right over there in their back yard?
China is wisely concentrating on consumer products rather than military hardware, allowing it to gain relationships with other countries based on commerce that pleases everyone, with help on railroads and roads and electrical grids, dams and you name it. Africa, South America, the Chinese get around and why not? They offer things that people appreciate, not weapons to dictators like the US offers. The US can hardly complain of the desire to make a profit worldwide. The US is incapable of competing with China in this way because we either don't make the products desired or we can't compete on price.
China has more than 3 times the population of the US. Just as in high school athletics were it is necessary to have classes based on school population to avoid the big schools with their deep pool of talent destroying the smaller schools in competition, we can assume the same with China vs the US as time goes on. And near where I live, the Big Ten university is flooded with Chinese students who, most of them, will return there. Meanwhile China is not fooling around, but building top notch education.
Israel - Vance has nothing to say about THE hypocrisy of the planet, the unquestioning support of an ethnic cleansing project by a country that proclaims liberty and justice for all. Because of this the US now stands alone with Israel. Vance said of the NATO members: "They are client states of the United States of America who do whatever we want them to do" Dear Mr. Vance, why is it that this is true of Israel and the US, with the US doing anything Israel wants us to do including killing tens of thousands of defenseless people with made in USA ordinance that you claim we don't make enough of? I'll tell you why.
The power of Israel to wag the dog of the US is entirely due to the corruption of our government by wealth added to absurd end-times fantasies that, as an adult, I hope Vance does not share with his professed Christianity. A host of billionaire donors of whom Sheldon Adelson (now replaced by his widow), Bill Ackman, Haim Saban and Arnon Milchan are a very small sample, are beneficiaries of the liberty and justice we have in the US, showing the safety that Jews enjoy along with all other citizens here, yet are determined there must be a place where one group is superior and free to destroy the natives as desired. They are all in on shutting down our freedom of speech if it is practiced by supporters of the Palestinians. AIPAC could not be a more powerful foreign agent for Israel yet is not required to register under the Foreign Agent Registration Act (FARA). And the Dems were all in a tizzy about Russia, while AIPAC boasts of putting people in office! Congress is bought. President Biden has been bought so long he openly declares himself a Zionist...the President is for ethnic cleansing while Americans claim to be ashamed of what we did to the Indians.
Now we have a red herring to top them all - the claim that antisemitism is a problem in the US with no evidence beyond claims that some students on campus are uncomfortable. My rep in Congress is a Jew. My mayor and governor and state rep and state senator are Jews. My dentist is a Jew. I grew up with Jewish kids at school. My next door neighbor is a Jew. Synagogues are common near where I live. I see the ultra-orthodox Jews dressed in their black attire on the sidewalks on Saturdays, the Jewish Sabbath. An entire section of the largest grocery store near me is devoted to kosher food. Amid all this evidence of the success of Jews in the US, I have never witnessed any harassment of or any objections to them. There are never any reports of it and you can be sure right now anything would be widely proclaimed. They are fully integrated into social and political life unless, as with the ultra-orthodox, they do not want to be. The antisemitism claim is bogus, slaughter in Gaza is real. Distraction is obviously needed.
Power goes to the head of everyone who gains it and the people who crave power inevitably climb to the top of politics. They can do this because they accept the duplicity and not infrequently the humiliation they must endure to gain positions that would embarrass an ordinary person who is not blinded by a wish to be among the 1%. It is a non-partisan infection, one that has changed Obama from "Mr. Hope" into a shameless partier on Martha's Vineyard, no remnant of the "community organizer" he once was. He turns out to have been as much a con man as Trump only with a bigger vocabulary and nicer voice.
Americans are now being offered two candidates who are competing to be the champion of Israel. No mention of national health care, the homeless, global warming and the limits that are closing in on our economic system that can only call for growth. Meanwhile, our country not threatened anywhere, with no actual national security issues, is up to almost $1 trillion in the annual "defense" budget necessary for foreign exchange. Other than agricultural products, we have little else to sell.
Ken, I say openly to people that I am ashamed to be an American. The very foundations of the country and certainly the Constitution are forgotten except where profit can be had as with weapons sales to foreign countries and gun sales to Americans. We have gone completely off the rails and the empty talk of Vance shows no desire to get back on. MAGA is a farce. What's happening with Biden is a farce. President Trump brought family members in as advisors. There are no adults in the room.
I like Vance. The thing is, if you look at policy, Trump is big on rhetoric but moderate on a lot of policies. J.D. seems moderate on rhetoric but serious on policy. He's young enough to understand technology and he has actually served in the military, which matters to me when talking about war. If they win, we will have to see, but so far, I like him.
I don't know Ken. I listened to the speech Vance gave to the Quincy Institute. There was plenty to disagree with in that speech, but he was pretty specific about both not wanting to be dominated by China and not wanting to go to war with them. He recognizes they are here to stay as an industrial power. He is also correct when he says that there are only so many US munitions to go around. And he for sure is correct about Mitch McConnell. I don't have any firm feelings on Vance one way or the other, and only really heard his name in connection with the East Palestine disaster.
Interesting parallel between Vance accepting blame for NATO welfare dependency and Trump saying the US is to blame for its economic dependency on China. Trump and Xi will resume their "amicable divorce" if Trump is elected. For NATO, the obvious step to sweeten burden sharing is that the Europeans spend bigger military budgets on Keynesian corporate welfare at home rather than in the US. It's one thing to ask them to pay their fair share, it's another thing to to expect them to subsidise the US military industrial base.
I suppose I hope that after Trump ends the Ukraine war, he will revert to his previous "what use is NATO?" position. Of course he can't do that immediately or he loses negotiating leverage with Putin.
His thinking makes no sense. Let me hold forth at length explaining why his views are removed from reality.
China - there can be no war with China because it would go nuclear and that would be the end. There can also be no war with China because almost everything Americans buy is from China. If you don't believe this, do as I have done and look at all the things around your house from knick-knacks to white goods (washers, dryers, fridge) to electronics, right down to plastic flowers and the wooden spoons you may have in the kitchen. Please, do look, it is phenomenal. Now, with this complete dependency we are going to show China who is boss right over there in their back yard?
China is wisely concentrating on consumer products rather than military hardware, allowing it to gain relationships with other countries based on commerce that pleases everyone, with help on railroads and roads and electrical grids, dams and you name it. Africa, South America, the Chinese get around and why not? They offer things that people appreciate, not weapons to dictators like the US offers. The US can hardly complain of the desire to make a profit worldwide. The US is incapable of competing with China in this way because we either don't make the products desired or we can't compete on price.
China has more than 3 times the population of the US. Just as in high school athletics were it is necessary to have classes based on school population to avoid the big schools with their deep pool of talent destroying the smaller schools in competition, we can assume the same with China vs the US as time goes on. And near where I live, the Big Ten university is flooded with Chinese students who, most of them, will return there. Meanwhile China is not fooling around, but building top notch education.
Israel - Vance has nothing to say about THE hypocrisy of the planet, the unquestioning support of an ethnic cleansing project by a country that proclaims liberty and justice for all. Because of this the US now stands alone with Israel. Vance said of the NATO members: "They are client states of the United States of America who do whatever we want them to do" Dear Mr. Vance, why is it that this is true of Israel and the US, with the US doing anything Israel wants us to do including killing tens of thousands of defenseless people with made in USA ordinance that you claim we don't make enough of? I'll tell you why.
The power of Israel to wag the dog of the US is entirely due to the corruption of our government by wealth added to absurd end-times fantasies that, as an adult, I hope Vance does not share with his professed Christianity. A host of billionaire donors of whom Sheldon Adelson (now replaced by his widow), Bill Ackman, Haim Saban and Arnon Milchan are a very small sample, are beneficiaries of the liberty and justice we have in the US, showing the safety that Jews enjoy along with all other citizens here, yet are determined there must be a place where one group is superior and free to destroy the natives as desired. They are all in on shutting down our freedom of speech if it is practiced by supporters of the Palestinians. AIPAC could not be a more powerful foreign agent for Israel yet is not required to register under the Foreign Agent Registration Act (FARA). And the Dems were all in a tizzy about Russia, while AIPAC boasts of putting people in office! Congress is bought. President Biden has been bought so long he openly declares himself a Zionist...the President is for ethnic cleansing while Americans claim to be ashamed of what we did to the Indians.
Now we have a red herring to top them all - the claim that antisemitism is a problem in the US with no evidence beyond claims that some students on campus are uncomfortable. My rep in Congress is a Jew. My mayor and governor and state rep and state senator are Jews. My dentist is a Jew. I grew up with Jewish kids at school. My next door neighbor is a Jew. Synagogues are common near where I live. I see the ultra-orthodox Jews dressed in their black attire on the sidewalks on Saturdays, the Jewish Sabbath. An entire section of the largest grocery store near me is devoted to kosher food. Amid all this evidence of the success of Jews in the US, I have never witnessed any harassment of or any objections to them. There are never any reports of it and you can be sure right now anything would be widely proclaimed. They are fully integrated into social and political life unless, as with the ultra-orthodox, they do not want to be. The antisemitism claim is bogus, slaughter in Gaza is real. Distraction is obviously needed.
Power goes to the head of everyone who gains it and the people who crave power inevitably climb to the top of politics. They can do this because they accept the duplicity and not infrequently the humiliation they must endure to gain positions that would embarrass an ordinary person who is not blinded by a wish to be among the 1%. It is a non-partisan infection, one that has changed Obama from "Mr. Hope" into a shameless partier on Martha's Vineyard, no remnant of the "community organizer" he once was. He turns out to have been as much a con man as Trump only with a bigger vocabulary and nicer voice.
Americans are now being offered two candidates who are competing to be the champion of Israel. No mention of national health care, the homeless, global warming and the limits that are closing in on our economic system that can only call for growth. Meanwhile, our country not threatened anywhere, with no actual national security issues, is up to almost $1 trillion in the annual "defense" budget necessary for foreign exchange. Other than agricultural products, we have little else to sell.
Ken, I say openly to people that I am ashamed to be an American. The very foundations of the country and certainly the Constitution are forgotten except where profit can be had as with weapons sales to foreign countries and gun sales to Americans. We have gone completely off the rails and the empty talk of Vance shows no desire to get back on. MAGA is a farce. What's happening with Biden is a farce. President Trump brought family members in as advisors. There are no adults in the room.
But how does he feel about Hunter’s massive hog? #EmbraceTheHog
You're quick on the draw
"but simply my attempt to factually characterize his views, which is my goal with this article."
A refreshing change from the MSM.
Also, I think it was David Petraeus who said “tell me how this ends" to Rick Atkinson regarding the Iraq war.
https://gai.georgetown.edu/tell-me-how-this-ends/
I like Vance. The thing is, if you look at policy, Trump is big on rhetoric but moderate on a lot of policies. J.D. seems moderate on rhetoric but serious on policy. He's young enough to understand technology and he has actually served in the military, which matters to me when talking about war. If they win, we will have to see, but so far, I like him.
I don't know Ken. I listened to the speech Vance gave to the Quincy Institute. There was plenty to disagree with in that speech, but he was pretty specific about both not wanting to be dominated by China and not wanting to go to war with them. He recognizes they are here to stay as an industrial power. He is also correct when he says that there are only so many US munitions to go around. And he for sure is correct about Mitch McConnell. I don't have any firm feelings on Vance one way or the other, and only really heard his name in connection with the East Palestine disaster.
Interesting parallel between Vance accepting blame for NATO welfare dependency and Trump saying the US is to blame for its economic dependency on China. Trump and Xi will resume their "amicable divorce" if Trump is elected. For NATO, the obvious step to sweeten burden sharing is that the Europeans spend bigger military budgets on Keynesian corporate welfare at home rather than in the US. It's one thing to ask them to pay their fair share, it's another thing to to expect them to subsidise the US military industrial base.
I suppose I hope that after Trump ends the Ukraine war, he will revert to his previous "what use is NATO?" position. Of course he can't do that immediately or he loses negotiating leverage with Putin.
Very useful analysis Ken.
I read the book, it is outstanding. I had high hopes for the guy but no longer.