* I wouldn’t mind seeing certain kinds of Think Tanks flourishing,….You know, ones with the right set of beliefs……Let’s see, a good litmus test would involve seeing how they respond to the fabled Fourteen Words:
“We must secure the existence of our people and a future for white children.”
If they are on board with that, give ‘em some dough. If they balk, starve ‘em out via monetary malnutrition.
* Somehow I don’t think that the Haim Saban Center for Middle East Policy is going to fold up shop anytime soon.
* I always thought VDare was struggling because its fundraising efforts seemed so frequent and desperate sounding, but Brimelow seems to do pretty well for himself running his website.
* As a financial contributor, I’ve been to events at Peter Brimelow’s home. He lives comfortably but not lavishly. He does pay people who write for him, which sounds like those “leased employees.” He himself works nearly non-stop. I don’t think there’s much waste or pocket-lining at VDare.
* Four white classic pocket passer quarterbacks lead their teams to the final round of the NFL playoffs (like so many other years) and all around the country the football industry at every level is DESPERATELY SEEKING RUNNING QUARTERBACKS.
* If you have no coherent nation, you can have no coherent national interest. As for “think tanks as we know them,” good riddance!
* A pretty good way to run American foreign and domestic policy in the US is to read the editorial page of the Wash Po and the NY Times and do the exact opposite of whatever they recommend. This is really a rare talent – any fool could be wrong about various policy choices some of the time just by making random guesses (even the Magic 8 Ball gives you the right answer sometimes), but to be as CONSISTENTLY wrong as they have takes a special talent.
* Think tanks seem to do about three different things:
a. Provide jobs for a few smart people to think deeply and write about some topic of interest.
b. Provide intellectual hired guns to advocate for your positions.
c. Provide sinecures for important people moving between government, media, and academia.
Only (c) is threatened by Trump.
* Yeah, have also thrown $ vdare’s way, but am philosophical about their budget. There are probably a few heavyweights who give them >$100,000 per year, but given the importance (existential) of the issues they cover, I feel they should have not just a higher budget, but a much better website & reach. Their addition of RadioDerb & their Twitter log have been big pluses. Something one must factor in is that many/most of their columnists are top notch (esp Fitzpatrick) and would easily be drawing big bucks @ legacy media organs in a pre-Neocon world before the advent of Doxxing & Crimethink patrols.
The other thing to remember is that they are a mini David to the SPLC’s Borg Goliath (sitting on a cash heap of >$240M or so?)
* The Necons have been so successful because they either took over “conservative” think tanks or created their own foreign policy think tanks.
* VDARE, to those who even are aware of its existence, is regarded as a “hate group”. Lobbying Congress would be a waste of time, effort and money. VDARE should just keep doing what it has been doing. The periodic gains made are small, but they are solid, no-turning-back gains.
* Realism, per John Mersheimer, involves a realistic and much narrower view of American interests, which would lead to a much less interventionist foreign policy. To wit: No need to invade the world.
However, *not* doing a lot of stuff has little or no value for one’s career. Everything is predicated on work that involves ‘improving things’ through doing stuff. Lengthy studies and analyses on problems that the author has ideas regarding how to solve by doing something.
I find this theory oddly compelling, because it doesn’t assume horrible decisions are caused by more than simple careerism. You don’t need a deep state or a malevolent elite or the Trilateral Commission.
The defining example of this view is the lead up to the Iraq War.
Senior (tenured) University based Foreign Relations academics were against it. By a wide margin.
Meanwhile, their counterparts in Think Tanks were strongly in favor of it. Even Leslie Gelb, the Senior Editor of the Pentagon Papers was in favor of it.
Since we have already done these idiot things, a hypothetical resume that had bullet points stating that the individual didn’t invade Iraq, didn’t support intervention in Lybia, didn’t intervene in Somalia, didn’t expand NATO, etc — the individual with that resume would appear to be a superstar.
But had that person or persons succeeded, and we hadn’t ‘invaded the world’ … would have nothing on the resume. ‘I didn’t implement regime change in Syria’ would sound — sort of idiotic. “All of humanity’s problems stem from man’s inability to sit quietly in a room alone.”
But that doesn’t do much for one’s career.
The point being that there is a good reason to get rid of these holding pens for careerists who want to make a mark on the world.
It is like people that can’t take yes for an answer. We won WW 2 by crushing the enemy and destroying their industrial base and allowing them to severely damage the industrial base of our allies.
We won the Cold War.
But mere winning — even enormous victories — wasn’t sufficient. Since the next step after winning is to sit quietly in a room and let our industrial economy cash in on it.
* It’s why nobody respects Eisenhower as a great president, though all of the things he didn’t do that his successors did (send lots of troops to Vietnam, launch ill-conceived antipoverty programs) show he had great judgment. Sometimes the smartest thing to do is nothing, even if it doesn’t do much for your legacy. The last president who I really thought put country ahead of party was Bush Sr.–last of the old WASPs, probably not coincidentally.
* When the British had a world empire they founded the field of anthropology to try to understand the nature of the societies they ruled. But here we are into the fifteenth year of our wars in the Middle East and still American leaders remain clueless about the true nature of these clan-based, tribal societies which, thanks to people like Steve and hbdchick, ordinary citizens have come to appreciate. They knock off Quaddafi and Libya disintegrates into anarchy. Who knew? Next up, Assad.
