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Showing posts from November 18, 2018

all I want for Christmas is less dead Yemeni kids!

If you are like me, this Christmas you are probably thinking of giving to some charity, of making a difference as well as having your dinner. I'm thinking that for Americans, this is easy! You can do your part: don't starve more Yemeni children to death! Yes, in pursuing a Middle Eastern policy that is about democracy, and keeping evil Iran from evilness, we might have gone an intsy-wintsy bit too far. 85,000 dead kids too far . Oopsy, I think we can all collectively say. In fact, gosh darn it, starving to death a kid - instead of say some Yemen adult, who surely has it coming to him for obscure reasons that the liberal hawks can come up with in a heartbeat - just might not be something you want on your Christmas agenda! So, have a heart, write your congress critter and propose a moratorium on starving Yemeni kids to death for the 12 days of Christmas. It will make Jesus happy!

Philosopher, backchannel man, spy: the case of Alexandre Kojève

This spring,  the rightwing French journal,  Commentaire ,   published a story about the philosopher, Alexandre Kojève, by Raymond Nart, a former officer with the DST, French Counter-intelligence.  Commentaire , in the past, had published articles in praise of Kojève and even articles by Kojève. Kojève, after WWII, declared himself a “Sunday philosopher”, and had proceeded to devote most of his time to reconstructing France’s economy as an subminister in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. In this post, Kojève became one of the great behind-the-scenes architects of France’s  thirty glorious years , that experiment in  dirigiste  capitalism under the Bretton Woods system which finally came a header in the period of rampant inflation and the Oil crisis of the seventies. Notably, he helping to lay the foundation of the Common Market.  Nart’s article was entitled, ominously,  Alexandre Kojevnikov dit Kojève . Scholars of the great Cold War Communist hunts will be delighted to learn that