Happy New Year To My Christian Friends As Well. Trump's Blunt Speech To An Organization Whose Continued Existence Is A Testimony To Hypocrisy.

;
In a recent memo I wished my Jewish friends a Happy and Healthy New Year.  I did not mean to slight my Christian friends so I want to take this opportunity , though it is not your New Year, to wish you as well all the good that comes in the Jewish New Year and pray it will be one of peace, good health and happiness.

I also wish I could be more sanguine about my hope but when I look at the problems we face and what we are doing or failing to do about them I remain cynical.
+++++++++++++++++++++++
I did not catch all of Trump's speech to The U.N. but what I did hear should make every American proud.

He did not apologize but rather told the world body what they needed to hear.  That said, talk can be cheap.  So the key will be what follows by way of action by the U.S and reform by the U.N.

If one takes the time to compare what Trump said with what Obama generally said they should  find a marked contrast.

There will be those who will say Trump's blunt phraseology was un-presidential.  There are those who believe it unwise to castigate the organization for its failures.

Once again, I do not understand why we fund The U.N as we do.  It suggests to me our government has a total disregard/contempt for how we spend, actually throw away, taxpayer's money. If Trump thinks the U.N. will change he is naive. The U.N. is simply another swamp north of D.C. which needs draining.

The U.N. allows for the world to dissipate heat through debate but at a huge and unnecessary cost and when one compares its charter with its history one has to be blind not to see how it has turned into a corrupt , anti-Semetic organization whose various agencies are controlled by its most contemptible and anti-democratic members.

Its continued existence is a testimony to hypocrisy.
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
The author of this article should run as Bernie's V P on the Democrat 2020 ticket. Then  Russia's interference would be out in the open.(See 1 below.)
+++++++++++++++++++++
Yesterday former Speaker Pelosi got a taste of radical liberal medicine and was unable to speak because of protesters.

Eventually  when you unleash radicals they often bite even their own.
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Israel shows how it is done. (See 2 below.)
====================
Dick
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
1)The Most Dangerous Philosopher in the World

 by PAUL RATNER

The revelations about Russian involvement in the hacking of the Democratic Party officials, intending to vault Trump over Clinton, have added more fuel to an already-explosive and exhausting election cycle. Why would Russia do this, especially as it's been revealed that Russian President Vladimir Putin was likely personally directing the operation? Enter Alexander Dugin, the political scientist known as “Putin’s Rasputin” or “Putin’s Brain”, as well as an occult fascist. He is also a sociology professor at the highly prestigious Moscow State University, a prolific writer, an advisor to key political and military figures and an articulator of a Kremlin-approved nationalist philosophy.

He has also been on the U.S. sanctions list following Russia's takeover of Crimea for advocating the murder of Ukrainians, among other things.

It’s not that Dugin is personally responsible for the hacks that are currently being explained as Putin’s personal vendetta against Clinton. But Dugin’s influential philosophy aligns very well with what seems to have happened and provides a stunning window into this and future conflicts with Russia. There are likely much deeper motives behind Russian actions.

Alexander Dugin is at once a sociologist, historian and a philosopher. You can find many of his lectures online on Youtube, although it would help to know Russian. He himself speaks ten languages. Among his many controversial opinions, he has expressed deeply anti-scientific views, calling for the ban of chemistry and physics. He would also get rid of the Internet, an anti-technological view that actually stems from his his desire to ultimately upend the world as we know it.

What he proposes is that there have been three leading political theories that impacted the world in the relatively recent past - liberal capitalism or “liberalism”, communism and fascism. According to Dugin, the United States is the world’s leader of liberalism, which offers individual liberty, a rationalist approach and market competition.

Even though liberalism has been the winning ideology so far, triumphing over fascism in 1945, and communism in 1991 (when the Soviet Union dissolved), Dugin thinks that it is now also experiencing a fatal crisis. He believes liberals themselves would the first to claim that. Duginregards liberalism nearing a dead end, mired currently in a “nihilistic post-modern stage” because it is trying to liberate itself from rational thought and the oppression of the brain, which to a liberal is “something fascist in itself”. Dugin takes this a step further, describing liberalism as now trying to free the organs of the body from the brain’s control, alluding to its acceptance of the LGBT community.

Here’s how he explains this rationale:

“The liberalism insists on the freedom and liberation from any form of collective identity. That is the very essence of the liberalism. The liberals have liberated the human being from national identity, religious identity and so on. The last kind of collective identity is gender. So there is time to abolish it making it arbitrary and optional.”

What Dugin proposes instead of what he sees as three dead and dying ideologies is his “Fourth Political Theory”. It would create an entirely alternative political model, set against “progress” of world history as is. It would not be based on the issues of individualism, race or nationalism. He sees this theory to be partially based on the work of the existential German philosopher Martin Heidegger, controversial for his association with Nazism. His philosophy calls for a root of a human being's self-awareness (called dasein by Heidegger) to be saved in the world, as it has been diluted in the modern space by essentially dehumanizing technology.

Since this root of being differs from person to person and from culture to culture, the world should feature a multipolar power division, instead of one superpower in the United States. Finding a way to implement such a new way of looking at the world would, per Dugin, return a sense of identity to humans who have been losing it all around the world. 

Dugin contrasts this theory of a multipolar world with what he (and conspiracy theorists worldwide) see as the movement towards creating a “world government,” led by disingenuous "globalist elites" who are out to deprive people of a sense of identity and to subjugate them to their corporate needs.

In this world of a number of regional superpowers, what role would Russia play? Dugin sees Russia to be the leading nation in the Eurasian Union and has founded the International Eurasia Movement to make that happen.

What is Eurasia? Basically, it’s the territory of the former Soviet Union. Dugin thinks the Soviet Union just took over the boundaries of a historical union of people and ethnicities that was there from the Russian Empire. As Russia is a country of a unique culture and destiny, it is its mission to create a center of power that has elements of both Europe and Asia, the two continents straddled by the expansive country.

“The West knows little or nothing at all about the real history of Russia. Sometime they think that the Soviet Union was purely a communist creation and the States as Ukraine, Kazakhstan or Azerbaidjan were independent before the USSR and conquered by Bolsheviks or forced into Soviet State,” says Dugin. “The fact is they never existed as such and represented but administrative districts without any political or historical meaning inside Russian Empire as well as inside USSR. These countries were created in their present borders artificially only after the collapse of USSR and as the result of such collapse.”

So the goal of establishing the Eurasian Union would be essentially to right a historical wrong and bring back a successful empire that existed even before the Soviet Union. Russia’s recent takeover of Crimea and further designs on Ukraine seem to be a logical part of such a plan. 

Dugin digs even deeper into his very controversial historical analysis, claiming Eurasia’s current opponent is not just the United States, but Atlanticism, the axis of cooperation between Europe, US and Canada that crosses the Atlantic Ocean. These maritime, liberal nations value individuality and market forces.

Eurasia, on the other hand, represents the conservative philosophy of land-locked continentalism, which according to Eurasians, has among its values a hierarchical structure, law and order, traditionalism and religion.

Thus we have Atlantis vs Eurasia. In fact, Dugin claims all history can be viewed as a battle between maritime and land-based nations. 

What does Dugin think about Trump’s victory? He has been quite enthusiastic about Trump throughout the whole election process, to say the least, describing him this way to point out why Trump is a “sensation” that can stand up to globalist elites:

“[Donald Trump] is tough, rough, says what he thinks, rude, emotional and, apparently, candid. The fact that he is a billionaire doesn't matter. He is different. He is an extremely successful ordinary American…”

Dugin thinks Trump’s victory is a monumental strike against the “globalists”, whose candidate was Hillary Clinton - the same language that you can easily find peppering conservative American websites like Breitbart News, Drudge Report and conspiracy king Alex Jones (a particular favorite of Dugin’s). He thinks Trump’s victory was a kind of “revolution” started by American people and should lead to worldwide defeats of the globalist agenda, draining the proverbial “swamp” the world over.

Dugin doesn’t stop there, however. His visions of what Trump’s victory means go into the apocalyptic and civilization-changing:

“We need to return to the Being, to the Logos, to the foundamental- ontology (of Heidegger), to the Sacred, to the New Middle Ages - and thus to the Empire, religion, and the institutions of traditional society (hierarchy, cult, domination of spirit over matter and so on). All content of Modernity - is Satanism and degeneration. Nothing is worth, everything is to be cleansed off. The Modernity is absolutely wrong -- science, values, philosophy, art, society, modes, patterns, "truths", understanding of Being, time and space. All is dead with Modernity. So it should end. We are going to end it.”

This certainly would not be the first time in recent history a Russian thought that everything is wrong and the world needs to be completely uprooted. We know how that turned out. And the occult-sounding elements of some of what Dugin is saying, along with his beard, perhaps earn the comparison to Rasputin. But does Dugin believe concrete measures should be taken to bring about his vision of the world? 

Interestingly, prior to Trump’s victory, influential American conservative outlets like the National Review were warning about Russian intentions, specifically singling out the threat Dugin’s ideology posed, calling Eurasianism “a satanic cult”. Now that Trump won and Russia was implicated in election meddling, they are not so keen to bring that up. 

Does Putin really listen to Dugin? Scholars and commentators say his ideas are taken seriously by people in Putin’s circle and their growing popularity matches up with Putin’s evolving authoritarianism and actions. Notably, Dugin came out in 2008 in support of Russian troops taking over Georgia and very much fanned the flames during the 2014 Russia-Ukraine conflict, calling for massacring Ukrainians and annexing the Ukrainian lands that were part of the former Russian Empire.

To see what Dugin might advocate specifically, we can look in his bestselling book “The Foundation of Geopolitics” from 1997, which had particular success among Russian military and according to Foreign Policy (and Dugin's own words), is assigned as a textbook at Russian military universities. 

The book outlines a vision for Russia in the 21st century that would lead to Eurasia’s formation, but also includes specific strategies for defeating or neutralizing the United States. These include destabilization and disinformation campaigns using Russian special forces and asymmetrical warfare, splitting alliances between U.S. and countries like Germany and France, as well as fermenting division within the country itself, specifically singling out race relations. On Page 367 of the first edition of the book, Dugin explains:

“It is especially important to introduce geopolitical disorder into internal American activity, encouraging all kinds of separatism and ethnic, social and racial conflicts, actively supporting all dissident movements – extremist, racist, and sectarian groups, thus destabilizing internal political processes in the U.S. It would also make sense simultaneously to support isolationist tendencies in American politics…”

After our hyper-divisive elections, full of calamities described above, facing an increasingly eye-opening investigation into Russian interference in our most cherished democratic institution, it’s hard not to take Dugin’s ideas seriously. With Trump's victory, Dugin has backed off somewhat from painting the U.S. as enemy number one. It's also been reported that the relationship between Dugin and Putin might have cooled off recently, with Dugin criticizing Putin for being "too slow" in bringing about his vision of the world. But looking at the facts on the ground it's possible to conclude that Putin may still be playing a Eurasia-oriented long game that is not going to end only at Wikileaking embarrassing emails. Especially in light of the fact that the United States now finds itself in a vulnerable position, looking for a unifying philosophy and a way forward of its own. 

Here’s a paper on Dugin and his book by Hoover Institution’s John B. Dunlop. If you know Russian, you can read the book here.

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

2)

WATCH: Israel intercepts Iranian-built drone on Syrian border

By Anna Ahronheim

The Patriot anti-ballistic missile intercepted the unmanned aerial vehicle before it penetrated Israeli skies.

Israel intercepted an Iranian-built unmanned aerial vehicle that flew close to Israel skies from Syria Tuesday, firing one Patriot anti-ballistic missile stationed near the northern city of Safed.

According to IDF Spokesman Brig.-Gen. Ronen Manelis, the Hezbollah-operated drone took off from Damascus International Airport. It was followed in real time by the Israel army before it crossed into the demilitarized zone between Israel and Syria and was intercepted by one Patriot missile.

The Iranian-built drone was used by Hezbollah to collect intelligence, Manelis said, adding that fighter jets were also scrambled but did not fire on the drone which fell in the area of the Syrian town of Quneitra.

While the drone did not at any point cross into Israeli territory, “the IDF will not allow any infiltration or attempt to infiltrate by any Iranian elements, be it Hezbollah or Shia militia group, to the Golan Heights. We will respond to every action very clearly and we will act to prevent any future attempt,” Manelis stated.

Following the incident, the army raised the threat level in its Northern Command. And while the IDF stated it was not looking to escalate situation by retaliating “at this time,” Lebanese media reported that the IAF carried out two air-raids on the Lebanese-Syria border, east of the town of Shebaa on al-Rashaha hill.

The border with Syria has been tense since the war erupted in 2011, and Israel has carried out over 100 strikes against Hezbollah weapons convoys in Syrian territory over the past five years. With various heavily armed radical groups battling President Bashar Assad, Syria is Israel’s most unpredictable and unstable neighbor and poses one of the largest risks for a sudden escalation.

Defense Minister Avigdor Lieberman responded to the incident, saying Israel will not tolerate any threats or attempts to harm the citizens of Israel.

“Anyone who tries to harm our sovereignty, to harm our security, must know that he will pay a dear and expensive price for it.  We are prepared for every scenario and in every sector.”

Israeli officials have repeatedly voiced their concern about Iran and its proxies entrenching themselves in Syria and the IDF has recently completed a large-scale drill in the country’s north, with tens of thousands of soldiers training for a war with Iranian-backed Hezbollah.

According to Lieberman the interception testifies to the preparedness of the IDF and the defense establishment.

“The transition from routine to emergency at a pace that we are living here is unprecedented, and I repeat that there is no more army more prepared, at a professional level like the IDF. And today's readiness, despite all the publications and all the talk, is the highest readiness that has ever been.”

According to Arieh Herzog, the former head of the Missile Defense Organization at the Ministry of Defense, the Patriot missile system was initially designed to intercept airplanes and is a very effective system and popular around the world.

“As you can see this time it is also effective against very low flying unmanned aerial vehicles,” Herzog said, adding that the Patriot 2 anti-aircraft system was “the correct system to be chosen for this mission.”

Herzog stated that he expects Hezbollah to continue using reconnaissance drones against Israel, as it is “one of the more effective ways to collect intelligence,” explaining that the group uses them “from time to time and of course this is something that cannot be tolerated and therefore we had to intercept it.”

Stating that stated that he expects Hezbollah to continue using reconnaissance drones against Israel as it is “one of the more effective ways to collect intelligence,” explaining that “Hezbollah, over the years, has stockpiled unmanned air vehicles which are designed and produced by Iran using them mainly for reconnaissance missions.”

Israel has in the past used the Patriot system against suspicious aerial vehicles, most recently in April when a Patriot intercepted another UAV that flew into Israel from Syria hours after Israel allegedly struck a Hezbollah arms depot near Damascus International Airport.

The system was also used in July 2016, when two Patriot missiles were fired at a suspicious drone that crossed into Israeli airspace from Syria. Both missed their target and the unmanned aircraft returned to Syria. In August 2014, a Patriot missile successfully shot down a drone that entered Israeli airspace from the Quneitra region Syria close to the Israeli border.

In a recent interview with The Jerusalem Post, Commander of the Aerial Defense Division Brig.-Gen. Tzvika Haimovitch, stated that UAVs are a big challenge due to their size, speed and low flying altitude. Nevertheless, Israel’s aerial defense systems “are flexible enough” to counter any threat, including UAVs.

In mid-August Israel carried out a test of its Patriot system focusing on the threats posed by UAVs and firing multiple interceptor missiles towards aerial targets over central Israel.

With the Iron Dome, the Arrow and David’s Sling, Israel’s aerial defense system provide a comprehensive protective umbrella able to counter the growing missile threats from short range rockets to longer-range ballistic missiles fired at ranges between 40 to 300 km.

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++