Stephen Roney's Blog, page 114
October 9, 2022
The Next Move for Ukraine
Had I been Ukraine’s chief military strategist, and assuming I had the resources, the ideal overall design for a counteroffensive against Russia is obvious. It is Napoleon’s classic strategy. First, you attack both flanks. In a small-scale battle this can be decisive, because you can then outflank and surround. In this case, you cannot, because the mass of foreign troops is spread out and you cannot move into Russian territory.
But attacking the flanks is still the best option, because it pins down troops as far away as possible from the centre.
Which is where your main blow then falls.
In this case, there is all the more reason to hit hard now at the centre, the land just east of the Dnipro River, around Orkhiv. Now that the Kerch Bridge is blown, if the Ukrainians can slice through to Melitopol, they cut off the entire Russian army west of this point.
And the road to Melitopol is flat terrain without natural obstacles or defensive lines.
If the Ukrainians know what they are doing, they will have kept their largest force in reserve until now. Gaining ground on the flanks had little strategic value. All that was necessary was to keep the Russians engaged. I expect the Ukrainian ground gains were not really part of the plan, but the Russians proved to be weaker than the Ukrainians expected.
And they should attack now, before the bridge can be repaired, and before winter sets in. They may not succeed, for the same strategic considerations must be apparent to the Russians, but I would expect this to be the plan.
Now let's see if I know what I'm talking about as a military strategist...
'Od's Blog: Catholic comments on the passing parade.
October 8, 2022
The Kamloops Mass Grave Hoax
Bombing the Bridge
I don’t think it was Ukraine who blew up the Russian bridge.
The bridge is beyond the range of any known Ukrainian missiles. Although they might have been given some we do not know about.
The Russians say it was a truck bomb. But the damage seems far greater than one would expect from a truck bomb.
Using a truck bomb on a long bridge would almost have to be a suicide mission. You can’t park it on the bridge and walk away.
Absurdly, the Russians claim to have interviewed the driver of the truck, who says he had no idea his truck was full of explosives.
If this was the driver of a truck that exploded, so powerfully it destroyed a modern bridge, and he had no idea it was going to blow up, how is he alive to tell the tale?
It is also hard to believe the Russians do not have scanners to check all traffic for bombs. That would be pretty negligent.
I have seen some stills from just before the detonation that seem to show wave action under the bridge just before the explosion.
It could have been a long range missile fired by the Americans; or more likely something fired from below by the Americans (or British, or French) from a submarine. Or a mine planted by a submarine, then detonated—even the same technology, perhaps, as was used on the Nordstream pipelines. That would explain the waves before the explosion, and it is more plausible that such a direct hit from a great distance by a missile. If you wanted to take a strong new bridge out, it would be the more reliable option.
It seems to me significant that the Ukrainians are not taking responsibility. Why wouldn‘t they, if they had done it? I have heard the suggestion that they wouldn’t want to because this is an attack on Russian territory. But it is not. This is Ukrainian territory, according to Ukraine. And Ukraine has already struck Crimea.
But of course, if it were the Americans, or some other Western power, they would not want to take responsibility; this would be an act of war against Russia. Russia would have to respond.
It would also not be in Russia’s interest to blame the Americans. They do not want to have to go to war with NATO. Just as they have not directly accused the US of hitting Nordstream. The truck bomb thesis seems a good face-saving option.
'Od's Blog: Catholic comments on the passing parade.
White Privilege: A History
A friend posted on Facebook his regrets for his “white privilege.” “Know your history,” he prodded. And a lot of others chimed in with their woke assent. Virtue was roundly signaled.
I wish he did know his history. The myth of “white privilege” has emerged and is possible only because the left first went through our schools and suppressed the teaching of history. As with most things, the official line is the opposite of the truth. There is non-white privilege. There is no white privilege.
At the present day, demonstrably, in Canada, “non-whites” are systemically privileged over whites. Special aboriginal rights are enshrined in the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. Without this special exemption, the preferences given to aboriginals would be in violation of the equality rights given in the charter.
The complex of “affirmative action” preferences in government programs, education, and corporations are a blatant violation of equality rights. They ought to have been challenged long ago. Nobody has. Such is the overriding power of non-white privilege.
One might argue that such special benefits are needed to counterbalance discrimination in the wider society—some hypothetical society beyond government, the media, the corporations, and the education system. Perhaps the alleyways? Perhaps the schoolyard at recess?
Yet even at a social gathering, it is socially acceptable to mock “rednecks,” but not aboriginals or blacks. It is socially acceptable to mock Christians, or “bible thumpers,” or evangelicals, but not Muslims. It is socially acceptable to complain about Americans, or the English, or Europeans, or whites, but not Blacks or Indians or South Asians.
Even in the past, when it was okay to mock Indians or Chinese or blacks, it was at least as socially acceptable and as common to mock the Irish, the Scottish, the Polish, the Ukrainians, the Italians, or the Jews. All white, or considered “white” today.
The proponents of the premise of “white privilege” will no doubt counter that all such current forms of discrimination and non-white privilege are merely “equity,” a leg up for past discrimination against non-whites. Even if this discrimination was against individuals now long dead, it supposedly leaves marks and social inequities that persist today.
The idea, then, that Canadian history has discriminated against non-whites.
I challenge that, firstly on the basis that “white” and “non-white” are terms that would have meant nothing to our ancestors. This particular racial division emerged in the US and in South Africa, particularly in reference to the Civil Rights movement and apartheid, about the middle of the twentieth century. These were never meaningful categories in Canadian society, if only because few Canadians had come in much contact with anyone not of European ancestry. There was little chance to discriminate against people not present, and “white” or “non-white” was not top of anyone’s concerns.
Rather, popular discrimination in Canada was on the grounds of religion, language, and ethnicity. No Irish need apply, for example.
You might argue that, if Canada lacked Africans, they had the “First Nations.” But the treaties and the Indian Act always systemically favoured the First Nations. A survey of Canadian literature and popular culture demonstrates that, far from denigrating Indians, Canadian culture has always elevated them as romantic and heroic, and identified with them.
Canada has also had East Asians in significant numbers, for at least as long as Canada has been in legal existence. Probably every small town across English Canada has long had one or two or more Chinese families. And they have certainly faced discrimination: head taxes. The Japanese were interned during the Second World War.
But about that internment. It was not a case of racism; perhaps of ethnicity. For Ukrainians were similarly interned during the First World War, and even during the second, the majority of internees were not Japanese. Germans and Italians were also interred. The fact that the Japanese internment is remembered as something special is arguably an example of modern race preference, not past racial discrimination.
And, counter to theory, despite discrimination in the recent past, Asian-Canadians are doing better in Canada today than most demographic groups. And many current “equity” programs discriminate against them, just as they discriminate against “whites.”
And as to past white privilege, by all means, read your history. Read about how most of the ancestors of the “white settlers” came. Read about indentured servitude, read about the Great Hunger, read about the Highland Clearances. Read about the expulsion of the Acadians, read about the Home Children, read about the Holodomir, read about the Holocaust. Then tell me that white Canadians benefit from historic privilege due to the colour of their skin.
For these are the backgrounds from which the great majority of European Canadians descend. They were not members of a wealthy upper class, as more recent immigrants tend to be.
Those who might be doing well today have worked their way up from ancestral backgrounds as dark as those of any non-Europeans. Most arrived in Canada destitute, many in bondage.
Apart from the history, if only we taught literature in our schools, we would know better than to believe in “white privilege.”
Let’s look only at the issue of indentured servitude. Up to the American Revolution, two thirds of all European immigrants to the British possessions in the New World came as indentured servants.
I quote from the first paragraph of Swift’s “A Modest Proposal,” describijng life in 18th century Dublin. The piece is satire, but for the satire to land, it has to be accurate in its description of actual life in Ireland.
“These mothers, instead of being able to work for their honest livelihood, are forced to employ all their time in strolling to beg sustenance for their helpless infants who, as they grow up, either turn thieves for want of work, or leave their dear native country, to fight for the Pretender in Spain, or sell themselves to the Barbadoes.”
What is that about? Sell yourself to the Barbadoes?
And all this well before the Great Famine.
And again:
“I am assured by our merchants, that a boy or a girl, before twelve years old, is no saleable commodity, and even when they come to this age, they will not yield above three pounds, or three pounds and half a crown at most, on the exchange.”
What? Children and teenagers were bought and sold? And so cheap?
They were then shipped out to the so-called “settler colonies” as indentured servants. On Christian principles, they were only selling their labour, not themselves. But in practice, they lived the same lives in the same conditions as the African slaves for the fourteen years of their servitude.
Indeed, quite likely worse lives. An African slave was yours for life; it made sense to preserve his health. But if you have him for only another few years, it makes financial sense to work him to death.
Have you ever noticed how many “African-Americans” have Irish-sounding surnames? Shaquille O’Neill. Bill Cosby. John Coltrane. Countee Cullen. Marcus Garvey.
Did you ever wonder why?
The black slaves and the Irish indentures lived and worked together. They naturally intermarried.
Fourteen years of slavery might not sound so terrible. But the average lifespan for an Englishman in the 18th century was 34 years. It was surely lower in Ireland, due to poverty and malnourishment. Fourteen of those years was therefore significant. In fact, more than half of indentured servants died in servitude.
Slavery was abolished throughout the British Empire in 1834. Indentured servitude was banned in Canada only in 1917.
And who owes whom reparations for that? Should the grandchildren of slaves be paying reparations to the great-great grandchildren of slaves held in some other country?
'Od's Blog: Catholic comments on the passing parade.
New Act of Terrorism in Ukraine-Russia War
Goodness; what next? Now Putin has blown up the only bridge to Crimea. :-)
October 7, 2022
Men Going Their Own Way
The Liberals are currently going hard after Pierre Poilievre because his videos on YouTube included the hashtag #MGTOW, which stands for “men going their own way.” This, Justin Trudeau and the mainstream press say, is a “misogynist” movement. Poilievre himself immediately condemned it and disavowed all knowledge of who put the hashtag on his videos.
But seriously, what’s the problem? It is the job of a politician to reach out to all voters; it is the job of an elected representative to hear all views. Why condemn a politician for sending his message to any identifiable group? Especially if their views are wrong, he is to be congratulated for trying to reach them.
Other than the literal meaning of the words themselves, it is difficult to say what “Men Going Their Own Way” advocates. There is no such organization. There is no organization hosting a website under that name. Articles condemning the “movement” cite a Reddit thread with the tagline. But Reddit has deleted it. All I find there is a thread called “ban MGTOW.” I did eventually find an online discussion board named https://www.goingyourownway.com/ . This may be the closest we can come to hearing what it is all about. And one obviously cannot legitimately object to an opinion until one finds out what it is.
They feature this “elevator pitch”:
First - relationships with today's women, under today's conditions, are not worth it. Relationships have always taken up huge amounts of time and money, but now they cost more: legal liability, alimony and CS (how many guys do you know who have been through the wringer?); and deliver less: women can't keep house, can't raise a family, are self-centred and entitled. Sure, today's women make a living, but so what? So do I. Sure they're "strong and independent" - how is that a benefit to a long term relationship? Today's women doesn't know how to wife and wouldn't do it even if she did. The only thing, the sole, singular, only thing today’s man needs, wants, or can realistically get from today’s woman is sex. Buying the cow is a worse deal now than it ever was.
Second - once you get realistic and opt out of relationships, or at least marriage, suddenly you need so much less money and have so much more time. You don't need a house. You don't need a [deleted]-magnet car. You don't need holidays at resorts. And with that need done away with, all of the things that you needed in your life to get more money become redundant. You don't need a suit. You don't need to spend hours a day commuting to two jobs. You don't need to socialise with people you despise.
There's a domino effect once you give up on the now-unattainable dream of marrying a good woman and living in a loving, lifelong family household. It's not that these things aren't great, it's that they are not in the offing anymore.
Let's be realistic. The sensible thing is to admit "defeat", and Go Your Own Way.
There is nothing misogynistic about any of that. It is criticizing feminism. Ideas are not just fair game—discussing them openly is essential. And these are good points. My own brother made this calculation, and decided never to marry. I saw the same problem, and sought to avoid it by marrying women from another culture. This is why so many European men now seek Asian wives.
As always, views are never suppressed because they are false. They are always suppressed because they are true, and threaten those in power.
Notably, the claim that marriage is a bad deal is exactly the claim made by feminism as early as the 1960s: “a woman needs a man like a fish needs a bicycle.” The criticism of feminism and the feminist society is surely no harsher than feminism’s criticism of “patriarchy.”
As a matter of fact, the opposition to MGTOW by the establishment press, the Liberal Party, Reddit, and Pierre Poilievre himself actually proves MGTOW’s central assertion: there is no equality between man and women in modern society. Women can say whatever they want, and are supported by the system. Men are silenced.
'Od's Blog: Catholic comments on the passing parade.
October 6, 2022
The Headless Horsemen of the Apocalypse
A remarkable aspect of the current uprising in Iran is that it has no leaders. It is entirely organic and spontaneous. Yet it continues, night after night.
Whether by coincidence or otherwise, the Free World is also without a leader, at a time of crisis. Russia’s invasion of Ukraine is the sort of thing that might easily spark World War III. World War I was set off by far less.Yet Joe Biden is not up to the job. The next option for leader of the free world would normally be the UK Prime Minister; Boris Johnson was holding down the position for a little while. But Liz Truss is in crisis and not even effectively leading her own parliamentary caucus at this point.
Okay, so the German chancellor? Scholz is new on that job and heads a shaky three-party coalition. He can do nothing decisive. Besides, Germany is in an energy crisis.
We are pretty far down the power and influence totem pole once we must all defer to the President of France.
Yet things still seem to be working out well enough for the free world without a leader. The support for Ukraine seems solid, and effective, and they are getting what they need. I understand someone has even set up a crowdsourced fund to buy tanks for Ukraine.
The Freedom Convoy back in February was also a virtually leaderless movement. Much of it was spontaneous.
Moral: leaders are no longer so necessary. Improvements in communication technology let people handle problems on a distributed, decentralized basis. Welcome to the internet. Welcome to direct democracy.
This is exactly why the leaders have been acting wild and autocratic lately. They are hearing the footsteps behind them.
'Od's Blog: Catholic comments on the passing parade.
October 5, 2022
You Have Been Warned
Equity
Is This Real?
It is supposed to be from the CBC. It looks like a parody...
