Well done, Daniel. This is one of your best. I think your analysis of Tucker Carlson is right on, but I would add that he is also lazy thinker who doesn't know as much as he thinks he does, which makes him susceptible to the weirdos he interviews. Your description of idealists is right on, too.
Apart from not thinking deeply, he fails to inform himself beforehand about many of the issues he discusses with guests. I recall one of the most egregious examples claiming Churchill was "the chief villain of World War II".
A tour de force, Daniel. Thank you. I have not listened to Tucker for weeks. Primarily because due to the insidious, county club anti-Semitism that has sneaked into his dialogues. And his gratingly maniacal laugh has become too much. This isn't difficult. It has been a hallmark of US policy for decades that Iran cannot have a nuclear weapon. Regardless of Administration. You would not let a lunatic have a loaded gun - especially not a particularly deranged psychotic - and the mullahs are nothing if not that. Trump is right, Tucker has gone off the deep end.
Thanks Bruce. Yes and it’s weird the way they can’t see the difference between invented WMDs that were never backed by evidence and a 20 year old nuclear weapons programme with lots of clear evidence of imminent success.
Excellent piece of analysis as always Daniel. This Zionist/Hidden Hand story has spread like a virus through the minds of so many of those who call themselves 'awake'. Once they stumble upon this 'secret knowledge' they become dogmatic, totally intolerant of alternative viewpoints and unable to see the world through any other lens. It is very disheartening. I can understand why James Lindsay calls them the woke right.
Thanks Patricia. There are things about that label that make sense, but also aspects of it that don’t. I use it very cautiously. I totally agree with you on the Hidden Hand stuff and the ‘secret awakening’.
From listening to James over the years my undersanding of his term 'the woke right' is those who hold the 'secret knowledge' like the high priests. He has previously described the entire woke ideology as functioning like a cult with 3 layers - the adherents doing the social justice stuff, the next layer is the learned ones who have actually read the texts and then there are the high priests who possess the secret knowledge. The anti Zionist types seem to believe themselves endowed with secret knowledge in my experience of trying to talk to them. My brother in law is one such. When I tell him he is talking bs he complains that he is just trying to help me uncovered the truth - arrogant shit.
Lindsay is right on those aspects. But it’s probably better to describe the secret knowledge layering as Gnostic rather than Woke. Woke is a modem Gnosticism framed by the Left. The Secret Knowledge Right share Jew hatred and the Gnostic idea that only they are enlightened enough to see what is really happening. But there is a lot more that is Woke they don’t share. And saying Woke Right is like saying Toxic Masculinity-it tars the Right generally, who had nothing to do with woke. Leftists created Woke on purpose, and centrists and classical liberals pretended it was normal until they were targeted by it. Those are my objections to the term.
Perfect. I call guys like Tucker hypocrites. And they do love lotsa money. I am also trying to understand how I missed the Jew hatred in Tucker’s “making sense” phase, unlike my wife who called it; her antennas are finally tuned to that frequency.
I started picking up on it and was no longer well disguised a few weeks ago. At that point, I simply stopped watching him. Although not Jewish, myself, my first wife was and so are my daughters, so I have witnessed this veiled, country club prejudice for far too long.
I asked my wife when it became obvious to her and she recalled the transition from Fox when Tucker was looking for investors in his new media company. At the end, it is the money-thing.
Excellent discussion of a difficult subject. Trump and Carlson, at one point, seemed made for each other. That was suspicious because it wasn't always that way. Now Carlson has moved on to the "next greatest thing", at least in his mind, while Trump is still Trump. It is not easily understood how someone like Trump can stand unchanged when so many others will crumble. Call it the strength of his belief or whatever you will, however it is refreshing to not wake up in the morning wondering what changes in policy or belief have occurred overnight.
Thanks for this. Lots of hysteria and not a lot of facts at the moment. Keeping an open mind when all else are foaming at the mouth is hard but necessary. I like Tucker but he is easily manipulated and deceived. His upbringing and life do not reflect average Americans. That’s ok but it dulls or limits your perspective. We see a lot of this in the US ( my family relate perspectives that leave me wondering if we live in the same world) and the UK. Watch what they do not what they say. Turn off your TV.
Tucker: ideologue, flip-flopping. Likes his latest mania without considering the future result.
Trump: straight ahead whose mantra since well before his political life (see his interview with Oprah) has been what’s best for the USA now and into the future.
Good analysis! Interesting take too. My first thought when Tucker swung left was that he had gone Globalist, more pro Islam than anti Jew. He seems to have given in to the text/social media communications conundrum that reduces everything to some trite phrase like NO MORE WARS. Wouldn't you love to ask him if America was attacked, would he surrender? I wonder where some of these people truly draw the line.
Thanks. Your reply coincides with a similar thought that I often have, which is why these opponents of wokeness, the Left, absurd reductive arguments from progressives, never pause when find themselves saying the same thing as their old enemies.
Very well said. Tucker did good work attacking Biden madness, wokery and corruption but I can’t comment on his latest twists as I seldom watch him now. He seems to be a good proxy for you to vent against, like the feeble-minded groupthinkers of the G7 (Trump excluded).
I was pleased to see that your previous post with the somewhat lacklustre title “Why everyone forgets that two wars can be different” was reposted by TCW under the more positive title “The world is safer because Donald Trump is the US President”.
Talking of TCW and your final paragraph reference to the 30,000 pound US bunker bomb, Richard North has a supportive post today entitled “Israel’s job is not over until Iranian nuclear sites are smouldering ruins”. He describes how Israel may be able to destroy Iran’s underground nuclear facilities by repeated strikes with their own precision-guided 5,000 pound bunker bomb.
"And he can see too that providing a 30,000 pound Mother of All Bombs to take out the key Iranian nuclear weapon site makes more sense than 20 years patrolling the sand, flies and shit of Afghanistan made. "
Sadly, this is not an option. Israel does not have aircraft that can deliver the MOAB, or the MOP (a version of the MOAB - Massive Ordinance Penetrator, also 30,000 lbs). Only the U.S. has such aircraft, so providing a MOP to Israel won't help.
None of the hardpoints on any of Israel's aircraft (F-15EX/F-15I, F-16I or F-35I) can carry such a load. I believe the hardpoints are limited to 5000 lbs max (though this is from memory). Perhaps that number can be increased to something like 6,000-7,000 lbs, as long as the aircraft does not maneuver at high Gs. The F-15I can carry a TOTAL of about 29,000 lbs of ordinance, but that's on ALL the hardpoints.
I am not aware of a penetrator that weighs 6,000 lbs (at least, none that have been announced publicly, to my knowledge). Strictly speaking, this is not quantum physics, and manufacturing such a custom penetrator is almost certainly within Israel's technological capability. Whether a 6,000 lbs penetrator is enough to do anything to a facility buried that deep under a mountain, like Fordow... Hard to know, but a 30,000 lbs penetrator is a hell of a lot MORE likely to do it than one 5 times smaller.
It is possible that Israel has something larger, and plans to drop it from a C-130, which is how the old really big bombs were delivered. Perhaps... Of course, for that, you need to be really really sure that all the air defenses have been fully suppressed, since a C-130 is on a suicide mission otherwise.
Thanks for the technical info. That’s not my best area, but I checked before writing and was aware that the US would probably have to supply the flight as well as the bomb. I should have worded it clearer, but thanks for clarifying it for me.
Notwithstanding his extremist view of there being good people on both sides of the abortion issue, “Trump is not looking for the Perfect Ideological Fit. He has it already, and it’s called America. Trump has almost zero ideological content. He’s all indomitable self belief and very simple patriotism. It’s expressed almost entirely in the two main slogans of his life in politics. America First, and Make America Great Again. That’s it. He means both, and there is nothing else attached to either. He’s not a Zionist. He’s not an Anti Zionist. He’s not a Democrat. He’s not a Republican. He’s not a Free Trade Fetishist, and he’s not a Crazy Lunatic. He’s not a lover of NATO, and he’s not a servant of the UN. He’s not a Conspiracy Theorist, and he’s not an Establishment Stooge. He’s not Perfect, and he’s not a Monster. “
Excellent post and analysis, though in my view you give tucker carlson a bit too much credit. Since he has allowed his anti-semitism to florish, he has become insufferable. It has infected his critical thinking ability. It goes beyond his feelings about Israel, to the point where he provides a platform for those who deny the Holocaust while deceptively claiming to be "just asking the question," and not trying to make a point. His back and forths between Mark Levin have been most entertaining. His railings against Trump will lead to tucker looking more the fool he is. Trying to "OUT MAGA" Trump and appear more "America First" than Trump is a loser's game. carlson's real issue with Trump is not that Trump is not "America First," but that Trump is not the anti-semite he thought he was.
Thanks. I’m sure others will say I’m too harsh, but I certainly consider Tucker an idiot since he’s been flirting with AS bullshit and the kind of people who peddle it. I haven’t fully decided yet if he really is on boar with the Jew hate element he’s pandering to, or just too stupid to see that all his views now are tending in that direction.
Very well argued. It's extremely disappointing when voices one once experienced as bringing some common sense to the public debate slowly reveal rather juvenile tendencies to pander to the views of their latest unorthodox guest.
Well done, Daniel. This is one of your best. I think your analysis of Tucker Carlson is right on, but I would add that he is also lazy thinker who doesn't know as much as he thinks he does, which makes him susceptible to the weirdos he interviews. Your description of idealists is right on, too.
Thanks Judy. 😀😀
Apart from not thinking deeply, he fails to inform himself beforehand about many of the issues he discusses with guests. I recall one of the most egregious examples claiming Churchill was "the chief villain of World War II".
A tour de force, Daniel. Thank you. I have not listened to Tucker for weeks. Primarily because due to the insidious, county club anti-Semitism that has sneaked into his dialogues. And his gratingly maniacal laugh has become too much. This isn't difficult. It has been a hallmark of US policy for decades that Iran cannot have a nuclear weapon. Regardless of Administration. You would not let a lunatic have a loaded gun - especially not a particularly deranged psychotic - and the mullahs are nothing if not that. Trump is right, Tucker has gone off the deep end.
Thanks Bruce. Yes and it’s weird the way they can’t see the difference between invented WMDs that were never backed by evidence and a 20 year old nuclear weapons programme with lots of clear evidence of imminent success.
Yes. When even the corrupt UN finds that Iran is cheating on nukes, the question has been resolved.
Excellent piece of analysis as always Daniel. This Zionist/Hidden Hand story has spread like a virus through the minds of so many of those who call themselves 'awake'. Once they stumble upon this 'secret knowledge' they become dogmatic, totally intolerant of alternative viewpoints and unable to see the world through any other lens. It is very disheartening. I can understand why James Lindsay calls them the woke right.
Thanks Patricia. There are things about that label that make sense, but also aspects of it that don’t. I use it very cautiously. I totally agree with you on the Hidden Hand stuff and the ‘secret awakening’.
From listening to James over the years my undersanding of his term 'the woke right' is those who hold the 'secret knowledge' like the high priests. He has previously described the entire woke ideology as functioning like a cult with 3 layers - the adherents doing the social justice stuff, the next layer is the learned ones who have actually read the texts and then there are the high priests who possess the secret knowledge. The anti Zionist types seem to believe themselves endowed with secret knowledge in my experience of trying to talk to them. My brother in law is one such. When I tell him he is talking bs he complains that he is just trying to help me uncovered the truth - arrogant shit.
Lindsay is right on those aspects. But it’s probably better to describe the secret knowledge layering as Gnostic rather than Woke. Woke is a modem Gnosticism framed by the Left. The Secret Knowledge Right share Jew hatred and the Gnostic idea that only they are enlightened enough to see what is really happening. But there is a lot more that is Woke they don’t share. And saying Woke Right is like saying Toxic Masculinity-it tars the Right generally, who had nothing to do with woke. Leftists created Woke on purpose, and centrists and classical liberals pretended it was normal until they were targeted by it. Those are my objections to the term.
Lindsay does describe the secret knowledge as Gnostic but I do completely understand the points you are making and totally agree with you.
Perfect. I call guys like Tucker hypocrites. And they do love lotsa money. I am also trying to understand how I missed the Jew hatred in Tucker’s “making sense” phase, unlike my wife who called it; her antennas are finally tuned to that frequency.
I started picking up on it and was no longer well disguised a few weeks ago. At that point, I simply stopped watching him. Although not Jewish, myself, my first wife was and so are my daughters, so I have witnessed this veiled, country club prejudice for far too long.
I asked my wife when it became obvious to her and she recalled the transition from Fox when Tucker was looking for investors in his new media company. At the end, it is the money-thing.
Excellent discussion of a difficult subject. Trump and Carlson, at one point, seemed made for each other. That was suspicious because it wasn't always that way. Now Carlson has moved on to the "next greatest thing", at least in his mind, while Trump is still Trump. It is not easily understood how someone like Trump can stand unchanged when so many others will crumble. Call it the strength of his belief or whatever you will, however it is refreshing to not wake up in the morning wondering what changes in policy or belief have occurred overnight.
Well explicated. Tucker Carlson appears to be going a bit crazy, lately, I agree.
Thanks and yes, he’s lost the plot lately. It saddens me.
Thanks for this. Lots of hysteria and not a lot of facts at the moment. Keeping an open mind when all else are foaming at the mouth is hard but necessary. I like Tucker but he is easily manipulated and deceived. His upbringing and life do not reflect average Americans. That’s ok but it dulls or limits your perspective. We see a lot of this in the US ( my family relate perspectives that leave me wondering if we live in the same world) and the UK. Watch what they do not what they say. Turn off your TV.
Beautiful!
Tucker: ideologue, flip-flopping. Likes his latest mania without considering the future result.
Trump: straight ahead whose mantra since well before his political life (see his interview with Oprah) has been what’s best for the USA now and into the future.
Good analysis! Interesting take too. My first thought when Tucker swung left was that he had gone Globalist, more pro Islam than anti Jew. He seems to have given in to the text/social media communications conundrum that reduces everything to some trite phrase like NO MORE WARS. Wouldn't you love to ask him if America was attacked, would he surrender? I wonder where some of these people truly draw the line.
Thanks. Your reply coincides with a similar thought that I often have, which is why these opponents of wokeness, the Left, absurd reductive arguments from progressives, never pause when find themselves saying the same thing as their old enemies.
Very well said. Tucker did good work attacking Biden madness, wokery and corruption but I can’t comment on his latest twists as I seldom watch him now. He seems to be a good proxy for you to vent against, like the feeble-minded groupthinkers of the G7 (Trump excluded).
I was pleased to see that your previous post with the somewhat lacklustre title “Why everyone forgets that two wars can be different” was reposted by TCW under the more positive title “The world is safer because Donald Trump is the US President”.
Talking of TCW and your final paragraph reference to the 30,000 pound US bunker bomb, Richard North has a supportive post today entitled “Israel’s job is not over until Iranian nuclear sites are smouldering ruins”. He describes how Israel may be able to destroy Iran’s underground nuclear facilities by repeated strikes with their own precision-guided 5,000 pound bunker bomb.
Thanks Douglas, I’ll look out for the North article.
Great post. Alas, only one technical comment:
"And he can see too that providing a 30,000 pound Mother of All Bombs to take out the key Iranian nuclear weapon site makes more sense than 20 years patrolling the sand, flies and shit of Afghanistan made. "
Sadly, this is not an option. Israel does not have aircraft that can deliver the MOAB, or the MOP (a version of the MOAB - Massive Ordinance Penetrator, also 30,000 lbs). Only the U.S. has such aircraft, so providing a MOP to Israel won't help.
None of the hardpoints on any of Israel's aircraft (F-15EX/F-15I, F-16I or F-35I) can carry such a load. I believe the hardpoints are limited to 5000 lbs max (though this is from memory). Perhaps that number can be increased to something like 6,000-7,000 lbs, as long as the aircraft does not maneuver at high Gs. The F-15I can carry a TOTAL of about 29,000 lbs of ordinance, but that's on ALL the hardpoints.
I am not aware of a penetrator that weighs 6,000 lbs (at least, none that have been announced publicly, to my knowledge). Strictly speaking, this is not quantum physics, and manufacturing such a custom penetrator is almost certainly within Israel's technological capability. Whether a 6,000 lbs penetrator is enough to do anything to a facility buried that deep under a mountain, like Fordow... Hard to know, but a 30,000 lbs penetrator is a hell of a lot MORE likely to do it than one 5 times smaller.
It is possible that Israel has something larger, and plans to drop it from a C-130, which is how the old really big bombs were delivered. Perhaps... Of course, for that, you need to be really really sure that all the air defenses have been fully suppressed, since a C-130 is on a suicide mission otherwise.
Questions, questions...
Anyway, thought I'd mention it...
Thanks for the technical info. That’s not my best area, but I checked before writing and was aware that the US would probably have to supply the flight as well as the bomb. I should have worded it clearer, but thanks for clarifying it for me.
Notwithstanding his extremist view of there being good people on both sides of the abortion issue, “Trump is not looking for the Perfect Ideological Fit. He has it already, and it’s called America. Trump has almost zero ideological content. He’s all indomitable self belief and very simple patriotism. It’s expressed almost entirely in the two main slogans of his life in politics. America First, and Make America Great Again. That’s it. He means both, and there is nothing else attached to either. He’s not a Zionist. He’s not an Anti Zionist. He’s not a Democrat. He’s not a Republican. He’s not a Free Trade Fetishist, and he’s not a Crazy Lunatic. He’s not a lover of NATO, and he’s not a servant of the UN. He’s not a Conspiracy Theorist, and he’s not an Establishment Stooge. He’s not Perfect, and he’s not a Monster. “
Excellent post and analysis, though in my view you give tucker carlson a bit too much credit. Since he has allowed his anti-semitism to florish, he has become insufferable. It has infected his critical thinking ability. It goes beyond his feelings about Israel, to the point where he provides a platform for those who deny the Holocaust while deceptively claiming to be "just asking the question," and not trying to make a point. His back and forths between Mark Levin have been most entertaining. His railings against Trump will lead to tucker looking more the fool he is. Trying to "OUT MAGA" Trump and appear more "America First" than Trump is a loser's game. carlson's real issue with Trump is not that Trump is not "America First," but that Trump is not the anti-semite he thought he was.
Thanks. I’m sure others will say I’m too harsh, but I certainly consider Tucker an idiot since he’s been flirting with AS bullshit and the kind of people who peddle it. I haven’t fully decided yet if he really is on boar with the Jew hate element he’s pandering to, or just too stupid to see that all his views now are tending in that direction.
On Point. Excellent.
Very well argued. It's extremely disappointing when voices one once experienced as bringing some common sense to the public debate slowly reveal rather juvenile tendencies to pander to the views of their latest unorthodox guest.
I think Israel and US could be creating a level playing field for the Persian People to create the government of their choice.