The flurry of telegram traffic between the various capitals of Europe in late June of 1919 was almost similar to the volume seen in the weeks before the Great War.  With the fifth anniversary of that cataclysm rapidly approaching, and no formal peace treaty having yet been signed and accepted, there was burgeoning nervousness that war might return to ravage Europe.  Despite months of Allied negotiations to craft terms of a final treaty with Germany, the German response had waivered between hostile rejection and begrudging acceptance.  Still, no German signature had touched the treaty, in part as no German politician wished to affix their name.  Chancellor Philipp Scheidemann (Friedrich Ebert had risen to the post of President of Germany with the newly announced Weimer Republic), spoke for all his colleagues when he said: “What hand should not wither that puts this fetter on itself and on us?”

The task fell upon Gustav Bauer, the next in line of authority as Schneidemann chose resignation as opposed to destroying his political legacy.  Even Ebert declared the treaty’s demands “unrealizable and unbearable,” decrying not only the punitive terms but the process in which the treaty had been crafted without any input from Germany or the former Central Powers.  This wasn’t a peace treaty but a division of war spoils and an unconditional surrender, or so Germany complained.  Bauer cabled the Allies, stating that he would sign the treaty if a handful of articles containing language about German culpability for the war and war crimes trials for the exiled former Kaiser be removed.  The Allied response was clear – sign the whole treaty within 24 hours or French troops would cross the Rhine and occupy Germany.  In desperation, the new Weimer government asked Paul von HIndenburg if the German army could potentially resist a renewed Allied offensive.  They likely knew the answer before even asking the question.

On June 28th, 1919, in the Hall of Mirrors in the Palace of Versailles, 27 delegates representing 32 nations gathered to sign the final instrument of peace to end the First World War.  It had been exactly five years to the date of Franz Ferdinand’s assassination.  Germany had sent their Foreign Minister to oversee the signing.  Gazing over the Foreign Minister as he signed was the gigantic self-portrait that Louis XIV had commissioned.  The portrait’s title spoke of the Allies dominance on this day – “The King Governs By Himself.”

The treaty signing in the Hall of Mirrors – thousands of onlookers joined journalists and diplomats to oversee the brief ceremony

That any final terms of a peace treaty between Germany and the victorious Allies would be harsh could hardly have been a surprise.  The process of even arriving at an Armistice had seen Germany agree to give up most of their military and infrastructure, not to mention an occupation of the Ruhr by the French that increasingly looked tantamount to annexation.  Similar treaties/armistices with what remained of the Austro-Hungarian and Ottoman Empires had been debilitating as well, as both empires were stripped of their territories, their infrastructure plundered and their armies legislated into irrelevance.  Only post treaty/armistice violence would lessen some of the strongest terms, as the Hungarian revolution and the following Turkish War of Independence forced the Allies’ hand to renegotiate.  And in the winter and spring of 1919, Germany had no appetite or ability to militarily resist.  (more…)

“…and if you say we are…

“…you’re a liar”

SCENE:  Mitch BERG is at the Mississippi Market co-op buying catnip.  His head on a swivel to try to avoid progressive crazies, he’s trying so hard to be careful.  But despite his best efforts, he walks around a corner and practically runs into Avery LIBRELLE.

LIBRELLE:  Merg!

BERG:  Oh, for fuuuuuu…ll disclosure, Hi, Avery…

LIBRELLE:  Yet another mass shooting.   It’s time for a conversation about guns.

BERG:  Uh, you mean “monologue”, right?

LIBRELLE:  Ha ha.  The problem is, the right never offers any alternatives.  That’s our big frustration.

BERG:  I see your “frustration”, and raise you one; the frustration on the right is that the left keeps saying “the right offers no alternatives”.   Fact is, we offer them constantly. The left refuses to discuss them honestly.

LIBRELLE: Prove it.

BERG: You asked. Here we go.

For starters: enforce existing laws – especially the ones that are objectively proven to work. Putting gun criminals in jail deters more gun crime. Yet here in the Twin Cities, the two big-county prosecutors have *never*, not once, used the sentencing enhancements that statute allows for gun crimes. *Not once*.

Second: Intervene with youth at risk of getting sucked into gangs.

Third: Fire the US Attorneys that refuse to prosecute straw purchasers. There are *many* of them. Chicago’s already bad violence became much worse after the USA for Northern IL publicly announced he didn’t care to prosecute straw buyers. “Entrepreneurs” shortly started making a pile of money buying guns in Wisconsin and Indiana and selling them to bangers. These USAs need to be fired (that’ll take a GOP president, of course).

Fourth: Start talking honestly about empirical evidence. For example – in 1,000 school districts nationwide that *allow* teachers and staff to bring their own firearms to school, strictly concealed, there has never been a shooting on school property during school hours. This responds to the *fact*, determined by the Secret Service after Columbine, that spree killers very intentionally avoid targets where people unknown to them (i.e. not security guards or cops) can resist them; there’s no way to plan around them. The left reacts with horror – “teachers are about *teaching*, not KILLING”, but they miss the point; not a single teacher or principal or janitor needs to carry single gun; the threat alone is the deterrent. The only response is pure emotion – as if living in an oppressive state of panic about potential spree killers is better than the notion that somewhere on campus, someone with a clean criminal record and decades of incident-free carry might have a gun on ’em. That’s just one of many.

Another thing we learned at Columbine – the best thing to do with a spree shooter is to resist, as lethally as possible, immediately. (It doesn’t in fact matter if that resistance comes from a cop, a guard or a good guy with a gun – but SOMEONE has to put a threat of death in the shooter’s face asap). As we saw in Uvalde (and at Parkland before it), not all cops got the word. Waiting around for a spree killer to negotiate doesn’t work. (Salutory fact; when a spree killer has 20 minutes as at Parkland, or an hour as at Uvalde, the AR15 doesn’t matter; someone could kill 20 people in an hour with grandpa’s break-open shotgun, a cowboy six-gun, or a muzzle-loading musket). Anyway – push policies that favor aggressive self-defense and police response.

Fifth: You want a “red flag law”? Do one in good faith, one that involves more than an easily abused ex parte hearing that serves mostly as a medium for ex-spouses’s revenge, one that allows the subject to defend themselves, with results more useful than taking a suicidal or dissociative person’s guns and leaving ’em alone,

Those are things that people on the right *constantlty* reiterate, and have for decades. I’ve been an activist on this issue for almost 30 years, and our line *has not changed*.

And yet people on the left keep repeating “if only the right had any alternatives”.

All due respect, it’s not true, and it’s getting old.

LIBRELLE: (Mock sleeping, Librelle makes an elaborate show of waking up). Like I said, no alternatives.

BERG: Exactly.

And SCENE

Joe Biden is currently 79, and will be 80 in November. His slide into senescence continues untrammeled.

The latest ghost images coughed up by random firings of the remaining synapses in Biden’s cranium led him to claim he had been appointed to the Naval Academy. From the New York Post.

President Biden told graduating midshipmen at the Naval Academy Friday that he applied to the school in 1965 — but a quick check of his biography shows problems with the story.

Biden said he applied to Annapolis with a letter from then-Delaware Sen. J. Caleb Boggs, but the year he cited — 1965 — is the same year he graduated from the University of Delaware. The academy doesn’t offer graduate degrees.

Biden has a habit of seeking to relate to his audiences by sharing questionable anecdotes about his personal experiences — as well as making false or exaggerated claims.

In September, Biden told Jewish leaders that he remembered “spending time at” and “going to” the Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburgh after the mass murder of 11 people in 2018. The synagogue said he never visited and the White House later said he was thinking about a 2019 phone call to the synagogue’s rabbi.

About two weeks later, Biden told an Idaho audience that his “first job offer” came from local lumber and wood products business Boise Cascade. The company said it was news to them and Biden had not previously described an interest in moving to the state.

In January, Biden told students of historically black colleges in Atlanta that he was arrested during civil rights protests — for which there also is no evidence.

In perhaps the most infamous example, Biden in 2020 claimed he “had the great honor of being arrested” in South Africa when he was “trying to get to see [Nelson Mandela] on Robbens [sic] Island,” where Mandela was in prison until 1990. He said Mandela thanked him for it. Later, Biden admitted that it was untrue.

Biden’s Mouth of Sauron claims not to have heard that part of the speech, and so couldn’t comment.

Ronald Reagan was just short of 78 when he left office after his second term.

In 1987 Don Henley wrote “The End of the Innocence” with Bruce Hornsby, and he included the line “they’re beating plowshares into swords, for this tired old man that we elected king,” a reference to Reagan.

I’m still waiting for Henley’s song about Biden.

2020: His reelection bid coming up short in the face of democrat turnout and allegations of fraud, Donald Trump claims Dominion voting machines are rigged.

The establishment tut-tuts, call Trump a sore loser. Social media censor thousands of people who repeat and extend Trump’s claim about the voting machines

2024: Uh…

TikTok recently knocked Buzzfeed off my list of tech entities I hate the most. It’s a long list, but the top of the field is still pretty rarified territory.

I’ve vented my disdain for Buzzfeed – the news outlet almost too stupid for Aaron Rupar to work for it – since Molly Priesmeyer declared it the future of news, fifteen years ago.

They haven’t improved much:

I should do the same thing with the Strib’s selection of op-ed writers…

Joe Doakes from Como Park emails:

India not shipping much wheat to other nations,they’re keeping most of it to feed their own. They are hoarding wheat!

The tiny amount they grudgingly sell costs too much. They are price gouging!

Poor people in other nations will go hungry. They are playing politics with food, women and children hardest hit!

India is putting the interest of its own citizens first and letting the rest of the world fend for itself. They are ultra-nationalist isolationists!

Why aren’t we?

Joe Doakes

Rhetorical question, right?

Joe Doakes from Como Park emails:

Riddle me this: when is a bumblebee like a tuna?

When it’s in California, where a bumblebee is considered a fish for purposes of the Endangered Species Act.

Joe Doakes

Sunday, history will regard California as a parody of itself.

Joe Doakes from Como Park emails:

I read a rant about government being inefficient and more of a hindrance than a help. That’s not a bug, it’s a feature.

Most government exists to regulate activities: set standards for operation; inspect to ensure compliance; license to permit operation while in compliance; revoke license for non-compliance; arrest, prosecute and sentence for operating without a license; data entry to record inspections, licenses, payments and revocations; none of which ‘makes’ anything or reduces any burdens on commerce, but all of which is Necessary For The Public Good.

I’d write more but it’s time for my break. Take a number. I’ll get to you in a minute.

Joe Doakes

And it’s biggest job of course – perpetuated self.