Charlie—cis is a term from chemistry. It refers to molecular structure. Trans = same side. Cis = opposite sides. Ask JVL to explain it (after all, he almost went to med school).
I’m a center left guy who didn’t like you Mr Sykes on 1310 am here in the Madison area, but when I found the Bulwark podcast January 2020 I changed my mind. You’re the reason I joined. Got me listening to Tim Miller, Tom Nichols, Mona Charen ect.. Thank you
I just listened to your Secret Podcast where you discussed the word ‘cis’ and didn’t know how to reach you and Ms. Charen. Cis is from Latin. It’s not made up although I’ve never seen ‘cis’ in a Latin vocabulary. Nonetheless, it is Latin. From your vocabulary, I thought you had taken Latin. Do you remember Cisalpine Gaul? J. Caesar spoke of the area. It’s that area in the Italian Dolomites. These tribes originally from Gaul were distinguished from the tribes on the other side of Alps—Transalpine Gaul. Maybe the ‘cis’ came after the ‘trans’ in this whole gender discussion, and someone needed a word. It is rather unusual but is just a preposition like trans. I also believe that there are not just two genders. It’s way more complicated. Re your discussion about oxygen levels for males and females, I have read that and also that a person who changes from male to female also loses her oxygen capacity. She has changed. The Montana legislature spent a lot of time worrying about this in the last session and passed a bill that prohibits those who have made a male to female transition ineligible to participate in track. From a retired Latin teacher in Montana.
"we are also seeing the full, raw power of kinetic disinformation in the hands of an unhinged autocrat."
For clarity, change autocrat to psychopath. There. That's closer to the reality [sic] of the universe in which Vladimir Vladimirovich resides. In other words, this monster is a nut job killer.
Deep thinkers on the far right have convinced themselves that if you (or David French) assert that Putin is more dangerous than Trudeau, it's only because you're upset that Putin isn't letting you bring drag queen story hour to Russia. Righties have sided with autocracy, assassination of political opponents, forcible annexation of neighbors, etc., but they still want to believe they're more moral than you are. So they say that your real agenda (and David French's) is to sow decadence around the world.
Welcome to the sick and tired masses of Americans who are craving "results"! As the adage goes, don't focus on words, focus on results. It seems that the Ukraine situation is very clear, a hostile country has invaded a democratic sovereign nation and all the "unity" talk is talk. What are the consequences?? Sanctions? Putin owns Russia, does he care about the people, does he care about financial impact to his bank account (he probably owns the banks). Do we have the resolve and toughness to make the hard decision to help defend Ukraine and send a clear and decisive message to other autocrats? Similarly, I do not think this is a stretch, our DOJ, and Mr. Garland specifically must bring action against Trump, and his republican representatives, House or Senate members where clear evidence may suggest their participation in seditious behavior. Again, words don't count unless there are results. I strongly believe the American people are looking for some evidence our institutions will stand up for Democracy and hold bad actors accountable. Whether Ukraine or our own country, results matter.
I wish Pres. Biden luck in his handling of the Ukraine problem. The America First contingent in this country will criticize him no matter what he does or doesn’t do, and don’t really care what happens there or anywhere else. They will blame Biden even more than they already do if/when their gas prices go up, and rejoice at the idea that this means Putin is thumbing his nose at Biden. Freedom is an ideal for them only insofar as it means they can do whatever they damn well want individually. God help Biden and the people of Ukraine.
Shawn makes some good observations in his post concerning America First and the squandering of the political capital by foreign policy elites.
One of the important points that should be made is that foreign policy in this country has always been a mess--for two reasons:
1) It is constructed largely for domestic political consumption (the most effect parts of American foreign policy have usually been the parts that no one was paying attention to at the time, so less a factor in domestic politics);
2) It is often driven by the emotions of the public--which means we get into things we should not (Afghanistan and Iraq) and then cannot get out. We then dress up these fits of rage in high-sounding language (like bringing democracy and helping women, etc--whatever needs to be said to get a particular domestic political faction on board.
If you can manipulate the opinion of a significant hunk of the public you can basically gridlock American foreign policy. Putin has succeeded in doing that. Our own adventures in the middle east made his job easier.
Here is the (non) shocker--we ARE just like everyone else. We are not exceptional, except in the level of BS we put out to justify whatever it is that we are doing.
Guess what, there isn't a damn thing wrong with that.
It is better for me, as an American, if my country is on top. Better if it controls international institutions and finance. Better if other countries have to think 6 times before they do something we don't like.
Not necessarily better for them, but certainly better for me and most Americans--and these other places likely have a better chance at a better future with us than with international leadership like Putin or Xi--because they aren't even really all that interested in helping their own people, let alone anyone else.
We may not be great or exceptional, but I still think we are the best game in town (not that the bar is all that high)--if only because we ARE limited by public opinion.
Ultimately, I think the major issue is that the foreign policy establishment thinks that it's always got a blank check to do whatever it wants. And that leads to reasonable mistrust. Because two things are true at once:
1. We benefit if the world works based on systems we built and maintain. The world bank, the united nations, the current world order in general: we the american people benefit from that. But this is not how it is sold to us, because when you just say that everyone else gets kind of nervous. Other nations don't like being told to their face that they're working in our system. Though deep down, everyone knows that they are. The only one crazy enough to test this is Putin, because he does not care if he breaks the system or not.
2. The American Foreign policy establishment always, ALWAYS overreaches and overreacts. See guys like Bolton who wanted war with Iran. Or how they did things like take out elected presidents in Chile. Or invade Granada. Or the Bay of Pigs. Vietnam and Afghanistan's failed nation building. They are almost constantly bad at risk assessment and take a policy of 'act, then justify whatever you did after the fact.'
This is not a way to maintain trust. Especially not when you want to then leverage that for important things. For example, would you trust the guys who said Iran was a global level threat to now handle Russia? No, you wouldn't. Because when people are consistently wrong, you stop trusting them.
A big problem is that the foreign establishment is very much a bubble. And they don't speak the language of the American citizen anymore. In many ways, they haven't for thirty years or more. 9/11 mostly papered over this, because what the American people wanted, revenge, flowed nicely with what the establishment wanted, which was to defend America and take out a political opponent. The problem was that, after doing this, the desires diverged.
In any case, what we need is for the Foreign Policy establishment to speak the language of the people, and we need for people to realize that we have it pretty good.
Biden is in a position that no matter what he does he will be condemned. Trump's cult followers love Putin and side with Russia. Democrats hate war. No side wins in this except Putin.
Placating Putin at this point is a Neville Chamberlain move. Tip toeing into what incursion justifies the sanctions is just lame. In actuality, and not really being a big war kind of guy, I think it's really time to go all in. Confront Putin right now with major military hardware coupled with cyber and sanctions and perhaps create disturbances behind his lines. While Ukraine may not be a NATO member, the writing is on the wall for any failures in the short term.
We do not need a destabilized Europe and it's coming to a city anywhere there.
I can't conceive of the US doing it alone. It takes NATO. If NATO can't unify ( and I think they will) around the actual notion of sanctions and arms, then NATO is meaningless.
The US clearly needs political unity in condemning this violation of internationally recognized borders, one even acknowledged by Putin himself in the past and in writing. But, if the POT Rinos can't see this for the "piece"-keeping mission that it clearly is, they will be putting their names up with Petain and Quisling as Milktoasts, now of the 21st Century. If this attack on a true democracy is not rejected by the McConnells, McCarthys and Grahams, to name the obvious few, they should be given the opportunity to be ambassadors to Kyiv to open the doors when Vlad rolls in.
I think Biden is getting more support from Republican leadership than gets on cable tv news. After all reasoned opinions don't generate eyeballs. The reason I say this is I know Graham has come out condemning Russia. Also in my news feed was a local Oklahoma tv piece quoting Senator Inhofe, ranking minority Senator on the foreign affairs committee, on the seriousness of the situation and supporting Biden's efforts
I read about Lapdog Lindsey playing the hawk, but I also recall the same individual saying he was through with TFG on 7 or 8 January 2021 and look where he is now on that topic.
I worked for 2 years in Russia in the mid-90s. The amount of money that flowed into Russia and the former Warsaw Pact nations was significant. World Bank loans, EBRD loans and grants, direct investments from Western businesses, etc. We did everything we could to bring Russia into the fold of industrialized democracies, except we dropped the ball on one thing.
We did not do enough to help them detect and defeat the crooks and con artists among their own ranks. The KGB (and the NKVD and the Cheka before them, and the Tsarist secret police before them) had a long-standing tradition of recruiting teenage delinquents into their ranks for muscle. And they had quiet arrangements with the existing organized crime gangs ("thieves in law"). We should have done much more to help establish the elements of civil society that would keep those forces in check - anti-racketeering prosecutors, muckraking journalists, blue sky laws for securities, massive public education campaigns.
Putin has run the old playbook. Recruit the criminals into his organization, and use control of media and education to foment xenophobia and distrust in the populace. And now it's 1956 and 1968 all over again.
I believe it's more that we put too much stock in the morality of western business. Western business, business itself really, has no morality beyond making money. We've seen this over and over again. Western businesses will work with anyone to make a buck. That's cynical, but realistic. We work with worse people than the Russians; we work with the Chinese and Saudi's after all.
But the real reason why sanctions are so late in coming and why we're so reluctant to use them is because of how many of our own companies do not like the idea of them. It's the same reason we didn't sanction our allies over Iran; because in the battle between fighting Iran and not upsetting our allies, we chose the latter. In this case, we're choosing not to upset our businesses and banks that want to maintain ties with Russia.
Businesses do not care if Ukraine exists. They care about whether they can do business with Russia. And ultimately, there exists no politician or nation willing to dispute this and take the political and economic hit required to actually produce real, biting sanctions.
Well we have done the piecemeal EU approach. It is time for Biden to channel his inner Ronald Reagan. If Putin wants to return to the Soviet Union's past glory then we are forced to take him at his word. It is time to put those missiles we took of line back to use and retarget them. After all Putin has demonstrated his willingness to go to war.
We never going to pick a fight with a nuclear power over Ukraine, but other than that I agree with pretty much everything Charlie has to say. If Russia does an actual invasion we should be clear their days of doing business with the US, EU, and many more nations are over. They can be wealthy or they can be tyrannical, but not both.
Charlie—cis is a term from chemistry. It refers to molecular structure. Trans = same side. Cis = opposite sides. Ask JVL to explain it (after all, he almost went to med school).
I’m a center left guy who didn’t like you Mr Sykes on 1310 am here in the Madison area, but when I found the Bulwark podcast January 2020 I changed my mind. You’re the reason I joined. Got me listening to Tim Miller, Tom Nichols, Mona Charen ect.. Thank you
Putin with a obedient Belarus on his side doesn’t make me feel secure about Lithuania or Latvia.
I just listened to your Secret Podcast where you discussed the word ‘cis’ and didn’t know how to reach you and Ms. Charen. Cis is from Latin. It’s not made up although I’ve never seen ‘cis’ in a Latin vocabulary. Nonetheless, it is Latin. From your vocabulary, I thought you had taken Latin. Do you remember Cisalpine Gaul? J. Caesar spoke of the area. It’s that area in the Italian Dolomites. These tribes originally from Gaul were distinguished from the tribes on the other side of Alps—Transalpine Gaul. Maybe the ‘cis’ came after the ‘trans’ in this whole gender discussion, and someone needed a word. It is rather unusual but is just a preposition like trans. I also believe that there are not just two genders. It’s way more complicated. Re your discussion about oxygen levels for males and females, I have read that and also that a person who changes from male to female also loses her oxygen capacity. She has changed. The Montana legislature spent a lot of time worrying about this in the last session and passed a bill that prohibits those who have made a male to female transition ineligible to participate in track. From a retired Latin teacher in Montana.
"we are also seeing the full, raw power of kinetic disinformation in the hands of an unhinged autocrat."
For clarity, change autocrat to psychopath. There. That's closer to the reality [sic] of the universe in which Vladimir Vladimirovich resides. In other words, this monster is a nut job killer.
With nukes.
Deep thinkers on the far right have convinced themselves that if you (or David French) assert that Putin is more dangerous than Trudeau, it's only because you're upset that Putin isn't letting you bring drag queen story hour to Russia. Righties have sided with autocracy, assassination of political opponents, forcible annexation of neighbors, etc., but they still want to believe they're more moral than you are. So they say that your real agenda (and David French's) is to sow decadence around the world.
Welcome to the sick and tired masses of Americans who are craving "results"! As the adage goes, don't focus on words, focus on results. It seems that the Ukraine situation is very clear, a hostile country has invaded a democratic sovereign nation and all the "unity" talk is talk. What are the consequences?? Sanctions? Putin owns Russia, does he care about the people, does he care about financial impact to his bank account (he probably owns the banks). Do we have the resolve and toughness to make the hard decision to help defend Ukraine and send a clear and decisive message to other autocrats? Similarly, I do not think this is a stretch, our DOJ, and Mr. Garland specifically must bring action against Trump, and his republican representatives, House or Senate members where clear evidence may suggest their participation in seditious behavior. Again, words don't count unless there are results. I strongly believe the American people are looking for some evidence our institutions will stand up for Democracy and hold bad actors accountable. Whether Ukraine or our own country, results matter.
The White House has taken a first step
https://www.huffpost.com
I wish Pres. Biden luck in his handling of the Ukraine problem. The America First contingent in this country will criticize him no matter what he does or doesn’t do, and don’t really care what happens there or anywhere else. They will blame Biden even more than they already do if/when their gas prices go up, and rejoice at the idea that this means Putin is thumbing his nose at Biden. Freedom is an ideal for them only insofar as it means they can do whatever they damn well want individually. God help Biden and the people of Ukraine.
They just can't wait for Trump to get back. He will immediately praise Putin for defending Russia against the Ukraine.
Shawn makes some good observations in his post concerning America First and the squandering of the political capital by foreign policy elites.
One of the important points that should be made is that foreign policy in this country has always been a mess--for two reasons:
1) It is constructed largely for domestic political consumption (the most effect parts of American foreign policy have usually been the parts that no one was paying attention to at the time, so less a factor in domestic politics);
2) It is often driven by the emotions of the public--which means we get into things we should not (Afghanistan and Iraq) and then cannot get out. We then dress up these fits of rage in high-sounding language (like bringing democracy and helping women, etc--whatever needs to be said to get a particular domestic political faction on board.
If you can manipulate the opinion of a significant hunk of the public you can basically gridlock American foreign policy. Putin has succeeded in doing that. Our own adventures in the middle east made his job easier.
Here is the (non) shocker--we ARE just like everyone else. We are not exceptional, except in the level of BS we put out to justify whatever it is that we are doing.
Guess what, there isn't a damn thing wrong with that.
It is better for me, as an American, if my country is on top. Better if it controls international institutions and finance. Better if other countries have to think 6 times before they do something we don't like.
Not necessarily better for them, but certainly better for me and most Americans--and these other places likely have a better chance at a better future with us than with international leadership like Putin or Xi--because they aren't even really all that interested in helping their own people, let alone anyone else.
We may not be great or exceptional, but I still think we are the best game in town (not that the bar is all that high)--if only because we ARE limited by public opinion.
Ultimately, I think the major issue is that the foreign policy establishment thinks that it's always got a blank check to do whatever it wants. And that leads to reasonable mistrust. Because two things are true at once:
1. We benefit if the world works based on systems we built and maintain. The world bank, the united nations, the current world order in general: we the american people benefit from that. But this is not how it is sold to us, because when you just say that everyone else gets kind of nervous. Other nations don't like being told to their face that they're working in our system. Though deep down, everyone knows that they are. The only one crazy enough to test this is Putin, because he does not care if he breaks the system or not.
2. The American Foreign policy establishment always, ALWAYS overreaches and overreacts. See guys like Bolton who wanted war with Iran. Or how they did things like take out elected presidents in Chile. Or invade Granada. Or the Bay of Pigs. Vietnam and Afghanistan's failed nation building. They are almost constantly bad at risk assessment and take a policy of 'act, then justify whatever you did after the fact.'
This is not a way to maintain trust. Especially not when you want to then leverage that for important things. For example, would you trust the guys who said Iran was a global level threat to now handle Russia? No, you wouldn't. Because when people are consistently wrong, you stop trusting them.
A big problem is that the foreign establishment is very much a bubble. And they don't speak the language of the American citizen anymore. In many ways, they haven't for thirty years or more. 9/11 mostly papered over this, because what the American people wanted, revenge, flowed nicely with what the establishment wanted, which was to defend America and take out a political opponent. The problem was that, after doing this, the desires diverged.
In any case, what we need is for the Foreign Policy establishment to speak the language of the people, and we need for people to realize that we have it pretty good.
Biden is in a position that no matter what he does he will be condemned. Trump's cult followers love Putin and side with Russia. Democrats hate war. No side wins in this except Putin.
Placating Putin at this point is a Neville Chamberlain move. Tip toeing into what incursion justifies the sanctions is just lame. In actuality, and not really being a big war kind of guy, I think it's really time to go all in. Confront Putin right now with major military hardware coupled with cyber and sanctions and perhaps create disturbances behind his lines. While Ukraine may not be a NATO member, the writing is on the wall for any failures in the short term.
We do not need a destabilized Europe and it's coming to a city anywhere there.
Yes but the US can't do it alone. If the Russian oligarchs lose enough money, they may be able to reign Putin in.
I can't conceive of the US doing it alone. It takes NATO. If NATO can't unify ( and I think they will) around the actual notion of sanctions and arms, then NATO is meaningless.
The US clearly needs political unity in condemning this violation of internationally recognized borders, one even acknowledged by Putin himself in the past and in writing. But, if the POT Rinos can't see this for the "piece"-keeping mission that it clearly is, they will be putting their names up with Petain and Quisling as Milktoasts, now of the 21st Century. If this attack on a true democracy is not rejected by the McConnells, McCarthys and Grahams, to name the obvious few, they should be given the opportunity to be ambassadors to Kyiv to open the doors when Vlad rolls in.
I think Biden is getting more support from Republican leadership than gets on cable tv news. After all reasoned opinions don't generate eyeballs. The reason I say this is I know Graham has come out condemning Russia. Also in my news feed was a local Oklahoma tv piece quoting Senator Inhofe, ranking minority Senator on the foreign affairs committee, on the seriousness of the situation and supporting Biden's efforts
I read about Lapdog Lindsey playing the hawk, but I also recall the same individual saying he was through with TFG on 7 or 8 January 2021 and look where he is now on that topic.
That's amazing, because most people in OK support Trump as dictator.
I worked for 2 years in Russia in the mid-90s. The amount of money that flowed into Russia and the former Warsaw Pact nations was significant. World Bank loans, EBRD loans and grants, direct investments from Western businesses, etc. We did everything we could to bring Russia into the fold of industrialized democracies, except we dropped the ball on one thing.
We did not do enough to help them detect and defeat the crooks and con artists among their own ranks. The KGB (and the NKVD and the Cheka before them, and the Tsarist secret police before them) had a long-standing tradition of recruiting teenage delinquents into their ranks for muscle. And they had quiet arrangements with the existing organized crime gangs ("thieves in law"). We should have done much more to help establish the elements of civil society that would keep those forces in check - anti-racketeering prosecutors, muckraking journalists, blue sky laws for securities, massive public education campaigns.
Putin has run the old playbook. Recruit the criminals into his organization, and use control of media and education to foment xenophobia and distrust in the populace. And now it's 1956 and 1968 all over again.
I believe it's more that we put too much stock in the morality of western business. Western business, business itself really, has no morality beyond making money. We've seen this over and over again. Western businesses will work with anyone to make a buck. That's cynical, but realistic. We work with worse people than the Russians; we work with the Chinese and Saudi's after all.
But the real reason why sanctions are so late in coming and why we're so reluctant to use them is because of how many of our own companies do not like the idea of them. It's the same reason we didn't sanction our allies over Iran; because in the battle between fighting Iran and not upsetting our allies, we chose the latter. In this case, we're choosing not to upset our businesses and banks that want to maintain ties with Russia.
Businesses do not care if Ukraine exists. They care about whether they can do business with Russia. And ultimately, there exists no politician or nation willing to dispute this and take the political and economic hit required to actually produce real, biting sanctions.
That seems to be general belief from what I have been reading, I hope I'm not stuck in an echo chamber.
Well we have done the piecemeal EU approach. It is time for Biden to channel his inner Ronald Reagan. If Putin wants to return to the Soviet Union's past glory then we are forced to take him at his word. It is time to put those missiles we took of line back to use and retarget them. After all Putin has demonstrated his willingness to go to war.
We never going to pick a fight with a nuclear power over Ukraine, but other than that I agree with pretty much everything Charlie has to say. If Russia does an actual invasion we should be clear their days of doing business with the US, EU, and many more nations are over. They can be wealthy or they can be tyrannical, but not both.