Diplomatic Leverage, Parental Outsourcing & More Lies.
- George Bubrick
- Jul 12, 2024
- 10 min read
Diplomacy is not about dialogue. It’s about leverage.
As has been referenced in the past, one of the podcasts I frequent is Potomac Watch, which is several mostly WSJ columnists chewing the fat on issues of the day. In the following podcast, however, the guest is Stephen Kotkin a highly renowned expert on Russia. Kotkin is a Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institute and taught at Stanford and Princeton (33 years). I found his remarks on Russia, how to counteract and defeat illiberal regimes quite stimulating. He made such points as “diplomacy is not about dialogue; it is about leverage and without the shadow of force over the bargaining table nothing of value can be accomplished”. Worth a listen, if this kind of stuff is interesting to you.
The Outsourcing of Parenthood
I will never forget and have often quoted the words of a child psychiatrist whose talk with parents of children entering middle school at Pine Crest I attended. She said the only true measure of the job one did as a parent is whether your child turned out to be a productive member of society with high self-esteem. By which she meant an adult who creates value and embodies high moral and ethical standards. I recall those words as I watch mobs take over universities, vandalize their campuses and terrorize those unwilling to join. In a slightly related way, it brings back memories of my senior year at Cornell when the university was taken over by students protesting civil rights and the Vietnam war.
Funny story…
It all began on Saturday morning, April 18, 1969. Ironically, I may have been the first to encounter the initial stages. As I tried to enter Willard Straight Hall, the student union, for a coffee before Saturday morning Spanish class (let me pause here lest you get the wrong idea. This was the first Saturday morning class of my career and it was two months before graduation. But I needed to pass Spanish or my sheepskin would be in jeopardy.). But I digress. As I pulled the door to go in, it was locked. I pounded on it. No way it was supposed to be closed at that time or ever. Eventually, Homer Meade, a Black classmate with whom I played football, came to the door. He said, “Hey G, you can’t come in. We took over the Straight.” I said, my ire rising, “What the hell do you mean “took over.” Get out of the way. I’m running late.” I’ll spare you the rest. But over the next several weeks CU appeared on the cover of TIME, as the Afro American students held the university hostage. Final grades were abandoned in favor of Pass-Fail and you know who skated down that aisle to collect my diploma.
At least these protests had relevance. They were about the Vietnam War and civil rights. They were not supporting Terrorists who rape women and kill babies. Big difference – in my view.
What does this have to do with parental abdication? Well, in the case of Cornell, maybe not much. But in the case of today’s college uprisings, parental malfeasance is, in my opinion, a not insignificant part of the problem.
I grew up in an economically challenged family. Not poor, never wanting for food nor shelter nor parental leadership. But in our family, our parents were in charge and what they said went. There were no discussions about your feelings or phobias. There were rules and they were unambiguous. If you were a smart ass or argumentative, you were much more likely to get a smack than a timeout. Being encouraged to be yourself or do what you felt were anathema. Never even imagined. There were regular chores and report cards. I never heard the words stressed out or let him be a kid even once that I recall.
All this came into focus for me as a parent when at a very late stage in life I coached my son’s T-ball team. He was 5. I was 57. I approached this task as I approached my business. Identify the mission, create a process to achieve, develop the skills needed, set goals, measure results. As I tried to set clear expectations for my players and their parents alike – you know, stuff like getting to practice on time, paying attention, practicing on your own, etc. – I was speaking in tongues. While no one objected openly, the behavior that followed did. I’ll never forget two twins who were on the team. In the middle of a totally unimportant game, one was playing second base and tossing his glove in the air as the other team was rounding the bases, mostly because his brother was building a dirt mound in centerfield when the ball flew past.
Over the next eight years as I coached and watched my son play sports, it became clear that many (most) parents were terrified of saying no. They were all about feelings and making sure their kid “had fun”. This widespread lack of confidence in traditional parenting was not limited to sports by any stretch. It was manifest in attitudes, respect, effort, ownership and, eventually, performance outcomes. To be very clear - this was not as true among Black or Hispanic families because most recognized all too well that performance was a ticket out.
I recently listened to an interview with Abigail Shrier who captured widespread attention with her provocative book, Irreversible Damage, a transgender craze seducing our daughters. She followed with her latest, Bad Therapy.
To summarize her hypothesis, we have outsourced parenting. To school systems overrun with mental health counselors, therapists, counselors, teachers without psychology degrees and drug prescribing pediatricians. As a result, parents have been neutered. They have, by and large, lost all confidence in their instincts and the lessons they learned growing up. They are terrified lest they do or say something to upset poor troubled Johnny or Janey; thus, scarring them for life. Besides it’s easier to leave it up to the “professionals”, except they aren’t.
Far too often, parents buy into the notion that every aberrant behavior or uncooperative child is a result of some deep-rooted mental condition. Which, if not treated properly, will mature into irreversible damage. Every inappropriate act has a name designed to make it sound like some mental disability that requires medication or professional help. Instead of the kid just being a spoiled brat who needs to grow up.
What happened to a kid being shy? I’ll tell you (or more accurately Abigail will) he or she has a social phobia or social anxiety. If a kid does a lousy job of paying attention he has ADHD. If he’s a brat and yells at teachers and parents, he has oppositional defiant disorder. Couldn’t possibly be he’s a little snot who needs to be taught proper behavior and responsibility, right?
The really bad thing about this need to blame everything on disorders is it’s a self-fulfilling prophecy designed to keep the mental counselors chock a block full and let parents off the hook. Keep asking a young girl if she ever considered suicide and as sure as the sun gonna come out tomorrow, she will soon.
Kids need to be taught self-control, responsibility for their behavior, self-governance. It comes down to saying NO. Not by taking the child who totally disrupts family time to his room to sit with him for hours while the rest of the family twiddles thumbs.
As soon as child does poorly on a test, we designate him or her subject to anxiety disorder or overstressed and send to a therapist. Meanwhile parents, in attempt to continue being supportive, talk about “boundaries”.
It’s no wonder couples are having fewer and fewer kids. They’ve lost all confidence. They walk around all day trying to befriend, not o-ffend.
Unless and until parents take back control, our youth will continue to spiral. Until, of course, we turn them over to leftist professors and professional agitators, then it’s game over. Soon, they are brainwashed to seek out and champion any and all “victims”. Even if they are baby-killing terrorists. They are putty for professional, leftwing rabble rousers. Just look at our campuses. Hell, most of these kids wouldn’t know Gaza from garbanzo beans.
It's far past time parents stopped worrying about phobias and feelings and started saying, “Shake it off – you’re fine. Get back in there and do your damn homework.” Kids need to be toughened up. They have to take responsibility. Start by giving them chores.
No doubt about it, social media and cellphones have not been a good thing for most kids. But other societies have them and they don’t have near the problems and phobias our kids do. Quite a mouthful – apologies.
Trump versus Never Trump…
I used to think the Never Trumpers were a somewhat narrow group of bitter, old school Republicans, who hated the idea that an outsider could interrupt their stranglehold on power. Influential but not huge in numbers.
Now I realize it’s not just the Bushes and other Beltway bunglers, it’s half the damn nation. I come to this conclusion because no one in their right mind could vote for Biden. Certainly not anyone who thought America, with all our problems, is still a ‘the last, best hope…”.
But face the facts. Logic says Homer Simpson would whip Ole Joe by a landslide, how is it Trump leads by the scantest of margins, if at all. How can this be? Crooked polls? Perhaps. But otherwise, I can only conclude it is because half of Americans think it is more important to express their hatred for `Donald J. Trump than their love for America. That hurts.
Success ain’t what it used to be.
Am I mistaken or going senile or both? Was there not a time when a successful person was to be admired, congratulated? Now the opposite is true. If the American way has enabled your success, you must be a criminal, a cheater or, at the very least, obscenely privileged. If, on the other hand, you have not done so well, be it entirely your own doing or not, you are a VICTIM.
The Jews are, by and large, a successful people. Yet, they are reviled. The Asians excel in school and in business, so they are no longer eligible for minority inclusion. Hispanics better watch out. As they rise up, their indulgence may soon turn to scorn. Blacks who take advantage of opportunities, work their ass off and rise to the top are labeled Uncle Toms. And as for Whites, even those who come from the poorest of origins, they are the root cause of all problems, of all inequities. This is what DEI is all about.
But, of course, all of this is quite comprehensible. If you can take care of yourself and your family, you are not a VICTIM, ergo you are an enemy of the Left, the Progressives, the Democratic party. Without victims, there is NO leverage. Without leverage, there is no path to long term control. No matter how much debt you run up giving free stuff out.
Don’t look now.
As mentioned before, I just finished Malcolm Baldrige’s (Outliers) book, I Hate the Ivy League. He challenged many of the tenets of our educational system including the use of endowments.
He also exposes the heralded US News and World Report’s college rankings. Turns out the heaviest weighted factor by far is Peer Assessment. That’s where the College President, Provost and Head of Admissions of a college rate all schools in their category (Liberal Arts, Engineering, etc.) Strictly qualitatively. Raters typically have working knowledge of fewer than 20% of the schools they rank (1 to 5). Yet, this strictly objective, highly uniformed rating influences a college’ ranking more than all others.
Biden donors rage over his pledge to pause weapon shipments to Israel: 'Bad, bad, bad decision'
Biden’s moneybags are ballistic over his threats to withhold Israeli funding because our ally won’t listen to him regarding defending itself. Could it be the bill for pandering to Progressives is coming due?
They’re Pros. Believe it.
NYC says half of those arrested at 2 pro-Palestinian campus protests were not students.
On Thursday morning, the NYPD said a preliminary analysis of the 282 people arrested Tuesday night at Columbia and the City College of New York showed 47% were not affiliated with either school.
At Ohio State University, police arrested nearly 40 people over the past two days after breaking up an anti-Israel encampment. Of the 40 people arrested, only 18 were students.
"Outside group presence is what we’ve seen from the affiliated national organization’s efforts to disrupt and create disorder," UT Austin said. "Roughly half (26) of the 55 people who violated Institutional Rules and were ultimately arrested were unaffiliated with The University of Texas."
Northeastern Vice President for Communications Renata Nyul told FOX 25 in Boston, "What began as a student demonstration two days ago, was infiltrated by professional organizers with no affiliation to Northeastern. Last night, the use of virulent antisemitic slurs, including ‘Kill the Jews,’ crossed the line. We cannot tolerate this kind of hate on our campus."
I guess the lesson is when all the tents look the same, it’s a duck. Or, in this case, professional agitators funded by the likes of Soros, Pritzker, etc.
And these people don’t play around. They train the agitators, hold performance reviews, disseminate clear procedures. Hell, they’re McKinsey for terrorists.
Rebecca Weiner, the NYPD deputy commissioner for Intelligence and Counterterrorism, said officers have observed outsiders on campus with whom they are familiar from other protests staged in the city over the years.
Weiner said some of the alleged demonstrators unaffiliated with Columbia were active in the Occupy Wall Street protests of 2011, the 2020 so-called "autonomous zone" protests in Minneapolis, Minnesota following the police killing of George Floyd, and the ongoing Stop Cop City demonstrations opposing a police training facility in Atlanta.
"These protests have been and are being influenced by external actors who are unaffiliated with the universities, some of whom have been known to our department and others for many years for their dangerous, disruptive and criminal activity associated with protests for years," Weiner said during Tuesday's briefing. "So, this is not about what's happening overseas, it's not about the last seven months. It's about a commitment to violent protest activity as an occupation."
The only thing that confuses me is these fools are hurting Joe Biden’s chances. Do they really want Trump?
What kind of World Does He Live In?
On May 8, President Joe Biden took the very unusual step of submitting to an interviewer who was an actual journalist (not like Howard Stern or Drew Barrymore). It wouldn't be long before he started mangling his record – and Donald Trump's.
CNN anchor Erin Burnett began with how Trump's promises of new jobs in Wisconsin didn't come true: "Why should people here believe that you will succeed at creating jobs where Trump failed?" Biden bragged: "He's never succeeded in creating jobs and I have never failed. I have created over 15 million jobs since I have been president." He did it all by himself! He claimed other than President Herbert Hoover, Trump's "the only other president who lost more jobs than created in his four-year term."
There's a massive asterisk – the global COVID-19 pandemic. Trump's employment record in the first three years of his presidency was strong. The raw number of employed Americans reached new records. In October 2018, it had reached more than 156.6 million. The unemployment rate hit record lows across demographics: for women, blacks, Latinos, Asians and youth.
Obviously, the severe lockdowns during the pandemic – most aggressively pushed by the Democrats and their media allies – drove massive job losses. Non-farm payroll employment in the United States declined by 9.4 million in 2020. So, Democrats blame that on Trump, and when the pandemic was over, they took credit for the economy climbing out of that hole.
But that wasn't Biden's worst mangle. He claimed to CNN that "no president's had the run we have had, in terms of creating jobs and bringing down inflation. It was 9% when I came to office, 9%."
That's ridiculous! It's a bald-faced lie. Inflation was 1.4%, again, due to the pandemic. Burnett didn't check his facts, during or after the interview. She pushed him to acknowledge inflation was bad, but she didn't suggest he was lying.
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