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The Quincy Con

Just in case anyone doubted that the Quincy Institute is a giant con, here is a message its leaders sent out a month ago in outrage that anyone would accuse the institute of being insufficiently critical of Russia. Quincy poses as a "critic" of U.S. foreign policy. In reality, it's an enabler. Quincy is there to buttress NATO propaganda, but give it a "vigorous diplomacy" spin. It poses as a critic of "forever wars" (whatever the hell that means) but doesn't in any way challenge a single assumption of U.S. foreign policy. As this statement shows, Quincy fully supports the Biden administration policy of limitless arming of Ukraine.

Quincy burnishes its credentials by tilting at straw men. "We are against forever wars," it cries. But who supports "forever wars"? Not even Bill Kristol or David Frum wants their wars to go on forever. They like wars that will advance U.S. global hegemony, but they don't want such wars to go on forever. That's why architects of war invariably sell their wars to the public by promising that the next war, unlike previous wars, will be very brief, a matter of a few days, a cakewalk. If a war goes on forever, it's bad for business: people turn against the war, antiwar and antimilitarist sentiment spreads among the population back home, popular rage gets directed at the instigators of the war, there is intense reluctance to undertake any more "brief" wars.

So Quincy is breaking into an open door here. Moreover, sending arms to Ukraine seemingly in perpetuity would surely guarantee a forever war. Unless of course Quincy buys the Biden/NATO line that the longer the war goes on, the more likely is it that Russia will give up. No evidence for that, and adhering to such belief has very little to do with the "realism" that Quincy supposedly advocates.

Quincy does serve an important function: It enables NATO supporters to get on board and go on urging various NATO projects while pretending that they are in favor of "diplomacy." "Give me diplomacy or give me death!" It's an entirely meaningless catchphrase, of course. Is it something Antony Blinken would be reluctant to mouth? Of course not. He's as "pro-diplomacy" as the next man and, doubtless, as against "forever wars" as the next man.

As the Ukraine crisis shows, "diplomacy" was tried for eight years--and went nowhere. There were the Minsk Accords! What happened? Neither Ukraine nor France nor Germany ever took the Minsk seriously, and made not the slightest attempt to implement the accords. Neither did the United States or NATO. Instead, they poured arms into Ukraine and encouraged Kiev to resolve its problem in the Donbass by force. None of that makes any appearance in this apologia from the Quincy "Give Us This Day Our Diplomacy" Institute.

If you call for "diplomacy," particularly "vigorous diplomacy," it's incumbent upon you to suggest the outlines of a possible deal that could end the war. Whenever Quincy does that, through its mouthpiece Anatol Lieven, the best it can come up with is some variant on the Minsk Accords--Minsk III, to use their favored parlance. But that horse bolted the stable long ago. There's no way to bring it back. Russia will never accept any agreement that no one took seriously for eight years and would not take seriously again, not after all of the sacrifices Russia has made.

Russia would only agree to another Minsk--in other words, another Minsk con--if it were to lose this war. Minsk III would, in other words, be a humiliating deal the West would ram try to ram down Russia's throat. That will never happen. Russia will never allow itself to lose this war. Therefore, any likely peace agreement will entail a substantial loss of territory for Ukraine, including its Azov Sea and maybe even Black Sea coasts. Any suggestion though that Ukraine must be ready to cede territory will be met with howls of indignation in Washington. Quincy's place in respectable society will be put in jeopardy. Soros funds might dry up.

The furthest Quincy is prepared to go is to issue rote declarations that maybe Ukraine should consider giving up on Crimea--and that only after a 15-year process, an internationally-supervised referendum or whatnot. This of course is absurd. For Russia, the Crimea issue was settled in 2014, and has no intention of reopening it. Quincy's Minsk III or Crimea proposals have nothing to do with "realism" or "restraint" or any other of its buzzwords.

Any embrace of "diplomacy" today must at the very least come up with a mechanism that will ensure that the new "diplomacy" will be very different from the old. This Quincy has of course no idea how to do. So it continues denouncing Russia, bemoaning the "absence of diplomacy" and posing as fatuous "critics" of U.S. foreign policy.

George Szamuely

https://quincyinst.org/press/quincy-institutes-position-on-russia-ukraine/?mc_cid=2625de094c&mc_eid=91b0f071a0

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This week's selection for The Gaggle Music Club is George Enescu’s Violin Sonata No. 3 in A minor, Op. 25.

George Enescu (1881–1955) is considered to be Romania’s greatest composer; he was also a violinist, pianist and conductor, and wrote in almost every genre. He combined Romanian folk idioms, with German classicism (Brahmsian rigor, Wagnerian chromaticism) and French impressionism (color, atmosphere, subtle harmony).

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Monday Night At The Movies: "Mulholland Drive" (2001)

Chat.Join Gagglers for "Mulholland Drive"!
The screening starts at 3 p.m. ET sharp.
Share all of your thoughts, comments and criticisms on the Live Chat.

02:26:27
September 11, 2025

Savage, black-on-white murder is anything but a rarity in the US. There was an author on Unz that used to make a list, and it was about 1 per day. It was really too sickening to read. Invariably there was no reason at all, except hatred.

From the mayor, to the judges to the magistrates, this is a story of racism from beginning to end.

By the way, there is audio of the murderer stating 'I got that white girl', just in case you had any doubt.

The Full Story of the Killing of Iryna Zarutska. The rot is much, much deeper than people realize.
Jared Taylor • September 10, 2025

https://www.unz.com/jtaylor/the-full-story-of-the-killing-of-iryna-zarutska/

post photo preview
September 11, 2025
27 minutes ago

Buksterlin
@andy_buksterlin
·
1 h
If you believe that kid even fired a shot, you sleep with a copy of the Warren Commission under your pillow and dream of magic bullets.
Citat
Mario Nawfal
@MarioNawfal
·
1 h
🚨🇺🇸 BREAKING: SUSPECT IDENTIFIED AS TYLER ROBINSON IN CHARLIE KIRK ASSASSINATION

The suspect arrested for the murder of Charlie Kirk has been identified as 22-year-old Tyler Robinson, according to senior law enforcement officials.

Robinson, a Utah resident, was reportedly turned in by a family member.

Trump confirmed the arrest during a Fox News interview, calling Kirk “a great person” who “didn’t deserve this.”

He added, “I hope he’s found guilty and sentenced to death.”

Source: NY POST

January 21, 2023
More Leftie Than Thou
"Jacobin" Magazine Celebrates A Strike Against Ol' Blue Eyes

Here at "The Gaggle" we have very little time for the "more Leftie than thou" school of thought--that's the approach to life according to which the only thing that matters is whether you take the right position on every issue under the sun from Abortion to Zelensky. No one in the world meets the exacting standards of this school of thought; any Leftie leader anywhere is always selling out to the bankers and the capitalists. The perfect exemplar of this is the unreadable Jacobin magazine. 

The other day I came across this article from 2021. It's a celebration of trade union power. And not simply trade union power, but the use of trade union power to secure political goals. Of course (and this is always the case with the "more Leftie than thou" crowd), this glorious, never-to-be-forgotten moment on the history of organized labor took place many years ago--in the summer of 1974 to be exact. Yes, almost half a century has gone by since that thrilling moment when the working-class movement of Australia mobilized and prepared to seize the means of production, distribution and exchange. 

Well, not quite. Organized labor went into action against...Ol' Blue Eyes, the Chairman of the Board, the Voice; yes, Frank Sinatra. Why? What had Sinatra done? Sinatra was certainly very rich, and he owned a variety of properties and businesses. But if the Australian trade union movement were, understandably, searching for the bright, incandescent spark that would finally awaken the working class from its slumber there were surely richer, greedier, more dishonest, more decadent, above all more Australian individuals it could have discovered. Australia was never short of them. Rupert Murdoch immediately springs to mind. Why Sinatra?

 

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