TheGaggle
Politics • Culture • News
Our community is made up of those who value the freedom of speech, the right to debate and the promise of open, honest conversations.

We don't agree on everything but we never silence our followers and value every opinion on our channel.
Interested? Want to learn more about the community?
Yet Another NATO Punch-and-Judy Show

Every couple of years, the media treat us to the spectacle of an intramural fight within NATO. France--it's usually France--declares that it wants NATO member-states to contribute more funds to NATO (even more perhaps than the Americans are demanding). Why? Because, apparently, the Americans are losing interest in Europe and are fixated on something else. Today's it's China. A few years back it was the Middle East. Before that it was the Persian Gulf. Before that it was Central America. Before that it was Latin America. Therefore, says France--yes, it's usually France--the Europeans need to step up to the plate and impose a European dimension to NATO.

That's when it gets a little tricky. What exactly does France--yes, it's usually France--intend to do that NATO is not already doing? French leaders scratch their heads and ponder. Ah, they cry, what about Afghanistan? The Americans want to pull out and they didn't even inform us about it! OK, so the French want to stay on in Afghanistan?

OK, not a good suggestion. What about Africa? Ah, now we are on to something. That brings back memories of happier days: France's African colonies, not to mention the grandiose Francophone visions of de Gaulle, as well as the French military interventions in Africa during the 1970s under Giscard d'Estaing. And, sure enough, the French defense minister brings up intervention in the Sahel as the model for future European NATO interventions. I am sure everyone in Europe will be thrilled at the prospect, particularly as the reason for this intervention in the first place was the French-inspired NATO onslaught on Libya.

France wishes to continue to the great NATO tradition of using armed force to solve crises that it had itself created.

https://www.politico.eu/article/nato-summit-france-europe-florence-parly-defense/?utm_medium=Social&utm_source=Twitter#Echobox=1622537447

Interested? Want to learn more about the community?
What else you may like…
Videos
Posts
Articles
October 01, 2025
TG 1978: E.U.'s Plan To Override Hungary's Objections In Order To Get Ukraine In

George Szamuely discusses the latest European Union ruse to ignore its own rules, not to mention the strong objections of Hungary, in order to get Ukraine in as a member.

00:38:38
Live Chat
September 29, 2025
Monday Night At The Movies: "The Wicker Man" (1973)

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

01:33:08
September 28, 2025
The Gaggle Music Club: Stravinsky’s Symphony in Three Movements

This week's selection for The Gaggle Music Club is Stravinsky’s Symphony in Three Movements. Completed in 1945, the symphony is one Stravinsky's most important late works. Commissioned by the New York Philharmonic Symphony Society, the symphony premiered on Jan. 24, 1946 at Carnegie Hall, conducted by Stravinsky himself.

Often called Stravinsky's “first American symphony,” the composition shows his neoclassical language at its most taut: sharp orchestration, motor-like rhythms, lean textures.

Although Stravinsky often denied overt programmatic meaning in his music, he later admitted that the Symphony in Three Movements was a “war symphony.” The first movement, for example, was inspired by newsreel footage of wartime scorched earth tactics. Its violent rhythms and jagged piano writing reflect mechanized destruction. The final movement was inspired by Allied military advances, including the crossing of the Rhine in 1945. The march rhythms and the relentless drive exude a sense of military ...

00:23:14
Monday Night At The Movies

Please choose which one of the following 8 movies you would like to have screened next Monday, Oct. 6.

The theme is "memory, time and discontinuity."

Please continue to vote after Oct. 6, so that we can determine the runner-up. The runner-up will be screened on Oct.13.

10 hours ago

Dear George

I've seen you get quite a lot of heat in YouTube comments about your, nuanced unemotional.. political soliloquies / essays especially if you talk about Russia or Trump , I think most of these people tend to be TDS types or fanboys/NPCs / bots , , I'm open minded, and prefer value free analysis, not ra ra ..dogma .. and I'm not a big fan of trump(at all) but I'm not interested in hearing frothing at the mouth slop , or Russia is bestest ever bs , " Ukraine Collapse" (, every episode for months , I will mention no names) .. , I think you're doing a great job . Keep it up

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?

 

Only for Supporters
To read the rest of this article and access other paid content, you must be a supporter
Read full Article
See More
Available on mobile and TV devices
google store google store app store app store
google store google store app tv store app tv store amazon store amazon store roku store roku store
Powered by Locals