(from the article) "But if the alternative is not liberalism vs. postliberalism, but their postliberalism vs. our postliberalism, the choice is rather clearer, isn’t it?”
I think it was Lenin who said, “Don’t give them a choice between truth and a lie. Give them two lies."
Well, I don't think liberalism is the Truth. It's a system of government. It's the one I would most prefer to live under, but the troubling fact is we seem to have gone beyond the pre-political foundation for liberalism.
It is not beyond, as in passing through on the way to something else. It is a departure from the direction in an entirely different heading. The claim of it being “liberal” in any sense is, at best, a misnomer.
“The Russians released audio of an intercepted phone call between Nuland and the then-US Ambassador, discussing Washington’s picks for a post-Yanukovych government”
Rod, please stop spreading FALSEHOODS. Victoria Nuland discussed picks for a coalition government under YANUKOVYCH. He was supposed to remain president. US wanted Yanukovych to remain president and accept Yatseniuk as prime minister. It was the Maidan protesters who forced Yanukovych out.
Ask yourself why in that call Nuland is not discussing who will be the new president? Because she wanted Yanukovych to remain as president.
On color revolutions: "Again: whatever that is, it’s not liberalism."
I'm not disagreeing with you, but I think it's salutary to remember that this playbook didn't appear in a puff of smoke for Victoria Nuland to riffle. Remember FDR on Somoza: "He's a son of a bitch, but he's our son of a bitch". And the Kennedys and the Diems. And Jim Angleton and the Italian elections. There is a case to be made that the militarization of Kennan's very non-military notion of containment corrupted our foreign policy. Such habits are extremely hard to break. (I will say that if anybody can get that ball rolling it's J.D. Vance.) But at least there was a fig leaf of purpose around such skulduggery, namely, anti-Communism. Willfully to antagonize Russia because Putin bad moves it to a different plane altogether, one the spectre of nihilism may be said to haunt. Watching us push Russia into the arms of China in slow motion has been one of the most dispiriting things in my life.
World War II and the subsequent Communist threat gave the United States the idea that it has to be involved in everything all the time. Maybe we don't. We're not going to turn into Belgium, but maybe we could move away a little bit from trying to run the world.
I had thought George W. Bush the worst president of my life time, with Obama a runner up. For Bush, my case is that it's really something for someone to initiate the worst foreign/military policy of my lifetime AND to do nothing while the economy comes close to meltdown. For Obama, the reracialization of American life makes me think of millstones.
But playing nuclear chicken with the Rooskies over Ukraine has to win it for Biden. There's enough room on a nuke for Biden, Nuland, et al, and if it comes to it, my fantasy is imagining them riding one down a la Slim Pickens in Strangelove.
To the day of my death I shall never forget when confronted with J.Q. Adams's "The United States goes not abroad in search of monsters to destroy" Kristol's riposte: "Why not?"
The fact that you can do something does not speak to the prudence of the action. The United States has had little understanding of the monsters it has gone after in the last few decades, which is why it's very had little success. Our monster slaying since the end of the Cold War has basically created new monsters. Regional alliances that have local knowledge of the problem are far better than a global hegemon that doesn't know what it is doing.
In general I agree. The Iraq War was maybe well intentioned but completely not thought through. All I really want to say is that in some cases US has to be involved.
With the American left it's always who/whom personalities and factions. It was NEVER about principle with these people, and it never will be. I am at that point where I want nothing to do with an American bourgeois leftist, on any level.
George W. Bush gave the administrative state the power to spy on all of us with the patriot act and the formation of the DHS. Cheney definitely played a role in these decisions and may have been the architect. And yet, the left embraces him. It's an upside-down world.
I understand, and if I'd been in congress at the time I would have voted for all that. But I would have been wrong.
The framers of the constitution knew men could be evil and that power was corrupting. They would have known better than to give any branch of government the ability to spy on everyone--no matter what safeguards you put in place.
"President Vladimir Putin warned the West on Wednesday that Russia could use nuclear weapons if it was struck with conventional missiles, and that Moscow would consider any assault on it supported by a nuclear power to be a joint attack." Reuters Sept. 25th
"Putin warns again that Russia is ready to use nuclear weapons if its sovereignty is threatened" AP March 13th
Russia has repeatedly threatened to use nuclear weapons.
The US has a long history of meddling in the nations of our hemisphere, but the point of doing that was purely self-interest-- or the interests of US business.
Rod is unfortunately spreading FALSEHOODS. Victoria Nuland discussed picks for a coalition government under YANUKOVYCH. He was supposed to remain president. US wanted Yanukovych to remain president and accept Yatseniuk as prime minister. It was the Maidan protesters who forced Yanukovych out.
Ask yourself why in that call Nuland is not discussing who will be the new president? Because she wanted Yanukovych to remain as president.
“Insult any living women today?” - I only insulted Pat Buchanan and I was wrong to do that. If you believe Pat Buchanan was a woman I don’t know what else to tell you.
He's referring to the condescending crap you said to Laura and Hope.
This isn't your typical "let's see who can get the most upvotes by being a screeching monkey message boards". Some of us go back at least a decade and a half, most of us at least have known each other for years. Nobody appreciates you attacking established members of this community, even the ones they rarely agree with.
“He's referring to the condescending crap you said to Laura and Hope”
I actually wanted to come out delicate - due to the fact they were women. It was not meant to be condescending. Especially since Laura and Hope seems nice.
I just deleted the Pat Buchanan post. I would have deleted it earlier if I knew it was possible. It seemed amusing to me in the moment - but soon after it wasn’t.
Don't take it too hard, some people are a bit sensitive, especially since there are a lot of lit/humanities types these parts. They can get a bit emotional :P
You made a grossly impudent personal remark about a living man and a living woman. I happen to admire the man, but I would have found it distasteful whoever was its object. You are not fit company. Go away.
I've never really bought the notion that Putin required any "pushing" on our part to cozy up to China - the idea requires that Putin somehow is not a free agent, lacks his own agenda or desires for Russia, and is constantly only reacting to whatever alleged ills we've done to Russia while ignoring what he, in his 25+ years in power, has done repeatedly even when we were trying to cozy up to him.
One of the primary aspects of Rod's writing that attracts me (and causes me to admire him, having my own writing ambitions) is his ability to invoke imagery while I read it. This is intensely personal for me, because my writing mentors are theater artists. Their art is bringing the written word to life on a stage, no computers to enhance or bring fantastic images to our eyes, just naked humanity, physical cosmetics, lighting and setting, props, and an invitation to the audience to suspend disbelief. This is Story -- my muse -- in action.
Stevens and Dante invoked their intended imagery in Rod, Dante to the extent that Rod's writing about him is entitled "How Dante Can Save Your Life". This, fellow readers, is Story. It is the goal of every writer, almost achieved by many, actually achieved by few, or only within isolated works. For me, Dante's writing and Rod's writing about it form a perfect feedback loop. Read "The Divine Comedy". Read Rod's reactions and responses to it. You will not find a more perfect example of Story.
That's not an acceptable way to behave: you can post it once. What you're doing is called spamming. And also, you can post it in a relevant thread, not under Franklin's comment, which has nothing to do with what you're saying.
You should see an almost invisible ". . ." on the right edge of the comment box, on the same line as like and reply and share. There should be a delete function there.
Finished Rod's book. It's a significant work for our times. I'm going to send a copy to my daughter at the Poor Clare monastery.
Re the election, as I said in a comment yesterday, if the current razor-thin polling is accurate, I don't see us knowing the winner tonight...or even tomorrow morning.
Watch Pennsylvania. I think whoever wins that state will win the election. And Pennsylvania was not called in 2020 until the Saturday after election day. It took them four days to count the mail-in and absentee ballots that overtook the lead Trump had at midnight on the day of voting. Welcome to democracy Regime-style.
PA was stolen in my opinion in 2020. It's deja vu all over again. The Illegals are being given the go-ahead to vote according to "The PHL Commissioners' Office tells Noncitizens they can vote (video)." Right there, illegal. We will be stolen again (in PA and elsewhere) if the illegals get to vote. And then there's the demonic "Dominion" voting machines.
I'm NOT putting the link to the go-aheadfor-illegals-to-and-vote because I don't want to clutter Rod's comment section up on election day. Instead, go to thelibertydaily.com, there's a video 4th story down on the left. Go check it out yourself if interested.
And there have been other shenanigans in PA. But this one will "break us" of a free and fair election in PA, which is the entire idea.
My heart is going to break if Trump loses because of cheating.
Anne, I honestly don't know whether Pennsylvania was stolen. I do know that Trump had a lead when vote-counting abruptly stopped after midnight. I also know that 4 days later, that lead had evaporated. The same thing happening this year will do nothing to bolster trust in our democratic system...understatement of the year.
Beyond that, the system we have in place now with the massive quantity of mail-in ballots, the shoddy verification rules, the widespread tactic of vote harvesting may be legal but it is a travesty of democracy. What happened to deciding elections on election day by people who care enough to show up at the polls and vote with only common-sense exceptions of absentee balloting allowed? Yet we'll turn around and lecture other nations on "democracy."
Finally, we all know that one of our two major political parties has gone totally off the rails and no longer plays by the same rules...the old rules...the ones that traditionally governed our democracy. You combine all these factors and you get a formula for corrupted results and democratic breakdown. That's where we are today. Can Trump overcome all this? It's possible, in my view, but not likely.
Jerry, I've had bad premonitions. I don't want to be a downer, but my premonitions are that the election will be stolen again and this time it will not be accepted. Then what? A grid takedown by the Left. The Internet has been "cleansed" of the omen of the grid takedown by the Left. At Biden/Harris' first campaign appearance in 2020, there was a power failure at their venue (a Delaware school) and the surrounding area. I had a video record of that news story, but it was taken down and the story memory holed completely. There are other signs, woo stuff. Then after the grid takedown, the country will bifurcate. Yes, there are omens of that. It will take years to be worked thru. I am paranoid and pessimistic, so be forewarned to take my anxieties with a grain of salt.. Biden said he and Obama were vote fraudsters on live TV just before the 2020 election. The video of that admission is still up on YouTube.
Last election, the thought I couldn't get out of my head was the book title " The Once and Future King". I bought the book but I still need to read it.
Apparently the Amish, who don't usually vote, decided this time to mobilize and go out to help save America. I saw a comment comparing that development to the ents entering the Battle of Isengard.
The Amish are funny. My wife and I were buying some fruits from a vendor in Berks County Pa- not Lancaster and were thinking - no technology etc and he says oh no they ship it in from California- and we thought- oh good- we live in the real world.
I agree with all you've said (in this post and others!) about the likelihood of The Steal, Part 2. It's infuriating that many folks dismiss discussion of these issues out of hand. It's also infuriating that more people don't realize how much Trump and Musk have put on the line for this election. If Trump looses the left will destroy Trump, his family, Musk, and his companies starting with Twitter (as Musk said in his recent podcast with Rogan). And most Kamala voters don't see this; don't care; or celebrate it. One of the Powerline guys said just today that he thinks Kamala will pardon Trump if she wins. Really? That's a delusion.
For me, I'm looking for some good distractions and some good positive news to keep me out of this type of despair. I hope you're able to find some distractions today too!
I'm at a loss. I got a few chores done. But now... Ah, I know. I'll drive off in my car "but whichever way I go, I come back to the place you (Jesus) are" (peter Gabriel, "in your eyes".)
The steal will not be accepted this time. Because everyone knows, another two terms of Soros/Obama, we are finished. Well, hopefully, God will intervene, but when God intervenes, gulp.
Thinking about PNut the Squirrel makes me smile and gives me some hope. There's a lot of love out there--even for a squirrel! It also reminds me of Trump saying "they're eating the cats, they're eating the dogs, they're eating the pets!" For me and my wife this led to the funniest memes of the election. We laughed a lot that week.
I was devastated by the killing of Peanut. And the rescued raccoon. To what end? Raw power display. What they'll do to us. Read James Howard Kunstler on the tragedy of Peanut. We are toast.
The fascinating part is they needed something like a swat team with a warrant to get a squirrel! Oh please!As the Sex Pistols put it , it’s your future, your future. Obey or die.
I don’t know why the eating pets thing was immediately shot down as too ridiculous to believe. I thought everyone knew that voodoo practices are not all that uncommon in Haiti.
Thanks. I am not that reassured. The election will be disputed. Then the lights go out. Now, I am paranoid, pessimistic and a prepper (worked well during CV), but the signs are there for all to see. That the Left will never allow Trump (or Vance or anyone after Vance) in. And when it becomes obvious that half of us (the "garbage") is disenfranchised, tables will start getting overturned. It will be a slow agonizing bifurcation if it comes to that.
So, I hope and pray I am wrong, I fear I am right. God always preserves a remnant. He knows what He is doing. God bless America.
I certainly hope PA has fixed it vote counting slowness from last time. Many other states have (and others like Florida never had a problem) And there will probably be fewer absentee ballots this year.
One of the problems in Pa. in 2020 was that we had never done mail-in voting en masse before and they sort of sprung it on the public very quickly without much preparation. (Although I must say that the Dems seemed to be much better prepared. This is one of the reasons I knew that there was something afoot. And I wasn't even a Trump supporter in 2020.)
Rod Dreher on the left- "inside their bubble, left-wing politics are normal." You would think that some on the left would want to at least try to get to know about the conservatives they vilify. These conservatives are about 40 % of the country. If Trump is elected today, it is these conservatives who put Trump over the top. One woman of the left actually tried to do so, Arlie Russell Hochschild. Mrs. Hochschild lived among the people of a small town in Louisiana for a year and wrote about it in "Strangers in Their Own Land." Mrs. Hochschild was very condescending like the New England Yankee that she is, occasionally borderline dishonest, had a problem with perception of the Southern and rural mind, but at least she put in the effort. One would think that the average elite leftist knows nothing about much of the country in which they wish to rule.
Lukacs long ago made the case that "right" and "left" have lost what meaning they ever had, and actually have been useless for longer than people realize. Was Hitler to the left of Franco? Was Stalin to the right of Mao? See, it doesn't make much sense. What does is the determination to preserve what the eighteenth century called "free institutions", which is real liberalism.
Well, it looks like Rudi Dutschke was onto something because what he called for in 1967 has largely come to be: "The long march through the institutions."
<One would think that the average elite leftist knows nothing about much of the country in which they wish to rule.> But they think they do, and they are certain in their knowledge that "conservative" America is irredeemable.
In 2016, a liberal acquaintance didn’t personally know anyone who voted for Trump. She signaled her virtue by musing that she would like to leave her home in California and seek out Trump supporters in a sort of Steinbeck anthropological tour of red states to gain understanding and consensus. ::::facepalm::::
Just a quick comment on the (wonderful) Stevens poem. I've always assumed that the "philosophers" thing is a reference to the fact that early 20th century philosophers, following Gottlob Frege (see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frege%27s_puzzles), regularly used the planet Venus under its two ancient names ("Phosphorus" when it appears in the morning, "Hesperus" when it appears in the evening) in order to explore problems in the philosophy of language. So Stevens's poem is (as you say) about how this misses the point - but (as I understand it) that philosophers might come to the point simply by contemplating the heavenly body, reaching the Platonic sense of the absolute divine reality underneath the surface.
Auron MacIntyre is spot on about the fungibility of the left regarding the Cheneys, a family that has been an enemy of the left for about fifty years. If Kamala Harris wins the presidency, Liz Cheney will be offered one of several jobs. CIA Director. National Security Advisor. Secretary of Defense. Secretary of State. Kamala Harris may nominally be called a liberal and Liz Cheney may nominally be called a conservative but why quibble about something so superficial. You may as well argue over the differences between Bud Light and Coors Light. Kamala Harris and Liz Cheney are united in their support for the world leftist establishment.
Cheney motivation - desire for power, self importance and wounded vanity. It’s a sign of the bankruptcy of the Democrats that they play along with these people.
I find it interesting and amusing that Liz Cheney chose Jackson Hole as her Wyoming abode. If there is anyplace in Wyoming that isn't culturally Wyomingite, it is Jackson Hole, a place where California lefties like to visit for vacation.
2016 struck intense terror and pain into the hearts of American libs/Dems (in case you didn't notice!)
They will do absolutely anything to make sure nothing like that happens again and that they can go back to sleeping at night feeling secure in their power. If this means betraying yesterday's allies and/or embracing yesterday's enemies and/or renouncing every prior belief, policy or principle—those things are a small price to pay to regain the power they believe is rightfully theirs.
Whoopi thinks she should be Attorney General. If you watch the segment in which she says it to Cheney, you can see the tears in Cheney's eyes.
I don't live in a state in contention, so I didn't see any of the Trump ads ( as opposed to the Trump/Vance pleas for money, which I couldn't object to ). I don't know that they emphasized the odd, "presumptive Cabinet" quality of the Trump campaign as much as they could have and should have. That Trump was willing to campaign in this way gives further support to the idea that while he may be a narcissist, he's not nearly as pathological as most of the political caste.
Before Trump got into politics, someone who knew him well said of him that contrary to what people wanted to believe, Trump was a rather hands - off boss.
"Donald will let you work for him," he said, the proviso being that if you screwed up consequentially enough, you were out.
He seems to have something close to ideal executive temperament at least in this regard.
We should ask the Mormons if we can borrow their space ark, like in *The Expanse*. (The Jews have a space laser, and the Mormons have a space ark: this is common knowledge.)
The flowers will be just as beautiful as they ever were... Yes! Or as Sara Teasdale put it (from memory, so perhaps not 100% correct): Stars over snow and in the west a planet swinging below a star. Look for a lovely thing and you will find it. It is not far. It will never be far.
This is a beautiful & memorable post. Thank you for it. Somehow Wallace Stevens & the South are always showing up for me when it comes to matters of beauty & grace. Just such a pleasing morning read here in Brooklyn.
My son, now 23, went to PS 29 in Cobble Hill, even though we lived across the BQE by the Hamilton. I'm glad those were happy years for you! It was a good time in Brooklyn for sure. But you're right, very few of us can afford life here. I run an indie business and I've had 9 offices & 8 apartments in my son's 23 years of life, going from one rental to the next as life became less and less affordable. I would have left & am always leaving in my mind, but that's another story. As for Budapest where you now are, I went there first in 1983 & again in the 1990s. What a place! I really enjoying hearing about it through you.
Thank you for the Wallace Stevens poem. When Stevens is good, he is so very good.
Re the US, I think future generations will look back at all of the occasions where we have hypocritically interfered in the elections and governance of other countries, and call doing so our country’s cardinal sin. Do unto others . . .
Rod, if I could suggest a "what is enchantment" answer from Living in Wonder, it would be the Iain McGilchrist example you have in chapter 1. We've found a magnifying glass and being so enamored with looking at pond life that we insist on looking at everything through the magnifying glass, and then promptly declare that our superior tool has demonstrated that stars do not exist.
That's Baconian, naturalistic materialism in a single statement.
This comment may sound strange, but that poem reminds me of Ray Bradbury. As a kid I read everything by Ray Bradbury that I could find. Some of it was fairly typical science fiction, but much of it was full of thoughts and words and images like that--sorrows, possibilities, ruined lives, promises of better days, all things I was too young to have experienced, but that struck me as mysterious and meaningful and made me think that adult life was about much more than what job you held or what inventions people came up with. Do kids still read him, or anyone like him?
I think you have it right. Bradbury does have those qualities. He’s not a master of language but captures all kinds of things that are essential to children and adults.Ive always thought he deserves respect.
Dear Lord, I hope so. And you point out indirectly that he's chronically mislabeled a science fiction writer. I heard recently that the long out of print Dark Carnival has been republished. When Musk brought his rocket down to its spectacular landing a few weeks ago, I couldn't help thinking how giddy it would have made Bradbury. You really see the nihilism of "the Left" ( we have to come up with a more timely term for these people ) in their loathing of Musk.
Yes, he wrote such different things, most of them more "weird tales" (in the sense of uncanny or odd things, an old designation before the current categories invented for marketing purposes and sorting books for bookstores) than science fiction. We read one of his stories, originally called "Dark they Were, and Golden Eyed" and then "The Naming of Names," in school, and I was hooked. That story still haunts me, it's one of my all-time favorites--far better, in my estimation, than "All Summer in a Day" (which was another school assignment, but about how children can be horrible when not led by adults). "The Illustrated Man" and "The Martian Chronicles" were hardly typical SF, neither was "Something Wicked This Way Comes" or "The Halloween Tree," both of which captured a nostalgic, boyish longing--but also a temptation to wrongness--that I've rarely read anywhere else. He wrote a modern-day "Telltale Heart" story called "The Fruit at the Bottom of the Bowl," and all kinds of things, some of them incredibly beautiful and some of them horrible.
I find his short fiction hit-or-miss but 'Dandelion Wine' is an all-time favorite novel of mine.
Russell Kirk and Bradbury were friends and correspondents. I met Mrs. Kirk one time and asked her about this, as I done some writing on Kirk's ghost stories. One of the interesting things she said was that while Bradbury was not really conservative in a political sense, he was conservative in temperament and in his general outlook on things. One gets that sense from his books, I think.
I need to reread that--it was probably my least favorite at the time, because I was looking for more "Martian Chronicles" or eerie tales. I don't even remember what that one was about, but I assume it's something that will hit me very differently now. I never had any idea of what his politics were, and didn't care. Those were the days!
Bradbury was a pretty conventional FDR type Democrat but you can see there was always an anti authoritarian , anti herd instinct, most clearly in Farenheit 451 . As he got older that became clearer and my impression is more distance opened up between him and mainstream American liberalism.
As far as I remember everyone was assigned Fahrenheit 451 in high school, and that is still true afaik (well then again that was almost 15 years ago now for me so idk...)
Personally didn't care for Fahrenheit at all, so I never sought out any more Bradbury, which is probably a mistake from what I'm reading. On the other hand most kids who read it at least could understand the prescience, even if the prose itself was lacking.
Oh my goodness, read The Martian Chronicles if you like short stories or Something Wicked This Way Comes if you like novels... you'll have a VERY different experience.
You should stop spamming the board with the same comment over and over again.
I posted the same comment in a few spots so more people will see it.
That's called spamming, and it's not acceptable here.
Jzefi = a spammer + a troll
It is deleted
(from the article) "But if the alternative is not liberalism vs. postliberalism, but their postliberalism vs. our postliberalism, the choice is rather clearer, isn’t it?”
I think it was Lenin who said, “Don’t give them a choice between truth and a lie. Give them two lies."
Well, I don't think liberalism is the Truth. It's a system of government. It's the one I would most prefer to live under, but the troubling fact is we seem to have gone beyond the pre-political foundation for liberalism.
It is not beyond, as in passing through on the way to something else. It is a departure from the direction in an entirely different heading. The claim of it being “liberal” in any sense is, at best, a misnomer.
“The Russians released audio of an intercepted phone call between Nuland and the then-US Ambassador, discussing Washington’s picks for a post-Yanukovych government”
Rod, please stop spreading FALSEHOODS. Victoria Nuland discussed picks for a coalition government under YANUKOVYCH. He was supposed to remain president. US wanted Yanukovych to remain president and accept Yatseniuk as prime minister. It was the Maidan protesters who forced Yanukovych out.
Ask yourself why in that call Nuland is not discussing who will be the new president? Because she wanted Yanukovych to remain as president.
You can check it if you don’t believe me.
Love the parts about Southern speech. In Hawaii and I assume other island cultures it’s called ‘talking story’.
Thank you, Rod.
On color revolutions: "Again: whatever that is, it’s not liberalism."
I'm not disagreeing with you, but I think it's salutary to remember that this playbook didn't appear in a puff of smoke for Victoria Nuland to riffle. Remember FDR on Somoza: "He's a son of a bitch, but he's our son of a bitch". And the Kennedys and the Diems. And Jim Angleton and the Italian elections. There is a case to be made that the militarization of Kennan's very non-military notion of containment corrupted our foreign policy. Such habits are extremely hard to break. (I will say that if anybody can get that ball rolling it's J.D. Vance.) But at least there was a fig leaf of purpose around such skulduggery, namely, anti-Communism. Willfully to antagonize Russia because Putin bad moves it to a different plane altogether, one the spectre of nihilism may be said to haunt. Watching us push Russia into the arms of China in slow motion has been one of the most dispiriting things in my life.
World War II and the subsequent Communist threat gave the United States the idea that it has to be involved in everything all the time. Maybe we don't. We're not going to turn into Belgium, but maybe we could move away a little bit from trying to run the world.
In a better world there would be something like the old Concert of Europe keeping the peace.
“We're not going to turn into Belgium, but maybe we could move away a little bit from trying to run the world”
Then China will run it. It is a recipe for disaster.
I had thought George W. Bush the worst president of my life time, with Obama a runner up. For Bush, my case is that it's really something for someone to initiate the worst foreign/military policy of my lifetime AND to do nothing while the economy comes close to meltdown. For Obama, the reracialization of American life makes me think of millstones.
But playing nuclear chicken with the Rooskies over Ukraine has to win it for Biden. There's enough room on a nuke for Biden, Nuland, et al, and if it comes to it, my fantasy is imagining them riding one down a la Slim Pickens in Strangelove.
It's incredible to me that on the left there is literally not the slightest concern anymore about nuclear war.
To the day of my death I shall never forget when confronted with J.Q. Adams's "The United States goes not abroad in search of monsters to destroy" Kristol's riposte: "Why not?"
The US is the only country powerful enough to destroy the monsters - so it is its obligation to do it.
Your logic is ironclad.
Granted - J.Q. Adams was mostly right. There are too many monsters for the US to fight. But in some cases it is needed.
The fact that you can do something does not speak to the prudence of the action. The United States has had little understanding of the monsters it has gone after in the last few decades, which is why it's very had little success. Our monster slaying since the end of the Cold War has basically created new monsters. Regional alliances that have local knowledge of the problem are far better than a global hegemon that doesn't know what it is doing.
In general I agree. The Iraq War was maybe well intentioned but completely not thought through. All I really want to say is that in some cases US has to be involved.
One has to choose one's monsters carefully.
With the American left it's always who/whom personalities and factions. It was NEVER about principle with these people, and it never will be. I am at that point where I want nothing to do with an American bourgeois leftist, on any level.
George W. Bush gave the administrative state the power to spy on all of us with the patriot act and the formation of the DHS. Cheney definitely played a role in these decisions and may have been the architect. And yet, the left embraces him. It's an upside-down world.
“the power to spy on all of us with the patriot act and the formation of the DHS.”
Nobody wanted a repeat of 9/11.
I understand, and if I'd been in congress at the time I would have voted for all that. But I would have been wrong.
The framers of the constitution knew men could be evil and that power was corrupting. They would have known better than to give any branch of government the ability to spy on everyone--no matter what safeguards you put in place.
Especially nowadays, leftists want to spy on you for racism, homophobia, religious opinions, anything you can think of.
In hindsight it's more surprising they ever had a problem with the patriot act. Maybe because they thought it was targeting muslims...
“But playing nuclear chicken with the Rooskies over Ukraine has to win it for Biden”
What are you even talking about? Russia is afraid to even threaten the use of nukes.
"President Vladimir Putin warned the West on Wednesday that Russia could use nuclear weapons if it was struck with conventional missiles, and that Moscow would consider any assault on it supported by a nuclear power to be a joint attack." Reuters Sept. 25th
"Putin warns again that Russia is ready to use nuclear weapons if its sovereignty is threatened" AP March 13th
Russia has repeatedly threatened to use nuclear weapons.
You are right. Still the one threat doesn’t seem serious. If we were getting close to a nuclear war there would have been multiple threats.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/sep/25/vladimir-putin-warns-west-nuclear-weapons This is easily falsifiable.
You are right. Still the one threat doesn’t seem serious. If we were getting close to a nuclear war there would have been multiple threats.
https://apnews.com/article/russia-ukraine-war-putin-nuclear-weapons-82ced2419d93ae733161b56fbd9b477d There have been.
You're simply wrong about this.
The US has a long history of meddling in the nations of our hemisphere, but the point of doing that was purely self-interest-- or the interests of US business.
Only running one hemisphere is better than running two.
There was a time that they wanted to keep the Soviets out of our hemisphere which seemed legitimate to me at the time.
Rod is unfortunately spreading FALSEHOODS. Victoria Nuland discussed picks for a coalition government under YANUKOVYCH. He was supposed to remain president. US wanted Yanukovych to remain president and accept Yatseniuk as prime minister. It was the Maidan protesters who forced Yanukovych out.
Ask yourself why in that call Nuland is not discussing who will be the new president? Because she wanted Yanukovych to remain as president.
You can check it if you don’t believe me.
Why don't you embed some links where we can "check it out", Mr. Big Stuff?
Insult any living women today? How do you go on without it?
“Insult any living women today?” - I only insulted Pat Buchanan and I was wrong to do that. If you believe Pat Buchanan was a woman I don’t know what else to tell you.
He's referring to the condescending crap you said to Laura and Hope.
This isn't your typical "let's see who can get the most upvotes by being a screeching monkey message boards". Some of us go back at least a decade and a half, most of us at least have known each other for years. Nobody appreciates you attacking established members of this community, even the ones they rarely agree with.
“He's referring to the condescending crap you said to Laura and Hope”
I actually wanted to come out delicate - due to the fact they were women. It was not meant to be condescending. Especially since Laura and Hope seems nice.
"I actually wanted to come out delicate - due to the fact they were women."
Okay, see I think this is intended to be offensive. I think you're being disruptive on purpose.
I think Jzefi apologized for the harsh comments yesterday.
I just deleted the Pat Buchanan post. I would have deleted it earlier if I knew it was possible. It seemed amusing to me in the moment - but soon after it wasn’t.
We've all been there, unfortunately.
This is a special comments board. I really don't do any other. But it has some rules as you're learning :) The folks here mean well.
Stick it out! It will be worth it. This place, including Rod's writings, has helped me change my life for the better.
Don't take it too hard, some people are a bit sensitive, especially since there are a lot of lit/humanities types these parts. They can get a bit emotional :P
“Willfully to antagonize Russia because Putin bad moves it to a different plane altogether, one the spectre of nihilism may be said to haunt”
The spectre of nihilism is collaborating with a man who poisons people and throws them out of windows.
Do you take something for this?
Since I insulted Pat Buchanan, which I shouldn’t have done, you seem to have gone completely unhinged. You should take something to calm down.
You should write your own jokes. Then go away.
I didn’t realize Pat Buchanan was so important to you. If I knew that I wouldn’t have insulted him. But I had no way of knowing that.
You made a grossly impudent personal remark about a living man and a living woman. I happen to admire the man, but I would have found it distasteful whoever was its object. You are not fit company. Go away.
I can't think of a single one of the color revolutions that didn't turn back to despotism pretty quickly.
I've never really bought the notion that Putin required any "pushing" on our part to cozy up to China - the idea requires that Putin somehow is not a free agent, lacks his own agenda or desires for Russia, and is constantly only reacting to whatever alleged ills we've done to Russia while ignoring what he, in his 25+ years in power, has done repeatedly even when we were trying to cozy up to him.
One of the primary aspects of Rod's writing that attracts me (and causes me to admire him, having my own writing ambitions) is his ability to invoke imagery while I read it. This is intensely personal for me, because my writing mentors are theater artists. Their art is bringing the written word to life on a stage, no computers to enhance or bring fantastic images to our eyes, just naked humanity, physical cosmetics, lighting and setting, props, and an invitation to the audience to suspend disbelief. This is Story -- my muse -- in action.
Stevens and Dante invoked their intended imagery in Rod, Dante to the extent that Rod's writing about him is entitled "How Dante Can Save Your Life". This, fellow readers, is Story. It is the goal of every writer, almost achieved by many, actually achieved by few, or only within isolated works. For me, Dante's writing and Rod's writing about it form a perfect feedback loop. Read "The Divine Comedy". Read Rod's reactions and responses to it. You will not find a more perfect example of Story.
Thank you, friend!
If our new friend Jzefi keeps up this behavior, you should probably do something about it.
What behavior? Everything I wrote above is true. I posted it in multiple spots so more people will see it.
That's spamming the board and is not acceptable here.
That's not an acceptable way to behave: you can post it once. What you're doing is called spamming. And also, you can post it in a relevant thread, not under Franklin's comment, which has nothing to do with what you're saying.
I posted it here because Rod answered the poster and I wanted Rod to see the comment. I think it is important for him to know the truth.
But ok I can delete it and leave just one version. Is it possible to delete it?
You should see an almost invisible ". . ." on the right edge of the comment box, on the same line as like and reply and share. There should be a delete function there.
Yes. You can delete comments. Tap the three dots.
I'm seconding Sethu. At least about spamming the board.
Our Priest gave a homily about Dante on Saturday. Everyone loved it!
God bless Mamaw.
Finished Rod's book. It's a significant work for our times. I'm going to send a copy to my daughter at the Poor Clare monastery.
Re the election, as I said in a comment yesterday, if the current razor-thin polling is accurate, I don't see us knowing the winner tonight...or even tomorrow morning.
Watch Pennsylvania. I think whoever wins that state will win the election. And Pennsylvania was not called in 2020 until the Saturday after election day. It took them four days to count the mail-in and absentee ballots that overtook the lead Trump had at midnight on the day of voting. Welcome to democracy Regime-style.
PA was stolen in my opinion in 2020. It's deja vu all over again. The Illegals are being given the go-ahead to vote according to "The PHL Commissioners' Office tells Noncitizens they can vote (video)." Right there, illegal. We will be stolen again (in PA and elsewhere) if the illegals get to vote. And then there's the demonic "Dominion" voting machines.
I'm NOT putting the link to the go-aheadfor-illegals-to-and-vote because I don't want to clutter Rod's comment section up on election day. Instead, go to thelibertydaily.com, there's a video 4th story down on the left. Go check it out yourself if interested.
And there have been other shenanigans in PA. But this one will "break us" of a free and fair election in PA, which is the entire idea.
My heart is going to break if Trump loses because of cheating.
Anne, I honestly don't know whether Pennsylvania was stolen. I do know that Trump had a lead when vote-counting abruptly stopped after midnight. I also know that 4 days later, that lead had evaporated. The same thing happening this year will do nothing to bolster trust in our democratic system...understatement of the year.
Beyond that, the system we have in place now with the massive quantity of mail-in ballots, the shoddy verification rules, the widespread tactic of vote harvesting may be legal but it is a travesty of democracy. What happened to deciding elections on election day by people who care enough to show up at the polls and vote with only common-sense exceptions of absentee balloting allowed? Yet we'll turn around and lecture other nations on "democracy."
Finally, we all know that one of our two major political parties has gone totally off the rails and no longer plays by the same rules...the old rules...the ones that traditionally governed our democracy. You combine all these factors and you get a formula for corrupted results and democratic breakdown. That's where we are today. Can Trump overcome all this? It's possible, in my view, but not likely.
Jerry, I've had bad premonitions. I don't want to be a downer, but my premonitions are that the election will be stolen again and this time it will not be accepted. Then what? A grid takedown by the Left. The Internet has been "cleansed" of the omen of the grid takedown by the Left. At Biden/Harris' first campaign appearance in 2020, there was a power failure at their venue (a Delaware school) and the surrounding area. I had a video record of that news story, but it was taken down and the story memory holed completely. There are other signs, woo stuff. Then after the grid takedown, the country will bifurcate. Yes, there are omens of that. It will take years to be worked thru. I am paranoid and pessimistic, so be forewarned to take my anxieties with a grain of salt.. Biden said he and Obama were vote fraudsters on live TV just before the 2020 election. The video of that admission is still up on YouTube.
Anne, between your premonitions of disaster and my prophecies of doom, I'm glad we're working together to keep our spirits up today... ;-)
I'm useless today, which is really irritating me because I have a long list of chores to do and I cannot work or sleep.
I am currently watching one of my cats dream. She’s snoring and paws are twitching. It’s very cute.
Also have a house that needs cleaning, but, I’d rather watch the cat dream.
I had a bad one too, but I didn't dwell on it. Hope for the best and prepare for the worst.
Last election, the thought I couldn't get out of my head was the book title " The Once and Future King". I bought the book but I still need to read it.
K - I hated that book - I thought it was an extended exercise in- tweeness- couldn’t finish it.
Apparently the Amish, who don't usually vote, decided this time to mobilize and go out to help save America. I saw a comment comparing that development to the ents entering the Battle of Isengard.
In short, it seems like a good omen.
The Amish are funny. My wife and I were buying some fruits from a vendor in Berks County Pa- not Lancaster and were thinking - no technology etc and he says oh no they ship it in from California- and we thought- oh good- we live in the real world.
I watched a video about that.
I agree with all you've said (in this post and others!) about the likelihood of The Steal, Part 2. It's infuriating that many folks dismiss discussion of these issues out of hand. It's also infuriating that more people don't realize how much Trump and Musk have put on the line for this election. If Trump looses the left will destroy Trump, his family, Musk, and his companies starting with Twitter (as Musk said in his recent podcast with Rogan). And most Kamala voters don't see this; don't care; or celebrate it. One of the Powerline guys said just today that he thinks Kamala will pardon Trump if she wins. Really? That's a delusion.
For me, I'm looking for some good distractions and some good positive news to keep me out of this type of despair. I hope you're able to find some distractions today too!
I'm at a loss. I got a few chores done. But now... Ah, I know. I'll drive off in my car "but whichever way I go, I come back to the place you (Jesus) are" (peter Gabriel, "in your eyes".)
The steal will not be accepted this time. Because everyone knows, another two terms of Soros/Obama, we are finished. Well, hopefully, God will intervene, but when God intervenes, gulp.
Thinking about PNut the Squirrel makes me smile and gives me some hope. There's a lot of love out there--even for a squirrel! It also reminds me of Trump saying "they're eating the cats, they're eating the dogs, they're eating the pets!" For me and my wife this led to the funniest memes of the election. We laughed a lot that week.
I was devastated by the killing of Peanut. And the rescued raccoon. To what end? Raw power display. What they'll do to us. Read James Howard Kunstler on the tragedy of Peanut. We are toast.
The left lacks the compassion they always brag about.
The fascinating part is they needed something like a swat team with a warrant to get a squirrel! Oh please!As the Sex Pistols put it , it’s your future, your future. Obey or die.
"To what end"
Humiliation ritual pure and simple. They want you to know you don't really own your pets
I don’t know why the eating pets thing was immediately shot down as too ridiculous to believe. I thought everyone knew that voodoo practices are not all that uncommon in Haiti.
This might cheer you up.
https://tinyurl.com/4z7vua35
Thanks. I am not that reassured. The election will be disputed. Then the lights go out. Now, I am paranoid, pessimistic and a prepper (worked well during CV), but the signs are there for all to see. That the Left will never allow Trump (or Vance or anyone after Vance) in. And when it becomes obvious that half of us (the "garbage") is disenfranchised, tables will start getting overturned. It will be a slow agonizing bifurcation if it comes to that.
So, I hope and pray I am wrong, I fear I am right. God always preserves a remnant. He knows what He is doing. God bless America.
I certainly hope PA has fixed it vote counting slowness from last time. Many other states have (and others like Florida never had a problem) And there will probably be fewer absentee ballots this year.
One of the problems in Pa. in 2020 was that we had never done mail-in voting en masse before and they sort of sprung it on the public very quickly without much preparation. (Although I must say that the Dems seemed to be much better prepared. This is one of the reasons I knew that there was something afoot. And I wasn't even a Trump supporter in 2020.)
Rod Dreher on the left- "inside their bubble, left-wing politics are normal." You would think that some on the left would want to at least try to get to know about the conservatives they vilify. These conservatives are about 40 % of the country. If Trump is elected today, it is these conservatives who put Trump over the top. One woman of the left actually tried to do so, Arlie Russell Hochschild. Mrs. Hochschild lived among the people of a small town in Louisiana for a year and wrote about it in "Strangers in Their Own Land." Mrs. Hochschild was very condescending like the New England Yankee that she is, occasionally borderline dishonest, had a problem with perception of the Southern and rural mind, but at least she put in the effort. One would think that the average elite leftist knows nothing about much of the country in which they wish to rule.
Lukacs long ago made the case that "right" and "left" have lost what meaning they ever had, and actually have been useless for longer than people realize. Was Hitler to the left of Franco? Was Stalin to the right of Mao? See, it doesn't make much sense. What does is the determination to preserve what the eighteenth century called "free institutions", which is real liberalism.
One of the arguments that I find amusing is the right-left argument over whether Hitler was left or right. He was both and neither.
Well, it looks like Rudi Dutschke was onto something because what he called for in 1967 has largely come to be: "The long march through the institutions."
I have a biography of him that I seriously need to read (the author gave me the book as a gift in 2007! *sob*)
The Russell Kirk -T.S. Eliot notion of conservatism as the defense of permanent things is useful.That is probably more useful than left or right.
Why would they want to try to get to know us? They are clear that they regard us as subhuman.
<One would think that the average elite leftist knows nothing about much of the country in which they wish to rule.> But they think they do, and they are certain in their knowledge that "conservative" America is irredeemable.
In 2016, a liberal acquaintance didn’t personally know anyone who voted for Trump. She signaled her virtue by musing that she would like to leave her home in California and seek out Trump supporters in a sort of Steinbeck anthropological tour of red states to gain understanding and consensus. ::::facepalm::::
Just a quick comment on the (wonderful) Stevens poem. I've always assumed that the "philosophers" thing is a reference to the fact that early 20th century philosophers, following Gottlob Frege (see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frege%27s_puzzles), regularly used the planet Venus under its two ancient names ("Phosphorus" when it appears in the morning, "Hesperus" when it appears in the evening) in order to explore problems in the philosophy of language. So Stevens's poem is (as you say) about how this misses the point - but (as I understand it) that philosophers might come to the point simply by contemplating the heavenly body, reaching the Platonic sense of the absolute divine reality underneath the surface.
That’s interesting
Thank you for all of this.
Auron MacIntyre is spot on about the fungibility of the left regarding the Cheneys, a family that has been an enemy of the left for about fifty years. If Kamala Harris wins the presidency, Liz Cheney will be offered one of several jobs. CIA Director. National Security Advisor. Secretary of Defense. Secretary of State. Kamala Harris may nominally be called a liberal and Liz Cheney may nominally be called a conservative but why quibble about something so superficial. You may as well argue over the differences between Bud Light and Coors Light. Kamala Harris and Liz Cheney are united in their support for the world leftist establishment.
Cheney motivation - desire for power, self importance and wounded vanity. It’s a sign of the bankruptcy of the Democrats that they play along with these people.
John, you are absolutely right. Her overwhelming defeat in the Republican primary in 2022 is a great embarrassment.
The peasants of Wyoming did not know their place.
I find it interesting and amusing that Liz Cheney chose Jackson Hole as her Wyoming abode. If there is anyplace in Wyoming that isn't culturally Wyomingite, it is Jackson Hole, a place where California lefties like to visit for vacation.
I love that place and you’re quite right.Its similar in that respect to Sun Valley and Ketchum in Idaho.
2016 struck intense terror and pain into the hearts of American libs/Dems (in case you didn't notice!)
They will do absolutely anything to make sure nothing like that happens again and that they can go back to sleeping at night feeling secure in their power. If this means betraying yesterday's allies and/or embracing yesterday's enemies and/or renouncing every prior belief, policy or principle—those things are a small price to pay to regain the power they believe is rightfully theirs.
Whoopi thinks she should be Attorney General. If you watch the segment in which she says it to Cheney, you can see the tears in Cheney's eyes.
I don't live in a state in contention, so I didn't see any of the Trump ads ( as opposed to the Trump/Vance pleas for money, which I couldn't object to ). I don't know that they emphasized the odd, "presumptive Cabinet" quality of the Trump campaign as much as they could have and should have. That Trump was willing to campaign in this way gives further support to the idea that while he may be a narcissist, he's not nearly as pathological as most of the political caste.
Before Trump got into politics, someone who knew him well said of him that contrary to what people wanted to believe, Trump was a rather hands - off boss.
"Donald will let you work for him," he said, the proviso being that if you screwed up consequentially enough, you were out.
He seems to have something close to ideal executive temperament at least in this regard.
A Cheney in the Cabinet is just about the fastest track I can think of to nuclear holocaust.
I nominate them to go first.
Problem is, they'll be in some secured bunker.
I’ll be with you on the Ark.
We should ask the Mormons if we can borrow their space ark, like in *The Expanse*. (The Jews have a space laser, and the Mormons have a space ark: this is common knowledge.)
Dude…..I have a couple of conditions, though. No hippos, yes sea otters, cats, and hedgehogs. And squirrels. You can come, too.
Here...we...GO...https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xSLlZh9yelk
The flowers will be just as beautiful as they ever were... Yes! Or as Sara Teasdale put it (from memory, so perhaps not 100% correct): Stars over snow and in the west a planet swinging below a star. Look for a lovely thing and you will find it. It is not far. It will never be far.
This is a beautiful & memorable post. Thank you for it. Somehow Wallace Stevens & the South are always showing up for me when it comes to matters of beauty & grace. Just such a pleasing morning read here in Brooklyn.
Brooklyn! I was happiest living there, from 1999 to 2003. Cobble Hill, when people like us could afford it. Hicks Street.
My son, now 23, went to PS 29 in Cobble Hill, even though we lived across the BQE by the Hamilton. I'm glad those were happy years for you! It was a good time in Brooklyn for sure. But you're right, very few of us can afford life here. I run an indie business and I've had 9 offices & 8 apartments in my son's 23 years of life, going from one rental to the next as life became less and less affordable. I would have left & am always leaving in my mind, but that's another story. As for Budapest where you now are, I went there first in 1983 & again in the 1990s. What a place! I really enjoying hearing about it through you.
It was a nice place, where you graciously hosted Re-Generation Quarterly gatherings.
Thank you for the Wallace Stevens poem. When Stevens is good, he is so very good.
Re the US, I think future generations will look back at all of the occasions where we have hypocritically interfered in the elections and governance of other countries, and call doing so our country’s cardinal sin. Do unto others . . .
"When Stevens is good, he is so very good."
Indeed. Making that determination is the fun part.
Sea Surface Full of Clouds
Rod, if I could suggest a "what is enchantment" answer from Living in Wonder, it would be the Iain McGilchrist example you have in chapter 1. We've found a magnifying glass and being so enamored with looking at pond life that we insist on looking at everything through the magnifying glass, and then promptly declare that our superior tool has demonstrated that stars do not exist.
That's Baconian, naturalistic materialism in a single statement.
I also put it as having mistaken a method for a metaphysics.
This comment may sound strange, but that poem reminds me of Ray Bradbury. As a kid I read everything by Ray Bradbury that I could find. Some of it was fairly typical science fiction, but much of it was full of thoughts and words and images like that--sorrows, possibilities, ruined lives, promises of better days, all things I was too young to have experienced, but that struck me as mysterious and meaningful and made me think that adult life was about much more than what job you held or what inventions people came up with. Do kids still read him, or anyone like him?
I think you have it right. Bradbury does have those qualities. He’s not a master of language but captures all kinds of things that are essential to children and adults.Ive always thought he deserves respect.
Dear Lord, I hope so. And you point out indirectly that he's chronically mislabeled a science fiction writer. I heard recently that the long out of print Dark Carnival has been republished. When Musk brought his rocket down to its spectacular landing a few weeks ago, I couldn't help thinking how giddy it would have made Bradbury. You really see the nihilism of "the Left" ( we have to come up with a more timely term for these people ) in their loathing of Musk.
Yes, he wrote such different things, most of them more "weird tales" (in the sense of uncanny or odd things, an old designation before the current categories invented for marketing purposes and sorting books for bookstores) than science fiction. We read one of his stories, originally called "Dark they Were, and Golden Eyed" and then "The Naming of Names," in school, and I was hooked. That story still haunts me, it's one of my all-time favorites--far better, in my estimation, than "All Summer in a Day" (which was another school assignment, but about how children can be horrible when not led by adults). "The Illustrated Man" and "The Martian Chronicles" were hardly typical SF, neither was "Something Wicked This Way Comes" or "The Halloween Tree," both of which captured a nostalgic, boyish longing--but also a temptation to wrongness--that I've rarely read anywhere else. He wrote a modern-day "Telltale Heart" story called "The Fruit at the Bottom of the Bowl," and all kinds of things, some of them incredibly beautiful and some of them horrible.
I think he was labeled a s/f writer because a lot of people knew him only through that facet of his work, unfortunately.
I find his short fiction hit-or-miss but 'Dandelion Wine' is an all-time favorite novel of mine.
Russell Kirk and Bradbury were friends and correspondents. I met Mrs. Kirk one time and asked her about this, as I done some writing on Kirk's ghost stories. One of the interesting things she said was that while Bradbury was not really conservative in a political sense, he was conservative in temperament and in his general outlook on things. One gets that sense from his books, I think.
I need to reread that--it was probably my least favorite at the time, because I was looking for more "Martian Chronicles" or eerie tales. I don't even remember what that one was about, but I assume it's something that will hit me very differently now. I never had any idea of what his politics were, and didn't care. Those were the days!
I think Mrs. Kirk implied that Bradbury was somewhat "apolitical." Or at least that's my recollection.
Bradbury was a pretty conventional FDR type Democrat but you can see there was always an anti authoritarian , anti herd instinct, most clearly in Farenheit 451 . As he got older that became clearer and my impression is more distance opened up between him and mainstream American liberalism.
As far as I remember everyone was assigned Fahrenheit 451 in high school, and that is still true afaik (well then again that was almost 15 years ago now for me so idk...)
Personally didn't care for Fahrenheit at all, so I never sought out any more Bradbury, which is probably a mistake from what I'm reading. On the other hand most kids who read it at least could understand the prescience, even if the prose itself was lacking.
It is. Bradbury is one of those foundational golden age scifi authors. The Martian Chronicles at the very least.
Oh my goodness, read The Martian Chronicles if you like short stories or Something Wicked This Way Comes if you like novels... you'll have a VERY different experience.