D.A. Longo, Ph.D.

@RHyperboreo We are actually on the same page. Reaffirming the same conclusion.

@dalongo4 Did you read the essay? I explicitly say that there is a civilizational decline in the West. My criticism is that this decline is relative, not absolute as the Primordial Tradition reading proposes. I thought PhDs actually read things before criticizing...

"The proof that there is no “crisis” of the modern world as conceived by Guénon is that all high Western culture - literature, philosophy, history, science, art, etc. - has always been created against a backdrop of crises and eruptions. The philosophy of Plato and Aristotle was developed during the decline of the Greek city-states, specifically Athens; the great moment of Latin culture - Horace, Virgil, Cicero - occurred during the collapse of the Roman Republic; the intellectual greatness of the medieval world occurred during its twilight with Dante and Aquinas; the apex of modern thought with Kant and Hegel occurred amidst the French revolutionary hurricane and the Napoleonic empire; the philosophical experience of the deepest nihilism was articulated by Nietzsche and Heidegger precisely when the West seemed to have exhausted its spiritual forces. In other words - the West has always been and will always be in crisis, for this is its true providential vocation: to be the beacon of the human spirit that always rises like a phoenix from its own ashes. If there is a Western tradition, then it is this: always rising sovereign when it seems defeated. As for the “Tradition” of the traditionalist school - this tradition of well-behaved spiritual eunuchs, always afraid of the image of “decadence,” - this tradition the West never needed. Yes, we don’t need this tradition. In fact, we are and always will be against the Tradition of Guénon!" Link below 👇

"Peace?.. it is very simple: Russia must stop the aggression and withdraw its troops from Ukrainian territory. Any other approach would mean legitimising the invasion." - Giorgia Meloni Prime Minister of Italy She is great.. 😉

@StephenKing Let’s not forget the millions of Americans with ridiculously poor health insurance coverage and high premiums.

You could feed a lot of hungry people and build a lot of schools for $1.5 trillion. Maybe fix some Interstate highways, too.

@KyivIndependent It is about time that Russians recognize the insanity of invading Ukraine, and demand change at home. Nothing good will come out of this war except suffering for Ukrainians and Russians.

Pussy Riot and Femen stormed the Russian pavilion at the Venice Biennale on May 6 to protest the Kremlin’s war against Ukraine. Video: Katia Margolis / Facebook.

@ZelenskyyUa Ukraine will win this outrageous war, dictators and evil have never won. The resolve of Ukraine against a dictator is to be as admired as the British resistance to Hitler.

The Russians want Ukraine’s permission to hold their parade – so they can safely take to the square for an hour once a year, and then go back to killing *our* people and waging war. The Russians are already talking about strikes after May 9. A strange and certainly twisted logic from the Russian leadership. There are also messages from some states close to Russia that their representatives intend to be in Moscow. An odd desire at a time like this. We do not recommend it.

@AFP It’s about time that this outrageous war comes to an end. It could have ended sooner with better support from western nations and other countries who believe in democracy. The lack of belief in Ukraine will always be rembembered as one of the biggest blunder of western nations.

🇷🇺 🇺🇦 Russian President Putin says the war in Ukraine is 'coming to an end' Russian President Vladimir Putin says the war in Ukraine is "heading to an end", blasting Western countries for helping Ukraine. This comes after a scaled-back Victory Day parade in Moscow, which saw security measured ramped up and celebrations downsized after a spate of Ukrainian long-range attacks in recent weeks.

@sowelleconomics That’s half of her story. Ayn Rand proposed an elite form of government where few oligarchs controlled everyone else. The freedom to do “anything” is to give the oligarchy unlimited power. If it sounds familiar, it is because it is now being proposed by most technocrats.

Ayn Rand: "I'm opposed to all forms of controls. I am for an absolute laissez-faire free, unregulated economy. I'm for the separation of state and economics, just as we had separation of state and church."

Evangelical Christian leaders literally gathering around a gold statue of the president and celebrating it, all while raging against any accusation of idolatry. This is what idol worship looks like.

@Michael75049050 @DianeDa06955302 @CrazyVibes_1 Of course and as we are witnessing it happens today despite treaties. The question is if using atomic power against civilians is a war crime. It is an open ended question. The only reason why it has not been used again, is because of the massive destruction and retailiation.

@dalongo4 @DianeDa06955302 @CrazyVibes_1 You do acknowledge that all major combatants in World War II targeted civilians, don’t you? That happened long before Truman was president. Do you condemn FDR? Churchill? Were the Japanese who died in the Tokyo raid of March 1945 less dead than people killed by A-Bombs?

On the morning of January 20, 1953, Harry S. Truman and his wife Bess climbed into their own Chrysler — paid for with their own money — and drove themselves out of Washington. No motorcade. No security caravan. No choreographed farewell meant to polish the record. The thirty-third President of the United States merged into ordinary traffic and headed back to Independence, Missouri — the same small town that had shaped him — carrying an approval rating near thirty-two percent and a widely shared media conclusion that his presidency had fallen short. Washington did not mourn his departure. Home offered no immediate redemption. Truman returned not to comfort but to constraint. His income came largely from a modest military pension — sufficient only if one defined “sufficient” generously. There was no speaking tour prepared, no corporate directorship, no financial cushion reserved for a former president. At one point, he took out a bank loan simply to bridge the distance between what he had and what daily life demanded. Congress noticed. Not out of sentiment, but out of unease. Watching a former commander-in-chief navigate visible financial strain unsettled even political opponents. In 1958, lawmakers passed the Former Presidents Act, establishing pensions and benefits for those who followed. The system exists because Truman’s reality made its absence impossible to ignore. He did not campaign for sympathy. He walked the streets of Independence every morning, as he always had. There was no Secret Service protection for former presidents yet, and he never requested special treatment. He answered his own telephone. He personally replied to thousands of letters. If someone wrote to him, he believed they deserved an answer from him. On his desk — now preserved in the Truman Library — sat the sign that defined his presidency: The buck stops here. The decisions that had damaged his popularity were not reconsidered. The Marshall Plan committed American resources to rebuilding Western Europe after World War II. Critics warned of excess and entanglement. The rebuilt Europe of the following decades offered its own rebuttal. The Truman Doctrine established the framework for containing Soviet expansion — a foreign policy architecture that would shape four decades of global strategy. Its consequences would be debated for generations. Its structure endured. In 1948, Truman signed Executive Order 9981, desegregating the United States military. Congress would not act. He did. The political cost was immediate and steep; Southern support fractured. He signed it anyway. In 1951, he dismissed General Douglas MacArthur. MacArthur was not simply a general; he was a national icon. Removing him for publicly challenging civilian authority was politically perilous. Public backlash intensified. Mail poured in criticizing Truman. Approval numbers dropped further. He acted because the constitutional principle of civilian control of the military mattered more than personal standing. That principle outweighed applause. Truman accepted the cost without visible regret. History, unlike approval polls, operates on delay. In July 1965, President Lyndon B. Johnson traveled to Independence — not for optics, but for acknowledgment. At the Truman Library, Johnson signed Medicare into law. Truman had proposed national health insurance in 1945. It had been rejected, attacked, and politically burdensome. Two decades later, the idea returned in workable form. Johnson handed the first two Medicare cards to Harry and Bess Truman. The gesture recognized continuity. The idea had begun with the man once dismissed as misguided. Time had altered the nation’s readiness, not the principle itself. Truman died on December 26, 1972, at eighty-eight. By then, the verdict of January 1953 had been revised. Presidential historians increasingly ranked him among the upper tier — not without noting mistakes, but with acknowledgment that the most controversial decisions had proven consequential and largely correct. He understood the distinction between popularity and necessity. The Marshall Plan. The Truman Doctrine. Desegregation of the armed forces. The removal of MacArthur. The early call for national health insurance. Individually, each was politically hazardous. Collectively, they reveal a presidency grounded in consequence over comfort. He left Washington in a Chrysler, approval in the thirties, carrying a bank loan. He spent nineteen years walking the same streets of Independence, answering his own phone, replying to letters himself, living quietly under a belief that character is measured most honestly when no audience is present. History recalibrated. It often does. Not quickly. Not loudly. But eventually, for those who chose what was necessary over what was easy, it arrives.

@Michael75049050 @DianeDa06955302 @CrazyVibes_1 It’s about ethics for any war scenario not just Truman. If using atomic power against civilian targets is not a war crime, then what constitutes a war crime? Is it OK to have a nuclear war? There are no easy answers, but it is worth thinking about it since it could happen again.

@dalongo4 @DianeDa06955302 @CrazyVibes_1 So, if you were Truman, what would you have done instead of dropping the bombs to end the war? Invaded, guaranteeing millions of US and Japanese deaths? Blockaded Japan, assuring that millions of Japanese (and allied POWs) died of starvation? And you accuse Truman of war crimes?

@elonmusk The logic is ridiculous of course, but outside of that, Hitler hated socialism and persecuted left wing intellectuals and politicians. He was a delusional fascist dictator based on his vision of a racial aryan race, which had never existed.

Hitler was a socialist, therefore all socialists are Hitler

@DianeDa06955302 @CrazyVibes_1 Absolutely!

@dalongo4 @CrazyVibes_1 I agree with you completely. Just stating what I think is an interesting point of view from my father.

@DianeDa06955302 @CrazyVibes_1 I’m happy for your dad, but I’m making an ethical point- if we can end wars by using nuclear power, then should Russia use the “bomb” on Ukraine? Should nations who have nuclear power, solve conflicts with it? If used against civilians, are there no crimes against humanity?

@dalongo4 @CrazyVibes_1 My father said Truman probably saved his life because he would soon be going into the military. Say what you want but Japan was not going to give up.

@sciencegirl @xjscjudy Clear as mud: the water with no crocs swimming is safe to swim in…

Why punctuation matters

@GodPlaysCards The Iliad portrays humans’ violence as it was and is today. Humans are powerful animals with an unquencheable thirst for power. Wars have fueled our development as much as the progress we’ve achieved. Ambition and or religious strife continue to fuel human’s violence.

My wife sometimes asks me with genuine curiosity; why the male fascination for violence & war? I have to yield to Robert Fagles for an explanation I deeply felt, but could never put in to words as elegantly. If you share this sentiment, remember, there is nothing wrong with it.

@krassenstein It’s difficult to trust a pussy willow who bends whichever the wind blows. He has no bones, and if he cannnot stand by expressed past sentiments, opinions and values, he is complicit and no more trustworthy than his bosses.

I know I'll get some hate for this, and I don't like his politics, but I'd at least sleep well at night if Rubio was in charge instead of Trump or Vance.

*BRITISH WRITER PENS THE BEST DESCRIPTION OF TRUMP* Someone asked "Why do some British people not like Donald Trump?" Nate White, an articulate and witty writer from England wrote the following response: A few things spring to mind. Trump lacks certain qualities which the British traditionally esteem. For instance, he has no class, no charm, no coolness, no credibility, no compassion, no wit, no warmth, no wisdom, no subtlety, no sensitivity, no self-awareness, no humility, no honour and no grace – all qualities, funnily enough, with which his predecessor Mr. Obama was generously blessed. So for us, the stark contrast does rather throw Trump's limitations into embarrassingly sharp relief. Plus, we like a laugh. And while Trump may be laughable, he has never once said anything wry, witty or even faintly amusing – not once, ever. I don't say that rhetorically, I mean it quite literally: not once, not ever. And that fact is particularly disturbing to the British sensibility – for us, to lack humour is almost inhuman. But with Trump, it's a fact. He doesn't even seem to understand what a joke is – his idea of a joke is a crass comment, an illiterate insult, a casual act of cruelty. Trump is a troll. And like all trolls, he is never funny and he never laughs; he only crows or jeers. And scarily, he doesn't just talk in crude, witless insults – he actually thinks in them. His mind is a simple bot-like algorithm of petty prejudices and knee-jerk nastiness. There is never any under-layer of irony, complexity, nuance or depth. It's all surface. Some Americans might see this as refreshingly upfront. Well, we don't. We see it as having no inner world, no soul. And in Britain we traditionally side with David, not Goliath. All our heroes are plucky underdogs: Robin Hood, Dick Whittington, Oliver Twist. Trump is neither plucky, nor an underdog. He is the exact opposite of that. He's not even a spoiled rich-boy, or a greedy fat-cat. He's more a fat white slug. A Jabba the Hutt of privilege. And worse, he is that most unforgivable of all things to the British: a bully. That is, except when he is among bullies; then he suddenly transforms into a snivelling sidekick instead. There are unspoken rules to this stuff – the Queensberry rules of basic decency – and he breaks them all. He punches downwards – which a gentleman should, would, could never do – and every blow he aims is below the belt. He particularly likes to kick the vulnerable or voiceless or female – and he kicks them when they are down. So the fact that a significant minority – perhaps a third – of Americans look at what he does, listen to what he says, and then think 'Yeah, he seems like my kind of guy' is a matter of some confusion and no little distress to British people, given that: • Americans are supposed to be nicer than us, and most are. • You don't need a particularly keen eye for detail to spot a few flaws in the man. This last point is what especially confuses and dismays British people, and many other people too; his faults seem pretty bloody hard to miss. After all, it's impossible to read a single tweet, or hear him speak a sentence or two, without staring deep into the abyss. He turns being artless into an art form; he is a Picasso of pettiness; a Shakespeare of shit. His faults are fractal: even his flaws have flaws, and so on ad infinitum. God knows there have always been stupid people in the world, and plenty of nasty people too. But rarely has stupidity been so nasty, or nastiness so stupid. He makes Nixon look trustworthy and George W look smart. In fact, if Frankenstein decided to make a monster assembled entirely from human flaws – he would make a Trump.