The Fleming Foundation Cultural Commentary

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Fleming / Interviews

9 Nov, 2015

Interview with Misa Djurkovic, Part III

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The Bigger Picture 8.  Why is this happening.  Is this a case of historical accident?  Do you agree with American and European who say it is all the fault of President Assad or does US support for the rebels—only the “moderate and democratic” rebels, of course—play a part? The roots of this problem spread deep into neoconservative (neotrotskyite) schemes and are behind the agenda of “democratizing” the Muslim world. It started with Afghanistan and reaches a climax with Arab Spring. There is now massive instability all around MENA (the Middle East and North Africa): the slaughter of Christians, outbursts of...

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All Paid Subscribers / Andrei Navrozov / Wednesday's Child

4 Nov, 2015

Wednesday’s Child: Repentance

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A fascinating document is circulating in cyberspace. As it is in my mother tongue, there’s little point in directing my readers to a specific link, but those among them who read Russian can easily find it by using Yandex or any other search engine that accepts Cyrillic. The author’s name is Sergei Grigoryants. I had already left Russia when, in 1975, the dissident was arrested by the KGB and sentenced to five years in prison for “anti-Soviet agitation and propaganda,” under Article 70 of the Khrushchev-era Soviet Penal Code which took up where Article 58 of the Stalin-era Penal Code...

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Fleming / Interviews

3 Nov, 2015

Misa Djurkovic Interview, Part II

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Part II:  The European Context 5. The Germans seem to be talking out of both sides of their mouth, with Merkel saying early on that this had to be treated as a humanitarian crisis but later blaming Hungary and Croatia for letting so many migrants into the EU.  What do you think she and other EU leaders have in mind? I just published a book called The Illusion of European Union. One big chapter deala with immigration politics in the EU. It is a mess, that basically comes down to a strong internal fight between ordinary people–which includes even statesmen...

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Autodidact / Fleming

31 Oct, 2015

Cicero, Part II: Enter Cicero, Stage Left.

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The most notable event of the consulship of Pompey and Crassus, however, was the political trial of Gaius Verres. As governor of Sicily (73-71) Verres had outdone all his predecessors and rivals in corruption and theft, and he could afford to retain the greatest legal and political talent of the day, the former consul and arch-conservative, Q. Hortensius Hortalus.

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Fleming / Interviews

30 Oct, 2015

An Interview With Misa Djurkovic: Serbia–and Europe–Under Siege

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An Interview with Misa Djurkovic, a writer and political analyst with the Institute of European Studies, Belgrade. Part I:  Τhe Immigration Crisis and Serbia 1. How has the Inundation of Islamic refugees affected Serbia?   How many have actually crossed into Serbia?  Do many stay or are they just passing through on the way to Hungary. For the time being more than 200, 000 of immigrants, mostly from Syria, Afghanistan, and Iraq have entered Serbia. Not all of them should be regarded as refugees or asylum seekers. Huge number of them are economic immigrants. At this point, all of them...

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Best Revenge / Fleming

29 Oct, 2015

Back to the Past, Part I: Athens

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International travel has always been a chore, but in recent decades that chore has begun to equal one of the labors of Hercules. The blame lies in part to pointless security regulations and the TSA goons culled from the prisons, asylums, and housing projects from which they were recruited, in part to the airlines who, in packing fatter and fatter Americans into tighter and tighter places, have defied the laws of solid geometry, but in larger part to the travelers themselves. What people! Unwashed bodies bulging out of unwashed jeans, aging fat ladies whose decibels rise with the alcohol content...

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All Paid Subscribers / Andrei Navrozov / Wednesday's Child

28 Oct, 2015

Wednesday’s Child: Convertible Malarkey

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In the commotion, here and elsewhere, caused by my “Putin’s Hitler” last month, some words of doubt got misplaced – chiefly I mean readers questioning my contention, with which I had prefaced this post a week earlier, that Russia’s got money enough to burn, to say nothing of buying Crimea, if not Kiev.  I admit to certain capriciousness in my choice of Exhibit A, namely, a bill for 107,524 Euros paid by a party of young Russians lunching at a seaside restaurant in France; in the past few weeks, however, somewhat less fanciful proof has been adduced, and this I...

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Autodidact / Fleming

22 Oct, 2015

Preface to Cicero

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Cicero is, in fact, one of the most important figures in our tradition: statesman and orator,  rhetorical theorist, public philosopher, and a writer of marvelous letters that still give us a candid picture of insider politics that is unmatched to this day.

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Uncategorized

21 Oct, 2015

Dog Latin

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Habemus Oratorum Domum? Can Paul Ryan win the support of the House Freedom Caucus, the Republican Study Committee, and the Tuesday Group? If he can, forget the speakership, let’s talk sainthood, because unifying House Republicans counts as his first miracle. E.  Christian Kopff sent me this gem, written by one Jim Geraghty from the NR website.  I don’t read National Review in any form, print, internet, or the original crayon, so I don’t know who Mr. Geraghty is or if he has a whimsical turn of mind or if he is possibly fond of ridiculing the ignorance of learned languages...

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All Paid Subscribers / Andrei Navrozov / Wednesday's Child

21 Oct, 2015

Wednesday’s Child: Fatal Eggs

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Every once in a while a Jehovah’s Witness comes calling at the door, which is more than a little odd.  Not only because this is a squarely Catholic country, but also because here in Sicily we don’t very much like witnesses.  In fact, we usually kill them as they turn a corner, with a single blast in the face from a sawed-off shotgun. My father, who lives in New York, used a different technique. Whenever a Jehovah’s Witness, or indeed a representative of any other millenarian cult with an apocalyptic agenda, appeared at the door, he would swing it open...