‘Dialogue Works,’ edition of 10 January: Elon Musk and Alice Weidel (AfD) Ignite Controversial Discussion on X!

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‘Dialogue Works,’ edition of 10 January: Elon Musk and Alice Weidel (AfD) Ignite Controversial Discussion on X!

Yesterday’s two-hour long on-air chat between Elon Musk and the chief of the so-called hard right opposition party in Germany, the Alternative for Germany (AfD) was the principal point for discussion today with ‘Dialogue Works’ host Nima Alkhorshid.  This broadcast provided rich material for analysis of various issues, first among them what influence Musk will be exerting on the incoming Trump administration. I regrettably submit that this influence will be ill-informed and still less poorly considered. The sad truth is that Musk demonstrated that there are no universal geniuses, and that brilliance in the several business and technical domains which he rightly claims does not extend to international affairs.  He obviously will not be the ‘adult in the room’ that so many people have hoped would be there to exert a restraining force on the compulsive Mr. Trump.

For her part, Frau Weidel showed herself to be interested primarily in domestic policy in Germany and to have nothing of importance to say about the two most critical conflicts in the world today, the Israeli rampage in its neighborhood including the genocide in Gaza, and the Russia-Ukraine war. Those who tell us that her possible victory at the polls on 23 February will signal a German withdrawal from NATO, as the widely watched Colonel Douglas Macgregor has done earlier this week, are drawing their analysis from thin air.

In addition to what viewers will find in this video, I will be publishing an essay on the Musk-Weidel online chat later today.

I am grateful to my host to have been given the opportunity to talk at some length about the legacy of Jimmy Carter and about what was said about him in eulogies at his funeral service in Washington.

I expect viewers will find considerable food for thought in this 45-minute-long youtube entry:

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Published by gilbertdoctorow

Gilbert Doctorow's latest book, "War Diaries. The Russia-Ukraine War, 2022-2023" is a unique contribution to literature on the war thanks to the author's reports on the Russian home front written during his periodic visits to St Petersburg at a time when Russia no longer issued visas and nearly all Western journalists had left the country. Doctorow's two-volume "Memoirs of a Russianist" published in 2020 also constitutes a category of its own, consisting largely of diary entries rather than reminiscences written decades later.. Volume 2 focuses on the community of 50,000 expatriate managers working and living in Moscow during the 1990s, about which none of his peers has yet to write. Gilbert Doctorow is a professional Russia watcher and actor in Russian affairs going back to 1965. He is a magna cum laude graduate of Harvard College (1967), a past Fulbright scholar, and holder of a Ph.D. with honors in history from Columbia University (1975). After completing his studies, Mr. Doctorow pursued a business career focused on the USSR and Eastern Europe. For twenty-five years he worked for US and European multinationals in marketing and general management with regional responsibility. From 1998-2002, Doctorow served as the Chairman of the Russian Booker Literary Prize in Moscow. During the 2010-2011 academic year, he was a Visiting scholar of the Harriman Institute, Columbia University. Mr. Doctorow is a long-time resident of Brussels.

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