Cucible

If any should doubt that we are deeply entrenched in a clash of cultures - a war, if you wish - I direct you to Caroline Glick’s opinion piece entitled “The West’s proxy war against the Jews” in yesterday’s Jerusalem Post. She lays it out clearly as few can and have. The crucible, in her view, is Israel. That is to say, the fate of Israel is the metric that will define the ultimate winner of the struggle.

To live side by side in relative peace (like sticks of furniture in an otherwise empty room) with the current Islamic/communist coalition assault now in full swing is out of the question. It is now fully in attack mode. One of its goals is to push Israel into the sea. (Envision anything I might mean by that.) It’ll mark the defeat of the West. The victorious coalition will at first gather ‘round to congratulate themselves; then, they will begin fighting each other, for they are only united on one issue: their hatred of Israel and western capitalism.

Whereas America will remain relatively unscathed by the fall of Jerusalem into Arab hands, Europe will likely not be so lucky. To be sure, America will have its own problems. For one thing, it will be difficult to convince the entire country to salute the red flag. This will have to play out over time.

In today’s WSJ, Mark Helprin tells of America’s retreat from the high seas in an article entitled “The Decline of U.S. Naval Power” We see it ourselves in the continuing saga of pirates successfully negotiating ransoms and killing civilians. It seems incredible that we cannot do much about it. Similarly, as pertains to Libya (or any other trouble spot on the globe), our hands appear to be tied by outside interests and internal concerns (and distractions).

The media has been gearing up to tell us just how bad Kaddafi is (and has been). This is the likely view of the Obama administration as well. It makes me suspicious, however. It’s been a long time since either the media or the government has told us the truth about anything. It may simply reflect Obama’s calculation as to what he believes Kaddafi’s staying power to be, and this administration’s scrambling to get out in front of the curve for once (of course hindered somewhat by - as JB points out - Tripoli’s long and well-established connections to radical elements in Chicago (Farrakhan).

Realistically, you’ve got to go all the way back to 1988 when Pan Am flight 103 crashed at Lockerbie following an in-flight explosion, killing all on board and scattering wreckage all over the area to pin anything of substance on Kaddafi. Since then, I’ve been under the impression that Kaddafi has undergone semi-successful rehabilitation and earned his way back into the fold of the human community. In light of what else is going on in the world today, the springing of bombing suspect Abdelbaset al-Megrahi from a Scottish hospital/jail seems more of a prank, designed to redden the faces of the pompous, than a full-blown crime against humanity.

There is no doubt in my mind that the relatively recent upheavals we are witnessing in the Middle East and elsewhere is due to America’s deliberate distancing itself from its traditional international obligations. This has, at the very least, left a vacuum for sinister forces to exploit. The end result continues to be the chaos of birth. We definitely appear to be on the cusp of some momentous change. This (chaos) is only the first step. What will eventually emerge is anybody’s guess.

http://pkoelliker.blogspot.com/

A Short History of Travel

In the beginning is always the word. In Wisconsin and elsewhere, the public debate is between asking “is it fair (who defines ‘fair‘?)?” and “can we afford (who defines ‘afford‘?) it?” For those who claim we can’t afford it, ‘fairness’ is not an issue. For those who hold fairness above all, affordability is a moot point: Two trains passing in the night. There can never be agreement or compromise. These trains cannot be allowed to use the same track. Otherwise… disaster.

But still, it must have started somehow; when we were still united in the effort to find equitable solutions; when the 36 x 48 architectural paper was still in tubes, and we were still in the process of sharpening our pencils.

Back then the issue, as it presented itself, was simply getting from here to there, and back again. At first, the ‘back again’ part presented a problem. There was nothing we could not solve. So, it was decided, we should build two parallel tracks. Now there’s a solution!

Now we find that ‘here’ and ‘there’ are two separate places (as they had been all along); that people going there want this, and people coming here want that; and that the two would never compromise. You see, there is just enough to build one set of tracks. What to do?

Are any of us into derailing trains? Has it already reached the point, as it did during WWII, when the French resistance found it necessary to dig up tracks without telling anybody? Hell, you can go even further back and watch Buster Keaton’s “The General”!

History repeats. In the beginning there is always the word. From then on it can get confusing. One has to be nimble; one has to be quick to keep up. Our side is learning, but we are still way behind the curve. While we were busy lazing about - distracted - the Left was studying hard; working. Nobody thought, it’d ever get this far: the blurring of boundaries, identities (everyone the same, interchangeable); the blurring of truth; the blurring of meaning, of thought; two objects spinning independently in space: Farrakhan’s mother wheel (ship) and its anchor - tracking further and further apart.

http://pkoelliker.blogspot.com/