Checkmate!

It has since come to my attention that Mr. Strauss-Kahn was the front-runner socialist candidate to oppose France’s Sarkozy. It occurs that socialists – like moderate Republicans - have a difficult time of it these days. On one hand, they are still wedded to the notion that money (paper) equals power. On the other, they are tasked with maintaining this illusion even as the power of money seems in decline. They find themselves between a rock and a hard place, attempting to satisfy two opposing currents: conservatives, who tend to be supply-siders, clamoring to save the system by next-to-impossible cuts in government spending; and Communists/Islamists, demanding that we jettison traditional economic theory altogether.

Between saving the system and jettisoning it is where socialists make their home. They represent the moderates – the wavering and undecided - in a war that one side or the other is destined to lose. Either way, socialists are already road kill. If the incident making headlines this morning on the front pages of virtually every daily [save the (Hometown) Coffee News] has been engineered, it might have been done by either side.

Socialists are especially vulnerable because of their inability to commit. Academe is full of them and so is the media. If there should come a conflagration, socialists will be the first to feel it. They will be targeted by both sides. They will be forced to proclaim their allegiance. To them, that will be akin to stripping naked. Some will refuse to do it.

I’d like to think that an actual shooting war can still be avoided; that we will fight it out on a political and economic level. If this be the case, Bush Derangement Syndrome was the prelude. Virtually everybody in America and around the world fell for it and drunkenly played along. It brought us Obama. Now that we’re well into the first movement, the stakes are already higher.

Winning this war will not depend on who we are against. It will depend on whom we are for. We have arrived at the heart of the matter. People are attacking us throughout the world. Why? Because we – America – are perceived as being supportive of Israel. All over the world, Israel has become the pariah of our time. Even many of us have begun to waver. It has become chic to support revolution in the Middle East and promote the idea of a Palestinian (terror) state on Israel’s doorstep. We do not realize that by supporting these things, we chip away at Israel’s ability to defend itself. We can no longer afford to laugh when Israel is attacked or made fun of the way we stood back and allowed it to happen to Bush.

No use crying over spilt milk. We’ve already lost too many battles. Our educational system is in ruins; our Constitution barely exists; our government barely functions; our economy limps along. The next battle will be fought over Israel. The final phase started with the demonization of Bush to which we all happily acquiesced. After Israel has fallen, the next and final target will be America.

The last shoe to drop before America falls is Israel. And almost nobody talks about it. George Mitchell has quit. Hillary is off in Pakistan. Our president plays golf.

If we commit now to standing by Israel in its hour of need, we still have a chance of saving America. It’s not going down in the way one may think. The last battle – as all the others - will be won by attrition. It is my contention that if Israel falls, it will rip the soul out of our nation and we won’t be inclined to raise even a finger in our own defense.

http://pkoelliker.blogspot.com/

Francoise Hardy

Francoise Hardy was a favorite with European audiences in the 60's. She sang mostly love songs. Her approach to music was serious (she almost never smiled) and direct. She sang mostly in French (the language of romance). In addition, she was considered to be exquisitely beautiful. Hardy would never have caught my attention if I hadn't frequently visited Europe during those years. She, like many others, were swept under the bridge by the British Invasion.

Schoolyard Games (and Accidents)

Even more interesting to me than what’s happening at the moment is to watch the tectonic political plates of world alliances shifting. The heavy dude jumped off the see-saw, which sent all the other kids flying. Now the heavy dude is scrambling to get back on, but he’s hurt and someone’s taken him to the nurse’s office. She determines that the heavy dude is essentially out for the count; that there’s something other than just scratches, bumps and bruises ailing him. He may be insane.

Meanwhile, all the other kids are still crawling around on the ground. Some had their glasses knocked off. Now they’re trying to find each other. The see-saw has been abandoned. A new game must be found; new teams chosen. Turkey to Iran. Bahrain to the Saudis. Israel is the kid that no one will pick.

Germany to the Russians. The French want to go it alone. Pakistan to China. Brazil to Venezuela. India, alone. May have to form leagues with an eye towards finals. The fat kid still in rehab. Can no longer be counted on to do anything.

As the world turns: uncertainty and confusion. Posturing. Pawns are bleeding. Scramble, scramble. Where it ends up, nobody knows. ... and where the hell are the teachers? Union meetings, no doubt.

http://pkoelliker.blogspot.com/

Trick or Treat

My computer broke again. Accessing anything on the internet - never mind posting - has become a chore. I’m strangely resigned to it. In some ways I feel liberated. I still read the paper first thing in the morning. Nothing much changes from day to day – only the emphasis shifts.

The current fight is between spending and not spending; pumping more paper into the economy or cutting back. There are good arguments for both sides. You know where I stand. Actually, I’m no longer quite so sure anymore. I think we may go down either way. Look at France.

The only question remaining is when. Whoever happens to be in charge at the time gets the blame. There’s evidence now to suggest that that’s what is being finessed right now – as in a chess game where the thinking is several moves ahead. Say, if Republicans are in charge when the dam bursts, they will be made scapegoats for generations to come …and vice versa.

Still, I think it’s a raw deal. If anyone out there knows what’s coming, they should be telling us to break out the life rafts. So far, anything anybody is saying smacks of a solution. The snake oil salesmen of the old West knew the same trick.

Taking First Aim

China is in the process of consolidating its power in its part of the world just like Iran is doing in the Middle East. China is confident it can get away with this now because it no longer views the U.S. as a credible roadblock. Obama’s foreign policy is seen to be aimless and lacking any and all conviction. Additionally, China feels it holds the trump move (two queens acting simultaneously) in what we regard as this, our interminable chess tournament of nations: the U.S. debt. The newest strategy for success holds that those who control the debt always win. China has situated herself so that she could wreck the U.S. economy with a single word. Obama is well aware of this.

Unappreciated by China, perhaps, is the likelihood that the present U.S. administration does not care in the least about the U.S. economy; that it is possible that it will at some point even goad China into pulling the plug and purposely send our economy into a tailspin, thus removing the debt threat weapon from the board entirely.

Still, for China, it would come out to one and the same: America voluntarily quitting the world stage and leaving China to do what it wants.

It has often been said that familiarity breeds contempt. China and Japan, both intensely nationalistic, will never see eye to eye. There are factions in the Middle East for which this is equally true. Even the European Union will not survive as the big players, Germany and France, will always plot to secure advantage. This truism is so deeply ingrained in the human condition, we even see it played out on the mean streets of American urban centers where black on black crime is rampant.

The tendency to see ourselves - or those who look most like us - as our primary enemy never fails. It comes to the fore particularly in times of social and economic stress. It is always those that most closely resemble us at whom we take first aim; not realizing, perhaps, that we are sticking our fingers into profoundly intimate wounds that have long since bled dry.

http://pkoelliker.blogspot.com/

Midterms: Pyrrhic Victory For Republicans

All this about the "Impossible Kick" by Brazilian Roberto Carlos in a 1997 match of Brazil vs France applies if you have two teams out on the field. In America you have only one team playing. Whatever split can be discerned is only between good players and bad players. There is no goalie guarding the opposition’s net. Even the bad players can make a goal (if the others will let them).

We still pretend we have a two-party system with checks and balances. We pretend we have something akin to a democracy - much as the Left pretends there is still ‘global warming’. The Left’s pretense succeeds precisely because there is no credible opposition.

Republicans winning overwhelmingly in the November congressional elections will not change this one-sided game. The Left will continue to win where it counts. Obama is the Left. He has already succeeded in reducing the legislative branches to ashes. Nothing either one can propose that differs from the official line can amount to more than spit in the wind.

These past two years, congress has broken all the rules of acceptable behavior. It is no longer viable as an institution. Obama has succeeded in essentially carving the guts out of it.

This leaves only Obama and the courts. Therein lies the last remaining friction. But even there Obama is rapidly gaining the edge. Must I remind that the Justice Department also is no longer independent? They don’t even try to hide it anymore.

The media, education, science - they’ve all aligned themselves with the hard Left. The Left is the only team playing. All the rest is BS.

Yesterday evening on returning from dinner in central Chennai, we passed a street along which every single shop sold furniture. Each one was brightly lit. The stop-and-go traffic gave me time to peer inside. The proprietors and their clerks seemed bored and were glued to the windows, idly staring at the steady stream of mechanized humanity streaming past their premises. From what I could see all of them were Muslim.

http://pkoelliker.blogspot.com/

Old Brown Shoe

Even as we continue to strive to be like France, we still cling to some of the old American taboos inherent in a stubborn streak of our puritan tradition. To be sure, Bill Clinton’s dalliances were a game changer. Although we would never - now 15 some odd years later - think of impeaching a man (or woman) for casual private affairs, we’re still not comfortable with it. I have previously (on this blog) enumerated the consequences of the Monica Lewinsky affair and defended my contention that it was precisely this - not the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan - that, in a real sense, brought us to where we are today.

In order to maintain any semblance of old brown shoe prudishness (which seems to compliment our unctuous leanings), we’ve had to introduce money into the equation. New Jersey governors Corzine and McGreevey as well as New York’s Elliott Spitzer all fell under this sword. Corzine was said to have had improper dealings with the someone in a public sector union; McGreevey was said to have given a plum job to a lover; and Spitzer was said to have paid actual money (God forbid!) to the madam of high-end call girls. It is no wonder that the Hurd affair is now couched in similar terms.

Only someone of such immense political stature as Bill Clinton could get by and change the game once again, removing even the last remaining vestige of fig leaf with regard to the sex trade.

Admittedly, the whole notion is preposterous, especially in the face of all our other problems. It is infinitely more palatable than looking a train wreck straight in the face, especially while standing on the same track. Guilt weakens; and, as such, renders a powerful man vulnerable. Still, it would allow him at least some space in which to squirm. A good lawyer can always find enough wiggle room for the perp to slip the cuffs. A train wreck, on the other hand, spells closure. The paints are dry; the brushes broken. Nothing can be done anymore to alter even a single brushstroke of the finished dystopian masterpiece once it has been released for public endurance.