Off The Record (in Brazil)

O – “Like you, I am a Marxist/Socialist. In addition, I am a Muslim – born and bred. I see my job essentially as an opportunity to erase the hegemony of the West in general and America in particular. To this end, we are working to choke off America’s energy supplies. As you may know, America actually does have the world’s most abundant resources of carbon-based fuels within its own borders. We have succeeded in halting oil exploration, drilling, refining, etc. In addition, we have been able to severely restrict coal mining operations by encumbering companies thus engaged with so many government mandated regulations and restrictions; it’s become impossible for operators to maintain profitable margins.

“Additionally, we’ve managed to create instability in the Middle East. It should soon become impossible to procure oil from any of these sources. Also, under our green energy initiative, we have succeeded in creating the perception that the use of carbon-based energy is damaging to the planet. We are now also in the process of banning nuclear energy outright (thank you, Japan).

“We have expanded baseline government spending to unprecedented levels, all but insuring the collapse of our currency. In relatively short order you will see severe inflation, shortages and, with it, a rise in civil disturbances. By maintaining a high degree of fiscal uncertainty, we can assure that the powerhouse American economy cannot recover.

“None of this happened overnight, of course. Many brave comrades have worked diligently for many years to break down our network of primary and secondary education as to destroy the people’s ability to engage in critical inquiry. As such, we’ve been able to accomplish much under cover of darkness. My own popularity is still relatively high, even as our systems and institutions are grinding to a halt one by one.

“It must be kept in mind that our efforts are targeted primarily at the West. The East should remain largely unaffected for now. It will be up to my successors to more or less finish the job. In any case, Brazil – and South America in general – should remain relatively unaffected by the change.

“For now, in order to keep up appearances, we have set aside considerable sums for you to develop your oil industry – just to maintain the impression that we are still dealing with the fear Americans have of running out of gas(oline).

D – “I can see some pitfalls in your plan, especially as it pertains to us. Many here see it as yet another attempt by your arrogant nation to reduce us to just another of your Middle Eastern gas stations. It’s a perception of distrust that has built up over many years."

O – “Never mind. Accept the money and do with it what you want. As I said, it’s mainly just to give the impression that we are doing something about energy – to placate the masses, so to speak – while we are turning off the spigots one by one.

“BTW, put in a good word to Hugo, Fidel and the others for me. Do let them know that we’re all on the same page.”

http://pkoelliker.blogspot.com/

Lessons Unlearned

The next time you’re tempted to disparage somebody, Kaddafi, Mubarak, any nation, bedbugs, fleas - anything - make sure you know what you’re doing and why. (I’d be interested in knowing just how many of you still get a chance to listen to Glenn Beck since he’s been dropped from several major radio markets including mine. It’s still possible to hear his radio show on the internet. The connection is often tenuous, but it does appear to run in a continuous if erratic loop on Mercury Radio Arts.)

Anyway, today he gave one of his more lucid rants. Without necessarily meaning to, he described precisely how we got Obama. It started with Bush. Hatred for Bush and anything Republican was whipped up into a frenzy. It came to be known as ‘Bush Derangement Syndrome’. Everyone was invited to join in - and everyone did. By the time the 2008 elections rolled around anyone who was neither Bush or Republican could have been elected, no contest. And ‘anyone’ was. To this day most of us still don’t have no clue just who our man in the White House actually is.

I dare say, we no longer remember exactly why it was we hated Bush so much. Nobody has much scar tissue to show from when Bush was in office. We just hated him, for no particular reason. We hated him just to give expression to our hatred. It was cool to hate; it was the ‘in’ thing to do. The media drove it; Hollywood drove it; universities drove it - and we all went along for the ride.

In our mass-induced hypnotic state, nothing we could foresee could have been worse than Bush. We all fell for it. ‘Anybody’ would save us and cleanse us of the dirt in which we wallowed.

It was perfect. It was like using a saw to cut wood. Two separate pieces. It works every time. We never once asked ourselves who started it and why. Who stood to gain by Obama coming to power? Who supported him? Who also hated Bush so much that they were prepared to cut off their noses to spite our faces? As such we stood with the Left, we stood with Rev. Wright and his liberation theology; we stood with Ahmadinejad, we stood with Chavez and Castro. We stood with the socialists, with the jihadist. We stood with every one of America’s enemies.

What did we expect to happen? Not one of us said, “Hey! Wait a minute. What exactly is going on here?” Instead, we’re still trying to make the wicked step-sister’s foot fit into Cinderella's glass slipper.

It’s a lesson that remains unlearned. To this day we are spurred on to hate our own: Rush, Beck, Savage, Palin and anyone else who might have even a smidgeon of conservative credentials. Tea Parties in the crosshairs; Michelle Bachman, John Bolton, Clarence Thomas, Carl Rove - all strategically lined up for target practice. And shoot we will, as long as we’re served the rhetorical bullets on a silver platter by the media.

If you notice, Obama remains curiously absent the sniper’s target. No one would dare say a thing outright against him. He remains a victim - a victim of the targets he himself has set up. …and victims can never do wrong.

http://pkoelliker.blogspot.com/

The Definition of 'Crazy'

It’s always easy and entertaining to make fun of history in a Monty Python kind of way; to say what if, as if ‘if’ were some kind of Frankonian monster ripe for resurrecting at the snap of a finger. Much more difficult to see the lunacy of current policy. If Reagan had killed Kaddafi, who is to say that would have been the end of it?

Fact: For several years after we sent a package bomb into Kaddafi’s tent (killing his daughter among others) we never heard from Kaddafi again. Fact: He behaved himself for a time like a kid after a spanking. And then, we seemed to have lost the concept altogether and the likes of Kim Yong-Il, Ahmadinejad and Hugo Chavez were able to make their mischief unimpeded, turning the whole class into an uproar.

Now, nobody is learning. The teachers have fled the premises. The school is has become wildly dysfunctional and you have some version of William Golding’s “Lord of the Flies” going on everywhere you look.

Enter the 12th Imam to put a stop to it. I expect he’ll have enough buckets lined up to put out the fires that are raging; to snuff out the fuses that are burning toward setting off a nuclear holocaust. If not, it doesn’t really matter what any of us do.

For a brief while, we thought it was Obama who would fill the bill. We gave him every chance. We even called him ‘savior’. We were convinced that he was the one who would bring us together. He made quite a convincing start of it, giving speeches all around the world and drawing adoring crowds everywhere he went.

Now we know it was all just so much hot air, effectively causing the polar icecaps to melt and the bears to seek shelter inside an ever shrinking population of whales. Curiously the oceans didn’t rise as predicted and the island of Manhattan still stands (although we did our best to bring her down by other means).

As much as we make fun of Kaddafi, we still shy away from looking in the mirror to examine ourselves. The definition of ‘crazy’ is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. What we are doing in almost every aspect of our public policy is the same thing over and over again. And all it’s done is accelerate our fall from grace.

Spring is just around the corner and all of us here in the northern latitudes can put our snow shovels away and breathe a sigh of relief. Soon time to put some of the old stuff out on the curb for yard sales or for sanitation to pick up. Don’t plan on going anywhere though. Gas will likely be around $5 a gallon.

http://pkoelliker.blogspot.com/

Gettysburg (redux)

Maybe we should exorcise the words ‘wrong’ and ‘right’ from our dictionaries. When pundits say that Obama, Kaddafi, Ahmadinejad, Mugabe, Chavez (or whoever) are on the ‘wrong’ side of history while Scott Walker, Sarah Palin, Glenn Beck proclaim themselves to be on the ‘right’ side, it betrays a bias. There are only sides. ‘Wrong’ or ‘right’ are relative to the side one happens to be on. Let us then just say, “There is their side and there is our side.”

We have now established that there are indeed sides. Provided we feel strongly enough to identify our preference, we must then support our side with all we’ve got.

We’re in the midst of a global battle we must win. We can no longer be bystanders because the outcome of this battle will determine our future and the future of our children. It has become pointless to argue about ‘wrong’ and ‘right’. Each side thinks it’s right and that the others are ‘wrong’.

Similarly, ‘left’ and ‘right’ on the political scale has become solely diversion and used by both sides to confuse and obfuscate. You either believe that America has been ‘wrong’ throughout its history or you don’t. You either want to see it torn down, destroyed, to let the phoenix rise from its ashes; or you want to preserve what has already been built.

There is no ‘right’ or ‘wrong’ answer. All that remains for us is to fight impeccably for whichever side we choose.

The winner of this battle will have the right to carry the banner of America. It will be either a ‘new and improved’ America or it will be America as it once was.

After the war has been settled, someone from the winning side will echo some version of President Abraham Lincoln’s stirring ‘Gettysburg Address’ in addressing the nation. It may not be at a cemetery, for (I should hope) we no longer fight our internal wars with guns and bullets. But we will have fought nevertheless. And the spoils will have gone to the victor.
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On the afternoon of Thursday, November 19, 1863, at the dedication of the ’Soldiers’ National Cemetery’ in Gettysburg, PA, four and a half months after the Union armies defeated those of the Confederacy at Gettysburg, President Lincoln delivered what has come to be known as ‘The Gettysburg Address‘:

“Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent a new nation, conceived in liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.

“Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation, so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a great battle-field of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field, as a final resting place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this.

“But, in a larger sense, we can not dedicate, we can not consecrate, we can not hallow this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us—that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion—that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain—that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom—and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.”

Pray to God it will be someone from our side.

http://pkoelliker.blogspot.com/

...and liberals applaud

The headlines this morning read that the reason for Hu’s visit to the U.S. was to proclaim to the world that China is now equal to the U.S. It has also been quite apparent for some time that China is on the rise (while America is in decline). Therefore, it can be now be said with some certainty that China will overtake the U.S. in the future. Such is the narrative of the (popular mechanics) press at any rate. …and liberals applaud.

There are, however, still some facts on the ground that put the lie to this view. The Chinese economy is clearly only a fraction of the U.S.’s. China’s military might, while growing, also lags behind. The difference as it stands now is in the willingness each country exhibits in using these to advantage. China has shown it is serious about overtaking the U.S., while America, under the current administration, could care less about maintaining its edge.

We have come to a critical point in world history. For the first time, we have an administration whose fundamental view is that America should not be preeminent on the world stage and is actively seeking to bring this about. It has happily abandoned the notion of American ‘exceptionalism’ and gone to foreign shores to apologize for America over and over again. At the same time, it has all but abandoned its traditional allies and sought to embrace its enemies.

The strategy, if there ever was one, was to ease points of friction by simply stopping the wheels. It has not worked. Unilaterally deciding to step aside and end our resistance to the thrusts of our traditional enemies will not automatically make them into friends. Instead, they will interpret this as a sign of weakness and double down on their efforts. Meanwhile, our friends are heading for the tall grass.

So far, our media has put down sundry omissions and missteps in diplomatic protocol to our president’s inexperience. In the diplomatic world, however, no serious player would return symbolic gifts to allies, offer inappropriate gifts to heads of state, bow to lesser leaders, inadvertently fly foreign flags upside down, or misspell the names of foreign dignitaries on White House table settings. Just not done.

Lang Lang’s ‘prank’ was not a mistake. It was carefully and deliberately orchestrated with the full knowledge of Chinese leadership. It was meant primarily for home consumption, showing that China is running rings around a timid and uninformed America. (Chavez pulled a similar stunt.) It is the equivalent of Chinese proxy North Korea sinking the Cheonan or bombing a South Korean (populated) island with impunity.

As is his way, Obama, the President of the United States, leader of our nation, just sits there in seemingly ignorant bliss and allows the credibility of our once great nation get dragged through the mud. No doubt Hu Jintao (as well as bin Laden) has seen the pictures of American soldiers tied to the backs of Toyota pick-ups being dragged through the streets of Mogadishu. It’s doubtful that Obama’s memory goes back that far.

http://pkoelliker.blogspot.com/

Upsetting the Apple Cart

There can be no doubt that Apple is a hugely successful company. Their sales model works. At the moment, there is much confidence that Apple will continue to do well. No one will seriously challenge or question what Apple does as long as the company flourishes. (If it’s not broke…) Most people will agree that Steve Jobs has been instrumental in the company’s success. Consequently, there is now proper concern about Jobs’ medical condition. Successful corporate leaders, unlike American presidents, are not readily interchangeable.

Companies are much like countries. They are either successful or not. We would think twice about electing a president who smokes, for example; or one with an unsavory past. The metrics to measure a nation’s success are somewhat different however. For one thing, countries are ‘too big to fail‘. You can’t just close them down and tell the workers to go home. The failure of a country generally implies that its people are living in miserable or sub-standard conditions.

As the leaders of nations increasingly see themselves as divorced from the general population, there has been an effort underway to erase the standards by which the success or failure of a nation is defined. What remains is two classes of people: the leadership class and the led.

The leadership class is the one that generally hogs the spotlight. They tend to eclipse the led - no matter how great their numbers - in the national narrative. Furthermore, the leadership class tends to stick together. They will echo each other’s excuses and tend to support a continuance of the status quo. The led, on the other hand, are often divided and thus unable to effectively affect the issues - corruption, ineptitude, shortages, oppression, etc. - confronting them.

This is why Madeleine Albright can go over to N. Korea, smile and toast the Dear Leader while his people are starving in labor camps. This is why Robert Mugabe can continue to live in a palace; why Chavez is able to close down radio stations; why Ahmadinejad can fire live ammunition at unarmed protesters; why Hu Jintao can keep political prisoners in jail without public accusation or trial; etc.

Tunisia was a big deal because it broke protocol. The ruling class(es) - especially in the Middle East - received a wake-up call, saying that a people united are perfectly capable of upsetting the apple cart.

http://pkoelliker.blogspot.com/

Assassination Prohibition

China has actually been conducting military exercises with Russia (among others) under the auspices of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) as late as September of last year. It was labeled “Peace Mission 2010”.

During the exercise certain Russian deficiencies came to light. No doubt, Russia is in the process of rectifying these shortcomings. Russia and China do not mock each other publicly as both are openly mocking the U.S. Both know that POTUS Obama has withdrawn from the game at his own peril.

The signing of the START treaty was universally seen as a public humiliation of Obama and America. Obama knows this, but does not care. He is above geopolitics. He has his own agenda. So far, we can only guess what this agenda might consist of. We might assign naiveté to Obama; we might even assign incompetence. We might allow him to play out his utopian farce until a new man can take over in orderly fashion. Both Russia and China appear to be in agreement that it won’t hold together that long. Something will happen before Obama leaves office - it will likely be something our present president won’t know how to handle. In fact, they’re counting on it. Both are seeing to it that they are prepared.

Afterwards, it’ll be a new game.
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Ever since President Ford’s Executive Order# 11905 in 1976, the option of political assassination has been pretty much off the table. A subsequent EO in this regard (Carter’s EO# 12333) reiterated the assassination prohibition. President Reagan was the last president to address the topic. At the same time, he seemed to have no problem whatsoever in sending a lethal package right into Col. Kaddafi’s Tripoli tent, killing about 100 including Kaddafi’s fifteen month old daughter, Hana. I don’t imagine he would have lost much sleep had Muammar had been killed as well. Because no subsequent executive order or piece of legislation has repealed the prohibition, it remains in effect today.

It seems to me that all this smacks of a gross double standard: faceless grunt soldiers appear to be fair game, while those who sent them out to kill are off limits. Nowhere was this point brought home to me more forcefully than watching Madeleine Albright toasting the North Korean dictator, Kim Yong-Il, while much of his nation was starving in some bestial work camp. It showed me that there appears to be an understanding among the privileged that guarantees their continuance simply by being a member of some exclusive club.

This raises the issue of just who can be considered a ‘political target‘. What exactly constitutes the threshold of political leadership. Is the unelected Hu Jintao a legitimate leader? Is the fraudulent Karzai? Is Kim Yong-Il? Is Ahmadinejad? Chavez? Mugabe? Rush Limbaugh?

Certainly, North Korea and others have been giving us huge problems. They have threatened us and predicted our immanent downfall. They are at this very moment preparing our graves. Besides the basic unfairness of the two-tier class distinction all this implies, there are also practical aspects to consider. Did Kaddafi continue to give us much trouble after his tent was hit?

We know precisely where each one of these troublemakers lives. We knew exactly where Saddam Hussein spent his nights. Yet, we mobilized an invasion at great expense, killed a lot of people (including our own) and eventually arrived at the same result. Why go through all this?

All we’ve succeeded in doing is to ignite (perhaps) a million fuses, each singularly fixated on our death by a thousand cuts, when a single 'stitch in time' would have more than sufficed.

http://pkoelliker.blogspot.com/

A Condo For Hillary (in Brasilia)

The difference between Republicans and conservatives is that conservatives know that present policies will not bring the economy back. As present policies are in control, the jobs picture will not improve. What’s left, is to determine who gets the blame.

POTUS will blame Republicans for obstructing. Republicans will blame POTUS and Democrats for policies already in place. Stalemate, so far. Enter the press. This tips the balance in favor of the Dems.

I’m telling you, Obama has it sewed up unless we get serious; meaning, starting immediately with impeachment proceedings.

Bolton is my guy as well. He is smart, serious and articulate. He knows his stuff. He is a patriot. He is practical. He is not a politician. He’s everything that I would want an American leader to be. As such, he is unelectable. America no longer elects competent leaders. America elects only show horses. The ideologues among us know this.

Where would you say Hillary Clinton is right now as we speak? Nobody knows. But I know. She’s down in Brazil, hobnobbing with the likes of Hugo Chavez and Dilma Rousseff, a Chavez client. Rousseff is taking office today. Hillary is there to make a down payment on a condo in Brasilia just in case things don’t work out here.

http://pkoelliker.blogspot.com/

We Are All Socialists Now

We can now put another ornament on Obama’s socialist (mop) Christmas tree: net neutrality. Nobody can yet exactly say what it means. The full text of the new rules haven’t been released yet. But, putting yet another chunk of the free market under government control should tell you all you need to know.

As with other legislation that has passed this year, the new rules basically amount to a framework that allows government to regulate as issues emerge. “At the digression of…” appears to be a ubiquitous phrase in any such legislation. It is also important to note that no such legislation - from ‘health care’ to FINREG to START - has been assembled willy-nilly and without purpose. All of it has been carefully crafted and been filed away from public view for a long time to be taken out at a time most favorable to passage. Law makers have had virtually no way to assess the merits of any such legislation and were required to vote in hurried fashion, strictly along party lines.

Net neutrality, of course, bypassed Congress altogether. There was no opportunity to probe the past associations and affiliations of those who crafted and promoted it. Suffice it to say, that those of us who suspected Obama’s socialist bias all along were right. Vote socialist, and you get socialist - and worse.

At this pace, we can expect a seemingly legitimate bill to slip through a rubberstamp Congress within the next two years that gives Obama the presidency with unlimited power for life. It’ll all be done under the rubric of crisis - Chavez style.

Crisis is the mother’s milk of authoritarian regimes and as such we cannot expect much to improve our situation. Crisis is one of the easiest circumstances to manufacture. Socialism thrives on it. It has never played to finding solutions anywhere its been tried. It just dissolves the parameters by which to judge success or failure.

Republicans and tea party members will have their work cut out for them. Rolling back or de-funding existing open-ended legislation is, they will find, is much like trying to nail Jello to a wall. Their best bet will be to proceed with hearings, focusing on constitutional grounds. This will, however, leave them open to the charge of practicing McCarthyism. The public at large will not be encouraged to support such dramatic high-profile displays. It will judge any effort on the part of Republicans as grandstanding, racism, and rank partisanship. They can be expected to fold like cheap cameras and just go along.

It’s been coming for a long time. It’s all been planned so meticulously, down to the last detail. The shame of it is that we too had a chance to stem this socialist tide. Bush too had control of Congress for a time, but squandered the opportunity to gird us against the threat. The Right has done nothing but capitulate. We now face a situation not dissimilar to our fight against Islamic terrorism in which a whole roster of clarifying terminology has been swept off the table. Mention ‘socialism’ and the full weight of political correctness comes crashing down from the sky to stifle any further hope for honest debate.

http://pkoelliker.blogspot.com/

Chavez U.

Again we are asked to follow the narrative: Obama the shirker, the incompetent. When, in fact, the Clintons are being set up for the fall. Bill stumbles into it. He suddenly finds himself alone in front of the Washington press corps, defending the tax cut (sic) compromise. Obama knows full well it will destroy the Democrat party - what’s left of it. Clinton is invited to the White House. He can’t stay away. Too many painful memories to reawaken and wallow in. It’s his chance to make good (perhaps). Hillary, if she had been around, would have advised against it.

Who is Obama’s primary challenger? The Clintons. Only Obama knows the Bush tax cuts will expire in January. He can claim to have been on either side of the issue. Bill has no clue about all the backroom wheeling and dealing. He goes out there and defends the already failed proposition to the hilt. His words have no effect on the eventual outcome. He’s simply there to absorb some of the heat.

The economy will tank. That is the plan. People will blame Congress. Some will blame Obama. And now, some will also blame the Clintons. Blame all around.

Obama is the only one left with a leg up on this one by virtue of being president. Once the dominoes begin to fall, everyone will be wiped out. Only Obama remains - by virtue of being president. Chavez will run a course on the internet about winning friends and influencing people. He will claim Obama to have been his first successful graduate.

http://pkoelliker.blogspot.com/

Back To Normal

All day long, the world’s eyes are on the president of the United States. He freezes up like a deer in the headlights. The problem is that he can conceive of only one enemy: the American people (whom he has over a barrel, to be sure). Give him that much.

Meanwhile, the Chinese are saying, “Dear Mr. Obama, what more do you want? Here, we’re giving you the little pervert on a silver platter. Grow a spine! Take charge of your country! Act like a frigging leader!”

Obama doesn’t budge. Obama freezes - like a deer in the headlights.

What will it take for the American president to act? A direct attack on the lower forty-eight? We can no longer be sure what he would do. We know now no ally is worth waking the American tiger at 3:55 in the morning. Israel is ripe for the picking; so is Taiwan. India - forget it…

What would Reagan do? Remember that missile he sent right to Kaddafi’s doorstep? I don’t remember the provocation. But it sure served to shut Kaddafi up for a good number of years - killed one of his kids (or wives), I can’t quite remember.

America! Please! Get your act together! Take out Il. You know where he lives. And, while you’re at it, take out Ahmadinejad, Chavez and the rest of the lunatics. Send them a love pat and quit fooling around with Americans’ jockeys. Do something useful for a change!

Osama is a phantom. Forget about him. He’ll whither and die on the memory vine once you decide to take a stand. Take out all the vermin you know exists. Sure, we’ll bitch and moan at the UN. So what? That’s what‘s expected of us.

Reign in all your human rights groups - you know, what's left of your supporters, the NGO’s, Hollywood, the Gorebots, etc. - the ones who know how to play the media so well. Get them to re-focus their narcissistic obsession. Get your women’s groups to condemn the Taliban with the same fervor with which they condemn your best and brightest. You’ll see how fast things change - back to normal.

http://pkoelliker.blogspot.com/

Dilma Rouseff: The Most Powerful Woman in the World

Cathy pines for a forgotten era. It is woman who is now celebrated in all walks of life (except homemaker). Women dominate the political scene. They are heads of corporations and institutions. They are policemen, spokesmen, and Secretaries of State.

Every time a new exciting political star pops up, it is a woman - or so it appears. To me it seems contrived and calculated. Personally, I don’t ascribe to the bias that says women are smarter or more effective than men or vice versa. What is troubling is that we as a nation seem to have reached a consensus that gender affirmative action is the way to go. And I am not a supporter of affirmative action on any level.

My most fervent wish is to be proven wrong about everything. I could turn to reading the liberal blogs, but they are despairing as well (though not for the same reasons). We seem to be caught in an eternal twilight of general nausea. It’s as if the sun has decided to rise only barely above the horizon each day, leaving us in darkness for much of the time.

One of the most significant elections will be taking place in Brazil on October 3rd. Their current president (Luiz Inacio Lula) rose to power on the strength of his effectiveness as a union organizer. His rule can be described as having been center-left. It was significant in that he managed to allow market forces just enough space to breathe to vault the country to the stature of a rapidly emerging global player.

There was always a hint of trouble (for the U.S.) on this horizon however. An avowed leftist, he joined hands with the likes of Chavez, Erdogan and Ahmadinejad. The gap between rich and poor, though improving, continues to be enormous. The well-off in his nation live in constant fear of kidnapping and assassination. Should someone blow out a tire on some lonely road, it’s advised to keep moving rather than get out to change it. Reminds of what I’ve been told about stopping for red traffic lights in Philadelphia at night.

Brazil is under intense development. There is construction everywhere. The money for this has come not so much from taxes as from its abundant natural resources. Cronyism and corruption are suspected to be epic. The new capital (Brasilia/DF) is spacious and impressive. The long-term goal was to create a center where the elites make their homes. As such, those who comprise the service sector are in the process of being quietly moved out to satellite cities where poor-on-poor crime continues to be rampant. Brasilia was envisioned as an international oasis - a hub - for global powerbrokers to strike deals.

The person who is expected to win Brazil’s election is a woman (Dilma Rouseff) who has been carefully groomed by the current president. Though initially trailing in the polls, she has suddenly - some say unexpectedly - emerged as the candidate who will win easily. She is said to be an avowed Leftist and flamethrower. Her magic formula has been simply to say over and over again that she will help the poor. Because she is appears matronly, perhaps, people believe her.

Obama has seen the writing on the wall. He’s been doing everything he can to ingratiate himself with these people. They will not accept his overtures no matter how many concessions he is prepared to grant. They will continue to portray the U.S. as an adversary to rally the home folk; to blame things on when things go wrong. The same is true for dictators all over the world. They can rest easy now, knowing that the piñata has been cracked open; that America will no longer defend itself.

This leaves America’s (former) allies in the lurch. They must now scramble to coalesce around some nation, or band together as a group of the like-mind, that will not shirk the responsibility of fighting to maintain Western ideals. Much more likely though, they will find themselves pressured to abandon their principles in favor of protection.

http://pkoelliker.blogspot.com/

Brief: Hugo Chavez' Election Setback

Boxer will lose because her constituents have finally figured out that she doesn’t have enough brain power to light a match. Obama will lose in 2012 - if we should get that far - because he’s deliberately and calculatingly destructive.

It’s become uncanny the way you can read stories about any one of the world’s dictators these days and substitute Obama’s name. In today’s WSJ for instance, on the opinion page, there’s a story about Hugo Chavez’ recent election setback. This came about despite blatant irregularities that favored the dictator. Still, they say, it won’t really make any difference because Chavez will continue to rule by decree.

It is now entirely possible that the results of our own midterm elections will change exactly nothing.

http://pkoelliker.blogspot.com/

Prairie Fires

Oliver Stone views the world through an ideological lens. Boring. Still, it’s instructive. Stone likes Castro, Che, Chavez and Obama. He is telling us exactly who Obama is: an out-and-out communist.

Was gratified today to hear that William Ayers was denied emeritus status by the University of Illinois. Ayers’ bid was blocked by Christopher Kennedy, a son of the late Sen. Robert F Kennedy, a Chicago businessman, who insisted he did not want to honor a man who dedicated one of his books, “Prairie Fire”, to his father’s killer, Sirhan Sirhan. The vote last Thursday by the University’s Board of Trustees was unanimous.

Ayers is said to be close to Barack Hussein Obama. This is just another indication of how far the Democrat Party has drifted to the Ultra Left. When we talk about our country having been taken hostage by the Democrat Party we err. The Democrat Party itself has been taken hostage. It is no longer the Party of the Kennedys, or the Clintons for that matter. (Though Hillary bears watching closely.) It has retained the name ‘Democrat’ and even claims to support such trappings as free and fair elections, checks and balances, and the overall idea of representative government. (Every totalitarian regime does the same to project the illusion of legitimacy.)

The fact is that the Democrat Party of today is a party with all the bells and whistles of Marxism. Whereas Obama may just be a puppet, the amiable, partying, putting face of the party, those pulling the strings are revolutionaries. Their game plan is well underway and they will not rest until every American is enslaved by an uncompromising, unworkable ideology in the rubble of what once was a free and proud nation.

Every Tea Party member understands this on some level. The counterforce is considerable and growing. In fact, going by the numbers alone, it has become overwhelming. Numbers, however, mean nothing to revolutionaries. They will use every means possible to achieve their goals.

We’re in for a rough ride, folks! For those of us who align themselves with the ideals that have made America great in the past, it is apt to become the fight of our lives. Losing is no longer an option.

http://pkoelliker.blogspot.com/

Slouching Towards Serfdom

The lasting legacy, I fear, from this, loosely referred to as the Obama administration, will not be from oil gushing into the Gulf; from value evaporating from our paper currency; from American influence eroding abroad – all of which can be reversed and made to look whole again. Instead, it is the abrasion of (our) trust in elected officials.

There was a hint of it already back in the Bush administration when some people insisted that 9/11 as well as the aftermath of Katrina were part and parcel due to Bush’s evil designs: the first to provide Bush-Cheney with an excuse to invade Iraq; the second, because both men hated blacks.

The concept of the possibility of a rogue government was now out there. Clinton supporters (or even Clinton himself) enhanced its legitimacy in the political realm when they lamented that 9/11 happened during Bush’s tenure. If it had happened when Bill was in office, he could have been a great president.

“Disaster” as political tool to advance policy objectives and to strike crippling blows at the opposition was already well rehearsed by the time Obama was sworn in as the 44th president of the United States. Some even claim that the pre-election fiscal meltdown was instrumental to Obama’s installation. Rahm Emanuel emblazoned the concept into the national dialogue by dropping all pretence with his “Never let a crisis go to waste” comment.

Here we are now, wondering why the oil continues to spill; why there are an ever growing number of victims? The suspicion is that, even if it wasn’t sabotage, why is it taking so long (to plug the hole)? Clearly, the outlines of a solution are beginning to emerge: The policy objective of choking off America’s energy supply seems to be gathering steam; the prospect of a large pool of money for the federal government to waste on unprofitable ventures looms large, as does the demonization of Big Oil, Big Coal, Big Nuclear, paving the way for yet another government takedown and thrusting another huge number of people onto the welfare rolls.

All this talk about Obama feeling dispirited and actively thinking of voluntarily forgoing a second term is just that: talk. Barack Hussein Obama is doing just fine (at our expense, I might add). In short order, we can expect the private sector to be just that: private Obama. We’ll all, in one way or another, be working for him. We will live or die as he decides. He will elevate those who support him, while those of us who do not will find the yoke becoming ever tighter; the load ever heavier.

We are seeing the birth of a Chavez-style total socialist takeover. Even with the systems he himself has installed failing on all fronts, I don’t see Chavez in political trouble. Castro has managed to hold on for decades. Don’t think it’s because the people are particularly enamored of them. Ditto, Kim Jong-Il; Ahmadinejad; Mugabe; etc.

We are well along on a similar path, even with a Congress of elected, essentially rubberstamp officials standing in whispered opposition. And yet, the country on the whole is continuing to say, “It can’t happen here” – like a diabetic progressing through the stages of his irreversible disease. It has happened!

'Disasters' have become political bots to keep us in line and make us depended on the good graces of whoever has the audacity to declare himself king. Don’t tell me bots don’t work. They work just fine. Bots are but tools, the extensions of human hands. Unless we begin thinking critically, we openly embrace the prospect of serfdom.

Brutality

This morning the front pages of newspapers are all decked out with men hugging, clasping hands, and smiling broadly. The men were Tehran’s Ahmadinejad, Brasilia’s lame duck Lula, and the rising star of the Islamic world, Ankara’s Erdogan. I would think that Harare’s Mugabe, Caracas’ Chavez and Pyongyang’s Kim Jong-Il were smiling as well, only they likely couldn’t scrape enough money together to make the trip. It’s always good to see the world’s leaders smiling. It says that the rest of us will yet get to see another sunrise or two.

The occasion, of course, was to celebrate the successful diplomatic effort that allows Iran to proceed with its nuclear ambitions while at the same time satisfying UN demands to do so with outside participation. Notably absent from the merry-making was our own illustrious president, Barack Hussein Obama, who had proposed a similar roadmap only last October which Tehran promptly rejected outright and which was then left to languish in the ‘open’ file.

So much for Obama’s outreach to America’s enemies. He does not appear to understand that these have now recognized America as a toothless tiger, and that it remains in their best interest to maintain the fiction of casting us as a worthy opponent despite our having offered our unclenched fist, and made known in no uncertain terms our endless willingness to grovel.

Netanyahu will now be forced to act as he sees himself cornered. We have already fully exposed our bias against him. He knows Israel is being set up as the next domino to fall in Tehran’s bid to establish its hegemony over the entire Middle East and East Asia.

The larger lesson to be learned from this is that the dollar is no longer the dominant currency governing geo-political adventurism; that it has now been replaced by brutality. It is now clear that all those whose primary concerns are centered on tolerance, freedom, ecological purity, democratic participation, human rights, racial and gender equality, etc. have drawn the short straw. From now on we can expect the crane hooks to be wheeled back out into the market square - the knives sharpened, the holes dug, the stones at the ready - to signal the perhaps less-than-optimistic start of oppression, enslavement, feudalism, arbitrary law enforcement, threats and coercion. The death of the dollar means that economic laws have failed; that sharia – which in itself is a throwback to Hammurabi’s Code – is now back in style.

How much Obama had wanted to be a part of this deal! Instead he’s been left on the outside, looking in. What else can a poor man do? He’s already driven a wooden stake through our economy. He’s already succeeded in perverting the functioning of our constitutional republic. He’s already managed to beggar his constituents. What more indeed!

We can be certain that he’ll think of something. His only real enemy is the American people themselves. It is they who will bear the brunt of his frustrated flailing. Obama has been described as a racialist. It’s not a good time to be born white in America – or black for that matter. Zimbabwe is the model for what can happen. Once it was the bread basket of Africa. But that wasn’t good enough. Now its people are starving.

Pixie Dust and Blizzards

Everyone at the table - naked emperors, all - knows that the 'global warming' farce has unraveled. Everyone knows they stand exposed as the appeasers of a failed ideology. The best they can do is to continue and pretend it isn't so.

Earlier this year, Obama told some Turkish college students, "States are like big tankers, they're not like speedboats. You can't just whip them around and go in another direction."

'Can't' or 'won't'? And the answer is 'won't', because it never was about 'global warming’ anyway. It was about extortion. Chavez made it quite clear in his speech to the delegates, and the chamber erupted in uproarious applause. Meanwhile, outside there was vandalism. The red flag was ubiquitous. I would bet the Russians and the Chinese felt embarrassed by this pathetic display of the (once great) West's incontinent children.

Every one of these so-called leaders (excepting the communists egging them on and, at the same time, mocking them) will from now on find himself in the position of Tiger Woods. They will return home to outraged electorates, who will be in no mood to listen to stories of pixie dust and blizzards in Hopenhagen (sic).

Understand What's at Stake

The lead this morning on Drudge reads: ‘Critics march against Chavez across Latin America...’ The article it links to says that there were protests in New York and Europe (Madrid) as well. It seems that people are waking up to Chavez’s global designs.

Hugo is a dogged sort. He has it in mind to rule the world, starting with Latin America. He built his credentials by criticizing the U.S. - especially Bush, who never responded to the dictator’s rhetoric directly, except by quietly (and ineffectively) plotting his overthrow. Hugo has since succeeded in rallying any number of bad actors to his side, both in Latin America and in the Middle East. Count Mugabe in Africa also among the people whose sympathies he was able to engage.

In all this, Chavez could count on support from the American Left that rose to prominence in an unprecedented wave of Bush (i.e. America) bashing, spearheaded by the Democrat Party, the American MSM and academe; all three, who first managed to coordinate and then orchestrate an orgy of contempt for everything American and thereby succeeded in legitimizing anti-American principles and conferring high status on anyone who espoused them. That’s how miscreants like Paul Krugman and Mary Robinson came to be rewarded high internationally coveted honors. And this is what gave us Barrack Hussein Obama, our first revolutionary president since George Washington.

We can well understand Latin America leaning left. Decades of corrupt rule, inexplicable economic stagnation and blame-shifting have engendered a climate of distrust towards their hugely successful (relatively speaking) northern neighbor. We can understand Chavez’ schmoozing with Ahmadinejad, whose own fortunes so clearly depend on maintaining an adversarial stance with the West. We understand the role of Israel in all this – the only free democracy in the Middle East - whose very existence puts all the other oil-rich nations there to shame.

But what of the American Left? How are we to explain their disdain for freedom, opportunity, economic success and so much more? Is it the sickness of arrogance? Is it a failure of confidence in God? Is it the scourge of compulsive, questionable behavior and excess that has become so ingrained in the fabric of (especially) urban society that can no longer be curbed and must therefore seek atonement under radical guise?

Whatever the reason, we have finally arrived at the brink. From here on, it could go either way for us. Our only hope is to register our numbers. We must demonstrate that the overwhelming majority of us understand what’s at stake. We must show solidarity, unwavering resolve, and the will to risk everything – for freedom.