S. And the Christmas Pig (with a name)

I understand the purpose of the last remaining stricture - against political assassination - left standing, even in the chaos of war. It is a concept also reflected in the game of chess. Assassination goes beyond mere killing. It targets a leader – the head the snake, in some cases – a man (or woman), nevertheless with a recognizable name. It violates the last law of civilized behavior after which there is no telling.

S. was a little boy living in Goa. It wasn’t the place of his birth or even where he grew up. His parents moved around a lot due to the nature of his father’s job. S. used to like watching the yard from his second floor window. He watched the cow being milked and the chickens. His very favorite was the pink piglet with the curly tail. He gave it a name and it would follow him around when he went down to the yard to play.

Came Christmas, there was much activity down in the yard. S. had been struggling to stay awake the night before. Midnight mass seemed to drag on endlessly. Around daybreak he finally fell asleep. Consequently, he awoke late. It was already time for the holiday feast served on a festive table at midday. When S. came downstairs, the heavily laden table was the first thing he saw. In the center was his pig – the one with a name. It had an apple in its mouth.

S. ran back upstairs weeping. He could not eat that day.

The assassination of a leader is considered by some to be the most effective way to rid oneself of an adversary. And perhaps it is. But it flies in the face of any shred of doubt one may still harbor as to the rightness or wrongness of one’s intent. There must always be doubt. Without doubt, there is no countervailing force to mitigate madness, and it’s off to the races. Why not target Ahmadinejad, Mugabe, or Kim Jong-Il? We know where they live.

Of all the palpable threats that are facing our nation, I consider Barack Hussein Obama to be at the top of the list. Still, I would shudder if he were to be assassinated. It would mean that we have stepped over and obscured a very delicate line. It would be difficult – if not impossible – to find our way back to any semblance of normal.

Targeting Kaddafi is wrong. I know the sainted Reagan did it. He was wrong as well. Kaddafi may have been tipped off as he might have been tipped off also this time around (I should like to believe so).

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Trump: Political Outsider

Predictably, the media is following Obama’s lead, now by attacking Trump. They’re doing it in a kind of back-handed way by painting him as a ridiculous cartoon-like character - in the same way they routinely report on the tea parties. They will not engage him on facts.

Anti-Trump elements are hard at work leaking Trump’s past sins. Curiously, they see their most potent card as the one that says Trump liked liberal Democrats – this, at the very same time they try to paint Obama as a centrist. It’s absurd, really, but it seems to have worked, at least with several prominent conservative commentators who have now come out full-bore against a possible Trump candidacy.

Callers to talk shows do not seem to be particularly impressed by the tactic. Trump still appears to score high among the unwashed despite what the media (right or left) say about him. Their argument is that the next election should not hinge on the issue of Democrat vs. Republicans; but rather on patriot vs. non-patriot (or anti-American). Trump scores high on being a patriot.

Additionally, Trump is helped by being a Washington outsider, i.e. he does not identify closely with either one of the parties. There is broad dissatisfaction among the voting public with the candidates both parties have put forth. Trump, so far, is the only candidate under consideration who transcends party affiliation. Hence, come election time, we may come to recognize that party loyalty or a sense of entitlement (for years spent in support of either party) is no longer an issue for voters.

Trump’s accomplishments are palpable. They lie outside the political realm. He is seen as a businessman whose success has hinged on his ability to roll with the rough-and-tumble of capitalism. Claims, that some of his ventures have failed, only serve to burnish his standing as an unabashed capitalist. Failure (right along with success), after all, is one of the hallmarks of capitalism.

Trump is everything Obama is not. Obama is an ideologue and, worse, a politician. As such, he is beholden to what is seen as a corrupt system. Obama has been repeatedly promoted by affirmative action within a system that has failed to deliver broadly. He is the graduate who is rumored to be incapable of reading the words on his ceremonial sheepskin. His thesis (if any) likely consisted of writing the word ‘Marxism’ on the back of a cocktail napkin. He was the one chosen for his overall appeal to would-be donors at a school for the clinically retarded to trumpet the (special) curriculum’s successes. He consistently blames opponents for any shortcomings.

Trump does not blame; he confronts. He speaks distinctly and openly. He appears to shy away from making empty promises. Yet, he makes it clear that he seeks to fashion our nation’s policies on the basis of America’s self-interest.

One measure of Trump’s political standing among voters is the media’s stance toward him. They hate him. He reminds me a little bit of Reagan, who routinely brushed off mainstream reporters’ inane questions as one would brush off a flake or two of dandruff on a dark suit.

In a significant sense, our next election cycle will revolve around the overwhelming desire of the public to defeat major media. Politics (as usual) is likely to drop way down on the list of voters' primary concerns.

http://pkoelliker.blogspot.com/

They All Were Despised

Pawlenty, Shmawlenty! This is the first time I’ve heard of this man. We know nothing about him except that he can talk and say all the right things in a campaign commercial while a rousing dirge plays in the background. Where has this man been for the past two years? He should have been shouting ‘Fire!’ in this crowded American theater all along – along with everybody else. Now it may already be too late. Reminds of that sorry-looking fish he’s holding on the cover of TIME. (What is that? Buckshot?)

Pawlenty is portrayed as a loser with close similarities to McCain. He even lost to Palin when it came time for McCain to pick a running mate. No, I’ve actually been reduced to looking at Kucinich for leadership. At least he had the guts to call for Obama’s impeachment. Wouldn’t it be delicious irony if Obama’s greatest threat came from the left?

Maybe it is right what Islamists say about us; that our days are numbered; that we have lost our way; our will; our resolve to fight and prevail while dancing pointless pirouettes on White House parkette, just marking time before the barbarians arrive and knock down the gates. Perhaps it’s already happened and we’ve got our heads so far up..., we can’t even see what’s being done to us. And that’s what it’s all about, isn’t it? - our precious, gilded as*es, making believe our sh*t doesn’t stink.

That’s how they see us – our enemies: faded prima donnas in drag. There won’t be much to sweep away after it’s all over; our egos lying shattered on the ballroom floor. It shouldn’t take much to clean up the mess. Hell, we could do it ourselves – but we won’t. There are certain jobs Americans just will no longer do.

Right now our enemies are doing a pretty fair job of cleaning our clocks. One janitor is as good as the next. Maybe we’ve cried ‘wolf’ too many times: We can no longer tell the difference between them. Clinton, Bush, Obama (actually it started in earnest with Reagan). They all were despised.

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No Joy In Mudville

Whereas in dreams landscapes often change and even faces merge into rough composites of people we may have known, the dreamer always remains the same, encompassing all that we understand the core of ourselves to be. It therefore behooves us to make some modicum of effort in making inquiries of anyone we aim to enter into a contract with. If we should want to get the garage roof fixed, for instance, we would normally first seek references before deciding on a roofer.

Society, even a democratic society, always breaks down into a hierarchy of leaders for the rest of us to follow. Leaders are freely chosen on the basis of their resumes and our assumption that their intentions are similar to ours. When the actions of a leader approximate what we would do under similar circumstances, we can pretty much take it for granted that the leader has our best interests at heart.

Last night, on the John Batchelor Show, John ran a segment in which three of his guests were asked to recall their personal experiences back in the late 70’s, waiting in gas lines (on alternate days) to have their tanks filled. Curiously, all three drove Pintos. We all were so much younger then, but we all remember having participated in some capacity in the drill. Back then, we blamed OPEC and, to a lesser extent, president Carter’s ineffectiveness. It made for large headlines all over the country but never rose to the level of existential concern. After all, Ronald Reagan stood in the wings.

Today, a similar situation earns barely a whisper. True, so far there have been no shortages; only the price of fuel is spiking. Enough money will buy you anything. Still, it’s worrying as we are coming face to face with our own limitations in our need to keep up.

We’re not talking about it because we fear we already know the truth. And we’d rather not know. Every dollar we spend on oil goes to fuel our own destruction. And it’s being orchestrated by our own White House. Every policy decision our current leadership has made seems specifically designed to make us more vulnerable. There can no longer be any doubt: this re-distribution of our wealth in the name of atonement is fast approaching the limit of our endurance. Our dependence on oil remains constant even as our sources and options decline. We have been rendered literally powerless to save ourselves.

With Carter in office, we at least knew that things could possibly turn around with the next election. Now, we’re no longer so sure. Obama appears to have his second term well in hand. We may never get another chance.

That’s why we don’t talk about it. Instead, we grin and bear it. Two years - even one - seems like an eternity. Any plan to unseat Obama seems like a long shot. And though spring is approaching after a long hard winter, there’s not much joy in Mudville as the driving season commences.

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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.

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Before They Gouge Out Our Eyes

Obviously it won’t be Obama who rides to our rescue. He’ll be the one seen as having run the country into the ground. No doubt, accusations will continue to fly from both sides. So who will it be? A Reagan-like figure? Or someone more centrist? Left? Anybody (again)? Will it even matter?

Hard to say at this point. I maintain we’re already ‘landing softly’. This is not enough for these people. The plan appears to be global. The action will center on the Middle East. That’s where the die will be cast. Everything will radiate out from there. Oil.

What struck me was how desperately Obama wanted to take credit for what happened in Egypt. It’s not yet over. If the worst should happen (and I don’t see how the worst can be avoided under our present leadership), will our president again seek to claim credit? Probably. But it won’t wash - not here, anyway.

A war in the Middle East, whether America is involved or not, will act as a ‘reset’ button for - not Russia, but - America. (How the Russians must have laughed!)

It’ll happen soon enough. While economic collapse could drag on for years, the Middle East - from Turkey to Pakistan and down into North Africa - has reached the boiling point. I have no clue if Israel is even prepared to defend itself. In any case, it’s probably out of Israel’s hands as well.

The era of cheap oil is be over. We hear it over and over again - like self-fulfilling prophecy. Oil has been the lifeblood of American ‘success‘. Our worthless dollars will no longer buy oil from the Middle East. And then there’s the matter of retribution. Venezuela will go along with it and cut us off.

Cloward-Piven has already achieved its aim. This can be illustrated in any number of ways. We’re now into our post-revolution. The point is, we no longer control the ropes. Who will come to our rescue (with some version of the Marshall Plan) should we stumble? (Again, we have already stumbled.) The sainted Brotherhood? The Chinese? The Russians? It’s likely that we’ll continue to wallow in our own stew for some time to come.

Doubtful too that Obama will be granted a villa in Shiraz (believe me, I tried to find some sort of beach resort for the family) to live out his miserable life. Though, it might be thrilling to catch a glimpse of Michelle’s ankle just before they gouge out our eyes.

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/

Stop War

We all know where Obama stands on all this START business. He doesn’t like our military and wishes it would go away. He campaigned against nukes - against war. There were enough who voted in support of this premise even being possible.

The nuclear deterrent worked for a good many years, so they say. It is only now beginning to break down because it has become clear that America won’t fight seriously under any pretext. China has already run this experiment several times and the results are in. It is building its military - not to fight America, but - to cement its position within it’s own East Asian theater.

While it is true that a modern military fosters the illusion of invincibility and therefore acts as a deterrent, it does not guarantee victory. Ronald Reagan’s Star Wars threat may itself have been an illusion. It worked - not in the way anyone expected it might, but - rather in the way a head-fake does, causing the Russians to over-reach and over-spend and, in the process, become disheartened. They’re still not over it and Putin is trying hard to make amends.

Someone once famously remarked, “…you go to war with the army you have.” If it’s not enough, you resort to asymmetric warfare. Look what the stone-throwing Palestinians have been able to accomplish! Look at Iran and North Korea!

No, boomers are not the only answer. We could kill our enemies with stones if we had to. Our problem is, we no longer know how to define ‘winning’ or ‘victory’. As long as we view ourselves as the source of all that‘s wrong with the world; as long as we run around apologizing to everyone in sight; as long as we’re so divided within ourselves as not to not recognize an outside threat as it develops, we may as well start painting targets on ourselves and get used to the likelihood that we will soon be led by something quite alien to us; something which will take some getting used to.

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/

Passive Aggressive

BP is finished (maybe?). Even if BP succeeds in stemming the gusher, the Obama administration will see to it that the company ultimately goes out of business. BP has no incentive to do ‘the right thing’. In order to have even a chance of surviving as a viable entity, BP must do its utmost to bring the Obama administration down. BP and the Obama administration are adversaries.

BP can dick around till August and then go on to failure# 6, and all it will do is improve its own chances. Nobody will question BP’s passive aggression or competence because the Obama administration has already publicly announced that it alone is in charge; that it alone is telling BP what to do and what not to do; in other words, the Obama administration owns whatever happens.

We saw a similar deal go down during the Iranian hostage crisis. The Iranians ran rings around Carter for 444 days and made him look like a complete idiot. Once the new president was in place, all the nonsense stopped.

Set Ourselve On Fire

Lou - There's really not much Republicans can do legislatively; and, as this presidential term drags on, they'll be able to do even less - even with a majority in both houses. In case you haven't noticed, the czars and courts are taking over the running of everything.

The least we Conservatives/Republicans can do is to stick together and stop sniping at one another (thank you Mr. Batchelor, Mr. Savage, Mr. Levin). Additionally, we could do things to bust through the major media smoke screen and protest; shout; resist; set ourselves on fire; educate; hobble; slow; block; march; withhold our taxes; organize; fill the prisons (with ourselves) if need be. Shout 'liar!' every chance we get without apologizing afterwards. I swear; it's as if the Republican Party is and has been on a permanent vacation. You don't hear so much as a peep out of any of them. Scrap the bi-partisanship! We can't convert them; their minds are made up. Neither can we give in. This is war!

Granted, the media isn't helping matters. But that didn't seem to bother Reagan much. He managed quite nicely to get his points across. Mark Levin is filing lawsuits against the government predicated on the proposition that our Constitution is being shamelessly violated on all fronts. That alone should give the Dems pause or, at the very least, provide us with a platform to speak our piece. Why should only terrorists have that privilege?

I don’t have all the answers. In fact, I don’t have any. I’m just a regular guy (despite what Spencer says) who can see what’s happening and what is about to happen. Can it be stopped? I think so. I think there’s overwhelming support out there just waiting for the right leader to emerge. So far, there hasn’t been anyone. McCain? Palin? Dobbs? Huckabee? – lightweights, each and every one. Among those I’ve mentioned, Palin appears to be the best at the moment. But the media would turn her into road kill. Still waiting for someone who can dodge the traffic.

I Will Go to Prison

It’s sad to know that the gravity of all these lessons of history remains unknown and unappreciated by the young people here in America. The other day, I happened to read an account of the fall of the Berlin wall on the opinion page of our local NJ newspaper (which continues to show up at our doorstep like an abandoned child). In it, all the credit went to Gorbachev; the name, Ronald Reagan, was never mentioned once. I understand too that our president refused an invitation by the German government to represent America in ceremonies commemorating the liberation of the East German people.

Meanwhile, here in America we're going precisely in the opposite direction. Our people (including the unborn, the ones we will choose not to abort) are being systematically enslaved to outrageous debt. It won't be long before the walls along our own borders will go up as well. These will be built to keep us in, not to keep others out. For once, our government will not dither as it has.

I will go to prison rather than comply with the health care mandate passed by our representatives last night.