Destiny Demands a Decision

In some ways Paul Ryan and pols of any persuasion are like Obama: ideologues. They present themselves as right or left cut-outs and hope to sell it to a multifaceted public. The public resists. It understands the ruse. They ask, "Why should anyone reduce the rich and complex organism of himself (or group) to a formula so simple, so rudimentary, so primitive?

"And if ever the suspicion of his manifold persona should dawn on him… and break through his illusion of the single ideology he espouses, and perceive that every individual self is made up of a bundle of selves and interests, he has only to say so and at once the media puts him to pillory, calls science to aid, establishes the efficacy of padded cells, seeking to protect humanity from the necessity of hearing the truth. Why then waste words on proclamations, plans, pledges, and roadmaps that every thinking man accepts as self-evident, that America totters on the edge of existential threat, when a mere utterance of it is a breach of taste?”

What was true in Hermann Hesse’s day (in italics) is certainly true now. Perhaps even more so. For far too long we have used a shorthand for governance - Republican and Democrat; conservative and liberal; etc - while glossing over the fact that we were spinning the mesh of our web in an increasingly tighter and suffocating weave.

Now we have arrived, at a particularly virulent form of socialism, one that seeks to quash every dare of liberty and we ask ourselves, How has this happened? We were more than willing to entertain strange, even alien, notions. But we did so primarily out of curatorial interest, to be able to wag our fingers and proclaim ourselves better. American exceptionalism was ingrained in us. We never thought there was ever the possibility of letting it slipping away.

Now we find ourselves engaged in a great struggle. It is composed of a myriad of smaller struggles and each skirmish we win produces yet another head - or three. Are we willing to invest everything, or will we accept something as insipid as compromise. It seems to me we’ve been compromising all along. It’s even gone beyond face-saving. We’re into the real stuff now. Destiny demands a decision.

http://pkoelliker.blogspot.com/

Rats Fleeing

The departure of key personnel from the White House also marks the abandonment of the last vestige of any relevant metrics with regard to polls, vote count (Rahm and Axelrod), the economy (Summers), the war in Afghanistan (Gates) by which to evaluate the success or failure of the Obama administration. From now on the White House will be operating purely on faith. Faith does not require data, logic or reason as a basis for decision making. All it requires is the blunt outline of an ideology.

This, simply put, means that Obama will likely continue to do what he alone feels is right. He will no longer be required to pay attention to voters’ concerns or to statistics that define traditional economic realities, or actual conditions on foreign battlefields.

This shifts our Republic to an autocracy. If the president, even after elections, refuses to work with Congress, or even bypasses Congress altogether; if he refuses to listen to the wisdom of experts; if he chooses to ignore the complaints of the electorate, then we are all at the mercy of a single, possibly mad, mind.

As Hermann Hesse so eloquently puts it in “Steppenwolf”, his true magnum opus (as opposed to “The Glass Bead Game” which is commonly considered as such), “All interpretation, all psychology, all attempts to make things comprehensible, require a medium of theories, mythologies and lies…”

We now know that Obama is not the 'savior'. He may not even be the smartest among us. To trust any single man to steer our nation of 50 States is pure madness. The one item that was missing from the Republican plan - the most important item - was to immediately initiate impeachment procedures.

http://pkoelliker.blogspot.com/

Hanging Chads

On the other hand, gridlock is the only real remedy left to us. It’s the price we, the bourgeoisie, must pay after we have allowed our government to go rouge. “…the bourgeois treasures nothing more highly…than a quiet mind which he prefers to being possessed by God, as he prefers comfort to pleasure, convenience to liberty… The bourgeois is by nature a creature of weak impulses, anxious, fearful…and easy to rule. Therefore, he has substituted majority for power, law for force, and the polling booth for responsibility.”

Unfortunately, as I see it, such half measures will not be enough to remove the leftists from power. They have studied us as we are only now beginning to study them. They know our weaknesses better than we know them ourselves. They know exactly what moves we will make; how we will react to provocation and such. They’ve got it all planned out: a bomb here, shortages there, a racial incident…

Leftists will write the operatic score and the media will play it over and over again. We will be tempted to puncture our own eardrums just to make it stop.

Unless we can convince them that we too are a power to be reckoned with; that we can think outside the box; innovate; surprise; ambush; strike …and then melt back into ominous shadows, they’ll walk all over us. Look at New York’s primary election fiasco; look at Philadelphia, Chicago… Look what they’re doing with the votes of those serving overseas! With today’s Justice Department being what it is, who is there to complain to. And, as I’ve said before, what does Congress matter anyway when the president holds the veto pen in one hand and executive privilege in the other?
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Italics loosely translated from Hermann Hesse’s “Steppenwolf” to fit.

http://pkoelliker.blogspot.com/