The House Always Wins

The fever of revolution is sweeping the world. Syria, UK, U.S. (tea parties), China – you name it. Nobody is immune. There’s a restlessness loose on the globe. It’s born out of a growing intransigence on all sides; a failure to cooperate. Walid Phares is right: Every uprising has its own stamp; its own individual character.

It might always have been so. It’s in embedded in our DNA: sons rebelling against fathers; fathers rebelling against the State. What is different now is that the chucks have been jettisoned – America has turned coat - and the festooned chariot, carrying the idol, is hurtling madly through the madas (streets around a Hindu temple), mowing down worshippers and rogue priests alike in its pitiless path. There’s no telling where it all ends.

With no chucks to stop it, the chariot will tip over or crash into a building, tallying more victims. The ghee and curd soaked idol will lie shattered in the dusty street for all to see. Like it or not, the chucks were important – as is the law and leadership. With the idol lying broken in the dirt, the time will have come to begin again - from scratch. It’s not that we’re not capable of it, but it’s a long hard road.

It’s foolish to say that leadership has always to be a certain way. Bush was wrong to insist on ‘democracy' everywhere. It works for Switzerland, but you can’t say it’ll work for Zimbabwe.

Even Switzerland is restless now. For the first time in Swiss history, the celebration of its Independence Day on historic Ruetli Meadow was threatened with cancellation. Switzerland - as most nations - is struggling with the issue of immigration. They fear disturbances by neo-Nazi groups and were unwilling to pay for additional security. In the end, private enterprise promised to donate the money needed to keep order and reassure folks.

What struck me about the video in John's post (Daraa, Syria uprising) is that people spoke English. They were clearly distressed. Why did they speak English? Answer: for American TV, of course; to let Obama know that they are in trouble. The news obviously hasn’t reached them yet. They may also have been preparing themselves for jobs in America – where the streets are paved with ...debt. And, again, the news hasn’t reached them yet – that America has become a ward of the same system that Syria has.

The rich, the powerful, and the bored use the world’s grievances like dice at a crap table, hoping to best their friends and walk off with the prize. But time and time again we learn what every Las Vegas pauper already knows: that the house always wins.
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Watch episode# 2; parts 1 and 2 (Temple Cart) of Louis Malle’s “Phantom India” on You Tube to see what I’m talking about. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uIGodDxlnVo ('cut and paste' into your browser.)

http://pkoelliker.blogspot.com/

'Disgrace'

One must always keep in mind that every loss is a win for somebody; that every failure opens a door to a fresh opportunity; that every defeat is celebrated somewhere as a victory. When we say that things do not look good, we say so strictly from the viewpoint of our own perspective. Because we are blinded by vanity, we assume that everyone else sees everything the same way we do. But how can this be?

The 9/11 skyjackers targeted the twin towers. You might say they had a brief moment of celebration when they were about to hit their mark. Indeed, the whole of the Middle East celebrated along with them. They became martyrs, heroes to millions. If there is such a thing as 72 virgins, these are with them now. They are not in hell, eternally suffering. They have redeemed themselves; they have found salvation in achieving their purpose.

In fact, they have achieved even more than they had hoped for. Primarily because of 9/11, America today stands divided and bankrupt. It has become a political ruin. All her geo-political alignments are poised to collapse as well: UK, Israel, Western and Eastern Europe…

We know how these things happen. We hear them carefully delineated endlessly: the milestones that mark the fall of great powers. Yet, we can no longer defend ourselves against the onslaught; we cannot stop our plunge into the abyss. History is against us. Islamists and communists, by the sheer weight and momentum of history, are slated to win the next round.

I just finished reading the novel, ‘Disgrace’ by J.M. Coetzee. The author won the Nobel Prize in Literature for same. Given the Nobel committee’s proclivity to use its considerable platform to promote ideology, we can therefore assume that this slim volume can also be read as a political statement. Coetzee is South African. He writes about his country; his experience. He evaluates the changes that loom large in his part of the world: the end of apartheid; the chaos that ensues in the vacuum created by the forced departure of the old order. The protagonist is an academic – a teacher of traditions that have become irrelevant.

In an earlier thread I spoke of alternatives. J. M. Coetzee, the author of ‘Disgrace’ has left South Africa and moved to Australia.