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/

Silver Linings

You know as well as I do that any Republican frontrunner daring to show themselves as such will be trounced by the press. It’s a small wonder that anybody is even willing to call themselves ‘Republican’ anymore. Obama sits in the catbird seat. He has academe, the media and the unions running interference while he plays golf. Meanwhile Republicans are getting their heads handed to them – not by Democrats, but – by their own, for not being able to turn things around on a dime after years of cumulative mismanagement.

We foresaw this strategy and it works. In Obama’s last news conference, he blamed Republicans for forcing the insipid CR dance without mentioning that it was his and his Democrat majority’s failure to pass a budget in the first place. Every unpleasantness from now on will be blamed on Republicans and they will continue to accept the premise while insisting on playing by Queensberry Rules. This puts them in a similar position as the Libyan rebels - their backs to the wall.

Republicans fear Damocles’ sword too much. It is an illusion of their own creation. As government shut down looms like a puffy white cloud, clouds will be clouds and their silver linings will split the darkness equally. Yet, GOP leadership appears prepared to do practically anything to avoid it. Even though some are now saying this is exactly what has to happen. No chance of Republicans not taking the blame. That much is understood. Still, it would show some spine.

Voters are well aware of what happened in Wisconsin. They have identified the players and have taken sides. It is now up to Republicans to decide whether or not they want to take up the fight of saving the country in earnest or remain satisfied with making only symbolic gestures.
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On a previous thread I mentioned the gruesome murder of members of the Fogel family in Itamar. The Israeli government took the unusual step of releasing pictures of the carnage. Missing from these were pictures of what they had done to the woman. We can only imagine. I heard in passing that a memorial service is to be held in New York. It was said to have been organized by the ‘Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations’, Malcolm Hoenlein’s group. Stay tuned for details.

http://pkoelliker.blogspot.com/

No Remorse

Any written document exists at best as a shorthand in support of a theme. Any sentence within it must not and cannot be regarded as absolute truth. It can only be an approximation. Haiku is a Japanese art form in which three lines of writing aim to convey a broader concept. It usually amounts to a pictorial. The intended effect is a feeling that often defies definition.

When I say, “Obama is out to destroy the nation”, I do not mean by it that he will order the military to carpet-bomb America. And even if true, the landmass would remain along with most of its people. What I really mean is (and it has surfaced at various times, embedded in various terminology) that he is out to fundamentally 'change' the nation. He has said so himself. But we, as heretofore optimistic Americans, automatically jump to the conclusion that this American president would strive to make America a better place - at least, better than it has been. ‘Better’ meaning that all ships are raised by what he intends.

Having watched our president over the past two years, I find this is not the case. The part about ‘change’ is still applicable, but the one about ‘better’ is clearly not. As I look around, I cannot fail to see that now, two years later, everything is worse. The press does not trumpet it as they did with Bush, but nevertheless housing, jobs, and the economy in general are barely limping along. The world too, is a much more dangerous place as rogue nations, seeing America taking a back seat, are flexing their muscles.

All this could not be happening by accident. There is a plan. The plan for the past two years has been to diminish America’s influence in the world. In order to achieve this, America itself needs to be diminished. And this program is proceeding unimpeded.

You may ask yourself, why would any American - never mind the president - be complicit in such a program? The answer is: because he believes it. There are citizens living here who actually hate this country. It stems from a condition of profound narcissism. They look around and see huge problems elsewhere and erroneously assume that America - universally acknowledged to be the greatest power and influence in the world today - is at fault; that everything our nation has ever done has led to this condition; and, worse yet, that America has profited unjustly by it. Therefore, the answer they arrive at is that America must be cut down to size.

They recruit the like-minded, the weak-minded, the corrupt, and those hostile to America from overseas to form a coalition to bring this about. Our president, sadly, is among these.

It may make some sense when written within the frame of a history text or doctoral dissertation. It may even earn one honors by the way in which it was expressed, the balance, symmetry and beauty of the argument. But actual geopolitics does not necessarily conform to academic theory, however elegant. As I suggested at the outset, dogma is but a shorthand (set in stone) for utopian dreams.

There are so many factors that play into the reality of a single situation, it would overflow every existing library in the world just to house a minute fraction. Therefore, it is sheer madness to reduce these to just one or two simple solutions and then to pursue these come hell or high water.

Of far greater import is one’s love for one’s country, one’s faith in one’s people; and of wanting to do what’s best for them. In other words, to subscribe to the concept of 'exceptionalism'. Not to wallow in one’s self-loathing. Also, it’s always so much more effective to lead by example; to begin at home, or with oneself even: to develop discipline; to eschew bad habits; to remain vigilant and caring for those whose situation it may be in one’s power to affect.

Barack Hussein Obama, for whatever reason, wants to go down in history as having changed (no less than) the world. For this, he seems to be willing to sacrifice his own. It will not work. The damage he would end up doing to America would reverberate around the world. No one will be immune - least of all he.

The story of Detroit is not what it seems on the surface. It is of jackals feasting on a carcass. It is of corruption sanctified by hatred - hatred for the whites that built this once great city on the backs of blacks. It is pay-back. It is kicking over the sand castle. It is the Palestinians destroying the greenhouses of Gaza.

Even if convicted, Kwame Kilpatrick will show no remorse.

http://pkoelliker.blogspot.com/

A Little Left; A Little Right

Every human heart has within it a little left and a little right. Cutting out either one will kill the heart. Where we have gone wrong is by cutting off debate between the two. It has literally ignited a war.

There are those who benefit from conflict. These are the people who will tell you not to talk to this one or that. They will tell you never to mention certain subjects. They will redefine language to be confrontational.

We see it in our colleges and universities; we see it in our media; now we are seeing it in our politics. Never forget that Republicans were not allowed access to the decision-making concerning any bill that was passed during the past two years. Never forget that the NYT does not allow for opposing views to appear on its pages; ditto: CBS; PBS; NBC, and ABC. Never forget that Islam does not allow intellectual commerce with the outside world.

Within our own nation, Left and Right have retreated into armed camps.

I remember reading a story of an Israeli boy and a Palestinian boy clandestinely meeting in some no-man’s land abutting their properties. They were friends; they played as friends do. They knew each other on a human level. The story did not end well.

The evil resides within those who forcibly block people from basic human interaction. They do so with malice. They intend to gain by it. All their words are calculated to fuel discontent and erect barriers. They invariably threaten consequences.

Words like “Barack will never allow…” and “(Republicans) gotta sit in the back.” and, “…we’re gonna punish our enemies and…reward our friends…” should never be uttered by Americans who happen to hold positions of leadership. This kind of talk should throw up warning signals to indicate that we have already gone too far. For America to save itself, Americans must unite under the nation’s banner and keep all the lines of communications open. The threat comes from those who would happily shut it down.

In India, there actually is a communist party. It interacts freely with all other parties. Often, it aligns itself with others. It does not seek to destroy them.

I just read a novel by Khushwant Singh entitled “Train to Pakistan”. The time is just after partition. It details the bloodletting between Hindus and Muslims precisely. And it tells how it started. It’s not the Hindus and Muslims who were at fault. It was the badmashes on both sides who took advantage of a chaotic situation to sate their own appetites.

http://pkoelliker.blogspot.com/

Bringing Down the Bank

I don’t get much pleasure in bashing the president. Neither do I get much pleasure from hearing the president being bashed. And I suspect that most of you who read this blog are getting tired of it as well. For far too long I’ve been posting comments that you’d have been entirely justified in skipping over because you already knew what I was going to say. And it would have merely meant that you had already moved beyond. ’Beyond’ does not mean wallowing in cynicism, cheap shots, and burying one’s head in endless minutia. It means looking past what we now see and can no longer change.

The simple truth of the matter is that we’re all collectively heading to a place where we’ve never been before. And we’re scared. Obama isn’t the problem. He is just the most accessible manifestation of our overall disease. No matter who had been elected president back in 2008, he or she would have brought us to the same place. We all are subject to the tide of history which is greater than ourselves. The fact is that our shore line stands seriously eroded and any protective measures we might take this late in the game would turn out to be woefully inadequate.

To begin with, it’s all been decided already within the highest levels of academia. They’ve set our course and stamped it with their seal of unanimous approval. Conservatism has lost the argument. There was never the possibility of compromise. To undo anything now would require a revolution even greater than the one we’re presently experiencing.

I am an American, first and foremost. I am clearly not a Socialist. As such, I am not a Democrat. This is because history tells us that socialism does not work. I realize that in order to make such a statement, one has to come to some common understanding of how to determine if something works (or not).

Clearly, Socialists think that socialism works - that it is fairer, kinder and more compassionate. I would gladly forget history and even stipulate to that much if I thought the people at the top actually loved America. I’ve heard the argument that proper socialism can only happen here in America; that the reason it has failed in other places was because they were not yet ready; that these had not gone through the necessary steps after which socialism can be effective. America, they argue is now ready to embrace socialism precisely because it has gone through a period in which capitalism has been discredited. They view socialism as the highest evolution of effective human governance toward which capitalism is only a stepping stone.

Socialism, Marxism, Maoism, Communism, are all the same to me. I’ve never been able to split hairs so precisely as to ascertain a difference. Again, I would stipulate to it all if I had even the slightest notion that those promoting these concepts actually loved America - but they don’t.

A man walks into a bank, pulls a gun and tells the tellers to hand over the money. They smile nervously and accede to his request. He leaves the bank a happy man. Maybe some hero bank guard gets popped in the process. At any rate, it’s over. The rest is left up to the cops and the insurance companies.

Now consider a man coming into that same bank wearing a suicide vest - say, on the last Thursday of the month, in the late afternoon when lines have been forming with people all cashing their pay or welfare checks. The man does not want money. He wants to bring down the bank. This is what I fear is happening in our nation right now.

The Glass Bead Game

I suspect many of us don’t realize how truly lucky we are. First, we are living in extremely interesting times. I could say ‘perilous’ but that would attach subjectivity and skew what I’m trying to say. Second, we enjoy this space to air our views which are then read by a good many people. This puts us in the high upper percentile of the world’s millions who, for the most part, do not possess the means even to access a daily newspaper. They react to the vagaries of their rulers in predictable but ineffective ways even as they must watch the inevitable tragedy unfold before their very eyes. We are pretty much in a similar position, but we are able to shout (as the ancient sad tale, Antigone, teaches us to do). It is still uncertain whether or not our shouting will actually change the course of history. Experience tells us it won’t. But we are blessed to be shouting nonetheless. It is the only thing left to us.

I was brought face to face with this dilemma when my computer crashed last week. Suddenly, my shouting days were over. I felt as one with a noose already around my neck and tightening - unable to make myself heard. The network news no longer interested me. I had no desire to open a newspaper or listened to the radio. What good was any of that if I could not respond? I might as well have been living in a grass hut on some distant seashore, counting the waves crashing on the beach; or, in the shadow of some great impenetrable mountain.

Don’t assume for a moment that this shadow play we are witnessing - much of which, by its very nature, remains hidden - is composed of random coincidences. America has entered a political era in which it has likewise left behind a tradition and a certain skill. The battle ground has up until now been in academe, the various university outposts of which, in times of war and barbarization, have become little islands of rationality where the better minds of the opposing parties cautiously seek each other out and grope their way toward reconciliation. We, at ground level, only sense the fallout of what has been decided to date.

Whereas we feel unjustly excluded from this elite world, where it seems decisions are taken without regard to us, we must nevertheless conclude that the Left has won the struggle against conservatism - and by a decisive margin. How it will ultimately translate into our lives is still anybody’s guess.

Pitchfork Solutions

The success of America has always been relative. This means, it could have been better. Instead, we chose worse. The genesis of our decline began with higher education and spread from there. At first it was largely well-intended. Americans took an interest in the world around them. They wanted to know about other cultures and such. America is a big country and also somewhat geographically isolated. Unlike Europeans, they never traveled much to see for themselves what was actually out there. Many with Jewish names were barred from traveling to certain places or were treated shabbily once they got there. In order to sate their curiosity they turned to universities and colleges. And academia set out to fill this need.

They imported foreign scholars. What better way to teach about other countries and cultures than to have a native do it! The foreign professors were eager to accept. It was their chance to strike a blow for the home team. Their areas of expertise were rapidly elevated to the same status that traditional academic disciplines enjoyed. (The new courses were popular and brought in the money.) But their envy-spawned hatred of America followed them like a dark shadow. They were articulate and relentless in their criticism of their new world. They were often flamboyantly colorful and charismatic. Thus they succeeded in persuading many young, formative minds to believe that Utopia was just around the corner and that America wasn’t it; that, in fact, America hindered any possible progress elsewhere. They brought foreign concepts to the fore which sounded intriguing: Islam; communism; Buddhism; Hinduism; tribalism; Zen; etc.

Revolt had been brewing since the early sixties. The young needed a way to distinguish themselves – to find new, exotic ways in which to express themselves. All the new subjects – many under the aegis of ‘critical theory’ - turned students away from serious consideration of old hat subjects that their parents knew, excelled in and, in some cases, fought for.

These were the privileged among us - those who could afford higher education – who would eventually assume prominent positions in government, media, finance, education and industry.

It is often heard that in order to move ahead a college education is indispensable. It’s become a hard and fast rule, like the Indian caste system. The elite graduates from their ivy-covered cocoons would seldom come in contact with ordinary people. They were well compensated and could well afford to isolate themselves from the unschooled. Elitism came in vogue and without any real understanding of how life unfolds at ground level, they devised ways to dictate compliance as they felt was their right.

Now that the failures of their theories are staring them full in the face, they have responded by circling the wagons. They will be turned out at the first opportunity, hopefully to be replaced by people with real-world experience. They can thank God that the rank and file is comprised mostly of decent, principled individuals who would never resort to entertain pitchfork solutions.

It's Still Bush's Fault

No doubt, the Obama administration is going down in flames. Getting rid of this one and replacing him (or her) with this or that one is purely political theater – and, in this particular case, much like moving the deck chairs around on the Titanic.

It’s interesting to note that the blame game, particularly on the left, has already begun. Progressives, seeing the writing on the wall, won’t let this one go without one last salvo of the classic guilt trip directed squarely at the most sensitive part of American sensibility.

There can no longer be any question that the American people elected Barack Hussein Obama - not for his resume, but - for his skin color. In this way, they had hoped to put the lie, for once and for all, to accusations of racism that have been emanating unabated from certain quarters for decades. According to a new theory, hatched at the highest levels of academia, America’s contrition has come too late.

In a recent interview of Princeton ‘Politics and African-American Studies’ professor, Melissa Harris-Lacewell, on the Joe Scarborough morning show, he confronted her with Obama’s shortcomings since he’s been in office. Her rationalization, to my mind, was nothing short of astounding. She said that Obama had been left with a “hollow prize”; that, by the time Americans saw fit to elect a black man president, America had already been gutted, spent, used up; adding, that this is similar to blacks that have had the misfortune of having been elected mayor of failed cities like Detroit.

In other words, “It’s Bush’s fault.”

The Hangover

>...is a consequence of the Bush administration's failure to confront Tehran and the United Nations Security Council.<

The ‘failure’ you refer to was quite a bit more pervasive than just that. For eight long years we allowed our Commander-in-Chief to be attacked, ridiculed, threatened, blocked, and disparaged. We allowed Democrats, the press, Hollywood and academe to spew vile accusations and stir up palpable hatred towards this man and his administration. Yes, the Bush administration was ineffective in many ways. I'm surprised it lasted two terms, punch drunk as it had become. I blame the American people (and Republicans in particular) for letting all this go on unabated for so long.

The orgy over now, we look around at the shambles it’s left us with - like the bachelor party boys in the current hit movie, 'The Hangover', awakening after a night of madcap carousing - remembering nothing. No, John, this was a collective failure on the part of all of us.

Every time one of us succumbed to the compulsion to inflate his own anemic ego by slamming our president and country over cocktails (or in front of our gracious hosts on foreign shores) we eroded our own position. Every time we let the insults pass without counseling restraint we helped to cripple our duly elected leadership. Every time we paid good money to attend Bruce Springsteen concerts, applauding baseless invective hurled at our president, we fed the fiction that would come to be known as ‘Bush Derangement Syndrome’.

Now that we’ve sobered up, we wonder what has happened to us. Well, let me tell you, we’ve blown it. We’ve blown the whole wad. And, what’s more, we can’t get back to how it was without a major effort that will likely deprive us of what little we have remaining. Frankly, John, pointing fingers now is just too pathetic for words.

I’m not saying we can’t criticize our president. But we must do it with some measure of respect for the office, all the while remembering that the man occupying it is of flesh and blood – like us. We turned Bush into a two dimensional video game caricature, a bean bag, a Mexican piñata. We’re on the verge of doing the same to Obama. Only, it seems to me, that Bush would have been more receptive to sober, constructive criticism – had we had any to give other than simply parroting, “Bush sucks!” over and over again. Now we see that Bush didn’t suck half as much as we do.