Sick of Hearing Gibberish

There's something going on. Last week it was the moon being too close to the earth. This week it's Saturn. In Iran they're predicting the Madhi's return within months if not weeks. NASA is out watching for meteorites and space junk converging on earth. Batchelor is announcing the meltdown of Japan. Republicans are predicting financial collapse in the U.S. In New York they’re finding the remains of dead prostitutes along a remote beach road on Long Island. Can a major DOH announcement be far behind?

We've heard virtually all of this before and yet we’re all still here. Y2K never materialized, neither did swine or bird flu ravage the planet as predicted. This just goes to show, that every run of excess carries with it its own natural antidote; something working to keep things in check. Sometimes it's as brutal as starvation, war, and pestilence.

We're not quite there yet, but excess is invariably programmed to self-correct. Man can only stand by and watch excesses wax and wane. Often excess is met head on with excess and the two cancel each other out.

The tea parties, for example, arose out of excess by government. Liberalism arose from an excess of conservatism. Now we’re moving the other way. Any move has chaos as for a brother. Inertia is death. The stock market moves up and down, but it moves.

Where there is movement there is life. Where there is life there is death. Is there a balance?

Most assuredly so: We are always in balance. Sometimes it’s weighted to the left; sometimes to the right, but balanced nonetheless.

Shiva dancing in the bone yard: Someone always dances. Someone always provides the inert platform for the performance. Kaddafi is performing, and will do so until his legs are cut out from under him. Then, it will be Osama's turn to dance for a while.

Are we dancing? Individually (perhaps), yes. Some of us are. As a group, though, we've slunk out of the ballroom; wallflowers peeling away from the wall; sick of hearing gibberish.

http://pkoelliker.blogspot.com/

Bleatings From The Leper Colony

Ever since George Washington, we have always had presidents with some overarching vision of where they want to take the nation. They might have gotten bogged down in the minutia of governance, or they might have made mistakes that would eventually require retreat. But the basic vision nevertheless remained and focused on bringing America to a better place.

We, the people, more or less accepted the fact that we were not policy wonks; that we were not necessarily privy to all the things that our presidents were privy to – nor would we want to be. We could more or less assume that our president was doing his best to move us forward while keeping our best interests in mind.

We always accepted a certain amount of change – even downturns in our personal and collective fortunes - as being an integral part of life. We even accepted small, incremental deviations from the principles on which our nation was founded. We accepted the slow creep of socialism to accommodate the needs of the poor, the sick and the otherwise unfortunate.

All this changed with the election of Barack Hussein Obama. As the continuing controversy about his birth certificate suggests, there is now a growing concern as to just who this man actually is. Are we better off now than we were just two years ago? The resounding answer is no.

The tea parties were the first to sound the alarm. They were summarily rebuffed and dismissed. As more and more people dared to raise questions, more and more people were labeled ‘extreme’ and, therefore, illegitimate. Everybody knows at least a part of the threat our nation faces. And yet, every citizen is treated as guilty – at airports, for example – while the obvious culprits are excused from our scrutiny in the interest of maintaining a veneer of tolerance – tolerance for whom? The only ones not tolerated are us! It almost seems like our world has been turned upside down where a declaration of obvious criminal intent somehow provides immediate immunity.

Meanwhile, the rest of us must carefully maintain our resumes, and closely monitor our words and actions lest we stand accused of racism, hate crimes and various sundry sins that might well result in our exclusion. A natural bent towards conservatism in some precincts would practically confine one to the modern equivalent of a leper colony.

Meanwhile, too, we watch our fortunes fading, even as the media celebrates great strides toward some unspecified unknown. Should we venture to connect the dots and project our path to some seemingly alien experience, we are slapped down by harsh voices laced with severe accusation and ridicule. Since when, in America, has anyone not been allowed to speak openly without having to fear intimidation; especially, when what we say, points out gross contradictions in policy objectives; and particularly as these might relate to the fundamental contract we have with our government?

It has not gone unnoticed that this contract is now in serious jeopardy; that our government has gone rogue; that our own leadership is now on the brink of labeling us as illegitimate. We, of course - now that the contract has been broken - can say the same.

We never thought it could come to this – not in America.

http://pkoelliker.blogspot.com/

When The Law Is Eric Holder

Exactly right, Corlyss! This is all part and parcel of the ‘politics of personal intimidation’. That’s why there are no ‘good’ Muslims around. They’re afraid they will be singled out; their neighbors and families harassed.

The emphasis has shifted away from polls and is now firmly entrenched in virtual power. It’s long been the case on the nation’s college campuses; in the media; in the arts; on the cocktail circuit. Never let your conservative sentiments slip. You’ll find yourself disgraced; ridiculed; excluded. I’ve noticed it myself, buried in my bunker as I am. “I’m no longer your friend,” says one. “You’re just plain crazy,” says another. “I think you should see about getting some help,” a third suggests.

A few years back, I thought I might be able to further my career by writing liberal stuff. I tried. I just couldn’t do it. Yet, there are some out there doing it and collecting salaries.

Loved the ‘Arcade Fire’ tune though. I think I’ll post it on my own blog later. Oh, I know they’re all lefties - but, then again, they couldn’t all be that mindless. Most are just putting on an act to stay alive.

With these latest tactics, it only takes a relatively few - enough to fill a camera angle. Everything else drops off the frame. After that, you can say anything you want and have it be everywhere. It’s like these watchdog groups that consist of three people and a fax machine - the ones that caution against treading on cryptobiotic soil. I guess now it’s even gone beyond that.

In India, computer usage is strictly monitored. When you go into a cyber café to check your e-mails, you’re required to sign in and show your ID or passport. “There’d been threats against the Chief Minister,” they say.

It’s about to happen here as well. The government will control the internet in the name of ‘National Security’ and only the ‘right’ people will have full access. It’ll only take one mishap traced to some loony tunes in some basement garage to initiate a crackdown and make it permanent.

The freedom to assemble was included in the United Nations’ ‘Universal Declaration of Human Rights’ in 1948. The fact that it had to be an enumerated right in the first place meant that some countries viewed it as a threat and did not allow it.

Conventional wisdom had it that relatively small gatherings can never be a threat to the enormity of a state. They never envisioned virtual assemblies on Facebook.

Still, a treat is a threat. It might be overt or implied. It’s a matter for the law to handle. It gets a bit trickier when the law is Eric Holder.

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.

Don't Hold Your Breath

From the beginning the Obama administration has been a lead balloon held aloft by wires, widgets and strange devices. The fact remains that lead balloons do not float. The moment cracks appeared in the suspension anchorage (in the form of poorly designed health care reform, stimulus; the University of East Anglia e-mail dump; foreign policy set-backs; deepening economic malaise; and, now, the Gulf oil spill – an apt metaphor) the balloon came crashing to the ground. Die-hard supporters of Obama’s Utopian vision were prepared for even this eventuality. They are now quite prepared to lower the ground.

"Mr. Obama is systematically diminishing the United States, effecting its transformation from what was once called 'the world's only superpower' to a nation subordinated to the demands of international consensus, organizations, 'peer competitors' and even rogue states." So writes Frank J. Gaffney, Jr. in a piece entitled, ‘The Obama Doctrine’.

Mr. Gaffney concerns himself primarily with international affairs, but the same ‘diminishing’ is going on domestically as well. It is largely uncertainty that is keeping the economy from roaring back. While much of it falls under the category ‘to be determined…’ (after elections), we do now have some idea of what the end game will look like (which we all know is not possible to achieve on American soil as it is presently configured).

Socialism is not what frightens us. It can be argued that we have been living under some degree of socialism for years. What frightens us is the specter of the step between now and then. In order for the seeds of socialism (or any new system) to sprout, the existing crop has to be plowed under. It is this we are now witnessing on a daily basis. In fact, the work has already progressed to the point of where it can no longer be stopped. Both the private sector and our government(s) are on the verge of collapsing.

On this blog we have been focusing on the private sector. Most of us are paying roughly 50% of our earnings to sustain government. Even at that rate, the government cannot survive. As taxes are increased, the private sector shrinks in same measure. There will be even less money to sustain government. The conservative drumbeat to shrink government is also no solution. The first thing cut will be the services we have come to rely on. This will also create problems for the private sector that depends on the continued maintenance of various forms of infrastructure while, at the same time thrusting more people onto the welfare rolls. Government and the private sector are entirely codependent. Cuts in either one end up harming both.

We have entered a lose-lose situation. The only way out of it is to encourage a robust private sector to mop up government excess. The private sector, however, is no longer robust. Government has grown too large and oppressive. It has smothered any hope of sustained economic expansion. We have in effect hit a wall.

The plowing under of the old crop has become inevitable. The kind of seeds we plant will be our next major decision. If we choose to go with the same old crop, the soil will end up even more depleted. There are alternatives, however. We can plant something different that will revive our soil; or we can leave the land lay fallow. In any case, we’ll have to resign ourselves to a long wait for the new seeds to sprout, for the stalks to grow. I would not advise anyone to hold their breath.

Sarah Palin: Is She Out of Her Mind?

There's now a powerful feeling sweeping our nation. It stems from a hunger for a patriotic, pro-American agenda. All that is missing is leadership. Should someone emerge who is willing to embrace this agenda, he or she would be swept into elective office by overwhelming majorities.

The American Left is well aware of the situation. They know that the American people are against them. They know they cannot expose their candidates to fair and impartial elections; they know they would lose it all in a flash should Americans be given the opportunity to take back the votes they cast a year ago.

This is something the Left cannot change for they are ideologues who do not know compromise. If they mean to hang on to power, they need to do it by unorthodox means. One way is to immediately and ruthlessly destroy any person around whom a pro-American agenda can potentially coalesce. As such, Sarah Palin will be mercilessly attacked, demonized, smeared, lied about, neutralized, etc. until she can no longer be regarded as a threat. It will be the same for any other potentially credible standard-bearer for conservative values who would dare show his or her face in the public arena.

What we have in this country already is a form of fascism - rampant intimidation that borders on outright censorship. Only liberal views go unchallenged. Only progressive views are praised. Conservative ideas, on the other hand, are strictly backwater, uneducated, hick, racist, sexist, and just plain wrong. Who in their right mind would risk wading into such dangerous waters?

Is Sarah Palin in her right mind? Possibly not. But if she is, she’s a hero in my book.