The Cat's Meow

We have lost the language. We no longer listen to each other, we only speak. As such, we do not hear what anyone else is saying. It’s become a problem worldwide. Arab hatred for Jews is based on a lie. The idea of ‘global warming’ was based on a lie. Democrats painting Republicans as racist is a convenient lie, as is the current campaign against ‘the rich’.

The templates are set. There is no escaping. We, on the right, have hardened our templates as well in response to the Left’s aggression. We ourselves have countered with lies. In this climate, how can mere words be anything but partisan? Our alienation from each other goes much deeper than words. It can no longer be solved by simply inventing new words and casting new templates.

Words and templates seem flimsy when seen alongside powerhouse emotion. Palestinians hate Jews. Democrats hate Republicans. Communists hate capitalism. The poor hate the rich. Words are the kindling. Once the fire is started, it can no longer be contained. More kindling will not douse it. We are already into the next phase: power.

As Tom rightly points out, the Left has been meticulously organizing since the 60’s. They’ve done so incrementally, taking tiny steps: at first it was casual Fridays. Now, they also have the power. They control the narrative. All we on the Right can do is counter with kindling. Truth has long since become irrelevant - economic theory, for instance.

The only way out is to ‘reset’ (sorry Hillary!). Something of such significance must happen as to be capable of blowing all previous assumptions away - bringing people back to basics; getting them to actually face each other again, and begin responding to others’ basic needs.

In the past, the only human instrument capable of bringing this about has been war. In war, ideologies are not of much use. All such armchair posturing is subjugated by the need to survive. Soldiers may even encounter situations in which they must depend (in one way or another) on the enemy for their survival. (Note: leaders seldom face this dilemma.) Life hangs in the balance, but at least you’re looking at the whites of someone’s eyes who is not you, and you’re almost bound to find that common thread (good or bad) that defines a human trait.

I hold that when it gets down to brass nuts, men will behave like men – with kindness and good will. It may take something calamitous to get us back to there.

NY-26 is an example of localized political pantomime. We’re seeing lips move, but we’re not actually there. It would be a mistake to characterize these (or any) voters as dumb (or easily led.) There is a reason for why things happen the way they do.

From this distance, it looks like the partisan shtick all over again with a twist: It seems to me that Republicans are even more hated than Democrats. Republicans are hated for being weak and not standing up to Democrats. They’re hated for reaching across the aisle; they’re hated for compromising. They’re hated for getting up and smiling broadly under the TV lights after having just betrayed some important principle, thinking themselves the cat’s meow.

http://pkoelliker.blogspot.com/

Something Rotten in Denmark

Some of you who’ve been reading my posts since this bin Laden thing happened are surely scratching your heads. Believe me; I’ve taken note of the many cold shoulders. A while back, I wrote a piece on assumptions; saying, that all our beliefs rest on assumptions, and that these assumptions rest on (other) assumptions as well, and so on…

The truth is, I don’t know what happened and how, and who was involved and who wasn’t. People, especially those who make it their business to comment on events, do not like to admit that they don’t know anything; for if they don’t know, why take the chance of being wrong and looking foolish? So, we base our evaluations and predictions on what we might call ‘core assumptions’. But even those, under certain circumstances, can come into question.

Hardly anybody (except maybe the Japanese) expects the earth to suddenly start moving underfoot. Nobody here expects America to end. And, until a relatively short time ago, everybody held science in high regard, especially with respect to scientific pronouncements about ‘global warming’. When things happen to challenge ‘core assumptions’, however, people become uncomfortable. They begin shifting around in their seats, contemplating a bathroom break.

Since Obama’s election, this has begun happening to more and more people. There have always been certain assumptions that have gone along with our concept of the American presidency. As time went by, it became increasingly difficult to square these with what we were seeing. Some came to wonder whether we were witnessing the greatest hoax ever perpetuated on the American people.

We tried, in our own small, measured way, to catch someone’s attention. Our telephone calls and e-mails, our marches on Washington, our confrontations at town hall meetings, our votes - all was summarily brushed off; ignored. Now we are being told that Obama could win again in 2012.

Meanwhile, the economy is not coming back; our jobs are not coming back; everything is getting more and more expensive. Some of us are finding it harder and harder to make ends meet. We’ve been told that we have found and killed Osama bin Laden. On the very same day the office of Homeland Security elevates the terror threat to Americans worldwide. What gives?

None of us wants to believe that our president is actually working against us. It’s easier for us to see him as a bumbler who can be removed with due diligence in 2012. This, again, is our assumption. We also assume that we can keep it together till that day arrives.

All this was yet true under Bush. I’ve made it no secret that I prefer Bush to Obama. Though, I will admit, that looking at the whole thing as a continuum, Bush made Obama possible.

It could be that Bush too was snookered. Then, why is he keeping quiet and not saying anything? If anybody knows something, it could only be Bush. Is he even free to speak? I have already said that his refusal to appear with Obama in New York City today speaks volumes – and it’s not what the media says it is.

Enough has happened to prompt me into digging deep down into my assumptions. All I can come up with is that I just don’t know - and you don't either. But something smells awfully rotten in Denmark.

http://pkoelliker.blogspot.com/

Stinks To High Heaven

‘Purposeful’? Please! The (UK) Telegraph reports that Barack Obama is set to release up to 2000 photographs of prisoner abuse by U.S. military personnel. This comes at a time when he decides not to release pictures of the dead Osama bin Laden. While it is likely that both issues are still in flux – as the WH has been known to waver – the fact that this is even being discussed at this time is nothing short of a slap at America.

There is your reason for why former President Bush will not be seen with Obama (at Ground Zero or anywhere. I would even go so far as to suggest that everyone stay away from today’s wreath laying.) I have often said that the primary aim of this post-American administration is to sow chaos. We have chaos in our financial markets; we have chaos in our energy sector; we have chaos in our government… Everywhere you look there is chaos and no attempt is being made to steer away from what appears to be total collapse.

This incident involving the release of photographs shows as clearly as anything I have seen what Obama is up to overall. It can no longer be regarded as isolated happenstance; a mistake; second thoughts; inexperience – what have you. The pattern is unmistakable.

There is now an attempt to pull Pakistan into it. It is said, they couldn’t possibly NOT have been involved. Pakistan could actually be cleaner than we think. Maybe Pakistan knew that bin Laden was already dead. They were simply paid not to interfere with Obama’s Hollywood photo shoot. I’ve seen the pictures purported to be of the dead bin Laden. I see a dead man. I don’t necessarily see bin Laden. For all I know, it could all be a hoax. The argument against it, of course, is that too many people had to have been involved. Somebody would be bound to talk.

It’s not that there haven’t been hoaxes before. Do I have to list them? ‘Global warming’, for one. Many also suspect the financial meltdown just before the 2008 election. What about the current American presidency itself? You would have to agree that the way in which Obama was elected was highly unusual. (No background checks; no checks at all.) And you’ve got to ask yourself: Would America really have elected a Marxist, had they known? Come to think of it, the last thing I saw on television that was real was the World Trade Towers coming down. Since then, it’s all been pap, and us trying so hard to believe that we haven’t been played for fools.

BTW, I continue to be astounded by Larry Kudlow’s continued optimism. I see nothing on the horizon that would justify this. I agree that if a proper election were held in 2012, our skies would brighten. At this point the leg of a stool would be an improvement over the current WH occupant. And yet, every day we are told that Obama could and will win reelection. I, for one, am wondering if we’ll even make it that far.

http://pkoelliker.blogspot.com/

Hu Jintao Is Awesome

In Japan, when people screw up, they resign – sometimes permanently - from everything. At the very least, they say, “I’m sorry” and ask what they can do to make amends. This would not work in the U.S., primarily because we have taken the concept of ‘failure’ off the table. We no longer know what ‘failure’ is. Nor do we know ‘success’.

We use these terms loosely as carrots and sticks, depending on whether or not we like any given person. ‘Liking’ or not becomes the ultimate criteria that dictates how we respond. If we like somebody and they do something bad, we either ignore it or shift the blame to someone whom we do not like. Similarly, if we hate a person, and this person then does something good, the credit for it gets shifted to someone we consider ‘good’ (even if he had nothing to do with it). In short, individual action – no matter what the result – will never be judged other than in light of one’s standing within the assumed hierarchy of liking or not liking.

That’s how we got to the point where anything a Democrat does is always good and anything a Republican does is always bad. The concept has now been expanded to include race, gender and religious affiliation. We have been told over and over again just who the bad guys are. Performance has very little to do with it, though we still use performance metrics as a club to enforce politically assigned assumptions.

We have since learned that a nation does not run itself; that competent leadership is essential. In fact, we have learned that things can always get worse. Bush wasn’t so great – or so we were told. ‘Anybody but Bush’ would do just fine. Many of us are still trying mightily to prove this theory right. After all, we’ve done exactly what we were told we should do. We’ve elected (good) Democrats to run the most important offices in the land. Things haven’t exactly worked out. We might even say that things have gotten worse. Now we are struggling with the notion that this is how things should actually be.

Katrina was easy. It was Bush’s fault all the way. Bush hated black people and wanted to give them their comeuppance. Now, with the tornados in the South, we can’t exactly blame Obama. He’s doing the best he can; besides, he has come out against ‘global warming’ which would presumably assure that nothing like this ever happens again. It’s only Republicans who continue to stand in the way of his ‘green power’ initiatives that’s keeping this president from solving our weather problem for good.

It’s pretty much the same thing with everything else. Life has become entirely too complicated for representative government to work. The leaders of China have a much easier time of it.

They can build dams, roads and cities at the snap of a finger. They can build high-speed rail and carrier battle groups. They can move populations. They can stifle opposition. No wonder President Obama thinks Hu Jintao is perfectly awesome.

http://pkoelliker.blogspot.com/

Facebook Lynching

In today’s America, every idea openly expressed that does not strictly conform to a government-approved template opens a cut that bleeds. I guess we still have it better than the people in some countries where they come after you in the dead of night with handcuffs, knives and guns.

In America, they de-friend you on Facebook. Make no mistake, this is our version of jihadists slitting throats – and, in some ways, even more hurtful. (Drew, Steven, Dawn, Tom, Jim, Linda - you know who you are.) You might say that those who would do this were never real friends in the first place. And you might be right. I still see any number of people from my high school and college days who never managed to shed their ‘hippy’ mindset, though most have since washed and upgraded their wardrobes. Most are competent in their professions, conservative in the management of their assets, and responsible toward their children and/or clients. When it comes to politics, however, we are apt to disagree.

I know I’ve changed my stance. And I’m not ashamed to admit it. I feel I’ve grown. At the same time, I do not hold it against anyone who might still be wed to the Leary trope. I’ve even been known to play along should anyone launch into his/her obligatory anti-Bush rant. It would never occur to me to leave feeling insulted, much less with the burden of murderous intent.

Since Obama’s election, we’ve become more divided than ever. This is a fact. I see it in my own life. As the popularity of my blog increases and the news of it reaches into various corners of the web, the defriending has begun. Some have even gone so far as to change their e-mail addresses. This points – not so much to what I am saying, but – to a growing insecurity on the part of the offended. I won’t go so far as proclaiming them ‘revolutionaries’. I know of no one who is. Most live respectable lives. They mean well. It’s just that they can’t seem to let go of something they obviously hold as sacred; that, at one time, may have defined their youth. It’s precious to them as an old, faded image on a photograph might be.

The realization that the world has changed, threatens the sacred nostalgia of the sixties and seventies. Even more ominous is the suspicion that it hasn’t exactly worked out. They might even be finding themselves without a job with no good prospects in sight. But they are likely to blame themselves – or Republicans. I find it telling that Charles Manson has finally broken his silence after 20 years, just to speak in support of our president’s 'global warming' initiatives. By doing so, he closes ranks with the likes of bin Laden, Castro, Ahmadinejad, Chavez and Mugabe - all of whom say essentially the same thing. One might have though all these silent years had produced a rarified wisdom beyond contrition; which just goes to show that a common monastic discipline is no guarantee of acumen. It’s illuminating to see just who all belongs to the active sponsorship of this baseless farce.

It’s never easy to fess up and say we’ve been wrong. It feels much more heroic to double down, even if it means going down with the ship. Many of the people I’ve known are quite willing – now, in the autumn of life – to take it all down with them. It fits in well with the label that’s come to be attached to us: the ‘me generation’. Narcissism is a tough nut to crack and I don’t really blame anyone who is unable to do it. (By the way, did you happen to hear that the author of “Three Cups of Tea” neglected to label his bestselling book as ‘fiction’? These people have become so desperate, even to the point of being dangerous – especially to themselves, I tell you.)

The other day, I saw something new at our local Whole Foods Market. They were selling emu eggs. These are large, dark-green spheres, each one said to be capable of making a six or seven egg omelet. They cost about $30 a piece. I was warned that it is quite difficult to crack them. I immediately thought of the baby emus whose first task in life is to manage their escape. I’m quite sure not all of them make it.

http://pkoelliker.blogspot.com/

Chucks

We basically see what we want to see. In the process we miss what is actually there. In 2008, we pinned our hopes and dreams on Barack Hussein Obama. It soon became apparent that we had grossly miscalculated.

In her column, entitled, “Turkey’s Cautionary Tale”, in today’s Jerusalem Post, Caroline Glick cites Turkey as just one example of ’Dreamland’ having been hyped by the western media as the modern face of Islam and portrayed as an example of an Islamic country that the West can actually work with. Not so fast. Glick skillfully ticks off the steps that Turkey has taken since Erdogan’s election in 2002 that puts the lie to any idea of Islamic rapprochement with the West that the western media incessantly claims. I urge you to read it.

Similarly, we’ve been steadily backsliding into the ‘Dreamland’ fantasy of ‘global warming‘, even after the whole thing has been exposed as a hoax.

We continually hear that our economy is improving. But is it? Is this even within the realm of possibility given our present leadership?

Which brings me to Trump. The Left has launched an all-out assault against Trump. This is because it fears him. Again today, on Glenn Beck’s program, Beck’s sidekicks were hammering him, replaying old sound bites in which Trump bashes Bush. Let me remind you, in those days everybody was bashing Bush. In fact, it became our national pastime (sans hot dogs and beer). You could instantly advance to your 15 minute celebrity status by bashing Bush. That’s how we got Obama.

Obama now pretends that all the criticism he’s receiving is just a part pf presidential scenery. Not so. Bush bashing was fun. Now things have turned serious and most of us have sobered up.

In those days, Trump did not speak as a politician. He spoke as himself in the current vernacular. Now he speaks as one of us, alarmed by what has happened. Sure, he knows Schumer and all the rest. He sat at their tables, and they at his. They did not speak politics per se; they spoke deals.

As I’ve said before, Trump seems a patriot; he does not seem ideological. He appears to love America. He understands what has gone wrong. He is confident inside his own skin. He feels he can make a difference.

There are those who say he would split the Republican party and hand a win to Obama. It may well happen that way. But then again it may not. Look at it as a ’hail Mary pass’ by our side; one last chance for us to throw chucks under the runaway chuck wagon. If the wrong Republican is elected, we lose anyway.

http://pkoelliker.blogspot.com/

CPAC blah, blah, blah...

McCotter has it exactly right. He gets it. Unfortunately, nobody is listening. Or, those who are listening have nothing to say about what our government is presently doing. Actually, there’s now a consensus in this country on a wide range of issues. The problem is that the tail continues to wag the dog.

You mean to say that passing Obamacare was a good idea? No. I do believe hardly anyone agrees with it - especially the people in the health care field. Yet, it was shoved through in a nasty, unconstitutional way, and now we’re apparently stuck with it. There’s virtually no chance of repeal. Republicans will try, but will run into so much static; it almost won’t be worth the effort. Same with every other bill that has become law during the Obama administration’s first two years in office.

Even after it came out that ‘global warming’ was a hoax, Obama and Democrats are still pushing their ‘green’ agenda. Gas is now well above $3.00 a gallon. (I believe they want it to go up to around five.) Food prices are rising. U.S. debt is rising. Internationally, dominos are falling… It’s all going to hell in a hand basket, much of which, despite what anybody says, is the direct result of our current administration‘s policies. It would now take but a feather to knock us down and out for good.

What is our government’s response? More of the same. Everything is fine. Prosperity is just around the corner. Voices, like McCotter’s are routinely ignored, discredited and marginalized by our own media. Any attempt to fix things is continually upstaged by events, sidetracked amid the din of ever escalating crisis.

There’s little chance of making headway now and for at least the next two years. By that time, it could well be over for us.

This winter alone, we’ve had to dig our cars out of snow banks no less than three times already. This was even before we could make it out into the street. Each time took longer to set things right. It wasn’t impossible. But each time the city plows passed by, they managed to throw even more snow into our driveway.

So too it is with a government seemingly determined to diminish our once great nation. We ought to be doing more than just make speeches. ‘Organizing For America’ (emphasis on ‘organizing’) still seems to be the only game in town. The rest is just endless talk about polls, put-downs, and ratings. Truly, I don’t see how we can last another two years, much less six.

http://pkoelliker.blogspot.com/

Sorry Larry... (Liberalism Is Not Dead)

There’s a reason they did health care. And they didn’t do it to have it repealed by the first no-name senator to come along in a now thoroughly disgraced Senate. Yes, all that Barrasso says about it is true on one level. But there are other levels behind it that support Obamacare and all else that Obama has done in his brief two years in office. My clue was the word “replace” (as in ‘repeal and…’). Possession is nine-tenths of the law. The libs control the narrative and will continue to do so. We, as the saying goes, have become chopped liver.

There are 11 years’ difference between my brother and I. So, when it came time for him to drive, it fell to me to teach him. I backed out of the driveway and gave him the wheel. So far so good. We went down Springfield and made a right turn onto Oakley. At the Beekman, I told him to turn left. That’s where the trouble started. He didn’t turn the wheel hard enough and we ended up on somebody’s front lawn. I asked him to back up and try again. He did, and smashed into a telephone pole, leaving a permanent ‘V’ in my newly chromed rear bumper. I had sense enough to end the lesson right there and then and told him to get out of the car.

First, we poisoned world financial markets by ignoring the elementary rules of capitalism in an effort to satisfy some utopian fantasy in which everyone is entitled to own a home. Then we drove our own markets into an accelerating nose dive with health care legislation with similar implausible promises. Next, we continue to pump money into places like Pakistan and Gaza, knowing full well that we are hated even more, precisely for doing so. And finally, we continue to maintain ethanol subsidies which puts food and fuel into the sharp competition within the same basket, reducing the availability primarily of food (world-wide) and sending both food and fuel prices through the roof. In India, the issue of food prices is currently poised to topple the present government. (Each of these topics is discussed in detail under different headings in this weekend’s edition of the WSJ. The lead editorial refers to our ethanol policy as ‘immoral’ as it is already taking a toll on the poor all over the globe.)

Most of our efforts are centered on the reduction of fossil fuel emissions which are said to promote 'climate change’. Even in light of the University of East Anglia e-mail revelations that exposed the whole thing as a hoax, we push on with cap and trade, fuel standards, ever mounting regulations on domestic coal and oil production, mercury light bulbs and what not.

While most other countries struggle to throw off the choke collar of unbridled socialism, we continue to make it tighter. Sure, there’s been an outcry against present policies. But it goes unheard among Washington elites. Liberalism is not dead, as many pundits after the last election proclaimed. It is now busy pursuing a scorched-earth policy, marching on an on over the wreckage of our economy, our agriculture, foreign alliances, and anything else that may have helped us in the past to achieve world class status.

Today, I read about Obama’s plan to increase government spending even further. Haven’t we tried that already? I’m sorry Larry (Kudlow), I just don’t see the silver lining in this scenario. How many dents and scratches have we yet to suffer before we hit the bridge abutment head on?

http://pkoelliker.blogspot.com/

Larger Than It Is

The Frilled Neck Lizard is an amazing little reptile. It is also an Australian icon. They are between 70 to 90 cm. long, and have a 'frill' around their head. When the lizard gets frightened, it opens its mouth and the frill puffs out. This is to make the lizard appear larger than it is.

For those of you bewildered by the reporting this past weekend, you must remember who the media is. The mainstream media, as has already been too often observed, has been utterly corrupted either by ideology or money. It exists for one purpose only: to facilitate the Left’s agenda. It does so routinely either through intimidation or obfuscation. This weekend’s incident in Arizona was an exercise in both.

The primary aim of our media is to shut down debate; to label opposing views as dangerous or just plain silly. Remember, they did the same thing when they elevated a no-name cipher to the very pinnacle of U.S. governance, allowing for little or no investigation. To question was considered rube behavior. Ditto, ‘global warming’ - at one point, even questioning the premise was considered criminal, on the level of holocaust denial.

Now they’re doing the same thing with the economy which is clearly in a tailspin. The people are no longer fooled. The media has lost all credibility. The next election will show that they’re cruising on vapors. We’re listening to talk radio and browsing the internet for our news.

The U.S. media acts as a ‘frill’ for the Left. They make it seem larger than it actually is.

http://pkoelliker.blogspot.com/

Same As The Old Boss

With the illusion of American influence in world affairs rapidly fading, there are several players already making moves to fill in the gap. Of these, perhaps the most visible, is the UN. The UN, however, represents only a small shift away from U.S. (non)-policy. It is also strapped for cash, riddled with corruption, and highly politicized. It is either unable or unwilling to use force, depending instead on containment, negotiation and the paying of bribes. The UN takes no firm positions, tending instead to go along with the strong horse.

These are also the tendencies that have led to America’s downfall. There is no reason to expect the UN to succeed with the very same methods that have rendered America clownishly irrelelevant. Therefore, a UN high-profile presence in any of the world’s trouble spots will ultimately not make a significant difference.

Thus far the UN has been used primarily to reap money and concessions from America. It is fully in support of ‘global warming’ initiatives which are then used to put pressure on the United States to give more money and retract its claws. UN soldiers have been accused of plunder and rape. They have been accused of extortion. They have been uses as human shields. Though blind themselves, they have been used as seeing eye dogs. They are well recognized scofflaws to which any cop in New York can readily testify.

Where Israel is concerned, the UN’s bias against it has been legendary. The UN is heralded by New York’s liberal elites (including Jews) and Washington progressives as the 'be all and end all'. This is in part because of the UN’s appearance of civility. Members of the UN are well paid. They are given a lofty platform from which to opine; they tend to smile a lot; except when it is in their best interest to frown for a laugh line, usually at the expense of Israel.

If the people of the Cote D’Ivoire are depending on the UN to settle things, they’ve got a long wait. They’d do much better to look to themselves if their aim is to avoid another African genocide. I understand it’s in the blood over there. A volatile mix of religion - especially Islam - and politics practically guarantees chaos. This time the U.S. won’t ride to the rescue. Look at what’s just happened in Haiti, less than a thousand miles from our shores. We’ve engaged the services of not less than three living U.S. presidents (along with much fanfare) to help. The reason there has been no reporting on this is because all three have failed.

http://pkoelliker.blogspot.com/

Columbia Drug Bust

University campuses have long existed as bubbles divorced from the real world. Drug use is seldom challenged by campus authorities . (I would bet if the events leading up to the arrests had been confined to the campus alone, nothing would have come of it. The fact that NYPD was involved says a lot.) In addition, a faux grading standard often prevails that echoes today’s ‘too big to fail’ policies. It is assumed that pass/fail pretty much covers the gamut - failure being reserved for the most flagrant violations and, like the death penalty, is almost never tapped.

Kids going to the Ivies go there with the understanding that they are already special, either by virtue of their parent’s wealth or their connections. It is possible to graduate from such schools having done nothing of note. At the same time, the opportunity still exists to do a lot. A fair number of students will fall into the former category. I did.

I could have attended an ivy league school. I was accepted, but chose not to go. At the small Pennsylvania liberal arts college I ended up attending, it was the same. Under the tutelage of liberal professors I was afforded every opportunity to graduate with honors, even without having applied myself. I’ve often wished for a do-over.

This was 40 years ago. Since then it’s only gotten worse. Liberalism has steadily advanced and bled into departments that one might have thought to be immune. I don’t think 40 years ago, a hoax like ’global warming’ could have been perpetuated to the extent it is today. Yet, even then, traditional disciplines were already openly fornicating to produce now innumerable lesser cousins.

In the resulting bastardization of academic discipline that now holds sway over traditional learning, ideology has succeeded in making considerable inroads. Along with it came a lack of regard for authority, law and country.

There is a healthy flush of rebellion in every young person. It’s the job of adults to channel this properly as not to become destructive. We’ve allowed precisely the opposite to happen. We’ve taken this natural rebellious spirit and encouraged it to pursue destructive ends.

Our current president and his wife both are the product of ivy league education. They are much younger than I and thus were exposed to a much greater dose of the poison than I.

http://pkoelliker.blogspot.com/

To Make It Seem It Never Happened

There’s no puzzle here. When, oh when, will anybody begin to understand that this is not some chess game between Republicans and Democrats where one of the kings is left standing and another game ensues? This is the endgame by which the very game board is consumed.

I feel I’m reliving the time right after the ‘global warming’ hoax was exposed. Have we walked away from it? Have we swept it in the ash can? No. We’re proceeding as if the incriminating data leaks never happened; ‘cap and trade‘, here we come! Or when Mohammed Atta and the gang flew into the World Trade towers. We seldom talk about it anymore. This doesn’t mean it never happened. Or when the Cheonan was sunk by the North Korea. We pretend that if we don’t say anything more about any of these things, they never happened; that we can be safe simply by forgetting.

Similarly, if the same faces (Reid, Pelosi, Frank, Schumer) continue to dominate the news, the midterm shellacking of Obama’s policies never happened.

Much has been made of the comparison of Obama to Carter. There is no comparison. Carter did his best - albeit incompetently - to serve his nation. They’re trying to say the same thing about Obama. But there’s a world of difference. Obama means to deliberately destroy us. For him the bad economy, the joblessness, the collapse of health care, the collapse of the dollar, the imminent collapse of Israel - all are victories. He means to go further. We still have further to fall. He means to go all the way - like a young communist/Islamist on his first date.

JB doesn’t get it; Meese doesn’t get it; nobody gets it. Yet the alarms are going off are all around. We won’t get it till after it’s happened. And even then, we’ll continue to argue over whose fault it was.

The time to do something is now. But 99% of the population still has its head in the sand; including Rush who opines that the best thing to happen to the Republicans is having Pelosi and Reid as the face of the Democrat party. This is the wrong way of looking at it. It’s not good to have them back. That’s why I despaired after the results of the elections were announced. The same game continues. The only thing that’s changed is the faces of the strawmen - who are now no longer Bush.

http://pkoelliker.blogspot.com/

Emptying the 'burbs

During my last stay in India, I saw for the first time several Nanos. They stand out because they are bright, shiny and new. My wife’s son had ordered one a while back but rescinded the order when he found that he would have to wait too long to get delivery. The Nano is not electric, but very small. It was originally envisioned eventually to take the place of the three-wheeled (mostly) yellow, lawnmower engine-driven auto rickshaws. In the meantime other companies have entered the Indian micro automobile market with product - including Ford's Figo.

A side-by-side comparison between battery-powered cars and regular cars would show the scale still tilting in favor of regular cars. Assuming for a moment that the ‘global warming’ argument is still a factor, electric cars would still have to be charged which would require (usually) coal burning electric plants to provide that power. Cars would need to be significantly smaller which would impact safety negatively. Smaller cars might mean making more trips. Accidents involving battery powered cars might require dealing with acid spillage. Disposal of used car batteries might also present a problem. And no one to date - as far as I know - has mentioned how long electric car batteries can be expected to last and what it would cost to replace them. If the Apple iPod series is any clue, replacement may not even be possible.

I suspect there is also something else behind it: ideology. The primary goal of Marxists has always been to establish absolute control. What better way than to decrease the range a government-approved vehicle can travel! The range on a single charge of the hotly-touted GM Volt is said to be 40 miles. That translates into 20 mi. commutes. They’re always talking about depopulating the suburbs and forcing working people back into the cities. The electric car, which may soon become mandatory, might actually accomplish this.

http://pkoelliker.blogspot.com/

Winner Takes Nothing

Like it or not, whatever strides the U.S. has made since WWII has had a tremendous impact on the rest of the world. In every way, America has defined the standard of modernity. Every success, every setback, receives huge coverage in the foreign press. Often our political travails influence the policies set by governments around the globe.

It is normal for us - even regarded as inconsequential - when our political parties bad-mouth each other. Republican administrations are regularly attacked by Democrats who have been known to say anything they think they can get away with. We pretty much expect as much: Bush accused of favoring the rich; Bush labeled as war-monger; Bush blamed for Katrina; Bush blamed for the World Trade Center bombing. We take it all in stride, even if The New York Times, standard bearer for the Democrat Party, presents it as truth and then retracts it on page 47 a month later. Then there is ‘global warming’, a clever send-up to label America as excessively wasteful, even to the detriment of the planet. There’s the perennial issue of the poor, the homeless, the hungry (never mentioned during Democrat administrations) and, now, the overtly greedy that are said to deny the rest of the planet its daily bread.

Every bit of such claptrap originates from within our own borders. We can identify it as an effort to score points against the opposing party. Much of it is eventually discredited as pure rhetoric. But once its out there in print or on the net, others pick it up and build their case against America.

A prevalent notion abroad, for instance, is that America is a racist country. In fact, any opposition to Obama’s policies, for whatever reason, is liberally portrayed as racist sentiment against a black president. The fact that we elected a black president in the first place is conveniently forgotten.

You hear it everywhere - in India, in South America, in Africa - that America is a racist nation. They get it from reading the likes of Paul Krugman and Frank Rich, whose opinion columns are read widely throughout the world. It is only those who have actually traveled and lived here who know that race is not an issue for ordinary Americans; that England and Russia are far worse when it comes to that.

We’ve been accused often enough to understand it’s just a political ploy. We no longer take it seriously and tend to ignore it completely. It’s simply our own political operatives attempting to score points, points that are then picked up overseas to serve more sinister purposes.

It might have been good if we had nipped our tendency for engaging in some of our more extreme rhetoric in the bud sooner. Democrats, now turned Fabian socialists, in particular have succeeded in turning the domestic propaganda wars into a worldwide crusade. What started as domestic political rhetoric has grown hotter and is now threatening to topple the very foundations of our way of life. They have recruited allies among the ranks of our enemies; and, now, we are finding our nation in peril.

To a large extent, what we are experiencing today has been self-inflicted. The poison wells up from within our own institutions which have been infiltrated (by ourselves) and corrupted. Our present troubles are a consequence of our two-party system being at war rather than cooperating. It’s a repeat of Sherman’s (march to the sea) scorched earth policy. Winner takes nothing.

http://pkoelliker.blogspot.com/

Man the Water Stations

While the debate rages about how to fix the economy (read today’s opinion pieces in the NYT), things continue to get worse out there, particularly on the jobs front. People are re-entering the job market because they have become desperate. It’s no longer a choice - to work or not to work - it’s become a matter of survival.

Unfortunately, the jobs are no longer out there. They’re over in India, China, the Philippines and elsewhere. Value-based work is fleeing the country, leaving only enforcement-related and administrative (basically government) mandated tasks which themselves face the cleaver as tax revenues continue to fall short of expectations. It’s the classic definition of a downward spiral.

Incredibly, there is a way out. It is to make America business-friendly once again. Europe is trying it - although tepidly - and thus far has had limited success at least in terms of improving the psychological climate that businesses face. The reason that this hasn’t yet happened in America is because at the moment they are freer than we are. Our taxes and regulations are literally choking the life out of us. Add to this, the people’s distrust of government policy overall, and you have the entire country in unison fuelling the tailspin.

Washington has become so toxic, even if the president were to come out tomorrow with a workable plan to solve all the nation’s problems, nobody would pay much attention. For the majority of Americans, Barack Hussein Obama has already torn up his leadership card and thrown it to the wind. We have reached a point where Obama’s government no longer represents us.

How to explain this to people in a foreign country? People tend to assume that countries speak with one voice. If the government, for instance, insists on basing its foreign and domestic policies on the now largely discredited threat of ‘global warming’ while the people themselves have become aware of the hoax, that government can be said to rule against the will of the electorate. The U.S. is not the only nation that has chosen to follow the forked path leading to civil strife. The first fault line to appear, as always, is the one between the classes. The elites have chosen one path, leaving the masses to wander another.

Time to man the water stations in this desert. Many are about to get themselves lost out in the wilds. Great swatches of land have already been ceded to cartel control. It is clear, the American government does not care about Americans. One of the two will fall and there will be blood. In the meantime, maps and survival tips must be distributed.

I open the paper today and read that the Taliban have offered to burn all medical books.

http://pkoelliker.blogspot.com/

On the Flooding in Pakistan

Now that the world’s only superpower has been sufficiently hobbled to the wild cheers of it’s enemies, these self-same enemies are lamenting that they themselves are going down. Where are all the others to help? China? Russia? Venezuela? Brazil?

Predictably, America still bears much of the blame: not enough aid, expertise, outpouring, generosity, etc. In addition, it’s America’s fault that so much rain has fallen in the first place. It’s all a trick by the Great Satan to punish Muslims. It’s been proven and widely flaunted by the Americans themselves, after all; that ‘global warming’ causes such catastrophes and that America is first and foremost responsible for ‘global warming‘. All the more reason to double down on the ‘Great Satan’, to bring him to his knees and rid the world of this singular evil.

No doubt, this is the template by which the next crop of mosque sermons will be written. At least, in America, a man - a brother - has now come to power; a man who has been the first from that nation to acknowledge that eight years of Bush’s policies - indeed, the whole history of America’s shameful rise on the backs of the poor - has been instrumental in bringing us to this sad point. Israel, that shining abomination (on the hill) - by the grace of this singularly enlightened individual - can now no longer expect the West’s illicit support for its shameful insistence on maintaining its heathen stain on the sacred land of the faithful.

He (Obama) has come out in favor of building a holy mosque, near Ground Zero no less; which is destined to rise much faster, much higher, than the star-struck replacement for what has been brought down and reduced to ash in the name of Allah. Our flag, our minaret(s), will point proudly skyward on the day of the tenth anniversary of our heroic victory over capitalist blight - thanks to the ceaseless efforts of the enlightened one. The mean remnant of unbelievers will fail to stop our progress in bringing to the world shariah by which we will then proceed to cleanse all mankind of its sin.

As for our dead and dying, we grieve as is natural. It is Allah’s will. They are the martyrs who in both large and small ways have sacrificed (or are in the process of sacrificing) their existence for the greater glory of Islam - the only true religion. For even as we die our quiet deaths, America’s fall will reverberate around the world and usher in righteousness.

Allah Akbar!

What Is Not

“Earth is off the shelf of and planetary geology.” - JB

This represents the same basic argument that prevailed during Galileo’s time. Galileo essentially discovered that the earth orbits the sun. This got him into trouble with the elites of that time - philosophers and clerics - who subscribed to the view that the sun orbits the earth, thus making the earth the center of the universe. He was denounced to the Roman Inquisition. Although cleared a year later of any offence, the Catholic Church nevertheless condemned heliocentrism as heresy and Galileo was told to abandon his support for it. When he later defended his views in his most famous work, ‘Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World Systems’, he was tried again and forced to spent the remainder of his life under house arrest. Isn’t this the same as what is going on today re ‘global warming’?

Eventually we would come to accept that our solar system itself is merely some insignificant adjunct to some insignificant galaxy on the fringes of the universe. What does that do to our considerable egos? Some say it lead to existentialism; nihilism and beyond. Let me suggest that the next (and possibly final) knot along this thread may yet emerge, namely that the true center of the universe is the human mind. This would certainly go a long way toward uprooting whole herds of sacred cows - ego for one. Alan Watts and Carlos Castaneda came tantalizingly close to articulating this concept. The scriptures of all the world’s religions allude to it.

As we strive to understand all ‘being‘, we remain largely ignorant of ‘non-being’ which cannot be measured or quantified by our senses or by the extensions thereof. The scope and significance of ‘non-being‘, some say, can only be grasped by what Zen refers to as ‘no mind’ (or ‘no thought‘).

It is ‘non-being’ within which what some call ‘God’ resides. So, even if we - who look to telescopes, rulers and scales as the ultimate test of reality - should succeed in figuring out everything there is to know about all there is, we would still fall infinitely short of figuring out what is not.

Follow the Leader

It has become generally accepted lore that the northern part of a region is more prosperous than the southern part. This is because, we are told, the harsher climate in the north forces its people to be more resourceful than those of the lazy horse latitudes. There are exceptions of course.

North Korea has essentially become a prison in which weather and food are weapons. If one were to elect to serve one’s time in the custody of men, one might well choose a place like Cuba because in Cuba the weather is not one of the weapons that can be used against you. The jailers too can be counted on to be of a somewhat gentler disposition because of the climate thing as - again, we are told - gentler climates breed gentler people. Again, there are exceptions.

Still, prison is prison no matter how often you paint its lips. There are two kinds of people in this world: leaders and followers. (We’ll disregard loners and misfits for the time being.) Followers are far greater in number. They will happily cleave to any given leader as long as the leader does not make their subservient position too obvious. Leaders, once again, break up into two groups. There are leaders who are natural born, and leaders who are actually followers (with no leadership skills) who pretend to be leaders. These will lead by threat and deceit. Nations in which this happens are called ‘tyrannies‘. They are hollow and exceedingly fragile.

In our country false leaders have become so inept that their leadership has come to depend increasingly on threat. As we are still much better educated than the norm, the deceit of our so-called leaders no longer works. The feared uprising, therefore, must be curbed by threat. If you do not pay your share of confiscatory taxes; if you speak out against dear leader Obama, you’re automatically on the outs; blackballed; ostracized; ridiculed; excluded; marked ‘failed’. You will be expected to correct your ways or suffer impotence on the fringes of society.

You will make it your life’s work to support the regime. If you are a scientist, for instance, you will obediently go along with the theory of ‘global warming’ no matter what the data shows. If you are a doctor, you will support a woman’s right to abort and the standards set by the state for denying healthcare to the aged. If you are a landowner, you will submit to government regs that limit the use of your own land to favor the snail darter, and possibly even agree to give up your holdings by random declaration of eminent domain. If you are a driver, you will adhere to the posted speed limit even though your car and conditions permit twice that. If you are a smoker, you will try to quit - or lie about trying - while scurrying around in back doorways and alleys.

In North Korea, the game played is considerably more basic than that. Here, both the weather and food are weapons. I suspect that if Kim Jong-Il were to die and we were to go in to check it out, we would find nothing. It’d be like one of those scenes in countless prison escape movies where the warden enters a cell, throws back the blankets and finds only a dummy there.

Afghanistan: Too Failed To Fail

Let’s not forget, America too is too “failed to fail” - just like it is axiomatic in the Democrat (and to some extent in the Republican) Party where you have failure propping up failure. Drugs? No problem. Deficits? No problem. Illegal immigrants? No problem. Corruption? No problem. Etc. As always, the American taxpayer can be expected to shoulder the load. How much longer? Unknown.
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Little by little, the Left is exposed - like peeling an onion. This week, the article entitled, “America’s Ruling Class - And The Perils of Revolution” by Anglo M. Codevilla in The American Spectator was discussed widely on conservative talk radio. Yesterday and today, The Daily Caller in articles by Jonathan Strong exposes the MSM. These articles read in tandem pretty much lay bare the bones of what we’ve all been puzzling about, namely the spectacularly rapid and unfortunate rise of Progressivism in America.

Whether or not we can regard these developments as an autopsy is still to be determined. From where I sit, there’s still plenty of life left in the old carcass; still too many people determined to endorse all the wrong moves. Case and point: By all accounts, ‘global warming’ as a viable concern should long ago have been declared dead and buried. Yet, I find it still stirring. And we will likely be saddled with ‘cap and trade’ because of it - never mind that the data is fraudulent. It was never about ‘saving the earth’ anyway, as Codevilla explains. It was always about power and outright theft.

Such revelations would never have come to light under McCain (just as it never really happened under Clinton and the Bushes). It’s just that Obama has been clumsy enough to spill the beans. No doubt, Hillary will be called upon to save the day.

Trust

Trust is what breaks down when one has compartmentalized; when one can no longer see the continuum in all, and between things. POTUS does not engender trust. Nor does he trust. POTUS is young, black and highly positioned. Perhaps he does not think he deserves to be where he is. Perhaps he feels he has been put there by others. Perhaps he is not even American.

It’s not about POTUS as much we would like to make it so. It’s about us. It’s about having neglected our duty to stay vigilant. We didn’t pay attention when li’l Johnny came home from school with bananas and hockey sticks. We didn’t correct him when he started out mouthing off about ‘global warming‘. Instead, we let it pass and said, “He’ll learn when he’s older.” No, Obama is not ‘other‘; he is li’l Johnny who never learned to add properly, now become president. Who would have thunk it?

This crisis we’re in is entirely homegrown. We’ve let the weeds overtake the garden. Now that we’re looking for fruit, there’s nothing there. Obama is the product of what we ourselves have done (or neglected to do). Think about it? What foreign power, even in a jealous fit of rage, would ever think of cutting off its mother‘s teat?