Hubris (part II)

In a previous post entitled “Hubris” I discussed the ramifications of a leader who gets himself elected and then governs against the will of his people. We’re seeing this so often now – even in our own country. Granted, the first mistake was ours. This is not to say that we are now collectively responsible for all that follows. If we were to go to a store, for instance, and buy a product that is subpar or even dangerous, we are not obligated to go back to that store again even if this store should still exist and compel us to do so. Yet, every day we pile on increasing layers of outrage at our government’s handling of things.

A parent is different from a pal. Pals bear no responsibility towards each other. Parents do. They are instrumental as role models for their children. They are responsible for their safety. This is not something that demands regulation. It’s instinctual and hardly ever fails. In our last presidential election, we have essentially chosen a pal to lead us – someone we could see ourselves sitting at a bar with and having too many drinks – from Facebook no less!

From my own experience with LSD (during my college days), I learned of the 'perfect moment'; that it is next to impossible for any one person to screw things up; that no matter what we do (or neglect to do), the sun will still rise every morning and the birds will still fly north or south depending on the season; that our personal imprint on life would forever be perfectly balanced by the imprint of another. This lesson taught me to relax and not to take myself so seriously, and simply enjoy the gift of life for its own sake.

This would eventually translate into my fervent belief that mankind is too puny to destroy the planet, as many of my generation claim. From my perspective, I could see that what is commonly referred to as the ‘green movement’ is primarily politically driven. With what’s currently happening in Japan, I’ve been forced to retreat from my earlier position and concede that we, as a species, may have overstepped a dangerous threshold.

What a kindly, wild-haired gentleman with his Princeton chalkboard unleashed may well represent a power that is beyond mere men’s ken to contain. I tend now to side with the ‘greens’ in their reflex jihad against nuclear power. It is a hallmark of men to make mistakes, any fallout from which (up till now) has been capable of being well absorbed within the larger fabric.

Nuclear seems somehow different – a departure from the norm - and yet, if history is a guide, there is no turning back. We happily allow the madmen of Iran and the children of Pakistan at the controls. If it is possible for Japan – by all accounts one of the most sober and disciplined populations on earth – to run afoul of it, we must clearly take a second look at our general policy of indifference toward this particular subject.

Our indifference is hardly blind. It stems from the enormity of the task ahead: getting the genie back into the bottle. Many will say it can’t be done. Yet, even with the very real potential of the birds raining from the sky and the sun circling endlessly around an blind planet, it seems we cannot afford not to try.

http://pkoelliker.blogspot.com/

Conspiracy Theory: History In Reverse

I think it’s high time we get away from blindly criticizing Obama; the media; foreign, energy, and fiscal policy; and everything else; and begin connecting some dots. The only one doing it publicly at the moment happens to be Glenn Beck (and we all know what’s happened to him).

On this morning’s program, Beck laid it all out – soup to nuts. The players involve everyone in the Obama administration, union thugs, media flacks, prominent international figures (including Kaddafi) with George Soros at the top pulling the strings. Sounds like crazy talk. Sounds like a conspiracy theory. Those who believe in conspiracies are usually nut jobs. Right? – except when said conspiracy theories turn out to have been right all along. But, by then, conspiracies have become (often tragic) histories. And there’s no more time left to do something about it, other than live with the shame.

It’s not that I agree with all that Beck claims. There are some weak points and stretches. Overall, though, it sounds credible. It certainly does begin giving a shape to all we’ve been talking about (particularly) over the past two years – events that we believed stood alone and thus could be easily dismissed. I’m even starting to wonder about our friend, John Batchelor, and why he has been concentrating so hard on China lately. China, as I see it, is not part of the Soros deal. As such, it can only serve as a distraction from what is happening right under our noses.

Crazy talk or not, the time has come for a deeper examination of events than we’re getting. It’s interesting that there are some things that the media just won’t touch, while obvious examples are being made of those who dare to approach that third (Soros) rail – like Sarah Palin, for instance. (I'm talking about Palin's naked patriotism and her support of Israel.)

Then there is this from the “Business & Media” website (God knows who runs it) that published an article yesterday, entitled, “Unreported Soros Event Aims to Remake Entire Global Economy” by Dan Gainor. I’ve put up the link below (but I’m rather inept at this sort of thing, so I give you the information above as well).

http://www.mrc.org/bmi/commentary/2011/Unreported_Soros_Event_Aims_to_Remake_Entire_Global_Economy.html

It’s not that I’m against trying to remake the world. What I object to is how it’s being done. It’s being done in the proverbial smoke-filled back room by fat-cat elite narcissists. You can be quite certain they don’t have America’s best interests in mind.

http://pkoelliker.blogspot.com/

Dilma's Dilemma

Another teachable moment. Another glimpse into the mind of our president, Barack Hussein Obama. How he is handling Libya could have been foreseen long ago. Other commanders-in-chief have done as much at the mere drop of a hat. It’s not what happens there that should be of concern to us. Of far greater concern should be what we ourselves have become.

We have become a nation of lawless and corrupt governance. Our Constitution specifies that Congress must be consulted, and be made to approve any deployment of American troops overseas. Barack Hussein Obama is the first president to bypass this convention. Instead, he claims to derive his power from what he refers to as the ‘international community’ (UN). As such, he has further shredded the Constitution of the United States. At the same time, he is continuing to marginalize the role of Congress. So much for representative governance.

Again, all this could have been foreseen. Months back, I wrote that the deliberate chaos in the 111th Congress would serve to discredit the institution irreparably. Here we have it in black and white. What does this say about the sanctity of our vote? In a short two years we have devolved from a constitutional republic to a tyranny.

Our media does not appear to grasp the enormity of what has happened to us. Small wonder. The success or failure of any quasi-democratic setup depends on an educated public. Our schools have become mere cookie cutters. The level of understanding among recent graduates is astoundingly below par. It cuts across the board from math through English. “When NEWSWEEK recently asked 1,000 U.S. citizens to take America’s official citizenship test, 29 percent couldn’t name the vice president. Seventy-three percent couldn’t correctly say why we fought the Cold War. Forty-four percent were unable to define the Bill of Rights. And 6 percent couldn’t even circle Independence Day on a calendar.”

I understand that polls are often skewed to elicit certain answers; to show specific results, most likely ones that grab headlines and spur magazine sales; and, don’t forget, of course, to promote the urgency for more money for favored institutions (such as teachers unions) and in NEWSWEEK’s case, Democrats. In this particular survey, published this week, I suspect, the numbers are probably even worse. The teaching of civics and history has perhaps suffered most in recent years. It’s natural that these would be edged out by an ever greater emphasis on ideologically based solutions. Let’s face it, Marxism is now in vogue.

As our president travels splendidly throughout Brazil, burnishing his Marxist credentials, his unconstitutional behavior with regard to Libya goes almost unnoticed. Obviously, most Brazilians have not yet gotten the message that he is one of them as evidenced by the feisty street demonstrations against him. But Dilma knows why he’s come. She’ll let him grovel and beg for her validation. Still, she must weigh her ultimate approach to him against her own need for a demon. The U.S. has always served admirably in this regard.

Even if the new Brazilian president should withhold her favors, the trip should still be regarded as a success. When things go wrong in Libya, Obama can always say, “It wasn’t me. It’s all Hillary’s fault. I wasn’t even there.”

http://pkoelliker.blogspot.com/

Going Too Fast to Take the Exits

We have now reached the point I have been warning about. The state of our nation is anything the government says it is. “The economy has turned the corner” and, poof! the stock market goes through the roof; “eight million jobs saved”, and, shebang! it is so; “companies have resumed hiring” and, would you believe it? (Obama is a genius!) Unemployment goes from nearly 10% to barely 9 (the new norm), and, again, Obama is simply the best!!! “Oil prices will not spur inflation” and, miracles of miracles… “We are winning the war.” Really?

How can we possibly oppose the policies that have brought about such incomparable blessings? All throughout the Middle East and beyond, democratic movements have awakened and unseated long-entrenched tyrants and placed power into the people’s hands. And we did it all without firing a shot. Here at home, we’re standing up for workers’ rights; a chicken in every pot; a roof over every head; heath care for all; etc.

He (Obama) will go down in history as the greatest American president since Lincoln, or is it Roosevelt? Or Reagan? Or Washington? (Let me check my calendar.) Only bright days ahead. A nation powered by shiny new high speed (can we still say, ‘bullet') trains and batteries; wind and solar power. …clean, crystalline air to breathe. No one smokes. Everyone eats healthy - and not too much. Utopia is truly within our grasp.

This one is a keeper. This president. The best we’ve ever had. Why bother with any more elections? This is a good as it gets. Boy, are we ever lucky!
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"We should seek by all means in our power to avoid war, by analyzing possible causes, by trying to remove them, by discussion in a spirit of collaboration and good will. I cannot believe that such a program would be rejected by the people of this country (England), even if it does mean the establishment of personal contact with the dictators."

- Neville Chamberlain.
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Absolutely riveting broadcasting last night, John. I had dozed off with my radio on. Was literally frightened awake by the raw energy emanating from your segment with Malcolm Hoenlein alone. You turned into a pit bull and would not let go. You got Malcolm to say what he didn’t want to say. You got him to admit that Iran is winning.

I understood Malcom’s reticence. It was so obvious the man was struggling, stumbling. He fully grasped the import of the words that you so pitilessly coaxed from his convulsing throat. He understood what it means for Israel.

http://pkoelliker.blogspot.com/

The Definition of 'Crazy'

It’s always easy and entertaining to make fun of history in a Monty Python kind of way; to say what if, as if ‘if’ were some kind of Frankonian monster ripe for resurrecting at the snap of a finger. Much more difficult to see the lunacy of current policy. If Reagan had killed Kaddafi, who is to say that would have been the end of it?

Fact: For several years after we sent a package bomb into Kaddafi’s tent (killing his daughter among others) we never heard from Kaddafi again. Fact: He behaved himself for a time like a kid after a spanking. And then, we seemed to have lost the concept altogether and the likes of Kim Yong-Il, Ahmadinejad and Hugo Chavez were able to make their mischief unimpeded, turning the whole class into an uproar.

Now, nobody is learning. The teachers have fled the premises. The school is has become wildly dysfunctional and you have some version of William Golding’s “Lord of the Flies” going on everywhere you look.

Enter the 12th Imam to put a stop to it. I expect he’ll have enough buckets lined up to put out the fires that are raging; to snuff out the fuses that are burning toward setting off a nuclear holocaust. If not, it doesn’t really matter what any of us do.

For a brief while, we thought it was Obama who would fill the bill. We gave him every chance. We even called him ‘savior’. We were convinced that he was the one who would bring us together. He made quite a convincing start of it, giving speeches all around the world and drawing adoring crowds everywhere he went.

Now we know it was all just so much hot air, effectively causing the polar icecaps to melt and the bears to seek shelter inside an ever shrinking population of whales. Curiously the oceans didn’t rise as predicted and the island of Manhattan still stands (although we did our best to bring her down by other means).

As much as we make fun of Kaddafi, we still shy away from looking in the mirror to examine ourselves. The definition of ‘crazy’ is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. What we are doing in almost every aspect of our public policy is the same thing over and over again. And all it’s done is accelerate our fall from grace.

Spring is just around the corner and all of us here in the northern latitudes can put our snow shovels away and breathe a sigh of relief. Soon time to put some of the old stuff out on the curb for yard sales or for sanitation to pick up. Don’t plan on going anywhere though. Gas will likely be around $5 a gallon.

http://pkoelliker.blogspot.com/

No More Sequels

It’s easy to predict this one - to run it all the way out to its conclusion. It’s like we’re all at the movies, watching a James Bond thriller. It’s been cat and mouse all the way. The final scene is approaching. Bond has located the farm house where the beautiful hostage is kept. He creeps stealthily towards it. He has already poisoned the dog. He reaches the porch. The floorboard creaks. He stops. All remains quiet.

The door is unlocked. Standing aside of the frame, he pushes it open. It creaks on its hinges. A car passes along the road. Bond freezes. All else remains quiet.

Meanwhile, the villain lurks in the shadows inside the house with his hand over the mouth of the beautiful hostage. He watches Bond’s movements on a monitor.

Though cautious, Bond thinks he’s in the clear. He had checked the barn earlier. There were no cars there. Bond draws his gun before bursting into the house.

Involuntarily, we put a hand over our mouths. We want to scream at the screen, “Watch out!!!”

Why is the media suddenly becoming so cagy about Egypt? Saying anything but the obvious is treated as virtual blasphemy. No speculation endues. History starts with Obama, even as his own history remains incomplete. All we need to know is that before Obama, all history led to ruin. The U.S., the most powerful nation on earth, was in charge and everyone else had to dance to its tune - and life on the planet was a misery to most.

Perhaps it’s not accident that Obama started his presidency with what was billed as a major speech in Cairo. I just re-read it. It struck me as childish - almost simple-minded. I’m sure nobody there bought it. They might even have been offended by its condescending tone.

Platitudes don’t translate easily to bread. Not much there by way of loaves and fish. Certainly not much mention of political strategy which, taking into account that America was speaking, was a lie of omission. Just so much American soma, Coca-Cola, change, and all the rest. Nobody believed it.

Except, it wasn’t America speaking. The ‘change‘, that would involve them, had actually come from America . And though nobody knew it yet, much of what Obama said was true - a reflection of the new America, the one in bed with jihad and the Muslim Brotherhood. Nobody foresaw that Egypt would become the crucible. Except, Obama knew.

Now more of us know because we can see what‘s happening. We see the outline of what’s coming - what’s already here. Yemen and Jordan bookend Saudi Arabia. The Suez Canal remains a vital shipping lane. Oil remains vital to functioning of the West. Tehran claims armies and allies. Israel cries foul. There will be no more sequels.

http://pkoelliker.blogspot.com/

Name Calling

Calling Hu Jintao a ‘dictator’, ‘cutthroat’, murderer and worse is like calling Obama a ‘socialist’. It’s meant to inspire fear in some, awe in others; and serve as a clever phrase to disseminate at cocktail parties.

It’s all true! So, what are we going to do about it? Jaw-jaw: “No he isn’t.” “Yes, he is!” This kind of thing can go on forever - at least until the party winds down and it’s time to go home.

Hu Jintao is not “fearful of the facts”. Why should he be? He works within a political system which manufactures facts to suit. We do the same. Only we still pay attention to facts as they appear, which some call lies and others don’t. That makes us divided as to the facts. …and you know all what they say about ‘divided houses‘.

It all boils down to who holds the reigns. The one in power determines the facts. That’s how it is and how it has been. History books have always been written by the ones who have earned that right by victory. From God’s point of view, written history is always only half right.

The truly troubling aspect of all this is what is now referred to as the “re-write of history”. It means that we can no longer trust anything we see.

http://pkoelliker.blogspot.com/

CRASH

We’re making progress. We’ve now gone from basic incompetence to unseeing.

One of the scariest things that can happen is when you’re driving down the highway at 60-70 mph and a newspaper blows across the road ahead of you. It rears up and wraps around your windscreen, momentarily rendering you blind. You don’t know whether to jam on the brakes or keep moving. You do both as your bowels empty.

This, of course, as opposed to aiming your vehicle straight at a bridge abutment and giving gas. In the first instance you are a card carrying member of the human race having come face to face with mortality; in the second, you are a suicide.

Someone once said that a man without history has no future. As a narcissist, Obama’s history began on the day he was born. As a racialist, Obama’s history is full of deep-seated resentment. He is not aimless. He has his sights trained like a laser on the bridge abutment. The sooner we learn this, the sooner we may be able to do something about it.

As for the up tick in this year’s Christmas shopping, remember that last year wasn’t so hot either. It may just be that we’ve decided to spend that dollar while it’s still worth 70 cents.

http://pkoelliker.blogspot.com/

Puppet Show

Lady Gaga and POTUS are twins separated at birth. Both are pure media creations - holograms. Nobody in their right mind would admit to being a fan. It’s all smoke and mirrors for the gullible; the mind-numbed; the disturbed.

There is no substance here. To pretend otherwise is delusional. The support is virtual, as are the crowds. Nobody is fooled - only the spin machine has gone into overdrive and has devolved into chasing its own tail.

The worst that can happen to anyone is to believe in one’s own spin. Eventually one trails off into madness - a state where nothing fits anymore. Iran has already gone that way. China is on its way; and America is going there fast.

This is what following the money has brought us: the belief that one can buy anything - even public office. The lesson learned should be taken from the story of Judas Iscariot. Forty coins were said to have put the machinery in motion that established a new religion. Those same forty coins amounted to the price of a potter’s field. It’s absurd to equate the two on the basis of value. Equally absurd is to consider the Gaga twins and pronounce them a trend. The trend would exist whether the flotsam twins were here or not. Puppets are interchangeable. The progression - sometimes slow; sometimes fast - of history is not.

We can only hold on to the faith that everything balances out in the end; that everything is self-correcting. America, to the extent that she has sinned, will suffer. I don’t think it will be as bad as some make it out to be. I also believe that America will find her way.

America will not remain forever distracted by the Kasperliteater that’s been set up in the market square while anarchists remain active on the perimeter, pouring accelerant on buildings.

http://pkoelliker.blogspot.com/

Meet The New Boss; Same As The Old Boss

We tend to measure history in segments - epochs; eras; ages; periods - each, distinct in the metrics it generated. We tend to assign specific dates to these. Though, it is doubtful that people living at the time of the change(-over) fully appreciated that the old was being shunted aside and a new was just beginning.

Most people are simply riding a wave. As they are riding along with it, they are unaware that the wave is moving. It is up to historians to look back and see that the wave has indeed moved and how the shoreline was altered by it.

When future historians look back on us they will mark Barack Hussein Obama’s election as the end of an era and the beginning of a new one. When we cast our ballots in ‘08, few of us realized just how much was at stake. Historians will mark that election day in November as the beginning of America’s sudden and stunning decline; as, up until then, America had been the most influential nation among nations. It would soon become clear that America was no longer prepared to protect its interests or borders. This seemingly voluntary draw-down would reverberate around the world. We don’t know yet for sure, but one direct consequence of this particular American election might yet lead to WWIII - a war we would likely lose and make us subservient to an alien culture.

The wave of promises that hoisted the banner of the Obamanation over the land would prove to be illusory. Disappointment, culminating in unrest, would provide the opening for a heretofore hidden agenda to be implemented - one, that no American in his right mind would have voted for had he kept himself informed.

Obama and the media are still lying. They’re still promising the metrics of traditional American prosperity. When in fact they should be saying distinctly for all to hear, ‘We are working hard to make every American a ward of the State. Everyone will be adequately provided for according to his or her need. Everyone will be expected to contribute according to his or her ability. Everyone will be equal, (except some will be more equal than others). Shariah will constitute the law of the land.’

Sound extreme? I don’t think so. Take the time to attend some classes at your local college or university. Go out and see a movie. Read the newspaper once in a while and see what’s happening. Go to church on Sunday. Listen to modern pop songs; listen to Spanish language radio stations or to those that play rap songs that cater to blacks. Know what passes itself off as mainstream these days.

It’s not enough to keep the dial glued to conservative talk radio - or even NPR. There’s a wave gathering out there that demands a chicken for every pot and a car for every garage once ‘THE (ubiquitous) MAN’ has been defeated. POTUS knows this. He is riding the wave, securely tucked in its curl. The wave cannot be stopped by logic or simple political calculation. In the absence of a similar wave generated to counter it, it will rush forward, never stopping until it has reached the ends of the earth.

What nobody seems to get is that 'THE (defeated) MAN' will have been dragged out to sea by sheer exhaustion; that it is always easier to topple than to build and maintain; that 'THE (new and improved) MAN' will again come from men; and that again no one (but a few) will be happy with the new arrangement.

http://pkoelliker.blogspot.com/

Sniveling Cowards

Recovery or no recovery - it depends on who you listen to. Even bad numbers can always be worse. I honestly don’t know any more. If Obama is such a disaster, how come roughly half the country still supports him?

There are people who I respect that continue to believe that Obama is leading us along a proper path. They acknowledge that there will be pain in the short run, but are confident that Obama has what it takes to lead us out of the woods - if those pesky Republicans just would let him do it.

Obama has yet to confess outright that he is a communist (or a Muslim) who wants to reduce our nation to ruins. Without that confession it’s hopeless I’m afraid. People no longer trust what they see. Any criticism of the president is seen in significant quarters as extreme, racist, homophobic, fringe.

The major media certainly is buying it. Case and point: Attendance at Glenn Beck’s Washington rally was either in the tens of thousands or upwards of a million. Not counted, of course, are the millions who wanted to but could not go.

We no longer trust numbers. Even science has been perverted. Everything is a lie. We’re flying blind.

Clearly, I remain of the old school. Aside from the numbers, I don’t see how centralized autocratic government can work. History has taught me that much. But history is being rewritten as we speak. The young are taught a different history than I was. They believe they are right. They trust their teachers. They trust their teacher's excuses, their misdirection, their lofty claims.

So, no matter how bad it gets, they’ll always have an out. The entirety of American history has brought us to this point. The chickens have come home to roost.

In my heart, I believe that most people believe as I do. But I can no longer be sure. It’s the ’sitting on the fence’ types that’ve got me stumped. Bill Clinton introduced the concept of ‘triangulation‘. By triangulating he sought to appear as being above the fray.

I don’t think this will work again. Either the Left or the Right - along with the triangulators - will be swept from the pages of American history. The time will come when triangulators will be asked to declare themselves. Those who refuse to, will be left homeless. High principles involving moral equivalence (or neutrality) will not save them. They will be despised by all sides as the sniveling cowards they are.

'Runaway Train' ('85 film)

So we’re into “The Big Stall”. Really now? And what do we do in the meantime? Make up word games? I think it’s time we give the American people some credit. They’re not on board with this administration. They’re no longer playing the game. They’re on strike!

We’re not victims of uncertainty. We’re not victims, period. We’ve already decided what must be done. We’re no longer passive, intimidated or scared. We’re actively sitting on our hands; dragging our heels; clawing the curtains off the wall. We’re not about to participate in the rape of our country; in the besmirching of our noble tradition, our proud history and birth right.

We’ve decided not to work, innovate, expand, hire. Just like we no longer watch the network news or read the liberal rags they still call ‘newspapers‘. They’ll blame it on the internet, alternative news sources, word of mouth, and what have you. But you and I both know it’s not that. We’ve grown tired of the propaganda and the outright lies. And, while I’m at it, we’ve had just about had enough of being blamed for everything under the sun.

As time goes on - and it can’t go on much longer - the pundits will continue to discuss the faltering economy as if it were some amorphous monster out to destroy every vestige of good cheer. When, in fact, the economy is us. Come right out and say it: ‘We are the American economy.’ It is we who are putting on the brakes. We know what we’re doing.

As time goes by and things in Washington do not change drastically, it is we ourselves who will bring the house down. We know that Washington cannot survive without us footing the bill. With less and less of us paying taxes, Washington will fail, states will fail, cities and towns will fail; even we might fail. Right now it’s a tug-of-war to see who fails first. One thing’s for damn sure: If we’re going, they’re coming with us.

We’ve already decoupled the engine from the “Runaway Train“ (’85 film). Now we’re slowing. Oscar ‘Manny’ Manheim (Jon Voight) has seen the light. He has switched allegiances. It’s not much by Hollywood standards. But it’s a start.

Conspiracy Theory

“How do we defeat such an enemy?” We beat them, pure and simple. We go in with all we’ve got and get the job done. We have the best fighting force in the world, bar none. If the Afghan government itself becomes a problem, there are strategies on a higher level to take care of that as well. Ditto, Pakistan. There is simply no excuse for America to lose any skirmish anywhere in the world.

What we lack is will. The Democrat Party has aligned itself with the anti-war movement for decades. They have politicized war and used it to keep Republicans from winning at the polls right here at home. They have thrown every conceivable obstacle in the way of any war effort for decades. They have been actively rooting for our enemies, especially under Republican leadership. They have struck words like ‘winning’ and ‘victory’ from the public debate. In the process they have succeeded in reducing our military to some ad hoc version of ‘meals-on-wheels’, a job it is wholly unsuited for.

If we decide to continue on our present course, we are guaranteed to lose. In fact, losing is virtually guaranteed if it is the aim, first and foremost, of our policy makers to lose (for whatever reason) as it now seems.

It has now been made clear that it is the aim of our present administration to reduce America’s influence around the world; that it considers American hegemony as the single most potent impediment to world peace. The obvious consequence of such policy is the demonstration of losses on the battlefield, the diminution of our dollar, and the seizing of political power over opponents here at home largely by the canard of blaming our losses on the opposition.

I’m as much a fan of conspiracy theory as the next guy. I was watching “The Fall of the Republic” just yesterday but couldn’t shake the feeling that what I was watching in itself might be nothing more substantive than propaganda. Conspiracy theories all follow a well-trodden path. There are heroes and villains and it all ends up in some kind of dystopian morass of dungeons and chains. I began to feel disgust and retreated to my history books. When it occurred to me that history itself is little more than conspiracy theory in reverse.

Which brings us to now. Clearly there is at present no will to win as far as America is concerned. All our efforts seem to be singularly focused on neutralizing the Tea Parties and their supporters. On the highest levels of our government it appears to have been decided that this is the only battle worth winning. All others - Afghanistan, Iraq, Israel, Taiwan, India, Central and South America - be damned.

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.

A Bad Joke

Secession. An interesting idea; one, among several, the states may have to consider if they are to have any hope of rolling out from under our suffocating government monster. Expect a slew of law suits originating from within our various states, challenging federal mandates. As long as the Supremes remain split 5 to 4 we have a chance. We’re hanging by a thread.

Those of us who predicted this back during the last presidential campaign were called all sorts of names. Now it’s happened. What to do? Secession? Impeachment? It’s not that McCain would have been better. In some ways he might well have been worse. It would have given the Left even more time to arm and organize. Just the fact that they don’t yet own the Court means that they jumped the gun.

The problem with the Left is that ‘they have distilled a kind of world history to suit certain purposes. It consists of nothing but the chronology of ideas. It is bloodless and lacking in reality …nothing but laws and formulas, no reality, no good and evil, no time, no yesterday, no tomorrow, nothing but an eternal, shallow academic construct‘.*

‘Suppose an anatomist is dissecting a body. He does not confront wholly surprising discoveries. Rather, he finds beneath the epidermis a assemblage of organs, muscles, tendons, and bones which generally conform to a pattern he has brought to his work. But if the anatomist sees nothing but this pattern, and ignores the unique, individual reality of his object*, he has lost touch with an essence.

Similarly, today’s Leftist relies on the power to manipulate data (the bones) to suit some highly improbable Utopian purpose, quite without regard to the spirit that girds it.

When we elected Obama, we essentially decided to attach a Rolls Royce logo to a Yugo. It made people sit up and take notice without making the car run any better. Now it’s become just a bad joke.
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*roughly translated from passages in Hermann Hesse’s The Glass Bead Game.

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.

Metrics

We do not have an economic crisis. We have a crisis in leadership. The ‘bad’ economy is merely a symptom of the crisis in leadership world-wide. The economy is not fragile. It is not failing. It is telling us precisely about the state the world finds itself in.

If you use a thermometer to check your child’s temperature and find he has a fever, a reasonable response should not be to blame the thermometer; to pack it in ice or throw it down in a rage. Yet this is exactly what we’re doing. The economy is merely a metric - a tool - a device to measure the relative health of a nation(’s overall policies). A tool can never exceed its function. As policy is always contingent on mercurial political demands, the economy can be said to reflect the relative soundness of political realities as well.

In an effort to build (false) constituencies, politicians have taken the value out of work. They’ve taken winning out of the game. They’ve taken the truth out of history. They’re taking the killing out of war. They’re taking the people out of governance. In doing all that, they’ve taken hope out of the future. What they’re attempting here amounts to no less than a man-made contingency operation; attempting to change the world into what it has never been before – into what it can never be. It’s no wonder alarm bells are going off everywhere you look.

If it were merely theft, it might be a blessing. The thief is caught and punished. The victim either writes off his loss and begins again, or he is in some way compensated. Either way, there is closure. What we’re witnessing at the G8 summit in Toronto is not theft. It is trying to change the way things actually work; it is trying to upend the laws of gravity. It is going against nature without the temperance of conscience, without an understanding of trespass onto the sacred ground of reality.

You don’t go about building a machine in which every module is wholly dependent on every other. You build it so that failing modules can be easily swapped out. You don’t build an oil tanker (or submarine) without breaking it up in to compartments. If one should be breached, it can be sealed off and the rest of the ship survives. “Too big to fail” spells disaster and worse. In fact, if “too big to fail” should become the norm, we will no longer be able to tell what is disaster and what is not. There will no longer be anything to compare. Every traditional standard loses its meaning. What is is. No further argument is possible. This, plain and simple, is the definition of tyranny.

The reason America’s economic metrics are bad is not because of some vague notion of the failure as relates some equally vague academic construct. (“You don’t need a weatherman to know which way the wind blows.”) It is a failure that originates and is maintained by the people themselves. In our set-up it is the result of people rebelling against a self-serving, wrong-headed, oppressive, ruling class. The people themselves produce all the metrics needed. Governments ultimately serve at the will of the people. Without their acquiescence, government is illegitimate. The metrics tell us that this has now become the case.

Repeating History

I wonder what we'll say, somewhere down the line, after Israel is no more. No doubt, we will be angry and remorseful. At the same time, we'll be happy to have dodged the bullet once more. We'll be looking for someone to blame - Obama? Ahmedinejad? Ourselves? None of this will work, of course.

And the winner is ISRAEL!!! Someone will have hit upon the brilliant idea of blaming the victim. And we'll be quite comfortable with that. It's been done before. In fact, it's like killing two birds with the same stone - totally expedient - for someone without a conscience.

It's simply baffling to me how we can allow the worst parts of (recent) history to repeat themselves. While we point fingers and call each other 'Nazis' right here at home, we happily all but ignore the true reincarnation of Hitler in the Middle East.

We know exactly what worked and didn't work when we were dealing with the original Hitler; yet, we are hell-bend on making the very same mistakes again. Makes you wonder, doesn't it? Maybe there is a little bit of Hitler in each one of us.