Cornerstone

For a long time now, money has trumped ideology. This is no longer the case – especially now that every dollar essentially amounts to an IOU. The ideologies of China and the Islamists share only a disgust of corrupted capitalism. Otherwise, they differ in significant ways. After the West has been defeated, these differences will come to the fore and begin to cause problems. China will have to tread pretty carefully for their alliance with Pakistan to work. In the Islamist’s eyes, they too are infidels, tolerated only because they are now brothers in arms.

Seldom discussed (except on Thursdays on The John Batchelor Show) is the pivotal role of Israel. We can pretty much predict how Israel is likely to react to an imminent existential threat for it shares our own sensibilities. Since Obama’s one vote-one man-one time election, it is rather our reaction to an attack on Israel that remains a question. I predict we will do nothing – this despite the clamor of the American people to step in to help.

Whether by its own effort or with the aid of someone else, Israel will survive. India may rise to the role of Good Samaritan. It has a strong a spiritual tradition and will inherently understand what is at stake. Do not summarily reject the spiritual dimension in all this; and don’t rule out China. They might well jump in as well, seeking to profit from the purely practical aspect of doing so. The Islamists will be defeated as they have defiled their religion. America will stand disgraced on the sidelines for the same reason.

And ‘the stone the builders rejected will once again become the cornerstone’ – Psalm 118:22.

http://pkoelliker.blogspot.com/

Barack Hussein Obama: The American President

Peter Koelliker replied to comment from NJ to IL | May 3, 2011 10:12 AM | Reply

Spengler is awesome. I’m glad you discovered him. He goes by a pseudonym and nobody really knows who he is. He is deep and keenly aware of what’s going on. He has Obama figured out to down to the patterns of his crib blanket.
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All is forgiven. Obama has redeemed himself. In one masterful stroke he has managed to turn a failed presidency into a great success – this according to major media reports this morning. Were elections held today, Obama would win handily over any (Republican) opponent. It was he, after all, who succeeded in slaying America’s most recognizable enemy and killer of nearly 3000 innocents back on 9/11/01.

Osama has been crowing about it ever since, taking credit and chipping away at America’s confidence. Quite beside the point is the fact that bin Laden was never the architect or inspiration of al-Qaeda; that al-Qaeda was always a burgeoning movement that chose to adopt bin Laden’s human face in order to present itself to the world.

There are now millions of other names and faces associated with al-Qaeda just as there are now also a multitude of faces competing to represent America. Al-Qaeda is really only an abstraction, quite like the idea of ‘America’ is an abstraction. The president of a country enjoys an enormous advantage over all others insofar as he has been proclaimed ‘leader’ by whatever means that nation decides to conduct its leadership lottery – this, quite apart from any particular ideology.

That much is true for any street gang or family. Someone always comes to the fore to assume responsibility for maintaining the clan’s security and giving voice to its ambitions. Seldom – though it has happened – does a leader actively champion the clan’s demise.

Ascension to leadership usually involves a killing – either virtual or direct – some demonstration of power and the willingness to use it. Bin Laden certainly fit the bill on that account. What he managed to do was audacious and unexpected. It rocked the most powerful nation back on its heels. We never quite recovered and remained on the defensive. Now, Obama took it right back to them by this (alleged) high profile killing that cannot go unnoticed. It means that al-Qaeda has weakened just enough to let it happen.

The truth is that al-Qaeda has changed. It is no longer a fledgling, narrow Islamic-based, anti-colonialist movement. It has grown into a global force with many powerful allies. Bin Laden’s brand was no longer adequate to encompass its expanded mission statement that now involves nations and a wholesale shift away from capitalism. Bin Laden had become old hat, passé. He was expendable.

The new face is Barack Hussein Obama’s. He has shed his timidity and shown that he now means business. And we applaud the resurgence of (the new) America.

http://pkoelliker.blogspot.com/

Trump Drops the F-Bomb in Vegas

OMG, Trump swore in Vegas! That’s it! The man’s finished; toast; done.

Show me anybody who’s never dropped trou in Vegas. Yes, but… Trump wants to be President.

Think about it! Who would actually want to be President at this point? Do you really think The Donald needs this to embellish his resume? It’s become an emergency call; a mission of mercy: Saving the country and all. Haven’t you been reading the papers?

Frankly, Americans are feeling they’re under siege. They’re watching their savings diminish; their dollar crashing. They’re being asked to contribute more and more hard-won treasure to bolster the fortunes of their own firing squad.

“We’ll just club you to death if you don’t pay us,” the executioner’s union shouts gaily in unison.

Governors are crying out in fiscal pain. Industry is crying out. Ditto, taxpayers. They say that change must come from the inside. In Massachusetts, they recently voted to curb the unions. That is to say, Democrats voted to curb the unions – in the dead of night, no less. They too were afraid.

In case you haven’t noticed, we’re a Democrat country. If change is to come, it must come from within. We voted Democrat in 2008 – not this. This is not Democrat. This is tyranny; socialism – by whatever un-American name you want to call it

Republicans still don’t get it. They are not the answer. The nation as a whole has already rejected them and their ideologies. The tea parties consist of Republicans and Democrats. They are alarmed. Nothing like this has ever happened before. The Democrats in Washington are not Democrats. Trump is a Democrat. We can accept that. And he’s a real Democrat – not a socialist masquerading.

So, let’s be clear: The political fight in 2012 is not going to be between Republicans and Democrats. Republicans have long since taken themselves out of the game. The fight will be between Democrats and Socialists. Socialists are the enemy of America – Democrats are not. Democrats do not support $6 gas. They do not support Hamas. They do not support a weak dollar; a weakened nation; inflation; wealth re-distribution; chaos; racism. They do not seek to take away our liberties and control every blessed aspect of our lives. It’s the Socialists who support all these un-American things. It is they who must be defeated.

Indeed, if we had true Democrats running the show, we’d be out of the woods by now.

http://pkoelliker.blogspot.com/

Trump: Political Outsider

Predictably, the media is following Obama’s lead, now by attacking Trump. They’re doing it in a kind of back-handed way by painting him as a ridiculous cartoon-like character - in the same way they routinely report on the tea parties. They will not engage him on facts.

Anti-Trump elements are hard at work leaking Trump’s past sins. Curiously, they see their most potent card as the one that says Trump liked liberal Democrats – this, at the very same time they try to paint Obama as a centrist. It’s absurd, really, but it seems to have worked, at least with several prominent conservative commentators who have now come out full-bore against a possible Trump candidacy.

Callers to talk shows do not seem to be particularly impressed by the tactic. Trump still appears to score high among the unwashed despite what the media (right or left) say about him. Their argument is that the next election should not hinge on the issue of Democrat vs. Republicans; but rather on patriot vs. non-patriot (or anti-American). Trump scores high on being a patriot.

Additionally, Trump is helped by being a Washington outsider, i.e. he does not identify closely with either one of the parties. There is broad dissatisfaction among the voting public with the candidates both parties have put forth. Trump, so far, is the only candidate under consideration who transcends party affiliation. Hence, come election time, we may come to recognize that party loyalty or a sense of entitlement (for years spent in support of either party) is no longer an issue for voters.

Trump’s accomplishments are palpable. They lie outside the political realm. He is seen as a businessman whose success has hinged on his ability to roll with the rough-and-tumble of capitalism. Claims, that some of his ventures have failed, only serve to burnish his standing as an unabashed capitalist. Failure (right along with success), after all, is one of the hallmarks of capitalism.

Trump is everything Obama is not. Obama is an ideologue and, worse, a politician. As such, he is beholden to what is seen as a corrupt system. Obama has been repeatedly promoted by affirmative action within a system that has failed to deliver broadly. He is the graduate who is rumored to be incapable of reading the words on his ceremonial sheepskin. His thesis (if any) likely consisted of writing the word ‘Marxism’ on the back of a cocktail napkin. He was the one chosen for his overall appeal to would-be donors at a school for the clinically retarded to trumpet the (special) curriculum’s successes. He consistently blames opponents for any shortcomings.

Trump does not blame; he confronts. He speaks distinctly and openly. He appears to shy away from making empty promises. Yet, he makes it clear that he seeks to fashion our nation’s policies on the basis of America’s self-interest.

One measure of Trump’s political standing among voters is the media’s stance toward him. They hate him. He reminds me a little bit of Reagan, who routinely brushed off mainstream reporters’ inane questions as one would brush off a flake or two of dandruff on a dark suit.

In a significant sense, our next election cycle will revolve around the overwhelming desire of the public to defeat major media. Politics (as usual) is likely to drop way down on the list of voters' primary concerns.

http://pkoelliker.blogspot.com/

Where Is The Birth Certificate?

What explains Jerome Corsi’s book, “Where’s the Birth Certificate?, shooting up to # 1 on Amazon where it has remained ever since? Apparently, people are not convinced that it means nothing, no matter how loudly members of both political parties, in conjunction with the media, proclaim the idiocy of even asking the question. While Americans have always taken political talk with a grain of salt, their wholesale distrust of the media (even so-called right-wing media) is relatively new.

The issue of Obama’s birth certificate has become the central question being asked everywhere – in barber shops, in the supermarket – “Just who the hell is this guy?”

While Obama’s policies plainly expose him as a Marxist, it is not necessarily this that irks the public. In America, isms alone have seldom held the power to inspire. We tend to operate on a far more basic level. We have difficulty in grasping abstractions. We ask for drivers licenses, proof of insurance and registration after car accidents. We do not ask if you are a Christian, Hindu, Marxist or whatever. It seems incredible to us that while witnessing this train wreck of an administration that no one is demanding a priori proof of legitimacy. The fact that it is even an issue being fought out in the courts is astounding to us.

Ironically, if we were to find out that Obama is indeed native born, it would be even worse for us. It would signal that his aggressive ideology is entirely domestic and now apparently mainstream. Many of us would be unable to recall when exactly the change took place, and ask ourselves, “How could we have missed it?”

We didn’t miss it. It’s happening now. And now is the time to get to the bottom of it.

In large part, we are still a nation of laws. We grumble, but we pay our taxes. It is entirely understandable that the authorities on every level are concerned. If it were to come out that Obama is indeed a fraud, all bets are off. Nobody in their right mind could accept that lying down. We either insist on immediate retribution or we cross over into lawlessness.
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One can only see others; one cannot know them. The fallacy in Buddhism is the notion that one can divorce oneself from certain things and remain aloof. This is only true up to a point: one may come to know the depth of self and find it empty. (Interesting to note that the depth of self is something one cannot see.)

As this might relate to me specifically, I feel comfortable writing words on my laptop. My laptop is my Peepal tree. I am blessed by its leaves that give me shade.

I do not claim to know more than what I write, and vice versa. I am blessed by the leaves of the Peepal tree that sometimes alight on my head. As for knowing – only God knows.

http://pkoelliker.blogspot.com/

Blowing Up Bridges

It’s on! The trash talking has begun. And make no mistake, it’s being encouraged by the White House. Expect one of the dirtiest campaigns in recent history.

We are all the same. It should be easy to find common ground. It is not. Enter ideology. Ideology forces us into templates that do not fit well. It tends to pervert our true natures - to live and let live - and puts the accent on confrontation. This is generally needed in times of war - in the face of threat. In peacetime it seems a silly way to behave.

Since Barack Hussein Obama has been in office, there has been no peace. It’s almost as if, while we were living our lives, draft notices began arriving in the mail. We’ve been forced to take sides - one side being America.

Obama is a warrior alright, even if Libya doesn’t quite speak to the issue. Warriors do not compromise. They dismiss the broad range of the painter’s palette and divide the world into black and white. Again, this is only appropriate to war.

“You’re either for us, or against us.” No shades of gray even.

Who is POTUS fighting? America, of course. This has been hard for Americans to swallow. They thought he was on their side.

Similarly, it’s been difficult to square POTUS’ color scheme. The white hats have traditionally been ‘good’; the black hats, ‘bad‘. We’ve been taught this from watching John Wayne westerns. POTUS is black and tells us he’s white - while he paints us black as sin.

Something does not add up here. We’ve known it from the start. Now we’re starting to feel uncomfortable with it. We read about the soldiers in Syria who are refusing to shoot protesters being shot by their own - the worst of all fates. We wonder about how the term ‘conscientious objector’ might fare in this climate.

Voting for a black president was supposed to solve all this. We thought it would bridge the eternal divide. Instead, we find the existing bridges blown up and not enough shovel-ready jobs to build new ones. Sources tell us that China is building bridges like crazy - while we are tearing ours down. Some of us are trapped behind enemy lines.

Carlos Castaneda tells us that each life represents a complete, self-contained universe; that two people standing side by side must be seen as two such universes; that these cannot be commingled, except by event affecting both. Ideology disregards the deeper meaning of this lesson. It seeks to bridge chasms (that cannot be bridged) by hostile rhetoric, fomenting non-existent threat and, finally, by outright aggression. Thereby, the individual is lost and replaced by ordinance.

Love lost in the ashes of ritual (s)laughter.

http://pkoelliker.blogspot.com/

Burning Down Through the Core

For the Left, recent and ongoing disasters as we are currently witnessing in Japan, America’s economic meltdown, ever increasing turmoil in the Middle East - all are proof positive (to paraphrase the now famous words of the Right Rev. Wright and others) that the chickens are coming home to roost.

The White House is caught up in a fever of partying; at the State Department, they are busy toasting each other while barely suppressing smiles; the greens are celebrating the death of the nuclear power industry; and in Ramallah, they’re handing out sweets.

As long as I can remember, I’ve had no facility with numbers. If you were to ask me to give you our town’s exit number (on Rt. 78) - even after having lived here more than 50 years - I would first have to consult a map. Only (the) names (of towns) make sense to me. Similarly, all the dates JB tries so hard to familiarize us with in his quest to imbue us with some level of historical perspective mean nothing to me. As such, I have only a rudimentary concept of time. I have to make do simply with past, present and future. As such, time’s metrics are of no use in my own calculations - and neither are Kudlow’s numbers.

I can close both eyes; I can close my right while keeping my left one open, but I can’t close my left eye alone. There’s simply nothing there to do it with. I do not consider myself ‘retarded’. It’s rather that I’ve had to accept the fact that I am missing a faculty that most others take for granted, much like sight or hearing, etc.; senses, that often are said not to enhance, but to limit our perception. We are doomed to see only a narrow band of light. With sound it’s pretty much the same. Anything outside the narrow frame that constitutes our reality, though it exists, we cannot perceive and often will not acknowledge.

Such blind spots and many others - such as a failure to recognize God - are common.

The Left’s failure to recognize the difference between good and evil is nonetheless astounding to me. They’ve managed to blur the line so much as to put both on equal footing. A crisis, such as the one currently unfolding in Japan (admittedly still in its early stages); the crashing of the dollar; rising food and fuel prices; etc. seem not to be regarded as tragedy but rather as an opportunity to advance ideological agendas. Any crisis can be used as an interlude in which to decide which way the dust will settle and then to side with the most likely outcome - and declare victory. Therefore, the end game is always the same: “revolution” (without principle or morality).

This, it seems to me, is where we are today. I think the word for it is ‘opportunism’. It is rank fecklessness and seems to guarantee success in reaching the lowest level (at which water collects and then stagnates). The lowest level is always easiest to ‘achieve', even if it were to involve the seldom perceived extreme of burning down through to the core.

http://pkoelliker.blogspot.com/

Too Civilized

It seems we have become too ‘civilized’ to fight wars with guns. In fact, guns are now classified as being pretty much in the same category as Chinese toxic toys. So, what do we do now? How do we fight?

We now use food, currencies, unemployment, propaganda and promises as weapons. And even so, there must be blood. We haven’t yet given up entirely on the puritanical idea of requiring the blood of a sacrificial lamb - a price paid - to give substance to any effort. Israel.

America is losing. America will survive, but in greatly diminished state. Our anachronistic weapons will no longer save us. Our money is worthless. We are dispirited. We are forever reacting. We have no plan. Go with the flow; jump aboard. Better late than never. The flow is toward chaos. Hang on! We are going down.

It is now our official policy, to draw back; to hide in the reeds, watching as our house of cards collapses. We have no strategy, no will - only ideology; ideology which says that whatever anybody else does is good. We have been wrong all along. Bush. The terrorists are right. They, at least, are fighting for a cause. We have no cause. We have no religion. The almighty dollar crashes and burns like the twin towers in Lower Manhattan.

We hate ourselves. We promote the chief haters to important positions. We teach our kids to hate themselves - their country, their parents, their heritage.

Change. It’s coming. It’s been coming for a long time. We hope for the best: collective salvation; deus ex machina in the form of Islam, perhaps?

It no longer matters how we got here. The dominos are falling. I’m currently reading a delightful book, a novel by R. K. Narayan, “A Tiger for Malgudi”. The headmaster of the school is hiding in the rafters, watching the the sage lead the beast to safety. The town’s folk, skeptical at first, marvel at the ease with which their humble ‘savior’ handles the animal which turns out to be smarter than all the bureaucratic heads, paralyzed by fear, put together.

So we fight; for fight we must. To get what we want; or to keep what we believe to be ours. We use all our modern tools to our best advantage, even while we now openly question which side our general is on.

http://pkoelliker.blogspot.com/

Brave New World

The mood in this country is palpable. There are tripwires everywhere. It has nothing to do with what happened in Arizona or anywhere. Hat tip to Sarah Palin who finds herself in the eye of the storm. Perhaps she is stupid after all. Any sane person would be running for the hills. But, I suspect, she’s simply unafraid - a brave, young woman, just wanting to serve, and willing to put herself at risk for what she truly believes, trusting that’s what an increasingly timid America wants as well.

Americans are a practical sort. They view elections largely as a distraction, something that takes time away from their own routines and concerns. Back in 2008, confronted with the distraction of elections once again, they just wanted to get it over with. They hurriedly consulted the Yellow Pages and made their pick. “They’re all the same,” they concluded. “One black; one white (in the proverbial chocolate box). They all taste sweet. It doesn’t really matter.” But they made one huge mistake.

While looking under the “B’s” for “builder”, they mistakenly opened their phone books to the “D’s” and picked a name at random under the category, “Demolition”. Now, both the client and the hired hand are upset. Obama thinks what he’s doing is right.

I’m re-reading the book, ’Brave New World’, I’ve had lying around here since high school. It might have been on a suggested summer reading list back in the late sixties. “Re-reading” might well be a stretch. I don’t think I ever read it - only the first few pages, perhaps. Now, I find, it basically describes two paths, one inward and one out. Both are infinite. Neither has much of anything to do with appearances (or Maya, if you wish). Huxley makes it a point to describe the civilized world as perfect and clean. On the other hand, the savage world is undisciplined and dirty. There is disease, degradation and aging. Yet, an undercurrent of revolt seems to run stronger just below the surface in the civilized world. When the D.H.C is exposed, it acts as a tripwire and all hell breaks loose.

Obama, and liberals on the Left in general, are pursuing the outward path, seeking to regulate every facet of human behavior. Many have tried this. They’ve all meant well; but they’ve failed every time. There’s nothing to suggest that giving it a bath and new clothes will make it any more acceptable.

This outward journey alone is clearly not sustainable. It results in an edifice that must crack and splinter under its own weight. Life and its expression will not be contained. Individuals will not entirely submit to either God or Ford. Like the roots of trees that push and probe for water and, in the process, undermine foundations, the human spirit will not be held by one single ideology. It will increasingly turn inward, find nourishment there and, at the appropriate time, burst forth. It will bleed and excrete terrible poisons. But that only shows it’s alive in contrast to the Dems’ pale, bloated, carcass-like, Botox vision that can promise only inexhaustible supplies of soma tablets.

http://pkoelliker.blogspot.com/

Would You Marry Him?

A little girl I once knew would always ask when someone said they liked so-and-so, “Would you marry him?” The truth be told, I don’t much care for Putin. I know he’s corrupt and vindictive. There’s not very much that speaks in his favor.

What I do care about is my own government spouse, the one with her hands perpetually in our pockets: Barack Hussein Obama. I used to think that Obama and Putin were very much alike. My only published article (on another website) made the point that Obama was not so much a Marxist as he is corrupt. I have since tempered my assessment somewhat; recognizing that, in the end, it probably comes out to the same.

Obama, unlike Putin, appears to be ideologically driven. Does that make him less or more dangerous than someone like Putin? Hard to say. In Obama’s case it only complicates things. No one rightly knows where Obama’s corruption ends and his ideology begins. The two appear to run parallel. Whereas ideology can be excused by the faithful (and even by those in the loyal opposition), corruption remains a crime in any language.

What is surprising is that Putin appears to be getting away with it. The mechanisms he has put in place are virtually foolproof. Only the truth seems to be leaking out albeit at the edges.

Whereas we can ague openly amongst ourselves as to Obama’s true motives (obviously, ‘socialism’ does not scare anybody anymore), we waste precious time while the dissolution of our nation continues. In Russia, the argument is over. The only thing left is government spin with an occasional endorsement from outside.

Russia is in deep doo-doo. That is, its people are not free. That is to say, it’s people are poor and destined to remain so. There is no ideology to cushion their pain.

It’s winter and it’s cold in both Russia and America. It is of no benefit to share a bed with either one of their leaders.

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/

Kanthapura

The hard Left is not only anti-American; they’ve now ratcheted up the stakes and revealed themselves as being anti-human as well: Anything non-human must be preserved and protected at the expense of individuals. To the Left, humans are evil interlopers on a near-perfect planet. It is no wonder that they support abortion, eugenics and land grabs.

There’s something sick in this and the sickness has now spilled over into our politics. Except, they think we’re sick as well. We are often all too quick to accept their premise, after which point they’ve already won the argument.

Environmentalism has become as potent as Islam. When one flies internationally these days, the screen on the back of the seat in front of you shows the aircraft’s progress across the oceans and over the landmasses. The maps fail to show borders. Often there’s a disclaimer, saying that the maps are non-political; that national borders are deliberately omitted. There are so many border disputes at the moment, the airlines thought it best to avoid the issue entirely. Instead, only the locations of towns are given. These then can be seen as city states while the land around them is a kind of no-man’s land - fly-over country - to be randomly allotted to service the cities as is deemed appropriate. Nations are no longer willing to defend national borders. And indeed, the whole concept of national borders is rapidly growing irrelevant.

What is growing in importance is ideology. And ideology knows no borders. It has long been a dream of the Left to erase all borders and become global. The promise is peace. Unfortunately, conflict will never disappear. There will always be killing. In fact, in the absence of borders, wars may become even more virulent and deadly - as in civil war; pitting neighbor against neighbor, brother against brother, etc.

How does one fight such a war?

I have recently read “Kanthapura”, a novel by Raja Rao. In it he describes a winning strategy. He details how Gandhi’s influence on the grass roots built an invincible army against which the Crown could not win. The secret was peaceful resistance - with an emphasis on ‘peaceful’.

Most trouble in the world originates with ego. Take ego out of the equation, and one literally becomes invincible. This is a lesson the Tea Parties should take to heart, for the fight is drawing near. As the concept of borders crumbles and the emphasis shifts to ideology, the great armies that have so heroically defended us in the past become increasingly useless. We will need to depend largely on ourselves for survival. Rao’s Gandhi may have shown us the way.

http://pkoelliker.blogspot.com/

Destiny Demands a Decision

In some ways Paul Ryan and pols of any persuasion are like Obama: ideologues. They present themselves as right or left cut-outs and hope to sell it to a multifaceted public. The public resists. It understands the ruse. They ask, "Why should anyone reduce the rich and complex organism of himself (or group) to a formula so simple, so rudimentary, so primitive?

"And if ever the suspicion of his manifold persona should dawn on him… and break through his illusion of the single ideology he espouses, and perceive that every individual self is made up of a bundle of selves and interests, he has only to say so and at once the media puts him to pillory, calls science to aid, establishes the efficacy of padded cells, seeking to protect humanity from the necessity of hearing the truth. Why then waste words on proclamations, plans, pledges, and roadmaps that every thinking man accepts as self-evident, that America totters on the edge of existential threat, when a mere utterance of it is a breach of taste?”

What was true in Hermann Hesse’s day (in italics) is certainly true now. Perhaps even more so. For far too long we have used a shorthand for governance - Republican and Democrat; conservative and liberal; etc - while glossing over the fact that we were spinning the mesh of our web in an increasingly tighter and suffocating weave.

Now we have arrived, at a particularly virulent form of socialism, one that seeks to quash every dare of liberty and we ask ourselves, How has this happened? We were more than willing to entertain strange, even alien, notions. But we did so primarily out of curatorial interest, to be able to wag our fingers and proclaim ourselves better. American exceptionalism was ingrained in us. We never thought there was ever the possibility of letting it slipping away.

Now we find ourselves engaged in a great struggle. It is composed of a myriad of smaller struggles and each skirmish we win produces yet another head - or three. Are we willing to invest everything, or will we accept something as insipid as compromise. It seems to me we’ve been compromising all along. It’s even gone beyond face-saving. We’re into the real stuff now. Destiny demands a decision.

http://pkoelliker.blogspot.com/

Prairie Fires

Oliver Stone views the world through an ideological lens. Boring. Still, it’s instructive. Stone likes Castro, Che, Chavez and Obama. He is telling us exactly who Obama is: an out-and-out communist.

Was gratified today to hear that William Ayers was denied emeritus status by the University of Illinois. Ayers’ bid was blocked by Christopher Kennedy, a son of the late Sen. Robert F Kennedy, a Chicago businessman, who insisted he did not want to honor a man who dedicated one of his books, “Prairie Fire”, to his father’s killer, Sirhan Sirhan. The vote last Thursday by the University’s Board of Trustees was unanimous.

Ayers is said to be close to Barack Hussein Obama. This is just another indication of how far the Democrat Party has drifted to the Ultra Left. When we talk about our country having been taken hostage by the Democrat Party we err. The Democrat Party itself has been taken hostage. It is no longer the Party of the Kennedys, or the Clintons for that matter. (Though Hillary bears watching closely.) It has retained the name ‘Democrat’ and even claims to support such trappings as free and fair elections, checks and balances, and the overall idea of representative government. (Every totalitarian regime does the same to project the illusion of legitimacy.)

The fact is that the Democrat Party of today is a party with all the bells and whistles of Marxism. Whereas Obama may just be a puppet, the amiable, partying, putting face of the party, those pulling the strings are revolutionaries. Their game plan is well underway and they will not rest until every American is enslaved by an uncompromising, unworkable ideology in the rubble of what once was a free and proud nation.

Every Tea Party member understands this on some level. The counterforce is considerable and growing. In fact, going by the numbers alone, it has become overwhelming. Numbers, however, mean nothing to revolutionaries. They will use every means possible to achieve their goals.

We’re in for a rough ride, folks! For those of us who align themselves with the ideals that have made America great in the past, it is apt to become the fight of our lives. Losing is no longer an option.

http://pkoelliker.blogspot.com/

Too Many Good People Are Getting Hurt

Current popular lore has it that Democrats, Leftists and liberals are nurturing and caring, always looking to curb human excesses, exploitation, and the oppression (by industry) of their adoring masses. On the other hand, Republicans and conservatives are seen as predatory, smart, solitary, and dangerously self-reliant. In truth, it’s not quite as simple as all that. Within each category there exist both leaders and followers. The leaders on either side have actually more in common than what both have in common with each of their assumed disparate flock. Simply put, it all boils down to leaders and followers, ideology representing the pigskin for each team to advance for the pleasure of the delirious, cheering crowd in the stands.

All this would be very nice if after the game we could just go home, put our feet up in front of the telly while downing a couple of brews. The problem arises when the deadly serious, highly motivated men on the field demand their share of the take way beyond the fair value of the ticket price - win or lose - from the good folk who consent to watching the game.

The inflated egos of the players demands that their followers tow the party line and wear the team colors both on and off the field. They see to it that anyone refusing to go along be stripped of their innate right to belong.

Thus ideology is assigned - Democrat or Republican - while the game rages on in Washington. Independents are courted ceaselessly by both sides. It is beyond either side to imagine that someone would actually opt to choose ‘neither of the above’. Yet, as it becomes increasingly obvious that the game is fixed, ‘neither of the above’ increasingly becomes the appropriate choice.

It has become virtually impossible to ignore the game. Our last election made it obvious that elections set the tone. While it remains a matter of dispute just what the song should sound like, most of us have come to regret our choice. Naturally, we will choose a different tune the next time around - but we will do so with reservations. After all, we’d already tried the other one that, in the fog of time, now seems to have been better than what we have now; but which nevertheless fails to fully explain how we’ve managed to get here so fast. Clearly, Republicans are licking their chops in anticipation of a major blowout favoring them.

This in itself is worrying. Who among us expects Republicans to do much to turn things around? Who among us does not suspect that it’s all just a set-up for Obama’s second term?

Liberal leaders are just as crafty and resourceful as their conservative counterparts. They could match wits with each other any time of day. Do not put it beyond them to collude with each other behind the scenes trying to pull off a ‘good cop/bad cop’ routine.

Right now we’ve just finished witnessing a classic case of crony capitalism. The government indicts a major investment firm to much fanfare while promising them untold billions (just out of earshot). The investment house takes it lying down. Meanwhile, the government passes finreg, largely on the strength of said indictment. The very next day the case is resolved with a ceremonial slap on the wrist. Could anything be more obvious?

It’s not ideology; it’s become outright theft. And we’re the one’s left holding the bag. I wish I could laugh, but too many good people are getting hurt.

American Universities Doing Their Part

My neighbor and his family are currently away, vacationing in Japan. They are expected back this weekend. They will be here for approximately a week and then they’re off to sunny France for an additional two weeks. Both he and his wife are immigrants. He works for Google.

Look, education costs are crushing alright. I know; I put two kids through college. Both turned out alright and have jobs, thank God. But higher education in America has ceased being education in the classical sense. Instead, it has become a ticket for entry into the upper classes. The basics are no longer stressed. What is critical is that one conforms to and shows promise in advancing a specific ideology. The lower grades have essentially become day care and PC engines of social conditioning.

Education in America has become pure fluff. This is why we require foreigners to innovate, build, and maintain whatever remains of our industrial and financial base. In this we have already been overtaken by what we condescendingly refer to as the Third World (primarily Asia). Since fluff, like financial derivatives, can be priced at whatever the gullible are prepared to bear, education has become a toxic investment.

It has come to my attention that major American colleges and universities are looking to open up campuses in India. Will these be having American teachers? I doubt it. Perhaps there’s a strategy emerging here. It has been said that the best way to bring about the downfall of a nation is to export liberalism to it. Let no one claim that American universities are not doing their part.

Degrees Of Brutality

So, at last we’ve come full circle. We’re back to practicing the absurd - yet irresistible - game of racial politics. If the election of Barack Hussein Obama was to have fixed anything, it was precisely this. Instead the racial divide within our country has widened since Obama’s been in office. Anyone who disagrees with his radical policies is now automatically labeled ‘racist‘. That would include upwards of 70% of us.

There is a solution. The President could make use of his bully pulpit and tell everybody to just cool it. In the area of race, no white chief executive could have made much of an impact; it‘s an opportunity that is open only to blacks. Instead Obama remains silent. He is the dog who doesn’t bark, which leads to the inescapable conclusion that he actually wants it this way.

The first thing we have to realize about this is that it’s not about color. It’s about class. If it were about a hierarchy based on color, we would all be growing the same color flowers in our gardens. There’s nothing magical about skin color. In Hinduism, the god Krishna is depicted as (random) blue, simply to set him above the rest.

The world over, it has long been apparent that the white race as a group has enjoyed greater comfort and success - albeit, by it’s own definition of that success - than others. Now conditions have become ripe for the rest of the world to challenge the whole notion of ‘success‘. Within our own nation, meritocracy has been largely supplanted by the notion of entitlement. This is why the answer to 2+2 no longer matters.

Similarly, commonly used terms have been modified. ‘Success‘, for instance, no longer means success. It means ‘oppression‘; or, if you wish, ‘slavery‘. This is why blacks in our public schools are encouraged by peers to fail and not to be seen as playing by the rules of the ‘oppressor‘. As such, all knowledge that had been traditionally taught in our schools has now been downgraded to rank propaganda, promoting a largely leftist, egalitarian agenda.

The reason Obama cannot produce his school records is because there are none. He is the product of affirmative action which eschews merit as a standard for achievement. It was telling early on when he seemed not to know the precise number of states that make up our union. To him such lapses are of no consequence. Any number - even one that happens to coincide with the exact number of Arab states - would have earned him a passing grade.

What matters most is ideology. Ideology easily flows into the vacuum that typifies ignorance. Racial politics is retrograde. Yet we can expect more - not less - of it as the 44th presidential term progresses. It has always been an convenient political tool for dividing people up into groups, sowing suspicion, and setting them against each other. If the white race were to disappear overnight, it would not solve the problem.

On a local New York radio talk show this morning I heard about a school out on Long Island, where the students of one school had to be moved lock stock and barrel to another, a mile and a half away. It seems the original area is no longer safe. Gang activity has become so rampant as to render local authorities helpless. Gangs mentioned in the report were the ‘bloods‘, the ‘crips‘, and ‘MS-13‘. Whites were not known to be involved.

When affirmative action supplants success, new hierarchies begin to proliferate like weeds in a garden. Hierarchical behavior is sewn seamlessly into the human condition - like language and having to breathe. In Wyandanch the new hierarchy is apparently based on degrees of brutality.

Elections Are Aproaching

If you have read some of my most recent postings, you may have come to recognize that one of the tenets of modern pop-ideology – of which both Bush and Obama are adherents – is that borders no longer matter. This goes along with the trend marked by an erosion of property rights. Hence, we do not defend our borders and we hold the hapless owner - whose home may have been violated by an uninvited intruder - responsible for any harm that may have accrued to the interloper. The condemnation of Israel for attempting to protect its borders is nearly universal.

In truth, it has become impractical to protect one’s borders as nationalism has faded in importance and ideology has taken its place. Ideology knows no borders. It eddies and pools wherever the like-minded happen to reside. For them, borders represent an anachronism that is no longer worth defending.

Trouble along the border has assumed the status of a pernicious video game challenge to which we routinely sacrifice half-measures – as has war in general. Anyway, this is how it reads in the academic texts carefully studied in our colleges and universities. Unfortunately (for us), the rest of the world is not quite so advanced. They are still inclined to play by the old rules. They see our border travails as a breach by which to infiltrate and capture territory. They have plenty of useful idiot help from inside.

Europe has long ago succumbed to this one-world pop-ideology. The Eurozone was the result. Europe now finds itself threatened by economic collapse in Greece [as well as in several other countries (PIIGS)]. The disaster could have been easily predicted. Submarines and oil tankers are built in a series of chambers. Should one chamber rupture, it can be sealed off to prevent catastrophic damage to the rest of the ship.

But, never mind. Chaos along our border areas has become yet another tool in our rogue government’s hands. It represents yet another fuse lit that could ignite the whole nation - giving the government cause to crack down on all of us. Totalitarianism is on the march. No wonder, this administration is so eager to stir the pot where and whenever it can. Elections are approaching.