MAYHEM

Feingold exposes himself. He thinks businesses exist to provide jobs for people. Wrong answer. Businesses exist to make a profit. Oh I know, ‘profit’ is a dirty word for these socialist Dems. But it can’t be helped. No profit; no business; no jobs.

My wife edits American law books over in India. They can hardly keep up. So many laws are being passed; so many addendums; clarifications; directives. They’re hiring like crazy. It’s become a real boon for Indian outsourcing.

Question: Why can’t the editing be done here in America? I hear there’s joblessness right here at home. I suspect it’s the same reason the major print media is dying. They’ve forgotten how to write anything more substantive than rank propaganda. At least that much hasn‘t been outsourced yet.
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A few threads ago, I mentioned the senseless beating death of Abelino Mazeriego in normally tranquil Summit, NJ. Since then there have been 11 attacks on Mexican day laborers on Staten Island, NY. (Staten Island can be seen from Summit.) Something sinister is going on - so much so, the Mexican government has become involved. The emphasis on the blogs has been on the outrage some feel over Mexican intrusion into our affairs. This morning, talk show host, John Gambling, discussed the issue with Police Commissioner Ray Kelly, who seemed at a loss for an explanation. He promised to beef up patrols.

Given that the attacks all have the same MO, it is highly unlikely that it’s random. There’s something behind it. I would suggest that police search popular social network sites. It’s likely that a call went out promoting this kind of mayhem.

Replicant Children vs. Tyrell

Time is a critical disciplinary element in what defines the human condition. As Jorge Luis Borges wrote in ’The Immortal’: "Death (or its allusion) makes men precious and pathetic. They are moving because of their phantom condition; every act they execute may be their last... Everything among mortals has the value of the irretrievable and the perilous."

Time, often said to be illusory, provides the framework within which we exist. Our ability to manage time effectively provides a measure of our effectiveness as human beings.

Even for those of the leisure class for whom time seems not to be of the essence, the need for precise scheduling somehow tends to assert itself. In William S. Burroughs’s book (and presumed semi-autobiographical) “Junky” (1953), the protagonist voluntarily submits to the timetable of his addiction. Also, often times, a child reared in an undisciplined parental environment, will later seek out the implicit discipline associated with some branch of the uniformed services in an effort to maximize his or her human potential.

It is significant that the Tyrell Corporation’s replicant slaves have been engineered to have only four-year life spans as to prevent them from developing emotions and the desire for independence – in other words, to become fully human.

Corporations – like the fictional Tyrell or the factual BP – clearly remain unconstrained by time. They - like the undisciplined young (and often reckless) - see themselves as eternally immortal. Yet, they too have need of a framework within which to operate and test their mettle. This framework is profit.

Leftists are quick to point out that the profit motive is rogue, out of control, and basically anti-life. When, in fact, profit is depended on a set of the strictest, most uncompromising laws in the universe. A business that is run badly cannot succeed. Going forward, a business plan is self-correcting at every turn. It is inexorably tied to the law of supply and demand and well managed risk which, in turn, is tied in no small measure to performance and customer expectations. If left to their own devices, corporations provide real value to their customers (which is you and I).

If corporations are interfered with for criminal or political purposes, they become cancerous. It is much more likely that corporations become rogue by political interference than the other way around.

It is unreasonable to blame BP for the oil spill in the Gulf. For one thing, anyone would be hard pressed to prove malicious intent. Such intent is infinitely more likely to have originated with some hard-nosed political agenda concern (of which BP may have become an unwitting victim).

Right now it seems that the stunted emotional growth of the replicant children that are presently running our government are far more culpable for the multiple messes that have accrued on virtually every front.

In the Valley of Elah

There have been a whole crop of Hollywood movies released recently that were declared to be ‘anti-war’ - hence, anti-Bush - ("Rendition", "In the Valley of Elah", "Body of Lies", etc.). Such films had been successfully dubbed "anti-American" by the 'vast right-wing conspiracy’ and, as a consequence, have done rather poorly at the box office; some went directly to DVD. It is only recently that a few of these have arrived at our local library and I've had a chance to see them (without having to go too far out of my way).

Overall, I was pleasantly surprised. These films are on the whole articulate, exciting, and very well made. Penn, Clooney, DiCaprio, Sarandon, etc., commonly associated with the Hollywood Left, are all first-rate actors. The scripts and direction are tight. There is an anti-war message, of course. But there is no doubt that these films are inspired which, for me, lifts them above the purely mechanical constructs of propaganda.

Even more significant is the fact that these films reflect the Zeitgeist. They ask the question, “What are we doing – and why?” No doubt, top to bottom, we have lost our way. We no longer understand war (which essentially amounts to “killing and breaking things”). We go to war trying not to kill; trying not to destroy. We go to war with the aim of ‘changing hearts and minds’; with an eye towards “nation building”. Then, we act surprised when we get our asses kicked.

Even more disturbing is what we’re doing to our military. By getting away from the essence of war, redefining it as a kind of charitable ‘meals on wheels’ operation, we effectively change the mission for which our military men and women have been trained. They then face a task (which even we have trouble articulating), without the slightest idea of how to approach it. Soldiers in today’s army don’t only have to worry about the enemy, but also about legal bureaucrats back home who want to score political points by hauling them into court.

Meanwhile, our sixth century enemy throw-backs have not yet been ‘enlightened’. They’re still quite comfortable fighting their wars under the old rules.

This is unacceptable. Either we fight to win; or we don’t fight at all. Either we are willing sacrifice the blood of our kids for some kind of tangible return, or we bring them back home. Containment is a job for the police. ‘Nation building’ is a job for churches and charities. The military ‘kills and breaks things’. That's all it does.

Our inability to grasp the nature and purpose of war is because we’ve abandoned the principle reason for it: PROFIT. We’ve cast ‘profit’ as a dirty word. Even if we are doing something for profit, we prefer not to articulate it as such. Typically we say we don’t go to war for oil – though that’s exactly what we’re doing. Then we catch ourselves and allow someone else to run off with the spoils. We’ve shed our blood and have nothing to show. But, at least our secular souls were saved. As we then root around to come up with an excuse for all the carnage of which we were clearly a part, we take comfort in the fact that once again the evil of all evils – our military – has been tarnished.