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Bretton Woods' Smoke-Filled Rooms

I have recently devoted considerable space on this blog to corruption in India and to India’s way of dealing with it once it came to light. We’ve seen that the Indian government had to be dragged kicking and screaming into cleaning up its act, largely by the efforts of one, Anna Hazare, who had begun a protest fast till death.

The Indian media jumped on it and splashed it all over the country, and the entire population – particularly its youth – mobilized to force the government to confront various issues. [Kudos to the Indian university professors who must have exerted considerable (positive) influence over their legions of ‘skulls-full-of-mush’ scholars.]

May I be so bold as to suggest that the corruption that has come to light in India so far – bribery, money laundering, dipping into the public trough, influence peddling; trial fixing, cover-up, etc. – is peanuts when compared to what’s going on in the United States today? Bluntly put, there is a cadre of crafty individuals who are working on stealing no less than an entire nation - lock, stock, and barrel. (Let’s just call a spade a spade.)

For a long time now, we’ve had a feeling that something is terribly wrong. It first showed up in policies that seemed utterly insane. It snowballed into the dubious results we are seeing today. These were entirely predictable but are somehow being summarily ignored. People who were beginning to smell a rat were systematically neutered, ridiculed and marginalized.

The things we presently argue about on blogs and on talk shows – the usual Democrat/Republican divide – are now utterly beside the point. This is pure diversion and blame-shifting fun. Even the Islamic vs. infidel argument, as well as the Socialism/Democracy debates we endlessly engage in, are hardly worth mentioning anymore. What is truly important is routinely hidden or swept into inaccessible places - like what’s happening as we speak up at Bretton Woods.

None of the usual left-wing rabble showed up to protest – only a handful to ‘tea party’ people. They were barred from the (closed door) proceedings.

What is going on in New Hampshire is a long way from having to hand a judge a few thousand rupees to get a favorable ruling in a traffic dispute. Though annoying to the individual parties involved, the outcome would hardly determine the fate of a nation.

We often wonder how it is possible to shred our Constitution in plain sight; how we can ignore our border security; how we can nullify contracts with the stroke of the executive’s pen; how we can allow our dollar to slip into oblivion; how we can elect a man to the highest office in the land about whom next to nothing is known; how we can tolerate a Congress that is predominantly ineffective except when it comes to rubberstamping outrage after outrage; how – with all that is happening around us – our media remains silent.

I’m not saying that the kinds of solutions to come out of Bretton Woods palaver are necessarily bad. It may well be the best thing since sliced bread. What is suspect, however, is that the public has been excluded. We are being shaped, and herded into taking positions without explanation. Thanks to our media, which have become pure, unadulterated left-wing propaganda mills; our universities, which have become (in essence) madrassas promoting hatreds and Pavlovian response – thanks to our educational system overall, critical thought in our nation seems to have run its course. We’ve all become victims of an uncertain scheme that, by my calculations, can only end up in servitude for most of us. This is not how it was supposed to be.

It is significant that the one man who had both an inkling of what is going on and the skill to impart its essence, has now been forced from the stage. His departure is being heralded by professional left-wing and right-wing talkers alike. Now, tell me again that we’re not being played by both sides; that there is not effectively only one side: Soros’ side.

Watch closely the choices we will be presented with in our next election charade. The whole thing will hinge on what Republicans manage to come up with. As it looks now, they’ll serve up losers. And even if some standard-issue Republican should catch the public’s fancy, he’ll most likely turn out to be a ‘schlemiel’ like the rest.

Look too at the ones who draw the lion’s share of the Left’s condemnation (Palin, Trump). It is they who, if given even half a chance, are most likely to buck the trends that have been carefully mapped out, and promoted for years - that are only now coming to fruition.

http://pkoelliker.blogspot.com/

Sleepless in Chatham (NJ)

Obviously, not everyone agrees. There must then be more than one side to the story. Russia, China, India, et al were maneuvered into ‘agreeing’. They agreed by voting ‘present’ – which is a way of saying, “Do what you want, but we’ll have no part of it.”

Action involves risk. Risk must be balanced by benefit. For far too long American foreign policy has excluded any notion of ‘benefit’. It has been unbalanced. In Iraq we never insisted on payback. Its oil is now going to our rivals. As the chaos and killing there continues, we cannot even claim ‘victory’ on that front. Neither do we insist on Libya’s oil in exchange for our effort. And indeed, Libya’s oil is already spoken for and going to those who voted ‘present’.

You would think that Obama, of all people, would understand the benefits that accrue by voting ‘present’; that voting otherwise engenders risk which, in turn, invites loss. It has been my contention that Obama – whether by way of retribution or an affinity for victimhood - deliberately invites loss. Neither revenge nor national suicide are attractive to anyone but himself.

Saw the French film “Of Gods and Men” last night. As my friend and I settled ourselves outside afterwards to discuss the merits of the film, a woman approached us. She clearly had been disturbed by it. She said it was the worst film she had ever seen. She said it was good to have someone to talk it out with and hoped that she would not have bad dreams.

It was basically an anti-war film. In addition, it blamed the West. As such, it entered the realm of propaganda. Propaganda can never rise to the level of art. It targets those lacking any clear cut principles …and leaves them sleepless.

http://pkoelliker.blogspot.com/

Value vs. Money

Again, this assumes that government can create jobs. Government cannot create jobs. It can create a climate conducive to job creation or it can do the opposite. The jobs government creates are not ‘real’ jobs. They are jobs dependent on political patronage.

Government can insert itself and re-distribute the wealth created by real jobs in the private sector, but it cannot create or re-distribute ‘value‘. The honest money poured into unproductive sectors is money wasted. The tipping point is reached when too much wastage starves the private sector (where value is created) out of existence.

With the rise of autocratic dictatorial regimes at the expense of democracies, it is inevitable that job creation suffers. This political trend has now also taken root in Washington.

America was well known throughout the world as a place where it was still possible to come and make something of oneself. The business climate was considered to be ‘friendly‘. This is changing. High taxes and regulations have virtually ground business in America to a halt. In order to stay in business these days you have to first ingratiate yourself to the party in power and then wait for them to give you your arbitrary allotment of wavers and handouts. It’s called crony capitalism and it never works well.

There’s no mystery as to how capitalism functions and how ‘real’ value is generated. A man goes to work for a firm and receives a salary. His salary is predicated on how much he can be expected to contribute to the firm’s bottom line. If his skills are independent of the firm’s structure, he can eventually go out and start his own business. He will then begin to hire people keeping the same principle in mind: he will pay them a percentage of what they can be expected to contribute to the new firm’s success.

An athlete is paid according to how many people his presence can bring into the stadium. An actor is paid according to how many people his talent can attract to movie theaters. It is their talent that is valuable. The money generated by any such transactions can go up in smoke in an instant. The value of individual talent, skill and perseverance remains. A good actor will always eat.

Not many of us are blessed with outstanding attributes such as John Batchelor’s golden-throated voice and keen wit; or even with the ability to think effectively on our feet. Yet, we too can be a part of the system. We have other, perhaps less spectacular, attributes to deal. And we too, if we apply ourselves, can earn a modest, but secure, living.

Enter big government that blocks all normal processes and throws the whole system into confusion. Now nobody can be secure. The rules change with the political winds. It’s difficult to plan and even harder to trust - and the whole thing breaks down to be replaced by … what?

At this point, it could be anything - a new currency, gold, indentured servitude, work camps. With capitalism discredited, one’s work can no longer save one. Things are apt to become a whole lot more arbitrary and complicated. For one thing, America may soon not have to worry about its immigration problem as opportunity continues to fade; and there won’t be much left to bother blowing up anymore.
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A note about education: Education no longer teaches discipline and skills. Education has become so devalued in America (and elsewhere) that it represents little more than a (hall) pass for entrance into the entrenched elite classes‘ washrooms. Additionally, education nowadays consists primarily of learning to spout political propaganda points.

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/

Street Fighting Man

I too marched on Washington in my day, ostensibly to protest against the Vietnam war. We fell into one of three groups: professional agitators, self-righteous moralists, and those who just came out to raise a little hell. Though I would never have admitted it at the time, I was part of the latter, the biggest, group. Despite the civic display of tightly choreographed, helmeted phalanx; water cannon and tear gas, I felt perfectly safe for I knew that the government - unlike those of then communist nations - would take utmost care to see to it that nothing would happen to us. If we really had been asked to risk life and limb, I’m sure that 99% of us would have stayed away.

As it was, for most of us, it amounted to no more than a day trip - an afternoon of staged, pot-enhanced high drama - participatory theater under bright skies.

In Britain, the operative word is 'hooliganism'. Behavior after sports events had become so bad, young Britains have been barred from attending similar events in other countries. In Europe, we’ve seen self-respect eroding for a long time. This is fertile soil for agitprop. It is to demonstrate that the government is essentially powerless. The issue of university fees is just pretext. In France, the raising of the retirement age from 60 to 62 is just pretext - a reason to come out into the streets in feigned (Street Fighting Man) anger and protest and smash things and poke a stick in the eye of authority for the sake of ritual rebellion alone - to vent, to explode into violence primarily because of some sense of individual dislocation or inadequacy that often accompanies the transition from infantilism.

Don’t tell me these people have any higher purpose in mind; don’t tell me they have any profound agenda - most of them - in their frenzied, out of control, pointless, pathetic pantomime. People with legitimate grievances do not behave like that.

…and it’s coming to America. It’s orchestrated by the Left. It is to undermine the nation, to overwhelm it, score propaganda points and render it utterly impotent. It’s revolution for revolution’s sake; to topple the elite; erase standards; nullify morality - to be replaced by the finality of tyranny. It’s AQ; it’s Al Sharpton; it’s community organizing; it’s the UN; unions; Bill Ayers; Rev. Wright. It’s George Soros. It’s Barack Hussein Obama.

http://pkoelliker.blogspot.com/

'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.

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.

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.

Krishna Is the Eighth Avatar of Vishnu

It's interesting that the once benevolent and generous gesture of giving a hand to those we determined to be the most needy world-wide, has now shed all pretenses and morphed into outright extortion.

I just finished watching the most delicious French comedy ever “My Best Friend” (’07) which contained the line, “You mean you pay to have people like you?” It sums up our progression from spontaneous giving, through paying for sex, to blackmail and extortion.

Speaking of movies, if there is still any doubt that there is a fifth column in this country that spares no expense in helping to create the impression that America is evil and must be defeated by any means possible in order to save the planet, that doubt can be put to rest with James Cameron’s AVATAR.

Over the years, Hollywood has always been very successful in creating powerfully persuasive fantasies that pit good against evil. Within a span of the past 50 years it has worked hard to define the antagonists. On one side is America; on the other is the rest of the world. America itself stands divided and is perched precariously on the cusp. It is within the private chambers of every American heart that the conflict will eventually be resolved.

AVATAR, stokes the notion that America is the single most potent destructive force on the planet. Visually, it employs the racial aspects of the tension. It hails a kind of back-to-the-earth tribalism as the answer to saving the planet or, in a larger sense, saving mankind’s soul. As such, it justifies any attack on the white man’s hegemony as warranted and totally acceptable. To Hollywood (by an extension of the logic) the shoe and the panty bombers are visionary new-age heroes.

This movie should do especially well in the Middle East, in Africa, Asia and South America. Though we have a significant number of domestic self-haters amongst us, most of the American movie-going public will recognize that it is they who are under assault by the predictable propagandists for the no-boundaries Left. Let’s put it in context: If during WWII, Hollywood had turned out movies such as AVATAR, we all would now be speaking German and eating Bratwurst. There would be no more Jews, Gypsies and whoever else Hitler might have set his sights on.

After the movie was over, my son remarked that AVATAR had the exact same plot of every movie he’s ever seen in the past ten years. This is a shame. Hollywood has everything it could possibly want at its disposal. Yet, it’s been working so doggedly to cheapen itself and ultimately bring about its own destruction. It used to be that ‘propaganda’ was a dirty word. At least, it was when I was growing up. Now there are galleries in Manhattan and on college campuses celebrating Soviet-era propaganda as high art.

No doubt, depending on who ultimately wins this fight, either AVATAR or Mel Gibson’s APOCALYPTO (AVATAR’s exact ideological opposite) will some day be celebrated as well.

Torture; torture; torture; etc

Torture; torture; torture; torture; torture; torture; water boarding; torture; torture; Bush; drill bits; torture; Cheney; Cheney; Cheney; Cheney; torture; torture; torture; torture; Torture, TORTURE; TORTURE; AMERICA TORTURES!!! Republicans torture. AMERICANS TORTURE; America is evil; AMERICA TORTURES. AMERICANS TORTURE. Americans torture the poor, angelic victims of Bush's evilness; America's evilness; torture; torture; torture....

Say it loud; say it proud, "America tortures!!!" It has a certain ring to it. "America tortures" - at least it did so under Bush. Bush is a criminal; so is Cheney; so are all those who don't agree with Obama - the town hall folks, for example. Obama doesn't torture. He just talks about it endlessly when he's in trouble at home - as with health care. Obama needs a bogeyman, a villain. Bush, Bush; Cheney; Bush, the torturer, the criminal; the lowest of the low; worse than Osama.

Torture, torture, say it often, say it loud. Print it in banner headlines; blare it from speakers. Write it on the walls: BUSH IS A TORTURER. Repeat: "Bush is a torturer!" ...and, by extension, all those who disagree (with Obama) are stained with the same mud.

---excerpts taken from Barry Hussein Obama's revised class (Columbia) notes, from a section under the heading, 'Propaganda'.