My 300th Post

OK, I knew, when I started this blog, that I had a bunch of stuff to say about a bunch of things, and that this would be a good outlet – immediate, accessible, amenable to comments and updates, and so on. What I didn't suspect was that I would have quite this much to say about quite this many things... but hey, if I don't say it, who will? (Not to be grandiose or anything, but who else says, or even thinks, a lot of this stuff? Of course, that could also be a sign of insanity... but I prefer to give it a bit higher valuation.) Essentially, my rule of thumb is, “Say the unsayable, think the unthinkable.” And in this age of crushing “political correctness” that is a fairly radical program, especially when you're not consistently aligned with any political party, organization, or “cause”. I like to think of myself as falling in some sort of n-space among libertarianism, paleoconservatism, and traditional Roman Catholicism, with a 60s bohemian twist, a strong sense of irony, and a love of wordplay and hyperbole. What this all adds up to when, for example, one walks into the voting booth is a bit of a conundrum, as I experienced last week. Conservatism, and traditionalism, are certainly steadfast bulwarks against the collectivist fantasies and utopian delusions of our time. And yet some of what constitutes conservatism, or traditionalism, is either a holdover from Puritanism or represents an even more primitive fear of the life force, and life processes. In Reichian theory it's known as “character armoring” or “emotional plague”, and I think our society suffers from way too large a helping of each, even as we fancy ourselves “liberated” (especially in the sexual arena), free thinking, “liberal”, and so on. Scratch the surface of, say, an “abortion rights” activist, or a “tree hugger”, and you're likely to find someone who has a profound hatred for humanity, which includes his (or her) own human nature. The Catholic Church, while far from blind and not in denial about human nature with all its foibles, does believe in improvement and progress toward salvation, but primarily on an individual level. The notion of an earthly socialist utopia that solves all human problems by, basically, wiping out or suppressing all individual differences is completely foreign to the Church – rumors (like “liberation theology”) notwithstanding. There is a difference between obedience and conformity. Obedience has to do with morals, which are supposed to be in synch with, and in fact derived from, Natural Law, which in turn is based on man's real human nature (rather than the one the Marxists ascribe to him). Conformity, on the other hand, involves the suppression of personality, which is one of the things that makes us uniquely human. The Church has always asked for obedience, because it feels that that is the straightest path to salvation, but beyond that there is more room for individual uniqueness and variety than any one person can possibly take advantage of. So if you're looking for a herd of mind-numbed robots, don't peek inside the doors of a Catholic church, go across town and take in a faculty meeting at the local state university, or a party caucus, or a meeting of the local NEA chapter... or, even worse, the Monday morning get-together at the local “social services” agency. That's where you'll find people whose spirit has been crushed by dogma, i.e. of the secular kind, rather than the “religious” kind that turned the citizens of Salem into hallucinating witch-hunting psychos – but with, in many cases, very similar results. It's this sort of thing, and many others, that I'm attempting to point out, shed some light on, and analyze for the benefit of anyone who will listen, but especially for my kids, who might, some day, start wondering what the old man was thinking all that time, and here's their chance to find out as it's happening! I mean, family albums and assorted old letters are nice, but who among us wouldn't love to know how our parents felt about events as they were happening? What insights might they not bring to our attention, that official “history” completely neglects, and that the media of the time were too afraid to deal with? So I hope to be able to cure that problem – at least some of it, while at the same time commenting and theorizing about broader issues.

Of course, no “blog” worth the electrons it's printed on would be complete without a theoretical base. Why search the Internet for the same bland pabulum that you can scoop up by the handful from the MSM any time day or night? There has to be some sort of synthesis going on, by which events are juxtaposed with a certain view of the world, and of humanity, in order to come up with the occasional insight, explanation, theory, speculation... or just a ribald comment, and let it go at that. (Sometimes that's enough to burst the bubble.) And it's not just about current events, it's about how those compare with one's lifetime of experience. When you get to the point where everything that happens has happened at least once before in your lifetime, you kind of feel entitled to comment on the fact. Iraq? Bring up Vietnam. The bailout? Bring up the S&L debacle, and Chrysler. Obama? Bring up Carter. Clinton? Bring up Nero. (OK, that's a stretch.) Of course, no one ever believes that history is really repeating itself, because “this time things are different”. Well, they may be different in significant ways, but they're also the same in significant ways, and that's what requires our attention and analysis. If involvement in the Near East created a “giant sucking sound” of lives and money for the British, the French, and the Russians, what made us think the outcome would be any different for us? If the New Deal served primarily to prolong the Depression, what makes us thing the current bailout will be any different? And then there's just plain old human nature. Behavior that's rewarded tends to persist. What does that say about all the billions in “bonuses” being paid to the robber barons who got us into this mess? On the other hand, behavior that's punished tends to diminish. What does that say about confiscatory tax rates on savings and investment? Laws of economics just follow naturally from laws of human nature. They don't have to be enforced by the government because they enforce themselves, the way gravity does. We can ignore them, and pretend they aren't there, but that will not make them go away, and they are likely to return with a vengeance.

And speaking of “the return of the repressed”, what is the relationship between school shootings and abortion? Some writers think they are very closely linked. When we cease to value the next generation, and see to it that half of it is killed off before it sees the light of day, this seems to make an impression on the “survivors”, and it's not a good one. A teenager drives past an abortion mill, and thinks to himself, there but for the grace of... “whatever”... go I. Yes, his parents might have valued his life enough to let him live, but how about the rest of society, that exterminated half his peers in the womb? Do they care any more about him? And what do they – might they – deserve in exchange for this level of calculating coldness and indifference? Perhaps the school shootings are simply a kind of primitive, instinctive way of saying, and making good on saying, “From those who have little, even that which they do have will be taken away.” An entire generation – two, in fact – cries out from the grave. What happens when someone who feels little self worth but much anger hears those cries?

And far from Bill Clinton's flip assurance that “the era of big government is over”, we have now embarked on the biggest collectivist project since the Cultural Revolution in China. Agriculture, schools and medicine weren't enough, now the government has taken over the banks, the stock market, and the housing market. This isn't “big” government; this is _total_ government. An afternoon in the public library reading about the “achievements” of collectivism in Russia, China, and elsewhere, might have deterred this madness, but... oh wait, I forget, this is one of those cases where “things are different this time”. Except that they aren't, and they won't be. People who thought, a mere few months ago, that an Obama administration would have its collectivist work cut out for it can now relax – the Republicans have already done 90% of the work. All Obama and Co. will have to do is police up the battlefield. (Hopefully, they'll get at least some of the blame for the catastrophe that is sure to follow – that would be “karmically” valid, at least.)

So really, there's never a lack of things to comment on – and, lest anyone think I'm just trying to deliver dogma and iron-clad conclusions from on high, this is not at all the case. Most of my posts represent “work in progress”, i.e. part of the development of a model, or theory, about the way things are. I hope I don't have to press the point that mere facts – i.e. “current events” -- without analysis are basically worthless. We have to know what to make of the facts and events, and in order to do that we have to develop, as we go along, a story or narrative... you know, some causal links, allowing for some randomness here and there as well, and all heavily informed by insights about human nature (psychology, sociology, politics, economics) as well as history. You can throw in the other sciences too, if you like, as appropriate. And of course we can't move an intellectual muscle without some sense of philosophy and theology (other people's as well as our own, I should add).

But it would be a mistake to assume that everything that happens has a coherent, conscious cause and that's it's part of a “plan”, or “program”. There is still much noise in the system. On the other hand, I think people often fail to detect what seem to me to be pretty clear trends, i.e. an accumulation of evidence that says “someone wants this to happen for a reason”. There is also a tendency to think in terms of “unintended consequences” when, in fact, those consequences may be very much intended... or at least when they occur they are found to be of benefit to someone so whatever process yields them up is maintained and kept on course. One of my strategies – as should be clear by now – is trying to detect this and point them out, i.e. to “out” the whole process and, by implication, the people who are responsible for the outcomes and their perpetuation. The main problem with this approach is that it can very readily start edging into what is called “conspiracy theory”, which, in the most generic sense, is the notion that there are no “accidents”... that everything is part of a master plan that was originated at the “highest levels” and is being implemented by mostly low-level serfs who have no idea what the big picture looks like, or even who they work for. The funny thing, though, about this kind of idea is that once in a while it turns out to be exactly right, as in the case of international communism from the Bolshevik revolution up through at least the early 1950s. All you have to do is read Whittaker Chambers' “Witness” to realize that this is exactly how it operated. In other cases, however, this tendency to connect dots can get a bit out of control, as in the relatively benign case of that classic PBS series “Connections”, with James Burke, where some of his so-called “connections” were totally outlandish – or just simply wrong. (But it did make interesting viewing, let's admit.)

But this question too has to do with human nature. My limited observation of psychotics – I mean people who are really crazy, not just a little bit frayed – is that they fall into one of two major types – the ones who make too few connections and the ones who make too many. Different brain wiring? Maybe. The former case would, as an extreme, include catatonia, i.e. total lack of response to the environment on all levels. And the latter case would include the more familiar “paranoid” types, who see connections everywhere, and in most cases take those connections personally, i.e. it's not just one vast conspiracy run out of CIA headquarters, but it's all about _me_. It's this radical egotism that distinguishes the true paranoid type – the need to take everything – every event, world-wide – as personal. Your typical “conspiracy theorist”, it seems to me, takes a somewhat more level-headed approach to things – it's not about them per se, but about a certain group as the target or intended victim... or maybe even the whole country... or the whole human race (if we're talking about hostile UFOs, for example). The main point being, things are not as they seem – or as advertised by the MSM or the various other outlets of the Regime. (A rather solid and consistent premise is that the MSM are, in fact, nothing more than mouthpieces for the Regime – and I think this is pretty much the case. Read on.) And once again, while this can be carried to extremes (And what about competing conspiracy theories? They can't all be right, can they?) there is often more than a grain of truth, especially in retrospect. Why are so many government records “sealed for a hundred years” or some such nonsense? Because they consist of school lunch menus? Not bloody likely. There are secrets out there, and someone is keeping them for a reason. Once in a while the cover gets blown, then we find out, well, that was really no big deal (sexual foibles of leading politicians as carefully chronicled by J. Edgar Hoover might be an example). But sometimes we think, hey, that really was a big deal, and no wonder they kept it covered up until all the people involved were dead. Then we start wondering about, once again, “current events”. Who, or what, killed Vince Foster, just to name a class-B (at best) scandal. Was Monica an Israeli spy? (In which case, they must be awfully hard up for spies over there.) Has Dick Cheney really been running things all this time? (I don't think that one even merits debate. Ahem.) And so on. Now, the extent to which speculations of this kind help to clear up the mystery surrounding current events is a relevant issue. If the mystery simply deepens and becomes less penetrable, that might not be a good thing. Or, it might reflect the underlying reality. The tendency of the MSM -- “Job One” if you will – is to explain everything, to everyone's complete satisfaction, every evening, so we can all go to bed secure in the knowledge that, as insanely bad as things might be, or appear to be, they are basically under control, and that people much wiser than ourselves are at the helm through the night, with unblinking eyes. I mean, think about it. Every news story on TV has, basically, the same structure: “Things are terrible! But it's OK. We'll be right back after this, to scare the crap out of you some more.” So we have engineered and programmed fear, followed by reassurance. This is what the recently-deceased Michael Crichton pointed out in his book “State of Fear” -- that the system (I call it the Regime, as does E. Michael Jones of “Culture Wars”) thrives on – depends on, for its very survival – creating the optimum level of fear and anxiety in the populace, then offering its so-called solutions, answers, “programs”, and various consolations in order to alleviate that fear – but not too much, because there has to be enough fear left over for the next round. (Do I have to mention that Al Gore, if he'd been elected president in 2000, would be an absolute master at this?) In any case, this does, in many instances, seem to be the overall strategy, and certainly all the evidence we can glean from the MSM support it. Once again, the “facts” are not enough – it's what we make of them. And how many individual citizens have the time, inclination, or ability to sort it all out on a daily basis? But turn on the network at 6 PM and it's already been done for you – neatly packaged, a little scary, but not so bad that you'll lose any sleep. And so it goes until 6 PM the next evening, ad infinitum. So is this a “conspiracy” or is it just the easily demonstrable way things work? In either case, once we start to see things in this light our natural tendency is to not just accept “the news” at face value, but to ask, “cui bono?” -- “who benefits?” The financial sector melts down. Oh my, how terrible, whatever shall we do, etc. But “cui bono”? Someone has walked off with a lot of money, and someone else is about to walk off with a whole lot more. Is this an accident or was this the idea all along? Was the whole thing planned from the beginning? And if so, by whom? (And would we recognize their names if we heard them?) The war in Iraq is a debacle and a bottomless pit. But “cui bono?” And the answer is, all sorts of people. The inner cities are pestholes of violence, drug addiction, and idleness. But “cui bono?” It's not that we can always come up with clear answers, but sometimes merely asking the question goes a long way toward clearing up some of the mystery. Surely life in America, at this time, can't possibly be as disorganized, random, chaotic, and folly-ridden as it seems to be. This is not to say that there is one single “master plan”, or one single “Dr. Evil” or master organization overseeing it all. I mean, there might well be, but there doesn't have to be; there are plenty of points on the continuum between utter chaos and total control. And besides, while for each “failed” government program, for instance, we can fairly readily identify people who might not only benefit from the program but also from its chronic failure, can we identify one single interest that clearly benefits from every event – good, bad, or indifferent – that happens to make the news? Can the chaos that we see on a daily basis possibly add up to “the good” for _anybody_, on a consistent basis? Coming up with an answer to that one is above my pay scale, as Obama would say. I think it's more likely that there are “interests” out there, that they keep their agendas and their tactics a secret or at least out of the news most of the time, and that they select certain areas of concentration on which to focus their efforts. Do these various “interests” cooperate? My theory is that yes, they do, up to a point. They at least work out ways to coexist. And there are certain things they are all consistently opposed to, and those can form the basis for cooperation, coordination, and combining resources. But do they all, ultimately, want the same thing? There is no particular reason to think so... except that, again going back to human nature, once you eliminate sex, power, and money, or any combination thereof, you've about run out of motivators for the vast bulk of humanity, especially as it is aggregated into large, secretive, and subversive organizations. But even so, the collectivist dream of a socialist utopia has ranked high as a motivator since at least the days of Rousseau, the Obama administration that is being fleshed out as we speak being only the most recent manifestation. So history does repeat itself, at least in the broad sense. But the “true believers” always have to conceal their agenda, and their priorities, from the plain people, who typically have much more common sense. “Ideas” may be OK, but “ideas plus guns” are a recipe for disaster, as demonstrated so often over the last couple of centuries. And it's not that “the people” don't get sucked into these conceptual maelstroms now and again, but they would never have originated them – for that you need “thinkers”, “eggheads”, “Ivy League tenured professors”, and other such cerebrally-hypertrophied parasites. (Minor footnote: Nietzsche's “Thus Spake Zarathustra” was popular reading by German troops in the trenches during World War I. Those troops, once defeated and back home, formed the core of the Nazi Party.)

So – if you can make anything of this blast of free association – these are among my main goals, ideas, and reasons for continuing this blog. But I wouldn't spend one more instant on it if it weren't a heck of a lot of fun – please be assured, I am smiling the whole time (and no, I'm not living in my parents' basement and subsisting on cold pizza and diet Coke). And dare I admit, making up titles for the posts can be the most fun of all. Beyond concern, and anger, and outrage, and indignation, there is laughter – and in the face of absurdity this is the best weapon of all – and the most intolerable to the powers that be. There is an old German saying, “the Devil can do much, but he cannot sing”. So I say, sing – even if not tunefully – and drown out the forces of darkness that are so threatening in these times.