tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-42419976214736480572024-02-20T14:37:53.498-05:00The GolemDave Witterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10685191772640386942noreply@blogger.comBlogger1000125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4241997621473648057.post-53726928339787624702024-01-27T15:52:00.000-05:002024-01-27T15:55:03.976-05:00Why are the Democrats Supporting Nikki Haley and not Trump?<p><br /></p><p>Question du jour – why are the
Democrats (which includes the mainstream media) supporting Nikki
Haley? I mean, they expect to win in November, right? So why do they care
who the Republican nominee is? Some of it can be attributed to TDS
(Trump Derangement Syndrome), which will always be with us... and of
course they don't want Trump to have the “honor” of being
nominated (for the 3<sup>rd</sup> time) by the Republicans, even
though they fear and despise the “MAGA terrorists”, i.e. Trump
supporters within the Republican party (and those not in the party as
well).</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">It's clear that they aren't playing the
long game here. They're getting their jollies by piling on Trump and
whoever consents to be his running mate (“I pity the fool...”),
but think about this. If Haley winds up being the nominee – and
the Dems are doing everything in their power to make certain that
Trump can't be nominated – and then loses, the Republican party
will survive (if only in the usual minority status). That is, the
mainstream Republicans – the “acceptable opposition”, the ones
who are always happy to “cross the aisle” and be second-class
citizens to the Dems – will take over once and for all, with Trump
and the MAGA crowd finally sent into exile and relegated to the ash
heap of history.
</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">That would be a perfectly acceptable
outcome for the Democrats. Having the Republicans as a perpetual and
obseqious minority – which they have been for much of the time in
recent years – would feel like business as usual, and the so-called
two-party system would survive, at least in theory.</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">But the Democrats don't want a
two-party system – not really. In their heart of hearts, they want
a one-party system on the Soviet model, i.e. no opposition at all,
not even the acceptable kind. Nothing but unanimous votes in
Congress (and eventually one TV network, one radio network, one
newspaper (OK, the Soviets had 2)... not to mention, no elections!).
So what is the best way to make this happen, or at least to get a
head start? It would be to throw Haley under the bus and allow the
Republicans to nominate Trump, and then see to it that he loses, at
which point the Republicans (meaning all of them, even including the
RINOs) could be declared dead and buried along with their MAGA
minority.</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">Now, you might say that Trump and the
Republicans lost in 2020, but recovered – and this in spite of the
fact that he was the sitting president at the time, and it's rare for
a sitting president to be defeated for a second term. But the
Democrats and their allies in the media and elsewhere will, by
November, have had 4 more years to not only continue to brand Trump
as Hitler Incarnate, but also to brand his followers as terrorists
and put many of them in jail (and him as well, perhaps) – this
process being well under way right now, and proceeding at warp speed.
“Our very democracy is at stake!” – cry the mainstream media
with one voice.
</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">So the contrasts are much more stark
now than in 2020 or 2016 – and this is mainly because the Democrats
and the media have declared this to be the case. So the strategy of
supporting Haley makes sense in the short run, but in the long run
the Dems would be better off if Trump ran again and lost, because
from then on the Republicans would be required to hang their heads in
shame (for “putting us through this again”) and be paraded around
wearing dunce caps by the Red Guard, and be reduced to a bunch of
vaporous ghosts (think of 100 Mitch McConnells) wandering aimlessly
around Washington while the Democrats establish a people's republic.
</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">(PS – the Dems show no signs of
wanting to push Biden aside (or Harris either), despite rumors to
that effect. A president who is content to follow orders and read,
even if haltingly, from scripts, and a vice president who is
satisfied with a portfolio of sinecures, is exactly what they want;
it has worked for three years, and it will work for one plus four
more.)
</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">(And BTW, Nikki Haley is playing her
own game here. She's staying in the race, at least in part (in my
opinion) because she expects the Dems/media/courts to take Trump out
well before the election, at which point she'll be the last, um,
person standing. That's the short game. The medium game would be
for her to save a lot of time and money by dropping out now – or at
least appearing to – and then wait for Trump to be neutralized,
at which point she can come back on stage and save the day like
Mighty Mouse.)</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">It's going to be very interesting to
see how these various games intersect over the next few months. In
fact, the mainstream (non-MAGA) Republicans may even decide to
nominate Trump (assuming he hasn't been disqualified) for the same
reason that the Dems would favor this – to insure his defeat, and
thus the resounding defeat of the MAGA wing, thus leaving the
mainstream unchallenged in their slouch toward obscurity. I'm not
sure if they're capable of this kind of subtlety – they are called
“the stupid party”, after all – but it would certainly win them
friends on the other side – or let's say enemies disguised as
friends.</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
</p>Dave Witterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10685191772640386942noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4241997621473648057.post-60377662260399848882023-12-28T18:12:00.000-05:002023-12-28T18:13:45.313-05:002024 -- Another annus horribilis?<p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">2024 is looming, like one
of those hurricanes out in the Atlantic that's not yet causing much
damage, but just wait until it reaches land! I don't want to
be just another alarmist (the field is much too crowded already), but
I'm afraid that the Republican convention next year may make the
Democratic convention of 1968 look like a tea party. (And the
Republicans won't have a Mayor Daley to back them up – and I can't
imagine the Milwaukee police department will be much help, since
they've probably fallen prey to defunding and other forms of
demoralizing and neutering.)</span></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-size: medium;">This is, of course,
predicated on (1) Trump not being in jail at that point; (2) Trump
still being in the race (or, Trump being in jail but still being in
the race – hey, it could happen!); (3) The mainstream Republicans
not having succeeded in keeping him out of the primaries; and (4) The
mainstream Republicans accepting primary results that favor Trump,
rather than declaring them null and void and going to a caucus, AKA
“smoke-filled room”, system. </span>
</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Note that the Colorado
Supreme Court has already barred Trump from both the primaries and
the general election, and they are likely to be followed by many
other state supreme courts across the land – and in the Northern
Mariana Islands, Guam, etc. (How exciting it is to keep an
ex-president from running for president! And just about anyone can play!) – but especially in
states with high population levels (all you need is the West Coast
and the Northeast). While Trump's base is justifiably outraged by
this – as are a handful of commentators on Fox News – the
Republican mainstream is strangely silent on the matter. Perhaps
it's because they're glad to have someone else do the dirty work for
them so they won't get in trouble with Trump's base, and/or they see
it as an example of how easy it is to keep someone out of the
primaries, as in “Hey, why didn't we think of that?” (Actually,
they did, when it came to Ron Paul.) (OTOH, RFK Jr. has been
subjected to a total media blackout, probably because, like Ron Paul,
he has a lot of good ideas. But they can't make fun of him because
of the family name – unlike Ross Perot, who at least had amusing
ears.) To put it another way – I suspect that much of the
Republican mainstream is secretly celebrating this, oblivious to the
fact that if it can happen to Trump it can happen to any of them as
well. </span>
</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-size: medium;">You can see the run-up
increasing in intensity on a daily basis, primarily in the mainstream
media but also in statements by Biden lackeys, certain academicians,
certain “entertainers”... all reading from the same sheet of
talking points, of which #1 is always “Trump is Hitler” (not
“<i>will</i> be Hitler”, note, but he's <i>already </i>Hitler, in
some kind of mysterious reincarnation phenomenon). The Ministry of
Propaganda aside, what the Fox News folks call “lawfare” is also
well underway, and is merely a seamless continuation of the
impeachments while Trump was in office – with many of the same
people calling the shots as during Trump's administration. Of course
the “bloody shirt” that is constantly waved in the air is January
6 – a date that will live in infamy! – but it's far from the only
weapon in their arsenal (heck, even the Russia collusion hoax is
still alive and well in the fever dreams of many of them). </span>
</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-size: medium;">But behind it all – the
thinly-concealed threat, if you will – is the very real possibility
that the troops are already being organized to show up in force at
primaries and at the convention – and yes, I mean the same folks
who did all the burning and pillaging and vandalism back in 2020 (and
who continue to do so at selected locations just to keep in
practice). And this goes way beyond the time-honored “rent-a-mob”
technique on the local level (often, depending on the issue, with
Jesse Jackson and/or Al Sharpton parachuting in to add spice to the
mix). As in 2020, these so-called anarchists (totalitarians in
disguise, I mean) will arrive from all over the country, brought in
by plane, train, bus, and automobile, and with pockets full of cash
from their billionaire sponsors, who – recalling a phrase from the
war in Vietnam – believe that it's necessary to destroy the country
in order to save it. </span>
</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-size: medium;">So what it really amounts
to is a protection racket of sorts (remember the “long hot summer”
threats of times past?). Keep Trump on the primary ballots and this
is what will happen – and just try nominating him and putting him
on the national ballot! Cities will burn! And the mainstream
Republicans, ever the gentlemen (and gentlewomen), will, I expect,
bow to mob rule and disown that troublemaker – i.e. Trump – once
and for all, rather than just being passive-aggressive about it the
way they were during his administration. And we'll wind up with some
garden-variety neocon who won't ruffle the Democrats' feathers –
Nikki Haley* being in the lead for that role at this point (and
please note she's getting support from some Democrats simply for
being the anti-Trump). And then, in turn, if the Republicans come up
with another uninspiring, ho-hum candidate, that person will lose the
election to Uncle Joe or whoever the Democrats have called up from
the bench to replace him. (And – highly likely – the Trump base
will simply sit out the election as a form of protest, thus giving
Uncle Joe even more of a mandate than he would have had otherwise.)
</span>
</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-size: medium;">So – bottom line – the
protection racket will have worked. And no, it's not democracy or
even a pale semblance thereof; it's strictly mob rule of the kind
that can be found in many “banana republics” and other
pseudo-democracies across the globe. But if this is what we've come
to, well... some will call it karma, others will say it's the way
empires decline and fall, and many of the citizenry – thoroughly
demoralized already -- will just shrug and say (or think) “Eh, what
do you expect?” Faith in government, anyone? I'm afraid that's
already extinct at this point. Rule of law? The Colorado Supreme
Court certainly doesn't have any use for it. There's just enough
residual faith for some people to think that voting might actually
make a difference; the rest of us are either cynical, or pessimistic,
or just plain realistic – and if you can tell me the difference
these days, please let me know. </span>
</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-size: medium;">* This just in – she
failed to denounce slavery! Looks like the establishment has already
administered the kill shot. </span>
</p>Dave Witterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10685191772640386942noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4241997621473648057.post-47475165284202803472023-07-18T19:09:00.001-04:002023-07-18T19:12:44.703-04:00From Global Pillage to Global Village<p> </p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">The perennial debate when it comes to
“empire” is: Who benefits? But before we deal with that
question we have to distinguish between the two major types of
empire, what I will call the expansion type vs. the overseas type.
The expansion type is as old as human history – in fact, in a way
it <u>is</u> human history, in that so much of what we know of
ancient civilizations consists of their wars of conquest. (No one
ever writes about, or memorializes, peace – too boring! The ancient
inscriptions, steles, obelisks, etc. were overwhelmingly devoted to
military campaigns – victories – conquests. (I have yet to hear
of one commemorating a defeat.)) And this was all about expansion –
enlarging an area of control (by a given race, ethnic group, tribe,
etc.) beyond its current borders. And the motivation? Sometimes it
was all about simply winning – conquest for its own sake. What
king or emperor wouldn't want to expand his area of control? But it
could also be about resources – arable land, timber, access to
waterways, acquisition of slaves (conquered peoples), trade routes,
minerals – even the need for a “buffer zone” between one empire
and another, i.e. take over a given piece of territory but not make
it an “official” part of the empire, just maintain it as a
protectorate and a first line of defense against whatever's on the
other side. (Ukraine, anyone? This is exactly what Putin is up to.)
</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">And, of course, there is just plain old
glory – being famous and celebrated far and wide – having a large
chapter in the history books, etc. “The Sun never sets on the
British Empire” – remember that? It was actually true within
living memory. If we can “plant our flag” far and wide (and even
on the Moon!) that makes us conquerors – winners – superior in
every way.
</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">But this introduces the second type of
empire, which is relatively recent and which can be traced to the
discovery of America. And that is the overseas empire, which is, to
a significant degree, based on, and energized by, trade. But “trade”
is a relatively peaceful enterprise, so it has to be backed up by
strength – military certainly, but economic and diplomatic as well.
I mean, think about it, what's the first thing that happened when
the European powers started to colonize the Americas? Trade –
followed fairly closely (in some cases) by missionaries. And then
the powers had to get together and agree to keep their hands off each
other's stuff, i.e. colonies (which pretty much worked most of the
time, except when the colonies became spoils of war).
</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">And what is trade? It's trading
something of less value (to one party) for something of more value
(to the same party) – and ideally, both sides of the trade realize
a benefit, or profit. “Free trade” – the ideal of all good
libertarians – is a deal from which both profit. Another way of
putting it is that if a given trade raises the standard of living, or
quality of life, for each party then it was a good trade.
</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">But how much of the “trade” between
the European powers and their colonies can be described as “free”?
In other words, what did the colonies get out of it? In the worst
cases, no material benefits but plenty of exploitation and slavery.
In the more moderate cases, certain benefits, but you can be sure
that the colonizers always came out better, bottom line-wise, than
the colonized.
</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">But here we have to make a distinction.
When we say “colonizers” whom are we speaking of? The
on-the-ground traders? The ship owners? The merchants back in the
home country? The governments or rulters of said home country? It
kind of depends on whom, or what, we're referring to. To
oversimplify a bit, if it doesn't pay, it won't be done – which
means that if someone back home isn't making a bundle from the
colonial trade, said trade will come to an end (or never be
initiated).
</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">As usual, follow the money. Who got
rich from the colonial trade – from, let's say, the conquest of
America right up to World War II? The merchants, certainly – and
the privileged few who managed to get their products sent back in the
other direction. And if we say “the merchants” we are also
saying the politicians, and even the ruling class, because they are
dependent, to a greater or lesser extent, on the largesse of the
merchant class, who – among other things – help them to remain in
power.
</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">But how about “the people” – the
“man on the street” – the ordinary Joe? Were they better off
living in a country that was a colonial power than in one that
wasn't? One could make a “trickle-down” argument here – or,
the crumbs from a rich man's table are better than nothing. But that
would be to ignore the costs (both hidden and obvious) of empire.
Number one, as I've said – trade is all well and good, but it's
always backed up by military might. And who, pray tell, is in the
military? The sons of the ruling elite? Very seldom. More likely,
the average Joe who is either drafted into the military or who sees
it as preferable to his other prospects (if any). So his blood may
very well be shed in order to expand, consolidate, and maintain the
empire – with very little in return except, as always, for a few
memories of valor and heroism – a few “rusty medals”, if you
will.
</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">And is it worth it, to him? Well, the
“common folk” of any country or empire are typically much more
patriotic, if in a somewhat naive way, than the ruling elite, who
tend to be self-serving and cynical. When Joe Snuffy shows off his
medals to the folks back home, he's expressing a deep feeling of
pride and patriotism, even if the jaded politicians who sent him over
to some hell-hole on the other side of the world couldn't care less.
Was he exploited? Hell, yes. Was he “cannon fodder”? Ditto.
But as a “rite of passage”, military service in time of war has
no peer. The guys who come home in body bags don't vote. And this
is, sadly, the lot of fallen mankind and his various societies from
time immemorial. The rulers have one set of values, and the common
people have another, and ne'er the twain shall meet. And all of the
“consciousness raising” on the part of antiwar activists is of no
avail, as long as the people insist on clinging to their images and
delusions (which are, of course, programmed into their brains by the
ruling elite).
</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">(When things eventually boil down to
human nature, which is intractable, it may be time to turn around and
walk away. But I would like to expand on the topic a bit more.)</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">So – the second type of empire –
the “overseas empire” – really began in earnest with the
discovery, and conquest, of the Americas. All of a sudden a European
nation could flex its muscles without having to challenge, or even
offend, its neighbors – and, by the way, sustain little or no
damage or even inconvenience on the home front. Just take over a
huge chunk of North, Central, or South America! Nothing to it! But
at the same time, note, much the same was happening in Africa,
Southern Asia, and East Asia. The European powers had become
empire-happy, and any place that offered the least resistance found
itself forcibly colonized (if not conquered in the strict sense).
And again, it was about trade, first and foremost – but also about
glory, and power, and being a major player on the world stage. And
the point is that it was always a profit-making enterprise, at least
for the ruling elite – and a net loss in blood and treasure (think
increased taxation to support the whole thing) for the common folk.
</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">And this, by the way, continues right
up to the present day! There is nothing ancient, or merely
“historical” about this. It's going on even as we speak.
</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</p>
<p align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">Of course, there is a
certain feeling of quaintness about some overseas empires of old.
The Germans had one, right up to World War I. The Italians... the
Portuguese... the Belgians... the Dutch... and so on. Eventually,
it boiled down to the British and French, and that's when things
started to change. All of a sudden the benefits of the
traditional-style empire came under scrutiny – not only who profits
(we always knew that), but do <i>they</i> even profit any longer?
And then you had the curious phenomenon of what's called
“self-determination”, and it started to catch on, big time, after
World War II. Countries that had been consigned to abject slavery
and servitude – especially in sub-Saharan Africa – started
getting funny ideas about independence. And a lot of the “credit”,
if you will, for this, goes to the international communist movement,
and their agents from Soviet Russia and Maoist China (throw in Cuba
if you like). They talked a lot about “freedom”, “liberation”,
and self-determination, all of which was designed to conceal the
actual agenda, which was simply a new and different kind of slavery –
slavery not to another nation but to an idea. And, I might add, to
create a new ruling elite (“Meet the new boss, same as the old
boss”). But to people who had been under the boot of one or more
European powers for, in many cases, centuries, this was music to
their ears. So we had uprisings in India, Algeria, the Congo,
Vietnam, and so on – not to mention uprisings against the ruling
elite in Latin America, where liberation had already arrived once
with Simon Bolivar. (Time for another revolution! Latin America
became notorious for this after World War II – almost as if it were
a national pastime.)
</p>
<p align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</p>
<p align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">But what was it, really?
Throwing off the colonial yoke, or boot – certainly. Rebelling
against exploitation and the racism which usually accompanied it?
Absolutely. Assertion of politcial ideas, and ideals which had no
precedent in the “primitive” tribal culture? That too. (It was
always the “intellectuals” of any given country – typically
products of the Sorbonne – who spearheaded these movements.)
</p>
<p align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</p>
<p align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">But... why was it always
communism and never capitalism? Why was the red flag always being
waved? Because they saw capitalism as part of the problem – as the
economic model of their oppressors (“Yankee go home!”).
Communism, on the other hand, was a new, fresh breath of freedom –
never mind what it meant to the hapless citizens of the Soviet Union.
(And quite frankly, maybe the lot of the average citizen of the USSR
looked pretty good compared to the lot of the average “coolie” in
one of the European colonies.) (The hackneyed term “it's all
relative” comes into play here, and in this case it really is all
relative.)
</p>
<p align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</p>
<p align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">So if there is a mass
movement in post-WWII history, it's the breaking free of the former
colonies from the former colonial powers. And with the exception of
France with Algeria and Vietnam, said powers were, by and large,
remarkably docile and accepting of the situation, as if they could
see that the time had come. There were struggles, of course –
quite violent at times (India being an example, and the Congo) -- but
the handwriting was on the wall. Suddenly the satisfying status quo
had turned into a burden. The colonial empires were turning out to
be more trouble than they were worth, so they were broken up –
sometimes peacefully, sometimes not – but broken up nonetheless,
with very few pieces remaining.
</p>
<p align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</p>
<p align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">And too, on the home front,
people started to question not only the wisdom but the moral validity
of overseas empires – of coercing people of a wide range of races,
ethnicities, religions, etc. into fitting into the “colony” mode.
We speak – to this day – of the “Third World”, but are they
truly inferior? Second-class citizens at best? Perhaps this is what
the “diversity” movement is all about – not only on the
domestic front, but the global front as well.
</p>
<p align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</p>
<p align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">Of course part of this has
to do with the admission – a tough pill to swallow! – that our
“values” are not only not shared by much of the world, but that
they aren't even interested – and in some cases, despise our
“values”, and consider us fools for adhering to them. (This
attitude seems especially prevalent in the Muslim world.) And
doesn't this fly right in the face of our most basic, founding ideas
– that the “American way” is not only good for us, but is good
(or should be) for the world at large? One of the basic – I'll
call it myths – of the American founding is that our values, as
expressed in our founding documents, are universal, i.e. that they
are valid above and beyond any accidental considerations of race,
ethnicity, religion, etc. Any speech by any politician from 1776 on
has this as its conceptual underpinning.</p>
<p align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</p>
<p align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">But what if it's not true?
What if it really is “all relative” – to what I call the
eternal verities, i.e. race, ethnicity, and religion? (And gender as
well, for that matter.) What if religion, for example, is a more
basic, deeper, and profound aspect of a given people's world view
than what's in our founding documents? I don't think we have, yet,
fully come to terms with this possibility. We're still convinced
that “the American way of life”, and “democracy”, are
universal values, and there are none higher. And note that our
foreign policy is ultimately based on this – and backed up by
military might whenever and wherever needed. Yes – all our blood
and treasure is spent trying to convince the rest of the world of
this one simple idea – so obvious to us, but so foreign and even
perplexing to most of the rest of the world. And we find this highly
offensive, and spare no expense to convince them (by persuasion or
otherwise) that we're right and they're wrong. (And George W. Bush
asks “Why do they hate us?”)</p>
<p align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</p>
<p align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">But is that the end of the
story? Hardly. The colonial model is alive and well, but it has
morphed into a new, different – more efficient – form in our
time. It's no longer about large numbers of troops stationed in the
colony – that pretty much ended with Vietnam. So it's not about
overt brute force as much as economic and political colonization –
and for this to work we have to, basically, bribe the rulers of any
given country in order to secure their cooperation, while at the same
time overtly “respecting” the “independence” of the country
in question. And at the same time we have to coordinate with
international organizations like the World Bank and the International
Monetary Fund, because they have their own agendas – their own
empires, if you will (I leave out the U.N. because it's basically
become the court eunuch of the planet). And the goals? Basically
the same as always --”trade”, which means exploitation to a
greater or lesser degree, and political cooperation, i.e. don't get
too friendly with any communists who might be lurking about, and keep
any rebels and insurrectionists at bay (with the help of our
military, if needed – but usually on a covert basis).
</p>
<p align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</p>
<p align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">So the plunder continues –
and it appears that sub-Saharan Africa is the most prominent example.
How does the man on the street in Africa benefit from his
government's “cooperation” with America (you know, the dictator
who used to stash his bribes in Swiss banks, although maybe the
Cayman Islands are the hiding place of choice now)? In many cases,
enslavement on the same level, or nearly so, as in days of old when
the colonial powers were issuing stamps with the name of his country
on them. Or, at the very least, questionable benefits or a
break-even situation where they're neither better off nor worse off
for our involvement. And behind it all is – shocking, I admit –
a kind of newly-minted racism on the international scale – as if to
say, well, technically these people aren't inferior to the white race
(PC check-off), but they really aren't ready for full
self-determination (AKA “democracy”) as yet, so we're going to
help them along. Help them in the usual way, that is – by
supporting home-grown tyrants and doing battle with insurgents and
rebels (who may be closer to “the people” than the tyrants are).
(Any wonder why we actually have troops stationed in places like the
Central African Republic, that most Americans don't even know exist?
Here's your answer.)</p>
<p align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</p>
<p align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">So yes, the more colorful
and stylish colonial era is long gone – as are the glories of the
British, French, Spanish, etc. empires. The King of England is no
longer the King of India. And so forth. But the Third World is
still there, and it is still among the “done-to” as opposed to
the “doers-to” (that would be us, sorry to say), although some
countries are struggling, with mixed success, to overcome their Third
World status – India comes to mind.
</p>
<p align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</p>
<p align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">But wait! There's more.
(And I'm not talking about steak knives.) A funny thing happened,
just in the last few years. The denizens of the Third, AKA
exploited, done-to, World started catching on – not to their sorry
lot, which they've been aware of for generations, but to the fact
that they could escape. Escape, that is, on foot or by boat or
airplane (or surfboard, for all I know) from their ill-starred native
land to – guess where? Yes! To the very land of their oppressors,
their exploiters – the gold mountain, the promised land. Irony
much? And yet it's happening before our very eyes on a daily basis.
And all it took, really, was a bit of consciousness raising –
perhaps not intentional so much as the overwhelming influence of news
and entertainment media. These folks didn't all of a sudden acquire
the resources with which to buy plane tickets, or boat tickets, or to
pay smugglers – all they did was realize that it was possible. So
now the world (literally) is pouring across our southern border and
there's no political will to stop it – because... well, maybe it's
some kind of guilt. Maybe it's the feeling that our karma is
catching up with us. Maybe we genuinely feel that letting the world
in the door will improve our lives in some way, or at least give us
more respect. At any rate, it's happening, and all the quibbling
about costs vs. benefits won't stem the tide. It is, arguably, one
of the most significant human migrations in modern times (excepting
war refugees, even though some of the current migrants are in that
category as well as the economic one).
</p>
<p align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</p>
<p align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">And what about the people
who are paying the price for all this – in violence, competition
for jobs, clashes of cultures, “no-go” zones in large cities,
infrastructure costs, social programs, opportunity costs (dealing
with refugees vs. improving or even maintaining the standard of
living), etc.? Well, they don't count, as our politicians and their
media facilitators tell us on a daily basis. Much better to be
“compassionate” and “welcoming”, and so on, than to try and
preserve what's left of the culture most of us grew up with and
always assumed would last indefinitely. Because, after all, anyone
with those outmoded ideas is, by definition, a racist/fascist/you
name it. There is no more comfortable “majority”; what we have
is a majority of minorities. Diversity is not a goal or ideal, but a
fact.
</p>
<p align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</p>
<p align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">But again – as always –
who pays the price? The ruling elite in their gated communities and
Martha's Vineyard mansions? The corporations in their blue-tinted
towers? Surely you jest. It's the average Joe, the man on the
street – the “deplorables” – who are seeing their way of life
crumbling, their world view challenged, their welfare threatened,
their prospects narrowing or vanishing. But how many of them connect
the dots, i.e. from this to the politicians who they persist in
voting into, or keeping in, office? Very few – because, again, the
propaganda machine is permanently set on “anyone who questions any
of this is a racist, fascist, etc. and deserves to be shunned”.</p>
<p align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</p>
<p align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">The world is being remade
before our eyes, and it's – oddly enough – the “little people”
from elsewhere on the planet who are doing it – the residents of
the Global Village. The formerly dispossessed, done-to, exploited,
bottom-rung people have become, in the aggregate, our “influencers”
and tastemakers. They are voting, and have already taken over in
many parts of the country. They own the streets, and are taking over
the airwaves as well. (To become a stranger in a strange land –
the one I was born in – is a bit disorienting. Now it appears that
if I ever belonged somewhere, now I belong nowhere, and am only in
the way.)
</p>
<p align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</p>
<p align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">But is this truly something
new under the Sun? Well, mass human migrations are as old as human
history, and in fact older. When it comes to world history,
instability seems to be the rule – which is why it's kind of
hilarious when those in charge try to impose arbitrary borders on,
basically, borderless groups of people, as happened in the Middle
East, Africa, and elsewhere. There are no more “no man's lands”
– everything is on Google Maps, as if to say “This is the way the
world is, and this is the way it's going to stay, and if you don't
like it you can just leave.” But human nature, especially as
expressed in societies, races, large numbers – has no interest in
that sort of ossification. We are migratory creatures, after all.
If we didn't come from somewhere else, we had an ancestor who did.
So yes, this concept of “Native American”, or “native”
anything, misses the point. Does anyone have a “right” to be
where they are? I think the most we can say in this regard is that
there is a “right of conquest”. If someone, at some point, took
possession of a given piece of land, and is able to defend it, and
their descendants are able to defend it, then that comes as close as
anything to being a “right”, and being entitled to protection by
the government. But if that government, or regime, should change, or
if waves of “aliens” descend on that place, then all bets are
off. Then we are back in a more primitive time, a Mad Max world,
where everything has to be defended at all times, and nothing can be
taken for granted. And this is where our so-called “leaders”
seem to be taking us – into an age which is anarchistic in some
respects but totalitarian in others. Property rights are in
jeopardy, but the rules for proper behavior – and proper thinking –
are more stringent than ever. In this sense, we come to resemble,
more and more each day, those “Third World” peoples from whom we
had always thought we were maintaining a comfortable distance –
except that they are now here, and we are becoming them.
</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
</p>Dave Witterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10685191772640386942noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4241997621473648057.post-85705702330468508892022-11-16T19:35:00.001-05:002022-11-16T19:36:21.033-05:00Trump 2.0? Eh... not likely<p><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #050505; white-space: pre-wrap;"> OK folks, time for a reality check. Trump says he's running for president in 2024. Fine. Presumably he'll be running as a Republican. Fine. (I guess he could run as an independent – he might even get on the ticket!) But consider a few of the hurdles he will have to face. He can stage all the rallies he wants, but when it comes to “debates”, guess what – it's the party that decides who gets to participate, and the Republicans could simply refuse to let him in the door. </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #050505; white-space: pre-wrap;"><a style="color: #385898; cursor: pointer;" tabindex="-1"></a></span><span style="background-color: white; color: #050505; white-space: pre-wrap;">That's number one. Then we have the primaries. Did you know that there is no requirement for primaries? It's not in the Constitution, or anywhere else. The party can decide to have a primary, or it can just skip primaries altogether and go right to the convention. Then there's the small matter of convention delegates and how they're selected. The state committees can simply refuse to send any pro-Trump delegates. And then, in the wildly improbable likelihood that Trump wins a plurality of votes in the convention, they can simply be declared null and void, and the convention can become “brokered” (formerly known as “the smoke-filled room”)</span></span><span style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-size: 15px; white-space: pre-wrap;">. </span></span></p><div class="x11i5rnm xat24cr x1mh8g0r x1vvkbs xtlvy1s x126k92a" style="background-color: white; color: #050505; margin: 0.5em 0px 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div dir="auto"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Now this, of course, is all predicated on the premise that high-ranking Republicans have... um... you know, those particular masculine anatomical parts, which they have demonstrated, over and over again, that they do not possess. But really now – does anyone actually expect Orange Man to rise again from the depths, like Godzilla, and take over the Republican Party again? Or for them to allow it to happen? This is, of course, the recurring nightmare of the Republican mainstream – not of the Democrats, note, despite all their wailing! They know it's a lost cause, but it's more fun to pretend it's not. (They've gotten so used to running the Fear Machine that they can't resist using it on themselves.) So all of the hand waving, running in circles, and nervous breakdowns in both parties are no more than theater (but if it keeps the MSM busy for 2 years that could be a good thing). The Republicans have had enough of show biz. They'll nominate some gray nonentity who will be certain to lose to Joe Biden (even if the latter is ruling from an oxygen tent at that point), and thus be able to return to their comfort zone of powerlessness. </span></span></div></div><div class="x11i5rnm xat24cr x1mh8g0r x1vvkbs xtlvy1s x126k92a" style="background-color: white; color: #050505; margin: 0.5em 0px 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div dir="auto"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">(But – BTW – don't think that BLM and Antifa are going to take this sitting down. They are primed and ready for the next fight. Expect them to show up in force at any Trump event until this quixotic candidacy is terminated, either voluntarily or by force.)</span></div></div>Dave Witterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10685191772640386942noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4241997621473648057.post-9880263645211839602022-09-12T21:26:00.000-04:002022-09-12T21:28:37.951-04:00Autism and Asperger Syndrome<p><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">The question arose as to whether one could, or should, label a certain individual "autistic". Here are my thoughts on the matter.</span></p><p><br /></p><p></p><p align="CENTER" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><b>Autism
vs. Asperger Syndrome</b></span></p>
<p align="CENTER" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</p>
<p align="LEFT" style="font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-size: medium;">I
think this reflects an unfortunate problem with terminology. This is
nothing new with the medical profession, which is always redefining
ailments, sometimes for good reasons based on research and clinical
observations, but sometimes with an agenda – typically having to do
with things like research funding, medical insurance, certifications
(of doctors, hospitals, medical schools), etc. – even politics.
Everyone wants to “belong” – to be part of the “in group” –
and medical professionals, being only human, are no different. </span>
</p>
<p align="LEFT" style="font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</p>
<p align="LEFT" style="font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><i>Autism:</i></span></p>
<p align="LEFT" style="font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</p>
<p align="LEFT" style="font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-size: medium;">It
wasn't all that long ago (as recently as the 1960s, and maybe more
recently) that “autism” described a well-known set of symptoms
and conditions. It was typically diagnosed at an early age
(pre-school or even infancy), and found more in boys than in girls
for some reason (I don't think they've figured out that part of it
yet – it probably has to do with differences in brain and
neurological structures). Typical symptoms included inability to
relate emotionally (and therefore socially) to others, including
one's own parents... no signs of affection... minimal or no verbal
communication... low threshold for over-stimulation (by lights,
sounds, other people, activities, etc.)... what verbalization there
was tended to be “flat”, i.e. uninflected or monotone... a
tendency toward repetitive activity (concentrating on one thing for
hours at a time)... physically passive in some cases, in other cases
a tendency toward rapid, random and unfocused movements... basically
just out of contact, in their own world much or all of the time.
(Paradoxically, while not showing signs of obvious affection, some
autistics can be physically “clingy”, which I take to be based on
need for contact comfort.) (Think about it – if you don't
understand the world and it doesn't understand you, some sort of
physical comfort and security can be good.) </span>
</p>
<p align="LEFT" style="font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</p>
<p align="LEFT" style="font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-size: medium;">And
this was – as one might imagine – a pretty easy condition to
spot. The problem came not with diagnosis but with notions as to
causality. For a long time, blame was placed on “cold, uncaring,
non-nurturing” mothers – this has been debunked, fortunately, but
it caused a lot of stress and heartache in many families. (If
anything, there might have been some degree of causality in the other
direction, i.e. the mother of an autistic child might have distanced
herself to some degree as a matter of emotional defense, as if to say
“if the child doesn't care about me (or anyone else) why should I
care, or pretend to care, about him?” Thus, a way of avoiding or
lessening chronic emotional stress and frustration.)</span></p>
<p align="LEFT" style="font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</p>
<p align="LEFT" style="font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-size: medium;">In
terms of relating to the world, autistic people typically showed
little or no competence, and therefore could never be left to their
own devices for long, and certainly could never have been expected to
live independently or make a living. So they always had to be cared
for by others – and since they were incapable of showing much
appreciation for that care, it could be a cause of frustration on the
part of the caregivers.</span></p>
<p align="LEFT" style="font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</p>
<p align="LEFT" style="font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-size: medium;">But
here's an interesting part. Some autistic individuals showed
remarkable talents in certain very narrowly defined areas –
especially music, and particularly piano playing. They could do
things like hear a piece played on the radio or a record, and
reproduce it perfectly on the piano after just one hearing. Some
were also very good at certain mathematical operations, figuring out
calendar dates, counting by just glancing at an array of objects,
etc. – all having to do with numbers, you'll notice. Numbers in
the basic sense, not concepts or theories or models, just plain
numbers and things that had a mathematical basis. They may also show
remarkable abilities in memorization – things like sequences of
cards, phone books, train schedules, etc. So in that sense they
(some, but not all) had extraordinary abilities in a very limited
area, but when it came to everyday things not so much (being unable
to dress themselves or perform any but the most rudimentary personal
care actions, e.g.).</span></p>
<p align="LEFT" style="font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</p>
<p align="LEFT" style="font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-size: medium;">So
this was the picture when it came to autism and autistic individuals
– easy to spot, well-defined set of symptoms, incapable of
independent living, and so on. And as to treatment, the best bet was
always to find things that they would respond to, that would “wake
them up”, so to speak – and let them spend time with those
things, and not worry about the rest. And the condition, however it
came about, was not amenable to cure – it was a fixed condition,
basically, which would persist throughout adulthood.</span></p>
<p align="LEFT" style="font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</p>
<p align="LEFT" style="font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><i>Asperger
Syndrome: </i></span>
</p>
<p align="LEFT" style="font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</p>
<p align="LEFT" style="font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Now
– somewhere along the line, someone decided that that substantial
group of people who were, among other things, socially awkward,
“shy”, over-sensitive to sounds and light, who avoided crowds
(and other people in general, in some cases), who enjoyed
finely-detailed activities and could concentrate on them for long
periods of time, who tended to be socially isolated or prefer the
company of others like themselves, who tended to be uncommunicative
or, on the other extreme, talk people's ears off about some very
narrow topic, who could be somewhat OCD – and so on – had a
“syndrome” called Asperger Syndrome. </span>
</p>
<p align="LEFT" style="font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</p>
<p align="LEFT" style="font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Now,
this was all well and good, in that it, for one thing, provided a
basis for understanding that there were people who were simply “that
way”, and that while intensive therapy or interventions weren't
generally called for, certain kinds of support and, if you will,
“benign tolerance” would make life easier for everyone. The
danger, however, was that once you define something as a “syndrome”,
you, by implication, are saying that a person isn't “right”, or
that they're handicapped in some way, or need help, etc. In other
words, they're no longer on the same spectrum with “normal”
people but need to be given special attention (which should be
positive, but which can also be negative). On the plus side,
Asperger “types” can be relieved of the burden of thinking that
something is seriously wrong with them, or that it's their fault, or
if only they'd get their act together, etc. And in the social sense,
Asperger types can form interest groups of various sorts without
feeling like a bunch of geeks and losers. </span>
</p>
<p align="LEFT" style="font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</p>
<p align="LEFT" style="font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-size: medium;">So
it's a mixed bag, but overall I'd say the definition of the syndrome
has had beneficial effects. It enables people with the syndrome to
feel better about themselves, to pursue their interests and emphasize
their strengths without feeling like underachievers in other
respects... and it enables other people to accept them as they are,
and likewise appreciate their strengths and talents, and be willing
to overlook areas in which they aren't quite up to par. </span>
</p>
<p align="LEFT" style="font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</p>
<p align="LEFT" style="font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><i>The
Bad Marriage Between the Two</i></span></p>
<p align="LEFT" style="font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</p>
<p align="LEFT" style="font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Everything
could have been fine at this point, except that someone –
over-functioning in the “syndrome” and terminology department –
decided that, because of the observable similarities in symptoms
(some, but not all – and certainly not in severity) between autism
and Asperger's, they had to be lumped together on a “spectrum”,
which became known as the “Autism Spectrum”. So, number one,
they're taking a rare subset of people (autistic) and grouping them
with a not-at-all-rare subset (Asperger's) and, in effect, calling
them all autistic. What sorts of motivations went into this? Well,
for one thing, there's the simple matter of money, i.e. funding for
research, treatment, therapy, etc. – not to mention health
insurance. There was always money in autism, because it was rightly
considered a serious condition – but there was little or no money
in Asperger's, other than the opportunity to sell books. But lump
them together and call it autism, and the money starts to flow.
(This may sound a bit cynical, but the extent to which “science”
can be tempted by money has been demonstrated many times over the
years – and more than ever in these times, with obsessions like
“climate change”, gender fluidity, etc.) </span>
</p>
<p align="LEFT" style="font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</p>
<p align="LEFT" style="font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Secondly,
there's a political, or let's say social, angle to it all, the notion
being that autistic people, and their parents and caretakers, won't
feel so bad about their situation if they now feel more
“mainstreamed”, and therefore accepted. If the truly autistic
were a small minority before, they can now feel like members of –
still a minority, but a substantial one. </span>
</p>
<p align="LEFT" style="font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</p>
<p align="LEFT" style="font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-size: medium;">(One
could ask, terminology-wise, whether rather than coming up with the
“autism spectrum”, they couldn't have just called autism
“high-level Asperger's”. It would have made no less sense, but
the political and social impact would have been less.) </span>
</p>
<p align="LEFT" style="font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</p>
<p align="LEFT" style="font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Plus,
there's a pretty good chance that most truly autistic people don't
care one way or the other what “spectrum” they're on; some of
them don't care about much of anything at all. But the much larger
number of people who are Asperger's types, and who know it, and now
find themselves on the “autism spectrum”? I can't imagine that's
very good for their morale or self-esteem. But we're talking
politics here, right? So non-preferred groups always have to make
sacrifices, like it or not, in order to benefit preferred groups.
(And the fact that this is all about naming, and nothing else, makes
it especially cruel and unjust. Terminology can change overnight,
and someone who is “sick” one day can be declared “well” or
“normal” the next, and vice versa.) </span>
</p>
<p align="LEFT" style="font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</p>
<p align="LEFT" style="font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-size: medium;">But
is it true that autism and Asperger's are similar? Well, yes – in
terms of the types of symptoms, but certainly not in degree – and
also not in terms of the nuances, or fine points. And also not in
terms of the variety of symptoms that might be exhibited by any one
individual – Asperger's types have a much more varied repertoire,
if you will, within the bounds of that syndrome, whereas true
autistics are much more limited. Overall, you can point to social
issues, attention factors, mathematically-based interests, responses
to the environment, preferred vs. non-preferred activities, and so
on. But in terms of self-care, ability to operate in society,
ability to earn a living, and so on, it's a world of difference, and
it does no one any favors to pretend that it's nothing more than a
matter of degree. Plus, one can point to many examples of
high-achieving individuals – world-class achievers, in fact – in
things like math, physics, music, chess... even the performing
arts... and also art, engineering, computing and automation (a
veritable den of Asperger's types), and so on. Many have risen to
the top of their field. Can the same be said of the truly autistic?
No. Some have made contributions – Temple Grandin comes to mind –
but this is exceptional. (There's a history of what have been called
“idiot savants”, or “calculating boys” who can perform
remarkable math operations in their heads with amazing speed – and
the chances are those have been largely autistic individuals. The
question in those cases was always, given that they have amazing
talent in one specific area, is there anything else they can do well,
or do at all? And the answer was frequently no. All their
brainpower was focused on one thing.)</span></p>
<p align="LEFT" style="font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</p>
<p align="LEFT" style="font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-size: medium;">I
also suspect – although exactly how one would measure this is a
good question – that if you arrayed all the Asperger's types and
the truly autistic along the same scale, you'd get a gradually
downward-sloping curve starting at the low end (next to the “normal”
population), and there would eventually be a gap, followed by a
“bump” or miniature bell curve representing the truly autistic
(with their own spectrum, although much narrower than the Asperger's
spectrum). In other words, you would find few if any cases where a
person was part-Asperger's and part autistic – and I think this
would reflect significant differences in brain physiology. </span>
</p>
<p align="LEFT" style="font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</p>
<p align="LEFT" style="font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;">
</p><br /><p></p>Dave Witterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10685191772640386942noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4241997621473648057.post-5885444660532710842022-09-10T19:32:00.000-04:002022-09-10T19:38:33.738-04:00Some Thoughts on the Keeping of Family Histories<div class="x_elementToProof" style="background-color: white; border: 0px; font-family: Calibri, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; font-stretch: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-variant-numeric: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">(from recent correspondence)</div><div class="x_elementToProof" style="background-color: white; border: 0px; font-family: Calibri, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; font-stretch: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-variant-numeric: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><br /></div><div class="x_elementToProof" style="border: 0px; font-family: Calibri, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; font-stretch: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-variant-numeric: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="background-color: white;">I think that people who have a family history that's been recorded and preserved in whatever way are lucky. Of course some people -- the rich and famous -- have to live with a family history that might not be all that savory, but that everyone knows about, so a lot of their effort is devoted to living it down, or making up for it in some way -- paying society back for the offenses of their parents, ancestors, etc. The children of rich and powerful tyrants frequently become humanitarians of some kind, for example -- Robert Kennedy may be an example. But for others it's just too overwhelming and they either sell out and become an inferior version of old dad, or just go off on a different tack entirely. (It's ironic that the rich and famous are, like it or not, "public people", and they have to go to great lengths to keep anything private. The rest of us kulaks are so private we have to expose ourselves on Facebook and Twitter.)</span></div><div class="x_elementToProof" style="background-color: white; border: 0px; font-family: Calibri, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; font-stretch: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-variant-numeric: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><br aria-hidden="true" /></div><div class="x_elementToProof" style="background-color: white; border: 0px; font-family: Calibri, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; font-stretch: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-variant-numeric: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">But for us ordinary folks it seems like delving into family history can only be a good thing, even if some of the events were negative or even tragic. The idea of "where I'm from" is important to a lot of people, especially -- I would say -- if they grew up in a traditional, intact family in a coherent culture. They know about their past to some extent but would like more of a connection -- more material. But even for those who didn't, there is a need to find "roots", some sense of grounding or place. And look at the way "hyphenated Americans" go to great lengths to dig up info on their ancestors in the old country. I almost think that, for many people, just being "American" isn't enough -- they need to feel like part of something older, more traditional, and more solid. This is, as the stereotype has it, a nation of immigrants -- but just calling it that implies that it still is, even for people who have been here for many generations. They still have the immigrant mind set. (I observe that the only European-origin group that is never hyphenated is people whose ancestors came over from England. There are no "English-Americans" (if there were, I would be one). But there are Irish-Americans, so they have yet to be fully assimilated after 175 years.) </div><div class="x_elementToProof" style="background-color: white; border: 0px; font-family: Calibri, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; font-stretch: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-variant-numeric: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><br aria-hidden="true" /></div><p><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Calibri, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;">This country has always been ideally suited for the adventurous -- pioneers, speculators, prospectors, etc. -- the iconic "lone gun" (Clint Eastwood) -- the man (or woman) with no past -- either rootless or perfectly content to leave the past, and even family, behind -- and for good reasons sometimes, let's admit. (I used to joke that whenever some psychic does a "past life reading" for someone, that person always seems to wind up being a descendent of some European royalty. No one is ever found to be a descendent of a horse thief.) ("Cross my palm weez silver, und I vill tell you you are ze long-lost heir to ze trone of Bessarabia")</span> </p>Dave Witterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10685191772640386942noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4241997621473648057.post-10675542242473479382022-09-07T21:47:00.000-04:002022-09-07T21:49:43.810-04:00Don't Even Think About Running for President in 2024 (if you're a Republican)<p> </p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-size: medium;">The conventional wisdom
among the conservative commentariat is that Trump and his family, and
various members of his administration, are being hounded by the
government (at all levels – federal, state (NY and Florida), and
local (NYC)) in order to insure that he doesn't run for president in
2024. With all due respect, I disagree, and here's why.</span></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-size: medium;">#1, he'd be out of his
mind to run (even assuming he's not in jail by that time, or some law
or Constitutional amendment hasn't been dredged up to render him
disqualified) given the treatment he received the last time around –
from the day of his announcement through the campaign, and though his
entire time in office, and even afterwards up to the present day. (I
made some related comments in a blog post, “4 More Years?
Really??”, July 28, 2020.) Trump may have some less-than-stellar
personality traits, but I don't think masochism is one of them. </span>
</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-size: medium;">#2, if Biden managed to
win against Trump in 2020, he can win against him again in 2024.
Period! Or – whoever the DNC chooses to replace Biden can win
likewise. The counterargument is that Biden (or whoever) would, in
2024, be running not only against Trump but against his (Biden's) own
record during his first term – which, to the same commentariat, is
considered dismal, to put it mildly. The problem there is that Biden
has not lost a bit of support, either politically or among the
electorate, since his inauguration. His fan club in the mainstream
media are unstinting in their support and in running interference for him, and have yet to publish, or
broadcast, any “news” which would be detrimental to him or his
administration. (If Reagan was the “Teflon president”, then
Biden is the “new improved Teflon president”. Not only does
nothing stick, nothing even gets close.) To put it another way,
Biden is a roaring success at this point, going from one victory to
another – and as long as the faithful continue to believe this,
he's good to go for 2024. (And it's hard to imagine anything that
could cause the faithful not to keep believing. I mean, if a simple
comparison of the way things are now with the way they were in
January 2021 isn't sufficient, then nothing is.)</span></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-size: medium;">#3, even if Trump returned
from political Siberia and staged a comeback not unlike that of
Napoleon when he returned from Elba, would he attract any support
outside of his hard-core MAGA constituency – the ones who attend
his rallies? My sense is that his former supporters among the
Republican mainstream have suffered enough – they have a chronic
case of “Trump fatigue” that will not be eradicated. (And this
is not Trump's fault, by the way – it's just that they're tired of
the endless domestic warfare that Trump's being in the White House
led to and sustained for more than four years.) (Call Trump fatigue
the flip side of Trump Derangement Syndrome, if you like – both
very much with us, especially now that the latter is official
government policy.) And if his erstwhile supporters among
Republicans are demoralized and worn out, imagine where the
“independents” who voted for him in 2016 stand; they don't even
have any party loyalty to hold them together. They were the first to
jump ship, and are nowhere to be found at this point.</span></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-size: medium;">So, bottom line, the
Democrats have nothing whatsoever to fear from Trump in 2024, and I
think they know it. If he should dare to run, they could run the
proverbial yellow dog against him and the dog would win. So it's not
about Trump at all, is it? At least not in terms of the election of
2024. So if it's not about him, what is it about, other than playing
to the paranoiac crowd?</span></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-size: medium;">There are two factors
motivating the War on All Things Trump. One is simple vengeance.
Trump deserves to be punished severely, and in perpetuity, for even
having run for president and – even worse – for having won, and –
even worse – for managing to stay in office for a full four-year
term, despite two, count 'em, two impeachments – not to mention
being accused of treason and being Putin's lapdog, along with
countless other crimes. Lest we forget, his candidacy started out as
a joke (to the media), and no one except Anne Coulter took it
seriously – at least in public – until the morning after Election
Day, when the sky fell and the pillars of the temple crumbled to
dust. Privately, of course, the counter-candidacy drive was on from
day one, with various elements of the Obama administration taking a
leading role. </span>
</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-size: medium;">And then there was the
humiliation of Hillary Clinton, Empress-in-Waiting, who never hurt a
fly and in no wise deserved such shabby treatment as to be defeated
by this big orange guy from New York City (just down the road from
Chappaqua, to add to the insult). </span>
</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-size: medium;">And then there was the
fact that, once in office, he tried to run the government like a
business, and actually make changes that were more than merely
cosmetic. And this, of course, was a wake-up call for the
bureaucracy, AKA the Deep State, which marshaled its forces in an
all-out effort to thwart, neutralize, or at the very least ignore his
every initiative – with signal success, I might add. But the fact
that he didn't back down – no “walking back”, “clarifying”,
or “reconsidering” with this guy -- caused the derangement to
boil over into public view (the impeachment hearings providing a
prime example, where one petty bureaucrat after another got up and
said that they considered it their patriotic duty as Americans to
sabotage any Trump programs). </span>
</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-size: medium;">So yes – for breaking
all the rules, and never apologizing, Trump deserves all he's
getting, and more. And clearly the “numbers” didn't count, i.e.
the various measures of the success of his initiatives which
continued to mount up, and which the mainstream media and the
Democrats could only answer either with “It's a lie” or “It
doesn't matter”. (Although it's funny how Biden and his minions
spout the same sorts of numbers every day, and we're all expected to
believe them without question.)</span></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-size: medium;">That's the
punishment-vengeance-vendetta piece, perfectly understandable in this
day and age. America at its finest! An entire administration
devoted to one thing, the punishment of the previous administration.
Can you say “banana republic”, class?</span></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-size: medium;">The second factor is, if
you will, less emotional and more strategic, and that's to show
anyone foolish enough to consider running for president on the
Republican ticket in 2024 what will happen to them if they go through
with it. Well, number one, they won't win for many of the same
reasons Trump couldn't win, even if they are identified as
never-Trumpers, anti-MAGA hatters... untouched by the outrages of the
Trump “era”... pure as the driven snow. For one thing, the
Democrats are the majority party now at the federal level at least,
and it's delusional to think otherwise. So a Republican with all the
finest anti-Trump credentials – let's say a reincarnation of John
McCain – and not festooned with Trump cooties – has very
little chance, because they will inevitably be lumped in with Trump
anyway and called his clone, or Trump 2.0, or some such. (Plus, the
chances are that their kids' nanny's brother-in-law once changed the
oil in one of Trump's cars, and that is sufficient evidence to find
the hapless candidate guilty as charged.) (This is no exaggeration.
It's the way things operated on a daily basis in the Soviet Union,
and in Mao's China.)</span></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Now – one could ask –
if the Democrats are sure-fire winners in 2024, why bother to
intimidate the Republicans into... maybe even giving up and not
running at all? If the Republicans managed to bring Abraham Lincoln
back to life and put him up as a candidate, might they not stand a
chance? Well, let's just call it “insurance”. The fact that the
Democrats have an iron grip on the voting process (polls, machines,
ballots, counts, novel voting procedures, and so on) in many states
and in all major cities might have swung an election, or more than
one, in the past. Nowadays it would be seen as redundant – a case
of “overkill”, if you will. But the mechanisms are in place,
and they have to be kept up to snuff – after all, there are state
and local elections to think about, not to mention elections for
Congressional seats. Besides, the intimidation factor trickles down
to the state and local level; political correctness is now the law of
the land, and there is no elective office so trivial or obscure that
it will escape the attention of the PC police if anyone tries
wandering off the reservation. (And, lest we forget, the sacred duty
of any true believer in totalitarianism is not just to defeat those
who disagree, but to exterminate the disagreement. This is right out
of “1984” and is as true today as it ever was.) </span>
</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-size: medium;">So, bottom line-wise, who
in their right mind would want to put themselves and their family
through all that? The mainstream media have tasted blood, and
they're unlikely to cover their fangs for any future Republican –
not even for the ilk of Liz Cheney, a sheep in wolves' clothing
who is more anti-Trump than most Democrats.</span></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-size: medium;">So basically, you can
count anyone who proposes running on the Republican ticket in 2024 as
(1) delusional, (2) masochistic, and (3) ready for the funny farm.
But this doesn't mean plenty won't try, since those qualities seem to
typify Republican politicians these days. </span>
</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-size: medium;">So now we know what's
really behind the new, improved witch hunt being staged against Trump
and anyone who had even the slightest, most trivial connection with
him. (Note that not only his lawyers are being called up before
Congressional committees, but their lawyers, and <i>their </i>lawyers.
Before long half the legal profession will be headed for federal
prison (and come to think of it, that might actually be regarded as a
good thing).)</span></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Then, given all of the
above, why is the conservative commentariat insisting that it's all
about keeping Trump from running in 2024? I think it's basically
about denial. In their world, the following propositions actually
have some truth value:</span></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</p>
<ol>
<li><p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Trump could win if he
ran in 2024.</span></p>
</li><li><p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Some other Republican
could win in 2024 if Trump chose not to run or was prevented from
running.</span></p>
</li><li><p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-size: medium;">The Republican Party
represents the majority opinion among the American citizenry.</span></p>
</li><li><p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Biden's record will
count against him in 2024.</span></p>
</li><li><p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Trump is still, in
some mysterious way, the leader of the Republican Party (in this, at
least, they agree with the mainstream media).</span></p>
</li><li><p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-size: medium;">The Republican Party
has a future on the national level.</span></p>
</li></ol>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Did I say “denial”?
“Delusional” is more like it. Also “smoking their socks”.
And so on. My expectation for 2024 is very simple: If Biden should
choose not to run, what are the Democrats going to do about Kamala
Harris? (Who? – you ask. Precisely my point. This should be TV
worth watching; the rest is drearily predictable.)</span></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</p>Dave Witterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10685191772640386942noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4241997621473648057.post-47639797243947613292022-09-02T19:12:00.000-04:002022-09-02T19:13:35.414-04:00The Eternal Rebel: Beatniks and Hippies<p> </p><p style="border: none; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 2; padding: 0in; widows: 2;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: medium;">(This
is an excerpt from some recent correspondence – a bit of social
history plus some thoughts on rebels and rebellion.)</span></span></span></p>
<p style="border: none; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 2; padding: 0in; widows: 2;">
<br />
</p>
<p style="border: none; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 2; padding: 0in; widows: 2;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: medium;">There
was always a kind of narrative among the free spirits of the 1950s
(beatniks, jazz musicians, some authors, artists, etc.) that the
regular people -- the "squares" -- just didn't get it.
But they were never quite clear about what Mr. & Mrs. America
were supposed to "get". Sure, the idea was to be hip
and cool, and rebellious, but proving that their way of life was
somehow superior and not just different? I didn't sense that so
much. I mean, the hippies did the same thing -- You
oughta be like us – "Turn on, tune in, drop out" --
but when asked why, there were no clear answers. What I suspect
is that hipness, and all of its cultural clones and manifestations at
various times, is self-sustaining only as long as the vast majority
are un-hip. In other words, what's of value is simply being
different -- it's self-sustaining on that basis -- and yet there is a
certain predictability, if not outright uniformity, in the way
subcultures, over time, choose to act out being different. The
hippies did a lot of what the beatniks had done 15-20 years earlier
-- starting with sex, drugs, and rock 'n' roll (or jazz for the
beatniks). But in a paradoxical way, most subcultures depend on
the majority culture for support, to some extent -- in other words
they really aren't living completely out in the middle of nowhere,
off the grid -- although some of the hippie communes came close.
I don't think the beatniks spent much time away from LA or NYC (or
the highways connecting the two).</span></span></span></p>
<p style="border: none; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 2; padding: 0in; widows: 2;">
<br />
</p>
<p style="border: none; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 2; padding: 0in; widows: 2;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: medium;">And
I'm not saying there weren't alternatives to the world view of the
"normal" people. A lot of the more intellectual
beatniks became interested in Buddhism -- Zen especially -- and
Hinduism to some extent. They weren't so hot on monotheism,
though -- that was religion for "squares", too
hierarchical, too authoritarian, too moralistic, etc. The
Eastern religions were seen as being more along the lines of "doing
your own thing". And this is why they also appealed to the
hippies -- with the Beatles making a pilgrimage to India and "love
is all you need", the "summer of love" etc. -- all
fueled by psychedelics, which were a rarity, but not unheard of,
among the beats. And the few of the old timers made the
transition and sort of became icons for the 2<sup>nd</sup> time
around -- Alan Ginsberg comes to mind, and also William Burroughs.
So what some would call the escapism of the beatniks via alcohol,
marijuana, and heroin morphed into hippie-style escapism via
marijuana (again) and psychedelics, but also yoga, meditation, and
all sorts of New Age practices and modalities. And a few of
them actually did convert and become Hindus or Buddhists -- thinking
about Baba Ram Dass and the American Sikhs. So there was much
escaping "from" but also some escaping "to" --
although how long it lasted for most of these folks is another
question. (Some of the last remaining hippies got washed ashore
at various Renaissance Fairs. They're still into marijuana,
maybe psychedelics -- Eastern religion not so much. That takes
too much discipline, as it turns out!)</span></span></span></p>
<p style="border: none; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 2; padding: 0in; widows: 2;">
<br />
</p>
<p style="border: none; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 2; padding: 0in; widows: 2;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: medium;">It's
a lot easier to escape <i>from</i> than to escape <i>to</i>.
It's basic human nature. I can tell you what I don't like but
may not be certain of what I want (except for less of what I don't
like, but that's no help). The hippies almost had a fetish for
being different in every way -- and I imagine it was hard work at
times! Like there were some in Columbia, Missouri who pulled
late 1940s cars out of junkyards and put them back on the road
because they looked like the car Mr. Natural drives in Zap Comix.
(I kid you not, this really happened. I saw it with my own
eyes. I called them “Freakmobiles”.) The hippie lifestyle
was standardized to a degree I found ironic -- same clothes, same
hair, same footwear, same foods (always in the general category of
natural, organic, vegetarian... macrobiotic for the true believers),
living conditions, etc. (I think suburban tract houses had more
variety in them than most of the hippie pads.) But this, I
think, was a sign of insecurity. Sure, rebel against the "old
folks" -- run away from home, maybe -- but find like-minded
people asap! Strength in numbers, etc. (And this is still
going on -- remember "CHAZ" in Seattle?</span></span></span></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></span><br />
</p>Dave Witterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10685191772640386942noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4241997621473648057.post-86508888785649888042022-07-13T22:44:00.000-04:002022-07-13T22:47:32.730-04:00"The Essentials"<p> </p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-size: medium;">And now for something
completely different –</span></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-size: medium;">I'm posting this in order
to archive it in an at least semi-permanent way. It's an excerpt
from a very long letter written by a student of philosophy and
theology to a friend, with the stated goal of clarifying “the most
fundamental principles”. He cautions that “since I wrote a very
broad outline of everything, I must excuse myself for, as you say,
'being very concentrated while still very meager in its coverage of
everything'”, and adds that “the prime aspects are nature,
authority, and truth”.</span></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">“<span style="font-size: medium;">Also, as you read this,
you will see how, in regard to the [Catholic] Church, I agree or
apply to it an expression of Chesterton regarding things in general:
that any that are worth doing are worth doing badly. If this holds
true for homemade music, art, and cooking, how much more if the
Church really is what it claims to be and is doing what it claims to
do. Then one could claim it to be worth a multitude of human errors,
sins, etc. on the part of the weak men who steward it, especially
since without it all the men would be far worse and we'd be without
its effects. Of course, one must believe in the Church to believe
this...”</span></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-size: medium;">There follows brief
discussion of things such as politics, centralization of power,
multinational corporations, banks, economics, medicine, and
globalization, as examples of what are called, in Thomistic terms,
“The Accidentals”. The writer says “I want to back up and view
the whole diseased situation in its historical precedents, and in
principle.”</span></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-size: medium;">So, to get to the heart of
the matter, here is the essay – and those who have read any of St.
Thomas Aquinas will recognize some of the terminology and concepts.
Overall, it's what I would call a “deep dive” into the
fundamental issues of our time, and their historical, theological,
and philosophical subtext. </span>
</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-size: medium;">To use a mixed metaphor –
wade in, and take one bite at a time.</span></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-size: medium;"> --------------- O
---------------- </span>
</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</p>
<p lang="en-US" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><u><b>The
Essentials</b></u><span style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">,
a.k.a. what I think might be part of the general problem:</span></span></span></span></p>
<p lang="en-US" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</p>
<p lang="en-US" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: medium;"> So,
where should I start? Well, you mentioned that you read Ayn Rand,
who, as I’ve heard, is at least partially Aristotelian and,
consequently, emphasizes the natures of things. (BTW, if I pull off
this argument, I’m still not taking time to demonstrate each point
because each one could be another letter [or a book].) Now, without
going into deep philosophical descriptions, we can say that something
has a unique nature if it is a coherent reality (whole) with a stable
essential character that resists change regardless of accidental
changes; although certain accidental changes accumulated can give
rise to a substantial change that produces (or is) a radical
transformation that creates either fusion, reconfiguration, or
disintegration. [I’m assuming that so much of all this is old news
for both of us, but I must run the basics through my head before the
consequences.] [No desire to be “teachy” here.]</span></span></p>
<p lang="en-US" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</p>
<p lang="en-US" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: medium;"> Now,
<u>the good</u> for a given whole, from a sheep to a man, is what is
necessary for its <u>ideal fulfillment</u>, i.e. of its end or
purpose. Since without a proper end or purpose, <u>the truth</u> of
a nature is an incoherent idea, since a nature’s configuration
defines an end, without which everything goes, since nothing would
have any basis for claiming <u>natural or moral rights</u>, i.e. <u>the
goods</u> necessary for the fulfillment of a now non-existent end or
purpose. Thus, the truth, or better, <u>The True</u>, is the nature
of each and the whole of things as they are. <u>The Good</u> is the
end of each and the whole of things. <u>The Beautiful</u> if the
fittingly ordered state of each, several, and the whole of things.
The subsidiary portions, obviously, or intermediate ones, are truths,
goods, and beautiful parts; each group only being fittingly named
insofar as it flows from and leads to one or all of the so-called
transcendentals: <u>The Good,</u> <u>The</u> etc. </span></span>
</p>
<p lang="en-US" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</p>
<p lang="en-US" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: medium;"> Now
from several ancient moral and philosophical traditions [note how
this is quite easily a non-divine-revelation-based argument, but one
perceivable by man’s reason and heart] we may gather similar
conclusions; namely, that in man’s case, if we’re wise enough, we
learn that his ability to know first principles, to deduce deep
understanding of the universe in a way that infinitely surpasses all
other material beings [infinite: because if you stack up an infinite
number of non-humans, you will never get the most basic rational
insight of the most ordinary man], and to seek ends and purposes far
beyond any utilitarian or purely material goal, demonstrates beyond
reasonable doubt that the good, true, and beautiful which he can seek
and know are a world away from power, honor, riches, or pleasure; in
each case, man can sacrifice without rational contradiction each of
these lesser goods for whose that are <u>better</u> = fulfilling his
nature in a <u>higher</u> = nobler way, i.e. in fulfillment of the
capacities of intellect rather than his senses and appetites.</span></span></p>
<p lang="en-US" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</p>
<p lang="en-US" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: medium;"> By
sacrifice, I don’t mean he ought to do away with them, but only
that he is capable of putting them aside.</span></span></p>
<p lang="en-US" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</p>
<p lang="en-US" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: medium;"> Most
men noticed that, whereas animals seek the goods proper to their more
limited ends, which even at their height, basically amount to
physically pleasurable goods, man was able to refrain in a
non-determined freely willing way either from goods of the physical
part of his nature solely, or also those of his spiritual part. </span></span>
</p>
<p lang="en-US" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</p>
<p lang="en-US" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: medium;"> These
spiritual goods included the <u>contemplation</u> of the nature of
the whole universe working in harmonious unity; his own nature, and
the highest limits of its potential; and the identity of the
necessary sufficient cause of the intelligently ordered, beautiful,
and thus rationally coherent universe. Indeed, Plato & Aristotle
both rejected the insult to man’s reason which was the mythology of
the multiple gods, usually little more than glorified humans with
superpowers; some even originally human. It was clearly absurd that
there was more than one, that they were contingent and humanoid, and
that they were subject to change and imperfections and even wounds.
None of this was remotely fitting or possible for the One who, to be
called God, had to stand outside contingent matter which was always
subject to other causes, outside of change and thus time, and who
would have to be the source of what was, and the ordering principle:
quite literally, the source of all truth & beauty and thus
goodness. </span></span>
</p>
<p lang="en-US" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</p>
<p lang="en-US" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: medium;"> Now,
going on , since I must restrain my love of all these topics in order
not to leave you with a thesis instead of a letter.</span></span></p>
<p lang="en-US" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</p>
<p lang="en-US" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: medium;"> So,
let’s see… Given this aforementioned freedom of man, it was
quickly realized that if men went the path of their lower appetites,
they got addicted/habituated to those types of goods having priority;
and the reverse was true for the higher goods. Internal disorder,
i.e., the rule of the lower powers over the higher was realized to be
the major factor. Virtue was proposed as a right-ordering of these
powers, and man was presented with the choice between moral order in
justice, prudence, temperance, and fortitude; or denying the
fulfillment of his nature, negating his proper, higher end by turning
to baser satisfactions in isolation.</span></span></p>
<p lang="en-US" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</p>
<p lang="en-US" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: medium;"> As
you know this all resulted in a flowering of the roots of all the
sciences, initiated, by Aristotle himself, with the support of his
adventurous alumnus, Alexander. Not that Thales and his colleagues
hadn’t been doing any exploring, but they and others were each
trying to identify various elements or material occurrences with a
universal, simplistic, and quite insufficient material cause. Of
course, their inquiries remain admirable first attempts and are
enjoyable reading. Now, to the learned few at least, material beings
were considered rationally intelligible, the result of formal
principles acting upon matter which, though ever changing, expressed
the forms from which it took its various individual species, each
having a proper nature & thus proper goods for it, and a definite
right order proper to it which, if well expressed, was its proper
beauty.</span></span></p>
<p lang="en-US" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</p>
<p lang="en-US" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: medium;"> Thus,
science had rationality beyond the identification of mere
appearances. Yet, the ancients were still highly speculative in
their approach. This sometimes led to using the wrong natural
principle for an explanation without sufficient experiment, such as
the principle of gravity or unequal weights which Galileo corrected.
They didn’t worry too much about this because the most enjoyable
and highest knowledge lay in the principles themselves and the region
of the immaterial/spiritual substances hat made material existence
rationally possible, metaphysics [not, of course to be confused with
the frequent esoteric connotation]. Thus, science took on its
classical definition as “an organized body of knowledge founded
upon fundamental rational principles [contradiction, sufficient
reason, excluded middle, identity, etc.], and productive of knowledge
of the causes of things”.</span></span></p>
<p lang="en-US" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</p>
<p lang="en-US" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: medium;"> <u>Fast
forward</u> to the aftermath of the fall of the Roman Empire. Why
did the Church bother to preserve scientific knowledge when the world
was collapsing? Why did generations of monks spend lifetimes copying
rare, rescued manuscripts? Very often they were, at least at the
beginning, quite ignorant of what they were copying out. It wasn’t
often for immediate use. The explosion of scientific interest, and
the widespread growth of experimentation was so fervent and rapid
because it was fueled by the desire to understand every part of the
world better, in order to understand the Scriptures better, in order
to understand God’s revelation of Himself in the world as indicated
in the Scriptures; and especially (and here we must speak of
Christianity on its own terms if we are to understand it) as
manifested in the words and deeds of the incarnated second Person of
the triune God. [Please excuse my throwing in a divine mystery
without accompanying explanations for now. Though, if you ever wish,
I’ll write you an intro to Christianity on its own terms. That
would be fun!]</span></span></p>
<p lang="en-US" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</p>
<p lang="en-US" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: medium;"> This
motivation created a fairly sacred regard for truth of all kinds, in
whatever subject it could be found. Wherever a church was built, a
school often followed, because, for men to be fully men, they needed,
as Aristotle had said, to know first the truths of things more
knowable to us, closer to us, in order to rise by means of them to
things more knowable in themselves, more purely intelligible, but
more remote. Unlike the ancients, the Medievals had no desire to
remain speculative, and they immersed themselves in concrete
experimentation. The roots of the sciences, crowned by philosophy,
were relaid. Also, let it be noted, methodical doubt that forced
reason to recheck itself was in full use by the Scholastics, as can
be seen in such works as the <u>Summa Contra Gentiles</u> of Aquinas.</span></span></p>
<p lang="en-US" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</p>
<p lang="en-US" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: medium;"> In
contrast to the ancients, they believed in equal human dignity on
account of God’s equal love of all men, and the same origin of all
men in the first parents. At the same time, they still shared the
principle that natures had a right to their fulfillment, and, though
men were uniquely free to reject the proper goods of their nature,
absolutely speaking, such a rejection should be prohibited and made
up for. For Aristotle, someone who from ignorance or habituation
could not understand the proper goods of their nature, needed to be
ruled and even enslaved in order to assure their better fulfillment.
Truth had all the rights, and error none; and no one had a right to
be wrong, let alone teach others the same.</span></span></p>
<p lang="en-US" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</p>
<p lang="en-US" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: medium;"> We
have an excellent example of what was meant: in our care of the
mentally ill or retarded. We don’t give them a right to be
excessively incorrect about their proper goods, and harm themselves.
We even enslave them against their will; sometimes they even request
enslavement, i.e. the substitution of their disordered faculties for
those of another, even by force. Addditionally, we attempt to
immerse them in a <u>rightly ordered</u> (<u>beautiful</u>)
environment in order to, if possible, ease their faculties back to
reality. And we do all this simply for their rudimentary well being.
But the ancient philosophers and Medievals considered the knowledge
of the existence of natures, their proper ends, their purposes as
determined by their intelligent design, and, most especially, man’s
proper end and his rights to the material & immaterial goods
necessary to attain it; especially knowledge, to be infinitely more
crucial; especially since he only had one life to get it right. </span></span>
</p>
<p lang="en-US" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</p>
<p lang="en-US" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: medium;"> This
was a certainty that there were the most essential, really real
things in front of us. The reality of sense knowledge wasn’t taken
for granted in the sense that it would have had to have been proven;
rather, the senses <u>worked</u>, because they were made to convey
information to the intellect which was for the purpose of
understanding sensory data and the realities it showed and implied.
Everything <u>worked</u>, and everything was real. The lack of
artificial environments was of constant assistance to those men, who
were reminded that the Sun was hot, grass was green, gravity is
unforgiving, & we all die, and then what? This was true realism,
as opposed to the agnostic cynic who says, “look… I’m just a
realist”, and means, rather crudely, that day-to-day survival is
all there is. </span></span>
</p>
<p lang="en-US" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</p>
<p lang="en-US" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: medium;"> Now,
these truths had almost never before been enough to persuade rulers
in almost any culture to give them priority over the typical
motivations for obtaining power & honor. What had to come first
was the successful conversion of successive barbarian kingdoms to
Christianity, after which, even the rulers, certain of having an
immortal soul, were more easily, but not always, convinced to their
obligations for their own good and then that of others. The Church
taught them that they only had true authority if they conformed
themselves sufficiently to nature’s demands in ensuring the proper
development of their citizens, protected and not dominated by their
arms. Authority, from the Latin <u>auctor</u>, had to flow from a
bond with the <u>origin</u> of things, and thus their nature &
proper goods. Aquinas demonstrated that a law that broke with
nature, which break renders it unjust, was not a law at all, because
of no authority. Even and especially the men directing the Church on
earth, who were supposed to be the models of obedience to the truth,
had no right to change it. (Of course, this deals with the question
of divine revelation, which must be for a different letter.)</span></span></p>
<p lang="en-US" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</p>
<p lang="en-US" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: medium;"> All
the same, authority was not power, and was strictly dependent on and
found its limits in obedience to a ruler’s duty for his people;
outside that duty, a ruler had no authority, and, all the while, he
had to respect the other forms of natural authority so long as they
were properly exercised, such as that of parents in their families,
rulers of other countries, and the ministers of religion. Did men
habituated to power and honor and wealth and all the pleasure it all
brings easily raise their minds and hearts to these truths? Not
without great struggles or a very good education; sometimes still
not.</span></span></p>
<p lang="en-US" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</p>
<p lang="en-US" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: medium;"> The
basis of culture, as Josef Pieper beautifully argues, was leisure,
i.e. it was the goal; leisure strictly speaking. Art, music, poetry,
literature were not only goods in themselves (in so far, however, as
they also were conformed to the truth, & order & thus beauty,
and thus were sources of authority themselves), but, most
importantly, they were tools of contemplation by which man wondered
at, and explored, and grasped the truth of things. As with all
fruits of contemplation, they became tools of instruction for others
and not simply methods of experiencing refined pleasures. Again,
Aquinas, one of the greatest philosophers and theologians of the
ages, and speaking for the high Middle Ages, concludes: “Nothing
is in the intellect which isn’t first in the senses.” Man, body
and soul, and only fulfilled, i.e. happy (since happiness was not
random pleasure but true fulfillment), had to use both aspects of his
nature to reach the goal. Pleasure was a reaction to any desirable
good, and was always notoriously misleading; the only certain path
was to know the truth and <u>follow it</u>. In this was, all that
was materially productive or useful in that basic sense was never an
end in itself, even scientific knowledge, which was easily capable of
being relegated to an entirely non-contemplative sphere by
considering it only for the sake of material progress, i.e.
technology, as if progress were an end in itself. </span></span>
</p>
<p lang="en-US" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</p>
<p lang="en-US" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: medium;"> Power,
also, without authority was limitless in its application since
obligation based in truth is its only reasonable boundary. Otherwise
power is, as usual, simply the tool of the will of the strongest, or
it makes up endless self-defined obligations which impel it,
“regrettably”, to extend its jurisdiction & penetration. </span></span>
</p>
<p lang="en-US" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</p>
<p lang="en-US" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: medium;"> I
should briefly note, to wrap up this development, that the Church
would have had no power at all if its authority had not been almost
universally recognized. Its greatest spread occurred, in fact, after
the fall of the [Roman] Empire; it could not be spread by power but
had to convince men’s minds & hearts. So how? Part of the
answer is too theological for this argument. But something can be
said. <u>Already</u> men of all past ages had been rationally
certain of the necessity of a spiritual existence after bodily death,
not only because the soul could not be intelligibly subject to decay,
but because a process of reward and punishment was a rational
imperative which alone rendered coherent the simultaneous existence
of an innate human moral intuition so universal that even children
could intuit principles of justice; and, of unredressed moral evils
which clearly opposed fundamental natural principles that had their
origin necessarily in the uncreated intelligence that was their
source.</span></span></p>
<p lang="en-US" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</p>
<p lang="en-US" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: medium;"> I
say all this to emphasize that, not only did it seem more rational,
more coherent to believe in the afterlife, but its denial rendered
the whole world as known by experience absurd, i.e. an ordered whole
that, absurdly, had no justification or explanation. The only
rational conclusion was body & soul, <u>nature</u> &
obligation, & happiness only in a rational coherent end.</span></span></p>
<p lang="en-US" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</p>
<p lang="en-US" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: medium;"> Now,
<u>in brief</u>, what did the Church add? The divine revelation it
claimed and for which it offered proofs changed the goal entirely,
raising it far higher than the most ambitious had dared, higher than
reason could have ever induced or deduced. Such were its claims that
a direct revelation from God was strictly necessary to support them,
i.e. to be their source. Namely, that God was a substantial union of
three essentially identical Persons [Sorry, more mysteries]; that man
had initially rejected God, breaking with his own nature, and
creating a permanent imbalance in it which inclined him toward
disordered desires, evil. Moreover, that man’s only hope lay in a
process of purgative reordering toward God as Truth, Goodness, &
Beauty Himself; a process only possible by divine helps in the soul.
That God so loved creation that He himself entered into it and
adopted men into the intimate life of the Persons of God. That He
took on human nature to bear witness to the truth of it all and to
perform a profound act of humility, obedience, & love, as a man,
toward God. That, by this act of His life and death, he also set an
example of the purification and love to be achieved. </span></span>
</p>
<p lang="en-US" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</p>
<p lang="en-US" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: medium;"> Now,
all of this seems hardly able to win out over men’s ordinary
desires, let alone enable them to suffer egregious tortures and death
for its sake. But so it was. And the careful records of the Roman
trials and executions bear witness to it along with accounts of
marvelous phenomena that occurred during many of the same, i.e.
miracles, phenomena far beyond any possible human capacity to effect.
The Church, as you may imagine, has been careful to double check
such things. In our own day, you can refer to the miracles of
Lourdes, France, and similar places, all confirmed by boards of
agnostic or even atheist doctors. Why mention miracles? Because the
whole history of the spread of the faith is full of them. Rationally
speaking, men and women wouldn’t have abandoned royal kingdoms,
great wealth, sensual pleasures, family, etc. for centuries in order
to follow a slightly convincing set of esoteric theories. And the
whole of the Western world converted. Culturally, this meant that,
despite the ever present failings and malice or at least sinful
concupiscence in men, the whole order of the new society was largely
founded on and shaped by a certain hope, i.e. a hope that was
certain, one pursued not only by the practice of the natural virtues,
but by virtues called supernatural or Christian, since their modes
and ends were so far elevated above the noblest morals of the past
that it was firmly held that divine assistance in the soul was
necessary to practice them. Thus, their faith and hope were also
raised above all naturally knowable and realizable modes and ends;
not in earthly happiness and perfection, but in preparing to die
perfect in order to live with God. For the first time, a special
degree of temperance, mercy, justice, and charity appeared in the
world, forever changing what was meant by these old words.</span></span></p>
<p lang="en-US" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</p>
<p lang="en-US" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: medium;"> All
of this was constantly corroborated by experience; not the mysteries
of faith, but that the world, seen through the eyes of reason
enlightened and elevated far above its capacity for understanding and
wisdom by faith [not rendered obsolete and deceptive by it:
Protestants and Lutherans, esp.], became quite reasonable and not at
all absurd, even in regard to suffering [cf. Albert Camus, <u>The
Rebel</u>]. Under these conditions alone, the universe seemed
intelligible and full of love and hope, and metaphysical rebellion
was erroneous.</span></span></p>
<p lang="en-US" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</p>
<p lang="en-US" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: medium;"> <u>By
the way</u>, men had a very realistic expectation of priests and
bishops. They knew they were men, and therefore not sinless nor
without disordered inclinations; but the knowledge they passed down,
and the divine helps that they stewarded were too important to
foolishly reject on the basis of their personal habits or failings.
Just as one wouldn’t reasonably reject the laws due to corrupt
judges and teachers, or stop eating because your local grocer was a
perverse man (or a grosser man!).</span></span></p>
<p lang="en-US" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</p>
<p lang="en-US" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: medium;"> OK,
deep breath… So why write the past 9 pages? Because, according to
this argument, the Western culture -- Renaissance to modernity -- is,
despite the overweening claims of many of its members to absolute
autonomy with no debt to the past, and no reason to look to it for a
solution to its woes, now insoluble and unsolvable per said
self-entrapping claim above, is not to be understood as a monstrously
incoherent riddle sprung up ex nihilo (or a priori), but rather as
what-in-the-world happened to the culture from the Renaissance on to
render everything unreasonable, absurd, and therefore steeped in
agnostic darkness and its consequences. One might call it a journey
from the most real and reasonable to the least real and reasonable
explanation of the world; or the most real experience of the nature
of things, to the most artificial, alienated non-experience of things
which cannot but give rise to false ideas about almost everything
relevant. Of course, often, the most reasonable explanation is
considered these days only another way to say the most scientifically
validated one by microscope, telescope, or physics engine, as if
understanding was limited to man’s material theories. So, if I
explain the following even as briefly as the aforesaid, I will double
this short argument and perhaps test the tolerance of your interest
in any point I might be making. I might mention a few figures, but I
will attempt to make due with general trends of thought and general
consequences.</span></span></p>
<p lang="en-US" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</p>
<p lang="en-US" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: medium;"> Some
have called this movement a reverse of the Socratic turn, so that,
once one has seen the really real nature of things, one turns back
into the cave and ends up knowing nothing but one’s thoughts about
images of the real. I place the beginning at the Greco-Roman revival
So enamored did so many become with it all, especially with its
idealized portrayals of man intellectually and physically, that a
turn away from man as authentically understood within his proper
context, within the nature of the world, of man’s origin and end
and obligations, etc., began to occur. Even Frank Lloyd Wright, a
secular humanist who could only conclude man’s end as in the
triumph of his own natural perfection, restricted strictly to earth;
even he had to admit that this turn was disastrous for architectural
authenticity containing a true expression of man. He insightfully
calls the Renaissance “the setting Sun all Europe mistook for
dawn”. <i>I might need to resort to bullet points or numbers here;
</i>and then, if you find anything worth expatiating, let me know.
The advantage in all future history is that the thoughts of the great
moderns often are a perfecting of the common thought or implicit
assumptions of the era; hemlock goes into disuse for the most part,
and is replaced with incense for the newest demigod.</span></span></p>
<p lang="en-US" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</p>
<p lang="en-US" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: medium;"> 1.
So, man’s thought turns in on itself, begins to analyze itself,
starts to ignore conclusions with natural wholes as its premises,
and, most catastrophically, begins to doubt the senses as if, because
there’s more than meets the eye, what meets the eye is a deceiver,
or the eye is a deceiver. Notably, scientists didn’t and couldn’t
adapt this radical skepticism of experience upon which they depend
essentially, desiring only to make arranged experiences in which as
many relevant factors as possible are understood. Indeed, the French
have but one word for a normal and a scientific experience or
experiment. Alas, many <u>philosophers</u>, by remaining in their
heads and purposely turned away from the objects of experience,
became convinced that they could coherently claim notions as more
certain if they seemed more to originate in the mind even if they
contradicted the overwhelmingly concrete truths of experience, such
that one could claim that water was not truly or couldn’t be known
to be wet, that substances couldn’t be known, and that cause and
effect could never be concluded from observation; all this while
having to work with daily living in which it was all quite manifest
with no effort at all. They forgot that the raw experience of a
child is prereflective, that one learns of “self” from contrast
with “other than self”, and that all ideas are derived in
relation to and dependent on experience which has never yet refuted
its own existence. These ideas were not above reason, but rather
refuted its foundations.</span></span></p>
<p lang="en-US" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</p>
<p lang="en-US" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: medium;"> 2.
The result was a massive mess of contradiction, since the desire for
knowledge persisted, knowledge and its benefits, even while they
rapidly dissolved their certainties with such improbable doubts.
Their solution was to make the mind the judge of nature’s reality
vs. reality the arbiter of the mind’s reasonableness. To
facilitate this, enamored by new developments in math and mechanics,
they refused to see coherent substances with their own essential
natures any longer. They wanted to claim that all any object could
be known as, was a machine with essentially disconnected parts which
said nothing about a greater whole. This, of course, disregarded
that anyone who sees a machine immediately is in contact with the
entire context which its existence demands: knowledge, purpose, an
intelligence higher than the machine (since it didn’t arise from a
peat bog, be that peat bog ever so ancient). But it also stripped
everything of any of its reality that couldn’t be measured or
weighed, etc.</span></span></p>
<p lang="en-US" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</p>
<p lang="en-US" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: medium;"> 3.
Notably, the advantage to denying nature for many was the necessary
denial of obligation along with it; as it was clear, as shown before,
that obligation is wholly derived from natures and the design or
intent behind them. This, matched with the cheapening, or rather
destruction, of the reasonable notion of faith by the Reformation,
which made it anti-rational and guided by personal interpretation,
caused a widespread throwing away of morality on a huge scale united
with a rejection of moral and political authority as a whole. Thus,
the revolutions from France even to Russia.</span></span></p>
<p lang="en-US" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</p>
<p lang="en-US" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: medium;"> Although
you know so much of this, I’m enjoying laying it all out on the
table.</span></span></p>
<p lang="en-US" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</p>
<p lang="en-US" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: medium;"> In
the midst of it all, Nietzsche wrote as the most honest acknowledger
of what was occurring. But he warned everyone that reason really did
gather all its knowledge from experience, and that, if reason was
right, then all the rational demands of nature were inescapably
obvious: God, morality, objective truth, etc. He even warned
scientists that any certainty of laws and order in things had to come
from a universally real source, and have a meaning. He knew the only
honest rejection had to be of all truth, and reason itself; and this
is what he chose, claiming an impossible standard for knowledge
sufficient to require a mandatory response in terms of those rational
demands. But, he was honest about the conclusions which followed
necessarily from such a rejection: namely, no certainty of truth,
spirit, nature, morals, thus no rights, thus no essential value of
anything, no meaning, no explanations, no purpose, practical
nihilism, absolute agnosticism. He was no atheist, but if God
couldn’t be deduced, then He might as well be dead to us, i.e. “God
is dead”. Only desires remained.</span></span></p>
<p lang="en-US" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</p>
<p lang="en-US" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><u>Modern
Consequences</u><span style="text-decoration: none;">:</span></span></span></p>
<p lang="en-US" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</p>
<p lang="en-US" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: medium;"> Well,
now, here we are at last, if I haven’t fatigued you with my
expositions, and driven you to warm yourself by the flames of my
burning thesis. </span></span>
</p>
<p lang="en-US" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</p>
<p lang="en-US" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: medium;"> One
could go on for hours playing the game of
“match-a-modern-contradiction-to-a-metaphysical-error”. So…
ah… metaphysics, in the study of immaterial principles sense. So,
I will limit myself to a general picture and certain major headings.
There are so many factors, but a <u>few basic types</u> of
<u>manifestations</u> and <u>people</u> stand out. First, a rather
inadequate analogy…</span></span></p>
<p lang="en-US" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</p>
<p lang="en-US" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: medium;"> The
more brilliant microbiologists teach that the moment a person dies
and loses the unifying agent of their whole makeup [which some would
call the soul], their body, though seemingly still integral,
immediately loses coherence, and most of all that was blood, tissue,
etc., becomes jigsaw puzzles of the elements and chemicals that made
it up, which, seen from a distance appear no different. To the
unmagnified evaluation, disintegration is only confirmed slowly and
in pieces, so that one part can have greatly decayed in one way while
seeming to retain wholeness in another. But, thankfully, I don’t
believe culture will ever be totally dead, since God, the soul,
nature doesn’t dissolve because we reject them (or it). Thus, the
modern era is one of extreme dissonance between what men consciously
believe and what their nature still cries out for. Some succeed in
stifling its voice, but the fortunate, even if ignorant of the truth,
are too sensitive to it to refuse to search thoroughly with a sincere
desire for reality and authenticity. Even those who glut their lower
nature on pleasure, power, honor, or wealth, in order to hush the
soul’s protests, are often driven to madness by the dissonance, by
far deeper and unknown desires; and some even end themselves in order
to stop the pain. Clearly, the truly insane are a different, matter,
of course.</span></span></p>
<p lang="en-US" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</p>
<p lang="en-US" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><u>People</u></span></span></p>
<p lang="en-US" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</p>
<p lang="en-US" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: medium;"> 1.
<u>The pseudo- “Voltaires”</u>: Those who realize at least
more, much more clearly what they think and what they are rejecting,
and thus no price is too high to stamp out the lies and fables and
naivety of those who still teach objective morals, principles,
absolutes, sources of authority, etc. they want to remake the world
in some form that might be able to exist while stripped of any
thought of nature and its consequences. E.g.:</span></span></p>
<p lang="en-US" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</p>
<p lang="en-US" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: medium;"> a.
totalitarians,</span></span></p>
<p lang="en-US" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: medium;"> b.
financial globalists,</span></span></p>
<p lang="en-US" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: medium;"> c.
cynical corporate directors,</span></span></p>
<p lang="en-US" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: medium;"> d.
ideologues of towering pride whose triumph would consist in seeing
their thoughts made into reality,</span></span></p>
<p lang="en-US" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: medium;"> e.
truly dark souls for whom destruction as a form of refutation of the
real is their mode of metaphysical rebellion in the face of the
absurd,</span></span></p>
<p lang="en-US" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: medium;"> f.
all the unknown ones who would like to be persons (a -> e) if
they had a chance.</span></span></p>
<p lang="en-US" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</p>
<p lang="en-US" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: medium;"> Of
course, I’m sure that members of all these groups could be acting
in blindness, but the effects of their actions are often the same as
if they knew, since they are often promoting the destruction of all
that came before, for their own projects and ambitions, or ideas, or
pride. </span></span>
</p>
<p lang="en-US" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</p>
<p lang="en-US" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: medium;"> 2.
<u>Members of the perennial philosophy, and thus also the perennial
theology</u>: They understand, experience, and acknowledge, to a
greater or lesser extent, nature and its demands, i.e. the nature of
things, the need for sufficient reason, religion, virtue, <u>minimal</u>
moral legislation [i.e. at least some reasonable amount of it, not
simply for general peace, but to assist others to see the truth of
their nature]; <u>natural</u> rights [ones derived from and <u>proper
to</u> human nature].</span></span></p>
<p lang="en-US" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</p>
<p lang="en-US" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: medium;"> By
the way, I consider each of these groups as requiring the <u>proviso</u>
that someone would belong, only to the extent that they <u>truly live
predominantly</u> according to its principles.</span></span></p>
<p lang="en-US" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</p>
<p lang="en-US" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: medium;"> Here,
one might include (a) many ordinary persons, (b) most peaceful native
tribes, [c] members of religions that are not contradictory to
reason, (d) In a special way, the body of <u>Official</u> Catholic
teaching and those who <u>truly</u> follow it. [I’ve never found
any inconsistency at all between its teachings and all that nature
requires and implies]; (e) many simple farmers, (f) small children. </span></span>
</p>
<p lang="en-US" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</p>
<p lang="en-US" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: medium;"> Here,
happiness is only in fulfillment of nature to one degree or another;
and peace is the tranquility of order in men’s souls, which alone
leads to lasting material peace.<u> </u> </span></span>
</p>
<p lang="en-US" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</p>
<p lang="en-US" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: medium;"> 3.
<u>Sincere seekers of truth</u>: Persons uninstructed in all this,
and raised in an environment fairly or even greatly alienated from it
who, whether through contact with nature (with the natural world),
philosophical or historical or other forms of reflective thought, or
even sudden insight or intuition amidst the shadowland of their life,
have grasped the reality of good & evil, of unchanging truths, of
objective beauty of goodness. They realize there is a bigger picture
they never knew, and they set out earnestly to find it. Sometimes,
they even get sidetracked, alas, by the occult, non-religious
spiritualities, or irrational Eastern philosophies, and never find
what they were seeking. But, if they do find it, it changes their
lives.</span></span></p>
<p lang="en-US" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</p>
<p lang="en-US" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: medium;"> 4.
<u>Hedonists & those insatiable for power and honor</u>:
Usually totally blinded by their particular passion, they don’t
care at all about any picture. Any obstacle, though, to their
endless lust is an object of implacable hatred, regardless of any
analysis. The supreme law for themselves which they don’t allow to
others is “do what you will”; no thought for tomorrow but their
own triumph. </span></span>
</p>
<p lang="en-US" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</p>
<p lang="en-US" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: medium;"> 5.
<u>Cynical agnostics</u>: “Look… I’m just a realist…”
Despair of truth, “live and let live” without challenging others;
3 square meals & sports channel or fine arts subscriptions or gym
or bar, and internet about caps their yearning for happiness.
Epitome or mundanity and indifference. </span></span>
</p>
<p lang="en-US" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</p>
<p lang="en-US" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: medium;">--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------</span></span></p>
<p lang="en-US" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</p>
<p lang="en-US" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: medium;"> OK,
my brief thoughts on societal <u>contradictions flowing from the
modern dissonance</u>.</span></span></p>
<p lang="en-US" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</p>
<p lang="en-US" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: medium;"> 1.
<u>Public Education</u>: A mess, because children of people, and
teachers, from all aforementioned types use it. It’s going to keep
blowing up. </span></span>
</p>
<p lang="en-US" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: medium;"> <u>Countertrend</u>:
Healthy forms of home schooling, a flowering of private &
charter schools in those countries where education isn’t entirely
stolen by government.</span></span></p>
<p lang="en-US" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</p>
<p lang="en-US" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: medium;"> 2.
<u>Law & Politics</u>: The country writ small. On the one
hand, the ambitious, destroying ever more natural freedoms; on the
other, citizens demanding all sorts of random “rights” based on
vastly different ideas of freedom and happiness that have no
objective basis in natural goods flowing from necessity from natural
makeup. Whereas the founders, Masonic deists though they mostly
were, still had in mind “nature and nature’s God”, and
<u>naturally</u> consequent rights. But the fewer the people who
understand nature, the more “rights” will mean “what I can’t
or refuse not to have or do”, or “what I demand to be provided
for me”, or simply “what I feel like doing”.</span></span></p>
<p lang="en-US" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</p>
<p lang="en-US" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: medium;"> 3.
<u>Poetica</u>: I.e., all those ways in which man reaches
intuitively ahead of reason’s current understanding in order to
express experiences of truth, goodness, and beauty.</span></span></p>
<p lang="en-US" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: medium;"> </span></span></p>
<p lang="en-US" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: medium;"> Of
course, often used also to bring out reason’s conclusions & to
teach truths.</span></span></p>
<p lang="en-US" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: medium;"> </span></span></p>
<p lang="en-US" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: medium;"> Arts,
music, literature, poetry, etc.</span></span></p>
<p lang="en-US" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: medium;"> </span></span></p>
<p lang="en-US" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: medium;"> Now
less and less about truth, goodness, and beauty. Radical
individualism [when not blatant deconstructionism] has greatly made
off with a large part, thus rendering that part unintelligible since
usually either an encoded depiction of the most particularly
subjective sensations or impressions or thoughts; or a studied
attempt to shatter the “imprisoning” intelligible structures of
the art form in order to free it for an amorphous, anarchistic
adulteration of it which rarely leaves it any objective identity.
This often gives rise to a ridiculous elitism and affectations of a
select few connoisseurs of these portions of art, music, etc., who
claim penetrating but incommunicable insight into the subjective
stream of consciousness of the artists. </span></span>
</p>
<p lang="en-US" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</p>
<p lang="en-US" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: medium;"> 4.
<u>Science</u>: In very large part engrossed by slavish commercial
or political research in which finding the “good facts” often
takes priority over discovering the true facts. Often used only to
confirm one unnatural agenda after another, or to make us buy things.
</span></span>
</p>
<p lang="en-US" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</p>
<p lang="en-US" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: medium;"> <u>To
restate and summarize, once and for all, a central idea</u>:
Everything is involved in a crisis of the understanding of nature.
Authority and all science, being so intimately united to nature and
its principles, which alone allow for objective induction and
deduction; they must be counterfeited the more nature is
misunderstood or denied. Such counterfeited doctrines can only be
maintained by force since they can’t hold up to experience or
argument. As you know and have written, it all becomes not just
doctrinal but dogmatic and quasi-religious since it has to rely on an
unnatural faith that, incoherently, must allow for rational
dissonance. <u>Dialogue</u>, as you well point out, becomes
increasingly impossible politically, scientifically, ethically,
religiously, philosophically, and historically; because rational
premises and evidence are increasingly absent.</span></span></p>
<p lang="en-US" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</p>
<p lang="en-US" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: medium;"> 4.5
<u>Food & Medicine</u>: If nature is unintelligibly arranged
without an innate purpose, etc., then, necessarily, the assumption
arises that anything man does to “improve” it according to his
intelligence is undeniably more intelligent. All this besides that a
naturally complex, irreducible, and effective plant medicine that
doesn’t work when stripped down and adulterated is intolerably
unpatentable and inexpensive.</span></span></p>
<p lang="en-US" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</p>
<p lang="en-US" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: medium;"> 1.5
<u>Education (revisited)</u>: Note how, increasingly, leisurely
subjects originally meant to lead men to higher understandings of
truth, etc., are now entirely misunderstood and thence removed from
schools in favor of illiberal versions of math, science, etc. Even
history is suffering… interesting.</span></span></p>
<p lang="en-US" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</p>
<p lang="en-US" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: medium;"> 5.
<u>Religion</u>: Even many Catholics, lost in all the confusion,
think and act Protestant, or even agnostic! So no place is sacred in
the face of the massive cultural forgetfulness. As for other
religions, they have no future…</span></span></p>
<p lang="en-US" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</p>
<p lang="en-US" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: medium;"> <u>Buddhism</u>:
In its pure form, not a religion (liturgical, God-centered), but a
spirituality. More frequently sought after in the West as persons,
believing quite rationally in spirit but not sure where else to turn
(especially not to the Protestants), look into it. Alas, it, like
the modern Western movement, is also a form of nature or world
denial, but a <u>much</u> more reasonable one. Instead of thinking
irrationally that mater is all there is without any basis, Buddhism
says “being other than matter must exist”, i.e. it is much more
real, and, in fact, the only non-deceptive real. Despite the very
solid insights into the greater fullness of being in spirit as
opposed to matter, it ultimately bypasses all the fundamental human
questions, even religion, by a self-negation of man, nature, our
faculties, and reason itself. Thus to be or not to be becomes an
absurd question. Buddha sought to escape suffering by escaping
desire, and now, to escape desire or contradiction, they seek total
abstraction from the real, even from the desire of truth. Because of
this attempt at negative contemplation, they’ve developed a
thoroughly ascetical method in which they wish even to negate thought
and consciousness. </span></span>
</p>
<p lang="en-US" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</p>
<p lang="en-US" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: medium;"> In
the face of overwhelming indulgence, noise, and materialism in the
West, they present an attractively silent, recollected, simple, and
self-mastered exterior; but, alas, they admit their total agnosticism
and complaisance amid the rational contradictions of their beliefs.
So man finds his fulfillment of nature in a lack of any individual
existence in the hereafter. The greatest truth is that there is no
truth that is separate from falsehood, etc., etc. Dialogue, in any
constructive sense becomes impossible or meaningless here. At the
same time, they can present no evidence at all for their premises and
principles, and have to be content with playing absurdist mind games
with themselves in order to accustom their faculties to
simultaneously affirming mutually exclusive claims.</span></span></p>
<p lang="en-US" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</p>
<p lang="en-US" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: medium;"> 6.
<u>Environment</u>: Without a true answerability to the source and
designer of nature, without a grasp of its innate value, it all
becomes “stuff” for us to use that shouldn’t just be left
laying around doing nothing since it could bring us so much wealth
and power. And who can <u>prove</u> that wrong then? Same for
animals, same for human beings, cf. Nietzsche. </span></span>
</p>
<p lang="en-US" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</p>
<p lang="en-US" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: medium;">--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------</span></span></p>
<p lang="en-US" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</p>
<p lang="en-US" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><u>Meanwhile</u><span style="text-decoration: none;">:
Souls have a need for the infinite. Created for the enjoyment of
the source of all being, they either search it out or kill themselves
trying to fill that hole in their hearts by attempting to squeeze
infinite enjoyment out of the finite. An insatiable, irrational
effort: food, sex, money, power; they exhaust each respective faculty
and then shoot themselves or give up on happiness, truth etc. This
happens with knowledge too and anything which the animal or rational
desires take as objects </span><u>per se</u><span style="text-decoration: none;">
vs. means. The </span><u>Sincere Searchers</u><span style="text-decoration: none;">
feel drawn to moderation, intuiting that their real happiness lies
they-know-not-where but somewhere far higher. I will claim that we
in the religious life</span><i><span style="text-decoration: none;">
</span></i><span style="text-decoration: none;">live with a heartache
for what we </span><u>know, in part</u><span style="text-decoration: none;">,
that we are seeking (and what we believe with certain hope). And I
claim that we Catholics commune with the </span><u>Source Himself</u><span style="text-decoration: none;">,
or </span><u>Themselves</u><span style="text-decoration: none;">
(Trinity), of true peace. </span></span></span>
</p>
<p lang="en-US" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</p>
<p lang="en-US" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</p>
<p lang="en-US" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</p>
<p lang="en-US" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</p>
<p lang="en-US" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: medium;"> </span></span></p>
<p lang="en-US" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</p>
<p lang="en-US" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</p>
<p lang="en-US" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</p>
<p lang="en-US" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span></span>
</p>
<p lang="en-US" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</p>
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</p>
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</p>Dave Witterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10685191772640386942noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4241997621473648057.post-72504839248020131012022-06-28T20:20:00.005-04:002022-06-29T20:08:31.243-04:00The Politics of Revolution (Part 2 of “How Destroyed Does America Have to Be?”)<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br /></p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">Right off the bat, you might say “But
wait, that doesn't make sense – isn't revolution what happens when
politics <i>don't </i>work?” And that's true in a sense, but you
could also say that revolution is just politics on fast forward –
eliminating the fine points and the details and getting right to the
heart of the matter (and breaking a few eggs along the way). And in
fact, that's what seems to be happening in our time. How many times
have you heard, or read, a comment like “history is speeding up”,
or “the news cycle can barely keep up”? It seems that we wake up
to a different world each day – and yet that is how prior
revolutions were described as well. And to some extent, this
disorientation is intentional – keep the citizenry off-balance and
confused, and especially no longer sure who the “good guys” or
the “bad guys” are, and you're halfway to the goal. All will be
made clear once the revolution is complete and all the stragglers
have been rounded up. Then there will be no more doubt or ambiguity,
only certainty and the iron hand.</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">But that doesn't mean revolutions are
apolitical – far from it. There has to be a, let's say, critical
mass of dissatisfaction among the populace for revolutions to work –
not that the isolated revolt, mutiny, whatever, can't happen, because
they do and have, many times down through the ages. But for it to
stick, there has to be a certain level of – even if tacit –
agreement. And yes, this is true even if the result of the
revolution is the oppression and exploitation of the very people on whose behalf it was supposedly staged – usually the “common man”, or
“the workers”, or “labor”. The cannon fodder of every
revolution over the past 200+ years has been the aggrieved – the
underprivileged – the exploited – the shat-upon. And yet find me
a revolution which, once successful in throwing out the Ancien
Regime, does not, on some level, exploit and take advantage of the
very same groups. More often than not, for all of their effort they
have merely traded one form of oppression and slavery for another.
</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">Another factor is the propaganda.
Prior to the revolution, it's all about “rights”, and grievances,
and getting even, and sticking it to the ruling class (royalty being
especially good as targets). Post-revolution, it's more about
absolute conformity for the good of the state, and stop griping
because Rome wasn't built in a day, and you can't make an omelette without breaking a few eggs, and there's a camp just down the
road for any naysayers and cranks.
</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">What would a revolution be, in fact,
without a vast army of the dissatisfied, the alienated, and the
underprivileged? And what would a modern revolution be without
providing them with voting rights, regardless of citizenship status?
Imagine if the Roman Empire had not only welcomed the barbarians –
opened the gates for them – but also instantly made them
full-fledged Roman citizens with voting rights? The empire would
have fallen much sooner than it did. (Now one might say, if it was
inevitable it's just as well it happened sooner than later. Yeah –
it's good being an armchair historian, but just try living through
it.)
</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">Which brings us to the present day, and
the situation in the U.S.A. As I've observed on a number of
occasions, we are a revolutionary society. We started out with a
revolution, and then – never satisfied with the status quo –
staged a number of mini-revolutions from that point on, right up to
the present day. We had, for example, Jacksonian democracy...
Reconstruction... Progressivism... the New Deal... The Great Society,
along with the Civil Rights and Voting Rights Acts... the cultural
revolution of the 1960s... the short-lived populist “revolutions”
under Reagan and Trump... and now the full-blown Revolution of 2020,
which not only consolidated all previous gains (those trending
leftwards, of course) but set even more firmly in place all of the
governmental structures, agencies, laws, and regulations required in
order to make the revolution permanent – and, by the way – and
most importantly of all, perhaps – secured the full cooperation and
“buy-in” of the military.</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">And, in a sense, it matters little whether we refer to a revolution as "just starting", "under way", or "successful", since to the revolutionary mind there is no such thing as completion, i.e. satisfaction with the new status quo. If dissatisfaction is a state of mind of a certain portion of the citizenry, then so is the desire -- the need -- for any given revolution to go on indefinitely, since there is always room for improvement, and perfection is always tantalizingly out of reach. But isn't “permanent revolution” a
contradiction in terms? Chairman Mao didn't think so. And his heirs (both in China and elsewhere on the globe) are pretty much calling the shots these days.
“Permanent revolution” is no more improbable than “permanent
dissatisfaction”, which is, arguably, a part of fallen human
nature.</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">So yes, revolution is nothing new. It
isn't alien to the American experience – the American “experiment”
-- but is part and parcel of it. If there was ever a society that
was, in its heart of hearts, anti-conservative, anti-status quo, it
is our own. There is an unwritten rule, or assumption, that change
is good – change for its own sake, actual results being a minor
consideration. “Progress” has been an icon and a fetish almost
from the start – and that has morphed into something called
“change”. This was, of course, the theme of Barack Obama's
campaigns in 2008 and 2012 – change! Hope and change! The great
icon, the great golden calf! And simply believing in it was enough;
not only do actual results not matter, but it's considered downright
impolite to even bring the subject up.</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">But let's not get too judgmental on
this point, because it should be obvious that the appeal of “change”
has to be based on dissatisfaction with things as they are. Obama
did not win two presidential elections because people were satisfied
and content. He won because people were angry – frustrated –
alienated. They felt that they had lost control of their lives, and
therefore of their fate. And his campaigns were designed to verify,
reinforce, and perpetuate all of that anger and frustration – and
to promise that things would get better, because – well –
“because change”.
</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">Now, one could argue, what's the big
deal? Most people feel this way most of the time, and Obama was just
capitalizing on it. OK... but then why do people feel this way?
What is it about America that seems to yield up this attitude,
seemingly out of nowhere, whereas in other countries it takes a lot
more effort (and in some cases, is virtually impossible – think
about places like Switzerland, for example)? What it is is what I
call The Promise – and that is that the Founding Fathers not only
established a republic that was designed as well as it was, given
their relative sophistication about human nature, but that republic
held out hope for perpetual progress... perpetual improvement in the
standard of living... unhindered freedoms... and that the voice of
the people would always and everywhere we heard, and honored. Quite
a wish list! And it actually seemed to work for a while, at least as
long as people were content to allow the landed gentry to run things.
But then along came populism (version 1.0) and concern for “rights”
(beyond those already specified in the Constitution), and the gap
between the ruling elite and the common folk was exposed, and that
got the ball rolling. (And yes, Southern Secession and the
establishment of the Confederacy was a high water mark of sorts.)
Post-Civil War, our revolutions were a bit less violent, but no less
significant. And that brings us up to the present day, when a new
variation on an old theme is found, namely that the revolution is
being led by the government itself – the “establishment” -- and
it is aimed at the people – or at least a substantial portion
thereof.</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">Now, one might say, but haven't all of
<i>our </i>revolutions been, basically, at the instigation of
whoever's in charge, and haven't they all been opposed by a certain
percentage of the populace? Instigation, yes – in the case of the
Progressive Era, the New Deal, civil rights measures of the 1960s,
etc. Revolution from the top – which was, in fact, turned into an
art form by Chairman Mao. But as for opposition – not so much.
The Progressive Era and the New Deal were, if you will, heavy on
carrot and light on stick. They promised, and they delivered – up
to a point. (And what they were unable to deliver, they filled in by
means of propaganda.) They were represented, at the time, and are in
the history books, as being “for the people”. I'm not sure the
same can be said of what's going on at present. Yes, there is plenty
of carrot (entitlements, creation of new “rights” and catering to
newly-discovered victim/grievance groups) but also a whole lot of
stick (taxes, regulations, inflation, violation of traditional
rights, and intentional alienation and persecution of large segments
of the populace by means of slander, “canceling”, discrimination,
etc.).
</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</p>
<p align="CENTER" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">-------------- o
--------------</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">You may have noticed that in my
previous post I seemed to be expressing some degree of disapproval
of current events and trends. (And I was trying so hard to be
objective and “value free”!) Does that make me a “conservative”?
Well... if one defines conservatism as “preferring to stick with
what works, or at least with what is stable and predictable, as
opposed to experimenting with the lives and fates of the citizenry
based on some theories or 'models' cooked up in Ivy League faculty
lounges”, then yes, I'm a conservative. But if it means “regarding
the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution as sacrosanct
holy writ that must be set in granite and which cannot be improved
upon, and America as permanently occupying the moral high ground, and
being nigh unto infallible in its foreign and domestic policies”
then no. In that case, I'll join the “dirty hippies” in the next
protest march.
</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">When you boil it all down, the ultimate
question becomes, quite simply, “Is the world a better place
because America, i.e. the United States, existed?” Or, would
everyone have been better off if we had just stuck with Britain and
become part of Canada, or whatever? To put it another way – has
America been part of the solution all these many years, or part of
the problem? Has our experiment with democracy metastasized into
oppression, both on the domestic front and world-wide? Or has it at
least been preferable to the alternatives, whatever they may have
been? When you put it this way, you soon realize that the question
is impossible to answer. History is not full of dress rehearsals and
trial runs – it's always the real thing, for better or worse. No
rewinds, no replay, no Plan B, no “what-ifs”, no “woulda,
coulda, shoulda”.
</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">Now, one “nuanced”, if you will,
answer might be that we were a good influence for a while, but then
“broke bad”, went rogue, whatever. Human nature and the hunger
for power took over. OK... then what was the point at which the
balance shifted? The Mexican War? The Civil War? The
Spanish-American War? World War I? World War II? Korea? Vietnam?
Iraq/Afghanistan? Everybody has a theory as to when we “lost our
innocence” – and the simplest answer is that we never had it to
begin with. The Founding Fathers knew more about human nature than
all the present-day Ivy League “scholars” and think-tankers
combined, and yet they had hope. They figured, give flawed human
nature a chance to better itself through a rationally designed form
of government. Perhaps reason will conquer passion – or at least
keep it at bay. And, better to fail than to despair of even trying,
right? And in fact, that effort does seem to have at least altered
the conversation over the years. Democracy has become, for many
people in many places, something that is worth a try, or at least
given lip service. (Even the most tyrannical governments on the
planet pay tribute by calling themselves the “people's democratic
republic of....”.) What it runs into, more often than not, is not
only human nature, but national character. Contrary to our State
Department's perennial delusion, there are people out there who are
simply not ready for democracy, in any form. And this is not being
judgmental; it's simply a fact, and is based on any number of things
– tradition, custom, religion, language, world view, and so on.
And it doesn't mean those cultures are “inferior”; they may have
worked out a quite satisfactory system of governance – one that
works better than ours, in fact (not that high a bar any longer).
And then there is the natural aversion to some foreigners (especially “infidels”) trying to tell you how to run your country and live
your life. (And – how many times have we put lipstick on a pig
called “fledgling democracy” when it was, in fact, nothing of
the sort, but just a show put on for the sake of staying on our
foreign aid payroll? “Color revolutions”, ink-stained thumbs...
just a side show, basically – and a cruel hoax for the people who
actually fell for it.)
</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">So yes, it's imponderable. Go back to
1776 but squelch those minor uprisings in Massachusetts, and put
those treasonous wackos on house arrest before they can gather at
Independence Hall, and assert that “Hail, Britannia” will remain
our national anthem, and let people of good common sense remain in
charge, and long live King George! Would the world have profited
more by that than by what actually happened? Who knows?
</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">But just because this issue is
imponderable doesn't mean there aren't plenty of people out there who
have the answer. Start with the “1619 Project” which asserts
that America was founded on slavery and was therefore evil, immoral,
and flawed from the beginning – and that nothing that has happened
since can ever make up for that, therefore the country has to be
brought to ruin and then rebuilt from scratch, with not only equal
rights but also radical redistribution of property and other
resources. And of course this idea has international implications as
well, since any nation with such a fatal flaw cannot possibly have
legitimately represented itself as an exemplar of democracy, human
rights, and freedom for all these years – and certainly should
never have imposed its flawed ideas on any other nation or culture,
either through diplomacy or by means of physical force. So if
America is suspect, so are all of its works, and the rest of world
has been deceived all this time. (But they are “woke” now, and America has been "outed" as a total fraud.)</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">But the 1619 Project aside, many
people have come to the opinion that it's high time America paid the
price for its hubris and presumption – way past time, in fact. No
one wants to have to live with the karma of America's past sins, in
other words – and if committing political, cultural, and economic
suicide is a sufficient form of reparation, it's certainly worth
doing.
</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">So yes, collective guilt is an
overriding theme when it comes to both domestic and foreign policy,
the only question being how to expiate that guilt. On the domestic
side, when it comes to slavery, the preferred option is to nullify
all economic gains that can be traced to slavery – which, in the
“woke” playbook, means pretty much all. Make us not only
poverty-stricken, but helpless before our enemies, because we were –
as everyone knows (because that's what we're taught in public school
and college) – the only nation on earth to allow slavery to persist
for so long, and this in the face of all of our pretenses – oh, the
hypocrisy! So we can only repay our debt to the rest of humanity be
ceasing to exist as a nation, and as a culture. And if we're ever
assaulted in any way – economically, militarily, culturally – by
any other nation taking advantage of our sorry state, well, we've got
it coming.</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">Plus, domestic guilt mongers aside,
there are plenty of people elsewhere on the globe who totally agree
with this point of view. They may not say much about slavery –
that would be too blatantly hypocritical even for them! – but when
it comes to America throwing its weight around, and our own
hypocrisy, they are remarkably unified: It's about time for a
comeuppance! We're sick of America being “the” superpower, and
the world's policeman -- who do they think they are? And this is at
the very same time they cheerfully accept our “foreign aid” and
military assistance (and pay us occasional and grudging respect for
having bailed them out in World Wars I and II, and for having held
off the “Russian bear” throughout the Cold War). Only a fool
wouldn't take advantage of Uncle Stupid while they have the
opportunity (recalling the “beached whale” analogy...). And what
they marvel at more than anything else is our naivete. They may have
laughed behind Trump's back at NATO get-togethers, but do you really
think they aren't laughing behind Biden's back as well – maybe
more? (At least Trump scared them a bit; Biden is about as scary as
a frayed sock puppet.)
</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">Make no mistake, the “America and the
world” issue is a prominent subtext of the current revolution, but
it's far from the only issue, and not even the most important
(although it may be to watchers beyond our borders). In view of our
history, the current revolution is far from exceptional. One might
almost say that it's an American tradition – that we would be all
out of sorts without a revolution of some sort every few decades.
Now, this doesn't mean that it's right, or desirable, or even that it
won't have catastrophic consequences – only that, in the broad
historical scheme of things, there's an air of inevitability about
it. One could object, of course, that all of our previous
revolutions have at least not meant the end of the Republic – that
it has survived, in some form, through much storm and strife. And
who knows, it may survive the current revolution as well – at least
in superficial terms, like the form of government (even if the
character of elections undergoes permanent change, including
eliminating them for all intents and purposes). Will we still have a
functioning system of currency, or will we be spending “Zimbabwe
bucks” or trading potatoes for shoes? How about property rights?
(They are under assault as it is.) How about all the other rights
listed in the Bill of Rights, as well as rights that have been
defined or “discovered” since? Will they exist in name only –
or not at all? (Or – more likely – will all the old, traditional
rights be declared null and void, and the new “rights” be
declared paramount? This topsy-turvy act is also a hallmark of many
prior revolutions elsewhere on the planet. What better way to remake
society than to declare that what once was right, and therefore legal,
is now wrong, and therefore illegal – and vice versa?)
</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">That's on the historical side. But
then we have the political side, and once again a revolution, in a
sort of paradoxical way, depends on a certain modicum of support from
the populace even if its ultimate goal is to suppress, or eliminate,
most of the rights of said populace. Yes, people can vote themselves
into tyranny – the most notable historic example being the naming
of Adolf Hitler as chancellor of Germany in 1933, based on the
election results in 1932. But we also have numerous other examples
of the popular vote going to a communist candidate, who immediately
turns around and eliminates elections. (So in that case, did the
people vote, in an election, to eliminate elections? File this under
either “paradox” or “irony”, your choice.)
</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">See, people don't vote for a “system”
nearly as often as they vote for an idea (right or wrong) and, even
more often, for what they perceive to be in their best and most
immediate interests – economically and socially. This is human
nature, and is the very thing that the Founding Fathers were
attempting to rise above with their emphasis on certain ideas –
rights, proper governance, etc. What resulted in the long run was a
kind of hybrid – “pocketbook” issues, regional loyalties, etc.
often disguised as ideas, or ideals, with ample iconography to match.
“America” is a concept that suffices on Memorial Day or the
Fourth of July, but when people walk into the voting booth, their
jobs and bank accounts seem to carry the day. (This is assuming that
they are not among the “woke” minority who take pride in voting
against their own economic interests. In their case it's
intentional, but most of the time it's the result of propaganda and
blatant lies by politicians.)
</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">And I often wonder how many people
actually vote for “America”, as opposed to their
state/county/village/farm/etc. It seems that most people can only
“think big” up to a point, but in the long run they will make
decisions – including those about their governance – based on
what is more immediate, visible, and essential to their livelihood.
The trick, of course – and it's one that works a remarkable portion
of the time – is convincing people that their immediate concerns
are synonymous with the good of the Republic, however defined – and
that on some mystical, other-worldly level, fighting goatherds in
Afghanistan has something to do with preserving the family farm in
Iowa. Get enough people to believe this, and you can do anything you
like foreign policy-wise, including starting and pursuing endless
wars with no discernible relationship to the actual welfare or
prosperity of any actual American citizen.</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">So what has been going on all this
time? Well, it's about changing – through relentless propaganda,
derision, and shaming -- people's natural regard for home and hearth
– for family, village and town – for race, ethnicity, and
religion – into a regard – nay, a prioritization – of ideas.
Now, this is nothing new, since we've been an ideational society
since the start. But even our most iconic idea, or image, that of
“America”, is an abstraction, really, when you come to think
about it. Is the “America” of a New England fisherman the same
“America” as that of a Nebraska farmer, or a California fruit
grower, or a Detroit factory worker? They may use the word, but what
they really mean is much more here and now – my family, my home, my
street, my neighborhood. (Let the rootless cosmopolitans – the
globalists – play their games. We know what they've given up (or
never had), and we know what really counts in life.)</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">But the idea of “America” has
outlived its usefulness, according to the globalists (including our
home-grown kind). It's... well... not just old-fashioned and out of
style, but it's also “reactionary”, “isolationist” (try that
out on the guys who fought in World War II and Korea),
“paternalistic”, “xenophobic”, and, ultimately, “racist”,
as well as the dozen or so (and counting) other kind of “isms”
that could be called up. So the tables have been turned on the
citizenry, who thought they had a reliable set of standards,
principles, and images to rely on, and now they're all expected to
embrace “globalism” with all of its myriad components,
implications, and alleged blessings. They are expected to become
world citizens – loyal to the planet, and nothing less.
</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">And they are the people who have the
most to lose in the current revolution. All that they value is being
devalued, if not outright derided and laughed at, by the ruling elite
and their street-wise acolytes. And yet – and here is the ultimate
irony – they continue to vote for the people who are out to destroy
them and their culture. And I attribute this not so much to their
ignorance as to the utter treachery of the ruling elite and of the
public officials who are their obedient servants (not to mention
their facilitators in the media and on the Internet). If our
previous revolutions were, in a sense, about government dragging some
of the populace, kicking and screaming, into a new era (think of
civil rights legislation), then the current revolution is about
completely ignoring large segments of the populace – having decided
that they don't count and should have no rights, and are, basically,
non-persons.
</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">When the ruling elite simply writes off
a substantial portion of the population, you know that the revolution
is well under way, and nearing completion. When it declares that
portion of the population to be “deplorable”, and liable to
engage in “conspiracy theories” and “insurrections”, you know
that the revolution is over with, and all that remains is a
mopping-up operation (going on right now with the January 6
hearings). Our previous revolutions at least had the merit of
allowing the losers to live, if in a state of second-class
citizenship (see the South, from the Civil War right up to the
present day). The current attitude seems to be one of total war –
defeat is not sufficient – only total subjugation will do, and,
lacking that, extermination.
</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">So yes, it is different this time, and
yet – and here's the point at which all “conservatives” should
engage in a rare exercise in humility – it's apparently what most
people want, as evidenced by their voting patterns, which include not
voting, which is the same as going along with whatever the results
happen to be. (Ever wonder why “opinion polls” have such a low
correlation with election results when the polls are conducted by
conservative organizations, but a much higher one when the polls are
conducted by liberal organizations? Think about that for a while.)
</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">To be just a bit simplistic about it,
anyone who voted for Biden in 2020 – well, OK, there were certainly
plenty of anti-Trump, as opposed to pro-Biden, votes – but
basically, anyone who voted for Biden voted for exactly what we have
now – inflation, shortages, open borders, Critical Race Theory,
racial paranoia, gender paranoia, “climate change” being Job One,
globalism, “green” (no oil, no gas, no nukes), chaotic foreign
policy – and so on. They voted for all of these things because
they were either explicitly part of the Democratic platform, or they
were completely predictable in the event Biden became president.
(Or, they were things Trump was against, so they had to be for.)
So... basically, they can't complain, and in fact they aren't
complaining. If you look at or listen to the mainstream media and
their facilitators in the “social media” and “entertainment”,
you'd think everything was groovy – that we had entered an entirely
new phase en route to Utopia. (And as for the White House press
office, whose talent for propaganda and doublespeak ranks up there
with Izvestia and Pravda, “never is heard a discouraging word, and
the skies are not cloudy all day”, like the words of the old cowboy
song.)
</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">And the point is (again, memo to any
and all conservatives) that the people who are with, or at least not
against, the revolutionary program are, in fact, in the majority.
So... if you're really a dedicated fan of “democracy”, i.e.
“majority rule” regardless, you should be completely satisfied
with all of this. And of course I know what the objections will be –
“But it's wrong! It's un-American! It's globalism, tyranny,
totalitarianism, Marxism, etc.” All true – but it's also “the
will of the people”, by definition. So... how's that “democracy”
thing working out for you? Is it really the best system yet devised
for self-governance? The conservatives need to do some serious
soul-searching on this issue.
</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">But one can argue that this isn't the
real thing – that it's degenerate, chaotic, the product of
brainwashing and propaganda, etc. Very likely! But then we have to
at least re-think what we mean by “democracy”, and what we
want... what we expect it to produce. Because it turns out (and the
Founding Fathers knew this very well) that a democracy is only as
good as the citizens who make it up, and if those citizens are the
demoralized product of a long – generations-long – campaign of
propaganda and demoralization and guilt-tripping, starting in the
universities and filtering down through the political class and the
media to the ordinary citizen, then we can expect what we have now –
not democracy in the classical sense, but a kind of Bizarro-democracy
– a disfigured mockery of the real thing, which would scandalize
the Founding Fathers and their political descendants, but which –
at least as things stand – appears to be a natural, inevitable
stage of devolution of America as an idea, and thus as an empire as
well. The question of whose fault it is – the people's or their
enemies – may not even be relevant, since if the people have
allowed this state of affairs to develop, they're their own worse
enemies.
</p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br /></p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"> -------------- o -------------</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">Lest I end this post on a completely
negative note, let me point out that, historically, every empire
eventually falls, disappears, or at least shrinks. And empires built
on a delusional Utopian vision have a much lower half life than those
built on plain old conquest. Do you find this ironic? Because
old-style conquest, i.e. war, is supposedly out of fashion these
days, which is why Russia's invasion of Ukraine is such a scandal.
War is, well... unseemly... in poor taste... hurtful... and all the
rest of it. And yet I will contend that it's more universal, and
natural to the human condition, than Utopianism (which often involves
war anyway). It's not that I'm saying “Give War a Chance”
(priceless title of one of P. J. O'Rourke's hilarious books), it's
just that it's so common, and so nearly universal, that it should
give one pause when entertaining Rousseau-esque fancies about the
nature of man and of what is possible, i.e. to what extent the human
race, or any portion thereof, can pull itself up by its bootstraps.</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">And this is the odd thing about
America, in a way. We are an ideational society, which should mean
that reason prevails in most if not all circumstances. And yet we
are, arguably, one of the most warlike nations, and cultures, on the
planet – both now and historically. (Our “defense” budget
exceeds that of most other nations combined – and yet only about 1%
of it is dedicated to actual defense, i.e. of the homeland.) And
what gets us into wars is, more often than not, ideas. Ideas based
on the founding documents for certain, but also on the many and
varied interpretations of said documents, right up to the present day
– the most overriding idea being that simply being “enlightened”
is not enough – staying home and sitting under our own vine and fig
tree, and minding our own damn business, is way too boring, and
selfish to boot. We owe it to the world to spread the gospel of
“democracy” – by example, persuasion, or by force if need be
(were our Founding Fathers actually students of Muhammad? Makes you
wonder... ). And by the same token, we can excuse any foreign
escapades – invasions, occupations, whatever – regardless of cost
in “blood and treasure” – on the basis that ideas are, and
should be, paramount, and that no sacrifice in their service is too
great.
</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">And this is what the rest of the world,
and especially the globalists – Utopians all – are having to cope
with when dealing with the United States. We have trouble falling
into line behind the E.U. or the World Economic Forum because we have
long since written off Europe, and especially Western Europe, as a
hotbed of world-weary cynicism – a place not of ideas but of
lukewarmness and decadence. And yet here we are faced with the
prospect of, basically, submitting to their world view and their
wishes, and leaving traditional American values (whether honorable or
wrong-headed) behind.
</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">And is this because we've run out of
ideas – our most cherished possession as a society, in a way? Or
have we grown world-weary as well? Or has our pursuit of ideas been
rebuffed, brought low, and humiliated with increasing frequency (one
only has to consider Vietnam, Iraq, and Afghanistan)? Or is it as
simple as demographic change (the replacement of traditionally-minded
Americans with people who simply don't share our ideas and our
vision, and who show no interest in “assimilating”)? In other
words, does the America that conservatives are trying “save” even
exist any longer (especially if one clings to the notion of “majority
rule” at all costs)?</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">And this may, in fact, be why the
globalists and Utopians – especially of the European variety –
have found it so easy to infiltrate into our culture, economics,
politics, and even values. If nature abhors a vacuum, so do
political and social activists; they see a weakness – a gap – and
waste no time filling it. And it matters little what they fill it
with – what counts is that they've replaced nothing with something.
And when conservatives object, and protest – it's foreign,
decadent, un-American, etc. – one response (call it mean-spirited
triumphalism) might be “Well, then why didn't you defend your
traditions and values more energetically, rather than acting like
sheep before the shearer?” A valid point, I'm afraid. But it
doesn't matter how energetically a minority group defends its values
and way of life, a sufficiently determined majority will roll over
them with ease – as is happening now, and the popular culture is,
if you will, the vanguard, followed closely by public education and
the rest of the armies of “agents of change”. Another way of
putting it is that when the long march through the institutions was
taking place, the “average American” was fixated on 9-to-5 jobs,
car payments, TV, and sports. Now we wake up to a different world,
and the cry goes out “What happened? And who betrayed us? Who
opened the gates and let the Trojan Horse in?” Well, um... how
about the people you've been voting into office all this time? Bet
you thought they were on your side; sorry about that. They were, in
fact, enemy agents – every bit as despicable as the “atomic
spies” of old, but much less picturesque.
</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">But this is the way of things in human
history – and it's, ultimately, always about power – not
necessarily overt power, i.e. armies, wealth, territory, etc. – but
about, once again, the power of ideas, and by that I don't mean good
vs. bad ideas, but ideas that are backed by sheer force and
determination. A true believer in just about anything is what is
called, in the military, a “force multiplier”. History is
brimming over with examples of small but determined groups emerging
victorious after a struggle with a (supposedly) “great” power;
our own Revolution (the first one) is an example. And one reason
ideas have such power is that the other side has no answers. We were
confronted with fundamentalist Islam in Afghanistan (as were the
Russians), and could not answer in kind, or anything close to it. So
a “primitive” society with “crude” weapons, a fanatical
religious outlook, and – gasp! – no uniforms succeeded, after 20
long years, in forcing us to give up and go home. (See also Vietnam,
for both us and the French.)</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">What America is confronted with now is,
in a way, new and different. We're used to revolutions, as I've
said, but those are basically internal matters, at least for us. Our
revolutions have always been home-grown and tailored to our tastes,
in a sense. And we've always had the oceans protecting us from
traditional military attacks and invasions from overseas. But our
Achilles heel, as it turns out, was in being apathetic and naive
about foreign influences in other areas -- economics being prime, but
also politics/diplomacy, values, culture, and even philosophy and
“political science” (areas in which “invaders” from Europe
have done some of the most severe damage). We (OK, some of us) take
great pride in our European “heritage” – problem is, that
heritage is pretty much extinct in the Old Country, and what replaced
it is at our doorstep (or maybe a “home invasion” is a better
metaphor). America is, in many ways, the last holdout for many of
the traditions our ancestors brought with them across the ocean. The
Old World has moved far beyond all of that and considers our
“clinging” behavior to be somewhat laughable and pathetic –
especially when it comes to religion. (Note the similarity to the
attitudes of our home-grown elites.) Western Europe in particular
takes great, and quite explicit, pride in being religion-free – in
being completely secular and materialistic, and they find this quite
satisfying and wonder what's wrong with us that we don't follow suit
(but they have ways of dealing with this and are doing so).
</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">So the “good news”, in a way, is
that empires do eventually end, in some manner or other. The
American Empire is on its last legs – not because of conclusive
defeats overseas or economic meltdown on the home front, but because
of lack of political will – not lack of ideas per se, but lack of
any way of implementing those ideas that does not immediately turn
into a catastrophe. As a nation and as a society, we're falling
apart in nearly every way. But we're not alone, as it turns out!
The “international community” is here to help us – and to
absorb us into a global, or near-global, empire, albeit in a
subordinate role, since we still have to pay for our sins, which are
great and many. So – again, like the beached whale – we will be
“mined”, if you will, for any usable resources, and assigned a
kind of bizarre “emeritus” status on the world stage, but someone
else will be calling the shots. (And don't think our own elites
aren't polishing their resumes, hoping that they will be welcomed
into (or allowed to remain in) the inner circle once we're over the
hump. No one wants to be like those Russian officials who thought
all was well until they were photoshopped out of the May Day parade
photos – the first step to either the gulag or an unmarked grave.)
</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">And yet – and yet! – this empire –
this new, squeaky-clean, humanistic, “diverse”, you-name-it,
empire will also pass, eventually – and it may take decades, or
even centuries. No one now alive will be around to see it. But in
the scheme of things, it's inevitable – and that very flaw, or
weakness, means that a revival of the human spirit is possible.</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">And when's the last time you heard that
term – “human spirit”? Just try “Googling” it, as opposed
to things like “rights”. I imagine you'll wind up with a 1-to-a
million ratio. And yet the human spirit, by which I mean the desire
to live free, as opposed to being in a state of slavery – and
conscious, as opposed to brainwashed – this cannot be suppressed
forever. The urge to live free is always there, perhaps buried deep
in the subconscious, but never totally extinguished, because it is,
after all, a vital part of human nature. African slaves that were
brought to the U.S. considered freedom to be their ultimate vision,
and that which they hoped and prayed for (and sang about) for
generations. Freedom burst forth from the Baltic States and the
Caucasus – basically forgotten parts of the world – when the
Soviet Union broke up. People rediscovered their national
identities, traditions, and customs – and, in many cases, their
faith. And it's not always a matter of “remembering” what
freedom is, and what it's like; it's deeper than that. It's what
happens when people start comparing their situation to what they
instinctively feel is proper and just. (We are seeing the
glimmerings of this here in the U.S., even as the forces of
totalitarianism gain strength.)</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">So if there's any hope to be had, it is
along these lines. This generation may see nothing other than not
only the road to serfdom, but serfdom itself. And yet, there may be
pockets of resistance, as there have been in all other revolutions
world-wide. If a greater portion of humanity prefers bogus “rights”,
and even more bogus “security”, and is willing to give up
everything else to obtain them, there will always be a remnant that
will prefer independence and freedom of choice, with all of its risks
– and they are the people on whom we must rely for a rebirth, no
matter how long it takes.
</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
</p><p> </p>Dave Witterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10685191772640386942noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4241997621473648057.post-84801413821030743902022-06-20T18:18:00.004-04:002022-06-20T23:16:39.032-04:00How Destroyed Does America Have to Be?<p> </p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">A bit over a month ago, I put out an
update on Covid-19 (the rock star formerly known as “corona”),
discussing the various theories as to its origin, progress,
significance, impact (economic, social, political, etc.). I didn't
claim that the story was concluded, and that we could say “case
closed”, because we can't – and who knows when, if ever, we'll be
able to? Covid-19 has turned out, truly, to be the “disease for
all seasons”, and for all political, social, and economic agendas.
It has become, in many ways, as defining a factor in the political
life of the Republic as race, which is the sine qua non of American
politics. As such it may turn out, in retrospect, to be more
significant than the Great Depression, or World War II, or 9/11, in
terms of the remaking of society (a process well underway at this
point, and accelerating with each passing day). And this is all the
more remarkable given that it was, as far as is known (or admitted),
totally unpredictable and a complete surprise – although the
conspiratorially-minded will beg to differ, and that's OK – they
may be right. (Comparisons might be drawn to other plagues down
through history – not in terms of severity so much as long-term
impact in areas like economics, politics, sociology, international
balance of power, etc.)
</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">But operating in parallel with Covid,
in a kind of bizarre symbiosis, was an outbreak of anarchy – or
apparent anarchy – which, I would say, had few if any parallels in
American history. Suddenly, major cities (and not-so-major cities –
Kenosha? Give me a break!) erupted in violence, vandalism, arson,
and a kind of bizarre no-show performance on the part of law
enforcement – which caused certain “vigilantes” to take matters
into their own hands. And the temptation was to think that, yes,
this is it – the final reckoning – the beginning of the total
breakdown of American society – Gog and Magog – the mother of all
battles – etc. But then a funny thing happened. The minute Joe
Biden was inaugurated it all stopped. No more riots, no more arson,
no more “smash and grab” – it was as if someone had flipped a
switch. Which is, of course, exactly what happened. (And, I might
add, BLM demonstrations faded away as well, even though there had
been no significant improvement in relations between the police and
the black community.) (And Confederate statues – those few that
remained – were no longer being torn down by angry mobs.)
</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">So it was never about “racism” or
“fascism” or anything else. It was about removing Donald Trump
from office, and insuring that he would never again, and I mean
never, attempt to intrude into the public sphere. Once that was
accomplished – and Biden's inauguration was sufficient proof –
all of these “anarchists” stood down, to a man (or woman, or
whatever). There was peace in the valley. They were dropped off at
wherever they called home, given a wad of cash or gift cards, told
“well done, mission accomplished”, and that was it. Until next
time. (Be assured, their cell phone numbers are on someone's speed
dial. Watch for them to come back to life in certain select quarters
during the mid-term campaigns.)
</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">But in case you haven't noticed, what
any of this has to do with authentic anarchy has yet to be
determined. The few Antifa types that were rounded up by local law
enforcement (prior to being released by left-wing prosecutors and
judges) were, by and large, spoiled brats with suffocatingly
middle-class backgrounds. Nary a wild-eyed, black-bearded,
bomb-throwing anarchist of the old school could be found among them.
They were, basically, rent boys (and girls) who were paid handsomely
for acting out and throwing a tantrum suitable for a two-year-old.
In this, they were truly rebels without a cause (as opposed to, say,
demonstrators from the 1960s who may have been misled in some ways
but who definitely had a cause – or, typically, more than one).</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">Find me an “anarchist”, anywhere on
Earth, who doesn't dream of becoming the king/queen/whatever/ruler of
a country/continent/planet populated by nameless, powerless slaves,
whose existence is predicated entirely on their ability and
willingness to cater to the ruler's every whim. No “Mad Max”
scenarios for these folks – no way! Real anarchy is too chancy,
too dangerous. No, this will be a highly-organized,
exquisitely-refined utopia. (Think of one of our “social media”
moguls being, basically, emperor of the world; that will give you
some idea of what the garden-variety Antifa type aspires to.)
</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">As I have said before, anarchy is
totalitarianism in disguise. True anarchists are as rare as – oh,
I dunno, albino chipmunks, or something. For all intents and
purposes they don't exist. Because behind every impulse to destroy,
there is an impulse to build – and to build according to one's
specifications. Every man a Frank Lloyd Wright! Except without the
creative genius. Wright built houses that people would want to live
in – not everyone, but enough. They were willing to submit to
Wright's sense of aesthetics, design, style, what have you – to
suppress whatever atavistic notions they had been brought up with in
order to conform to the vision of The Master. And frankly (no pun
intended), one can imagine much worse masters – Frank (ditto) Gehry
comes to mind, with his deconstructionist zeal. (When you live in a
Frank Lloyd Wright house, you live with Frank Lloyd Wright, in a
sense. And that's not necessarily a bad thing. When you live or
work in a Frank Gehry building – well, let's say you're a good
candidate for high-end therapy.)
</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">The agenda, if you will, of the
anarchist is to destroy all the old – all that which is – but not
stop there. It must be replaced with something, because in their
heart of hearts every anarchist realizes that total, complete, and
perpetual anarchy is impossible. Order will sooner or later rear its
ugly head – so the question then becomes, what sort of order, and –
more importantly – whose order? The Bolsheviks had an answer for
this, and it was put in place immediately – “Five Year Plans”,
collective farms, spies on every street corner and under every bed,
and so on (and the gulag – or a bullet in the head – for any
naysayers). Anarchy giving rise to order – the important – nay,
essential – thing being that the new order is built on a totally
mistaken and delusional vision of human nature. So the agenda then
becomes to – at all costs! – create a new version of mankind –
the New Soviet Man, or, in the case of the Nazis, the Master Race.
Which is followed, as the night the day, by a program of persecution
against anyone who doesn't agree with the vision, or who actively
attempts to thwart it. After all, when our leaders present a plan
for Utopia – all set out in impressive 3-D models
(“pedestrian-friendly”, “green”, "carbon-neutral", “sustainable”, etc.) –
only an atavistic reactionary would dare to object. All traditional
views of mankind – his purpose on earth, his destiny – have to
take a back seat to the new vision, which is based solely on what
can be seen and touched, i.e. “science”.
</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">It has been said that “patriotism is
the last refuge of the scoundrel”. Well, in our time, when
patriotism, however defined, is sadly dated and teddibly out of
fashion, we have a new version, which is “science is the last
refuge of the scoundrel”. “Science”, that is, as defined by
whoever has the most political influence. So science becomes the
fetish of our times – that without which nothing is valid or
arguable, and with which nothing is invalid... or needs proof.
Science becomes, in other words, what “dogma” was in past times –
a matter of faith. But if science is a matter of faith, what happens
to that which we used to call science? It disappears, basically. It
no longer exists, because it does not receive the imprimatur of...
science! Yes, “science” becomes self-certifying, and thus no
better than a commercial product that advertises itself as “the
best”, or “new and improved”, or “guaranteed”, etc.
</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">It is sad when science becomes a
closed-off echo chamber, with no way in (for contradictory data), and
no way out (for further investigation, with its inherent risks of
contradicting what was previously considered “settled”). And
yet, whenever anyone in government embraces what they call “science”,
this is exactly what's happening. What they are embracing is, in
effect, a new religion, and you'd better convert to it now or suffer
the consequences. While at the same time, the remnant (those without
fat government contracts and grants) practicing real science are
ignored at best – or, at least as often, derided, scolded, shunned,
and “canceled”.
</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">(The irony here is that science – the
real thing – and faith, i.e. religion – have not always been
considered arch enemies. The Scholastics of the 13<sup>th</sup>
Century were perfectly at home with both, and in fact celebrated the
fact that the sciences and faith were perfectly compatible – and
not because they dealt with entirely different subjects with entirely
different methods, but because they were in harmony, and could
complement one another. This all changed, of course, with the
so-called Enlightenment, which drew a line in the sand between
“science” (read: materialism) and faith (AKA “superstition”),
and woe unto he who attempts to cross it. This attitude persists to
this day, needless to say.)
</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</p>
<p align="CENTER" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">----- o -----</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">So far, we've dealt with, basically,
the history of one year in the life of the Republic, namely 2020 -- a year to which even a master of the absurd, like Kurt Vonnegut, could not do justice.
Covid-19 was exploited for totalitarian purposes, and at the same
time an epidemic of “anarchy” was exploited for the exact same
purposes. In both cases, it was about instilling fear in the
populace – fear and helplessness – and causing them to flee, in
panic, into the waiting arms of the ruling elite (cleverly disguised
as a “democratically-elected government”). One could say, in
imitation of Winston Churchill, that “never before was so much
accomplished in so little time by so few”. The ruling elite made a
killing (literally in some cases) and consolidated its gains – and,
in case you haven't noticed, those gains are still in place. The
Ministry of Fear (a new addition to the Executive Branch) is alive
and well, and perking along like a well-oiled machine. “Monkey
Pox”? That's so last week. Count on them to come up with
something else within the next news cycle. The point is that
Covid-19 showed the ruling elite what the populace is willing to
believe – and the riots showed them what the populace is willing to
put up with (but not without limit – at least so far).</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">Think of it as one vast experiment.
Not necessarily planned (in the case of Covid) but when the “crisis”
struck, the mechanisms were in place to take full advantage of it.
(If it wasn't all planned, it sure felt that way, and no one can criticize any “conspiracy theorist” for believing that it was.) And the
juxtaposition of Covid with the riots of Summer 2020 was the perfect
formula to instill fear as well as demoralization and despair.
Convince the American public that they have nothing to lose by
choosing totalitarianism, and that's precisely what they'll choose.
Peace at any price! Anything for (alleged) health! Better to exist
as a pod person than to stand tall and with self-respect. And
converting the populace to a state of servitude? All most of them
will feel is a faint bump, since they are already thoroughly
anaesthetized by the media and the “entertainment” industry.
(Throw in professional sports if you like.) (Go Steelers!)</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">But now wait – if the Antifa types,
and their sponsors and supporters and facilitators, were not genuine
anarchists, but were just softening up the battlefield, what does
that say about the agenda of the people who are really in charge? Do
they really want anarchy? A Mad Max-type world, where warlords are
fighting over gasoline? That hardly seems like the basis for world
domination. To put it another way – how low can we go before
someone hits the brakes? At what point do these clueless Antifa
types outlive their usefulness and wind up exterminated like so many
rodents, the way the Red Guard was after their mission for Chairman
Mao was accomplished? Another way of putting it is this: Given that
the revolution is under way, how far does it have to go before
someone decides that it's gone far enough, and lowers the boom?
</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">Consider, for a moment, the casualties
(to date, or soon to come) of the revolution:</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</p>
<ol>
<li><p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">Honest and legitimate elections –
already a thing of the past, at least on the federal level and on
many state and local levels. You kind of get a glimpse of how this works when
one of the two major political parties, i.e. the Republicans, are
accused of being “domestic terrorists”.
</p>
</li><li><p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">The rule of law in general, vs.
diktats from the White House and Congressional committees. “Equal
justice under the law” is manifestly extinct (assuming it ever
existed). And for all intents and purposes the law has been
replaced by the regulatory state, supervised by non-elected
bureaucrats who nonetheless have police powers (and police forces,
in many cases).
</p>
</li><li><p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">The whole gender issue (who or
what is a male or female, and do those labels mean anything, and if
not should they be abolished, etc.)</p>
</li><li><p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">Parental control over the
education of their children – explicitly prohibited in many public
school districts</p>
</li><li><p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">Freedom of speech (without “being
canceled” or losing one's livelihood)</p>
</li><li><p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">Freedom of association (now
referred to as “racism” and/or “sexism”) (The key concept
here is that there is no longer such a thing as a “private
entity”, which can be run in any way those in charge see fit.
Every organization – commercial, social, religious, whatever –
is now considered a public utility, and hence subject to any and all
laws and regulations governing membership and how they are
operated.)
</p>
</li><li><p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">Freedom of religion (without
harassment or discrimination)
</p>
</li><li><p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">Privacy (vs. the government
monitoring your every move and transaction)</p>
</li></ol>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">And consider also the things that
<i>haven't</i> changed. The United States, which is in decline in every way
(economically, socially, politically, culturally, morally) is still
expected to be the world's policeman, and to “spread democracy”
like Johnny Appleseed, except with unlimited firepower – and to
act, for all intents and purposes, as the armed forces of Western
Europe, Israel, and Japan. How long anyone expects this to persist –
or even be possible – is a good question; a lot of delusional
thinking is going on in this area.</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">Just this much gets us into the
territory of absurdity and farce. Then you have things like the
national debt, which will never, i.e. never, never, ever, be
repaid, which puts us firmly in the hands of our creditors, the most
prominent being China. Then we have the latest war by proxy –
Ukraine (our guys) vs. Russia (evil!). Our foreign policy – and
its operatives – belong in a circus freak show. It does seem that,
for all of our pretenses, we are actually in a situation not unlike
that of a beached whale, to which anyone can walk up and cut off a
piece of blubber. We are a blundering, staggering giant (albeit
heavily armed, dangerous, and unpredictable), and the smart money is
on whoever can manage to tie us up and put us in a cage like King
Kong.
</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">But is this all there is to it? Is
this what the Davos crowd has in mind? Just to nibble away at the
good ol' USA until there's nothing left but a hapless populace just
waiting to do the bidding of whoever takes over? Are we really to
become a colony of the E.U. or of other more vigorous powers (like,
um, China for instance)? (And you know what being a colony means,
historically – a source of raw materials, i.e. wealth which is
always spirited away by the colonial power, and a source of cannon
fodder for whatever wars are in fashion at the time.) (You might have
noticed that the cannon fodder part of this has been underway for a
bit over 100 years now, but has been more pronounced in recent
decades. As I've said before, we just don't do war right – the
least we can do is show a profit!)
</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">See, when I talk about the “ruling
elite”, yes, there is that class in the U.S., but there's also that
class elsewhere on the globe, and the question is which is dominant?
Who controls whom? I think the answer, or part of it, is that our
own ruling elite are not subject to old-fashioned feelings of
patriotism, or even of nationalism; they would just as soon see us go
down the drain as a culture if they can remain in control and in a
symbiotic relationship with the ruling elite elsewhere. This is the
globalist mindset, and it's no secret – it's preached to the
rafters in confabs like Davos, not to mention other less-overt
hideouts around the globe. (When certain members of the ruling elite
go off radar for a while – days or weeks – you can be pretty sure
they're having strategy meetings somewhere, and a major agenda item
will always be “whither America?”) (Up until now, their position has been that they can't live with us, but they can't live without us. Watch for the day when they decide that they can, in fact, live without us.)</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">In other words, to the globalists,
things like countries, nations, governments (“democracies”
included – both the real kind and the make-believe kind) are
obsolete and just get in the way of the agenda – as do things like
tradition, ethnicity, religion, customs, etc. The ideal globalist is
the person who has no roots anywhere on the globe – who is truly a
“world citizen”, which means, basically, a citizen of nowhere.
So how can you expect them to have any kind of loyalty to... pretty
much anything? The American economy? Let it crash. American
“values”, traditions, etc.? Please. (A significant milestone
was reached recently when some domestic organizations and governmental bodies
pronounced the American flag "racist” and a “trigger”.)
The Constitution? That's a waste of perfectly good scrap paper –
but it still serves as a fetish object, to preserve an illusion. The
American citizens (or the pathetic subset called “voters”)?
Perfect candidates for slavery and/or cannon fodder. And as for
religion – well, we have camps for people who still subscribe to
such nonsense.
</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">Now, notice that in none of this do we
find concern for things like “women's issues”, “gender issues”,
“racial issues”, etc. Not even “climate change”, in fact.
No – these are luxuries and hobby-horses – political clubs with
which to smite one's opponents – and they will vanish the minute
the consolidation is complete. No, the global elite doesn't give a
rat's ass about your “identity” – they just push identity
politics as a weapon – as a way of furthering the agenda. In the
brave new world of their dreams, everyone will be equally oppressed
and exploited – everyone will be equally part of a “victim
class”, with only the rulers having any special privileges.
</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">This is their dream. But is it
possible here? One would hope not. One indicator is that it hasn't
happened yet – and not for lack of trying. The left has been
working on this since the Progressive Era – there have been
advances and setbacks, but you can't say victory is complete – at
least not yet. All communist revolutions are, allegedly, aimed at
producing a “classless” society – which they do. Almost. What
you wind up with are two classes – the oppressed slaves and the
elite (in the Soviet Union they were known as the Nomenklatura). And
actually, this is the real goal. The last thing on earth any good
revolutionary wants is to wind up with a truly anarchistic society (a
contradiction in terms right there). What they want is a society of
serfs with them in charge – and please notice that, as always, the
poor beleaguered middle class is nowhere in sight. It's not part of
the plan, any more than churches showed up in Hitler's blueprint for
a new, improved Berlin. If there's one thing all anarchists and
totalitarians can agree on, it's that the middle class has got to go.
(How one sustains a modern technological society with a complex
economy without a middle class is a good question, which they never
stop to consider, leave alone answer.)
</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</p>
<p align="CENTER" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">----- o -----</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">So to return to the home front –
American society is on the way down, in every discernible way. (Give
me one example where it isn't. I'm waiting.) And yet, according to
my preferred model, it's not just disorder and chaos. In fact, the
disorder and chaos are only on the surface – they are allowed, if
you will, in order to provide cover for the real agenda and for its
promoters, as well as a distraction from the task of figuring out
what is really going on, and doing something about it. True disorder
and chaos – true anarchy – would not be something someone could
turn on and off like a light switch, which, as I pointed out, is
exactly what happened after the summer riots of 2020. And – just
as “war is the health of the state” in the international arena,
riots are the health of the state on the domestic side; they lead to
ever more layers of law and regulation, which expands the
administrative state, law enforcement, and the “corrections”
(read: prison) industry.
</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">So someone is in charge. Someone is
pulling the strings, and they have their foot poised over the brake
pedal, although they haven't touched it as yet. (They're still too
busy flooring the gas pedal.) The question is, how much is enough?
Or, how much is too much, at which point adjustments have to be made?
(In the early days of the Soviet Union, those in charge eventually
decided that a modicum of private property and private enterprise
might not be such a bad thing, given that people were starving to
death by the millions because of collectivization. Something similar
happened more recently in China in the wake of the Great Leap Forward
and the Cultural Revolution, which counted casualties in the tens of
millions. This eventually led to a mash-up of communism and
capitalism, which – incredibly -- actually seems to work, although
purists would say that it's neither one.) (One could write a decent
treatise on the conflict of visions between human nature as it is,
and human nature as altered by revolution or by fiat. Human nature
as it is tends to get in the way of Utopian plans – so annoying!
But just try ignoring it. If there is one thing that is never
learned throughout history, it is that human nature is the same –
always and everywhere.)
</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">To help answer the question of how low
can we (should we, will we) go, we have to try to think about what
the ruling elite (our own, and the globalists elsewhere) want.
Obviously, they want control – and the more total the better. And
they don't want any competition, e.g. loyalty to race, ethnicity,
religion, language, tradition, etc. They are world citizens, and
everyone else should be as well, and should like it – or be
punished if they don't. But ultimately, a society composed of rulers
and slaves can only be stable, and even productive, if the slaves are
satisfied with their lot, or at least not inclined to open rebellion.
Another way of putting this is that they have to be “deracinated”
– made to forget (via propaganda, amusements, drugs, whatever) that
there is such a thing as genuine identity rooted in the eternal
verities – race, ethnicity, faith, gender, language, custom,
tradition, etc.</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">This, by the way, is what “diversity”
is all about. It's actually conformity in disguise, as in: You can
be “diverse”, but only in approved ways, i.e. in some sort of
artificial, play-acting, political sense. True diversity based on
culture and tradition must be stamped out, and the memory of such
things must be stamped out as well. I'm always amused at what
happens when the “diversity” buffs find out what a given
racial/ethic group really thinks of some other racial/ethnic group.
You'll find them recoiling in horror! “Surely these nice people
with their cool foods and quaint costumes and folk music can't be
'racists', or bigots, or 'haters'.” Right... (Back in 1966, a
friend of mine and I drove through Yugoslavia, which was still one
country at that point, and we were totally unaware of all of the
visceral hatreds (going back centuries) that were lurking below the
placid surface and just waiting for a chance to burst forth, as they
wound up doing starting in 1991.)</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">In any case, it seems that the
revolution is already well along – not just starting, which is how
it appeared in 2020. Problem is, there are pockets of resistance –
big ones, and they are deep. So let's say that that resistance,
however it is manifested, eventually winds up successfully co-opted,
suppressed, pacified, rendered impotent. It may still be there, but
it won't count. And this is, in fact, becoming the position of the
“deplorables” at this time – the ruling elite is content to,
basically, ignore them, unless they start to wander off the
reservation (like “attacking the Capitol” for instance). But
will this sort of bizarre peaceful coexistence continue? Remember
that to the totalitarian, just lack of resistance is not good enough
– your very mind has to be cleansed of any negative thoughts (the
nearest lobotomy clinic is as close as your TV set). The media are,
of course, at the forefront of this effort, but there are still
holdouts, and will they be tolerated or will they be hunted down the
way the Biden administration has vowed to hunt down “domestic
terrorists”, AKA Trump supporters, with the help of the military?
It remains to be seen.</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">So we will go down, because we're
already going down – but hitting rock bottom? Not on the agenda,
in my opinion. After all, the ruling elite have to have something to
rule, right? This post-nuclear, dystopian image of the isolated
fortress on a mountain in the midst of a blighted wasteland – all
very picturesque, but unrealistic. I suppose one possible turning
point will be when there is no longer any resistance – and once
again, the major communist countries did arrive at that point
eventually (although it can be argued that the Third Reich didn't –
but 12 years is not really a fair test). The price to be paid was,
of course, gulags – prisons – killing fields – concentration
camps – and so on. (Cambodia is my favorite example, because half
the population had to be slaughtered by the other half before peace
could break out. But once it did, by gosh, it was the real thing!)
And ironically, it almost seems that the relative lack of resistance
to the revolution that we see in America today might serve to prevent
things from going that far. So far, in the relativistic sense, our
revolution can be considered “soft”, and it may well stay that
way. I mean, if the most prominent locus of resistance is outfits
like the Proud Boys, we hardly have to worry about the military
splitting into two warring factions (as it did in post-revolutionary
Russia), or a significant counter-revolutionary force along the lines
of the War in the Vendee (France). It would seem that brute force is
not the first choice of our current revolutionaries, who are more
technocrats and bureaucrats than soldiers (imagine Bill Gates, in a
suit of armor like Joan of Arc, leading an army) (oops, sorry, I didn't mean to say that just as you were sipping your coffee). But they have
weapons that armies down through history could scarcely imagine –
TV, film, the social media, communication in general, and the
surveillance state, which is now firmly in place.
</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">Please note that, in terms of popular
entertainment, there are two basic types of dystopia – the
less-than-completely-successful kind, where there is still
significant resistance (armed and otherwise), and the successful kind
where drugs, brainwashing, catering to every carnal whim, etc. have
done their work. Those among us who are gearing up for a good fight
might actually wish for the former kind, but my bet is that the
latter is far more likely – especially since most of it is already
firmly in place.
</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</p>
<p align="CENTER" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">(Next up – political and
historical significance)
</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</p>Dave Witterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10685191772640386942noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4241997621473648057.post-15708386023668650512022-05-04T20:19:00.000-04:002022-05-04T20:27:36.257-04:00A Disease for All Seasons<p> </p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">It seems like only yesterday that...
no, actually, it seems like it's been ten years since... I put out a
blog post entitled “Conspiracies on Parade” (April 19, 2020 –
still available!) inspired by the -- at that time – new and
springtime-fresh plague that was well on its way to making a shambles
of the economy and of society in general – not that plagues do this
unaided, but that the “policies” imposed and enforced by
totalitarian means to “manage” the plague had appeared almost
overnight – which kind of makes you wonder, were they already set
up in advance and only had to wait until the “balloon went up”,
as the saying goes? (File this under the heading of “suspected,
but unproven”. More to come.)
</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">If you have the time and the
inclination, I urge you to re-read (OK, read, whatever) the post in
question in order to set the tone for the present discussion. In
some ways, it's incredible that this problem is still with us –
whatever happened to “15 days to slow the spread”? (That was the
2020 version of “duck and cover” – reassuring until people
realized that it was totally absurd.)</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">So – using the 4/19/20 post as a
baseline, I'm going to take advantage of the breather that has been
bestowed upon us by Vladimir Putin, who, merely by invading Ukraine,
has managed to drive all competing stories off the mainstream print
and broadcast media and the Internet. We can argue all day as to
what this means, as in – does it mean that Covid, nee Corona, was
never real to begin with, and as such cannot hope to compete with
events that are very real? Or does it mean that Covid entering Year
3 has become a bit shopworn, so even if it is genuine it's no match
for newer and more exciting current events? Or is it just the MSM
chasing the newest butterfly, and Covid will circle around eventually
and become, once again, the Big Story?</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">I guess we have both Covid and Ukraine
to thank for reminding us that “the news” is not necessarily
what's actually most important at the time (or possibly at any other
time as well), but is the result of a selection process by the
collective organs of propaganda designed to maximize and accelerate
the cycle of fear, and thus create, in the citizenry, despair of ever
truly exercising their rights as free citizens, but to substitute an
even more intense feeling of helplessness and willingness to submit
to the government, AKA the ruling elite, for all their needs
(including all the things they've been convinced, by the advertising
industry, that they need). If fewer people than ever distrust “the
news”, and government in general, that could be considered at least
a thin silver living to the cloud that has been looming over us for
two-plus years.
</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">So – let's get started. The most
obvious initial question is, is (was) Corona/Covid a hoax? Is it
really a “novel” virus of murky origins that has attacked,
without warning, the global population and necessitated a total reset
of national economies and people's life styles? I admit that I
haven't studied the matter in detail, but it appears that there
actually is a virus out there, and that it is “novel”, in that it
exhibits new qualities and new combinations of qualities (including
symptoms and responses to medication and treatment), and that it's
not “just the flu” as some have claimed (for one thing, it
doesn't seem to exhibit the same seasonal cycles as the typical flu
virus). And it appears that it does, indeed, mutate – thankfully
from more dangerous to less harmful versions, but – this time more
like the flu – it comes along in waves, and it will be a long time,
if ever, before we will see the end of it. And the fact that it can
attack people of all ages, all races/creeds/colors, in all climates,
of all social and economic conditions, etc., indicates that it is
robust and adaptable, even if the more serious cases seem to
correlate with preexisting conditions like age, general health,
obesity, life style, whether or not they watch TV (not a complete
joke), and so on.
</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">I present the foregoing as an unproven
basis of reference for what follows. (For those who believe it truly
is/was a complete hoax, don't touch that dial, because I'll be
discussing ideas that you will find appealing aside from the hoax
question.)</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">OK. The first theory I discussed in
the previous post was:</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</p>
<ul>
<p align="LEFT" style="background: transparent; border: none; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 2; padding: 0in; widows: 2;">
<span style="color: #29303b;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, sans-serif;"><span><i>Yes,
it originated in China, but it was no accident. It was an
intentional biological attack on the U.S. in retaliation for
economic and trade sanctions, our position on Taiwan, our positions
on currency manipulation, intellectual property, etc. As such, it
was intended to be a “shot off our bow”, i.e. get out of our
face or else (it could be worse).</i></span></span></span></p>
</ul>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">Discussion: The China origin theory is
still in question – by China. Again, choosing probability over
proof (which is impossible at this point), I would say that China is
the culprit. But then, was it intentional? And the first argument
against this would be – if it was, why wasn't it aimed at the U.S.
in a more precise, “surgical” manner? Why let it out of a lab in
a city no one had ever heard of up to that point, and let it run amok
in the local population, when it could have simply been shipped over
here and added to the water supply in certain major cities? Answer:
Can you say “plausible deniability”, class? If the first victims
were Chinese citizens, that would tend to derail any notion that the
virus was aimed at the U.S. – and as for any notion that normal
human compassion would have prevented the Chinese government from
doing such a thing, just take a weekend off some time and read up on
Mao's Great Leap Forward and Cultural Revolution for a taste of how
highly the Chinese government values human life.
</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">Having said that, as retaliation for
economic and trade sanctions, something that pretty much trashed the
world's economy and brought world trade to a halt for a time would
seem to be an odd way of going about this. (They would have been
much better off demanding that we pay off their share of our national
debt.) And as for Taiwan, the Chinese are playing the long game, and
sure enough, it's already paying off with our response to Russia's
invasion of Ukraine. The Chinese are seeing what Russia can and
can't get away with, and they may be perfectly willing to commit to
the same outcome for the sake of reclaiming Taiwan. (But it wouldn't
be as severe, because China has a much firmer foothold in the U.S.
economy than Russia ever had.)</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">And as for currency manipulation, guess
who just put the ruble on the gold standard. That's sending more
shock waves through global monetary systems than anything China ever
did.
</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">Intellectual property? The Chinese are
buying so much of it up on the global market that they scarcely have
to steal it any longer.
</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">To sum up, the predictable outcome of a global pandemic would have been seen as “overkill” when it
comes to getting our attention – not that China is incapable of any
sort of blackmail and extortion, nor do they have any qualms about
doing so. It's more a proportionality question. But before we leave
this idea totally, consider Variation 1:</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</p>
<ul>
<p align="LEFT" style="background: transparent; border: none; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 2; padding: 0in; widows: 2;">
<span style="color: #29303b;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, sans-serif;"><span><i>Variation
1: It was a probe – a test case – to see how effective
biological warfare would be, what our response would be, etc. Corona
was never intended to be the ultimate weapon, in other words; that's
still under development.</i></span></span></span></p>
</ul>
<p align="LEFT" style="background: transparent; border: none; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 2; padding: 0in; widows: 2;">
<br />
</p>
<p align="LEFT" style="background: transparent; border: none; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 2; padding: 0in; widows: 2;">
<span style="color: #29303b;"><span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif; font-size: medium;">I'll
use the “precision” argument again on this one. You can test
biological warfare agents in a smaller area than the entire planet.
However, having said that, even if the release was not intentional it
did indeed serve as a test case, which could serve quite well if, in
the future, China decides to resort to biological extortion. (This
falls under the heading of “unintentional consequences which turn
out to be beneficial” – at least in one respect.) And yes,
anyone who doesn't see Covid as the beta version of something much
worse is dreaming. But then how about: </span></span>
</p>
<p align="LEFT" style="background: transparent; border: none; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 2; padding: 0in; widows: 2;">
<br />
</p>
<p align="LEFT" style="background: transparent; border: none; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 2; padding: 0in; widows: 2;">
<span style="color: #29303b;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, sans-serif;"><span><i>Variation
2: The intention was not only near-term but long-term. By bringing
the U.S. to its knees economically, China would be assuring its
ascent to the position of leading economic power on the planet –
and, soon to follow, leading military power.</i></span></span></span></p>
<p align="LEFT" style="background: transparent; border: none; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 2; padding: 0in; widows: 2;">
<br />
</p>
<p align="LEFT" style="background: transparent; border: none; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 2; padding: 0in; widows: 2;">
<span style="color: #29303b;"><span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif; font-size: medium;">This
is actually a more likely motive. Any plague that impacts the entire
globe will impact the U.S., and more severely in some respects, since
we have the most complex, multi-layered, interdependent economy on
earth – a benefit of our technological and logistical
sophistication, but also an Achilles' Heel, as was brought out in
sharp relief in the first few months of the pandemic. “The bigger
they are, the harder they fall” could have been coined to describe
what happened to the U.S. economy – true no matter what one thinks
of the motives of the authorities. Could China have predicted a
total lockdown of the U.S. economy? Seems unlikely, but who can say?
They may have actually been pleasantly surprised at the readiness
with which our officials committed economic suicide. In any case, it
did serve to weaken us on both an absolute scale and also relative to
other less complex, less “developed” economies around the globe.
</span></span>
</p>
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<br />
</p>
<p align="LEFT" style="background: transparent; border: none; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 2; padding: 0in; widows: 2;">
<span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="color: #29303b;"><span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;">I
say this is more likely, but I would still not give it a very high
grade, for the simple reason that China already has a virtual
stranglehold on large sectors of the U.S. economy, and why “blow
it” by causing unneeded distress, chaos, and destruction? Leave
the heavy-handedness to others. Remember, when it comes to China,
the long game and patience are the watchwords, as they have been
throughout their history. </span></span>
</span></p>
<p align="LEFT" style="background: transparent; border: none; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 2; padding: 0in; widows: 2;">
<span style="font-size: medium;"><br />
</span></p>
<p align="LEFT" style="background: transparent; border: none; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 2; padding: 0in; widows: 2;">
<span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="color: #29303b;"><span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;">OK,
then – but how about: </span></span>
</span></p>
<p align="LEFT" style="background: transparent; border: none; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 2; padding: 0in; widows: 2;">
<br />
</p>
<p align="LEFT" style="background: transparent; border: none; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 2; padding: 0in; widows: 2;">
<span style="color: #29303b;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, sans-serif;"><span><i>Variation
3: The focus was on causing major damage to our military, which has
turned out (no surprise, if you know anything about history) to be
particularly vulnerable to viral infections and epidemics. If you can
sap the strength of the U.S. military, and get it to stand down, it's
much easier for China to continue its high jinks in the South China
Sea unimpeded. (If the military was the prime target, then the
civilian population counts only as “collateral damage” –
something that aggressors are always willing to accept.)</i></span></span></span></p>
<p align="LEFT" style="background: transparent; border: none; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 2; padding: 0in; widows: 2;">
<br />
</p>
<p align="LEFT" style="background: transparent; border: none; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 2; padding: 0in; widows: 2;">
<span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="color: #29303b;"><span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;">I
think we can safely dispense with this one. Our military turned out
to be quite robust in its response to the pandemic, and the fact that
military personnel tend to be young and healthy, and in good physical
condition, was probably the best preventive one could hope for. And
yes, disease has ever been the enemy of armies – but they didn't
have the resources we have, and Covid turns out to be much less
deadly than most of the traditional, “old-fashioned” diseases
that armies are prone to. </span></span>
</span></p>
<p align="LEFT" style="background: transparent; border: none; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 2; padding: 0in; widows: 2;">
<span style="font-size: medium;"><br />
</span></p>
<p align="LEFT" style="background: transparent; border: none; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 2; padding: 0in; widows: 2;">
<span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="color: #29303b;"><span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;">However,
this does not mean that something much more lethal couldn't be
unleashed, in a more precise fashion, on our military, either in
garrison or in war zones – and this is the very reason that the
military has long been heavily involved in research and prevention
when it comes to biological warfare. So from that point of view, the
“test case” theory – even if unintentional – gets high marks.
</span></span>
</span></p>
<p align="LEFT" style="background: transparent; border: none; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 2; padding: 0in; widows: 2;">
<span style="font-size: medium;"><br />
</span></p>
<p align="LEFT" style="background: transparent; border: none; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 2; padding: 0in; widows: 2;">
<span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="color: #29303b;"><span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;">Then
there's the footnote to the preceding scenarios: </span></span>
</span></p>
<p align="LEFT" style="background: transparent; border: none; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 2; padding: 0in; widows: 2;">
<br />
</p>
<p align="LEFT" style="background: transparent; border: none; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 2; padding: 0in; widows: 2;">
<span style="color: #29303b;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, sans-serif;"><span><i>China
has decided that a direct military confrontation with the U.S. would
be costly, and they might not even win. So they had to come up with
something completely different (if not totally unexpected – after
all, we've been studying the biological warfare issue since before
World War II).</i></span></span></span></p>
<p align="LEFT" style="background: transparent; border: none; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 2; padding: 0in; widows: 2;">
<br />
</p>
<p align="LEFT" style="background: transparent; border: none; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 2; padding: 0in; widows: 2;">
<span style="color: #29303b;"><span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif; font-size: medium;">Again,
Covid turned out to be a dud in this respect, but it may have paved
the way for something worse – something that could turn the tide
in a military confrontation. But this assumes (1) conventional
forces rather than air power only (or nukes); and (2) solving the
precision issue (recall how mustard gas attacks in World War I often
backfired when the wind shifted). So this is certainly a reason for
vigilance. </span></span>
</p>
<p align="LEFT" style="background: transparent; border-bottom: 4.50pt double #000000; border-left: none; border-right: none; border-top: none; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 2; padding-bottom: 0.03in; padding-left: 0in; padding-right: 0in; padding-top: 0in; widows: 2;">
<br />
</p>
<p align="LEFT" style="background: transparent; border: none; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 2; padding: 0in; widows: 2;">
<br />
</p>
<p align="LEFT" style="background: transparent; border: none; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 2; padding: 0in; widows: 2;">
<span style="color: #29303b;"><span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif; font-size: medium;">That
was the first scenario with variations. Now we shift gears a bit:</span></span></p>
<p align="LEFT" style="background: transparent; border: none; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 2; padding: 0in; widows: 2;">
<br />
</p>
<p align="LEFT" style="background: transparent; border: none; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 2; padding: 0in; widows: 2;">
<span style="color: #29303b;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, sans-serif;"><span><i>It
was a false flag operation on the part of the globalists and their
collaborators in the U.S. (including no small portion of the Deep
State). See that China gets the blame, while in fact they are
creating a crisis in order to (1) cut the U.S. down to size, and (2)
increase the power of central government exponentially, which will,
in turn, (3) increase the power of the globalist elite once they
consolidate their control over the U.S. government, which will, at
that point, become a mere proxy or shadow government for the
globalist empire, the way most Western European governments already
are.</i></span></span></span></p>
<p align="LEFT" style="background: transparent; border: none; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 2; padding: 0in; widows: 2;">
<br />
</p>
<p align="LEFT" style="background: transparent; border: none; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 2; padding: 0in; widows: 2;">
<span style="color: #29303b; font-size: medium;">“<span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;">False
flag?” That's exactly what the Chinese are claiming, and they
haven't given up on that story. My sense is that the preponderance
of evidence indicates that the origin was in China and connected to a
Chinese military research facility. But again – was it “an ill
wind” that provided unexpected benefits to those with globalist
tendencies? Certainly. When you see the ease with which the U.S.
economy was, for all intents and purposes, nationalized (the
government not taking over, but regulating, down to the most minute
detail, businesses from the largest to the most minuscule) – and
the ease with which virtually all other human activities were either
locked down or closely monitored (schools, shopping, dining, live
entertainment, etc.), the results could only have warmed the hearts
of globalists and totalitarians everywhere. If America, the land of
the free, can be turned into a land of helpless victims, paralyzed by
fear, almost overnight, then there is no limit, is there? If it can
happen here it can happen anywhere (and has, by and large –
especially (ironically) in the other English-speaking countries).</span></span></p>
<p align="LEFT" style="background: transparent; border: none; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 2; padding: 0in; widows: 2;">
<span style="font-size: medium;"><br />
</span></p>
<p align="LEFT" style="background: transparent; border: none; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 2; padding: 0in; widows: 2;">
<span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="color: #29303b;"><span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;">Now...
if you've noticed an apparent contradiction between the agenda of
cutting the U.S. down to size and increasing the power of central
government, allow me to clarify. We get cut down to size on the
international/global/diplomatic level (well under way with Biden in
charge), but on the domestic level become more totalitarian (ditto).
The result is that the citizenry become acclimated to big government
that meddles in every aspect of their lives, but at the same time the
global elite are consolidating their reach and their power, with
America as first prize. So the transition from what we have now to
one-world government would be painless, if even noticeable. (This is
assuming it hasn't already happened, which is a point worth
debating.) I think this is the long-term plan with or without China,
and with or without Covid – just that Covid has served to
accelerate the process and provide a convenient rationale for
measures which would otherwise have looked obviously tyrannical. </span></span>
</span></p>
<p align="LEFT" style="background: transparent; border: none; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 2; padding: 0in; widows: 2;">
<span style="font-size: medium;"><br />
</span></p>
<p align="LEFT" style="background: transparent; border: none; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 2; padding: 0in; widows: 2;">
<span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="color: #29303b;"><span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;">So
really, the question of whether or not to “blame” China has faded
into obscurity at this point. The test case was created,
intentionally or not, and it had results... data were gathered... and
the outlines of what global tyranny would look like became shockingly
clear. Shockingly – because of how easy it was. We thought we
valued freedom, but the next minute we were locking ourselves indoors
for months at a time, then marching off, robot-like, to vaccination
centers, with “smiley faces” everywhere you look. The wonderful
world of George Orwell is here! It's no longer a threat, or a
distant possibility. </span></span>
</span></p>
<p align="LEFT" style="background: transparent; border: none; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 2; padding: 0in; widows: 2;">
<span style="font-size: medium;"><br />
</span></p>
<p align="LEFT" style="background: transparent; border: none; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 2; padding: 0in; widows: 2;">
<span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="color: #29303b;"><span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;">I
would say that of all the “benefits” of the plague – looked-for
and otherwise – this has to stand as the one that will be seen to
have made the most difference in the long run. The global elite has
the citizenry by the – well, you know – and half the citizenry
doesn't care, and the other half are reduced to bootless protests for
which they are promptly punished. </span></span>
</span></p>
<p align="LEFT" style="background: transparent; border: none; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 2; padding: 0in; widows: 2;">
<span style="font-size: medium;"><br />
</span></p>
<p align="LEFT" style="background: transparent; border: none; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 2; padding: 0in; widows: 2;">
<span style="color: #29303b;"><span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif; font-size: medium;">And
again, the U.S. was more severely impacted simply because of the
titanic structure of our economy and the social mechanisms that go
with it, and this did indeed cut us down, not quite to size, but
enough to provide welcome data for the global elite's future
planning. The U.S. will not be a pocket of resistance, in other
words – we will not be the Ukraine to the global elite's Russia.
There will be resistance, for sure; there already is. But the main
elements have been shown up in all of their weakness and
vulnerability – the ready demoralization of the populace is now a
historical fact – and we have, when you run the numbers, many more
who comply, and cooperate, and follow the crowd off the cliff than
those troublemakers who believe in liberty and self-sufficiency. And
don't think any of this has gone unnoticed. It will come back to
haunt us, and sooner than we expect. </span></span>
</p>
<p align="LEFT" style="background: transparent; border: none; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 2; padding: 0in; widows: 2;">
<br />
</p>
<p align="LEFT" style="background: transparent; border: none; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 2; padding: 0in; widows: 2;">
<span style="color: #29303b;"><span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif; font-size: medium;">OK
then... how about this:</span></span></p>
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<br />
</p>
<p align="LEFT" style="background: transparent; border: none; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 2; padding: 0in; widows: 2;">
<span style="color: #29303b;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, sans-serif;"><span><i>It
was cooked up by the vaccination industry and lobby in order to
demonstrate, once and for all, that vaccination is the only way to
survive, and that vaccinations for every conceivable ailment, up to
and including toenail fungus, should be mandated by the government,
and anyone who objects should be arrested and jailed because their
reckless ideas threaten public health.</i></span></span></span></p>
<p align="LEFT" style="background: transparent; border: none; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 2; padding: 0in; widows: 2;">
<br />
</p>
<p align="LEFT" style="background: transparent; border: none; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 2; padding: 0in; widows: 2;">
<span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="color: #29303b;"><span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;">This
is another case of a “discovered benefit”. I don't think the vax
people started it, but the way they jumped on it indicates that it
was, for them, a blessing in disguise – not only because it freed
up unlimited funding, but it gave them time (nearly a year) to work
up the narrative that vaccination was the only thing that was going
to save the human race from this plague – and that any alternative
treatments were unscientific, dangerous, and should be banned. And
this is still the basic narrative, although things have loosened up a
bit with regard to therapeutics, owing largely to the pressure of
public (1) skepticism re vaccination and (2) demand for alternatives.
And of course, the counter-narratives about the dangers of the
vaccines, side effects, unexplained deaths, etc. added to the mix.
As did, of course, the passage of time, which showed that refusing to
be vaccinated was not a death sentence, and that the “unvaxed”
were not an army of Typhoid Marys out to infect and kill everyone
else. </span></span>
</span></p>
<p align="LEFT" style="background: transparent; border: none; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 2; padding: 0in; widows: 2;">
<span style="font-size: medium;"><br />
</span></p>
<p align="LEFT" style="background: transparent; border: none; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 2; padding: 0in; widows: 2;">
<span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="color: #29303b;"><span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;">Another
contributing factor – and perhaps the most important one – has
been the complete and utter politicization of the whole thing. First
it was “Trump's vaccine”, which no self-respecting liberal would
submit to. And then the instant Biden moved into the White House it
became “Biden's vaccine”, which acquired sacramental status among
liberals, but caused skepticism and downright paranoia among Trump
supporters, conservatives in general, libertarians, and pretty much
anyone else who could be described as anti-establishment. </span></span>
</span></p>
<p align="LEFT" style="background: transparent; border: none; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 2; padding: 0in; widows: 2;">
<span style="font-size: medium;"><br />
</span></p>
<p align="LEFT" style="background: transparent; border: none; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 2; padding: 0in; widows: 2;">
<span style="color: #29303b;"><span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif; font-size: medium;">So
what are we to make of a medical treatment that is accepted or
rejected based almost solely on one's political position? There are
other things in medicine that show a similar phenomenon, and things
in the food and beverage industries as well, but this seems like an
extreme case, which is odd since we're supposedly talking about
“science” here, right? Isn't that one of the few areas of life
in which we can find general agreement? Well... no. The lesson is
that when science is corrupted by politics it ceases to be science,
for all intents and purposes. It becomes a battleground and a
political cause instead – and given what has been going on for many
years with “global warming”, AKA “climate change”, this
should not have come as a complete surprise.</span></span></p>
<p align="LEFT" style="background: transparent; border: none; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 2; padding: 0in; widows: 2;">
<span style="font-size: medium;"><br />
</span></p>
<p align="LEFT" style="background: transparent; border: none; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 2; padding: 0in; widows: 2;">
<span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="color: #29303b;"><span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;">And
this phenomenon is not limited to the “unwashed” by any means.
Scientists themselves tend to become defensive at the drop of a hat,
as witness the grandiose statements by Anthony Fauci. (Didn't he, at
one point, say “I AM science”, or something to that effect? And
here I thought Louis XIV had retired.) But this is because they
have, at some point, left science behind and opted to become media
stars (Fauci again) – and once this happens there is no turning
back, because your credibility is in the dumpster. </span></span>
</span></p>
<p align="LEFT" style="background: transparent; border: none; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 2; padding: 0in; widows: 2;">
<span style="font-size: medium;"><br />
</span></p>
<p align="LEFT" style="background: transparent; border: none; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 2; padding: 0in; widows: 2;">
<span style="color: #29303b;"><span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif; font-size: medium;">(And
don't get me wrong. I'm a trained scientist myself – but I think I
know where science leaves off and politics (and personal agendas)
begin. Science is supposed to be self-correcting; in fact, that's
one of its essential qualities, without which it devolves into belief
and opinion. When the self-correcting function is disabled (as it
was with much of the media coverage of the pandemic and the
treatments) then whatever remains is untrustworthy and deserves all
the skepticism it attracts.)</span></span></p>
<p align="LEFT" style="background: transparent; border: none; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 2; padding: 0in; widows: 2;">
<span style="font-size: medium;"><br />
</span></p>
<p align="LEFT" style="background: transparent; border: none; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 2; padding: 0in; widows: 2;">
<span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="color: #29303b;"><span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;">Try
a thought experiment here. What if the space program – not the
funding priorities but the actual technology – had turned into a
political battlefield? We'd never have even gotten into orbit, leave
alone to the Moon (relax, Moon landing skeptics – I'm just trying
to make a point here). It's interesting that when it comes to rocket
science, which very people understand (hence the meme), politics
tends to take a back seat – or no seat at all. But when it comes
to medicine, which everybody thinks they understand to some extent
(especially media talking heads and entertainment types), politics
can take over with no trouble. Oh, but – you might say –
medicine is an inexact science compared to the pure physics of
rocketry; there is plenty of room for opinion and debate. Fair
enough, but that opinion and debate should still be confined to the
sphere of science rather than becoming raw meat for the media,
Internet, and late-night talk shows. Covid seems to have turned the
entire populace, from the lowest to the highest, into medical
experts, whereas it more likely just accelerated and amplified the
pre-existing level of ignorance. </span></span>
</span></p>
<p align="LEFT" style="background: transparent; border: none; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 2; padding: 0in; widows: 2;">
<span style="font-size: medium;"><br />
</span></p>
<p align="LEFT" style="background: transparent; border: none; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 2; padding: 0in; widows: 2;">
<span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="color: #29303b;"><span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;">And
then we have – </span></span>
</span></p>
<p align="LEFT" style="background: transparent; border: none; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 2; padding: 0in; widows: 2;">
<br />
</p>
<p align="LEFT" style="background: transparent; border: none; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 2; padding: 0in; widows: 2;">
<span style="color: #29303b;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, sans-serif;"><span><i>It
was a false flag operation on the part of our own Deep State, which
seeks (1) a death blow to the Trump administration, because all other
efforts have failed; and (2) an exponential increase in the power and
reach of the Deep State, with the ultimate goal of complete control
of the citizenry, including monitoring all movements, transactions,
and social contacts. (The totalitarian dream, in other words.)</i></span></span></span></p>
<p align="LEFT" style="background: transparent; border: none; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 2; padding: 0in; widows: 2;">
<br />
</p>
<p align="LEFT" style="background: transparent; border: none; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 2; padding: 0in; widows: 2;">
<span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="color: #29303b;"><span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;">This
would make sense if one considers the Corona/Covid virus to be a
complete hoax. I have allowed that there is “something” to it,
just not as presented in the doomsday/end-of-the-world manner of the
health establishment early on, and their facilitators in the media.
But – never letting a crisis go to waste, the enemies of Donald
Trump, which were (and continue to be) legion, jumped at the chance
to accuse Trump & Co. of “not doing enough” – as if anyone
knew, at the time, what should be done. The utter chaos that
characterized (and continues to) things like masks, social distancing,
isolation, etc. – recall that this was pre-vaccination – was
happily used, by his enemies, as a mark against Trump. Another
discovered benefit, in other words. </span></span>
</span></p>
<p align="LEFT" style="background: transparent; border: none; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 2; padding: 0in; widows: 2;">
<span style="font-size: medium;"><br />
</span></p>
<p align="LEFT" style="background: transparent; border: none; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 2; padding: 0in; widows: 2;">
<span style="color: #29303b;"><span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif; font-size: medium;">I
think it can at least be postulated that, despite all of the efforts
of the combined Deep State, the media, academia, the entertainment
industry, Congress, the intelligence/law enforcement community, etc.
to bring down Trump and his administration, it might have survived
the election of 2020 if Covid hadn't been in the mix. But along with
everything else, Covid became the poison pill that put Biden over the
top. I can't prove this, of course, but I present it as a
possibility.</span></span></p>
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<span style="font-size: medium;"><br />
</span></p>
<p align="LEFT" style="background: transparent; border: none; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 2; padding: 0in; widows: 2;">
<span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="color: #29303b;"><span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;">As
for the larger issue of increasing the power and reach of the Deep
State, it certainly accomplished that to some degree, as any crisis
will, which is why we now have, firmly established, government-by-crisis (being a perfect
reflection of the media, for whom crises are their life's blood). </span></span>
</span></p>
<p align="LEFT" style="background: transparent; border: none; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 2; padding: 0in; widows: 2;">
<span style="font-size: medium;"><br />
</span></p>
<p align="LEFT" style="background: transparent; border: none; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 2; padding: 0in; widows: 2;">
<span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="color: #29303b;"><span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;">The
biggest surprise, however, was the extent to which mayors and
governors have absolute power – or, let's say, they can assume
absolute power and no one can stop them. It turns out that mayors
really do rule cities, and that governors really do rule states –
to a much more thorough extent than anything the federal government
is capable of at this point. In an ironic sort of way, this should
have been good news to libertarians and fans of subsidiarity – but
of course it depended on whether the officials in question had
libertarian leanings, or whether they fancied themselves
mini-Napoleons. Unfortunately, there were more of the latter type
than of the former. But still, as a lesson learned, it was quite
striking, and one should take it to heart whenever elections come
around. Your vote might wind up electing the next tinhorn dictator –
is that what you want? </span></span>
</span></p>
<p align="LEFT" style="background: transparent; border: none; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 2; padding: 0in; widows: 2;">
<span style="font-size: medium;"><br />
</span></p>
<p align="LEFT" style="background: transparent; border: none; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 2; padding: 0in; widows: 2;">
<span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="color: #29303b;"><span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;">Or
– </span></span>
</span></p>
<p align="LEFT" style="background: transparent; border: none; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 2; padding: 0in; widows: 2;">
<br />
</p>
<p align="LEFT" style="background: transparent; border: none; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 2; padding: 0in; widows: 2;">
<span style="color: #29303b;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, sans-serif;"><span><i>It
was a false flag operation on the part of our economic “planners”,
political ideologues, “agents of change”, and the ruling elite.
Getting rid of Trump is necessary, but it's only a first step. The
main goal is to deliver the final death blow to the American middle
class, and finally achieve what the elites have been dreaming of for
generations – namely, a slave state made up of serfs and rulers,
with the middle class eliminated as an economic and political factor.
Note that:</i></span></span></span></p>
<p align="LEFT" style="background: transparent; border: none; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 2; padding: 0in; widows: 2;">
<br />
</p>
<ul>
<li><p align="LEFT" style="background: transparent; border: none; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 2; padding: 0in; widows: 2;">
<span style="color: #29303b;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, sans-serif;"><span><i>The
titans of big business have no problem at all with the shutdown –
in fact, they're urging Trump to keep it going indefinitely. That
should be a clue right there. And with their cash reserves, they can
weather just about anything while they wait for their “stimulus”
check from the Treasury Department.</i></span></span></span></p></li><li><p align="LEFT" style="background: transparent; border: none; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 2; padding: 0in; widows: 2;">
<span style="color: #29303b;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, sans-serif;"><span><i>The
ruling elite and the working classes have recently discovered a
common cause in demonizing the middle class and gradually eroding
its resources and influence. This is exemplified in the makeup of
the Democratic Party.</i></span></span></span></p></li><li><p align="LEFT" style="background: transparent; border: none; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 2; padding: 0in; widows: 2;">
<span style="color: #29303b;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, sans-serif;"><span><i>The
economic shutdown is having a much more severe effect on the middle
class – in terms of employment, income, and small business –
than on big business (an example being the DJIA, which took a major
hit but is still alive and well, because it represents big business,
which has sufficient reserves to ride this out, whereas small
businesses are dropping like flies and unlikely to recover). (It's
also possible that the scheme included letting the Dow take a hit as
a cover – “See, we're suffering too”, etc. But see what
recovers first when this is over with.)</i></span></span></span></p>
</li></ul>
<p align="LEFT" style="background: transparent; border: none; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 2; padding: 0in; widows: 2;">
<br />
</p>
<p align="LEFT" style="background: transparent; border: none; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 2; padding: 0in; widows: 2;">
<span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="color: #29303b;"><span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;">Again,
I don't trust the false-flag idea, but as a discovered benefit –
sure. Who suffered the most from the lockdowns? Well, we know the
answer – small business, i.e. an activity of the middle class.
Small businesses of all sorts, with the possible exception of
carry-outs, were indeed dropping like flies for many months – and
Internet-based businesses (owned by oligarchs) prospered as never
before. Which is to say that countless middle-class people took an
economic hit and became no longer middle class, but members of the
vast army of “service industry” wage earners. </span></span>
</span></p>
<p align="LEFT" style="background: transparent; border: none; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 2; padding: 0in; widows: 2;">
<span style="font-size: medium;"><br />
</span></p>
<p align="LEFT" style="background: transparent; border: none; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 2; padding: 0in; widows: 2;">
<span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="color: #29303b;"><span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;">So
has this situation reversed itself to any significant degree? I
don't have the numbers of this, but what I suspect is that people who
became accustomed to buying via the Internet decided it wasn't a bad
idea – kind of convenient, actually – a lot of choices, etc.
Stuff gets delivered. And so on. So if there is a recovery, I
suspect it's far from complete – and one could argue that there's
nothing wrong with this, but that would be to say that small
businesses ought to just go quietly away and leave it up to Amazon.
Pardon me if I'm somewhat sentimental about “Main Street” and the
people who work there (or used to). </span></span>
</span></p>
<p align="LEFT" style="background: transparent; border: none; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 2; padding: 0in; widows: 2;">
<span style="font-size: medium;"><br />
</span></p>
<p align="LEFT" style="background: transparent; border: none; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 2; padding: 0in; widows: 2;">
<span style="color: #29303b;"><span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif; font-size: medium;">I'm
going to copy the footnotes to the above theory without further
comment. I think they still have considerable general relevance
independently of the Covid era. (And please excuse the formatting issues -- they are beyond my total control.)</span></span></p>
<p align="LEFT" style="background: transparent; border: none; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 2; padding: 0in; widows: 2;">
<br />
</p>
<p align="LEFT" style="background: transparent; border: none; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 2; padding: 0in; widows: 2;">
<span style="color: #29303b;"><span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><i><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, sans-serif;"><span>Footnote
1: Why is the middle class so despised and persecuted? (And why, for
that matter, has this process been going on ever since the
Progressive Era, although it has become much more blatant over the
last 50 years?) For one thing, it tends to be, and vote,
conservatively-- especially if you're talking about people in
agriculture, small business, and the skilled trades. People who do
meaningful work that has a well-defined product, and people with ties
to the land, are naturally more conservative. It's the paper traders
and parasites who tend toward the liberal side.</span></span></i></span></span></span></p><p align="LEFT" style="background: transparent; border: none; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 2; padding: 0in; widows: 2;"><span style="color: #29303b;"><span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><i><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, sans-serif;"><span><br /></span></span></i></span></span></span></p>
<ul>
<p align="LEFT" style="background: transparent; border: none; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 2; padding: 0in; widows: 2;">
<span style="color: #29303b;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, sans-serif;"><span><i>Footnote
2: What the people in charge of this project intend is for small
business to vanish, and for all of those enterprises to be absorbed
into vast industrial and commercial cartels which will eventually
become synonymous with the State. Note that (1) this process is
already underway, with predatory large businesses gobbling up small
businesses at a rapid rate, and turning those business owners into
franchisees at best, and wage slaves at worst; and (2) what we call
“crony capitalism” will, in its ultimate state of evolution,
become either business being a wholly-owned subsidiarity of the
State, or vice versa. This will be a distinction without a
difference. Whether those in charge are called CEOs or commissars
will make no difference to the disenfranchised citizenry.</i></span></span></span></p><p align="LEFT" style="background: transparent; border: none; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 2; padding: 0in; widows: 2;"><span style="color: #29303b;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, sans-serif;"><span><i><br /></i></span></span></span></p>
<li><p align="LEFT" style="background: transparent; border: none; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 2; padding: 0in; widows: 2;">
</p>
<p align="LEFT" style="background: transparent; border: none; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 2; padding: 0in; widows: 2;">
<span style="color: #29303b;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, sans-serif;"><span><i>Footnote
3: But how does a “modern, industrialized society” function
without a middle class? We've had that discussion before. The answer
is that it doesn't – not in the way we're used to. But the Soviet
Union managed to pull it off for many decades. (China, on the other
hand, was stuck in the stone age until they decided to try a bit of
free enterprise and property rights. And apparently it worked.)</i></span></span></span></p>
<p align="LEFT" style="background: transparent; border: none; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 2; padding: 0in; widows: 2;">
</p>
</li></ul>
<p align="LEFT" style="background: transparent; border: none; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 2; padding: 0in; widows: 2;">
<span style="color: #29303b;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: medium;">And
finally...</span></span></span></p>
<p align="LEFT" style="background: transparent; border: none; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 2; padding: 0in; widows: 2;">
<br />
</p>
<ul>
<p align="LEFT" style="background: transparent; border: none; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 2; padding: 0in; widows: 2;">
<span style="color: #29303b;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, sans-serif;"><i>It
was a deal worked out between China – birth-control experts
extraordinaire – and the ZPG cartel, to reduce populations
worldwide because free and unrestricted abortion has failed to do
the job (as has war).</i></span></span></p>
<p align="LEFT" style="background: transparent; border: none; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 2; padding: 0in; widows: 2;">
</p>
<p align="LEFT" style="background: transparent; border: none; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 2; padding: 0in; widows: 2;">
<span style="color: #29303b;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, sans-serif;"><i>It
was an act of sabotage by the “greens” and eco-fanatics, who are
already celebrating the improvement in air quality as the result of
restrictions on commerce and travel.</i></span></span></p>
</ul>
<p align="LEFT" style="background: transparent; border: none; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 2; padding: 0in; widows: 2;">
<br />
</p>
<p align="LEFT" style="background: transparent; border: none; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 2; padding: 0in; widows: 2;">
<span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="color: #29303b;"><span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;">As
to the first, the birth-control movement always has a keen interest
in anything that threatens to reduce global populations, whether by
“natural causes” or otherwise. China has, of course, been on the
side of radical birth control for decades; less so in the U.S., and
here one notices that the campaign is typically aimed at certain
selected minorities – the same ones that Margaret Sanger didn't
think too much of. But as for a deal having been made, again I see
what may have been an accident as a test case as well. I'm sure it
got the attention, in particular, of not only birth-control advocates
but ZPG types, and the even more radical element that wants to reduce
global populations back to levels of a few decades ago. In the
practical sense, using biological weapons as a shotgun approach to
reducing populations would certainly raise containment issues. After
all, we all breathe the same air (at least I assume the ruling elites
do). </span></span>
</span></p>
<p align="LEFT" style="background: transparent; border: none; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 2; padding: 0in; widows: 2;">
<span style="font-size: medium;"><br />
</span></p>
<p align="LEFT" style="background: transparent; border: none; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 2; padding: 0in; widows: 2;">
<span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="color: #29303b;"><span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;">As
for the “greens”, now that one of the benefits of working from
home, or not working, has been brought out in sharp relief, you can
expect them to continue to promote this as a good trend (and, having
dealt with traffic on the D.C. Beltway for many years, I find it hard
to disagree). </span></span>
</span></p>
<p align="LEFT" style="background: transparent; border: none; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 2; padding: 0in; widows: 2;">
<span style="font-size: medium;"><br />
</span></p>
<p align="LEFT" style="background: transparent; border: none; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 2; padding: 0in; widows: 2;">
<span style="color: #29303b;"><span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif; font-size: medium;">But
speaking of biological weapons... the “elephant in the room” in
all of this, and something that is completely suppressed by the
mainstream media, is the question of what on earth we were doing not
only working with the Chinese government on biological warfare
research, but actually supporting it (Fauci again). I mean... OK,
we've been experimenting with bio-warfare agents for decades,
presumably in order to develop defenses in case the technology is
aimed at us (either at our military or our population in general).
And it wouldn't be all that scandalous if we were working with our
allies on the same thing. But China? Our “enemy”, “rival”,
“competitor for world dominance”? I mean, what's going on here?
Maybe someone figured that the old saying “keep your friends close
and your enemies closer” should apply to bio-warfare research. Or,
maybe we were anticipating that someday we and China would be working
together in order to... what? You can see why the MSM don't want to
open this can of worms. And yet, I think it's the most important
question that can be asked at this point. If we worked with China
and funded this research and then something “escaped”, isn't that
just as much our fault as theirs? In order to make any sense of
this, you have to go way beyond the standard conspiracy model.</span></span></p>
<p align="LEFT" style="background: transparent; border: none; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 2; padding: 0in; widows: 2;">
<span style="font-size: medium;"><br />
</span></p>
<p align="LEFT" style="background: transparent; border: none; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 2; padding: 0in; widows: 2;">
<span style="color: #29303b;"><span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif; font-size: medium;">In
a world of paradoxes, a few stand out when it comes to Covid. One is
that there was a sudden and significant centralization of commerce
(from “brick and mortar” to the Internet), but at the same time a
decentralization of the workplace (office vs. home, school vs. home).
Also, the pandemic was “managed” (so to speak) by the federal
government in terms of distribution of healthcare resources and
information (just kidding – it was the opinions of “experts”
who changed their minds on a daily basis). But there was also
considerable management – much of it way more effective than the
federal variety – at the state and local level. Likewise, the more
localized policy decisions tended to be more effective and less
economically/socially disruptive than the diktats that came down from
on high (Washington, D.C., that is). The “experts” on the
federal payroll couldn't avoid contradicting each other (and
themselves) on a regular basis, whereas there were some more
level-headed types working things out at the state (some, not all)
and local (ditto) level.</span></span></p>
<p align="LEFT" style="background: transparent; border: none; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 2; padding: 0in; widows: 2;">
<span style="font-size: medium;"><br />
</span></p>
<p align="LEFT" style="background: transparent; border: none; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 2; padding: 0in; widows: 2;">
<span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="color: #29303b;"><span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;">Another
unanticipated consequence was the discovery – out of sheer
necessity – of home schooling, by parents who had never considered
it as a possibility up to then. In many cases they decided they
liked it – and that it was, in some cases, worth giving up that
second paycheck for – so they kept their kids home even after the
schools opened up again – much to the dismay, I'm sure, of the
teachers' unions and the boards of education. (And I'm sure the
grass-roots movement against the teaching of CRT, and things like the
transgender locker room issue, didn't hurt the cause either.) </span></span>
</span></p>
<p align="LEFT" style="background: transparent; border: none; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 2; padding: 0in; widows: 2;">
<span style="font-size: medium;"><br />
</span></p>
<p align="LEFT" style="background: transparent; border: none; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 2; padding: 0in; widows: 2;">
<span style="color: #29303b;"><span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif; font-size: medium;">And
last but far from least, we have the most general phenomenon
resulting from all of this, namely the ever-widening political and
social gap in American society. It was there before, of course –
it's been there pretty much since the Founding, but what was arguably
a fault line in the 1960s has grown into a canyon, and you can credit
Covid and the responses to it, along with the War on Trump, for the
yawning abyss we see before us now. And yes, there was a lot more
going on in 2020 than a new mystery disease, lest we forget; it was
truly an <i>annus horribilis</i>. But some good has come from it as
well, it seems to me. Another layer of our much-treasured American
optimism and naivete has been chipped away – and I for one would
rather see things more as they truly are than to cling to illusions.
And anyone with a sense of history can at least appreciate the fact
that so much has been brought out in sharp relief – mostly bad, but
some good as well. As I've said before, no one wants to live in
history – it's too messy, confusing, chaotic, and dangerous. Much
better to sit back and view it from afar – in books, on Wikipedia,
in movies, etc. But when you're in it, you're in it, and there's no
sense in pretending things are any other way.</span></span></p>
<p align="LEFT" style="background: transparent; border: none; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 2; padding: 0in; widows: 2;">
<span style="font-size: medium;"><br />
</span></p>
<p align="LEFT" style="background: transparent; border: none; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 2; padding: 0in; widows: 2;">
<span style="color: #29303b;"><span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif; font-size: medium;">Thus,
my take on Covid and some of the theories that were floating around
early on – and continue to do so in many cases. I have chosen to
argue against one major class of theories having to do with
intentional release of the virus; the probability is still not zero,
and never will be, but it just doesn't seem to fit into the big
picture. However, the overall theme of “discovered benefits” –
mostly negative in their impact on the plain citizen – can be found
at every turn. “Cui bono?” And I would say, basically, the
usual suspects – globalists, totalitarians, would-be dictators,
population control advocates, the ruling elite, multinational
corporations, anti-Americans everywhere (including here in America),
Big Medicine, Big Pharma, the utterly shameless mainstream media, the
Deep State, dictator wannabe's everywhere, population and
environmental activists... but also China itself, and biological
warfare specialists, all benefiting from the rich data base created
by the pandemic.</span></span></p>
<p align="LEFT" style="background: transparent; border: none; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 2; padding: 0in; widows: 2;">
<span style="font-size: medium;"><br />
</span></p>
<p align="LEFT" style="background: transparent; border: none; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 2; padding: 0in; widows: 2;">
<span style="color: #29303b;"><span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif; font-size: medium;">Who,
on the other hand, has suffered the most? Again, the usual victims –
the beleaguered middle class, freedom and liberty in general,
patriots, and those with a residual and naive trust in government.
The good news is that many of these have put up a fight. They
protested... they engaged in civil disobedience... the asserted
themselves as citizens of a free (even if no longer free) country.
The human spirit is not to be conquered by mere diktats or the
pronouncements of tyrants – or of the increasingly transparent
propaganda apparatus.</span></span></p>
<p align="LEFT" style="background: transparent; border: none; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 2; padding: 0in; widows: 2;">
<span style="font-size: medium;"><br />
</span></p>
<p align="LEFT" style="background: transparent; border: none; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 2; padding: 0in; widows: 2;">
<span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="color: #29303b;"><span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;">And
of course there is always that first casualty of war (or any major
crisis), namely the truth. We look in vain to find it in the “news”,
the media, political speeches, and pronouncements of the current
administration and many governors' and mayors' offices. It's truly a
taste of what many people around the world had to put up for
generations, and continue to do so in many cases – Soviet Russia
and its clones come first to mind, but there are other guilty parties
as well. </span></span>
</span></p>
<p align="LEFT" style="background: transparent; border: none; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 2; padding: 0in; widows: 2;">
<span style="font-size: medium;"><br />
</span></p>
<p align="LEFT" style="background: transparent; border: none; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 2; padding: 0in; widows: 2;">
<span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="color: #29303b;"><span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;">And
dare we point out the serious damage this episode did to families,
local organizations, freedom of assembly, freedom of association,
freedom of speech, freedom of medical choice, neighborhoods, and
friendships? There are people to this day peering out from behind
masks... at other people peering out from behind masks. (A better
stage set for a dystopian drama, where individuality and personhood
have been abolished, can hardly be imagined.) There are countless
places one is not allowed to enter without a “vax card” (“Your
papers, please” – says the guy in the trench coat with the Luger
in his pocket). Paranoia has a new face, except that it's just half
a face. The “unvaxed” have been made second-class citizens...
no, worse – lepers! Unclean! Truly, the pod people have taken
over in many parts of the country. And yes, the madness seems to be
abating a bit, but there has been permanent damage, and the scars
will remain – for a lifetime I imagine. </span></span>
</span></p>
<p align="LEFT" style="background: transparent; border: none; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 2; padding: 0in; widows: 2;">
<span style="font-size: medium;"><br />
</span></p>
<p align="LEFT" style="background: transparent; border: none; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 2; padding: 0in; widows: 2;">
<span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="color: #29303b;"><span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;">But
to end on a more positive note – the eternal verities are still
with us because they are indeed eternal. They may be attacked and
persecuted by malevolent rulers, but they will not die because they
are an essential component of human nature – and in this, at least,
we may have hope. </span></span>
</span></p>
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<span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="color: #29303b;"> </span>
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<span style="font-size: medium;"><br />
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</p>
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<span style="color: #29303b;"> </span>
</p>
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<br />
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<br />
</p>
<p align="LEFT" style="background: transparent; border: none; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 2; padding: 0in; widows: 2;">
<span style="color: #29303b;"> </span>
</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
</p>Dave Witterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10685191772640386942noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4241997621473648057.post-63976892278940258492021-10-12T16:20:00.000-04:002021-10-12T16:23:42.257-04:00What's Wrong with Loudoun County?<p> </p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">Loudoun County, Virginia has become the
epicenter of the “cold civil war” between the woke/progressive
movement – the latest incarnation of the revolution -- and people
who are – or who at least consider themselves to be -- “normal”,
i.e. ordinary American citizens who ask nothing more than to be left
alone. But the question arises, why there, and why now? I believe I
can shed some light on the subject, since I lived there for all of 24
years.
</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">First, a bit of geography. Look at a
map of Virginia which highlights counties. Working out from D.C.,
you first come to Arlington County, which was, long ago and far away,
part of D.C. (which explains why it's the other part of the 10x10
mile diamond). Arlington, which up until World War II was a
scattering of small settlements, got a shot in the arm with the war
and the building of the Pentagon and became what is known as a
“bedroom suburb”. Over time, Arlington got filled up, so the
cancer which actually began with the New Deal spread to Fairfax
County, which over time became an even larger and more sprawling
bedroom suburb. But like any malignant growth, the government blob
needed ever more space, so by 1981 the cancer had spread across the
county line into Loudoun – not far, mind you, but enough to
constitute a significant “fringe”, beyond which all was still
bucolic and green (in the traditional sense). (I used to joke that
the suburbs on the eastern edge of Loudoun County were the servants'
quarters for Fairfax County. True up to a point, except a lot of the
hapless Loudoun residents had to commute all the way into D.C. on a
daily basis, a process so brutal that it could be compared to the
Trail of Tears. And even so, we spent a lot of time “pitying the
fools” who commuted from places even farther away, like Harper's
Ferry, Gettysburg, and the Eastern Shore of Maryland. You look hard
enough and you can always find someone more miserable than you are.)
</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">So, taking a snapshot circa 1981,
Loudoun County was still, by and large, rural. We settled in one of
the “borderline” developments, and right across the main road
there were horses grazing. And from where we lived to Leesburg (the
county seat) it was all horses. Now it's all developments. In fact,
the developments have oozed around Leesburg, which is protected by
ironclad ordinances, not to mention political pull – in order to
preserve its colonial-era, quaint, and picturesque features. (You
can't move a brick or prune a tree in “old” Leesburg without
getting a permit from the authorities. Needless to say, real estate
prices there are comparable to those on Martha's Vineyard. But who
can argue with a place that has more boxwood hedges than anywhere
else in the U.S.?)</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">The last time I checked, which was 15
years ago, the suburban sprawl had reached all the way to the first
ridge west of Leesburg, and was quickly crawling up said ridge in
search of new worlds to despoil. But that was not the only trend
of note, by any means. The social history of Washington, D.C. and
its suburbs has one overriding theme, which is that people come there
in order to get good-paying jobs. And who wouldn't? Problem is,
they bring their – in some cases “traditional” – points of
view with them. Why, many of them have intact families! And they
“cling” to guns and Bibles! And so on. This is because they
generally come from farther west or farther south, which means from
“the hills”, from “God's country”, and all of that feisty
Scotch-Irish DNA doesn't always take kindly to the New
Deal/enlightened/progressive/liberal/socialist/woke-ism that emanates
out of D.C. like fallout from an atomic blast, except over a much
longer time.
</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">So even way back in 1981, there were
already signs of trouble. The “Billy Bobs” from up in them thar
hills who attended the Evangelical and Fundamentalist churches had to
confront, on the job and occasionally right next door, the opposing
force – namely big-government socialism and all of its attendant
annoyances and persecutions, not to mention its true believers, who
considered the outer suburbs as a kind of mission field – the thinking being something along the lines of “We
will enlighten these knuckle-draggers and mouth-breathers, at the
point of a gun if need be, and turn them into citizens of the New
World Order whether they like it or not.”</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">Not only that, but the first notable
entity in Loudoun County to succumb to the new New Deal mind set was
the county government. So you had, basically, a county with a
suburban fringe on one end, a “hunt country” elite on the other
end (quickly moving on to greener pastures in order to escape
suburban sprawl - after cashing out handsomely, needless to say), and in the middle a county government that was
indistinguishable from what one might find in, let's say, Sweden, but
with even more of an animus toward religion, “family values”, and
conservatism of any kind.
</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">“You say 'mayter', and I say
to-<i>mah</i>-to”. The ruling class of Loudoun County were NPR listeners,
everyone else was into country music. It was BMWs vs. pickup trucks
with gun racks. It was polite Episcopalians vs. charismatic
Fundamentalists who spoke in tongues. It was gourmet shops vs. BBQ
joints. And so on. But, all in all, despite these canyon-like
cultural differences there was a kind of peaceful coexistence – the
two sides tended to stay out of each other's way most of the time
(except when the “regular folks” wound up in court and were
confronted by prosecutors straight out of Stalin's show trials).
</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">And – bringing us up to the present
day – all was, at first, more or less quiet on the public school
front. The “agents of change” had yet to flex their muscles in
that venue, and although the county education officials had definite
totalitarian tendencies, this had not yet trickled down to the grass
roots. Besides, many of the serious traditionalists already had
their kids enrolled in church-based schools – all across the
spectrum from Evangelical to Fundamentalist. So the public schools
were an accident waiting to happen – and sure enough, it has now
happened, much to the amazement and puzzlement of all. But if you
understand the social history of the place, you understand exactly
what's going on. The traditionally-minded, family-oriented people
saw nothing terribly wrong with sending their kids off to the public
schools, assuming that the “3 R's” were still being taught.
Which they were, up to a point – and that was the point at which
the agents of change... the vanguard of the revolution, of the
culture war... decided to shift into high gear and start
introducing... well, you know... all the garbage that is now –
whether virtually or in-person, masked or unmasked -- being dumped on
public school kids without the knowledge or consent of their parents. And
ironically it's the very incidence of the pandemic that has helped
bring things to a head. As has been pointed out any number of times,
remote, at-home learning necessitated by the pandemic enabled parents
to see, for the first time, what their kids were being taught in
school, and the response was indignation, outrage, and an urge to not
only speak truth to power but to topple that power from its throne.
And this was at the same time CRT came along – along with
transgender bathrooms and athletes – sex education at a fever pitch
(“sex ed” has been with us for decades, but it has now reached
escape velocity) – and any of the thousand varieties of race- and
gender-shaming that are now everyday business in the public schools.
Not to mention masks! Another way of putting it is that the pandemic
was supposed to have served as a rationale and as a cover for an
escalation of the culture war, in spite of any new level of awareness
on the part of the parents. (Or – to put a finer point on it –
no one expected the parents to notice that their kids were being
brainwashed by Marxists, so when they did notice it caused great
consternation and dismay. Busted! And now that sleeping giant known
as “parents” is speaking up, and getting in the way, and
disturbing the traditionally tranquil atmosphere of school board
meetings.)
</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">So imagine if you're a parent with kids
in public school in Loudoun County. You moved there to get closer to
the cornucopia of unlimited cash and jobs that is D.C. – who
wouldn't? And you, innocently, expected the values and attitudes you
grew up with in East Overshoe, West Virginia to be reinforced, or at
least not actively opposed, by the schools you were sending your kids
to. Then came the “reveal”, and now parents are standing up in
school board meetings and demanding to know what in hell is going on
– and the school board members just sit there stone-faced, like
Soviet officials standing on Lenin's Tomb during the May Day parade
on Red Square. Yes, they've been “outed”, they've been exposed,
but hey – they have all the power, the law is on their side, they
represent the dominant culture, and, basically, the parents can just
stick it where the sun don't shine. This is their attitude. But I
say that this attitude has been building up for nigh unto 40 years
now; it's just recently that it has come out into the open through
repeated confrontation. And, by the way, it's also a subset of the
broader premise that the government owns your children, and all you
are is a caretaker at best. And, that the real work – the work of
creating a new type of citizen for the servile state – is done away
from the atavistic and suffocating atmosphere of “the home”.
</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">And if that weren't enough, now the
school boards have called in the FBI to protect them from indignant
parents. If you're looking for a Soviet Union starter kit, seek no
further – this is not the first battle, nor is it the last, but
it's the most consequential. The revolution has always known that
the next generation is key – not the grandparents, not the parents
(AKA “deplorables”), but the “young skulls full of mush” as
Rush Limbaugh used to say. Win the hearts and minds of the next
generation and you've won, and the old folks can go to hell; that's
the attitude. And the thing is, this works! Or, it works if it is
unopposed. Right now the revolution holds all the cards... it has
all the political power... it has most (but not all) of the guns...
so prospects are not good. But to not oppose would mean to
capitulate, to be less then men, less than human... and is this the
legacy we want to pass on to the next generation? I fervently hope
not.</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">To paraphrase an old political saying,
as Loudoun County goes, so goes the nation – if people do not speak
the whole truth to the real power. If they do and fail anyway, it
will usher in a long night, and many of us may not live to see the
dawn. The Soviet Union lasted 70-plus years before the Russians
finally came to their senses and reasserted themselves as a culture –
a very traditional and religious one at that. This will take
patience, but it will take faith even more.
</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
</p>Dave Witterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10685191772640386942noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4241997621473648057.post-53136821016462393652021-08-13T15:37:00.001-04:002021-08-13T15:38:33.259-04:00Things Are Going Swimmingly -- Some Pool Observations<p><span data-offset-key="61tor-0-0" style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-family: inherit; font-size: 15px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></p><p><span data-offset-key="61tor-0-0" style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-family: inherit; font-size: 15px; white-space: pre-wrap;">Being an amateur anthropologist and a bit of a people watcher, I've turned my attention of late to our community pool, which is large </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-family: inherit; font-size: 15px; white-space: pre-wrap;">enough</span><span data-offset-key="61tor-2-0" style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-family: inherit; font-size: 15px; white-space: pre-wrap;"> to hold pretty much every species and sub-species of human being. I've come up with a typology – a work in progress, if you will – but wanted to share it now, in hopes people can make their own contributions. See if you recognize any of these types! (But first, get in the mood. Think sun. Think soothing breezes, and the cloying scent of chlorine... )</span></p><div class="" data-block="true" data-editor="fb54j" data-offset-key="11hvb-0-0" style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-family: "Segoe UI Historic", "Segoe UI", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="11hvb-0-0" style="direction: ltr; font-family: inherit; position: relative;"><span data-offset-key="11hvb-0-0" style="font-family: inherit;"><br data-text="true" /></span></div></div><div class="" data-block="true" data-editor="fb54j" data-offset-key="f7brs-0-0" style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-family: "Segoe UI Historic", "Segoe UI", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="f7brs-0-0" style="direction: ltr; font-family: inherit; position: relative;"><span data-offset-key="f7brs-0-0" style="font-family: inherit;">The Bobbers: They just stand there, bobbing up and down. Up and down. Up and down. Hour after hour. (singly or in groups of 2 or 3)</span></div></div><div class="" data-block="true" data-editor="fb54j" data-offset-key="a58eu-0-0" style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-family: "Segoe UI Historic", "Segoe UI", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="a58eu-0-0" style="direction: ltr; font-family: inherit; position: relative;"><span data-offset-key="a58eu-0-0" style="font-family: inherit;"><br data-text="true" /></span></div></div><div class="" data-block="true" data-editor="fb54j" data-offset-key="6f2v6-0-0" style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-family: "Segoe UI Historic", "Segoe UI", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="6f2v6-0-0" style="direction: ltr; font-family: inherit; position: relative;"><span data-offset-key="6f2v6-0-0" style="font-family: inherit;">The Conversationalists: They also just stand there, but don't even bob. Instead they talk, in groups of 2 or more. Talk about pretty much anything. Hour after hour. </span></div></div><div class="" data-block="true" data-editor="fb54j" data-offset-key="a4f7a-0-0" style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-family: "Segoe UI Historic", "Segoe UI", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="a4f7a-0-0" style="direction: ltr; font-family: inherit; position: relative;"><span data-offset-key="a4f7a-0-0" style="font-family: inherit;"><br data-text="true" /></span></div></div><div class="" data-block="true" data-editor="fb54j" data-offset-key="1fe7r-0-0" style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-family: "Segoe UI Historic", "Segoe UI", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="1fe7r-0-0" style="direction: ltr; font-family: inherit; position: relative;"><span data-offset-key="1fe7r-0-0" style="font-family: inherit;">The Floaters: They lie on one of those inflatable mattresses and let themselves be carried along by the current. They usually appear to be sound asleep. (I never see any of them either getting into or out of the water. I assume they're there all day. Maybe they never leave.) </span></div></div><div class="" data-block="true" data-editor="fb54j" data-offset-key="ckc2q-0-0" style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-family: "Segoe UI Historic", "Segoe UI", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="ckc2q-0-0" style="direction: ltr; font-family: inherit; position: relative;"><span data-offset-key="ckc2q-0-0" style="font-family: inherit;"> </span></div></div><div class="" data-block="true" data-editor="fb54j" data-offset-key="48odb-0-0" style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-family: "Segoe UI Historic", "Segoe UI", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="48odb-0-0" style="direction: ltr; font-family: inherit; position: relative;"><span data-offset-key="48odb-0-0" style="font-family: inherit;">The Odd Couple: How on earth did they ever find each other? </span></div></div><div class="" data-block="true" data-editor="fb54j" data-offset-key="t06b-0-0" style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-family: "Segoe UI Historic", "Segoe UI", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="t06b-0-0" style="direction: ltr; font-family: inherit; position: relative;"><span data-offset-key="t06b-0-0" style="font-family: inherit;"><br data-text="true" /></span></div></div><div class="" data-block="true" data-editor="fb54j" data-offset-key="c2n4l-0-0" style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-family: "Segoe UI Historic", "Segoe UI", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="c2n4l-0-0" style="direction: ltr; font-family: inherit; position: relative;"><span data-offset-key="c2n4l-0-0" style="font-family: inherit;">The Serious Senior Citizen Lady who typically uses the lap lane, and who was probably a varsity swimmer in her college days. She typically wears a bathing cap, which is a rarity these days.</span></div></div><div class="" data-block="true" data-editor="fb54j" data-offset-key="bjm5k-0-0" style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-family: "Segoe UI Historic", "Segoe UI", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="bjm5k-0-0" style="direction: ltr; font-family: inherit; position: relative;"><span data-offset-key="bjm5k-0-0" style="font-family: inherit;"><br data-text="true" /></span></div></div><div class="" data-block="true" data-editor="fb54j" data-offset-key="abgrj-0-0" style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-family: "Segoe UI Historic", "Segoe UI", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="abgrj-0-0" style="direction: ltr; font-family: inherit; position: relative;"><span data-offset-key="abgrj-0-0" style="font-family: inherit;">The Serious Senior Citizen Man: See above. (minus the bathing cap, and usually minus hair) </span></div></div><div class="" data-block="true" data-editor="fb54j" data-offset-key="5gg8o-0-0" style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-family: "Segoe UI Historic", "Segoe UI", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="5gg8o-0-0" style="direction: ltr; font-family: inherit; position: relative;"><span data-offset-key="5gg8o-0-0" style="font-family: inherit;"><br data-text="true" /></span></div></div><div class="" data-block="true" data-editor="fb54j" data-offset-key="cgcdg-0-0" style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-family: "Segoe UI Historic", "Segoe UI", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="cgcdg-0-0" style="direction: ltr; font-family: inherit; position: relative;"><span data-offset-key="cgcdg-0-0" style="font-family: inherit;">Les Amants: This would be a young (or not so young) couple that just stand there in an embrace, looking dreamily into each other's eyes and smiling. (I don't know what's going on under the surface. Maybe I don't want to know.)</span></div></div><div class="" data-block="true" data-editor="fb54j" data-offset-key="erfso-0-0" style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-family: "Segoe UI Historic", "Segoe UI", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="erfso-0-0" style="direction: ltr; font-family: inherit; position: relative;"><span data-offset-key="erfso-0-0" style="font-family: inherit;"><br data-text="true" /></span></div></div><div class="" data-block="true" data-editor="fb54j" data-offset-key="c692f-0-0" style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-family: "Segoe UI Historic", "Segoe UI", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="c692f-0-0" style="direction: ltr; font-family: inherit; position: relative;"><span data-offset-key="c692f-0-0" style="font-family: inherit;">The Olympians: They churn through the water doing the Australian crawl, and heaven help you if you get in their way.</span></div></div><div class="" data-block="true" data-editor="fb54j" data-offset-key="54bam-0-0" style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-family: "Segoe UI Historic", "Segoe UI", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="54bam-0-0" style="direction: ltr; font-family: inherit; position: relative;"><span data-offset-key="54bam-0-0" style="font-family: inherit;"><br data-text="true" /></span></div></div><div class="" data-block="true" data-editor="fb54j" data-offset-key="2csjh-0-0" style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-family: "Segoe UI Historic", "Segoe UI", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="2csjh-0-0" style="direction: ltr; font-family: inherit; position: relative;"><span data-offset-key="2csjh-0-0" style="font-family: inherit;">The Lap Swimmers: They stay in their lane and focus on endurance. Hats off!</span></div></div><div class="" data-block="true" data-editor="fb54j" data-offset-key="beo69-0-0" style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-family: "Segoe UI Historic", "Segoe UI", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="beo69-0-0" style="direction: ltr; font-family: inherit; position: relative;"><span data-offset-key="beo69-0-0" style="font-family: inherit;"><br data-text="true" /></span></div></div><div class="" data-block="true" data-editor="fb54j" data-offset-key="d9koe-0-0" style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-family: "Segoe UI Historic", "Segoe UI", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="d9koe-0-0" style="direction: ltr; font-family: inherit; position: relative;"><span data-offset-key="d9koe-0-0" style="font-family: inherit;">The Muscle Beach types: There's no one like that in Pittsburgh.</span></div></div><div class="" data-block="true" data-editor="fb54j" data-offset-key="abg45-0-0" style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-family: "Segoe UI Historic", "Segoe UI", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="abg45-0-0" style="direction: ltr; font-family: inherit; position: relative;"><span data-offset-key="abg45-0-0" style="font-family: inherit;"><br data-text="true" /></span></div></div><div class="" data-block="true" data-editor="fb54j" data-offset-key="dd687-0-0" style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-family: "Segoe UI Historic", "Segoe UI", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="dd687-0-0" style="direction: ltr; font-family: inherit; position: relative;"><span data-offset-key="dd687-0-0" style="font-family: inherit;">The Shouters: These are the people who spend five or ten minutes trying to get someone else's attention by screaming at the top of their lungs. Either they're in the water and the other person is on the side, or vice-versa. They operate on the assumption that sound carries better over water – problem is, they're competing against 50 kids all yelling at the same time, and against Bob FM coming out of the P.A. System at 100 decibels.</span></div></div><div class="" data-block="true" data-editor="fb54j" data-offset-key="3ipma-0-0" style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-family: "Segoe UI Historic", "Segoe UI", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="3ipma-0-0" style="direction: ltr; font-family: inherit; position: relative;"><span data-offset-key="3ipma-0-0" style="font-family: inherit;"><br data-text="true" /></span></div></div><div class="" data-block="true" data-editor="fb54j" data-offset-key="9qffc-0-0" style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-family: "Segoe UI Historic", "Segoe UI", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="9qffc-0-0" style="direction: ltr; font-family: inherit; position: relative;"><span data-offset-key="9qffc-0-0" style="font-family: inherit;">The Nerds: This is 2 or 3 skinny teenage boys who engage in half-hearted horseplay with no girls in sight.</span></div></div><div class="" data-block="true" data-editor="fb54j" data-offset-key="bdapg-0-0" style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-family: "Segoe UI Historic", "Segoe UI", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="bdapg-0-0" style="direction: ltr; font-family: inherit; position: relative;"><span data-offset-key="bdapg-0-0" style="font-family: inherit;"><br data-text="true" /></span></div></div><div class="" data-block="true" data-editor="fb54j" data-offset-key="2e45k-0-0" style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-family: "Segoe UI Historic", "Segoe UI", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="2e45k-0-0" style="direction: ltr; font-family: inherit; position: relative;"><span data-offset-key="2e45k-0-0" style="font-family: inherit;">The Biggies: These are the folks who go in the water to get the weight off their spines and legs. I don't mean just mildly overweight people; I mean Really Big People, like the large-helping-of-fries-at-every-meal kind of big. </span></div></div><div class="" data-block="true" data-editor="fb54j" data-offset-key="qbep-0-0" style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-family: "Segoe UI Historic", "Segoe UI", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="qbep-0-0" style="direction: ltr; font-family: inherit; position: relative;"><span data-offset-key="qbep-0-0" style="font-family: inherit;"><br data-text="true" /></span></div></div><div class="" data-block="true" data-editor="fb54j" data-offset-key="6l494-0-0" style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-family: "Segoe UI Historic", "Segoe UI", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="6l494-0-0" style="direction: ltr; font-family: inherit; position: relative;"><span data-offset-key="6l494-0-0" style="font-family: inherit;">The Cool Kids: They aren't in the water. They're hanging around the snack bar.</span></div></div><div class="" data-block="true" data-editor="fb54j" data-offset-key="48olu-0-0" style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-family: "Segoe UI Historic", "Segoe UI", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="48olu-0-0" style="direction: ltr; font-family: inherit; position: relative;"><span data-offset-key="48olu-0-0" style="font-family: inherit;"><br data-text="true" /></span></div></div><div class="" data-block="true" data-editor="fb54j" data-offset-key="emugt-0-0" style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-family: "Segoe UI Historic", "Segoe UI", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="emugt-0-0" style="direction: ltr; font-family: inherit; position: relative;"><span data-offset-key="emugt-0-0" style="font-family: inherit;">The Sunbathers: They're out there frying themselves to a toasty brown. I don't sense much sunscreen in use. Hope they have good health insurance.</span></div></div><div class="" data-block="true" data-editor="fb54j" data-offset-key="9hlqs-0-0" style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-family: "Segoe UI Historic", "Segoe UI", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="9hlqs-0-0" style="direction: ltr; font-family: inherit; position: relative;"><span data-offset-key="9hlqs-0-0" style="font-family: inherit;"><br data-text="true" /></span></div></div><div class="" data-block="true" data-editor="fb54j" data-offset-key="aa68d-0-0" style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-family: "Segoe UI Historic", "Segoe UI", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="aa68d-0-0" style="direction: ltr; font-family: inherit; position: relative;"><span data-offset-key="aa68d-0-0" style="font-family: inherit;">The Mystery Colors: People who already have a deep tan on the first day of the season, and people who are still a pasty white on the last day. </span></div></div><div class="" data-block="true" data-editor="fb54j" data-offset-key="1r49g-0-0" style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-family: "Segoe UI Historic", "Segoe UI", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="1r49g-0-0" style="direction: ltr; font-family: inherit; position: relative;"><span data-offset-key="1r49g-0-0" style="font-family: inherit;"><br data-text="true" /></span></div></div><div class="" data-block="true" data-editor="fb54j" data-offset-key="954j6-0-0" style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-family: "Segoe UI Historic", "Segoe UI", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="954j6-0-0" style="direction: ltr; font-family: inherit; position: relative;"><span data-offset-key="954j6-0-0" style="font-family: inherit;">The Intellectual Loners: They find the most secluded spot in the place (on land, I mean) and just settle in. They're often reading a book. A big book. With no pictures. </span></div></div><div class="" data-block="true" data-editor="fb54j" data-offset-key="5q2g9-0-0" style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-family: "Segoe UI Historic", "Segoe UI", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="5q2g9-0-0" style="direction: ltr; font-family: inherit; position: relative;"><span data-offset-key="5q2g9-0-0" style="font-family: inherit;"><br data-text="true" /></span></div></div><div class="" data-block="true" data-editor="fb54j" data-offset-key="dnvas-0-0" style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-family: "Segoe UI Historic", "Segoe UI", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="dnvas-0-0" style="direction: ltr; font-family: inherit; position: relative;"><span data-offset-key="dnvas-0-0" style="font-family: inherit;">The Day Care Ladies who are shepherding a platoon of toddlers and pre-schoolers. (I don't know how they keep their sanity. Maybe they don't.) </span></div></div><div class="" data-block="true" data-editor="fb54j" data-offset-key="1kdq1-0-0" style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-family: "Segoe UI Historic", "Segoe UI", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="1kdq1-0-0" style="direction: ltr; font-family: inherit; position: relative;"><span data-offset-key="1kdq1-0-0" style="font-family: inherit;"><br data-text="true" /></span></div></div><div class="" data-block="true" data-editor="fb54j" data-offset-key="8ji1a-0-0" style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-family: "Segoe UI Historic", "Segoe UI", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="8ji1a-0-0" style="direction: ltr; font-family: inherit; position: relative;"><span data-offset-key="8ji1a-0-0" style="font-family: inherit;">The woman wheeling an industrial-size baby stroller which is brimming over with tote bags, towels, pool toys, and assorted bits of clothing. (I assume there's a baby in there somewhere, but lots of luck finding it.) </span></div></div><div class="" data-block="true" data-editor="fb54j" data-offset-key="c2ghq-0-0" style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-family: "Segoe UI Historic", "Segoe UI", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="c2ghq-0-0" style="direction: ltr; font-family: inherit; position: relative;"><span data-offset-key="c2ghq-0-0" style="font-family: inherit;"><br data-text="true" /></span></div></div><div class="" data-block="true" data-editor="fb54j" data-offset-key="1rcfc-0-0" style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-family: "Segoe UI Historic", "Segoe UI", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="1rcfc-0-0" style="direction: ltr; font-family: inherit; position: relative;"><span data-offset-key="1rcfc-0-0" style="font-family: inherit;">The Harried Lifeguards who blow their whistle for five minutes hoping to get the attention of someone who is breaking the rules. Problem is, no one thinks they're breaking the rules so no one thinks the whistle is for them.</span></div></div><div class="" data-block="true" data-editor="fb54j" data-offset-key="978p-0-0" style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-family: "Segoe UI Historic", "Segoe UI", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="978p-0-0" style="direction: ltr; font-family: inherit; position: relative;"><span data-offset-key="978p-0-0" style="font-family: inherit;"><br data-text="true" /></span></div></div><div class="" data-block="true" data-editor="fb54j" data-offset-key="6upi0-0-0" style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-family: "Segoe UI Historic", "Segoe UI", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="6upi0-0-0" style="direction: ltr; font-family: inherit; position: relative;"><span data-offset-key="6upi0-0-0" style="font-family: inherit;">The Lady at the Entrance who has to explain the Byzantine rate system (age, residency, single, family, daily, seasonal, etc. etc.) about 50 times a day.</span></div></div><div class="" data-block="true" data-editor="fb54j" data-offset-key="2pn0i-0-0" style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-family: "Segoe UI Historic", "Segoe UI", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="2pn0i-0-0" style="direction: ltr; font-family: inherit; position: relative;"><span data-offset-key="2pn0i-0-0" style="font-family: inherit;"><br data-text="true" /></span></div></div><div class="" data-block="true" data-editor="fb54j" data-offset-key="8264r-0-0" style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-family: "Segoe UI Historic", "Segoe UI", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="8264r-0-0" style="direction: ltr; font-family: inherit; position: relative;"><span data-offset-key="8264r-0-0" style="font-family: inherit;">The Great Migrators: The people (usually families) who walk out at 4:30 on the dot. This is a legacy of the old days when all the factories let out at the same time and the wife had to be home in time to prepare dinner so it would be ready when the husband got home from work. Heaven forbid dinner should start even a minute past 6 PM! Don't yinz know it's bowling night?</span></div></div><div class="" data-block="true" data-editor="fb54j" data-offset-key="df878-0-0" style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-family: "Segoe UI Historic", "Segoe UI", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="df878-0-0" style="direction: ltr; font-family: inherit; position: relative;"><span data-offset-key="df878-0-0" style="font-family: inherit;"><br data-text="true" /></span></div></div><div class="" data-block="true" data-editor="fb54j" data-offset-key="5ln0s-0-0" style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-family: "Segoe UI Historic", "Segoe UI", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="5ln0s-0-0" style="direction: ltr; font-family: inherit; position: relative;"><span data-offset-key="5ln0s-0-0" style="font-family: inherit;">The Ice Cubes: These are the folks (typically pale, thin young women) who take forever to get in the water, and are shivering the whole time. (They're always accompanied by a husband or boyfriend who, with great patience, tries to encourage them.) (Needless to say, if they should dare to splash the woman, the engagement is off!!)</span></div></div><div class="" data-block="true" data-editor="fb54j" data-offset-key="6rqmj-0-0" style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-family: "Segoe UI Historic", "Segoe UI", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="6rqmj-0-0" style="direction: ltr; font-family: inherit; position: relative;"><span data-offset-key="6rqmj-0-0" style="font-family: inherit;"><br data-text="true" /></span></div></div><div class="" data-block="true" data-editor="fb54j" data-offset-key="dnpdt-0-0" style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-family: "Segoe UI Historic", "Segoe UI", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="dnpdt-0-0" style="direction: ltr; font-family: inherit; position: relative;"><span data-offset-key="dnpdt-0-0" style="font-family: inherit;">The Water Cannon Kids: Usually boys. OK – always boys, never girls. You do the math.</span></div></div><div class="" data-block="true" data-editor="fb54j" data-offset-key="c1560-0-0" style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-family: "Segoe UI Historic", "Segoe UI", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="c1560-0-0" style="direction: ltr; font-family: inherit; position: relative;"><span data-offset-key="c1560-0-0" style="font-family: inherit;"><br data-text="true" /></span></div></div><div class="" data-block="true" data-editor="fb54j" data-offset-key="egq6r-0-0" style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-family: "Segoe UI Historic", "Segoe UI", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="egq6r-0-0" style="direction: ltr; font-family: inherit; position: relative;"><span data-offset-key="egq6r-0-0" style="font-family: inherit;">The Head Lifeguard, who marches up and down like a drill sergeant keeping the troops in line. (He'd love to have a riding crop, but it's not standard issue.)</span></div></div><div class="" data-block="true" data-editor="fb54j" data-offset-key="9qhkp-0-0" style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-family: "Segoe UI Historic", "Segoe UI", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="9qhkp-0-0" style="direction: ltr; font-family: inherit; position: relative;"><span data-offset-key="9qhkp-0-0" style="font-family: inherit;"><br data-text="true" /></span></div></div><div class="" data-block="true" data-editor="fb54j" data-offset-key="een8p-0-0" style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-family: "Segoe UI Historic", "Segoe UI", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="een8p-0-0" style="direction: ltr; font-family: inherit; position: relative;"><span data-offset-key="een8p-0-0" style="font-family: inherit;">The Water Hogs: These are the guys who play toss and catch (usually 2 to 4 players) and try to see how much of the pool they can monopolize with their game. Of course, you can try and swim across their playing field, but then you risk being whacked by a missed catch. (This is the only activity which I feel should be entirely banned. Some of the others are annoying, but unlikely to lead to serious injury.)</span></div></div><div class="" data-block="true" data-editor="fb54j" data-offset-key="bg2nn-0-0" style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-family: "Segoe UI Historic", "Segoe UI", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="bg2nn-0-0" style="direction: ltr; font-family: inherit; position: relative;"><span data-offset-key="bg2nn-0-0" style="font-family: inherit;"><br data-text="true" /></span></div></div><div class="" data-block="true" data-editor="fb54j" data-offset-key="e4spt-0-0" style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-family: "Segoe UI Historic", "Segoe UI", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="e4spt-0-0" style="direction: ltr; font-family: inherit; position: relative;"><span data-offset-key="e4spt-0-0" style="font-family: inherit;">So... there you are, and I'm sure there are a few I've missed (or that are found in pools other than the one I frequent). Please feel free to add your own observations! </span></div></div><div class="" data-block="true" data-editor="fb54j" data-offset-key="60fo8-0-0" style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-family: "Segoe UI Historic", "Segoe UI", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="60fo8-0-0" style="direction: ltr; font-family: inherit; position: relative;"><span data-offset-key="60fo8-0-0" style="font-family: inherit;"> </span></div></div><div class="" data-block="true" data-editor="fb54j" data-offset-key="enc6a-0-0" style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-family: "Segoe UI Historic", "Segoe UI", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="enc6a-0-0" style="direction: ltr; font-family: inherit; position: relative;"><span data-offset-key="enc6a-0-0" style="font-family: inherit;"><br data-text="true" /></span></div></div><div class="" data-block="true" data-editor="fb54j" data-offset-key="7cekp-0-0" style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-family: "Segoe UI Historic", "Segoe UI", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; white-space: pre-wrap;"></div>Dave Witterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10685191772640386942noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4241997621473648057.post-47082642603799368622021-08-10T16:52:00.001-04:002021-08-10T16:53:28.660-04:00The Five-Ring Circus – Some Olympic Impressions<p> </p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">I managed to watch the Olympics on and
off over the last couple of weeks, and came up with some observations
(bearing in mind that, being one of the least athletic people on the
planet, I have no “standing” to make comments):</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</p>
<ol>
<li><p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">The Olympics, although they are
called “games”, seem more real, authentic, solid, and honorable
than pretty much anything else that is happening in the world right
now, particularly in politics and in the crushing load of propaganda
that is imposed on the citizenry every hour of every day on pretty
much every issue or subject. We are, it's said, living in a
post-reality era – which is true, since everything is politicized
(therefore subjective) and we can't take anything for granted,
including much of what is happening (or seems to be happening) right
in front of our eyes. Of course the Olympics are politicized to
some extent as well, and always have been... but they are still
ultimately about natural talent, discipline, practice, and coaching.
While perhaps not “pure”, they are as close as we can
reasonably expect anything to come. (And things have improved
considerably since the Cold War era, when you could always count on
those stone-faced Russian judges to boost the scores of Russian
athletes, and perhaps shave a bit off American scores.)
</p>
</li><li><p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">Also noted, and not for the first
time – every sport, and every event, has its ideal body type –
and there is very little variation within a given sport or event.
This is, of course, the result of a kind of natural selection – as
practiced by coaches, athletic directors, and so on... and
reinforced through competition, training, conditioning – diet and
nutrition as well, surely. A person's natural genetic potential
will, hopefully, lend itself to one or more athletic endeavors...
but surely it can never be that anybody can become anything in the
world of sports (although we have had some pretty amazing people who
came close – Babe Didrikson Zaharias and Jim Thorpe come to mind).
What's intriguing is the possibility that, by the time anyone gets
to Olympic level, all the DNA factors have been sorted out, and then
it becomes purely a matter of conditioning, discipline, coaching,
and raw determination. (And of course we can't discount a bit of
randomness either. When outcomes are determined down to the
hundredth of a second, or a centimeter, it would be a bit strained
to claim that the winner was a significantly better athlete than the
runner-up – especially when you could run the same event the next
day and possibly get the opposite result.)
</p>
</li><li><p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">On the lighter side – I noticed
that the later I stayed up to watch Olympic events, the more likely
I was to see an event, or a sport, that I never knew even existed.
(Cue expression of incredulity: “THAT's an Olympic event??”) I
fully expect, some time in the future, to see sack races and
three-legged races included (maybe not for medals, but at least for
“demonstration”). (Well, why not? At least those are events I
actually competed in in grade school, on “field day” – my
introduction to abysmal failure, by the way.)</p>
</li><li><p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">It should have been a lesson in
geography as well. I've heard of all the countries that attended,
but I'll bet many people haven't. There are some interesting
entries way down on the participation list that should send people
running to their atlas. (And yes, I had to look up ROC. My first
thought was Republic of China, but that's out of fashion.)</p>
</li><li><p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">And by the way, how often do you
get to hear the national anthem of Fiji? Or Qatar? Don't tell me
that isn't fun.
</p>
</li><li><p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">And then we have this phenomenon
of athletes who weren't born in a given country, and didn't grow up
there, winding up on their Olympic team. How long has this been
going on? I don't remember that in the old days. Back then,
everyone on the Swedish team had to be a Swede... and everyone on
the Botswana team had to be Botswanian... etc. I guess it's kind of
like the draft system in the NFL – it's a way to level the playing
field a bit. But still... (I can see San Marino becoming an ice
hockey powerhouse. Hey, if Jamaica can do bobsledding... )</p>
</li><li><p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">And speaking of which, I loved the
way the commentators for the women's basketball game between the
U.S. and Japan were going on and on about the “size” issue.
Well duh! But even so, the Japanese managed to get to the gold
medal round which means they had to beat plenty of other tall
people. (Even so, I spotted what appeared to be some “ringers”
on the Japanese team. See previous item.)
</p>
</li><li><p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">The most enjoyable, i.e. least
boring, event in my book: Skateboarding (Uh-huh, I know, it's not a
classic – Avery Brundage would turn over in his grave. Well,
tough!)</p>
</li><li><p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">Most boring: Water polo (mostly a
lot of splashing, and headgear that makes them look like extras from
a cheesy 1950s sci-fi movie)</p>
</li><li><p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">Most riveting: Shot put. Yes!
The sight of those incredible hulks whirling around that ring before
letting fly was mesmerizing.</p>
</li><li><p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">Most gratifying: Everyone took
the mask mandate in stride.</p>
</li><li><p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">Second most gratifying: I didn't
see any medal award “demonstrations”. Maybe I missed it, or
just maybe the activists weren't quite up to medal level.
</p>
</li><li><p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"> Also noted – the absolute
perfection (at least to the untrained eye) of all the venues and the
surrounding area. I didn't get the impression, as I have with some
of the more “third world” sites, that the Olympic Village was
also a Potemkin Village.
</p>
</li><li><p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">And thank goodness the summer
Olympics can all happen in the same area – unlike the winter
Olympics where some events can be 100 miles from other events, and
where so much depends on the weather. (I do have to give the women
runners credit for racing in the pouring rain. That had to be a
good test of traction (shoes vs. track surface).)</p>
</li></ol>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</p>Dave Witterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10685191772640386942noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4241997621473648057.post-52057592780055226862021-07-15T17:09:00.002-04:002021-07-18T20:39:41.883-04:00On Identity, and the Lack Thereof<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-size: medium;">One problem with what is
called “identity politics” is that it erodes our view of other
human beings as individuals. If the main thing, or the only
important thing, about other people is the group or groups they
“identify” with, or that we identify them with (with or without
their consent), then we have, in effect, declared that what
distinguishes them as individuals is not important – not only not
important, but even dangerous to talk about because doing so might
call into question the importance, or even the validity, of their
group identity – not to mention the worth – and real agenda -- of
the entire identity movement. </span>
</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-size: medium;">A related issue is that
with our obsession with identity politics we find the idea of people
taking themselves seriously as individuals almost quaint, if not
actually un-”woke”. The thing is that throughout human history
(and pre-history as well) people took themselves seriously. They
were individuals, and they had distinct and complete lives – and
they knew it. Yes, they were inevitably part of a
racial/cultural/religious/language/ethnic group; nearly everyone is –
there are very few true “lone wolves” among humanity. And they
learned ways of thinking, and ways of being, from being brought up in
that milieu – again inevitably. But self-esteem kicked in as well,
based on instinct and survival needs as well as the need to establish
and maintain status within the community. It wasn't “all about
me”, but it wasn't all about the group either, even in very
close-knit and – some would say – “provincial” or isolated
cultures. </span>
</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-size: medium;">There's nothing heroic
about lack of self-esteem. Raw egotism, pushing your weight around,
being obsessed with power – yes, these are universally (or nearly
so) regarded as negative traits. But so is the opposite, which is
not having your own will, and constantly bowing to the world view and
demands of the culture – what Ayn Rand referred to as “social
metaphysics” – the idea that society is always right and “I”
am always wrong, which is the same as saying that there is no “I”,
and one should apologize and do penance for even imagining such a
thing. (But then if there is no “I”, who is it that is doing the
apology and the penance? I guess that's one of those impolite
questions.) </span>
</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-size: medium;">And yet this is what the
“woke” crowd – liberals, progressives, and projects like
Critical Race Theory – attempt to do – elevate some people based
(only) on their (real or alleged) “identity” while devaluing,
minimizing, and shaming other people – again based on the identity
attributed to them (whether they agree or not) – to the extent of
declaring them non-persons. And when a totalitarian or slave state
decides you're a non-person, your life expectancy as an actual
physical being is at risk, as we've seen many times, especially
during the 20<sup>th</sup> Century but also in the present day. </span>
</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-size: medium;">What are some of the
instruments and techniques used in this process? One, of course, is
stereotyping – <u>all</u> people in Group A think, believe, and act
in a certain way, and they're unlikely to ever change, short of being
incarcerated in re-education camps. Another is robbing them of
their identity as persons by insisting that the only important thing
about them is the group they were born into, and because that group
is bad, it means they are bad. Another identity-robbing technique is
to assign people numbers, by which they will be known from that point
on, and which (again) will be the only important and useful thing
about them, because names notoriously reflect culture – race,
ethnicity, language, religion, and so on – not to mention gender!
(Notice that the first thing parents provide to their children is a
name – and the first thing government applies to people is a
number.) </span>
</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-size: medium;">A subset of stereotyping
is what was termed, during the Vietnam conflict, “cartoonization”,
by which people are reduced to two-dimensional stick figures who,
really, aren't people at all, so they have no standing and we can
treat them any way we like. This has vicious results in wartime, but
it has also come into play throughout history, as during the Age of
Exploration, the period of colonization, and more recently – albeit
benignly, although many will argue otherwise – in entertainment
(film, TV, radio, live shows, etc.). </span>
</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Are stereotypes always
“damaging”? I would say not intentionally, but to the extent
they cause us not to take people seriously as individuals – as
seriously as they take themselves – it causes some erosion in our
ability and willingness to show empathy, charity, compassion, and
even common courtesy. We can mouth all the words we like about “The
Golden Rule”, but it's almost amusing at times when we see how
shocked people can be when it's actually applied. “What if that
person were me?” It's a radical point of view, when you get right
down to it. And yet we see that current trends are in the exact
opposite direction – never mind who or what that person is as an
individual, or who or what they are in their own minds; all that
counts is their skin color, language, accent, religion, etc. (It's
small wonder that people react to this by inventing more and more
radical modes of dress, hair styles, piercings, tattoos, genders,
non-genders, and so on – the need to assert oneself, even if it's
highly imitative, will always be expressed in some way. And, I
daresay, the level of nonconformity will tend to correlate with the
level of oppression. The outliers in any culture are the distorted
mirror image of that culture.) </span>
</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-size: medium;">And this depersonalization
with an agenda is bad enough when it happens on the person-to-person
level. When it infects a political movement – or <u>becomes</u> a
political movement – things get even worse, up to the point where
it becomes official, overt, and explicit government policy, as is
happening now. And along with this depersonalization comes the idea
of collective and multi-generational guilt – a curse, if you will,
on all the living and on all future generations for the past sins
(real and alleged) committed by that group. No apologies are
sufficient... no form of reparations is enough... it's a permanent
blot on the name and reputation of the group in question, and, what's
worse, they are expected to accept this as fact, and slink around
like lepers, eyes downward, mumbling “unclean, unclean” from that
day forward. </span>
</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-size: medium;">People in past times were
as real as you and me. They weren't cartoon characters or “It's a
Small World” puppets at Disney World in colorful ethnic costumes.
Many of them were deep thinkers. And they had a much better
intuitive, experiential sense of the natural world and natural
processes than most of us do. (They spent most of their time
outdoors! How many of us can make that claim, with our addiction to
central heating and air conditioning?) And when you see what they
were able to accomplish given the resources and technology at their
disposal, they seem pretty darned impressive. And yes, these
accomplishments were achieved by individuals, but also by individuals
acting in groups. Individual genius, to be successful, had to
interface and develop a symbiosis with the needs and desires of the
group – which is what we mean when we describe an idea that came
before its time (note the revival of interest in Nikola Tesla as an
example). The advances of civilization were not achieved by people
browbeaten, intimidated, and shamed into denying every trace of their
individual identity and submitting to the will of a totalitarian,
impersonal state and its operatives. (And what, for that matter, has
the impersonal state and its operatives ever contributed to human
advancement? Nothing, as far as I can tell. Its main function is to
suppress, hinder, censor, and cancel. And its goal is a gray,
undifferentiated mass of humanity whose only function is to serve the
ruling elite.) </span>
</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</p>
<p><span style="font-size: large;">We are moving, much more
rapidly than anyone imagined up until recently, toward slave state
status – but the slavery may turn out not to be the traditional
kind, with literal chains, leg irons, and slave collars, but the
psychological kind as in “1984” and other dystopian novels.
Stereotyping – depersonalization – shunning – “canceling” –
shame... these are all tools with which the ruling elite seeks to
achieve its ends, while all the time mouthing words about “fairness”,
“justice”, and “equity”. And the worst part of it may well
turn out to be that while we are slaves, we will still imagine we are
free – and that will be the ultimate victory of the totalitarian
state.</span> </p>Dave Witterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10685191772640386942noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4241997621473648057.post-54144181959546130462021-05-30T20:30:00.002-04:002021-06-08T20:46:00.431-04:00UFOs Are Back, Ho Hum<p> </p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-size: medium;">I'm not a UFO expert, and
I don't play one on TV either. But for some reason, UFOs are in the
news again, and this time it's not just the usual suspects – you
know, the stereotypical tinfoil-hat wackos who claim to have been
abducted and subjected to bizarre surgical procedures, etc. – but, arguably, establishment types like the U.S. military, which has
quit referring personnel who claim to have seen a UFO to the post
psychiatrist but is now, apparently, taking these things seriously.
Of course there's a long and colorful history of the whole UFO matter
which, among other things, has inspired great numbers of sci-fi
movies and TV shows – and the military, especially the Air Force,
has always been depicted as the “bad guy” – skeptical,
dogmatic, conservative, secretive, and so on. And the popular
culture – not limited to sci-fi fans – has generally assumed that
whenever the Air Force denies that something exists, that
automatically means it <u>does</u> exist, and that the military is
“hiding something” – advanced weapon systems or actual aliens,
or both – from the American public and from our enemies. </span>
</p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-size: medium;">One overarching theme over
the years (decades) has been that UFOs, in some mysterious way, were
part of the Cold War. This notion was supported by the fact that
most even semi-credible sightings were in the vicinity of military
installations, test sites, military aircraft, or warships. So the
idea was that UFOs were, indeed, either data-gathering instruments or
advanced weapon systems – but whose? If ours, the military wanted
to disguise the fact, understandably. If someone else's, the
military wanted to keep whoever it was from realizing that we had
detected their advanced systems... or, the government wanted to keep
the public from being upset by the thought that the Russkies might
have weaponry far superior to ours. So in that sense, the “little
green men” thing may have been no more than a red herring (so to
speak) – a harmless diversion that was allowed to run its course,
and an excuse to shut down all inquiry and speculation (because “only
a nut would believe...” etc.). (Now why the specter of being
invaded by Martians is less scary to the public than the notion of
the USSR having weapon systems far superior to our own is another
matter. But that depends to some extent on one's view of what aliens
from another planet represent.) (See my post, “Jonesin' for
Aliens”, July 25, 2015.)</span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-size: medium;">But then the Cold War
ended – or so it was assumed – back when the Soviet Union broke
up. But did UFOs disappear? Apparently not. They keep coming back,
like those cohorts of locusts – they're in the news, then they
aren't. They generate societies, meetings, publications, then the
whole thing fades away. Pop culture gives us “The X-Files”, then
ratings fall off and the show closes. And then the whole thing
starts over again. And so on. So yes, the UFO thing comes and goes,
and the military can never seem to make up its mind as to whether
they're real or just a symptom of Air Force pilots suffering from
oxygen deprivation leading to hallucinations. So years go by when
they don't talk about it, and then you get the kind of revival of
interest we're seeing now. </span>
</p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-size: medium;">But then we run into
another interesting angle – one that has been part of the story
since the first “flying saucers” were sighted soon after World
War II. And that is what I'll call the quality of evidence. Now, it
was easy enough to understand, in the early days, how photos or films
of alleged UFOs were always grainy and blurred (not unlike photos of
the Loch Ness Monster or Bigfoot) – whoever was taking the pictures
(and they were nearly always photos, not radar captures) was probably
using a Kodak Brownie or 8mm home movie camera, and was trembling
with excitement (or fear) (or dreams of collecting big bucks from the
National Enquirer for exclusive rights to the footage).</span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-size: medium;">But that was then.
Nowadays, the military has optics so advanced that they can read
someone's poker hand from 50,000 feet (or so I'm told). Add
high-speed cameras, digitization which yields extremely fine-grained
images, and other improvements – and yet the imagery we see in the
news is still as grainy and blurred as anything that came out of the
1950s. There's obviously something wrong here. And this is just
traditional optics – hasn't radar made just a few advances during
that time as well? And then you have infrared optics. And so on.
And yet, the level of ambiguity of UFO images (whether moving or
still) doesn't seem to have advanced much beyond, once again, the
Loch Ness or Bigfoot stage. Are you really going to declare a
national emergency based on images resembling first-generation arcade
games? Hopefully not. </span>
</p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Then we have the “noise”
factor when it comes to electronic systems. Yes, they are sensitive
– almost too sensitive at times. They pick up everything, the way
microphones used to do in movies before voice-over and Foley artists
took over. Now, you might say, isn't static just the same as white
noise – i.e., chaotic and incapable of generating anything
resembling an actual image? Not necessarily. (I commented to
someone recently that I can see stuff resembling UFO footage when I
drive with a dirty windshield (especially at night).) </span>
</p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-size: medium;">And what if... just what
if somebody or something is “trolling” us and generating signals
made to look like supersonic, ultra-agile UFOs when in reality it's
coming out of some guy's garage in Lubbock, Texas? I mean, there are
plenty of geeks out there with time on their hands – what could be
more fun than coming up with something that will freak out the
military? Not actual physical objects, but signals aimed at the
electronics of military aircraft (or ships, in some cases)? Or --
any chance that the Russkies are back to their old tricks and just
want to distract us from focusing on whatever they're up to in their
own weapon development programs? Make us distrust our lyin' eyes and
radar, in other words? And as far as our “system security” goes,
well... if you can hack into a system in order to steal information,
you can hack into the same system in order to generate fake
information. </span>
</p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-size: medium;">And now Congress, waking
from its usual slumber, is demanding – OK, asking – OK, politely
requesting – the intel community to tell them all it knows about
UFOs. Riiiight. When's the last time the intel people told anyone
in Congress all that it knows about anything? I mean, would you?
Might as well relate your history of STDs to the town gossip. The
intel people have been down this road before – they'll blow smoke
up the appropriate butts, toss out a few bones, and we'll wind up
with a bigger nothingburger than the Durham Report. And so it goes.
“Nothing to see here, dumb asses – go back to your silly power
games.” And the amazing thing is, everyone in the establishment will be
satisfied. Another round in the endless game, now let's head for the
nearest watering hole. </span>
</p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-size: medium;">There are so many
possibilities here, but the main point is that if the military, or
anyone else, wants to convince anyone in the public, or in Congress,
on this point they'd better come up with something better than a
handful of glowing green Fritos floating around against a noisy black
and green background – or a black jellybean dropping into the
ocean. But this isn't going to happen, because – for whatever
reason – those in charge prefer to keep things ambiguous and
mysterious – interesting, a bit scary perhaps, but not enough to
cause mass hysteria like Orson Welles' “War of the Worlds”. In
this sense, it's like everything else in government – if you're
being paid to solve a problem, the very last thing you want to do is
actually solve it. </span>
</p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-size: medium;">There are political games
– and mind games as well – being played around this issue, but
there's nothing really new about it and we don't seem to know any
more than we did 70-plus years ago. Or if we do, no one can be bothered
to tell us. </span>
</p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
</p><p>
</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"> </div><br /><p></p>Dave Witterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10685191772640386942noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4241997621473648057.post-52013936581949535902021-05-04T18:05:00.002-04:002021-05-05T02:47:21.122-04:00Toward a Gender-Free Military<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Maybe you can make some
sense out of all this; I sure can’t. What I do know is that the
military -- and the Army in particular -- has been walking a thin,
wobbly, and vaporous line between “readiness” and social policy
-- including gender issues -- since at least the late 1970s (just to
show you how easy it is to solve a problem once you set your mind to
it). At that time, in response to political pressure – which was,
in turn, a response to the feminist and women’s rights movements
(overlapping but not identical) – the Army gradually expanded the
role of women from "combat service support" to "combat support" to
combat, i.e. actually carrying a gun and being willing, able, and
allowed to engage the enemy. And without detailing the myriad issues that came up in the process, I’ll mention a single issue,
which was, if you will, the rock which the good ship <i>Women in
Combat</i> inevitably ran into -- namely upper body strength. Try as
they might, the Army just couldn’t do much about that issue beyond
basic physical conditioning. (And don’t bother me about women
boxers, wrestlers, and body builders -- #1, there aren’t enough of
them to go around, and #2, how many of them are interested in joining
the Army? And also, don’t bother me about the heroines in Quentin
Tarantino films. That’s fiction. Say it with me -- fiction. OK?)</span></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-size: medium;">(And by the way, the upper
body strength problem, as obvious as it might seem to the layman, is
something the researchers and “medics” hesitated to bring up at
first, due to the political atmosphere at the time. It was “close
hold” – not to be published or, heaven forbid, briefed to the
press. Eventually the Army had to, grudgingly, admit it was for
real, and that it wasn't going away. We see the latest iteration of
the overall problem in this article.)</span></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-size: medium;">So yes, there has been an
ebb and flow of this issue for over 40 years now, and guess what, the
human body -- of both the male and female varieties -- has not
changed, morphed, or evolved in all that time, despite the best
efforts of “science”, experts, political activists, politicians,
Olympic coaches, Big Pharma, and anyone else with an interest in the
matter. The pendulum has swung, basically, between combat readiness
and all that it entails, and social change (either keeping up with it
or being in the vanguard) -- usually depending on the political party
of whoever is president at the time. The social change agenda never
really goes away, but it occasionally takes a back seat to the
outlandish idea of actually winning wars -- or at least being ready
to. At other times, the senior military is required to, with one
voice, preach the urgent necessity of social change (of whatever
variety is in fashion at the moment), and anyone who dares speak up
in favor of war fighting capability is instantly squelched (and
relieved of duty if they persist). </span>
</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-size: medium;">So to return to the
present iteration exemplified by this article (and I’ve long since
lost track of the number of iterations over the decades), the Army is
clearly in a new and more extreme dilemma than in the past. It now
has to respond to a new gospel, promoted every minute of every hour
by the liberal/progressive/”woke” community (you know, the people
who are running the government now), namely that not only are there
no significant differences between men and women, but that gender
doesn’t even exist -- that it has no scientific basis, and that
it’s no more than a “social construct” devised by men in order
to keep women down and in their place. </span>
</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-size: medium;">But wait -- if gender
doesn’t exist, then neither do “men” and “women” -- so who
is it that is keeping whom down? It must be people who “identify”
as men keeping people who “identify” as women down. But if so,
where did these outlandish “identities” come from if there’s no
basis for them in reality? Did millions of people all have the same
dream? Or did they all drop bad acid? </span>
</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-size: medium;">So we see that the
headlong rush to absurdity is already “mission accomplished”.
But apparently the Army hasn’t thought these matters through as
thoroughly as they should. So let’s, for now, stick with their
frame of reference, which is that “men” and “women”, although
they are fictional creatures, still have to be factored into policy
considerations.</span></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-size: medium;">So what the Army seems to
be saying, according to this article, is:</span></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</p>
<ol>
<li><p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">“<span style="font-size: medium;">Gender neutral”
fitness tests are a good and necessary thing. BUT…</span></p>
</li><li><p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Men and women (those
words! Pass the smelling salts!) need separate ranking systems to
account for basic biological differences (heresy!). But don't
separate ranking systems cancel out gender neutrality? How can you
have both?</span></p>
</li><li><p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Equal opportunity is
important, BUT…</span></p>
</li><li><p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-size: medium;">So is ability to meet
combat requirements. And when these two values come into conflict –
which they have done repeatedly over the years – it is typically
“solved” on a political basis, i.e. one value is promoted and
the other is forgotten – at least until the ruling party changes,
or there is a Congressional investigation (spurred on by the media).
</span>
</p>
</li><li><p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Fitness of men and
women will be measured on the same scale, BUT…</span></p>
</li><li><p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Each sex (I guess
they mean gender) will have its own tier. How this differs in any
significant way from each sex having its own scale is beyond me. </span>
</p>
</li><li><p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-size: medium;">A “baseline
standard” that applies to both men and women is needed, BUT…</span></p>
</li><li><p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-size: medium;">It should not force
men and women to directly compete. So obviously, different
baselines are needed, which means there is no single baseline, which
means there is no baseline standard. BUT... </span>
</p>
</li><li><p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Problem solved! A
minimum score of 360 will apply to all genders (no matter how many
official genders there are now or are in the planning stage). That
sounds eminently fair. BUT…</span></p>
</li><li><p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"> <span style="font-size: medium;">Biological reality
(heresy!) kicks in and requires that a five-level system be brought
into play. This “separates the top-performing women from the
men”. How? This is where the discussion drifts off into La-La
Land. What they may mean is that, even though 360 is the minimum
fitness score for any gender, the assignment of levels will be based
on a percentage within gender.</span></p>
</li><li><p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"> <span style="font-size: medium;">So let’s see…
360 is the minimum, which applies to all. But there is a separate
tier system for men vs. women, based on percentage? This is kind of
what we used to call, in college, grading “on a curve”, which
means that rather than absolute grades (A, B, C, etc.) based on the
number of correct answers, you decide that a certain percentage of
students are going to get an A, or a B, or whatever, no matter what.
And as you might guess, the arguments as to the fairness of this
have been going on for decades, if not lifetimes. </span>
</p>
</li><li><p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"> <span style="font-size: medium;">But to return to
La-La Land: If levels are defined by percentages, how can it be
that “the respective percentages of male and female soldiers
across the five levels could be significantly different in terms of
actual fitness test scores.” In other words, the levels defined
by percentages may turn out to have different percentages. Huh ??</span></p>
</li><li><p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"> <span style="font-size: medium;">And yet… and yet…
“men and women are technically scored the same”. And “it is
still age- and gender-neutral”. (How did age get into it all of a
sudden?) </span>
</p>
</li><li><p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Oh, and then we have
the sidebar item dealing with body fat and pregnancy. (Wait until
they find out that men can get pregnant!)</span></p>
</li><li><p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-size: medium;">BUT... it turns out
that none of this matters, because soldiers of the future will not
be doing battle on a muddy, dusty battlefield or in a mosquito-laden
swamp using hand-held weapons. Instead, they'll be sitting in
air-conditioned bunkers operating robots by remote control. That's
what it means when someone says “some so-called 'cyber warriors'
may not necessarily need to meet the same requirements”... and
“we're not really worried about their physical capabilities”...
and “wars of the future are not going to be fought like wars of
the past.” (That last statement is the ultimate truism. No war
has ever been fought precisely the way prior wars were fought.
There have been incremental advances in the technology of warfare
throughout recorded history.)</span></p>
</li></ol>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-size: medium;">So which is it? Is combat
readiness about physical fitness or is it about “what's between
their ears”? Can we relax about physical fitness because all the
really important jobs in future conflicts will be done by people
double-timing it on a keyboard? And for that matter, why can't the
“cyber warriors” be morbidly obese, if all they are required to
do in the way of physical exertion is sit in front of a screen all
day? </span>
</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-size: medium;">So... if you're head's
spinning about all of this, join the club. Frankly, I feel sorry for
the military leadership at times like these, because they are
answering to just too damn many people – a president, an
administration, a secretary of defense, a secretary of the army,
Congress, the media, the public, ordinary soldiers who never tire of
complaining about things... and think, this is just part of their job
(in most cases). They also have to think about little things like
weapons procurement, logistics, training, strategy and tactics,
regulations, inter-service rivalries... and, at the top level,
politics and foreign relations. The list is pretty much endless.
And this is all while, unlike other citizens, the military leadership
is hesitant to come out and publicly opine that the people setting
the ever-morphing and conflicting priorities are idiots and fools.
This has to have a negative impact on their blood pressure,
cholesterol levels, blood sugar, muscle tone, and what not. But hey,
they volunteered for this – “You're in the Army now, you're not
behind the plow”, etc. No one now in the military joined at the
point of a gun (so to speak).</span></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-size: medium;">I imagine that there are
plenty of military commanders who wake up in the middle of the night
and think, “Of <i>course</i><span style="font-style: normal;"> men
and women are different! Who are these maniacs who think they're the
same – and who put them in charge of the government?” But then
they reflect that if they go to work the next day and express this
thought out loud to anyone, it's bye-bye military job, hello trailer
park in Ozark, Alabama. (Or – maybe the ones who figured this out
have already bailed and taken a job with a firmer grip on reality.)</span>
</span>
</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-size: medium;">And to call this
particular dilemma intractable is hardly an exaggeration. It's been
going on for decades now – let's say two decent military careers'
worth of time – and it's no closer to being solved than it was back
when hippies quit burning draft cards because the draft had been
suspended. A cynic might say “If there's no solution, there's no
problem” – true in one sense, but then why does it continue to be
such an obsession, not only within military ranks but in Congress and
the media (whenever it comes around in the endless whirlpool of
Section B stories). So with or without a solution, the amount of
sheer waste and stress cannot be dismissed, and continues to eat away
at real readiness – and rest assured that many eyes around the
world are watching, and in between chuckles are plotting ways to take
advantage of our collective neuroses. </span>
</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-size: medium;">So anyway, here it is –
and good luck making any sense of it:</span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><a href="https://www.pressreader.com/usa/the-washington-times-daily/20210323/281745567160351?fbclid=IwAR1d_Z8pYXJdhg5h-d5PEhnaTs_rX6siOa6noSi3QkW5yuedRe638R7HuvQ">PressReader.com - Your favorite newspapers and magazines.</a></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br /></p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br /></p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></p>Dave Witterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10685191772640386942noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4241997621473648057.post-20503852677163167122021-04-07T15:09:00.000-04:002021-04-07T15:16:50.349-04:00Thinking About Open Borders<p> <br />First let us define our terms.<br /><br />1. A “border” is a boundary -- a dividing point -- between… what? States, countries, empires, kingdoms, tribes, clans… in short, between the eternal “us” and the equally-eternal “them”. It can be a natural border like an ocean or sea, a river, a mountain range… or, on the other extreme, it can be a purely imaginary and arbitrary line -- and I would offer the way the colonial powers divvied up the Middle East and West Africa as prime examples. Those lines were drawn for convenience and for administrative purposes as much as anything else, typically with little or no attention paid to the more traditional territories of the native tribes. (In fact, it has been argued that, in some cases, borders of “new” nations were drawn in order to intentionally split single ethnic and religious groups into two or more parts, thus robbing them of cohesion and thus of political and economic power.) Some of these lines are so arbitrary as to be, basically, meaningless -- a line extending off into the desert, turning into a dotted line and then disappearing altogether. (How upsetting for the map buff with OCD!)<br /><br />2. What, then, is an “open border”? Is it simply a border that is not closed, i.e. is not like the border between East and West Berlin during the Cold War? That’s one possible definition, but it’s not particularly useful. I think most people correctly think of an open border as one where anyone intending to cross it is not impeded by either the authorities of the place they are leaving or those of the place they are crossing into. And by “impeded” I mean not only by direct intervention by border guards and the like, but by man-made barriers like walls, fences, mine fields, moats, barbed wire, and so on. So in dealing with the present case -- our border with Mexico -- any border that one can cross, in many areas, by simply wading ankle-deep across a narrow river, or by climbing over a nonexistent fence, or going through a gap in an incomplete wall, is an open border. Oh, but wait -- you might say -- what about all those who are met, encountered, or “apprehended”? Can you say “catch and release”, class? Or catch, keep in custody for a few days, then release? Or catch, fly to some other part of the country, then release? So yeah -- it might not feel like an open border right away to everyone who comes across, but if their chances of being released and allowed to go their own way are much greater than their chances of being held for any significant amount of time, or even returned to Mexico or their country of origin, then we have an open border, for all intents and purposes. (And if you don’t believe me, believe President Biden, who started welcoming any and all comers into the U.S. with open arms when he was still a presidential candidate.) (And if you don’t believe him, then believe the thousands of migrants who are convinced, based on what they’ve been told or heard on TV or the Internet, that all they have to do in order to enter the U.S. is to show up at the border, preferably sporting a Biden T-shirt which puts them on the fast track to citizenship.) <br /><br />Discussion: If you look at the world map these days, there are very few areas that are unaccounted for or “disputed”. Every major war includes, as part of its follow-up, some sort of “claims” commission that sorts things out, almost invariably in favor of the winners. But that usually does not mean that large numbers of people have to be forcibly evicted from one place and transplanted to some other place --- notable recent exceptions being the establishment of the State of Israel and the division of India. And of course there are hard feelings all around, since it’s almost instinctive that anyone occupying a piece of land of whatever size -- including the most unproductive patch imaginable (I think of the rocky coast of southwestern Ireland, when the only crop that will reliably grow is gorse (think “kudzu“ except in Ireland)) -- considers it “theirs” by right (either because “we’ve always lived here”, or by right of conquest, or by having been granted the property by a benign conqueror -- or, in modern times, by treaty).<br /><br />But as for borders per se, well… other than those of the natural kind, I don’t think people in ancient times, or mapmakers in Medieval times, spent a whole of time worrying about, or creating, precise artificial lines separating one group from another. Most of the maps from back then will show names of empires, countries, and ethnic and racial groups without including lines in between. A bit later on you can see empires, countries, tribes, etc. designated by different colored blobs, and there are almost always spaces in between -- and this is important! Those in-between spaces have served throughout history as buffer zones… as a form of intentional ambiguity, if you will, in order to provide a bit of flexibility and avoid squabbles. And those in-between spaces -- no man’s lands -- have a reputation, over the millennia, for being wild and dangerous -- places for robbers and brigands -- and the part of a given country that is close to these spaces is called the “frontier” -- still wild, and only a bit less dangerous. (Note that the United States is exceptional in that its frontier moved continually from the establishment of the original thirteen colonies until the official “closing of the frontier”. (That was the point at which the settlement from the East met the settlement from the West, in a kind of virtual golden-spike event.))<br /><br />But a funny thing happened about the time “civilization” evolved, i.e. that was more than just scattered castles, forts, and strongholds with surrounding peasant villages, fields, and forests. These clans and tribes started bumping up against one other on a regular basis, hence the need developed for better-defined boundaries… borders… lines. I always think of Germany before the unification, with its scattering of kingdoms, dukedoms, and independent cities, with boundaries carefully demarcated so that everyone knew exactly where they lived and who their ruler was -- no more “wilderness” in other words (kind of like Washington, D.C., where there are no vacant lots because the land is too valuable, and no free parking). <br /><br />The situation in the American colonies was a bit different. If you look at maps of where Native American tribes originally lived (before many were displaced and forcibly moved) you, again, see either just names on a map with no lines, or a bunch of blobs. But enter the land companies and surveyors, and the Bureau of Indian Affairs, and now each tribe has its very own square, or rectangle, or polygon of some sort (again, often ignoring natural topography) because, well… it’s about property, see? And ownership. And pioneer settlement, hunting lands, trapping lands, cattle land, farm land, fishing rights, and so on. And in the case of the Indian reservations, they had multiple purposes: (1) Get the Indians out of the way of the European settlers; (2) “Civilize” the Indian tribes by providing them their own territory and, hopefully, eliminating intertribal conflict (not to mention attacks on the settlers); and (3) Imposing administrative and legal controls. <br /><br />Now, some of these provisions were, clearly, expressions of the conqueror vs. the conquered. Some were about grabbing all of the better land and access to waterways. Some were about safety (for the non-Indians). And some were, very possibly, benign -- such as the establishment of European-style schools and local (tribal) governments. (There’s a lot of revisionism going on right now with regard to the schools -- but that’s a topic for another day.) <br /><br />Borders in our time are, to a greater extent than at any time in history, firmly established, with lines drawn to a degree of precision only made possible by GPS technology. This has its advantages, no doubt… but it also means that adjoining countries, tribes, clans, ethnic groups, etc. have no more buffer zones -- they confront each other “toe to toe” on a daily basis, and the border becomes a kind of fetish, as witness the elaborate daily gate-closing ceremony on the India-Pakistan border. There is no wiggle room -- again with the exception of those dotted lines in the desert. (The few remaining nomadic tribes do, indeed, tend to inhabit these “dotted line” areas, and couldn't care less which “country“ they happen to be in at any given time.) (Back in the 1960s the Bedouins could move freely back and forth between Egypt and Israel, unlike anyone else.) But in general even the most remote areas, such as the western Himalayas, are claimed, square foot by square foot, by someone -- and usually by more than one someone (hence conflicts in places like Kashmir).<br /><br />So we see that while the concept of borders is age-old in one sense, the way in which it’s expressed can be highly fluid -- or at least has been in the past. There is nothing at all unusual about our border with Mexico, which is part natural (the Rio Grande) and part drawn lines. What is unusual is that the border is marked by a hodgepodge of fences and incomplete walls. You can hardly call it fortified, but it is guarded to some extent, at least… and in this sense it’s the exception rather than the rule, both historically and even in the present day. <br /><br />The first fortified border (as opposed to a fortified city) we know about was the Great Wall of China, the remains (some restored) of which can still be seen today. But the golden age, if you will, of fortified borders has to be the period starting with World War I and extending up to the present day -- and we all know whose borders they were and are, namely those of totalitarian (fascist or communist) states. These also have the interesting feature of being designed to keep people in, as opposed to out -- the latter a feature of our border with Mexico.<br /><br />But what is the essence of borders? What do they all have in common? Again, it’s the age-old question of Us vs. Them. But it’s not just Us, it’s our cities, towns, villages, farms, homes, families, resources of all sorts (forests, waterways, lakes, trade routes, and so on). These are all things that are -- or have been until just recently -- considered worth defending, and if they are not defended, or if the defenses are inadequate, the nation or culture in question is likely to perish at the hands of an aggressor (even if the “aggressor” is no more than an overwhelmingly great number of the “tired, poor, huddled masses yearning to breathe free“ -- or to breathe at all).<br /><br />But what do aggressors -- invaders -- even migrants -- want? They want what they don’t have, or more of what they do have. So there is an economic basis for the whole border concept -- and the greater the disparity between the invader and the invaded, the more likely the invasion is to take place, and the more difficult is it to turn back. (I won’t go into other factors like invasion for the purpose of religious conversion, which motivated much of the Muslim conquest of North Africa and parts of the Middle East, the Balkans, and Spain. In that case the motivation was to provide the opportunity and privilege of being converted to Islam -- not that other factors were ignored, of course.) (And by the same token, aren’t there fringe benefits when we invade a country in order to “spread democracy” and liberate people from whatever is it they need to be liberated from? And if there aren‘t, why do we bother (some cynic might say)?)<br /><br />But to return to the usual case -- whether you’re talking about an armed invasion by a modern army or people wading across the Rio Grande, it’s always about getting what you want, which basically means taking it from someone else, i.e. the people who already live there. This is obvious. In the short run, it’s a zero-sum game, although in the long run… well, who knows? What’s not so obvious is what I’ll call the equilibrium point. Just as water seeks its own level, so does poverty -- by which I mean that the poor, needy, and oppressed go from their native land to somewhere where they won’t be as poor, needy, and oppressed -- or (important point) where they think this will be the case. And of course, human nature being what it is, people tend to be overly hopeful and optimistic in these circumstances. They come here seeking the Gold Mountain, and instead find new and different kinds of poverty and danger. But at least it’s not as bad as what they left back home -- or they tell themselves that (cognitive dissonance kicks in) and decide to stay and hope for the best. <br /><br />Now, in this high-tech and electronically/digitally-saturated environment, we can assume that once someone manages to penetrate our fraying border defenses and establishes themselves somewhere, they waste no time getting back to the folks back home and providing a progress report. We can assume that this happens on a regular basis -- and that, given that it does, whatever they tell the folks back home isn’t enough to keep more of those folks from setting out on the same journey. The people coming across the border with Mexico today aren’t pioneers, in other words -- they’ve been paying close attention for months, or years, and have decided to try their luck. They come in waves -- contingent on weather, levels of poverty or strife back home, and, naturally, evolving expectations as to their likelihood of success. These people are not stupid; in fact, I suspect they are among the more clever, resourceful, and courageous members of their respective societies (being at poverty level doesn‘t reflect badly on their abilities, in other words). And now they are encouraged by various facilitators (AKA cartels) as well as by various NGOs and our own government. They know things have changed, but they can’t be sure if the change is permanent (not being privy to all of the political nuances in play). So many of them may feel that it’s now or never -- and if the “now” part lasts for weeks, months, or years, so much the better. <br /><br />So what would the equilibrium point be? It would be the point at which conditions here -- in their new environment -- have degraded to the level of the environment which they left, or, once again, they perceive it to be such. So… does this mean that the United States has to look and feel like the Northern Triangle -- like El Salvador, Honduras, and Guatemala? Well, yes -- not the entire U.S. of course, but certainly the areas where the migrants wind up. The turning point will be the day when the newest migrant calls home and says, in effect, forget about it -- things are no better here than they are down there. Save your strength (and your money) and stay put.<br /><br />So at this point, poverty will have reached its own level and equilibrium will be achieved -- and not only that, but all of the migrant advocacy groups and open-borders promoters at all levels (including in the government) will, hopefully, admit that “fairness” has been achieved at long last -- that Americans are no longer being selfish, exclusionary, prejudiced, bigoted, racist, etc. We welcomed the world with open arms and, guess what, the world showed up! (Of course this assumes that open-borders advocates will be happy and satisfied when the equilibrium point is reached. They won’t be, of course, because they’re never happy -- “happy” is not on the life menu for them. They will turn on a dime and find something else to be indignant about. Professional activists are who they are for a reason, and it typically has very little to do with the supposed victim groups whose welfare they express so much concern over.) <br /><br />But will that golden day ever arrive? Because there are people who seriously want this -- and some of them serve in Congress, some in the current administration, and -- I’m betting -- countless in the Deep State. And of course “fairness”, “justice”, and “equity” are not necessarily on everyone’s mind either -- there are economic and political angles as well (cheap labor, reliable voting blocs, etc.). Not every one of our problems can be solved with open borders, but it’s a start. <br /><br />Now, there are, of course, various objections to all of this, although I doubt if most of the skeptics have carried the logic quite this far. But even the most basic grasp of history and economics will tell you that migrations -- mass movements of people -- happen for a reason, and as long as there’s a reason migrations will happen, which is the same as saying that as long as there are inequalities among people, they will be motivated to improve their lot. (When expressed this way it seems totally obvious, doesn’t it?) The world is not going to be suddenly set in stone just because some people would like it that way; things change, they evolve, they morph -- and yet human nature remains the same. And as I said, the energy… the power… behind any mass movement of humanity is the desire for something better, and the greater the contrast, or gulf, between what they have and what they see (or think) that others have, the more energy and determination they will possess, and the more likely they are to succeed. And it turns out, again historically, that the energy and determination of invaders is often more than a match for the determination of those who want to fend them off. Human waves have, time after time, overcome the best defenses and the most advanced weapons systems. <br /><br />What our response is, or should be, to all of this is the question -- and again, we have the “fairness and equity” contingent saying, basically, we should let anyone in who shows up, no questions asked -- and any concerns about sustainability, or the political, economic, and social impact, are just symptoms of racism and selfishness. People who feel this way to some degree but who aren’t as vocal about it might feel some hesitation about going all the way to the logical conclusion of open borders, but then one has to ask, where do they want to draw the line? Because the true believers in our midst will say that no line should be drawn, and that you’re just being selfish if you try. <br /><br />On the other side of the political spectrum are those who repeat, as a mantra, “A country with no border is not a country.” And while this is not strictly true from a historical perspective, as we’ve seen, in these times it seems more clearly to be the case. But then we run into a paradox, as follows: Again, historically, the Us vs. Them confrontations were based on traditional sources of identity -- race, ethnic group, religion, language, tribe, clan, etc. -- all those things which used to distinguish one people from another, because they were based on easily observable reality and human nature (in individuals and in groups). The problem we have in the U.S. is that, “E pluribus unum” or not, we have never been united, beyond a certain point, along any of those traditional lines -- the ones anthropologists are so fond of studying. The rage for “diversity” ignores the fact that we’ve always been diverse… mixed… hybrid… a “nation of immigrants” who are not always all that anxious to jump into the great American melting pot. Traditional sources of identity survive, but they survive for those who value them and work to maintain them. For the great number of Americans who have been -- voluntarily, in most cases -- “deracinated”, they may possess remnants -- family, home, hearth -- but otherwise all of the usual connective tissue that has held human societies together for millennia has frayed, decayed, and disappeared. What’s left, for anyone who even feels a need for them, is ideas -- the American Experiment, the founding fathers, the founding documents, the flag, the National Anthem, and so on -- but these are only so consoling if the basic, organic culture is gone (or if it was never firmly established to begin with). People down through the ages have fared quite well without all of these ideational trappings; they had their myths, legends, rituals, customs, and cultural features like music, dance, art, clothing, and so on… but again, these were rooted in reality, i.e. in the sort of reality that human beings need and instinctively respond to. Not ideas, not abstractions, and certainly not politics as the be-all and end-all, but organic reality and a sense of place -- of belonging. This is what is sadly lacking in our society, and the irony is that these hordes of migrants showing up at our border may well have a greater sense of all these things than we do. And therein lies their hope, perhaps. <br /><br />Another way of expressing this is that organic culture builds resistance. It’s a natural fortification against alien influences, especially those that are bent on attacking traditional customs or ways of thinking, watering them down, declaring them “outmoded”, “reactionary”, “racist”, etc. -- and, in extreme cases making them illegal and subject to punishment. Among the many battle fronts in the culture wars of our time is that between those who value tradition, however expressed, and the globalists, who, despite their prating on about “diversity”, actually have as their goal the elimination of all differences and distinctions, and, ultimately, a totalitarian state composed of a ruling elite and a vast, gray army of serfs with no identity and no hope. It’s no surprise, then, that when the globalists lay an axe to the root of any cultural tree, they always begin with religion, and then work their way up to race, ethnic group, family, and language. All of these must be eliminated -- i.e., the idea of them must be eliminated -- the idea of them having value and being a source of identity. Among the final acts in this drama -- the cherry on the top of the cake, if you will -- is language, and we see at this moment how language is being distorted, turned upside down, and “cancelled” of all rational meaning. Language is the basis of thought, after all -- and a people without a functioning, reliable language is rendered incapable of rational thought -- or of any thought at all. Try defining a value, or a tradition, without using words -- sure, you can point to things, but that’s not the same as describing them, declaring them to be of value, and adopting them as a mark of one’s own identity. <br /><br />And what about these globalists, after all? What about the moguls of Silicon Valley and the mainstream media talking heads? What about the denizens of the boardrooms of large mutinational corporations? Aren’t they human too? Well yes, in the strictly biological sense. But somewhere along the line they opted out of any sort of traditional markers of identity and decided to be self-made -- which means that their only thing of value is themselves, and this is almost always expressed as a lust for power -- not only power over the physical world but over other people. The natural human longing for the spiritual has, in them, been distorted to the point where we can say that power is their religion, and there is no other. But they are not satisfied with being self-contained in their bizarre world where everything is its own opposite. Perhaps on some deep level they realize they are living the most profound lie of all, but rather than give it up they defend it by hunting down anything that might expose it -- that might shed light on what it really is and how little it amounts to. This is why they are constantly at war, and this, of course is what the “culture wars” are all about. <br /><br />The globalists’ weakness is not that their power is not real -- it is very real. But it’s parasitic. It cannot stand on its own, but needs a host -- and that host is, simply, the vast array of humanity -- confused, discouraged, and powerless though they be -- that follow orders because they haven’t a better idea, and that live always with some degree of chronic fear. And yet they are a resource -- they work the land, if you will, whereas the globalists work… what? Paper, electrons, images, illusions, fantasies -- all aimed at creating and perpetuating fear, mollifying it to some extent, then creating more and even newer and novel species of fear, in an endless cycle. So any resistance to the globalists, their march through the institutions, and their assault on culture and the eternal verities must be based on that very culture and on those eternal verities, because that’s where the real power of the people resides. Individual rights, ambition, initiative, creativity, etc. are all fine things, and necessary -- but those will not overcome the tidal wave… the onslaught… from globalists and their programs and instruments. Only re-unifying in a solid, organic way will work -- but do we have the strength, motivation, and insight to do this? A few seem to, but the bulk of the citizenry at this point seem to have already given up, capitulated, and retreated -- thinking, wrongly, that there is some place to hide, whereas in fact there is none. <br /><br />Just remember, the globalists fear us more that we fear them. They may threaten our livelihood, or our very lives, but we threaten their view of the world and of their place in it; we threaten their reality. I always imagine them looking down upon the simple folk and feeling a pang of envy and regret -- like, that’s what I once had, or could have had, but I gave it up for the proverbial mess of pottage. So they react with blind rage, because they don’t realize that it’s not too late to repent. <br /><br />So with regard to open borders -- there are more ways to be conquered than by sheer numbers. A weak and frail culture is ripe for replacement with something more vigorous and firmly rooted. When we see these migrants trekking up through Mexico, making their way across the Rio Grande, and dropping from exhaustion in squalid holding centers, we may in fact be seeing our future. Their lot will, eventually, improve -- and the resultant leveling may not be to everyone’s taste, but it will occur; it has to. <br /><br /></p>Dave Witterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10685191772640386942noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4241997621473648057.post-72935984432924850952021-03-27T19:23:00.000-04:002021-03-27T19:25:10.797-04:00Gaffe or Guff?<p> </p><p>“I have no idea if there will be a Republican Party” (in 2024).<br /><br />Thus spoke Uncle Joe, in public and in plain sight, in the first press conference of his first term (heh heh). So… anyone who wasn’t startled by this needs to cut back on the tranquilizers. It may have been a unique statement by any president, even in these unique times. So the question is, was he just rambling or did he lift the curtain, just a wee bit, on the plan -- on the machinations of the Deep State of which he is now titular head? We know that there are already plans afoot to hunt down “domestic terrorists”, AKA Trump supporters… and that the military have expressed their willingness to take part. And if “Trump supporters”, who apparently wake up every morning with visions of staging a remake of Jan. 6, are in the crosshairs, can Republicans in general be far behind? What does the Republican hierarchy think of this statement? (And since we’re speculating, if the Republican Party disappears before 2024, will it be replaced? And if so, what with?)<br /><br />The Democratic/progressive/liberal cabal has been scapegoating the mainstream Republicans for the alleged sins, crimes, and offenses of Donald Trump ever since he declared his candidacy, much to the dismay of said Republicans, who wanted nothing less than to wind up with Trump as their standard bearer. And when he won and took over the White House, they did everything in their power to subvert, sabotage, and defeat his programs and agenda. (You’d think they’d have been made honorary Democrats as a reward, but I guess they still weren’t considered virtuous enough.) So they get blamed, for four long years, for things that they didn’t want and didn’t support, and now that Trump is safely back in Florida the Democrats start calling them “domestic terrorists”, and Nancy Pelosi describes Republicans in Congress as “the enemy within”. (Something just rang a faint bell. I think it has to do with Joseph McCarthy and/or J. Edgar Hoover.) <br /><br />And now here’s Uncle Joe saying, basically, that the Republicans’ days may be numbered. (I never thought I’d ever agree with anything he said, but I agree on this one.) The Republicans in Congress have been relegated to the sidelines and are totally ignored, because… well, who needs them? Their last remaining grip on any power, namely the filibuster, is about to be done away with… more new Democratic members of Congress (representing DC and Puerto Rico, with Guam waiting in the wings) are soon to be minted… the federal government is about to take over the election process from the states via HR-1, thus assuring lifetime tenure for any and all Democrats... and so on. So really, if the Republican Party still exists in some vestigial form in 2024, it will be as if it doesn’t, for all intents and purposes. (Maybe the Democrats will keep it alive just to avoid comparisons with the Soviet Union -- but don’t get your hopes up. None of the other already-relevant comparisons don’t seem to bother them in the least.) <br /><br />Frankly, I find it refreshing that Uncle Joe is letting the cat out of the bag. (Well, maybe not the whole cat, maybe just one whisker, but still…) It certainly starts bringing things into focus, and if the Republicans don’t declare Condition Red at this point, they will deserve whatever dreary fate awaits them in 2024.<br /><br /><br /></p>Dave Witterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10685191772640386942noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4241997621473648057.post-29319609191991643862021-03-05T15:59:00.001-05:002021-03-08T01:02:36.669-05:00What's Romney's Game?<p><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: large;">Mitt
Romney is an empty suit in some respects, but he's not stupid. When
he says that “...</span><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: large;">the
polls show that among the names being floated as potential contenders
in 2024, if you put President Trump in there among Republicans, he
wins in a landslide”, people sit up and take notice – especially
when you consider that Romney was one of the more visible and active
never-Trumpers all during the Trump administration (and, for that
matter, in the run-up to the 2016 election). He did all he could to
thwart Trump's programs and initiatives, and to encourage (or shame)
other Republicans into doing likewise. In the Pantheon of RINO
never-Trumpers he would be placed just below John McCain. Surely
Trump running again in 2024 can't be on Romney's wish list – so why
even bring it up if it encourages Trump supporters, who remain
extremely loyal?</span></p>
<p style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br />
</p>
<p style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: medium;">There's
a strategy involved here, and I think it involves cutting to the
chase and thereby scaring the crap out of not only the Democrats but
also of the Republican mainstream. If anyone out there really thinks
that Trump might possibly, conceivably, in their worst nightmare, run
again, they will immediately start to build walls and fortifications,
and make plans to pull every trick in the book to nip the idea in the
bud – and this applies to both parties.</span></span></span></p>
<p style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br />
</p>
<p style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: medium;">There
are problems, however, with Romney's statement. For starters, it's
based on a number of premises:</span></span></span></p>
<p style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br />
</p>
<ol>
<li><p style="font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-style: normal;">That
there will even </span></span><span style="color: black;"><i>be</i></span><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-style: normal;">
a presidential election in 2024. Lest we forget, certain members of
the left wing of the Democratic Party, along with left-wingers in
general, have suggested that we do away with presidential elections
altogether. Some will add “and the office of president”, but
others will agree to keeping the office but selecting its occupant
by committee – made up, of course, of members of the ruling elite,
i.e. the top layer of the left-wing pecking order and its
facilitators in high tech and among the globalists. (Certain, ahem,
overseas entities might be involved as well, for that matter.)
Admittedly, one might ask how is this significantly different from
what we have now, where there are only two parties in contention
(some would say just one, the “uniparty”, and that the rivalry
is about as authentic as what goes on in professional wrestling) and
where the candidates are selected by the ruling elite and presented
to the hapless public for its approval. The difference is that it
would actually be more honest in that it would eliminate the
pretense of elections representing “the will of the people”.
(And by the way, selection by the ruling elite is true of both
parties, despite the occasional populist noises made by subgroups.
Trump's problem was that he wasn't on the A list; in fact he wasn't
on any list at all, and that was his major offense – the hair and
the orangeness were just added to provide visuals for the media.) </span></span></span></span>
</p>
</li><li><p style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: medium;">That
the Republican Party will still be functioning in 2024. Right now
it is defeated, browbeaten, and being ground into fine powder by
Democrat majorities in Congress. The party that thought it was used
to standing by helplessly while the engines of government ground on
didn't know what helplessness really was until now. When Trump
spoke at CPAC he vowed not to start a third party – much to the
relief of the Republican mainstream! – but any notion that the
conservative (pro-Trump or at least not anti-Trump) minority within
the Republican Party is going to somehow take over and become
dominant between now and 2024 is wishful thinking at best. </span></span></span>
</p>
</li><li><p style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: medium;">That
Trump's base will still be intact in 2024. This seems like a safe
bet, but it's important to remember that the Trump base and the
Republican base are not the same thing. There is a correlation
there, certainly, but I don't think the hard-core Trump supporter
feels any loyalty to the Republican Party; in fact, I suspect that
they see the Republican mainstream as part of the problem if not the
actual enemy. If they had their way they'd throw the establishment
Republicans to the dogs and start fresh (and the establishment knows
this, which is why they're wasting no time distancing themselves
from the “deplorables”). </span></span></span>
</p>
</li><li><p style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: medium;">That
– even assuming that elections are held in 2024, and that the
Republican Party hasn't yet been declared most sincerely dead –
the primary system will still be in place. Remember the good old
days of brokered conventions and smoke-filled rooms? They could
come back (without the smoke, I suppose). If you get rid of the
primaries, then you get rid of the means by which what little is
left of the voice of the people can be expressed. All that is left
is wheeling and dealing. So let's say that Trump runs and comes out
ahead in the primaries – big trouble for the Republican mainstream
which will do anything to keep 2016 and the following four years
from ever happening again. One solution is to simply ignore the
primaries and hold the convention as if they didn't exist. Another
solution is to simply not hold primaries. Problem solved! And
don't think the Republican hierarchy hasn't been thinking along
these lines ever since 2016. </span></span></span>
</p>
</li><li><p style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: medium;">That
loyal Trump supporters will still be willing and able to vote for
him in primaries and in the general election. Even as we speak,
people who vote Republican – or at least have done so in the last
two elections – are being declared enemies of the state, and are
being added to the watch lists of law enforcement and intelligence
agencies based on the notion that they are potential “domestic
terrorists”, or actual domestic terrorists by definition. The
supposed factual basis for this is as follows: (1) Capitol riots on
Jan 6: Trump supporters and no one else. And directed by Trump
himself, i.e. no advance planning, to say nothing of spontaneity.
(2) Capitol riots were an insurrection and a case of domestic
terrorism. (3) And they were also an expression of white supremacy
and racism. (4) Therefore, all Trump supporters are
insurrectionists, domestic terrorists, white supremacists, and
racists. (5) Therefore, anyone who voted for Trump in either 2016
or 2020 is all the above. (6) Therefore, the biggest threat to our
national security (and the Biden administration has as much as said
this) is Trump supporters and anyone who ever voted for Trump or who
would again – which, at last estimate, numbers around 74+ million
people, or nearly 1/3 of the adult population of the country. Where will
those people be in three years? Will they be able to vote as they
like without fear of reprisal, or will a new and improved method of
voter suppression have done its work?</span></span></span></p>
</li></ol>
<p style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br />
</p>
<p style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Now,
I say these are premises, and they are unspoken but may be assumed
based on Mitt Romney's statement. Unless he's playing a game here,
with the goal of actually rendering some or all of these premises
null and void – i.e. of speeding up the process that is already
underway of morphing the U.S. from a democracy to a pseudo-democracy
to a “people's republic”. And of course, because he is who he
is, he will expect to be thanked for this warning by both the
Republican mainstream and the Democrats – as if they needed any
reminding! We've already seen the Democrats up their game by a
quantum leap between 2016 and 2020, and put measures in place (with
more on the way -- see H.R. 1) to insure that they will enjoy a perpetual hold on
the presidency and Congress. And if, by the same token, the
Republicans have been relegated to perpetual irrelevancy, why does
Mitt bother? Chances are he hasn't really faced the facts quite yet
– and given the overwhelming nature of the facts, chances are he
never will. </span></span></span>
</p>
<p style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br />
</p>
<p style="font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-style: normal;">But
there's another angle to all of this. If Trump gives it another try,
and the Republicans absolutely refuse to cooperate on any level, who
</span></span><span style="color: black;"><i>are</i></span><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-style: normal;">
they going to nominate? Certainly not any true conservative, and
absolutely not anyone who supported Trump in the slightest degree
during his term in office, or voted for any of his Supreme Court
picks, or voted against one or both of his impeachments. No, it will
be the usual shopworn loser formula – nominate a moderate...
someone who can “reach across the aisle”... someone who is
perfectly at home with the Democratic agenda... someone who will be
happy to identify as the anti-Trump... and someone who, in case of
the inevitable loss, will not be a sore loser but will be gracious in
defeat. The envelope, please – Mitt Romney!</span></span></span></span></p>
<p style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br />
</p>
<p style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: medium;">So
yes, by sounding the alarm regarding Trump's possible return to the
political stage, Mitt is hoping to keep that from ever happening by
enlisting the cooperation of both the mainstream Republicans and the
Democrats. And then, given a dizzying array of “ifs” of various
probabilities (which, if multiplied together, produce a joint
probability not significantly different from zero), Mitt might just
squeeze his way into the White House. </span></span></span>
</p>
<p style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br />
</p>
<p style="font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-style: normal;">Well,
dream on, Mitt – you tried it once and got ground up in the Obama
machine, and guess what, the Biden machine is much more powerful and
invincible, and adding to its power and reach with each passing day.
(I say “Biden machine” but that's just shorthand for “Biden or
Harris or whoever else the Democrats nominate in 2024”.) And, you
think you represent the Republican mainstream, but I don't think you
do, not with your obvious and often-demonstrated RINO vibes. The
real Republican mainstream consists of those gray ghosts who wander
the halls of the Capitol, kowtowing to the Democrats, apologizing for
not being more “compassionate”, being good (and grateful) losers,
and on those rare occasions when they win, not knowing what to do
next. You can become one of them, which is a certain recipe for
obscurity, or you can stick with your RINO/never-Trumper minority
within a minority party and be (or remain) a hero of sorts to the
Democrats and the media before you are relegated to obscurity anyway.
But at least you've planted the seeds of fear (as if any more were
needed) in the fevered brains of both parties, and they may come
around to thanking you for the favor just before they give you a gold
watch (a Chinese knock-off, actually) and a bus ticket out of town.
</span></span><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-style: normal;">
</span></span></span></span>
</p>
<ol start="5">
<p style="font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="color: black;">
</span>
</p>
</ol>Dave Witterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10685191772640386942noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4241997621473648057.post-24474316557890200042021-01-19T16:18:00.000-05:002021-01-19T16:20:53.891-05:00Obama's Fourth Term<p> </p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">Regardless of any last-minute official
reports that may or may not come out in the next few hours (and it's
doubtful there will be any, given that the Trump administration is
sinking faster than the Titanic, with people at all levels bailing
out like the proverbial rats deserting a sinking ship), there are
some things that are now plain to see, and that will define the Trump
presidency and this era to a significant degree.</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">And of these, perhaps the most striking
is the role Barack Obama has played in all of this – starting on or about the day Donald Trump took that fabled
escalator ride (down rather than up, and that's enough for a metaphor
right there). Whether or not Obama was inspired by Hillary Clinton's
custom-made Russia hoax is one question, i.e. would he have initiated
a full-scale sabotage operation directed at Trump if it hadn't been
for the tall tale of Trump's collusion with Russia? What I suspect
is that he was already thinking seriously about the matter, and about
strategy, but that the Russia hoax story was like unto a gift from
above; it was tossed into his lap, and at that point he decided to go
full-bore with the operation. And of course Hillary was out of
office at that point, and technically a private citizen, so she could
not readily call upon, and mobilize, the forces of the Deep State,
and in particular the FBI and the Justice Department, the way Obama
could.
</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">But really, how badly did Obama want to
render the 2016 election of Donald Trump null and void, and thus
propel Hillary into her rightful place as Empress of America, of the
Known World, and of the Universe in General? Did he really want her
to succeed wherever he had failed? (Did he want her to turn
Obamacare back into Hillarycare, for example?) What I suspect is that he knew the
Russia hoax was, indeed, a hoax and that it would be exposed as such
sooner or later – but that in the meantime it would serve to
distract and hobble Trump and his administration, and any and all of
his initiatives, both domestic and foreign, for, ideally, his entire
term or the bulk thereof – which is, in fact, precisely what it
did. And the instant the Russia hoax ran out of steam the
impeachment (#1) went into high gear – seamlessly, with nary a bump
in the road. In other words, turning Trump into an instant lame duck
was more important than any sort of considerations for Hillary's
health and well-being, so she was reduced to years of book tours and
raving and ranting to anyone who would listen about how she'd been
cheated (she being an expert in that area, as we know), while Obama
proceeded to pursue more important long-range goals.</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">There's another nuance to all of this –
subtle, I admit – speculative – but “what if?” We've seen
how easy it is for an election to be hijacked if people have
sufficient determination and the proper infrastructure. So what went
wrong in 2016? And yeah, I know, they didn't have mail-in voting
then, and maybe the voting machines were less hackable. But still –
you'd think with all their resources the Dems could have pulled it
off. Unless – and here's Obama playing the long game – he
decided to let her get defeated. And why would he do that? Well, he
knew who she was running against. Now, if she had won, Donald Trump
would have been jettisoned off the political stage once and for all –
a real one-hit wonder. Which means that the mainline Republicans
would have remained in charge of their party and would have been
ready to mount a campaign in 2020 with a “back to normalcy” theme
that would have taken advantage of what would likely have been a
disastrous four years of Hillary Clinton. And they might have won,
and we'd be right back in the Bush era (maybe even with another Bush!). And Obama would have to
finally retire from his position of influence in Washington. But!
Allow Trump to win and then mount a campaign against him that rivals
the Normandy invasion, and you can put the Republican Party in a
permanent state of exile, and thus assure the Democrats perpetual
rule. And this, course, is precisely what has happened. The good
ship Trump is heading for the briny deep, and so is the Republican
Party, at least on the national level – whether or not any of its
members were on Trump's side. They will all be painted with the same
brush. The Trump administration will be the bloody shirt that the
Dems will wave in the air every time the Republicans start to show
any signs of life; the Republican Party will be about as popular as
the Confederacy. Mission accomplished! And if this is how it was
played, you would have to admire Obama's political brilliance and
insight.
</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">But in any case, do you really think
that once Obama helped get this whole Russia collusion process
rolling he was going to just walk away and leave it to his minions?
Get real. I'll bet he was right on top of this the whole time –
overseeing, directing, prioritizing, providing guidance... not unlike
the commander of a military operation. He had to make sure
it stayed on track and paved the way for not only Trump's fall, but
also that of the Republicans – not just in the 2020 election but in
perpetuity. (His role came most prominently to the surface during
the Democratic primaries, which I'll discuss in a minute. But it's
not like he swooped down like a bird of prey that once time, and
left things to take their course the rest of the time.)
</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">(At this point you might say, wait a
minute, the Mueller investigation was initiated during the Trump
administration. Well yes, barely – but the groundwork had already
been laid, and the investigation was staffed entirely by what were
termed “angry Democrats”, so let's not quibble on that point. It
was a Democratic operation from beginning to end.) (I used to think
that if Trump ever tried to de-politicize the FBI he'd have to get
down to at least the level of the third underassistant toilet paper
replacement specialist in the J. Edgar Hoover Building.)
</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">This all has to do with power, of
course and as always – with the acquisition thereof and the
perpetuation thereof. And Obama did have to leave the White House at
a certain point, but that was a minor consideration since it seems
very possible that he already, prior to leaving office, had assumed
full authority over the Deep State and over its most powerful and
influential elements. So, in effect, there would have been no real
“transition” between the Obama administration and the Trump
administration – the Obama administration hardly giving up a thing
but continuing as before, but as a shadow government, and it was
actually greater in number by far, in terms of people who were loyal
to Obama and willing to follow his directives, than the
administration of Donald Trump, where the most he could ever claim
were the few appointees at the top of each pyramid. According to
this theory, Obama had, all the time Trump was in the White House,
his own bureaucracy, his own intelligence apparatus, and his own
foreign policy. He certainly had sufficient appointees and friends
in all the right departments; we know this from all the characters
who came out of the woodwork to testify at the impeachment hearings.
(And by the way, if there was no real transition in 2017, there was no need for one this time either, and all of the Democrats'
whining about the Trump administration dragging its feet was mere
show.)
</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">So what does this all add up to? For
starters, consider the possibility that Obama, for the first time in
history as an ex-president, didn't give up any real power. In fact,
he didn't even leave town! He just moved from 1600 Pennsylvania
Avenue not even a mile up the hill to a mansion in Kalorama – the
new seat of government, in effect, until the Democrats could reclaim
what was rightfully theirs. So Trump started out with a White House
full of loyalists (but not all, as it turns out) and appointees
scattered around D.C. as figureheads of various departments,
agencies, and offices, and a handful of supporters in Congress, and
his solid base among the citizenry – i.e. those who voted for him –
but that was about it. “Draining the Swamp” does not come under
the heading of “promises made, promises kept”. It couldn't, and
it can't. You might as well try and levitate the Great Pyramid and
plunk it down in the middle of Kansas.
</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">So the next four years for Trump were
an unending struggle to get the bureaucracy to cooperate – or even
to appear to cooperate – or to at least not actively and blatantly
resist and refuse to follow orders. And this was on top of unending
challenges from Congress and the judiciary. Truly, it's a miracle
the slightest thing got done in all that time.</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">So where do we go from here? Who's
going to be in charge as of noon tomorrow? Joe Biden? The very
thought is enough to inspire scoffing and derision. Bookmakers have
already been taking bets on how long he'll last. Oh, you say that if
Old Uncle Joe falters and is “25th'ed” Kamala Harris will take
command? Sorry about that, but she's a figurehead too. I mean,
think about it for a moment. For starters, who called in all of the
Democratic contenders for the presidency at some point in the
primaries – i.e. all the ones who had the vaguest hope of coming
out on top? We know who, and it might have been a scene right out of
Hollywood -- Don Barraco, capo di tuti capi, calling them, one by
one, into his dimly-lit office and making them an offer they couldn't
refuse. “This ain't your night, kid”, or words to that effect.
All, of course, except for Uncle Joe, who, as it turned out, had been
anointed all along. If only the rest of them had known, they could
have saved themselves a lot of trouble (not to mention money, like in
Mike Bloomberg's case).</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">But what about Kamala Harris? She
never lost a primary because she never entered one. (Smart move.)
Was she promised the VP slot by Mr. Big way back then? Who knows?
One thing is clear – she was, at a certain point, chosen, and
certainly not by Uncle Joe. But why her, out of all the countless
possibilities? Number one, and most obviously – her “diversity”
qualifications, which are overwhelming. It's hard to find a minority
she <i>doesn't</i><span style="font-style: normal;"> belong to. And
she is a hard leftist, just a bit less noisy than The Squad. But
most importantly, if Obama made her he can break her, so she has to
follow orders. If she is directed to bow to, and play along with,
The Squad, she will. If she's directed to tell them to stuff it, she
will. Because she can be replaced. </span>
</p>
<p style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-style: normal;">What
I'm saying is that she's a younger and flashier sock puppet than
Uncle Joe, but is a sock puppet nonetheless. The Anointed One may
still be in charge. So what we will be witnessing tomorrow may well
be, in effect, the start of Barack Obama's fourth term as president,
at which point he will be tied with Franklin Roosevelt, but hey –
ties were meant to be broken, right? If the Republicans are
permanent dead meat on the federal level, what's to prevent Obama
from being president for life? But that would be in the tradition of
guys like Stalin, Mao, Putin, Kim, Duvalier, Mugabe, and other
sterling characters, so he might want to think again. But perhaps,
now that democracy has been tried and found wanting, we are about to
enter another age of the Strong Man – or, more accurately, return
to it, thoroughly chastened, after a brief hiatus. </span>
</p>Dave Witterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10685191772640386942noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4241997621473648057.post-76558562806036012512020-12-29T21:54:00.000-05:002020-12-30T23:24:27.059-05:00Normalcy at All Costs ! <p> </p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">I call it “the Stop the Madness
Vote”, and I think it's real. What it means in the case of the
recent – and still disputed -- election is that a certain portion
of the populace will cast a vote neither pro nor con a given
candidate, but merely in the hope that it will help things to return
to normal (however defined). After all, the citizenry has, for
four-plus years now, been exposed to a level of political and social
warfare that, for sheer viciousness and chaos, rivals anything most
of them have experienced in a “real” war. Granted, there haven't
been that many fatalities or serious injuries directly attributable
to the conflict, but the citizenry are fatigued... exhausted...
rubbed raw... and have been forced to live in a world where every
conceivable thing (and some inconceivable things) have been totally
politicized. We've been living in a crucible for over four years
now. Economies on all levels save the very top layer have been
shattered using the corona virus as an excuse. Innumerable
relationships, even within families, have been strained or even
broken... and the degree of mutual suspicion, hostility, and alienation among the citizenry has
reached a level comparable to that in totalitarian societies. This
was not the way we were meant to live in what is supposedly a free
and open society; it's more like the atmosphere of the proverbial
banana republic, where there is a coup or revolution every few weeks,
and the sounds of marching boots and gunfire are always to be heard.</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">The forces and entities that have
created this dystopian/nightmare world for us are many, and represent
many motivations and agendas, which can be debated at another time.
What I suspect is that the average voter, being an average citizen
who simply wants to be allowed to live a simple, ordinary life
without having to put up with a constant drumbeat of politics that he
has no choice but to listen to... that person may eventually decide
to vote not for a given candidate, or against a given candidate, but
simply for whomever they think is most likely to return things to
normal. They don't even have to agree with their platform or stated
positions! In fact, they might find them distasteful. But the
motivation to remove politics from everyday life – from something
requiring 24/7 attention, and from which there is no escape – and
go back to something that is confined to what used to be termed
“election season” before the unending campaign era started has to
be strong and compelling.
</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">For example, a vote for Trump in
November would have required a commitment, or at least a willingness
to put up with, four more years of what has been going on for
four-plus years already. (I detailed this in a recent post:
<a href="https://zarathustrasoldman.blogspot.com/2020/07/4-more-years-really.html">https://zarathustrasoldman.blogspot.com/2020/07/4-more-years-really.html</a>)
Now, for a certain type of person this sort of thing is the ideal –
pure red meat – crack cocaine. It's the way they want to live, and
the way they expect others to live as well. Call them political
junkies, swamp creatures, Deep State denizens, whatever – they
thrive on battle, warfare, intrigue, and double-dealing, and cannot
imagine life being any other way if it is to be satisfying and
fulfilling. A good example of this personality type is “The Squad”
which occupies the very tip of the left wing of the Democratic Party.
But other Democrats are energized in a similar fashion, and even
some Republicans – although the latter, being conservative by
nature if not always by practice, would rather life was more like
that depicted in certain classic TV shows like “Mayberry R.F.D.”
The Democrats, on the other hand, seem to prefer an environment more
akin to “Animal House” – at least the anarchistic part, which
eventually leads to tyranny and totalitarianism. And because we are
in an age of revolution, the Democratic world view is naturally the
dominant one, and the one that appeals to perhaps not the majority of
the populace but to enough of them that they are willing to vote for
The Squad and their facilitators (and those who are afraid of getting
on their wrong side, like a certain president-elect).
</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">But we're talking about large segments
of the voting populace here, and the Stop the Madness Vote would
apply to a minority – and yet an important one, the way the “swing”
or “independent” vote is always much sought after by both
parties. These voters would have consisted mainly of people who
might have voted for Trump in 2016, or for a third party candidate,
or who had just sat out the election. This time around, they did not
sit it out, but they didn't vote for Trump either. They might have
voted third party, but more likely they would have voted for Biden
(with noses firmly held) just to bring America's very own domestic
perpetual war to an end.
</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">But in this they would have been
mistaken, since once Biden is ensconced and the powers behind his
throne take over, the real war begins – or, more accurately, the
war on the middle class and on “American values” that has been
gaining momentum for decades finally enters the consolidation stage,
in which all who resist are hunted down and neutralized. (This
process has already been announced, when it comes to members of the
Trump administration and its supporters, by various and sundry
Democrats and their facilitators in the media. But you can expect it
to extend to broader horizons as well.) This will be a bigger war,
and have more dire effects on the citizenry, than anything that has
occurred over the previous five years, and will almost make them
yearn for the “good old days” when all they had to worry about
was Trump's collusion with Russia, Trump's racism/sexism/xenophobia,
Trump's grounds for impeachment, Trump's hair and necktie and skin,
etc. and the reaction of the opposition or resistance to all of
these. We have seen what the opposition is capable of – all the
masks have been taken off and discarded, and the agenda is completely
out in the open for, perhaps, the first time in our history. And
once Trump is out of the way will there be “peace in the valley”?
Au contraire! The same people who have been waging all-out war on
Trump will turn their sights on the citizenry – especially the
middle class – especially anyone suspected of having “conservative”
or “reactionary” tendencies. And they have plenty of models to
choose from, from the Bolshevik revolution in Russia to Maoism in
China. The major – and remarkable – difference is that this
time the revolution has the full support of the ruling elite... the
money class. So it will be both ends of the socioeconomic spectrum
against the middle. (Advice: Figure out some way to get either very
rich or extremely poor before it's too late.)</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">But really, hasn't this always been the
dream of totalitarians the world over? Create a two-class society
with a ruling elite (i.e., them) and a vast horde of faceless serfs
(i.e., the rest of us), with no one in between? This is precisely
what's happening in the economy right now. It's no coincidence, and
no accident. And the corona pandemic is not to blame; it just served
to accelerate the process by providing an excuse for totalitarian
diktats. And don't expect the dismal history of various attempts to
accomplish this to discourage anyone; this is, after all, a war of
ideas, and actual material consequences are of little interest.
</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">So yes, the Stop the Madness Vote may
have helped take Trump down and set Biden up – but whatever it is
they thought they were doing thereby may turn to crushing
disappointment. But don't expect them to stand up and apologize in
public; that would not be “normal”.
</p>Dave Witterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10685191772640386942noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4241997621473648057.post-36981748641019177222020-11-05T22:59:00.000-05:002020-11-05T23:00:48.896-05:00The Republican Party post-Trump, Revisited<p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">When
Donald Trump rides back up that escalator (figuratively at least) he
will leave behind a political party that did not welcome him, never
accepted him, and – I strongly suspect – is glad to see him leave
and get out of their hair. He was never the head, or leader, or
whatever, of the Republican Party (not that I am at all certain who
was), and now that he's leaving the Republicans can settle back into
their accustomed torpor, where every day is a lazy day in the
steaming tropics and all that is needed is a hammock and a cold drink
garnished with a rice paper umbrella. But is this the action of any
sort of political party? Trump's program was their program, whether
they liked it or not – and with him gone they are back to being
program-less and free of ideas. How long can they survive under
those conditions?</span></p>
<p align="LEFT" style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 2; widows: 2;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><br />
</span></p>
<p align="LEFT" style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 2; widows: 2;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: large;">The
Republicans do have a future, but just not on the national level.
They will continue to be players in various redoubts across the
fruited plain – not including the coasts, of course, nor various
liberal enclaves in flyover country (cities controlled by Democrats
plus university towns). They will enjoy dominance in some state
legislatures and may be elected governors – although how much good
it will do is questionable, since judges everywhere seem committed to
reinforcing the “progressive” agenda at all costs (not to
mention, the last gasp of state autonomy will be the upcoming
elimination of the Electoral College). And they will, of course, be
active at the county, small city, town, and village level. But on the
national level I consider them the walking dead, and here's why.</span></span></p>
<p align="LEFT" style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 2; widows: 2;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><br />
</span></p>
<p align="LEFT" style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 2; widows: 2;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Times New Roman;">But
first a comment. Now and then someone – not necessarily a
disgruntled Republican, it could be a liberal engaging in
triumphalism – will contend that Donald Trump killed the Republican
Party by, first, having the unmitigated gall to enter the Republican
primaries in 2016, then to be nominated (aided by the Russians, no
doubt – still an article of faith for the Democrats and the
mainstream media), and then to be elected (ditto). And Republicans
ever since then have been wringing their hands that here's this
Godzilla-like creature in their midst who's ruining everything and
giving Republicans a bad name, and that the country will never forgive the Republicans </span></span><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Times New Roman;">f</span></span>or having foisted Trump off on them, and that this
spells doom for generations to come, et cetera.</span></p>
<p align="LEFT" style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 2; widows: 2;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><br />
</span></p>
<p align="LEFT" style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 2; widows: 2;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Times New Roman;">I
have a slightly different take on this. My opinion is that Trump
actually <u>saved</u> the Republican Party from its own boring,
colorless incompetence... injected new life into it (or tried to)...
and kept it, basically, alive for four more years -- since it was at
death's door by the end of the Obama administration, and a Hillary
victory would have been the coup de grace (or coup de disgrace,
whatever). The problem is that most Republicans, and especially the
“never Trumpers”, would disagree with this, and contend that the
party would be in much better shape now if it hadn't been forced to,
somehow, go along with the bulk of Trump's initiatives, or at least
not actively oppose them (with a few notable exceptions). </span></span>
</span></p>
<p align="LEFT" style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 2; widows: 2;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><br />
</span></p>
<p align="LEFT" style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 2; widows: 2;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: large;">Party
loyalty is, of course, <u>party</u><span style="text-decoration: none;"> loyalty,
not loyalty to any one person; all we have to do is go back to the
Watergate era to find confirmation of that. (And at a slightly
earlier time, a lot of Democrats bailed on LBJ.) But sometimes party
loyalty involves compromise – doing what you have to do. And yet
there were, and are, people who disagree, the foremost example having
been John McCain, who took an active role in subverting the Trump
administration from Day One. And Mitt Romney was, basically,
McCain's understudy.</span></span></span></p>
<p align="LEFT" style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 2; widows: 2;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><br />
</span></p>
<p align="LEFT" style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 2; widows: 2;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: large;">But
the point is that Trump, simply by being who he is and doing what he
did, at least kept the Republican “brand” on the market, even
though it was an operation not unlike the process of keeping a
disembodied brain alive in a jar like in some horror movie. (Except
in the case of the Republicans, he was keeping a body alive without a
brain – not even the “Abby Normal” brain from “Young
Frankenstein”.)</span></span></p>
<p align="LEFT" style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 2; widows: 2;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><br />
</span></p>
<p align="LEFT" style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 2; widows: 2;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: large;">So
Trump gave the Republicans a new lease on life, except they didn't
want it and didn't appreciate it. They would rather have been dead
(as a party) than be seen as supporting Trump, as many of them said
quite explicitly during the 2016 campaign. Distance from Trump =
virtue and respectability was the message. He was as much an outsider
to them as he was to the liberals/Democrats/progressives.</span></span></p>
<p align="LEFT" style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 2; widows: 2;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><br />
</span></p>
<p align="LEFT" style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 2; widows: 2;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: large;">So
now they get to return to the soporific creature comforts of minority
status, except this time for keeps. Which means, incidentally, that
the U.S. finally capitulates and converts to a one-party system on
the national level, which is an inevitable characteristic of
tyrannies and dictatorships everywhere, and that the Democratic
primaries become the equivalent of the election, assuming that the
Republicans even bother having primaries any longer. (Many states,
cities, and counties already have a one-party system, and you can
generally tell which they are by measuring their level of
incompetence, corruption, and downright failure – not to mention
less-exalted measures like the number of homeless and the incidence
of fecal matter on public property.)</span></span></p>
<p align="LEFT" style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 2; widows: 2;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><br />
</span></p>
<p align="LEFT" style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 2; widows: 2;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: large;">But
why else, aside from their general demeanor and appearance, are the
Republicans the walking dead? It's because they have become a
minority party that can barely capture enough independent and “swing”
votes to win elections, except in certain “deep red” locales. And
why, in turn, is this? One reason is the power of ideas; the
Democrats have them, and the Republicans don't. Say what you like
about “AOC” for example, she has ideas. They may be wrong-headed,
foolish, and delusional, and reflect profound ignorance, but they are
ideas, and they serve to energize and inspire. And when revolution is
in the air, ideas are all that count; cold reason and pragmatism can
take a hike. And, of course, youth must triumph! By definition! Of
course, the youth of the 1960s are now the grizzled veterans of the
culture wars, whether they consider themselves to be on the winning
side or not. They may have won many battles, but the culture war is
still on or Trump would never have been elected.</span></span></p>
<p align="LEFT" style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 2; widows: 2;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><br />
</span></p>
<p align="LEFT" style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 2; widows: 2;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: large;">Is
there a Republican AOC out there anywhere? Some talk-show hosts might
qualify, but they already have paying jobs and are not about to enter
politics. We are, once again, in a time of revolution, the way we
were in the 1960s, and the Young Turks in Congress are at the
forefront, with the Old Guard forced to deal, cope, dither,
rationalize, whatever it takes to hold on to their weakening grip on
power. The 60s were not just about “sex, drugs, and rock &
roll”, although those were the loss leaders. They were about more
profound cultural changes, which took root then and are being
promoted to new levels at the present time. Anyone who wonders when
this process will stop – when it will be “mission accomplished”
– has missed the concept of continuous revolution, of which the
most prominent advocate was Chairman Mao, but which has plenty of
lesser followers, including the present-day governments of Cuba and
Venezuela (not to mention Antifa and BLM on the home front). For
them, the revolution is not finished until Utopia is realized, and
since Utopia can never be realized, the revolution is never over.
Call it a full employment act for “agents of change”.</span></span></p>
<p align="LEFT" style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 2; widows: 2;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><br />
</span></p>
<p align="LEFT" style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 2; widows: 2;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: large;">Another
reason – and this is old news, but still – is that the Democrats
are busy importing new constituents from other countries, primarily
Central America but other places as well. And these people are
willing to do work that Americans just won't do – namely reproduce.
So... to over-generalize just a bit, you have self-sterilizing
Democrats and liberal eunuchs bolstering their numbers by letting
people in who have a vested interest in their programs, i.e.
“benefits”. It's a smart move, for sure. And even if
conservatives do have an edge when it comes to reproduction (it would
be more accurate to say that traditionalists of many different kinds
have an edge in that department), there's no way it can make up for
what amounts to a siege from the Third World. There is a human wave –
nay, a tsunami – coming across our southern border every day, and
making its way even to the northernmost reaches of the land, hence
the incidence of Mexican restaurants in places like Minot, North
Dakota. History will record this as one of the great migrations of
humanity, but it's hard to appreciate historical significance when
you're getting overrun. (One consolation for those who don't believe
in the American Empire is that this may be the biggest single factor
in its demise; time will tell. There is, after all, a high
correlation between the death of empires and said empires being
overrun by aliens, although the precise order of events varies.)</span></span></p>
<p align="LEFT" style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 2; widows: 2;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><br />
</span></p>
<p align="LEFT" style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 2; widows: 2;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: large;">Then
you have good old generational differences – and, as always, the
revolutionaries are on the young side and the conservatives are on
the old side. This is not to say that the conservatives will one day
be totally replaced by the revolutionaries, because even in the worst
of times there are people who, somehow, manage to engage in rational
thinking... but we are, basically, looking at a revolutionary society
on the national level (a process which has been building slowly over
a century at least, but which is now coming to full fruition) which
will do everything in its power (which is considerable) to silence
and neutralize all opposition, if not engage in its outright
extermination. (As things stand, the liberals are busy exterminating
themselves through abortion, which is ironic to say the least. So the
race is on – do they cease to exist during or after the revolution?
Time will tell. And if they do cease to exist, who keeps the
revolution going? Oh, right – immigrants. But many of them are
way more conservative and traditionally-minded than American
liberals. So maybe irony will win in the end.)</span></span></p>
<p align="LEFT" style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 2; widows: 2;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><br />
</span></p>
<p align="LEFT" style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 2; text-decoration: none; widows: 2;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Times New Roman;">So,
to sum up, Trump arguably saved us from a headlong rush into this
fate for four years. But it does seem inevitable; the long-term
trends are what they are... and I haven't even touched on aggravating
factors like the national debt, crony capitalism, environmental
degradation, decaying infrastructure, the cost of empire, the
collapse of our public education system, social media turning us all
into robots, corruption in general, and so on. Everything that's
happening at this time can be considered an accelerant; there are no
counter-trends that I can think of. </span></span>
</span></p>
<p align="LEFT" style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 2; widows: 2;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><br />
</span></p>
<p align="LEFT" style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 2; text-decoration: none; widows: 2;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: large;">So
what we should be seeing very soon is the final death rattle of the
Republicans on the national level – an event which will be
celebrated far and wide, no doubt. And the conventional wisdom will
be that Trump was what did it – he was the bull in the china shop,
the disrupter, the destroyer. But if that's true, as Trump leaves the
political stage the Republicans should expect to recover whatever
respect they enjoyed before he took that fabled escalator ride. The
problem with that idea is they didn't enjoy any such respect, except
possibly in their own deluded world view. And remember that Trump's
hard-core supporters didn't vote for him because he was a Republican;
they voted for him because he was who he was. (He might even have won
as an independent candidate, the way Ross Perot tried to do.) So
without him to prop them up, the Republicans are going to collapse –
said collapse being long overdue. And Trump's hard-core supporters
will fade back into the fields and forests of flyover country,
satisfied that, for one brief shining moment, their voices were heard
and their values were honored. They will hunker down and wait out the
revolution, hoping that one day they, or their descendants, will once
again have a voice.</span></span></p>
<p align="LEFT" style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 2; widows: 2;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><br />
</span></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span><br />
</p>Dave Witterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10685191772640386942noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4241997621473648057.post-18401902836920155992020-10-09T17:47:00.000-04:002020-10-09T17:49:30.539-04:00Kamala's Karma<p> </p><p>It really does look like the Democrats
are running some sort of protection racket aimed at the American
public. The message is: Vote for us, get rid of Trump, and the
riots will end. Otherwise, they will continue. Implication – the Democrats have some sort of connection
with the rioters, i.e. Antifa, BLM, et al, and actually have enough
influence over them to call them off at a moment's notice (the same
way they can be mobilized at a moment's notice). Implication –
Maybe the rioters have been working for the Democrats all along.
They have certainly won the hearts of any number of Democratic mayors
and governors, who look on approvingly as their own cities are
trashed and burned and their citizens assaulted.</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">So yes, it would be tempting to predict
– as some in the conservative commentariat have – that, indeed,
the minute Joe Biden is inaugurated the riots will magically stop and
the rioters vanish, in order to provide an instant reward to those
who voted for Biden (and an “up yours” to Trump voters). And, by
the way, that covid-19 will also vanish, since the main point of
China causing the pandemic was to get rid of Donald Trump and put a
friend of China in the White House. (Which kind of makes one wonder
about all the other countries in the world that have suffered from
the exact same ailment – is this their theory too, and if so how do
they feel about it? How would we feel if we wound up with a pandemic
that was aimed at unseating, say, the president of Botswana?)
</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">Likewise, if the lockdowns and economic
distress blamed on covid-19 were also aimed at getting rid of Donald
Trump, we can expect all lockdowns and restrictions to be lifted on
Inauguration Day, and the economy to spring back to life in all
sectors, including employment. (Cue track of “Tomorrow” from
“Annie”.)
</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">Ah, if only it were that simple –
vote for us and your troubles will be over. (Actually, this is the
message liberals have been peddling for generations). But Kamala
Harris isn't falling for it. Back in June she said, referring to BLM
riots, “They're not gonna stop. And everyone beware, because
they're not gonna stop... before Election Day in November, and
they're not gonna stop after Election Day.”</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">How interesting! So did she mean that
even if she and Joe Biden are elected, riots will continue? And if
so, to what purpose? To make Trump quit prior to Inauguration Day?
(Please note that there is another drive on to forcibly remove him
from office based on the 25<sup>th</sup> Amendment.) But the riots
have not had that effect up to now, why should they have it in the
next 3+ months? And what would be the point, other than a primitive
urge for vengeance? Plus, you get rid of Trump and you still have
Mike Pence, even if only for a short time. Is that what they want?
</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">The point is that Harris tipped her
hand a bit with that statement. She's been called the most liberal
member of the Senate, and is clearly the darling of pretty much every
certified victim or grievance group in the country. (Her minority
status is so multi-layered she had to attach a supplemental page to
her driver's license application.) And right now she's in the
precarious position of being Joe Biden's running mate, which means
that she has to (1) hope he doesn't collapse in a heap before
Inauguration Day; and (2) hope he does collapse in a heap as soon as
possible after Inauguration Day. Timing is everything! She is, in
short, the new superstar of the Democratic Party – not that she's
above Obama on the totem pole, that would be too much to ask – but
that she's at least the designated replacement for Hillary Clinton,
which is no mean distinction. (And BTW, remember when they called
Bill Clinton the first Black president? Hillary could have run in
2016 as the wife of the first Black president. Why didn't she think
of that? Oh, wait – Michelle might have misunderstood.)</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">One question that comes to mind is, how
about The Squad? Surely they're no more liberal than Harris; how
could they be? But she has things they don't have as yet – things
like experience, political seniority, and the smarts to drop out of
the primaries before the first primary was held (a brilliant move
which kept her from being tainted by failure, which in turn made her
the best choice as Biden's running mate). (You don't think that was
the deal? It seems totally obvious to me.) Plus she has a kind of
gravitas – a kind of Big Nurse vibe -- whereas the Squad-ettes seem
to be kind of an unstable bunch. So for now, The Squad has to wait
in the wings along with the likes of Mayor Pete and Beto O'Rourke,
but their day will come; they just have to try and exercise patience
(not their strong suit). In the meantime, they can continue to act
as firebrands and platoon leaders for the revolution.</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">So with that statement quoted above,
Harris came right out and admitted that there is nothing
temporary or situational about the current plague of urban unrest.
She admitted that it's not going to stop, which is another way of
saying that the revolution is on. It's on until... well, until it
accomplishes its goal, which is, to cut to the chase, to turn the
U.S. into a people's republic of some sort. (Think Soviet Union,
except with the ruling elite made up of Silicon Valley types instead
of government officials.) (I've discussed some of the difficulties
with this model in previous posts, so I won't go over them again.
Let's just say that our ruling elite might run into a bit of
competition on the way to completely transforming our society.)
</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">One of the many ironies of this
scenario is that a key factor in its accomplishment is the election –
with its subtext of people of color, victim groups, anti-phobias and anti-isms – of an old white male to the presidency –
by which I mean a <i>really</i><span style="font-style: normal;"> old,
</span><i>really</i><span style="font-style: normal;"> white male –
more white than Mike Pence, if such a thing is possible. But
that's... OK, think of a shoehorn. If the shoe is the seat of
political power, Biden is the shoehorn and Harris is the foot. Once
he's elected – once he's inaugurated – he'll be of no more use
than a bulging can of tuna. Oh, he'll be allowed to sit in the Oval
Office all right, and play president like George W. Bush did, but the
affairs of state will go on with him or without him (and preferably
the latter), Harris will be a good and faithful servant of the
ruling elite, and The Squad will be kept at the ready as political
attack dogs. </span>
</p>
<p style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</p>
<p style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;">But the point is
that the rioting and anarchy will continue because the dogs of war
have been set loose. The ruling elite has decided that now's the
time to make their move, and they have sent their pawns out across
the American chessboard; they couldn't call them back now even if
they wanted to. The riots are metastatic. They're now occurring in places we've never heard of (next stop, Mayberry R.F.D.). We can look forward to
relative calm in the nation's capital (Harris will see to that), but
outside the Beltway the strife will continue, for the simple reason
that the populace has not yet been rendered sufficiently helpless and
desperate – desperate enough to accept totalitarian measures and a
complete overhaul of the federal government (including, but not
limited to, packing the Supreme Court and eliminating the Electoral
College – but even those are baby steps compared to the ultimate goal).
</p>
<p style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</p>
<p style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;">And, of course,
when the ruling elite no longer finds Harris useful, she'll be
eliminated – one way or the other – along with The Squad, Antifa,
BLM, and everyone else with delusions of grandeur. History teaches
that ideas make revolutions, but that pragmatism and cynicism make
governments. When the radicals retire (or are removed) from the
barricades the bureaucrats and cynics move in and take over. The
Soviet Union was a pretty exciting place for the first few years –
its siren song of secular humanism attracted any number of useful
idiots from the U.S. and elsewhere. But eventually the charms of
communism wore thin, and the USSR became a very gray, depressing,
cold, and hungry place. Some of the true believers hung in and
stayed there until they died of old age, but most returned to the
U.S. and took up posts in the government or as university professors,
where they went on for years describing the Soviet Union as a utopia,
which they, regrettably, had to leave for reasons better left
unexplained. Meantime, the hapless citizens of the USSR remained
trapped there for decades – nay, a lifetime.
</p>
<p style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-style: normal;">So as
Kamala says, “Everyone beware”. (And she'd better take her own
advice.) </span>
</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
</p>Dave Witterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10685191772640386942noreply@blogger.com0