Bad Prophet! No Sushi!

Well, I guess it's time to face the music. I can't put it off any longer. I have to, in the interests of “transparency”, resurrect my predictions from last February concerning the presidential election and provide, as promised (or at least implied), a final rating of my talents as a prognosticator. So here goes.

Prediction #1: Obama will nominate someone (not a “flaming liberal” but a “moderate” according to his frame of reference, who will seem like a flaming liberal to conservatives) for the Supreme Court.

Result: True! So I get one point.

Prediction #2: The Republicans will hold hearings (re: confirmation of the nominee)

Result: False! They at least had the cojones to resist all of that pressure, and Obama apparently felt that he had better things to do than threaten “the nuclear option”, i.e. a government shutdown, if the hearings didn't take place. Plus, he was confident enough that Hillary was going to be president that he preferred to toss the matter into her lap. No points.

Prediction #3: Whoever it is will be confirmed because enough Republicans will cave, fearing “voter rage” in the election and/or a “government shutdown” (and how that relates to the Supreme Court is beyond me, but the Democrats are already talking about it – and of course the Republicans will be blamed if it occurs).

Result: See Prediction #2. No points.

Prediction #4: Some of the Republican “base” will be annoyed and skip voting in the November election as a result, giving the Democrats even more of an edge than they already have.

Result: Hard to tell. What I should have said is that some of the Democrat base will skip voting. I underestimated the advantage Obama had in 2008 and 2012 by being a political rock star (and black, by the way). Apparently many of the Democrat stay-at-homes were black and were less than inspired by Hillary (and who can blame them?). No points (due to a minor semantic issue).

Prediction #5 (oh, this is a good one): The Republicans will NOT – repeat, NOT – nominate Trump for president. They would rather lose the election (they've said as much). They are almost as unlikely to nominate Cruz. There will be a “brokered convention” and the mainliners will put up someone they consider a “moderate” -- but who? Bush has dropped out, so that leaves Rubio, and maybe Kasich for VP.

Result: Well, you know. I think what happened was, basically, as follows. The Republican mainstream saw the handwriting on the wall – they had, basically, a mutiny on their hands – and it was easier to just let it run its course than try and fight it off. Plus, they figured that by losing (and they were positive Trump would lose, make no mistake – they were as much believers in Hillary's inevitability as the Democrats were) it would teach those populists – that rabble – a damn good lesson, and give them (the establishment) an excuse to banish them from the party once and for all. They never dreamed in a million years that Trump would actually win, and that his takeover of the party would be set in concrete for at least 4 years. (How he handles this windfall is another question. He could just kick all of the country-club types out and turn the party entirely over to his supporters, but that doesn't seem likely. What's more likely is an uneasy truce, with each side hoping to make gains in 2018.) No points.

Prediction #6: Bernie will be crushed to fine powder by Hillary long before the Democrat convention.

Result: True! Not only that, but it turned out (surprise, surprise) that Bernie was a dead man walking since Day One because there had been a conspiracy against him within the party all along. The dismay his supporters felt could only be exceeded by the fact that, within five minutes after Hillary's nomination, he got down on his knees and became her footstool. A man of principle, right... One point, for a total of 2 so far!

Prediction #7: Hillary will beat whoever the Republicans put up because she already has a solid base of nearly ½ the eligible voters.

Result: Well, I was right about her base. I said at some point that she had 47%, and guess what, she won a bit under 48% of the popular vote. What I failed to anticipate was that she would be unable to add much of anything to her base, i.e. to inspire very many independents or “undecideds”. Whether they switched to Trump, or voted third party, or just stayed home is another matter, but the fact remains that, when it comes to the rock star, AKA charisma, factor, Obama had it and Hillary... not someone you'd exactly want to cozy up to, right? (And Bill agrees.) I'm going to be generous and grant myself half a point on this one, because I called the solid base correctly. (Total: 2 ½ points)

Prediction #8: Once inaugurated, Hillary will dramatically pivot away from the Islamic world and from Muslims in the U.S. But it's unlikely she'll start World War III – for one thing, she and Putin are too much alike. Foreign policy overall will change little from Obama's, which changed little from Bush's.

Result: “Not applicable.” But while we're on the topic, Trump is sliding into the neocon camp faster than you-know-what slides out of a goose. What ever happened to his skepticism about America being involved in countless conflicts overseas? About the American Empire? I knew that kind of loose talk was over with when John Bolton appeared at Trump Tower. He never saw a proxy war he didn't like... and, for that matter, any other kind of war he didn't like. If you think we're already fighting a war on Islam, oops, I mean “terror”, wait until this joker takes the reins at State. No points.

Prediction #9: Domestic policy will be a seamless continuation of Obama's.

Result: “Not applicable.” But I don't think it's going be as radically different as all of the rioters expect. Trump is too much of a realist to go off on any wild pursuits when it comes to domestic policy. I mean, what's he going to do about entitlements? You can't un-scramble eggs, as they say. But we'll see what happens. No points.

Prediction #10: A bachelor pad for Bill Clinton will be built in the White House, with a secret door leading out to Pa. Ave. Also, the Clintons will bring back the furniture they took with them when they moved out in 2001.

Result: These could still happen, but it's unlikely. Especially the furniture part. No points.

Grand total: 2 ½ points out of 10, which would be enough to earn me a passing grade in the Chicago public schools. I think I deserve a participation trophy at least; don't you?

And BTW, is this so-called “failure” going to deter me from making predictions in the future? Surely you jest...

Throw Out the Clowns

Just about the time I thought mass hysteria was a thing of the past, they had to come up with the Evil Clown Scare. Now... (I hardly know where to begin on this)... on the plus side, it's the first time in, probably, decades, that clowns, or anything related to clowns, has been the least bit funny. So let's start with that idea. A recent newspaper article offers the following insight: “... an English professor at the University of Buffalo... sees [scary clown reports] as a symptom of clowns' shifting role from makers of mirth to symbols of fear. 'It's just further evidence of the fact that clowns as figures of fun and childhood are an exhausted phenomenon now. It's far more current to think of them as part of the pantheon of monsters and ghouls'.”

OK, fair enough, as far as it goes. But why the shift? I mean, who decided that it was time for clowns to morph from merry-makers to bogeymen? Some will blame it, at least partially, on Stephen King, and, no doubt, he is a master at making what was once comforting into something frightening. But the movies are full of evil clowns as well, and this goes back a ways, although I'm not enough of a movie buff to identify the first case. (I also note that the European clown tradition, going back to court jesters, presents a far more ambivalent picture, one of an at once comic and tragic figure, a combination of fool, wit, and wise man who can get away with saying (or doing) pretty much anything because he's considered a fool and thus not responsible for his own actions.)

But the term “exhausted phenomenon” strikes a chord. Why is it exhausted? There is certainly just as much “clown-able” material available today as there ever was – or so one would assume. But think back – you “boomers” out there – to the clowns of our childhood and youth (my personal favorite being Clarabelle on Howdy Doody, who was genderless to boot). What did they represent, in the “up tight”, buttoned-down, character-armored 1950s? Aside from appearance – insane outfits, bright colors, huge shoes, tiny hats, makeup, all sorts of props, etc. -- they represented more than simple fun; there are all sorts of ways to represent that. They also represented rebellion... puncturing bourgeois pretense and dignity... getting up in the face of The Man (to use slightly later terminology). They were disruptive... hyperactive... noisy (or eerily quiet)... had bad manners... were vandals in a minor way... and, to sum it up, anarchists. And yes, it's possible to be a social anarchist without being a political one, although the two are nearly always found in the same person, as with many characters out of Dostoevsky. Think of the Marx Brothers: One bonafide clown (Harpo), but they were all social anarchists of the first order – but I don't recall their work as having any particular political message other than broad satire, which could apply to pretty much any political system.

And, quite frankly, the 1950s and much of what the post-war era was, or represented, was badly in need of clowning... of court jesters... of the popping of balloons (real or metaphorical). But then along came the Sixties, and it didn't take long for clowns to become obsolete... or, more precisely, redundant. When you can't tell the difference between a professional clown and half the people you encounter on the street (or at Wal-Mart), it tells you that clowns have taken over, so who needs to hire them any longer? And notice that I said “the Sixties”, and that's 50 years ago, folks – and yet the normalization of clown-ness is still going on. We now have tattoos rather than (or in addition to) “psychedelic” clothing... crazier makeup than anything the hippie chicks ever sported... an entertainment industry overflowing with comedy, semi-comedy, tragicomedy, black comedy, “irony”, satire, and all species of foolishness and acting out. So again, who needs clowns? Or more precisely, who needs traditional clowns, if we're all clowns now?

But that's just part of the issue. What we'd really like to know is why clowns turned evil, and why do they seem to be haunting us today, popping out from behind every fence, wall, and tree? And this, I believe, relates to what is termed “the return of the repressed”. When society, through laws, customs, and – yes – political correctness represses not just certain behaviors but certain ideas and insights, those things can come back in a different form if they are powerful enough. They are not allowed to be seen or heard in public, and the brainwashing can even render people incapable of thinking about them, but that doesn't make them go away. They come out in odd ways, the way dreams can represent, in distorted, exaggerated, or symbolic form, thoughts and feelings that we “successfully” repress during waking hours. This happens with individuals, but it happens for societies as well. It's been pointed out by one writer, for example, that the legalization of abortion was followed very closely by a spate of “monster baby” (or even “monster fetus”) movies, implying that there's a connection. Not only is abortion permitted, but the realization of what it actually is is repressed to the point where it can only come back to the surface in an altered, alien form – a frightening alien, but still more acceptable than the reality.  If it's truly an alien, that enables us to maintain emotional distance while at the same time releasing some of the tension caused by what is an intolerable situation (I would identify it as a blatant violation of Natural Law).

So if the cultural revolution of the Sixties sucked all the oxygen out of the funny clown tradition, why were we left with evil clowns, and why are they seemingly making a comeback in our time? Another way of putting it is:  What is being repressed, and why is it coming back in this form? I think in the most general sense it's based on a combination of absurdity, helplessness, and infantilization. The absurdity part... well, let's get philosophical for a moment and reflect that, according to some writers of old, especially those of an existential bent, life without purpose is absurd, i.e. pointless. And for much of the human race in former times, their purpose, or the ultimate meaning of their lives, was a religious or spiritual matter much more than a material one. And yet we are often described as living in a “post-Christian era”, which really means a “post-religious era”. This is not to say that spiritual needs no longer exist, but they are no longer focused on structured, internally-consistent and coherent religious systems. You have, on the one side, the somewhat vaporous spiritual leanings of the New Age, in which (to borrow a phrase originally applied to liberals by G. K. Chesterton) the problem is not that they believe in nothing, but that they believe in everything. And on the other side, you have the vast portion of the populace that has “given up all that religion stuff” and resigned itself to pure secularism.

Ah, but if only it were that simple! If the religious urge truly is, as Freud contended, a form of mental illness, than setting it aside ought to be liberating – and it seems to be, at least on the surface. And yet no sooner does an individual, or society, disavow religion than it finds a substitute – communism, fascism... psychiatry... economics... evolution... global warming... and so on. And those substitutes have a way of not quite filling the bill; they are, let's say, failure-prone, they don't satisfy, and their idols have feet of clay. But this is not to say that the adherents realize this; if anything, they tend to double down on their philosophical errors, which only compounds the problem and, by the way, makes them even less tolerant of those with differing opinions. (Jail terms for people who “don't believe in global warming”? It's been seriously proposed.)

So if the religious urge is distorted, and we start to worship that which should not be worshiped – which is not worthy of worship – we are laying a seriously absurd groundwork (or anti-groundwork) for our existence. And at times, despite our best efforts, absurdity takes over; we get "outed" by our own unconscious.  And it takes many forms – witness the epidemic of depression in our society, and the epidemic of drug abuse (particularly of prescription drugs, many of which are intended to treat depression). And of course there's nothing new about “games and circuses” -- those perennial distractors from unpleasant truths.

There will be some who are painfully aware of all of this (existential philosophers and certain artists, writers, and movie makers), but most people are not – and yet they are living with it, and it's causing them serious harm. So what bubbles up out of the murk but a symbol of the absurd that is also dangerous – namely the evil clown?  Another way of putting it is that we see, on every side, evil disguised as good. So what better symbol to arise from the unconscious as good and evil combined in a grotesque way?

But we also have to deal with helplessness; this is a political, sociological, and psychological phenomenon of our time, and its symbol is big government. If our basic, if unstated (and unconscious), premise is that we are powerless and helpless, and that our only salvation is an all-encompassing government (AKA totalitarianism), this makes us, in my opinion, less than fully human. And one of the things that most "history" totally neglects is how things got to be this way. I suspect that the traditional American notion of “rugged individualism” is a bit of a myth, but its opposite – the totalitarian ideal of a great, gray, faceless mass ruled by unseen powers – is way more dangerous, not to mention dehumanizing. And yet that is precisely the direction in which we are headed, if painfully slowly compared to some more obviously revolutionary societies (the Soviet Union, Mao's China, etc.).

This process, for us, seems to have started quite openly, and commendably, even – with the government providing a “safety net” for the poorest of the poor... the most needy... and the truly deserving. But guess what -- when something is free the demand for that thing will rise precipitously. People who might have been self-sufficient before, but who feel overworked, are going to get interested... and people who are resentful or just plain lazy will beat a path to the door of whichever government agency is handing out the goodies that day. The result, in the long run, is a system in which the government is intimately involved with every aspect of life, down to the tiniest detail – and a citizenry that can't imagine things being any other way. (This, by the way, is the biggest single problem the libertarians have in convincing people of the merits of their position. Because the political/social/economic model they propose is so remote from the way things are, it sounds wildly unrealistic, the notion being that “you can't get there from here” or some variation like “you can't unscramble eggs” or “you can't turn back the clock”.) (Although it bears mentioning that society did turn back the clock on communism -- at least of the hard-core Soviet or Maoist variety.) 

And yet nothing is free, because the system – the Regime, if you will – extracts a price, and it is likely to include self-respect, self-worth, charity, independent thought, and much else... and that will, in turn, lead to denial (no one wants to fully admit to themselves how helpless they are, or feel). Now you have a contrast, on some level ranging from conscious to buried deep, between how your life is and how it ought to be, and that can, in turn, lead to hopelessness, despair, and, yes, a feeling of absurdity.

Finally, closely related to the helplessness problem is the infantilization problem. What, indeed, is more helpless than a human infant? And yet many able-bodied adults have descended to that level, at least in their own minds, and we have the current phenomenon of people living with their parents well into middle age (for other than purely economic reasons), and the other phenomenon of college students who insist on being quite literally treated like infants. Describing this situation as absurd is an understatement.

It seems that we have accepted, and repressed the awareness of, way more that is at once absurd, dangerous, and evil than would be needed to account for the clown outbreak. And yet most of these trends have been at work for many years – decades, even. So what put it over the top? One only has to look in awe upon the offerings of the two major political parties for election to the presidency. We could call them evil clowns – and many have – but it would be more accurate to say that the sheer absurdity of them and of their campaigns is being repressed by most of the citizenry.  It is being denied the way any Big Lie is denied; rather than face the intolerable and acknowledge it for what it is, they prefer to engage in massive denial. And yet the collective psyche, which searches for truth no matter how much the conscious mind tried to repress it, begins to hallucinate. It creates symbols – living nightmares – for what it cannot deal with in a rational manner. The Evil Clown phenomenon is a waking, living nightmare – but it's still preferable to waking up to the real nightmare of our political system and its mutant offspring.

(I'm not the first to point out the “coincidence” between the clown scare and the Trump vs. Clinton circus. I'm just not aware that it's been analyzed in quite this way. If it has, then it's obviously time to start an academic journal devoted to the subject.)

The Sure Sign of a Winner

When I realized that I had a winning Powerball ticket, I was tempted to do what any other right-thinking person would do – namely, run around in circles babbling ecstatically... or treat everybody in the bar down the street to a round of free drinks, price being no object (you want a shot of Johnnie Walker Blue? Go for it!)... or at least pose for a photo with the entire South Asian staff of the Kwik-E-Mart where I bought the ticket. But a cooler head prevailed, and I consulted with a financial advisor who told me, gently but firmly, that dealing with an amount of that sort (four dollars) was below his pay grade. I must say I felt demeaned, dismissed, and belittled! Isn't my money as good as anyone else's? It just goes to show you what happens to the little guy in this power-mad society. He seemed to be saying “once middle class, always middle class”.

So, lacking professional help, I was set back on my own devices. I had to think – what do winners do with their money? And especially, what do “nouveau riche” people do with theirs? My first thought was a Rolls Royce, but upon inquiring I found that the RR firm is back-ordered until 2020 -- I would have to wait in line behind a gaggle of triple-diamond Amway distributors. And on some level I realized that my modest winnings wouldn't even buy the ashtray in a Rolls Royce. In fact, they wouldn't even buy the ashes in the ashtray in a Rolls Royce (assuming that those ashes come from a fine Habana cigar).

But I didn't need that kind of negative thinking in my life, so I pressed on. How about a yacht? Surely there's a sheriff's sale somewhere liquidating the assets of some Russian oligarch who has fallen on hard times (like being in a Russian jail, assuming that qualifies as “hard times”). And after all, if you believe in trickle-down economics, an oligarch-level yacht is guaranteed to employ a few hundred people who might otherwise be selling potatoes on the streets of St. Petersburg. But it didn't feel right, somehow – I 've always wondered how those guys manage to do their yachts justice, since they spend most of their time making more money rather than relaxing. (I feel the same way about extra mansions, ranches, ski lodges, and beach houses, by the way. Really, how much time can you spend in each one? The staff enjoys them much more than the owners do.)

How about a private plane? The problem with that is that private planes have the annoying habit of falling prey to what, in the business, is termed “controlled flight into terrain”. Plus, the pilot would probably be a veteran of the Bay of Pigs debacle, and I wasn't sure I wanted to be associated with that sort of thing. Um... OK, how about jewelry? I love gemstones, and the first place I always go when I'm visiting the Museum of Natural History in Washington, DC is the gem room. But a lot of jewelry design, quite frankly, leaves me cold. It starts with kitsch and only goes downhill from there.

How about a Hollywood-style face lift? Well, at age 71 I'm frequently mistaken for someone who's only 70, so I decided that would be redundant. And when it comes to clothes, well... there was a time when I could have been a body (not face) model for Brooks Brothers, but those days are long gone. Why emphasize the obvious? I can just see the tailor breaking down in tears and dabbing at his eyes with the tape measure he wears around his neck.

So I was at my wit's end, and decided that I might learn something by studying photographs of past lottery winners (the ones who went public, that is). And that effort bore fruit – aha, at last! I have it! If there's one thing that distinguishes lottery winners from the rest of humanity, and which is a sure-fire sign of a winner, it's The Hat. No matter how else they are dressed, and how unfortunate their hair is, and despite having a weight problem, you can always count on them to be wearing The Hat. The minute the winning numbers are announced, The Hat seems to magically appear on the winner's head, as if placed there by a fairy godmother in a cloud of pixie dust. By the time they show up at lottery HQ to collect their beach towel-sized check, The Hat is already firmly in place, and destined to become a permanent fixture. And it doesn't always have to be a particular style, although Stetsons seem to be preferred (no matter what part of the country they're from – the natural assumption being that once you have a lot of money you automatically become a Texan); the main thing is that it be distinctive, and that it shouts (no, screams) -- “I've made it at last! I'm a winner! Look upon my newfound wealth, o ye lowly, and despair!”

So I went in search of The Hat – not just any old hat, but one that would be noticed – on the street, at the opera, the country club, the annual Berkshire Hathaway shareholders' meeting in Omaha... wherever. And I did find it, after much searching. And the price tag was, let's say, quite reasonable, considering what I was buying and its symbolic value. It came to $389, which would have been a tidy sum in my days of penury, but which was now a drop in the bucket. So home I went with The Hat in its own custom-made silk-lined box. Only later did I reflect that, taking the price and subtracting my winnings of $4, I wound up in the hole for $385. But it was well worth it. That brief moment of glory! Those fifteen minutes of fame (OK, fifteen seconds maybe)! (OK, fifteen microseconds, whatever.) But I had the symbol, and isn't that what counts? Now when I go down to the neighborhood bar, I won't be any more able to treat the boys to a round than I was before, but hopefully they will be awe-struck nonetheless. “Now there's a real winner! How do we know? He's wearing The Hat.”

I'm Not Alt-Right, Jack

My attention was recently called to a movement, or phenomenon, or whatever, called “Alt-Right”. As is often the case, this term is used not by the adherents themselves, but by their opposition – and, on a perhaps simplistic level, it seems to, basically, refer to “everyone that everyone else doesn't like”. In this, it shares a pedigree with terms like “fascist”, “reactionary”, “isolationist”, and so on – a way of categorizing, and thus setting apart, a certain group with a certain alleged mindset, and thus making them a handy target of political attacks (and thus a welcome distraction from the real issues of our time, like with a population of over 320 million, how did we manage to wind up with these two freakazoids as presidential candidates of the major parties?). On another level it describes people who feel that history, which is running at warp speed these days, has passed them by. And on another level, it describes the current group of people who have been, or feel they've been, neglected, demeaned, disenfranchised, ridiculed – basically declared non-persons and not welcome in the political arena, since they have nothing to contribute to the dialogue and no coherent (i.e. “progressive”) program. And on a more immediate level, it refers to Trump supporters – and as I've said before, assumes that the Trump phenomenon is something new under the sun... unprecedented... “un-American”... and dangerous.

The salience of this concept can be illustrated by the recent statements of none other than Hillary Clinton, whose “basket of deplorables” consists of those who are “racist, sexist, homophobic, xenophobic, Islamaphobic – you name it.” But she was right on target when she identified Trump supporters as “people who feel that the government has let them down, nobody cares about them, nobody worries about what happens to their lives and their futures, and they're just desperate for change.” Every once in a while the truth slips out, even if it's Hillary who's speaking. Of course, in her mind, and in the minds of her supporters, those people don't count, because their grievances are only imaginary and characterized by “prejudice and paranoia”.

The “Alt-Right” is the basic theme of a recent essay by Thomas J. Main:

http://www.redding.com/opinion/columnists/alt-right-is-real-and-its-dangerous-3b39bf2a-7f9a-6d26-e053-0100007f7e1c-391816411.html

But his definition, if one can even call it that, is a bit of a crazy quilt. It's a hodgepodge, and winds up tossing people of markedly different (dare I say “diverse”?) types into the same basket. But one common element, at least, is that they are people who have been more or less asleep in the political sense but who have now awakened, and who find that the world is radically different from the way it ought to be, and the way they have always expected it to be. So in this sense it's an alliance (if that's not too strong a term) for the shocked and scandalized, but it's also a populist phenomenon of sorts, since pretty much everyone involved comes from the ranks of the people, as opposed to the elite. And by “the people” I don't mean the mythical “people” of communist/socialist/progressivist propaganda, but the real people, “warts and all” -- with all of their frustrations, resentments... hatreds, even. And the perennial paradox, as always, is that in a relatively prosperous society there are nonetheless frustrations, resentments, and dissatisfactions – as if all of the Utopian schemes forced upon the citizenry for over 100 years now have come to naught. Not only that, but the frustrated, resentful, and dissatisfied ones are not the usual suspects – officially-designated and approved minorities – but a class of people who have scarcely ever been on radar, to say nothing of being defined by the Regime. They seem, like all populist movements, to have come out of nowhere – but the roots are deep, and any suddenness about them is largely attributable to their discovery by the mainstream media. (When the faceless and voiceless acquire faces and voices, the servants of the Regime quake in fear.)

We know that “people's republics” serve anyone but the people... and that any “worker's paradise” is more likely to resemble Hell. The first refuge of political scoundrels is to declare that anything they advocate, or do, is aimed at the betterment of the “common man”... or “the people”... or “the children”... or “oppressed minorities”... or what have you. This is a mark of legitimacy that is embraced by anyone seeking office, and seeking power over others, and it sort of provides a protective shield – a Teflon layer, if you will – that insures that nobility of intent will be the sole criterion for merit. Not results, but good will... “ideas”. So whenever disasters befall a collectivist scheme, the excuse is that “we meant well”, and that the failures were not due to flaws in the program but to “resistance by reactionary elements”, and sabotage, and general human perversity and butt-headedness. (Oh yes, and “hate” -- the latest enemy of the thought police.) The Alt-Right, among other things, seems to be made up of people who question these premises, or – if they believed them at one time – have now awakened to the fact that it's all a scam.

Another alleged characteristic of the Alt-Right is that it's not confined to any one nation or society. Alt-Right murmurings (and more) can be detected (by the finely-tuned instruments of outfits like the Southern Poverty Law Center) in Europe – all the way from Ireland to the Russian steppe. I'm not aware of any particular Alt-Right activity in Latin America, sub-Saharan Africa, Asia, or the Islamic world, but fear not, if it's there it will be discovered and rooted out by the never-sleeping organs of the Regime. (In this sense, it, again, appears to be a phenomenon not unique to prosperous, “western” societies, but definitely found in abundance there.)

The problem the critics of the Alt-Right have is that there is no single organization they can put their finger on – no tower of power – no master control center. And in this it does resemble populist movements down through history. I mean, was there ever a Tea Party or Occupy “headquarters”? A single strongman dictating policy and political action? Not that I'm aware. This is not to say that, once a political trend is detected, there won't be plenty of people anxious to jump on the bandwagon and pretend to be in charge. It's just that monolithic oppression of any sort (political, economic, social, etc.) doesn't necessarily lead to monolithic opposition. What it does lead to is a reaction, if not an outright rebellion, and that, in turn, is based on, quite frankly, human nature. Just because a lot of people think the same thing at the same time doesn't mean that a “conspiracy” is afoot, any more than a famine creates a conspiracy of hungry people. People react a certain way because they are people – and the “out group” (to resurrect an ancient sociology term) reacts in a certain way to the “in group”, and this reaction tends to have common elements wherever it occurs.

So is the Alt-Right just a variety of populism? Well, it might be, if we allow for populism to have more flavors than Baskin-Robbins. But there are so many manifestations, and so many sources of discontent, and so many grievances, that to call it a single movement (a “vast right-wing conspiracy”, if you will) is to oversimplify in order to facilitate dismissal.

Having said all that, let's look at some of the alleged earmarks by which (according to the article, which is, admittedly, a sample of one) we can immediately, and unambiguously, detect a member of the Alt-Right and thus annihilate them with some sort of death ray before they spread like the pod people in “Invasion of the Body Snatchers”. These are general impressions, of course; how could it be otherwise when the group is so ill-defined?

* Do they “... reject American democracy?” I'm more inclined to believe that they are the true democrats (with a small “d”). They don't see themselves as a minority, but as a sort of vanguard, and if the rest of the country would only wake from its stupor it would agree and join them.

* Are they “anti-Semites”? Well, it depends on your definition. I don't see them attacking Jews in the United States, or anywhere else, for that matter. What they might do, on occasion, is express skepticism as to Israel's policies in the West Bank and Israeli influence in American politics. So if this is anti-Semitism, the shoe fits – problem is, a lot of Jews in the U.S. and in Israel feel the same way. So are those Jews anti-Semitic? (Maybe they're just “self-hating” -- that's an easy out.)

* Are they “racists”? Who knows what's in their heart of hearts? But the label these days is typically applied either to the police (many of whom are black, which is odd) or to those who are skeptical about our immigration policies – said policies being fairly recent in the scheme of things. (A real (alleged) racist would still be griping about affirmative action and quotas, and I haven't heard a peep about those issues in a long time, although they are still very much with us.)

* Are they “protectionists” when it comes to trade? Well, so are a lot of businessmen, union members, farmers, etc. Can it be that they are all, therefore, “Alt-Right”?

* Do they oppose feminism? I'm not even sure what that would entail any more. The feminists have completed their long march through the institutions and have won every battle they have fought, except for the “mother of all battles”, namely the ERA. But when's the last time anyone, from either major party, mentioned the Equal Rights Amendment? That seems to have been relegated to “old news”, and besides, pretty much everything the ERA was supposed to fix has been fixed – either by the courts or through executive action and regulations. We now have women going through Ranger training in the Army, and I don't see too many people picketing the Army bases where that training is taking place. So what's left? The only major exception I can think of is the abortion issue, but is that synonymous with feminism? Someone else is going to have to answer that one. In any case, I suspect that Alt-Right adherents may oppose feminism as a concept or a movement, but there is, frankly, not much left to oppose in terms of actual law or policy, so how big an issue can it be?

* Do they oppose “diversity”? Well, as I've said before, diversity is more a fact than a movement – and, frankly, the promotion of “diversity” is, by and large, a scam. It's a way to get everyone, regardless of background and traditional loyalties, to sign on to a politically-correct, collectivist, gray uniformity. I'm all for genuine diversity the way I'm all for a four-season climate, but this faux “It's a Small World After All” diversity makes my gorge rise. In this case, I expect that, again, an Alt-Right type might oppose “diversity” as a government program even if they take it for granted on the practical level.

* Do they oppose “gay rights”? Possibly some do in principle, but in everyday life I doubt if it has a whole lot of impact unless you're in the wedding cake business. Overall, I suspect that Alt-Rights are a lot more into “live and let live” than any liberal.

* Do they oppose globalism? Not so much on principal but in terms of plain old jobs and wages. The steel worker whose job was moved to India probably has any number of gadgets, appliances, etc. -- not to mention a car – made overseas. It's only when it hits your wallet that it starts to hurt. Call it hypocrisy if you like, but there it is, and it's pretty ubiquitous.

* Do they oppose gun control? I doubt if they oppose all gun control, the way certain anarchists do when they pronounce themselves perfectly cool with toddlers with Uzis. What they do oppose is the gradual noose-tightening that is taking place, and what they feel is the government's agenda behind it, and in this I do not blame them. Rendering the people helpless against the government, and against criminal elements (assuming there's still a difference), is a major building block of totalitarianism.

* Do they oppose civil rights? That issue is, once again, pretty old news unless you're talking about the absurdities of school bathrooms and gay wedding cakes. Maybe if they just said they oppose “stupid” they'd get more of a hearing.

* Are they “white nationalists”? Well, this is pretty much the same as asking if they're “nationalists”, which is akin to asking if they're patriots. The United States, for good or ill, is a nation founded by, and for the benefit of, white people, and it continues as such if you consider not domestic policy but foreign policy. When we “project (military) power” to the four corners of the globe, what kind of power are we projecting? Black power? Hispanic power? Diversity power? No – it's the same old testosterone-laden white male power we've always projected. What is empire building (AKA “spreading democracy”) but a program for converting the entire world to the white American (Anglo-Saxon, even) way of thinking and doing things? In this, of course, we are failing miserably, and the intelligent thing to do would be to give it up, but that idea is one whose time has not yet come – and may never. The American Experiment might go gently into that still night the way Soviet communism did – but it may also end with a cataclysm.

This is the point at which Professor Main accuses the Alt-Right of being anti-American, which, for anyone with a sense of history, is a laugh. Racism has been with us from the founding – and it's still with us to some extent on the domestic front, but blatantly on the foreign policy front. Oppression of minorities, discrimination, persecution... all too American, if history is any indication. In the strict sense, it's globalism that's anti-American (and anti-nationalistic), and that may be a good thing, or it may not, but let's get real about our terminology and our history (and our heritage).

A broader question is as follows: Given that America started out “white”, and remained so right up to the 1960s (if we're talking about laws and about the dominant culture), does this mean that it should stay white (by and large), or just meld into the universal, global, coffee-colored planetary melting pot? (The same questions are being asked in Europe these days, with much more urgency.) My personal opinion is that what will happen will happen, no matter how any individual or organization (or non-organization) feels about it. One can protest, and resist, and carry picket signs, but there are certain trends that, historically, simply happen. No one can stop them; they might be able to slow them down at times, or divert, or redirect, but the inevitable is, well, inevitable. So in this sense it's a losing battle, which means that whoever is fighting it ought to focus their energies elsewhere. Besides, who knows, the results might turn out to be very interesting; there are many indications of this already. When you allow real diversity, rather than the NPR/PBS type, cool things start to happen. (And un-cool things start to happen as well. Is it worth the risk? I would say yes, overall – but the question is irrelevant since the process is well underway and cannot be stopped.)

Finally – and here's another laugh for you – he says that “The Alt-Right represents the first new philosophical competition to liberalism, broadly defined, since the fall of Communism.” Um.... I guess he hasn't heard of either paleoconservatism or libertarianism, which, arguably, although they had precursors before the 1990s, have come into their own as distinct movements since then, in response to neoconservatism and collectivism. And they are, unlike the Alt-Right, coherent points of view with an extensive literature (philosophical, political, and economic), known and respected leaders, and actual programs (workable if never allowed to be tried).

So I guess, for my money, I'll stick with my position, which is a hybrid of paleoconservatism, libertarianism, and traditional Catholicism. Although I sympathize with the distress of many of the Alt-Right crowd, and understand where they're coming from and why, until they come up with something more coherent and less half-baked I'll leave them to their own devices. But unlike Prof. Main, I don't believe they are “dangerous”. They are, after all, a minority and are likely to remain so – and they have no political power and no influence over those in charge. The Trump candidacy is an anomaly, and it will fade as the morning dew and be forgotten except as a footnote to history. The problems, grievances, and issues will remain, of course; there will always be those who feel left out, disenfranchised, and belittled – and that's just what happens when people gather together in large groups and start to abuse the concept of majority rule. There is always an out group; it's just a matter of who is out, and why, at any given time.

It's Our Party and We'll Die If We Want To

They could have stopped him, but they didn't. I'm referring to the Republicans and Donald Trump. There were plans afoot, right up to the convention and a day or two into the convention, to pull a fast one – enact some sort of change in the rules – whatever – anything to keep Trump from being the nominee. But it all collapsed; it became a non-story, a non-event, literally overnight.

And now, since that didn't happen, they are left with pathetic whining and empty threats to – at this point! -- choose someone else (to run on what ticket, pray tell?), or even to form a temporary third party. But this is all, in my opinion, an anemic attempt to save face – to basically say “Trump does not represent the Republican Party, even though he won its nomination (in accordance with rules which we could have changed, but didn't).” Well, fine – he may, in fact, not represent the mainstream or establishment Republicans, but he certainly represents all those who voted for him in the primaries, and they seem to constitute the majority of voting members of the party at this point in history.

But that is precisely the point. Trump won the primary race thanks to a populist insurgency -- a movement which he, basically, inspired. Where were these people before Trump came along? They were out there, clearly, but they had no voice – they were the forgotten, the disenfranchised, the ignored, the mocked and ridiculed (by the media and the liberals), and the generally shat-upon. So Trump became, literally, a rabble-rouser, and it was that rabble that temporarily took over the Republican Party by sheer force of numbers and energy. There's nothing like the politics of victimization to turn the powerless into the (temporarily) powerful – and since the Republicans are traditionally the party of non-victims, this was something the establishment did not foresee and had no way of dealing with once it occurred.

Now, I hasten to add that this particular populist demographic was not, and should not be confused with, the “Tea Party”, although there might have been some overlap in personnel. The latter was, basically, a conservative movement within the party; it made the country-club types uneasy, but they were willing to tolerate and work with it. The Trump crowd, on the other hand, makes the country-club types hold perfumed hankies up to their patrician noses; they really are beyond the pale, and “not our kind”. If the Tea Partiers were the county clubbers' churchgoing cousins (you know, the kind with wrinkled suits and big hair), the Trump crowd are all the black sheep of every Republican family rolled into one. They're the equivalent of Cousin Mike, who shows up at the family reunion on a Harley with a case of Pabst Blue Ribbon strapped to the back seat.

And the reasons are not hard to understand. The Republicans have been, as long as anyone can remember, the party of the contented... the complacent... the smug... the satisfied... the party of those who've made their pile and thus want nothing more than to hold onto it and keep it out of the hands of the unwashed masses. You can call it “conservatism” if by that you mean keeping things just the way they are – with, perhaps, an occasional bone thrown to the underclasses in order to keep them at bay (or at least confine them to the Democrat-operated inner cities where they belong). (And who says that it's only the Democrats who “need” the inner cities with their captive constituents? The Republicans need them too, the same way they need jails – to keep the proletariat contained.) But this is conservatism with neither compassion nor principle; it's a holding pattern, and it's phobic whenever confronted with actual ideas (which is why the Tea Partiers were regarded as being a bit out of control – because they actually had what amount to ideas in these times of conceptual vapidity).

And then along came Trump and his rabble army – and when you think about it, they didn't necessarily even have to be Republicans. After all, Trump and Bernie Sanders probably have more in common than Trump and the mainstream Republicans. But aside from that, Trump is not, after all, a man of ideas or of principles – to say nothing of “theory”. He is, when you get right down to it, fairly pragmatic in his goals, if vague as to the means of achieving them. He's not much for slogans, and is certainly not interested in demagoguery of the typical liberal/Democrat type, or bland speechifying of the typical Republican type. Heck, he doesn't even talk in rhymes like Jesse Jackson, or put on different accents depending on his audience, like Hillary. If you get beyond the offhand remarks and quips (AKA “gaffes”, according to the MSM – and why is it that when Biden says crazy stuff, he's just good ol' Uncle Joe, whereas with Trump it's taken as evidence of madness?), you find a lot of common sense – and that is, in fact, what his supporters are looking for. They've had the lifeblood sucked out of them by people with “ideas” for decades now, and are just looking for someone who “gets it”, as Trump seems to do. (And I don't mean “getting it” in the “I feel your pain” sense, a la Bill Clinton, because it was obvious that he didn't feel anyone's pain, and even if he had would not have cared.) Plus, Trump has the added quality of being politically incorrect, to the maximum extent possible without being literally driven out of town (although he has come close at times). And this is something that naturally appeals to anyone who considers themselves a victim of political correctness. The old-time radical goal of “épater le bourgeois” -- shock the middle classes – has taken on new life, and from an unexpected quarter at that. Now it's not so much the middle classes per se that need shocking (although that's also true) but the complacent subset represented by the Republican Party mainstream. (And their complacency is particularly puzzling considering that they have long since lost the culture wars and most of the big bucks are going to the Democrats. Which causes one to wonder, what's left? What do they stand for, anyway? (I think the answer should be clear by now.))

So with all of this in mind, why is Trump so anathema to the Republican establishment? Why are they openly plotting against him – openly hoping he loses? Well, it's because he, basically, stole the nomination – snatched it right out of their pale, limp, lifeless hands. But they let him do it, and why was that? It was, basically, to teach those populists – that rabble, that doesn't belong in the party anyway – a damn good lesson: This is what happens when you try to turn the party of complacency into some kind of “people's” party... some kind of rag-tag outfit that talks about change, and reform, and all that radical stuff. Another way of putting it is that Trump is trying to turn the Republican Party into a Democratic Party for the white working class – and that can't be allowed to happen. (And yes, I know, the Democratic Party represented the white working class for many years, but they decided at some point that their fortunes lay more with the “rainbow coalition” -- a multiplication of aggrieved minorities under the supervision of “intellectuals”, academics, and media and Hollywood trend setters. So the traditional Democrat constituency became orphans. Some of them were corralled by Nixon with his “Southern strategy”... others by Reagan... and now it's Trump's turn.)

The problem with all of this is that the Trump camp is a minority within a minority. Not only do they not belong in the Republican Party, but they are a minority in terms of power, influence, and resources – even if they managed to exert themselves sufficiently to get Trump nominated. And the Republicans, in turn, are a minority party on the national level, simply because we have gotten to the point where the takers outnumber the makers – the tax receivers outnumber the tax payers. (And I don't hesitate to place myself in the former category, since I'm on a civil service pension – although I also pay taxes.) We have become, in short, a nation of minorities, most of which are aggrieved, rebellious, and militant – and thus easy pickings for the Democrats, who promise everything but deliver next to nothing (but that doesn't seem to matter since it's the “ideas” that count, and the Democrats are nothing if not the party of ideas – invariably wrong, but ideas nonetheless). (You can see this in the fact that while Obama has done so much for race relations – ahem! -- all that really counts is his being “the first black president”. And all that will really count for Hillary is being “the first woman president”. Results? Let's not get all hung up on that issue.) Ideas are fine things except when they trump (no pun intended) reality.

So the demographics are against any Republican candidate for president, even if they are not against all Republicans in all Congressional districts, state houses, etc. The Republicans could have nominated pretty much anyone to run against Hillary, and they would, by now, be dead men (or women) walking, as is Trump. And that's only pure demographics, and doesn't include the big-city machines that have myriad ways of delivering votes to Democrats – their age-old tactics now in overdrive with the advent of computer-based voting machines. (If it has always been true that it doesn't matter who votes, but who counts the votes, it is more true now than ever.) (At least in the old days it took some considerable physical effort to steal votes; now all you have to do is be in charge of the software.)

The Republicans can “fight back” by concentrating on Congressional races, governorships, state houses, etc. -- and they are, after a fashion. Of course their default platform when it comes to domestic policy is “we're almost as compassionate as the Democrats” -- a sure-fire winner. And when it comes to foreign policy, everyone is pretty much on the same sheet of music across the spectrum – although Trump has come out against “nation building”, which is sure to win him very few fans among the neocons who control the Republican party and have great influence with the Democrats as well. (This may, in fact, be his greatest sin as far as the Regime is concerned – that he seems skeptical about the desirability of expanding and maintaining the American Empire.)

The most recent candidate who represented a true choice among the entire Republican-Democratic array was Ron Paul, and his ideas are either 100 years behind the times or 100 years ahead; time will tell. Rand Paul was a pale imitation at best; he got some things right and other things as wrong as anyone else. Basically, he's a good man but not an idea man, and if anything is going to smash the two-party monopoly (which means a single ruling party with two subdivisions) it's ideas – and not just the usual pap, but real ideas with real consequences.

I should mention also that a prominent argument against the idea that the Republicans allowed Trump to be nominated so that he'll lose and discredit “right-wing populism” once and for all is the Supreme Court issue. Put Hillary in for 8 years (she'll get re-elected in 2020 even if she has to campaign from a hospital bed) and we'll wind up with an iron-clad liberal Supreme Court for the rest of the century, or something. (And BTW, if the rumors about her health are even partly true, is she really going to last eight years? Will I be putting up a blog post entitled “Citizen Kaine” at some point? Time will tell.)

But when it comes to the Supreme Court argument, well... for one thing, look at the success rate of Republican presidents when it comes to Supreme Court appointments; most of them take about five minutes after they don those heavy black robes to wander off the reservation. But the main point is that the Republicans knew – just knew, with absolute certainty – that they couldn't win the presidency this year. So why not try and salvage at least some advantage from what is shaping up to be a debacle? Why not teach those populists a lesson and get rid of them (blaming them for losing the election, of course), and drive them back into those trailer parks and mountain shacks where they belong? Then the “nice”, well-behaved people can take over the party again, and... what? Continue to suck up to the Democrats, even when they are in the majority in Congress? Probably. It's what they do best.

Meltdown Under the Elms

It started with an article in The New Yorker:

http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2016/05/30/the-new-activism-of-liberal-arts-colleges

This got my attention because the college most prominently featured in the article is Oberlin (in Ohio, a bit west of Cleveland). And I admit, nothing in it surprised me because hypersensitivity was a common ailment in the student body when I attended (1963-1967). But it did seem to represent a new low – or high, depending on which metric one is using. Hypersensitivity is one thing, but morbid hypersensitivity bordering on paranoid psychosis is quite another, it seems to me, especially when it seems to infect a large number of people in the same place at the same time. Then it moves into the realm of mass hysteria. But enough introduction.

So after much meditation, I produced a response, which is as follows.  But please read the New Yorker article first, because as bad as you might think things have gotten, they are much worse.

I can't possibly deal with everything that the article brings up – nor are many of these “issues” even worth dealing with, quite frankly. (Once you give people a license to obsess, they will obsess about anything. The point is to exercise discernment as to which issues are actually worth discussing in a public forum and which ones are better left to the psychiatrist's couch. It's, among other things, evidence of the current trend whereby nothing is any longer personal or private – one's life and thoughts are for public consumption and it's shameful in a way to keep them to oneself.)

I'd rather draw back a bit and deal with the broader issue of hypersensitivity, which is a common element in much of what is discussed. I'd rather do that than get “down in the weeds” with each micro-issue – plus, I have a certain historical perspective that I'd like to put into play. I don't think one can understand the current hypersensitivity craze without looking at the socio-political history of colleges and universities in the U.S.; but since the only one I'm at all familiar with is Oberlin, I'll have to confine my remarks to that one place – although, hopefully, some generalization will not be totally out of order. (In fact, since Oberlin is at the vanguard of most social movements – or at least fancies that it is – using it as an example might be much more fruitful than some other college or university selected at random.)

The phrase “reductio ad absurdum” comes to mind. There is nothing new about college students (in “liberal arts” colleges in particular) being thin-skinned, hypersensitive, and easily offended; they were like that in my day too. Or, at least some of them were, and I was always curious as to the difference between the easily-offended types (think of the ones would boo or hiss every time they heard something they didn't like – which was about once every five minutes) and the rest, who were either thick-skinned, or apathetic, or who had better things to do. The sensitive types were the self-anointed guardians of what we now call political correctness; they claimed the right to boo or hiss at anyone whose opinions did not match their own – and the range of issues for which this was true was quite wide (although, arguably, not as wide as the comparable range today -- “ecology” was a brand-new subject back then, and “global warming” was unheard of, just to give a couple of examples).

So what was the difference? Upbringing? Culture? What they had been taught in high school, or by their parents – or rebellion against either or both of those? Or was it just DNA – a “born that way” personality trait? I never figured it out back then, and still can't. One thing I can say for certain is that it was highly correlated with what was called “activism” -- which was, then as now, firmly based on liberal/progressive doctrine. (I say “activism” as opposed to “revolution”, because, although there were some bonafide Leninists/Stalinists and Maoists on campus, they were too small a minority to make much of a difference. But, there were also very few “coat and tie radicals”; most of the activist types I recall were pretty much in the middle of the spectrum. They were, if you will, right out of central casting -- they had the right hair, wore the right clothes, smoked the right dope, protested and demonstrated the right amount, etc. They were, in that sense, “Goldilocks people” -- they had found a comfortable middle ground and pretty much remained there as long as they were able.)

The main point is that many of them hit campus on the first day of freshman year already primed – so it was easy to imagine that they had been born that way. But there were others who were gradually radicalized over time – like the superficial “preppie” guy I knew who eventually wound up in every picket line and in every demonstration he could find. (I don't recall anyone ever being “de-radicalized”, on the other hand – I guess it's some kind of political/social ratchet effect. Maybe it's based on the academic environment, which shares little with the “real world”.) The ones who fascinated me were the ones who showed up on campus already armed with “Das Kapital” and Molotov cocktails; what were they like in high school? In grade school? It's fascinating, really.

I'm describing that landscape (of the mid-60s) in order to establish a context for discussing what's happening now. As I said, the hair-trigger sensitivities were there, as was the chip-on-shoulder, street demonstration attitude. But here's the difference. Back then, there were real causes; very few of these activists were constantly waxing indignant about nothing. One might argue with their motives, but the things they were talking about were real, and they were external – part of the wider world, by and large. (Causes within the confines of the campus were real too, if bordering on the trivial at times.)

And this is not to say that campus activism of the traditional sort is extinct; I'm sure that there are plenty of people and groups agitating for the same or similar causes (and with, most likely, the same degree of success), but that is not the emphasis; it's not what makes the news. What makes the news now is safe rooms, and teddy bears, and “comfort animals” -- as if a large proportion of college students had mysteriously regressed into infancy. And actually, that is a good question right off the bat – were they always this way? Were they raised this way? Or is it more a matter of opportunity, i.e. if one is allowed to, and reinforced for, acting a certain way, then the chances are that the behavior will persist and increase. In this, I'm almost temped to think of it as a variety of mass hysteria, but I suspect there are too many differences to make this a fruitful comparison. What I do think is that suggestibility has a lot to do with it, as does conformity, the need to “belong”, the need for “visibility” or “affirmation”. There is nothing like moving from an at least somewhat diverse high school setting to a hermetically-sealed hothouse campus environment where there is only one acceptable way to think about any given issue. Think of it as a kind of relatively benign prison camp where the same propaganda is blasted out of loudspeakers starting at 4 AM daily and not stopping until midnight. Actually, part of this oversensitivity may simply be a kind of reaction against this political and informational tyranny – a form of PTSD. (This is based on the theory that things get worse for these people once they transition from high school to college – but I admittedly have no data, just supposition.)

I say that legitimate activism is not extinct – or I certainly hope so, because many of the causes were legitimate, as I said. And yet, one is hard pressed to draw a clear line connecting the “classic” activism of old and the hypersensitivity of today. For one thing, are we even talking about the same people? Or is it an entirely new breed? Say what you like about the activists of old – that they were oftentimes thin-skinned, oversensitive, paranoid, whatever – but they did show a bit of durability as well. They would get out there day after day, writing, printing, distributing, demonstrating, protesting... they were not afraid of the world, in other words. (The world was, on the other hand, remarkably afraid of them, which is no longer the case for the current generation.) I don't see the slightest trace of this robustness and stamina among the pajama-clad, teddy bear-clinging crowd; just the opposite. And yet I can't help but at least try to connect a few dots.

The activists of old were, as I said, invariably of the liberal/socialist bent, and all subscribed to the notion of collectivism to some degree – by which I mean not only collectivism in the economic and political sense but in the social psychological sense. The truth, in other words, resided not in the individual but in the group – the collective. In fact, there was no distinction between “truth” and what we now call political correctness; the truth was determined by the will of the people, which was expressed as the product of a dialectic (and, actually, by the social dominance of “agents of change” -- political leaders by and large, but also members of the academe and what we now call the media). But here we encounter a phenomenon that I noted quite often back then, which was that so many of these activists, who presented themselves as altruists and humanists, were actually quite infantile in their personal behavior and particularly their interactions with other people. They may have been demagogues in public, but they were petty tyrants and spoiled brats in private – and this got me thinking about the psychological roots of activism, and of liberalism in general. How many of them really believed in their cause? How many were sincere? And how many had a personal agenda that tended to interfere with, or cancel out, the good the were supposedly doing?

So even back then there was this personal note – this radical subjectivity – that, rather than being overcome, served as a kind of energizer, but which, for that reason, may have corrupted the process. So if you take this subjective tendency and mix it with what Ayn Rand calls “social metaphysics”, plus the general moral anarchy of the time... well, the bottom line is that there were no absolutes, no bedrock principles, and that politics – the will of the collective, however defined – was the highest manifestation of truth (with the perfectly logical result that the word “truth” pretty much went out of use). (I can think of no better example than this: In my day, the consensus was that Israel could do no wrong. Now things have shifted – not 180 degrees maybe, but more than I would ever have thought possible. And yet the facts behind the issue have changed very little in essence. So what brought about the change? Who decided, in other words?)

So, between then and now – did this cluster of ideas, tendencies, and motivations remain within the halls of academe, paralleling the wider culture but not always interacting with it, and eventually manifest itself in the absurdities of today? Or did they flow out into the larger culture, and by an iterative process over many decades flow back into the academe, in a distorted and grotesque form? What, in other words, are college students responding to now? A specific set of premises, facts, and theories – or some sort of aura or atmosphere? Where do they get their cues – their marching orders, if you will? Because in former times it was fairly obvious; in these times, it's much less so simply because of the radical subjectivity of it all.

And – does it even matter on this level of detail? In any case, I think the key is subjectivity. Back then something was true if the group said it was. But then the “group” became fragmented over time into sub-groups and sub-sub-groups, based on ever finer points of identity politics – race, gender, ethnicity, sexual preference, body type, and so on. (We see this brought out very clearly by the article.) And if the degree of fragmentation we've seen so far is acceptable – commendable, even – why stop there? Why be part of a group, however small, that is ever searching for something to be upset, indignant, or offended by, when you can be your own group? The essence of identity politics is, after all, to choose one, or very few, demographic descriptors as the key to one's identity and place in the world, and as a platform from which to protest injustice. But where is it written that it has to stop there? Why not cut to the chase and identify with a group of one – namely oneself? That way, you don't even have to get together with anyone else in order to decide on which issues to focus on on any given day – you just wake up each morning and decide for yourself... or, better yet perhaps, put off deciding until you've gotten a taste of what the world is dishing out that day, at which point you can withdraw back into your shell and claim grievance, unfair treatment, bullying, persecution, and pretty much any form of -ism you like – and who is to argue? If it's all subjective anyway – if there are no absolutes – if it's all a matter of opinion – then why isn't my opinion superior to that of any group? If smaller (social and political fragmentation) is better, then why isn't the smallest unit – me – best of all? Don't I have as many rights, if not more, as any group? Don't I have, above all, a right to feel offended and threatened, since if we're only talking about me, then anything that comes along is an existential threat? In other words, one can put up with threats to one's group because, after all, the group is not identical to the individual – I am more than the group to which I belong (although it would be hard to detect any admission of this sort in the current climate). But if my “group” is me, and no more, then all of my interactions with the world cut to the quick if they are negative – and carry an aura of insecurity if they are good. So the solution, such as it is, had to be to provide “safe havens” where I can recover from the inevitable buffeting I'm going to get the minute I walk out the door – or, even if I stay home, by means of the Internet, TV, books, magazines, newspapers, the telephone, etc. I will exercise non-stop vigilance when it comes to “microaggression” or “triggers”, because, after all, I am an entity unto myself – and yet no more robust or secure than an egg without a shell.

I mean, really, what is wrong with these people? I was certainly not a paradigm of mental health when I was in college, but at least I had enough sense to realize that I was my own worst enemy – that it was not “them” or “the system” that was the main source of my discontent. This sort of fairly basic insight seems totally lacking in the current crop of quivering undergraduates.

It's ironic that there is a traditional American ideal of the independent, fearless, self-actualizing individual who only acts as part of a group when it's convenient, and the rest of the time is a lone wolf. This is part of our mythology as a people and as a nation – and, yes, it probably is a myth, by and large, although we've all encountered people who seem to come pretty close to this description. (We find them more often in literature and movies – and, referring to Ayn Rand again, in her novels.) And yet in practice, it seems like most self-contained people are self-contained for all the wrong reasons. (Note that the word “idiot” is ultimately derived from a Greek word meaning “one's own, private”. So these poor souls who run off to safe rooms at the slightest provocation can could be called idiots.) Any number of patients in mental asylums are king of their own hill. There is a mental disorder in which the individual believes that he is the only thing that exists. (This is a philosophical disorder as well.) But how far is the pajama and teddy bear crowd from this state? Will they recover? Or are they on to something? They are, whether they are conscious of it or not, the personification – the reductio ad absurdum – of liberalism, subjectivism, and all of its political and social trappings. They are victims, certainly – but so are we, if you include the social costs of having to deal with them. When there are things we are not allowed to discuss, we are accepting the tyranny that their helplessness imposes on us – which, I guess, means that they are not so helpless or powerless after all. And maybe on some level they realize that and revel in it.

Russian Gossip

Senator Harry Reid is not exactly enamored of the truth, but he let something slip the other day that is more significant than it might sound. If a Republican had said it, it would be called a “gaffe”, but since the Democrats/liberals invented the term and have declared themselves the sole authority on what is or is not a gaffe, we can't expect the label to be applied in this case.

So according to a Washington Post article (published on July 30), “...Reid has suggested that Trump's murky ties to foreign interests and general inability to not speak his mind should be reason enough for the people briefing him to make things up.” The briefings in question are those provided to presidential candidates by the intelligence community, and supposedly include “classified information about the government and our foreign policy efforts.”

Let's dissect this statement by Dingy Harry (Rush Limbaugh's apt nickname) for a moment. “Murky ties to foreign interests”? I guess that doesn't include the countless millions the Clintons have received from foreign governments in order to gain “access”, whatever that entails. “General inability to not speak his mind”, means, in language used by most humans, that Trump speaks his mind. Imagine! A politician actually coming out and saying, in public, what he really thinks. Pass the smelling salts. No wonder the Washington establishment is worried sick; in the unlikely event he becomes president, he might carry this unsavory habit with him into the White House. It could, for starters, be the death of diplomacy (a skill which Hillary Clinton demonstrated so well as secretary of state, ahem).

But the real gem in all this is the idea of the intel people making things up for consumption by the president, or by a presidential candidate. One would almost think that this is a new idea, and that it's never been done, or even tried, before. Never mind mere candidates; my theory is that, on the contrary, most presidents in our time, since they are figureheads and empty suits more than anything else, have been deceived on a regular basis by the intel people, and probably a lot of others as well (the military comes to mind, but also “lifers” in the State Department and elsewhere). Do you honestly think that anyone is going to share information vital to national security with the likes of George W. Bush? (And what would he have done with it if he'd had it?) I imagine similar things about Clinton (soon to be known as Clinton I) and Obama. Contrary to Bush's self image as “the decider”, I don't think presidents in our time “decide” squat, basically. They are front men... scapegoats, when necessary... and sock puppets for the Regime. Whatever they think they've “decided” has already been decided; the trick is to play along with the game and not let them in on it (although I suspect that some of them finally start to catch on, but by then it's too late). (And what are they going to do, go on live TV and announce to the nation, “I'm nothing but a stooge”? That's not the way their minds operate; delusional systems are way too powerful to put up with a dose of reality of that sort.)

I've long been convinced that the last president who had any real authority, and who exercised it, was Lyndon Johnson. He always seemed to be in charge, and always seemed to be willing to do pretty much anything to get his way... and he had an unmatched ability to intimidate -- in other words the ability to scare everyone else shitless, basically. He was America's last true tyrant. All of those who came afterward were organization men at best, heads of committees, and spokesmen for the Regime... and they were studiously kept away from real people... from the masses, the hoi polloi, the unwashed – just as Trump and Clinton are at present. They are kept in their respective bubbles until the election, at which point one of the bubbles will burst and the other will become even more impenetrable as the next administration gets under way.

So why not tell our illustrious candidates even a little bit of the truth – just a harmless secret or two? You know, to keep up appearances. Well, Dingy Harry's fear is that Trump might blab it to the Russians, and the Republicans' fear is that it might wind up in Hillary's e-mail, and thus in the hands of the Russians. So the Russians are behind both of these people's perceived vulnerabilities when it comes to keeping secrets! Who said the Cold War was over with? Maybe I'd better clear the scrap lumber out of my fallout shelter.

The Ruling Class and its Discontents

A recent op-ed piece by William Rivers Pitt of Truthout celebrates, in no uncertain terms and with more than a touch of gallows humor, the decline and fall of the Bush dynasty as exemplified by the miserable failure of Jeb Bush, who has dropped out of the presidential race. His essay can be found here:

http://www.truth-out.org/opinion/item/35193-please-clap-the-bush-dynasty-has-been-broken

A word of caution is in order, however. At least one commentator has speculated that Jeb, who notoriously stated that his strategy was to somehow win the nomination despite losing the primaries, is being held in reserve by the Republican powers that be, ready to “parachute in” to the convention and save the day – i.e. snatch the nomination away from Trump and Cruz (pushing lesser mortals like Kasich aside like so many dust bunnies, of course). The idea, apparently, is to fit Jeb with a pair of tights, a cape, shiny boots, and flashy headgear, and style him as some kind of superhero whose sole mission is to save the Republican Party. (“It's a bird! It's a plane! It's Bushman!” Oh... wait...)

Well... lots of luck with that, is all I can say. But in this wackiest of all wacky election seasons, who knows? The Republican establishment is certainly acting desperate, and grasping at straws – resurrecting Romney from the political graveyard to do a hatchet job on Trump (which, of course, backfired very badly; they should have left Mitt in the toy store with the other Ken dolls) and cooperating with the Democrats to send rent-a-mobs to any and all Trump rallies.

Now, the immediate revelation from all of this, for those who hadn't already figured it out, is that there is, in fact, only one “establishment”, and it consists of the power structure of both of the major parties. Trump is, if nothing else, the ultimate anti-establishment candidate, since he doesn't care who he offends from anywhere along the spectrum. What counts above all is to preserve the integrity of the establishment and keep it in charge, little matter which party is nominally in power. This is the kind of insight that is normally avoided by maintaining the faux kabuki drama of the election season, in which the parties pretend – like professional wrestlers – to be in dire opposition, when they really are in one accord on nearly all points. But these are desperate times, and they clearly feel that it's worth letting the cat out of the bag – at least on this occasion, counting on the brain-dead electorate to go back to sleep and forget all about what they are now hearing and seeing, like the guys in “Men in Black”. It's a strategy that has worked time and time again, so why not give it another shot?

But there are other implications to all of this, and they should not be overlooked. One is that the power structure – the ruling class – operates in subtle and surprising ways at times; they are more agile than we give them credit for. One would think, for example, that an elite bunch like the Bushes would want to keep their name in lights and to win at all costs. They are, after all, part of the perennial power structure, and they want to keep it that way – or so one would think. And yet even those at the top of the heap have to make sacrifices once in a while; someone has to be picked, when the need arises, to “take one for the team”. Consider, for example, that the Rockefellers, who are indisputably at the very top of the hierarchy (at least in this country), nonetheless feel obligated to offer up some of their members on the sacrificial altar of politics -- with mixed results. Consider that the Kennedys had to offer up some of their sons to the gods of war, and that one of them didn't come back alive. This is all along the lines of maintaining some sort of credibility with the impulsive, delusion-prone American public, who – enamored as they are with “American royalty” -- are nonetheless still a bit resistant to the idea that we have rulers like unto the royalty and nobility of the Old World. The delusion of democracy must be maintained – or at least it has been so far, but it has started to seriously erode of late. And the ruling elite are not – as irritating as it must be at times – completely immune from the requirements and needs of “democracy”; lip service must be paid, even if from their lofty perches, to “the people”, lest “the people” start to murmur, and resist, and even – heaven forfend! -- rebel.

The age of revolution is, of course, over with and long gone... and ruling elites around the globe are no longer in the sort of danger that engulfed the hapless Romanovs, for example... or the Chinese dynasties... or the French aristocracy. We are now in the age of the technocrat... the pragmatist... the globalist (another talking point for Trump)... and are ruled by a centralized power whose main tentacles are not so much armies as banks, stock exchanges, and “defense” contractors. But it is precisely because the trappings and prerogatives of ancient royalty are a thing of the past that control by other means must be maintained – through instruments such as the media, the “entertainment” industry, “free trade”, and the dominance of a vast array of rackets from agribusiness to big pharma, big medicine, prisons, centralized food distribution, consumerism run amok... and all the modern equivalents of the “games and circuses” and “free bread” of old. Empires, in short, do what they have to do, and they do, in fact, have to adjust to the times.

Consider, for example, that there are no longer any “idle rich”; they are nowhere to be found. The richest people on earth nonetheless have to work for a living, after a fashion. Society has been restructured to the point where a hundred years ago you had the working poor and the idle rich, and we now have the working rich and the idle poor. And yet, ultimately, the same people are in charge now who were in charge then, and the vast majority of them are – gasp! -- white men. We can fantasize all we want about “diversity”, and “access to power” by “minorities” of all stripes... and, certainly, the Regime knows how, and when, to throw a few bones out now and then... but the basic hard facts remain the same. Any boy born in a log cabin, figuratively speaking, can rise up in the system to where he is invited to weekend retreats at Sea Island, Davos, Mackinac Island, Bilderberg, the Bohemian Grove... wherever... but despite their feeling of having been anointed, they are, ultimately, tools, poodles, and window dressing... and, most importantly of all, dispensable. (And scapegoats, when the need arises – as witness George W. Bush.) Surely you don't think that once Hillary Clinton, for example, has outlived her usefulness she won't be dropped, along with her reprobate husband, into the Regime's dumpster; it has happened before, and it will happen again. In fact, this could be said to be the case for nearly all politicians and, frankly, all “world leaders”.  More often than not they are tools, lackeys, and sock puppets -- and the puppet masters are the faceless few at the very top – and they are, and remain, faceless for a reason.

But (with all due respect to the conspiracy community, of which I am a member anyway) there is no such thing as perfect control, and the world remains full of surprises. Did any of them anticipate, for example, the rise of militant Islam? Sure, no doubt they are using this phenomenon to their maximum benefit... but their jobs would have been easier if the scales had not fallen from the eyes of the Islamic world (albeit decades after the end of formal, classical colonialism). Did they anticipate the rise of the Internet and “social media” as, not only a tool for thought control of the masses, but as a means by which the masses (some of them, at least) would start to ask questions and connect the dots? Thus, another irritant that has to be dealt with – and we see in the news every day evidence of their exertions to do so.

So yes, “uneasy lies the head that wears a crown” -- or whatever the modern-day equivalent of a crown is (and do not doubt that some of the actual remaining “crowned heads” of Europe are very much participants in this struggle). Plus, we have the natural paranoia that inevitably haunts the very few when they are confronted, in whatever form, by the very many. The mob... the masses... the rabble... are greater in number than they have ever been in recorded human history, their demands are becoming harder to meet (because they keep upping the ante), and they are showing signs of restlessness. You can award some of them membership in the middle class, which is a guaranteed neutralizer... but that still leaves quite a few – a majority, in fact. You can even allow them to, occasionally, have a voice – from the social media right up to the ossified and dysfunctional United Nations – but, again, you're not really solving anything, only postponing the consequences.

And yet, power remains – as it has down through human history – the ultimate narcotic. Better than sex, better than money (although these are, let's admit, universally fringe benefits). To sacrifice people by the million, and even entire nations, for the sake of power, is nothing new – and to hold onto it once it's gained is nothing new. What changes and evolves is the means... the mechanisms... the tools... the iconography... the narrative. Every culture has its myths, legends, and fairy tales – that's a given; that's human nature. It's what people believe – what they are led to believe – that determines outcomes, and those outcomes become solidified into what we call “history”. Once in a while people become more sophisticated, slightly better informed, and more skeptical – and so the means, mechanisms, and tools have to evolve as well, and morph into a new mythology. We tend to forget that not only do power and control go together, they are the same thing. How can you have one without the other? And yet we go around worshiping men (and women) of power, but chafing at the control they exert on us. One consolation, at least – perhaps the only one – is that even the power elite... the ones at the end of every string and binding chain... have to pay their dues as well. The fate of Jeb Bush – a very small person in this grand scheme – provides an example of this, and it may serve as small comfort. 

But he may be down and out, but he's not “out out”, despite Pitt's optimism, so to speak.  Just be prepared for, somewhere down the line, the moment when you hear someone say “they're baaaaaack”.