Yes Kings!

 

Someone once said that the American political system is most curious. We elect a king every four years, and after four years in office that king has to run for re-election. And if he loses, he has to depart without protest and turn his throne over to someone else.

Curious indeed. But think about it – back in 1776, was there a country anywhere on earth that wasn't ruled by a king, emperor, or tyrant of some sort? (I can't think of a single example, but I'll have to check on Switzerland.) So this idea of a monarchy was pretty much universal and pretty much accepted. Even if a monarch was deposed, or even killed, he was soon replaced by another monarch (England being a very temporary exception). So this notion of an ordinary citizen being elected – by the citizenry, no less! -- to the highest office in the land was strange, exotic, and unfamiliar. Of course it was an ideal, held by the humanists and Enlightenment figures who crafted the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution, but it was nonetheless rare for all that. It was, if you will, aspirational – we hope it works, it ought to work, but there are no guarantees (as they freely admitted at the time – let's give them credit for that much). But in a sense they were going against something deeper and more ancient than philosophy. One might say that, despite all the idealism various philosophers can come up with, the “ghost in the machine” is human nature, which is much older than ideas.

A famous line of poetry from Robert Frost is: “Something there is that doesn't love a wall.” We might almost say, “something there is that doesn't love kings”. But on a deeper level, don't we still have reservations about the alternative to kings – that thing we call “democracy”? It's still, in some ways, new, scary, strange, and unsettling. Imagine people – ordinary people – being entitled to choose their ruler? “Ain't fittin'” to quote Mammy in “Gone With the Wind”. And why is this? Human nature being what it is, we naturally tend toward hierarchies, pecking orders, the ruler and the ruled; there is a certain security in knowing that someone's in charge, and that they were put there by... what? Divine right? Some unearthly power? Or simply because they were the biggest SOB in the valley, as the saying goes. In any case, it's the way we think that things were meant to be, and the way they ought to be. And I'm not talking about superficial politics, movements, or propaganda, but the way we are – the way our brains operate. (Anthropologists are fond of studying hierarchies in “primitive” tribes or “native” populations. How often do they find anything that can even remotely be described as a democracy – a council of tribal elders maybe, but the entire tribe having a voice? I would say that's as rare as... well... as democracy as an ideal (vs. the way it is currently defined by its advocates, which means having the “right” people in charge, and everyone else can... well, you know).)

One might say that democracy is an idea, a concept – an abstraction – apparently unattainable, ephemeral, and ambiguous in meaning, and this is why is means such radically different things to different people and groups. People project their own impulses, loves, hates, hopes, and dreams onto this entity called “democracy” in that hope that it will solve all of their problems. Kings (rulers), on the other hand, are solid and tangible. One says “king” with a fairly good idea (based on history if nothing else) of what kings do; the word has a clear meaning. But in these times it's unfashionable to come right out and say that one is in favor of kings, or rulers, or tyrants. So we have instead the spectacle of opposing sides both clamoring to “save democracy”, which really means to get, and keep, the government out of the hands of those other people (even if means corrupting the election process).

And when it comes to protestors of the BLM sort, or Antifa, or No Kings... I have observed elsewhere that an anarchist is only a totalitarian in disguise. And this has held true going back at least as far as the French, Russian, and Chinese revolutions. Our present-day home-grown revolutionaries want to “smash the state” (especially the Trump version), but they have plans – all sorts of plans – for what's supposed to replace it, and it won't have much to do with human rights, I guarantee. (What it will have everything to do with is them being in power.) One only has to see what happens when a far-left candidate wins an election for mayor or governor. The long knives come out in a New York minute (so to speak). But that's OK, since it's all about democracy, don'tcha know. If you wrap yourself in a flag labeled “democracy” you can pretty much get away with anything as long as the right people are willing to cooperate. (Among many ironies, that which is supposed to be majority rule turns out, more often than not, to be minority rule. Some even refer, on a regular basis, to our “ruling elite”, as opposed to elected officials who are assumed – and rightly so in most cases – to be mere tools of the unelected (and often anonymous) ruling elite. And then you have “shadow government” at all levels – think of intelligence agencies – who wield far more actual power than anyone who's out in the open.)

And even if democracy is an unknown ideal, there is a great variety of systems that are called democracies, mostly in order to disguise their real purpose, which is to tyrannize a populace while claiming their popular approval. Think of the fate of so-called democracies over the centuries. Many communist dictatorships were/are called “people's republics” or the “democratic people's republic of...” whatever. France killed its king in the name of liberty, equality, and fraternity, and wound up with an emperor. The “banana republics” alternate on a regular basis between “democracy” and military dictatorship. And on the home front, there is an ongoing debate as to whether we are a democracy or a republic, the problem being that representatives are elected by popular vote, which is actually a hybrid system. The citizenry do not get to vote, in a direct sense, on anything of consequence – only for other citizens who will, hopefully, represent their interests, but who wind up being all too human, i.e. corruptible, at times. (And the bigger government becomes, the greater are the incentives for compromise, deception, and outright corruption. Think about – oh, let's say a defense contractor that can bag a multi-billion dollar contract simply by donating a measly $100,000 to some politician's campaign fund. Talk about ROI!)

Now let's think for a moment about our own home-grown kings, or men who would be king. George Washington was actually offered a kingship, but turned it down. So far so good. But his election and inauguration were marked by celebrations, parades, fireworks, rituals, commemorative songs and artwork, and so on, all of which kind of makes one think of the sorts of things kings enjoy. (He was also given a palace – OK, a mansion – to live in.) So no, the taste for kings – for rulers – had not abated a bit simply because of the Revolutionary War and our victory over England. There was nothing wrong, it seems, with trading a king across the ocean for one right here at home.

Then we have the equally curious phenomenon of “presidential powers”. The president is supposed to execute and enforce laws passed by the legislature, right? (I wasn't sleeping all the way through eighth grade.) And yet, when it comes to war – armed conflict between the US and other countries – the president, as commander in chief, seems to have dictatorial powers.

Ah, but wait! – you might say. Only Congress has the power to declare war. Right? Very true. So... when's the last time Congress actually declared war? The answer is... 1942. So... what were all of these other wars we've fought since then? Well... some were what were euphemistically called “police actions”, some were based on United Nations Security Council Resolutions, some on “Joint Resolutions” or just “Resolutions”. This is the triumph of euphemism. If our troops are dying, and our resources are being squandered, it's a war, no matter what you call it.

But wait! Doesn't Congress have “the power of the purse”? Well... technically yes. But, #1, they can always be intimidated into releasing more funding for pretty much any war the president decides to engage in, especially if a negative vote would put their re-election chances in danger. And if not that, then we have what are called fungible resources. The president can divert funds from pretty much any government program into another, including the military. And besides, our national economy has been on a wartime footing since World War II. There was never a “peace dividend” – that's a myth. We have been prepared for war for over 80 years now. The troops have been in place, the weapons and ammunition were always on hand (and updated on a regular basis), the logistics were ready... all that was required was the green light from the White House. (The last war that took us any amount of time to “gear up” for was World War II. Lesson learned! Always be ready, because a war might start tomorrow.) (This is what the Pentagon calls “readiness”.)

Think about Trump's first term. He became a lame duck on his first day in office, thanks to the opposition (by Congress – including Republicans – and the Deep State), and “lawfare”, impeachments, hostile courts on every level (prior to his Supreme Court appointments), hostility and resistance from our “allies” as well as our “enemies”, and so on. The only thing he had any semblance of flexibility on was the military.

But he learned. During his second term (to date) he has been much more agile and aggressive in dealing with the courts, the Deep State (think DOGE), and Congress – and the “never Trumpers” in the Republican Party don't seem to have the clout they had the first time around. And he has also come to the realization that he can, basically, do anything he wants militarily, and no one can stop him. Wage (not declare) war on Iran? Nothing to it. So we have this completely baffling, and even bizarre, spectacle of a president who is constantly at war with the courts on the home front, but who can take out a very large country overseas single handedly, despite all the breast-beating, hand-wringing, hair-tearing, garment-rending, and protests by the opposition, Congress, the courts, the media, and late-night talk show hosts. He can be thwarted on the domestic front by a pipsqueak mayor or governor, or a judge looking for their 15 minutes of fame, but that's OK, because he can destroy a nation of 90-odd million people. Now tell me this makes sense on any level, and if there's any precedent for it in world history. And yet that is the system we have – or the system that what we started with in 1776 has evolved (devolved might be a better word) into.

And tell me also if there's anyone who really likes it this way, in their heart of hearts. If you say “no kings” then you're basically advocating total democracy, which is the rarest system on earth (assuming it's ever even been tried). If you're saying “no kings except the ones who do things that we like”, then you're advocating for part-time kings, or conditional kings, which are complete contradictions. What that amounts to is nothing more than mob rule.

Another bit of collective narcissism is the notion of being “on the right side of history” (implication: those other people are on the wrong side). Well... it kind of depends on what one defines as “history”. If you look at world history going as far back as any records exist, you have to conclude that, once again, pure democracy either never existed anywhere, or if it did it was little noted nor long remembered (thanks to Mr. Lincoln for that phrase). Iron-fisted rule was, well, the rule. So if one really wants to be on the winning side of history overall, one has to be all in for rulers – kings, in other words. But if one wants to be a “presentist”, or a futurist, or a dreamer of some sort, then current events and trends all have to be seen as pointing in the same direction – toward freedom, liberation, self-fulfillment, etc. – in other words, to Utopia. So to be “on the right side of history” you can simply ignore actual history and become delusional like the rest of the cool kids.

Plus – how will we ever know whether a given person, group, or movement is “on the right side of history” until they become... “history”? And who defines what “the right side” is? Just whoever won? (That's power in raw form. Nietzsche would approve.) And even so, many victories are far from permanent, and historical revisionism is going on all the time, sometimes based on newly-discovered documents but more often on political correctness.

The battlefields of history are littered with the corpses of people, groups, and movements that considered themselves cutting edge – vanguards – pioneers. The national socialists in Germany had delusions of grandeur, for sure – “the master race”, “the thousand-year reich”, etc. Well... it lasted all of 12 years. They thought they were on the right side of history, and many people agreed with them (in the U.S. and England, for example). The Bolsheviks thought they were on the right side of history – the “new Soviet man” and so on. And in that case, there are plenty of people around who think the Bolsheviks really were on the right side of history (you can find plenty of them in university political science departments). I suppose that communism had to somehow “evolve”, and continues to do so; it's certainly alive and well in their heads, and in the heads of large numbers of people filling our city streets with protests and marches.

All of this toying with semantics reminds me of that odd expression “reality-based foreign policy”, as if our foreign policy up to that point was based on something other than reality – which it may, in fact, have been. It would seem that a reality-based sense of history would indicate that we don't have to be pessimistic, but should not be Utopian in our thinking either. What's wrong with taking care of one problem at a time? “Sufficient unto the day are the troubles thereof” (Matthew 6:34)

But again, human nature is such that we want, crave, and seem to need a strong man (or woman) – someone who, when in charge, takes charge – with no apologies, lame excuses, or bogus appeals to “the will of the people”. After all, who are the “great men” of history, the heroes? The peacemakers? The ones who govern by committee? The ones who are obsessed with opinion polls? The ones who have to go begging to some legislature for everything? The ones who let themselves get beaten up by courts and judges?

The answer, obviously, is no. And the amazing thing is that even the greatest tyrants in history are still being celebrated somewhere, by someone – Napoleon, Lenin, Stalin, Hitler, Mao... and who are considered our “greatest” presidents? In almost all the cases, they are “war presidents” – Lincoln, Wilson, FDR, Johnson, etc. – who exercised dictatorial powers on the war front, but whose powers also tended to bleed into the society in general (consider censorship as a prime example, not to mention the military draft and other niceties like internment camps).

So, is there a “bottom line” to all of this? It's obvious that most if not all of these No Kings protesters, “rights” advocates, and anarchists are hypocrites, whether they know it or not. The crave a “strong man” as much as anyone else does, only that said strong man has to be in their image and conform to their expectations. (I've said it before – they should study history and see what happened to the Old Bolsheviks, and many of the French revolutionaries, and those who dared to speak up against Mao. Be careful what you wish for. Revolutions may be energized by idealists, but they are eventually taken over by cynics.)

But, even given all of that, is our system chronically, if not fatally, flawed? Will be always be a sort of freak of nature – a republic pretending to be a democracy which wages war at will on anyone, anywhere on the planet (usually to “spread democracy”!)? It seems that these contradictions should long since have been fatal, and yet here we are 250 years after it all started. (The cynic (or realist) might say that democracy is an idea whose time hasn't yet come, and in fact never will.)

It almost seems as if the “American character”, however one defines it, has proven itself to be durable enough to survive these contradictions. At least so far. But it also seems that the tide of opposition is rising, and it's not just about getting rid of Donald Trump, although his presidency – his very presence – seems to be acting as an accelerant. If he were to somehow vanish tomorrow, the opposition would still be there. The rhetoric might have to be adjusted a bit, but the ideas would persist, as would the degree of energy behind them. And, as always happens throughout history, it's not so much a matter of numbers as of belief, energy, determination, and – more often than not – ruthlessness.

The Politics of Revolution (Part 2 of “How Destroyed Does America Have to Be?”)

Right off the bat, you might say “But wait, that doesn't make sense – isn't revolution what happens when politics don't 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.

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.

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.

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.)

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.

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.

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.

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”.

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.

Now, one might say, but haven't all of our 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.).

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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.

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”.

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.)

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?

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.)

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.

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.

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.)

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?)

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.)

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.)

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.

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.)

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.

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.

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.

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.)

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.)

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.

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.

                                                       -------------- o -------------

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.

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.

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.

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)?

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.

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.)

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).

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.)

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.

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.)

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.

 

The Inflection Point

My previous post (The Blight at the End of the Tunnel, Aug. 12) included some thoughts on revolution in general, as well as how the idea of revolution can be applied to the American experience. One could, in fact, contend that -- starting with the American Revolution -- we have been a revolutionary society all along, the process having proceeded at different speeds and with different degrees of intensity, and with a focus on different aspects of life and culture, but never actually pausing for very long. I referred to the 1950s as a period of a predictable turn toward conservatism, and in fact the 1920s were as well – both post-war times, note, and perhaps reflecting an unconscious need on the part of the citizenry to reassert tradition, normalcy, and predictability. (Note that Warren Harding's campaign slogan in 1920 was “Return to Normalcy”.) But at the same time, these two “conservative” episodes carried within them the seeds of what came after – the New Deal in one case and America's own cultural revolution in the other. And I think part of this is simply the fact that Americans are never satisfied; dissatisfaction and restlessness are hard-wired in the American genome. In times of war we long for peace, and in times of peace we long for war – or, at the very least, some sort of uproar. We're like cats who, when there's nothing around to chase, make up things in their head. Apparently our ideational beginnings gave rise to this, because, after all, Utopia is, by definition, a fantasy and is unobtainable, which means that on some level we are perpetually frustrated and are always looking for a new cure – a new enterprise or project that will either work magic and achieve the Utopia of our dreams, or constitute enough of a distraction that we'll forget about Utopia for a while. And eventually this cycle of frustration and shattered dreams can lead to despair, and that, in turn, can lead to suicidal impulses – not so much for individuals as for the culture as a whole. We start to think that perhaps the answer is revolution, not evolution. Perhaps not only “creative destruction” but total destruction is the answer – and we are now seeing this attitude played out on the streets of our cities on a daily basis.

(I might note that we are always faulting the Europeans for being jaded and cynical. This may be true, but it does save them a lot of frustration and grief. Even the French Revolution, which was ideational in the extreme (they even changed the names of the months), soon devolved into an empire with an emperor. But we press on, and the rest of the world shakes its head just as it is doing now. “When are the Americans ever going to get over this 'saving the world' thing? It's so annoying...")

But can a nation really commit suicide? Well, empires certainly can, and the reasons are many. It can be based on pure fatigue or on loss of political will. It can be based on economics, as when an empire becomes more expensive to maintain than whatever monetary returns it provides. Or, maybe the natives (who are always restless) rise up and start killing people with bullet and sword, and throwing bombs and taking people hostage. It can be based on rising objections and protests on the home front, from both humanists and pragmatists. It can even result from a sense of shame – an awakening to the fact that empires invariably require brutality and exploitation (and no small amount of racism, either explicit or implicit), and are thus demoralizing not only for the occupiers but for people with a conscience on the home front.

But nations are not empires. Nations are – at least traditionally – much more coherent than empires. They are held together by traditions and loyalties, not only to the nation but to – once again – the “eternal verities” like race, ethnicity, religion, and family. So for a nation to allow itself to slip into chaos is a remarkable thing, and yet it happens – and in our time (by which I mean the modern era, socio-politically speaking, which began with the American and French Revolutions) it always happens primarily because of revolutionary ideas, not merely from material need. And as I said in the previous post, this country was especially vulnerable to the idea of revolution because it began with one. After all, once you've decided that the “eternal verities” – those things that have held societies together for all of recorded history – are no longer primary but are of secondary importance at best, then it becomes purely a war of ideas, and who is to say which ideas are better than any others? We talk about “democracy”, for example, as if it were some sort of rock-solid, monolithic principle of sociopolitical existence. But it's nothing of the sort. It is fragile, and indeed rare, in human history, and is not in all that good a state of health in our time either. All you have to do is reflect on the number of countries that – inspired (or coerced) by us – declared themselves democracies, formulated a constitution, and then with nary a pause turned back into dictatorships. Dictatorships, mind you, with constitutions that are completely ignored, and that mouth words about “human rights” at the U.N. (and even criticize us on that count) but could not care less at home.

It turns out that democracy, like some rare plant, needs the right soil in which to grow and flourish or it will fail. And that soil has a lot to do with national character, as I've pointed out on other occasions. The anglophone world seems democracy-prone, or at least not instinctively opposed to democracy. The Hispanic world is disposed to get all excited and enthused about democracy, and to stage a revolution or coup every five minutes in its pursuit, but when they get it they become disillusioned and turn to dictatorship instead (although fist fights breaking out in the legislature do make for interesting television). For Asians, democracy is nowhere to be found in their histories or traditions, and yet a few have tried it and succeeded, probably because they are cultures that are fairly uniform and strong on tradition, so democratic government, if it's a thin layer on top of what was already a healthy approach to governing, seems to be working, but it's really the national character that's doing the work. Africa? Well, tribalism has worked there from time immemorial, but when it's transplanted to nation-states (artificially created by the Europeans, not unlike what occurred in the Middle East) it turns monstrous and human catastrophes – up to and including genocide – occur. Then we have Eastern Europe, where democracy is also a new idea after centuries of kings, emperors, and czars, and – once again, based on national character – sometimes it takes, and sometime it doesn't. (Reflect on the fact that even communism, under the iron boot of the Soviet Union, had different characteristics in different Warsaw Pact countries. In Yugoslavia it was relatively relaxed, whereas in East Germany it was like a Fourth Reich.)

So yes, this novel idea that the ancient Greeks came up with (and the modern Greeks can't make work no matter how hard they try) went underground for centuries, then suddenly reared up out of the tomb as a result of the Renaissance and the Reformation, and was transplanted from philosophers' studies in Europe to Independence Hall in Philadelphia. And with this scant pedigree, it was declared an idea for the ages, and the answer to all human woes and longings.

So we know the Founders were already defying human nature. They would have none of this “fallen world” and “original sin” nonsense – man was free to create, and re-create, himself at will. And yes, there was skepticism even among the believers – but it was considered worth a try. A noble venture – and maybe we shouldn't complain if it took nearly 250 years to come a cropper. (Some will say that our dues-paying is overdue. But that may be a moot point at this point. The revolutionary genie is out of the bottle. He's big, bad, and ready to kick butt.)

The problem with history is that it's not like a video tape that you can put on rewind, do some cut-and-paste editing, and try again a different way. We have to live with whatever happens. Whether the American Experiment was a success depends on one's perspective – would things have been worse if we hadn't declared independence from “Old Blighty” and struck out on our own? I don't sense that Canada, Australia, and New Zealand are suffering unduly. And they certainly don't have even 10% of the problems and crises that we suffer through all the time – and yes, they too are “nations of immigrants”. (But, and by the way, they never saw fit to pursue the mirage of empire, and that may, as much as anything else, be a reason for our current situation.) (“Canadian Empire”? It's all they can do to hold on to Quebec.)

All I know is that if you ask the average “man on the street” in, say, downtown Seattle, or Portland, or Minneapolis, or Chicago, or New York, they'll tell you that America sucks, and was a mistake from the beginning, and should be done away with. Quite a shocking verdict for what was supposed to be an experiment in building the ideal society.

So let us now turn back to revolution. Democracy has always been a revolutionary idea, and so has socialism, and so has communism – so it's easy to see how these are often confused in the fevered imaginings of “poly sci” professors and their students. If some power to the people is good, than all power to the people must be even better, right? The problem is that the more power is turned over to the people, the more likely it is that said power will be appropriated, organized, consolidated, supervised, and dominated by would-be dictators. Take a cue from language. “People's republics” are always dictatorships. “Republics” may or may not be, depending. A “democratic republic” is sliding in the direction of totalitarianism. A federal republic, on the other hand, is the most structurally resistant to tyranny simply because power is at once distributed among the populace but also concentrated at different levels in elected officials who are, ideally, answerable to the public. So we have a balance between the absolute tyranny of the tyrant and the more subtle tyranny of absolute, or pure, democracy. A perhaps cynical, but still accurate, way of putting this is that the ideal government is one of mutual distrust between the leadership and the citizenry, which necessitates checks and balances between the two, not to mention maximum transparency. (Throw in term limits if you like; I sure would.) So our conservative leadership frequently talks about “mob rule”, and populists talk about the “ruling elite” – and the thing is, they're both right. The difference is that mob rule has a short half-life; it is a political mayfly and is soon replaced by tyranny, whereas the ruling elite has staying power because they gradually take over all the instruments and means by which leaders are selected.

As I said, the concept of revolution, the very idea, is of relatively recent vintage, and I trace it to the American Revolution, which, in turn, inspired the French Revolution, although they had different results, to put it mildly. But what all revolutions have in common is that they aim to destroy the old system, root and branch, and replace it with something better – more humane, more compassionate, more fair, etc. – you know the drill. When it comes to the old system, they – to paraphrase Jesse Jackson – want to end it, not mend it. There are many other common elements, but this is the most important – it's the driver, the energizer, the sine qua non of revolution. But, having said that, it's also the case that revolutions come in two major types – revolution from below, and revolution from above.

It's revolution from below that constitutes the stereotype and which people find inspiring – the oppressed masses spontaneously rising up against the oppressors, storming the Bastille, leading kings and emperors to the gallows, and so on – all excellent movie material. Rag-tag revolutionaries waving red flags, setting up barricades, torching buildings, stealing from the bourgeoisie... hmm. It's starting to sound kind of familiar, isn't it?

But then what is revolution from above? In a sense, all revolutions are revolutions from above, because as I said in the previous post the oppressed masses are not theorists. They are not “idea people”, and they don't have a plan or a program. This is left up to the rabble-rousers and activists, and they, in turn, are the products of the universities and of the rarefied environment of radical political and economic thinking that is most readily found in shabby coffee houses in the bohemian sections of the city (or, more recently, in faculty lounges and seminar rooms). So the vector, the arrow, goes from the academe and intelligentsia directly to the people without being routed through the government as in the case of the New Deal.

But that's not what I'm referring to, and in that case “above” only refers to the educational/intellectual continuum. It's when political leaders themselves foment, aid, and abet revolutions – apparently against their own government and power structures – that the paradox comes out in bold relief. The New Deal was a revolutionary regime, in a sense, and it was shot through with communists, but I don't think its functionaries had total destruction on their minds – after all, where would that have left them? Even if they wanted the United States to become a people's republic, they expected to achieve this by means of evolution rather than revolution, and – most importantly – to keep their jobs. Another way of putting this is that the New Dealers had radical notions, but they were also pragmatic enough to know when to put on the brakes.

So revolution from above is the exception rather than the rule, without a doubt. And it is a much more recent phenomenon – so recent, in fact, that I would almost say it was invented by Chairman Mao. At a certain point, he had tremendous, but not yet total, power... he had long since taken over all of China... and yet he was dissatisfied. And he felt that reactionary elements were creeping in – vestiges of the old order, of tradition, of thinking other than his own – and he decided that to preserve, and further refine, the purity of the revolution, and solidify his power, he had to take steps. So he did what revolutionaries always do, or at least dream of doing: First, define a crisis – a problem that needs fixing – and then recruit, or assign, vast hordes of mostly youthful, but fanatically loyal, followers to stage demonstrations, close down universities, put their professors on trial for “reactionary tendencies”, and generally run amok throughout the country for years, hunting down the last vestiges of the old ways – traditions and symbols, art and literature, anything with a cultural stamp on it – and get rid of them. Thus, the Cultural Revolution and the Red Guard. And yes, on frequent occasions they would check back with the Great Leader for guidance, and hold massive rallies and parades (with the omnipresent accordions), and the rest of the time they had the Little Red Book of his thoughts, which they held in their iron grip the way a tent-revival evangelist holds the Bible.

It's a truly fascinating episode, and worth study because it's being re-enacted before our very eyes by Antifa and the militant wing of Black Lives Matter. And yet there are Chinese senior citizens today who wax nostalgic about that era, the way veterans of the Spanish Civil War wax nostalgic, or someone who was out on the street during the 1968 Democratic convention in Chicago, or even “Were you at Woodstock?” It was a youth movement, basically – but youth are seldom, if ever, self-guided. (I suspect that even the Children's Crusade of 1212 was overseen and manipulated by cynical adults.) Youth have energy, determination, idealism, and they are driven by emotion... and they are fair game for anyone who wants to exploit them for any reason. In the case of Antifa, we have a bunch of skulls totally empty of everything except cauldrons of frustration and rage. They are the ideal foot soldiers, but you don't want them sitting around the conference table – and forget about any invitations to Davos, Martha's Vineyard, or the Bohemian Grove.

Mao knew that the rising tide of chaos would never reach his level – and this is an important point, and extremely relevant to our current situation. It would reach, and engulf, the universities, and would help clean out the last vestiges of the old ways – the reactionaries – from the bureaucracy. And it would also help Mao solidify his grip on all cultural aspects of the country, particularly the ones that had traditional roots, like opera. Because if you erase culture and tradition, the citizenry become helpless, vulnerable, and dependent, like so many eggs without shells.

But here's the interesting part. Once the youthful masses had done their work – after the last parade, and after the big-character posters had started to weather and fade – the Red Guard was disbanded, and anyone who protested was dispatched by the People's Liberation Army with an efficiency that made liberals world-wide gasp in wonderment (and not a small amount of fear – if it happened to the Red Guard it could happen to them). In other words, the foot soldiers of the Cultural Revolution were not rewarded the way American Revolutionary War soldiers were with land “out west”. They weren't provided sinecures in government like so many of the Soviet bureaucrats (or those of the New Deal). They were simply eliminated, because they had served their purpose. They had, in a sense, imposed a “final solution” on bourgeois elements in society. China was now pure. It had workers and peasants (many of whom made a regular habit of starving to death) and the controlling elite – the two-class system which is the ideal of anyone with totalitarian dreams. Not only was the socioeconomic middle class gone (this had been accomplished years earlier) but middle class thinking and habits were also extinguished along with the traditions that middle-class people tend to “cling” to. Mao came out on top as supreme leader, and happily assumed life-and-death power over 800 million people. He thus became not only the most powerful man in Chinese history, but the most powerful man in world history as well. When Nixon paid him a visit in 1972 he was actually dating up.

If you have the time, I urge you to study the history of the Red Guard (you can start with Wiki – it's OK, I won't tell) and marvel at the parallels between them and Antifa and the militant BLM. And if history repeats itself even slightly, you can expect that, once our home-grown “anarchists” have done their work – i.e. destroying our urban centers so they can be “re-imagined” as centers of a Soviet-style system – they will be dismissed, and if they refuse to be dismissed they will be eliminated. (It's no accident that the Democrats have nominated Kamala Harris – an ass-kicking, merciless law enforcement type – to be vice president. I would fully expect her to be put in charge of such an operation, and for her to be way more efficient than Janet Reno.)

And so we see that Mao, who was an absolute lunatic when it came to economics and central planning, was a political genius of the first water who makes our current crop of leaders and politicians look like babes and sucklings. It's small wonder that his well-fed face is the one that graces so many art gallery walls, coffee-table books, and T-shirts (I haven't see the bubble-gum cards yet, but I'm sure they're out there). There is nothing new in human nature about worshiping power, and it matters not how that power was attained or the amount of suffering required for its attainment. (Note how readily Americans convert villains into heroes – Jesse James, Billy the Kid, Al Capone, John Dillinger, Bonnie and Clyde, and so on. There may be a Mount Rushmore made of stone for “socially acceptable” American heroes, but there is also a Mount Rushmore of the mind for the other kind. And new faces are being added with each passing day – not mentioning any names, of course.)

OK. So now it's time to get more specific about the parallels between Mao's Cultural Revolution and our own revolution, or let's say its final stages which are playing out at present. And also between the foot soldiers – the Red Guard for Mao and Antifa/BLM for our ruling elite. The first step is always to either identify a crisis or create one. For Mao it was a lack of ideological purity among the bureaucracy and academics, and a general clinging to tradition on the part of the citizenry in general. For our ruling elite, the first crisis was, of course, the candidacy, nomination, election, and administration of Donald Trump. This crisis didn't have to be invented or, ahem, trumped up – it was a true existential threat to the interests of the ruling elite, if not to their very existence. Among those interests – well, see Galaxy B in the previous post – but prominent among them would be:

• Elimination of national borders

• Unlimited immigration (no longer defined as legal or illegal)

• Gradual takeover of the business sector by large international businesses, and the elimination of small business (ditto small farms, this process already being well along)

• Elimination of the middle class through taxation and inflation

• World government, a world economy, and a world currency

• “Pro-choice” policies, primarily for population control (both domestically – focused on minorities – and overseas – focused on the Third World)

• Radical environmentalism

And among the techniques to further those aims would be:

• Emphasis on “social justice” and collective, multi-generational guilt

• Opposition to gender roles and even to the concept of gender

• Hostility toward individual rights and private property

• Strict government programs and controls to insure equal social and economic outcomes

• Radical redistribution of wealth via taxation and confiscation (not intended to impact the ruling class, no – the redistribution would occur from the middle class to the lower classes, with the ruling elite extracting a “handling fee” along the way)

• Promotion of identity politics

• Use of science as primarily a political tool

Another very telling similarity between Mao's Cultural Revolution and what is going on now, i.e. an earmark of revolution from above, is that cultural symbols are among the last things to fall (literally in the case of statues). Note, among the traditional “memes” of revolutions from below is the pulling down of statues, and it's almost the very first thing that happens. First you get a mob led by a rabble-rouser, and the next thing you know they are pulling down statues of the leader (king, emperor, czar) and of high-ranking military officers, and of historic figures. This is the first shot fired, as it were. But revolutions from below also tend to be relatively precipitous in terms of visible manifestations, and they progress through countries at a fairly rapid rate. In Mao's case, the revolution (the second Chinese revolution, in fact) was a done deal and things had, apparently, settled down into a kind of routine, but as far as Mao was concerned the revolution was not yet over (he called, in fact, for “continuous revolution”), and among the things still needed was the destruction of cultural remnants of the pre-revolutionary period. So down came the remaining temples, tombs, works of art, libraries, and so on. In the present case – and as a sign that the revolution is in its final stages – we are at the point of tearing down statues – not just the obvious ones (Confederate generals) but also statues of the Founding Fathers, Lincoln, and religious figures. So what seems like the beginning – and you'd think so if all you ever saw was the nightly news – is actually the beginning of the end.

So if we have the goals and techniques of our current revolutionaries roughed out, who are “they”, anyway? In Mao's case it was easy; it was him, and a few loyal henchmen. For us at this time it's not so simple, but let's give it a shot.

The list would certainly include the moguls of Silicon Valley, communications, and e-commerce... and certain other large corporations (but not the old-fashioned ones like manufacturing), and globalists of all stripes, George Soros being the most prominent but there are plenty of others whose efforts are not as obvious or overt. (And by globalists I don't just mean the home-grown type. Anyone on the planet who qualifies and who has a vested interest in the socioeconomic fate of the U.S. qualifies.)

Now – you may be asking -- what about the “social media”? What about Hollywood? Late-night TV? Politicians? The Democratic party? The mainstream media? Academics? And so on. (You know, the usual suspects.) The truth is that no one of this motley crew actually originates ideas (including academics in our time). They merely parrot what they've been told by people higher up the food chain. They read from scripts and “talking points”. They sound authoritative, but they're all tools. They may think they're clever and original, and “cutting edge”. They may think they're manning the barricades, and leading the march against all that is old, worn, and out of date, but they're no more than high-class whores who can be “canceled” in a heartbeat if they dare wander off the reservation.

The best single bit of evidence for this is that, no matter what the topic is, they will all say the exact same thing about it, and at the same time. You see this on a daily basis. The leader of the pack – typically the New York Times – says something about someone or something, and the rest of the pack repeats it word for word over the next 24 hours as if it's something they came up with as a result of their own hard work and diligence. (Sometimes I think we'd be better off with a single news source, the way the Soviet Union had Pravda. It was more efficient and saved all kinds of time. And in fact, we may be heading in that direction.) (How many channels were there on Soviet TV? One, maybe?)

So, basically, the word goes out each morning – the script, the talking points – and it's dutifully picked up and turned into “news”. But who originates it? Well, in China it was Chairman Mao. In this country it seems to originate with a cabal of, once again, globalists and various titans of non-traditional industry – you know, the same ones who actually own the print media, social media, and pretty much any other source of “information” you can name. In the Soviet Union it was the ministry of propaganda, and they were doing the bidding of party leaders. And, just like our mainstream media, their propaganda was tiresome, repetitive, and mind-numbing... and as far from the truth as any old folk tale of Baba Yaga, but even more frightening.)

To put it another way, actual “news” should be reality-based. It should be about actual events. It may lead into analysis or comment, but the basic facts should be considered sacred. This is a principal that use to be taught in journalism schools but has long since been discarded. Now “reporters” and “journalists” consider themselves “agents of change” like teachers, and so are completely unabashed about promoting absolute fictions as long as it furthers the agenda set by their masters.

What counts, then – important point! – is not how true or false the “story” is, but how many people believe it, i.e. fall for it and use it as the basis for their thinking and even their actions. So pure propaganda isn't enough. Psychology comes into play as well, and identifying people's hopes and dreams – and, most importantly, their fears – is key to success. (And fears, by the way, can be created, and often are in order to serve this purpose. Our mainstream media are, above all, fear machines.) The leading, and most successful, psychologists of our time, therefore, are not those nerdy guys sitting next to the couch with a note pad in hand, but the masters of propaganda who dominate the media. They have more influence on more people than all of the psychologists from Sigmund Freud on ever dreamed of having.  (And incidentally, one of the early masters of media-based propaganda was a man named Eddie Bernays, who was, lo and behold, a nephew of old Sigmund. Coincidence? I don't think so.)

So we have – as in a crime story (which this is) – motive and means. But how about opportunity? For a grand scheme such as this one to work, the timing has to be right. The problem, or crisis, used to kick things off has to be somewhat credible. And this is where the hat trick comes in... the golden opportunity... the triple threat that was just too great a temptation to be resisted. And this was – as is now painfully obvious – (1) Donald Trump, (2) the pandemic, and (3) the breakout of anarchy in our large cities. Trump all by himself was sufficient cause to start a revolution and keep it going, but in truth he didn't start it at all. It was lying in wait until the time was ripe. So Trump provided a cause celebre, and also acted as an accelerant.

But then fate dealt a trump card that even trumped Trump, namely the pandemic. And that was soon followed by the outbreaks of rioting, arson, vandalism, and looting for which the spark was the death of George Floyd. And I have to say, perhaps never before in history has such a total nobody, and his dreadful end, had such a profound impact on an entire nation – an impact which is irrevocable. I mean, every revolution has its heroes – the Nazis had Horst Wessel, for example – but the selection of George Floyd seems about as unlikely as possible – random, in fact. And yet here he is, an icon... a saint... a man whose visage is fit for carving into Mount Rushmore (once the visages that are there now have been pulverized by Antifa the way the Taliban trashed the Buddhas of Bamiyan).

And it was random, make no mistake. It could have been any one of a number of black “victims of police violence” over the years, but the time was right, and it was right because the citizenry had already been worked into a frenzy over Donald Trump. It's easier to light a fire with dry wood than wet wood, in other words – and in this case what we had was the equivalent of years of underbrush resulting from poor land management in the hills of California. The revolution had been rumbling like a volcano ready to erupt for decades, actually – all aided and abetted by those in charge, who were allowing the pressure to build and waiting for the right moment to release it upon the hapless citizenry.

But wait, there's more! – as they say on late-night TV ads. Trump would have been a tough target as long as he was riding high on economic successes, but then the corona virus, or whatever you want to call it, rose up like Godzilla. And the economy was magically wiped out – erased -- in a matter of days. By a virus? No, by the decisions of those who saw opportunity knock as never before – or who were the faithful servants of those who did (and yes, I'm referring to many mayors and governors, who had dreams of power and who saw temporary anarchy as a path toward that power). As far as I know, Donald Trump did not close down one store, or restaurant, or factory, or school, or anything else. He couldn't! That is not a power granted to the president by the Constitution. It was done by mayors and governors, who do have that power, and the alleged reason, of course, was to “prevent the spread of the virus” and thus save lives. Lives, but not livelihoods. So almost overnight, our economy crumbled to dust and all of the gains that Trump had been bragging about vanished, as did his chances of re-election, which was, of course, the whole idea.

And when it came to the rioting (which is still going on) – the same governors and mayors who shut down their respective economies as a knee-jerk reaction to the corona virus are also the ones who look on benignly as their cities burn. Nero himself could have done no better.

Now... you might be skeptical as to the issue of who's behind all of this. And yes, it's hard to make any direct accusations that would hold up in court. But consider:

• The stock market – the plaything of the ruling elite, the unwashed being only allowed in the servants' entrance – did take a hit because of the corona virus. But as of this writing, the DJIA is back up to 94% of its all-time high. Not exactly on life support, in other words.

• The net wealth of the seven richest men in the U.S. increased 46% between March 18 and August 15. Not a bad return on investment in crises! So... above a certain level the ruling elite are untouchable when it comes to the ups and downs of the economy. They profit when times are good, and profit even more when times are bad. (There were people who profited handsomely during the Great Depression as well, which led to some speculation as to how “unanticipated” the Depression was. My own theory is that depressions and recessions are basically looting operations, and what gets looted is middle-class wealth, and the looters are those in charge, not the rabble.)

• Simple question: Who doesn't have to answer to anyone? And the answer is not anyone in the media. And it's no one in Hollywood or on late-night TV, because one wrong move and they can be terminated.

  • Politicians? Forget about it. They live and die by elections, which are frequently, if not always, rigged by those in charge. Politics is like an old-time protection racket – either you play along or you wind up with cement booties (figuratively) (in most cases).

  • Ditto the Democratic Party. They are the biggest collection of tools on the face of the earth. (If, as Joe Sobran pointed out, it was really important they wouldn't let you vote on it, isn't it also true that if it was really important they wouldn't trust any politician with it?) (This, by the way, is one of the main motivations behind the existence of “think tanks” and certain non-profits, NGOs, and PACs.)

So that seems to narrow it down to some extent – but questions remain. This “ruling elite” everyone talks about – aren't they real people? Human beings? Not space aliens? And how do they get to the point in life when they are put in charge of the lives, and fate, of their fellow citizens? What are the membership requirements, in other words? Well, money seems to be pretty much an indispensable requirement – at least in this country, although in Europe you can still have plenty of influence if you're royalty. And, I suppose, a zeal to not only rule over others, but some notion that you being in charge will make the world a better place. This is an oft-overlooked quality of totalitarians. They all think the world will be better off if it comes under their spell and submits to their authority; Lenin had that idea, as did Stalin, Mao, and any number of others (including our own minor-league totalitarians). It's sort of like the idea that people who wake up every morning intending to “do evil” never get very far, but evil people who intend to do good (by their lights) can wind up ruling the world. (I guess we've penetrated to the essence of politics now.)

And, being only human and therefore mortal, members of the ruling elite have to be willing to, at some point, pass the baton to the next generation – and this seems to have happened quite seamlessly in our time. We've gone from the stereotype of pudgy guys in silk hats and gold watch chains to a bunch of dudes with bad haircuts and turtlenecks – and no one says, hey, I want J. P. Morgan back! Everyone just accepts that this is the way things are – that Mark Zuckerberg had to borrow a necktie in order to testify before Congress.

And along with the grandiose and egomaniacal notion of making the world a better place comes an image – a Utopian image – which invariably includes “me” as emperor of the world, and a vast army of slaves... and, strangely, the complete lack of a middle class, because who needs them? And, by the way, the complete lack of religion, because if they have me, who needs God? But this image has to be realized in some way; mere wishing won't make is so. So any policy, program, or strategy – whether implemented by government or directly by the private sector – has to be dedicated to that end. Now, the ruling elite are already in place, as are the lower classes – so what's missing? Oh yeah, the middle class is still hanging around – so if you will closely study the programs and policies of Galaxy B, you'll find that they are all aimed at the annihilation of the middle class, or at least support that agenda to some degree. And in this sense, the current revolution is pretty much a clone of all of its predecessors – in France, Russia, Spain, China, and plenty of lesser nations. One might say that there can never, by definition, be a middle-class revolution; any genuine revolution will be opposed to the middle class and in the interests of the current ruling elite, or a new ruling elite, with the lower classes kept on as slaves, serfs, and servants.

There is still, though, a “cloud of unknowing” about the ruling elite, how it operates, how cohesive it is, how it acquires new members, and so on – and this is, of course, intentional. All we can do is collect clues and hints, and ask the perennial question “Cui bono?”, i.e. “Who benefits?” This is sort of the extrapolation of the more common maxim, “Follow the money” – because, believe it or not, it's not always about money, and is in fact not about money at all at the upper reaches. Do our multi-billionaires really need more money? I mean, how many yachts, houses, mistresses, etc. can they do justice to? No, beyond a certain point it really is about power – about ruling the world. And what we are seeing now is the next step – a very big step – in that direction, namely to take full control of “the superpower” (as the U.S. fancied itself in the post-Soviet era). And not just social, economic, and political control, but enough control that their dreams of an earthly Utopia can be realized.

Still to come:

• What happens next?

• Will there be a counter-revolution (and if so, how will it begin and who will be in the front lines)?

• And much more! Don't miss it!