Stemming the Tide

It can't be that long ago -- can it? -- that the MSM were characterizing anyone who favored adult stem cell reserach over embryonic stem cell research as a conservative, knuckle-dragging, mouth-breathing "hater". It seems like that was the party line just a few months ago -- that all the hopes in the world (and of all the "poster children") resided with the variety of stem-cell research and therapy that destroys life, and there was no hope whatsoever in the other kind. But now comes the revelation that research with adult stem cells is "booming", and that "therapies (are) far ahead of those that use (the) embryonic variety". The secret is that "adult cells have been transplanted routinely for decades", and with great success across a wide spectrum of disease and injury. One might almost say that the medical profession has been acting subversively and in a very non-PC manner on this issue. And this is all to the good, since it indicates that, at least in this area (as opposed to climatology, say), science has not yet let itself become totally dominated by politics. It's also encouraging to see that, indeed, there really is much more hope in adult than in embryonic stem cells. Dare one speculate that the hand of Divine Providence is at work here?

Strangers in a Strange Land

Guess what country has decided to deport children born in that country to people from other countries? A leading politician said that "the new policy is intended to stem a flood of illegal aliens, whose children receive state-funded education and health care benefits", and to defend the national identity of the country in question. He also said, "We don't want to create an incentive for the flow of hundreds of thousands of illegal migrant workers." And note that, under the laws of that country, "the children were not automatically granted residency status" (to say nothing of citizenship).

So where is this hard-nosed place, where there is very little mercy shown toward the economically disadvantaged? Why, Israel, of course. Now, right away, someone is going to jump up and say, but that's different -- and offer up all the age-old "reasons" that Israel is unique in all of human history, and therefore deserves limitless tolerance and sacrifice (on the part of everyone else), etc. After all, didn't the leader in question, Benjamin Netanyahu, say that "there are Zionist considerations for ensuring the Jewish character of the state of Israel"?

And you know something? For once, I agree with Benny the Nat. I think _any_ nation, state, or country -- even the U.S. -- has the right to define what constitutes "identity" and any other form of legitimacy as the basis for residency and citizenship in that country. And after all, Israel is -- if any place on earth is -- "a nation of immigrants", just like us -- except that we've never felt the need to engage in any comparable defining of national identity. As far as we're concerned, if you're born on American soil, you're just as much an American as someone whose family has been here for 400 years -- which kind of makes you wonder how it makes those 400-year people feel. (Well, I am one -- or almost. And I know. It's kind of like checking into the Waldorf-Astoria, then walking around the block and finding out that the other side of the same building is a Red Roof Inn. With rates 1/10 of what you're paying.)

But here's my question. Since our foreign policy is entirely in the hands of Israel, why can't we go all the way and follow their example in this regard as well? I mean... if they can do no wrong, then what harm could it possibly do to enact the same policies on illegal aliens that they have? We could even ask their advice... maybe even get military assistance to defend our southwestern border. I mean, isn't it about time they gave something back for all of our sacrifices over the years?

World's Largest Pie To Be Served At Some Point

On the "watch list": "40 wealthy individuals and families" who have pledged "to give at least half their wealth to charity" -- in the newly-established tradition of Bill Gates and Warren Buffett. Apparently Buffett strong-armed, er, persuaded, a number of his fellow billionaires to make what he and Gates call the "giving pledge".

Now, the cynic might say, sure, they can "pledge" all they want, but what happens when it comes down to cases? Or, what happens if they die first; do their heirs honor the pledge, or do they sue the trustees and the estate, etc.?

Another type of cynic might say, sure, but won't most of that wealth go to support "foundations" which are thinly-disguised strategems to not only preserve accumulated wealth, but to add to it if possible? And there is certainly ample historical basis for this suspicion.

And someone who is aware of the history of various rich people's legacies will say, how do they know that whoever winds up running the trust, or foundation, or whatever, will spend the money as they would have wanted? The landscape is dotted with foundations begun by ultra-conservative individuals that are now dedicated to the aid and abetting of the most blatant forms of liberalism in politics, academia, art, and so forth. You might say that the only a way a rich person can dispose of his wealth as he sees fit is to really and truly dispose of it, while he's still alive -- no trusts, no foundations, no nothing. Just spend it all and die with a dime in your pocket.

And maybe this is the intent of Gates, Buffett, et al -- but again, I'm going to contain my enthusiasm until I see what actually happens, and where this money actually goes. For one thing, I have a funny feeling that a huge hunk of this dough is going to go to support "family planning" and "population control" -- which is the way the wealthy of the West have, for many generations now, tried to subdue the unruly, unwashed, and disgustingly-fertile denizens of the "third world". Another possibility -- a remote one, I admit, but you never know -- is that some of the wealthy have heard the cry of the poor and disenfranchised... and it has them scared. After all, and as the illegal immigration controversy demonstrates, the third-world rabble is only a few hours' bus ride away from anywhere in the U.S. -- including the gated, well-guarded estates of the American nobility. Maybe they've been reading about the French Revolution. Or the Russian one. "Uneasy lies the head that wears the crown" -- and the "crown" of our time is the vast fortunes that have been made in business and finance... much of it legitimate, no doubt, but much of it the result of sheer pillage. Of course, the radical populist or collectivist (and I assume there's still a difference) will be totally disinterested in the difference between the two -- but for my money, so to speak, there is nothing intrinsically wrong with accumulating great wealth, as long as it's done legitimately and, ideally, with plenty of charity to go along with it. And I suppose that the very least one can say about the Gates/Buffet altar call is that it at least appears charitable, and might in fact do some good. But we also have enough experience with these things to know that ulterior motives are never to be dismissed.

Null Set

Nullification is all the rage these days -- especially among conservatives. And what is nullification? Simply the notion that if the federal government passes a law that blatantly violates the Constitution, the states have the right to, basically, ignore it. This ancient and venerable (and never used since the Civil War) idea has become popular due to ObamaCare, the idea being that the government cannot compel citizens to buy health insurance... and a number of states are taking the bull by the horns and declaring this law null and void.

But wait! Now comes Massachusetts -- which, let's admit -- seceded from the United States of Normal People decades ago -- with a nullification idea of its own. And no, it's not about "gay marriage". But it's about the Constitution itself. It has to do with the Electoral College -- remember, that thing that Hillary Clinton vowed she would absolutely, positively, do away with the minute she became president? Or senator? But Massachusetts is serious about this; they have just "passed legislation to nullify Article II, Section I, Clause 2 of the U.S. Constitution" -- that part providing for the Electoral College, i.e. for election not by direct democracy (i.e. the voters) but by "electors". And there are apparently five other states that have the same idea; it's all part of something called the National Popular Vote, which is a kind of piling-on, social metaphysics venture that says that all of a state's electoral votes should go to the candidate who wins the most popular votes. In other words, no more "states rights" or "regionalism" here! From now on it's, let the people speak and hinder then not, for they have the word of truth.

Now, granted that that premise is wildly untrue, and unlikely, and improbable in the extreme, let's at least give Massachusetts et al. credit for finally -- finally! -- seeing the value of nullification. But would they be willing to apply the same idea to ObamaCare, for instance, or to the commerce clause? Damned unlikely. And yet I can't help seeing this as a much-desired crack in the ice of federal tyranny. Today's nullfication when it comes to the Electoral College could become tomorrow's nullfication when it comes to the commerce clause... or any of countless other government inroads. And of course, my local paper, which has a conservative bent, is in a state of high dudgeon over all of this -- but I think they need to take a broader view of the situation. If the idea becomes popular -- and if it works! -- it could mean a significant turning point in the relationship between the federal government and the states, or localities. I say, let's give this a chance to work even if the specific issue is not one of our priorities... because our turn might come next, and if it works for "popular vote" buffs it could wind up working for anti-commerce clause buffs, anti-ObamaCare buffs, or any number of other praiseworthy causes.

A Star is Born

I guess in the annals of “frightening and/or depressing headlines” the following has to be pretty near the top: “Geithner poised to inherit vast financial power.” And the first question has to be, “inherit” from whom, or from what? And the answer is – from nobody, since this particular concentration of power is unprecedented in American economic history, and probably in world history as well. As a result of Obama's financial “reform” package, this guy is about to have thrown into his lap all of the strings to the (still) largest economy and financial system on earth (or, again, maybe in history). Now... I don't know about you, but Tim Geithner is one of those guys who, if I shook hands with him, I'd turn around and check my wallet. And given his position (and his projected position) this would be a completely realistic act. You see, the world power has, in fact, shifted in our lifetimes away from the military and toward the economic – not that economic power hasn't always been paramount, even in times of war, but now it's becoming more so... more “official”, more overt, and much more pervasive. Time was, the country that had the most firepower ruled – but we still have the most firepower, and yet one can hardly say we “rule” in that sense. I mean, a bunch of goatherds in Iraq and Afghanistan has us hunkered down and barely able to move. So much for “high-tech weaponry”! No, the race is not always to the swift... or to the most high-tech. It's becoming more and more clear that dogged persistence and, yes, belief (religious or political) are at least as important, if not more so. We can bomb a place back to the stone age, but that's perfectly alright with them... they're comfortable with that. They can operate in the stone age, and we can't... and that's their secret (except that it's pretty obvious to anyone who is paying attention). The 9-11 attacks were, among other things, a technological and cultural anachronism – a technological David-and-Goliath match, and a culture clash between post-modernism and “medieval superstition” -- and guess who won?

And yet, Geithner, although he is not an elected official (Well, would you vote for him? For any office?), is an appointee of an elected official... and as we all know, elected officials come and go. How much power does George W. Bush have these days, for example? (How much did he ever have?) Even Dick Cheney can only do so much from his hospital bed... although it's rumored that he's already made arrangements to have his brain put in a jar -- hooked up with tubes and electrodes -- from which he can rule the world like some disembodied evilness in a B-grade sci-fi movie. The point is, elected officials and their minions have temporary power, at best – it is fleeting, and worse yet, it's subject, at least to some degree, to the whims of the voters, i.e. the clueless and unwashed. Such a situation cannot be tolerated by the powers that be – i.e. by those who are truly in control. I think that any elected official in the land is, ultimately, no more than a servant to the real power – and that power is long-lasting and persistent, and virtually impossible to dislodge, because it does not accrue to any one individual but to an elite group, whose membership requirements are as strict as any on earth. And even at those exalted levels, I daresay that no one individual is indispensable; they are all expendable to some extent, and when someone dies or falls from grace, there is a smooth transition by which someone else takes their place. It's like seats in the White House press room... or like the Mafia. And what unites them? I would say raw power and money, not necessarily in that order... and what those provide, in turn, is not only material and psychological rewards but the perceived opportunity to remake the world in their own image. Power and money are one thing, but to truly rule the world you have to rule minds – to be able to define reality itself for the mass of humanity. And this, I believe, is their ultimate goal. So in that sense, it's a metaphysical conquest they're after, not just a political or economic one. And, I suspect that, in their delusions of grandeur, they're certain that once they have nearly everyone on earth signed on to their world view, that world view will indeed attain the status of reality. In other words, they believe it, but they would feel even better if everyone else believed it as well. (But isn't this the way all collectivists think?)

There are, in fact, systematic and observable trends in the exercise of world power, in that it is overwhelmingly secular and materialistic, and consistently involves a continual attack on religion (i.e., on the competition) as well as attacks on individual liberties and freedom. The goal seems to be to turn the vast bulk of the human race into slaves – and “unchurched” slaves at that, who have no hope either in the material world or in the world beyond. Because, as everybody knows, the majority are unfit to rule and are good only as slaves and cannon fodder – to do the bidding of the elite without asking why, and ideally without even realizing what their true status is. A “happy” slave is a good slave, in other words – which is why the oppression is only turned up a little bit at a time. (The “tea party” movement is a sign that the rate of “change” may have gotten a bit too excessive of late – a bit too noticeable, a phenomenon that can be blamed more or less directly on Obama -- which provides more evidence that he is not in charge. But we see how much time and energy the Regime spends trying to co-opt and suppress the tea parties and other like movements. And then there are some groups that are allowed to wander off the reservation, simply because they are powerless and small in number; the libertarians come to mind. There are, in fact, certain safety valves that are allowed to exist, as long as they don't impact the program.)

But here's the question. If people like Geither – and Obama, his boss – are servants, who do they serve? And how did those people become members of the power elite? Is it only about money, or is it more a matter of “connections”... organizational ties... family ties... race... ethnic group... creed (or the lack thereof)... or what? Are there any visible channels of advancement to the upper reaches – any ladders to ultimate success – or is this all predetermined based on factors of which we know nothing? Can "any boy born in a log cabin...", etc.? What I suspect is that it's some sort of combination of hereditary position (regardless of money or overt position or power) and old money (by which I mean _really_ old money – older than any money in the U.S. for sure). But is even this enough? I mean, any organization needs “new blood” now and then, especially considering some of the problems than can arise when the same people stay on top for too long. (Think only of European royalty and some of their “issues” -- like inbreeding, for instance. Can you imagine if the British “royals” were actually in charge of anything? Scary.) And even “old money” can be dispersed and stretched too thin – the reason you don't hear much about the du Ponts any more is that there are just too many of them; it's hard for a great fortune to survive having thousands of descendants. (I imagine the Kennedys will eventually suffer the same fate – unless their shallow gene pool catches up with them first.) But many rich families have had the sense to see to it that their fortunes remained intact – the Rockefellers being, probably, the best example in this country. (And what about the really new money – the Waltons, Gates, Buffet? I haven't yet figured out where they fit into this scheme. It has to be, at the very least, a state of peaceful coexistence with the Regime, if not actual membership. I mean, they were “allowed” to get rich. But then what do they owe, and to whom?)

So it seems to me that there must be a process by which, once in a while, someone who has risen in the ranks by being a skilled servant is eventually anointed, and allowed into the inner circle (think of becoming a “made man” in the mob). And I also suspect that elected politicians – current or former – seldom if ever qualify. What it takes to get elected to office is simply not the same skill set as what it takes to really run things (as we can plainly see from the performance of the likes of Bush, Obama, etc.). You have to have, let's say, a global perspective on things, and not be loyal to any particular political or economic system, country, party, or movement. You have to be someone like, say, Henry Kissinger, who, to all appearances, is one of the anointed ones (even though he has a much higher profile than would be typical). And I'm sure that there are many out there who are aware of the situation and of the hierarchy, and would very much like to be admitted to the inner circle – but they simply don't have enough of the “right stuff”, and so are relegated to perpetual second-class citizenship. (Dick Cheney comes to mind in this regard.) So, bottom line, what are the chances that Geither will ever wind up in the Pantheon? I'd say pretty much nil. He is, no doubt, a good and faithful servant – but I just don't see him having that much staying power. And it certainly isn't about “charisma”. It has to be about having (or acquiring) the values of the elite and being able to make a substantial contribution... and, above all, complete reliability and discretion. No “loose cannons” allowed – although George Soros comes close at times. And this is because one of the key features of the Regime is its ability to rule without anyone knowing it exists – at least none of the “common folk”. I'm not even sure how much the higher-ranked servants know. I mean, does Obama know who his bosses are? Does he get coded messages left in cactuses or under park benches? Or does he have a “handler” who he checks in with bright and early every morning? He's a smart enough guy, but he has the towering ego of a politician... and that can cloud the mind. I'm sure that George W. Bush, for instance, existed, throughout his administration, in a kind of fog, or a house of mirrors. Who knows, he might have even thought he was in charge! (“I'm the decider.” Remember that? What if he really believed it? A scary thought.)

But clearly, the control mechanisms are far from being vague and aloof. If any of the servants step out of line, their chains are rudely jerked in an instant by means of the media... and how, and from whom, do the media get their orders? Because they all say pretty much the same thing at the same time about the same people. We're not just talking “talking points” here; it's more like those “large character posters” that used to appear all over China whenever Chairman Mao got another of his bright ideas. Allegedly, no one knew how those posters got there or who put them there... but they all said the same thing; they were like unto holy writ. Even the farthest provinces got the word instantly. And our version of this holy writ is what is put out by the news networks and the major press agencies... outfits like Time and Newsweek... the “newspapers of record”... and it even extends into the “entertainment” industry. No “comic” is going to seriously go against the party line and survive, career-wise. And no “public” effort or activity is too small or trivial to come under the gun. And I don't have to bring up academics, do I, I hope? So this operation, far from being abstract, is extremely tangible, fast, and efficient – but the amazing thing is that even its favored operatives labor under the delusion that they're somehow “independent” and “objective”. I mean, look at how often the “journalism” combine toots its own horn in this regard. If they were truly objective, they wouldn't have to keep claiming objectivity, would they? So again, this is all part of the massive, multi-layered deception process, which, once again, is designed primarily to keep people ignorant and avoid trouble. After all, even the elite still live on the same planet as the rest of us (as far as I know) – they breathe the same air, and so on. Why open yourself up to all sorts of popular movements, protests, insurrections, revolutions, etc. when you can get what you want more readily by administering a continuous, slow drip of anesthetic to the populace? The notion is to draw as much blood as possible without killing the patient – because, after all, there is no power unless most people are powerless... and no wealth unless most people are poor, or at least un-wealthy. You can't accumulate wealth that no one is producing, in other words. What is the king without the peasants? So in that sense it's all relative... and it's also materialistic in that spiritual considerations are given very little value; in fact, they're considered an annoyance and a hindrance.

So really, in Geithner's case, all he is is a placeholder. Yes, he will have tremendous apparent power... but will he have any real initiative? I doubt it very much. He will, rather, be on the blame line if anything goes wrong – which it almost certainly will. How would you like to have all sorts of apparent authority, alleged responsibility, but real accountability? It's enough to give a person ulcers. Whereas the people really in charge have actual authority, no risk of being held responsible, and no accountability whatsoever. Must be nice... but frankly, I prefer to be one of the “folks” Obama is always talking about so condescendingly. It's much better “karma” to simply sit under one's own vine and fig tree, and leave everyone else alone (and keep your hand off their wallet).

Iraq and Ruin

Now here is a comforting quote, from President Obama: “Our commitment in Iraq is changing — from a military effort led by our troops to a civilian effort led by our diplomats." Yeah... when's the last time you ever heard of “a civilian effort led by our diplomats” amounting to anything? Especially when said “diplomats” are all Obama appointees? Sheesh... maybe the whole operation is designed to fail, so he can justify sending troops back in. But never fear! According to the article, “A transitional force of 50,000 troops will remain to train Iraqi security forces, conduct counterterrorism operations and provide security for ongoing U.S. civilian efforts.” This “transitional force” is bigger than most occupation forces! So really – and I'll say it again – nothing is really going to change. And he confirms this, as follows: “We have not seen the end of American sacrifice in Iraq.” But actually, the word “sacrifice” is a misnomer, because the assumption when one talks of sacrifice is that it's for a purpose – that it means something. I have yet to see any evidence of this in the entire Iraq operation. Well, we did get rid of Saddam, Uday, and Qusay, so I guess that amounts to something. I mean, I guess I would have been willing to sacrifice a couple of square meals to get rid of those clowns. But beyond that...

And would anyone in their right mind call the presence of 50,000 troops anything but an occupation? And when it comes to this lame excuse that they are not “combat troops”, well... any time you have 50,000 troops stationed in a country where most people hate our guts, guess what – they will, sooner or later, become combat troops. After all, they _are_ “troops”, and in uniform, and they carry guns. This notion that you can have a clean demarcation between combat and “other” is a total delusion... and the politicians know it. They know they are only playing word games with this. I'd like to see, for instance, how much our casualties decline when all the “combat troops” leave and all the “trainers, advisors, etc.” stay; I can't imagine there will be much difference, especially considering the tactics involved. We haven't been fighting set-piece battles in Iraq anyway... so the “look” of combat has been, basically, one of street fighting and guerrilla warfare. But this sort of thing can be inflicted on “trainers and advisors” just as readily as on explicitly “combat” troops. And the net result will be the same – more blood shed for no discernible purpose.

Plus, what about all those "contractors" -- AKA mercenaries? Obama didn't have much to say about them, nor about our square-mile "embassy" (also known as a "fort") in Baghdad. So what it amounts to is that the "withdrawal of all our combat troops" is a technicality and a word game; it does not change our level of commitment one iota -- nor is it intended to. We will continue to occupy Iraq in perpetuity... that is, unless we are forcibly thrown out.

Clap On, Clap Off

OK, so now we have a guy up for confirmation as Director of National Intelligence – which is not to be confused with director of any given intelligence agency, of which there are literally countless examples (“literally countless” because the existence of many of them is unknown – even to those in Congress who approve their budgets). What's interesting is that this office has only existed since 2005, and it was created in order to improve coordination among the various intelligence agencies, enhance accountability, yadda yadda. In other words, it's the typical government layering effect, where each new layer is promoted as being the solution to all previous problems... and then that layer becomes one of the “previous problems” the next time around, when still another layer is added, ad infinitum. In the case of the Director for National Intelligence, there is also a Principal Deputy Director, a Director of the Intelligence Staff, Deputy Directors, Associate Directors, Assistant Deputy Directors... starting to glaze over yet? Yeah, it's just another bureaucracy, which, far from being part of the solution, simply adds to the problem.

Now, the current nominee to oversee all of this is a guy named Clapper (LTG, USAF, ret.), and when it comes to the massive redundancy in missions among the various intelligence agencies, his excuse is that this represents “the conscious pursuit of competitive analysis”. In other words, let a hundred flowers bloom. The problem is, this assumes that Job One of the vast array of intelligence agencies is to actually gather, analyze, and report on information that could be vital to the nation's defense. If you believe that, I've got a job for you with... the Director of National Intelligence. But the truth is, the number one job of any intelligence agency, or cluster, array, or galaxy of agencies, is the same as it is for any other agency in the government – namely survival, self-perpetuation, and, if possible, growth in both power and resources. This, what I call “organic” model of government growth, seems to have escaped the attention of nearly everyone (those in Congress, for example) – the fact that any organization, and particularly any bureaucratic organization, behaves very much like a living organism. It's motivations are quite simple, really – nourishment (budgets), growth (budgets again), and survival – and the latter, in the case of the intelligence agencies, requires a good deal of secrecy. But the secrecy is not so much a matter of “national security” as one of simply concealing the fact that they don't do much of anything but work toward their own self-perpetuation. And the greatest thing about this secrecy is that it serves as a total safeguard against failure – by which I mean... well, let's say there's a truly catastrophic failure in intelligence. Like 9-11, for example. So right away, the cover stories and red herrings start – we're really doing a great job, but this one just got past us. And we really were keeping an eye on these people, honest. And so forth. So the answer – as with any failing government enterprise (the public schools come to mind) – is more resources! “Mend it, don't end it”, as Jesse Jackson would say. And this turns what looked, at first, like gross and abject failure into success; it has been pointed out how much larger the intelligence community has grown since 9-11... and all based on what is probably the most blatant failure in all of their history. (Kinda reminds me of the banks and the auto industry, actually.)

It's also notorious that the intelligence budget is top secret. No, it's beyond top secret; no one in Congress knows how much is spent on “intelligence” work, which is pretty remarkable considering that they're the ones who approve the funding. Also true – no one knows how many people (government employees and contractors, plus informers, stoolies, turncoats, etc. overseas) work for the intelligence agencies. The agencies get to spend as much as they like, hire anyone they like, and do, basically, anything they like – including nothing, if they're so inclined -- and no one in Congress has a leg to stand on when it comes to objecting or attempting to reform things, because, after all, they "approved" the top-secret budget. What this adds up to – and this should be no news to anyone – is that the “intelligence community” is, basically, a parallel government, or a country within the country. It has its own resources, its populace, its real estate, its capital property, its armed forces (mostly, but not all, overseas), and it's... call it what you will... culture, way of life, mystique. Yes, there is an intelligence mind set, that is characterized by obsessive-compulsiveness, paranoia, and protectiveness... qualities which might have had some utility during World War II or during the Cold War. But now we have a bigger-than-ever intelligence community dealing with smaller-than-ever problems and issues... or with none at all, I suppose, depending on which arm of the squid you happen to occupy. And is it dealing with these issues well? We'll never know, since, once again, the intelligence community has a way of burying its mistakes (except for the biggest ones) and bragging, in an extremely generic way, about its successes. It's like those messages I keep getting on my computer screen -- “Foxfire has just blocked a pop-up message”. Well, whoop-de-freakin'-do. Maybe I'm glad it was blocked. But at least it didn't cost me a few billion to block it. In the case of the intelligence agencies, all we ever hear about is all the dreadful things that didn't happen because they were on the job, with their all-seeing, never-sleeping eye. Well OK guys, then where the hell were you on 9-10? And has anything really changed? I suspect not. Just more layers. Again, a good crisis did not go to waste; a greater-than-ever portion of our national wealth was turned over to the intelligence agencies – or thrown into a bottomless pit, pick one – but is it really possible that their performance has markedly improved as a result? This stale old alibi of “there haven't been any more 9-11s” doesn't take into account that, as far as the terrorists, or whoever they were, are concerned, 9-11 was “mission accomplished”. They don't have to do it again; they can move on to other things (like bleeding us dry all over Iraq and Afghanistan).

At this point, the typical plaint of the uninformed citizen is, why can't something be done? I mean, if Congress controls their budget, why can't they simply withhold funds until they get some answers, and so on. But you have to remember that the intelligence agencies deal primarily with information – and as knowledge is power, information is power over those who would rather not have that information made public. And, after all, aren't most of our elected officials, let's say, a bit “flawed”? Many of them are moral imbeciles, so have a lot to hide from the voters; others might have some semblance of conscience but still feel a bit apprehensive about all of their dirty laundry being hung out. So what am I implying? That the intelligence community is just one big blackmail operation? Let's just say that they have certain tools and resources at their disposal, and it would by shocking if they didn't use them once in a while. And there is nothing new about this. J. Edgar Hoover was notorious for having a “black file” on virtually every elected official in the land, and plenty of other people besides... and he used this information whenever it was needed, in order to further his mission (which was not all bad – don't misunderstand me on that point). And I suspect that, really, this has been a “bread and butter” part of intelligence operations throughout history. And there might even be some rationale for it if these people were truly mission-oriented, and doing a commendable job. But what I suspect is that the situation has deteriorated, principally because of the breakup of the Soviet Union. The Cold War was at least an object of intense focus; not only that, but the threat was real. Since then, what have we had to deal with? China is more capitalistic than we are, and their main form of aggression is buying up our debt. What's the intelligence angle there? And the best the Russians can do is send a bunch of dingbats over here disguised as American yuppies. No, it has to be about “terrorism” and nothing more – but even there, the idea that “terrorism” is a profound threat to American security and the American way of life is... well, it's propaganda, basically. And this is not to deny the reality of 9-11 or of other terrorist actions or attempted actions – only that it's not really us they're after. The Soviets really did, in their heart of hearts, want to make the U.S. into a people's republic... and so did their agents here (including those in the government, academics, media, etc.). I don't think the terrorists are the least bit interested in converting us to Islam – all they want is for us to get the hell out of the Islamic world (and our little dog too – i.e. Israel). If we were to leave, I suspect that “terrorism” would stop. (Ron Paul said as much.) And if you're thinking, “but what about Europe?”, the answer is that the European countries that are supporting our efforts in Southwestern Asia are the ones getting hit; the rest are being left alone – except Russia, which has a long-standing Muslim minority. But of course this is not going to happen, so we will continue to be confronted by “terrorists”, and completely baffled as to “why they hate us”... and the intelligence community will continue to half-heartedly poke away at the problem while feathering their bed in perpetuity.

Bush Was Right!

Remember the time George W. Bush landed on that carrier deck and stood, triumphant, in front of a very large banner that read, "Mission Accomplished"? You know, people have been lampooning, demeaning, and making fun of him for this ever since.. but the fact is, he was right. I mean, if the goal of our invasions of both Iraq and Afghanistan was regime change, we can most definitely claim "mission accomplished". And if the goal also included conquest (more or less) and occupation, the same thing applies. So it is a bit small-minded of everyone to persist in calling these operations "wars", because they're aren't wars at all -- they're occupations. Occupations that involve insurgency, but this is a universal trait of occupations. There are always insurgents, rebels, partisans -- call them what you will. I can't think of too many cases where an occupied country just basically rolled over and played dead; I guess Germany and Japan after World War II are examples, but they are exceptions that prove the rule. The problem is, the Germany and Japan experience spoiled us by giving us a grossly distorted picture of what occupation is all about. More often, it's a case like the German occupations during World War II... or the Soviet occupations afterwards. There are always a few soreheads who are unwilling to accept things as they are, and they take up arms, and perhaps get a bit of help from the outside... and the next thing you know, you have an "insurgency", which, if you turned it around the other way, would look like a small, brave band of loyal patriots fighting against the oppressor (and the oppressor's lapdogs and toadies). And this is, in fact, how these groups always present themselves. Even terrorists who kill mostly their own countrymen are always, allegedly, fighting for the good of that country in the long run -- for its freedom and independence from the colonial powers, etc. Our politicians could do much worse than to just take, say, five minutes out of every day and imagine that we are the ones who are under occupation, and what our reaction would be to much of what we are doing over there. And it also wouldn't hurt to imagine how popular "collaborators" would be if we were the ones being occupied. People would be making lists and tying hangman's nooses in preparation for that happy day when all the collaborators could be hung from lamposts.

Am I saying that these should be our only foreign policy considerations when issues of invasion and occupation come up? No -- but they should at least be on the table, which they most certainly are not at this point. Even "our most brilliant general", Gen. Petraeus, never (at least publicly) tries to put himself in the other guy's shoes (sandals, whatever). It's, America is always right, and the other guys are always wrong -- but this is not the voice of principle, it's the voice of empire. And it is heard that way by virtually everyone off these shores.

The Silly Season, Part II

To begin with, I must say that I'm disappointed. For a while there I thought NASA was actually going to start doing something useful, namely work to improve relations with the Muslim world. I mean, the payoff from that would be much bigger than the payoff from the space program, right? I could hardly wait for them to get started – especially since no other sector of the government seems to care about the Muslim world one way or the other, except how much of it they can bomb back to the stone age. But now it turns out that all of that hope and promise from the NASA director was in vain – his superiors in the White House have taken pains to reassure the citizenry that we are not, after all, about to do anything to improve our relationship with the Muslim world, and that this is not, nor has it ever been, a key element in NASA's mission. (And as far as taking a Muslim up in space, well... can you imagine? Floating prayer rugs? And how do you know whether you're facing Mecca if you're out in space?) Well... I still wish someone else would take up the challenge, even if NASA has more important things to do. Surely there must be some government agency somewhere that is living way past the expiration date of its original mission, and would gladly take up where NASA left off... or didn't, as the case may be.

News about the Gulf oil spill (“eruption” would be a better word) is starting to show signs of that most-feared phenomenon in the news business – I call it “page creep”. This is when a story outlives the news cycle but doesn't go away entirely (the way the Goldman Sachs story did – one day it was headline news, and the next day – nothing). So it moves off the front page (after first having dropped below the “fold”) and gradually morphs onto higher-numbered pages of the first section of the paper... eventually (depending on the paper in question) making a leap into the second section, and so on... until eventually it's tucked way in the back, somewhere in the vicinity of the “loser comics” -- you know, the black-and-white one-panel jobs like “Marmaduke”, “Grin and Bear It”, and “The Lockhorns”... the ones that might have been funny, oh, let's say 20 or 30 years ago before the cartoonists became senile. In any case, what's odd about it is that the oil spill is just as much of a disaster today as it was on Day One – if not worse. If you made a movie about some Dr. Evil type threatening to “kill the Gulf of Mexico” unless he was paid a fat ransom (or made CEO of AIG, which would be the equivalent), people would tell you it was far-fetched... and yet here it is, happening right before our eyes, and yet it too is suffering the effects of The Great American Short Attention Span. It seems that nothing is important enough, or catastrophic enough, to stay on our front pages for long... and hardly ever until the situation is resolved. We are, as a people, crisis-oriented... but we're just not solution-oriented. Solutions... follow-through... these are all just too boring and stuffy for the American personality. We are all about expansion and not at all about consolidation – ideas and not realism – and I suppose there are few current events that do not serve as illustrations of this. The oil spill is just the most prominent at the moment – but if you went back and took all the “top stories” -- all the life-threatening crises – from just, say, the past year... and asked yourself, have any of those things been fixed, or resolved? The answer would be no, not one – and yet they are no longer news. This is, truly, one of the marvels of our time.

And speaking of stories that are already history – how about that “spy trade” with the Russians? We managed to round up ten suburbanite airheads with delusions of grandeur and trade them for a handful of what appear to be serious people – which I would say means that we won this round, even thought the mocking MSM say the opposite. The mystery that remains, of course, is what on earth the Russians were thinking sending those doofuses over here and telling them to infiltrate... what? Organizations that just about anybody can listen in on, or read about, or visit, or even join, any time they want. I mean, these characters made Maxwell Smart look like Kim Philby. You know, in world affairs, even when someone does something stupid, there's usually a perfectly good reason. But this one has me baffled.

Every time a high-ranking military officer retires, or is transferred, it sets off a kind of domino effect – he has to be replaced, and his replacement has to be replaced, and so on... and the effect goes resonating through the system, sometimes for months. And this is for each case, and there are thousands of cases per year. It's what is euphemistically called “turbulence”, but a more appropriate word would be “chaos”. It's especially fun when it happens at the highest and most visible levels, because then it becomes a public spectacle – as witness the recent cashiering of Gen. McChrystal, who had been working for Gen. Petraeus, but was then replaced by Petraeus, who has now been replaced by Gen. Mattis. Now, Mattis is another one of those loose-cannon, non-diplomatic types that the military has tried so hard to eliminate from its ranks, but they keep on mysteriously cropping up, and usually at the most inconvenient times. What's wrong with Mattis, you say? Why, nothing, except that he has stated that it's “fun” to kill the enemy, and that a perfectly good, and sufficient, reason to kill someone in Southwest Asia is if he beats his wife or insists that she wear a veil. In other words, while these are not treated as capital offenses in this country, Gen. Mattis sees nothing wrong with treating them as such overseas – without benefit of judge or jury. Now, you might say, isn't this just a minor eccentricity, and surely he didn't mean it? But consider that the people of Iraq and Afghanistan – we call them “insurgents” and “terrorists” -- pay very close attention to what our leaders, both civilian and military, say, especially when it's like to have a direct impact on their well-being. And they tend not to have much of a sense of humor, or irony; they assume that we, in fact, mean what we say (imagine!). What if, for example, the U.S. was currently occupied by the Taliban.... or the Republican Guard... and what if the military commander overseeing the entire operation came out in public and said that killing Americans was fun, especially guys who do stuff like make their wives take jobs outside the home to earn extra money? Is there an American alive who would not seethe with white-hot rage at this, and vow to do everything in his power to kill as many of the occupation forces as possible, or die trying? See, this is what statements like that mean to the other side – and that's what counts, not what they mean to the average brain-dead American. And we wonder why we keep encountering “hostility and distrust” over there...

And by the way, Gen. Petraeus has already decided that one of our biggest foes in Afghanistan is “corruption”. Now... I know, I've harped on this before, but... the first thing you have to understand is that there is no word for “corruption” in most third-world languages. It's simply known as “the way things are done”. But then we show up with our grandiose idealism, and language to boot, and start busting everyone's chops about “corruption”. It's kind of talking about “child prostitution” in cultures where girls commonly get married at age 12. It's not that we're necessarily wrong, or that we're even wrong to bring it up, but we have to understand that we're introducing a whole new concept, and one that is unlikely to win friends or influence people (which we, presumably, want to do... at least with a select subset of the populace). At any rate, Petraeus is – just like Eliot Ness – going after “pervasive theft, graft, and bribery”... in which case, why doesn't he start right here at home? With places like Illinois, Louisiana, and New Jersey, for example? But get a load of this: “... anger at corruption is the top reason Afghans support the Taliban over the government.” So in that sense, we and the Taliban are on the same side. Who knew? Maybe what we ought to do is join forces with the Taliban to get rid of the Afghan government; wouldn't that make everybody happy?

And, speaking of winning hearts and minds – a recent survey showed that “most Pakistanis view U.S. as an enemy.” After all we've done for these people, I swear. I mean... just because we're trying to annex their next-door neighbor, with whom they share plenty of fine qualities, religion being just one of them. Of course, they helped us get the Soviets out of Afghanistan, but I'll bet it was for their own selfish reasons. And now they're being asked for help in getting a radical Islamic group out of an Islamic country, when they're Islamic as well, and... we usually pay a whole lot more attention to India than to them. Ah yes... when the third world awakens from its slumbers, the masters of the West give an involuntary shudder...

And along the same lines, Senator John Kerry (remember him?) asked recently, “why the Taliban, with fewer resources and smaller numbers, can field fighters who are more committed to winning than are Afghan soldiers. 'What's going on here?' he asked with exasperation.” Well... time to get un-exasperated, Senator... it's the same old thing I've talked about a lot lately, but the flip side. I recently said that the spate of military suicides might just have something to do with the absurdity – the lack of meaning – of the whole occupation/empire experience from the troops' point of view. “Theirs not to reason why”, etc. the Taliban, on the other hand – as revolting, fanatical, and malodorous as they may be – actually believe in something, and this is what keeps them going... what keeps them “more committed to winning”. After all, if a U.S. troop “wins”, what does he win? A ticket back home at best, and then he has to pick up where he left off. And if an Afgan Army troop "wins", he's probably bought himself a ticket to a beheading (his own) in the event the Taliban regains control. But for the Taliban it's a matter of faith... of blood and soil. They are defending their homeland against the invader, plain and simple (whereas the Afghan Army is defending the invaders -- now there's a real moral-builder!). The Taliban are also defending Islam – particularly the militant kind – against invasion, conquest, maltreatment, and defamation by us and Israel (and by anyone else who cares to join us on any given day – a diminishing number, to be sure). See, we don't have to like them to see where they're coming from... but the administration simply refuses to see any of this as important. (No one understood kamikaze pilots either; we just assumed they were suicidal.) As far as we're concerned, they hate us because of McDonald's and indoor plumbing. Of course, this misunderstanding is at least partly willful... it provides a better rationale than saying, “We're fighting against people who are defending their homeland and their faith.” That would make it seem just a bit too symmetrical or something... like something _we_ might even do (or might have done at some past time).

And on the lighter side (but also related to the Senator), I wish the local paper would make up its mind. Half the time it refers to Teresa Heinz Kerry as “the pickle heiress”, and other other half of the time as “the ketchup heiress”. The truth is, it's both, and then some. How about just calling her “the 57 Varieties heiress”? It would also be a good shout-out to diversity...

On the even lighter side, I can't resist providing a quote from a somewhat unusual source – the July 29 issue of The Wanderer, and a story about the environmental impact of birth control pills. Seems that in Britain, “odd-looking fish have been found in waterways, especially below sewage outlets. The fish are neither male nor female, but have characteristics of both, and are unable to breed.” Gee, that sounds like a perfect description of a lot of American liberals.

The Silly Season

Newt Gingrich has weighed in on the “Ground Zero mosque” controversy with this tidbit: “Double standards... allow Islamists to behave aggressively toward us while they demand... our submission.” Gee, that's funny – it's also a perfect description of Israel. I guess maybe a certain amount of symmetry could be a good thing...

“Suicides among Army and Air Force Guard and Reserve troops have spiked this year, and the military is at a loss to explain why.” Well, of _course_ they're at a loss, because they don't understand the significance of meaning as a motivator and consolation, especially in times of war and strife. The military establishment is groping around for “answers” and wondering about things like long deployments, multiple deployments, separation from families, finances, the “macho culture”, and so on. But I don't believe any of those things provides a sufficient explanation. And all of them combined would not either. People just don't commit suicide over things like that – or, at least not at the rates in question. No, it has to be – as I've said on a number of other occasions – the futility factor... the fact that our troops are sent to countries they've barely even heard of, told to destroy things and kill people... and for what? Any idiot (and our troops are not idiots, even though the elite thinks they are) can see that it has nothing to do with “America's security” or our way of life. And if it were really about “empire” we would expect to see some return on investment... but all we see is ever-deepening debt and desperation. I think that, eventually, the absurdity starts to sink in... and yes, some of the troops might be rendered particularly vulnerable to despair by other problems, but the sheer insanity of the situation is what tips the balance. But is this obvious (to me) explanation even being considered by those manning the personnel “support structure”? My sense is, not at all.

And on that same topic...

“Four more years!” No, not for Obama (I hope) but for our troops in Afghanistan. That's the cheery news that came out of the recent “Kabul Conference” -- but of course it's predicated on the notion that “Afghan national security forces” will be willing and able to pick up the slack. How likely is that, considering that a goodly number of them already work for the other side... and the rest are about as competent as Inspector Clouseau? But despite all that, some members of the “coalition of the willing” are taking our word for it and planning on shaking the Afghan dust from their feet not later than 2014 – which would leave us kind of all along and feeling blue over there, wouldn't it? But hey, it was our idea in the first place; they joined in, thinking that we knew what we were doing (foolish of them, what?)... and now they're starting to realize that they've apprenticed themselves to Captain Ahab. The point is that no one deadline or “target date” is more valid than any other. Either we should be over there or we shouldn't, and if we shouldn't, then we should leave immediately. (And if anyone thinks we should, they owe the American people a much better explanation than any that has been provided to date.)

I wonder how many of the “global warming” advocates have started drinking heavily? I mean, it's stuff like this that has to stress them out: On the one hand, this last May has been pronounced the hottest on record, and it was also “the 303rd consecutive month that a month was warmer than its 20th-century average” -- if you can follow that. But then on the other hand, a different agency warns that North America, eastern Asia and Europe can expect more harsh winters in the future – i.e. more winters like the winter of 2009-2010. So let's see... warmer months, colder winters... sheesh, pass the margaritas. Or hot toddys. Or both.

Well, it's happening again. The government is evicting citizens from their homes in order to seize the property and turn it over to developers. And it's happening all over... China, that is. And guess what sorts of “development” have necessitated the expropriation of private property: A Disneyland theme park, the 2008 Olympics, and the Shanghai World Expo. But hey, in principle this is no different from what is happening here, as the Kelo vs. City of New London case dramatically showed. If the government decides there is a better use for your land than you living on it (not too hard to prove, in fact, according to their value system), then you're out on your ear. And since China is following suit with a vengeance, one might almost think this was a universal trait of “capitalistic” societies with huge, overbearing governments. Ironic also in that, not all that long ago, there was no such thing as private property in China. But now there's so much that the government has to take some of it back. Why can't they make up their minds?

The Canadian health care system may be the punch line for conservative commentators, but it turns out that there is one area where Canada is infinitely superior to the U.S. It has to do with the banking industry... and the fact that Canada's banks didn't dive headlong into politically-correct subprime mortgages, they kept reserves high, and they did all sorts of other sensible and healthy things connected with real estate – unlike our own bankers, who basically committed financial suicide on our behalf. And what's especially remarkable is that none of these level-headed measures was forced down anyone's throat by the government; the banks simply decided, on their own, to keep making “responsible choices”. (And by the same token, the Canadian government didn't force them to make _irresponsible_ choices – again unlike the situation here.) So, bottom line, Canada's banks “largely avoided the economic fallout of the U.S. housing bust.” They are also getting kudos from the IMF and the World Economic Forum, which is kind of remarkable since the IMF has been latched onto the veins of the American taxpayers for decades now. Maybe it's the kind of grudging respect you get from someone whose advice you had the good sense not to take.

I just put up a post on the public schools, but here's another tidbit. This is unbelievable (in a good way). “The D.C. Public Schools are firing 241 teachers and warning more than 700 other employees that they could be fired in the next year if their performance doesn't improve. The firings... total 302 school system employees.” And this is all – or mostly – based on what, pray tell? “A new teacher evaluation system” that includes classroom observations and – drum roll, please – students' standardized test scores. Don't tell me “No Child Left Behind” is actually working! Well, I don't know if there's a connection; all I know is that, when it comes to the utter incompetence and corruption of the public school system, the D.C. public schools are the belly of the beast. They are Patient #1. They are the heart of darkness (no pun intended, please!). And if something like this can happen there, well... it really and truly can happen anywhere. I'm not getting my hopes up, but even this much is more than I had ever expected to see.

Well, it's all over for Hugo Chavez. How do I know? Because he has done the truly unthinkable, namely “ordered the military to crack down on businesses selling beer on the streets or after legal hours”. Granted, it's not the same as Prohibition – the madness that overtook this country for a time early in the 20th Century – but it should be enough to topple his regime, it seems to me. The article says that “Venezuelans' taste for beer and Scotch whisky is an irritation to the leftist president” -- they should have said “Puritan”. It's amazing how much of a nexus there is between communism and Puritanism; they really do seem to be operating on many of the same premises (and through many of the same means as well). Chavez says the transition toward socialism “requires a moral crusade to change Venezuelans' values.” Sound familiar? I'm amazed that he and Obama don't get along better – or maybe they do, and what we hear is just posturing.

I have this great old Russian postcard that shows an illustration – probably from a novel – of a wedding ceremony. The bride is a pale, innocent young girl and the groom is a crabbed, wizened (and probably rich) old geezer. It's creepy, needless to say... and so is the grotesque courtship that is going on between the Republican Party and the “tea partiers”. I'm not saying this marriage has been finalized (or consummated) as yet, but a milestone was reached recently with the establishment, by a group of House Republicans led by Michele Bachmann, of something called the Tea Party Caucus. According to the article, “Bachmann's move to create this caucus formalizes their [i.e., the tea partiers'] relationship with the GOP.” Getting creeped out yet? Much of what the tea partiers object to is just as much the fault of the Republicans as of the Democrats; it's like getting off heroin by making friends with the crack dealer. No, when it comes to the tea partiers' complaints, the Republicans are not the answer and never will be, no matter how many cockamamie “caucuses” they come up with. It's just a ploy to co-opt the tea party movement and maybe slice off a few more votes in November, at which time the tea partiers will be relieved of their courtesy cards and told, basically, that no one ever promised them they could play with the big dogs. And there's the door. So sad... so predictable. They will just be the next group to be exploited by the powers that be (on both sides of the bogus left-right divide), and I'm afraid they won't learn their lesson any more readily than the others did.

Schools, Houses, and Liberal Utopias

A recent headline had me rubbing my eyes in disbelief: “Schools test idea of grouping by abilities” -- as opposed to rigid and regimented grade levels. A miracle, I calls it! The educational establishment has finally rediscovered what the school marms in the little one-room red schoolhouses knew 100 years ago – that giving students materials based on their abilities rather than their age is a great help when it comes to motivation and achievement. Of course, like any other promising change in public education, we can expect the teachers' unions to fight like demons against it. But at least they'll be forced to prove that their way works better... or provide some other argument, like ability grouping is “unfair” to lower-ability students and might hurt their feelings. You know, something like that. Well, it's always worked in the past, so don't be surprise if it's dragged out on this occasion as well.

And speaking of our marvelous public schools, it now turns out that there is a phenomenon called “resegregation”. No, Orval Faubus hasn't come back to life; it's just that when all the non-whites flee for their lives (and livelihoods) from a given (usually urban) neighborhood, the public schools in said neighborhood tend to become more and more black. Big surprise! And in fact, what is called “white flight” -- deeply regretted by liberals (you know, the ones who didn't live in those neighborhoods in the first place so they didn't have to worry) – was, according to my theory and that of many others, not an unintended consequence, but was fully intended. That is, the aim all along was to drive whites, especially “ethnic” white Catholics, out of the cities and make them preserves of (1) reliable Democratic voters (as if the white Catholics weren't!); and (2) social and economic chaos and despair, which would justify massive government programs, even more power to liberal politicians and activists, etc. Nothing new about any of this – but what is new is that anyone is acting surprised that the schools in these areas -- that were ethnically cleansed of whites -- are becoming totally black. I mean, who did they expect would take the place of all the white kids -- Martians? And if you'll recall, an interim measure that was a low point in the history of race relations – namely forced busing – was instituted in order to enforce quota systems across school districts. But this only accelerated the “flight” to the point where white people refused to live anywhere within the city limits, and all wound up in the suburbs. Again, this was a totally non-unintentional consequence.

And speaking of mush-brained thinking about racial issues, here was Julian Bond recently... and let's face it, this is one guy who has stayed around way past his pull date... but in any case, he came to a conference here in Pittsburgh and pronounced that one of the next major civil rights battles will be... are you ready for this? ... the effort to end housing segregation. To which any sane person would have to say “HUH??” This is like NASA making a big deal about going to the Moon someday – hey guys, we already did that, remember? And housing segregation was terminated, by brute force, many decades ago. Or was it? Well, it's certainly true that there is no longer any such thing as legal segregation in housing, so what Mr. Bond is clearly talking about is the same thing the school people are talking about, which is results. Like for instance, the result of white flight and housing subsidies for “minorities” (i.e. blacks) is that blacks tend to live in some areas, and whites tend to live in other areas. So here is a direct quote from Mr. B.: “If you're segregated to one part of town, you're away from the best jobs, the best schools, the best opportunities.” Now let me freely translate that. What he means is that ethnic cleansing of whites combined with housing subsidies for blacks tended to concentrate black populations in certain areas of cities. The result of this was, predictably, a degradation in the quality of the schools based primarily on the degradation of the quality of the pupils (or their attitudes about education). And, just like “white flight”, you also had the flight of businesses that could no longer afford the risks (and loss of trade) that doing business in those neighborhoods entailed. And with the businesses went the jobs; again -- big surprise. So -- “urban renewal” and “desegration” resulted in white flight, business flight, and school degradation, all of which led to what Mr. Bond calls “segregation”. And segregation it is – but not of the old-South variety. This is the kind dreamed up and mercilessly implemented by liberals, of which Mr. Bond is one of the most prominent – and now he's complaining about the result. And, oh yes, the same conference tackled – head-on! -- questions like “minorities' overrepresentation in the criminal justice system.” Right – another unfathomable mystery. But when your entire world view is based on outcomes, rather than what it takes to achieve those outcomes, is it any wonder you're still talking nonsense after all these years? That's Mr. Bond's problem, and the problem of a huge portion of the so-called black leadership.

When Shame is Not Enough

In case there were any lingering doubts as to who owns the Obama administration – lock, stock, and barrel – Kenneth Feinberg, the departing “pay czar”, has set the record straight. The answer, of course, is the banks... and the evidence is that, after months of huffing and puffing, executive compensation for the banks who were bailed out by the taxpayers is going to remain untouched. Suddenly executive pay doesn't seem so “excessive” after all, apparently; I guess it's all relative. But here's the real kicker. Quoth Feinberg: “Shaming them was punishment enough.” To which the immediate response ought to be, you can only shame people who _have_ a sense of shame, and these people don't. I mean, they already demonstrated that to the satisfaction of nearly everyone when they even accepted those compensation packages after driving their own firms into bankruptcy. This, of course, has been the behavior pattern for corporate warlords for quite some time now, but the new twist is that it now triggers bailouts by the government. In the old days it was the stockholders who suffered, and hey, if you invest in an outfit like that you take your chances, right? But now it's no longer a gamble, since the government promises to cover all losses, but leave profits alone. It's a pretty good deal if you're already on top of the heap.

Plus, what's to be ashamed of? It was really a brilliant move -- maximum pay, a revival of profits (post-bailout, that is), and getting the government to cover all your losses? And they all thought of it at the same time, which kind of makes you wonder. In any case, these guys should be raised on high and worshipped as gods in their respective boardrooms and stockholders' meetings (in fact, they probably are even as we speak).

Oh, and BTW, this pillar of wisdom – i.e. Feinberg – is now heading up the compensation fund for the Gulf oil spill. I guess we can expect the same “shame was punishment enough” line to be trotted out there too – with about the same degree of justification.

I suppose I should feel a certain degree of satisfaction about this, since I've been saying from the beginning that what is now termed the Great Recession was, in fact, entirely intentional, and meticulously programmed from the start. And events have pretty consistently supported this theory – like the fact that the organizations most responsible are not only back on their feet, but are prospering... making more money than ever in many cases, which includes their top officers. And yes, I know it's risky to judge intent according to results – sometimes good things happen to bad people for no particular reason. But this “meltdown”, and the resulting bailouts, and the stimulus program, have “hoax” and “scam” written all over them. I think what we've seen is, basically, a huge wealth transfer where business and government are co-conspirators, and where all the “crisis” talk is no more than a cover story. It is, I grant you, a new and somewhat novel model compared to the crude pillage of old, but it's ultimately the same thing and it's having more or less the same results... with one critical difference, which is that the American public has, by and large, bought into the propaganda package. Sure, there is some skepticism and there are a few “conspiracy theorists” (ahem!) running around – but overall, it's just like all the other government-sponsored hoaxes in our history. People are so upset and disoriented, and panicked, by not only the “crisis” itself but what is said about it (by the government via the captive media) that they don't have the time or energy for skepticism – in addition to which, the level of fear is such that no one wants to “rock the boat”. Just at the point when the system is most vulnerable – i.e. the immediate cover-up stage – the people are also the most fearful and the most anxious to run and hide under the wing of mother hen. That chick who's too slow might get left behind, and eaten by the Big Bad Wolf. Problem is, it's the wolves who are running things – but they are clothed in the garb of the Nanny State, so it's the rare person who sees them for what they are.

For instance, who was about to question the official line as to what happened on 9-11, on 9-12? A few lone voices, whom the media were ready to discount as "nut cases". You'll notice that in "crises" of this sort the media are always primed to shut down dissent. It's almost as if they knew in advance... but that's just crazy talk, right?

My question, as always, is how many times can an exercise like this be performed before there are no victims left? I mean, sooner or later we're going to have a system where the rich and powerful rule over a vast army of slaves. Well, we have that now, but eventually the slaves are going to live like the slaves of old, and probably look (and smell) like them as well. And what happens then? Can we find, anywhere in history, a comparable situation? One could point to any number of ancient empires, but I think the Soviet Union and China under Mao – and North Korea under Kim – are maybe more perfect examples. What happened in the case of the Soviets and the Chinese is that the ruling class started to die out, their heirs didn't have the same political will or sheer viciousness, and at the same time the ordinary people started to wake from their slumbers and dream that there might be a better way. In the case of North Korea, of course, we're still all waiting for this to happen; and in Cuba, the process is just getting under way. So yes, there is life after the death of freedom – but who wants to have to live through the dark times? I think we're going to get a chance to find out, since they've already begun.

Greatness Tour 2009-2010

I have to admit, he's making his mark – Obama, I mean. He managed to get Congress to pass, in quick succession, a 2000-plus-page health care reform bill which will not solve any of our most basic health care issues... and a 2000-plus-page financial reform bill which will not solve any of our core financial issues, and will probably make some of them even worse. And not to forget the “economic stimulus plan”, which stimulated, basically, squat. In addition to which, he seems totally incapable of figuring out how to disengage from Iraq and Afghanistan – mainly because he has no intention of disengaging. “But wait, there's more!” -- as they say on late-night TV ads for the latest gadget. In line with Obama's urge to climb every mountain, we still have the main event in store, namely legislation designed to reshape and renew the Earth itself by stopping “global warming” in its tracks. If we think that what has happened so far has been a death blow to liberty, those things will turn out to be minor irritants compared to what we will have to give up to keep the Earth from turning into one big backyard barbecue.

So the hits just keep coming, and so far his record is one of 100% success... if you're a member of the ruling elite, that is. If you're an average American citizen he's an unmitigated disaster... but, really, no worse than a third Bush term would have been (talking strictly theoretically here), and probably better than a first McCain/Palin term would have been, since in that case we would still have health care issues, economic issues, financial issues, and the two wars, and would probably by this time have landed the Marines on the shores of Georgia (the one on the Black Sea) in order to back them up in their struggle with Russia. And let's not forget that China has always been on better terms with the Democrats than with the Republicans (wonder why?), which may be why they're holding on to all our debt rather than cashing it all in at once and trashing our economy. Say what you like, they always know who their friends are. And when it comes to foreign affairs, why... even that very brief awkwardness with Israel has now been consigned to history... or rather the memory hole. So all is well, and you'd hardly know you were on board the Titanic except for that slight listing of the deck and the nervous expressions on the faces of the lounge band members.

History will show that Obama had greatness thrust upon him – and turned it down cold. Instead, he opted for the liberal/socialist/collectivist, and – I might add – Regime-friendly solution to all of his challenges... which is, in truth, an expression of despair rather than hope and of stagnation rather than change. But the despair will not belong to him and his cronies (and his overlords), but to his victims – namely the American people, whose political discernment has once again failed, with disastrous consequences.

Apocalypse Later

There is one thing that conservatives and liberals can agree on, and that is the need – the burning desire – for something called “justice” (or, at the very least, that watered-down thing the liberals call “fairness”, which even Jimmy Carter advised against counting on). The main difference is that conservatives see justice as an infinite, eternal, and divine quality, and thus rely on God to (1) know what it is and (2) deliver it at the proper time, whereas liberals see it as something that we – i.e. mankind – have to discern and come up with, and the sooner the better – hopefully within the lifetime of all liberals now walking the earth. To a liberal, the greatest tragedy is to go to the grave without having seen justice in his lifetime... whereas to a conservative, the notion of humankind as the (only) source of justice is absurd on its face – and any pretense as to whether justice has been, or can ever be, achieved on this plain is the utmost in presumption. And yet many conservatives – e.g. the “tea partiers” -- have been caught up in the political trap of striving, with the greatest urgency, to achieve justice – hopefully within the duration of the current political or election cycle. So the conservatives are now taking to the streets the way the liberals used to do before they took over all of the political and cultural power centers... and the spectacle is no less absurd. But neither side wants to give up on this vision, because it is so central to the character and the strivings of those strange people called “Americans”. This country – and its predecessor colonies, in fact – was founded on the notion of no less than paradise on earth... and it is the very last delusion that will ever be given up, no matter where one stands on the political spectrum. Because to give it up would mean surrender to all of the apparent irrationality and chaos of the world... to the forces of tyranny and oppression (if you're a conservative), or to “superstition”, unreason, and “hate” (if you're a liberal). In other words, neither side is willing to accept the world as it is – and this, I suppose, is commendable enough, except for the vast differences in focus. Liberals want to re-mold, and re-form, the human race, i.e. society, or the “collective”, in their own image – whereas conservatives want to reform individuals in the image of God. And much of the political strife and controversy in our time is based on this primary distinction.

The thing is, the salvation of any one individual is, in fact, a problem – _the_ problem, if you will – that adheres to that individual. And in fact, an individual can seek, and hopefully attain, salvation with or without the help of the “society” in which he happens to live. There have been righteous men in even the worst of times throughout history... and the unrighteous were raising their voices in protest even in the most secure heart of Christendom. In other words, it all boils down to, not only human nature, but to each individual person and their reaction to their lot – to their state of being. But even here we find that the divergence has already occurred – the believing Christian believes himself to be a created being, and part of the created order... whereas the unbeliever, especially in our time – with his arms full of the works of the finest minds of the past 200 years – people like Marx, Darwin, and Freud – believes himself to be the result of nothing more than a series of random (one might say “unfortunate”) events. To the liberal humanist, a man is simply a list of “nothing mores” -- nothing more than an economic being, nothing more than an animal, nothing more than an unwieldy pile of neuroses, obsessions, and superstitions. So this basic metaphysical difference is going to greatly condition the kind of “cure” that is proposed, by the different sides, for the human lot. And the aggregate of various proposed “cures” will constitute one's politics – which is why we see so much “misunderstanding” in our day and age. The two sides are starting with drastically differing, and irreconcilable, views of human nature – and therefore of the significance (if any) of the individual, and of society, and of the individual's place in society. And these are not superficial differences that can be ironed out in a Congressional committee room; they are profound, and they will not simply go away with the next law that is passed, or the next regulation enacted.

If you accept the above premises, you have to agree that the miracle is not that there is so much political strife in this country, but that there is not more. A nation with as wide a range of metaphysical positions (of which religious creeds are a subset) would, at most times and in most places in history, have erupted in civil war and sectarian strife ages ago. It would have been like the Moslem vs. Hindu wars in India after it gained independence from Britain – totally irreconcilable beliefs worth dying for, as many millions did. But we have somehow held together through all of this, despite dire predictions to the contrary (and I don't consider our own Civil War to be an exception – that was one Christian nation against another, and more's the tragedy). But is it just a matter of sitting back and saying “let the best belief system win”? I'm not aware of anyone who takes that position; I know I don't. What's more likely, I think, is that each side is willing – up to a point -- to give things time to sort themselves out. For example, as aggressive as the Progressives, liberals, humanists, and secularists have been to eliminate any influence of religion on “public life”, they have stopped short (to date) of totally suppressing organized religion – even though they have done an excellent job of harassment and persecution. And that, in turn, is based on another curious American belief, which – strangely – seems inconsistent at times with the concept of justice, and that is the concept of tolerance. But “tolerance”, American-style, is not the expression of indifferentism that some claim; it's more like an attitude of “You're wrong, but I'm willing to allow you to continue to be wrong.” In other words, it's a bit patronizing... but it's still preferable to fire and the sword, which is the usual response to that situation. And I suppose that if there's anything this society will be remembered for in the far-distant future, it's that brand of tolerance, which, while humane in one sense, nonetheless had an edge to it. And maybe this brand of tolerance is the best we can suspect in any nation as a whole; we are not, after all, one gigantic Buddhist monastery.

The problem is, tolerance works just fine if all we're talking about is belief, or faith, or creed – qualities that seem somewhat abstract when it comes to everyday life. But here's the rub. This country is also, I would say, a uniquely “political” entity – which means that, precisely because of our notions about democracy, everything eventually becomes political... which means that everything becomes subject to our various metaphysics, belief systems, and so on... which means that these “abstract” things don't stay abstract for long. They become, in fact, vital forces when it comes to public life – and the increasing role of government in the lives of the people just aggravates that fact. I cannot walk out my door and out onto the street without becoming immediately subject to the aggregated belief systems of other people – hundreds, thousands, even millions. I become involved in politics, whether I want to be or not. And it's no longer “let the best belief system win” -- but the fact that there already is a winner, namely the collectivist, totalitarian mindset that has overtaken our politics and our life as a people. Of course, this in itself is “a matter of opinion”, since for many, the bigger and more overbearing government becomes, the better they like it.

So I wind up living in a world I never made – but which was made for me, to serve what were claimed to be my best interests, namely to exist as an unquestioning serf of the Regime, i.e. the “system”. And as long as I make the proper noises in that regard, I'm reasonably secure (in my serfdom). But try coming up with a radically different opinion, and see how far this “tolerance” goes. A cynic would say that “tolerance” is simply a strategy used by those in power until they obtain total power – at which point tolerance vanishes. And there is plenty of evidence for this! We have passed the point at which tolerance serves as a useful tool; it is now morphing either into oppression or into that thing called “diversity”, which is a total fraud that pretends to be tolerance, but is nothing of the kind. If you want to be “diverse”, you still have to be diverse in politically-correct, socially-acceptable ways – otherwise you might as well be living under the Taliban. What if, for example, a black intellectual or academician decides to “out” the liberal establishment for having maintained the black community in a state of at least moral and psychological slavery – a less tangible version of the plantation system before emancipation? You think he's going to get a fair hearing? All you have to do is read the paper in order to realize that he's not; in fact, he's going to be declared persona non grata and, basically, drummed out of his race the way Thomas Sowell and Clarence Thomas have been.

So yes, tolerance has its limits (due to human nature) and I think we're seeing them in our time. We have the media going after the Catholic Church with all the fury of Attila's hordes... the liberal elite denigrating Christian believers in general and allowing all sorts of blasphemies, many with public funding... elected officials responding “Are you kidding?” when asked if their favored programs are consistent with the Constitution... and all the various instruments of false humanism and “diversity” being used against ordinary, law-abiding citizens (well, they _thought_ they were law-abiding, until Title IX and affirmative action came along...). So the flood waters are rising, and the country the tea partiers thought they were born and grew up in has vanished like the morning fog under a burning sun – and all that is left is a glorified concentration camp. And so they protest – which is only right, and natural – but the way the “agents of change” operate is that, by the time their victims realize anything is wrong, it's too late... and as I've said, I really do think it's too late, despite the exertions of the tea partiers, the Ron (and Rand) Paul crowd, “talk radio”, the paleocons, the libertarians, and so on. You know that the oppressor has the upper hand when he no longer cares what anyone thinks – and we are seeing this now, on a daily basis. “Public opinion” really means nothing to the ruling elite – and one reason is that our true masters are not elected, and are, by and large, unknown. They will offer up the occasional elected official as a sacrificial lamb to appease the wrath of the public – think George W. Bush, for example, or Jimmy Carter – but that's only in order to make their job easier. They job will be done, in any case.

And yet, through all of this, the quest for “justice” continues – while at the same time frustration and despair at its lack only grow more intense. And what do people do in response to this frustration? Why, they do what prophets both true and false have always done – call down the powers of the Almighty upon the heads of the offenders. If they can't have justice, they will have destruction, on the same scale as the Flood or the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah. The problem for liberals, of course, is that there _is_ no Almighty – so they have to call down the wrath of something else, and that something else is usually the Earth itself. “Mother Nature's gonna get you for that.” The Earth will, somehow, figure out a way to extract “payback” for the great and many offenses of mankind – and if you keep up with “Steve Newman's Earthweek”, this process is already well underway and is, in fact, “irreversible” (despite the pleadings of Al Gore et al). Even if we stopped using fossil fuels today, the Earth would still turn into a lifeless cinder well within the lifetimes of many living today – and that's a promise! Even the Gaia principle is not enough to turn back the clock on global destruction and mass extermination – because, as always, by the time we managed to define the problem it was too late to do anything about it.

And I must say, it is bizarre, to say the least, to have oil companies trying (and failing) to drill wells a mile under water... or gas companies using this “fracking” technique to squeeze the – absolutely, positively! -- last drop (or whatever the gaseous equivalent is) of natural gas out of the Marcellus shale. These are actions that say more about sheer desperation than about technology... about man's “conquest of nature” (and how long has it been since you heard that term?). And when the last molecule of fossil fuel is forced out of the ground and burned... what then? Of course, we've only been using oil for less than 200 years... and natural gas for not much more than 100. Coal is a different matter, of course, having been in use somewhere in the world since ancient times. But in any case, it's not hard to project, based on population trends, technology, and known resources, a point in the future when this stuff is going to be just plain gone. And what then? Well – we won't have to worry about “carbon footprints” any longer; that's for sure. But are we really going to have a billion or so windmills, or solar collectors, at that point? Or nuclear reactors? Or geothermal plants? And how about “harnessing the tides”? (It hasn't worked yet.) What I'm getting at is if the Earth itself is the “enforcer”, this collapse may fall under the heading of “the apocalypse” -- you know, that event which all the faithful (whether religious or otherwise) anticipate with fear and trembling.

But there's so much that could happen in the meantime that would render all of this moot – like the _real_ Apocalypse, for example – you know, the one in the Book of Revelation. After all, don't forget that James Watt, Reagan's secretary of the interior, said – right out loud, in front of Congress! -- “I do not know how many future generations we can count on before the Lord returns, whatever it is we have to manage with a skill to leave the resources needed for future generations." Of course, the media had a field day with this statement, and (after they had picked themselves up off the floor from laughing) called it a half-cynical, half-insane way of making excuses for the pillaging of our natural resources. But what if he was right? I mean... that would be, let's say, an alternative plan for the Apocalypse – rather than the Earth saying “I'm mad as hell, and I'm not going to take it any more”, God would be saying that (or words to that effect). And in fact, this is one element of the “end times” zeal on the part of our fundamentalist brethren – that God has just about had it, and that He will not stay His hand much longer. But again, isn't this just another version of the yearning for justice? And isn't it an attempt to force God's ways to be, or become, our ways? Their fond hope is that, any day now, God will look down upon “the mess that humankind has made of things” and say, well, it might be time for another flood... or for more fire and brimstone... or for something totally unexpected (and there are plenty of candidates for that alternative, from all across the political spectrum). But is this really in God's plan – to conform His sense of justice to match ours (even that of fervent believers)? One Gospel quote that must cause endless annoyance to the end-times buffs is “No man knoweth the day or the hour” -- since many of them are convinced that they, indeed, know both of those things – with absolute precision and assurance. (How many times have you heard, or read, that “the end of the world will come on (date) at (time)”? And the “global warming” zealots have their own version of this, needless to say.) Again, it's trying to tell God what His policies and priorities should be. Plus, it calls into question another quality of God that is as important as His justice – namely mercy. For what else is it but mercy that causes God to be “long-suffering” -- much longer-suffering and patient, in fact, than any of His created beings are? Now the cynic, or unbeliever, might (for the sake of argument) claim that God is playing a cat-and-mouse game – just keeping the human race around so He can play with it a bit longer. But this is not the theme that runs throughout the entire Old Testament, or that has been restated so many times by the Church. It's really about giving individuals – and the human race in general – more time to repent and amend. And yes, another day of “parole” means another day of suffering for many – but this “statistical” approach is that of materialists, secularists, and “experts” -- and has never been properly attributed to God. If He, and His purposes, exist outside of time and space, they must also exist outside of mere numbers as well, and the quantity of physical, or material, suffering is of little ultimate importance compared to that which will count in eternity. And in fact, this impatience and striving for justice “now” might fall under the heading of a besetting sin – in that it represents a failure of faith... or a process of putting a distorted form of hope before faith.

Fatigue

We are barely into the “Dog Days” -- depending on one's definition thereof – and Pittsburgh is suffering its longest and most intense heat wave since I was privileged to set up shop in these parts. Why, just yesterday the high temperature was – hold on to your hats! -- 93 degrees! Yes! Stifling, scorching heat! The hottest temperature here in nearly five years, according to the National Weather Service. Of course, anyone in the Washington, DC area, where I was privileged (?) to live for all of 33 years, would laugh heartily at this. We're talking about a place where a week-long stretch of 100+ degree highs is not unusual... and where, if any summer went by with no temperatures higher than 93, people would be panicking about “global cooling”. Truly, the Washington area has some of the worst weather in the country... which some might say is poetic justice, considering that Washington is where all the people who want to tell the rest of us how to live live. So let 'em roast! That's my philosophy.

But let's also admit that most Washingtonians, even though they represent the power elite, are, basically, slaves and serfs. They live, and exist, to do the bidding of their betters – which usually means politicians, political appointees, bureaucrats, and the entirety of the hidden Washington, DC power structure. And there are many ironies to life in that region. For example, Washington, DC – i.e. the city – is run by blacks. Period. No one who is white, unless they're a self-hating white person, has a chance when it comes to the power structure of the DC government. And yet, in theory, the DC government is overseen by Congress – which is hardly any consolation. How would you like to live in a city that was subject to the whims of the United States Congress? No thank you! And yet, DC is also the home of some of the most prominent members of the ruling elite – those people without whose consent nothing is done, either in Congress, or by any administration... or even, I suspect, by the Supreme Court. These people may not be at the very top of the heap, but they are pretty damn far up the totem pole. I'm talking about people who own entire blocks in Georgetown – do you know what that means? It means they have a few tens of millions of real estate under their control. (Theresa Heinz Kerry is one example – or at least she was back in the mid 70s when she was just Theresa Heinz. I was part of the entertainment at a birthday party she threw for her husband, Sen. John Heinz. They had a very nice 3-story, plus two basement levels, manse right in the heart of Georgetown. I got a tour of the place from one of the boys. The point is, they were owners of one of the prime properties in a city where using the word "niggardly" can get you tossed off the city council for being a racist.)

So there are manifest absurdities connected with even the ruling elite. They can only venture so far out of their “gated communities” before they come face-to-face with the real people of this country – the homeless, the psychotic, and the average working stiffs. And I suppose this is the way it has always been – I mean, even the most exclusive redoubts of the rich, famous, and powerful have to include ample servants' quarters. The elite cannot help but cross paths with the “plain people” once in a while – and the National Enquirer proves it! Famous people – people worth millions – are caught, red-handed, walking out of a 7-11 with a Slushie. So yeah, forget about the elite being able to totally insulate themselves from the rest of us; it just can't be done. I've always said that I'd rather be a poor person in a rich country than a rich person in a poor country. And this is because there are always – intended or otherwise -- “trickle-down effects” from the rich... whereas if you're at the top of the heap in a place like Haiti, you have to spend all your time worrying about getting your throat cut. I just don't think that's a very relaxing way to live – I mean, call me crazy, but...

But to return to my main point, whatever it is – you would think, given the revolutionary actions of the Obama administration to date, that we would be experiencing a period of – at the very least – euphoria by now, similar to that which overtook the country during Franklin Roosevelt's “Hundred Days”, or JFK's foreshortened administration. Why don't we see students marching in the streets, with accordions, a la Mao's Cultural Revolution? Granted, the newest generation of leeches and parasites is converging on Washington, DC to “help” with the Obama revolution, and real estate in that area is experiencing another boom -- unique considering that the rest of the country is on the ropes... but I just don't sense the same esprit de corps... the same jubilation. After all, the draft is no longer in force, unlike the 1960s... and the economy, while on its knees, has not yet received a knock-out punch... and we are, it is argued, on the verge of – finally! After all these years! -- achieving that cynosure of all righteous societies, namely “fairness”. So why is there no jubilation in the streets? Why no mass rallies, North Korea-style? After all, we have a leader who has promised to mend all wounds, and cure all ills – and he is (or so he says) well on the way to doing both. And yeah, a few million people's hopes and dreams have been dashed by the economic collapse – but this is just a temporary condition, understand? And what comes out of it will be better than anything we've ever dreamed of – a society where “fairness” rules and “privilege” is smashed to smithereens. Except for one awkward fact, which is that “privilege” is the word that describes the entire governing class at this point – Obama and his crew, Congress, the courts, the bureaucracy, the media, and everyone else in positions of power. Whether they “deserve” the privileges they have is not to be questioned by the unwashed – the point is, they are who they are, and they are occupying positions of power... and the rest of us should be thankful that we've managed to stay out of jail for one more day. That is, in a nutshell, the core position of our rulers at this point. So it's hardly surprising that the frisson of populism that accompanied the New Deal... or the Fair Deal... or the New Frontier... is missing in this case. No one is celebrating! What's happening is that people are hunkering down, expecting that the worst is yet to come... and they are not counting on our leaders to do much of anything about it. Oh yes, they may twiddle away at the margins a bit – as with the tax code – but they'll do nothing about the core problems. And that's because, to them, the core problems are not problems at all – they're a way of life. The many predations of places like AIG and Goldman Sachs – the millions of people that they've crushed underfoot – are small considerations compared to the consolidation of power that has occurred.

A great divide has opened up – and I can't help thinking of those special effects – remarkable for their time – in which the seas parted at Moses' command, or other equally remarkable things happened. But the divide now is between the ruling elite and their servants (after all, the servants spend more time in the “big house” than the master, right?), and the slave or serf class – which means, basically, you and me – the un-privileged, the un-anointed, the done-to. For example, our taxes will go up next year based on decisions we had absolutely nothing to do with. And this is about as good a definition of tyranny as I can come up with: We pay while they play. And this is happening in an alleged democracy! With elections! You can only imagine what it would be like in an open, unabashed dictatorship (it might be better, actually).

So, under these conditions, is the average citizen – who has started, finally, to see the light – expected to evince any enthusiasm for a process, and a system, that he now knows is operating totally against his interests? I don't think so. As bovine and comatose as the American public is, there has to be a limit to their tolerance, and I think it has been reached. And yet, they are so unused to protest, and to activism – after all, those have always been the province of the leftists, who are now in charge – that the best they can come up with – and a small number it is at that – is the “tea parties”. And the ruling elite sees the tea parties on about the same level as the proverbial “little old lady in tennis shoes” -- annoying but basically harmless.

So what do you do then, in the face of monolithic, all-powerful government and its media allies? Well, you could do as so many of the citizens of the Soviet Union did – just get drunk and stay that way. Or you could become an expatriate – and live in some enlightened place like France, for instance... or just become a “world traveler” with no mailing address. But after all, you do have some loyalty to place – to family – to the land, if you're from the country... and damn it, no pontificating liberal in the White House is going to make you pull up stakes and leave without a fight! So we have the groundwork for the next civil war – maybe. But so far, all of the contenders – like the Michigan Militia – have shown themselves to be uniquely unqualified for the job. And don't forget, in the first civil war, the Southerners were defending home and hearth – and states, which they identified with much more than the federal government. Can you imagine anyone going out now and fighting for Pennsylvania? I can't. If anything, state governments in our time are even more corrupt, venal, and incompetent than the federal government. So they are hardly worth fighting for. Well then, how about fighting for one's county... or town... or village... or farm? That is at least more traditional, and more compelling in its way. But ten thousand men fighting for ten thousand farms does not exactly an army make; there has to be a higher-order idea, and what does the Obama administration have to offer in this regard? Basically nothing. And this is what takes all the energy out of the populace, and why we are all suffering, to one degree or another, from fatigue. There is no hope in Washington, and no hope for change... and we have lost sight of basic philosophical concepts and values to the degree that we can't imagine any alternatives. The tea partiers are, like so many protest movements, high on the “agin” scale and low on the “for” scale – if you asked them to lay out alternatives to what we have now, on any level, they'd be stumped. It would be something like, “Well, go back to where we were... let's see...before the New Deal. Or actually, before Wilson. No, before Lincoln! Oh hell, let's just go back to July 5, 1776 and start over.” And that would be from the ones with insight. The rest would be waving flags in a desultory way and mumbling something about “not cutting and running” from Iraq and Afghanistan – which basically means they have already drunk deeply of the Regime's Kool-Aid.

The first agenda item of any even remotely “radical” movement has to be to stop whatever wars are being fought at the time dead in their tracks – but we don't see this from the tea partiers, au contraire! They want us to “commit sufficient resources to win”. The problem is, those resources don't exist, and they never will. We simply cannot win against true believers on their own turf – and that's because we are not true believers any longer. It could almost be argued that the “boys” we sent “over there” in World War I really believed they were fighting for something called “democracy” -- whereas, in fact, what they were mostly fighting for was to dethrone a bunch of somewhat addlepated monarchs and clear the way for both communism and fascism. Then when World War II rolled around – well, then the government had to convince people that Hitler, Tojo, and Mussolini had designs on their farms in Kansas. Not that much of a stretch, really. Then with Korea – well, you know, if we let the commies take over South Korea, the next thing you know they'll be in Ontario, and ready to speed across Lake Erie in U-boats and start shelling Cleveland (which wouldn't have done any more damage than “urban renewal” did, frankly). And the same argument applied to Vietnam; why, you don't want Uncle Ho turning your daughters into “ho's”, do you? And so on. The only reason Iraq and Afghanistan work is 9-11, which is this era's USS Maine, or Pearl Harbor, or Gulf of Tonkin. And as such, it's a hoax – even though it actually happened. It really doesn't take much to cause the American people to go to war... and as much as they seem to enjoy peacetime, there is a sense of restlessness until the next war comes along. This, I guess, is one of the many fatal flaws in Americans and Americanism – the fact that we thrive on war but barely eke out an existence on peace. And the problem is, we're competing on the world stage with scores of other countries, and cultures, that think the same way – war is the path to glory, and peace is for wimps, losers, cowards, and fags. Am I exaggerating? No – this is, basically, what all the propaganda is all about, year after year. Why is the U.N. so despised? Because it stands for “peace” -- whatever the hell that is. No man with the proper masculine equipment has any use for peace. Even the “Nobel Peace Prize” is typically given to warriors – and that's because there are no peacemakers to be found. No, peace is definitely not in the human makeup; it's not in our DNA.

So, the cynic might say, what we need is a real war – not these anemic exercises in Iraq and Afghanistan. And FDR would have agreed – as would Wilson, and LBJ. Say what you want, these were real, bonafide “warrior presidents”, and that is the way they chose to define their legacy. By comparison, Obama is more in league with Carter or McGovern (in the dreadful event he had become president). We do what we have to do, but we're not really into it – really not committed. And the military has to deal with this ambivalence, which explains what happened to McChrystal (and what won't happen to Petraeus, because he is, among other things, the bureaucrat's bureaucrat).

What I'm getting at is that our greatest tyrants, for all of their flaws, at least knew how to inspire. Consider Lincoln, Wilson, and FDR. Consider even a tyrant manque, like JFK – he too knew how to inspire, even though his successor, a real tyrant, didn't. And then we have Obama, who I don't think ever fancied that he could become a real tyrant; he had already had too many “talks” with the people who really run things. And in a way, this is good – we are no longer subject to the whims of a single demagogue with delusions of grandeur. Level heads have prevailed – at last! The only problem is, what those “level heads” want may have nothing whatsoever to do with the general welfare, or with the hopes and dreams of the average citizen. We are, truly, living in a strangely abstract time, where we pursue our modest goals on one level and the rich and powerful pursue theirs on an entirely different level – and ne'er the twain shall meet. If a man can be born, live, and die in our time without experiencing any serious rebuffs to any of his ambitions and plans, well... lucky for him. (He must have had pretty low expectations!) But it had nothing to do with anyone wanting to protect his “rights” -- it's just that what he wanted was of little or no interest to those in charge. If he had wanted, on the other hand, true liberty... true freedom of speech... true property rights... he would have run headlong into the machine, and been pulverized thereby. This is the core fact of life in the America of our time – that the only people who consider themselves “free” are the ones who haven't tested their freedoms. The others – the minority – know better. And it is that minority that is forever protesting – in person and via the Internet – and feeling a bit of solidarity, perhaps, with the “summertime soldiers” like the tea partiers... even though they know that when the harsh winds start to blow, the tea partiers will scatter and disappear. But even then, these are the people who retain some degree of awareness; the rest are in a state of terminal despair, and self-imposed exile from the political process. They may retain some sense of morality, but it is only applied to their own limited sphere; the notion of trying to apply it to society is so overwhelming that it is never allowed to enter their consciousness. So this is what constitutes what I call “fatigue” -- a combination of having given up in despair after considering the state of the world... and having given up _before_ considering the state of the world, because just the consideration process was way too threatening. And when enough people have this attitude, the Regime has, in effect, carte blanche – it can do anything it wants, at anytime, to anyone, and pretty much get away with it. So when those caught up in the machine ask “Why?”, the answer is that they have permitted it – they have allowed it, by forgetting that, in the words of Wendell Phillips, “eternal vigilance is the price of liberty”.