The Golem

Midterm Blues

2026-10-09T18:19:55.656-04:00

My record as a prognosticator when it comes to elections is, let's say, sketchy at best, so I wouldn't blame anyone for putting on their skeptic hat at this point. But I'm not even talking about results – rather, about various factors and vectors that could feed into this process.

First off, the midterm elections are about Trump. And if you say gas prices, that's about Trump too. And so is everything else. And this is nothing new, since midterms are always about the president who happens to be in office at the time. So whether it makes any sense or not, your state and local elections, right down to the level of dogcatcher, are going to be about Trump. As the old activist song went, “Which side are you on?” (Implication – you have to be on a “side”. It would be downright un-American to be neutral.)

So let's talk about Trump's base, and more specifically the base known as MAGA. MAGA had its heyday in the first Trump administration. There was a sense of euphoria... of triumphalism... of inevitability... of revolution, even (or counter-revolution, technically), and the movement survived all of the attempts – many of them successful – to oppose and defeat Trump's initiatives and programs, and to remove him from office. But on the practical side – to paraphrase a song of some years back -- Trump fought D.C. and the mainstream media, and D.C. and the media won. So Trump wound up operating as, in many ways, a lame duck from the first day of his first term. (The “never Trumpers” in the Republican Party didn't help. But where are they now?)

But, like any halfway decent politician (not that he is one), Trump learned. He learned many lessons, and the most important one was that his opponents in the government and the media, who on any given day present an outward appearance of being kind of wishy-washy and wimpy, if not outright eunuchs, are in actuality the meanest, most vicious animals in the jungle. After all, they haven't stayed in power and in positions of influence for all these years – decades! – by being nice. So basically, he underestimated them the first time around, but when he began his second (non-continuous) term, he had his ducks more in a row and was loaded for bear (think DOGE).

So Trump, as of January of 2025, started out much stronger and more capable. He was tanned, rested, and ready – as the saying goes. He hit the ground running – and his MAGA base had survived the Biden years more or less intact. But then he and his administration tried their hand at some real issues, like:

The Epstein files
UFOs
Ukraine
Palestine/Israel/Gaza
Iran

(They toyed a bit with the JFK assassination, and with 9/11, but apparently decided those topics were still too hot to handle after all this time. Plus it was “old news”, and nothing more had been added to what we already know. This was the allegation (either explicit or implied) at least, and so both of these issues were re-buried for the umpteenth time.)

The problem was that with each of these issues, and with their mishandling, Trump and his administration lost some measure of credibility with not only the citizenry in general, but also with their formerly solid base. So I suspect that there's a certain group – let's call it ex-MAGA – who are quietly disillusioned and who are unwilling to “vote Trump” next month, either by voting for other candidates or not voting at all.

Then you have the so-called independents, who may have voted for Trump in 2024 but who are more reality-based, and who may be suffering from “buyer's regret”, and who – like the ex-MAGA contingent – may vote otherwise or simply stay home. (These are, as is well known, the most flexible segment of the voting citizenry, and it's because they actually pay attention – not just to propaganda, but to results. And they don't get all sentimental about which party their parents or grandparents always voted for. They are, I would say, more “reality-based” than the loyal members of either of the major parties, and they constitute a swing vote in many cases.) (I wouldn't say that the “swing” in the “swing states” is composed entirely of independents, but they are a major factor, along with the people who just decide to stay home. You can vote by not voting, in other words – and both parties know this all too well.)

And of course the main problem with the issues listed above is there has been no resolution. No closure. Nothing to satisfy anyone's curiosity.

The Epstein files remain a closed book, by and large – at least the “good stuff” – simply because they implicate pretty much the entirety of the ruling elite. Not that Trump is a member of the ruling elite, mind you (his main offense is that he's not in “the club”, and has no interest in being in it) – but he can't very well afford to offend them by exposing their, let's say, less-than-commendable interests and habits. And it's not certain if he realized this at first; the thinking then was “Aha! Now we'll catch all those Democrat and liberal pre-verts!” But upon digging a bit deeper, it turned into “Oops. Never mind. Nothing to see here.” And when the government says that, it's precisely because there is “something to see here”. So... excuses were made, jobs were lost, and the whole business was tossed down the memory hole – or at least an attempt was made, but we know how things live on on the Internet. But the bottom line was – zero closure! Zero justice! And we're still arguing about who, or what, killed Epstein. (When there are that many people who want you dead, it hardly matters who actually did the actual deed.) (Or I guess he could be alive and well and living on some tropical island with Hitler and Elvis and Jimmy Hoffa.)
UFOs – Oy, this ball has been tossed around ever since the late 1940s, and as always, any sort of inquiry or investigation runs into a wall of silence, along with bureaucratic, and this case military, resistance. (“Secret weapons” are supposed to stay secret, right?) Plus, the perennial problem is that you have people who are, basically, kooks or in denial, on both sides of the issue. It's “the truth is out there” vs. “there's nothing out there, it's just swamp gas, you're all imagining things, etc.” So once again, after great fanfare it quickly turns into a non-story and a non-issue. Another self-inflicted wound on the part of the administration. (The parallels with the JFK assassination and 9/11 are striking, in that in each case you have two opposing camps – the “conspiracy theorists” vs. the standard, i.e. government narrative, types. In this case it seemed like some in the administration were toying with the conspiracy position, but that was quashed quite promptly.)
Ukraine – For starters, why did Russia let Ukraine go after the Soviet Union broke up? Could they really have done nothing to keep it within the fold? Either they couldn't (things were a bit chaotic there for a while) or they chose not to. But now they have the prospect of NATO being right on their doorstep, which Russia not only doesn't want, but we promised them it wouldn't happen and then broke that promise. So here we are, “saving democracy” for a corrupt and allegedly-democratic country that is in a war with a corrupt and never-democratic country. I swear, I think we got along better with the Soviet Union (“godless communism”) than we do with the Russia of today. And the U.S./NATO side of the issue has apparently never heard of “buffer zones”, which are a time-honored way of keeping major powers out of each other's hair. Why can't Ukraine be neutral? And if they are incapable of doing that on their own, why not move a U.N. peacekeeping force into Ukraine? We did it with (former) Yugoslavia. Clearly someone wants to keep this conflict going, as long as it doesn't get too hot (i.e. nukes). And if our “NATO partners” were too short-sighted to anticipate this, why did we have to be? So... chalk up a kind of stalemate, which we are heavily invested in with no clear result.
Palestine/Israel/Gaza – another no-win situation (for us) because, quite simply, we have to share the blame for anything Israel does. So even if certain radical Muslim groups are determined to make themselves (and the citizens of Gaza) into martyrs, their blood winds up on our hands – or so many will say. (Unlike the Epstein and UFO and Ukraine issues, I'm willing to admit that this one was pretty much unavoidable. A Democrat administration would be just as entrapped in it as the Trump administration is.) (There's a faint echo here of the war in Vietnam, which had precursors in a Republican administration, but reached a high point in a Democratic administration, but then it landed in Nixon's lap and he wound up getting blamed for something that had been going on for many years.) (One might also ask why we have a habit of getting out of wars only by means of unconditional surrender, which is far from traditional from a historical point of view.)
Iran – Well, once again, the stage was set decades ago, long before Trump or MAGA came on the scene, and yet they have appointed themselves the ones who can save the day like Mighty Mouse. As Daniel McCarthy said in a recent column, “Many Trump supporters are... outraged that we are in yet another Middle East war with no end in sight.” And if it comes to sending troops in, we could wind up being “waist deep in the Big Muddy” again (that expression dates from the war in Vietnam). And besides, some people are starting to suspect that the radical Muslim mindset is such that they not only don't mind dying for a cause, but absolutely relish martyrdom, since it advances their cause in the long run. This is something Americans can't be expected to understand, of course – and much less Trump and his administration, who want nothing more than to nail Iran's skin to the barn door (this is a re-boot of what LBJ said about Vietnam). The irony is that we're fighting to, supposedly, remedy a situation that started long ago with our interference in Iranian politics. So even if the Iranians win by losing, we will wind up losing by winning, because it will further solidify our image of being at war with Islam.
And while we're at it, let's not forget all the relatively trivial, but highly symbolic, self-inflicted wounds like the Kennedy Center, the ballroom, the reflecting pool, and the arch. There was absolutely no necessity for Trump to pile on with this stuff, but he did, and feedback has been almost entirely negative.

So these are all things that could impact the upcoming elections, but even if they do will it make a significant difference? The Democrats and the Democratic Socialists dream of returning to the glories of the Biden years, with open borders (non-borders actually), no ICE, defunding the police, a benign attitude toward urban violence and anarchy, and whatever else contributes to the gradual (or not-so-gradual) destruction of the America that the MAGA types believe in (and imagine that it still exists, or can at least be revived to some extent). The DSA candidates and sympathizers believe they are the wave of the future; well, maybe they are, but that doesn't say anything about what that future will be like in actual practice (although there are plenty of models available, like the Soviet Union). On the other side, are Trump and his people – the MAGA core – clinging to an illusion? Does the America they want to save even still exist? There's plenty of evidence that it doesn't – that it's composed largely of wishful thinking and nostalgia (with flags and flyovers). It's become all symbol and all myth with no substance, in other words. And both sides claim to want to “save democracy”, which is a shorthand way of saying “the government doing things my way and not those other people's way (because we're the good guys and they're evil)”. Is that really the democratic process in action, or is it more like gang warfare? On any given day, it seems almost exclusively like the latter; everything else is hot air, hypocrisy, and the lust for power.

So... I don't think this election is any more “the most important election of our lifetime” than any other. Every election is called that by everybody these days. For some, it will be no more than a bump in the road; for others, a turning point of some sort. Who are the revolutionaries of our time, and who are the counter-revolutionaries? It's getting to the point where no one can make any sense of it, and maybe it doesn't matter. Ultimately – and I hate to agree with Nietzche on this – it's all about power, and the language that supports power, and the thought processes (including delusions and paranoia) that language represents. And no matter the outcome, some will declare it “the end of America”. Well – it may be the end of their America, but if that America no longer exists, or in fact never has existed, maybe the Age of Ideas is passing away, and a new Age of Realism is dawning. Unlikely? Probably. But isn't some hope better than no hope at all?

Guess the Product or Service!

2026-08-31T21:32:46.792-04:00

Sometimes when I'm watching TV I like to play “Guess the Product or Service”. Here's how it works. An ad comes on, you immediately turn the sound off, then see how long it takes you to guess what they're selling. Now obviously, if the name of the place comes up right away, don't bother, although I find that usually only happens with fast foods. Then we have no-brainers, like if people are playing roulette or slots, it's a casino. Car ads always start with cars. Duh. We're talking about more subtle things here, like:

If it's a senior-citizen couple sitting at a table looking at a laptop with worried expressions, that's either life insurance or health insurance.
It it's a fast-action outdoor scene involving high-risk activities like rock climbing, underwater cave exploring, or hang gliding, that's a prescription drug.
If it's one or two middle-aged men in suits pointing their fingers at you, that's a law firm.
If it's a guy in overalls with a field behind him, that's either natural foods or a natural food supplement. (Or it could be a political ad, depending.)
If it's a guy in pajamas looking distressed into the bathroom mirror, that's a laxative.
If it's a guy using a BBQ grill, it's probably an antacid.
If it's a guy wearing a baseball cap in front of a white van, it's a plumber, or electrician, or AC/heating service. (No cheating! If you read the words on the van it doesn't count.)
If it's a senior citizen man wearing a cardigan and holding a cup of coffee, watching his wife plant flowers – that's a bank or stock broker (retirement accounts).
If there's a cat in the ad, it's for cat food. If there's a dog in the ad, it could be for anything because dogs are a prop. (And BTW, you'll never see a cat and a dog in the same ad, because there is no overlap in the demographics they're aiming at.)
If people watching TV suddenly jump up and run around waving their arms, that's a lottery.

Got any more? Put them in comments!

Yes Kings!

2026-04-24T16:41:00.000-04:00

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

They're Back (UFOs, that is)

2026-03-04T17:12:00.000-05:00

UFOs are in the news again, and I started thinking about all the aspects of this issue. The result (subject to change without notice):

The argument usually breaks down as follows:

The "pro" side:

They exist, and they are piloted by extraterrestrials.

Why are they here? Possibilities --

To study us

"Alien abduction" comes under this heading.

To prepare to conquer us

To study and test our defenses and detection abilities.

To protect us from our own warlike ways, e.g. by disrupting our warmaking capabilities. (The Day the Earth Stood Still -- movie)

Where are they from?

The usual answer is, not from our solar system, which opens it up to pretty much anywhere else.

How can they maneuver so well at high speeds, and appear/disappear in an instant?

They have technology (materials and propulsion systems) far superior to ours.

How long have they been here?

People will point to UFO and alien-like drawings in caves or on ancient documents, and UFO-like objects in sculptures and carvings.
They will also point to myths and legends that seem to describe non-human visitors.
They will also point to certain archaeological structures that appear to be designed as landing pads for alien spacecraft, or directional markers for them.

Why don't they just show themselves (and say "take me to your leader")?

If we're the objects of study, they don't want to disrupt the data collection process (mass hysteria, etc.). (The basic principle is that any sort or level of measurement alters the thing being measured. So in a sense all measurements are inaccurate to some extent. The strategy is to make measurements as unobtrusive as possible, i.e. not detected by what is being measured (in the case of living organisms). (This has always been the problem with anthropology, e.g. The presence of the data collector can have a major impact on the result. (Classic example — "Coming of Age in Samoa" by Margaret Mead))
If it's about conquest, they prefer to keep it under wraps for now.
If it's about protecting us, they also prefer to keep it under wraps (even though many people would be grateful) and only reveal themselves at the right time (presumably, at the last minute before nuclear war breaks out).

They exist, and they are piloted by humans.

What are they? And why are they there?

Advanced weapons (we don't want other countries to know about).
Advanced weapons belonging to hostile (or even "friendly") nations that are being tried out to see how we respond.
Advanced spying devices that are difficult or impossible for other countries to detect.
A means of attacking/influencing our own citizens (with, e.g., microbes, or radiation, or poisons, or electromagnetic waves of some sort) (think "contrails", and experimental biological agent releases which have been documented).
To scare us into accepting/demanding totalitarian government

They exist, but are manifestations of demonic activity.

To what purpose?

To distract people from religious thought and action (although it could backfire under some conditions).
To scare us into accepting/demanding totalitarian government.

They exist, but are manifestations of some sort of psychic projection on the part of individuals or the population in general. (This could also be linked to demonic influence.) (Another way of putting this is that they are not physical objects but focused collections of brain waves.) (One possible side effect — perhaps intentional -- being to cause hallucinations in "observers".)

The "con" side:

They don't exist, and are the product of science fiction, mass hysteria, wishful thinking, etc. (Note the "modern" UFO era only dates from the early 1950s, i.e. the same time as the atomic bomb hysteria.)
But what about the "evidence"?

The meager amount of video evidence from military aircraft can be attributed to faults in the equipment or a misreading of the images. (Note that all the news clips on this topic show the same very brief and blurry footage. It's about as convincing as the "bigfoot" or "Loch Ness monster" footage.)
Same applies to ground radar (from civilian installations)
Crashed "UFOs", often with "unknown" types of metal

If UFOs are so high-tech, why do they ever crash?
"Unknown" metals — unknown to whom? Why can't it be something we or some other country have developed in secret laboratories?
The "unknown" may simply be a way of sidetracking any further inquiry into what it is and who developed it.
If the "unknown" metals are the only proof that they are UFOs, it's a pretty think argument.

"Alien autopsies" — show me credible evidence, not just stuff made up for a side show or Weekly World News
"Alien abductions"

Show me actual physical evidence that has no medical or other ordinary explanation.
The alien abduction stories always seem to come from marginal people who have psychological issues (or just want to be famous).
Sometimes used as an excuse for failures or pathologies or "fugue states", i.e. people temporarily disappearing for no known reason.
As far as I know, no one has actually witnessed another person being abducted by aliens. It's always self-reported.

"Eyewitness accounts"

Notoriously reliable in general
OK, they saw something. How do they know it was a UFO? (Imagine what people thought the first time they saw a stealth bomber.)
Again, imagination — or maybe just faulty vision. (You can "see" plenty of things that aren't actually "out there" — I've done it plenty of times because of retina issues.)

It's a hoax perpetrated by the government and the military.

To distract people from the much more serious problems in the country, or
To justify more total surveillance, or
To provide "evidence" of certain people being mentally unbalanced so anything else they say won't be believed (or, to provide a justification for incarceration in a mental facility). (The "tinfoil hat" crowd, etc.)

But if they don't exist, why the apparent "cover-up"?

UFO stories, and "sightings", have been around since at least the 1950s, and the Air Force has been highly ambivalent about the whole business. They used to say it was just "swamp gas", and they dismissed anyone who thought otherwise as a lunatic.
But under pressure from Congress or whoever, they have occasionally undertaken a half-hearted "investigation", with predictably negative results.
And this cycle continues even to this day. They are basically being asked to find something that doesn't exist, or to prove a negative, which is logically impossible.
Another angle is that the Air Force continues to "lose face" because they can neither find UFOs nor prove they don't exist. So they have become quite weary of having to deal with the issue. (They might almost wish they were for real, so they could get on with business and turn the matter over to someone else, like the State Department for example!) (or the United Nations)
So the bottom line is that what is being covered up is not so much UFOs as the Air Force's inability (or unwillingness) to figure out what they are.
But like all real or apparent cover-ups, it backfires in the sense that people feel that if the government is lying to them about this, it's also lying to them about pretty much everything else.

They are not impossible in theory, but the chances of any extraterrestrial beings being willing and able to travel across space to Earth are infinitesimal for many reasons:

The distances involved (4.25 light years minimum).
The technology that would be required (materials and power sources).
The highly speculative "loopholes" like warp drive, worm holes, etc. are, again, more like sci-fi than any established science or technology.
The motivation — even if they had the technology, why bother? (but see "study", above)
And besides, what are the odds of intelligent extraterrestrial beings existing at all?

Not mentioned in the Bible (not necessary a game-ender; China isn't mentioned in the Bible either).
If life on Earth is only the result of random mutation and natural selection (Darwin), and took a very long time, wouldn't that be true of any other planet as well?
On the other hand, if we exist by way of Intelligent Design, wouldn't some other beings have to exist that way as well? (Some will say sure, and they would have their own salvation history, etc.) (see Perelandra by C. S. Lewis)
(I suspect that most UFO buffs are also Darwinians, and vice versa. If life on Earth can come randomly out of nothing, then why not aliens?)
In any case, assuming the laws of physics are the same everywhere, how about the "laws" of biology, i.e. what is or is not possible under any circumstances? The people who claim to have discovered planets that "might be capable of supporting life" seem to think so.
But simply being "capable" doesn't mean they contain life forms. (Our own solar system seems pretty inhospitable to life outside of Earth. And in many ways we are ideally situated, i.e. the position of the Sun in the galaxy. So that would seem to narrow the potential for supporting life quite a bit if we're talking about other systems and other galaxies.)
Even if there were highly intelligent beings elsewhere, they might be physically incapable of producing or using the required technology. (Think about alien dolphins. No opposable thumbs, for one thing.)

So... that's what I've come up with, at least at this point. If you see flaws or gaps in any of this let me know (I may put it on Facebook and/or my blog eventually).

See also -- The Golem: UFOs Are Back, Ho Hum (May 30, 2021)

And -- The Golem: Jonesin' for Aliens (July 25, 2015)

Yes, I've been thinking about this issue for a long time! 😄

The Epstein Curse

2025-11-21T18:25:00.000-05:00

It appears that the Epstein affair could turn out to be one of the biggest political scandals of our time, or even in the entire history of the Republic. Time will tell, but I put it way ahead of Watergate, for example. Now, I call it a “political” scandal not because it is entirely political – people from many walks of life (all at the top of whatever walk it is) have been caught in the web – but it is political because (1) so many of the names on the list are politicians or are heavily involved in politics, and (2) it has generated not only a war of words (and legislation) between the parties, but has also (3) created a major fault line running right through the MAGA movement – one that is unlikely to be fixed by any action of the administration, and which may have a major impact on the mid-term elections and beyond. In other words, it's too late to do the right thing; all that remains is to keep from doing too many wrong things. The administration claims that it can't win when it comes to dealing with the opposition, and this is true. The challenge is to cut losses, and who is wise enough to know what that would entail?

As for that list – which keeps getting larger each day – what is striking is that it pretty much represents a “who's who” of the ruling elite, regardless of political affiliation. So while it's heavily weighted on the political side, other demographics are amply represented – entertainment, the media, sports, business, banking, even royalty (in Price Andrew's case – he being the only one besides Ghislaine Maxwell who has suffered any serious consequences, which is interesting in itself).

Questions abound, and they are unlikely to be answered by any further release of information by the courts or the Justice Department (especially if heavily redacted, which is likely). Things like: (1) What was Epstein's game, anyway? What was his mission? What was he really trying to do, and why? (2) Where did all of his money come from? (Don't say “consulting” – that's a cover story if there ever was one.) (3) If he was as unsavory a character as he seems to have been, why did all these A-list people choose to associate with him, like so many groupies? Why the plane rides to and from his island? Why the parties at his many mansions? And, what did he have on so many of these people? (Whatever it was, it keeps them quiet to this day.)

And of course, the question that kicked the whole thing off – how did he die, and why? (Unless he didn't die but is living on some isolated island along with Hitler, JFK, and Jimmy Hoffa.) In this sense, the whole affair is red meat for conspiracy theorists. If he was engaged in blackmail and/or extortion, for example, how many people would have benefited from his demise? I'm guessing a few hundred. So are they all going to be ushered into a police lineup? Doesn't seem likely, but it would be amusing, you must admit.

If Epstein was a mysterious figure when he was at the top of his game, the mystery has only deepened since his death. And for that matter, if he was that powerful and had that many powerful friends/cronies/associates/clients, why did he get arrested in the first place? People at that level can “fix” just about anything. And how did he wind up in jail? No self-respecting blackmailer or extortionist is going to let that happen. Clearly, his empire imploded for some reason, but then the question is why? Did it get out of his control? Were there too many leaks (including, perhaps, deathbed confessions)? Did he outlive his usefulness? (Surely you don't believe that he was a one-man show like Hugh Hefner!)

Then you have the dithering, awkward, ambivalent, backtracking approach of the Justice Department to the whole thing. One day they want to get to the bottom of it all, the next day they're not so sure. The rationales make no sense... and the Democrats, predictably, jumped all over it, hoping that – at long last! – they've found the silver bullet that will bring down Trump, his administration, MAGA, the Republican Party, and... but hold on, now it turns out that The List also includes any number of Democrats, liberals, and their friends in the media and elsewhere, so they have their own reasons for wanting the whole thing to go away, but apparently hurting Trump is more important, so they're on the side of full release and “transparency”, at least so far.

But then you have the courts, and whose side are they on? (Because the courts are always on one side or the other, let's not kid ourselves.) So they're embroiled in the politics of the thing as well. Who gets more hurt if certain information is released? It's a gigantic cost/benefit problem. The courts – or so it seems – are generally on the side of the Democrats and liberals in general. So how do they work it so that any release of information inflicts maximum damage on Trump and minimum damage on the Democrats?

(Sidebar: The notion of justice being “blind” is a perennial case of naive optimism. While justice as a concept or principle may be “blind” in the abstract, it is anything but when it encounters human nature, which very readily tends toward corruption. And unfortunately the legal system is populated with, by and large, human beings – although one might fantasize that AI could replace them some day, thus enhancing the blindness factor – except that blandness might then replace blindness. So what we wind up with is what the media refer to as “Obama judges”, “Bush judges”, “Clinton judges”, “Biden judges”, “Trump judges”, and so on – right up to and including the Supreme Court. How one achieves balance, fairness, and true justice under these conditions is beyond me.)

But to return to the legislative branch – we have a sharp divide, with what appears to be “release it all, and let the chips fall where they may” (AKA the Democrats have more to fear – but also because some legislators actually feel that the victims deserve justice), and the more cautious voices, who fear (and rightly so) that more information is going to raise even more questions. It's all about whose ox is getting gored, as the old saying goes.

Like any good conspiracy, when you dig too deep you eventually run into what has been called a “wall of silence” – where nobody knows anything, or if they do they aren't telling, for reasons only they know. The evidence that this has already occurred, at least to some extent, is the Justice Department's awkward handling of the matter from the start. It's as if they were, at first, barking up the wrong tree (which means the right tree), so had to switch to the right tree (which means the wrong tree, i.e. the dead end). So they will, at this point, claim due diligence, and blame the courts for scuttling the operation, while countless people up and down the fruited plain will heave a great sigh of relief. No heads will roll, no one will be ruined or “cancelled”, the whole thing will be cast into the memory hole until, probably a generation from now as happened with JFK, it will be claimed that “now it can be told” (once all of the guilty parties are dead). Twas ever thus. But still, it's amusing to see all of the scuffling and avoidance of the real issues.

The Epstein mystery is a mile deep. It's not just about a few jaded or naive or star-struck rich and powerful people seeking pleasures (forbidden or otherwise) along with others of their own kind. It is that, but it's much more. Were they all set up, and if so for what? How were they used, and by whom? And to what end? And did it work? Apparently it did, up to a point, but then Epstein fell out of favor. But why? Did he fail, or did someone decide to terminate (so to speak) that particular program? And if so, why? There will always be more questions than answers, because every answer generates more questions.

The more immediate question for the Republicans, and for the MAGA base, is how to repair the major fault line that this affair has created, and to do it in time to keep the midterm elections from being a disaster – and even more so the next presidential election. How ironic would it be if the Republicans, and the MAGA base, who were riding high after the election a year ago, would find themselves out in the cold thanks to a dead guy who was “the host with the most” for so many years. He's the gift that keeps on giving, but not in the way anyone welcomes.

A final thought – I guess it was about time for another earth-shaking conspiracy, since the JFK assassination has gotten to be pretty much old news by now (and the establishment is of one voice in that the matter was long since settled, so let's move on). JFK's assassination at least united the country – somewhat, and for a while – but the Epstein affair has done just the opposite.

Living the Gospel

2025-05-26T20:41:00.000-04:00

A long-time friend, and a Benedictine monk of my acquaintance, have enjoyed a lively exchange of letters over the last few years. (I posted the contents of one of them on this blog on July 13, 2022, entitled “The Essentials”.) This letter (from the monk) is an excellent example of apologetics, and of the scriptural basis for living the Gospel. (One could also consider it a Bible study, considering the number of Biblical references it contains.) The monk introduces this text as follows: “Don't think these are simply memorized references to be fired off; I'm not one for either the fundamentalistic apologetic style, or for rote memorization. Rather, your letter led to me reviewing the New Testament as a whole with your implicit questions in mind. Each one of these passages in hand-picked.”

The letter follows:

I plan to begin with Jesus, [then] to Paul, [then] to what I would call – rather than the history of Christian Civilization – World history after the beginnings of Christianization. [Regarding the references] The very best bible I recommend now is the Ignatius Catholic Study Bible. They have an excellent one-volume New Testament, hardbound. Scott Hahn, the main writer, is one of the very best exegetes. If you read his introduction to the Ignatius Bible, after the first introduction, you will read an excellent summary of the Catholic approach to Scripture.

You are quite right to emphasize the love & mercy & compassion of Jesus. This is something that is very often underestimated or understood in the wrong way. This is true not only for those who forget that only God can judge a man's knowledge and intentions, and who confuse the objective moral truth of an objective disorder with subjectively judging a man's moral state; but also for those in special need of Jesus' mercy & compassion, but who run from a prayerful encounter out of fear that Jesus' knowledge and, therefore, objective judgment of a man's heart is for the sake of condemnation, rather than merciful love, healing & compassionate forgiveness, and for this full blossoming as the person he is meant to be, happy & at peace, because in harmony with himself, others and his loving Creator.

From the very beginning of such disorders the human race fled from God because he (Adam) saw that he was naked, and was afraid.

Jesus came to be the supreme witness to the truth (John 18:37-38) that God is not arbitrary condemnation but love (John 3:16-21). Love is what created things to be the good things that they are, and to find their full fulfillment in the full blossoming of their nature; and – for men – even a supernatural elevation & blossoming, which of course can only be a gratuitous gift.

The lie born of both fear (Adam) & envy of those in harmony (Cain & Abel) was that of God as naturally a severe judge, an arbitrary rule maker, and a condemnor of true freedom. The lie of Satan from the beginning (John 8:43-44) was – rather than acknowledging that a limited form of existence (a nature) was necessary for diverse individuals to exist – to claim that any nature was itself an unfair constraint on self-assertion and the will to power, and that a happiness of a form determined by a limited and harmoniously oriented nature was an affront to absolute freedom of self-determination and self-definition of one's fulfillment.

Thus began, from the very beginning, the Satanic project of (1) refusing such a harmony, even to the purposeful contradiction of his own fulfillment, in the name of an absolute freedom impossible to realize; and (2) out of hating and envy of that very source, means, and end of such natural & supernatural fulfillment; and so, to spite God the object of his loving and merciful designs, to lead everyone else to the same rejection – whether explicit or implicit – by means of more and more lies, obfuscation, seduction, confusion, etc.

But Jesus came precisely to be a living refutation of this. His most innocent, docile, receptive disciple came to understand all this in a particularly profound way (First Epistle of St. John 4:7-5:5). This is why He, Jesus, showed – emphasized – that the entirety of the laws that truly came from God could be reduced to loving God & others (Mark 12:28-34). Jesus manifested the true meekness & humility of His divine self toward creatures, and sought to teach men to imitate Him (Matthew 11:29-30).

But because mankind was suffering and broken as a result of the consequences of man's disorders – opposed to God's nature – namely pride, lying, murder, domination, hedonism, etc., Jesus came – as He repeatedly insisted – not to condemn, but to heal & teach which He often manifested through physical healings as well (Matthew 4:23-24, 11:4-6).

To those who had truly been offended, Jesus taught unlimited forgiveness (Matthew 18:21-22). To those leading more ordered lives but who thought it pious to abandon those who were more wounded, He insisted that He had come to save the lost (Luke 19:7-10), and that the greater the forgiveness received, the greater the fruit of love & gratitude (Luke 7:36-50). Not only had he come to save the broken-hearted, but to give them the means to help save others (Luke 5:8-11).

Jesus' entire mission was one of compassion toward our ignorance & weakness (Mark 6:34), and of bearing, himself, the cost of our disorders & errors (Matthew 8:16-17)

In return for this divine mercy & gratuitous forgiveness, Jesus asked only that we love as we should, and that that includes forgiving others the relatively tiny offenses they commit against us, in comparison to our offenses toward God (Matthew 6:14-15 and 18:32-35); and, not judging the hearts of others (Luke 6:37-42) as only God can do (John 8:13-19).

There were, however, those with whom Jesus had to be severe, in an attempt to wake them from their obstinate blindness, namely those leaders who, while ignoring true conversion of life, claimed to be the most righteous fulfillers of the externals of the law (Luke 11:37-44). For this purpose, they multiplied scrupulous regulations of an ignorant, material sort (Matthew 15:1-9), and mandated them to the poor people, who were crushed with absurd legalities (Matthew 23:1-36)(Mark 7:3-8, 14-23). Meanwhile, they refused to live the spirit of the true law and to teach it to the people (Luke 11:45-46, 52-53).

At the same time, they were merciless in their desire to ostracize & condemn the weak & sinful rather than to really help them recover & do better. They congratulated themselves on their supposed righteousness (Luke 18:9-14), which Jesus repeatedly showed to be only external and out of vanity (Matthew 6:1-8, 16-18). He preferred the weak & the wounded, who knew they needed healing (Matthew 9:10-13 and Mark 2:16-17) and sought it out (Matthew 21:28-32). He taught that all ritual offerings to God were only authentic if they were an image of interior sacrifice, forgiveness, & harmony (Matthew 5:20-24).

And so, these religious leaders themselves became the very image for the people of the false conception of God: severe judges, arbitrary rule makers, & condemnors of true freedom. In response, Jesus reveals what the true fulfillment [by Himself, i.e. what the old law was destined for] of the law is meant to be, namely, a transformation of the law from a body of material prescriptions to a body of spiritual precepts, to be lived out first interiorly, “in spirit and in truth” (John 4:16-26), and then expressed exteriorly in submission to God's loving plan, and in service to others. The commandments having to do directly with love of God, self, & others were not to pass away (Matthew 5:17-19) but to be fulfilled by a deepening of understanding of them, and a renewal of them, cleansed of all the compromises allowed to those who lacked the docility to live them out (Matthew 5:3-11, 21-22, 27-28, 31-32, 38-45) (Mark 10:1-12).

The commandments were no longer to be misunderstood as coercions opposed to happiness & freedom, but as the necessary means to that harmony that allows for true fulfillment; most of all in the supernatural union of life with God (John 14:15-21, 23-24) (John 15:9-17).

It was precisely because of the importance of allowing oneself to be loved by God, that Jesus also gave warnings & encouragements not to ignore his teaching, because of the dire consequences of separating oneself permanently from God's loving plan for the happiness of each one, dependent on their free will (Matthew 7:21-23; 13:47-51; 25:31-46) (Mark 3:31-35) (Luke 12: 22-34) (John 6:37-46).

This total renewal of love on earth was the fire that Jesus longed to ignite, knowing that its contrast with the desires of fallen men would lead to deep divisions (Luke 12:49-53). Thus although Jesus promised a deep interior peace from God (John 14:25-27), He also promised a sword (Matthew 10:34-36), divisions (Matthew 10:21-22), and hatred (Matthew 24:9-14), but in the end final victory over sin & death in loving union with Himself (Matthew 24:29-31).

St. Paul

In connection with the last section, as I had forgotten to say, it is only in light of what it means to love rightly that the famous central maxim of St. Augustine can be rightly understood: “Love, and do as you will.” It is no wonder, given the many misunderstandings of who Jesus is & what He said, that a number of persons misrepresent Paul in their writings & oppose him to Jesus. Even within the lifetime of the Apostles, his teachings, with their uniquely profound theological explanations of what other Apostles taught in more basic forms, were twisted and misused (2^nd Peter 3:14-18).

Now, before Pentecost, the Apostles were, on the whole, fairly lacking in understanding of the deep meanings and consequences of Jesus' teaching. For this reason, Jesus Himself, though He taught them many things apart from what He taught all the people (Matthew13-10-17), He withheld such profound and thorough explanations which they were unprepared, in wisdom and in intellectual penetration, to absorb (John 16:12-14). The Apostles were to await the gift of light from the Holy Spirit and special gifts of ministry (John 14:25-26). But for St. Paul, who converted after the Ascension, he couldn't be an eyewitness to the truth about Jesus without an extraordinary divine intervention whereby he would be taught by Jesus Himself, but would then be very careful to lay what he had been taught before the Apostles, so that they could confirm its authenticity as the true teaching of Jesus Christ (Galatians 1:11-14, 2:1-2, 6-10).

Now, in teaching the non-Jewish peoples, Paul had three main difficulties to deal with: First, instilling a whole new idea of who God is in previously pagan minds, namely, a true, immediately present Person, who was truly loving & merciful; who really cared about each individual personally, and sought their true happiness, rather than any benefit to Himself. Again, that God was love, and was to be imitated in order to love more and more with His life.

For Paul, love is what gives true spiritual value to everything (1^st Corinthians 13:1-13); it fulfills the whole law (Romans 13:8-14) and is what prepares us for the coming of Christ. God is the Father of mercies (2^nd Corinthians 1:3-4), and nothing can separate us from His love, nor does God condemn those who allow Him to save them. (Romans 8:31-39). Thus, God did not save us when we were His friends, but when we were opposed to Him, like enemies (Romans 5:6-11). God destined us for personal friendship with Himself purely out of gratuitous love (Ephesians 1:5-10). God, who is rich in mercy (Ephesians 2:4-10), saved us spiritually from our fallen state, because He made us for Himself; not because He needs anything, but in order to share His infinite fullness with others (Ephesians 3:14-19) out of unbounded love.

For this reason, the only way to properly reciprocate His love – so far as a little creature can – is to go & do likewise by seeking and allowing God to clothe our souls with the garments – so to speak – of His grace (i.e. supernatural assistance in the form of supernatural habits of soul), which elevates & heals us progressively and which makes it possible to live out the humanly impossible demands of the Gospel, namely, a wholly supernatural life of compassion, kindness, lowliness, meekness, patience, forgiveness, and love above all (Colossians 3:12-17).

For Paul, all this would result already in an interior blossoming of all that is beautiful & harmonious (Galatians 5:22-26).

As for those other two difficulties, they were very real threats to the happiness & freedom of those Paul had brought the Gospel. For this reason, it is here that he was forced to be a little firm, in order to nip them in the bud before they caused serious damage.

Paul, himself, had gone from being a violent, aggressive pharisee (Acts 8:1-3; 9:1-2) to being a gentle, meek Apostle of the Gospel of God's love, who was even blamed by jealous upstarts for writing powerfully but being weak & simple of speech in person (2^nd Corinthians 10:1-10; 11:12-13, 6-21). He refused even to accept financial support, in order not to be any hindrance, vs. the exploitative pretenders (2^nd Corinthians 12:11-14).

Paul greatly preferred not to have to be firm and severe (1^st Corinthians 4:14-21), nor to cause those whose joy & happiness he desired any more pain than necessary; and he was filled with anguish & sorrow at the thought of the dangers besetting them (2^nd Corinthians 1:23-2:4).

To those he put in charge of churches, Paul forbade unreasonable severity (1^st Timothy 5:1-2), as well as “stupid, senseless controversies” (2^nd Timothy 2:22-26) or quarreling. He spoke very strongly about the evil of judging another's heart, even within the Christian community (Romans 14:10-13, 1^st Corinthians 4:3-5). And as for those outside the Christian community, he refuses to judge them, but leaves them to God's knowledge & love (1^st Corinthians 5:9-13); i.e., he refuses to judge them even if they seem clearly guilty of serious faults.

Instead Paul emphasizes mercy & compassion and peace (Romans 12:14-21), forgiving & reconciling as apostles of God's forgiveness (2^nd Corinthians 15:16-21); and putting away all bitterness, anger, & malice (Ephesians 4:31-5:2) in order to be imitators of God, as his children (Titus 3:1-7).

Of those two aforementioned difficulties, the one of the Corinthians is more straightforward. St. Paul had a special solicitude for the community of the Corinthians, since Corinth was notorious in the classical world for being a very wealthy party town, and those Christians were not only surrounded by this seductive environment but had until recently been living accordingly. Soon enough, a number of them – even after they had embraced the Faith, and been well-taught about their obligations, and about what was good for them (or moral) and what was not – began sliding into old habits, or even worse ones than the pagans (1^st Corinthians 5:1-4)! And so, while living inauthentically, they boasted of their Christianity (1^st Corinthians 5:6-8). At the same time, they were quickly breaking up into quarrelsome factions (1^st Corinthians 1:10-13), and even suing each other before pagan judges (1^st Corinthians 6:1-6). Even though Paul needed to penalize the worst offender, he made sure that the community restore him to fellowship after a moderate time, and counseled forgiveness & comforting him (2^nd Corinthians 2:5-11).

As for the last difficulty, it was precisely an extension of what Jesus had to deal with because of the Pharisees & Scribes. Some Christian Jews refused to obey the teaching of the Apostles that all the endless material prescriptions of the law had come to an end, and that only the spiritual ones remained, and were fulfilled perfectly in the freedom of the New Testament or Covenant, the one Jesus inaugurated (Romans 3:21-31; 2:12-16). Paul speaks of himself to Peter the Apostle as having died to the law through Christ's death ([his] union with it), and now living with His new life (Galatians 2:11-21). This was because Peter, who was feeling self-conscious and succumbed to fear of the opinion of these same Judaic Christians, was doing an injustice to the non-Jewish Christians by eating separately from them, turning them into 2^nd class Christians.

This particular group came to be called the circumcision party (meaning faction, of course; as opposed to the other type of circumcision party! (Joshua 5:2-8)). They even traveled around where Paul had, and took advantage of the trust of non-Jews who believed that the Judaic Christians knew best how to be truly Christian, [i.e.] what Jesus truly wanted.

And so, the Galatians were the most quickly misled (Galatians 1:6-8). Paul taught them that the rigors of the old law were a protective & educational measure taken by God for the Israelites until they would be mature enough to live the life of the spirit in faith without disciplinary, remedial prescriptions (Galatians 3:23, 4:7). That they weren't called to the old covenant wherein fearful reverence for God was emphasized for those who didn't know how to obey out of love for goodness & for God; but that they were called rather to be beloved sons of God, their “Abba” or “Daddy”, to live as heirs in the freedom of the love of Christ: Not a freedom to throw themselves again into disorder, but a freedom to do good for its own sake, out of love for God & others (Galatians 5:13-14).

Paul likewise warned the Romans of these dangers, especially considering the considerable number of them – the Christians – who were Jews (romans 7:4-6; 8:15-17). Likewise, to the other churches, he explains the fulfillment in Christ of what had only been prepared for and foreshadowed in the old covenant or testament (2^nd Corinthians 3:7-11, 17-18) (Colossians 2:16-17), and that they shouldn't let themselves be subjected to the old dietary & ritual cleanliness restrictions (Colossians 2:21-23).

Instead, God's universal church includes all men, uniting Jews & Gentiles, abolishing the law of material commandments & ordinances, and bringing about one body in Christ, who is our peace (Ephesians 2:13-22). No longer will it be allowed that there be a difference before God of Jew or Greek, slave or free, male or female (Galatians 3:28-29; Colossians 3:11).

World history after the advent of Christianization

Whereas one could write whole books – and has done so – on all these topics, I can now limit myself (being finished with the core material) to a few main comments.

Since Christianity is opposed to the ends & spirit of fallen man, and since men remain fallen, and since even Christian baptism does not remove the fallen tendencies to fall back into self-destruction & that of others, Christianity experiences a whole gradation throughout time and various cultures of either being whole-heartedly accepted, half-heartedly accepted, or rejected & persecuted. The Church makes do with the success that it had, in order to bring men even a little closer to the full truths and to living out the full Christian life.

However, some historians then often point to any event within any culture that even has a light veneer of Christianity, and often blame Christianity for the divisions that occur.

Now, it has been true in every age that even many leaders of the Church at various levels have not themselves committed whole-heartedly to the truth, and from this came the worst scandals of all (Psalm 49:16-21).

Another major aspect has always been the political one. When Roman emperors converted to Christianity, they didn't stop thinking like emperors, i.e. that religion being the most powerful reality that binds a society together – that the emperor needs to help govern religion, and call councils, and suppress dissidents as political threats. Of course it gets far more complicated when shortsighted men on both sides encourage such thinking, or when groups really do adopt a heresy as the best means to begin a political revolt, and take up arms against orthodox believers; or when a leader sends an army after such armed heretics/revolutionaries. And all of this has been true from Constantine to the Arians to the Huguenots to the Communists. And the same goes for those leaders who themselves become heterodox. The Church has tolerated many political impositions over the years for the greater good of men's souls.

You also know that the Crusades were always a mixed bag. Whereas you did indeed have a good number of truly noble, supernaturally minded souls who desired to free the invaded & oppressed Christian populace and the sacred cites of Biblical history, you did have quite a number of persons who treated it as a land grab for their own dominion & profit. Even Mary, the Mother of Jesus, in Her appearances to St. Bridget – while extolling those who lived out faithfully their oath of Christian knighthood – sadly complained of these others who made a mockery & a scandal out of a fundamentally Christian cause.

And who can think of the horrendous sack of Constantinople without memories of most un-Christian, venal, Venetian intrigue; philistine rapine & destruction; and starving barbarian mercenaries assuaging their desperation with piles of Byzantine rump roast?!

Indeed, those who pay close attention to the Scriptures, although they rejoice in the spread of the Gospel to all nations, don't expect the majority of the population – sadly – to live accordingly. True Christians do want to be, for God and others, the salt of the earth & the light of the world (Matthew 5:13-16), but they still know that to the extent that the world does not understand who God really is and what is truly for their happiness & peace, to that extent the fallen, disordered elements of society will always oppose him (John 15:18-21, 17:25-26).

By the way, as for the homoousion, Chesterton's response to Gibbon's quip was that there is only one letter difference between the words theist & atheist. But, as you can see, it makes all the difference in the world, even though people should not have killed each other over it. The fundamental difference between saying that Jesus was of a similar substance (homoi-) to God the Father, vs. that he was of the same (homo-), divine, immaterial substance [Uncreated Being] as the Father; it is the difference between His being a sort of preeminent spiritual being vs. His being the second personal, subsisting supposit of the unique Pure Being of God [just a bit of theological metaphysics terms], one in being & divinity & holiness & omnipotence & infinity with the divine Persons of the Father & the Holy Spirit. The result of the easier-to-think-about Arian heterodoxy would have been the very overthrow (were it possible for a divine institution) of Christianity.

This is because the Supreme Witness to who God is, and the supreme authority that can establish a new covenant or testament with the whole human race, and can oblige men to it out of love, can only be God Himself (Luke 10:21-22). Now, as many theologians point out, Christians are happily in the inextricable position – given all that Jesus said of Himself (and, by the way, which the pharisees heard very clearly, charging Him with blasphemy) – of either being very certain that Jesus is who He said He was (one God with the Father: John 10:24-30), or of being certain that He was a madman or a liar. Now, all His life and words show that He was not insane; and, along with His miracles, which could only come from God (John 3:2), they make it certain that He was not a liar. For we know that God does not back up a liar's words & claims, even if the pharisees didn't want to hear that (John 9:30-34, 41). Those who in the hope for a false feeling of harmony want to tone down this claim with various forms of syncretism & naturalism, not only have to contend with Jesus' repeated attempts to help others realize the fact in a non-coercive manner (Matthew 22:41-46; John 8:42-43), and His clear teaching to His Apostles (John 17:1-5, 24-26; John 16:25-33), but also with the clear reaction of the Jewish leaders when Jesus judged it at last the time to further unveil the truth that they had been supposed to be prepared for, and let them make a decision (John 8:53-59 [On the “I am see Exodus 3:13-15]) (Luke 22:67-71) (John 19:7-9) (John 18:33-37) (John 5:18-27).

Moreover, there are the Apostles' straightforward accounts of the manifestations that were meant to reassure them & confirm the truth (Matthew 3:13-17; 17:1-8; 2^nd Peter 1:16-21), as well as Jesus' clear acceptance of their acts of faith-filled certainty in who they had come to know Him to be, by the light of the infused certainty of supernatural faith (Matthew 16:13-19; John 20:26-29).

Now, you may have noticed that in some of the quotes above, Jesus – even while calling Himself the Son of God – also calls Himself the Son of Man & seems to contrast this with the Father... God. This is because He like to emphasize both that (#1) As divine Person of the Son, who continuously proceeds from the Father while remaining one in Being with Him [Too much theology here to explain it all], He receives all that He is – continuously – from the Father; and (#2) That existing also now as man, He delights to be – at least in this way – infinitely smaller than & totally dependent, humanly, on the Father, like us. He delights in this because He is now also a little man who, as man, can worship the Father, and throw Himself surrenderingly into the Father's infinitely loving arms. But, He eventually affirmed that there was quite a difference between the way that God the Father is His God & Father vs. the way that He is ours (John 20:17)

And so you see, Christianity, i.e. the truth of Christianity & its realization in men, is the greatest love story ever told; it is the divine romance of the universe, wherein the perfectly self-sufficient God nevertheless does not reject what He has made, even after the human race rejects Him. Rather, He comes in person not only to save us all, His lost sheep (John 10:11-21), as the divine shepherd; but to give us Himself and take us for Himself, as the divine bridegroom of our souls (John 3:27-36). And we monks and nuns – i.e. those who are faithful to the sacred vows they made to God, wherein they already in this life reserve all for Him – we enjoy already this conjugal bond of mind & heart with the world's Beloved, and we look forward to its full development in the life of the world to come.

There are two beautiful passages in which Jesus revealed Himself to John later on, with a vision of all that He is, as God & man (Revelation/Apocalypse 1:12-19), and as the divine bridegroom, who gave His life for His bride (Revelation 19:6-10, 11-16; 21:1-8).

As for Christians on earth being in danger, it is true that there is indeed a danger of a decline, at least in the West; not only because many comfortable Christians are very poor Christians; or not really at all; but also because – as Joseph Ratzinger put it – the “dictatorship of relativism” is on the rise, as it has been, with its inherent intolerance of any manner of thought and behaviour based on objective criteria of truth, nature & its fulfillment, and the goodness of perfected nature.

Yet, not only have Christians been forewarned of inevitable persecution, but Jesus indicated that a catastrophe of some sort would bring about a substantial reduction of those who believe in Him, in the end (Luke 18:18). But where & when this will be, we can only speculate about in various ways.

Alas, Christians themselves have often been a large cause of the truths of Christianity not being well understood or believed.

But true, faithful Christians, like God, desire “all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth” (1 Timothy 1:1-7). And like God, they do not desire even those who knowingly harm themselves and others, and offend God, to be lost, but rather that they be converted and live (Ezechiel 33:11-19).

So there you go, my comments are at an end, and, I would say, given the vastness of the matters concerned, not too long. I hope they may be enjoyable reading at least. God Bless.

Whose Presidency Was It Anyway?

2025-05-23T23:13:00.002-04:00

I'm not sure I understand what all the fuss is about when it comes to “Who was in charge?” during the Biden administration, given that Biden himself was clearly not in charge, or unable to be in charge (even if he was), or deluded into thinking he was in charge (even though he wasn't), etc. The point is that someone was, indeed, in charge – even if we don't yet know who it was, and may never know for certain. It's hard enough to run a White House with no one in charge, let alone the Executive Branch, let alone the entire country (which includes foreign policy). And even if we say, well, it was more like a committee, well then who called the meetings of said committee, and who was in charge of implementing whatever they came up with? There really is no escaping this question. The White House can't be like some federal agencies, in which – as far as I can tell – no one does anything. Someone has to be doing something at least some of the time. There is, after all, discernible output, even if, in Biden's case, it could be pretty thin at times.

So the good news is that someone was in charge, because someone had to be. Ever heard of an ocean liner sailing across the Atlantic with no one in charge? Or a jumbo jet flying across the Pacific with no one in charge? No. No way. Now... someone with an excellent memory might recall what happened when Stalin died. Nobody dared to step in and single-handedly take over. After all, who could possibly fill Uncle Joe's shoes? So they came up with a “troika” – a team of three, one of whom was Nikita Khrushchev. For a while there it seemed to work, but eventually Nikita came out on top and became the new face of Soviet Russia.

But compared to the Biden administration, the post-Stalin years were a model of transparency, the way the post-Soviet years were right out in the open for everyone to see. (Even the post-Mao years had more transparency than the so-called Biden White House.)

So the first question ought not to be “who was in charge?” but “does it even matter?” The Republic survived what many (especially overseas) might consider an interregnum. And not only that, but there was nothing unprecedented about it. Any number of commentators have pointed out similarities with Wilson (with Edith taking the reins from the failing Woodrow), and with FDR (rumor has it that Alger Hiss was the one in charge at Yalta, at least).

But let's drill down a bit more. Can anyone realistically claim that Jimmy Carter was fully in charge during his term in office? (He certainly served as a convenient scapegoat in countless ways.) Or how about Bush II? It's pretty much conventional wisdom that Dick Cheney was running the show. (They even made a movie about it.)

Consider this. Presidents have a staff. They have advisors. They have aides. But they don't all have “handlers” (I call them “keepers”) – you know, people who are in charge of damage control, which means to (1) try and keep the boss from committing blunders, or gaffes, or looking bad in public; and (2) cover for him when he still messes up, by making excuses which border on the ridiculous at times; and (3) telling the viewing public not to believe their lying eyes – that the boss didn't really do or say that, and it's all a conspiracy theory and a “cheap fake” and “hate”. And, BTW, enlisting the help of the compliant media in constructing an impenetrable wall of lies. All of these strategies were on full display on a daily basis during the Biden administration – and I nominate “Dr. Jill” as the handler-in-chief, but she must have had plenty of help.

So there's a continuum, in a way, as defined by how many “handlers” a given president has, and how often they are called upon to function. I would say that Biden, at this point, anchors the scale on the high end, but one also has to consider Carter, Clinton, and Bush II as being high on the “handler” scale. Even JFK is along there somewhere. (Trump, OTOH, doesn't seem to have any handlers – not even one! What you see is what you get, and there's no one off-camera wringing their hands and wondering how to “explain this one away”.)

And – not to imply that there's anything unique about presidents here – this also applies to vice presidents, presidential candidates, vice presidential candidates, and not a few assorted governors and mayors. Politicians climb to the heights with “a little help from their friends”. 'Twas ever thus. But then why go to all that trouble? Why not just work for a candidate, or official, who's not such a handful? Well... the plus side, if you will, is that weak-willed and incompetent people are easier to manipulate and direct, so if you're in charge of a “challenged” politician you can, with any luck, basically take over and direct said politician in the ways you would like him or her to go. And this, of course, is exactly what happened with Biden; someone recently quipped that his debilitation was “not a bug, but a feature”. (Implication – the people behind the scenes are smarter than the guy out front. True! An amazing percentage of the time. Can you imagine Bush II's “aides” being dumber than he was? Not a chance. They could have been president, but they didn't have the curb appeal.) (Ever notice how often these “aides” – when you see them on camera, which is rare – look like those high school geeks who couldn't get dates? So they compensate by being the power behind the throne. Not a bad gig, when you think about it – four years of job security and absolutely immune from any blame or responsibility.) (Kind of like pretty much any government job, truth be told.)

Now, let's admit that anyone who is president, no matter their level of intelligence or competence or energy, has an impossible job. If you read the Constitution, the job of president doesn't sound all that complicated or difficult; you basically have to have a modicum of wisdom and have the best interests of the American people at heart, and be a competent administrator. But, 200-plus years later, the job has turned into, #1, more of a kingship than a mere office, and #2, an all-powerful image of someone who can do anything, who puts Superman to shame, and who merits worship more suitable for a Roman deity. The problem here is that it sets an impossible standard, and raises expectations to stratospheric heights, with the result that any perceived failure is met with anger, indignation, and – too often – homicidal rage. When your god turns out to have feet of clay, he must die! So what motivates assassins is, at least in part, frustration – their victim was not perfect. He was tried and found wanting, so he has to go, and they're the one to make it happen.

A while back I put up blog posts which touched on the subject of Obama as The Chosen One, and that he subsequently became the kingmaker, brushing off all contenders for the nomination in 2016, including Joe Biden, in favor of Hillary Clinton. And when she was defeated for reasons yet to be determined, he remained in that role and, four years later, brushed off everyone except his vice president, namely Joe Biden. And when Joe Biden started to stumble (literally and figuratively), guess what, Obama stepped in once again and helped to engineer what has been described as a “coup” (a palace coup, at least), putting Uncle Joe out to pasture and putting Kamala up for election.

And lest we forget, there are many other ways this could have been accomplished. Biden could have been persuaded to retire prior to the election, which would have made Kamala the president, and increase her chances of winning in 2024 (not guaranteed, as witness Gerald Ford). Or, they could have left Biden on the ticket, let him win in 2024, and then persuaded him to quit, which would have made Kamala the president anyway. In a sense, the path they chose was the most risky one – get Biden to give up on being re-elected, but keep him in office, and declare Kamala the nominee without benefit of a primary, but force her to campaign to the best of her abilities with limited time. It kinda makes you wonder... why did they choose that route? It's mainly because Trump at that point was under siege, and everyone was convinced he'd be in jail by Election Day, which would sort of put a crimp in his chances of winning (even though he could, theoretically, have been elected while in jail – it's happened elsewhere in the world, and more than once). So with Trump on the defense on all fronts, Kamala seemed like a shoo-in.

But Trump fought back – and when you think about it, what does it take, after all, to make it big in New York City? And in real estate? You have to deal with regulations, corrupt politicians, the Mob, bankers, the media, the unions... it's basically impossible, and yet the tough somehow manage to survive. Now, given that, compared to New York City Washington D.C. is a much deeper cesspool of corruption and is a much bigger power center with a much larger entrenched bureaucracy, Trump's experience from his years in NYC paid off – first in 2016 and then again in 2024 (once he “wised up” about Washington, since he had underestimated it in 2016 and pretty much took office in 2017 as a lame duck).

But now, wait a minute! I said that Obama helped to engineer the “coup” that took Biden out of contention for 2024. People talk about Pelosi and Shumer, but no one mentions Obama. "Ignore the man behind the curtain!" So let's go back to 2017 when Trump takes office for the first time. What does Obama do? Does he retire, in the Bill Clinton mode? Does he go on book and lecture tours, or take a cushy job in academics or at a non-profit? No! He moves into a mansion in D.C., and... what? How many ex-presidents have taken up residence in Washington, D.C.? Only one, as I recall. But why? And why, despite all that, did we hear and see very little of him during Trump's first term? What was he doing all that time? Remember that he's an activist – a community organizer – a rabble-rouser. A true believer. Is he just going to fade away? Of course not.

My theory is that Obama was, during Trump's first term, running what is called The Deep State, i.e. the massive, unelected bureaucracy, and that their sole purpose during that period was to thwart, prevent, and sabotage if need be, any and all of Trump's initiatives and programs, which, let's admit, they pretty much did. Not only that, but they came right out in public and admitted it, for example in the impeachment hearings. It was their patriotic duty, after all. (So much for the Deep State being a “conspiracy theory” – they stood right up to be counted, with the cameras rolling.)

And it worked – or some will say that it worked, the proof being that Biden defeated Trump in 2020, whether legitimately or not matters little at this point. And Trump could have just gone back to his good life as a real estate tycoon, shaken the D.C. dust from his shoes, and pronounced a curse upon politics. And this is what everyone was hoping for – including, let's admit, most Republicans. The Never Trumpers became the Never Again Trumpers. And yet... after four years of “lawfare”, guess who won the nomination without even participating in any of the primary debates?

But let's get back to Obama for a moment. Let's say he really was running the Deep State all during Trump's first term – with the blessing of the Clintons, of course, who remain the true spiritual (if that is the word) leaders of the Democratic Party. So Biden takes office in 2021. Does Obama say “mission accomplished” and finally retire? Not a chance. Suddenly the Deep State becomes the state, and who better to stay in charge of it than Obama? (You think he'd trust Biden with anything that important? Or Kamala? Cue the laugh track.) And when the 2024 election loomed, the king maker became the king breaker (and the queen maker), calculating that the proper strategy was to get Biden to drop out of the race but not leave office until after the election. A risky strategy, as I said, but everyone on that side underestimated not only Trump's base, but the sophistication of his (and the Republicans') election watchdogs. (“We won't be fooled again.”)

So now we have, first, what I call Obama's third term, namely Trump's first term, followed by Obama's fourth term, namely Biden's first (and only) term. So... is it time for Obama to really and truly retire, at long last? Can he finally become history, rather than current events? Another way of putting it is that Obama, for all intents and purposes, served for four full terms – which beats FDR, who gave it a try but was rudely interrupted by his own demise. (Seem like there's something in the Constitution about all this, but like so many things in the Constitution it's pretty much either forgotten or ignored.) (And! If Kamala had won last November, we'd be at the start of Obama's fifth term! And here I thought only third-world countries had “presidents for life”.)

Now, of course, we have Trump trolling the media and the Democrats by talking about a third term for himself. Who knew you could have so much fun pretending to set fire to the Constitution? Frankly, if Trump was already thinking about the 2028 election, he wouldn't be on a search and destroy mission vis-a-vis the Deep State. As it is, he has nothing to lose, and even if he doesn't succeed in driving a stake through the heart of the Deep State, he's certainly put it on notice that it's not all-powerful, and has exposed its machinations through the efforts of the gnomes of DOGE.

So, boys and girls, the bottom line (for now) is that, yes, someone is always in charge. The world is too big and too complex for it to be otherwise. Plus, power has always been a great magnet (some would say aphrodisiac) for certain types of people. So that's not the question. The question is who, what's their agenda, and what's their strategy? And an even better question is simply this: Are you pleased with the results? No matter who was actually running things for Biden's four years in office, was the country, and world, better off at the end of his term than it had been at the start? That should be the sole criterion for any assessment of his presidency, even if he was no more than a propped-up figurehead. The verdict may not be against him, but it has to be against someone. Or for someone. You make the call.

The Coming Battle

2024-10-29T20:43:00.003-04:00

In the midst of the election circus, whether we are participants or simply onlookers, it's easy to forget, at least for the moment, the much more profound and deep-rooted problems that plague our society, and that no candidate – no “winner” in the looming election – is thinking seriously about. And, in fact, no matter who “wins”, and who is sworn in in January (not necessarily the same person, note), these problems will remain, and will remain insoluble.

It's happened over and over again throughout history. A society commits itself to a given world view and the actions that view inspires, and by the time the sheer folly and stupidity are exposed it's too late – that society has to undergo radical change or complete annihilation – and history is replete with examples of each.

The point at which it's too late to prevent catastrophe is sometimes referred to as the “inflection point”. In our case – in the case of the American Empire – that point has been reached and passed. Precisely when it was, and why – when the scales were tipped – can be debated. The war in Vietnam is certainly a good candidate, because our defeat (yes, that's what it was -- let's not quibble) in that war was, or should have been, an opportunity to drastically alter our world view. We could have gone from missionary zeal – from “spreading democracy” – to a much more modest (dare I say humble) point of view, accepting that we are one among many, and it's really not our business to convert the world to “democracy”, or whatever it is that means, any longer. (One might say we were committed to spreading the myth of democracy, as opposed to the real thing, which we are becoming worse at with each passing day.) Add to this that the world doesn't really seem to appreciate our efforts any longer – assuming they ever did. Oh sure, they don't mind being bailed out of their own foolish wars by Uncle Stupid, and basically becoming welfare recipients for generations. (There is no pride in that, and no shame either. But when's the last time anyone in Europe spoke about pride, much less shame?) It's really a marvel when you consider how well off we still are, economically, given that we've been hemorrhaging wealth since World War II, and it invariably winds up in pockets of foreign leaders who are even more corrupt than our own.

But, as a wise man one said, if something cannot go on forever it will end. The American economy may not be on life support quite yet, but it's showing plenty of wear and tear. Plus, the elephant in the room is the national debt, much of which is held by foreign entities. This is something no one wants to talk about (have either Trump or Harris mentioned it lately?) because it's beyond intractable – it's hopeless. It will never be repaid -- not in ten years, or a hundred. And it is the direct result of folly – of our being overextended overseas and wildly optimistic on the domestic front.

But then – if the situation is genuinely hopeless – would anybody, especially any foreign entity, government or otherwise, want to “own” a large portion of our national debt? Simple answer: You own the national debt, you own the U.S. It's that simple. The amount of leverage involved.... well, consider what happens when a man is hopelessly in debt to another man or a bank. They basically get to run his life. They get to dictate terms, and if he doesn't like it they call in their notes and... well, we don't have debtor's prisons any longer, but we do have bankruptcy, which amounts to the same thing in many respects. What it means is that you're no longer trusted to manage your own affairs, so someone else has to do it for you. You're in receivership, in other words.

But for all that, the national debt, while intractable, is only one symptom of an even bigger problem, which is that the government has adopted – fairly recently in the scheme of things – a globalist view. The American economy, and the American people, don't really count according to this point of view. What counts is that we have become part of an empire larger than our own. The problem is that some of our elite may have thought that we could just move in like some mob boss and take over, and everyone else would have to dance to our tune. The models for this include the (failed) League of Nations, which, basically, boiled down to us and some other guys, i.e. we were supposed to be the leader of the pack. Then you had the United Nations, which is still around, although it can be debated how much good it does (or has ever done), and that was us and some other guys until enough of those other guys got together and started to vote against our interests. (Oops! That's not what we had in mind. Too late now... )

And then there's good old NATO, the ultimate “us and some other guys” organization, which has now embarked on a war with Russia with Ukraine as the battleground. And so far the “other guys” seem to be in favor of it all, since they are a whole lot closer to Russia (geographically) than we are. We have talked them into thinking that Russia is an existential threat to them because they (Russia) want to reclaim some pieces of the eastern Ukraine. Today Donbass, tomorrow Germany, Belgium, France, the Netherlands, etc. (They really believe this! Or at least they say they do.) And besides, they have been asked to contribute little or nothing to the effort; it's all on us (shades of Vietnam, anyone?).

And yet, at the same time our politicians seem to pay a lot more attention to the globalists in the European Union than to our own citizens. Their loyalties have gradually morphed, over time, from American Empire (which is at least an “America first” attitude) to Globalist Empire (which they fancy is, as always, us and some other guys, but they may be in for a surprise).

See, any empire is a good thing as long as we're in charge. And it doesn't matter how many sacrifices have to be made on our own domestic front – it's the glory and power that count. But what if it turns out that the new Globalist Empire is run from Brussels, say? (What has Belgium ever done for us, anyway? Don't ask... ) Then we are no more than a subsidiary – and possibly a wholly-owned subsidiary (remember the national debt?).

But wait a minute. I call it a globalist empire, but how global is it, really? It consists of the EU, the U.S., and the other English-speaking countries (Britain, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and probably a handful of Pacific islands). It's kind of like referring to the final baseball games of the year as the “world series” when all the teams are from the same country. We also have what is called (patronizingly, by us) the Third World, which starts at the Rio Grande and extends south to Tierra del Fuego, plus Africa and Asia. But there's a new kid in town, namely BRIC (Brazil, Russia, India, and China – Russia having been the leader of the forgotten Second World during the Cold War).

Population-wise, BRIC is overwhelmingly bigger than the Globalist Empire (formerly the First World), and is catching up fast economically. To which we must add – another topic most of our politicians would rather avoid – the significant gains China has made in terms of taking over major sectors of our own economy, including technology, the social media, and large portions of agricultural land, not to mention their influence in our higher education sector. Add to this the “fentanyl war” which reminds me of nothing so much as the Opium War of times gone by. They are using a powerful drug as a weapon against our society on all levels, and we seem to be absolutely helpless to stop it, because secure borders (land, sea, and air) are, you know, racist, selfish, uncaring, etc. etc. So yes, China is taking over, by hook and crook, and nothing is stopping them (not that it has anything to do with the number of our politicians they have purchased on the open market, of course).

But now wait a second. China is coming on strong from across the Pacific, and the globalists are coming on strong from their stongholds in Europe. At what point do they wind up “toe to toe” – with a shootout (literal or otherwise) at high noon, to determine who's in charge, and who gets to carve out which pieces of the American economy (and, in turn, impact our culture in every way)?

And please note that there is no, repeat no, resistance to this from the vast majority of our elected officials, or the deep state, or most major economic sectors (not to mention the mainstream media, who are hard-core globalists). We have officials who have been bought off by China, others who are totally committed to the globalist agenda, and for all I know some who have dipped into both pots (not really a whole lot different from Third World leaders during the Cold War who took bribes from both us and the Soviets).

You know... when I look at this picture I start to wonder if the whole idea of treason has become totally outmoded. When our leaders are competing to see who can sell us out the most, and the fastest, and who can render us weaker and more vulnerable to potential enemies (other countries, but also non-state organizations) you just have to wonder – has “America” already slid into the category of myth (or worse, the ash heap of history)? Is what appear to be suicidal policies (open borders, defunding the police, pointless foreign wars, national debt, etc.) now the fashion, and if so what does our elite want? Well, they want power – first, last, and always – and all that goes with it. And they may put on some temporary muscle by joining forces with globalists, but China? Really? If history serves, when a hostile power takes over a given country they may enjoy the cooperation of collaborators for a while, but before long they realize that collaborators are, by nature, deceptive and unreliable, so they wind up getting eliminated in short order. In other words, if they betrayed their own country they're certainly capable of betraying occupiers.

And here's the paradox. Our elites want power, but they are also hell-bent on destroying what many would consider to be the essentials of American culture – not only in the present day but in terms of history, tradition, ideas, and so on – things we have always regarded as our strengths. So... cultural suicide and power? Seems like a contraction, until you reflect on what the effects of a vanishing culture are – namely disorientation, confusion, depression, fear, helplessness, and – the real key – desperate motivation to look to government for answers... for solutions... to bail us out... to relieve our intolerable fear. Our elite have tried the old “carrot” technique – basically bribe the citizenry into complacency (include games and circuses if you like, as well as drugs, alcohol, and sex without consequences) – but that hasn't sufficed, so now it's time for the “stick” – namely fear. They fire up what I call the Fear Machine -- and the mainstream media are the primary component of this. That will unite the country! Well, it will turn most of the citizens into abject, quivering balls of protoplasm, which means they will be easily ruled and exploited. And yes, our elites would rather rule a slave state than a nation of free, proud, and independent citizens; this is what it's come to. (In this, are they different, in any discernible way, from the ruling elites of communist “people's republics”? Not that I can tell.)

So this is the coming battle. China and the globalists have staked various claims, but so far they've been careful to avoid a confrontation. But how long can it last? Each side wants it all, basically. The United States, as troubled as it is on many levels, and as close as it's coming to being a failed state (it has already reached that point with its borders), is still the pearl of great price, in a sense – and a lot of this has to do with our hubris – with our insistence that “democracy”, American-style, is the answer to all the world's problems (with the ironic result that, over the years, we have variously supported pseudo-democracies, monarchies, and dictatorships in order to “spread democracy”). At best, the rest of the world has taken us for naive and idealistic, but also dangerous, fools, while at the same time throwing themselves on our charitable impulses (including fighting their wars for them). But it looks as if they are finally getting tired of that game, and that it's time to assert themselves as distinct cultures, and to toss off the yoke of Americanization. The American ideal may have been at least tolerable for a while – an acceptable contribution to the dialogue, and offering opportunities for exploitation – but they can see how shopworn we have become, so it's clear that those ideas have long outlived their “pull date”.

But if the above is true for the Third World, what about the globalists? Don't they still believe in democracy? Don't they have “democratic” governments, by and large? Well, I guess you could say they have pseudo-democratic governments, the way we do. But the decisions are made by an unelected elite. We have our deep state, and so do all the countries in Europe, and so does the E.U. (In fact, the E.U. is totally out in the open – it's not “deep” at all. It's overt rule by bureaucrats.)

And this, in fact, is why we are able to merge so seamlessly into the Global Empire. It's a military/industrial/intelligence entity, and so are we. It may not be long until even the illusion of democracy is no longer considered necessary – you know, silly things like elections, Congress (or parliaments), an independent judicial system, etc. These are the habits that we cling to in a sentimental manner, the way an impoverished formerly-wealthy family will try to “keep up appearances” until even that seems transparently futile.

And on the other side of the globe we have nations and cultures that consider democracy a foolish and half-mad idea. They are committed to raw power, as they have been for millennia, and China is a prime example. So if it ever comes to a showdown between unabashed believers in raw power and those who insist on maintaining illusions of democracy, guess who is more likely to win. (Another way of putting it is that American democracy is a house divided against itself, and I suspect European democracies are similar.)

But this is a conflict of historic proportions, and the battle is not yet joined. At this point, the opposing forces are being assembled and prepared for battle, while regional wars, i.e. proxy wars, are being waged by both sides. Right now we are fighting a war with Russia using Ukrainian troops. But China is helping Russia, and even North Korea is sending troops into the fray. Russia is fighting what they consider to be an existential war, and we are fighting not so much on our own behalf as on behalf of the Globalist Empire, which we fancy that we are in charge of – but if that's so why are we the only ones spending billions on the effort? Aren't we, basically, economic cannon fodder? Where are the European countries which, you would think, would have much more to fear from Russia than we do? Well hey, if you can get someone else to fight your wars for you, then life is good, right? So as always, they are cynically taking advantage of Uncle Stupid, because we are the ones with ideals. We are “defenders of democracy” and they are just normal countries that unapologetically pursue their own interests.

One factor which has not escaped the attention of people with a sense of history is that China is extraordinarily patient when it comes to foreign affairs. They don't insist on instant results. They would rather fight a war of attrition if possible, they prefer proxy wars to direct conflict (think Korea and Vietnam), and better still prefer to fight a war on the economic, vs. military, level. And this is precisely what they are doing at this point, with the exception of whatever aid they are providing Russia (no troops, you'll notice, unlike their attack dog North Korea).

It bears mentioning that there are a few “wild cards” out there, and they may exert a disproportionate influence in the matter. Iran is one, and they are clearly more aligned with BRIC than with anyone in the West. The other is Israel, which has the full support of the Globalist Empire (even though Israel, per se, cannot be described as strictly globalist – they are too concerned with their own survival to be distracted by anyone else's utopian schemes). So the Iran-Israel conflict is a precursor, or beta version, if you will, of the larger conflict that is looming on the horizon. Whether that conflict will accelerate the onset of the larger conflict is a good question. I suspect both sides (i.e. the globalists and BRIC) would prefer to keep it “local”, but things do have a way of getting out of control (recall that World War I started in Bosnia). But there are, it seems, “cool heads” on both sides – China with its legendary patience and the Globalist Empire with its bureaucracy. They're not about to do anything to jeopardize their ambitions for world domination (or even half-world domination). No one in their right mind wants to wind up ruling an ash heap. (I doubt if too many people in their wrong mind would want that either. Even the most abject anarchist wants to wind up in charge of something.)

What am I saying? That cool heads are preferable to hotheads? That, as Winston Churchill said, jaw-jaw is better than war-war? Yes, but with the stipulation that the opposing sides have some moral sense, or at least some vestigial human inpulses. I'm not sure that would be guaranteed in this case. Not only does power corrupt, but it changes human beings into something less than human.

And maybe, after all, these two entities will get together like Mob bosses divvying up cities like Chicago, and cut America up like a Thanksgiving turkey, or a beached whale, or a diagram on a butcher's wall. The process is underway, and has been for a good while, and there is every sign of it picking up speed. Whether it gets settled relatively peacefully, or reaches and then exceeds critical mass like a faulty nuclear reactor, remains to be seen. The ultimate basic question is this: Will either side be satisfied with only half the world, or will they get grandiose and insist on the whole banana? We have seen what happens when empires start getting global ambitions. It's the same dreary trajectory throughout history. In this battle of pachyderms the U.S. is likely to be more of a victim than a “mover and shaker”, and this is something we aren't at all used to, but we may not have a choice. For the first time in our history, we are caught between two opposing forces, but what makes it unique is that a good portion of our politicians are on the side of one or the other of those forces. The number who hold out for our independence is in the minority, which means that most of those in power have given up on the idea of the United States as a sovereign nation, and the greater pity is that the bulk of the citizenry seem to agree – without consciously realizing it in most cases. (Or, let's say that, at the least, they don't disagree, which clearly has an influence in elections.)

It's hard enough holding a nation together that one believes in. It's impossible if that belief has been fatally compromised and replaced with apathy, indifference, greed, and adherence to “strange gods”, e.g. globalism.

History will judge whether the world was better off with us in charge (of much of it, if not all), but that can't happen until we are definitively no longer in charge and are willing to take an honest look at our history, and that day has not yet arrived.

The Great Leveling

2024-06-28T17:24:00.000-04:00

My previous post (“The Long Game”, June 13) dealt with the ruling elite's campaign to turn the U.S. into a new and improved version of the Soviet Union – “new and improved” for a number of reasons, including:

Universal surveillance. The KGB of old could only dream of what our rulers already have at their disposal – GPS tracking, social media (the great seductress), and data bases (FBI, IRS, Social Security, health insurance, facial recognition, banking and credit cards, as well as any number of “non-governmental” and “non-profit” data collection centers). And it's not as if those in charge constantly track every movement and transaction of every citizen, but they could if the need arises. Clearly, the ultimate tool of control for any totalitarian state is universal surveillance (one dystopian film showed a TV in every room – it broadcast propaganda and spied on the inhabitants at the same time). I've always said that one reason the Soviet Union collapsed of its own weight was that half the population was employed in spying on the other half. But that was a relatively crude, ham-handed operation. If they had had the automation, artificial intelligence, and analytic capability that we now have, they'd still be in business. (As a side note, I love these news reports of some crime which include “security footage” which typically shows a pretty lousy, low-resolution picture of the “perp” – as if we didn't have image capability way in advance of any of this! But this is very much the same strategy we always used during the Cold War – show the “other side” what we have in the way of technology, but never show them the most advanced stuff. Let them think they're ahead.)
Public education – which uses much of the same technology, on top of good old, tried-and-true brainwashing and propaganda (sometimes termed “socialization”). The process is much less painful, and less likely to result in pushback, when it's started at a very young age (with or without the consent of the parents).
Communications media and “entertainment” – another arm of the propaganda apparatus, again a quantum improvement over the relatively crude resources of the Soviet Union, e.g. film, radio, newspapers, posters, and very limited television.
“Games and circuses” as a form of mass anesthesia, along with a vast array of new and ever more powerful drugs (all the Russians had was vodka).
Most importantly of all – the shift from fear as the prime motivator to techniques based on the pleasure principle – sex, addiction, entertainment, sloth, gluttony, as well as envy and hero worship (this time a cultural phenomenon, including professional athletes, rather than the more typical Soviet worship of military heroes and cosmonauts – although, to their credit, they did consider master chess players to be heroes as well).

So if the totalitarian revolutions of old were invariably bloody and took a great death toll, the ongoing revolution of our time is more about appealing to primitive drives and impulses, and what amounts to mind control. Add super-powerful drugs and even mind control isn't that challenging – or perhaps we should call it “no-mind control”.

But my emphasis in the previous post was on this country, by and large, although I did mention Davos and related conclaves as the fountainhead of these ideas and strategies, including the abolition of property rights and of property altogether. But again, the plan is to pull this off in as non-violent and subliminal a way as possible (under normal circumstances, allowing for the occasional riot during election season). Simply talk people out of their rights, or of caring about them – offer them something better, like the all-hallowed “security”, and some of its features like a guaranteed income and the plethora of new “rights” that dominates our public dialogue. What's significant about this is that these new “rights” will eventually take the place of all of our traditional rights, like the ones mentioned in the Constitution. This is already well underway. These will be the “rights” of a defeated, anaesthetized, passive, dependent populace – totally unlike the citizenry of the Founding Fathers' day. But again, to quote one of the Davos speakers, “You'll own nothing, and you'll like it.”

But the U.S. is not, after all, “an island, entire of itself”. It shares a planet with countless other countries, nationalities, kingdoms, creeds, tribes – where do they fit in with all this? First we have to think about globalism as a concept, and as a fact. Where, and when, did it begin? Well, when you consider that globalism, collectivism, and secular humanism are highly correlated if not identical, you might ask where, and when, humanism became dominant in a government, and I would say the French Revolution is as good a place as any to start – and yet that event was highly inspired by the American Revolution, which may not have been explicitly secular, and was certainly not anarchistic, but which nonetheless bore the seeds of humanism. And a bit less than a hundred years later, Karl Marx appeared on the scene with Das Kapital. (And in the meantime, we had the widespread revolutions of 1848 in Europe, and the Paris Commune of 1871.) So the collectivist/totalitarian idea was born (or, let's say, grew to full size, since there had been minor, local collectivist movements up to that point, especially – note! – in the United States, almost always connected to a religious movement or cult – but they were voluntary, unlike the collectivism that stems from humanist politics).

And it hardly needs mentioning that major collectivist and totalitarian movements were almost invariably secular, and usually explicitly anti-religion, since religion – especially of the monotheistic type – naturally tends toward hierarchies. This is why “organized religion” and humanism/collectivism/totalitarianism are natural enemies and will ever remain so. It's ultimately about the world view, and the idea of the nature of mankind and of life in general.

So the globalist agenda, which, I would say, is centered in Western Europe with the American ruling elite as a subsidiary (since we're still a bit cranky about these things, and not as likely to rush into complete socialism as are the Europeans) is dedicated to not only humanism in the classical sense, but to a radical form of humanism which I'll call “leveling”, and which is to be accomplished by means of collectivism and totalitarianism, not just for one country but, ultimately, for the entire world. (Note that there was a debate in the early years of the Soviet Union as to whether to devote more resources to promoting international communism or to perfecting the Soviet version. As I recall, the local version won out as a starting point, with the international version being fully supported but not having priority – “first things first”, if you will. Note also that Trotsky disagreed, and wound up in exile where he could still not escape assassination by Soviet agents.)

And after all, if all men (oops, humans) are created (oops, I mean “evolved through random mutation and natural selection”) equal, then it makes perfect sense that all should enjoy the exact same “rights” (the new kind, not the old kind), and enjoy them to the same exact degree. There is nothing new about this, since when the Soviets collectivized agriculture it was declared to be “fair”, because no one would have any advantages over anyone else – not in terms of land, money, housing or any other resources. (The Chinese under Mao copied this idea almost exactly. If a poor farmer rented a shabby room to some laborer, he was declared to be a “landlord” and was thus subject to arrest.)

But even Russia in the old days was not an entirely peasant society. There was a huge industrial work force as well, and the military. So how does one achieve perfect equality, or “fairness”, when there are so many people with different skills performing a great variety of tasks at many skill levels? You simply declare that no one has any property rights, or property, and that no one is getting paid for their labor. You eat in the government cafeteria, you sleep in the government dormitory, your clothes are doled out to you by the government, and any tools you require are loaned to you, one day at a time, by the government. (And by the way, your children, if you have any, are taken care of by “experts”.) And as to your skills or lack thereof, the government will match you with the most appropriate job. Problem solved! So “equal rights” became, more often than not, equal misery – but at least it was fair!

Or was it? Well – a certain modicum of supervision had to be established, and political officers had to be sent out to every village and town (and military unit) in order to keep people thinking properly and staying with the program. And so these apparatchiks constituted a slightly higher class of citizens, in a way – but don't you dare ever point this out! They were loyal supporters of the revolution, and heroes (I mean, look at all the medals they got to wear). And they only enjoyed a slight degree of inequality for the sake of overall equality. Right, comrade?

And, as I pointed out previously, the elimination of the middle class is, and always was, the sine qua non of any revolution, so at best they could have been kept around in a more servile capacity until they had handed off all of their functions to “the people”. And there is nothing fictitious about this – it happened in Russia, and in China, and in any number of smaller (but in some cases even more radical) countries. And if it could happen there, it can happen here – and in fact is already happening, to a significant degree. (Note that, among other things, the middle class is the “cash cow” which supports the federal budget. So what happens when they disappear? Where's the money going to come from? Don't expect this to dawn on any of our utopian thinkers until it's too late.)

Now, it would be too simplistic to claim that the U.S. is nothing more than a “test case” for globalism. There are plenty of nations far more socialistic, and collectivized, than ours. But the U.S. is the sine qua non. Globalism can only go so far, and will eventually fail, unless the U.S. is fully committed to the idea and acts accordingly. And this has to do with our remaining economic power and influence (even though we're bankrupt and in hopeless debt) as well as our usefulness as a scapegoat. The globalist narrative – quite explicit at times – is that the U.S. is, in fact, the Great Satan, and that if it weren't for our imperialism, aggression, threats, and pushing our weight around, the world would be a much better place. So the U.S. has to be subjected to the globalist agenda through diplomatic and economic incentives, but it also has to have a ring put in its nose so it can be humbled, and pacified, and led around by its masters in Brussels, Davos, Martha's Vineyard, etc. (A major piece of this humbling process, by the way, is the increasing tolerance -- nay, encouragement in some cases -- of crime, up to and including murder, in many of our large cities -- the ones in which the mayors, district attorneys, prosecutors, and judges have been replaced by globalist pod people.)

So while one can claim that globalism, in applied terms (the philosophical basis having been firmly established generations earlier), originated with the League of Nations (the “beta version” if you will) and really blossomed with the establishment of the U.N., and while the U.S. was the prime mover in each case, it has been taken over by visionaries and utopians who owe no allegiance to any nation. They are the true “rootless cosmopolitans”, but this is their strength since they are not held back by any traditional ideas, values, customs, or loyalties, so they can devote all of their energies to one thing, which is to do away with nations and nationalities, as well as with ethnic, racial, and religious loyalties – not to mention a sense of place, or belonging. (A "world citizen" is a citizen of nowhere, in other words.) The idea is that to belong to the grand collective is enough, or ought to be – and if anyone disagrees, we have many means of reeducation at our disposal.

Another way of putting it is that the American Empire (economic, social, political, military, diplomatic, geographic) is gradually being taken over by the Global Empire, the way a young, ambitious son will take over the family business from a doddering, aging parent. (We see this playing out quite literally at present.) The globalists are already busily expropriating our best resources and the best of what we have created, leaving the rest behind to rot on the vine, if you will. (Consider that among the losers in this whole process are the labor unions – ironic, since they have always been the darlings of the old Left and have been its unstinting supporters. Union members who wander off the reservation and start supporting Trump are called sell-outs, traitors, and worse. But he sees what is going on, even if the union leadership doesn't – or, more likely, doesn't care.) (And recall that, in my previous post, I pointed out that union labor is properly considered middle class, which means it has that target on its back as well.)

But wait a minute – all well and good if we're talking about Western Europe and the U.S., along with other English-speaking countries like Canada, Australia, and New Zealand. They can form an empire to their hearts' content, but it can hardly be called “global”, since the bulk of humanity is not involved. Well, consider, for one thing, the new colonialism – not military this time, but economic – which has put sub-Saharan Africa firmly into globalist hands, and is a major factor in East and Southeast Asia as well – not to mention military occupations of varying degrees in the Middle East. And consider also that Eastern European countries, still fresh from throwing off the Soviet yoke, are eager to join the club, except for holdouts like Hungary which still believe in national sovereignty.

Then you have Latin America, which is also a victim of the new colonialism, especially the “non-European” countries. By this time we're talking about most of the world except for Russia, China, and the other two BRIC nations, India and Brazil. The battle lines are most obvious in the war in Ukraine, which is basically the globalists, as represented by the U.S., NATO, and the E.U., against Russia. China is an interesting case, because although they are officially our economic “rival” if not a declared enemy, they have managed to take over large chunks of the American economy -- with the full blessing of the ruling elite, or at least their benign neglect. So is there a battle line running through the U.S. between the globalist faction and China? If there is, our home-grown globalists don't seem to be taking it very seriously. If the marriage of the U.S. to the global empire brings with it a fat dowry, and the Chinese are taking possession of more of that dowry every day, you'd think this would be a basis for a major confrontation – and yet I don't sense that one is happening, or even likely. And yet the globalists are not just going to walk away and leave the U.S. to the mercies of China, are they? Unless... a deal has already been worked out, the way the old time Mafia dons would divvy up a city. But then why can't they work out a deal with Russia as well? I guess you call these growing pains on the road to a globalist Utopia.

But back to the Great Leveling. Let's say that, as an interim goal, the target average household income in the U.S. should be equal to that in Western Europe, i.e. in the E.U. This would not shake the economic foundations of any of the nations involved (although the E.U. did suffer some inconveniences when the financially incompetent Southern European countries were yoked to more sober Northern Europe). (In fact, many Americans would be far better off if this were enacted!)

But thinking ahead – and don't forget the drive right here in the U.S. for a “guaranteed annual income”. Where is that going to come from? Well, from people who have a higher income than the guaranteed one, of course. So this would be a leveling process, but not radically different from the one already in force by way of the income tax and welfare systems, just turned up a few notches. (Note that the “poverty line” is also the income level at which people don't have to pay income taxes.)

But what if this were to be applied on a truly global basis? What if the median income in, say, Burundi was mandated to be equal to the median income in Luxembourg? Any chance that would create some economic upheavals? And yet it's the logical reductio ad absurdum of utopian thinking – the kind of thinking that attracts “itchy ears” in places like Davos and Ivy League faculty lounges. But again, it's not really “income” we're talking about, is it? Because those same idealists want to do away with money, i.e. currency, altogether. It's more about standard of living, or quality of life – and how one goes about equalizing that among billions of people without undreamed-of coercion is beyond me. But the current administration is making a significant start by letting millions of immigrants into the country to share in our so-called prosperity. So their standard of living increases dramatically, while for the rest of us it's slowly eroding. This is, if you will, an exercise in global leveling, and it's already happening right here.

But even the globalists are patient, in their own way. They're playing the long game – but then so is China, and so is Russia (or trying to, at least). Each generation will have to judge its own accomplishments while setting the stage for what follows, just as one presidential administration in the U.S. spends enormous amounts of time and energy on its “legacy”, and on paving the way for even more of... whatever... by those who follow.

The only thing that refuses to die in all of this is the globalist dream – and that will hold much of humanity in chains until something better comes along (something, perhaps, more – gasp! – traditional, like a newfound respect for eternal verities like race, ethnicity, tribe, family, gender, culture, and religion – and sense of place).

Plus, there has never been a truly global world empire, outside of science-fiction novels. There have been great empires, certainly – and one recalls Rome, the Ottomans, the British, the Soviets, and many more both ancient and modern – but they have all collapsed of their own weight, or have been over-extended, or have been pecked away at by rivals or local rebellions. Or – they have rotted from within, when the levels of competence that were required to build the empire were no longer there to even sustain it (this, by the way, being a major reason for our shift from being our own empire to being a part of the global empire).

Here we run into human nature, as usual (unless they want to change the human genome – well, I'm sure they're working on it) – can a global empire fare any better in the long run? Perhaps we expect it to be run by aliens from another world, with super-sized brains. Well, dream on. Our salvation is not in men, or in aliens either.

The Long Game

2024-06-13T21:34:00.003-04:00

The conventional wisdom among the conservative commentariat regarding Biden's open borders policy (which is, in effect, a no-borders policy) is that it's all about (1) adding more Democrat voters to the voter rolls; and (2) enjoying cheap, i.e. below union scale, labor. And this is certainly what it looks like on the surface. But consider this:

If it's all about jobs, why aren't there countless job recruiters setting up shop right at the border? I mean, even the least skilled immigrant can be taught how to operate a leaf blower in five minutes. Is it possible that our business sector sees the “new immigrants” as being either unemployable or potential troublemakers, and thus not worth the bother? (What happens when a guy who works at a chicken factory tries to break into an Army base?) Or have they just adopted a wait-and-see attitude? Let the government support these people for a few months, or a few years, then hire the cream of the crop.
If it's all about votes, then we have to consider the very real possibility that our electoral system is already deeply flawed and rife with corruption, and that it may not be long before the people in charge won't even bother counting votes any more. They'll just announce the winner, and anyone who objects will be threatened with jail time. (They'll be called “election deniers”. Welcome to the Soviet Union!) So, basically, the notion of “more voters” doesn't really mean anything – or, very soon, won't.

So if it's not about jobs, or votes, what is it about? It's about changing America permanently – an idea that at least some of the aforementioned commentariat are willing to entertain. But if that's the case, how? And why?

One thing that comes to mind is simply that these immigrants are, by and large, totally ignorant of American history, and of the basic ideas, ideals, and premises on which this country was founded. And the few that might have some inkling of these things simply don't care. They come from places that are, typically, ruled by a single strongman, who has life-and-death power over his hapless subjects... and the pity is, they see this as the natural order of things. (And an argument can be made that this IS the natural order of things, if we allow history and anthropology to have any say in the matter. By the standard of world history, “democracy” and “republican government” are freakish, fragile, and an exception to the rule – not to mention a hopeful plea against fallen human nature.) Also, they are not “political refugees” or “seeking protection from persecution”, except in very rare instances. They're simply seeking their fortune, as the old saying goes – thinking they can get a better deal here than they could where they came from. And the thing is, they're absolutely right! – at least for now, in the short run. But they don't know anything about the long game. If they see America as the “gold mountain” they haven't yet encountered the wide moat that separates them from said mountain (and no, I don't mean the Rio Grande – this moat really is nearly impossible to get across, because it divides the haves from the have-nots (and the never-will-haves)).

Another way of putting this, as I've said in previous posts, is that as water seeks its own level, people also seek their own economic level – or the one to which they aspire – or at least one which is superior to the one they are turning their backs on. And who can blame them? If life in a shabby apartment with ten other people, and a leaf-blower job, is better (in their eyes) than life in Guinea, well, so be it. (Apparently they're also perfectly content with moving to a completely different culture, with a new language, strange customs, new rules, and new economic realities. Or if they wind up regretting their decision – well, let's put it this way – how many wind up wading back across the Rio Grande? I rest my case.)

But consider this. These people have already been exploited. They've been charged exorbitant fees by the cartels for their transportation to entry points. Many have been abused. Women have been raped. And yet they show up – show up, in fact, praising Joe Biden for being so kind and generous as to let them in. They will vote for him at the earliest opportunity! But, since they've been exploited already, won't at least some of them wake up to that fact and be waiting in fear of encountering some new form of exploitation? I think that's a pretty good bet. When you're accustomed to being a victim, victimhood becomes a part of your identity and your way of relating to the world.

And yet they will stay. By the thousands and millions. And will, in fact, remake the country, starting with the fact that they don't share any of our traditional values, ideas, and ideals – and customs – and sense of identity. But what is in store for them (and for the rest of us)? This is where the long game comes into play, and it's being played by the “usual suspects”, i.e. the ruling elite, who exert iron-fisted control over our government from the presidency on down, and over the mainstream media, and our academic institutions, and pretty much everything else right down to the grass roots (did I mention public schools and libraries?).

So, given that these are the people who are in charge, and they are perfectly content with the country having no functioning borders, what do they want? First, consider that they are promoting totalitarianism (call it Marxism if you like) on all fronts and with a thousand voices – with academics in the lead, followed closely by the mainstream media, “entertainment”, social media, and all other cultural trendsetters right down to the most local level. They have created a propaganda machine for this purpose that surpasses anything the Soviets or the Nazis ever came up with or even dreamed about, the idea being to have (as much as possible) a “bloodless revolution” where no one actually gets hurt, but the world is remade before our eyes, and there's nothing we can do about it. (And this process is not only well under way, but is getting very close to being complete. In other words, the “long march through the institutions” is nearly at an end.) (Exercise: Name me one institution of any significance that has not succumbed to the siren song of “wokeness”. I'm waiting... )

So where does uncontrolled and unlimited immigration come into this? For one thing, given that the new immigrants don't share our (traditional) “values”, they are unlikely to object to, or be disappointed with, pretty much anything the government (federal, state, local) does. In other words, they are “toughened up” vis-a-vis relations with authority. They know that the best strategy is to keep one's head down and stay out of the way. And if they can make $1 more per hour here than they could in Tajikistan, they're satisfied, and feel that it was worth the trouble. So they become, if you will, the new proletariat – the new working (or non-working) class, with the difference that they are satisfied with their lot. They may be exploited – slaves, for all intents and purposes – but they won't mind, because they refuse to believe they've made a horrible mistake by leaving their village in Botswana. (Cognitive dissonance triumphs again!)

So they become, by and large, the new lower class – the bottom level of the American pyramid. But wait! What happens to the people who have, up until now, been on the bottom? What happens to all of their claims... their “rights”... the victim status they have become so accustomed to, and even profited from in a way? At the very least, they will have to get used to sharing whatever it is they've enjoyed for many generations now with the newcomers. They are going to have to share that pie, which – by the way – is getting progressively smaller, thanks in no small part to the money the government keeps flushing down the toilet marked “foreign aid”. And what are they going to think about all of this? And will it matter? After all, the newcomers are the ones with all the benefits and preferences, and our traditional lower class is going to have make way (and they already are, in “sanctuary cities”). Any chance this is going start creating indignation, protests, and violence? (It's ironic that people will be fighting for privileged status on the bottom rung of society – but that's what we've come to at this point in our history.)

So when you let millions of newcomers in, it tends to dilute, in a way, the influence of those who are already here -- the “traditional” lower class. They find they're outnumbered, and no one has any more patience with their complaints, because there are all these new people to deal with, and they have rights too (more than the old lower class does, in fact).

But let's turn now to another familiar victim class – namely, the middle class. “Victim” you say? Well, consider that the middle class has, historically, been the declared enemy of most totalitarian movements, and the governments they succeed in taking over, going all the way back to the French Revolution. This is always the case with communism, and is an article of faith in Marxism. The erosion of the American middle class has been underway for a couple of generations now, and the primary tools used against it have been taxation and inflation (to which I will add the gobbling up, by multinational corporations, of small businesses and family farms, the economic and psychological mainstays of the middle class). And we also have to include the ongoing propaganda and social pressure against “bourgeois” values and “family values”, and “squares”, and “conformists”, and people who are selfish enough to want to hold on to their own hard-earned income. That's just “hate”, right? And to this one might add what I'll call cultural erosion – attacks on morals, values, even the arts, not to mention public education. The cards have been stacked against the American middle class, I would say, since the mid-60s, when everything changed. (Heck, the middle class has even been shamed into not reproducing! There's a long-term plan for you.)

But the main point when it comes to the middle class is that doctrinaire collectivists don't think the middle class is even necessary – that it's an encumbrance, and the sooner we get rid of the “bourgeoisie” the better. Now, as I've said on other occasions, find me a successful advanced society that didn't, or doesn't, have a middle class. Soviet Russia had a kind of pseudo-middle class, consisting of government employees, who were, arguably, better off in some ways than the hapless peasants or the factory workers – but economically, they weren't much better off; they still had to stand in line for bread for hours each day. China under Mao did its best to eliminate its middle class (such as it was), but it came back with a vengeance when Mao's successors decided to give capitalism a try – you know, just a little bit – just a smidgen – and now they have more billionaires than the rest of the world combined, and are making major inroads into the American economy. And a new middle class has been created out of, basically, nothing, in order to keep the machine running. It's housed in countless high-rise apartment complexes in the large cities, while the countryside stands deserted.

And speaking of China – it's been noted that a considerable number of “new immigrants” (formerly “illegal immigrants”) are, in fact, Chinese – and overwhelmingly men of military age. Now think about it. China is, unlike us, serious about its borders. It's tough to get in, and it's tough to get out – and you can bet than any Chinese citizen who leaves the Middle Kingdom for any reason needs (1) permission to leave, and (2) permission to go wherever they're going, and (3) they must have a purpose (or maybe a mission) in mind. So these guys are all here with their government's permission and blessing. And what is their mission? Who knows? One thing you can bet on, they won't be walking around with leaf blowers or flipping burgers.

But this is all realism – so annoying! – and it doesn't faze the idealists, those who dream of a “classless society”, which really means a vast army of slaves, but with them in charge. This is their dream – their ideal – that which they live for, and they have said as much, right out in public, in confabs like Davos (“You'll own nothing, and you'll like it.”). It's the ultimate goal of our ruling elite – continue to peck away at the middle class until it ceases to exist for all intents and purposes, and at the same time populate the lower class with countless new immigrants who, let's say, don't believe in “ideas” any further than their own immediate material well-being. And they will, in fact, be slaves – but happy, or at least not violently malcontented. (Drugs enter in here, as part of the plan – any relation to legalization of marijuana, maybe? Therapeutic psychedelics? Think “soma” as in Aldous Huxley's “Brave New World”.) And the Soviet Union is the best model for this. They had a ruling elite, government and business had merged and become one body, and everyone else was a worker bee.

Wait a minute! Doesn't that pretty much describe this country right now? Pretty much, except, again, for that pesky middle class which, among other things, believes in “American” values and ideals, and which – even more annoyingly! – persists in listening to Donald Trump. (Note that I consider “working class” people with steady jobs and decent incomes to be, for all intents and purposes, middle class, especially since white-collar salaries overlap, to a considerable degree, the incomes of skilled labor. Another way of putting it is that middle class people, regardless of occupation, are taxpayers, and lower class people are tax receivers.) And when Trump says “They're not after me, they're after you; I'm just in the way”, he is absolutely right. And if their hero should fall in defeat, that will be the end of the last, best hope for the real middle class – those who “cling” to traditional American values. All that will be left is policing up the battlefield, which the elite and its forces have already shown exemplary skill at (witness the January 6 prosecutions).

But hold on! Our conservative commentariat (them again!) are fond of saying that the “classless society” is an illusion, and an impossible dream... and that any attempts to create one have ended in catastrophe. Well... it depends on one's point of view. The Soviet Union lasted for 70-plus years, with all of its programs and its organizational structure remaining intact the entire time. And it was not terminated by means of revolution or conquest. In fact, American liberals are still mourning the demise of the USSR, and contend that it wouldn't have ended “if we'd just given it a chance”. (Seventy-plus years?? I'd say we gave it every possible chance.) And as for China, after the economic and social catastrophe under Mao, more sober heads prevailed, and what we have now is an awake (not woke, note) monster that is making daily inroads into our own economy and well as academics and social media.

So I guess, in a sense, totalitarianism, or collectivism, or communism, is a stage of development that a society can eventually grow out of – call it an adolescent tantrum, if you will. But the economic and social costs, not to mention the death toll, makes one wonder, couldn't they have just skipped that phase, and evolved in a different way? Why did Russia and the Iron Curtain countries have to endure all those years, and decades? But that would be to discount the revolutionary spirit which seems to be built into the human DNA – that, and the tendency for a new ruling elite to rise up and lay claim to the revolution and its results – or, in our case, for the ruling elite to actually create the revolution, in a top-down fashion, the way Mao's “Great Leap Forward” and “continuous revolution” were top-down phenomena. (Consider how the sporadic outbreaks of urban violence and rioting in the U.S. all seem to originate with wealthy sponsors, members of the ruling elite who have taken it upon themselves to take charge of the bottom-up dirty work while someone else takes on the top-down stuff, like elections for instance.)

But still, given the poor track record of totalitarian governments, you'd think our ruling elite would come up with something else – a third way, or something. But that would violate their most basic premise – that only they are worthy to rule, only they are wise, and only they have the will power to bring the fractious citizenry (AKA deplorables) under control. So they have to give it another try, because who knows, this time it might work! At least that's what the grizzled, dog-eared doctrinaire collectivists in Ivy League faculty lounges think. It will work, because it has to work. There is no other possibility. And no price is too high to pay for making it work by any and all means.

So... now we have the spectacle of another presidential race, with the entire apparatus of the federal government (and many state and local governments) lined up against one man, namely the former and would-be future president. When you consider what's at stake, and the odds, it seems impossible that he could actually win in November, even assuming we have an honest election. (As was said about an American politician some decades back, nobody likes him but the people.) And is Trump a perfect person? Heck, no. But he has become an unlikely hero – the last hope for a considerable portion of the population. Once he vanishes from the scene, who will be left to fend off the vultures? Some may try, but they won't have Trump's charisma, determination, or courage (or money). All they will have is their beliefs, their ideals, and their traditions, and it's hard to imagine those will suffice to withstand the onslaught. But time will tell.

The Power of Narrative

2024-05-09T21:03:00.004-04:00

Well, it's “election season” once again – but really, is it ever not election season? Haven't we gotten to the point where every initiative, every policy, every program, every bill, every “task force”, every “investigation”, and so on, is aimed at the next election, whether for the presidency or for Congress? The American interest, i.e. the well-being of its citizens, has long since ceased to be a consideration, never mind “realism” (especially when applied to foreign policy) and “sustainability” (a favorite buzz word of the environmentalist faction). Even the environment, AKA “the planet”, takes, at best, second place when forced to compete with more pressing shorter-term considerations of power and money (environmental issues being, at least in theory, aimed beyond the lifetimes of the present generation, whereas power and money are all about “ME”, and succeeding generations can eat you-know-what). The planning horizon of our elected officials extends no further than the next election, and once that is accomplished the planning horizon instantly shifts to the election after that. In other words, the next campaign begins the day after the swearing-in ceremony. The long-term welfare of the citizenry, whether economic or in terms of health (which is, or should be, a subset of “the environment”, which is, in turn, a subset of “the planet”) never enters the minds of our so-called “leaders” from one year to the next, except as talking points – and yet they continue to campaign, and continue, incredibly, to be re-elected to an overwhelming extent. So, the question is – or should be – what sustains this clearly maladaptive, and some would even say suicidal, system, where – if we still have any faith in the electoral system – people persist in voting against their own best interests, and thus reinforce policies that have failed time and time again – sometimes spectacularly?

The old chestnut about doctors is that they “bury their mistakes”, so their mistakes don't get to comment on their competence, or lack thereof, on the Internet. Politicians, on the other hand, are like unto miracle workers. Not only do they not bury their mistakes, they parade them out in public, and in speeches, as successes – and a few people out there dare to speak up and argue, but the vast majority remain silent, whether out of despair or utter apathy. (But they still vote – which seems to mean that many people shuffle into the voting booth in a state of despair or apathy. So then why do they even bother? Read on... )

Well, number one, “voting” has always been styled as the premier privilege of the citizens of a democracy – the one essential thing, the sine qua non. Of course, as we all know, or should know, most of the dictatorships of the 20^th Century, and those that remain, had, and have, voting – after all, they were/are “people's republics”, right? The fact that their elections were a total sham was pointed out and ridiculed by the more enlightened, i.e. the American media and politicians – all while ignoring the chicanery that contaminated many of our own elections, both on the national and local level. If democracy in the “people's republics” was an illusion, then our own democracy was, at the very least, flawed, and in some case corrupted to an extent that rendered it meaningless and absurd in the “democratic” sense. And yet, it seemed that a flawed democracy, with an electoral system that was capable of being severely compromised, was better than nothing. In other words, the illusion of democracy was preferable to the stark realization that, in many cases, it was nothing but a sham and a cruel hoax.

But we still have to ask why, over time, ever since the earliest years of the Republic, the actions of elected officials have tended to contradict the intent of the people who voted them into office. Seek no further than the temptations of power, and the felt need to, once power is achieved, hold onto it at all costs, so the interests of the ordinary citizen are soon trumped by the interests of the rich and powerful, who take over control of elected officials the minute the ballots are counted. And there is nothing the least bit new or unique about this; it goes right back to our fallen human nature, and politicians are, after all, human – all too human much of the time. They seek power, presumably, in order to “do good”, but in no more than the twinkling of eye their Job One becomes holding onto the power they've been given by a trusting (say gullible, if you like) public.

And is this tendency worse in a “democracy” than it would be in a monarchy, or dictatorship? Well, no, because human nature is what it is – at all times and in all places. And after all, elected officials can, at least in theory, be voted out of office, although it's amazing how seldom this actually occurs (impeachment being ever rarer, and successful impeachment being the rarest of all). So they must be doing something right. Right? Or are we totally missing the point when it comes to our vaunted “democratic” system? If people supposedly vote, time and time again, “for their pocketbook”, or for some other concrete reason, and are invariably disappointed, and yet their voting behavior doesn't change... what is actually going on?

So, can we all agree that there's a disconnect here? We have “voters”, and “candidates” who turn into “politicians” but then are compelled to remain candidates until they decide to retire (or are forced to by some means). But as an arrangement, it very seldom pays off, at least for the hapless voter, i.e. the “average Joe”, “citizen”, whatever. It mostly pays off for the people behind the scenes who choose the candidates, support them, and then once they are in office call in their chits. So the notion of elected officials being “the people's choice” is a hoax in many if not most cases. Was it the “people's choice” when these candidates came out of nowhere and somehow ended up on the ballot? No, of course not – they were the product of a very selective and precise vetting process, the main criterion being: Will this person, once elected, remember who his “friends” are, and act accordingly? And the selection process has been developed and fine-tuned to dependably yield results that favor the people who are really in charge. And if an occasional “mistake” occurs – if an elected official decides to throw off the yoke and be their own man (or woman), well, we have ways of dealing with that sort of nonsense. (On this topic, see a previous post, "Mayor Pete was the Wine that was Sold Before its Time", April 25, 2020.)

And once again, and as always, the hapless citizen is left wondering what the hell happened... why they have been exploited and betrayed once again, and for the umpteenth time. (Won't Charlie Brown ever be allowed to kick that damn football?) And yet their faith in the system, if one can call it that, persists – or maybe it's just habit, or, once again, despair.

Let's try and take a closer look at this almost universal phenomenon. Let us, for starters, think about voting, and the voting booth, and what actually happens when someone is face-to-face with that choice – with trembling hand holding a pen or pencil, or poised over a button on a screen or a voting machine lever. This is the real moment of truth. All of the propaganda, advertisements, speeches, broadcasts... the papers, magazines, TV, Internet, radio... fade into nothingness at this point and are replaced by an empty space, a void... but then what rises up to fill that void? It's the narrative.

Narrative – A way of presenting or understanding a situation or series of events that reflects and promotes a particular point of view or set of values.

Or – a particular way of explaining or understanding events;

Or – a story or account of events, experiences, or the like, whether true or fictitious;

Or – an explanation or interpretation of events in accordance with a particular theory, ideology, or point of view.

Note that these definitions (and there are many more along similar lines) tend to reflect the utter subjectivity of narrative, i.e. that it's not factual in the strict sense, but based to a large extent on pre-existing ideas, prejudices, biases, and premises – not to mention emotional needs, which, in my opinion, are actually the main “drivers”. And those emotional needs are based, in turn, on an array of events and influences that culminated in the mind set of that person, on that day, at that time, in that voting booth. For we are, after all, human – which means complex, and unstable, impulsive, reactive,,, in short, all that the Founding Fathers believed – naively, perhaps – could be overcome if people were only given the opportunity and the proper motivation. They were, if you will, optimistic about human nature. But has their optimism proven to be utter delusion and folly?

Even the simplest person is capable of having “deep thoughts” at times – and the most intellectual and presumably rational and objective person can be the prey of their emotions, which can cancel out all attempts at “realism”. And I'm not claiming that these “irrational” factors come into play in spite of reason, or of “the facts”; it's really the opposite. It's a more rare occasion when reason, and the facts, come into play in spite of what one might call the more primitive, or juvenile, factors. (In the developmental sense they could be termed “pre-reason” or “pre-logic” or “pre-conceptual”.)

One might say that the notion of the average citizen suddenly turning into an adult when they step into the voting booth is no more than wishful thinking. What is every bit as likely is that they will regress, and revert to an earlier stage of their emotional and intellectual development when they are confronted by that moment of truth.

So what, then, is this all-powerful narrative, and why does it have such an iron grip on us when we are faced with what should be an important decision – not only for the individual but as a basis for democracy itself?

To begin at the beginning – our perceptions of the way the world is (call it our “metaphysics” if you like) start being formed at birth, or even before. Babies are, basically, data-gathering machines. They absorb everything that they see, hear, taste, smell, feel – without prejudice or editing. One might say this is the most objective stage of life, simply because we haven't yet learned to select, or filter, the input. We never think, or say, "That does not compute", because at that stage everything computes, which is as it should be. And so a view of the world (their world, of course) is formed – primarily from sensations as opposed to thoughts “about” sensations. Toddlers have a pretty good idea of the way the world is – their world, at least. But they also start getting notions of how they would like the world to be, and the conflict between the two leads to frustration (which helps explain why the "terrible twos" are the way they are). How is this resolved? The way they would like the world to be has to be put on the shelf, after repeated tries and frustrations – but it never goes away. Our “inner child of the past” (the expression comes from a self-help book from some years back) persists, and builds up -- layer by layer -- wishes, hopes, dreams, and frustrations while we lead a parallel life “in the world”. Thus is formed the root of a narrative – the one with the earliest origins – to which we cling (thank you, Barack!) in some form, even if a vestigial form, for life.

And I would say that the great cry of the human person – the real “primal scream” -- is “It's not fair!”, or some variation thereof. And if this attitude, or premise, retains sufficient power into adulthood, it can influence our political thinking, not to mention our relationships, our choice of vocation, and so on. The urge to make the world “work” – to be the way we would like it to be – is compelling, but also infantile in a way. The missing element is willingness to compromise, and – on a more rarefied level – humility. Humility doesn't insist on “compromise”, or negotiation, or bargaining; it is an attitude of willingness to accept things as they are – at least tentatively -- because, who knows, there may be perfectly good reasons for the way things are that we are not privy to – but at the same time to work to make things better, ideally by starting “at home”, with ourselves. (Wasn't there a Beatles song that said, “You say you'll change the constitution, well, you know, we all want to change your head. You tell me it's the institution, well, you know, you'd better free your mind instead” ?)

Many teachers in many religious traditions have taught the value of humility over the millennia. One of the main barriers to developing humility, however, is that residual infantile “It's not fair!” attitude, and this flows quite seamlessly into one's personal politics, and thus collectively into politics in general. For what is any political idea, cause, or movement other than an attempt to make things “right” -- or "fair" -- or "equitable" – to re-fashion the world in the image that we would like to impose on it? There is nothing less humble, or less satisfied, than a political movement. “Conservatives” – the real kind, i.e. the ones who want to keep things just the way they are (vs. the way they were, or are alleged to have been, 100 or more years ago) -- are fighting battles against “change”, especially change for its own sake (which is the most typical variety). If only people would be satisfied with the way things are now! But what if the way things are now is more like the “continuous revolution” of Chairman Mao? Then it's no longer true conservatism, is it? And perhaps in our time there is no such thing, i.e. conservatism has become self-contradicting.

But it seems that we have skipped a few steps here. Go back to the toddler, who is forming a view of the world based on raw data, and not spending much time thinking about it, or interpreting, or conceptualizing. They are, in a way, living an unexamined life, which is perfectly acceptable at that stage. But then along comes speech, and then concepts and ideas, and (hopefully) some beginning of moral sense – and, perhaps most important of all, imagination, which can be defined as wanting that which doesn't even exist, but which we develop as an image or “wish system” by projecting from what is, i.e. from what we know. And at that point the “ought” starts to overpower the “is” – the toddler's alternative world of “like” and “want” starts to accrete names, and concepts, and connections. And this is also the point at which, thanks to language and our conceptual abilities, one is exposed to other people's world view – again, not only the view of things as they are (the metaphysical) but the view of things as they might be, or ought to be (which ultimately turns into the political). (Isn't politics, after all, the art of persuasion – of convincing people that they ought to think differently, or ought to want what they don't presently have – and of showing them the means by which they can supposedly obtain it (starting with the all-hallowed vote)?)

And who are these other people? Our “influencers”, as the current saying goes? Well, parents, for certain... but also other family members, friends, and neighbors – people we know and converse with. But then we have teachers (whose world view may or may not match that of our parents – increasingly the case in our time, since the public schools have fallen prey to “the long march through the institutions”), and books, television, the Internet, and so on – that vast array of sources of information, ideas, facts, fancies, propaganda, threats, rewards – greatly magnified by the communications media in our time.

How often have I heard or read complaints by “boomers” that things were so much simpler when we were kids, and there were only 3 TV channels (two commercial and one "educational"), and school books, and books from the local library, and magazines from news stands, and the radio, and that was pretty much it? The competition for “hearts and minds” was barely a fraction as intense as it is now, and it can be debated whether this is a net improvement or an invitation to confusion and, ultimately, chaos and despair. Can it be that the human organism was only meant to handle so much information – most of it not sense information in the natural or “primitive” sense, but only boiled-down, digitized, distorted remnants? Not even well-developed concepts, but sound bites? Are we not all victims of overload? And if we are, are we equipped with the discernment and ability to do something about it? My observations would seem to indicate that the answer is no, for most people and in most cases. As with so much in the way of technology, our reach exceeds our grasp. We create instantaneous monsters, if you will, but have no idea as how to control them, and thus become their victims.

So our narratives are born, and at an early age they bifurcate into the “is” and the “ought” – “reality” vs. “wishful thinking”. But hold on. Were all of our influencers, and sources, over the years purveyors of reality? Because what where they pushing? Their world view, but surely more of a hybrid of the two – the way things are and the way they ought to be. After all, stark reality – “just the facts, ma'am” (thank you, Jack Webb) can become awfully tedious and boring at times. After all, we are human beings – always restless, always striving, always curious. We are not dogs and cats, or cattle contentedly chewing their cuds in the field. It would be nice to be that existential – that “here and now”, and many of the hippie gurus, taking a cue from Eastern religions, recommended that state of mind as the best, and the one least likely to lead to frustration. And this is not to say that some time spent meditating – being “here and now” – is a bad thing; it's been highly recommended, again by wise men (and women) of many religious and philosophical orientations. But let's admit that plain contentment is a rare thing, and perhaps should remain so. (Or, to put it another way, it is perfectly suitable for the human race to include both contemplatives and “action” persons. In the proper proportions, they complement each other, and in some ultimate sense they couldn't get along without each other.)

For the rest of us, not satisfied with radical contentment or “here and now-ness” (or the cheap imitation induced by drugs and alcohol), we have to deal with our narratives, and each person's core narrative at any given time is likely to be a combination of reality (facts) and wishful thinking (fantasies). I had a chemistry teacher in high school who would always correct any student who said “I think...” He would say “you don't think, you fancy”. But isn't this it in a nutshell? And to the extent that a person is willing to – calmly and deliberately – pry apart the portions of their narrative that are “the way things are” vs. “the way things ought to be”... but wait! What's to keep “the way things are” from being every bit as fantastic (albeit unconsciously) as “the way things ought to be”? Isn't all of our thinking ultimately subjective and illusory? Is objectivity a myth, and don't we use our reasoning powers to, more often than not, simply shuffle various fantasies around and rationalize the ones we prefer on any given day? Or, isn't there at least a continuum of some sort with the “actual” (things I'm pretty certain of, because they're tangible and observable) on one end and the “ideal” (things I know are not the case, but wouldn't it be nice if they were?) on the other?

And – does it even matter, ultimately? If our narrative, or world view, impacts our lives, our decisions, our relationships, on a daily basis, isn't it quibbling to talk about how “realistic” various pieces of it are? Because it's there. Over time, it's arguably the single largest influencer in our lives, or at least in our thinking about our lives.

It's almost like the old question, how can we live knowing that we will die? And there are many answers to that question, needless to say. But then, on a more personal, here-and-now level, how can we live knowing, or suspecting, that our every thought and action is based on, and conditioned by, something that was imposed on us (or, at least, suggested to us) by someone else – and that their every thought and action was, in turn, based on, and conditioned by... and so on. (Perhaps the first and only truly free-thinking human being was some cave man who accidently stumbled upon language. He was able to make it all up on his own, ex nihilo.)

But narratives are very seldom completely idiosyncratic. There are common, shared elements based on, first, the family, and then on the gradual widening world that each of us experiences – but there are central tendencies and groupings, otherwise there would be no political parties or causes. We would each be trapped in our own pseudo-factual world like patients in the back ward of a mental hospital (before they were all shut down, that is). So yes, the reference group (the one we don't choose, and later on the one, or ones, we do choose) has its agreed-upon narrative, which they promote, expand upon, and, in some cases, endlessly blather about, from the coffee house to the student union to the faculty lounge to Congress to TV and the Internet. (For a sampling of grass-roots narratives, I can recommend nothing better than that table of male senior citizens that one always finds at any McDonald's on a Saturday morning – or any other day of the week, most likely. They talk on endlessly, but it's clear that they share the same narrative, right down to the most minute detail. There is no real debate, in other words – just embellishment, and a friendly competition as to who feels most strongly about a given issue – or who can talk the loudest between gulps of lousy coffee.)

But this is also not to say that narratives are merely shared world views. That's precisely the point. They are unique in the same way fingerprints are – one set to a person, and no two people have the same set. But there are definite narrative clusters, if you will, the same way people naturally cluster into racial, ethnic, religious, and gender groups. After all, a key element in narrative formation is the culture one is born into; a good bit of it is, as I see it, pre-verbal or extra-verbal. People don't generally think much about their particular “culture” as young children; they just take it for granted along with everything else – religion, social class, customs, traditions, etc. In fact, I doubt if very many people, even upon achieving mature adulthood, think about how different – how radically different at times – their narrative is from others'. It's like the old saying, “Fish discover water last”. If you're immersed in something from the very beginnings of perception, you don't have to “discover” it; you're living it. In a very real sense, it is you and you are it. Whatever else we are, or become, builds on that; it's our foundation or groundwork, if you will.

But wait! – you might say. What about rebellious youth? What about the ones who, with every generation, decide that the old folks don't know anything, and they're going out on a quest for The Truth? Not only that, but how about all of these “influencers” who encourage, aid, and abet rebellion – thinking firstly about peer groups, but also teachers, the media, books, and so on? Doesn't that old narrative so carefully cultivated by Mom and Pop get tossed aside?

This might seem to be the case if we just look at the surface, or the symptoms. What I suspect, however, is that youthful rebellion is just that – youthful. The day comes when our youthful rebels will decide that it's just too much work, or the world isn't getting better despite all of their efforts... or that more immediate, material considerations need to be given more weight – you know, things like earning a living, as dull as that might seem. Notice that the ones who come to this realization first are invariably called “sell-outs” by the more hard-core types, but sooner or later pretty much everyone falls by the wayside in some way, except for the rare types like Bernie Sanders.

And it's not that the narratives they grew up with have survived intact, the way so many ancient Chinese customs survived Mao's Cultural Revolution. They may have gotten updated, refined, polished, rendered more “current”, more acceptable, but the roots survive. They are still their parents' children, in other words. A “rebel for life” is a rare thing – it happens, and there are many examples, but most people simply can't, or won't, entirely throw off that baggage – and in fact, there is no good reason for them to do so. They are behaving more like natural human beings than like any idealized “New Soviet Man” or member of “The Master Race”, who are expected to act in a robotic fashion and have no hidden agendas and, preferably, no individual personality at all.

To put it another way – imagine an ancient tree that has survived any number of storms, hurricanes, floods, diseases, injuries, even earthquakes. It's battle-scarred, but it's still the same tree. And narratives – the powerful ones, the ones based on what I call “the eternal verities” – race, religion, ethnic group, customs – have a staying power that transcends generations, and even transcends actual events – history, for example, and “social change” (which does not have the same depth as narratives, despite what activists would like).

If you look at current events, you see various narratives bubbling up – ones that were supposed to be long since done away with, precisely because they are based on the things that have always motivated people, both as individuals and in groups – things like, once again, race, religion, ethnicity – things that defined societies and even entire civilizations in the past, but which are now considered hopelessly atavistic and out of fashion. The question is, can any society, or civilization, survive the lack of these things, even if in implicit form? We seem to be experimenting with that possibility at present, with concepts like “diversity”, which is just another word for deracination, i.e. getting rid of things that actually create diversity. And yes, it's been tried before, with less-than-pleasant consequences, as witness Soviet Russia and Maoist China.

So now we come back, at long last, to poor old Joe Blow, Mr. Average, the plain citizen, etc. lurching into the voting booth. Is he really concerned with the latest polling numbers? Is he concerned with the “record” of the incumbent, or the many promises of the contender? And what about the myriad of “influencers” and talking heads in the media? They've been working full time for months, if not years, to talk Joe Blow into voting a certain way because, after all, he'll be so much better off if the follows their advice.

But no. The narrative rises up, like the monster from an old movie rising out of Tokyo Bay or New York harbor, to claim its own. And it's the narrative that tells him who to vote for, and his decision is based on which candidate seems to represent this narrative – which one is the best match, that is, with ideas, notions, and “fancies” that Joe Blow has been carrying around with him for years, and most likely decades. (I don't think that there's a political “consultant” alive who could systematically come up with a campaign that would appeal to the collective narratives of millions of voters. The best he can hope for is that his candidate will get lucky and appeal to enough of them to win.)

But why should this be such a hard nut to crack? The problem is that there is nothing simple about any given narrative, and the complexity of narratives in the aggregate is beyond measure. At the very least, we can say that the well-developed narrative has many facets, to be sure – many of them quite personal and biographical, if you will. “I promised my father on his deathbed that I would never vote for [a certain political party].” “My family/friends/associates/co-workers would disown me if I voted for [a certain candidate].” “If I voted for [a certain candidate] it would make me a traitor to my race/ethnic group/religion/gender.” “We (meaning family, ethnic group, social class, religion) always vote for [a given political party].” And so on. (Freud called this the superego. It's that thing that's stuck in your head that makes you do what you'd rather not do, and not do what you'd rather do. It's the “ought” to our “is”, if you will.)

Now, notice how fact-free all of this is? How non-reality based? That's the point. This is the burden, the baggage, that people carry around with them on a daily basis, but it only rises to the surface on Election Day. This is why the pollsters are so often wrong, and hilariously so in some cases, because they (1) go by what people say when they are in a more “factual” or realistic mood; and (2) go by what people say even though they are thinking something quite different (a political poll is not a confessional, after all); and (3) assume that people know their own minds, i.e. don't get cold feet when they step into that voting booth, and substitute the narrative for all the ideas they've been ruminating on up to that point.

Loyalty – a deep-seated desire to remain faithful to all the many factors and influences in one's upbringing – is a powerful force, perhaps the most powerful in fact, since one can argue that without it civilization would never have even developed, and we would still not be living at anything larger than the small tribal level at best. (The smaller the reference group, the easier it is to enforce conformity, which is one reason why systems of central government imposed on a tribal culture tend to fail, and revert to chaos and violence. The village chief has power and commands respect, where the president or dictator in a far-away capital can only rule indirectly and by fear.)

So this would seem to be an answer – not the entire answer, but an important one – to the perennial question of why people vote the way they do. They aren't voting for the candidate or for his/her ideas as much as for a narrative of which that candidate is merely a passing and imperfect representative. And one interesting consequence of this idea is that the candidate may not be fully aware of the extent, or the depth, of the narrative that he or she represents. They may “fancy” that it's all about them, whereas they are, in truth, quite expendable. Or, they may at least imagine that people vote for ideas – preferably for the candidate's ideas. But that's wrong too. The narrative is much deeper than conscious ideas, and in fact (per our discussion of young children) deeper than the language that expresses those ideas. Primitive emotions come to the fore – traumas, pain, fear, frustration, etc. – and we might say that they unjustly influence the process (which is supposed be so rational, after all), but are they not the things that, over the course of a lifetime, have the most impact on our sense of the world and our place in it – our self-image and self-esteem? Don't they deserve a voice – a say in the matter? Perhaps rationality and realism are overestimated, and are, at best, secondary to these more basic drives – more superficial, more fleeting (witness how political loyalties can often change at the drop of a hat). Perhaps the notion of elections as popularity contests is not as off-base as we would like to believe. Maybe “popularity” is a better expression of the narrative than that which appears in all the polls and surveys. But if people vote that way, then can they really complain when, by the cold, clear light of day, they wind up with “buyer's regret”? But it's still better than the “walk of shame” home from the polling place when they think “I sure hope Uncle Louie (of fond memory) didn't see me voting that way.”

Perhaps, in other words, we should be more willing to accept the results of a narrative-laden election. Why look down on people because of the way they vote – especially their deep motives, of which we know nothing? Democracy is, at least in theory, based on the assumption that people are entitled to vote because they are capable of understanding the issues. But human nature being what it is, perhaps this understanding is likely to be outweighed by something more basic and, yes, more complex. Does this mean that democracy is a fatally flawed system because it's based on an erroneous premise? A better question might be, even if it is flawed, are the alternatives any better? We seem to have long since settled that question in favor of sticking with the system we have. If it should one day crumble under its own weight, it may be for any number of reasons, but one might turn out to be the power of narrative and its ability to create contradictions to the extent that they would prove fatal. For one thing, as cultural distinctions – a key factor in narrative development – dissolve in the so-called “melting pot” (even though it is mythical to some extent), resulting in what E. Michael Jones calls deracination, the glue or connective tissue among narratives may deteriorate, and a kind of centrifugal force may make Americans (but not only them) increasingly isolated and, one might almost say, autistic in their own unique narratives. This may be the thing that, once and for all, exposes “E pluribus unum” as a myth.

Why are the Democrats Supporting Nikki Haley and not Trump?

2024-01-27T15:52:00.000-05:00

Question du jour – why are the Democrats (which includes the mainstream media) supporting Nikki Haley? I mean, they expect to win in November, right? So why do they care who the Republican nominee is? Some of it can be attributed to TDS (Trump Derangement Syndrome), which will always be with us... and of course they don't want Trump to have the “honor” of being nominated (for the 3^rd time) by the Republicans, even though they fear and despise the “MAGA terrorists”, i.e. Trump supporters within the Republican party (and those not in the party as well).

It's clear that they aren't playing the long game here. They're getting their jollies by piling on Trump and whoever consents to be his running mate (“I pity the fool...”), but think about this. If Haley winds up being the nominee – and the Dems are doing everything in their power to make certain that Trump can't be nominated – and then loses, the Republican party will survive (if only in the usual minority status). That is, the mainstream Republicans – the “acceptable opposition”, the ones who are always happy to “cross the aisle” and be second-class citizens to the Dems – will take over once and for all, with Trump and the MAGA crowd finally sent into exile and relegated to the ash heap of history.

That would be a perfectly acceptable outcome for the Democrats. Having the Republicans as a perpetual and obseqious minority – which they have been for much of the time in recent years – would feel like business as usual, and the so-called two-party system would survive, at least in theory.

But the Democrats don't want a two-party system – not really. In their heart of hearts, they want a one-party system on the Soviet model, i.e. no opposition at all, not even the acceptable kind. Nothing but unanimous votes in Congress (and eventually one TV network, one radio network, one newspaper (OK, the Soviets had 2)... not to mention, no elections!). So what is the best way to make this happen, or at least to get a head start? It would be to throw Haley under the bus and allow the Republicans to nominate Trump, and then see to it that he loses, at which point the Republicans (meaning all of them, even including the RINOs) could be declared dead and buried along with their MAGA minority.

Now, you might say that Trump and the Republicans lost in 2020, but recovered – and this in spite of the fact that he was the sitting president at the time, and it's rare for a sitting president to be defeated for a second term. But the Democrats and their allies in the media and elsewhere will, by November, have had 4 more years to not only continue to brand Trump as Hitler Incarnate, but also to brand his followers as terrorists and put many of them in jail (and him as well, perhaps) – this process being well under way right now, and proceeding at warp speed. “Our very democracy is at stake!” – cry the mainstream media with one voice.

So the contrasts are much more stark now than in 2020 or 2016 – and this is mainly because the Democrats and the media have declared this to be the case. So the strategy of supporting Haley makes sense in the short run, but in the long run the Dems would be better off if Trump ran again and lost, because from then on the Republicans would be required to hang their heads in shame (for “putting us through this again”) and be paraded around wearing dunce caps by the Red Guard, and be reduced to a bunch of vaporous ghosts (think of 100 Mitch McConnells) wandering aimlessly around Washington while the Democrats establish a people's republic.

(PS – the Dems show no signs of wanting to push Biden aside (or Harris either), despite rumors to that effect. A president who is content to follow orders and read, even if haltingly, from scripts, and a vice president who is satisfied with a portfolio of sinecures, is exactly what they want; it has worked for three years, and it will work for one plus four more.)

(And BTW, Nikki Haley is playing her own game here. She's staying in the race, at least in part (in my opinion) because she expects the Dems/media/courts to take Trump out well before the election, at which point she'll be the last, um, person standing. That's the short game. The medium game would be for her to save a lot of time and money by dropping out now – or at least appearing to – and then wait for Trump to be neutralized, at which point she can come back on stage and save the day like Mighty Mouse.)

It's going to be very interesting to see how these various games intersect over the next few months. In fact, the mainstream (non-MAGA) Republicans may even decide to nominate Trump (assuming he hasn't been disqualified) for the same reason that the Dems would favor this – to insure his defeat, and thus the resounding defeat of the MAGA wing, thus leaving the mainstream unchallenged in their slouch toward obscurity. I'm not sure if they're capable of this kind of subtlety – they are called “the stupid party”, after all – but it would certainly win them friends on the other side – or let's say enemies disguised as friends.

2024 -- Another annus horribilis?

2023-12-28T18:12:00.000-05:00

2024 is looming, like one of those hurricanes out in the Atlantic that's not yet causing much damage, but just wait until it reaches land! I don't want to be just another alarmist (the field is much too crowded already), but I'm afraid that the Republican convention next year may make the Democratic convention of 1968 look like a tea party. (And the Republicans won't have a Mayor Daley to back them up – and I can't imagine the Milwaukee police department will be much help, since they've probably fallen prey to defunding and other forms of demoralizing and neutering.)

This is, of course, predicated on (1) Trump not being in jail at that point; (2) Trump still being in the race (or, Trump being in jail but still being in the race – hey, it could happen!); (3) The mainstream Republicans not having succeeded in keeping him out of the primaries; and (4) The mainstream Republicans accepting primary results that favor Trump, rather than declaring them null and void and going to a caucus, AKA “smoke-filled room”, system.

Note that the Colorado Supreme Court has already barred Trump from both the primaries and the general election, and they are likely to be followed by many other state supreme courts across the land – and in the Northern Mariana Islands, Guam, etc. (How exciting it is to keep an ex-president from running for president! And just about anyone can play!) – but especially in states with high population levels (all you need is the West Coast and the Northeast). While Trump's base is justifiably outraged by this – as are a handful of commentators on Fox News – the Republican mainstream is strangely silent on the matter. Perhaps it's because they're glad to have someone else do the dirty work for them so they won't get in trouble with Trump's base, and/or they see it as an example of how easy it is to keep someone out of the primaries, as in “Hey, why didn't we think of that?” (Actually, they did, when it came to Ron Paul.) (OTOH, RFK Jr. has been subjected to a total media blackout, probably because, like Ron Paul, he has a lot of good ideas. But they can't make fun of him because of the family name – unlike Ross Perot, who at least had amusing ears.) To put it another way – I suspect that much of the Republican mainstream is secretly celebrating this, oblivious to the fact that if it can happen to Trump it can happen to any of them as well.

You can see the run-up increasing in intensity on a daily basis, primarily in the mainstream media but also in statements by Biden lackeys, certain academicians, certain “entertainers”... all reading from the same sheet of talking points, of which #1 is always “Trump is Hitler” (not “will be Hitler”, note, but he's already Hitler, in some kind of mysterious reincarnation phenomenon). The Ministry of Propaganda aside, what the Fox News folks call “lawfare” is also well underway, and is merely a seamless continuation of the impeachments while Trump was in office – with many of the same people calling the shots as during Trump's administration. Of course the “bloody shirt” that is constantly waved in the air is January 6 – a date that will live in infamy! – but it's far from the only weapon in their arsenal (heck, even the Russia collusion hoax is still alive and well in the fever dreams of many of them).

But behind it all – the thinly-concealed threat, if you will – is the very real possibility that the troops are already being organized to show up in force at primaries and at the convention – and yes, I mean the same folks who did all the burning and pillaging and vandalism back in 2020 (and who continue to do so at selected locations just to keep in practice). And this goes way beyond the time-honored “rent-a-mob” technique on the local level (often, depending on the issue, with Jesse Jackson and/or Al Sharpton parachuting in to add spice to the mix). As in 2020, these so-called anarchists (totalitarians in disguise, I mean) will arrive from all over the country, brought in by plane, train, bus, and automobile, and with pockets full of cash from their billionaire sponsors, who – recalling a phrase from the war in Vietnam – believe that it's necessary to destroy the country in order to save it.

So what it really amounts to is a protection racket of sorts (remember the “long hot summer” threats of times past?). Keep Trump on the primary ballots and this is what will happen – and just try nominating him and putting him on the national ballot! Cities will burn! And the mainstream Republicans, ever the gentlemen (and gentlewomen), will, I expect, bow to mob rule and disown that troublemaker – i.e. Trump – once and for all, rather than just being passive-aggressive about it the way they were during his administration. And we'll wind up with some garden-variety neocon who won't ruffle the Democrats' feathers – Nikki Haley* being in the lead for that role at this point (and please note she's getting support from some Democrats simply for being the anti-Trump). And then, in turn, if the Republicans come up with another uninspiring, ho-hum candidate, that person will lose the election to Uncle Joe or whoever the Democrats have called up from the bench to replace him. (And – highly likely – the Trump base will simply sit out the election as a form of protest, thus giving Uncle Joe even more of a mandate than he would have had otherwise.)

So – bottom line – the protection racket will have worked. And no, it's not democracy or even a pale semblance thereof; it's strictly mob rule of the kind that can be found in many “banana republics” and other pseudo-democracies across the globe. But if this is what we've come to, well... some will call it karma, others will say it's the way empires decline and fall, and many of the citizenry – thoroughly demoralized already -- will just shrug and say (or think) “Eh, what do you expect?” Faith in government, anyone? I'm afraid that's already extinct at this point. Rule of law? The Colorado Supreme Court certainly doesn't have any use for it. There's just enough residual faith for some people to think that voting might actually make a difference; the rest of us are either cynical, or pessimistic, or just plain realistic – and if you can tell me the difference these days, please let me know.

* This just in – she failed to denounce slavery! Looks like the establishment has already administered the kill shot.

From Global Pillage to Global Village

2023-07-18T19:09:00.001-04:00

The perennial debate when it comes to “empire” is: Who benefits? But before we deal with that question we have to distinguish between the two major types of empire, what I will call the expansion type vs. the overseas type. The expansion type is as old as human history – in fact, in a way it is human history, in that so much of what we know of ancient civilizations consists of their wars of conquest. (No one ever writes about, or memorializes, peace – too boring! The ancient inscriptions, steles, obelisks, etc. were overwhelmingly devoted to military campaigns – victories – conquests. (I have yet to hear of one commemorating a defeat.)) And this was all about expansion – enlarging an area of control (by a given race, ethnic group, tribe, etc.) beyond its current borders. And the motivation? Sometimes it was all about simply winning – conquest for its own sake. What king or emperor wouldn't want to expand his area of control? But it could also be about resources – arable land, timber, access to waterways, acquisition of slaves (conquered peoples), trade routes, minerals – even the need for a “buffer zone” between one empire and another, i.e. take over a given piece of territory but not make it an “official” part of the empire, just maintain it as a protectorate and a first line of defense against whatever's on the other side. (Ukraine, anyone? This is exactly what Putin is up to.)

And, of course, there is just plain old glory – being famous and celebrated far and wide – having a large chapter in the history books, etc. “The Sun never sets on the British Empire” – remember that? It was actually true within living memory. If we can “plant our flag” far and wide (and even on the Moon!) that makes us conquerors – winners – superior in every way.

But this introduces the second type of empire, which is relatively recent and which can be traced to the discovery of America. And that is the overseas empire, which is, to a significant degree, based on, and energized by, trade. But “trade” is a relatively peaceful enterprise, so it has to be backed up by strength – military certainly, but economic and diplomatic as well. I mean, think about it, what's the first thing that happened when the European powers started to colonize the Americas? Trade – followed fairly closely (in some cases) by missionaries. And then the powers had to get together and agree to keep their hands off each other's stuff, i.e. colonies (which pretty much worked most of the time, except when the colonies became spoils of war).

And what is trade? It's trading something of less value (to one party) for something of more value (to the same party) – and ideally, both sides of the trade realize a benefit, or profit. “Free trade” – the ideal of all good libertarians – is a deal from which both profit. Another way of putting it is that if a given trade raises the standard of living, or quality of life, for each party then it was a good trade.

But how much of the “trade” between the European powers and their colonies can be described as “free”? In other words, what did the colonies get out of it? In the worst cases, no material benefits but plenty of exploitation and slavery. In the more moderate cases, certain benefits, but you can be sure that the colonizers always came out better, bottom line-wise, than the colonized.

But here we have to make a distinction. When we say “colonizers” whom are we speaking of? The on-the-ground traders? The ship owners? The merchants back in the home country? The governments or rulters of said home country? It kind of depends on whom, or what, we're referring to. To oversimplify a bit, if it doesn't pay, it won't be done – which means that if someone back home isn't making a bundle from the colonial trade, said trade will come to an end (or never be initiated).

As usual, follow the money. Who got rich from the colonial trade – from, let's say, the conquest of America right up to World War II? The merchants, certainly – and the privileged few who managed to get their products sent back in the other direction. And if we say “the merchants” we are also saying the politicians, and even the ruling class, because they are dependent, to a greater or lesser extent, on the largesse of the merchant class, who – among other things – help them to remain in power.

But how about “the people” – the “man on the street” – the ordinary Joe? Were they better off living in a country that was a colonial power than in one that wasn't? One could make a “trickle-down” argument here – or, the crumbs from a rich man's table are better than nothing. But that would be to ignore the costs (both hidden and obvious) of empire. Number one, as I've said – trade is all well and good, but it's always backed up by military might. And who, pray tell, is in the military? The sons of the ruling elite? Very seldom. More likely, the average Joe who is either drafted into the military or who sees it as preferable to his other prospects (if any). So his blood may very well be shed in order to expand, consolidate, and maintain the empire – with very little in return except, as always, for a few memories of valor and heroism – a few “rusty medals”, if you will.

And is it worth it, to him? Well, the “common folk” of any country or empire are typically much more patriotic, if in a somewhat naive way, than the ruling elite, who tend to be self-serving and cynical. When Joe Snuffy shows off his medals to the folks back home, he's expressing a deep feeling of pride and patriotism, even if the jaded politicians who sent him over to some hell-hole on the other side of the world couldn't care less. Was he exploited? Hell, yes. Was he “cannon fodder”? Ditto. But as a “rite of passage”, military service in time of war has no peer. The guys who come home in body bags don't vote. And this is, sadly, the lot of fallen mankind and his various societies from time immemorial. The rulers have one set of values, and the common people have another, and ne'er the twain shall meet. And all of the “consciousness raising” on the part of antiwar activists is of no avail, as long as the people insist on clinging to their images and delusions (which are, of course, programmed into their brains by the ruling elite).

(When things eventually boil down to human nature, which is intractable, it may be time to turn around and walk away. But I would like to expand on the topic a bit more.)

So – the second type of empire – the “overseas empire” – really began in earnest with the discovery, and conquest, of the Americas. All of a sudden a European nation could flex its muscles without having to challenge, or even offend, its neighbors – and, by the way, sustain little or no damage or even inconvenience on the home front. Just take over a huge chunk of North, Central, or South America! Nothing to it! But at the same time, note, much the same was happening in Africa, Southern Asia, and East Asia. The European powers had become empire-happy, and any place that offered the least resistance found itself forcibly colonized (if not conquered in the strict sense). And again, it was about trade, first and foremost – but also about glory, and power, and being a major player on the world stage. And the point is that it was always a profit-making enterprise, at least for the ruling elite – and a net loss in blood and treasure (think increased taxation to support the whole thing) for the common folk.

And this, by the way, continues right up to the present day! There is nothing ancient, or merely “historical” about this. It's going on even as we speak.

Of course, there is a certain feeling of quaintness about some overseas empires of old. The Germans had one, right up to World War I. The Italians... the Portuguese... the Belgians... the Dutch... and so on. Eventually, it boiled down to the British and French, and that's when things started to change. All of a sudden the benefits of the traditional-style empire came under scrutiny – not only who profits (we always knew that), but do they even profit any longer? And then you had the curious phenomenon of what's called “self-determination”, and it started to catch on, big time, after World War II. Countries that had been consigned to abject slavery and servitude – especially in sub-Saharan Africa – started getting funny ideas about independence. And a lot of the “credit”, if you will, for this, goes to the international communist movement, and their agents from Soviet Russia and Maoist China (throw in Cuba if you like). They talked a lot about “freedom”, “liberation”, and self-determination, all of which was designed to conceal the actual agenda, which was simply a new and different kind of slavery – slavery not to another nation but to an idea. And, I might add, to create a new ruling elite (“Meet the new boss, same as the old boss”). But to people who had been under the boot of one or more European powers for, in many cases, centuries, this was music to their ears. So we had uprisings in India, Algeria, the Congo, Vietnam, and so on – not to mention uprisings against the ruling elite in Latin America, where liberation had already arrived once with Simon Bolivar. (Time for another revolution! Latin America became notorious for this after World War II – almost as if it were a national pastime.)

But what was it, really? Throwing off the colonial yoke, or boot – certainly. Rebelling against exploitation and the racism which usually accompanied it? Absolutely. Assertion of politcial ideas, and ideals which had no precedent in the “primitive” tribal culture? That too. (It was always the “intellectuals” of any given country – typically products of the Sorbonne – who spearheaded these movements.)

But... why was it always communism and never capitalism? Why was the red flag always being waved? Because they saw capitalism as part of the problem – as the economic model of their oppressors (“Yankee go home!”). Communism, on the other hand, was a new, fresh breath of freedom – never mind what it meant to the hapless citizens of the Soviet Union. (And quite frankly, maybe the lot of the average citizen of the USSR looked pretty good compared to the lot of the average “coolie” in one of the European colonies.) (The hackneyed term “it's all relative” comes into play here, and in this case it really is all relative.)

So if there is a mass movement in post-WWII history, it's the breaking free of the former colonies from the former colonial powers. And with the exception of France with Algeria and Vietnam, said powers were, by and large, remarkably docile and accepting of the situation, as if they could see that the time had come. There were struggles, of course – quite violent at times (India being an example, and the Congo) -- but the handwriting was on the wall. Suddenly the satisfying status quo had turned into a burden. The colonial empires were turning out to be more trouble than they were worth, so they were broken up – sometimes peacefully, sometimes not – but broken up nonetheless, with very few pieces remaining.

And too, on the home front, people started to question not only the wisdom but the moral validity of overseas empires – of coercing people of a wide range of races, ethnicities, religions, etc. into fitting into the “colony” mode. We speak – to this day – of the “Third World”, but are they truly inferior? Second-class citizens at best? Perhaps this is what the “diversity” movement is all about – not only on the domestic front, but the global front as well.

Of course part of this has to do with the admission – a tough pill to swallow! – that our “values” are not only not shared by much of the world, but that they aren't even interested – and in some cases, despise our “values”, and consider us fools for adhering to them. (This attitude seems especially prevalent in the Muslim world.) And doesn't this fly right in the face of our most basic, founding ideas – that the “American way” is not only good for us, but is good (or should be) for the world at large? One of the basic – I'll call it myths – of the American founding is that our values, as expressed in our founding documents, are universal, i.e. that they are valid above and beyond any accidental considerations of race, ethnicity, religion, etc. Any speech by any politician from 1776 on has this as its conceptual underpinning.

But what if it's not true? What if it really is “all relative” – to what I call the eternal verities, i.e. race, ethnicity, and religion? (And gender as well, for that matter.) What if religion, for example, is a more basic, deeper, and profound aspect of a given people's world view than what's in our founding documents? I don't think we have, yet, fully come to terms with this possibility. We're still convinced that “the American way of life”, and “democracy”, are universal values, and there are none higher. And note that our foreign policy is ultimately based on this – and backed up by military might whenever and wherever needed. Yes – all our blood and treasure is spent trying to convince the rest of the world of this one simple idea – so obvious to us, but so foreign and even perplexing to most of the rest of the world. And we find this highly offensive, and spare no expense to convince them (by persuasion or otherwise) that we're right and they're wrong. (And George W. Bush asks “Why do they hate us?”)

But is that the end of the story? Hardly. The colonial model is alive and well, but it has morphed into a new, different – more efficient – form in our time. It's no longer about large numbers of troops stationed in the colony – that pretty much ended with Vietnam. So it's not about overt brute force as much as economic and political colonization – and for this to work we have to, basically, bribe the rulers of any given country in order to secure their cooperation, while at the same time overtly “respecting” the “independence” of the country in question. And at the same time we have to coordinate with international organizations like the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund, because they have their own agendas – their own empires, if you will (I leave out the U.N. because it's basically become the court eunuch of the planet). And the goals? Basically the same as always --”trade”, which means exploitation to a greater or lesser degree, and political cooperation, i.e. don't get too friendly with any communists who might be lurking about, and keep any rebels and insurrectionists at bay (with the help of our military, if needed – but usually on a covert basis).

So the plunder continues – and it appears that sub-Saharan Africa is the most prominent example. How does the man on the street in Africa benefit from his government's “cooperation” with America (you know, the dictator who used to stash his bribes in Swiss banks, although maybe the Cayman Islands are the hiding place of choice now)? In many cases, enslavement on the same level, or nearly so, as in days of old when the colonial powers were issuing stamps with the name of his country on them. Or, at the very least, questionable benefits or a break-even situation where they're neither better off nor worse off for our involvement. And behind it all is – shocking, I admit – a kind of newly-minted racism on the international scale – as if to say, well, technically these people aren't inferior to the white race (PC check-off), but they really aren't ready for full self-determination (AKA “democracy”) as yet, so we're going to help them along. Help them in the usual way, that is – by supporting home-grown tyrants and doing battle with insurgents and rebels (who may be closer to “the people” than the tyrants are). (Any wonder why we actually have troops stationed in places like the Central African Republic, that most Americans don't even know exist? Here's your answer.)

So yes, the more colorful and stylish colonial era is long gone – as are the glories of the British, French, Spanish, etc. empires. The King of England is no longer the King of India. And so forth. But the Third World is still there, and it is still among the “done-to” as opposed to the “doers-to” (that would be us, sorry to say), although some countries are struggling, with mixed success, to overcome their Third World status – India comes to mind.

But wait! There's more. (And I'm not talking about steak knives.) A funny thing happened, just in the last few years. The denizens of the Third, AKA exploited, done-to, World started catching on – not to their sorry lot, which they've been aware of for generations, but to the fact that they could escape. Escape, that is, on foot or by boat or airplane (or surfboard, for all I know) from their ill-starred native land to – guess where? Yes! To the very land of their oppressors, their exploiters – the gold mountain, the promised land. Irony much? And yet it's happening before our very eyes on a daily basis. And all it took, really, was a bit of consciousness raising – perhaps not intentional so much as the overwhelming influence of news and entertainment media. These folks didn't all of a sudden acquire the resources with which to buy plane tickets, or boat tickets, or to pay smugglers – all they did was realize that it was possible. So now the world (literally) is pouring across our southern border and there's no political will to stop it – because... well, maybe it's some kind of guilt. Maybe it's the feeling that our karma is catching up with us. Maybe we genuinely feel that letting the world in the door will improve our lives in some way, or at least give us more respect. At any rate, it's happening, and all the quibbling about costs vs. benefits won't stem the tide. It is, arguably, one of the most significant human migrations in modern times (excepting war refugees, even though some of the current migrants are in that category as well as the economic one).

And what about the people who are paying the price for all this – in violence, competition for jobs, clashes of cultures, “no-go” zones in large cities, infrastructure costs, social programs, opportunity costs (dealing with refugees vs. improving or even maintaining the standard of living), etc.? Well, they don't count, as our politicians and their media facilitators tell us on a daily basis. Much better to be “compassionate” and “welcoming”, and so on, than to try and preserve what's left of the culture most of us grew up with and always assumed would last indefinitely. Because, after all, anyone with those outmoded ideas is, by definition, a racist/fascist/you name it. There is no more comfortable “majority”; what we have is a majority of minorities. Diversity is not a goal or ideal, but a fact.

But again – as always – who pays the price? The ruling elite in their gated communities and Martha's Vineyard mansions? The corporations in their blue-tinted towers? Surely you jest. It's the average Joe, the man on the street – the “deplorables” – who are seeing their way of life crumbling, their world view challenged, their welfare threatened, their prospects narrowing or vanishing. But how many of them connect the dots, i.e. from this to the politicians who they persist in voting into, or keeping in, office? Very few – because, again, the propaganda machine is permanently set on “anyone who questions any of this is a racist, fascist, etc. and deserves to be shunned”.

The world is being remade before our eyes, and it's – oddly enough – the “little people” from elsewhere on the planet who are doing it – the residents of the Global Village. The formerly dispossessed, done-to, exploited, bottom-rung people have become, in the aggregate, our “influencers” and tastemakers. They are voting, and have already taken over in many parts of the country. They own the streets, and are taking over the airwaves as well. (To become a stranger in a strange land – the one I was born in – is a bit disorienting. Now it appears that if I ever belonged somewhere, now I belong nowhere, and am only in the way.)

But is this truly something new under the Sun? Well, mass human migrations are as old as human history, and in fact older. When it comes to world history, instability seems to be the rule – which is why it's kind of hilarious when those in charge try to impose arbitrary borders on, basically, borderless groups of people, as happened in the Middle East, Africa, and elsewhere. There are no more “no man's lands” – everything is on Google Maps, as if to say “This is the way the world is, and this is the way it's going to stay, and if you don't like it you can just leave.” But human nature, especially as expressed in societies, races, large numbers – has no interest in that sort of ossification. We are migratory creatures, after all. If we didn't come from somewhere else, we had an ancestor who did. So yes, this concept of “Native American”, or “native” anything, misses the point. Does anyone have a “right” to be where they are? I think the most we can say in this regard is that there is a “right of conquest”. If someone, at some point, took possession of a given piece of land, and is able to defend it, and their descendants are able to defend it, then that comes as close as anything to being a “right”, and being entitled to protection by the government. But if that government, or regime, should change, or if waves of “aliens” descend on that place, then all bets are off. Then we are back in a more primitive time, a Mad Max world, where everything has to be defended at all times, and nothing can be taken for granted. And this is where our so-called “leaders” seem to be taking us – into an age which is anarchistic in some respects but totalitarian in others. Property rights are in jeopardy, but the rules for proper behavior – and proper thinking – are more stringent than ever. In this sense, we come to resemble, more and more each day, those “Third World” peoples from whom we had always thought we were maintaining a comfortable distance – except that they are now here, and we are becoming them.

Trump 2.0? Eh... not likely

2022-11-16T19:35:00.001-05:00

OK folks, time for a reality check. Trump says he's running for president in 2024. Fine. Presumably he'll be running as a Republican. Fine. (I guess he could run as an independent – he might even get on the ticket!) But consider a few of the hurdles he will have to face. He can stage all the rallies he wants, but when it comes to “debates”, guess what – it's the party that decides who gets to participate, and the Republicans could simply refuse to let him in the door. That's number one. Then we have the primaries. Did you know that there is no requirement for primaries? It's not in the Constitution, or anywhere else. The party can decide to have a primary, or it can just skip primaries altogether and go right to the convention. Then there's the small matter of convention delegates and how they're selected. The state committees can simply refuse to send any pro-Trump delegates. And then, in the wildly improbable likelihood that Trump wins a plurality of votes in the convention, they can simply be declared null and void, and the convention can become “brokered” (formerly known as “the smoke-filled room”).

Now this, of course, is all predicated on the premise that high-ranking Republicans have... um... you know, those particular masculine anatomical parts, which they have demonstrated, over and over again, that they do not possess.  But really now – does anyone actually expect Orange Man to rise again from the depths, like Godzilla, and take over the Republican Party again?  Or for them to allow it to happen?  This is, of course, the recurring nightmare of the Republican mainstream – not of the Democrats, note, despite all their wailing!  They know it's a lost cause, but it's more fun to pretend it's not.  (They've gotten so used to running the Fear Machine that they can't resist using it on themselves.)  So all of the hand waving, running in circles, and nervous breakdowns in both parties are no more than theater (but if it keeps the MSM busy for 2 years that could be a good thing).  The Republicans have had enough of show biz.  They'll nominate some gray nonentity who will be certain to lose to Joe Biden (even if the latter is ruling from an oxygen tent at that point), and thus be able to return to their comfort zone of powerlessness.    

(But – BTW – don't think that BLM and Antifa are going to take this sitting down.  They are primed and ready for the next fight.  Expect them to show up in force at any Trump event until this quixotic candidacy is terminated, either voluntarily or by force.)

Autism and Asperger Syndrome

2022-09-12T21:26:00.000-04:00

The question arose as to whether one could, or should, label a certain individual "autistic". Here are my thoughts on the matter.

Autism vs. Asperger Syndrome

I think this reflects an unfortunate problem with terminology. This is nothing new with the medical profession, which is always redefining ailments, sometimes for good reasons based on research and clinical observations, but sometimes with an agenda – typically having to do with things like research funding, medical insurance, certifications (of doctors, hospitals, medical schools), etc. – even politics. Everyone wants to “belong” – to be part of the “in group” – and medical professionals, being only human, are no different.

Autism:

It wasn't all that long ago (as recently as the 1960s, and maybe more recently) that “autism” described a well-known set of symptoms and conditions. It was typically diagnosed at an early age (pre-school or even infancy), and found more in boys than in girls for some reason (I don't think they've figured out that part of it yet – it probably has to do with differences in brain and neurological structures). Typical symptoms included inability to relate emotionally (and therefore socially) to others, including one's own parents... no signs of affection... minimal or no verbal communication... low threshold for over-stimulation (by lights, sounds, other people, activities, etc.)... what verbalization there was tended to be “flat”, i.e. uninflected or monotone... a tendency toward repetitive activity (concentrating on one thing for hours at a time)... physically passive in some cases, in other cases a tendency toward rapid, random and unfocused movements... basically just out of contact, in their own world much or all of the time. (Paradoxically, while not showing signs of obvious affection, some autistics can be physically “clingy”, which I take to be based on need for contact comfort.) (Think about it – if you don't understand the world and it doesn't understand you, some sort of physical comfort and security can be good.)

And this was – as one might imagine – a pretty easy condition to spot. The problem came not with diagnosis but with notions as to causality. For a long time, blame was placed on “cold, uncaring, non-nurturing” mothers – this has been debunked, fortunately, but it caused a lot of stress and heartache in many families. (If anything, there might have been some degree of causality in the other direction, i.e. the mother of an autistic child might have distanced herself to some degree as a matter of emotional defense, as if to say “if the child doesn't care about me (or anyone else) why should I care, or pretend to care, about him?” Thus, a way of avoiding or lessening chronic emotional stress and frustration.)

In terms of relating to the world, autistic people typically showed little or no competence, and therefore could never be left to their own devices for long, and certainly could never have been expected to live independently or make a living. So they always had to be cared for by others – and since they were incapable of showing much appreciation for that care, it could be a cause of frustration on the part of the caregivers.

But here's an interesting part. Some autistic individuals showed remarkable talents in certain very narrowly defined areas – especially music, and particularly piano playing. They could do things like hear a piece played on the radio or a record, and reproduce it perfectly on the piano after just one hearing. Some were also very good at certain mathematical operations, figuring out calendar dates, counting by just glancing at an array of objects, etc. – all having to do with numbers, you'll notice. Numbers in the basic sense, not concepts or theories or models, just plain numbers and things that had a mathematical basis. They may also show remarkable abilities in memorization – things like sequences of cards, phone books, train schedules, etc. So in that sense they (some, but not all) had extraordinary abilities in a very limited area, but when it came to everyday things not so much (being unable to dress themselves or perform any but the most rudimentary personal care actions, e.g.).

So this was the picture when it came to autism and autistic individuals – easy to spot, well-defined set of symptoms, incapable of independent living, and so on. And as to treatment, the best bet was always to find things that they would respond to, that would “wake them up”, so to speak – and let them spend time with those things, and not worry about the rest. And the condition, however it came about, was not amenable to cure – it was a fixed condition, basically, which would persist throughout adulthood.

Asperger Syndrome:

Now – somewhere along the line, someone decided that that substantial group of people who were, among other things, socially awkward, “shy”, over-sensitive to sounds and light, who avoided crowds (and other people in general, in some cases), who enjoyed finely-detailed activities and could concentrate on them for long periods of time, who tended to be socially isolated or prefer the company of others like themselves, who tended to be uncommunicative or, on the other extreme, talk people's ears off about some very narrow topic, who could be somewhat OCD – and so on – had a “syndrome” called Asperger Syndrome.

Now, this was all well and good, in that it, for one thing, provided a basis for understanding that there were people who were simply “that way”, and that while intensive therapy or interventions weren't generally called for, certain kinds of support and, if you will, “benign tolerance” would make life easier for everyone. The danger, however, was that once you define something as a “syndrome”, you, by implication, are saying that a person isn't “right”, or that they're handicapped in some way, or need help, etc. In other words, they're no longer on the same spectrum with “normal” people but need to be given special attention (which should be positive, but which can also be negative). On the plus side, Asperger “types” can be relieved of the burden of thinking that something is seriously wrong with them, or that it's their fault, or if only they'd get their act together, etc. And in the social sense, Asperger types can form interest groups of various sorts without feeling like a bunch of geeks and losers.

So it's a mixed bag, but overall I'd say the definition of the syndrome has had beneficial effects. It enables people with the syndrome to feel better about themselves, to pursue their interests and emphasize their strengths without feeling like underachievers in other respects... and it enables other people to accept them as they are, and likewise appreciate their strengths and talents, and be willing to overlook areas in which they aren't quite up to par.

The Bad Marriage Between the Two

Everything could have been fine at this point, except that someone – over-functioning in the “syndrome” and terminology department – decided that, because of the observable similarities in symptoms (some, but not all – and certainly not in severity) between autism and Asperger's, they had to be lumped together on a “spectrum”, which became known as the “Autism Spectrum”. So, number one, they're taking a rare subset of people (autistic) and grouping them with a not-at-all-rare subset (Asperger's) and, in effect, calling them all autistic. What sorts of motivations went into this? Well, for one thing, there's the simple matter of money, i.e. funding for research, treatment, therapy, etc. – not to mention health insurance. There was always money in autism, because it was rightly considered a serious condition – but there was little or no money in Asperger's, other than the opportunity to sell books. But lump them together and call it autism, and the money starts to flow. (This may sound a bit cynical, but the extent to which “science” can be tempted by money has been demonstrated many times over the years – and more than ever in these times, with obsessions like “climate change”, gender fluidity, etc.)

Secondly, there's a political, or let's say social, angle to it all, the notion being that autistic people, and their parents and caretakers, won't feel so bad about their situation if they now feel more “mainstreamed”, and therefore accepted. If the truly autistic were a small minority before, they can now feel like members of – still a minority, but a substantial one.

(One could ask, terminology-wise, whether rather than coming up with the “autism spectrum”, they couldn't have just called autism “high-level Asperger's”. It would have made no less sense, but the political and social impact would have been less.)

Plus, there's a pretty good chance that most truly autistic people don't care one way or the other what “spectrum” they're on; some of them don't care about much of anything at all. But the much larger number of people who are Asperger's types, and who know it, and now find themselves on the “autism spectrum”? I can't imagine that's very good for their morale or self-esteem. But we're talking politics here, right? So non-preferred groups always have to make sacrifices, like it or not, in order to benefit preferred groups. (And the fact that this is all about naming, and nothing else, makes it especially cruel and unjust. Terminology can change overnight, and someone who is “sick” one day can be declared “well” or “normal” the next, and vice versa.)

But is it true that autism and Asperger's are similar? Well, yes – in terms of the types of symptoms, but certainly not in degree – and also not in terms of the nuances, or fine points. And also not in terms of the variety of symptoms that might be exhibited by any one individual – Asperger's types have a much more varied repertoire, if you will, within the bounds of that syndrome, whereas true autistics are much more limited. Overall, you can point to social issues, attention factors, mathematically-based interests, responses to the environment, preferred vs. non-preferred activities, and so on. But in terms of self-care, ability to operate in society, ability to earn a living, and so on, it's a world of difference, and it does no one any favors to pretend that it's nothing more than a matter of degree. Plus, one can point to many examples of high-achieving individuals – world-class achievers, in fact – in things like math, physics, music, chess... even the performing arts... and also art, engineering, computing and automation (a veritable den of Asperger's types), and so on. Many have risen to the top of their field. Can the same be said of the truly autistic? No. Some have made contributions – Temple Grandin comes to mind – but this is exceptional. (There's a history of what have been called “idiot savants”, or “calculating boys” who can perform remarkable math operations in their heads with amazing speed – and the chances are those have been largely autistic individuals. The question in those cases was always, given that they have amazing talent in one specific area, is there anything else they can do well, or do at all? And the answer was frequently no. All their brainpower was focused on one thing.)

I also suspect – although exactly how one would measure this is a good question – that if you arrayed all the Asperger's types and the truly autistic along the same scale, you'd get a gradually downward-sloping curve starting at the low end (next to the “normal” population), and there would eventually be a gap, followed by a “bump” or miniature bell curve representing the truly autistic (with their own spectrum, although much narrower than the Asperger's spectrum). In other words, you would find few if any cases where a person was part-Asperger's and part autistic – and I think this would reflect significant differences in brain physiology.

Some Thoughts on the Keeping of Family Histories

2022-09-10T19:32:00.000-04:00

(from recent correspondence)

I think that people who have a family history that's been recorded and preserved in whatever way are lucky. Of course some people -- the rich and famous -- have to live with a family history that might not be all that savory, but that everyone knows about, so a lot of their effort is devoted to living it down, or making up for it in some way -- paying society back for the offenses of their parents, ancestors, etc. The children of rich and powerful tyrants frequently become humanitarians of some kind, for example -- Robert Kennedy may be an example. But for others it's just too overwhelming and they either sell out and become an inferior version of old dad, or just go off on a different tack entirely. (It's ironic that the rich and famous are, like it or not, "public people", and they have to go to great lengths to keep anything private. The rest of us kulaks are so private we have to expose ourselves on Facebook and Twitter.)

But for us ordinary folks it seems like delving into family history can only be a good thing, even if some of the events were negative or even tragic. The idea of "where I'm from" is important to a lot of people, especially -- I would say -- if they grew up in a traditional, intact family in a coherent culture. They know about their past to some extent but would like more of a connection -- more material. But even for those who didn't, there is a need to find "roots", some sense of grounding or place. And look at the way "hyphenated Americans" go to great lengths to dig up info on their ancestors in the old country. I almost think that, for many people, just being "American" isn't enough -- they need to feel like part of something older, more traditional, and more solid. This is, as the stereotype has it, a nation of immigrants -- but just calling it that implies that it still is, even for people who have been here for many generations. They still have the immigrant mind set. (I observe that the only European-origin group that is never hyphenated is people whose ancestors came over from England. There are no "English-Americans" (if there were, I would be one). But there are Irish-Americans, so they have yet to be fully assimilated after 175 years.)

This country has always been ideally suited for the adventurous -- pioneers, speculators, prospectors, etc. -- the iconic "lone gun" (Clint Eastwood) -- the man (or woman) with no past -- either rootless or perfectly content to leave the past, and even family, behind -- and for good reasons sometimes, let's admit. (I used to joke that whenever some psychic does a "past life reading" for someone, that person always seems to wind up being a descendent of some European royalty. No one is ever found to be a descendent of a horse thief.) ("Cross my palm weez silver, und I vill tell you you are ze long-lost heir to ze trone of Bessarabia")

Don't Even Think About Running for President in 2024 (if you're a Republican)

2022-09-07T21:47:00.000-04:00

The conventional wisdom among the conservative commentariat is that Trump and his family, and various members of his administration, are being hounded by the government (at all levels – federal, state (NY and Florida), and local (NYC)) in order to insure that he doesn't run for president in 2024. With all due respect, I disagree, and here's why.

#1, he'd be out of his mind to run (even assuming he's not in jail by that time, or some law or Constitutional amendment hasn't been dredged up to render him disqualified) given the treatment he received the last time around – from the day of his announcement through the campaign, and though his entire time in office, and even afterwards up to the present day. (I made some related comments in a blog post, “4 More Years? Really??”, July 28, 2020.) Trump may have some less-than-stellar personality traits, but I don't think masochism is one of them.

#2, if Biden managed to win against Trump in 2020, he can win against him again in 2024. Period! Or – whoever the DNC chooses to replace Biden can win likewise. The counterargument is that Biden (or whoever) would, in 2024, be running not only against Trump but against his (Biden's) own record during his first term – which, to the same commentariat, is considered dismal, to put it mildly. The problem there is that Biden has not lost a bit of support, either politically or among the electorate, since his inauguration. His fan club in the mainstream media are unstinting in their support and in running interference for him, and have yet to publish, or broadcast, any “news” which would be detrimental to him or his administration. (If Reagan was the “Teflon president”, then Biden is the “new improved Teflon president”. Not only does nothing stick, nothing even gets close.) To put it another way, Biden is a roaring success at this point, going from one victory to another – and as long as the faithful continue to believe this, he's good to go for 2024. (And it's hard to imagine anything that could cause the faithful not to keep believing. I mean, if a simple comparison of the way things are now with the way they were in January 2021 isn't sufficient, then nothing is.)

#3, even if Trump returned from political Siberia and staged a comeback not unlike that of Napoleon when he returned from Elba, would he attract any support outside of his hard-core MAGA constituency – the ones who attend his rallies? My sense is that his former supporters among the Republican mainstream have suffered enough – they have a chronic case of “Trump fatigue” that will not be eradicated. (And this is not Trump's fault, by the way – it's just that they're tired of the endless domestic warfare that Trump's being in the White House led to and sustained for more than four years.) (Call Trump fatigue the flip side of Trump Derangement Syndrome, if you like – both very much with us, especially now that the latter is official government policy.) And if his erstwhile supporters among Republicans are demoralized and worn out, imagine where the “independents” who voted for him in 2016 stand; they don't even have any party loyalty to hold them together. They were the first to jump ship, and are nowhere to be found at this point.

So, bottom line, the Democrats have nothing whatsoever to fear from Trump in 2024, and I think they know it. If he should dare to run, they could run the proverbial yellow dog against him and the dog would win. So it's not about Trump at all, is it? At least not in terms of the election of 2024. So if it's not about him, what is it about, other than playing to the paranoiac crowd?

There are two factors motivating the War on All Things Trump. One is simple vengeance. Trump deserves to be punished severely, and in perpetuity, for even having run for president and – even worse – for having won, and – even worse – for managing to stay in office for a full four-year term, despite two, count 'em, two impeachments – not to mention being accused of treason and being Putin's lapdog, along with countless other crimes. Lest we forget, his candidacy started out as a joke (to the media), and no one except Anne Coulter took it seriously – at least in public – until the morning after Election Day, when the sky fell and the pillars of the temple crumbled to dust. Privately, of course, the counter-candidacy drive was on from day one, with various elements of the Obama administration taking a leading role.

And then there was the humiliation of Hillary Clinton, Empress-in-Waiting, who never hurt a fly and in no wise deserved such shabby treatment as to be defeated by this big orange guy from New York City (just down the road from Chappaqua, to add to the insult).

And then there was the fact that, once in office, he tried to run the government like a business, and actually make changes that were more than merely cosmetic. And this, of course, was a wake-up call for the bureaucracy, AKA the Deep State, which marshaled its forces in an all-out effort to thwart, neutralize, or at the very least ignore his every initiative – with signal success, I might add. But the fact that he didn't back down – no “walking back”, “clarifying”, or “reconsidering” with this guy -- caused the derangement to boil over into public view (the impeachment hearings providing a prime example, where one petty bureaucrat after another got up and said that they considered it their patriotic duty as Americans to sabotage any Trump programs).

So yes – for breaking all the rules, and never apologizing, Trump deserves all he's getting, and more. And clearly the “numbers” didn't count, i.e. the various measures of the success of his initiatives which continued to mount up, and which the mainstream media and the Democrats could only answer either with “It's a lie” or “It doesn't matter”. (Although it's funny how Biden and his minions spout the same sorts of numbers every day, and we're all expected to believe them without question.)

That's the punishment-vengeance-vendetta piece, perfectly understandable in this day and age. America at its finest! An entire administration devoted to one thing, the punishment of the previous administration. Can you say “banana republic”, class?

The second factor is, if you will, less emotional and more strategic, and that's to show anyone foolish enough to consider running for president on the Republican ticket in 2024 what will happen to them if they go through with it. Well, number one, they won't win for many of the same reasons Trump couldn't win, even if they are identified as never-Trumpers, anti-MAGA hatters... untouched by the outrages of the Trump “era”... pure as the driven snow. For one thing, the Democrats are the majority party now at the federal level at least, and it's delusional to think otherwise. So a Republican with all the finest anti-Trump credentials – let's say a reincarnation of John McCain – and not festooned with Trump cooties – has very little chance, because they will inevitably be lumped in with Trump anyway and called his clone, or Trump 2.0, or some such. (Plus, the chances are that their kids' nanny's brother-in-law once changed the oil in one of Trump's cars, and that is sufficient evidence to find the hapless candidate guilty as charged.) (This is no exaggeration. It's the way things operated on a daily basis in the Soviet Union, and in Mao's China.)

Now – one could ask – if the Democrats are sure-fire winners in 2024, why bother to intimidate the Republicans into... maybe even giving up and not running at all? If the Republicans managed to bring Abraham Lincoln back to life and put him up as a candidate, might they not stand a chance? Well, let's just call it “insurance”. The fact that the Democrats have an iron grip on the voting process (polls, machines, ballots, counts, novel voting procedures, and so on) in many states and in all major cities might have swung an election, or more than one, in the past. Nowadays it would be seen as redundant – a case of “overkill”, if you will. But the mechanisms are in place, and they have to be kept up to snuff – after all, there are state and local elections to think about, not to mention elections for Congressional seats. Besides, the intimidation factor trickles down to the state and local level; political correctness is now the law of the land, and there is no elective office so trivial or obscure that it will escape the attention of the PC police if anyone tries wandering off the reservation. (And, lest we forget, the sacred duty of any true believer in totalitarianism is not just to defeat those who disagree, but to exterminate the disagreement. This is right out of “1984” and is as true today as it ever was.)

So, bottom line-wise, who in their right mind would want to put themselves and their family through all that? The mainstream media have tasted blood, and they're unlikely to cover their fangs for any future Republican – not even for the ilk of Liz Cheney, a sheep in wolves' clothing who is more anti-Trump than most Democrats.

So basically, you can count anyone who proposes running on the Republican ticket in 2024 as (1) delusional, (2) masochistic, and (3) ready for the funny farm. But this doesn't mean plenty won't try, since those qualities seem to typify Republican politicians these days.

So now we know what's really behind the new, improved witch hunt being staged against Trump and anyone who had even the slightest, most trivial connection with him. (Note that not only his lawyers are being called up before Congressional committees, but their lawyers, and their lawyers. Before long half the legal profession will be headed for federal prison (and come to think of it, that might actually be regarded as a good thing).)

Then, given all of the above, why is the conservative commentariat insisting that it's all about keeping Trump from running in 2024? I think it's basically about denial. In their world, the following propositions actually have some truth value:

Trump could win if he ran in 2024.
Some other Republican could win in 2024 if Trump chose not to run or was prevented from running.
The Republican Party represents the majority opinion among the American citizenry.
Biden's record will count against him in 2024.
Trump is still, in some mysterious way, the leader of the Republican Party (in this, at least, they agree with the mainstream media).
The Republican Party has a future on the national level.

Did I say “denial”? “Delusional” is more like it. Also “smoking their socks”. And so on. My expectation for 2024 is very simple: If Biden should choose not to run, what are the Democrats going to do about Kamala Harris? (Who? – you ask. Precisely my point. This should be TV worth watching; the rest is drearily predictable.)

The Eternal Rebel: Beatniks and Hippies

2022-09-02T19:12:00.000-04:00

(This is an excerpt from some recent correspondence – a bit of social history plus some thoughts on rebels and rebellion.)

There was always a kind of narrative among the free spirits of the 1950s (beatniks, jazz musicians, some authors, artists, etc.) that the regular people -- the "squares" -- just didn't get it. But they were never quite clear about what Mr. & Mrs. America were supposed to "get". Sure, the idea was to be hip and cool, and rebellious, but proving that their way of life was somehow superior and not just different? I didn't sense that so much. I mean, the hippies did the same thing -- You oughta be like us – "Turn on, tune in, drop out" -- but when asked why, there were no clear answers. What I suspect is that hipness, and all of its cultural clones and manifestations at various times, is self-sustaining only as long as the vast majority are un-hip. In other words, what's of value is simply being different -- it's self-sustaining on that basis -- and yet there is a certain predictability, if not outright uniformity, in the way subcultures, over time, choose to act out being different. The hippies did a lot of what the beatniks had done 15-20 years earlier -- starting with sex, drugs, and rock 'n' roll (or jazz for the beatniks). But in a paradoxical way, most subcultures depend on the majority culture for support, to some extent -- in other words they really aren't living completely out in the middle of nowhere, off the grid -- although some of the hippie communes came close. I don't think the beatniks spent much time away from LA or NYC (or the highways connecting the two).

And I'm not saying there weren't alternatives to the world view of the "normal" people. A lot of the more intellectual beatniks became interested in Buddhism -- Zen especially -- and Hinduism to some extent. They weren't so hot on monotheism, though -- that was religion for "squares", too hierarchical, too authoritarian, too moralistic, etc. The Eastern religions were seen as being more along the lines of "doing your own thing". And this is why they also appealed to the hippies -- with the Beatles making a pilgrimage to India and "love is all you need", the "summer of love" etc. -- all fueled by psychedelics, which were a rarity, but not unheard of, among the beats. And the few of the old timers made the transition and sort of became icons for the 2^nd time around -- Alan Ginsberg comes to mind, and also William Burroughs. So what some would call the escapism of the beatniks via alcohol, marijuana, and heroin morphed into hippie-style escapism via marijuana (again) and psychedelics, but also yoga, meditation, and all sorts of New Age practices and modalities. And a few of them actually did convert and become Hindus or Buddhists -- thinking about Baba Ram Dass and the American Sikhs. So there was much escaping "from" but also some escaping "to" -- although how long it lasted for most of these folks is another question. (Some of the last remaining hippies got washed ashore at various Renaissance Fairs. They're still into marijuana, maybe psychedelics -- Eastern religion not so much. That takes too much discipline, as it turns out!)

It's a lot easier to escape from than to escape to. It's basic human nature. I can tell you what I don't like but may not be certain of what I want (except for less of what I don't like, but that's no help). The hippies almost had a fetish for being different in every way -- and I imagine it was hard work at times! Like there were some in Columbia, Missouri who pulled late 1940s cars out of junkyards and put them back on the road because they looked like the car Mr. Natural drives in Zap Comix. (I kid you not, this really happened. I saw it with my own eyes. I called them “Freakmobiles”.) The hippie lifestyle was standardized to a degree I found ironic -- same clothes, same hair, same footwear, same foods (always in the general category of natural, organic, vegetarian... macrobiotic for the true believers), living conditions, etc. (I think suburban tract houses had more variety in them than most of the hippie pads.) But this, I think, was a sign of insecurity. Sure, rebel against the "old folks" -- run away from home, maybe -- but find like-minded people asap! Strength in numbers, etc. (And this is still going on -- remember "CHAZ" in Seattle?

"The Essentials"

2022-07-13T22:44:00.000-04:00

And now for something completely different –

I'm posting this in order to archive it in an at least semi-permanent way. It's an excerpt from a very long letter written by a student of philosophy and theology to a friend, with the stated goal of clarifying “the most fundamental principles”. He cautions that “since I wrote a very broad outline of everything, I must excuse myself for, as you say, 'being very concentrated while still very meager in its coverage of everything'”, and adds that “the prime aspects are nature, authority, and truth”.

“Also, as you read this, you will see how, in regard to the [Catholic] Church, I agree or apply to it an expression of Chesterton regarding things in general: that any that are worth doing are worth doing badly. If this holds true for homemade music, art, and cooking, how much more if the Church really is what it claims to be and is doing what it claims to do. Then one could claim it to be worth a multitude of human errors, sins, etc. on the part of the weak men who steward it, especially since without it all the men would be far worse and we'd be without its effects. Of course, one must believe in the Church to believe this...”

There follows brief discussion of things such as politics, centralization of power, multinational corporations, banks, economics, medicine, and globalization, as examples of what are called, in Thomistic terms, “The Accidentals”. The writer says “I want to back up and view the whole diseased situation in its historical precedents, and in principle.”

So, to get to the heart of the matter, here is the essay – and those who have read any of St. Thomas Aquinas will recognize some of the terminology and concepts. Overall, it's what I would call a “deep dive” into the fundamental issues of our time, and their historical, theological, and philosophical subtext.

To use a mixed metaphor – wade in, and take one bite at a time.

--------------- O ----------------

The Essentials, a.k.a. what I think might be part of the general problem:

So, where should I start? Well, you mentioned that you read Ayn Rand, who, as I’ve heard, is at least partially Aristotelian and, consequently, emphasizes the natures of things. (BTW, if I pull off this argument, I’m still not taking time to demonstrate each point because each one could be another letter [or a book].) Now, without going into deep philosophical descriptions, we can say that something has a unique nature if it is a coherent reality (whole) with a stable essential character that resists change regardless of accidental changes; although certain accidental changes accumulated can give rise to a substantial change that produces (or is) a radical transformation that creates either fusion, reconfiguration, or disintegration. [I’m assuming that so much of all this is old news for both of us, but I must run the basics through my head before the consequences.] [No desire to be “teachy” here.]

Now, the good for a given whole, from a sheep to a man, is what is necessary for its ideal fulfillment, i.e. of its end or purpose. Since without a proper end or purpose, the truth of a nature is an incoherent idea, since a nature’s configuration defines an end, without which everything goes, since nothing would have any basis for claiming natural or moral rights, i.e. the goods necessary for the fulfillment of a now non-existent end or purpose. Thus, the truth, or better, The True, is the nature of each and the whole of things as they are. The Good is the end of each and the whole of things. The Beautiful if the fittingly ordered state of each, several, and the whole of things. The subsidiary portions, obviously, or intermediate ones, are truths, goods, and beautiful parts; each group only being fittingly named insofar as it flows from and leads to one or all of the so-called transcendentals: The Good, The etc.

Now from several ancient moral and philosophical traditions [note how this is quite easily a non-divine-revelation-based argument, but one perceivable by man’s reason and heart] we may gather similar conclusions; namely, that in man’s case, if we’re wise enough, we learn that his ability to know first principles, to deduce deep understanding of the universe in a way that infinitely surpasses all other material beings [infinite: because if you stack up an infinite number of non-humans, you will never get the most basic rational insight of the most ordinary man], and to seek ends and purposes far beyond any utilitarian or purely material goal, demonstrates beyond reasonable doubt that the good, true, and beautiful which he can seek and know are a world away from power, honor, riches, or pleasure; in each case, man can sacrifice without rational contradiction each of these lesser goods for whose that are better = fulfilling his nature in a higher = nobler way, i.e. in fulfillment of the capacities of intellect rather than his senses and appetites.

By sacrifice, I don’t mean he ought to do away with them, but only that he is capable of putting them aside.

Most men noticed that, whereas animals seek the goods proper to their more limited ends, which even at their height, basically amount to physically pleasurable goods, man was able to refrain in a non-determined freely willing way either from goods of the physical part of his nature solely, or also those of his spiritual part.

These spiritual goods included the contemplation of the nature of the whole universe working in harmonious unity; his own nature, and the highest limits of its potential; and the identity of the necessary sufficient cause of the intelligently ordered, beautiful, and thus rationally coherent universe. Indeed, Plato & Aristotle both rejected the insult to man’s reason which was the mythology of the multiple gods, usually little more than glorified humans with superpowers; some even originally human. It was clearly absurd that there was more than one, that they were contingent and humanoid, and that they were subject to change and imperfections and even wounds. None of this was remotely fitting or possible for the One who, to be called God, had to stand outside contingent matter which was always subject to other causes, outside of change and thus time, and who would have to be the source of what was, and the ordering principle: quite literally, the source of all truth & beauty and thus goodness.

Now, going on , since I must restrain my love of all these topics in order not to leave you with a thesis instead of a letter.

So, let’s see… Given this aforementioned freedom of man, it was quickly realized that if men went the path of their lower appetites, they got addicted/habituated to those types of goods having priority; and the reverse was true for the higher goods. Internal disorder, i.e., the rule of the lower powers over the higher was realized to be the major factor. Virtue was proposed as a right-ordering of these powers, and man was presented with the choice between moral order in justice, prudence, temperance, and fortitude; or denying the fulfillment of his nature, negating his proper, higher end by turning to baser satisfactions in isolation.

As you know this all resulted in a flowering of the roots of all the sciences, initiated, by Aristotle himself, with the support of his adventurous alumnus, Alexander. Not that Thales and his colleagues hadn’t been doing any exploring, but they and others were each trying to identify various elements or material occurrences with a universal, simplistic, and quite insufficient material cause. Of course, their inquiries remain admirable first attempts and are enjoyable reading. Now, to the learned few at least, material beings were considered rationally intelligible, the result of formal principles acting upon matter which, though ever changing, expressed the forms from which it took its various individual species, each having a proper nature & thus proper goods for it, and a definite right order proper to it which, if well expressed, was its proper beauty.

Thus, science had rationality beyond the identification of mere appearances. Yet, the ancients were still highly speculative in their approach. This sometimes led to using the wrong natural principle for an explanation without sufficient experiment, such as the principle of gravity or unequal weights which Galileo corrected. They didn’t worry too much about this because the most enjoyable and highest knowledge lay in the principles themselves and the region of the immaterial/spiritual substances hat made material existence rationally possible, metaphysics [not, of course to be confused with the frequent esoteric connotation]. Thus, science took on its classical definition as “an organized body of knowledge founded upon fundamental rational principles [contradiction, sufficient reason, excluded middle, identity, etc.], and productive of knowledge of the causes of things”.

Fast forward to the aftermath of the fall of the Roman Empire. Why did the Church bother to preserve scientific knowledge when the world was collapsing? Why did generations of monks spend lifetimes copying rare, rescued manuscripts? Very often they were, at least at the beginning, quite ignorant of what they were copying out. It wasn’t often for immediate use. The explosion of scientific interest, and the widespread growth of experimentation was so fervent and rapid because it was fueled by the desire to understand every part of the world better, in order to understand the Scriptures better, in order to understand God’s revelation of Himself in the world as indicated in the Scriptures; and especially (and here we must speak of Christianity on its own terms if we are to understand it) as manifested in the words and deeds of the incarnated second Person of the triune God. [Please excuse my throwing in a divine mystery without accompanying explanations for now. Though, if you ever wish, I’ll write you an intro to Christianity on its own terms. That would be fun!]

This motivation created a fairly sacred regard for truth of all kinds, in whatever subject it could be found. Wherever a church was built, a school often followed, because, for men to be fully men, they needed, as Aristotle had said, to know first the truths of things more knowable to us, closer to us, in order to rise by means of them to things more knowable in themselves, more purely intelligible, but more remote. Unlike the ancients, the Medievals had no desire to remain speculative, and they immersed themselves in concrete experimentation. The roots of the sciences, crowned by philosophy, were relaid. Also, let it be noted, methodical doubt that forced reason to recheck itself was in full use by the Scholastics, as can be seen in such works as the Summa Contra Gentiles of Aquinas.

In contrast to the ancients, they believed in equal human dignity on account of God’s equal love of all men, and the same origin of all men in the first parents. At the same time, they still shared the principle that natures had a right to their fulfillment, and, though men were uniquely free to reject the proper goods of their nature, absolutely speaking, such a rejection should be prohibited and made up for. For Aristotle, someone who from ignorance or habituation could not understand the proper goods of their nature, needed to be ruled and even enslaved in order to assure their better fulfillment. Truth had all the rights, and error none; and no one had a right to be wrong, let alone teach others the same.

We have an excellent example of what was meant: in our care of the mentally ill or retarded. We don’t give them a right to be excessively incorrect about their proper goods, and harm themselves. We even enslave them against their will; sometimes they even request enslavement, i.e. the substitution of their disordered faculties for those of another, even by force. Addditionally, we attempt to immerse them in a rightly ordered (beautiful) environment in order to, if possible, ease their faculties back to reality. And we do all this simply for their rudimentary well being. But the ancient philosophers and Medievals considered the knowledge of the existence of natures, their proper ends, their purposes as determined by their intelligent design, and, most especially, man’s proper end and his rights to the material & immaterial goods necessary to attain it; especially knowledge, to be infinitely more crucial; especially since he only had one life to get it right.

This was a certainty that there were the most essential, really real things in front of us. The reality of sense knowledge wasn’t taken for granted in the sense that it would have had to have been proven; rather, the senses worked, because they were made to convey information to the intellect which was for the purpose of understanding sensory data and the realities it showed and implied. Everything worked, and everything was real. The lack of artificial environments was of constant assistance to those men, who were reminded that the Sun was hot, grass was green, gravity is unforgiving, & we all die, and then what? This was true realism, as opposed to the agnostic cynic who says, “look… I’m just a realist”, and means, rather crudely, that day-to-day survival is all there is.

Now, these truths had almost never before been enough to persuade rulers in almost any culture to give them priority over the typical motivations for obtaining power & honor. What had to come first was the successful conversion of successive barbarian kingdoms to Christianity, after which, even the rulers, certain of having an immortal soul, were more easily, but not always, convinced to their obligations for their own good and then that of others. The Church taught them that they only had true authority if they conformed themselves sufficiently to nature’s demands in ensuring the proper development of their citizens, protected and not dominated by their arms. Authority, from the Latin auctor, had to flow from a bond with the origin of things, and thus their nature & proper goods. Aquinas demonstrated that a law that broke with nature, which break renders it unjust, was not a law at all, because of no authority. Even and especially the men directing the Church on earth, who were supposed to be the models of obedience to the truth, had no right to change it. (Of course, this deals with the question of divine revelation, which must be for a different letter.)

All the same, authority was not power, and was strictly dependent on and found its limits in obedience to a ruler’s duty for his people; outside that duty, a ruler had no authority, and, all the while, he had to respect the other forms of natural authority so long as they were properly exercised, such as that of parents in their families, rulers of other countries, and the ministers of religion. Did men habituated to power and honor and wealth and all the pleasure it all brings easily raise their minds and hearts to these truths? Not without great struggles or a very good education; sometimes still not.

The basis of culture, as Josef Pieper beautifully argues, was leisure, i.e. it was the goal; leisure strictly speaking. Art, music, poetry, literature were not only goods in themselves (in so far, however, as they also were conformed to the truth, & order & thus beauty, and thus were sources of authority themselves), but, most importantly, they were tools of contemplation by which man wondered at, and explored, and grasped the truth of things. As with all fruits of contemplation, they became tools of instruction for others and not simply methods of experiencing refined pleasures. Again, Aquinas, one of the greatest philosophers and theologians of the ages, and speaking for the high Middle Ages, concludes: “Nothing is in the intellect which isn’t first in the senses.” Man, body and soul, and only fulfilled, i.e. happy (since happiness was not random pleasure but true fulfillment), had to use both aspects of his nature to reach the goal. Pleasure was a reaction to any desirable good, and was always notoriously misleading; the only certain path was to know the truth and follow it. In this was, all that was materially productive or useful in that basic sense was never an end in itself, even scientific knowledge, which was easily capable of being relegated to an entirely non-contemplative sphere by considering it only for the sake of material progress, i.e. technology, as if progress were an end in itself.

Power, also, without authority was limitless in its application since obligation based in truth is its only reasonable boundary. Otherwise power is, as usual, simply the tool of the will of the strongest, or it makes up endless self-defined obligations which impel it, “regrettably”, to extend its jurisdiction & penetration.

I should briefly note, to wrap up this development, that the Church would have had no power at all if its authority had not been almost universally recognized. Its greatest spread occurred, in fact, after the fall of the [Roman] Empire; it could not be spread by power but had to convince men’s minds & hearts. So how? Part of the answer is too theological for this argument. But something can be said. Already men of all past ages had been rationally certain of the necessity of a spiritual existence after bodily death, not only because the soul could not be intelligibly subject to decay, but because a process of reward and punishment was a rational imperative which alone rendered coherent the simultaneous existence of an innate human moral intuition so universal that even children could intuit principles of justice; and, of unredressed moral evils which clearly opposed fundamental natural principles that had their origin necessarily in the uncreated intelligence that was their source.

I say all this to emphasize that, not only did it seem more rational, more coherent to believe in the afterlife, but its denial rendered the whole world as known by experience absurd, i.e. an ordered whole that, absurdly, had no justification or explanation. The only rational conclusion was body & soul, nature & obligation, & happiness only in a rational coherent end.

Now, in brief, what did the Church add? The divine revelation it claimed and for which it offered proofs changed the goal entirely, raising it far higher than the most ambitious had dared, higher than reason could have ever induced or deduced. Such were its claims that a direct revelation from God was strictly necessary to support them, i.e. to be their source. Namely, that God was a substantial union of three essentially identical Persons [Sorry, more mysteries]; that man had initially rejected God, breaking with his own nature, and creating a permanent imbalance in it which inclined him toward disordered desires, evil. Moreover, that man’s only hope lay in a process of purgative reordering toward God as Truth, Goodness, & Beauty Himself; a process only possible by divine helps in the soul. That God so loved creation that He himself entered into it and adopted men into the intimate life of the Persons of God. That He took on human nature to bear witness to the truth of it all and to perform a profound act of humility, obedience, & love, as a man, toward God. That, by this act of His life and death, he also set an example of the purification and love to be achieved.

Now, all of this seems hardly able to win out over men’s ordinary desires, let alone enable them to suffer egregious tortures and death for its sake. But so it was. And the careful records of the Roman trials and executions bear witness to it along with accounts of marvelous phenomena that occurred during many of the same, i.e. miracles, phenomena far beyond any possible human capacity to effect. The Church, as you may imagine, has been careful to double check such things. In our own day, you can refer to the miracles of Lourdes, France, and similar places, all confirmed by boards of agnostic or even atheist doctors. Why mention miracles? Because the whole history of the spread of the faith is full of them. Rationally speaking, men and women wouldn’t have abandoned royal kingdoms, great wealth, sensual pleasures, family, etc. for centuries in order to follow a slightly convincing set of esoteric theories. And the whole of the Western world converted. Culturally, this meant that, despite the ever present failings and malice or at least sinful concupiscence in men, the whole order of the new society was largely founded on and shaped by a certain hope, i.e. a hope that was certain, one pursued not only by the practice of the natural virtues, but by virtues called supernatural or Christian, since their modes and ends were so far elevated above the noblest morals of the past that it was firmly held that divine assistance in the soul was necessary to practice them. Thus, their faith and hope were also raised above all naturally knowable and realizable modes and ends; not in earthly happiness and perfection, but in preparing to die perfect in order to live with God. For the first time, a special degree of temperance, mercy, justice, and charity appeared in the world, forever changing what was meant by these old words.

All of this was constantly corroborated by experience; not the mysteries of faith, but that the world, seen through the eyes of reason enlightened and elevated far above its capacity for understanding and wisdom by faith [not rendered obsolete and deceptive by it: Protestants and Lutherans, esp.], became quite reasonable and not at all absurd, even in regard to suffering [cf. Albert Camus, The Rebel]. Under these conditions alone, the universe seemed intelligible and full of love and hope, and metaphysical rebellion was erroneous.

By the way, men had a very realistic expectation of priests and bishops. They knew they were men, and therefore not sinless nor without disordered inclinations; but the knowledge they passed down, and the divine helps that they stewarded were too important to foolishly reject on the basis of their personal habits or failings. Just as one wouldn’t reasonably reject the laws due to corrupt judges and teachers, or stop eating because your local grocer was a perverse man (or a grosser man!).

OK, deep breath… So why write the past 9 pages? Because, according to this argument, the Western culture -- Renaissance to modernity -- is, despite the overweening claims of many of its members to absolute autonomy with no debt to the past, and no reason to look to it for a solution to its woes, now insoluble and unsolvable per said self-entrapping claim above, is not to be understood as a monstrously incoherent riddle sprung up ex nihilo (or a priori), but rather as what-in-the-world happened to the culture from the Renaissance on to render everything unreasonable, absurd, and therefore steeped in agnostic darkness and its consequences. One might call it a journey from the most real and reasonable to the least real and reasonable explanation of the world; or the most real experience of the nature of things, to the most artificial, alienated non-experience of things which cannot but give rise to false ideas about almost everything relevant. Of course, often, the most reasonable explanation is considered these days only another way to say the most scientifically validated one by microscope, telescope, or physics engine, as if understanding was limited to man’s material theories. So, if I explain the following even as briefly as the aforesaid, I will double this short argument and perhaps test the tolerance of your interest in any point I might be making. I might mention a few figures, but I will attempt to make due with general trends of thought and general consequences.

Some have called this movement a reverse of the Socratic turn, so that, once one has seen the really real nature of things, one turns back into the cave and ends up knowing nothing but one’s thoughts about images of the real. I place the beginning at the Greco-Roman revival So enamored did so many become with it all, especially with its idealized portrayals of man intellectually and physically, that a turn away from man as authentically understood within his proper context, within the nature of the world, of man’s origin and end and obligations, etc., began to occur. Even Frank Lloyd Wright, a secular humanist who could only conclude man’s end as in the triumph of his own natural perfection, restricted strictly to earth; even he had to admit that this turn was disastrous for architectural authenticity containing a true expression of man. He insightfully calls the Renaissance “the setting Sun all Europe mistook for dawn”. I might need to resort to bullet points or numbers here; and then, if you find anything worth expatiating, let me know. The advantage in all future history is that the thoughts of the great moderns often are a perfecting of the common thought or implicit assumptions of the era; hemlock goes into disuse for the most part, and is replaced with incense for the newest demigod.

1. So, man’s thought turns in on itself, begins to analyze itself, starts to ignore conclusions with natural wholes as its premises, and, most catastrophically, begins to doubt the senses as if, because there’s more than meets the eye, what meets the eye is a deceiver, or the eye is a deceiver. Notably, scientists didn’t and couldn’t adapt this radical skepticism of experience upon which they depend essentially, desiring only to make arranged experiences in which as many relevant factors as possible are understood. Indeed, the French have but one word for a normal and a scientific experience or experiment. Alas, many philosophers, by remaining in their heads and purposely turned away from the objects of experience, became convinced that they could coherently claim notions as more certain if they seemed more to originate in the mind even if they contradicted the overwhelmingly concrete truths of experience, such that one could claim that water was not truly or couldn’t be known to be wet, that substances couldn’t be known, and that cause and effect could never be concluded from observation; all this while having to work with daily living in which it was all quite manifest with no effort at all. They forgot that the raw experience of a child is prereflective, that one learns of “self” from contrast with “other than self”, and that all ideas are derived in relation to and dependent on experience which has never yet refuted its own existence. These ideas were not above reason, but rather refuted its foundations.

2. The result was a massive mess of contradiction, since the desire for knowledge persisted, knowledge and its benefits, even while they rapidly dissolved their certainties with such improbable doubts. Their solution was to make the mind the judge of nature’s reality vs. reality the arbiter of the mind’s reasonableness. To facilitate this, enamored by new developments in math and mechanics, they refused to see coherent substances with their own essential natures any longer. They wanted to claim that all any object could be known as, was a machine with essentially disconnected parts which said nothing about a greater whole. This, of course, disregarded that anyone who sees a machine immediately is in contact with the entire context which its existence demands: knowledge, purpose, an intelligence higher than the machine (since it didn’t arise from a peat bog, be that peat bog ever so ancient). But it also stripped everything of any of its reality that couldn’t be measured or weighed, etc.

3. Notably, the advantage to denying nature for many was the necessary denial of obligation along with it; as it was clear, as shown before, that obligation is wholly derived from natures and the design or intent behind them. This, matched with the cheapening, or rather destruction, of the reasonable notion of faith by the Reformation, which made it anti-rational and guided by personal interpretation, caused a widespread throwing away of morality on a huge scale united with a rejection of moral and political authority as a whole. Thus, the revolutions from France even to Russia.

Although you know so much of this, I’m enjoying laying it all out on the table.

In the midst of it all, Nietzsche wrote as the most honest acknowledger of what was occurring. But he warned everyone that reason really did gather all its knowledge from experience, and that, if reason was right, then all the rational demands of nature were inescapably obvious: God, morality, objective truth, etc. He even warned scientists that any certainty of laws and order in things had to come from a universally real source, and have a meaning. He knew the only honest rejection had to be of all truth, and reason itself; and this is what he chose, claiming an impossible standard for knowledge sufficient to require a mandatory response in terms of those rational demands. But, he was honest about the conclusions which followed necessarily from such a rejection: namely, no certainty of truth, spirit, nature, morals, thus no rights, thus no essential value of anything, no meaning, no explanations, no purpose, practical nihilism, absolute agnosticism. He was no atheist, but if God couldn’t be deduced, then He might as well be dead to us, i.e. “God is dead”. Only desires remained.

Modern Consequences:

Well, now, here we are at last, if I haven’t fatigued you with my expositions, and driven you to warm yourself by the flames of my burning thesis.

One could go on for hours playing the game of “match-a-modern-contradiction-to-a-metaphysical-error”. So… ah… metaphysics, in the study of immaterial principles sense. So, I will limit myself to a general picture and certain major headings. There are so many factors, but a few basic types of manifestations and people stand out. First, a rather inadequate analogy…

The more brilliant microbiologists teach that the moment a person dies and loses the unifying agent of their whole makeup [which some would call the soul], their body, though seemingly still integral, immediately loses coherence, and most of all that was blood, tissue, etc., becomes jigsaw puzzles of the elements and chemicals that made it up, which, seen from a distance appear no different. To the unmagnified evaluation, disintegration is only confirmed slowly and in pieces, so that one part can have greatly decayed in one way while seeming to retain wholeness in another. But, thankfully, I don’t believe culture will ever be totally dead, since God, the soul, nature doesn’t dissolve because we reject them (or it). Thus, the modern era is one of extreme dissonance between what men consciously believe and what their nature still cries out for. Some succeed in stifling its voice, but the fortunate, even if ignorant of the truth, are too sensitive to it to refuse to search thoroughly with a sincere desire for reality and authenticity. Even those who glut their lower nature on pleasure, power, honor, or wealth, in order to hush the soul’s protests, are often driven to madness by the dissonance, by far deeper and unknown desires; and some even end themselves in order to stop the pain. Clearly, the truly insane are a different, matter, of course.

People

1. The pseudo- “Voltaires”: Those who realize at least more, much more clearly what they think and what they are rejecting, and thus no price is too high to stamp out the lies and fables and naivety of those who still teach objective morals, principles, absolutes, sources of authority, etc. they want to remake the world in some form that might be able to exist while stripped of any thought of nature and its consequences. E.g.:

a. totalitarians,

b. financial globalists,

c. cynical corporate directors,

d. ideologues of towering pride whose triumph would consist in seeing their thoughts made into reality,

e. truly dark souls for whom destruction as a form of refutation of the real is their mode of metaphysical rebellion in the face of the absurd,

f. all the unknown ones who would like to be persons (a -> e) if they had a chance.

Of course, I’m sure that members of all these groups could be acting in blindness, but the effects of their actions are often the same as if they knew, since they are often promoting the destruction of all that came before, for their own projects and ambitions, or ideas, or pride.

2. Members of the perennial philosophy, and thus also the perennial theology: They understand, experience, and acknowledge, to a greater or lesser extent, nature and its demands, i.e. the nature of things, the need for sufficient reason, religion, virtue, minimal moral legislation [i.e. at least some reasonable amount of it, not simply for general peace, but to assist others to see the truth of their nature]; natural rights [ones derived from and proper to human nature].

By the way, I consider each of these groups as requiring the proviso that someone would belong, only to the extent that they truly live predominantly according to its principles.

Here, one might include (a) many ordinary persons, (b) most peaceful native tribes, [c] members of religions that are not contradictory to reason, (d) In a special way, the body of Official Catholic teaching and those who truly follow it. [I’ve never found any inconsistency at all between its teachings and all that nature requires and implies]; (e) many simple farmers, (f) small children.

Here, happiness is only in fulfillment of nature to one degree or another; and peace is the tranquility of order in men’s souls, which alone leads to lasting material peace.

3. Sincere seekers of truth: Persons uninstructed in all this, and raised in an environment fairly or even greatly alienated from it who, whether through contact with nature (with the natural world), philosophical or historical or other forms of reflective thought, or even sudden insight or intuition amidst the shadowland of their life, have grasped the reality of good & evil, of unchanging truths, of objective beauty of goodness. They realize there is a bigger picture they never knew, and they set out earnestly to find it. Sometimes, they even get sidetracked, alas, by the occult, non-religious spiritualities, or irrational Eastern philosophies, and never find what they were seeking. But, if they do find it, it changes their lives.

4. Hedonists & those insatiable for power and honor: Usually totally blinded by their particular passion, they don’t care at all about any picture. Any obstacle, though, to their endless lust is an object of implacable hatred, regardless of any analysis. The supreme law for themselves which they don’t allow to others is “do what you will”; no thought for tomorrow but their own triumph.

5. Cynical agnostics: “Look… I’m just a realist…” Despair of truth, “live and let live” without challenging others; 3 square meals & sports channel or fine arts subscriptions or gym or bar, and internet about caps their yearning for happiness. Epitome or mundanity and indifference.

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OK, my brief thoughts on societal contradictions flowing from the modern dissonance.

1. Public Education: A mess, because children of people, and teachers, from all aforementioned types use it. It’s going to keep blowing up.

Countertrend: Healthy forms of home schooling, a flowering of private & charter schools in those countries where education isn’t entirely stolen by government.

2. Law & Politics: The country writ small. On the one hand, the ambitious, destroying ever more natural freedoms; on the other, citizens demanding all sorts of random “rights” based on vastly different ideas of freedom and happiness that have no objective basis in natural goods flowing from necessity from natural makeup. Whereas the founders, Masonic deists though they mostly were, still had in mind “nature and nature’s God”, and naturally consequent rights. But the fewer the people who understand nature, the more “rights” will mean “what I can’t or refuse not to have or do”, or “what I demand to be provided for me”, or simply “what I feel like doing”.

3. Poetica: I.e., all those ways in which man reaches intuitively ahead of reason’s current understanding in order to express experiences of truth, goodness, and beauty.

Of course, often used also to bring out reason’s conclusions & to teach truths.

Arts, music, literature, poetry, etc.

Now less and less about truth, goodness, and beauty. Radical individualism [when not blatant deconstructionism] has greatly made off with a large part, thus rendering that part unintelligible since usually either an encoded depiction of the most particularly subjective sensations or impressions or thoughts; or a studied attempt to shatter the “imprisoning” intelligible structures of the art form in order to free it for an amorphous, anarchistic adulteration of it which rarely leaves it any objective identity. This often gives rise to a ridiculous elitism and affectations of a select few connoisseurs of these portions of art, music, etc., who claim penetrating but incommunicable insight into the subjective stream of consciousness of the artists.

4. Science: In very large part engrossed by slavish commercial or political research in which finding the “good facts” often takes priority over discovering the true facts. Often used only to confirm one unnatural agenda after another, or to make us buy things.

To restate and summarize, once and for all, a central idea: Everything is involved in a crisis of the understanding of nature. Authority and all science, being so intimately united to nature and its principles, which alone allow for objective induction and deduction; they must be counterfeited the more nature is misunderstood or denied. Such counterfeited doctrines can only be maintained by force since they can’t hold up to experience or argument. As you know and have written, it all becomes not just doctrinal but dogmatic and quasi-religious since it has to rely on an unnatural faith that, incoherently, must allow for rational dissonance. Dialogue, as you well point out, becomes increasingly impossible politically, scientifically, ethically, religiously, philosophically, and historically; because rational premises and evidence are increasingly absent.

4.5 Food & Medicine: If nature is unintelligibly arranged without an innate purpose, etc., then, necessarily, the assumption arises that anything man does to “improve” it according to his intelligence is undeniably more intelligent. All this besides that a naturally complex, irreducible, and effective plant medicine that doesn’t work when stripped down and adulterated is intolerably unpatentable and inexpensive.

1.5 Education (revisited): Note how, increasingly, leisurely subjects originally meant to lead men to higher understandings of truth, etc., are now entirely misunderstood and thence removed from schools in favor of illiberal versions of math, science, etc. Even history is suffering… interesting.

5. Religion: Even many Catholics, lost in all the confusion, think and act Protestant, or even agnostic! So no place is sacred in the face of the massive cultural forgetfulness. As for other religions, they have no future…

Buddhism: In its pure form, not a religion (liturgical, God-centered), but a spirituality. More frequently sought after in the West as persons, believing quite rationally in spirit but not sure where else to turn (especially not to the Protestants), look into it. Alas, it, like the modern Western movement, is also a form of nature or world denial, but a much more reasonable one. Instead of thinking irrationally that mater is all there is without any basis, Buddhism says “being other than matter must exist”, i.e. it is much more real, and, in fact, the only non-deceptive real. Despite the very solid insights into the greater fullness of being in spirit as opposed to matter, it ultimately bypasses all the fundamental human questions, even religion, by a self-negation of man, nature, our faculties, and reason itself. Thus to be or not to be becomes an absurd question. Buddha sought to escape suffering by escaping desire, and now, to escape desire or contradiction, they seek total abstraction from the real, even from the desire of truth. Because of this attempt at negative contemplation, they’ve developed a thoroughly ascetical method in which they wish even to negate thought and consciousness.

In the face of overwhelming indulgence, noise, and materialism in the West, they present an attractively silent, recollected, simple, and self-mastered exterior; but, alas, they admit their total agnosticism and complaisance amid the rational contradictions of their beliefs. So man finds his fulfillment of nature in a lack of any individual existence in the hereafter. The greatest truth is that there is no truth that is separate from falsehood, etc., etc. Dialogue, in any constructive sense becomes impossible or meaningless here. At the same time, they can present no evidence at all for their premises and principles, and have to be content with playing absurdist mind games with themselves in order to accustom their faculties to simultaneously affirming mutually exclusive claims.

6. Environment: Without a true answerability to the source and designer of nature, without a grasp of its innate value, it all becomes “stuff” for us to use that shouldn’t just be left laying around doing nothing since it could bring us so much wealth and power. And who can prove that wrong then? Same for animals, same for human beings, cf. Nietzsche.

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Meanwhile: Souls have a need for the infinite. Created for the enjoyment of the source of all being, they either search it out or kill themselves trying to fill that hole in their hearts by attempting to squeeze infinite enjoyment out of the finite. An insatiable, irrational effort: food, sex, money, power; they exhaust each respective faculty and then shoot themselves or give up on happiness, truth etc. This happens with knowledge too and anything which the animal or rational desires take as objects per se vs. means. The Sincere Searchers feel drawn to moderation, intuiting that their real happiness lies they-know-not-where but somewhere far higher. I will claim that we in the religious life live with a heartache for what we know, in part, that we are seeking (and what we believe with certain hope). And I claim that we Catholics commune with the Source Himself, or Themselves (Trinity), of true peace.

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

2022-06-28T20:20:00.005-04:00

Right off the bat, you might say “But wait, that doesn't make sense – isn't revolution what happens when politics don't work?” And that's true in a sense, but you could also say that revolution is just politics on fast forward – eliminating the fine points and the details and getting right to the heart of the matter (and breaking a few eggs along the way). And in fact, that's what seems to be happening in our time. How many times have you heard, or read, a comment like “history is speeding up”, or “the news cycle can barely keep up”? It seems that we wake up to a different world each day – and yet that is how prior revolutions were described as well. And to some extent, this disorientation is intentional – keep the citizenry off-balance and confused, and especially no longer sure who the “good guys” or the “bad guys” are, and you're halfway to the goal. All will be made clear once the revolution is complete and all the stragglers have been rounded up. Then there will be no more doubt or ambiguity, only certainty and the iron hand.

But that doesn't mean revolutions are apolitical – far from it. There has to be a, let's say, critical mass of dissatisfaction among the populace for revolutions to work – not that the isolated revolt, mutiny, whatever, can't happen, because they do and have, many times down through the ages. But for it to stick, there has to be a certain level of – even if tacit – agreement. And yes, this is true even if the result of the revolution is the oppression and exploitation of the very people on whose behalf it was supposedly staged – usually the “common man”, or “the workers”, or “labor”. The cannon fodder of every revolution over the past 200+ years has been the aggrieved – the underprivileged – the exploited – the shat-upon. And yet find me a revolution which, once successful in throwing out the Ancien Regime, does not, on some level, exploit and take advantage of the very same groups. More often than not, for all of their effort they have merely traded one form of oppression and slavery for another.

Another factor is the propaganda. Prior to the revolution, it's all about “rights”, and grievances, and getting even, and sticking it to the ruling class (royalty being especially good as targets). Post-revolution, it's more about absolute conformity for the good of the state, and stop griping because Rome wasn't built in a day, and you can't make an omelette without breaking a few eggs, and there's a camp just down the road for any naysayers and cranks.

What would a revolution be, in fact, without a vast army of the dissatisfied, the alienated, and the underprivileged? And what would a modern revolution be without providing them with voting rights, regardless of citizenship status? Imagine if the Roman Empire had not only welcomed the barbarians – opened the gates for them – but also instantly made them full-fledged Roman citizens with voting rights? The empire would have fallen much sooner than it did. (Now one might say, if it was inevitable it's just as well it happened sooner than later. Yeah – it's good being an armchair historian, but just try living through it.)

Which brings us to the present day, and the situation in the U.S.A. As I've observed on a number of occasions, we are a revolutionary society. We started out with a revolution, and then – never satisfied with the status quo – staged a number of mini-revolutions from that point on, right up to the present day. We had, for example, Jacksonian democracy... Reconstruction... Progressivism... the New Deal... The Great Society, along with the Civil Rights and Voting Rights Acts... the cultural revolution of the 1960s... the short-lived populist “revolutions” under Reagan and Trump... and now the full-blown Revolution of 2020, which not only consolidated all previous gains (those trending leftwards, of course) but set even more firmly in place all of the governmental structures, agencies, laws, and regulations required in order to make the revolution permanent – and, by the way – and most importantly of all, perhaps – secured the full cooperation and “buy-in” of the military.

And, in a sense, it matters little whether we refer to a revolution as "just starting", "under way", or "successful", since to the revolutionary mind there is no such thing as completion, i.e. satisfaction with the new status quo. If dissatisfaction is a state of mind of a certain portion of the citizenry, then so is the desire -- the need -- for any given revolution to go on indefinitely, since there is always room for improvement, and perfection is always tantalizingly out of reach. But isn't “permanent revolution” a contradiction in terms? Chairman Mao didn't think so. And his heirs (both in China and elsewhere on the globe) are pretty much calling the shots these days. “Permanent revolution” is no more improbable than “permanent dissatisfaction”, which is, arguably, a part of fallen human nature.

So yes, revolution is nothing new. It isn't alien to the American experience – the American “experiment” -- but is part and parcel of it. If there was ever a society that was, in its heart of hearts, anti-conservative, anti-status quo, it is our own. There is an unwritten rule, or assumption, that change is good – change for its own sake, actual results being a minor consideration. “Progress” has been an icon and a fetish almost from the start – and that has morphed into something called “change”. This was, of course, the theme of Barack Obama's campaigns in 2008 and 2012 – change! Hope and change! The great icon, the great golden calf! And simply believing in it was enough; not only do actual results not matter, but it's considered downright impolite to even bring the subject up.

But let's not get too judgmental on this point, because it should be obvious that the appeal of “change” has to be based on dissatisfaction with things as they are. Obama did not win two presidential elections because people were satisfied and content. He won because people were angry – frustrated – alienated. They felt that they had lost control of their lives, and therefore of their fate. And his campaigns were designed to verify, reinforce, and perpetuate all of that anger and frustration – and to promise that things would get better, because – well – “because change”.

Now, one could argue, what's the big deal? Most people feel this way most of the time, and Obama was just capitalizing on it. OK... but then why do people feel this way? What is it about America that seems to yield up this attitude, seemingly out of nowhere, whereas in other countries it takes a lot more effort (and in some cases, is virtually impossible – think about places like Switzerland, for example)? What it is is what I call The Promise – and that is that the Founding Fathers not only established a republic that was designed as well as it was, given their relative sophistication about human nature, but that republic held out hope for perpetual progress... perpetual improvement in the standard of living... unhindered freedoms... and that the voice of the people would always and everywhere we heard, and honored. Quite a wish list! And it actually seemed to work for a while, at least as long as people were content to allow the landed gentry to run things. But then along came populism (version 1.0) and concern for “rights” (beyond those already specified in the Constitution), and the gap between the ruling elite and the common folk was exposed, and that got the ball rolling. (And yes, Southern Secession and the establishment of the Confederacy was a high water mark of sorts.) Post-Civil War, our revolutions were a bit less violent, but no less significant. And that brings us up to the present day, when a new variation on an old theme is found, namely that the revolution is being led by the government itself – the “establishment” -- and it is aimed at the people – or at least a substantial portion thereof.

Now, one might say, but haven't all of our revolutions been, basically, at the instigation of whoever's in charge, and haven't they all been opposed by a certain percentage of the populace? Instigation, yes – in the case of the Progressive Era, the New Deal, civil rights measures of the 1960s, etc. Revolution from the top – which was, in fact, turned into an art form by Chairman Mao. But as for opposition – not so much. The Progressive Era and the New Deal were, if you will, heavy on carrot and light on stick. They promised, and they delivered – up to a point. (And what they were unable to deliver, they filled in by means of propaganda.) They were represented, at the time, and are in the history books, as being “for the people”. I'm not sure the same can be said of what's going on at present. Yes, there is plenty of carrot (entitlements, creation of new “rights” and catering to newly-discovered victim/grievance groups) but also a whole lot of stick (taxes, regulations, inflation, violation of traditional rights, and intentional alienation and persecution of large segments of the populace by means of slander, “canceling”, discrimination, etc.).

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You may have noticed that in my previous post I seemed to be expressing some degree of disapproval of current events and trends. (And I was trying so hard to be objective and “value free”!) Does that make me a “conservative”? Well... if one defines conservatism as “preferring to stick with what works, or at least with what is stable and predictable, as opposed to experimenting with the lives and fates of the citizenry based on some theories or 'models' cooked up in Ivy League faculty lounges”, then yes, I'm a conservative. But if it means “regarding the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution as sacrosanct holy writ that must be set in granite and which cannot be improved upon, and America as permanently occupying the moral high ground, and being nigh unto infallible in its foreign and domestic policies” then no. In that case, I'll join the “dirty hippies” in the next protest march.

When you boil it all down, the ultimate question becomes, quite simply, “Is the world a better place because America, i.e. the United States, existed?” Or, would everyone have been better off if we had just stuck with Britain and become part of Canada, or whatever? To put it another way – has America been part of the solution all these many years, or part of the problem? Has our experiment with democracy metastasized into oppression, both on the domestic front and world-wide? Or has it at least been preferable to the alternatives, whatever they may have been? When you put it this way, you soon realize that the question is impossible to answer. History is not full of dress rehearsals and trial runs – it's always the real thing, for better or worse. No rewinds, no replay, no Plan B, no “what-ifs”, no “woulda, coulda, shoulda”.

Now, one “nuanced”, if you will, answer might be that we were a good influence for a while, but then “broke bad”, went rogue, whatever. Human nature and the hunger for power took over. OK... then what was the point at which the balance shifted? The Mexican War? The Civil War? The Spanish-American War? World War I? World War II? Korea? Vietnam? Iraq/Afghanistan? Everybody has a theory as to when we “lost our innocence” – and the simplest answer is that we never had it to begin with. The Founding Fathers knew more about human nature than all the present-day Ivy League “scholars” and think-tankers combined, and yet they had hope. They figured, give flawed human nature a chance to better itself through a rationally designed form of government. Perhaps reason will conquer passion – or at least keep it at bay. And, better to fail than to despair of even trying, right? And in fact, that effort does seem to have at least altered the conversation over the years. Democracy has become, for many people in many places, something that is worth a try, or at least given lip service. (Even the most tyrannical governments on the planet pay tribute by calling themselves the “people's democratic republic of....”.) What it runs into, more often than not, is not only human nature, but national character. Contrary to our State Department's perennial delusion, there are people out there who are simply not ready for democracy, in any form. And this is not being judgmental; it's simply a fact, and is based on any number of things – tradition, custom, religion, language, world view, and so on. And it doesn't mean those cultures are “inferior”; they may have worked out a quite satisfactory system of governance – one that works better than ours, in fact (not that high a bar any longer). And then there is the natural aversion to some foreigners (especially “infidels”) trying to tell you how to run your country and live your life. (And – how many times have we put lipstick on a pig called “fledgling democracy” when it was, in fact, nothing of the sort, but just a show put on for the sake of staying on our foreign aid payroll? “Color revolutions”, ink-stained thumbs... just a side show, basically – and a cruel hoax for the people who actually fell for it.)

So yes, it's imponderable. Go back to 1776 but squelch those minor uprisings in Massachusetts, and put those treasonous wackos on house arrest before they can gather at Independence Hall, and assert that “Hail, Britannia” will remain our national anthem, and let people of good common sense remain in charge, and long live King George! Would the world have profited more by that than by what actually happened? Who knows?

But just because this issue is imponderable doesn't mean there aren't plenty of people out there who have the answer. Start with the “1619 Project” which asserts that America was founded on slavery and was therefore evil, immoral, and flawed from the beginning – and that nothing that has happened since can ever make up for that, therefore the country has to be brought to ruin and then rebuilt from scratch, with not only equal rights but also radical redistribution of property and other resources. And of course this idea has international implications as well, since any nation with such a fatal flaw cannot possibly have legitimately represented itself as an exemplar of democracy, human rights, and freedom for all these years – and certainly should never have imposed its flawed ideas on any other nation or culture, either through diplomacy or by means of physical force. So if America is suspect, so are all of its works, and the rest of world has been deceived all this time. (But they are “woke” now, and America has been "outed" as a total fraud.)

But the 1619 Project aside, many people have come to the opinion that it's high time America paid the price for its hubris and presumption – way past time, in fact. No one wants to have to live with the karma of America's past sins, in other words – and if committing political, cultural, and economic suicide is a sufficient form of reparation, it's certainly worth doing.

So yes, collective guilt is an overriding theme when it comes to both domestic and foreign policy, the only question being how to expiate that guilt. On the domestic side, when it comes to slavery, the preferred option is to nullify all economic gains that can be traced to slavery – which, in the “woke” playbook, means pretty much all. Make us not only poverty-stricken, but helpless before our enemies, because we were – as everyone knows (because that's what we're taught in public school and college) – the only nation on earth to allow slavery to persist for so long, and this in the face of all of our pretenses – oh, the hypocrisy! So we can only repay our debt to the rest of humanity be ceasing to exist as a nation, and as a culture. And if we're ever assaulted in any way – economically, militarily, culturally – by any other nation taking advantage of our sorry state, well, we've got it coming.

Plus, domestic guilt mongers aside, there are plenty of people elsewhere on the globe who totally agree with this point of view. They may not say much about slavery – that would be too blatantly hypocritical even for them! – but when it comes to America throwing its weight around, and our own hypocrisy, they are remarkably unified: It's about time for a comeuppance! We're sick of America being “the” superpower, and the world's policeman -- who do they think they are? And this is at the very same time they cheerfully accept our “foreign aid” and military assistance (and pay us occasional and grudging respect for having bailed them out in World Wars I and II, and for having held off the “Russian bear” throughout the Cold War). Only a fool wouldn't take advantage of Uncle Stupid while they have the opportunity (recalling the “beached whale” analogy...). And what they marvel at more than anything else is our naivete. They may have laughed behind Trump's back at NATO get-togethers, but do you really think they aren't laughing behind Biden's back as well – maybe more? (At least Trump scared them a bit; Biden is about as scary as a frayed sock puppet.)

Make no mistake, the “America and the world” issue is a prominent subtext of the current revolution, but it's far from the only issue, and not even the most important (although it may be to watchers beyond our borders). In view of our history, the current revolution is far from exceptional. One might almost say that it's an American tradition – that we would be all out of sorts without a revolution of some sort every few decades. Now, this doesn't mean that it's right, or desirable, or even that it won't have catastrophic consequences – only that, in the broad historical scheme of things, there's an air of inevitability about it. One could object, of course, that all of our previous revolutions have at least not meant the end of the Republic – that it has survived, in some form, through much storm and strife. And who knows, it may survive the current revolution as well – at least in superficial terms, like the form of government (even if the character of elections undergoes permanent change, including eliminating them for all intents and purposes). Will we still have a functioning system of currency, or will we be spending “Zimbabwe bucks” or trading potatoes for shoes? How about property rights? (They are under assault as it is.) How about all the other rights listed in the Bill of Rights, as well as rights that have been defined or “discovered” since? Will they exist in name only – or not at all? (Or – more likely – will all the old, traditional rights be declared null and void, and the new “rights” be declared paramount? This topsy-turvy act is also a hallmark of many prior revolutions elsewhere on the planet. What better way to remake society than to declare that what once was right, and therefore legal, is now wrong, and therefore illegal – and vice versa?)

That's on the historical side. But then we have the political side, and once again a revolution, in a sort of paradoxical way, depends on a certain modicum of support from the populace even if its ultimate goal is to suppress, or eliminate, most of the rights of said populace. Yes, people can vote themselves into tyranny – the most notable historic example being the naming of Adolf Hitler as chancellor of Germany in 1933, based on the election results in 1932. But we also have numerous other examples of the popular vote going to a communist candidate, who immediately turns around and eliminates elections. (So in that case, did the people vote, in an election, to eliminate elections? File this under either “paradox” or “irony”, your choice.)

See, people don't vote for a “system” nearly as often as they vote for an idea (right or wrong) and, even more often, for what they perceive to be in their best and most immediate interests – economically and socially. This is human nature, and is the very thing that the Founding Fathers were attempting to rise above with their emphasis on certain ideas – rights, proper governance, etc. What resulted in the long run was a kind of hybrid – “pocketbook” issues, regional loyalties, etc. often disguised as ideas, or ideals, with ample iconography to match. “America” is a concept that suffices on Memorial Day or the Fourth of July, but when people walk into the voting booth, their jobs and bank accounts seem to carry the day. (This is assuming that they are not among the “woke” minority who take pride in voting against their own economic interests. In their case it's intentional, but most of the time it's the result of propaganda and blatant lies by politicians.)

And I often wonder how many people actually vote for “America”, as opposed to their state/county/village/farm/etc. It seems that most people can only “think big” up to a point, but in the long run they will make decisions – including those about their governance – based on what is more immediate, visible, and essential to their livelihood. The trick, of course – and it's one that works a remarkable portion of the time – is convincing people that their immediate concerns are synonymous with the good of the Republic, however defined – and that on some mystical, other-worldly level, fighting goatherds in Afghanistan has something to do with preserving the family farm in Iowa. Get enough people to believe this, and you can do anything you like foreign policy-wise, including starting and pursuing endless wars with no discernible relationship to the actual welfare or prosperity of any actual American citizen.

So what has been going on all this time? Well, it's about changing – through relentless propaganda, derision, and shaming -- people's natural regard for home and hearth – for family, village and town – for race, ethnicity, and religion – into a regard – nay, a prioritization – of ideas. Now, this is nothing new, since we've been an ideational society since the start. But even our most iconic idea, or image, that of “America”, is an abstraction, really, when you come to think about it. Is the “America” of a New England fisherman the same “America” as that of a Nebraska farmer, or a California fruit grower, or a Detroit factory worker? They may use the word, but what they really mean is much more here and now – my family, my home, my street, my neighborhood. (Let the rootless cosmopolitans – the globalists – play their games. We know what they've given up (or never had), and we know what really counts in life.)

But the idea of “America” has outlived its usefulness, according to the globalists (including our home-grown kind). It's... well... not just old-fashioned and out of style, but it's also “reactionary”, “isolationist” (try that out on the guys who fought in World War II and Korea), “paternalistic”, “xenophobic”, and, ultimately, “racist”, as well as the dozen or so (and counting) other kind of “isms” that could be called up. So the tables have been turned on the citizenry, who thought they had a reliable set of standards, principles, and images to rely on, and now they're all expected to embrace “globalism” with all of its myriad components, implications, and alleged blessings. They are expected to become world citizens – loyal to the planet, and nothing less.

And they are the people who have the most to lose in the current revolution. All that they value is being devalued, if not outright derided and laughed at, by the ruling elite and their street-wise acolytes. And yet – and here is the ultimate irony – they continue to vote for the people who are out to destroy them and their culture. And I attribute this not so much to their ignorance as to the utter treachery of the ruling elite and of the public officials who are their obedient servants (not to mention their facilitators in the media and on the Internet). If our previous revolutions were, in a sense, about government dragging some of the populace, kicking and screaming, into a new era (think of civil rights legislation), then the current revolution is about completely ignoring large segments of the populace – having decided that they don't count and should have no rights, and are, basically, non-persons.

When the ruling elite simply writes off a substantial portion of the population, you know that the revolution is well under way, and nearing completion. When it declares that portion of the population to be “deplorable”, and liable to engage in “conspiracy theories” and “insurrections”, you know that the revolution is over with, and all that remains is a mopping-up operation (going on right now with the January 6 hearings). Our previous revolutions at least had the merit of allowing the losers to live, if in a state of second-class citizenship (see the South, from the Civil War right up to the present day). The current attitude seems to be one of total war – defeat is not sufficient – only total subjugation will do, and, lacking that, extermination.

So yes, it is different this time, and yet – and here's the point at which all “conservatives” should engage in a rare exercise in humility – it's apparently what most people want, as evidenced by their voting patterns, which include not voting, which is the same as going along with whatever the results happen to be. (Ever wonder why “opinion polls” have such a low correlation with election results when the polls are conducted by conservative organizations, but a much higher one when the polls are conducted by liberal organizations? Think about that for a while.)

To be just a bit simplistic about it, anyone who voted for Biden in 2020 – well, OK, there were certainly plenty of anti-Trump, as opposed to pro-Biden, votes – but basically, anyone who voted for Biden voted for exactly what we have now – inflation, shortages, open borders, Critical Race Theory, racial paranoia, gender paranoia, “climate change” being Job One, globalism, “green” (no oil, no gas, no nukes), chaotic foreign policy – and so on. They voted for all of these things because they were either explicitly part of the Democratic platform, or they were completely predictable in the event Biden became president. (Or, they were things Trump was against, so they had to be for.) So... basically, they can't complain, and in fact they aren't complaining. If you look at or listen to the mainstream media and their facilitators in the “social media” and “entertainment”, you'd think everything was groovy – that we had entered an entirely new phase en route to Utopia. (And as for the White House press office, whose talent for propaganda and doublespeak ranks up there with Izvestia and Pravda, “never is heard a discouraging word, and the skies are not cloudy all day”, like the words of the old cowboy song.)

And the point is (again, memo to any and all conservatives) that the people who are with, or at least not against, the revolutionary program are, in fact, in the majority. So... if you're really a dedicated fan of “democracy”, i.e. “majority rule” regardless, you should be completely satisfied with all of this. And of course I know what the objections will be – “But it's wrong! It's un-American! It's globalism, tyranny, totalitarianism, Marxism, etc.” All true – but it's also “the will of the people”, by definition. So... how's that “democracy” thing working out for you? Is it really the best system yet devised for self-governance? The conservatives need to do some serious soul-searching on this issue.

But one can argue that this isn't the real thing – that it's degenerate, chaotic, the product of brainwashing and propaganda, etc. Very likely! But then we have to at least re-think what we mean by “democracy”, and what we want... what we expect it to produce. Because it turns out (and the Founding Fathers knew this very well) that a democracy is only as good as the citizens who make it up, and if those citizens are the demoralized product of a long – generations-long – campaign of propaganda and demoralization and guilt-tripping, starting in the universities and filtering down through the political class and the media to the ordinary citizen, then we can expect what we have now – not democracy in the classical sense, but a kind of Bizarro-democracy – a disfigured mockery of the real thing, which would scandalize the Founding Fathers and their political descendants, but which – at least as things stand – appears to be a natural, inevitable stage of devolution of America as an idea, and thus as an empire as well. The question of whose fault it is – the people's or their enemies – may not even be relevant, since if the people have allowed this state of affairs to develop, they're their own worse enemies.

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

Lest I end this post on a completely negative note, let me point out that, historically, every empire eventually falls, disappears, or at least shrinks. And empires built on a delusional Utopian vision have a much lower half life than those built on plain old conquest. Do you find this ironic? Because old-style conquest, i.e. war, is supposedly out of fashion these days, which is why Russia's invasion of Ukraine is such a scandal. War is, well... unseemly... in poor taste... hurtful... and all the rest of it. And yet I will contend that it's more universal, and natural to the human condition, than Utopianism (which often involves war anyway). It's not that I'm saying “Give War a Chance” (priceless title of one of P. J. O'Rourke's hilarious books), it's just that it's so common, and so nearly universal, that it should give one pause when entertaining Rousseau-esque fancies about the nature of man and of what is possible, i.e. to what extent the human race, or any portion thereof, can pull itself up by its bootstraps.

And this is the odd thing about America, in a way. We are an ideational society, which should mean that reason prevails in most if not all circumstances. And yet we are, arguably, one of the most warlike nations, and cultures, on the planet – both now and historically. (Our “defense” budget exceeds that of most other nations combined – and yet only about 1% of it is dedicated to actual defense, i.e. of the homeland.) And what gets us into wars is, more often than not, ideas. Ideas based on the founding documents for certain, but also on the many and varied interpretations of said documents, right up to the present day – the most overriding idea being that simply being “enlightened” is not enough – staying home and sitting under our own vine and fig tree, and minding our own damn business, is way too boring, and selfish to boot. We owe it to the world to spread the gospel of “democracy” – by example, persuasion, or by force if need be (were our Founding Fathers actually students of Muhammad? Makes you wonder... ). And by the same token, we can excuse any foreign escapades – invasions, occupations, whatever – regardless of cost in “blood and treasure” – on the basis that ideas are, and should be, paramount, and that no sacrifice in their service is too great.

And this is what the rest of the world, and especially the globalists – Utopians all – are having to cope with when dealing with the United States. We have trouble falling into line behind the E.U. or the World Economic Forum because we have long since written off Europe, and especially Western Europe, as a hotbed of world-weary cynicism – a place not of ideas but of lukewarmness and decadence. And yet here we are faced with the prospect of, basically, submitting to their world view and their wishes, and leaving traditional American values (whether honorable or wrong-headed) behind.

And is this because we've run out of ideas – our most cherished possession as a society, in a way? Or have we grown world-weary as well? Or has our pursuit of ideas been rebuffed, brought low, and humiliated with increasing frequency (one only has to consider Vietnam, Iraq, and Afghanistan)? Or is it as simple as demographic change (the replacement of traditionally-minded Americans with people who simply don't share our ideas and our vision, and who show no interest in “assimilating”)? In other words, does the America that conservatives are trying “save” even exist any longer (especially if one clings to the notion of “majority rule” at all costs)?

And this may, in fact, be why the globalists and Utopians – especially of the European variety – have found it so easy to infiltrate into our culture, economics, politics, and even values. If nature abhors a vacuum, so do political and social activists; they see a weakness – a gap – and waste no time filling it. And it matters little what they fill it with – what counts is that they've replaced nothing with something. And when conservatives object, and protest – it's foreign, decadent, un-American, etc. – one response (call it mean-spirited triumphalism) might be “Well, then why didn't you defend your traditions and values more energetically, rather than acting like sheep before the shearer?” A valid point, I'm afraid. But it doesn't matter how energetically a minority group defends its values and way of life, a sufficiently determined majority will roll over them with ease – as is happening now, and the popular culture is, if you will, the vanguard, followed closely by public education and the rest of the armies of “agents of change”. Another way of putting it is that when the long march through the institutions was taking place, the “average American” was fixated on 9-to-5 jobs, car payments, TV, and sports. Now we wake up to a different world, and the cry goes out “What happened? And who betrayed us? Who opened the gates and let the Trojan Horse in?” Well, um... how about the people you've been voting into office all this time? Bet you thought they were on your side; sorry about that. They were, in fact, enemy agents – every bit as despicable as the “atomic spies” of old, but much less picturesque.

But this is the way of things in human history – and it's, ultimately, always about power – not necessarily overt power, i.e. armies, wealth, territory, etc. – but about, once again, the power of ideas, and by that I don't mean good vs. bad ideas, but ideas that are backed by sheer force and determination. A true believer in just about anything is what is called, in the military, a “force multiplier”. History is brimming over with examples of small but determined groups emerging victorious after a struggle with a (supposedly) “great” power; our own Revolution (the first one) is an example. And one reason ideas have such power is that the other side has no answers. We were confronted with fundamentalist Islam in Afghanistan (as were the Russians), and could not answer in kind, or anything close to it. So a “primitive” society with “crude” weapons, a fanatical religious outlook, and – gasp! – no uniforms succeeded, after 20 long years, in forcing us to give up and go home. (See also Vietnam, for both us and the French.)

What America is confronted with now is, in a way, new and different. We're used to revolutions, as I've said, but those are basically internal matters, at least for us. Our revolutions have always been home-grown and tailored to our tastes, in a sense. And we've always had the oceans protecting us from traditional military attacks and invasions from overseas. But our Achilles heel, as it turns out, was in being apathetic and naive about foreign influences in other areas -- economics being prime, but also politics/diplomacy, values, culture, and even philosophy and “political science” (areas in which “invaders” from Europe have done some of the most severe damage). We (OK, some of us) take great pride in our European “heritage” – problem is, that heritage is pretty much extinct in the Old Country, and what replaced it is at our doorstep (or maybe a “home invasion” is a better metaphor). America is, in many ways, the last holdout for many of the traditions our ancestors brought with them across the ocean. The Old World has moved far beyond all of that and considers our “clinging” behavior to be somewhat laughable and pathetic – especially when it comes to religion. (Note the similarity to the attitudes of our home-grown elites.) Western Europe in particular takes great, and quite explicit, pride in being religion-free – in being completely secular and materialistic, and they find this quite satisfying and wonder what's wrong with us that we don't follow suit (but they have ways of dealing with this and are doing so).

So the “good news”, in a way, is that empires do eventually end, in some manner or other. The American Empire is on its last legs – not because of conclusive defeats overseas or economic meltdown on the home front, but because of lack of political will – not lack of ideas per se, but lack of any way of implementing those ideas that does not immediately turn into a catastrophe. As a nation and as a society, we're falling apart in nearly every way. But we're not alone, as it turns out! The “international community” is here to help us – and to absorb us into a global, or near-global, empire, albeit in a subordinate role, since we still have to pay for our sins, which are great and many. So – again, like the beached whale – we will be “mined”, if you will, for any usable resources, and assigned a kind of bizarre “emeritus” status on the world stage, but someone else will be calling the shots. (And don't think our own elites aren't polishing their resumes, hoping that they will be welcomed into (or allowed to remain in) the inner circle once we're over the hump. No one wants to be like those Russian officials who thought all was well until they were photoshopped out of the May Day parade photos – the first step to either the gulag or an unmarked grave.)

And yet – and yet! – this empire – this new, squeaky-clean, humanistic, “diverse”, you-name-it, empire will also pass, eventually – and it may take decades, or even centuries. No one now alive will be around to see it. But in the scheme of things, it's inevitable – and that very flaw, or weakness, means that a revival of the human spirit is possible.

And when's the last time you heard that term – “human spirit”? Just try “Googling” it, as opposed to things like “rights”. I imagine you'll wind up with a 1-to-a million ratio. And yet the human spirit, by which I mean the desire to live free, as opposed to being in a state of slavery – and conscious, as opposed to brainwashed – this cannot be suppressed forever. The urge to live free is always there, perhaps buried deep in the subconscious, but never totally extinguished, because it is, after all, a vital part of human nature. African slaves that were brought to the U.S. considered freedom to be their ultimate vision, and that which they hoped and prayed for (and sang about) for generations. Freedom burst forth from the Baltic States and the Caucasus – basically forgotten parts of the world – when the Soviet Union broke up. People rediscovered their national identities, traditions, and customs – and, in many cases, their faith. And it's not always a matter of “remembering” what freedom is, and what it's like; it's deeper than that. It's what happens when people start comparing their situation to what they instinctively feel is proper and just. (We are seeing the glimmerings of this here in the U.S., even as the forces of totalitarianism gain strength.)

So if there's any hope to be had, it is along these lines. This generation may see nothing other than not only the road to serfdom, but serfdom itself. And yet, there may be pockets of resistance, as there have been in all other revolutions world-wide. If a greater portion of humanity prefers bogus “rights”, and even more bogus “security”, and is willing to give up everything else to obtain them, there will always be a remnant that will prefer independence and freedom of choice, with all of its risks – and they are the people on whom we must rely for a rebirth, no matter how long it takes.

How Destroyed Does America Have to Be?

2022-06-20T18:18:00.004-04:00

A bit over a month ago, I put out an update on Covid-19 (the rock star formerly known as “corona”), discussing the various theories as to its origin, progress, significance, impact (economic, social, political, etc.). I didn't claim that the story was concluded, and that we could say “case closed”, because we can't – and who knows when, if ever, we'll be able to? Covid-19 has turned out, truly, to be the “disease for all seasons”, and for all political, social, and economic agendas. It has become, in many ways, as defining a factor in the political life of the Republic as race, which is the sine qua non of American politics. As such it may turn out, in retrospect, to be more significant than the Great Depression, or World War II, or 9/11, in terms of the remaking of society (a process well underway at this point, and accelerating with each passing day). And this is all the more remarkable given that it was, as far as is known (or admitted), totally unpredictable and a complete surprise – although the conspiratorially-minded will beg to differ, and that's OK – they may be right. (Comparisons might be drawn to other plagues down through history – not in terms of severity so much as long-term impact in areas like economics, politics, sociology, international balance of power, etc.)

But operating in parallel with Covid, in a kind of bizarre symbiosis, was an outbreak of anarchy – or apparent anarchy – which, I would say, had few if any parallels in American history. Suddenly, major cities (and not-so-major cities – Kenosha? Give me a break!) erupted in violence, vandalism, arson, and a kind of bizarre no-show performance on the part of law enforcement – which caused certain “vigilantes” to take matters into their own hands. And the temptation was to think that, yes, this is it – the final reckoning – the beginning of the total breakdown of American society – Gog and Magog – the mother of all battles – etc. But then a funny thing happened. The minute Joe Biden was inaugurated it all stopped. No more riots, no more arson, no more “smash and grab” – it was as if someone had flipped a switch. Which is, of course, exactly what happened. (And, I might add, BLM demonstrations faded away as well, even though there had been no significant improvement in relations between the police and the black community.) (And Confederate statues – those few that remained – were no longer being torn down by angry mobs.)

So it was never about “racism” or “fascism” or anything else. It was about removing Donald Trump from office, and insuring that he would never again, and I mean never, attempt to intrude into the public sphere. Once that was accomplished – and Biden's inauguration was sufficient proof – all of these “anarchists” stood down, to a man (or woman, or whatever). There was peace in the valley. They were dropped off at wherever they called home, given a wad of cash or gift cards, told “well done, mission accomplished”, and that was it. Until next time. (Be assured, their cell phone numbers are on someone's speed dial. Watch for them to come back to life in certain select quarters during the mid-term campaigns.)

But in case you haven't noticed, what any of this has to do with authentic anarchy has yet to be determined. The few Antifa types that were rounded up by local law enforcement (prior to being released by left-wing prosecutors and judges) were, by and large, spoiled brats with suffocatingly middle-class backgrounds. Nary a wild-eyed, black-bearded, bomb-throwing anarchist of the old school could be found among them. They were, basically, rent boys (and girls) who were paid handsomely for acting out and throwing a tantrum suitable for a two-year-old. In this, they were truly rebels without a cause (as opposed to, say, demonstrators from the 1960s who may have been misled in some ways but who definitely had a cause – or, typically, more than one).

Find me an “anarchist”, anywhere on Earth, who doesn't dream of becoming the king/queen/whatever/ruler of a country/continent/planet populated by nameless, powerless slaves, whose existence is predicated entirely on their ability and willingness to cater to the ruler's every whim. No “Mad Max” scenarios for these folks – no way! Real anarchy is too chancy, too dangerous. No, this will be a highly-organized, exquisitely-refined utopia. (Think of one of our “social media” moguls being, basically, emperor of the world; that will give you some idea of what the garden-variety Antifa type aspires to.)

As I have said before, anarchy is totalitarianism in disguise. True anarchists are as rare as – oh, I dunno, albino chipmunks, or something. For all intents and purposes they don't exist. Because behind every impulse to destroy, there is an impulse to build – and to build according to one's specifications. Every man a Frank Lloyd Wright! Except without the creative genius. Wright built houses that people would want to live in – not everyone, but enough. They were willing to submit to Wright's sense of aesthetics, design, style, what have you – to suppress whatever atavistic notions they had been brought up with in order to conform to the vision of The Master. And frankly (no pun intended), one can imagine much worse masters – Frank (ditto) Gehry comes to mind, with his deconstructionist zeal. (When you live in a Frank Lloyd Wright house, you live with Frank Lloyd Wright, in a sense. And that's not necessarily a bad thing. When you live or work in a Frank Gehry building – well, let's say you're a good candidate for high-end therapy.)

The agenda, if you will, of the anarchist is to destroy all the old – all that which is – but not stop there. It must be replaced with something, because in their heart of hearts every anarchist realizes that total, complete, and perpetual anarchy is impossible. Order will sooner or later rear its ugly head – so the question then becomes, what sort of order, and – more importantly – whose order? The Bolsheviks had an answer for this, and it was put in place immediately – “Five Year Plans”, collective farms, spies on every street corner and under every bed, and so on (and the gulag – or a bullet in the head – for any naysayers). Anarchy giving rise to order – the important – nay, essential – thing being that the new order is built on a totally mistaken and delusional vision of human nature. So the agenda then becomes to – at all costs! – create a new version of mankind – the New Soviet Man, or, in the case of the Nazis, the Master Race. Which is followed, as the night the day, by a program of persecution against anyone who doesn't agree with the vision, or who actively attempts to thwart it. After all, when our leaders present a plan for Utopia – all set out in impressive 3-D models (“pedestrian-friendly”, “green”, "carbon-neutral", “sustainable”, etc.) – only an atavistic reactionary would dare to object. All traditional views of mankind – his purpose on earth, his destiny – have to take a back seat to the new vision, which is based solely on what can be seen and touched, i.e. “science”.

It has been said that “patriotism is the last refuge of the scoundrel”. Well, in our time, when patriotism, however defined, is sadly dated and teddibly out of fashion, we have a new version, which is “science is the last refuge of the scoundrel”. “Science”, that is, as defined by whoever has the most political influence. So science becomes the fetish of our times – that without which nothing is valid or arguable, and with which nothing is invalid... or needs proof. Science becomes, in other words, what “dogma” was in past times – a matter of faith. But if science is a matter of faith, what happens to that which we used to call science? It disappears, basically. It no longer exists, because it does not receive the imprimatur of... science! Yes, “science” becomes self-certifying, and thus no better than a commercial product that advertises itself as “the best”, or “new and improved”, or “guaranteed”, etc.

It is sad when science becomes a closed-off echo chamber, with no way in (for contradictory data), and no way out (for further investigation, with its inherent risks of contradicting what was previously considered “settled”). And yet, whenever anyone in government embraces what they call “science”, this is exactly what's happening. What they are embracing is, in effect, a new religion, and you'd better convert to it now or suffer the consequences. While at the same time, the remnant (those without fat government contracts and grants) practicing real science are ignored at best – or, at least as often, derided, scolded, shunned, and “canceled”.

(The irony here is that science – the real thing – and faith, i.e. religion – have not always been considered arch enemies. The Scholastics of the 13^th Century were perfectly at home with both, and in fact celebrated the fact that the sciences and faith were perfectly compatible – and not because they dealt with entirely different subjects with entirely different methods, but because they were in harmony, and could complement one another. This all changed, of course, with the so-called Enlightenment, which drew a line in the sand between “science” (read: materialism) and faith (AKA “superstition”), and woe unto he who attempts to cross it. This attitude persists to this day, needless to say.)

----- o -----

So far, we've dealt with, basically, the history of one year in the life of the Republic, namely 2020 -- a year to which even a master of the absurd, like Kurt Vonnegut, could not do justice. Covid-19 was exploited for totalitarian purposes, and at the same time an epidemic of “anarchy” was exploited for the exact same purposes. In both cases, it was about instilling fear in the populace – fear and helplessness – and causing them to flee, in panic, into the waiting arms of the ruling elite (cleverly disguised as a “democratically-elected government”). One could say, in imitation of Winston Churchill, that “never before was so much accomplished in so little time by so few”. The ruling elite made a killing (literally in some cases) and consolidated its gains – and, in case you haven't noticed, those gains are still in place. The Ministry of Fear (a new addition to the Executive Branch) is alive and well, and perking along like a well-oiled machine. “Monkey Pox”? That's so last week. Count on them to come up with something else within the next news cycle. The point is that Covid-19 showed the ruling elite what the populace is willing to believe – and the riots showed them what the populace is willing to put up with (but not without limit – at least so far).

Think of it as one vast experiment. Not necessarily planned (in the case of Covid) but when the “crisis” struck, the mechanisms were in place to take full advantage of it. (If it wasn't all planned, it sure felt that way, and no one can criticize any “conspiracy theorist” for believing that it was.) And the juxtaposition of Covid with the riots of Summer 2020 was the perfect formula to instill fear as well as demoralization and despair. Convince the American public that they have nothing to lose by choosing totalitarianism, and that's precisely what they'll choose. Peace at any price! Anything for (alleged) health! Better to exist as a pod person than to stand tall and with self-respect. And converting the populace to a state of servitude? All most of them will feel is a faint bump, since they are already thoroughly anaesthetized by the media and the “entertainment” industry. (Throw in professional sports if you like.) (Go Steelers!)

But now wait – if the Antifa types, and their sponsors and supporters and facilitators, were not genuine anarchists, but were just softening up the battlefield, what does that say about the agenda of the people who are really in charge? Do they really want anarchy? A Mad Max-type world, where warlords are fighting over gasoline? That hardly seems like the basis for world domination. To put it another way – how low can we go before someone hits the brakes? At what point do these clueless Antifa types outlive their usefulness and wind up exterminated like so many rodents, the way the Red Guard was after their mission for Chairman Mao was accomplished? Another way of putting it is this: Given that the revolution is under way, how far does it have to go before someone decides that it's gone far enough, and lowers the boom?

Consider, for a moment, the casualties (to date, or soon to come) of the revolution:

Honest and legitimate elections – already a thing of the past, at least on the federal level and on many state and local levels. You kind of get a glimpse of how this works when one of the two major political parties, i.e. the Republicans, are accused of being “domestic terrorists”.
The rule of law in general, vs. diktats from the White House and Congressional committees. “Equal justice under the law” is manifestly extinct (assuming it ever existed). And for all intents and purposes the law has been replaced by the regulatory state, supervised by non-elected bureaucrats who nonetheless have police powers (and police forces, in many cases).
The whole gender issue (who or what is a male or female, and do those labels mean anything, and if not should they be abolished, etc.)
Parental control over the education of their children – explicitly prohibited in many public school districts
Freedom of speech (without “being canceled” or losing one's livelihood)
Freedom of association (now referred to as “racism” and/or “sexism”) (The key concept here is that there is no longer such a thing as a “private entity”, which can be run in any way those in charge see fit. Every organization – commercial, social, religious, whatever – is now considered a public utility, and hence subject to any and all laws and regulations governing membership and how they are operated.)
Freedom of religion (without harassment or discrimination)
Privacy (vs. the government monitoring your every move and transaction)

And consider also the things that haven't changed. The United States, which is in decline in every way (economically, socially, politically, culturally, morally) is still expected to be the world's policeman, and to “spread democracy” like Johnny Appleseed, except with unlimited firepower – and to act, for all intents and purposes, as the armed forces of Western Europe, Israel, and Japan. How long anyone expects this to persist – or even be possible – is a good question; a lot of delusional thinking is going on in this area.

Just this much gets us into the territory of absurdity and farce. Then you have things like the national debt, which will never, i.e. never, never, ever, be repaid, which puts us firmly in the hands of our creditors, the most prominent being China. Then we have the latest war by proxy – Ukraine (our guys) vs. Russia (evil!). Our foreign policy – and its operatives – belong in a circus freak show. It does seem that, for all of our pretenses, we are actually in a situation not unlike that of a beached whale, to which anyone can walk up and cut off a piece of blubber. We are a blundering, staggering giant (albeit heavily armed, dangerous, and unpredictable), and the smart money is on whoever can manage to tie us up and put us in a cage like King Kong.

But is this all there is to it? Is this what the Davos crowd has in mind? Just to nibble away at the good ol' USA until there's nothing left but a hapless populace just waiting to do the bidding of whoever takes over? Are we really to become a colony of the E.U. or of other more vigorous powers (like, um, China for instance)? (And you know what being a colony means, historically – a source of raw materials, i.e. wealth which is always spirited away by the colonial power, and a source of cannon fodder for whatever wars are in fashion at the time.) (You might have noticed that the cannon fodder part of this has been underway for a bit over 100 years now, but has been more pronounced in recent decades. As I've said before, we just don't do war right – the least we can do is show a profit!)

See, when I talk about the “ruling elite”, yes, there is that class in the U.S., but there's also that class elsewhere on the globe, and the question is which is dominant? Who controls whom? I think the answer, or part of it, is that our own ruling elite are not subject to old-fashioned feelings of patriotism, or even of nationalism; they would just as soon see us go down the drain as a culture if they can remain in control and in a symbiotic relationship with the ruling elite elsewhere. This is the globalist mindset, and it's no secret – it's preached to the rafters in confabs like Davos, not to mention other less-overt hideouts around the globe. (When certain members of the ruling elite go off radar for a while – days or weeks – you can be pretty sure they're having strategy meetings somewhere, and a major agenda item will always be “whither America?”) (Up until now, their position has been that they can't live with us, but they can't live without us. Watch for the day when they decide that they can, in fact, live without us.)

In other words, to the globalists, things like countries, nations, governments (“democracies” included – both the real kind and the make-believe kind) are obsolete and just get in the way of the agenda – as do things like tradition, ethnicity, religion, customs, etc. The ideal globalist is the person who has no roots anywhere on the globe – who is truly a “world citizen”, which means, basically, a citizen of nowhere. So how can you expect them to have any kind of loyalty to... pretty much anything? The American economy? Let it crash. American “values”, traditions, etc.? Please. (A significant milestone was reached recently when some domestic organizations and governmental bodies pronounced the American flag "racist” and a “trigger”.) The Constitution? That's a waste of perfectly good scrap paper – but it still serves as a fetish object, to preserve an illusion. The American citizens (or the pathetic subset called “voters”)? Perfect candidates for slavery and/or cannon fodder. And as for religion – well, we have camps for people who still subscribe to such nonsense.

Now, notice that in none of this do we find concern for things like “women's issues”, “gender issues”, “racial issues”, etc. Not even “climate change”, in fact. No – these are luxuries and hobby-horses – political clubs with which to smite one's opponents – and they will vanish the minute the consolidation is complete. No, the global elite doesn't give a rat's ass about your “identity” – they just push identity politics as a weapon – as a way of furthering the agenda. In the brave new world of their dreams, everyone will be equally oppressed and exploited – everyone will be equally part of a “victim class”, with only the rulers having any special privileges.

This is their dream. But is it possible here? One would hope not. One indicator is that it hasn't happened yet – and not for lack of trying. The left has been working on this since the Progressive Era – there have been advances and setbacks, but you can't say victory is complete – at least not yet. All communist revolutions are, allegedly, aimed at producing a “classless” society – which they do. Almost. What you wind up with are two classes – the oppressed slaves and the elite (in the Soviet Union they were known as the Nomenklatura). And actually, this is the real goal. The last thing on earth any good revolutionary wants is to wind up with a truly anarchistic society (a contradiction in terms right there). What they want is a society of serfs with them in charge – and please notice that, as always, the poor beleaguered middle class is nowhere in sight. It's not part of the plan, any more than churches showed up in Hitler's blueprint for a new, improved Berlin. If there's one thing all anarchists and totalitarians can agree on, it's that the middle class has got to go. (How one sustains a modern technological society with a complex economy without a middle class is a good question, which they never stop to consider, leave alone answer.)

----- o -----

So to return to the home front – American society is on the way down, in every discernible way. (Give me one example where it isn't. I'm waiting.) And yet, according to my preferred model, it's not just disorder and chaos. In fact, the disorder and chaos are only on the surface – they are allowed, if you will, in order to provide cover for the real agenda and for its promoters, as well as a distraction from the task of figuring out what is really going on, and doing something about it. True disorder and chaos – true anarchy – would not be something someone could turn on and off like a light switch, which, as I pointed out, is exactly what happened after the summer riots of 2020. And – just as “war is the health of the state” in the international arena, riots are the health of the state on the domestic side; they lead to ever more layers of law and regulation, which expands the administrative state, law enforcement, and the “corrections” (read: prison) industry.

So someone is in charge. Someone is pulling the strings, and they have their foot poised over the brake pedal, although they haven't touched it as yet. (They're still too busy flooring the gas pedal.) The question is, how much is enough? Or, how much is too much, at which point adjustments have to be made? (In the early days of the Soviet Union, those in charge eventually decided that a modicum of private property and private enterprise might not be such a bad thing, given that people were starving to death by the millions because of collectivization. Something similar happened more recently in China in the wake of the Great Leap Forward and the Cultural Revolution, which counted casualties in the tens of millions. This eventually led to a mash-up of communism and capitalism, which – incredibly -- actually seems to work, although purists would say that it's neither one.) (One could write a decent treatise on the conflict of visions between human nature as it is, and human nature as altered by revolution or by fiat. Human nature as it is tends to get in the way of Utopian plans – so annoying! But just try ignoring it. If there is one thing that is never learned throughout history, it is that human nature is the same – always and everywhere.)

To help answer the question of how low can we (should we, will we) go, we have to try to think about what the ruling elite (our own, and the globalists elsewhere) want. Obviously, they want control – and the more total the better. And they don't want any competition, e.g. loyalty to race, ethnicity, religion, language, tradition, etc. They are world citizens, and everyone else should be as well, and should like it – or be punished if they don't. But ultimately, a society composed of rulers and slaves can only be stable, and even productive, if the slaves are satisfied with their lot, or at least not inclined to open rebellion. Another way of putting this is that they have to be “deracinated” – made to forget (via propaganda, amusements, drugs, whatever) that there is such a thing as genuine identity rooted in the eternal verities – race, ethnicity, faith, gender, language, custom, tradition, etc.

This, by the way, is what “diversity” is all about. It's actually conformity in disguise, as in: You can be “diverse”, but only in approved ways, i.e. in some sort of artificial, play-acting, political sense. True diversity based on culture and tradition must be stamped out, and the memory of such things must be stamped out as well. I'm always amused at what happens when the “diversity” buffs find out what a given racial/ethic group really thinks of some other racial/ethnic group. You'll find them recoiling in horror! “Surely these nice people with their cool foods and quaint costumes and folk music can't be 'racists', or bigots, or 'haters'.” Right... (Back in 1966, a friend of mine and I drove through Yugoslavia, which was still one country at that point, and we were totally unaware of all of the visceral hatreds (going back centuries) that were lurking below the placid surface and just waiting for a chance to burst forth, as they wound up doing starting in 1991.)

In any case, it seems that the revolution is already well along – not just starting, which is how it appeared in 2020. Problem is, there are pockets of resistance – big ones, and they are deep. So let's say that that resistance, however it is manifested, eventually winds up successfully co-opted, suppressed, pacified, rendered impotent. It may still be there, but it won't count. And this is, in fact, becoming the position of the “deplorables” at this time – the ruling elite is content to, basically, ignore them, unless they start to wander off the reservation (like “attacking the Capitol” for instance). But will this sort of bizarre peaceful coexistence continue? Remember that to the totalitarian, just lack of resistance is not good enough – your very mind has to be cleansed of any negative thoughts (the nearest lobotomy clinic is as close as your TV set). The media are, of course, at the forefront of this effort, but there are still holdouts, and will they be tolerated or will they be hunted down the way the Biden administration has vowed to hunt down “domestic terrorists”, AKA Trump supporters, with the help of the military? It remains to be seen.

So we will go down, because we're already going down – but hitting rock bottom? Not on the agenda, in my opinion. After all, the ruling elite have to have something to rule, right? This post-nuclear, dystopian image of the isolated fortress on a mountain in the midst of a blighted wasteland – all very picturesque, but unrealistic. I suppose one possible turning point will be when there is no longer any resistance – and once again, the major communist countries did arrive at that point eventually (although it can be argued that the Third Reich didn't – but 12 years is not really a fair test). The price to be paid was, of course, gulags – prisons – killing fields – concentration camps – and so on. (Cambodia is my favorite example, because half the population had to be slaughtered by the other half before peace could break out. But once it did, by gosh, it was the real thing!) And ironically, it almost seems that the relative lack of resistance to the revolution that we see in America today might serve to prevent things from going that far. So far, in the relativistic sense, our revolution can be considered “soft”, and it may well stay that way. I mean, if the most prominent locus of resistance is outfits like the Proud Boys, we hardly have to worry about the military splitting into two warring factions (as it did in post-revolutionary Russia), or a significant counter-revolutionary force along the lines of the War in the Vendee (France). It would seem that brute force is not the first choice of our current revolutionaries, who are more technocrats and bureaucrats than soldiers (imagine Bill Gates, in a suit of armor like Joan of Arc, leading an army) (oops, sorry, I didn't mean to say that just as you were sipping your coffee). But they have weapons that armies down through history could scarcely imagine – TV, film, the social media, communication in general, and the surveillance state, which is now firmly in place.

Please note that, in terms of popular entertainment, there are two basic types of dystopia – the less-than-completely-successful kind, where there is still significant resistance (armed and otherwise), and the successful kind where drugs, brainwashing, catering to every carnal whim, etc. have done their work. Those among us who are gearing up for a good fight might actually wish for the former kind, but my bet is that the latter is far more likely – especially since most of it is already firmly in place.

(Next up – political and historical significance)

A Disease for All Seasons

2022-05-04T20:19:00.000-04:00

It seems like only yesterday that... no, actually, it seems like it's been ten years since... I put out a blog post entitled “Conspiracies on Parade” (April 19, 2020 – still available!) inspired by the -- at that time – new and springtime-fresh plague that was well on its way to making a shambles of the economy and of society in general – not that plagues do this unaided, but that the “policies” imposed and enforced by totalitarian means to “manage” the plague had appeared almost overnight – which kind of makes you wonder, were they already set up in advance and only had to wait until the “balloon went up”, as the saying goes? (File this under the heading of “suspected, but unproven”. More to come.)

If you have the time and the inclination, I urge you to re-read (OK, read, whatever) the post in question in order to set the tone for the present discussion. In some ways, it's incredible that this problem is still with us – whatever happened to “15 days to slow the spread”? (That was the 2020 version of “duck and cover” – reassuring until people realized that it was totally absurd.)

So – using the 4/19/20 post as a baseline, I'm going to take advantage of the breather that has been bestowed upon us by Vladimir Putin, who, merely by invading Ukraine, has managed to drive all competing stories off the mainstream print and broadcast media and the Internet. We can argue all day as to what this means, as in – does it mean that Covid, nee Corona, was never real to begin with, and as such cannot hope to compete with events that are very real? Or does it mean that Covid entering Year 3 has become a bit shopworn, so even if it is genuine it's no match for newer and more exciting current events? Or is it just the MSM chasing the newest butterfly, and Covid will circle around eventually and become, once again, the Big Story?

I guess we have both Covid and Ukraine to thank for reminding us that “the news” is not necessarily what's actually most important at the time (or possibly at any other time as well), but is the result of a selection process by the collective organs of propaganda designed to maximize and accelerate the cycle of fear, and thus create, in the citizenry, despair of ever truly exercising their rights as free citizens, but to substitute an even more intense feeling of helplessness and willingness to submit to the government, AKA the ruling elite, for all their needs (including all the things they've been convinced, by the advertising industry, that they need). If fewer people than ever distrust “the news”, and government in general, that could be considered at least a thin silver living to the cloud that has been looming over us for two-plus years.

So – let's get started. The most obvious initial question is, is (was) Corona/Covid a hoax? Is it really a “novel” virus of murky origins that has attacked, without warning, the global population and necessitated a total reset of national economies and people's life styles? I admit that I haven't studied the matter in detail, but it appears that there actually is a virus out there, and that it is “novel”, in that it exhibits new qualities and new combinations of qualities (including symptoms and responses to medication and treatment), and that it's not “just the flu” as some have claimed (for one thing, it doesn't seem to exhibit the same seasonal cycles as the typical flu virus). And it appears that it does, indeed, mutate – thankfully from more dangerous to less harmful versions, but – this time more like the flu – it comes along in waves, and it will be a long time, if ever, before we will see the end of it. And the fact that it can attack people of all ages, all races/creeds/colors, in all climates, of all social and economic conditions, etc., indicates that it is robust and adaptable, even if the more serious cases seem to correlate with preexisting conditions like age, general health, obesity, life style, whether or not they watch TV (not a complete joke), and so on.

I present the foregoing as an unproven basis of reference for what follows. (For those who believe it truly is/was a complete hoax, don't touch that dial, because I'll be discussing ideas that you will find appealing aside from the hoax question.)

OK. The first theory I discussed in the previous post was:

Yes, it originated in China, but it was no accident. It was an intentional biological attack on the U.S. in retaliation for economic and trade sanctions, our position on Taiwan, our positions on currency manipulation, intellectual property, etc. As such, it was intended to be a “shot off our bow”, i.e. get out of our face or else (it could be worse).

Discussion: The China origin theory is still in question – by China. Again, choosing probability over proof (which is impossible at this point), I would say that China is the culprit. But then, was it intentional? And the first argument against this would be – if it was, why wasn't it aimed at the U.S. in a more precise, “surgical” manner? Why let it out of a lab in a city no one had ever heard of up to that point, and let it run amok in the local population, when it could have simply been shipped over here and added to the water supply in certain major cities? Answer: Can you say “plausible deniability”, class? If the first victims were Chinese citizens, that would tend to derail any notion that the virus was aimed at the U.S. – and as for any notion that normal human compassion would have prevented the Chinese government from doing such a thing, just take a weekend off some time and read up on Mao's Great Leap Forward and Cultural Revolution for a taste of how highly the Chinese government values human life.

Having said that, as retaliation for economic and trade sanctions, something that pretty much trashed the world's economy and brought world trade to a halt for a time would seem to be an odd way of going about this. (They would have been much better off demanding that we pay off their share of our national debt.) And as for Taiwan, the Chinese are playing the long game, and sure enough, it's already paying off with our response to Russia's invasion of Ukraine. The Chinese are seeing what Russia can and can't get away with, and they may be perfectly willing to commit to the same outcome for the sake of reclaiming Taiwan. (But it wouldn't be as severe, because China has a much firmer foothold in the U.S. economy than Russia ever had.)

And as for currency manipulation, guess who just put the ruble on the gold standard. That's sending more shock waves through global monetary systems than anything China ever did.

Intellectual property? The Chinese are buying so much of it up on the global market that they scarcely have to steal it any longer.

To sum up, the predictable outcome of a global pandemic would have been seen as “overkill” when it comes to getting our attention – not that China is incapable of any sort of blackmail and extortion, nor do they have any qualms about doing so. It's more a proportionality question. But before we leave this idea totally, consider Variation 1:

Variation 1: It was a probe – a test case – to see how effective biological warfare would be, what our response would be, etc. Corona was never intended to be the ultimate weapon, in other words; that's still under development.

I'll use the “precision” argument again on this one. You can test biological warfare agents in a smaller area than the entire planet. However, having said that, even if the release was not intentional it did indeed serve as a test case, which could serve quite well if, in the future, China decides to resort to biological extortion. (This falls under the heading of “unintentional consequences which turn out to be beneficial” – at least in one respect.) And yes, anyone who doesn't see Covid as the beta version of something much worse is dreaming. But then how about:

Variation 2: The intention was not only near-term but long-term. By bringing the U.S. to its knees economically, China would be assuring its ascent to the position of leading economic power on the planet – and, soon to follow, leading military power.

This is actually a more likely motive. Any plague that impacts the entire globe will impact the U.S., and more severely in some respects, since we have the most complex, multi-layered, interdependent economy on earth – a benefit of our technological and logistical sophistication, but also an Achilles' Heel, as was brought out in sharp relief in the first few months of the pandemic. “The bigger they are, the harder they fall” could have been coined to describe what happened to the U.S. economy – true no matter what one thinks of the motives of the authorities. Could China have predicted a total lockdown of the U.S. economy? Seems unlikely, but who can say? They may have actually been pleasantly surprised at the readiness with which our officials committed economic suicide. In any case, it did serve to weaken us on both an absolute scale and also relative to other less complex, less “developed” economies around the globe.

I say this is more likely, but I would still not give it a very high grade, for the simple reason that China already has a virtual stranglehold on large sectors of the U.S. economy, and why “blow it” by causing unneeded distress, chaos, and destruction? Leave the heavy-handedness to others. Remember, when it comes to China, the long game and patience are the watchwords, as they have been throughout their history.

OK, then – but how about:

Variation 3: The focus was on causing major damage to our military, which has turned out (no surprise, if you know anything about history) to be particularly vulnerable to viral infections and epidemics. If you can sap the strength of the U.S. military, and get it to stand down, it's much easier for China to continue its high jinks in the South China Sea unimpeded. (If the military was the prime target, then the civilian population counts only as “collateral damage” – something that aggressors are always willing to accept.)

I think we can safely dispense with this one. Our military turned out to be quite robust in its response to the pandemic, and the fact that military personnel tend to be young and healthy, and in good physical condition, was probably the best preventive one could hope for. And yes, disease has ever been the enemy of armies – but they didn't have the resources we have, and Covid turns out to be much less deadly than most of the traditional, “old-fashioned” diseases that armies are prone to.

However, this does not mean that something much more lethal couldn't be unleashed, in a more precise fashion, on our military, either in garrison or in war zones – and this is the very reason that the military has long been heavily involved in research and prevention when it comes to biological warfare. So from that point of view, the “test case” theory – even if unintentional – gets high marks.

Then there's the footnote to the preceding scenarios:

China has decided that a direct military confrontation with the U.S. would be costly, and they might not even win. So they had to come up with something completely different (if not totally unexpected – after all, we've been studying the biological warfare issue since before World War II).

Again, Covid turned out to be a dud in this respect, but it may have paved the way for something worse – something that could turn the tide in a military confrontation. But this assumes (1) conventional forces rather than air power only (or nukes); and (2) solving the precision issue (recall how mustard gas attacks in World War I often backfired when the wind shifted). So this is certainly a reason for vigilance.

That was the first scenario with variations. Now we shift gears a bit:

It was a false flag operation on the part of the globalists and their collaborators in the U.S. (including no small portion of the Deep State). See that China gets the blame, while in fact they are creating a crisis in order to (1) cut the U.S. down to size, and (2) increase the power of central government exponentially, which will, in turn, (3) increase the power of the globalist elite once they consolidate their control over the U.S. government, which will, at that point, become a mere proxy or shadow government for the globalist empire, the way most Western European governments already are.

“False flag?” That's exactly what the Chinese are claiming, and they haven't given up on that story. My sense is that the preponderance of evidence indicates that the origin was in China and connected to a Chinese military research facility. But again – was it “an ill wind” that provided unexpected benefits to those with globalist tendencies? Certainly. When you see the ease with which the U.S. economy was, for all intents and purposes, nationalized (the government not taking over, but regulating, down to the most minute detail, businesses from the largest to the most minuscule) – and the ease with which virtually all other human activities were either locked down or closely monitored (schools, shopping, dining, live entertainment, etc.), the results could only have warmed the hearts of globalists and totalitarians everywhere. If America, the land of the free, can be turned into a land of helpless victims, paralyzed by fear, almost overnight, then there is no limit, is there? If it can happen here it can happen anywhere (and has, by and large – especially (ironically) in the other English-speaking countries).

Now... if you've noticed an apparent contradiction between the agenda of cutting the U.S. down to size and increasing the power of central government, allow me to clarify. We get cut down to size on the international/global/diplomatic level (well under way with Biden in charge), but on the domestic level become more totalitarian (ditto). The result is that the citizenry become acclimated to big government that meddles in every aspect of their lives, but at the same time the global elite are consolidating their reach and their power, with America as first prize. So the transition from what we have now to one-world government would be painless, if even noticeable. (This is assuming it hasn't already happened, which is a point worth debating.) I think this is the long-term plan with or without China, and with or without Covid – just that Covid has served to accelerate the process and provide a convenient rationale for measures which would otherwise have looked obviously tyrannical.

So really, the question of whether or not to “blame” China has faded into obscurity at this point. The test case was created, intentionally or not, and it had results... data were gathered... and the outlines of what global tyranny would look like became shockingly clear. Shockingly – because of how easy it was. We thought we valued freedom, but the next minute we were locking ourselves indoors for months at a time, then marching off, robot-like, to vaccination centers, with “smiley faces” everywhere you look. The wonderful world of George Orwell is here! It's no longer a threat, or a distant possibility.

I would say that of all the “benefits” of the plague – looked-for and otherwise – this has to stand as the one that will be seen to have made the most difference in the long run. The global elite has the citizenry by the – well, you know – and half the citizenry doesn't care, and the other half are reduced to bootless protests for which they are promptly punished.

And again, the U.S. was more severely impacted simply because of the titanic structure of our economy and the social mechanisms that go with it, and this did indeed cut us down, not quite to size, but enough to provide welcome data for the global elite's future planning. The U.S. will not be a pocket of resistance, in other words – we will not be the Ukraine to the global elite's Russia. There will be resistance, for sure; there already is. But the main elements have been shown up in all of their weakness and vulnerability – the ready demoralization of the populace is now a historical fact – and we have, when you run the numbers, many more who comply, and cooperate, and follow the crowd off the cliff than those troublemakers who believe in liberty and self-sufficiency. And don't think any of this has gone unnoticed. It will come back to haunt us, and sooner than we expect.

OK then... how about this:

It was cooked up by the vaccination industry and lobby in order to demonstrate, once and for all, that vaccination is the only way to survive, and that vaccinations for every conceivable ailment, up to and including toenail fungus, should be mandated by the government, and anyone who objects should be arrested and jailed because their reckless ideas threaten public health.

This is another case of a “discovered benefit”. I don't think the vax people started it, but the way they jumped on it indicates that it was, for them, a blessing in disguise – not only because it freed up unlimited funding, but it gave them time (nearly a year) to work up the narrative that vaccination was the only thing that was going to save the human race from this plague – and that any alternative treatments were unscientific, dangerous, and should be banned. And this is still the basic narrative, although things have loosened up a bit with regard to therapeutics, owing largely to the pressure of public (1) skepticism re vaccination and (2) demand for alternatives. And of course, the counter-narratives about the dangers of the vaccines, side effects, unexplained deaths, etc. added to the mix. As did, of course, the passage of time, which showed that refusing to be vaccinated was not a death sentence, and that the “unvaxed” were not an army of Typhoid Marys out to infect and kill everyone else.

Another contributing factor – and perhaps the most important one – has been the complete and utter politicization of the whole thing. First it was “Trump's vaccine”, which no self-respecting liberal would submit to. And then the instant Biden moved into the White House it became “Biden's vaccine”, which acquired sacramental status among liberals, but caused skepticism and downright paranoia among Trump supporters, conservatives in general, libertarians, and pretty much anyone else who could be described as anti-establishment.

So what are we to make of a medical treatment that is accepted or rejected based almost solely on one's political position? There are other things in medicine that show a similar phenomenon, and things in the food and beverage industries as well, but this seems like an extreme case, which is odd since we're supposedly talking about “science” here, right? Isn't that one of the few areas of life in which we can find general agreement? Well... no. The lesson is that when science is corrupted by politics it ceases to be science, for all intents and purposes. It becomes a battleground and a political cause instead – and given what has been going on for many years with “global warming”, AKA “climate change”, this should not have come as a complete surprise.

And this phenomenon is not limited to the “unwashed” by any means. Scientists themselves tend to become defensive at the drop of a hat, as witness the grandiose statements by Anthony Fauci. (Didn't he, at one point, say “I AM science”, or something to that effect? And here I thought Louis XIV had retired.) But this is because they have, at some point, left science behind and opted to become media stars (Fauci again) – and once this happens there is no turning back, because your credibility is in the dumpster.

(And don't get me wrong. I'm a trained scientist myself – but I think I know where science leaves off and politics (and personal agendas) begin. Science is supposed to be self-correcting; in fact, that's one of its essential qualities, without which it devolves into belief and opinion. When the self-correcting function is disabled (as it was with much of the media coverage of the pandemic and the treatments) then whatever remains is untrustworthy and deserves all the skepticism it attracts.)

Try a thought experiment here. What if the space program – not the funding priorities but the actual technology – had turned into a political battlefield? We'd never have even gotten into orbit, leave alone to the Moon (relax, Moon landing skeptics – I'm just trying to make a point here). It's interesting that when it comes to rocket science, which very people understand (hence the meme), politics tends to take a back seat – or no seat at all. But when it comes to medicine, which everybody thinks they understand to some extent (especially media talking heads and entertainment types), politics can take over with no trouble. Oh, but – you might say – medicine is an inexact science compared to the pure physics of rocketry; there is plenty of room for opinion and debate. Fair enough, but that opinion and debate should still be confined to the sphere of science rather than becoming raw meat for the media, Internet, and late-night talk shows. Covid seems to have turned the entire populace, from the lowest to the highest, into medical experts, whereas it more likely just accelerated and amplified the pre-existing level of ignorance.

And then we have –

It was a false flag operation on the part of our own Deep State, which seeks (1) a death blow to the Trump administration, because all other efforts have failed; and (2) an exponential increase in the power and reach of the Deep State, with the ultimate goal of complete control of the citizenry, including monitoring all movements, transactions, and social contacts. (The totalitarian dream, in other words.)

This would make sense if one considers the Corona/Covid virus to be a complete hoax. I have allowed that there is “something” to it, just not as presented in the doomsday/end-of-the-world manner of the health establishment early on, and their facilitators in the media. But – never letting a crisis go to waste, the enemies of Donald Trump, which were (and continue to be) legion, jumped at the chance to accuse Trump & Co. of “not doing enough” – as if anyone knew, at the time, what should be done. The utter chaos that characterized (and continues to) things like masks, social distancing, isolation, etc. – recall that this was pre-vaccination – was happily used, by his enemies, as a mark against Trump. Another discovered benefit, in other words.

I think it can at least be postulated that, despite all of the efforts of the combined Deep State, the media, academia, the entertainment industry, Congress, the intelligence/law enforcement community, etc. to bring down Trump and his administration, it might have survived the election of 2020 if Covid hadn't been in the mix. But along with everything else, Covid became the poison pill that put Biden over the top. I can't prove this, of course, but I present it as a possibility.

As for the larger issue of increasing the power and reach of the Deep State, it certainly accomplished that to some degree, as any crisis will, which is why we now have, firmly established, government-by-crisis (being a perfect reflection of the media, for whom crises are their life's blood).

The biggest surprise, however, was the extent to which mayors and governors have absolute power – or, let's say, they can assume absolute power and no one can stop them. It turns out that mayors really do rule cities, and that governors really do rule states – to a much more thorough extent than anything the federal government is capable of at this point. In an ironic sort of way, this should have been good news to libertarians and fans of subsidiarity – but of course it depended on whether the officials in question had libertarian leanings, or whether they fancied themselves mini-Napoleons. Unfortunately, there were more of the latter type than of the former. But still, as a lesson learned, it was quite striking, and one should take it to heart whenever elections come around. Your vote might wind up electing the next tinhorn dictator – is that what you want?

Or –

It was a false flag operation on the part of our economic “planners”, political ideologues, “agents of change”, and the ruling elite. Getting rid of Trump is necessary, but it's only a first step. The main goal is to deliver the final death blow to the American middle class, and finally achieve what the elites have been dreaming of for generations – namely, a slave state made up of serfs and rulers, with the middle class eliminated as an economic and political factor. Note that:

The titans of big business have no problem at all with the shutdown – in fact, they're urging Trump to keep it going indefinitely. That should be a clue right there. And with their cash reserves, they can weather just about anything while they wait for their “stimulus” check from the Treasury Department.
The ruling elite and the working classes have recently discovered a common cause in demonizing the middle class and gradually eroding its resources and influence. This is exemplified in the makeup of the Democratic Party.
The economic shutdown is having a much more severe effect on the middle class – in terms of employment, income, and small business – than on big business (an example being the DJIA, which took a major hit but is still alive and well, because it represents big business, which has sufficient reserves to ride this out, whereas small businesses are dropping like flies and unlikely to recover). (It's also possible that the scheme included letting the Dow take a hit as a cover – “See, we're suffering too”, etc. But see what recovers first when this is over with.)

Again, I don't trust the false-flag idea, but as a discovered benefit – sure. Who suffered the most from the lockdowns? Well, we know the answer – small business, i.e. an activity of the middle class. Small businesses of all sorts, with the possible exception of carry-outs, were indeed dropping like flies for many months – and Internet-based businesses (owned by oligarchs) prospered as never before. Which is to say that countless middle-class people took an economic hit and became no longer middle class, but members of the vast army of “service industry” wage earners.

So has this situation reversed itself to any significant degree? I don't have the numbers of this, but what I suspect is that people who became accustomed to buying via the Internet decided it wasn't a bad idea – kind of convenient, actually – a lot of choices, etc. Stuff gets delivered. And so on. So if there is a recovery, I suspect it's far from complete – and one could argue that there's nothing wrong with this, but that would be to say that small businesses ought to just go quietly away and leave it up to Amazon. Pardon me if I'm somewhat sentimental about “Main Street” and the people who work there (or used to).

I'm going to copy the footnotes to the above theory without further comment. I think they still have considerable general relevance independently of the Covid era. (And please excuse the formatting issues -- they are beyond my total control.)

Footnote 1: Why is the middle class so despised and persecuted? (And why, for that matter, has this process been going on ever since the Progressive Era, although it has become much more blatant over the last 50 years?) For one thing, it tends to be, and vote, conservatively-- especially if you're talking about people in agriculture, small business, and the skilled trades. People who do meaningful work that has a well-defined product, and people with ties to the land, are naturally more conservative. It's the paper traders and parasites who tend toward the liberal side.

Footnote 2: What the people in charge of this project intend is for small business to vanish, and for all of those enterprises to be absorbed into vast industrial and commercial cartels which will eventually become synonymous with the State. Note that (1) this process is already underway, with predatory large businesses gobbling up small businesses at a rapid rate, and turning those business owners into franchisees at best, and wage slaves at worst; and (2) what we call “crony capitalism” will, in its ultimate state of evolution, become either business being a wholly-owned subsidiarity of the State, or vice versa. This will be a distinction without a difference. Whether those in charge are called CEOs or commissars will make no difference to the disenfranchised citizenry.

Footnote 3: But how does a “modern, industrialized society” function without a middle class? We've had that discussion before. The answer is that it doesn't – not in the way we're used to. But the Soviet Union managed to pull it off for many decades. (China, on the other hand, was stuck in the stone age until they decided to try a bit of free enterprise and property rights. And apparently it worked.)

And finally...

It was a deal worked out between China – birth-control experts extraordinaire – and the ZPG cartel, to reduce populations worldwide because free and unrestricted abortion has failed to do the job (as has war).

It was an act of sabotage by the “greens” and eco-fanatics, who are already celebrating the improvement in air quality as the result of restrictions on commerce and travel.

As to the first, the birth-control movement always has a keen interest in anything that threatens to reduce global populations, whether by “natural causes” or otherwise. China has, of course, been on the side of radical birth control for decades; less so in the U.S., and here one notices that the campaign is typically aimed at certain selected minorities – the same ones that Margaret Sanger didn't think too much of. But as for a deal having been made, again I see what may have been an accident as a test case as well. I'm sure it got the attention, in particular, of not only birth-control advocates but ZPG types, and the even more radical element that wants to reduce global populations back to levels of a few decades ago. In the practical sense, using biological weapons as a shotgun approach to reducing populations would certainly raise containment issues. After all, we all breathe the same air (at least I assume the ruling elites do).

As for the “greens”, now that one of the benefits of working from home, or not working, has been brought out in sharp relief, you can expect them to continue to promote this as a good trend (and, having dealt with traffic on the D.C. Beltway for many years, I find it hard to disagree).

But speaking of biological weapons... the “elephant in the room” in all of this, and something that is completely suppressed by the mainstream media, is the question of what on earth we were doing not only working with the Chinese government on biological warfare research, but actually supporting it (Fauci again). I mean... OK, we've been experimenting with bio-warfare agents for decades, presumably in order to develop defenses in case the technology is aimed at us (either at our military or our population in general). And it wouldn't be all that scandalous if we were working with our allies on the same thing. But China? Our “enemy”, “rival”, “competitor for world dominance”? I mean, what's going on here? Maybe someone figured that the old saying “keep your friends close and your enemies closer” should apply to bio-warfare research. Or, maybe we were anticipating that someday we and China would be working together in order to... what? You can see why the MSM don't want to open this can of worms. And yet, I think it's the most important question that can be asked at this point. If we worked with China and funded this research and then something “escaped”, isn't that just as much our fault as theirs? In order to make any sense of this, you have to go way beyond the standard conspiracy model.

In a world of paradoxes, a few stand out when it comes to Covid. One is that there was a sudden and significant centralization of commerce (from “brick and mortar” to the Internet), but at the same time a decentralization of the workplace (office vs. home, school vs. home). Also, the pandemic was “managed” (so to speak) by the federal government in terms of distribution of healthcare resources and information (just kidding – it was the opinions of “experts” who changed their minds on a daily basis). But there was also considerable management – much of it way more effective than the federal variety – at the state and local level. Likewise, the more localized policy decisions tended to be more effective and less economically/socially disruptive than the diktats that came down from on high (Washington, D.C., that is). The “experts” on the federal payroll couldn't avoid contradicting each other (and themselves) on a regular basis, whereas there were some more level-headed types working things out at the state (some, not all) and local (ditto) level.

Another unanticipated consequence was the discovery – out of sheer necessity – of home schooling, by parents who had never considered it as a possibility up to then. In many cases they decided they liked it – and that it was, in some cases, worth giving up that second paycheck for – so they kept their kids home even after the schools opened up again – much to the dismay, I'm sure, of the teachers' unions and the boards of education. (And I'm sure the grass-roots movement against the teaching of CRT, and things like the transgender locker room issue, didn't hurt the cause either.)

And last but far from least, we have the most general phenomenon resulting from all of this, namely the ever-widening political and social gap in American society. It was there before, of course – it's been there pretty much since the Founding, but what was arguably a fault line in the 1960s has grown into a canyon, and you can credit Covid and the responses to it, along with the War on Trump, for the yawning abyss we see before us now. And yes, there was a lot more going on in 2020 than a new mystery disease, lest we forget; it was truly an annus horribilis. But some good has come from it as well, it seems to me. Another layer of our much-treasured American optimism and naivete has been chipped away – and I for one would rather see things more as they truly are than to cling to illusions. And anyone with a sense of history can at least appreciate the fact that so much has been brought out in sharp relief – mostly bad, but some good as well. As I've said before, no one wants to live in history – it's too messy, confusing, chaotic, and dangerous. Much better to sit back and view it from afar – in books, on Wikipedia, in movies, etc. But when you're in it, you're in it, and there's no sense in pretending things are any other way.

Thus, my take on Covid and some of the theories that were floating around early on – and continue to do so in many cases. I have chosen to argue against one major class of theories having to do with intentional release of the virus; the probability is still not zero, and never will be, but it just doesn't seem to fit into the big picture. However, the overall theme of “discovered benefits” – mostly negative in their impact on the plain citizen – can be found at every turn. “Cui bono?” And I would say, basically, the usual suspects – globalists, totalitarians, would-be dictators, population control advocates, the ruling elite, multinational corporations, anti-Americans everywhere (including here in America), Big Medicine, Big Pharma, the utterly shameless mainstream media, the Deep State, dictator wannabe's everywhere, population and environmental activists... but also China itself, and biological warfare specialists, all benefiting from the rich data base created by the pandemic.

Who, on the other hand, has suffered the most? Again, the usual victims – the beleaguered middle class, freedom and liberty in general, patriots, and those with a residual and naive trust in government. The good news is that many of these have put up a fight. They protested... they engaged in civil disobedience... the asserted themselves as citizens of a free (even if no longer free) country. The human spirit is not to be conquered by mere diktats or the pronouncements of tyrants – or of the increasingly transparent propaganda apparatus.

And of course there is always that first casualty of war (or any major crisis), namely the truth. We look in vain to find it in the “news”, the media, political speeches, and pronouncements of the current administration and many governors' and mayors' offices. It's truly a taste of what many people around the world had to put up for generations, and continue to do so in many cases – Soviet Russia and its clones come first to mind, but there are other guilty parties as well.

And dare we point out the serious damage this episode did to families, local organizations, freedom of assembly, freedom of association, freedom of speech, freedom of medical choice, neighborhoods, and friendships? There are people to this day peering out from behind masks... at other people peering out from behind masks. (A better stage set for a dystopian drama, where individuality and personhood have been abolished, can hardly be imagined.) There are countless places one is not allowed to enter without a “vax card” (“Your papers, please” – says the guy in the trench coat with the Luger in his pocket). Paranoia has a new face, except that it's just half a face. The “unvaxed” have been made second-class citizens... no, worse – lepers! Unclean! Truly, the pod people have taken over in many parts of the country. And yes, the madness seems to be abating a bit, but there has been permanent damage, and the scars will remain – for a lifetime I imagine.

But to end on a more positive note – the eternal verities are still with us because they are indeed eternal. They may be attacked and persecuted by malevolent rulers, but they will not die because they are an essential component of human nature – and in this, at least, we may have hope.

What's Wrong with Loudoun County?

2021-10-12T16:20:00.000-04:00

Loudoun County, Virginia has become the epicenter of the “cold civil war” between the woke/progressive movement – the latest incarnation of the revolution -- and people who are – or who at least consider themselves to be -- “normal”, i.e. ordinary American citizens who ask nothing more than to be left alone. But the question arises, why there, and why now? I believe I can shed some light on the subject, since I lived there for all of 24 years.

First, a bit of geography. Look at a map of Virginia which highlights counties. Working out from D.C., you first come to Arlington County, which was, long ago and far away, part of D.C. (which explains why it's the other part of the 10x10 mile diamond). Arlington, which up until World War II was a scattering of small settlements, got a shot in the arm with the war and the building of the Pentagon and became what is known as a “bedroom suburb”. Over time, Arlington got filled up, so the cancer which actually began with the New Deal spread to Fairfax County, which over time became an even larger and more sprawling bedroom suburb. But like any malignant growth, the government blob needed ever more space, so by 1981 the cancer had spread across the county line into Loudoun – not far, mind you, but enough to constitute a significant “fringe”, beyond which all was still bucolic and green (in the traditional sense). (I used to joke that the suburbs on the eastern edge of Loudoun County were the servants' quarters for Fairfax County. True up to a point, except a lot of the hapless Loudoun residents had to commute all the way into D.C. on a daily basis, a process so brutal that it could be compared to the Trail of Tears. And even so, we spent a lot of time “pitying the fools” who commuted from places even farther away, like Harper's Ferry, Gettysburg, and the Eastern Shore of Maryland. You look hard enough and you can always find someone more miserable than you are.)

So, taking a snapshot circa 1981, Loudoun County was still, by and large, rural. We settled in one of the “borderline” developments, and right across the main road there were horses grazing. And from where we lived to Leesburg (the county seat) it was all horses. Now it's all developments. In fact, the developments have oozed around Leesburg, which is protected by ironclad ordinances, not to mention political pull – in order to preserve its colonial-era, quaint, and picturesque features. (You can't move a brick or prune a tree in “old” Leesburg without getting a permit from the authorities. Needless to say, real estate prices there are comparable to those on Martha's Vineyard. But who can argue with a place that has more boxwood hedges than anywhere else in the U.S.?)

The last time I checked, which was 15 years ago, the suburban sprawl had reached all the way to the first ridge west of Leesburg, and was quickly crawling up said ridge in search of new worlds to despoil. But that was not the only trend of note, by any means. The social history of Washington, D.C. and its suburbs has one overriding theme, which is that people come there in order to get good-paying jobs. And who wouldn't? Problem is, they bring their – in some cases “traditional” – points of view with them. Why, many of them have intact families! And they “cling” to guns and Bibles! And so on. This is because they generally come from farther west or farther south, which means from “the hills”, from “God's country”, and all of that feisty Scotch-Irish DNA doesn't always take kindly to the New Deal/enlightened/progressive/liberal/socialist/woke-ism that emanates out of D.C. like fallout from an atomic blast, except over a much longer time.

So even way back in 1981, there were already signs of trouble. The “Billy Bobs” from up in them thar hills who attended the Evangelical and Fundamentalist churches had to confront, on the job and occasionally right next door, the opposing force – namely big-government socialism and all of its attendant annoyances and persecutions, not to mention its true believers, who considered the outer suburbs as a kind of mission field – the thinking being something along the lines of “We will enlighten these knuckle-draggers and mouth-breathers, at the point of a gun if need be, and turn them into citizens of the New World Order whether they like it or not.”

Not only that, but the first notable entity in Loudoun County to succumb to the new New Deal mind set was the county government. So you had, basically, a county with a suburban fringe on one end, a “hunt country” elite on the other end (quickly moving on to greener pastures in order to escape suburban sprawl - after cashing out handsomely, needless to say), and in the middle a county government that was indistinguishable from what one might find in, let's say, Sweden, but with even more of an animus toward religion, “family values”, and conservatism of any kind.

“You say 'mayter', and I say to-mah-to”. The ruling class of Loudoun County were NPR listeners, everyone else was into country music. It was BMWs vs. pickup trucks with gun racks. It was polite Episcopalians vs. charismatic Fundamentalists who spoke in tongues. It was gourmet shops vs. BBQ joints. And so on. But, all in all, despite these canyon-like cultural differences there was a kind of peaceful coexistence – the two sides tended to stay out of each other's way most of the time (except when the “regular folks” wound up in court and were confronted by prosecutors straight out of Stalin's show trials).

And – bringing us up to the present day – all was, at first, more or less quiet on the public school front. The “agents of change” had yet to flex their muscles in that venue, and although the county education officials had definite totalitarian tendencies, this had not yet trickled down to the grass roots. Besides, many of the serious traditionalists already had their kids enrolled in church-based schools – all across the spectrum from Evangelical to Fundamentalist. So the public schools were an accident waiting to happen – and sure enough, it has now happened, much to the amazement and puzzlement of all. But if you understand the social history of the place, you understand exactly what's going on. The traditionally-minded, family-oriented people saw nothing terribly wrong with sending their kids off to the public schools, assuming that the “3 R's” were still being taught. Which they were, up to a point – and that was the point at which the agents of change... the vanguard of the revolution, of the culture war... decided to shift into high gear and start introducing... well, you know... all the garbage that is now – whether virtually or in-person, masked or unmasked -- being dumped on public school kids without the knowledge or consent of their parents. And ironically it's the very incidence of the pandemic that has helped bring things to a head. As has been pointed out any number of times, remote, at-home learning necessitated by the pandemic enabled parents to see, for the first time, what their kids were being taught in school, and the response was indignation, outrage, and an urge to not only speak truth to power but to topple that power from its throne. And this was at the same time CRT came along – along with transgender bathrooms and athletes – sex education at a fever pitch (“sex ed” has been with us for decades, but it has now reached escape velocity) – and any of the thousand varieties of race- and gender-shaming that are now everyday business in the public schools. Not to mention masks! Another way of putting it is that the pandemic was supposed to have served as a rationale and as a cover for an escalation of the culture war, in spite of any new level of awareness on the part of the parents. (Or – to put a finer point on it – no one expected the parents to notice that their kids were being brainwashed by Marxists, so when they did notice it caused great consternation and dismay. Busted! And now that sleeping giant known as “parents” is speaking up, and getting in the way, and disturbing the traditionally tranquil atmosphere of school board meetings.)

So imagine if you're a parent with kids in public school in Loudoun County. You moved there to get closer to the cornucopia of unlimited cash and jobs that is D.C. – who wouldn't? And you, innocently, expected the values and attitudes you grew up with in East Overshoe, West Virginia to be reinforced, or at least not actively opposed, by the schools you were sending your kids to. Then came the “reveal”, and now parents are standing up in school board meetings and demanding to know what in hell is going on – and the school board members just sit there stone-faced, like Soviet officials standing on Lenin's Tomb during the May Day parade on Red Square. Yes, they've been “outed”, they've been exposed, but hey – they have all the power, the law is on their side, they represent the dominant culture, and, basically, the parents can just stick it where the sun don't shine. This is their attitude. But I say that this attitude has been building up for nigh unto 40 years now; it's just recently that it has come out into the open through repeated confrontation. And, by the way, it's also a subset of the broader premise that the government owns your children, and all you are is a caretaker at best. And, that the real work – the work of creating a new type of citizen for the servile state – is done away from the atavistic and suffocating atmosphere of “the home”.

And if that weren't enough, now the school boards have called in the FBI to protect them from indignant parents. If you're looking for a Soviet Union starter kit, seek no further – this is not the first battle, nor is it the last, but it's the most consequential. The revolution has always known that the next generation is key – not the grandparents, not the parents (AKA “deplorables”), but the “young skulls full of mush” as Rush Limbaugh used to say. Win the hearts and minds of the next generation and you've won, and the old folks can go to hell; that's the attitude. And the thing is, this works! Or, it works if it is unopposed. Right now the revolution holds all the cards... it has all the political power... it has most (but not all) of the guns... so prospects are not good. But to not oppose would mean to capitulate, to be less then men, less than human... and is this the legacy we want to pass on to the next generation? I fervently hope not.

To paraphrase an old political saying, as Loudoun County goes, so goes the nation – if people do not speak the whole truth to the real power. If they do and fail anyway, it will usher in a long night, and many of us may not live to see the dawn. The Soviet Union lasted 70-plus years before the Russians finally came to their senses and reasserted themselves as a culture – a very traditional and religious one at that. This will take patience, but it will take faith even more.

Things Are Going Swimmingly -- Some Pool Observations

2021-08-13T15:37:00.001-04:00

Being an amateur anthropologist and a bit of a people watcher, I've turned my attention of late to our community pool, which is large enough to hold pretty much every species and sub-species of human being. I've come up with a typology – a work in progress, if you will – but wanted to share it now, in hopes people can make their own contributions. See if you recognize any of these types! (But first, get in the mood. Think sun. Think soothing breezes, and the cloying scent of chlorine... )

The Bobbers:  They just stand there, bobbing up and down.  Up and down.  Up and down.  Hour after hour.  (singly or in groups of 2 or 3)

The Conversationalists:  They also just stand there, but don't even bob.  Instead they talk, in groups of 2 or more.  Talk about pretty much anything.  Hour after hour.  

The Floaters:  They lie on one of those inflatable mattresses and let themselves be carried along by the current.  They usually appear to be sound asleep.  (I never see any of them either getting into or out of the water.  I assume they're there all day.  Maybe they never leave.)  

The Odd Couple:  How on earth did they ever find each other?  

The Serious Senior Citizen Lady who typically uses the lap lane, and who was probably a varsity swimmer in her college days.  She typically wears a bathing cap, which is a rarity these days.

The Serious Senior Citizen Man:  See above.  (minus the bathing cap, and usually minus hair)    

Les Amants:  This would be a young (or not so young) couple that just stand there in an embrace, looking dreamily into each other's eyes and smiling.  (I don't know what's going on under the surface.  Maybe I don't want to know.)

The Olympians:  They churn through the water doing the Australian crawl, and heaven help you if you get in their way.

The Lap Swimmers:  They stay in their lane and focus on endurance.  Hats off!

The Muscle Beach types:  There's no one like that in Pittsburgh.

The Shouters:  These are the people who spend five or ten minutes trying to get someone else's attention by screaming at the top of their lungs.  Either they're in the water and the other person is on the side, or vice-versa.  They operate on the assumption that sound carries better over water – problem is, they're competing against 50 kids all yelling at the same time, and against Bob FM coming out of the P.A. System at 100 decibels.

The Nerds:  This is 2 or 3 skinny teenage boys who engage in half-hearted horseplay with no girls in sight.

The Biggies:  These are the folks who go in the water to get the weight off their spines and legs.  I don't mean just mildly overweight people; I mean Really Big People, like the large-helping-of-fries-at-every-meal kind of big.  

The Cool Kids:  They aren't in the water.  They're hanging around the snack bar.

The Sunbathers:  They're out there frying themselves to a toasty brown.  I don't sense much sunscreen in use.  Hope they have good health insurance.

The Mystery Colors:  People who already have a deep tan on the first day of the season, and people who are still a pasty white on the last day.  

The Intellectual Loners:  They find the most secluded spot in the place (on land, I mean) and just settle in.  They're often reading a book.  A big book.  With no pictures.  

The Day Care Ladies who are shepherding a platoon of toddlers and pre-schoolers.  (I don't know how they keep their sanity.  Maybe they don't.)  

The woman wheeling an industrial-size baby stroller which is brimming over with tote bags, towels, pool toys, and assorted bits of clothing.  (I assume there's a baby in there somewhere, but lots of luck finding it.)  

The Harried Lifeguards who blow their whistle for five minutes hoping to get the attention of someone who is breaking the rules.  Problem is, no one thinks they're breaking the rules so no one thinks the whistle is for them.

The Lady at the Entrance who has to explain the Byzantine rate system (age, residency, single, family, daily, seasonal, etc. etc.) about 50 times a day.

The Great Migrators:  The people (usually families) who walk out at 4:30 on the dot.  This is a legacy of the old days when all the factories let out at the same time and the wife had to be home in time to prepare dinner so it would be ready when the husband got home from work.  Heaven forbid dinner should start even a minute past 6 PM!  Don't yinz know it's bowling night?

The Ice Cubes:  These are the folks (typically pale, thin young women) who take forever to get in the water, and are shivering the whole time.  (They're always accompanied by a husband or boyfriend who, with great patience, tries to encourage them.) (Needless to say, if they should dare to splash the woman, the engagement is off!!)

The Water Cannon Kids:  Usually boys.  OK – always boys, never girls.  You do the math.

The Head Lifeguard, who marches up and down like a drill sergeant keeping the troops in line.  (He'd love to have a riding crop, but it's not standard issue.)

The Water Hogs:  These are the guys who play toss and catch (usually 2 to 4 players) and try to see how much of the pool they can monopolize with their game.  Of course, you can try and swim across their playing field, but then you risk being whacked by a missed catch.  (This is the only activity which I feel should be entirely banned.  Some of the others are annoying, but unlikely to lead to serious injury.)

So... there you are, and I'm sure there are a few I've missed (or that are found in pools other than the one I frequent).  Please feel free to add your own observations!    