It's ironic that at the moment the liberal intelligentsia is on the verge of virtual totalitarian control over this nation's avenues of thought, they've lost all standards and appeal as an intellectual force. Case in point is the Notebook piece in the November Harper's by Editor Roger D. Hodge, who states that Democrats in this election campaign aren't lying enough. This from a man who approved two cases of plagiarism which appeared in his magazine's pages, previously discussed on this blog. (See the archives for January and February of 2005.)
Contrary to what his essay implies, liberal Democrats-- largely through the press and culture-- have unleashed a hurricane of abuse upon the other side, most specifically upon VP candidate Sarah Palin. From his lofty intellectual perch of deliberate untruth he designates Governor Palin as "unsuitable" to have been nominated. In the next breath, after his notably UNdemocratic assessment, Hodge claims liberal Democrats as being more democratic than the other side. Does he truly believe this? Or is he being intentionally misleading, as his essay advocates? (The liberal intelligentsia, as shown by their utter scorn for working class upstarts, have shown themselves to have little real commitment to the democratic spirit.)
Liberals like Hodge have nakedly withdrawn their commitment to the ideal of truth, and so as intellectuals, as spokesmen for this culture, have damaged no one so much as themselves.
Friday, October 31, 2008
Tuesday, October 28, 2008
The Crisis Mentality
The U.S. financial system has been a bubble for decades. The panic now being experienced has been generated by the government and by the monopoly media.
A case can be made, now that an overdue washout has begun, for letting it happen so that it's effective and brief. See a book by Murray Rothbard, America's Great Depression. At some point I'll put up a companion to a previous post, "The Conservative Fallacy." The new post will be titled "The Leftist Fallacy"-- which is related in more ways than one would think.
WHERE IS IT?
We should beware of all media-generated crises. Right now, as bitter winter already sets in to pre-Halloween Detroit, I'm wondering: What happened to Global Warming? Has anyone seen it?
The American people are being scam-whipsawed these past ten years by both the Right and the Left through repeated crises. If, as a noted liberal has implied, the Constitution has placed would-be totalitarians inside a box, we're seeing repeated efforts to break out of that box.
A case can be made, now that an overdue washout has begun, for letting it happen so that it's effective and brief. See a book by Murray Rothbard, America's Great Depression. At some point I'll put up a companion to a previous post, "The Conservative Fallacy." The new post will be titled "The Leftist Fallacy"-- which is related in more ways than one would think.
WHERE IS IT?
We should beware of all media-generated crises. Right now, as bitter winter already sets in to pre-Halloween Detroit, I'm wondering: What happened to Global Warming? Has anyone seen it?
The American people are being scam-whipsawed these past ten years by both the Right and the Left through repeated crises. If, as a noted liberal has implied, the Constitution has placed would-be totalitarians inside a box, we're seeing repeated efforts to break out of that box.
Saturday, October 18, 2008
Illiberal Liberals
I picked up a "conservative newspaper last week, 10/9, the Detroit News, to check football odds, and encountered even here five articles against Sarah Palin. There was: an article about the Dems love for Tina Fey; a large, supportive article about Palin critic Anne Kilkenny; a large political cartoon by Larry Wright making Palin out to be an idiot; a small piece about Todd Palin being under investigation; and a snarky aside by music critic Adam Graham-- "--audiences are getting their laughs simply by watching Sarah Palin on the campaign trail."
When journalists are 99% against her, I guess this is conservative stuff, compared to what conglomerate pop entertainers like Madonna are saying, or the noise in corporate-owned "alternative" papers ("alternative" has become mainstream). One "alternative" liberal quack, in a piece called "Stoking the Fury," calls her McCain's "pet Alaskan killer weasel," among other things.
The fury I've seen the last several weeks has been against Sarah Palin; from the outset, a mad McCarthyite hysteria, and I can't say I've determined the reason. Based on her love for her newborn son, I'd say she's a good person. Yet so widespread is the feeling against her that I'm looked at curiously at work and elsewhere for deviating from it. It's a pack mentality.
Progressives have so awaited the lynch mob for Obama, to the extent of making up stories-- a lynch mob which never materialized-- they've failed to notice THEY'VE become a lynch mob going after Sarah Palin, who's been attacked with unprecedented vitriol and fury from every corner of the culture and media.
Strange, isn't it, that liberals have become the most intolerant segment of society?
There's a bizarre disconnect in their heads that forever exempts THEMSELVES from withholding the vile statements they condemn in others. THEY can attack someone's looks, background, and way of speaking, without a shred of the inhibition they impose on the rest of society. It may have to do with the fact that many of them are from privileged backgrounds, and have always been exempt from the strictures and penalties of society which are ruthlessly applied to you and me.
Case in point in this regard is the much discussed figure William Ayers. One thing we can say for certain is that despite past transgressions he's landed well on his feet; holding a cushy teaching job at a university; appointed to posh posts at monied foundations. Is it because his father was among the power elite of society; chairman of a gigantic corporation? Did William use his connections? Did his family ties have anything to do with his easy and unrepentant rehabilitation? What do you think? Would the average citizen be accorded such treatment? (I dated a woman for a while in Philly who lived in a halfway house and was continually being sent back to the slammer, hard time, for failing drug tests, a violation of her probation. She was given no slack whatsoever by this society.)
It's ironic that William Ayers is the walking and talking example of things that ARE wrong in this country. He should be protesting against himself. That he doesn't hang his head in shame every day is yet one more instance of the standard liberal schizoid personality.
When journalists are 99% against her, I guess this is conservative stuff, compared to what conglomerate pop entertainers like Madonna are saying, or the noise in corporate-owned "alternative" papers ("alternative" has become mainstream). One "alternative" liberal quack, in a piece called "Stoking the Fury," calls her McCain's "pet Alaskan killer weasel," among other things.
The fury I've seen the last several weeks has been against Sarah Palin; from the outset, a mad McCarthyite hysteria, and I can't say I've determined the reason. Based on her love for her newborn son, I'd say she's a good person. Yet so widespread is the feeling against her that I'm looked at curiously at work and elsewhere for deviating from it. It's a pack mentality.
Progressives have so awaited the lynch mob for Obama, to the extent of making up stories-- a lynch mob which never materialized-- they've failed to notice THEY'VE become a lynch mob going after Sarah Palin, who's been attacked with unprecedented vitriol and fury from every corner of the culture and media.
Strange, isn't it, that liberals have become the most intolerant segment of society?
There's a bizarre disconnect in their heads that forever exempts THEMSELVES from withholding the vile statements they condemn in others. THEY can attack someone's looks, background, and way of speaking, without a shred of the inhibition they impose on the rest of society. It may have to do with the fact that many of them are from privileged backgrounds, and have always been exempt from the strictures and penalties of society which are ruthlessly applied to you and me.
Case in point in this regard is the much discussed figure William Ayers. One thing we can say for certain is that despite past transgressions he's landed well on his feet; holding a cushy teaching job at a university; appointed to posh posts at monied foundations. Is it because his father was among the power elite of society; chairman of a gigantic corporation? Did William use his connections? Did his family ties have anything to do with his easy and unrepentant rehabilitation? What do you think? Would the average citizen be accorded such treatment? (I dated a woman for a while in Philly who lived in a halfway house and was continually being sent back to the slammer, hard time, for failing drug tests, a violation of her probation. She was given no slack whatsoever by this society.)
It's ironic that William Ayers is the walking and talking example of things that ARE wrong in this country. He should be protesting against himself. That he doesn't hang his head in shame every day is yet one more instance of the standard liberal schizoid personality.
Wednesday, October 15, 2008
Power of the Media
The totalitarian media (omnipresent; encompassing the totality of most people's lives) would have us believe the economy is in full-scale collapse. More panic earlier today on Wall Street, as retail sales figures "plummeted," "worst decline in years," according to media reports.
How far down were sales, do you think?
10%? 20%? 40%?!
No. Sales were down 1.2%. Not quite a collapse.
********************************
The populace is being played, in order to justify a further melding of government and big business interests, even though the centralization of the financial system is what caused banking problems in the first place. Call it Socialism or call it Fascism, it's the same economic animal.
The clownish Balloon Economy is being sustained by huge injections of manufactured money into the banking system.
But who's being sustained? Is it not those on the top end of the economic scale?
There's great irony in what's happening. The housing crisis for the lower classes of society occurred because housing, thanks to the distortions of the Balloon Economy, became too expensive for many people.
Now, rather than allow the market to make natural adjustments-- to allow the cost of housing to be cut in half-- every effort is being made to sidestep the natural market and sustain the artificially high price. The problem for the bottom half of society is that the cost of EVERYTHING is too high; education, health care, transportation.
On one side of the balloon, air escapes from proliferating holes, while on the other end Clownmaster Henry J. Paulsen mans a bicycle tire pump, furiously trying to pump more air into the overinflated red bursting thing of nothing.
**********************************
People ARE hurting in this country, for real, but it's not a three-week phenomenon, they've been hurting in places like the industrial heartland for years, except the distorted media and the distortion of government figures for years have been covering this reality up.
**********************************
With so much media noise occurring right now, the trick for the nonaligned observer is to keep one's head-- to ignore the magician's misdirections to spot where the coin or rabbit is actually going.
Curious, isn't it, that the privileged media class, representatives of plutocrats (or plutocrats themselves like Arianna Huffington, Tina Brown, Katrina vanden Heuvel, et.al), is nearly 100% in the Obama camp? Even bow-tie conservatives, sons of privilege like George Will, William Kristol, and Christopher Buckley, have abandoned the decrepit McCain campaign wagon. Ultra-snob Buckley cites much-scorned Sarah Palin as the reason.
Do we know what's happening?
********************************
Since the media is a circus, its coverage of the circus election should become even more clown-like. I suggest that instead of another unbearably boring debate between the two men, Alex Trebek be brought in and the two candidates compete against the "Jeopardy" game board. Then again, with his war-mangled hands, it might be a problem for McCain.
"Afghanistan for 400, Alex," Obama confidently declares.
A panel flips; an answer given, to which must be matched a question. McCain doggedly and futilely attempts to buzz in.
"Dol-gurned thing!" McCain mutters under his breath as he struggles with the device, red-faced, as his opponent, "Errr, ahhh, errr," begins his fumbled response.
How far down were sales, do you think?
10%? 20%? 40%?!
No. Sales were down 1.2%. Not quite a collapse.
********************************
The populace is being played, in order to justify a further melding of government and big business interests, even though the centralization of the financial system is what caused banking problems in the first place. Call it Socialism or call it Fascism, it's the same economic animal.
The clownish Balloon Economy is being sustained by huge injections of manufactured money into the banking system.
But who's being sustained? Is it not those on the top end of the economic scale?
There's great irony in what's happening. The housing crisis for the lower classes of society occurred because housing, thanks to the distortions of the Balloon Economy, became too expensive for many people.
Now, rather than allow the market to make natural adjustments-- to allow the cost of housing to be cut in half-- every effort is being made to sidestep the natural market and sustain the artificially high price. The problem for the bottom half of society is that the cost of EVERYTHING is too high; education, health care, transportation.
On one side of the balloon, air escapes from proliferating holes, while on the other end Clownmaster Henry J. Paulsen mans a bicycle tire pump, furiously trying to pump more air into the overinflated red bursting thing of nothing.
**********************************
People ARE hurting in this country, for real, but it's not a three-week phenomenon, they've been hurting in places like the industrial heartland for years, except the distorted media and the distortion of government figures for years have been covering this reality up.
**********************************
With so much media noise occurring right now, the trick for the nonaligned observer is to keep one's head-- to ignore the magician's misdirections to spot where the coin or rabbit is actually going.
Curious, isn't it, that the privileged media class, representatives of plutocrats (or plutocrats themselves like Arianna Huffington, Tina Brown, Katrina vanden Heuvel, et.al), is nearly 100% in the Obama camp? Even bow-tie conservatives, sons of privilege like George Will, William Kristol, and Christopher Buckley, have abandoned the decrepit McCain campaign wagon. Ultra-snob Buckley cites much-scorned Sarah Palin as the reason.
Do we know what's happening?
********************************
Since the media is a circus, its coverage of the circus election should become even more clown-like. I suggest that instead of another unbearably boring debate between the two men, Alex Trebek be brought in and the two candidates compete against the "Jeopardy" game board. Then again, with his war-mangled hands, it might be a problem for McCain.
"Afghanistan for 400, Alex," Obama confidently declares.
A panel flips; an answer given, to which must be matched a question. McCain doggedly and futilely attempts to buzz in.
"Dol-gurned thing!" McCain mutters under his breath as he struggles with the device, red-faced, as his opponent, "Errr, ahhh, errr," begins his fumbled response.
Saturday, October 11, 2008
The Genius of Eric Ambler
The best spy novelist of them all, more insightful than Fleming, LeCarre, Ludlum, and others, was Eric Ambler. His first masterpiece was A Coffin for Dimitrios (aka The Mask of Dimitrios)-- a masterpiece not simply of the genre but of literature. He later produced another masterpiece, Judgement on Deltchev. This is must reading for anyone who wants to understand the games and realities of politics. I don't know where you'll find a copy-- I discovered possibly the only one in Detroit, at John King Books-- but do so. Now.
Ambler's novel provides what we seek from literature: truth. Though it was written in 1951, it carries penumbras of meaning and prophecy outside itself, up to our own time, by revealing statecraft as stagecraft. I can't say much more without giving away the plot. Does it anticipate "The Parallax View," for instance?
Most interesting to me is the character of Yordan Deltchev, a politician on trial. Ambler looks away from him in the second half of the narrative-- looks elsewhere, behind the curtain-- yet in doing so, in not looking at him, but at behind-the-scenes machinations, reveals him, so that the final glimpse of the man shuffling off on black-and-white film tells all. Read the book and see if you know what I'm talking about.
*****************************
Speaking of stagecraft and politics: What of Obama?
Even though a creation, four years ago, of Time, Newsweek, and the rest of the media machine, he had a street organizer background which I saw as a positive. I gave him the benefit of the doubt.
On Labor Day, I joined a million other Detroiters eager to check out the candidate. What a day! The largest Labor Day parade in decades. Thousands upon thousands of workers marched down Woodward Avenue, accompanied by marching bands with newfound purpose, energizing the town. Onward they marched!-- for over two hours, chanting in unison the fiery union songs--
"When they see us
people ask us,
who we are,
So we tell them,
We are the Union!
Mighty, mighty Union!"
--a plurality of the marchers white workers, Obama's most needed demographic. Still they came, stretching up Woodward, and more than a mile beyond, with no end to the march.
Close to a million hardcore workers and city folk packed Hart Plaza at the river, at the foot of Woodward, to hear the new man. He was introduced by labor leaders Ron Gettelfinger of the UAW and James Hoffa of the Teamsters-- pale reflections of past leaders, sure, but surviving reflections of a downtrod movement nonetheless, and this morning they spoke with rare vigor and emotion. The sun was as bright as the prospects. They, along with everyone else who was present on the plaza, wanted to see the candidate; to hear a speech of fire!-- here in the shattered, largely shuttered industrial heartland. Here amid a city of economic and real devastation.
Obama spoke for five minutes. Out of deference for a hurricane far away in Louisiana, he explained he didn't want to talk politics. (But people are hurting here also, I thought!) No politics. No fire. No labor issues at all. Within minutes the man disappeared in a helicopter. People quietly went home. A missed opportunity. The event was so stunningly anti-climactic it could've come from an Eric Ambler novel.
Ambler's novel provides what we seek from literature: truth. Though it was written in 1951, it carries penumbras of meaning and prophecy outside itself, up to our own time, by revealing statecraft as stagecraft. I can't say much more without giving away the plot. Does it anticipate "The Parallax View," for instance?
Most interesting to me is the character of Yordan Deltchev, a politician on trial. Ambler looks away from him in the second half of the narrative-- looks elsewhere, behind the curtain-- yet in doing so, in not looking at him, but at behind-the-scenes machinations, reveals him, so that the final glimpse of the man shuffling off on black-and-white film tells all. Read the book and see if you know what I'm talking about.
*****************************
Speaking of stagecraft and politics: What of Obama?
Even though a creation, four years ago, of Time, Newsweek, and the rest of the media machine, he had a street organizer background which I saw as a positive. I gave him the benefit of the doubt.
On Labor Day, I joined a million other Detroiters eager to check out the candidate. What a day! The largest Labor Day parade in decades. Thousands upon thousands of workers marched down Woodward Avenue, accompanied by marching bands with newfound purpose, energizing the town. Onward they marched!-- for over two hours, chanting in unison the fiery union songs--
"When they see us
people ask us,
who we are,
So we tell them,
We are the Union!
Mighty, mighty Union!"
--a plurality of the marchers white workers, Obama's most needed demographic. Still they came, stretching up Woodward, and more than a mile beyond, with no end to the march.
Close to a million hardcore workers and city folk packed Hart Plaza at the river, at the foot of Woodward, to hear the new man. He was introduced by labor leaders Ron Gettelfinger of the UAW and James Hoffa of the Teamsters-- pale reflections of past leaders, sure, but surviving reflections of a downtrod movement nonetheless, and this morning they spoke with rare vigor and emotion. The sun was as bright as the prospects. They, along with everyone else who was present on the plaza, wanted to see the candidate; to hear a speech of fire!-- here in the shattered, largely shuttered industrial heartland. Here amid a city of economic and real devastation.
Obama spoke for five minutes. Out of deference for a hurricane far away in Louisiana, he explained he didn't want to talk politics. (But people are hurting here also, I thought!) No politics. No fire. No labor issues at all. Within minutes the man disappeared in a helicopter. People quietly went home. A missed opportunity. The event was so stunningly anti-climactic it could've come from an Eric Ambler novel.
Saturday, October 04, 2008
Obama: Revolutionary or Puppet?
The most informative scene of Barack Obama's autobiography is when he's sitting in a movie theater observing his mother's reaction to the film "Black Orpheus," understanding then the idealized, naive way she viewed black people. It's a revealing moment for him, and for the reader.
One thing Obama well understands is the mentality of the white liberal. It's how he's achieved what he has-- by presenting himself in the image of their ideal black leader. He understands the basic childishness of these people. In its way, it's masterful manipulation.
THE ARISTOCRATS
There's a rough honesty to the Republicans in that they're unabashedly-- unabashedly-- on the side of rich people. On this subject they use no smokescreens.
The Dems, on the other hand, stand ostensibly against the wealthy-- at least the upwardly mobile wealthy-- but are funded by the superwealthy and the hyperwealthy. It's why they can raise income taxes-- income taxes don't touch these people, who've already made their money, and anyway are adept at the use of tax dodges like foundations. One could raise the income tax rate to 100% and it wouldn't alter aristocrat lifestyles.
These aristocrats, up to billionaire manipulators like George Soros, have backed-- nay, created-- the Barack candidacy. How sure are they of the guy, given his early street-activist resume? Did his time at Columbia and Harvard ensure adequate brainwashing?
Maybe-- but then there are the lessons of history. Recall that the events of 1789 in France were set off by nobles like the Duke of Orleans who believed they could control change. They had supreme confidence in their manipulative abilities. Soon enough they lost their heads to the guillotine.
EUPHEMISMS
What do America's superwealthy want? World government, which is a euphemism for world slavery. Their agent to achieve this is Obama, whose mantra is that Americans need to "change the world," which is a euphemism for Imperialism.
THE CRISIS
Stampeded again! After the bailout, Bush and his Wall Street buddies-- along with ultra-rich landowner Nancy Pelosi-- were no doubt popping champagne corks and giving high-fives. Fool us once, shame on them. Do it twice-- shame on us.
The fix has been in for this election it seems, from the Big Guys behind the scenes who actually run the country-- using their tools the media-- but McCain, this year's designated loser, swayed from the script with his selection of "unvetted" wild card real person Sarah Palin. Polls showed him briefly in the lead. Thus, the quickly produced financial crisis to panic the populace and knock McCain back down to second place.
THE QUESTION
The question we must still answer about Obama, dear reader, is, which is he? Puppet or revolutionary?
One thing Obama well understands is the mentality of the white liberal. It's how he's achieved what he has-- by presenting himself in the image of their ideal black leader. He understands the basic childishness of these people. In its way, it's masterful manipulation.
THE ARISTOCRATS
There's a rough honesty to the Republicans in that they're unabashedly-- unabashedly-- on the side of rich people. On this subject they use no smokescreens.
The Dems, on the other hand, stand ostensibly against the wealthy-- at least the upwardly mobile wealthy-- but are funded by the superwealthy and the hyperwealthy. It's why they can raise income taxes-- income taxes don't touch these people, who've already made their money, and anyway are adept at the use of tax dodges like foundations. One could raise the income tax rate to 100% and it wouldn't alter aristocrat lifestyles.
These aristocrats, up to billionaire manipulators like George Soros, have backed-- nay, created-- the Barack candidacy. How sure are they of the guy, given his early street-activist resume? Did his time at Columbia and Harvard ensure adequate brainwashing?
Maybe-- but then there are the lessons of history. Recall that the events of 1789 in France were set off by nobles like the Duke of Orleans who believed they could control change. They had supreme confidence in their manipulative abilities. Soon enough they lost their heads to the guillotine.
EUPHEMISMS
What do America's superwealthy want? World government, which is a euphemism for world slavery. Their agent to achieve this is Obama, whose mantra is that Americans need to "change the world," which is a euphemism for Imperialism.
THE CRISIS
Stampeded again! After the bailout, Bush and his Wall Street buddies-- along with ultra-rich landowner Nancy Pelosi-- were no doubt popping champagne corks and giving high-fives. Fool us once, shame on them. Do it twice-- shame on us.
The fix has been in for this election it seems, from the Big Guys behind the scenes who actually run the country-- using their tools the media-- but McCain, this year's designated loser, swayed from the script with his selection of "unvetted" wild card real person Sarah Palin. Polls showed him briefly in the lead. Thus, the quickly produced financial crisis to panic the populace and knock McCain back down to second place.
THE QUESTION
The question we must still answer about Obama, dear reader, is, which is he? Puppet or revolutionary?
Thursday, October 02, 2008
Scammed
THE ARTIFICIAL CRISIS
We the American people are being scammed by our own government. Noteworthy that both McCain and Obama voted for the bailout bill, which is not only a huge wealth transfer, but gives the Treasury Secretary near-dictatorial power over our economic system. Where do we turn now?
LITERATURE
The literary system is already an undemocratic tyranny, in my book. The monopolists control all. We can ignore it or take action against it-- at least to continue building an independent alternative.
GO SARAH!
I wish Palin well tonight if only for her to show up the monolithic media snobs.
We the American people are being scammed by our own government. Noteworthy that both McCain and Obama voted for the bailout bill, which is not only a huge wealth transfer, but gives the Treasury Secretary near-dictatorial power over our economic system. Where do we turn now?
LITERATURE
The literary system is already an undemocratic tyranny, in my book. The monopolists control all. We can ignore it or take action against it-- at least to continue building an independent alternative.
GO SARAH!
I wish Palin well tonight if only for her to show up the monolithic media snobs.
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