What Lies Behind
The protagonist in many of Eric Ambler’s books is often a person who accidentally wanders outside the confines of ordinary life and discovers a world of horrors under the surface of the normal. The real world, Ambler never tires of reminding his readers, is one of hidden violence, power plays and intrigue inhabited by cynical and powerful men. At some point in the book these villains inevitably taunt the naive hero for clinging to sentimental beliefs like law, liberty or God. ‘Those things’, the cynic tells the protagonist while watching him beaten by his henchmen before a table at which he eats his gourmet breakfast, ‘do not exist’. All that exists is power. To make this reality palatable to the public it is sugar-coated with illusion.
The refreshing thing about Rahm Emmanuel, the Boss of Chicago, is that he makes no secret of the fact that he wants to control you. Not by law or right, but because he can. You either bow to him or take what’s coming. Recently the Rahmfather told a food franchise whose owner’s political views on gay marriage did not coincide with those of his backers that he was unwelcome in Chicago.
“Chick-fil-A’s values are not Chicago values. They’re not respectful of our residents, our neighbors and our family members. And if you’re gonna be part of the Chicago community, you should reflect Chicago values,” Emanuel said Wednesday.
“What the CEO has said as it relates to gay marriage and gay couples is not what I believe, but more importantly, it’s not what the people of Chicago believe. We just passed legislation as it relates to civil union and my goal and my hope … is that we now move on recognizing gay marriage. I do not believe that the CEO’s comments … reflects who we are as a city.
By contrast less honest politicians waited for appearances’ sake until the corpses of the Aurora Colorado massacre were cold before making it what they always wanted to make of it: an opportunity to talk about gun control. And then they went at it with a vengeance. Mayor Bloomberg exhorted police to go on strike unless gun controls were enacted.
he argued that police officers in particular should throw their support behind gun control. “I don’t understand why the police officers across this country don’t stand up collectively and say, ‘We’re going to go on strike. We’re not going to protect you. Unless you, the public, through your legislature, do what’s required to keep us safe,’” he said.
Every incident is regarded as an opportunity to take umbrage and under those pretexts to grab more power. It’s gotten so bad that some people don’t even wait for an offense to transpire before expressing outrage. James Taranto at the Wall Street Journal notes with wry amusement and not a little alarm the anticipatory indignation at President Obama’s possible electoral defeat.
Harold Meyerson, a self-described democratic socialist and columnist for the Washington Post, is against measures to prevent voter fraud. That’s not surprising–the lefty press has been filled with commentary on the subject lately–but Meyerson, after repeating the standard claim that fraud prevention is the same as vote “suppression,” …
Meyerson comes very close to advocating insurrection if the election doesn’t go Barack Obama’s way–a line that, as we noted yesterday, New York’s left-liberal Mayor Michael Bloomberg crossed in calling for a police strike in the absence of new gun-control laws.
Grab, grab, grab. But it’s not just the local boys. Raise our glances somewhat and it shows that beyond the smaller tinpot dictators there are the bigger tinpot dictators. In the Syrian crisis the hidden hands are now in full view. The New York Times notes that al-Qaeda’s baleful presence has been detected in that conflict. That would be the hands of the Saudis and their friends. “We are now forming suicide cells to make jihad in the name of God,” said a speaker in the video using the classical Arabic favored by Al Qaeda.
Not to be outdone, the Iranians are sending phishing emails to Syrian rebels with a payload of keylogging malware the better to discover who their client Assad should bomb. That kind of act doesn’t fool the Yemenis though, who have just uncovered an Iranian spy ring in their country. But come one, come all. The Turks have just announced they may make cross-border incursions into Syria to take out the Kurdish rebels who have long bedeviled it.
One might be forgiven for thinking that Eric Ambler’s villains have got it right. It’s not really about the “responsibility to protect” or overthrowing a tyrant, or standing up for some international principle. The real players — KSA, Iran, Turkey and the West, know it is all about oil, power and money. Who would have ever thought it was about religion or Allah, or brotherhood and love? Only us chumps.
Maybe the public is wrong to believe that the world is led by affable, law abiding leaders who want world peace, safe streets and fairness. Perhaps it’s really run by gangsters who make war on their enemies and are out for your money and are therefore eager to disarm you so you can’t resist. That is if you wanted to resist. Pundits like Meyerson would probably be outraged if you did. Resistance might alarm the children.
Still the proper priorities must be observed. Those sworn to protect the public from foreign enemies are obsessed with such vital questions as whether automated USN warships with reduced crews can legally be scraped for rust at Singapore or whether American workers have to be flown in to do the task, because the law requires it. Just imagine how it would sound if rust scraping were outsourced to the Singaporeans! Fly a work crew in, if necessary.
When the littoral combat ship Freedom needs scheduled maintenance overseas, the workers who step onboard had better be Americans. U.S. law bars foreign shipyard workers from doing such tasks as preventative and corrective maintenance, deep cleaning and corrosion control — crucial work for a ship manned by only 50 or so sailors, meaning it will rely more on shore-based support than other U.S. Navy ships …
The U.S. plans to base four ships in Singapore — Freedom will sail there next year — and another eight in Bahrain, starting as soon as 2014. Yet if foreigners aren’t allowed to do the work, the LCS force will need to be supported by U.S.-based “fly-away teams,” a situation that could be unaffordable.
Our guardians are constantly on the job. Remember how it was news when President Obama spent a full day working at the White House? That only shows how that the public doesn’t understand how our betters work. Slate explained as far back as 2010 that the President doesn’t actually work in his office.
After the White House released photos of the newly renovated Oval Office late last month, the Explainer noticed something a little bizarre: There was no computer on President Obama’s desk, or any paperwork, either. Does Obama actually work in the Oval Office?
Not most of the time. The president conducts briefings and holds staff meetings in the Oval Office, but it’s used primarily as a ceremonial space. Obama does much of his day-to-day work—such as editing speeches and reviewing papers—in the President’s Study, located off the Oval Office, and in the Treaty Room, on the second floor of the White House.
The Oval Office is a prop. It’s a set. Now it’s official. AOL has an article describing the Presidential tablet. Tablet as in Ipad or its equivalent. In the old days “When the Presidential Daily Briefing occurs, a top intelligence official traditionally hands the president a folder with a sheaf of paper inside.”
But that will change. The president and his top officials want and will get a single mobile device allowing them to access highly classified and unclassified data wherever they are. The early fruits of the intelligence community’s early efforts to do that are visible in the photo above. It shows President Obama in the Oval Office on January 31 using a technically neutered tablet as part of the Presidential Daily Briefing.
Instead of reading through the brief, now the president can scroll through the briefing and tap on a link in a story that takes him to background material, maps, photos, video or audio.
In that way the President can always be working, whether at a fundraiser, or sitting in a car in transit, or cooling down after a basketball game. It will all be in the Tablet connected presumably by a secure wireless link to the nation’s most sensitive databases.
Naturally there are defenses in place to prevent the fate of Japan’s data loss from happening to President Obama. “The Japanese government has uncovered an advanced Trojan attack which may have lain undiscovered on its networks leaking confidential data for over two years.” That’s because tens of thousands of people in our wonderful world are working full time on reading other people’s mail. “The 2012 Black Hat conference is kicking off in Las Vegas … is probably the largest collection of hardcore computer security experts on the planet, and features the latest updates on hacking opportunities and serious vulnerabilities. Nearly 10,000 people are expected to attend and share or use the knowledge gleaned to protect – or crack – systems.”
So the President will probably have the latest antivirus software. Speaking of which, Wired has a long article on the exploits of Eugene Kaspersky, one of the richest men in Russia, a confidante of Vladimir Putn and the alleged point-man of many of the Kremlin’s cyberwarfare efforts.
Between 2009 and 2010, according to Forbes, retail sales of Kaspersky antivirus software increased 177 percent, reaching almost 4.5 million a year—nearly as much as its rivals Symantec and McAfee combined. Worldwide, 50 million people are now members of the Kaspersky Security Network, sending data to the company’s Moscow headquarters every time they download an application to their desktop. Microsoft, Cisco, and Juniper Networks all embed Kaspersky code in their products—effectively giving the company 300 million users. When it comes to keeping computers free from infection, Kaspersky Lab is on its way to becoming an industry leader.
But this still doesn’t fully capture Kaspersky’s influence. Back in 2010, a researcher now working for Kaspersky discovered Stuxnet, the US-Israeli worm that wrecked nearly a thousand Iranian centrifuges and became the world’s first openly acknowledged cyberweapon. In May of this year, Kaspersky’s elite antihackers exposed a second weaponized computer program, which they dubbed Flame. It was subsequently revealed to be another US-Israeli operation aimed at Iran. In other words, Kaspersky Lab isn’t just an antivirus company; it’s also a leader in uncovering cyber-espionage.
That’s a door that goes both ways and one wonders what happens if you pit the best in the Federal Government against the best in the Kremlin. Of course the boys on the Potomac win. Besides, Kaspersky issued a denial of Wired’s allegations and described himself as just a plain Indiana Jones.
“Remember ‘Raiders of the Lost Ark’ with Indiana Jones?” Kaspersky asks. “He was a archeologist — the best on the planet. And that’s why the U.S. military came to him for help; they knew nothing about history or mythology. Well it’s the same for what we do for governments worldwide today – we provide EXPERTISE. Nothing more.”
Surely we are safe. Or are we? Eric Ambler’s villains would say that behind the laughing face of talk shows, staged interviews and puff pieces; in the secret corridors of diplomatic world, once past the velvet and chandeliers; and even in back of your very own computer screen with its bright icons and happy music there is a deadly, greedy and grasping world.
In his book, Epitaph for a Spy, Ambler remarks that the beautiful night-time gardens surrounding the protagonists hotel were under closer inspection alive with vicious insects devouring one another. It’s always there, just that we can’t see it. Maybe he’s right. Jeremy Peters of the New York Times, describing the lives of working mainstream journalists, explains that what journalists write is what the President’s handlers let them write.
The quotations come back redacted, stripped of colorful metaphors, colloquial language and anything even mildly provocative.
They are sent by e-mail from the Obama headquarters in Chicago to reporters who have interviewed campaign officials under one major condition: the press office has veto power over what statements can be quoted and attributed by name.
Most reporters, desperate to pick the brains of the president’s top strategists, grudgingly agree. After the interviews, they review their notes, check their tape recorders and send in the juiciest sound bites for review.
The verdict from the campaign — an operation that prides itself on staying consistently on script — is often no, Barack Obama does not approve this message …
Those who did speak on the record said the restrictions seem only to be growing. “It’s not something I’m particularly proud of because there’s a part of me that says, ‘Don’t do it, don’t agree to their terms,’ ” said Major Garrett, a correspondent for The National Journal. “There are times when this feels like I’m dealing with some of my editors. It’s like, ‘You just changed this because you could!’ ”
It was difficult to find a news outlet that had not agreed to quote approval, albeit reluctantly. Organizations like Bloomberg, The Washington Post, Vanity Fair, Reuters and The New York Times have all consented to interviews under such terms …
Under President Obama, the insistence on blanket anonymity has grown to new levels.
The White House’s latest innovation is a variation of the background briefing called the “deep-background briefing,” which it holds for groups of reporters, sometimes several dozen at a time. Reporters may paraphrase what senior administration officials say, but they are forbidden to put anything in quotation marks or identify the speakers.
The White House held such a briefing after the Supreme Court’s health care ruling last month with officials including Mr. Plouffe, Mr. Carney and Dan Pfeiffer, the communications director. But when reporters asked to quote part of the conversation, even anonymously, they were told no. Even the spokesmen were off limits.
But at least the President isn’t mean, like Rahm. However, it’s worth restating the point on which this post began: perhaps Rahm Emmanuel is a cut above most politicians, not because isn’t a fascist but because he’s an honest fascist. Hail to hopium. Hail to the Boss.
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A vote for Buraq Hussein and his ilk is a vote for Progressive Fascism.
Anyone is supports this evil is a person who supports taking away our inalienable god given rights granted you and me, and destroying the American way of life.
There is no hiding it anymore. There are no more fashionable fig leafs to hide behind.
It’s time to get in the face of anyone, and I mean anyone, who even suggests supporting this Progressive Fascist Traitor Buraq.
Before the hungry hands get to devouring, someone or some network has to provide the feast. Those who think reality is just a power grab tend to be fixated on the side of consumption and decadence, not production or the generation of reality in the first place. maybe we can say a fascist is one who thinks he can oversee production with a heavy hand and not just consumption. So a fascist would say, you Christians cannot make chicken dinners in this town, while a “liberal” would grudgingly keep you working and tax and fine you to support all that is good and holy. Thus fascism hits a wall of non-productivity sooner, but maybe any systematic disregard for how the producer would freely use his property gets us to the same place sooner or later. At the moment when reality looks all the more like a power grab, the need for a re- generation of productive reality should become more and more apparent. Maybe it will require a little more unrest in China first.
“…Reporters may paraphrase what senior administration officials say, but they are forbidden to put anything in quotation marks or identify the speakers.”
This dovetails nicely with the last post where someone argued how low-level leaks are allowed to test the water so they may be, ex-post-facto, redacted, in other words, an invocation of plausible deniability. One can not only push forward policy to see if it is popular, but also to see if unpopular or unlawful policies are likely to run against resistance. This is probably how Fast and Furious got to the point where the Department of Justice aided and abetted arms smuggling to Mexico. It begs the question; is this what our government has become, an edifice that eschews transparency and instead, operates under the loose definitions of plausible deniability? So much for a government by the people and for the people. What cannot be done in public ought not be done at all.
THE PEACEFUL GARDEN
I once, as a child, came upon a black snake slowly coming up behind an immobile toad. When the flicking tongue touched the back of the toad, the hinged mouth opened wide and closed over the toad, slow motion contractions pulling the toad further and further into the snake’s mouth. The toad could easily have escaped approaching death, but at no time did it attempt to do so. I could have saved the toad at any time, but I was as hypnotized as the toad, such was the power of the snake. And such is the power of the predator, prowling the peaceful garden of the law abiding.
Amid the lush and verdant green
In deepest dark or brightest day
Where predators are never seen
And never noticed are their prey
The law means only to these thugs
That power to them smoothly flows
And like the predatory bugs
They thrive in places no one knows
‘Twas always thus, the cynic smiles
There’s nothing new here, move along
Pretend the predator’s slick wiles
Are right and good, and can’t be wrong
The law abiding’s world, they know
Is surface tension, nothing more
And see not that deep down below
The predator has declared war
The garden teems with deadly force
With lives extinguished every breath
But all unseen, because of course
The garden hides the sight of death
Emmanual, like most liberals, is merely a power hungry hypocrite. He denies business licensing to Chick-Fil-A, licenses that would provide jobs BTW, because the COO admitted his religious belief in man/woman only marriage. Meanwhile, he welcomes Louis Farrakhan with open arms even though he shares the same aversion to homosexuality as Mr. Cathy does, just expressed differently.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/05/29/louis-farrakhan-gay-marriage_n_1552556.html
Chick-Fil-A should close every store in Illinois, telling their ex-employees, “Elections have consequences.” Show the tail the dog is in charge.
Speaking of jobs, as Commander-in-Chief, Obama has the final say in troop levels yet thousands of troops are being given pink slips as a ‘thank you’ for their service duing war-time. Anytime he says he is “doing all we can to create jobs,” HE IS LYING. Liar. Lying Bastard. No defense.
Rumor is that Rham gave the best White House BJ since George Stephchokechokegoobleous was there.
So the Left wants a shoot out when they lose. Best news I have heard in quite a while.
Speaking of good news, OT but LOST is dead. 64 Senators signed a letter to the White House saying they would vote against it. One thing admirable (maybe) about Socialists is that they never quit. They change their name and Rham has been known to switch brands on his nail polish but they keep focused on their goals. So we can expect attacks on American sovereignty to continue under a new name.
A quick game of ropes and trees is looking better all the time. Late winter would be good. No leaves to block the view.
Celer, Silens, Mortalis.
I couldn’t even finish reading your article before commenting: I was stunned by the news that Obama is switching to wireless tablets. Now, connect this to Eric Ambler’s hidden world of power elites: Obama can now have a set of off the grid advisors/handlers(?) about whom not even his White House advisors, department heads, even the FBI and CIA know nothing: all that has to happen is for Obama to send quietly one of these tablets to an unknown associate; who is to say the King of Saudi Arabia or Leo Gerard will not have a tablet: the real administration of this government has just dispersed.
I don’t understand why the LGBT groups are upset at the Chick-fil-a comment. Homosexuals are not being refused service at Chick-fil-a’s. There is a reason why everyone down south calls it christian chicken. It’s common knowledge. The funny thing is all the Christian’s down here think the Cathy’s started closing their Chick-fil-A’s on Sundays because of the Sabbath. They simply starting closing on Sundays because they wanted a day off.
And why does Rahm care? He got his payoff for 2 years of tough duty at the White House by being selected King of Chicago. He will keep being re-elected unless the checks to his supports stop coming. Unfortunately, like wretchard states above, he is doing it simply because he can.
I understand the issues with poll taxes and the need for everyone to have the ability to vote freely, but why are rational adults so opposed to any type voter validation that will close the obvious opportunities for fraud is beyond me. I would like to feel sorry for “real” journalist out there that have to live with the rule restrictions imposed upon them by an administration they gladly helped usher through the front door, but the irony makes me smile just a little.
Keynes is correct. In the long run we are all dead. I was really hoping there would some sort of adult supervision along the way. Oh well…
What we need is one honest cop who says “No” and stuffs Rahm’s bagman into a car. Romney should promise that come January his administration will flood Chicago with federal agents rooting out corruption. Treat the Illinois Donks like the Dixiecrats were 50 years ago. Declare them an un-American occupying combination. Threaten to invoke the Militia Act. Then find lawyers who can give Bloomberg a lesson on liability. Maybe the Mormon Romney should come to NY and hand out Big Gulps and cigars.
If we are not slaves then we need to act like free citizens. That does not mean violence but it does mean saying No. The thugs can only sheer sheep. The Russian Revolution began when the people crawled under the cossacks horses and the troops would not fire on them. If 200 people go to a Chick-a-fil (I’ve never been in one so I know not if it’s any good) and the police commanders know that come January they will be arrested if they did not do their duty then what will happen?
“I don’t understand why the LGBT groups are upset at the Chick-fil-a comment. Homosexuals are not being refused service at Chick-fil-a’s. ”
It is very simple: the Left is at war with the very core of human liberty: the freedom of conscience; the war against freedom of speech is almost won; now, they must own your very thought life: Pharaoh seizing what is to be rendered unto God: implanting the human godling’s mark upon your forehead.
Any Clubbers like me who enjoy Ambler would also enjoy Alan Furst. The two remind me of each other.
The U.S. plans to base four ships in Singapore — Freedom will sail there next year — and another eight in Bahrain, starting as soon as 2014. Yet if foreigners aren’t allowed to do the work, the LCS force will need to be supported by U.S.-based “fly-away teams,” a situation that could be unaffordable.
…………
Eight ships would need a full time maintenance team. Not just a crew you flew in from time to time.
Singapore is a country currently inclined to be friendly to the USA but it is not the USA. It would be easier to insert a spy or saboteur into a friendly country’s maintenance team than it would be to insert a spy or saboteur into an American maintenance team. I’m not sure why this would be considered anything other than Standard Operating Procedure.
One way to make peace with yourself in this world is to accept that there is only really no liberty in the world. Just a choice of masters. One reason why the Left must always imagine their enemies to be like them — Aurora had to be the result of a right wing Tea Party plot — is that it makes it easier for them to justify their own submission to the Boss.
In their hearts they know they are toadying to the boss, whatever their lip service to liberty and freedom might be. Freedom’s just a slogan. ‘Everyone knows that.’ Therefore it must be the case that everyone else is, also, a toady. Once that drab and cynical view of the world is accepted — there’s no hell below us, above us only sky — all that is left are the powers and principalities of the earth, among which you need only choose whom to serve.
Members of the Collective can never truly be rebels. All they ever are are servants of the Termite Queen.
Someone sent me a link to a story about a middle class family who got clobbered by the financial crisis but decided to try and keep paying for their house because it was the right thing to do. They refinanced it according to the arcane rules of some program and after some years were sent a letter saying their previous payments were retrospectively adjudged wrong and would they pay the difference.
That’s what Ambler’s villains were all trying to tell the protagonists in his stories. It’s all a sucker’s game. The real winners are the Farrakhans, Emmanuels, Obamas and Ayers’ of the world. Now personally, I don’t accept that conclusion. People who don’t believe that the autocrats inherit the earth are by definition rebels. Ambler says they are also dopes. And the whole point of life is to look back on it at the end and figure out which of the two you were.
“why are rational adults so opposed to any type voter validation that will close the obvious opportunities for fraud”
Maybe because they have something to gain from voter fraud and therefore favor it?
Ah yes, the Haves and the Have-nots. Haves are ruthless about maintaining their position on that side of the divide. Have-nots can be pretty ruthless when it comes time to deal with the haves. Farrakhans, Emmanuels, Obamas and Ayers will not enjoy their meeting with the Committee for Public Safety.I read about a countess that started screaming as the dragged her to the guillotine. Loud enough to be heard miles away.
Maybe we should start a pool on who screams the loudest?
Nice prose Wretchard! I always like reading your short stories.
I would actually get my blood pressure up if I believed for one second that what Rahm does in Chicago, or what the POTUS does means much of anything.
Reagan shut the government down once – I didn’t miss it. In fact, few people did. The vast majority of America doesn’t need or notice the activities of the Federal government. And that is a good thing.
We could shut the government down again – in fact I think we should to send a signal about deficit spending. Few in America would notice.
Oh I know the talking heads of the MSM would jabber endlessly about the harms, and filth-hole 3rd world cities like Chicago and NYC would scream because of their dependence on Federal Public Piggy money, but real America wouldn’t care. Again this is a good thing.
It is a good thing that American government is still so inconsequential that the average person wouldn’t know that it was shut down. This means that there is plenty of hope for America even as the rats in Chicago, NYC & DC scramble for power.
No sentient being would vote for Obama a 2nd time! – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a4nvhAZ0vr0
What’s really great about modern political correctness is that is the first, fully-featured implementation of Doublethink. Consider the following exchange between the White House press corps and Jay Carney. He was asked a very simple question: “what is the capital of Israel?”
I have another question. Why bother asking Jay Carney anything? Why bother asking the President anything? Is because the journalists expecting an answer? Is it because they expect these statesmen know any kind of answer?
My own answer to that self-same question is that my position has not changed.
The most interesting thing about the administration is that very simple questions become completely unaskable. What is the capital if Israel? Where were you born? What is your religion? What were your grades in college? When did you attend college?
All these questions can be answered unhesitatingly by 99.999% of the population. But this most transparent of administrations can’t answer it beyond, “you know our position.”
Ha!
Carney…“Everyone knows it’s New York”. <—- fake but accurate quote.
w@13
Actually the meek inherit the Earth but, after a one night stand, the autocrats take it from them.
The whole press-jumping-through-Obama-hoops things reminds me of the obscene lengths CNN went to in order to get access to Saddam Hussein. Now our Hussein is acting in a similar fashion. Why doesn’t the press simply refuse to go along, and then print any damned thing they please even without access. When an outraged WH calls them on their inaccuracies and distortions, the press can come back with “then grant us REAL access, you clowns!”
Rahm Emanuel: a malignant ex-ballet dancer with an invented name turned ruthless mayor of Chicago. The whole air of decadence and grasping, foul-mouthed greed for power and nastiness makes me think of Caligula.
“I bet the bank went along with the program for three months, so that they could tell the government that they had complied—and when the government got off their backs, they turned around and raised the mortgage back up again!”
Almost certainly correct. Which is yet another argument for the introduction of banksters to hemp rope and lamp posts.
In most professions, or even non-professional jobs (whatever the difference is supposed to be) being a psychopath means you don’t work. In banking, particularly investment banking, it’s a job requirement.
Once upon a time, not so long ago, I thought that ideology mattered. I am now beginning to think that it is a mere distraction, clothing that the wolves amongst us doff or don depending upon their interests of the moment. There are the useful idiots of course, the true believers in the political theory that will create the great Utopia, but they are merely the tools of the predators. Once they become inconvenient they can and will be discarded like pieces of used toilet paper.
The greater the power a system of government is allowed to wield, the greater is the temptation for sociopaths and/or gangsters to want to be a part of it. And over time, they do get there, and they make cushions for their ilk to follow.
The great question is: what do you do when the ruling class has shown itself to be utterly corrupt? And it is a great mistake to believe that the ruling class is confined to the people at the top of the ladder. They permeate the government–sons and daughters of the politically connected who have been given jobs that require no actual work or that are given to those who do not have the competence to do the job they have been granted through their connections.
But once again–what do we do with them? That is the question.
“Emmanual -, is merely a power hungry hypocrite. He denies business licensing to Chick-Fil-A … he welcomes Louis Farrakhan with open arms even though he shares the same aversion to homosexuality…”
Good point SpeakEasy. I would add that Chick-Fil-A is vulnerable, like all businesses with glass windows open to the public. Mr. Cathy will never threaten to incite violence in retaliation to Rahm’s actions. Louis Farrakhan on the other hand could easy make life difficult for the Chicago Mayor and any business they choose by unleashing their thug minions. There is a term for people who treat harshly those who they know cannot fight back. They are called bullies and Rahm Emmanual is like too many neo-homosexuals, he is a bully and a Fascist bent on abusing the power that being special confers upon them. Being a homosexual means never having to say you’re sorry.
tc @ 21: The great question is: what do you do when the ruling class has shown itself to be utterly corrupt?
A sensible person keeps their head down, maybe goes Galt. But it’s so depressing, the moreso as we (I!) assume that “corrupt” is the wrong answer, as long as it’s corrupt many MORE things will roll downhill and shatter.
A hero tries to step up, but the hero’s journey is a tragic one generally the hero falls and someone else benefits, and what’s more, what about the 10,000 people who tried for hero and failed, you never even hear their names.
That’s what made the American Revolution such an event, the leaders as heroes who lived and the whole thing succeeding one must say well beyond expectations, both at home and around the world.
Well, that was then. Now we’re in the American Devolution, aka The Obamanation.
Wretchard@16
Reminds me of a half-wit dissembling conman that I met once. He was a liar but he wasn’t a very good liar. He started talking in circles when it suited him and resorted to loud voices and threats when it didn’t.
The reason the press corpse asks questions as far as I am concerned is they’d like to be the one that asked the question that invoked the lie that changed history.
Sooner or later the department of double speak will outlaw unfavorable reporting as not being fair and balanced. So if the spokeshole speaks BS 100% of the time the fairness doctrine demands at least 50% praise and face time by Debbie Wasserman Shultz.
“[Harold] Meyerson comes very close to advocating insurrection if the election doesn’t go Barack Obama’s way….”
Harold Meyerson might be a little more circumspect if he realized there are a quite a few well armed guys out in Flyover Country reading his comments and clucking, “Oh, Harry, we hate it when you tease us.”
So what if the police went on strike, nation-wide? I believe it would have the same effect that closing Gitmo had with terrorists, less courts and more graves. Police nowadays are mostly reactionary, filing reports and cleaning up after crime rather than preventing and discouraging it. But a trigger-itchy neighborhood watch program could weed out the gene pool.
“Go ahead. Make my day.”
josh@23 – A hero tries to step up, but the hero’s journey is a tragic one generally the hero falls and someone else benefits, and what’s more, what about the 10,000 people who tried for hero and failed, you never even hear their names.
Just imagine St George’s countenance as he faces the dragon; Imagine that you can read the “Why me?” written in every feature of his face.
Many of those who have been awarded the Medal of Honor in combat will remark that they accept the award on behalf of those who cannot. They are not being modest.
Meyerson is a fat little puts, par excellence. Ignore him.
The Navy shouldn’t need deployable cleaning teams, they can use the Marine LCpls and PFCs from the detail (presumably) that guards the base/docks. Working parties for non-rates are a Marine Corps tradition.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harold_Meyerson
{snipped}
“The son of long time leaders in California of the Socialist Party of America, he was active in the 1970s in the Democratic Socialist Organizing Committee.”
It looks like another list to work after the shootout. Second generation Socialist. It’s mean to say it but I hope he aborted his children.
Third post. I’m saving one because I think this will be a boonzer thread. Did I spell boonzer right? It’s my second favorite ozzie word, right after Debra Berry.
TC @ 21,
Offer them employment as Anthropomorphic Wind Chimes. So many trees, so many lamp posts, so many street signs all in need.
The excuses people make for a bad system: “This isn’t real ___-ism. Our system will correct itself if we wait long enough. Let’s fix the system, but don’t throw it away.”
Meanwhile the conmen who gave us the system are nowhere to be found, and new conmen are moving in to prey on desperate people. We should help those desperate people – not make dollars, euros, or pounds off their suffering.
How to do that is a good question… I give up.
tc @ 21: “The great question is: what do you do when the ruling class has shown itself to be utterly corrupt?”
Why not treat them as you would any other immoral, depraved and venal people? Don’t lend them money, don’t hang around with them and don’t work with them unless you have no choice.
If you have to work with them, keep good notes and establish proof that they said what they said and promised what they promised and did what they did. For example, never meet with them unless you or a third party is recording or taking notes of what was said at the meeting.
The bottom line is they will try to screw you, so minimize the chances and be prepared to sue them. Unfortunately you are vulnerable until you realize they are corrupt. When you are vulnerable, they take you.
You don’t have to play the hero. You just have to be a grinder.
The defeat of Obama and the dems in the fall is going to be an order of magnitude greater than most currently imagine.
Anyone else remember a movie from 1989 called “Leviathan”?
As I recall the story was that a group of undersea miners find a Russian- whoops, Soviet- merchant ship on the bottom of the sea and of course investigate. Then they are all turned into horrible monsters as the Soviet ship was actually scuttled because of a terrible gene-altering experiment that went awry.
What I remember most- and why I am mentioning this movie here- is the trailer. The victims went about their business until all of a sudden they lost control and presto! were horrible monsters. In the trailer a character held up his hand and a sharp-toothed mouth suddenly appeared in his palm. No doubt this was a triumph of early CGI, explaining why it appeared in the trailer.
Remembering that scene I’ve had the strange sense that the US Federal government has slowly been turning into that same terrible monster. At some point in the last few years- while everyone was going about their business- presto! the mouth appeared, eager to feast upon the Republic. The emergence of the Tea Party is a sign that the public has noticed all that.
Forgive my rambling. But I’ve seen too many bizarre incomprehensible policies emerge from the DC maw to believe that the US government is acting in the interests of the American people as opposed to the interests of a global transnationalist collection of elitists.
To pick one example- the fact that the LCS- “littoral combat ship”- exists as designed. One of my general quarters stations long ago while I was in the USN was as part of a watch section assigned to re-enter the engine room of my ship after the on-duty section had been killed.
With such a tiny crew there is no way in blazes any LCS will have that sort of redundancy. There just aren’t enough crewmembers. Worse, I’ve read plenty about the fragility of the ships, dependent upon extensive, easily destroyed networking controls that no rational navy would build into a ship designed for combat.
So maybe they aren’t designed for combat. Maybe they’re designed to be the globalist, transnationalist disaster relief ship. That is, a vessel that can move really fast, with a helicopter deck and cargo hold able to hold plenty of supplies- but also incredibly vulnerable to hostile action. That way they won’t alarm any possible adversaries of the United States but will look impressive to taxpaying American citizens who know nothing about the military.
I hope I’m just being paranoid- but then I recall that the present USN slogan is “a global force for good”.
Yeeeeah. I’m sure Mayor Bloomberg would tell me I’m just being crazy- right before he took away my guns and told me what to eat.
“Big fleas have smaller fleas upon their backs to bite them.
Those fleas have even smaller fleas and so on ad infintunitum.”
Conspiracies that become noticed generate counter conspiracies and someone is always looking for moles.
Sometimes a strong wind comes up and blows all the smoke and clouds away and there will be the enemy flank on to your guns.
Tcobb @ 21: “The great question is: what do you do when the ruling class has shown itself to be utterly corrupt?”
Paradoxically, the answer is — Nothing! The Ruling Class has climbed to the highest branch of the tree, dropping poison on its roots as they went, and are now busily sawing off the branch on which they sit. We should sit back & watch them fall into well-deserved extinction.
Old Rahmmie can flounce around saying what he wants about homosexual marriage — but he can’t create tax revenues. And in the absence of adequate tax revenues, Rahmbo’s bully squad is doomed. No point in Rahmo going to the State of Illinois for support — it too is doomed, for the same financial reason. Rahm and the rest of them are all Captain Ahabs; they have successfully harpooned their Great White Whale, and now it is dragging them to their deaths.
Let us be joyful. The Ruling Class have already lost! They are dead men walking. Unfortunately, that does not yet mean we have won. As Pyrrhus is reputed to have said — if this is victory, our hands are not big enough to hold it.
The comments about the tragic hero made me think of this:
The Orphans of God by Mark Heard
I will rise from my bed with a question again
As I work to inherit the restless wind
The view from my window is cold and obscene
I want to touch what my eyes haven’t seen
But they have packaged our virtue in cellulose dreams
And sold us the remnants ’til our pockets are clean
Til our hopes fall ’round our feet
Like the dust and dead leaves
And we end up looking like what we believe
We are soot-covered urchins running wild and unshod
We will always be remembered as the orphans of God
They will dig up these ruins and make flutes of our bones
And blow a hymn to the memory of the orphans of God
Like bees in a bottle we are flying at fate
Beating our wings against the walls of this place
Unaware that the struggle is the blood of the proof
In choosing to believe the unbelievable truth
But they have captured our siblings and rendered them mute
They’ve disputed our lineage and poisoned our roots
We have bought from the brokers who have broken their oaths
And we’re out on the streets with a lump in our throats
We are soot-covered urchins running wild and unshod
We will always be remembered as the orphans of God
They will dig up these ruins
And make flutes of our bones
And blow a hymn to the memory of the orphans of God
I find the concept of believing the unbelievable truth to be a powerful and compelling reason to have hope.
Richard, I can always count on you to cheer me up.
Re Kaspersky: So we’re putting our cybersecurity in the hands of a Kremlin “inward”?
What could possibly go wrong?
This is a broad post and the commentators have covered most of the problems of 0bama and his iron hand. I will make my thoughts short.
“[Jeremy Peters]…describes… what journalists write is what the President’s handlers let them write.”
It obvious that 0bama is controlling the Main Stream Media. And, it is clear that 0bama and his cronies are fairly well organized, wide spread and hungry for power. Somewhat like an infestation of termites in the structure of a wood house.
The termites eat away at the structure from the inside out. There is very little outward evidence of the damage until the structure starts to collapse.
Although, we are the 48% occupying the house we could euphemistically spay pest control on the surfaces without have any effect on the termites inside the wood. They are entrenched, numerically larger and have much control over the purse strings. 0bama is buying votes via all forms of government welfare.
Hence, barring ripping open the wood, we would have drill small hole in which to discover the size and location of the 0bama termite colony.
In the current political situation that peep hole would require having a man on the “inside” to report exactly what is going on in the 0bama colony – a “WikiLeaks” in the 0bama reelection team. Andrew Breitbart is gone but his spirit lives on.
It appears that Kaspersky Labs has the ability to monitor 0bama but is reporting directly to Moscow (which is not comforting). I recommend plant of sorts in the 0bama nest to learn their tactical moves. Turn the tables. Do what the MSM and the other 52% is doing to us.
Although, 0bama has a silver tongue I suspect someone more intelligent is pulling the strings (observation leads me to think 0bama is not very smart). Once we get the information on the true political queen, we must decide how to best to apply the insect control directly to “queen” of the nest. Then eject her from office.
I imagine that the termite queen might be under our noses. It could be somebody like Nancy Pelosi, Debbie Wasserman, or a clever aid to anyone in the 0bama roach colony. Once they are locked in the roach motel the political mop-up can continue.
To turn 0bama’s own weapon against him I’ll just quote from Alinsky: “Whenever possible, go outside the expertise of the enemy.”
This would include everything from turning his allies against him to exposing his dirty money tactics. From monitoring his sites and exploiting the many campaign violations he has most likely committed. The opportunities are huge.
We could detail the lies he has told, the money he has wasted, the cronies who AstroTurf his TV appearances and his “extra-legal” fund raising activities (he usually takes away his donor’s cell phones and forks that’s why we need someone inside). Look for ways to increase his insecurity, anxiety and uncertainty. The latter is showing in the polls. The task is difficult but not impossible.
tcobb #21:
“And it is a great mistake to believe that the ruling class is confined to the people at the top of the ladder. They permeate the government–sons and daughters of the politically connected who have been given jobs that require no actual work or that are given to those who do not have the competence to do the job they have been granted through their connections. But once again–what do we do with them? That is the question.”
Deport all the illegals. Then end the sinecures, giving the former sinecure owners you describe the opportunity of working in the now open lower paying, hard-labor jobs as the only option they have other than starving to death.
Two problems solved.
And yes, I’m completely serious.
And regarding the Farrakhan thing….
We have seen that when leftists regard devout Christians who are white, they reflexively and unthinkingly assign them the trait of evil. But leftists are perfectly fine with just as devoutly Christian blacks – see the Dem tolerance of the “black church”.
Now we see that when white people are opposed to gay marriage, the left finds them to be sufficiently evil that they not be allowed to have economic freedom, enforced by the police power of the state. However, black people who are just as opposed to gay marriage are invited in and encouraged to pursue their business.
Take away? Whites are bad, blacks are good. Well, at least the “not OUR sort of whites” are bad.
Charles Manson’s “helter skelter” scenario, it now must be admitted, touched upon or revealed a theme and mindset that is fairly pervasive in a good sized swath of the left, perhaps all of them. Blacks are better than “the wrong types of whites”, but they still need the “right type of whites” (meaning leftists, of course) to lead them in life.
Like I said, the “Clog’s” the Gears, screws, rods, etc. of the Federal and many State governments are poisoned, lesser is the local level. The factories are applying the poison so each new replacement is at least as Anti- American as the last if not more so…
I think everybody is missing the real story behind the Chick-fil-a flap. It’s not about gay marriage and “Chicago values” — turning the streets over to thugs from the Nation of Islam is more representative of “Chicago values” — it’s about a failure to payoff Alderman Moreno. Moreno represents a predominantly Latino ward which is not exactly a hotbed for gay rights. As ex-pat Chicagoan I will tell you exactly how this went down. Moreno asked for “consideration” and Chick-fil-a refused to pay the bribe so Moreno retaliated. If I were Chick-fil-a management I would close the one existing restaurant and publicly state that Mareno asked for a bribe. Let’s shine some light on the practice of politics in Weimar on Lake Michigan.
The players of power also live a life of illusion as well. It’s largely a self imposed leash that keeps the entire place from burning down. Paul Cantrell thought he was the boss too, till the day he broke that leash.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Athens_%281946%29
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2662004/posts
Progressives grew up in a world that did not take them seriously. They were largely ignored by mainstream America so it made them angry and their anger caused them to hate. They have ridden to power on the back of race, gender, and environmental issues, ironically, all of which were originally championed by Republicans. Now in power progressives do not feel they got to a position of power because of America, but despite it. They are resentful, but most of all, they are motivated by hate, in other words, they have found the power of the dark side and have the moral cover to make good use of it to vanquish their enemies. Even though their cover is a grotesque lie they have the concurrence of media and academia.
There has been a fundamental change in our government. It was founded to protect the rights of man from the evils of tyranny. That has transmogrified into protecting the rights of the earth from the evil of man. To protect the international community from having to compete with the US consumer and to protect counter-culture hate groups from the majority and its traditions. To over throw this majority politicians are importing illegal voters.
Our governors have evolved into an institutionalized hate group.
Tdiinva (#44) Astute observation! I agree, that is the hidden meaning.
11@Gordon said, “Any Clubbers like me who enjoy Ambler would also enjoy Alan Furst. The two remind me of each other”.
+1 to both Ambler and Furst. Ambler wrote the 39 Steps that Hitchcock made into a movie.
35@Xennady: The LCSs are also made of aluminum which burns quite hot.
In other news, China announced that is is garrisoning an island in the South China Sea. Wanna bet what we will do about it?
#44 I think you are probably very close to the truth. It’s amazing how simple things are at times
Generally speaking I’m not concerned with the Harold Myersons and Axlerods of the world. Unfortunately, when the sh*t hits they generally make up the underlings in the new Vichy government. The guys I worry about are the Rahm Emmanuels, Obama’s, Harry Reids and the like. They tend to attract the hardcore, idealogical facists who are more than willing to use force to execute their masters will. Getting past those guys is who I worry about. And once past them I hope the revolution goes something like what recently happend in Mali…
http://www.foxnews.com/world/2012/07/07/how-1-man-derailed-20-years-democracy-in-mali/
AM @ 46: Our governors have evolved into an institutionalized hate group.
Yah, that’s what it comes down to. In order to further racial integration in the 1960s, we started teaching children and citizens not to judge anything, but more to the point, the political system started claiming the right to tell people what to think and feel, and that resisting the government was not just illegal but immoral. That was never previously seen as the role of the US government. It WAS a prime characteristic of Soviet communism.
I quibble a bit with calling that “progressive”. They may *claim* it’s “progress”, but I doubt it. Everyone in western civilization has been for “progress” since the thought was invented as part of the Enlightenment, the problem is not with the idea but with taking it too far, and claiming that any oddball idea or theory you have must be progress. No particular idea is “progress”, things must earn merit on their own. You just can’t say, “It would be real progress if everyone in this room would give me twenty dollars!” yet that’s pretty much what modern American democratic/liberal/progressive/socialists do, or “It would be real progress if you would shut up and we just did everything my way!” Yeah right. Of course it was already going too far in the French Revolution. Or maybe we’re all Krugmans now, and should look back and say that it really did not go far enough????
Meyerson … sigh. He was one of the old generation of liberals who at least would attempt an intelligent conversation, if their assumptions were wrong and their instincts pink, they at least pretended to discussion. It’s sad to see him now being an idiot, misperceiving, misrepresenting. I discount his extreme recommendations, that was always allowed, but what is different now is that he’s as disassociative from reality as our boy The Joker in Colorado.
At the risk of violating Godwin’s Law – we were always taught to wonder about Nazi Germany, how could they all go so crazy? The same question always hovered over Soviet communism as well, but there was some ambivalence about that. The modern Democratic party, the regime in the White House, and substantially all of our MSM, are now as batshit as anything that ever happened in Germany. Well, at least they’re convenient now for study, if you ever had any theories to work on. Will events follow in America as they did in Germany and Russia? We are showing some resistance to it, at least, but I dunno, we’re sure skating close to the abyss.
Josh, I share your concerns with the mangling of the language but the term liberal has been completely revised and the term “progressive” has taken on the meaning of the progressive movement which is of course an entirely different animal. It comes down the fact that the Left likes to enshroud themselves in labels that were once innocuous if not noble and turn them into something far more threatening to liberty.
Pretty much a lurker here (overawed and not much of substance to add), but I read something yesterday that is very pertinent to Josh @ 50: “The same question always hovered over Soviet communism as well, but there was some ambivalence about that.”
A posthumously published short story by Solzhenitsyn.
#42
see the Dem tolerance of the “black church”.
That tolerance is fraying because of the gay marriage issue. When black clergymen objected to Obama’s embrace (pardon the word choice) of gay marriage, the wheels were set in motion to “bring them in line.”
To me, the most remarkable thing about the tolerance of Farrakhan is the fact that he was complicit in Malcolm X’s murder. Granted, he was never indicted, but it is widely-known that his position in the Nation of Islam’s hierarchy gave him the power to give the go-ahead for rubbing out X, who had become an “apostate” for having aligned himself with genuine Islam after he went on a Haj. Nowadays the “Nation of Islam” is orthodox Islamic, but at the time of Malcolm X’s murder it was a bizarre fraud based on a strange fairytale concocted by Elija Muhamad, a petty criminal.
Malcolm X is an African-American icon for the wrong reasons. He was deliberately killed because he was mellowing compared to his old self and the Black Muslims. As a result of his murder, he became frozen in time as an extreme anti-white militant, which was exactly the intent of his murder, and they succeeded. That black America accepts this, and tolerates his murderer is — to me — one of the great travesties of the modern American scene.
I’m not meaning to be impolite, but it’s important to point out for the record that you are using the term ‘autocrat’ incorrectly, probably with the intent of capturing the negative connotation it has acquired for most speakers of English. That connotation is unfortunate and it does much to stifle an honest discussion of the merits of autocracy.
‘Autocracy’ properly refers to a government in which supreme executive authority is concentrated in the hands of a single man. A literal translation from the Greek would be something like “rule by himself alone.” It is meant to be used simply as a descriptive term, not as a moral disapprobation.
By contrast, the situation (rightly) lamented by most Belmont Clubbers in most Belmont posts—that in which the State assumes an ever widening sphere of control over the personal lives of its subjects—is properly known as ‘totalitarianism.’ Barack Obama and Rahm Emmanuel are totalitarians, but they are definitely not autocrats; not only do they not rule by themselves, but it is only by a certain blurring of the notion of authority that they can be said to rule at all. The Romanov Tsars, on the other hand, were autocrats per the constitution of imperial Russia, but they were not totalitarians; for example, the respect of private property was one of the foundational principles of imperial rule. The two are very different.
Nevertheless, many people today—especially those under the influence certain quite vocal avatars of American civic expressionism—have conflated autocracy with totalitarianism by way of the following paired elisions, claiming firstly that there is an inevitable tendancy in any autocrat to seek to accumulate unchecked personal power for himself, and thereby become a totalitarian (“absolute power corrupts absolutely,” and all that); and secondly that autocratic power is naturally attractive to, and conducive to the reign of, psychopathic personalities. But belying these assumptions is the historical record, which clearly shows that not only do autocracies display no preponderant tendancy to degenerate into totalitarian states, but also that totalitarians are quite capable of operating within ostensible democracies; and indeed many of the most successful statists (like the Communists) began their careers in opposition to autocracies and finally destroyed them.
In reality autocracy is the best defense against totalitarianism, which is why the confusion surrounding these concepts is both frustrating and sad. Only the totalitarian, in his restless quest for regions of low entropy to cannibalize, is “by definition a rebel.” His rebellion knows no boundaries, has no agenda, has no terminus—hence his totalizing instincts. What he rebels against is (again by definition) autocracy, the presence of a limit which abides ultimately in nothing but the spiritual force of a personality, the ruler. The means he employs in his revolt is (once more, by definition) democracy, “the liberation of the people,” who were conscious of no lack of liberty prior to his relentless pamphleteering on their behalf, and whom he intends at the last extreme to dissolve unthanked into dust. The true guarantor of the people’s rights has ever been the autocrat, the person in which they can repose their confidence; and who, by virtue of his supreme majesty, devolves upon them a lesser majesty of their own.
“The Divien Right of Kings” is not just a bit of quaint medieval rationalization, but a recognition that the right ordering of society is modeled on the right ordering of man to his Creator, viz. that of subject to lord.
The whole gay marriage Chick-fil-A flap is a consequence of what happens when you give power to government. We allowed government to define and control the institution of marriage. That should never have happened.
We need a “licence” from the state to get married. Why don’t people see how demeaning and controlling that is? I don’t get it. In my world the government would only recognize civil unions or whatever you want to call them for purposes such as property rights and so on. Marriage would be a matter of religious or personal conscience.
Traditionalists and religious bodies have allowed government to determine what is an authentic and proper marriage. They have brought the king’s office into the church. It would never occur to someone a century ago that there could ever be such a thing as gay marriage. Now there is and it is hard to be sympathetic to whomever left the barn door open to begin with.
So now a crafty politician like Emanuel can use this for all kinds of political gain none of which has anything to do with any moral issues or political rights. He is just playing the system we gave him. The whole argument for limited government is based on the premise that you can’t trust politicians and here we are with one more example.
Conservatives fall into the same trap on this issue by pushing for more laws and more control of something that government should not be in the business of to begin with.
Found something worth my last round;
http://townhall.com/video/rep-mike-kellys-speech-gets-standing-ovation-and-usa-chants
Haji can’t shoot.
AM @ 51: but the term liberal has been completely revised and the term “progressive” has taken on the meaning of the progressive movement which is of course an entirely different animal.
Not around me it hasn’t.
I don’t cede the language or the narrative to nobody.
Words mean what I chose them to mean.
It’s a mistake to do otherwise, and a nearly unrecoverable mistake, I agree with Lakoff to that extent.
jc @ 52: A posthumously published short story by Solzhenitsyn.
Outstanding writing.
But also heartbreaking in non-obvious ways. HOW can they be so mad? Was there not some mistake, some wrong turn, something that can be fixed, some small adjustment made and then everyone wakes up clear-eyed and works together to get back on a rational track? And if not, then OMG.
Wretchard: It’s not really about the “responsibility to protect” or overthrowing a tyrant, or standing up for some international principle. The real players — KSA, Iran, Turkey and the West, know it is all about oil, power and money. Who would have ever thought it was about religion or Allah, or brotherhood and love?
Islam is about nothing but power, and the modus operandi of this death cult is “the lie” or “Taqiyya”…everywhere employed to grab and hold onto power. Any religion whose own name is self-defined as “submission” can be about nothing else but power. And it’s clear by the video at the end of your post that this US Administration is in league with that death cult power, using the same modus operandi in every Washington corridor and press briefing, in every fast and furious operation, in every Solyndra money laundering deal, in every anti-Romney political add, in every reframing of it own gaffes, telling us “it wasn’t really said,”…in every damn stinking word they say everywhere and every time, they are people of “the lie.”
Kinauchdrach (37),
Love it when people use my favorite metaphor… not so sure I love the reality behind it, or your prescription, as I suspect they might be working on the branch we’re all sitting on. Don’t forget, Ahab lost his entire crew save one.
Matt (55),
Go ahead and pull the other one.
And just for the record: “absolute power corrupts absolutely, and all that” comes from Catholic source.
tdiinva #44:
Very interesting. And totally believeable. Fits the M.O. perfectly.
And don’t forget the recent complaints about the “dirty outsider” restaurants, in Harlum, wasn’t it? Same thing, no doubt. They would not play ball so they want them kicked out.
A dirty little open secret is that the relationships between “whites” and the minority races is way better than between the minorities. For example, someone once suggested that when there is a disagreement between whites and blacks you should let the Asians adjudicate it. How would the two sides feel about that? The Whites would say Okay in all probablility – and the blacks would throw a total fit.
The dirty little closed secret about the Bill CLinton invasion of Haiti was that it was driven by American black leaders who did not like the Haitians coming here – they look black but have a whole different culture, one not driven by the desire for handouts.
Regarding the meaning of “autocracy”, yes, the formal definition is “one who rules by himself” and is made up of two roots, “auto” meaning self, and “cracy” meaning “rule.” However, the root “auto” today is more commonly associated with the concept of “self-actualizing” in the sensse of automobile, automatic or automation. An automobile moves itself. Something that is automatic happens without external guidance or help. Automation replaces human components with machinery. The “self” that auto refers to is far more commonly considered a non-human self today.
Plus, we have other words for “one who rules by himself” that are in more common usage, dictatorship being the most common.
So I think that for the majority of Americans today, the word autocracy doesn’t conjure up images of a dictator ruling according to his whims and passions (QuaDaffy with his all-girl bodyguard detail for example), but rather the exact opposite – a dehumanized machinery grinding along without intellect or emotion. Factory rule. Self-perpetuating rule. Mindless rule. Rule by automatons unable to alter their programming even when it produces clearly undesirable results.
And I think that’s a useful description today.
Annoy Mouse
In language as in all things, the Left are parasites. Their concepts and beliefs cannot survive on their own, and so need to attach to a host word or concept. Thus “liberal” defines someone who favors massive regulation and a centralized, all-pervasive government, while “progressive” defines a luddite who probably has a paleolithic hunter-gatherer’s outlook on life.
61. RWE
And don’t forget the recent complaints about the “dirty outsider” restaurants, in Harlum, wasn’t it? Same thing, no doubt. They would not play ball so they want them kicked out.
Are you referring to Marion Barry’s tirade about Asian stores in DC?
“Not around me it hasn’t.
I don’t cede the language or the narrative to nobody.”
Well Josh, you seem like a gay fellow. You are a liberal progressive whose descriptivism defies an awe-full neologism.
“When I use a word,” Humpty Dumpty said, in rather a scornful tone, “it means just what I choose it to mean － neither more nor less.”
“The question is,” said Alice, “whether you can make words mean so many different things.”
“The question is,” said Humpty Dumpty, “which is to be the master － that’s all.”
Meanwhile relax and torch a fag.
Don Rodrigo #63:
Yes, that is it!
You know, Marion Barry is one of those Leftist leaders who can only only survive by his people saying when required, “Oh, that’s Marion Barry! We pay no attention to him!” Teddy Kennedy was another.
But there was that business in Harlam some years ago when a Jewish store was run out of business.
In terms of Chick-fil-A and rights and such, Frank Herbert summed the Progressive attitude up beautifully in “Children of Dune.”
When I am weaker than you, I ask you for freedom because that is according to your principles; when I am stronger than you, I take away your freedom because that is according to my principles.
The VP of Public Relations at Chick-Fil-a died of a heart attack this morning. He was the one who had the job of combating the media firestorm this week.
http://www.tmz.com/2012/07/27/chick-fil-a-pr-don-perry-died-heart-attack/
By the accounts I’ve read, a good man. R.I.P., Don Perry.
Unsk: How convenient that opponents of this admin just seem to have untimely heart attacks. Must be their hard, conservative hearts, neh?
If Mr. Perry was with Arthur Sando right before he died, we have a scoup.
***
Yep, the miniature jungle underfoot and hidden in the joists and rafters gives us the shivers partly because of the way it keeps rising to the surface de-miniaturized.
***
“Autocracy” reminds of “autarky” –Autarkos = ‘self sufficiency’ –being Aristotle’s ideal order. President McKinley was our last full-throated champion of national self-sufficiency in the ‘hurrah for we the people’ form –patriotic protectionism the McKinley policy at the front end of the 20th century (he was a brevet major in some major Civil War battles –Second Bull Run, South Mountain (Shenandoah Valley), Antietam among other big fights).
Who knows if the tariffs and the ‘America First-ism’ is what got him assassinated –there’s precious little sign of much pre-execution interrogation of Leon Czolgosz (pronounced ‘call-gosh’), assassin –mainly that he be ‘a young anarchist’. Wish there was more info on him –i guess the web was down.
***
http://www.financialsense.com/contributors/jr-nyquist/autarky-and-ancient-wisdom
A lot of Americans are ready instantly to assume the worst possible motives of, well, White Conservatives. It is absolutely characteristic of liberals in the vicinity of San Francisco, for instance, that they can be the nicest folks you EVER MET, until the exact moment that they hear you disagree with them about ANYTHING. I’ve seen Bay Area Liberals (that’s really NOT redundant) turn into red-faced spitting screamers with veins popping on their foreheads at no more than the insult of a happless tourist defending Starbucks over the local favorite coffee distributor PEET’s (just bought last week by the German Reimann family.)
Now, I have to agree Peet’s has a good selection; SFBay denizens seem to prefer a dark roasted bean that’s way too bitter for my palette. But you’re talking about a region where you can stop for gas at some remote mountain fastness, where the station’s tidiness is sufficiently dubious you might hesitate to try the Men’s room, but By God! you’ll find 50 different flavors of coffee available fresh brewed in the snack area in the office.
Back to my initial point, Americans of a certain mind do not question at all that there are evil people about, but they have been trained from birth to assume it’s exclusively the White Conservatives who commit the atrocities. They discount, deny, and refuse to permit any suggestion that, for instance, Mr. William Jefferson Clinton might have ever been party to any bribes, tax evasion, drug smuggling, or the elimination of felons who might tattle on him. Ditto for Hillary, despite the report from the Judge who supervised her work for the Watergate investigations of Nixon, that he fired her for hiding documents she’d found that tended to exculpate him. Oh, yeah, and the hundreds of Whitewater documents that went missing for two years, then showed up inexplicably back in the White House, sanitized of scores of crucial pages that have never been found.
It would be tempting to list all the sickening Liberal-Progressive corruption that’s come to light as Democrats have stopped worrying about maintaining the charade in the last few decades. Of course there are Republican grifters. But they’ve been limited, shut out from the easy pickin’s by a Party that has dominated United States politics at every level from local school boards, regional watershed councils, state legislatures, to a hundred Federal bureaucracies, courts, agencies, Congress and the White House for almost seven full decades. That’s a lot of time to emplace a vast array of siphons on the national treasury.
It’s forced Conservatives to make money “the old-fashioned way,” by creating wealth.
Well, a healthy bull can tolerate a lot of parasites, but unchecked in their enthusiastic feeding and multiplying, in time they weaken and kill their host.
This herd is due for a worming.
@ R Daneel@ #68,
*Or* it could simply be that heart disease is genuinely a common cause of death among Americans these days….But I imagine that possibility wouldn’t be nearly as much fun to consider!
I must say that both your post and Wretchard’s quotations from Eric Ambler remind me of the difference between Pirovision and Largovision:
V=http://megatokyo.com/strip/132
But the thing to remember is that there are occasions when Pirovision is in fact correct. Does anyone familiar with American leftists really think there would be *any* of us left alive if those twits actually had the ability to conjure up heart attacks at will? o_O