Ogblog

Here We Go

2012-02-15T00:49:00.001-08:00

Cheney's Secret Plan during Bush Years......

Cheney's Secret Plan during the Obama Years......It lives!!!! :(

Remembrance of Times Past

2012-02-14T02:01:00.000-08:00

Here is a piece of writing I wrote just after I found out my grandmother Adele O'Grady had died of colon cancer in Dec. of 1995. I was 23 so its written a little bit raw but its ok. I stole the title from Proust cuz I knew he couldn't stop me :)

I was nervous. This was unusual because I was never nervous around my Grandmother. I looked down at my trembling hands as I tried to light the match to ignite the fire in the little fireplace in my Grandmother's room. She wanted me to build the fire because light and warmth reminded her of life. I hated myself because I didn't know what to say. I could tell that she was uncomfortable as well. I finally lit the fire and rose to sit by Grandmother's bedside. I looked into her eyes and she looked into mine and we both knew that both of our lives were going to change very soon. She was going to die and a large part of me would die with her.

Every time we had talked in the past we almost always talked about the future. We talked about everything from politics and world events all the way down to how cute one of her many newborn grandchildren was. (she had fifteen of them!) But tonight was different. Tonight the future was too frightening for either of us to contemplate. Tonight we both felt we were at a dead end. This was the first time I had seen her since I had learned she would die soon. The colon cancer had spread to her liver. It was just after Thanksgiving 1995 and I was home to visit my family in Salinas. I stared at the little fire raging and dancing and held Grandmother's hand as we wept as never before. I thought about the central role my Grandmother had played in my life and how this centrality created the idea in me that she was immortal. By her actions and by her philosophy she taught me that life is fleeting and meant to be lived. I remember so many facets of her life and beliefs that she held which were at the forefront of my life and taught me this notion.

One big part of my Grandmother's and my life together was travel. She and I traveled widely together. Both my mom and dad have MS and usually are physically unable to travel so my Grandmother would take me about to various spots of the world. One trip in particular I remember most vividly. It was in July 1984 to Washington DC. I remember my older brother Mike and three of my cousins Caitlin, Nicole, and Troy also came along. I was eleven and extremely excited because it was my first trip to the east coast. The city was sweltering hot and alive with blooming color splashed in brilliant sunshine. My young mind and imagination were ignited by what I saw. I had always been interested in history and politics but this trip brought my interest to a deeper level. As we visited all the monuments and the Capitol and White House the truth was driven home to me that real people built this country and real people serve it. The politicians of today are debating the same great philosophical principles that giants like Jefferson, Hamilton, and Lincoln debated. Issues involving justice are timeless and constant. The trip showed me the common threads throughout the history of our great country. Most importantly it instilled in me the belief that I could help shape the history of the country, that I could have an impact. I still believe this today.

Another way that Grandmother shaped my life were the family get-togethers at her home. The biggest of these were on Christmas. Being in Grandmother's house around Christmas was being in a cocoon of light, warmth, and love. On Christmas Eve all of us would have dinner at her house. My Grandmother always cooked in bulk. She had a huge kitichen and she utilized every nook and corner of it. There was not just one entree but three:prime rib, ham or turkey. There was not just one kind of bread but three:white, rye, or wheat. To top it off there was not just one luscious pie but many:pumpkin, strawberry, chocolate etc....just in case we were not full....(well, we've always had cholesterol problems!) During dinner our volatile, tumultuous, yet somehow happy family would sit around some large tables and stuff ourselves like Greek epicureans. There would be myself, my brother, and my mom and dad at one part of the table. Then there would be my Aunt Kathy and Uncle Mike and my cousins Troy, Nicole and Shane at another part. In another corner would be my Uncle Tom and Aunt Deidre and cousins Megan and Annalise. As well at the table would sit my Uncle Pat and their wives and ex-wives Jenny, Vicky, Patricia, Jenny, and Jeanne (like a mafia family, one can marry in but never really leave :) and their eight children between them.

Presiding over this wacky, boisterous clan my Grandmother ensured all got enough to eat and especially drink....we are Irish AND Hungarian. After dinner we would waddle to the massive living room and listen to my dad or Tim play the piano, light a fire or just sit around and tell dirty, raunchy jokes for a few hours. (we kicked out the Puritans long ago :) The next morning on Christmas the living room would be sheer bedlam as every greedy O'Grady raced to tear open the gifts under the tree. The floor looked like a confetti parade just passed. Often some of us would go to the backyard and play nerf football on the lawn. These family parties were my Grandmother's reason for being. She was exultant and proud of her family. She loved all of us and we loved her. That love bound us together as a family. We all pulled for one another and knew someone gave a damn about us and wanted us to succeed in life.

My Grandmother was central to my life as well through her guiding philosophy. She instilled in her children and grandchildren a belief in boundless opportunity. There was no excuse for failure in life and she expected and knew that all of us would succeed by having goals and purpose. She wanted me to use the boundless opportunities I was given to fulfill my own expectations. I know that I will never live up to all those expectations but I will always try to because of what my Grandmother taught me.

As I sat that night next to Grandmother's bedside I thought of these things and many more. We didn't say a word to each other, we just squeezed hands and watched the fire dance until it waned to embers. I let go of Grandmother's hand and raised up and kissed her on the cheek and told her that I loved her. She said that she loved me too and to never forget that. I gave her hand a final squeeze and she gave me a knowing, caring smile. My Grandmother, Adele O'Grady, died two weeks later in the same bed.

My Grandmother was a central figure in my life for twenty-three years. She was a steadfast rock in the roiling waters of my life. She was a harbor of refuge. But with her death I finally realized what I know she tried to teach me by her life. Every thought counts, every smile, every laugh, every hug or cry. Every moment in this tumultuous, exhilarating, sunburst of light we call life, counts.

The Duality of Self-Government

2012-02-13T00:57:00.000-08:00

I think, therefore I speak!! :) Cogito ergo hablo!! (to combine Latin and Spanish :) Usually too long and verbosely as is the case here

Majority Thinking (II)

2012-02-11T02:42:00.000-08:00

Majority Thinking (I)

2012-02-11T01:51:00.000-08:00

A minor talk on an important topic (I)

Goldman Sucks

2012-02-10T01:52:00.000-08:00

Two Goldman Sachs Reps meet at the White House and BS each other. :)

Historian Niall Ferguson

2012-02-10T01:03:00.001-08:00

This is an excellent synopsis of the current broad economic crisis simmering in the US and outside it. If you want to cut the intro crap, the lecture starts 8 minutes in..... Would you want to be President at the end of this year or in 2013?? Good luck BHO, Mittens, Rick Saintorum or F Newton.....lots of luck, gonna need it....plus about 10 trillion more worthless, inflated dollars :) To sum up.....we are up the Creek of Defecation :( this lecture was in 2010...and no kiddies the situation has not improved....the debts are about 20% higher actually because derivatives have continued to explode upward...the bomb is increasing its yield. Its only a matter of when it goes off.....

Libertarian Satire Smashing the National Security State

2012-02-10T00:36:00.000-08:00

This video encapsulates into 3 minutes just about all that many of us find enraging about the current culture and state of affairs in the country using criticism of the TSA's violation of the 4th amendment as a starting point. Got news for ya....we aren't just a bunch of legalize Marijuana people (although that would be nice :) We read.....and we think.....and we argue back now.....and we increasingly VOTE.....this is social satire no doubt but there are serious arguments and thoughts behind it....just calling people names is not an argument and won't cut it anymore....fight our ideas, if they are so easy to refute you will eventually win.

Straight Political Thought From Real Voters

2012-02-08T01:21:00.000-08:00

I like this because its not some focus group where people tell the puffed up bloated millionaire moderator what they think they are supposed to say or some BS about what "feeling" they get when they look into Willard Romney's eyes or whatever bullshit. This is straight from the peopl e.

Update on the Russian View of the Situation in Syria and Iran

2012-02-07T03:36:00.000-08:00

The beginning of the war is not being televised.

Words or Phrases "U" Wish "U" Could Ban

2012-02-07T02:11:00.002-08:00

Language, like any other technology, is shaped by its use. Used mindlessly and thoughtlessly it will cease to enhance thought but will truncate, limit, and inhibit it.....so baby let the words flow from your mouth and pen and keyboard!!! :) and if you run out of words then rip the Face off of FaceBook and expand your vocabulary including my own :)

Decline Theory in History?

2012-02-05T06:24:00.000-08:00

A short informal talk on the Decline Theory of History and its relevance to the world today. The quote I mention at the end is from Herodotus in his "Histories" not from Thucydides in "The Pelopennesian War" (Thucydides was more practical :) but the point is the same.

The Sources of Modern Angst

2012-02-05T03:19:00.000-08:00

A rambling examination of mine of the current pessimism.

The Credit Anstalt Crisis of 1932

2012-02-02T00:47:00.001-08:00

Here is a short snippet of a brilliant historian describing the demise of a central bank. And this professor of history, a man of perhaps less genius but greater passion, speaks for himself with great force and energy.

Generation Stupid

2012-01-31T18:46:00.000-08:00

The Dumbest Generation training to be the Gestapo Generation. Of course they wouldn't understand that. We can't expect them to understand that. The sound of guns brings out the budding little fascist in all of them.

Implied Rage

2012-01-29T23:55:00.000-08:00

The most profound songs are those where the rage is implied through the use of lyrics instead of the use of excess noise.

Words where the tone is in direct contrast to the meaning are the most powerful. This is why whispered threats are much more serious than blusterous shouting from third-world cranks and dictators.

When the threats are implied and under the table start preparing for a fight.

Pakistan and the Disaster in Afghanistan and Central Asia

2012-01-29T22:08:00.000-08:00

A short book review of "Descent Into Chaos: The US and the Disaster in Pakistan, Afghanistan, and Central Asia.

The Danger of the Fulfillment of Political Wishes

2012-01-28T11:41:00.000-08:00

The most difficult skill in politics is too see any limitation to the implementation of one's fondest political dreams. First one must see the limitation and then one must actively work to place it upon oneself. It is the equivalent, on the individual level, to the government placing any limits upon itself over time. It is a nearly impossible task and the reason why most polities divide between two radical extremes and tear themselves to pieces.

The Kennedy Management Style

2012-01-27T01:10:00.000-08:00

A talk on the Kennedy management style and the transition away from the Eisenhower management style.

Lying Presidents

2012-01-26T01:00:00.000-08:00

One often hears criticisms of the President and all Presidents that he and they are liars. I say that I don't mind if a President lies. All human beings are liars.

What I want is a President who lies to the right people. Lie, lie and lie again. To the banker who wants a bailout, to the businessman who wants a subsidy, to the general or more likely the Pentagon paper pusher who wants a war, to the foreign dictator who wants a slush fund or uses your past to blackmail you, to the foreign enemy who has feigned friendship for 22 years but actually wants to turn your cities into glass, to the Saudi Prince who wants his cut, to the Senator who wants to sell out his or her state for a favor, to the corporation that gives a "contribution" for "considerations", to all these rat bastards.....lie, lie lie lie lie and lie some more.

And then turn on them and smash them to pieces, destroy them, hunt them down and slash their throats. (after a fair trial of course :) And then tell the truth to the American people about what you did and why you did it.

Obama and Hu

2012-01-25T22:19:00.000-08:00

The Dying World

2012-01-25T20:18:00.002-08:00

This is funny as hell.......and its also touching yet exhilarating to know that this counterfeit high tech world that couldn't develop the products it uses if its life depended on it because it is too fucking ignorant and stupid is about to be smashed. The days of using technology in a white picket fence world for entertainment and fun and play are over. The new manichean world is almost here where technology will be wielded by those who created it for the purpose of either bringing and defending life or unleashing death. Pick your side.

Real GDP

2012-01-25T16:22:00.000-08:00

Here is an excellent and easy to understand piece on the reality of the GDP in the United States

Obama's Reelection Prospects

2012-01-24T04:44:00.001-08:00

Number One..................number two..............

Response to Andrew Sullivan

2012-01-23T23:37:00.000-08:00

Belief

2012-01-22T01:17:00.000-08:00

In honor of the Baltimore Ravens in another AFC Championship this morning, here is their great linebacker Ray Lewis. We need to remember that courage means doing your duty, but also gaining the wisdom to know what that duty is. This kind of passion and belief is what we need to see more of. (and why the Ravens are gonna kick New England's ass)

(later) Ok Ok, I did not say they would win....hell no one can predict that!! I just said they would kick their ass....you don't think Brady feels like he got his ass kicked about right now :)

Another example of how everything sounds better in French. I hate this song in English. Love it in French. and of course the masterful Mr. Armstrong "playing life"

and another experiement in a youtube post to put you to sleep and here is another one of my "bin laden" videos.....without the ridiculous beard, or the eventual SEAL home invasion....until a President decides to utilize the NDAA :)

The Sorrows of Empire

2012-01-21T11:21:00.000-08:00

this is an excellent all encompassing interview, I don't agree with Hedges completely but he's looking at the problem from the right angle.

Using the foreground to cover up the background

2012-01-20T23:31:00.000-08:00

Too often, especially in today's entertainment besotted world, we are often distracted by the enticing and the titillating for what is perhaps more interesting and important :)

Romanian and Magyar Oradea and Chopin's Genius

2012-01-19T01:48:00.000-08:00

The genius of Chopin, the beauty of a city, the tragedy of the center of a continent trying to recover from the beginning of the end of civilization that is still unfolding.

Songs of Loss

2012-01-17T22:47:00.000-08:00

Loss is what the living think of the dead. We sing about it, think about it, talk about it. I wonder what the dead think of the living?? Do their souls interact with each other in a discourse on the living?? For them the living are not lost but are perhaps gained in new and profound ways they never could have known while they were alive as the barriers are too great between the souls of the living. Anyway.....this is an amazing song. For me its about those we have lost who are dead but also those who are still alive but dead for us anyway.

A word is worth a thousand pictures. Thought devoid of feeling is meaningless. Feeling devoid of thought is fleeting. Thought united with feeling is profound and timeless. What is needed in our People in these days is at once fire and fog. The fire to face the test and the fog to recover from and soothe the pain of its aftermath.

Happy MLK Day

2012-01-15T23:34:00.000-08:00

Freeman is aptly named. Sometimes one says more when speaking casually than formally.

An excerpt from one of King's better speeches.

Does the Constitution Limit or Enshrine Federal Power?

2012-01-15T01:10:00.000-08:00

It is often said by Conservatives and Libertarians and Paul supporters that the Constitution was written to limit the federal government's power. This is only part of the story because the founder's of the country no more agreed on the scope or limit of federal power than today's liberals, conservatives or libertarians.

The original intent of the writing of the Constitution was to increase the power of the Federal government to do CERTAIN things. Madison said that the dilemma was to at once create a government that was strong yet also limited in its powers. In other words, strong and capable in depth but limited in scope.

The purpose of the Constitution then was BOTH to increase the power of federal government while DIVIDING its mechanisms of power while always guaranteeing that its source was the People in their political capacity as manifested in the conventions of the People in each state that ratified the document. This extends to the present day through Article 5 of the Constitution that stipulates that the ultimate way to amend the Constitution is through conventions of the People at the state level. (this is probably eventually going to have to happen on a grand scale. I have a distrust of such a process, but ultimately we must be able to trust each other and ourselves as Americans to forge new amendments and protect each others rights as Americans no matter Conservative or Liberal or any label. we must learn to trust one another again, but that can only be earned over time through honesty and truth which depends upon freedom of speech and justice)

By dividing the mechanisms of federal power I mean instead of just a Continental Congress, as was the mechanism of power under the Articles of Confederation, Congress would itself be split into two houses and would be joined by two equal partners in power, the executive and the judiciary. These two functions had been weak in the former and left to the states in the latter under the Articles from 1781 to 1787.

The genius of the Founders was not some mystical mythical unity in which they all magically and prophetically agreed on a Constitution, like Saints on some mountain. Their genius was in their recognition that the Nation as a whole needed the kinds of mechanisms and divisions of power that the States already had written into THEIR constitutions beginning in 1776. The real geniuses of the early American Republic were those obscure brilliant souls who toiled away from 1776 to 1780 writing the State constitutions and figuring out ways of dividing power that both guaranteed good and strong governance AND Liberty at the same time. If you read the debate on the Constitution of 1787 it is largely an argument about ways of governing that had Already been implemented in many of the State Constitutions, many of which, at least in the North, led to the abolition of Slavery by the way.

The danger today is not really whether the Federal government has too much or too little power. The danger is UNACCOUNTABLE power. That is unaccountable to the People in their political capacity as the sovereigns of the Nation. Congress today largely abrogates authority to the Executive Branch in the form of bowing to the agencies and beauracratic divisions of the executive branch and relying on the Supreme Court for declarations on the unconstitutionality of laws that they pass.The American People are the source of ALL political power in the country PRECISELY because it was we who, through the Constitutional Conventions at the state level ratified the hallowed document in 1788, 89 and 90.

Madison wrote, in 1787, that the great danger to the Constitution at the time was the power of the States to violate it and assume power back to themselves that the constitution did not permit. This was certainly true up until at least 1865. I think a very good case today can be made that a greater danger to the Constitution is the Federal government exercising powers that the constitution does not permit it to. This is not a theoretical danger to Liberty. It is a direct one. It is direct not necessarily because it poses a PRESENT danger to Liberty but because the PRECEDENT it sets of pushing the limits and pushing down the limits of the Constitution can only, over the long run, leave the People stripped of their sovereign capacity to make their own laws and to be tossed onto the not so tender mercies of the whim of any two bit future tyrant. We will no longer be governed by our laws but by the fancies of our fallible men and women.

We must never forget that we are called the United States, not the the United State. It is not only the responsibility of each state to stay within the Union. It is the responsibility of the federal government, as the Union's power, to adhere to the Constitution and the limits that it places on it. Any violation, in that sense, is as much a violation of the principle of the Union as is the violation by a state. It is NOT legal, as many Conservatives now nonsensically argue, for a state to secede from the Union. But it is also not legal for the Federal government to so intervene into the avenues of power that are reserved for the states as to in effect and in principle secede from the very Union it was created to uphold.

This is sublime and superb.

Satire

2012-01-14T01:22:00.000-08:00

It is unfortunate now in this malignant culture that takes itself so seriously and thinks it is so "cool" that it is unable to observe its own absurdities of writing to each other in acronyms, barely able to speak in complete sentences and using public trillions to prop up failing parts of the economy. Observe how many jackassinine assholes in this video get angry and can't take a joke. Don't steal, the government doesn't want the competition. In politics and culture it is always the backlash, the reaction, that brings about real advancements. The American Revolution was a reaction to abuses, at least initially. The Renaissance was a reaction, a return, a RE birth. The new renaissance is being born in the ashes of willful ignorance. The Reaction is coming. The earthquake is about here. People are pissed off with the dandies of both parties, the "go along get along, its not what you know but who you know" bastards. Its over for them. Goodnight.

Reagan and Man At Yale

2012-01-12T00:58:00.001-08:00

This is a level of engagement that is almost unheard of nowadays between "average" people and prominent politicians. and this this should would have been a great matchup in the 1968 campaign sans Nixon v Humphrey

An excellent interview here

2012-01-10T01:43:00.000-08:00

Jane Jacobs, excellent book and author..

Jim Crow Laws

2012-01-09T01:03:00.000-08:00

This person rambles a bit, ok alot, but he eventually gets to some damn good points, at least from my perspective. :) Me saying someone rambles and is verbose is a bit like looking in the mirror!

Well, a cogent criticism I have read of libertarian leaning people is that they tend to emphasize the injustice when a government violates civil rights or liberties but have very little to say about private individuals violating others rights. This is most emphasized when discussing "Jim Crow Laws".

One must ask the question about Jim Crow Laws....at whom were these various local and state laws directed for the most part?? It is true they affected Black people in a severe and unjust manner.....however they were enforced against business owners in the South. They were written as codes regulating the conduct of business. They were laws that basically interfered with the fundamental right of a property owner to use his or her property as he or she wished, ie to serve whomever he or she wanted.

One must ask the question whether the libertarians adherence to the inviolability of property rights is not an ignorance of the history of slavery in America and that history must be "corrected."

But I come back to the "law" in segregation. Without the imposition of government, segregation in a broad sense would barely have been possible, and THAT we can argue on. Even on the question of slavery, if we OWN our own labor then what right, on a fundamental level did slavery violate?? The right to one's own labor, a property right. However, on a deeper level, the problem was that society did not acknowledge the slaves right to own ANY property, much less his or her labor. And so, when one is denied his or her property rights one is susceptible to becoming a piece of property themselves. This was the manifestation of the denial of the right of personhood to the slave; the denial of the right to ownership of property or of himself. This is why the right to ownership of property and person is such a fundamental human right. Not because "greed is good" or some narcissistic need to acquire, but because ultimately the right to own is the right not to own. If we have the fundamental right to our labor and our property then our ownership of those things can be a manifestation of our pursuit of happiness. We can choose what to labor at, what to buy, what to sell or not buy and not sell or give away or what, we are free to choose because we are a person born with rights.

Sometimes our views on various topics are shaped by the ways that we shape the questions we ask ourselves when trying to form opinions on them. It is self-questioning that is the essential primary element to rational thought. Before we ask a question to another we ask it of ourselves

we answer it or not and then wonder how another person, a person we respect, would answer and what questions they would ask that we have not thought of. This is how Human Knowledge is created. It is the interaction between the inner life of the mind of the individual and the social interaction that is so necessary to advance knowledge as a whole, the knowledge of the human race.

But it begins with the individual mind and self-questioning. Self-questioning takes imagination. The imagination to see multiple perspectives upon the same question. And now another tangent is gone off on!!! :) how bout some kick ass Tchaikovsky?? good night, more tomorrow....maybe....

The Reaction is Coming-The Revolution will be Smashed

2012-01-08T02:05:00.000-08:00

The last century or so in the US, accelerating since 1898, has seen a revolution that has almost seamlessly welded the power of the Federal government, corporations and the military. This has not been some grand conspiracy. But once the logic of Empire, both at home and abroad, is accepted then a nation cannot back down from the pedestal of domestic control and foreign domination for the real fear and reality that its policies of force have created or will create enemies which are more powerful than it. But it has gained a momentum of its own as interests within each of these centers of power have become invulnerable fiefdoms each with interests and pull over policy that are often antithetical to law, the Constitution and always to Justice. Both political parties, over time, have become servants of these centers of power in various configurations.

But new alignments are now being formed around the world, but especially in the US, which over time will either dissolve or rapidly smash this Leviathan, this serpent that twists and turns around the trunk of the tree of Liberty. These new alignments confound both the Left and Right and especially mainline Republicans and Democrats who are blind to the pernicious and insidious undermining and destruction of the basic building blocks of American Liberty that the welding of government, corporate and military power has facilitated.

It should be remembered that Americans were originally extremely distrustful of standing armies and very anti-militaristic. Americans today are largely militaristic as long as they can watch the results of that militarism from the comfort of their living rooms. When we were pacific we won a revolution against the greatest power on earth. When we are militaristic our forces wallow in the sands for decades battling phantoms to a hopeless draw and squandering the wealth and credit of the nation.

There is a reason that the Congress and the Presidency are basically mistrusted. They are mistrusted because they have been derelict in their DUTY to maintain those building blocks of Liberty through the use of their Constitutional authority and instead have yielded this authority to the interests that profess to be essential to the health of the nation but are unaccountable to the People in their political capacity and therefore unaccountable, ultimately to the law and the Constitution.

The American People, guided by a wise and moderate sense of the fallible but broad wisdom of their ancestors, will return the nation to a balance where the three legal branches of government: the Congress, the Presidency and the Courts again wield the authority they are obligated to wield. Law, tradition, and a balanced constitutional perspective will slowly but surely supplant the failing pillars of misplaced power.

If events do not occur in these relatively peaceful ways, the same outcome will occur but in a more violent way. The danger in that event will be the aftermath.

Von Mises' Crack Up Boom

2012-01-05T00:06:00.000-08:00

here is an interesting articl.e

Bad Night for Paul

2012-01-03T23:57:00.001-08:00

Tonight the biggest loser was Paul unfortunately. He needed to finish at least second. He finished about 3,000 votes behind Santorum and Mittens who basically finished tied. It was definitely a strong third but still a third. There is no doubt the idea that Paul is a "racist" and a "kook" took hold at least to some extent. Also the idea that he could not beat Obama took hold as well. Many consider his ideas on domestic policy and foreign policy quaint and unworkable and "oh so 19th century." They believe that his emphasis on monetary policy and the federal reserve is strange because it is not an important issue. The idea that the Federal Reserve is not important would be quite amusing to its board members and to bond holders who are losing their asses because of fed policies.

In his speech he says "we are all Austrians now" in a reference to Ludwig Von Mises and Friedrich Hayek however to the more casual viewer wanting to "be Austrian" probably sounds like a reference to Hitler and Paul's supporters supposed "Nazi racism" or some rot. The exact opposite is true about the Austrian school of economics which is the antithesis of National Socialism but I doubt the "we are Austrian" battle cry will get him many votes in New Hampshire. And I am sure the silly, hyperbolic reference to Paul as "the new Thomas Jefferson" will be viewed as ironic by the chattering Left who view the author of the Declaration of Independence and the virtual inventor of religious Liberty as "a symbol of rape and racism." To really know the attitude in the Paul camp just view the expression on his son Rand's face for most of this speech. It tells all. He knows what needed to happen tonight and it didn't. That is the bottom line.

One other thing is that Paul needs to emphasize that he wants to keep from entering so many small wars so that the military can prepare and train for a larger one that may be thrust upon us in the coming years. It is only a matter of time before a larger enemy that is militarily capable throws a left hook to our blind side (and no, I do not mean Iran) Right now we are leading with our chin, so to speak, in our military policy. You won't hear this on the news but morale in the military is very low. The troops are committing suicide at record levels and they are coming home sickened from all the depleted uranium being used in the munitions. Nobody will speak for these guys. Nobody. Paul ought to start doing that. I think all of us ought to. Its the 1,000 pound story that no one seems to want to discuss.

But overall it was a bad night for Paul. If he can't win in an Iowa caucus it is hard to see where he can win. He will finish better than expected in some states but it is a long shot now that he will win any. In the end the reality is that Libertarian policies don't garner enough support to win elections. As the year goes on and the economy moves from the current phony "optimism" to the reality of an increasingly rapid decline the electorate will become more polarized but one of the poles will not be a return to a more gentle approach to government at home and abroad. It will be a choice between the phony "toughness" of the Republicans and the phony "Progressivism" of Obama.

My views on Taxation

2012-01-03T00:34:00.000-08:00

I prattle away often about taxation so here is an attempt to codify my views on the topic using, as with so many of my views, historical references.

Parliament was often trying to assert its "right" to tax the Americans. But Parliament had not the right to tax the Americans. Legislatures only have the POWER to tax, not the RIGHT. These are separate concepts. The RIGHT to tax resides in the individual citizen because the money ultimately belongs to him or her.

The POWER of the legislature to tax depends exclusively on the RIGHT of the People who are to be taxed to be represented within it. In a real sense, when these conditions exist, the tax is voluntary. The People agree to pay the tax freely through their representatives. Taxation and legislation are fundamentally different; the one being a POWER vested in the legislature by the People, the other being a RIGHT and DUTY of the legislature if it is to call itself by that name. Our Founders understood this. We tend to confuse the two issues. However the residual of the ideas of our Founders is still manifested today in the fact that legislative bills and taxation bills must be passed separately in Congress. This was, on a philosophical level as stated above, to insure the difference between POWERS and RIGHTS and on a practical level to insure at least a semblance of adherence to fiscal discipline in that the amount of revenue available would be calculated and then laws within that amount would be passed. Obviously, it hasn't worked out that way.

Legislation and taxation are different because legislation is a manifestation of the People's will to protect their Rights and Liberty. All legitimate legislation is a protection of individual rights. Laws against unlawful killing, the murder laws, are a protection of the individual's right to life for instance. Acts to generate revenue, generally taxation of various kinds, are the necessary precursors to fund the enforcement of the law in general. They are not to be attached to specific acts of legislation as a part of them. This would lead to absurd situations where each dollar would have to be tracked to make sure it was funding the specific action of government stipulated at the risk of violating the law. Any semblance of government accounting would be impossible, even more so than the current disastrous situation in government accounting.

The power of a legislature to pass laws is inherent in the nature of law and a legislature. The power exists organically stemming from the existing rights of the People as individuals. The Right and DUTY of a legislature is to pass legitimate laws to the end of protecting individual rights. Legislatures do NOT have a duty or inherent right to tax. The POWER to tax onlt stems from the individual's right to voluntarily give his or her money to the government for the protection of his or her liberty.

The voluntary nature of taxation is expressed through the representative of the individual to be taxed. This does not mean that all taxes must be UPON individuals to be legal. The individual gives his consent to various types of taxation through his or her representative. As long as representation exists, taxation cannot be called a violation of Liberty. (however, it may be a violation of common sense, or economics or whatever but that is different) Legislation in the form of penal laws, for instance, violates the liberty of the lawbreaker but even here only as a consequence of protecting the individual liberty of the citizen.

A convicted murderer cannot withhold his consent to be punished and escape the law. The citizens, acting in their political capacity, can withhold their consent to be taxed precisely because the legislature has NO organic, inherent right or power to enforce taxation without consent.

We see then the difference between legislation and taxation. The power for the former exists organically in the form of the inherent rights and duties of a legislature. The power for the latter exists only THROUGH the inherent self-evident right of the individual to consent to the taxation of his or her money.

The Eulogy

2012-01-02T00:03:00.000-08:00

This was the eulogy I delivered in my mother's memory on December 10, 2011. It is not verbatim as I had not written it out word for word at the time of delivery. It is written here from memory using the notes and prompts that helped me in the delivery. It is a close rendition of what I actually said. The eulogy seemed to me to have been received well as appropriate and fitting. In preparation to enter the mindset needed to deliver this eulogy and to help me think about it I read Plato's Last Days of Socrates which includes "The Apology", "Crito" "Euthypro" and "Phaedo".....then Seneca's essays and letters, then Plutarch's "In Consolation to his Wife:We Must Not Slump in Dejection or Shut Ourselves Away"....then Artur Schopenhauer's "Essays and Aphorisms" (interesting but I discovered what I already knew about him:a misogynistic, misanthropic bastard)

Well, my name is John O'Grady. I am Karen's youngest son. I asked mom one day when I was about eight, "mom how do you remember all the lines in plays and musicals that you perform in at the Hartnell theater?" She said, "John, when the time comes you remember." About a week before this my brother and I had been talking to my Dad while driving out to our little ranch to do some work. He told my brother and me in his irascible way "whatever brains you boys got, you got them from your mom, you didn't get them from my side of the family!" Remembering this when talking to Mom I asked her how does Dad remember all the lines and songs in the plays and musical he is in? since he told Mike and me that he's got no brains? Mom said, "well, you know John, your father has become a much better actor since he married me."

Well, when the time comes you remember, when the time comes you remember........

A poem I remember mom used to love read to me often is by William Blake, it is only four lines and here it is.......He who binds to himself a joy

Does the winged life destroy

But he who kisses the joy as it flies

Lives in Eternity's Sunrise

For my Mom her joy came from music. One of the first memories of I have of her is walking home from school and being still about halfway down the block from my house and hearing this powerful soprano voice rising up to the heavens from the back of the house. I would go in. I would walk to the back and peek through the curtains into a room we called the Music Room. It was a beautiful room with a high, open-beamed ceiling and two huge skylights at the top. There was a full Steinway piano in the middle of the room on an Indian rug and there would be Norma Wylie, mom's vocal coach, or Yvonne Crane, a friend who helped mom prepare for particular roles and musicals, sitting at the piano playing. Light from the skylights would be pouring into the room in visible streams like illuminated water. While singing, mom's face would just be full of elation, peace, joy. It was this....this music that allowed her to live in eternity's sunrise.

My Grandfather, mom's father, Howard Wilson was a very deep influence on mom. He was a Baptist Minister and died much too early....much too early at only 38 in an auto accident. Anyway, he used to give mom one simple admonition, he would say, "Karenina" (his nickname for her) "you will face many challenges in life, many...throughout life....but the key to overcoming this is perseverance.....perseverance." I can't tell you how much just this one simple admonition from her father helped mom not only to cope with Multiple Sclerosis as it progressed but also to fight it, she often told me this.

Well, unfortunately the disease did progress. And over the years we have so many people tell us that it is such a shame about Karen you know, oh such a shame that she just really has no quality of life. I understood what they were trying to say on one level. However, on another level I don't think that one can know a person's quality of life until one knows the qualities that one values.......let me tell you what my mom valued, it was not the physical......she valued strength of Soul and Character and the love of her family.

One incident that really brought all these values into perspective and focus occurred only about a year ago. My dad took a fall off his bed. It turned out to not be very serious but it seemed so at the time. My dad and I were talking and I was trying to figure out how I was going to get him off of the floor and back into a wheelchair and or bed. Dad was concerned mom was worried because she could not see what was happening on the floor from her bed. He assured her he was ok. Mom, at a time she had been scarcely able to move her head much less speak for about a week because her MS had flared up, somehow turned her head and in a clear and loud voice looked down at my Dad and said "Mike, you get up, I love you but you GET UP right now!!" Well, I was able to help get him up, with the help of the Urrutia family. In a few minutes Dad was in a wheelchair next to mom's bed telling her he was fine. She said to him, "see....I knew you could do it!"

After that incident Mom had some good days where she was able to express herself quite well. On days like that the main thing she always wanted to say was "thank you" to everyone who thinks about her and loves her and to tell everyone that she is fighting as long as she can. And to you Dad......she especially wanted to say "thank you." Thank you for all the love and devotion you gave to her throughout the decades....thank you....and God knows the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune did not exactly pass you by either. Mike loves you, we love you, I love you.....Mom loves you.....she loves you to this moment......to this moment.

(this part I had written out and have just found tucked away in the notes I used in the actual eulogy. I paused and then simply read the following two paragraphs before returning to the prompts and notes) For me, Mom showed the power of the human soul. Though broken physically, she opened her eyes that see inward and looked up. That was her path to joy and wisdom. Her life was bound only by the limits of her thoughts. Her thoughts were bound only by the limits of her expressiveness, and these were boundless.

Even when our bodies are bound by afflictions, death or disease our soul transcends all this by singing out in words illuminated by sunbeams brought forth with lightning.

And this, this (hold up mom's Bible) is a very special book for me, very special. This Bible was given to my mom on her 17th birthday by her Grandpa and Grandma Wilson (Howard's parents). And in the front piece my mom wrote out lines from a Psalm.....these words......

"My voice shalt thou hear in the morning O Lord; in the morning will I direct my prayer unto thee, and will look up."

And I.....I......can only pray that when the time came to remember that these words were in her mind and her heart as she "slipped the surly bonds of earth to touch the face of God."

Hyperventilating on Phony Outrage

2011-12-30T00:32:00.000-08:00

In the predictable back and forth of all American elections today that are completely driven by Party considerations it is now the turn of Ron Paul to be brought down a notch or two by political pundits of the Left and Right whose attacks, while justified to a limited extent, often do not become them and serve only to reveal a certain sycophancy either in the service of a failed president or a false and failed political Party.

The main thrust of the attacks of the Left has been the alleged "racism" of Paul for some highly charged racial language used in fundraising letters. Paul probably did not write these himself, although someone close to him probably did. If he wrote them he should say it and challenge anyone to claim they have never used a racial issue in a way that was divisive. If someone else wrote it he should ask them to admit it. Enough with this phony outrage regarding racial language in politics. It is a bitter and sad consequence of the racial games played by both parties. It is an open secret among political consultants that race still plays a huge part in American politics in BOTH parties. This is because race still brings out powerful emotions in many people and that is too often what gets people to vote. The Left Democrats ALSO use race and racial language in exactly this divisive way.

The Left has systematically attempted to claim that virtually any attempt to place any limits on Federal spending to slow a catastrophic expansion of debt is "racist" in its philosophical underpinnings because "cuts would disproportionately fall on the poor and many poor are blacks ergo any reduction in federal spending is racist." This is simply an attempt by the Left to increase voter turnout among racial groups they think are "their people". If this is not using race and some might say racism to divide the population, raise money, and win elections that is at least as egregious as something written in a Paul newsletter in 1995 then apparently every issue of Federal taxing or spending is racist?? Paul wants to cut off bailouts for a gaggle of white, rich, Federally enabled bankers. Is this racism against Whites because 99.9999% of crooked federally bailed out bankers are white bastards?? I have always said that if the government would simply spend money helping TRULY poor people of all races, and not the middle or upper classes there would be no debt at all.

As an aside one of the most frankly ridiculous arguments I recently read attacking Paul from the Left was in regard to his non-interventionist foreign policy. The writer said that although she was anti-war like Paul, she did not agree with Paul because his views were based on an "isolationist hatred of the world" and not on "love for the world." (Oh God, where do I begin with this idiocy.) Um oh, sorry, to be polite, where do I begin. First of all, Paul has never expressed any "hatred for the world" unless being pro-free trade with all nations is "hating the world." The only evidence the writer gave for Paul's supposed hatred of the world is that he opposes foreign aid. Paul opposes foreign aid not because he "hates the world" but because he has read and respects the constitution. What he hates are the criminal regimes that foreign aid props up like the current Military regime in Egypt placed there by the "Arab Spring."

Frankly, the writer's argument about "hating" or "loving" the world is an intellectually lazy argument and belongs more in a tweet of 40 characters than a serious article. I assume she prefers Presidents Bushobama who, while professing to be "defending the world" behind smirks and toothy grins, set out to intervene in virtually every country in the mideast while destroying the fiscal and moral credit of the United States.

Well, as disingenuous as the attacks on Paul from the Left are, the one's from the Right or the "right" are even more so. There are many, including jumping on the Left's back and crying phony crocodile tears about racism. However, the main thrust is that Paul is "a nut" because he wants to "legalize heroin" and he "wants Iran to have a nuclear bomb." This was encapsulated recently on Faux News by the slimy chameleon DICK Morris.

First, Paul is exactly right on the decriminalization of drugs. This would rapidly and systematically destroy the major dealers of all types of drugs both nationally and internationally because the US is the biggest buyer. (talk about loving the World!! :) As far as heroin goes legalization might hurt the profits that the US government is making off guarding the poppies in Afghanistan and then flying them out to all corners of the earth but (oh gosh) that is only a conspiracy theory. (A conspiracy theory is any piece of news harmful to the US government that goes unreported in the US but is an open secret in the rest of the world.)

Second, Paul has never said that he "wants Iran to have a nuclear bomb." He has said that he understands the strategic reasons they might want one and that starting a war in the mideast again to root out the Iranian bomb is a catastophic strategic error for the United States. This might be wrong in terms of its reasoning (although I think not) but it is certainly not "crazy". It is exactly the way an American President should be thinking in a strategic way about foreign policy. "Crazy" policies are those of the other Republicans and of Bushobama who turn the issue into an emotional stand-off that closes off most opportunities to solve the problem short of entering the darkroom of war.

So, while I certainly don't endorse everything that was ever written in some Paul newsletters, I think his candidacy in 2012 has been a refreshing change from the elementary, hidebound, party oriented campaigns we have seen so much of in the last few decades. IT HAS STIRRED THINGS UP BABY!!! It has been a remarkably well-run and disciplined campaign whose themes of non-intervention abroad and constitutional individualism at home are the exact opposite of the racism and insanity that he is accused of.

And actions speak louder than words

And songs combine the two (this song is fornicating brilliant/smash the Left Right paradigm)

Karen L. O'Grady 1941-2011

2011-11-18T23:35:00.000-08:00

Tonight at 6:32 PM Pacific time, my mom Karen L. O'Grady died from complications due to multiple sclerosis. She had contracted double pneumonia. Strength, kindness,bravery and always a smile even when she was groping to breathe were the characteristics of my mom. She is now again being sheltered and protected by her father who was killed in an auto accident when she was only 13 years old.

My mom battled and fought to standstill one of the deadliest neurological diseases on the planet for 21 years. Two examples of her character stand out. When I was a boy she took me to bookstores often. I was looking in the history section with her as a boy of about 7. A young employee there came up to us and said, "he (me) is a little too young for this section, take him to the children's section." My mom stood a little taller than her 5' 8" frame and looked the clerk straight in the eye and said, "my son will read whatever book he chooses to read. Thank you but we are staying here."

Another example of my mom's character is that when Teresa, the other of my mom's caregivers besides me, first came to work for her Teresa was embarrassed about speaking english to alot of people because spanish is her first language. My mom said to her, "don't worry about your english Teresa, when you need to talk to someone, you can always talk to me.'

My mom realized that dying with dignity does not mean accepting an inevitable fate. It means fighting for your life. We are all dying in some way or another, so its time to fight for your dignity.

My mom loved a poem by William Blake:

He who bends to himself a joy

Doth the winged life destroy;

But he who kisses the joy as it flies

Lives in Eternity's sunrise.

My mom will forever live in Eternity's sunrise and in my heart forever.

The Real China

2011-11-12T01:55:00.000-08:00

Here is a fabulous antidote to the growing number of sycophants for the Chinese government in the American corporate-media-government complex, led chiefly by Thomas L. Friedman. They have a barely hidden admiration for highly authoritarian if not Totalitarian practices that the Chinese people are trying vainly to struggle against every day.

The facts are that almost all the "rise from poverty" that happened in China since 1978 began to dramatically slow in China by 1990 and has now virtually stopped. China today is the definition of plutocratic fascism with a facade of Capitalism to keep the Western capital flowing in. Chinese economic statistics are as phony as a three dollar bill (even more phony than US :) The numbers are collected by the CCP Central Committee in each province indivually and then all added together to get a total. Each province is given incentives by the CCP Central Committee in Beijing to put out the best numbers possible. They have a farcical relation to reality in China.

A wonderful historian once said to all those who laud the Beijing regime for its "progress" to take a bike ride in China from Shanghai to Xinjiang and then a bike ride from Maine to California and then say which society is healthier, wealthier, freer, and happier. Peasants riot against the ChiComs everyday in China. They get rounded up or slaughtered, it just never makes the news.

Bachmann's References to Chinese Issues

2011-11-12T01:34:00.000-08:00

I am no supporter of Michelle Bachmann but there was a basis in fact to the references she made regarding Chinese counterfeit chips and the underground submarine base. From my perspective it never pays in the long-run to underestimate the capabilities of a historically powerful nation like China. It is one thing to underestimate Iraq or Libya. It is another to underestimate the capabilities of a nation that is potentially a military and economic power equal to or greater than the United States.

FREE FREE FREE CLICK HERE!!!

2011-11-10T05:02:00.000-08:00

Over forty?? Having trouble paying all those bills with rising prices?? Feeling like only "half" the man you once were?? Want to feel like its 1999 again and you are in your 20s?? Well CLICK HERE!!!! Direct from Asia! Direct from Asia! Direct from Asia! :)

Pulling out of Iraq but......

2011-11-10T04:45:00.000-08:00

Leading from behind an Israeli operation.......perhaps......although I tend to think all of these bursts of jingoistic talk toward Iran are designed for effect.

Buckle Up

2011-11-09T04:45:00.002-08:00

Anyone who thinks the economies of the world are slowly "healing",as we so often hear from economists on the payroll of governments,is drinking from a scalding chalice of delusion that will burn their throats and boil their stomachs. (or maybe they are just drinkin' the cool aid :)

But never to worry. We can rely on the technocratic experts to manage the economy. We know so much more than we did then.

Joe Frazier

2011-11-08T08:48:00.000-08:00

In memory of Joe Frazier. dead at 67.

Happy "Contrail" Day!!!

2011-11-08T05:18:00.000-08:00

Today is the first anniversary of a miracle!! An aircraft contrail spontaneously ejected out of the ocean 30 miles off the coast of Los Angeles!! Just because it appeared to be an SLBM don't worry about. NORAD tells us it was never a threat. And governments never lie to cover their asses. Especially ours :)

why read poetry?

2011-11-03T03:51:00.000-07:00

why read poetry?

The Gifts of Poetry

The idea for Mark Edmundson’s excellent book Why Read? came to him when he read the lines of William Carlos Williams: “It is difficult to get the news from poems yet men die miserably every day for lack of what is found there.” What is it in poetry that condemns us to the agonizing, slow “death” of quiet desperation when we lack it, that Williams suggests? What gifts does poetry bestow upon us? Many come to mind: the national pride from an epic like the Aenead, the aid to memory that poetic form imbues and countless others. However, specifically poetry can rescue us from “death” in three primary ways. First, it can instill in us a sense of irony which can in turn foster our imagination. Second, poetry can help us discover objective Truth through a subjective lens. Last, poetry can bring to light our personal self.

Irony in both the use of words and in the incongruence between expectations and actuality can well be expressed in poetry leading to the stimulation of the imagination. Here is a poem I wrote while viewing the horrors of the recent Japanese earthquake. It is called “The Wounding World.”

The wounding world breaks the heart upon its shallow shoals/It shades the mind in the fickle fog of fortune/Suffering saints meet murderous fools/Truth and Tyche seem fated to oppose/Man and Nature rare is their common repose/If this be Justice it is in justice we must obey.

In imagining this poem in a literal sense I tried to express the inherent irony of the world in that the good seem to suffer. Imagining the words of the poem itself as I observed them also produced an ironic reaction in me. Reading to myself the last line I was saying Justice must be obeyed. In hearing the poem aloud I might have said that in a “just” world like ours, it is injustice we must obey. We see in this example how the same words, when written in poetic form can produce two completely opposite meanings; one the literal meaning, the other the ironic meaning.

When comparing the message of the poem to the same message written in prose the stimulant to the imagination through verse becomes obvious. “The world often punishes the Good and rewards the Evil. The rational nature of Man is often defeated by the random fortune of his internal non-rational nature and the non-rationality of the world. Still, we must carry on stoically and pursue our life’s journey.” The prose, whether literally true or not does not stir in the writer or reader any image of the conflict between Man and Nature or Reason and irrationality. It simply states a proposition leaving the reader to either agree or disagree but not stimulating any thoughts about the essential idea or its opposite that the writer is trying to convey. That is; what is Man’s relationship to the world? These are the imagination questions that poetry can stimulate especially through irony.

Irony flows throughout the very nature of poetry in that through it objective Truth can be discerned through a subjective lens. This discovery is the second gift of poetry warding off “death.” The World War One poet Wilfred Owen wrote, “above all I am not concerned with Poetry. My subject is War, and the pity of War. The Poetry is in the Pity.” (Bate 101) In his brilliant poem “Dulce et Decorum est” Owen shows how that objective Truth about war can best be uncovered through the subjective perspective of the men doing the fighting. In the poem (100) Owen describes the sensation of being under gas shell attack, “Whew…..fup…..fop…..fup”, “Then stinging poison hit us in the face.” This is the objective reality of war told through the subjective experience of one soldier. It is through poetry that we can best see the congruent relationship between subjective and objective truth.

Through poetry what William James said about the nature of Truth may be discerned. We arrive at Truth by discovering our subjective truths. The immensity of Truth precludes our discovery of it objectively. But through a patchwork of subjectivities, including our own, we can at least approach the Truth and more importantly gain proof of its existence. The melodic form of verse, and the human ability to recognize that melodic form is that animating spirit of the rational order of the cosmos called Truth. If no such order existed then Poetry and its forms would be incomprehensible to us. Truth is the subjective and the objective. It is the binding that unites the two and the separation that differentiates them. It is the beautiful irony of the nature of poetry that allows us to see the unity of the subjective and the objective; at least for a fleeting moment to whisper and grasp the gift of Truth precluding “death.”

A third gift that poetry can instill is a discovery of the self. Walt Whitman in his “Song of Myself” wrote of his two selves, his poetic self and his “me, myself.” This was his inner core, his “I am.” Whitman’s poetry allowed him to answer the question “what am I?” (Bloom 91)

The great Marcel Proust author of “Remembrance of Things Past” wrote of his readers, “it would be my book but it would furnish them with the means of reading what lay inside themselves.” (Edmundson 107) Throughout Why Read? Edmundson describes the writer as also a reader of his reader. In other words, the writer tries to stimulate the reader to discover truths about himself. In a modest way the poem I wrote above attempts to do this. The eye sees the words as an exhortation to continue on and have faith that there is a pattern and order to the world that is Just even if we cannot see it clearly. The ear might hear the poem as a call to rebel against the unjust order or disorder of the world by obeying injustice. Depending on the way the reader thinks of it he or she can discover something about themselves. Is the reader a Job dedicated to faithful obedience to God and the Truth despite the seeming injustice of the world? Or is the reader a Candide, seeing the Lisbon earthquake and questioning whether the world is truly a just and rational order? Often, depending on our place in the journey of life we may read the poem one way or another. Either way, it is this discovery of our internal being, our true self that poetry can help to uncover. This self awareness is another gift poetry bestows to ward off “death.”

Mark Edmundson wrote about a type of humanistic faith. (Edmundson 136) A great work or poem should challenge one to live it as if it were a guiding text, a “bible” if you will. His concern is that with the demise of religion nothing, no values, will take its place and humanity will be degraded to the level of what it seems we are becoming: self-conscious to the point of self-destructiveness. We value nothing that is internal to ourselves but only the value others place on us. We are Nieztche’s “Last Men”, eating, blinking, snorting, farting but ultimately unfeeling, uncaring, and unconcerned: dead. Edmundson’s concern itself is a mild irony in that religion, to the extent it is based on the Bible, is “faith in literature.” That being said, it can be poetry in which part of this faith in our selves may be restored and the “death” that Williams’ wrote of averted.

Embedded in poetry is the restoration of the self and a return away from death to life. Through a restoration of the imagination through the use of irony, through the recognition in poetry of both the subjective and objective nature of truth, and through the interweaving of irony, imagination, and Truth we can discover our true and inner self. This then is the lesson we learn about Life from Poetry. At the heart of the lesson is the great irony that we can arrive at Truth through Faith thus averting the death of our soul. Courage and bravery are the harvest of Faith in the knowledge that through the gifts of poetry we are not condemned to die miserably from their lack. The unique nature of poetry with its ability to be at once verbally and meaningfully ironic, simultaneously subjective in form and objective in essence and always imaginative throughout is an affirmation of the self.

Works Cited

Bate, Jonathan. English Literature: A Very Short Introduction, Oxford University Press, Oxford. 2010.

Bloom, Harold. How to Read and Why, Scribner, NY. 2000.

Edmundson, Mark. Why Read?, Bloomsbury,NY. 2004.

Ron Paul 1988

2011-11-02T04:47:00.000-07:00

For all you Paulites and anti-Paulites. 2008 and 2012 are not Paul's only run for President. Here he is during his first run in 1988.

Expectations

2011-10-31T09:03:00.000-07:00

One of the things the second Depression has brought is a corruption of the language of economics. This is ironic in that the word "Depression" was never used as an expression of an economic condition until President Hoover was trying to find a psychological explanation for the failure of his ineffectual interventionist economic policies.

Well, today we constantly hear the term in economics that a certain economic indicator whether unemployment, or housing, or whatever was "better than expected." This is very convenient for those who want to avoid and deny the very deep and structural economic problems that are prevalent today. Those that want to avoid the enormity or the economic problems facing the country who are virtually all major media and both major parties, are the ones that create the "expectations." So then when horrible or tepid economic numbers come out they can just smile and say "better than expected!!"

This also occurs in a negative way when elites in both parties want a certain bill passed like the massive bailout in late 2008 that BOTH Obama and McCain personally lobbied for. The expectations were built up that if the bill didn't pass there "will be a second Depression". Well, the bill eventually passed because of these awful "expectations". For one day it was said that there would be "auctions" to sell off the bad debts. Then it simply became the bailout that OWS and Tea Parties are so livid over today.

So I say beware of expectations. You will get the disaster you say you expect with a wink and a nod. It will come in forms you least expect in ways that you cannot avoid. Problems avoided simply find other ways of manifesting themselves like energy that can never be destroyed. There is no statute of limitations on economic depressions. So I say no more expectations.

Words on Sunbeams

2011-10-29T04:10:00.000-07:00

In the present, which is the future, it is a revolutionary act to write and think in words that expand the breadth of our minds as we seek to break the shackles of ignorance that the circumstances of modern existence have placed as a noose around our necks.

Open your eyes that see inward and then look up. This is the path to knowledge and wisdom that is within you and therefore is your most cherished possession. Our lives are bound only by the limits of our thoughts. Our thoughts are only bound by the limits of our ability to express them.

Even when our bodies are bound by disease or death or afflictions of weakness we can transcend this by speaking and singing and writing out in words as if illuminated by sunbeams and brought forth with the power of lightning.

Canada 1970

2011-10-28T04:20:00.001-07:00

When revolutions go bad

"The Arab Spring"??

2011-10-28T02:07:00.000-07:00

Effects of war. but it was "authorized" by the UN so its all for the greater good in that we need to set a precedent whereby world bodies can transcend national legislatures. yeah, ok. So this is all for the greater good. yeah, ok. It won't be a "one world government." It will be a one government world. Sound democratic?? How an Empire falls.

The Question of Occupation

2011-10-27T15:00:00.000-07:00

It is a fundamental divide among many of us on the Right about what the Occupy movement means. I think of it maybe in the mirror opposite than many democrats think of it. The hope for the movement is to NOT let it be co-opted by the ideological Left. The "George Soros Crowd" if you will. To the extent that the movement becomes simply a chanting party to fulfill the wishes of large interests whose agenda is global, that is to the advantage of the Right as that is not a movement that will translate into electoral results. These global Left wing interests do not represent or care, frankly, about the extremely pressing real economic problems of Americans that most on the Left AND the Right are up to there last dollar in right now. These GLOBAL left-wing interests want to leverage the fear of ALL Americans and the physical bodies and occupations of the occupy movement into a phalanx to achieve global results that really have nothing to do with the economic conditions of real Americans on the ground in our severely economically depressed cities and small towns.

To my mind the question for the occupy movement is what does it want to continue to occupy?? Does it want to continue to physically occupy as many cities in the country and become simply a tool to achieve the global agenda of some of the Left wing and extremely wealthy interests that it purports to be opposed to?? Or does does it want to transform itself into a spiritual and emotional occupation of the agenda and attention of the American people?? If the movement can transform itself into an "occupy yourselves" movement it will redeem itself. "Occupy" a nursing home where elders are being abused (which is most of them.) "Occupy" a street where hungry people are eating out of garbage cans and feed them. (many streets in my town) "Occupy" town meetings as did the tea party and ACTUALLY speak THEIR minds using words of their own to express ideas. "Occupy" themselves, in short, in the business of creating an equality of caring souls helping each other at the grass roots level where people are hungry and hurting and slowly dying in the slow motion economic melt-down.

To the extent they can "occupy themselves" it is a movement that many good people in the nation will still embrace perhaps not completely at the polls, as we all have varying ideas, but in our time and effort to slowly transform the nation away from one that is obsessed with material consumption and "material occupations" into one that embraces spiritual and personal occupations, the kind that can truly change a person's life and therefore change the nation.

WORLD WAR III IN 72 F%#^&@ HOURS!!!!

2011-10-23T05:38:00.000-07:00

I know the world must be near ending. I have agreed with Alec Baldwin and Barrack Hoover Obama in the same week!!! :) This is a sign of impending end of the world events. Baldwin recently defended Capitalism (sort of). And I agree with the Iraq troop withdrawal. Now knowing Obama and his weird passive aggressive foreign policy look for him to enter two more wars for every one he withdraws from. It is official (this is not a joke). I do not know how many wars we are fighting in now. I have literally lost count. I am quite serious. My last count was 6 but maybe 5 after Iraq. But oops I forgot about Uganda and maybe now Mexico so maybe 7?? Could not tell you :( The number of wars we are fighting will soon equal the number of jobs created since 1999.

I will not give Obama any "credit" for any actions in Libya because no actions there should have been taken in the first place. I find the UN call for war crimes investigations of the Kaddafy killing odd as it was the UN itself that dragged our ever too willing asses in there in the first place. It was a war for LSC baby!!! Light Sweet Crude my friends. I am talking oil here people NOT my winning personality!!! lol.

More soon. Here is some great rock and roll and here

Talks With OWS

2011-10-23T05:29:00.002-07:00

I like this kid but he needs to read some history. Capitalism can't survive under conditions of anarchy.

Kennedy in 1960

2011-10-23T05:20:00.001-07:00

Here is an interesting interview with JFK in Jan of 1960 just before the presidential contest with Nixon really began in earnest. Notice JFK thoughts on power.

The Essential Knowledge for Americans

2011-10-19T16:35:00.000-07:00

I cannot recommend this set of lectures highly enough. It is really essential for Left Right and Center. We often forget that all of us can find find examples of champions of our particular politics throughout American history right back to the founding of Virginia and Massachusetts Bay. For those of you on the Left I recommend studying the lives of Roger Williams and Joel Barlow. I wish this lecture could be played at every t party and ows gathering anywhere. This is probably the most lucid, cogent, broadly knowledgeable talk on American history and its essential characteristics that I have ever heard.

Rise and Fight

2011-10-19T03:56:00.000-07:00

The nation is more vulnerable than it has ever been. The hour is too late for a national revival of the strength, spirit, and humility that built the nation. Our People are divided. We have forgotten what we once knew, what once bound us as a nation and individuals. We have forgotten that our Liberty only was defended by us as a People, confident that though circumstances divided us, our humanity bound us to inalienable God-given rights. We sap our strength in wars of self-aggrandized hubris falsely confident of our military invulnerability to foreign powers feigning friendship and peace.

Our best rest on the laurels of their fortune, content to wallow in unearned riches. Our worst seek to aggrandize themselves by playing to the envy of the frightened majority cowering in fear of economic collapse. Our corruption blinds us to the urgency of the hour and temptation leads us into the forest of blindness. Our enemies from the East and South, despotic all, salivate at the sight of our wounds, confident in their ultimate victory. We are valueless, leaderless and rudderless.

We as a nation are all these things. But you, all of you as people are not. National revival begins with personal revival. Self-government depends in the first instance on the governance of oneself, self-discipline and self-control. Elevate again your soul and your mind. Resist the mindlessness that surrounds us. Gird yourself for that coming and now present storm that inflicts us from within and is soon to descend upon us from without. Remember again those mystic chords of memory that once bound us, were torn asunder, but can bind us again in the recognition that we are not class, we are not race, we are not creed. We are Free because we are human beings with a spirit that chafes and wails at the hint of despotic tyranny and slavery of our minds and bodies. That spirit is what makes you an American. That spirit, when it is offended will remind you of your duties to yourself and therefore to your nation. It is that Spirit of defiant justice that will again reunify our nation.These are Truths and Truths must be defended if they are to survive.

I expect that every American will do their duty when the time comes. The time has come. Rise and remember. Rise in the bitter tears of your old enemies expected victory. Rise and fight!

When that is done you will have honored yourselves and earned a victory that will ring and shout in the annals of time as a reminder of what is the destiny of all free people in the past, now, and throughout the tapestry of time.

a revolutionary with something to say

2011-10-18T02:51:00.000-07:00

Cash

Hitchens

2011-10-17T03:04:00.000-07:00

An excellent interview. My political interlocutors often accuse me of being a reactionary, semi-pompous, overrated pseudo-intellectual asshole and I am guilty :) Here is Hitchens a revolutionary, extremely pompous, overrated hyper intelligent intellectual asshole and that is why this Righty loves this Trotskyite Marxist in the grand tradition of the Democratic Left.

Notice all the books in the background appear to have been read and THAT is why he has something to say that is specific, knowledgeable, and always direct and logical.

The young, aliterate, protesters(although I agree with their criticism of the corruption of the American elite) should take notice. IF IF IF you want to be a real revolutionary, you gotta put in the work kiddies. Shoutdowns, monotonous semi-literate chantings led by a leftist professor, flash mobs, incoherent "DEMANDS!!" (how democratic of them), and hand signals to replace the words that are passe in your world of twittering gibberish aren't going to change the world. Put in the hard work of studying and thinking about the kind of country you want or you will continue to be what you are: the mobs and cannon fodder of any Right or Left Wing totalitarian who wants to use your "Demands!!" for his own ends. You are not the prelude to a revolution you are the beginning of a great devolution into a mind-numbing authoritarianism unless you remember again that the respect for a pluralism of thought and the plethora of words that they depend on is the only thing that will "change the world" for the better and not for the worse.

Right Wing Utopianism

2011-10-17T02:35:00.001-07:00

the fallacy of the pursuit of a perfect world

A Fabulous BBC Documentary

2011-10-16T07:27:00.000-07:00

Here is an excellent piece on the importance or reading.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=QdwFFFBCPzw%feature=related

The Division of Sovereignty-An American Concept

2011-10-10T08:38:00.000-07:00

Sovereignty can take two forms. One is that sovereignty is the authority to rule. The other form is that sovereignty is the power to rule.

The sovereignty of the authority to wield political power is more in line with the federalist American ideal from a constitutional perspective than is the meaning of sovereignty as simply an expression of the POWER to rule, that is brute force. The authority to rule is in line with a concept of American liberty. This means that sovereignty, in its manifestation as the AUTHORITY to rule, can be DIVIDED within on polity. It is a sovereignty of JURISDICTION not of NATION.

Sovereignty in its other manifestation, that of the POWER to rule, is more in line with the modern vulgar way that is currently taught in our political science departments. That is, that politics is about POWER and who GETS IT!!!! This is usually called national sovereignty, or the sovereignty of the nation. This kind of sovereignty dismisses the notion of divided, shared, or concurrent sovereignty and subsumes all jurisdictional sovereignty into one centralized, administrative hub. It is this sovereignty that is the sovereignty of Empire and statism. It is difficult for individual liberty to exist for any length of time within a polity when this idea of sovereignty is in the ascendancy. It also breeds conflict between national and local authorities as neither recognizes that in the United States sovereignty must be jurisdictional and not territorial or national if it to be constitutional.

In the United States the People in their political capacity are Sovereign. They have the authority to rule. They also have the power to rule. However, they in their political capacity also have the authority to delegate power to any level and/or branch of government or reserve it for themselves. In this sense, sovereignty in our country is not divided, it rests ENTIRELY with the People in their political capacity. From a practical view however, the people disseminate the sovereignty among the levels and branches of government. Under the Constitution of the United States no sovereign power whatever exists within the government. It ALL resides with the People in their political capacity. The People then delegate certain powers to government as they see fit through a written constitution allowing the government to exercise certain powers in the name of the People of the United States.

The people of this country must never forget that their Liberty and that of countless Americans into the endless future depends upon their maintenance of their power to defend the authority of their sovereignty. Any people wallowing in an ignorant decadence will never remain free.

An Incident of Consequence

2011-10-10T08:14:00.000-07:00

My mom had terrible anemia on January 8th of this year. She had to be in the hospital for a few days for a blood transfusion. At one point it looked as if she would surely die. Her blood pressure had dropped to 38 over 15. At that moment I looked to the heavens out of the fifth floor window. The sun was in the window. I closed my eyes and put my face directly in the light letting it bathe the inside of my eyeballs. I prayed to God to help my Mom have the energy and strength to stay living. I then went to her bedside, held her hand and told her "now its time to fight!" About 10 seconds later her blood pressure began a steady upward ascent to stabilize around 110 over 60. She felt better.

This incident showed me that God exists. This was proof on a personal level. It was not anything public that could easily sway masses of chanting converts. God does not act upon "the public" if any such monstrosity exists other than in the minds of socialists and fascists. If any force acts upon such an abstraction it is the Devil.

God acts in the lives of individual humans. By acts I do not mean doing favors for people. I mean that God is the necessary will, strength and courage that allows for humans to rise and create and think and achieve and sometimes just to continue to live on. This is the simple yet profound truth that Life is better than death, that to fight for Life is that only path to a noble death. This nobility of spirit is the warm and steady strength that God provides us even if we don't know how or why or float on an ocean of doubt. As Churchill said, Man is Spirit.

The Paradox of Social Democracy

2011-08-19T04:04:00.000-07:00

The problem for social democracy is that over time it subverts the democracy and trust that it purports to uphold. The large national projects that it assumes must be undertaken on a national basis necessitate government cooperation with the large corporations that have the know how and capital to undertake large projects. Large numbers of employees must be hired using public funds that by definition are extracted from the private economy.

Because of these two elements of social democracy over time it subverts both democracy and trust. The first in that it inherently creates projects and partnerships with large corporations that are "too big to fail." In other words, the project or agency or fund or whatever, must ultimately be backed by public money because it becomes so large a part of the economy that its failure would destroy that entire economy. The choice of funding or defunding is taken away from Congress, the democratically elected representatives and place in the hands of unelected agencies, thus subverting democracy. And trust is diminished by social democracy because it tends to turn government into a faction. Government ceases to become the arbitrator of society but increasing becomes the employer of last resort in the economy. Government and those it employs become the ends in themselves, not the brokers among interest groups but an interest group with the force of law behind it incessantly grasping, grabbing and griping for a bigger portion of a diminishing economic pie that it plays no role in expanding. This faction of government by its nature creates and atmosphere of us versus them. Government ceases to become and agent of the People and a trusted arbitrator and regulator. It becomes a group competing for the succor and sustenance of a declining pool.

Listen to the words of Ben Franklin writing in 1774 about the dangers of allowing the Colonies to be more closely controlled by London,

"I cannot but apprehend more mischief than benefit from a closer Union; their(the British ruling class) wide-wasting prodigality and profusion is a gulf that will swallow up every aid we may distress ourselves to afford them. Here (London) numberless and needless places, enormous salaries, pensions, perquisites, bribes, false accounts and jobs devour all revenue and produce continual necessity in the midst of natural plenty. I apprehend, therefore, that to unite us intimately will only corrupt and poison us also."

Can we not say in our own time we see some of the same elements in our own government? Can we not see the breakdown of Democracy and Trust that in the 1770s led to a revolution?

Social Democracy

2011-08-19T03:40:00.000-07:00

The argument for social democracy rests upon the premise of the idea of "public goods". This is an idea taken as self evident by social democrats and most America "progressives" today. The idea is that there are some goods and services, for instance railways and education, that are simply impossible to do exclusively in private economic ways. The state must, if these goods and services are to exist, must fund these activities.

If these goods and services do not exist then, so the theory goes, there is simply no nation. (so this progressive idea ironically accepts the idea of nationalism or a strong nation, supposedly a conservative idea) So, for the progressive social democrat, the existence of the nation itself depends upon some form of social democracy.

Another idea upon which social democracy rests is that of the corrosive effect of inequality. Where inequality is rampant any democratic government is at best dysfunctional, at worst impossible. This is because democratic government depends upon the trustful bonds of citizens to one another. This idea was first introduce in the 13 century by Ibn Khaldun, the Arab political philosopher. His idea of "Asabiya", societal trust, was considered to be the bond under which society thrived. With the diminishing of asabiya comes the decline of society. For the social democrat "rampant free markets" diminish trust or asabiya and thus lead to social decline

An Educated Person

2011-02-12T06:54:00.000-08:00

The ancient Greeks believed that one could not know if they were truly happy until the end of their lives, until death. This presupposed that life was a process of development in the Aristotelian teleological sense. This is true as well for the process of educating oneself.

Not to sound morbid, but a truly educated person is one that is preparing to die. By this I do not mean the death of one's body but the transition that comes with living through its various stages all the way until death.

To be truly educated is to gird oneself for these various stages; all the joy, pain, sadness, "the sling and arrows of outrageous fortune." To this one must have a sense of both comedy and tragedy and one other thing: independence of mind.

With independence of mind one can transcend the problems of the moment, the infirmities of the body, the physical, the merely temporal. Independence of mind is the essential element for living in and maintaining a free society of free individuals. Without it we are subject to the buffeting winds and tides of the crowd, the advertisement, the demogouge with solutions for all our problems if we will only submit our judgment, our money, or our votes to the siren song of their temptations.

As for me, I choose to develop independence of mind through reading anything that I can. I have a love and obsession for History. I find that subject to encompass many others so that it is the shortest cut to at least some knowledge regarding varied topics. In this age of the internet and brilliant but aliterate 20 something face book addicts, I find myself feeling a bit like the dinosaur just after that comet hit the Yucatan. However, in my (too few) brighter moments) I have faith that there will always be a core of people who believe that the written word is key to the independence of mind that is essential to the educated person.

When asked why I read so much, if I am feeling whimsical, I say that I am preparing to die. I say it with a smile on my face :)

John.

The Precarious Gamble

2011-02-09T02:59:00.000-08:00

The economy is still in a precarious position. Recently the Federal Reserve resumed the purchase of treasury bonds on a massive scale in an attempt to hold down long term interest rates and keep the massive American debt manageable and able to be serviced. It also an attempt to lower the value of the dollar so as to try to force China to unpeg its currency from the dollar standard it has adhered to. China cannot afford to do this yet because many Chinese banks holdings are denominated in dollars while their liabilities are valued in Yuan the Chinese currency. If the holding are devalued vis a vis the liabilities a collapse of China's entire banking system is possible.

It is unclear whether a Chinese collapse is one of the Fed's ultimate intents. It is hard to imagine how such a collapse would help the US in an economic sense. Although in the geopolitical sphere, to the extent that a collapse of the Chinese banking system lessens China's overall power, this is no doubt beneficial to the relative power of the US.

It is questionable, however, whether a collapse of China's banks would hurt China in the long-term. Its Communist leadership (yes, the CCP still runs almost every aspect of Chinese economic activity) knows the extent of over-leverage in Chinese banks. As Communists, they most likely believe that any banking system is prone to collapse eventually. This is one of the historical givens driven by the historical determinism of Marx. Therefore, they have probably planned for a collapse of their banking system just as a snake can plan on its skin shedding. An event that a nation plans for is rarely catastrophic for it in the long-run. This is especially true of an inherently powerful and great nation like China. Conversely, nation's prone to optimistic fantasy driven by the pop psychology of the "power of positive thinking" (the Americans) are susceptible to catastrophic shocks because their optimism, over time, becomes a disincentive to plan for less than pleasant historical eras.

The danger for the Fed's policy of both simultaneously keeping interest rates artificially low through bond purchases and devaluing the dollar through those same purchases is that this can only work, if at all, in the short run when no other economic inputs come into effect. The laws of economics show that as the dollar declines interest rates rise, or as the dollar increases in value interest rates decline. The Fed's policy wishes and fantasies run directly counter to this reality which will come to fruition over the long run. Somehow, at present, a double disaster is occuring for the Fed. That is, the value of the dollar is rising at the same time interest rates on the 10 years US bond are rising. This is the opposite of the Fed's intent. The problem is that other inputs are coming into play that are having unintended consequences (the bane of all economic "planning). The problem seems to be that the systemic European bank weakness is raising the value of the dollar faster than the Fed can lower it through bond purchases. At the same time, China's central banks are easing their buying of US bonds, but that is not collapsing the dollar yet because of crises elsewhere that are driving people to the dollar as a safe haven. However, the other effect of China's easing off the buying of US bonds IS happening; that is that US interest rates are rising quite rapidly.

This simultaneous strengthening of the dollar and rise in interest rates, if it continues for any significant period, is a witch's brew of disaster and financial collapse for the debt-burdened US economy. The Fed itself, over the long-term, could be in danger of insolvency and collapse.

Some ruminations

2010-08-26T03:42:00.000-07:00

Technology and its forms are like an infinite number of roads with and infinite number of forks. For instance, the internet has been shaped and formed by the way that we have used it. Despite the hype from polyannas who say "it makes us smarter." or "it can change the world." a recent survey was done as to what the vast majority of Americans use the internet for. #1 was social networking...#2 was email, #3 was www use consisting of buying and selling and viewing porn and sports. The web was dubbed "in jest" world wide wiretap by its creators. That is to say, the internet is being increasingly used for pernicious reasons namely surveliance and disinformation. Other than that it is basically an extremely powerful advertizing tool. This is not a description or criticism OF THE TECHNOLOGY. It is a description and criticism OF THE USES OF THE TECHNOLOGY. It is the uses of a technology that will shape the direction it moves in in the future. And at this point that is not a good direction for the internent.

The only thing that "makes us smarter" is what we do with our mind. The use of the internet is a generic activity. it is really simply an all encompassing almost instant form of communication. But "communication" is itself not an end but a means. The real question we must increasingly ask ourselves is the old Aristotelian questions of ends. We can "communicate" with anyone we please anytime. OK?? And??? Then what?? The real question of the future is not increasing access to technology or increasing internet use or whatever. That is being achieved at an almost breathless rate. The question of the future is "WHAT are we going to communicate about with each other??" What purpose does the communication serve. It seems to me that communication with no or hardly any purpose is increasing.

Again, the point is, technology moves in the directions of its most used applications. If we use technology for increasing frivilous forms of communicating the technolgy will increasingly facilitate that application in a vicious cycle. The development of technology does not occur in a beam but in a spectrum. The particular uses that people most make of the technology is the direction that technology will develop fastest. This is to say the most important component of any technology is the mind using it. We should consider that more often.

John

Thursday, August 19, 2010 (journal entry)

2010-08-24T02:29:00.000-07:00

The contradictions of the Left

The Left's view that Justice is promoted through the promotion of group identities and by a powerful central government is fallacious historically.

Historically, the Civil War was not a matter of a powerful Federal government standing up for the rights of black people. The Civil War was started by Abolitionists, both Black and White, who rightly refused to abide by the edicts of the federal government to protect slavery where it already existed. It is true that the federal government tried to prevent the spread of slavery to new territories. However, even this limited effort was attenuated in 1854 by the Kansas and Nebraska Act that introduced the unjust idea of Popular Sovereignty as to whether to allow slavery.

By its protection of Slave owners rights the Federal government was itself dividing the Union not upon sectional lines but racial lines. Thus we see that it was as much the actions of the federal government in its protection of slavery that promoted disunion as it was the actions of individual states. It was therefore a false choice that the war was either to end slavery or save the Union. It was only by ending slavery that the Union, disunified along racial lines, could be restored. Any nation thus divided along racial lines was already disunified before the war began and even before secession. This is what Lincoln meant in his "House Divided" speech.

In the South, secession was dishonestly justified by an argument for "states' rights" and decentralized power. This was to gain support of the majority who were non-slaveholders. The primary issue at the Secession Conventions was slavery, pure and simple. They could not abide the growing Abolitionist movement in the North that wanted to attack slavery and the South as immoral and evil. The South, therefore, saw itself as a different nation than the North culturally as opposed to any political differences that existed. This was demonstrated in the Confederate Constitution that was almost a duplicate of the Federal Constitution in its political arrangements but was specific in its protection of the cultural institution of chattel slavery. The Confederacy had not allegiance to State or even individual rights as demonstrated by it actions domestically in the South during the war.

In this historical example we see that contradiction in the notion of the Left that it has historically been a powerful central government that promotes Justice. In the Civil Rights Era we see this same contradiction. The Civil Rights Era is viewed by most on the Left as being the story of the Federal government's promotion of Justice. Although there is some justification for this view compared to during the Civil War, it is not so simple a story. Segragation was a pattern of laws enforced by state and local governments and in many ways by the Federal government where it had jurisdiction such as in DC during the Wilson administration.

It was only by the late 1950s or so that the Federal government began grudgingly to oppose Segragation laws. It did not do this out of any sense of Justice but by being agitated against by the Sovereign power in a free nation: the People in their political capacity. Just as the Abolitionists, as free citizens, formed groups to oppose slavery, so Civil rights minded American citizens formed groups to oppose injustice in a Segragated and disunified society.

The idea that an enormously powerful central government will be responsive to minority rights or civil rights for minorities of people is a quaint and fallacious argument unsupported by the hard facts of history. It is the People themselves, organizing and acting in their political capacity that promote any real and lasting change in a free society. The Federal government and all the governments in the nation down to dogcatcher belong to them in their political capacity as free citizens. This is written directly into the Constitution by the method of amending it through conventions of the People.

It is in the nature of an unchecked and overweening central government to usurp Justice, even when no plan or conspiracy for such usurpation exists. A wolf cannot be expected to control his ravenous appetite when guarding the hens. The Left, or large parts of it, have never seemed to understand this. That fact to this moment baffles me.

Power into will, will into appetite
And appetite, a universal wolf,
So doubly seconded with will and power
Must make perforce a universal prey
And last eat himself up.

William Shakespeare from "Troilus and Cressida"

From my Journal:August 18 2010

2010-08-22T07:11:00.000-07:00

The US today faces a crisis of purpose the like of which it has not faced since 1860. This is no crisis of confidence in the country per se. There is an over-confidence on Right and Left in the purpose of our political agendas, deeming them to be essential to pursue the purpose we believe in for the country. The crisis is rooted in the sharp disagreements over the purpose of the United States in the present and the future. The disagreements are not only between Left and Right but within them as well.

The differences in purpose are rooted in the different ideas we hold on the Right and Left regarding the Identity of the United States. How do we see ourselves?? The Left identifies America with the idea of the struggle for Justice. This largely centered around the Civil War and Civil Rights Eras. It is primarily emphasizing the equal treatment both legally and socially of different indentifiable groups. The Right identifies America with the struggle for Liberty. This view emphasizes the Revolution, the Declaration, and increasing World War II as the time when the struggle for Liberty and America as "the most powerful nation on Earth" came together.

So we see contradiction and dichotomies in both poles of American politics. Starting on the Right, we'll then examine the American Left.

The Right has melded the struggle to be "the most powerful nation on Earth" into one unified purpose for the nation that it views as self-supporting. To the Right, it is self-evident that being and struggling to stay the most powerful nation on Earth supports the struggle for Liberty. The Right, to move forward, must disabuse itself of this vision. We must recognize that it is often the struggle to become and then stay the most powerful nation on earth that subverts, not supports, the struggle for Liberty. It is at once parodoxical and tragic that those nations at the pinnacle of the protection of Liberty often blindly move toward the pinnacle of world power. It is the desperate struggle to succeed in the latter that ultimately saboutages and hampers the struggle in the former. Ultimately a nation must choose between freedom at home or empire abroad, it cannot have both because the efforts to secure the later neccessarily threaten the former.

We must have the vision of our Fathers. Our greatness is not built upon power, either military or economic. Greatness is built upon a divided and gentle government, limited in scope, whose purpose is the protection of the Liberty of the individual person. Power flows into this kind of nation from the trust that it engenders within and among the people between themselves and their government. It is this trust that unifies the nation. It is this unity that over time fosters national greatness. It is this trust that we are losing, this unity that seems in danger and this greatness that one can only whisper about now as it becomes a memory.

The process of rebuilding trust is slow and must begin from with a nation, not from ephemeral successes outside of of it. Goodness and Greatness are perilous partners. Any identity that seeks to combine the two into one national purpose is a journey with no happy endings, fraught with danger laced in sorrow.

(more soon on the contradictions of the Left)

The Strategic Situation(I)

2010-08-08T06:01:00.000-07:00

Overall, American foreign policy is just as incoherent and directionless as in the final 5 or 6 years of the Bush 43 administration. What American policy there is are policies directed at either Iran or North Korea and trying to "engage" the help of larger powers, most of whose interests coincide only vaguely and occasionally with our own.

Afghanistan is a tactical quagmire and a strategic disaster for the US. Iraq is proving to be that as well. The effects of these two endless wars have been to "terrorize" the US military. That is: to shape its training to a point where it is all geared toward "anti-terrorism" and heavy combat training is either delayed or posponed indefinitely. In this sense the US military has again become a hollowed out force with units only prepared for nation-building operations in Iraq or Afghanistan and unprepared for any type of more conventional warfare. It is a general rule of thumb in world affairs that the events you are not prepared for are the ones usually thrust upon you. The next war between major powers will be both conventional and unconventional.

The strategic situation vis a vis China and Russia sees a deepening of their relationship on the military and economic levels. This is perilous for the US and some way must be found to drive a wedge between these two giants as it is obvious the US is unwilling or unable to recognize the threat a Sino-Russian reproachment will bring. One curious little note is that Russia has cut off all grain exports until December 1st due to a drought/and or fires. It is of interest, at least to me, that just 25 or 30 years ago every Western analyst would have recognized this action as a war preparation. But of course that is now unthinkable. (more soon).

International Law

2010-07-04T05:11:00.000-07:00

US policy over the last 30 years or so has ceded the debate over the International system of Law to the international Left and the anti-American sentiment among many nation. Human rights resolutions at the UN are largely used as an anti-western tool, such as denunciations of Israel. UN practices are too ofen used to shield authoritarian states like Iran and North Korea as their labyrinthine nature cause them to be ineffective.

The UN is a body of largly equal nation-states with each state's adherance to respect for human rights or any limitations upon control over its people largley ignored. The US, because of its lack of interest in International Law, has dangerously ceded all of these legal points to its enemies on the world state. States such as Russia, China, Venezuela, Cuba and Zimbabwe and a gaggle of other such violators of individual liberty have been shielded by a dome of International Law.

The US has abrogated its responsibilty to its interests to shape international law in a way that will explicitly protect individual rights and thereby implicitly serve US interests.Instead we see a headlong rush to furth "global governance" in an anti-Western direction based upon a nation-state system. The policies of centralized states have been allowed to promulgate on the international stage, shaping international law.

Paradoxically, the only way global government or even "global governance" will ever be acceptable, much less effective, is if it adopts a decentralized structure that is at the heart of the American idea of Federalism. Unforunately, this view of global government is largely antithetical to the ideas of those who advocate it, as it is centralization of power and not diversity of culture or interests that they seek. The victory of this view of centralized international law and government is a consequence of the American reatreat from the debate over the last 30 years.

"One World" may someday be possible and might be desirable. A one-government world, however, will by its nature be authoritarian if not totalitarian and will lead to more division and conflict in the world not less.

Remembering Myself

2010-07-04T04:36:00.000-07:00

Every act of creation is a worhipful act toward God. Writing a word on a page is an act of creation. In a sense it is also an act of Revolution but also of Tradition. Let us say writing is the acto of the Traditional Revolutionary. It is the weapon of choice for all true revolutionaries down through the centuries. Writing is an act in which thought and action combine. Often through the action, thought is enhanced.

When one reaches a point where writing becomes tedious and topics seem meaningless the key is to keep writing, the hand movong. Start with a topic in the very present moment. The present moment is that perfect combination of all our senses and mind working together. There is no memory involved. Or is there??

Does not the present moment, any moment, conjure up countless memories?? A word can create a thousand pictures, what of a book, or a song?? Any action one takes is bound to be something that one has done in the past. The present may contain different elements. But some sensation in the present moment opens up an entire past world in which possibilities that seem to have past one by a still open.

It is in this way, perhaps, that our memories give us hope. Hope, as Aristotle wrote, is a waking dream. Hope is an expectation, usually unfullfilled, that the wrong can still be righted, that time in its ubiquity has somehow granted an exception for us, that we may walk again, that our dreams can appear to us in our waking eyes and not only our sleeping thoughts.

Can life then simply be an engineering exercise in which we input thought and effort and heart and a commensurate output is produced? I think not. In our memories lurks the key to our redemption and destruction. This constitutes and forms the unpredictabilities of life. These uncertainties constitute the sum total of the memory of Humankind. Each one of us acts upon the ghosts of our memories, the past creating the future in a wheel where the prevalence of spontanaity and surprise is guaranteed by the individuality of our memories, of our minds.

Memory is an essential and dangerous necessity that continually breaks the stale crust of the desire to control the life of this world.

Remembering My Country (II)

2010-07-04T03:48:00.000-07:00

Much of the dispute over taxation was precipitated by Great Britain's growing debt precipatated by the French and Indian War from 1756 to 1763. Her debt had risen by 58 million pounds from a base of 130 million pounds. This caused Parliament to search for new sources of revenue.

Britain won the global war with the French. However, in the course of the war she had to buy mercenaries in order to fight Her land battles in Europe. Therefore, She was in a deep debt crisis that was unprecedented for the time.

In 1761, before the end of the war, Britain made a more vigorous effort to collect customs duties from the Colonies. Courts, prompted by Customs officials , issued writs of assistance. These were orders autrhorizing police force to be used to search for smuggled goods on the private premises of American merchants. The Americans vehemently protested this as a violation of their rights as Englishmen. The brilliant young Bostonian lawyer James Otis made this argument in the courts. Otis argued that the courts had no legal right to issue the writs because Parliament had no legal right to authorize them. This argument by Otis was the intellectual spark that lit the American Rebellion. It was the first American legal argument disputing Parliament's unlimited right to make laws for the Colonies. The Americans were gaining the habit of governing themselves and they were preparing the intellectual and legal arguments to justify that position.

Long before bullets and lead were shot into Redcoat bellies, Americans were forming the philosophical arguments to justify the purpose of an American Nation. That purpose was Self-Government. The idea that you reading these words, whoever you are, have the duty to govern yourself in a lawful manner and that you have the Right to participate in the formation of those laws that you have the duty to obey. This is the relationship between duty and law, between obediance and freedom, between security and Liberty. They are all necessary to one another because they form a whole called Freedom under the Law.

Today, you celebrate your duty and right to govern yourself. Tomorrow, and every other day, you practice and defend that duty and right by thinking, reading, writing, debating, and governing. That is the duty and right of an American. That is the teleological purpose of our American nation. That is why I am still proud when I call myself an American.

Remembering My Country (I)

2010-07-04T03:23:00.000-07:00

The principal dispute regarding taxation between the American colonies and Britain was the specific authority to level particular taxes. The colonial Assemblies asserted that Parliament only had authority over external taxes. That is control over trade matters. Their position was that parliament had no authority over taxing internal interactions among the Colonies. The Assemblies had sole authority in those areas and the sole right to tax. This was the crux of the American argument regarding no taxation without representation.

Parliament argued that the Colonies had "virtual representaion" in Parliament because it represented the the interests of the entire empire. Eventually, the Colonists argued that the legality of any tax lay in its intention not its ostensible purpose. Therefore, a tax upon exports that had a hidden purpose of raising revenue and not simply regulating external trade was an unconstitutional tax based on the ancient unwritten English constitution. Great Britain as a sovereign nation had the right to regulate trade. But She did not have the right to levee taxes upon a people that had no say in their implementation.

Many Colonists, including Benjamin Franklin, came to the conclusion that the distinction between external and internal taxation had become indeterminant and therefore Parliament had no authority to pass any laws for the Colonies.

The Current State of the Consumer

2010-02-17T19:04:00.000-08:00

http://www.clipsyndicates/video/playlist/8178

On Avatar

2010-02-02T05:53:00.000-08:00

"Avatar" is an entertaining film that failed to take risks in a way that would have allowed it to explore the implications of the human culture it hints has been created by the year 2150.

Briefly, it is about a human mining project on the moon Pandora, a moon of a Jupiter-like planet in 2150 AD. Humans are mining a certain mineral that can be used on earth. In the process of mining, the indigenous beings on Pandora are threatened in their traditions and way of life. These are big, blue, feline-like humanoids who can communicate on a cellular level with all the plants and animals on Pandora. They are called the Nav'i. Eventually a war breaks out between the Nav'i and humans and the humans are expelled from Pandora.

Two major themes of Avatar are Enviromentalism and anti-interventionism. In exploring these themes James Cameron, the writer/director uses strong and pervasive allusions to current events in enviromental affairs and American foreign policy. However, in the use of these allusions, Cameron sacrifices any subtle examination of how these themes might have evolved in 140 years. Cameron's characters, the majority of which he barely develops past right-wing paleo-jingoists, are straight out of 2010 USA. They frame issues and use the same catch-phrases current in 2010. They are divided, as is 2010 America in the view of Cameron, between the virtuous, enviromentalists, non-interventionists and the intervetionists greedy for a commodity.

Cameron misses an incredible opportunity to examine the evolution of how these ideas would develop over 150 years. First, in terms of Enviromentalism,no sublety of thought is shown in those who want to mine the mineral. Presumably, humanity needs this mineral on earth. An interesting conflict could have been developed between "earth centered" enviromentalists and "universalists." A conflict between enviromentalists who want to "save the earth" using the resources of the Universe and those who want to preserve a pristine Universe, earth be damned. This would be a conflict more relevant to a 2150 society than the 2010 conflicts Cameron imagines surviving for 150 years.

Second, when examining the conflict between earth-centered enviromentalists and Universalists, Cameron again views the issue from a 2010 perspective. In 2150, the world Cameron presumably wanted to create, "save the earth" would be a jingoistic battle-cry in the war against the Nav'i. The film intimates that humanity is united in some kind of confederation(although strangely virtually all the humans are white Americans, looking acting and talking like its 2010). Under these political conditions it would almost certainly be enviromentalists advocating intervention on other planets to "save the earth", a phrase that would become comparable to "God bless America" perhaps.

Avatar takes no risks in its politics, its cultural ideas, and even its technological view of the future. It is basic boiler-plate "Gaia Theory" enviromentalism and a mishmash of critical assumptions regarding American foreign policy. It transports the minds and attitudes of 2010 Americans into the year 2150 and presumes no changes in the political and cultural conflicts that exist today. It is as if 150 years of culture, politics, and human life would leave today's political theories and conflicts untouched and unexamined. In that sense, there is not much science here and a whole lot of fiction. Even its vision of the technology of 2150 is the most unambitious in the history of science fiction, with gadgets that look almost contemporary.

In conclusion, Avatar is entertaining. However, it is a shallow examination of the future and in that sense it could have been so much more. It tries so hard to prove current Leftist enviromental and cultural ideas that it fails to do the job of great science fiction and transport the viewer into a world of the future. In that sense it was a disappointment and a lost opportunity.

The Resurrection of the East

2010-02-02T04:54:00.000-08:00

It is a historical misperception that the British Empire ended in 1945. Britain's security and military commitiments were enormous between 1945 and 1965. This was especially true in the Persian Gulf region where she had security agreements and/or troops in all the principalities of the Gulf. This included in Kuwait, Bahrain, Oman, and the UAE. It wasn't until 1971 that Britain abandoned this area. This was included in her decision to abandon all of her security arrangements east of the Suez Canal, save Hong Kong. No doubt the Empire was declining after World War Two, but 1971 was the true "fall of the British Empire."

The declining Empire after 1945 was the great catalyst of the Cold War, especially by 1961 when Kennedy decided to fight Communist National Liberation movements with Special Forces. This British decline and the halting, failed attempt by the US to take up Britain's burdens, were both exacerbated by by the political and subsequent economic awakening of the nations of the "third world."

The political rise of the third world was characterized initially by the postwar nationalism that swept over Africa, South Asia and East Asia.This constituted a national awakening in these regions akin to the European national formations in the post-Roman 5th and 6th centuries, the post Carolingian 10th and 11th centuries, and the 1860s and 1870s with the formation of Italy and Germany It is indeed informative that all these events were accompanied by international crises, namely Justinian's attempt the reconstitute the Roman Empire, the Crusader's attempted reconquer of the Holy Land, and the attempted German hegemony over Europe that only failed in 1945.

Asia's political reawakening began in Japan in 1868 with the Meiji Restoration and in China with Sun Yat Sen's revolution overthrowing "the last emperor" in 1911. In India it began with the founding of the Indian National Congress in 1923. The awakening continued in earnest however post-1945 with violence in India in 1947, China in 1949, Algeria in the early 1960s and Vietnam throughout the entire era from 1945 until 1975.

This political rise unltimately fostered an economic rise where stability and sound economic policies were introduced. First and foremost this was true in Japan which began rapid growth and modernization in 1960. One cannot avoid the conclusion that Japan's decision to pursue economic prosperity at the expense of military might was a conscious decision to avoid the mistake of World War Two which was to confront the US from a position of economic weakness. Beginning in 1960 Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, and Hong Kong and Singapore all began rapid economic growth. This was helped in some measure by the American war contracts for the Korean and Vietnam Wars. However, the growth was mainly due to an emphasis on primary education, sound free-market macroeconomic policies, with more heavy government involvement in key microeconomic parts of the economy.

It is indicative and educative that these prosperous nations were all non-Communist. The Communists, however, were expert at exploiting the growing Nationalism in the third world.

Communism in Asia, both in China and elsewhere is a virulent combination of radical nationalism and one-state Communism. (and yes this is still true today). The radical nationalism is ancient. China has always considered herself the "middle kingdom", the nation with the "mandate of heaven." The one-state Communism was a 20th century phenomena. It was different from Soviet COmmunism in the revolutionary era in that the Chinese leadership rarely advocated exporting the revolution. In this sense it was Stalinist. It was also an agrarian revolution, rooted in a Chinese peasantry that was xenophobic and rabidly patriotic. There was rarely talk of the abolition of the State in China.

Today Chinese Communism has saddled capitalism and is riding it for Communistic ends. There is nothing contradictory in this for a Communist. (for the Communists contradictions are essential in any system). Communists have always viewed capitalism as the avenue to reach Communism. Indeed, Communism is an idea with more cultural meaning and implications going far beyond an economic system. In fact, in purely economic terms it is the greatest nonsense ever devised by the mind of Man. But for the Communist it not an economic panacea that is sought but a cultural utopia. Capitalists and democratics, thinking in economic terms exclusively, have never grasped this.

So we see the profound effects of the rise of nations and nationalism in the east. This rise was fostered under British tutelage and then in large measure became the force that shattered the yoke. Even areas like China that had never been formerly under British rule had been so dominated by Britain economically as to be a virtual colony. When British power declined and then collapsed in 1971 the effects were earth shattering. In many respects we are still feeling them today both economically and poltically. We are living still through the crisis created by the fall of the British Empire.

Genius

2010-01-30T05:51:00.000-08:00

It is astonishing to think about the nature of genius. An example is Newton's "Principia" where he lays out the laws of space-time and gravity. Newton developed a basic system of formulas which still work to explain much of physics. The calculation for Mass for instance is M=FA, Mass=Force(Acceleration). However, when I thumb through my copy of the "Principia" I barely understand any of it. I peer into a barely intelligible world. This was written in 1683, 327 years ago!!

This is true of many of the great works of genius. "The Origin of Species" is almost never read, even by Darwinists or anti-Darwinists. "The Federalist Papers" are almost never read even by Constitutionalists.

We need to regain a belief in the responsibility of informed citizenship. It is easy to get bogged down in the time constraints and pains and sorrows of the everyday. But, in my opinion, it is essential to occasionally stretch ourselves into a place in which we might understand something in a new light.

The nature of genius is immortal thought and it can leap across the ages and enter our mind and heart if we allow it. The mind of the genius becomes a conduit for the transmission of the mind of God, to the mind of Man.

We ought to respect great works of genius even if we don't always agree with them and read them more often. I am just beginning "The Origin of Species" even though I know that some aspects of Darwinism have come under serious assault by my fellow "Conservatives."

Debt is Destiny

2010-01-30T04:53:00.000-08:00

The Constitution

2010-01-28T18:06:00.000-08:00

My mind is animated by the spirit of the federalist and anti-federalist writers that I have read. One can quite clearly see the crisis, both political economic, that they were dealing with in 1787 through the urgency of their eloquence and the power of their writing and speaking. There is a passion in their pens indicative of that within their minds. We often forget that they were living in the beginning of the Romantic Era. It is not purely Enlightenment ideas that are reflected in the Constitution and the Declaration but Romantic as well. They have a sense, especially the Federalists, of the dangers and possibilities of passion in both the heart and the mind, Madison most notably.

Roubini

2010-01-27T04:07:00.000-08:00

Here's a guy who was largely right about the current crisis in the economy so listen up. I don't agree with him on everything he says here but I've never met a clone of myself (yet) :)

He fails to explain how the contridictions in his prescription for the run and medium run can be reconciled when the short run is simply the path into the medium run. Economic policy cannot be turned on a dime as he seems to suggest....but he's generally a truth-teller and we don't have that much in economics nowadays. here it is (and it has a few questions to Roubini from various persons who are supposedly informed, or not)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dmI3U_rVYA8&feature=featured

Wisdom

2010-01-25T06:02:00.000-08:00

"I close my eyes in order to see."

Paul Gaugin

another great website www.loa.org and www.civilwar.org

a great website

2010-01-22T02:44:00.000-08:00

One excellent site I am on more and more is www.cominganarchy.com I am beginning to post a little bit there as well, or should I say, respond to posts.

Off the top of my head playing around with words

2010-01-20T04:27:00.000-08:00

Clearly it is time for a new direction in this country. Clearly, we can do better.For What does it profit a nation to attempt wild feats of nation-building in far off lands without being able to set our economy straight at home? What have we become as a nation? Are we simply a jumble of interests, or a nation interested in preserving the liberty of our people? That is not only the great question of this election, it is the great question of our time. And it is our time and our honor and responsibility to make that choice.

To Make Gentle the Life of This World

2010-01-17T04:21:00.000-08:00

This is a video many of you have seen however it is the best tribute I think for Martin Luther King on his holiday. This speech has a very special place in my heart and when I hear the words of Aeschylus I pray for strength and calm and compassion and courage and gentleness in the storms in my own life and in the storms just over the horizon for this nation that is bound to me by history, thought, and emotion. I love wisdom, gentleness, and this country. This speech is also a tribute to them.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I9yX0Zv1tZU

A Report From Russia

2010-01-15T02:27:00.000-08:00

Many of my views on foreign policy are based on the view that Russia is still controlled by the same structures that dominated the Soviet Union.

Please listen to this insightful interview from Moscow for more information about this idea. Don't pay attention to the video, I have no idea what it is. Just listen.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HDCkNDrLMgs

The Future of the Past

2010-01-13T20:23:00.000-08:00

The cultural struggle today is an effort to preserve the mind and thought. The reason for the disquiet of so many Americans is not primarily economic, it is cultural. It is the sense that the tie to the past has been cut and we are hurtling toward a dead future in which all the generations of the past, including our own, will be forgotten forever. This is exacerbated by the all too evident truth that there is not only a lack of knowledge about the past among the young but a disdain for its pursuit. For a film representation of this of this disquiet I speak of see the thoughtful and allegorical movie "Children of Men."

The battle to preserve mind and thought is in a great way about preservation of the past since it is a practical impossibility to preserve the ideas, art, philosophy, psychology, history, ethics, metaphysics, and theology for the future without their conveyance from the past into the future using the present as the great conduit of knowledge.

Too often when one (especially my friends on the Left) hears the term "preservation of the past" one believes this to mean a glorification of the past and all its ideas, philosophy, art and so on. This is anything but the case. It is as essential to preserve those elements of the past we are in strong opposition to as it is to preserve those of which we agree. This is not only out of respect for pluralism and the opinions of others. It is out of a recognition that it is just as often that our opinions and views rest upon oppositions as they do upon advocations. It is at once true that our advocations are often strengthend by our oppositions. A passionate advocate of Keynesian economics ought to read as much Milton Friedman as possible. All seeking to prevent genocide ought to read "Mein Kampf" or Mao's "Little Red Book."

I do not advocate an open mind. I advocate a mind ready to devour every piece of wisdom and knowledge it can reasonably consume. I advocate a mind with an open mouth to greedily gobble up and suck up knowledge and thought. Then closing that mind and chewing on the ideas that it has taken in before opening again. This is the essence of education.

I have dedicated my life to the preservation of the past and the conveyance of that past into the future. This is the only way that there will be a future worth living in. This will allow people of the future to do their own devouring and thinking. It will allow them to form their own beliefs in advocation, opposition, or innovation of those of the past. It will give them the tools to be free citizens in a democratic republic. The preservation of knowledge can save our nation.

To preserve the past is to rescue the future from the tyranny of an ignorant dark age that the present state of our culture and society ominously portends.

Russia Under the New(old)New Regime

2010-01-13T04:24:00.000-08:00

Russia is more dangerous to the West today because it is viewed as having no ideology. This is incorrect. Russia still has a highly statist ideology. It is, however, much more difficult for the West to understand than was communism. Unlike communism, the ideology now in ascendance is largely Russian or slavic in origin. It is much older than communism. It is the idea that Russia is the "third Rome." It is the inheritor of both the legacy of the Western Roman Empire(Rome) and the Byzantine Eastern Roman Empire(Constantinople). This makes for an ideology vast in scope and in geographic ambition. To Russians, geography and history are inextricably linked.

Communism, perhaps, was only a sub-idea which rested upon this far vaster and older set of ideas. Many in Russia view themselves as being in the same position as Constantinope circa 1200 AD, caught between maurading West European crusaders and Jihadi moslems.

The new(old) ideology in Russia is a dangerous and potent combination. Related to the idea of the "third Rome" is the Russian idea of the ideal leader. In Russian this leader is called the "gosudarstvennik." It means literally "man of state." To Russians, the State is not just the government. It is the entire culture, society and slavic civilization. The State is an expression of all these things. The "man of state" is not only the Russian leader. He is the defender and upholder of an entire civilization, the "third Rome" stretching from Central Europe through Central Asia to the Pacific.

To Russians, a "great power" is not only a strong unified state acting abroad, it is also unified completely internally as well. Therefore, any federated government and rival checks and balances within Russia opposite the "man of state", are weaknesses and a threat to Russian Civilization. These common features of Western democracy are thought of as treason in Russia in that a disunified Russia is more vulnerable to Her enemies. This unification of internal and external policies is reflected in two concepts called "the dictatorship of the law" and "derzhavnichestvo" roughly translated as "great powerishness." "Dictatorship of the law" means that though the "man of State" is de jure subject to the law, it is he through the executive branch that interprets the law, not the judicial or legislative branches. In this way the man of state can quell internal enemies. This strengthens Russia externally as well, in her status as a "great power."

The last concept of Russia's ideology is centralization. The top of the government gives the orders. Thoe orders are followed exactly on the way down the levels of governement. This is called "vlastnaya vertikal" or "power vertical." To the Russian mind it is made necessary, paradoxically, as an antidote to weak, corrupt and inert public administration. Therefore, centralization is not seen as empowering the beauracracy but as checking it and curbing its abuses. It is the cultural leader, the "man of state" who fights the enemies of civilization internally and externally and ensures that Russia remain a great power.

The Yeltsin years of the 1990s are considered the reason most Russians support the new authoritarianism. Yeltsin's attempt to loosen centralization led to the collapse of Russia's external power and Her humiliation. Vladislav Surkov, the Russian philosopher/propagandist, has put a philosophical color on this desire for centralization. Sysnthesis of ideas is extolled rather than the analysis of one idea. Idealism is celebrated over pragmatism. Images are more important than logic, intuition over reason and the general over the particular. These ideas reflect the reality of government in Russia. That is that centralization, a strict ideology in pursuit of common goals and the reliance on strong and powerful personification of the leader to wield the power of the "man of state" are all desirable and necessary to uphold "culture" and promote Russian power.

This ideology is remarkably similar to the Wilhelmine German ideology of "kultur" that was even more distorted and perverted by the National Socialists. Putin views these ideas as upholding "sovereign democracy." This means that the state is democratic, however the state has the right to determine what that "democracy" means in practice without, necesessarily, adhering to notion that Western countries might perceive as democratic.

In addition to all this ephemeral ideology there is the specter of Russian natural gas reserves and the giant state-owned Gazprom. Gazprom is used as a geopolitical weapon by the Russians. It buys smaller Western energy companies, especially in Western Europe. It uses the technology and expertise of these companies to find more gas fields. It does this by taking advantage of Europe's relatively free market in energy production, using the backing of the Russian government to the utmost. Once a new gas foield is found it offers western energy companies a share in the venture. It then slowly but effectively manipulates them for the benefit of Russia. The goal of Gazprom is to deal with each EU country on a bilateral basis, causing each to be as dependent on Russia for gas as possible. This is much easier than dealing with a unifed EU that has a clout at least equal to Russia's

Another goal of Gazprom is to buy as many "downstream" energy facilities, like refineries, as it can in Europe. This allows Russia to control both the flow of gas and how it is distributed. A coming difficulty for GaZPROM is that it is going to have trouble supplying its market. Russia has been so successful in inceasing Europe's gas dependency on Russia that its customers are far more numerous than its potential to supply gas. This is exacerbated by Gazprom's move into the east Asian market.

The intriguing and dangerous question is what does the Russian government intend to do about Gazprom's coming inability to supply Eruope with gas.

In this inadequate and brief description we see that the narrative about Russia that was built in the West in the 1990s was largely fictitious fantasy based upon our hopes of what Russia was becoming as opposed to what it was, has been and is. It is a highly aggressive state who sees the United States as it strategic adversary and likely enemy. It centralizes power internally in order to more fully and deliberately project power externally. It aligns itself with nations from China to Iran to Venezuela who have the same ideological, anti-democratic and anti-American ideas as itself. Russia uses power much more effectively and deceptively than did the Soviet Union. It uses and penetrates markets in order to get ready cash. It uses gas and oil as a weapon. It outwardly fights Islamists while with the other hand embracing Islamic terror states like Iran. It used and uses false and phony opposition and ruling parties in eastern Europe to maintain a deceptively large amount of control over its former satellite states. It does this because, other than with the notable exception of Poland, the internal security services of those nations are still controlled by old KGB structures that were never rooted out.

Most of all, it takes advantage of the still pervasive anti-Americanism in the world and the growing conspiricism/cynicism of the American people for its own ends.

President Bush was a certifiable disaster in his Russia policies. He propped up Putin at every turn. Lets us hope that President Obama pursues a wiser policy of active opposition to Russian authoritarianism at home and growing agressiveness abroad.

here's a clip http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a6suIQ6TPlo

here's a website especially for the podcasts regarding Russia and eastern europe

http://www.jrnyquist.com/

Singing while cooking

2010-01-11T04:33:00.000-08:00

I do alot of cooking and I enjoy singing off key and poorly while I cook!!! :)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gnz7kf1mgmo

Pornography and Propaganda

2010-01-09T05:10:00.000-08:00

The cultural conflict in the world today is not between the word and the image. It is between the literate image and the illiterate image. The world is made of images, it always has been. The problem is that our world is increasingly made of illiterate images. These are images that are not designed to express any thoughts, only emotions. Or they can be images designed to express neither any thought nor any emotion and are only designed to titilate. The former is called propaganda. The latter is called pornography.

This is why we see so much propaganda today from all political persuasions. It is also the reason for the explosion of pornography that we see. The image is being systematically divorced from thought and rationality. When I say images I do not mean pictures. Images are either words or pictures or a combination of both. Images create words and words create images when it is Man's rational core being appealed to. The world is incresingly losing any devotion to thought or reason and therefore such images are a rare, dying delight.

We are awash in the illiterate image.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dXENYy3HL78&NR=1

songs to myself

2010-01-01T04:54:00.000-08:00

The human brain is the most complicated matter ever discovered in the universe. We still feel the fallibility of that mind anytime we try to grasp complex subjects. This is because, perhaps, of humanity's growing hatred of itself, as expressed in the mass death over the last 100 years and probably that the mind, no matter how complex is still a creation. A creation finds it exasperating to try to grasp its creator and that is generally what we strive for when thinking deeply.

The truth is that the more important part of ourselves we never fully grasp, that is the gap between our rational and our emotional self. It is not either one of these two but the gap in between, the communication in between, that largely makes us who we are. It is this lack of communication within our selves which is in crisis today. There is certainly not a lack of communication between people. But the quality of that communication depends initially upon the conversation within one's own head and that is the conversation that is lacking in many, especially young people. The generalization of our society is the teen or 20 something sitting in a room full of the latest communication technology in which he or she can communicate with a peasant in China. But often they have nothing to say other than something about shopping or entertainment because they have not taken the time to simply have a conversation within themselves first, to sit and think quietly. This enormous gap between our ability to expand our communications around the the world and the quality of the content of that communication is related to the division between the image and the word that I write of. The Declaration of Independence was written with a quill pen on parchment paper. We must not only increase communications among people but within ourselves, within the gaps in our self. That can only be achieved by utilizing the technology between the ears.

It is these separations within us that differentiate us and make us us and this is represented by the separations between different individuals. When building a fire, the flames are fueled far more by the air between the logs than they are by the logs themselves. The heat and the light always pass through the gaps in the wood seeking the oxygen that exists there.

All of our political rhetoric on both the Left and Right is largely the affectations of braying jackasses. The tripe about revolutions and reactions and the like that I indulge in myself is largely a way to get a reaction for others. The more important thoughts we have about life in general are the ones we keep to ourselves. Those are the ones we will generally act upon when action is necessary. The affactations we will dismiss in the first "emergency" as Bush forgot about his "belief" in free markets in the emergency in 2008. Almost all politicians today engage in almost no introspective thought. Every thought they have is designed to be presented as an image to the public and not as a policy designed to properly manage the affairs of the nation.

It is this tyranny of the image which concerns me most about modern life. We have forgotten that within every image is a story, and within every story there is a text. At the heart and essence of a picture are the thoughts that the image creates within us. Those thoughts are made of words. Deficiencies in words and language will always lead to the decline of thought. Images cannot substitute for language because images depend upon language to give them meaning within the human mind. Every great film is not only a moving image, it is a moving, breathing, living thought. It is a living Idea that depends not only on images but on language and music. This is the reason that every great film maker, and generally even great actors, are highly literate people. Quentin Tarantino, in my opinion one of the great film makers of our age, is also one of the best writers of his generation. Examine the opening scene in his latest film "Notorious Basterds". It is visually and literally brilliant. The dialogue creates an image in the mind of the viewer that is both enhancing and seperate from the image actually on the screen.

The tyranny of the image has hijacked our politics. It has led to an acceptance of an almost unbelievable lack of coherence in our political life, our economic life, and even our daily lives. The prevailing pattern of our age is confusion. A mishmash of images dominate our lives uncoordinated by any pattern formed by the thought that the written word concretizes.

One word can open up a thousand images and ten thousand thoughts in the minds of countless individuals. Think of a word like "love" or "hate" or mind or democracy or even sun or moon and think of the images that are created. It is really the word that it is the great picture painter, not the image. The image fixates our mind on that image. The word invites our mind into a diverse world of images abounding and dancing the playful dance of the active intellect. If one word can do this, think then of what a great book can do. The image without the word is an ephemeral, dying picture destined to be forgotten. The images created by words are the joys of memory and thought that are one of the great pleasures of being human. In the beginning was the Word.

The World As It Is

2009-12-31T05:58:00.000-08:00

The basic world situation at the end of this first decade of the third millenium is still largely what it was 10 years ago. The conflict in the world, the dividing line, is still between the East and the West. This is as it has been since Achilles slew Hector and the Persian hordes smashed into the 300 Spartans at Thermopylae in an attempt to extinguish the Freedom of the Greeks.

The East today is led by Russia and China and their alliance based on mutual antipathy and fear of the United States. The United States is still the leader of the West out of necessity if not desire.

All of the distractions that some claim are the great threats of the age, namely terrorism and "climate change", are the hobgoblin of minds trained to think presently and not historically. Terrorism is not a war, it is the prelude to a war between nations including the cyberwar already raging between the US and China. "Climate change" is the earth-centered, man-centered theory that holds that Man is the center of the Earth and the Earth is the center of the Universe. It ignores the fact that climate is change. Climate change has been occuring on the Earth since the beginning. Climates have changed, are changing, and will change. A climate without change would not be a climate but stasis, an impossiblity in climatology. "Climate change" is earth-centered because it ignores the corresponding climate changes occuring presently throughout the solar system related to solar changes.

The theory of anthropomorphic climate change or global warming is a pathetic, desperate attempt to blame human activity for earth changes that have been occuring for eons and are occuring presently in a commensurate fashion on other planetary bodies within our solar system. It is an effort to fulfill a political agenda backed by politicized science to advance and justify the regulation of human activity on a global scale. This attempt will fail.

So we return to the basic conflict in the world today of East versus West. This conflict is rooted in the basic differences in our conception of Man's relationship to his fellow Man (and woman). The Western conception of Man's relationship to Man is based on the mutually shared conception of the primacy of Reason in everyday relationships. This is clarified in the legal concept of the "reasonable person" as stipulated in Western jurisprudence.

In the East Reason is viewed as largely antithetical to freedom. As Dostoyevsky writes in "Notes From the Underground", should a man not have a right to conceive that 2+2=5?? In the East free will includes the will to evade reason, to move beyond or below reason, depending on your view. In the West, we generally see no conflict between Reason and free will. Free Will is in fact related to Reason in two ways. The first is that Man has the freedom to pursue knowledge through Reason, and second that Reason exists within each person allowing us to exercise freedom. Through shared Reason we are linked to the cosmos and each other and yet are still individuals by the path we choose to pursue Reason, to pursue our eudynomic bliss, to pursue our happiness.

This view of the harmony of Unity and individual existence that permeates Western culture is viewed as fantastic fantasy in the East. It is convenient individualistic tripe, from the perspective of the East. The East's view is that a choice must be made between Unity and the individual, between Unity and Freedom. This often leads to a choice between a subsuming Statism and a nihilisitic, destructive, atomistc individualism.

Look for the conflict between East and West to intensify in 2010 as many of the distractions fade into irrelevancy.

More Marx

2009-12-31T05:53:00.000-08:00

Marx's belief that Capitalism would bifurcate into a two-tiered hierarchy of owners and workers proved to have not been the case. Marx tried to prove the scientific certainty of this proposition in his great work "Das Kapital" in 1867. But certainly by the 1920s Max Weber's brilliant works on the Capitalist economy made it clear that Capitalist competition had actually divided the economy into a myriad of classes and classificatrions that were far more complex than a simple owner/worker paradigm.

Goethe

2009-12-31T05:49:00.000-08:00

One of Goethe's ideas was that art is not only a reflection of the artist, it is also a reflection of the circumstances of the world that the artist inhabits. True art seeks to interpret and describe the world surrounding the human being from the perspective of and filtered through that being. Therefore, a piece of art blends the individual and the collective. It is a view of the soul of the creator as altered by the collective. The state of that soul is a statement, as well, of the state of the health of the collective.