HAPPY HALLOWEEN AND ENDLESS (till January) OPEN THREAD--

CRUNCH TIME

From now till the end of the year is really crunch time for me, in that I have to get everything ready here on this end for my move to California. My house has not sold yet and this is scary, but I'm not going to completely panic until the end of November....I may have to do a short sale or something. Also, I have several deadlines to finish at work and for the book.

In December, I will be driving with my daughter and my cat to California, because--whether the house sells or not, I start work in CA on January 4th. That gives me a few weeks to unpack and get settled.

Sooooooooo, the long and short of it is that I am going to have a two-month hiatus in my blogging, and be back in early January; set and ready to shine that psychological spotlight on the latest Obama Administration insanity.

I assume the world will still be around then; though possibly changed somewhat. My apologies to all my loyal readers, but (as Arnold once said) I'LL BE BACK!

Meanwhile, here is one of the (few) aspects of Ann Arbor I will dearly miss: Autumn and the lovely colors of Michigan this time of year.

The view looking out from my house:









Anyone need a house in Ann Arbor? It's right across the street from a park on one side and an elementary school on the other. Perfect location and a lovely home :-)



Have a safe Holiday Season and I'll be back up in January.

OH THAT WASCALLY WABBIT FOX !

Be vewy vewy quiet...Obama is hunting wascally wiseguys at Fox...and, it is turning out pretty much like all the previous encounters between Elmer Fudd and Bugs Bunny.

[Political Cartoons by Glenn McCoy]

THE IRAN PROBLEM

Here is the link to that interview on Uncommon Knowledge, with Victor Davis Hanson and Richard Baer I mentioned a few posts back, where they discuss the motivations and goals of the regime in Tehran.

It's excellent. Go watch!

HECKUKA JOB, BARACK !

Obama's war on Fox has had a positive effect on the station's ratings:

It’s a nine-percent bump in the two weeks since Anita Dunn’s whine heard ’round the world — in terms of overall audience. Among the coveted 25-54 demographic? A 14-percent bump. Good work, Barry.

Under the circumstances, I can't help thinking of Princess Leia's defiant words in Star Wars (to paraphrase): The more you tighten your grip, Obama, the more newstations will slip through your fingers...

ENVIRO-DRIVEL

Mark Steyn reminds us once again what the real agenda of the radical environmentalists happens to be:

The anti-western anti-human totalitarianism of the environmental movement grows ever more explicit. I'm very sad to see my old friend Alex Renton reduced to peddling this sort of self-loathing claptrap:

The worst thing that you or I can do for the planet is to have children. If they behave as the average person in the rich world does now, they will emit some 11 tonnes of CO² every year of their lives. In their turn, they are likely to have more carbon-emitting children who will make an even bigger mess...

In 2050, 95% of the extra population will be poor and the poorer you are, the less carbon you emit. By today's standards, a cull of Australians or Americans would be at least 60 times as productive as one of Bangladeshis... As Rachel Baird, who works on climate change for Christian Aid, says: "Often in the countries where the birth rate is highest, emissions are so low that they are not even measurable. Look at Burkina Faso." So why ask them to pay in unborn children for our profligacy..?

But how do you reduce population in countries where women's rights are already achieved and birth-control methods are freely available? Could children perhaps become part of an adult's personal carbon allowance? Could you offer rewards: have one child only and you may fly to Florida once a year?

Steyn goes on to note:

Even if you overlook the control-freak totalitarianism, the argument is drivel. Much of "the rich world", including three-fourths of the G7 (Germany, Italy, Japan), is already in net population decline. And in those parts that aren't, such as the United Kingdom, population growth is driven almost entirely by mass immigration: Those Bangladeshis with their admirably low emissions move to Yorkshire and before you know it develop a carbon footprint as big as your guilt-ridden liberal environmentalist's.

And he adds this:

Alex finds time to praise the results of China's population control. Boy, there's an environmental paradise.

Sometime ago I posted about the real agenda of the environmentalists (via Jonah Goldberg):

Liberal democracy is sweet and addictive and indeed in the most extreme case, the USA, unbridled individual liberty overwhelms many of the collective needs of the citizens. The subject is almost sacrosanct and those who indulge in criticism are labeled as Marxists, socialists, fundamentalists and worse. These labels are used because alternatives to democracy cannot be perceived! Support for Western democracy is messianic as proselytised by a President leading a flawed democracy

There must be open minds to look critically at liberal democracy. Reform must involve the adoption of structures to act quickly regardless of some perceived liberties....

We are going to have to look how authoritarian decisions based on consensus science can be implemented to contain greenhouse emissions [emphasis mine].

Note that if you disagree with the environmental agenda of the authors, then you are smearing them with the label of "Marxists, socialists, fundamentalists and worse" ! How awful. And just plain mean.

Not to mention, accurate.

If you wade through the artlicle you will see the high praise--even awe--given to the Chinese (the world's worst polluters) because of their inherent ability to 'order' and control their population and force them to behave properly:

Let us return to the plastic bags. The ban in China will save importation and use of five million tons of oil used in plastic bag manufacture, only a drop in the ocean of the world oil well. But the importance in the decision lies in the fact that China can do it by edict and close the factories. They don’t have to worry about loss of political donations or temporarily unemployed workers. They have made a judgment that their action favours the needs of Chinese society as a whole.

China has become, or is just about to become, the world’s greatest emitter of greenhouse emissions. Its economic growth suggests that it may soon emit as much as the rest of the world put together. Its environment is in a deplorable state, with heavily polluted rivers and drinking water, serious air pollution, both of which have a heavy burden of illness. Pollution and climate change are reducing productive land in the face of an increasing population which is compelled to import some of its foodstuffs. Its population centres will be candidates for early inundation by sea level rise and the melting of Himalayan glaciers will reduce its water supply.

All this suggests that the savvy Chinese rulers may be first out of the blocks to assuage greenhouse emissions and they will succeed by delivering orders. They will recognise that the alternative is famine and social disorder

My goodness, how 'savvy' of them! After causing half the problem, they just happen to have the authoritarian bona fides to deal with the mess they created--unlike those whimpy democracies which use (ughhh) voluntary cooperation.

Does anyone else find this perspective rather disgusting? Not to mention a bit disingenuous?

In "The Four Pillars of the Socialist Revival", I wrote:

Multiculturalism and political correctness are two of the fundamental pseudo-intellectual, quasi-religious tenets-- along with a third: radical environmentalism--that have been widely disseminated by intellectuals unable to abandon socialism even after its crushing failures in the 20th century. These tenets have been slowly, but relentlessly absorbed at all levels of Western culture in the last decade or so--but primarily since the end of the Cold War.

All three have been incorporated into most K-12 curricula and all other learning environments. They have been at the forefront of attempts by leading academics and academic institutions to rewrite most of history and undo thousands of years of Western cultural advancement. And further, as the culture has been completely saturated with this toxic brew, any attempt to question the tenets' validity or to contest their value is met with hysterical accusations of racism, sexism, homophobia, Islamophobia, imperialism, bigotry, or--worse of all --intolerance or insensitivity.

It just so happens, that these tenets represent three of the four pillars that are the foundation of an evolving epistemological, ethical and political strategy that the socialist remnants in the world have developed and are using to prevent their ideology from entering the dustbin of history.

This leftist/radical environmentalism is nothing more than one of the rhetorical strategies that are being used to undermine democracy and capitalism and promote socialism/communism and fascism. Rarely do you see the agenda so openly discussed as it is in the articles quoted above. Instead of creating the 'dictatorship of the proletariat' the neo-marxists among us have settled on the 'dictatorship of the scientific elite'.

In reality, they always intended for a few intellectual 'elites'(they mean themselves, actually) to have the power to run things. but at least they hid that agenda behind the 'power to the people' bullshit rhetoric.

Now, they don't even bother to disguise their agenda. Or, even bother to deny that it was the same kind of marxist/socialist/communist--i.e., LEFTIST, policies that have most polluted the environment and destroyed the planet.

The devastation they have wrought to both the human population and the precious planet are only unintended consequences of their scientifically 'proven' methods. These utopian (and I count the radical environmentalist among the worst of the lot) always know what's best for us hapless humans because they are so much smarter and wiser than we are. They mean well, after all. It isn't their fault that a little thing like reality gets in the way of their implementation of utopian policies!

It isn't their fault that the environment is a complex system! They only mean the best for us.

For most of the 20th century these fascists have sought to escape responsibility for the condequences of their utopian fantasies. The world is littered with the corpses and awash in the tears of the people who they have "helped". Fantasy environmentalism is only the most recent strategies they have adopted as they attempt reassert their socialist ideology under the guise of "saving the planet", while they chain all of humanity. Ask yourself how it has come to be that Al Gore's environmental obsession has become required classroom reading. And how our children are being indoctrinated right this moment in the K-12 classrooms into the holy rituals of the environmental histrionics.

Consider for a moment the call to imprison those who ignore climate 'science'. The very essence of free scientific inquiry is open discussion and high levels of skepticism; but the fascist 'elites' must carefully contain any speech or any attitude that questions their own interpretation of environmental science.

Clearly, this is not scientific inquiry, it is an inquisition. It is not science, it is religious dogma. And if you do not believe, you are in danger of committing the horrific sin of apostasy.

You begin to see how much in common these neo-marxist, fascist 'elites' have with the imams of radical Islam. Both suffer from an unquenchable desire for power over others. Either submit to their authority, or else....

If you have time, check out this and this --they may shake you out of the programmed rigidity and mindless conformity to this agenda. I also highly recommend the earlier link to Michael Crighton's talk on complexity.

The truth is that most of the drivel that issues from the radical environmentalists' mouths these days is pure, unadulterated neo-Marxist fascism, disguised as compassionate concern for the planet; and steeped in a deep hatred of humanity.

SCARY? VERY

..and I'm not talking about the kid in costume either!


[More Political Cartoons by Dana Summers]

Meanwhile, if you want to be really scared, check out this interview with Victor Davis Hanson, a military historian; and Robert Baer, a former CIA field officer, "Armageddon Time":

"The Iranians are very good at procuring banned materials very easily," said Baer. "They are very close [to having what they need to produce weapons]. They could move very quickly."

How quickly?

"Six months, a year."

The second observation: The Iranians have no interest in running a bluff. Once able to produce nuclear weapons, they will almost certainly do so....

The third observation: As the Iranians scramble to produce nuclear weapons, the Obama administration appears too feckless, inexperienced or deluded to stop them.

The actual video interview will be aired at NRO on Monday.
----------------------------------

Have a great weekend! I'm out in California getting ready for the move from this end. Back to blogging on Monday sometime.

CONNED

It is simply unbelievable--and rather frightening-- that this sort of thing could be happening in America. I wonder if the people of this country are beginning to understand the repulsive totalitarian character of the person they have elected President?

The following is from a previous post on "Obamaworld Apostasy and Malignant Narcissism" :
This is the way things are done in Obamaworld. It has always been thus, and Obama's short and unremarkable political career even prior to his amazing presidential run was characterized by the same sort of hostility and focused attention from the media toward the Magical One's opponents. Hope and Change the Chicago Way!

The lesson was clear long before Obama had the enormous power of the Executive Branch to do his dirty work. Like Islam's Mohammed, no criticism of the Democrat's messiah is permitted. To criticize the One is political apostasy and punishable by political and personal destruction.

Writing in the American Spectator in February about Obama's 'enemies list', Mark Hyman noted:

The heavy-handed actions against Obama critics and opponents that occurred before he had government institutions firmly under his control should have had public interest watchdog groups up in arms. Because so many of such groups are ideologically aligned with Obama may explain why there was not even a peep. Conservative and balanced news outlets have the disturbing habit of holding accountable liberal public interest organizations that engage in dishonest or deceptive practices that the major news organizations just so happen to overlook.

How soon and how far the Obama Administration will extend its attacks against its critics and the political opposition may become evident in the days ahead. Spared any serious scrutiny by most news outlets during his very brief career in public office, Barack Obama has displayed an exceptionally thin skin when he has come under a microscope or when he has suffered political and public relations setbacks. (read it all)

Back in October of 2008, Andy McCarthy sounded the alarm on candidate Obama's assault on the First Amendment:

I’ll be blunt: Sen. Obama and his supporters despise free expression, the bedrock of American self-determinism and hence American democracy. What’s more, like garden-variety despots, they see law not as a means of ensuring liberty but as a tool to intimidate and quell dissent.....

To the extent that a person's behavior is mostly motivated by perceived insults to their self--i.e., their narcissistic core; then the "insult" will usually prompt a typical display of narcissistic rage directed toward the unfortunate individual who threatens them.

Such rage responses are invariably destructive, mean, and petty. Additionally, these rages are generally not beneficial to society-at-large (in fact, such actions often have strong sociopathic or antisocial elements to them) , although the person in the throes of narcissistic rage will often convince themselves that they are behaving perfectly appropriately and even for "the good" of others. They "stand above the fray", making it clear to all that their behavior is because they are superior beings. Typically, they get their goons to do the dirty work of silencing their critics.

This fantasy of sublime superiority is the origin of "sociopathic selfishness and "sociopathic selflessness" I have discussed elsewhere; and it is the pathology of all tyrants and dictators.

Far too often, narcissistically flawed individuals are hopelessly attracted by the grandiose opportunities of the political arena (as well as the Hollywood arena) like moths to a flame. Their sense of self is starkly invested in the desire for power over others (always, of course, "for their own good") , constant admiration and adulation and grandiose ambitions. This makes them remarkably adept at the politics of personal destruction--particularly when you are a devoted fan of the teachings of a radical organizer whose philosophy demanded that you: “Pick the target, freeze it, personalize it, and polarize it.”

For the narcissist it is always a zero-sum game he or she plays with other individuals. From the perspective of the narcissist, if someone else "wins", the narcissist "loses". It cannot be otherwise, since on some level they know that their own talent and skills are way overblown. Hence, they cannot hope to "win" based on those talents alone. Thus, the behavior of the classic narcissist is mostly directed toward making others lose so they can win by default. To that end, there is no behavior or tactic that is considered out -of-bounds or over-the-top.

The state of political discourse in this country was bad enough, with the ubiquitous personal attacks that have become the trademark of all political campaigns; but Barack Obama has taken this to a higher plane of being-- and destroying.

Politics still occasionally brings out those who have strong personal integrity and values; but it is the people of no integrity and no values who are obsessively attracted to the field and are triumphant--and that is true on both sides of the political spectrum.

By that, I mean that those who would actually make the best leaders generally opt out of the process, because they tend to be too healthy to generate the continual rage necessary to destroy all opponents; or they lack the required-- and mostly distorted --sense of personal "perfection" and grandiosity that drives the power-hungry.

I am frequently reminded that it is hopelessly naive these days to expect the electorate to vote for a person based on what that person actually stands for; or even based on the character (we don't need no stinkin' character in our politicians); instead, these days most people respond to the negative campaign ads that slice and dice the other guy; and are mainly influenced by botoxed faces and Hollywood-packaged good-looks rather than the content of any candidate's character. The less they know of that character, the better!

And, despite all efforts to hide the truth about Obama's weak and unprincipled character, there was still plenty of information available to be able to see that the emperor messiah had no clothes.

Real personal integrity and character comes from having a consistent set of values and exhibiting behavior driven by those values. Today's classic narcissistically-driven politicians like both Hillary and Bill can only flutter in the political winds, and zelig-like easily take on whatever characteristics their public care to project onto them.

This is not the kind of person who can face real threats in the real world very effectively because this is not the kind of person who can effectively deal with threats they do not perceive as personal--why should they care much about any other kind, unless the polls indicate they should?.

Kudos to the other networks who united with Fox on this issue and caused the Administration to back down (this time, at least); and who perhaps are starting to realize the real nature of the idol they have been worshiping. They are partly responsible for creating and loosing this monster on a mostly unsuspecting and rhetorically awed population; and perhaps they have an inkling that if can happen to Fox, then it can happen to any one of them at Obama's whim....

No matter how you look at the situation, though, we are all of us waking up to the reality that we have been conned by a master and seduced by smiling face and pretty words.

DENIAL RUNS DEEP

When it was politically correct to do so, Democrats and the left would insist that President Bush had "taken his eyes off the ball" by fighting the war formerly known as the "War on Terror" in Iraq. It should be obvious, they insisted that the real war, the essential war, was the one in Afghanistan.

Well, talk about taking your eyes off the ball! The Obama Administration has basically closed its eyes and has no idea where the ball actually is at this point in time:

Judith Klinghoffer noted the ironical similarity between the bombings in Pakistan to the attack of the Hebrew University by Hamas in Jerusalem in 2002. The attacks were accompanied, as these these are, by the usual statements of denial. Officials quickly claimed that the “attackers were not followers of Islam”. How could they be? and Klinghoffer reminded her readers not to forget that “Iranians claim that we should not worry about their nuclear development as Islam forbids the use of nuclear weapons.”

But assuming it were possible, why would Muslims be bombing Muslims? Because they are involved in a global struggle for power among themselves and in relation to the world. World Islam is trying to define itself in a vast civil war. Perhaps it is far more important for radical Islamists to bomb Muslims attending university than it has ever been for them to kill Jews. Killing Jews is a symbolic act. Killing other Muslims is the practical side of the war. Reuel Marc Gerecht argues in the Christian Science Monitor that the War on Terror is nearly synonymous and to a large extent, coextensive, with the civil war raging in the Islamic world. He describes the battle lines as internally being between Sunni and Shia radicals and their more secular bretheren, and across confessions between Sunni and Shia communities. Sunni Jihadism has been trying to take leadership its side, he says, but has lost the battle in the Arab world. It was defeated in Iraq, an event whose historic consequences have been unappreciated by all except al-Qaeda itself. Now their last hope is in South Asia, which may be lost in a fit of absentmindeness by Washington, which sees it as a distraction from the the pursuit of a domestic welfare agenda. But the real story of Afghanistan according to Gerecht is that it represents not only a chance for Sunni radicalism to recover, but a changing of the guard from Arabs to South Asian jihadi leaders.

Unless Al Qaeda is able to reignite Sunni-Shiite strife in Iraq – and the odds of this happening seem pretty small – Sunni jihadism has lost the Iraq war, and with it, cross your fingers, the Arabs.

Mesopotamia really was the central front in the war on terror because it was the only military theater Al Qaeda and its allies had in the Arab world. Drive out the Americans, unleash a Sunni-Shiite bloodbath that just might bring Sunni Arab states and Iran into a bloody cold – ideally hot – war, and Sunni Islamic militancy might just shake the region.

Osama bin Laden and Ayman al-Zawahiri, both decent strategists, knew what they were saying when they described Iraq as the decisive battleground. Victory there would have given their cause real possibilities in the Muslim heartlands.

When al-Qaeda lost in Iraq their sole change of redemption was to win a rematch in Afghanistan/Pakistan. Yet even if they were to succeed, one thing has changed for the foreseeable future. The defeat in Iraq has momentarily eclipsed the dominance of Arabs in the leadership of the Sunni Jihad in favor of the better educated and more formidable South Asians. More to the point, it has moved the fulcrum of the Muslim civil war eastwards. While the Middle East remains important, it is no longer central after Iraq.

Read it all, because it is an excellent analysis of the situation in the world today with regard to the War on Terror--or "overseas contingency operations" and as we can see with the dithering in regard to Afghanistan, such operations are not likely to happen at all under the Obama Administration.

Wretchard ends with this:

Maybe someday it will be different, Bronner says, but not right now. That doesn’t keep people from trying to use John Lennon’s Imagine as the manual for international “peace”. There are some who even now believe it is better to paint Israel into a corner by making concessions to the ayatollahs, the better to force the Jewish state to take out Iranian nuclear capability. Let them take the rap. And as to ruffling Ahmedinajad’s feathers, that is altogether too troublesome and unpleasant to those for who everything has always been a choice. Denial runs deep. It’s the logic of the man who enjoys his steak and playing on his ivory chess-set without wanting to worry about where it came from. [emphasis mine]

If Gerecht is right, then a battle for the soul of Islam is raging in South Asia. And the President may have elected to watch it from the sidelines, figuring the fires won’t jump. And if Krauthammer is right, then the West is facing a series of challenges which cannot be ignored. But maybe Obama is calculating he can ignore them; that it is better to keep talking than trying to act; because things just might take care of themselves. The world is about to find out who’s right. It should be an interesting next six months.

Denial always runs deep when ideology is more important than reality. In that situation, denial is so opaque, that to let in even the slightest sliver of the light of reality would be overwhelmingly traumatic for the denialist, and would turn their basic assumptions about the world and about themselves topsy-turvy.

The consequences of this sort of deep psychological denial can be seen every day in today's world. But like all defense mechanisms, it serves a very important purpose for the users. I have discussed this before, but it is always worth going over again.

As a psychiatrist, I would be the last person to maintain that even a primitive defense mechanism like denial doesnt have some positive results for the individuals and groups who use it. Obviously any defense mechanism that results in immediate death or injury of the person using it would probably not last long as a viable strategy in the real world; nor would it be particularly helpful for the species as a whole.

In fact, denial does work--at least for a while--and that is why it is so often resorted to in extremus.

Some of the positive consequences of psychological denial include:

• In the short-term, psychological denial can help a person maintain their sanity--which would be threatened by awareness of a painful truth or reality
• In the short-term, denial can help a person function day to day
• In the short-term, denial can prevent a person from having to acknowledge painful thoughts, feelings or behavior and help them protect both their selfhood and worldview from unacceptable reality that is threatening to either or both

The operative word in all of the above is "in the short-term." In the short-term, even the unhealthiest of defenses--such as denial, projection, paranoia-- may be creative, healthy, comforting, and coping. And, while the behavior of those in denial may strike observers as downright peculiar at times, in the short-term, they may be transiently adaptative.

In fact, psychological denial is a way to integrate one's experience by providing a variety of filters for pain and mechanisms for self-deception. It creatively rearranges the sources of conflict the individual faces so that the conflict becomes manageable (hence the 'inversion of reality' mentioned above serves to: (1) protect themselves physically from the threat of violence and (2) protect their world view from the acceptance of facts or truth which effectively negate its premises and hence threatem them emotionally . All they have to do is to creatively rearrange the sources of conflic, and shazam! Both physical and emotional danger are neatly avoided!

But let us now consider some of the negative consequences of psychological denial:

• In the longer-term, denial requires continued compromises with reality to maintain the pretense that "everything is fine!" or "If only X would happen, everything would be fine!" (or, in the case above, "If only I reach out my hand then you will unclench your fist, and everything will be all right with the world and we will have universal brotherhood and peace."

Eventually, however, denial has to escalate. It breeds delusional thinking, along with paranoia and then the inevitable conspiracy theories begin to take the place of rational thought in those who deny reality for long periods of time. (See all the 9/11 conspiracy theorists for examples in our own country; or the increasingly shrill accusations that anyone who alludes to the threat of Islamic terrorism is a fearmonger and promoting a 'culture of fear' in order to fool the American public into thinking we are at war.

• The denier must then place the blame for the unacceptable reality on someone else ("I inherited all these problems from Bush and the mess--including all the things that are worsening under my watch, are all his fault!") and that leads to increased conflict between deniers and non-deniers. Efforts to maintain their denial consumes them and will lead them to escalate their anger and rage as their denial becomes untenable and ever more obvious. You've got to wonder if all the desperate attempts to control the media and demonize Fox News (the only outlet that routinely uncovers evidence that "the mess" in question has increasingly more to do with Obama and his associates.

• The denier will begin distort language and logic to rationalize and justify their behavior(examples of this are too numerous to mention-- but just listen to the Obamites when they come on and continually change the rationale behind their lack of decisionmaking on Afghanistan, for example). Eventually, cognitive strategies and rational argument will be abandoned altogether by the denier, because those strategies are not sustainable and are unable to convince others; at which point the person in denial will simply refer to his feelings or emotions as the sole justification and increasingly demonize those who oppose him or her.

• The denier will feel justified in acting out against those who threaten the peacefulness of their fantasy; they will use psychological displacement to attack those relatively less dangerous (i.e., the cartoonists and comedians are now "fact-checked"; ad hominem attacks against people like Rush Limbaugh and even less well-known opponents, etc.). The only kind of 'power' those in denial can ever 'speak truth to' are generally the kind that won't hurt them; they are scared shitless of anyone who might actually harm them in any way. These brave, brave Sir Robins bravely run away when there is a real bully or threat that needs to be faced down. Funny how that works.

• Problem solving and decision making will deteriorate as the entire focus of energy becomes the maintenance of the denial. In place of rational alternatives, excessive emotionality in general; and specifically anger and rage escalate toward those who are "blamed" for the reality that does not conform to the denier's world view.

• In the end, interactions with those in denial are characterized by the denier's frequent smugness; sense of superiority; arrogance; belittlement of alternative views; and undiluted hatred toward anyone or any idea that questions their world view or underlying ideology.

The current Administrations frivolous and idiotic views on terrorism in general; on Iraq; and most particularly on the war in Afghanistan (which they seem to be intent on losing at all costs); the emphasis on political correctness and multiculturalism--all this is primarily based on a web of deep denial.

Those in deep denial pretend their actions are motivated from'hope' and 'change' and 'love' and 'peace' and some sort of higher form of patriotism (which involves dissing your country so it will be better liked by lesser nations); but this is only how they rationalize it to themselves. Their self-deception is simply stunning in its sweeping grandiosity and self-righteousness betrayal of the good, as they cede, one by one, every important value of western civilization in general, and American values in particular to the enemy.

They then pat themselves on the back for their compassionate sensitivity and saintly antiwarpeaceandbrotherhood stance. And, if things go wrong--badly wrong--well, it was all Bush's fault anyway, and they were just "trying to mop up the mess."

Denial is the refuge of the terrified and frightened. The perversion of reality that deep denial leads to if not recognized and corrected is often becomes far more dangerous to the individual--and the society--than the reality that is being avoided.

In the end, denial unacknowledged only facilitates and enables the real threat to life and psychological health.

FLAWED HEROES AND ODDLY SELF-PITYING VILLAINS

Rich Lowry discusses Obama's 'eternal foil', George Bush:

Republicans needn’t trouble themselves to nominate a presidential candidate in 2012. No matter what, Pres. Barack Obama will be running against George W. Bush.

Bush will be Obama’s eternal foil. At this rate, when Obama writes his post-presidential memoir, it will be titled: An Audacious Presidency, or How I Saved America from That Bastard Bush. His presidential library will have a special fright-house wing devoted to Bush’s misrule. He will mutter in his senescence about 43, like the Ancient Mariner about his albatross.

Obama clearly wants Bush to be the Hoover to his FDR. Since his predecessor left office with 34 percent job approval, Obama understandably feels moved to scorn and berate him. But Obama’s perpetual campaign against Bush is graceless, whiny, and tin-eared. Must the leader of the free world — if Obama still accepts that quaint formulation — always reach for the convenient excuse?

The answer to that question is, "Yes, he can." Read it all.

In this, Obama is indeed playing the role of the "Joker" to Bush's "Dark Knight". Of course, this shows my own prejudice because I do see Bush as deeply flawed, but essentially heroic; while Obama is a rather metrosexual villain who's turning out to be quite a scary joke on the international stage.


"I have given a name to my pain, and it is Batman." - Joker (Batman 1989)

“Introduce a little anarchy, upset the established order, and everything becomes chaos, I’m an agent of chaos , and you know the thing about chaos? It’s fair.”- Joker (The Dark Knight 2008)

“Oh you… you just couldn’t let me go could you? This is what happens when an unstoppable force meets an immovable object. You are truly incorruptable aren’t you. You won’t kill me because of some misplaced sense of self-rightousness. And I won’t kill you because…you’re just too much fun. I get the feeling that you and I are destined to do this forever.” - Joker (The Dark Knight 2008)

"Do I really look like a guy with a plan?" - Joker (The Dark Knight 2008)


Read all of Lowry's editorial. He concludes with this:

The acid test of the White House inevitably exposes a president’s character flaws: Nixon’s corrosive paranoia, Clinton’s self-destructive indiscipline, Bush’s stubborn defensiveness. Obama in the crucible is exhibiting an oddly self-pitying arrogance. It’s unbecoming in anyone, let alone the most powerful man on the planet.

ADDENDUM: I am not really of the opinion that Obama is actively evil like Batman's Joker. However, I do think that like many collectivists, he is what I call "selflessly" malignant. The Joker has far more insight into his own motivations and desires to create chaos and exert power over others. Selfless narcissists like Obama and his fawning acolytes are painfully clueless.

FOX AND HOUNDS

In this case, the hounds have gone to ground.... or at least into the mud:



[Cartoons by Eric Allie]

The real reason the White House is so obsessed with discrediting FoxNews:

This seems so obviously correct that I feel embarrassed for not having figured it out sooner.
The rationale of the White House offensive against Fox News has been a topic of much puzzlement lately. Is this just the White House lashing out? Are they trying to rally the base?
But I think Mike Allen and Josh Gerstein nail the real explanation in their story today: The White House is working to prevent stories born on Fox from crossing over into more widely-viewed media. Most Americans still haven’t heard of Van Jones, for instance; and the strategy is now all about containment…

...Both Politico and Mediaite note that the expected righteous indignation at being lectured by politicians on what they should consider news is strangely absent from most of the press corps — with the important exception of Jake Tapper. Go figure. Even the reliably liberal Ruth Marcus felt obliged to wonder what the reaction would have been had Dubya declared war on MSNBC and encouraged other news outlets to ignore the nightly spiel on “Countdown.”

The White House has released the hounds, and all they will get from it is mud on their face.

THE COLLECTIVIST UNDEAD

You know, it is truly unseemly and utterly bizarre to hear media zombies like Jacob Weisberg rant against Fox News. This lunacy from a "journalist" who happens to be the author of a Bush-bashing book. Too too funny.

And, further, it is beyond unseemly--more like grossly un-presidential--to hear the White House spokesczars raging against its Fox News critics like some Hugo Chavez clowns trying to shut down any opposition TV stations.

Fox News is not really news?? Who says so, meathead? The first error that these yahoos make is in mistaking opinion for news. You can see this mix-up in thinking clearly by reading the NY Times on a regular basis. It's one of the reasons why the mainstream media is really not mainstream anymore.

Obviously these Fox-haters have listened to MSNBC or CNN and found them to be acceptable to the current regime, while Fox dares to question the godhead. Personally, I'll take Special Report with Bret Baier (previously with Brit Hume) anyday over any show on any other cable news station.

However, my likes or dislikes aren't relevant to the issue at hand--so don't just take my word for it. Objectively, as Dean's World reminds us, numerous studies and journalists confirm the media’s rampant sinestrophilia. And their most recent passion for Obama has been on display for all to see for more than a year.

From a psychological perspective, the behavior of the MSM in this as in so many other matters appears to be motivated by underlying ideological principles of which they are largely unaware; and because these ideological imperatives are unconscious, hardly any of these so-called "journalists" are able to appreciate the ideologically biased perspective they present when doing news stories, and convince themselves that they are just being neutral and factual.

They are not. And frankly, their bias is almost so unrelentingly left, that it is a relief for most people to go to Fox News where there is a semblance of "fair and balanced" (most issues have talking heads on both sides of an argument) . Indeed, there is a lot of right-leaning opinion--that is clearly labeled opinion and doesn't pretend to be news.

Obama wasn't really joking much when he told a group of radio and TV journalists recently that "Most of you covered me; all of you voted for me" --except for those at the Fox News table. Almost all of them probably did vote for him, and Obama knew it. Now, if only those difficult Fox News correspondents would fall into line, his ascension to godhood would be complete!

Beneath the conscious, deliberate bias and blatant manipulation of news for 'the good' of us all, is an uncritical, unthinking cognitive apparatus that has been virtually destroyed by years of academic propaganda-- to the point that many of these journalists simply regurgitate the Marxist talking points in which they have been marinating for several decades--without even recognizing them as such.

Instead, they believe that their behavior is truly motivated by a desire for 'social justice' and 'universal peace and brotherhood', without any intellectual understanding or appreciation of the origins of this rhetorical propaganda and the underlying ideology that infuses them. Who doesn't want justice and peace, for heaven's sake? The issue is the best way to make that happen in a rather imperfect world populated by rather imperfect human beings.

Many of these walking, talking advertisements for 21st century neo-marxist fascism--who laughingly call themselves "objective journalists"-- are nothing but the mindless zombies of a not-quite-dead Marxism/communism/socialism that rose from its 20th century grave. What gave new life to these moldering and rotting ideas that certainly deserved to die after the mass death and destruction they caused, was the energizing power of postmodern rhetoric, cultivated in the hallowed halls of academia, where the vampire elites had access to the unsuspecting children who came to learn.

Journalism schools today (along with many schools of education) are literally rotting from all the dead and toxic Marxist ideas that are part and parcel of their curriculum.

Instead of learning to think in those classrooms, students are indoctrinated into the ever-growing ranks of leftist zombies churned out by those institutions.

The zombies of the MSM (or "legacy" media) walk among us without hinderance; wreaking havoc and mindlessly mouthing the multicultural platitudes and encouraging the 'class struggle' and promoting Marxist envy--in other words, generally behaving like this undead ideology is some sort of beacon of "hope" or "change" for today's world. Is it any wonder that they have embraced Obama as if he were some sort of Lord of the Undead?

These political zombies and the vampire elites who control them, prey on the soul and eat the life force of free societies like ours. And sadly, most of us are like the utterly clueless Sean of the Dead; we go through our days fairly oblivious to the havoc they are causing, barely noticing that something is very wrong. Some scratch their head and can't put a finger on what is wrong, but gravitate toward a network like Fox, because they haven't been completely zombified; they aren't completely dead yet; and their minds are still seeking to make sense of the crazy world around them.

Eventually, even the hapless Sean of the Dead's perceptual and cognitive abilities finally kicked into gear and were able to override his narcissistic self-involvement and make him aware of the danger from the zombies all around him.

Godzilla and the many monsters in Japanese and American cinema were symbolic of the dangerous and frightening forces unleashed after WWII. In our own time, it is a increasing fascination with zombies and vampires--monsters which symbolize all the undead collectivists of the left; the communist and Marxist remnants, who are enjoying a revival today, thanks largely to the impact of postmodern rhetorical and political tactics.

Zombies and vampires are the perfect monsters for our day and age, and they effectively convey the horrifying mindlessness of the herd mentality combined with a rather nasty and overbearing intellectual elitism.

Between the zombies of the MSM and the vampire elites operating out of the White House, we are besieged by a rampaging horde of collectivist undead.


[More cartoons by Chuck Asay]

UPDATE: Jay Nordlinger has some thoughts on Fox vs CNN which are worth reading. He also makes this comment:

I keep hearing that Glenn Beck is just a blowhard opinionist, contributing nothing but hot air. If that is true, why do we keep learning news from him? About Van Jones, about ACORN, about Anita Dunn . . . I mean, isn’t that the New York Times’s job? No? What a strange era we’re living in.

Exactly.

UPDATE II: Want more evidence of how the media is being played? Check this out from the Mao-loving Dunn:

President Obama's presidential campaign focused on "making" the news media cover certain issues while rarely communicating anything to the press unless it was "controlled," White House Communications Director Anita Dunn disclosed to the Dominican government at a videotaped conference.

"Very rarely did we communicate through the press anything that we didn't absolutely control," said Dunn.

"One of the reasons we did so many of the David Plouffe videos was not just for our supporters, but also because it was a way for us to get our message out without having to actually talk to reporters," said Dunn, referring to Plouffe, who was Obama's chief campaign manager.

"We just put that out there and made them write what Plouffe had said as opposed to Plouffe doing an interview with a reporter. So it was very much we controlled it as opposed to the press controlled it," Dunn said.

The zombies of the MSM are being played for the mindless fools they are. It's rather breathtakingly arrogant for Dunn to say this, like she was proud of it. Let's see if the zombies take this lying down.

UPDATE III: 6:20 PM - I just heard from Special Report on Fox that one of their reporters contacted CNN, NBC etc. and a number of individual reporters for comments on Anita Dunn's gloating about controlling the media. Not a single one would comment on the record. As I suspected, the zombies are going to take it lying down. Too busy feeding on the brains of their viewers to comment, I guess.

IF IT WALKS LIKE A MARXIST & TALKS LIKE A MARXIST....

Kelly O'Connell at American Thinker asks, "If Obama were a Marxist, What Would He Believe?"

Marxist theories now dominate Western universities. Movements like Race Theory, Feminism, Gay Rights, Modern Art, Critical Theory, Animal Rights, Gender Studies, abortion advocacy, Deconstruction, penal reform, Hate Crimes legislation, etc are all informed by Frankfurt scholarship. Redefined Marxism has produced spectacularly disruptive results. Some argue Obama's election is a direct result of cultural Marxism's success. Universal Health Care is another Marxist holy grail. The USSR had free medical treatment, notable for a staggering lack of basic supplies, horribly outdated methods, and horrifically filthy conditions.

Cloward-Piven Scheme for Planned Catastrophe: Ominously, in 1966, Columbia University scholars Richard Cloward and Frances Piven published a theory outlining methods to destroy a healthy capitalist economy and force communist revolution. This eliminates capitalism by making impossible state budgetary demands, thereby bringing government insolvency.

Critics claim Obama's budget is an example of the Cloward-Pivin model of planned economic destruction of a functioning capitalist economy via sabotage. Outlays are so gigantic, and so dreadfully misspent, that our financial infrastructure will soon collapse. A trillion dollar tax increase and spending rising by $10 trillion dollars over the next decade is probable. If so, government default will occur, only offset by mass currency printing, which will then bankrupt the general populace. The middle class will fall. Chronic inflation will result, causing America to lose its sterling credit rating. Global financial players must dump the dollar as it swan-dives. Then, hyperinflation will accelerate, and the era of superpower America will end.

Would the above plan be Marxist? Consider the following statement regarding USSR dictator Vladimir Lenin's opinion on the topic, from famed economist John Maynard Keynes' book "The Economic Consequences of the Peace":

"Lenin is said to have declared that the best way to destroy the Capitalist System was to debauch the currency. By a continuing process of inflation, governments can confiscate, secretly and unobserved, an important part of the wealth of their citizens. There is no subtler, no surer means of overturning the existing basis of society than to debauch the currency. The process engages all the hidden forces of economic law on the side of destruction, and does it in a manner which not one man in a million is able to diagnose."

Read it all to understand what Marxism is all about.

Obama and his Democratic cohorts certainly seem intent on "debauching the currency" of this country. Marx himself believed that the quickest way to bring about a communist paradise was to jump-start the destruction of capitalism by destroying wealth.

As to Obama himself, when questions about his Marxism arose during the campaign he responded by asserting that he should be judged by the people with whom he surrounded himself.

In order to understand Barack Obama one must look beyond the official, Congressional-approved Cabinet choices to the truckload of unofficial 'czars,' 'special advisor's,' and 'officers' he has chosen to come to the White House to have direct access to him.

If one uses the criterion Obama laid out by which to judge his character, political ideology, and plans for the country, we can only conclude that the President is a far-Left extremist who disdains capitalism and free commerce, free speech in the open marketplace of ideas, Caucasian people who have accumulated wealth, and any dissent from the concepts propounded by his 'regime.'

Again, read it all; and then add the latest information we have about Anita Dunn, a close personal friend and communications director for Obama, who told a group of high school students that one of her favorite philosophers was Mao. As Victor Davis Hanson notes:

I am not a big fan of saying that officials should resign for stupid remarks. But interim White House communications director Anita Dunn's praise of Mao Zedong as a "political philosopher" is so unhinged and morally repugnant, that she should hang it up, pronto.

Mao killed anywhere from 50 million to 70 million innocents in the initial cleansing of Nationalists, the scouring of the countryside, the failed Great Leap Forward and Cultural Revolution, Tibet, and the internal Chinese gulag. Dunn's praise of a genocidal monster was no inadvertent slip: She was reading from a written text and went into great detail to give the full context of the remark. Moreover, her comments were not some student outburst from 30 years ago; they were delivered on June 5, 2009. Her praise of Mao's insight and courage in defeating the Nationalists was offered long after the full extent of Mao's mass-murdering had been well documented. Mao killed more people than any other single mass killer in the history of civilization.

She is just the latest in a long line of Marxists, communists, and socialists that Obama has surrounded himself with to help him "mop up" America.

If we follow the old adage, then I think we can say with some confidence that, "If it walks like a Marxist, talks like a Marxist (and surrounds itself with a shitload of Marxists/communists/socialists), then it must be a Marxist."

And Marxists are always hopeful...



(image: h/t The Corner)

UNDER THE WEATHER

I'm not feeling well and am going to take a few days off blogging. It's possible I might post something in the next day or so--you never know--but I'm hoping to rest and recuperate and catch up on my reading.

Consider this an open thread and feel free to bring up some topics you think I should write about....

RESET AND REBOOT = REGRET?

Isn't it reassuring to know that the Obama Administration has "reset" our relationship with the Russians and backed away from the evil Bush Administration attitudes that interfered with US-Russian intimacy.
Clearly the Russians appreciate the gesture:

Russia is weighing changes to its military doctrine that would allow for a “preventive” nuclear strike against its enemies — even those armed only with conventional weapons. The news comes just as American diplomats are trying to get Russia to cut down its nuclear stockpile, and put the squeeze on Iran’s suspect nuclear program.

In an interview published today in Izvestia, Nikolai Patrushev, the secretary of the Kremlin’s security council, said the new doctrine offers “different options to allow the use of nuclear weapons, depending on a certain situation and intentions of a would-be enemy. In critical national security situations, one should also not exclude a preventive nuclear strike against the aggressor.”

What’s more, Patrushev said, Russia is revising the rules for the employment of nukes to repel conventionally armed attackers, “not only in large-scale, but also in a regional and even a local war."

The article goes on to note that countries like Georgia; or perhaps Poland and Eastern Europe, should be very afraid. Especially since the Obama Administration has "reset" relations with them, also--as in, thrown them under the Russian bus. RESET, REBOOT...RECONSIDER? RETHINK? REGRET....

Additionally, the Russians have also just recently made it perfectly clear that their intimate partnership with Barack and Hillary (and the rest of us Americans) does not alter the fact that they have absolutely no intention of helping with sanctions against Iran:

With the help of U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s trip to Moscow, the comedy around “Russian support for sanctions against Iran” is now unfolding for the world to see.

The first act took place last month, when President Medvedev, apparently responding to America’s decision to scrap the planned anti-missile system in Eastern Europe, said that sanctions against Iran may be “inevitable.” U.S. officials could not contain their joy over this confirmation of the wisdom of President Obama’s “reset of U.S.-Russian relations.” Unfortunately, the operative word was “may.” In Russia, what “may” be inevitable, in reality, is often out of the question. As a Russian proverb puts it, “To promise, doesn’t mean to get married.”

Secretary Clinton arrived in Moscow determined to press the Russians for “specific forms of pressure” in the event that Iran fails to prove that its nuclear program is peaceful. What she got was an assurance from Sergei Lavrov, the Russian foreign minister, that sanctions against Iran would be “counterproductive.” The Russians will now add reasons that sanctions are counterproductive, with little regard for their plausibility. But this is unlikely to matter. Secretary Clinton said her talks confirmed the value “of the so-called reset.”

Unfortunately, no one prepared Clinton for her trip by explaining the rules of ketman. This is an Oriental form of dissimulation first described by the 19th-century French ethnologist Count Gobineau and perfected, as it happens, by the Persians. According to Gobineau, the people of the East believe that, “He who is in possession of the truth must not expose his person, his relatives or his reputation to the blindness, the folly, the perversity or those whom it has pleased God to place in error.” In other word, he must hide his true beliefs.

Russian officials are long-standing practitioners of ketman. They love nothing better than to deal with U.S. officials such as Secretary Clinton, because it allows them to demonstrate their psychological superiority. As Czeslaw Milosz, the Polish poet, explained in The Captive Mind, “To say something is white when one thinks it black, to smile inwardly when one is outwardly solemn, to hate when one manifests love, to know when one pretends not to know, and thus to play one’s adversary for a fool — these actions lead one to prize one’s own cunning above all else.”

The Russians have clearly failed to take into account that President/Holy Messiah Obama happens to "prize his own cunning above all else". I mean, he probably has some sort of masterful plan and expected this to happen, right? All we need to do is watch MSNBC or CNN tonight to find out how clever Obama is and how each and every one of his foreign policy moves have brought us closer to world peace.

OTOH, I think I'll probably stick with FoxNews, and perhaps get a glimpse of actual reality and truth occasionally.



[Cartoons by Glenn Foden ]

RHETORIC VS REALITY

This ad captures the essence of our very postmodern President, who talks tough, but carries a limp stick. It's called using "contradictory discourses" and it is a political strategy where truth is rejected explicitly and consistency is an extremely rare phenomenon. What matters more than truth (or honesty) is achieving the desired political outcome (i.e., getting others to believe what you want them to believe about what you believe). It's all very postmodern; very philosophically chic; and very Obama:

TANSTAAFL

Did you know that the U.S. Government is going to be taking over all student loans? I didn't:

The Obama administration plans to make the government the sole provider of federal student loans, ending the participation of private lenders in the program.

Under a plan unveiled in the administration's budget, subsidies to private lenders would be eliminated, and the government would use the savings estimated at $47.5 billion over the next decade to help bolster the Pell grant program for low-income students.

If approved by Congress, the plan would effectively end government-guaranteed loans to students by banks and other private lenders—lending that has totaled $56.7 billion in the current school year, and has been the primary source of college financial aid since the program was launched in the 1960s.

I only found out about this after the release of the youtube video, which basically tells you all you need to know about this issue:



For some reason this whole expansion of the government into practically every single area of our lives brings to mind the old Heinlein saying, "There's no such thing as a free lunch"--and at some point the American public is going to be pretty upset at the price they have to pay for all these "services" provided by government.

And when I say 'price', I am not necessarily talking about money.

SOCIALIZED MEDICINE: FOSTERING A CULTURE OF DEATH

I'm a day or two late in commenting about this article, but This is what medicine has come to under Great Britain's National Health Service:

AN 80-year-old grandmother who doctors identified as terminally ill and left to starve to death has recovered after her outraged daughter intervened.

Hazel Fenton, from East Sussex, is alive nine months after medics ruled she had only days to live, withdrew her antibiotics and denied her artificial feeding. The former school matron had been placed on a controversial care plan intended to ease the last days of dying patients.

Doctors say Fenton is an example of patients who have been condemned to death on the Liverpool care pathway plan. They argue that while it is suitable for patients who do have only days to live, it is being used more widely in the NHS, denying treatment to elderly patients who are not dying.

Fenton’s daughter, Christine Ball, who had been looking after her mother before she was admitted to the Conquest hospital in Hastings, East Sussex, on January 11, says she had to fight hospital staff for weeks before her mother was taken off the plan and given artificial feeding.

Ball, 42, from Robertsbridge, East Sussex, said: “My mother was going to be left to starve and dehydrate to death. It really is a subterfuge for legalised euthanasia of the elderly on the NHS. ”

And, along the same line, here are a few related links:
Doctors say EU working week is killing patients
Families 'kept in dark' by doctors over dying

It's easy to say that the idea of "Death Panels" in Obamacare is ridiculous and simply "fearmongering" on the part of the right; but what people need to understand is how socialized medicine fosters a culture of death in medical personnel and patients alike.

It shouldn't be hard to appreciate the idea that state-sponsored medicine is always at exceedingly high risk of under-valuing individual human life. After all, it's right there in the fine print of Marxist, socialist, or communist manifestos, all of which expound on the idea that, the needs of the collective take precedence over those of the individual.

With that as your fundamental premise, it naturally follows that one human life is not particularly important, especially when that life comes into conflict with the State's priorities.

And one of the priorities of any State is always the financial bottom line.

Now, you might think that such a philosophy applied to physicians in medical practice ("First, do no harm!") would not fly--but then you probably did not read the articles I linked to above. Some doctor had to write an order discontinuing the antibiotics; and to take out the feeding tube. That doctor chose (or, perhaps had no choice) to follow the instructions of the carefully laid out "Pathway Plan" for patients like Mrs.Fenton.

For those unlucky enough to be sick under State-sponsored medical programs, the philosophy of the State--not that of the individual doctor--is the default when determining the particulars of patient care.

I mean, why would the State waste resources on someone like the 80 year old Mrs. Fenton? What can she do at her age to contribute to the collective, except to drain it of its precious financial resources? Let her starve to death...but be sure and do it compassionately. QED.

A sad corollary of such a system is that when a physician allows himself to become a mere instrument of the state, there is no level to which he will not sink to please his masters; and he will even eventually override his own humanity in that service if that is what is called for. Whatever high ideals he starts out with, he is eventually sucked into promoting the state's perspective--even to writing the order so that all the Mrs. Fentons out there die of starvation. He will do this because he has accepted the proposition that the needs of the many always outweigh the needs of the few.

As Darlene at Protein Wisdom notes:

“The Pathway Plan” sounds very much like Dr. Zeke’s Complete Lives System… shorter: when it is determined by Those.Who.Know.Best that you are not useful to the collective, you die.

So, if you want to see how "Death Panels" work in a health care utopia, then all you have to do is look at any State-run health care system on the planet--because they all end up fostering a culture of death.

THE POSTMODERN NARCISSISTIC DILEMMA AND THE PRISM OF POLITICAL CORRECTNESS: OR, How to Stop Thinking and Serve the Utopian Collective

Here is what kids learn today about Christopher Columbus:

Kids Study the Dark Side of Columbus

Jeffrey Kolowith's kindergarten students read a poem about Christopher Columbus, take a journey to the New World on three paper ships and place the explorer's picture on a timeline through history.
Kolowith's students learn about the explorer's significance — though they also come away with a more nuanced picture of Columbus than the noble discoverer often portrayed in pop culture and legend.

"I talk about the situation where he didn't even realize where he was," Kolowith said. "And we talked about how he was very, very mean, very bossy."
Columbus' stature in U.S. classrooms has declined somewhat through the years, and many districts will not observe his namesake holiday on Monday. Although lessons vary, many teachers are trying to present a more balanced perspective of what happened after Columbus reached the Caribbean and the suffering of indigenous populations.

"The whole terminology has changed," said James Kracht, executive associate dean for academic affairs in the Texas A&M College of Education and Human Development. "You don't hear people using the world 'discovery' anymore like they used to. 'Columbus discovers America.' Because how could he discover America if there were already people living here?"

What is the point of all this "nuance" you may be asking yourself? Why would kids in kindergarden need to appreciate that Columbus was "mean" or that he was "bossy". Well, if you are asking yourself this question, then you have failed to appreciate the purpose of this deconstruction of history, brought to you by the politically correct ideologues of the postmodern left.

The "whole terminology has changed" because the purpose of history is not actually to teach history--silly you! The point of this lesson is to indoctrinate little kids into the dogma of the left. This is their first taste of political correctness, and it won't be the last.

Soon they will learn that people like Thomas Jefferson and George Washington and the other Founding Fathers have nothing to teach us morally uplifted modern types; that they were evil white males who had slaves; and that they were... racist and otherwise far from perfect. The kids will take away from this that they are not to idealize these men; and that they should take their accomplishments with a grain of salt. Nothing they might have said or written or done about freedom and liberty; no accomplishment--e.g., like establishing the freest nation in history; literally nothing, can make up for the fact that they were flawed human beings and inferior to the intellectuals of today's political left.

From the superior postmodern perspective, there is nothing of value to learn from a slave-holding--and clearly imperfect-- Thomas Jefferson; there is no moral superiority in a system that strives toward increasing individual human freedom and dignity compared to a system that doesn't even recognize the rights of the individual and enslave the human mind.

Postmodernists have embraced moral relativism. They have discarded reason and reality; and abandoned the past, including the foundations of western civilization. No figure from history is immune from their incessant moralizing and their incredible ability to read the minds of historical figures and plant their own emotions there. They don't care about actual accomplishments (we had a major demonstration of this fact when Barack Obama won the Nobel Peace Prize for accomplishing nothing--but he sounds good and is the latest and perhaps greatest mouthpiece of leftist nonsense the world has ever seen); what they care about is feeling good and morally superior.

The kids in Kolowith's classroom are basically learning that western civilization is a lie. That there is nothing special about America--or freedom--or, for that matter, there is nothing special about reason, reality, truth. That Columbus discovered a new continent and opened up the world simply pales into insignificance next to the "fact" that he was bossy and mean. Or that he inadvertantly introduced European diseases into the primitive (oops! that certainly was politically incorrect!) populations that he came into contact with. It hardly matters that anyone from the Europe of that day who came into contact with those populations would have caused the same outcome--particularly since the infectious theory of disease was not yet part of human consciousness. Good grief! If he was so special or important, he should have known everything we know today!!!

If you think this attitude is just a tad self-serving and narcissistic, you would be exactly right.

In a post a few years back, Wretchard captured the essence of the postmodern left's sensibility toward the past (and it is a sensibility with very little sense, common or otherwise). In the post, he discusses a movie review of "300", which is about the Battle of Thermopylae in 480 B.C. The review includes the following presumably serious statement by the reviewer:

One of the few war movies I've seen in the past two decades that doesn't include at least some nod in the direction of antiwar sentiment, 300 is a mythic ode to righteous bellicosity.

Wretchard then goes on to comment:

I have no idea whether 300 is a good movie, but Steven's review is an entertaining example of how all events, including those which happened nearly 500 years BC, must be judged according to prisms of contemporary political correctness. Miller had to remember, for example, "that we're in the middle of an actual war". Did he not realize his duty to denounce it? But what if Miller had made a movie about the fight against Hitler? Would it have been necessary to remind the audience that Hitler was a nonsmoking, animal-loving, vegetarian artist? Or had he remade Zulu to include some white faces among Prince Dabulamanzi's impis?

The most interesting thing about those who habitually denounce ethnocentricity and cultural blindness is that they are not without such sentiments themselves, the difference being that their cultural point of view is rooted in the mid-20th century, rather than say, ancient Lacedaemonia.(emphasis mine)

It is hard to imagine, but once upon a time humans who wished to understand the modern world looked to the giants of intellectual thought from humanity's past. In the wisdom of these writings modern man would be able to find the words and meanings relevant to analyzing the events of today. But now, it is as if history has been turned upside down. We no longer look to the past to understand ourselves and our journey--instead we use our present feelings and our modern understandings and prejudices to reinterpret and deconstruct the past.

Is it any wonder that we are horribly confused and disoriented, not knowing who we are or where we are going? Is it any wonder that today's events do not seem to have any rhyme or reason? Modern philosophical assumptions distort and/or obscure any appreciation of our own past. Where once we strove to understand the thinkers and events of the past by placing them within their own cultural and historical context; it is now common practice to judge them by contemporary standards, emotions and inclinations.

That this rather perversely condescending and ultimately nihilistic tendency is a direct result of the essential narcissism of our times seems fairly clear. Only a narcissist of the most pathological sort could or would haughtily dismiss Plato or Aristotle as merely primitive Greeks; or dismiss Christopher Columbus and his historic and courageous explorations of the planet; or reject the writings of a Thomas Jefferson or John Adams because they were white male slaveholders. Only a self-absorbed postmodernist who believes he has all the answers to not only current problems, but that his superior and perfect intellect has nothing to gain by considering the admittedly imperfect thinkers and ideas of the past.

Gee, they were all probably mean and bossy, too.

The dilemma of the postmodern narcissist is that they possess an unqualified belief in their own perfect righteousness and moral obligation to judge the past; combined with an aggressive ignorance about it.

Their behavior raises the question, how can we possibly understand our present selves--we who represent the sum of more than 5000 years of civilization--if we dismiss all that has gone before us and made us who we are?

When the very philosophical foundations that have made it possible for us to live and thrive in this modern world are abandoned because they were conceived and acted on by imperfect human beings (unlike today's "intellectuals" whose perfection is apparent to all), then what is left but the pointless and pervasive nihilism currently promulgated via postmodern political rhetoric?

The nihilism has been concealed within the doctrines of political correctness and multiculturalism, both of which cleverly assert their own absolute and inviolate truth, even as they advocate the most blatant relativism and subjectivity.

One of the most critical tasks that must be accomplished in order to unravel reason, truth and reality from human experience is a reinterpretation of the past . By deconstructing the ideas, events, and thinkers of the past; forcing them into our own postmodern procrustean template, we have essentially cut ourselves adrift from history and removed our philosophy from any anchor in the real world.

Somewhere in the last fifty years or so, the entire field of philosophy has been completely hijacked by its most narcissistically-inclined branch--politics.

Metaphysics, epistemology, and even ethics, are all now subservient to politics. Normally there is a heirarchical relationship between all the branches of philosophy; with the base being metaphysics, the study and the nature of existence. Epistemology is dependent on and closely related to metaphysics, and it is the study of how we know reality and existence; while ethics, the study of how humans should act, is dependent on epistemology. Politics--or how humans should interact in society--should be dependent on ethics.

Yet,
in our postmodern world we have turned it all upside down. We are told how we should properly interact and it has become the ethical standard of behavior. Having set up this relativistic ethical standard; postmodern intellectuals can now question both how we know reality and even insist that it does not exist separately and independenly from our senses.

The entire purpose of this vast philosophical inversion is give the advocates and followers of totalitarian collectivism--particularly socialism and communism--a carte blanche to rewrite the history of the last century that clearly and undeniably demonstrated their ideology's intellectual and moral bankruptcy.

It also permits the deconstruction of reality and truth that is necessary to undermine and distort the history of humanity's struggle for individual freedom.

The resulting relativistic rhetoric that emanates from postmodern philosophy has obscured and hidden the actual events of the past (they must be recreated in movies that conform to the dogma of today); and the process of ridiculing and demeaning the the actors and thinkers of the past simply because they were not "modern" begins as soon as possible in the k-12 curriculum.

Kids will casually learn to dismiss the importance of man's cognitive faculty--the essential tool for perceiving the world; they will be constantly exposed to words whose meaning has been perverted; and they will be rewarded for not making any moral judgments--except the politically correct, approved-by-the-left kind.

This philosophical disintegration and learning catastrophe is celebrated by postmodernists as "freeing" ourselves from the tyranny of the past; but it is really a calculated attempt to radically dissociate our thinking from any of those unpleasant and inconvenient dictates of an "oppressive" reality that is always threatening to undermine the narcissistic belief that we are the center of the universe; and place limits on our unbridled sense of moral superiority.

Victor Davis Hanson has written:

Our current crisis is not yet a catastrophe, but a real loss of confidence of the spirit. The hard-won effort of the Western Enlightenment of some 2,500 years that, along with Judeo-Christian benevolence, is the foundation of our material progress, common decency, and scientific excellence, is at risk in this new millennium.

But our newest foes of Reason are not the enraged Athenian democrats who tried and executed Socrates. And they are not the Christian zealots of the medieval church who persecuted philosophers of heliocentricity. Nor are they Nazis who burned books and turned Western science against its own to murder millions en masse.

No, the culprits are now more often us. In the most affluent, and leisured age in the history of Western civilization--never more powerful in its military reach, never more prosperous in our material bounty--we have become complacent, and then scared of the most recent face of barbarism from the primordial extremists of the Middle East.

We have so embraced multiculturalism and political correctness that we no longer have the intellectual tools to fight--or even face--the barbarism that threatens to destroy us and our way of life. Many of our number even believe we are not worthy of surviving and consider us morally inferior to the barbarians.

So, here we are today, in a place where leftist ideology has brought us; morally, intellectually, and physically paralyzed. We place greater value on beautiful words and rhetoric than on behavior; what is said, instead of what is done. We seem, for example, unable to distinguish between the deliberate targeting and killing of innocents and the accidental and unavoidable killing of innocents despite herculean efforts to avoid it; between waging war to give people a chance at freedom and democracy; and waging war for domination and imperialism; between standing up for what is right and accepting the consequences, and abandoning one's values and surrendering with "honor" to the scum of the earth who heap scorn upon us no matter what we do.

Let me conclude with a quote from Douglas Murray (page 218), and as you read it, think of the postmodern movie reviewer from the beginning of this piece:

Cultures which have forgotten about war, or believe it is a thing of the past, can neither imagine, nor imagine the need for, conflict. Portions of America are as attracted to such dreams as their European cousins....Though they cannot imagine the apocalypse, only a generation brought up on self-esteem would draw from that the conclusion that the apocalypse cannot therefore happen.

The postmodern narcissistic dilemma can be summed up this way: the politically correct prism through which our children are being forced to perceive and interpret the world around them, is entirely dysfunctional and useless. It is designed to make them feel good and to enable and encourage the same dysfunctional narcissism that believes universal peace and brotherhood is just around the corner if you just have happy thoughts, say and think in proper fashion--and aren't so mean and bossy.

GATHER YE ROSEBUDS WHILE YE MAY....

The weather forecast is calling for temperatures in the 30's this weekend, so I'm going to put some mulch on my roses and prepare them for winter this afternoon. They are still blooming --this is one of the reasons I love roses so much (besides the fact that they are beautiful and their scent is heavenly): they bloom from spring thru late October, early November. It has been a cold summer here with only a few days in the 80's, but they have still done well.

And, with the announcement documenting the international community's collective insanity that came this morning, I also happen to need to get my blood pressure down and remember that the Greeks understood the process of nemesis (as does Victor Davis Hanson) and the harmartia (ἁμαρτία) that precedes it. In this case, the fatal flaw of western civilization is that it apparently seems to enable and encourage the pathetic likes of the Nobel Prize committee, along with the kind of people currently running around the White House and Halls of Congress.

Sigh.....

Before I put them to bed for the winter, here is one last group of pictures from my Rose Garden taken a few days ago. Since I will be moving to California in December, I won't get to see them when they wake up in the spring; but I do plan to have a rose garden at my new home....


"Cherry Parfait"



"Pope John Paul""





"Strike it Rich"





"Double Knock Out"





One of my favorites this year, "President Lincoln"--a bright red rose-- grew to over 6 feet tall! Here it is from earlier in the season:




Finally, one of the harbingers of fall, this spider in its web was peacefully waiting for its prey on the perimeter of the garden--you can see him right in the center of the web. He's really huge! I don't particularly care for spiders, but I like the symmetry of the webs.

F*@K THIS S#%T

I do not tend to swear much, but F*@K THIS S#%T. What in God's name is a moron like this doing "advising" the US President??? And, what exactly is she advising him to do??

Sharia law isn't 'misunderstood'; anybody with a brain understands its purpose all too well. And, I ask again, WTF is this moron doing advising the President?

Anyone? Anyone? Buehler? Beck?

UPDATE: You know, I never thought that this Administration would be very memorable--or particularly competent; but Obama and his merry band of extremist lunatics have turned into an absolute nightmare. His appointments and "advisors" are terrifying when you consider that they represent the philosophy and views of the effing President of the US. Geez. Unbelievable.

UPDATE II: And, speaking of nightmares--just in case you hadn't heard, President Wonderful has won the "Yasser Arafat Peace Prize."