Richard Fernandez on our predicament

I've followed Belmont Club for several years and I continue to be impressed by Wretchard, a wonderfully intelligent man, a man of faith, a man who writes so beautifully that I'm always grabbing a piece of a paper to jot something down. This is a clear thinker and today there are not many of those. What follows are two comments that I had to set aside so I could, and hope anyone who comes here, will take to heart.

There are no “Good Men” of Action, they are all immobilized by the PC culture

There’s still us and while we can’t do much, we can do a little. We can begin by keeping our heads and our vision clear. No panic, no wild conspiracy theories. Just plain common sense. And that can’t be discounted. I have a little story. In the late 1980s I was in a building when a major earthquake struck. There were about 70 people in an open plan office. About three or four of the people in the office went into a total panic. Fell to the floor, started kicking in their air in hysteria. About 63 or 64 people stood rooted, immobile to the ground, wondering what to do next. About three people remained standing and you could see they were absolutely cool. They led everyone to safety and had the hysterical people carried bodily out of danger. Why? It was nature. I figure this is a universal distribution, and that in any crisis about 10% of the people will go nuts. Ten percent will know what to do. Eighty percent will stand paralyzed but will act when they get reasonable leadership.

So keep your cool, which I know you will. Don’t worry too much. Sanity is a great virtue. If things go bad you’ll see a lot of weird stuff of all kinds. Crazy stuff. If you keep cool, the majority have someone to follow. If not to safety, then at least not over the cliff. And that’s no small thing.

I don’t think we’ll ever see a Hitler again, not in the sense of a guy with a postage stamp mustache and abrupt gestures bleating out speeches. But I think the same passions which inflamed the 40s inflame men of every generation, simply because they are people too. During a time of discontinuity, there are always those who see their chance. And we would be ill-advised, I think, to assume it will this or that person beforehand. However as a general proposition, periods of crisis are times when things can go either way.

In a crisis, the opportunity aspect of the moment is often ignored, or as in the case of Rahm Emmanuel, misunderstood. He thinks it’s a chance to implement a pre-existing agenda. No. Opportunities in a crisis are windows in which we can recognize the new. Not the old. It’s the time when we see the future sail into view as a Black Swan. Rahm Emmanuel, if I understand him aright, thinks it a chance to do what he always secretly wanted but never had a chance to do. What a small man.

The real chance of greatness in crisis is to be open to the right opening doors and to ignore the wrong ones. You can’t approach the future aiming to control it. Only to say ‘yes’ to the right things. So I am consoled by the idea that we are, despite all the troubles, on the verge of a better world. But not just yet.

http://pajamasmedia.com/richardfernandez/2009/03/06/as-time-goes-by/#more-2538

Doom and Gloom

The world is a dangerous and scary place. Muslim fanatics (however you want to translate that) want to kill us.

Actually it seems like no one very much likes the fundamentals of America anymore but a few of us conservatives. Europe hates us and gloats mightily whenever anything bad happens to us. (Oh boy am I going to enjoy the next couple years watching them squirm.) Islamic teachings run 180 degrees in opposition to the Constitution and Bill of Rights. We have a president who was raised as a Marxist. We have democrats who are drunk on power now and spending our money like they just hit the jackpot at Vegas.

All we hear is doom and gloom. Buy gold. Get out of the stock market. Buy canned foods. Grow a victory garden. I don't know what you in the cities are going to do but please stay there.

We're in for tough times. For some of us it's going to be a real come down in lifestyle. I'm not sure I'll notice very much because I live a very moderate life as it is. I already have a garden. My car, a Ford, gets over 35 mpg. I got a great deal on Aviva running shoes at Sam's Club last month. $22. I wouldn't dream of spending an entire month's budget on a pair of shoes.

So yeah, some of you are going to suffer as we plunge downward on this rollercoaster. Then we're going to be hit with inflation--the good part is you won't be able to afford those Christian Louboutin shoes then.

I'm not sure I am sorry about this turn of events (leaving aside how much I hate cultural Marxism). People need to have their lives recalibrated and this is going to do it.

But as I said two days ago tracht gut, zain gut and I mean it.

Resume

Razors pain you;
Rivers are damp;
Acids stain you;
And drugs cause cramp.
Guns aren't lawful;
Nooses give;
Gas smells awful;
You might as well live.

  -- Dorothy Parker

I'm Sorry

Remember a few years ago when all the moonbats took photos of themselves being sorry for the Iraq War? (Funny how Saddam Hussein was never sorry for anything.)

Now we have this--which I don't believe but okay let's pretend it's a real thing and I believe (because I was enrobed in some fairy dust on my way to the computer).

Wouldn't we all be thrilled if a goodly portion of the Prince Narcissus voters actually did have buyer's remorse?

We must allow that a goodly portion love him and will always love him no matter what he does because they believe America should be killed. Since America is in the initial stages of being killed, for them he's king and it's all good.

But some didn't think this through, they felt a Bon Jovi moment "I'm a cowboy, a steel horse I ride, I'm wanted---dead or alive". Immature, the response of a 17 year old boy or a 35 year old boy, they had a dose of BDS because they weren't wearing a condom when watching the news or talking to the comrades, so they voted for the Neo-Socialist (Neo-Soc from here on in) agenda without realizing it because they don't know what socialism is or what the Constitution gives them.

We have a lot of ignorant people in this country due to 40 years of socialist indoctrination and lousy teaching in public schools. So a lot of people simply rebelled against the father figure of the time, George Bush. It didn't really matter who it was, it was just a childish tantrum, a laugh, a lark.

And now we're stuck with the schmuck.

They should be sorry. They do owe America an apology and they should work with us to put this mistake right. It can be fixed. It can be rewound--sorry Mr. Levin, I'm not buying your position that it can't. But it will be difficult, nearly impossible, but America was an impossible dream. America was the first time people were to be accorded such freedom and the ruling classes would never want that. They don't want it now in Washington.

Remember the gifts you have been given. Freedoms still unknown and undreamed of over most of the world. Fight for that freedom as those before did. America is a bigger idea than the puny ideas in Barack Hussein Obama's head.

My country right or wrong.
If right, to be kept right.
If wrong, to be put right.
---Carl Schnurz

Tracht Gut, Zain Gut

What does that mean? It's Yiddish for if you think good, good will result.

In the past years the moonbats took over the culture and bombarded us with their nonsensical pseudo-spiritual blather. One was supposed to think positively and the universe acting like a cosmic cash machine would belch out the goodies. Oprah is big on this. Obviously that's not going to happen but being moonbats they couldn't figure that part out. Or we are presented with a view of life that's unremittingly grim. There's nothing Hollywood likes more than a script about a couple low-life meth dealers living in a dirty trailer out in Victorville. Choose your poison, America.

We should be clever enough to know life is not as grim as the pinheads in Hollywood insist. We should also know the whole think positively dictum is flawed. You can think positively when someone is ill and they die anyway. You can think you'll get a job and you don't. Why is this post about thinking good and good will result when we all have examples that prove the reverse? Unless I'm playing a switcheroo on you and I'm going to argue that thinking that good will result from thinking good is for immature morons, you should be wondering where I'm taking you.

One day quite a few years ago when I was employed I said I prayed about something and the boss barked at me "What happened?" and I said "I felt better." He was baffled. The poor man, an ex-alcoholic, womanizer, liar, mean-spirited opera lover couldn't figure it out.

The left inherently is negative. Everything is always wrong and always requires fixing. Lots of fixing, expensive fixing, usually by them or the government. We've been force-fed this mindset for about 50 years. We're victims, we're pitiful, we're slugs. There's no God to turn to for solace, only the latest self-help book written by a moonbat. There's always therapy and moonbats love that field. There's drugs, one of their favorite things ever!

No wonder Prince Narcissus could spout a platform as nebulous as hope and change and win. He had the moonbat vote sewn up.

But that was a bait and switch because he's reverted now to the standard Left view that we're all victims, we're pitiful, we're but slugs and we need massive government intervention to save us. Funded by us. But we're too stupid to know how to spend our own money so we need big government to do it for us.

So sad.

And I see the right, the Republicans and even Conservatives, going along with this nonsense. CPAC: Epic Fail! Is the newest chant. A couple days before that it was the stupidity of the American Tea Party movement. Whether it's in politics or the economy, the knee-jerk reaction is to cut the public off at the knees and render us helpless and depressed.

Even the Catholic Church in the Middle Ages recognized that people cannot live under continued defeat and gloom. That's why there were feast days and celebrations throughout the year. You have to give people some bright spot reinvigorate them to enliven them to make life worth living.

Of course under Socialism this isn't true. You don't want the people happy. You can't control happy people. (Read Umberto Eco's The Name of the Rose for further illumination of this concept.) Crushed and demoralized people are owned by the state. They are mindless slaves.

We cannot save ourselves or this country if we fall into the abyss of negativity. We must begin to see there is value in taking action, any action, even if it's silly or fruitless action. Tea parties even. Why? Because action is resistance. Inaction is surrender. Do something, do anything. We will find the right things to do in time.

But wait. I haven't yet addressed the title of this post. If you think good, good will result. What do you want? A treasure chest filled with gold coins? Is that the only good you recognize? How about doing something for someone and seeing them smile? I left cookies in my mailbox for the mailman sporadically for months. One day he came to the door, put his hand on my shoulder and thanked me sincerely.

Think of the good things you can do and act on them. Believe you can make a contribution to life whether on a large stage or a small one. Focus on the good in the world, a flower, a vista, a puppy, a work of art bequeathed to us from generations past. These are the gifts we ignore. If we look for the good, we will find it. It will find us. That is the treasure in the treasure chest of life.

Am I Misremembering This?

Mitt Romney--20% favor him in 2012 at CPAC this week?

Wasn't it last summer that Mitt Romney was spoken of as if he had 3 nipples and a forked tail because he was a Mormon and everyone *knows* Mormons hold odd beliefs? Because some on the right threw a tizzy fit about Mitt, we got stuck with McCain and lost the election. Thanks a lot guys, yeah, I think you're partially to blame.

Now suddenly Mitt looks attractive. Well he was always attractive, competent and a true believer in capitalism and there is also the small fact that at least he's run a company in his life which we cannot say for Prince Narcissus.

We can't do this again. We have to become adults, conduct ourselves as adults and vote like adults. If we don't this country is dead. Okay? Is that plain enough for you? America will die if left in the hands of the Neo-Socialists. So be a big picture person for the next election. Think it over. We're all depending on you.

In The Name of God, go!

Oliver Cromwell Speech - Dissolution of the Long Parliament

Dissolution of the Long Parliament by Oliver Cromwell given to the House of Commons, 20 April 1653

It is high time for me to put an end to your sitting in this place, which you have dishonored by your contempt of all virtue, and defiled by your practice of every vice; ye are a factious crew, and enemies to all good government; ye are a pack of mercenary wretches, and would like Esau sell your country for a mess of pottage, and like Judas betray your God for a few pieces of money.

Is there a single virtue now remaining amongst you? Is there one vice you do not possess? Ye have no more religion than my horse; gold is your God; which of you have not barter'd your conscience for bribes? Is there a man amongst you that has the least care for the good of the Commonwealth?

Ye sordid prostitutes have you not defil'd this sacred place, and turn'd the Lord's temple into a den of thieves, by your immoral principles and wicked practices? Ye are grown intolerably odious to the whole nation; you were deputed here by the people to get grievances redress'd, are yourselves gone! So! Take away that shining bauble there, and lock up the doors.

In the name of God, go!

Welcome To The Tea Party

I couldn't make it to any of the protests today but as I read about them, I longed for something to do. And it came to me. I'm going to send my representatives tea bags. Just an unused tea bag with a note saying "Welcome to the tea party." If you knew who my representatives are you'd know they don't care. They're inebriated with this sudden power being conferred on them by the Commander in Thief.

(I love this photo of historic tea bags. It looks like we're going to a hangin'.)

I Am A Kulak!

Yes. I was dispirited to say the least after the election and the inauguration. Things have rapidly gone from bad to worse. Obama is on an Alinksky timetable attempting to make things happen before we know the coup has taken place.

But Americans are a different breed. We have self-selected from all over the world because the foundations of America resonated with our hearts, our souls, our spirits. The disenchantment with the Hope (no one notices we're) Change (ing to socialism) Presidency (My God, how could this possibly have happened?) has begun.

I recommend you visit William Jacobson's blog to learn more.
http://legalinsurrection.blogspot.com/2009/02/revolt-of-kulaks-has-begun.html

Tea, anyone?

Bailout Mascot

Well. When you start getting things like this in your email, you know someone was upset.

New Year Old News

Took a break. It's all the same bad news anyway. The MSM slobbering over Barry. (Did you know he's going to eat the same food as Abe Lincoln--he's crackers.) The Republicans slobbering over his Cabinet choices. Closing Gitmo. It's staggering if I wasn't already reeling from last year.