… I think. My crystal ball is out for re-calibration so I cannot be absolutely certain, but I’ve been expecting a crisis or bundle of intersecting catastrophes for some time now. There have been murmurings for the last year regarding the probability of Ebola spreading out of Africa. And now it has happened a person sick with it has exposed lord only knows how many other people on his way back to Dallas from a visit to Africa. Which is horrific enough, but just getting started. Meanwhile, an enterovirus which attacks the respiratory tract and in some instances has an effect very like that of polio has been here for some months, sickening children especially those who have respiratory difficulties.
It has already killed five this ailment which was rare in the US heretofore but apparently fairly common in Central America. The supposition is that it was carried into the US with the government-assisted influx of child illegal immigrants earlier this year. Were I the parent of a school-aged child in a public school and exposed to this virus as many children doubtless have been I would be furious, or even more furious than I am; that third-world diseases are being casually dispersed throughout communities in the United States for some deliberate purpose; a Cloward-Pivening of the system, to pack the Democrat party voting rolls, undermine the labor market, or perhaps just to crash those local communities where the illegals have been parked. (Yes, illegal immigrant I’ll say so and be damned, sir!)
For two years and more I’ve been expecting race-riots in those American cities hardest hit by the double-blow of single-party machine politics and the complete inability of the Obama administration to actually meet any of the sky-high expectations of him held among the black underclass. So, they got to feel good about themselves for a couple of years, before realizing they are worse off than ever. Can’t be Obama’s fault, of course; it must be all that white raaaaacism. St. Louis looks to be ground zero again at this point in time. The race card is about played out with me, having known too many good, hardworking and patriotic citizens of color but I am about to the point of getting that bumper sticker that says, “I wish my ancestors had picked their own damn cotton.” Of course, my American ancestors didn’t grow cotton, and were in fact fiercely abolitionist Quakers.
I suspect even the most racially tolerant among them would be losing patience with the black thug underclass these days. I know now that many of those who comment on various blogs about the only source on incidents of the knock-out game or flash-mob lootings are losing patience as well. So much for content of character, rather than color of skin.
And the Middle East is well-afire now, with ISIS/ISIL/The New Caliphate gleefully pouring more gasoline on the bonfire, and posting regular videos on social media of beheadings and mass executions, recruiting wanna-be-jihadis from across the United States and from Europe. Meanwhile, the Kurds and the Israelis stand nearly alone, while it seems that it is more important that American troops be sent to Africa, either to assist local governments in fighting the Ebola epidemic or to catch it themselves and bring it back to the stateside military units and their families. Hard to tell what the intent of the Obama administration is, these days; one hesitates to attribute to malice that which can be explained by incompetence or stupidity.
One is reduced to eying the actions of the federal government with wary suspicion these days. After this and other actions, to include Fast and Furious, the IRS targeting of Tea Party groups, the NPS deliberately barricading national monuments and the ongoing disaster that is Obamacare who besides those who serve, enable and benefit directly from it can claim with a straight face that our federal government is not motivated by greed and outright malice towards us?
Discuss.
(Cross-posted at www.ncobrief.com)
Just read Howe and Strauss’s “The Fourth Turning”, and highly recommend it. All of this sounds very much like the crisis phase they describe, and predicted to be getting underway about now (it was written in 1997).
I’d say the 2001 WTC attacks and inconclusive wars after, combined with the 2008 market crash combine to form the catalyst event, with a predicted climax between 2020 and 2025, based on their book. Looks like we’re right on schedule.
See here for a taste: http://www.lifecourse.com/about/method/where-we-are-today.html, or just go here and start clicking: http://www.fourthturning.com/
As always, Yeats says it best:
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.
My ancestors piled up rocks, and built moats. Not very comfortable, but seems prudent, borders.
Game theory, for real. Even here in America, people wonder why some would carve rooms into cliffs.
Where else can a healthy civilisation stay viable? Space, please. Piling up rocks and sandbags for preservation of society is hard. Not like any of the other options made any damned sense.
Short form, the organic waste is impacting the rotating airfoil. It is a combination. Sgt. Mom, you are phrasing things too delicately.
I am less hesitant. The consistency of the incompetence and stupidity defies rational analysis if it was just that. If it was incompetence and/or stupidity; by blind chance sometime, something, somewhere would work out to be either neutral in effect or maybe even accidentally positive for our country. Six years of 100% “bad luck” is not believable without hostile intent. And indeed, it has to be capable and skilled hostile intent; because they are beating the odds the other way. No plan, even a malicious one, is foolproof. This is because fools are so bloody ingenious. Someone has a tight leash keeping the fools under control and focused on doing long term harm to the country.
The country is being run outside of the rule of law, the Constitution, and the shared cultural understanding that used to define what was American, and make Americans out of immigrants from all over the world. I have referenced the rulers before under the acronym TWANLOC.
But that is not all. We have a failure of institutions in our country, deep and widespread. All the self-correcting social and political mechanisms that kept us on track are gone or working the other side. The causes are many, and wordy bugger that I am; I would take a lot more space than possible here to list them. So I will restrict myself to mentioning one.
Up until the Civil War, our politics evolved as the country evolved. Parties rose and fell roughly every generation so that there was always somewhere to protect the interests of each group. Federalists, Anti-Federalists, Democratic-Republicans, Whigs, Grange, American, Democrat, Republican; they rose and fell until the Civil War and we were locked into the current Democrat-Republican duality. The youngest major party is the Republicans, who are 150 years old and were the North in the Civil War. The Democrats [party that became the Confederacy in the Civil War] are 222 years old. We were due for one or another of the parties to come apart and reform by the end of the 1800’s; but since then the timing of both hot and cold foreign wars, has locked us into our current pattern. We are the point where the two parties have ossified, converged, and do not actively oppose each other; but rather try to preserve power and keep it away from the peasants [us].
The Democrats seek a Collectivist Paradise, and will lie, cheat, steal, and oppress to get it. The Institutional Republicans just want their spot at the trough, and while less bloody minded will do the same to preserve it.
This will not be resolved by other than sanguinary means, from all sides. And that does not count in hostile foreign attacks and disease.
I had really hoped to see my grandchildren-to-be grow up in a free prosperous country. Now the best that can be hoped for is to die seeing that they can grow up and fight for that freedom themselves someday.
“I had really hoped to see my grandchildren-to-be grow up in a free prosperous country.”
I am pessimistic about this. I was pretty convinced Romney was the last best chance as it will be too deep in the hole by the time another competent manager has a chance. California had Meg Whitman ready to go and the Dims found a maid who had lied about her legal status and we have Jerry Brown still bloviating. The blue states seem impervious to logic. Illinois and Maryland are good examples.
Now, we see how unstable the world can be when the policeman goes off on a long vacation. I keep thinking of 1936 and the Rhineland. Small clouds, “no bigger than a man’s hand.”
The Whigs failed over slavery. The Republicans may fail over The Ruling Class
That’s the thing that I regret the loss of most, SB – that one could think that the governmental institutions and offices were impartial. Sometimes unreasonable, but at least not partisan. We trusted that our federal government did have the best national interests at heart – but all that has gone out the window. They have become a ruling class, they and their media and intellectual handmaidens. All they want from us is our obedience, and for us to acquiesce to being economically sheered like sheep and to be herded into the little bare pastures that they have marked out for us.
Never mind that they were supposed to be public servants – that we hired them to look after the roads and the post office, and national defense, and immigration policy. That our elected representatives were supposed to serve at our pleasure, and not for their aggrandizement, both social and economic.
I have hopes, still. But it looks like the perfect storm is brewing.
What is the advantage to naming the Obama administration activities as malice? The procedure to fix things at this stage of the game is the same. If you’re right and it’s malice then you’ve just raised your profile and advanced your place in line at the enemies list. If you’re wrong, you discredit yourself. I simply see no advantage to it and wonder why so much energy is expended on the question.
Power in the US is a lattice created by the interaction of the division of powers (slicing power horizontally between local, state, and federal governments) and the separation of powers (slicing power vertically between legislative, executive, and judicial power). Certain cells in the lattice are not functioning correctly. Some of them shouldn’t even exist at all. They need to be mapped, explored, and fixed where possible, eliminated where necessary. Where power has unwisely accumulated into too large chunks, we must divide it further.
I see accusations of malice as having the dominant effect of aiding the opposition by creating solidarity in resisting us. Instead they should be wedged and divided like the founders intended them to be. Blandishments and carefully preserved escape routes for everyone but the worst of the worst inexcusable sociopaths lead the mushy middle of the bureaucracy to abandon their worst and quietly seek an accommodation.
It beats war.
“I see accusations of malice as having the dominant effect of aiding the opposition by creating solidarity in resisting us.”
I don’t see malice as some see it; a plot to destroy the country or introduce Sharia Law or something similar.
Solidarity in resisting us is well established and I doubt we could shake it as the ruling class and the bureaucracy see the right as enemies who would deprive them of their livelihood. They are in control no matter who the president is and we saw that with Bush who left the DoJ in the hands of Democrats who ambushed Ted Stevens and were punished like Lois Lerner.
the two prosecutors would be suspended without pay ”” Joseph Bottini for 40 days, and James Goeke for 15 days.
They know they are immune to consequences. Hard drives crash, e-mails are deleted. Nothing happens.
Let’s play Where are they now ?
In May 2012, the Senate Judiciary Committee, not OPR, publicly released OPR’s August 2011 report on misconduct in the Stevens case.[73]
OPR’s report stated that prosecutors Joseph W. Bottini and James A. Goeke “acted in reckless disregard of” their disclosure obligations.[74] OPR exonerated two other officials, concluding that Public Integrity Section Chief William M. Welch II and Edward Sullivan “did not commit professional misconduct or exercise poor judgment with respect to any of the disclosure violations identified in the report.”[75] Welch’s deputy, Brenda K. Morris, the leader of the prosecution team, was found to have exercised poor judgment, which the Justice Department does not classify as misconduct.[76]
In contrast, the independent investigator found more serious violations. The investigative team led by Henry F. Schuelke III found that some of the same acts by Bottini and Goeke rose to the level of intentional misconduct.
Two investigations, two sets of conclusions. The outside investigation had judged the prosecutors more critically than the inside investigation had. But that wasn’t all.
They were punished weren’t they ?
Bottini and Goeke appealed their suspensions to a federal panel that handles personnel disputes involving government employees. In April 2013, the panel reversed the suspensions on the grounds that the Justice Department did not follow its own policy when it essentially rejected the conclusions of the PMRU staff member. The panel judge held that the Department “committed harmful procedural error” by letting the PMRU chief, rather than a subordinate PMRU attorney, propose discipline.[81]
The Ruling Class triumphs again. It’s not malice, it’s license. They are above the law. Especially Democrats. Especially Hillary Clinton
Appointed by Janet Reno in January 1994, Fiske describes how he moved aggressively from the start, carving out a wide-ranging mandate and hiring a top-flight staff of veteran prosecutors. One of his first moves was to subpoena Hillary Clinton’s law firm billing records ”” documents that were later found under mysterious circumstances in the White House living quarters.
They are immune.
The old adage is that ” the love of money is the root of all evil”, but that is wrong. It is, and always has been, the love of power over others that is the true root of so much human misery.
As much as it is built into our reptilian and primate brains, it is a powerful driver, but as we mature as a species, it must be controlled by rational principles in those who can generate that form of energy, and by the rule of a rationally fashioned legal system for those who cannot.
Unfortunately, as the devil in our myths, the lust for power assumes many guises, and in our modern era has found some of the most clever and deceptive. In general, these are the “concerned” disguises.
In past ages, it was acceptable to declare one’s desire for power, one’s determination to become the most powerful within one’s own society, and to conquer others and enslave them. In a world ruled by clan and tribal affiliations, and then by the Kings and emperors of states both minor and major, the chest pounding of a silverback in ermine and a jeweled crown was expected, and even praised, as desirable.
The revolutionary idea that rights and powers dwelt in the individual citizen, and could not legitimately be usurped, undermined and de-legitimized such displays and assertions of power. Needless to say, the reaction from those who still hold the ancient view, and wish to indulge all those still powerful longings for power and status, has been both ruthless and relentless.
Read the endless, and mind-numbing, assertions of collective superiority written by the philosophers of the 19th century, and then review the gruesome results as they played out in the 20th.
For over a century, the peoples of the world have been the unwitting lab rats of one collectivist experiment after another—a roll call of catastrophe and slaughter unequalled by all the renowned conquerors and tyrants of history.
We here, at one time the champions of individual rights and liberties, have become enmeshed, and enraptured, with the “social welfare democracy” model, the same formulation that has enervated and bankrupt Europe, and is in the process of doing the same to our society in the US.
I believe that we here in this country are in a situation similar to the 1850’s, with deep and unbridgeable chasms between major segments of our society, not amenable to compromise or even mutual understanding.
The world is entering a period similar to the 1930’s, in which so many of the underpinnings of global relations have been knocked loose, that the edifice is tottering badly, and near collapse.
A house divided against itself cannot stand, whether at a national or global level. Our national culture, and it’s global counterpart, cannot continue if we abandon our principles, and allow theories of secular or religious collectivism to claim the field.
MikeK – They are immune as long as we play by their rules. Any president with 1/3 + 1 of the Senate behind him can resolve the issue but before we get to executive orders and mass firings, you have to have a great deal better targeting data. We lack the targeting data and that is very much something that can be gathered even when you’re out of power. The same actions would apply if it were conscious conspiracy or an interlocking set of iron rice bowls or just plain incompetent people covering for their incompetent colleagues. The problem manifests externally in similar ways and the same solution can work just fine in all cases. So, again, why unify the opposition? We don’t need to in order to win and it makes winning harder.
I fear winning will involve Madame Defarge.
I am content that I am unlikely to witness it.
A reasonable question, assuming that you believe that “the procedure to fix things” has any efficacy left. However, if you believe that things have degenerated beyond that point; then if you believe that you have already raised your profile above safe relative anonymity [not hard to do in today’s world of admitted mass government surveillance] then it may be considered worth the minimal additional personal risk to be a partisan advocate who may start others thinking too.
Those current procedures, as flawed and corrupted as they are now; are in fact all that can be done at this moment, other than personal preparations for what my ancestors called “interesting times”. Those preparations are still legal, and available. And the more who consider them, the more will prepare. The more who prepare, the more will hopefully both survive and carry on the battle for liberty afterwards. Because, as I see it, those “interesting times” will come whether we are prepared or not. Even absolute submission will not prevent things collapsing around our heads, because what the Governing Class wants does not work.
I am far from a young man. I have my career behind me. I have more than passing knowledge and interest in history and political science and enough exposure to sociopaths to recognize them in history …. and in modern politics. History does not repeat itself, but if it rhymes we are in the midst of a psychopathic poetry jam.
I “calls them as I sees them”, and that is what I see. YMMV. To be honest, I would vastly prefer being wrong, as it would make my remaining life a lot easier, and the future of my descendents a lot better.
Vote UKIP!
Actually, it could be time for a USIP, couldn’t it?
Actually, it could be time for a USIP, couldn’t it?
The TEA Party……..
It is neither as dead or as unpopular as the MSM thinks……
Subotai Bahadur,
I tend to strongly to agree with you. We might well be beyond the tipping point where there is no repair within the current processes and the resulting progressive statism will result in the internal collapse of these processes. If that comes, then there will be a violent conflict between the sides whose outcome is not obvious. I don’t see progressives as being particularly capable in such a contest, but their useful idiots can be and they are being well organized at the “community” level.
Assuming that we have not gone beyond the tipping point (I am generally pessimistic about that), what could be done to reverse our downward spiral? I would say that if sufficient effort were expended locally, the government/progressive monopoly over education could be broken. School choice and vouchers could be instrumental here and many lower income voters would be likely supporters. Since the states can do much of that work, this reform might be possible. Secondly, a balanced budget amendment is still possible given a healthy gain in both houses and the resulting fear this would engender in potentially threatened fence sitters. This measure, intelligently crafted, could put a brake on run away borrowing used to pay for the dependency and crony capitalist progressive political support. Term limits are another way to allow for more rapid reversal of our downward trends by increasing turn over and reducing owned incumbent election advantages and power. I believe a sufficient majority consensus on severely limiting executive orders and agency over reach is also possible. God send us some articulate and unifying leaders to husband such efforts. All you Ronnies, where are you folks when we need you?
While it has the longest time horizon before significant widespread positive effects will be witnessed, the rescue of education is by far the most important priority. Not to say the others are not critical as well.
Just my irrationally optimistic side coming out. In the meantime, I am not only hoping for the best, I am preparing for the worst.
Mike
Wow. For the last 6 years we’ve all been saying the World is about to end and, guess what, it hasn’t.
Let’s quit whining and start electing conservatives with principles and guts. Hello, Sarah Palin, anyone?
Everyone is talking. No one is doing.
Sgt. Mom,
You are correct; they mean harm and to profit from the harm. Their motive is malice, and it has long been so. They just never had enough power so concentrated with a man at the summit who’s either a willing Quisling or a cipher unless viewed as hostile.
[I think he’s both].
Mr. Lutas,
You are referring to a legacy Constitutional System that does exist, but does not hold the real reins of power. That was handed over during the New Deal, the “Deal” being Administrative Government in exchange for social programs [and war]. The Legacy Constitutional government still existing does however Subotai Bahadur et al present The Legitimate Government already sitting at it’s desks, therefore offering a quite obtainable and legitimate, unifying objective once a solution is forced.
Forced.
They don’t have the Grace to leave, even to save themselves, nor will they feel the urgency of doing so as they consider themselves immune for reasons MikeK and of course Angelo Codevila have pointed out. They’re immune to consequences at the present moment.
Finally we must look at our current politics in 21st Century and not 20th century terms: The monster issue of early 21st century politics is Debt and the Derivatives spun from it, this will banish all other issues to obscurity when Zero Interest and unlimited Fiat schemes collapse. The Debt already defines America [and the West] into 2 fatally intertwined groups of Debtors and Collectors, and nearly everyone both owes and is owed [please examine your portfolio if you doubt you’re a Collector]. Debt has caused more modern wars than Greed.
Our debt of $1000 Trillion with Derivatives makes the option of submission the “option” of the Plains Indians being liquidated to pay for the Civil War.
For the Lands and Wealth are coveted, but the Peoples are despised. That is the Rhyme of the Western Hemisphere’s History, Death6.
It’s Debt and the Derivatives that will force War.
And unless and until wisdom is seen [Repudiation] force War to continue.
All the rest are presently diversions and distractions but in conflict will be accelerants and take on true life of their own.