In the early ’80s (which now seems to be as long ago as the High Victorian era seemed to be to those looking backwards from the vantage point of the 1920s) acclaimed literary lion Norman Mailer took up the cause of a life-long convict, Jack Abbott by name … and discovered to his dismay that it was easier and safer to champion a violent felon at a considerable distance, than to actually wrangle the man close up. After being out of prison for a matter of weeks Abbott lost his temper and fatally stabbed another man … thereby demonstrating a certain drawback to an intellectual burnishing their public credit by adopting an edgy cause. It was liable to backfire, and make the adoptee appear to be a gullible prat. At about the same time, Tom Wolfe called it ‘radical chic’ and poured erudite derision on Leonard Bernstein for doing much the same with the Black Panther leadership.
Big Government
Foreign and Domestic
I do solemnly swear that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic… (From the Oath of Enlistment)
It honestly kind of slipped my mind at first, that Monday morning was the anniversary of the 9-11 terrorist attack on the United States. It’s been 22 years since that horrible day. I had other stuff purely personal concerns on my mind.
For one, every single thing that I had to say about 9-11, I said, wrote and posted ages ago … and why re-run, one more time? There’s just nothing more to say, any more than there would be anything more to say about the shock of the Pearl Harbor attack in 1941 one more tedious rerun of a recollection of where I was, what I was doing. It’s been a lifetime, in a way and for high-school and college graduates this year, it’s been all their lifetimes.
The other thing a more recent tragic anniversary which looms closer in time is the disastrous and humiliating withdrawal from Kabul, Afghanistan, and the Abbey Gate suicide bombing there which killed more than a hundred civilians and thirteen American service personnel. Those deaths meant so little to President Biden that he kept looking at his watch during the ceremony at Andrews AFB when their coffins were unloaded. Those thirteen were the merely last American military lives frittered away in almost two decades of seemingly endless and pointless deployments to Afghanistan, culminated in a departure so botched that I’m still shocked that only a single commissioned officer resigned in protest. Sec Def Austin and General “Thoroughly Modern” Milley apparently feel no shame over bungling their responsibility to the Nation so horribly.
What a “X” Platform Shadowban looks like
There has been a systematic effort by purportedly “Pro-Ukrainian” but Left/Democratic leaning X accounts to make support of Ukraine a Democrat versus Republican partisan political issue.
I am just one such account which has been targeted in what looks like “partisan battlefield preparation” for the 2024 election cycle.
The Unfortunate Balance
This story concerning the justifiable resentment of working class residents in a highly-popular and extraordinarily beautiful place where the main industry is tourism – brought to my mind again a peculiar kind of divide. That would be the tension between those with long roots in the area, and those (usually wealthier) newcomers who come to take full advantage of gorgeous scenery, lovely weather, quaint architecture, fascinating culture, interesting history … or just plain old small-town country quiet. And eventually, the regular folks, the working class or even just middle-class homeowners find themselves unable to live in that place, at a price they can afford. The houses that their grandparents built, the gardens and fields that their parents and grandparents wrested a living from, the businesses that used to line main street, the parks and open fields that they played, or hunted, skied and hiked in, the beaches that they surfed are all taken over by newcomers, usually considerably wealthier.
Will There Ever Be an Apology for Covid Overreaction?
In the light of this story, and this one as well, I am more than ever glad that my daughter and I said “no” to the Covid shot and follow-on boosters. Of course, I know that any new vaccine or drug can have a small number of unfortunate side effects but honestly, aren’t well-informed adults allowed these days to calculate the risks and make their own decision? Apparently not for many employees, who were ordered to get the Covid vaccine or be fired … and are now facing health problems that make Covid itself look like pretty small potatoes.