Links at Ricochet, where the is an extensive (and pretty contentious) discussion.
Conservatism
Print the Legend
“This is the West, sir. When the legend becomes fact, print the legend.” So goes the line from the Jimmy Stewart-John Wayne tale, The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance.
Spread all over the interwebules this week was a hilarious account of how a slightly obsessed engineer revenged himself upon local porch-pirates by concocting a tempting fake delivered package and leaving it on his doorstep. Being technically quite adept, he booby-trapped the package with fine glitter, fart-spray and four telephones primed to record the resulting mayhem which was as hilarious as the Daily Mail always promises, but rarely delivers. Honestly, I think the man could go into business, providing those dummy parcels for customers to outfit with their own cellphones, can-o-fart-spray and glitter with which to discombobulate parcel thieves. The Deity knoweth that local police departments usually don’t get serious about this kind of petty theft: where the law can’t or won’t get involved, there will inevitably be an opening for creative vigilantism.
The other leading story this week gives even more cause for cynical amusement.
Dross to Gold and Vice Versa
I was skimming through the various stories about the late President Bush the First this week, especially one about how he and Barbara were so considerate of and beloved by the Security Service agents who guarded them. It was kind of sweet, the account of a peckish agent going through the White House kitchen in the wee hours, looking for the cookies that he knew that the stewards of the kitchen had baked for the next day … and being joined by Bush the First, in ransacking the kitchen in search of the elusive cookies. That Bush the First and Barbara were loved and respected by the agents whose mission I can attest to at second hand. One of the Air Force security service NCOs I served with in Korea had just come off an assignment at the White House protection detachment. He adored Barbara, BTW to hear him tell it, he was one of her favorite agents. She called him “Timmy”, which was kind of cute, as he was one of these six-foot-something guys and built like a concrete traffic bollard; probably Barbara was the only one aside from his mother who called him by that name.
Watching the Major Media Meltdown
I’ll confess to always having had a bit of cynicism about the professional national media orgs; this dating from my several turns in military public affairs and being one of those in-house media entertainment/news providers for the military broadcasting system. From the latter experience, I learned just how the sausage-news is created, expeditiously and on-schedule for the daily-dish-up. The former served up endless stories of media personalities acting badly from peers who had been there when they happened; checkbook offers for tips, tantrums on the flight-line as the media flight was about to depart, disgustingly snobbish behavior towards military media-relations staff … yep, darned few modern-day embedded reporters earned anything like the affection and respect earned by Ernie Pyle during WWII. Those who flew in to cover Gulf War I did not manage to conceal a tone of gratification and happy surprise in their coverage upon observing that the troops in that war were neat, polite, professional; the very farthest from the bunch of murderous, drug-addled psychotics which the aftermath of the Vietnam War had obviously led them to expect. And yes, we all noticed this at the time.
(Pro tip when it comes to producing local news? The calendar is your friend. A good half of your stories are ruled by the predictable. A significant or insignificant holiday a story or two or three predicated on that holiday. The bigger the holiday, the more stories which can be milked out of it. Significant local event a scheduled road closure, or a grand opening? Oh, yeah another couple of stories to fill the required minutes in the regular broadcast. Even something semi-scheduled, like a rain/hurricane season? At least a story or two about preparations… And so it goes.)
Back to my main point mainstream national news media: I presume that someone still watches CNN.
The Bottom Line
So, several posts by the Zman blog crystalized in my own mind a partial understanding of the situation as regards the new cold civil war. The whole Trumpland/Clinton Archipelago split, and practically every bit of conservative/left nastiness over the last two years represent a slow-moving rebellion. Zman phrases it as; “The ruling class and their media organs will never admit it, but one main reason for Trump is that white people grew tired of fighting wars for a ruling class that despises them.” I wouldn’t limit it to strictly white people, though or the issue to war-fighting. I’d just say that it’s a rebellion of the normal citizens, the flyover country residents, the working and middle-class, what used to be called the salt of the earth, those who are Ruled against the Ruling Class a Ruling Class which despises the Ruled with a passion which sends most of the Ruling Class into incoherent, spittle-flecked rage.