Month: January 2012

Supposedly he contradicted himself. But read quote one, and quote two.

1: So President Ron Paul would therefore not have ordered the kill of bin Laden, which could have only have taken place by entering another sovereign nation?

And Dr. Paul was equally clear in his response:

I don’t think it was necessary. No.

Less than a minute later, Conway attempted to further clarify by again asking the congressman”

So President Ron Paul would not have ordered the kill of bin Laden, to take place, as it took place in Pakistan?

Ron Paul’s response was consistent with his two previous answers.

Not the way it took place, no. I mean he was unarmed, you know… and all these other arguments.

2: “You believe international Law should’ve constrained us from tracking down and killing the man responsible for the most brazen attack on the US since Pearl Harbor?”

Paul responded: “Obviously no, I did not say that.”

Read both carefully, and listen to the setup, plainly intended to suggest anyone who did NOT order the killing was effectively an apologist and almost accomplice in mass murder.

He did not say he would not have gone after Bin Laden because of international law, but because it was UNNECESSARY. For any stupid people reading this, let me point out that from 9/11/01 until his de facto execution ten years later, Bin Laden does not seem to have planned ONE attack.

Are we safer now that he is dead? Are we? If he was doing something close to nothing, it is hard to see how safety has improved. This was a mission of revenge, not national self defense. I was saying back in 2009 that he was irrelevant.

Am I glad he is dead? Yes, to the extent it is proper to celebrate the death of anyone, but I remain skeptical that he was the actual mastermind.

This is quite enjoyable: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1GVDoglDx68&feature=fvst

Ah: is life about something other than taking risks, hoping for reward? No: doing what one must do, with “must” defined as what one person must do to remain true to themselves?

How many of us fail, or succeed, in rewarding those who take chances? How many of us ARE those who take chances?

How can one help but love those who risk? Me: I put all my chips on the risk-takers: they hold our future. I suppose I could surf pornography, but what interesting would be revealed? Love: one won’t find it there, and what else is worth the effort?

For myself, I love unreasonably, in ridiculous human beings like Florence. What waters flow, when stillness presides? Ah, here is one more excellent video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JrYnggjTJfk&feature=fvst

Are our normal days superfluous? It is unclear. So much that is magical remains to be discovered. I say that not as a sentimental fool, but as a drunk empiricist.

[note: if the past is any indication, I will feel no remorse in posting this, but feel the need to point out that I was drunk. Liquor is medicine to me, up to a point. I will leave it at that. May God bless you.]

Never trust me to actually shut up and go to bed.

I am reading a history of the currency crises of East/Southeast Asia in the late 90’s. What is interesting to me is that Bretton Woods, once we got off the flimsy gold standard they had retained, in the early 70’s, effectively made the dollar into gold. Rather than keeping gold in the vault, developing nations have to keep dollars in their vaults. There are other reserve currencies–the yen, the Euro, the Mao–but dollars are still the “gold standard” for the simple reason that as stupid as we have been, we have been less stupid than others.

This leads logically, though, to the contention–which I will have to ponder–that our Federal Reserve is the only TRUE central bank in the world, since it is uniquely empowered to create the world’s de facto reserve currency.

I am reevaluating many things. One possibility I am considering is that some American banks are in fact predatory around the world. This says nothing about America as a whole, but speaks rather to a disease that perhaps affects other nations more overtly, but is not absent here either.

To be clear: I believe in Capitalism, but do not believe that fiat money qualifies as Capital; it is an abuse: there is in my view no other way to view it.

The other day, on awaking, it popped in my head that the word Home contains–forgive my use of the term–the meat of the Sanskritic sacred mantra Om. Then I started canvassing the few languages I am somewhat OK in, and the only other example I could come up with Homme, from the French.

Now, I am as interested in the process of thinking as in the outcome. Since reading Edward de Bono’s work (4 or 5 books, and I am actually certified to teach his Six Thinking Hats) I have believed that thought is not something that happens, but a type of work no different in principle than building a house. There are methods, and definable outcomes, of which creativity is one. You can choose to be creative.

One basic technique is the formation of a continuum. The mind operates in a binary fashion, if left to its own devices. Continuums, however, of their nature are not binary. They demand shades of gray and gradation.

The following, therefore, may not be “true”, but perhaps useful nonetheless.

Let us start, then by assuming that the residing place of this Om formulation says something important about both cultures.

In English, it is a place, and a state of mind, that of being ennested, of belonging, of participating in a larger web of consistent relationships.

In French, it is Man, understood as the arbiter of reality, but tragically denuded of home.

Can we not see echoes of this basic dichotomy in the cultural evolution of both traditions. Where did solipsism–excuse me, Existentialism–arise? France. The fatal individual. The stoic hero, transfixed in an indifferent eternity, condemned to “Freedom”, to constant self definition and redefinition. Alone.

The English, with their pragmatic alternative, focused rather on building homes, on building social orders consistent with belonging.

Again: this is just a sort mental calisthenic, perhaps devoid of “truth”, but it is good to bend your mind in different ways.

Do with it what you will.

Edit: actually, I see now that despite saying I was not going to form a dichotomy, I have formed a dichotomy. This is amusing and instructive. No doubt I can do this thing better, but I think I am going to finish my cigar and drink some whiskey.

For neocons–there actually is such a thing, which I found surprising, seeing the uses to which the Left has put this term–Munich is emblematic of the perils of doing nothing in the face of creeping evil.

For most economists, the equivalent is the Great Depression.

In both cases, these analogies are invoked continually, and generally inaccurately. We were told the bank bailouts in 2008 were necessary to “prevent another Great Depression”. Now, as then, we are told that the fact that they seem to have accomplished little but wealth transfer from the taxpayers to reckless and callous banks is evidence that had we done nothing, it would have been much worse.

Our supposedly preemptive “War on Terror”, likewise. It is hard to say, now, what would have been the effects of not invading Iraq or Afghanistan, but is arguable that we have not prevented ANY attacks.

Plainly, if we have the oil reserves to stop buying from the Middle East, then we would have been far better served developing them, than in protecting Saudi Arabia from the potential future threat of Saddam Hussein. Clearly, he WOULD have built nukes as soon as he could–he said so himself when he was caught–but he liked living, and actually using them against us or the Israelis would have ended his game, his reign, and likely his life. He was smart enough, maybe, to realize this, although he miscalculated badly in assuming we lacked the resolve to invade, so this point is debatable.

I supported the war on Iraq. I felt then, and continue to feel now, albeit to a lesser extent, that it is pointless being a superpower if you are emasculated by indecisiveness and squeamishness.

At the same time, we are not in the Cold War. There is no global superpower opposing us, necessitating a war for alliances. There is no Nazi Germany, who we must fear will invade us once they finish their other conquests (as plainly would have happened, with their inventions of the jet and eventual invention of the nuclear bomb making defense quite difficult). What we face are not very smart individuals, whose courage consists in a passion for suicide.

It is difficult to overstate the importance of recognizing that Tower 7 must have been blown. It changes all the calculus. It redirects focus to a now-indistinct target that has still not been identified. That is the enemy; and we don’t know who it is.

I will bet good money, though, that that enemy was not contained in Afghanistan or Iraq.

I have for some time wanted to post on the Rocky Horror Picture Show. It is emblematic of Leftism. What is the basic plot? An innocent young couple is seduced into purely physical pleasure, denuded of MEANING, context, and genuine emotional affection.

The latent violence and cruelty in this psychosocial gestalt is manifested when Meatloaf makes his appearance on the motorcycle, symbolizing genuine masculine virility, and by extension the capacity for purpose and even virtue. He is murdered and cannibalized.

The movie ends when the characters in effect dissolve, then finally meet–then avoid–the necessary fate of those who consciously pursue self destruction: they “time warp”, and the song that accompanies this is fun (in movie theaters for quite some time, this was acted out in front of the audience in many markets, like New York and San Francisco), and helps to mask the underlying reality of death and disease, although the symbols are omnipresent. Most all of the empty frivolities that modern men and women use to anesthetize themselves have as their aim the same purpose. That is the point of TV.

People want to kill Tim Tebow. They want him to be a relic from another era, and not someone who is speaking coherently to what could even now be their present. Meaning is not impossible. It is not too late.

But people do not want to hear that, if they have traveled far at all along the path of self immolation in suicidal narcissism and hedonism. They want to be fashionably smart, to “know” that Jesus is a fable, and that we are machines built to rust under the ground.

Thus the violence. Many people were very happy when Tebow lost. It was like when Meatloaf’s character was murdered by Dr. Frankenfurter. They don’t want to remember who they could be–what the true limits of their perceptual and behavior freedom are–and thus his “failure” (in reality, it was nothing of the sort) was comforting to them.

In some respects, I suppose, the image of Tebow as a sacrificial lamb is testament to the sincerity of his Christianity. For my part, I wish him well. I would like to see him get married, since I’m quite sure he could score himself a smoking hot, Christian wife.

[End note: I could see where someone would infer latent (Channel 2, per my previous post) homoeroticism in my connection of Tim Tebow with this movie. To the extent of my awareness, the principle trait of homosexuals is sexual fantasies involving other men. I don’t have them, and so infer that I am not gay. My interest here is analytical and abstract. I view the Rocky Horror Picture Show as emblematic of what I have termed “Cultural Sadeism”. Everything is broken. Nobody believes anything but their ephemeral senses. Sade would have loved the movie, although presumably he would have preferred more violence.

As I have said often, though, I view homosexuality as a sort of misfortune, and not a crime or deviancy per se. It is of course a cliche to say this, but I have counted more than one open homosexual as a friend. Particularly among men, it often seems to lead to some really weird stuff–I did go to the Mapplethorpe exhibit way back when, and frankly learned more than I wanted to–but what happens between consenting adults is none of my business, and in my view not the business of the State.]

This is reasonably well done: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hZEvA8BCoBw

As I have argued previously, I choose not to believe that George Bush was capable of the cold blooded murder of 3,000 Americans. For my part, I feel it was some combination of financial elites and the Russians. This is only a feeling.

That there is a mystery, though, is to my mind indisputable, and that the cowards and hacks at NIST failed utterly to be professional is equally indisputable.

It follows, too, that if you accept that 9/11 had a much larger roster of participants than we have been led to believe, then the role of the unwashed fools who did something close to nothing in Afghanistan diminishes proportionately, and so too does the importance of our war there.

For my own heuristic, analytical purposes, I have recently–and tentatively, as I may well change my mind– adopted the term “Channel 1” for overt communications, and Channel 2 for latent, hidden, covert communications.

In all human communications there is what is said, and there is what is not said. There is the intent we are trying to communicate, and the effect which is being received. In this, I am borrowing somewhat from a similar conception proposed–as far as I know, not having studied this extensively–by the architects of Neurolinguistic Programming, Richard Bandler and John Grinder.

Put another way, Channel 1 is the conscious, and Channel 2 is the supposed “unconscious”. I use the term supposed, because in my view we all regularly feel sexuality, aggression, anger, the need for dominance, and all the emotions that Freud supposed were hidden. I would in fact argue that the extent to which we regularly feel our negative as well as our positive emotions well describes our mental health.

The alternative, of course, is to pretend you are capable of hewing perfectly to a doctrine which requires only the expression of positive emotions, and which idea leads inexorably not to the extinction of negative emotions, but to their expression in ways which are “non-conscious”, which is to say by a more or less second personality that comes to exist in you, that has as its job the management of all the angers, petty vanities, sense of insult, sexual frustrations, and other difficulties which are inevitable in a life in motion, bouncing as we all do into all sorts of people continually (unless we are hermits, and even they still have dialogues with others in their minds).

I got to thinking about this, and was wondering if eating meat is not perhaps one useful and overt way of disposing of some of our aggressive, negative energy. Animals eat one another. None of them are capable of self pity, even if they manifestly ARE capable of physical and emotional suffering.

This is the question: is it a REALISTIC hope that in an open, free social order that we can fully dispose of all negative emotions? In my own family, I try to teach the expression of feeling, but in a self conscious way such that whenever your pity party, or outburst is done, you can feel regret, apologize, and reintegrate yourself into the whole. I am trying to teach emotional intelligence, and of course model it myself.

I look at serious vegetarians, and what in effect seems to happen with the more ideological ones is they wind up hating HUMANS. Reading some of their literature, one gets the sense they would prefer humans go extinct. They have retained a sense of us and them, but simply chosen to side with the animals, with “Earth”, against their fellows, and inhabit a tribe which consists only in those who share with them a sense of self loathing.

Food for thought.

I have said this before, but not for a while: sincerity–true sincerity, not tactically assumed sincerity–is the new pornography. It is shocking. It makes people uncomfortable. It is considered by many vile and disgusting, for the simple reason that by example it shows them the emptiness of their own lives.

We live in a craven society. Tim Tebow is no hero, but he is a man, a normal, healthy man. That is increasingly rare. He stands out by contrast among people accustomed to living in a world darkened by fear, and the cynicism that masks it.

Win or lose tonight, he will remain what he is.

Did you know that more Americans have died from suicide than enemy action over the last ten years? It’s true.

It is estimated that the suicide rate among veterans demobbed from fighting in Afghanistan and Iraq is as high as four times the national average. The US Department of Veteran Affairs calculates that over 6,000 former service personnel commit suicide every year.

Prior to 2001, the suicide rate among veterans was substantially lower than that of the general population.

I don’t like the word empire. I don’t like agreeing with peace-nik cowards whose main purpose in life is to prevent intelligent military activity. But I have to admit that it is unclear to me how much good our wars have done.

Why not try bringing most of our troops home from Afghanistan, leaving a few residual training brigades and enough planes for ground support missions, and seeing what happens? My guess is that the risk of attacks here, in America, will not go up at all.

I have run this idea by NUMEROUS veterans of Afghanistan, from grunts to Spec. Op types, and they like it.

Why are so manyh of us still there?

Ron Paul for President. I say this without the fervor many manage, but as a sober decision of someone who reads a lot, thinks a lot, and sees no good alternative. Paul is the only person since Reagan who might actually make a big difference.