Author: White Whale

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.

I was recently quite discouraged to find all my normal media outlets–Drudge, Lucianne, The Blaze, and Yahoo–failed entirely to devote time to the significance of the authorization included in the most recent Defense appropriation for our military to detain and hold, indefinitely, American citizens deemed by someone somewhere to be engaged in “terrorist” activitiy. Since this includes what they are guessing you MIGHT have done, given the chance, we have entered the world of Minority Report, minus accurate psychics. We must assume for now that this power will not be abused, but the question must be asked: at what point do Americans stop being protected by the Constitution? The plain answer: NEVER. Even traitors are covered under the Constitution, and entitled to their due process.

Thus I have added infowars.com to my daily reading, since this is the sort of thing they cover. Huffington Post had it as well, but I can’t stomach that place. They censor everything–they would not even grant me ONE post–and twist the news their way.

Since I guess it makes more sense, I’ll link the piece I started out intending to post on a separate post.

For someone with a reasonably high IQ, I can be remarkably stupid. When I became self employed 3-4 years ago, I had my tax returns done by an accountant, and didn’t think too much of them.

Recently, however, I HAVE been looking at them, and one interesting fact emerges: I have to pay 15.3% of my income in FICA–which is to say Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid and who knows what. This is over and above whatever my income tax is for my income level. You can read about it here: http://www.irs.gov/businesses/small/article/0,,id=98846,00.html

I want to burrow this in your brain: ALL OF US PAY THIS. People who flip burgers at Wendy’s. Waiters. Gas Station attendants. Every man and woman who works for an income in this country pays nearly 15% of every paycheck to support programs which are bankrupt and cannot possibly exist in their current forms 15 years from now, which is to say the soonest any person in the prime of their working career could expect to get any of that money back.

People don’t see this for two reasons. First, the money is taken out before the check gets cut. Second, and more importantly, is the bastards in Washington have very cleverly required your employer to pay half of it. That means that they are sending money on your behalf to Washington that never shows up on a statement anywhere that you would see.

THIS IS MONEY THEY COULD HAVE PAID YOU. If they had not paid you, they could have used it for business expansion. Overall, economy wide, this would very clearly lead to business growth and growth in overall income.

There are just so many TRICKS these people play. Most all of us work nearly half the year to pay the salaries and benefits of people who contribute something close to NOTHING to our overall economy. The military, police, fire: yes, we need them. The rest of it though: throw it on the trash bin and leave me the hell alone.

The word fascist is becoming less repugnant to me in describing our current governmental order. In that regard, we need to keep in mind that the man who first ran FDR’s New Deal more or less WAS a Fascist, being a keen admirer of Mussollini. We need to remember that the man who coined the term “New Deal” was an ardent admirer of Lenin’s Soviet Union, and thought the rich should, if no lesser remedy presented itself, be shot. This is history, not hyperbole. And the programs they created remain with us.

Don’t fool yourself: simply because we have not YET faced large scale disaster does not mean it cannot happen. Hitler was considered a joke–a bad joke–by most Germans, until they found they had to keep a copy of Mein Kampf on their tables to stay out of jail or worse.

There are days I want to get the hell out of a nation capable of the stupidity that put Obama in office, and which tolerates the continued daily new assaults on our freedom. But where would I go? As bad as it is here, it is much worse in almost every other nation on Earth.