FoggyWorld:NotesContrary to public opinion, Trump seems able to play the long game. It's smart because look at all that is coming out.
ClickNLook:What is coming out is: people are getting used to the understanding that they are not represented in Congress at all and that they can do nothing about it, but continue paying taxes.[1]
I am not a man of any religious faith not least because I see no evidence of any Divine presence in the world. That said, I am still a committed agnostic in this area -- and a friend of the Christian religion in particular, let it be said -- but I have to say I see abundant evidence of something that looks an awful lot like the workings of a conscious, powerful, implacable, malevolent being in the world.
Up until 1914 it seemed that man was poised to enter a time of abundance and orderliness but what arrived was unbelievable slaughter and stupidity. Call it The Age of the Human Ego, if you will. The United Nations Charter was an attempt to reign in the demon of war but America, chief among nations, seems determined to shred that document and a lot else beside. "We're a gift to the world, people. And don't you forget it or we'll kill you."
I sure don’t remember buying a ticket for this particular ride and it sure isn’t at Disneyland.
Well, enough of this cheery discourse. Here’s Craig Murray’s take on what the best and the brightest have in store for us:
In this extraordinary war, where Saudi-funded jihadist head choppers have Israeli air support and US and UK military “advisers”, every time the Syrian army is about to take complete control of a major jihadist enclave, at the last moment when victory is in their grasp, the Syrian Army allegedly attacks children with chemical weapons, for no military reason at all. We have been fed this narrative again and again and again.NotesWe then face a propaganda onslaught from neo-con politicians, think tanks and “charities” urging a great rain of Western bombs and missiles, and are accused of callousness towards suffering children if we demur. This despite the certain knowledge that Western military interventions in Afghanistan, Iraq and Libya have had consequences which remain to this day utterly disastrous.
I fear that the massive orchestration of Russophobia over the last two years is intended to prepare public opinion for a wider military conflict centred on the Middle East, but likely to spread, and that we are approaching that endgame. The dislocation of the political and media class from the general population is such, that the levers for people of goodwill to prevent this are, as with Iraq, extremely few as politicians quake in the face of media jingoism. These feel like extremely dangerous times.[1]
Please pardon me. I’ve been terribly distracted. I didn’t remember until just a moment ago that I hadn’t yet written something for today. You see, I’ve been...itching.
That’s right. Itching. Not “itching to,” in the sense of wanting badly to do something specific. Just itching. Just itching. And trying my damnedest not to scratch.
I’ve picked up some kind of skin inflammation. The first diagnosis was “eczema.” That was my nurse-practitioner Primary Care Provider. She recommended a moisturizer. Well, that didn’t sound too terrible...except that it was to be used in the shower, and I was forbidden to towel off. “You must air-dry, Fran,” she said in mellifluous tones, “or the moisturizer won’t sink in.”
Two weeks of that changed precisely nothing. Except that the sores were becoming crusty, and it was getting harder not to scratch. So on the C.S.O.’s advice, I went to a dermatologist.
The dermatologist, who’s about half my age – I know, specialists tend to be younger than general practitioners, but it still fails to inspire confidence – diagnosed my many red itchy spots as nummular dermatitis, and prescribed a corticosteroid cream. I, of course, looked up the term. It seems to mean “itchy red spots we haven’t got an explanation for.” That’s medical jargon for you.
That was a month ago. The spots are still there – in fact, there are more of them, even more widely distributed – and they itch worse than ever. And I, knowing what little I know about such things, have continued to struggle not to scratch.
Today I ran out of patience. Happily, the dermatologist was available to see me this very day. He looked at the new outbreaks, said “Hmm,” and asked if he could take a “punch biopsy.” I, not knowing what a punch biopsy is, shrugged and said okay.
Well, now I know. Have you heard about “soil cores” and “ice cores?” The sort of thing that’s done to determine mineral distributions and such? This was like that, except performed on a human body. A Fran core, if you like. He didn’t need to reattach the remains of my arm, but I gather it was a close thing. He said he’d have a diagnosis for me in about two weeks.
And I’m still too itchy to think straight.
So, Gentle Readers, please don’t think ill of me for leaving you post-less most of today. All my considerable will has been dedicated to not scratching. It’s left too few brain cells unoccupied to treat you to a new screed.
Pray for me. The C.S.O. has already started talking to gravestone carvers. Her sole uncertainty is what epitaph should go on them. HE DIED OF A RASH is just too...something.
Fourth-generation warfare(4GW) is conflict characterized by a blurring of the lines between war and politics, combatants and civilians.If you read this, it shows that much of the political violence we've been experiencing lately falls under this category. It also explains why war as we have previously known it, cannot be fought with our usual forces and means.
In terms of generational modern warfare, the fourth generation signifies the nation states' loss of their near-monopoly on combat forces, returning to modes of conflict common in pre-modern times.
The simplest definition includes any war in which one of the major participants is not a state but rather a violent non-state actor. Classical examples of this type of conflict, such as the slave uprising under Spartacus, predate the modern concept of warfare.I'm not impressed by the 'protections' that the prosecution has set up surrounding the evidence from Trump's lawyer. Neither, apparently, are most of the non-Leftist citizens.
Seven indictments, all by Democrat prosecutors against high-ranking Republican office-holders, and all with a potential to influence political control of some important government body. Of the seven prosecutions, one (Greitens) has not yet gone to trial (and may never), one (Perry) was dismissed on motion before ever going to trial; but the other five all resulted in convictions -- all of which were subsequently reversed. Of the five convictions, three were then undone by the trial (Stevens) or appeal (DeLay, McDonnell) courts in ways that precluded retrial, and one (Bruno) resulted in an acquittal on retrial. Skelos awaits retrial. The number of convictions that have stuck: zero. Meanwhile, the Congress flipped from Republican to Democrat control after indictment of the Republican Majority Leader, the Senate got its 60th Democrat Senator just in time for the Obamacare vote, the governorship of Virginia flipped from Republican to Democrat just prior to the indictment of the outgoing Republican governor, and the New York State Senate flipped from Republican to Democrat majority after conviction of the Majority Leader.FINALLY - Republicans are beginning to 'punch back'.
The failure of political leadership throughout the Western world is total."The Trump Regime Is Insane." By Paul Craig Roberts, The Unz Review, 4/18/18.
Media coverage of Syria, apart from Carlson, scrupulously avoids the issue that the United States is in Syria completely illegally and has been cynically supporting terrorist groups in spite of its pledge that it is in the country to get rid of such vermin. It is a measure of how divorced from actual U.S. security America’s Syria policy has become that the White House has not hesitated to launch a second illegal cruise missile barrage against a government that hasn’t attacked the U.S. and doesn’t threaten Americans. Bombing the Syrian government hasn’t made the U.S. or any other country more secure, and it will likely weaken President Bashar al-Assad just enough to prolong Syria’s civil war and add to the suffering of the civilian population. It is a perfect example of a military intervention that is being done for political reasons with no connection to any discernible interests or overall strategy.[1]I like the “scrupulously avoids the issue” of illegal war part. It’s typical of American political “debate” now. For example, what is endlessly repeated on the issue of immigration is that we need “comprehensive immigration reform.” What is rarely if ever stated stated is that (1) we don’t need reform of our immigration laws, we need enforcement of them and (2) we don’t need immigration at all. It’s never stated in the MSM because anyone who does state either proposition soon assumes the status of Sunday school picnic whore.
But back to the legality of our war on Syria, it’s amazing that our Constitution and the U.N. Charter are just air brushed out of the picture. Hillary Clinton’s take on the awkwardness of an uncooperative[2] U.N. Security Council suggests the official position on international law:
Russia will never support such a mission [intervention in Syria], so there is no point operating through the UN Security Council.[3]Right. Just operate as though it doesn’t exist, treaty obligations be damned. Fortunately, U.S. Ambassador to the U.N., Nikki Haley, has the opposite view, stating at her confirmation hearing, “I will show [Donald Trump] that the UN matters.”[4] Oh, wait. It doesn’t all that much.
She [Haley] frequently tells Security Council members that if they fail to meet American expectations on UN resolutions, the United States will “go it alone.”[5]Keep this in mind for the next time some cretinous U.S. official or TV personality says something about “the rule of law.”
Notes
[1] "Israel Continues to Wag the Dog for Middle East Wars.." By Phil Giraldi, Russia Insider, 4/18/18.
[2] I.e., insufficiently appreciative of how wonderful the United States are.
[3] Quoted in "Hillary's Sociopathic Wikileaks Emails: Kill Assad, Destroy Syria - Deep State Goal for 10 Years." By Patrick Fleming, Russia Insider, 4/19/18.
[4] "Nikki Haley at the UN: Agree With Us or We Go It Alone." By Barbara Crossette, The Nation, 9/14/17.
[5] Id.
If you were a betting man (I’m not), would you put money on a game where one contestant was unilaterally empowered to define the playing field and the rules of the contest?
As I expected, the responding chorus of “Hell, NO!” resounded throughout the English-speaking world. I fancy I could hear it even without my Foxy Grandpa Ear Trumpet. It’s pretty obvious that those privileges amount to a predetermination of victory. Then again, obvious does mean overlooked, so I wouldn’t be too surprised if a few readers were scratching their heads over it.
No, the subject this fine morning isn’t game theory. It’s political combat, a field in which only one side appears to be playing for keeps.
I write fiction, as you’re probably aware. (To those as yet unaware: See the right sidebar.) For fiction to be worthwhile, it must entertain. That is, it must divert the reader from his mundane concerns for awhile. That’s a hard and fast requirement.
I strive to do a little more. I try to embed depictions of important truths about human existence in my stories. Tom Kratman calls such truths “eternal verities.” Years ago that was the term most commonly used to describe them. Today few persons remember that term.
The term notwithstanding, there are persons determined to efface those truths completely. Some of them have chosen fiction as their vehicle for doing so. That puts me at odds with them. Yet I would never dream of trying to prevent them from being heard. One who must silence his opponent to prevail clearly has no adequate argument for his own position. I regard that as too obvious to require explication.
But they don’t feel the same, which brings us to the most recent episode in the continuing soap opera of fantasy and science fiction fandom. Please read it for yourself, as I can’t excerpt it without stealing almost all of it.
The critical elements of this foofaurauw are:
The ironies here boggle the imagination. A man whose books run the gamut of speculative categories, whose inclinations are as live-and-let-live as any I could name, and who would literally take a bullet to protect an innocent from harm is disinvited from a convention at which he would have been the top draw, supposedly (oh, come on) for his own protection. Did I wake up in the “bearded Spock” universe? (Cue Mel Blanc as Bugs Bunny: “I knew I shoulda turned left at Albuquerque.”)
Ringo’s comment on this tale helps to cement the absurdities in place:
I'm a New York Times best selling author with over 7 million books in print. By far and away I was the largest 'print' guest on the list with the largest fan following and thus the biggest draw.For someone like myself, cons are NOT about marketing. There is very little additional market to be picked up at any litcon, including WorldCon. Cons are places to go to talk with people who enjoy reading science fiction and fantasy and are generally smart and interesting people. To meet new people (one of the reasons I agreed to attend ConCarolinas was 'new people'), to pick up new characters, to have a good time.
There is very little fiscal reason for someone like myself to attend. Ergo: The best reason is to have fun....
To be clear: This isn't any loss to me. It is a loss to the con and the attendees who were looking forward to John Ringo attending. It's even a loss to the Social Justice Bullies since some of my fans might accidentally have bought some of their books.
To me, there is NO downside. YES! I caved to the social justice bullies and now I DON'T HAVE TO DEAL WITH TSA! WOOOOT!
So John Ringo has shrugged the whole thing off. Attending ConCarolinas would net him no increment in sales. From that perspective it’s pointless for him to contest his disinvitation. He’d be better off doing just about anything else, so why bother?
But we’re not done yet. Sarah Hoyt, an estimable person and writer in her own right, seems to feel she must defend Ringo’s politics! Stop right there: Why are Ringo’s personal politics relevant? An F&SF con isn’t a political convention...at any rate, it shouldn’t be. Treating Ringo’s political preferences as relevant is playing the Left’s game! It’s their mantra that “the personal is political,” not ours!
Why are we in the Right so easily suckered into playing the Left’s game, on the Left’s choice of playing field? Why can’t we cowboy the BLEEP! up and tell them to shove their irrelevancies where the moon never shines?
Once again, it appears that good, decent, sensible people who have everything to gain and nothing to lose from standing their ground will retreat from confrontation even when all evidence and reason is on their side. They’d simply rather not lock ‘em up with the Left’s crazies. The consequence is that in the state of political war we currently endure, only one side is actually fighting. They’ve noticed how confrontation-averse we are, and have responded by straining to politicize everything: every aspect of life, no matter how minuscule.
I get it, you know. Confrontation is unpleasant. People could get their feelings hurt. Who knows, there might be epithets hurled, spittle flying, purses swung. Someone might even break a nail! Far better to retire from the field and let the crazies have it. It doesn’t matter that much, after all.
Except that it does matter. It matters very much.
To the extent that the Left has succeeded in politicizing non-political aspects of life and society, they have gained ground against us. It’s the Right that values privacy, amicability, and tolerance of divergent views. It’s the Right that has lamented the polarization of entertainment and the harassment of cultural institutions on political grounds. It’s the Right that has pleaded for the return of courtesy in discourse. Are any of those things compatible with politicization?
One of our greatest failings these past few decades has been allowing the Left to politicize non-political events and associations. Had we stood our ground and refused to allow that in the first place, what has followed could not and would not have occurred. Maybe we aren’t as tough as we should be – and maybe it’s long past time to change that.
Well my telephone was ringing
And they told me it was Chairman Mao
Well my telephone was ringing
And they told me it was Chairman Mao
You can tell him anything
'Cause I just don't wanna talk to him nowI've got the apolitical blues
And that's the meanest blues of all
Apolitical blues
And that's the meanest blues of all
I don't care if it's John Wayne
I just don't wanna talk to him now[Lowell George, for Little Feat]
PORTON DOWN/RUSSIA/NOVICHOK: Boris Johnson: Porton Down told me it was Russia.
He makes several compelling points that I commend to you for your consideration. Most of them are also relevant to the recent supposed Syrian government use of chlorine gas in Douma.
What I think is most important is to try to show a side of this man that simply cannot be seen on the major U.S. media. Any number of buffoons, zealots, and flak merchants appear hourly to make Mr. Assad out as someone barely above the level of an Al Sharpton or Hillary Clinton with a personal malignancy to be seen nowhere else on the planet.
A truer picture of this man must be presented to counter the lies and propaganda that sluice through our corrupt media.
Here’s the relevant question: Does this man seem like a decent, intelligent, educated man or does he strike you as the man he is portrayed as in our media?
When A Government Declares A Verdict Before An Investigation, It’s Because There’s A Preexisting Agenda[1]Western governments seem to avoid honest inquiry like it's an embarrassing rash. Not even cursory examination of the facts of the Douma or the Khan Sheikhoun chemical weapons "incidents" was made before the rocketry soared into Syrian skies.
The deeper the treachery and stupidity take root the more savage the denial and punishment of critics must be.
The same phenomenon of "I can't hear you" is visible where lunatic economic, feminist, and social notions infest a society. Opposing voices simply won't be heard or they will be violently suppressed.
What we are seeing is evidence of pronounced decay of political and social life. Truth is out of favor and lies and murder flourish.
Notes
[1] Caitlin Johnstone, Rogue Journalist, 4/10/18.
Institutional subornation appears to be the American Left’s primary tactic today. Moreover, it doesn’t matter what the institution was created to do. If it concentrates money, political power, or influence over public opinion, it will be targeted. Its size and efficacy at those things will determine its priority among the Left’s targets.
Scant wonder, then, that the Left put America’s Christian churches high on its target list. Its successes there have been spectacular. Catholicism being the largest Christian denomination, it was first to be attacked. Unfortunately, the Church’s clerical policy of ordaining only men provided an efficient invasion route. As outright homosexuals were admitted to and graduated from the seminaries, flowed into American rectories, pulpits became political platforms, and other dominoes fell, we arrived at atrocities such as this one:
John McAdams and a slew of academic-freedom groups are challenging Marquette’s indefinite, unpaid suspension of the conservative political science professor after he criticized a fellow instructor for refusing to let a student disagree with gay marriage in her classroom.Marquette President Michael Lovell ordered McAdams to admit his “guilt” for blogging about the incident between Cheryl Abbate, at the time a graduate student instructor in philosophy, and a student in her undergraduate ethics class. He refused, and has been banned from campus for more than three years.
The administration and professor have continued arguing the case in the public square as the April 19 Wisconsin Supreme Court hearing nears. McAdams went so far as to describe Marquette’s demands of him as “Stalinist stuff” in a recent Fox News interview.
The original incident shines an unsparing light on Marquette’s campaign of defamation against McAdams:
A student we know was in a philosophy class (“Theory of Ethics”), and the instructor (one Cheryl Abbate) was attempting to apply a philosophical text to modern political controversies. So far so good.She listed some issues on the board, and came to “gay rights.” She then airily said that “everybody agrees on this, and there is no need to discuss it.”
The student, a conservative who disagrees with some of the gay lobby’s notions of “gay rights” (such as gay marriage) approached her after class and told her he thought the issue deserved to be discussed. Indeed, he told Abbate that if she dismisses an entire argument because of her personal views, that sets a terrible precedent for the class.
What followed is paradigmatic of Leftist censorship of divergent views:
Abbate explained that “some opinions are not appropriate, such as racist opinions, sexist opinions” and then went on to ask “do you know if anyone in your class is homosexual?” And further “don’t you think it would be offensive to them” if some student raised his hand and challenged gay marriage? The point being, apparently that any gay classmates should not be subjected to hearing any disagreement with their presumed policy views.... She went on “In this class, homophobic comments, racist comments, will not be tolerated.” She then invited the student to drop the class.Which the student is doing.
McAdams has sued for reinstatement, and has received considerable support. Marquette has decided on a counter-campaign of defamation:
Marquette, knowing they have been taking a public relations beating over their attempt to fire this blogger, has bought a Google ad to point people to their biased and selective page of “resources” on our case....One utterly libelous thing Marquette has posted is the claim that we “doxed” the instructor about whom we posted, one Cheryl Abbate. Abbate, remember, told an undergraduate that he was not allowed to express opposition to gay marriage in class since it would be “homophobic” and would “offend” any gay students in class.
“Doxing” is defined as follows:
To dox someone is “to publicly identify or publish private information about (someone) especially as a form of punishment or revenge.”
We, of course, did no such thing. Rather, we linked to Abbate’s toxic feminist essay “Yes All Men… Contribute to the Prevalence of Rape,” published on her blog. If somebody dug around her blog, they could have found her e-mail address.
But just how is an e-mail address somebody publishes on their own blog “private information?”
Marquette, quite simply, is lying about this.
Mind you Marquette is a Catholic university, which receives funds from Catholic donors. It also receives funds from campaigns for Catholic educational institutions, which occur in parishes throughout the United States each and every year. And of course, the doctrine of the Catholic Church is that marriage is a sacred contract between a biological man and a biological woman. Indeed, it’s one of the “five non-negotiables:” declarations of absolutely inadmissible moral wrongs to which all Catholics are expected to assent without qualification:
These five “non-negotiables” derive from the Church’s stance on the sanctity of human life, its origin, and its nature as a gift from God.
At this point, Marquette’s defamation campaign against McAdams is attempting to cloud the issue. This appears on its “facts” page about the case, where it claims that McAdams violated the university’s mission to “care for the whole person” because he publicly criticized a graduate student:
We cannot and will not stand by when a professor needlessly and recklessly harms a student teacher by putting her name and contact information on the internet before a hostile audience without her permission. If John McAdams had written the exact blog post and omitted the student teacher’s name and contact information, no disciplinary action would have been taken.
Inasmuch as all McAdams did in his blog post was to link to Cheryl Abbate’s blog — note that that blog is now devoid of content – Marquette’s claim that McAdams “doxed” her is plainly a second slander. It’s also a red herring: Marquette’s administration supports Abbate substantively. It does not want Catholic doctrine on the inherent wrongness of “gay marriage” discussed in a Marquette classroom.
If homosexual marriage, which is promoted as a “gay right” by homosexual activists from coast to coast, cannot be discussed in a classroom at a Catholic university, where can it be discussed? Yet Marquette’s administration sided with the censoriousness of teaching assistant Cheryl Abbate against the Catholicism and liberality of Professor John McAdams. Not only did it harshly penalize McAdams, it’s conducting a smear campaign against him prior to his countersuit coming to trial.
Clearly, this supposedly Catholic institution has been completely suborned. It is no longer Catholic as the Church and true Catholics understand the designation. Yet it continues to represent itself as such, and to receive funds under that pretense – because the Catholic Church in America was suborned first.
It’s my policy never to contribute funds to any organization whose conduct I suspect. These days, that’s just about every organization on Earth. The ongoing politicization of the Catholic Church in America is even making it difficult for me to contribute to the support of my own parish, as I know that at least one of its priests makes use of his pulpit to push his political positions.
The conflation of the Christian faith with leftist / “progressive” political stances, and the suppression of any Church doctrine that contradicts any of those stances, is one of the Left’s highest priorities. Whatever holdouts there might be will be defamed, marginalized, and silenced. Marquette’s administration has attempted to do exactly that to Professor John McAdams, in blatant contradiction of Marquette’s supposedly Catholic identity.
Even in your most private moments – even in your worship – even when you’re alone and on your knees – you will be made to care.
Thus, the lesson that the US Government learned from the Iraq invasion isn’t that the US Government should never again lie about what the evidence actually shows, in order to invade a country, but instead that the US Government should simply ignore the UN whenever the evidence doesn’t persuade other Governments that an invasion would be authentically defensive instead of purely an act of international aggression.
What might turn out to have been “The Most Important UN Security Council Vote Ever” was the 10 April 2018 UN Security Council’s failure to require the US and its allies to provide evidence to prove that Syria’s Government had gassed its own people in Douma on April 7th as the US and its allies alleged, before the US and its allies could, with even just possible legal justification, launch massive bombing of Syria as supposed punishment for the gas-attack that they were alleging. The question of whether or not the UN would authorize the American invasion wasn’t even being raised; the question was only whether the alleged gas-attack needed to be independently verified before an invasion might possibly legally be launched — and no proposal was passed. Unlike in the 2003 invasion of Iraq, the US never tried to win UN authorization to invade Syria in 2018, but simply invaded, casually ignoring all laws, and even denying the need for evidence to back up its allegations against Syria.[1]
Notes
[1] "How US Has Virtually Destroyed UN." By Eric Zuesse , Stretegic Culture, 4/17/18 (bold text added).
[Today, some fiction. It’s been said that there’s no such thing as a worthless life – that anyone can serve as a warning to others. Some such warnings require more than a whisper to make themselves heard. – FWP]
Darren disliked shopping. He acknowledged the necessity, of course – no one dislikes it so much that he’d rather starve to death – but he approached each necessary trip to the local supermarket in a mood that compounded equal parts resignation and resentment.
In all candor, Darren disliked leaving his house for any reason. It was the reason for his choice of residence and occupation. Leaving the house in which he lived entirely alone brought with it the possibility of human contact. Having to deal with other people, no matter how briefly or formally, was something he avoided above all else.
It wasn’t that Darren disliked people. He was just a natural isolate. He lived a rich interior life, and he preferred not to allow the agendas and concerns of others to disturb it. But because he was tall and handsome, when he was out and about people tended to gravitate to him, and it messed him up. The consequences could ruin the rest of a perfectly good day.
Unfortunately for Darren, the district in which he’d chosen to live had no supermarkets that delivered. As large as his pantry was and as sedulously as he kept it filled, needs for items he couldn’t store kept cropping up, forcing him out of his comfortable solitude and into the company of others.
It was an irritation for which he could find no analgesic. He’d tried doing his shopping during the wee hours, but it proved unsatisfactory. The market was never empty. Worse, the typical two AM shopper was either a fortyish divorcee or a member of the underwear-on-head crew. Both sorts were far too friendly. He’d have offered a neighbor’s teenage kid money to shop for him, but that would have required him to interact with his neighbors. The mere thought caused him to shudder.
Resenting the necessity all the way, he donned a jacket against the spring breeze, drove to the nearest supermarket, parked well away from the building, and crept as stealthily as he could manage toward the generally dispreferred side entrance. He selected a cart from the meager pile there, marshaled his resolve, and strode into the store.
He immediately began to plot course through the aisles that would minimize both his time in the store and his encounters with others, but he was halted before he’d gone ten feet inside.
“Excuse me, sir?”
Darren was jolted out of his strategizing. Before him stood a young man in the store’s livery. The young fellow had plainly addressed him. Indeed, he hadn’t been there until that very instant.
I’ve been intercepted. What for?
“Yes?” Darren strove to imbue the monosyllable with a clear don’t waste my time with your special offers message.
The young man was unperturbed. “What’s your name, please?”
Darren frowned. “Why do you want to know?”
“For your badge.” The young man held up a quick-stick label of the sort used for temporary identification badges.
Darren’s discomfort rose several notches. “But why do I need a badge?”
“It’s something we’re trying out.” The young man waved at a small knot of other shoppers who were conversing in far too amiable a fashion. “We’re hoping to make shopping a more social sort of activity. There aren’t many ways for people around here to get to know each other. If we know one another’s names, we might start conversations, discover common interests, maybe even become friends.” He smiled winningly. “Foster a sense of community.”
Darren smiled formally. “I’ll pass, thanks.” He tried to move on.
“But sir,” the young man pressed, “you’d be the only shopper without one!” His voice dropped to a murmur. “Think how conspicuous that would make you.”
Between the devil and the deep blue sea.
“All right,” Darren said. He steeled himself. “It’s Darren.”
The young man drew DARREN on the label in large, shaky block letters and, incredibly, slapped the thing onto Darren’s left lapel without so much as a by-your-leave. “Have a nice day!”
And so the ordeal began.
No matter where in the store he was, Darren was repeatedly accosted by persons – mostly women – who greeted him by his name as if they were old school chums. Worse, they started to chat. They’d talk about anything and everything. They asked him how he was doing, what he liked about the store and the neighborhood, inquired into his trade and how he liked it, nattered about how friendly everyone was that day, and much else. He tried to restrict his answers to grunts and monosyllables. He asked nothing of his interlocutors and tried repeatedly to excuse himself so that he could finish his shopping and get out of the store. Nothing he did could free him swiftly enough from their clutches. They turned what ought to have been a twenty-minute irritation into an hour of torture with their endless shallow sallies at unwanted and unsolicited intimacy.
It didn’t end at the checkout. The clerk there greeted him cheerily and started yet another pointless chat – this time, about her cat’s hairball problem. Darren said nothing the whole time. He bagged his goods as speedily as he could, threw a wad of twenties at the startled clerk without looking at the store receipt, and pressed for the exits at warp speed. His pell-mell flight nearly occasioned a fatal collision with a short, fat woman in a headscarf and yoga clothes whose two carts were filled to overflowing with junk foods of every variety.
He managed to get home and get his goods unpacked before giving way to the shakes.
The terrors continued throughout the spring and into the summer.
The supermarket’s policy proved popular. People liked knowing the names of other shoppers. Some said it transformed the shopping experience from a begrudged necessity into a positive, enjoyable outing. Others said it reduced their wariness about those around them. Other stores, first those in the supermarket’s little strip mall, then elsewhere in the region, adopted the policy, one after another.
Darren was at wits’ end. He disliked having to leave his house under normal circumstances. The new plague of neighborly amicability made him dread it. His shopping trips came to loom larger and more distasteful than an appointment for a colonoscopy. He began to think seriously about moving, and half-seriously about moving to a place where no one spoke English.
It took him many weeks and much hard thought before he stumbled upon the countermeasure.
Darren smiled at his reflection in his bedroom mirror. The suit hung precisely as it should. The tie was just the right shade of eye-scorching red. The briefcase was iconic, a perfect totem object for the role he was to play. He nodded, squared his shoulders, and set out on a course that would change history. Well, local history, anyway.
The usual pile of carts heaped like four-wheeled jackstraws beckoned to him. He hefted his briefcase and walked past them without breaking stride, directly into the store. And there before him stood the young employee who’d greeted him on his initial encounter with badge-dom.
The young man was clearly puzzled. “Don’t you need a cart, sir?”
Darren smiled and shook his head. “Not today.”
“Well, a handbasket, then?” The young man gestured at a small pile of nested handbaskets.
Another shake of the head. “May I have my badge, please? The name’s Darren.”
Still puzzled, the young man scrawled his name on a badge, again in block letters. Darren quickly plucked it from his fingers, applied it to his left lapel, and strode into the aisles to introduce the store’s management and his neighbors to the depths of remorse.
His first victim-to-be was a middle-aged woman who stood alone in the produce section, seemingly straining to choose between two bags of grapes. He approached her in a state of venomous glee. she looked up at him, noted his lapel badge, and smiled. His smile was the more piercing for being entirely unholy. She was about to issue a greeting when he pre-empted.
“Good morning, Sarah,” he said in a tone that dripped Pennsylvania crude. “My name is Darren and I’m with Midwest Assurances.” He swung his briefcase up between them and popped the catches. “May I acquaint you with our twenty-three varieties of life coverage, any one of which is easily tailored to your individual needs?”
Sarah’s friendly smile became a mask of horror. She screamed.
The store was utterly empty not ten minutes afterward.
Copyright © 2018 Francis W. Porretto
The correlations among postures on contentious issues – for example, the pro-life position and the pro-Second Amendment rights position – is quite strong. Given that Smith is pro-life, the assumption that he’s also pro-firearms rights is a good one. The converse is also true.
Which gives this particular contretemps more significance than it would have otherwise:
Kyle Kashuv is going to prom. With a girl he doesn’t know. Who lives in another state. Kashuv is one of the few survivors of the Marjory Stoneman Douglas shooting who publicly supports the Second Amendment. He has gained a substantial Twitter following based largely on his refusal to toe the party line on gun control, or engage in the negative rhetoric of his classmates on the left. But now Twitter has gained him something else: a date.Last week a girl from Nebraska, who goes by Fidan on Twitter, sent Kyle a direct message asking, “How many retweets for prom?!!” Kyle responded, “5K,” adding “Also I don’t have a tux.” Fidan tweeted out this exchange with the caption, “PLEASE HELP ME OUT. A DREAM COME TRUE.” And Twitter leapt to the challenge.
Within a day Fidan had her 5,000 retweets. To tackle Kyle’s other dilemma — the lack of a tux — Fidan set up a GoFundMe page with a goal of raising $1,700 to cover the cost of the tuxedo and Kyle’s plane travel to and from Nebraska. She met her goal within six days. But what about Kyle? Would he actually go?
Kyle’s answer came as a result of an unfortunate plot twist in this little romance. In amongst all the well-wishers and retweeters came Planned Parenthood senior advisor Elizabeth Thorp, like some kind of anti-fairy godmother, telling Fidan: “Hard pass, sweet girl. You can do better.”
The linked story follows this ugly little drama to its current state.
There’s more significance to matter synopsized above than the contemptible spectacle of a Planned Parenthood employee offering unsolicited, mean-spirited “advice” to a young woman she doesn’t know over something she has no stake in. It’s a piercing illustration of the quoted phrase in the title of this piece.
The Left is determined to inflict as much suffering as possible on anyone it regards as an adversary. It identifies adversaries according to a simple test: If you’re in favor of any one of the following propositions:
...you’re an enemy of the Left and must be made to suffer as greatly as possible and for as long as possible.
It’s about making you care. It’s not intended to compel you to adopt the Left’s position on the issue of interest, but to notify you that every time you open your mouth, Leftists will do their best to make you wish you hadn’t.
Moreover, the list above is not exhaustive; there are other positions that will trigger the Left’s punitive impulses just as effectively. In all probability, being a Gentle Reader of Liberty’s Torch qualifies you for as much punishment as the Left can ladle out.
The many comments on the state of America’s “cold civil war” all point back to one phenomenon. It reaches into the most private and apolitical aspects of an individual’s life. There is no “Geneva Convention” applicable to American life or discourse. Everyone is a front-line combatant, at least in the opinion of the Left. Consider this next-to-unbelievable article as the Left’s High Command’s objective in that war.
Economist Herbert Stein is famous for having said that “If something cannot continue indefinitely, it will stop.” “Something” in that sentence is a true wildcard. One can replace it with any phenomenon whatsoever. That includes the Left’s total-war attitude toward its identified opponents. The nation cannot endure this state of affairs, which affects every aspect of American life, forever.
But there appears to be no way to arrive at an armistice. The “agreement to disagree” is gone and resists being resurrected. This is entirely congruent with the Left’s unstated though quite exclusive creed:
The secular left in America has its own religion -- the state. Worship of the state and the self cannot tolerate dissent or competition, and therefore is moving aggressively to shut down, silence, and drive from the town square any competing ideas. Evil has been preaching tolerance, but now that it is dominate, it seeks to silence good. [ Erick Erickson ]
Theirs is a faith that tolerates no dissent, however mildly expressed.
There is a positive aspect to this. Leyden and Teixeira might eventually regret having stated their core position – i.e., that the Right must be squashed, deprived of any foothold in the nation’s politics or its discourse:
The Republican Party over the past 40 years has maneuvered itself into a position where they are the bad guys on the wrong side of history. For a long time, they have been able to hide this fact through a sophisticated series of veils, invoking cultural voodoo that fools a large enough number of Americans to stay in the game....America finally needs to take the Republican Party down for a generation or two. Not just the presidency. Not just clear out the U.S. House. Not just tip back the Senate. But fundamentally beat the Republicans on all levels at once, including clearing out governorships and statehouses across the land.
Thus, the Left has made its position clear: If you’re a conservative or a Republican partisan, you’re a bad guy, an enemy, and must be cast into the outer darkness. You must be allowed no part, no voice. And you must be reminded, at every opportunity, of how deeply the Left hates you for the crime of differing with them.
It’s time we took them at their word. We in the Right must resolve to fight as they do: a outrance. There are no longer any rules. There certainly isn’t a threshold of incivility or cruelty that anyone need respect. Elizabeth Thorp’s treatment of Kyle and Fidan makes that plain.
It’s not just about a prom date.
Today the Russian Defense Ministry accused Britain of having directed the staged attack:NotesRussian Defense Ministry spokesman, Maj. Gen. Igor Konashenkov, released statements by medics from Douma’s hospital who said a group of people toting video cameras entered the hospital, shouting that its patients were struck with chemical weapons and causing panic. The medics said none of the patients were hurt by chemicals.[1]
The announcement from Paul Ryan, currently the Speaker of the House of Representatives, that he will not stand for re-election in the 2018 midterms has been greeted with optimism among pro-freedom and pro-Trump conservatives. They seem confident that anyone would make a better Speaker than Ryan. Admittedly, Ryan hasn’t been terribly effective in that post, but the midterm election could change the power balance in the chamber. At this juncture, how confident should we be that the Representatives returned to us in January 2019 will present a more conservative and pro-Trump appearance?
It’s not looking good from here, I’ll tell you that much. The Republican caucuses in Congress have evoked massive disappointment from the Republican base. It seems to many that they regard thwarting President Trump as a higher priority than advancing a conservative agenda. The appearance that this is so gives plausibility to the notion that there’s really only one major party: a Permanent Bipartisan Party of the Political Elite, dedicated above all else to retaining an iron grip on the levers of power.
The electoral system being heavily biased toward incumbents, it’s highly unlikely that any amount of conventional politicking would result in a large-scale replacement of the members of Congress. And if you find the implications of that distasteful, well...welcome to the club.
“Special prosecutor” Robert Mueller’s recent overreach in having the FBI raid the offices of Michael Cohen, President Trump’s personal lawyer, has a lot of pro-Trump folks slavering over the prospect that Trump will at long last “cowboy up” and fire the vicious, unprincipled bastard. While it is within the president’s power to do so, it’s unlikely that Trump will take that step. Virtually the whole of Congress is arrayed against it. Some have spoken of impeachment proceedings before this. More would undoubtedly do so should Mueller be fired...and some of them might be Republicans. Remember that John McCain still sits on Capitol Hill.
President Trump has already reversed course in one important matter: he has declared that he will not submit to an interview by Mueller or any of his henchmen. That’s all to the good, as it has become plain that Mueller and his team are determined to force Trump out of the White House and will seize on any pretext to advance toward that end. A skilled interviewer could make it impossible for Trump to answer his questions in a fashion invulnerable to misinterpretation. That’s how the DoJ rattled Mike Flynn into a guilty plea, put Martha Stewart behind bars, and ruined Lewis “Scooter” Libby.
Given the above, I’d be unsurprised should Establishment Republicans, many of whom still nurse a grudge against Trump for defeating them in the 2016 primaries (and making them look like fat-cats and fools since then), mount pressure on Trump to allow Mueller to interview him. It’s the sort of thing one does to an enemy toward whom one must pretend amity.
The native peoples of Europe have begun a wheeling turn back toward national pride and opposition to mass immigration to their countries. It’s about time. Europe, the source of nearly everything good about contemporary civilization and one of the few places where the white race remains in the majority, is in danger of being destroyed by the horde of Muslim and African “refugees” battering at its gates. Hungary’s election of Viktor Orban suggests that Europeans’ recognition of their civilizational peril, while too long delayed, is firming toward a decisive reversal in policy.
In the long run it won’t matter. Whites of European descent have ceased to reproduce quickly enough to replace themselves. The Middle Eastern and African savages who’ve managed to penetrate Europe are reproducing far more swiftly. You can point this out to any white European. No matter his overt reaction, he’ll regard it as “not my problem,” and pass on to whatever he deems more important than breeding for the sake of a future he doesn’t expect to see.
It’s unlikely that any nation in Europe will become a second Lebanon or Zimbabwe in what remains of my lifetime. Nevertheless, I must counsel my younger Gentle Readers: If you’ve toyed with the idea of touring Europe, don’t put it off any longer than you must. Once the savage fraction reaches a certain threshold, there won’t be anything much left of the Old World from which our New one sprang.
For a while I was cheered by the rapid development of privately owned and operated orbital transport. It seemed that free enterprise had at last accepted the challenge of taking Man to the ultimate frontier from which the U.S. government had retreated. And indeed, companies such as SpaceX and Blue Origin have made considerable strides toward more economical (albeit still too expensive for a holiday weekend) access to Earth orbit. Perhaps, in another decade or two, we’d see construction begin on space habitats, and perhaps on some persistent human-occupied installations on the Moon.
Maybe...but more likely not. The principal customers for orbital access are national governments. It would be in those governments’ interest to squash any private effort to colonize space or any of the other bodies in the Solar System. They could do so rather easily, either by terminating all contracts with the company that tries it or by invoking “national security” laws to forbid the effort altogether. Of those two paths, the latter is the more likely. Any government with a “national security” statute could claim that its “security” depends on not being bombed from orbit – and never mind that the owners of a privately-operated space station would have neither a reason nor an incentive to do so.
The High Frontier remains Mankind’s best chance at contriving an escape from ever more tyrannical Earthly governments. It’s where I’ve framed my most optimistic vision of the future. I have no doubt whatsoever that the movers and shakers within national political elites are just as aware of that as are you and I. The implications are left to my Gentle Readers.
Not a usual sort of Liberty’s Torch column, eh? Well, sometimes I get like this. The onset is always slow and steady. When it reaches a certain level I must resort to pixels of gloom. Happily, it usually doesn’t last long.
I married a cockeyed optimist, which provides a certain perverse impetus to “balance” her out now and then. When she catches me in such a state, she usually just chuckles. However, this morning I discovered that she’s acquired a new arrow for her quiver. “Why be such a pessimist?” she said. “You know it doesn’t do any good.”
I reflected on that thrust for a moment, said, “Yeah, you’re right,” and sat down to write the above.
Have a nice weekend, Gentle Reader. Maybe the sun will come out, though, frankly, I doubt it.
Russian Evidence...
As proof of the third point consider this amazing article up on South Front[1] in which there is a video showing how the former chief of the U.K. armed forces, Gen. Jonathan Shaw, is summarily cut off in the midst of an interview with Sky News in Britain when he strays off the reservation where only thoughts of “Animal Assad did it” are permitted to reside:
This is simply astonishing treatment of a man once the most senior military man in the United Kingdom.
Notes
[1] "Sky News Cuts Off Former Head of British Armed Forces While He Questiones Douma ‘Chemical Attack.’" By South Front, 4/13/18.
