A Review of the Movie, "Lazarus Man"

The award-winning movie "Lazarus Man," starring Barack Obama, typified the American mindset of the early century.

One of the pivotal scenes of the movie is described below.

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Teacher's Lounge. Barack Obama is an idealistic young history teacher for Eighth Grade students. He is bewildered by the apathy of the teaching staff, and the absolute, immobile stupidity of the classes. He is speaking with one of the senior teachers.

O>I don't get it. You sit there and read the paper during every class, and give them nothing but thinly-veiled contempt - let them drift in and out of the room, talk, fight. You make no pretense to teach them. Why do they hate me more than they hate you?

It's because you suck as a shepherd, Obama. You bring the sheep out in the meadow, and torture them for your own selfish entertainment. At least get under a tree, get drunk and fall asleep. That's what good shepherds have done through the ages.

O>But I want to DO something - to make a DIFFERENCE in their lives.

Obama - you have come face to face with the soul of your species, and you don't like it. You don't like reality. THEY are reality. All a sheep really cares about is being next to the ass-hole of the nearest sheep. Anything else makes them scared.

O>But I was NOTHING like them when I was in school!

That's because you are a mistake, a genetic aberration. All of this shit about fresh-faced, eager young students looking for knowledge - those are the occasional and rare, the little blips that the race sends out every once in a while, to ask a question. The question is - "ARE WE INTELLIGENT BEINGS?" The answer is "NO." And you won't face reality for long enough to understand that. So you torture the sheep.

Every class has one or two of them, like you, every few years. The other students usually beat the shit out of them, for a good reason. They are dangerous to the herd. They might grow up and be like YOU.

O>I can't stand it. So we're supposed to sit back and produce ANOTHER generation that grows up, becomes miserable, gets drunk, lives for nothing, beats their wives and kids? Like we don't care?

As opposed to what, Barama? You have just described the character of our species - it's no difference than pointing out that sheep live in herds, bees in hives, that lions eat herbivores. That's what we do, by and large. It's the caring part - that's an alien idea, as foreign as though it came from Mars. Ask your class. Go ahead, you got balls? Ask them how to be a better teacher. They'll tell you to read the paper and leave them the fuck alone.

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All you really are, Barama, is a spore of a bad idea, a terrible idea - that stuff that we teach right out of Civics 101, that Tom Jefferson horseshit. It's a lot better that they associate him with President's Day Sales Events, and Mount Rushmore, than the crap that you're peddling, that you have in your head.

You serve a useful function to society. You encapsulate those with the potential for bad ideas - your fellow fresh-faced idealists - and protect the herd from them. Think of your "greatest inspiration," your favorite teacher. He or she did society a favor. Look what happened to you. Look where YOU wound up with, you with your best ideas.

O>But I'm here to teach! To give somebody a chance!!

Whatever got you here - it protected the herd. You didn't go to a place where you could cause the greatest damage. People like Lenin and Hitler - they caused some serious damage to the herd. Not you. Thank God.

Every time, some fucker with a vision, some idealistic-minded asshole, gets up there - and usually he's psychopathic enough to snare a shitload of people in his delusion - a Believer. Every time some fucker like you gets into a dangerous position, the species takes a hit.

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That's why Jesus walked on the deal. Took a dive. Willingly walked into the Wheel of Karma - more like a sawblade.

You like history, Obama? Here's this for you. All the contemporary Gospel literature was about the return of the Line of David. Jesus came down, and had the choice - go ahead with the plan, or face the reality of what He really created. He took the Dive. He walked on us. The whole rest of Christian literature is all about papering over that fact. He dumped us.

"All the New Jerusalem stuff? Not here, not on this planet, not with this mis-begotten species.  It's all right there in the Bible, see?  They had to do a little creative revision to get the story out that Jesus still loves us.  They spun the Temptation by the Devil, and the story of the Three Tabernacles, out of the Gethsemane story.  That's when he walked.  The night before.  It's all one story.  He thought about becoming the New David for all of us - and he said, 'fuck it.'"

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Doug French on the Bubble

It's hard to be blindingly cynical every day.  Read Doug French on the Bubble Economy in Mises (see also You Can't Print Prosperity for yux) - he'll carry the water today.

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PS: How long do we have? Bill Sardi says until Tuesday. That's the big melt-down for him. I'm still going for October 17th.

Sardi, French, FDIC

On Animadversion

An excerpt from a letter.

Thank you again for a wonderful essay, "Is There a Natural Anti-Liberty Mindset?" You draw near enough to a certain human skill which intrigues me deeply, that I thought I should share my observations on this common interest with you.

There is a certain capacity of the human mind, a fundamental skill of civilized survival, which I call "animadversion." It's a Latin word which has not been brought into English inaccurately; we use it as a pale shadow of its original meaning. It is the facility of drawing one's attention to an issue of interest for further scrutiny under the full energy of our reason, and all our intellectual skill. This psychological process is a necessary precursor of the application of reason to a particular item worth study.

We hint at it in concepts such as "distraction" and "inattention" and "concentration." I believe that it is a skill which is taught in all fine schools and by all fine teachers; and is generally not refined in American society, but perhaps indeed suppressed.

The principle comprises the finding of something worthy of the application of reason and common sense, and the perseverate ability to see it through until reason is exhausted, and the desired conclusion is discovered.

Ayn Rand was a dogged and fierce advocate of this process, and imbued it with a moral necessity in Atlas Shrugged and in other places. She ties it closely with the moral elements necessary seen in good character.

You refer to a thing called an "anti-liberty mindset," and consider whether it is a manner of thinking which is innate or learned. I would suggest that such things derive from a simple psychological process that is the enemy of animadversion; that is, the ability to halt the process of rational thought upon encountering a certain signal, like a "Stop Command" of a Turing calculating machine - Halt and End, do not proceed in thinking, you are done.

This facility is regrettably an element of many dogmas, and is eagerly trained in American society. If we are careless in a certain matter, is someone likely to be harmed? There are areas in which we permit ourselves persistence of attention, such that we might come to a more clear conclusion, and others in which we stop and go no further. It nears the concept of "denial," but is not exactly so.

Sometimes this occurs from simple intellectual flabbiness, the weakness and inexperience in the skill of following a thought through independently, regardless of consequences or approbation. Sometimes we see it in the other extreme, which is the conscious choice to distract the attention to other matters at hand.

There is something sluttish about this passivity, to be intellectually defiled and deviated with the feeblest of consent, the rational equivalent of "boredom sex."  CS Lewis made great use of this characteristic of humans in "The Screwtape Letters," which are fictional examples of correspondence between devils, and using it as a manner of frustrating moral growth. A great, but insanely depressing read.

Our culture has refined intellectual passivity to the point that many people seek intellectual thralldom, disguised as "relief from stress," i.e. the stress of being intellectually alive. We get high, we gamble, we watch the Idiot Box or the InterSewer.  We substitute intellectually vacant memes, mantras which we do not even have the character of will to repeat ourselves, preferring to receive them on the broadcast media.

Death Panels, Chandra Levy, Miss California, Tea Parties, Global Warming. These are all things which many people in our culture simply receive as pre-packaged thought bullets to be attended to. We are even encouraged to take these things up and arrive at the pre-directed conclusion which is expected of us, having become incredibly skilled in media nuance.

Michael Vick has a job with the Eagles - good or bad? We search our database, struggling with connotations and nuance. I have a dog, and like dogs, therefore I am supposed to say "BAD!" in an energetic and outraged fashion. Angelina Jolie, and what of her? Good or bad?

This suffices for intellectual life for many members of our civilization, as near to being on life-support as anyone might wish to be. I would have the plug pulled, myself.

I would say that the capacity is perhaps innate - no more foreign to us, than the ability to draw our attention to things of greater urgency that suddenly present itself. A hominid lost in thought during a tiger attack, is a hominid less likely to survive. We have psychological conditions, such as "obsessive-compulsive disorder" where a person's ability to turn their attention this way and that under their own volition, has become impaired.

But it is only a primitive skill, which needs refinement - or expungement, as our society earnestly strives for. Stubborn attention to detail is not a particular hallmark of American civilization, and greatly to its detriment. I recommend reading some of John Taylor Gatto's writing on teaching to see an exploration of the matter; and also "Teaching as a Subversive Activity" by Postman and Weingardner - and old and deeply flawed book, but containing brilliance nonetheless.

You offer the wonderful paragraph:

"Is there a natural anti-liberty mindset? No, there is not. Children want to ask questions, to explore, to experiment, and to think. People truly want charity, or as that word is also understood, kindness and love. In such an environment, liberty flourishes. But there is an artificial anti-liberty mindset promoted incessantly by all things state, and by all things political. It can be rejected, combated, and I hope, destroyed. The first step is to recognize that the anti-liberty mindset is not natural – in spite of the state’s sustained and subtle messages to the contrary."

I'm sure that you understand FAR more than I do the utilitarian purposes of installing these mind-stops into people, well-demonstrated in the military. Humans, left to their own devices, do very human things, such as run away in combat; a tendency which leads to poor outcomes in military things. The Italians and French now bear the banner of this egregious habit, and the military strives to suppress it. Thankfully, the groundwork has been well-laid in the first eighteen years, making the advanced training much easier.

It is perhaps ironic that the very first thing which MUST be learned in military training is how to surrender - completely, abjectly, totally surrender.

The capacity to turn one's mind away without a struggle is the very antithesis of Libertarian understanding of civilization and humanity. Rarely is it clearly spoken of - although Ayn Rand brought it forth at the very start of her writings, and called it "Anti-Life." I think it deserves further discussion, as one of the most profound ideas which have harmed mankind.

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What is wrong with these Libertarians?

They are the oddest of fellows - these libertarians, and the anarchists, the minarchists. Has something gone wrong with their mental biochemistry, that makes them embrace such odd perspectives? Aren't these the sort of radical whackadoodles that Mother warned about?

One can easily forget, now that the public is offered uninterrupted strains of normative and abnormal behavior, all but with subtitles on how to behave - that how people think is exactly that and no more - how people think. We seem to allow whoever wishes to assert authority, the prerogative of confrontation - to demand a person demonstrate that their beliefs are conformist, benign, permissible.  Queer beliefs, literally and figuratively, are permitted. but one must accept one's queerness - the ultimate arrogance shown in the Stonewall Riots, when Americans stood up and said - I am who I am, what of it to you?

I swipe several quotes from an essay Personal Choices Under Corporate-State Rule, written by a nutcase who renounced his US citizenship out of free will and sound mind - if that, by definition, is not a paradox:

• The State can only survive as long as a majority [of the citizenry] is mentally programmed to believe that theft is not wrong if it is called taxation or asset forfeiture or eminent domain, that assault and kidnapping is not wrong if it is called arrest, that mass murder is not wrong if it is called war. ~ Bill St. Clair
• It is time for people to understand that governments not only are not necessary, but are harmful and most highly immoral institutions, in which a self-respecting honest man cannot and must not take part, and the advantages of which he cannot and should not enjoy. ~ Leo Tolstoy
• He or she who supports a State organized in a military way – whether directly or indirectly – participates in sin. Each man takes part in the sin by contributing to the maintenance of the State by paying taxes. ~ Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi

What is wrong with these people?

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Zehn Wöchen davor.

The works of the roots of the vines, of the trees, must be destroyed to keep up the price, and this is the saddest, bitterest thing of all. Carloads of oranges dumped on the ground. The people came for miles to take the fruit, but this could not be. How would they buy oranges at twenty cents a dozen if they could drive out and pick them up? And men with hoses squirt kerosene on the oranges, and they are angry at the crime, angry at the people who have come to take the fruit. A million people hungry, needing the fruit-and kerosene sprayed over the golden mountains. There is a crime here that goes beyond denunciation.

John Steinbeck

And they stand still and watch the potatoes float by, listen to the screaming pigs being killed in a ditch and covered with quicklime, watch the mountains of oranges slop down to a putrefying ooze; and in the eyes of the people there is the failure; and in the eyes of the hungry there is a growing wrath. In the souls of the people the grapes of wrath are filling and growing heavy, growing heavy for the vintage.

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By God, say I, we have forgotten it, all of it, and that which Santayana always prophesied came true. I feel like a fox gone to lair with the danger, ten weeks now until the great depression, die Zauberflaute comes off the horizon like a wrathful God. We cannot run, and neither can we hide. It is terrible, what is to come. I think I have put the basics together, apart from being a survivalist. But it comes.

I feel oddly like die Fastenzeit kommt, times two - forty days in the desert, and then forty more. The second of what may be as many as fourteen economic earthquakes is on the way; we have only seen the first. WE will be serious, only for a little while, on the next crash. In 78 days, 2,106 hours, 126,360 minutes, then we will be a different people.

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One lesson learned is that oranges must not be destroyed, nor pigs slaughtered, in front of the hungry. We now, much more clever in such things, hide it nicely in such things as the "Cash for Clunkers" CAR Allowance Rebate System (CARS)

• Your vehicle must be less than 25 years old on the trade-in date
• Only purchase or lease of new vehicles qualify
• Generally, trade-in vehicles must get 18 or less MPG (some very large pick-up trucks and cargo vans have different requirements)
• The program requires the scrapping of your eligible trade-in vehicle, and that the dealer disclose to you an estimate of the scrap value of your trade-in. The scrap value, however minimal, will be in addition to the rebate, and not in place of the rebate.

That last part, that's where the pigs are slaughtered. The purpose is to raise the price of vehicles, along with sales, by creating an artificial shortage of used cars.
My friend's car, which burns a quart of oil every 100 miles because the rings are shot, does NOT qualify.
A one-year-old HUMVEE which someone can't make the payments on, DOES.

The goal is to kill all the rolling stock of used vehicles - but quietly slaughtered, must less messily than horses. I pay to relieve the lessee of a car which he cannot afford, the cost of unsaleable pigs, which in modern terms is a Hummer or F-350. I watch the slaughter, which I have paid for.

Zehn Wöchenen davor. My people came here out of the Dust Bowl, suffering. They stayed, and did what they thought they could do, to prevent another great depression, but it came back. It is coming.

They knock at this door. This time?

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In Case You Don't Get It

The matter of the Arrest of Gates by Crowley dismays me terribly.  The privacy issues alone are worth discussion.  However, the case shows the absolute inability of the American People at large to detect bullshit whatsoever.  Chaplinsky v. New Hampshire is indeed fascism run amok.
But the American people first need to attune themselves to Reality and Reason before they can handle such things as discussion of an arrest. The Real World is inglorious, and the call on the case was made by Gates and Crowley, two pissed-off fellows trying to navigate the world as best they could.
The dangers of fascism do not come from the stoop of a Harvard residence. It runs deeper, and is far more our fault than we wish to admit.

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Here is the fundmental linguistic form of fascism.

(subject) should be (qualitative) (characteristic.)

Negroes should be more respectful.
Police should be less racist.

Any time that a missive is entered to THEM, and a subjunctive form of the indirect order is used, then fascism has whispered.  Officer Crowley might well indeed have lost control of the spiral by offering such advice, if he did so - Prof. Gates, you should be less agitated.
If Gates heard this (which is speculation) then he probably blew up (overreacted?) and the whole thing got on the Red Line to Hell.

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How we Became an Empire

To measure the course in history, the steps by which America became an Empire, one need only consider a few simple tenets of government.

We follow one variant of what we call limited government, but which is not by any means limited.

Some people believe in government which can expand or contract, in the semblance of a living organism, based upon the vicissitudes of the moment.  Government in times when all is well may remain small and unobtrusive; but when Great Events call, the Government must transform, in the manner of the children's toys, to meet the threat.

In a sense, we have a kept Republic, a pet form of representative government, that is quietly cared for by the Government.  The Senate and House may be thought of in the manner of the Smithsonian's other exhibits - a living museum of actors who go about their business in an orderly manner, to remind us of what government WAS.

The show is suspended, though, when crises of the present moment arise.  Extraordinary Government measures are what is necessary when things are afoot.  And, as any fan of GI Joe or Rambo knows, there are times when the law just doesn't apply.

We ceased to be a Republic and became an Empire when the planning for Extraordinary Measures took place.  Now, the history of empire snaps into focus.  The New Deal lead us into it - the time when the slow and ineffective Republic was left behind for the speedy now-now! form of limited totalitarianism.  The Bomb cemented it into our nature.  Jefferson, Washington, Franklin - who would have been comfortable with the President holding the Weapon of Great Destruction in his solitary hands? 

And yet, any American who pushes forth world-wide build-down of nuclear weapons is considered a loon.  The concept that nuclear weapons are "radioactive" to limited governments is seen as daffy.  "WE" must have them - we being the "Leader."  With this ultimate measure of the Leader's trustworthiness, the concentration of power in Government trickles down.  Yes, of course, it is reasonable for the Parks Service to have a SWAT team, for after all, "WE" trust Government with nucular weapons, don't we?

The question of what consists of a Governmental State of Emergency long remained inchoate.  George W. Bush simply reminded us of the definition:  that Government has a State of Emergency whenever the Government says so.  Few leaders were rude enough to mention that before; Mr. Bush had no scruples preventing him from doing so.

Limited government ended when the Government acquired its emergency powers; not by the paper Constitution, but by the English manner of Constitution, the unwritten rules which fell into place after the "Glorious Revolution."

In our case, though, our "Glorious Revolution" had the effect not to disempower the King, but to celebrate the coronation thereof.

politics empire

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Palin for President?

Governor Sarah Palin of Alaska intends to resign from office.  Sarah Palin is running for President.

WASILLA, Alaska - Sarah Palin made a surprise announcement Friday that she will resign as governor of Alaska in a few weeks, saying she will try to "effect positive change" from outside government.

How, in the name of Goodness, is the Republican Party to save itself NOW?  She has all of the electability and pizzaz of Rod Blagojevich, for Goodness's sake.

There are several possibilities:

1. The Republican Party has gone screw-the-pooch, bucck-nekkid on YouTube© Mad-Beyond-Belief whackadoodle.
2. The Republican Party has finally decided that this representative-government shit is a drag, and let's go for the Bolivian-Cuban-Paraguay junta approach.
3. Sarah flew to Argentina, also, too, 'coz she's the secret soulmate of Terry Sanford.
4. Somebody's got some fearsome negatives up there in Alaska, up there.
   

Time will tell.  Save yer canned goods, the Apocalypse Boyse are horsing up.
And read the letter right here. 
I'm very interested in the quote:

Todd and I are looking at more than half a million dollars in legal bills in order to set the record straight. And what about the people who offer up these silly accusations? It doesn’t cost them a dime so they’re not going to stop draining public resources – spending other peoples’ money in their game.
It’s pretty insane – my staff and I spend most of our day dealing with this instead of progressing our state now. I know I promised no more “politics as usual,” but this isn’t what anyone had in mind for Alaska.
Huh? If she's getting hounded by unsubstantiated legal abuse from the Left - nobody in the lower 49 can kick loose a dime for her Legal Defense fund? Something's smelling awful here.

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OR IS SHE PREGNANT AGAIN?

If so, the BTrog Blog predicts the following names:

1. If it's a boy, it'll be Twink (in honor of Michael Jackson.)
2. If it's a girl, it'll be Twit.  Junior.
   

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