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In the spirit of Thanksgiving, I have been pondering the glory of the Founding Fathers, and indeed, of the early generations that built America. One man that skillfully conveys this epic is the brilliant historian Gordon Wood (born 1933), himself a testimony to the integrity and character that Made America Great.
I recommend watching an hour-long lecture by Wood, “The Greatness of George Washington,” delivered at Brown University in 2013. Wood delves into the stellar qualities of Washington, and of the leaders of the nascent American republic. The lecture is fascinating and inspiring, and it demonstrates what is possible in a society led by men of this caliber. For another view of George Washington, I am reprinting below a post that I wrote on the original AWOL Civilization blog (August 2007). * * * Born of Liberty One of the favorite targets of anti-American historical revisionists is the Founding Fathers. This is logical: You undermine the society you hate by delegitimizing its architects. Anyone who has read Jefferson or Madison knows that the men who fashioned the American republic need no defense. Comparing them to most of today's leaders or "intellectuals" is like comparing Aristotle to Michael Moore. Nevertheless, it’s nice to receive some reinforcement now and then. I ran across such reinforcement while reading Chateaubriand, the great French statesman and writer of the late 18th/early 19th centuries. His remarkable life included a sojourn in the New World, where he met with George Washington, in Philadelphia, in 1791. Chateaubriand was awestruck by the humility of “le Général Washington," a demeanor he described as the “simplicity of the old Roman." Washington had a small house, just like the neighbors, with no guards and no valets. The man himself appeared very tall, with “a tranquil and cool, rather than noble, bearing, looking very much like he does in the etchings.” “Silence envelopes the actions of Washington. He acts with deliberation; one would say that he feels responsible for the liberty of the future, and that he fears compromising it. What light radiates from his profound humility!” Chateaubriand was fascinated by his conversation with “the citizen-soldier, liberator of a world…I was happy that Washington’s eyes looked upon me. I will be warmed by it for the rest of my life. There is virtue in the gaze of a great man.” The author compares Washington with Napoleon: “Washington’s republic lives on; the empire of Bonaparte is destroyed. Washington and Bonaparte spring from the bosom of democracy: both born of liberty, the former was loyal to it, the latter betrayed it.” And finally: “Washington was the representative of the needs, the ideas, the wisdom, the opinions of his era…He blended his existence with that of his country; his glory is the patrimony of civilization…” [Quotes translated from Chateaubriand, Mémoires d’Outre-Tombe, Paris, Editions Gallimard -- Pléiade, 1951, pp. 219-225.]
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[To my American readers: I wish you a Happy Thanksgiving!]
* * * A ceasefire has been announced in the war between Israel and Hezbollah. Everyone in the Middle East, from the beggar in Cairo to the citrus farmer on the kibbutz to the King of Saudi Arabia, knows that it will never hold, and that it constitutes a victory for Hezbollah. Of all the factors contributing to this disaster, one is missing from most analysis of the situation: Israel's Deep State. Yes, Israel is ruled by its very own Deep State. And that Deep State is firmly in the hands of the Left, and thus hostile to the interests of the majority of the population, who, for lack of a better term, are “conservative” (i.e., guided by common sense). The Deep State of Israel, its Leftist Establishment if you prefer, includes the security/intelligence apparatus, the high command of the military, the news media, academia, the cultural elite, and the judiciary. They run the country, plain and simple. The “government” led by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has figurehead status only; it runs nothing of consequence. The Israeli Deep State routinely conducts spurious investigations and other forms of lawfare over alleged wrongdoing by patriotic officials, and arrests them at will. (For in-depth coverage of these shenanigans, I recommend Caroline Glick). They kneecap the army in its conduct of war. They also work hand-in-hand with woke American and European NGOs to demoralize the population. The Israeli judiciary, particularly the Supreme Court, issues outrageous edicts at its leisure, backing the Deep State while nullifying a wide range of government policy initiatives, notably in the area of national security. Ideologically speaking, the Israeli judiciary is slightly to the left of Mao. No one has been able to stop this robed dictatorship, until some brave souls in the Knesset (parliament) introduced judicial reform legislation to rein in the worst excesses. The Deep State rallied, organizing riots and other mischief—even in the midst of an existential war—as part of a campaign to “save democracy.” They wail and lament that the evil fascist Netanyahu and his henchmen want to extinguish human rights, heretofore safeguarded by the holy judiciary. Does all this sound familiar? It should; the situation is roughly analagous to the first Trump administration. In both cases, the Deep State continues to pilot the ship of state, despite the nominal transfer of power. Meanwhile, the entire world thinks that the country is now “right wing,” while the Left merrily continues its agenda of mayhem. It wasn’t always like this. Sure, Israel was always controlled by the Left, but in the old days, these elements were mostly patriots who loved the country and its people. Let’s give credit where credit is due: they built the state. The real shift in attitudes began around 1977, when Menachem Begin became prime minister. As a result of that election, the Knesset/cabinet slipped out of the Left’s control. This could not be tolerated. The nation had to be punished for rejecting the glories of socialism. It didn’t take long for the Deep State to counterattack, committing itself to sabotaging the government. The Left hounded the country during and after its victory over the PLO in the Lebanon War of 1982, turning a decisive military win into an unnecessary quagmire (and laying the groundwork for the current Lebanon mess). Over the next decade, the Left regained control of the Knesset, and the populist annoyance was eliminated. The table was set for the great betrayal: the Oslo Accords of 1993. This was the Left’s crowning achievement, unmatched in its treachery. The Left had set a trap from which Israel (and the Arabs, for that matter) has never been able to escape. This also marks the moment when, for the first time in the history of the state, free speech was suppressed; dissenters were persecuted as “obstacles to peace.” In the U.S. as in Israel, the central issue, towering above all others, is this: How can the Left be stopped and ultimately neutralized? The survival of both countries—not to mention the rest of the “Collective West”—depends on it. In my recent post Intellectual Decay, Bitcoin Edition (11/23/24), I discussed the problem of subjective value, first as applied to money, and then to art and culture in general. I examined this issue in depth in an article I wrote in 2007 for American Thinker, entitled “Speaking Truth to Art.” I invite you to read the piece, as relevant now as it was then.
Thank God we still have a few true statesmen left in the world. One of my favorites these days is Viktor Orban. The Hungarian prime minister has refused to allow his country to be dragged into the mire of globalist and “progressive” mischief that has characterized the West for decades.
His latest poke in the eye of the Leftist cyclops: Ignoring the arrest warrant for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, issued last week by the International Criminal Court (ICC). Orban has invited his Israeli counterpart to visit Hungary, in defiance of the warrant. Orban can see right through the ICC charade. These midwit woke bureaucrats sit in The Hague and issue their pompous edicts, as if from Mount Olympus. I suppose that if they experience too much pushback from this latest escapade, they can always arrest some global-warming denier for “genocide.” Mr. Netanyahu is in good company. In March 2023, a similar ICC arrest warrant was directed at Russian President Vladimir Putin. I wonder if Russia’s list of potential targets for the Oreshnik missile includes a certain address in the Netherlands. As of this writing, we are in the thick of the Ukraine Missile Crisis. The French government, not wanting to be left out of this festival of dysfunction, gave permission for its own long-range missiles to be lobbed into Russia. Ça me fait chier, as anyone with half a brain in France must be saying right about now. Who’s next? Does Australia have any missiles that would qualify for the party?
The sheer idiocy on display among the rulers of the “Collective West” has gone off the scale and out the door. On second thought, the factors that we normally use to explain unfathomably bad policy⸺idiocy, greed, incompetence, etc.⸺are no longer applicable in this case. Something more nefarious is at play. This is nothing short of mental illness. Never has the phrase “the inmates are running the asylum” been more apt. Think of our “elites,” our so-called leaders. Macron, Starmer, Biden, Jake Sullivan, Scholz, Ursula von der Leyen, and their less visible minions: creeps and nutjobs one and all. Think of the damage they have caused in other realms, and of their sick pronouncements. Lunacy! Don’t bother trying to convince these people to alter course. As with spoiled children, an adult must put an end to the misbehavior. I am certain that there are individuals close to the throne who are in a position to accomplish this. Thus far, they have been reticent to act, or to act with sufficient force. Now, however, the prospect of annihilation may provide the incentive to take the necessary steps. We shall see. I believe that the same principle applies in other areas of public life. Our psychopathic ruling class can only be stopped by others; they will never stop themselves. Bitcoin is again capturing headlines, due to its recent dramatic surge in price, and to the notable personalities and institutions that have hitched their wagon to the crypto train.
Who invented it, and why, are questions open to debate. What seems incontrovertible, however, is that Bitcoin is a massive speculative bubble, a latter-day tulip mania, a Ponzi scheme that requires ever-increasing infusions of new cash. This need is so great that the bagholder of last resort may very well be that endless fount of liquidity, the U.S. government itself. Witness the declarations of President-elect Donald Trump and others indicating the possibility of purchases by the Treasury. Moreover, it appears that enormous sums are already being channeled from Bitcoin into government bonds, via “Tether.” Does anyone still claim that Bitcoin is a form of money? In the heady early days, many naive Libertarian types succumbed to the hype, proudly announcing a “digital gold,” a ticket to financial freedom, beyond the control of rapacious governments and central banks. Although most of the major players currently are big-money types who cynically (and now openly) manipulate the suckers, one can still find die-hard coiners of the old school. In a recent debate, Peter Schiff went head-to-head with Robert Breedlove, a youngish defender of the faith. Schiff easily demonstrated that Bitcoin is in reality “nothing,” and has none of the key characteristics of true money. The one exchange between the two men that stuck in my mind was related to the notion that a good money must have value. Both debaters were in agreement on this point. Schiff, however, emphasized that the object used as money must have a value apart from and prior to its use as a monetary instrument. Naturally, gold fulfills this requirement (and all others); Bitcoin does not, because it has no existence, so you can’t do anything with it, other than buy and sell it. It has a price, but it has no value. The response of the crypto advocate: “value is subjective.” In other words, it has value because we say it does. No need for any practical application in the physical world—that’s dinosaur thinking. Subjective value, forsooth! Bitcoin is a widely-touted alternative to fiat currency. A delicious irony presents itself: Does this "subjective" business not sound suspiciously like the basis of the fiat dollar, indeed of all fiat currencies? Here, take this piece of paper with a number printed on it, backed by nothing, but don't worry, the government says it has value. Somewhat reminiscent of modern art, is it not? A silly person tapes a banana to the wall and calls it art. You say: Wait a minute, it doesn't fulfill any of the requirements of art. Ahh, my friend, don't you fret, it's all subjective. Come to think of it, there are countless examples of collapse along these lines, where reality and quality go out the window. Welcome to the modern world. Ersatz everywhere you look. I wonder just how far the level of intellect had to decay, in order to reach this cerebral wasteland devoid of logic and rational thought. How far did the decay need to progress before huge numbers of otherwise bright and educated people signed up for the digital utopia? They can already live most of their life on line: shopping, social interaction, entertainment, even the carnal pleasures. Why not have money exclusively on line as well? The digitization is already well advanced, so let’s push it just a bit further, and erase any remaining link with “meatspace.” Instead of Bitcoin, they should have named it Smartcoin. Everything else, from cars to refrigerators, is becoming smart; in other words, subject to endless complication and breakdown. The transition from crypto currency to central bank digital currency (CBDC) is obvious at this point. Put it in the basket with lockdowns, social media censorship, unrealized capital gains, elimination of cash, destruction of small business—all paving the way for the digital gulag. You say you want to deal with real people using real money? Hahahahaha….. "There are certain things in which mediocrity is unbearable: poetry, music, painting, and public speaking."
— Jean de la Bruyère, circa 1690 One of the signs of a civilization gone AWOL (absent without leave) is the abuse of language. The meaning of numerous words and concepts has been inverted, a phenomenon duly noted by George Orwell, and discussed at length by subsequent commentators.
A parallel development is that many words and phrases have been misused and misapplied, often as the result of rampant laziness and ignorance. These misapplications are then propagated with lightning speed throughout the society, to include purportedly educated classes of people. A particularly annoying example is the use of the term "literally." How many times must we cringe from such statements as "the politician's insulting remarks were literally a bomb tossed at the opposition." Or how about "I was literally freaking out when I heard that nonsense." We cannot have intelligent discourse when people are literally shredding the language. Whenever I hear people literally using the word literally, my head literally explodes. |
Dystopian literatureWelcome to the blog! While you're here, check out the six dystopian novels by Gary Wolf. His latest is The Cubist Supremacy. 
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