Barack Orwellama

"But if thought corrupts language, language can also corrupt thought." George Orwell

Just recovering from all the travel. Had been out of touch from much of the news, so, please forgive my shock on discovering that I had mistakenly traveled back not home but to a bizarro version of home.

When I left on my trip a couple of weeks ago, Barack Obama was the President who had incurred the greatest debt in American history. He and his acolytes assured us that the best way to save was to spend. In the bizarro world in which I have landed somebody presuming to be Barack Obama is now proclaiming himself madly in favor of reducing debt and of examining with a critical eye every Federal entitlement program.

I am confused. Who has stolen our Barack Obama? Or could it be that he has used his vast intellect and powers of reading comprehension to absorb the language of 1984. "Spending is saving." "Debt is good." "Taxes are revenue enhancements." "Eighty percent of Americans want to pay higher taxes."

What?

The Trunk of Prometheus

It was now July 13, 2035.  The law was in effect. The end would come soon. He knew it. He could face it. 

Dickson was a realist. In his nearly 70 years of life on earth, he always had prided himself on a hard-headed, objective, cool, analytical approach to that life. 

He wasn’t a joiner. He found himself unable to wax enthusiastic over any politician, political movement, or whatever cause du jour fired up the students or the other faculty at Metro University. He did not sign petitions. He did not march or write angry missives. Whenever he heard that something, anything, was very popular with the students or faculty he made sure to avoid it. 

Dickson kept to himself as much as he could. He taught his required two classes a week, and then fled the bright, shiny campus for his one bedroom apartment in the unfashionable, gritty, and crime-filled Eastern District, yellow Gadsden “Don’t Tread on Me” flags hanging from almost every window and balcony. There, among the grubby working stiffs, he found relief and solace. They had no curiosity about him or what he did or did not do.  They did not judge him. They did not prescribe for him. He could think, and he could read. Yes, read. That was his greatest vice.  That and his penchant for contraband beef, contraband liquor, and contraband cigarettes--a penchant the denizens of the Eastern District shared with him.

The District was a tough place: a “no go” zone for the agents of the MEA (Meat Enforcement Administration) and the TEA (Tobacco Enforcement Administration).  He, along with the rowdy inhabitants of the District, refused to comply with the “Anti-Carbon Social Contract” which required all citizens to give up unhealthful and bad environmental practices to benefit Gaia, and, incidentally, the mighty “Gore Euro Yuan Organic Food and Products Inc.,” which produced all the approved food in the country as well as 100% of its solar panels, and had just put on its governing board the nation’s President, the four Vice-Presidents (one from each major racial grouping), all 2,000 members of Congress, and the 760 members of the Supreme Court. Some District denizens were rumored to posses firearms and to engage only in heterosexual sex. Even Dickson assumed this was just anti-District slander.

He prided himself on swimming against the current. The Dean repeatedly had warned him about that. In his forty-plus years at Metro U, Dickson had been warned over and over that his failure to attend “To Love Humanity” courses, or to participate in the “Reject the Differences” rallies and seminars would raise the issue of his continued employment at Metro.  In the end, however, he did not go, and, yet, was kept on.  While he never made four-star Professor, he would never pass the scrutiny of the “Human Sensitivity Board,” he was willing to teach the basic intro courses that nobody else wanted to teach, and so the administrators turned a blind eye and deaf ear to his unfortunate views.  As the years progressed, Dickson had become something of a joke, a punching bag, a punchline at faculty meetings. The other profs laughed at his insistence on keeping and reading books, and on his frantic efforts to get his bored students to do so. The other faculty would yawn loudly in his face, to the merriment of all, when he would try to tell them “how things used to be.”  One four-star Prof told him, “Dickson, my crazy friend, the world is here and now.  We don’t want to talk about stuff from ten, fifteen years ago. That’s ancient history. I don’t know who William James was. I don’t care about those Cervantes, Melville, Twain, Shakespeare, Beckett people you’re always yapping about. It’s all so pointless. Here and now, my friend, here and now. That’s what counts. That’s what exists. The rest is just shadows.”

Yesterday, he finally had retired. As a cruel joke, the faculty had given him the latest “Info Tablet.” It came loaded with Metro U library’s entire collection of seven volumes, totaling nearly 250 pages of “all the knowledge you need,” which formed the basis of Metro’s five-year doctoral program. Nobody, of course, was expected to read all seven volumes, and it seemed no one ever had, but Metro U, the top school in the country, insisted on maintaining the unheard of high standard of requiring PhD students to read one whole volume. 

Dickson has thrown the Tablet into the recycle bin. He would stick with his books.  At first, he had thought that he could now peacefully slip away to his apartment and stay there, surrounded by the smell of illegal beef, tobacco, and liquor.  But, no, that was not to be.  Congress had passed a new law two days before, with the Congressional leaders stating their by now standard line, “We will all know what’s in the law after we pass it.”  In order to protect the rights of trees, and to appease the “Tree Lawyers Foundation,” all paper was now banned, both its production and possession were illegal.  The Enviro Police were tasked with assigning PEAs (Paper Enforcement Agents).  The Dean had warned Dickson, “I understand you still have lots of books. You have to give them up. An Info Tablet with the seven volumes of approved knowledge is all you need. Those books you have are a fire hazard, they smell, are illegal, and are a testimonial to man’s cruelty to trees.” 

Dickson sat staring at the old open trunk, made of banned wood and banned leather, sitting in the middle of his small room.  He passed his right hand over the books in the trunk. In his left hand he held the small plastic box with its red button that would deliver him. He heard the Enviro Police cars pull up; the gentle whirring of their battery powered engines wafted up to his window, along with the increasingly angry murmur of District neighbors responding to the cops’ rare and unwelcome presence. They were coming for him; he could hear their seaweed sandals scraping on the stairs, and the soft swish of their pure cotton kaftans. 

Dickson closed the trunk lid.  The apartment door was slowly opening. The Enviros were in!  A couple of the cops, obviously newbies on their first raid, began to gag and retch from the unfamiliar smell of books, tobacco, and beef.

“Dickson, move aside! We are here for the contraband! Do not resist!”  

Dickson looked up, clicked the switch in his hand and quoting Mary Shelly, shouted, “Unfeeling, heartless creator! You had endowed me with perceptions and passions, and then cast me abroad an object for the scorn and horror of mankind.” 

So carefully made over the past four decades and reserved just for this day, made of banned gasoline, banned glass, and banned metal, the bomb tore through the apartment. 

The sweet pungent banned smell of burning paper and roasting flesh spread over the Eastern District.   

A Death in Texas

Just reading that last night the State of Texas put to death "Mexican" national Humberto Leal Garcia for the 1994 rape and murder of a sixteen-year-old girl. This execution took place despite efforts by the White House, the Government of Mexico, the UN, the OAS, a host of NGOs, and others to halt the execution because Leal had not been notified at the time of his arrest that he had the right to consult the Mexican consulate. He reportedly died yelling, "Viva Mexico!"

I agree that the execution of Leal last night is an outrage.  He should have been executed about fifteen years ago.

In the course of my career I have had to deal with stories such as the Leal case. Almost always they involve somebody here illegally who commits a heinous crime, and is not even particularly aware that he has the right to contact his consul.  In many cases, the Leal case seems to be one, the criminal is not even aware that he is the national of another country, as he has been in the US for many, many years. Leal apparently arrived in the US as an infant. The access to the consul issue only arises late in the process when slick appeals attorneys, looking for anything to save a murdering scum client, discover the matter of the consular access. This is a bogus issue. Some Texas sheriff does not have the obligation to advise a detainee that he has the right to his nation's consul. That is something for which the detainee needs to ask: IF he asks, then the police have the obligation to pass along the request to the appropriate embassy or consulate. There is no evidence that Leal asked, and, of course, none that Texas law enforcement denied his request to see a Mexican official. Should the police notify the German, Irish, or Italian Embassy every time somebody with a German, Irish, or Italian name is arrested? Should they automatically assume that anybody arrested who "looks" Mexican is a Mexican?  Anybody with a Jewish name should have the Israeli Embassy notified? Can you see the law suits over racial profiling? Lawyers would get rich (er)!

In addition to all that, what does access to a consul entail? The consul shows up, if he does; hears out the arrested person; checks to see that he is not being treated any differently than any other prisoner in similar circumstances; offers to notify family in the home country; and then tells the arrested person to get a lawyer.  That's about it. Nothing in this is germane to the case or to the process that was followed.  The consul has no bag of tricks that would have saved Leal.

So this brutal rapist murderer died praising Mexico, eh? Gee, that must send a patriotic thrill up the leg of every Mexican citizen. Here's a suggestion for Mexico: keep your murderers home, and then you can give them access to the wonderful Mexican system of justice.

Bogus issue.

UPDATE: I see from some comments and emails I have gotten that there is a misunderstanding. Local law enforcement is  not obligated to investigate a detainee's nationality. The arrested person must make known that he is a foreign national and wants to see his consular representative. Leal never did that.

Travel

Sudden travel has popped up.

Blogging will be light, but I will try to say something not too stooooopid.

Gangster Rap: Chavez Speaks from the True Capital of Venezuela

Sean Penn, Michael Moore, Joe Kennedy, and Oliver Stone must be breathing sighs of relief and gratitude.  Hugo Chavez lives! The Don of Venezuela went to Cuba where he was operated upon for a mystery ailment. After days of silence, he has emerged and spoken. He reports that he underwent successful surgery in Cuba for some sort of cancerous tumor. He assured his supporters that while he convalesces in Havana he will continue to govern the country.

That has led some opposition figures inside Venezuela to cite the Constitution, noting that he cannot be absent from the country for such a long period of time and that the Vice President must take over.  This argument is humorous for two major reasons:  First, Chavez respect Constitutional limits on what he wants to do?  Oh, poor, poor deluded child. That is not the Chavez way.  Second, Chavez is governing from the true capital of Venezuela, Havana. It's all one big happy 21st Century Socialist Family, don't you know?  Chavez provides the Castro brothers capital, and they provide him a capital where he is safe.  He is safe both from the mean streets of Caracas, now among the most violent on earth, and the ministrations of potentially politically unreliable doctors in Venezuela.

Don't you love the men of the people? When, for example, crazy leftist Forbes Burnham of Guyana got sick, he got himself some Cuban doctors--he had minor throat surgery and the Cuban docs ended up killing him, so he might have been better off going to Massachusetts General. When Castro was at death's door in 2006, he spared no expense in bringing Spanish doctors to save him from his Cuban ones. When Chavez gets sick, he, too, hightails it out of the country. Now we can all understand when rich, corrupt, rightwing dictators go abroad for medical treatment, but aren't these lefties supposed to be of, by, and for the people? Aren't they giving their people the wonders and glories of socialism, including state-run medical services? In fact, the Chavez-drafted Constitution declares health care a right, and obligates the state to provide it. [Aside: Once we get Obamacare, to where do we hightail it?]

Anyhow, Chavez has reemerged, underlining in the process, the continuing US failure to deal with this Andean gangster. I blame Bush and Obama.  Bush suffered an uncharacteristic failure of nerve, i.e., he listened to the career Foreign Service at the State Department, and emboldened Chavez. Obama, of course, has no interest, at all, in opposing Chavez, and is perfectly willing to sell out our key interests in Latin America to this gangster and his friends. We have never established "red lines" for Chavez's behavior, and like a mean dog, or a petulant child he keeps pushing, trying to find the boundaries. They do not seem to exist.

One Bright Spot in Europe: The Geert Wilders Verdict

Readers of The Diplomad and The Diplomad 2.0 know the low regard in which I hold the preening jackasses of the EU and their American imitators. In fact, Europe, itself, has grown increasingly worthless since about 1789; I have posted for many years my firm belief that the French Revolution was a pathetic and murderous hoax which exerts an attraction on the same sort of feeble minded fools who believed the Rosenbergs were innocent; Mao was an "Agricultural Reformer"; Castro was "Cuba's Jefferson"; Bush was "Hitler"; and Kerry's fable about spending Xmas in Cambodia.

Understatement of the year: I am no fan of Europe.

I have been there many, many times; spent much of my youth there; and have European parents and lots of European (British, French, Spanish) cousins and other assorted relatives. They are all very nice, and treat me very well. I, however, find Europe claustrophobic, both in its tiny physical scale and its tiny politics.  European politics are about handing out doles, and not much else. I also have been appalled by the stunning ignorance shown by Europeans, especially on the left, about the United States. Most of their "knowledge" comes from Hollywood movies or nationalized TV and radio services that make MSNBC and the NY Times seem paragons of wisdom and objectivity.

That said, I have a soft spot for certain Europeans such as Hernan Cortes, the Pizarro brothers, and your average man-on-the-street Brit and Dutchman. Re the Brits: Look, I know there's a lot wrong with the UK, including a growing provincialism and illiteracy that makes British college students seem even more ignorant and boorish than American ones, and that is saying a lot. There is clearly a grave crisis in education over there, perhaps even more pronounced than that in the US. Young British people seem incapable of spelling, proper grammar and syntax, and have almost zero knowledge about the world. London, one of my favorite cities, is becoming a mean, grubby, dispirited, and dangerous place; it reminds me of New York in the 1970s. All that said, I have a place in my heart for the Brits: they have a great history; have provided a vastly disproportionate share of the world's great writers, philosophers, explorers, soldiers, inventors, actors, and scientists; and they still make some superb films (Note:  Please see The Four Lions.) The modern world is essentially a British invention. I am glad the United States was established by British settlers--English, Scot, Welsh, and Irish--and not by some of the other options available at that time. I have worked closely with British diplomats, intel, and military all over the world, and they are stand up guys -- almost as good as Aussies. On my many visits to the UK, I have enjoyed myself--I love the museums, bookstores, theater, and food (Indian). The average Brit is a decent sort, maybe with a bit of chip on his shoulder about the USA, but, so what?

The Dutch, too, have a place in my heart.  Most Americans, for example, don't appreciate the bravery of the Dutch resistance to the Nazis. The Dutch, too, have a great history as explorers, innovators, thinkers, engineers, businessmen, etc.  The Netherlands was always a favorite place in my youthful visits to Europe. The Dutch, who seem to speak every language on earth, were extraordinarily kind, helpful, and welcoming to a goofy and often lost American tourist who, for some reason, would insist on trying to speak French to them, when the average Dutchman speaks English better than we do. Recent visits to the Netherlands, however, have shown that Dutch tolerance has been abused by some really quite nasty immigrants. They have arrived in enormous numbers, and changed dramatically the look, feel, and spirit of the Netherlands. Dutch cities now have some very evil looking neighborhoods, and violent street crime, almost unheard of some thirty-five years ago, is a real factor in daily urban life. The Netherlands has done itself no favors by letting in large numbers of Muslims, many, if not most, with apparently little intention of becoming Dutch or adapting to the tolerant, live-and-let-live way of life in the Netherlands.

The Dutch legal system also did the country no favor by putting politician Geert Wilders on trial for having dared to speak out against what Islam is doing to his country. Fortunately, earlier this week, the court had the sense to acquit the gutsy Wilders, and issued a (qualified) defense of free speech.  Wilders, we should note, has to live 24/7 with bodyguards because the followers of the religion of peace want to kill him for saying that the followers of the religion of peace want to kill those who disagree with them. The acquittal of Wilders potentially has great significance. It might, might just encourage other Dutch citizens to raise their voices and cast their votes in defense of the Netherlands.  Who knows? That attitude might just spread to the rest of Europe, and even hop the Atlantic to these shores. Democracy does not have to be a suicide pact.

Congratulations to Geert Wilders (the John of Austria for the new Battle of Lepanto?) and here's hoping that the old Dutch spirit can and will reemerge from under the stifling blanket of political correctness and fear that has been thrown over it.

Europe (sigh)

Been reading a lot about the situation in Greece. This is serious stuff. While we can have a fun debate over whether Greece invented democracy, there seems little doubt that Greece is showing us the future of modern social-democracy,

Debt
Bankruptcy
Producers vs. consumers
Chaos
Political cowardice.

I have written about this before (here,  here and here) and the news out of Greece today highlights how that battle between those who pay and those who party is growing more fierce.  The bills are coming due for some sixty years of insane political, social, economic, and foreign policy decisions by Europe's elite, culminating in the monstrosity known as the EU and its golden amulet, the Euro, which was to protect the Old World from the domination of the New.

When reality bites, it is painful, indeed. Could not be more clear. Europe is washed up. A collection of noisy, preening has-beens, never-weres, and never-will-bes who thought that pompous and empty phrases, hairy-legged women, insufferable movies, tinny matchbox cars, and holding unfiltered cigarettes  at a jaunty angle while wearing a beret and pontificating on the Paris Commune and the French Revolution would translate into power, real power. No. That's not the way it's done.

These are not Greek

All that European pretension, all that chicanery, all that self-delusion, and all that existentialist babble have produced the spectacle we see on the streets of Greece, and might see soon in Spain, Italy, and Portugal.  The EU has labored mightily and produced what Europe always produces better than anybody else in history, chaos and violence masked as a cause.

My worry? We have people in charge of our own Great Republic who want it to be just like Europe.  They can see Europe crumbling, and that's what they want for us!

For America, Europe should be in our past, not in our future.

Europasaurus: A well-known predator who fed on delusion and pomposity.