Shelby Steele: Simply Unbelievable, And Right -- Perhaps The Best Commentary Of The Year

If you do not know Shelby Steele, he is a conservative intellectual whose mother was white and father was black (you know -- like Mr. Obama's parents).

Check out Mr. Steele's TRULY STUNNING commentary, "Obama And Our Post-Modern Race Problem." It is one of the year's finest essays. In fact, it might just be the best essay of the year.

Imperfect Pensées, Again

Last night -- somehow -- in the process of putting both my feet beneath the coverlet on my bed as I retired for the evening, I injured my right ankle. Imagine! Just the gentle movement of getting under the covers left me lame. What, pray tell, does this portend?

No doubt great things.

*

Does it bother anyone else that the year may end -- or next year might begin -- with a law dropped upon us from on high that everyone in the United States must have health insurance? Where, O, where are the radicals of the 1960s who helped shape me from my mother's womb? How is it that conformity -- by law -- to the "establishment" and its government is now seen as progressive? Where is the rebellion from authority? Where are those who urged me to live my life unfettered from authoritarianism; to "be my own person" at all costs? Where are those who shouted from the rooftops that the government had no right in our bedrooms, that it had no claims on our bodies?

Apparently they are in the United States government and its fawning class.

("You can't legislate morality." Yes we can!)

©2009/Contratimes. All rights reserved.

Bearing Glad Tidings

My dear friends, blessings to you. For those of you who celebrated Hanukkah, I send my belated wishes of joy and peace: may your light always shine.

To my Christian friends, I wish you a blessed and Merry Christmas.

Joy to the world, indeed!

The World's Greatest Golfer Seeks Relief From A Really Bad Lie

As Contratimes readers know, when the unfortunate story broke about the World's Greatest Golfer, I chose to criticize the media gluttons who would prey on that story. I feel, largely, that I was right to take that tack, as the indiscretions of the World's Greatest Golfer have pushed from the spotlight news about troop increases in Afghanistan, the Great Climate Clash, the racially-motivated assassination of 4 police officers in Washington state, and the religiously-motivated Fort Hood massacre. Instead of these important stories, the prurient media give us, apparently, what we "want."

A few minutes ago, for the umpteenth time, I listened to professionals explore the psyche of a man, a man known as the World's Greatest Golfer (WGG), who "has it all." The WGG is the "very embodiment of the American Dream," or so it goes -- a handsome and athletic man possessing fame and fabulous fortune; owner of mansions and yachts; husband to a beautiful wife, father to two lovely children -- and yet, somehow, none of this was enough to make the WGG happy. Why?

Here are just a few of the "answers" to that apparently very perplexing question:

• The WGG is under too much pressure as an athlete
• The WGG is under too much pressure as a competitor
• The WGG is under too much pressure as an archetype to the African-American community
• The WGG is under too much pressure as a business commodity
• The WGG is under too much pressure as a philanthropist
• The WGG is under too much pressure as a role model
• The WGG is bored with life; everything is too easy, and hence he seeks drama, danger, adventure
• The WGG is unmoored as a result of the death of his father, who probably served as an anchor to his son
• The WGG is in rebellion now that his overbearing father is dead. Finally, he's doing things "his way." Finally, the little boy who was so sorely repressed is now acting out
• The WGG is suffering an identity crisis: he is not sure of his race, or what his own heart is telling him about who he really is and what he truly wants
• The WGG is a victim of perfectionism, with its attendant expectations, all of which are absurdly unfair and unattainable
• The WGG is a victim of social stereotypes, among which is the stereotype that black men MUST philander, and MUST do so with leggy, buxom, and blonde white women

Enough. You get the picture.

But what is really at the heart of these bits of "analysis"? What are the underlying premises that go unspoken when we hear such things?

My sense is that a good chunk of the media are doing their very best to avoid denigrating the myth that "having it all" makes a person happier, better, and nobler than his or her less fortunate peers. In a sense what they're saying is that the WGG does not have it all: if he did, he would be happy "having it all." In the minds of the media, there is no defect in the myth, but in the possessing: The WGG is missing something. He does not quite have it all. And once he finds that missing something, he can be happy, whole, and the perfect incarnation of the American Dream.

And I am also under the impression that a very different chunk of the media are doing their level best to sabotage the idea that the American Dream is a good dream: it is, in fact, an unattainable, nightmarish fantasy. The WGG proves this.

Of course, I realize I am in a sense trying to have it both ways, i.e., some in the media seem to be suggesting that the WGG does not perfectly possess all the American Dream has to offer; if he did, he'd be deliriously happy; and some in the media want us to believe that the American Dream is a corrupting influence, victimizing the WGG, turning him into something unhealthy, even reprehensible.

But what if it is a lot more simple than all that? What if the WGG is just a lecherous pig? What if this is just about pure lust? What if it is just about narcissism in the basest sense? What if this is, in a very real way, best understood in religious terms; that this story is about sin, and not psychology or sociology or both? That this is more satanic than Freudian; that this is best fixed not by therapy but confession, repentance, absolution, baptism? Conversion?

___________________

Perhaps in reports that the WGG's wife had issued him an ultimatum -- "It's either me or golf!" -- we can find some sense of a "true story." No doubt the WGG, when caught by his wife, admitted his indiscretions (that's too mild a word) with these sorts of qualifications:

"There's so much pressure on the Tour! The competition, the press, the sponsors!"

"Even when I win on the Tour I need relief from the pressure. Sometimes I can't bear to win -- or lose -- alone. I just have to release all that built up tension! You've no idea."

"All the women look like you because I wish you could be with me. I can't stand to be away so long on the Tour."

"There are just so many women hanging around the guys on Tour. They're everywhere. You've no idea the pressure."

In other words, perhaps the WGG would want his wife to believe that the problem is extrinsic to the WGG, and not intrinsic. Or so it seems he might have led her to believe. Why else her ultimatum if he did not paint a horrid picture of the pressures and temptations associated with professional golf?

But let's pull Occam's Razor out of the bag. The best explanation is the simplest: The WGG is a sinner. Let's not give him excuses, especially the lamest one of all, given, no doubt, by countless husbands countless times: "There is just so much pressure. I need relief."

©2009 Contratimes. All Rights Reserved.

On A Particular Man Who Golfs: Can We Leave This Alone?

Should I say anything about the greatest golfer in the world?

This morning I heard a member of Big Media say that, despite all the important news that should demand at least some of our attention, a certain golfer's peccadilloes will dominate Big Media because, well, "that's what the people want."

But is that true? Do you call your local TV station or favorite news anchor and beg for reports on the most salacious aspects of a person's life? Do you thirst for gossip? Think of it this way, and it is all rather simple: Who first broke the story about the World's Greatest Golfer who crashed his car? Was it Big Media, or someone like you, a "consumer"? I think you know the answer.

Clearly, Big Media seeks to exploit any story -- let's be honest -- for fiscal gain. The tale about the World's Greatest Golfer has profits apparently written all over it.

But what is the news here, really? It would be nice -- wouldn't it? -- if someone stood up and said, "Move along, folks. There is nothing for you to see here. Move along." Didn't someone, somewhere, used to say and do exactly that? Move along. Mind your own business. This is a private matter.

The World's Greatest Golfer is naught but a fallen god. OK. We get this, and we've gotten this hundreds of times in the past: People are not perfect. Wow, thanks for the BIG LESSON.

OK. The World's Greatest Golfer might lose his endorsements. Is that really big news?

OK. He might have to mount a comeback, ask for a mulligan; he will have to "dig deep." Haven't we heard this sort of thing before, ad infinitum and yes, ad nauseam?

Yes, yes. We know our heroes are mortal, stained, blemished, weak. Yes, yes. There are indeed many who enjoy feasting on our heroes' sins; who find pleasure in others' pain. But are we not sick of all this -- YET?

Big Media: A fast-food joint that comes to you dishing out triple scoops of schadenfreude. For free. Everywhere. 24/7.

Resist Big Media. Let's kick the ever-living schadenfreude out of it.

©2009/Contratimes. All Rights Reserved.

Fouad Ajami: The Arab Street & Barack Obama

Once again Fouad Ajami does not disappoint in his essay "The Arabs Have Stopped Applauding Obama." I doubt you will feel you wasted the few minutes it takes to read Mr. Ajami's piece.

Be well.

A Contratimes Replay: The Death of C. S. Lewis Remembered

From the Contratimes archives, 2005:

Today I give thanks, though not in a holiday sense. I will wait two days for that fine American celebration. Instead, I give thanks for a man who died 42 years ago today, in England, his death overshadowed by the assassination of U.S. President John F. Kennedy. Odd that this man, along with Kennedy and the great humanist Aldous Huxley, would have died within hours of each other.

I am talking of C. S. Lewis. No other person of letters, I believe, has had a more profound impact on my life, even if I admit that there are other writers and thinkers I prefer. For it was Lewis who set me on my way, speaking to both heart and mind; emboldening me to live a life where faith and reason, where mysticism and intelligence, are not exclusive one to another, but two sides of one glorious and mysterious coin. In him I met Christ the thinker, the poet; the creator. In him I met the Christian imagination with all its possibilities: Narnia, Ungit, Perelandra, the pantheon, and even Middle Earth. Hobbits came to life for me, largely because of Lewis' love and support of his best friend, J.R.R. Tolkien, and both men's unwavering devotion to the ancient creeds of Christendom.

And in the wake which Lewis left in my life, I fell on St. Francis and St. Thomas, George MacDonald, G. K. Chesterton, E. C. Bentley, Owen Barfield, Sheldon Vanauken, Thomas Howard, Peter Kreeft, Grady Spires (an unpublished elvish genius), T. S. Eliot (whose work Lewis abhorred), Charles Williams, Malcolm Muggeridge, Madelyn L'Engle, and even Annie Dillard. Though there might not be a causal chain between these writers' works and Lewis, there is indeed a causal chain between Lewis and my reading them, for he inspired me to be a thinking Christian, and I am all the better for that chain, and for that inspiration. And had not Lewis' books found their way into my life, I doubt that I would know of John Donne, Thomas Traherne, George Herbert, or even William Butler Yeats. And I am not afraid to say that I might even be dead now without the influence of Lewis' testimony.

This is neither idolatry, nor is it gratuitous beatification. Lewis is my mentor. He has, along with Christ, preached to me in prison; he has descended into hell and handed me a tiny silken thread, the very thread he found in the dark and venomous mines described in MacDonald's "The Princess and the Goblin." I hold that thread now, standing, as I so often do, in the deep and chilly dark.

Early this morning I was reading Peter L. Berger's A Rumor of Angels, a famous little book written by the lauded sociologist from Boston University. In his examination of the death of the supernatural in modern society, and the apparent death of God, Berger shared this anecdote:

A few years ago, a priest working in a slum section of a European city was asked why he was doing it, and replied, "So that the rumor of God may not disappear completely." [emphasis added]

Lewis could have been that priest, for surely he worked in the slums of so many forsaken and forsakeable ideas. Lord knows he worked in mine. And in small homage to him, I do the same, here and elsewhere, trying to keep rumors alive.

Contratimes

©Bill Gnade 2005/Contratimes - All Rights Reserved.

I Am Sorry

To the few faithful readers I have, I want to apologize for my silence at Contratimes. Simply, I am exhausted.

Peace to you.

Bill Gnade

Hitchens: Mother Teresa Can Go To Hell (If There Was A Hell)

Christopher Hitchens, the erudite atheist and belletrist, recently had this to say about Mother Teresa:

"Mother Teresa spent her whole life saying (that what Calcutta needs) is a huge campaign against family planning. I mean who comes to that conclusion who isn't a complete fanatic? She took -- and I would directly say stole -- millions and millions of dollars and spent all the money not on the poor, but on the building of nearly 200 convents in her own name around the world to glorify herself and to continue to spread the doctrine that, as she put it -- when she got her absurd Nobel Peace Prize -- that the main threat to world peace is abortion and contraception. The woman was a fanatic and a fundamentalist and a fraud, and millions of people are much worse off because of her life, and it's a shame there is no hell for your bitch to go to." [emphasis added]

Mr. Hitchens offered his charitable, lucid opinion of the beloved saint during Dennis Miller's Internet radio program.

UPDATE: November 10, 2009: Mr. Hitchens apologizes

Washington Post: Obama's Nobel Prize May Be Unconstitutional?

Please read this very interesting article.

Homecoming

It was homecoming at my alma mater
And I stood at the Welcome Tent
A prodigal son, penniless, spent
A wandering squanderer
There was no mother, father
No friend running toward me
To slay the fattened calf
There was no welcome
At all
Just a tent
And a map to the familiar

I went unrecognized as I wondered
If 25 years were too many
For me to recognize my own memories
Or the dreams dreamt along the
Night-lined fringes of the Quad:

A rucksack of philosophy texts
Pulling one shoulder toward arthritis
A young philosopher
Unaware his path would be littered
With pages ripped from a hundred prayer books
Each dabbed in tears

I stood in the provost’s office
And listened to professional philosophers
Steeped in the tradition of profundity
Practiced in the argot of academia
The adoration of abstraction
And a lightning stroke of profanities
Coursed through this common mind
When the department chair spoke in
Tongues without fire
And repentance blasted through me
Like a cold-front on a barren plain:
“What the hell is he saying?”
Asked the crushing hailstones
And I sought cover beneath
Quiet incredulity and the promise
I’d never sound like that (again)

I spoke in haste, compressing 2.5 decades
Into a handshake, a canape
A splash of red wine
And when he assessed
The soundness of my
Abridged ontology
I saw a priest reach
Down and take bread from
The tip of my tongue

None could know I left the
Premises as presented
Or that I concluded that
(All things remaining equal)
Nothing remains equal
Not even between brothers
A simple syllogism
Crafted without fallacy
Carved on the oracle’s breast:
There is no home.


Without a father.

©2009/Contratimes. All rights reserved.

Ignoble Surprise

The holy writings of Jews and Christians appear incredibly insightful as we analyze the awarding of the Nobel Peace Prize to Barack Obama.

For example, people familiar with the ancient story of Israel's King David will recall that, according to the Jewish scriptures, God would not permit the beloved king to build a temple in Jerusalem because there was blood on his hands and war on his borders. Apparently God -- and David -- noticed something incongruous about a warrior building a temple to a God Who ultimately (if not ironically, at least to God's more modern critics) represented peace. The temple would be built by Solomon, David's son.

That Mr. Obama has called the war in Afghanistan the only "necessary" war -- and in the process of executing that war expanded the fighting into Pakistan -- might have given the Nobel committee pause before that esteemed committee conferred the mantle of peace onto a man who has blood on his hands, even fresh blood. Mr. Rush† Limbaugh, noted American conservative talk-radio 'god,' today pointed out that the Nobel committee has imposed its will on Mr. Obama's foreign affairs: by calling him a man of peace, the committee has assured the world that Mr. Obama cannot act with violence against his neighbors, thus tying his hands (and America's). It is an ingenious ploy, and it will possibly work, especially since it appears Mr. Obama is vain enough to actually accept the award (though deferentially admitting he does not deserve it). He is the change we've been waiting for.

So much for expecting any bellicosity to come from the White House any time soon. Or, I should say, Israel should not expect much assertiveness from this man of peace.

In the Christian New Testament, St. Paul warns his protege Timothy not to award novices with too much praise or responsibility, as this inflates egos, tempts pride, and more often than not leads to tremendous downfalls. Novices are in a vulnerable place: too little praise may discourage them, while too much encourages conceit. What, pray tell, does the awarding of the Noble Peace Prize to a man who has done nothing for peace portend for that man's -- and his supporters' -- egos?

I do not know if Mr. Limbaugh invented the following or whether he was citing something that originated elsewhere, but it does deserve praise for its ingenuity: With the Nobel Peace Prize, Mr. Obama is not only the post-racial president, he's the "post-accomplishment president."

Brilliant! Post-racial, post-partisan, post-imperial and now, post-accomplishment -- that's Mr. Obama in nuce. A person doesn't have to do anything to make great strides. Heck, a person doesn't even have to stride. Words voiced with hope and sincerity -- that's sufficient to be king of the world.

_____________________

I don't know about you, but I have grown weary of hearing about the world's opinion of America. What about America's opinion of the world? If the Nobel committee represents the world's views and opinions, then this writer thinks the "world" a small, petty, and shallow thing. The world shouldn't care whether pre-Obama America saw itself the laughingstock of the world. The world should care that the world as represented by the Nobel committee is the laughingstock of America.

Message to the "world": Don't you know that Barack Obama is an abject mediocrity? Don't you see that he is a mirage, a fiction, an illusion?

Barack Obama, man of peace who sends missiles into Pakistan. Barack Obama, a man awarded for not achieving anything. He's post-violence. He's even post-peace and post-conceit.

Here's to hearing laughter in a thousand tongues.

____________________

A NOTE TO MR. OBAMA

You should politely and courteously reject the award -- in total. Don't delay. Tell us about your initial shock; how you were initially confused by the surprise of the honor and got caught up in the moment. And then say, sincerely and without your typical equivocation, that you cannot and will not accept this award. Honor it as generous, and denounce it as too generous. Reject it as premature, and, without setting any preconditions, tell the world that no Nobel Peace prizes should be given to anyone until there is, in reality and not in aspiration or in theory, a real, lasting, comprehensive and universal peace.

THAT's what a real man of peace should and would do. It is also the sort of thing a novice would not do.

And it's the sort of thing King David actually did.

Peace through dissent.

†On a day like today how could I not listen to what Mr. Limbaugh had to say about the Nobel committee's decision?

©Contratimes/2009. All Rights Reserved.

The Nobel Peace Prize: The New Spirit In Old Wineskins

Welcome to Fantasy.

The awarding of the Nobel Peace Prize to Barack Obama is fantastic in the strictest sense of the word. Truly, when I saw the headline that he had won my initial conclusion was that I was reading parody, satire or spoof. Now I realize I was reading a frightening fantasy, for this fantasy is reality (and far too few people discern it as fantasy).

In the span of a few short minutes listening to talking heads on the radio this morning, I learned that Mr. Obama was awarded this prize a priori; the deadline for nominating him was a mere two weeks into his term, well before he had accomplished anything. And yet, fantastically, he is given this honor, in part, for his great work in fostering a diplomatic spirit throughout the nations. I also learned that Mr. Obama was chosen as the very epitome of peacefulness for his "aspirations and attitude" and for giving the world "hope."

In other words, this is a spiritual award, even a religious one: Barack Obama has baptized the planet with optimism. His term as American president is like a new pentecost: nations speak his name in many tongues that portend peace, unity, hope. This is not about ACHIEVEMENT, but mere sentiment, and the ephemera of personality and perception. It is about the subjective warmth of thought and emotion: Barack Obama has set, like a new Holy Spirit, a fire that burns hot in the breast of the yearning, expectant nations.

I heard someone from the Nobel committee earlier today talk about Mr. Obama's popularity in the world. She said that "his predecessor" was not popular among the nations; that Mr. Obama, in fact, had restored, not so much the popularity of the United States in the world's eyes, though he has helped, but the office of the presidency. But, she added, he has somehow raised his own popularity above the office; that he has elevated his own well-cut figure among the peoples far beyond the mystique of the Oval Office. He is a sign. A portent. He brings hope.

What the world fails to understand about the office of the United States presidency is that the office is not about personal excellence, achievement, or capacious ability. It is about successfully winning a national popularity contest, a national beauty pageant. Mr. Obama is hardly what one would describe as achieved. After all, what has he REALLY done? Granted, one could ask this about many a president; many have asked this of others who've been elected. But Mr. Obama REALLY has done little with his life other than win popularity contests. In fact, his presidency -- like all presidencies -- is not something earned but something conferred: Mr. Obama's success is really nothing more than what has been given him by others. Any president's success, as president, is the result of the will of the electorate. Mr. Obama is not special; he is where he is because millions of people put him there.

Hence, for the world to think that Mr. Obama DESERVES something like the Nobel Prize is patently absurd. It is fantastic, illusory, confounding in its weirdness. Yes, he can read a fine speech, and read it well. But he has not accomplished anything (at least on his own). "Mere words?" Yes, mere words are all he's given.

Of course, the Nobel committee has also stated that Mr. Obama is being honored for his work in calling for the reduction of nuclear arms throughout the world. As if anyone in the western world is calling for the proliferation of nuclear arms and Mr. Obama stands unique in his position; that Mr. Obama is honored for calling for what the nearest child would call for is ridiculous on its face. And when I heard two weeks ago that his great diplomatic achievement as the moderator of the UN Security Council -- the first American president to ever serve in that capacity -- was to pass a resolution calling for a world-wide reduction in nuclear weapons, I guffawed in disbelief. This is the best our president can do? Nothing more than what countless high school student councils have resolved to do for decades?

And that is what I actually think of Mr. Obama. To me, he is, at best, a high school student council chairman. I don't see the brilliance, the expansive intellect, the singular and unique vision, the mastery of language, the openness to new ideas. His whole presidency is rooted in old, stale, hackneyed ideas, the sort of ideas bandied about in AP high school social studies classes and those lecture halls in which matriculating American students gather for Political Science 101. Does anyone really think that universal health care is not the sort of thing that children propose in 8th-grade class assignments about "building utopia"? Does anyone think there is anything one whit adult and "new" and "progressive" about "international, multi-lateral diplomacy" or "reducing the nuclear arsenal"? Or am I the only one Barack Obama's age who recalls being weaned on this stuff from birth? Barack Obama's vision of the world, his views of science and consensus and health care and war and peace all amount to pablum.

Lastly, let us note one important thing. America was rejected (by many) during the Bush years because of its apparent arrogance, aggression; its uni-lateral bullying and its imperialistic "we are right and have the might" attitude. America was disdained in part because it perceived itself as so essential, so necessary; as the super-power par excellence. It pushed democracy on nations that did not want it within their own borders.

Mr. Obama recently said that no world order can succeed when one nation or people dominates, or sees itself as supreme, or the best, or more equal than others. Of course, what this means is that Mr. Obama wants to impose democracy on the world in a different way than his predecessor Bush: he wants to show that the United States, no longer caring that democracies thrive within the borders of its many neighbors, is ready to let all nations democratically give voice not only to the direction of the new world order but also the United States itself. He is a consensus builder, announcing in his many apologies that the United States is now ready to see itself as equal to every other country; it is no longer the best, it will not impose itself on the world without the world's approval. It will lead, yes, but only by following.

What is so insidious, so deeply pernicious, is that Mr. Obama -- merely the winner of a nation's popularity contest -- has presented to the world that while the United States is not absolutely right or absolutely honorable or absolutely necessary or absolutely indispensable, he is indispensable and necessary and honorable and right; that while the United States can't do all the "heavy lifting" and that it ought not to, he himself is necessary to bring the world together, that he is the heavy who lifts the world from divisiveness and strife and hopelessness. He is needed. He is wanted. All nations are to be colonies of his magnanimous vision, his glorious unifying voice.

The world does not need America like it once did, or believed it did. America is not the model or force of empire. But the world sure needs America's Barack Obama, because he is hope.

___________________

Last year about this time, as the election drew near, I told family and friends that I thought Mr. Obama would lose the election in the United States and that charges of racism would course through the country and the world: that it would be perceived that Mr. Obama had been rejected by America because America is a vicious, backward, racist place. I also told family and friends that I thought his defeat would engender world sympathy and that the world would work to place him atop the United Nations. I was wrong. What seems more likely is that Mr. Obama will pass through the Oval Office so he can eventually assume the throne in New York City. Perhaps in 2016, when Michelle Obama runs for the White House and loses, her loss, interpreted as rejection rooted in sexism and racism, will secure Mr. Obama's position as President of the United States of the World.

Lest we forget: Dissent is not unpatriotic. Dissent we do.


©Contratimes/2009. All rights reserved.

Dear Israel

You won’t like what I have to say,
because it is what someone else said.

Turn the other cheek.

They want your eye. Your tooth.

They are trying to lure you

to react,
to defend,
to protect

And they will
describe

it

as overreaction
aggression
terrorism

a grave transgression

against humanity
a clear human rights violation

a provocation
destabilizing
derailing the peace process

The goal is to isolate
Spurn
Ostracize
Banish

You.

A single star. In the heavens.

Pensive Pensées

• You know that odd spoon or fork in your silverware drawer that you never use or remove? You know the one I am talking about. Well, that's me.
• Mel Gibson, drunk as a skunk and obviously fraught with pain, once said some stupid things about "the Jews." I wonder if Woody Allen and Martin Scorcese signed a petition demanding Mr. Gibson be forgiven. Maybe they would have if Mr. Gibson was an Academy Award-winning movie director like Roman Polanski.
• If global warming is real then why do I feel chilled (tonight)? A touch of mortality, no doubt.
  
• The other night I stepped out of a friend's house (I was pet-sitting, sort of) and saw, somewhere in the southern sky, what looked like the end of the world. My mind searched for an explanation: was it a nuclear attack? an exploding planet? the return of Christ? The first thing I told my wife when I finally returned home was that "I saw something." The night sky had never before left me so unsettled. More than a week later, I learned that it was a rocket launched from Virginia sent heavenward to make a noctilucent cloud. To freak me out.
• I see that a mega-church in Florida has fractured because of disagreements over succession. It seems the great flock does not entirely like its new shepherd; when the old shepherd, who first raised the flock, died a couple of years ago, well, things went to hell. Which proves, does it not, that such is less about God's "mighty spirit" and more about the cult of personality?
• How often do we use language that is deceptive? Take, for example, how men answer their wives' questions: "Does this dress make me look fat?" The other day, I watched a talk show host prompt a guest whose lengthy anecdote had failed to elicit an entertaining payoff: the host's cue, articulated as a seemingly innocent question, invited the guest to embellish the tale to give it the necessary nudge from the banal to the amusing. The guest got the cue, invisible and inaudible as it was, to add the necessary punchline that was not part of the original tale; false as it was, it did finally make the audience laugh. I am reminded of Father Zosima's argument in The Brothers Karamazov, that we all push each other into sin, consciously and unconsciously; we are not our brother's keeper but his betrayer. Dmitri was damned by his neighbors; his sin -- the one he did not commit that nonetheless led to his conviction -- was encouraged and created by the townsfolk with whom he lived. And yet, apparently, none of them could spot a thing they may have done wrong. Is the discipline of prayer God's answer to that? That if we pray for each other we are declaring to the cosmos that we -- despite our convoluted language and our much-veiled envy -- wish not to destroy but to save our brothers? Let your yes mean yes. Let your no mean no. Yes.
• Is it true that what is newest under the sun in American civil discourse is incivility? Really? Imagine that. People are claiming to be checking themselves out of the political arena because things have gotten "too divisive." Where have they been the last 20 years (or 200)? The thing I resent is not this sudden umbrage, as if incivility has just fallen from the sky. What I resent is that politics has become so all-consuming. So important, so pervasive. One can't find solace in music, art, theater, film, poetry; there is no safety in the words of a sports columnist, or a game show or sitcom, or even in the phone call from an old friend. Politics is ubiquitous, demanding, scolding; pleading its case -- against you. Don't you care? Are you not engaged? Are you not paying attention? Have you not chosen sides? What is your answer? (No. I will hide here in the silverware drawer.)

Pax vobiscum.

Prolepsis

I posted a piece today (see below, September 16) that I have been holding in my queue for a couple of weeks. It is about, mostly, the left's apparently broad concern that right-wingers, full of bombast and vitriol, are fomenting violence, violence that gravely threatens the government and the President of the United States. What I posted was written before I heard Nancy Pelosi's sobbing that she had not seen such divisiveness since the late 1970's when, in her beloved San Francisco, the rhetoric there led to violence in city hall (and a Democrat killed another Democrat). What I posted was written before I heard Jimmy Carter -- without any evidence -- posit for consideration that most of the opposition to Mr. Obama's policies was born of racism. My essay was also written before I had heard that New York Times essayist Thomas Friedman averred violence seemed, if not inevitable, at least explicable and expected. And what I wrote was drafted before I had heard Hugo Chavez at the United Nations General Assembly "pray" that God protect Mr. Obama from the bullets that killed John F. Kennedy. (It's interesting that Al Qaeda recently threatened Mr. Obama but nary a word was said about that; perhaps there really is no war on terror because there is no terror.)

My reluctance in posting what I began writing September 16 was due to what it suggests, namely, that there is a faction, perhaps even a very large faction, of leftists in the world who seem to be longing for violence against the president. I know that I don't have such a longing; I denounce ANY violence that might be brought against the office of the presidency or the person of the president. But I believe that there is something akin to a hope in America (and elsewhere) that something DOES happen, and this hope resides in the breasts of those who most ardently support the president.

Even mentioning that these people may be participating in some sort of self-fulfilling prophecy freaks me out, largely because I fear my own comments will become part of an overall self-fulfilling prophecy I pray my words will actually derail: maybe my noting what seems a dark desire of my leftist peers fuels the craziness and leads to horrors.

Please, I ask you not to take these words in these few paragraphs as all I have to say on this matter. I am quite aware of what I am doing and saying; I try hard not to be reckless or myopic. It was circumspection that led me to hold the essay for as long as I did; it was the remarks of Mr. Chavez and Mr. Friedman that led me to finally click the "publish" icon.

I pray that Mr. Obama remains safe in a cultural climate that seems intent on amplifying the very worst impulses and inferences of people; that seems to derive dark pleasure from horrific daydreams.

Blame It On Racist Rio: Prince Hamlet Stumbles in Denmark

None dare whisper it in good company, but since I keep such notoriously bad company, I will shout it from the rooftops: when the International Olympic Committee, and the presumptuous delegates from Rio De Janeiro, worked to award a city in the southern hemisphere the right to host the 2016 Summer Olympics, the only motive for such an outcome is simple and obvious: blatant racism. How else to explain how the most popular people in the world -- Barack and Michelle Obama, and Oprah -- could not get their hometown beyond the first round in the IOC's selection process?

It is AMAZING how far-reaching is that vast right-wing conspiracy President Clinton spoke about last weekend. Even Denmark bends to the will of Rush Limbaugh and Glenn Beck. Even the Danish hope Mr. Obama fails.

Oh, yeah. Remember the amazing essay linked to here at Contratimes: "Mirth In Funeral, Dirge In Marriage"? You know the link. It was to the glorious essay by Sam Schulman that compared Mr. Obama to Prince Hamlet. It's worth reading again.

The Coup That Isn't: America Abuses a Friend

Please read Mary Anastasia O'Grady's excellent essay about the Obama Administration's treatment of Honduras' Supreme Court,"Hillary's Honduras Obsession."

What We Dare Not Think Or Speak

[Please see note here.]

The New York Times columnist who is neither frank nor rich (rhetorically speaking) opined recently in print and radio that the increase in sales of ammunition and guns after the Obama victory last fall was rooted in the fear and hatred of black men. Mr. Frank Rich casually argued that racists were gathering arms in fear of Mr. Obama, of Mr. Obama's blackness.

To say that Mr. Rich is misinformed is to compliment him. To pay him to write such absurdities is a sin incomprehensible. Of course, fear-mongering is lucrative. How else to explain the successes of those who are of Mr. Rich's ilk?

It may surprise Mr. Rich, and his unthinking fans, to learn that many Americans stocked up on guns and ammo precisely at that moment in American history when the President-elect of the United States was prognosticating economic gloom of such proportion that the Great Depression seemed a boom. In fact, Mr. Obama continues to ramble on about the dire "consequences" of economic inaction, particularly regarding health care's oppressive burden on America's economy; he mentioned the "worst economy" since the Great Depression, or some such hyperbole, just the other night in his health care reform speech to Congress.

Clearly certain Americans took Mr. Obama at his word. Listening closely to him, with hearts full of trust, they prepared themselves for the worst: If all economic hell were to break loose, bullets just might put food on the table. Venison may not be an infinite source of protein, but it surely will work in a pinch.

Moreover Americans uncertain of Mr. Obama's commitment to national defense and homeland security could not rest without something to quell their heightened anxieties. Guns and ammo might not stop a Chinese invasion or a Muslim mob descending from the north brandishing dirty bombs, but it might give a few Americans a chance to catch a refugee boat headed for Puerto Rico.

Obviously Mr. Rich's claims are rooted in his ignorance, or they are rooted in a cynical manipulation of fact in order to sow fears of a hostile, gun-toting mob poised to storm the White House should the "Boy" get "uppity." Either way, he should be shunned at every turn.

DEMOCRATS AND RACE

Over the past few months, James Taranto of the Wall Street Journal's "Best of the Web Today" has done an outstanding job confronting the charges of racism hurled at critics of Barack Obama. His most compelling observation is that the racism is always -- at least in the examples he gives -- inferred by the person making the charge. In other words, those who claim to find racism in certain arguments or locutions do not find that racism expressed explicitly or really even implicitly; they find it in their own inference from or interpretation of what they've heard. In short, it is a racism they bring themselves: they are the ones imposing it on the words of someone they accuse of a heavily veiled racism. Mr. Taranto calls this nasty habit "imputing racism by free association." (In biblical scholarship it is known as eisegesis -- reading meaning into something; eisegesis is the antithesis of exegesis -- reading the meaning out of something.)

Such describes Ms. Maureen Dowd's cogitations while interpreting Rep. Joe Wilson's indiscreet accusation of prevarication during Barack Obama's speech last Wednesday night: Mr. Wilson shouted "You lie!" and Maureen Dowd heard, "You lie -- boy!" Editors at the Athens (GA) Banner-Herald committed the sin of eisegesis in their exegesis of Sen. Saxby Chambliss' opinion of Mr. Obama before his big health care speech (#113) to Congress: Mr. Chambliss said "I think he's going to have to express some humility based on what we've seen around the country during August, and that's not his inclination" and the editors in Athens heard Chambliss say the racially-charged "the president is getting 'uppity'." Boy.

What motivates this is really something rather insidious. There seems ample evidence that some Democrats long for racism in America. They hope for it and, not necessarily finding it, they impute it, as Taranto says, onto others, claiming the racism is subtle, implied; a subliminal message only they truly descry. This writer last week ventured into a leftists' lair, a blog of true obscenity: there it was a given that Republicans and the conservative nut-jobs out in the country's hinterlands were working toward the assassination of the president. Such leftists, it seemed, were actually hoping for it, perhaps to vindicate their deeply held suspicion that Republicans really do hate blacks, especially "uppity" ones. The leftist argument was that Glenn Beck and Rush Limbaugh were fomenting a hysteria that could only lead to a sniper's well-aimed round. And please note the evidence given: Glenn Beck and Rush Limbaugh, Exhibits A and B.

Of course, I recognize that I am imputing onto others things they have not explicitly said. Granted, certain leftists have asserted that assassination seems inevitable, a ghastly assertion if ever one existed, but I wonder who is actually doing the fomenting. Seriously, only Democrats would stand to gain politically, i.e., they'd gain a whole boatload of political capital in the form of an entire nation's sympathy, if anything ill should befall the nation's current president. Perhaps some of the sickest supporters of Barack Obama who hurl their charges of racism from their dark haunts on the left are actually, though unwittingly, working toward throwing the president under the bus themselves. It is a truly disturbing thought; I shudder to even type it here. But when people who foment racism in their very denunciations of it wonder aloud about the president's safety, is it a strain to wonder whether such wonderings are more than mere concern?

THE LEFT AND VIOLENCE

In closing, it might be a good idea for those on the left who "worry" about political violence to recall that political violence is, without question, usually if not exclusively the option most preferred by leftists. Soviet, Chinese and Albanian abuses of humanity are forever remembered, at least among those who dare stare leftism in the face. Cambodia's killing fields were not the work of conservatives; progressives believe violence is actually the force of history -- "history is on our side" -- and that such violence is, by definition, progress; such was the very prescription of the Pol Pot regime for all that it believed stood in the way of history.

The Weather Underground was a leftist community organization, and it loved the brilliant rhetoric of a bomb. The clenched fist of the Black Power movement was utterly militant; Che Guevera and Fidel Castro were not known for their diplomacy. Adolf Hitler was no conservative, socialist that he was. And Lee Harvey Oswald may have assassinated a beloved American president, but it was not conservative talk-radio that fueled his animus. It was the words of Karl Marx. Leftists are generally a murderous bunch, their alleged pacifism, and compassion for the working people, notwithstanding.

A self-reflective soul, or so one would think, might want to consider the history of political violence before suggesting right-wingers pose a threat to the United States of America.

©2009/Contratimes. All Rights Reserved.

On War In Afghanistan: The Quote of the Day

It may seem a sacrilege on this day to quote something as politically charged as James Taranto's words below, but Mr. Taranto is actually writing about what was said at a 9/11 memorial service this morning by Barack Obama. Regardless, Mr. Taranto's words are the quote of the day (thus far):

Remember when these guys [the Democrats in power] used to complain that President Bush was "distracted" from Afghanistan by Iraq? If the U.S. is attacked by terrorists on Obama's watch, it may be written that Americans died because we had an insurance salesman when we needed a commander in chief.

The increasing drumbeat of defeatism on Afghanistan (which includes a smattering of right-wing isolationists along with mainstream and left-wing Democrats) leads us to think that maybe Iraq was a distraction after all--a distraction for Democrats, who seem to have in their DNA a drive to relive the glorious defeat in Vietnam. [Best of the Web Today, 9.11.09]