The attempt to write with focus and depth about any subject seems scarcely worthwhile until we have collectively chosen a particular path to destruction for our nation in two weeks. One candidate will immerse us in yet more foreign military entanglements, while the other will double expenditures of money we don't have on programs we don't need. Why people take such a keen interest in the kind of catastrophe that awaits us is beyond me. We go to hell, either way. There is some remote possibility, at least, that an Obama Administration supplied with a Democratic Congress may make such a whopping great mess of things that serious, responsible candidates may again raise their heads for mid-term elections in two years.
As I have always said and will continue to say, our real problem is ourselves. We are not innocent victims shanghaied by brigands along the waterfront: we're adult electors in a democratic republic who have freely chosen to put ourselves in chains aboard a vessel headed we know not where. We have shut off our brains to pursue mindless amusements--our heads are quite literally rigged with the gear of our iPods and cell phones where unobstructed portals of the senses are supposed to apprehend surrounding reality for processing by quiet thought. The harvest of freshmen that ended up in my composition class this fall already displays advanced symptoms of social decay. I wouldn't rate the lot as bad kids, by any means--most are even quite personable; but they simply cannot shut up and listen to someone else talk. Not two or three of them, but every student except for a young man who was home-schooled, constantly erupts into very audible mumbles with his or her neighbor as I try to conduct a class discussion, usually staring me straight in the eye while busily moving a winsome teenage mouth. They don't get it. They don't grasp the concept of sacrificing a little instant gratification so that broader objectives may be achieved to the eventual profit of all. The rest of the world is mere images to them. They may not have found my "off" button on their laptops (which I had to order them all to close)--but no matter: they're quite used to jabbering on their cell while flipping through a TV's blaring channels.
The immensity of our cultural peril has not been measured by any public figure within my hearing. It's really NOT the economy, stupid--or the war (any war), or global warming, or even the communal incoherence created by our immigration hemorrhage. It's the stupidity, stupid. We cannot think any longer. A.D.D. is epidemic. We cannot concentrate long enough to follow a thought to its logical conclusion. "Debates" are a series of two-minute recitations of bumper-sticker wisdom. "Analysis" is a sexy blonde newscaster breathlessly reading questions from the teleprompter to the expert's boxed head as the seconds before the next commercial break tick away. "Issues" are blinking icons on a computer screen, or might as well be: Barack is black, Palin is female, Joe's a plumber. Feel like a plumber? Click here. Wanna feel good about your racial broad-mindedness? Click there. Do our viewers' poll. Phone our blackberry. Pog mo thon...
From this lapel-pen thinking will come race riots, among other things. It's just a matter of time. As Pat Buchanan wrote recently, many of Obama's lieutenants are already predicting that Americans of African descent will take to the streets if Il Duce is "robbed" of election. And if he wins? Then expect a "race tax" within the next four years--a handout to dark-skinned Americans, that is, under the absurd banner of "slave reparations". Since the maneuver will in reality be a tax reimbursement to those whose skin is of the right tint, it will amount to a levy upon those of us whose skin is too fair to qualify. Stand back then and watch a true resurgence of Klan-style race-hatred. My God, it won't be pretty.
And most of all, it will be thoroughly stupid--stupid because perfectly avoidable. Such a waste... but it must be so, apparently. We must sound the bottom of this abyss before we can begin to rise again.
Friday, October 24, 2008
Wednesday, October 15, 2008
What Profiteth It a Man, Though He Gain the World...
I just finished an Irish book published in 1963, An Gleann agus a Raibh Ann (The Glen and Those Who Lived There), narrated to one Seamus O Maolchathaigh by an old fellow also called Seamus, of the Burke tribe. I have actually been to Clonmel--walked through it and over the mountain described by old Seamus to spend the night at a rural bed-and-breakfast. I walked over 600 miles in a month on that trip, all of it in Ireland. It was in many ways the high point of my life.
Old Seamus confides toward the end an extraordinary incident. His best friend from childhood, Sean Baroid, had emigrated in bitterness after a tragic misunderstanding with his betrothed. (The girl's father, scorning Sean's relative poverty, had turned a blind eye as a third party slandered him wickedly within the daughter's hearing.) The young woman wasted away once she realized the consequences of her jealous fit. Seamus was in attendance when she gave up the ghost, her final act being a spectacular leap from the bed as she shouted Sean's name ecstatically and reached for an empty doorway. Returning home soon thereafter, just before the sun rose, Seamus saw a familiar-looking figure run past him. Though exhausted, his mind belatedly registered the odd fact that the runner's footfalls made no noise. Upon peering at the figure more closely, Seamus recognized Sean. He raced to overtake him, for the figure had turned onto a straight lane with no egress... yet the road lay bare in either direction. Another acquaintance encountered Sean's image in similar fashion at about the same hour. Months later, they would learn that Sean had died in an Alaskan logging camp approximately two hours (adjustments for time zones having been made) before his cruel beloved had expired shouting his name joyfully.
You'll have to accept my word that Seamus does not come across as a fraud or a gullible rube anywhere in his long book. He was a canny, pensive man with some education, and he tended to smile at the tales of waifs and banshees which shortened long winter nights. Old people in our own culture used to recount many adventures similar to his, in fact. My grandmother could summon several instances of what might loosely be called ESP, and my mother and sister both witnessed an inexplicable slamming of an entry door to our old house at the very time when my father had flat-lined after a heart attack. (On that occasion, he would be revived.)
There is a danger in equating such experiences with the eternal life of the spirit, which our faith and our higher inklings require that we index to a purposive goodness. A released soul would have better things to do than wander around raising hackles. Yet we glimpse here, I believe, something like the afterglow of the spirit's exit. We see, in other words, that there IS spirit, and that it does not conform to physical laws (which are all, in any case, eventually self-contradictory if carried to logical conclusion). That those of us living presently in a horrid tangle of car-harried streets and cookie-stamp subdivisions have few or no such encounters can hardly be surprising. Figs don't grow on thistles, as the Italians say. Why would you look for a shooting star in a tar pit? Spirits apparently revisit--once or repeatedly, briefly or with lingering affection--the places that meant most to them. I pity my own, however, if it should try to locate the tiny house where I grew up, or my grandmother's elegant antebellum home, or the residence that my wife and I built in Tennessee before a careerist hound (who prayed publicly and unctuously at the drop of a hat) chased us from it. All of those places have either been wiped from the map or altered beyond recognition. As for us migrant-professional types, our lifeline to special places severed, we blow like dead leaves in the wind to pursue a new job, a promotion, a more enviable bit of curbside. If we wanted to point to some plot of land and say, "This is the face of my past," we would spin and spin until our nose finished in the dirt.
These are the kinds of sobering reflection to which I am driven by the squalid spectacle of a degenerate people deciding how to divide its civilization's carcass in an impending election. Will the filthy-rich be permitted to make off with regal settlements after the collapse of insanely speculative ventures? Will they and the generally well-to-do, instead, be ordered to dish out goodies to the less fortunate? Will the bank be allowed to foreclose upon my mortgage? Will I have to fund my child's education out of my own pocket? Am I really expected to pay more for gas? What about my retirement account--my rulers aren't going to let that diminish in value, are they? Why should I have these worries to a degree greater than anyone else? Which candidate will give ME the best deal--will reach deepest into the pockets of others or multiply the nation's debt most recklessly in order to assure MY short-term comfort? I certainly don't want to hear a word about true fairness--about a flat tax, say, or a sales tax levied on every non-staple item which any consumer has money disposable to buy. No, fairness to me means raking more chips into my pile from the hands of those who can stack their counters to the ceiling... or to a level higher than mine, anyway.
The only enduring truth lies in the spirit. As we have chased spiritual afterglow from our scenes of loss with rabid restlessness and ephemeral vulgarity, so we have chased spiritual warmth from our daily lives with short-sighted hunger for selfish, material profit. We are a decadent people on the eve of receiving just what we deserve. If I were to die this evening, the only reason I wouldn't waft my way to Clonmel like Sean Baroid would be to linger at my son's pillow one last time.
Old Seamus confides toward the end an extraordinary incident. His best friend from childhood, Sean Baroid, had emigrated in bitterness after a tragic misunderstanding with his betrothed. (The girl's father, scorning Sean's relative poverty, had turned a blind eye as a third party slandered him wickedly within the daughter's hearing.) The young woman wasted away once she realized the consequences of her jealous fit. Seamus was in attendance when she gave up the ghost, her final act being a spectacular leap from the bed as she shouted Sean's name ecstatically and reached for an empty doorway. Returning home soon thereafter, just before the sun rose, Seamus saw a familiar-looking figure run past him. Though exhausted, his mind belatedly registered the odd fact that the runner's footfalls made no noise. Upon peering at the figure more closely, Seamus recognized Sean. He raced to overtake him, for the figure had turned onto a straight lane with no egress... yet the road lay bare in either direction. Another acquaintance encountered Sean's image in similar fashion at about the same hour. Months later, they would learn that Sean had died in an Alaskan logging camp approximately two hours (adjustments for time zones having been made) before his cruel beloved had expired shouting his name joyfully.
You'll have to accept my word that Seamus does not come across as a fraud or a gullible rube anywhere in his long book. He was a canny, pensive man with some education, and he tended to smile at the tales of waifs and banshees which shortened long winter nights. Old people in our own culture used to recount many adventures similar to his, in fact. My grandmother could summon several instances of what might loosely be called ESP, and my mother and sister both witnessed an inexplicable slamming of an entry door to our old house at the very time when my father had flat-lined after a heart attack. (On that occasion, he would be revived.)
There is a danger in equating such experiences with the eternal life of the spirit, which our faith and our higher inklings require that we index to a purposive goodness. A released soul would have better things to do than wander around raising hackles. Yet we glimpse here, I believe, something like the afterglow of the spirit's exit. We see, in other words, that there IS spirit, and that it does not conform to physical laws (which are all, in any case, eventually self-contradictory if carried to logical conclusion). That those of us living presently in a horrid tangle of car-harried streets and cookie-stamp subdivisions have few or no such encounters can hardly be surprising. Figs don't grow on thistles, as the Italians say. Why would you look for a shooting star in a tar pit? Spirits apparently revisit--once or repeatedly, briefly or with lingering affection--the places that meant most to them. I pity my own, however, if it should try to locate the tiny house where I grew up, or my grandmother's elegant antebellum home, or the residence that my wife and I built in Tennessee before a careerist hound (who prayed publicly and unctuously at the drop of a hat) chased us from it. All of those places have either been wiped from the map or altered beyond recognition. As for us migrant-professional types, our lifeline to special places severed, we blow like dead leaves in the wind to pursue a new job, a promotion, a more enviable bit of curbside. If we wanted to point to some plot of land and say, "This is the face of my past," we would spin and spin until our nose finished in the dirt.
These are the kinds of sobering reflection to which I am driven by the squalid spectacle of a degenerate people deciding how to divide its civilization's carcass in an impending election. Will the filthy-rich be permitted to make off with regal settlements after the collapse of insanely speculative ventures? Will they and the generally well-to-do, instead, be ordered to dish out goodies to the less fortunate? Will the bank be allowed to foreclose upon my mortgage? Will I have to fund my child's education out of my own pocket? Am I really expected to pay more for gas? What about my retirement account--my rulers aren't going to let that diminish in value, are they? Why should I have these worries to a degree greater than anyone else? Which candidate will give ME the best deal--will reach deepest into the pockets of others or multiply the nation's debt most recklessly in order to assure MY short-term comfort? I certainly don't want to hear a word about true fairness--about a flat tax, say, or a sales tax levied on every non-staple item which any consumer has money disposable to buy. No, fairness to me means raking more chips into my pile from the hands of those who can stack their counters to the ceiling... or to a level higher than mine, anyway.
The only enduring truth lies in the spirit. As we have chased spiritual afterglow from our scenes of loss with rabid restlessness and ephemeral vulgarity, so we have chased spiritual warmth from our daily lives with short-sighted hunger for selfish, material profit. We are a decadent people on the eve of receiving just what we deserve. If I were to die this evening, the only reason I wouldn't waft my way to Clonmel like Sean Baroid would be to linger at my son's pillow one last time.
Sunday, October 5, 2008
All Aboard the Express to National Meltdown
Yes, Sarah Palin performed swimmingly in her "debate"--and yes, media "analysis" of her performance broke down strictly along partisan lines (with an emphasis on "broke down"). A sultry blonde Dana Bash opined for CNN that Palin often refused to deal in details, citing her evading a question about which policy items she might soonest jettison under pressure. (But what kind of question is that? One might as well declare, "I'm not really convinced that these items have merit--I champion them because they play well with the base.") FOX was meanwhile effusing over Palin's winks to the camera, her "charisma"... but also, thankfully, pointing out that several of Biden's generous "details" were factually errant. I was particularly struck by Lunch-Bucket Joe's pronouncement, unimpeded by a complete absence of scientific credentials, that climate change is entirely man-made. It smacked of a religious zealot's to-the-death insistence upon a holy apparition's reality.
And yes, the congressional bail-out of the mortgage industry was a national disgrace and patently more damaging to our nation's remaining hopes of survival than 9/11. A bill that was found shamelessly spendthrift at 700 billion by the House became suddenly acceptable when 150 billion of regional bribe money was added. As we approach a blind turn, we have now forced the pedal to the metal.
And yes, once again the Chameleon President whose nominal party allegiance should have mobilized him to oppose government intrusion was growing statism's point guard, defending the bail-out on national television... and once again the presidential candidate who wanted to switch parties two years ago endorsed the Chameleon's position, while the candidate who waxes eloquent against "four more years of Bush" could find nothing to distinguish his shifty spots from the dorsal patterns on either of these reptiles.
And yes, nobody outside of Mexico is commemorating the fortieth anniversary of the slaughter of innocent, unarmed protesters--hundreds of them, including many women and children--during the Olympic Games in Mexico City by police and military units. Nobody in this country must be allowed to recognize that our southern neighbor has a long history of brutally tyrannizing over its masses, and that a fusion of its ways with our ways is likely to abrogate sacred American freedoms from numerous directions.
A busy week in the West's endgame... and some events were scrupulously observed and microscopically examined for "spin", while some disappeared behind the slamming drawer of a file cabinet. The common denominator, in all cases, is that the endgame proceeds. The public, highly controlled response, whether mock-analytical or trick-or-treat evanescent, is part of that endgame, descriptive of a culture that can no longer see or think straight. There's simply too much to write about these days, and too little reason to write about it. One is sometimes morally obligated to stand before a runaway train and be crushed... and then again, one is sometimes well advised just to keep one's family as far from the track as possible.
Me? I'm putting the finishing touches to an old baseball-card collection: that's my consuming interest for the moment. I know the train's crashing--and I'm not even going to look up. If there are survivors, maybe they'll live to see the day when they refuse to climb aboard another such train.
And yes, the congressional bail-out of the mortgage industry was a national disgrace and patently more damaging to our nation's remaining hopes of survival than 9/11. A bill that was found shamelessly spendthrift at 700 billion by the House became suddenly acceptable when 150 billion of regional bribe money was added. As we approach a blind turn, we have now forced the pedal to the metal.
And yes, once again the Chameleon President whose nominal party allegiance should have mobilized him to oppose government intrusion was growing statism's point guard, defending the bail-out on national television... and once again the presidential candidate who wanted to switch parties two years ago endorsed the Chameleon's position, while the candidate who waxes eloquent against "four more years of Bush" could find nothing to distinguish his shifty spots from the dorsal patterns on either of these reptiles.
And yes, nobody outside of Mexico is commemorating the fortieth anniversary of the slaughter of innocent, unarmed protesters--hundreds of them, including many women and children--during the Olympic Games in Mexico City by police and military units. Nobody in this country must be allowed to recognize that our southern neighbor has a long history of brutally tyrannizing over its masses, and that a fusion of its ways with our ways is likely to abrogate sacred American freedoms from numerous directions.
A busy week in the West's endgame... and some events were scrupulously observed and microscopically examined for "spin", while some disappeared behind the slamming drawer of a file cabinet. The common denominator, in all cases, is that the endgame proceeds. The public, highly controlled response, whether mock-analytical or trick-or-treat evanescent, is part of that endgame, descriptive of a culture that can no longer see or think straight. There's simply too much to write about these days, and too little reason to write about it. One is sometimes morally obligated to stand before a runaway train and be crushed... and then again, one is sometimes well advised just to keep one's family as far from the track as possible.
Me? I'm putting the finishing touches to an old baseball-card collection: that's my consuming interest for the moment. I know the train's crashing--and I'm not even going to look up. If there are survivors, maybe they'll live to see the day when they refuse to climb aboard another such train.
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