A Brief Reflection on Presidental Debate: 10/01/12

The Emperor was revealed without clothes.

Election 2012: "As the future dimishes, the past looms larger."

My friend, the cynic, long lost, has now returned for a short visit. He rails:

"Obama is an affirmative action President, a child and culmination of the 1960s. Inexperienced and mildly incompetent, he quite naturally sees the history of the United States, and its problem and possibilities, from the bottom up, from the black and slave experience, which he strongly and logically identifies with.

"He is a black Kansan trying to find his way in a white world. He is an outsider trying to be inside, to create a better inside for the marginalized citizen with little understanding (or empathy) for the Euro benefits in the overall American scheme.

"He is a man of his time: a blamer.

"He studied and taught constitutional law, but sees the Constitution as a deformed impediment to equality and justice; one that must be changed. (See Supreme Court.)

"America is too great a concept, a country, to be brought down by inexperience. The way to progress will be forward, but it unfortunately is not always a straight line."

A Blend

Where does memory end
     and imagination begin?
Where does science end,
     and art begin?
Where does reason end,
     and passion begin?

Is there a line of demarkation
     between any of them?

Or are they all fluid and one?

Simply at different stages of their respective history?

The Middle East

Internationally, many years ago--all this before 9/11--I warned all my Eurocentric and Amerocentric friends that the 21st Century was to be the century of Islamic challenge to  Euro-American Capitalism, as the 19th century offered Christianity's challenge, and the 20th century was the century of Communism's. No one wanted to listen to me because of the irrational fear and inherent arrogance of the west towards the inevitable resurgence (oil + money + an attractive community value system) of one of the great civilizations of the last 1300 years.

Those of us in the West, please remember that America started with revolution and Civil War, as did most of the countries of Europe (and had two World War besides). Why shouldn't the Middle East follow the common-to-humanity dictates of human nature and history? Dictators overthrown, revolution and civil war.

All men are created equal, right?

(If any of you would like to read the longer, fuller article, please let me know.)

Replacing the Replacements

I vowed not to get overtly political in this blog. Perhaps that's why I have written so infrequently over the past two months.

But the NFL-Referee fiasco has gotten me going. What is the lesson from the labor stalemate? The owners are greedy? Of course. They they are willing to jeopardise their golden goose because of their egos? Of course. The Professional referees desearve more? Most probably. BUT: Did you really expect the inexperienced replacement referees to be up to the task...duh?

Be logical: you cannot run a successful enterprise with replacements...of any kind..and expect them to be up to the task immediately! Developed competence takes time. I might want to and deserve to be a the new cook in the kitchen, displacing my wife; but you probably won't eat as well as you did for a while. Facts of life. Successful transitions take time.

We have been running America (like the NFL this season) with replacement referees (talent) in key positions for forty years...and the game has suffered. Let me repeat: fact of life. Transitions take time. The beneficiaries of the social revolutions since the late 1960s have not been fully up to the task of running America's economic and political life at the highest levels. No fault of their own; they just didn't have the experience (blame sexism, racism, ethnicism, if you want) but they were ON AVERAGE unequipped to adjudicate that the high level the American game. And the game has suffered. In overall instances (of course there are exceptions...but they only prove the rule) the replacement by the 'new referees' has been a case of massive 'learning on the job.' And when the game has been played at the highest level of political and economic activity that the US has been playing the game (just like it is played the phenomenal NFL players)--and played in a shifting global game--the referees are bound to--and did--make a lot of wrong, inadequate calls...and the game was threatening to get out of control, as it egregiously did in the walk-up to the so-called Financial Crisis.

To develop excellence requires time...and America may be running out. I warn the beneficiaries of the great and inevitable social revolution of the last 40 years to own up, stop blaming the past and instead pour their hyperbolic angst ("I've been screwed over") into the future...or the next wave of Americans (Indians, Asians, Pakistanis, etc) will walk right past them. Those cultures have no white Anglo male guilt to be exploited (as the social revolutionaries have done for the past forty years); they just work harder, generally take more responsibility for their own lives ("Shit Happens; Move On") and are already leapfrogging to the top.

Look around: college admission and graduation rates, key positions at hospital staffs, employment statistics...the future is already upon us. Grow, accept responsibility, double your effort, or, as a nation (unless the new groups can save us) we will wither.

For Your Consideration

Whether we like it or not, America is at war with a bunch of Alpha males. They scream, they kill, the turture. Operationally, they exemplifify animals. No holds barred, they kill, cut off heads, set captives on fire, drag our foreign service workers through streets, They are bitter, bitter killers.

A further example of their Alpha Maleness. Look how they negotiate with their own women; and how the female gender is rendered second class. Women are abstracted from the running of their own county. Politics is male. (The home may by run by women, we from the outside only see the dismissive burkas).

Yet our politicians that rule in the USA, Obama primary among them, Joe Biden, Eric Holder are beta males at least...at least from what we see under the political cover and statements. Are they up to the task of dealing with Alpha killers? Their international polical statements are equivocal, nuanced and consiliatory. As are the ones of Hillary Clinton, Susanna Rice. They are strong woman, alpha females if you will, but can Alpha females by instinct defeat terrorist Alpha Males?

We are in war, and men are by hereditary and cultural inclination (still) warriors. That is not to say Alpha Males are incapable of understanding peace; but what we seem to need at the forefront of our national leadership right now is the big stick, not the big hug...a slap in the face and not protracted conversation and consideration. If we lose this thing, the only hug we'll get is the final embrace.

We must fight back. There is little retreat built into the kind of men we are fighting. They seem to only understand power and all-out endeavors. How many more suicide bombers and trainer-killers in Afghanistan do we need to see before we accept the certainty that we are in an Alpha war with radical Islam, not a Beta 'win-the-hearts-and-minds-of -the people' confrontation? Drones are not the right choice in this kind of fight; it is the choice of sophistication and civilization and carefullness...which is seen by the other side as cowardice: Drones are seen as beta men sitting in air-coditioned cubicles in Vegas dropping impersonal punishment on the enemy while even the leaders of our friends (?) China and Russia; are still at the stage of brutally purging and killing their own internal adversaries!

For this brief period we need men who will bellow as loud as the enemy. We need Alpha Men as national leaders, with the mind-set of Seals and Special Ops (we have too few of them) to operate as the American Revolutioaries did, when they "wished they had more than one life to give for their county"...and "Give me liberty or give me death." Think of Abraham Lincoln, the position he was in before he found General Grant to prosecute the Civil War for the North: "Where can I find me a General who will fight?"

We have had forty years of feminising America. It has been highly beneficial on many fronts, but we are mow in an Alpha Male time of challenge when it comes to the decisions of war. Androgeny can come later; when we win the peace. But today we still have a need for our Alpha Males in highest offices in the land.      

As the future diminishes, the past looms larger.

The End of Silence

I wrote about silence in my last blog (almost a month and a half ago) and it left me mute. I have not written since then. I hope I have found my voice again.

Perhaps it was/is political silly season that had silenced me. So many lies, obfuscations, half-truths and self-serving self-righteousness that I have not wanted to analyse or respond.

Maybe it was international issues: many years ago--this is before 9/11--I warned all my Eurocentric and Amerocentric friends that the 21st Century would be the century of Islamic challenge to capitalism (American and European), similar to the 19th century Christianity's challenge of putting a human face on capitalism, and the 20th century free enterprise challenge by Communism's. No one wanted to listen to me because of the irrational fear and inherent arrogance of the west towards the inevitable resurgence (oil + money + an attractive community value system) of one of the great civilizations of the last 1300 years. Remember, those of us in the West who wish to criticize Islamic revolutionary jihad, America started with revolution and Civil War, as did most of the countries of Europe. Why shouldn't the Middle East follow the common change-dictates of human nature and history? Dictators are overthrown, followed by revolution and civil war. All men are created equal, right, in violence as well as it human rights?

Finally, I simply found my voice again because I just completed a visit with my eight year old  granddaughter Sofia.

While visiting one evening at our home in California, her mother, my superb daughter Mishi, asked Sofia what she liked best about coming to Southern California, to visit Grandma and Grandpa: was it the weather, the beach, the merry-go-round, the swimming, the innumerable parks and playgrounds she demands to visit on every trip?

Without hesitation, she said: "Hanging out with Grandma and Grandpa." I swear that's she said; without prompting, pre-meditation or preparation: "Hanging out with Grandma and Grandpa."

How can anyone remain silent after that?!

SILENCE, please!

Language is an attempt  to sculpt the human landscape to our design.

I watched myself this morning facing an intractable human problem; its futility had silenced me.

I, who love to talk, found no words. More cogently, I sought no words.

Why describe when I cannot convince? Why define when I cannot find adherence? Why communicate when confirmation is impossible?

If change is impossible, solution is an illusion. If stasis is inevitable, why expend any life force? Save it for the primary contest: maintaining heartbeat.

I understood why old men age increasingly silent. They have given up on the world; or at least their ability to maneuver it. They know that politics is infinitely elastic and corruptible. Individuals are hopelessly mired in genetic predisposition, and love has gone the way of all soft flesh. Only stubbornness remains. Silence maintains, conserves, focuses energy on defeating the ultimate foe (whom, history has proven, is impervious to argument): death.

But I write?! I expend words, energy, in that way. Am I engaging in self-delusion? Death does not read my blog. Who am I talking to? Myself, obviously. I am my last listener; believing I can change my own human landscape. My last will and testament has yet to be recorded. Even if written on the wind--or an electronic cloud--it is still forming, like the universe itself.

Death shrinks back in the face of self-argument. Talk to self. Others: please remain silent.