Enemies of the People
by Thomas Fleming
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President Obama, in his perpetual quest for public approval, has embarked on a peace initiative. It will now be easier for Cuban Americans to send more money out of the USA back to their relatives to stimulate the moribund Cuban economy, and President Unpronounceable of Iran will not have to cut back on his nuclear weapons program if he wishes to have direct talks with the United States.
I do not object to an improvement in US-Cuban relations—though I wish it were more Realpolitik and less an expression of solidarity with a Communist dictatorship—and, after all the mischief stirred up by George Bush’s incredibly stupid “axis of evil” speech, we may be compelled, for the moment at least, to pretend the Iranian political class is anything but what it is: the vilest and most duplicitous set of thieves and scoundrels ever to hold power in a Muslim country. As a Turk or an Arab, if you won’t take my word for it.
Perhaps you are thinking that, after gunning down those Somali pirates all by himself, President Barry feels in a generous mood. That would be a serious mistake. He has never had any problem in cozying up to the enemies of our country. He has seen the enemy and it is us, the American people who enslaved his ancestors. All right, his father was actually a Kenyan but it is the same thing. He is so loyal to his Kenyan ancestry that he appears to have returned a bust of Churchill to the British—Churchill cracked down on the Mau Mau terrorists. Could anyone have ever dreamed that we would have a Mau Mau fellow traveler as a president? If we needed any further evidence for Obama’s contempt for ordinary Americans, consider a special warning issued to police departments by the head of Homeland Security, Janet Napolitano.
Right-wing extremists are plotting to capitalize on Obama’s unpopularity with bigots, wars Napolitano—a snapping turtle in need of a facelift. These extremists include the usual suspects—gun nuts and racists—but also people who oppose abortion, know what the Tenth Amendment to the Constitution says, or criticize the President. (I would post links to a more trustworthy source than Fox or to the document, but right wing paranoia has virtually shut down entire websites.)
I have a suggestion for the first right wing extremist to be arrested: Texas Governor Rick Perry, who only today signed onto a resolution complaining against the federal government’s illegal intrusions into Texas and reaffirming the 10th Amendment.
There you have in a nutshell the Obama administration’s view of the world: Cuba sì, Texas no!
Excuse me—have to run. There’s a knock at the door. I wonder who…@#$#$%
[Subscribe online to Chronicles: A Magazine of American Culture. Click here for details].
1 Comment by NGPM on 14 April 2009:
It never ceases to amaze me how naïvely half-decent people assume that everyone is a “nice person” or “like them.” It is of course the natural outcome of the suburban styrofoam bubbles that most Americans have lived in since at least the 1960’s, but they are no longer capable of realizing that unnatural and stressful life conditions have very real, very traumatizing, and very lasting effects on their victims. Barak Obama’s upbringing was a scandal and that’s not his fault, but the effects are obvious and now we, the people, are expected to live with, even sing praises to, the consequences of his personal chips on the shoulder.
I think you should leave the United States while there’s still time.
2 Comment by Harry Wisniewski on 14 April 2009:
I doubt whether Governor Perry would have signed the resolution if Senator McCain were president. The GOP sees an opportunity to run at Obama and I suspect this is just part of an overall strategy for the GOP to pretend that they really believe in principles.
And I doubt even more if Governor Perry will endorses Texas secession of 1861.
3 Comment by Derek Leaberry on 14 April 2009:
Dr. Fleming’s apt description of Miss Janet Napolitano’s lack of beauty leads me to ask why a supermajority of women of the Left seem to revel in making themselves as physically unattractive as possible. Of course, I don’t expect Senator Barbara Mikulski or Congresswoman Rosa DeLauro to emulate Audrey Hepburn but they at least can aim for Ellen Corby or Aunt Bea. Is it because the modern woman of the Left turns her back on the historically normative desire of women to be attractive to men?
I know what I ask is off-point with regards to Dr. Fleming’s main theme but it is a question I often ask myself.
4 Comment by Sempronius on 14 April 2009:
Its an old trick.Remember Peisistratus’ performance before the Athenian Assembly?He sought and obtained his club wielding bodyguard with which he seized the Acropolis and ruled Athens with the support of his hill boys.At least he wasnt Kenyan.And neither were his hillbillies.
From The Way We Are No.3.
Say hello to Barry’s hill party.
5 Comment by Sempronius on 14 April 2009:
I’m seriously thinking about taking the Foreign Service exam.Maybe get a job in a consulate somewhere in “il Bel Paese.”But only 2% of the applicants get accepted.Any other ideas I might try?
6 Comment by Etienne Gervaise on 14 April 2009:
“Rightwing Extremism: Current Economic and Political Climate Fueling Resurgence in Radicalization and Recruitment”
As a military veteran I find this poorly researched, and doubtless SPLC-authored missive of the Department of Homeland Security to be offensive. So does my soldier son. Tomorrow I’ll go to the post office, pay the balance of my taxes (a portion of which will be useds to bail out stupid greedy New York bankers), then I’ll attend a Tea Party tax protest in front of the Treasury Dept. HQ next to the White House.
BO’s secret police will be taking names, and facial profiles, and sniffing out potential terrorists. It might be scary to assemble peaceably under our “progressive” government. Does anybody know where I can get a Gadsden flag on short notice?
7 Comment by Etienne Gervaise on 14 April 2009:
@5 Sempronius
May I suggest a job as a tobacco broker? Virginia bright leaf is very much desired in other parts of the world where the population is not worried about overburdening their healthcare systems.
8 Comment by Josh Cooney on 14 April 2009:
@5 “Any other ideas I might try?”
Idaho.
9 Comment by Sempronius on 14 April 2009:
Thanks EG.Any specific firms in mind?
10 Comment by John Roberts on 14 April 2009:
I applaud Gov. Perry for signing onto the resolution concerning the 10th Amendment. But the reality is that he is likely facing a formidable challenge in the GOP primary next year for Governor by popular U.S. Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison. He is clearly positioning himself as the non-D.C. candidate and hence the real Texan. Brilliant move in my opinion. But I doubt that his action is motivated by any deep devotion to nor appreciation of the 10th Amendment.
11 Comment by Nicholas Moses on 14 April 2009:
@Semipronius: your real name is Robert Randazzo, is it not? In principle, with a few exceptions, I am told that if your patrilineal ancestor left Italy after 1861 you are an Italian civizen by jus sanguinis.
12 Comment by Josh Cooney on 14 April 2009:
In case the Webmaster is interested, the April 2007 Chronicles includes a prophetic and timely piece by Philip Jenkins, titled “The Next Militia Panic.” Since the website occasionally posts old articles that have new relevance, this one would be a good choice.
13 Comment by Allen Wilson on 14 April 2009:
NGPM: I have considered taking the fast track to French citizenship available to those from former French territories. Yet, France is again threatened by Moors, and Germany once again by the age old Ottoman threat, and all Europe yet again by the Saracens. Neo-Pagans are in charge within the walls of both citadels. I see no reason not to stay home and fight the Aztec and other hordes.
Besides, I have a blood feud to settle with a certain trinity-denying, family sundering, murderous, child killing, nutcase heretic group based in Colorado, worshipers of an imaginary god to whom they have given the (mispronounced) Hebrew name of the real God.
I’m not trying to argue or be rude. I would really like to know. Considering the demographic and geopolitical situations of each continent, what long-term advantages could there be in going to Italy or France, and how would we be better off there?
14 Comment by Josh Cooney on 14 April 2009:
Mr. Wilson,
I’ll leave it to others to discuss Europe, but I was quite serious in suggesting Idaho (or any mountain west state). I would feel safer where the terrain is rugged, crime is low, the population is sparce, and the social and political tradition is rooted in independence. North Dakota, for example, has a saying: “Forty below keeps the riffraff away.” Moreover, if I could find a state that is really serious about sovereignty, I would move there in a heartbeat. I believe Idaho is one of 15 states that have passed a “sovereignty resolution.”
Western Canada, too, might be an option. Yes, Canada is a socialist nation, but its western region is made up of cowboys and roughnecks. Plus, Canada has a wealth of natural resources.
At times I think this is the wrong attitude for a Christian and, so I thought, a localist to take. Maybe we should all just stay where we are and suffer whatever comes in the future, which in my case, being an Upstate Yorker, is likely to be bleak.
15 Comment by Mr. Stonehouse on 14 April 2009:
Josh Cooney
Just some information on Canada
Canada is not a socialist country. In many ways it is more free enterprise than the U.S. It takes around five minutes (on the Internet) to start a sole proprietorship, and around an equal time to start a corporation, in my home province of Alberta. In public markets, there are more publicly traded oil and gas companies in Canada than all other markets in the world combined. In the mining industry, the situation is similar. Most of these companies are small to mid-sized.
A note on roughnecks and cowboys. The cities in Canada are pretty much the same as in the U.S. The countryside, however, is like stepping back in time. The people are open, extremely friendly, trusting–salt of the earth. But land prices are insane–with a quarter section (160 acres) of decent farmland costing a minimum of $200,000 CDN. On the other hand, property taxes are low on farmland (under $2,000 per year in most counties), the public and Catholic (government funded) school systems are very good (for sciences an math), and the public health care is also a lot better than many would have you believe.
16 Comment by robert m. peters on 14 April 2009:
I experienced a personal foreshadowing of Mrs. Napolitano’s warning a full ten years ago. I called an attorney to discuss the potential of some relief under the law for an action which had been taken against me.
He said, over the phone, “Doc, by the sound of your voice, you are a white male. Correct?” I responded, “Yes.” Then then asked where I was born. I told him that I had been born in Louisiana. He then inquired of my religion. I said, “Christian, Southern Baptist.” He then laughed and said, “Doc, you are not an entitled class, and you are not a protected class. In fact, there is probably a bounty out on you right now!” He told me that I did not need a lawyer. I needed a moving van. So, I left Arkansas, that already rotted limb of the Southern family tree.
However, I intend to take my stand right here in the northwestern march of Louisiana. I am moving no where, save that God Himself uproots me for His purposes.
17 Comment by Nicholas Moses on 14 April 2009:
@13: Dr. Fleming has an excellent article on France from late 2007 that states it quite better than I could. For all it’s problems, France is still in essence a settled society with some notion of civilisation. Truly and thoroughly decent people are also easier to come across and (in some cases) less naïve about the prospects for “turning things around” with any quick fix. Of course this lends to a certain level of insularity, but at the least it is certainly more productive to focus one’s efforts on beatifying one’s particular corner of the world than to invest energy in hopeless abstract angst. I’m not saying there isn’t plenty of the later within the old French society, but there is certainly more of the former than there is in the U.S. Finally, as for demographics and political correctness, racism statutes aside, French society is at least a generation behind the United States and will have the chance to take a good warning from what is about to happen to our country. Whether she will is another question, but for now it is safer. Just watch your back on the RER B.
I should warn in advance that if you are neither Catholic nor the type to take warmly to well-intentioned but cynical agnostics (and even maybe if you are), you will have an extremely difficult time settling into a decent sector over here. I cannot, however, deny that the absence of any element pretending to “traditional” Protestantism in my mind gives the French right somewhat brighter prospects.
18 Comment by Josh Cooney on 14 April 2009:
Thanks for the info, Mr. Stonehouse. Sorry if I offended you. I was using “socialist” in a broad sense, as in “we’re all socialists now.”
I thought I saw somewhere recently that Alberta still has an active homesteading act. I’ll have to look into it. Is Alberta looking for an agrarian/paleoconservative expatriate community?
19 Comment by Josh Cooney on 15 April 2009:
I was wrong. The Alberta Homesteading Act closed in 1984. The article I read in Mother Earth News was actually written in 1970.
20 Comment by John Seiler on 15 April 2009:
As Solzhenitsyn observed, the freest political discussion is in the Gulag. Because once they’ve made you a zek, what more can they do to you? It’s something to look forward to.
21 Comment by McCallum on 15 April 2009:
Tom Tancredo’s speech at the university of north carolina at chapel hill was stopped last night due to the usual left wing rabble breaking a window.
http://www.newsobserver.com/news/immigration/story/1486087.html
Seems that the pampered #%@!* in Orange County think it would be fine to educate the illegals on the backs of the North Carolina taxpayers. Only here in these lands do the natives turn their noses up at their own folks. Only here do the natives wish to dispossess their ancestry of land and claim.
Chub Seawell, a Baptist minister, lawyer and general populist voice once said that instead of putting the North Carolina zoo in Randolph County that a 30 ft fence should be placed around chapel hill thus saving the tax payer much money.
Looking back 40 years the man is as right as ever.
McCallum
22 Comment by Josh Cooney on 15 April 2009:
Mr. Seiler,
I can see from your blog that you’re following the state sovereignty movement. How optimistic should I be? I’m concerned that it is just a passing fad and that the fed will just throw money at the states to get them to cooperate.
23 Comment by Mr. Stonehouse on 15 April 2009:
Mr. Cooney
No problem
Alberta is largely driven by industrial agriculture–large mono-crops, feedlots, etc. You really should be looking at rural central Ontario to find agrarian/paleo values. The culture there is very traditional and the land and climate is more favourable to a mixed farming/woodlot/maple syrup type of operation. There is also plenty of really good quality fishing and hunting in the area. You can get a 100 acre farm with a solid old house in the area for around $150,000. I don’t know much about school or health care as they are provincial responsibilities. I suggest looking in the Coboconk area. I spent two weeks there last summer with my family at a lake there visiting my wife’s family. It is spectacular.
24 Comment by TJF on 15 April 2009:
Perhaps we might return to the subject, that is, before we all emigrate to parts unknown? (Italy remains at the top of my list because I am more at ease there than in France, but if someone offered me some sort of job or sinecure in France, I would jump at it.)
The state sovereignty movement is probably insignificant in itself but as a rallying point for reasonable people it may be quite useful. A young friend in Texas sent me this yesterday:
“The contrarian in me says to ignore it, but did you see that our
good-haired governor came out today for the 10th Amendment? All of a
sudden, Perry now says he’s for “States’ Rights”. Perhaps putting a
bunch of Chicago racketeers in the White House is what was needed, after
all. Why didn’t we think of this sooner?”
25 Comment by Allen Wilson on 15 April 2009:
@17: Well intentioned but cynical agnostics? That’s all? That’s better than some of the types I put up with here. Regarding everything else you have said, I see your point.
@16: I was told once that Arkansas is the most reconstructed state in the South, but the man who told me this didn’t elaborate much. What’s your take on it?
26 Comment by Allen Wilson on 15 April 2009:
As things get worse, what is now an insignificant movement may take on more seriousness. The tenth amendment may become a rallying point for the states when (or if) they finally begin to actively resist the feds because they have no other choice. That would only happen in an extreme circumstance, economic or otherwise.
27 Comment by Edward on 15 April 2009:
I do not think anything authentic will come from all of this protesting and political posturing. Until I see either a serious confrontation between the people and their government or between state governments and the federal government, I predict that the noise will simply die away slowly. What do the “people” want anyway? Is it the restoration of the Christian west? Is it a return to the spirit of this country’s founding? What does any of this mean in a literal sense? The goals of these people are too vague to be immune from the claws of politicians. I can almost visualize Newt Gingrich using this as a springboard into presidential politics, which means all of the grassroots movements will culminate in another four years of a Bush clone. Then the cycle will begin again.
People need to keep the politicians away from this. They can do nothing but harm us.
28 Comment by Josh Cooney on 15 April 2009:
#26 “What do the “people” want anyway? Is it the restoration of the Christian west? Is it a return to the spirit of this country’s founding?”
Great question, Edward. People might want a Christian west if they knew something about it besides the half truths and legends of crusades, inquisitions, and corruption. As for the latter question, most people would SAY they do, but, again, if they understood the sacrifice and self-restraint required to sustain an independent republic, then they would, I believe, prefer the status quo–nanny-police state.
After reading Dr. Wilson’s article “It Takes Brass to get Gold,” I wonder if it would even matter if we somehow did pull of the miracle of beating back the federal leviathan and gain state’s rights. The Money Class would find a way to conquer us state by state, county by county, village by village, if they had too. The federal government is just an easier target, because we basically know who they are. But when it comes to the managerial elite behind the scenes and Wall Street, we don’t really even know who or what we are dealing with. Like Muley in The Grapes of Wrath, I simply don’t know the answer to the real question at work here: “Who can we shoot?”
29 Comment by Josh Cooney on 15 April 2009:
sorry, states’ rights
30 Comment by Derek Leaberry on 15 April 2009:
What does the majority of people want? More money. Nice cars. 4000 square foot homes. Second and third homes. Free health care. Nice clothes. 6 weeks vacation. 54 inch televisions. The best of appliances. Materialism reigns. I don’t for a minute think that a majority of people care much about a restoration of the original Constitution and Republic. Not many more would want a restoration of Christendom. But profligate government spending and a lack of discipline in personal finance has hinted at change, possibly radical. Out of the crash of one paradigm comes the seeds of another paradigm. I think we are reaching that point.
31 Comment by Edward on 15 April 2009:
“As for the latter question, most people would SAY they do, but, again, if they understood the sacrifice and self-restraint required to sustain an independent republic, then they would, I believe, prefer the status quo–nanny-police state.”
I agree, and I think that people implicitly do understand. That is why they voted for Obama, among other things. Freedom, properly understood, is hard to achieve and even harder to maintain. When a massive government promises to place you within a protected bubble in exchange for a lifetime of financial servitude, only the most vigilant of peoples will forcefully reject it. We are not vigilant. We now live in a world where all of the people believe that, ultimately, the state owns everything and, out of its generosity, it has allowed us to partake of its bounty. Modern politics is just the race to obtain the most favors from the bottomless pit of federal resources.
32 Comment by R. McCabe on 15 April 2009:
@23, Dr. Fleming, thanks for bringing up the 10th like this. I tried to bring it up a month or so ago in a dying thread and was immediately accused of being a liar by a frequent commenter.
The general discussion of secession around here always seems to stumble around proper motives and if these people barking have teeth. I haven’t experienced enough time, and history is written so blandly, that I have no idea if I’m accurate, but there does seem to be a new anger going around; certainly new within my lifetime. Finally, the socialist movements in our country have had enough time to really threaten the basic existence of the middle class. Will that not spark a new kind of outrage? Will it not be genuine?
@29, 30, you are sort of right about this, but I think even now people might be getting that sinking feeling that these things aren’t possible and will be even harder to work for in this current direction of government. Obama is accelerating the Bush doctrine, not really changing it. Even some of the more alert “liberals” are starting to scratch their heads.
And I think most people I know who voted for Obama just did it to feel smart about themselves. I’ve found that most socialists I know who call themselves part of the mainstream (or consider themselves “practical”), have rejected religion and therefore have become unhinged from the natural universe. “What then to explain my frazzled state? Surely, I insist that the world around me must be as complex and bleak as my own mind. So I must choose intelligence to manage such complexity.” Try talking principles to these people and they accuse you of making stuff up or being extreme. Try scratching the surface of this superficial complexity, and you get attacked.
I was proposing ideas for tax reform with some friends who could not get over their belief that a flat tax was “unfair”. I explained that our tax system is not intended to redistribute wealth. They replied it doesn’t matter what I think, it’s already been accepted to do that. I said they were right, it doesn’t matter what I think, it matters what is fitting by design. They were immediately lost again but at least speechless.
I must challenge the many posts about moving around as such. Are things where you live really that bad? Maybe I live too far north to feel it that directly. I’d rather fight for my corner of the woods than hide in another. I’m not accusing anyone of anything, that’s just the way a lot of comments are coming across.
33 Comment by Josh Cooney on 15 April 2009:
I don’t quite understand why the Obama Regime is making such a direct, public assault against the right, or whatever they think is the right. This report, for instance: Why do they want to anger anti-abortionists, states’ rights advocates, and otherwise ordinary people? They must have done it on purpose, since they couldn’t be so clueless as to think lumping pro-life and civil libertarian types with Neo-Nazis, wasn’t going to boil the blood of people. And I’m sure they knew about the reaction to the MIAC report. But what do they gain by doing this?
34 Comment by robert m. peters on 15 April 2009:
Allen Wilson @ 24
I lived in Arkansas for three years. I had, in years before, lived in Austria, Germany, France, California, Texas and Alabama as well, of course, as in my home state of Louisiana. Arkansas was the oddest of those places. The oddness thereof is best made evident to the outsider when one considers that Gov. Huckabee is considered to be a staunch conservative there. While I was there, I thought that what I was experiencing was the spirit of Clinton which permeated the place. Yet, after having left, I concluded that Clinton and his wife were possible in Arkansas because something was already amiss in the hearts of the people.
Mr. Cooney @ 32
Obama is conducting the assault because that is his agenda and he means to execute it! This ain’t no phony war! Obama is not Clinton who would have been a conservative if his wife had been Sarah Palin. Obama is a true believer.
35 Comment by Brock H. on 15 April 2009:
Derek at #29 couldn’t have hit the nail any harder on the head. The masses are just taking a sniff of the economic future and they smell less movies, junk food, vacations, and leisure time, so they’re crying like spoiled toddlers. I bet all the tea party protestors are just partisan Republicans who weren’t anywhere to be seen during the Bush administration when another round of generational theft was taking place, a few trillion dollars’ worth.
36 Comment by CS on 16 April 2009:
“A snapping-turtle in need of a facelift” – You have an absolutely amazing gift of verbal description, Mr. Fleming! As for the MauMau Messiah, he’s really bringing about “Chains we can believe in.” Perhaps we’ll meet someday in a nice FEMA gulag.
37 Comment by TJF on 16 April 2009:
Thanks, CS, for the kind words. I received a complaint that it was not chivalrous to comment on a lady’s appearance. I agree with that in principle, but when females desex themselves, enter politics, and come to resemble Rosa Kleb, physically, morally, and spiritually, I do not think it is wrong to depict these diabolical creatures in vivid colors, especially when they are threatening a crackdown on anyone who holds a decent opinion on morals and politics. Never married and a Methodist to boot, she is well launched to become the Janet Reno of this administration.
Why are they doing this? I agree with Robert Peters above, as I almost always do, but with this proviso: Obama is a very timid person, as Sarkozy recently pointed out in an interview, the epitome of metrosexuality. If he really believed he was inciting some sort of rightwing/populist uprising against him, he would probably not do this. The fact that he and his goons have openly attacked Rush Limbaugh also means they are deluded fools who have no idea of American realities. Weak and irresolute people, when they try to play macho man, can get themselves in a lot of trouble. Obama has gone through life being spoiled and petted by women–never had a real father in his life–and do-gooding white liberals who have constantly told him he is brilliant, articulate, and heroic, when he is none of these. The same people have told him over and over that his wife is so beautiful and charming that she put Carla Bruni in the shade. I have heard, in the course of a pretty long life, a lot of political lies, but this is a whopper I cannot imagine anyone accepting. It is, however, an indication of how delusional the American left really is. Most Italian or French communists–who admire pretty women as much as they enjoy a good bottle of wine–would simply guffaw.
38 Comment by TJF on 16 April 2009:
Excuse me, that is Rosa Klebb. Here is the aging Lotte Lenya, who uglified herself for the part:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Rosa_Klebb_by_Lotte_Lenya.jpg
39 Comment by JDS on 16 April 2009:
A special thank-you should go out to all of the useful-idiot supporters of Bush Administration, who did not let quaint constitutional niceties get in the way of empowering the government to protect us.
40 Comment by Kearney Smith on 16 April 2009:
As things unfold with the Obama presidency,
it appears that staying at home on election day
wasn’t the wiser thing to do.
41 Comment by TJF on 16 April 2009:
That is not at all apparent. McCain may not loathe us as Obama does, but his policies are scarcely any better. There are two possibilities. One, that the situation is hopeless, in which case voting is an exercise in futility. Two, that some conservative revival will make a difference, in which case a McCain victory would have postponed any hope of that revival for four years. Obama is, at least, some kind of wake-up call for people who still have a telephone and can hear it when it rings.
42 Comment by Allen Wilson on 16 April 2009:
Mr Peters @ 35: I’ll make this as short as possible since it’s off topic. I think you are right. Here’s what I think may have caused it, at least in part:
1: Arkansas was right in the middle of transforming from a rustic, pioneering society into a settled, more civilised one when the big war started, followed by so-called ‘reconstruction’. One can imagine what all that would do to a society in such a state of development.
2: Even though the entire South was scourged during the 1950’s & 60’s, I think that the military invasion and occupation of Little Rock in 1957 had some kind of psychological impact on society in this state as a whole.
3; The occupation was followed by the most remarkable, bizarre, and ridiculous case of carpetbagging in history, when Rockefeller came down and bought the state so he could be a governor. Imagine what that must have done to society here. It must have been the blow that set the stage for the Clinton years.
Perhaps a case study should be done on this state so as to show once and for all why social crusading and social engineering must never be unleashed on any society, and why rich outlanders looking for a political office to buy should be run back out.
43 Comment by Derek Leaberry on 16 April 2009:
Lotte Lenya was perfectly cast as Rosa Klebb. The difference between Lotte Lenya and Janet Napolitano is that Miss Napolitano is for real while Miss Lenya was only acting a part. By the way, “From Russia, With Love” not only is, in my humble opinion, the best of the Bond movies but it is the best of the Ian Fleming novels with all due respect to “Dr. No”, “Goldfinger” and “You Only Live Twice.”
44 Comment by Rick on 16 April 2009:
#38,you could add Irma Bunt
45 Comment by Sempronius on 16 April 2009:
What’s going on here is very old and very routine.Lefties love to cry “fascism” as much as the little boy loved crying “wolf.”They’re angling to assume(or employ existing)powers to use against their ancient enemies.They need a pretext.Right-wing extremism is an old standby,and its inexhaustible.
They want power,and they’re determined to get it.
P.S. Nicholas,thanks for the info.My father came here in the 1960’s and I’m aware of that law.But citizenship is not my main concern.Employment is.
46 Comment by Brock H. on 16 April 2009:
To edit my previous post, it was comment #31 I was applauding Derek for.
47 Comment by J Meng on 16 April 2009:
@44, Derek Leaberry: apropos “From Russia, With Love”, as a movie, I agree with your assessment. It was the best. However, in terms of his novels as novels the best story is “On Her Majesty’s Secret Service”.
48 Comment by Etienne Gervaise on 16 April 2009:
I recently obtained “European” passports for my three American-born children on the grounds that having them was wiser than not. The United States is no longer the “Best country on Earth” because we have taken to electing the stupidest morons to the highest office.
All this was taken right out of The Yawning Heights’ fictitious country — Ibansk, where The Brotherhood made sure that only the mediocre could rise to power. And it might also explain why Russia Today is the least dishonest cable news outfit on the boob tube.
49 Comment by Etienne Gervaise on 16 April 2009:
@48 J Meng
OHMSS is the most under-rated of the movies. Best music, best chase, and tightest plot. George Lazenby was chosen because he looked like Connery which the fans did not like. The Roger Moore films were mostly silly. There was now way the Saint Simon Templar could morph into Bond.
Bringing in Pierce Brosnan was their best move, and Quantum of Solce is the worst Bond film ever.
50 Comment by Nicholas Moses on 16 April 2009:
@46 : I am taking an awful risk, but if you Facebook me (the only Welsh-surnamed American on the France network, I am sure), I will be happy to assist a fellow mal-pensant in a more direct manner.
(I’m 24, American, mononational and I got a CDI in Paris. Give me time and I can do anything.)
51 Comment by Nicholas Moses on 16 April 2009:
“metrosexuality”
Recently I drafted a letter of admonition to some friends in which I employed this dreadful neoligism, with the parenthetical aside, “Oh, St. Joseph most chaste, how I loathe that word and how descriptive it is!”
52 Comment by J Meng on 16 April 2009:
@50, Etienne Gervaise: here is a piece of trivia that I am only relating because of your puff for OHMSS. In the 1960s I was serving in the USN at a Communit in the southeast. Several times a year, British frigates cruised in for a few days of tropical splendor. Of course, we became their channel of communications. They always presented their messages to be transmitted in envelopes marked on the outside by the printed words: “On Her Majesty’s Service”. Well, I kept several of the empty envelopes for myself as souveniers and one serves as a bookmark for my copy of Ian Fleming’s OHMSS to this day.
53 Comment by Charlemagne on 16 April 2009:
All,
Just a question. All commentators from say, oh about October, 2008, singing praises to Barry Hussein Obama (the Mau Mau Messiah-God, I love that!), the antiwar candidate who assured his sycophant dreamy-eyed hoards of a swift withdrawal of imperial troops from yonder Iraqistan, where y’all now?
The light of the age has managed to nationalise the major money houses and the U.S. auto industry in less than 90 days, but not reduce our troop strength by a single troop. Where are the Obama anti-war harpies so damn prevalent on this site before 11/03/2008. Spare me the Bush was a neocon toadie crap (we all knew that). Well?
54 Comment by Nicholas Moses on 16 April 2009:
@54: an excellent question. Last December when I made an off-color remark about BHO to a certain close family member (I’ll not do him the dishonor of being more precise), he asked me if I was going to keep dissing the candidate he voted for. I half-jocularly said that if what he was telling me was the truth, I no longer wished to speak to him, because voting for Obama was an open show of contempt for the patrie and a vote for its final destruction. He qualified that, okay he hated half of what Obama was going to do, but that the other half was “awesome.”
As if any president followed through on the “good” things he promised. I love being proven right.
Anyone get that sick feeling that five days into the establishment of an Islamic Republican embassy in DC, the US declares war on Iran and the whole world thanks BHO for the ensuing closure of the Strait of Hormuz? How quickly we forget that we voted for Mr. Wilson because he “kept us out of the war!”
Nowadays, whenever I hear anyone extolling the virtues of democratic/republican values or “tolerance” (to say nothing of shilling for “human rights”), neither of which could have any relevance in ten years if they had not been preached by the Godless lumières, I pity the poor soul. Indeed, there has always been much to pity of he who has invested his life in the lie: “Woe to him!” our Lord so eloquently says, but for our human eyes to witness him continue even as the day of reckoning so manifestly unfolds is a LITTERALLY awesome and humbling experience.
55 Comment by Derek Leaberry on 17 April 2009:
Thanks for reminding me of “On Her Majesty’s Secret Service”. It has been twenty-five years since I’ve read the novel or watched the film. The novel was one of Fleming’s best and the film is underrated.
The weakest of the novels were “The Spy Who Loved Me”(Fleming writing from a woman’s point-of-view was not very convincing), “Moonraker”(plot more preposterous than the usual Bond plot), “The Man With the Golden Gun”(published posthumously without Fleming being able to edit it), and the short story collection of “For Your Eyes Only”(necessarily less plot- in “Quantum of Solace” Fleming seems to be reveling in his own experience of being cuckolded at the time by Labour Party leader Hugh Gaitskill.
56 Comment by TJF on 17 April 2009:
I hereby grant permission to plug this store offering bargains on DVD’s. Opera DVDs are virtually the only films we generally buy, because they are worth watching so many times. By the way, I have owned a redone CD set of Eugene Onegin and never listened to it until a few days ago, when I put it on almost as background music. The singing was so good, especially the tenor and the soprano that I got the pamphlet out to discover that this unknown talent I had just discovered was Galina Vishnevskaya!
57 Comment by Ron Holt on 17 April 2009:
Derek @ #3:
As per George Orwell, the best way to understand the Left is to study the ugliness of its women. There is a rage there against all of creation.
58 Comment by Derek Leaberry on 17 April 2009:
Orwell had contempt for vegetarians as well. This comes out clearly in “Coming Up for Air”, an underrated novel. Although Orwell was a man of the Left, his sympathies were with the miners of Yorkshire and not with the trendy Left. Today, Labour is no longer a workingman’s party but very much a party of the Trendy Left.
59 Comment by John Seiler on 17 April 2009:
@23. Mr. Cooney, states’ rights probably has a chance only if the USA falls much further into disaster — I mean much, much further. A more likely scenario is that the states’ rights movement will be manipulated by the Republicans to help them gain back power in 2010 and 2012, then the GOP will betray the movement.
But you never know.
60 Comment by Clyde Wilson on 17 April 2009:
61. Mr. Seiler, you are only too, too right about the likely scenario. We must first or simultaneously destroy the Republican party as the prerequisite for any true reform.
61 Comment by John Seiler on 17 April 2009:
@23 & @60. Some further thoughts. Whatever one may think of the system imposed on America by force from 1861-65, it has been highly adaptive and successful. It has gone through, and usually been strengthened by, depressions, world wars, the 1960s cultural revolution, race riots, and other calamities. All its global rivals were defeated or fell apart. Even now, just a couple of changes that are inevitable — more stable money, leaving Iraq and Afghanistan, less federal spending — would (and will) restore the system within a few years, with prosperity making everyone happy again. The only real global rival to the U.S. is China — in 30 years.
I can’t stand the Republican Party, but you know what’s coming next. There are no more Bob Dole-style “root canal” Republicans who favor tax increases. They all favor tax cuts. Even Bush figured that one out after seeing what happened when his father increased taxes. Ron Paul’s Gold Standard message is getting through. Obama will get blamed for whatever happens in Iraq and Afghanistan, like Nixon was for Nam. So the GOP will come back in 2010 and 12 on promises of tax cuts and stability. They’ll make some minor changes and start intervening in some new quagmire, starting the whole process over again, even as immigrants keep coming here, voting 70% Democratic.
But people will be happy just have jobs and to play with their electronic toys stamped Made in China.
62 Comment by Robert on 17 April 2009:
“A more likely scenario is that the states’ rights movement will be manipulated by the Republicans to help them gain back power in 2010 and 2012, then the GOP will betray the movement.”
Yes, the themes might change to protect the circus but the elephants will remain the same. Heck, I keep thinking National Review will turn state’s rights, isolationist and anti-immigration any time now with an appeal for conservatives to leave the big tent and come home — right after they finish planting democracy in Iran, Afghanistan, Pakistan and North Korea !!!
63 Comment by John Seiler on 17 April 2009:
@61. I just saw your comment, Dr. Wilson, after posting my comment @62.
Yes, the Republican Party must be destroyed, and they’re doing a pretty good job of it themselves out here in California. After the 2010 U.S. Census, the GOP will be a permanent minority of less than 1/3 of the voters on election day in California, after winning the state for Bush Uno as recently as 1988. Arnold’s election in 2003 was a fluke from the recall of Democratic Gov. Gray Davis.
My comments in @62 were for the near future of the country, 2010 and 2012. After that, though, the GOP will continue to decline nationally year by year. Inevitably, America will be Californiaized, with the GOP becoming a permanent minority, occasionally winning a fluke election.
64 Comment by John Seiler on 17 April 2009:
And let’s not forget that Obama will rig the 2010 U.S. Census against the GOP. That’s because the GOP, when it controlled Congress in the late 1990s, was too stupid to remove non-citizen aliens (legal and illegal) from the count for the 2000 Census. It actually was discussed at the time by some GOP congressmen. But The GOP didn’t want to fight President Clinton on it, or to be called racists. Now they’re doomed. The changes to congressional districts and the Electoral College from the Census may mean that, contra what I said earlier @62, they won’t even be able to win in 2012.
65 Comment by Clyde Wilson on 17 April 2009:
Pace to my old friend Sam Francis, but the Republicans are not stupid–they are greedy traitors.
66 Comment by Robert Bruce on 17 April 2009:
The establishment GOP is one and the same with the establishment of the Dems, both dominated by Northeastern elitist pigs. THE GOP must be eliminated from the body politic, and somehow an old right or a new right movement must be established to fill the vacuum.
67 Comment by Edward on 17 April 2009:
If I may, politically speaking, how could the Republican party ever be neutralized? I was listening to Limbaugh yesterday, a man who I think is representative of many in this country, and he explicitly rejected the idea of a third party or anything of the like. Instead, he wanted some sort of “takeover” of the Republican party by “real conservatives.” He then went on to say that the only thing third parties do is elect the opposing party into office, and, honestly, I think there is a modicum of sense within this observation. The Republicans, at least for now, have captured the right to carry the conservative banner, whatever that happens to actually mean. Because of Reagan and the conservative movement, the Republican party is seen as naturally conservative, meaning that all of its liberalism is external and superfluous rather than intrinsic to the history of the party itself. Its a lie, of course, but it has served its purpose and it seems as if it will continue to well into the future. It is a convenient story that refuses to die. In fact, with men like Obama in office, its survival is ensured.
68 Comment by Sempronius on 17 April 2009:
Machiavelli said that a prince has two concerns;domestic rivals and foreign enemies.The GOP and their Democrat accomplices will be tamed by foreign forces,not domestic ones.External power will increasingly constrain our tyrants.It is beginning to do so even as we speak. The EU looks increasingly attractive,despite its obvious shortcomings.As a subordinate of Europe,decent Americans will fare much better than under their fellow Americanos.To use a Greek term,true conservatives must turn to “medizing” if they hope to even survive,much less thrive.
I’m a “medizer,”are you?
69 Comment by Charlemagne on 17 April 2009:
Just as expected, as mentioned back at entry 54, the Obamites would cower and fail to respond to my inquiry. Why has your anti-war savior failed to deliver?
70 Comment by Robert on 17 April 2009:
@70
Eh, what’s up Charlie? Folks around here didn’t think much of their choices. You talk like you had the winner. Who was it? No cowards around these parts, just not interested in debating the merits of expanding the wing span of that “same bird of prey” disguised as a republican eagle or his alias, the democratic vulture.
71 Comment by TJF on 18 April 2009:
When JS Mill derided the Tories as the Stupid Party, they should have taken it as a compliment. Being clever, as libertarians and Marxists are clever, is terribly destructive. But, as Prof. Wilson points out, the Republicans are not stupid in the sense of blindly clinging to tradition. Like the Tories, they will destroy any tradition so long as they think they will reap some short-term advantage from it. It was such cynical politicking on the part of Disraeli–a truly nauseating prototype for neoconservatism–that led to an outburst from Trollope to the effect that the Tories were willing to destroy any vital tradition of the British people.
72 Comment by Etienne Gervaise on 18 April 2009:
@64 John
Inevitably, America will be Californiaized …
I think the current verb used by the punk rock crowd is “Californicated.”
@59 Derek “Labour is no longer a workingman’s party but very much a party of the Trendy Left.”
Who would have thought that Labour’s top men would be Eton and Cambridge-educated, while the Tories’ Ted Heath and Margaret Thatcher would both be middle-class grocers?
73 Comment by Charlemagne on 18 April 2009:
Robbie @ 71,
No argument on your avian assessment. I found both excuses inexcusable. I was just somewhat curious why the numerous contributors to my favorite site -whom promised a brave new world of non-intervention by our first metrosexual exec a sure thing- have vanished. I have no desire to revisit that horrible election. I’m still main-lining Maalox!
74 Comment by Robert on 19 April 2009:
Sir Charles,
I meant to add humor to your good question not insult. You are exact;y correct. I believe that all true understanding is grounded in reality – what is. The truth is that I prefer the socialist in socialist clothing to the socialist in sheep’s clothing. They have always believed in killing, stealing and lying while traditionalists believe in life, property and truth. I still prefer Obama to McCain because we never expected him to be truthful, to honor life, respect property or any man, woman or child who opposes their ideaology. McCain is probably somewhat honorable as a man, but the politics he represents is far worse because it panders to truth and virtue with no intention of ever practicing it or conforming ones will in accordance with it. Calling a spade a spade is a good beginning for any future hope of recovery from any type of addiction — in the soul or in politics too.
75 Comment by Charlemagne on 19 April 2009:
Rob,
No insult perceived. Good enough. You voted for Barry and you got the advertised product and more. I fully understand your reasoning. But, truth be known he will neither be truthful, honor life, or respect any creature whom opposes his ideology. This we know already. My question remains, what about troop withdrawal? Were you mistaken in your assessment? Are the Obamites just as imperialistic as the McCainster neos? What’s to be done?
76 Comment by Robert on 19 April 2009:
Charlemagne,
Oh no I did not vote for him. I didn’t vote as I recall except in some of the local races. I have given up on Federal elections. My friends in the military tell me that the enemy in Afghanistan is a much better fighter than the Iraqis and that the situation is worse there than in Iraq. More seasoned fighters, more patience, and the uncontrolable Pakistan borders are that way for a reason. As soon as we leave Iraq they expect the fighting between the tribes to renew itself. Iraq was a debacle, we destroyed the oldest Christian communities in the world, we destroyed some of the oldest artifacts of known civilzations, we wrecked their country, emboldened its people against us for the next two lifetimes, imposed a radical Moslem government more sympathetic towards Iran than the US. We accomplished nothing except getting 90% privileges on developing oil fields that will be difficult to develop when the strong man returns as he always does in that part of the world. I have no solution because I don’t believe there is a solution to the proposed problems given the choices we are always given in national politics.
77 Comment by Allen Wilson on 19 April 2009:
The only end in sight for the two debacles is humiliating defeat and withdrawal. That will be the death nell of U.S. imperial power and perhaps even of the ‘republic’.
78 Comment by Etienne Gervaise on 21 April 2009:
@78 Allen
I believe the correct policy is to declare victory and retreat. Then the mob will have to protect their heroin without sacrificing our young men.
79 Comment by Allen Wilson on 21 April 2009:
Absolutely correct, Etienne!