Summer Vacation
Hello everyone,
AWOL Civilization is going on vacation. The next post will appear on August 4th. Any comments received in my absence will be held in a moderation queue until I return.
This marks the end of the first year of AWOL Civilization. It has been an enriching and satisfying experience, and I look forward to the second year. Thank you for sharing so much information and so many thought-provoking observations.
Gary
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Liberal Fascism
Jonah Goldberg’s book Liberal Fascism is long overdue. This should be evident to anyone who rejects the party line of the reigning collectivist orthodoxy in America. Such a person will have had the experience of being labeled a “reactionary” or an “ultra-conservative” and of being informed that his opinions, if taken a bit further, would make him a fascist.
This charge, as inevitable as death and taxes in a debate with a hard-core Leftist, leaves its victim stunned and confused, like the proverbial deer in the headlights. “But, wait…” stammers the besieged advocate of free markets and limited government. He replays in his mind the famous film clips of Hitler addressing the Nazi mass rallies, and thinks, such a thing could not be further from my heart. Yet he fails to utter a satisfactory rejoinder to his accusers.
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A Supreme Embarrassment
“There are two types of corruption,” wrote Montesquieu in 1748. “One, when the people do not observe the laws; the other, when they are corrupted by the laws: an incurable malady, because it exists within the remedy itself.” Nowhere is this statement more appropriate than when applied to the United States Supreme Court.
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The Defeat of the Mind
One of the more astute contemporary observers of Western decline is the French writer Alain Finkielkraut. In his 1987 book La Défaite de la Pensée (The Defeat of the Mind), he traces the lineage of the multiculturalist disease, which, he argues, has provided much of the impetus for a widespread abandonment of the intellect throughout the Western world. This stance, and subsequent tracts in the same vein, have earned him near-pariah status among most of the “intellectuals” of Western Europe.
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The European Year of Intercultural Deceit
Evidence for the assertion that Western society is moving toward a totalitarian political project based on Diversity and Multiculturalism can be found by perusing the website of the “European Year of Intercultural Dialogue 2008.” (Hat tip: NoPasaran.) The politically-correct Newspeak emanating from this EU bureaucratic extravaganza provides a glimpse of what awaits us when our new masters stamp out the last remnants of non-comformity.
Some of the news items trumpeted on the website are simply ludicrous, further blurring the already fluid line between reality and satire. For example, “What Connects Speed, Dialogue, and Travel?” The answer: The official logo of the European Year of Intercultural Dialogue 2008 has been emblazoned on the high-speed trains running the Paris-Brussels-Amsterdam route. I guess that means that “dialogue” is being carried forward at blazing speed.
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Civil Rights: Rhetoric or Reality
When heavy artillery is needed in the fight against collectivist propaganda, then it’s time to wheel out Thomas Sowell. Now in his late seventies, this distinguished economist and political philosopher has devoted much of his career to combating the myths of political correctness.
A prime example is his 1984 book, Civil Rights: Rhetoric or Reality. In this monument to common sense, Sowell examines the disastrous turn in the American civil rights movement from equality of opportunity to equality of results.
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The Bureau of Hope and Change
I thought it would be an interesting exercise, in advance of a possible Obamamite entrance into the White House, to try and predict the transformation of the Executive Branch that would be sure to follow.
Below are my predictions for the new agencies, bureaus, task forces, etc., that we can expect to see.
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The Tragedy of Victimocracy
In a recent post, I discussed the abuse of people in the Third World by the Green movement. Alongside this brand of hypocrisy is another that has characterized relations between the Left and struggling people everywhere: the cult of the victim.
Let me clarify that I am not referring to groups whose victim status is self-imposed, in order to “play the system” and extract concessions from the broader society. The classic case of these victims of convenience are the homosexual pressure groups.
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Big Balderdash
“BIG OIL’S BIG WIN—Senate GOP Blocks Windfall Tax Proposal” bellows the front page headline of the Albuquerque Journal (6/11/2008). Like so many media outlets across the country, the Journal thinks it is serving its readers by sounding the alarm over the obviously outlandish profits being raked in by the oil companies, who, aided by their Republican lackeys in Congress and the White House, are hard at work greedily ripping off consumers at the gas pump.
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America Alone
One of the more fascinating attempts at explaining the decline of the West is Mark Steyn’s America Alone, first published in 2006. Though the main thrust of the book is the threat of Islam, Steyn examines numerous sources of decay in Western society, the upshot being that we are vulnerable to the threat only because of our weakness, confusion, and self-defeating behavior.
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Herodotus and the Time Bomb of Multiculturalism
Along the underbelly of the Multiculturalist monster is one particularly slimy patch that is a bit embarrassing to the advocates of civilization. I am speaking of the fact that Multiculturalism is the progeny of Western culture. The belief that all art, music, literature, and philosophy have equal value is impossible—nay, unthinkable—outside the context of Western society.
We must understand this complex parent-child relationship, painful as it is, in order to banish the illegitimate offspring from our midst.
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“Nyah, Nyah,” says Hillary
It seems that a certain prominent woman in American politics is upset that she, as the affirmative action candidate of the feminist persuasion, has lost the race for the Democratic nomination to the other affirmative action candidate. “I’m more of a victim than you are—nyah, nyah” she cries, but to no avail.
This macabre mise en scène has a number of interesting aspects, such as the triumph of victimocracy in America, or the generous invitation to satire, unavailable to us a mere decade ago. For the moment, however, I would like to focus on the presidential race as the consummation of an aesthetic impulse.
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A Presidential Breach
Looking back at all the discussion about the presidential candidates, particularly their view of the strategic challenges facing the Western world, it occurred to me that Americans may very well elect a president who would not qualify for the simplest security clearance.
Out here in the state of New Mexico, national security has a strong presence. We host the Sandia National Laboratories, the facilities at Los Alamos, the White Sands Missile Range, important military bases, and private companies that are linked with the sector. Anyone who does not have personal experience knows from his friends that the procedures required to obtain a security clearance are long and arduous. It can take months or even years to complete the process.
If private citizen Barack Obama were to present himself at one of our facilities, he would not be cleared to run errands at Wal-Mart.
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Eco-Imperialism
In my last post, I considered the short-term prospects for Al Gore and his Envirocult fellow travellers, concluding that the tide of public opposition is beginning to turn against them. I would like to cite two individuals who have made significant contributions to that opposition: Paul Driessen, author of Eco-Imperialism, and Patrick Moore, disgruntled co-founder of Greenpeace.
Driessen is a geologist and attorney who has had a long career in environmental issues. His exploits both within and without the Beltway have made him the bane of the Envirocult. In 2004 he published the book Eco-Imperialism: Green Power, Black Death, a meticulously documented exposé on the worldwide green movement.
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Is the Warming Starting to Thaw?
There has been a flurry of interesting articles across the blogosphere about trends in the Global Warming game. One of these pieces, offered by Pajamas Media, is “Global Warming: Mostly Hot Air” by Mike McNally. The author asserts that resistance to the cult, particularly within the scientific community, is gaining momentum and may be turning the corner; Gore-ish Global Warming can be expected to fizzle out, as did its numerous end-of-the-world predecessors.
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