Signing Off…
After three years of blogging, AWOL Civilization is taking a sabbatical. In the foreseeable future, I will be devoting my time to other pursuits, most notably the completion of a new novel. The website will remain on line, to serve as an archive, and a source of information about my literary works. The contact form will continue to function. (UPDATE, 7/12/2010: Comments now closed on all posts.)
I would like to thank the readers of AWOL, particularly those of you who have shared your thoughts in comments and emails. Your participation and encouragement have been an indispensable source of inspiration.
What better time than Independence Day to take stock of our situation. There is no doubt in my mind that upheaval awaits us. The United States, Canada, and most of Europe have been overrun by a leftist wrecking crew who seek nothing but ruin for the remnant of Western civilization. The current trajectory can only result in fierce conflict.
It is for each of us to decide how and when to act; what steps to take to preserve our way of life. Ultimately, we must answer the same question that others in similar circumstances have faced since time immemorial: What is the price of liberty and independence?
I remind myself that a civilization rises and falls by the strength of its spirit. That spirit lives and breathes in the intellectual and cultural realms—philosophy, religion, literature, art, music, and theater/cinema. This is easy to forget when concentrating on the daily rough-and-tumble of political battles. The governmental arena is important, and we must certainly fight tooth and nail for every possible advantage. That being said, victory ultimately is won by the force that succeeds in dominating the culture. No one knows this better than the Obamunists, who confidently rode into power on the crest of the post-modern, neo-Marxist tsunami that has inundated the West for half a century.
Good luck to all of us.
Gary Wolf
New Mexico, USA
July 4, 2010
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Headlines from the Year 2020 (no. 19)
This is the nineteenth installment in a continuing series. Here is what life will be like in the year 2020 if our civilization continues to go AWOL:
- Association of Body-Mass Index Victims gives its Disproportionate Posterior Index Lifetime Achievement award to Michelle Obama
- All U.S. aircraft carriers and half the destroyer fleet out of commission due to multitude of pregnant sailors
- Fighter jet crashes because of lovers’ quarrel between pilot and navigator
- Racial Balance Czar forbids further influx of Caucasians into border states
- U.S. conveys official apology to North Korea for decades of “slander and violence against a benevolent, peaceful, and progressive society”
- A record 754 bloggers apprehended last week and exiled to reeducation camps in Guam after being caught practicing journalism without a license
- CNN announces “historic” occasion: For the first time, undocumented Americans outnumber citizens
- Immigration to U.S. from Northern European countries halted pending investigation of this population’s tendency to commit hate crimes
- Arabic becomes official language of Great Britain; English still permitted during two-year transition period
- French navy seizes ship smuggling weapons to Muslim insurgents in Marseilles; Israel issues condemnation
- Annual federal budget reaches 500% of GDP; President Holder convenes special commission to “overcome, once and for all, the Bush legacy”
- First retroactive income tax goes into effect; targeted are selfish profits made during the Reagan-Bush years of capitalist expropriation
- Average professional sports game lasts almost six hours due to proliferation of advertising and booth review
- American League changes its name to Humanity Baseball League following settlement of national-origin-harassment lawsuit brought by non-American players
- At World Cup in Zimbabwe, victorious Brazilian team eaten by fans; U.S. ambassador-at-large Bill Clinton praises the “spontaneous overflow of togetherness and brotherhood”
- Kevin Jennings, head of the Sexual Health Administration, announces that all heterosexual liaisons now subject to approval by local advisory boards
- Shocker: Barack Obama admits being the illegitimate love-child of Helen Thomas and the Rev. Jeremiah Wright
Would you care to add your own headlines?
[Note: To see earlier installments of “Headlines from the Year 2020," click the All Fiction link on the sidebar (located under Orwellian Snapshots).]
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The Hubris Spill
[UPDATE, 6/28/2010: A fascinating article in the Weekly Standard describes the intimate connection between British Petroleum and the Obama administration, as well as the company’s long history of advocacy on behalf of the Green movement. Hat tip: View From the Right.]
After two months of dithering in the face of one of the greatest ecological disasters in recent history, B. Hussein Obama last week deigned to formally address his subjects on the matter. The speech represented a new summit of the arrogant, community-organizer, false-credential, Chicago-thug style to which we have become accustomed. So nauseating was the performance that even some of his lapdogs in the establishment press—such as Chris Matthews and Keith Olbermann—in a fit of temporary insanity forgot that they were referring to His Royal Eminence The First Black President. The dobermans turned on their master, unleashing a torrent of criticism that would have prompted cries of “racism” to emerge from their vocal chords, had the same words emanated from a spokesman of the Vast Right-Wing Conspiracy.
There has been speculation aplenty in the blogosphere regarding the driving force behind B. Hussein’s behavior during the entire oil-spill crisis. Is his dithering and ineptitude simply an element of the Left’s efforts to bring America to its knees? Is this an instance of “never let a crisis go to waste” on a grand scale? A pretext for nationalizing the oil companies? For passing the Cap & Trade monstrosity? Or are we looking at pure incompetence?
Surely the answer incorporates all of these elements. Rather than try to pinpoint the relative weights, I will simply add more fuel to the fire by focusing on one aspect of the leftist psyche that comes into play in situations like this: The profound divorce from reality; from the actual, real-life, everyday functioning of the world.
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Liberal or Leftist?
In a recent post, I proposed that we, the anti-Obamunist camp, desist from playing the game of public-opinion polls. I would like to add another proposal: Cease using the term “liberal” to refer to the opposition.
Using this word bestows an undeserved upgrade. Every time it leaves one’s mouth, the entire movement represented by such luminaries as B. Hussein Obama, Hillary Clinton, Michael Moore, and Nancy Pelosi receives an unintended compliment. This is because the ideology of these people bears only the slightest resemblance to what was known in a bygone era as “liberal.”
What does liberal really mean? The most basic connotation is liberality in overall conduct, a sort of generosity, as in “he gave a liberal portion of ice cream to each child.” Well then, you say, what about the Left’s incessant doling out of goodies to innumerable recipients? Isn’t this liberal?
The answer is no. A case could be made that the liberals of yesteryear really did behave with true generosity. Over the decades, however, this aspect has perished. One has only to consider the now-routine printing of non-existent money (i.e., from pure debt) to spend on political payoffs, such as the hodgepodge of bogus “stimulus” projects. This is a type of theft, nothing more. The generosity is an illusion; a sleight-of-hand.
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I, Claudius (Seattle Version)
I recently had the opportunity to spend a day in Seattle. I was surprised to find that Claudius, the emperor of Rome some two millennia ago, had found new employment. At the Seattle Art Museum, he helps remind us of the cultural decay into which our civilization has fallen.
This is because one cannot avoid comparing the small collection of magnificent antiquities (of which his bust forms a part) with the bulk of the exhibits, which constitute one of the most revolting displays of bad taste to ever grace the walls and floors of an American museum.
Normally, in a major city, the “elite” feel some vague obligation to hang a respectable gallery of paintings from the grand styles. Thus for example in the San Diego art museum—a monument to mediocrity and Leftist chic if there ever was one—you will at least find a few Impressionists and post-Impressionists, enough to assuage the urge to violence that overtakes even a peaceful soul while passing the office of the curator.
But no such relief awaits the visitor in Seattle. I counted two paintings and no sculpture to represent the entire period from 1700 to the beginning of complete abstraction. Nothing from the nineteenth century, no Impressionists, no Hopper, no Eakins, not so much as a third-rate Cubist. As if art had disappeared for two and a half centuries.
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Michelle Knows Best, episode 23: “A Big Hole in the Ground”
[Note: Below is the twenty-third episode of the TV series Michelle Knows Best. For background information, read this post. For other episodes, click the "Michelle Knows Best" link in the sidebar. Enjoy...]
We join Michelle and Barack aboard the presidential jet, Air Force One, as they fly over Phoenix, Arizona. The airplane is in a steep climb. The president and first lady are standing behind the seats of the pilot and copilot, hanging on.
PILOT
That was too close for comfort, Mr. President. I can’t guarantee that we’ll be able to pull out of a dive like that again.
MICHELLE
He’s right, Barry. We could’ve all been killed. Then Joe Biden would be president, and that prissy little wife of his would be first lady. Ugh.
BARACK
All right, all right. I just wanted to get close enough to the Arizona state legislature so that they could actually see my face as we buzz them.
PILOT
Where to, sir?
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Jihad Has a Friend in Washington
Talk about the fox guarding the henhouse. John Brennan, the administration’s top counter-terrorism official, tells us that jihad is a “legitimate tenet of Islam.” In a wide-ranging apology for Muslim terror, he asserted that the word “jihad” should not be used;
nor do we describe our enemy as ‘jihadists’ or ‘Islamists’ because jihad is a holy struggle, a legitimate tenet of Islam, meaning to purify oneself or one’s community, and there is nothing holy or legitimate or Islamic about murdering innocent men, women and children.
Needless to say, he also deplores any reference to the religion of the attackers as well as the use of the word terrorism, and blames the violence against American and other targets on “political, economic, and social forces.”
For a summary of the speech, see this article from Fox News. For a more in-depth analysis, see the pieces in Gates of Vienna and Hyscience. For an earlier story on Brennan’s other shenanigans, see this post in FrontPage. If you can stomach it, read the entire speech by Brennan here.
I was just in the process of meditating, this Memorial Day, on the ultimate sacrifice. The fallen have died to preserve our freedom and way of life. Meanwhile, the usurper in the White House and his cohorts are currently engaged in the dismantling of the United States. How many more will die?
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Ideas, Principles, and the Cult of Public Opinion
Sooner or later, the Obamunist machine will reach a critical point, beyond which it will either burn itself out and be replaced, or morph into a totalitarian monster of inconceivable dimensions. To forestall the latter scenario, the forces of reason must step into the breach.
The forces of reason will only be able to succeed if our minds are primed with ideas and principles. Playing the game of character and public opinion—the game of flattering the plebeian mob—will only work to our disfavor. By “character” I mean exhortations of the following kind: conservatives are nicer than leftists; conservatives give more money to charity; fewer Republican politicians are corrupt/embroiled in scandal; there really are black people at the Tea Parties; etc.
It is shocking how much time and effort is wasted on this senseless banter. Sometimes I find myself getting dragged into the mess, and have to splash some cold water on my face. Off the top of my head I can think of half a dozen excellent blogs or news websites with incisive analysis, wit, and integrity. I have no objection if they note that such-and-such a poll took place. But they insist on hanging on the result of every poll as if Moses were descending from Mt. Sinai. Then comes the battle of the polls; ours versus theirs.
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Preparing the Time Capsule
No one can deny that we are living in interesting (read: confused and unstable) times. The Obama-Pelosi-Reid slow-motion coup d’état now transpiring in Washington has sparked anew the question lurking in the mind of every sober observer: Are we headed for an era of darkness and civilizational collapse the likes of which have seldom been witnessed, or will there be a resurgence of intellect and culture, permitting us to apply the brakes moments before the collectivist locomotive plunges over the cliff?
It would be a good idea, whatever the outcome, to prepare a time capsule; to preserve for posterity a brief and synoptic record of our demise. Let it serve as a testament for future generations, whether it be just one or two ahead of us (as in the happier scenario), or the hundredth generation to come, which finally succeeds in emerging from the abyss.
Without further ado, here are some suggestions for the time capsule. Feel free to critique them or to add your own.
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Headlines from the Year 2020 (no. 18)
This is the eighteenth installment in a continuing series. Here is what life will be like in the year 2020 if our civilization continues to go AWOL:
- Obama’s birth certificate found; newborn was registered at Havana hospital as Barry Carlos Hussein Soetoro ibn-Muhammed Guevara Obama III
- Timothy Geithner appointed Stock Market Czar; first official act is to cap annual increase of stock price at 10%, unless corporation is minority or female-owned
- Pulitzer Prize awarded to Chris Matthews for his “courageous refusal to be intimidated by reactionary journalists who scorn the social-justice function of their trade”
- EPA to investigate mayor of any city with temperature fluctuations greater than 40 degrees within 24-hour period
- Gordon Brown finally comes out of the closet; admits to being half pygmy and half woman
- Dalai Lama arrested in Paris on suspicion of denying the equality of all metaphysical states
- Education czar to choose between frontal lobotomy and castration as treatment for schoolboys caught pulling girls’ hair more than three times
- EU Parliament declares the traditional, realistic arts to be officially dead; painters, sculptors, and writers to be interned on the island of Malta
- Canadian Human Rights Commission indicts self following revelation that some members flirted with free speech
- Congress announces Mixed-Race History Month, GLBT History Month, Muslim History Month, Developmentally-Challenged History Month, and Panhandler History Month
- Latest ghetto-style haute couture: sneakers on the head, baggy pants on the torso, silky shirt on the legs, baseball cap on the feet
- Price of salt shaker on the black market passes $50 for a simple glass model
- Alligator arrested in Miami for hate crime following recent spate of attacks on Hispanic children
- Ron Paul and Pat Buchanan co-chairing commission to investigate and punish war crimes committed by American officers during WWII and other imperialistic wars
Would you care to add your own headlines?
[Note: To see earlier installments of “Headlines from the Year 2020," click the All Fiction link on the sidebar (located under Orwellian Snapshots).]
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Putting Lipstick on a Pig
In a recent post, I examined the centrality of language in the establishment and maintenance of political control. Now, I would like to expand the discussion to incorporate additional words and phrases devised by our overlords to sanitize and even celebrate the degradation of our culture. Or, to borrow a term from the popular jargon, “put lipstick on a pig.”
Below is a sampling of this porcine cosmetic treatment. Feel free to add your own in a comment.
AIDS victim – Refers to the propagators of the disease. There are, of course, cases where people truly have been a victim of AIDS; those contracting it via blood transfusions, for instance. But in the greater scheme, the term is meant to shift blame and attention away from those actually causing the problem.
Anti-racism – In reality, the relentless warriors fighting under this standard are the true racists, as we see time and again in the current American administration (the classic example being Attorney-General Eric Holder). They use simple inversion of the truth, accusing their adversaries of possessing their own most cherished forms of bigotry. It is similar in this regard to the crusade of “anti-fascism” that permeates the European political arena.
Bailout – Essentially the subsidization of failure. There is nothing the Left enjoys more than failed policies, be it the government-driven destruction of the black urban family or the union-driven demise of General Motors.
The recent spectacular “bailouts” have taken place at the corporate level. Do not be deceived by the myth that corporations are intrinsically “conservative.” The bailouts are an integral tool for pushing the Obamunist agenda. The designers of this agenda understand more clearly than most people that a “corporation” is a convenient form of organization that can be molded to any ideology.
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The Blighting of Old Blighty
Would you believe me if I told you that Great Britain has veered so far to the Left that its equivalent of the Republican Party has announced a sweeping program of community-based socialism?
Most people on this side of the pond are blissfully unaware of what is transpiring in Britain. We still delight in the old images of high tea, the changing of the guard, those wonderful theatrical and cinematic productions, an old country pub, and so on. Most of us have no idea of the blight that has overtaken Old Blighty.
I was disabused of these notions back in 2005, when I spend several months in London. One of many eye-opening experiences was the bombing by Muslim terrorists of the Underground (subway) in July of that year. The event itself was horrifying enough—I was riding the Underground at the moment of the attacks—but I did not expect to see the frantic efforts of the government and Leftist cultural mandarins to dissociate the act from Islam. The relentless whitewashing campaign made President Bush’s “religion of peace” remark in the wake of 9/11 look like a monument of sobriety.
But this was (and is) the prevailing atmosphere. Political correctness, multiculturalism, and denigration of English culture were out of control, stoked by the government at every opportunity. Immigrants, with a heavy Muslim contingent, were everywhere, and in enormous quantities. Most of London had become a Third World city. Crime was ubiquitous.
The surreal transformation of this once-mighty country inspired me to write the dystopian novel Workshop of the Second Self, whose characters and themes are mostly based on what I witnessed during my stay in London.
Fast forward to last week. It was with chagrin but not surprise that I learned of the latest shenanigans concocted by the British political class. An article in Brussels Journal by A. Millar alerted readers to the ultimate ideological collapse of the Conservative Party and its leader, David Cameron.
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Orwellian Snapshots, episode 12: “We Have no Choice But to Remain in Power”
[Note: Below is the twelfth installment of the Orwellian Snapshots (future time travel) series. For background information, including how I came to have access to the time machine in the White House basement, read this post. For other episodes, click the "Orwellian Snapshots" link in the sidebar. Enjoy...]
I thought it would be highly educational to take a peek at a meeting of Democratic strategists in the runup to the 2012 presidential election. So I found a pretext to be in the White House, and, after business hours, made my way into the basement and fired up the time machine. I set the dials for Democratic National Committee headquarters in late summer, 2012.
I arrived to find myself lodged in a janitor’s closet, which at that moment seemed less romantic than it did for Clark Kent. I emerged, wandered the halls a bit, and soon found the main conference room, where an emergency session of the leadership was about to begin.
Here’s some background (of which I was later apprised): The DNC had decided, back in April 2012, to form a special committee charged with ensuring victory in the election. The chairmanship was accorded to an old dependable hand, Keith Olbermann. His media savvy, along with the universal respect he draws in party circles, made Olbermann the perfect choice to chair the committee and present the findings.
And thus spoke Keith:
“Ladies, gentlemen, and the transgendered: Thank you for joining me here today. As you know, our situation hangs in the balance. Unemployment is approaching twenty percent; more banks are failing; energy prices are skyrocketing; inflation is rearing its ugly head; and crime, including man-caused disasters, is rampant.
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Headlines from the Year 2020 (no. 17)
This is the seventeenth installment in a continuing series. Here is what life will be like in the year 2020 if our civilization continues to go AWOL:
- Blogs now subject to VAT at rate of $5 per comment
- Gasoline shortages rampant across the country; CEOs of oil companies to be prosecuted for “purposefully curtailing production in order to gouge the public”
- First new oil well approved by EPA since 2012 begins production; expected to yield two barrels per day
- Price of milk passes $100 per quart; “it’s because Bush hoarded all the cows and kept them on his ranch,” explains Secretary of Agriculture Arianna Huffington
- Secretary of State Maxine Waters, at UN ceremony, signs $10 trillion reparations package to Third World countries for “war, disease, famine, illiteracy, and all the other bad things caused by the white race since the dawn of time”
- Black lesbian pope inaugurated at Vatican; first act is to condemn “white male priests, who are just so uncool”
- Last taxpayer leaves California; “the Tea Party has finally triumphed” laments Barbara Boxer
- Massive herds of roving polar bears cross U.S. border from Canada; Seattle and Spokane evacuated
- Salt, sugar, butter, alcohol, tobacco, coffee, firearms, and sex banned in New York State
- Woman dies in Baltimore after waiting three years for appendectomy; “this wouldn’t have happened if the doctors weren’t greedy capitalists” rails Health Czar Sean Penn
- Geographic Fairness Bill passes Congress; new law forbids any state from having “a majority of its population be non-minority”
- Last U.S. aircraft carrier converted to peaceful use; will serve as mobile football field for disadvantaged children of former undocumented immigrants
- New tensions in southern border communities: Will instruction in English be allowed in the public schools?
- Dept. of Homeland Security to ameliorate man-caused disasters by suggesting lower density targets to seething oppressed non-Christian groups
- One Algerian rebel dies as his platoon of insurgents sinks the French fleet at Marseilles; “All France mourns the tragic loss of life” declares the Assemblée Nationale
- New theory announced at Princeton historical conference: Celtic hordes stole British Isles from ancient African-American civilization
Would you care to add your own headlines?
[Note: To see earlier installments of “Headlines from the Year 2020," click the All Fiction link on the sidebar (located under Orwellian Snapshots).]
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Owning the Rhetoric
Control of language is a mechanism for the imposition or maintenance of control in other realms. He who determines the meaning of words effectively sets the boundaries of the debate. In other words, if you own the rhetoric, you own the agenda.
The point was driven home by George Orwell’s treatment of language in his dystopian novels Animal Farm and 1984. The concept of “Newspeak” has become part of our contemporary discourse when referring to the inversion of language for the purpose of confounding and anesthetizing the human mind. Recall that in 1984 the state apparatus responsible for waging war was called the Ministry of Peace, and the bureaucracy in charge of rationing was called the Ministry of Plenty.
A real-life example comes to mind from my last post. For decades now, we have been led to believe that there is a “peace process” in the Middle East. To most people, the term conjures up an image of stony-faced diplomats sitting around a conference table hashing out the details of a treaty. Side A gives a little, side B gives a little, there’s a ceremony, and then they try it out. This is what one is led to believe. One hears the key words, and to a large extent, further discussion is superfluous. A certain meaning has been planted in our minds.
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