Category: ideological culture

Strange Days

swing, space, weird, ufo, aliens, strange,

We live in a strange time when a possible official UFO disclosure by the government doesn’t seem strange at all.

What’s odd is one of the two major American political parties proudly talking up socialism.

What’s weird is the increasing financial instability of the country’s top two social programs, Medicare and Social Security, while Americans seem unworried and politicians push not to shore the programs up, but expand them.

What’s bizarre is over $22 trillion in federal debt, and the current president and Congress piling on ever more with new trillion-dollar deficits.

What’s strange is . . . well, OK: UFO disclosure is a bit strange.

It is worth noting that Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests have unearthed quite a lot of information on UFOs already. When FOIA mechanisms were first set up, no one expected the avalanche of requests that would be related to UFOs. But that is what happened — and they haven’t dredged up nothing.

When President Trump was asked about the issue by George Stephanopoulos, his response was dismissive, however. “People are saying they’re seeing UFOs. Do I believe it? Not particularly.”

Like me, he probably has seen nothing first-hand, experienced nothing. But by now he has surely been briefed.

Or has the de facto Deep State coup attempt against his presidency entailed keeping him in the dark?

Meanwhile, Senator Bernie Sanders, running for Trump’s job, told YouTuber Joe Rogan that he would pass on whatever he might learn about UFOs if president. “Alright, we’ll announce it on the show. How’s that?”

Yet even that is not the strangest thing Sanders has said.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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Tags aliens, space, strange, swing, UFO, weird

general freedom ideological culture

The Atrocity Exhibition

atrocity, exhibition, shooting, violence, guns, control, 2nd Amendment, boy, white,

News commentary can seem like a race, commentators reacting as if to the crack of the starting-gun, scrambling to make sure they do not come in last.

Yet, in stories like this weekend’s round of mass shootings, being last to comment might be something to aspire towards.

As I have argued before, mentioning perps’ names has a tendency to encourage further mass murders, spree murders. But in cases of outright terrorism — as the El Paso shooting was immediately classified — the frenzy to comment is pretty much the same thing as using names.

How?

Well, terrorism is the use of violence to effect political change. The old anarchists and syndicalists called it “propaganda by the deed.” And, in a mass- and alt-media drenched democratic society, the aim is to get people to go into alarm, in part by getting tongues tapping and keyboards clattering.

Focusing on terrorist murders does feed the idea that terrorism somehow works.

So, when Democrats immediately talk about racism and the need for gun confiscation (both seen on Twitter immediately after the El Paso event, of course) and Republicans leap to the “mental health” issue and . . . video games (as I saw inching across the news chyrons) . . . my urge to comment dissipates dramatically.

But here I am.

Politicians can demand new laws to restrict firearms, or video games, but those laws won’t prevent future mass shootings.

Nor do I hold any hope that we can perfectly police against white nationalists like the manifesto-writing El Paso killer or lewd socialists such as the Dayton shooter.

Our best hope is to save kids from growing into angry, disaffected, violent adults.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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Tags 2nd Amendment, atrocity, boy, control, exhibition, guns, shooting, violence, white

ideological culture national politics & policies Popular

Into and Out of the Muck

Tulsi Gabbard, Kamala Harris, debate, prosecuter, criminal justice, reform,

Yesterday I referenced “pigs flying” . . . and Icarus’s waxed-wing fail.

Today, it’s just about the muck.

Now, I am on the road and definitely not catching every word of the Democratic debates. But amidst much nonsense and embarrassment — and there was a lot of it, from what I can tell, not excluding the much-googled New Agey blather of Oprah’s favorite guru, Ms. Marianne Williamson — one exhange stood out: Representative Tulsi Gabbard’s takedown of Kamala Harris’s shockingly punitive and ugly career as a prosecuting attorney.

Now, Rep. Gabbard snuck in her attack* on Harris in place of answering a question about Harris’s own sneak attack, in the previous debate round, on former U. S. Senator and Vice President Joe Biden’s 1970s’ opposition to mandatory bussing. Gabbard ably shifted away from dealing at all with Sleepy Joe — who is a buzzkill and soon-to-be buzzard lunch. She deflected, addressing, instead, a real issue, Kamala Harris as callous crime-fighter.

This shows that Gabbard is developing real politicians’ chops — if you cannot carefully answer a question different from the one asked, you aren’t a true [sic] politician in America.

After the debate, the two candidates took further whacks at each other. The Jezebel article I consulted used the metaphor of “wrestling match” rather than my pigs-in-muck figure, but we are talking about the same thing.

But note, Rep. Gabbard is always calm and well-spoken. She seems able to descend into the muck and coming out without too much stink.

Does this give her an advantage over Donald Trump?

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

* “Senator Harris says she’s proud of her record as a prosecutor and that she’ll be a prosecutor president. But I’m deeply concerned about this record. There are too many examples to cite, but she put over 1,500 people in jail for marijuana violations and then laughed about it when she was asked if she ever smoked marijuana: she blocked evidence . . . that would have freed an innocent man from death row until the courts forced her to do so; she kept people in prison beyond their sentences to use them as cheap labor for the state of California. . . .” etc.

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ideological culture national politics & policies

The Trump of the Will

Robert Mueller, disaster, testimony, collusion, exonerate, hearing,

It’s over — our long national nightmare is over.

Or is it?

Congress’s “movie” version of Robert Mueller’s book-length report on Trump-Russia collusion flopped. That is, Wednesday’s hearings were an “optics . . . disaster.”

The Democrats and their media cheerleaders had put so much stock in the event, hoping it would be a Triumph of the Will spurring the much-longed-for Trump impeachment, an inspiration to move the masses on to victory.

It turned out to be more an industrial film on early stage dementia, with Robert Mueller the befuddled protagonist, demonstrating that he was either slipping, or had not really been in charge of the report bearing his name.

Now, we sympathize with dementia patients.

But should we sympathize with congressional Democrats? And the Republicans, too?

They are as pathetic and evil and foolish and craven as they seem for reasons. We live in a time of crisis. They have politicked themselves into their respective corners; they now feel trapped.

Their desperation has given us Trump — The Antichrist to most Democrats and The Savior to most Republicans. I am pretty sure neither is true.

Trump is a sign of the times.

Maybe, in the smoldering ruins of the Mueller hearing conflagration, the case for impeachment — and for Trump as Russian Agent — will completely disappear. Democrats can regain their senses, and Republicans can go back to their theme of responsibility (as epitomized in their long-lost cause of balanced budgets and limited government).

But I won’t hold my breath.

The nightmare may be over, but Washington’s dementia is harder to recover from.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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Tags collusion, disaster, exonerate, hearing, Robert Mueller, testimony

ideological culture national politics & policies

Inslee, AOC, and the Watermelon

Post author By Redactor
Post date July 16, 2019
2 Comments on Inslee, AOC, and the Watermelon

Jay Inslee, Washington, president, election, socialism, watermelon, green on the outside, red on the inside,

Washington State Governor Jay Inslee is running to lead the Democratic Party in the next presidential election to take back the imperial capital, Washington, D.C. His chief issue? Fighting “man-made climate change.” But he also dares to say goofy things, apparently on the theory that It Works For Trump.

Seeking to promote “more unity across the world and more love rather than hate,” he has said, in an apparent attempt at impish if instructive irony, that his “first act will be to ask Megan Rapinoe to be my secretary of state.”

Inslee is not referring to Ms. Rapinoe’s best-known statement, her infamous scream, upon a sports win last week, “I deserve this!”

Inslee is referring, instead, to her admonishment for everyone “to be better. We have to love more, hate less. We got to listen more, and talk less. . . .” And so on.

With this sort of inanity awarded by a major Democratic pol, you might wonder, is his primary policy plank equally hollow?

Not according to Saikat Chakrabarti, chief of staff to Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.).

Talking off the cuff with the climate director for Inslee’s campaign, Chakrabarti praised the Democrat’s “comprehensive plan” for fitting together disparate parts.

As I noted several months ago, AOC’s Green New Deal suffers from an over-abundance of extraneous-to-climate change elements. But Chakrabarti insists that the “interesting thing about the Green New Deal is it wasn’t originally a climate thing at all.”

It was “a how-do-you-change-the-entire-economy thing.”

Which brings us back to the old Watermelon Theory of environmentalism: “green on the outside but red in the middle.”

This “green” agenda isn’t hollow. It is dangerous.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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Tags election, green on the outside, Jay Inslee, president, red on the inside, socialism, Washington, watermelon

ideological culture national politics & policies

Playing Cards with Democrats

Post author By Redactor
Post date July 15, 2019
1 Comment on Playing Cards with Democrats

“[T]he thing that really set me off this week,” former Sen. Claire McCaskill (D-Missouri) said on NBC’s Meet the Press, “was them going after Sharice Davids.”

The “them” are four freshman congresswomen — Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY), Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.), Rep. Ayanna Pressley (D-Mass.) and Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.) — but it was specifically Saikat Chakrabarti, Ocasio-Cortez’s chief of staff, who tweeted: “I don’t believe Sharice is a racist person, but her votes* are showing her to enable a racist system.”

“This is the first Native American woman elected to Congress,” McCaskill exasperatedly explained regarding Rep. Davids. “She is the second openly lesbian member of Congress in history. She represents Kansas, from a district that has been held by the Republicans for cycle after cycle after cycle. . . . The notion that they’re going after her and playing the race card, what are they thinking?”

Perhaps they’re thinking that the race card has worked quite well before.

And isn’t McCaskill tossing out her own “Native American woman” card? Not to mention suggesting that Rep. Davids’ sexual orientation is yet another trump suit, making her further immune to criticism.

Which seems both profoundly racist and sexist.

This comes on top of a wargame of words between Speaker Nancy Pelosi and freshman Rep. Ocasio-Cortez, who, after being belittled by Pelosi on 60 Minutes, charged that the Speaker was “singling out . . . newly elected women of color.”

Perhaps there is another reason as well for this political fixation on race, gender, sexual orientation: the content of their . . . character?

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

* The issue at hand was emergency legislation to increase border funding for detainees at the infamous “concentration camps” (as AOC called them) for people caught illegally crossing the southern border of the U.S. The “them” voted against the funding.