Some days…
…I get so involved in discussions in the comments that I don’t start working on my posts till later than planned. Today is one of those times. I think that in the last few weeks, distraction has become even more enticing than usual, because the news is so hard to face.
It’s not just that it’s ominous, although it’s that. It’s that it feels as though we’re watching an aburdist play, something by Beckett or Ionesco or the like. Are we really seeing a president like Biden, who does destructive things and then brazenly lies about it – albeit ineptly and obviously – and the press for the most part looks the other way, and our Democrat members of Congress (even most of the so-called “moderates”) don’t seem inclined to do a thing about it, or to even criticize?
Are we really seeing what we’re seeing? Has America actually become a laughing stock and a caricature? The answer does appear to be “yes.”
I mentioned once that at this point the US is like Gulliver being tied down by hordes of Lilliputians. Gulliver’s Travels was a serious satire played at least in part for laughs, and there are some bleakly humorous aspects to our current plight, too. But it’s mostly bleak, and unless something changes, it will get bleaker.
And by “our” plight, I don’t just mean the US, I mean the western world and the world in general. The world may come to realize how important the Pax Americana had been.
If it’s to be believed… a brand new YouGov/Economist puts Biden’s approval below 40%. Now, perhaps very slowly more and more people are waking up to just how horrible the current state of affairs really is. Maybe there’s reason to hope? It’s certainly been difficult to find anything to be hopeful for lately.
Nonapod:
I hope so. But it’s late and getting later. The damage has been done in Afghanistan and it will have huge repercussions. It would take a lot to turn that around. What this has demonstrated is that even a president who gives out a message of strength – Trump – can be successfully demonized and America can reverse itself with a Biden. So our enemies should just wait it out.
To me, the culture of the US has always been that we tolerate just about anything for a long time and then comes a tipping point where we don’t any more. The Progressive Left and the Islamists are pushing hard to get to that point. The 2nd paragraph of the Declaration of Independence expresses that cultural tendency in better words than I can muster.
Australia is beating on North Korea’s doors to let them into their program and yet seem to be the biggest finger pointers that the USA is led by buffoons.
Sorry about that. 🙁
Worse is to come:
“And so, folks, we got to listen to the scientists and the economists and the national security experts,” Biden said in Queens. “They all tell us this is code red; the nation and the world are in peril.”
I’m beginning to have faint hope that they have finally gone too far.
I think Mr. Sailer’s called it. Our elites are filled to the brim with liars. Our politicians are liars, producers and editors are liars, our educational administrators are liars, our hospital administrators are liars, our judges are liars, our law professors are liars, the inner ringers in charge of professional associations are liars, corporate CEOs are liars, those in charge of every kind of NGO are liars, our bishops are liars. And it’s not just the elites. A huge swath of people employed in teaching, journalism, law, and the mental health trade are liars.
I have a suspicion that engineers are the only professional-managerial employees who routinely tell the truth.
My father explained to me that American politics were governed by Newton’s third law, that for every action there’s a reaction, equal in force and opposite in direction.
“I have a suspicion that engineers are the only professional-managerial employees who routinely tell the truth.”
And if the 737Max is any indication maybe not even them, though theirs was more a lie by omission.
One of the 13 killed in Kabul was from Omaha. His body returns Friday at 1:30. I’ll be interested to see if there is any national news coverage.
This Marine was not much younger than my youngest. I have a friend who’s son is in the Marine Reserve and he’s about the same age.
You can bet there will be a giant turnout on the road to the airport and at the cemetery. The Marines will stand guard over the body until the funeral.
Another friend runs the VFW funeral honor guard. They might help out. Omaha now has a military cemetery.
This Marine went to a high school about 4 miles from where I am now. I know if I was his dad, I’d be crazy angry and mad at the same time. I would have cursed Biden out at Dover.
Yeah, parents of Marines know their children can get killed but not for an incredibly stupid decision like abandoning Bagram.
I hope college football fans continue the “F Biden” chant all season.
“I mean the western world and the world in general.”
I’m not sure everywhere is as bad as the U.S. presently. Whatever else one might wish to say about Europe, the elites over there don’t appear to have completely lost touch with reality and at least have some ambition to actually be in charge of things. America’s elites are floating on a leaking raft of social media and income inequality and only care about currying favor with the oligarchy.
Mike
CNN’s Jeff Zeleny is from NE; UNL alum. I’ve meet his twice. Nice guy.
If CNN was a serious new organization, they’d cover these 13 funerals. But who am I kidding.
Well, Mike, there’s always Sweden….
https://blazingcatfur.ca/2021/09/06/immigration-created-barbarism-swedish-politician-blasts-gang-wars-organised-crime/
…with Germany hot on Sweden’s heels?
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9960255/Man-Berlin-attacks-woman-allegedly-worked.html
WRT elites, though, some of them may have begun to sweat copiously (or will soon begin to do so…):
https://neonnettle.com/news/16555-elites-panic-as-court-orders-fbi-to-unmask-epstein-s-pedophile-co-conspirators-
“The world may come to realize how important the Pax Americana had been.” neo
They haven’t the integrity to admit to having been completely wrong, about anything, ever. Ideological blindness and the fundamental dishonesty it demands of its adherents, ensures it.
“Whatever else one might wish to say about Europe, the elites over there don’t appear to have completely lost touch with reality and at least have some ambition to actually be in charge of things.” MBunge
Extending to you the benefit of the doubt, you’re apparently unaware of the hundreds of thousands of protestors in France over the past month. Nor is “ambition” an adequate term for just how much Europe’s elite desire to “be in charge of things”. To the extent where the elite through their puppet Macron declared that the unvaccinated could no longer enter grocery stores. A declaration quickly rescinded, when rebellion was threatened by the peasants.
Until these past two years, I’d never quite grasped how easy it is to lie to the American people, and how easy to distract them. Yes, we see it happening all the time, but not at the present level. Our departure from Afghanistan has been catastrophic and horrifying, but along comes a hurricane, together with the low-hanging fruit of COVID and vaccine controversies, etc. (Biden must be so grateful), and the public’s attention shifts to the next shiny thing. By 2022, will Americans be back to seeing Biden as the elderly uncle, sometimes a little confused, but with his heart in the right place?
I suppose it depends on events. Hard to believe, but maybe we haven’t seen him yet at his worst. And we don’t really have a choice between knave or fool. He’s both.
JanMN. Biden’s been a low-IQ knave all his life. Now,
his ability to process whatever is in his mind is failing, as well.
He’s gotten to the point where he may actually believe what he’s saying, maybe occasionally.
But I doubt his boundless ambition is to ruin the US. It’s to run his own fiefdom and enrich himself, and hang the consequences for anybody else.
His handlers are the dangerous ones.
It’s basically a politico-tactical methodology of:
1. Yikes, a CRISIS!!
2. Quick, let’s create another one as a distraction….
…all the way down the line.
So that creating/crafting/fashioning/planning manifold, massive crises becomes a means of uber-distraction leading to a means of uber-control.
(And this is a fabulous situation when you have the corrupt media and infotech corporations in the palm of your hand and you can—also—steal elections at will.)
Of course, one needs someone (or some group) to blame for it all.
…which is why Trump is, essentially, the first Jewish president (though I’m not entirely sure that all “Deplorables”(TM) would feel especially comfortable with that designation or in that supporting role…).
———
And now, if one REALLY wants to get all depressed and/or angry….
“How The National Review Sold Its Soul to Google
And Why Jonah Goldberg and David French Got Thrown Out?
https://emeralddb3.substack.com/p/how-the-national-review-sold-its
There are definitely a whole lot of people “Waiting for Godot” ummm, Trump.
“Gulliver tied down by Lilliputians” — yes, precisely. You’ve seen this, have you: https://newcriterion.com/blogs/dispatch/a-pitiful-helpless-giant ?
Understated take: “This administration has been extremely fuzzy and ambiguous about what it considers the legitimate national interests of the United States to be.”
Stark but I think indisputable: “The more serious and recurrent the failures and humiliations of the Biden Administration, the more China, Russia, Iran, and North Korea will push and provoke America and its allies, and the feebler and more appeasement-minded America’s long-time allies will become.”
The Ionesco absurdist aspect has crossed my mind, as well — the modern version of the Emperor’s New Clothes motif. I keep waiting to open my browser in the morning and read a story about how it’s all come crashing down and we can start picking up the pieces and go back to normal. How that would happen, I don’t know, especially has K. Harris is next in line, then Pelosi.
It’s times like this I wish we had a parliamentary system like the UK. There would at least be the possibility of a quick reboot.
If we had a parliamentary system, Pelosi would be Prime Minister, ceteris paribus. Be careful what you wish for.
Neo, seriously, what is up with your cohort, white women with college degrees. How do they get along with white men with college degrees, for instance. Did anything good come from their intellectual endeavors?
Like a paper bag with unsavory contents ablaze on our doorstep, the nation wonders what to do about the illegitimate Potato regime and Mr “81 Million Votes”. Stamping out the fire is not an option. Only removal to a safe distance will do, and I mean complete removal.
Fortunately, now that the Deep State is fully exposed, a legitimate government will able to do a thorough cleaning job.
Barry Meislin,
Successive massive crises lead to massive societal discontent and the unalterable perception that the current administration can’t handle the job. In such circumstances, another stolen election would prove to be a bridge too far.
Those around when Jimmy Carter was President remember that was exactly the case with his bid to be reelected.
Successive massive crises lead to massive societal discontent and the unalterable perception that the current administration can’t handle the job.
Another revelation today that Biden is just a puppet or mouthpiece: “Biden gave a speech for labor unions in the East Room. When he finished his remarks, he said, ‘I’m supposed to stop and walk out of the room.’
Biden concluded: ‘So folks, you do it all. I‘m sorry to go on so long but I cannot thank you enough for all you’ve done for the country and what you’ve done for me over my career. You’ve educated me, you’ve brought me along, and you’ve — you’ve always been there. Now I‘m supposed to stop and walk out of the room here.'”
Video and more examples of Slow Joe’s messing up press conferences at the link:
https://legalinsurrection.com/2021/09/biden-admits-someone-pulls-his-strings-im-supposed-to-stop-and-walk-out-of-the-room/
If only he would stop, walk out, stay out, and stop for good.
More people need to repeat what the mother of Rylee McCollum, a marine killed in Kabul, said during a radio interview:
“Biden is a feckless, dementia ridden piece of crap”
She then continued on to go after Biden supporters by saying:
“I just want all you Democrats who cheated in the election, who voted for him, legitimately, you just killed my son with a dementia-ridden piece of crap because even though he’s in the White House he still thinks he’s a senator.”
While it might sound like she is just angry (and I don’t blame her for her anger); she is speaking nothing but the truth.
One of the duties of a president (legitimate or not) is to sometimes meet with new Gold Star families. On such occasions, family members might be civil and subdued or angry with unflattering things to say. The president’s job in the latter case is to respectfully hear them out. After all, someone dear to them has just given the last full measure of devotion to the country, and they are entitled to vent.
What a respectable president would never do is roll his eyes, walk away, and throw up his hands. Neither would he continually check his watch as caskets are unloaded from the plane.
As he repeatedly shows in many ways, in no way is this worthless potato a respectable president.
Martin Gurri has some observations that are interesting.
From his post linked below:
To some extent, this is a family drama: the last gasp of the Baby Boomers before their children snatch the world away from their palsied hands. It would be good to believe that a rising generation, at ease with new models and habits, simply by taking over could broker a fair peace between the public and the industrial elites. But this places too great a weight of expectation on the young.
We are living through the early stages of a colossal transformation: from the industrial age to something that doesn’t yet have a name. Many periods of history have been constrained by structural necessity. This isn’t one of them.
For younger elites, trust involves a sort of cosplay of historical conflicts. They put on elaborate rhetorical superhero costumes, and fight mock-epic battles with Nazis, fascists, “patriarchs,” slave-owners, George III, and the like. Because it’s only a game, no one gets seriously hurt – but nothing ever gets settled, either. Eventually, the young cosplayers must put away their costumes, take one last sip of Kombucha, and set off, seething with repressed virtue, to make money in the world as it really is. I was intrigued by the pathology of mutual dependence between these generational postures. It’s the way abusive relationships are supposed to work – although, in all honesty, I was at a loss to say who was the abuser and who the abused.
Whole thing here:
https://thefifthwave.wordpress.com/2019/07/23/notes-from-a-nameless-conference/
I put forth this scenario shortly after Biden took over mostly in jest, but it could happen:
Biden resigns. Harris picks a VP but her choice is not confirmed leaving the position open. GOP takes the House in 2022 and picks Trump as Speaker. Harris is successfully impeached and Trump returns to the Oval Office.
I suspect that Harris has so much Chinese involvement in her investments etc. that she could be successfully impeached. She has the mentality of an eighteen year old and there is no way she would avoid catastrophic mistakes.
Nothing will happen. Except that the situation is going to get worse, all across the board, and continuously. Worse, and worse, and worse.
@Dick Illyes: Biden is not a Baby Boomer. He belongs to the so-called Silent Generation. Haven’t we Boomers done enough on our own to screw things up? Why hold us responsible for the misdeeds of the Biden/Pelosi cohort, too? But Martin Gurri is not the first to make this error.