Author: photog

Something Will Have to Give

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The New York Times, a former newspaper, published the results of a series of polls that they held in the six most hotly contested “swing” states, between Joe Biden and Donald Trump.  Trump won five out of six.  The only one Biden picked up was Wisconsin which was within the 4% margin of error for the poll.  Of the five Trump won, all but one (Pennsylvania) was outside of the margin of error.

State   Trump   Biden
    %   %
Nevada   52   41
Georgia   49   43
Arizona   49   44
Michigan   48   43
Pennsylvania   48   44
Wisconsin   44   47

 

So, what does this mean?  Well, if I were to guess, I think it means that independents in these states think Biden is doing a lousy job running the country.  And since the independents are the least ideological voters, their opinion is probably the most objective.  Two thirds of independents are saying they’d rather vote for the guy who is being indicted in four different criminal proceedings in four different jurisdictions around the country.  They’d prefer a man who has been demonized by every news outlet, the FBI and the Justice Department.  And impeached twice by the House of Representatives.  Essentially what they’re saying is, they want to vote for this guy precisely because all of these people say they shouldn’t.

Now imagine if these poll numbers remain where they are or increase right up to Election Day 2024.  And then suppose that we have a rerun of 2020 where the people go to bed on election night with Donald Trump up by insurmountable leads in Pennsylvania and Wisconsin and Michigan but the polls get shut down without a completed tally and then after a few days or weeks of “finding” absentee ballots Joe Biden miraculously pulls ahead by a few thousand votes.

Well, I think that would be the end of people believing in the electoral system in this country.  After all, the label “banana republic” has already gotten fairly wide currency after the partisan prosecutions that the Justice Department has been indulging in for the last four years.  I’m guessing that comparisons of our electoral system to Sadaam Hussein’s will become quite common after that.

But the important question is, what practical difference will people’s perception of voter fraud make?  I mean, the fraud will still allow Democrats to control the White House and maybe the Congress.  And that will eventually allow the Supreme Court to be packed with progressives.  Will it matter if no one believes in the elections?

I think it will.  It won’t immediately topple the government.  The United States still possess formidable resources and many of its institutions are somewhat functional.  But history has shown that a republic that loses the trust of its citizens in the fairness of its institutions eventually radicalizes the common people and leads to recourse to a revolutionary alternative.

Rome succumbed to revolt once the republican government became corrupt and tyrannical.  And it’s not necessary to go back two thousand years ago to see what happens to a tyrannical government, even a powerful one once the people have lost faith in its legitimacy.  We only have to look at the Soviet Union.  When people discover that elections are fake their relationship to the state is no longer one of ownership.  It becomes purely transactional.  And so, if the government that presides over these fake elections also fails to provide prosperity, then the only thing that can keep it in power is brute force.  Slaves don’t work any harder than they have to.  In the Soviet Union there was a saying, “They pretend to pay us and we pretend to work.”  Well, we’re headed there.  Inflation means that people are working two jobs and still aren’t able to save up to buy a house.  But they see illegal aliens given free housing and welfare.  I don’t think Americans are ready to live that way.

Something will have to give.

06NOV2023 – Quote of the Day

photog Quote of the Day ,

“In the midst of life we are in death,” said one; it is more true that in the midst of death we are in life. Life is the only reality; what men call death is but a shadow — a word for that which cannot be — a negation, owing the very idea of itself to that which it would deny. But for life there could be no death. If God were not, there would not even be nothing. Not even nothingness preceded life. Nothingness owes its very idea to existence.

George MacDonald

 

Legitimacy

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I was listening to a dissident right pundit recently.  It was about the new Speaker of the House Mike Johnson.  A lot of it had to do with the process the Republican Party uses to vet its members.  Basically, it was said that it selects for those who will follow the orders of the leadership and by extension align with the policies that the donors want supported.  So, for Republicans that means providing legislation that helps for example, pharmaceutical and defense companies.  But it also includes the banks and Wall Street and any other power centers that have lobbyists that Republicans are paid by.

And I can see how a lot of that is true.  Guys like Lindsay Graham and Mitch McConnell are wholly owned subsidiaries of Raytheon and Lockheed Martin and never saw a war they couldn’t get behind.  And during the recent COVID madness Pfizer was spreading all those billions it made on vaccines among the Democrats and Republicans like it was candy corn at Halloween.  So, I can see the point being made by the dissidents.  The system is rigged to keep out anyone but the kind of people who perpetuate its mercenary function.  And with such people the chance of the will of the constituents being honored is non-existent.  So, I grant that.

But then how do we recognize and support the people who somehow manage to sneak through this vetting and could be part of the solution?  Look at Donald Trump.  Trump crashed the Republican presidential primary.  He gutted Jeb Bush and disrupted Hillary Clinton’s coronation when everyone knew it was “her turn.”  Sure, he was hamstrung by Democrats and Republicans and most forcefully by the Deep State but I deny that he didn’t try as best he knew to accomplish the items on his agenda.  To claim he was just another bought and sold member of the Uniparty doing the bidding of Black Rock and the CIA seems completely false.  I don’t claim that he had immense success in reforming the federal government.  What I do claim is that he was a legitimate representative of the people who voted him into office.  He authentically wanted to fulfill the promises he made during his campaign.  He had legitimacy.

So the trick is figuring out who are the other bona fide conservatives who are willing to help us win the battles that we so badly need won.  Let’s start with Mike Johnson.  I heard the arguments about how Johnson was a part of the machine that produces “Christian” lawmakers.  But when I look at the cases that he was involved in and the laws that he fought for I see a very socially conservative record.

In 2003 he wrote an amicus brief in front of the Supreme Court for Lawrence v. Texas which struck down the Texas sodomy laws. And in 2004 he defended Louisiana’s law defining marriage as being between one man and one woman.  To me this sounds like someone whose priorities are in line with my own.  And after the 2020 election Johnson voted to overturn the presidential election results.  That doesn’t sound like someone who just follows the Uniparty to get along.

The only way I think I’ll be able to tell if Johnson is a legitimate conservative legislature is if as Speaker of the House, he shows a willingness to resist the very mercenary and illegitimate behaviors that were mentioned in the dissident essay I was discussing earlier.  For instance, Joe Biden asked for a hundred billion dollars of aid that would mostly go to Ukraine but had Israel getting about ten billion.  Instead of passing such a bill Johnson got a bill passed that just gave the ten billion to Israel.  The sympathy that Israel had among Republicans after the Gaza terrorist attack ensured that such a bill would be passed.  Refusing to tack on a Ukraine payment that is an order of magnitude larger seems what I would expect of someone who is practical and smart.

I’m willing to see what Mike Johnson achieves.  That’s how I’ll decide if he’s for real.  That doesn’t seem idealistic.  It seems pragmatic.

US and EU Began Preparing Ukraine for Negotiations Last Month

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So now that the US, EU and Ukraine know what we already knew six months ago they’re letting it leak out to the general public.

“The conversations have included very broad outlines of what Ukraine might need to give up to reach a deal, the officials said. Some of the talks, which officials described as delicate, took place last month during a meeting of representatives from more than 50 nations supporting Ukraine, including NATO members, known as the Ukraine Defense Contact Group, the officials said.”

The problem with those talks is they don’t include Russia.

“The Biden administration does not have any indication that Russian President Vladimir Putin is ready to negotiate with Ukraine, two U.S. officials said. Western officials say Putin still believes he can “wait out the West,” or keep fighting until the U.S. and its allies lose domestic support for funding Ukraine or the struggle to supply Kyiv with weapons and ammunition becomes too costly, officials said.”

What’s wrong with this whole picture.  We convinced the Ukrainians that between their manpower and our weapons the Russians would be crushed in months.  That is probably because we believed that Ukraine was just a foreign possession of Russia.  And they wouldn’t expend the blood and treasure to fight for it.

But there are millions of Russians for whom the Donbass is their ancestral home.  It would be like California breaking away from the US and the Mexicans living there trying to force the Anglo residents of Northern California to give up their language and culture.  If it came down to pictures of Sacramento being ethnically cleansed would it be surprising if the US stepped in and tried to annex the Anglo areas?  I don’t think so.  Well at least if we had a president who didn’t hate America.

After this I’m guessing the Baltic states and the Eastern Europeans will begin reevaluating their relations with the US, the EU and Russia.  Following the lead of the US in matters of war has been shown over the last twenty years or so to be a perilous strategy.

So the geniuses in the Pentagon and the State Department had already figured this out months ago but continued to spout all the nonsense about the breakout that was about to sweep away the Russians in Crimea.  One thing though, the reality of what will end up happening there should make it easier for the Republican House to put a stop to that $61 billion Biden wants to finish off the few remaining Ukrainian men.

I wonder where in the US Zelensky will end up retiring to?  Hopefully he’ll update his ensemble and stick to comedy but skip the piano playing.

Cure (1997) – A Movie Review

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“Cure” is a Japanese psychological horror film written and directed by Kiyoshi Kurosawa, starring Kōji Yakusho as a Tokyo Metropolitan Police detective named Kenichi Takabe investigating a string of murders by different killers that are only linked by the throats of all the victims being slashed with an X shaped incision.

(Spoiler Alert – Skip down to last paragraph to avoid spoilers and read recommendation)

Takabe and his partner the forensic psychologist Sakuma suspect that a powerful hypnotist is implanting the idea of the murders into each of the killers.  They track down a strange man named Mamiya that was present at several of the murder scenes.  He behaves as if he has no memory of his own identity or his history.  Sakuma has Mamiya committed to a hospital for observation.  Mamiya uses his hypnotic powers to learn the details of Takabe’s family problem from a hospital employee.  Takabe’s wife is seriously mentally ill and the stress of living with her is undermining his own mental balance.  Mamiya uses this information to torment Takabe during an interrogation.  Takabe begins imagining his wife committing suicide.  He has her placed in a psychiatric institution to safeguard her.

Next, we see Mamiya implant a murder suggestion in a young female doctor and shortly afterward she murders a man.  Afterward Mamiya even causes Sakuma to commit suicide.  Finally, Mamiya escapes from the hospital and Takabe who is now enraged against his tormentor tracks him down to an abandoned hospital and after being taunted by Mamiya shoots him.  When Mamiya’s last motion is to attempt to implant the murder suggestion in Takabe the policeman empties his pistol into the madman.

After killing Mamiya Takabe finds an old phonograph player in the hospital and listens to a recording that seems to be the source of Mamiya’s knowledge of the deadly hypnotic technique.  In the next scene we see the corpse of Takabe’s wife at the mental hospital with an X cut into her throat.  In the last scene we see Takabe in a restaurant finishing a meal.  As the waitress leaves his table, we see her walk over to a counter and grab a butcher’s knife.

This is a very strange movie.  And of course, since it’s spoken in Japanese that adds another layer of distance for the non-Japanese speaking viewer.  But the movie is quite compelling.  The Mamiya character is extremely unnerving.  Whenever someone attempts to interrogate him about his actions or even his history it always ends up with him turning the interrogation around.  The movie viewer develops a strong revulsion for the character.  He manipulates the interrogators and eventually implants his suggestion.  Because of this antipathy I felt a great sense of satisfaction when Takabe emptied his pistol into the homicidal hypnotist.

I’m not sure how to provide the recommendation for this movie.  My impression of this movie was definitely positive.  I did enjoy it.  But it’s such a strange movie that I’m having a hard time selecting what audience this movie is made for.  I guess we’ll have to start with audiences that enjoy crime dramas.  A somewhat similar type of movie might be “Silence of the Lambs.”  But added to that is the foreign language aspect which might be problematic for many viewers.  I guess I can only qualify this film’s audience with these two factors.  That will have to be my recommendation, as vague as it is.