Chucking Pebbles

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Last week I was listening to the Friday morning Power Hour podcast that the ZMan produces.  And during the discussion he mentioned that he was surprised when a particular civ-nat pundit who was usually very mainstream normie-con started exhibiting a lot of the talking points that the ZMan associated with the dissident right perspective.  I don’t think ZMan was very specific about the exact context and exactly how far to the right this fellow had gone, but I guess the change from the pundit’s usual rhetoric to this new point of view was sufficiently great to merit surprise.

I found this interesting.  Usually, ZMan is extremely dismissive of civnattery.  He finds their points of view hopelessly naïve and foolish.  So, his surprise caught my attention.  Now what exactly the details of this change were, I can’t say.  But what I assume was that this pundit started using the vocabulary of the dissident right.  Maybe he used a term like anti-white racism or just anti-white as a description of someone on the Left or some policy.  Something like that might surprise coming from someone who has up until now avoided racialist terminology.  Maybe it was a comment about the dishonesty of the establishment Republicans and their phony struggle against the Left’s policies.  Or maybe it was an opinion against the war in Ukraine.  But whatever it was it’s part of a trend that is no longer possible to ignore.  The normies, a lot of them, are waking up.

I have a theory about why the Dissident Right has been at the cutting edge of the awakening on the Right.  I think many on the dissident Right have their roots in the blue-collar working class.  And that is the segment of White America that was impacted first by the policies and prejudices that the Left and their minions installed during the last fifty years.  It was the working class that had a ringside seat for the Great Society upheavals with welfare culture destroying the schools and neighborhoods that they inhabited.  And it was the working class that were the first and hardest hit by the off-shoring that went hand in hand with the globalization program of the Left.

And so, the most discerning of the working class were able to express the things they saw and they became the vanguard of the Dissident Right.  But now that the whole program of the Left has emerged the white-collar workers and the entrepreneurial community have been impacted and now the intelligentsia.  Even leftist journalists can see what’s happening and recognize the Orwellian nature of what’s going on.  In that environment it makes sense that even the blindest of normie-con pundits would stumble onto the truth.

Now the funny thing is that even tripping over facts doesn’t mean that unanimity will break out between the Dissident Right and the people to their immediate left.  The folks on the Dissident Right talk about a river that they cross that separates them from the rest of the Right.  And that difference has more to do with their beliefs about the incompatibility of different ethnicities and races of people.  And they see this as part and parcel of the problems that are afflicting this country.  And they don’t believe that the possibility exists for different types of people to live together under one set of laws even if it were fairly enforced.

Currently the dissidents and those on the other side of the river just shout back and forth at each other and shake their fists because it’s an academic question.  The administrative state, since the 1960s, has used things like affirmative action and other forms of discrimination to stir up animosity between various communities.  It’s currently illegal to hire people based only on their individual talents.  A quota must be filled regardless of whether qualified applicants can be found based on race and gender.  If this ever gets fixed then we could find out if the Dissident Right is correct in their belief that different people can’t coexist amicably.  Until then it’s just speculation and we can stay on separate sides of the river pointing at each other and maybe chucking pebbles across from time to time.

Gilda – An OCF Classic Movie Review

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Currently the cable channels available to me contain two kinds of movies I might watch.  There are Halloween movies (horror and slasher movies) and classics (mostly movies from the 1930’s and 1940’s with a smattering of later movies that supposedly have “timeless” qualities).

So tonight, my choice was between John Carpenter’s “The Thing” (1982) and the 1946 film noir “Gilda.”  In deference to Camera Girl’s presence (she wanted something quiet in the background) I put on the older movie.

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

The plot of Gilda is slightly goofy.  The motives of the three main characters are hard to reconcile with their actions.  Glenn Ford plays Johnny Farrell, an American down on his luck in Buenos Aires for some unknown reason.  We meet him he has just won a sum of money in a craps game from some American soldiers.  As he walks away, he is accosted by a robber armed with a pistol.  He is rescued by Ballin Mundson who happens by with a walking stick that has a retractable 18-inch blade hidden inside.  We find out that Ballin owns an illegal gambling casino.  And after a very short time Johnny inexplicably becomes Ballen’s indispensable operations manager.

When Ballen returns from a business trip he introduces Johnny to his new American bride Gilda played by the absurdly beautiful Rita Hayworth.  But of course, Ballen doesn’t know that Johnny and Gilda were married and divorced sometime before the start of the movie timeline.  And they vehemently hate each other.  But neither of them reveals to Ballen this common history.  And because Gilda resents Ballen’s trust in and friendship with Johnny she attempts to torture Johnny by forcing him to cover up for a string of flirtations that she initiates with every man who catches her eye at the casino.  The logic of this isn’t really well explained.  But Johnny apparently feels its his responsibility to keep Gilda from upsetting Ballen.

During this part of the movie, we learn that Ballen has other business interests in addition to the casino.  Somehow through patents he has a monopoly on the world-wide production of tungsten (of all things).  And eventually we find out that his position was provided to him by Nazis(!).  Eventually the Nazis return and want their monopoly back.  A crisis arises when Ballen refuses their demands and he murders one of the Nazis at the casino.  Ballen must flee the country to escape the law.  He tells Johnny to find Gilda and bring her back to his house from which he will be fleeing with Johnny and Gilda that night.

When Johnny extracts Gilda from a romantic rendezvous that she was on and brings her to Ballen’s house they have a bitter fight which of course ends with them in a passionate kiss.  And, of course Ballen enters the room at that exact moment.  He rushes out and drives away.  Johnny jumps in his own car and follows him to the airport where Ballen runs to a waiting plane and flies out over the ocean.  The police have followed both of them and they tell Johnny that they have been waiting for the Nazis because they want to bust up the tungsten cartel.  They watch Ballen’s plane heading off into the night when it suddenly explodes.  We are then shown Ballen parachuting into the ocean where he is picked up by a boat.  He tells his rescuers that he will be hiding out for a while but he will return to deal with a situation, which we assume is Johnny and Gilda.

Thinking Ballen dead, his will is read and Gilda is his sole heir but Johnny is the sole executor of his estate.  So, Johnny marries Gilda to get control of the casino and the tungsten empire.  Afterward he treats her like dirt as revenge for what Johnny thinks of as her disloyalty with other men.  Gilda rebels by acting even more disloyal.  Finally, there is a rapprochement when Johnny finds out that Gilda has only been pretending to have affairs with various men.  Now the police tell Johnny that he must give up the casino and tungsten business because Argentina is about to seize them.  Johnny and Gilda decide to return home to America.  But at that juncture Ballen returns and announces that he is going to kill the couple.  And because he has to kill them both he won’t use his sword cane but his gun instead.  But just as he bears down on them, the friendly philosopher/bathroom attendant (I didn’t mention him before?) Uncle Pio stabs Ballen in the back with his own sword cane.  The understanding police inspector declines to press charges against the amiable killer saying, “you can’t murder someone who has already been declared dead plus haven’t you ever heard of justifiable homicide?”  And Johnny and Gilda live happily ever after.  Well, anyway we hope so.

Good lord.  This movie is a hopeless mess.  As I said earlier the plot and the motivations of the main characters are hopelessly absurd.  Gilda’s marriage to Ballen can’t be reconciled with her actions.  And Gilda’s and Johnny’s feelings for each other are hopelessly confusing and annoying to the audience.  The whole plot of the Nazi tungsten business makes no sense and seems ridiculous on its face.  Sure, uranium would have made sense for crypto-Nazis to be dabbling in but tungsten?  What were they planning to do, deprive the world of light bulbs?  And then there is the laid-back police inspector who wouldn’t let a little thing like homicide stand in the way of a happy ending.  Add to this Gilda’s almost incessant habit of saying Johnny’s name in every sentence she utters at him and you have a movie in which it is impossible to suspend disbelief.  The only possible motive for this movie was to showcase Rita Hayworth’s face and figure.  And without a doubt that is a worthwhile endeavor.  Hayworth is featured in several song and dance routines where she parades and shakes her very charming assets for the audience.  She was a very lovely woman in the prime of her life.  Now is this a movie worth recommending?  I would say only if all that I’ve said is taken into account.  You have to be going in just to watch Rita Hayworth dance to “Put the Blame on Mame.”  If not then don’t.

 

Mike Johnson is the New Speaker of the House

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Well, the doofuses managed to get their act together and Johnson got a unanimous vote from the Stupid Party.  From what I’ve read he’s on the conservative side of things and he hasn’t insulted Donald Trump.  As far as things can be characterized as hopeful let’s call it that.  We’ll take a pause before recording how the Keystone Cops manage to shoot themselves in the foot later on in the week.  Two and half cheers for the doofuses. Hip, hip hoo.

 

Another Day in Paradise, Sort Of

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Slapping together a post late at night is a recipe for incoherence.  But that’s my claim to fame.  Fame?

Well, here we are again my old nemesis.  What shall we talk about?

I read a little about the continuing adventures of the Republican House representatives trying to select a new Speaker.  They tried another one of the establishment guys, Tom Emmer of Minnesota, the majority whip.  Trump posted, “Voting for a globalist RINO like Tom Emmer would be a tragic mistake!”  Well, that’s that.

Now the question that needs to be answered is can they agree on anyone as Speaker?  Maybe not.  It’s possible that the establishment would rather cause a government shutdown rather than allow someone outside of their club from controlling the purse strings in Washington.  At this point I think I’m okay with a government shutdown.  Sure, it would probably mean chaos and possibly bankruptcy for me personally but I think it might not be a bad way of getting the attention of the people running this madhouse.  Eventually the establishment Republicans will cut a deal with the Democrats and make Hakeem Jeffries Speaker.  And that’s fine.  It will demonstrate to the world that the Uniparty is a living, breathing reality.  But I have to admire the rebels in the Trump wing of the House Republicans for sticking by their guns and slapping the RINOs around like they’re doing.  It’s great theater.

It looks like mostly everybody admits that unless Donald Trump is forced off the primary ballot, he will win the nomination.  And once he’s in the general election he’s definitely going to get a crapload of votes.  Not to say fraud couldn’t beat him.  We know from sad experience it could.  But regardless of Trump’s towering lead in the primaries there are several candidates who want to stay in the race in case chicanery takes Trump off the ballot.  I’m guessing DeSantis and Haley are in it for the long haul.  I’m not sure anyone else has enough money coming in to stay in long term.  It’s just a little more than a year before that election but it will feel like forever, especially as the country falls apart around us on multiple fronts.  But it will be interesting.

And speaking of interesting, in a horrific way, the two hot wars continue unabated.  Israel is probing Gaza to see where the hostages are hidden and trying to figure out how to wound Hamas critically without losing hundreds, if not thousands of IDF lives.

And the Ukraine war grinds on.  The majority of the Ukrainian “spring” offensive is over and the Russians have taken to the offense.  The latest front is the fortified city of Avdiivka which the Russians have begun to encircle.  Today they managed to overrun, at very great cost, the high ground northwest of the city called Terrikon.  With the loss of this high ground the Ukrainians will be forced to move their artillery much farther west and north of the present positions and that will finally put an end to the artillery bombardment of Donetsk City which has been a humanitarian problem for the Russian Donbas since the beginning of hostilities in 2014.  But all indications are that conquering Avdiivka will be a slow painful grind for the Russian army in the same way as the Bakhmut campaign was earlier this year, but smaller.  I guess the wars will drag on for months and years but maybe there’s a chance we can put an end to the tens of billions of dollars that Biden keeps shoveling into Zelensky’s (and his own) off-shore accounts.  Well, we’ll see.

I won’t talk about the economy.  It’s too gruesome to dwell on.  We’re all being sent to the cleaners and we’ll all be a little poorer by and by but that’s just par for the course.  Of course, if Joe gets his $100 billion dollars for Ukraine maybe we’ll be a lot poorer and a lot sooner.  But leave that be for now.

So that’s my quick synopsis of where we are right now.  Everybody, do your best to hang in there.  Tomorrow belongs to the people with endurance.  Let that be us.