So the last of the loony Euro aristocrats have confirmed Obama's deification, giving him the Nobel peace prize just a little too soon

The confirmation of the deification is also its demise. Too much special pleading, especially when it comes before the great sacrifice, even destroys the authority of would-be gods. The Norwegian lady doth protest too much.

It's times like this when the desperate papering over of reality, like the last days of a Ponzi scheme, becomes obvious to even many diehard believers. The reality of human mimetic desire and conflict reasserts itself in brutal ways and it soon enough becomes clear that men who think one builds peace by destroying alliances and national cultures, abandoning the people to imperial pretensions, blaming everything on a scapegoat (the Burning Bush!), and standing down militarily in the face of some very real rivals - one a rather complete Other with a project to destroy the modern global economy - will have to face the new dawn. History waits for no one, however much we attempt to sacralize a dieing vision, and i think today we are seeing the last gasps of a certain phase in the ongoing Gnostic delusion about the nature of humanity. However, in crisis, opportunity exists for those who must rebuild themselves.

Great comments on how the Norwegians have really put Obama in the bind, at Belmont Club.

I am a little amused that yesterday I somehow "thought" to blog on Churchill's speech responding to the Munich agreement and Chamberlain's "peace in our times". How a propos. Everyone should read that speech from top to bottom for a refresher in the human capacity to believe in a fantasy, or just to give up in the face of hard human realities that entail inescapable conflict and the need to stand up - with others, bonded not just by will but by a shared, loved, reality - or give in. A few weeks ago, I half wrote another post anticipating this day. I didn't finish it so I may as well start cannibalizing it. It ended with a quote from Eric Voegelin that seems appropriate again. Voegelin illuminates the failure of the lonely, elitist, would-be-world-controller with a "Gnostic" will to seriously transform reality through force of personality and asking others just to sign on to "the dream". Writing during the Korean War, in The New Science of Politics (1952), criticizing the various "Gnostic" political religions that think they have achieved some rarefied insight, some systematic and controlling knowledge, some expertise, some insight into reality that mere wingnuts will never know, and that will allow an elect to imagine and shape the future, Voegelin already saw what we all should now know the "internationalist" dream of peace in a UN- and expert-mediated world has become:

The prehistory of the second World War raises the serious question whether the Gnostic dream has not corroded Western society so deeply that rational politics has become impossible, and war is the only instrument left for adjusting disturbances in the balance of existential forces.

The conduct of the war and its aftermath unfortunately are apt to confirm this fear rather than to assuage it. If a war has a purpose at all, it is the restoration of a balance of forces and not the aggravation of the disturbance; it is the reduction of the unbalancing excess of force, not the destruction of force to the point of creating a new unbalancing power vacuum. Instead the [American] Gnostic politicians have put the Soviet army on the Elbe, surrendered China to the Communists, at the same time demilitarized Germany and Japan, and in addition demobilized our own army. The facts are trite, and yet it is perhaps not sufficiently realized that never before in the history of mankind has a world power used a victory deliberately for the purpose of creating a power vacuum to its own disadvantage. And again, as in previous contexts, it is necessary to warn that phenomena of this magnitude cannot be explained by ignorance and stupidity. These policies were pursued as a matter of principle, on the basis of Gnostic dream assumptions about the nature of man, about a mysterious evolution of mankind toward peace and world order, about the possibility of establishing an international order in the abstract without relation to the structure of the field of existential forces, about armies being the cause of war and not the forces and constellations which build them. and set them in motion, etc. The enumerated series of actions, as well as the dream assumptions on which they are based, seem to show that the contact with reality is at least badly damaged and that the pathological substitution of the dream world is fairly effective.

Moreover, it should be noted that the unique phenomenon of a great power creating a power vacuum to its own disadvantage was accompanied by the equally unique phenomenon of military conclusion of a war without conclusion of peace treaties. This rather disturbing further phenomenon again cannot be explained by the baffling complexity of the problems that require settlement. It is again the dream obsession that makes it impossible for the representative of Gnostic societies to formulate policies which take into account the structure of reality. There can be no peace, because the dream cannot be translated into reality and reality has not yet broken the dream. No one, of course, can predict what nightmare of violence it will take to break the dream, and still less so what Western society will look like au bout de la nuit

Gnostic politics, thus, is self-defeating in so far as its disregard for the structure of reality leads to continuous warfare. This system of chain wars can end only in one of two ways. Either it will result in horrible physical destructions and concomitant revolutionary changes of social order beyond reasonable guesses; or, with the natural change of generations, it will lead to the abandoning of Gnostic dreaming before the worst has happened.

I see this is a warning not just to the left-liberals Voegelin was directly criticizing, but also to a kind of "right-wing" reaction to them, one that has itself grown up in the Gnostic culture and is variously indebted to it, and that attends the rise of Obama with a mix of conspiracy paranoia, fear, over-done loathing, and a desire for a conflict that will reveal to those with eyes to see the truth of this reality that at present only a few keen seers can divine. But, as Voeglin argued, turning to conflict, without first attending to the totality of human and historical reality, turning to a desire for battle without seriously pursuing questions of how various kinds of "armies" are created, motivated, and supplied, is a sure-fire recipe not for the victory of an orderly reason, but for more destabilizing conflict.
(HT: Catfur)

Churchill, 1938; Coren, 2009

At a time when Obama is embracing the idea of limiting freedom of speech at the United Nations, lest Islam be offended by its critics, let us not pretend that there is any guarantee of peace, international order, and civility that the UN can any longer provide.

The Munich Agreement:

We do not want to be led upon the high road to becoming a satellite of the German Nazi system of European domination. In a very few years, perhaps in a very few months, we shall be confronted with demands with which we shall no doubt be invited to comply. Those demands may affect the surrender of territory or the surrender of liberty. I foresee and foretell that the policy of submission will carry with it restrictions upon the freedom of speech and debate in Parliament, on public platforms, and discussions in the Press, for it will be said - indeed, I hear it said sometimes now - that we cannot allow the Nazi system of dictatorship to be criticised by ordinary, common English politicians. Then, with a Press under control, in part direct but more potently indirect, with every organ of public opinion doped and chloroformed into acquiescence, we shall be conducted along further stages of our journey.

Radio Memories: Days Of Victory

Every Sunday we try to make time for some Radio Memories, half-forgotten echoes from the dearly departed art form known as radio drama, the “theater of the mind”. The idea for this week's post arrived in an unexpected way...

A few days ago, I couldn't help myself from eavesdropping on some young people as they talked about an older relative, perhaps a grandfather. "His life changed forever when Japan attacked Pearl Harbor on December 11 1941”, one said earnestly. I smiled at her mixing up the old December date with a grim one from September 2001, but the smile was short-lived as it occured to me how much of her short life had been lived under the shadow of the War on terror.

She would have been so young that awful morning over 7 years ago when the world watched the unforgettable sight of planes slamming in to buildings. Conceivably, she may no longer remember what it’s like to live in a Sept 10 world; for her generation, the world may seem to have always been at war. As hard as it is for us, at our age, to imagine returning to a world at peace (such as it was, anyway), what must such change mean to the young..?

These thoughts led me to look for clues in another war fought a few generations before, one that did seem to have an ending, for the children who lived in its shadow. One day in 1945, their world changed, for the better, and the war's climax brought a sense of concluding relief as palpable as was it’s horrifying beginning.

May we and our children one day experience our own version of a VE-Day..?

Monday morning on May 7, 1945, anyone listening to the radio would have heard a succinct bulletin interrupt their usual programs with the urgent news that Germany had surrendered to the Allies, the US, Great Britain and the Soviet Union, “no strings attached”. As it turned out, this was an unauthorized leak: while German forces had surrendered this time (unlike the false, premature reports broadcast the week before), the Allies intended to announce the news only after the surrender was to be formalized the following day. A curious game of words ensued for the rest of that Monday, as no government officials stepped forward to confirm the morning broadcast, forcing the nation into an awkward celebratory limbo.

The next day, May 8th, President Truman woke up from his first night actually spent in the White House since the passing of President Roosevelt three weeks before, and took to the radio airwaves at 9:00 AM to make the news official: there was now Victory in Europe. The announcement must have had a special significance for the new President, since that day, May 8th, also happened to be… Truman’s 61st birthday. His speech was followed by a re-broadcast of the short-wave message delivered by his counterpart in Great Britain, Prime Minister Winston Churchill.

As we approach VE-Day’s anniversary next week, I thought it would be helpful to offer a forty-minute compilation of four separate radio broadcasts that, together, may hopefully put ourselves into the place of those who were learning of the kind of good news we struggle to keep faith in, in our own time.

I’m book-ending a child’s view of VE-Day with the broadcasts that the “grown-ups” would have heard announcing the curtain call for the War in Europe. First, we’ll hear the initial, unauthorized Monday morning broadcast that the war in Europe had come to an end. Then, two children’s adventure programs, broadcast late afternoon Tuesday, on VE Day itself. Finally, the forementioned speeches by President Truman and Prime Minister Churchill.

The two children’s series are the serialized adventures of movie cowboy Tom Mix, in Tom Mix Ralston Straight Shooters, and the radio adaptation of Milton Caniff’s action-packed comic strip Terry and the Pirates. Both were daily 15-minute broadcasts, Monday through Friday. For the most part such shows were broadcast live in those days, allowing for some last-minute script rewrites should events warrant them…as that day’s war news surely did.

As part of the closing commercial for Ralston cereal, Tom Mix tries to put the day’s confusing events into perspective for his young faithful listeners:

“You know, a lot of you Straight Shooters can hardly remember when there wasn’t a war goin’ on. You’ve grown up with words like “commando”, and “ration stamps”, and “V-Mail”. Now today, somethin’ big has happened. Germany, Hitler’s Germany, has surrendered.
But all of you Straight Shooters know that this thing called “war” isn’t nearly over. It means that the folks in your family are going to have to keep right on at their war jobs, and every one of us will have to keep workin’ and fightin’ until there isn’t any war left, anywhere in the world.
Someday this old world is goin’ to belong to you boys and girls. But it’s up to all of us to pitch in now, and make it the kind of a world worth havin’.”

In digesting the possibility of peace in our time, maybe we should take a cue from Tom, and envision one bite-sized morcel at a time, rather than a sudden, transcendent gorging. Change is best understood as it is often experienced: slowly, as a series of "middles" more than a climactic ending. As Time magazine described it that fateful week:

[F]or ordinary people, the war in Europe ended—not when they heard the hoarse voice of the radio, nor when they saw paper blizzards falling between skyscrapers, nor even when they ate their first food in freedom—but slowly and silently, by degrees, somewhere in each man's heart.

Previous Radio Memories posts:

You Are There: The Capture Of John Wilkes Booth
Fort Laramie: War Correspondent
CBS Radio Workshop: Son Of Man
Great Gildersleeve: Easter Rabbits
Dimension X: Time And Time Again
An American In England: Women Of Britain
Cavalcade Of America: Bob Hope Reports
The March Of Time: Feb 10 1938 broadcast
Hear It Now: Coming Home From The Korean War
Escape: Vanishing Lady
Rogers Of The Gazette: Rewinding The Town Clock

No Room For Winston Churchill In Obama's White House

Housecleaning, or symbolic act? (or symbolic housecleaning?)

A bust of the former prime minister once voted the greatest Briton in history, which was loaned to George W Bush from the Government's art collection after the September 11 attacks, has now been formally handed back.

The bronze by Sir Jacob Epstein, worth hundreds of thousands of pounds if it were ever sold on the open market, enjoyed pride of place in the Oval Office during President Bush's tenure. But when British officials offered to let Mr Obama to hang onto the bust for a further four years, the White House said: "Thanks, but no thanks."

Diplomats were at first reluctant to discuss the whereabouts of the Churchill bronze, after its ejection from the seat of American power. But the British Embassy in Washington has now confirmed that it sits in the palatial residence of ambassador Sir Nigel Sheinwald, just down the road from Vice President Joe Biden's official residence. It is not clear whether the ambassador plans to keep it in Washington or send it back to London.

Do not ask for whom the buzzer gongs....

George Carlin said, "If you think the average guy is stupid, then realize that 50 percent are even stupider than he is."

We needn't be mathemagicians to figure out where Carlin belongs in that equation. I think the following pieces on the general knowledge of the general population of the Western world might shed some light on "the ignorant armies who crash at night," as the English poet-laureate Benedict Arnold once recited to Queen Victoria.

In the first part of this post we see Al-Reuters laughing at the plebes, and rightly so; but we must wonder why they laugh at the common ignorance of the common man, because, dear reader, Al-Reuters in the same day's edition refers to CAIR's Ahmed Rehab as an American civil rights activist. Now either you know or you don't know who is Ahmed Rehab and what is or isn't CAIR. If you are a supposedly serious journalist and you don't know of Rehab and CAIR, then my laughter isn't amused at all. But the following first installment is some fun, specially for those of us who are "semantic and anachronistic."

The dumbest ever quiz answers Thu Jan 31, 2008
By Paul Majendie

LONDON (Reuters) - Question: What was Gandhi's first name? Contestant's answer: Goosey Goosey.

Warning to all those know-alls who shout at the television screen when contestants offer dumb answers to blindingly obvious questions -- one day that could be you.

From regional radio shows to "Who Wants To be a Millionaire?" and "University Challenge," people make fools of themselves -- as internet site www.jumpingjacksbar.com found in collating some of the worst howlers.

Here are leading contenders for the "Dumb Down" gold medal:

Presenter: What happened in Dallas on November 22,1963?

Contestant: I don't know, I wasn't watching it then

Presenter: Which American actor is married to Nicole Kidman?

Contestant: Forrest Gump

Presenter: In which country is Mount Everest?

Contestant: Er, it's not in Scotland is it?

Presenter: Name a film starring Bob Hoskins that is also the

name of a famous painting by Leonardo da Vinci

Contestant: Who Framed Roger Rabbit?

Presenter: In which European city was the first opera house

opened in 1637?

Contestant: Sydney

Presenter: How long did the Six-Day War between Egypt and

Israel last?

Contestant: (after long pause) Fourteen days

Presenter: Where did the D-Day landings take place?

Contestant: (after pause) Pearl Harbor?

Presenter: What is the currency in India

Contestant: Ramadan

Presenter: Johnny Weissmuller died on this day. Which

jungle-swinging character clad only in a loin cloth did he

play?

Contestant: Jesus

http://www.reuters.com/article/newsOne/idUSN3156204620080131

Behind door number two we have this marvelous prize of answers to common questions:

Quarter of Brits think Churchill was myth: poll

Sun Feb 3, 7:12 PM ET

Britons are losing their grip on reality, according to a poll out Monday which showed that nearly a quarter think Winston Churchill was a myth while the majority reckon Sherlock Holmes was real.

The survey found that 47 percent thought the 12th century English king Richard the Lionheart was a myth.

And 23 percent thought World War II prime minister Churchill was made up. The same percentage thought Crimean War nurse Florence Nightingale did not actually exist.

Three percent thought Charles Dickens, one of Britain's most famous writers, is a work of fiction himself.

Indian political leader Mahatma Gandhi and Battle of Waterloo victor the Duke of Wellington also appeared in the top 10 of people thought to be myths.

Meanwhile, 58 percent thought Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's fictional detective Holmes actually existed; 33 percent thought the same of W. E. Johns' fictional pilot and adventurer Biggles.

UKTV Gold television surveyed 3,000 people.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20080204/od_afp/britainpeoplehistoryoffbeat

And now that we've all, or at least many of us, had a good laugh at the ignorant rabble, let's ask Mr. George Carlin how smart is the average smart person, say, oh, maybe a school teacher?

Charles Henry at Covenant Zone picks up that question in "Not-So-Great Britain"

A group of British educators refuse to forgive their predecessors for their bad choices. In order to punish their ancestors, they are going to take out their hatred on the next generation of young brits:

"Don't teach children patriotism"

Patriotism should be avoided in school lessons because British history is "morally ambiguous", a leading educational body recommends.
...
Teachers should not instill pride in what they consider great moments of British history, as more shameful episodes could be downplayed or excluded.
...
Three quarters of teachers felt obliged to tell students about the danger of patriotism. The survey suggested neither pupils nor teachers wanted patriotism endorsed by schools.
...
The institute - part of the University of London – asked nearly 300 pupils aged 13 to 14, and 47 teachers, in 20 London schools, how patriotism should be handled. About 94 per cent of teachers and 77 per cent of teenagers said that schools should give a balanced presentation of opposing views. Fewer than 10 per cent felt patriotism should be actively promoted.

More at:
http://covenantzone.blogspot.com/2008/02/not-so-great-britain-say-uk-teachers.html

Read 'em and weep.

An important letter to PEN Canada

GayandRight: A letter to PEN Canada notes how the famous organization of writers devoted to free speech has yet failed to take a stand on the most central question of freedom of expression in Canada today.

This is the same organization that has only given modest support to our friend, the writer Howard Rothberg, silenced by an incident during a reading of his book at a Chapters bookstore in Waterloo.

When it comes to disputes involving Muslims, many of our "liberal" organizations sit on the fence. They're only really capable of wailing against the "oppression" of a now mythical white male patriarchy. When a quarter of Brits think Winston Churchill was "made up" we can see that the freedom of the academy to teach that all reality and identity is a mere construction of some nexus of power and knowledge has achieved results. We need again to discover a freedom in contact with reality and not the wishful thinking and academically-respectable conspiracy theories of far too many "cool" postmodern writers.

The "myth" of Churchill reminds me of something Mark Steyn wrote:

The problem with the left is its inability to get over ancient battles. The only defendant ever acquitted under Section 13 at the CHRC is the "Canadian Nazi Party", on the quaint grounds that, despite the plaintiff Richard Warman's best efforts to whump it up into a huge threat, it did not, in fact, exist. That tells you everything about what Warren Kinsella calls Warman's "bravery". It's easy to be brave when you're fighting phantoms. As I wrote in The Western Standard of March 27th 2006:

The free world is shuffling into a psychological bondage whose chains are mostly of our own making. The Saskatoon Star-Phoenix, you’ll recall, published an advertisement directing readers to Romans 1:26, Leviticus 18:22 and 20:13, and I Corinthians 6:9, and was fined $4,500, as was the advertiser, for “exposing homosexuals to hatred or ridicule”.* The British “historian” David Irving sits in an Austrian jail, having been convicted of Holocaust denial. It’s not unreasonable for Muslims to conclude that, if gays and Jews are to be protected groups who can’t be offended, why shouldn't they be also?

They have a point. How many roads of inquiry are we prepared to block off in order to be “sensitive”? And, once we’ve done so, will there be anything left to talk about other than showbiz gossip? Holocaust denial should be ridiculous and contemptible but not illegal. If the objection is that it’s a uniquely terrible stain on humanity, that’s all the more reason to talk about it openly. How did we end up in a world where David Irving sits in a cell for querying the numbers of the last Holocaust while men march through London streets promising a new Holocaust and are given a bodyguard of police officers to help them do so?

The above column is not available on line, but it will be included in my forthcoming book, The Mark Steyn Flagrantly Islamophobic Reader.

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