DebateGate

2012 Election Preview
by John Derbyshire

The politicians are beginning to shuffle into place for next year?s presidential contest. (Or out of place: Haley Barbour announced this week that he won?t try for the Republican nomination.) So whom do we have?

We have Barack Obama. I see no sign that anyone in his own party will challenge him. This might change. This time next year, with unemployment at fifty percent, the dollar trading at par with the Laotian kip, and Chinese landing craft coming ashore on Guam, things might be different, but let?s go with what we currently have.

The field to ponder is therefore the GOP presidential field. Herewith some notes:

The National Question. I don?t want to end up having to vote for a candidate who is squishy on the National Question. This primarily involves matters of immigration, citizenship, and border control, but also issues relating to national cohesion?race preferences, multiculturalism, and maintaining English as our single national language.

Taking immigration policy as the main index here, it looks as if I?m out of luck. None of the 2012 hopefuls rated by NumbersUSA gets better than a B-minus on immigration, and the median there is a D.

Former New Mexico Governor Gary Johnson hasn?t made it to the NumbersUSA list yet (he only declared last week), but to judge by his National Review interview, he?s an immigration dim bulb who thinks the main problem is that it?s too hard for foreigners to get work visas and that ?it?s not a matter of welfare.? (Oh, no?)

Johnson?s published policy statements are even worse than that, calling for ?a temporary guest worker program that makes sense.? Hoo-kay, Governor?here are 13 current guest-worker programs, by visa category:

F-1: Student temporarily employed
H-1B: Occupations with specialized knowledge
H-2A: Seasonal, agricultural
H-2B: Seasonal, non-agricultural
H-3: Trainees (other than medical or academic)
J: Interns, au pairs, etc.
L: Intracompany transfers
O-1: Persons of extraordinary achievements
O-2: Persons assisting an O-1
P-1: Athletes & entertainers
P-2: Artists on reciprocal exchange programs
P-3: Artists performing culturally unique programs
Q-1: Cultural exchange training

If you throw in borderline categories such as crew members in transit (D visa), religious workers (R), foreign nationals? domestic staff (B-1), media and journalist folk (I), and some others, the count goes over twenty?but let?s settle on those thirteen existing guest-worker visas. What about this list does not make sense?

New Jersey Governor Chris Christie, who hasn?t declared but might yet run, is just as clueless. We need ?a path to citizenship,? he says. Yo, Governor: We already have one. I trod it.

Donald Trump throws his hair in the ring. Trump?s come in for a lot of mockery since he announced his run. I just saw Charles Krauthammer sneering at him on the O?Reilly show. ?Not a serious candidate?.?

When you look at how we?ve been served by people whom Krauthammer presumably considered to have been serious candidates, this doesn?t seem like much of an argument.

There was, for example, the guy who got us into two pointless, endless wars, vastly expanded Medicare when it was already clear entitlements were going to bankrupt us, threw the nation?s borders wide open, and passed the silliest piece of social legislation in the republic?s history. Was he a serious candidate? I don?t recall Krauthammer saying otherwise.

Was Barack Obama a serious candidate in ?08, with his lengthy and challenging experience of [sound of crickets chirping] and his striking achievements in the field of [more crickets]?

Coping with catastrophe. Given that the USA will almost certainly face a humongous economic catastrophe in the next five years, who would best be able to cope with it?

I?m not sure this is an answerable question. Told in 1928 that there was an economic catastrophe on the horizon and then asked which public figure would best handle it, a high proportion of Americans pointed to the brilliant, industrious, experienced, omni-capable, and definitely very serious Herbert Hoover, the most respected man in public life at the time. (One of the few dissenters was the unfoxable Calvin Coolidge, who called Hoover ?Wonder Boy.?)

But if Hoover was overwhelmed by the Great Depression, so was FDR, whose policies did very little to ameliorate it. Perhaps when disasters of this magnitude strike, there is nothing anyone can do but flail about ineffectually.

Mitt Romney. Dear old Mitt. Always a bridesmaid, never a bride.

Tim Pawlenty. The ex-Governor of Minnesota is an honest working-class lad who ran a good tight ship but is off-putting in a number of ways. There?s that ?Tim? for starters. George Orwell, n?e Eric Blair, once said it took him thirty years to get over being named ?Eric.? It might take me at least that long to get used to ?President Tim.? There?s that Midwestern niceness, too. Midwesterners are so damn nice, it?s impossible to dislike them. I like them immensely?real Americans, the salt of the earth. But do I want my nation?s affairs in the hands of someone that nice? I?m not sure I do.

Then there?s the evangelical thing. Certainly a man?s entitled to his religion, and on social and fiscal matters the evangelical heart is in the right place. But the evangelical temperament seems inimical to sensible foreign policy. Michael Brendan Dougherty hints at this in the current (June 2011) issue of The American Conservative:

Asked about the multiplication of American obligations around the world, [Dr. Richard] Land [of the Southern Baptist Convention] quotes the Gospel coolly: ?To whom much has been given, much shall be required.? America is a blessed nation and must be a blessing to others.

Uh-oh. Similarly for Huckabee, Palin, and Bachmann.

Pawlenty and Bachmann, however, are up at the top of the NumbersUSA rankings on immigration policy, so perhaps they recognize some limits to the sacrifices Americans should be forced to make on the heathen?s behalf.

Newt Gingrich. I find it really, really hard to imagine myself pulling the lever for Barack Obama, but?not impossible.

Ron Paul?s in. Well, at least to the extent of having formed an ?exploratory committee? this past Tuesday.

This is great news?a candidate worth voting for. Paul would eliminate some of the myriad federal agencies, perhaps even entire departments. He is the only candidate who has ever openly questioned why we keep 52,000 troops in Germany and 36,000 in Japan, or why our government has one agency (the Federal Reserve) empowered to buy bonds issued by another (the US Treasury), or why my income is any of the government?s business.

Paul is a libertarian and therefore suspect on the National Question. He seems more sensible than most of that ilk, though, at least to judge by the interview he gave to VDARE in the 2008 election. Sure, he?s old, but not as old as Konrad Adenauer.

Paul is my guy, though I should brace myself for the flood of angry stories about how his dentist?s cousin?s babysitter once sat on a park bench next to a member of the John Birch Society.

http://takimag.com/article/2012_election_preview

Finland rocks the EU
Gavin Hewitt | 09:35 UK time, Monday, 18 April 2011


Some time late yesterday evening a tremor hit the EU. Its epicentre was Finland. In elections an overtly anti-Euro party made huge gains, coming a close third. The consequences are unclear, but the True Finns party may now have real influence on whether Finland agrees to help bail out Portugal.

The True Finns are an anti-immigration party, wary of the influence of Brussels. A measure of their rise is that at the last election they secured just 4% of the vote. Yesterday they got 19%, which put them in third place. They expect to be invited to talks about joining a coalition.

Unlike other countries in the eurozone, Finland's parliament has the right to vote on EU requests to bail-out other countries. Potentially the strong showing of the True Finns could delay the rescue plan for Portugal.

"This is a big, big bang in Finish politics," Jan Sundberg, a professor from Helsinki University, says. "This is a big, big change."

The leader of the True Finns, Timo Soini, said he did not believe that the terms of the bailout package would remain. "Its a bad deal," he said after the count. His aim was for Finland to "pay less to Brussels". Another party, the Social Democrats, which is also critical of a bailout deal, came in second place.

During the campaign the main party in government - the Centre Party - had warned that Finland had to act responsibly to prevent a crisis in the eurozone. Its pleas went unheeded. It was the biggest loser on the night, left struggling in fourth place. Yes, it had been hurt by a funding scandal - but it was a resounding defeat.

A few years ago the True Finns were a fringe party, that received almost no attention. So what happened? The vote was not just about the bailout. There was anxiety about unemployment and fears of a jobless economic recovery. Reductions in pensions had angered many workers. The party also tapped into fears about immigration.

What makes this election so significant is that it follows a pattern across Europe. Establishment and incumbent parties are being rejected. Nationalist parties are gaining influence.

In the Netherlands, the anti-Islam MP Geert Wilders leads the country's third largest party. In Italy the Northern League - hostile to immigration and wary of the EU - is increasingly powerful. In France, Marine Le Pen - who wants to abandon the euro - is showing strong support in the polls.

Recently, writing in the Financial Times, Peter Spiegel questioned whether we were seeing the emergence of a European Tea Party. Certainly there is a strong sense of alienation and dissatisfaction. Immigration is a key factor. It is shaking governments. There are more than 24 million people without work in the EU and there is no appetite to welcome new arrivals. That is why the migrants from Tunisia are sparking such tension between Italy and France.

As important as immigration is unemployment. In countries like Italy and Spain there is talk of a "lost generation" that cannot find work. There is a growing awareness that Europe may be a low-growth area.

And that feeds into the growing anger towards the bailouts. In Finland, the True Finns appealed to a sense of injustice; that the "squanderers" were being rescued.
And then in countries like Greece and Ireland, voters see the years of austerity stretching ahead. Neither the bankrollers nor the bailed-out are happy.

The temptation in Brussels will be to dismiss the True Finns as populists and to ignore them. It would be more interesting to focus on what is stirring up the European grass-roots. The challenge for Europe's leaders is to listen to what is being said on the streets.

(Interestingly there is a fierce argument developing over whether the bail-out medicine is working. As I reported last week, voices are increasingly urging a re-structuring of Greek debt. Both the President of the European Council, Herman Van Rompuy, and the French Finance Minister Christine Lagarde used the same word to dismiss such talk. Re-structuring would be "catastrophic". It's not on the table, one of them said. And yet clearly it is. It is being discussed everywhere. Why? Because no one can see how the bailed out countries can grow to the point they can pay down their debts)

So what will happen in Finland? Long negotiations to find a governing coalition. The man most likely to be prime minister is Jyrki Katainen. He went out of his way to play down Finland standing up to Brussels. "Finland," he said, "has always been a responsible problem solver... this is about a common European cause." In many different ways the pressure will be on Finland and the True Finns to compromise.

But, politically, Europe is restive, unsettled, anxious and increasingly losing patience with the elites and the parties in power.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/thereporters/gavinhewitt/2011/04/finland_rocks_the_eu.html

VISUAL ARTS
Italians plan to dig up bones of possible Mona Lisa model
Rome? The Associated Press
Published Tuesday, Apr. 05, 2011 7:58AM EDT
Last updated Tuesday, Apr. 05, 2011 7:58PM EDT
Italian researchers said Tuesday they will dig up bones in a Florence convent to try and identify the remains of a Renaissance woman long believed to be the model for the Mona Lisa.

If successful, the research might help ascertain the identity of the woman depicted in Leonardo da Vinci's masterpiece ? a mystery that has puzzled scholars and art lovers for centuries and generated countless theories.

The project launched Tuesday aims to locate the remains of Lisa Gherardini, the wife of a rich silk merchant named Francesco del Giocondo.

Tradition has long linked Mr. Gherardini to the painting, which is known in Italian as ?La Gioconda? and in French as ?La Joconde.? Giorgio Vasari, a 16th-century artist and biographer of Leonardo, wrote that Mr. da Vinci painted a portrait of Mr. del Giocondo's wife.

Ms. Gherardini was born in 1479. A few years ago, an amateur Italian historian said he had found a death certificate showing she died on July 15, 1542, and her final resting place, the Convent of St. Ursula in central Florence.

That's where the digging will begin later his month, said Silvano Vinceti, an art historian and the project leader.

The project falls within a current trend of employing CSI-like methods in art history, for example to find out about an artist's technique, discover details hidden in a painting or even learn about an artist's life or death. The group led by Mr. Vinceti has already reconstructed the faces of some Italian artists on the basis of their skulls, and last year it said it had identified the bones of Caravaggio and discovered a possible cause of death, 400 years after the artist died in mysterious circumstances.

The Mona Lisa project uses some of the same techniques applied to the Caravaggio investigation.

First, the researchers will use ground-penetration radar to search for hidden tombs inside the convent. Then, they will search the bones to identify ones that are compatible with Ms. Gherardini's ? bones that belonged to a woman who died in her 60s in the period in question. The group will also look for specific characteristics such as traces of possible diseases or bone structure to match what is known of Ms. Gherardini's life.

If such bones are identified, the researchers will conduct carbon dating and extract DNA, which will be compared to that extracted from the bones of Ms. Gherardini's children, some of whom are buried in a basilica also in Florence.

Finally, if skull fragments are found, depending on how well-preserved they are, the group might attempt a facial reconstruction. This step will be crucial to ascertain whether Ms. Gherardini was indeed the model for the Mona Lisa and thus the owner of that famous smile.

? 2011 The Globe and Mail Inc. All Rights Reserved.

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/arts/italians-plan-to-dig-up-bones-of-possible-mona-lisa-model/article1971140/

Glenn Beck leaving his Fox News Channel show

Wed Apr 6, 1:39 pm ET

NEW YORK ? Glenn Beck is leaving his Fox News Channel show later this year.

The network and Beck's company, Mercury Radio Arts, announced the departure on Wednesday. Fox and the company said they will work together to create other projects for Fox News television and digital.

Beck became a sensation almost immediately after jumping from HLN to Fox for an afternoon program. Lately his viewership has declined. He had faced an advertiser boycott that limited the amount of companies that wanted to be a part of his show after saying President Barack Obama had a "deep-seated hatred for white people."

Beck said that he "cannot repay (Fox News chief) Roger (Ailes) for the lessons I've learned and will continue to learn from him and I look forward to starting this new phase of our partnership."

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20110406/ap_on_re_us/us_tv_fox_beck

Seven Ideas You Can Never Discuss on Television
by Jim Goad

In 1972 comedian George Carlin famously delineated the ?Seven Words You Can Never Say on Television.? All seven words dealt with bodily parts or functions at a time when such things were simply not mentioned in polite company. If anything, Carlin was understating the case?back then, I don?t remember anyone on TV even suggesting that nipples existed, much less coming out and saying ?tits.?

In the intervening decades, society has not only shed such taboos, it has actively embraced vulgarity. At least on cable TV, one is now allowed?in some cases encouraged?to not only say all seven of those words, but to use them in a single sentence while demonstrating them for the camera. These days we have reality shows about crippled midget meth-smoking stripper Satanist hermaphrodites with AIDS competing against similarly afflicted freaks for cash prizes, and it?s ?all good??even something worth celebrating.

Modern culture has disabused itself of the false notion that the human body and its various functions are unnatural or unspeakable. It has rid itself of most sexual hang-ups, but?since all societies define themselves primarily via taboos?in its stead it has erected a new and equally fraudulent idealized vision of humanity entirely unsupported by science, logic, or evidence. There?s a whole new set of dirty words that didn?t used to be dirty?all of them derogatory terms for people who aren?t white males?and a forbidden set of ideas which one must not permit to seep inside one?s head without risking censure, shunning, verbal abuse, career death, and possible assault.

The new sacred cows come in new shapes and colors, but they?re still sacred and they?re still fat fucking cows. The taboos have switched from the sexual to the cultural, but shiver me timbers if they aren?t enforced with the same blind, vengeful, true-believer tenacity as the old taboos. Ironically, these taboos find their deepest roots among a presumably ?edgy? demographic?but the detached, ironic smarm so endemic along the Left Bank is only a thin crust atop a molten core of inviolably sacred assumptions and risk-free sanctimony. There is a new prudery afoot, and it?s based entirely on a faulty, illogical, and unsustainable myth of universal human equality.

What follows are not seven dirty words, but seven dirty ideas one cannot espouse or even ponder on television without being kicked in the face by a velvet-covered steel-toed boot. Although others treat these ideas as if they were radioactive, carcinogenic, and poisonous, none of them seems remotely radical or extreme or offensive or controversial to me. Instead, they all seem supremely reasonable. But in a world where what?s deemed ?politically incorrect? is so often factually correct, these seven big fat elephants are stinking up the whole room.


1. ALL MEN ARE NOT CREATED EQUAL.
Equality is a concept which nearly everyone believes but no one has bothered to prove.
 The unassailable notion of blank-slate cognitive and physical equality, despite all contrary evidence, is the fat stump rooted deep in the soil from which all the other modern taboo branches sprout. The sweetest fairy tale ever told is the one where God made everyone equal.
 It?s such a wholesomely peaceful notion, people will rip your head off your neck if you don?t submit completely to it. But if no two blades of grass are alike, how can any two humans be alike? If anyone thinks all men are created equal, they?ve obviously never been in a locker room or attended an interracial calculus class. All things being equal, there is no such thing as equality.

2. AT BEST, HUMANS SHARE AN EQUAL POTENTIAL TO BE ASSHOLES.
The main problem with ?humanism? is that it fails to account for human nature. I look at the world and see a rainbow of people who all suck in different ways. I?ve met noble souls of all colors and screaming assholes of every hue. All tribes, nations, and individuals across this great planet share an equal ability to annoy and disappoint. Every culture, subculture, and counterculture is blindly self-justifying, and, when it achieves sufficient strength, it becomes rapaciously predatory. The best possible world religion, the only one with an outside chance of ensuring global harmony, would consist of a basic agreement that we can all be assholes.

3. IF YOU INSIST ALL HUMANS ARE EQUAL, THEN COUNT THEIR CORPSES EQUALLY.
We need to hear a little less about the fewer than 4,000 black American lynching victims and a little more about the 600,000 or so white peasants who died ostensibly to free them from slavery. A little less about black American slavery and a little more about colonial white indentured servitude and convict labor. A little less about the six million (give or take a few) Jews who perished in WWII and a little more about the 50-65 million other people killed in that war. A little less about white colonialism and a little more about the Mongols, the Moors, and Hannibal. For the sake of balance, let?s see some TV movies about communism?s 100-million-plus pile of cadavers. Let?s see some documentaries about slavery?s historical ubiquity and its persistence in Africa today. Let?s entirely ditch the concept that some dead bodies are more equal than others.

4. THE ENTIRE ?JEW? THING HAS BECOME RIDICULOUS.
?Anti-Semitism? is a term used to describe some inexplicable mystery virus that, against all odds, has infected the hearts of nearly every ethnic group that has ever encountered Jews everywhere on Earth throughout history. Although many modern Jews aren?t technically Semites, you can be labeled anti-Semitic merely for stating this fact. I suppose it?s also anti-Semitic to point out that ancient Hebrews were pioneers in the art of genocide. Experts on ?racism,? who tend to be disproportionately Jewish, blabber freely about ?white privilege? and white over-representation in the corridors of power and finance, but to suggest that something such as ?Jewish privilege? exists in even more absurdly disproportionate numbers is to risk permanent banishment from the discussion table. People routinely get fired by powerful Jews for suggesting that Jews have too much power, whereas you get a promotion for suggesting that WASPs are over-privileged. And do we dare mention the innate cosmic racism underlying the whole ?God?s chosen people? thing?

5. ISLAM IS STUPID TO THE CORE.
For a moment, blot from your mind all the prehistoric fatwas, inbreeding, beheading, clit-slicing, stoning, and fag-bashing. Forget that Muhammad was a pedophile. Dismiss the idea that Islam is far more guilty of every fascistically intolerant cultural iniquity for which the ?Christian right? usually gets hammered. Don?t think about the fact that the Arab slave trade in Africa predated and dwarfed Europe?s slave trade. I hope you never learn that Muslims captured and enslaved at least a million white Europeans, because it might subvert your internal narrative. Don?t think for a minute about the fact that the literal translation of the word Islam??submission??runs counter to every Western notion of freedom and individuality. Don?t even think about all the contradictions in a book deemed so holy, you can get killed for sneezing near it. No, flush all that from your consciousness and ponder for a moment that a quarter or more of the Earth?s population actually believes in a supreme being who?s so insecure and dependent upon your approval, he throws baby tantrums if you don?t submit. There is no conceivable intellectual defense of a religion founded on such a stupid premise. Quit making false distinctions between ?extreme? and ?moderate? Islam?it?s all retarded.

6. WOMEN AREN?T TOTALLY INNOCENT AND HELPLESS.
Although there isn?t a person alive who hasn?t met a despicable woman, it remains heretical to imply that women may possibly be human beings, and as such, they may be capable of acting with willful malice toward others. Despite the fact that nearly every sociological study of family violence ever conducted has concluded that women hit men at least as frequently as the inverse, ?domestic violence? is still viewed as an exclusively male-on-female phenomenon. But who needs muscles when you have WMDs such as societal prejudice and the law squarely on your side? In her book When She Was Bad, author Patricia Pearson argued that until puberty, boys and girls both express aggression physically. Around age 12 women turn to more sophisticated tactics for intentionally inflicting harm: gossip, shaming, and false accusations. It?s like on Seinfeld where Elaine explains that instead of giving one another wedgies, girls tease each other until they develop eating disorders. False rape charges, as well as phony claims of domestic abuse and sexual harassment, have become commonplace. The double standard is so lopsided, female spousal abusers are even permitted to become Secretary of State without it ever becoming an issue in their vetting process.

7. THINGS MAY NEVER GET BETTER.
Egalitarianism is merely another shortsighted and unworkable utopian scheme?not the first, but it may be the last. Advertisers aren?t banking on the idea that the world may fall apart soon, so you don?t get much doomsday prophesying on television. Despite overpopulation, peak oil, collapsing financial systems, environmental catastrophes, and deeply frayed cultural moorings, most people still operate under the dimwitted assumption that untold billions of collectivized humans is a sustainable project and that humanity will one day come galloping in on a white pony to rescue itself from itself. Both the ?left? and the ?right? pretend they have the answer, but they are mere flippers on the same thalidomide baby, and the truth is that neither side has a clue. But you won?t hear that on television, because it might lead you to turn off the boob tube and start living while you still have time.

http://takimag.com/article/seven_ideas_you_can_never_discuss_on_television1

It is fitting that the initial phase of the U.S. attack on Libya was overshadowed in the media by college basketball finals, popularly and quite appropriately known as March Madness. Wars, akin to dated sitcom reruns, have no hope for ratings share considering the competition. And a company like Sony won?t pay to advertise its new Playstation game Kill Zone 3 during scripted and predictable news of another desert intervention. Perhaps the press should have just phoned in coverage of the action by playing clips from the films G.I. Jane and The American President, both depicting a conflict with Tripoli. The public would doubtless be comforted that Commander-in-Chief Michael Douglas has sent Demi Moore and her fellow-SEALs to teach the Libyans a lesson in democracy.

Our absurd fantasy state reflects the approach of a monstrous reality- a world empire, declaring itself the embodiment of universal good, moves to subjugate any points of opposition to its rule. From this chaos emerges a counterfeit order, and before us appears a premonition of Yeats? rough beast, ?with a gaze blank and pitiless as the sun?.

The NATO air campaign against Muammar Gaddafi?s regime is so far a variant of the Kosovo template, a range of measures used to destroy Serbian sovereignty in 1999. While a no-fly zone to protect civilians in rebel-held Benghazi is the ostensible objective of Operation Odyssey Dawn, the relevant players in Washington, London and Paris will only be satisfied when the Libyan state is led by someone more amenable to their interests. Speaking on behalf of global civilization, U.S. President and Nobel Peace Laureate Barack Obama made clear that ?the writ of the international community must be enforced?. One U.S. Navy carrier strike group wields more destructive power than most nations? air forces; to defy such overwhelming might, it is implied, Gaddafi must have taken leave of his senses. 
Colonel Gaddafi, the eccentric and flamboyant lion of Tripoli, a man guarded by virgin Amazons, is said to be mad. Explaining the unrest that has brought Libya to civil war, Gaddafi matter-of-factly asserted that a special hallucinogenic formula had been slipped into rioters? coffee, prompting their fits of mayhem. This whimsical statement, among decades of others, might call into question Gaddafi?s sanity. And now the Brother Leader, King of Kings of Africa, friend of Carlos and the departed cannibal Idi Amin, in isolation faces war with America?s postmodern imperium.

Paranoids and megalomaniacs furnish history with its color and cruelty. Whatever his delusions of grandeur may be, Gaddafi is but one minor tyrant with limited means; more disquieting is the power of a planetary despotism enforcing its vision of a liberated humanity. Washington brings the world its gifts of freedom and equality, and to challenge the foundations of this system is to challenge reason itself.

The future belongs to the ?free?, or so the refrain goes. Color-coded revolutions and antiseptic humanitarian bombing advance ?universal rights?, showing the way to democracy and consumer opportunities for every nation and tribe. Muslims, we are told, will soon enough forget the words of Mahomet and embrace Mammon. This Coca-Cola commercial of manufactured bliss is ordained our destiny, and every cruise missile fired is yet another step toward its realization.

Herein lies true madness, the tyranny of desire. Conceived without sin, modern man proclaims his will to transgression divine and embarks upon the total organization of an earthly kingdom. Eternal progress, the ascent to god-like power, permits the exploitation of the entire Cosmos. Everything- not only natural resources, but sex, cultural identity, religion and human life itself- is subject to the overriding ethic of consumption. Video-game wars for democracy, the latest of which happens to be above the oil-rich sands of the Maghreb, add a new level of unreality to our pursuit of global happiness. And the technologies of mass manipulation represent not some tragic deviation of the liberal order, but its very perfection.

After the European upheaval of 1848, the great Spanish counter-revolutionary Juan Donoso Cortes would chart the course of ?people power? coupled with technical advances to its logical end:

In antiquity there could be only one tyranny on the grand scale, that of Rome. But now, Gentlemen, how changed are things! The way is prepared for a gigantic tyrant: colossal, universal, immense. Everything is preparing the way?There is no longer any defense, either physical or moral. There are no physical defenses, because with steamships and railways there are no frontiers; because with the electric telegraph, there are no distances; and there are no moral defenses, because spirits are divided and patriotism is dead.

Unlike the bourgeois constitutionalists of his day, Donoso well understood how the Enlightenment ideal of progress amounted to perpetual revolution in practice. Under the guidance of such a principle a society cannot simply stop upon one desired point of transformation; new and ever more virulent phases await it. There is scant recognition in the popular Western mind that Libya?s rebel Cyrenaica might become a Salafist Islamic emirate rather than the future centerpiece of a vibrant and tolerant ?civil society? in the Arab world. In the same way few even take notice that Kosovo under U.S. protection is Europe?s logistics hub for heroin trafficking, prostitution and black-market organ transplants instead of a Balkan Muslim Switzerland. The Freedom Agenda is a force for enslavement.

Nowhere is liberalism?s totalitarian nature more apparent than in today?s Europe. The governments of Britain and France bomb Libya with abandon, yet they have been even more enthusiastic in waging cultural and demographic war against their own native subjects. For no other reason would whole suburbs of Paris be written off as parallel societies, and for no other reason would Pakistani rape gangs prey upon British girls with impunity. The reign of equality requires replacement populations. The more alien and hostile the newcomers, the better; such is the logic of control for the human-rights regime. Judging from this year?s turmoil in North Africa, there will be no less than hundreds of thousands of arrivals ready to play their designated role.

The ancient peoples of Christendom have been marked for liquidation, and all Washington?s adventures in Dar-al-Islam are but a sideshow to this central fact. Treason and depravity may be glorified today, but not forever. One day bands of Europeans will prove that the blood of heroes and martyrs past was not shed in vain, that nobility and patriotism still abide in the Western heart. The Empire?s false millennium cannot endure.

Even in the shadow of Leviathan, the love and memory that justify the existence of nations must not perish. We, the living images of our ancestors, are called to survive time?s cataclysms and share in their resurrection, a freedom in spirit and in truth.

http://www.alternativeright.com/main/blogs/exit-strategies/in-leviathan-s-shadow/#disqus_thread

Antaeus was a Libyan giant whose strength appeared invincible. One day he challenged the mighty Hercules to a wrestling match. Each time Antaeus was thrown to the ground, he rose again stronger than before. Hercules realized that his strength came from his mother Gaia, the Earth, so he held the giant aloft until his strength drained away and finally killed him.

Once again battle is joined on Libya?s sands, and the question now is which one is Antaeus and which is Hercules. Whose strength will ultimately drain away and be defeated, and who will triumph? Can Antaeus actually win this time?

Perhaps the more classically educated among our Western leaders?are there any left??think they are effectively holding Gaddafi aloft and draining him of his strength by imposing their no-fly zone and shooting up armored columns that cross invisible red lines. Possibly they expect their flash of high-tech, rocket-powered Herculean strength to impress these simple desert people and so deprive the Libyan leader of the support he still draws from a considerable portion of them. The West?s desired end game is probably a replay of the Northern Alliance kicking out the Taliban, little realizing, through the welter of intelligence reports, the subtle differences between one end of the Islamic world and the other.

It seems more likely that the Western Hercules has merely succeeded in throwing Antaeus to the ground. The past couple of weeks have shown that the Libyan leader still has plenty of military power and would have soon ended this civil war if the West had sat on its thumbs a little while longer. Despite the splendor of its armaments, the West is constrained in what it can do. Already the US and its cronies look bad for declaring war on Gaddafi on the pretext that he is harming his own people while they ignore similar brutalities carried out by Western allies in Bahrain and Yemen.

To actually employ the firepower required to topple Gaddafi might make this ill-judged intervention look even worse. A few demolished buildings surrounded by wailing civilians or a busload of children blown to smithereens because some in-flight computer decided it resembled a tank could easily drain off the strength the Western giant draws from its public?s half-baked notion that it is merely involved in a bit of Good Samaritan, high-altitude, pinpoint bombing.

Arab perceptions of the West?s arrogance and aggression and the suspicion that the real agenda may simply be to punish Gaddafi on behalf of Israel rather than to liberate Libyans will ensure that Gaddafi finds being thrown to the ground by the Western Hercules an empowering experience.

In order to destroy this Antaeus, the West has to find some way to raise him aloft and slowly choke the life out of him. Ironically this was exactly what they were doing when the likes of Tony Blair went over to Tripoli to cozy up to the Gaddafis and sign oil deals and contracts for riot-control gear. Encouraging the kind of cultural and business links that thawing hard-line tyrannies find destabilizing, this also sent out the message that the Lion of the Desert with his Little Green Book of Bedouin wisdom and socialist platitudes was fast becoming a bloated Mubarak with the usual litter of designer-suited offspring grunting around Europe?s fleshpots.

Unfortunately, spurred on by a wish to emulate the neighbors, the rebels got their timing wrong and struck when the tyrant still had enough tribal and other loyalties to hang on and bounce back. Now the only thing left for the West is to keep throwing Gaddafi harmlessly to the ground. Even physically killing him, perhaps with one of those drones that seem particularly attracted to large noisy Islamic weddings, might not work. Another Herculean myth springs to mind?the Hydra and its ability to generate new heads. Turning an old man with sons to succeed him into a martyr is never a wise policy unless you?re prepared to cauterize every stump.

It seems that in this battle it is the West that is now being ?held aloft? with its strength slowly ebbing away. This is almost literally true as NATO pilots fly high over a desert where democracy?s ?nation-building? shoots fail to sprout. The Benghazi enclave may survive for a few months under the protective umbrella of Western carpet bombs and armor-piercing missiles, and we could even see a new state ? la South Sudan, but the Gaddafis are not likely to forget and forgive. They?ll do their work at night and with knives if need be. There?s a proverb somewhere that says, ?If you anger a Bedouin, best kill him.? A West without this kind of killer instinct should best avoid playing at Hercules.

http://takimag.com/article/hercules_in_the_desert1