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Mea Culpa
2008-03-24 00:20:00
I was wrong. I honestly believed that John Kennedy was murdered in a conspiratorial crossfire involving at least two gunmen and at least a half dozen plausible perpetrators. I did not reach these conclusions without forethought and honest analysis, but I was wrong.I lost my job last week, so I focused my fancies on what any single, 28-year old, heterosexual male would do with the first week of spring; I read a 1,000 page book. "Reclaiming History", by Vincent Bugliosi, to be precise. He had me at page 500.For any generic murder victim, the identity of the murderer centers on motive, means, and opportunity. Usually, there are exceedingly few people who would have the motive, means, and opportunity to kill a person. For Kennedy, especially in light of what has been disclosed about his associations and conduct since his assassination, there was no shortage of people and factions who would have motive, means, and opportunity to kill this man.And that is the ultimate fount of the conspir...

Lost in the Shuffle
2008-03-22 00:03:00
Here's a piece that was in the draft drawer for a spell, focusing on Madame Clinton's health care proposals. Sometimes we need to burn a village in order to save it. And sometimes, we need to fine the villagers if they don't want to give their money to a private corporation.http://timerustedcompass.blog spot.com/2008/03/fascunism.html
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In Defense of Dick
2008-03-19 05:06:00
Richard Nixon never had a chance. He was many things, many of them vulgar precisely because he thought himself incapable of being vulgar. But more than anything else, Nixon was in the wrong place at the wrong time. He was in the Oval Office during the first moment in history when masses of people openly defied the credibility and authority of the government. It didn't matter who was there. But it was Nixon.The true import of Nixon's "crimes" was not in their measure, in their audacity, or in their novel nature; indeed, on the scale of post-war presidencies, Nixon's crimes were actually rather mild. The only new thing about Nixon was that he was caught. And when he was caught, he honestly could not fathom how he was being crucified for things that Kennedy and Johnson did most days before shaving. This only re enforced his predisposition to self-pity.Mustering all the detachment that I can, having not lived through this man's tenure, it is clear to me that Nixon was one of our bes...
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Now More Than Ever
2008-03-19 01:18:00
Obama. Now more than ever. After the senator's speech on race in the wake of the controversy caused by his pastor, it is more clear than ever before that, if we do not give this man his due, we will avoid this long-overdue reckoning for another generation.Obama's not winning because he's black; he's the first man who may win in spite of being black, however, and that is inextricably linked to the kind of black man that he is. Put bluntly, Obama's not angry. If he were, he wouldn't have made it out of Iowa. But neither is Obama too frightened or canned or calculating to reject the reality and the import of the angry black men that surround him, whom he refuses to denounce or patronize. Obama is dealing with his reverend in a way that says far more about his character than any prior test in this campaign.He rejects Reverend Wright's comments, but he does not betray the man. He rejects the anger, but he fully embraces his responsibility and his unique ability to speak honestly a...

Treasonable Doubt, Part II (It's Not Every Day You See A Horse With Two Ass
2008-03-15 04:09:00
Eviscerate the Evidence, Murder the MotiveThe murder of John Kennedy and the 9/11 attacks are the two most commonly held memories among the 300 million Americans alive today and, indeed, among all human beings, due to the reach of American media.I have touched on how the American government's versions of these crimes, codified respectively in the Warren Commission Report and the 9/11 Commission Report, rely heavily on the dismissal of hundreds of eyewitnesses, the refutation of common sense, the dismissal of logic, and the suspension of the laws of physics.Their other ultimate commonality, and the most direct evidence of cover-up, lies in the destroying of evidence and the masking of motive.JFK EvidenceWhat was the physical evidence in the murder of John Kennedy? The body of the victim, the car the victim was riding in, and the alleged assassin. All of these things were destroyed within 48 hours of the crime.John Kennedy's body, in contravention of Texas law, was forcibly removed ...
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True Colors
2008-03-13 18:26:00
I've repeatedly made the mistake of assuming that my disgust with the Clinton campaign has peaked. I thought it had peaked in South Carolina, where the Senator's husband gave us a nod-wink explanation of why his wife's loss there didn't really matter. (I have yet to hear anyone explain how you could accept Mr. Clinton's remarks without being drawn to the clear inference, "Black votes don't matter. Unless they're voting for a Clinton.)I thought it had peaked in Rhode Island, when the Senator in an awkwardly distateful diatribe clearly took great pleasure in mocking Obama's near-universal inspirational qualities as the rantings of a shallow and hollow manipulator.I thought it had peaked last week, when the Senator informed us that Senator McCain has been tested, that she has been tested, but that Senator Obama simply "gave a speech." In other words, if she can't beat Obama, she recommends John McCain for president. Obama, having failed to support an illegal war of agression t...
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Treasonable Doubt
2008-03-10 01:32:00
How to articulate that delicate and elusive dance between fact and memory? That relationship is part of what makes us who we are. Students of history especially are attuned to this balance and to how it applies to collective memories and dominant paradigms. There are things that happen. Then there are things that are remembered. In our most brazen illusions, those two things match up almost seamlessly; In reality, they absolutely never do, and are at many times far more divorced than we might imagine.How is memory shaped, especially now, when so much "fact" can be preserved via recording of various types? Collective memories, it pains me to say, are by their very definition created by dispensing with "the whole truth" and "nothing but the truth", preserving islands of truth peeking up through the fog.The collective memories of the assassination of John Kennedy and the 9/11 attacks are the two archetypal collective American memories of the past half century. In studying them, we bear...
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Fascunism
2008-03-07 17:13:00
What's worse than both Fascism and Communism? Fascunism, that hideous two-headed offshoot of the most brutal ideologies in recent history. This insidious mix of corporatism and bureaucratic tyranny is the worst of all possible worlds, and if Hillary Clinton gets her way, it will rear it ugly heads via her health care proposal.When dealing with an issue as emotional as health care (after all, who could disagree with Hillary Clinton when she tells us that we all deserve health insurance?) it is important to make clear distinctions between the means and the ends. While the ends may seem appealing or even necessary, the means that Madame Clinton proposes would be a catastrophe.If we are going to force citizens to buy health insurance, which is a considerable leap away from liberty that we should soberly acknowledge before undertaking, there are two ways to do so.The first way, which for the purposes of this discussion we can broadly call "communistic", is to compel citizens to contribu...

There Is A Crack In Everything (That's How the Light Gets In)
2008-03-06 18:01:00
We all know there are those who are incapable of admitting defeat. There is a thin line between resolve and delusion, but some innate perception in us allows us to identify this invisible marker. For example, George W. Bush is not resolved when it comes to Iraq; he is delusional. This is the most human of attributes, this insistence on hoping against hope, of dreaming against reality. Generals, lovers, and artists know it well; it is an inescapable and often redemptive part of the human condition. But what about its mirror image? What about those who refuse to accept victory? What about those who are so invested in a narrative of victimization that they are literally incapable of acknowledging that they have slayed their dragons, that they have cowed their conquerors? This tendency is also a part of the human condition, and it is one we can observe in all walks of life. It is currently manifesting itself among the punditocracy of the left in regards to the campaigns of Hillary Clint...
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Wars Do Not Make One Great
2008-03-03 17:06:00
If Barack Obama is the Democratic nominee in the general election, he will be subjected to withering broadsides targeting his lack of foreign-policy experience and what is taken to be his naivete about the nature of American power. This weekend's newspapers afforded us a preview of this strategy. The following excerpts show how hollow these attacks really are but, more importantly, they illustrate the amoral and insatiably militaristic depths to which our republic has sunk.The Iraq War will become a Republican plus. On the one hand, he voted to authorize the invasion. On the other, he consistently disagreed with the administration?s prosecution of the war in general and with the judgment of defense Secretary Rumsfeld in particular. And on the third hand, he advocated for a course of action that was at last implemented in the so-called ?surge,? and with some success. To say that the Iraq War could still become a "Republican plus" is to tread a bit too lightly on the graves of one mi...
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Why
2008-02-28 19:11:00
Why Obama? Anyone who intends to support this man has it incumbent upon themselves to articulate why. Preferably, they will do so without using the word "awesome", thereby proving themselves marginally more substantive than most people who voted for George W. Bush.I have two great fears about Obama. The first is the potential for demagoguery. The second is his domestic policy positions. The former we have seen, and the latter we shall see soon enough. Both must be tempered if Obama is to be as effective leader as I feel he can be.The potential for demagoguery is real, as anyone who has seen Obama speak to crowds of tens of thousands must realize. It is less a danger to the country, however, than it is to the man himself, as it takes a very special man to be lionized as he has and remain sober and grounded. The flip-side of this coin, endlessly shilled by Shrillary Clinton, is that an infectious and genuine admiration of a leader is somehow suspect or at the very least unfair. It's ...

New Blog
2008-02-26 18:14:00
The incomparable Michael Dickerson, one of the funniest and smartest people I've ever known, has launched a blog that I urge all to visit.www.exorcisedaily.blogspot.com
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Rainy Day Women
2008-02-26 16:42:00
A funny thing happens to conservatives on the way to the real world; they become fascists. I've told people for years that, if "liberal" and "conservative" actually mean anything, then I'm a conservative. Somewhere along the way, however, the parlance of our times was cast inside a hall of broken mirrors, and the terms "liberal" and "conservative" emerged bloodied and disfigured, to the point where "conservative" means "self-righteous prick / international outlaw" and "liberal" means "terrorist lover / probable pedophile defender".For those of us old enough, or wise enough, to realize that "conservatism", if it is allowed to retain its actual meaning, is the most American idea imaginable, it is clear that the so-called War on Drugs is the ultimate exemplar of the wholesale hijacking and mutilation of the premise of conservatism.Ideas and ideals that fade immediately in the face of a real test are worth less than the paper they are written on or the tongue they are professed by. Ju...
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Mitt Hits the Fan
2008-02-12 18:16:00
I have to admit that I developed something of a soft spot for Mitt Romney over the last couple of months. Partly this had to do with the fact that my conservative brother was deeply invested in Romney's campaign, volunteering time and energy to spread Mitt's message. It also had to do with the fact that Romney towered over his opponents in terms of substance and competence, which isn't saying much, but which is still saying enough.Romney got a bum rap, castigated for being a Mormon, as if the beliefs of Mormonism were any more absurd than the beliefs of Mike "I majored in miracles, not math" Huckabee or John "I'll stay in Iraq for 100 years" McCain. He was also castigated for having earned a fortune, which necessitated the bizarre spectacle of a bunch of Republicans playing Lenin to Romney's White Russians.Lost on his attackers was this: are we really at a place in America where a man's faith precludes him from being President? Clearly, we are. Are we at a place in America whe...
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The Democrats vs. Democracy
2008-02-06 17:45:00
There are a couple of things we need to keep in mind about the Democratic Party. The first is that the Democrats were the party of the Confederacy and the party of segregation, the party of Vietnam and the party of spying on Martin Luther King. The second is that, given this background, it should not shock us that the Democratic Party has total contempt for democracy.Here's the operative term: superdelegates. The superdelegates are the smoke-filled room elites' last line of defense against the passions of the masses, or against "democracy", if you want to be uptight about it. While both parties nominally democratized the nominating process through the last half-century, the Democrats always jealously guarded their veto power over the people. Just in case.Superdelegates must be distinguished from regular delegates, which are akin to the electors of the electoral college. Electors and delegates are an elitist and antidemocratic check on the expressed will of the people, and ei...
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Mulligan the Masterpiece, Part II
2008-01-30 16:37:00
"Some men look at constitutions with sanctimonious reverence, and deem them to be like the ark of the covenant, too sacred to be touched. They ascribe to the men of the preceding age a wisdom more than human, and suppose what they did to be beyond amendment....Laws and institutions must go hand in hand with the progress of the human mind. As that becomes more developed, more enlightened, as new discoveries are made, new truths disclosed, and manners and opinions change with the change of circumstances, institutions must advance also, and keep pace with the times. We might as well require a man to wear still the coat which fitted him as a boy, as civilized society to remain ever under the regimen of their ancestors...Each generation is as independent as the ones preceding, as that was of all which had gone before."-Thomas JeffersonJefferson went on to say that "the Creator has made the earth for the living, not the dead." This, on one hand, is a boorish truism, but on the other h...
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How Hitler Won
2008-01-23 00:50:00
There are so many morbidly fascinating things about Adolf Hitler that the ultimate reality of his designs has been overlooked by the West. Specifically, if we assess what Hitler intended to "accomplish", we will realize that, to a considerable extent, he succeeded. What's more, he succeeded only after his own death and only with the help of the Allied powers.There is a challenge I've always had in studying Hitler, aside from reconciling with the fact that he was real, and that he was popular, and that he presided over, but did not wholly invent, a situation in which the most "civilized" of nations took it upon itself to pry children from their mothers in the middle of the night.The hardest thing to understand about Hitler, for me, is what he wanted. What Hitler wanted, above all else, was a Europe that conformed to his own vision, obssessive compulsive, entirely amoral, pseudo-scientific, and under girded by a scale of violence that no one had previously imagined as even being ...

Stars and Bars
2008-01-22 20:27:00
Mike Huckabee's recent remarks about the Confederate Flag remind us once again how pathetic our presidential candidates are and, much more importantly, how willing we are to avert our gaze from historical truth in the interest of not "offending" some rather offensive people.Governor Huckabee told a crowd in South Carolina that, "if someone came to our state and told us what to do with our flag, we'd tell 'em what to do with the pole." Such a concentrated dosage of historical ignorance, thinly-veiled racism, and embarrassingly petty behavior from a would-be president is somewhat surprising since, as we are constantly reminded on the "news", Mike Huckabee is such a "likable guy". He is, after all, a Christian Leader. And he lost 100 pounds! Let's parse this line, which admittedly is pretty funny if seen in a vacuum. It starts "if someone came to our state." Now, we all know how much the south loves "states' rights". Specifically, they support the right of their states to co...
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Mulligan the Masterpiece
2008-01-17 17:48:00
Americans do well to lionize the founding fathers, especially since our contemporary leaders so clearly lack the judgement and intellect of the authors of our republic. But the idolization, the idolatry, of these men, and of their words of wisdom, have led us to a calcified place where we play the 21st century with 18th century rules.Since we no longer chain ourselves to the founders' scientific theories, technological tools, tolerance for chattel slavery, or preference for attire, why do we exalt their political theories as unalterable except by the blasphemous?This dynamic is somewhat analogous to a blind belief in the Bible, which was written by men whose views of geography, geology, astronomy, chemistry, anatomy, physics, government, law, and economics are absurd caricatures of a thankfully extinct dystopia. Why then do most of us assert that their religious constructs are beyond amendment?The anti-democratic compromises made with the construction and adoption of the constituti...
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Benazir and Billary
2008-01-12 04:19:00
Amid all the attention paid to the assassination of Benazir Bhutto and the presidential candidacy of Hillary Clinton, the most important aspect of each has been studiously ignored with such a comprehensive consistency as to belie coincidence. In other words, there is an aspect of each phenomenon that the American media intentionally ignores. That aspect is the profoundly un-democratic nature of what each woman symbolizes.First, for Benazir. Madame Bhutto, who met an end very few deserve (of which she was decidedly not one), is remembered in the American media as the personification of democracy in Pakistan. Ironically enough, she is less remembered for being the first woman elected to lead a Muslim nation. Unfortunately for the American interpretation, however, Bhutto was far more complex than this candy-coated caricature.Bhutto's political party, the Pakistan People's Party (PPP), lived up to its name only for those Pakistani People with the last name of Bhutto. Her father founde...

Apollo
2008-01-05 17:38:00
What is the greatest thing America has ever done? America has done many great things, whether ?great? means powerful, good, or any derivation or combination of the two. America has many great accomplishments, great failures, great acts of selflessness, and great acts of selfishness. This contradictory tapestry is predicated upon America?s one dominant characteristic: Greatness.But what is our greatest deed? What is the one thing America has done that will leave a mark more permanent, more universal, than any other? I consider the two greatest men to ever live to be Jesus Christ and Adolf Hitler, so it cannot be stressed enough that greatness does not mean goodness. With that in mind, it just so happens that America?s greatest deed was good as well.Project Apollo . That was America?s greatest iteration, its moment in the sun, which was all the brighter in the atmosphere-less moon. Only America could have the balls and the brains to send men to another world, after publicly predicting ...

The Blueprint
2008-01-02 15:41:00
Hold your breath. The last time Al-Qaeda assassinated a Muslim leader anywhere near as pro-American as Thursday?s savage slaughter of Benazir Bhutto was two days before 9/11.On September 9, 2001, Al-Qaeda operatives assassinated Ahmed Shah Masoud, an Afghan veteran of the anti-Soviet jihad and the charismatic and relatively pro-Western leader of the Northern Alliance, the only organized alternative to the Taliban.In retrospect, it would appear that bin Laden ordered the assassination of Massoud to be carried out right before 9/11 because he realized that the attack would focus American might on Afghanistan, so it was clearly in his interest to eliminate any rivals who would be likely to support an American intervention.The assassination of Bhutto follows this blueprint seamlessly. If, God forbid, the ensuing pattern mirrors that of the Massoud assassination, a catastrophic attack on America will be carried out in short order by Al-Qaeda, harbored now primarily in western Pakistan ra...
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The Gas
2007-12-27 17:11:00
http://www.projo.com/opinion/contributors /content/CT_clinker27_12-27-07_328BGDN_v8 .2a70d43.html

Fairweather Libertarians
2007-12-22 02:29:00
The insurgent campaign of Ron Paul is fascinating for several reasons, but the most intriguing aspect of Paul's candidacy is his unapologetic libertarianism. Previous would-be spoilers such as Jesse Jackson or Pat Robertson enjoyed genuine support, but neither of them espoused positions as fundamentally at odds with the status quo writ large as has Ron Paul.Libertarianism is a stance the speaks directly to the holder's beliefs; libertarians believe in libertarianism. But what do Democrats believe in? Democracy? Don't most of us believe in democracy? What do Republicans believe in? The Republic? Don't most of us believe in the Republic? Isn't it, in fact, impossible to be an American without believing in both democracy and the Republic? The vapid nature of our modern political discourse is betrayed in the very names of the parties: Republican and Democrat. It's just drivel, the sort of drivel reflected in talking points about "a comprehensive approach" or "protecting the Americ...
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The Evolution of Revolution
2007-12-15 02:03:00
The truly world-changing revolutions that have occurred in the history of civilization are far fewer than one might think. In terms of political revolutions, there are only a handful around which history actually pivots in a very real sense.Scientific revolutions, broadly defined, have been inestimably important in the progress of civilization, of course, but scientific leaps are rare in societies that are not relatively freer than their contemporaries, despite of how their definitions of "freedom" male pale under our presentist Kleig lights. This is why it may be said that political revolutions lead to scientific revolutions.Here are the five political revolutions which most define the present, in chronological order:1. The adoption of Christianity by the Roman Empire 3122. The American Revolution 17763. The French Revolution 17894. The Russian Revolution 19175. The Iranian Revolution 1979A cursory glance shows us that politics was overwhelmingly static, in terms of fundamental uph...
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The Believer
2007-12-10 03:20:00
The conventional wisdom, which is heavy on convention and most decidedly light on wisdom, holds that Mitt Romney gave some sort of landmark address on the proper role of religion in politics last week. The address was held to be significant because Mr. Romney belongs to a religion that many Americans consider a heresy, much like John Kennedy in 1960.Mr. Romney's address was significant in that it highlighted the depraved cynicism that distinguishes Romney from Kennedy. Kennedy was morally weak in many regards, but this did not extend to his religion; Romney may never cheat on his wife, but he will pimp out his faith without pause.The beauty of Kennedy's speech was that he declared that his religious beliefs were nobody's business unless or until it affected the execution of his office, which he pledged would never happen, and which I have heard nobody argue did happen while he was president.Essentially, Kennedy had the spine to say, "back off." Romney feigns to take a similarl...

On Consciousness
2007-12-05 15:43:00
"Your skin cells are not aware that they are part of a human being. Skin cells are not equipped for that knowledge. They are equipped to do what they do and nothing more. Likewise, if we humans--and all the plants and animals and dirt and rocks--were components of God, would we have the capacity to know it?"
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"They'll Follow Us Home" or, The Fallacy
2007-12-04 20:03:00
Like so much else with the Iraq War, the question of the most likely effects of an American withdrawal are colored by Vietnam. It's about time for the United States to get over the Vietnam War, since the Vietnamese seem to be over the American War, as they call it, but until we can do the same, let's study the logic employed by those who insist upon staying in Iraq."They'll follow us home", they say. This sentiment is extremely widespread, including among many who criticize the war with varying degrees of passion. It is taken by most as an article of faith that the Arabs are especially bloodthirsty, vengeful, and given to an emotional lust for revenge that stretches across generations. There is no small amount of truth to this, which is why we should not have invaded Iraq in the first place.What the debate must revolve around, however, is not the wishes of the enemy, but the intentions and capabilities of the enemy. In last week's Republican Debate, John McCain stood tall with a...
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The Crime of the Millenium (Part II)
2007-11-30 15:35:00
Section. 1. All persons born or naturalized in the United States and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.This is the 14th amendment to the Constitution of the United States. What does it mean to you? What it means to most rational people, including the people who wrote it, is exactly what it says: the federal government would guarantee that no state could deprive an individual of his constitutionally-protected rights. This somewhat superfluous and manifestly obvious amendment was necessary to ensure that the southern states would not deny newly-freed blacks their rights.If you know anything about the post-Civil War s...
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J?Accusé
2007-11-29 22:21:00
"If you believe a truck is coming toward you, you will jump out of the way. That is belief in the reality of the truck. If you tell people you fear the truck but do nothing to get out of the way, that is not belief in the truck. Likewise, it is not belief to say God exists and then continue sinning and hoarding your wealth while innocent people die of starvation. When belief does not control your most important decisions, it is not belief in the underlying reality, it is belief in the usefulness of believing.""There is more information is one thimble of reality than can be understood by a galaxy of human brains. It is beyond the human brain to understand the world and its environment, so the brain compensates by creating simplified illusions that act as a replacement for understanding. When the illusions work well and the human who subscribes to the illusion survives, those illusions are passed to new generations.""The human brain is a delusion generator. The delusions are fu...