Category Archives: Britain

Olbermann's State Worship

Britain, Government, Hillary Clinton, Left-Liberalism And Progressivisim, Media, The State

Obama’s Doberman, Keith Olbermann, thinks he’s so smart. However, Olbermann appears clever only because he swims in such polluted professional waters. When the competition on cable is “Billo,” Barack’s bitch gets to cleave to his delusions of cleverness.

This partisan hack tickled himself pink by savaging Michael Savage for his alleged hypocrisy. For his strident commentary, the Talker was banned from the police state of the UK, and has since solicited Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s assistance in reversing this ban. Olbermann delighted in pointing out that:

It is delicious irony that [Savage] must call on the State Department, after calling our new Secretary of State everything from Godless, Hitler-like, to responsible for the death of JFK Jr, to accusing her of starting a race war.

Now Savage is forced to seek Hilary’s diplomatic intervention, gloated Keith.

This is the reaction of a born-and-bred statist, with a skewed perspective on the role of government. Keith thinks of citizens as subjects.

Hillary is supposed to SERVE Savage, stupid! It matters not how disrespectful Savage has been to Hillary, or to any other politician. They work for him. It is incumbent upon politicians to help the people at whose pleasure they serve. What else is their function? Ornamental? As deities, objects of supplication, to be held close to the adoring heart, as Keith holds Obama?

Keith’s statism trips him up again and again, but no one is the wiser, becasue, all are statist partisans now.

Olbermann’s State Worship

Britain, Government, Hillary Clinton, Left-Liberalism And Progressivisim, Media, The State

Obama’s Doberman, Keith Olbermann, thinks he’s so smart. However, Olbermann appears clever only because he swims in such polluted professional waters. When the competition on cable is “Billo,” Barack’s bitch gets to cleave to his delusions of cleverness.

This partisan hack tickled himself pink by savaging Michael Savage for his alleged hypocrisy. For his strident commentary, the Talker was banned from the police state of the UK, and has since solicited Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s assistance in reversing this ban. Olbermann delighted in pointing out that:

It is delicious irony that [Savage] must call on the State Department, after calling our new Secretary of State everything from Godless, Hitler-like, to responsible for the death of JFK Jr, to accusing her of starting a race war.

Now Savage is forced to seek Hilary’s diplomatic intervention, gloated Keith.

This is the reaction of a born-and-bred statist, with a skewed perspective on the role of government. Keith thinks of citizens as subjects.

Hillary is supposed to SERVE Savage, stupid! It matters not how disrespectful Savage has been to Hillary, or to any other politician. They work for him. It is incumbent upon politicians to help the people at whose pleasure they serve. What else is their function? Ornamental? As deities, objects of supplication, to be held close to the adoring heart, as Keith holds Obama?

Keith’s statism trips him up again and again, but no one is the wiser, becasue, all are statist partisans now.

Updated: Pro-Afrikaans Action Group Praises … Jacob Zuma

Africa, Britain, Left-Liberalism And Progressivisim, Multiculturalism, South-Africa

Our friend Dr. Dan Roodt, founder of the Pro-Afrikaans Action Group (PRAAG), is nothing if not original! His rightist organization is applauding Jacob Zuma, a different kind of original, for the overtures Zuma is making toward the much-maligned and disenfranchised Afrikaners.

I like this tack. It’s unexpected. So few are the truly interesting minds around, and Dan certainly is one. Sure, I’m flummox. But I’m also intrigued. Read on:

PRAAG (the Pro-Afrikaans Action Group) joined in the standing ovation that Jacob Zuma received from the assembly of Afrikaner delegates at yesterday’s meeting at the Hilton Hotel in Sandton. For perhaps the first time since the early nineties, Afrikaners had spoken frankly about the many issues bothering them in the new South Africa, such as the domination of English monoculture, violent crime, land reform, the new gun laws, corruption and the dilapidation of state resources such as the SABC, SAA, Eskom and others.

After the gathering, Dr. Dan Roodt, leader of PRAAG, told reporters: “I feel very positive about the outcome of the meeting and have the impression that foreign, especially British, influence on the ANC is diminishing. It is almost as if Zuma has some pangs of nostalgia for the old, Afrikaner-run South Africa, with its discipline, sense of patriotism, successful agriculture, frugal public salaries and respect for law and order.”

Roodt continued: “There was never any reason for conflict between Afrikaners and blacks in the past as we have understood each other and cooperated for almost two centuries. However, outside elements, ranging from Britain and Sweden to the die-hard English communists of South Africa, incited conflict in our country so as to place us on the same path as the rest of sub-Saharan Africa, with its radicalism, ethnic strife and failed states.”

Under Mbeki Afrikaners were vilified as “settlers who failed to depart”. In his speech to the assembly, the leader of PRAAG stated that “after 1994 the ANC had lacked a model to deal with a large indigenous Western minority, speaking its own language and not English, French or Portuguese”.

He went on to say that “Zuma is wise in appreciating that the radical Africanist model is a failure, as seen in Zimbabwe and many other postcolonial African countries. From his statements during the meeting, Zuma is clearly an admirer of the Afrikaner model of development with its emphasis on discipline, education, hard work, caring for the poor and successful agriculture”.

The president of the ANC has accepted an invitation to visit the Voortrekker Monument, as well as a camp of the Voortrekker youth movement. Dr. Dan Roodt said: “I think Zuma’s interest in Afrikaans culture is genuine. He should also visit the Afrikaans Literary Museum in Bloemfontein to discover perhaps the greatest cultural edifice in all of Africa, the prodigious output of Afrikaans works and translations in the twentieth century but which has been sadly neglected and even threatened during the rule of Thabo Mbeki.”

Roodt also responded to a statement by the DA that Zuma had displayed an “ethnically and racially blinkered world view” in calling Afrikaners the only “true white South Africans”.

“The DA is itself blind in its colonial liberalism that denies the multiethnic character of our state.”

No doubt, Bantu and Boer might have been better off without the British. (The same can be said of the Israelis and Palestinians.) Still, Dan knows as well as I do that the proof is in the pudding. Unless Zuma brings back the death penalty, and stops the racially motivated culling of whites in South Africa and the appropriation of commercial farms—it’s all talk.

But Zuma and Dan are shaking things up.

Check out PRAAG (where my column is occasionally featured).

Update (April 12):”Zuma Insulted Afrikaners: Zille.”

Helen Zille, quite an impressive woman, heads the Democratic Alliance: the liberal, minuscule, opposition to the South African One Party State. By her telling, Zuma was “patronisingly trying to ‘curry favour'” with Afrikaners.

If so, it’s long overdue.

The reason for Zuma’s pro-Afrikaner tack, claims Zille, is this: “By seeming to flatter, I can actually fool you all into forgetting about the corruption allegations against me. By pressing the ethnic button, I can also distract your attention from the ANC’s power abuse.”

Moreover, “It is the well-known ‘divide and rule’ tactic, which authoritarian racist governments always use to divide their opponents,” she said in her weekly newsletter on Friday.

All very plausible. However, what Zuma said about Afrikaners being the only true South Africans among whites is indubitably true. And rather perceptive, I might add.

This is what undergirds the BBC’s David Harrison’s fine book, The White Tribe of Africa.

Updated: The Bow

Barack Obama, Britain, Democracy, EU, Europe, Feminism, Foreign Policy, Gender, Ilana Mercer, Individualism Vs. Collectivism, Middle East

Barack bows a little too deeply to the king of Saud, and people go ballistic. (Don’t be nasty; neoconservatives are people too.) I don’t get it, but I’ll try and deconstruct it—as well as explain why I don’t give a tinker’s damn what gestures Barry makes, so long as he keeps his mitts off my wallet and doesn’t destroy my neighborhood (fat chance for both) .

The same people were mum when Bush and King Abdullah skipped through a field of delphinium (that’s what the romantic setting looked like) holding hands and smiling adoringly at one another. Puzzling to me is the inability of some to apply the same rules to all their leaders.

“Their leader“: therein lies the rub. I think people are upset because they identify with Barry; they vest in him all kinds of symbolism; they see in him a representative.

I don’t.

Maybe I’m just a hopeless individualist, but I don’t identify with any politician; I consider them all corrupt and tainted by virtue of having chosen to make a living through the predatory, political, coercive means, rather than on the voluntary market.

Barry doesn’t stand for me, so I don’t care whose keister he kisses. I objected over his “Gangsta Gift” to the queen, not because he disgraced me; he has nothing to do with me, but because, as a traditionalist, I believe in hierarchy and civility. The queen might be a member of the much-maligned landed aristocracy, but she has acquitted herself as a natural aristocrat would—Elizabeth II has lived a life of dedication and duty, and done so with impeccable class. (It was a sad day when she capitulated to the mob and to the cult of the Dodo Diana.)

But I digress.

The other reason I don’t invest The Leader’s every move with such significance is because I consider him to have a limited role de jure. That he has usurped it is another matter. Certainly being polite to other national leaders is a good thing.

In this context, radio host Laura Ingraham baffled me the other day (and on most days) when she too became so exercised over Barry’s civility to the Europeans. This batty bird was furious that her leader’s plan was rejected by the Europeans. I know Ingraham is incoherent on the economic front. But if she disagrees with the stimulus, surely she would not wish to see Europeans stimulating. Isn’t a principle supposed to hold steady across continents? For the life of me, I could not fathom why this broad was mad because Barry was not being tough with the Europeans and they were not prepared to stimulate as obscenely as he was.

Basically, Ingraham had succumbed to the “Our guy vs. their guys” group think. They all do.

And this is what this fury over The Bow is all about: group think. He’s our guy and he should not be appearing weak (read respectful) to their guys. Collectivists have invested in the political process and in Obama a bit of themselves.

Now, neocons hate China, Saudi Arabia and Russia more than they hate, say, Mexico. Given my foreign policy perspective—shared with our founding fathers—I want other nations to keep our overweening leaders in check. I explained how in “Thank You, Nancy Pelosi”:

Those of us who want the U.S. to stay solvent—and out of the affairs of others—recognize that sovereign nation-states that resist, not enable, our imperial impulses, are the best hindrance to hegemonic overreach. Patriots for a sane American foreign policy ought to encourage all America’s friends … to push back and do what is in their national interest, not ours.

Doug Powers, my WND colleague, has his own theory about The Bow. It’s very funny:

“The president was only somewhat stooped over because he was trying to show King Abdullah what was on the iPod he brought over for him as a present. Naturally, it ended up being little embarrassing and somewhat insulting to the Saudis due to Obama’s insistence on “keeping it real” with what was loaded into the King’s gift.” (Be sure to check out the customized iPod tunes Obama made up for Abdullah).

Speaking of the confused Laura Ingraham, a shout out to Patrick O’Hannigan of The American Spectator, for actually bothering to tease apart the difference between my thinking on the economics of “pay equity,” and that of pro-life feminists like the radio host and Sarah Palin. O’Hannigan is referring to “Barack Against the Boys“:

Columnist Ilana Mercer was not at the ceremony, but asked the kind of economically-informed question that rarely percolates up through discussions of pay equity: If women with the same skills as men were getting only 78 cents for every dollar a man earns, wouldn’t men have long-since priced themselves out of the job market? The fact that men haven’t done that might mean that different abilities and experiences are at work, Mercer guessed, “rather than a conspiracy to suppress women.”

Mercer’s glass slipper of a response to equity issues will not fit anyone in the Obama administration, but it still attracts more positive attention than Christina Hoff Summers’ argument that boys rather than girls need help, thanks to a culture that derides men as oafs, and an educational system that considers masculinity the root of intolerance.

Update (April 5): It’s time to despair of the discourse in this country when people get worked up over a man tilting his body toward another, but not about the bankrupting of the US by the man and his predecessor. Yes, columns dealing with the former routinely garner more fury than those addressing the latter.

Anyone who suggests Americans abhor signs of subservience because they are familiar with the Declaration of Independence cannot be serious, and if he is serious, should not be taken seriously. Reading so much into a tilt of the frame exemplifies a flight from reason and reality into empty symbolism–as Rome burns.

As to the notion that two men holding hands is less subservient than a fleeting bow–heavens! Two men rubbing flesh is way worse than a representative of the US showing respect to another with a quick bow. The Japanese are constantly bowing at each other. So what!