The popular culture sometimes gives signals about a society’s trends: apocalyptic movies appear during times of stress, like right now with the War On Terror.

Tonight the premiere of a new version of a science-fiction series from over 20 years ago on ABC (?!!!?) contains elements of satirical criticism against the cult of MAObama!

If there were no market for such a series, you can bet that ABC would not be touching it.

The Chicago Tribune (!?!) has the story here:

http://www.chicagotribune.com/entertainment/chi-tc-tvcolumn-v-1102-1103nov03,0,7062976.story

An excerpt:

“Imagine this. At a time of political turmoil, a charismatic, telegenic new leader arrives virtually out of nowhere. He offers a message of hope and reconciliation based on compromise and promises to marshal technology for a better future that will include universal health care.

The news media swoons in admiration — one simpering anchorman even shouts at a reporter who asks a tough question: “Why don’t you show some respect?!” The public is likewise smitten, except for a few nut cases who circulate batty rumors on the Internet about the leader’s origins and intentions. The leader, undismayed, offers assurances that are soothing, if also just a tiny bit condescending: “Embracing change is never easy.”

So, does that sound like anyone you know? Oh, wait — did I mention the leader is secretly a totalitarian space lizard who’s come here to eat us?

Welcome to ABC’s “V,” the most fascinating and bound to be the most controversial new show of the fall television season. Nominally a rousing sci-fi space opera about alien invaders bent on the conquest (and digestion) of all humanity, it’s also a barbed commentary on Obamamania that will infuriate the president’s supporters and delight his detractors.”

Several newspaper articles reporting the demise of Columbus Day celebrations throughout the nation had one common theme: the mirthless, mindless, iron-fisted stupidity of political correctness dominating our country.  Even here in Columbus, Ohio, there has been no Columbus Day parade for a decade.

Why?  Christopher Columbus is not allowed to be celebrated: he is responsible for a veritable “holocaust” against the Native Americans, for slavery, for the spread of disease, etc. etc. etc.  Have you not heard the left-wing version of History?

In the Middle Ages it was not impossible for a corpse to be disinterred and placed on trial.  Today left-wing revisionist historians prevent the truth from staying the truth, putting Columbus’ corpse on trial for crimes he was not responsible for.

We will agree that Columbus was not perfect, but that he was personally and willfully responsible for the aftermath of his discoveries is patently ridiculous.  Imagine the inventor of the firecracker being held responsible for every person ever killed in history by gunpowder!

Columbus should be celebrated because he was a man of persistence and vision and above all, courage.  It took him many years to convince a regent to sponsor his obsession: that the West had been sailing the long way to Asia, that according to various ancient geographers (whom everyone believed were correct in their calculations of the earth’s circumference e.g. Posidonius, Ptolemy, etc.) it would be shorter to sail due west.  They were wrong (one ancient mathematician, Eratosthenes, had the correct calculation of about 25,000 miles, but his was a minority view), but Columbus could not have known that, and in either case he wanted to discover what lay to the west.

He preferred to reckon position by the stars, and the flights of birds and even the smells in the air.  The newly invented astrolabe was not in his hand.

And when you step aboard a reconstruction of the Santa Maria, you cannot help but be amazed at the courage of Columbus and his men!  Such a small and seemingly fragile craft for a journey literally into the unknown!

If we hold Columbus responsible for the later darker side of American History, then he should also receive credit - and be celebrated - for its positive and enlightened aspects: the end of Aztec cannibalism against other Native American tribes, the spread of ideas on liberty and self-governance, the invention of the American mind and all of its creations, including our entire modern life-style of personal comfort and convenience!

These things do not happen if Europe stays in Europe: it is only with the discovery and colonization of America that the average oppressed European peasant, and later people from the entire planet, are able to breathe and live as free human beings.

It is regrettable, but understandable, that the manic leftists of today, who view freedom through the dim glasses of fear, fear of themselves and of other people, are the ones who denigrate and distort the historical record and turn Columbus into a single-minded cardboard villain, rather than a man of his time, a man with a vision and the courage and persistence to bring the vision into reality.

Such men and women are needed today: the achievement of such a man should be celebrated, and not vilified, especially by those of little vision, courage, and achievement.

The Byzantine Empire, also known as the Eastern Roman empire, existed in a slowly shrinking form between the 400’s A.D. down to the fall of Constantinople to the Turks in 1453.  For roughly 1,000 years this basically medieval Greek empire attempted to survive the attacks of Slavs,  Arabs, Crusaders, and Turks, and did so by developing a diplomatic technique known today as “Byzantine.”

A  Byzantine diplomacy means that you are always willing to break treaties, to make secret agreements which you are not really intending to keep, to play two sides off against each other, to bribe enemies to attack each other, etc.

The heirs to this tradition from the Byzantines, the modern-day practitioners of “stab-in-the-back” diplomacy, are the Russians.  Not realizing this and being ignorant of History, U.S. diplomacy has always been at a disadvantage.   I have studied this topic, and watched it personally for over 40 years: I was not surprised when the Soviet Union was discovered to have been cheating on e.g. an arms-control agreement in the 1960’s or 1970’s, but the politicians in Washington were always amazed at Russian duplicity.

They should not have been amazed: they should have expected it!

Over the weekend the Israelis leaked some interesting information to the British press, specifically the Sunday Times of London.  Earlier in September the Russian navy had to intercept a ship which pirates had hijacked: the ship was supposedly carrying only timber, but intelligence reports claimed that a secret cargo of Russian missiles bound for Iran were on board.  Netanyahu secretly flew to Moscow, according to a leak back then, to demand that the Russians cease and desist.

The Russians denied everything of course.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/middle_east/article6829278.ece?token=null&offset=12&page=2

We then saw the current administration take the advice from two Brookings Institute bureaucrats to trade Eastern European missile defense for Russian aid against Iran.  It is an open letter to the current president:

http://www.brookings.edu/papers/2009/0105_middle_east_memo.aspx

An excerpt:

Still, a bona fide effort to engage Iran can also serve as a “best shot” for securing international support for much harsher sanctions if necessary. As the Bush Administration demonstrated, a unified West can impose painful sanctions on Iran without Russia and China, but the harshest sanctions will require their support. Persuading Russia to support our vital interests will require that you be prepared to take Russian interests elsewhere into account. You should be ready to agree to put on hold plans for missile defense in Europe or to slow NATO expansion, if necessary. Moscow and Beijing will not be serious about harsher sanctions as long as Japan and many European nations drag their feet, so you will need to secure a much stronger Western consensus than now exists.

So what we have here - again - are Ph.D.’s ignorant of Russian History and its relation to Byzantine History.  The Russians get the U.S. to concede on missile defense for Poland and friends, while at the same time they are still helping the Iranians, giving lip service publicly to the idea that “maybe” they would help with sanctions to get the Iranians to behave.

But the affair becomes more complex: the most recent leak involves Netanyahu’s trip having more than one purpose.  He apparently revealed to the Russians that the Israelis knew all about Russian scientists being in Iran and helping Iran speed up their atomic/nuclear bomb project.  Putin and Medvedev (Bad Cop-Good Cop) might have been surprised that the Israelis knew so much, but certainly they could not claim that the Russian scientists were independent contractors!

European and American diplomats therefore scratch their heads in wonder: from their viewpoints, this cannot really be happening, since it “obviously” is not in the Russian interests to arm Iran with atomic/nuclear weapons!  Iran is not really a friend to Russia ideologically, except in hostility to America and free nations.  The intelligence reports must be wrong, therefore.

You need to think like a Russian: the Russians are quite willing to go to the brink here…and beyond.  Recall how the Byzantines would foment enmity between two local powers: it is not impossible that the Russians will continue to aid Iran to provoke an Israeli attack on that country, or (much less likely) an American/NATO one.  This would allow the Russians to play the protector for the Iranians and the Islamic world in general, to marginalize the Israelis and the Americans, especially under the present pacifistic administration, and again give them a market for rebuilding whatever the Israelis might destroy, plus cause oil and natural gas prices to balloon.

If however the Iranians attack Israel or - less likely - U.S. bases in the area, Russia still wins: by adding to the chaos in the area, as in the previous scenario, the price of oil and natural gas will skyrocket of course, helping the Russians immensely, at least in the short term.  The Russians can even claim that the Iranians were right to defend themselves against the Israeli threat, and play the protector of the Islamic world in general! 

And for those who think that the Russians would still never aid Iran, because Iran might attack them just as much: think again!  The Russians would have no qualms about vaporizing Iran and annexing it, fulfilling the centuries-long dream of access to a warm-water port. 

The Iranians are radical, but not stupid, so the last scenario is not likely.  What is certain is that the Byzantine nature of Russian diplomacy is predicated on causing trouble for the free world, taking advantage of any and every weakness exhibited by America anywhere - that includes South and Central America - and in general causing trouble.

On that basis, the incompetent, pacifistic diplomacy of the present administration, ignorant of History, is making the world more dangerous than the “cowboyism” of the W. Bush years.

You might recall the NObama moment when he decided to interfere in the arrest of Henry Gates, his professor friend who was arrested for bad-mouthing a policeman, when a neighbor thought that somebody was breaking into Gates’ house.  It turned out that Gates himself had broken into his house because he had lost his keys.  Gates over-reacted when the police arrived, and went into racial hyperdrive about the misunderstanding.

NObama decided that this was the moment to call the policeman “stupid” and to pontificate about Race In America.  For over a week this incident dominated the press, ending with a “Beer Summit” at the White House.

Contrast the opening of NObama’s mouth in this incident to its lockjawed silence this past week on the murder of an Afro-American honor student named Derrion Albert in NObama’s base of Chicago.  Would this not be the “bully-pulpit” moment for the most successful Afro-American in our history to address black-on-black violence?  To address the idiocy of gang warfare?  To condemn the murderers for taking the life of a young man with great potential for the future and ruining the lives of his family members?

Even the liberal Juan Williams on Fox News was outraged by NObama’s silence.

But perhaps NObama has gotten used to Chicago’s Afro-American teenagers cannibalizing each other: I offer this from a Chicago Tribune article on the murder, from a woman describing teenagers’ reactions:

“First they cry,” she said. “But then they shake their heads and continue with their day, because it’s become so commonplace to them. It’s like, ‘Oh well, another bump on the road.’ They go on because it’s the only way they can deal with it.”

Now, Latiker wonders how she can possibly make room for Derrion’s headstone. Latiker created a memorial two years ago to honor the young people killed in Chicago. Each time a child is shot, stabbed or beaten to death, she adds a stone to the memorial wall.

“We have 163 stones right now, but we are 20, now 21, behind,” she said. “I thought, well, I hoped, I dreamed that there’d be more space on the wall than kids being killed.”

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/chi-teen_killed_roselandsep26,0,5094890.story

We see - and hear from his silence - that black-on-black crime is of no interest to NObama. He obviously was much more interested in trying to charm the Olympic Committee to choose Chicago for 2016 than in addressing the murder of Derrion Gates in that city.

Perhaps he also considers the murder of children in Chicago “commonplace” and of no interest?

If the present resident of the White House really were a centrist, and not a leftist radical, if he were really interested in bringing people together, if he were really interested in working with “the other side” (whether you define them as Conservatives or Republicans), one thing is clear: on September 12th he would not have escaped to Minnesota to be massaged by a prefabricated crowd of sycophants.

Imagine the drama if NObama had in fact gone out to speak to the 1-2 million people of 9/12!  Imagine him saying that he now understands their fear, or at least apprehension, and that after perusing the polls from both liberals and conservatives he will listen to what they want, and go back to the drawing board for a health insurance bill that makes sense, that is not 1,000 pages of fine print and pork.

By doing so on that day, his presidency might have become “historic” and if he followed through in that hypothetical speech, he might be guaranteed a second term.

But the arrogance of his ideology, the contempt for the huge majority ( 75%-85%)  who want nothing to do with Hell-th Care NObama style, and the resulting blindness to reality are not only disasters waiting to come to fruition domestically, but have the capability of being national and perhaps even civilizational disasters through international affairs.

As Russia allies with Venezuela, while Nobama censures the Hondurans who threw out a wannabe-dictator, as Iran and North Korea and Syria go back to nuclear triangulation, while Nobama pushes away Israel, the one clear outpost of freedom in the Middle East, next to fledgling and soon-to-be-abandoned Iraq, as the Chinese continue to expand militarily and in outer space, while NObama cuts American military and outer-space programs, as smaller countries cut taxes and spending to become economically prosperous, while NObama promotes the socialistic War On Business guaranteed to prevent prosperity, the future of America  becomes ever darker.  

All of this from the personality of a man who showed himself - in his writings - to be angry against his own country, who - in his own writings - showed himself at odds with the basic beliefs of his own country, who associated with radicals hostile to the basic structure of America.

On September 12th, the present resident of the White House could have proven that he did not really mean what he had written, or that he had at least changed his mind.  He could have proven that maybe he did “hang around” radical Chicago hate-mongers out of pure political opportunism, but that now he was changing, and listening to the people, and not explaining away their opinions and concerns as racism or as ill-informed.

Our hope for that change was dashed on September 12th by his Hegira to Minnesota.

Spain turned to complete socialism in the middle of the decade, you might recall, after being hit with train bombs by Islamo-Fascists right before the election of 2004.  The socialists claimed that Spain was at risk because of its support for the War On Terror, and that if Spain withdrew and started “dealing peacefully” with the radicals, both Islamic and Basque separatists, and understood their complaints, Spain would become immune to terrorism.  So Spaniards elected a socialist government.

Except that the terror attacks did not stop.  Basque fascists, one day after socialist leader Zapatero proclaimed that his dialogue with them was making progress, set off a huge car bomb at the Madrid Airport.  Al-Qaeda in Algeria, after claiming responsibility for attacks in Algeria in 2007 which killed 25 people, said that Spain was next, because it was Islamic territory, and they would not rest until their “beloved al-Andalus” (i.e. Spain) was under Islamic control.

Sound familiar?

And economics!  Knowing that socialists are appeasers, unions began increasingly to rattle Spain: in the first quarter alone of 2008 there were over 300 strikes and walk-outs across the economy, with the complaint from workers that they were not being protected from free-market forces.  They all wanted guarantees and hand-outs, which Zapatero promised and brought him a second term.

Sound familiar?

Because of increased government spending and tax hikes, inflation and unemployment began rising almost immediately.  Gas, food, energy, housing etc. have all risen significantly.  100,000 Spaniards defaulted on mortgages in 2008.   Zapatero in a Clintonian moment, said that it was “opinionable” as to whether the Spanish economy was in trouble.  “It all depends on what you mean by ‘crisis’.”   And former socialist labor minister Jesus Caldera, in a NObama moment, blamed George W. Bush for their ills with his “conservative thinking.”  (If you can read Spanish, the article is below.)

Sound familiar?

With nearly 15% unemployment the Spanish social network is almost bankrupt, and people are being cut from the rolls: immigrants who used to be part of the safety net are being asked to go home.  The number of small businesses, especially in construction, entering bankruptcy quadrupled at the end of 2008.

Sound familiar?

Because they are tied to the Euro, Spain’s socialists are perhaps not as out-of-control as they otherwise would be in monetary policy.  The Spanish are not to be fooled again perhaps, despite the perversities of Orwellian language used by the government to make green equal red and vice versa.  The polls show sinking popularity for the Socialists: but who knows?

We at least can use their sufferings as a warning!  I compiled this from various Reuters reports and articles written by analysts in Spain for The Brussels Journal.

http://noticias.terra.es/2008/espana/0704/actualidad/caldera-culpa-de-la-situacion-economica-al-pensamiento-neoconservador-de-bush.aspx

Recently several of my more talented 8th Graders were doing reports for “Current Events” in Social Studies. (I teach them Latin.) They wanted to know why the Republicans were not actively - key word, actively - promoting their message, especially on Health Care.

They knew some rudimentary things about the Dem plan, and were skeptical, perhaps repeating some of the skepticism from their parents. But they knew nothing specific about any alternatives from the Republicans. Some had gone to the GOP website, but one said the website was full of sign-up icons and money grubbing. In fact, you have to click through 4 pages to find the 2008 platform page on health care, which is not a very succinct page.

They expected to find - on page 1 - a punchy bullet-point page showing succinctly why NObama’s Hell-th Care Disaster is a disaster, and then the Conservative alternative.

No such plan appears there.

They agreed that the Republican plan needed to be easy to understand: a contrast to the 1300 + page monster proposed by the Dems. They also knew that the Dems refused to join the Hell-th Care Plan, which they thought was perhaps the strongest argument against the plan!

SO! Where are the ads from Republicans exposing the Dem hypocrisy? These 8th Graders said that TV shows which young voters watch are devoid of the Republican message. And not just on health care! Where and when will the Republicans hit NObama on e.g. abortion, on immigration, and cutting the military, they wanted to know.

When I mentioned that these things might happen closer to election time, they were unimpressed: they thought it needs to start now. When I mentioned further that people like Rush Limbaugh, etc. were spreading the message every day, they felt that the official party needed to clarify its positions, and not let the job be done through non-official surrogates.

My 8th Graders plan: short, on-target messages with the Facts.

e.g. A 30-second ad with “Fact: Democrats voted against joining their own Health Care Plan. If they want nothing to do with their own plan, why should you?” This should be reinforced with parallel ads on the Internet…and if there is any money left over, in print media.

So GOP: my 8th Graders are expecting you to hire them as advisors!

I have been wondering for a few weeks about Hillary Clinton and what she - and Billy Jeff - might be thinking when they see NObama’s numbers attracted by the increasing gravity of discontent. An article about her campaign fund still having several million dollars in it also hit my suspicious antennae! (The article naively wondered what was going on: what could be the purpose?)

Rasmussen reports that Hillary defeats Palin in a theoretical match-up, and that Hillary’s approval is at 79% versus NObama’s 42-45%. Rasmussen also details liberal talk wondering about a challenge for the nomination if NObama tanks further.

http://www.rasmussenreports.com/public_content/politics/
obama_administration/september_2009/
does_obama_face_a_2012_challenge_in_his_own_party

(For some reason the Link button refuses to work properly! Please copy and paste!)

Knowing that the Clintons’ desire for regaining power is hardly sated - and has undoubtedly been insulted by NObama and his Chicago Wrecking Crew - could one predict that she will resign before Christmas and quietly start sabotaging NObama, while raising war funds for a nomination challenge in 2012?

Again, check those approval numbers: Hillary 79% NObama 42-45%!

So what happens with Republicans if Hillary decides to make a challenge for the nomination? Time to eat some popcorn and watch the house divided fall?

Or would she have a good shot against any Republican? e.g. Hillary defeats Palin (our strongest candidate according to some) in a theoretical match-up by 12 points.

RedStaters know that Communist theory, along with any totalitarian theory of control, involves early control of the mass media, with the idea being that control of the “masses” is thereby facilitated, if you control what they see and hear.

We already know about the bias of the MSM toward leftist politics.

What some of us might not know is the back-door to stifling dissent, to limiting our freedom of speech/press is wide open.  The Orwellian term is “Localism” which is code for government stifling of conservative dissent.

FCC “Diversity Czar” Mark Lloyd is on record as believing that fairness (defined by a leftist) is more important than freedom of speech, which he finds over-rated.  ”Localism” is the way the FCC intends to shut down conservative dissent:

http://newsbusters.org/blogs/seton-motley/2009/08/06/new-fcc-chief-diversity-officer-co-wrote-liberal-groups-structural-imb

From Newsbusters:

“Localism” is a nebulous FCC regulatory requirement that radio stations must meet to get and keep their broadcast licenses.  How it is defined and enforced is wide open to the interpretation of whomever is doing the enforcing.  It can mean something benign like airing local public service announcements, or it can be used as a weapon by activists to punish, harangue and ultimately shut down stations they don’t like.

In a follow-up essay to the CAP report entitled “Forget the Fairness Doctrine,” Lloyd specifically instructs liberal activists to do the latter - use the “localism” requirement to harass conservative stations by filing complaints with the FCC.   The FCC would then assess these stations fines, with the money going to (very liberal) public broadcasting…

The other part of our proposal that gets the dittoheads (i.e. Rush Limbaugh fans, meant here by Lloyd to more broadly refer to fans of all conservative talk) upset is our suggestion that the commercial radio station owners either play by the rules or pay. In other words, if they don’t want to be subject to local criticism of how they are meeting their license obligations, they should pay to support public broadcasters who will operate on behalf of the local community.

Given that the MSM is complicit to spread NObama’s propaganda, or to remain silent in face of abuses and power-grabs by ACORN and other Fifth Columns, Glenn Beck and Rush Limbaugh and others are asking us to spread the alarm like Paul Reveres of the 21st century.

I have spoken with too many survivors of Communism about how their countries were taken over: too many people just could not believe that such overt - or covert - power grabs would actually happen. 1930’s Germans really could not believe anything ominous was portended when Jews for some reason had a 10:00 P.M. curfew. And would you really get out and protest just because Jews could not see late movies?

As of 9:00 this morning (Aug. 17th) Drudgereport is carrying a news item saying the White House is willing to eliminate the “public option” and enrage the Howard-Dean Left to pass some kind of health care reform.

Beware!

Number One: Why would we want to give NObama any kind of appearance of a legislative victory? Why would we want him to seem like a 21st-century Great Compromiser, bringing reasonable people together to effect a grand reform?

Number Two: Why would we trust anything about this proposal? This president’s pathological lying is on record, attested to by videotapes showing him lying or at least not telling the whole truth about his proposals. So why would we think that there would be no Trojan Horses in any “compromise” bill?

People have already found one large Trojan Horse for health care in the Porkulus Bill: I wrote about this on Saturday:

http://www.redstate.com/jrichardson/2009/08/14/democrats-call-foul-on-republican-objection-to-death-panels/#comment-1149

The Dems, especially in this administration, have no trouble being duplicitous, and therefore no compromise can be trusted!