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Monthly Archives: April 2004

MACBETH, 21 GRAMS, AND LIBERALISM

Posted on by Posted in Movies, Politics, Religion

Toward the end of Shakespeare’s classic Macbeth, the title character utters the lines that include the famous quote “…[I]t is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.” In context, Macbeth is reacting to the news of his wife’s suicide, and the “It” in question is life itself. However, the line quoted has long be used out of context to ridicule all manner of overblown and ultimately meaningless constructs, be they artistic, social, or political.

In the film 21 Grams (2003), the relatively simple tale of a tragic car accident, and the improbable coming together of the victim’s widow, a doomed math professor, and the hit-and-run perp is related via an overly complicated non-sequential narrative technique. A good deal of viewer effort is required to keep track of plot elements, as the short scenes dart backward and forward in time, until the movie ends just where it began.

It is not until the picture does end, that the cinema watcher, who put forth all that diligence to keep things together, will feel cheated. Had the story unfolded in a linear manner, its many weaknesses would have been readily exposed.

What purports, with a full dose of pretentiousness, to be a work of art examining the value of the human soul (the 21 grams supposedly lost when we die), is in truth little more than a naturalistic portrayal of desperate individuals trying to do the right thing. That the most likable character is the born-again ex-con perp, despite the film’s tone mocking his religious faith, should tell you a bit about where the writer and director are coming from.

Apparently, a drug and alcohol abusing woman who loses her husband and children in a horrific accident, a dying heart transplant patient, another woman who seriously damages her reproductive system by exercising her “reproductive rights” in a botched abortion, and a career criminal trying to go straight have no need for God. Rather, they should somehow collaborate in a mystical, never specified humanistic fashion—and if that fails, steel themselves to the reality that “Life’s a bitch, and then you die.”

If that last sentence summarizes all of Liberalism to you, and you see the analogy to the deceptive packaging of 21 Grams, go to the head of the class. As the majority of the film critics were taken in by the false promise of the movie, so are the condescending and increasingly hapless cultural elites by the ever-disproven tenets of Liberalism and Socialism.

If there really were success stories to their myriad programs, don’t you think they would be touting them non-stop? As it is, any reference to the litany of failures is inevitably explained—when they bother to explain it at all—with some variation of we didn’t spend enough money, we didn’t collaborate enough, we didn’t give it enough time, or you’re a racist, bigot, or homophobe.

Besides, the process is more important than the result, is it not? Otherwise, they might have to answer for the tragic breakdown of the family, especially the Black family; the absolute destruction of public education; the creation of heretofore inconceivable “rights” that trump national defense, common decency, and even survival; and a major political party long past its prime, that stands for nothing beyond hating George W. Bush and promoting abortion.

KICKING BUTT AND TAKING NAMES–VATICAN STYLE

Posted on by Posted in Current Events, Religion

Almost as if to demonstrate the old adage that “The grinding wheel of the Creator’s Justice grinds slowly, but exceedingly fine,” the Church has finally come out with a document condemning liturgical abuses. Weighing in at nearly 25,000 words, Redemptionis Sacramentum: On certain matters to be observed or to be avoided regarding the Most Holy Eucharist, this Instruction, originating from the offices of the Congregation for Divine Worship, (Francis Cardinal Arinze, Prefect) takes aim at a host of practices that are “not infrequently” plaguing masses. It notes further that “[I]n some places the perpetration of liturgical abuses has become almost habitual, a fact which obviously cannot be allowed and must cease.”

Overshadowing the admittedly “inside baseball” nature of most of the document was Arinze’s straightforward reply at the news conference introducing it, when asked if a priest should refuse communion to a politician who unambiguously supports a woman’s “right” to choose abortion.

Theological point of information—A woman may have the free will to choose abortion, but she has no right to do so, as all rights ultimately derive from God, and there is no right to kill an innocent.

“Yes,” he answered. “If the person should not receive it, then it should not be given. Objectively, the answer is there.”

John Kerry, and many other so-called Catholic politicians who are pro-abortion, often attempt to rationalize their position explaining that they are “personally opposed to it,” but support the current laws, blissfully ignoring the obvious contradiction of one being personally opposed to something that he personally supports! Of course, nearly everyone else—especially the media—has either ignored this contradiction as well, or is simply either too biased or too stupid to raise the point.

Kerry has also said that he “keeps his religion separate from his public life,” another oft-heard nonsense statement, albeit popular in this functionally atheistic country. For a “religion” which merely consists in going to Mass once per week, and not living the Faith is no religion at all.

Take any dictionary definition of “religion” (here’s one)

the personal commitment to and serving of God or a god with worshipful devotion, conduct in accord with divine commands especially as found in accepted sacred writings or declared by authoritative teachers, a way of life recognized as incumbent on true believers, and typically the relating of oneself to an organized body of believers

and please tell me how this can be separated from your life, public OR private.

Of course, there was also swift reaction to Arinze from Frances Kissling, president of a pro-abortion front group, masquerading under the very American sounding name of Catholics for a Free Choice, accusing the Vatican of not understanding the separation of church and state.

“It is time for Church leaders to acknowledge that the threat of denying the sacraments to Catholics who disagree with their positions has no basis in Church law. It is both bad politics and bad religion,” she said.

Exposing her incredible ignorance of basic Canon law, Church history, and the media’s ignornace of all matters theological, she seems unaware that the only time excommunication is used is precisely WHEN individual Catholics “disagree with their positions,” since their positions (notably in the case of abortion) are absolutely in accord with Canon law. Under what other circumstances would the sacraments ever be denied?

As to “bad politics,” whatever can that mean? That the Church has to be politically correct to stay hip with the times? Tell that to the martyrs, or to the Founder Himself, who was so non-PC that he got crucified for his trouble. Frances, you should go see The Passion, it will clear up a lot of this for you.

But then Kissling and her fellow travelers could simply be products of the times. After all, when LA’s biggest abortionist and nominal Catholic James Mc Mahon died some years ago, he was secretly given a full Catholic funeral, creating a serious scandal, even though it was considerably hushed up.

Maybe Francis Arinze, the stand-up guy, and tough talking Cardinal from Nigeria is getting the Church back on track. And not a moment too soon.

LOSING THE CAPACITY FOR RATIONAL THOUGHT–ANOTHER CONSEQUENCE OF PC

Posted on by Posted in Uncategorized

The term “politically correct” has a long and sordid history, dating back to the 1930’s, whereby the Communist Party USA (CP-USA) would enforce its rigid (and generally mindless) codes of toeing the party line. Thus, on August 23, 1939, when the German-Soviet Nonaggression Pact was signed, Stalin was praised for his genius, despite the Nazis railing against Communism for years. That was, of course, until June 22, 1941, when Nazi Germany, after having invaded much of western and central Europe, attacked the Soviet Union without warning in Operation Barbarossa. Then, Stalin was praised for his genius in being at war with Nazi Germany. Incredibly, the existence of the “secret” protocols between Hitler and Stalin, regarding how Europe was supposed to be divided up after the war, was denied by the Ruskies, and their lap dog CP-USA affiliates until 1989!

“Politically correct” would reappear in English translations of the Little Red Book of Chairman Mao, supposedly to the chagrin of CP-USA officials, who were wary of the expression by then, as it would turn out, with good reason. For, by the early 1980’s “PC” became a pejorative term used by those on the Right, to ridicule increasingly anal attempts to control language and free speech. And if “PC” immediately suggested “CP,” the popular abbreviation for the CP-USA, so much the better.

We on the Right can ridicule all we want, but the damage has been done. If language and free speech have been controlled in major institutions such as education, large corporate environments, and the elite media, and this has been going on for nearly 25 years, an entire generation exists that has been raised under these pernicious rubrics. Moreover, if language and free speech are controlled, so, eventually is thought itself. It is no accident that coercive persuasion or brainwashing first became widely known as it occurred in communist political prisons after the Chinese Communist victory in 1949 and after the Korean and Vietnamese wars.

No doubt, the concept that has been most distorted—and exploited—in this connection is “racism.” Properly defined, “racism” is the assumption that psychocultural traits and capacities are determined by biological race and that races differ decisively from one another, which is usually coupled with a belief in the inherent superiority of a particular race and its right to domination over others.

Note well that the first part of this definition is not necessarily evil at all, but simply recognizes that different people are, well, different—a tautology. And even if people of a certain race prefer to hang out with their same race (you can see this on any college campus), it hardly follows that they believe they are superior, or have a right to dominate the other races.

Sadly, though, even this brief analysis would be considered non-PC and rationalizing racism by many. Which brings us to a curious article that appeared in an otherwise usually clear-headed website that prides itself on being even-handed—Aggressive-Voice. Editor Scott Spicciati (whose life barely brackets the modern age of PC) re-invents himself as an avenging angel in decrying the “racism” of Rush Limbaugh, Michael Savage, Trent Lott, Jessie (sic) Helms, Charlton Heston, and, of course, Pat Buchanan. These are, in Scott’s mind, examples of the racist end of the GOP.

Spicciati attacks Buchanan’s references to an earlier, more homogenous America as being inherently racist, and brazenly and mistakenly notes that “…I don’t ever recall historians looking back on that era with pride.” Assuming that the era in question refers to Buchanan’s early life, what little pride most American historians can ever show is usually limited to the WWII and post-war days!

He also betrays a poor understanding of American history when he claims “…the founders were religious and wanted God to play a role in the lives of everyday Americans, but the choice of church and specific religion was to be up to the individual.” Most of the original colonies did, in fact, have an established religion, and Scott would not have seen many Catholics, for example, in Plymouth.

Finally, he more or less agrees with Buchanan on decrying illegal immigration, even if Pat is inflamed by the wrong reasons—the loss of America’s cultural identity and language—and Spicciati apparently only by the illegals “…side-step[ping] the government and avoid[ing] paying taxes but reap[ing] the benefits that come from our checkbooks.” Heck, Scott wants to put the military on the borders to prevent the crossings! Funny how in all his concern for his own checkbook he fails to mention the jobs illegals are taking, under the protection of the one part of the GOP he SHOULD be going after, and that is the country club Republicans who support America’s slave labor movement.

These individuals, largely connected with the hospitality industry, along with purveyors of the low-end Medi-Cal mills, and the Democratic co-conspirators who use illegals to pump up the public education rolls, would be far more meaningful targets than the men he mentions. But being raised under PC, where perceived racism is the greatest of all possible sins, what more can we expect?

FAREWELL, HOWELL RAINES! (YOU WON’T BE MISSED)

Posted on by Posted in The Media

Students of the Leftist elite media culture in this country are in for a treat, if they check out the May, 2004 issue of The Atlantic. For in these pages, they will be encounter fired NY Times Executive Editor Howell Raines’ incredibly lengthy (21,000-word) non-mea culpa, entitled “My Times.”

Several brilliant hatchet jobs have already appeared attacking this sanctimonious, bitchy, defensive, and at times just plain stupid piece, including a clever little essay on Times Watch. Allow me to weigh in…

First of all, if you’re looking for depth on the Jayson Blair affair, forget it. Haines covers it at best obliquely, and then takes “…full responsibility….” even if he blames the whole mess on the Times‘ “ramshackle personnel system” and the fact that he never got a copy of the famous memo that warned, “We have to stop Jayson writing for The Times. Right now.”

Most of the article is devoted to how his beloved newspaper is deteriorating, and how he, fearless crusader for quality journalism and circulation growth, fought an ultimately unsuccessful battle against the entrenched bureaucracy. He berates publisher Arthur Sulzberger, Jr., for lack of support, attacks the in-house union, and appears genuinely surprised that some neoconservative editors at the paper were “making accusations of ‘political correctness’ in order to block stories or slant them against minorities and traditional social-welfare programs.”

Haines, born in the South, seems consumed by white liberal guilt. At a post-Blair meeting held on May 14, 2003, at the Loew’s Astor Plaza Theater in Times Square (such detail and assorted tangents helped puff out his article to its stupefying length), he notes that “many whites in the newsroom were openly denouncing a purported ‘double standard’ in our personnel practices.” He replied:

“Where I come from, when it comes to principles on race, you have to pick a ditch to die in. And let it come rough or smooth, you’ll find me in the trenches for justice. Does that mean I personally favored Jayson? Not consciously. But you have a right to ask if I, as a white man from Alabama with those convictions gave him one chance too many by not stopping his appointment to the sniper team (to cover the DC-area sniper attacks). When I look into my own heart for the truth of that, the answer is yes.”

In other words, even though Haines probably knew that Blair was incompetent or worse, and that this would probably hurt the paper in the long run, Haines, the great white liberal Messiah would do the “right thing,” and keep him on.

Revealing a penchant for pandering that would shame even most Democratic politicians, and a weakness for meaningless symbolism that infects the Left like a cancer, he castigates the paper for not making a big enough deal about the plane crash death of R&B singer Aaliyah. He laments that the paper “perfunctorily covered her death, because one of our music critics had declared her a minor musician. So what? She was an icon in minority communities.” Yes, Howell, if only the Times had written a big obit, the circulation would have soared in, uh, “minority communities.”

But there is more to Howell Raines, the circulation marketeer. Despite being “allergic for most of my career to the business side of newspapering,” Raines was certain that the Times could develop a huge national circulation base. He cites surveys showing that there are as many as 40 or 80 million “like-minded non-readers” in the US. He notes that based on its current 1 million daily circulation, “the Times was going after the smartest and most affluent people in the United States and finding, at best, only a fortieth of them.”

So, Raines (he of the breathless assault on Augusta National, for having the temerity to exclude female members) is not only an effete Leftist snob, he has fallen for the oldest fallacy in the book—Chinese marketing. In this fallacy, a gigantic market (such as China) is simply identified, and some fool observes that “all” we have to do is corner THAT market, and we’ll be sitting pretty. HOW such a market is to be dominated is never explained.

Perhaps the most telling passage in Raines’ mammoth article betrays the sad fact that he stands for nothing at all, except himself. On the very last page, after reading thousands of words implying how much he loved and bled for the Times, he muses…

At sixty-one, I’m young enough to invent an entirely new chapter in my life rather than perpetually re-reading the old ones. I do not miss the daily grind of newspapering or the ephemeral nature of newspaper writing. Since I was twelve or so, my strongest interest has been in literature, and I’ll be turning in that direction during the extra years I’ve secured by getting fired.

What a pathetic self-absorbed windbag—but still a sacrificial lamb for a newspaper long past its prime.

SIGNPOSTS ON THE ROAD TO HELL: 9/11 AND “EXPLOITATION”

Posted on by Posted in Uncategorized

Few things in contemporary American life can so perfectly illustrate what’s wrong with this country, than our curious relationship with 9/11.

In the nascent stages of a presidential campaign, a Bush commercial appears that gently refers to the terrorist attacks. Immediately, the elite media-driven hallelujah chorus is crying foul, replete with assorted widows, appearing on all the usual TV shows, most notably on Today with the execrable Katie Couric. Why, that dastardly Bush is exploiting the sacred memory of the victims!

Would it be impolite to remind the clueless Katie that her hero FDR, who undoubtedly goaded the Japanese into their “surprise” attack on Pearl Harbor, never missed a single opportunity to work the people into a bellicose frenzy with “Remember Pearl Harbor”? And no matter what you believe regarding whether we knew about the attack of December 7, 1941 in advance, the bombing of Pearl was clearly a military objective, while the Twin Tower attacks were nothing more than a cowardly massacre of 3,000 civilians. To NOT mention this horror in a presidential campaign would be craven, irresponsible, and vacillatory.

But if you want real exploitation, you can start with the September 11th Victim Compensation Fund. In an act of sheer political expediency, dressed up as compassion to fool the public (and it apparently did) each bereaved will be entitled to about $2 million, tax-free, courtesy of Uncle Sugar—and that includes every one of those complaining widows on TV.

Supposedly, one reason this survivors’ fund was set up was to relieve the airlines of their legal obligations for 9/11. And what, pray tell, were those? An airline should have predicted that 19 madmen would get onto flights and crash them into the Twin Towers? Now suppose they did. Under what authority could they have barred these men from boarding the planes? I argue that even if they KNEW what was going to happen, they would have been unsuccessful in preventing their boarding. Altercations would have broken out, and under the PC rubrics of law enforcement, the airline would have given in. If the pilot had refused to fly, he would have been severely disciplined or fired. Never even mind that there is no possible theory of tort liability that could justify lawsuits against the airlines. These days, no theory is needed as long as there are greedy clients and unscrupulous plaintiff’s lawyers.

What, exactly, makes a death in the 9/11 attacks any more tragic, or worthy of special compensation, than if that same employee of Cantor Fitzgerald were killed in a car accident on September 10th? Or better yet, why are 9/11 deaths more important than those related to the 1993 World Trade Center or 1995 Oklahoma City bombings? Heck, what about the death of Wall Street Journal reporter Danny Pearl at the hands of Islamist terrorists in Pakistan? His widow is trying to cash in, making the reasonable point that he was killed by the very same people who brought us 9/11.

As it is, Mariane Pearl has already exploited her dead husband with her book A Mighty Heart: The Brave Life and Death of My Husband Danny Pearl. Pearl notes that she has few long term options that would come close to replacing her husband’s salary of about $100,000 per year. Well, Mariane, there was always life insurance—not a bad investment for families whose prime breadwinner is stationed in dangerous countries, doing dangerous things such as investigating Islamic fundamentalism.

To make matters even worse, if that’s possible, a special commission was set up to investigate what went wrong with our intelligence, and how 9/11 could have been prevented. Make no mistake: It couldn’t have. Under today’s gelded PC law enforcement environment, and a court system with way too many squishy judges, brimming over with misplaced compassion (always for the offender, hardly ever for the victim), any preemptive act would have been roundly condemned. And it is for just this reason that blabbermouth Richard Clarke has been raised up as a hero. He never actually DID anything about terrorism in his many years in Government, but he sure talked about it, didn’t he?

For far too long, most Americans have been quite happy with “feel good” as a substitute for reality. From a War on Poverty that didn’t even lift its TV poster child out of that condition, to pious musings about what might have been on 9/11, it is clear that the effects of culture rot, secularism, socialism, drugs, and a miserable public education system have definitely taken their toll.