U.K. government funds "doorstep lecturers"

You can close the door on traveling salespeople (if any still exist), petition-signature gatherers, or Jehovah's Witnesses. But what if the "salesperson" is from the government?

From the Daily Mail:

Doorstep lectures on travelling without your car as army of advisers teach families about 'sustainable travel'

Hundreds of thousands of families are to be visited by travel advisers who will tell them to stop driving their cars. Armed with bus timetables and cycle route maps, they will knock on doors and lecture on the need for ‘sustainable travel’.

The doorstep campaign by the army of taxpayer-funded ‘personal travel advisers’ is part of a £156million effort by ministers to persuade people to leave their cars at home when they go to work or the shops, or take children to school.

Lord knows every Western country has its nanny state apostles, but in the U.S. it's hard to imagine someone from the government ringing your doorbell to ask, "What prevents you from cycling?" and "Do you know where the nearest bus stop is?"

Things are different in the U.K., where there's a ministry (and ministers, in the religious sense) for everything from diversity to dental hygiene. British people have traditionally been called "subjects" of the Crown, rather than citizens. Can you doubt it?

I wonder -- seriously -- what would happen if a bus timetable-wielding govbot  showed up at an Englishman's door to deliver a sermon on the joys of being un-motored and the victim responded, "Sod off."

A matter for the police? Anyone who doesn't fancy an official snoop on his doorstep probably has other criminal tendencies, including failure to recycle or telling Irish jokes. Probably racistsexisthomophobicislamophobic in the bargain.

Zero tolerance for car users!

Breivik: First (and last) posting

I usually avoid posting about hot topics, figuring that anything I say will have already been said by others, maybe better. I'm tempted to ignore Anders Breivik for that reason.

But since Gates of Vienna and Jihad Watch have long been on my blogroll, I feel a duty to stand with them when they're subject to a hate campaign.

Those two sites (among many others) appeared in Breivik's book-length, cut-and-paste manifesto. Now the LA Times, along with the rest of the leftist/multi-culti propaganda collective, is ecstatic to have an excuse to label the anti-jihad movement "right-wing extremists," "Muslim-bashers," and "bigots."

According to the LA Times:

What Spencer [of Jihad Watch] failed to address is the fact that his site, and others cited by Breivik such as The Gates of Vienna, make a habit of blaming all Muslims for the actions of a minority of violent jihadists. As an example of Spencer's thinking, he wrote in November that the Transportation Security Administration should profile and give extra screening attention to Muslim males at airports, because this is the likeliest group to commit acts of terrorism. One could as easily argue that special attention should be paid to white males. In the wake of the Oklahoma City bombing, the Unabomber's reign of terror, the Tucson shootings and, now, the mass murder in Norway, this population also appears prone to terrorist violence.

The Times's illogicality should be obvious. Giving extra screening to Muslims is not "blaming all Muslims." If the TSA's aim is actually to deter terrorists from boarding planes -- and not, as many of us believe, to be a jobs program for otherwise unemployables and to create a new class of government dependents -- it is only common sense to give a little more attention to a population responsible for an endless stream of terrorist activities worldwide, even while recognizing that most individuals of that population won't fit the profile.

I have read Gates of Vienna and Brussels Journal (also mentioned in the manifesto) for years; Jihad Watch less often recently, simply because it doesn't tell me much that's new. On none of those sites have I ever seen advocacy of a lunatic act such as Breivik's, or anything that could be interpreted by a sane person as advocacy.

Ah, but what about influencing the insane? the anti-anti-jihad left would reply. That is irrelevant. People who are paranoid or schizophrenic can be influenced by anything: "hidden messages" in advertising, voices in their minds, the patterns of window cracks.

Gates of Vienna, its frequent contributor Fjordman, Robert Spencer of Jihad Watch, "cultural conservatives" and many others who oppose the Islamization of the west are extremists only in the eyes of the leftist/Muslim united front. They ask us to face an uncomfortable truth: that there are almost no positives about Muslim immigration and many negatives; that Muslims will not "integrate," except in the most superficial ways, into Western cultures; and that Islam is an all-embracing politico-religious system stuck in a stage of intolerance that other cultures have long since gotten over.

The anti-jihad movement has nothing to apologize for.

Wallander

Mostly, the first season of the BBC police detective series Wallander is high-dose tedium. But what is good about it is superb.

Shows like this can be appreciated for what they're meant to be: glossy superficial entertainment with an interesting character as the crime solver. But damn, they're getting ritualistic. In the opening couple of minutes, something right nasty happens. Cut to the cop shop. You meet the detectives. You meet the star of the series, who you soon learn has Problems and a Secret in his background. You meet the boss, usually a uniformed bully who can't stand the detective of the show's title and the feeling is mutual. The scene-of-the-crime officers at the scene of the crime. The autopsy, ughh. 

Colorful suspects. Halfway through the episode, it needs another "bump" to keep the audience from nodding off, so there's a second killing. The detectives grate on one another. The clues don't add up ... et cetera.

Wallander doesn't touch all these bases -- the boss, if that's what she is (I couldn't tell who was in charge) is sympathetic, insofar as she's anything -- but otherwise it's built from the standard blueprint. There must be more to the source novels by Henning Mankell, whom I'd never heard of  before, although I gather he's as popular a crime writer as his fellow Swede, the late Stieg Larsson.

A lot of reviewers on the Netflix site applaud the direction. Well, it's professional enough with camera angles, tension, and release; and the editing is above par. Atmosphere too, but really, there's only so much mileage you can get from exterior shots of salmon-colored sunsets, trembling grain fields, all that. (I'd never realized rural Sweden looks like Kansas.)

The biggest drag on Wallander is that Detective Kurt Wallander is the only character who matters. The other detectives are transparent wraiths. Not that they are poor actors -- this is a big-time BBC production, and I suspect they hired good talent -- but the "supporting" cast has next to nothing to work with. They're confined to toxicology babble and lines like, "Kurt, why don't you go home and get some rest?"

Well, he doesn't and it's a jolly good thing too, because Kurt is played by Kenneth Branagh. Not that script is worthy of him, but he's on camera seemingly 90 percent of the time, and he doesn't waste a second of it. He finds things in the lines and, just as important, between the lines that you or I wouldn't dream was there.

Branagh is mesmerizing, scoring emotional points with words and situations that would come off like schlock in the hands of a lesser actor.

Watch this master at work and put up with the rest.

* * * * *

The subject of this posting must seem utterly trivial compared with the mass killing in Norway. I'm still too shocked to absorb that fully, and have nothing to say beyond the obvious, that it was a loathsome act with no possible justification. At the same time, when the Western world's so-called "leaders" force population replacement on their countries and criminalize anyone who protests, the opposition is bound to include a few madmen seething with frustration.

Anger mismanagement

Lots of Americans are very unhappy about the state of play. I'm one of them. But I've noticed a new tone recently, at least on line, where people can say what they really think (anonymously, if they want). Of course the mainstream media barely reflect any of that, being primarily purveyors of entertainment and distraction.

The tone lately seems to have shifted in many quarters from griping to anger, even rage. Maybe that's good -- diffuse criticism, especially when it travels along well-worn partisan lines, tends to dry up and blow away.

But do words like the following contribute anything useful?

As the average American continues their epic struggle to stay afloat in these turbulent times it is clear to those with critical thinking skills, like Chris Whalen and Ron Paul, that the game is rigged in favor of those with enormous wealth and power. There is no doubt the levers of government and finance have been seized by a super rich minority of men, willing to use all means necessary to increase their wealth and power at the expense of those they consider lowly expendable peasants. The myth perpetuated by those in control of the system is that everyone in America has ample opportunity to move up the ladder, even as they push the ladders away from the parapet surrounding their castle.

That comes from a battle cry in a blog called The Burning Platform.  The author, whose name I can't find on the site, has written an extended piece using the metaphor of the Clint Eastwood western, Unforgiven. (Actually it's a running series, with each installment based on a different Clint Eastwood western; I haven't read the earlier postings.)

The gathering storm

The entry carries on:

This is how it will play out over the next ten to fifteen years. Cynicism about solutions put forth by corrupt politicians, distrust of government bureaucrats and crooked bankers, and a society wide demoralization, as widespread unemployment and declining living standards for middle class Americans has darkened the landscape like an approaching winter storm. The disillusionment of average Americans is reflected in poll after poll, with only 20% of the population satisfied with the direction of the country versus 70% just prior to 9/11. The mood change in the country since 2005 is palpable.

The gap between the Haves and the Have Nots has never been greater and continues to widen. The middle class has floundered for decades, while bankers, politicians and corporate titans have reaped vast riches through peddling debt and gaming a system rigged in their favor.

Many of the posting's criticisms are valid. But its air of hyperdramatic inevitability is unconvincing, even off-putting.

Our anonymous revolutionary is enamored of a book called The Fourth Turning, which he references several times. Apparently it's based on a predictive model of history moving in cycles. The revolt of the colonies against Britain, the War Between the States, the Depression/World War II are cited as crises evenly spaced about 65 years apart (if, like The Burning Platform, you account "the American Revolution Crisis" as ending in 1794 -- five years after the Constitution was adopted). The next crisis, or "turning," is shaking hands with us now, according to this theory.

I'm skeptical about mass events unfolding in cycles. Why should people go mental at 65-year (more or less) intervals? The idea they represent a certain number of generations whose behavior unconsciously reproduces the behavior of their equivalents in earlier cycles seems lame. Countless factors affect human behavior, and the world changes drastically in the meantime. That a certain number of years has passed probably has a minimal influence, if any.

Sometimes history repeats itself. Sometimes it rhymes. Mostly it's written in blank verse.

As the game approaches its inevitable termination those in control have become increasingly audacious and frantic in their attempts to embezzle what remains of middle class wealth. The anger and disillusionment grows by the day. The mood of the country darkens like the sky before an approaching blizzard. The intensity and violence during a Fourth Turning hastens as events spiral toward a climax. The extreme actions taken by those in power since September 2008 have set in motion a chain of events that will lead to civil war. 

I myself have offered a few posts about the possibility -- possibility -- of another civil war (and argued that the best safeguard against it would be to have a legal means by which states could secede from a bloated, dysfunctional central government). But let's not get drunk on our own rhetoric.

To write, hysterically, things like "the game approaches its inevitable termination" is popular in the blogosphere currently, especially on alternative financial sites like Zero Hedge. Some people seem to get a thrill from telling us there's nowt left but to store up food, water, and ammunition.

After some reasonable points about what the country should have done and didn't to avoid or prepare for our Time of Troubles, the author adds this:

We needed a revival of citizenship over individualism, with a focus on future generations who would be left with the fallout of thirty years of debt induced societal degradation. The government should have shifted its budgetary focus away from the non-needy old to the young people of our once great Republic. The future of the country depends on the young, not the old. 

What a shallow argument. The future of the country depends on everyone, not a single demographic cohort. Almost all traditional societies assumed that the older generations were best fitted, through their experience of life, to shape the future properly. Once again, this rage against the Boomer generation is becoming standard. I agree that many of that cohort have a lot to answer for, having accepted the leftist tripe they were raised on and never bothered to re-think any of it. (As Napoleon's minister Talleyrand said of the former French aristocracy, the Bourbons, "They never forgot anything and they never learned anything.")

I don't know what our author means by "shifting the budgetary focus," but it sounds like he wants to confiscate whatever our "non-needy" elders have squirreled away and redistribute it to the poor victimized younger generations. However you feel about the Boomers, most of them earned what they have honestly and through working hard. They paid their taxes and had an ever-increasing portion of their paychecks snipped off for Social Security. It's wrong in principle to double-cross them now because they lived through economically better times.

The posting contradicts its own argument for generational warfare. It says, "There are 310 million Americans and ... only 1.5 million would be classified as very rich or extremely rich." Where are all the "non-needy old"? It also says, "As the middle class has been impoverished, 30 million people are unemployed or underemployed, senior citizens have been sacrificed at the altar of Wall Street and 45 million people are forced to use food stamps, the top 1% has done fabulously." And, "Savers and seniors have been thrown under the wheels of a Lamborghini driven by the profligate Wall Street gamblers." Our seniors have been sacrificed at the altar of Wall Street, thrown under the Lamborghini, but still, "the Boomer generation will be scorned for their reckless disregard for future generations and stripped of their entitlements."

It goes on to quote another blogger, a certain Jesse from Jesse's Café Americain:

“Not all sociopaths wield knives and knotted cords. Some wear suits, and are exceptionally intelligent and articulate, obsessively driven, and are able to use and undermine the law and the rules for their advantage, like weapons.  It is never about the win, never about the money.  It is about the kill, the expression of their hatred, about elevating themselves with the suffering of others. Bind, torture, kill.  Not only with ropes and knives, but also with power and money, and the subversion of law.  Lawlessness is their addiction, their will to power.

When societies become lax and complacent, these sociopaths can possess great political power through great amounts of unprincipled money.  And over time they become almost anti-human, destroyers of all that is good, all that is life, all that offends their insatiable sickness with its goodness.  They twist the public against itself, and turn a broad sweep of society into their killing grounds. This is the undeniable lesson of the last century.  There are monsters, and they walk among us.”

Oh, please. We do have structural problems aplenty; a Red-diaper baby president; an overgrown federal bureaucracy; regulations up the wazoo; something approaching state capitalism, where the government decides who is too big to fail and what businesses are welcome to fail, rewards GM unions while stiffing people who invested in the company's bonds; and a poisonous ideology of social engineering.We won't fix the looming disaster without drawing lines, taking stands, and thinking hard. 

But horror-film clichés about sociopaths and monsters walking among us draw no lines, take no real stands, and urge us to think with our blood. The Burning Platform and Jesse only make resistance to exploitation sound crazy.

Suddenly, it's 1956

Ike has decided the country is humming along nicely, the USSR is contained, and he's ready to retire. Naturally, lots of politicians want to take his place in the White House. One of them offers the following campaign speech:

"I represent change!

"If elected, I promise to do or encourage the following:

"We need to fight wars in the Middle East so that Muslim countries can be taught to enjoy our freedoms. Two wars minimum, maybe three. Ten, twelve years of combat and occupation should win the hearts and minds of the locals. Yes, sure, a few thousand Americans will give the full measure of devotion, and we'll have to make room for a few more thousand without legs, arms, or faces in our VA hospitals, but it will be worth it to insert Democracy in Afghanistan, Iraq, and wherever.

"But that's not enough! We need to replace the American population. It's too overwhelmingly white. Too Christian. Hardly a Muslim or animist to be found! I promise to ignore our national borders and encourage people from Latin America, the Middle East, and Africa to come establish colonies in our cities. To show them the joys of capitalism and keep the wheels of industry turning, they can do the jobs Americans do, but at a fraction of the cost to business. I know as taxpayers, you will be happy to subsidize them through welfare programs such as free birth vouchers, free housing vouchers, free medical vouchers, and free food vouchers.

"Of course real progress depends on shipping as many American jobs as possible to other countries. We'll begin with manufacturing jobs, but as our technology improves we should be able to send many service and 'white collar' jobs abroad as well.

"But make no mistake, a country can't run on pure economics. I pledge my unstinting efforts to social justice. Our workplaces must be run by and for our minorities, who will be given preference for jobs, not only in the government but in private industry, or the Czars and Lord High Bureaucrats I appoint will take companies to court till they get the message. Nor will we ignore the fundamentals under my command. My federal court appointees' mission will be to ensure that students have unlimited rights to ignore or taunt the teachers, that no one in the protected class of a certain race fails because of inability. 

"I envision the day when sex education begins in kindergarten and homosexuality is taught. Speaking of which, how do we expect to win the Cold War when all our military personnel are men, straight men at that! I promise to create co-ed combat units, and make a special effort to recruit homosexuals -- my staff tell me they call themselves by the delightful term 'gay' -- and lesbians for our armed forces.

"Naturally, in our new 'rainbow' nation, it would be unthinkable to demand our new colonists speak or learn English. We must move forward, for the future lies ahead, and America has no future without millions of immigrants to give us vibrancy. As some of you may know, a dead white male by the name of Shakespeare wrote, 'O brave new world, that has such people in it!'"

[He stands, waiting for applause. Dead silence. There's a little stirring in the crowd, maybe a growl, what's wrong with these people?]

"Er, perhaps I am too idealistic, too bold. I know these are the white-bread, conformist '50s, and we are a nation of racists and Indian killers, but I say we can change. And with your votes on election day, we will!"

Then I wake up. Suddenly, it's 2011. Thank heavens, it was just a nightmare.

U.S.A. in the subprime of life

Subprime mortgages, mainly given to persons of color thanks to the, shall we say, "urging" of our federal overlords, weren't the only cause of the 2007-08 financial debacle that has landed us in debt halfway to China. But they were the precipitating factor, the last straw.

Well, at least we learned a lesson. Ooops.

Racial Politics: With homeownership plunging among minorities, Democrats and community organizers are pushing banks to revert to the easy-credit requirements that got us into the crisis.

In the latest move, the NAACP announced Wednesday it was forming a partnership with Bank of America to "advance fair-lending practices" that will help provide credit to "disenfranchised communities that were ravaged by the economic crisis."

Bank of (Latin) America -- you remember them,  the banksters who made a special push to open accounts for the dinero of los illegals -- "BofA has agreed to monitor lending policies for their 'racial impact' and 'allow borrowers the option of selecting a loan that is appropriate for his circumstances.' "

Appropriate for his circumstances -- that should be "their circumstances," but grammar is racist -- means "taxpayers to eat the bill when 'he' of the Protected Class stops paying the mortgage."

The country is faced with such debt that only hyperinflation -- enabling the government to pay off its deficit in dollars curiously resembling pennies, with the same effect on your savings -- offers a way out.

Yet Black Privilege and Mestizo Privilege must go on regardless.

California’s budget crisis has reduced the University of California to near-penury, claim its spokesmen. “Our campuses and the UC Office of the President already have cut to the bone,” the university system’s vice president for budget and capital resources warned earlier this month, in advance of this week’s meeting of the university’s regents. Well, not exactly to the bone. Even as UC campuses jettison entire degree programs and lose faculty to competing universities, one fiefdom has remained virtually sacrosanct: the diversity machine.

Not only have diversity sinecures been protected from budget cuts, their numbers are actually growing. The University of California at San Diego, for example, is creating a new full-time “vice chancellor for equity, diversity, and inclusion.” This position would augment UC San Diego’s already massive diversity apparatus, which includes the Chancellor’s Diversity Office, the associate vice chancellor for faculty equity, the assistant vice chancellor for diversity, the faculty equity advisors, the graduate diversity coordinators, the staff diversity liaison, the undergraduate student diversity liaison, the graduate student diversity liaison, the chief diversity officer, the director of development for diversity initiatives, the Office of Academic Diversity and Equal Opportunity, the Committee on Gender Identity and Sexual Orientation Issues, the Committee on the Status of Women, the Campus Council on Climate, Culture and Inclusion, the Diversity Council, and the directors of the Cross-Cultural Center, the Lesbian Gay Bisexual Transgender Resource Center, and the Women’s Center.

If we are the slightest bit honest about rescuing the U.S.A. from its bankruptcy, let's end the diversity racket. Let the diversicrats raise the money for their salaries and programs through private donations, and if they can't, tough. No more money siphoned from funds legally extorted from taxpayers. None.

When our political jellyfish stop the racial-ethnic pandering, I'll consider the possibility that they've seen the light about financial reform. The diversity payouts may not be that big in the whole scheme of things, but they're an infallible lie detector.