If you would like to add a comment to any of the threads here on AADB, registration with blogspot.com is not required. Simply click on the ‘comments’ link at the bottom of an essay, and either enter a nickname under ‘choose an identity’ or post your comment anonymously. Serious comments are always welcome.



REQUIEM

Below are the two final essays to be posted on Allegiance and Duty Betrayed. The first one is written by a friend -- screen name 'Euro-American Scum' -- who, over the past four years, has been the most faithful essayist here. He has written about everything from his pilgrimage to Normandy in 2004 to take part in the 60th–year commemoration of the invasion, to his memories of his tour in Vietnam. His dedication to America’s founding principles ... and those who have sacrificed to preserve them over the past 200+ years ... is unequaled. Thank you, E-A-S. It has been a privilege to include your writing here, and it is a privilege to call you my friend.

The second essay is my own farewell. And with it I thank all of the many regular visitors, and those who may have only dropped in occasionally, for coming here. I hope you learned something. I hope a seed or two was planted. But, even if not, I thank you for stopping by ... 25 March, 2010

10/18/2008

Two Minute Warning

barbarians.jpg

Alas, once again, I beg your forgiveness. My enforced hiatus from AADB has once again left me high and dry and far from home. As before, I have a note from my doctor. But I must admit, prolonged separation from this esteemed group of disaffected patriots has all the effects of being cast adrift in one of the lifeboats from the Titanic wondering when (and if) rescue will come.

Once again, I’ve been battling pneumonia – the onset of which came upon me shortly after Labor Day. That’s got to make me one of the earliest casualties of this year’s cold and flu season. Fortunately, I am now at an age where I qualify for the senior-citizen-priority list that goes around the local pharmacies this time of year. Unfortunately, I am the wrong ethnicity, so I can go pound sand. Consider it a glass-half-full, glass-half-empty situation, and you’ll be pretty close to how life goes on out here in the golden west. The government has sixty years of slave labor they’ve invested in, and by God, they’re going to protect it. So ... no habla Espanòl, no flu shot. It’s that simple.

But, there remains my doctor – ever the faithful servant, whose medical practice is also his Christian ministry – and he has made allowances for those of us whose access to the health care system has been cut off. I don’t see him often. When one is the recipient of this kind of generosity, it is imperative not to abuse the privilege. But, given my track record when it comes to health concerns, and after three days of coughing and spitting, I figured I better get in to see him before he retires and I really am cut off from the entire health care system.

He was not thrilled to see me for my fourth go-round with this affliction in the last year. He was even less enthused when he asked me if I had ever been exposed to toxic chemicals. And when I racked my brain before finally coming up with the correct Jeopardy ® question – namely “What is Agent Orange?” the gift that keeps on giving – he became downright discouraged. Not to worry, I informed him. I know there’s no treatment, let alone a cure. It’s just an ongoing fact of life that all of us throwaway warriors live with. And considering the alternative, I’ll take those odds and call it even.

So, after six weeks of massive doses of Biaxin © – not to mention sneaking out a couple of Saturdays ago to the USC – Ohio State game (I am nothing if not hardcore when it comes to USC football. More on that in a bit.) – I have come to the conclusion that either my immune system is running down or the bugs are getting stronger. Or both.

During my last visit, before declaring me discharged as cured, my doctor summarily informed me that the day would undoubtedly come when I would come wheezing into his office and no antibiotic known to medical science would do any good. Sooner or later, this bug was going to kill me.

I told him the country was suffering from a similar ailment, so what made him think I was immune?

And so here I am at last. The prodigal contributor to AADB. Euro-American Scum late, rather than the late Euro-American Scum. At least for the time being.

But, pneumonia or no pneumonia, it’s still fall. And while the golden state can’t claim glorious fall colors, it’s still college football season. And no way was I going to miss the USC home opener, even if they had to wheel me out there in an oxygen tent.

And what a glorious Saturday it was. A magnificent warm, cloudless day, spent tailgating with my fellow alumni – many of whom are now comfortably retired, and whose children (the next generation of USC graduates) have taken up the mantle of ruling the world – while their aging baby boomer parents enjoy the fruits of corporate victory. They’re getting out while the getting is good, the Dom Peringnón is cold, the caviar fresh and their collective stock portfolios still have some value.

But there are some things that are not as they always have been. For right in the heart of campus, adjacent to the statue of Tommy Trojan was a hole in the ground that had to be fifty feet deep, cordoned off by a chain link fence and construction signs. The time-honored student union, student activities center and visitor’s center were gone. I was astonished. I can’t tell you how much time I wasted in that student union. Where they once stood was a gash in the earth reminiscent of ground zero, complete with shards of building walls that had yet to be removed, similar to that slab of the World Trade Center that stood shattered and gaunt against the smoking rubble in lower Manhattan on that ghastly day.

Why the comparison to 9/11 you may ask? I’ll tell you. It seems the Bin Laden Trust ponied up $25 million large to the Board of Trustees and so informed them that they considered the construction of a state-of-the-art mosque and adjacent madrassah to be a good thing, a very good thing indeed. And since the University of Southern California is like most secular, liberal institutions of its type, they agreed. Yes, it was an outstanding idea, worthy of the best efforts of the university administration, and something upon which they would move with all due haste. How do they put it in the wonderful world of the academy? Love of country may almost always fade, but money stays green forever.

Who knew? Somehow I always figured Bin Laden liked Notre Dame plus the points.

And so, the new Islamic Center is going up in the heart of campus, scheduled to be completed sometime in 2010. Along with it, will be the inauguration of the new, cutting-edge University of Southern California School of Islamic Studies, staffed by the most brilliant Islamic scholars the Middle East has to offer. Spare no expense, that’s the policy. And with pockets as deep as they are at USC, no expense will be spared, rest assured. One small detail that was consigned to the back of the promotional brochure describing this latest building project – courses in the School of Islamic Studies will be a university requirement. All students will be required to take at least eight credits in order to graduate.

Welcome to the global village.

Other goings-on around campus were likewise noteworthy.

  • The Daily Trojan – the local on-campus newspaper – ran an ad that spoke thus: “Are you a visiting Islamic student fluent in Arabic, Farsi or other Middle Eastern dialects? Then the FBI wants you for a fast track career to the highest echelons (italics mine) of government service.” (Kind of like advertising for a select group of Aryan übermenschen for employment at Los Alamos, New Mexico in 1943. Remember that when you get a visit from your friendly, neighborhood special agent after the Osama, er ... Obama regime ramps up in earnest.)


  • The Daily Trojan also ran an article about how the USC faculty has collectively contributed over $3.5 million to the Obama campaign and only $43,000 to John McCain. And who said university professors were underpaid these days?


  • Speaking of which, the savior of the secular world, Barack Obama himself, will be on campus this fall to talk about the new global, one-world culture.


  • Not to be outdone, John McCain will also be passing through campus on a campaign swing to speak on unified global commerce in a borderless society. Of course, this was before the recent stock market meltdown, so I wonder if he’s thinking twice about making the trip. If he folded his tent in Michigan, why on earth would he come to California where he doesn’t stand a snowball’s chance in Mecca of even losing gracefully?
For all the changes, there were some eternal traditions that endure. The trust fund babies were back from their round the world summer flings, all poised and ready to take over some multinational corporation upon graduation. Their numbers are fewer than in previous years, but that’s the nature of the elite. They are few in number, loyal only to the bottom line, and citizens of the world.

I took a stroll down to the Viterbi School of Engineering to test out my foreign language immersion techniques. Sadly, I have a lot of work to do in that area. Could be, past a certain age, the brain just doesn’t absorb Farsi, Arabic, Hindi or Chinese as easily as in younger years. However, when it comes to immersion, there is no better place to practice it. You won’t hear the English language in that part of campus except in the classroom. And the administration is considering a change to that practice since there are no more home grown students in those programs anymore. Lots of bright people in engineering at USC though. All grimly determined to do the heavy lifting, provide the brilliance and innovation at a better price, and not bother to see so much as a nickel of recompense for their efforts.

All the same, it was a football Saturday, and that’s what I came out for. There’s just so much cultural erosion one can absorb before the clarion call of the Trojan marching band calls the gridiron warriors to glory. And so it was on this day.

Upon arriving at the Coliseum, my friend and I took the tunnel walk. That’s the first excursion through the tunnel entrance to the stadium proper, after which, the scene explodes out on to a sea of green after nine months of nothing. It is a moment to be savored, and savor it we did on this afternoon as well.

The big buzz from the athletic department was whether USC quarterback Mark Sanchez will burst forth from the Coliseum tunnel at the home opener with the USC banner or the Mexican flag. He has already been turned down by the administration to have said flag stitched on his uniform jersey along with “Viva La Raza” where his name tape on the back of his jersey would ordinarily go. However, they did acquiesce when it came to engraving said Mexican flag on his mouthpieces, something one of the Latino USC dentists prepared for him personally.

True to his Cardinal and Gold roots, Sanchez came out with the Trojan banner, leading the team on its never-ending quest for glory and greatness.

And so, the game commenced. And when the dust settled, the Trojans crushed the hapless Buckeyes, 35-3, sent them reeling back to the frozen wastes of Columbus minus the tuba player to dot the I in Script Ohio and stood alone atop the college football world.

Kind of like America in 1945.

One week later, USC laid an egg of prehistoric proportions in Corvallis, Oregon against that awesome college football juggernaut, Oregon State. Season over. Unlike the teams of the SEC, USC doesn’t have a built-in mulligan in its golf bag. And now the Trojans sit on the sidelines, irrelevant, forgotten, a shadow of their former magnificent selves, while other, more vibrant programs vie for the BCS title.

Kind of like America in 2008.

It was a short stay at the top. For both institutions.

And so, the season commenced. And as is my custom, I take this time to take a break from the worries of the world. The economic implosion can take a back seat to ESPN Gameday. The presidential campaign can carry on without me while I gleefully watch Lou Holtz and Mark May sniping at each other on Sportscenter. The destruction of our national identity can wait until January while I direct my fury at Craig James as he goes on and on about the smashmouth football they play in the Big 12 and how USC is soft, weak and doesn’t play defense. Let’s face it, this is my time of year, and I’m taking a break. I promised myself years ago that later in life, I would enjoy such distractions as season tickets to USC football. Well, later in life just got here.

Only this year, it’s not working.

This year, it’s impossible to filter out the collapse of what passes for the country. It’s unfeasible to ignore that however the election goes, we face different sides of the same coin – One in which an out-an-out America hater, along with his congressional minions will overtly destroy what remains of the American soul. The other will enact his own version of American patriotism – a borderless, global society in which wealth and power are concentrated among the select few and what remains are the serfs who service them. Welcome to 21st century feudalism. Try bailing out Wall Street when the only people who pay taxes work for 15¢ a day and don’t speak English. And then watch the whole house of cards collapse like the World Trade Center.

As to who is who and what is what in this scenario, you can fill in the blanks. They both approach the same point from different ends of the political spectrum. And that point is the end of the republic we used to know and love.

Like any good Roman in the last days of the empire, I’m going to the Coliseum. I don’t know how it got to be 2008, how I came to be irrelevant and obsolete, what happened to my country, and frankly I don’t care. Actually, I do, to all of the above. But brooding about it will do no good at all. It won’t bring the country back, and won’t ease the pain of loss. So, it’s time for bread a circuses. And I mean to enjoy both while I still have time. For twelve hours on a Saturday afternoon, nothing else exists but USC football. Only this year, it’s impossible not to notice that the barbarians are not merely at the gates, they’re coming over the seven hills, and will probably be slaughtering the spectators on the fifty-yard line at halftime.

So we’re down to the two-minute warning. For the Trojans of USC, the season as a whole, and the entire country.

What will happen, I wonder, when the game is finally over?

    8 “Behold, the eyes of the Lord God are on the sinful kingdom,
    And I will destroy it from the face of the earth;
    Yet I will not utterly destroy the house of Jacob,” says the Lord.
    9 “For surely I will command,
    And will sift the house of Israel among all nations,
    As a grain is sifted in a sieve;
    Yet not the smallest grain shall fall to the ground.
    10 All the sinners of my people shall die by the sword,
    Who say, ‘The calamity shall not overtake nor confront us.’”
    – Amos 9:8-10
by Euro-American Scum
(contributing Team Member of Allegiance and Duty Betrayed)

-- Euro-American Scum can be reached at eascum@yahoo.com --

28 comments:

Anonymous said...

I've stopped by this blog many times over the last few months but I've never written anything before.

Lately your articles are consistently depressing. This one is no exception.

But the state of our nation is in jeopardy and anybody who tries to get the word out about what is happening can't help being negative.

Scum, your description of what is being built, and what is being encouraged and condoned at USC is disgusting, and it's happening at all major universities across the land.

Thank you for writing this. Thank you for this blog, Joanie.

God help us all.

Anonymous said...

Before we all slit our wrists, let's take a moment to recognize that *the American Spirit is not dead*! To put this election in perspective, how about a little history lesson: the history of the Nixon-McGovern election in November, 1972, as chronicled by Ayn Rand:
~~~~
The American Spirit

“I’d like to start this Letter by saying ‘Good Morning’ - even though I know that it is premature. It may take a long time before we learn whether the event of November 7 was a beautiful morning or the last glow of a beautiful sunset. It is up to men’s volition, i.e., up to every one of us, to determine which it will be - depending on the course we take. But, it either case, it was beautiful.

In my last Letter, I asked you to read or reread ‘Don’t Let It Go’ (In the November, 22-December 6, 1971 issue of this Letter). It was a discussion of the American people’s sense of life and its fundamentally independent, individualistic nature. At the end of that discussion, I wrote: ‘Is there enough of the American sense of life left in people - under the constant pressure of the cultural-political efforts to obliterate it? It is impossible to tell.’

For once, people had an opportunity to vote on an abstract principle and on a long-range issue - though they were guided not by full, conscious knowledge, but by their sense of life. In a way, McGovern deserves a grim kind of negative credit: he did make the issue clear - even though he spent the entire campaign struggling to evade, disguise and deny it. But a sense of life is impervious to sophistry - it responds only to essentials. What people grasped was not merely the explicit content of McGovern’s program, but the emotional vibrations he projected; not merely his gross defiance of individual rights, but the fact that he seemed unaware of there being anything there to defy - as demonstrated by his casual proposals to redistribute wealth, to limit income, to bribe the entire nation with thousand-dollar handouts, and to disarm unilaterally. People say the obscene spectacle of altruism’s essence: sacrifice and surrender, It was dramatized in the form of an economic and military program that represented one huge giveaway: of the nation’s wealth - to those who had not earned it; of the nation - to North Vietnam, i.e., to Soviet Russia...

One great value achieved by the election is the fact that it has demonstrated what no poll, survey, or theoretical deduction could have established with certainty: that the American people’s sense of life had not been destroyed by almost a century of subterranean war against it - that it has not been affected by the intellectual-moral collapse engulfing the rest of the world - that Americans errors may permit mounts of wreckage to accumulate, seemingly burying their spirit, but when the chips are down, it will break through and proclaim to the world that this is still the country of freedom and self-esteem.

--Ayn Rand, November 20, 1972
~~~~
There's another paragraph in her essay about "John E. Hazuda Sr., a 42-year-old boilermaker [in Pennsylvania] "who has always voted Democrat" but didn't want McGovern "redistributing" the money he earned...Joe the Plumber!!!

Anonymous said...

Sorry to flood everybody with Ayn Rand, but this paragraph from the above essay is too appropriate not to post:
~~~~~
"It is not the 'idle rich' that the altruists are denouncing now, it is not the 'tycoons of big business' or the 'wolves of Wall Street' - is is plain, average laborers who manage to earn a decent living 'with their backs.' It is no longer a matter of reproaching men for their yachts and Rolls Royces - the altruists are now reproaching them for driving to work in an Oldsmobile. It is no longer an issue of 'taking a little from the rich, they'll never miss it' - it is an issue of forcing a man, after a lifetime of effort, back into the hopeless poverty of the gutter...

And this is called 'idealism' - this is called a doctrine of compassion, of concern, of love for man."
~~~~~
Any wonder why I love Ayn Rand?

joanie said...

E-A-S,

If memory serves me right, you have probably contributed at least a dozen essays to this weblog -- maybe more.

If memory also serves me right, I believe this to be the most insightful, and most brilliant, only because it reflects exactly my view (but written much more powerfully than I could have described it) of the historically unprecedented tragedy unfolding before our eyes.

Your essays that focused on your Normandy pilgrimage were deeply moving, and fraught with powerful historical perspective. But this one has to do with present day history -- an unraveling abomination through which all of us are going to be forced to live. Thus its inherent power.

What you see occurring on the campus of USC is occurring, with few exceptions, on the campus of every major American university: an abandonment of the study of Western civilization, and an embracing of a multi-cultural climate, with special emphasis on instilling in our youth a knowledge of -- even an apprecitaion for -- the Muslim 'religion'.

We are now officially pandering to Islam, to the degree that Christianity had better get out of the way ... or else.

I share your realistic/pessimistic view of the future of our beloved republic.

And I don't blame the left-leaning politicians or their special intersts puppetmasters. Nor do I blame the omnipotent, unelected, unaccountable mainstream media. Neither would wield any power at all if the people cared enough to (1) become acquainted with their noble roots, (2) instruct their children accordingly, and (3) do the research necessary to understand just what their 'leadership' (and prospective 'leadership') genuinely embraces and envisions.

But it ain't happening.

If the 'average American' were to read your essay, his response would probably be one of two things: (1) You need to be more tolerant of Muslims and illegal immigrants, or (2) you viewed all of the situations/events that you described with the jaded eye of the typical Euro-American scum.

Evidence of such sound-bite-instilled indoctrination is everywhere -- but not here, thanks to your willingness to contribute your well-grounded commentary.

As always, it is a genuine privilege to include your writing here on AADB.

I wish you well, friend ...

~ joanie

joanie said...

John,

I, too, believe Ayn Rand was a genius ... and a clairvoyant genius at that.

And I, too, was stirred in reading your excerpt.

But, unlike you, I do not believe it inspires hope that the American spirit is not dead.

I know that even you, a fellow conservative, and a genuine modern American patriot, are even tiring of my pessimistic view of our future. Yet I can't be anything but honest.

It was thirty-six years ago when Rand was discussing the Nixon/McGovern election. We now have nearly two generations of public education indoctrination behind us since she penned those words.

As a result, a much greater percentage of our population is completely ignorant of their proud heritage (and the need to defend the liberties so hard won by their ancestors). A much greater percentage of the population depends for its existence on government largesse (or they at least think they do). And a much greater percentage of the population is made up of foreign nationals who bear no allegiance to our republic (if anything, their mindset is significantly less 'kind').

To my mind, those who talk about 'the American spirit' tend to be those who are understandably hanging onto their own definition of that glorious term. When one takes a good look at the growing number of un-American segments of our society (including in that group natural-born citizens who simply don't give a damn), 'the American spirit' has taken an enormous hit over the past thirty-six years. Those who take genuine pride in embracing that spirit may now even represent a minority of the people living within our borders.

The excerpt, A Liberal Supermajority from the WSJ, that you posted under the previous essay, is bone-chilling. And yet it is evidence of what I am asserting. None of what the author describes will occur under an Obama administration, accompanied by a filibuster-proof congress, would have been even remotely possible thirty-six years ago. Back in the early seventies, the leftist steamroller was certainly in motion, but it had not gain a lot of traction or speed.

Thirty-six years ago, had all three branches of government authored and condoned all of the blatantly unconstitutional power-grabs that have occurred over the past few weeks, resulting in overt fascism and major blows to the free market system (not to mention a final declaration that the Constitution is now, for all intents a purposes, dead), the American public would have been outraged to the point of action.

Not so anymore. We are a passive electorate. And we are going to pay a terrible price.

A final note of contrition: I voted for George McGovern – for many of the same reasons so many young American college students today are voting for Barack Obama: the naivete of youth combined with a woeful ignorance of his history and true ideology. So I tend to criticize today’s Obama-youth with a much more muted tone than I otherwise might ... having been there and done that. :(

Thank you, as always, John, for your invaluable insights (especially, but not exclusively, for sharing Rand’s words). :) You are a modern American patriot, and I am proud to call you my friend.

~ joanie

joanie said...

Thank you, Trevor. I hope you'll continue to return, and write more often as well. :)

~ joanie

Anonymous said...

The inscription on the Statute of Liberty should be changed from
"Give me your tired, your poor,. Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free..."
to "Abandon hope all ye who enter here".

The water in the pot is boiling and, after 4 November, 2008, the gates of hell will be open wider.

Anonymous said...

When I was in college back in the 70's the study of Western Civilization was a required part of any major. Now it's sometimes hard to find a course in Western Civ on major college campuses, and as you say, Scum, the study of Islam and other religions is often required.

When you boil all our problems down to size, that actually says it all. We're abandoning our roots.

Great essay.

Anonymous said...

It’s human nature to want to look for the positive, so people who write things like this essay are looked at as purveyors of gloom. But the gloom is real today. Thank you for your honesty, E-A Scum. Wearing rose colored glasses can be very dangerous these days.

It’s time to hunker down and protect your own. Your government is your enemy.

I hope your health problems improve.

Anonymous said...

Similarly, Masjid Al-Muslimiin (Islamic Center of Columbia)

A friend visited there. It is not just a place a worship.

Anonymous said...

The Daily Trojan also ran an article about how the USC faculty has collectively contributed over $3.5 million to the Obama campaign and only $43,000 to John McCain. And who said university professors were underpaid these days?

That ratio of Obama to McCain supporters (roughly 80 to 1) is carried over into the MSM too, which explains why the public, and our youth, are so heavily indoctrinated.

Thank you for the excellent column. You organize your thoughts and express them very well.

Anonymous said...

John Cooper said . . .

Before we all slit our wrists, let's take a moment to recognize that *the American Spirit is not dead*!


I hope you're right. And I have serious reservations about the totality of Ayn Rand and her objectivist articles of faith. It will have to wait for another day for me to chronicle them in a coherent fashion.

Let's just say she examines only the side of the bread the butter's on and leave it at that for the moment. There are more things in heaven and earth than are dreamt of in her philosophy to paraphrase a scribe eminently more eloquent than I'll ever be on my best day.

Anonymous said...

Kudos to you, Euro-American Scum. You've said it all.

Anonymous said...

cw-patriot said . . .

If the 'average American' were to read your essay, his response would probably be one of two things: (1) You need to be more tolerant of Muslims and illegal immigrants, or (2) you viewed all of the situations/events that you described with the jaded eye of the typical Euro-American scum.


Well, Joanie --

As to (1) above . . . Tolerance has become part of the lexicon of the liberal vernacular. Wow. How could not I afford to be tolerant these days. But, when it comes to the religion of peace and those people who cheat their way into the country for whatever reason, I am tolerant of neither.

Just color me a hate-filled homophobic bigot, I guess.

As to (2) I plead as guilty as I do to the first line item. To view things through the cultural eye of a card-carrying member of western culture, which has built the most prosperous country in the history of civilization, labored at great cost to address all the wrongs inherent in the establishment of any government erected by fallen man . . . good heavens, I should be flogged.

The good news is I figure to be at or near the top of the Obama Enemy's List in short order.

As to this and other contributions being depressing, I just have a hard time burying my head in the sand, pasting a plastic smiley-face on my head and doing a happy-faced hamster dance.

Call me crazy.

Anonymous said...

I hope you're right. And I have serious reservations about the totality of Ayn Rand and her objectivist articles of faith.

Exactly right. She treats the Christian faith and God in a subtly derisive manner, and refuses to believe that others who do not can be right. Other than that, she is quite brilliant.

Anonymous said...

You cannot be President unless you love this country for our worth American principles and traditions, but especially two:

The sovereignty of the people under God and *over* all government and all government agents - and that means, in actual practice.

Limiting government and limiting the powers of government agents.

These two are really the standards of liberty that apply everywhere, and they can never be entirely removed from human life.

"Central planners" (and bureaucrats) whatever form or title or self-importance they have reigned as ... are uncomfortable with such freedom.

The battle for liberty waxes and wanes; sometimes ignored; sometimes a dull roar; and sometimes war.

Always, that should be a lesson for anybody who seeks government office in our country, and who should know better, that:

Our Constitution is a peace treaty.

That is a lesson, and a warning.

First_Salute

Anonymous said...

I have the same feelings about my alma mater. It was a good school when I attended (back in the early 70's) and it's become a liberal indoctrination center over the last 30 years.

Our universities, our public schools, and our media are destroying us.

God bless you, Scum. I hope your illnesses cease and your circumstances improve.

Anonymous said...

First_Salute wrote:

You cannot be President unless you love this country for our worth American principles and traditions, but especially two:

The sovereignty of the people under God and *over* all government and all government agents - and that means, in actual practice.

Limiting government and limiting the powers of government agents.


We haven't had a President since Reagan, and we only had a couple dozen or so before him.

Anonymous said...

"Republican" Colin Powell endorsed Barack Obama today, calling him a "transformational figure."

Colin Powell is the male Oprah.

Anonymous said...

Four years ago this week:

"...a Washington Post poll shows Kerry with a significant lead in important states that could decide the outcome of the election. The poll found Kerry held a 53 per cent to 43 per cent lead among likely voters in 13 such states."

Anonymous said...

To go along with your observations:

Justice Department Targets GOP Activists

Partisan lawyers are running criminal investigations against conservatives who point out that noncitizens shouldn't vote.

Anonymous said...

Cooper, the circumstances between four years ago and today are not comparable.

The number of dead people, nonexistent people, pets, and apparitions who are now registered as compared to then is probably a thousand times more.

The will win this election. Maybe not fairly, but they will win. There's no stopping them anymore. They write the rules. They selectively enforce the rules. And they decide what "facts" are.

joanie said...

First_Salute,

Your 'you cannot be president unless ... ' is beautifully formulated, and it exhibits your patriot mindset and your reverence for the Founders' vision.

But, in a little over two months a man who not only doesn't revere their vision -- a man who actually despises it, and intends to do everything within his power (and then some) to erase it from our national conscience -- will be moving into the White House.

He will also enjoy a filibuster-proof majority in both houses of congress.

Why is that unimaginable event about to take place?

(1) Because the majority of the electorate is ill-informed or uninformed, and they are too lazy to change that state of affairs.

(2) Because major laws have been broken in a callous and cavalier manner, and no one will be held accountable.

Tens, if not hundreds, of millions of dollars, categorized as 'under $200 donations', have been collected by the Obama campaign, and the identities of the donors are not being reported. That behavior is legal, but you know full well that those 'under $200 donations' are simply 'way more than $200 donations' being split up thousands of ways.

Hundreds of thousands (or more) of parakeets, gerbils, dead aunts and uncles, and people yet to be born have been registered to vote. Almost all of them democrats.

ACORN has dumped hundreds of thousands (or more) fraudulent voter registration forms on County Clerks in battleground states, particularly in democrat-heavy precincts in big cities.

On election day, after the polls close, democrat precinct workers have a cup of coffee, make a few phone calls, and watch election returns.

Once the required number of votes is determined, the democrat precinct workers go to work shoving ballots through voting machines using the names of the fraudulently registered 'voters'.

These reliably democrat precincts then report their totals 'late' and overcome any lead the republican has in that state.

The last thing ACORN and the democrats want is for anyone to actually show up at the polls and vote. Real voters are unreliable. Far better that a 'trusted few' handle things.

Those who cast the votes decide nothing. Those who count the votes decide everything ... Josef Stalin

Anonymous said...

It looks like USC is just a microcosm of the country at large.

Thanks for sharing what you're seeing out on the left coast, as depressing as it is. What goes on in California is generally a precursor of what's going to happen in the rest of the country.

I hope your health improves soon.

Anonymous said...

Like any good Roman in the last days of the empire, I’m going to the Coliseum. I don’t know how it got to be 2008, how I came to be irrelevant and obsolete, what happened to my country, and frankly I don’t care. Actually, I do, to all of the above. But brooding about it will do no good at all. It won’t bring the country back, and won’t ease the pain of loss. So, it’s time for bread a circuses. And I mean to enjoy both while I still have time.

Sadly, that's the only way we can maintain our sanity.

Barring the crucifixion, the fall of America may be the most terrible tragedy in the history of the world because of all the ramifications it will bring for mankind.

Anonymous said...

Regarding the economic part of all of this:

There is no means of avoiding the final collapse of a boom brought about by credit expansion. The alternative is only whether the crisis should come sooner as a result of a voluntary abandonment of further credit expansion, or later as a final and total catastrophe of the currency system involved --- Ludwig Von Mises

Anonymous said...

It looks like USC and Columbia are on the same page:

DISORIENTATION
By J. Peter Freire
The American Spectator
October, 2008

When I arrived at Columbia University, I wore jeans, a dress shirt, and a backpack. I did my best to look like a deer in headlights to convey that I was a college freshman. I wasn't, of course. But my disguise lacked both an access card to enter any of the buildings and a yellow orientation badge. Getting into Columbia is tough, but for a conservative journalist, getting into Freshman Orientation was tougher.

The main event was "Community Forum," where first-year students get to "acknowledge the importance of social activism and diversity on campus." The following day would bring a workshop on sexual health called "Consent and You." Who would want to miss them? The orientation packet was reassuring in marketing both the events: "Required of all students."

It's fortunate that I always run into people I know in the strangest places. I bumped into an old friend from college who, amused at my mission, rolled her eyes and got me in. The event speaker, a spunky and "diverse" college veteran, knew the right formula for a multicultural speech. First, she acknowledged how differences have brought people together: "In light of our differences we have all arrived at the same point in time and space..." Then she emphasized the commonality: "...At an academically challenging institution in the heart of New York City..." Next, she passive-aggressively told us to get with the program: "We hope that by the end of the night you'll be able to appreciate the ties that bind together..." She finished by assuring us that each of us was special: "...while celebrating the uniqueness of each individual in the room."

A screen behind the speakers that had previously shown Maya Angelou quotes turned to a painfully earnest video chronicling Columbia's admirable history of "social activism." Highlights included the effort to admit women into the university and (un-ironically) a high-profile lecture featuring Iranian thinker and sometime dictator Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. The video also justified the campus's famous 1960s protests as a response to the deterioration of life in the inner city, the rise of the women's rights movement, and the Vietnam War. These protests, the narrator went on, were peaceful. That would have been a shock to my grandfather, who, on his way to work on the campus during those troubled times, donned riot gear.

The lights came back on. The speaker returned to the podium and called our attention to the variously colored flyers distributed at the beginning of the program. "If you have a green flyer, please stand." She explained that these were randomly distributed but there was enough of every color to represent the proportion of minority groups on campus. It would give students a good visual example of the diversity in the Class of 2012.

Obediently, a number of students stood, scattered across the auditorium, both male and female. "This group represents the number of lesbian students in your class." Both sexes quirked their eyebrows. "And these are the number of Asian Americans in your class." A large swath of the audience stood. Students laughed at a confirmed stereotype, but were told to shush. "And these are the number of African Americans." White students stood sheepishly as a few seated black students cheered.

Orientation leaders approached microphones next to the stage to read admissions essays of anonymous freshmen. One was a girl who self-identified as a boy because her parents didn't want a daughter. Another was handicapped. Another was gay. And another was raised in war-torn Sarajevo, with a childhood marked by the struggle to survive. Faces in the audience continually grew serious. We may have been diverse, but we were united in our empathy for the hardships of those who were more diverse.

One student told me during the freshman scavenger hunt following the program, "It was good to remind people of diversity." Why? I asked. "Uh. Because it brings awareness about others' experiences? That sounds corny, doesn't it." She then ran off to her assigned orientation group.

She was excited, though not by the diversity. She was excited by her new station in life. She had arrived "at this point in time and space" with a bunch of other 18-year-olds. Columbia could hold all the diversity workshops it wanted, but this was a four year sleepover, and these students would enjoy every second of it.

Of course, the mandatory sexual health workshop was another story.

Anonymous said...

calbrindisi said . . .

A screen behind the speakers that had previously shown Maya Angelou quotes turned to a painfully earnest video chronicling Columbia's admirable history of "social activism." . . . The video also justified the campus's famous 1960s protests as a response to the deterioration of life in the inner city, the rise of the women's rights movement, and the Vietnam War.


Can you say Grayson Kirk? You've got him to thank for the chaos at Columbia during those years.