Showing posts with label America. Show all posts
Showing posts with label America. Show all posts
Friday, July 4, 2025
Tuesday, July 4, 2023
Walt's message for the Glorious (?) Fourth of July
I trust the import of Ed.'s remark about a bang-up Fourth of July (especially in Baltimore) was no lost on our readers. What can one say about a country in which there have been, on average, ten (count `em, 10) mass murders every July 4th for the last five years.Walt, Poor Len [and Ed.! Ed.]
What can one say about a country whose large cities -- almost all run by Democratic "administrations" -- are unsafe for straight, law-abiding citizens? What can one say about the "blue states" on the east and left coasts whose sane people are fleeing to the unwoke heartland, where there is a chance of living in peace, without having to keep one eye open while sleeping?
Demented Joe Biden's America is broken (and broke, too). You know it. I know it. Even President Brandon -- "God save the queen, man!", his cronies and arse-kissers, and the lickspittle media know it, although they keep pretending everything is OK.
Walt, Poor Len [and Ed.! Ed.]
wish our American readers and friends
Happy Independence Day.
Please join us in prayer...
Footnote added at 0845: "Five people killed, two children injured in Kingsessing mass shooting; suspect in custody". Philadelphia Inquirer, 4/7/23. Walt's comment: Didn't take long, did it.
Tuesday, August 17, 2021
Patrick Buchanan asks: Is America becoming a failed state?
America is unable to win the wars she chooses to fight.
She cannot or will not control and defend her borders from a mass migrant invasion.
She cannot halt an outbreak of criminality and killing in her great cities.
She has not run a trade surplus in four decades.
Her dependency upon foreign producers is unprecedented.
And her budget deficits continue to break records every year — as does her soaring national debt.
Is that not the description of a failed or failing state?
Excerpted from "Is America Becoming a Failed State?", by Patrick J. Buchanan, Taki's Magazine, 10/8/21 (before the fall of Kabul but after the handwriting was on the wall).
Yes, I know many of our readers are getting tired of seeing pessimistic articles like this, not just in the conservative media but even in the controlled MSM. So let me add that if Mr Buchanan is right [Is there any doubt? Ed.], that doesn't mean the USA is doomed. Patriotic Americans can and must wake up, rise up, and do what must be done to save the country from implosion.
A good place to start would be for those who voted Democrat in 2020 to realize that they made a huge mistake, and resolve to correct it, starting at the mid-term elections, or earlier in places where recall or other special elections will be held. If you love your country, you know what I mean. Do it!
Worth reading! "Endless wars = Endless refugees", by Michelle Malkin, in the UNZ Review, 17/8/21. Quote: "I want you to focus on what's best for Americans on American soil right here. Right now."
Worth watching! "There is no way to more permanently wreck the country!", Tucker Carlson on Fox News, 13/8/21. Spoiler alert: He's talking about mass immigration, which is causing the most profound demographic change in the US of A since the 19th century. The new census figures show 5,000,000 fewer white people than there were ten years ago -- the first decline in the white population since the 19th century!
Quote from Pedro Gonzalez, Associate Editor of Chronicles: White people are being marginalized in America, and you're not supposed to notice that. You're not allowed to talk about it. And if you disagree, then you're a racist!
Tuesday, July 3, 2018
Celebrate Independence Day - America is becoming great again!
HAPPY INDEPENDENCE DAY
to all our American readers
from Walt, Poor Len [and Ed.! Ed.]
Further reading: "The Left needs to face reality: Trump is winning", by Michael Goodwin, New York Post, 30/6/18.
Tuesday, July 4, 2017
Happy Independence Day 2017
WALT WHITEMAN, POOR LEN CANAYEN
[AND ED.! ED.]
WISH ALL OUR AMERICAN
FRIENDS AND READERS
HAPPY INDEPENDENCE DAY!
The swamp isn't drained yet, but a good start has been made!
Support your President; support your country!
Wednesday, January 11, 2017
Signs of life seen in Seattle
From the other side of the world, Agent 29 sends us something à propos, put together by the Little Old Signmaker at Seattle Propane, which you'll find at Wallingford Chevron. Big smile, everyone!
Thursday, November 24, 2016
VIDEO: George Carlin explains why Americans should give thanks
WARNING: THIS VIDEO CONTAINS LANGUAGE WHICH SOME PEOPLE MAY FIND OFFENSIVE.
This seems like an appropriate video for Thanksgiving Day.Don't complain to me that this was recorded a long time ago. Are you going to tell me that America has improved since then? What a pity that George Carlin didn't live to see and comment on this month's election.
Monday, July 4, 2016
HAPPY 240th BIRTHDAY, USA!
WALT WHITEMAN, POOR LEN CANAYEN
[AND ED.! ED.]
WISH ALL OUR AMERICAN
FRIENDS AND READERS
HAPPY INDEPENDENCE DAY!
Tuesday, December 15, 2015
America's Founding Fathers opposed unrestricted immigration
Ed. discourages me from "retweeting" entire columns or articles by other writers. He calls me lazy and asks, if readers can find the original elsewhere, what good does it do to post it here? I agree, and normally will select a few sentences or paragraphs, add a couple of comments, and provide a link to the original piece. Sometimes, though, nothing less than the entire column or article will do. So it is with "Immigration and our Founding Fathers’ values", by Michelle Malkin. I am a regular reader of her blog.
President Obama claims that restricting immigration in order to protect national security is “offensive and contrary to American values.” No-limits liberals have attacked common-sense proposals for heightened visa scrutiny, profiling or immigration slowdowns as “un-American.”
America’s Founding Fathers, I submit, would vehemently disagree.
Our founders, as I’ve reminded readers repeatedly over the years, asserted their concerns publicly and routinely about the effects of indiscriminate mass immigration. They made it clear that the purpose of allowing foreigners into our fledgling nation was not to recruit millions of new voters or to secure permanent ruling majorities for their political parties. It was to preserve, protect and enhance the republic they put their lives on the line to establish.
In a 1790 House debate on naturalization, James Madison opined: “It is no doubt very desirable that we should hold out as many inducements as possible for the worthy part of mankind to come and settle amongst us, and throw their fortunes into a common lot with ours. But why is this desirable?”
No, not because “diversity” is our greatest value. No, not because Big Business needed cheap labor. And no, Madison asserted, “Not merely to swell the catalogue of people. No, sir, it is to increase the wealth and strength of the community; and those who acquire the rights of citizenship, without adding to the strength or wealth of the community are not the people we are in want of.”
Madison argued plainly that America should welcome the immigrant who could assimilate, but exclude the immigrant who could not readily “incorporate himself into our society.”
George Washington, in a letter to John Adams, similarly emphasized that immigrants should be absorbed into American life so that “by an intermixture with our people, they, or their descendants, get assimilated to our customs, measures, laws: in a word soon become one people.”
Alexander Hamilton, relevant as ever today, wrote in 1802: “The safety of a republic depends essentially on the energy of a common national sentiment; on a uniformity of principles and habits; on the exemption of the citizens from foreign bias and prejudice; and on that love of country which will almost invariably be found to be closely connected with birth, education and family.”
Hamilton further warned that “The United States have already felt the evils of incorporating a large number of foreigners into their national mass; by promoting in different classes different predilections in favor of particular foreign nations, and antipathies against others, it has served very much to divide the community and to distract our councils. It has been often likely to compromise the interests of our own country in favor of another.”
He predicted, correctly, that “The permanent effect of such a policy will be, that in times of great public danger there will be always a numerous body of men, of whom there may be just grounds of distrust; the suspicion alone will weaken the strength of the nation, but their force may be actually employed in assisting an invader.”
The survival of the American republic, Hamilton maintained, depends upon “the preservation of a national spirit and a national character.” He asserted, “To admit foreigners indiscriminately to the rights of citizens the moment they put foot in our country would be nothing less than to admit the Grecian horse into the citadel of our liberty and sovereignty.”
On Thursday, a bipartisan majority of U.S. senators on the Senate Judiciary Committee adopted a stunningly radical amendment by Sen. Pat Leahy, D-Vt., to undermine the national interest in favor of suicidal political correctness. The measure would prevent the federal government from ever taking religion into account in immigration and entrance decisions “as such action would be contrary to the fundamental principles on which this Nation was founded.”
This pathway to a global right to migrate runs contrary to our founders’ intentions as well as decades of established immigration law. As Sen. Jeff Sessions, R-Ala., pointed out in a scathing speech opposing the Leahy amendment: “It is well settled that applicants don’t have the constitutional right or civil right to demand entry to the United States. … As leaders, we are to seek the advancement of the Public Interest. While billions of immigrants may benefit by moving to this country, this nation state has only one responsibility. We must decide if such an admission complies with our law and serves our national interest.”
Put simply, unrestricted open borders are unwise, unsafe and un-American. A country that doesn’t value its own citizens and sovereignty first won’t endure as a country for long.
President Obama claims that restricting immigration in order to protect national security is “offensive and contrary to American values.” No-limits liberals have attacked common-sense proposals for heightened visa scrutiny, profiling or immigration slowdowns as “un-American.”
America’s Founding Fathers, I submit, would vehemently disagree.
Our founders, as I’ve reminded readers repeatedly over the years, asserted their concerns publicly and routinely about the effects of indiscriminate mass immigration. They made it clear that the purpose of allowing foreigners into our fledgling nation was not to recruit millions of new voters or to secure permanent ruling majorities for their political parties. It was to preserve, protect and enhance the republic they put their lives on the line to establish.
In a 1790 House debate on naturalization, James Madison opined: “It is no doubt very desirable that we should hold out as many inducements as possible for the worthy part of mankind to come and settle amongst us, and throw their fortunes into a common lot with ours. But why is this desirable?”
No, not because “diversity” is our greatest value. No, not because Big Business needed cheap labor. And no, Madison asserted, “Not merely to swell the catalogue of people. No, sir, it is to increase the wealth and strength of the community; and those who acquire the rights of citizenship, without adding to the strength or wealth of the community are not the people we are in want of.”
Madison argued plainly that America should welcome the immigrant who could assimilate, but exclude the immigrant who could not readily “incorporate himself into our society.”
George Washington, in a letter to John Adams, similarly emphasized that immigrants should be absorbed into American life so that “by an intermixture with our people, they, or their descendants, get assimilated to our customs, measures, laws: in a word soon become one people.”
Alexander Hamilton, relevant as ever today, wrote in 1802: “The safety of a republic depends essentially on the energy of a common national sentiment; on a uniformity of principles and habits; on the exemption of the citizens from foreign bias and prejudice; and on that love of country which will almost invariably be found to be closely connected with birth, education and family.”
Hamilton further warned that “The United States have already felt the evils of incorporating a large number of foreigners into their national mass; by promoting in different classes different predilections in favor of particular foreign nations, and antipathies against others, it has served very much to divide the community and to distract our councils. It has been often likely to compromise the interests of our own country in favor of another.”
He predicted, correctly, that “The permanent effect of such a policy will be, that in times of great public danger there will be always a numerous body of men, of whom there may be just grounds of distrust; the suspicion alone will weaken the strength of the nation, but their force may be actually employed in assisting an invader.”
The survival of the American republic, Hamilton maintained, depends upon “the preservation of a national spirit and a national character.” He asserted, “To admit foreigners indiscriminately to the rights of citizens the moment they put foot in our country would be nothing less than to admit the Grecian horse into the citadel of our liberty and sovereignty.”
On Thursday, a bipartisan majority of U.S. senators on the Senate Judiciary Committee adopted a stunningly radical amendment by Sen. Pat Leahy, D-Vt., to undermine the national interest in favor of suicidal political correctness. The measure would prevent the federal government from ever taking religion into account in immigration and entrance decisions “as such action would be contrary to the fundamental principles on which this Nation was founded.”
This pathway to a global right to migrate runs contrary to our founders’ intentions as well as decades of established immigration law. As Sen. Jeff Sessions, R-Ala., pointed out in a scathing speech opposing the Leahy amendment: “It is well settled that applicants don’t have the constitutional right or civil right to demand entry to the United States. … As leaders, we are to seek the advancement of the Public Interest. While billions of immigrants may benefit by moving to this country, this nation state has only one responsibility. We must decide if such an admission complies with our law and serves our national interest.”
Put simply, unrestricted open borders are unwise, unsafe and un-American. A country that doesn’t value its own citizens and sovereignty first won’t endure as a country for long.
Friday, November 6, 2015
Book review: More on stupidity from Bill Bryson
More on stupidity... More on... Geddit? Moron!
I am working hard [hardly working? Ed.] on a review of Bill Bryson's latest book The Road to Little Dribbling (Penguin Random House/Doubleday 2015). My problem is that I keep running into long(ish) passages that I want to quote verbatim. I've already done that twice this week, and feel I'm now in danger of posting the whole book, a page or two at a time. The publishers wouldn't like that. So I content myself with copying one last excerpt.
An underlying theme of Mr. Bryson's latest "travel" book -- really a text in sociology and philosophy -- is the deep and abiding stupidity into which the world is falling. Although the book is ostensibly about Britain and the British, the author takes a few potshots at America and Americans along the way. (Being an American himself, he's entitled to do so.) Here's his account (from pages 284-285) of a visit to Austin TX.
Going to America always does me good. It's where I'm from, after all. There's baseball on the TV, people are friendly and upbeat, they don't obsess about the weather except when there is weather worth obsessing about, you can have all the ice cubes you want. Above all, visiting America gives me perspective.
Consider two small experiences I had upon arriving at a hotel in downtown Austin, Texas. When I checked in, the clerk needed to record my details, naturally enough, and asked for my home address. Our house [in Britain] doesn't have a street number, just a name, and I have found in the past that that is more deviance than an American computer can sometimes cope with, so I gave our London address. The girl typed in the building number and street name, then said: 'City?'
I replied: 'London.'
'Can you spell that please?'
I looked at her and saw that she wasn't joking. 'L-O-N-D-O-N,' I said.
'Country?'
'England.'
'Can you spell that?'
I spelled England.
She typed for a moment and said: 'The computer won't accept England. Is that a real country?'
I assured her it was. 'Try Britain,' I suggested.
I spelled that, too - twice (we got the wrong number of Ts the first time) - and the computer wouldn't take that either. So I suggested Great Britain, United Kingdom, UK and GB, but those were all rejected, too. I couldn't think of anything else to suggest.
'It'll take France,' the girl said after a minute.
'I beg your pardon?'
'You can have "London, France".'
'Seriously?'
She nodded.
'Well, why not?'
So she typed 'London, France', and the system was happy.
I finished the check-in process and went with my bag and plastic room key to a bank of elevators a few paces away. When the elevator arrived, a young woman was in it already, which I thought a little strange because the elevator had come from one of the upper floors and now we were going back up there again. About five seconds into the ascent, she said to me in a suddenly alert tone: 'Excuse me, was that the lobby back there?'
'That big room with a check-in desk and revolving doors to the street? Why, yes, it was.'
'Shoot,' she said and looked chagrined.
Now I am not for a moment suggesting that these incidents typify Austin, Texas, or America generally or anything like that. But it did get me to thinking that our problems are more serious than I had supposed. When functioning adults can't identify London, England, or a hotel lobby, I think it is time to be concerned. This is clearly a global problem and it's spreading. I am not at all sure how we should tackle such a crisis, but on the basis of what we know so far, I would suggest, as a start, quarantining Texas.
Having now passed on three excerpts from The Road to Little Dribbling, -- this one, "Bill Bryson on declining standards of punctuation and grammar" and "Bill Bryson on rising levels of stupidity" -- perhaps I can be excused from writing only a few more lines in praise of the book.
I'm not sure if Mr. Bryson set out to be a curmudgeon. Perhaps one doesn't "set out" so to do. With me, it just happened naturally as I watched the world around me sink into the muck of tastelessness, political correctness, and the other stupidities of which Mr. B complains. He pokes fun at our Western society and "culture" with a large pitchfork, in the manner of H.L. Mencken, but with even more humour.
The Road to Little Dribbling purports to be a travel book, the genre which Bill Bryson does best. It does describe his zigzag rambles up "the Bryson Line" from the English Channel to Cape Wrath (and considerably beyond), but, as noted before, the book is not so much about places and things -- although both are described in detail and with great wit -- but about people. Like Mark Twain's Innocents Abroad, it is a work of serious philosophical inquiry wrapped in dry humour. Don't fail to read it.
Further reading: Innocents Abroad, by Mark Twain. The Project Gutenberg e-book, FREE.
I am working hard [hardly working? Ed.] on a review of Bill Bryson's latest book The Road to Little Dribbling (Penguin Random House/Doubleday 2015). My problem is that I keep running into long(ish) passages that I want to quote verbatim. I've already done that twice this week, and feel I'm now in danger of posting the whole book, a page or two at a time. The publishers wouldn't like that. So I content myself with copying one last excerpt.
An underlying theme of Mr. Bryson's latest "travel" book -- really a text in sociology and philosophy -- is the deep and abiding stupidity into which the world is falling. Although the book is ostensibly about Britain and the British, the author takes a few potshots at America and Americans along the way. (Being an American himself, he's entitled to do so.) Here's his account (from pages 284-285) of a visit to Austin TX.
Going to America always does me good. It's where I'm from, after all. There's baseball on the TV, people are friendly and upbeat, they don't obsess about the weather except when there is weather worth obsessing about, you can have all the ice cubes you want. Above all, visiting America gives me perspective.
Consider two small experiences I had upon arriving at a hotel in downtown Austin, Texas. When I checked in, the clerk needed to record my details, naturally enough, and asked for my home address. Our house [in Britain] doesn't have a street number, just a name, and I have found in the past that that is more deviance than an American computer can sometimes cope with, so I gave our London address. The girl typed in the building number and street name, then said: 'City?'
I replied: 'London.'
'Can you spell that please?'
I looked at her and saw that she wasn't joking. 'L-O-N-D-O-N,' I said.
'Country?'
'England.'
'Can you spell that?'
I spelled England.
She typed for a moment and said: 'The computer won't accept England. Is that a real country?'
I assured her it was. 'Try Britain,' I suggested.
I spelled that, too - twice (we got the wrong number of Ts the first time) - and the computer wouldn't take that either. So I suggested Great Britain, United Kingdom, UK and GB, but those were all rejected, too. I couldn't think of anything else to suggest.
'It'll take France,' the girl said after a minute.
'I beg your pardon?'
'You can have "London, France".'
'Seriously?'
She nodded.
'Well, why not?'
So she typed 'London, France', and the system was happy.
I finished the check-in process and went with my bag and plastic room key to a bank of elevators a few paces away. When the elevator arrived, a young woman was in it already, which I thought a little strange because the elevator had come from one of the upper floors and now we were going back up there again. About five seconds into the ascent, she said to me in a suddenly alert tone: 'Excuse me, was that the lobby back there?'
'That big room with a check-in desk and revolving doors to the street? Why, yes, it was.'
'Shoot,' she said and looked chagrined.
Now I am not for a moment suggesting that these incidents typify Austin, Texas, or America generally or anything like that. But it did get me to thinking that our problems are more serious than I had supposed. When functioning adults can't identify London, England, or a hotel lobby, I think it is time to be concerned. This is clearly a global problem and it's spreading. I am not at all sure how we should tackle such a crisis, but on the basis of what we know so far, I would suggest, as a start, quarantining Texas.
Having now passed on three excerpts from The Road to Little Dribbling, -- this one, "Bill Bryson on declining standards of punctuation and grammar" and "Bill Bryson on rising levels of stupidity" -- perhaps I can be excused from writing only a few more lines in praise of the book.
I'm not sure if Mr. Bryson set out to be a curmudgeon. Perhaps one doesn't "set out" so to do. With me, it just happened naturally as I watched the world around me sink into the muck of tastelessness, political correctness, and the other stupidities of which Mr. B complains. He pokes fun at our Western society and "culture" with a large pitchfork, in the manner of H.L. Mencken, but with even more humour.
The Road to Little Dribbling purports to be a travel book, the genre which Bill Bryson does best. It does describe his zigzag rambles up "the Bryson Line" from the English Channel to Cape Wrath (and considerably beyond), but, as noted before, the book is not so much about places and things -- although both are described in detail and with great wit -- but about people. Like Mark Twain's Innocents Abroad, it is a work of serious philosophical inquiry wrapped in dry humour. Don't fail to read it.
Further reading: Innocents Abroad, by Mark Twain. The Project Gutenberg e-book, FREE.
Saturday, July 4, 2015
God bless America!
Happy Independence Day
to all our American readers
from
Walt and Poor Len
[and Ed.! Ed.]
God save the United States of America!
Saturday, March 14, 2015
VIDEO: Rusty Humphries sings "Sneakin' into the USA"
There's just soooo much stuff floating around the Internet that Walt, even with the assistance of Poor Len [and Ed.! Ed.] can't keep up with it. What would I do without the assistance of my Agents and assiduous readers. Thanks to one of the above, who shall remain anonymous, for sending along the link to this very cogent comment on illegal immigration to the Land of the Somewhat Free and Occasionally Brave.
Walt agrees! It's time to take back America! Click here to visit Sheriff Joe Arpaio's website (WOBC2.com) and get your kit. Lots of good links there too -- "birther" sites and others of interest to searching souls, frustrated taxpayers and individuals who are troubled by corrupt big government and complacent, enabling lamestream media.
Walt agrees! It's time to take back America! Click here to visit Sheriff Joe Arpaio's website (WOBC2.com) and get your kit. Lots of good links there too -- "birther" sites and others of interest to searching souls, frustrated taxpayers and individuals who are troubled by corrupt big government and complacent, enabling lamestream media.
Sunday, December 7, 2014
Book review: Bill Bryson's latest pleases and amazes
"It was one hell of a summer." So begins the last clause of the last sentence of the last chapter (bar the epilogue) of Bill Bryson's latest tour de force, One Summer: America 1927 (Doubleday 2013), which Walt recommends most highly.
Bill Bryson is one of my favourite writers. But it must be said that the quality and "interest quotient" of his earlier works (especially his travel books) is more consistently good than that of his more recent writing. Of all his books, I can think of only three that I haven't particularly enjoyed. Two of those -- A Short History of Nearly Everything and At Home -- are among the more recent.
So it was with a bit of doubt that I laid out the spondulix (Bryson would love that word) for One Summer, wondering if I might later suffer from buyer's remorse. I didn't.
Although the dust jacket illustration of the Spirit of St. Louis, a baseball player and a flapper should have tipped me off, I also wondered what happened in the summer of 1927 that merited a whole long(ish) book. Here, from the last chapter (bar the epilogue) is the answer.
Babe Ruth hit sixty home runs. The Federal Reserve made the mistake that precipitated the stock market crash. Al Capone enjoyed his last summer of eminence. The Jazz Singer was filmed. Television was created. Radio came of age. Sacco and Vanzetti were executed. President Coolidge chose not to run. Work began on Mount Rushmore. The Mississippi flooded as it never had before. A madman in Michigan blew up a school and killed forty-four people in the worst slaughter of children in American history. Henry Ford stopped making the Model T and promised to stop insulting Jews. And a kid from Minnesota flew across an ocean and captivated the planet in a way it had never been captivated before.
The kid, of course, was Charles Lindbergh. One Summer begins and ends with him. In between, Mr. Bryson manages -- this is the amazing part -- to tie together all of the events and personalities mentioned above, as well as countless others of lesser note. The depth and detail of his narrative is astounding. Besides being a voracious reader, I believe he must have had at least one very good research assistant. [Hey! Is that a dig at me? Ed.]
It is a tribute to Bill Bryson's skill as a writer that, although One Summer runs to 458 pages -- plus notes, suggestions for further reading, a bibliography and index! -- I found it a fast-paced and entertaining read. It's part social history, part biography, and part pure story-telling. And, as they say, the whole is much more than the sum of its parts. Best new book I've read this year.
Post scriptum et caveat: It must be said that some fairly large chunks of One Summer -- particularly the story of Charles Lindbergh -- have been, errr, recycled from Made in America (Martin Secker & Warburg, 1994). But since Made in America antedates the travel books that made Bill Bryson famous, many of you may not have read it. And even if you did, Mr. Bryson is such a good storyteller that you won't mind a rerun.
Bill Bryson is one of my favourite writers. But it must be said that the quality and "interest quotient" of his earlier works (especially his travel books) is more consistently good than that of his more recent writing. Of all his books, I can think of only three that I haven't particularly enjoyed. Two of those -- A Short History of Nearly Everything and At Home -- are among the more recent.
So it was with a bit of doubt that I laid out the spondulix (Bryson would love that word) for One Summer, wondering if I might later suffer from buyer's remorse. I didn't.
Although the dust jacket illustration of the Spirit of St. Louis, a baseball player and a flapper should have tipped me off, I also wondered what happened in the summer of 1927 that merited a whole long(ish) book. Here, from the last chapter (bar the epilogue) is the answer.
Babe Ruth hit sixty home runs. The Federal Reserve made the mistake that precipitated the stock market crash. Al Capone enjoyed his last summer of eminence. The Jazz Singer was filmed. Television was created. Radio came of age. Sacco and Vanzetti were executed. President Coolidge chose not to run. Work began on Mount Rushmore. The Mississippi flooded as it never had before. A madman in Michigan blew up a school and killed forty-four people in the worst slaughter of children in American history. Henry Ford stopped making the Model T and promised to stop insulting Jews. And a kid from Minnesota flew across an ocean and captivated the planet in a way it had never been captivated before.
The kid, of course, was Charles Lindbergh. One Summer begins and ends with him. In between, Mr. Bryson manages -- this is the amazing part -- to tie together all of the events and personalities mentioned above, as well as countless others of lesser note. The depth and detail of his narrative is astounding. Besides being a voracious reader, I believe he must have had at least one very good research assistant. [Hey! Is that a dig at me? Ed.]
It is a tribute to Bill Bryson's skill as a writer that, although One Summer runs to 458 pages -- plus notes, suggestions for further reading, a bibliography and index! -- I found it a fast-paced and entertaining read. It's part social history, part biography, and part pure story-telling. And, as they say, the whole is much more than the sum of its parts. Best new book I've read this year.
Post scriptum et caveat: It must be said that some fairly large chunks of One Summer -- particularly the story of Charles Lindbergh -- have been, errr, recycled from Made in America (Martin Secker & Warburg, 1994). But since Made in America antedates the travel books that made Bill Bryson famous, many of you may not have read it. And even if you did, Mr. Bryson is such a good storyteller that you won't mind a rerun.
Saturday, October 18, 2014
Book review: Matt Taibbi explains why, in the new American ghetto, voting doesn't matter
In "Why Hong Kong's 'umbrella revolution' matters", Walt said The people of China would love to have the freedom of the ballot. Some are prepared to die for it. If you have it and don't use it, don't be surprised if one day you lose it.
Seemed like an irrefutable argument to me, until Agent 3 thrust into my hands a copy of Griftopia, by Matt Taibbi (Spiegel & Grau, 2010). In this eminently readable book, Mr. Taibbi dips his pen in vitriol and deconstructs the financial crisis of 2008-9 in language that even a non-economist like Walt can understand. He shows how the rise, fall, and rescue of Wall Street was the work of the network of crooks, grifters and looters who sit at the nexus of American political and economic power.
However, Griftopia is more than an angry condemnation of the past. The author predicts that, with the grifters even more in control now than ever before, the whole maggot-gagging scenario is bound to be repeated again -- an argument that Walt finds thoroughly convincing in light of this weeks gut-wrenching ride on the Wall Street roller coaster.
I don't normally copy lengthy quotes from books I recommend, but I found the description and explanation of the new American ghetto -- the one Mr. Taibbi says we are powerless to change -- so compelling that I'm going to break my rule [You mean my rule! Ed.] Here are more than a few choice words from the introductory chapter.
In the new American ghetto, the nightmare engine is bubble economics, a kind of high-tech casino scam that kills neighborhoods just like dope does, only the product is credit, not crack of heroin. It concentrates the the money of the population in just a few hands with brutal efficiency, just like narco-business, and just as in narco-business the product itself, debt, steadily demoralizes the customer to the point where he's unable to prevent himself from being continually dominated.
In the ghetto, nobody gets real dreams. What they get are short-term rip-off versions of real dreams. You don't get real wealth, with a home, credit, a yard, money for your kids' college -- you get a fake symbol of wealth, a gold chain, a Fendi bag, a tricked-out car you bought with cash. Nobody gets to be really rich for long, but you do get to be pretend rich, for a few days, weeks, maybe even a few months. It makes you feel better to wear that gold, but when real criminals drive by on the overpass, they laugh.
It's the same in our new ghetto. We don't get real political movements and real change; what we get, instead, are crass show-business manipulations whose followers' aspirations are every bit as laughable and desperate as the wealth dreams of the street hustler with his gold rope. What we get, in other words, are moderates who don't question the corporate consensus dressed up as revolutionary leaders, like Barack Obama, and wonderfully captive opposition diversions like the Tea Party -- the latter a fake movement for real peasants....
The new America...is fast becoming a vast ghetto in which all of us, conservatives and progressives, are being bled dry by a relatively tiny oligarchy of extremely clever financial criminals and their castrato henchmen in government, whose main job is to be good actors on TV and put on a good show.
This invisible hive of high-class thieves stays in business because when we're not completely distracted and exhausted by our work and entertainments, we prefer not to ponder the dilemma of why gasoline went over four dollars a gallon, why our pension funds just lost 20 percent of their value, or why when we do the right thing by saving money, we keep being punished by interest rates that hover near zero, while banks that have been the opposite of prudent get rewarded with free billions.
In reality political power is simply taken from most of us by a grubby kind of fiat, in little fractions of a percent here and there each and every day, through a thousand separate transactions that take place in fine print and in the margins of a vast social mechanism that most of us are simply not conscious of.
Wow! Scary. And depressing. All the same,Griftopia is essential reading for anyone who wants to understand the labyrinthine inner workings of politics and finance in the Excited States of America. If you read it, at least you'll understand what's going on as the country discovers it can't awaken from Mr. Taibbi's nightmare.
Also recommended: On the same general theme -- why America is going to hell in a handbasket -- Walt recommends Mark Steyn's After America (Regnery Publishing, 2011). He and Matt Taibbi were writing at almost the same time, about the same subject. Although they approach the issue of America's decline and fall from opposing ends of the political spectrum, they reach the same depressing conclusion. Could they be wrong? Can Americans give their heads a shake, get rid of the grifters and restore the nation to its former greatness? Walt wouldn't be on it. Lifetime pct .947.
Seemed like an irrefutable argument to me, until Agent 3 thrust into my hands a copy of Griftopia, by Matt Taibbi (Spiegel & Grau, 2010). In this eminently readable book, Mr. Taibbi dips his pen in vitriol and deconstructs the financial crisis of 2008-9 in language that even a non-economist like Walt can understand. He shows how the rise, fall, and rescue of Wall Street was the work of the network of crooks, grifters and looters who sit at the nexus of American political and economic power.
However, Griftopia is more than an angry condemnation of the past. The author predicts that, with the grifters even more in control now than ever before, the whole maggot-gagging scenario is bound to be repeated again -- an argument that Walt finds thoroughly convincing in light of this weeks gut-wrenching ride on the Wall Street roller coaster.
I don't normally copy lengthy quotes from books I recommend, but I found the description and explanation of the new American ghetto -- the one Mr. Taibbi says we are powerless to change -- so compelling that I'm going to break my rule [You mean my rule! Ed.] Here are more than a few choice words from the introductory chapter.
In the new American ghetto, the nightmare engine is bubble economics, a kind of high-tech casino scam that kills neighborhoods just like dope does, only the product is credit, not crack of heroin. It concentrates the the money of the population in just a few hands with brutal efficiency, just like narco-business, and just as in narco-business the product itself, debt, steadily demoralizes the customer to the point where he's unable to prevent himself from being continually dominated.
In the ghetto, nobody gets real dreams. What they get are short-term rip-off versions of real dreams. You don't get real wealth, with a home, credit, a yard, money for your kids' college -- you get a fake symbol of wealth, a gold chain, a Fendi bag, a tricked-out car you bought with cash. Nobody gets to be really rich for long, but you do get to be pretend rich, for a few days, weeks, maybe even a few months. It makes you feel better to wear that gold, but when real criminals drive by on the overpass, they laugh.
It's the same in our new ghetto. We don't get real political movements and real change; what we get, instead, are crass show-business manipulations whose followers' aspirations are every bit as laughable and desperate as the wealth dreams of the street hustler with his gold rope. What we get, in other words, are moderates who don't question the corporate consensus dressed up as revolutionary leaders, like Barack Obama, and wonderfully captive opposition diversions like the Tea Party -- the latter a fake movement for real peasants....
The new America...is fast becoming a vast ghetto in which all of us, conservatives and progressives, are being bled dry by a relatively tiny oligarchy of extremely clever financial criminals and their castrato henchmen in government, whose main job is to be good actors on TV and put on a good show.
This invisible hive of high-class thieves stays in business because when we're not completely distracted and exhausted by our work and entertainments, we prefer not to ponder the dilemma of why gasoline went over four dollars a gallon, why our pension funds just lost 20 percent of their value, or why when we do the right thing by saving money, we keep being punished by interest rates that hover near zero, while banks that have been the opposite of prudent get rewarded with free billions.
In reality political power is simply taken from most of us by a grubby kind of fiat, in little fractions of a percent here and there each and every day, through a thousand separate transactions that take place in fine print and in the margins of a vast social mechanism that most of us are simply not conscious of.
Wow! Scary. And depressing. All the same,Griftopia is essential reading for anyone who wants to understand the labyrinthine inner workings of politics and finance in the Excited States of America. If you read it, at least you'll understand what's going on as the country discovers it can't awaken from Mr. Taibbi's nightmare.
Also recommended: On the same general theme -- why America is going to hell in a handbasket -- Walt recommends Mark Steyn's After America (Regnery Publishing, 2011). He and Matt Taibbi were writing at almost the same time, about the same subject. Although they approach the issue of America's decline and fall from opposing ends of the political spectrum, they reach the same depressing conclusion. Could they be wrong? Can Americans give their heads a shake, get rid of the grifters and restore the nation to its former greatness? Walt wouldn't be on it. Lifetime pct .947.
Monday, May 19, 2014
"If ignorance is catching, it's time to quarantine the USA"
Ed. here (again) with an absolute must-read for you! "America dumbs down" is from the current edition of Maclean's magazine, a Canadian publication. I can already hear some of our American readers whining (again) that Walt seems to give a lot of space to Canadians mocking America and Americans. This article, by Jonathon Gatehouse, is not mockery. Rather, the author describes the "advance of ignorance and irrationalism in the USA".
Dear American friends, Gatehouse is just holding up a mirror, so you can see what your country looks like these days. "The U.S. is being overrun by a wave of anti-science, anti-intellectual thinking," he writes. "Has the most powerful nation on Earth lost its mind?" If foreigners are distressed about what the USA is becoming, you should be even more so!
"The term 'elitist' has become one of the most used, and feared, insults in American life," Gatehouse writes, as a preface to this quote from Catherine Liu, the author of American Idyll: Academic Antielitism as Cultural Critique "There’s a pervasive suspicion of rights, privileges, knowledge and specialization.... We don’t educate people anymore. We train them to get jobs."
And who's to blame? The baby boomers -- "so triumphalist in promoting pop culture and demoting the canon", according to Liu -- and the lamestream media and politicians who pander to them. And the Internet -- the lamest medium of all -- just makes it worse!
Gatehouse argues that "The digital revolution, which has brought boundless access to information and entertainment choices, has somehow only enhanced the lowest common denominators—LOL cat videos and the Kardashians. Instead of educating themselves via the Internet, most people simply use it to validate what they already suspect, wish or believe to be true."
Another scathing critique of the deep and abiding stupidity into which the West has fallen. Read it. You're welcome.
Dear American friends, Gatehouse is just holding up a mirror, so you can see what your country looks like these days. "The U.S. is being overrun by a wave of anti-science, anti-intellectual thinking," he writes. "Has the most powerful nation on Earth lost its mind?" If foreigners are distressed about what the USA is becoming, you should be even more so!
"The term 'elitist' has become one of the most used, and feared, insults in American life," Gatehouse writes, as a preface to this quote from Catherine Liu, the author of American Idyll: Academic Antielitism as Cultural Critique "There’s a pervasive suspicion of rights, privileges, knowledge and specialization.... We don’t educate people anymore. We train them to get jobs."
And who's to blame? The baby boomers -- "so triumphalist in promoting pop culture and demoting the canon", according to Liu -- and the lamestream media and politicians who pander to them. And the Internet -- the lamest medium of all -- just makes it worse!
Gatehouse argues that "The digital revolution, which has brought boundless access to information and entertainment choices, has somehow only enhanced the lowest common denominators—LOL cat videos and the Kardashians. Instead of educating themselves via the Internet, most people simply use it to validate what they already suspect, wish or believe to be true."
Another scathing critique of the deep and abiding stupidity into which the West has fallen. Read it. You're welcome.
Monday, November 11, 2013
USA "the brokiest brokey broke nation in the history of the world"
One of Walt's favourite socio-political writers, Mark Steyn, is thinking seriously of moving back to Canada. He left the Great Not-so-white North in a huff, after having to defend himself before Canada's kangaroo court [Human Rights Commission, surely! Ed.] against charges of racism related to his warnings that the West risks being overrun by militant by Muslims.
His most recent books -- best-sellers highly recommended by Walt -- are America Alone: The End of the World as We Know It, and After America: Get Ready for Armageddon. Reading between the lines of an interview with the Notional Post last week, Walt senses that Mr. Steyn has given up sounding the alarm and calling for a return to small government and economic discipline. In his opinion, changing the direction of the Obama maladministration will be very difficult. "America is the brokiest brokey broke nation in the history of the world," he told Jan Gerson. Here's more from the interview; the emphasis is Walt's.
Q: Let’s have that discussion about how terrible things are about to get: Brokiest broke of all the brokiest countries in the world.
A: On its present trajectory, America is looking at $20-trillion debt by the time this president leaves office, just the federal debt. That will mean the 44th president has run up more debt than the previous 43 presidents combined. It was $10-trillion when he took office. No one has ever spent that much in the history of the planet. And he has nothing to show for it.
The question then becomes, is serious political course correction possible in the United States? And I think the answer to that is very difficult. The question then is whether the rest of the developed world sits back and watches America drag everybody else over the cliff, or whether they start making plans, as Australia and certain other countries are doing, for the post-American world.
The post-Second World War American order is over. [The West] didn’t ask for [this]. The Americans did this to us; we didn’t do it to them. But, you know, it’s a new world out there and we have to look for other partners.
Q: When do we know that we’ve reached the tipping point of the end of the American age?
A: Goldman Sachs thinks that China will become the world’s biggest economic power sometime around 2016. In other words, and if that year is right, let’s just suppose for the sake of the argument it is, it means Barack Obama will end his term in a position no president has been in since Grover Cleveland. We’re in a post-American world. And at that point the question is whether it’s a gentle decline, like for the European empires after the Second World War, or whether it’s, you know, Mad Max on Interstate 95.
His most recent books -- best-sellers highly recommended by Walt -- are America Alone: The End of the World as We Know It, and After America: Get Ready for Armageddon. Reading between the lines of an interview with the Notional Post last week, Walt senses that Mr. Steyn has given up sounding the alarm and calling for a return to small government and economic discipline. In his opinion, changing the direction of the Obama maladministration will be very difficult. "America is the brokiest brokey broke nation in the history of the world," he told Jan Gerson. Here's more from the interview; the emphasis is Walt's.
Q: Let’s have that discussion about how terrible things are about to get: Brokiest broke of all the brokiest countries in the world.
A: On its present trajectory, America is looking at $20-trillion debt by the time this president leaves office, just the federal debt. That will mean the 44th president has run up more debt than the previous 43 presidents combined. It was $10-trillion when he took office. No one has ever spent that much in the history of the planet. And he has nothing to show for it.
The question then becomes, is serious political course correction possible in the United States? And I think the answer to that is very difficult. The question then is whether the rest of the developed world sits back and watches America drag everybody else over the cliff, or whether they start making plans, as Australia and certain other countries are doing, for the post-American world.
The post-Second World War American order is over. [The West] didn’t ask for [this]. The Americans did this to us; we didn’t do it to them. But, you know, it’s a new world out there and we have to look for other partners.
Q: When do we know that we’ve reached the tipping point of the end of the American age?
A: Goldman Sachs thinks that China will become the world’s biggest economic power sometime around 2016. In other words, and if that year is right, let’s just suppose for the sake of the argument it is, it means Barack Obama will end his term in a position no president has been in since Grover Cleveland. We’re in a post-American world. And at that point the question is whether it’s a gentle decline, like for the European empires after the Second World War, or whether it’s, you know, Mad Max on Interstate 95.
Monday, October 7, 2013
American then (25 years ago) and now
Louis "Studs" Terkel was born in New York into a family of Russian Jewish immigrants in 1912. Although he graduated from Chicago Law School, he never practised, becoming instead a radio DJ, sports commentator, TV emcee, host of a long-running radio talk show, and -- most notably -- a historian, author and veritable national treasure. He died almost five years ago.
Although arguably a member of an educated minority elite, Mr. Terkel had a profound empathy with the working class, the poor and the oppressed. He was an archtype of what I call the "Volvo liberal", the kind who can be found in the van of anti-poverty, anti-racism, anti-business, anti-government movements anywhere and everywhere in the USA. In the old days, he would have been targetted by the House Unamerican Activities Committee. Today he would be out there protesting against the Keystone pipeline, the "homophobic" Olympics, the G8 and the G20.
You may wonder, then, why Walt recommends that you read (or reread) The Great Divide: Second Thoughts on the American Dream. Walt is a social conservative and a political libertarian. [No kidding! Ed.] But it seems to me that ultra-liberals like Studs Terkel and libertarians like (say) Ron Paul, differ only in their approaches to the same problem. That problem is the plight of the working (and non-working) poor -- those at the bottom of the economic and social heap. That's what The Great Divide is all about.
Mr. Terkel's great gift was the ability to listen. The Great Divide is, like most of his books, a collection of stories of the lives of ordinary people, describing the America in which they lived. You'll hear, in their own words, the complaints and frustrations (but also the hopes and dreams) of farmers, welfare moms, bartenders, minimum wage earners, aimless young people, manual labourers and disillusioned teachers. Mr. Terkel hears and transcribes the voices of those struggling to just get by. He hears America talking.
The Great Divide was written in the mid-80s and published in 1988. Some of the movements and organizations mentioned have faded into obscurity. Who remembers the Sanctuary Movement, or the FLAG (Farmers Legal Action Group)? They've given up fighting against "the system". Now we have other, more sinister pressure groups on the right as well as the left.
Meanwhile, the poor -- as Our Lord told us would be the case -- are still with us. And there are more of them. The rich get richer and the poor get poorer. Lately it has become fashionable to talk about the Gini coefficient. [Indeed `tis the sole subject of talk down at t' pub. Ed.]
C'mon, pay attention! The Gini coefficient is a commonly used measure of inequality of income or wealth. A Gini coefficient of zero expresses perfect equality, where everyone has an exactly equal income. [In our dreams! Ed.] A Gini coefficient of one expresses maximal inequality, for example where only one person has all the income. [In our office! Ed.] Here's a map that makes a telling point.
In 2008-9, the countries of the Dark Continent had the highest Gini coefficients, with South Africa the world's highest at 0.7. (The coming of "majority rule" in 1994 was supposed to fix that, but there you are.) In 2005, the global income inequality Gini coefficient -- for all human beings taken together -- was estimated at between 0.61 and 0.68. But forget the rest of the world and forget the numbers. Just take a look at the shade of colour in which the USA is painted, compared with the lighter shades for Australia, Britain, Canada and even Mongolia! Get the picture?
Walt's point is that in the quarter-century since the publication of The Great Divide, nothing has changed. Indeed, things -- including inequality of income -- have gotten worse.
Studs Terkel was inclined to blame the Republicans, and the policies of the Reagan era. But since then we've had the Republican Bushes (pater et filius) and the Democratic Clinton and Obama administrations (two of each, with another Clinton on the horizon), so let us not kid ourselves that either party has the answers.
"The system" is broken. Millions of Americans are in want, struggling not just to get by, but to survive! Some of them are the authors of their own misfortune, but Walt believes the majority are like the good people described in The Great Divide. They want better lives -- "better" meaning at least a modicum of security and freedom from hunger -- and have done their best to pick themselves up by the bootstraps, the way "the system" preaches.
Get a good education, get a good job, work hard, play by the rules, and you'll get your reward. Anyway -- including our political "leaders" -- who thinks this is true is not listening. At least, they're not listening with the empathetic ear of Studs Terkel. Read the book.
The Great Divide was published in 1988 by Pantheon Books, New York. Other worthwhile books by Studs Terkel include Division Street: America, Hard Times, Working, Talking To Myself, American Dreams: Lost and Found and The Good War (1985), for which he won the Pulitzer Prize for General Non-Fiction. "In American Dreams," said critic John Leonard, "Mr. Terkel, a superb editor as well as the ideal listener,...becomes Walt Whitman."
Although arguably a member of an educated minority elite, Mr. Terkel had a profound empathy with the working class, the poor and the oppressed. He was an archtype of what I call the "Volvo liberal", the kind who can be found in the van of anti-poverty, anti-racism, anti-business, anti-government movements anywhere and everywhere in the USA. In the old days, he would have been targetted by the House Unamerican Activities Committee. Today he would be out there protesting against the Keystone pipeline, the "homophobic" Olympics, the G8 and the G20.
You may wonder, then, why Walt recommends that you read (or reread) The Great Divide: Second Thoughts on the American Dream. Walt is a social conservative and a political libertarian. [No kidding! Ed.] But it seems to me that ultra-liberals like Studs Terkel and libertarians like (say) Ron Paul, differ only in their approaches to the same problem. That problem is the plight of the working (and non-working) poor -- those at the bottom of the economic and social heap. That's what The Great Divide is all about.
Mr. Terkel's great gift was the ability to listen. The Great Divide is, like most of his books, a collection of stories of the lives of ordinary people, describing the America in which they lived. You'll hear, in their own words, the complaints and frustrations (but also the hopes and dreams) of farmers, welfare moms, bartenders, minimum wage earners, aimless young people, manual labourers and disillusioned teachers. Mr. Terkel hears and transcribes the voices of those struggling to just get by. He hears America talking.
The Great Divide was written in the mid-80s and published in 1988. Some of the movements and organizations mentioned have faded into obscurity. Who remembers the Sanctuary Movement, or the FLAG (Farmers Legal Action Group)? They've given up fighting against "the system". Now we have other, more sinister pressure groups on the right as well as the left.
Meanwhile, the poor -- as Our Lord told us would be the case -- are still with us. And there are more of them. The rich get richer and the poor get poorer. Lately it has become fashionable to talk about the Gini coefficient. [Indeed `tis the sole subject of talk down at t' pub. Ed.]
C'mon, pay attention! The Gini coefficient is a commonly used measure of inequality of income or wealth. A Gini coefficient of zero expresses perfect equality, where everyone has an exactly equal income. [In our dreams! Ed.] A Gini coefficient of one expresses maximal inequality, for example where only one person has all the income. [In our office! Ed.] Here's a map that makes a telling point.
In 2008-9, the countries of the Dark Continent had the highest Gini coefficients, with South Africa the world's highest at 0.7. (The coming of "majority rule" in 1994 was supposed to fix that, but there you are.) In 2005, the global income inequality Gini coefficient -- for all human beings taken together -- was estimated at between 0.61 and 0.68. But forget the rest of the world and forget the numbers. Just take a look at the shade of colour in which the USA is painted, compared with the lighter shades for Australia, Britain, Canada and even Mongolia! Get the picture?
Walt's point is that in the quarter-century since the publication of The Great Divide, nothing has changed. Indeed, things -- including inequality of income -- have gotten worse.
Studs Terkel was inclined to blame the Republicans, and the policies of the Reagan era. But since then we've had the Republican Bushes (pater et filius) and the Democratic Clinton and Obama administrations (two of each, with another Clinton on the horizon), so let us not kid ourselves that either party has the answers.
"The system" is broken. Millions of Americans are in want, struggling not just to get by, but to survive! Some of them are the authors of their own misfortune, but Walt believes the majority are like the good people described in The Great Divide. They want better lives -- "better" meaning at least a modicum of security and freedom from hunger -- and have done their best to pick themselves up by the bootstraps, the way "the system" preaches.
Get a good education, get a good job, work hard, play by the rules, and you'll get your reward. Anyway -- including our political "leaders" -- who thinks this is true is not listening. At least, they're not listening with the empathetic ear of Studs Terkel. Read the book.
The Great Divide was published in 1988 by Pantheon Books, New York. Other worthwhile books by Studs Terkel include Division Street: America, Hard Times, Working, Talking To Myself, American Dreams: Lost and Found and The Good War (1985), for which he won the Pulitzer Prize for General Non-Fiction. "In American Dreams," said critic John Leonard, "Mr. Terkel, a superb editor as well as the ideal listener,...becomes Walt Whitman."
Friday, July 5, 2013
Canada and America - a comparison in song
Well, we've had quite a week... Canada Day on the 1st, the Glorious Fourth on the 4th [Duh! Ed.], and a bit of sniping across the border by Montréal mayoral candidate Michel Brûlé. Walt [and Ed.!] hope that readers don't think that all Canadians regard Americans as "big, obese, imbecilic, ignorant, uncultured dummies".
Perish the thought! Most Canucks quite like their southern neighbours. It's just that they (the Canucks) feel obliged to point out (especially in July) that there is a difference between the two countries. Thanks to Agent 6, we are able to bring you a comparison in song.
Which country is better? The view from the top of the Peace Arch is kind of hazy...
Perish the thought! Most Canucks quite like their southern neighbours. It's just that they (the Canucks) feel obliged to point out (especially in July) that there is a difference between the two countries. Thanks to Agent 6, we are able to bring you a comparison in song.
Which country is better? The view from the top of the Peace Arch is kind of hazy...
Thursday, July 4, 2013
4th of July greetings from Walt [and Ed.] !!!
Happy Independence Day
to all our American readers
from Walt [and Ed.!]
Sunday, December 2, 2012
Obama won. What do we do now?
It would appear that America has voted for another four years of free drugs, forced abortion and compulsory homosexuality. [Over-egging the pudding a bit, aren't you? Ed.] Well, OK, maybe it's not quite as bad as that. Yet there's no denying that the libertarian message of individual freedom, fiscal responsibility and an end to foreign entanglements has yet to be heeded by the majority of US voters.
What now, then? Who will lead the fight to get the American people to wake up to reality? Here's the reality!
To go along with endorsing a never-ending policy of bailouts, "stimulus packages," and foreign military adventurism, the establishment of neither major party questions the assaults on Americans’ liberties....
As my campaign showed, the American people are fed up. Many realized heading into Tuesday that regardless of who won the presidential election, the status quo would be the real victor.
GOP leadership is now questioning why they didn’t perform better. They’re looking at demographic changes in the United States and implying minorities can only be brought into the party by loudly advocating for abandoning what little remains of their limited government platform and endorsing more statist policies.
My presidential campaign proved that standing for freedom brings people together.
Liberty is popular – regardless of race, religion, or creed.
A renewed respect for liberty is the only way forward for...our country.
But who will champion the cause of liberty? Ron Paul decided not to run as an Independent this year. He explains why in this interview.
Yet in the Republican primaries and the runup to the election, Mr. Paul achieved great success by changing the conversation and spreading the message of liberty. More and more people are waking up to the realization that the system is bankrupt and that the illusion of endless spending and easy money has come to an end.
But now Ron Paul is retiring from Congress. He's on his way back to Texas for good, of so he says. Last week he gave a farewell address from the House floor, repeating the small-government sermon he succeeded in injecting into the national debate. Here are two excerpts from his 48-minute address:
"If it's not accepted that big government, fiat money, ignoring liberty, central economic planning, welfarism, and warfarism caused our crisis we can expect a continuous and dangerous march toward corporatism and even fascism with even more loss of our liberties."
Mr. Paul tells us that the responsibility for finding the solution to what ails America falls on each and every individual.
"The #1 responsibility for each of us is to change ourselves with hope that others will follow. This is of greater importance than working on changing the government; that is secondary to promoting a virtuous society. If we can achieve this, then the government will change."
And here's the entire speech... all 48 minutes... well worth listening to in its entirety.
What now, then? Who will lead the fight to get the American people to wake up to reality? Here's the reality!
- America is over $16 trillion in debt. The "official" unemployment rate still hovers around 8%.
- The US government claims the right to spy on American citizens, indefinitely detain them, and even assassinate them without trial.
- Domestic drones fly over the country for civilian surveillance.
To go along with endorsing a never-ending policy of bailouts, "stimulus packages," and foreign military adventurism, the establishment of neither major party questions the assaults on Americans’ liberties....
As my campaign showed, the American people are fed up. Many realized heading into Tuesday that regardless of who won the presidential election, the status quo would be the real victor.
GOP leadership is now questioning why they didn’t perform better. They’re looking at demographic changes in the United States and implying minorities can only be brought into the party by loudly advocating for abandoning what little remains of their limited government platform and endorsing more statist policies.
My presidential campaign proved that standing for freedom brings people together.
Liberty is popular – regardless of race, religion, or creed.
A renewed respect for liberty is the only way forward for...our country.
But who will champion the cause of liberty? Ron Paul decided not to run as an Independent this year. He explains why in this interview.
Yet in the Republican primaries and the runup to the election, Mr. Paul achieved great success by changing the conversation and spreading the message of liberty. More and more people are waking up to the realization that the system is bankrupt and that the illusion of endless spending and easy money has come to an end.
But now Ron Paul is retiring from Congress. He's on his way back to Texas for good, of so he says. Last week he gave a farewell address from the House floor, repeating the small-government sermon he succeeded in injecting into the national debate. Here are two excerpts from his 48-minute address:
"If it's not accepted that big government, fiat money, ignoring liberty, central economic planning, welfarism, and warfarism caused our crisis we can expect a continuous and dangerous march toward corporatism and even fascism with even more loss of our liberties."
Mr. Paul tells us that the responsibility for finding the solution to what ails America falls on each and every individual.
"The #1 responsibility for each of us is to change ourselves with hope that others will follow. This is of greater importance than working on changing the government; that is secondary to promoting a virtuous society. If we can achieve this, then the government will change."
And here's the entire speech... all 48 minutes... well worth listening to in its entirety.
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