Sunday, September 14, 2014

Folklore, ISIL, and the Unkempt Bed


Old Gadfly:  Gentlemen, let's play the game of “Jeopardy.” Here is the answer to the question:  folklore, ISIL (i.e., the Islamic State of Iraq and Levant), and the unkempt bed.[1]

IM (An American citizen with an inquiring mind):  Beautiful set of metaphors, Gadfly.  The question is:  How will objective historians (which eliminates any Howard Zinn disciple) characterize candidate, then President, Obama’s policy agenda?

Old Gadfly:  Bingo, IM.

AM (an American combat aviator with an inquiring mind):  What a clever yet meaningful way to evaluate the context and unanticipated consequences of getting caught trying to transform America by deceptively engineering public sentiment.

Old Gadfly:  AM, your perception of the meaning of those related metaphors appears to be moving in the right direction.  Let’s unpack some of the assertions in your comment, such as “deceptively engineering public sentiment,” “unanticipated consequences,” and “getting caught.”

AM:  Engineering public sentiment refers to the folklore concept.  Dictionary.com defines folklore as “1.  The traditional beliefs, legends, customs, etc., of a people; lore of a people.  2.  The study of such lore.  3.  A body of widely held but false or unsubstantiated beliefs.”  In this regard, candidate Obama argued that he had superior judgment when it came to understanding the Middle East, diminishing his predecessor in the process.  As President Obama, he argued that he had decimated al Qaeda leadership and that al Qaeda was on the run.  He pulled the wool over the eyes of the American public by lying about the Benghazi attack to win an election.  Yes, I know it seems harsh to use the “lie” word.  But even the word “quibble” does not even come close to mollifying a deliberate attempt to deceive the American public; and, remember, the four Americans were mere speed bumps on his way to a second-term.  Just so there is no doubt, Dictionary.com defines a lie as, “A false statement made with deliberate intent to deceive; an intentional untruth; a falsehood.”  Dictionary.com defines quibble as, “An instance of the use of ambiguous, prevaricating, or irrelevant language or arguments to evade a point at issue.”

IM:  So, technically, Susan Rice quibbled on the Sunday morning talk shows and Secretary of State (at the time) Hillary Clinton quibbled when she shouted, “What difference does it make?”  Interestingly, Alan Colmes authored an article in the Huffington Post attempting to perpetuate the folklore of this deplorable Benghazi incident.  There seems to be tremendous resistance among the folklore subscribers to any contrary evidence, as we discussed in our “Connecting the Dots” conversation.

AM: As a matter of scale to drive home the dishonorable nature of these deceitful behaviors, Gadfly and I personally know of Service Academy cadets who were dismissed from the institution for simple quibbling.  Obvious lies and quibbles reek of hypocrisy when members of our armed forces observe their commander-in-chief getting away with far worse.

Old Gadfly:  Good point, AM.  Now, explain the unanticipated consequences.

AM:  ISIL epitomizes the cascading failures of a feckless foreign policy.  Obama and his disciples suffer from what I call ILOC.  The ILOC phenomenon was inspired by a fighter pilot phenomenon known as GLOC, which is an acronym for G force-induced loss of consciousness.

IM:  Help me out, AM.  What’s a G-force?



AM:  “G” refers to gravity, and fighter pilots can experience “G forces," or "Gs” in excess of 8 times the force of gravity when maneuvering a fighter in a dog fight, causing blood to pool in their lower legs and feet.  A 200-pound pilot weighs 1,600 pounds when pulling 8 Gs.  Depending upon the duration of the high G-force maneuver, the lower leg pooling of blood leads to hypoxia and can result in loss of consciousness.

IM:  Thanks.  I think I now see where you are going with ILOC.

AM:  Good, in this case ILOC stands for ideology-induced loss of [national] consciousness.  In other words, ideology now competes with what once constituted the American consciousness before someone decided to transform what that used to mean.

Old Gadfly:  My good friend, Dennis Haugh, developed the best definition I have ever read about what it means to be an American:  A well-rounded individual who in time of competition or crisis will use his unique talents to the best effect possible. When the competition or crisis is over, he will return to being a responsible individual. He is NOT a member of 'the Borg'.”  (Dennis’ reference to the Borg refers to the Star Trek concept of a collective mind hive into which all individuals eventually assimilate).



IM:  Powerful definition.  We have observed nearly six years of deliberate attempts to fundamentally transform that meaning, that sense of American consciousness.

Old Gadfly:  AM, what did you mean by “getting caught.”

AM:  The meaning refers to the unkempt bed.  Because of Obama’s ILOC, American foreign policy is a disaster.
          Old Gadfly:  Yet, the unkempt bed is similar to the secular proverb, “you made your bed, you sleep in it.”  Unfortunately, it is not Obama who has to sleep in it.  Americans and the entire international community have to “sleep in it.”  



[1] I want to thank my good friend D.K. who inspired me earlier this week to better understand the role motifs and folklore play even in modern, civilized culture.

Monday, September 1, 2014

Over the Top?


Old Gadfly:  IM, some of my colleagues told me they thought the Animal Farm graphic, President Obama, and logo collage seemed “over the top.”  I asked, “In what sense?”  The typical response was that it offended them by being insensitive.


IM (an American citizen with an inquiring mind):  Insensitive toward whom or what?

Old Gadfly:  Isn’t it obvious that the collage is insensitive toward President Obama?

IM:  Well, let’s think about this.  Being “insensitive” is about a lack of feeling about something.  So, if my graphic implies a lack of feeling for someone in particular, then I would say that the message intended by the graphic has absolutely nothing to do with feelings.  Thus, anyone choosing to be offended by the graphic is reacting to their own set of feelings toward or attachment to President Obama.

AM (an American combat aviator with an inquiring mind):  Is this where the concept of “false consciousness” applies, as in our last discussion about Margaret Sanger’s propaganda about women and motherhood?

Old Gadfly:  Excellent connection, AM. 

IM:  When Orwell completed the manuscript for Animal Farm in 1944, he could not find a publisher because of perceived “insensitivities.”[1]  Orwell’s experiences in the Spanish Civil war shaped his very serious concerns about propaganda.  In a 1947 preface to the Ukrainian edition of the book, Orwell described, “how easily totalitarian propaganda can control the opinion of enlightened people in democratic countries.”[2]

Old Gadfly:  Orwell had a special “indentured class” status for sheep.  The bleating sheep remind me of the mainstream media.  How about the dogs in the graphic, IM?

IM:  Good question.  Here’s a passage from Animal Farm:

Until now the animals had been equally divided in their sympathies, but in a moment Snowball’s (Napoleon’s ideological opponent) eloquence had carried them away. . . By the time he had finished speaking, there was no doubt as to which way the vote would go.  But just at this moment Napoleon stood up and, casting a peculiar sidelong look at Snowball, uttered a high-pitched whimper of a kind no one had ever heard him utter before.

            At this there was a terrible baying sound outside, and nine enormous dogs wearing brass-studded collars came bounding into the barn.  They dashed straight for Snowball, who only sprang from his place just in time to escape their snapping jaws.  In a moment he was out of the door and they were after him. . . . Then he put on an extra spurt and, with a few inches to spare, slipped through a hole in the hedge and was seen no more.[3]

Old Gadfly:  Eerie.  Makes you think about Eric Holder and Lois Lerner, among others.  What is the significance of the logo behind President Obama?

IM:  We discussed the logo almost a year ago.  Here is what I said: 

Obama’s logo signifies a rising sun within a circle that represents “O” in Obama.  The sun represents hope over the “changed” landscape of America as symbolized in the complete restructuring of the elements of the American flag.  The change is the fundamental change Obama keeps promising and pushing in violation of the “self-governing” ideal “gifted” to us by our founders.

AM:  The logo reminds me that a couple days ago I read an interesting analysis about terrorist groups such as al Qaeda and ISIS.  The article was written by a former member of such a group.  Essentially, these groups represent an ideological movement characterized by five key elements:  Islamism (the ideology), narratives, cult of personality, iconographic prowess, and an end goal.  Sound familiar?  Here in America we are confronted with our own movement:  progressivism, narratives advanced by a complicit media, Obama the Messiah, the Organizing for America logo (discussed above and pictured with the cult personality superimposed) for iconographic prowess, and a “fundamentally transformed America” as the end goal.

Old Gadfly:  But al Qaeda and ISIS are brutal in their methods.

AM:  One movement strives for a Caliphate as the governing power; the other strives for a deified progressive state as the governing power.  While not as physical, America is accumulating its own casualties in terms of a major loss of international credibility and in our national decay. 

Old Gadfly:  The decay will generate a void.  Evil will fill the void.  As we know, history has recorded how evil triumphed when good people chose to do nothing about it.  Is it over the top to warn against such possibilities?  I think not.  It would be insensitive to those who gave their lives, fortunes, and sacred honor to give us the American ideal. 



[1] As cited in “Animal Farm,” Wikipedia, retrieved on September 1, 2014 from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Animal_Farm#cite_note-26
[2] Ibid.
[3] George Orwell, Animal Farm, (New York, NY:  Signet Classics, 1996 [1945]), pp. 52-53.  Ironically, given the tremendous reluctance of any publisher to publish the manuscript, today’s publishers have no reservation in financially benefitting from the fruit of Orwell’s labor.