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.