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Cheryl Rofer replies to an essay by “Lexington Green” at Chicago Boyz, asking plaintively and apparently sincerely the same question asked before by Steve Benen at Political Animal.
Sorry, Cheryl, you don’t understand. You can’t, and won’t, and trying will just frustrate you and make your head hurt. If you had the aptitude leading to understanding, you would have taken a very different course through your education and life experiences, and might well have found yourself on the Mall last Saturday.
Here is a hint to start with: “inclusiveness” is a red herring. The question of religiosity vs. atheism avoids the subject rather than addressing it. Beck spoke to the crowd in a vernacular comfortable to himself and them, as any good speaker would. You might as well suggest that he should have spoken in Swahili or some computer-generated artificial tongue, in order to avoid offense from lack of “inclusiveness”. Put that part out of your mind.
I like Georgia O’Keefe and Tchaikovsky; I find the Russian Revolution fascinating, and The Dream Life sounds like something worth attention. Unfortunately, I never had time to follow up on those interests because I was working for a living. You did it for me; you are, in a way, my deputy, sent to explore lands inaccessible to me. You probably did it well — but your recitation of what occupies your days tells us that you know hardly anyone (and value none) who ever contributed materially to sheltering another person from the elements, providing food or clean water to a child, or disposing of waste safely. No doubt you agree that all those things are necessary and proper, but the folks who actually do them are, well, rubes; no person of value goes about with them. You are the spiritual successor to the friends and associates of Hero of Alexander, who ridiculed the poor fellow for demeaning himself by dealing with mere mechanics, properly the province of slaves and helots, and caused him to abandon efforts that could have led to principles Newton didn’t explicate until many centuries afterward.
See this? The fins, the chrome, the swoopy curves, do nothing to contribute to its function as transportation. Rich men would pay extra for them because they provided evidence of wealth. Not-so-rich men would scrape and defraud to acquire them in the hope of being taken as wealthy. Just so did a gang of ruffians, assembled in a board shack beside a sluggish stream to develop a fraud that would get them out from under an unbearable indebtedness, put in the Constitution of Texas a requirement that the State provide a “University of the First Class.” All the cool countries and States had them, and Texas was determined to join the cool kids. Just so did the Soviet Union send the “Great Ballet” to impress the West. Art and Learning do produce worthwhile outputs, but that is not their primary function. They are for display, visible evidence that the society supporting them is productive and worthwhile — or wishes to simulate those qualities.
Your function in society is tail fin, a decorative accent providing gratification to the eye and ego. The productive, and frauds who pretend to be productive, can point to you and say, “Look! We’re good! We produce so much wealth that we can afford to support this individual who provides nothing for the common weal, and provide her a top-class life style to boot!” In the same way, peasants and the “common people” of Europe could point to the excesses of the nobility and say, “Look how rich our Prince is! Are we not fine workers?” The nobility took it too far. They decided that the fins and chrome were overwhelmingly important, and the engine could be disregarded and taken for granted. They were eventually cast down for that.
Your puzzlement at Beck and the tea parties is the incomprehension of a courtier to Louis Quinze: What in the world do those people want? Unlike those people, we don’t want to kill you, hurt you, or even turf you out of your comfortable existence — but if possible we mean to wipe the self-righteous sneer off your face. Since you aren’t even conscious of the sneer and will deny its existence with equally self-righteous vehemence, the hope of your understanding is small, and that of your sympathy near nonexistent. Give it up, Cheryl. You’ll never figure it out.
One thing you would be well advised to do: stand out of the way. Your other function is as cats-paw to cynical opportunists. Beck and a number of others are hopeful that you can be made to understand, and thus be separated from the people who are using you as a club — and no doubt plan to do with the club what is normally done with a tool when its purpose is achieved: Hang it on the wall, toss it in a corner, or discard it completely. They are also (it may be hoped) suave enough to attempt that separation in ways the blunt and cynical have no hope of using. I and my fellows stand ready to aid them in any way possible in that effort — but we also prepare for its failure. Think of me as one small part of a sort of distributed Carmichael. If you won’t listen to Glenn, you may have to deal with us.
I can’t remember a seasonal transition that was this sharp and matched the calendar this perfectly. Thunderstorms and weather patterns don’t know the date, do they?
On August 31 it was still August, and this August, as I said before, has been brutal. I still prefer 40C to 40F, but days and days going into weeks of glaring Sun blazing from near-cloudless skies onto a parched landscape of 100°F+ temperatures get wearing, especially when you drive a black car whose AC was designed for R-12 and is running on an inferior substitute. On the night of August 31st I went to bed late, still sweltering, with the inadequate window AC dripping water on the floor and making a dent, but not getting anywhere near comfortable.
Wednesday morning it was if a switch had been thrown. Clouds, real clouds, that merged into Sun-blocking banks, instead of standoffishly isolating themselves in puffy little clumps when they appeared at all. That afternoon there were a few light showers, not enough to settle the dust, but when we went out to feed the critters we were all enjoying it. That night and the next morning the clouds got together and decided to get serious. Two and a half inches plus! The farrier has been shaking his head, advising us to walk the horses through the rapidly-drying mudhole that was all that was left of the stock tank, because their feet were cracking from the dryness. Not a problem, John.
Today we’re back to the weather condition one of my pilot friends refers to as “severe clear” — sky a bowl of blue crystal with no visible flaws. O, what a difference three days makes, though:
Not breaking out the parka and long winter woolies just yet, mind you, but I can stand to be outside for longer than is needed to get the car started and the Freon® circulating well.
The national radar composite, worryingly blank for the last month or so, has some very promising blotches on it:
Green is good, but watch out for the red bits
I’m somewhere close to the middle of that, between the two green-and-blue splotches. No doubt in another couple of months I’ll be bundled to the ears and bitching loudly about breaking ice on the horse troughs, but for now it’s glorious. Think I’ll go fix something. A lawn mower, maybe.
What will the October Surprise be? Post guesses here.
I don’t have to link polls, you’ve seen them. Gallup, Rasmussen, PPP, it doesn’t matter. Democrats are in trouble; not just trouble, it looks like 1852, with the Democrats standing in for the Whigs. Which makes sense, in an odd kind of way: “…Whigs supported the supremacy of Congress over the presidency, and favored a program of modernization and economic protectionism.” (Wikipedia)
But never mind the ancient history. More recent history suggests that when either party find themselves staring problems in November in the face, they’ll find something to jam into the news cycle the month before. “Peace is at hand!” “Iran-Contra!” and of course the inverse October Surprise of 1980, Carter’s failure to get the hostages held by Iran released.
With the soothsayers predicting a debacle, the minds of Democrats must be pretty sharply focused about now. They do have one advantage: virtually total control over the “news media”, which they can pretty well use to orchestrate most anything, raising it to enough of a crescendo to qualify as a spoiler for Republican chances. Against that, it isn’t a Presidential year. Axelrod and Rahm must be puzzling that one out. If they’ve got something really good, wouldn’t it be better to save it for 2012? Or do they let it off now and expect to get (or manufacture) something else for then?
Jim Geraghty at National Review Online suggests — or, rather, his invisible advisor “Obi-Wan Kenobi” advises — that Republicans hold a contest to see who can predict the October surprise. I’m only a Republican by default — I despise the Democrats’ policies, and consider the Libertarians foolishly sophomoric — and I don’t have nearly enough readership to host such a contest with any hope of effectiveness, but I’d like to have 
, so let’s start here. Someone else can pick up the ball if necessary.
What will the October Surprise be? Post it in the comments, or email me at warrick.locke@gmail.com
Bonus question: Will it be a run-of-the-mill October Surprise, or a Reichstag Fire?
(Welcome, readers of thoughtsonline! Steve was kind enough to share a few pebbles from his Instalanche, for which I’m grateful. Look around a bit; perhaps you’ll like something else.)
