Some people cannot understand the wealth of devotion Obama has received worldwide, and I see their point entirely but they're missing two crucial things. In the face of history's greatest crises, some real and some made up, but all coming one after another, and with a clown in the backdrop, how can Obama not appear as a God to some people? It is a mix between celebrity and hero worship, and it is not unique to this generation of Americans or to this man, Obama. "The chief national heroes," said H.L Mencken of America, "cannot remain mere men. The mysticism of the medieval peasantry gets into the communal view of them and they begin to sprout haloes and wings." Still, I understand the admiration people have for Obama, I just think it's misplaced. Humanity has always had a dire need to worship heroes, our age is no different, and the state's grasp of this fact strengthens its powers and undermines ours. But let's get back to Bush and Obama, aside from their attitudinal and generational differences, the two men share one thing in common: being president of the Amerikan empire during its highest reaches of power and its lowest moral position in the world. True, American's missions abroad have never been moral, but at least in WWII there was a bigger and meaner bully around, making the American state better able to justify its atrocities. Bush and Obama are not irregular presidents, all American presidents are war-time presidents. It goes with the territory. But they're arrival on the historical scene at the same time is uncommon: a white screwball, coming from a rich and well-known family, followed by a half-black young intellectual with an extraordinary upbringing for the times in which he was born.
Another thing they share with one another is a painful fear of chaos. I could be wrong. I believe both have tried to lead in darkness; they "seek by terror and force to hold back the tide," as Izzy said, and this is true of all "blind and backward rulers." Terrorism, the watchword that opened this so far apocalyptic century, is a bit like the communist menace of our day, only it's not a ruthless conspiracy and there is no state that actively promotes terrorism as its philosophy--which, admitted or not, is the bedrock of all states. Because terrorism is an emotion and not an idea does not mean that the modern world isn't ruled by an idea, or a grand philosophy. Terrorism is the oil that allows states to grow without any friction rising up from the public, but what I care about is the engine.
Some claim, with good evidence, that the grand and all-encompassing idea that is driving world politics in our age is the New World Order. It is said that this monstrous conspiracy has infiltrated the centers of power, and it has been possible without any notice because the biggest power of our day, the Press, has long been taken in by this idea. But to utter a word about the desires of some men for a new world order would make you less than a heretic. When expressing any such sentiment you are instantly labeled bat-shit crazy, and if you do it with passion, dead minds will get the impression that your whole being is not of this world. No one pays you any thought, and it feels like your whole existence; your will, your values, and your history, is meaningless. According to the state and it's ruling class, you are to eat, marry, and die. And if you're lucky you'll live a life with some measure of happiness. But answering the larger questions in society and living out your own philosophy? You will do no such thing.
Amassing and applying social power without the State in mind is frowned upon. The state is responsible for modern man's achievements, so runs the present state of mind. "The State," declared Albert Jay Nock, "always instinctively 'turning every contingency into a resource' for accelerating the conversion of social power into State power, was quick to take advantage of this state of mind." Nock's thoughts on the state are more relevant today then in his own time. In the last great depression he remarked that our "nominally republican system is actually built on an imperial model, with our professional politicians standing in the place of the praetorian guards." He also highlighted the similarities between our current primal institution, the state, and the past primal institution, the church. Medieval men inherited the church, clergy and its educational camps, while we have inherited the state, career politicians, and our very own educational camps. Society has changed, new freedoms cherished, and new social ideals followed, but all this has happened in antithesis to the state's goals and interests.
I always felt bad that men in past ages had it so much worse than us. Just look at our modern conveniences and see how spoiled we are. But all is not rosy, we are starting to experience hardships collectively, and maybe this shared experience will inspire real leaders. It's already beginning to take place with the political manoeuvrings of men like Peter Schiff, Rand Paul, RJ Harris, Adam Kokesh, and Ron Paul who deserves the biggest credit for relaunching the original revolution. And that is why the success of Dr. Paul, Alex Jones and the larger freedom movement, which is a revolt against the false left/right paradigm, is so remarkable. Old politics is shattering, it is state vs. social power now. The people vs the banks. The battle for the ages, and of the ages, is upon us. Take that extra sip of caffeine because the battle is beginning tonight, and it will be a long night. Someone should revive HST from the grave, or is it the air? It's too bad he's missing this ride, no, actually. . . he was on it before everybody else was. He took the ride to the top, bruised a few Nazi egos on the way, and all without a seat belt.
Furthermore, without the dissemination of information through the internet our chances of reclaiming liberty would be zero. I am dead certain of that. But the internet is obviously not enough. How do we break through the dissemblance of President Obama and break free from such a toxic intellectual culture? The remedy is simple. All good things are simple. "There must be renewed recognition," Izzy wrote, "that societies are kept stable and healthy by reform, not by thought police." Izzy dismissed the government's fear tactics of his day and said that to suppress unembedded ideas from public life is to "shut off peaceful progress and to invite revolution and war." And that is exactly what the current leadership of the United States is harboring: revolution and war. And they are planning for it by militarizing the local police forces, turning the country into a war zone.
But history catches up in the end, and nobody gets away. To run in terror from chaos while posing as a Texan macho man was Bush's stunt and he failed, miserably, and I'm sure years from now we can all laugh a little bit easier. The best jokes about Bush have yet to be written. But Obama is choosing to run in terror while posing as the levelheaded rational man, in a state of grace, and that representation of himself is the ultimate paradox of our age, because if he had publicly touted the real dangers confronting us he would have been lambasted as a lunatic and would never have graced the cover of Time magazine. The world is a scary place, and Bush's temperament, similar in some ways to Obama's, is not an exact representation of our times. The real man who personifies our frightful and nervous age is Cheney. But I don't like thinking about him, much less writing about him because I am not yet ready to go to the dark side. However much I hate him, I still admire Cheney, and think his contrast to Dr. Paul is important. The world needs contrast, that's how the young learn. Dr. Paul's conception of history is based on a battle of ideas and so he has remained a principle advocate of small government, individual freedom, free markets, and no wars, whereas Cheney is moved by a mysterious bogeyman, a threat that justifies the abandonment of law and the suppression of information. Cheney is absolutely hopeless and his hunches about WMDs and other threats to the American people have been proven false. Izzy in 1954, at the start of the Army-McCarthy hearings, rebuked this version of history:
Had we operated on the bogeyman theory of history, America would have destroyed itself long ago. It will destroy itself now unless and until a few men of stature have the nerve to speak again the traditional language of free society.If he was alive today he would see that Amerika is well on its way to destroying itself. No man of a high level of stature, except for Dr.Paul, has spoken in the tradition that Izzy mentioned. Obama, being a lawyer, has twisted language with his twisted tongue. But I am kind and I will reserve my complete judgment on the man until further notice. An unexpected march of events, fueled by popular outrage, may lead to a day of glory for him because he is truly a man without a heir or a predecessor, and he's possessed with a certain kind of genius that is undeniable. Wherever he goes he seems to embody Eliot's 'the still point of the turning world' and if something ever happens to him, I'm sure surging chaos will undoubtedly ensue in some corners of Amerika and a general sense of helplessness will be blanketed across the nation. To a lesser extent, the world will also feel the pain because they will then be even more afraid of Amerika and might abandon it to its own resources. It's sad that a man of any caliber can be able to attain such a crude apex, but unfortunately, both for Mr. Obama and the country, that is where we are.
The sacred leadership Obama has come to be identified with, for good or ill, has nothing to do with his personality. He is the window pane of our times, and I cannot be mad at him for that since it was not totally his doing. He was elevated by a rude press, an all too impressionable public and ushered into office by greedy bagmen. But he has played some part in his rise to a height of unbearable transcendence, a place marked off for heroes and visionaries, not measly politicians with a talent for oratory. Despite his adoring fans, he has a false, or what Weaver would call an "engineered" charisma. That charisma has been used for the profit of the few. Obama's response to the recession is failing, as Lew Rockwell has pointed out. And his recent speech in the Islamic world, despite being the most awesome, god-damn speech in the history of the world, is completely irrelevant because he does not follow up in policy what he says in public.
If we judge a man by his words, then Obama is a great man. That he is not an independent leader and more aware of the magnitude of these times is probably the tragedy of the United States. Some label him an emperor, to which I say: emperors are assassinated, not adored by powerful interests. A tiger without teeth is an utterly depressing sight, and that's what it was like watching Obama's speech in Cairo. I think Obama desires to be above the times, but lacking in spontaneity and sincerity, his composed articulations comes off as too premeditated to be taken seriously. His calm demeanor is not in the tradition of Wordsworth's "wise passiveness" and besides, Amerika already has an elder, wiser and more serene man in Ron Paul. Obama, who like Paul, is a leo, needs to get more angry and confrontational to the powers blocking reform. And this depends on where his heart is at, and what he really believes in behind all the polish. Maybe he is a lying sociopath, you can never rule that out. In fact, that is high on the list. But from time to time Obama does shine as he is meant to. And one of those moments was in the address he gave in Cairo. Justin Raimondo, who's recent article is subtitled "Words. Words. Words" said:
I have to say, however, that as much as I regard Obama as the smiling face of US imperialism, whose goal it is to prettify the ugly and justify the unjustifiable, his pronouncements on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict are refreshing, albeit disturbing in a different way.If you see a pattern in the title of Rockwell's, Raimondo's, and my article, it was entirely intentional, at least, on my part. Moreover, the point that is repeatedly made is how disappointing the 2008 election was. It was not a season of renewal but another act in a tragedy still unfolding before our weary eyes. I'm not as gloomy as I used to be, I think 2008 gave us a glimpse of Amerika's future. People were generally excited about politics and a general civic sense was hatched in that election. The brightest episode, which has not ended and will never end, was Dr. Paul's campaign. Anyway, 2012 looks like the year for radical politics in Amerika. All it takes is one juicy scandal for the Democrats to lose their footings, and the Republican party is already immaterial to Amerika's future growth.
But the point still remains, there has been no change since the Bush years, actually that is not true, there has been a change for the worse. When Bush came into office the towers fell, and when Obama came into office the country fell. And it is not entirely Obama's fault, but by not attending to change he is suppressing everything that is good in Amerika. He is too preoccupied with keeping his hand over the demon's mouth, a phrase D.H Lawrence used to refer to the early beginnings of a poet. Obama has chosen not to clear house despite having the best hand of any recent president upon walking into the Black House. But, to be perfectly honest, I cannot blame him for rewarding the powers that put him into office and filling his cabinet with second rate thinkers from the lousiest street in Amerika. It shows that he is conscious and loyal, two very admirable traits. Or, it could also mean he's the vilest kind of a politician there is.
The most disappointing thing about Obama is his lack of consciousness when it comes to Amerika's financial history. He has never written a treatise on banks, the power of money or any other philosophical-social subject that have credence at any time, but especially in our own. He has written about his personal journey but I am less interested in that, however remarkable it may be. I care about his thoughts on the battle between the banks and the government, which dates back to America's founding. If only he was a bit more of an intellectual and less of a politician. New economic advisers would surely help because he comes across as a man who listens.
II.
If the 20th century taught us anything, it's that language is the most powerful tool on the government's war rack. The language employed on the public by politicians are always flattering and that is why its dangers are easily missed. Teaching the art of rhetoric in public schools would have put people in a better position to judge their leaders. Weaver sounded the alarm on the dangers of modern rhetoric in the mid-century, foreshadowing the politics of Blair and Obama:
They often sound like the very gospel of one's society, but in fact they betray us; they get us to do what the adversary of the human being wants us to do. It is worth considering whether the real civil disobedience must not begin with our language.Mathematician and biologist Jacob Bronowski, also creator of the acclaimed BBC documentary "The Ascent of Man" said that science has succeeded where magic has failed because "it has looked for no spell to cast over nature." And that is what governments, and its die-hard attendants, do when they use words to mesmerize instead to make clear. They cast spells on the public mind, and to rebel against spells has always been the duty of poets and artists.
Thankfully, in our world, the spell is beginning to wear off, at least in intelligent circles. The reason why state worship is at its highest pitch right now is because these years are the state's last gasp. What's coming next, at least in Amerika, is not a depression that can be put into a historical reality, but a cataclysm that will be remembered generations from now as the final blow to the Amerikan government. There will be a brief time frame, in which, the state will be exposed naked and people will start spontaneously helping one another without orders, as it always been the case. Orders are given to kill, they don't have to be given to help. People will direct their actions according to social signals in society. Since we are social animals and we serve ourselves and our genes best when we act socially, I think the level of crime in society will dramatically reduce.
This is not a Utopian dream. I am not a reformer, or a revolutionary. A totally new understanding of social networks and social systems has emerged in the last six decades. Knowledge of self-organizing and self-regulating systems is increasing in various fields, from computer engineering to urban studies, and the history of this increasing knowledge is written very clearly by writer Steven Johnson in his book "Emergence." All the historical facts are pointing to an expected, but still unimaginable, turning point in the history of civilization. It is a history filled with Man trying to implement his extractive systems on nature, and Man's nature which has proven counter-productive, to put it mildly. In the end, as we are all now witnesses, these state-imposed systems overwhelmingly serve destruction more than creation, death more than life, and lies more than truths.
That is not to say that the past is littered with bad ideas that disables society to create and evolve on its own . A few good men have lent their genius to social reform and have developed ideas about the economy akin to the workings of nature. Underneath all the successful ideas one basic rule has continually supplanted itself: leave creation alone, and it will grow according to its own natural laws. The state has been a thorn in Man's side, an itch always waiting to be scratched, and once scratched it grows bigger and redder until finally it is popped. All of Man's successes have come by surprise to the state, an engine engineered thousands of years ago and fine tuned in the past two centuries, that drives human beings to slavery, and in the end, as we see in Iraq, to death.
By understanding the state's inherent flaws we will discover the true path towards a more livelier, peaceful and intelligent society. It certainly hasn't stop human ingenuity in the past, so why are we afraid that plans for a new world order will succeed in our own time? "Man, "Bronowski said, "masters nature not by force but by understanding." And the Amerikan government will be forced to understand the nature of the world, and of its place in it. Islam, too will have to be led by peaceful men with both heart and mind intelligence, and as a religion and a civilization come to understand and appreciate Western civilization's gifts to the world which are the ideas of individual liberty and self-development.
Being born in 1989, the year that saw the end of many corrupt and totalitarian governments and the first cracklings of an uprising in China, is very exciting, I have to admit, because I was born as many governments died, a sign, I hope, of things to come. Many thinkers will read that statement and brush me off as a young man going through his idealist phase, then point to examples like Waco, 9/11, Iraq and shout "You fool! 1989 wasn't the end of a grand idea in history but mere rearrangements in the construction of power in the world." But I won't concede my personal manifesto that 1989 is the year that sounded the bells of freedom, at least for modern times,1776 seems eternities away. Instead, I will respond by quoting from Faulkner's Nobel speech: "I believe that man will not merely endure: he will prevail. He is immortal, not because he alone among creatures has an inexhaustible voice, but because he has a soul, a spirit capable of compassion and sacrifice and endurance."
