Waiting for Citi With Winston.
While we wait for Citi news, the fate of the financial system in the balance, I am speaking Sunday 23 with Carlo D'Este, author of a new magisterial and enthusiastic biography of the unbelievable Winston Churchill, "Warlord: A Life of Winston Churchill at War, 1874-1945," a man who committed himself from his motherless nursery to German-made tin soldiers, maps, maneuvers, pre-Oedipal generalship and a compulsive, ruthless, beastly self-centeredness that should have led him to destruction about one hundred times by 1900. He survived Ascot sadism, Harrow hijinks, Sandhurst, Cuba, India with the 4th Hussars (left, Subaltern Churchill in India, 1895), Pashtuns, Sudan, Kitchener, Boers, Haldane, and his animal-spirited mother and father, and then he took up politics at the genuine risk of his self-worshipped reputation. By 1907, and a chance meeting with the First Lord of the Admiralty, when Churchill discovered his love of ship, too, this tale resembles a non-stop Hollywood action adventure movie, except that it is based upon the madness of the British Empire. A blunt Oedipal drama fuels it, with Randolph Churchill abusing Winston by mail and in person as Randolph slowly perished of insanity, yet Winston planted himself by his father's remains, his elbow on the coffin, to greet the mourners. In D'Este's handling, Churchill never forgives his father and never forgets his father, a conversation with a ghost for seventy years after Randolph's death in 1895. It may be one clue to Churchill's resolution, his legendary quotation, "Never, never, never give up." Churchill bulled and bullied his way into all the disasters of the first half of the 20th century, Gallipoli, the Sommes, Lenin, Singapore and Pearl Harbor, and he survived numerous, battles, accidents, illnesses and reckless
expeditions, all of which he chronicled with a feverish vanity; yet at no point does it appear that he doubted himself. Perhaps those doubts were what he called his "black dogs," but he hid that with a river of booze and a volocano of tobacco. By 1945, Churchill had participated in and supervised the loss of several dozens of millions of human beings on all continents and oceans (right, Churchill haranguing the U.S. Congress, 1943), and he still had the loss of India and the rest of the colonial empire to go, yet he kept on, chatting with his father's scornful ghost. I ask myself what Churchill would have made of the last seven years of pursuing Bin Laden, battling the same Afridi and Pashtuns as Churchill, battling the same Iraqis as Churchill, battling the same financial ruin and Russians and political chicanery as Churchill. The answer would probably be, "Never, never, never give up," and "If you're going through Hell, keep going." If you are persecuted by your father's cruel voice fifty or sixty or seventy years after his death, what do enemies like Hitler, Gandhi and Stalin come to?
Note on the Pirates off Somalia and Kenya.
First Lord Churchill would have loved this: Best Ummah signals source sends a ICC Commercial Crimes Service bulletin datelined November 21 from London warning of three pirate motherships, Burum Ocean and Athena or Arena and one unnamed. At least one of them, Burum Ocean, is a Russian made stern trawler. Operating 60 nautical miles NE of Bossasso, Somalia in the Gulf of Aden. Also, a warning that an additional group of pirates may be operating south of Somalia, targeting ships to and from the Cape of Good Hope or
inbound to Mombassa, Kenya. My colleague Jed Babbin, Human Events, writes me on this alert, "Just how will the 'soft power' people deal with this?" and "Need more than a Navy to deal with this. Need a PSI-like international alliance. And a bunch of bombers."
It looks like we’re back to the old days of Batchelor/Alexander conspiracy radio and doom. It never panned out exactly like that. Little did we realize that it would happen much later. Later is now, when we no longer have the stomach for it – when it’s become much too real.
It’s hard to believe that Obama with his band of Clinton retreads will save us with the same old menu of refried beans and off-color coleslaw. Better to leave and find a quiet spot where we can grow our own tomatoes. But, with winter coming on, such places may be difficult to find. Checked your bank account lately? There’s still a few shekels left over from better times. Better spend it now while it still does some good. Women and children first. That way we won’t have to gnash our gums bloody watching them go over the edge.
“Never give up” is easy to say while the sword is still sharp; when there’s still room in the lifeboats. Absent even that much, retreat is the only option – not death (mindlessly dramatized on the internet for the benefit of petulant four-year olds), mind you; but severe retrenchment deep into funnels of stone (like Candidatus Desulflorudis audaxviator is said to have done) where movement is restricted to spinning in place.
Well, Happy Thanksgiving to you Peter, as well :)
I'm more "philosophical" about the doom and gloom around us and the future. The trends are against US as we have known it--immigration dilution of our social and financial capital, 50% paying zero taxes, our own government paying leftists to register every conceivable kinds of voter, courts that refuse to honor referenda, and so on.
But one thing is curious. I'm seeing a glamorization of hair shirts. It is becoming cool to be frugal, economize, cut-back, brag about one's habit changes re driving, consumption. This seems not unlike the recent cool of being green--in fact the two feed on each other. and not all this is bad. I think "we" over-consume, waste things. This process could do us well. As weird as it sounds, I think the Depression actually improved our society for those that came later. I admire and try to emulate my parent's thriftiness--should have done it more in fact.
If you think the future sucks, you will at least experience the present as such. My default position is to assume the future will be at least bearable, that I can eek out a satisfying existence, adjust and even enjoy trying to outmaneuver the fates. My grandparents were poverty- stricken but had much less than I do and they seemed rather contented.
At least that is my opium for coping. Your mileage may differ.
Yes, but it is the depression that spawned the opulence that we have now, as baby boomers were given more than there share and what their parents received out of guilt. It all could happen again and we've learned nothing from it. If there are two things that will sink us as a nation it is socialism and globalism. When I say sink us, I mean sink us as number 1, and having the semblance of any real freedom. Of course we'll carry on, but as a the younger brother of European style social democracies. From a philosophical standpoint, I find that abhorrent. Will there ever be a country like ours on this earth again where real liberty and freedom flourish? At that point, there will be no place to go, because the world will have been homogenized into a global society that will be a cross between A Brave New World and 1984. The only role I want is that of Harry Tuttle. Never, never, never give up.
Peter: I hesitate to state the obvious, but I'll plunge in anyway. Churchill's sword in 1940 was anything but a sharp weapon; indeed, it was hopelessly blunt. History records that there was no room in the lifeboats either. There were men left on the shores of Dunkirk. Yet, retreat was not Churchill's option. Why should it be ours?
The 'Warlord' biography looks like a good read over the holidays!
If the pirate mother ships can be named, why can't they be destroyed? Why can't records be traced to find the chain of sales and ownership. Who's selling them arms? Mark Rich?
It would be interesting if Egypt declared war on the pirates. After all, the pirates are more or less a blockade. The Muslim Brotherhood/al Queda (?) used to target tourist to try and kill the Egyptian economy. Isn't that what the pirates are doing -- only through loss of fees for using the Suez Canal.
It's tempting and fun to go back and romanticize past political figures. My weakness is General George S. Patton. I have a picture of him (the real one, not George C. Scott!) hung up over my desk at work, and when faced with a challenge I frequently ask myself what George would have done in this situation. Probably slap an enlisted man ....
But all the while you have to tell yourself that this is just a little bit of self-deception, because, ultimately each person has his own challenges to rise above. For example, getting back to Churchill, if he lived in California in 2008, he'd have to give up his stogies (at least anywhere except perhaps his own basement); he'd have to be chauffered everywhere because his blood alcohol level would be over the legal limit after his first morning sherry and for the rest of the day; he'd be dogged by accusations of racism, anti-Semitism, and probably a host of other things; he'd be faced with a functionately illiterate constituency with virtually no capacity for critical thinking; in short, there's no way of knowing how he would have fared. Each of us is born to shine in our own time; so, I say, it's fine to take inspiration from your heroes, but ultimately be your own greatest hero.
Sometimes people are an anachronism. Patton? As a young kid I learned about GAC. Today people have reduced him to a madman. It's best to look at people in toto, warts and all. Sometimes making them more human makes them more endearing and real.
jab - You're right, of course, retreat is never an option. If anything, time itself keeps us moving towards the sea as so much flotsam. Time is so much more than merely a downward plunge. It allows for our renewal. The wave of support for Obama during this past election speaks of a hopeful spirit by most that we can be better. Better than what? Better than what we have become: complacent; bored. With the push of a lever, most of us have opted for rattling our cages; cages, that have become too stifling, even moribund. We looked into a shining, young and confident face and decided to hitch our star to it. We purposely ignored the warnings of those who had gotten us here; those who showed us nothing that would advance us even an inch.
The mandate for our new president to deliver us from our admittedly ill-defined malaise could easily crush him and leave us once again leaderless. This does not bode well. Leadership in U.S. politics has been lacking for far too long. Too many pressing problems, both here and abroad, have gone unaddressed and are spiraling out of control. If I am pessimistic, it’s because I still don’t see solutions to our economic woes, for instance. I see no one going to jail for what is clearly a theft. Take a look at your 401K. Where has it gone?
Obama seems to think that simply printing more paper is the answer. Never mind its value which has been traditionally been linked to the sweat of our labor. Once anyone begins punishing us for being productive, they accomplish the killing of our currency. Eventually you’ll find more and more people with their hands out – not for money, but for bread.
Peter:
Is socialism the the answer?
This whole crisis is OF Washington DC and BY Washington DC. Even now, with all the damage that's been done, if you had people in Congress and the White House that really knew what the heck was going on, and stopped repeating the same... stupid...mistakes...over...and...over...and...over, this ship would begin to right itself in a matter of a few weeks. Can't anyone besides me see that it's the captain and the crew who are trying to sink our ship?
If you made me King of the U.S. for just a short time, perhaps three months, I could turn everything around. Clean house, appoint some people to Congress who are worth their salt, let the markets operate the way they should, i.e. unfettered, leave the banks alone to sink or swim as best they can, let people lose or keep their houses as best they can; detonate a sizable nuclear warhead right in the center of all the Somalian pirate vessels; and most importantly, issue an edict to henceforth use all modern newspapers for the only purpose for which they are well-suited, that is, the lining of parrot and hamster cages.
Jim - If you were to answer "socialism" in any of our universities and colleges these days, you would be marked "correct". At the same time, these institutions have re-written history as not to show the failure of socialism where ever it's been tried. I happen to think that the only way to get us out of this mess is to grow the economy by eliminating capital gains; abandoning social engineering; lowering taxes in general and (as Lou says) we could be on our way to a turn-around in just a few months.
Unfortunately, this is anathema to most of our ruling class. They worry about inequities arising; global warming, and the like. They are jihadis of a sort. The want to force us to retrench; to bring about an equal share of misery throughout the world and call it "utopia".
That's true. Socialism always seems to pitch to the lowest common denominator. Equality, Liberty, Security. Pick any two. or is that good, fast, cheap? :)