Mark Steyn's Blog, page 46

State of the Union

Big Labor's victory over John Kasich's reforms in Ohio is a reminder to conservatives that we're still a long way from closing the deal. A majority of the citizenry seem to agree that the nation's mired and that their homes and jobs and futures are sinking with it. But that same majority is not yet sold on transformative rollbacks of government and the public sector. They seem to think that out there somewhere there's a way to get the good times back that's more or less pain-free. More fool them - which is to say Obama & Co will have a pretty good shot at fooling them.

Somewhere in either my current book or the previous one (or possibly both), I cite the line Gerald Ford used to use to ingratiate himself with conservatives: "A government big enough to give you everything you want is big enough to take away everything you have." That may be true, but there's an intermediate stage: A government big enough to give you everything you want isn't big enough to get you to give any of it back. That's the problem Mr Papandreou's ministry has in Athens, and the Kasich administration in Ohio, and many other governments around the western world.

So it's easy for reformers to get voted in, and easy for their opponents to make sure their reforms get voted down. I'm afraid things are going to get a lot worse before that dynamic shifts.

Brokeneck Mountain

Different strokes for different folks:

A  19st rugby player suffered a stroke while training - and discovered when he woke up that he was gay.

Chris Birch, 26, had proposed to his girlfriend and worked in a bank when he suffered a freak accident in the gym.

The rugby-loving Welshman was trying to impress his friends with a back flip but broke his neck and suffered a stroke.

He was taken to the Royal Gwent hospital where his girlfriend and family waited for news - but said: 'I was gay when I woke up...'

Chris retrained as a hairdresser and now lives with his partner Jack Powell, 19, above the salon in which he works.

So,whether or not you can "pray away the gay", you can apparently stroke away the straight.

The Coming of Age Wars

Samuel, like you I was struck by that Pew survey on the widening gap between young and old. Here's how AP summarizes it:

The typical U.S. household headed by a person age 65 or older has a net worth 47 times greater than a household headed by someone under 35, according to an analysis of census data released Monday.

While people typically accumulate assets as they age, this gap is now more than double what it was in 2005 and nearly five times the 10-to-1 disparity a quarter-century ago, after adjusting for inflation.

Indeed, it's the widest disparity ever - and it will widen further, as the scale of the biggest generational wealth transfer in history perpetrated by late-20th century Americans becomes clearer.

Samuel notes "the disproportionate sway exerted by older folks on politics". But there's more to life than five minutes in the voting booth every other November, and in the two years in between younger, fitter types enjoy certain advantages. As I wrote a couple of months back:

Taxing young people ever more onerously to prop up entitlements for older generations who enjoyed all the benefits of a prosperous America their grandchildren will never know is a great way to sever what little is left of the social compact. Think Wisconsin State Fair writ large: Mobs of the able-bodied preying on the more walker-intense quartiers of Florida. Seniors with terrific government checks but terrified to venture out for Parcheesi Night at the Lodge, because the parking lot isn’t as well lit as you might like. You better hope your gated community is seriously gated.

I have no idea whether the Occupy DC crowd intentionally targeted the 78-year old woman they pushed down the stairs, but, either way, it's a useful reminder of who's most at risk when social tranquility starts to fade. In parts of the map that have undergone huge demographic transformation, there's likely to be even less social solidarity: It's asking a lot of a fraying societal fabric to expect young Hispanics to shoulder the ever greater entitlement costs of elderly whites and blacks (as in the American southwest) or young Muslims of elderly French and Germans (as in Europe). In the face-off between a beleaguered private sector and the public unions whose lavish benefits they pay for, Big Labor's muscle holds certain advantages. That doesn't apply in the looming showdown between youth and geezers.

O.W.S. D.O.A.

Here's a poignant vignette of the Occupy movement from Occupy Vancouver, where a woman in her twenties was found dead in her tent on Saturday night:

In a strange twist of events, the band D.O.A. began performing a live outdoor concert about 20 metres away while police set up crime scene tape around the now-collapsed tent.

Indeed. In a culture that values the attitudinal pose above humdrum reality, D.O.A. means the "transgressive" band with "edgy" titles (Last Scream Of The Missing Neighbors) rather than the actual corpse being carted off to the morgue a few yards away.

In my book, I quote a famous line from Gibbon on the late Roman Empire:

The form was still the same, but the animating health and vigor were fled.

Alas, that goes for counter-cultural imperialism, too.  At OWS the form is still the same - the third-of-a-century old fashions, the half-century-old songs - in the same way that at Franz Joseph's last military ceremonial in Vienna in the autumn of 1913 the form was still the same - the imperial coach and its six white Lippizaners, the Polish cuirassiers, the Hungarian hussars in leopard skin. But, in Zuccotti Park as in the Schwarzenbergplatz, in Oakland as in Rome, the animating health and vigor are fled.

When "youthful idealism" is an implausible euphemism for mopey solipsistic passivity ("I am a first semester college student, I have no idea where I will be in 4-5 years"), it's hardly surprising it degenerates into party time for crack dealers, granny-preying thugs, statutory rapists, and transgenderphobic looters. What else is there? The slogans, the drum circles, the D.O.A. gig, and the endorsements of opportunist celebs like the Rev Jackson and Michael Moore is like a Starbucks compilation CD of revolutionary chic.  

Bongo Bongo Bongo, I Don't Wanna Leave The Congo, Oh No No No No No

From The Daily Mail in London, Tintin In The Congo Placed On Top Shelf Over Racism Fears: 

The new film may be good clean family fun, but one of Tintin’s classic adventures has been banished to the adult shelves of bookshops because it is overtly racist.

Fears that Tintin In The Congo could have a negative effect on children have led publishers  to market it in protective  packaging with warning labels similar to those on explicit magazines.

With a new generation of fans enjoying Steven Spielberg’s movie, The Adventures of Tintin: The Secret Of The Unicorn, enthusiasm for collecting all 24 of Herge’s original comic books has never been higher.

Unfortunately, Tintin In The Congo was written in 1930 and depicts African natives as ignorant, simple and backward people, who are far less intelligent than their white visitors.

Whereas in reality it's British natives who are so ignorant, simple and backward that they have to have children's books sold in protective wrapping with warning labels about potentially harmful content:

Leading booksellers such as Waterstones have taken the book out of the children’s section, fearing it ‘could get into the wrong hands’.

So how are Congo natives depicted in the book?

The Africans carry Tintin in a bamboo mounted chair to meet their king, who sits on a wooden throne dressed in a leopard skin, puffing on a pipe and holding a rolling pin as a sceptre.

Tintin leans casually against a tree as he comes under fire, but the attackers' aim is so bad all the arrows and spears bury themselves harmlessly in the trunk, leading to the warriors bowing down to Tintin and declaring he is protected by magical charms.

Our hero also encounters a tribe of pygmies who have crowned his dog Snowy as their king and placed him on a throne.

"Human rights" lawyer David Enright was outraged:

It should be in the adult graphic novels section and even then some thought should be given to it.

‘There is no way of reading it without thinking it depicts black people as sub human and less mentally able than the apes. They all end up worshipping the dog.

From my latest book, After America:

Mr Onyango-Obbo had been reporting that the Congolese Liberation Movement was slaughtering huge numbers of people and feeding the body parts to their relatives. In North Kivu, a group called les Effaceurs (the Erasers) had wanted to open up the province’s mineral resources to commercial exploitation and to that end had engaged in ethnic cleansing by cannibalism. The Congo Civil War raged for most of the first decade of this century uncovered by CNN and The New York Times for want of any way to blame it on George W Bush. Among the estimated six million dead, many were eaten. The two parties to the conflict agreed on very little except that pygmies make an excellent entrée. Both sides hunted down them down as if they were the drive-thru fast-food of big game. While regarding them as sub-human, they believed that if you roasted their flesh and ate it you would gain magical powers. In return, the pygmies asked the UN Security Council to recognize cannibalism as a crime against humanity, for all the good that did.

Thank God Mr Enright filed his "human rights" complaint. The Congolese would be deeply offended at being portrayed as cute superstitious puppy worshippers too inept to kill their enemies.

(*Shrink-wrapped top-shelf Corner post title courtesy of the Andrews Sisters. Click at your own risk.)

Corporate Collaborators

Way back in 1968, after the riots at the Democratic Convention in Chicago, Mayor Daley declared that his forces were there to “preserve disorder.” I believe that was one of Hizzoner’s famous malapropisms. Forty-three years later Jean Quan, mayor of Oakland, and the Oakland city council have made “preserving disorder” the official municipal policy. On Wednesday, the “Occupy Oakland” occupiers rampaged through the city, shutting down the nation’s fifth-busiest port, forcing stores to close, terrorizing those residents foolish enough to commit the reactionary crime of “shopping,” destroying ATMs, spraying the Christ the Light Cathedral with the insightful observation “F**k,” etc. And how did the Oakland city council react? The following day they considered a resolution to express their support for “Occupy Oakland” and to call on the city administration to “collaborate with protesters.”

#ad# That’s “collaborate” in the Nazi-occupied-France sense: The city’s feckless political class are collaborating with anarchists against the taxpayers who maintain them in their sinecures. They’re not the only ones. When the rumor spread that the Whole Foods store, of all unlikely corporate villains, had threatened to fire employees who participated in the protest, the regional president, David Lannon, took to Facebook: “We totally support our Team Members participating in the General Strike today -- rumors are false!” But, despite his “total support,” they trashed his store anyway, breaking windows and spraypainting walls. As the Oakland Tribune reported:

A man who witnessed the Whole Foods attack, but asked not to be identified, said he was in the store buying an organic orange when the crowd arrived.

There’s an epitaph for the republic if ever I heard one.

The experience was surreal, the man said. “They were wearing masks. There was this whole mess of people, and no police here. That was weird.”

No, it wasn’t. It was municipal policy. In fairness to the miserable David Lannon, Whole Foods was in damage-control mode. Men’s Wearhouse in Oakland had no such excuse. In solidarity with the masses, they printed up a huge poster declaring “We stand with the 99%” and announcing they’d be closed that day. In return, they got their windows smashed.

I’m a proud member of the 1 percent, and I’d have been tempted to smash ’em myself. A few weeks back, finding myself suddenly without luggage, I shopped at a Men’s Wearhouse, faute de mieux, in Burlington, Vt. Never again. I’m not interested in patronizing craven corporations so decadent and self-indulgent that as a matter of corporate policy they support the destruction of civilized society. Did George Zimmer, founder of Men’s Wearhouse and backer of Howard Dean, marijuana decriminalization, and many other fashionable causes, ever glance at the photos of the OWS occupiers and ponder how many of “the 99%” were ever likely to be in need of his two-for-one deal on suits and neckties? And did he think even these dummies were dumb enough to fall for such a feebly corporatist attempt at appeasing the mob?

I don’t “stand with the 99%,” and certainly not downwind of them. But I’m all for their “occupation” continuing on its merry way. It usefully clarifies the stakes. At first glance, an alliance of anarchists and government might appear to be somewhat paradoxical. But the formal convergence in Oakland makes explicit the movement’s aims: They’re anarchists for statism, wild free-spirited youth demanding more and more total government control of every aspect of life -- just so long as it respects the fundamental human right to sloth. What’s happening in Oakland is a logical exercise in class solidarity: The government class enthusiastically backing the breakdown of civil order is making common cause with the leisured varsity class, the thuggish union class, and the criminal class in order to stick it to what’s left of the beleaguered productive class. It’s a grand alliance of all those societal interests that wish to enjoy in perpetuity a lifestyle they are not willing to earn. Only the criminal class is reasonably upfront about this. The rest -- the lifetime legislators, the unions defending lavish and unsustainable benefits, the “scholars” whiling away a somnolent half decade at Complacency U -- are obliged to dress it up a little with some hooey about “social justice” and whatnot.

#page# But that’s all it takes to get the media and modish if insecure corporate entities to string along. Whole Foods can probably pull it off. So can Ben & Jerry’s, the wholly owned subsidiary of the Anglo-Dutch corporation Unilever that nevertheless successfully passes itself off as some sort of tie-dyed Vermont hippie commune. But a chain of stores that sells shirts, ties, the garb of the corporate lackey has a tougher sell. The class that gets up in the morning, pulls on its lousy Men’s Wearhouse get-up, and trudges off to work has to pay for all the other classes, and the strain is beginning to tell.

#ad# Let it be said that the “occupiers” are right on the banks: They shouldn’t have been bailed out. America has one of the most dysfunctional banking systems in the civilized world, and most of its allegedly indispensable institutions should have been allowed to fail. But the Occupy Oakland types have no serious response, other than the overthrow of capitalism and its replacement by government-funded inertia.

America is seizing up before our eyes: The decrepit airports, the underwater property market, the education racket, the hyper-regulated business environment. Yet curiously the best example of this sclerosis is the alleged “revolutionary” movement itself. It’s the voice of youth, yet everything about it is cobwebbed. It’s more like an open-mike karaoke night of a revolution than the real thing. I don’t mean just the placards with the same old portable quotes by Lenin et al., but also, say, the photograph in Forbes of Rachel, a 20-year-old “unemployed cosmetologist” with remarkably uncosmetological complexion, dressed in pink hair and nose ring as if it’s London, 1977, and she’s killing time at Camden Lock before the Pistols gig. Except that that’s three and a half decades ago, so it would be like the Sex Pistols dressing like the Andrews Sisters. Are America’s revolting youth so totally pathetically moribund they can’t even invent their own hideous fashion statements? Last weekend, the nonagenarian Commie Pete Seeger was wheeled out at Zuccotti Park to serenade the oppressed masses with “If I Had a Hammer.” As it happens, I do have a hammer. Pace Mr. Seeger, they’re not that difficult to acquire, even in a recession. But, if I took it to Zuccotti Park, I doubt very much anyone would know how to use it, or be able to muster the energy to do so.

At heart, Oakland’s occupiers and worthless political class want more of the same fix that has made America the Brokest Nation in History: They expect to live as beneficiaries of a prosperous Western society without making any contribution to the productivity necessary to sustain it. This is the “idealism” that the media are happy to sentimentalize, and that enough poseurs among the corporate executives are happy to indulge -- at least until the window-smashing starts. To “occupy” Oakland or anywhere else, you have to have something to put in there. Yet the most striking feature of OWS is its hollowness. And in a strange way the emptiness of its threats may be a more telling indictment of a fin de civilisation West than a more coherent protest movement could ever have mounted.



--- Mark Steyn, a National Review columnist, is the author of After America: Get Ready for Armageddon. © 2011 Mark Steyn

An Awkward Moment

Boy, these Herman Cain revelations are horrifying. The Des Moines Register has the inside scoop from "conservative radio host" Steve Deace:

During his Oct. 3 broadcast in Iowa, Deace mentioned that Cain made a comment to a woman who was there to report on the radio interview for another news agency.

“Cain said, ‘Darling, do you mind doctoring my tea for me?’” Deace said.

Deace told the Register last month that he believes Cain was talking about adding honey and lemon, but that it was an awkward moment.

I can well believe it. A tea needs doctoring like a woman needs a bicycle. Clearly such a man has no place in public life. Although, come to think of it, this Deace fellow sounds awfully patriarchal and proprietorial about "my female staffers"...

The Cuts Begin to Bite!

Jonah mentioned earlier Commentary’s symposium on America’s future, in which I am officially the voice of pessimism. In fairness, I see myself as more of a the-glass-is-one-sixteenth-full type.

At any rate, Veronique’s post is a good example of why pessimism is the way to bet. The prevailing bounds of American politics do not allow for meaningful course correction. Instead:

1) Months are expended in a dramatic media showdown over the debt crisis with network anchors warning of ever more looming deadlines over footage of various eminences shuttling between the White House and the Capitol.

2) At the last minute, a deal is triumphantly announced.

3) The deal allegedly saves $1 billion from FY2012 – or approximately what the Government of the United States borrows every five hours. So in less time than it takes to run the press release for the breakthrough deal off the photocopier, we’ve borrowed back all the money it saves. But hey, it’s a start. And it’s the thought that counts.

4) Months later, the actual bill goes through, and – whaddayaknow? – the cheeseparing austerity package of spending cuts turns out actually to increase spending by $10 billion.

5) Lather, rinse and repeat.

Don’t worry, you say. Wait until we get a Republican Senate elected.

But a third of GOP senators voted for the “uncontroversial, non-partisan” measure. And three-fifths of them voted against even modest cuts to a typically wasteful “rural development” boondoggle that creates jobs in Guatemala and subsidizes Mohegan Sun casino. And, if you can’t even trim back a program that hands out $3 million grants to add a gallery to an old sea dog’s house on Martha’s Vineyard, it’s no wonder 40 members of the allegedly rock-ribbed Republican House have decided that supporting the raising of “new revenue” is easier than cutting spending.

In 2011, the United States Government took in $2.17 trillion but blew through $3.82 trillion - and that's before Entitlement Armageddon shows up down the road. If you're spending $4 trillion but only raising $2 trillion, you need to be cutting government in half or you're not serious. Washington is not serious. Indeed, it's far more frivolous than Athens.

The world has begun to figure out that the US political class is institutionally incapable of changing its ways, and cannot be diverted from the most expensive suicide in global history. Regardless of whether or not the downgrade wallahs are a bunch of shysters, nobody could seriously argue that the present finances of the United States merit triple-A status. Once that’s gone, the dollar’s status as global reserve currency is on the block. And after that what’s holding the joint up?

Where were you exactly 12 months ago? November 2nd 2010. America held an election that day. Remember that? The shot heard round the world? But apparently not in Washington. Doesn’t November 2nd 2010 feel a lot further away than 12 months ago?

Re: Greek Government Suddenly Replaces Military Chiefs. It's Probably Nothing.

Daniel, re the sudden firing of the Greek Chiefs of Staff, here's Janet Daley in last Saturday's Telegraph:

How long before the resentments and the powerlessness ignite and Greece, in its desperation, turns once again to the colonels? Will we see tanks on the streets of Athens at the same time as growing neo-fascist movements in Germany and Italy?

Looks like Mr Papandreou was thinking along the same lines. We forget how shallow the roots of Mediterranean democracy are. To Americans, the Seventies means flared trousers and the Partridge Family. To Spaniards, Portuguese and Greeks, it means Franco, the last hurrah of Salazar's Estado Novo, and the Colonels.

As Janet points out, the mad utopian obduracy of the European Union's ruling elites now risks returning the Continent to the very conditions it was intended to prevent. Seems like old times.

A Touch of the Poet

I see Ireland's new Uachtarán (president) is the veteran leftie Michael D Higgins. I'm not expecting an invitation to Phoenix Park any time soon. Here's what Mr Higgins had to say about me in the Irish parliament a couple of years back:

I now read articles in The Irish Times by somebody included for balance, Mark Steyn... Repeatedly this column of bigotry, homophobia and racism that is presented every Monday contains attacks on what we call the basic decencies on some principle of balance. The editor of that newspaper would want to indicate to me what she is balancing when she produces material like that.

Aside from me, Mr Higgins is also antipathetic to the United States and Israel. However, he is an enthusiastic Arafatist and alleged poet. When it comes to "balance" in the Irish media, that's the crowded end of the seesaw.