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Thursday, February 11, 2021

Briefly Noted: The Vision Thing

"The Vision Thing" is Jen Dyer's latest article. As usual with Dyer, it's humongously long. Here a link to the full title:


The vision thing: Handy guide to the biggest earthquake in human affairs in 2,000 years


While the entire article is extremely lengthy, what I see as the true core is brief enough and follows on conveniently from two recent posts here:


On Neo-Gnostic Ideologies

The Christian Intellectual Tradition


Dyer's article is basically about: Where are now? and, What do we do about it? What recent events tell us is where we are as a nation. Duh! These events tell us that we're a deeply divided nation that is definitively ruled by an oligarchy that is composed of: a corrupt political class, a class of radically ideologized neo-gnostic public and university activists, Deep State actors in the military, diplomatic and, above all, intelligence agencies, and Big Tech corporations.

How divided is the United States? My guess is that America is not quite as divided as the 50/50 election results over the last several national would indicate. The hard left element of the population--or that element that is willing to throw the constitutional order (such as it now is) up for grabs--probably doesn't exceed 30%. The difficulty is that a significant portion of the remainder are not committed to the steps needed to wrench control back from the ruling oligarchy--they'd like to muddle along in the hope that a non-upsetting solution will emerge. The real question for our future becomes: How committed will the Left be to pushing their agenda through if popular resistance stiffens and spreads? And of course the wild card is in the "if".

With this in mind, here's the core, as I see it, of Dyer's article. The reason I say this brief passage is the core is because Dyer doesn't actually offer a plan of action. At all. She says we need to see what emerges, much as I just said. However, here are her guiding ideas:


Vision

Things aren’t going back to our old “normal.” Ever. Deal with it now. That’s the starting point of vision.

The most important way to deal with it isn’t preparing yourself for disappointment, however. It’s deciding what the future you want is to be.

You probably think in terms of how to react to threats. Most of us do, most of the time. But the real driver of your actions will be, and needs to be, what you wantThe year 2000 is never coming back. Surely you have seen by now that you shouldn’t want it to. It was already a “big lie.” The deep-seated corruption of our institutions was already well underway then.

That doesn’t mean the U.S. Constitution needs a major overhaul. For one thing, we haven’t really been living by it for a long time. It’s not our problem. But the adherence to its most basic forms, such as three branches, a batch of states, and a set schedule of elections, has kept alive an illusion that we were living by it.

Resurrecting the spirit and understandings of the original Constitution, with the Bill of Rights and the elimination of slavery, is a fine touchstone for vision.

But the importance of vision lies in this. We have to see – it is imperative to see – that merely reverting to some status quo of our imaginations is neither possible nor sustainable. There is no such future as eliminating the shenanigans of today’s “Deep State” (which we are now at liberty to call a cabal) and having a sort of political elastic snap us back to some comfortable place we were before.

Our vision must deal with what we are actually going to do when that doesn’t happen.


Dyer says that "the US Constitution ... isn't our problem." But, that said, if constitutional order as envisioned by the Founders was ever the old "normal" we have to let go of that--it's not coming back. The reason the old normal isn't coming back is simple enough. The Constitution, as written, reflects what the country as a whole was willing to accept as a working reflection of their view of a Good Polity. The fact is, however, that we face a twofold problem:


1. As Dyer states, the illusion that our constitutional order was, to this point, functioning as envisioned is part of a "big lie". The Capitol as the "sacred space" where the "people's business" gets done in accordance with the Constitution, when not interrupted by insurrection? Please! We know better than that.

2. Worse, in any event, there no longer is in America a general acceptance of what the Good Life in a politically ordered setting would be.

 

The reality is that people's ways of thinking have changed--probably not as fundamentally as it sometimes seems, but enough that there is no longer a large enough common ground for a simple restoration.

Vision requires us to first see clearly where we are. It's not enough to simply say, There's no going back. We need to understand why there's no going back, and that requires an understanding of what stands in the way--if we think the principles underlying the Constitution are worth restoring.

My first post linked above, on neo-gnostic ideology, follows on previous posts that criticized the implications of Classical Liberalism. Neo-gnostic ideology has found a way to flourish in our Constitutional setting, found a congenial environment.

That means that the way forward--short of violent conflict--lies in changing the way people think. That's the point of the second post, on Christian intellectualism. I'm not saying that we all need to become intellectuals, per se. What I am saying is that we need to internalize a coherent set of intellectual principles that can serve as the basis for a restored American polity--whether an entirely new constitutional order or some form of restoration. That internalization of principles needs to be sufficient that a large portion of the population can understand: No, that direction is wrong because it violates our principles, or, Yes, that's the way we should go because it embodies our principles. 

Not everyone will be able, on their own, to articulate such principles as they may apply to constitutional order and the resulting political life of the country. At a minimum, however, we need leaders who can articulate that connection of principles in a way that can be internalized. That means that "New World Order", "Compassionate Conservatism", or "Make America Great Again/America First" or "American Exceptionalism" are simply insufficient for our future direction. The fact that elections were run on such basically content free slogans is a clear indication of the lack of broad agreement on explicit principles. Trump, to his very great credit, was able to flesh out his slogan with very specific policy proposals that served as articulations of principle. That can work, to a degree, as 74 million plus people testified with their votes. But, as we also saw, that was not remotely sufficient to recapture the high ground of rule from the Oligarchy.

The way forward probably I've outlined by its nature can't be fast or easy. It is, however, necessary and desirable--it's the path of persuasion rather than violence, and it calls on us to speak our minds and not back down from the truth. On the other hand, this is not a call to a monastic life of contemplation. We can't back out of public involvement or that will signal resignation and defeat. So it's a war or insurrection that must be fought on two fronts: Renewing ourselves and the country spiritually and intellectually, while also working to preserve what is worthwhile in our past.

Dyer concludes her piece on an interesting note of optimism. Above, I suggested that what is needed is to somehow move the people in the middle, who wish to "muddle" through without upset or discomfort. The only way for that to happen, short of truly momentous events, is for the enormity of the Left's vision to be fully revealed. The Trump turnout in 2020 is a strong indication that an unprecedentedly large portion of Americans have arrived at an understanding of just how inimical the Left's vision is to the Good Life of human nature as it was created. They may not know about "neo-gnostics" and such, or be able to define the concept, but like the obscenity that it is they increasingly know it when they see it and are no longer fooled by politicians. 

Recall that I recently wrote that the Time article on the Leftist "cabal" that "saved" us from ourselves is actually a sign of failure, and so good news for us. In similar vein Dyer writes:


Even if the deeper purpose of the Senate trial is to introduce a massive propaganda surge depicting 75 million Americans as seditious terrorists, that effort will only swing the cabal’s fist around to punch itself out. The Big Lies are being exposed every time they are deployed.

Indeed, such actions amount merely to the cabal dealing itself the final strokes.

The cabal has been building the fatal case against itself for many years now, seeking to exploit and manipulate the people and abusing their trust. The elements of the cabal (TIME’s word, not mine) have had numerous chances to change their ways, and they have doubled down on them instead.

The TIME article is evidence of a starkly central reality: they want to rule us with a lie. Without the Trump Senate trial, they were never going to tell us that they rig-fortified the 2020 election. But now they have parted the curtains just a bit on that, in order to refine the lie. And as with all the other lies of theirs that have been exposed through the preternatural Trump filter, this one is now exposed, and the even greater ones will be too.


13 comments:

  1. Given the near absolute control over information flows from kindergarten to tomb, our ability to "move the people in the middle" and/or to fully reveal the enormity of the left's vision is limited. I submit that some momentous events are required. Without those events, re-educating and otherwise changing hearts and minds would take us as long as it has taken for the left to close the American mind. That is 60 years that I suspect none of us here believe we have available to us. I don't suggest that the events need be violent. I think they do need to be massive--such as shutting down the country for a week with threats to do more unless visible changes are made pronto. The right has to go on offense, but it has to be analogous to raindrops falling across the entire land vs. a dam break that can be addressed quickly by TPTB.

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    1. THIS is what I'm talking about:
      https://twitter.com/FenixAmmunition/status/1359884291950444554

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    2. LOL! It's as sound a way as any to ration a scarce product.

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  2. "... a significant portion of the remainder are not *committed*, to the steps needed to wrench control back from the ruling oligarchy--they'd like to muddle along....
    what is needed is to somehow move the people in the middle, who wish to "muddle" through, without upset or discomfort."

    Sounds like quite a good start, but this aim would've been further along the road, but for Barr's betrayals.
    We (incl. DJT, or those who succeed him) will need to be better, at sniffing out such BSers.

    right.

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  3. One good way to estabish 'unity' in the US is to fight a Good War. People share sacrifice, see what they hold in common, yadayaada. Of course, unlike previous Stupid Presidents, we also have to END the Good War.

    Related: Christopher Lasch wrote "The Revolt of the Elites" back in the late 1970's. He told us then! PJBuchanan acted on that and tossed a grenade under GHWBush's horse; Bush escaped, but lost, deservedly.

    Been downhill ever since.

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  4. The journalist for the Time article must feel pretty proud of herself right now. Part of the "Facade"...

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  5. Mark, had this forwarded to me by my 83 year old father. It's from Rip McIntosh. This is half of his blog from Feb. 9th. Let me know if you want the rest.

    Something to Consider
    By E.P. Unum
    February 9, 2021

    Before reviewing this essay, you may find these numbers interesting:
    As reported by the CDC ... here are the total number of US deaths by year and the change from the previous year

    > Year 2017 2,818,503 Americans died

    > Year 2018: 2,839,205 deaths (20,702 more than the previous year 2017)

    > Year 2019: 2,855,000 deaths (16,300 more than the previous year 2018)

    > Year of the pandemic ...2020..,.there were 2,913,144 deaths (57,641 more than the previous year 2019)

    Let this sink in for a minute. There were zero deaths from Covid-19 reported during 2018 and 2019… and the jump from 2019 to 2020 was only 57,641?

    But, We have been told COVID is responsible for 440,000 + deaths.

    Shouldn't the calendar year 2020 number be a hell of a lot higher? Hold that thought for a minute….

    So the question now becomes: how many people died FROM COVID and how many died (of other causes) WITH COVID?

    Perhaps there is a more reasonable explanation such as the possibility that the CDC is not finished reporting the final tabulations of the number of deaths through 2020. That, of course, is a possibility, but this is February 2021 and clearly, if the number of deaths was 440,000 higher they surely did not all occur in November or December 2020, so why the delay?

    More importantly, let’s consider these possibilities:

    Perhaps the reporting of deaths by the media was intentionally misleading, a very well-orchestrated plan intended to create fear and upheaval in the middle of an election year and on the heels of an ill-advised failure to remove a sitting President of the United States based on false accusations. Or, perhaps Covid 19 was an unimaginable set of events that just fell into place with the United States front and center. Let’s dispense with this possibility straight away: Can you tell me another nation with more reported deaths than the U.S?

    Let’s consider for a moment the following sequence of facts:

    Covid started with messages from the CDC and the eminent and distinguished Dr. Fauci of the NIH announcing in January 2020 to the media on TV and on TV talk shows that the “U.S. had nothing to worry about” and there was “no reason to wear masks” to telling us in late February and early March of 2020 that “masks are a necessity” and “we face a real pandemic”

    Enter the media and social media platforms, democratic mayors, governors, and, most importantly, democratic members of Congress who, every day, 24/7 in concert with the mainstream media, do the following:

    > Scare people with a virus. Force them to wear masks and place them in quarantine. Demand that voting in the national election be handled by mail while allowing people to stand in line and shop at Home Depot, Loews, Target, Walmart, Costco. Bed Bath & Beyond, and other "BigBox" stores

    > Count the number of deaths every second of every day, in every News Headline. By the way, ninety-nine and six-tenths (99.6%) of the people who contract the virus, recover. About one to two-tenths of one percent who get the virus, die, and most all of them have other medical problems. Did you catch that? Less than 1/2 of a percent die.

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    1. Makes total sense. But here's the other thing. CLAIMED deaths are 440K, but we know those are grossly inflated by fraudulent reporting methods. And know Big Pharma is being enriched by a pointless vaccine.

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    2. The Pfizer is not a vaccine. It is an experimental bio-agent.

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    3. Yeah, there's more in the 2nd half of his blog but it was too large to bring in this forum. I haven't found the website though I suspect it's on Turning Point somewhere. I received it through an email. Rather enlightening.

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    4. I basically tried that with a friend of mine that is kind of on the fence. His response was, "well, fewer people are driving in 2020 which probably isn't taken into account". I looked it up for him. The peak was 1980 with 50k, 2007 with 41,259, and 2019 at 36,120. I said ok, even if no one had died on the road in 2020, how do you explain the additional 404k discrepancy? Silence...

      Wasn't trying to rub it in, but I think he got the point. Still working on the 2 dems in Georgia winning fair and square nonsense.

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    5. I went to the CDC site and could not find the 2,913,144 deaths in 2020 data quoted in the blog. It has been notoriously hard to get clean data on excess deaths in 2020, but this article by the CDC seems to say that contra Rip McIntosh, 299,028 more people died from January 26, 2020, through October 3, 2020, than expected at the beginning of the year (excess deaths). This report was published in late October 2020. Who's right? I don't know. Where did McIntosh get his quoted numbers? I could not find the blog post noted above.

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  6. Sorry. I omitted the link:
    https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/69/wr/mm6942e2.htm?s_cid=mm6942e2_w

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