Susan Sontag

Susan Sontag: Racist, Bigot & Hypocrite
By Daniel G. Jennings
It is sickening to see the tribute our media (particularly the major newspapers) is giving to a terrible person a bigot, racist and hypocrite named Susan Sontag who recently died.
For those of you out in there in the real world who don=t have the time to care about people and things outside the real world Susan Sontag was a leftist intellectual who became famous in some circles by writing books nobody read (I=m a prolific reader and something of an intellectual myself and I can=t even name any of Ms. Sontag=s works which shows her real influence). A few intellectuals read the books and proclaimed them brilliant so the usual cadre of journalists, professors, actors, directors and other pseudo intellectuals hailed Ms. Sontag as a genius.
Ms. Sontag may or may not have been a great writer but she was a hypocrite, a racist and a bigot as her actions prove. In the 1960s Ms. Sontag became an outspoken opponent of the Vietnam War and supporter of North Vietnam. She traveled to Hanoi and championed the cause of one of the most corrupt and oppressive dictatorships on Earth. She demanded that America pull out of Vietnam not because she cared about the American soldiers fighting and dying there but because she wanted the Communists to win.
After the Communists won in Vietnam, set up a dictatorship and herded a large percentage of the population into concentration camps called reeducation centers Ms. Sontag didn=t care. She didn=t care when the Vietnamese Communists allies the Khmer Rouge murdered millions in an attempt to create a Communist utopia in Cambodia or when tens of thousands of South Vietnamese drowned in the South China Sea trying to get away from her friends from Hanoi.
This is where the racism part comes in, even though Ms. Sontag didn=t care about the poor Asian people murdered, tortured, oppressed and exploited by her Communist friends. She did care about the poor white people of the former Yugoslavia. The same woman who demanded that the American troops protecting the poor people of Asia from Communist thugs in the 1960s and 70s be withdrawn in the early 1990s demanded that US forces be dispatched to Yugoslavia to protect the poor white people there from ethnic cleansing and other thuggery. That is the height of both hypocrisy and racism, why was it wrong for Lyndon Johnson to send troops to Vietnam to defend human rights but right for Bill Clinton to send troops to Yugoslavia to defend human rights? Could it be that Ms. Sontag believed that only white people are entitled to human rights or that thugs and gangsters are good people as long as they have a copy of the Communist manifesto in their pockets?
If this hypocrisy wasn=t bad enough there was Ms. Sontag=s reaction to the Sept. 11 atrocity she wrote an essay praising the terrorists and even called them brave. She tried to justified their cause. This woman felt more sympathy for terrorists who killed Americans than her fellow citizens who had been savagely murdered in New York. And her sympathy like her sympathy for Ho Chi Minh was motivated by bigotry.
Ms. Sontag hated America she believed that America was a corrupt and evil nation built on racism and genocide. Naturally Ms. Sontag never lived anywhere besides America. If America was so bad why didn=t Ms. Sontag leave it? Perhaps she didn=t want to give up her comfortable apartment in Manhattan or the big checks she received for her writing. That too is the height of hypocrisy.
In a sane society somebody like Ms. Sontag would be left alone to die a miserable lonely death in a walk up apartment with a couple of cats. Unfortunately in our country she is hailed by some segments of society as a genius when she clearly wasn=t. Worse a hypocrite is celebrated as a profoundly moral person, and a friend of tyranny is hailed as a champion of freedom.
It is a testimony to the greatness of America that people like Ms. Sontag are tolerated here and even allowed to thrive. Only in a free country society like America could some Ms. Sontag function. The question today=s intellectuals should ask will people like Ms. Sontag be tolerated, especially if large numbers of American bodies start piling up in the streets of our homeland or the Middle East?

Nihilists for Peace

Nihilists for Peace
By Daniel G. Jennings
There are many reasons why average people should be disturbed about the self-proclaimed peace movement but the most frightening thing about the peace movement is its embrace of nihilism.
The 1958 New Practical Standard Dictionary on my bookshelf gives a number of descriptions of nihilism including “the doctrine that nothing exists or can be known,” “a political doctrine holding that that the existing structure of society should be destroyed” and “in psychiatry a sense of unreality a delusion of non-existence.” The frightening thing is that the majority of present day advocates of “peace” can be described as nihilists using this definition.
The peace activists fall into two categories that can be described as nihilist. The first are the internationalists the people who believe that the United Nations or some other international institution shall bring about world peace if we put our faith in it. How this miracle will be achieved is not described, only if we put our blind faith in the UN or in the good will of all men we can have peace. Instead of trusting in the actions of existing nations or their militaries we are supposed to believe in phantoms called international law or cooperation and pray they will achieve peace.
The second is the modern Marxist, the old time Marxists believed that through the proper application of Marx’s theories usually following the formulas of Lenin or Mao world peace could be achieved. That a violent destruction of the world order could and would lead to peace if one followed Marx. The modern Marxist believes that simply overthrowing the existing order will bring peace and utopia. He or she doesn’t know how or why this will be achieved, only that if those in power step aside and let the downtrodden or their self proclaimed champions rise up and destroy the established order utopia will come. Every rebel is a champion of justice and peace. Every authoritarian a bad guy. By such thinking Jefferson Davis, President of the Confederacy and life long defender of slavery was a champion of freedom and Abraham Lincoln an evil tyrant because Davis was the rebel and Lincoln the leader of the established order.
Thus we hear modern peace activists claiming that the Islamic terrorists who want to destroy us and our civilization are simply misunderstood rebels. If we simply listen to them they’ll stop their violence and behave. This is nonsense, Bin Laden doesn’t want to be heard he wants to kill us. By listening to him, we’ll embolden him as our grandparents empowered Hitler.
These beliefs are rooted in nihilism as is the other folly behind modern peace thinking: appeasement. The idea that if we do nothing peace will occur if we don’t lift a finger to stop the tyrants and terrorists or throw them a few crumbs. they’ll start behaving themselves and we can live in peace. Appeasement worked wonders in 1939, it encouraged Adolph Hitler to start World War II or at least expand the war to Europe. The appeaser believes that by not taking a moral stand he can avoid conflict when he is really encouraging the aggressor. Appeasers are nihilists because they buy into a delusion the idea that peace can be achieved by refusing to take a stand. That idea didn’t work in 1939 and it won’t work today.
The nihilistic tendencies in the peace movement and the rest of the left should frighten us because they show that some of fellow citizens would rather see our world destroyed for their concept of peace. That isn’t peace it’s a sick ideology that leads only to the battlefield and ultimately the mass grave. All those who want to live must then stand up and say no the peace movement and its apologists in the media. Or be prepared to spend the rest of their lives in bomb shelters.

Christmas Fun

A Christmas Carol, Scrooge is haunted by the ghosts of Christmas Past, Present, and Future. He learns that Christmas past was good and Christmas won't exist in the future because of political correctness instead it will be generic Winter Holiday celebrated on Dec. 26. He learns that valuing money is good because capitalism is good and not to worry about Tiny Tim because Bob Cratchet used his credit cards to pay for Christmas. This part was added by Dickens at the behest of his large corporate publisher.
It's a Wonderful Life, George Bailey saves the building and loan, but every business in Bedford Falls goes broke and closes because Wal-Mart has opened outside of town. The mill has gone broke because its jobs have been outsourced to China. George ends up working at Wal-Mart as does everybody else. Potter then buys the town back and makes a fortune renting it out as slum housing for Wal-Mart employees.
Rudolph the Red Noised Reindeer, Rudolph and the Reindeer loose their jobs because it's cheaper and easier for Santa to ship the gifts via FedEx. They end up working at a Christmas display at the Mall. The elves loose their jobs because Santa finds its cheaper to have the toys made in Bangladesh. Santa then sells the North Pole to a developer, retires and moves to Hawaii after making a fortune by suing all the major Hollywood studios for copyright infringement and winning

House of Flying Daggers

“The House of Flying Daggers”
By Daniel G. Jennings
The House of Flying Daggers is quite simply an incredibly beautiful movie that is also great entertainment.
The story of two medieval Chinese policemen caught up in a love triangle while trying to track down a ruthless rebel leader is secondary to the lush scenery, lavish sets, colorful costumes, frantic movement and graceful action. And that’s the way it should be. Yes there’s a beautiful romance and a clever plot with a great twist and great performances particularly from Chinese sensation Zhang Zhi whose skill as both a dancer and martial artist is on display but it’s the scenery and choreography that makes this movie.
Director Zhang Yimou has created what amounts to a new art form here by combining the fast-moving and visually stunning action of a Chinese adventure film with the visual artistry of great American directors like John Ford. The real star of this movie is the natural beauty of China, the fields, the forests, the bamboo, even the weather is used to create what looks like a great painting.
The artistry is made all the more effective by the fact that there’s nothing arrogant or pretentious about this movie. Zhang simply sets out to tell a good entertaining story in a visually stunning manner and succeeds. The lack of political commentary, obvious propaganda, or attempts at philosophical musings makes the film work. It’s a movie about emotions and people trying to live as human beings in a difficult time and do their duty.
Unlike Zhang’s last effort “Hero” there are no obvious political overtones and nothing pompous. The more personal take on the action makes it more effective. We actually care about the characters even though we don’t really get to know them.
Hopefully this movie will find a larger audience it’s not getting the push or widespread distribution “Hero” got. Unfortunately it doesn’t fit in with the present American film scene, a beautiful and artistic film that doesn’t try to be political won’t get far at the art houses. An action film that isn’t overtly commercial and treats women in a respectful manner and avoids junior high school humor won’t get very far at the multiplexes. So I don’t know if there’s an audience for this stuff, especially with a lot of American movie fans soured on Chinese films by the clunky and corny grade b Kung Fu flicks of the 1970s. The only hope is that word of mouth about this visually stunning film will attract a large audience.
Still, I can’t wait to see Zhang’s next effort he’s a great film maker who has transformed a b-movie staple the Chinese Sword Opera into true art. I just hope that his next film gets wide release in first class theaters in the United States. With Hollywood in its present story state, we Americans need to be reminded of what great movies look like.

Needed: A National ID Card for Americans

Needed: A National ID Card for Americans
By Daniel G. Jennings
We need a national ID card for all citizens and legal residents of the United States.
Such a card is needed because it would help ensure our national security, greatly reduce illegal immigration and protect the rights of law abiding Americans of all races and backgrounds. The card would help law enforcement officers do their job and make life easier for average Americans.
The national ID card would simply be a plastic card with a picture on it and a magnetic strip similar to a credit card. The national ID card would work like a credit card, when somebody needed to verify an individual’s ID they’d simply swipe it through a credit card reader. The reader would be connected to a national database which would only out basic information the legal status, age, sex and a brief description of the individual.
This way, all a perspective employer or immigration agent would have to do to verify an employee’s legal status would be swipe the card. Employers would then easily be able to check the immigration status of all perspective employees. So could immigration agents. Police officers could verify people’s identity quickly and easily. So could screeners at airports.
T.J. Bonner, president of the National Border Patrol Council, a union for border patrol officers, told Time magazine that such a card would eliminate the need for massive security measures at our borders. No Berlin Wall or big fence on the border, no massive armies of border patrolmen, no massive bureaucracy trampling the rights of Hispanic Americans. A simple card could end the massive employment of immigrants and end the problem.*
Under the national card, companies would have no excuse to employ illegal immigrants. Law enforcement officers could enforce the law cheaply and easily. Yes criminals would eventually duplicate the card and sell fake ones but this would be expensive and time consuming.
The card wouldn’t lead to discrimination to the contrary it would make discrimination based on race or ethnicity harder. If a law abiding legal citizen or resident of Hispanic heritage applied for a job for which he or she was qualified and presented the card which verified this. A bigoted employer would have no excuse not to hire the Hispanic. The Hispanic would have an excellent case for a discrimination law suit, the card proved his legal status and the bigot didn’t hire him.
So why don’t we have a national ID card especially since it makes a great deal of sense? Because of the opposition from extremists on the right and the left. Self proclaimed civil rights activists on the left have denounced the card as racist (how a card can be racist I don’t know) and libertarians and Christians on the right denounced it as an evil tool of big government. These extremists are of course financed by big business interests that profit from illegal immigration. Big business wants it easy to employ illegal immigrants and hard to enforce immigration laws. The card would make it hard to employ illegal immigrants and easy to enforce immigration laws.
Every time the national ID card issue is brought up dozens of highly paid champions of freedom and the downtrodden descend upon the TV studios to warn us of its evils and dangers. These champions of civil liberties all have expensive clothes and big bankrolls thanks to their friends in big business.
It is time for America to stop listening to the extremists and big business and join the rest of the world in adopting the common sense measure of a national ID card.
* “Time” magazine Sept. 20, 2004.

Drugs in Sports

Notes on the Culture Wars
By Daniel G. Jennings
The struggle called the Culture Wars is among the dumbest interludes in American history. Examples of the stupidity and the hypocrisy of the Culture Wars pervade our news everyday.
Take the scandal surrounding the use of steroids in baseball. The idea behind this is that is wrong for big league baseball players to use muscle building. Note here big league baseball players have been using performance enhancing drugs since the sport began.
The hypocrisy in the steroids in sports debate is obvious. It’s wrong for ball players to use some drugs but not others. Modern sports would be impossible without modern pain relievers. Virtually every athlete uses pain relievers and probably prescription pain relievers. Without them you couldn’t have modern sports, but nobody seems to care that athletes are using pain relievers. Even though every pro athlete since the Roman gladiators has probably used some form of pain relieving drug.
I guarantee you that Babe Ruth, Joe DiMaggio and Satchel Page were taking pain relievers of some sort. Probably opium or some other morphine derivative, since nobody cared back in those days so nobody noticed. I guarantee you that most of the major ball players of the 1950s and 60s were using some sort of methamphetamine to speed up their play. Only nobody cared back in those days when every truck driver and salesman was popping pills to enhance his job performance.
The question I have to ask is why is it right for athlete A) to take a pill or shot to relieve his or her pain but wrong for athlete B) to take a pill or shot that increases his muscle mass? Especially since the Vioxx debacle shows that pain relievers can have terrible even deadly side effects. How many pro athletes end up in drug rehab because of pain reliever addiction?
The moral question raised by the steroid scandal is an obvious one, why is some drugs or medical procedures wrong and others aren’t. Why is it wrong for athlete A) to inject himself with drugs to increase his muscles but alright for athlete B) to have a knee operation to extend his career. Or take advantage of modern physical therapy which can allow players to extend their career. How far do we take this drug thing anyway do expel athlete A) from the game because he took a pill to help him sleep while athlete B) didn’t? After all, athlete A) might have an unfair advantage over athlete B) because he got a good night’s sleep and B didn’t.
How can modern ball players be compared to Babe Ruth or Satchel Page if those guys had been able to take advantage of modern medicine they might have had ten or fifteen more years of play? A modern doctor would have told Babe Ruth to loose weight making him a far better player. So why is it wrong for modern ball players to take advantage of some aspects of modern medicine but not others?
The questions have to be asked. It’s illogical and hypocritical to condemn ballplayers for taking some drugs but not others.
That of course is the whole problem with the war on drugs, it’s wrong to use some drugs but not others. I don’t understand it myself.
Then there’s the double standard of class here. It’s perfectly alright for Joe Working Class to use drugs to enhance his job performance, do more work at the plant and get a $1 an hour promotion. It’s perfectly alright for fighter pilots to take pep pills and lawyers to take drugs that enable them to stay up late and do more work. But it’s wrong for Barry Bonds to use dope to make a few million bucks.
Yes, the whole issue of drugs in sports is one of morality. Unfortunately, the opponents of drugs in sports maybe the ones who lack morality.

Bush's Real Religion

The Real Religion of the Bush Administration
By Daniel G. Jennings
Since evangelical Christianity is not the real religion of the George W. Bush as the media elite believes. We have to ask ourselves, what the faith of the Bush Administration and how does it affect Bush’s policies? The answer is an obvious and somewhat disturbing one, Bush II places its faith in a ruthless Social Darwinism.
The Bush Administration like corporate America today is a ruthless meritocracy where survival of the fittest is the name of the game. Don’t believe me? Just look at the people Bush surrounds himself with, Dick Cheney poor son of a Wyoming railroad cook, Colin Powell son of Jamaican immigrants, Labor Secretary Elaine Choi Chinese immigrant who came to the US on a freighter, Attorney General Gonzalez son of immigrant farm workers, and a Commerce Secretary who started his career driving a truck. Bush is surrounded by self made men and women who rose to the top through hard work and determination.
In other words, Bush is a Social Darwinist, pure and simple. A surprising development because Bush is a child of privilege the son of a president and a Skull and Bones man from Yale. Yet his administration is Social Darwinism in action, pure and simple.
The Bush Administration’s policies are also those of Social Darwinism, they favor the abolition of Affirmative Action and welfare government policies to help the underprivileged. The imposition of a harsh testing regime on the public schools designed to ensure high standards. A volunteer military that emphasizes the best and the brightest. Free trade policies based upon pure capitalism in which ruthless competitors are allowed to destroy less productive rivals. The use of military force to destroy regimes that stand in the way of progress. Social programs that reward those who work hard and save namely privatization of social security and medical bank accounts. Even the faith based initiative is based upon the idea that religious charities are more efficient and effective than secular agencies.
So why does the Bush Administration cloak itself in the veil of religiosity? To get elected and reelected, Social Darwinism is a popular philosophy in America but Christianity is far more popular. If Bush were to run as a Social Darwinist he wouldn’t get elected. If he pays lip service to popular notions of Christianity and morality he will get elected and reelected.
The impact of this unofficial regime of Social Darwinism will be obvious. A government and a society that cares and does little for the poor and unfortunate, and treats though with different cultural values and beliefs with contempt. As well as very wealthy society in which people will have the freedom to do virtually anything provided they can make enough money to pay for it. The question we have to ask ourselves is do we want to live in such a society?

UN

UN
By Daniel G. Jennings
The unfolding “Oil for Food” scandal at the United Nations, gives us a unique opportunity to clean up and reform that important entity.
Oil for Food was a program the UN set up to help the people of Iraq when that nation was ruled by Saddam Hussein and under embargo because it was violating UN orders on weapons of mass destruction. Under oil for food, Iraq was allowed to sell limited amounts of oil which was used to buy food and medicine for the nation’s people. Recent press revelations indicate that much if not most of the money raised by oil for food was siphoned off by corrupt UN officials, Saddam and European companies. UN Secretary General Kofi Anan is up to his neck in this scandal his son is an executive at a Swiss company that had a UN oil for food contract.
This scandal unfolded largely because the United States and other major powers ignored the United Nations. They paid the body lip service, wrote minimal checks to it and allowed it to fall under the control of corrupt and incompetent third world bureaucrats and politicians like Mr. Anan. They operate the UN like the government of a banana republic that is they steal as much as they can and ignore their jobs. Anan has done such a bad job that the UN staff voted to recommend his removal.
Oil For Food gives us a great opportunity to clean up the UN and make some needed reforms. The first step in these reforms would be to appoint a distinguished American, Japanese or European politician as Secretary General someone like Bill Clinton, Paul Volker or Colin Powell. This individual could then reform the bureaucracy while other reforms are made. One needed reform, restructure the UN so that the world’s major powers have more votes than smaller countries. Instead of one nation vote, allocate UN votes on the basis of population or economic power. That way the major powers would be making the decisions and not the third world thugs. Finally restructure the Security Council so that the Islamic World and India, the world’s second most populous nation and possibly second most powerful military will be represented.
Another thought here notice how the mainstream media has ignored the scandal unfolding at one of their sacred cows the United Nations. This corruption has been going on for years perhaps decades and the media has ignored it or deliberately downplayed the scandal. Obviously the existence of such a scandal contradicts the rosy view the educated elite has of the world and places the naïve and simplistic idea that bodies like the UN can lead to peace and a better world. The media doesn’t want the scandal exposed because it threatens their world view. Imagine the coverage had this corruption been going on in an American presidential administration or large corporation?
It is time we adopted a realistic view of the UN and started reforming that body or trying to replace it with something better. For if we don’t we’ll have a world that’s even more war-torn and dangerous than the one we have today.