". . . All conservatism is based upon the idea that if you leave things alone you leave them as they are. . . But you do not. If you leave a thing alone you leave it to a torrent of change. If you leave a white post alone it will soon be a black post. If you particularly want it to be white you must be always painting it again; that is, you must be always having a revolution. Briefly, if you want the old white post you must have a new white post. . ."
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. . . suggestions from which to choose .Mssrs. Pompeo and Barr,
Either apply your moralizations to the current commander-in-chief, without exception, or stop your digressive and devolutionary pontifications.
(from usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2019/10/14/state-dept-website-promotes-mike-pompeo-speech-critics-decry/3980544002/)
". . . Pompeo . . . (touted). . . Christianity throughout the remarks, describing how he applies his faith to his government work, referencing God and the Bible during the entirety of the speech. . . Attorney General William Barr, also gave a speech on religion on Friday, decrying secularism as a root of some of society's problems, including drug overdoses, mental health issues, and violence. . ."
(from https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Christopher_Hitchens)
Faith is the surrender of the mind; it's the surrender of reason, it's the surrender of the only thing that makes us different from other mammals. It's our need to believe, and to surrender our skepticism and our reason, our yearning to discard that and put all our trust or faith in someone or something, that is the sinister thing to me. Of all the supposed virtues, faith must be the most overrated.
(from https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/3956.Christopher_Hitchens)
"God did not create man in his own image. Evidently, it was quite the other way about, which is the painless explanation for the profusion of gods and religions, and the fratricide both between and among faiths, that we see all about us and that has so retarded the development of civilization."
. . . rule (an insult to a noble species, indeed!)
(from No One Left To Lie To; The Values of the Worst Family by Christopher Hitchens)
". . . The impression has been allowed to solidify that there was no price to be paid for all this; that the very definition of political skill was an ability to act without conscience. Appalled by the sheer raw ruthlessness of the President and his defenders, the Republicans and the conservative churches decided to call it a day. Marvin Olasky, the born-again Rightist who had originated the idea of "welfare reform" and been at Newt Gingrich's elbow, wrote a book on Presidential morality in which he said that if only Clinton had been a more regular churchgoer, and would even now ask for God's mercy, all might be well. It was not only liberals who failed the test set by Clintonism: The world of the "prayer breakfast" was is ally as surely as were the boardrooms and the Dow Jones. But millions of Americans still realized that something had been lost in the eight years of reptilian rule. . ."
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(from No One Left To Lie To; The Values of the Worst Family by Christopher Hitchens)
". . . On the morning of their inauguration in January 1993, the Clintons were observed standing on the steps of Blair House, official hospitality head-quarters of L'Enfant's grand and dignified federal city. "Fucking bitch," the President-elect screamed at his newly-minted First Lady. "Stupid mother-fucker," she riposted. We may never know what the hideous story of "enabling" and betrayal lay behind this poisoning of their big day, but we can fix it in time as the one moment when both were totally candid in public, and both were utterly right on the facts. Those who would vote to prolong the presence of this partnership in public life are not doing so with the excuse of innocence or gullibility that might have obtained in 1992.
The figure of Mrs. Clinton was anticipated by Henry Adams in his tremendous novel Democracy, published as an anonymous satire on Washington corruption in 1880. Here we encounter Mrs. Lightfoot Lee, female manipulator extraordinaire:
In her own mind, however, she frowned on the idea of seeking for men. What she wished to see, she thought, was the clash of interests, the interests of forty millions of people and a whole continent, centering at Washington; guided, restrained, controlled, or unrestrained and uncontrollable, by men of ordinary mold; the tremendous forces of government, and the machinery of society, at work. What she wanted was POWER. . . "
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(from Hitch 22; A Memoir by Christopher Hitchens [quoting Conor Cruise O'Brien])
". . . "Are you a socialist?" asked the African Leader. I said yes. He looked me in the eye. "People have been telling me," he said lightly, "that you are a liberal. . . " the statement in its context invited a denial. I said nothing. And yet, as I drove home from my interview with the leader, I had to realize that a liberal, incurably, was what I was. Whatever I might argue. I was more profoundly attached to liberal concepts of freedom - freedom of speech and of the press, academic freedom, independent judgement and independent judges - than I was to the idea of a disciplined party mobilizing all the forces of society for the creation of a social order guaranteeing more real freedom for all instead of just for a few. The revolutionary idea struck me as more immediately relevant for most of humanity than were the liberal concepts. But it was the liberal concepts and their long-term importance - though not the name of liberal - that held my allegiance. . . "
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(from Nobody Left To Lie To; The Values of The Worst Family by Christopher Hitchens)
". . . Indeed, in what had begun as a rather stilted and fixed campaign, the only outlet for insurgent feeling was that offered in a Republican primary by the eccentric Senator from Arizona, John McCain achieved at least an initial burst of speed by his proclaimed dislike of the system, by his professed distaste for campaign-finance racketeering and by his (apparently) unscripted and unspun style. It was puerile anti-politics but it worked for a space, and drew for its effect on many voters who had registered as Democrats or independents. Nowhere within the echoing emptiness of the Democratic fold was there any hint of a live dialogue. And McCain, of course, had voted to impeach and to convict Clinton, and had gravely upset Governor Bush of Texas, in the course of the South Carolina Primary, by comparing him to incumbent President. ("You don't," said Bush in a tone of outrage, "you just don't say that of a man."). . . "
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(from No One Left To Lie To; The Values of the Worst Family by Christopher Hitchens, citing conservative Norman Podhoretz's essay for the National Review)
". . . his (Clinton's) one great and unarguable achievement , which was the destruction or "McGovernism" in the Democratic Party. Clinton might, said Podhoretz, have wavered occasionally on matters like the sell-out to China. But he had forever defeated the liberal, union-minded, bleeding heart and environmentalist faction, of the sort that had once stuck up for Vietnamese or Nicaraguans or (worst of all) Palestinians. . .The admission that Clinton is a political conservative, who has moved the Democratic Party to the right while relying on rather prostituted "correctness" constituencies, is one that few authentic conservatives allow themselves. . ."
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. . . (this one, unfortunately, not so great) . . . in history . . .
(from No One Left To Lie To; The Values of the Worst Family by Christopher Hitchens)
". . . (from an address by David Schippers) The President, then, has lied under oath in a civil deposition, lied under oath in a criminal grand jury. He lied to the people, he lied to his Cabinet, he lied to his top aides, and now he's lied under oath to the Congress of the United States. There's no one left to lie to. . ."
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(from Thomas Jefferson; Author of America by Christopher Hitchens)
". . . At that date, the Electoral College was determined by each state's presidential electors, themselves chosen by state legislatures, each of whom could cast two votes. One such vote had to be for a candidate from another state. The two candidates receiving the most votes became, regardless of party, president and vice president respectively. . ."
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Watching movies about old people gets one to thinking . . .
(from http://flavorwire.com/324742/20-famous-writers-on-death-and-mortality)
“Death is certain, replacing both the siren-song of Paradise and the dread of Hell. Life on this earth, with all its mystery and beauty and pain, is then to be lived far more intensely: we stumble and get up, we are sad, confident, insecure, feel loneliness and joy and love. There is nothing more; but I want nothing more.” – Christopher Hitchens, The Portable Atheist
“People living deeply have no fear of death.” – Anaïs Nin, The Diary Of Anaïs Nin, Volume Two
“Life was not a valuable gift, but death was. Life was a fever-dream made up of joys embittered by sorrows, pleasure poisoned by pain; a dream that was a nightmare-confusion of spasmodic and fleeting delights, ecstasies, exultations, happinesses, interspersed with long-drawn miseries, griefs, perils, horrors, disappointments, defeats, humiliations, and despairs — the heaviest curse devisable by divine ingenuity; but death was sweet, death was gentle, death was kind; death healed the bruised spirit and the broken heart, and gave them rest and forgetfulness; death was man’s best friend; when man could endure life no longer, death came and set him free.” – Mark Twain, Letters from the Earth
“I can remember how when I was young I believed death to be a phenomenon of the body; now I know it to be merely a function of the mind — and that of the minds who suffer the bereavement. The nihilists say it is the end; the fundamentalists, the beginning; when in reality it is no more than a single tenant or family moving out of a tenement or a town.” – William Faulkner, As I Lay Dying
“Death is no more than passing from one room into another. But there’s a difference for me, you know. Because in that other room I shall be able to see.” – Helen Keller
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(from No One Left To Lie To; The Values of the Worst Family by Christopher Hitchens)
"The impression has been allowed to solidify that there was no price to be paid for all this; that the very definition of political skill was an ability to act without conscience. Appalled by the sheer raw ruthlessness of the President and his defenders, the Republicans and the conservative churches decided to call it a day. Marvin Olasky, the born-again Rightist who had originated the idea of "welfare reform" and been at Newt Gingrich's elbow, wrote a book on Presidential morality in which he said that if only Clinton had been a more regular churchgoer, and would even now ask for God's mercy, all might be well. It was no only liberals who failed the test set by Clintonism: the world of the "prayer breakfast" was his ally as surely as were the boardrooms and the Dow Jones. But millions of Americans still realized that something had been lost in the eight years of reptilian rule. The embarrassing emptiness of the 2000 election, especially the loss by the Democratic Party of even the slightest claim to any moral or ethical advantage, is one small symptom of what has been so casually thrown away. Meanwhile, the warm-blooded and the thin-blooded could only discuss the scaly and the remorseless in hushed tones, as the ensuing chapter will demonstrate. Perhaps one day the hot-blooded will have their revenge. . . "
(more from Christopher Hitchens circa 1998 http://www.american-buddha.com/material.high.htm)
". . .The Dalai Lama has come out in support of the thermonuclear tests recently conducted by the Indian state, and has done so in the very language of the chauvinist parties who now control that state's affairs. The "developed" countries, he says, must realize that India is a major contender and should not concern themselves with its internal affairs. This is a perfectly realpolitik statement, so crass and banal and opportunist that it would not deserve any comment if it came from another source.
"Think different," says the ungrammatical Apple Computer advertisement that features the serene visage of His Holiness. Among the untested assumptions of this billboard campaign is the widely and lazily held belief that "Oriental" religion is different from other faiths: less dogmatic, more contemplative, more ... transcendental. This blissful, thoughtless exceptionalism has been conveyed to the West through a succession of mediums and narratives, ranging from the pulp novel "Lost Horizon," by James Hilton (creator of Mr. Chips as well as Shangri-La), to the memoir "Seven Years in Tibet," by SS veteran Heinrich Harrer, prettified for the screen by Brad Pitt. China's foul conduct in an occupied land, combined with a Hollywood cult that almost exceeds the power of Scientology, has fused with weightless Maharishi and Bhagwan-type babble to create an image of an idealized Tibet and of a saintly god-king. So perhaps the Apple injunction to think differently is worth heeding.
The greatest triumph that modern PR can offer is the transcendent success of having your words and actions judged by your reputation, rather than the other way about. The "spiritual leader" of Tibet has enjoyed this unassailable status for some time now, becoming a byword and synonym for saintly and ethereal values. Why this doesn't put people on their guard I'll never know. But here are some other facts about the serene leader that, dwarfed as they are by his endorsement of nuclear weapons, are still worth knowing and still generally unknown.
Shoko Asahara, leader of the Supreme Truth cult in Japan and spreader of sarin nerve gas on the Tokyo subway, donated 45 million rupees, or about 170 million yen (about $1.2 million), to the Dalai Lama and was rewarded for his efforts by several high-level meetings with the divine one.
Steven Seagal, the robotic and moronic "actor" who gave us "Hard to Kill" and "Under Siege," has been proclaimed a reincarnated lama and a sacred vessel or "tulku" of Tibetan Buddhism. This decision, ratified by Penor Rinpoche, supreme head of the Nyingma School of Tibetan Buddhism, was initially received with incredulity by Richard Gere, who had hitherto believed himself to be the superstar most favored. "If someone's a tulku, that's great," he was quoted as saying. "But no one knows if that's true." How insightful, if only accidentally. At a subsequent Los Angeles appearance by the Dalai Lama, Seagal was seated in the front row and Gere two rows back, thus giving the latter's humility and submissiveness a day at the races. Suggestions that Seagal's fortune helped elevate him to the Himalayan status of tulku are not completely discounted even by some adepts and initiates.
Supporters of the Dorge Shugden deity -- a "Dharma protector" and an ancient object of worship and propitiation in Tibet -- have been threatened with violence and ostracism and even death following the Dalai Lama's abrupt prohibition of this once-venerated godhead. A Swiss television documentary graphically intercuts footage of His Holiness, denying all knowledge of menace and intimidation, with scenes of his followers' enthusiastically promulgating "Wanted" posters and other paraphernalia of excommunication and persecution.
While he denies being a Buddhist "Pope," the Dalai Lama is never happier than when brooding in a celibate manner on the sex lives of people he has never met. "Sexual misconduct for men and women consists of oral and anal sex," he has repeatedly said in promoting his book on these matters. "Using one's hand, that is sexual misconduct." But, as ever with religious stipulations, there is a nutty escape clause. "To have sexual relations with a prostitute paid by you and not by a third person does not constitute improper behavior." Not all of this can have been said just to placate Richard Gere, or to attract the royalties from "Pretty Woman."
I have talked to a few Dorge Shugden adherents, who seem sincere enough and who certainly seem frightened enough, but I can't go along with their insistence on the "irony" of all this. Buddhism can be as hysterical and sanguinary as any other system that relies on faith and tribe. Lon Nol's Cambodian army was Buddhist at least in name. Solomon Bandaranaike, first elected leader of independent Sri Lanka, was assassinated by a Buddhist militant. It was Buddhist-led pogroms against the Tamils that opened the long and disastrous communal war that ruins Sri Lanka to this day. The gorgeously named SLORC, the military fascism that runs Burma, does so nominally as a Buddhist junta. I have even heard it whispered that in old Tibet, that pristine and contemplative land, the lamas were the allies of feudalism and unsmilingly inflicted medieval punishments such as blinding and flogging unto death.
Yet the entire Western mass media is uncritically at the service of a mere mortal who, at the very least, proclaims the utter nonsense of reincarnation and who affirms the sinister if not indeed crazy belief that death is but a stage in a grand cycle of what appears to be futility and subjection. What need, then, to worry about nuclear weaponry, or sectarian frenzy, or the sale of indulgences to men of the stamp of Steven Seagal? "Harmony" will doubtless kick in. During his visit to Beijing, our sentimental Baptist hypocrite of a president turned to his dictator host, recommended that he meet with the Dalai Lama and assured him that the two of them would get on well. That might easily turn out to be the case. Both are very much creatures of the material world. . . "
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