The Pendragon's Hall

Mel Gibson has finally won over the mainstream media. At a review of his new movie Apocaplypto, apparently about the fall of Mayan civilization, he told the gathered members of the press that American civilization is obviously on its way down and the war in Iraq was a way of committing cultural suicide. What a suck-up. Apparently trying to atone for his anti-Semitic outburst a few weeks ago (something the media only condemns if the person uttering them has no power to carry out any of the threats), Gibson has learned that to criticize the Iraq War is the short track to the hearts of the liberal media. It did confirm, anyway, something the Pendragon has long suspected: Mel Gibson, despite the screams of fury from the Left because of his movie portraying the redemptive death of Jesus, is no conservative. Usually the adage, "the enemy of my enemy is my friend," can work, but not in current American politics.

The Pendragon received some heartening news today from a former mentor. Apparently 7/11 gas stations across the United States are switching gas suppliers away from Citgo. No reason has been given but one can certainly speculate that Hugo Chavez's insane babbling at the United Nations. People will of course whine that this is punishing the poor people of Venezuela. Interestingly this only works when describing the Third World people. Nobody cares if the American people get hurt, we're just told that this should be a lesson to us who we elect as our leaders. Maybe the Venezuelans should learn this too. The world is done giving them a free pass because they're Hispanic and left-leaning.

Yes, you could, Linus. Or you could blame George Bush...that seems to be the hip thing these days. Even his own party's senators are jumping on the bandwagon, blaming tough American interrogators for continued terrorism. And to hear the Lefty crowd tell it, Al-Qaida was quietly practicing the Religion of Peace in the Middle East until Big Bad George Bush sent in the troops. Now they have become terrorists, but only to defend themselves. Make me sick. They were terrorists from the beginning--all we've done is remove one of their primary authority sources. Blame the right people for a change.

With the Republicans all but vanquished in New York state, the hope for Party loyalists lies south of the border in Pennsylvania. Rick Santorum, the embattled Republican senator, is at least a real choice. He is one of the few Republican lawmakers to react verbally to Hugo Chavez's insane speech at the UN: “President Chavez’s recent remarks at the United Nations referring to President Bush as ‘the devil’ demonstrate how seriously deranged, misguided and dangerous the Venezuelan leader is. His comment that the United States is the ‘greatest threat looking over our planet, placing at risk the very survival of the human species’ is similarly ridiculous. I am deeply troubled that representatives of countries attending the session at the UN greeted these misguided, irrational and outrageous remarks with applause. In addition, Chavez used the forum to plead for votes to elect Venezuela to the UN Security Council. Given his alliance with the greatest threat to security of the world today, Iran, electing Venezuela to the UN Security Council would be an insult to all peace-loving nations.” At last a real man. I can only hope that Pennsylvania chooses him over the party of cowardice and retreat.

Most intriguingly, however...is that Lynn Swann is running for governor. A man's man, Swann is famous for his professional football career with the Pittsburgh Steelers as an all-pro wide receiver. The African-American is also a principled, conservative, Bush-backing Republican. The one who fearlessly stared down opposing defenses, making spectacular catches under pressure from three or more defenders, should have no trouble handling naysayers in the media and terrorists from abroad. Lynn Swann for Pennsylvania governor!

There used to be an adage that winners followed...the best defense is a good offense. The Republican Party, on the defensive for the last two years, has apparently decided to hunker down and weather the storm as best it can. They campaign for their incumbents but are making no effort nationwide to target vulnerable Democratic lawmakers. Thanks to a little real world intervention, the Pendragon predicts that they will remain in charge following Election Day but their majority will be either the same or a little reduced. Were they to spend the money and put in the campaign time, were Bush to take a whirlwind tour of some battleground states and be outspoken again, liberals would scream but the American people would love it. Consider sports: we all hate someone who trash talks at the line of scrimmage unless he is on our team. Hugo Chavez came and ran his mouth. The American people wouldn't mind a little back talk from the targeted lawmakers. Rich Santorum yesterday referred to Chavez as "deranged" and he may just have saved his senate seat. Democrats are whimpering, "Did you have to be so nasty, dear Mr. Chavez?" But nobody is listening. The Republicans need to get aggressive and stop apologizing for everything. The day after the November elections when the Democrats are planning to remove Chavez's voicebox, President Bush should announce that we are building up troops in Iraq, perhaps right on the Iranian border. Let's lure them in. It worked in Mexico: we put troops in the disputed areas and they fired first. Make Iran the aggressor and then bomb the crap out of them. On the domestic front, Bush should introduce legislation on tax cuts, Social Security reform,a tougher stance on illegal immigration, a pro-marriage amendment to the Constitution and a revamped Patriot Act, along with any remaining judicial nominees, all in a couple days. Just swamp them with programs and tell the people exactly what it is. Congress can then be on record as voting for or against measures the American people know are good. They'll yell a bit, but let them. This is what it's like being the majority party. And just to add a little insult to injury, Bush should publicly announce he is backing Dick Cheney as his replacement in 2008. Cheney, in turn, should agree to run and when he is nominated, choose John Ashcroft as his Vice-President.

The Pendragon sincerely doubts any of this will happen but if it did, the Republicans would ensure their majority for the coming decade at least.

The Pendragon has been asked what he thinks of Hugo Chavez's "I smell the sulfur" speech at the UN a couple days ago, or about the new movie from the UK depicting the dream of every liberal, except those running for office in November: the assassination of George W. Bush. I toyed with writing a detailed response, but in the end the best thing to do is adhere to the old adage that it is pointless to exchange pleasantries with lunatics and argue with the insane.

It should be noted, however, that there is a great silver lining here. The more Chavez runs off at the mouth and the more hostile an open sewer like the UN expresses its rage at Bush, the more the Democrats are going to keep falling in the polls. Americans may not like Bush or his cronies but they still vastly prefer them to corrupt autocrats from the hindquarters of the hemisphere. If the leadership over at the DNC wants to ensure a Democratic win this November, let alone two years from now, they are going to have to shut these people up. Only then will they be considered an acceptable American alternative to the current regime in Washington. In the meantime, maybe they should get some coffee and relax...maybe over a nice game of "Mercenaries."

This is about right.

The greatest lessons we receive are not from cynical retellings of true events but from imaginative retellings of the world as it is. One of my favorite books, to be reread again and again is Watership Down by Richard Adams. In the book, a band of rabbits flees the destruction of its homeland to seek life in the wide world. Across the way they stumble onto issues of leadership, outside enemies seeking their destruction, a totalitarian warren bent on dominating all its neighbors and the age-old problem of starting a new life. One of their most interesting adventures, however, concerns a group of rabbits who live near a farm and are routinely trapped for fur and food. This has an interesting effect on their psyche, one not all that different from the one common in the West today with Arab extremists at our very throat.

"Listen, Dandelion. You're fond of stories, aren't you? I'll tell you one--yes, one for El-ahrairah to cry at. Once there was a fine warren on the edge of a wood, overlooking the meadows of a farm. It was big, full of rabbits. Then, one day, the white blindness came and the rabbits fell sick and died. But a few survived, as they always do. The warren became almost empty. One day the farmer thought, 'I could increase those rabbits; make them part of my farm--their meat, their skins. Why should I bother to keep rabbits in hutches? They'll do very well where they are.' He began to shoot all elil (badgers, foxes, stoats and owls). He put out food for the rabbits but not too near the warren. For his purpose they had to become accustomed to going about in the fields and woods. And then he snared them--not too many: as many as he wanted and not as many as would frighten them all away or destroy the warren. And they grew big and strong and healthy for he saw to it that they had all of the best, particularly in winter, and nothing to fear, except the running knot in the hedge gap and the wood path....The rabbits became strange in many ways, different from other rabbits. They knew well enough what was happening. But even to themselves they pretended that all was well, for the food was good, they were protected, they had nothing to fear but the one fear; and that struck here and there, never enough at a time to drive them all away. They forgot the ways of wild rabbits...for what use had they for tricks and cunning, living in the enemy's warren and paying his price? They found out other marvelous arts to take the place of tricks and old stories. They danced in ceremonious greeting. They made songs like the birds and made Shapes on the walls; and though these could not help them at all, yet they passed the time and enabled them to tell themselves that they were splendid fellows, the very flower of Rabbitry, cleverer than magpies. They had no Chief Rabbit...Instead Frith sent them strange singers, beautiful and sick like oak apples....And since they could not bear the truth, these singers, who in some other place might have been wise, gulped out fine folly, about dignity and acquiesence, and anything else that could make believe that the rabbits loved the shining wire."

A better summary of life in Western Europe since World War II has not been penned.

The Pendragon is the owner of a baseball cap which reads, "Proud to be a Republican," but no more. The Pendragon remains a Republican out of compulsion, but can no longer take pride in the fact. This has nothing to do with Bush or his platform, which are indeed one reason the Pendragon can still call himself a neoconservative Republican, it is the loser's mentality which has pervaded the Party for years and has now convinced Republican leadership to abandon the state of New York to its own devices. I went down to vote in the Republican primary on Tuesday and voted for a senatorial candidate named K.T. McFarland, a senior Pentagon official under Ronald Reagan, who lined up in every way with a spirited prosecution of the war on terror. While she would have faced almost certain defeat at the hands of Now-I'm-Going-To-Be-a-Moderate Clinton in the Fall, she at least would have been a slightly more noticeable choice to take on Madam Haw-Haw. Now instead voters in New York are being treated to a contest, if it can be called one, of a controversial and well-known former First Lady being challenged by a (former) mayor of Yonkers! The Republicans have just surpassed the Democrats in supplying a candidate with absolutely no qualifications for statewide office. Even Hillary comes off well in a comparison. In gubernatorial and state attorney general affairs, the big names run for the Democrats--Elliot Spitzer and Andrew Cuomo. New York is now officially a 1.5 Party state, and the Pendragon is so disgusted he is considering not even voting in November. The outcome is set in stone before the first ballot is cast. What's the point of trying?

The Pendragon is furious with his alma mater. Houghton College cannot let a Martin Luther King Jr. Day or a World AIDS Day go by without reminding us all of the great fight still on our hands in regards to racism and disease. Yet on this day, with at least as long and a far more deadly war on our hands, the college chooses not to commemorate at all those who lost their lives on 9/11/2001. This is the reason movies like "United 93" and "World Trade Center" are so vitally important. People need to remember--they need to recall the savage inhumanity of the terrorists and the heroic sacrifice the brave men and women of America, in the military, fire departments, police departments, and hijacked planes made to stand up to the great evil. Five years later, we have not suffered another terrorist attack on our soil, but are we safer? The Pendragon does not think so. This is not the fault of Bush or Ashcroft or Condoleezza Rice, who are some of the few who actually are fighting terrorism; this is the fault of our short-term memory loss. Americans have lost sight of what happened that day five years ago, have forgotten the terror it inspired. If another attack is forthcoming, it will be because of the outcry of the Must-Carry-Gatorade-On-Board-A-Plane crowd and not because of the aggressive strategies of the Republican leadership. A nation must have will to fight and win a war and it remains to be seen if America has it. We did once, but fifty years of sissy liberalism has taken its toll. I can only pray that we return soon to the determination to stand for freedom and civilization in a world gone terribly wrong.

Here's an interesting spin on that most controversial of topics: tax cuts. As with most things leftists get riled about, it's a pretty simple concept to understand.

Let's put tax cuts in terms everyone can understand. Suppose that every day, ten men go out for dinner. The bill for all ten comes to $100. If they paid theirbill the way we pay our taxes, it would go something like this:The first four men - the poorest - would pay nothing; the fifth would pay $1,the sixth would pay $3, the seventh $7, the eighth $12, the ninth $18, and thetenth man - the richest - would pay $59.That's what they decided to do.

The ten men ate dinner in the restaurant everyday and seemed quite happy with the arrangement - until one day, the owner threw them a curve (in tax language a tax cut)."Since you are all such good customers," he said, "I'm going to reduce the costof your daily meal by $20." So now dinner for the ten only cost $80.00.The group still wanted to pay their bill the way we pay our taxes. So the first four men were unaffected. They would still eat for free. But what about theother six - the paying customers? How could they divvy up the $20 windfall sothat everyone would get his "fair share?"The six men realized that $20 divided by six is $3.33. But if they subtractedthat from everybody's share, Then the fifth man and the sixth man would end up being PAID to eat their meal. So the restaurant owner suggested that it would be fair to reduce each man's bill by roughly the same amount, and he proceeded to work out the amounts each should pay. And so the fifth man paid nothing, the sixth pitched in $2, the seventh paid $5, the eighth paid $9, the ninth paid $12, leaving the tenth man with a bill of $52 instead of his earlier $59. Each of the six was better off than before. And thefirst four continued to eat for free. But once outside the restaurant, the men began to compare their savings. "I only got a dollar out of the $20," declared the sixth man who pointed to the tenth."But he got $7!" "Yeah, that's right," exclaimed the fifth man, "I only saved a dollar, too . . .It's unfair that he got seven times more than me!" "That's true!" shouted the seventh man, "why should he get $7 back when I gotonly $2? The wealthy get all the breaks!" "Wait a minute," yelled the first four men in unison, "We didn't get anything at all. The system exploits the poor!"The nine men surrounded the tenth and beat him up. The next night he didn't show up for dinner, so the nine sat down and ate without him. But when it came time to pay the bill, they discovered, a little late what was very important. They were FIFTY-TWO DOLLARS short of paying the bill! Imagine that!