The cunning parasites of every age.

They all knew him! He was the man that cannot steer, that cannot splice, that dodges the work on dark nights; that, aloft, holds on frantically with both arms and legs, and swears at the wind, the sleet, the darkness; the man who curses the sea while others work. The man who is the last out and the first in when all hands are called. The man who can't do most things and won't do the rest. The pet of philanthropists and self-seeking landlubbers. The sympathetic and deserving creature that knows all his rights, but knows nothing of courage, of endurance, and of the unexpressed faith, of the unspoken loyalty that knits together a ship's company. The independent offspring of the slums, full of disdain and hate for the austere servitude of the sea.

From The Nigger of the Narcissus , by Joseph Conrad (emphasis added) <-- The Underground Grammarian.

Advice for writers.

We do not see the sun by reflected light, we see the sun by its own light, and the day after Prometheus gave us that gift we who were satellites, creatures like others, entirely--flowing--where influence came, we became a new creature, something entirely different, all of us. You, you, you did. From having been a moon, you became a sun. . . .

Any serious work that a human being does must be looking for this light. And if you don't find this light, you will be able to write, and to be a writer--either as a parrot or a whore, of course. But you'll never find the truth.

"Writing Against Your Life. The 1986 'Gift of Fire' Speech." Richard Mitchell, The Underground Grammarian.

A very disturbing view indeed.

With America’s troops mired in Iraq, with its intelligence services in disarray, with the political opposition gaining strength, President Bush’s war policy seems to have run its course. America’s fumbling weakness is now apparent. It will soon be child’s play to thwart America’s policy in the Middle East, to exploit America’s irresponsible financial policies and habits at home. The truth be told, the United States has become a hollowed-out, ill-disciplined country headed for financial, diplomatic and military ruination.

* * * *

. . . Major wars are between major powers. This preoccupation with the small, insignificant dictators, terrorists and mullahs will prove fatal.

"The Fatal Befuddlement." By J. R. Nyquist, Financial Sense Online, 7/14/06 (emphasis added).

The apotheosis of fecklessness and denial.

Mr. J.R. Nyquist delivers the truth with the subtlety of a fire engine headed to a four-alarm fire, which, if you think about it, isn't a bad metaphor:

The world’s dominant civilization – the West – has lost its way. . . .

* * * *

. . . "The enemy is Islam," [Paul Williams, author of "The Dunces of Doomsday,] writes. "Not a fringe group within this body of believers . . . .

* * * *

Williams lists ten blunders that give rise to radical Islam and the threat of an American Hiroshima. The first of these blunders is our refusal to identify our enemy. The tenth blunder is our failure to declare war on radical Islam itself. "The Bush administration vacillates over just about everything," says Williams. "It remains reluctant to firebomb the poppy fields in Afghanistan and to ferret out the mujahideen in Pakistan. The administration has been unwilling to address the situation within U.S. mosques and the problem of radical Islam within the federal prison system [where its spread is tolerated]." . . . Only a declaration of war wills serve to orient the American legal and political system . . . .

War to the death against America is preached in mosques around the world. The killing of American women and children has been sanctioned by Muslim clerics. Al Qaeda’s stated objective is to kill two million American children. . . . [T]he illusions of America’s elite go hand in hand with the country’s prosperity. . . . [T]he drug of prosperity conditions the brain of the American to shun a full warlike posture . . . . Admitting the existence of an enemy is a frank acknowledgement that a state of war exists. If the enemy should consist of a few violent lunatics hiding in caves, why should the shopping mall regime close its doors? The situation is that of a manhunt and nothing more.

. . . Williams also makes note of a "classified CIA survey" showing that 95 percent of educated Saudis between the ages of twenty-one and forty-five support al Qaeda and jihad. . . .

But the ten blunders listed by Williams are, in fact, the foundations of American policy, the fountainhead of an ever-unfolding fiasco that cannot end well.

"The Bungle Factor." By J. R. Nyquist, Financial Sense Online, 7/28/06 (emphasis added).

Stupid British leadership.

When the world turns its eyes to London for the 2012 Olympic Games, what it will see right next to the Olympic Stadium is one of the largest mosques in the world, with a capacity of 70,000 worshippers. The funds for this massive project have come from Tablighi Jamaat, an avowedly Islamist global organization that the FBI says is used by al-Qaeda to recruit terrorists.

It is hard to imagine a more potent symbol of the transformation of London into Londonistan. And it is hard to imagine a greater prize for the Islamists than the infiltration of the land that gave birth to liberty. Anyone who cares about Britain, or indeed about the survival of Judeo-Christian civilization, should read Melanie Phillips’s brave and disturbing book.

Nothing for the British to worry about, right? A huge structure built with money from an organization that allegedly is part of al Qaida's recruitment effort?

We cannot imagine a more alien structure in the country that was so vitally important in fostering the ideas that guided the Founding Fathers in the 18th century. The very bedrock principles of Islam are contrary to religious liberty and free inquiry. The track record of the adherents of Islam in modern times is there for all to see it. And it is ugly.

Infidels should be profoundly suspicious of this political-religious hybrid animal, Mohammedanism. A simple concern for our safety requires it. One can not assume that the spread of Islam in a Western nation portends anything but strife, subversion, and political violence.

"Book Review: Londonistan by Melanie Phillips." By Daniel Johnson, Commentary, July-August 2006 (emphasis added).

Guard the Borders Blogburst: Erasing America’s Borders.

The North American Union, SPP, and NASCO: Erasing America’s Borders
By Heidi at Euphoric Reality

Our government has undertaken some monumental legislation that fully impacts the American way of life, our freedom, and our sovereignty. The purpose of such legislation is to homogenize Canada, Mexico, and the United States into a North American Union - and we're all going to sleep through it.

Have you heard of a little-known program called the Security and Prosperity Partnership of North America? This tri-lateral partnership was signed by President Bush last year without Congressional oversight or public approval. Opponents of the SPP have called it NAFTA on steroids - and we all know how disastrous NAFTA has been for everyone except Mexico. It also appears to be modeled on the ineffective and highly unpopular European Union (unpopular with the people, that is).

I went to the website, www.spp.gov, to begin my research. There are, indeed, no boundaries between Mexico, Canada, and the U.S. when it comes to the cooperation of financial, trade, and foreign affair departments. Though some of the PR language on the website sounds fairly benign, the commissions are picking up momentum. And you know what happens when bureaucrats start grasping at influence and power! Except that now we don't have to just worry about our own greedy bureaucrats - but Canada's and Mexico's too.

This is not some weird and obscure conspiracy website, it is our government's plan to literally give away or sell our national sovereignty. What is most galling is that we will share responsibility for security across North America. It is very conceivable that we could see our troops deployed to secure the southern border of Mexico. Yes, you read that right - not OUR unsecured warzone of a southern border - but Mexico's border with Belize and Guatemala. That is the conclusion of an investigative report done by Lou Dobbs on CNN:

Robert B. Murray notes:

President George W. Bush, President Vicente Fox of Mexico, and former Canadian Prime Minister Paul Martin agreed in March 2005 to create this union by executive regulations and agreements rather than by treaty to bypass Congress. Twenty working groups were formed and are well on their way to establishing a super-government for North America that will not be bound by our Constitution. The web site for this new bureaucracy—located at www.spp.gov—provides a look at their plans and accomplishments thus far. The plan is to have this arrangement implemented by 2010.

Behind its innocuous title, the “Security and Prosperity Partnership of North America,” the United States will surrender its Constitution. According to Jerome R. Corsi, an author and political commentator, our nation-state prerogatives would be superseded by the authority of a North American court and parliamentary body and our dollar would become the “Amero.”

Possibly the strongest leg of the SPP is NASCO - North America's SuperCorridor Coalition - otherwise known as the NAFTA Superhighway. Airily dismissed by some public officials as internet rumors and hype and completely unaffordable, NASCO has quietly been amassing funding and already begun preliminary construction in Texas.

...already underway is the plan for a NAFTA Superhighway: 1,200 feet wide, stretching from Lazaro Cardenas on the west coast of Mexico, entering the United States at Laredo, Texas, and continuing straight north to Winnipeg, Canada, with another route to Kansas City thence north easterly to Detroit and Montreal.

Containerized goods from Asia will be offloaded onto Mexican trucks, with Mexican drivers, and distributed throughout the economic system. Go to www.nascocorridor.com to view the plan and progress. There will be no internal boundaries to restrict the flow of people, goods or services.

In fact, the first customs stop on the Superhighway will be in the heart of America - Kansas City! Along the way, primary U.S. labor unions will be by-passed in favor of Mexican labor, including the Longshoremen’s Union, the railroad United Transportation Union, and the Teamsters.

How will such a massive flow of goods and foreign traffic be monitored? According to author Jerome Corsi,

"Across the NAFTA Super-Highways will flow millions more Mexicans, now armed with North American border passes and biometric identification, as defined by the Security and Prosperity Partnership of North America working groups organized within the Department of Commerce."

Similar toll systems snaking their way from the southern and northern borders cutting through major American cities will force American citizens to submit to having RFID enabled identification cards which contain an ever-increasing array of information about their personal lives.

Illegal aliens with cloned RFID transponders will enjoy streamlined access to the US while Americans labor under the financial burden of tolls that go directly to foreign corporations and restrictions that take the right of free travel out of their hands. This and more is occurring without Congressional oversight, but is naturally funded with our state and federal tax dollars.

But our public officials are saying this could never happen, if only because it's completely unaffordable! Not so, since foreign investment will cover any gaps that taxing the American people leaves. Additionally, the Bush administration has embarked on a policy of selling off key US infrastructure to the highest bidder - in most cases foreign owned corporations.

[K]ey players, including the investment bankers and the worldwide capital investment funds, have a plan to address these fiscal shortcomings with their own resources. On April 30, 1992, President George H.W. Bush signed Executive Order No. 12803 on infrastructure privatization, a move that cleared the way for private capital to invest in U.S. infrastructure projects, including highways.

For instance, the Indiana Toll Road, Virginia's Pocahontas Parkway, a Texas toll road from Austin to Sequin and The Chicago Skyway have all been sold or leased for 99 years to foreign companies who will all enjoy billions in profits from American citizens forced to pay the tolls. And now the New Jersey Turnpike and the Ohio Turnpike are also under the hammer with foreign interests at the forefront of the negotiations.

An earlier Corsi article cites government websites which carry full planning details of the Super Highway. Its construction has already begun in Texas with no congressional oversight whatsoever. The Trans-Texas Corridor is being overseen by The Texas Department of Transportation (TxDOT) and the contract is owned by the Cintra corporation which in turn is owned by the King of Spain Juan Carlos. The project is being financed by the implementation of a toll that will be collected by means of GPS tracking devices installed in all vehicles and also envelops many connecting roads to the highway. (Toll road info summarized by Paul Watson)

Watson further adds this dire prediction, "To even be allowed to use major roads and highways, US citizens will be subject to a criminal background check and the government will have the ability to pinpoint their particular RFID signal and remotely block it from central computer mainframes - effectively abolishing freedom of mobility in America."

President Ronald Reagan once said, “A nation without borders is not a nation.” While we’ve been looking elsewhere, our own government has implemented a comprehensive plan to erase our borders with Canada and Mexico. The NAFTA Superhighway will allow vehicles, people and goods to travel from Mexico, into the American heartland, and up to Canada with little impediment, making America's borders obsolete. Coupled with Bush's blanket amnesty program, the new North American Union and the NAFTA Superhighway (NASCO) will fully expedite the wholesale dismantling of American sovereignty. It would seem that the while the rest of the world is already lining up to get their piece of the American pie, Americans will be the last to know. It is happening quietly and behind our backs, while our attention is fully engaged by the War on Terror, the upcoming elections, and our personal lives.
_________________________________
This has been a production of the Guard the Borders Blogburst. It is syndicated by Euphoric Reality, and serves to keep immigration issues in the forefront of our minds as we're going about our daily lives and continuing to fight the war on terror. If you are concerned with the trend of illegal immigration in our country, join the Blogburst! Send an email with your blog name and url to euphoricrealitynet at gmail dot com.

Where there's a will there's a way.

It is three years and four months since the U.S. invasion of Iraq, and we are in a monstrous mess. . . .

Three years and four months after the U.S. entered World War II, Hitler was dead, the surrender of Nazi Germany was imminent, the Japanese mainland was surrounded, and Japanese surrender was four months off.

"Kinda makes ya think." By Lawrence Auster, View from the Right, 7/26/06.

Cry, 'Havoc!'

Among others, here are some of the enduring realities of the last 50 years:

• Terrorism has plagued the world, making it a slave to thugs and psychopaths.
• Terrorism has been made possible and is made possible by Saudi Arabia, Iran, Libya, North Korea, large numbers of individual Muslims living in the West, and maybe China.
• Terrorism costs the world billions of dollars and thousands of lives.
• Terrorists will be able to inflict huge numbers of casualties if we let them get their hands on nuclear, chemical, or biological weapons.
• Those who fund and serve in the armies of terror have suffered hardly at all.
• A world system in which civilized nations pour huge amounts of money into the hands of some of the most criminal and primitive people imaginable is a system that is utterly mad.

What other alternatives are left but to stop kidding ourselves that this is acceptable and to punish the Iranian government, the Syrian government, the Libyan government, the Saudi royal family, Hamas, Hezbollah, and any and all other Muslim terrorists?

Rabbi Hillel had an appropriate sense of urgency. We don't seem to. If we won't take action to rid ourselves of the scourge of Islamic terror, when exactly is that that we plan to get around to it?

Neo-neo-con's focus on the situation that England and Europe faced in the 1930s revives the issue then, fresh as the morning dew and clear as the winter sky:

The quote that struck me most forcibly was this, which bears repeating:

The punishment for taking on Hezbollah is war. The punishment for not taking on Hezbollah is war.

It immediately brought to mind a statement by Winston Churchill, he of the silver tongue, when speaking about a similar accommodation sought by the militarily weak British and French prior to WWII:

Britain and France had to choose between war and dishonor. They chose dishonor. They will have war.

And please, spare yourself the trouble of informing me that the situation isn't quite analogous. I know it's not. But the similarity is this: sometimes what seems like a choice is no choice at all. When dealing with certain enemies bent on destruction and conquest, how can one avoid battle? Sooner or later, the conflagration will erupt. And is it better in the end for it to erupt sooner rather than later, when the enemy is stronger and more deeply entrenched?

The punishment for taking on Hitler was war. The punishment for not taking on Hitler was war. World War.

"Disarming Hezbollah: either way, the punishment is war." By neo-neo-con, 7/27/06.

Europe in denial.

The inestimable Fjordman:

"Norwegian Authorities Still Covering Up Muslim Rapes." Gates of Vienna, 7/26/06.

Picture perfect.

What needs to be said after a photo like this:


Image from: Brain Surgery with Spoons, 7/29/06.