"Your father is the only man that wants you to be better than him"

Steve Harvey, actor and comedian

I sit down with MNBFY YouTube show and discuss lessons learned from losing my Father with an expanded conversation on how challenges in life can shape and hone one’s outlook on the bigger picture.

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As this article notes, some producers were somewhat shocked at the audience’s reaction to news that they were now on the hook for paying the gift tax.

Speaking on the podcast, looking back on the show, producer Lisa Erspamer reflected on the backlash.

“Because the Pontiacs were gifts, they were taxed as ordinary income, and this also meant the gift tax had to be paid by the person receiving the gift.”

The show’s producers, to their credit, paid for the sales tax and registration of the car, but obviously, they couldn’t pay everyone else’s taxes.

“And because we didn’t pay the gift tax, people complained to the press, and that was devastating. We put our whole soul into this moment of television and with real intention to do something good, and so when people had a negative reaction, it literally hurt our feelings.” {Bold added for emphasis}

It “hurt their feelings” not being appreciated for handing over nearly 300 additional tax burdens wrapped up in a nice gift box. The producer still shows a sense of obliviousness over 20 years later to why there was a backlash.

As the “You Get A Car!” GIFs and memes occasionally make an appearance online, a larger lesson in this 2000s pop culture moment on a drawback of instant altruism were mostly an afterthought and highlight a problem that persists today on the larger geopolitical scale of US foreign aid. The “Oprah Car Surprise” repeats itself in an endless loop.

American geographical altruism knows no bounds. Right now all, across the globe there are tens of thousands of little projects going on under the direction of either NGOs, foreign aid funds and many other private institutions doing their part. Whether food aid, habitat building, or the latest Bill Gates vaccine program in India, American tax dollars are hard at work to make the world a better place.

Allegedly.

To be sure, there is probably a group of bright-eyed Mormon kids, brimming with optimism currently putting a roof on a house in Guatemala right now.

Changing lives, amirite?

I’ll admit, there was a time in my youth where I had moments of believing all these efforts to improve conditions in Third World countries was entirely worthwhile and with zero downsides. There was also a time when I still believed in Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny.

Traveling the world allows one to experience the realities behind the constant noise and media depictions of how things actually are in many 3rd world nations.

During deployments in the military, there are opportunities to participate in what they call COMREL projects. (COMREL stands for community relations. The military loves acronyms for everything.) Basically, a group of volunteers would help an impoverished village build or repair some infrastructure, usually a playground or spruce up an orphanage. Medical personnel would go to the village hospital and assist whatever NGO who ran the clinic and the few locals who worked there.

Over time, a system of dependence would form. The term Learned Helplessness was not in my lexicon to be able to describe what I witnessed at the time, but it nicely fits what would occur in these areas of the world that continuously received Western assistance.

Best example was hearing about a playground getting repaired in the Philippines multiple times over numerous deployments. They would essentially let it fall apart and wait until the next US military detachment showed up. It was more than simply adding a new coat of paint or changing the basketball netting. Conditions would get pretty bad in between; jagged edges from playground parts long cut off by villagers for.. something, slides and swings not secured to the ground anymore due to bolts getting removed, etc. Worse was hearing of an orphanage that simply let the roof leak until the G.I. Joe Home Depot showed up to fix it again.

Behind the official glossy photos of smiling little orphans and repaired equipment touted by NGOs and media outlets and gov’t PR, the hidden frustration was in knowing it was only a matter of time before things would fall into disrepair again.

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These distant memories of geographical altruism came to mind as I listened to a recent NPR episode on the PEPFAR program, its effectiveness, and the possibility of a complete dismantling of the program by the Trump administration. PEPFAR was announced with great fanfare in 2003 by then-President George W. Bush as a crisis response to combat the ravaging effects of the AIDS virus in Africa.

The NPR guest was Doctor Deborah Birx, former US global AIDS coordinator for the PEPFAR initiative from 2014 to 2021. Her experience with the AIDS epidemic in Africa goes back to the 1980s and I expected to hear concrete results and arguments as to why this 20+ year “temporary crisis program” needed to remain funded.

That was not what happened.

Anyone familiar with the NPR interview format can surmise how this sit down went with a supposed leading expert in her field and of the PEPFAR initiative. It was the usual softball-style interview with plenty of flowery language and word salad moments where Dr. Birx waxed poetically about how proud she was that the program was started, and about how 26 million Africans were dying naturally instead of from a deadly and preventable sexually transmitted disease.

Obviously, those 26 million folks are grateful to be alive today and the treatment and prevention education wasn’t for nothing, but what, exactly, has PEPFAR accomplished?

Pretty much nothing.

Since the announcement of the PEPFAR initiative in 2003, over $120 billion dollars has been spent to treat and prevent the spread of HIV/AIDS in Africa. The program was designed from the beginning as a continual external support program in the efforts to eradicate HIV/AIDS in Africa.

Key word being external.

What does this mean?

This means that over 20 years and $120 billion American taxpayer dollars later, no pharmaceutical factories were built in Africa to produce HIV testing kits or treatment drugs.1

It means no dedicated medical centers or facilities were erected in support of the PEPFAR mission statement that include goals of “sustainability of the HIV response,” “country ownership,” and gradual transition to domestic financing and management.

Nor has there been a dedicated medical school pipeline to train native Africans to treat their own people.

Essentially, without ongoing funding the PEPFAR initiative falls like a house of cards. It was never meant to “enable” countries in Africa to eventually get on their own feet managing the AIDS epidemic with their own doctors, factories and facilities. It was more of a hand-out than anything that would be considered a helping hand. Instead of teaching them to fish, we simply handed out fish platters to the tune of $120 billion dollars. PEPFAR is another “Van Wilder-style” foreign aid program that will never accomplish its own stated goals and continue to bleed tuition taxes to keep people like Dr. Birx and other NGOs in the proverbial global college.

Does this mean there should be no efforts to improve the lives of those in the 3rd world? That the West has no role to play?

No, it doesn’t.

But just as the playground falling into a condition of jagged metal and rust, only to require constant upkeep from a benevolent source, doing things because it makes one feel good will not solve complex geopolitical problems simply by throwing money at it. In fact, it only makes things worse.

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Arthur

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Hospitals have always held a paradox to me as every emotion is expressed inside one building. Joy, anger, sadness, resentment, hope, and the realities of human existence all under one roof. New life entering the world on one floor while someone else is having the worst day of their life in an ER.

Dad sleeps more and more these days. I’m lucky to get 5-10 minutes of conversation at a time. The topics range from wanting a new cell phone plan, then turning to the decision of what type of casket he prefers.

The hallucinations are an interesting development. He would point out to me when he saw people standing in the corner of the room. I would ask if they look familiar to him, maybe long dead relatives I only knew from old black and white photographs. But no, they are strangers to him and wouldn’t tell us their names. Sometimes he thinks he’s in a hotel. Or on a train. At least these visuals aren’t scary images.

Small favors.

To hospital staff, they only see another almost 90 year old man wasting away in his bed. A countless process repeated over and over in the medical profession. Nurses are kind and helpful, with eyes full of sympathy when they speak to me, while the doctors discuss the futility of treatments.

They don’t see a life that started in the shadow of the Great Depression in West Texas. A man who was drafted and served his nation. Frail now, but someone who helped provide the nation’s energy needs in the fiercely cold and barren Alaska oil industry. Staff nod politely when, during clearer phases in his memory, he tells them stories of flying his plane across the Alaskan bush. A full life lived, now reduced to waiting to shuffle onto what lies beyond.

I recently came across this quote on how one’s Father wants their Son to achieve more than he did. Obviously, this isn’t a truism in all family dynamics, but it’s how a good relationship should be. My Father was not perfect and had a number of personality traits that I have worked hard not to exhibit. He could be overly critical with words and growing up I didn’t always know where I stood with him. Yet he also provided a safe home and worked hard to give us everything we needed.

It took these last few years with him for me to understand my Father’s rough demeanor and personality. That in his own imperfect way, he wanted me to achieve the most out of this life, and to do better than he did, whether in my professional career or personally. Going through his wallet to find his ID and seeing my boot camp picture or sitting in his office looking at the numerous old photos of us doing family stuff through the years showed me how sentimental he actually was.

You don’t fully feel like an adult until you’re sitting at a funeral home going over a parents’ burial wishes. It’s one thing to believe you understand your own mortality, yet quite another to read what a loved one had to contemplate and put to paper for their own, knowing that you too will be doing this one day. Casket model, burial service song selection, how the obituary will be worded, all of it laid bare on paper.

We are almost done with this journey.

Hospice care had to be arranged. Once he stopped eating and couldn’t speak clearly or walk, it was the inevitable choice.

There were funny moments as well.

Dad displayed glimpses of his sense of humor at times. During one confused state he requested I give him $20 for a pair of boots. I told him a good pair would probably cost 10X that. “Oh well. Guess I’ll just go barefoot,” he replied before falling back asleep. That was the last thing he said that I could understand.

Most of his affairs were set up for when this time came, but not everything. I found myself playing financial forensic files to ensure that I stopped needless payments and services. Things like streaming channels he was paying for, even though I had added him to the family accounts several years ago. Charity donations and medical prescriptions to be discontinued. Most were simple to cancel with a keystroke or quick phone call.

Except for one company.

I discovered he had a Life Alert subscription, one that when I cancelled had the audacity to call afterwards twice in attempts to get him to re-subscribe. This was even after emailing a hospice memo to them declaring his condition terminal. The first call was right after he passed away and the other while I was driving to the cemetery for his burial service, displaying just how ghoulish the Life Alert company could be.

The service was a simple one at what I consider our family cemetery. It isn’t ours personally, but walking along the long row of loved ones in the ground makes it feel like it is. The honor guard giving me the flag really drove home the reality of losing Dad.

But as I sit in this empty house surrounded by a thousand memories of him, I know that I will continue this life journey, only now without the one man who always wanted me to be better than him.

Links below.

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Arthur

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We cover:

• Mixed messaging from the Administration and war in the age of social media

• Theories on the purpose for military action now

• Impact on domestic issues and the MAGA agenda

• Thoughts on what hasn’t happened that many geopolitical “experts” predicted for decades would occur if hostilities were initiated

• The Trillion($$$) Dollar Question: “What Happens Next?”

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- Arthur

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The constant headlines make clear that this rhetorical flourish in calling everything a Cruelty is the strategy moving forward.

ICE Is Treating Trans Immigrants With A New Level Of Cruelty

Despite Trump’s cruelty, the Christmas spirit lives on

Colorado Republicans vote for Trump’s signature policy bill, Democrats cite its ‘cruelty’

The Cruelty and Theatre of the Trump Press Conference

Governor Newsom sues Trump administration for cruel cuts to homeless housing funding that will hurt families

Trump sows ‘chaotic cruelty’ while Canadian PM Carney reminds the world it doesn’t have to play along

ICE is incognito, but there’s no masking the Trump regime’s cruelty

The “Chaos and Cruelty” of Trump’s Worksite Immigration Raids

The Cruelty of Trump’s Crackdown on Afghan Refugees

Not ‘filthy, dirty, disgusting.’ Trump’s cruelty to Haitians despicable

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Something important to remember

A reminder to those who have forgotten, but these people are not on your side and never will be. A party that cheers on the dismantlement of the nation through mass immigration, transgender surgeries for children and releasing violent felons who go on to murder Americans will never see things the way you do. This goes for all the institutions the Left has mostly controlled for decades including mainstream media and academia.

Let me repeat that for normies sitting in the back: Corporate media and the Left DO NOT CARE about your values, traditions, or culture.

Too many appear to still be under the impression that if the Left are shown a few more graphs and statistics that they will see the error of their ways and start agreeing with viewpoints and solutions presented by the Right. A moment of them looking at each other and saying, “Hey guys, maybe they’re correct” is not happening and is magical thinking at its best. All they know is to double and triple down on their original convictions.

At present, the most highlighted issue in Leftist media is outrage at immigration enforcement and upholding the rule of law as it is written. Tomorrow it will be about the environment or a random trade policy. The policy targeted doesn’t matter. Anything Right-coded is the total embodiment of evil in their eyes.

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The Rules Aren’t the Same

Keep in mind this is not some sacred principle the Left holds itself to. You won’t see self-admonishments and reflections on the damages a Progressive administration wrought on America. NAFTA was never described as a “Cruel” economic policy that would hollow out American towns and communities throughout what is now described as the Rust-Belt. Coal miners and other energy workers impacted from Biden climate change directives were flippantly told, “Learn to Code”, and that they were part of an obsolete industry. More recently during the Covid-era, loved ones dying in hospitals were not even allowed visits from family visitors, even if they themselves had Covid. Or the 1000s of Americans that have lost their lives to illegal immigration through crimes committed against them. Recall The Laken Riley Act, a token piece of legislation that required the detainment of illegal immigrants who commit crimes, was only supported by 22% of Democrats.

A collective shrug or outright silence from the Left is all Americans affected by migrant crime receive.

Understand Political Reality

This is not to say that the Progressive Left owes an apology to the millions of Americans affected by their policies, nor is this to point out the neverending hypocrisies in the style of “Democrats are the real [insert whatever bad thing].”

One: they’re not going to apologize for their tactics and strategy to achieve ideological goals.

Two: Asking or seeking contrition or acceptance from the opposing side is all but admitting defeat to Progressive ideology. By doing this, you are trying to live by their moral framework. Which is exactly what they want.

Those professing to be on the Right need to understand what the rules of real politics are. Simply thinking that winning an election or two would make the Left surrender to the ideas of the Right is folly.

Look at the events that have occurred, for example.

Charlie Kirk assassinated? That’s simply another piece off the political game board to the Left. One less conservative voice for them to contend with. Attempts on Trump’s life? “Too bad they missed” is the Left’s response along with a few mealy-mouthed platitudes from Democrat politicians about the need to turn down the rhetoric.

The new Attorney General of Virginia Jay Jones can appear with Barack Hussein Obama at a campaign rally after revelations that he wished death upon his opponents’ children, and Progressives won’t bat an eye. Instead, they will show up faithfully to vote for him. Importing millions to increase political power? Progressives call that strategy.

The political kabuki theater of Liberal outrage for everything the Right does is moral blackmail dressed up as false virtue. More need to realize this and disregard it.

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Seldom mentioned is how this paradigm shift affected celebrity tabloid magazines. Publications such as The National Enquirer1, US Weekly, and Stars were a primary source for gossip and rumors on Hollywood and political figures on supermarket magazine racks. While maintaining a somewhat sleazy reputation in journalism circles, exclusive Hollywood star interviews and the latest scandals on their covers were a prequel to the clickbait headlines we are bombarded with online today.

As more news stories begin to emulate this formula, it becomes harder to determine what is actually worthwhile and what is simply tabloid filler masquerading as competent political media. This 2000 word salad TMZ-style article from Politico, “Kamala in La La Land” is a perfect example of glam media pretending to be real political journalism. Even the graphic used conveys a tabloid style.

The article is bizarre in that it reads more like the day-to-day of a fading Hollywood starlet and not someone who had a shot at becoming the leader of the free world. Aside from a few trite mentions of fellow Democratic consultants grumbling (anonymously, of course) about Mrs. Harris not taking a more engaging role in politics, especially after the DNC spent $1.5 Billion on her failed presidential campaign, the article shares more in common with the celebrity tabloid feature, “Stars! They’re just like us!”

From Politico:

“So she spent days at the Hillcrest Country Club, where her husband is a member, and hosted get-togethers with friends at the home where she and Emhoff settled after their 2014 marriage. She did a lot of cooking, at least for a time, organizing weekly Sunday night dinners with her extended family. She made shopping trips to the Brentwood Country Market — a high-end open-air bazaar replete with luxury eyeglass stores, Goop, and $25 ancient-grain bowls — and patronized such a limited rotation of fancy Brentwood restaurants that members of her security detail started to jokingly grumble about the lack of variety, according to someone who heard the complaints.”

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While understandable for Mrs. Harris to want a break from politics after 20+ years of being the political prom queen, some perks are too good to pass up.

Even if this endangers the public safety of Angelenos:

“Some of the decisions to stay ensconced in Brentwood, it seems, can be ascribed to concerns over security. When she departed Washington, Harris brought with her a Secret Service detail but lacked the ability to blow through stoplights in a motorcade — a particular complication in Los Angeles for a dignitary unaccustomed to the indignity of sitting in traffic.

On Sept. 1, Trump pulled Harris’ Secret Service detail. State and local officials decided to extend their own protection, with Los Angeles Police Department officers working in conjunction with the California Highway Patrol, a move criticized by the city’s police union.

“Pulling police officers from protecting everyday Angelenos to protect a failed presidential candidate who also happens to be a multi-millionaire, with multiple homes and who can easily afford to pay for her own security, is nuts,” the Los Angeles Police Protective League board of directors told the Los Angeles Times.

While security concerns have contributed to Harris’ reclusive approach to life in Los Angeles, it also seemed to fit her preferences. (A spokesperson for Harris did not reply to requests to comment for this story.) Harris and Emhoff recently purchased an $8 million home in an even more isolated oceanfront neighborhood in Malibu, the New York Post reported last week.”

Californians were offered a slight reprieve when she announced last summer she would not be tossing her hat (heels?) into the next governor’s race. Former Governor Gray Davis provided cover for this decision in the most elitist way possible:

“In late July, Harris announced she would not, in fact, be running for governor. To some California politicians, including current and potential gubernatorial candidates waiting on her decision, it was a surprise — but not to another career public servant who was unceremoniously dispatched to private life in Los Angeles.

“She spent the last four years meeting kings and prime ministers all over the world, I’m sure that’s a pretty heady experience,” said former California Gov. Gray Davis, who was recalled from office in 2003. “I can understand why she didn’t want to run.”

She met with kings and prime ministers, folks. Who among us can blame her for not wanting to be mere governor of California? The tone deafness of explaining this away neglects that during the 2020 Democratic primaries she wasn’t projected to get enough votes to win California as a sitting senator. But, we’ll never know as she dropped out long before the vote.

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The article continues:

“Harris appeared eager to present herself as a notably different figure than the ladder-climbing establishmentarian who had lost two straight presidential races due to what many supporters conceded was a surfeit of both strategic and personal caution. Now she was railing against a “broken” political environment to Stephen Colbert, and in an interview with the New York Times claimed she was embarking on a looser, less scripted “freedom tour.”

When the Democratic National Committee met last month at a downtown Los Angeles hotel, Harris took the opportunity to address party officials — claiming not the mantle of the party’s standard bearer but an angry outsider.

“Both parties have failed to hold the public’s trust,” Harris told party officials. “Government is viewed as fundamentally unable to meet the needs of its people ... People are done with the status quo and they’re ready to break things to force change.”

Politico thoughtfully points out how Mrs. Harris has re-invented herself as the “angry outsider” of standard politics. To somehow imagine a politician whose resume contains former positions as a California state attorney general, senator, and once vice president of the United States doing a rebrand as some maverick outsider is as believable as Bat Boy in the Weekly World News. 2

The article ends with a feel-good moment at a Compton High School graduation that Kamala attended, allegedly because a personal letter from a student was handed to her husband requested her there.

Politico describes it as an afterschool special scene:

“For all the criticism of Harris’ elite bubble, or lack of desire to go beyond her comfort zone, or enter into unpredictable environments, here she was, walking down a high-school football field, hand in hand with a young woman getting ready to head out into the world — only one of them sure exactly what she would do next with their life.

“There’s a way that Black aunties and grandmas talk, where they’re about their business, but they’re also super, super sweet,” Causey said. “She’s like that. And the good part is she agreed to still be part of my life. That won’t be the last time I see her.”

This article is another sign of how theater kid politics has overtaken the American political landscape. Mrs. Harris is even quoted as saying she took the 2024 loss as “a level of pain akin to the death of her mother.”

Tabloids have been replaced with online magazines pretending to be important journalism with this Politico piece as one of many examples.

The usual historical example is, of course, the American Civil war that briefly created two nations within the continental USA. What is interesting is that the separatist tendency is woven into the fabric of America throughout her history, even while the bonds of overall attachment remained. Looking at the makeup of the original 13 colonies that eventually turned into states and one can see the tangible marks of identity that created them. Books such as “American Nations” and “Albion’s Seed” nicely lay out the regional cultures and how they came about.

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Aside from the American Civil War, a common theme for most ideas of reorganizing state lines have maintained the idea of still being part of a united country overall. America is, and has been self-sorting for a long time based on culture and ways of life. From where people decide to live, to the laws and policies enacted at the local level. In the modern era, this effort to mini-balkanize is alive and well when you look at examples of Oregon counties trying to join Idaho, or the over 200 proposals that have been put forth to divvy up California since 1850. And it must be mentioned the almost fierce pride many Texans have when they declare the state could be its own nation.

The 21^st century has brought the prospect of dissolving national ties and setting off on new paths and (separate) national destinies closer to a reality. Too many in the Right-wing sphere (and the Left as well) seem to relish the thought of a national schism, thinking this will be the “good” ending to the miasma that haunts the national psyche. This outcome gets described as the eventual result and treated like a silver-bullet solution the problems of 21^st century America divided by competing ideological visions, diversity, and corrupted beyond repair.

But what would the division actually look like? Questions of what happens after a national split regarding resources, economics, and the stark reality of just how fragile modern civilization is, are mostly papered over by the accelerationists’. The interdependency of systems becomes an afterthought.

The “Burn it all down” war cry may get clicks and clout online, but tracing the logical outcomes of a break-up leads to a number of disturbing results. A cataclysmic splitting of the nation into 2-3, or even more semi-autonomous nation-states is not the silver-bullet solution many think it would be.

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It’s much easier for those who yearn for a breakup of the USA to skip the inconvenient details that get in the way to their idea of BasedWorld™️ or those with opposite versions of an imagined socialist utopia.

I discuss the question of a national divorce and more with The Wandering Panda in the link below. Leave a comment and tell me your predictions on the possibility and consequences of a fractured America.

I join Podcast to discuss the narratives surrounding the continent of Africa in Post-WWII and throughout the Cold War era. We dive into the well-worn version that is presented of plucky African nations crawling out from colonialism, yearning for the warmth of Liberal Democracy™️ and a slice of Uncle Sam’s Apple Pie.

Yeah, we mostly tear apart that fairytale.

A better recollection of the struggle amongst the superpowers on the continent (USA, USSR, China) is a tale of opportunism, tragedy, and yes, a lot of dark humor amongst the chaos.

Enjoy, and make sure to check out the links below to The Toxic American

- Arthur

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Some of the highlights covered include:

Conservative Inc. (National Review types, Daily Wire, etc)

- Will continue to offer up empty slogans of “Free Markets and Limited Government” in a vain attempt to steer the narratives of the mainstream GOP donor class.

- Designating targets for certain figures on the Right to go after as an effective strategy to fight off any distractions to their core message as a protection of Conservatism. (i.e. can’t have the average NormieCon voter begin to rethink large parts of our domestic and foreign policy advocated by the establishment.)

- This is in line with a long pattern of putting down any true movements that would threaten their political market share. Any other voices counter to Con Inc. groupthink has been smeared and seen with disdain. (Tea Party is a good example. Important to remember all of these voices proclaiming they are protecting “True Conservatism were and still are Never Trumpers)

- Vance is still the real target. By going after anyone associated with him, they can have their proxy war without having to directly be accused of trying to sabotage 2028 at this time. As we get closer to that election, especially if the midterms go bad, the calls for a GOP Mitt Romney-style candidate will grow louder)

The GOP politicians in the House and Senate

- Most are playing to run out the clock and expect things to return to a normal Uni-party situation around D.C. once Trump 2.0 ends. To be able to be the loyal opposition and beautiful losers to the Progressives. They are proving this by their inaction on legislation and words.

- Keeping the filibuster in place allows them to tell the public that they are following principles – when in fact this is convenient cover to prevent them having to actually put skin in the game and actually vote. Can’t have their political base back in their home states see through the ruse of trying to be apolitical while still enjoying the perks of being in Congress.

- This kayfabe will probably continue unless a Rubicon line is finally crossed definitively to the point where their cowardness cannot be ignored.

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People in the Midwest and especially the South, are long used to the derision of the usual stereotypes of being racist, backwards, and strung out on fentanyl. When these tropes aren’t being deployed against them, the ire directed turns to mocking tradition, loyalty to God and family, and having ties to ancestral lands. Other times, the heartland is described with never-ending images of patriotic Friday night football games, Sunday dinners after church, and a simplistic folksy charm in every holler. While this is a caricatured picture painted by the cosmopolitan class, it has been the norm to see for anyone who follows socio political commentary. These sentiments aren’t one-offs, and are amplified by major figures on the Left.

This perception is somewhat expected from those ensconced in a worldview that revolves around seeing the powerhouses of influence centered in coastal cities like Los Angeles, New York City, and of course, Washington D.C. Nurtured by academia and popular media, most Progressives in the sociocultural commentary field arrive with an entrenched stereotype of fly-over country as nothing more than a cultural backwater.

What raises one’s curiosity is when this mindset presents itself from conservative pundits who are raised in small-town America. Those with real-world experience and knowledge of rural life. Many of these writers and public intellectuals attempt to differentiate themselves by showing more vitriol and scorn for the hometown than displayed from a big city New York or Los Angeles writer covering the same issues.

An apt moniker to describe this type is the “HickLib.”

What is a HickLib?

The HickLib description has some fluidity for a term that can have several meanings. Urban dictionary describes a HickLib as someone from a rural area with Progressive sensibilities and beliefs. This Substack essay ‘The HickLib Phenomena “mentions the cosmopolitan migration to the heartland, especially during the Covid era, of Progressives from major cities who adopt some characteristics of country life, yet deem it necessary to “instruct” the plebs on how things should be done in accordance to liberal dogma.

I have expanded the HickLib definition to include a type of writer or public intellectual whose roots and ancestry are from small-town America, mainly in the Midwest and South, but also from other rural areas in states not within that sphere of the heartland. Generally, those in this category go out of their way to denigrate and demean the people affected by whatever issue or problem they are giving commentary about — and much further than how most liberal-leaning pundit would do.

Ironically, despite the connection of Hick and Liberal in the name, HickLib attitudes aren’t relegated to Progressive-Liberal ideology. Some of the biggest HickLibs can be found in Conservative Inc.™️ outlets such as National Review.

Take Kevin Williamson, for example. Originally from Amarillo, Texas, he is famous for punching down at the rural working class. Here is a well-known article excerpt on his thoughts regarding what should happen to small communities beset by the forces of globalism and rust-belt deindustrialization:

“If you spend time in hardscrabble, white upstate New York, or eastern Kentucky, or my own native West Texas, and you take an honest look at the welfare dependency, the drug and alcohol addiction, the family anarchy — which is to say, the whelping of human children with all the respect and wisdom of a stray dog — you will come to an awful realization. It wasn’t Beijing. It wasn’t even Washington, as bad as Washington can be. It wasn’t immigrants from Mexico, excessive and problematic as our current immigration levels are. It wasn’t any of that.

Nothing happened to them…

The truth about these dysfunctional, downscale communities is that they deserve to die. Economically, they are negative assets. Morally, they are indefensible. Forget all your cheap theatrical Bruce Springsteen crap. Forget your sanctimony about struggling Rust Belt factory towns and your conspiracy theories about the wily Orientals stealing our jobs.” [Bold added for emphasis]

“They deserve to die,” “Negative Assets,” and “Dysfunctional” are the rhetorical phrases and descriptors Mr. Williamson used to sum up the worth of a community of fellow Americans struggling economically. If pressed on the harshness of the verbiage, he would surely give platitudes about tough love, or maybe explain how he’s offering concrete solutions according to conservative principles. A reasonable person reads this and recognizes these are just insults disguised as sophistry for the author’s true feelings for the ruralists he disdains.

Imagine a Progressive writing in this style on the plight of the working class in a blue state or city. It never happens, even in the most fevered dream would they dare castigate a part of their voting base in such a manner. Whatever the issue, be it educational attainment levels, economic conditions, or societal ills such as drug abuse or crime, would the affected group receive this level of scorn. No, a Progressive commentator finds 100 other factors at play for the resulting socioeconomic conditions. Familiar buzzwords like redlining, over-policing, legacy of slavery, lack of investing in the community — we know these tired phrases by heart at this point. Yet the Conservative HickLib will cheerfully pile judgment and condemnation squarely on the affected rural population, as if they rightfully deserve the situation they are in.

This isn’t to say problems in rural America should not or can never be addressed in a way that neither coddles harmful pathologies nor refrains from having a critical eye. A good example was Joe Bageant, a rural Progressive who accomplished this throughout his career. His observations in the book “Deer Hunting with Jesus: Dispatches from America’s Class War” , handled the struggles of rural life and economics without resorting to condemnation or vicious caricatures of the people living there. If a liberal can accomplish this, it shouldn’t be too much to expect this from conservative pundits as well.

The New York Times in-house “Conservative” writer David French (born in Alabama, raised in Kentucky) is an easy specimen to identify as a HickLib pundit who wraps his concern for rural Americans in a smarmy back-handed style of, “Oh look at these pitiful rubes.” With Harvard degree credentials he has built a career pretending to be the “Rural-Whisperer” for the cosmopolitan readers at NYT; thoughtfully explaining their plight as backwoods folks who just haven’t quite seen the Progressive light. That French is held up as an example of a Christian becomes farce when examining some of his viewpoints on morality.

These are just two examples of the Conservative HickLib pundit, yet the bigger questions are how one becomes a Conservative Inc.™️ HickLib, and what benefits are there to this style of observation.

Becoming a HickLib

The simplest way to explain what creates a HickLib comes down to one of the oldest human emotions: Resentment.

Growing up in rural America can be stifling to those who feel an innate disconnection to the customs and traditions. A sense of otherness can begin to develop for individuals who do not feel part of the culture. This usually starts in grade school, especially if one is considered different for being smarter than their peers.

This isn’t to say that educational aptitude should be viewed as an instant sign that someone will become resentful of their rural roots. Many intelligent students in rural areas go on to do great things in life, have good careers, and hold up their hometown or region as a place of pride and affection. But a subset carries bitterness for never having had a sense of belonging to these places long after they have left.

Obviously, not everyone holds endearment for where they come from, and this feeling extends beyond rural areas. Lots of people reinvent themselves after leaving home and going out into the world to make their mark. Unlike a HickLib, most do not parlay these experiences into a career of slander against the folks back home.

The Conservative HickLib commentator crowd utilizes this resentment to their benefit, especially when they conclude that it is advantageous to their professional standing. Ironically, they employ that sense of otherness they felt towards not being part of the rural communities they come from in a similar fashion when beginning a career as a political pundit.

Advantages in the corporate media world

The greatest advantage to being a Conservative HickLib figure working in liberal media is the access and quasi-acceptance that is gained. Claiming rural standing and bonafides with a peacocking stance of “From them, but not of them” grants status within Progressive media circles. This ensures the invitations to academic events, social affairs, and media appearances keep coming for whenever someone is needed who speaks fluent flyover language, but also doesn’t have too much affection and ties that would muddy the liberal narratives for these topics. This straddling of the line between liberal and conservative keeps them in demand.

Another edge this gives the HickLib is the ability to feign outrage when accused of not being a conservative. Any claim to the contrary is quickly met by them touting their credentials of being from rural areas and having traditional values as a shield of authenticity to deflect criticism. While holding Progressive viewpoints in every way except the title, this veil of conservative respectability provides cover to freely attack and criticize others on the Right.

Why this is harmful

Caricatures of rural culture and issues affecting flyover America are not helped by the Conservative HickLib pundit’s faux solidarity. This harm is compounded when Left-leaning media cheerfully point at the HickLib critiques of the heartland to justify whatever Progressive moral framing is required for the day. These Conservative Inc.™️ figures do more injury by reinforcing and amplifying disdainful attitudes towards rural America than any liberal outlet could imagine.

“We all get a little Southern when this nation is going fascist.”

-Tressie McMillan Cottom

Recently, New York Times columnists David French, Jamelle Bouie, and Tressie Cottom sat down and discussed Donald Trump and the American South. This might be shocking to some, but it was not all good news.

This conversation was titled, There Is No Trump Without the South.

The conversation itself was nothing all that special with the standard fare of claiming Trump is the resurrection of Huey Long, George Wallace, and possibly Jefferson Davis. The writers made sure to lament how regrettable the existence of the South is, and that its very presence in America dares to influence national politics.1

Hearing tired tropes about the South, even from a group of New York Times writers proclaiming their Southerness at the start of the show was not surprising. Throughout the discussion, a vision is painted of modern-day Plantations dotting the South with aristocrats lounging on the veranda, and quietly sipping iced tea as they look out at the day’s activities with smug satisfaction.2

The usual cringe I’ve come to expect from the NYT was almost immediate, as this exchange between French and Cottom3 displayed:

Okay… moving on.

Tressie Cottom is later asked what advice she would give to the Democratic party to have electoral success in the South.

She states:

Endorsing tactics of direct racial appeals in a conversation centered around accusing Trump of the same is peak irony. Cottom indirectly mentioning that demographics is destiny in the political realm was not missed.

There were funnier moments in the discussion, especially when Jamelle Bouie likened the increasing numbers of people moving to the South from Blue states, Texas in particular, only doing so for the chance to live out some warped “Yellowstone” fantasy, LARPing as the fictional patriarch John Dutton while they bark orders to random folks on the street — and maybe taking the Amazon delivery guy to the Train Station if packages are late.4

The discussion then pivoted to the differences between regions, with this statement describing why people move to blue-coded cities and states like California.

Bouie says:

California is a bastion for Cultural Equality? What does that actually mean in practice? Online searches kept referring to Cultural Equality as Cultural Equity,5 but the best definition is from the 𝕏 AI Grok, who stated:

“Cultural equality refers to the principle that all cultural groups, regardless of their background, ethnicity, or traditions, should have equal recognition, respect, and opportunities within a society. It emphasizes the fair treatment of diverse cultural identities, ensuring no group is marginalized or privileged over others in social, political, or economic contexts. This concept promotes inclusivity, mutual understanding, and the equitable sharing of resources and representation while acknowledging and valuing cultural differences.”

Bouie, a Virginia-based writer who has worked for the Daily Beast, Slate, and The New York Times, has never lived in California. Researching further, I found a few public events in academia he has attended in the state and some nice pictures of the beach he took while here.6 To speak on authority for a state of this size after such limited exposure is on-brand.

His technique of shallow sophist rhetoric is familiar territory, as I have written about in the past.

Generalizations and Realities

This idea of California as some exemplar of equality on a cultural level is as comical (and false) as the generalizations made about the South. Yet both have their purposes for the Progressive Left. The polarizing language and attitudes for the South help to reinforce the “otherness” of the region as it is (with some exceptions) an almost solid red Republican stronghold. Democrat operatives like Bouie, French and Cottom maybe publicly denounce the Schmittian friend/enemy distinctions, but they fully understand the concept and put it into practice, however subtly.

Blue state = Friends

Red state = Enemy

The cultural balkanization and enclaves across California are readily apparent to anyone who lives here. The slogan of “60 nations and 200 languages” is even used by the state’s current healthcare drive by Covered California. 10 million residents, or 25% of the 40 million total are foreign born. To ignore the frictions this creates is willful ignorance at this point.

Yet this idea of equality, any kind of equality is something of a farce, and the political kabuki theater of pretending that it exists is beginning to wear thin. California leads the nation in income inequality, poor health outcomes, and homelessness. In an attempt to mask these glaring deficiencies, a constant propaganda message of kumbaya cosmopolitanism and the idea it being a multicultural utopia is broadcast from sources in media like The New York Times. It tells whoever is susceptible that Good People live in places like California. Virtuous and Caring People. Simply put, the equality mantra is a constant political campaign for a friendly blue state.

Obviously, I am not saying there are not good people in the state that I have lived in for nearly 20 years.7 Nor is it the hellscape that Fox News portrays. But, as a native of the South, I too had clichéd notions of what California was going to be like through the power of media and television before coming here. The day-to-day experiences quickly put those false notions out of my mind. There isn’t a secure economic middle ground available for many in the former “Golden” state.

For the Progressive Left to paper over the problems and issues here is not fair to Californians. Neither is it fair to Southerners to try and use illusions of superiority as a cudgel against them and the region.

- Arthur

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For many fans of cinema, movie director Paul Verhoeven needs no introduction. Those not familiar with him by name only will undoubtedly recognize several films from his vast body of work in the industry. Total Recall, Showgirls, and Starship Troopers1 are a few easily identified movies that have become cult classics in one fashion or another.

Verhoeven’s style of directing and looking at the bigger societal picture reminds me of Denis Villeneuve, another director whose films make one think on the issues raised long after seeing their work. The small details these directors add are what really make the fictional worlds they create stand out to the audience.

His 1987 science fiction dystopian film Robocop has always fascinated me; from watching it at a very inappropriate young age2, to even now almost four decades after its initial release. Proof of its appeal show in the numerous sequels, reboots, and video games that are still being produced today. The movie always kind of hit differently, and over the years of re-watching it from time to time, some new perspectives began to emerge.

Plot summary (no spoilers)

The plot of the movie revolves around Detroit police officer Alex Murphy being transferred to a very dangerous precinct of the city, one that he personally requested. This is remarked upon by other officers, chiding him about voluntarily leaving what they considered a cushy assignment in the suburbs. Viewers quickly learn that Murphy has a deep sense of duty and upholding the law, hence why he goes where he can make the biggest difference.3

Set in 2043, the city of Detroit is de facto ruled by the Omni Consumer Products (OCP) corporation, with the company controlling the police force and having influence in most other functions of the city. Large parts of the metropolis, mainly in an area called “Old Detroit”, are practically lawless zones, with many in the police department contemplating going on strike for better pay and work conditions. Police are being injured and killed daily with the lack of resources and support from OCP becoming apparent. Unbeknownst to the cops, OCP is quietly working on replacing them altogether with autonomous AI law enforcement robots. How this project is faltering gets shown in a dark company boardroom scene where the ED-209 prototype malfunctions and performs an impromptu downsizing of a junior corporate executive.

At the station, Murphy is paired with his new partner Lewis, a street smart officer who is nicely played by actress Nancy Allen.4 While on patrol. Murphy is apparently killed by a criminal gang run by Clarence Boddiker, who the audience later finds out has high-level connections within the OCP corporation, and is helping to foment the crime wave in “Old Detroit” to forward the goals of OCP’s eventual takeover and rebuilding of the city to their liking.

OCP takes this opportunity to transform his corpse into a cybernetic law enforcement officer aptly named: Robocop. This fusion of man and machine is programmed with three prime directives; serve the public trust, protect the innocent, and uphold the law. A hidden 4^th directive prevents Robocop from arresting or harming any OCP executives.

Robocop is returned to the original precinct Murphy initially was assigned to and begins his duties as an efficient crime fighter. The rest of the movie is an interesting study on the ramifications of putting a human into a cybernetic body, as well as touching on themes of corporate greed and overall decay in a supposed “advanced” technological society.

That the movie still holds up nearly 40 years after its release is a testament to director Verhoeven’s skill and vision.

What Stands Out

On the surface, Robocop presents as a standard 1980s Sci-Fi film about a cyborg crime fighter in a fictional dystopian future city riddled with corporate greed.

But a closer look at the smaller elements added into the film reveal a much larger understanding of the world that Verhoeven created, thus what makes this a special film. Take the occasional news reports and commercials interspersed throughout the movie, for example. These brief glimpses into events happening within this universe show the audience a macro view of the dystopian future envisioned.

Progress?

One commercial begins with a kindly doctor walking the hallway of a medical center and extolling the wonders of having an artificial heart. It isn’t mentioned, yet it’s implied that in this fictional world, practically all organs5 can now be replaced… for a price.

The doctor cheerfully goes over the number of heart models that are available, like a high activity sports model and even including specific brands such as Jensen and Yamaha customers can choose from. He doesn’t forget to remark that financing, extended warranty, and tax credits can be options to obtain these technological wonders of medicine. Sound familiar?

Compare this satirical sales pitch of a fictional healthcare industry with what’s presented today and there isn’t much of a difference. Turn on any channel and one is bombarded with advertisements from the pharmaceutical industry promising untold benefits and wellness from their products. Between Ozempic, Neuralink, and other marvels of science, everything is seemingly available for those who can afford it. No, we haven’t quite mastered artificial organ replacement, but is it that far away in our future at this point?6

Another commercial is for a board game called “Nuke Em” that makes light of the looming threat during the Cold War of nuclear conflict. A family cheerfully gathers in the living room to simulate global destruction of humanity in a nuclear fireball.

This bit satire on the attitude of possible annihilation of the human race is humorous but has the danger of nuclear conflict truly passed? Some act as if it is entirely gone. If anything, the current age has brought this danger more into the realm of possibility as rogue powers attempt to become nuclear-tipped nations.

The Media

The fictional news program gives even more insight into what kind of world Robocop is. Named “MediaBreak”, it acts as a stand-in for modern newscasts such as CNN or Fox, with the two anchors delivering their reports in a tone usually reserved for a sunny weather forecast—no matter the subject material.

Even as this fictional world is on fire7, the flippant attitude displayed by the news media eerily resembles a lot of coverage seen today. One sequence reports on a firefight between US military forces and Mexican rebels in Acapulco with the seriousness of a city park playground grand opening. Another mentions the possibility of nuclear war in Africa with the air and brevity of a local tax proposal. The sycophancy shown by the media towards OCP isn’t missed either.

However, this mirrors a lot of modern media today.

A good portion of mainstream media’s coverage of current geopolitical situations present them in the simplest, Marvel-brained8 way possible. Events that could easily spill over into larger, far more dangerous global conflicts, are treated like a sitcom plot where the only thing to figure out is how to get the clueless dad character to understand his kids.

This is only turbo-charged by the 24/7 news cycle and the rise of social media journalism. Robocop wasn’t the only cinema to predict the current media apathy, but it captures the essence of this phenomenon nicely.9

Omni Consumer Products

The real villain of the movie isn’t the crime boss Boddiker, or the chaos in the streets caused by rampant crime. No, it is the soulless OCP mega-corporation and its ambitions to make an American city their own personal fiefdom for profit and total control. A company with its tentacles and reach that expands into military weaponry and private space exploration (sound familiar?) with profit and shareholder dividends driving every decision. OCP represents the Apex of predatory capitalism taken to its logical (and horrific) conclusion.

A company that owns the very souls of its employees.10

This message of an overbearing corporate entity hits a little too close to home as society becomes accustomed to the modern titans of Amazon, Google, and yes, even former darlings of the Right like Elon Musk’s companies SpaceX and Tesla.11 The intrusions into our lives have become inescapable with others such as Palantir and Blackrock joining the list of corporations whose intentions for humanity can be, well, suspect is saying it politely. Adding in the promises of AI as a sort of paradigm of virtue and prosperity for society as a whole — without fully showing evidence for such claims, and it begins to feel dystopian indeed.

Conclusion

Verhoeven’s Robocop is a visualization of a future world of transhumanism, apathy, advanced technology, and levels of corporate control thought unimaginable just four decades ago. The reality of our modern age is much too similar to this fictional movie than many would like to admit.

Having lived in California for almost twenty years, one question has constantly come up from those outside the state asking how many celebrities I’ve met. There is this idea that being in California, whether on the coast or the interior mountain range, movie stars simply wander across the state. The perception seems to be that most of us live either in Malibu or within sight of San Francisco’s Golden Gate Bridge. One tries to explain to those who take their view from mass media that no, California is a huge state with a variety of areas that do not fall within the sphere of Hollywood. To be fair, it is a popular trope that California is Hollywood. Just as Texas is full of cowboys or that lobster is the breakfast of champions in Maine. There are just some beliefs about US states that stick.

BUT THERE WAS THAT ONE TIME

With fame and fortune in the entertainment industry mostly a fleeting thing, the remarkable staying power of actor Tom Cruise is quite an achievement. He is arguably one of the most successful in the business, with a career that spans over four decades and 45 movie roles. While his talent was noticeable in the beginnings of his career in early roles, the one film pointed to as the vehicle for his launch into A-list movie star is Top Gun (1986). On a budget of $15 million, it went on to earn $357 million worldwide.1 Playing a young brash fighter jet pilot who is, almost by fate, selected to attend the elite US Navy fighter school Top Gun, the role fit Cruise like a glove. Interesting tidbit, the movie was such a success at portraying the excitement of Naval Aviation that the US Navy began setting up recruitment booths outside theaters that were showing the movie. While this author was only a small child when this movie opened, its impact on my perception of military service cannot be denied.

So, when news of the sequel Top Gun: Maverick was announced, there was considerable excitement to the upcoming project. This was made more so when it was discovered that the production would be filming many of the flight scenes on-site at the airbase. An armada of production trailers and crew soon descended on the base, making a mini-trailer park sprout up almost overnight.2

That excitement quickly faded.

TOM CRUISE, OR DARTH VADER?

As with any big announcement, a meeting of all hands was called in the hangar for the upcoming arrival of Mr. Cruise. A stern-looking production assistant was given the microphone to address us. It started out with much of the usual information we expected to hear; no asking for autographs, no pictures, etc.

But then it got weird. Hollyweird.

It soon felt as if instead of an actor being on the site, we were receiving an intergalactic dignitary who did not understand earth’s customs. The list of missives we were instructed to follow soon became hilarious. If Cruise was in the hangar, we were to pretend he was invisible. Try not to look in his direction, and so forth. We were waiting to be told do not look him in the eyes or face the wrath of Medusa, but they must have left that rule out.

“Is he like a Gremlin that comes with instructions?” a friend whispered to me.

Most of this pep talk proved to be unnecessary as he didn’t spend time in the hangar amongst the common folk. No meet and greets for the proles except one trip I recall him making through the hangar to go upstairs to the wardroom for a visit with the pilots and commanding officer.

Did I mention the Sardaukar ensemble constantly hovering him? Yes, a dedicated troop of handlers surrounded him whenever he was on the flightline to always ensure a ring of protection.3 Now, having bodyguards around a celebrity isn’t something new obviously, but these guys would put the security detail for someone like Jeff Bezos to shame. Picture the cast of The Expendables decked out in matching black shirts. There was no doubt top dollar was spent.

This level of enhanced security reached hilarity one day when a group of us were just outside the hangar watching them setup the stunt jet with Mr. Cruise alongside the aircraft with the camera crew. This was several hundred yards away, but suddenly a group of the crew began running across the runway to where we were standing.

“Who took the picture?” the largest one asked us.

Now, a no picture policy was put out at the Darth Vader welcoming speech a week earlier, so whomever took this phantom photo was not among our group. Apparently, a glint from a camera phone was noticed from our direction. Was a picture taken? Who knows?4 Probably someone taking a call at the time. Nevertheless, this kicked off the great detective trail throughout the squadron to “find” the culprit. Seriously. I’ve seen less enthusiastic searches for lost tools on an aircraft compared to the efforts put into the inquiry for this (alleged) breech of image taking. Every workcenter ended up getting visited gestapo style in an attempt to find this elusive (non) photo.

The production crew were there for about four months and except for PictureGate, nothing else really exciting occurred. The stunt jet fitted with the array of cameras would make its daily takeoff with the cast and return with footage. The only major change to the daily routine was the additional time it took to get onto base in the morning.

LESSONS LEARNED

Top Gun: Maverick turned out great and judging from the $1.5 billion box office many others thought so. A surprise for a sequel 30+ years after the original film. With respects to Tom Cruise, I have heard many wonderful stories how well he treats the crew on his movie productions, so this is not a hit piece, or meant as slander.

Yet one still ponders the price paid to reach such heights of fame requiring such measures taken around themself. To simply become a coveted product and brand encased in human form.5

Welcome back constant reader. Today’s essay is something different and out of the ordinary from what I usually publish. I wanted to have a little fun and be creative just to see where it could lead. The following is a radio script of an interview discussing the elusive Arabian Sand Bear Cryptid. I like watching stories like this and decided to create one myself. Leave some feedback in the comments on what you think and if you would like to see more varied works like this from me.

Enjoy.

-Arthur

Arabian Sand Bears of the Middle East.

They are mostly found in desolate regions of Saudi Arabia, but have been spotted as far south as the Fahad desert in Oman. Arab Governments maintain a deny/ambivalent public stance on their existence. When the Bears cause accidents or deaths, mostly to oil workers in remote operations, or Bedouin tribesmen, the deaths are attributed to industrial accidents or simply the harshness of life in the desert. But photos of the unfortunate victims have made it onto the dark corners of the internet — and they show injuries caused by the tearing of flesh by tooth and claw.

WP: Good evening and welcome to another episode of Cryptid Tales. I’m your host Walter Pierce, and today we have a special guest with an incredible story to share. Skip Majors, a geoscience expert who has been employed by oil and gas companies in the Middle East and Africa, joins us today to talk about a subject shrouded in mystery and legend. And just to let the audience know, for personal safety and confidentiality purposes, Skip is not my guests real name, but a pseudonym to protect his privacy. What we are discussing is not information for the general public. Or the squeamish.

Skip: Hello, yes thank you for having me.

WP: Tell the audience your professional background and career.

Skip: Well, after obtaining my Master’s degree in Geoscience at Caltech in Pasadena, I was quickly recruited by, let’s just say a well-known oil company most of our audience would be familiar with from their local gas station. I started out doing some entry level field work in Central California, helping speculate for potential drill sites. After a few years of working in the U.S., career opportunities for more remote locations became available and I was sent to the Congo region of Africa. I have a few tales about that experience for another time, but I eventually ended up in Saudi Arabia outside the town of Tabuk, in the western part of the country.

WP: What we’re going to discuss today might make some in the audience laugh. Mysterious creatures in the desert? Possibly supernatural? Surely this is a joke they might say. But today’s topic is the stuff of legend: The Arabian Sand Bear.

Skip: Until I saw one and what they could do, I wouldn’t blame the audience for their skepticism. All I can tell you is that I know what I experienced and saw out there in the desert and let them be the judge.

WP: When did you first hear about the Arabian Sand Bears?

Skip: Well obviously, it wasn’t something mentioned in the welcome brief when I got to the drilling exploration site, or talked about in the company cafeteria. But, subtle hints to something strange and unknown living out in the desert began to drop. First, let me describe the site location to give you an idea of how desolate the work truly was. When I arrived in Tabuk, a company contact picked me up at the airport and dropped me off at a hotel, telling me he’d take me to the work site in the morning.

The drive took us over 3 hours that next morning to reach operations. During the first hour of driving, I saw a few villages and scattered settlements from the road. But by the last hour, there was nothing. Nada. The best comparison would be pictures of the Mars landscape. We were in the middle of nowhere. The only structures as far as the eye could see was the operation. It was very self-contained. Imagine a layout sort of like a small town with all the usual components and that’s what the site resembled. You had personal lodging, a store, a food court, gym, the works. Everything to keep personnel there and available 24/7 during the operation. It even had a landing strip for re-supply if semi-truck deliveries were hindered for some reason.

My office (which was just a nice construction site trailer) was along the edge of the complex of portable buildings, with a decent window facing the endless desert landscape as a view. At first, it was enjoyable to glance out at the desert, very calming. That quickly came to an end, and I eventually kept the curtains closed most of the time.

WP: How long were you out there at the site?

Skip: My contract was supposed to be for 8 months, but due to the increasing incidents, the entire operation was eventually shut down after only 3 months of me being there.

WP: Incidents?

Skip: Yeah. Like I was saying, the presence of the ASB is a hush-hush affair. I wasn’t too happy to learn afterwards that the company heads knew about them in this region and went ahead with explorations. Only one year prior, an entire desert camping tourism group had disappeared. You know the type: glossy advertisement brochures with pictures of happy tourists around desert yurts and a camp fire. Maybe a couple of pack camels in the background. Everyone in a 15-person group just gone on what was supposed to be a simple 4 day/3-night camping trip. The cover story was a sandstorm had quickly disoriented the group and they had all died of dehydration, but this company had three local guides with them. Three experienced men who had lived in the region their entire lives. Satellite phones, GPS trackers, the works.

WP: Have any of the Arab governments tried to find and eradicate the Arabic Sand Bears in the past?

Skip: Oh sure, there have been several attempts over the years, especially when an attack was too big to ignore. The fact that they tend to hunt from underneath the sands make it difficult if not impossible to track them. Not one Sand Bear “den” I guess it could be called, has ever been found. Nor any remains of a dead one. There is almost a supernatural aspect to their existence.

WP: Supernatural? Interesting. Was there any religious importance to the locals?

Skip: There was a significant group of the workers who worshipped the Bears as a sort of deity of the desert. Mostly the older ones who still clung to the old ways. They would put on elaborate rituals before starting their shift on the rigs. The younger workers would sort of scoff at this, but after it became much more dangerous at the site, they started the rituals as well. It did seem to ward off attacks at drilling sites where they were performed, so take that as you will.

WP: What type of rituals did they do?

Skip: They (the local workers) had these little wooden figurines made from local trees that they would bury around the rigs before starting their shift. Usually they would put at least five of the carvings in the sand in a circle pattern around the rig. Almost like a protective ring of some sort. A designated holy man in the crew would offer a chanted prayer to appease the Sand Bears. Like I said, it had some effect, as the rig teams that did this were mostly unaffected by the attacks. Mostly being the key word. It didn’t shield them from everything.

WP: Besides physical attacks, were there anything else that the Bears did?

Skip: This is just my theory, but it seemed that certain areas in the desert had importance to the Bears. Other operations south of where we were didn’t have issues with the Bears, or at least, none that they acknowledged.

WP: Back to your time with the oil exploration project – Tell us about the first incident you personally witnessed.

Skip: Sure. So, as I said before, my office was along the edge of the compound and the window faced a few of the drill rig sites only a mile or so from the trailer. My work schedule wasn’t set in stone- no 9-5 timesheets, so I would usually make a schedule that kept me out of the day’s heat for the most part. One night around 9pm, I noticed a commotion out the window coming from rig 6. This one was directly in my line of sight out the window. It looked as if mini explosions of sand were occurring all over the rig and lots of panicked shouts in Arabic from the local workers could be heard. I first thought someone had thrown an errant lit cigarette into some blasting caps. (That’s something I forgot to mention. Safety concerns were loose around a few rigs with the workers. OSHA would have a heart attack if they were on the site.) Soon, a Toyota Hilux truck came barreling into the site, stopping in front of the first aid module. I ran to it to see if I could help since I am a certified EMT. It was quickly apparent that nothing could be done for the injured workers. Well, what was left of them. Three bodies were in the back of the truck. All of them looked like they had been mauled to death, possibly like a shark attack. This was not injuries caused from a rig blow-off or heavy equipment failure. I tried asking the (live) workers what had happened to them but all they kept repeating was “Aldubu Alramliu” which means Sand Bear. My Arabic is not the best, so I figured this was a phrase for a rig accident until Amir, an assistant that helped me with the survey data, explained what, exactly they were describing.

WP: Did you believe him?

Skip: At the time, of course not. When you travel as much as I have for work to these far-flung locations for work, you get used to hearing local superstitions and exaggerated tales that are beyond belief. But once these attacks began happening on a regular basis….

WP: They became more frequent? Like, daily?

Skip: Not at first. After this incident, it was another 2-3 weeks before another one happened. One that was closer to the site.

WP: Another rig attack?

Skip: Not at a rig this time. The compound auto center. A few workers were doing an oil change underneath a truck, directly on the sand and then disappeared. The only reason it was noticed so quickly was that another worker went into the garage to grab a tool and heard the swooshing sound of sand and a yelp from his co-workers. Simply gone. Only evidence left behind was a small splash of blood on the truck’s undercarriage.

WP: What did management do about this growing threat? If anything?

Skip: Security patrols were increased and a policy of having a “battle buddy” in tow where ever one went was put in place. Laughable now to think they believed this would have any effect against a predator that mainly hunts from underneath the sands. But, like many organizations facing a problem, they had to do something. Or at least look like they were doing something. The workers were getting scared and more than a few began leaving the site on some of the supply trucks that arrived every couple of days. This was entirely against policy (to simply walk, or run, off the job) so I guess you could say they were really escaping the situation while they could.

WP: How did you continue to focus on work with this happening?

Skip: As I said earlier, the idea of a pack of bears, desert sand bears at that, stalking the barren landscape snatching up oil company workers like the worms out of Frank Herbert’s Dune, or the Tremors movie monsters was entirely ridiculous to me at first. Worst case was that it had to be a wolf pack that had become crazed by hunger to the point where they attacked humans. My work assignments kept me busy in the office, crunching the data brought in from the field and plotting potential spots to drill. It wasn’t until I saw one with my own eyes that I realized it wasn’t all Bedouin fairytales.

WP: Tell us what you saw.

Skip: That same window in my office that I used to enjoy looking out of into the desert expanse revealed the unsettling truth. It was another late night crunching the data sets, racing to meet the deadlines for the next day when I happened to glance up and look out the window. I didn’t see anything usual at first, just the desert expanse lit by a full moon. Then I noticed a peculiar spot on the sand that appeared to be…moving. Slowly at first, then a distinct swirling pattern formed. Soon there were several spots I could see where the swirling was happening. Then one by one, the Bears began to emerge from the sand. At first, I could see the heads beginning to crown like the desert was giving birth to these abominations. But it was the eyes that I cannot erase from my memory. A green glow, almost like smoldering orbs like embers from a hellish fire revealed themselves as they came out of the ground. The bodies were large, bigger than a Polar Bear by my estimates.

WP: Did they have fur like a bear?

Skip: No fur at all. Their skin was smooth and scaly, like a Pangolin. Which makes sense as fur wouldn’t be a helpful thing in the desert climate.

WP: What did you do at that point?

Skip: Honestly, I would probably have stayed frozen in place simply in fear if one of them, the biggest one, had not looked over at the window and saw me.

The eyes revealed an intelligence in them. Feral, ancient, and certainly a brutal form of it, but intelligence all the same.

The company had given out panic buttons to all employees a few days before in case of one being sighted and I realized it was in my hand and punched it. I will note that when I say all employees had one this only included official corporate members, not the locals employed. Immediately, loud speakers across the site began blaring the alarm and the Bears started running into the darkness. After this the attacks started happening several times a week. Always at different rig locations and never the same one twice.

WP: You mentioned the beefed-up defense protocols. That change in security posture doesn’t sound like it made a difference.

Skip: It did and it didn’t, if that makes any sense. My impression of the Bears is they weren’t simply mindless killing machines. They had a cunning about them and understanding of what makes an easy target. While the security force was impressive with the best hardware and equipment money could buy, they still couldn’t always be everywhere. Take the drilling rigs, for example. We had six drill sites operating, but could only fully cover three at a time with security. The Bears understood this and would hit an undefended spot practically at will. Not every attack resulted in a death, but it was enough to put everyone on edge.

WP: What was the final straw or thing that closed the operation?

Skip: Ironically, even after the loss of so much life, it finally took the killing of one of the management personnel to finally make them throw in the towel on the whole endeavor. Apparently, losing nearly 20 local workers was simply chalked up to the cost of doing business in the oil field, but once a middle manager died, that made it unsustainable. You see, that man had family back in the states. Stock options. 401K, etc. People who wouldn’t take company excuses at face value. A local dies and they (the company) can give the family six months of wages and an obligatory “sorry for the loss” note. This manager’s name was Brad, and his death made it clear that the juice wasn’t worth the squeeze anymore. The other company men on the site weren’t staying around after that.

WP: How did the manager die? I assume as a part of corporate he wasn’t in the fields around the rig operations, or changing truck oil.

Skip: No, not at all. Brad worked at central command in the middle of the compound. He was attacked while walking at night to the gym facility. We only knew that because of his workout gear that was left on the sand. And the blood splatters on his gym bag…

WP: Wow. So, they shut down the site and evacuated. Any official explanation or reasoning put out publicly?

Skip: From the company’s perspective, that was the easiest part, really. Oil exploration is not a guaranteed thing and I’m sure the audience has heard the term “Wildcatters” used to describe outfits that drill looking for the Black Gold. So, the explanation for the abrupt shutdown was filed under lack of economic viability for the region.

WP: This wasn’t the first encounter with the ASB that the oil industry had, was it?

Skip: After rotating back to operations in Africa, I talked with a fellow geologist and started putting together a much larger picture of the problem that these Arabian Sand Bears present. Not only to the energy industry, but to the Middle East as a whole. Through private research I found that many incidents written off as accidents, conflicts, and even terrorism, could be attributed to encounters with the Bears.

WP: Can you elaborate on any of these incidents?

Skip: A few firefights in Iraq and possibly one or two in Afghanistan were more likely run-ins with ASB packs. One notable time in the Kandahar region, a US Army Forward Operating Base outside of a remote village were in a sustained firefight for over two hours with “An unknown intruding force” as the after-action report stated. But on a now defunct internet forum on Cryptids from 2008, there were a few blog posts from soldiers claiming that it wasn’t enemy Taliban, but something else. What they described as something else described to a T what I saw that night in the desert. More incredible was the tactic of these Afghani Sand Bears that makes me believe there may be different variants within the species. They didn’t attack from under the ground like the Saudi Bears usually did. These ones kept testing the perimeter looking for weak spots on the base to get inside.

WP: Do you have any authentic photos of the ASB?

Skip: No. One thing I forgot to mention was that before we were evacuated in Saudi, all personal electronics were confiscated and wiped of all media to ensure no evidence leaked out.

But I have seen a few photos online.

I can tell our audience that if one wanted to see the actual photos, they would need a Tor browser, as the few images available are on the dark web. I do not recommend searching for these photos, as this would likely put an individual on a few government lists that they would prefer not to be on. Their existence is considered a state secret. One of the biggest issues not discussed that the Middle East has are the Sand Bears. Arab governments don't like to talk about them due to it scaring tourists and business investments, but there are probably 100s of them out there, lurking below the dunes.

WP: Wow. What a harrowing tale. Skip, thank you again for coming on and telling us about your experiences.

Skip: You’re welcome Walter.

WP: I’d like to also thank the folks at home for listening. Tune in next time when Skip will be back on the program to tell us more about adventures during his time in the Congo. Good night.

-End

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“How'd that happen? I did everything they told me to. Did you know I build missiles? I helped to protect America. You should be rewarded for that. Instead they give it to the plastic surgeons, y'know, they lied to me.”

— D-Fens, Falling Down

An interesting aspect of revisiting old works of cinema and novels is how perspectives change. This is typical of the human experience in that we look for meaning in these works relevant to the current moment. Recently, I watched the movie “Falling Down” for the first time in decades, coming away with different ideas about what the film represents now.1 Released in 1993, Michael Douglas portrays the character D-Fens, a divorced father and recently fired defense contractor in Los Angeles who has a bad day. One man’s odyssey through a sprawling city where personal encounters with denizens becomes increasingly deranged as his mental acuity deteriorates. Or, at least that was my initial impression of the film as a teenager.

The movie is hard to neatly categorize. It certainly is not an example of the Hero’s Journey, nor the story of an antihero, who, using dubious moral practices, ends up saving the day at the end. No, the main character is in many ways a pitiful creature who reacts to his circumstances in more and more violent outbursts until finally reaching a predictable end.

Yet, he is not altogether an unsympathetic character, and upon rewatching the film in the current year, specific themes relevant to the modern age began to surface.

Three decades later, as numerous memes of the film state, I get the appeal of the film as a metaphor for the state of American society.

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The Glorious(?) 1990s

Thinking back where America was in the early 1990s, both culturally and the national mood, broadly speaking, was a very optimistic time. The Berlin Wall fell in 1989 and the USSR, the great nemesis of the 40+ year Cold War, had dissolved not long after. Iraq War 1.0 was deemed a resounding success. Francis Fukuyama’s book ‘End of History’ proclaimed Liberal Democracy as the victor over Communist ideals and political systems.

For all intents and purposes, America was on top. We were the “World’s Only Superpower” as the mantra went.2

The cracks beginning to form in this façade of America’s image of herself were not readily apparent during this time. It would take a series of events that, by themselves small in isolation, added up to signs of things to come in retrospect. Domestic bliss was not the norm. Think of the ATF siege at Waco, Ruby Ridge, the 1992 LA riots occurred as this movie was filmed. While some like to look back to the 1990’s with a halcyon gaze, trouble was brewing below the current papering over with pop culture nostalgia. Though many dreamed up grand ideas of policing the world behind closed doors in US government offices, things on the domestic front were showing signs of strain.

Not long after the release of Falling Down, almost 60% of California voters approved Prop 187 to stem the overflow of illegal immigration to the state. This legislation would, of course, be overturned by the courts later, but the problems continued to grow. Score one more victory for the democratic process, I suppose.

The American Dream™ was already beginning to slip out of the grasp for many during this decade. Other blows would come in the form of economic policies such as NAFTA and corporate offshoring of most manufacture operations. This process didn’t initially start in the 1990s, but began picking up speed in earnest.

[The Critical Drinker’s YouTube video does an excellent breakdown that explores these themes more fully on the socioeconomic backslide.]

As I said at the beginning, this is a not-quite review of the movie. Instead, I have chosen a few scenes to highlight and analyze for what they represent (to me, at least) in the modern age.

Futility of the Times

The movie opens with the protagonist stuck in a typical L.A. traffic jam caused by road construction. Wearing a button-up shirt and tie, pocket protector standing guard for its charge of pens, he sits in a way past its prime economy car which becomes readily apparent when he attempts to turn up the air conditioning, only for it to not work. A fly buzzes around his head, a constant nuisance that he tries to remedy with rolling down a window, discovering that it, too, is broken.

Stuck in the car under an overpass surrounded by others stuck as well, his mind a cacoepy of thoughts, D-Fens can take it no longer and leaves the vehicle, grabbing his briefcase and car keys. Other drivers look on with mild disinterest at this fellow commuter walking away from the fray. One asks D-Fens, “Where are you going?”

“Home,” is the simplistic answer he gives.

While we, the audience, do not yet know that Michael Douglas’s character has been fired from his job as a missile defense contractor(thus no reason to even be in traffic), his frustration at being trapped in a rundown car amongst a sea of humanity resonated as a metaphor of 21st century America.

This miasma of going somewhere and headed nowhere at the same time struck me as a stand-in for where America finds herself in areas of foreign policy and national direction. For most of the 20th century, America had a goal. The 1950s gave us the Space Race, the 1960s till the end of the Cold War was a fight against Communism. Once those things faded into the background America began to drift. Pointless conflicts, cultural squabbles and other insignificant matters took on over-sized importance in the national mind.

The question of who we are and where we are going remains.

Economic Volatility

Leaving his vehicle, the first encounter he has is with a Korean store owner that he asks for change to use a payphone. Told brusquely that to get change he will have to buy something, D-Fens selects a Coca-Cola, only to find out that the high price for the soda doesn’t leave him enough change to use the payphone. This leads to a rant about “Rolling prices back to 1965” and a lot of property damage as he walks around, asking what the costs for other goods in the store are— before smashing them to bits.

Most Liberal interpretations of this scene tend to lean on old racial tropes that D-Fens simply has prejudice for the Korean storekeeper, but I disagree with this analysis as lazy. A later scene at his mother’s home displays pictures of his father in uniform during WWII, and it’s plain to see he is a life-long Angeleno that is no stranger to seeing a diverse group of people in the mega-city. No, his anger is directed at the economic commodification of society where everything seems to be maximized for the most profit. As an aside, it was comical to see him bewildered at the $0.85 price of the soda when comparing today’s cost.

Empire of Dust

After the confrontation in the convenience store, D-Fens goes to a derelict, rundown public park with graffiti-laden structures. As he sits atop one of the crumbling piles of concrete, the scene contrasts Los Angeles skyscrapers in the background — highlighting the close proximity of difference in class and living standards.

He is accosted by gang members who tell him that he is trespassing in “their” territory, pointing to the graffiti tags as proof. D-Fens attempts to defuse the situation and simply leave, but they demand he pay a toll for the offense of intruding on their turf. They demand that he hand over his briefcase.

He refuses and successfully fights them off with a baseball bat he had acquired from the convenience store earlier.

Rule of Law follows the tenets of Calvinball

Arriving at a fast food joint named Whammyburger, he tries to order breakfast but is told that they stopped serving at 11:30. Glancing at his watch, it’s past that time by only a few minutes. There are even boxes of breakfast item sitting behind the counter girl. Things… go downhill from this point is all that I will say. This scene (and the movie) deserves a viewing, even if one only watches the clip on YouTube.

This situation of a rigid adherence to a nonsensical rule is an excellent example of Anarcho-Tyranny, especially in light of the previous scenes where lawlessness and gang held territory is the norm, yet the simple act of providing a breakfast sandwich shortly after the allotted time is considered impossible.

Duality

D-Fens visits a military surplus store looking to get a pair of boots to replace his worn out shoes. The owner3 hides him from the police who are aware of his trail of madness across LA. His reason for doing so become apparent as he’s been listening on a police scanner and knows who D-Fens is. This creates a quasi-kinship as he believes all these actions are part of a vigilante spree.

D-Fens is disgusted by this, as he views his actions as a righteous response to the conditions around him. This angers the owner as his illusions about D-Fens motivations evaporate.

Veneer of Success

On his walking odyssey through Los Angeles, D-Fens passes through MacArthur Park. (yes, that MacArthur Park) It is filled with homeless, drug addicts, and others who have fallen down in society. A man accosts D-Fens, asking for money and claiming to be a veteran of the Vietnam War, even though it is obvious that he is too young to have been in the conflict. D-Fens sees through his lies, but end up giving him the briefcase he’s carried all this time.

Upon opening it, we the audience see that it is empty, except for a small lunch packed for the workday at a job he no longer has. Even with everything going on, this showed how keeping up a false appearance of normality and success was important to D-Fens.

Corruption as Coin of the Realm

A running theme throughout the film is how the protagonist constantly faces an endless series of construction projects that impede his journey. While earlier scenes have him forced to navigate around these obstructions, towards the end he is done with the excuses. He demands the worker tell him the truth, that the construction is unwarranted and simply a boondoggle project to justify their budget. Seeing his firearm, the worker admits that yes, it is unnecessary work and only being done for that purpose.

In modern times, not a day seems to go by without another grift or scam being uncovered in the news. It has become a ubiquitous part of the social fabric that this is merely something we’re supposed to expect now.4

Desperation and Finality

Falling Down is not a blueprint for actions someone should want to emulate in real life, obviously. However, for a film that came out over three decades ago, its themes of frustration and disgust with how society operates has relevance for today. D-Fens meets his end, but between the brutality and violence, the questions he poses on the rot and decline of the nation still deserve answers.

-Arthur

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Yet, her natural beauty cannot be denied. From the peaks of Yosemite, to the golden sunset that graces the Pacific, the wonders of the state are legendary. The “Golden State” moniker was not incorrect, and represented much more than her natural features not that long ago. A place that drew in Americans from across the country to thrive and raise families in connected communities.

As a resident of California, the current uproar over ICE raids is not surprising. This state (and others) practically rolls out the red carpet for illegal immigrants. Not a year seems to go by without another piece of legislation passing to foment the increasing number of illegal immigrants. More bilingual services, more housing assistance, more food aid, etc. For decades now, we have been told that America is “simply an idea,” and that anyone coming into the country get transformed by our magical soil. The riots and protests over deportations paint a decidedly different picture.

The Narrative

Governor Newsom and other state officials clamor to get in front of sycophant media to gush about how wonderful it is to have so many illegal immigrants, citing economics, cultural enrichment, and other flimsy reasons that paper over the reality of those experiencing their policy consequences. Feel-good stories are trotted out about DACA recipients and 14th Amendment Americans holding degrees in Human Resources or Liberal Arts, all thanks to illegal mom and dad toiling in the fields, lest the crops begin to rot. All this for the ungrateful Heritage America—as if no one ate vegetables before they arrived.

Platitudes about the “Rule of Law” regarding due process and expedited deportations sound comical from a state like California that has the most sanctuary cities and routinely flout federal immigration law. A state that spent over $9 billion in 2024 on healthcare coverage for illegals and is on track to spend nearly $11 billion this year. Adding in additional costs from illegals in the areas of education, housing, and law enforcement pushes this figure even higher. One does not need a degree in economics to know this is unsustainable for the long-term, and will continue to add tension around the immigration issue.

Governor Newsom invoking the founding fathers in his defense of anti-deportation protests is another sign of the current idiocracy.

The tales of communities enriched by illegal immigrants paint a narrative as if they are otherworldly beings coming down to visit the native masses, unworthy of their blessing. Media breathlessly reports on how enriched Heritage America becomes by the creation of more foreign ethnic enclaves producing a ready labor pool for cheap goods and services. Left out of this celebration are negative effects that embracing a multicultural future have on the nation. References are made to the economic numbers rising, as though the only reason for a nation to exist is to worship an almighty GDP Excel spreadsheet god.

Reality

Left out from the never-ending praise for mass immigration are the real-world impacts of not having a sovereign country.

Here are a few anecdotes:

• Being in a grocery store when it’s announced that debit/credit card machines have quit working and only cash will be accepted. Almost as if the signal for it, illegal immigrants begin leaving groceries on the nearest flat surface or simply walk off with the goods still in a cart. Why care about the impact of spoiled goods paid for with a SNAP/EBT? A knowing look is exchanged between Heritage Americans on the insipid and inconsiderate behavior.

• A visit to the emergency room turns into a 4–6-hour ordeal because of the massive numbers of illegal immigrants that treat the ER as their personal doctor office.

• Take the family for eye exams and glasses. Even with insurance for vision, the bill is over $1000—only to see a family of 4 present a Medi-Cal (California Medicaid) card and pay nothing.

• Noticing that almost every gas station and convenience store have become staffed by H1-B visa holders who barely have time to utter a hello, much less carry a conversation with a Bluetooth in one ear, talking to the homeland. What connection does someone like this have with the community? The nation as a whole?

• Going to a government office, whether social security or DMV, and feeling like a stranger in your own country. Costco has become the new United Nations.

• Seeing public squares in town, once symbols of pride in the community, strewn with drug paraphernalia, and illegal homeless. City parks that are now unsafe, even in broad daylight.

This personal list of experiences could be much longer and no doubt others reading this have similar stories. These are examples of how rapidly the demographics and cultural reality changed in the last few decades. Meanwhile, those with deep ancestral roots in the founding and building of America are chided for noticing. Told to accept and embrace these changes. Progressives call those who display an unease or trepidation bad words and tell them to “Remember Ellis Island!” and other historical platitudes designed to shame us for daring to speak up.

But more and more are voicing how this situation in the country is unacceptable. The fountain of sympathy for the swamping of the country with migrants died out sometime during the Biden administration. As details continue to come out on how this was a calculated process the resolve for mass deportations grow.

Progressives frequently point to past historical moments of immigration to America as justification of the latter 20^th and 21^st century migrations, yet it cannot be ignored how selective they are with information provided. Any facts detrimental to the progressive narrative of America’s sole purpose of adopting the entire globe are left out.

100+ years ago, Americans did not foot the bill for those who immigrated. There wasn’t SNAP/EBT food aid, a social security administration, or a multitude of other programs that catered to those coming to our shores. The American way and assimilation were not treated as pariah ideas. Nor was the history of America and her heroes demonized and given the Howard Zinn treatment at every opportunity. Phrases like “My Community,” or “My People” are now reserved for newcomers, and never the founding stock.

Where This is Going

We do not know how successful mass deportations will be, but the uncertain waters of the 21^st century is obvious. With discussions of impending global conflicts, financial downfall and other possible calamities becoming a harsh reality, the need for unity in a nation’s people will be crucial. To trust in the notion that “America is Just an Idea” instead of a country forged through shared ancestry and hardships is a fool’s errand. Ideas require a collective belief, not simply handing out pocket Constitutions or slogans proclaiming We’re All Immigrants.

The time to put away childish optimism is now. Keep your family close and traditional community ties alive.

-ArthurinCali

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“Boomers Destroyed America.”

Catchy title, right? A raw, visceral condemnation of an entire generation that delivers a swift punch to the gut. I imagine the furious keystrokes in the comment section over the headline alone. Now that I have your attention constant reader, let me distill the hyperbole for the name of this essay into something more reasonable.

Here is the Note that kicked off an uproar for remarking that a subset of the Baby Boomer generation (1946-1964) declares, not only vocally, but by their actions that they have little interest in the conditions of younger generations coming up after them. It was in response to the constant trite remarks telling Zoomers and Millennials to “Just work harder” and “Pull yourself up by the bootstraps,” forgetting that this is not 1975, or even 2005. Socioeconomic conditions are quite dismal and it isn’t coddling to acknowledge that.

Lost in Translation

As one in the Millennial generation, the critiques are well known about us. We are depicted as entitled and lazy, with an edge of disrespect towards other generations, especially the Boomers. Yet these characterizations never bothered me because I knew they weren’t personal traits of mine. Which is why the defensive reaction to the Boomer Substack Note remarking that a subset of folks displaying an indifference to the well-being of the nation’s young took me by surprise. Even including the phrase “Not All Boomers” was not enough to assuage many in the comments to take this observation personally. Comments describing stories of working hard, raising families, and generally doing their best with life circumstances were common. I related to these stories personally, as the best examples of how to live one’s life have come from the Boomer generation within my own family. Hard work, patience, patriotism, and sacrifice were the values displayed to me growing up.

There are a multitude of those in the Boomer generation doing all they can for their children and communities. Those who see the decline and decay of the nation and understand where we are at.

Hence, “Not All Boomers.”

Generalities of an entire generation are, of course, not a fair characterization of a group. But it also isn’t fair not to examine the repeated self-absolution of those who cannot see where we are as a nation. To dismiss the concerns and start playing Billy Joel’s “We Didn’t Start the Fire,” is not constructive. An examination is warranted for the mentality of those who display a laissez faire attitude of the future for this great nation.

Times Have Changed

The Baby Boomers grew up in a world that no longer exists, yet many pretend or ignore the immense changes that have taken place. Their America was one that enjoyed unparalleled levels of cultural and societal homogeneity for most of the 20th century. A nation that showed her pride through celebrations of its history and purpose. Look back at television series at the time, for example. Instead of deconstructing history or utilizing academic critical theories, most programs showcased the pioneer spirit of America through numerous westerns and honoring figures from history.

And yes, of course there were challenges for the Baby Boomer generation. Even with the post-WWII economic boom, things were not simply handed out. People still had to work for a living, fight their nation’s wars and deal with life’s uncertainty. Just as the 21^st century’s Global War on Terror became a defining marker for Millennials, the Vietnam war left its mark on the Boomers. Contrary to Hollywood and 1960s documentaries, not everyone was a hippie relaxing in the park in San Francisco. Most of this generation were too busy working, raising families, and trying to get ahead.

America’s population in 1980 was 226 million, a year where most Boomers would then fall into the age bracket of today’s Zoomer and Millennials. DEI, Wokeness, and the multitude of immigration programs H1-Bs (1990) hadn’t fully reached their apex moment. Wholesale offshoring of industry and NAFTA were not yet a factor. It was an entirely different landscape. It isn’t sympathy but understanding to see where America finds herself now. A nation of 340 million officially, but probably much higher when undercounting the population of illegal aliens residing in the country. This puts immense pressures on housing and social services that were not a factor for Boomers.

A tragedy of the oft-repeated Boomerism’s stories of climbing the socioeconomic ladder in their younger days is the lack of awareness on how that world is gone; opportunities and conditions that were afforded to them simply a mirage now in the current age.

The Reality of the Present

Today in Washington, the political leadership is firmly in control by the Boomer generation. 65% of the U.S. Senate, 48% of the U.S. House of Representatives, and 68% of Governor seats are held by them. To not acknowledge how this skews policy and legislation towards one group would be folly.

Politicians justify increasing mass immigration on the grounds of keeping Social Security and Medicaid programs solvent while negating entirely the dire effects of swamping the country with millions of low-skilled labor. These scare tactics keep many cheering on their own replacement in the very nation built by our ancestors.

Take the Covid response. A virus heralded as the next coming of the Black Plague for senior citizens resulted in a complete shutdown of a nation—to the utter detriment of her youth. School closures, remote (not) learning, and the breakdown of society. While scores of small businesses were shuttered, corporations were left unscathed. For what? A survivable respiratory virus that endangered people over 60 with lingering health issues? Don’t misunderstand what I’m pointing out here. Yes, precautions put in place and other actions were perfectly reasonable. This is not an argument that nothing should have been done. Yet anyone voicing concerns on the detrimental effects to the younger generations were responded to by flippantly that, “They want to kill Grandma!”

Trillions in resources were poured into ensuring the survivability of one age cohort with barely a thought to how this would play out for the future generations. These lockdown effects that are still felt in the areas of education and mental development of our youth.

Just Not Said

Why shouldn’t younger generations feel “entitled” to grow up and be in a nation not swamped by mass immigration, skyrocketing costs of living, and reckless monetary decisions? A nation where older generations shepherded national policies and decisions to give those coming after them just as good of a shot at the life they had if not better.

How could they not want the same things their parents and grandparents had? A nation who knew herself and what it stood for. A nation that cultivated opportunities for the generations coming up. “For Ourselves and our Posterity,” with true meaning behind those words.

It isn’t all Boomers that hold an attitude of indifference for generations that have come after them. But it’s prevalent enough that these discussions need to continue.

America, and her future depend on it.

Thank you for reading this essay. Please share or leave a (constructive) comment if you found it interesting.

-Arthur

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“People will not fight for abstractions, but they will fight for their home.”

-JD Vance

The pernicious concept of America as simply a collection of ideas written down has gained more traction, with this definition of the nation receiving an increasingly spirited defense from pundits and liberal historians since the beginning of the 21st century. From the 1619 Project, to the notion that the American founders studied the Koran to gain insights into how to run the country, there seems to be no end to the nonsense that denies America’s roots in Anglo-Saxon heritage and traditions.

The latest example is from Canadian-American dual citizen columnist David Brooks with his NYT essay “I’m Normally a Mild Guy. Here’s What’s Pushed Me Over the Edge,” and he wants you to know how mad he is.

Brooks uses the recent observation of Memorial Day as an opportunity to voice his outrage over Vice President Vance expressing the belief that America is more than a nebulous collection of ideas, entirely separate from her ancestral heritage.

As with many in Conservative Inc., Brooks uses faux-outrage in the guise of defending patriotism for this bromide. He begins by taking issue with a 2009 essay from political scientist Patrick Deneen, stating:

“In that essay, Deneen argued that soldiers aren’t motivated to risk their lives in combat by their ideals. He wrote, “They die not for abstractions — ideas, ideals, natural right, the American way of life, rights, or even their fellow citizens — so much as they are willing to brave all for the men and women of their unit.”

He goes on to declare that most soldiers are driven in combat by a sense of ideals, holding up the historical conflicts of World War Two and The American Civil War as proof. Although, as if by convenience, he dismisses Vietnam and the Iraq War due to their moral causes being unclear. This selective cherry-picking of past warfare allows Brooks to opine nostalgia on the glory of the Union, citing historian James M. McPherson’s book “For Cause and Comrades: Why Men Fought in the Civil War,” with excerpts of Union officers writing home about the righteousness of the cause. In one letter, a soldier from Indiana writes:

“Remember that thousands went forth and poured out their life’s blood in the Revolution to establish this government; and twould be a disgrace to the whole American people if she had not noble sons enough who had the spirit of ’76 in their hearts.”

Perhaps due to his Canadian heritage or willful ignorance, Brooks does not acknowledge how both sides, Union, and Confederate, were full of descendants from the American Revolutionary War. Thus, proving how intertwined the tapestry of shared heritage truly was during the horrific conflict. These men did fight for ideals they believed in, with many fighting and dying on the very soil that held generations of who had come before them. WWII only gets a passing mention, as if careful not to pry open the pandora’s box of modern revisions occurring on why it was fought. The only reason to use these Civil War examples is so that Brooks can smugly say that Deneen and Vance’s comments “stain the memory of the men who fought in that war, especially the men who fought to preserve the union.”

All of this is merely a build up for what he wants to critique, and he quickly pivots to the real issue he has with the dangerous idea of America being more than, well, an idea.

He points to what he calls “Aspirational Nationalism,” with former presidents Lincoln, Reagan, and even Joe Biden as examples of those who professed that America exists to spread the gospel of the Declaration of Independence and the Gettysburg Address. This he contrasts with “Homeland Nationalism – which as he says pithily, is “The belief that America is just another collection of people whose job is to take care of our own.”

He takes a special umbrage with President Trump’s recent visit to the Middle East and him stating that they have the right to run their countries as they see fit. For Brooks, the greatest endeavor the US can undertake is to scour the world, sprinkling democracy at the barrel of a gun and leaving a rainbow flag planted behind. That is not merely my impression of the essay. He plainly states that as an idea “Americans have a responsibility to promote democracy,” and that our sacred oath is to not “betray a democratic Ukraine.”

Brooks waxes on with geographical empathy over continents far from the American homeland:

“What Deneen and Vance said about men in combat is a manifestation of tribal morality. They take a sentiment that is noble in time of war — we take care of our own — and apply it in general to mean that we don’t have to take care of the starving children in Africa; we can be cruel to those we don’t like. Trumpism is a giant effort to narrow the circle of concern to people just like us.”

He goes on:

“But over the past four months, a small cabal at the top of the administration — including Trump, Vance, Miller and the O.M.B. director, Russell Vought — have brought a series of moral degradations to the nation those Union soldiers fought and died for: the betrayal of Volodymyr Zelensky and Ukraine, the cruel destruction of so many scientists’ life projects, the ruination of PEPFAR. According to the H.I.V. Modeling Consortium’s PEPFAR Impact Tracker, the cuts to that program alone have already resulted in nearly 55,000 adult deaths and nearly 6,000 dead children. We’re only four months in.”

What is more cruel, neglect the suffering of one’s neighbor, or practicing global virtue-signaling? The PEPFAR and other USAID funding cuts is emotional blackmail dressed up as concern by Brooks. His entire article uses patriotism as a veneer to hide the argument that, to him and other global cosmopolitans, America can be filled with anyone and remain the same.

That is not the case.

America is more than a faceless idea. It is a nation of people with a shared heritage and culture created by European settlers, conquerors, and pioneers. The ideas put down on paper are good, but only a distinct people made them great.

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-Arthur