"Rulers and Rednecks": Obama/Jim Webb 2012

We honor the fallen but around the mid 70s we were coming to honor not only those who fell,  but those who failed as well. There is nothing wrong with that failure. But I'd just read Tom Wolfe's classic, “The Right Stuff,” about war pilots in rocket planes and by circumstances beyond my own doing and will, I’d been guarding some of these men when they flew their last mission. I'd be the last American they'd see before they hit the ground north of the Mekong River or were captured and tortured by the North Vietnamese. We honor them today but their fellow pilots in Wolfe's telling did not. America's samurai fighters in the old F 105s or 4Cs endorsed only victory in Wolfe’s telling. Later, almost everyone would get the medal and maybe find a politician's career in it. But "Rulers and Rednecks," a chapter of Jim Webb's great history of the Scots-Irish journey across Europe, across the ocean, across the Appalachians, across the universe, restores the warrior moment; the vital moment from which time and history begins every single time: "On top of this mountain [out by Moccasin Gap on the farthest western edge of Virginia] you can understand the Pioneer's Creed: The Cowards Never Started. The Weak Died Along the Way. Only the Strong Survived."

This is where Obama should start again. Start again with Virginia Senator Jim Webb as his VP.

Possibly he has this in mind. Romney clearly knows how to do things. He controls the agenda now with his trip to England and on to Israel. And when he comes back he will control it again by naming a VP. My guess it will be someone interesting and beyond the imagination of the mainstream apparatus which seeks to sustain the old families (Bush, Bush and Bush). Romney will surprise at the moment of heightened expectations, running the ball into September. Obama should do the same directly thereafter Romney’s announcement. He should bring in Jim Webb as VP.

We have been these past few years in a foxfire of Jacksonian rural awakening and today all the map between the eastern cities and California is red neck red. But the true Jacksonian vision started with Jim Webb. Obama with Webb could take it back.

Obama today has one advantage: People tend to like him. Let the metalheads rant; they marginalize and embarrass their candidate. In April, a Washington Post-ABC News poll found 64 percent described Obama as likable with only 26 saying they like Romney. A Romney victory would transform conservatism, leaving behind the Bush/Kissinger/National Review matrix - the Eastern Conservative Establishment - and awaken a new vision of conservatism. But likewise, an Obama/Webb ticket would awaken a new Jacksonian movement which would unite rural with urban as the Democratic Party traditionally did. It would leave behind the Roosevelt/Kennedy era (the Eastern Liberal Establishment) which has been bogging us down.

Democrats began moving forward to new thinking with Virginia Governor Mark Warner, Wesley Clark, Jim Webb and a few others, and today a Jacksonian spirit even comes to New England with Elizabeth Warren. There was perhaps a specific time when this took its head of steam; the beginning of the war on Iraq; a war neither won nor lost at a time when we Americans no longer seemed to make the distinction.

It was then that true warriors, including John and Susan Eisenhower, General Wesley Clark, Col. Larry Wilkerson and novelist and historian Jim Webb turned away. The Eisenhowers, Wilkerson and Webb had been Republicans. It was an astonishing collection of karma and character which gave Obama a headwind. He should start again here: Start again with Jim Webb as his VP.

Can Jean Charest awaken Canada - draft

Can Jean Charest awaken Canada?

Recently, Canada made wall to wall headlines on Drudge when it was announced that Canadians are richer than Americans. And by a good deal: almost $50,000 per head. And prospects ahead are good. Iceland, in its recovery, considers going to the Loonie, the Canadian dollar. Those who watch closely may have seen this coming the past ten years. Today Canada rises and the creation point might have been the 2002 Winter Olympics - the one Mitt Romney took charge of - when Dick Cheney sat darkly in the audience waiting for a new "Mirqcle on Ice." A bit obsequeus for a "superpower" to declare they conquered the Soviet Union in a hockey game. And it didn't happen. What happened is that the Canadian women, led by Haley Wickenheiser and armed by Coach Danièle Sauvageau with three fateful words; “responsibility, determination, courage”  took the gold from the Americans. There were other issues, but they all happened around the time of that fateful hockey game. The next day the Canadian men's team did the same. From then till now it was onward and upward.

The age ahead, says legendary investor Jim Rogers is one of agriculture and commodities and Canadians have both in vast, almost unimagineable  quantities. And a simple twist of fate from mother nature could help a good deal: Global warming - bad for Texas, good for Canada. Civilizations and realms rise first in Agriculture, says Rogers and metabolize later to industrialization and investment. England and America rose while Canada sat alone in solitary splendor. Now it rises without the burdens of debt and unemployment which plague Europe and America.

The last election was instructive. MichEl Ignetiev, the Liberal Candidate for Prime Minister,  lost big time. His failure reveals a Canadian transition. Canada has changed. Canadians will no longer advance themselves as a secondary realm - the introverted half of America, novelist Robertson Davies phrase – a footnote to American globalist models like like those succer fish which at tech themselves to killer sharks. And thanks to Wickenheiser  and her women Canadians have a new confidence. Canadians will no longer vote for the candidate who seems the most like an American presidential knock off. Ignetiev, who spent 25years as a Harvard professor and writes like Clinton aide carried only three seats.

Charest, whose election is coming up in September should be looked at because as premier he has brought Quebec to a mor intimate relationship with Canada and aired the righteousness of the claim to sovereignty. In 2003 Charest established a Council of the Federation, a group similar to America’s Governor’s  Council but perhaps quite different. Before his death, GeorgeKennan has proposed for America a Council of Elders to take a second diffident and objective look at the other groups, the Presidency, the Congress, the Courts and the MSM and Charest’s group in Canada could do just that. And it would give a sense of equality between Quebec and the other provinces which was always and correctly an issue. At least 36 dstates today demand greater sovereignty in America and Quebec was first to do so in Canada.

And long time visitor to Canada could see the tendency to imitate America. And since its conception, from  Hamilton to Lincoln and on the the 13^th amendment in 1917, the American  states have yielded sovereignty to Washingtoon. Just so in Canada and continuing with present Prime Minister Stephen Harper. But the tide has turned. Prime minister --- of Endge flooks forward to the next meeting of Premiers to discuss environmental issues direct with the other premiers. It is a model on which sovereignty can begin to return to the regions and Canada ‘s rising prosperity can  take shape. And a modified version – perhaps a “supercommittee of governors in America – could do the same here.

Tea Party comes to Mainstream: Mitt Romney joins the Tea Party

Roberts’ ruling brings a sea change: Tea Party comes to the mainstream. Mitt Romney joins the Tea Party

Exclusive for The Tenth Amendment Center

The Obamacare ruling by the Supremes this week dramatically changes the political landscape. Justice Roberts’ decision is being called by MSM the “Compromise of 2012.” But compromise will not work to appease contention.  It will instead enflame opposition and bring states rights issues to the mainstream. It is already doing so. As Byron York writes in the Washington Examiner on Saturday, backlash is forming and 85 percent of Republicans want to see Obamacare repealed either in whole or in part.

The Fugitive Slave Act of 1850 has been called the "great compromise." But it forced slavery on the North and offended states rights and the Tenth Amendment. The effect was to infuriate the North and drive them closer to warfare and the great tragedies which lay ahead. As one major commentator claimed Friday in the Washington Post, “John Robert’s Compromise of 2012” is “historic because it is a Compromise — a crisis-averting pact across lines of ideology, party and region, the likes of which we have not seen since pre-Civil War days.” It is indeed and as the Court did in 1850, Roberts has now infuriated the right and the 30 states which brought opposition to this federal mandate. 

What is of some importance here is that we on the ground since 2003 on behalf of states’ rights have since managed to radicalize three important and committed mainstream conservatives; Mitt Romney, Texas Governor Rick Perry and Virginia Governor Bob McDonnell. It is the way of all political turning; John Brown awakens Lincoln, the half mad Boston lawyer James Otis awakens John Adams. So, remarkably, that which began with a few New Hampshire rural renegades who called themselves "free staters" ten years ago can now count Mitt Romney in its ranks. And Rick Perry, who always had the tendency, and Bob McDonnell.

Chief Justice John Roberts brings the archetype to the Eastern Establishment Conservative. He is a George H.W. Bush appointee, and his decision brings a full change of paradigm to conservatism. Until today there were three current sensibilities vying for position in government; the Roosevelt Democrats, Bush conservatives, and the rising Tea Party coalition which brought a challenge to Obamacare. John Roberts’s decision classically links Bush conservatives today to Roosevelt/Kennedy/Obama thinking and this is the essence of his “compromise.” But today, as York’s stats suggest, establishment conservatives lose to history and the rustic conservatives who formed the Tea Party opposition to Obamacare rise now to the center of political culture.

Like Jefferson in middle life, Mitt Romney has in the last few years gone through a natural radicalization. In effect, he has left the party of Bush, Roberts and Krauthammer and joined the party of Sarah Palin, Ron Paul and Judge Andrew Napolitano. The Tea Party influence which brought the challenge to the Supreme Court now takes dominance over the easterners’ institutional influence.

Those conservatives who hope for an Obama victory in 2012 so they can run back the clock with Christie/Jeb Bush in 2016 have been accommodated by Roberts’ “compromise.” But Robert is rapidly becoming a pariah to conservatives and their hopes are now diminished. By 2016 conservatism will have become fully radicalized.