The Globe Was an English Theatre

At a recent meeting on “globalization” I got to hear an enthusiastic adminucrat welcome his new insect overlords by pointing out that they own various enterprises spanning said globe. (well, mostly Latin America, a interpretation of “global” that we will visit in uno momento.) This particular leg-tingling was due to a newly perceived opportunity to become part of the New One World Order by learning new languages (sometimes I wish people would just learn English better, a walk-before-you-run type of thing, but many with no first language will continue to preach the benefits of a second one, irregardless). Hussein Obama, in his typically pes in os fashion, joined the battle from the distant rear when he lectured recently on the need for learning Spanish, since all we can say is merci beaucoup. What a polyglot. In the USA, of course, Spanish is synonymous with foreign language or bilingualism just as Latin American is often substituted for global. In many schools it is the only "foreign" language taught and the number of its native speakers in those schools entirely invalidates the premise under which it is sold.

Of course the adminucrat and the civic organizer both have it exactly wrong. By specifically 180 degrees and whatever that would be in the metric system, which I’m sure they both prefer and also don’t know. As any seventh-grader science fiction fan knows, the unity of the world so desperately yearned for by Gaians is not one in which everyone is multilingual, but one in which everyone speaks the One World language: English. For those of us already communicating in Earthean, (what will used-to-be-called English) this is advantageous. Just like scientists who grew up using centimeters and liters have a slight advantage in science class. (And no, there is no mandate for them to learn inches, quarts and hogsheads.) Funny thing is, this is obvious to everyone in the modern world except the very Americans who claim we Americans are linguistically provincial. (The Islamists, not being part of the modern world, are pretty much left out of all this. Their “globe”, such as it is, is dark, tiny, rather malodorous and communicates via explosions rather than words). The Japanese, Chinese, Indians, Africans, Europeans, pretty much everyone on the train spends their time learning English and being perfectly fine with that. Even the protesters in Tajikistan write their protest signs in English, aimed at CNN more than at their oppressed brethren. That is why we don’t need to learn more than merci beaucoup when we go to countries where they still say that. Chances are overwhelming that the foreigner so thanked will respond with, “OK”. Even the Chinese, with 60 ganillion native speakers don’t pretend that there is a Mandarin Mandate. Go to Tokyo— that’s in Japan— and you’ll find almost everything written in English as well as Japanese, even on their POLICE cars and government buildings that use the exonym JAPAN. In fact, there are only three groups on the planet that still indulge their fantasies that their tongue is a Lingua Relevanta outside their yard. The French political class, whose people really do speak English so much that their own government has to pass laws against it; the Russians, whose whole national identity is consumed by the search for a criterion by which Russia could actually be judged as a great nation besides missiles, masochism and weather that rivals a Jovian moon— though they’ll take those; and, lastly, La Razanista Hispanophiles in the USA. Not real Latin Americans, mind you. Argentinians, Chileans, Brazilians, tend to learn English with similar nonchalance as their European counterparts. And not rank-and-file Hispanics in the US. They tend to learn Engllish quickly unless they are actively impeded from doing so by their misguided dons, donas, and public schools.

All this aside, it should be recognized that knowing more than one languages has many advantages. So do learning to play musical instruments and ballroom dancing. But any self-respecting, semi-informed One Worlder should know that anything that impedes the final conquest of English as the Earthean language—like bilingual education-- does not help, but rather sets back their cause of World Unity.

A couple weeks ago Tony, got on a train leaving San Francisco; (probably none too soon). Specifically he boarded The Philadelphia Express. As one would guess and according the ticket and the railroad’s published schedule, he was to rattle-and-chug from San Francisco to Philadelphia. All was fine till the train got to the environs of St. Louis, then BAM!. The train took a hard swing to port (or maybe it’s just plain left on a train) right off the tracks heading across the prairie and marsh and erstwhile-swamp-turned-wetland toward points north. And it just kept going—although it was unspeakably uncomfortable running off without a track. Dangerous, even. So much so that the conductor insisted all passengers shut up, stay sat, and close their eyes or face the caboose annex now serving as Train Jail. Tony is bit of a libertarian, so he spoke nonetheless, “This isn’t the way to Philly! Where are you taking us?”

A black pall fell over the car, “To Canada!”, the conductor yelled, then, according to Tony, he laughed one of those mad scientist laughs and his eyes started glowing red and fiery. But that isn’t the scary part. The real horror was that a group of passengers who were from San Fran, mostly same-sex newlywed couples,and transgendered single “mothers” with children who played non-competitive soccer, squealed with delight. They were glad to be going to Canada. On a train without tracks. As prisoners.

Try as he might, Tony just couldn’t seem to do anything to get the train-powers-that-be to correct its course. He pointed out that the train was originally and unequivocally supposed to be going to Philadelphia. That is what the schdedule said, what the ticket said, what the tracks said, since the tracks they had left were clearly bound for the East Coast, and of course that is what the train’s name indicated. Nothing, absolutely nothing, said anything whatever about Canada. The clearest proof—beyond the ticket stubs and the signs reading The Philadephia Express in every imaginable place was the lack of any tracks laid in the direction of the aforementioned semi-nation. But the train crew and the four Happy Canada wannabes would hear none of it. In fact, in a strange, pod-people movie fashion, they started claiming that the train was always intended for Canada, right from the beginning. When Tony pointed to the printed, stamped and engraved evidence to the contrary they just ignored him. The sinister conductor went so far as to question Tony’s vocabulary. “Who really knows what they meant by Philadelphia, anyway?”, he said, “It may have meant Canada to the people that named the train, wrote the schedule and printed the tickets. How could we possibly know for sure? Canada is a better, safer, destination. And in any case, since we aren’t relying on those oppressive tracks, we can go wherever we decide we originally wanted to go”. ”

Longer story short, about a thousand miles off course in the desolation of Sakitoba or somesuch, Tony was able to muster enough passengers to overpower the left-turners (harder than you might think. They can hug you to death) and turn the train back onto some tracks that were going in the general direction of Philly. Most passengers, after all, wanted to go to Philadelphia, or at least knew that Philadelphia was where they were supposed to be going, but were just too busy or sound asleep to realize what was happening. Even with all the bumps. But it was close! One guy (also named Tony coincidentally) who usually worked as a cocktail waitress in the workers’ union free-dining car, was feeling unusually assertive and manly that day and ended up making the difference.

Here is the kicker: As soon as the train was back on the tracks headed where it was supposed to be headed, the barely defeated Canadaphiles started whining and spitting with outrage because Tony and his allies had changed the course of the train. Yes, you read right. They were incensed to the point of tears that The Philadelphia Express had been pointed toward Philadelphia. “How dare you ignore a thousand miles worth of travel toward such a noble direction and impose your destinational activism on us!” they sniffed and snorted, “You have no right to pirate a train bound for its proper destination! You are a hijacker! A kidnapper! A violator of the most cherished right to safe travel by rail! Now you are forcing us to the Paleolithic dangers of Philadelphia, of all places, where there is far too much freedom that can be abused, and an utter lack of hate crimes protection or sodomy rights!”

Tony didn’t really know how to respond to this. He shrugged, “Learn to read, guys. “ he said. Then he added, “And if you don’t feel safe in Philly, buy a gun.”

President of the Greater America UN Census Area

Just recently some in the mass media have stumbled upon the accusation that there may be an oft overlooked difference between Barack and John. Could it be that all positions and counterpositions, new vs. old, liberal vs. conservative, differences aside, one of the two (McCain) is simply more American than the other? Don’t laugh. Or choke. This has been a question gravely and seriously put by conservative, that’s conservative, columnists. Which of course presents the obvious question in response: Are you retarded? Meaning that in the most literal sense; Slow, behind, underdeveloped. Incapable of recognizing what is obvious to those up to a common bar?

Of course I was on to this long ago, when Senor Ricardoson, (D-Ciudad de México) was still at the hustings, as the English and early Americans (hint hint) would say. .

But since it apparently needs to be said that the sky is normally blue and that water is wet, I will specify Yes, John McCain is more American than Barack Obama is. Much more. It is, in fact if not in fashion, entirely appropriate and necessary to question whether BO is really American at all in the normally understood sense. His father was a Kenyan—not an African-American—he grew up (sic) in part in Indonesia (that’s in Asia. A lot of people who will vote for him have never even heard of it and would look for it on a Howard Johnson’s childrens’ placemat map till they found Indianapolis. Who reads past the first three of four letters of such a big word anyhow?). But that’s already old news to those who should be too smart to ask the original question. The painful-to-watch fact is that BO has only a passing, exchange-student’s acquaintance with the US and US culture. Not Black culture, or Ivy League culture or political culture…ANY American culture. He is a welcome guest everywhere to the liberal chatteratti, but at home nowhere. The type of cosmopolitan who fits into Manhattan just as well as London, Paris, Rio, Nairobi, or any Embassy Row. A great UN ambassador for somewhere, if those two adjectives could ever make sense in union.

Being an American means two different things. One, the legalistic definition and the one preferred no doubt by the the Cosmobamatistas , just means you are a US citizen. You can’t be deported and you are entitled to a US passport if you meet the qualifications for leaving the country voluntarily. That is all. Through that macroscopic lense being an American is a mere accident and nothing special. Yes, Obama is one. So are Robert Hanssen, Jose Padilla, Louis Farrahkan, George Soros, Rosie O’Donnell and “Taliban Johnny” Lindh. Not to say BO is a spy or a traitor or worse, just to illustrate the point that this definition of Americanity means less than nothing, really.

Being an American in the meaningful sense requires that you identify culturally with American and its values and that you are loyal to its interests above all else. That means more than any other country and above all other things like “global unity”, environmentalism, Scientology, the Vatican, the UN, the Industrial Workers of the World, or Oprah.Winfrey. A good, in-the-field shibboleth would be the question: If the US is in a war, who do you hope wins? If the response is anything like, “Who is the war with?” or “What is the war about?” it is safe to convene the firing squad and sort out the ramifications of your action in memoirs thirty years later.

Relevant Americanism comes from a core identification. Naturalized citizens can have it; native born ones don’t necessarily have it. BO does not have it. His forced, and very recent, proclamations of patriotism are evidence of this in themselves. When was the last time a presidential candidate, even a Democratic one, had to establish his nationality for the electorate? And he fails. It’s not that he didn’t wear a flag pin, it’s that he didn’t understand why that was important. It’s not that he tried to hide Jeremiah Wright. It is that he didn’t get what the big deal about him was. It’s not that he opposed the war in Iraq. It’s that he doesn’t care if we lose it. It is not that he wore African tribal clothes on some foreign visit. It’s that he supposedly grew up in the Midwest but he has never, ever gone bowling. Or even knew what it was if the tape can be believed. He’s supposedly a 46 year-old American; can he name the Brady kids? Sing the theme song to the Flintstones and Gilligan’s Island? How old was he when he learned the words to the Pledge of Allegiance (assuming that he knows them now; and I am not joking). Has he always known that the game with the black and white ball is called soccer, not football, EVER? Maybe, above all, an American, especially one running for president, would never, ever say this:

“We can’t drive our SUV’s and eat as much as we want and keep our homes at 72 degrees at all times…and then just expect that other countries are going to say OK. That’s not leadership. That’s not gong to happen.”

It’s not going to happen if we have BO in the WH instead of a president, that’s for sure. Leadership is most certainly what those things require. Other countries should be deciding how much we eat? How comfortable our houses are? Basically, we should cede our leadership to the sensibilities of other countries? If that is not an un-American sentiment, I don’t know what would be. That isn’t even to say, “I hope we lose the war”. It is saying, “Let’s skip the war and get right to the surrender”. America is no better than anywhere else, after all. We don’t need to be triumphant, we need to be fair. That’s UN talk, not USA talk, and anyone who grew up in America would know at the very least not to say something like that, even if their soul was burnt enough to think it.

Here’s a good summing up for history buffs: Alexander Hamilton was barred from the presidency, but Barack Hussein Obama qualifies? This is frighteningly odd.