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Slowly, Slowly

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Quite a while back in the depths of 2004 the Geekwitha.45 wrote a post about the mechanisms of oppression in which he said:

We, who studied the shape and form of the machines of freedom and oppression, have looked around us, and are utterly dumbfounded by what we see.

We see first that the machinery of freedom and Liberty is badly broken. Parts that are supposed to govern and limit each other no longer do so with any reliability.

We examine the creaking and groaning structure, and note that critical timbers have been moved from one place to another, that some parts are entirely missing, and others are no longer recognizable under the wadded layers of spit and duct tape. Other, entirely new subsystems, foreign to the original design, have been added on, bolted at awkward angles.

—

We know the tools and mechanisms of oppression when we see them. We’ve studied them in depth, and their existence on our shores, in our times, offends us deeply. We can see the stirrings of malevolence, and we take stock of the damage they’ve caused over so much time.

Others pass by without a second look, with no alarm or hue and cry, as if they are blind, as if they don’t understand what they see before their very eyes. We want to shake them, to grasp their heads and turn their faces, shouting, “LOOK! Do you see what this thing is? Do you see how it might be put to use? Do you know what can happen if this thing becomes fully assembled and activated?”

Bill Whittle expands on this theme:

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VgrktRgjBXk?rel=0]

As I said in 2009’s Malice vs. Stupidity:

At some point it becomes immaterial whether the laws were due to incompetence or maliciousness. That point is when their implementation is indistinguishable from maliciousness. I submit that we’ve passed that point, and the only thing preventing even more massive public blowback is our general ignorance and our well-established general respect for the Rule of Law.

And I wonder how much longer that blowback will hold off.

Well, THAT Was Interesting

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I tell people I spent twenty-one years complaining about consulting/specifying engineers, and then I became one.  And I was right.  After doing the consultant thing for four and a half years, I left my cloth-covered cubicle and went back to the industrial-supplier side.  No more eight-hour meetings, no more bid analysis reports, no more specification writing.  Instead, I get to do application, design, programming, startup.  Field work.  Fun stuff.

Well, I just did an upgrade to a system I installed eleven years ago.  Startup had to wait on the customer, since my upgrade occurred during a plant shutdown.  Startup was to occur Monday morning at about 10:00AM, so I got up at 4AM and pulled out of the driveway at 4:45 to be on site at 7.  They were waiting for me when I arrived.

We tested manual control before 9AM, and just had to wait for plant startup to put it in Auto.  Remember 10:00AM?  Uh, no.  They had some problems.  I went to lunch at 11:30.  They called me a little after Noon and said it looked like it was going to about 7PM.  I went back to the plant and they let me on a computer to do some work, but by 4PM it was obvious that 7PM was not going to happen.  I got a hotel room and waited for a call.  I tried to get some sleep, but failed at that.  I went to dinner about 7.  They called.

Midnight.

So I was on site at midnight.  We finally fired it up about 4:30AM.  I’d been up over 24 hours for the first time in a LONG time, but we weren’t done yet. Due to operations considerations, we still couldn’t put the system in Auto.  That didn’t happen until 7AM.  My hotel room sat empty all night.  I finally hit the sack at 9AM.  Two hours later, I got a call – the unit was working, but it was a little slow.  They told me I could sleep a little more, though.  I tried, but didn’t get much success, maybe another half-hour.  After a shower and shave, I was back on site at 1:30PM.

And they were down again.  We discussed the problem they’d experienced earlier, and I made some adjustments, but they had no idea when they’d be starting up again.  I was pretty confident in my changes, so I went home.  I pulled into my driveway 36 hours (and two and a half hours of sleep) after I’d left the day before. 

Ten hours of sleep later, I was back in my office, preparing for a class I was supposed to teach the next day.  I was also waiting to hear about my system upgrade.  I sent an inquiring email, and got to work on my class prep.  A response came soon:  everyone was very happy with the upgrade.  I didn’t need to go back for more adjustment.  I could continue my class prep.

Then the main office called.  There was a problem on another project.  Could I help?  What about my class prep?  This project was more important, the class could be rescheduled.  I pulled out about 10:30AM and headed for the new site.  Yes,there were problems.  Things did not go well.  I got home at 11PM with plans to head back to site at 5:30AM.   (It’s a 90 minute drive.) 

Back on site at 7AM, we flogged on the problem until late afternoon, but finally figured it out.  I pulled into my driveway this evening at 7:15PM.

I’ve put in 66 hours in four days this week.  I’m taking Friday off.

I left the cushy comfort of consulting engineering to do this for a living again.  I think I made the right choice.  Making stuff work is rewarding in ways that specification writing is not.

In the Mail

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I just received a review copy of Your Teacher Said WHAT?!: Trying to Raise a Fifth-Grade Capitalist in Obama’s America, by Joe Kernen and his daughter Blake. I’m not quite finished with Paul Kengor’s Dupes: How America’s Adversaries Have Manipulated Progressives For A Century, but having just read the preface to Your Teacher Said WHAT?!, it’s interesting seeing the current-day effects of a hundred years of Marxist/socialist influence on education, both primary and higher.

For example, read this excerpt from Dupes, concerning the members of the Weather Underground:

Aside from Kathy Boudin, David Gilbert, and Judy Clark, most of the comrades eluded prison time. Ultimately, Bernardine Dohrn and Bill Ayers avoided jail because of charges dropped due to prosecutorial problems. That escape from due justice has since prompted Ayers to celebrate: “Guilty as hell, free as a bird! America is a great country!”

Free a a bird to pursue what? Ayers and others may have received the answer to that question as early as 1967, at a pre-Weatherman SDS (Students for a Democratic Society) conference held in Ann Arbor, Michigan, Ayers’s academic home. The conference, held July 14-16, 1967, was staged by SDS’s Radical Education Project and titled “Radicals in the Professions.” Dr. Quentin Young, the “SDS doctor” who would turn congressional hearings into a circus the following year, spoke on the importance of radicals entering the field of health care. But at the conference, the student radicals paid particular attention to the American educational establishment, especially higher education, and specifically the departments of education, where they could train the future teachers of America.

Bill Ayers would eventually follow the Deweyan tradition of ushering in social and political change through education rather than politics — the latter of which had failed him and his fellow Marxist-Leninists. He and Dohrn both sought out the ivory tower again. They believed they had a lot to import to America’s youth and its future. (Mark) Rudd, too, eventually ended up in education, teaching and lecturing at colleges. Basically, almost all of them would take that path.

But here’s the kicker:

And the contacts they would make in that capacity are nothing short of awe-inspiring. One of them, yet another product of Columbia University, would — forty years after that conference in Ann Arbor — become a political rallying point for the suddenly reborn SDS and Weather Underground “progressives.” He was a beacon for Ayers, Dohrn, Rudd, Hayden, Klonsky, Machtinger, Jones and more. They would come to Chicago, this time with a very different take on the man the Democrats were looking to send to the presidency. In 2008 they would organize yet again, this time working within the system, to help make this man — Barack Obama — president of the United States.

To achieve that goal, they would need to be very careful in publicly expressing their true feelings and motivations. Otherwise they would risk driving away the masses, especially traditional Democrats, moderates, and crossover voters. They had made that mistake in the initial SDS split, losing the support of a huge number of non-Communists. In 2008 they would be vigilant not to repeat the error.

And they would not receive just complicity but the the aid and support of the media in keeping their “true feelings and motivations” out of the public view. After all, many in the media shared those feelings and motivations, and understood that they were far from “mainstream” thought.

It starts in the primary school classroom, and continues all the way through the university.

It’s Not About Me

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But in a way, it is.

Like (apparently) a lot of gunbloggers, “I have very few friends in meatspace”. I “know” a lot more people through my interaction with them in the interwebs than I do in person. When, as it happens, someone I “know” or “know of” dies, I feel the loss. The first time this happened to me was when Acidman passed in 2006. When Cathy Siepp died in 2007 I was affected, not because I had ever corresponded with her, but because I’d read so much of what she’d written.

William the Coroner passed away in November. I had listened to William on Vicious Circle, and had seen his comments at other blogs. I had read a few of his posts, but I didn’t “know” him. When Neptunis Lex recently perished in a plane crash, I didn’t comment because I hadn’t really read his blog and really didn’t “know” him either, but both of these men had significant effects on people I do know, and I mourned their loss.

Today we hear that Newbius has joined the ranks of of Bloggers of the Great Beyond. Again, I didn’t read Newbius, and I’ve never met him, but when I clicked over to his blog and saw his blogroll I was taken aback. Under “Deep Thoughts” he has listed only seven blogs, and mine is one of them. The other six are extremely fine company to be in.

And I had no idea. I am honored that he thought well enough of my work to put TSM on his short list. I am abashed that I did not “know” him well enough to be aware of that fact.

I wish I’d gotten a chance to meet the man, and try his pizza. Dammit.

I think I’ll pass on his recommendation:

Stop reading this and go hug somebody important to you. Do it now.

Fair winds, Newbius.

Busy

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No free ice cream for you.  I’m out of town on a job, and it looks like I’ll be busier than a one-legged man in a butt-kicking contest for the next several days.  On the plus side, I’ve got an überpost brewing in the back of my head that might get out in the next week or six.  On the minus side, it won’t be upbeat and inspirational. 

In good news, it looks like I’m going to be able to go to the upcoming Dallas area blogshoot on April 21. Another opportunity to meet fellow bloggers and shoot guns! Gas expenses will be stiff, but what the hey. The Mustang gets pretty good mileage.

Anybody else from Arizona going? I’m planning on driving over in one day on Friday the 20th, and taking it easy coming back, Sunday and Monday the 22nd & 23rd. It’s about 15 hours each way. (Same as Reno, interestingly enough…)

I haven’t been to DFW area since 2004. It’ll be nice to go back.

Remember, It’s a Feature, not a Bug!

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Today Instapundit linked to a WSJ piece, Escape From a North Korean Prison, the story of Shin Dong-hyuk, a North Korean man born in a concentration camp, who escaped to South Korea in 2005. It was an interesting coincidence, because my wife and I had just watched the 2009 documentary Kimjongilia, which included Mr. Shin’s story among several others.

The WSJ piece was written by Blaine Hardin, author of the forthcoming book Excape from Camp 14, a longer exploration of Mr. Shin’s life.

Britain’s Guardian newspaper also has the story, How one man escaped from a North Korean prison camp with a bit more detail. Excerpt:

His first memory is an execution. He walked with his mother to a wheat field, where guards had rounded up several thousand prisoners. The boy crawled between legs to the front row, where he saw guards tying a man to a wooden pole

Shin In Geun was four years old, too young to understand the speech that came before that killing. At dozens of executions in years to come, he would listen to a guard telling the crowd that the prisoner about to die had been offered “redemption” through hard labour, but had rejected the generosity of the North Korean government.

Guards stuffed pebbles into the prisoner’s mouth, covered his head with a hood and shot him.

I strongly recommend you read the rest.

I also watched another, similarly-themed film recently, 2010’s The Way Back, the story of a Polish Army lieutenant, Janusz, imprisoned by the Russians early in WWII, who escaped with several other prisoners and walked over 4,000 miles from Siberia to India. The book this story is based on, The Long Walk, is almost definitely fiction passed off as fact, but according to Wikipedia:

Soviet records confirm that Rawicz was a Polish soldier imprisoned in the USSR, but differ from The Long Walk in detail on the reasons for his arrest and the exact places of imprisonment. Polish Army records show that Rawicz left the USSR directly for Iran in 1942, which contradicts the book’s storyline. Aside from matters concerning his health, his arrival in Palestine is verified by the records. The story of the escape to India comes from Rawicz himself. The BBC report does mention the account of Captain Rupert Mayne, an intelligence officer in Calcutta, who – years after the war – said that in 1942 he had debriefed three emaciated men claiming to have escaped from a Siberian Gulag camp.

In the context of this post, one of the most interesting things in The Way Back is when the escapees reach China in early 1941, the portion they reach is already Maoist. Communism has reached China before them, thus they decide they must forge on to Tibet and freedom.  I recommend both films.  The Way Back, fictional or not, is well made and powerful.  Kimjongilia is brutal and depressing, but something everyone should see.  A commenter, to the WSJ piece, “george kamburoff” writes:

We have more people in cages than the North Koreans, and a larger percentage of our population is in cages, and now the conservatives have put the Directorate of Fatherland Security, Suppression, and Punishment on us, to make SURE we do not step out of line.

Remember how free we were “BB” – Before Bush? No machi8ne(sic) guns in airports, no inspection lines, no armed guards making all of us suspects? Our own conservatives are turning US into North Korea.

Yeah. Way to get a grip on reality.  From the Korea Herald, Feb. 15, 2012:

Kim Jong-un regime in Pyongyang warns of ‘three-generation wipeout’ for defection

—

In a letter sent to the White House on Monday, the North Korea Freedom Coalition said China’s repatriation policy not only directly violates the international agreements it has signed but has also created an environment of violent activity in China.

The group said North Korean agents “roam freely” killing humanitarian workers trying to help the refugees, while the majority of North Korean female refugees fall victim to human trafficking.

—

The human rights groups said that they were reportedly told that China will repatriate the North Korean defectors by Feb. 20 who, if returned, are likely to face harsh punishment such as detention, torture or even execution.

Especially as North Korea is under the new leadership of Kim Jong-un, Pyongyang is strongly warning of a “three-generation wipe-out” of any family with a North Korean caught defecting.

“george kamburoff” is politely invited to defect from the USA. I’ll help him pack, and chip in $100 for plane fare.  His immediate and extended family need not worry.

BTW, those “humanitarian workers” trying to aid North Korean defectors in China?  They’re mostly Chinese Christians.

“We Have to Pass It to Find Out What’s In It!”

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[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KoE1R-xH5To?rel=0]

Obama signed Obamacare into law on this date, two years ago:

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mmq1XiXPTuM?rel=0]

Well, we’re finding out what’s in it.


But then, we already knew what was in it before it passed.

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N3-QX4qAHEE?rel=0]

Krauthammer has more.  We are so #@%*ed. And we’re not voting our way out.