Why America is Weak: All About Violence

CBS News recently ran a story on an anti-bullying crusader. Former Hollywood publicist Jodee Blanco travels around the country lecturing school kids on how to stop bullying. By caring. A lot:

“Bullying is about kids needing compassion and my perspective is the bully and the victim are the flipside of the same coin. They both need compassion,” Blanco said. “Bullying isn’t just the mean things you do, it’s all the nice things you never do.”

She relives the pain of her school years, even playing the role of her bullies. The reaction is raw.

“You look around and you see people in tears you know it;s your friends and they are in tears and you’re like, ‘Why aren’t I helping them?'” Blanco asks.

Eighth grader Kate Exline says she now feels empowered to end the cycle of harassment.

“I think one of the most important things is taking steps to try and get rid of it or decrease it because this is a ginormous problem,” Exline said.

Blanco said she tries to manage her expectations when tackling the bullying problem.

“I don’t think it can be solved, only because it’s about the desperate need to fit in, run amok. If you are in a hole, I am the guy who will crawl down there with you and get you out, because I lived in that hole my entire adolescence, and I know what it feels like and I do know how to get you out,” Blanco said.

No further example of why America is weak is required to prove the case.

America has (for now, until Obama succeeds in his plan to cut 80% of America’s nukes in the face of Iranian armament) nuclear weapons, submarines to launch them, ballistic missiles, aircraft carriers, and the like. And yet it is hamstrung in projecting that force effectively. It is hamstrung, because America is weak, politically. And it is weak because America’s politics and culture and economy are dominated by women, for better and worse.

The economic, political, and cultural domination have good sides. The power of women make it extremely unlikely that even with an all-volunteer force America could engage in something akin to the mutual suicide of the Western Front, 1914-1918. Nor could, with the power of women and technology to beam images across the globe, could America or the West in general ever repeat the horrors of Belgian colonialism in the Congo, where King Leopold presided over what amounted to a slave empire that killed nearly 7 million people in brutal forced labor. Nor could the Klan ever again rise up and lynch people, or burn crosses with impunity to intimidate. Nor could we have another Trail of Tears, or internment of the Japanese, or anything like that. Simply because “nice White ladies” to quote Steve Sailer, would not stand for it. The same women who made Oprah a billionaire for pretending to be every White woman’s imaginary Black Best Friend demand nice-ness and no sustained and publicized violence. Any force must be measured, controlled, in the tiniest doses possible, and largely out of sight.

So that a good dose of moral lectures and uplifting can be done by Nice White Ladies(tm Steve Sailer).

What is the female solution to bullying? Learning how to fight, and thus deter (in most suburban White school settings where gang violence and guns are not common) the bullying? Nope.

It is “niceness.” Doing nice things. Crying a lot. And acting the good moral person.

And for the most part, as a Hollywood publicist, or HR person, or marketing guru, or other female dominated professions, this works. It is effective. But only within its limits. The great weakness of the West is the lack of understanding of violence, its uses, and its limits. Women don’t like to fight. That’s understandable. They are not very good at it. The solution they give is fine for girls confronting “mean girls” but totally useless for boys facing physical violence at the hands of a bully. The only solution for the latter is physical confrontations and show-downs. The bullied does not even have to win, merely show a willingness to fight on, and make the entire incident so costly as to deter further fights. Which means making the other guy bleed, all over his clothes, and hurting him in turn. Making one’s self a hard target. That in turn results in being left alone. This is something even the “Christmas Story” knew with Ralphie and Scott Farkus.

The solution for bullying in schools by male students is to teach the bullied male victims how to fight effectively, and do so. Instead of a show-down with guns, a simple fist-fight. No one gets badly hurt, the bully learns there is a limit to his physical power (a useful one indeed) along with his social power (simply fighting back erodes considerably his social standing and power) and the victim learns how to defend himself and stand up without becoming a monster or bully himself. Limited physical violence within social norms and carefully policed. This generally was the situation before the culture (particularly in education) became female-dominated, school fights were commonplace but not few kids were seriously hurt or worse, killed. School shootings have become the norm, under ever-tighter gun laws and restrictions, as violence (on the part of the victim) is eliminated, leading to massive eruptions of violence as (mostly male) victims explode into chaotic rage and fury, often killing or crippling those who had nothing to do with their bullying in the first place.

That women have sought to make every social problem a case for “Nice White Ladies” is not surprising. That’s the way societies work for those who have power. The groups with power tend to bend society to their liking, and towards their power. And while the result is at least partly good (ugly mob violence by Whites is a thing of the past), it is fatally flawed in the use of violence abroad.

The United States (and the West) is plugged into the global system. Grievances and grudges from around the globe can result in planes flying into buildings killing office workers. Moreover, the US is dependent on oil, the global price of which is set by the Saudis. Dominance of the Persian Gulf has been a US policy objective since FDR. Brent Crude at the time of this writing is listed at the Financial Times website at $121.59 a barrel. Moreover, the US has policy objectives under Obama to use drones and Special Operators to keep jihadis and Pakistani ISI members (but I repeat myself) on their toes and fearful by raids and targeted killings. To the general approval of the press and the public. At the same time of course, the Obama Administration refuses to confront Iran’s march to nuclear weapons, which will inevitably result in the US being turfed out of the Gulf, and make Americans look fondly back upon $120 a barrel oil as “cheap.” Iran being dependent upon sky-high oil prices to pay its massive thug army to keep power.

America has been weak, because a female-dominated populace has refused to take action when it was less expensive, and manageable, preferring to kick the can down the road. Because violence, in the open, and sustained, is “icky” and marginalizes “Nice White Ladies” to their horror. Being “nice” is the solution. And that works … for trade disputes with Belgium. Or Switzerland. Not so much with Iran. Or Pakistan.

Carter refused to take action against Iran during the Hostage Crisis. At a time when Iran had few friends and no serious weaponry. Reagan also refused. For the simple reason that the female voters looked upon with horror at the prospect of any serious military action. George Herbert Walker Bush, refused to remove Saddam because of the effort, knowing that female voters would be turned off by casualties resulting from occupation. Hence Clinton resorting to impotent air strikes against Saddam, and the Sudan, making America look weak. Clinton himself ordered a humiliating retreat from Somalia after the debacle in Mogadishu, making America look like a fat, easy target. Because the effort to sustain any real response would create a firestorm of female-oriented criticism.

One need look only at George W. Bush’s Iraq problems. America had easy, seaborne access to a massive oil producer in the Gulf, and a way to hit Iran cheaply and fast, with drones and Special Forces, to gain compliance with American objectives (stop nukes, stop efforts to raise the global price of oil). But casualties (in an all-volunteer force) were high and the pictures were ugly. Well, how else do you think America gets cheap oil? Unicorns and rainbows? Indeed, much like the fantasy film “the Help” which posits a Civil Rights Movement powered by “Nice White Ladies” (who are secretly HOT! dammit!) … writing gossip books, much of America’s culture thinks that the solution to high global oil prices is not American military domination of the resource in the Gulf, but windmills, solar farms … and algae.

As Machiavelli advises in the Prince, when problems are hard to diagnose, they are easily fixed. But kicking the can down the road leads generally to much higher costs. Deferred maintenance generally means higher costs in the end. Preaching “niceness” to combat bullying means generally, an explosion of violence with guns rather than a relatively harmless fist-fight that tends to solve the problem quickly, at the source. Failure to address the fundamental challenges of America’s foreign policy objectives, namely insuring military dominance over the Gulf to preserve (cheaper) oil, and secondarily to prevent nuclear proliferation in and around the Gulf (which threatens US military dominance) only makes them more expensive.

Jimmy Carter would have found over-throwing the Ayatollah while not cheap, far less expensive and costly than what is required merely to delay Iran’s nuclear weapons program. Which in turn is nothing less than a massive bombing campaign aimed not just at dug in and well-defended nuclear sites, but roads, bridges, power plants, transmission lines, and more designed to paralyze the ability of the distributed nuclear infrastructure to operate. Centrifuges may be hidden, but they still need electrical power to operate. On an industrial scale, too, simple on-site diesel generators won’t get it done. Material needs to be transported, which is impossible if roads, bridges, rail lines, and more are ruined. All this can be done, but requires American (and Iranian) lives, a lot of money, and a lot of ugly pictures on television. Carter, or Reagan after him, could have asked for and gotten an open declaration of War and overthrown Khomeni with effort to be sure, but less than is required now simply to delay Iran’s nuclear domination of the world price of oil. [Iran with nukes can turf out the US from the Gulf and thus set the price to whatever they like, probably in excess of $200 a barrel.]

The problem now in schools is that the usual bullying of weaker, smaller, more outcast boys by those stronger, and more popular, has become epidemic because a fist-fight at age 14 never happens. Instead a mass shooting at 17 occurs. All in service of the egos and prejudices of “Nice White Ladies” who think of themselves as good people doing good things, and genuinely try to do good things. Jodee Blanco is not a bad person, she is genuinely trying to help people (and massage her own ego at the same time, but pure goodness without any other motives is never found in human beings who remain imperfect organic beings). But Blanco is merely kicking the can down the road. The solution to bullying is not a moral lecture by “Nice White Ladies” no matter how much they might enjoy giving the lecture.

Rather, the solution is for that fist-fight to occur, as Freshmen, when no lasting harm is done. The same holds true for American military policy. There is no need to intervene in Syria, where there are no allies for America to be found, and no pressing interests. If anything a policy of subtly encouraging more fighting there to draw in and weaken American enemies, particularly Iran, would be fruitful.

But America faces a choice, and one considerably more costly, because of kicking the can down the road. A nuclear armed Iran, absent an Israeli nuclear first strike (to avoid being the example made by Iran to get the Saudis to comply with oil production levels), seems inevitable. Obama, as the President at least partly selected by “Nice White Ladies” simply cannot abide the idea of sustained military action in defense of US national security objectives. Women would object: too many Iranians would be killed, too many Americans. The most Obama will commit to is drone warfare off the front pages, and the occasional Special Forces raid. [And not even that if reports of Leon Panetta authorizing the bin Laden raid over Valerie Jarrett’s objection, and then daring Obama to fire him for it.]

As Hamlet pointed out, not acting is a choice. One made to avoid responsibility and thus let events drive you. How exactly did that choice turn out?

The US is likely to allow Iran, sooner or later, to become a nuclear power and dominate the Gulf. Which means living with oil at $200 a barrel or more. And all the social chaos and conflict inside America that implies. But avoiding violence entirely is not possible. “Niceness” may obtain inside American Middle Class White schools, until an irregular eruption of violence predictably happens somewhere, every few years. In the same manner, simply “being nice” and offering apologies to Afghans (as they murder our soldiers) or Iranians (also) will accomplish nothing. America can simply leave Afghanistan, being effectively chased out by violence, but that leaves no base from which to launch drone attacks or Special Forces into Pakistan. The hideout of bin Laden and currently building more than 100 new nuclear weapons (widely thought to be ordered and paid for by Saudi Arabia).

Basically, the choices boil down in that instance to doing nothing, or a nuclear assault. That is all that is left. Which in turn, only guarantees more attacks and jihad against America. Just as “niceness” as a response to male bullying is like waving a steak in front of a hungry lion, niceness and apologies to Afghanistan and Pakistan, a hurried retreat under killings, and no response to Iran’s nukes only invites attacks.

This is why America is weak. And the West. Simply put, women wield the decisive political and cultural influence, and they don’t understand violence. Leaving American and Western responses provocative. Offering to non-Western cultures a very female response of conciliation and surrender and niceness. That serves only to provoke more violence on the part of the male-dominated Muslim cultures.

The solution is not to remove women from social influence. This is firstly impossible, and secondarily harmful. Muslim nations and cultures themselves, dominated exclusively by men, are bankrupt and terrible. They cannot do much other than produce nukes with Chinese and North Korean and Russian assistance, and threaten people. Eventually they are doomed to kill themselves (the lesson of both “Red Harvest” and Mark Millar’s “Wanted” comic book) as much as others, like a bottle filled with scorpions. Male dominance is a trap, no question, because it produces within a society of a war of all against all.

The solution rather, is to continually enlighten women on the nature, and uses, as well as limits, of violence. That violence can no more be eliminated from society, or the globe, than sex, or greed, or anything else. This enlightenment can only be done, one step at a time, through entertainment. Books, movies, and above all television (or web-based serial entertainment). Making the point that the absence of massive violence as a part of daily life is only an illusion. Like a sewer system that prevents one drowning in one’s own crap, modern suburban life depends on a massive infrastructure that needs regular maintenance and constant expansion. Not being up to one’s eyeballs in feces and urine, the regular daily life of most of urban humanity until the 1890’s, and for much of urban America, until the 1930’s or even 1940’s, takes investment and sweat. It does not just happen by magic. Any more than having a safe school, or affordable gas (and all that implies, particularly flight from Black/Hispanic urban dysfunction ala Detroit) happens by magic. Moral lectures by one’s betters, a favorite of Nice White Ladies, does not make urine and feces magically disappear from the bathroom when the toilet is flushed, rather it takes nerdy engineers, blue collar men, and lots and lots of money to make that happen. Daily life gives the illusion of magic, but it is only an illusion. The reality requires constant investment.

The NBC television show “Life” was particularly good at this. One episode had the protagonist explain to a victim that she believed bad things never happened to good people, until one day violence reached out and touched her. That violence is part of life, but not the only part of life. That it can be neither denied out of existence, or the sole focus of existence. In that short scene, an emotional point was made that did more to explain modern reality and the futility of kicking the can down the road with respect to violence than any other method. Including this post.

The bad thing is, most entertainment people are as deluded about violence as their audience (which remains primarily women). Twilight, the Hunger Games, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, all offer up a pretend-violence of sexy bad boys who are controllable by hot, super-sexy girls and women. That the most violent and chaotic of men are the most desirable, and that the current state of suburbia is indestructible and eternal. The good thing is, new forms of entertainment, particularly web-based or internet delivered, including e-books and internet series, have the opportunity to break through and level with female readers and viewers. That violence can only be managed, and it is better for a short, decisive fight early that settles the matter without too much blood and pain, than a massive blood-bath later.