The dissident and the powerless

Okay, current plan: the discussion thread for our first section of "The Power of the Powerless" will go up on Saturday morning. For this section, we'll be covering parts I-VII. In the PDF I linked to, that goes up through page 20. Once we've completed "The Power of the Powerless" (which looks like it'll take about a month), we'll start C.S. Lewis's That Hideous Strength. I look forward to hearing your thoughts.

Apology and a question

 So . . . I've been very occupied the past couple of weeks. Some of you already know why. If you don't, sorry, but it's a bit private. Nothing bad, just not something that needs broadcast all over the internets. Sorry about that.

Having said that, I proposed "The Power of the Powerless" because I wanted us to keep rolling while everybody acquired a copy of That Hideous Strength. However, I suspect anyone interested has had an opportunity to get the book, so now the question: Shall we cover "The Power of the Powerless" or just skip ahead to That Hideous Strength? I've been reading Havel's essay, and I have a copy of Lewis's novel, so I'm fine with either.

Which do you prefer? Essay or novel? Havel or Lewis?

Where did the trash come from?

About a year and a half ago, after Donald Trump criticized Baltimore (then Elijah Cumming's district) as being filthy and unhealthy, a group of conservative activists decided to actually fix something. (Right wing activists fix things. Left wing activists break and burn them. Funny how that works.)

The story from a local news channel

Over the course of a full day, a group of volunteers cleaned up 12 tons of trash from this West Baltimore neighborhood. It was a real accomplishment, and I applaud the organizer Scott Presler.

Here's the question I've never heard anyone address though: How did that 12 tons of trash get there in the first place? Why was this neighborhood such a disaster? And the answer is because the people who lived there, largely black, left it that way. The volunteers, and I'd bet my bottom dollar they're significantly more white than the U.S. population in general, didn't do any miracles. They didn't do one single thing that the residents could not have done for themselves, especially considering that this could have been prevented one bit of litter or debris at a time.

This neighborhood was this way because that's how black people live. White people didn't drive to their neighborhood and dump their trash there. They did it to themselves, and, unless something radically changes, in another few years, that neighborhood will look much the same as it did before the clean-up.

So if you want a clean, safe neighborhood, you want white neighbors. But speaking the truth is not allowed these days.

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It's not a big margin, but it appears our next book will be That Hideous Strength. I suspect, however, that not everybody has a copy, so over the next few weeks, we'll read through The Power of the Powerless. I'm a bit busy this week, so I'll post the first discussion thread on this next Saturday, March 27, on sections I-VI. I look forward to your thoughts on it.

Chapter seven - They don't pick up trash anymore & Epilogue

In his final chapter, Carlson describes the decay of the environmentalist movement, how they've gone from addressing real practical problems anyone can see with his own eyes to apocalyptic obsessions with global warming based on computer models that bear no connection to reality.

Carlson starts off with the famous "Crying Indian" commercial about litter and how that contrasts with the fate of leftist-run cities like Los Angeles, San Francisco, and New York, which, in many parts, have descended to third-world levels of filth and disease.

Carlson also mentions how much damage illegal immigrants do to our national parks, which completely fails to jibe with "environmentalist" groups recently becoming heavily in support of illegal immigration.

He describes the stunning hypocrisy of prominent environmentalists like Leonardo di Caprio, Al Gore, and virtually every world leader who attended the meetings for the Paris Climate Accords who routinely use far more resources than the average American, but continually scold the rest of us to be mindful and conserve.

Finally, Carlson looks at the corruption and collapse of scientody in service of this anti-human ideology.

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I'm still trying to figure out our next book. The current leader seems to be C.S. Lewis's That Hideous Strength, a choice I am just fine with. I want to wait to make sure everyone has their say.

That said, even if we settled on one this very moment, I suspect most people would need a little time to get a copy. I though I'd propose a stopgap measure.

I'd heard "The Power of the Powerless" referenced some time ago, actually on The Federalist, back when us plebs were allowed to have our say. I've been wanting to read it, but never got around to it. I have a copy, which is about 80 pages. Would you guys like to read through this together quickly? If so, I could say up through section whatever next week, and we could cover that pretty quickly, then on to whichever book we choose next.

Once again, Chesterton predicted all of this long ago.

Women being pressured to enter the workforce and becoming miserable because of it? The degradation of our families, of the happiness of women and the sanity of our children? Yep, G.K. Chesterton covered all of it in this gut-wrenching poem.

And if you'd like to hear me and another YouTube nerd talking about this, enjoy:

He was not perfect, but he was, in many ways, prophetic. I hope our society survives the disasters we've created for ourselves.

Options for our next book

A Canticle for Leibowitz by Walter Miller Jr.

That Hideous Strength by C.S. Lewis

The Murder of Roger Ackroyd by Agatha Christie

(If we really want to go "forbidden," we could pick And Then There Were None under its original title.)

A collection of Chesterton's Father Brown mysteries. There are a few we could choose from.

Starship Troopers by Robert Heinlein

The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress by Robert Heinlein

Hinds Feet in High Places by Hannah Hurnard

The Princess and Curdie by George Macdonald.

I am, as always, open to other options, and I would like you guys to have fun with this. Let me know what you think.

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Running total (complicated because people are effectively casting multiple votes):

3 vote for That Hideous Strength

2 for The Murder of Roger Ackroyd

1 for The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress

Chapter six - Elites Invade the Bedroom

In this chapter, Carlson addresses modern feminism. First, he addresses its roots in the writing of Betty Friedan, who divorced her husband and founded the National Organization for Women. He explores the unusual phenomenon that the "equality" sought by feminists has been largely achieved, but women's happiness is steadily decreasing, not increasing.

Carlson also looks at feminists' attitudes towards abortion, shifting from defending it as an unfortunate necessity to championing abortion as a positive good in and of itself. This, of course, totally negates the value of the one thing women are uniquely capable of, which is motherhood.

Feminists, Carlson notes, are strangely unconcerned with the treatment of women by Muslims. While searching for ever-more obscure and minor offenses from white men, feminists completely ignore the sexual abuse of women and their second-class status in Muslim societies. Because of this strange habit, the evil practice of female genital mutilation has now made its way into Western countries.

Carlson also examines the bizarre rise of transsexual ideologies, and, again, its implications for the value and treatment of actual women.

Finally, and this is the part of the chapter that affected me most, Carlson looks at the declining fortunes of men in the United States, their mistreatment, neglect and decline, and what implications this has for society as a whole.

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I will post sometime in the next day or so a thread to poll about what book we should cover next. As I said, I have my own opinion, but if I ran this blog just by my preferences, at some point, none of you would  be here, so let's see what everyone thinks.

Next book thread

Okay, I know there were a few suggestions in the chapter four thread about what we might read together next. However, I just tried browsing the thread to find them, and they are buried among a vigorous (and largely on-topic) discussion. So here's this post. All I want in the comments is suggestions for what we can read and discuss next. I'll try looking through previous discussions on this subject and see if there are any suggestions to revive.

I'm not going to put any forward yet so that I don't squelch anyone's ideas. I do have a couple of possibilities in mind, though.