NOVEMBER SURPRISES IN HIGH STYLE Dr. Eugene Narrett, Ph.D England is a nation with a history of great literature, pluck and productive energy. It also played a key role in creating the modern Middle East with its congeries of artificial states and conflicts, fueled by great power technology and diplomatic initiatives. The means by which the English diplomatic – financial establishment re-asserted its influence on American policy provides a library of valuable reading. One should read the famous speech by Mr. Churchill announcing the descent of an iron curtain and pressuring Americans to join the UN and accept their ‘responsibility’ for forming a global society. On October 29th, a cargo jet arrived in Newark International Airport from East Midlands, England where explosives had been discovered. The Chief Executive announced “a credible terrorist threat” and seemed in the midst of changing from a comedian’s butt and arrogant prig into sturdy Presidential timber and leader of the free world. CNN assisted the transformation by featuring non-stop “breaking news” of the latest Al Qaeda plot with experts talking over a photo of airport runways. We learned incidentally that Saudi Arabia and Dubai are our allies and friends who are cooperating fully with our investigation of the explosive materials. Reportedly a “Saudi source” (that became “an alleged Saudi tip”) informed his American contacts. Perhaps the cover story is not entirely credible. Neither is “Saudi” Arabia, a fief of the Saud family created by British secret service at the tail end of WW I that during WW II was handed over to American oversight. In late August American officials informed Europe that it was facing imminent threat of terror attacks. European governments soon made plain they considered the alarm ill-founded.[1] American intelligence lost credibility but perhaps the episode was instructive. Al Qaeda is a diverse, active and dangerous group with a confusing identity. Readers of Arab and Islamic media[2] could have read, some years ago articles from Egyptian, Saudi and Iraqi authors imploring AQ to cease killing Sunni insurgents in Mesopotamia. This was when American forces were at the height of their struggles against these forces. This matter is as difficult as untangling the relationship between Pakistan and Taliban and American “intelligence.” In any case, at least for a weekend (“happy Halloween”) Al Qaeda became a vehicle to distract attention from the nightmare disasters of the current administration and to the enemies of all America, the terrorists. As Charley Brown might have said, “who benefits?” But that’s a jest. For a small cultural reflection of these matters one could consider the unrelenting pharmacological jihad against the ‘self-esteem’ of men: “a lot of men over the age of forty-five just don’t feel like they used to…” etc. “Testosterone levels are dropping” so take this medication and play more golf and other sports involving drivers and small spheroids. Such ads too are a form of terrorism; indeed, feminism and performance enhancement products are like a thesis and antithesis whose synthesis is heart attacks and a male-free society. But let’s cut to the other side of the aisle. Students of cultural principles, priorities and viability can connect trends and products in geopolitics to those in fashion and to attitudes that reflect changes in class structure and ideas (or ideals) about what a successful person does. So what does one make of the growth of high end concierge services appealing to the very rich and hedonistic? What else aside from the creation of a two-tier, or two-caste society. This particular form of feminism or goddess (self) worship seems like a complement to the destruction of the economies of the Anglophone world as well as the general destruction of traditional and natural relationships, values and habits of deference. Terrorism comes in many styles and appears in many facets of life, including what may be meant as wry humor. “A highly trained force of femmes fatales – experts in stealth, precision and persuasion -- circle the globe, moving with equal ease through border crossings and society balls. Their mission: to execute the wishes of an exclusive group of the wealthy and powerful.”[3] Reads like a film promotion. One could quote much of this article verbatim and let it speak for itself about the trajectory of our culture. You may never have heard of, may not be ready for, may dislike or disbelieve “luxury management” companies but apparently there are many of these groups, catering to those who will pay an annual membership fee of $20,000 or even $45,000 plus $80 / hour for any services they desire to help them “move effortlessly through life.” What most people would consider moving happily through life is remote from the work of the select businesses profiled in this fascinating window on cultural change. But what if you need to hire a team “to buy, renovate and decorate a home in the Scottish Highlands”? What if you need someone to “cook brunch for 20 in Ibiza when the private chef shows up drunk?” Surely you have had your private chef cook brunch for a party on Ibiza; you do know what and where Ibiza is, right? Can you have a tea party there? Part of the message of articles like this, and perhaps of much of this magazine is gloating and to impress the fact that there is a class of society whose gross egotism seems designed to generate envy or disgust. Though it has become indefensible to be perceived as being “angry,” if one belongs to certain classes of people it is sublime to gloat. There also is an element of distraction from more pressing issues. But perhaps this story, quirky as it seems may reveal matters key to this stage of our culture’s decay. Success is money, is it not and it may be unfair to criticize a publication like Forbes for preaching the gospel of conspicuous wealth even when government has ruined the economy, for most. The featured company, “Concierge” has employees who are “exclusively female.” If the reasons for this are not obvious, one of the principals spells them out: “women more often possess the skills required to predict and fulfill the most minute client needs.” Someone might read the “needs” described and think the word “whims” as more apt. But some would say our foreign or financial policy is as whimsically vicious as the “client needs” of the rich but not often famous are luxuriously self-centered or wasteful. Perhaps one could say that this copious spending is good because it creates jobs. But what kind of job, or payoff is it that can secure a great ticket for a Rolling Stones concert within an hour? What is the value in turning the inhabitants of Marrakech or Ecuador into extras in a private and spectacularly lavish party? Is this decade the 1780s in France? The old regime now has an air force and intelligence services dedicated to fighting terror. This is a world that like a different kind of terror stretches from the offices of giant PR firms in Dubai to London, Ecuador, Morocco (and fulfilled fantasies out of the Arabian Nights). It’s not government “welfare” when a private, well-heeled client pays a fortune to employ “hundreds of costumed musicians, dancers and guests” along with hordes of “locals who acted as extras” to create a “romantic Moroccan fantasia.” Perhaps the entire article is mind-candy meant to induce euphoria and distract attention from what has been happening to America in the last twenty-plus or eighty years. “So why didn’t those explosives go off” asked a talking head. Should one answer, “only her hairdresser knows for sure” or ‘they will go off when the ballots of the dead are counted’ on Tuesday. Jeweled slippers, change you can believe in, fudged oaths of office and alien tall timber. The other side of the coin is “a $10,000 personalized crocodile-leather handbag.” It’s nice that an artist or craftsman gets a project but it seems like the feudal-castle model of society on its way back to a model based on the pyramid. They always taught us that a pyramid is “the most stable “ social form: perhaps we were being prepared for the new age to come when personalities will be coordinated by psychologists and fifteen or so million of educator-activists will churn our directives for a world of peace, unified by a shared thought-bank. “The newer truths of the Aquarian Age can only be grasped as a result of group endeavor… In the meantime, groups of disciples can ‘nurture and conceal’ thus protecting the germ or seed of Aquarian culture.”[4] It just feels like terror and madness; it’s all about peace and equality, really. There are no November surprises, simply business as usual as the clock winds down, “a brooding gloom in sunshine, a lurid glare under the stars,” a society in which “lying becomes a universal principle.”[5] Eugene Narrett is the author of Culture of Terror: the Collapse of America Footnotes: 1. Debkafile at Debka.com see archives © 2010 Eugene Narrett - All Rights Reserved Eugene Narrett received his BA, MA and PhD from Columbia University in NYC. His writings on American politics and culture and on the Middle East and geopolitics have been widely published. These include four books, the most recent being WW III: the War on the Jews and the Rise of the World Security State (2007) which examines the historical roots and purposes of the war on terror as a late stage in the undoing of the West. His previous book, Israel and the Endtimes (2006) lays the basis for these questions. Dr. Narrett has appeared on scores of radio programs, both major networks like WABC, Radio America, Eagle Forum Radio and Westwood Communications, as well as regional and local stations. He has been honored for his essays on art and literature and on behalf of the pro-life movement. Since receiving his doctorate in 1978, Dr. Narrett has been teaching literature and art and creating interdisciplinary courses in the Humanities. He lectures on a variety of topics relating to western civilization, geopolitics and the multi-faceted war on the family that is a striking feature of the postmodern west. See his web site, www.israelendtimes.com for information on booking a lecture and for contact information. Website: IsraelEndTimes.com
November 1, 2010
NewsWithViews.com
2. Translations from these media into English available onwww.memri.org (Middle East Media Research Institute)
3, Hannah Elliott, “Ladies in Waiting,” Forbes November 8, 2010, 64-8
4, Alice Bailey, “Seed Groups in the New Age,” July 1937,Externalization of the Hierarchy (NY 1957; 2001), 30-9 inter alia and passim; H. G. Wells, The New World Order (NY 1940)
5, Joseph Conrad, Heart of Darkness section 1 (NY Norton, 3rd critical edition, 1978, Robert Kimbrough editor), 9; Franz Kafka,The Trial chapter 9, “In the Cathedral” (Schocken 1925; 1968)
Monday, 1 November 2010
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