William F. Buckley Jr., a tribute. February 28, 2008
Posted by azandi in Specials.add a comment
It cannot be refuted by even the most insanely imbalanced liberal that William F. Buckley Jr. was bar none one of the single most influential and staggering intellectual forces in American history. Here’s a little ensemble video tribute, it’s the least I can do to remember such a tremendous and impressive person, R.I.P. sir.
An encompassing, hour-long Charlie Rose retrospective.
The infamous, perennial and still incredibly timely and applicable Buckley-Chomsky debate.
The great and glorious Panama closing speech.
Finally, Buckley’s exquisitely superb essay on the affirmation of God.
William Frank Buckley Jr.
November 24th, 1925 – February 27th, 2008
Barack the Silly Somali. February 25, 2008
Posted by azandi in The Daily Intrigue.2 comments

So this of Barack Obama dressed up in Somalian cultural garb has been making the rounds now, purportedly originally disseminated by the Clinton campaign. Now, the Obama outfit has been complaining about a caption that was attached to the image initially, which read something ot the effect of “if Hillary was see in a picture like this, the media would have been all over it”. Apparently thisdry and meaningless blurb was quite offensive to the touchy sensibilities of the Obama campaign, which is amusing, considering I can think of a far more suitable and damning caption that could have been embedded with this image:
“Barack Obama says he’s too embarassed to wear an American flag lapel pin, and his wife says she’s only been proud of her country since last week. But he’ll gleefully play dress up in Africa for a golden photo-op.”
Has this man no shame and the American public no self-respect? For any politician to pull this sort of flagrantly transparent and opportunistic stunt while people are actually suffering in the wretched depths of Africa is disgraceful. But coming from Barack, this really has to beone of the most vapid and contrived political gestures ever conceived of. He’ll refuse to don a tiny American flag on his shirt, but masquerading in tribal clthing and pretending like he has any real affinity with Somalians, he’ll do that without hesitation.
Pardon the cliche, but a picture really does tell a thousand words. Unfortunately the trademark stupidity of the Clintons prevented them from distributing any of the right ones with this sloppily executed antagonization effort. Hopefully people will be able to figure them out tfor themselves, its a longshot but it’s always worth hoping. Just ask Barack, blind hope is basically what his entire campaign is predicated on.
The fate all of tonight’s Oscar whores deserve…. February 24, 2008
Posted by azandi in The Daily Intrigue.add a comment
This video is so damn true, I fucking hate the “red carpet exclusives” that are broadcasted ad nauseum before the event. I just don’t know who are more pathetic, the shameless, self-gratifying brainless, soulless attention-starving vessels posing for asinine questions and pandering, or the outright prostitutes with microphones conducting the questioning. It just stupefies me that human being can have so little self-respect, and so much self-loathing. But I’ll stop there, I’ve delivered enough viciously anti-Hollywood vitriol to last eons already.
I’m going to go ahead and excuse myself from this absurd spectacle this year, considering 3:10 to Yuma and American Gangster were deprived of their rightfully earned Best Picture nomination, a fantastically gross injustice that I simply refuse to observe. Hopefully all the slobbering wretches will be consumed by the children of the night as punishment.
Obominable: Why the Sentient Voter Cannot Support Barack. February 22, 2008
Posted by azandi in Essays.7 comments
I’ve become increasingly disturbed and distressed and downright concerned about the intellectual and cognitive health of my fellow countrymen over the last several months; the tremendously meteoric rise of Barack Hussein Obama as a sensationalized, celebritized figure in all aspects of the public sphere, the media and the overall atmosphere of the political season, its just stunning. He’s achieved undeserved sycophantic adulation and glorification levels unheard of since the prominence of equally dubious and unscrupulous characters the likes of Bono and Madonna. It would not be the expression of a hyperbole to assert that Obama is actually being perceived as a messianic figure by a significant contingent of the populace; the fact that people are literally rendered unconscious at the very sight of the man at his absurd little press rallies testifies to this fact. The fervor generated around him is scarcely seen with the most fabulous of celebrities, and utterly unheard of with a politician. All this equals out to a single conclusion in my mind:
The American citizenry, in its ravenous infatuation with Obama, has completely and shamelessly cancelled out every genetically imbibed critical thinking and objective-analytical cerebral mechanism it had ever posessed. This is nothing short of absolutely chilling.
How else could it be possible that so many people have submitted as lock-step lackeys to such a inherently untrustworthy and shadowy individual? There isn’t a shred of substance or solid foundation to be heard in a decibel of his lofty, meandering, meaningless little platitudes filled with rhetoric worthy of an Orwellian fascist the likes of “great change” and “new America”, all the while deliberately and incredibly suspiciously neglecting to expand on what any of these “changes” would entail. A man so lacking in identity, so pandering and shape-shifting to various constituencies, possessing a devious craftiness that allows him to pretend that he’s a Southern-dialect practicing white while blathering in Columbia, then seamlessly changing to a ghetto-raised black while pontificating in the streets of Chicago, all the while posing a membrane-thin facade throughout. A man with no experience or background in anything whom has yet to complete a single term in the U.S. Senate, whom has not one achievement to boast about and yet has the sheer gall to portray that as honor in itself rather than a liability by using the absurdly ludicrous and childish formulation of “Washington outsider” to compensate for his unparalleled amateurism. This is the very definition of an anthropomorphic invisible man, a fellow with no background, no experience, and no asserted convictions to speak of, yet brilliantly conceals these otherwise damning short-comings with grandiose rhetoric and persona-manipulation. How else could Americans fall for such a transparent fool unless that had physically relenquished their mental equipment?
But its not justBarack’s shallow translucency that should concern everyone, its who he is. This is an individual belonging to an openly racist and seperatist Afro-centrist church, a ghastly establishment wherein his good and nurturing white mother and grandparents, his only true family that had taken care of him after he was abandoned by his Kenyan father, would not feel welcome. Why hasn’t he ever honestly addressed this? More importantly, in all their masturbatory fawning over him, why hasn’t the braindead half-wits of the media ever questioned him on his 20 year affiliation with a regressivist hate-mongering race-baiting cult?
Recently Obama has been regurgitating a rather bizarre and disquieting catch-phrase to the euphoric moans of his frothing, cerebrally-calcified masses: “I don’t want ot just end the war, I want to end the mentality that got us into war.” Well, what the hell does that mean? Not only do you seek defeat and failure in Iraq, pre-mature evacuation that will only lead to genocide and barbarism throughout the region, but you want to dissolve the very notion of aggression towards our enemies? Can there be a more masochistic, fatalistic and outright sick proposition put forth by this increasingly sinister and idiotic man?
He wants raise “diplomatic relations” with abhorant, murderous ideological frauds and liars like Ahmadinejad and the newly re-configured Castro crime family in place of reciprocrating the offensive and aggression that they have asserted upon us, this is what he calls “responsible” foreign policy. So, he wants to chat it up with dictatorial bastards whom are rightfully and vehemently despised by their own people, fascists that have imprisoned homebred dissenters within their borders, demagogues whom would be spat upon by any true patriot of their country? He wants to negotiate with these universally-reviled terrorists, and simultaneously seeks to invade our admittedly-shifty, yet long-standing ally of Pakistan? This is supposed to be a tenable geopolitical vehicle for America against the staggering antagonists it faces? Either Barack possesses a non-intelligence of unprecedented levels, or more chillingly, he has no intention of achieving victory in the preeminent civilizational struggle of our time, the war against Islamic radicalism. Perhaps its because he’s too much of a young pompous ego-inflated leftist fool to acknowledge the volatility of the situation, or even more alarmingly perhaps he actually sympathizes more with the enemy powers than with his own country. These are all seriously damning charges, and none of them bode well for our future under an Obama presidency.
This naturally transitions us to the pertinent question that is never asked about Obama, is he actually proud to be an American? Remember, this is the same person who refused to wear an American flag lapel pin because he wanted to make a “political statement”, some asinine drivel about the flag being “over-used” as propaganda. What feebly disguising rhetorical pirouetting for the obvious truth of the matter, a blind man could easily discern that Obama is clearly disgusted by the flag, and thus refuses to showcase it on his shirt. Now, there must be some sort of constitutional clause barring this man from the presidency on this count alone, as an aspiring supreme governor over the United States, it simply unacceptable if a candidate refuses to proudly flaunt the country’s cherished symbol wherever he goes, and devises some self-evidently contrived and disingenuous pseudo-philosophical hocum pocum to make up for it.
More recently his wife made the exceptionally crass and stupid and arrogant and flagrantly anti-patriotic remark that for the first time in her life, she’s actually proud to be an American. Not only is this ridiculous espousal tantamount to the extraordarily despicable utterance of “I’m only proud of my country when my husband is a front-runner for the presidency”, but it also definitively solidifies a long suspected anti-American sentimentality amongst the Obama family. It it evident beyond a doubt now that Obama actually is one of those leftist parasite pseudo-intellectuals, the reprehensible losers that are endowed with speaking talent and good financial fortune, attain high education and success and fame and yet are still in contempt and disconnect with their own country, blaming it for all the problems in the world yet continuing to reap it of all its opportuniites, shamelessly and paradoxically lambasting it all the while.
Tell me, Michelle Obama, why the hell weren’t you proud of America all this time? Weren’t you proud of the fact that America did not invent slavery, but led the way to its abolisment? Weren’t you proud of the toppling of the Berlin Wall and America’s rescuing of Europe? Weren’t you proud of the heroes who sacrificed their own lives on 9/11 just to save the lives of others? Weren’t you proud of America’s emancipation of two unbelievably repressed nations from fascist warlords in the span of two years?
If nothing else, aren’t you proud that your entire family epitomizes the portrait of the American success story, and as a consequence evaporating all the lies of “institutionalized racism” and structural barriers to success for your people? Aren’t you proud that the only country where you and your family could have experienced the fantastic volume of success that you all have had is in America?
Evidently no, it was only untill her likelihood of becoming the next First Lady came into serious fruition that she was “proud”. Its safe to assume that this vile ingratitude and sneeringly pretentious distaste for America and what it represents is uniform throughout the family, and thus no self-respecting American can perform the staggeringly undignified action of voting them into the Oval Office. The war is on now, Barack is the heir apparent and the potentiality of him acquiring his party’s nomination is all but incontravertible. The media, money, and momentum is on his side and against our last chance in rescuing this country, John McCain. Just in the past few days we have seen the heinous extents of the left’s hatred and contempt for America and the concept of truth itself, with the patently fabricated and squalid and revolting smear-job hit-piece against McCain by the self-exalting liberal tabloid that is the New York Times. The odds are against us, but hopefully Americans will wake from their demented Obama trance and get a grasp of the epic ramifications of this coming election.
The choice is glaringly simple, you can either vote for a battle-hardened American hero who boasts decades of sophisticated foreign policy experience and economic wisdom, who love for this country is so unbelievably strong that he sacrficed half a decade of his life in a Vietnamese hell hole in lieu of betraying it. Or you can vote for a latently anti-American astoundingly audacious and self-impressed thug with no background in anything who’s only political political platform is that he has none, and will have the temerity to spin that natural impediment into being a selling point. The fact that one makes this choice under the over-arching context of the looming threat of international fundamentalist militants whom seek our absolute annihilation and an economy mired by the wounds of fiscal liberalism (also known as Bush’s “compassionate conservativism”), and the only logical conclusion could only be rendered ambiguous by one is in fact mentally stultified, as addressed by the title of this thesis.
It has been correctly observed by scholar Jonah Goldberg that if fascism is to come to this land, it will likely come in the guise of a charismatic progressive reformer concealing his totallitarian collectivist intentions with flamboyant, crowd-pleasing language and propaganda.
Sound familiar?
Good.
Let’s make sure 2008 isn’t like 1984, vote McCain and put an end to this fearsome Obamination.
Right-Wing Renaissance Man- John McCain: Why He Has Been Held to a Higher Standard, Why He Is So Compelling, and Why He Must Win the Presidency. February 11, 2008
Posted by azandi in Essays.9 comments
It really has been a remarkable, revealing, and rather revolting spectacle over the past few weeks listening to the interminable zoo noises produced by the self-proclaimed bastions of the “core conservative” movement in their ill-conceived quest to make everyone perfectly aware of their absurd little vendetta against Senator John McCain. Listening to a whole cast of Republican racketeers night after night blasting their own undeniable heir-apparent without remorse as if he was a harbinger of the Anti Christ, citing the same tired, inconsequential and often flat-out fabricated litany of charges to justify their insidious banter, it really makes me wonder how long this patently dysfunctinoal party is going to survive, or even if it should. Should a faction that generates and permits such squabbling and trifling intermittent strife and shameless politicking be maintained as a viable democratic apparatus?
The churning maelstrom of “McCain Derangement Syndrome” dementia basically takes the form of self-appointed, “traditional” paleoconservative leaders whom antagonize McCain over his alleged liberal record. This accusation has been charged by a variety of pundits, from largely unscrupulous radio-jock morons the likes of Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity, to the more respectable and principally-grounded right-wingers such as Hugh Hewitt and Laura Ingraham. Hannity’s been recently playing a laughably contrived “experience” card on himself, citing his “20 year record on the radio as a true conservative” and his “decades of Reaganist principles” as the reason for his animus towards McCain. Hewitt’s fussy because his boy Romney, whom he wrote an entire prematurely-conceived book on, dropped out of the race. Limbaugh has been driveling on his OxyContin-fueled radio babble-hour that he’ll abstain from voting altogether if McCain wins the nomination, as if this proclaimation tremendously factors into the grand scheme of American politics, the rambling has-been wishes he wielded that much influence.
But bar none the most astronomical manifestation of McDS was a remark by the extraordinarily repugnant, phenomenally stupid and cosmically vile Ann Coulter, -a disgrace to the human species, let alone conservativism- in which she decried that her loathing for McCain was so deeply entrenched that she would not only vote for, but actually campaign for Hillary Clinton. Now, some might contend this is some long-hibernated and concealed feminist impulse on Coulter’s part, to support a fellow woman in her pursuits to attain the presidency. But believing this would involve the fallacious assumption that Coulter is in fact a female; even the most reasonable estimate could only guess at some sort of ghastly transsexual genomic configuration. Conversely, it would also assume that Clinton was also in fact a woman, an equally dubious proposition. But let’s not digress.
The crux of the matter here is that McCain has attracted a considerable amount of slag from detractors whom unfortunately wield mainstream influence within the Republican ranks. The assertion that McCain “isn’t a real conservative” is one that has been cancerously proliferated amongst a good contingent of the party, so much so now that it has become a sort of conventional wisdom. People echo the callous untruth that John McCain is actually a liberal with casual ease, and are speechless when one presses them for evidential expansion to fortify their claims, flabbergasted that anyone would dare pose such a question. This is just foolishness of the most ludicrous dye.
Senator John McCain has been a solid conservative for the entirety of his career, often far more conservative than the slobbering goons competing against him. He boasts a waterproof pro-life record on the abortion question, far to the contrary of the often cited “real conservative” Mitt Romney. He indisputably has the strongest record of fiscal discipline of any candidate on any party, again far to the right of “flagship members” of the “real right” the likes of George W. Bush and Mike Huckabee. He has a multi-decade long record of cutting taxes, and while it may be a conveniently circumvented truth that the anti-McCain posse likes to gloss over, the fact of the matter is the only reason McCain didn’t vote for the Bush tax cuts is because they weren’t coupled by cuts in spending, which was elevating to exorbitantly high levels. He knew that was a recipe for economic calamity, and he was damn right, no pun intended. His immigration record is solid, McCain-Kennedy is arguably just as conservative, if not more so, than the immigration policies of the often invoked but scarcely understood Ronald Reagan, and directly paralelling that of George W. Bush. Its first drafts were admittedly not entirely wise, but McCain has thoroughly expressed that he seeks to rigorously secure the borders, a measure untaken and even unpursued by both Reagan and Bush. Most importantly, his record as an ardent and unwavering military supporter and devotee is without question infinitely stronger than anyone else running for president. When Democrats and Republicans alike were alienating themselves from the Iraq war at the height of its unpopularity and openly voicing skepticism of the surge, McCain banked his entire career on it, putting his knowledge and faith into the prospects of his success, and once again his intuition proved perfectly accurate.
So, the case simply cannot be made to deny the principled conservativism of John McCain, and I’m pretty sure that most of his nay-sayers on the right are perfectly aware of that. I’ll give them the benefit of the doubt, they’re not completely mentally-retarded in this regard, just profoundly duplicitous and conniving. Its not McCain’s politics that concerns them, its who he is. He represents a long-needed drastic deviation from the lockstep-lackeyism and croneyism that has so badly plagued the party the past few decades. He’s not a conformist henchman who abides without questioning to specific and ridiculous parameters, he’s an autonomous thinker, and this stuns and scares the paleoconservative right. How dare he call out Pat Robertson and Jerry Falwell (whom he later courted in a clearly deliciously disingenuous and unconvincing “truce”) for what they are, religious fascists and charlatans? What hot-headed bravado he posesses, to suggest that en masse deportation of illegal immigrants isn’t economically or socially feasible? How audacious is he suggest that Michigan’s squandered automotive industry might not make a full reprisal, or that the textile mills won’t be returning to South Carolina? WIth what burst of mendacious temerity does he call for the presence of American forces in Iraq for upwards to a hundred years!
Its things like the above enumerations that are appalling the minions of the derelict and dying “value-voting, traditional, moral majority, latently undemocratic” right, and gaining the votes of the forward-minded and scholastically-sophisticated contingents of the party, otherwise known as the neoconservatives. Venerable scholars the likes of Dr. Henry Kissinger and William Kristol are backing McCain, amongst a whole cast of highly-respectable thinkers, politicans and policy-analysts. They recognize that McCain maintains the core foundational cornerstones of the right, that intellectual-independence and an anti-pandering mentality are major advantages, and most importantly that he is inarguably the most experienced, educated and cerebrally-equipped in military affairs and geopolitical engagement to move America forward in its pivotal transcendent struggle against radical Islam. This last capitulated qualification alone without refutation renders him the only candidate fit to lead in 2008.
If the principles and characters of the man aren’t enough to satisfy the right, let the sheer fact of his strategic competitive tenability convince them. The fact of the matter is, when all the dust has cleared from the mindless blatherings of his Republican opponents, he is the only one with any electability. While Huckabee and Romney are generally held in universal contempt and disdain by the general American public at large, McCain defeats Hillary with a healthy margin in national polls, vastly outcompeting her for independents and even drawing a good number of Reagan Democrats and liberals who don’t trust the unprincipled old shrew. If Clinton ends up as the Democratic nominee, McCain has a considerable edge against her. Admittedly however, if the somewhat ominous and even sinister character of Barack Obama (isn’t it a bit foreboding how he attracts such tumultuous applause over his vocationally-energetic invocations of an ambigious “change”, yet he consistently refuses to disclose any aspect of the nature of this “change”, to no inquiry from his sycophantic audience? Isn’t that the recipe for an Orwellian despot?) attains the nomination, then its probably a futile effort, but that can’t be helped. The college post-materialist leftist saps Obama rallies like a cattle-herd can’t really be stopped by any candidate, we need to hope that the Clinton machine succeeds in efforts for just a little while longer.
The Grand Old Party at its core is a fundamentally strong one, and one whose core convictions are essentially more attuned to what the great American ideal is than the opposition. Unfortunately its been mired and hijacked by a miserable gang of thuggish, opportunistic, theocratic, loudspeaker-wielding bullies and moronic character assassins whom would gladly prostitute their bodies to increase their ratings by a fraction of a precentage, let alone compromising the national interest in lieu of asinine religious disputes and personal insecurities. I am catagorically certain that John McCain will be delivering badly-needed real change to Washington, not only bringing some serious fiscal conservativism to our economic infrastructure, and not only maintaining America’s geopolitical dominance and military offensive in the war against Islamic radicalism, but also some serious reform to the arcane dynamic of America’s political culture, rejuvenating the arid landscape of the right whom has demanded a catalystic and principled new leader. It is clear the mainstream of the faction has paid very little attention to the incoherent slobberings of the deranged right-wing radio ruckus, as he has won virtually segment of the American population in this primary season with considerable margins in most every state. This attests to the long-perceived fact that the numbskulled airwave blowhards don’t wield a fraction of the influence they think they do, thus discrediting and dejecting them from this new incarnation of the party.
These are some exceptionally impressive accomplishments, and seriously testify to serious change. And yet McCain has never employed the term in the innately propagandist fashion his Democratc adversaries get away with incessantly, further solidifying the legitimacy of his positions.
I’m certainly ready for real change. Here’s to the McCain Revolution.
The Rime of the American Shield: John McCain and the Return of the Classical American Action Hero. February 6, 2008
Posted by azandi in Editorials, The Daily Intrigue.add a comment
Damn it there you go, Stallone and Schwarzenegger. He now has the endorsement of Rambo and Rocky and Terminator and “Dutch” Schaefer. If the raw logistics and facts of the matter weren’t enough to convince you to vote for the only man with the credentials and experience to move this country forward in the transcendent geopolitical struggle of our time, at least let the fact that you’re not a man if you don’t know exactly, without even a particle of equivocation or inhibition who you’re voting for convince you.
In all seriousness, this really is just too perfect, I’ve been a huge Stallone fan all my life, the entire Rocky series collectively represents a touchstone, sheer magnum opus, flawlessly executed piece of filmographic genius. First Blood is point-blank the greatest action film ever made, and the recently released Rambo IV (I refuse to refer to it by its admittedly nonsensical name…First Blood -> Rambo: First Blood II -> Rambo III -> Rambo? What the hell? And Stallone said the latest might not even be the last one, so what the hell is the fifth movie in the franchise going to be called, Rambo II?!) is absolutely brilliant, even at 60 John Rambo is one uncrossable killing machine.
His films have always reverberated with a resounding sense of patriotic love and exaltation of America, contempt and disdain for bureacracy and ungrateful liberals, confident and proud affirmations of this country’s brilliance and the fact that while it has made mistakes in the past, civilization wouldn’t last 5 seconds in this fural and carnivorous planet without it. Its good to know that such a formidable creative force, independent and unmired by the disgusting pseudo-intellectual idioms of the Hollywood left, is on our side. But all this does beg the phrase, “they just don’t make em’ like they used to”.
Back in the ’40s, a new comic book character saw his inception, Captain America. He actually templated the archetypal all-American hero, he defined it, and he was awesome. He kicked Nazi ass without hesitance nor remorse, he was uncompelled by the relativistic banter of anti-war detractors, he distinguished a clear, ideological dichotomy between right and wrong and acted upon it. He was proud to be an American, and brandished his iconic shield with valor and permeated his every action with stunning pride in what he was doing.
Then came the sixties, and with it the New Society regressive-collectivist philosophy, and a newly deformed Captain America. Exit right the sterling knight of liberty defending his country from the forces of evil, and enter left the emotionally-distraught, morally-confused, self-doubt ridden Captain “Not So Proud to Be” America, drifting through inner-city ghettos, ashamed and disgraced of his shield, posing such idiotically-artifical philosophical inquires as “maybe I should have fought less and questioned more?” and other such multiculturalist moral relativism inspired liberal drivel.
This is emblematic of the apparent demise of the objectivist, unapologetically heroic, pro-American synoptical protagonist and the rise of the sinisterly masochistic, flagranlty anti-patriotic fatalistic garbage the vulgar parasitic frauds and charlatans of the Hollywood elite have been regurgitating the bast dccade. Audiences haven’t “cheered for the good guy” ina long time, how can they? When most of the politically-centric films the likes of Lions for Lambs, Rendition, and Redacted portray Islamic fundamentalists as the “courageous, beleagured heroes” and Americans as “evil, corporatist, Christo-fascist villains”, what the hell is the response supposed to be? For good reason all these films have been stupendous box-office blunders, but the fact remains generally the only time anyone actually feels for the heroes and cheers for the victory is while they’re watching sequels to old movies that were framed under this classic formula.
America needs to return to movies portraying the unambiguated struggle between good and evil, championing a self-assertive, steadfast, and headstrong citizenry actually fighting for real justice; Rambo, Rocky, Die Hard, and of course the mighty Death Wish. We’ve seen great sequels to all of these excluding Death Wish, and Stallone is purportedly planning a remake of that. But we need more, we need a full psychological and philosophical re-configuration in the American literati and cinematographic community. Only then are we going to see a serious change in the aperture by which the public perceives the world.
Here’s hoping McCain, whom perfectly embodies everything great about America and its culture, will run up the Philadelphia steps. It’d sure make one hell of a Rocky-esque American triumph story, and god knows with all the trash we’re subjected to now in both movies and the body politic, we need one.