tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-212971992024-03-19T05:33:17.775-04:00The Elephant BarDeuce ☂http://www.blogger.com/profile/13472858446242700869noreply@blogger.comBlogger7140125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21297199.post-57929308370263522102022-05-13T01:55:00.000-04:002022-05-13T01:55:07.412-04:00What happens after the golden decades of Californication? <p> <span class="ArticlePage-articleBody-firstLetter" style="box-sizing: border-box; caret-color: rgb(33, 37, 41); color: #212529; font-family: Montserrat, serif; font-size: 16px;">C</span><span style="caret-color: rgb(33, 37, 41); color: #212529; font-family: Montserrat, serif; font-size: 16px;">alifornia, those funky Spenglerians the Red Hot Chili Peppers noted, is “the final location” of Western civilization. True, you can go no further west, but that hasn’t stopped California from going south. What happens after the golden decades of Californication?</span><span style="caret-color: rgb(33, 37, 41); color: #212529; font-family: Montserrat, serif; font-size: 16px;"> </span></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; caret-color: rgb(33, 37, 41); color: #212529; font-family: Montserrat, serif; font-size: 16px; margin-bottom: 1rem; margin-top: 0px;">Brazilification. This is not the title of a samba album or a depilation technique. Brazilification is a political condition, coined by Douglas Coupland in his 1991 novel, <i style="box-sizing: border-box;">Generation X</i>: “The widening gulf between the rich and the poor and the accompanying disappearance of the middle classes.” </p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; caret-color: rgb(33, 37, 41); color: #212529; font-family: Montserrat, serif; font-size: 16px; margin-bottom: 1rem; margin-top: 0px;">If California were independent, it would be the world’s richest failed state. Its borders are porous, its roads potholed. Its schools are staffed by illiterate fanatics, its prisons are overflowing, and the murder rate is booming. Its government is depraved by corruption and political correctness, and its governor is a glassy-eyed puppet of Silicon Valley and the donor class. The state that used to mean a second chance in the biggest suburbs under the sun now has the nation’s third-highest income inequality, just behind New York and Louisiana. </p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; caret-color: rgb(33, 37, 41); color: #212529; font-family: Montserrat, serif; font-size: 16px; margin-bottom: 1rem; margin-top: 0px;">The only way to make your vote count in California is with your feet. Joel Kotkin, aka “America’s uber-geographer,” reports that California’s population has suffered net outmigration every year this century. It has lost more people in each of the last two decades than any state except New York, and it is losing the wrong people. </p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; caret-color: rgb(33, 37, 41); color: #212529; font-family: Montserrat, serif; font-size: 16px; margin-bottom: 1rem; margin-top: 0px;">When Kotkin crunched the IRS’s numbers, he found that California is not expelling “the old, bitter, and uneducated,” even if House Speaker Nancy Pelosi does spend much of her time in D.C. Between 2012 and 2019, roughly 77% of the increase in the number of net outmigrants were aged between 35 and 64, the “prime earning years.” Only 14% of the net increase earned less than $25,000 a year. High-income earners accounted for 82% of the increase, and 38% of them came from those earning over $100,000 a year. </p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; caret-color: rgb(33, 37, 41); color: #212529; font-family: Montserrat, serif; font-size: 16px; margin-bottom: 1rem; margin-top: 0px;">While the middle class flees a predatory state, the rich barricade themselves in private enclaves with private security. The poor are excluded by geographical separation and militarized policing. The corporations own the politicians, and the media are in bed with both. The creaking ruin of a 20th-century bureaucracy is used as a patronage system, blocking all hope of democratic change. And though this is a multiracial and multiethnic society, the founding minority — in California’s case, non-Hispanic whites — remains in charge. In a banana republic, resistance is fruitless. The better-educated and higher-earning parts of the middle class leave, as Brazilians do for Miami or Boston and Californians do for Dallas or Denver. </p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; caret-color: rgb(33, 37, 41); color: #212529; font-family: Montserrat, serif; font-size: 16px; margin-bottom: 1rem; margin-top: 0px;">In the '90s, Brazil was one of the BRIC economies (Brazil, Russia, India, and China) that, if they played by our economic rules, would ascend to Western-style prosperity. If, like Joe Biden, you are blessed with a strong memory, you may wonder if history is running backward. We were supposed to be Brazil’s future. Instead, America’s present looks like Brazil’s past, and America’s future like Brazil’s present. Our elites, as Christopher Lasch said, really are revolting. The novelty in a dynastic caudillo such as Donald Trump or a rotten placeholder such as Joe Biden or a playboy with his thumb in the pie such as Hunter Biden is that they tell their lies in English. </p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; caret-color: rgb(33, 37, 41); color: #212529; font-family: Montserrat, serif; font-size: 16px; margin-bottom: 1rem; margin-top: 0px;">The Brazilian analyst Alex Hochuli calls his country “modern, but not modern enough.” Brazilians are “doomed forever to remain the country of the future” but increasingly unable to get there. This is America today: potential and paralysis, economic polarization and the privatization of politics. The slogans are still there, like “Order and Progress” on the Brazilian flag, but they cover nothing more than disorder and decay. California cannot even make the trains run on time. Its high-speed rail service was supposed to start operating in 2020. Gov. Gavin Newsom has set a new deadline of 2030, but the Democrats in the state legislature are blocking his request for more funds. Perhaps a President Kamala Harris will send the money. </p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; caret-color: rgb(33, 37, 41); color: #212529; font-family: Montserrat, serif; font-size: 16px; margin-bottom: 1rem; margin-top: 0px;">California cannot be fixed: The fix is in until the system collapses entirely. But it can be outcompeted by booming red states such as Texas and Florida. Last December, Elon Musk moved Tesla's and SpaceX’s headquarters to Austin, Texas. In April, Jim Schwertner, CEO of Schwertner Farms, one of the largest livestock brokers in the country, offered Musk “100 acres for free” as a new base for Twitter. As they say in San Francisco, an earthquake is coming. </p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; caret-color: rgb(33, 37, 41); color: #212529; font-family: Montserrat, serif; font-size: 16px; margin-bottom: 1rem; margin-top: 0px;"><i style="box-sizing: border-box;">Dominic Green’s latest book is </i>The Religious Revolution: The Birth of Modern Spirituality, 1848-1898<i style="box-sizing: border-box;">.</i></p>Deuce ☂http://www.blogger.com/profile/13472858446242700869noreply@blogger.com21tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21297199.post-44797528675023972472022-05-11T22:29:00.001-04:002022-05-11T22:29:44.377-04:00I Don't Know Where to Start<p>The only that has been constant since Whit and I started The Elephant so many years ago is that the sun rises in the East and still sets in the West. Blogging has vanished as the technology has meandered so deep into our personal lives, that maintaining any level of privacy would be impossible. Frankly, that means little to me.</p><p>I rarely travel anymore. I've been to all the places that I cared to visit at the best possible times and those times and places are indelibly stamped into my brain. But they are gone. </p><p>Depressingly, almost all the things that I thought would happen have and without exceptions the results were worse than I expected. We are stranded on Planet Fubar.</p><p>But fear not, things will undoubtedly get worse and remarkably there is not much if anything we can do about it, so why try. </p><p>Live small in a pleasant safe place. Enjoy the things that you cannot sell , buy or own. Find your inner peace and share what you can with those that matter. </p><p>Let's see where this goes.</p><p><br /></p><p>Deuce</p>Deuce ☂http://www.blogger.com/profile/13472858446242700869noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21297199.post-16510542642515328132021-11-22T01:12:00.006-05:002021-11-22T01:14:02.884-05:00WAR ROOM PANDEMIC - STEVE BANNON<p><br /></p><p>Google, always out for truth and justice, deletes most everything I post. Just checking in. </p><p>Let's Go Brandon MAGA</p><p><br /></p>Deuce ☂http://www.blogger.com/profile/13472858446242700869noreply@blogger.com12tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21297199.post-38623432050740110622021-06-23T01:24:00.001-04:002021-06-23T01:24:56.713-04:00Victor Davis Hanson - Western Civilization, the Recovery of Greek Wisdom...<iframe width="480" height="270" src="https://youtube.com/embed/_CURrMzrvSw" frameborder="0"></iframe>Deuce ☂http://www.blogger.com/profile/13472858446242700869noreply@blogger.com14tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21297199.post-32582113288766841332021-06-14T07:25:00.000-04:002021-06-14T07:25:04.901-04:00Washington Reveals Its Summit Agenda: Threaten & Bribe Putin to Break wi...<iframe width="480" height="270" src="https://youtube.com/embed/jdGZc6tOZPU" frameborder="0"></iframe>Deuce ☂http://www.blogger.com/profile/13472858446242700869noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21297199.post-87000787438451637002021-06-12T21:26:00.000-04:002021-06-12T21:26:05.059-04:00Jesse Watters makes bold prediction about Kamala Harris | Brian Kilmeade...<iframe width="480" height="270" src="https://youtube.com/embed/cfPL48LXI0I" frameborder="0"></iframe>Deuce ☂http://www.blogger.com/profile/13472858446242700869noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21297199.post-86005479895582802562021-06-06T08:20:00.001-04:002021-06-06T08:20:43.149-04:00President Trump FULL REMARKS on 75th Anniversary of D-Day (C-SPAN)<iframe width="480" height="270" src="https://youtube.com/embed/kS6YFdmF9qw" frameborder="0"></iframe>Deuce ☂http://www.blogger.com/profile/13472858446242700869noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21297199.post-23314019582747242302021-06-04T02:23:00.001-04:002021-06-04T02:23:22.018-04:00Absolute Proof<p> https://home.frankspeech.com/tv/video/mike-lindell-presents-absolutely-9-0</p>Deuce ☂http://www.blogger.com/profile/13472858446242700869noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21297199.post-23325514388243986232021-05-31T02:23:00.000-04:002021-05-31T02:23:11.809-04:00The Second World Wars: How the First Global Conflict Was Fought and Won<iframe width="480" height="270" src="https://youtube.com/embed/SkJRC3pcQ0Y" frameborder="0"></iframe>Deuce ☂http://www.blogger.com/profile/13472858446242700869noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21297199.post-33520481731878509632021-05-30T08:42:00.000-04:002021-05-30T08:42:03.351-04:00WANDERER | The Profound Anglo-Saxon Poem that Tolkien Used in Lord of th...<div><br /></div><div><span style="background-color: #f9f9f9; caret-color: rgb(3, 3, 3); color: #030303; font-family: Roboto, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; letter-spacing: 0.20000000298023224px; white-space: pre-wrap;">"His books were a thousand years deep the very moment he drafted them."</span></div><div><br /></div><iframe frameborder="0" height="270" src="https://youtube.com/embed/tSJ7Sl-Q-HE" width="480"></iframe>Deuce ☂http://www.blogger.com/profile/13472858446242700869noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21297199.post-88060245015015135472021-05-29T03:17:00.000-04:002021-05-29T03:17:04.662-04:00Joe Biden ‘cognitively gone’ amid meeting with Floyd family<iframe width="480" height="270" src="https://youtube.com/embed/ovBddHEtxKY" frameborder="0"></iframe>Deuce ☂http://www.blogger.com/profile/13472858446242700869noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21297199.post-22195114291141259122021-05-27T00:08:00.001-04:002021-05-27T00:08:29.166-04:00Woke Capitalism Against America | Vivek Ramaswamy<iframe width="480" height="270" src="https://youtube.com/embed/a5gwJ382dIw" frameborder="0"></iframe>Deuce ☂http://www.blogger.com/profile/13472858446242700869noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21297199.post-86533546198818122022021-05-16T22:42:00.001-04:002021-05-16T22:42:25.002-04:00John Kerry asked POINT BLANK if he told Iran about Israeli military oper...<iframe width="480" height="270" src="https://youtube.com/embed/hI6wMv44_cE" frameborder="0"></iframe>Deuce ☂http://www.blogger.com/profile/13472858446242700869noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21297199.post-88240702793263535602021-05-16T03:10:00.001-04:002021-05-16T03:10:31.753-04:00Israel’s deceptive ‘surprise attack’ an ‘absolute body blow’ to Hamas<iframe width="480" height="270" src="https://youtube.com/embed/RjwdLaefniw" frameborder="0"></iframe>Deuce ☂http://www.blogger.com/profile/13472858446242700869noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21297199.post-45602361955551007512021-05-15T06:11:00.001-04:002021-05-15T06:11:50.783-04:00Middle East Explodes, Washington Mumbles<iframe width="480" height="270" src="https://youtube.com/embed/c7gC5WysqUs" frameborder="0"></iframe>Deuce ☂http://www.blogger.com/profile/13472858446242700869noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21297199.post-5846899918364903882021-05-13T01:01:00.001-04:002021-05-13T01:01:56.905-04:00LIVE: Israel and Hamas escalate bombardments<iframe width="480" height="360" src="https://youtube.com/embed/M_dZDwz9QLs" frameborder="0"></iframe>Deuce ☂http://www.blogger.com/profile/13472858446242700869noreply@blogger.com14tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21297199.post-55091523093022573352021-05-11T22:36:00.001-04:002021-05-11T22:36:19.640-04:00Rockets are being fired at Tel Aviv, Trey Yingst reports from the ground<iframe width="480" height="270" src="https://youtube.com/embed/BcpIeg9IM0Y" frameborder="0"></iframe>Deuce ☂http://www.blogger.com/profile/13472858446242700869noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21297199.post-83906011536537025502021-05-11T21:15:00.000-04:002021-05-11T21:15:30.116-04:00Biden is Dead Weight on the Democratic Party<iframe width="480" height="270" src="https://youtube.com/embed/sv1sMXchtHY" frameborder="0"></iframe>Deuce ☂http://www.blogger.com/profile/13472858446242700869noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21297199.post-19114574875101062422021-05-10T03:16:00.001-04:002021-05-10T03:16:53.835-04:00Chinese document discussing weaponising coronaviruses provides 'chilling...<iframe width="480" height="270" src="https://youtube.com/embed/kuKPBur_TiI" frameborder="0"></iframe>Deuce ☂http://www.blogger.com/profile/13472858446242700869noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21297199.post-32720101424471843792021-05-02T07:50:00.001-04:002021-05-02T07:50:47.534-04:00AMERICA'S AUDIT THREATENED<iframe style="background-image:url(https://i.ytimg.com/vi/pvrtYWFFE6U/hqdefault.jpg)" width="480" height="270" src="https://youtube.com/embed/pvrtYWFFE6U" frameborder="0"></iframe>Deuce ☂http://www.blogger.com/profile/13472858446242700869noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21297199.post-30051279083709957362021-04-15T02:29:00.000-04:002021-04-15T02:31:32.298-04:00Biden Calls Putin, Asks For Ceasefire in Ukraine, Offers Summit in Return<iframe width="480" height="270" src="https://youtube.com/embed/382dEHT5-90" frameborder="0"></iframe>Deuce ☂http://www.blogger.com/profile/13472858446242700869noreply@blogger.com45tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21297199.post-42811296549179166962021-04-15T02:24:00.001-04:002021-04-15T02:24:49.160-04:00Tick Tock<p>I would like to see the true Buyers (Biden) Remorse Index. Not quite as high as new high caliber gun sales but seriously tracking. </p>Deuce ☂http://www.blogger.com/profile/13472858446242700869noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21297199.post-65182416615417285522021-03-27T00:33:00.001-04:002021-03-27T00:33:16.880-04:00China bans UK MPs over Uyghur sanctions; China: woman protesting H&M sto...<iframe frameborder="0" height="270" src="https://youtube.com/embed/TTdE46ifbLc" width="480"></iframe>Deuce ☂http://www.blogger.com/profile/13472858446242700869noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21297199.post-23374415322637194822021-03-24T02:55:00.002-04:002021-03-24T02:55:47.641-04:00Anyone have any suggestions on anything the Pentagon has got right in the past 50 years?<p style="box-sizing: border-box; caret-color: rgb(33, 37, 41); color: #212529; font-family: Montserrat, serif; font-size: 16px; margin-bottom: 1rem; margin-top: 0px;">The Pentagon confirmed Tuesday the Department of Health and Human Services has requested the use of three military installations in Texas to house some of the thousands of unaccompanied migrant children now overwhelming other federal government facilities.</p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; caret-color: rgb(33, 37, 41); color: #212529; font-family: Montserrat, serif; font-size: 16px; margin-bottom: 1rem; margin-top: 0px;">The Defense Department has twice loaned facilities to HHS to house migrant children under both the Obama and Trump administrations. In early March, the Pentagon confirmed HHS had conducted a site visit to Fort Lee in Virginia but made no decision about whether to use the facility or not. Now, DOD has been asked to allow the use of barracks and land at Joint Base San Antonio, Lackland Air Force Base, and Fort Bliss, all in Texas.</p>Deuce ☂http://www.blogger.com/profile/13472858446242700869noreply@blogger.com9tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21297199.post-27073349153961936922021-03-22T01:43:00.000-04:002021-03-22T01:43:04.083-04:00China Steamrolls Over Blinken in Anchorage<iframe width="480" height="270" src="https://youtube.com/embed/B8b4tOcg8F8" frameborder="0"></iframe>Deuce ☂http://www.blogger.com/profile/13472858446242700869noreply@blogger.com1