Monday, August 29, 2011

Gay Star Trek

There are plans for a new Star Trek TV series. Among the tidbits, two gay leads. Is there a problem with this plan? Sure. As William Goldman noted, in Hollywood "nobody knows anything." But ... in Bar Rescue, a reality series on Spike-TV, bar consultant John Taffer knows quite a lot. With demographic profiles, surveys, even aerial photos of nearby bars and identification of what kind of establishments the competitors are. All that for a reality show. The great "Moneyball" revolution has begun, with ordinary bars, restaurants, and every other small business discovering that computers and simple stat programs (often just spreadsheets) can offer meaningful statistical analysis to make their business a success while others fail. How long can this sort of idiocy, ala "Gay Star Trek" go on?

Not long. Because sooner or later one Hollywood studio will gain dominance by adopting a Moneyball approach.


Goldman believed no one knew anything, and that moreover, no one could know anything. This belief pretty much approximates Baseball management before Bill James and the Moneyball revolution proved this wrong. Making "gut calls" on both players and moves (stealing bases, giving up outs to move a runner up into scoring position, going for "good body" guys who can't hit instead of "ugly" guys who can) is no longer supportable. The same way that trading by big firms has moved away from "gut calls" and instinct to program trading, computerized searches for micro-advantages in mis-pricing, so too has sports management. Besides baseball (the Red Sox, Yankees, Rangers, and other teams have adopted all or part of the Moneyball approach), the NFL (particularly the New England Patriots and New Orleans Saints), NHL, have adopted a method of statistical analysis to overturn long-held but erroneous assumptions about proper strategy and player selection.

Only Will Smith and his agent have really applied any rigor to figuring out what movies are successful, and which ones are not, and identifying common elements. Such as a Sci-Fi theme, action, comedy/humor, and so on. Early in his career, Smith and his agent sat down and did such an analysis, and came up with a set of criteria that he has mostly stuck to, in taking roles or declining them. Such a discipline has led Smith to become one of the all time box office champions, in terms of leading men. And it was not really that hard to figure out.

So too with TV. TV breaks down into female-oriented (which is most of it) and the few scripted shows that guys still watch. Star Trek, the original series, was famously just a Western set in space. Creator Gene Roddenberry pitched it as "Wagon Train to the Stars" and it even had regular Western character actors such as DeForrest Kelly as one of the leads. The original series garnered so-so ratings on NBC during its run, upon cancellation running for decades with great ratings. Various film revivals made lots of money, and series attempts even with living room sets (Star Trek Next Generation) or female captains (Voyager) or looming angry Black guy leads (Deep Space Nine) did acceptable ratings. The secret to the original series repeat success in syndication was being just a Western in space. That was it. The whole point. Nerdy White guys watched in droves, imagining they were Captain Kirk. A guy macho, but not too much, whom they could conceivably become. Those nerdy guys first started balking at imagining themselves the patriarch of some living room in space (Next Generation), then as some Looming Angry Black guy (lead Avery Brooks, a fine Shakespearean actor, for some reason played the character of Commander, later Captain Sisko like Othello). The last straws were Captains as inept female middle managers (Voyager) and milquetoast nebbishes (Enterprise). The final Star Trek TV series, Enterprise, was canceled in February 2005.

Who watches Star Trek? Gays? Nope, only 2-4% of the population is gay. What about the revival of BattleStar Galactica, which had prominent gay characters? That show was mostly watched by ... women. And it had fairly miserable ratings, as it went. Witness the swift cancellation of "Caprica" the follow-on show. Much of the TV business either is too stupid (always a possibility) to realize press and media coverage do not equal popularity (Gossip Girl dominates the media, yet barely ekes out a million in viewers). Or producers and such don't care, they won't share in financial success and just want to raise their profile in the industry for their next job.

Nevertheless, a professional management would have on hand:

1. What is the target audience, how much of them can we realistically expect to get, and how much will advertisers pay to be on our show?
2. How much will the show cost, and how expensive will it get over the years?
3. How long will the show realistically run?
4. How much can the studio sell other areas of revenue, DVDs, merchandising, etc.?

A professional management, would know much indeed. It would know the success rate for each type of show, and each type of audience intended. Women are not fond of action-mostly shows, and men don't watch night-time soaps. It would know how much money would be spent, and how much money would be expected in return.

Proposals such as a Gay Star Trek, would be laughed out of the office. Writers and producers would not even pitch them, for fear of looking stupid. This seems like a monumentally stupid idea, therefore it is almost a lock to go into production.

No one knows anything because they are less motivated than a bar consultant to find out about their business. Who their customers are, what they want, and how much money each type generates. It is astonishing that Warners/DC has not copied Marvel's formula for exploiting, what must be admitted is second-class super-heroes. With a rich pantheon of demi-gods and mythological heroes, DC is making ... Deadman the series, on CW. Along with a flop-tastic Green Lantern, and Jonah Hex. With all that money, why hasn't there been a plan to have Christian Bale's Batman, a Superman, a Captain Marvel, a Doctor Fate, a Hawkman, a Green Lantern, a Flash, a Green Arrow, a Wonder Woman, and a Martian Manhunter team-up in a Justice League Movie? Or two?

Why? Because Warners/DC are run by a bunch of idiots. Meanwhile, Disney has largely left Marvel alone, to make decent to good superhero movies. Thor, Captain America, and the second Hulk movie were all acceptable to good comic book movies. Captain America may be the best of its genre. Samuel L. Jackson's Nick Fury shows up in all of them, along with the Iron Man movies, and fans are excited. Marvel is not doing anything difficult, and the formula is pretty cut and dried. Stick to the comic book origin and basics of the character. Choose an actor over a physique, and strike a long-term deal. Use good actors in all the roles, don't skimp on support. Treat the script with respect, don't camp or joke it up. Deliver meat and potatoes and the fans will show up -- there is a reason these characters have lasted for in some cases more than half a century. Their creators knew what they were doing -- just don't screw it up.

Nope. Instead we'll get a Gay Star Trek. To match the Gay Christ Allegory of Superman Returns. It will fail, miserably. And execs will say, no one watches sci-fi on TV anymore. Let's do another soap opera.


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Sunday, August 28, 2011

What the Help Says About America and Obama


The movie "the Help" has of this writing (Friday, Aug 26, 2011) made approximately $82 million at the box office, against a production budget of only $25 million and a publicity budget quite likely of $30 million. The movie is well on its way to being at least mildly profitable, though nothing like the big-budget winners of say, Iron Man and Iron Man 2 or the Pirates of the Caribbean franchise. But still, the movie has been successful. It is worth noting the reasons why the movie (and before it New York Times best-selling novel) has succeeded in what the movie says about America ... and Obama's chances of being re-elected.


Of course, a good deal of the movie's success has to do with counter-programming. It is quite simply the only chick-flick available now. Women like to go to see movies too, and the idea of say, sitting through Cowboys and Aliens or some other action film doesn't appeal to them. In the same way that Jason Statham movies often take advantage of being the only action flick around, this movie benefits from savvy scheduling. The success of the novel, of course is reflective that the bulk of the book-buying public are women. No one would argue that Twilight is a work of great mastery, but women ate up that stuff like crazy. Romance novels from Barbara Cartland on have sold well, and if instead of Fabio on the cover there is the thrill of a hunky, glittery-gay vampire lurking inside the novel, well that's just the market working to serve a hungry readership and audience.

And yes, the "help" even in say, early 1960's Jackson Mississippi was far more likely to be named Frigidaire, or Kitchenmaid, or Hoover, than anything else. Few American housewives had domestic servants of any kind, back then, and even fewer today. Those who do tend to be on the rich side of things. The reality is that Rich and Powerful Black Men employ domestic servants, and these servants tend to be illegal aliens from Mexico. Not downtrodden Black women in the 1960's caring for White babies. The real "help" was automation, and machines, that made domestic life entirely different, in rich countries first and then poor nations. Hans Rosling remembers how in Sweden, his grand-mother cried when she got her first Washing Machine:



Washing machines, dryers, dishwashers, garbage disposals, vacuum cleaners, all made domestic life far easier for the 1950's housewife. Allowing her to work outside the home in the 1960's and onward. The help was not oppressed maids in middle class houses. It was machines, that transformed the brutal work of women in the house to one of manageable chores. Meanwhile Desegregation happened not because of some noble crusade by White women and Black people, but because Whites had already left places like Jackson and New Orleans, for suburban places far from Blacks. The cheap automobile, provided by Ford, GM, and Chrysler, allowed people to move far away from the urban life, including far away from Black people, and live in air-conditioned isolation, away from the hustle and bustle.

This process had begun, first in places like New Orleans, when the St. Charles Streetcar started running in 1835. People moved out to the more genteel, and isolated places along St. Charles (originally where just a few Plantations and houses stood). The same was seen in London, where the commuting process along regional railways started around the same time. If you could avoid living in the city, it was better. Less polluted and stinking (before the advent of modern sewage systems, the city meant chamber pots emptied out onto the street, and of course horse manure everywhere), people moved out to the country the way only Kings and Emperors had before. Technology is wonderful, it allows ordinary people to get wealthier!

In the 1950's, people moved out of cities like New Orleans and Jackson, MS for the suburbs. In New Orleans, the White middle class moved to Jefferson Parish, or Metarie (home of Britney Spears), or even North Shore outposts like Slidell. Air conditioning and television replaced sitting on the front porch, desperately trying to catch any evening breeze, and gossiping with the neighbors. The great roaring White Middle Class withdrawal from public life dates to about that time.

So nope, the picture "the Help" paints of an oppressive domestic serfdom in the South in the Sixties was false. Whatever semi-serfdom operates today, is the province of celebrities and powerful people, any number of which are Black as well as White. Nearly all Americans cook their own food, wash their own cars, care for their own babies, and have no desire to change. Their only wish -- more powerful technology to make each task easier.

Rather, the key to understanding "the Help" is the basic plotline. A young White woman, Eugenia Phelan, nicknamed "Skeeter" returns from College to investigate where the maid who raised her has disappeared to, and discovering a systematic series of racial oppression ... writes a gossip book about the mal-treatment of the maids by her mother's friends, and their scandals and secrets to boot!

Yep, no standing up to violent abuse by police dogs and firehoses on national television. No investigation of secret killings and burials of civil rights workers by police, at the risk of her life. No non-violent resistance to segregation's uglier practices, with predictable violent consequences. Nope. The protagonist ... writes a gossip book. The protagonist avoids "getting married" (her mother's big dream for her) and instead succeeds in being an "important writer."

In the movie, things are even clearer. The heroine is played by the much younger and hotter Emma Stone, while the bad women are played by older actresses. If you wanted a clearer picture of what "Civil Rights" today meant, you could not find one. Civil Rights amounts to a constant status-struggle by hip young women to over-turn the older women's status and seize it for their own. This story is why the book sold so many copies, to female readers, and why the movie was successful, apart from chick-flick scheduling in the middle of "testosterone action Summer."

For a significant portion of the White, professional, and female demographic, it is always 1963. But that 1963 is not the real version, but rather a fantasy construction of place where they and their projections are the heroes, defeating the forces of evil by ... writing a gossip book.

That's pretty thin. True, Obama does well with White College-educated Women, and poorly with all other Whites:

College Educated White women: 56% approval.
College Educated White men: 38% approval.
Non-College White women: 34% approval (lowest).
Non-College White men: 35% approval.

But even White College Educated Women, prone to using Black people in internal dramas over status with other White women (there are few male characters in the movie and book "the Help") ... need to eat. Or buy gas. Or clothes. All of which have gone up in price under Obama while wages and earnings remain stagnant.

Obama benefited from a perfect storm in 2008. An economic collapse and a Republican opponent who wanted to lose to gain the respect of the NYT and his daughter, who HATES HATES HATES Sarah Palin (echo of "the Help" by the way, you can see its power). Now instead of running against the Man, he IS THE MAN. Americans want results, not a symbol. Largely, people have tuned him out. His speeches tend to be followed by yet another drop in popularity or approval. Obama lost White men voters, but gained in White women voters in 2008's Presidential election, to carry the day when adding all non-White votes on top of College Educated White women voters.

Yes, there are plenty of White College Educated women willing to play eternal status games, with "enemies" like Sarah Palin, or Michelle Bachman. But as long as say Republicans avoid nominating women who bear a resemblance to say, Sissy Spacek (one of the villains in "the Help") and focus on economics and Obama's responsibility for the same, status-games will not save Obama. No matter how much women like Meghan McCain want to gossip about Sarah Palin types. "Change begins with a Whisper" (the tagline of the movie "the Help") but Hope and Change have left folks without much change ... in their pockets.

Obama seems to be basing his entire re-election campaign on appealing to the inner "Skeeter" of his White College Educated Female supporters. While it is true that he allows them to play moral superior to those they have rivalries with (again see Meghan McCain and Sarah Palin) that's thin soup these days. "The Help" shows how the Civil Rights struggle ends. In farcical idiocy, akin to the severely retarded and deformed Hapsburg Emperor who cried "I am the Emperor, and I want noodles!" at a state banquet.

The Help won't help Obama.
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Saturday, August 27, 2011

Steve Jobs And The End of Apple

Steve Jobs announced his resignation from Apple Computer. Is this the beginning of the end for Apple? Previously , I wrote that Apple is "trapped" in China. Without Jobs, that trap is likely to be sprung, making Apple just another HP, or Dell Computer. A commodity company making a commodity product.


Jobs, besides his design vision (less than appreciated, witness his famous "you're holding it wrong" video about the Iphone antenna screwup) understood what made Apple different. Which was software and hardware integration. Far more than rival products, Apple products "just worked." So they could charge a premium over rivals for making a system that ordinary people could use, mostly, without lots of help and hand-holding. Oh yes, there was the yuppie, SWPL-snob appeal, the trendiness, the design mastery, and the hype. But simply making things work was the core of Apple's success. There were other MP3 music players, and other smartphones before Apple. But none that made using either device so easy.

The danger for Apple is of course, China. Chinese contract manufacturers make almost everything for Apple. With Steve Jobs in place, Apple could cajole, threaten, and flatter China's top political leaders, because Jobs was a crony of Bill Clinton, Al Gore, and Barack Obama. Current or former Presidents and Vice Presidents and thus important. This is why Apple until recently was not the target of widespread gray-market manufacturing and selling. The clone-Apple Stores opening up by pirate retailers, with genuine Apple merchandise, was evidence of Steve Jobs being unable to fulfill this role.

Yes, successor Tim Cook is quite able in wringing inefficiencies and costs out of Apple's supply chain. But that was not the skill-set of Steve Jobs, and what made Apple great. What made Apple great was stuff that just "worked" ... and keeping a flood of copy-cat merchandise out of places like Asia, Europe, Latin America, and North America. Cook lacks the connections and cronyism to top Democratic politicians needed to keep Chinese Contract Manufacturers, many of them connected to their own top political people, from simply running off lots of extra Iphones, Ipods, Mac laptops, and the like, and selling them for their own pure profit.

Really, what's Apple going to do? Sue the cousin of a top Politburo leader? When they flood not just China, but Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, Singapore, and Europe, and the Americas with the exact same kind of Ipod and Iphone made from the exact same factory as those Apple takes delivery of?

All that money is just sitting there, on the table. Apple has margins of around 35%, astonishing for a computer company (the industry average is about 4-8% or so) and in part that depends on there being limited, and Apple-authorized supply of their electronic merchandise. No, Best Buy and Amazon will not sell gray-market merchandise. But Mom and Pop retailer and swap meet and flea market folks will, at far less prices. At least part of the untold story of the DVD collapse in terms of prices has been the easy availability of DVDs from Asia on the semi-black market. The same factories that churn out say, copies of the latest Hollywood blockbuster on contract will inevitably run off millions more for their own sales. "Hostel" producer-director Eli Roth famously discovered copies of his movie on sale in Mexico city for what amounted to twenty-five US cents. They were pirated DVDs of course, but ran just the same. They were no doubt pressed from the very same factory that ran off officially authorized copies for sale in the US.

HP's discontinued tablet, selling at $99, was sold out in a matter of days. That's the price point for things like an Ipad. It is naive and unrealistic to expect Apple's manufacturers to not sell those things for about that price, one way or another. What the hell do they care about Apple's intellectual property? Contracts? Rule of Law? In China the rule is of crony, of power, of connections. And nothing else. The Red Emperors, Princes, and the like do as they please. Steve Jobs when he was healthy was able to delay this process, but even had he not been sick, these contract manufacturers would end up screwing Apple over. In order to make more bucks.

The "Chinese advantage" has always been a trap. Yes, manufacturing costs are far cheaper there, but producing things in China just makes it easier for the factory to run off millions more copies and sell them on their own. Apple post-Steve Jobs is going to be a wonderful example of just how much a trap the Chinese manufacturing cost-advantage really is, and how far a company can fall. When its previously expensive, hip, and trendy stuff gets sold like pirate DVDs.
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Thursday, August 18, 2011

Can We Have a Law … to Ban Rap Videos?

Recently, University of Alabama Sorority Girls posted a recruitment video on Youtube, singing a Chris Brown rap song (with different lyrics) and Rebecca Black's "Friday." Give boys a video camera and they're re-enact Jackass endlessly. Give girls a video camera, and they'll sing and dance (badly).





Perhaps the popularity of Rap videos among White girls (and guys) is how easy they are to ape. Classic 1980's videos require … actual singing. Rap means basically nasal and monotone well, rapping with no attempt at a melody, harmony, nothing but rhythm. Everything else is fixed in Auto-tune. It is striking however how the 1980's represented the last gasp of the traditional White rock/pop artist, with only niche (gay-fan created Lady Gaga) people remaining. All else is Rap, and Country, which should be the natural music of these young ladies (this is after all, the University of Alabama) is absent. No country songs mimicked (the Country artists put out tons of them, all easily accessible by the internet). Country is all over the radio, even out here in LA, and particularly in the South.

Maybe we do need a law. Banning both rap videos and any remakes of them by out of tune, off-pitch girls and boys. Its sad that all the girls could come up with was a Chris Brown rap video and Rebecca Black. Poorly made fashions of the moment.

That the girls are bad singers goes without saying. Singing well is a matter of both native talent and endless practice, usually acquired in a Church choir while children. The decline in Church attendance among other things radically reduced the amount of raw musical talent among Black and White populations alike. No wonder current music is so bad. No one can sing anymore. It certainly is indicative that Chris Brown, he of the beat-down administered to Rihanna, seems to have no problem with the sorority girls here. They are certainly willing to sing his rap song. No doubt his notoriety only made him more attractive as a model to copy.

The campus certainly looks pretty, though. No doubt it could stand in for any number of Ivy League schools. Ironically the University of Alabama entering Freshman are 84% White, and only 12% Black. Which matches both the South and the nation as a whole. Whites move heaven and earth to stay away from Black people physically, yet copy Black rap artists and athletes endlessly. Even if in the case of rappers, there is not any artistry. [Jazz and Blues and R&B Black musicians and composers are and were great artists, there is much wisdom in copying men and women who achieved great things: The Marsalis family, Marvin Gaye, Duke Ellington, and Billy Holliday (in singing only of course) are all great artists worthy of copying. Chris Brown is not.] White attitudes remain schizophrenic towards Blacks. Great artists regardless of color should be emulated for their greatness. Their music repeated, copied, admired. Those who are bad (which includes all rappers) should be ignored. It is very puzzling why these girls ignore the talented and far more musically interesting and melodic country artists they can hear on the radio in favor of … rhythm only Rappers or bad internet sensations.

The girls don't even want to be this girl:



They'd rather be Chris Brown or Rebecca Black. How sad is that?
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Tuesday, August 16, 2011

Business Gives Up on Obama

The Orange County Register has an interesting piece about business leaders blasting Obama. Of course. Most Business leaders have given up on Obama. They are poised to discreetly fund a Republican challenger. Oh, not all business people have given up on the Chosen Won. Significant portions of Silicon Valley still love the guy, even if IPOs are close to half a decade away (and thus cash-out points for Venture Capitalists are ever more distant). Hollywood loves Obama too, no one in Hollywood cares if films make money or not, they get paid up front regardless (because they expect cheating on the residual/profit sharing to be so rampant they don't bother or care). But most business leaders have given up on Obama. Because he's made them significantly less wealthy.


Charlie Munger, Warren Buffett's Vice-Chairman, has said that:

"I think I've been in the top 5% of my age cohort all my life in understanding the power of incentives, and all my life I've underestimated it," Warren Buffett's business partner, Charlie Munger, once said. "And never a year passes but I get some surprise that pushes my limit a little farther."


Machiavelli said it more succinctly in the Prince: that a man will sooner forgive the murder of his parents than being made poor. Obama has made the wealthy corporate leaders of America, well most of them, significantly less wealthy. Not poor, but not what they expected.

The first to be affected were property moguls. Guys like Donald Trump. Shopping malls, luxury condos, office towers, were all hit hard by the recession, and Obama piling on investment choking regulations, uncertainties, and costs. Cheap interest costs did not combat people not shopping (and closing of anchor stores like say, Borders) at malls, or not buying luxury condos (at expected prices) or cutbacks in office space. These folks were sunk-cost trapped, they could not just dump and run. So you had considerable push-back from these types, and Trump flirted with running against Obama.

The next to be affected were those CEOs with significant stock in their companies, or compensated with options. Which is most of the big company CEOs. As long as cheap money from "Helicopter Ben" Bernanke and Turbo-Tax Tim Geithner pumped up risky assets like stocks and bonds, all was well. Even if their companies long-term growth prospects in the US were about zero. They didn't care -- they were making money. China was going to grow forever! And reality set in. Even before the stock market turbulence, earnings were sliding, in internal reports these guys were reading, and they knew enough that stock prices would slide too. Making many if not most of their options utterly useless. And reducing their paper wealth in stocks significantly. Often at 30% or more haircuts.

So if you want to know (Brian Calle of the OC Register is correct, this is very unusual) why Steve Wynn of Wynn Resorts, or Bernie Marcus of Home Depot, or Andy Puzder of CKE are blasting Obama, it is because he made them significantly less rich. He lost them money. And they in turn will do their best to fire him.

No, it is not a "done deal." Obama has many cards to play. Republicans could select someone unelectable (Michelle Bachman, who while admirably Tea Party conservative, is hated by most White Professional women who in my view hold the key to victory). Romney could prove weak and McCain like in confronting Obama (a likely bet). Rick Perry could be painted as George Bush Returns. But very likely, Obama will not be raising huge amounts of money from Corporate America. Sure, Hollywood will kick in. So will Silicon Valley. But that's about it.

Meaning, Obama's likely to play big, some Gotterdammerung attempt, to change everything. Failing the usual Chicago method of digging up dirt or phony court challenges, expect lots of riots and race-baiting. It is the Chicago way.
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Tuesday, August 9, 2011

England Falls


England has fallen. Quicker than I would have thought. Home Secretary Theresa May rules out use of the Army, Water Cannons. The situation is spiraling out of control. High Street areas, the ritzy places of Kensington, Notting Hill, and other "tony" areas have had rioters looting patrons of two-star Michelin restaurants. While Home Secretary May declares that "policing is done with the consent of communities." Code words for no action that the Black, Pakistani Muslim, and now Indian groups that have effectively colonized England would object to, will be taken. As the MP for Northern Ireland notes, both the Army and Water Cannon have been used within the past year in Ireland. But against ... Whites. Not Blacks, Pakistanis, or Indians. As the picture from the Daily Mail shows, a thug (Black) forces a White guy to hand over his clothes. The purpose being simple humiliation (the clothes won't fit).


Meanwhile riots have spread to other cities. Bristol, Birmingham, and Liverpool. Olympic officials are said to be mulling yanking the Olympics from London and awarding them to some other city on an emergency basis. There are not enough police, those that have been mobilized from other cities ... like Bristol are now stuck in London, where they have been fleeing rioters. The police can use no force against the mob, and the mob (nearly all Black or Pakistani or Indian depending on the section of the city) know it. The police are exhausted, working 18 shifts and limited when they do confront the mob to batons and pepper spray. Which will not cut it.

At this point, the utter weakness of England's rulers is exposed. The rulers cannot even secure the property and persons of people in tony, ritzy areas. Notting Hill and Kensington are very, very rich. Islamists and Jihadists will see this weakness and mobilize their own people to create their own mini-states. Enforced by brutal action. What will England do in response? Police by consent?

Here is the end of PC Britain. As feckless as JK Rowlings Ministry of Magic, against Voldemort. With a politically correct female Home Secretary ruling out anything that would offend Black or Muslim-Pakistani mobs. [There are a few White kids engaged in the mob violence, but is vastly Black or Pakistani-Muslim.] And of course if say, Choudary can set up his own mini Islamic Republic (and rest assured he will) inside Britain, so too can hordes of people from very poor countries in North Africa or Africa come there and simply set up where ever they want. Taking what they want. If a mob can rob the tony patrons of a tony restaurant, why not Buckingham Palace? After all, that's the consent of the Community! And why not have, say, half of Libya or Morocco show up at Dover Beach? Ready to take over? That's the price of PC weakness. Of diversity. Of Multiculturalism.


England is finished. Over. Done. Dead. There is no one in the Conservative, Liberal, Labor, or any other party save the BNP willing to use force to preserve what is left of traditional England. No one. [No, not even the UKIP.] And the BNP has no real support in Parliament to form a government. There is no one with any will. To save what is left of England would require shooting hundreds if not thousands of rioters, quite dead, at this point. Locking the rest up, in ugly penal colonies in the South Atlantic while they freeze to death (with ample documentation) and targeted payoffs to certain agitators with the promise of a trip to the Antarctic if deals are not kept (and making examples of deal-breakers). As Machiavelli wrote, it is far easier to rectify things when the situation has not reached a crisis. Early diagnosis of social ills offer remedies that are far less drastic. But no one in England has the courage or will to act, which at this point means killing lots of rioters and nothing else.

What will take its place, is rule by mob of certain enclaves. Black leaders emerging from the mob will rule certain parts of London, which will look like African hell-hole cities, only colder and with snow. Pakistani Muslim leaders will do the same with other sections of major cities which will also be hell holes. And fleeing mob non-White rule will be a host of Englishmen and women. Who will be the first but not last European refugees effectively ethnically cleansed out of their own nation.

France will probably take most of them. And they'll be the core of what promises to be an ugly and angry fight over the ethnic cleansing of Whites out of native European lands. No real effective action can be taken against the mob in the UK. The authorities retain enough power to prevent people from fighting back (as in much of the Harry Potter books the Ministry of Magic's main goal was preventing any fighting back against Voldemort). But people will vote with their feet, even as shuffling refugees into France.

Who will stop the violence? Who will prevent rioters from simply taking more, and more, and more? Who is stopping them now from stripping White passer-by of their ... CLOTHES!

No one. So the rioters will simply take more. Because there is no one to stop them. And they will rule. That is quite obvious. But would you want to live under the rule of the jumped up mob leaders sure to emerge as "rulers" of fragmented England? They won't even be able to keep the power flowing, or sewage processed, or trash picked up. Meanwhile the "government" will be a shattered hulk unable to provide much of anything other than endless punishment to the White natives who are now quite visibly second or third class people in their own lands. Perhaps a few goodies will be handed out, but that is it. Control over London, and most cities, have been given over to the mobs, and there is no means to take it back. Nor will this stuff be confined to cities, it will spread to the countryside as well. Because there is stuff there to take, and no one to stop them.

So out of desperation, people will shuffle into France like WWII refugees, with what pitiable possessions they have left, and form the most visible but not the last examples of ethnic cleansing of White natives in Europe.

England has fallen. It will never be restored to what it was. What will remain is fragmented, non-White kingdoms and Big Man pseudo republics run by folks like Choudary. Islamic mini-kingdoms and the like, conquering England without much trouble. An object lesson of the stupidity of PC, Diversity, Multiculturalism, and the rest. At least the French will know, as will the Italians, the Germans, the Spanish, the Irish, and the rest, what awaits them.

Camp of the Saints arrived in the form of London riots. Because the saints were already there, people just would not see them (again, like the refusal to recognize Voldemort in the Potter books). Of course, there are now a whole lot of people who had something, a bit of property, made dirt poor overnight, in a place where its terrible to be poor, and White. Burnt out shops, stores, homes, and such. Survivors of those undoubtedly slain in riots and arson. These people will make Travis Bickle look like Barney the Dinosaur. And they won't be a loner like Bickle, rather, organized. It was one thing for the OAS to try and retain a lost dream of Algeria. It will be another thing for a whole generation of Englishmen wanting to reclaim England, from exile in France. Ask the Israelis how it works out, with a camp of seething with resentment, exiles on your borders, dreaming of revenge and return of property. That is what awaits the new possessors of England, after their inevitable victory. As Machiavelli advised, humiliation is unwise, better to kill your enemy than leave him poor and alive. Undoubtedly the White guy forced to strip and hand over his clothes will have a life-long hatred for Blacks, and just as undoubtedly the picture in the Daily Mail will generate both fear and anger in the White British population. Which has no desire to experience the same.

Pictures have power. That picture, is bound to enrage most White Britons. Who fear it happening to them. And who are too numerous to kill.

Camp of the Saints is ultimately not sustainable, because it is one thing to force a man to hand over his clothes by reason of your superior legal and physical position (the White guy knows if he resists he will be both beaten by a much larger and stronger man, and go to jail in the bargain). It is quite another thing to keep trash off the streets, or the power going, or raw sewage safely processed. And another to build a modern military force capable of killing people efficiently in large numbers. Eventually those cleansed out will return, or their descendants, and they will be "Potter-like" in the battle finally against Voldemort, willing to make appalling sacrifices to end the threat once and for all.

The one caveat is that the UK Military, primarily the Army, could possibly step in with all other elements of society failing, and shoot half the rioters, with the approval of the Queen, and the majority British public. But that would entail a military rule and suspension of Parliament, PC, Multiculturalism, and the like. I don't see that happening, frankly. Just more of the same in the picture. There is a reason that the current government is not willing to have the Army act, and that Labor is not calling for them either. The concessions the Army would demand would be too great. So England will fall, very far, and very fast.

All that is left is the rising of the Cromwell figure, in exile, in France. Where the French White natives look in fear and wonder and demand something be done on their own situation.

Who wants PC and Multiculturalism and Diversity if all it gets you is being stripped of your clothes (and everything else)? And that's all it does get you, in the end.

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It Won't Be a Taxi Driver Summer

One of the seminal films of the 20th Century was Martin Scorsese's "Taxi Driver." A story of a troubled man (a Vietnam Vet) quite literally driven insane by the insane city around him. The current unrest of a "Long Hot Summer" with outright riots in London and Black "Flash Mobs" in the US is unlikely to produce any reaction other than flight and opt-out from the overwhelming mass of the White middle class public. Because Middle Class people even crazy ones have too much to lose. But opt-out and flight have their own consequences, far more severe than any random act of violence.


Here are a few scenes showing the power of screenwriter Paul Schrader and Director Scorsese's vision:








In the movie, the sick and dysfunctional city makes Travis Bickle even crazier. Only a quirk of fate leads him to kill people who need killing (the pimps, hustlers, and corrupt cops keeping a 12 year old as a prostitute) instead of the Senatorial candidate. In other words, a Breivik who kills say, vicious pimps instead of school kids on a resort island. Bickle like Breivik is of course quite scary in that his insanity is matched by organizational toughness. A corrupt, lawless city has a thriving black market in guns. Bickle is obsessive about working out. His initial idiotic dry run on the Secret Service leads to a change of plans and a sudden Mohawk (completely changing his appearance). Crazy cities create and nurture crazy people.

But that's just a movie. And real life is not a movie. In real life, Morgan Freeman is not the voice of God, but a weird guy aiming to marry his (adopted) Grand-daughter. In real life, Woody Allen is not a charmingly neurotic artist but a guy who married his step-daughter. In real life, Whoopi Goldberg is not the Wise Black Woman but a nutty host on "the View." In real life, we've had about fifty plus years of multicultural, PC-driven, "anti-racist" stuff that tolerates the kind of scum that made Bickle wish for a real rain to wash it all away.

And the type of rampages aimed against PC and Multiculturalism amount to just one: Breivik. That's it. Oh sure there's the "Beta Male Rampage" (probably not the best word for it) of disturbed guys like Cho, Sodini, and others. The killings of various jihadis, probably including the Beltway Snipers, Lee Boyd Malvo and John Mohammed. But the only guy who even approximates Travis Bickle in the last fifty years is some Norwegian guy who was a Freemason, an organic farmer, and a member of the middle class who spoke another language (English) and could write it as well.

There won't be any violence against "the Long Hot Summer" of Black Flash Mobs, and various organized lootings/beatings/robberies/arsons (as in London). Because its a LOT easier to simply run away. Opt out. Stay away.

REITs (Real Estate Investment Trusts) are going to pay a heavy price. All those yuppies wanting to move to city centers to find better mates, are going to re-think and move to the suburbs when their leases are up. New leases and sales will be hard to come by, and heavily discounted, hurting cash flow and rates of return. Thus you'll see heavy pressure on mayors and such to do what it takes, to suppress the mobs, but likely far after anything effective short of the National Guard remains.

Meanwhile, Amazon looks to reap rewards from people stopping their mall-shopping habits in favor of online shopping. Netflix, Amazon, and other online video folks will benefit as people seek entertainment at home, and online dating places will gain as people shun city centers as mate-market auctions. Bars and restaurants will hurt, and telecom providers win, as the shift to opt-out becomes easier.

No one wants to live in Travis Bickle's world. Even in the mid 1970's, it was relatively easy to avoid the hell of NYC for suburban places. Now its even easier. Which has several strategic implications.

First, an opt-out White population is going to want specific subsidies aimed at THEM, and have little patience for the populations that in effect cleansed them out of public spaces. This means no money for Black/Hispanic public schools, and lots of money for online education. The same goes for Welfare, TANF, WIC, and so on. Travis Bickle shooting a pimp and some corrupt cops and johns doesn't fix a corrupt to the core NYC. But White flight/opt-out changes the funding completely.

Secondly, the "magic" of the First Black President is over. He's now, Tyrone Willingham. People demand results. A miserable economy, a lost AAA credit rating, a stock market dive, and a "Long Hot Summer" of Black Flash Mobs and possibly, London-style riots/arson/looting won't cut it. People expect results. Obama had about three years to produce results, and considerable good will, all gone now. Hostility and intimidation is likely to produce, not surrender but opt-out. It is not the 1960's any more. People are experiencing hard times themselves, have no sympathy for rioters, and are more likely to agree with the basic desires of a Travis Bickle if not the methods.

Third, the impact of Black Flash Mobs has been to harden racial attitudes (basically, the view that Blacks and Hispanics are dead-weight that White America would do well to shed in a desperate economic struggle). A "Long Hot Summer" won't result in vigilantes, but a ruthless restructuring to regain economic competitiveness and exclusion of non-Whites and non-Asians from most public expenditures and public life. Gone: Affirmative Action (too expensive). Gone: policies investing in urban centers (hostile territory to the White Yuppie/Middle class). Gone: investing in education and in particular physical public schools. Gone: faith in the elite to even tie their own shoelaces, much less order the nation from the food people eat to light bulbs in their homes. Gone: legitimacy or even interest in the media, which has acted to suppress information about the Black Flash Mobs.

The worst thing that would happen for the Liberal Welfare State and the associated NGOs (Ford, Pew, Annenberg, and Gates Foundations), talking heads, permanent governing class, and media hangers on would be a "Long Hot Summer" of most American cities burning down in racially motivated riots. Something like that is impossible to ignore, and will harden attitudes of the pressed White middle and working class immediately. It is not 1968. Whites are not likely to react with buy-off appeasement and guilt. Indeed, 1968 is as distant to us in 2011 as 1925 and the Jazz Age was to 1968 and the original "Long Hot Summer." Flappers and Al Capone were as relevant to the time of the Watts Riots as Martin Luther King's assassination is to us today.

Margaret Thatcher said that the problem with Welfare States is that they eventually run out of other people's money. The problem is far worse, and accelerated, when there is a huge economic dead weight of those with far lower wealth. The Wealth Gap per household is $113,000 for Whites, $6,000 for Hispanics, and $5,000 for Blacks (median net household wealth) according to the Pew Foundation.

Hard pressed White households, watching say Cleveland, Detroit, Philly, and Obama's hometown of Chicago burn, mostly fueled by Black mobs, in a "Long Hot Summer" are likely to conclude that hey, the money would go a LOT further, and be spent on THEM, if say, those people were included out of the disbursements.

People want results. Notre Dame and Washington have not hired another Black coach since Tyrone Willingham. With the great turn-over in college and pro coaches, Willingham is not coaching currently according to Wikipedia. Obama had a long leash to produce results as the First Black President, but even he had to produce results. His likely play of Chicago-style politics (all he knows) of urging the mobs forward, and then posing as "the one man able to turn off the violence" is likely to only further harden attitudes.

It won't be a Taxi Driver Summer. No matter what sort of riots and mobs happen. Bickle is a sad, crazy figure because he's totally alone, and the alienating city only makes that worse (by making nearly impossible any social connections the character wants). But he's just words on a page and a performance by a gifted actor. He wasn't and isn't real. He's just a character. Real life features not White violence in mobs or vigilantes but massive opting out and a reshaping of the social and political and economic life of America. The challenges are just too great.

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