Christopher Hitchens’ well-honed and well-worn blade has been put to many individuals throughout his extensive (though, now we must realize, always too short) career, and now one can say it has been put to no one more justified, at least in the popular mindset. While facing controversy that was his homestead in scorching, well-researched books against Mother Teresa among others, little of such would understandably be expected here. It cannot be an understatement to say that few individuals have shaped American culture and politics in the last fifty years, at least, as Osama bin Laden.

This compact e-book ‘single’, something we might call a long essay, does concise yet thorough work of grasping the presence of bin Laden both in his vile, formative work before September 11th as well as in the American zeitgeist after. While there was neither room nor need to delve into anything that might terribly surprise the average reader in this piece, I do think Hitchens succeeds in his usual brilliant way on two very key issues that Americans (and the rest of the world) should carefully bear in mind int he wake of bin Laden’s death, woven through as it is with cliches about chapters and eras coming to a close.

First, Hitchens quickly but surgically dismantles any notions, arguably fringe as they may be, that percolate (I’m tempted to say ‘infest) the left in particular from thinkers that like to make either clumsily imply or recklessly, thoughtlessly proclaim outright that bin Laden, in so many words, isn’t such a bad guy and is merely acting in justified, even admirable retaliation against the imperialistic bullying of the United States. One can hear the same disjointed harmonies at work in the words of Ron Paul and others, even within the last week, in regards to Iran in particular. Hitchens offers more of the few pages here than these notions deserve, and promptly reminds the reader of the reasoning behind bin Laden’s body of work–9/11 included–that show the ultimate desire of returning the region to an Islamic caliphate that then grows to encompass the world. No imperialism here, right? While he only very passingly gives nod to the very morally robust position of humanitarian intervention against accusations of imperialism, he’s written on it extensively elsewhere and anyone needing to guess at his thoughts on this facet of the argument would be insulting him.

The other key point, larger and more important, I would argue, is the overarching reminder that the war against terrorism–against totalarian rule, theocratic or otherwise–is quite genuinely and endless one, which might be something of a defeatist were it not so eminently (and imminently) true as well as being the most justified war there is, the one most worth fighting and so necessary (and available) to fight at every turn. This idea permeates this short text–that while perhaps we can agree a specific chapter has ended, one spectre of many put to dust, the book won’t ever end we cannot become complacent in fighting it. It feels too tempting to not let Hitchens speak for this point himself; he ends ‘The Enemy’ with the following:

“But it is in this struggle that we develop the muscles and sinews that enable us to defend civilization, and the moral courage to name it as something worth fighting for. As the cleansing ocean washes over bin Laden’s carcass, may the earth lie lightly on the countless graves of this he sentenced without compunction to be burned alive or dismembered in the street.”

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It’s par for the course after the bigger political debates to open along the lines of, “As the dust settles…”, but what remains of the current GOP field mostly chose not to kick up much dust in the two debates this past weekend in New Hampshire–at least not much dust in the direction of Mitt Romney’s continued march toward the nomination. Aside from the first 15 minutes of Sunday morning’s debate, when moderater David Gregory of NBC’s Meet the Press gift-wrapped an opening salvo to the non-Romneys by asking everyone why he should not be the nominee, the in-fighting seemed to entirely be among those looking for second-place prominence. An observer might have inched a bit toward the edge of their seat watching the swings beginning to rain in from one podium to the next, but the excitement and higher expectations after a rather dull debate Saturday night was short lived.

While the other candidates muddied up the waters around one another, Romney walked out of the weekend’s rhetorical blitzkrieg almost entirely unscathed, having deflected most attacks with his usual if unadorned calm, and absorbing a couple of others that will continue to plague him (his actual efficacy at Bain as a ‘job creator’, his tin ear for the concerns of the middle or lower classes) but only enough to keep him from ever becoming the GOP darling–the party’s nomination continues to be his to lose.

The real bombshell in my view came from this astonishing remark by Newt Gingrich from Saturday night’s debate, in which he literally proclaims that the ‘secular bigotry’ (gone, as everything else Newt cares about, with zero coverage by the liberal media) in this country amounts to there being more anti-Christian bigotry than ‘what concerns the other side’, in reference to what seems to be both the secular and LGBT communities. While we can always count on Newt to be Newt, the linked clip cuts out directly before Romney states he’s in categorical agreement with Newt’s sentiments. Mitt might have just been a little confused of course, as he continues to oppose gay marriage even though Sunday morning he stated that the LGBT community should have ‘full rights in this country’.

This is a proclamation of criminally privileged and ignorant proportions–one would think that Newt, fond of citing his being a historian (as well, apparently, as an ‘amateur paleontologist‘) would have a more informed and nuanced grasp of the contemporary landscape of bigotry in this country. One cannot help but passingly see more truth in the corollary Gingrich gets giddy about implicitly drawing between himself and Stephen Douglas, who argued against the abolishment of slavery in the famed debates.

While I never waste an opportunity to point out the way those in power time and time again show their insecurity in untoward, unwarranted, overly-telling defensiveness, this example might be the most mind-numbing in the campaign thus far. One wishes the moderators had pressed this point, and I’m sad to see that the media (as biased as it is in favor of this ‘bigotry’) has let it mostly fly without any of the scathing scrutiny it absolutely deserves. One wants to know about how, say, Christians cannot get married in this country. Or perhaps Newt could cite us examples of Christian children bullied into suicide because of their beliefs? Much like statements by Perry, Bachmann, and others that they are unashamed and unapologetic Christians (ashamed at whose discretion? who demands of them an apology, in this country?) it goes to show the continued stance that by granting basic equality in this country, Christians are indeed without a shred of shame in declaring such moves trample on their rights. Which rights, precisely? The only answer can be the right to continue their faith-based, bigoted oppression of anyone to whom their backwards, iron-age magic books give them license.

Saturday night’s GOP debate in New Hampshire is looking increasingly like the most important so far and will go a long way in etching the positions of the remaining contenders into stone. While the New Hampshire race itself is all but decided, with Mitt Romney continuing his frontrunner status with a  20-point lead over Ron Paul, who finished third in Iowa–but the two debates this weekend, a mere ten hours apart, will offer a crucial opportunity not only in the looming contest in the social-conservative stronghold of South Carolina, but the rest of the primary season. That opportunity is to throw a boulder onto the tracks of the Romney campaign, which may lack much luster but persists on towards the candidacy with an unflappable calm that may be Romney’s largest asset at this point.

With the debates falling only two days before the New Hampshire contest, and South Carolina eleven days later, there will be little to no chance to mitigate any damage should  scathing rhetorical attacks or gaffes pop up on the center stage.

Mitt Romney’s primary goal will be to keep the ship steady. His persistence rests in both the moderate conservatism that the other candidates continue to attack, and his presidential demeanor. While he doesn’t flash in the debates, he’s managed to deflect or absorb most attacks without stumbling over his own feet, and that’s all he needs to do tonight and tomorrow. Romney can even afford to take a few shots across the bow–his lead is large enough that all he needs to do is avoid any critical hits, probably coming from the direction of Newt Gingrich, and he’ll waltz through the upcoming contests, probably wrapping up the GOP season by February.

Rick Santorum is enjoying a bit of a surge out of his narrow second-place showing in Iowa, though one should consider how impressive it really is for a hard-line social conservative to do so. While Santorum is finally receiving his turn at the not-Romney slot in the field and the accompanying increase in exposure, he’s also suffering from it–his support for extreme Catholic moral positions, such as the idea that contraception is destroying the country and that gay marriage will utterly rend the fabric of the family unit, will continue to isolate him not only in the larger GOP climate but will forever bode ill for his appeal in the general election that he’ll never see. His appeal will see a bit more cheering in South Carolina, but other than that his moment in the limelight appears that it’ll be as short as the other flavor-of-the month surges.

Much has been made about what we might see out of Newt Gingrich, whose debate performances have all but defined his various surges up to this point. There’s no questioning his political experience and rhetorical shrewdness will pay some dividends yet again coming out these debates, but he more than anyone needs to walk a fine line in targeting Romney. If Newt comes out swinging too hard, he’ll score the appropriate blows, but risks sacrificing a similar Romney-esque appeal of a sort of relaxed confidence; if he comes across as desperate or rabid he’ll net a loss and will have missed his last real chance to return to the elite tier of the current GOP spread.

Ron Paul looks to continue in his usual role of what I’ve termed ‘distant prominence’–it allows him the luxury of some time in the spotlight and his share of applause, but he doesn’t look to have much opportunity in these debates or the near future to gain much more support. While much is being said about Romney’s apparent ceiling among GOP voters, Ron Paul has essentially made a career out of campaigning from an even lower one. This offers him a bit of luxury–he’s more safely positioned than anyone to really target Romney and Santorum with every scathing bit of the arsenal he has at hand. It’d be interesting to see him pull ammunition from his libertarian stances and take apart Santorum’s dogmatic treatment  of certain personal liberties, though I doubt we’ll see much of this, as Paul knows this would detrimental, to some extent, to his own base. He’s wise to consolidate discourse around his main applause-points and take what swipes he can along different lines.

Rick Perry  faces a daunting situation–after a confusing (confused?) turn-around after Iowa, where he stated he was returning to Texas to ‘reassess’ his campaign, he came out less than 12 hours later to say the fight was back on. He shows no more than the most minimal support in any of the upcoming primaries and with two rapid-fire debates standing as the last real opportunity to recharge the various campaigns, Perry faces a spotlight that has been very unkind to him, with several poor performances and gaffes dissolving his previous surging support almost literally overnight.

Jon Huntsman has staked nearly everything in New Hampshire, and last I read he’s going to be lucky to break into double-digit results. While at times awkward and baffling, Huntsman has also offered some of the most reasoned and coherent thoughts on both the economy and foreign policy. One sort of feels that this is simply too young in his political career to be attempting a serious run at the candidacy–he simply isn’t known. His assured, relatively poor showing in New Hampshire would seem to all but end his campaign, which I think will be to the detriment of the rest of the season and the remaining debates, as I think he offers a certain freshness and balance. I would expect we’ll see Huntsman again in 2016 and with a much more prominent showing.

A rather strange article here that, among other things, feels the need in its headline to articulate that there would be ‘downsides’ to sanctions against Iran’s oil exports and  doesn’t seem to make the connection that such sanctions targeted specifically at Iran’s oil market wouldn’t fall into the realm of ‘economic sanctions’, which is apparently what ‘some analysts’ (oh convenient, lazy ambiguity) cite as preferable.

More importantly it evinces further sweat on the brow of many that seem to be erring toward superfluous caution towards Iran based explicitly on the inevitable effects on the price of gasoline at home. Implied here is a sort of hostage situation where those urging continued caution–a code word, it seems here, for appeasement–where Iran stands ready with a gun that only shoots rubber bullets. That is all to say, they can’t kill us, they can only make us uncomfortable with the only thing they have to bargain with, and they’re trying to keep us uncomfortable enough that we leave them alone while they work towards a real gun with real bullets. Their logic seems to be that we will be in a dangerous situation when the world’s leading madman gets the most destructive force ever known at his fingertips, but golly at least gas will stay under four dollars a gallon.

I have some empathy here–this logic appeals to what we know of the general American temperament, which certainly reinforces the notion that Iran is quite far away and they haven’t got The Bomb -yet-, so the capricious lethality that awaits a nuclear Iran doesn’t feel nearly as concrete or pressing as soaring gas prices during economic turmoil.

The problem is that if we wait for the former to become concrete, thus causing the latter to shrink in scale by comparison, it’ll most likely already be too late to do anything about it. We have to operate with a longer-term landscape in mind or we’ll very surely be facing a world where  long-term existence itself becomes questionable–when one cannot assume a future awaits while standing in such a destabilized global community with nuclear arsenals becoming more common rather than less so.

Meanwhile, the United States naval presence in the region that Iran continues to decry with growing desperation and empty threats has been generous enough to rescue 13 Iranian sailors and their vessel from pirates in the Arabian Sea. Apparently while Iran continues to say they could easily shut down shipping lanes through the Strait of Hormuz, one can only assume that they could even more easily protect their own sailors from some high-sea miscreants but for some reason have chosen not to.

Grisly and apt comparisons between North Korea and a prison or hostage situation were needlessly, grimly reinforced yet again this week as sources in both China as well as from activist groups in South Korea report that three middle-aged North Korean men were shot dead by border guards as they attempted to defect into the Chinese border county of Changbai across the frozen Yalu river.

It seems worth noting that it’s telling of the situation inside North Korea that a country with China’s track record on human rights and freedom is a shining oasis of hope, worthy of risking nearly certain death to reach. Defections from North Korea are obviously nothing new, and the grave accounts given by those who’ve survived to say as much are always sobering against the recent backdrop of outpourings of sadness shown by  North Korean state-controlled media–the only media around, of course.

What is new is the blatant disregard shown now by these border guards, operating under ever-tightening orders from not only the new Dear Leader but the new Supreme Commander, Kim Jong-Un. As the AFP article elaborates, the violent denial of escape by these guards has been communicated freely to those in the border city they had fled, ensuring that no doubt remains in the minds of a starved, stunted, and desperate people as to what awaits any further attempts.

This news deflates any hope for change in North Korea’s interaction with the rest of the world as South Korea has rather absurdly sent a mourning delegation to the north while expressing optimism for better relations in the wake of Kim Jong-Il’s death. His well-groomed (and insultingly well-fed) heir couldn’t be less interested in relaxed relations or borders–like any tyrant worth his salt, he knows his pudgy, iron grip on power only continues by keeping his hostages at bay.

At least, one can assume, not one they intend to actually draw if any modicum of sensible political leadership exists in a country so long held in hand by its clerics.

Just as in the case of North Korea, prominent yet again in the newscycle with their freshly-minted Dear Leader, Iran continues to suffer from what I can only think to call Empty-Scabbard Syndrome. You can only rattle about for so long before everyone involved learns the threat is hollow and treat you as so much white noise.

Tenuous relations between the US and Iran have continued to deteriorate as of late, triggered by a recent report from the United Nations nuclear watchdog agency that offered all necessary evidence that Iran is continuing work towards obtaining nuclear weapons, escalating once again the Great Fear of our era–that is to say, the anxiety over just what might happen when a madman of Ahmadinejad’s proportions gets hold of weaponry to match his psychopathic ambitions. Left unhindered, we’re surely not far from getting our answer.

The latest and most desperate chest pounding has come late this week as Iran has threatened to use its military to close the Strait of Hormuz, through which tankers carrying about a fifth of the world’s oil must  travel. Time Magazine’s esteemed Mark Thompson has thoroughly analyzed the credibility of this particular threat, and while it would certainly cause at least a temporary increase in the cost of oil and thus enact a kind of counter-sanction, it would seem everyone knows–including Iran–that the only real loser were things to get that far would be Iran itself. Simply put, not only is Iran incapable of militarily standing up to the United States (and others, and there would no doubt be others) for more than a few weeks by even the most generous estimates, Iran would be in no condition or position to incur their inevitable losses. As Thompson is astute to point out, without yet having a nuclear arsenal with which to bargain, this particular oil thoroughfare is the only real chip they have to play with. Unfortunately, it’s not worth all that much, even if they decide to play it.

Iran’s huffing about has come in response to a new round of sanctions backed by both the United States and Europe that would seek to hit a slightly different oil pipeline–the economic routes by which Iran profits from its oil exports. These sanctions would be nothing short of crippling to Iran’s already shambling economy, and one might even speculate on how this might further stir the youthful ire present in the country, particularly in light of how such uprisings, fueled by the young, have spread throughout the Middle East in the so-called Arab Spring. Economic conditions played central roles in nearly every country we’ve seen rebellion flourish, and it’d be foolish to expect Iran to not have noticed this as well. Their accelerated posturing goes a long way in showing how anxious they are over how these newest sanctions from the Obama administration might affect them. They must also realize that any moves to hinder oil shipping would affect many more countries than the United States, and while the US can strategically use targeted sanctions, Iran’s Hormuz chip is the equivalent of a carpet bomb, with which they’d surely burn more bridges than they’d like.

It will be interesting to see how all of this plays out here at home as we step into a presidential election year that will see every move by President Obama highly scrutinized. It would indeed seem that any moves that cause an increase in gas prices in the US would work negatively against any incumbent president, particularly once facing harsh criticism over his efficacy in economic matters.

But the US is also a country that seems increasingly uncomfortable with a global landscape involving a nuclear Iran, and against a backdrop of a GOP field full of hawkish posturing of their own, Obama’s economic warfare–especially as it produces greater results–has the benefit of striking Iran where it really hurts, while avoiding (at least for now) additional literal warfare, of which the US as a whole has grown rather tired.

Either way, Iran has no route no route to nuclear armament, at least not a one that wouldn’t cost them more than they should reasonably be willing to suffer, though wondering at how reasonable one can expect them to act under the circumstances is fair. One hopes that the American people will smartly be willing to stomach a short-term hit at the gas pump in order to not have to stomach the far scarier scenario of allowing Iran a real trump card with which to play.

The Shiite Prime Minister of Iraq, Nuri al-Maliki, has not had long to wait to see how quickly and to what volume the inevitable statement would be made in the wake of the withdrawal of US troops from the turbulent country. Whether or not the wave of some twenty explosions that took at least 65 lives with another 200 wounded ends up being claimed by al Qaeda or insurgent forces, there is now the expected and larger question of what kind of Iraq we will see under al-Maliki moving forward.

The questions we should not entertain however are the predictable outcries–ranging now from Iraq’s own Finance minister to unimaginative talking points coming from both political parties in the US–that are quick to blame the withdrawal of troops and the larger intervention itself as the linchpins for all such violence. These are the same folks that seem strangely oblivious to the rather long history of such turmoil in Iraq, particularly involving the civilian population of whom attacks from all sides draw causalities both intended and not.

Having watched Saddam’s unchecked campaign of genocide, so many of these voices both thought and continue to think that one of the must justified humanitarian interventions the modern world has ever seen was to be lamented, and having then complained about the war they somehow find the nerve to complain that we’ve left. They claim so much of the violence is the fault of the intervention, again ignoring Iraq’s long history and then thinking we should be dissuaded from removing those like Saddam, cornerstones of totalitarian violence and oppression, because his apprentice thugs might get angry and attempt to do everything necessary to make us think twice. Well, they certainly make some of us think twice, but for shame against those who would rather passively watch the slaughter continue saying it’s none of our business. This worldview only works to justify Osama bin Laden’s oft-repeated pep-talks to his murderous crew that while the fighting of the Soviets was really hard fighting and a rigorous jihad, that taking down the Americans would be easy, afraid as he says we are of fighting for any of the things we claim to believe in, that we’re ‘queer’ and ‘feminized’ and can’t take casualties or real warfare no matter what’s at stake.

Of course we’ve incurred additional violence for our efforts, but I’d argue to anyone that we’ve merely added justification to those minds that didn’t need any more than they already had in attacking civilians to make their point. Those that say there’d be a more peaceful Iraq without the intervention are morons of a tremendous order, completely ignoring the myriad, gruesome, sickening reasons that drew us to intervene to begin with. It barely takes even a cursory review of the Hussein regime to quiet these arguments completely.

Regardless, the intervention has ended. While a handful of troops and our relatively inept statecraft and nation-building fingerprints will remain for quite a while, Iraq today is in fact a far more liberated place than it was beforehand, if not nearly as well off as it could be. And regardless of everything that has come before, this is now al-Maliki’s Iraq. He must be the leader that stands in opposition to every last ideal that his predecessor stood for. In the vacuum left behind by the US withdrawal, much more violence and general disarray will surely follow. al-Maliki must do whatever necessary to establish a clear, cohesive direction for Iraq that bears the hallmark of the future its people deserve–one of a democratic government that will stand for no more unpunished violence or oppression of its people. If al-Maliki and his broader leadership do not work quickly and formidably to fill this vacuum, it’d be an insult to any thinking person to wonder what will fill it for him. Iraq will be filled with either reason and democracy, or it will continue to be filled with many, many graves of the innocent.

The always astute Luke Russert drew the wise and amusing comparison today between the latest obstructionist measures by Speaker John Boehner and his Just Say No faction in the House to Pickett’s Charge at Gettysburg, a costly and foolish waste of life at the hands of General Lee that marked the sounding of a pitiful clarion note for the Confederacy.

These measures, ostensibly perpetrated because the proposed two-month payroll tax cut extention is too short in term, is clearly determined to allow a implicit tax hike on the middle class to come into being as the end of the year rounds out. The reason these moves continue to backfire is due to the fact that even the least informed of us are of a frustration, mounting exponentially, that absolute nothing is moving in Congress, and the pseudo-reasoning behind the speaker’s motives don’t hold up to even cursory scrutinity, namely that it will never make sense to anyone that Boehner genuinely wants a one-year extension, and is willing to have absolutely nothing rather than the compromised something of a two-month holiday.

Luke Russert’s metaphor seems particularly apt as we remember that it was the apex of Pickett’s Charge that has become known as the high-water mark of the Confederacy’s efforts in the entirety of the Civil War–not exactly a proud monument. Likewise, much of a mind with the lovely observation in the same Wall Street Journal piece mentioned in my last post that the GOP were more or less forming a circular firing squad these days, the always incorrigible Mitch McConnell has now even come out in favor of the two-month extension that easily cleared, with bipartisan support in the Senate, earlier this week. This is the same fellow who literally said his top political priority was making President Obama a one-term president.

Every thinking person is aware of the wisdom on picking one’s battles; Boehner and his cohorts continue to pick every battle–to charge every line–despite the mounting casualty of their political capital, and despite marking one nadir after another.

In a journal entry in 1940, George Orwell remarked not so much presciently as eternally on a stupefying tumbrel remark of the day:

Apparently, nothing will ever teach these people that the other 99% of the population exist.

Telling, in light of recent events, no? What I love about Orwell’s statement is the same thing I love, at least to an extent, of the Occupy Wallstreet movement as a whole, as well as similar movements through history: the at times dumbing level of frustration one grapples with as one attempts to articulate a rage against an injustice that seems incapable of existing throughout increasingly modern and self-aware points in history. At least, I find myself thinking, the injustices might continue, but there should be no bafflement at the resulting outrage–how can it be anything but the epitome of what it means to be self-evident? But this disconnect–a word that seems somewhat inappropriate, implying that these folks were ever indeed connected to the lowly plebes to begin with–separating off the 1%  is the bedrock of every tumbrel comment.

Genuine revolt-inducing tumbrels are a bit hard to come by in the looming, brutal potentiality of the 24-hour news cycle and relatively media-savvy campaigns, though they still slip out now and then.

What we tend to see is a more nuanced manifestation, chiefly in the current climate of what has been boldly called class warfare. Bold as in, say, a kidnapper calling up not to declare his terms of ransom but to beg to be released from his alleged charge. The 1% sit behind their walls and moats and legions and so lamely and predictably assume their defensive stance. Not so strange, perhaps, how often the powerful and the dominant flinch at the slightest sign of resistance among the peasantry, as if sharing a playbook with the persecutors, so often theocratically based, unofficially or no, who are so quick to claim they are in fact the persecuted. I can’t help but think of this recent ad by Rick Perry, thankfully derided, that contains among a large trove of dubious moments the repeated assurance that he is an unashamed, unapologetic Christian. One must wonder who Rick Perry thinks would be shaming him, or asking him to apologize, in this country? There are of course some of us who are all too willing to do precisely that, but to say we’re the minority is to understate the arrangement and to ignore how fatuous it is for him or anyone else to claim to be evincing any kind of courage in their pious claims.

But if the cliche holds that actions are stronger than words, the current GOP hamstringing of the payroll tax cut (& etc.) legislation is the tumbrel action of our current moment. As this Wall Street Journal opinion piece puts forth, during a time when approval of Congress as a whole and the Do-Nothing GOP mentality specifically are taunting the wisdom that hitting rock bottom incurs any kind of sobriety, the Party of ‘No’ might be managing the goal of disallowing any legislative movement carrying President Obama’s fingerprint, but their political currency as a result is non-existent, and, actually, they seem good and deep into debt–a consideration drenched in its own dull irony. One would think they had learned a lesson from the debt ceiling fiasco, during which polling consistently revealed the increasingly aggravated American  people weren’t focusing on the incumbent administration but rather the GOP obstructionists.

But to truly invoke tumbrelity, we need a good and righteous moment of anger and disbelief; something, in this case that might smell a bit of 1984, or perhaps something we might expect out of Wodehouse’s imagination.

Ah, and our cup overfloweth. The GOP literally walk away from their duty, refusing their middle-class hostage even a short reprieve, and then attempt to deny any visibility of the pathetic, stilted process; who’s watching, anyway? We’re not even here. Big Brother snaps off the feed. The question of why the Speaker of the House commands any control over a strictly non-partisan bit of media coverage should be a loud one and on the mind of every thinking citizen in the coming days.

When the GOP is doing the hamstringing and we find them cutting at their own leg, we might almost be tempted to pity them. Consider that only seven Senate Republicans voted against the measure–or, to frame it in the reverse, only seven seemed willing to vote for what has been termed, appropriately enough, as a tax increase on the middle class. Even this Congress could come together, we might assume, to avoid a tax increase for at least two short months so that they might all have the luxury of even more time to bicker. In assuming this we forget too readily, perhaps at the cost of rich jokes about burning a Boehner at both ends. The same Wall Street Journal piece notes his reversal on the matter in less than a day; one almost feels they can see the strings of the marionette maddeningly tugged in one direction and then another. This is the same ‘brave’ Speaker that famously complained at being put in stark opposition to the president. He shrivels from the spotlight he claims to proudly accept while being spurred and smoked from the hole he’d love to take refuge in by Tea Party conservatives that continue to display their ignorance at playing the political chess game.

What I’m repeatedly reminded of as the months pass is that the Republican philosophy seems very seriously to comprise of ignoring the public, ignoring the president, and hoping the latter will go away by way of the former showing up on their side. Cut the feed, exit stage right, surely this’ll all be looking better for us tomorrow, right? We’re not actually assuring President Obama of a second term by our childish, brutish, artless gestures, right? Hello? Is anyone still out there?

The passing of North Korea’s longtime delusional despot has caused many to begin speculating about the capacity and likelihood of something among the North Korean people that would be even vaguely reminiscent of Tahrir Square. But though the son has risen, the cultural ice age entombing a country that has been justly compared, to everything from a hostage situation to a concentration camp whose guards stand watch with nuclear armaments, doesn’t look to begin thawing any time soon.

The late but always timely Christopher Hitchens points us in the introduction to his last collection of essays, Arguably, to this passage from George Orwell’s Coming up for Air:

…the processions and the posters with enormous faces, and the crowds of a million people all cheering for their Leader until they deafen themselves into thinking that they really worship him, and all the time, underneath, they hate him so that they want to puke.

One would be comforted to feel confident that this were for so many long years the case of the starved and stunted people of North Korea, but the videos leaking out rather immediately from its dystopian borders via social media and then the Western outlets show not a single person without a wail to offer. There is of course no way to know the ratio of genuine lament among those knowing their pitiful role to play at such a moment when the cameras are rolling–and in North Korea one can be assured there one is always being observed–but the rare foreign correspondence we have shows little nausea (or anything else, for that matter) in the belly of its people, much less resistance.

I don’t mean to sound entirely nihilistic about North Korea’s future. But I think more caution is warranted in the optimism seen by many in a time where rebellion sweeps many places where for decades the slightest scintilla of freedom was unimaginable. We had been seeing the embers of revolt throughout the Middle East for quite a long time until they finally caught a stiff wind and found flame. Much like the famous photographs of North Korea via satellite, we see there almost no such light of any kind. Other telling photographs are those of Kim Jong Il, jowled and pot-bellied from luxury and his all too obviously well-fed family, waving out to a malnourished and broken people that now stand on average six inches shorter than their fellows to the south, subjected to years with as little to fill their stomachs as their minds. It is a bit of despotic genius that this rule was never broken despite a decade that even conservative estimates declare saw at least a million dead of starvation. It would indeed seem rather difficult to stand up symbolically when one cannot muster the strength to stand literally.

The transition of power to Kim Jong Un might have offered the kindling of instability had his late father not laid the groundwork for a seamless continuation of oppression almost singular in its chilling absoluteness. It seems the only fires we’ll be seeing will be from the puttering, barely operational rockets that Kim Jong Il’s poofy progeny will drop a few hundred feet off shore in yet another pathetic show of force that will no doubt draw little rebuke much less retribution from an increasingly global world that seems all too happy to do what Kim Jong Il wished us all to do, which is to forget about what has been transpiring in North Korea for generations–except, at least, for when we might be guilted into supplying a little grain that is believed too readily by its people to be yet another tribute from the West to their Dear Leader.