{"id":70624,"date":"2021-08-10T15:23:36","date_gmt":"2021-08-10T20:23:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/?p=70624"},"modified":"2021-08-10T15:23:36","modified_gmt":"2021-08-10T20:23:36","slug":"70624","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/?p=70624","title":{"rendered":""},"content":{"rendered":"

The neo-feudalism of Obama\u2019s maskless ball<\/a>.<\/p>\n

I lost my invitation and, besides, the pilot of my private plane was on holiday, so I had to miss the intimate, scaled-back get-together that Barack Obama convened to celebrate his 60th year gracing our planet with his awesomeness.<\/p>\n

I didn\u2019t feel too badly, though \u2014 no paralyzing waves of \u2018FOMO\u2019 \u2014 because all my friends in the media made me feel I was almost there. There were all those\u00a0leaked snaps and videos<\/a>, for one thing, showing the Prez dance-dance-dancing the night away, nary a mask in sight.<\/p>\n

In truth, that was the one thing I liked about this obscene, Gatsby-esque spectacle. The Obamas, and presumably their guests, had been vaccinated. They therefore knew that they were not at any meaningful risk of contracting THE WORST DISEASE SINCE THE BLACK DEATH \u2014 I mean, the nasty little respiratory virus bequeathed to a grateful world by the ChiComs. They just weren\u2019t, and neither are you \u2014 always assuming you are vaccinated and under the age of, say, 80.<\/p>\n

The only thing that would have made this aspect of Obama\u2019s Feast of Trimalchio more delicious would have been a couple of candid snaps of St Anthony Fauci doing the twist with Chrissy Teigen. Maybe the\u00a0Daily Mail\u00a0<\/i>will eventually come through on that.<\/p>\n

Let\u2019s just set the record straight on a couple of matters. When it was first revealed that His Highness was planning this illustration of Thorstein Veblen\u2019s thesis about conspicuous consumption, there were some plangent noises among the patter of adulation. Four hundred guests and 200 peons \u2014 er, servants? A teensy bit\u00a0over the top<\/i>, Barack?\u00a0 So the Obamas\u00a0said<\/i>\u00a0they\u00a0scaled it back\u00a0<\/i>\u2014 look it up: it was all over the court press. But it is clear that they didn\u2019t. Possibly, the Cuomo Bros had their invitations yanked, but that was only because \u2014\u00a0Ecce Cuomo<\/em>\u00a0\u2014 shares in Cuomo preferred had just taken a sharp dive. This, incidentally, provided a good illustration of the irrationality of this part of the market. Stock in the Cuomo Mafia deserves to be rated a zero \u2014 bankruptcy time \u2014 but not because Andrew is the Luv Gov and can\u2019t keep his pinky off the pink bits of the ladies. That\u2019s what the media outrage machine would have you believe. But the real reason he deserves to go can be adduced in the number 15,000, approximately the number people whose deaths he caused by forcing nursing homes to take patients suffering from COVID. Anyway, the \u2018root cause\u2019 of Cuomo\u2019s defenestration is the threat he poses \u2014 make that \u2018posed\u2019 \u2014 as a possible alternative to the gibbering, geriatric wing of the Democratic party going forward.<\/p>\n

The second thing that needs to be corrected is the calumny that the Obamas occupy a pad worth $11-$12 million on Martha\u2019s Vineyard. In fact, that 30-acre estate is worth about three to four times that much, but some lingering sense of propriety (I won\u2019t call it shame) caused them or their PR flaks to lowball the assessment.<\/p>\n

All in all, the Obama Odeon was an excellent illustration of Joel Kotkin\u2019s thesis in\u00a0The Coming of Neo-Feudalism: A Warning to the Global Middle Class<\/em><\/a>. Western societies, above all American society, is lapsing back into a sort of stratified, feudal arrangement with some a tiny hyper-rich elite at the top and a vast pool of \u2018deplorables\u2019 kept in check by the police power of the state \u2014 what Joe Biden\u00a0memorably apostrophized<\/a>\u00a0as \u2018F-15s and some nuclear weapons\u2019. Mediating the two like a layer of fat is a sort of clerisy that is treated to varying crumbs from the table as it explains, flatters, and cajoles.<\/p>\n

There is a lot to be repelled by in the Spectacle of Barack Obama\u2019s exercise in brazen self-indulgence, also a lot to be angry at.
\nI think it is important, though, to look at it as a learning experience. Pretend you were Aesop. What moral would you draw from this exercise in exhibitionism?<\/p>\n

Doubtless there are several learning experiences to be had. But I thought that Rep. Jim Jordan perfectly articulated an important lesson in a tweet.\u00a0 Now we know,\u00a0he wrote<\/a>, that<\/p>\n

\u2018#COVID19 spreads at:<\/em><\/p>\n

-Church<\/em>
\n-School<\/em>
\n-Trump rallies<\/em>
\n-Motorcycle rallies<\/em><\/p>\n

It doesn\u2019t spread at:<\/em><\/p>\n

-\u201cPeaceful\u201d protests<\/em>
\n-The southern border<\/em>
\n-Democrat wedding receptions<\/em>
\n-San Francisco hair salons<\/em>
\n-Governor Newsom\u2019s dinner<\/em>
\n-President Obama\u2019s birthday party\u2019<\/em><\/p>\n

Really, I hadn\u2019t know that before and I am grateful for the enlightenment.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The neo-feudalism of Obama\u2019s maskless ball. I lost my invitation and, besides, the pilot of my private plane was on holiday, so I had to miss the intimate, scaled-back get-together that Barack Obama convened to celebrate his 60th year gracing our planet with his awesomeness. I didn\u2019t feel too badly, though \u2014 no paralyzing waves … Continue reading “”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[41,21],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-70624","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-health-medicine","category-hypocrisy"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/70624","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=70624"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/70624\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":70703,"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/70624\/revisions\/70703"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=70624"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=70624"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=70624"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}