It’s the third in the series that began with Hostile Intent in 2009 and continued with last year’s Early Warning. This volume concludes what I call the Skorzeny Trilogy, after the chief bad, Emanuel Skorzeny, the shadowy German billionaire who’s waging a private war against both Devlin, the American president, Jeb Tyler, and the West as a presidential election looms.

In this excerpt, the publishing mogul Jake Sinclair, who’s also made it his mission to destroy Tyler, has just learned of a terrible accident in California, and gets his best reporter — the sexy Principessa Stanley (who figured prominently in Early Warning) — on the case:

CHAPTER ELEVEN

New York City

The news was breaking as Jake Tyler entered the offices on Sixth Avenue.  Normally he didn’t come to New York much, certainly not since they’d moved the corporate base of operations to Los Angeles in some choice Century City property he just happened to own.

He’d flown in on his private jet, and if there was one rule he had on his private jet it was that he was not to be disturbed for any reason whatsoever, short of Selenites landing at Bowling Green or, worse, Carbon Beach.  Or Elvis, reappearing in Branson.

“What is it, Benny?” he said to Ben Bernstein as he entered the editor-in-chief’s office.  Once the job had been called executive editor, and to be the executive editor of the New York Times had been the pinnacle of American journalism.  So of course that had to go – he, Jake Sinclair, was the pinnacle of American journalism, and there would never be another one of him.  Editor-in-chief was as far as he would go with people whose salaries he paid.

“Cows, Mr. Sinclair,” came the reply.  “Lots and lots of cows.”

“So what?  We got cows right here in New York State, somewhere.  Cows all over the Midwest.  Cows in India, sacred cows I think they call them.  So what’s so special about these cows?”

Bernstein kept a poker face.  He had no opinion about his new boss and he did his damnedest to make sure his expression reflected that scrupulous neutrality.  “These cows are all dead,” he said.

“Where?”

“On that big cattle ranch up near Coalinga.”

Sinclair’s visage expressed his distaste for Twenty Questions.  “Where’s that?”

“Central California, sir,” replied Bernstein, backtracking.  “I assumed that, since you’re from there, California I mean, that –“

“You think I drive to San Francisco?”  Sinclair was rapidly losing interest in the story.  “What does it mean?”  Is it news I can use?”

In Bernstein’s experience, the only story the chief was interested in was the ongoing political story, so he quickly reframed.  “It means Tyler’s got another disaster on his hands, sir.  Somebody’s poisoned the California water supply.”

That stopped Sinclair in his tracks. “What?” Then he was moving again, double-time.

Bernstein watched the boss disappear into his private office at the end of the hall.  He’d only been inside once or twice, but from what he’d seen it was more like a fortress than an office, completely secure, with dedicated phone lines and all the latest electronic gadgetry.  Not that Sinclair probably knew how to use most of it, but to men like Jake Sinclair the display of such equipment was at least as important as its actual use.

Sinclair shut the door behind him and turned to the ranks of TV monitors.  The sun may have sent on the British Empire, but it was always coming up somewhere on his.  Sure enough, Bernstein was right – dead cows everywhere.  People, too.  He didn’t much care how the paper played the story the next day – newspapers were so retro they were almost chic – but he very much cared how his news networks were handling it – and so far he was not seeing what he wanted to see.

He reached for one of the secure lines and dialed her secure number.  She answered on the second ring.  She spoke first.

“Remember what I told you about puzzles?  Ciphers?  Cryptograms?”  He did remember.  That was the day they were in the bathroom at his office in Century City, with the shower on, the day she’d pulled him toward her in the steam, kissed him and told him that if he was ever late for another meeting with her she would kill him.  “Well, this is the piece of the puzzle we’ve been waiting for.  Now use it.”

“I’m not sure I under—“

“How did you ever manage to get anywhere in this life?” came the voice at the other end of the line.  He had no idea where she was at this moment, somewhere out on the hustings, as they used to call them, whatever hustings were.  Somewhere putting her plan into action.  “Honestly, I think you are the stupidest man I have ever met in my life.”

There was nothing to say.  His job was to say nothing.  So far, so good.

“Have you got the package ready?  The October Surprise?”

“That would be the complete dossier on Jeb Tyler – every bit of dirt and mud and slur and slander and innuendo that the combined newsgathering forces of the Sinclair Empire could dig up.  And was there ever plenty of it.  It was so explosive that it would finish Tyler the month before the voters went to the polls, except that they would not be merciful.  The material would not be released all at once.  No, it would dribbled out day by day, each story more damaging than the last, some of on TV, some on the radio, some in the papers and magazines.

Beginning the first week of October, every day would be sheer misery for the incumbent president, but there would be nothing he could do about it.  He could not withdraw from the campaign, because it would be too late to replace him on the ballot.  He couldn’t concede in advance, because the propriety of elections would have to be observed.  Day after day he was going to have to sit there in the Oval Office and take his beating like a man.  And then be destroyed the first Tuesday in November.

Now that was something Jake Sinclair was really looking forward to.  And he knew two other people who would enjoy the spectacle even more than he did.  The first was the woman on the other end of the phone, Angela Hassett, the governor of Rhode Island whose meteoric rise to power was about to be crowned with the highest office in the land.

The other was a man he had never met, never seen and never spoken to – communicated with solely by cutouts and go-betweens, each similarly invisible.  But a very rich man and the man who had made him, Jake Sinclair, a modestly rich man his lofty standards.  This man wanted Jeb Tyler gone and would spend any amount of money to achieve that objective.

Anonymously, of course.  Untraceably, of course.  Electoral proprieties must be observed.

“Tell me that you have it.  Tell me that you have everything,” she commanded.  Involuntarily, he glanced over his shoulder.  Even here in his inner sanctum, he could feel her presence, and it wouldn’t have surprised him at all to learn that, somehow, she’d had him bugged.

“I’ve got it – well, almost all of it.  There’s still a couple of things we’re trying to chase down, but I have top people on it.  Top people.”

Was that a chuckle or a chortle coming through the ether.  “I’ll bet you do,” said Angela Hassett, “and I’ll bet I know just who she is, too.”

The line went dead.  He was alone.

Sinclair sat in his chair, looking out the window overlooking midtown Manhattan.  That woman did something to him.  He could feel it.  There was something deliciously erotic about fantasizing an affair with the next president of the United States.  With the first female president of the United States.  With her.  So what if they were both married.  He still hadn’t quite decided Jenny II’s fate yet, and as for Angela’s husband… well, he could be dealt with down the line.

Somewhere, a soft chime sounded, like something you’d hear in a Buddhist rock garden.  Jake Sinclair hated buzzers and refused to be interrupted by the ring of a telephone, the dull thunk of an incoming email message or God forbid one of those Twitter things.

“What is it?”  The chime automatically activated a microphone that allowed him to communicate with his secretary, whose name he could never quite remember.

“Ms. Stanley, sir.”

Just the girl he wanted to see.  “Send her in.”

The lock on the door buzzed and in walked his favorite television correspondent.  Her work during the siege of Times Square had been outstanding, and the fact that she’d gotten herself temporarily kidnapped by, well, they never did figure out exactly who, had been a career enhancer.

“Mr. Sinclair?” she said.

She was beautiful, even more beautiful than she was on television, full-figured but wholesome, sexy but innocent – just the way the viewers liked them.  About the only thing that had changed was her hair, but it was growing back nicely; on the air, she wore a wig, so nobody ever knew she had been practically scalped.

He didn’t rise.  To get up would signal weakness to the help.  She didn’t sit down   To sit down would signal servility toward the boss.

“Have you been looking into what I asked you, Principessa?” he inquired.  He loved that name, and wondered if it was really hers.

“Yes, Mr. Sinclair,” she said. She moved forward to the desk and now was standing just opposite him.  “Just a couple more pieces of the puzzle left to gather.”

He smiled.  “Very good.  How long do I have to wait?”

She smiled back.  What a smile she had.  “Won’t be long now.  In the meantime, there’s this.”

She put an old BlackBerry down on his desk.  “What I am supposed to do with this?” he asked.

“Nothing,” she said.  “Just listen.”

Who knew that BlackBerrys doubled as tape recorders?  That they had little voice-memo doohickies, what did the kids call them today, applications – yes, “apps” – and that they could record –

The babble coming out the smart phone was like no language he had ever heard before.  Arabic or Iranian, rapid-fire, and then, at the end, this:

“Because I am sending you to hell.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” he asked, reaching for the phone, but Principessa swept it back up and slipped it into her pocket.

“You wanted a puzzle, I got you a puzzle,” she said.  “Now all you have to do is figure it out.”

She was already at the door:

“That’s what I pay you for,” he said.

“Pay me more,” she replied, and then she was gone.

A second excerpt from “Shock Warning” will appear tomorrow.

So, for those who aren’t familiar, what is the purpose of the book? How is it structured, and what kind of lessons are you sending to its “little patriot” readers?

It is a teaching tool to help kids learn the fundamentals of America. So, it goes from one nation under God through ten amendments in the Bill of Rights. It’s a counting book, but it covers government structure, history–a little bit of everything. It’s meant for ages 5-8; the counting aspect is for younger children, but they might not really understand the concepts until they’re a little older. Still, good to familiarize them with it early!

What brought about the decision to make a book specifically catering to conservative parents?

It’s not really conservative; it’s more patriotic. It’s all factual things–I guess “one nation under God” is considered religious–but aside from that, things like 10 amendments in the Bill of Rights are pretty straightforward, information for kids.

I wrote it for my friend’s little boy when he turned three, and he’s like a nephew to me. So we were learning how to count, and I just wasn’t crazy about any of his books. I mean, they were fine, but I felt like he could be counting better things, so I wrote him a book for his birthday. Originally, I didn’t think about publishing it at all, but I shared it with a few friends to read to their kids and it was so well received that I realized parents are really looking of books like this. And I’m passionate about helping as many kids as possible learn about our country, so that’s how it came to be.

How do you feel about the lessons and values that kids are receiving from most modern children’s books?

I feel like many are lacking something. One of the first books I bought the same little guy, it was If You Give a Mouse a Cookie–which, I don’t know if you’re familiar with that story, but it’s how, if you give somebody something, they’re just gonna expect something more. So I feel like, even with some of the books that have good messages, the parents still need to extrapolate on what’s being said, and the books aren’t making kids ask more questions or want to learn more as well as they could be.

Do you think that in contrast, your book is encouraging the child to interact with their parents about what they’ve read?

Yes, I hope that it stimulates an interest in the children to learn more, because I feel like having well-informed children is the best chance we’ve got.

What kind of feedback have you been receiving from those who have already seen the book so far?

So far, people love it. I was worried that people might think it’s conservative, but they’re really not. Even people who may not see eye-to-eye with me on politics are just seeing it as a pretty straightforward, patriotic book. Since it is “One Nation Under God,” people of faith are liking Number One. It’s being pretty well received so far; of course, not that many people have seen it yet, so we’ll see what happens.

Who did the illustrations for the book, and how did you get them involved?

A man named Anthony Resto did the illustrations; he is incredible. I actually just found him on Craigslist; I thought it would just be a place to start and get some leads. I didn’t really expect anything to happen from that, but he answered the ad and was perfect.

I see there’s going to be a book tour come September when it’s released. How extensive are the plans for that tour?

That is still sort of being decided. In the next year or so, I hope to cover quite a bit of America. And so far, my Twitter friends and others are pulling together and helping me get into their local bookstores–things like that. So, pretty much whoever will have me, I will do my best to go wherever I’m invited.

And so, it’s being self-published their your Hamilton Oddbody company. What kind of methods are you using to get the book out to different stores?

Yes, my mom and I are the “Hamilton” part of it, and “Oddbody” is Clarence Oddbody from It’s a Wonderful Life. So, we’re doing it with our guardian angel. [laughs] So far, building a market has just been through our network of personal contacts, and it’s coming together amazingly. People really seem to believe in the book, and they’re willing to go to their local bookstores and put in a word for us, and it’s being really well received. We don’t have plans for a digital copy through Kindle or Nook right now, but that’s definitely something we are considering.

You can pre-order Amelia’s book at her website and “Like” its Facebook page here. You can also follow Amelia on Twitter, @gadsdenista.

This article was originally published at the Landmark Report.

Though taken from a book written a half-century ago and set in the year 2016, the movie is eerily similar to the world today, bearing a particular resemblance to the United States and the societal and economic depreciation of states like California, where manufacturing industries have collapsed, economic liberty and entrepreneurialism are eroding, and productive members of society seem to be rapidly disappearing, or rather, run out of business by bureaucratic red tape and unreasonable regulations.

—–

While the literary polish of Rand’s 1,000-plus-page novel is unparalleled, the cinematic version of her philosophical peregrination that questions which society is preferable for mankind – one of rational self-interest or one of suppressive of individualism meant to level all individual output – upholds her objectivist worldview and ought to stoke the debate about free society and the role of government.

Not only is the film a winner for holding firm to Randian philosophy, it also brazenly and refreshingly brings a political perspective that is almost universally absent from the big screen; so much so in fact it could become a cult classic, especially among Tea Partiers and their admirers, not to mention hordes of libertarians.

The film, true to the book, is set in the United States in 2016, with a global economy in shambles, conflicts in the Middle East disrupting oil supplies, massive oil spills, pronounced class warfare, demonization of private companies, overly powerful union bosses, bureaucrats and special interests, empty factories, fleeing entrepreneurs and innovators, overreaching government regulations and businesses ever more subservient to government bureaucracy. Does this dystopian society seem familiar? If not, perhaps you have been hiding in some utopian village in the Rocky Mountains the rest of us do not know about.

With all this against them, some creative business-types are still trying to innovate, produce, and make money, namely Dagny Taggart, Ellis Wyatt and Hank Rearden.

Taggart, the assertive young idealist heroine with a pronounced zest for entrepreneurialism, runs a railroad, Taggart Transcontinental. Wyatt is a wealthy oil man whose company is responsible for the one economically viable and prosperous state in the union, Colorado. Rearden is the inventor of Rearden Metal, a fictitious alloy used in railroad tracks that is cheaper, more durable and stronger than steel.

In the film, government is devoted to economic equality. Bureaucrats seek to thwart the growth of thriving companies, like those of Taggart, Wyatt and Rearden, because society “cannot afford to allow the expansion of a company that produces too much and might replace companies that produce too little.” To the government (and broader society), such expansion would “create an unbalanced economy.” That is, resources would be skewed towards those most productive and most capable, with the best products.

Of course, these ideas mirror much of the rhetoric from many in Washington (and Sacramento) today where prevailing wisdom is that profit is bad, profiteers are greedy, and meritocracy in the marketplace is contemptible.

A telling quote comes from a lobbyist who later becomes a government economic czar, Wesley Mouch (who bares a resemblance to Democratic Rep. Barney Frank): “Everybody needs to share the burdens.” It sounded like something from an Obama speechwriter. Actually, while addressing the National Governors Association a few weeks ago, President Barack Obama made “shared sacrifice” the theme of his talk.

—–

To achieve that shared sacrifice, the movie’s government imposes a national tax on Colorado, where the economy is thriving, in effort to equalize the national economy. Other rules are made, such as oil distribution based on need, and a ban on companies moving to wealthier states.

Government agencies also produce false scientific reports condemning viable products, like Rearden Metal, in an attempt to cripple the industry. Congress makes it illegal to own more than one company and prohibits profitable companies from firing employees. This is done in the name of “social progress” and “welfare of the nation” with a willingness to “sacrifice anyone’s profit” to achieve those ends.

Facing constant condemnation by government and the public, and with no promise of a free and fair economic system to work in, manufacturers, innovators and producers begin to disappear, one by one, leaving behind only a question: Who is John Galt?

The question is not really answered in “Part 1,” but even a viewer who has never heard of Ayn Rand would guess the identity of the shadowy, trench-coat wearing man who appears sporadically throughout the movie “simply offering a society that cultivates individual achievement.”

As the country and quality of life depicted in the film further degrade because of government policies and decisions by some companies to pay workers based on their needs rather than their contributions, Taggart asks “Why all of these stupid altruistic urges?” To her “it is not being charitable or fair.”

One of the last scenes in the movie characterizes the sad dilemma for those who value individual and economic liberty so much they are willing to give up everything to pursue it. Ellis Wyatt decides to disappear, and a short time later a massive fire engulfs his oil wells, factories and the surrounding valley. A sign over the valley reads: “I am leaving it as I found it. Take over. It’s yours.”

Even facing government takeovers of industry and stifling regulations, Taggart and Rearden remain willing to fight. While discussing the decline of society, Rearden says to Taggart, “It’s us who move the world and it is us who will pull it through.”

Capitalism, wealth, profit, prosperity, free markets, personal responsibility and individual liberty are the philosophical foundation of a free society but when the creation of wealth and the freedom to make personal decisions has increasingly eroded and is attacked by government do-gooders and utopians, civilization and quality of life decline. In the film, most of those oppressed people would simply leave for greener pastures. In the real world, the ideological battle rages on.

Atlas Shrugged Part 1 is not your typical slick Hollywood blockbuster or artistic independent film and it doesn’t have to be. Rather, it is a movie about big ideas, whose subject matter stands alone, released at a time when the ideological direction of the country sparks intense debate. The movie is catalyst for critical thinking about worldviews competing in today’s body politic.

Herzog was in Munich, Eisner in Paris, and their mutual friends implored the thirty-two-year-old director to fly to France post-haste so that he might say his goodbyes while there was still time. But Herzog would have none of it. “This must not be,” he remembered thinking. “German cinema could not do without her now. We would not permit her death.” And so, suddenly afire with what he once called in another context “the fervor and woe of pilgrims and prayers and hopes,” Herzog made a momentous decision: he would set out from his apartment in Munich and walk the five-hundred miles to Paris “in full faith, believing that she would stay alive if I came on foot.”

Days stretched into weeks as he trod alone through the winter sleet, sometimes breaking into barns or empty cottages to survive the cold nights and taking only a single detour, “to the town of Troyes, because I wanted to walk into the cathedral there.” Finally he arrived exhausted at Eisner’s Paris apartments to find her “still tired and marked by her illness,” but recovering against all odds. She would live nine more years, until at last, “when she was nearly blind, could not walk or read or go out to see films,” she called Herzog back to Paris and told him, “Werner, there is still this spell cast over me that I am not allowed to die. I am tired of life. It would be a good time for me now.” Herzog recalls that, “Jokingly I said, ‘OK, Lotte, I hereby take the spell away,” and three weeks later Lotte Eisner died.

The life of Werner Herzog is filled with such stories — tales of deep spiritualism that continually invite a resolutely non-dogmatic but nevertheless palpably Christian interpretation. The Left habitually ignores this, preferring to revel in their shallow image of Herzog as a reckless, half-mad darling of the godless art-house circuit, a sort of Colonel Kurtz with a camera. The truth is that he’s more akin to a Bavarian Flannery O’Connor, deeply devout and honest even while telling stories featuring characters who are anything but. Like the monks and prophets of old, Herzog is that rare man who implicitly trusts his own soul-stirring religious impulses and allows them to take him where they may. Viewed with this in mind, his fascination with stories of chaos and darkness — stories like Grizzly Man — become not celebrations of madness, but a sane and noble search for God in a fallen world.

The man who would one day become fascinated with the story of Timothy Treadwell seemed to attract dark Fate from the very beginning: days after his birth in Munich in 1942, an Allied bomb fell on the neighbor’s house, the shockwave shattering windows and spraying his cradle with glass. Divorce ensured his father was largely absent from his life, but his mother moved the family to the country and kept Herzog and his two brothers fed and clothed by smuggling essentials over the border from Austria. He grew affectionately close to both mother and brothers during an idyllic childhood played out amongst the ruins and poverty of postwar Bavaria:

I did not know what a banana was until I was twelve and I did not make my first telephone call until I was seventeen. Our house had no water-flushed toilet, in fact no running water at all. We had no mattresses; my mother would stuff dried ferns into a linen bag, and in winter it was so cold I would wake up in the morning to find a layer of ice on my blanket from frozen breath. But it was wonderful to grow up like that. We had to invent our own toys, we were full of imagination. . . kids in the cities took over whole bombed-out blocks and would declare the remnants of buildings their own to play in where great adventures were acted out. . . It was anarchy in the best sense of the word. There were no ruling fathers around and no rules to follow.

From an early age, Herzog was a child of solitude and daydreams. “I was very much a loner. . . I would lie back on the floor with a book and read for hours no matter how much talking and activity was going on. Often I would read all day long, and when I finished, I would look up to discover that everyone else had left hours ago.” When he was eleven, a traveling projectionist came to his rural school and screened a pair of 16mm films for the kids. The magic and illusion of the medium captivated the quiet boy. “From the moment I could think independently I knew I was going to make films. I never had a choice about becoming a director.”

At fourteen, in a sudden titanic burst of religious passion, Herzog converted to Catholicism, immersing himself in the intricacies of the Holy Mass and the Catechism. Over time he was increasingly unable to reconcile the dogma with the reality of life around him, and he eventually fell out of the Church. Yet his films have never escaped this early, quixotic preoccupation with God, creation, and the meaning of existence. “To this day,” he says, “there seems to be something of a distant religious echo in some of my work. . . I am good with religious subjects and feel I understand them.”

Culture was the other great force shaping his early life and thought. He yearned for Germany to return to the “the bosom of the civilized world” after the privations its people suffered first at the hands of the Nazis and then of the country-splitting Communists. “I had the increasingly strong feeling that Germany was an extremely godforsaken country,” he remembers. “What, I asked myself, was actually holding it together? What was capable of binding the country together again until it was reunited in the distant future? I felt that the only things we Germans were held together by were our culture and language, and for this reason I truly felt that it was only the poets who could hold Germany together.”

As a young teen he wrote several movie scripts and “submitted various proposals to producers and TV stations,” but when he took a meeting with a producer at seventeen and got laughed out of the room with, “Aha! The kindergarten is trying to make films nowadays!”, he realized that if he was going to be a director, he would have to make it happen himself. He immediately established “Werner Herzog Filmproduktion,” and for the next fifteen years ran his entire moviemaking business out of a one-bedroom apartment in Munich, armed with a camera stolen from the local university. “There was no clear division between private life and work,” he says.

Instead of a living room we had an editing room, and I would sleep there too. I had no secretary, no one to help me with taxes, bookkeeping, contracts, screenplay writing, organization. I did absolutely everything myself; it was an article of faith, a matter of simple human decency to do the dirty work as long as I could. . . It dawned on me that organization and commitment were the only things that finished films, not money.

An article of faith. . . A matter of simple human decency. Critics who fancy Herzog as a postmodern Euro-artiste far too hip and cool to give credence to such notions understand very little about the man or his passions.

From the beginning, Herzog determined that he would only work using 35mm “feature film” stock, the only format with enough breadth and depth to capture the transcendent imagery coursing through his fertile, cosmic mind. He raised the money to do this by taking odd jobs and winning small monetary prizes at film festivals for his shorts and scripts. Somehow, attending film school and “learning” how to make a movie never entered his consciousness. “I just felt it would be better to make a film than go to film school,” he says. “It is not technicians that film schools should be producing, but people with a real agitation of mind. People with spirit, with a burning flame within them.”

Sensing instinctively that Germany was too small a backdrop for his filmic visions, Herzog developed the notion that traveling, and specifically walking long distances on foot, carried with it a profound spiritual quality. “The volume and depth and intensity of the world is something that only those on foot will ever experience,” he thought, and so he began to travel whenever possible, not as a tourist but as an adventurer in the classic sense, treading fearlessly wherever his heart and soul led.

He learned English while on scholarship in Great Britain, then went to Greece, Crete, and Egypt, eventually journeying along the Nile into Sudan. At twenty-two he accepted a scholarship that brought him to the U.S., a country whose self-reliant, God-fearing, Blind Side citizenry impressed him deeply. After spending time in the States he made his way down to Mexico, where he learned Spanish and worked as a two-bit border smuggler and rodeo rider. (He was so terrible at the latter job that the Mexicans nicknamed him “El Alamein,” after one of the greatest German defeats of WWII). “My time down there was quite banal and partially miserable too,” Herzog admits, but “it was ‘pura vida,’ as the Mexicans say, ‘pure life’. . . I thank God on my knees that after America I did not go straight back to Germany.”

The later career of Herzog is now the stuff of legend. He shot film in the Sahara, the Ivory Coast, Uganda, Cameroon, the Congo, and the Canary Islands, surviving African rainstorms, sandstorms, civil war, prisons, rat-bites, malaria, and blood parasites. Herzog’s early pictures were not particularly popular in Germany, and so he embarked on a conscious attempt to achieve international success with an English-speaking film. Aguirre, The Wrath of God (1972) was a tragic, haunting, delirious conquistador adventure tale set in the deepest jungles of South America, and in addition to making Herzog a name to remember among foreign audiences, it began his fruitful yet often infuriating partnership with the gifted (and genuinely half-mad) actor Klaus Kinski.

A seminal figure in what was called the German New Wave, Herzog became known for fiction films and documentaries featuring “ruined people in ruined places” — strange protagonists poised far out on the razor’s edge of life. “I never look for stories to tell,” he says, “rather they assail me.” Cinematic ideas often come to Herzog in feverish daydreams fraught with meaning, though he can’t begin to explain why or to what purpose. “What constitutes poetry, depth, vision and illumination in cinema I can’t name,” he once said. “There are deeper strata of truth in cinema, and there is such a thing as poetic, ecstatic truth. It is mysterious and elusive, and can be reached only through fabrication and imagination and stylization.”

To discover and share these epochal moments of humanity, to tease them out of ordinary reality and onto a movie screen, to illuminate the faded fingerprints of God found on even the strangest and most forsaken parts of his creation — that is the mission of Werner Herzog.

One experiences, maybe only five or six times during a lifetime, the incredible feeling that illuminates and enlightens your own existence. It might happen while reading a text, listening to a piece of music, watching a film or looking at a painting. And sometimes — even if centuries are being bridged — you find a brother and instantly know that you are no longer alone. . .

If I find one person who walks out of a cinema of 300 people after watching one of my films and does not feel alone anymore, then I have achieved everything I have set out to achieve.

Conservative movie lovers have in Herzog a filmmaker who is neither a pretentious “artist” (a word he despises) nor a reckless madman, but a solid, sane craftsman who’s spent a lifetime painfully painting a bizarre Sistine Chapel filled with passionate and transcendent images that remind us of what it means to be human.

Of course, being a director who respects the fiery “agitation of mind” which lies at the heart of religious faith brings him into inevitable conflict with the lemmings of collectivism, atheism, and political correctness who dominate not only modern Hollywood but the Arts in general. Unlike many of us conservatives, though, the non-political and non-dogmatic Herzog has never shirked from a fight with that insidious worldview.

Next Saturday in For Conservative Movie Lovers: Werner Herzog’s defiant stands against the ideological bullies of the Left, and how those experiences prepared him to take on the multi-faceted story of Grizzly Man.

Previous posts in the series “Werner Herzog, Timothy Treadwell, and Grizzly Man“

Part 1

FURTHER READING and VIEWING

Herzog on Herzog by Paul Cronin: A fascinating, book-length interview with the master director that goes into depth about his films, life, philosophy, and craft. There’s no better single book on Herzog than this.

On Walking In Ice by Werner Herzog: Herzog’s account of his epic long walk from Munich to Paris in 1974 to visit the dying Lotte Eisner, told through the diary he kept during the trip. Often drifting into prose poetry and what I called above “feverish daydreams,” it offers a strange and wonderful peek into the mind of a lonely pilgrim filled with “fervor, woe, prayers, and hopes.”

Herzog video interview with Charlie Rose: filmed a year ago during his press tour for his new book of diaries Conquest of the Useless: Reflections on the Making of ‘Fitzcarraldo’, this is a potent twenty-minute introduction to Herzog’s personality.

Herzog audio interview with Elvis Mitchell: Herzog talks to the former New York Times film critic about his life and career, with an especial focus on his newest film Bad Lieutenant: Port of New Orleans (2009) starring Nicholas Cage. Contains some discussion of Timothy Treadwell and Grizzly Man.

But Palin ain’t buying it by the barrel, she’s got a whole pipeline of pure grade indigo flowing from the North Slope as she pumps up the volume on her NY Times #1 bestselling memoir.

When I got about halfway through the book I set it down, stepped outside of my Washington, DC townhouse and went for a run around the U.S. Capitol. Listening to the Outlaws, Marshall Tucker Band, and Lil Bow Wow (my daughter slipped that one in there) on my iPod, the recurrent thought in my mind was that this woman is far more qualified to be president of the United States than the current occupant of the White House.

When I completed the journey that is Going Rogue, I wrote down five things:

–She is a positive role model for all Americans
–She is an executive, takes on hard problems and makes tough decisions
–She has tremendous energy, balance and intellect
–America shafted itself in this last election
–Alaska is lucky to have her

Oh, and a sixth, Sarah Palin could be the next president of the United States.

Her book washes away all doubts that any reader might have had about her readiness to be president. She comes across as exceptionally bright, dedicated, and passionate about public service. Her moral compass is strong, pointing true North in this case. And she has a wicked sense of humor.

The most salient take-away from Going Rogue for me was what I admired most in her campaign, which was that she had been in charge as either a mayor or a governor whereas none of the other candidates on either ticket had. Having been a commander several times in the military I know that there is a huge difference between being a hardworking and important staff officer and an ‘alone at the top’ commander. No matter how fancy the title, executive officer or Senator, at the end of the day, you are recommending to someone who actually makes the decision.

As a Governor, mayor or commander, you have the unparalleled responsibility to actually make decisions that have ramifications. There is little training that can prepare you for all those heads turning in your direction when it is decision time. You can’t blithely abstain on a vote or hide behind the guy in front of you, because you own the decision. Case in point is Obama’s inexcusable delay in making a decision on Afghanistan. His indecision, cloaked as ‘sleeves-rolled-up-pensiveness’, is an indicator that he was, at a minimum, unprepared to be commander in chief. What we see in his speech at West Point is a minimally slimmed down version of what General Stan McChrystal submitted to the president on August 30th. So now big Stan has nine months to do what he said it takes 12 months to accomplish.

Palin, on the other hand, demonstrates decisiveness and vulnerability. Is she prepared for the enormous breadth of responsibility of president? I think she’s ready for the hard part, which is making tough decisions. She’s no “Ruminator-in Chief”, that’s for sure, and if the American people think a second year back bench senator was ready to be president, I’m not sure we’ve got the right rubric out there.

Palin is real. She takes counsel of her fears and continuously comes back to her foundation of family, God, state and nation for reassurance and guidance. She has strong moral guideposts that she uses to navigate the shark infested political waters. Reading about the decisions Sarah Palin faced at multiple levels of government reminded me of something my command sergeant major in the 82nd Airborne Division used to say when we faced a tough decision together: “Sir, when you’re right, don’t worry about it.”

Palin is right on many issues such as energy policy, defense, business, and size of government. She gets it and my hope is that she firms up her base and then reaches out to moderates across this country. She has a gritty determination borne in the salmon hauls and caribou hunts that make her pioneer tough.

I am left wondering why the McCain campaign bottled her up and didn’t let the maverick, well, be a maverick. McCain made an unconventional pick and instead of hiring a Wall Street stockbroker to manage her I’m perplexed, and disappointed, that he didn’t let this one-woman campaign juggernaut do her thing. If she was accustomed to traveling all over Alaska campaigning essentially by herself or with her family by her side, surely she could have done without all of the layers of control. I believe that Sarah Palin is precisely what the American people are seeking: an honest, intelligent, passionate, practical conservative who is nonpartisan and a tough decision maker.

Oddly, as I read Going Rogue and learned the real story behind the mainstream media assault upon this patriot, I was briefly reminded of the first time I met Hillary Clinton. She was in her first year as New York’s junior senator and my impression of her was largely shaped by what I read in the newspapers or saw on television, meaning mostly negative. When she came into the Pentagon for a 45 minute briefing from my boss, I was one of four people in the room: the Vice Chief of Staff of the Army, Senator Clinton, her assistant Uma Abedin, and me.

Over the next 90 minutes, she not only ignored her schedule, but she demonstrated a keen intellect, undeniable sincerity, and genuine interest in the many complex topics discussed. I came away from that meeting with an entirely different viewpoint on Senator Clinton than had been painted for me in the media. I tucked away the lesson to always remember that there is a phalanx of reporters, journalists and hate mongers who are trying to tell us all what to think.

And so it was with Sarah Palin, someone I actually supported. I think Palin recognizes that the extreme members of both parties and media put each of them through the Mixmaster, in some part because they are women, and she extends an olive branch to Clinton for a chat over a cup of coffee.

No matter what your political leanings, you better believe that Sarah Palin will step forward when the time is right. She has spine and she is called to public service. She’s been bloodied in the faux battles of presidential politics and yet she’s still standing, making tough decisions. She seems to have an iron core spirit and a will to make our country better.

And like that pipeline of ink, she seems to have an indomitable will that when attacked, unfortunately for her opponents, she doesn’t break. Her resolve seems to strengthen.

As her father said, “Sarah’s not retreating; she’s reloading.”

We should hope so, because she’s precisely the kind of leader America needs.

Why on EARTH would the United States ever want to be more like Europe? Correct me if I’m wrong, but we left, did we not? Not only did we leave that older, lesser world behind, but we left skid-marks along the way with an entire continent eating our proverbial dust. Those were good times… Not to mention the asskickery that followed suit.

The truth is we’ve been doing things far better than Europe for centuries. We’ve built a stronger military and a much more dynamic economy than any of our European counterparts… And we’ve done it in record time. We left the world’s greatest superpowers one century only to blaze past them the next.

To be fair, times have changed and some European nations have been tremendous allies to the U.S.A. For that, they should be thanked and praised. That still doesn’t change the fact, however, that I don’t see a single country out there to which I could point and say “We need to be more like that!”

One could even argue that the United States is facing its current hardships because we’ve become more and more like old Europe. Even under “Republican” administrations we have continued to relinquish an unreasonable amount of control to the federal government. If there has ever been a bigger power grab reminiscent of old royalty than the one we’ve had in recent months (or years), I’ve never seen it… How’s that been working out for us?

If appeasing other nations means that we need to begin acting like them, you can count me out. Not only will I never be “culturally sensitive” to a people who use their left hand like a roll of Charmin, but I will never adopt a national ideology as my own that includes taking control of private enterprise or removing personal liberties.

For people who seem so hell-bent on multiculturalism, why can’t liberals understand that free enterprise/freedom is a part of the American Culture? I guess as far as leftists are concerned, the United States can’t qualify as a “cultured society” simply because we’ve actually created a society that works. If a civilization fails, it becomes a study of the human condition. If it succeeds (as the United States has), it becomes a culture-less society of capitalist pigs.

This whole “give unto us a king” mentality is really getting old. As for me, I don’t care what Green Day, the tiny Sean Penn, or the rest of the liberal elitists say; I’m proud of everything that has made this country great and I don’t think that we need to distance ourselves from it. But enough about me, what about you? Do you see any redeeming value in “going the way of Europe”? Is the destruction of a distinctively American culture worth the “love” that we’ll supposedly garner from across the globe?