More years ago than I care to remember, Burt Blumert saved my life”€“with the sort of advice only a born wise man could proffer. During some crisis or other, perhaps personal, perhaps political or professional”€”I don”€™t recall the details”€”he told me just what I should do, and I promptly did it”€”with beneficent results all around. What was his advice? As I agonized over what course of action to take, he sagely advised me: When in doubt, do nothing. Let the situation cool off, and take no action that will further inflame the dispute. “€œUs ethnic types,”€ he confided, “€œare emotional: it’s the way we are.”€ Burt introduced me to what was, for me, a novel concept: the idea of self-restraint, which has stood me in good stead ever since”€”and saved my life on more than one occasion, when I thought: “€œWhat would Burt do?”€

The central insight of conservatism”€”that everything is always getting worse”€”is dramatically illustrated by the little hamlet I recently moved to: Rio Nido, California. Located in the wine country of Sonoma county, about five miles north of the infamous Bohemian Grove facility where the elites meet annually to plot the fate of the world and enjoy the scenic Russian River as it flows lazily into the Pacific. Rio Nido”€””€œriver nest”€ in Spanish”€”is an idiosyncratic collection of some 250-odd summer cabins, and a few rather more substantial structures, about a mile and a half away from the resort town of Guerneville, on the north side of the Russian River. Endowed with a post office, its own zip code, and the faux-Tudor style Rio Inn, this little hamlet nestled in the redwoods was once a thriving and picturesque summer retreat for San Francisco’s oldest families, mostly Irish Catholic firefighters and policemen who came up here with the brood on the old Northwestern Pacific railroad, which, in better days, used to run from the City to the wilds of Sonoma county. When that artery was cut, by the general failure of railroads in favor of a government-subsidized highway system to benefit the auto industry, the lifeblood was slowly drained out of all the communities along the Russian River, most especially Rio Nido.

When the Soviet Union’s ramshackle empire imploded, and what Louis Bromfield called the “€œworldwide psychopathic cult”€ of Communism fell into an embarrassed quietude, it seemed the socialist dream was over. As it turned out, however, we should only have been so lucky. Socialism, the seizure of the means of production by the State, was by no means dead and buried: Indeed, it was strengthened, as it no longer had to bear the guilt of the gulag and the supposedly deviant doctrine of Leninism. It could return to its democratic and egalitarian roots, and find new life in fresh soil”€”American soil.

Obama’s campaign would have us believe that he’s the anti-corporate candidate, a populist “€œman of the people” whose race for the White House is being funded by tens and twenties sent in by ordinary folks who can”€™t wait to see him crack down on Wall Street abuses. What they don”€™t want you to know is that, out of the two and a half million donors to the Obama campaign, around 180,000 top dogs account for almost 60% of his campaign treasury. Who are these people? Let’s take a closer look….

If you think that FOX News”€”with its bleached-out blonde anchorbabes made up to look like mid-price hookers, and its braying neocon mouthpieces trumpeting the party line”€”is the televised voice of conservatism, then think again. Sean Hannity, Bill Kristol, et al. offer up plenty of “€œconservative”€ platitudes on the war in Georgia, the war in Iraq, and the permanent wars on Jihadism, drugs, poverty, and juvenile delinquency. But then the personalities who inhabit the FOX universe are mostly incapable of projecting recognizably conservative values. FOX feeds its viewers a continuous stream of “€œconservative”€ talking points, while devoting scant airtime to the peace of hearth and home and the ordinary struggles”€”the emotional and even the spiritual struggles”€”of real living human beings. This is not to say that traditional values are nowhere to be seen on the airwaves. There are conservative moments, so to speak, glimpses of another sensibility that occasionally slip through the veil of modernity, appearing, unbidden, in between the perversity and the hectoring. In order to find it, however, you have to turn off FOX News, ignore the pundits, and go where the American people are”€”in their homes. I”€™m talking about HGTV”€”the one and only channel that devotes itself to the core value of the conservative canon”€”hearth and home.