Well gee folks, when you don't have a gun you have to have something to kill with...
http://lastresistance.com/906/england-considering-ban-on-kitchen-knives/
Well gee folks, when you don't have a gun you have to have something to kill with...
http://lastresistance.com/906/england-considering-ban-on-kitchen-knives/
American Exceptionalism will no longer exist in the minds of our children. Texas has joined ranks with the leftist agenda in indoctrinating our children with a progressive ideology. Over 70% of Texas public schools, some private and charter have purchased and implemented the progressive curriculum, Cscope. Cscope is based on Obama's Common Core. Common Core advocate Linda Darling Hammond is a top education adviser to Obama and is also associated with communist revolutionary Bill Ayers. Linda Darling Hammond has been a guest speaker at Cscope Conferences and is the quest speaker this February in California for the American Association of School Administrators (AASA) National Conference. Texas Association of School Administrators (TASA) is gearing up to attend the National Conference and hear Linda Darling Hammond speak and promote Common Core which, Texas rejected. Their fees and travel plans will be paid for with your tax dollars.
Cscope is owned by Texas Education Service Center's Curriculum Collaborative (TESCCC). The men and women behind Cscope are the Board of Directors of TESCCC which are the directors of the Texas Education Service Centers excluding ESC 4.
Our children are not being taught about the great men and women who sacrificed their lives for this country nor or they taught that these sacrifices attribute to the FREEDOM we have been so fortunate to enjoy.Instead our children are being indoctrinated with a pro Islamic, anti christian view. Texas students could benefit greatly from studying the lives of great men such as Christopher Columbus, George Washington, Abe Lincoln or better yet the missionary journeys of the Apostle Paul. Unfortunately for our children Cscope writers felt it more important that 6 grade students chronicle Islamic Scholar Ibn Battuta's pilgrimage to Mecca and Mohammad's tomb in Medina. The fact that Cscope is pushing a pro Islamic view is indisputable. Time after time their agenda is exposed, and as soon as it is, the Cscope Reps run to pull the exposed material with a flip of a switch (due to it being an online curriculum). Fortunately there are many concerned about this indoctrination of our children that have already captured the original Cscope documents in order to verify Cscope's intentions. Here is another captured portion of a 6 grade lesson indicating Cscope reps true intentions to indoctrinate your children with a pro Islamic view.
For additional information on Cscope and it's indoctrination go to WWW.TXCSCOPEREVIEW.COM
January 2, 2012 (STOPP) - Is there any perversion Planned Parenthood will not present to young, vulnerable people as “play”? Judging from the home page of Planned Parenthood of Northern New England, apparently not. The “healthcare” organization features a video storehouse known as “A Naked Notion with Laci Green,” by sporting a picture of a young lady waving a condom.
Click the link to watch the videos, and you will be greeted by “Getting Kinky—BDSM 101,” an instructional video created in partnership with Planned Parenthood of Northern New England that attempts to make sadomasochism sound like a harmless, pleasant romp in the park.
Laci states in her perky, lilting voice that October was declared National Kink Month, “and when you think about it, October and kink—they’re kind of a fitting pair,” she says. “Halloween and kink are both about adventure and fun and exploring roles and dynamics that are maybe a little bit different from everyday life.”
The video flashes to a pair of handcuffs, and the query, “What is BDSM?” Laci explains that BDSM stands for bondage and discipline, domination and submission, and sadism and masochism. “It consists of intentionally designed scenarios called a scene where two people play out pleasurable acts that they’ve previously negotiated, called play,” she says.
But the dictionary makes no such distinction about previous negotiation or play when defining sadism. Merriam-Webster defines sadism as: “(1) a sexual perversion in which gratification is obtained by the infliction of physical or mental pain on others; (2)(a) delight in cruelty; (b) excessive cruelty.”
That’s a far cry from negotiated fun, yet Planned Parenthood blatantly promotes it as pleasurable play. And its obvious target is young and otherwise vulnerable people.
“The pain at play with sadomasochism is not like breaking a bone or getting beat up,” Laci explains. “It’s about the strategic use of bodily sensations to elicit pleasure.”
She then sets out to normalize this horrific, dangerous perversion by saying that some people believe that those who participate in BDSM are emotionally scarred or were once abused. She states that this is “not true; it’s a total myth. People across the spectrum with various backgrounds participate in BDSM. The pain as exhilaration concept is not only old as dirt, it’s pretty common, even outside the bedroom.” She then compares sadomasochism to a runner’s high and the “intense euphoria” that results. “Kinda the same thing going on,” she says.
“The idea of using power and control and pain in a set scene understandably sets off alarms in some people’s heads,” she says. “They hear that BDSM involves spanking and pain and torture ... scary stuff. With no further knowledge it’s easy to conflate BDSM with abuse.”
“But BDSM and abuse are actually very different,” Laci says. She continues,
BDSM is about a consensual power exchange. Abuse is not. BDSM is negotiated and agreed upon before anything happens. Abuse is not. BDSM has rules, limits, and boundaries that are respected by all parties. Abuse does not.
If your head is reeling just imagining how these people who have consented to being bound and tortured are going to be respected by their “non-abusers” who are torturing them—and how respect and pre-negotiation are going to cause the torturer to limit his torture in wake of sexual stimulation—your head may well explode when you hear Laci’s next statement.
“BDSM relies upon and creates trust.” Yes, she really said that. “Abuse destroys trust,” she continued.
Next she sets out “the rules” that will ensure that BDSM remains equivalent to a runner’s high. Of course, in Planned Parenthood style, the first rule is to “negotiate safer sex”—that is, prevent STDs and pregnancies.
Rule 2 is setting boundaries. Using a “yes, no, maybe” chart is suggested as a tool. As we all know, those “maybe” boundaries are really helpful in all dangerous situations.
Laci continues, “Rule 3: Because saying stop, don’t, or no is sometimes part of the scene, partners practicing BDSM must agree on a safe word that’s easy to remember.”
Rule 4 is follow-up after a “scene,” “sometimes called after-care.” It’s all about sharing feelings after doing something really intense that may bring up some difficult feelings. Cuddling is suggested.
Rule 5 is consensual respect. “Safe, sane, and consensual power exchange relies on unyielding respect for each other’s boundaries.” It’s all about following the rules, she says.
And since this is a YouTube video, at its conclusion the viewer is treated to a variety of sadistic video options for his or her personal consumption.
Students on Christmas break are likely to log many hours online. If they end up on this Planned Parenthood website, the results could be beyond devastating.
This is Planned Parenthood. This is the organization that gets $1.3 million taxpayer dollars every day of the year to perpetuate its agenda.
This video and the others in the Naked Notion storehouse proudly bear the banner “In partnership with Planned Parenthood of Northern New England.” The PP logo appears on the browser tab as the videos are viewed.
What more do we need to know? Planned Parenthood is not a healthcare organization. It is the nation’s largest abortion chain. It is a seminal source of the most unbelievably perverse and dangerous sex promotion in the nation. And it has access to the eyes, ears, minds, and hearts of our children on a daily basis, whether on their smart phones, computers, or in person in their schools. It is time to stop the madness. We must defund Planned Parenthood, and we must do it without delay.
Our Wednesday STOPP Report archives are brimming with information about Planned Parenthood’s horrendous targeting of our children. Visit our website today to learn more and to find out how to stop the blight on our communities that is Planned Parenthood. To book one of our expert speakers contact stopp@all.org.
And please consider making your most generous donation to American Life League today to support the work we undertake every day to protect children around the world from Planned Parenthood.
Pay careful attention to what he says.
The future must not belong to those who slander the prophet of Islam. Yet to be credible, those who condemn that slander must also condemn the hate we see when the image of Jesus Christ is desecrated, churches are destroyed, or the Holocaust is denied. Let us condemn incitement against Sufi Muslims, and Shiite pilgrims. It is time to heed the words of Gandhi: “Intolerance is itself a form of violence and an obstacle to the growth of a true democratic spirit.” Together, we must work towards a world where we are strengthened by our differences, and not defined by them. That is what America embodies, and that is the vision we will support.
Now, that’s the full paragraph so no one can claim I took him out of context.
But consider this.
It is an orthodox Christian belief that Mohammed is not a prophet. Actual Christians, as opposed to many of the supposed Christians put up by the mainstream media, believe that Christ is the only way to salvation. Believing that is slandering Mohammed. That’s just a fact. If you don’t believe me, you go into the MIddle East and proclaim Christ is the way, the truth, and the life and see what happens to your life.
Then Barack Obama went on to say “Yet to be credible, those who condemn that slander must also condemn the hate we see when the image of Jesus Christ is desecrated, churches are destroyed, or the Holocaust is denied.” Note he says we cannot “slander the prophet of Islam” but it’s only the image of Christ in the next sentence — not actually Christ himself desecrated. If this is so, why does Barack Obama’s government continue funding the National Endowment for the Arts, which funded Christ in piss, the Virgin Mary painted in dung, etc.?
Now, in point of fact, this is a major difference between Islam and Christianity. Christ came to this world as an enemy of the world and expected to be impugned. He also tells his followers that they should expect to be impugned. There is joy in being persecuted for following the Risen Lord. In Islam, if you impugn Mohammed, you get a fatwa on your butt.
And then there is the first amendment. The President of the United States tried to have it both ways in his speech.
I know there are some who ask why we don’t just ban such a video. The answer is enshrined in our laws: our Constitution protects the right to practice free speech. Here in the United States, countless publications provoke offense. Like me, the majority of Americans are Christian, and yet we do not ban blasphemy against our most sacred beliefs. Moreover, as President of our country, and Commander-in-Chief of our military, I accept that people are going to call me awful things every day, and I will always defend their right to do so. Americans have fought and died around the globe to protect the right of all people to express their views – even views that we disagree with.
We do so not because we support hateful speech, but because our Founders understood that without such protections, the capacity of each individual to express their own views, and practice their own faith, may be threatened. We do so because in a diverse society, efforts to restrict speech can become a tool to silence critics, or oppress minorities. We do so because given the power of faith in our lives, and the passion that religious differences can inflame, the strongest weapon against hateful speech is not repression, it is more speech – the voices of tolerance that rally against bigotry and blasphemy, and lift up the values of understanding and mutual respect.
I know that not all countries in this body share this understanding of the protection of free speech. Yet in 2012, at a time when anyone with a cell phone can spread offensive views around the world with the click of a button, the notion that we can control the flow of information is obsolete. The question, then, is how we respond. And on this we must agree: there is no speech that justifies mindless violence.
Just words, Mr. President? You say “there is no speech that justifies mindless violence,” but all last week you condemned a ridiculous video trailer for a movie that does not exist. Your government ran advertisements in Pakistan denouncing the video. What of free speech, Mr. President? Last week you were saying the violence was understandable given the offensive film and this week you are trying to claim it was mindless.
Oh wait, you did it again in the same speech where you said “there is no speech that justifies mindless violence”:
At times, the conflicts arise along the fault lines of faith, race or tribe; and often they arise from the difficulties of reconciling tradition and faith with the diversity and interdependence of the modern world. In every country, there are those who find different religious beliefs threatening; in every culture, those who love freedom for themselves must ask how much they are willing to tolerate freedom for others.
That is what we saw play out the last two weeks, as a crude and disgusting video sparked outrage throughout the Muslim world.
Time and again the President of the United States tries to have it both ways.
But are they just words?
The fact is, many religions do not recognize Mohammed as a prophet. In the widest swath of Islam, that denial is, in and of itself, slander. So what exactly are you saying Mr. President?
As an exit point, with all of President Obama’s statements on tolerance in his speech, we should remember that tolerance is really not a Christian virtue. As Archbishop Chaput of Philadelphia noted, “We need to remember that tolerance is not a Christian virtue. Charity, justice, mercy, prudence, honesty — these are Christian virtues. And obviously, in a diverse community, tolerance is an important working principle. But it’s never an end itself.” The Archbishop also noted that evil preaches tolerance until it is dominate and then it seeks to silence good. That’s not a statement that the President is evil in any way, shape, or form, but we should be mindful when the secular world demands tolerance for all, tolerance for all means we cannot have standards of faith to live by, because those standards obviously require we be intolerant of sins this world has embraced.
As a law abiding optometrist who works 6 days/week to support my family, I am getting annoyed with the entitlement generation who wants everything free. Recently I had a woman from France who complained that all American Doctors want to make money to buy BMW's. WTF? I have had other patients who do not want to pay medical insurance copays for follow up visit (thankfully rare). I guess these nutjobs thinks money grow on trees and doctors do not have expenses (raising a family with a stay home wife-so my 2 boys will learn to grow up with morals and a strong work ethic).
Why is it fine for the leftists to love John Edwards (who made multimillion dollar settlements as a trial attorney), but dislike doctors who have spent over 8 years after high school education dedicated to taking care of patients as greedy sobs?
I want my old country back with strong morals!
As I set here today I see well once again my life will never be the same.I see well every dime I will every make or my daughter and son will be just to pay for what has happen in just 24 hours of this new year.
I can just sit here and do nothing or I can ask others with me to start getting names to have the first total recall of every congressman and senate that is now or will be in office and the president. We need to show how much damage they truly have done.
yes some all very happy but, they also forgot about the payroll tax that has gone up , so when they get there new pay check they will see it.
We need , to see if our State's is still paying each member we send to Washington DC,if so then it is time to stop they pay and see how many really are for they people, or just for a pay check and a name.
We need to make it by law that no one we send to the House or senate have no more then two 3 years term. Evey if it is a state law only.
We need to till who every we send that if they will not listen to the people then they will be recall as fast as they got in.
Some will never try to remove the person they help put in, because they really do not care what happens as long as that person is in Washington DC
So Now I will see how many of us really do care are we just going to cry about it and do nothing.
Do we have to be in a pay Union to do something?
I for one am very very trier of it all, I did not fight for this and, other did not died for this
The pin is in our hands,it's time to truly us it.
As soon as America awakened to the reality that our votes were ruthlessly stolen, The Enemies Within got busy. Ridicule, scorn, spin, deceit, lies have been flying, with the aim of once again slapping the faces of We The People.
To all of New York and New Jersey Hurricane Sandy vitims, shortly after Sandy destroyed your lives, your movie star of a president couldn't wait to run in on your heartbreak and destroyed lives for his time in front of the camera's for his big photo-op. Promised you all the world. Going to make "SURE" you where taken care of.Promised you all that his government would make "SURE" he and they, would not rest until you lives were restored. That he wouldn't rest until that was done. "Great Timming", just when his rating were down on the presidential election and Romney had whiped the tar out of him in the debate. My friends, that was just a play for your votes and a chance to look like he was concerned. JUST FOR VOTES. All of New York and New Jersey went for and voted for that Liar and Chief. He never intended on keeping those promises to you. Remember, you re-elected him. You made the bed you are laying in now. And now he has shown his appciation by abandoning you. Some of you, still trying to survuve in the winters cold, freezing temperature and snow. No homes, hardy no food and wondering where you will stay now that word came out that FEMA is no longer going to provide motels or temporary housing for you. And now no funding was voted on, or approved for your help in this governments session of votes this week. But Obama will blame that too, on Republicans. But he is supose to be the countries LEADER and looking out for you all. Obama got what he wanted out of you, your votes, his job back, his fine lifestyle for another 4 years, now he thinks, "hell with you all, got what I was after". I heard this morning, he has headed back to Hawai on another vacation, warm, plenty of lavish food, playing golf, on the beach having a iced cold beer and having a good time on my and your (OUR) tax dollars. Party boy is living it up, trips to Vagas, concerts with big name muscians and movie stars. While you are in freezing weather, scraping and trying and wondering if you will some how be able to survive just one more day. You need to be marching on Washington demanding that he be impeached. You all put him in there, now get him out. When Hurricane Katrina demolished the Gulf Coast, I work the FEMA recovery process on the temporary housing for those with no where to live. was involved with it for 3 years. The people had somewhere to be inside, out of the elements. George W. Bush has constantly been talked about, blamed for everything and portrayed as the devil himself by Obama. All Obama's failures, his say's is George Bush's fault. Now that 4 year excuse has about played out. Now the next 4 years of failure will be blamed on the Republicans in Congress. It has already started. But one thing about it, George W. Bush didn't abandon the victims of Katrina. He acted like a leader. He saw to it that they had housing, food, water, heat in the winter and cool in the summer and that FEMA was there for them. And where is Obama in your time of need? IN HAWAI ON VACATION!! It is so simple to tell when Obama is telling a lie to you and the rest of the American people,, "HIS LIPS MOVE"!!!
This attitude, which governs the Obama Administration’s foreign policy and domestic policy at the expense of the truth, provides a neat cover for Obama’s tacit encouragement of the Islamist takeover in the Middle East and his attempts to stifle criticism of Islam in the United States. Thus, when the Benghazi attack occurred, it became vitally necessary to blame an American video; when there was ample warning of the dangers surrounding the Benghazi outlet they were ignored, when the attack occurred, there was no word from the White House that they would respond forcefully.
Keeping that overriding attitude of denial of Islamic terror in mind, here are some statements from the report that fit the profile of the Obama Administration as neglecting the Islamic threat:
In the months leading up to the attack on the Temporary Mission Facility in Benghazi, there was a large amount of evidence gathered by the U.S. Intelligence Community (IC) and from open sources that Benghazi was increasingly dangerous and unstable, and that a significant attack against American personnel there was becoming much more likely. While this intelligence was effectively shared within the Intelligence Community (IC) and with key officials at the Department of State, it did not lead to a commensurate increase in security at Benghazi nor to a decision to close the American mission there, either of which would have been more than justified by the intelligence presented.
Of course those methods weren’t considered by the Obama Administration; there is no Islamist threat.
With Osama bin Laden dead and core al Qaeda weakened, a new collection of violent Islamist extremist organizations and cells have emerged in the last two to three years. These groups are not all operationally linked to core al Qaeda or in some cases have only weak ties to al Qaeda. This trend is particularly notable in countries such as Libya, Egypt, Tunisia, and Syria that are going through political transition or military conflict as a result of the political upheavals referred to as the “Arab Spring.”
But these groups can’t be a serious danger to the United States because Bin Laden is dead and thus there is no Islamist threat.
The report writes of the Libyan security personnel called the February 17 Brigade who were hired to help guard the compound:
Some U.S. personnel also questioned the Brigade’s loyalty to the Libyan government and their capacity or desire to safeguard American interests. In June 2012, an RSO in Benghazi wrote, “Unfortunately, given the current threat to the diplomatic mission, the militia members not currently on the [four-man team stationed at the facility] have expressed concern with showing active open support for the Americans in Benghazi.” Notably, the contract between the State Department and the February 17 Brigade had expired by the time of the attack.
There has been speculation that the Libyans who were supposed to help guard the compound actually aided the attackers. But the Obama Administration wasn’t worried about the loyalties because there is no Islamist threat.
In the December 2011 memo approving the Temporary Mission Facility in Benghazi, the Department of State noted the need for corrective security measures for the facility. According to RSO Nordstrom, the Department of State never consulted with him about the security requirements of the facility before the December 2011 action memo was sent to Under Secretary Kennedy for approval. The memo approved by Kennedy indicated that the Department of State would “ rapidly implement a series of corrective security measures as part of the consolidation of the State footprint.” However, the memo lacked details as to the security standards to be followed and the resources required to implement the security measures. The absence of dedicated resources contributed to the constraints under which those in Washington and Benghazi would operate throughout 2012 …Because the Benghazi facility was temporary, no security standards applied to it.
No security standards for a facility housing our ambassador in incendiary east Libya? Why not? There is no Islamist threat.
In March 2012 the Tripoli Embassy had requested five full-time security positions for Benghazi. However, a day after sending this request, Nordstrom was told that Washington had capped the number of agents in Benghazi at three, even though the request for five agents was consistent with the December 2011 action memo approved by Under Secretary Kennedy to extend the duration of the Benghazi facility … Following a bomb attack on a Libyan Army colonel in August, the principal U.S. diplomatic officer in Benghazi wrote that “[g]iven our small size, there is really no distinction between authorized and ordered departure from Benghazi: if we lose one more person, we will be ineffective... we are already at a skeleton crew … In July Embassy officials in Tripoli requested a minimum of three DS agents for Benghazi.
From five down to three? Why? There is no Islamist threat.
Despite the inability of the Libyan government to fulfill its duties to secure the facility, the increasingly dangerous threat assessments, and a particularly vulnerable facility, the Department of State officials did not conclude the facility in Benghazi should be closed or temporarily shut down. That was a grievous mistake.
Why no shut-down? You know why.
And Barack Obama’s refusal to call the attack an act of terrorism as late as September 24 on “The View” when questioned by Joy Behar when the report clearly states:
As early as September 15th, the Annex team that had been in Benghazi during the attack reported there had been no protest … The next day, the President of Libya’s General National Congress, Mohamed Yousef el-Magariaf, also stated on the CBS News show Face the Nation that the attack was planned and involved Al Qaeda elements.
Obama would be the last person in the world to acknowledge Islamic terrorism is still thriving.
The report concludes with this passage, which insinuates that the mantra of “There is no Islamist Threat” is a real concern with this Administration:
One of the key lessons of this Committee’s six-year focus on the threat of violent Islamist extremism is that, in order to understand and counter the threat we face, we must clearly identify that threat. During the Committee’s investigation into the Fort Hood massacre, for example, we found systemic problems with the way the military addressed violent Islamist extremism in its policies and procedures (treating this specific threat within the broader context of “workplace violence”). Similarly, while we welcomed the Administration’s release last year of a national strategy and implementation plan for countering radicalization domestically, we expressed our disappointment in the Administration’s continued refusal to identify violent Islamist extremism as our enemy.
Obama’s denial of the Islamist threat is the foundation of his policies. When viewed through that prism, every action he takes becomes crystal-clear.
2013: Welcome To Very, Very Scary Times – Victor Davis Hanson
On the One Hand…
These should not be foreboding years. The U.S. is in the midst of a veritable energy revolution. There is a godsend of new gas and oil discoveries that will help to curtail our fiscal and foreign policy vulnerabilities – an energy bonanza despite, not because of, the present administration.
Demographically, our rivals – the EU, China, Russia, and Japan – are both shrinking and aging at rates far in excess of our own.
In terms of farming, the United States is exporting more produce than ever before at record prices. Americans eat the safest and cheapest food on the planet.
As far as high-tech gadgetry, the global companies that have most changed the world in recent years – Amazon’s online buying, Google search engines, Apple iPhones, iPads, and Mac laptops – are mostly American. There is a reason why Mexican nationals are not crossing their border into Guatemala – and it is not because they prefer English speakers to Spanish speakers.
Militarily, the United States is light years ahead of its rivals. And so on…
The New Poverty Is the Old Middle Class
We have redefined poverty itself through government entitlements, modes of mass production and consumerism, and technological breakthroughs. The poor man is not hungry; more likely he suffers from obesity, now endemic among the less affluent. He is not deprived of a big-screen TV, a Kia, warm water, or an air conditioner. (My dad got our first color television during my first year in college in 1972, a small 19 inch portable; I bought my first new car at 39, and quit changing my own oil at 44.)
In classical terms, today’s poor man is poor not in relative global terms (e.g. compared to a Russian, Bolivian, or Yemeni), but in the sense that there are those in America who have more things and choices than does he: a BMW instead of a Hyundai, ribeye instead of ground beef, Pellegrino rather than regular Coke, Tuscany in the summer rather than Anaheim at Disneyland, and L.L. Bean tasteful footwear rather than Payless shoes. I was in Manhattan not long ago, and noticed that my cheap, discount-store sportcoat and Target tie did not raise eyebrows among the wealthy people I spoke to, suggesting that the veneer of aristocracy is now within all our reach. When I returned to Selma, I noted that those ahead of me at Super Wal-Mart were clothed no differently than was I. Their EBD cards bought about the same foods.
Put all the above developments together, and an alignment of the planets is favoring America as never before – as long as we do not do something stupid to nullify what fate, our ancestors, and our own ingenuity have given us. But unfortunately that is precisely what is now happening.
The New Hubris
These are the most foreboding times in my 59 years. The reelection of Barack Obama has released a surge of rare honesty among the Left about its intentions, coupled with a sense of triumphalism that the country is now on board for still greater redistributionist change.
There is no historical appreciation among the new progressive technocracy that central state planning, whether the toxic communist brand or supposedly benevolent socialism, has only left millions of corpses in its wake, or abject poverty and misery. Add up the Soviet Union and Mao’s China and the sum is 80 million murdered or starved to death. Add up North Korea, Cuba, and the former Eastern Europe, and the tally is egalitarian poverty and hopelessness. The EU sacrificed democratic institutions for coerced utopianism and still failed, leaving its Mediterranean shore bankrupt and despondent.
Nor is there much philosophical worry that giving people massive subsidies destroys individualism, the work ethic, and the personal sense of accomplishment. There is rarely worry expressed that a profligate nation that borrows from others abroad and those not born has no moral compass. There is scant political appreciation that the materialist Marxist argument – that justice is found only through making sure that everyone has the same slice of stuff from the zero-sum pie – was supposed to end up on the ash heap of history.
Read the News and Weep
That is not conspiracy talk, but simply a distillation of what I read today. On the last day of the year when I am writing this, I offer you just three sample op-eds.
A journalist, Donald Kaul, in the Des Moines Register offers us a three-step, presto! plan to stop school shootings:
Repeal the Second Amendment, the part about guns anyway. It’s badly written, confusing and more trouble than it’s worth. …Declare the NRA a terrorist organization and make membership illegal. Hey! We did it to the Communist Party, and the NRA has led to the deaths of more of us than American Commies ever did. …Then I would tie Mitch McConnell and John Boehner, our esteemed Republican leaders, to the back of a Chevy pickup truck and drag them around a parking lot until they saw the light on gun control.
Note the new ease with which the liberal mind calls for trashing the Constitution, outlawing those whom they don’t like (reminiscent of “punish our enemies“?), and killing those politicians with whom they don’t agree (we are back to Bush Derangement Syndrome, when novels, movies, and op-eds dreamed of the president’s assassination.)
What would be the Register’s reaction should a conservative opponent of abortion dare write, “Repeal the First Amendment; ban Planned Parenthood as a terrorist organization; and drag Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi from a truck”? If an idiot were to write that trash, I doubt the Washington Times or Wall Street Journal would print such sick calls for overturning the Constitution and committing violence against public officials.
Ah Yes, Still More Redistribution
Turning to a column in The New Republic, John Judis, in honest fashion, more or less puts all the progressive cards on the table in a column titled “Obama’s Tax Hikes Won’t Be Nearly Big Enough” – a candor about what the vast $5 trillion deficits of Obama’s first term were all about in the first place.
Here is the summation quote: “But to fund these programs, governments will have to extract a share of income from those who are able to afford them and use the revenues to make the services available for everyone.”
Note that Judas was not talking about the projected new taxes in the fiscal cliff talks, but something far greater to come. He understands well that the “gorge the beast” philosophy that resulted in these astronomical debts will require enormous new sources of revenue, funds “to extract” from “those who are able to afford them” in order to “make services available for everyone.”
That is about as neat a definition of coerced socialism as one can find. Implicit in Judas’s formulation is that only a very well-educated (and well-compensated) technocratic class will possess the wisdom, the proper schooling, and the morality to adjudicate who are to be the extracted ones and who the new “everyone.”
The Constitution – Who the Hell Needs It?
The third item in my year-end reading was the most disturbing. A law professor (could it be otherwise?) named Louis Michael Seidman enlightens us with “Let’s Give Up on the Constitution” – yet another vision of what the now triumphant liberal mind envisions for us all:
As the nation teeters at the edge of fiscal chaos, observers are reaching the conclusion that the American system of government is broken. But almost no one blames the culprit: our insistence on obedience to the Constitution, with all its archaic, idiosyncratic and downright evil provisions.
Did Madison force Obama to borrow a half-billion dollars to fund Solyndra and its multimillionaire con artists?
Note Seidman’s use of “evil,” which tips his hand that our great moralist is on an ethical crusade to change the lives of lesser folk, who had the misfortune of growing up in America – a place so much less prosperous, fair, and secure than, say, Russia, China, the Middle East, Africa, South America, Spain, Greece, Italy, or Japan and Germany (in the earlier 20th century history). When I lived in Greece, traveled to Libya, and went into Mexico, I forgot to sigh, “My God, these utopias are possible for us too, if we just junked that evil Constitution.”
White Guys Did It
The non-archaic, un-idiosyncratic, and anti-downright evil Professor Seidman presses his argument against his inferiors who wrote the “evil” document: “Instead of arguing about what is to be done, we argue about what James Madison might have wanted done 225 years ago.”
Ah yes, old white male Madison, who lacked the insight, character, and morality of our new liberal technocrats in our successful law schools, such as, well, Mr. Seidman himself:
As someone who has taught constitutional law for almost 40 years, I am ashamed it took me so long to see how bizarre all this is. Imagine that after careful study a government official – say, the president or one of the party leaders in Congress – reaches a considered judgment that a particular course of action is best for the country. Suddenly, someone bursts into the room with new information: a group of white propertied men who have been dead for two centuries, knew nothing of our present situation, acted illegally under existing law and thought it was fine to own slaves might have disagreed with this course of action. Is it even remotely rational that the official should change his or her mind because of this divination?
I suppose human nature changes every decade or so, so why shouldn’t constitutions as well?
I can see Seidman’s vision now: Harry Reid or Nancy Pelosi decides that semi-automatic handguns, not cheap Hollywood violence or sick video games, empower the insane to kill, and, presto, their “considered judgment” and favored “particular course of action” trump the archaic and evil wisdom of “white propertied men.” But if we wish to avoid the baleful influence of white guys, can Seidman point to indigenous Aztec texts for liberal guidance, or perhaps the contemporary constitution of liberated Zimbabwe, or the sagacity of the Chinese court system?
The Law Is What We Say It Is
Note the fox-in-the-henhouse notion that a constitutional law professor essentially hates the Constitution he is supposed to teach, sort of like Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg warning the Egyptians not to follow our own constitutional example, when South Africa has offered so much more to humanity than did Madison, Hamilton, Jefferson, and others: “I would not look to the U.S. Constitution, if I were drafting a constitution in the year 2012. I might look at the constitution of South Africa.” Ginsburg obviously vacations in Johannesburg, goes to Cape Town for her medical treatment, and has a vacation home and bank account in the scenic South African countryside.
Seidman looks fondly on Roosevelt’s war against the Constitution (especially the notion that law is essentially what an elected president who has proper “aspirations” says it is):
In his Constitution Day speech in 1937, Franklin D. Roosevelt professed devotion to the document, but as a statement of aspirations rather than obligations. This reading no doubt contributed to his willingness to extend federal power beyond anything the framers imagined, and to threaten the Supreme Court when it stood in the way of his New Deal legislation.
No doubt.
Free at Last from Constitutional Chains
In the age of Obama, the constitutional law lecturer who once lamented that the Supreme Court had not gone far enough by failing to take up questions of forced redistribution, Seidman writes:
In the face of this long history of disobedience, it is hard to take seriously the claim by the Constitution’s defenders that we would be reduced to a Hobbesian state of nature if we asserted our freedom from this ancient text. Our sometimes flagrant disregard of the Constitution has not produced chaos or totalitarianism; on the contrary, it has helped us to grow and prosper.
But I thought it was the Constitution, not the anti-Constitution or egalitarian good will, that separated us from Hitler’s Germany, Mussolini’s Italy, Tojo’s Japan, Stalin’s Soviet Union, Mao’s China, and most of the miserable places that one sees abroad today, from Cuba to North Korea, which all had and have one thing in common – the embrace of some sort of national, republican, or democratic “socialism” guiding their efforts and plastered about in their sick mottoes.
The progressive mind, given that is it more enlightened and moral, alone can determine which parts of the “evil” Constitution should be summarily ignored (e.g., the Second Amendment) and which should not be: “This is not to say that we should disobey all constitutional commands. Freedom of speech and religion, equal protection of the laws and protections against governmental deprivation of life, liberty or property are important, whether or not they are in the Constitution. We should continue to follow those requirements out of respect, not obligation.”
Give Real Freedom a Chance
I am sure that history offers all sorts of examples where people without evil documents like our Constitution protected free speech and religious worship – out of “respect.” Ask Socrates, Jesus, six million Jews, 20 million Russians, or those with eyeglasses during the days of the Khmer Rouge. Apparently, what stops such carnage is not the rule of constitutional law, but good progressive minds who care for others and show respect. I’ll try that rhetoric on the next thief who for the fourth time will steal the copper wire conduit from my pump.
So just dream with Professor Seidman:
The deep-seated fear that such disobedience would unravel our social fabric is mere superstition. As we have seen, the country has successfully survived numerous examples of constitutional infidelity… What has preserved our political stability is not a poetic piece of parchment, but entrenched institutions and habits of thought and, most important, the sense that we are one nation and must work out our differences. No one can predict in detail what our system of government would look like if we freed ourselves from the shackles of constitutional obligation, and I harbor no illusions that any of this will happen soon. But even if we can’t kick our constitutional-law addiction, we can soften the habit… before abandoning our heritage of self-government, we ought to try extricating ourselves from constitutional bondage so that we can give real freedom a chance.
I have seen their future and it is almost here right now. Scary times, indeed.
WHERE IS OUR VOICE ON THE NATION SEEN ???
You'd be surprised at the answers, then again, maybe not.
Read article here.
(Zimbio)
Josh Boston was a Marine deployed to Afghanistan between the years of 2004 through 2005. He is no longer in the Marines but penned this letter to Senator Dianne Feinstein following her announcement to outlaw 120 specifically-named firearms including certain semiautomatic rifles, handguns, and shotguns..
CNNi reported:
Senator Dianne Feinstein,
I will not register my weapons should this bill be passed, as I do not believe it is the government’s right to know what I own. Nor do I think it prudent to tell you what I own so that it may be taken from me by a group of people who enjoy armed protection yet decry me having the same a crime. You ma’am have overstepped a line that is not your domain. I am a Marine Corps Veteran of 8 years, and I will not have some woman who proclaims the evil of an inanimate object, yet carries one, tell me I may not have one.
I am not your subject. I am the man who keeps you free. I am not your servant. I am the person whom you serve. I am not your peasant. I am the flesh and blood of America.
I am the man who fought for my country. I am the man who learned. I am an American. You will not tell me that I must register my semi-automatic AR-15 because of the actions of some evil man.I will not be disarmed to suit the fear that has been established by the media and your misinformation campaign against the American public.
We, the people, deserve better than you.
Respectfully Submitted,
Joshua Boston
Cpl, United States Marine Corps
2004-2012
Warner Todd Huston spoke with Joshua Boston about his letter.
by Don Fredrick, ©2012, blogging at The Obama Timeline
The Obama Timeline, Can It All Be Coincidence?
Don Fredrick
USA --(Ammoland.com)- As I noted in the introduction to my book, The Obama Timeline, a jury at a murder trial will often find the accumulated circumstantial evidence so overwhelming that a guilty verdict is obvious—even though there may be no witness to the crime.
“The jurors in the Scott Peterson trial believed the collection of evidence more than they believed Scott Peterson. Among other things, the jury thought that being arrested with $15,000 in cash, recently-dyed hair, a newly-grown goatee, four cell phones, camping equipment, a map to a new girlfriend’s house, a gun, and his brother’s driver’s license certainly did not paint a picture of a grieving husband who had nothing to do with his pregnant wife’s disappearance and murder.”
In the four years I have been gathering information about —and evidence against— Barack Hussein Obama, I have encountered hundreds of coincidences that strike me as amazing. None of those coincidences, by themselves, may mean much.
But taken as a whole it is almost impossible to believe they were all the result of chance.
Consider the Obama-related coincidences:
Obama just happened to know 60s far-left radical revolutionary William Ayers, whose father just happened to be Thomas Ayers, who just happened to be a close friend of Obama’s communist mentor Frank Marshall Davis, who just happened to work at the communist-sympathizing Chicago Defender with Vernon Jarrett, who just happened to later become the father-in-law of Iranian-born leftist Valerie Jarrett, who Obama just happened to choose as his closest White House advisor, and who just happened to have been CEO of Habitat Company, which just happened to manage public housing in Chicago, which just happened to get millions of dollars from the Illinois state legislature, and which just happened not to properly maintain the housing—which eventually just happened to require demolition.
Valerie Jarrett also just happened to work for the city of Chicago, and just happened to hire Michelle LaVaughan Robinson (later Obama), who just happened to have worked at the Sidley Austin law firm, where former fugitive from the FBI Bernardine Dohrn also just happened to work, and where Barack Obama just happened to get a summer job.
Bernardine Dohrn just happened to be married to William Ayers, with whom she just happened to have hidden from the FBI at a San Francisco marina, along with Donald Warden, who just happened to change his name to Khalid al-Mansour, and Warden/al-Mansour just happened to be a mentor of Black Panther Party founders Huey Newton and Bobby Seale and a close associate of Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan, and al-Mansour just happened to be financial adviser to a Saudi Prince, who just happened to donate cash to Harvard, for which Obama just happened to get a critical letter of recommendation from Percy Sutton, who just happened to have been the attorney for Malcolm X, who just happened to know Kenyan politician Tom Mboya, who just happened to be a close friend of Barack Hussein Obama, Sr., who just happened to meet Malcolm X when he traveled to Kenya.
Obama, Sr. just happened to have his education at the University of Hawaii paid for by the Laubach Literacy Institute, which just happened to have been supported by Elizabeth Mooney Kirk, who just happened to be a friend of Malcolm X, who just happened to have been associated with the Nation of Islam, which was later headed by Louis Farrakhan, who just happens to live very close to Obama’s Chicago mansion, which also just happens to be located very close to the residence of William Ayers and Bernardine Dohrn, who just happen to have been occasional baby-sitters for Malia and Natasha Obama, whose parents just happen not to mind exposing their daughters to bomb-making communists.
After attending Occidental College and Columbia University, where he just happened to have foreign Muslim roommates, Obama moved to Chicago to work for the Industrial Areas Foundation, an organization that just happened to have been founded by Marxist and radical agitator Saul “the Red” Alinsky, author of Rules for Radicals, who just happened to be the topic of Hillary Rodham Clinton’s thesis at Wellesley College, and Obama’s $25,000 salary at IAF just happened to be funded by a grant from the Woods Fund, which was founded by the Woods family, whose Sahara Coal company just happened to provide coal to Commonwealth Edison, whose CEO just happened to be Thomas Ayers, whose son William Ayers just happened to serve on the board of the Woods Fund, along with Obama.
The Obama Timeline
Obama also worked on voter registration drives in Chicago in the 1980s and just happened to work with leftist political groups like the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) and Socialist International (SI), through which Obama met Carl Davidson, who just happened to travel to Cuba during the Vietnam War to sabotage the U.S. war effort, and who just happened to be a former member of the SDS and a member of the Committees of Correspondence for Democracy and Socialism, which just happened to sponsor a 2002 anti-war rally at which Obama spoke, and which just happened to have been organized by Marilyn Katz, a former SDS activist and later public relations consultant who just happened to be a long-time friend of Obama’s political hatchet man, David Axelrod.
Obama joined Trinity United Church of Christ (TUCC), whose pastor was Reverend Jeremiah Wright, a fiery orator who just happened to preach Marxism and Black Liberation Theology and who delivered anti-white, anti-Jew, and anti-American sermons, which Obama just happened never to hear because he just happened to miss church only on the days when Wright was at his “most enthusiastic,” and Obama just happened never to notice that Oprah Winfrey left the church because it was too radical, and just happened never to notice that the church gave the vile anti-Semitic Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan a lifetime achievement award.
Although no one had ever heard of him at the time, Obama just happened to receive an impossible-to-believe $125,000 advance to write a book about race relations, which he just happened to fail to write while using the cash to vacation in Bali with his wife Michelle, and despite his record of non-writing he just happened to receive a second advance, for $40,000, from another publisher, and he eventually completed a manuscript called Dreams From My Father, which just happened to strongly reflect the writing style of William Ayers, who just happened to trample on an American flag for the cover photograph of the popular Chicago magazine, which Obama just happened never to see even though it appeared on newsstands throughout the city.
Obama was hired by the law firm Miner, Banhill and Galland, which just happened to specialize in negotiating state government contracts to develop low-income housing, and which just happened to deal with now-imprisoned Tony Rezko and his firm Rezar, and with slumlord Valerie Jarrett, and the law firm’s Judson Miner just happened to have been a classmate of Bernardine Dohrn, wife of William Ayers.
In 1994 Obama represented ACORN and another plaintiff in a lawsuit against Citibank for denying mortgages to blacks (Buycks-Roberson v. Citibank Federal Savings Bank), and the lawsuit just happened to result in banks being blackmailed into approving subprime loans for poor credit risks, a trend which just happened to spread nationwide, and which just happened to lead to the collapse of the housing bubble, which just happened to help Obama defeat John McCain in the 2008 presidential election.
In 1996 Obama ran for the Illinois State Senate and joined the “New Party,” which just happened to promote Marxism, and Obama was supported by Dr. Quentin Yong, a socialist who just happened to support a government takeover of the health care system.
In late 1999 Obama purportedly engaged in homosexual activities and cocaine-snorting in the back of a limousine with a man named Larry Sinclair, who claims he was contacted in late 2007 by Donald Young, who just happened to be the gay choir director of Obama’s Chicago church and who shared information with Sinclair about Obama, and Young just happened to be murdered on December 23, 2007, just weeks after Larry Bland, another gay member of the church, just happened to be murdered, and both murders just happened to have never been solved. In 2008 Sinclair held a press conference to discuss his claims, and just happened to be arrested immediately after the event, based on a warrant issued by Delaware Attorney General Beau Biden, who just happens to be the son of Joe Biden.
In 2003 Obama and his wife attended a dinner in honor of Rashid Khalidi, who just happened to be a former PLO operative, harsh critic of Israel, and advocate of Palestinian rights, and who Obama claims he does not know, even though the Obamas just happened to have dined more than once at the home of Khalidi and his wife, Mona, and just happened to have used them as occasional baby-sitters. Obama reportedly praised Khalidi at the decidedly anti-Semitic event, which William Ayers just happened to also attend, and the event Obama pretends he never attended was sponsored by the Arab American Action Network, to which Obama just happened to have funneled cash while serving on the board of the Woods Fund with William Ayers, and one speaker at the dinner remarked that if Palestinians cannot secure a return of their land, Israel “will never see a day of peace,” and entertainment at the dinner included a Muslim children’s dance whose performances just happened to include simulated beheadings with fake swords, and stomping on American, Israeli, and British flags, and Obama allegedly told the audience that “Israel has no God-given right to occupy Palestine” and there has been “genocide against the Palestinian people by (the) Israelis,” and the Los Angeles Times has a videotape of the event but just happens to refuse to make it public.
In the 2004 Illinois Democrat primary race for the U.S. Senate, front-runner Blair Hull just happened to be forced out of the race after David Axelrod just happened to manage to get Hull’s sealed divorce records unsealed, which just happened to enable Obama to win the primary, so he could face popular Republican Jack Ryan, whose sealed child custody records from his divorce just happened to become unsealed, forcing Ryan to withdraw from the race, which just happened to enable the unqualified Obama to waltz into the U.S. Senate, where, after a mere 143 days of work, he just happened to decide he was qualified to run for President of the United States.
Obama just happened to save $300,000 on the purchase of a $1.65 million Chicago mansion for which he deposited only $1,000 in earnest money, while the seller’s adjacent empty lot which was appraised at no more than $500,000 just happened to be sold at the inflated price of $625,000 to Rita Rezko, who just happened to earn only $37,000 per year working for Cook County government, and who just happened to be married to Tony Rezko, who just happened to be Obama’s main money man for his political campaigns, and who only days before the Obama mansion purchase just happened to obtain a $3.5 million loan from wealthy Iraqi Nadhmi Auchi, who just happened to have been kicked out of Iraq, and who just happened to have been convicted of corruption charges in France, and who just happened to ask Rezko to ask then-U.S. Senator Obama to help him obtain a visa to travel to the United States.
Rita Rezko just happened to borrow the money for the $625,000 empty lot from the Mutual Bank of Harvey, which just happened to be run by Tony Rezko’s pal Amrish Mahajan, whose wife Anita just happened to have been charged with fraudulently receiving $2 million in Illinois taxpayer dollars for drug tests never performed by her company, K. K. Bio-Science, which just happened to have a no-bid contract with the state, and whose computers just happened to disappear right before investigators arrived to take them away for evidence.
Obama just happened to obtain a $1.32 million mortgage for his mansion even though the payments of $8,000 per month (plus at least $1,500 per month in property taxes) exceeded 50 percent of his $162,100 U.S Senate salary income, and even though Michelle Obama was claiming that she and her husband were still paying off substantial student loans and were struggling to pay for piano lessons for their daughters, one of whom just happens to look remarkably like one of the daughters of Malcolm X.
Obama just happened to obtain his mansion mortgage from Northern Trust Bank, whose Board of Directors just happened to include Susan Crown, who just happened to be part of the wealthy Crown family, which just happened to donate to Obama’s campaigns, and which just happened to have ownership in defense contractor General Dynamics Corporation, and the Crown family just happened to sit on the board of energy company Exelon, formerly known as Commonwealth Edison, which just happened to have had Thomas Ayers as its CEO, and the Crown family also owned the Maytag appliance company, which just happened to move its operations to Mexico, after its employees just happened to donate to Obama’s campaign, after he just happened to pledge that he would keep their jobs in Galesburg, Illinois.
In June 2005, just months after Obama became a U.S. Senator, Michelle Obama just happened to be named a “non-executive director” of the board of TreeHouse Foods, a supplier of Wal-Mart, for a salary of $51,200 in 2005 and $101,083 in 2006, and she just happened to be given 7,500 TreeHouse stock options, worth approximately $72,375, even though she just happened to know nothing about the private sector or running a business.
In 2006 Obama pushed for a $1 million earmark for the University of Chicago, and his wife Michelle just happened to be promoted to Vice-President of Community and External Affairs for the hospitals with a salary increase from $121,900 to $316,962, and she just happened to receive public relations help from Obama’s political strategist David Axelrod, whose mother just happened to write for a communist newspaper.
In 2006 Sarah P. Herlihy, an associate of the Chicago law firm of Kirkland and Ellis, whose employees later contributed $87,722 to Obama’s presidential campaign, and whose partner Bruce I. Ettleson just happened to be a member of Obama’s campaign finance committee, just happened to write a paper calling for the elimination of the “natural born citizen” requirement in the U.S. Constitution.
Obama just happened to visit Kenya in 2006 to support his cousin, Raila Odinga, a Muslim socialist candidate for president, who just happened to have ties to both al-Qaeda and Libya’s Muammar Qaddafi, and who just happened to have been educated in communist East Germany, and who just happened to name his son Fidel, and who just happened to plan on establishing Shari’ah Muslim law in Kenya, and whose activities prompted the Kenyan government to lodge an official protest of Obama’s passport abuse and misconduct, and Obama’s actions just happened to have been denounced by the U.S. State Department as being in direct opposition to U.S. National Security, and after Odinga, for whom Obama just happened to have raised $950,000, lost the election, his Muslim followers just happened to burn Christian women and children alive in a church where they had sought refuge.
In 2006 Obama endorsed Alexi Giannoulias in his race for Illinois State Treasurer and stated that he is “…one of the most outstanding young men I could ever hope to meet”—even though Giannoulias just happened to be only 29 years old and even though his family’s Broadway Bank just happened to finance Chicago crime figures like Michael “Jaws” Giorango, a Chicago thug with convictions for bookmaking and promoting prostitution, and even though virtually all of Chicago’s Democrat politicians were keeping their distance from Giannoulias, whose reputation was so questionable he even failed to get the endorsement of the Chicago Democrat Party—which just happens to almost never be concerned about questionable reputations.
Obama’s mother, Stanley Ann Dunham, once worked for the Ford Foundation’s Asiaprogram, which just happened to be run by Peter Geithner, who just happened to be the father of Timothy Geithner, who just happened to neglect to pay Social Security taxes on much of his income, which just happened to somehow qualify him to be Obama’s Treasury Secretary.
During the 2008 campaign Obama’s passport records just happened to have been illegally searched by an employee of a firm headed by John O. Brennan, and Lt. Quarles Harris, Jr., who was cooperating with federal investigators in connection with the incident, just happened to be found with a bullet in his head, and the murder just happened never to be solved, and Obama later just happened to make Brennan his terrorism and intelligence advisor.
On election night in 2008 in Chicago’s Grant Park, Obama just happened to wear a black suit and a red tie, and his older daughter just happened to wear a red dress, and his younger daughter just happened to wear a stark black dress, and his wife Michelle just happened to wear an arguably unattractive black dress that appeared to have a giant red X design, which just happened to prompt some to wonder if their clothing just happened to denote black power, communism, and Malcolm X, and at the very least prompted others to wonder why anyone would have his daughter wear a jet-black dress for a celebratory occasion—or where one could even just happen to find a store that sells black dresses for little girls.
From election night forward there are hundreds of other “just happeneds,” not the least of which is the long-form birth certificate released by Obama in April 2011 which just happened to consist of multiple image layers, including various objects which can be separated and rotated with computer software—which just happens to be impossible if a birth certificate is merely scanned and not computer-constructed by a forger.
I could go on… but you get the idea.
Read more at Ammoland.com: http://www.ammoland.com/2012/10/03/the-obama-timeline/#ixzz2GblMVt4B
Andrew Malcolm of IBD greets the new year with an appropriate degree of skepticism. Yes, that much. In a year that looks to be...shall we say, difficult, it is important to tell the truth and make it sting.
...the South Side president forgets to mention Chicago passing the 500-murder mark in 2012 during his painful paeans about the need for someone to do something about guns. Like many of his presidential responsibilities, Obama handed the violent gun issue over to Joe Biden to appear to do something about it.
Remember how Obama was going to erase the divisive partisanship of Washington? Well, the country reelected a divided federal government, which ensures divisive partisanship will continue. But voters can duck responsibility by pointing to D.C. and shaking their heads over elected members of Congress doing exactly what they were elected to do.
And American confidence in its institutions will wither more. Which is fine by Obama since he wants to change them anyway.
President Obama can call on all sides to please, pretty please, come together for the good of the country. Just before he ignites yet another self-serving, unnecessarily bitter crisis to keep opponents feuding. And then calls on all sides to reject their politics of division.
Which, by the way, is how the Democrat mayors of Chicago's machine have managed to rule the Windy City for eight decades, by keeping their party's feuding factions feuding and unable to coalesce behind an alternative to the Big Guy in City Hall. The Big Guy now is Mayor Rahm Emanuel, who's actually a tiny fellow who has what Chicago prizes, clout.
But the seeping Chicagoness of the nation's politics is probably coincidence.
Malcolm predicts excatly what I see happening:
And we'll all hear more overwhelming sums about the national debt being left for each of today's children to pay if they manage to find jobs as adults.
But by the time those bills come due, Obama will be making millions from his next autobiography.
His pals will be hitting up libs for big-money checks for the Barack H. Obama Presidential Library, which will not likely be located in Streator, Illinois.And No. 44 will be safely ensconced in his beachfront mansion playing golf with his old buds from the Choom Gang, while the rest of us enjoy the expensive fruits of his labors transforming America into something else.
We are being played; it's time we learned the game.
Conservatives have their Constitution. Progressives have their Narrative. The current battle for America is between these two concepts, and each side uses different rules to fight it.
One set of rules is consistent with an unchanging objective: limited government and individual freedoms. The other side's rules are as fickle as their goals, which are never fully disclosed beyond the equivocal references to fairness and hyphenated forms of justice. They will have to remain vague and deny their true allegiances until a time when American voters will no longer squirm at the word "socialism."
And yet spotting them isn't that hard. As a bird is known by his feathers, socialists are known by their Game.
First tried and mastered in the USSR, the Game has since been popularized around the world, assuming various forms, names, and colors -- from red to brown to green. It is now taking hold in the United States under the blue web banners of Obama's campaign infomercials.
The laws of society and human nature are such that socialism can only be achieved through a certain sequence of steps and manipulations. For instance, the only way to attain material equality is to confiscate someone's property and give it to others. That necessitates a centralized mechanism of coercion, redistribution, and control. Such a system gives extraordinary corrupting powers to a small centralized elite, while turning the rest of the citizenry into a compliant, obsequious herd.
All those who claimed they can do it differently were doomed to retrace the same path. Once you unleash the ancient powers of collectivism, you have only two options: control the human herd or be trampled underfoot.
Drawing blood is always an option, but there's also a "cleaner" way to control the crowds by manipulating their minds with the cattle prods of collectivist morals and a fictional narrative that supplants the reality.
Let's call it the Mind Game of Manipulative Illusions.
The Game existed since Cain and Abel, but it developed into an art form in the 20th century, with the rise of totalitarian regimes armed with state-controlled education, entertainment, and the media.
For a dictatorship to run efficiently, a sufficient number of people must give the regime a moral license to rule over them. The Mind Game of Manipulative Illusions secures and extends such a license.
Even the Soviet Communists, with all their tools of repression and fear, with all their power over anyone's life and death, were still pressed to play mind games to make the people feel good about the Party rule. Towards the end they went easy on the Game and relaxed their grip on the media, entertainment, and education, accepting the policies of Glasnost. Once they lost the ability to control people's hearts and minds, they also lost their moral license and, with it, the country.
The Game can mutate and adjust to different cultures, but its basic rules always remain as follows:
Socialism is not just about taking away your money; it's also about making you praise the takers as your saviors. You are expected to feel good about being robbed of opportunities, talents, and success. You must agree that "you didn't build that." There must be a popular consensus that the crumbs you are getting back from the government are a sign of caring and largess -- not a meager fraction of your actual earnings. Last but not least, you must sincerely believe that those who are trying to protect you from the thieves are really your enemies and deserve to be destroyed.
Building up and maintaining such an illusion on a massive scale requires participation of the media, education, and entertainment industries in a coordinated, long-term propaganda campaign.
Once the illusion reaches a critical mass, those afflicted by it become immune to facts, numbers, or rational arguments. Confronting them with logic will only cause more resentment, name-calling and, sometimes, violence.
The little game of illusions that President Obama is running under the name of "tax cuts for the middle class" is part of the larger Game; it contains all of the above elements.
The plan is to pass yet another extension of Bush's tax cuts - i.e., to keep the status quo for the most -while excluding families with a joint income of over $250,000. In plain speak, it's a tax hike. But calling things by their real names would be against the rules; this isn't how the Game is played.
This mass mailing from Obama's Deputy Campaign Manager Stephanie Cutter shows us how to play it:
I hope you had a lovely holiday and all is well. I'm writing with a quick update on the "fiscal cliff" and how you can get involved.
Right now, President Obama is asking you to think about what $2,000 a year means to you and your family -- because Congress needs to hear it.
The Senate has passed a bill that stops taxes from going up for 98 percent of American families, and asks those who can afford it to pay a little more. If the House follows suit, President Obama is ready to sign it as soon as it hits his desk.
If they fail to do so, a typical middle-class family of four will see their taxes go up by $2,000 in just a few short weeks.
President Obama is asking Congress to do the right thing and act before the New Year, but he needs our help. We've got a good track record here: When we make our voices heard and urge Congress to take action -- whether it's about health care, student loans, Wall Street reform, or "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" -- they listen.
Watch this new video about the President's tax plan, and take a moment to share your story: What does $2,000 a year mean to you and your family?
Listening to Obama now, one could have never guessed that these are the same "Bush's tax cuts," against which he had vigorously campaigned in the past -- just like one could have never learned from his previous speeches that the reviled "tax cuts for the rich" had been saving middle-class families as much as $2,200 a year.
Until recently, the $2,200 amount was treated as classified information, which the Administration and the compliant media deemed unfit for consumption by the unwashed masses. Now that Obama wins reelection and needs to postpone the economic disaster caused by his first term, he "declassifies" the previously subversive amount and parades it on My.BarackObama.com as a centerpiece of his new glorious campaign for the people.
Simply put, Obama first discredits his predecessor's idea, then steals it, bundles it with a job-killing tax hike, and rebrands it as his own benevolent gift to the toiling masses. Judging by responses on Obama's official blog, WhiteHouse.gov, and Twitter, many of his supporters believe they are actually getting something out of it -- but in reality they are about to lose what they have due to the resulting cutbacks, layoffs, and price increases.
As the Game goes on, just feeling good about the imaginary gift is no longer enough. You are expected to participate in spreading this Orwellian fantasy by haranguing Congress with demands of a tax hike while calling it a tax cut.
Join the herd and you will experience the collectivist sense of belonging, entitlement, and empowerment by engaging in quixotic class-struggle against the mythical windmills and all those mean-spirited capitalists who are conspiring to rob you of the rightful $2,200 disbursement. Forget the phrase "policies that got us into this mess"; these policies are now all about "doing the right thing."
You end up with a sincere belief that greedy corporations, Republicans, the Tea Party, and the rest of the profligates opposing Obama's policies are the perfidious enemy who deserves to be punished and purged.
If you're wondering what kind of ignorant, misinformed, and morally misguided fools would fall for this trick, look no further than Obama's most recent 56% job approval rating in the midst of a needlessly prolonged recession. The White House propagandist Stephanie Cutter knows her demographic and constructs simple phrases she believes they can understand. However, one question remains: if the Obama voters are the best and the brightest half of this nation, why does Ms. Cutter talk to them in the tone of a condescending kindergarten teacher?
The Game has a part for everyone, from top to bottom. As the top players obtain unprecedented powers, those at the bottom get high on the palliative illusion of safety and well-being.
That illusion is as powerful as it is addictive; a mere exposure to facts of life will cause the addict to writhe in agony. It is truly the Oxycontin for the masses. No presidential candidate can win on the promise of withdrawal; those who feel entitled to a pain-free existence will only vote for better and stronger illusions. The more the addiction spreads, the slimmer the chances of a realist ever occupying the White House again.
This can last for as long as there are enough productive taxpayers to support the habit. Once they also get hooked, stop working, or the system runs out of resources, expect a fearsome, excruciating withdrawal of epic proportions. Until then, keep rational arguments to yourself unless you crave losing friends and alienating people.
If you tell them that there is no such thing as a pain-free life, they'll think you are some sadistic fascist who thrives on pain and takes pleasure in hurting people.
The problem with that attitude is that pain is nature's way to warn us of danger. If it burns, don't touch it. If it hurts, don't repeat it. People who are born without an ability to feel pain are incapable of learning safe behaviors and are doomed to live a short life of bumps, burns, broken bones, and worse. A pain-free society would be even less viable.
The real choice, therefore, is between the occasional sharp pain of individual effort and the dull, permanent pain of collective misfortune, since redistributive economies always end in misery, shortages, and corruption. Western Europe's gradual introduction of socialism is directly proportional to its gradual economic and moral decline, as evidenced by violent riots in response to inevitable austerity measures.
In the U.S., the pain-free life will be even shorter if the country falls off a cliff.
When the painkillers become useless, The Game remedies it by directing the massive anger toward the opposition.
The perception of a relentless struggle with the opposition must be permanent and persuasive. Even in times of calm and prosperity the people must believe that the opposition is holding them hostage and only the firm, wise guidance of the People's Leader is saving them from imminent ruin. When the opponents are too few, too weak, and too disoriented to put up a real fight, their power and influence must be exaggerated.
The Game has its logic: for socialism to work, there has to be unanimity and compliance. Dissent leads to system malfunctions, causing hardship for all those in the care of the state. That effectively makes the dissenter a traitor and a public enemy. The need to suppress opposition necessitates a totalitarian form of government. While we aren't at that stage yet, the demonization of dissenters has already begun.
Until a time when the opposition can be eliminated completely, having opponents can still be useful: you can steal their ideas, take advantage of their desire to help the economy, and blame them for any of your own failures. In the meantime, certain rules must be followed to control the public opinion and, through it, the opposition itself.
Maintain the perception of being constantly under attack. Don't examine the opponents' beliefs, nor answer their arguments. Discredit any media channels that offer them a platform. Enforce the following media template: the opposition is evil, treasonous, unfathomable, and psychotic. They can't be reasoned with. They are inspired by fascism and financed by a conspiracy of shady oligarchs. Defame their donors. Whatever the mischief you're planning to pull off, accuse them of doing it first; then proceed as planned, describing your actions as a necessary intervention. And above all, ridicule, ridicule, ridicule!
Imagine a scenario in which a theoretical group of left-wing radicals takes over America by playing the Game as described; then answer this question: how would their actions be different from what Obama, the Democrat Party, and their allies are doing today?
The stated intentions and the feel-good, vague rhetoric are just words. If the result is the same, nothing else matters. We lose.
Oleg Atbashian, a writer and graphic artist from the former USSR, currently lives in Florida. He is the creator of ThePeoplesCube.com, a satirical website where he writes under the name of Red Square. He is also the author of Shakedown Socialism.
OK, my fellow American warriors, Christian brothers and sisters and everybody who loves this great nation under God, indivisible and ready to fight back against the enemy within and the foreign. This word is for you:
The French helped liberating their nation from the oppressive, diabolic enemy with what they called “La Résistance”. These were men, women and children who fought back from cloaks, basements, trees, bushes, etc. They knew they could die, but that was more dignifying than living in slavery. I had the opportunity to visit some of La Résistance sites and I could see the bullet holes and the plaques naming the heroes, the event that took place and the date.
Why I say this? Our war should be fought from our little trenches: Our homes, our blocks, our neighborhoods, our local schools, our churches, our local stores and our local media. We have to fight against the people who hate us, who hate our principles, who hate our country. We know who they are; we just to have to go after them by exposing them, by stopping the patronage of their businesses, by saturating them with e-mails and calls for supporting the ANTI-AMERICAN, COMMUNIST agenda, etc.
I will give you 2 examples:
My daughter, white and of Mexican ethnicity, was being harassed and bullied by two black students on the school bus when she was in 9th grade. They, the black girls, were throwing things at her and one of them pulled her hair. My daughter, a Tae Kwan Do brown belt at the time, fought back and hit one of the girls. Guess who got in trouble as the bus driver was black? My baby. Fortunately, the other students backed my daughter and all went to rest. Nothing was done to the black girls.
One day I was driving around my house when I saw a group of Mexican kids getting off their school bus chasing a younger and smaller white kid. There were eight or ten of them, bigger and older. They surrounded the white kid and the biggest Mexican kid started beating him while the others watched and cheered: I went to protect the white kid and walked with him to safety while the Mexicans took off running. The white kid was bleeding but told me he just wanted to go home. The bus driver, who was also white, yelled at me to hold the kid. She was defending the Mexicans. I let the kid go and she threatened to call the cops on me and called me a “jackass” for helping the white kid. Make your own conclusions.
Also, we have to continue the fight against the Bilingual Education Programs by communicating with the School districts, State Representatives and Senators and school board members!!!
As we can see, we can fight and win our war without leaving our zip code.
REMEMBER THE ALAMO! REMEMBER PEARL HARBOR! REMEMBER THE TWIN TOWERS! REMEMBER THE SS COLE! REMEMBER FORT HOOD!! REMEMBER BENGHAZZI! REMEMBER THE INVASION OF THE BARBARIANS “LOOKING FOR A BETTER LIFE AND WHO WILL DO THE WORK THAT AMERICANS WON’T DO”!!
REMEMBER WHO WE ARE!!