Democrats have been fond of ridiculing the so-called “religious right” for years while at the same time recognizing the power they perceive to be exerted by that bloc. Perhaps they made the most of this stuff with regard to the election of Ronald Reagan in 1980 and 1984 but they apparently have been unaware of the fact that Jimmy Carter attributed his success, at least in very large part, in 1976 to a highly respected Southern Baptist pastor, Jimmy Allen, pastor in San Antonio, Texas, that year.
McAfee School of Theology professor Larry McSwain has written a biography of Allen and in an affair connected with the publication of that book on 23 July in Jasper, Georgia, during a speech, Carter himself made reference to what could be fairly called campaign-success through the good auspices of the “religious left.” Allen, no longer Southern Baptist, joined former Southern Baptist Jimmy Carter and Southern Baptist Bill Clinton (perhaps former, also, who knows?) in their New Baptist Covenant convocation in Atlanta in January 2008, which also featured Al Gore, thus establishing irrefutably Allen’s bona fides as a religious leftist.
This is from Associated Baptist Press of 26 July: Jimmy Carter said July 23 he doubts he would have been elected 39th president of the United States without the aid of Jimmy Allen, a Texas Baptist preacher who endorsed him at a time when his 1976 presidential campaign was floundering. The writer of the article used quotes by Carter, such as this: "I began to realize that when I first came to Texas -- I had won in Iowa and New Hampshire and Florida -- that I was a forlorn, woeful, forgotten, hopeless candidate for president" and "Until I met Jimmy Allen -- he was pastor of the First Baptist Church in San Antonio -- and he took me under his arm."
Perhaps not so coincidentally, Hillary Clinton was in that hotly contested primary race against Barack Obama at the time of the NBC clambake. Perhaps also not so coincidentally, the New Baptist Covenant convened just as the annual convocation of the three largest African-American Baptist denominations was ending in the same location. Democrats have always counted on near 100% of black votes, but Clinton was running against a black man, so one might think that the plot had thickened a bit. The Georgia primary vote was held on 05 February, shortly after the NBC ended its convention.
Was it just coincidence? Who knows? The conveners of the NBC certainly knew the date of the Georgia vote. The purpose of the NBC, of course, was outlined as having nothing to do with politics although Al Gore was a featured speaker and appeared in conjunction with the showing of his film An Inconvenient Truth, which since has been exposed as a fraud so pronounced that it could not be shown in British public schools without a disclaimer amounting to the requirement that teachers point out its errors. It was a political statement, not a scientific one. Significantly, the Southern Baptist Convention, the largest non-Catholic denomination in the nation with about 16 million members and the favorite whipping-boy of the leftists and the MSM, was invited out of the NBC, sealing it as leftist.
So…the religious left, whether overtly or not, has been in operation since 1976, when Carter virtually made it plain the other day that he was elected on the back of Jimmy Allen, although absent the Nixon-pardon Ford might have won the day…more’s the pity when one remembers the huge unemployment rate and interest rates of 20-21% in 1981 when Carter was finally sent home in an aura of “malaise.”
More recently, the religious left has been very overt in its efforts, the sterling example being anything but subtle and undertaken by an organization initiated in September 2003 (Clergy Leadership Network) and later called the Clergy Network for National leadership Change. It was a "527" organization (PAC), meaning that it was not tax-exempt. Its head was Albert Pennybacker of Lexington, Ky., a retired minister and former National Council of Churches honcho, and its headquarters was in the nation's capital. Sitting on its National Committee was James M. Dunn, former executive director of the Baptist Joint Committee on Public Affairs, an organization dedicated, ironically, to the "separation of church and state." Dunn was also listed as the president of the BJC Endowment.
Serving with Dunn, about whose motives one can only conjecture in light of his former efforts, was the Rev. Jesse Jackson, protest-gadfly and head of the Rainbow-Push Coalition, whose latest fame then had to do with his using his organization's money to support a mistress and illegitimate child by her. His organizations had also been the target of investigations.
The first paragraph of the CLN Mission Statement: As clergy--pastors, rabbis, imams, and other religious leaders, both men and women--we are deeply concerned about the well being of our country, we are committed to sweeping changes--changes in faltering political leadership and its increasing lack of credibility and rejection of public policies increasingly seen as not only failing but actually destructive of the quality of current life and America's future.
The actors in CLN were not identified as "citizens" concerned about the well-being of the country; rather, they were clearly identified as clergy and other religious leaders, so it would seem that their sole purpose was to tear down the wall that separates state and church (synagogue, mosque) by entering the elective process through religious convictions/actions only, else they would not have identified themselves unmistakably and solely as "religious leaders." So, the CLN was a PAC, pure and simple, dedicated to one purpose, the election of a specific candidate, John Kerry.
It seems that there was little or no outcry from the so-called religious-right or the citizenry in 2004 or 2008 and that may well be due to the fact that the mainstream media was and still is reluctant to bring up the subject of a religious left. The religious-lefties, then and now, might just as soon keep a low profile as well, since leftist policies consensually grate against the scriptures.
And so it goes.
Jim Clark
Friday, July 30, 2010
Tuesday, July 27, 2010
DNC Memorandum #16
From the office of Tim Kaine, commissar, 27 July 2010
**Because of a number of events requiring attention, this is the second memo of the month, some three weeks after the first. In keeping with the president’s example, most of the interim has been spent on vacations here and there, especially to Las Vegas in light of the Fox/Huckabee special on 24 July that both castigated the president for his snide remarks concerning wiping that city off the map (got that from Ahmadinejad vis-à-vis Israel – little joke there) as far as entertainment is concerned and encouraging whole families to drop their hard-earned cash there. The president has requested that a red/yellow/black/white politically correct paper be composed deifying the shared sacrifice that everyone must observe during the recession caused by Nixon, Ford, Reagan, and the Bushes. To encourage this, he has cut the number of his golfing trips and publicly stated that he will never again use three planes and crews and 100 Secret Service agents to accomplish a date with Michelle in New York. Only two planes will be used henceforth but the SS will be unchanged (not storm-troopers, for those recently graduated from Harvard and figuring Hitler to be a hero).
**Be advised that any mention of Shirley Sherrod at any time anywhere in any group will be tantamount to immediate termination, a resignation preferably texted on the spot if requested. Press Secretary Robert Glibs…er, Gibbs, has indicated that the president had nothing to do with demanding that Sherrod pull over to the shoulder and text her resignation and that he will not do anything like that again. It should not be mentioned that Rahm Emanuel spoke with her by cell phone while she was driving or that neither Agriculture Secretary Vilsack nor Emanuel had made no investigation before the action was taken. Even though Fox News made no mention of this affair until it had already happened, be advised that everyone at Fox is to be called a racist for mentioning it at all, thereby forcing the DNC propaganda arm – NBC, CBS, ABC, MSNBC, CNN and the left-coast newspapers – to sneak it in their broadcasts/publishing. Please mention that the president wanted her to drop by for a beer with him and Vice President Biden, but that scheduling problems prevented that.
**Attorney General Holder is becoming impatient regarding his request for a black/yellow/red/white politically correct paper explaining his recent remark to CBS’s Bob Shieffer that Americans are too cowardly to discuss race. In a speech scheduled for next week, he intends to explain himself but has lost his notes concerning the subject. He’s expressed the opinion that the definition of a “typical white person,” the phrase concocted by the president in an attack of genius in 2008, should not be simply “someone like his grandmother,” his definition at that time. His grandmother has since departed this world so, obviously, a new definition is needed. The wag who mentioned the other day that a typical white person is a homeless CEO will be disciplined. CEOs comprise a touchy subject in the White House since so many of the czars come from Wall Street and the Countrywide CEO gave Senator Dodd, chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, a sweetheart deal on a house.
**Congressman Rangel’s problems with the House Ethics Committee that has investigated him since Paul Revere’s ride (little joke there) are not to be discussed anywhere. It’s common knowledge that politics in his district are different from the usual Congressional corruption and that tax-cheating on a larger scale is normal in the Big Apple, as Treasury Secretary Geithner will attest.
**The new Finance legislation has just been signed into law and there have been many requests from both Houses of Congress for staffers who are able to read and interpret it. It runs to over 2,000 pages and consequently is more than an incumbent can be expected to cover. House Speaker Pelosi has claimed that citizens and House members will know what’s in all legislation after it’s passed and not before. Her staff is still studying the healthcare legislation but has been slowed by the loss of some California staffers who have been committed to institutions babbling about what paragraph they inhabit and which senile citizen should be denied a new knee. In the meantime, take comfort in the fact that House members are well-disciplined and committed to the glorious Transformation taking place in government.
**There have been snide remarks heard around the bottled-water keg and non-trans-fat, non-hamburger (eating grease okay if Senator Biden does), non-hotdog, non-dairy-product-of-any-kind, non-chocolate, non-smoking (smoking okay if Obama lights up), veggie-fortified, yogurt-enhanced snack-bar and body-mass-chart, carbon-cap-graph, endangered-species-obituary-wall-chart, blue/red-state-map, and Bush-dart-board about Michelle Obama’s vacation-trip next week to Spain. After all, August is the month for vacations, as Senator Kerry insists since the French have so decreed. The president is working hard for the party and will be fund-raising before joining his family in Florida and Martha’s Vineyard for more vacation-time later, insisting that even the unemployed should take a timeout from the worry of being hungry and listening to Congressman Frank’s reasons why instead of worrying they should go out and buy a house. This is not to mention former First Lady Clinton’s trip to 76 countries, sometimes with Chelsea in tow (dodging the snipers in Bosnia – hoo-hah – little joke there), so Michelle is actually behind schedule. It’s not known if the president will join her in meeting the king, perhaps in an effort to discover how to put this country on the same financial footing as Spain and Greece.
**Snide remarks have also been heard about the currently fruitless search for the millions of gallons of oil that have escaped into the Gulf of Mexico. Staffers may volunteer to help in this search lest BP try to renege on its $20 billion first-payment to be divided among citizens who the pay czar says have a claim. Any staffer from the Gulf coast is encouraged to contact the czar anyway on the chance that he/she might be ruled eligible for any reason.
And so it goes.
Jim Clark
**Because of a number of events requiring attention, this is the second memo of the month, some three weeks after the first. In keeping with the president’s example, most of the interim has been spent on vacations here and there, especially to Las Vegas in light of the Fox/Huckabee special on 24 July that both castigated the president for his snide remarks concerning wiping that city off the map (got that from Ahmadinejad vis-à-vis Israel – little joke there) as far as entertainment is concerned and encouraging whole families to drop their hard-earned cash there. The president has requested that a red/yellow/black/white politically correct paper be composed deifying the shared sacrifice that everyone must observe during the recession caused by Nixon, Ford, Reagan, and the Bushes. To encourage this, he has cut the number of his golfing trips and publicly stated that he will never again use three planes and crews and 100 Secret Service agents to accomplish a date with Michelle in New York. Only two planes will be used henceforth but the SS will be unchanged (not storm-troopers, for those recently graduated from Harvard and figuring Hitler to be a hero).
**Be advised that any mention of Shirley Sherrod at any time anywhere in any group will be tantamount to immediate termination, a resignation preferably texted on the spot if requested. Press Secretary Robert Glibs…er, Gibbs, has indicated that the president had nothing to do with demanding that Sherrod pull over to the shoulder and text her resignation and that he will not do anything like that again. It should not be mentioned that Rahm Emanuel spoke with her by cell phone while she was driving or that neither Agriculture Secretary Vilsack nor Emanuel had made no investigation before the action was taken. Even though Fox News made no mention of this affair until it had already happened, be advised that everyone at Fox is to be called a racist for mentioning it at all, thereby forcing the DNC propaganda arm – NBC, CBS, ABC, MSNBC, CNN and the left-coast newspapers – to sneak it in their broadcasts/publishing. Please mention that the president wanted her to drop by for a beer with him and Vice President Biden, but that scheduling problems prevented that.
**Attorney General Holder is becoming impatient regarding his request for a black/yellow/red/white politically correct paper explaining his recent remark to CBS’s Bob Shieffer that Americans are too cowardly to discuss race. In a speech scheduled for next week, he intends to explain himself but has lost his notes concerning the subject. He’s expressed the opinion that the definition of a “typical white person,” the phrase concocted by the president in an attack of genius in 2008, should not be simply “someone like his grandmother,” his definition at that time. His grandmother has since departed this world so, obviously, a new definition is needed. The wag who mentioned the other day that a typical white person is a homeless CEO will be disciplined. CEOs comprise a touchy subject in the White House since so many of the czars come from Wall Street and the Countrywide CEO gave Senator Dodd, chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, a sweetheart deal on a house.
**Congressman Rangel’s problems with the House Ethics Committee that has investigated him since Paul Revere’s ride (little joke there) are not to be discussed anywhere. It’s common knowledge that politics in his district are different from the usual Congressional corruption and that tax-cheating on a larger scale is normal in the Big Apple, as Treasury Secretary Geithner will attest.
**The new Finance legislation has just been signed into law and there have been many requests from both Houses of Congress for staffers who are able to read and interpret it. It runs to over 2,000 pages and consequently is more than an incumbent can be expected to cover. House Speaker Pelosi has claimed that citizens and House members will know what’s in all legislation after it’s passed and not before. Her staff is still studying the healthcare legislation but has been slowed by the loss of some California staffers who have been committed to institutions babbling about what paragraph they inhabit and which senile citizen should be denied a new knee. In the meantime, take comfort in the fact that House members are well-disciplined and committed to the glorious Transformation taking place in government.
**There have been snide remarks heard around the bottled-water keg and non-trans-fat, non-hamburger (eating grease okay if Senator Biden does), non-hotdog, non-dairy-product-of-any-kind, non-chocolate, non-smoking (smoking okay if Obama lights up), veggie-fortified, yogurt-enhanced snack-bar and body-mass-chart, carbon-cap-graph, endangered-species-obituary-wall-chart, blue/red-state-map, and Bush-dart-board about Michelle Obama’s vacation-trip next week to Spain. After all, August is the month for vacations, as Senator Kerry insists since the French have so decreed. The president is working hard for the party and will be fund-raising before joining his family in Florida and Martha’s Vineyard for more vacation-time later, insisting that even the unemployed should take a timeout from the worry of being hungry and listening to Congressman Frank’s reasons why instead of worrying they should go out and buy a house. This is not to mention former First Lady Clinton’s trip to 76 countries, sometimes with Chelsea in tow (dodging the snipers in Bosnia – hoo-hah – little joke there), so Michelle is actually behind schedule. It’s not known if the president will join her in meeting the king, perhaps in an effort to discover how to put this country on the same financial footing as Spain and Greece.
**Snide remarks have also been heard about the currently fruitless search for the millions of gallons of oil that have escaped into the Gulf of Mexico. Staffers may volunteer to help in this search lest BP try to renege on its $20 billion first-payment to be divided among citizens who the pay czar says have a claim. Any staffer from the Gulf coast is encouraged to contact the czar anyway on the chance that he/she might be ruled eligible for any reason.
And so it goes.
Jim Clark
Sunday, July 18, 2010
Ashley & the Strippers (miners, that is)
Movie star Ashley Judd appeared at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C., the other day and unburdened herself of the notion that folks in eastern Kentucky don’t follow the little white ball around the golf course, another way of pointing to their lack of sophistication, one supposes, nothing new especially among the celebrities. Ridiculing “hillbillies” (her term) has practically been a cottage industry for the elites for many generations. Occasionally one arouses himself/herself and even takes a tour of the shacks on the hillsides and displays them for the public to see – pore thangs.
Politicians, especially, love to do this around election-time…shows their compassion for the “little people.” One remembers Lyndon Baines Johnson and Robert Kennedy. John F. Kennedy and Richard Nixon also visited coal-mining country. Or, a reporter may do a “story” once in a while, a la ABC’s Diane Sawyer, from that furrin, flat-land country known as Louisville. Back in 1999, President Clinton started his “poverty tour” in southeastern Kentucky and probably felt everyone’s pain. Appalachia draws do-gooders like honey draws flies…and bears.
Naw…golf wasn’t Judd’s subject, of course. Strip-mining was the subject and the guys who engage in it put up a poster at – of all places – a golf course deep in coal-country in Prestonsburg, Ky., depicting a topless Ashley and a script wondering why – if Ashley can make a living removing her top – they shouldn’t be able to remove tops, obviously with respect to mountains, not their hairy-chested torsos. Even the thought of that is sickening.
All the coal-mining in the Kentucky and West Virginia mountains, as well as in western Kentucky flatlands, was once a strictly underground endeavor, and underground mining is still important. There came a time after World War II, however, when the company brass figured it would be a lot cheaper to just blast away the hillsides, get rid of the worthless soil somehow, recover the coal, put it in big trucks and truck it on down to the railhead, tearing-up all the roads in the process. That’s called “strip-mining.” Remember John Prine singing about Mr. Peabody’s coal train hauling away Muhlenberg County?
Is strip-mining messy, harmful to the environment, and should it have ever been allowed? Yes, yes, and no! Of course, people look at it in different ways, mostly because of their circumstances relative to the subject. Do the guys running the gigantic equipment think it should be done? Yeah…it’s the economy stupid – jobs! Do the people whose property it ruins think it should be done? Of course not…well, unless they maybe run the machinery.
The problem, of course, is that Kentucky legislatures since time immemorial have been run by the democrats, although the Kentucky Senate has been the preserve of republicans for the last ten years, not that this makes much of a difference. Coal operators support everybody, just the price of doing business. Mining-laws have been on the books forever, and the appropriate laws could have kept underground mining exclusive and intact, though competition with other states might have ended it sooner or later…something to think about.
In the last 85 years, there have been only four republican governors so it’s fair to say that Kentucky’s democrat solons have been responsible for strip mining. Ironically, the U.S. congressman representing the preponderance of coal miners in southeast Kentucky is a republican, Hal Rogers, but that’s neither here nor there. Anyway, most do-gooders are also democrats, including the tree-huggers, and are naturally put-out (hillbilly term meaning “unhappy,” sorta) with the environmentally egregious miners, most of whom are also democrats.
So…what to do? The business can’t just be stopped…yeah, the economy, stupid. The horse is out of the barn (hillbilly for “too late”) but the protestors show up, never mind that the use of coal makes about everything they do possible, whether stripped or mined. They mostly protest over the aesthetics and environmental harm, real or imagined. Actually, not all that many acres are involved; however, this item: In Kentucky’s three largest lakes 283,730 acres are impounded…or 443 square miles.
That may not seem like much but it’s the exact size of one of the state’s larger counties – Trigg County. Just imagine taking a large county entirely off the map and burying it under water – all those beautiful trees/hillsides gone forever; all those farms gone (okay, great fire-cured tobacco country but it’s still legal); all those folks displaced against their wishes. And none of it would have happened if the insensitive non-tree-huggers hadn’t built those awful dams and wiped out the view. And (gasp), there are 43 additional lakes in Kentucky.
Strangely, the do-gooders never seem to think about the loss of hundreds of square miles to water, but rail constantly not about the loss but about the rearranging of strip-mine land. It’s still there somewhere when the dust settles, except for the coal, of course. Judd is joined in protests by other Kentucky intellectuals. The naturalist Wendell Berry comes to mind. He plows with a mule and wouldn’t dare use a polluting computer but has to use paper for his books and exhaust-spewing mechanized transportation to get to where he makes speeches about that awful strip-mining.
The problem with the protest crowd is mostly that they don’t live in coal-mining country, know little or nothing of its people, and rarely set foot (hillbilly for “visit”) there. They have one good argument, to wit, that the damage done by strip-mining to both people and property (and there’s plenty) should be repaired…okay, building golf courses is rarely done on the new table-tops and it’s hard to put anything on the sides of mountains anyway. The lake entrepreneurs build marinas and beaches and get rich. Shame on them! They’re probably mostly democrats, too.
And so it goes.
Jim Clark
Politicians, especially, love to do this around election-time…shows their compassion for the “little people.” One remembers Lyndon Baines Johnson and Robert Kennedy. John F. Kennedy and Richard Nixon also visited coal-mining country. Or, a reporter may do a “story” once in a while, a la ABC’s Diane Sawyer, from that furrin, flat-land country known as Louisville. Back in 1999, President Clinton started his “poverty tour” in southeastern Kentucky and probably felt everyone’s pain. Appalachia draws do-gooders like honey draws flies…and bears.
Naw…golf wasn’t Judd’s subject, of course. Strip-mining was the subject and the guys who engage in it put up a poster at – of all places – a golf course deep in coal-country in Prestonsburg, Ky., depicting a topless Ashley and a script wondering why – if Ashley can make a living removing her top – they shouldn’t be able to remove tops, obviously with respect to mountains, not their hairy-chested torsos. Even the thought of that is sickening.
All the coal-mining in the Kentucky and West Virginia mountains, as well as in western Kentucky flatlands, was once a strictly underground endeavor, and underground mining is still important. There came a time after World War II, however, when the company brass figured it would be a lot cheaper to just blast away the hillsides, get rid of the worthless soil somehow, recover the coal, put it in big trucks and truck it on down to the railhead, tearing-up all the roads in the process. That’s called “strip-mining.” Remember John Prine singing about Mr. Peabody’s coal train hauling away Muhlenberg County?
Is strip-mining messy, harmful to the environment, and should it have ever been allowed? Yes, yes, and no! Of course, people look at it in different ways, mostly because of their circumstances relative to the subject. Do the guys running the gigantic equipment think it should be done? Yeah…it’s the economy stupid – jobs! Do the people whose property it ruins think it should be done? Of course not…well, unless they maybe run the machinery.
The problem, of course, is that Kentucky legislatures since time immemorial have been run by the democrats, although the Kentucky Senate has been the preserve of republicans for the last ten years, not that this makes much of a difference. Coal operators support everybody, just the price of doing business. Mining-laws have been on the books forever, and the appropriate laws could have kept underground mining exclusive and intact, though competition with other states might have ended it sooner or later…something to think about.
In the last 85 years, there have been only four republican governors so it’s fair to say that Kentucky’s democrat solons have been responsible for strip mining. Ironically, the U.S. congressman representing the preponderance of coal miners in southeast Kentucky is a republican, Hal Rogers, but that’s neither here nor there. Anyway, most do-gooders are also democrats, including the tree-huggers, and are naturally put-out (hillbilly term meaning “unhappy,” sorta) with the environmentally egregious miners, most of whom are also democrats.
So…what to do? The business can’t just be stopped…yeah, the economy, stupid. The horse is out of the barn (hillbilly for “too late”) but the protestors show up, never mind that the use of coal makes about everything they do possible, whether stripped or mined. They mostly protest over the aesthetics and environmental harm, real or imagined. Actually, not all that many acres are involved; however, this item: In Kentucky’s three largest lakes 283,730 acres are impounded…or 443 square miles.
That may not seem like much but it’s the exact size of one of the state’s larger counties – Trigg County. Just imagine taking a large county entirely off the map and burying it under water – all those beautiful trees/hillsides gone forever; all those farms gone (okay, great fire-cured tobacco country but it’s still legal); all those folks displaced against their wishes. And none of it would have happened if the insensitive non-tree-huggers hadn’t built those awful dams and wiped out the view. And (gasp), there are 43 additional lakes in Kentucky.
Strangely, the do-gooders never seem to think about the loss of hundreds of square miles to water, but rail constantly not about the loss but about the rearranging of strip-mine land. It’s still there somewhere when the dust settles, except for the coal, of course. Judd is joined in protests by other Kentucky intellectuals. The naturalist Wendell Berry comes to mind. He plows with a mule and wouldn’t dare use a polluting computer but has to use paper for his books and exhaust-spewing mechanized transportation to get to where he makes speeches about that awful strip-mining.
The problem with the protest crowd is mostly that they don’t live in coal-mining country, know little or nothing of its people, and rarely set foot (hillbilly for “visit”) there. They have one good argument, to wit, that the damage done by strip-mining to both people and property (and there’s plenty) should be repaired…okay, building golf courses is rarely done on the new table-tops and it’s hard to put anything on the sides of mountains anyway. The lake entrepreneurs build marinas and beaches and get rich. Shame on them! They’re probably mostly democrats, too.
And so it goes.
Jim Clark
Tuesday, July 13, 2010
Obamanomaly
The person who suggested back in the day that democracy is messy was spot-on. Messy anomalies are nothing new to the democratic process but they’ve always represented a threat whenever rearing their ugly heads, especially if a plethora of them occur simultaneously. Such a time is now.
The founders probably thought – or at least hoped – they had devised a system with enough equilibrium among the executive, legislative and judicial branches of government to foster stability and security. Alas, they would not recognize today’s shaky government, the product of career politicians, anathema to the founders, who considered public service as an adjunct to citizenship, not a life’s work.
The system has survived, however, the normal governmental actions outnumbering the anomalies…until now. The election of Barack Obama to the presidency was an anomaly of inordinate proportions not just because of him, the man, but also because of the people who surround him, especially those who have positions of power simply “dreamed-up” by Obama – those czars, of whom there must be at least 35-40 (who knows?) by now. They set policy…Obama makes speeches to try to sell those policies.
Obama got lucky and tapped into the Internet, though he probably never dreamed at the time that the greatest part of the $700 million he spent getting elected would arrive via the Net. Virtually a nobody when he arrived in the Senate in 2005 and with a consequent record amounting to nothing and coupled with rampant absenteeism, he stormed on the scene in 2006 in earnest and quickly attracted young people and independents, the former because of immaturity and the latter because of the wars. He has matched the immaturity and done little to affect the fighting.
Quite aside from the wrong-headed policies of his administration, he has managed, against the once prevailing hope contrariwise, to cause increasing divisiveness within the citizenry, perhaps a greater threat to stability than anything else. His fellow-traveler in this regard has been Attorney General Holder as the two of them have played the “race card.” Nothing is more divisive than this or more egregious.
Obama’s distaste for white people became evident in Philadelphia in 2008 when he coined the phrase “typical white person” and used, unbelievably, his own grandmother as the intolerant stereotype. Michelle Obama registered her distaste for white people during the campaign when she indicated no respect for this country until that time, a country made up mostly of white people. In her speech to the NAACP on 12 July, she complained of black public school students being shortchanged but didn’t mention that in the District of Columbia (where she lives, with predominantly black schools) $16,540 per pupil was spent while the national average for states was
$9,557 in 2007, when she was unhappy with government.
Holder, in a speech last year and repeated on the CBS Face The Nation on 11 July, called Americans cowards for not facing the question of race. That’s all Americans have been facing since Obama took office – race. Obama doesn’t mean to let the subject go. Holder and the president are suing Arizona now because they’ve concluded that the state’s recent immigration law might lead to racial profiling, although profiling is strictly prohibited by the law. Arizonans are tired of being the dump-site for the drug traffickers from Mexico and the kidnappers that plague the state. Ethnicity is not the problem, but Mexicans can be expected to vote democrat so, ipso facto, race IS important.
One could go on and on with the race thing. Obama put his finger on it when he “invaded” Berlin in the summer of 2008, exclaiming that he was not like the usual American presidential hopeful. The implication was clear. Staying in a church for 20 years while listening to the Rev. Dr. Jeremiah (God damn America) Wright espouse “black liberation theology” (code for reparations) and spew hatred for this country is another indicator of where the president’s feelings resided.
Genuflecting before the Saudi king last year was his showing of his backside to America, which is still mostly white, not to mention his apologies for this country in Egypt, the recipient of foreign aid from the U.S. close to $70 billion since
1948. The Egyptians must have thought he was crazy. At home, he spoke of the little people clutching their Bibles and rifles and hunting illegals.
White Americans are mostly fed-up with the racism evidenced by the administration, seemingly made up mostly of people who not only don’t like this country but have every intention of tearing it down, somehow making it equal, if not inferior, to all other countries. Problem: Americans (at least white Americans) don’t like to be equal. This country didn’t get to where it is today by seeking equality; contrarily, it has stood in modern times for being in the forefront while at the same time not abridging any other country’s freedoms unless and until they threaten the free world. Yeah…an Obamanomaly.
And so it goes.
Jim Clark
The founders probably thought – or at least hoped – they had devised a system with enough equilibrium among the executive, legislative and judicial branches of government to foster stability and security. Alas, they would not recognize today’s shaky government, the product of career politicians, anathema to the founders, who considered public service as an adjunct to citizenship, not a life’s work.
The system has survived, however, the normal governmental actions outnumbering the anomalies…until now. The election of Barack Obama to the presidency was an anomaly of inordinate proportions not just because of him, the man, but also because of the people who surround him, especially those who have positions of power simply “dreamed-up” by Obama – those czars, of whom there must be at least 35-40 (who knows?) by now. They set policy…Obama makes speeches to try to sell those policies.
Obama got lucky and tapped into the Internet, though he probably never dreamed at the time that the greatest part of the $700 million he spent getting elected would arrive via the Net. Virtually a nobody when he arrived in the Senate in 2005 and with a consequent record amounting to nothing and coupled with rampant absenteeism, he stormed on the scene in 2006 in earnest and quickly attracted young people and independents, the former because of immaturity and the latter because of the wars. He has matched the immaturity and done little to affect the fighting.
Quite aside from the wrong-headed policies of his administration, he has managed, against the once prevailing hope contrariwise, to cause increasing divisiveness within the citizenry, perhaps a greater threat to stability than anything else. His fellow-traveler in this regard has been Attorney General Holder as the two of them have played the “race card.” Nothing is more divisive than this or more egregious.
Obama’s distaste for white people became evident in Philadelphia in 2008 when he coined the phrase “typical white person” and used, unbelievably, his own grandmother as the intolerant stereotype. Michelle Obama registered her distaste for white people during the campaign when she indicated no respect for this country until that time, a country made up mostly of white people. In her speech to the NAACP on 12 July, she complained of black public school students being shortchanged but didn’t mention that in the District of Columbia (where she lives, with predominantly black schools) $16,540 per pupil was spent while the national average for states was
$9,557 in 2007, when she was unhappy with government.
Holder, in a speech last year and repeated on the CBS Face The Nation on 11 July, called Americans cowards for not facing the question of race. That’s all Americans have been facing since Obama took office – race. Obama doesn’t mean to let the subject go. Holder and the president are suing Arizona now because they’ve concluded that the state’s recent immigration law might lead to racial profiling, although profiling is strictly prohibited by the law. Arizonans are tired of being the dump-site for the drug traffickers from Mexico and the kidnappers that plague the state. Ethnicity is not the problem, but Mexicans can be expected to vote democrat so, ipso facto, race IS important.
One could go on and on with the race thing. Obama put his finger on it when he “invaded” Berlin in the summer of 2008, exclaiming that he was not like the usual American presidential hopeful. The implication was clear. Staying in a church for 20 years while listening to the Rev. Dr. Jeremiah (God damn America) Wright espouse “black liberation theology” (code for reparations) and spew hatred for this country is another indicator of where the president’s feelings resided.
Genuflecting before the Saudi king last year was his showing of his backside to America, which is still mostly white, not to mention his apologies for this country in Egypt, the recipient of foreign aid from the U.S. close to $70 billion since
1948. The Egyptians must have thought he was crazy. At home, he spoke of the little people clutching their Bibles and rifles and hunting illegals.
White Americans are mostly fed-up with the racism evidenced by the administration, seemingly made up mostly of people who not only don’t like this country but have every intention of tearing it down, somehow making it equal, if not inferior, to all other countries. Problem: Americans (at least white Americans) don’t like to be equal. This country didn’t get to where it is today by seeking equality; contrarily, it has stood in modern times for being in the forefront while at the same time not abridging any other country’s freedoms unless and until they threaten the free world. Yeah…an Obamanomaly.
And so it goes.
Jim Clark
Saturday, July 10, 2010
"Jobs" is a Three-Letter Word?
Except for a few talk-show conservatives, people seem to dance around the reasons for the high unemployment rate, especially in light of the hundreds of billions of dollars thrown into the economy via the so-called “stimulus package” passed by the democrats in Congress out of sheer panic in February of last year, with no republican votes in the House and only three in the Senate. No one had read the bill, which seems to be the practice these days amounting to governance by the Speaker of the House and the Senate president. Like sheep that can’t survive un-chaperoned, all the overpaid democrat legislators just got in line and did as told.
The propaganda provided by these honchos, along with those in the White House, was that jobs would be created. According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, the average unemployment rate in 2009 was 9.3% and in May of this year stood at 9.7%, a figure highly deflated in real numbers by the temporary census-takers, some 700,000 or so beginning work in May and presumably added to those already employed. All are or soon will be unemployed again. The obvious question: If the stimulus is adding jobs, as the solons insist, why don’t the unemployment statistics indicate this increase, instead of graphically showing the reverse? The obvious answer: Layoffs – or more likely – permanent terminations continue and will likely increase in the foreseeable future, offsetting any claims, real or imagined, of jobs being created.
Informed economists said from the beginning of this stimulus stuff that the legislation would not increase employment – at least in the private sector, which is what actually matters – and noted that former president Reagan turned the dismal Carter “malaise” around by using tax cuts even as he greatly increased defense spending…all this with a mostly democrat Congress. So…why has the current bunch of elected officials and bureaucrats done exactly the opposite?
The obvious answer: No good reason, from the standpoint of simple economics! However, there has to be a reason(s), and this is what the pooh-bahs dance around, the better to not perhaps jeopardize what they perceive to be their absolute right to be in Congress or other office. The mantra of the democrats is, “don’t offend anyone, especially anyone in the administration.” The simple reason seems to be that the people running this country, through either ignorance or design, intend to change it from the well-documented, highly effective capitalist system to one predicated on socialism, i.e., government as chief authority and provider in every area of life.
The tip-off on raison d’etra came the other day in Wisconsin when Vice President Biden, combining a Feingold campaign-effort with calling a lowly store manager a “smart-ass” to his face, said, “there's no possibility to restore 8 million jobs lost in the Great Recession.” That Great Recession is the one in progress now. This is another way of affirming that the objective of this administration is to decrease employment chances in this country, with the inevitable consequence being more people applying to the government dole, ushering in the nanny state in spades.
So…why don’t knowledgeable democrats, assuming there are some, call out Biden and Obama and the rest of their czars on their obvious plan to wreck this country’s economy and bring on socialism? Surely they don’t think that John Q. Public hasn’t figured this out. It’s not about the touchy-feely, warm-fuzzy concern for the “little guy.” It’s all about power…that’s POWER. Obama and crew intend to re-colonize this country, this time in servitude to Washington, D.C., rather than a foreign power, as was the case in 1776.
Perfect case in point: The chocolate giant Hershey’s has been moving a large part of its activity to Mexico and China, putting 11.5% of workers on the street. Why would this penultimate American icon of industry do this? Why do people make every effort to move to Florida? There’s no state income tax in Florida…that’s why.
Why should an American company fight both the union and a government taxing it out of sight to stay in this country when it can make money hand-over-fist by comparison almost anywhere else? Hershey’s doesn’t get handouts from the government, the stuff of stimulus – quite the opposite! It owes its investors a return on their money…just plain common sense. The same is true for once-manufactured-in-this-country toys, textiles and shoes, most of these items now made in China, Taiwan or South Korea, along with valuable computer parts. The U.S. steel industry has all but disappeared.
This out-flow has been happening for years but the powers-that-be do nothing, regardless of party, although NAFTA and the WTO were creatures of the democrats – Bill Clinton & Company before the House went republican in 1995 and the Senate in 1997. When Biden said that “jobs” was a three-letter word, he just about said it all – either ignorance or willful design!
And so it goes.
Jim Clark
The propaganda provided by these honchos, along with those in the White House, was that jobs would be created. According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, the average unemployment rate in 2009 was 9.3% and in May of this year stood at 9.7%, a figure highly deflated in real numbers by the temporary census-takers, some 700,000 or so beginning work in May and presumably added to those already employed. All are or soon will be unemployed again. The obvious question: If the stimulus is adding jobs, as the solons insist, why don’t the unemployment statistics indicate this increase, instead of graphically showing the reverse? The obvious answer: Layoffs – or more likely – permanent terminations continue and will likely increase in the foreseeable future, offsetting any claims, real or imagined, of jobs being created.
Informed economists said from the beginning of this stimulus stuff that the legislation would not increase employment – at least in the private sector, which is what actually matters – and noted that former president Reagan turned the dismal Carter “malaise” around by using tax cuts even as he greatly increased defense spending…all this with a mostly democrat Congress. So…why has the current bunch of elected officials and bureaucrats done exactly the opposite?
The obvious answer: No good reason, from the standpoint of simple economics! However, there has to be a reason(s), and this is what the pooh-bahs dance around, the better to not perhaps jeopardize what they perceive to be their absolute right to be in Congress or other office. The mantra of the democrats is, “don’t offend anyone, especially anyone in the administration.” The simple reason seems to be that the people running this country, through either ignorance or design, intend to change it from the well-documented, highly effective capitalist system to one predicated on socialism, i.e., government as chief authority and provider in every area of life.
The tip-off on raison d’etra came the other day in Wisconsin when Vice President Biden, combining a Feingold campaign-effort with calling a lowly store manager a “smart-ass” to his face, said, “there's no possibility to restore 8 million jobs lost in the Great Recession.” That Great Recession is the one in progress now. This is another way of affirming that the objective of this administration is to decrease employment chances in this country, with the inevitable consequence being more people applying to the government dole, ushering in the nanny state in spades.
So…why don’t knowledgeable democrats, assuming there are some, call out Biden and Obama and the rest of their czars on their obvious plan to wreck this country’s economy and bring on socialism? Surely they don’t think that John Q. Public hasn’t figured this out. It’s not about the touchy-feely, warm-fuzzy concern for the “little guy.” It’s all about power…that’s POWER. Obama and crew intend to re-colonize this country, this time in servitude to Washington, D.C., rather than a foreign power, as was the case in 1776.
Perfect case in point: The chocolate giant Hershey’s has been moving a large part of its activity to Mexico and China, putting 11.5% of workers on the street. Why would this penultimate American icon of industry do this? Why do people make every effort to move to Florida? There’s no state income tax in Florida…that’s why.
Why should an American company fight both the union and a government taxing it out of sight to stay in this country when it can make money hand-over-fist by comparison almost anywhere else? Hershey’s doesn’t get handouts from the government, the stuff of stimulus – quite the opposite! It owes its investors a return on their money…just plain common sense. The same is true for once-manufactured-in-this-country toys, textiles and shoes, most of these items now made in China, Taiwan or South Korea, along with valuable computer parts. The U.S. steel industry has all but disappeared.
This out-flow has been happening for years but the powers-that-be do nothing, regardless of party, although NAFTA and the WTO were creatures of the democrats – Bill Clinton & Company before the House went republican in 1995 and the Senate in 1997. When Biden said that “jobs” was a three-letter word, he just about said it all – either ignorance or willful design!
And so it goes.
Jim Clark
Wednesday, July 07, 2010
DNC Memorandum #15
From the office of Tim Kaine, commissar, 07 July 2010
**Please be advised that the explosions heard during the televising of the vice president and his wife in Baghdad recently were not set off by members of Blackwater paid by the DNC to capitalize on State Dept. Secretary Clinton’s experience dodging snipers in Bosnia in 1996. Both Blackwater and the DNC vehemently deny this rumor and such explosions will not happen again.
**Attorney General Holder has requested help with the writing of a red/yellow/black/white politically correct paper explaining why he stated not long ago that Americans are cowards with regard to racial matters. He’s sure he knew why at the time but the press of urgent matters at DOJ has resulted in the loss of his notes concerning the matter and he simply hasn’t had time to work up a new set of memos. The staffer who is successful in helping the AG will be rewarded with an all-expenses-paid trip to the Arizona border for rest and recreation in that sunny climate but will have to furnish his own handgun or M-16 or RPG-launcher or Kevlar.
**There’s no truth to the charge by radio hate-talkers that the AG and POTUS are suing Arizona because they had to drop their suit against Bush/Cheney/Miers concerning the firing of eight prosecutors back in the day account POTUS claiming executive privilege to countermand his party-planner’s Congressional-committee summons, and therefore had run out of republicans to sue. Any staffer who can come up with actionable material concerning either republicans or other states to sue will be given a bonus yet to be determined. Illinois will not be considered as suitable, however, for obvious reasons.
** The recess-appointment of Donald Berwick to become the czar of the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) was not made because POTUS did not want this genius to appear before a congressional committee to explain his statement that the healthcare bill just passed is actually a method of redistribution of wealth to the poor, recognizing the poor to be the sickest among us. Rather, POTUS had decided long ago that the senators and representatives simply lacked the brainpower to understand anything Berwick might say. POTUS, who easily understands Berwick, makes his judgments upon whether or not Rahm Emanuel understands what an appointee says. In this case, Emanuel stated that he had no clue, so, naturally, Berwick was appointed. The same approach happens in reverse, i.e., Emanuel said he DID understand General McChrystal; therefore, Mc Chrystal had to be un-appointed.
**With the appointment of Berwick as healthcare czar, the suggestion has been made that huge segments of the population might believe that becoming sick or poor or both (the most attractive) is the best method for use in being placed on the government dole; therefore, warn people against flooding doctors’ offices with symptoms of any kind (even self-induced amputations) or appearing on crutches while breathing pure oxygen and coughing up everything from flu germs to last night’s dinner. Berwick has made it plain that none of these people will be accepted for entitlements or even aspirin unless they sign waivers regarding the death-panels, with the youngest being given preference for obvious reasons.
**There have been few complaints about the new title for the former designations of “chairman” and “DNC” (see above, for recent college graduates) but Press Secretary Glibs…er, Gibbs (little joke there, again) has asked for a survey concerning the possible use of “czar” instead of “commissar” and “politburo” instead of “Commissariat.” With the current D.C. power-exchange (not direct current, for recent grads of public institutions) featuring executive fiat over the Congress and the Courts, it seems that the new terms “czar” and “politburo” would more accurately describe the current government nomenclature, especially as it relates to the DNC, which might be re-designated the PBC. Some suggested the term “Duma” for the DNC but that’s so suggestive of the mealy-mouthed Congress as to be unseemly. It’s only natural that the political machinery be in the catbird’s seat, with POTUS (actually top-Czar) running the show through yours truly (Junior-Czar) and this committee, especially in keeping everyone in line.
**Having proven themselves worthy in the last election cycle in Philadelphia, the New Black Panthers will soon become a part of the DNC or PNC or maybe PNG-S (Politburo National Goon-Squad) if the DNC progresses into new designations. They will provide training for keeping everyone in line and AG Holder has already approved of their methods by not prosecuting them for threatening with batons and scaring the bejabbers out of the public in polling locations in Philly, with one of their leaders calling for the murders of “crackers” and “cracker babies.” The term “cracker” is now replacing the term “honky” in the national conversation since it seems so…well…civilized, at least in Philly.
**Michael Moore has scrapped plans for his new movie to be titled “Shootout at the BP Corral” account being unable to find a suitable rapper to provide the theme music, Moore’s innovative and politically correct new wrinkle. All rappers interviewed remembered their lyrics for only about 25 seconds, then lapsed into rap about wasting policemen, raping any available female (including cats and dogs), or joining al Qaeda or Farrakhan’s Nation of Islam to “get at the man.” Moore is considering an oil-spill movie, however, and is working on a script tentatively entitled “The Tar-ball Protocol,” featuring a detective who follows the oil-spill trail all the way to a ranch at Crawford, Texas. The special effects will be spectacular since the ranch is nowhere near the Gulf or even a good-sized river.
**Black arm-bands can be discontinued now since the body of Senator Byrd is at rest. Staffers are directed to explain that former president Clinton’s observation that Byrd had to help run the West Virginia Klu Klux Klan in order to be elected to Congress was taken out of context and that he actually meant that Byrd was infiltrating the Klan in order to take it down, a fact easily proven since he recruited only 150 or so new members, or at least new members with proper hoods and ropes.
And so it goes.
Jim Clark
**Please be advised that the explosions heard during the televising of the vice president and his wife in Baghdad recently were not set off by members of Blackwater paid by the DNC to capitalize on State Dept. Secretary Clinton’s experience dodging snipers in Bosnia in 1996. Both Blackwater and the DNC vehemently deny this rumor and such explosions will not happen again.
**Attorney General Holder has requested help with the writing of a red/yellow/black/white politically correct paper explaining why he stated not long ago that Americans are cowards with regard to racial matters. He’s sure he knew why at the time but the press of urgent matters at DOJ has resulted in the loss of his notes concerning the matter and he simply hasn’t had time to work up a new set of memos. The staffer who is successful in helping the AG will be rewarded with an all-expenses-paid trip to the Arizona border for rest and recreation in that sunny climate but will have to furnish his own handgun or M-16 or RPG-launcher or Kevlar.
**There’s no truth to the charge by radio hate-talkers that the AG and POTUS are suing Arizona because they had to drop their suit against Bush/Cheney/Miers concerning the firing of eight prosecutors back in the day account POTUS claiming executive privilege to countermand his party-planner’s Congressional-committee summons, and therefore had run out of republicans to sue. Any staffer who can come up with actionable material concerning either republicans or other states to sue will be given a bonus yet to be determined. Illinois will not be considered as suitable, however, for obvious reasons.
** The recess-appointment of Donald Berwick to become the czar of the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) was not made because POTUS did not want this genius to appear before a congressional committee to explain his statement that the healthcare bill just passed is actually a method of redistribution of wealth to the poor, recognizing the poor to be the sickest among us. Rather, POTUS had decided long ago that the senators and representatives simply lacked the brainpower to understand anything Berwick might say. POTUS, who easily understands Berwick, makes his judgments upon whether or not Rahm Emanuel understands what an appointee says. In this case, Emanuel stated that he had no clue, so, naturally, Berwick was appointed. The same approach happens in reverse, i.e., Emanuel said he DID understand General McChrystal; therefore, Mc Chrystal had to be un-appointed.
**With the appointment of Berwick as healthcare czar, the suggestion has been made that huge segments of the population might believe that becoming sick or poor or both (the most attractive) is the best method for use in being placed on the government dole; therefore, warn people against flooding doctors’ offices with symptoms of any kind (even self-induced amputations) or appearing on crutches while breathing pure oxygen and coughing up everything from flu germs to last night’s dinner. Berwick has made it plain that none of these people will be accepted for entitlements or even aspirin unless they sign waivers regarding the death-panels, with the youngest being given preference for obvious reasons.
**There have been few complaints about the new title for the former designations of “chairman” and “DNC” (see above, for recent college graduates) but Press Secretary Glibs…er, Gibbs (little joke there, again) has asked for a survey concerning the possible use of “czar” instead of “commissar” and “politburo” instead of “Commissariat.” With the current D.C. power-exchange (not direct current, for recent grads of public institutions) featuring executive fiat over the Congress and the Courts, it seems that the new terms “czar” and “politburo” would more accurately describe the current government nomenclature, especially as it relates to the DNC, which might be re-designated the PBC. Some suggested the term “Duma” for the DNC but that’s so suggestive of the mealy-mouthed Congress as to be unseemly. It’s only natural that the political machinery be in the catbird’s seat, with POTUS (actually top-Czar) running the show through yours truly (Junior-Czar) and this committee, especially in keeping everyone in line.
**Having proven themselves worthy in the last election cycle in Philadelphia, the New Black Panthers will soon become a part of the DNC or PNC or maybe PNG-S (Politburo National Goon-Squad) if the DNC progresses into new designations. They will provide training for keeping everyone in line and AG Holder has already approved of their methods by not prosecuting them for threatening with batons and scaring the bejabbers out of the public in polling locations in Philly, with one of their leaders calling for the murders of “crackers” and “cracker babies.” The term “cracker” is now replacing the term “honky” in the national conversation since it seems so…well…civilized, at least in Philly.
**Michael Moore has scrapped plans for his new movie to be titled “Shootout at the BP Corral” account being unable to find a suitable rapper to provide the theme music, Moore’s innovative and politically correct new wrinkle. All rappers interviewed remembered their lyrics for only about 25 seconds, then lapsed into rap about wasting policemen, raping any available female (including cats and dogs), or joining al Qaeda or Farrakhan’s Nation of Islam to “get at the man.” Moore is considering an oil-spill movie, however, and is working on a script tentatively entitled “The Tar-ball Protocol,” featuring a detective who follows the oil-spill trail all the way to a ranch at Crawford, Texas. The special effects will be spectacular since the ranch is nowhere near the Gulf or even a good-sized river.
**Black arm-bands can be discontinued now since the body of Senator Byrd is at rest. Staffers are directed to explain that former president Clinton’s observation that Byrd had to help run the West Virginia Klu Klux Klan in order to be elected to Congress was taken out of context and that he actually meant that Byrd was infiltrating the Klan in order to take it down, a fact easily proven since he recruited only 150 or so new members, or at least new members with proper hoods and ropes.
And so it goes.
Jim Clark
Saturday, July 03, 2010
Socialism by Design?
As things become more unglued in the country, as evidenced by the inability of the administration and Congress to even approach coherency much less believability, the citizen is left to wonder this 04 July holiday where the USA has gone. Its engines of both government and private enterprise are on dead center, notwithstanding recent enactments of law. Indeed, the Congress, caught up in a fervor of social engineering since being taken over by the democrats in 2007, has bid well, with plenty of help from the president, to do what Obama promised – transform the government.
Perhaps the president puts it well when he practically says that the Congress is hopeless because the republicans won’t cooperate, another way of saying that a Congress that’s overwhelmingly democrat is so incompetent that it can’t get its act together in order to transform him from being prexy to being czar, the thing the founders feared the most. Weird! The founders made the penultimate (and successful until recently) effort to guarantee against despotism and would flip in their collective grave to see the Constitution being shredded as is the case today.
The hardest thing to contemplate is the suspicion that the current malaise that could eventuate in downright chaos has been perpetrated by design. One would hope that Congress, even when its controlling party owns the White House, too, might – just might – eschew collective self-interest long enough to bring both itself and the presidency into reality. Since this is not happening, one is forced to believe the worst…collusion leading to national bankruptcy not just financially but in everything from morality to military might.
Obama set the tone during his campaign when he asserted that the Constitution was flawed because it did not allow for the proper distribution – or redistribution – of wealth. This means that he, believing in such redistribution, would be forced to find ways to bypass the founding document that has sufficed for mostly superb governance since 1791. Indeed, Obama has become a multimillionaire within the context of that Constitution without losing any freedoms or abridging the freedoms of others.
By definition, governmental allotting of wealth demands a socialist or communist system to bring it off. This is hard to do when the populace is prosperous so the prosperity must be foreclosed, even if it takes a while to bring that off. The fastest way to get it done is to bring large segments of the population to the point of losing everything – homes, jobs, cars…everything tangible. This approach is in process.
The Congress – with an overwhelming democrat majority in both houses – has just failed to pass another unemployment-compensation bill. Did the president make a pronounced effort to get this passed? Why wouldn’t he do that…if he didn’t? The only thing worse than having not quite enough money to make it (unemployment benefits) is to not have any money at all, thus forcing total welfare-ism…soup-line stuff reminiscent of the 1930s. This is the fastest way to put enough people on the dole to engender serious introductions to socialism, the state as nanny.
Taxing both people and businesses beyond reasonable limits is another way to force socialism into the picture. Again, the president set the tone for this approach during his campaign when he stated emphatically that in his presidency electricity rates would SKYROCKET. The vehicle to bring this off would be cap-and-trade, and the House democrats (plus only eight of 178 republicans) obliged over a year ago by passing the proper legislation, not that any of the legislators had read the bill or had the slightest understanding of it.
What were they thinking? Either they had an agenda or they weren’t thinking. The legislation would effectively shut down especially small-business entrepreneurs who provide most jobs. The Senate is letting the House slowly twist in the wind on this one, the “smell factor” simply too strong. Citizens would be adversely impacted by both small- and large-business since manufacturers would simply pass the tax along to the consumer, assuming that business operators decided to chance anything during an administration that is essentially hell-bent on shutting them down.
A large underclass is also helpful in bringing about socialism. This is especially true in situations where armed revolution or insurgency is not possible, such as was possible in Russia in 1917. The best underclass example might be the impoverished Germany post WWI, just ripe for the invitation from Hitler to join his version of socialism or fascism. The people simply figured they had nothing to lose, so joined the fun.
Is it any wonder that Obama, besides not insisting on enforcement of extant immigration laws, is colluding with Attorney General Holder to try to stop Arizona from trying to extract itself from the largely drug-driven and dangerous parade of illegals from Mexico? The immigrants would add to the nation’s underclass – the voting class with respect to the Democrat Party. Obama’s goal is blanket amnesty. Add the recipients to the welfare class largely engendered by the civil-rights legislation of the 1950s-60s – a totally unintended and unexpected result of the right legislation – and the votes are automatic for socialism.
And so it goes.
Jim Clark
Perhaps the president puts it well when he practically says that the Congress is hopeless because the republicans won’t cooperate, another way of saying that a Congress that’s overwhelmingly democrat is so incompetent that it can’t get its act together in order to transform him from being prexy to being czar, the thing the founders feared the most. Weird! The founders made the penultimate (and successful until recently) effort to guarantee against despotism and would flip in their collective grave to see the Constitution being shredded as is the case today.
The hardest thing to contemplate is the suspicion that the current malaise that could eventuate in downright chaos has been perpetrated by design. One would hope that Congress, even when its controlling party owns the White House, too, might – just might – eschew collective self-interest long enough to bring both itself and the presidency into reality. Since this is not happening, one is forced to believe the worst…collusion leading to national bankruptcy not just financially but in everything from morality to military might.
Obama set the tone during his campaign when he asserted that the Constitution was flawed because it did not allow for the proper distribution – or redistribution – of wealth. This means that he, believing in such redistribution, would be forced to find ways to bypass the founding document that has sufficed for mostly superb governance since 1791. Indeed, Obama has become a multimillionaire within the context of that Constitution without losing any freedoms or abridging the freedoms of others.
By definition, governmental allotting of wealth demands a socialist or communist system to bring it off. This is hard to do when the populace is prosperous so the prosperity must be foreclosed, even if it takes a while to bring that off. The fastest way to get it done is to bring large segments of the population to the point of losing everything – homes, jobs, cars…everything tangible. This approach is in process.
The Congress – with an overwhelming democrat majority in both houses – has just failed to pass another unemployment-compensation bill. Did the president make a pronounced effort to get this passed? Why wouldn’t he do that…if he didn’t? The only thing worse than having not quite enough money to make it (unemployment benefits) is to not have any money at all, thus forcing total welfare-ism…soup-line stuff reminiscent of the 1930s. This is the fastest way to put enough people on the dole to engender serious introductions to socialism, the state as nanny.
Taxing both people and businesses beyond reasonable limits is another way to force socialism into the picture. Again, the president set the tone for this approach during his campaign when he stated emphatically that in his presidency electricity rates would SKYROCKET. The vehicle to bring this off would be cap-and-trade, and the House democrats (plus only eight of 178 republicans) obliged over a year ago by passing the proper legislation, not that any of the legislators had read the bill or had the slightest understanding of it.
What were they thinking? Either they had an agenda or they weren’t thinking. The legislation would effectively shut down especially small-business entrepreneurs who provide most jobs. The Senate is letting the House slowly twist in the wind on this one, the “smell factor” simply too strong. Citizens would be adversely impacted by both small- and large-business since manufacturers would simply pass the tax along to the consumer, assuming that business operators decided to chance anything during an administration that is essentially hell-bent on shutting them down.
A large underclass is also helpful in bringing about socialism. This is especially true in situations where armed revolution or insurgency is not possible, such as was possible in Russia in 1917. The best underclass example might be the impoverished Germany post WWI, just ripe for the invitation from Hitler to join his version of socialism or fascism. The people simply figured they had nothing to lose, so joined the fun.
Is it any wonder that Obama, besides not insisting on enforcement of extant immigration laws, is colluding with Attorney General Holder to try to stop Arizona from trying to extract itself from the largely drug-driven and dangerous parade of illegals from Mexico? The immigrants would add to the nation’s underclass – the voting class with respect to the Democrat Party. Obama’s goal is blanket amnesty. Add the recipients to the welfare class largely engendered by the civil-rights legislation of the 1950s-60s – a totally unintended and unexpected result of the right legislation – and the votes are automatic for socialism.
And so it goes.
Jim Clark
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)