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Ode to #OWS

or, as it was originally titled, "Ode To The Welfare State"

By: Bill S (Diary)  |  November 22nd, 2011 at 11:53 AM  | 

RESIZE: AAA

This one’s been making the rounds of late, and it just found my inbox this morning.  This is a poem that appears to have been originally published back in the late 1940s, and according to the document, was placed in the Congressional Record by GOP Representative Clarence J. Brown of Ohio.  One might think it a fake, considering how eerily accurately it describes the current Occupy Wall Street, etc. thinking.  But it appears to be for real…I located a newspaper article from 1978 that published the same poem. As further verification, our crack Redstate Research Team (read: Jeff Emanuel) located the entry in the Congressional Record of the 81st Congress, First Session.

I shouldn’t pick exclusively on the Occupy Wall Street folks. This piece really describes the whole entitlement mentality/culture that has festered in this nation for decades. As the writer says “nobody has to give a damn – we’ve all been subsidized”

So – enjoy. (Oh, and please consider this your open thread of the day)

COMMENTS

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  • Ann_W

    And I thought the parties had changed over time.

  • http://jeffemanuel.net Jeff Emanuel

    is hooey. Yes, the GOP has a goodly number of former Democrats, particularly in the South, but the talk about their party moving to far leftward from them and thus causing the change is less accurate than the simple statement that their constituencies moved rightward, meaning they had to switch to stay in office.

  • notpropagandized

    It’s long past time for Americans to simply recognize and admit that the Democrat political party has been completely and irretrievably taken over by dedicated socialists and that it began long ago before most Democrats realized the fact. The style of rule within the Democrat party is perfect evidence of what is intended for the entire US.

    When the Berlin Wall fell, the United States took leadership of socialism on the planet Earth. Amazingly, Americans need to be educated as to what socialism IS and what the long term systemic implications for changes in freedom and lifestyle. Further, Americans need education and information in COMPETITIVE free market economy and capitalism as differentiated from crony capitalism that Wall Street has come to represent.

    The long and short is that we should all ban together to defeat ALL Democrats at every level as a clear signal to rejection of socialism and the sad state to which it leads. Do NOT vote for any Democrat at any level. Concentrate on primaries and diligently make Republicans accountable to voters. Democrats need to be weakened enough to permit reasonable political forces to restore their ideology to one more consistent with American tradition.

    There is nearly unlimited liberality available to liberals under conservative governance.

  • http://www.ArchitecturalShots.com mdyou

    You would just think that more people would remember. Or be taught.

  • http://pocketchangeproductions.net/ anotherindyfilmguy

    Yet sad that it is still timely…

  • msctex

    When men sat around fires in caves, huddled together for warmth, there were people grunting to other people that they could get them more wood and meat from those who saved and hunted, if only they would make them the head of the tribe.

  • renl57

    The Democratic Party was the “Soak the Rich” party since FDR’s Revenue Act of 1935 gave it that nickname.

    And “soak the rich” continued to be the Dem Party’s philosophy:

    http://tinyurl.com/6pjpz7s

    It’s fun to browse the Google News archive of the old newspapers, and see how little has changed.

    Where the parties have changed considerably is on foreign policy, defense policy, and social policy.

  • publious

    Get Booked…

  • Jack_Savage

    http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204323904577040440420927430.html

    One of the best closes ever:

    “The evictees vow to continue occupying things. Here’s another famous saying from the ’70s: Say goodnight, Dick. “

  • gcards

    The long and short is that we should all ban together to defeat ALL Democrats at every level as a clear signal to rejection of socialism and the sad state to which it leads. Do NOT vote for any Democrat at any level. Concentrate on primaries and diligently make Republicans accountable to voters. Democrats need to be weakened enough to permit reasonable political forces to restore their ideology to one more consistent with American tradition.love what you do ,do what you lovenike kobe

  • Michael M. Keohane

    in 1949. I had worked for HST v. “that little man on the wedding cake” in 1948 but the transformation from Bronx machine Democrat to conservative Republican has begun. That little ditty did help.

  • Michael M. Keohane

    in 1949. I had worked for HST v. “that little man on the wedding cake” in 1948 but the transformation from Bronx machine Democrat to conservative Republican has begun. That little ditty did help.

  • BA Cyclone

    I might have to steal this idea for a future post of mine, if you do not mind! I love that poem.

    What jumped out at me right away, if you go search for this speech online is some of what what has already been said in the comments here. Some of the vernacular of the left that we might think is new, or at least new to the last 25 years, is really the same tripe repeated from much longer ago:

    Our economic frontiers can be expanded only if we follow sound public policies. We must rely, as we have always relied, upon the spirit of initiative and free enterprise. But we know that it is necessary for the Government to follow policies that will make it possible for initiative and free enterprise to succeed. At the same time, there is wide disagreement on what specific measures the Government should adopt and for whose benefit.

    The reactionaries hold that government policies should be designed for the special benefit of small groups of people who occupy positions of wealth and influence. Their theory seems to be that if these groups are prosperous, they will pass along some of their prosperity to the rest of us. This can be described as the “trickle down theory.”

    The vast majority of us reject that theory as totally wrong.

    We know that there will be more prosperity for all if all groups have a fair share of the wealth of the country. We know that the country will achieve economic stability and progress only if the benefits of our production are widely distributed among all its citizens.

    We believe that it is the Federal Government’s obligation, under the Constitution, to promote the general welfare of all our people–and not just a privileged few.

    YIKES.

    I liked how he pulled the total “Obama” here and started this series of lines trumpeting the “spirit of initiative and free enterprise” and immediately followed that thought describing a pure bent to socialism, marxism, statism. Lovely!

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