Suppose the DEMS win in Nov.  They continue to borrow money and kow-tow to our enemies.  They raise taxes, entitlements, minimum wages, extend unemployment benefits, strengthen the unions and pass more crushing red tape and regulations on start-ups.  They expand the welfare state so fully 80% of all Americans are now eligible for immediate Medicaid and or Medicaid benefits.  Socialized medicine comes in (suppose another Dem [Hillary, worst case] is elected after Obama) and now SILWS (standing in line while sick) becomes the new national pastime.

Private fortunes, millionaires and billionaires move away to more favorable climes for the most part.  So much for hating “the rich.”  Class warfare become just another sick joke.  Only two classes are left, the Haves and the Have-Nots.

Because of funding cut backs, we pull out of the Far East, except for a token force.  The Chinese are emboldened to attack Taiwan and do so.  We’ve long since handed over the 38th parallel to the South Koreans so the North is likewise confident of victory and attacks the South.  The Russians attack and subvert Georgia once again, as well as several other oil-rich former satellites with names ending in “stan.”  Since we no longer seriously back Israel, Iran gets and uses the Bomb on our former ally.  Turkey and Paksistan get scared and suddenly become super muslim countries and no longer trustworthy alllies of the U.S.  The Chinese close the Panama Canal.

Now, strategically isolated in the world, we also owe trillions of dollars to China.  Our entire GDP goes toward financing the debt.  And no one wants our debt anymore since our bond rating has tanked.  The deficit is also huge and although the Fed has kept interest rates artificially low, most commerce is now done on the blackmarket, so it doesn’t matter.  Laws are so numerous that it is truly impossible even for the most honest and earnest among us to go through the day without breaking some law or statute instituted for our own good by our betters in Washington, which now has a fence (built quickly, BTW, and with little fuss) around it to protect our noble solons from the masses.

{Yes, there were a few brief years of “fun,” i.e. three month vacations, three and four day work weeks, five years worth of unemployment benefits, etc.  But the Golden Goose was dying and everyone knew it.  The first to sense what was going on began cashing-in, getting out, embezzling, stealing or plain old getting while the getting was good.  Alas, however, we were just too far in debt to live the “Greek model” for long.  We very soon ran out of money.}

The tried and true nostrum that even a collection of the world’s smartest and most educated people cannot know enough in a timely enough fashion to make a market run efficiently is again played out as our economy tanks.  We become another second-world mediocrity like Mexico.  Indeed, the drug world and gangland cartels are now real powers in most urban centers.  Buses and cabs are armour-plated and small businesses, such as they are, pay protection to the black market bosses.  BTW, some of these bosses are black, some hispanic and some white.  “Racism” as an accusation or phenomenon has become yet another sick joke.  The wags of the day jest that we have real diversity now – diversity in death.

Everyone who can get one carries a gun now.  Everyone who doesn’t lives in fear and subjugation.  The Federal gubmint tried to round up guns a while ago, but there were so many, it was impossible.  The result is, they go in with overwhelming force now, assume you have a gun and kill you if you show the slightest resistance.  But, unfortunately, the gubmint is not the largest predator now.  It’s people looking for food, clothing and shelter.  Small patches are farmed under armed guard.  The barter and the blackmarket are the major forms of trade.  Corruption abounds.

Some of the old folks who have been cared-for off the gubmint healthcare grid (and illegally BTW) sit around and cackle heartily about how they told us so.  (We have to keep them out of sight now, since the max age on gubmint healthcare is about 50.  Anyone much older sticks out like a sore thumb.)  A form of civilization continues, as it does in some third world countries now, behind high walls, dogs, alarm systems and armed guards.  However, no one lives without fear, because even the guards might get ideas about why they have to stand guard while everyone else party’s hearty.  It’s kind of like Castro admitted the other day to The Atlantic’s Jeffrey Goldberg, “the Cuban model doesn’t even work for us anymore.”  Surprise!  Remeber all those conservatives, from William F. Buckley to Thomas Sowell to Warrior, who used to patiently explain over and over again why socialism doesn’t work in the real world?  Well, they were right!  Err, correct! 

It wasn’t just a “Republican talking point,” as such luminous figures of the Left as Maureen Dowd and Brian Williams were wont to complain (Mo Do and Brie Wii, HA!).  Oh well, it’s a lot tougher to build the greatest Democratic Republic on earth than it was for Babs Streisand, Babs “Yes Ma’am” Boxer and Barney’s Frank to tear it down with their lies, hysteria and corruption.  Remember when Barney’s Frank said Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac needed no overhaul or regulation, that they were doing just fine?  Oh yeah, that was right before they spread insolvent securities around the world like dust in a tornado and began our nation’s percipitous rush to the bottom.  (And Frank’s confabulation was right after one George W. Bush insisted that they DID need serious overhaul.)  Of course, later, after his pals were in power, he switched 180 degrees (no pun) and actually seemed to agree with the hated GWB: Voila! Mirabile Dictu!  these quasi-governmental monstrosities DID need oversight after all.  But, that was right before he called for their discontinuation altogether.  Well, that’s what happens when an entity or a person is no longer needed by the Leftist cabal in power.  That’s right, it or you get thrown under the bus.

Of course, OUR GUBMINT stills tries to take care of everyone.  Some have so called Gubmint Jobs, i.e. they pretend to work and the gubmint pretends to pay them.  Alas, SILWS has become just the first in a series of new pastimes, e.g. SILFF (Standing in Line for Food,) SILFC (Standing in Line for Coal, and not the clean-burning kind either) and the most popular, SILTROYN (Standing in line to Rat on Your Neighbor.)  You see, even a “benevolent” gubmint has enemies and our new Liberal one has turned the most mild-mannered “Undecideds” into rebels, saboteurs, guerrillas and , you guessed it, revolutionaries.  LONG LIVE THE REVOLUTION.  So, anyway, gubmint apparatchiks pay well for information on these upstarts who don’t believe the gubmint is so great.  You might get an extra piece of coal or a live chicken if you really get the sho’ ’nuff dope on someone.

All this can be avoided, however, by voting Tea Party, Conservative and Republican, in that order, come November.  No excuses.  If your guy doesn’t win in the primaries, too bad.  YOU must vote anyway.  See you at the polls.

Pastor,

 I appreciate the Biblical command that we serve “the needy.”  You mentioned that “the needy” are in “the projects.”  I wonder.  As a case manager for the severely mentally ill, I was a guest in many apartments in “the projects.”  I could see no need for anything but responsible choices.  1st John talks of the “world’s goods.”  Well brother, they have got them.  I have big screen T.V.’s, they’ve got big screen T.V.’s.  I’ve got a microwave, they’ve got a microwave.  I’ve got a serviceable automobile, they’ve got a serviceable automobile.  I have food in the refrigerator, they’ve got food in the refrigerator.  I have new shoes, they have new shoes.  I pay monthly to live where I am, and they don’t.  I pay for my food, and they don’t.  etc. etc.  But the point is, why do we consider them “needy”?  Unless by “needy” you mean “spiritually lost,” I don’t think we should consider them so.  And certainly “worldly goods” by no means imparts or ensures Salvation.  Indeed, the more money supplied for their needs, the more money some of them have free to spend on their wants, e.g. cigarettes, liquor and drugs.  Money is fungible, so unless someone is held accountable for their spending, it can be used for anything.

You also spoke of “the poor.”  Now, what are the Bible’s examples of “the poor”?  One is from Luke 16, Lazarus, a beggar and a leper.  He was poor through no fault of his own.  He was a leper and could not work.  The dogs licked his sores.  You wonder that anyone should ask people why they cannot get out of poverty as we did, and I wonder that we shouldn’t ask.  The only real “poor people” in the U.S. today are the children of drug addicts and alcoholics who burn up the family finances getting high and they are not necessarily on public assistance.  Now, in Mexico, Central America, South America, Asia, Africa and many other places on earth you are likely to find truly “poor” people.  When John talks of “the world’s goods,” he is not talking about plasma T.V.’s and Maxima’s.  He is speaking of food, shelter and clothing. 

In many parts of the world, no welfare exists, there are no unemployment benefits and worse yet, no opportunity to not need them exists either.  They have no jobs.  We, on the other hand, have transferred easily over a trillion dollars to “the poor” in LBJ’s “War on Poverty” since the sixties.  And what is the result?  Not only is there significantly more poverty, the country itself is beginning to crumble economically since by ”enabling” people so we’ve convinced armies of folks they are no longer responsible for providing their own bed and bread.  And worse yet, we’ve discouraged millions of others who want to work, but decidedly do not want to support still others who simply won’t.  I contend that this scenario, i.e. the current state of social welfare programs in the U.S., is anti-Christian.  I submit that we are being very poor stewards of God’s money indeed by handing it out without the slightest attempt at accountability, which can only come through private organizations, specifically and ideally the church.

Although safety-nets are a moral imperative in affluent societies, wealth transfer payments funded and enforced at the point of an IRS gun and distributed without any oversight DO NOT CONSTITUTE CHRISTIAN CHARITY.  As you mentioned in your sermon, Christian charity means SACRIFICIAL and VOLUNTARY giving of one’s time, effort, goods and money.  It is not and cannot ever be carried forward as a tax program.  Sorry.  No one gets any spiritual points for voting for more and more social engineering or wealth transfer payments.  Indeed, a system of endless government checks by which people become enslaved to all sorts of traps set by Satan, e.g. indolence, drugs, prostitution, pornography, alcohol, gambling, theft, etc. is obviously antithetical to the very idea of Christianity.

Also, did you have anyone particular in mind when you inveighed against racism.  If not, what was the purpose of bringing it up to our congregation.  Our very presence at The Village Church [a "mixed" or "integrated" church] obviates such a description of any one of the planting families.  If you meant visitors, it could have a purpose, but not a very tactical one insofar as we are trying to build membership and we can certainly work on each other’s faults at some later date in the manner put forth by Scripture.  I grew up in the Jim Crow South, which ended long before your time.  I can assure you, a real racist would not come within a 100 yards of our church with any but the most malevolent of intent. 

I know you have a sermon to preach and you have to say something.  But, this is the second Sunday I have been disturbed at what seems to be political cant dressed up as preaching.  Last week, you equated the Tea Party and the New Black Panther Party.  Certainly, your reference to them was tertiary and seemingly expositional only.  However, the distinct feeling I got was that you were saying that these were simply two equivalent sources of distraction to us as Christians.  Now, I don’t need to elaborate as to the history of the Black Panthers.  I lived during their time and they were little more than street thugs and murderers.  The New BP Party seems little better, in that they blocked a polling place in Philadelphia, intimdated white voters there and their leader, one King Shabazz, regularly calls for the death of “white babies.” 

On the other hand, the Tea Party is a political movement whose only aim is keeping taxes from swallowing us up whole and destroying our economy.  Although accused by the NAACP of being racist, and even though many charges have been made as to particular racist behavior, the “incidences” have either been shown as hoaxes or there has been NO evidence thereof forthcoming.  Indeed, Rep. John Lewis (D-GA) claims to have been called the “n” word fifteen times during one rally.  Subsequently, Andrew Breitbart offered $100,000 to ANYONE with evidence to support the charge.  With everyone carrying a cell phone, blackberry or droid around these days, ALL with video and audio capabilities, one would think this to be an easy charge to prove.  NOT ONE PERSON HAS COME FORWARD TO CLAIM THE REWARD even though the rally was attended by thousands of people.  So, you have casually, and inadvertently I hope, smeared a large group of people and falsely accused them of something onerous, even if innocently and without intent to do so.

My question is, why go there anyway?  Why not use one of a thousand other reasons by which Christians might get distracted from the Bible or their role as Christians.  For instance, pornography is a huge detriment to modern Christianity, as is drinking, gambling, adultery, drugs, affairs, divorce, greed, etc, etc.  In other words, why be controversial and run the risk of being misunderstood when an example culled from the litany of man’s sinful nature would do the job better anyway? 

Anyway, I know it is tough being a Pastor because you have to listen to a lot of criticism from folks like me.  But, don’t let me discourage you.  You are doing a great job.  I only wish the political content and references could be turned down several notches and the voice of Christ be turned up.

Thanks,

A Congregant

Aside from the fact that no one alive today had anything to do with slavery, let us consider what specious nonsense apologies and/or reparations truly are.

1. All labor, black, white, Irish or Chinese, was paid a subsistence wage only — no one made any actual money for labor at that time. Room and board — that was it. And BTW, most sharecroppers were white and most cotton was picked by whites. Sorry, lefties and white guilt aficionados, to sink your self-righteous ship on that account.

2. Almost a million (mostly white) men were casualties in the war which ended slavery. 620,000 (mostly white) men died in that war. Not enough reparations for you? Most folks in the South were driven into poverty after the war, were terrorized by gangs of union soldiers demanding loyalty oaths on penalty of death and were ravaged mercilessly by hordes of carpetbaggers whether they owned slaves or not — most did not.

3. Any wealth created by Southern slavery went to well-off planters, and most of that wealth in turn went to finance the Civil War — so much for “building this country” and other rhetorical blather put forward by the state-run media and its’ cabal of well-to-do white liberals.  BTW, I’m fairly certain the NY Times (and other left wing propaganda outlets) profited from slavery, so we’ll be watching for your first big check to the NAACP.  Oh that’s right, you’re paying them off with biased news reporting.  I forgot, it’s cheaper.

4. Black Africans were sold into slavery by other black Africans. Indeed, it was so profitable to them, African Kings traveled to London and Paris to lobby AGAINST proposals to ban the slave trade. Such measures were eventually passed (in England, which started the ball rolling) thanks largely to the herculean efforts of one white man, William Wilberforce.

5. The original movement, in fact the first organized group ever to demand an end to slavery were a bunch of (white) New England Puritans — you know, the same people the Times, the Daily Kos, the HufPo and their fellow travelers are fond of ridiculing today: Christians and such. Yes, I know, other individuals had spoken out against slavery, and certainly any historical group of slaves favored their own freedom, but it took a church full of white Christians to create a serious, organized, large-scale movement to oppose, fight and abolish slavery as an institution.

6. Grateful for slavery? Yes, and contemporary black folks can be grateful also that an earlier generation bought their freedom — FROM AFRICA!  Instead of starving to death in Ethiopia, being hacked to pieces by machetes in Rwanda, or dying miserably in Tongogara (a refugee camp in Zimbabwe,) many American blacks are getting degrees, building families and careers, and living happy middle class lives. Like it or not, the ONLY reason American blacks have it so good is that their ancestors were brought out of Africa to this country. (For a really good look at modern day Africa through the eyes of a black journalist, read Keith Richburg’s “Out of America: A Black Man Confronts Africa”.)

7. Focusing on the past only misdirects the attention of blacks from their current laundry list of social pathologies — problems which only they can solve. Of course, this misdirection works fine for the professional race hustlers, the state-run media, and the Democratic party. The first group makes lots of cold, hard cash stirring up racial issues (see Kenneth Timmerman’s “Shakedown” for a detailed summary), the second group sells more airtime (TV) and advertising space (newspapers) by keeping the pot boiling, and the Dems get votes by presenting themselves as political saviors to benighted minorities, “Better Living Through Large & Intrusive Gubmint,” you might say, and thereby keeping many blacks at once dependent on government and slaves to the lie that they cannot make it on their own.

8. Every race on earth has been enslaved at one time or another. The very term itself comes from a group of white, central Europeans known as the Slavs.  Just as automobiles are take for granted today, thus was slavery for most of the world’s history.  Indeed, slavery is alive and well today in places like, SURPRISE, Africa. Why is all this energy going toward meaningless rhetorical machinations in the U.S. and not toward attempts to free current African slaves?  Could it possibly be because the latter doesn’t pay as well?  (So much for lefty “compassion,” much less credibility.)

9. Slavery existed in Africa for a thousand years before whites ever saw the place. Apologies from most long-term African slave states have not been forthcoming, and those that have most assuredly did not contain any cash.  (Seen Jesse doing anything in Africa lately besides influence peddling?)

10. Show me the geneology! One would have to prove which black folk actually descended from slaves, and which whites actually descended from slave owners. Everyone else is out of the picture. Even this is flawed insofar as white descendents might very well have inherited nothing and be currently living in poverty. Conversely, descendants of slaves might very well have worked and studied hard, taken advantage of the opportunities provided by democratic capitalism, and be quite well off today. (I am very proud to have graduated from an HBC founded by a former slave.) Besides, no one can apologize for or accept a true apology from a deceased third party. The notion is absurd.

11. SO STOP IT!  You’re dooming thousands, if not millions of black kids to poverty, rage, and an early death by propagating the idea that blacks must have gubmint patronage to make it. The very last thing a kid needs is an excuse to do nothing. You’re doing a huge disservice to young blacks by constantly bombarding them with the idea that they are helpless and hopeless without the nanny state. Besides, most “reparation” (read extortion) money collected by the very Reverend Jesse “Love-Child” Jackson & the most Reverend Al “Freddy’s Fashion Mart” Sharpton goes not to poor blacks, but to the Reverends’ families, cronies and pals.

A side note to the state-run media:

You know, you people at the NY Times, WaPo et al should thank your lucky stars every day that there is not a true opposition (conservative) news force.  And I don’t mean Fox News and a couple of radio shows (although they do a wonderful job at this already.)  On the very few occasions that I’ve read your stuff, I am amazed that anyone takes you seriously.  If I had 750 or a thousand words published by someone I trusted and disseminated widely (and did not have to spend my time supporting the bloated Obamma nanny state by working,) I would tear apart not only your editorials, but your so-called “news” articles as well.  Your editorialists would have to hide their liberal heads in shame and move out of town after I got through trashing their puerile and witless bloviations.  (Brent Bozell’s MRC does a great job of this already.)

In general, your editorial boards need to wake up, look at a calendar, and see that the sixties are OVER. No more flower children, no more draft dodging, no more tuning in, turning on, and dropping out. It’s time to grow up and try to start fixing the mess you have made of our country.

A good book on the subject is “The Destructive Generation: Second Thoughts About The Sixties” by two leaders of the radical “New” left at that time, Peter Collier and David Horowitz. Although, considering the drivel lefties turn out day after day, it’s a wonder they can read at all.

(Thanks to D. Horowitz’s “Ten Reasons why Reparations for Blacks is a Bad Idea for Blacks – and Racist Too!” for some of the above list content.  His ver batim ad can be found at www.adversity.net/reparations/anti_reparations_ad.htm )

Unfortunately, Orwell was quite predictive of the kulturesmog (thanks Emmett Tyrrell) which exists today and the reality that facts aren’t as important in polemical contests as they once were.  Therefore, to win, we conservatives will have to remove the only weapon they have, i.e. the accusation of “racism” itself.  We must endure it, confront it, root it out, marginalize it and minimize it.  Without it, the dems cannot win.

We must make them prove it.  And disagreeing with their irresponsible public policy initiatives DOES NOT constitute proof of racism.  That is, we cannot let the lie continue that one group of people is inherently “better” or more caring than another simply because they are more anxious to spend other peoples’ money to prove it.  In fact, it is becoming increasingly clear that spending money we don’t have will end up hurting everyone, with “poor and minorities hit hardest” (until recently, the left’s favorite headline about attempts to control outlandish gubmint spending.)  We must confront it on the beaches, we must confront it on the landing grounds, we must confront it in the hills; we shall never surrender… (apologies to Sir Winston Churchill.)  Capiche?

Just yesterday (Sunday), our young (black) pastor was holding forth about how we as Christians should not be overly influenced by any group, “…like the Republicans, Liberals, The Tea Party or the New Black Panther Party…”  Now, his ostensible main point is well taken – of course we should not be instructed by anything but Scripture – we should be “in” the world but not “of” the world.  I’m totally down with that. 

However, he is implying equivalence (naively and without guile, let’s hope) between the Tea Party and the NBPP – a blatant and groundless accusation of racism.  Absolutely no real evidence exists that the Tea Party is racist.  Some have claimed they “heard someone” use the “n” word at a Tea Party rally and so on, but no real proof exists.  Any time actual racists have attempted to associate themselves with the Tea Party, or current members shown themselves, if not racists, then extremely classless and ignorant, as in the Mark Williams affair, the Tea Party has quickly, completely and publicly disavowed them.

Contrast that to the NBPP where King Shamir Shabazz has quite PUBLICLY called for the “killing of white babies”,  not to mention standing in front of a voting place in Philliy with another NBPP thug, wearing paramilitary outfits, swinging billy clubs and daring white people to vote there.  Are these hateful remarks and violent shennanigans at all comparable to the Tea Party?  Hardly.

No, indeed, any rational being wouldn’t hesitate in calling Holder & Obama racists for failing to prosecute these yahoos — even going so far as to interfere with a prosecution which had already taken place.  But rationality is not at play here.  Name-calling and false equivalency is.

Would it have been any less fair for our erstwhile young pastor to cite “the KKK and the NAACP, the Nazi Party and the New Black Panther Party” as groups not to allow influence over our thinking?  Alas, the cleric had predicated his remarks with a long disquisition about how people are often ”taken out of context” on many occasions.  It does make one wonder whether he was being too clever by half in an effort to draw equivalency between the NBPP and the Tea Party and maintain plausible deniability, even a pre-existing offensive tool to vanquish any who might question him on the matter. 

I would truly hope my youthful pastor is not so cynical and devious as to have made all these considerations beforehand.  I would like to think he was simply trying to be relevant and emphatic.  Making false and defamatory equivalencies is indeed quite a contemporary PC meme and thus quite relevant in its’ own way.  However, since he usually makes an effort to be politically neutral, I’ll give him the benefit of the doubt.  Besides, if you can’t trust your pastor, who can you trust?

But I will confront every intimation that those who favor a smaller gubmint are racists.  I will fight every accusation that those who believe in personal responsibility are racists.  And I will contest any proposal that suggests all argument has been foreclosed based simply on the provision of a false and politcally charged ad hominem attack made by mostly disingenuous and hotly interested parties.

Eric Erickson wrote an article on RS this AM (7/13/10) in which he proclaimed himself “speechless” by Anita Dunn, former Obamma WH Comms director, who blatantly proclaimed that “tax cuts were spending, too” (presumably by the federal gubmint.)  I had to reply.  However, although the current diatribe began as my brief rejoinder to that article, it soon transmogrified itself into a free-floating, stream-of-consciousness venting of ALL THAT’S WRONG WITH THIS COUNTRY.  Lately, I’ve been busy trying to keep the gubmint afloat, so I haven’t had a good long rave in quite a while.  Please bear with me.

Lefties from Wilson to FDR to Jimma Cata have been busy for decades laying the ”intellectual” foundation (and I use the term loosely, it’s more like an excuse for conceited moral preening or worse, as we will see) for this nonsense in the schools, in the media and in the public discourse.  The academic version is called “deconstruction”, the media version is known as “social justice” and the political version is, of course, socialism.  I have written extensively about, and will not rehearse here, why the historical claim that anyone’s “wealth,” as we know it today, was “stolen” from them is an absurd idea.  Unless someone wants to write me a really big check for the delays and deprivations visited on me by fortune and genetics, e.g. being born in an orphanage, not knowing my parents, having several “living arrangements” by the aqe of three, suffering the torments of clinical depression, enduring the degradation of alcoholism and living with the nightmare of drug addiction (and that’s just the stuff I dare to speak of publicly,) please spare me long-winded explanations and Dickensian bloviations about who did what to whom 150 years ago.

Thus, the standard leftie, “share-the-wealth” trope goes something like this:
There is no such thing as truth.  All politics, systems of gubmint and canons of instruction are soley expressions of power and efforts aimed at its’ eternal possession.  The white man has used this strategy to keep people of color “down”, robbing them of their wealth and using it as a bulwark against anyone else getting it.  (Never mind that they had their own, powerful and influential cultures much earlier than paler civilizations and could have consolidated power and wealth themselves had it not been for the very slow technical and intellectual develoment in said lands.  Of course, some did, but have since passed away on their own, as have Western cultures, e.g. Rome… ) 

Anyway, along comes MLK, an avowed communist, the power of a sympathetic and guilty media (look at newspapers from ealier times, the popular media perpetrated racism in a particularly virulent way back then and now feel they must make some sort of cosmic attonement for it, as if that were possible) and a whole horde of “me generation” kids looking for a ticket to stay in the U.S. during Vietnam and an excuse for using psychotropic drugs.  Initially, what I call the legitimate civil rights movement had truth and right on their side and the Framers’ ideals of freedom and the dignity of man on their lips.  I was a very early proponent of this kind of civil rights, i.e. back before it was “popular” to do so.  My idealism has been tarnished a great deal since then due to the bastardization of the movement as a crass, but effective way to line the pockets of the Right Rev. Jesse “Love Child” Jackson and his cronies, along with a long, infamous stream of fellow rank opportunists.

Fast forward to today’s subject, Obamma, Holder, Axlerod, etc., who are only the latest, albeit the smoothest and most sophisticated, if simultaneously the most guileful purveyors of the fiction that all American wealth was created on the backs of minorities.  Were injustices done?  Of course.  The expected life span of an Irish immigrant was much shorter than that of a southern plantation slave.  As was the life of a Chinese coolie working on the Pacific railroad.  As was the life of an original member of the Mayflower or Jamestown populations.  Or those who settled the American West.  And so on and so on. 

The upshot is, EVERY race, creed and color has paid a price to live in this great country.  Some a long time ago, some more recently.  But, the fact is we still have a bountiful, beautiful and safe country.  However, unless we stop Obamma & Co., who are even now propagandizing a poorly educated electorate in the above-described strawman trifecta of Cosmic Justice, grievance mongering and the politics of envy, we will have one only a short time more.  Something about the goose and the golden egg.

Oh yeah, now I remember.  People only work for someone else’s benefit half-heartedly.  And they work for the state even less than that.  Especially if the money is worthless and there are no consumer goods to purchase.  Can’t happen here you say?  No one in Weimar Germany thought so either.  Yet all it took was a good “crisis” and a fairly charismatic rabble rouser.  And top down economics have never worked.  Rememeber the Soviet factory worker’s reply when asked how much he made?  “Well,” said he, “they pretend to pay us and we pretend to work.”  Sounds like a gubmint owned union company to me.  

Socialism/communism/collectivism – whatever one wishes to call it – has always been simply a power and cash grab by people who knew it is to be so all along.  Can Obamma, Michelle, Holder & Co. be that cynical?  Can they be that deceitful?  Could they be that naive?  Yes, yes and no.  They know exactly what they are doing.

Greg Baer is deputy general counsel for corporate law at Bank of America.  On a quiet Sunday afternoon two weeks ago his house was swarmed by 14 busloads of Service Employees International Union (SEIU) agitators who showed up at his front door uninvited.  His 14 year old son was home alone and terrified.  Their sqwak was BOA is “Greedy” because millions of people are having trouble paying the mortgages they freely and in some instances gleefully agreed to.  Some are losing their homes to foreclosure.  It’s quite ashamed.  Yet why is this BOA’s fault?  Most, if not all of them, KNEW full well they couldn’t afford what they were getting into, but went ahead anyway, as if they had won the lottery.  Now they are all sittin’ around crying about “greed” and waiting on “Obama money.”  Now, again, why is this anyone else’s fault?

It’s BOA’s fault because they have a legal (and moral) responsibilty to enforce contracts that were eagerly enetered into by people who thought they were going to get something for nothing.  When it didn’t turn out that way, why, it’s BOA’s fault, it’s “greed’s” fault, it’s Bush’s fault, it’s SOMEBODY ELSE’S fault.  But it sho’ as heck ain’t their fault.  Unfortunately, the death of personal responsibility is only one of the lessons to be learned from this mob of Klanesque rabble rousers.

The man in question, Greg Baer, of course, does not deserve such harrassement.  However, I’ll bet he thought he was immune to it.  Listen to this from Nina Easton, “Of course, HuffPost readers responding to the coverage [from HufPo, the ONLY media present] assumed that Baer was an evil former Bush official. He’s not. A lifelong Democrat, Baer worked for the Clinton Treasury Department, and his wife, Shirley Sagawa, author of the book The American Way to Change and a former adviser to Hillary Clinton, is a prominent national service advocate.”  So, lesson number two is that personal liberalism will not protect you from the mob if you happen to dance (accidentally or intentionally) across the ideological fault line.

And just how did Ms. Nina Easton come to know the details of this metaphorical cross burning?  Unfortunately for SEIU, she happens to live next door to the Baer’s.  Having just put her toddler down for the afternoon, she also was shocked by the jackbooted union thugs.  Here lies lesson number three: being a Berkely grad, shilling for CNN and living in Chevy Chase will not protect you from the fallout of the mob.  (Yes, I know she comments on Fox and appears to have changed her stries to a degree.)  Anyway, lesson number four is that demagoguery has consequences, often unintended.  Publicly villify and accuse an innocent group of people of ”greed” long enough and someone is likely to get hurt.  And it may be YOU – peace symbol and all.

The fifth lesson to be learned is the police will not protect us if anything bad happens.  Here this from Nina, “Intimidation was the whole point of this exercise, and it worked-even on the police. A trio of officers who belatedly answered our calls confessed a fear that arrests might “incite” these trespassers.”  Let me explain that if a couple of neighbors had come out with shotguns and pumped a few rounds into the air, these erstwhile Klansmen would have run fast and far away.  So, give up your 2nd amendment rights at your own peril.  What if these SEIU characters had decided to do some harm to someone?  If they had known no neighbor legally possessed a gun, they might have.  Think about it.

We won’t even delve into the side issues which stink like a whorehouse at low tide.  For instance, we won’t mention that the financially strapped SEIU owes the BOA over $4 Million.  Neither will we disclose that the SEIU is actively trying to unionize bank tellers and call-centers at BOA.  And, finally, we won’t reveal that one way to force unions on unwilling companies is to make them look bad, like calling them “greedy” and such.

The upshot is, we are truly in danger of becoming a third world thugocracy.  Do you think your city could provide better services cheaper by privatizing them?  Better not mention it out loud.  The next thing you know, a gang from the local public employees union might be trying to burn your house down.  Think your state is wasting money trying to educate teenaged thugs who couldn’t care less about education?  Watch out, your wife might be the next political assault victim. 

Do you think this is all far-fetched alarmism?  No.  I’m afraid that the once-cherished ideas of self-sufficiency, personal responsibility and earnig your own bed and bread is now considered just the quaint drivel of some old bunch of drooling eccentrics.  Don’t you know that THE STATE OWES YOU A JOB; THE BANKS OWE YOU A HOUSE; THE SCHOOLS OWE YOU AN EDUCATION; THE WORLD OWES YOU A LIVING??

If you didn’t, you do now.  Now go on home and shut the hell up.  Let those more enlightened than yourself take care of all your petty concerns.  Don’t you realize Hillary, Holder and Obama went to elite schools and you’re just a provincial bum?  You had better START realizing it or they will send elements of the NEW Black Panther Party to a polling place near you…

Just so there is no doubt about Barack Hussein’s position on defense and space, check this vid out:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dl32Y7wDVDs

Let’s take the main points one by one:

(Even though the first one is not directly related to space, it serves as an extremely convenient glimpse into the BHO Modus Operandi for dealing with important defense matters.  That is, in the words of both Charles Krauthammer and George Will, “unserious.”)

“…I’m the only major candidate who opposed this war from the beginning. And as president I will end it.” — Obama

Yes, but only after playing politics with it and thereby costing many American lives in the process.  President Bush stood by our troops until the conflict in Iraq was arguably won.  Now, when King Obama deigns to allow the expert in Afghanistan, Gen. McChrystal, a 15 min. audience, he is told 40K more troops and lots more time is needed to pacify AQ in that unfortuante country.  Obama authorizes some portion of that number and sets a timetable.  In other words, he takes politically expedient action designed to mollify critics on the left and the right, but not to achieve ultimate victory.  Indeed, I haven’t heard that word escape his cigarette puffing lips since he bacame a national figure.  Have you? 

“I will cut investments in unproven missile defense systems.” — Obama

Exactly which systems are those?  And since no missle sytem is ever “proven” until it is exhaustively tested or successfully used in battle, how on earth could you know?  And besides, who would rally FOR investing in “unproven missle systems” pray tell? 

“I will not weaponize space.”  — Obama

Too late.  Writing on The Space Review website ( thespacereview.com/article/1546/1 ) noted space writer Taylor Dinerman explained that:

“For both Europe and China, any effective BMD requires space-based early warning sensors similar to the US Defense Support Program (DSP) satellites based in geosynchronous orbit (GEO)…Other American space sensors include the Space Based Infrared System Highly Elliptical Orbit (SBIRS-HEO) and the experimental pair of Space Tracking and Surveillance (STSS) satellites launched in low Earth orbit in September 2009…Reports say that Russia has at least five early warning satellites in both GEO and HEO. The commander of their space forces announced in 2007 that they are working on a new generation of these spacecraft.” 

And before anyone starts hollering that none of this requires manned space flight, remember, sensor satellites are only defensive in nature.  And as we learned quite painfully in the second world war (e.g. the Maginot Line), “…fixed fortifications (in this case, low earth orbit defenses) are monuments to man’s stupidity.” –  George S. Patton, Jr.  It will be an unpleasant surprise when the Chinese mount an attack from deeper space than is now defended (just as the Germans attacked in Belgium where the Maginot Line ended.)  He who controls space will control the world.  Just ask any U.S. Marine about why he wants to hold the high ground.

“I will slow our development of future combat systems.”  — Obama

And slow them he has:  From Chapter 0:2 of High Risk Series: Defense Weapons Systems Acquisition (Letter Report, 02/95, GAO/HR-95-4).
“The [DOD] Secretary’s [recent] actions included terminating the Tri-Service Standoff Attack Missile program, deferring procurement plans for the Army’s new Comanche helicopter, reducing research and development funding for–and thereby delaying–the Air Force’s F-22 fighter aircraft program, reducing the
Navy’s DDG-51 destroyer program, and scaling back the Navy’s New
Attack Submarine program.”  I assume we can still buy our guys in Afghanistan bullets, beans and bandages.  Again, this quote does not address space specifically, but gives a clue as to Obama’s perogatives.  For a so-called “Constitutional scholar” he sure doesn’t seem to undwerstand that military defense of the nation is one of the major reasons our Founders chose to become a Republic.  Unfortunately, it looks like what they feared most, a coup by some power hungry Federal Oligarchy, is what’s happening now. 

“And I will institute an independent “Defense Priorities Board” to ensure that the Quadrennial Defense Review is not used to justify unnecessary spending.”  — Obama

What exactly is the Obama Administration’s priority?  Judging by its’ actions, one could be forgiven for guessing that they are interested in reducing our country’s status as the greatest, richest and most secure country in the world (and in the history of the world) to that of fellow supplicant at the International Tribunal’s master’s table for scraps, along with Rwanda, Uganda, Zimbabwe and Somalia. 

“Third, I will set a goal of a world without nuclear weapons. To seek that goal, I will not develop new nuclear weapons; I will seek a global ban on the production of fissile material; and I will negotiate with Russia to take our ICBMs off hair-trigger alert, and to achieve deep cuts in our nuclear arsenals.” — Obama

This is pure madness.  Fortunately, the “O” man is having great success banning “the production of fissile material” by North Korea and Iraq, otherwise I would be worried.  Let’s see, we can’t keep marijuana, cocaine or an army of unsophisticated Mexicans out of our own country, but we are going to police the world to ensure that no one gets their mitts on “fissionable maerial.”  Gee, good luck with that.

Gordon Levine, a commenter on the above-cited Space Review article makes the case as plain as any:

“…any serious [nuclear missle] attack will get warheads through just by overloading the defense with a large quantity.  There is too short a reaction time involved, maneuvering warheads, and ECM.  Can’t stop them all, and each one getting through means a city lost.  Second, the defense will cost much more than the offensive system and that’s what happened with the race with the Russians for a missile defense system vs offensive systems.  Essentially, our economy was stronger to support the manufacturing/training [of a so-called "star wars" defense system.]

And next Mr. Levine gets to the heart of why Obama’s “Hear No Evil, See No Evil and Speak No Evil” policy about not weaponizing space is as dangerous as it is ludicrous:

“However, I surely don’t recommend standing there waiting on someone elses good intentions without some kind of defense.  [Indeed.]  First, ignoring to plan for a serious defense could seriously affect the morale of the public.  Think how the British populace would have felt if [during the Battle of Britain] they were told they didn’t have any air defense because their government didn’t think protecting them ‘worthwhile’.  Second, certain” targets” must be protected, specifically retaliatory forces and head of state.  Third, not having a serious defense could entice a sudden strike.  [Reagan's Peace Through Strength]  So…it appears what’s necessary is a modest, affordable defense to deter a small strike and a survivable massive retaliatory strike.”

Space truly is the final frontier and it will only stay unoccupied and unmilitarized until someone occupies and weaponizes it.  A simple observation you say?  Obama & Co. seem to disagree.  They believe a better use of out national fortune is to create a monstrous, unworkable, mind-numbing, money squandering “universal healthcare system” which ultimately will provide nothing more than a universally tyrannical albeit highly mediocre healthcare bureaucracy and all the subsequent misery we can stand.  Welcome to the third world…

Who benefits from technology developed for manned space flight?? Everyone…

From geologists to?archaeologists:

Digital topographic data of mountain ranges, which will be available for the first time with the retrieval of Shuttle Radar Topography Mission data, will allow geologists to test new models of how mountains form and determine the relative strength of the forces that uplift and crumple mountains and the erosive forces which polish and reshape them.

The Shuttle Radar Topography Mission will provide archaeologists with a topographic view of both ancient sites and the current landscape, which they can use to help determine the boundaries of original sites.? Shuttle radar data also will enable them to compare large-scale ancient settlement patterns and their distribution around the world. Since many archaeologists working in remote parts of the world rely on outdated maps or no maps at all to conduct these studies, the Shuttle Radar Topography Mission’s highly precise 3-D data will provide many with their first comprehensive tools.

To citizens in the danger zone:

Communities nestled near the bases of active volcanoes or on earthquake faults will be of interest to volcanologists and seismologists as well. Scientists can use 3-D topographic maps from the Shuttle Radar Topography Mission to study the potential of natural hazards. In addition to volcanic eruptions and earthquakes, regions prone to severe flooding by major rivers will be of interest.

To city planners

Radar imaging?will also be used as a tool for city planners, land management and resource conservation efforts, which require highly detailed topographic maps for monitoring land use patterns. Spaceborne radar imaging systems can clearly detect the variety of landscapes in an area, as well as the density of urban development.

To photo sensitive school girls:

Next Monday may be just the start of another week for most people, but for two little girls, it will be a red letter day as they do something most people take for granted ? the chance to go outside and play on a nice sunny day.? The two girls, Amanda Clanton, 9, from Crosby, Texas and Erica Lumas, 6, from Honduras, both suffer from what is known as xeroderma pigmentosum or, XP disease. The girls can not tolerate exposure to either the sun?s strong ultraviolet light or even bright indoor lighting and are forced to remain inside, in darkened rooms all of the time.? All of that will change when the girls and their families meet Monday with JSC officials along with representatives from the non-profit HED Foundation and Related Disorders of Hampton, Virginia organization and they each receive a special UV protection suit that was developed from space-based technology.? The suits have made a huge impact in the lives of those who have used them, enabling them to go outside in daylight for the first time.

To heart patients:

A miniaturized ventricular-assist pump, developed for heart patients using NASA technology, has been successfully implanted into seven people in European clinical trials. More than 20 additional implants are expected by mid-1999.? The tiny device has functioned normally and to specification, said Dallas Anderson, president and CEO of MicroMed Technology Inc. of Houston, TX, the company to which NASA granted exclusive rights for the pump.

To NASCAR:

Under a Space Act agreement between Boeing North America (formerly known as Rockwell Space Systems) and BSR Products, Inc., of Mooresville, North Carolina, Space Shuttle Thermal Protection System (TPS) materials that orbit the globe now circle the race track.? BSR has created special TPS blanket insulation kits for use on autos that take part in National Association for Stock Car Auto Racing (NASCAR) events, and other race cars through its nationwide catalog distribution system.? NASA’s fleet of orbiters are protected by TPS materials inside and out…The idea of using Space Shuttle TPS to insulate heat-generating areas of stock cars came by way of a tour taken by NASCAR champion Bobby Allison at Kennedy Space Center (KSC). Then KSC Director, Jay Honeycutt, a racing fan himself, recommended to Allison that TPS insulation could shield drivers from excessive heat exposure…

Even to tree huggers:

Mapping of the world’s rainforests is an essential ingredient in global protection of Earth in the next century. Another avenue of investigation during the Shuttle Radar Topography Mission will focus on radar-imaging of fragile habitats, such as Earth’s tropical forests, to assess vegetation types and determine terrain characteristics. Terrain data that will be collected during the Shuttle Radar Topography Mission will provide near-global-scale coverage of these ecosystems at a much higher resolution and allow scientists to study tropical rainforests in more detail.

And huge segments of the working public:

In May 1996, the first Boeing 777 stopped by Langley Research Center as a salute to NASA’s involvement in its creation. Several Langley innovations were instrumental in the development of the aircraft, such as:

• fundamental mathematical procedures for computer-generated airflow images which allowed advanced computer-based aerodynamic analysis;
• wind tunnel tests, confirming the structural integrity of 777 wing-airframe integration in Langley’s Transonic Aerodynamics Tunnel. Use of the facility was reimbursed to NASA by Boeing;
• knowledge of how to reduce engine and other noise for passengers and terminal area residents;
• radial tires that are used on the aircraft underwent strength and durability testing at Langley’s Aircraft Landing Dynamics Facility;
• and increased use of lightweight aerospace composite structures for increased fuel efficiency and range. The 777′s floor beams, flaps and tail make use of lightweight composites.

At Marshall Space Flight Center, results from tests aimed at improving the performance of NASA’s Space Shuttle engines led to improvements in the Boeing 777′s new, more efficient jet engines. Working with Pratt & Whitney, the U.S. aircraft and rocket engine provider, NASA engineers conducted evaluations of wake patterns flowing through the plane’s turbine engine airfoils.

How important is aircraft manufaturing to the United States?

Briefly, here are just a few remarks on the subject from U.S. Under Secretary of Commerce for International Trade, Grant D. Aldonas,?in testimony?before Congress in ’01:

“Our aerospace industry has the highest net trade surplus of all of our manufactured goods and has consistently recorded trade surpluses even as the overall U.S. trade balance in manufactured products has widened.? Last year, when the United States experienced a record trade deficit, the U.S. aerospace industry recorded a trade surplus of some $27 billion.?? These exports sustain hundreds of thousands of high wage, high-tech U.S. jobs.? Export sales help support not only the airframe manufacturers themselves, but many other companies, including small- and medium-sized enterprises who serve as ?indirect exporters.? Manufacturers of complete aircraft rely on over 10,000 U.S. suppliers to provide the millions of individual components that comprise a complete aircraft.?

And truly, I haven’t even scratched the surface as to?why manned space flight is indispensable to America’s future.? Here’s just one link of many from which one may begin to appreciate the HUGE benefits manned space flight has provided to the U.S. and its’ citizenry:

?http://techtran.msfc.nasa.gov/at_home.html

Look for Vol.II of Manned Space Flight & America’s Future, which will be coming?to RS readers soon!

I had the misfortune of watching DNC Chairperson Tim Kaine on Fox & Friends yesterday.  The disingenuousness of his remarks was stunning to behold.  Everything the Fox(y) lady asked was met with one unchallenged talking point after another.  So, I decided to form a rebuttle. 

First, he blamed “gridlock in Washington” for the various failures of the O’Drama Administration.  I could hardly believe my ears.  Did I wake up in a parallel Universe somewhere?  Or am I still living in a country where the Dems have a near-filibuster proof majority in the Senate (and had one sho’ nuff over the past several months)?  Is this still the place where the Dems own Congress?  What about the WH?  Did something happen during the night which removed the very RED Marxist-in-Chief and the entire cadre of socialist sycophants who now so irreverently occupy the WH?  Nope.  It’s still the DEMS in control.  What could Mr. Kaine POSSIBLY mean?

Next, in this Alice-in-Wonderland sojourn through the Dem Chair’s cavernous and mostly empty recollection, he opines that “the President is tuned in to what the American people are saying about jobs.”  Oh yeah?  Gee.  When did that happen?  Everytime I’ve heard the Narcissist-in-Chief open his mouth lately it’s been about “the American people’s” universal desire for universal healthcare.  (And just as a side note, the two are mutually exclusive.  A job “created” in the gubmint [or as a result of gubmint regulation] is simply one taken from the private sector.  It’s like printing money — it seems nice, but there’s no net gain and a huge downside.)  Well, I guess I should just shut up and be glad that, after I don’t know how many months of 6%, 8% and even over 10% unemployment, O’Drama is now on the case hammer and tong (or hammer and sickle.)  Thank goodness for small favors.  Hopefully it won’t take him more than a year to realize when something serious is happening to this country, like a war on terror or something — no wait…yeah, forget that for now.

O.K.  In any case, he’s got it now.  So, what does the “Man from Honolulu” plan to do about the massive hemorrhaging of U.S. jobs?  MIrabile Dictu!!  A cap gains tax for small business!  Whodathunkit??  But wait, seems like I’ve heard that one before.  Oh yes, that’s right.  He promised that very thing during the campaign as well.  And during the first SOTU Address also.  And just last night too.  I’ve never been to New York City (get a rope), but isn’t this kinda like that game those nice fella’s on the street play with the tourists?  You know, the one where we get to guess which shell the peanut is under.  I think there is also a version which uses playing cards as well.  Three-Card-Baracky or something like that, isn’t it?.  (I’m just a hick.  I’ve never been north of D.C. in this country.)

In fact, Dems in general have a long history of playing such games with the citizenry.  Take Social Security for instance:

Just in case some of you young whippersnappers (& some older ones) didn’t know this. It’s easy to check out, if you don’t believe it.  Be sure and show it to your kids. They need a little history lesson on what’s what and it doesn’t matter whether you are Democrat or Republican. Facts are Facts!!! 

Our Social Security  

Franklin Roosevelt, a Democrat, introduced the Social Security (FICA) Program. He promised: 

1.) That participation in the Program would be Completely voluntary,

No longer Voluntary

2.) That the participants would only have to pay 1% of the first $1,400 of their annual Incomes into the Program,

Now 7.65% (6.2% of the first $106,800 for Social Security + 1.45% of total for Medicare…and the employer matches that amount)

3.) That the money the participants elected to put into the Program would be deductible from their income for tax purposes each year,

No longer tax deductible

4.) That the money the participants put into the independent ‘Trust Fund’ rather than into the general operating fund, and therefore would only be used to fund the Social Security Retirement Program, and no other Government program, and,

Under Johnson the money was moved to The General Fund and Spent

5.) That the annuity payments to the retirees would never be taxed as income.

Under Clinton & Gore

Up to 85% of your Social Security can be Taxed

Since many of us have paid into FICA for years and may now be receiving a Social Security check every month — and then finding that we are getting taxed on 85% of the money we paid to the Federal government to ‘put away’ — you may be interested in the following:

———– ——— ——— ——— ——— ——— —-

Q: Which Political Party took Social Security from the independent ‘Trust Fund’ and put it into the general fund so that Congress could spend it?

A: It was Lyndon Johnson and the democratically controlled House and Senate.

———— ——— ——— ——— ——— ——— ——— —

Q: Which Political Party eliminated the income tax deduction for Social Security (FICA) withholding?

A: The Democratic Party.

———— ——— ——— ——— ——— ——— ——— —–

Q: Which Political Party started taxing Social Security annuities?

A: The Democratic Party, with Al Gore casting the ‘tie-breaking’ deciding vote as President of the Senate, while he was Vice President of the US

———— ——— ——— ——— ——— ——— ——— –

Q: Which Political Party decided to start giving annuity payments to immigrants?

AND MY FAVORITE:

A: That’s right!

Jimmy Carter and the Democratic Party. Immigrants moved into this country, and at age 65, began to receive Social Security payments! The Democratic Party gave these payments to them, even though they never paid a dime into it!

 ———— — ———— ——— —– ———— ——— ———

 Then, after violating the original contract (FICA), the Democrats turn around and tell you that the Republicans want to take your Social Security away!

And the worst part about it is uninformed citizens believe it!

If enough people understand this, maybe a seed of awareness will be planted and maybe changes will evolve. Maybe not, some Democrats are awfully sure of what isn’t so.

But it’s worth a try.  Actions speak louder than bumper stickers.

AND CONGRESS GIVES THEMSELVES 100% RETIREMENT FOR ONLY SERVING ONE TERM!!!

ALL gubmint programs start out this way.

“When Wilson signed the (income tax) bill in October, it included an income tax of 1 percent on individual income over $3,000.  (That’s $65,011.21 in 2009 dollars”  Sound familiar?  Odrama promises to tax only those with incomes over $250,000.  And Universal Healthcare won’t result in rationing or, dare I say it, death panels. 

A government big enough to give you everything you want, is strong enough to take everything you have.  --Thomas Jefferson

the lawyers “own” the Democrats.  But not just any lawyers.  It’s the John Edwards’ brand of ambulance chasers who are at issue.  In general, The American Trial Lawyers Assoc. for instance, and in particular, civil plaintiff trial lawyers. 

Now, everybody should have the right to seek redress through the courts.  And most attorneys are just working stiffs who try to do the best they can in sometimes difficult situations.  But the failure of the ATLA to police themselves and who have thus turned our legal system into a de facto national lottery by opposing tort reform of all kinds is despicable.

They are one of the biggest reason healthcare needs “reform.”  Not just multi-million dollar awards for simple mistakes by doctors (who doesn’t make mistakes during the course of a day’s work?), but the atmosphere of having to practice “defensive medicine” which causes doctors to spend billions unnecessarily to protect themselves from second-guessing lawsuits, has increased the price of healthcare astronomically and made it almost unaffordable.

Imagine having to perform (and charge for) extra duties at your work in fear of being asaulted with a multi million dollar lawsuit?  Actually, you don’t have to imagine.  EVERYTHING we do, purchase or use has had its’ price multiplied many times by manufacturers/providers who are afraid of being sued.  Some things can’t even be had anymore for this reason.  (Rare is the 3 meter diving board at a neighborhood pool anymore, whereas before, they were commonplace.)  You can probably think of dozens of things which have either disappeared or made more costly by defensive practices.  Cars, airplane tickets, ladders, TV’s — everything costs more because companies must now figure in the cost of possibly ruinous suits. 

All so some weenie like John Edwards can live in an 80 room house, support mistresses and love children and afford $400 haircuts.  Pitiful.

RedState contributor “Beaglescout” quoted Star Parker in one of his comments as saying:

“Republicans need to wake up [and see] that the conservative message that supposedly defines their party is a message that blacks badly need. But they aren’t going to sell it to them as long as blacks do not feel comfortable pulling the lever for Republicans.

Republicans leaders should be using air time to be talking about why limited government, low taxes, school choice, private social security accounts, market driven health care paradigms, and traditional values that are friendly to family integrity are crucial for low income Americans.

These truths need to be delivered with conviction and credibility.

If Republicans looked at blacks as potential customers like any business looks at potential new markets, they would try to understand their unique mentality and learn how to market their product to them. A product that this community badly needs.”

 
Excuse me, but I can’t think of anything we haven’t done to get that message out — to everyone.  We scream it on the (radio) airwaves everyday by a virtual parade of conservative commentators, it is pushed on Fox 24/7, many of us have written scores of letters to the editor, discussed it with blacks and and argued with liberals alike and written thousands of words about it at RS and elsewhere.  A trainload of hefty books have been written on the subject, many of them by brilliant, articulate (and probably clean) black men, e.g. Thomas Sowell, Walter Williams, Clarence Thomas, and on and on.  Exactly what else can we do?

Just for the record: 
1) raising the minimum wage kills jobs for entry level employees — USUALLY YOUNG BLACK GUYS
2) the way to revitalize many inner city neighborhood is to encourage and support businesses there — EVEN IF THEY ARE RUN BY KOREANS
3) since crime runs businesses off — SUPPORT YOUR LOCAL POLICE
4) since your children will have a far better chance at success with a good education — OPPOSE TEACHERS’ UNIONS and SUPPORT VOUCHERS
5) because unions have killed some of the largest employers in the land (e.g. Ford, GM, etc.) DON’T VOTE FOR OR SUPPORT UNIONS
6) because gang members and other violent criminals destroy neighborhoods and businesses — SUPPORT THE DEATH PENALTY
7) since most abortions are performed on young black women and usually leave them demoralized — OPPOSE ABORTION (Wow, talk about genocide)-                                                                                                                                                                Eight) since EIGHT) black folks are just as capable of making it in a free market society as asians, hispanics or whites (the examples are numerous) — STOP BUYING INTO THE DEM MYTH THAT YOU ABOSOLUTELY NEED GUBMINT INTERVENTION TO SUCCEED (most affirmative action schemes only “help” wealthier, more educated blacks anyway)
9) since the only real diff between black and white folks is their degree of pigmentation, OPPOSE RACE DEFINED GROUPS, LAWS AND VOTING PATTERNS (e.g. black studies programs, “hate” crime legislation and block voting for the Dem party)
10) look at your pay stub and find the figure labeled “Gross Pay”.  Wouldn’t you like to have all or most of that?  VOTE AGAINST TAX HIKES                                            11) want to accomplish all of the above in one fell swoop? — VOTE REPUBLICAN

Feel free to suggest your own items: __________________________________

But remember, to paraphrase Scott Brown:  This isn’t Bill and Hillary’s country, this isn’t Harry and Nancy’s country and it isn’t Rangel and Obama’s country either –IT’S OUR COUNTRY  –  BLACK AND WHITE!!!!  (And yellow and red and brown and tan…)

This morning on Fox & Friends, Al “Freddie’s Fashion Mart” Sharpton finally admitted the truth, though I doubt he realizes it.  While defending Harry “No Negro Dialect” Byrd and Bill “Get Me Some Coffee” Clinton and trashing Trent Lott, Sharpton stated, basically, that such remarks were O.K. coming from the former two august personages because they helped get blacks elected.

He went on to explain that Lott’s remark indicated his (Lott’s) desire to return to Jim Crow America.  Of course, Lott was talikng about returning to the non-racial concept of states’ rights, but since such has been deemed a code word for racism, he could not successfully defend himself against the charge.  We should all be hoping for a return of states’ rights because the Federal Leviathan will eventually crush us all, black and white.

But, getting back to Al “Tawana Brawley” Sharpton, he is admitting that racism really isn’t an issue if it interferes with the acquisition of power for his side.  It only becomes an issue when useful in destroying political opponents.  Kind of like the feminists’ selective outrage. 

Sen. Bob Packwood was hounded out of office by a full frontal assault by the NOW crowd.  Said [then president of NOW] Patricia Ireland in media interviews on the resignation: “They understand that their constituents will no longer tolerate the abuse of power or the abuse of women by those in power.”  Yet somehow, when Bill “Touch It Baby” Clinton’s sexual imprecations were exposed, so to speak, as just the kind of power abuser described by Ms. Ireland, not to mention being a serial adulterer, what did we get from the NOW bunch?  Crickets.

And this is precisely why the CBC, Al, Jesse & Co no longer hold the moral high ground on the race issue.  They have ceded any principle or credibility they might have once had by continually bashing conservatives and Republicans about supposed racial missteps while letting libs and Dems off the hook for far grosser violations of “correct” racial posture.  Indeed, Joey “Clean and Articulate” Biden was given the Vice Presidency and his stupid comments ignored after a brief, perfunctory apology.

The American people are not as evil and racist as the current professional civil rights “Leadership” makes them out to be.  Most Americans favored the 60′s era Civil Rights movement and causes, especially many of us who grew up observing the indignities of the Jim Crow South.  Yet, modern-day “civil rights” has become nothing more than a racial spoils system and a form of political control.  Vote for us and we will go to bat for you if your true racism ever becomes public.  However, oppose us and the slightest murmur of non-PC talk or thought will be portrayed as the equivalent of favoring a return racial lynchings.  Sorry, there’s no honor and certainly no morality in a bunch that acts like that.  As my dear old mom used to say, “That’s ugly, stop that.”

So, please, take it from the lead civil rights’ spokeman’s horse’s mouth.  Racism is O.K. as long as you’re on our side.  Otherwise, you better walk the PC line.  BTW, how many apologies has anyone heard or read about made publicly or privately to Reade Seligmann, David Evans and/or Collin Finnerty?  They were fasely accused by their University’s president, most of its’ faculty, almost all of law enforcement, nearly every major news organization in the U.S. and countless others.  Yet, on the very day of their exoneration, when all charges were dropped, suddenly a new story of evil white racism took its’ place — that of Don “Nappy Head” Imus. 

But wait a minute, wasn’t Imus, before his outlandish (but common to him) remarks, considered a staunch liberal?  Yes, I believe that’s right.  Maybe it’s not as safe to be an insensitive racist on the left as previously thought.  Especially on a day when the entire leftist propaganda mill: media, academia, foundations — all of them — stood with egg on their collective faces and looking like nothing so much as the useful idiots and stooges they truly are.  So, look out Harry, Joey and all the rest.  You may be next under the bus…

Regarding Prince Harry’s recent public evaluation of Prez Obambi’s skin tone, I guess one could say that it’s easy to be black and white on this issue (pun intended.)

Back in ’53, George Wallace, while serving on the Alabama bench of the Third Judicial Cicuit Court, was castigated by fellow whites for refering to black attorneys who appeared before him as “Sir” and using the appellation “Mr.” before their names. 

His first political defeat was to John Patterson in the prrimary for the ’58 gubernatorial race.  Patterson ran with the backing of the Ku Klux Klan. Wallace had spoken out against the KKK and refused its support, receiving the NAACP’s endorsement. He lost the election by more than 64,000 votes. This defeat marked a turning point in his politics and campaign style.

To be frank, Wallace stated that he wouldn’t be “out-ni**ered again,” that is, he would purposfully “become” the alleged racist we all came to know and (some of us) despise just to be crowned “Governor.”  The point is, a politician doesn’t have to actually be racist to act like one.  Surely, this is a distinction without a difference and still despicable to those of us who witnessed Jim Crow personally. 

But it shows two important things.  One, political ambition as the raison d’etre  for one’s moral course is as disgusting and dangerous as not having one at all, indeed, it’s essentially the same thing.  Think Boy Clinton, Gore, Kerry, Hillary, the O man, for whom throwing political encumbrances under the bus has become an art form — even his own grandmother who raised him from a babe for crying out loud.  And two, and this is where Harry Reid comes in, the collolary is true as well.  Someone may act like an open-minded, race-neutral politician and still be a racist. 

In other words, some people are so driven to the acquisition of power that they will embrace whatever position is popular, regardless of their personal beliefs.  And this is why I cringe every time I hear a politician say something along the lines of, “I’m personally opposed to X, but I won’t let my personal beliefs interfere with the way I govern, blah, blah, etc, etc.”  If a man (or woman) is not true to his or her personal beliefs, what’s to stop them from becoming racist when it’s popular (Wallace) and non-racist when that’s popular (Reid). 

Now, I’m not calling Reid a racist.  I don’t know much about him.  What I do know is enough to make me gag, regardless of his true feelings about race.  However, in the next election cycle, we need to elect people who have not made overweening political ambition the be all and end all of their existence.  People like Sarah Palin and Doug Hoffman, for instance.

Just as Jefferson’s phrase, “…all men are created equal…” referred to certain inalienable rights and therefore equal opportunity, his “…wall of separation between church and state…” (not found in the Declaration or Constitution I hasten to add) was simply an assurance that one denomination would not be favored over another at the federal level.  Yet, both have been perverted by leftist weenies to mean something entirely different. 

The former has been puposefully corrupted to mean equality of result, which is ridiculous on its’ face if one bestows even a modicum of thought upon it.  And the latter has also been twisted (by lefties intent on secularizing our country) to mean the gubmint (at all levels) may not even recognize religion as an important entity in the lives of its’ citizens. 

Pitiful.

I am, ahem, a middle-aged man, so it was not that long ago that the grade schools, junior highs and high schools I attended ALL had what were called “Freedom Shrines” on prominent display, usually behind glass.  They featured copies of the Declaration, the Constitution, a replica of the Liberty Bell and other such artifacts signifying what a rare and priceless gift freedom is and reminding us of the price of that freedom — Eternal Vigilance.  We studied REAL history which explained the terrible, bloody and sometime awful price paid by our forebearers to secure our freedom. 

Today’s revisionist historians seem to think slave ownership at a time when it was common or territorial fights over land, practically axiomatic in the history of man, are so unusual they overshadow what was wrought — a land of milk and honey which these self-same arbiters of other people’s morality enjoy handsomely as tenured professors and other such tertiatry, but bountifully remunerated, adjuncts to society. 

I always have an answer to people who cry loudly about “what was done to the native Americans” — sell all you own and hand over the proceeds to the nearest Indian Tribe.  This is precisely what the federal gubmint is trying to force us to do at the point of the IRS gun and in the cursed name of “social justice.”  Again, apply some logic to all of this.  The Indians were not “native” in the true sense of the word.  They came across (what is now) Alaska when a land bridge existed through that route from what is now Russia.  (Anybody for handing over Detroit to Vladimir Putin?  Well, maybe that was a bad example, but you get the idea.)  Europeans came from all kinds of places.  Other peoples lived there before they did.  Give Australia back to the aboriginees, Africa back to the Africans, etc etc etc…

At some point one must ask: Why were certain cultures able to control certain lands and resources and/or reappropriate them from others?  It couldn’t be that those cultures were SUPERIOR in nature, i.e. more advanced?  Which begs yet another question:  Why is that?  And on and on it goes.

To deny such realities is to settle for what Obama’s crew is planning for us now: “standards” set by and for the Lowest Common Denominator.  Instead of striving for improvement, perfection, excellence and all higher things, the O Team plans to bring us all low (or at least most of us.  In all socialist societies there exists a ruling elite immune to the kind of “equality” they impose on others, usually peopled by intellectuals, the professoriate, etc — generally, people like Hillary and the O man, who Know Better Than You Do.)  Yes, we will all stand in the bread line as EQUALS.  We will all be denied dialysis after age 50 by gubmint rationed care on an EQUAL basis.  We will all strive EQUALLY to bribe gubmint people to get our ration card renewed, our gubmint check mailed, our portion of heat turned on — whatever.

The world has quickly become a museum for failed experiements in socialism.  And America is destined to become the most pathetic example because IT DIDN’T HAVE TO HAPPEN HERE.  We have been given object lesson after object lesson, but we continue to elect Utopians who think humanity is perfectable if only it is managed well by the elite.  (When of course, just the opposite is true, as the stubborn economy is now proving to the O Team — biilions of tax money stolen, borrowed, printed and wasted notwithstanding.)  No one man or even group of people, no matter how bright (and that is not a term I would use for Barney’s frank, Queen Nancy, Prince Harry or The One), can possess enough knowledge at just the right time to make an economy work from the top down.  That’s why free market capitalism will always provide the most prosperity for the most people.  And, it has the extra added attraction that it works in concert with human nature rather then contrawise to it.

In apprx 40 years we have gone from a country which enshrined Freedom to one which virtually spits on it.  Yes, I agree wholeheartedly.  Slavery was a horrible fact.  Wars fought against the Native Americans were savage.  Child labor was exploitive.  Partial rights for women was abysmal.  But we cannot dwell in the past.  Believe me, nothing can now be done to right such wrongs except in the fetid and fevered imagination of some tenured professor or bloated politician and only on the most ethereal, transient and nebulous plains of idle reflection.

No my friends, now is the time to live.  Now is the time to strive.  Now is the time for personal responsibillity and respect for the basic building block of society — the family.  Now is the time to labor for excellence, improvement and perfection.

For if it is mediocrity we seek, it is mediocrity we shall surely get — nationally, publically and personally.

Oh, so now Barry wants the intel community to connect the dots. Let’s see what he has done to encourage and/or facilitate this:

* His AG, Eric Holder, is now attempting to prosecute former (and present) CIA agents who were trying desperately to connect the dots

* He is allowing KSM AND Umar Farouk Abdul Mutallab to lawyer up, which will keep the most needed dots from being released

* He is trying close Gitmo, where a whole lotta dots are being detained and sweated

* His so called “Justice” dept has now put on trial three SEAL Team Members who gave one of the dots a fat lip

* He has outlawed the most reasonable, effective and humane EIT’s designed to get more dots

* He won’t even refer to dot gathering and dot fighting by its’ true name anymore, but instead has devolved into the use of some ultra stupid euphemisms, thereby decreasing the seriousness of the exercise (thank you Charles Krauthammer for bringing that one home)

* His “Chief” of Homeland Security is busy making lists of law abiding, church-going, American military veterans as possible perpetrators, while, as Ann Coulter so pithily points out, since the Pan Am bombing over Lockerbie, Scottland in 1988, all succeeding terrorist bombers have had the same hair color, the same eye color, the same skin color and half of them have been named Mohammed

* His “Chief” of Homeland Security publicly fails to realize that “the system” definitely DID NOT WORK re: the Christmas Day Detroit bombing attempt — such a lapse by a conservative President or his staff would have brought peals of laughter from the left, endless Letterman jokes and a long line of SNL skits pointing out how “stupid” the administration was in not realizing the horrible failure of “the system” in this instance. Now? Crickets…

* The Israelis haven’t had a terrorist attack in years because they are on the lookout for TERRORISTS, not tweezers

Indeed, Barry has effectively crippled and/or intimidated the intelligence gathering community to the point where they have very few means and practically no motivation to even gather dots, much less connect them. And if any of this reminds you of the “wall memo” and Jamie Gorelick, you’re not alone.

What a difference a year makes. Maybe this supposed “incompetence” is really part of the Barry/Rham long-term plan to allow a crisis of huge proportions to occur on American soil so they can declare martial law, suspend the 2010 elections and take over.

Naahhhh……

“The 1960’s: Fascism Takes to the Streets”

Favorite Chapter Quote: “Western civilization was saved when the barbarians were defeated, at least temporarily, in the early 1970′s. We should be not only grateful for our slender victory but vigilant in securing it for posterity.” Pg 199

First let me say how refreshing it is to find publications which dispel the current nostalgic patina of peace and love that surrounds the sixties today. Goldberg’s chapter five does a good job of it. Another is David Horowitz and Peter Collier’s “Destructive Generation: Second Thoughts about the Sixties”. It is a gritty reminder of the bloody violence and senselessness of the domestic front in those times. Because I lived through them as well, I have developed a hearty respect for the courage of the few who stand up to the faux umbrage and petty grievances of the mob.

While I may step on a few toes here, I really don’t care. Pseudo-intellectual 18 year-olds preaching about an “immoral war” and subsequently dodging the draft make me sick. This bunch of cretins, who couldn’t even earn a living, somehow believed they had greater moral insight than the country’s leadership – people who had to sleep with their decisions. The real moral they missed was that other 18 year-olds were going, fighting and dying in their place.

Even in conservative Alabama, a Vietnam Vet speaking in our high school auditorium in ’70 was interrupted with cat calls, obscenity and rudeness by a bunch of teen-aged “protestors.” Unfortunately, I knew that bunch of potheads personally and I wasn’t impressed by them or their so-called arguments. The rest of us rushed to the stage afterwards to apologize to the officer for our fellow students’ boorish behavior. I supported the war. I appreciated what we were trying to do over there. And I was disgusted by the disrespect shown to an authentic hero by a gang of twerps whose real motivation in protesting was to save their own sorry skins.

And Goldberg confirms my suspicion that fascism was at play in the sixties as he cites and supports an analogy of the New Left at that time and the German Youth Movement of the 20’s and 30’s. On page 165 he explains that fascism is a form of youth movement. Libs loved the youth culture of JFK then and of BHO now. On the same page he states, “A sort of youthful identity politics had swept through Germany, fired by the notion that the new generation was different and better because it had been liberated from the politics of corrupt and cowardly old men and was determined to create an “authentic” new order. “Their goal,” writes John Tolan, “was to establish a youth culture for fighting the bourgeois trinity of school, home and church.” Pg 166 In other words, it was “an effort to throw off the shackles of conservatism.” Remember, conservatives are not opposed to all change, they just realize that all change is not good.

And rather than old white guys, the Jews were German students’ target, demanding that the “Aryan paragraph” barring Jews from employment be adopted by the universities. Goldberg cites studies of the time which showed that 60% of all German undergraduates were members of the Nazi Student Organization and as such supported National Socialism. The Nazi’s believed that universities should be “an empowering incubator of revolutionaries first and peddlers of abstraction a very, very distant second.” Pg 167 Only three decades later, Colombia’s Mark Rudd was declaiming that the universities’ only authentic function was “the creation and expansion of a revolutionary movement.” Pg 167 And just like Rudd’s contemporaries, earlier German students were “rebelling against the conservatism” of the older generation’s higher education and “bourgeois materialism.” Pg 168 “Imagine no possessions, I wonder if you can…”

Goldberg began the chapter with an unattributed description of the violent take-over of Cornell in ’69 by the Afro-American Society (Black Nationalists), showing clearly the parallel with, say, the University of Berlin in 1932. He continues this example on pg 168 while discussing the thuggery directed at dissenting professors during both periods – classrooms barricaded or occupied, attacks on student newspapers and heckling of lecturers. I guess we don’t have to ask why David Horowitz, Ann Coulter, et al must have bodyguards when they speak on most modern campuses (Rush’s campeye, campii, campae?) while left liberal speakers do not.

Cornell’s President Perkins lame response to black radicals taunting, “the pigs are going to die” is a classic of squishy leftist wormspeak. Said he, “…there is nothing I have ever said or will ever say that is forever fixed or will not be modified by changing circumstances.” Look no further for a textbook definition of moral relativism folks. Pg 169

Sixties era black radicals’ call for “black science” and “black logic” taught by black professors is more than reminiscent of German students insisting on being taught “German science” and “German logic” – none of that Jewish stuff, don’t you know. A weak-kneed Perkins officially ushered in the age of identity politics by offering “Black Ideology” as a pay-off to the racial rabble rousers. “Diversity is now code for the immutable nature of racial identity” says Goldberg. Of course, such Nazi-esque Neo-Romanticism, “forced on [American] higher education at gunpoint, is now the height of intellectual sophistication” among the academic left. Pg 169 Such warped minds as Andrew Hacker now hold forth on “white colleges”, “white logic” and “white learning” with a straight face. Thus is the post racial conversation on race so earnestly desired by Eric Holder. Hey, I’ve got an idea. If we want to stop discriminating by race, let’s just stop discriminating by race. Naaahhh, that would never work.

Goldberg goes on to unpack the Sorelian nature of the “1960’s conjured by the popular culture.” You know, the Summer of Love, Flower Power and Honk for Whirled Peas and all that. More like, AIDS, genital warts, epidemic divorce rates, date rape, reverse discrimination, drug abuse and over-aged deaf hippies w/bald heads and grey pony-tails. Yuck. Could we please go back to the fifties?

No no, of course I don’t mean returning to the days of Jim Crow. I think civil rights was an evolution whose time had come, indeed, was long since overdue. But the flower children took entirely too much credit for it. Most civil rights legislation was passed in spite of stiff opposition by the Democrats. More Republicans voted for the Civil Rights Act than Dems. It was those old white guys who passed civil rights legislation, make no mistake. And no, I’m not taking away from the courage of Martin Luther King, Rosa Parks, Medgar Evers and the rest. MLK remains one of my heroes today, despite his communism and problems with marital fidelity. He knew he would be killed for his efforts and said so many times, but he went forward anyway. He exhibited a courage the country’s pampered, over-educated, under-worked, mostly white, flower-power generation of young bearded draft-dodgers lacked.

So Goldberg goes on to contrast the pacifist image of the anti-war New Left with its’ violent reality. As long as no one was shooting back, these hippies could be quite destructive physically. While Vietnam Veterans Against the War (John Kerry’s early tool for self-aggrandizement) was discussing who they might assassinate, Black Panthers were ambushing the police and the Weathermen, Bill Ayers’ former pals, were blowing up buildings (and occasionally themselves.) Pg 171

Ayers’ father, Thomas Ayers, was a philanthropist and former Chairman and CEO of Commonwealth Edison. Wow. What a tortured background boy-Ayers must have come from! Anyway, Ayers Junior personally participated in setting off bombs at the NYC Police HQ, the Capitol Building, the Pentagon, and charmingly, a statue dedicated to police casualties. Although he later married Bernardine Dohrn, if you read any of Horowitz’s contemporary accounts, these erstwhile revolutionaries really just slept around with whoever was convenient, sometimes resulting in a rape or two of one of the lesser female lights. Oh well, it’s all for the cause, right? Viva La Revolucion! This murderous crew truly exemplifies the decade’s supposedly defining themes of Peace and Love. It makes you want to take a bath just reading about it.

On page 173, Goldberg starts on the academic/intellectual antecedents of all that “Power to the People!” garbage. (The “people” already hold the power in this country. Maybe they should have studied American history rather than Jacques Derrida.) In any event, Derrida simply introduced a term coined by Nazi ideologues to the leftist academy in 1966 at a conference at Johns Hopkins. “Deconstruction” is a tortured literary concept which suggests more than one meaning can be applied to any text, supposedly vitiating whatever received truth might otherwise obtain in a given narrative. In fact, what it became was a handy bulldozer for pushing over any ideologically inconvenient meaning or interpretation, cutting a path for pure Nietzschean “will to power” and, from there, by crushing the centuries-old core-curriculum based on Western civilization, making a short road to, “according to Derrida and his acolytes,” reason itself being a “a tool of oppression.” Pg 173

One of his acolytes was former Nazi collaborator and scribbler of anti-Semitic fascist newspaper screeds, Paul de Man. He, along with Herbert Marcuse and others, were believers in “Heidegger’s brand of existentialism,” of which deconstruction was a putrid fruit. Pgs 174-5 Marcuse served up such pithy and fantastic gems as the idea that, “’liberal tolerance’ was ‘serving the cause of oppression.’” More idiotic gibberish ensued from this font of intellectual deceit. Frantz Fanon “preached about the ‘redemptive’ power of violence.” Michel Foucault chose to be guided by the “sovereign enterprise of Unreason.” Pg 175 Foucault, BTW, celebrated the Iranian mullahs’ take-over of that country in ’79 because it represented a fifteenth-century assault on Enlightenment reason. What a putz.

Goldberg takes this opportunity to mention that “no top-tier American conservative intellectual was a devotee of Nietzsche or a serious admirer of Heidegger” (with the complex exceptions of Leo Strauss and Allan Bloom, a putative enigma far too involved to parse here.) He goes on to say that all major schools of conservative thought hark back to the heroes of the Enlightenment, John Locke, Adam Smith, Montesquieu, Burke. Further, and perhaps more importantly for our discussion, none trace back to Nazism, Nietzsche, existentialism, nihilism or even Pragmatism for the most part. Pg 175 All of this may seem irrelevant until one considers Hitler’s “revolt against reason” meme. Now, in the ivory towers of academia, various nuances could be drawn and hairs split between, say, the finer philosophical strands of Foucault and Derrida. However, in the real world they would instantly be considered distinctions without a difference and dispensed with as so much pseudo-esoteric smoke wafting up from the pointy-headed, Ivy-covered denizens of a college faculty lounge. Pg 176

The chapter’s next section is “The Action Cult”, much of which has been discussed in previous chapters. The fascists (from both the 20′s and the 60′s) didn’t care as much for strict orthodoxies as for action, more action and more action now. Hitler wanted to destroy every vestige of the bourgeoisie and replace it with the Aryan Übermensch, the new culture, new art and new religion. Hitler’s order to obliterate Paris and his standing scorched-earth policy sound eerily like the popular ‘60’s radicals’ chant of “Burn, baby, burn!” And that required men, and women, of action.

Re-reading passages depicting the “Days of Rage”, the Chicago riots of ’68, the cross-burning which set off Cornell’s take-over (later found to be a hoax – the Black Nationalists burnt it themselves,) the bombings and all the rest makes me want to retch. Nonetheless, we need not dwell on it. Brownshirts, fascist sqadristi, the SDS, the Weathermen – they all “smashed windows, destroyed property and terrorized the bourgeoisie.” Pg 177 Mussolini wrote the script himself in 1908, “…The Superman knows revolt alone. Everything that exists must be destroyed.” Pg 179 Whether it was the Nazi “Cult of the Deed”, the French fascists Action Francaise or SDS chairman Mark Rudd’s “action faction”, the historical continuity of thought and action so far portrayed by the fascist-liberal-left is undeniable.

Goldberg’s next few pages introduce several more prime time players from the ‘60′s and the gaudy, quasi-intellectual accouterments which they bandied about to justify their adolescent tantrums. Take the Port Huron Statement for example. Supposedly positing a politics of meaning, it basically highlighted the insipid musings of a bunch of affluent white kids too stupid to realize how good they had it. They were trying to recreate a “community” which already existed but which they were summarily rejecting as not worthy of them. Todd Gitlin, former SDS president, in describing the Statement, longed for, in Yale psychologist’s Kenneth Keniston’s words, “the qualities of warmth, communion, acceptedness, dependence and intimacy which existed in childhood.” Gitlin goes on, “At least for some of us, the circle evoked a more primitive fantasy of fusion with a symbolic, all enfolding mother.” Sounds like somebody has mommy issues. Pgs 180-1

A striking resemblance to hippiedom is drawn from the German Neue Schar of 1919, right down to their long-haired appearance, un-bathed odor and fondness for free-love and guitars. And out of that cultural stew came the middle-class son of a Lutheran pastor named Horst Wessel. His idealized life, if you call living in a slum (by choice) and taking up with a prostitute ideal, and death became fodder from which Joseph Goebbels created the Sorelian myth which appealed to so many of Germany’s young activists in the early thirties. Pg 184

Tom Hayden is another good example of how someone with all the middle-class advantages can turn an idealistic dream into a totalitarian nightmare. After some admirable work in the civil rights movement, his behavior became a paradigm of Rebel Without A Cause violence. His meddling led to the Newark race riots, he was involved in the occupation of Columbia University, he helped instigate the Chicago riots – well, you get the idea. He was truly, “bringing the war home.” Pg 185

Hayden and Mark Rudd, another scion of middle class privilege, became indistinguishable from common criminals, fancy Marxist sloganeering notwithstanding. (Indeed, says Goldberg, strip away all the references to Marx and Lenin and the cheap patois of 60′s era radicals is indistinguishable from Mussolini’s ranting.) These Molotov cocktail hurling community organizers truly embodied the epitome of bourgeois self-loathing. Pg 187 Of the Tate/La Bianca murders, Bernardine Dohrn enthused, “Dig It! First they killed those pigs, then they ate dinner in the same room with them, they even shoved a fork into a victim’s stomach! Wild!” Pg 188 Yes, quite wild. I think yet another rebel of affluent parentage, Abbie Hoffman, summed it up well with the title of one of his books, “Revolution for the Hell of It”. Pg 189

A certain pre-occupation with “the street” seems to find currency in fascist youth cults and the 60′s were no exception. (Remember Hillary’s obsession with picking up so many votes “on the street.”) There was street theater, street protests, dancing in the street, etc. And of course, infamous SDS radical Ted Gold wanted to turn the streets of “NY into Saigon.” He got his wish when he blew himself up, along with two other erstwhile New Left “Viet Cong” in the celebrated Greenwich Village explosion while playing amateur bomb-builder. Pgs 190-1 Goldberg cites one possible motivation for the wanton violence as their need to prove they were not cowards for refusing to go to Vietnam. Pg 192 Well, sorry, I’m still not convinced. People shot back in Vietnam, accidental bombings or not.

And your standard issue, big ‘D’ liberal of the time was not nearly violent enough for the New Left. Their heroes included such luminaries as Ho, Che, Mao and Castro. Goldberg marvels at modern lefties, movie starlets and the like donning apparel advertising the image of Che Guevara, a cold-blooded, natural born killer if there ever was one. He wonders, as do I, why these counter-cultural worshipers of Che don’t also sport tee shirts emblazoned with the likeness of Heinrich Himmler. Pg 192

Moving on, violence was O.K. for these dime-store revolutionaries as long as the victim was the “Great White Oppressor.” Martin Luther King had already won the moral victory when his civil rights movement was hijacked by Stokely Carmichael’s Black Power crowd. Pg 195 Goldberg spends several pages weaving together how the Black Panther’s affinity for a Separate Nation dovetailed into “a cordial relationship” between the Nation of Islam’s Elijah Muhammad and George Lincoln Rockwell, head of the American Nazi Party. Pg 196 Politics does indeed make strange bedfellows.

With Malcolm X insisting that blacks should use “any means necessary” to overcome “the pigs” and Black Panthers marching around in military garb, the violence of the 60′s was not at all surprising. Pgs 196-7 What’s surprising is that after all we’ve learned from that ridiculous fascist nationalist mess, Eric Holder’s DOJ still refuses to prosecute modern day Panthers standing in front of voting booths in Philadelphia spouting incendiary racist cant and intimidating voters. Patriotism is not fascist, but ethnocentric movements like the Panther definitely are. Say, what happened to that “national conversation on race” Holder wanted? He called us all cowards or something, didn’t he? I guess that went the way of all hot air after Obama shot his mouth off about the “stupid” police and ended up holding his own street theater in the form of a garden beer party.

Of course, not all leftist intellectuals of the time were willing to sign off on the radical hoopla and hysteria unequivocally. Revered leftist Irving Lois Horowitz, the literary executor of C. Wright Mills, put it bluntly, “Fascism returns to the United States not as a right-wing ideology, but almost as a quasi-leftist ideology.” Peter Berger, a left-wing sociologist and Jewish refugee from Austria said that when he saw the Rudd-Gitlin-Hoffman radical movement of the 60′s he was “repeatedly reminded of the storm troopers that marched through my childhood in Europe.” He found that the themes of 60′s radicalism formed “a constellation that strikingly resembles the common core of Italian and German fascism.” pg 198

Goldberg quotes Stewart Alsop’s review of Charles Reich’s Greening of America. Says Alsop, “…surely anyone with a sense of the political realities can smell the danger that these silly…irrational people, in their cushioned isolation from reality, are bringing upon us all. The danger starts with the university, but it does not end there.” Every character we’ve mentioned who fashioned themselves as New Left Radicals had never missed a meal, had never known want, had never gone without a roof over their head.

Kind of like Hillary, another middle class acolyte of radical fascist Saul Alinsky. Or worse yet, Hussein Obama. Here’s a guy who was raised by affluent grandparents, was handed scholarships he likely didn’t deserve (we don’t know, he won’t release his university records), was given the editorship of the Harvard Law Review without having published anything significant, was awarded the Nobel prize on the basis of what I-don’t-have-the-slightest-idea-and-neither-does-anyone-else and finally, was given the presidency in a sort of “benefit of the doubt” palliation of mostly media-generated middle-class white guilt. Oh yeah, and on top of that, he had to get his street cred and ersatz “black rage” by sitting around in the church of a shameless race hustler who calls himself a man of God. Danger? You betcha. (Apologies to Sarah Palin)

Your humble servant will be too busy next week to review Chapter Six, “From Kennedy’s Myth to Johnson’s Dream: Liberal Fascism and the Cult of the State.” If nobody else reviews it, I will do so the week following.

Confession: We have a liberal troll who, when I don’t get a post up on Monday, sends me needling emails about what losers we all are for even attempting this. If nothing else, his email serves as a good reminder that I need to post. But this week I did not read. I got busy at the SPN Conference, then came home sick. Luckily, Warrior is always diligent and we can use his. Besides, this is a group effort. Shame on y’all for letting a left-wing troll who also emails praise for Hitler beat you guys to harassing me. In any event, read Chapter 5 for Monday. — Erick

“Franklin Roosevelt’s Fascist New Deal”

Favorite Chapter Quote, “He [FDR] spoke in generalities that everyone found agreeable at first and meaningless upon reflection.” pg 129

In Chapter 4, Goldberg goes a long way toward establishing the idea that, in the teens, twenties and thirties of the last century, Fascism was on the ascendency. And one of it’s most hearty acolytes was FDR. “The notion that FDR harbored fascist tendencies is vastly more controversial today than it was in the 1930′s, primarily because fascism has come to mean Nazism and Nazism means simply evil.” Pg 123 The fascist (Hitlerite) nature of New Deal fiscal policy was actually invoked as a point in its’ favor at the time.

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Lib Fascism Chapt 3

“Woodrow Wilson and the Birth of Liberal Fascism”

Favorite chapter quote (from pg 88): “Indeed, the ink from Wilson’s pen regularly exudes the odor of what we today call the living Constitution.”

When discussing the threat of any totalitarian threat coming to America, someone inevitably cries, “It can’t happen here.” Yet, according to Goldberg, it already has. It came in the form of one socially isolated academic who was prone to homesickness: Woodrow Wilson. If one will recall from chapter two, totalitarianism was understood as a good thing in the early twentieth century, a time when more benevolent and naive connotations attached to the term. The total state as protector and friend, as father, mother, teacher and preacher. All that was required was that one sublimate his individualism to the “good of the state.” And thus is provided the sub-text for chapter three, namely, individualism bad, proletariat conformity good.

I recall the time in the mid-seventies when I realized the true and horrible implications of leftist chants such as “everything is political” and “the personal is political.” It meant exactly what it said and what it ended up being, which is the stifled, humorless, hostile America in which we now live. Use cows as an example of global warming offenders? You guessed it, somehow, somewhere, the National Union of Cow Piety (NUCP) National Defense League (NDL) comes out of the woodwork shouting “insensitive” and waving a subpoena. Like a certain kind music or style of clothes? Don’t care for obscenity laced “entertainment”? It is taken as a political statement and we haven’t even begun to talk politics yet. God forbid you should have an opinion on abortion.

Goldberg states flatly that “Woodrow Wilson was the twentieth century’s first fascist dictator” (Pg 80) and then spends the next 40 pages of closely reasoned and heavily documented writing to prove it. Goldberg reviews Wilson’s early life, how he learned to love power, hate franchising blacks and become another voice in the chorus of Jane Addams and Walter Rauschenbusch “who believed that collectivism was the new ‘freedom.’” (pg 87)

Goldberg goes on to posit T. Roosevelt and Wilson as two dogs fighting over the same bone, i.e. Teddy the Nationalist Progressive and Woodrow the socialist academic. Goldberg points out that Progressivism and Fascism were both international movements and shared the same “intellectual wellsprings.” (Pg 93) Some of the leading lights were, in no particular order, Nietzsche, Bismark, Richard Ely, Herbert Croly and William James, to name a few. (Pgs 94-95) Many prominent founders of modern liberalism studied in Germany and became enamored of the Prussian model of using militarism as a way of organizing and controlling the citizenry.

Speaking of Herbert Croly, he was a huge influence on T. Roosevelt and Wilson and founder of the leftist New Republic. His most important book, The Promise of American Life, according to Goldberg, is a virtual litany of fascist principles, e.g. organizing society along martial lines, use of the Sorelian myth, nationalism, politics as religion, hostility to the indvidual – it’s all there. (Pg 98) And if politics was the new religion, science was the new scripture. (Pg 100)

After explaining that the various manifestations of fascism and progressivism, and indeed, differences between the two, were mainly due to pan-Atlantic and inter-nation-state cultural appurtenances, (pg 99) he goes on to describe the despicable, but thoroughly modern liberal habit of shilling and lying for murderous Marxist regimes. Among the early tribe of useful American idiots were John Reed and E. A. Ross who worked ceaselessly to minimize the Red Terror. (Pg 101) More cheerleaders for the Bolsheviks were economists Rexford Guy Tugwell and Paul Douglas, educationists Lillian Wald and John Dewey and labor leaders Sidney Hillman and John L. Lewis. W.E.B. DuBois was enraptured, declaring at one point, “I am a Bolshevik.” DuBois, who had also studied the Prussian paradigm in Germany, was an anti-Semite at the time, his magazines featuring a swastika on their covers in 1924, although he later renounced Nazi anti-Semitism. (Pg 103)

So we see that Wilson was a Nietzschean, Hegelian, Jamesian Darwinist. If those intellectual currents sound familiar, they should. They are almost identical to those of one A. Hitler. (Pg104) And Goldberg is quick to explain that the beginning of WWI stimulated the American economy and not otherwise, lest liberals start to boast of the “good sense” of the progressive approach. (Pg 105) And though the war had no redeeming U.S. interests to recommend it, as Wilson himself altruistically exclaimed, it was, in more modern parlance, the crisis that was “too good to waste.” (Pg 105) John Dewey had put it succinctly when he wrote of the “social possibilities of war.” (Pg 106)

Going on, Goldberg spends several pages chronicling Wilson’s extra-Constitutional, morally questionable and downright unlawful abuses of civil rights. This was not an attempt to feret out true saboteurs or terrorists, this was strictly a way to crush the opposition and order society a la Otto von Bismark. Wilson then began “the first truly Orwellian propaganda efforts in Western history.” (Pg 109) The usual Hollywood suspects lined up to do his bidding, including artists, musicians, comedians, etc., not to mention an array of leftist intellectuals and journalists, such as George Creel, who headed the infamous Committee on Public Information. And the straight-faced usage of the “Official Euphemism” was born – think Overseas Contingency Operations. Explaining the first military draft since the Civil War, Wilson lectured, “It is in no sense a conscription of the unwilling: it is, rather, selection from a nation which has volunteered in mass.” (Pg 109) (Translation: “O.K., Koblowski, you and Jurgiliwitz just volunteered for a dangerous assignment.” “Er, O.K. First Sergeant.”)

Another socialist agitator and Wilson appointee, Arthur Bullard, gave full voice to the ends justifies the means theme of the day, “Truth and falsehood are arbitrary terms…The force of an idea lies in its’ inspirational value. It matters very little if it’s true or false.” (Pg 111) This reeking mendacity is still fresh on the left today. Dan Rather’s doctored document indicting Bush II as a military shirker was the news story that was “too good to check.” Remember? And even more recently, leftists made up quotes to disparage Rush Limbaugh in a successful effort to prevent him from exercising his rights as an American citizen. (And then when Rush lampooned them by doing the same in reverse to them, they howled like a troop of scalded monkees.)

“A few Hollywood writers who’d supported Stalin and then lied about it” were blackballed under the oft-castigated horror of McCarthyism, but he was a piker compared to Wilson. (Pg 113) He created another monster called The American Protective League, and using the Espionage and Sedition Acts of ‘17 and ‘18, respectively, created an atmosphere in which even the most off-handed criticism of his gubmint resulted in beatings, jailings and even murder. (Pg 116) Even today, most people still recall the Palmer raids (that is, people who studies history prior to 1975 or so, i.e. before it became politicized or non-existent.) It is estimated that approximately 175,000 Americans were arrested during Wilson’s presidency for being insufficiently devoted to the cause. (Pg 117)

And as liberal academic historians airbrush the past, such shenanigans as these are always put down as failures of America in general – no particular ideology is discussed. Whereas, any alleged “conservative” failure is attributed directly and unequivocally to them and is considered proof positive that any future power in the hands of conservatives will also result in disaster res ipsa loquitur. Such is the power of revisionist history that only Mussolini’s support for the war made him “right wing” by the lights of communist propagandists, while no other pro-war socialists of the time were so disparaged, and yet even now fascists are purportedly “right-wing” in the modern leftist liberal spectrum of hateful ideologies. (Pg 118)

Squaring the circle of disparate wealth, George Creel expatiated the Progressives’ goal of creating a society in which there existed “…no dividing line between rich and poor,” almost an exact projection of Hitler’s rhetoric a few years later. (And even today, how many times have we heard some millionaire starlet whine about the supposed gap between rich and poor?) “The Wilsonian-Crolyite progressive conception of the individual’s role in society” was to serve the state irrespective of whether the realization of such utopian dreams “would have to come at the price of personal liberty.” (Pg 120) And on the basis of most modern criteria used to fix characters on the gamut of political beliefs, e.g. social base, social policy, economics, demographics – “Adolph Hitler was indisputably to Wilson’s left.” (Pg 120) So your liberal friends will be surprised to learn that one of their most famous intellectual progenitors was a fascist, as were many, many of their others.

Next week: Chapter Four: “Franklin Roosevelt’s Fascist New Deal”

“Adolph Hitler: Man of the Left”

Favorite Chapter Quote: ”Meanwhile, the contention that industrialists and other fat cats were pulling Hitler’s strings from behind the scenes has also been banished to the province of aging Marxists, nostalgic for paradigms lost.”  Pg 58

[Favorite Chapter Quote from Chapter One, “Mussolini: The Father of Fascism”:  Speaking of where Mussolini might land in 1904 after being labeled an “enemy of society” by the Swiss (no mean feat in itself), Goldberg writes, “At one point he considered whether he should work in Madagascar, take a job at a socialist newspaper in New York, or join other socialist exiles in the leftist haven of Vermont (which fills much the same function today).”  Pg 34]

I truly didn’t plan to make these reviews any kind of anti-Obama screed, but the book’s text practically screams for it.  For instance, while discussing the disagreement among scholars about whether Nazism was fascism with a capital F, or was a form of it at all, Goldberg mentions that while Hitler only referenced it twice in Mein Kampf, he admired (and borrowed) its’ most sellable piece.  Quoting from pg 533 of the Manheim translation, “And it was only the idea [any idea which is new and inspirational] that enabled Fascism triumphantly to subject a whole nation to a process of complete renovation.”  Sound familiar?  That’s right, on October 30^th, 2008 during a speech at the University of Missouri, BHO delivered the following sentiment, “We are five days away from fundamentally transforming the United States of America.”  And this little discussion is on page 53, the chapter’s FIRST page.

Goldberg goes on to describe Nazi ideology, not as a “program or platform,” (pg 55) but as one which, “…most often resembled a religious crusade wearing the mask of a political ideology.”  mmm mmm mmm  And he further remarks that the one message Hitler did take away from Italian Fascism is that of “the idea” as mentioned above.  The inherent meaning or even truth of “the idea” is of secondary importance.  Rather, its’ ability to facilitate certain actions or legitimize various movements – in short, to “arouse the masses” is what recommends it.  Indeed, Hitler was a megalomaniacal opportunist, so any apparently consistent theme in his “ideology”, outside of blind racial hatred, was evanescent at best. 

The power of symbols is quite closely studied in contemporary schools of social work (and also of sociology, I would imagine) due to the political nature of such schools and their importance in consolidating power for the left.  Liberals’ love of euphemisms and their hyper-vigilant suspicion of “code words” are quite suggestive of how they view “the idea.”  It may also explain the current administration’s fixation with Fox news network.  In any case, although he had none of his own, Hitler’s ability to triangulate, adopt, blend and peddle various ideologies depending on the audience (paraphrase of pg 56) amplifies the significance of symbol over substance and demonstrates how easily masses can be appeased if they have faith in some emotionally redeeming, quasi-religious “idea,” social justice for instance.

The creation of a powerful caricature for political reasons is central to why many people today think Hitler was a right-wing character and/or that his movement was somehow conservative.  After the “Night of the Long Knives” (not to mention Operation Barbarossa – the invasion of Russia) the Reds had every reason in the world to distance themselves from him.  Says Goldberg, “For decades the left has cherry-picked the facts to form a caricature of what the Third Reich was about….the desired effect was to cast Nazism as the polar opposite of Communism.”  More specifically, “…the roles of industrialists and conservatives was grossly exaggerated, while the very large and substantial leftist and socialist aspects of Nazism were shrunk to the status of trivia, the obsession of cranks and Hitler apologists.” (pg 57)

William Shirer’s “The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich” goes a long way in perpetuating the myth of Nazi “right-wing-ism” by conveniently positing that Hitler “destroyed the Left” i.e. supposedly leaving “the Right” in place and unaltered.  However, as Goldberg points out, the Nazis did not so much “destroy the Left” as “replace the Left,” just as the SDS and Ramparts crowd became the “New Left” when the truth of Stalin’s purges finally came out.  True, the “Left,” as it was understood at that time, WAS destroyed, but only because of a determined attempt by its’ fresher acolytes to distance themselves from it and keep the quaint ideas of socialism alive and well in America. 

After decades of leftist propaganda regarding Nazi capitalists, how easy it is to forget that socialism is supposed to be a movement of the proletariat, i.e. the common man, the working poor, the unemployed – the underprivileged, as it were.  And surprise, large swaths of the Nazi base were from this very group of downtrodden and lower classes.  In addition, the actual German capitalists of the day despised Hitler and initially thought they could simply use him for their own purposes.  Of course, when the real terror of the Third Reich began, everyone who was not a party member (and many who were) found that it was quite dangerous to make trouble and more than expedient to become compliant with and even develop a taste for the soupe du jour, so to speak.  Organically however, as Goldberg puts it, “Nazism and Fascism were both popular movements with support from every stratum of society.” (pg 58)  

My guess is Hitler simply found it easier to let Krupp make weapons and Daimler-Benz make motors.  This was and is the main practical difference between National Socialism and sho’ ‘nuff communism.  The reds nationalized the means of production and promptly made a mess of it (except during the war, when normal economic exigencies were suspended.)  Otherwise, we are simply talking about two or three different chapters of the same fascist club.  Goldberg addresses the fantasy that corporations are “inherently right-wing” in a later chapter on economics.

So Hitler was a revolutionary and a reactionary.  Never heard him described as a revolutionary before?  Neither have I.  Nor are you likely to in the popular media or the American academy.  Leftists have assiduously cleansed history of any connection he might have had to revolution since they believe it is always positive, “…the inevitable forward motion of the Hegelian wheel of history.” (Pg 59)  Hitler may not have had any allegiance to a set ideology (other than racial hatred), but he exploited anti-capitalist rhetoric which was undoubtedly believed by the rank and file.  Conservatism by almost any definition is surely the antithesis of revolution.  It’s hard to see how Hitler’s revolutionary tendencies have been hidden for so long.  The man titled his signature ideological/political screed “My Struggle” for crying out loud.

“Reactionary” is another one of those dusty Marxist terms which gets thrown around a lot by people like Airhead America’s Janeane Garofalo who use the term to mean, basically, “anyone who disagrees with me.”  In the patois of early twentieth century Marxists and progressives however, it described folks who wished to return to God, king and country as ideals – certainly not goals of the Third Reich.  Yet, insofar as Hitler wanted to throw off millennia of Judeo-Christian tradition and return to paganism, Wotan and Valhalla, he certainly earns the moniker.        

In any event, by no stretch of the imagination can Hitler be described as a conservative.  Regardless of the shifting locations of “right” or “left” in the modern or historical lexicon of socio-political taxonomy, Monsieur Adolph wanted to preserve nothing, saving maybe the pipe dream of racial purity as personified by an Aryan Superman.  Not to put too fine a point on it, but the popular depiction of a mid-twentieth-century ideology of genocide as “right-wing” has been the plaything of socialist and progressive propagandists for decades now.  Therefore, it is an important point to dispute, especially given the virulence of Hollywood’s, Democrats’ and academicians’ endless attempts to paint conservatives, Republicans and the political right as somehow connected to Nazism.  Again, Goldberg should have the last word: “Certainly, to suggest that Hitler was a conservative in any sense related to American conservatism is lunacy.” (pg 61)

Of course, many other strains of “reasoning” are used to equate Nazism with contemporary right-wing politics.  For instance, the National Socialists’ racism, supposed fondness for capitalism and opprobrium of Bolshevism are all used as purported “evidence” that they could accurately be described as conservatives or even garden variety, lower case f fascists.  Such pitiful sallies fall apart with even a cursory look.

As far as racism, who practices identity politics today based on race and ethnicity?  Which professional association of national social workers for many years opposed (and may still oppose) inter-racial adoption based on the principal that black babies would otherwise lose their cultural (read racial) “authenticity”?  (And thereby depriving them of loving homes, which makes me so mad I can’t see straight.)  And historically, whereas Hitler is practically defined by his hatred of the Jews, Mussolini, “The Father of Fascism” remember, thought of racial politics as a mere distraction and basically silly.  He could have cared less about anyone’s race.  Indeed, Jews were protected by his troops far more often than not and persecuted less than by any group other than the Danes.  Actually, I’m understating the issue.  He despised the so called ubermenchen for their racist policies.  From pg 55, Mussolini penned, or at least approved of, an article in Gerachia, “Thirty centuries of history permit us to regard with supreme pity certain doctrines supported beyond the Alps by the descendants of people who did not know how to write, and could not hand down documents recording their own lives, at a time when Rome had Caesar, Virgil, and Augustus.”    

The fact of Hitler’s anti-Semitism has been thoroughly documented, yet his strong dislike of Christians is less so.  During his time in Vienna, when he discovered National Socialism and the need for Teutonic purity (or Germanic affirmative action at least), he spent late nights, “…writing plays about pagan Bavarians bravely fighting off invading Christian priests trying to impose foreign beliefs on Teutonic civilization.” (Pg 64)  And the feeling was mutual for the most part.  Reinhold Niebuhr strongly opposed the events occurring in Germany and in 1933 was one of the first Christian leaders in the U.S. to warn against the “cultural annihilation of the Jews” in an article for the Christian Century.  Martin Niemoller, the Lutheran pastor who gave us the famous poem, “They came for the Jews”, was imprisoned in Sachsenhausen and Dachau from 1937 until the end of the war by Hitler personally, even after being released with a fine and time served by a “Special” court.  Dietrich Bonhoeffer, another German Lutheran pastor and staunch opponent of Nazism, was involved in a plot by members of the Abwehr to assassinate der Fuhrer in 1943.  He was subsequently imprisoned and later executed at Flossenburg one month before the war ended.  For the record, Hitler also disliked Slavs, conservatives, gypsies, intellectuals, homosexuals and Marxists – and in fact, including Christians, executed a total of approximately three million people from these groups.

Hitler also studied Marxism during his stay in Vienna.  He came to believe Marx was the force behind a Jewish plot, a vast Hebrew conspiracy, one might say.  And while serving (King Ludwig III) in WWI, his suspicion of Marxism became a vile hatred for actual communism.  German Reds took advantage of the chaos and starvation of German civilians by organizing strikes, calling for peace with the Soviets and pushing for the institution of socialism.  Hitler (and many others) saw this as treason by a corrupt government, i.e. the “November criminals.”  Wrote Hitler, “During those nights [recovering from war wounds] my hatred increased, hatred for those responsible for this dastardly crime.”  He of course conflated “capitalists, communists and cowards” (pg 67) as responsible and saw it all as the work of a thinly veiled cabal of Jewish interests.  So this assumed betrayal and not any kind of heavy ideological differences with socialist policies, explain Hitler’s antipathy towards the Bolsheviks. 

This corrupt mindset also drives a lot of his thinking about capitalism.  The Jews have historically been a popular scapegoat and were much more so after the first war, when pandemic economic malaise easily lent itself to such resentments.  As we’ll see later, after coming to power, he even went so far as closing down (or nationalizing) department stores (the Wal-Marts of their day) because of their Jewish connection and the assumed unfair advantage they had over more purely Aryan Mom and Pop enterprises (Tante Emma Laden).  Hitler was impressed with one speaker at a German Worker’s Party meeting, Gottfried Feder, whose rant was entitled, “How and by What Means Is Capitalism to Be Eliminated?” (pg 67)  Hitler saw the potential for turning such nonsense into a way of appealing to the Volk, who believed capitalists were exploiting them at every turn.  Feder never missed a chance to call Jews “parasites.” 

As we can see, National Socialism is an ideology based on deep-seated resentments and hatred.  It is founded on the idea that the state should work to ensure “social justice”.  (Does it really matter whether “justice” must be extracted from purportedly avaricious Joooos or presumably “greedy” and “racist” white crackers?)  Take a look at “The Nazi Party Platform” found in the Appendix on pg 410.  It reads like a wish list from the fevered imagination of George Clooney or some other moonbat of today: universal education, guaranteed employment, increased entitlements for the aged, the expropriation of land without compensation, the abolition of market-based lending (“interest slavery” – but I guess Hitler wouldn’t have instituted a “pay czar” to regulate bankers’ salaries, maybe a “pay fuhrer”), the expansion of health services, etc. — hardly the stuff of anyone in bed with capitalism.

Goldberg puts it succinctly, “What the Nazis pursued was a form of anticapitalist, antiliberal [anti-classically-liberal that is], and anti-conservative communitarianism encapsulated in the concept of Volksgemeinschaft, or ‘people’s community.’”  (pg 69)  And remember, Hitler was a nationalist, not a patriot, with the former interested in blood, soil, ethnicity, race, and Volk, while the latter is more concerned with the ideas, institutions and traditions of a country. (pg 62)  Hitler was not at all a patriot to the state of Germany as it then existed.  Yet Marx’s idea that “workingmen have no country” was anathema to Herr Schicklgruber.  However, he wanted them to have a “Fatherland” (soil) based on racial purity (blood and race) and which excluded Germany’s formerly (classically) liberal policies (institutions) regarding foreigners and traditional religions.  Recall that previous to the ‘30’s, Jews had flocked to Germany from all over Eastern Europe and Russia to escape persecution.  Germany, under “…the Bismarkian constitution of 1871 [which] brought to legal fruition the process of Jewish emancipation begun during the Prussian reform period early in the Century” (from Karl Schleunes’ “The Twisted Road to Auschwitz”), had allowed them to own businesses, engage in the “learned professions,” intermarry and so on – things which were forbidden in the lands of pure socialism.     

Goldberg spends the last few pages of the chapter divining Hitler’s real motives for disliking Bolshevism and piling on yet more evidence that “right wing” was simply applied when convenient to castigate those whose flavor of socialism diverged from acceptable party cant, kind of like Camille Paglia today being accused of “right-wing-ism” because she has departed from modern leftist orthodoxy on several issues.  For instance, on pg 71, Goldberg states, “Most of the Bolshevik revolutionaries Stalin executed were accused of being not conservatives or monarchists but rightists — that is, right wing socialists.  Any deviation from the Soviet line was automatic proof of rightism.  Ever since, we in the West have apishly mimicked the Soviet usage of such terms without questioning the propagandistic baggage attached.”

And in return, “What distinguished Nazism [from other types of socialism] was that it forthrightly included a worldview we now associate almost completely with the political left: identity politics.” (Pg 73) As previously mentioned, Hitler hated Marxism due to “…his paranoid conviction that the people calling themselves communists were in fact in on a foreign, Jewish conspiracy.”  (pg 75)  Mein Kampf is replete with such assertions.  What he failed to realize was that most Stalinists were anti-Semites themselves – even officially so.  Ruth Fischer, a half-Jewish communist radical (boy, talk about self-hate) who later became a high-level commissar in Communist East Germany, employed just such incendiary rhetoric while trying to convince the German proletariat to embrace communism, “Whoever cries out against Jewish capitalists is already a class warrior, even when he does not know it…Kick down the Jewish capitalists, hang them from the lampposts, and stamp upon them.” Pg 76   (Class warfare?  Oh yeah, just like the kind we hear about today.) 

Not to mix metaphors, and at the risk of beating a dead horse, but aware that this horse has nonetheless been stalking quite a long time, Karl Radek, a communist ideologue, observed in the early twenties that “Fascism is middle-class Socialism…”  Suffice to say that if Leon Trotsky, the co-founder of the Soviet state, could be labeled a fascist and “Nazi agent” at Stalin’s whim, anyone could be.  And anyone and everyone who has dared to oppose socialist whims ever since has been.  Pg 77

Now that we know why “right-wing” doesn’t mean fascism, next week we will learn why “left-wing” does.  Chapter Three:  “Woodrow Wilson and the Birth of Liberal Fascism” 

Liberal Fascism: A Discussion of the book by Jonah Goldberg

Intro and Chapter One

Jonah Goldberg repeatedly, almost ad nauseum, provides caveats that he is not calling any contemporary (liberal) figure a genocidal dictator, a Nazi, a murderer or a rascist.  I’m only going to say it once.  I’m reviewing the precepts contained in an important book.  If I think someone is a Nazi or Nazi-like, I won’t hesitate to say so.  However, it is not to be inferred from the following comments and I won’t waste my time responding to anyone who mistakenly sees themselves or their hero described herein.

Goldberg’s book was copyrighted in 2007 which means it was being written during the heart of the G.W. Bush years.  Mr. Obama had barely come on the scene and is only mentioned by name twice in the book.  Yet, Goldberg not only nails him cold, but the author’s comments are prescient as to the entire playbook of the leftist agenda.  I guess with Saul Alinski’s “Rules for Radicals” around it’s not so hard to pinpoint modern leftist political strateeegery (as Limbaugh puts it), but the accuracy of what came to pass only a few short months after the book’s release is uncanny.

Take this from page 14: “…liberalism today sees no realm of human life that is beyond significance…”, i.e. the post-Vietnam (in the U.S.) “everything is political” leftist meme.  As examples, he suggests further, “Sports, entertainment, your inner motives and outer appearance, all have political salience for liberal fascists.”  Almost a Nostradamian take on the Rush-NFL mess.

Obama is as predictable as the sunrise to Goldberg.  Later on in the same paragraph, he states, “…liberal fascists speak of a “Third Way” between right and left where all good things go together and all hard choices are “false choices”.  This is almost verbatim of Obama’s oft repeated accusation that we are dealing with “false dichotomies” when it comes to difficult trade-offs.

On page 15 Goldberg nails the left’s elevation of statism/fascism to the level of a secular religion complete with quasi-theological jargon.  Hillary’s “politics of meaning” and Obama’s “Hope and Change” are obvious examples.  If there were any doubts about this, Obama’s constant deification by the minion media and portrayal as some kind of latter day religious saint come to save us from ourselves should be enough to dispel it.

Speaking of syndicalism and the importance of Sorel’s myth-making as a means of motivating and captivating the masses, he again describes the NPR crowd with amazing accuracy.  From page 38 he reveals that “…a small cadre of professional intellectual radicals – who were prepared to reject compromise, parliamentary politics, and anything else that smacked of incremental reform – were indispensable to any revolutionary struggle.”  Does that sound eerily like the current playlist of healthcare reform, the stimulus package, cash for clunkers and everything else this administration is trying to cram down our throats without “compromise” or “incremental reform”?  It should.  It could easily be a contemporaneous description of Obama, Emanuel, Pelosi, Reid, et al in some sort of wild-eyed socialist planning session.

Moving on to page 43, Goldberg describes another favorite weapon in the libs arsenal of national self-destruction, “…its’ tendency to maintain a permanent sense of crisis.  Crisis is routinely identified as a core mechanism of fascism because it short-circuits debate and democratic deliberation.  Hence all fascistic movements commit considerable energy to prolonging a heightened state of emergency.”  Rahm Emanuel call your office.

Citing the program of Mussolini’s Fasci di Combattimento, page 46 looks like a talking points memo e-mailed from the DNC to its’ unholy minions yesterday.  Included are, briefly, enactment of a minimum wage, strict regulations on land use, a huge tax on capital, the nationalization of many industries, confiscation of the wealth of the church and on and on.  Coincidence?  Somehow I don’t think so.

Moving along to page 51, when describing the doctrinal Fascist economics which Mussolini was finally called upon to put on paper, that too had a strangely familiar and contemporary ring.  Goldberg states, “…it looked fairly recognizable as just another left-wing campaign to nationalize industry, or regulate it to the point where the distinction was hardly a difference.”  Pay close attention to this latter description.  It really doesn’t have to meet some lawyerly burden of proof to be a gubmint take-over, it only has to result in ultimate gubmint control.  You can call it “a co-op”, “ a single payer system”, “the public option” or “Santa Claus”, but if it results in gubmint control it really doesn’t matter, now does it?

What a huge indictment of modern day liberalism – and we’ve only covered the Intro and Chapter One of Goldberg’s Liberal Fascism.  One could conclude from this brief discourse that modern liberalism is far more deserving of the moniker “Fascist” than almost any brand of conservative.  Stay tuned next week for Chapter Two, “Adolph Hitler: Man of the Left”.