Category Archives: Opinion

OBAMA CAMPAIGN SLOGANS SEND DIFFERENT MESSAGES TO DIFFERENT AUDIENCES

Posted on May 10, 2012 | 2 Comments

When Barack Obama announced that “Forward” would be a campaign slogan for 2012, some pundits on the Right criticized the choice as an oversight by the President because it once was a popular term used in radical Socialist circles, particularly in Europe.  Early in the 20th century, Karl Marx and Friedrick Engels published their works in a bi-monthly magazine called Vorwärts which is German for the word Forward.  When written with an explanation mark, it means come on, let’s go!  Vorwärts was more than a just a magazine; it was a rallying call used by Europe’s revolutionary Socialists.

The naivety of some Conservatives amazes me.  Obama has proven to be very adept at communicating openly with his far Left followers without the Right even realizing it.  Adopting the word Forward is just another case in point.  The slogan rings a bell for radical socialists.  Everyone else hears nothing but a new slogan.

Hope and Change also conveyed different images to different groups.  So did “complete transformation”.  Democrats, centrists, and even some conservatives interpreted Hope and Change in the context of Obama’s promises that he would bring unprecedented openness in government, a reduction of bi-partisan bickering, prompt return of our troops from Iraq and Afghanistan, closing of the Guantanamo prison camp and a stable recovery from the mortgage crisis.

But the radical Left saw a very different message.  They knew what community organizing was.  They saw the close association with Ayers and Dohrn and the farewell promise to ACORN that their concerns would be the first thing he would address as President.  They saw Obama’s commitment to socialist based Black Liberation Theology.  When political expediency forced him to renege on his vow never to turn his back on Rev. Wright, the preacher assured his parishioners that Barack hadn’t changed; his distancing of himself was just something he had to do in order to become President.  It is in this context that the socialist Left puts meaning to the words Hope and Change.  Early on, the Right wasn’t exactly sure what the pledge “to completely transform America” meant either, but his other audience did.

The consensus among socialist scholars is that America with its extensive prosperous middle class cannot be turned into a socialist society relying solely on the democratic process.  Obama’s answer is Yes We Can.  The Right wonders, can what?  The radical Left knows exactly what.

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Posted in Political philosophy, Opinion

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WHITHER EUROPE? PAIN TODAY OR GREATER PAIN TOMORROW

Posted on May 8, 2012 | 2 Comments

You can’t cure an alcoholic.  It is something an alcoholic has to do himself.  First he must recognize the problem; then he must be willing to endure the cure.  Europe isn’t there yet on either count.

France has just chosen to go full bore Socialist, riots continue in Greece as the Neo-Nazis gain political favor and German voters are prepped to depose Angela Merkel.  The nanny states with their unsustainable level of benefits are running out of money and the children are shouting like bloody murder for the continuation of their luxury.  Reality is unacceptable so they are voting for promises.  Apparently the pain has to get worse before Europe will be willing to suffer through the cure.

Some argue that the way out is to spend more to rev up the engine of government income which, of course, is greater tax revenue.  The argument to spend more is based on the assumption that the problem is an economic recession.  That’s understandable but this time it’s a false premise.  The problem is not just another recession.  The European private sector is not robust but it’s healthy.  It’s only sovereign nations that are bankrupt.  The wealth of a nation is derived from two sources, private assets and income that can be taxed and to a much lesser extent its mineral rights.  Taken together the wealth is large but government’s capacity to spend is even larger.  When nations face insolvency during a more or less normal economic sector down cycle, the problem is overspending, not the economy.

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Posted in News, Opinion

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RULES for RADICALS by SAUL ALINSKY – IN THE BEGINNING

Posted on May 7, 2012 | Leave a comment

Continuing with the chapter by chapter series on Rules for Radicals, today we add Comments about the chapter called In the Beginning

Synopsis of the chapter entitled In the Beginning
The talent to organize a community seldom comes from within the community itself.  When a new organizer arrives on the scene he is greeted with suspicion.  Therefore, the first order of business is to establish his credentials, to gain acceptance and trust.  People in the community will ask “Who’s the cat?” “What’s he asking all those questions for?” “Is he really the cops or the FBI?” ” What’s his bag?” “What’s in it for him?” Who’s he working for?”, etc.

To gain the peoples trust a new organizer must show a intense anger over some issue.  Expressing love for the community accomplishes nothing.  It is only a sign of meekness.  Anger, on the other hand, unites the organizer with the people in a common cause.  It builds faith, faith in the ability and power of the organizer to bring change.

The organizer “is to maneuver and bait the establishment so they will attack him as a dangerous enemy. The word enemy is sufficient to put the organizer on the side of the people, …but is not enough to endow him with the special qualities that induce fear and thus give him his own power against the establishment. This need is met by the establishment’s use of the brand dangerous”.  That is to say, the organizer’s credentials are not fully established in the community until he has managed to get himself branded by the establishment as both an enemy and a dangerous one.

“The organizer’s job is to inseminate an invitation for himself, to agitate, introduce ideas, get people pregnant with hope and a desire for change and to identify you as the person most qualified for this purpose.”  “Power is the reason for being of an organization. Power and organization are one and the same. When those in the status quo turn and label you an agitator, they are completely correct, for that is, in one word, your function – to agitate to the point of conflict”.

Commentary
The largest training center for Socialist activists in the United States is a community organizer training institute in Chicago called The Midwest Academy.  Once their training is complete, organizers go to wherever they are most needed which is seldom back to their own community.  They come as strangers to a new neighborhood, hence the need to be pro-active in establishing acceptance.

The Alinsky method for doing that is to stir the pot and get people really mad about something.  Then present yourself as the best hope for improvement and change.  Hugo Chavez came to power by firing up his people against the United States, going as far as to say the U.S. was planning to invade and conquer Venezuela.  At a global warming conference in the Netherlands the Socialist dictator said the U.S. has sent intelligence agents, war ships and spy planes to the Dutch islands of Aruba, Curacao and Bonaire in preparation for a possible military invasion.  We laugh but in Venezuela the story works.

Obama started out as a community organizer he chose to use asbestos removal as an issue at the Altgeld Gardens complex in the Chicago area.  On a larger scale the favorite targets of Socialism have long been the rich, the oil companies and the banks.

The professor makes it abundantly clear that the development of anger and rage within a community to the point where the masses are ready to be led into conflict is not a by-product; it is the function of a community organizer.  This was Obama’s world.  Now that he is President he is governing the only way he knows.  According to the Alinsky model, harmony is counter-productive.  You need a crisis.  When you have one you should never let it go to waste.  If you don’t have a crisis, then make or allow one to develop.

It would be a serious omission to leave this chapter without mentioning Alinsky’s admonition not to love your neighbor, but if you must, keep it under wraps because it’s a sign of weakness.  There is no statement that better expresses the difference between the leaders and the led on the left.  It gives understanding to Stalin’s phrase “useful idiots”.

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THE POTENTIAL FOR A LANDSLIDE

Posted on May 2, 2012 | 2 Comments

Gallup says the Presidential race is in a dead heat.  No doubt they are correct, but that’s now and now is not November.  Pollsters report the present and they record the past.  Pollsters shy away from doing something dumb like trying to predict an election.  They are smart.  I will predict the election.

Barack Obama will go down in a resounding defeat.  That’s where I am; here’s how I got there (thanks, Glen).  The President has lost some support among voters across the board except for blacks.

1. He has alienated the U.S. Military anew.  With timing that would be the envy of Jack Benny, buddy Barack slighted the heroes of the Bin Laden operation by conferring upon himself a metaphorical medal for gallantry in decision making.  In doing that he alienated a lot more that just a few Navy Seals.

2. Obama has lost a good piece of the support he had from the Catholic Church.  Catholic leaders know he deceived them; parishioners know Obama’s policies are at odds with their beliefs.

3. The Jewish vote is fading fast.  Obama got 78% of the Jewish vote in 2008.  The latest poll shows Obama at just 61% against Romney.

4. Campaign funding for Obama is falling significantly short, while at the same time money is pouring in at record rates for the Republican candidate.

5. The youth have suffered the most from the high level of unemployment.  They know Obama has had 3 ½ years to do something about it but has failed to bring about any visible improvement.  He has lost the enthusiastic support that the Democratic candidate customarily gets from young people in a presidential election.  Few will switch their vote but many may stay away in droves (thanks, Yogi).

6. Blue collar workers have seen the light.  The President, yea even the Democratic Party itself has given up on courting this voting group.  These workers have been thrown under the bus and they know it.

7. Core Democratic voters, those who always vote Democratic because it’s always the only thing to do, they will still vote Democratic but only if they vote.  Many are very disappointed with Obama but will never voice it.  Turn out could be low.

8. Paul Krugman says the election will be very close and Paul Krugman is never right.

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THE GREAT PRETENDERS

Posted on April 30, 2012 | Leave a comment

At the annual White House Correspondents’ Association Dinner, Jimmy Kimmel joked ““Everything that is wrong with America is here in this room.”  The room was filled with politicians and journalists, so where’s the joke?  There wasn’t a single plumber or a carpenter in the place.  The builders of America were absent, only the demolition crew showed up.

Do we really need this annual show?  John Hinderaker writes in Power Line that it is an event where “The politicians pretend to engage in self-deprecation that shows they don’t take themselves too seriously. The comics pretend that they are just trying to be funny, lampooning politicians impartially in search of laughs. But, even though some of the lines are indeed funny, the premise of the event is fundamentally false. In fact, politicians, comedians and even the celebrities present are pursuing an agenda that is both self-aggrandizing and political”.

Like all roasts, it is also a DIDDID event.  If you are going to be a target you have no choice whether or not to go because you are damned if you do and damned if you don’t.  The Brits do a good job laughing at themselves, we don’t.  Humor is a fragile thing and goes bad when it’s not handled carefully.  The best humor is 100% fun for 100% of the audience.  One little barb can render a joke flat.  A not-so-hidden running agenda turns even funny humor bad.  There is no way in Washington, as they say, that you can assemble a room full of politicians and journalists without an agenda.  Let’s stop pretending we can.

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RULES for RADICALS by SAUL ALINSKY – COMMUNICATION

Posted on April 30, 2012 | Leave a comment

Continuing with the chapter by chapter series on Rules for Radicals, today we add our Comments about the chapter called Communication.

Synopsis of the chapter entitled Communication
If you can’t communicate, you can’t agitate.  Therefore the ability to communicate is the one quality an organizer absolutely must have.  To communicate the organizer must, 1) speak in familiar terms the people understand and 2) listen.  He must talk in terms familiar to the people he seeks as his power base.  Typically, this requires talking down when speaking to the people he is organizing.

As an example, take the dropping of the atomic bomb on Hiroshima; an organizer who stresses the multiple thousands of people who died will not communicate well with his audience.  Numbers with lots of zeros in them are outside the experience of most people.  However, if he tells the personal story of a single family including the details of their suffering, the organizer will reach his people.  Family problems and personal tragedies are within everyone’s realm of experience.

By the same token, a leader should not speak of issues in “generalities like sin or immorality or the good life or morals.  They must be this immorality of this slum landlord with this tenement where these people suffer”.

When planning the American Revolution founder John Adams said “There ought to be no less than three or four killed so we will have martyrs for the Revolution, but there must be no more than ten, because after you get beyond that number we no longer have martyrs but simply a sewage problem.”

Commentary
The first thing to note is the goal the author sets out – to agitate, stir up emotions.  Beyond that, this chapter offers some good advice; nothing will be accomplished unless you are able to communicate well with your constituency.  It is also true you won’t reach them by speaking above their heads and that little heart wrenching stories reach an audience in a way the big picture does not.

Barack Obama is very proficient at speaking in the terms the people he is addressing can understand.  Here is what writer Wayne Root had to say about the President’s “put on your marching shoes” speech at the Black Caucus Foundation’s Annual Legislative Conference in September 2011.

“When speaking before black audiences, President Obama tends to be more charismatic in his delivery. He just plays the room differently — gripping and galvanizing, with a preacher-like cadence that can sometimes rise to a holler at points of emphasis.”

“Throughout our history, change has often come slowly. Progress often takes time,” he said. “It’s never easy. And I never promised easy. Easy has never been promised to us. But we have had faith. We’ve had that good kind of crazy that says, ‘You can’t stop marching.’ “

Obama continued in this vein, with knowing references to the civil rights heroes honored during the night’s awards ceremony. “Even when folks are hitting you over the head, you can’t stop marching. Even when they’re turning the hoses on you, you can’t stop,” he said, building into an oratory crescendo that had the crowd cheering him on.

The author uses the alleged quote of John Adams to teach the method of communicating by invoking emotions.  Senator Inhofe gave us a recent example of this method employing the emotion of fear.  The Senator showed a video on April 25, 2012 of an EPA official teaching his philosophy of enforcement to his staff about 2 yrs earlier.  The subject, perhaps better said the target, was the oil companies.  The official said his philosophy

“was kind of like how the Romans used to, you know, conquer villages in the Mediterranean.  They’d go in to a little Turkish town somewhere, they’d find the first five guys they saw and they’d crucify them.  Then, you know, that town was really easy to manage for the next few years.”

The Romans simply killed a few people arbitrarily to serve as examples of the consequences they might face if they rebelled against a Roman dictate.  That is one sure way to communicate to an audience that they had better toe the line.

However, with respect to the quotation, there is no evidence Adams ever said any such thing nor would it be correct to say he planned the American Revolution.  A search of internet validators turns up several investigations into the source of the remark about the need for martyrs but none of them found any evidence of its having been said by Adams.  One validator offered the opinion that the originator was most likely none other than Saul Alinsky himself.

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I GOT BIN LADEN – a pathetic plea for votes

Posted on April 28, 2012 | Leave a comment

It was the military that got bin Laden, not the President.  All the President had to do was approve the operation.  Does anyone really believe any American president would have withheld such an approval?  Launching a campaign to promote the notion that Osama bin Laden would still be free today had Romney been President is pathetic.  It’s also insulting.

Nonetheless, let’s give the President the credit he is due.  The killing of bin Laden happened on his watch and he made the right decision to authorize kill or capture knowing full well that kill would be the all but inevitable result.  Let us also remember the assignment originated with President Bush and the Navy Seals were the heroes who carried it out.  The military would have been allowed to do their job under any president, even if it had been Joe Biden.

It’s no longer “Yes, We Can” because they didn’t.  “Hope and Change” won’t work either because now the voters know what kind of change it is that Obama hopes for.  So it seems the slogan this time is “I Got Bin Laden”.  Barry, let me tellya. It ain’t gonna work.  Can’t you come up with something better?  How about touting some other accomplishment of yours like lowering the tensions of racism?… bringing down unemployment?… lowering the deficit?… or perhaps there is something you did to lower the cost of energy, or reduce violent crime, or relieve the immigration problem?  I guess not.  There must be something you accomplished that you can tout other than “I Got Bin Laden”?  You did give us Obamacare.  How about using a toast as a slogan?  Perhaps “To Health With the American People”.

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Posted in Opinion, Political polemics

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SANTORUM SUPPORTS ROMNEY, LET THE HEALING BEGIN

Posted on April 27, 2012 | 2 Comments

Rick Santorum has given his full blessing to his campaign manager’s decision to work in the Romney campaign to bring Santorum’s constituency into Romney’s camp.  Santorum is expected to follow up with a full endorsement soon.

Mike Biundo’s decision to join the Romney campaign is a significant step in the healing process after the hotly contested primary race.  If the other Republican contenders also show support, as some surely will, Romney’s chances of ousting Barack Obama will be very good indeed.  Even hard core Democrats have lost a lot of their enthusiasm for the President.  They will not vote against Obama but many will not bother going to the polls.  Republicans, on the other hand, see the 2012 election as the most important vote they will cast in their lifetime and not succumb to the same lethargy.

Santorum’s support is the first pickle out of the jar.  The rest will come easy.  Obama has a little over six months to pull off a miracle on jobs and the economy.  What he could not do in 3 ½ years he is not going to do in 6 months.  Money is pouring in to fund the fight.  Mitt Romney is beginning to look like a winner.

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RULES for RADICALS by SAUL ALINSKY – THE EDUCATION OF AN ORGANIZER

Posted on April 23, 2012 | Leave a comment

Continuing with the chapter by chapter series on Rules for Radicals, today we add our Comments about the chapter called The Education of an Organizer.

Synopsis of the chapter entitled The Education of an Organizer
“The building of many mass power organizations to merge into a national popular power source cannot come without may organizers”.  Training organizers is a daunting task.  Candidates come from every corner, from students to priests to union leaders and minority groups.  Many trainees start but few go on to great accomplishment.  The failure rate is high.”

“Certain qualities mark a candidate as more likely for success.  A good candidate is curious; of every issue, he asks why?  A good candidate is irreverent.  “He is challenging, insulting, agitating. discrediting.  He stirs unrest”.  He has imagination, a good sense of humor and “a bit blurred vision of a better world”.

Alinsky explains that the best organizer is “a well integrated political schizoid.  The organizer must become schizoid, politically, in order not to slip into becoming a true believer.  Before men can act an issue must be polarized.  Men will act when they are convinced that their cause is 100 percent on the side of the angels and that the opposition are 100 percent on the side of the devil.  He knows that there can be no action until the issues are polarized to this degree”.

Commentary (Revised)
When Alinsky wrote “The building of many mass power organizations to merge into a national popular power source” there can be little doubt that ACORN was in the professor’s mind.   However he never addressed the need for a grand leader, a Commander in Chief to preside over the Lieutenants and Generals who were the focus of his teachings.  Barack Obama will be ideally positioned to fill that role after his term in office.  Don’t be surprised if that’s the route he takes.  Martin Luther King is dead, Jessie Jackson has run his course and Al Sharpton is… Al Sharpton.  The door is open.

Good middle managers are the key to success in any business.  That’s just as true for building a political power base as it is for building a chain of shoe stores.  It is particularly difficult however, to find good candidates within a political movement that is populated by members more interested in achievement by taking that in achievement by producing.

Union leaders are unreliable because they can get better pay for leading unions.  Among priests, only the disgruntled are likely to apply.  And students grow up.  So it’s no mystery why the failure rate is high.

The author says the best candidate is a “schizoid” with “blurred vision”.  Level headed clear thinkers need not apply.

Why “schizoid’ and why is a “blurred vision” helpful?  Ethics Rule 11 says in part, the organizer’s mission must be phrased in terms like “Equality, Fraternity or the Common Welfare”.  Thus we see the goal of taking property from those who earned it and redistributing it to those who have no right to it expressed as Equal Justice.  We see the goal of expanding central power over another 16% of the economy and increasing the Party’s constituency of dedicated voters phrased as providing healthcare to 30 million hard working Americans presumed to be denied any medical treatment otherwise.

The organizer must preach these causes with a deep fervor that only a true believer can muster.  But he must not become a true believer because the causes are not the goal, they are just vehicles.   Power is the goal.

When Alinsky says blurred vision, I take him to mean vague vision.  When the 2012 Republican primary campaigns were in full swing each contender and his or her followers were comprised of true believers with their own clear vision and the result hurt the Party’s chances to win the general election. It’s an age old dilemma; do you stand unwavering on your principles, possibly in vain, or do you yield to compromise for the greater probability of gaining half of what you seek?  Alinsky taught continual new demand followed by compromise, gaining a little each time until you reach the final goal.

As an aside, you may have noticed the synopsis of this chapter is almost entirely in quotes, which means the text is reproduced exactly as it was written in the book.  You may have noticed the grammatical errors many of which occur throughout the book.  We noticed them but for the sake of simplicity didn’t point them out with the customary sic notation.


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Posted in Opinion, Political philosophy, Political polemics

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SLIPPING THE MONEY IN

Posted on April 22, 2012 | Leave a comment

The New York Times published this headline on April 15th.

White House Opens Door to Big Donors, and Lobbyists Slip In

Lobbyists “Slip In”?  It takes a certain mindset to write a headline like that.  Is the New York Times saying the Obama administration is so incompetent they can’t stop people from giving them money?  Couldn’t be!  Perhaps then, the point is that the lobbyists are so slick they know how to get money into the President’s campaign coffers without the President knowing it; the money just slipped in.  How do you explain currying favor when the favorer does not know by whom he has been curried?

The best conclusion is that the authors at the Times actually believe the tripe they write – Democrats don’t accept money from lobbyists, at least not knowingly.  Democrats don’t cater to special interests either – nuts!  Is there nothing special about the interests of teachers, truck drivers and automotive workers who are represented by their unions?  Goldman Sachs contributed more to Democratic than to Republican campaigns in 2008.  Do the authors at New York Times not include Wall Street bankers in their list of special interests?  Of course they do.

It would be a good thing if some common sense slipped in at the New York Times.

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