Category Archives: Political polemics

MY LIBERAL FRIEND, CONSIDER THAT WHICH YOU SUPPORT

Palestinian terrorists entered the Samarian home of Udi Fogel, his wife Ruth, and their children. It was three days ago sometime between 11 and 11:30 pm. Udi, the father, was stabbed repeatedly as he lay in bed until he was dead. His son, Hadas, had gone to sleep in the bed beside his father. Hadas was 3 months old. The Palestinians slit Hadas’ throat. Father and son died in pools of each others blood.

Then they took Ruth to another room where they stabbed her repeatedly until she was dead. Two more children suffered the same fate. Elad, age 11 and Yoav, age 4 were all stabbed repeatedly until they were dead.

Believe me, I don’t mean to diminish the depravity of this act, but there is something even more disturbing than the tragic death of the Foley family. And that is the support given to those who regularly use these and other similarly gruesome methods to advance their cause. Support leads to endless ongoing massacres. For that reason, the support is even more disturbing than just the ugly event at the Fogel home.

There is no way to prevent occasional unspeakably atrocities. Witness Charles Manson and Jeffery Dahmer. Manson was not alone. He had his supporters and they had their cause. Can you imagine what it would be like to have the Manson’s of this world freed from prison, encouraged and supported by a significant political faction who didn’t support his methods, but, nevertheless, supported him and his cause?

You say that was different, my liberal friend? Yes, but how? The Manson massacre was inhuman and evil. Was the murder of the Fogels any less so? In both cases the slaughter was deliberate, pre-planned, without remorse and equally bloody. I know; I have seen pictures of both. I will tell you what the differences are. For one, the Palestinians include children as targets of their slaughter. Manson did not. For another, Manson and his followers were not supported by the liberal community in America; the Palestinians are.

I hear your screams of protest, my liberal friends. But consider this: If the Foley killings were a stand alone incident, my charge would not be justified. But this was not the first, nor will it be the last such family massacre. And I haven’t even mentioned the suicide bombings in school cafeterias, on buses and in public markets. If the Palestinian people generally deplored such acts, my charge would not be justified. But they don’t deplore it. They rejoice in it. City streets and squares are named in honor of such killers. It has become tradition to go into the streets after such an incident with trays of candy and bits of food, like hors d’œuvre, to share in celebration of the deaths of some Jews.

This is the culture you are supporting, my liberal friend. Are you proud?

You say you support the cause but not the methods. However, the methods are integral with the cause. The only control you have over the methods is to withdraw your support. Have you thought about that? You are on the wrong side of evil, my friend, and you should know it.

MICHAEL MOORE WAS FAIRLY QUIVERING WITH RAGE. IT WASN’T A PRETTY SIGHT

Moore was just one angry blush short of bursting a blood vessel as he declared to Rachel Maddow, “This is War!! This is class war…”. Moore urged everyone within driving distance to converge on the capital and clog the buildings and assembly halls, effectively shutting down the process of government. He urged every thinkable action be taken, throwing in as an aside, “non violently”.
In a move, classic to the left, he called for high school children to walk out of school and join with the mob at the Madison State House. The presence of youngsters is always good PR. It was a call for indoctrination, not education. This crisis must not be allowed to go to waste.

Moore brought a pair of handcuffs with him to the show. That may not be incitement to violence like yelling “Fire!” in a theater, but one might say it’s like yelling “smoke”. He said they were for “anyone who works for the banks”. Tellers look out, Moore’s says his handcuffs are for you and everyone else who makes banking possible.

Setting one class against another is endemic across the full spectrum of the Left. It is hard to imagine the Democratic Party even existing without class distinctions and resentments between them. Who would be their constituents?
The video starts with goons breaking into the State House through a window and forcing their way past a guard. Then MSNBC goes on to give Moore a platform to spew forth his nonsense. Michael Moore is not wrong in most of what he said. He is wrong in everything he said.

I will bet you cannot sit through the whole video. There is no reason to try.

THE GREAT UNDECIDER

President Bush’s policy for the Mid-East was opposed by a lot of people. No one is opposed to Obama’s Mid-East policy because no one knows what it is. Now if John Kerry were president, we would know what America’s Mid-East policy would be. It would be exactly whatever the United Nations said it should be.

And on Libya, John Kerry again shows his leadership skill. Unlike Obama, who is still waiting for advice from his advisors, Kerry already has a plan. Kerry’s plan is to prepare to do something, but not to do it now. He says we must be ready to act, ready to do something in case Qaddafi does something really bad.

And then, there is Mrs. Clinton, our Secretary of State. She speaks as the voice of the most powerful nation on earth. Her stern message to all parties in the dispute is – ‘Stop It’! Nothing could be clearer than that. To show the U.S. really means it, rest assured the Secretary will continue to command all parties to Stop It, until the violence is finally over, however long that may take.

Meanwhile, the Saudi’s are getting over $100 for every barrel of oil pumped from under the sand. At least someone is benefitting from America’s foreign policy.

GOONS AT THE GATE IN WISCONSIN – Part II

By now it should be obvious to most everyone that there is more to what’s happening in Wisconsin than just issues affecting Wisconsin. In terms of national leftist issues, this ranks right up there with socialized medicine.

Let’s review Gov. Walker’s plan. The plan would:

1. Require employees of the state to contribute 12.6% toward the cost of their healthcare insurance. According to a Kaiser Foundation study, that’s about half of the average paid by state and federal workers nationwide. We don’t hear much from the union defending against this particular proposal.

2. Require employees of the state to contribute 5.8% toward the cost of their pensions. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, “for government workers with a required plan contribution, the average contribution is 6.3 percent” We don’t hear much from the union defending against this particular proposal.

3. End the requirement that all state employees must pay into the union whether or not they choose to join. Forcing non-members to pay as a condition of employment is easily seen as extortion. We don’t hear anything from the union in defense of this. They are dead quiet about it.

4. Limit collective bargaining to basic wages. This is where the unions are screaming bloody murder.

Items 1 through 3 are about money. Item 4 is about power. Items 1 through 3 concern Wisconsin. Item 4 concerns all unions nationally; it poses a threat to union power. The private sector develops its own wealth. The public sector, and that includes public service unions, taps the wealth of others. To do that requires power. In the private sector, money leads to power. In the public sector, it’s power that leads to money.

The AFSCME (American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees), the AFT (American Federation of Teachers) and the SEIU (Service Employees International Union) combined gave over $18M in political contributions for the 2010 election year. According to The Center for Responsible Politics, none of it, that’s 0%, went to Republicans. These unions and the Democratic Party are joined at the hip.

When Democrats are in power, the government and the union sit on the same side of the negotiating table. That’s how public sector employees have come to have higher compensation than their private sector equivalents. That, and the ability to tax and borrow without the constraints of having to be profitable to survive.

There is much, much more at stake in Wisconsin than meets the casual eye.

By the way, if you think “goons” is too strong you should watch this video, entitled “Joe the Plumber” Goes to Wisconsin.

GOONS AT WISCONSIN’S GATE

It just doesn’t get any more reviling than this. Doubtless you have seen versions or clips of this video by now. When I first viewed it, it left me literally speechless. I started to write but the words would not come.

In the video we see an angry mob violently harassing a duly elected representative of the people of Wisconsin. The victim is Republican State Senator Glenn Grantham. The mob breaks into chant, screaming over and over in organized unison “SHAME! SHAME! SHAME!”. Air horns add to the chaos as they blare away. A woman shouts repeatedly at the Senator – “YOU SUCK! YOU SUCK!” The Senator’s escape is blocked by a door that has been locked to secure the building from being invaded and trashed by the very same thugs that have cornered him. He is trapped and surrounded by union members crowding in on him and shouting epithets in his face.

Stop right there. How can this happen in America. Aren’t we a Democracy? Doesn’t everyone have a right to speak and vote as they see fit? Or is that freedom only for Democrats today? What happened to the rule of law? Where were the peacekeepers? Violence springs easily from an angry mob. Every police officer knows that. Police presence at demonstrations is routine. Here they were conspicuous by their total absence. Did their union membership get in the way of their duties? We don’t know, but it is a fair question to ask.

As you watch this video, keep in mind that this is the stuff of community organizing. When Obama was training organizers for ACORN in Chicago, the government workers union (SEIU) and ACORN shared the same office and staff. The art of community organizing is agitating, polarizing and then using the anger and discontent as a tool to gain power. Percolate, intimidate, legislate. This was Obama‘s world. He ran for office on his experience as an organizer of events such as this.

Back to the scene. It took a valiant Democratic Assemblyman to quell the mob. He wore a solidarity T shirt under his jacket. He had the respect of  the crowd and the courage to do what was right. Both were needed. His job still wasn’t easy. The mob wanted vengeance. The leaders had a tiger by the tail. They had animal training experience and came prepared to tame a dangerous crowd. Chants again, and a salute.  Leaders start – “PEACEFUL PROTEST! PEACEFUL PROTEST”, arms held straight up high, fingers spread to form a V. It’s Democracy in action, Democrat style.

The Assemblyman maintained his protective position, shielding the Senator from his would be attackers. I ask again. Where were the police? When the crowd had finally tempered enough the Senator tried to leave. Union members were reluctant to let their victim go. Some stepped in front of him as he walked away. The scene pans out, still no police.

TO BE CONTINUED

THE GOOD OLD DAYS

CINDY AND A FRIEND

This picture is a reminder of the good old days when politics weren’t so bitter, when union thugs didn’t beat up journalists, when elected Democrats didn’t scream “Your are all f****** dead!” right inside the legislature chamber, at Republicans who cast a vote they didn’t like.

Yes, those were the good old days when Cindy and the Code Pinkers set up a clean and peaceful camp a discreet distance from the President’s home. Now protesters are bussed in from out of state to trash and squat in a legislative assembly hall like a bunch of radical college freshman.

Those were the good old days when our President stood on the side of law and order – criticize, debate and vote, and didn’t urge his supporters to “Get in their face”.

OUR ONE PARTY SYSTEM

It is becoming increasingly apparent that there is just one political party that represents the American people. The Republican Party is the only party of, by and for the people. The Democratic Party is the party of the government. The Wisconsin issue, and the President’s response to it, is but confirmation of the fact. Writing for the Washington Post, George Will said:

[T]he Democratic Party is the party of government, not only because of its extravagant sense of government’s competence and proper scope, but also because the party’s base is government employees. Second, government employees have an increasingly adversarial relationship with the governed.

What George Will did not point out is how this President has taken the union between the Democratic Party and the corpus of government to a new level by explicit support of government employee labor unions over the will of the majority of Wisconsin’s citizens. Random polls show the public supports the governor’s action by a two to one margin. Random polls include government workers, of course. The ratio would certainly be even higher if civil servants themselves were not included in the polls.

Civil servants, now there’s a misnomer, unless you consider this example civil.

Random Thots will have more to say on the symbiotic relationship between labor unions and government. Stay tuned for future posts.

COMMUNITY ORGANIZING – THE VIDEO

The scene is the Wisconsin legislature after the vote. What you see here is an appalling glimpse of classic community organizing in action. There is nothing spontaneous or grass roots about what you see in the video. The shirts, the chants, the epithets hurled at members of the legislature, the obnoxious behavior, the obvious presence of leaders steering the angry crowd, all this has organized written all over it. It’s a frightening thing. It’s Chicago in Wisconsin. It is our president’s way but it is not, …I say IT IS NOT the American way.

REPUBLICAN HOUSE WORKS THRU THE NIGHT, BUT THE DEMOCRATIC SENATE IS NOWHERE IN SIGHT

The runaway party has run away again. This comes from the Washington Times

House lawmakers stayed until 4:41 a.m. Saturday to finish up a spending bill to keep the government open, and sent it over to the Senate — only to be met with an empty chamber. Senators had closed up shop two days before and went home for a 10-day break to honor George Washington’s birthday.

“We will do our work, but where is the Senate? They’re on vacation,” said Rep. Denny Rehberg, a Montana Republican and member of the House Appropriations Committee who ran part of the floor debate over cutting spending for the new health care law. “Here we are knocking up against a March 4 deadline and they’re missing the deadline again.”

So Harry Reid closed up the shop.
Harry’s step one – close down the Senate so there can be no debate or vote on the budget.
Harry’s step two – will be to blame the lack of a budget agreement on Republicans.

This will be the first real test of the new Republican Party. Bill Clinton was successful in swinging public sentiment his way in 1995. This is where great communicators like Chris Christie or the new star, Allen West are needed. Let’s see how the GOP does this time.

Democrat urges unions to ‘get a little bloody when necessary’

Straight from The Hill.
Rep. Michael Capuano (D-Mass.) fired up [“community organized”]  a group of union members in Boston with a speech urging them to work down in the trenches to fend off limits to workers’ rights like those proposed in Wisconsin.

Michael Capuano, Congressional Union Organizer

“I’m proud to be here with people who understand that it’s more than just sending an email to get you going,” Capuano said, according to the Statehouse News. “Every once and awhile you need to get out on the streets and get a little bloody when necessary.”

Take this tactic as a preview of things to come. The Democratic party is under considerable influence from the radical left. The true agenda of the Pelosi/Reid/Obama faction is farther to the left than anything the general  American electorate will accept. That leaves  only two ways to get the legislation they want; lie about the intent and content of legislative bills, or fix the elections. They will do both.

If Barack Obama had said, “The health care bill is a form of reparations because white people will pay most of the fees and black people will be the greatest beneficiaries”, would the bill have passed? If Obama had repeated the statement he made to union members that “‘single payer is the goal” but it will need to be done one step at a time, would the bill have passed? If he had told the truth, the bill would not have passed.

To the best of our knowledge, Al Gore led an honest campaign. But if  Gore had the SEIU/ACORN team working the poles, getting down dirty and bloody as the Democrat from Massachusetts  encourages union members to do, there is little doubt but that the close election would have been swung over to Mr. Global Warming.

If the Democrats want to bloody my nose, I’ll take the blow. I won’t start the fight, but I will fight back. But first I’ll vote. It is a Democracy, and Ben, thus far at least , we have been able to keep it.