Showing posts with label scott brown. Show all posts
Showing posts with label scott brown. Show all posts
Saturday, April 17, 2010
Massachusetts Tea Partiers Should Vote Libertarian in 2012
If Massachusetts conservatives and supporters of small government want to send a message in 2012 and not waste their vote, the best way to do so would be to vote for the Libertarian Party rather than Scott Brown. Having been snookered earlier this year into having spent precious resources to elect a "Progressive," anyone who favors small government ought to see to it that the Brown drama has a denouement. The Libertarian Party is a preferable alternative to Brown, who just snubbed the Tea Party after it had helped him so much. Should the Libertarian Party get 20% of the Massachusetts vote, that would send a message at least as loud to the politicians in Washington as was Brown's Pyrrhic victory.
Lessons from Scott Brown
It has become evident that Scott Brown, who won election with widespread national support, snookered the Tea Party members who backed him last fall. His victory sent a message, but it was a Pyrrhic victory and a vacuous message. The only one who benefited from all the excitement was Brown himself. The Daily Caller notes:
"When asked about his general views on Tea Partiers, Brown — whose election in January has been hailed a sign of the power of the conservative grassroots activists — rejected the premise that the protesters concerned with runaway government spending should be solely credited with putting a Republican in the Massachusetts Senate seat for the first time in decades.
"'Did the Tea Party movement help me? Sure they did. So did 1.1 million other people in my state and so did others across the country,' Brown said.
"He added: 'So to have one particular party take credit — I’m appreciative. But I had a big tent in my election.'
"On Wednesday, Brown was noticeably absent from a Tea Party rally in Boston, leading some to question whether he’s snubbing a group without whose help he’d unlikely have won office. The senator was said to be busy in Washington attending a hearing on the Iranian nuclear program."
What were the effects of the Brown victory? The widespread support for Brown was motivated by the belief that his election would send a message about the health bill. Many Tea Partiers devoted scarce resources to supporting him. Brown's election sent a message, but the health bill was passed into law anyway. Hence, the message sent was empty. The real effect was that one more "Progressive" is now in office.
Who snookered the Tea Party? How were they duped? It seems that they allowed their imaginations to get the better of their sense of reality.
Glenn Beck has done a good job of questioning Brown post election. But many conservatives were excessively supportive of Brown pre-election. For instance, National Review wrote an article several weeks before the special election stressing the importance of Democrats' super majority (which turned out not to be true) and characterizing Brown as "anti-spending" and "anti-Washington," "perfectly suited to the political moment," which was surely an overstatement.
Brown's was the briefest political moment on record. Normally readers learn much from every issue of National Review, but NR blew it on Brown. More realistically, at the time of the election "The Moderate Voice" called Brown an "independent." The Moderate Voice added "he came to the race knowing exactly what he had to do in order to win as a Republican in this part of the country."
As well, Ed Morrissey of Hot Air Blog asked:
"do we really need another former state Senator with next to no experience in national politics on a major-party ticket? Brown has a good sense of fiscal conservatism, but falls closer to Rudy Giuliani than to Mike Huckabee and Sarah Palin on social issues, which is one of the reasons Rudy got an invite to Massachusetts and prominent social conservatives did not."
I would question Brown's substantive credentials as a fiscal conservative. I don't see how Brown differs very much from the majority of Democrats. And as Morrissey points out, if Brown aims to get re-elected, he needs to kowtow to the voters of the Socialist Commonwealth of Taxachussets.
Conservatives are not exempt from the American tendency to engage in fads and crazes, or as Charles Mackay called them in 1841, "popular delusions and the madness of crowds." Perhaps the mistaken emphasis on Brown's election was due to the mistaken belief, revealed in NR and Morrissey's blog, that the super-majority made a critical difference. In fact, few of us would have known better, and those who did were probably professional politicians who did not mind squandering the Tea Party's resources.
If anything, the Brown incident should alert Tea Parties around the country that national races are risky; that national leadership cannot be and ought not to be trusted; and that a great deal of learning and experience will need to be gained over time if the Tea Party is to become an effective movement.
It ought to make little difference to Tea Parties if Brown is reelected in two years. But if Tea Parties learned that initial appearances are frequently deceiving in politics; that scarce resources should be expended cautiously; and that a Republican from Massachusetts is probably a RINO, then much has been gained. As was quoted in Conan the Barbarian, "the blow that does not break the back strengthens."
"When asked about his general views on Tea Partiers, Brown — whose election in January has been hailed a sign of the power of the conservative grassroots activists — rejected the premise that the protesters concerned with runaway government spending should be solely credited with putting a Republican in the Massachusetts Senate seat for the first time in decades.
"'Did the Tea Party movement help me? Sure they did. So did 1.1 million other people in my state and so did others across the country,' Brown said.
"He added: 'So to have one particular party take credit — I’m appreciative. But I had a big tent in my election.'
"On Wednesday, Brown was noticeably absent from a Tea Party rally in Boston, leading some to question whether he’s snubbing a group without whose help he’d unlikely have won office. The senator was said to be busy in Washington attending a hearing on the Iranian nuclear program."
What were the effects of the Brown victory? The widespread support for Brown was motivated by the belief that his election would send a message about the health bill. Many Tea Partiers devoted scarce resources to supporting him. Brown's election sent a message, but the health bill was passed into law anyway. Hence, the message sent was empty. The real effect was that one more "Progressive" is now in office.
Who snookered the Tea Party? How were they duped? It seems that they allowed their imaginations to get the better of their sense of reality.
Glenn Beck has done a good job of questioning Brown post election. But many conservatives were excessively supportive of Brown pre-election. For instance, National Review wrote an article several weeks before the special election stressing the importance of Democrats' super majority (which turned out not to be true) and characterizing Brown as "anti-spending" and "anti-Washington," "perfectly suited to the political moment," which was surely an overstatement.
Brown's was the briefest political moment on record. Normally readers learn much from every issue of National Review, but NR blew it on Brown. More realistically, at the time of the election "The Moderate Voice" called Brown an "independent." The Moderate Voice added "he came to the race knowing exactly what he had to do in order to win as a Republican in this part of the country."
As well, Ed Morrissey of Hot Air Blog asked:
"do we really need another former state Senator with next to no experience in national politics on a major-party ticket? Brown has a good sense of fiscal conservatism, but falls closer to Rudy Giuliani than to Mike Huckabee and Sarah Palin on social issues, which is one of the reasons Rudy got an invite to Massachusetts and prominent social conservatives did not."
I would question Brown's substantive credentials as a fiscal conservative. I don't see how Brown differs very much from the majority of Democrats. And as Morrissey points out, if Brown aims to get re-elected, he needs to kowtow to the voters of the Socialist Commonwealth of Taxachussets.
Conservatives are not exempt from the American tendency to engage in fads and crazes, or as Charles Mackay called them in 1841, "popular delusions and the madness of crowds." Perhaps the mistaken emphasis on Brown's election was due to the mistaken belief, revealed in NR and Morrissey's blog, that the super-majority made a critical difference. In fact, few of us would have known better, and those who did were probably professional politicians who did not mind squandering the Tea Party's resources.
If anything, the Brown incident should alert Tea Parties around the country that national races are risky; that national leadership cannot be and ought not to be trusted; and that a great deal of learning and experience will need to be gained over time if the Tea Party is to become an effective movement.
It ought to make little difference to Tea Parties if Brown is reelected in two years. But if Tea Parties learned that initial appearances are frequently deceiving in politics; that scarce resources should be expended cautiously; and that a Republican from Massachusetts is probably a RINO, then much has been gained. As was quoted in Conan the Barbarian, "the blow that does not break the back strengthens."
Monday, March 22, 2010
Scott Brown Was a Hill of Boston Baked Beans
I just received this e-mail from Chris Eddes on the Republican Liberty Caucus group on Yahoo! Wes Benedict, head of the Libertarian Party, is right that the focus on Scott Brown last fall was a dumb mistake. It will not be the last boner (in the bonehead meaning) that the Tea Party pulls. One, incidentally, that I saw through at the time. Benedict's letter is followed by my response.
Dear Friend of Liberty,
Like you, I am upset that the health care bill passed last night. Another huge expansion of government spending and government control is not good for our freedom or our health.
When I heard about the passage, I was reminded of the many hateful emails I received earlier this year demanding that the Libertarian Party make Libertarian Independent candidate Joe Kennedy drop out of the Massachusetts U.S. Senate race and endorse Republican Scott Brown. Doing so, "at this time, for this election, was more important than ever in order to save America from socialism," or so they said. Even though Scott Brown supported Mitt Romney's mandatory universal health insurance for Massachusetts residents, somehow electing a Republican, any Republican, instead of a Democrat was supposed to save America.
Even 30% of poll respondents on our website supported such a move.
I am proud that Libertarian Joe Kennedy stood firm and stayed in that race, despite the nasty messages and threats he received.
However, a lot of people gave in to that argument and voted for Scott Brown. What happened? The health care plan passed anyway. And on top of it, there's now another big-government senator voting for things like "jobs packages."
But if just 20% of Massachusetts residents had voted for Libertarian Joe Kennedy, I bet that would have sent such a loud message that it would have stopped this health care plan in its tracks. I think this is a clear reminder why we should all stand firm and vote for Libertarians, whether or not they're in close races.
I watched just a few minutes of the debate last night on C-SPAN. I could not stand hearing Republicans proclaim in the same sentence that we need to oppose government takeover of health care, and also to protect Medicare! What hypocrites. Medicare is government health care too. It was the 2003 Republican Congress and President George Bush that passed the $400 billion Medicare prescription coverage expansion (that later turned out to cost over $1 trillion).
I was on a radio show this morning and a caller asked me, "Is there even any hope for America?" I want to thank him for asking me that, because I am reminded that America is still one of the freest and most prosperous nations on earth, even though that freedom and prosperity are at great risk. Things are getting tougher, but
America is still a great place and our freedom is still worth fighting for even if we lose some battles along the way.
Somewhat related to this topic, we've had a poll on our website for a couple of weeks, which asks, "Which expensive government project do you support the most?"
Former Libertarian Presidential nominee Harry Browne used to say, "Would you give up your favorite federal programs if it meant you'd never have to pay income tax again?"
I hope you'll go to the poll
http://www.lp.org/poll/which-expensive-government-project-do-you-support-the-most and pick the Libertarian option: "None of the above. Cut spending on all of them." At the time of sending this message, that option has just 45% of the votes.
Sincerely,
Wes Benedict
Executive Director
Libertarian National Committee
My response:
Wes Benedict is right that people overrated Brown's election and he is right that a 20% vote for the LP would have sent a loud message. At the same time, the Democrat would have been elected and she was just as big an advocate of big government as Brown. So the message was sent in either case and we would have gotten big government in either case. In other words, the Democrats didn't care about the message. They care for power, not popular opinion, which they view as misguided and inarticulate. Only they can articulate what the people think in their view.
Also, America is still one of the freest countries, but not the freest according to several groups that rate overall freedom and economic freedom. Most rate Hong Kong and Singapore higher overall and with respect to overall but not economic freedom also rate New Zealand, Australia and sometimes the Bahamas higher. The passage of the health care act brings the US down several notches, and it is getting close to the point where some might consider emigration to a freer country if they have the resources and value freedom highly. The US is not the beacon of freedom it once was. But it is still relatively free compared to the tyrannies and socialist states that characterize the entire world. It is ironic indeed that Hong Kong, a nation ruled by the second most murderous nation in history, is freer than the United States.
Our freedom is still worth fighting for but the union is not, in my opinion. Before the Civil War the question continued to be debated as to whether the states had ceded to the federal government the right to force them to remain in the union. Although the North won the war, the issue need not be viewed as settled. The Tenth Amendment is quite clear and it says that rights not given to the federal government are retained by the states and the people. The federal government has betrayed that principle, and has violated its moral and contractual obligation to the states and the people. The majority of Americans have been willing to sacrifice their freedom in favor of security and the belief that by taxing others they can benefit economically. Hence, the nation's claim to morality based on the rule of non-violence no longer stands. I do not think that the federal government, the United States government, deserves my commitment or my respect, nor is it something that is worth fighting for. Nor is it something that if someone attempts to rescind it or gain freedom from it that I would defend.
Rather, I am on Jefferson Davis's and Robert E. Lee's side now. The federal government in its present form is illegitimate and does not deserve respect or honor.
Dear Friend of Liberty,
Like you, I am upset that the health care bill passed last night. Another huge expansion of government spending and government control is not good for our freedom or our health.
When I heard about the passage, I was reminded of the many hateful emails I received earlier this year demanding that the Libertarian Party make Libertarian Independent candidate Joe Kennedy drop out of the Massachusetts U.S. Senate race and endorse Republican Scott Brown. Doing so, "at this time, for this election, was more important than ever in order to save America from socialism," or so they said. Even though Scott Brown supported Mitt Romney's mandatory universal health insurance for Massachusetts residents, somehow electing a Republican, any Republican, instead of a Democrat was supposed to save America.
Even 30% of poll respondents on our website supported such a move.
I am proud that Libertarian Joe Kennedy stood firm and stayed in that race, despite the nasty messages and threats he received.
However, a lot of people gave in to that argument and voted for Scott Brown. What happened? The health care plan passed anyway. And on top of it, there's now another big-government senator voting for things like "jobs packages."
But if just 20% of Massachusetts residents had voted for Libertarian Joe Kennedy, I bet that would have sent such a loud message that it would have stopped this health care plan in its tracks. I think this is a clear reminder why we should all stand firm and vote for Libertarians, whether or not they're in close races.
I watched just a few minutes of the debate last night on C-SPAN. I could not stand hearing Republicans proclaim in the same sentence that we need to oppose government takeover of health care, and also to protect Medicare! What hypocrites. Medicare is government health care too. It was the 2003 Republican Congress and President George Bush that passed the $400 billion Medicare prescription coverage expansion (that later turned out to cost over $1 trillion).
I was on a radio show this morning and a caller asked me, "Is there even any hope for America?" I want to thank him for asking me that, because I am reminded that America is still one of the freest and most prosperous nations on earth, even though that freedom and prosperity are at great risk. Things are getting tougher, but
America is still a great place and our freedom is still worth fighting for even if we lose some battles along the way.
Somewhat related to this topic, we've had a poll on our website for a couple of weeks, which asks, "Which expensive government project do you support the most?"
Former Libertarian Presidential nominee Harry Browne used to say, "Would you give up your favorite federal programs if it meant you'd never have to pay income tax again?"
I hope you'll go to the poll
http://www.lp.org/poll/which-expensive-government-project-do-you-support-the-most and pick the Libertarian option: "None of the above. Cut spending on all of them." At the time of sending this message, that option has just 45% of the votes.
Sincerely,
Wes Benedict
Executive Director
Libertarian National Committee
My response:
Wes Benedict is right that people overrated Brown's election and he is right that a 20% vote for the LP would have sent a loud message. At the same time, the Democrat would have been elected and she was just as big an advocate of big government as Brown. So the message was sent in either case and we would have gotten big government in either case. In other words, the Democrats didn't care about the message. They care for power, not popular opinion, which they view as misguided and inarticulate. Only they can articulate what the people think in their view.
Also, America is still one of the freest countries, but not the freest according to several groups that rate overall freedom and economic freedom. Most rate Hong Kong and Singapore higher overall and with respect to overall but not economic freedom also rate New Zealand, Australia and sometimes the Bahamas higher. The passage of the health care act brings the US down several notches, and it is getting close to the point where some might consider emigration to a freer country if they have the resources and value freedom highly. The US is not the beacon of freedom it once was. But it is still relatively free compared to the tyrannies and socialist states that characterize the entire world. It is ironic indeed that Hong Kong, a nation ruled by the second most murderous nation in history, is freer than the United States.
Our freedom is still worth fighting for but the union is not, in my opinion. Before the Civil War the question continued to be debated as to whether the states had ceded to the federal government the right to force them to remain in the union. Although the North won the war, the issue need not be viewed as settled. The Tenth Amendment is quite clear and it says that rights not given to the federal government are retained by the states and the people. The federal government has betrayed that principle, and has violated its moral and contractual obligation to the states and the people. The majority of Americans have been willing to sacrifice their freedom in favor of security and the belief that by taxing others they can benefit economically. Hence, the nation's claim to morality based on the rule of non-violence no longer stands. I do not think that the federal government, the United States government, deserves my commitment or my respect, nor is it something that is worth fighting for. Nor is it something that if someone attempts to rescind it or gain freedom from it that I would defend.
Rather, I am on Jefferson Davis's and Robert E. Lee's side now. The federal government in its present form is illegitimate and does not deserve respect or honor.
Sunday, January 24, 2010
Republican Socialism, Obama's Second Term and the Tea Parties
The Obama presidency is so far a failure. Obama's bailout of money center banks and Wall Street coupled with his corrupt stimulus package amount to the largest effluence of waste in world history. This is the pattern that destroyed Athenian democracy and the Roman empire. In the case of Rome, Septimius Severus in the second century gave large benefits to the Roman army. Rome had long before adopted a welfare system that allowed the citizens of Rome free bread and circus. The Roman system was stable and took several centuries to decline. Rome's scale was the cause of both its stability and its decline as Rome was essentially a Ponzi scheme that depended on ongoing conquest. The extraction of wealth by interest groups contributed. In the case of Athens, the second greatest democracy in the history of the world, imperialism, its war with Sparta, and class warfare led to its failure.
Now, America is weakened by socialism of both the Roman and the Athenian varieties. The war on terror is a legitimate challenge, but the Bush administration handled both the Afghan and Iraqi wars incompetently, resulting in excessive cost. Fourth generation warfare, the use of embedded special forces, should have been adopted early on, but Bush preferred to defer to the second generation warfare concepts of Donald Rumsfeld and the Pentagon. In any case, the two wasteful wars were coupled with subsidies to Wall Street, the TARP plan and the bailout of Goldman Sachs, AIG and other money center banks.
In a free economy these institutions would have been put into chapter 11, reorganized, the management replaced and the firms split up into more manageable components. This would have been done by bankruptcy courts. The opposite policy of direct subsidization and federal intervention, i.e., socialism, was pursued at the behest of the Republicans and George W. Bush. The Obama administration added some pirouettes, but the basic socialist policy and a large portion of the socialist spending was directly due to George W. Bush and the national GOP leadership, from Newt Gingrich to Karl Rove.
The recent victory in Massachusetts suggests that Americans are upset but that their views are confused. If Americans are upset about the bailout, why did they not question Scott Brown's position on the bailout? In 2000 America elected George W. Bush expecting a conservative, not a socialist. Now, they vote for Scott Brown without asking whether he too is a socialist.
Now that health care has stalled, my 2008 claim that Obama was chiefly elected to put the bailout into place increasingly looks true. Not that John McCain wouldn't have done it too, which raises significant doubts about the GOP at the national level. What makes the GOP different from the Democrats? In other words, in the end there may have been little difference between Obama and McCain.
Both would have given trillions of public money to banks and Wall Street and done little else. At the state and local level, yes, the GOP is still the smaller government party. Not so at the national level. The national GOP leaders are big government Progressives.
In 2012 Obama will have the advantage of incumbency, and if he now transitions to a more libertarian posture, which is what Clinton did, he is likely to win in 2012.
Perhaps the position of Scott Brown on the bailout seemed unimportant this month in light of the threat of the health plan, which served to galvanize the public, including many non-Republicans. If Obama is smart, he won't allow a repeat of the health care fiasco. He will avoid further drama and focus on reducing cost, winning the two wars and balancing the federal budget.
Had Al Gore pursued the Clinton strategy in the 2000 election he would have won. But he rejected Clinton's approach in favor of New Deal social Democracy. He lost.
Oddly, the GOP took Bush's election to mean that it should return to the Progressivism of Nelson Rockefeller and Theodore Roosevelt. It remains a puzzle why Newt Gingrich and his colleagues adopted a big government mindset, but the GOP only can win if it rejects it. Let me repeat that. If the GOP wants to win, it needs to adopt a small government mindset. The social conservatives coupled with the neo-conservative big business socialists were not enough to win the presidency. They won't be in future.
The rank and file in the GOP need to find new candidates to run. The 2008 leadership was entirely in favor of Wall Street socialism and big government and so is tainted. But in order to find new leadership, the rank and file needs to take action. The Tea Parties are playing this role, but I remain unconvinced, at least at the national level.
The Tea Parties have not demonstrated the ability to focus on key issues and resist the cooptation that the GOP's establishment will attempt. I will be delighted if they do, but so far few national leaders have emerged. While the Tea Parties can play a useful role at the state and local levels, it is at the national level where the GOP has floundered worst, and I have yet to see national level deliberation that reflects the ability to overcome the national GOP establishment and Obama.
Now, America is weakened by socialism of both the Roman and the Athenian varieties. The war on terror is a legitimate challenge, but the Bush administration handled both the Afghan and Iraqi wars incompetently, resulting in excessive cost. Fourth generation warfare, the use of embedded special forces, should have been adopted early on, but Bush preferred to defer to the second generation warfare concepts of Donald Rumsfeld and the Pentagon. In any case, the two wasteful wars were coupled with subsidies to Wall Street, the TARP plan and the bailout of Goldman Sachs, AIG and other money center banks.
In a free economy these institutions would have been put into chapter 11, reorganized, the management replaced and the firms split up into more manageable components. This would have been done by bankruptcy courts. The opposite policy of direct subsidization and federal intervention, i.e., socialism, was pursued at the behest of the Republicans and George W. Bush. The Obama administration added some pirouettes, but the basic socialist policy and a large portion of the socialist spending was directly due to George W. Bush and the national GOP leadership, from Newt Gingrich to Karl Rove.
The recent victory in Massachusetts suggests that Americans are upset but that their views are confused. If Americans are upset about the bailout, why did they not question Scott Brown's position on the bailout? In 2000 America elected George W. Bush expecting a conservative, not a socialist. Now, they vote for Scott Brown without asking whether he too is a socialist.
Now that health care has stalled, my 2008 claim that Obama was chiefly elected to put the bailout into place increasingly looks true. Not that John McCain wouldn't have done it too, which raises significant doubts about the GOP at the national level. What makes the GOP different from the Democrats? In other words, in the end there may have been little difference between Obama and McCain.
Both would have given trillions of public money to banks and Wall Street and done little else. At the state and local level, yes, the GOP is still the smaller government party. Not so at the national level. The national GOP leaders are big government Progressives.
In 2012 Obama will have the advantage of incumbency, and if he now transitions to a more libertarian posture, which is what Clinton did, he is likely to win in 2012.
Perhaps the position of Scott Brown on the bailout seemed unimportant this month in light of the threat of the health plan, which served to galvanize the public, including many non-Republicans. If Obama is smart, he won't allow a repeat of the health care fiasco. He will avoid further drama and focus on reducing cost, winning the two wars and balancing the federal budget.
Had Al Gore pursued the Clinton strategy in the 2000 election he would have won. But he rejected Clinton's approach in favor of New Deal social Democracy. He lost.
Oddly, the GOP took Bush's election to mean that it should return to the Progressivism of Nelson Rockefeller and Theodore Roosevelt. It remains a puzzle why Newt Gingrich and his colleagues adopted a big government mindset, but the GOP only can win if it rejects it. Let me repeat that. If the GOP wants to win, it needs to adopt a small government mindset. The social conservatives coupled with the neo-conservative big business socialists were not enough to win the presidency. They won't be in future.
The rank and file in the GOP need to find new candidates to run. The 2008 leadership was entirely in favor of Wall Street socialism and big government and so is tainted. But in order to find new leadership, the rank and file needs to take action. The Tea Parties are playing this role, but I remain unconvinced, at least at the national level.
The Tea Parties have not demonstrated the ability to focus on key issues and resist the cooptation that the GOP's establishment will attempt. I will be delighted if they do, but so far few national leaders have emerged. While the Tea Parties can play a useful role at the state and local levels, it is at the national level where the GOP has floundered worst, and I have yet to see national level deliberation that reflects the ability to overcome the national GOP establishment and Obama.
Thursday, January 21, 2010
DNC Pickpockets Whine, Plot
I just received this e-mail from the DNC's chairman, Governor Tim Kaine. Kaine claims the Democrats need time to "dissect" the Brown/Coakley race. That's because the Democrats are extremists who are divorced from reality. To anyone who is in touch, the lessons for the Democratic Party extremists are quite clear.
>It goes without saying that we are disappointed by the result of the special election in Massachusetts.
>There will be plenty of time to dissect this race and to apply the lessons learned from it in elections to come. But in the meantime, we will continue to work tirelessly on behalf of the American people, and we will redouble our efforts to lay out a clear choice for voters this November.
>It goes without saying that we are disappointed by the result of the special election in Massachusetts.
>There will be plenty of time to dissect this race and to apply the lessons learned from it in elections to come. But in the meantime, we will continue to work tirelessly on behalf of the American people, and we will redouble our efforts to lay out a clear choice for voters this November.
Does Scott Brown Matter?
Jim Crum sent me an e-mail about David Horowitz's analysis of the Obama administration, which I enjoyed and copied below. The piece makes great points. But it ignores some history that might help us consider where we ought to be going. The Republicans need to develop a coherent game plan. I am celebrating the victory in Massachusetts like everyone else, but I did not hear anyone ask exactly what it is that Scott Brown believes other than his position on the current health care bill. It seems to me that the century-old Republican approach of voting for anyone who will keep the Democrats out is still in force. Look where it got us. Does Scott Brown believe in freedom, or is he a Progressive?
The missing link in the analysis below is the economic underpinning of the thrust toward socialism and centralization of power. It is not just because of the left. The left is a tool and an ally of more powerful advocates of centralization, the Wall Street-Military-Industrial Complex.
It is in fact the Republican Party that introduced big government. This was done by Theodore Roosevelt between 1901 (the year McKinley was shot) and 1908. The Federal Trade Commission Act was a cornerstone of Roosevelt's attempt to socialize big business. He was supported in this by a significant component of Wall Street and big business, notably JP Morgan's famous associate George Perkins, president of International Harvester. TR backed William Howard Taft in 1908, and Taft betrayed him, preferring to regulate trusts through the Sherman Anti-trust Act (itself an earlier boondoggle). This enraged Roosevelt. He ran against Taft in 1912 as a third party candidate, forcing the election of Woodrow Wilson. Wilson established the federal income tax and the Fed in 1913. The Fed was largely the result of pressure from the money center banks following JP Morgan's death in 1913. There was no public outcry or crisis resulting in its passage, and the law was passed during Christmas week in 1913.
Until Wilson the Democrats had offered the counterpoint to Republican centralization. In the 18th and 19th centuries the centralizers were the party of the rich--the Federalists, Whigs and Republicans. The Republicans were the big government party from Lincoln on. You will notice the real reason for the Civil War--retaining the federal governmental structure. The Democrats (preceded by the Democratic-Republicans) were the party of decentralization and laissez-faire.
In the post civil war era the Republicans adopted the laissez-faire philosophy but with a twist. In the pre civil war Jacksonian era, the Democrats preached the gold standard and laissez-faire as policies that benefit the common man. That was President Andrew Jackson's philosophy. In contrast, in the post Civil War era the Republicans associated laissez faire with the Social Darwinism of Herbert Spencer. This fit their claim that the big businesses that were coming into existence in that era reflected a natural process. As well, the early Republican pushes toward centralization besides the Civil War included: the greenbacks used to pay for it; the legal tender law that paved the way for the Fed; the Morrill and Homestead Acts; the National Banking Act; the Pendleton Act, creating the foundation of a civil service; and the Sherman Anti-Trust Act, which aimed to establish common law remedies against unfair monopolies at the federal level.
It is debatable how natural the growth of big business was. First, virtually all of the railroads were subsidized, as was the Standard Oil Company through a wide range of corrupt deals with state governments (small change in comparison with the corruption associated with Obama and the Fed nowadays). Second, government heavily protected business through very high tariffs, well above the amount needed to entirely fund the federal government. Third, although the Sherman anti-trust Act claimed to limit unfair competition it actually encouraged big business. For a period of about 15 years, the Supreme Court held that all combinations (all big businesses) were illegal. Then, in 1911, the Court abolished Standard Oil but said that big businesses were legal as long as they behaved in a reasonable manner (that they were "good trusts"). But the Sherman Anti-trust Act is unequivocal in saying that agreements between smaller firms are illegal, it is legal for them to combine to form a single company but not legal for them to reach agreements or "collude". Hence, the past 150 years have seen unending centralization and excessively large corporations. Previously, smaller firms engaged in unstable agreements not to raise prices. The Sherman Anti-trust Act illegalized these agreements but made it legal for them to merge.
Martin J. Sklar traces this history very carefully in a monumental book, Corporate Reconstruction of American Capitalism.
The upshot of my long winded discussion is that big business was institutionalized by the Sherman Anti-trust Act, the Fed, and by the impetus to centralize business and government. The New Deal also played a significant role, as did the explosion of regulation in the 1960s and 1970s. By institution of complex regulatory requirements and other legal barriers to entry in fields like banking, insurance, health care and education (note: all failed industries) competition was limited across increasing swathes of the American economy. If you add those four fields to government you probably have between seventy and eighty percent of the economy. And that leaves out numerous other pockets of socialized business in fields like human resource management, employee benefits, pharmaceuticals and food.
The result has been a 40-year-long stagnation in the real wage and increasing income inequality. As well, the widespread, fundamental innovation of the 19th century has drawn to a close, as manufacturing executives think of financial gimmicks and plant relocation as central to their business plans.
The Republican Party not only played a role in the trend toward centralization and socialization--through TR it was the leading impetus that was only supplanted in the 1930s by FDR's even more socialistic plans. The close links between the centrally planned big business core and the Republican Party make it unlikely that the GOP will favor freedom, free markets and decentralization unless there is some kind of radical change.
The role the left has played in this is that it has been allied with the interests of the Wall Street-Military-Industrial Complex. From the beginning, both left-wing socialists and big business Progressives had parallel goals. The Progressives wanted centralization so that economies of scale could be achieved, control rationalized, competition and innovation eliminated (what David Ames Wells called "overproduction" in his 1889 Recent Economic Changes). The left-wing socialist favored socialization because they believed that public control was desirable. Both advocated innovation-stifling, reactionary ideas that in practice were the same.
The good cop/bad cop routine has been quite effective. I do not hear many Republicans considering the possibility that their policies have neatly paralleled those of left-wing socialists. Rather, there is endless chimerical competition and hatred between the "left", which claims to be altruistic and favors centralization for altruistic reasons, and the "right" which claims to favor efficiency and favors centralization for supposedly productive reasons. The two sing the same song with slightly different tunes. Which side, the left represented by Obama or the right represented by Bill Kristol opposed the bail out and TARP? Shall we say both sang the same song? When it came down to giving trillions to the Street, Paul Krugman and George Bush gave each other a nice deep kiss.
The article is right about the media. Despite decades of P/progessive domination of the news media and left-wing control of education the American people retain elements of their Lockean heritage. But the news media has done much to confuse them. They are not asking the questions that they need to. For instance:
Will Scott Brown turn out to be a fighter for freedom, or is he a Roosevelt Progressive? If the latter, does his victory really make a difference?
>Important information for conservative thinkers. I would title this piece “Digest This And Decide For Yourself What To Do”
In the past few days, watching the fiasco for the left that revealed itself in Massachusetts, and realizing that conservatives not only have an opportunity to be heard, they have an opportunity to remake their vision of the fight for the country, I finally watched the Horowitz-produced links sent by a friend (actually a number of friends sent me the same link). Watching the speakers, including Horowitz and Pat Caddell, I realized that Caddell, a “classical Democrat” has a lot to say to conservative independents like me. This is not an "opinion piece." It is a call to action. Let me say first that the Republican Party, as currently organized and in its behavior, is not the avenue to salvation. For whatever reason, Republicans are totally unconscious of the dangers currently revealing themselves from the Congress and the White House. You can't "play nice" with progressive radicals. They don't understand "dialogue." They only understand their own goals. If you don't believe it, take the time to dissect the speeches of Barack Obama, from the campaign trail through his first year as president. They are a web of lies, woven skillfully together, but lies just the same. This is why many laughingly say that any promise by Obama should come with an expiration date. But it's more than that. He believes he can say anything to advance his agenda, and his speech at the Massachusetts campaign the other night makes it clear that he doesn't always stick to either his agenda or his oratory. The "truck" comments that made it to national TV are more revealing than most would think. He has contempt for anyone who is not on his agenda track. Yes, contempt. Revealing also was how little he said about the Democrat candidate for TV, in contrast to how much he said about her opponent. I'm surprised he even got her name right. Obviously, the people of Massachusetts noted it as well.
In the past months, during which for at least nine weeks I was absent, a number of factors are becoming clear. First, the Democrat Party has been “occupied” by radical leftists and their fellow travelling “useful idiots,” who actually believe that George Soros, Barack Obama and all the “czars” are a production of American politics (they aren’t), and second, the American people (independents and Democrats who feel betrayed, mostly) are waking up. A political tsunami may well be building in the heartland against the people who today dominate Washington politics. Thanks to Republican brain-dead policies and actions in the past decade, the real fighters in American politics, the Democrats, have been subsumed by a group of sinister destroyers, operating pretty much as the Capone mob ruled Chicago. The thing to remember is that those behind this movement are deadly serious, and willing to do anything, and I mean anything to achieve their aims, which are to remake American society, economics and culture in the image of Communism. The activists are indefensible and unabashed radicals, following the Rules for Radicals concepts of Saul Alinsky. They openly and publicly admit both their source of strategy and their aims. Americans are finally listening, but it is debatable how much damage can yet be done before these radicals are actually recognized for what their objectives are.
One observation should set the tone: David Horowitz observed in a recent presentation titled “What We Are Up Against” (see link below—I urge everyone who can to watch—it is important), that Alinsky 1) learned his organizing strategies by apprenticing with Frank Nitty, the Capone mob “czar” who ran the operations while Capone went to prison, and 2) Alinsky’s book “Rules For Radicals” was Originally titled “Rules For Revolution.” The book is a Communist/crime syndicate “how-to” book that is currently in use in the White House. This transfer of Chicago-style mob-influenced politics has been carried to a national level right from the streets of Chicago to the White House.
Horowitz, a very concerned and savvy analyst of radical tactics, strategy and agendas, points out that the reason these movement members are so influential today against the rest of the “sleeping nation” is that Democrats in general and radicals especially are fighters. Conservatives, he says, are “builders,” while the radical left are “destroyers.” This explains why the radical left, funded by numerous foundations, billionaires like George Soros, et al, are holding sway. They own big media by virtue of either being influential or by being physical owners of the resource. So, the major media and major educational operations, including a lot of national education policy, are dominated by those who have fabulous sums of money to throw at them. Conservatives, on the other hand, including the Founders of our nation, were and are uncomfortable with political power. It is not for nothing that Ronald Reagan, possibly the most influential conservative of modern times, quipped that “Those who have the most to lose have done the least to prevent its happening.” Another fact that bears on the current situation is that for the most part, it is citizens, born Americans, who are bringing on this movement for change that may (God forbid) actually bring on a civil war of some kind. One quote struck me as appropriate to describe the modus operandi of current leftist progressive members of our government, including the President: “We believe in the power of persuasion, but if that doesn’t work, we also believe in the persuasion of power.” This quote was attributed to Andy Stern, founder of the Weather Underground, current Obama Advisor, and friend of Bill Ayers, who also was a founding member of the Weather Underground and who is an unrepentant sixties terrorist bomber and currently is an influential educator, and who has received more than fifty million dollars from the hard-left Annenburg legacy to promote his radical agendas in education. This is the same Bill Ayers who Obama at first denied knowing “except to recognize in the neighborhood,” but who hosted a fundraising event at his home for Obama’s senatorial campaign. Additionally, John Holdren, an Obama “czar” has echoed George Soros’ words in saying, publicly, that “we have to deconstruct capitalism.” In the context of what is being done in the Congress and from the White House by presidential order, this makes clear that exploitation of energy resources, advancing American exceptionalism in any way, or even considering that Americans have to have time to “digest” some of the radical and rushed steps being taken by a radical dominated Congress and White House, are not in the cards. These people are not going to give up easily. In view of the Massachusetts election last night, where Ted Kennedy’s seat was, literally, returned to the people of Massachusetts, Nancy Pelosi, Speaker of the House, announced that she was not concerned about it. I believe her words were “We are going to have health care, regardless.” She is probably right. The structure for forcing the immensely unpopular bill, which is getting every day more unpopular, is still intact, whether there is a sixtieth senate vote for it or not. By parliamentary procedure, it can still pass. Remember this: They don’t think they can fail. They are willing to go the whole nine yards to pass this, and other bills like cap-and-tax, and other revenue producing penalizations of the American taxpayer for the advancement of elite political agendas, whether they retain the Congress in November or not. This is the dedication of radical progressive Democrats. We the citizens of the United States have to understand the stakes. They don’t believe we do.
Let me be clear here: Were it not for Glenn Beck’s use of Horowitz’ site listed below http://www.discoverthenetworks.org/default.asp , Van Jones would still be the “green jobs czar” with access to the White House. [An aside here: Those of us who have worked in government know about security clearances and access to classified information. During the “What We Are Up Against” broadcast, this question came up, and the answer seems to be that the FBI background checks that have been for years mandatory to have a White House Pass were summarily suspended by the Obama team. That means that all these radicals, who are advisors to the President currently in the White House, have access to both the White House and the President without ever having had their access scrutinized by any type of security procedure. Given the access from the White House to extremely classified information, we have to deduce that the Obama Team, including Barack Obama himself, has what can only be called a cavalier attitude towards both White House and national security. I consider this a grave oversight on the part of the government.] And all I can say is “Thank God for Glenn Beck. He has been a voice crying in the wilderness, but he just passed his first anniversary at Fox News, and continues his crusade on talk radio. And he’s “just an ordinary guy.” But he’s a patriot and a concerned American.
During the program, Democrat analyst and former presidential advisor Pat Caddell, who has been featured prominently on Glenn Beck’s recent analysis of the “czar” program, pointed out that the Apollo Alliance, and all “green jobs” militancy in the current administration, as well as ACORN and SEIU are a cover for radical operations. The green jobs hype is being used as a patronage system for Communists, in and out of government.
In the resources offered below, I have cited a couple of things that might help folks who read this brief attempt at warning to understand the gravity of our nation’s situation. This is not a game. These people are at war with our way of life and our economic system. They want to replace it with something else, and that something has already failed endlessly around the world in the last century. They hate American exceptionalism. Barack Obama is the first president in American history who does not believe that the United States is an exceptional occurrence in world history. He thinks we should all be part of a global “whole.” This is the Communist International talking. He is their mouthpiece—in the highest office in the land. This, to the ComIntern, is the opening campaign of a war of global conquest. They’ve been waiting for it since Stalin blew them off taking power in the USSR. It is the ideology of totalitarian communitarianism.
Conclusion: If we are going to save our country from this debacle, and if we are going to preserve any semblance of our way of life for those who come after, it now seems to me that we are going to have to get “engaged” in the process like never before. From the local to the national, concerned citizens of all parties are going to have to unite against this sinister attempt to subvert our entire nation and re-direct the largest economy in history off the precipice.
I can’t say it any stronger.
Bob B
The missing link in the analysis below is the economic underpinning of the thrust toward socialism and centralization of power. It is not just because of the left. The left is a tool and an ally of more powerful advocates of centralization, the Wall Street-Military-Industrial Complex.
It is in fact the Republican Party that introduced big government. This was done by Theodore Roosevelt between 1901 (the year McKinley was shot) and 1908. The Federal Trade Commission Act was a cornerstone of Roosevelt's attempt to socialize big business. He was supported in this by a significant component of Wall Street and big business, notably JP Morgan's famous associate George Perkins, president of International Harvester. TR backed William Howard Taft in 1908, and Taft betrayed him, preferring to regulate trusts through the Sherman Anti-trust Act (itself an earlier boondoggle). This enraged Roosevelt. He ran against Taft in 1912 as a third party candidate, forcing the election of Woodrow Wilson. Wilson established the federal income tax and the Fed in 1913. The Fed was largely the result of pressure from the money center banks following JP Morgan's death in 1913. There was no public outcry or crisis resulting in its passage, and the law was passed during Christmas week in 1913.
Until Wilson the Democrats had offered the counterpoint to Republican centralization. In the 18th and 19th centuries the centralizers were the party of the rich--the Federalists, Whigs and Republicans. The Republicans were the big government party from Lincoln on. You will notice the real reason for the Civil War--retaining the federal governmental structure. The Democrats (preceded by the Democratic-Republicans) were the party of decentralization and laissez-faire.
In the post civil war era the Republicans adopted the laissez-faire philosophy but with a twist. In the pre civil war Jacksonian era, the Democrats preached the gold standard and laissez-faire as policies that benefit the common man. That was President Andrew Jackson's philosophy. In contrast, in the post Civil War era the Republicans associated laissez faire with the Social Darwinism of Herbert Spencer. This fit their claim that the big businesses that were coming into existence in that era reflected a natural process. As well, the early Republican pushes toward centralization besides the Civil War included: the greenbacks used to pay for it; the legal tender law that paved the way for the Fed; the Morrill and Homestead Acts; the National Banking Act; the Pendleton Act, creating the foundation of a civil service; and the Sherman Anti-Trust Act, which aimed to establish common law remedies against unfair monopolies at the federal level.
It is debatable how natural the growth of big business was. First, virtually all of the railroads were subsidized, as was the Standard Oil Company through a wide range of corrupt deals with state governments (small change in comparison with the corruption associated with Obama and the Fed nowadays). Second, government heavily protected business through very high tariffs, well above the amount needed to entirely fund the federal government. Third, although the Sherman anti-trust Act claimed to limit unfair competition it actually encouraged big business. For a period of about 15 years, the Supreme Court held that all combinations (all big businesses) were illegal. Then, in 1911, the Court abolished Standard Oil but said that big businesses were legal as long as they behaved in a reasonable manner (that they were "good trusts"). But the Sherman Anti-trust Act is unequivocal in saying that agreements between smaller firms are illegal, it is legal for them to combine to form a single company but not legal for them to reach agreements or "collude". Hence, the past 150 years have seen unending centralization and excessively large corporations. Previously, smaller firms engaged in unstable agreements not to raise prices. The Sherman Anti-trust Act illegalized these agreements but made it legal for them to merge.
Martin J. Sklar traces this history very carefully in a monumental book, Corporate Reconstruction of American Capitalism.
The upshot of my long winded discussion is that big business was institutionalized by the Sherman Anti-trust Act, the Fed, and by the impetus to centralize business and government. The New Deal also played a significant role, as did the explosion of regulation in the 1960s and 1970s. By institution of complex regulatory requirements and other legal barriers to entry in fields like banking, insurance, health care and education (note: all failed industries) competition was limited across increasing swathes of the American economy. If you add those four fields to government you probably have between seventy and eighty percent of the economy. And that leaves out numerous other pockets of socialized business in fields like human resource management, employee benefits, pharmaceuticals and food.
The result has been a 40-year-long stagnation in the real wage and increasing income inequality. As well, the widespread, fundamental innovation of the 19th century has drawn to a close, as manufacturing executives think of financial gimmicks and plant relocation as central to their business plans.
The Republican Party not only played a role in the trend toward centralization and socialization--through TR it was the leading impetus that was only supplanted in the 1930s by FDR's even more socialistic plans. The close links between the centrally planned big business core and the Republican Party make it unlikely that the GOP will favor freedom, free markets and decentralization unless there is some kind of radical change.
The role the left has played in this is that it has been allied with the interests of the Wall Street-Military-Industrial Complex. From the beginning, both left-wing socialists and big business Progressives had parallel goals. The Progressives wanted centralization so that economies of scale could be achieved, control rationalized, competition and innovation eliminated (what David Ames Wells called "overproduction" in his 1889 Recent Economic Changes). The left-wing socialist favored socialization because they believed that public control was desirable. Both advocated innovation-stifling, reactionary ideas that in practice were the same.
The good cop/bad cop routine has been quite effective. I do not hear many Republicans considering the possibility that their policies have neatly paralleled those of left-wing socialists. Rather, there is endless chimerical competition and hatred between the "left", which claims to be altruistic and favors centralization for altruistic reasons, and the "right" which claims to favor efficiency and favors centralization for supposedly productive reasons. The two sing the same song with slightly different tunes. Which side, the left represented by Obama or the right represented by Bill Kristol opposed the bail out and TARP? Shall we say both sang the same song? When it came down to giving trillions to the Street, Paul Krugman and George Bush gave each other a nice deep kiss.
The article is right about the media. Despite decades of P/progessive domination of the news media and left-wing control of education the American people retain elements of their Lockean heritage. But the news media has done much to confuse them. They are not asking the questions that they need to. For instance:
Will Scott Brown turn out to be a fighter for freedom, or is he a Roosevelt Progressive? If the latter, does his victory really make a difference?
>Important information for conservative thinkers. I would title this piece “Digest This And Decide For Yourself What To Do”
In the past few days, watching the fiasco for the left that revealed itself in Massachusetts, and realizing that conservatives not only have an opportunity to be heard, they have an opportunity to remake their vision of the fight for the country, I finally watched the Horowitz-produced links sent by a friend (actually a number of friends sent me the same link). Watching the speakers, including Horowitz and Pat Caddell, I realized that Caddell, a “classical Democrat” has a lot to say to conservative independents like me. This is not an "opinion piece." It is a call to action. Let me say first that the Republican Party, as currently organized and in its behavior, is not the avenue to salvation. For whatever reason, Republicans are totally unconscious of the dangers currently revealing themselves from the Congress and the White House. You can't "play nice" with progressive radicals. They don't understand "dialogue." They only understand their own goals. If you don't believe it, take the time to dissect the speeches of Barack Obama, from the campaign trail through his first year as president. They are a web of lies, woven skillfully together, but lies just the same. This is why many laughingly say that any promise by Obama should come with an expiration date. But it's more than that. He believes he can say anything to advance his agenda, and his speech at the Massachusetts campaign the other night makes it clear that he doesn't always stick to either his agenda or his oratory. The "truck" comments that made it to national TV are more revealing than most would think. He has contempt for anyone who is not on his agenda track. Yes, contempt. Revealing also was how little he said about the Democrat candidate for TV, in contrast to how much he said about her opponent. I'm surprised he even got her name right. Obviously, the people of Massachusetts noted it as well.
In the past months, during which for at least nine weeks I was absent, a number of factors are becoming clear. First, the Democrat Party has been “occupied” by radical leftists and their fellow travelling “useful idiots,” who actually believe that George Soros, Barack Obama and all the “czars” are a production of American politics (they aren’t), and second, the American people (independents and Democrats who feel betrayed, mostly) are waking up. A political tsunami may well be building in the heartland against the people who today dominate Washington politics. Thanks to Republican brain-dead policies and actions in the past decade, the real fighters in American politics, the Democrats, have been subsumed by a group of sinister destroyers, operating pretty much as the Capone mob ruled Chicago. The thing to remember is that those behind this movement are deadly serious, and willing to do anything, and I mean anything to achieve their aims, which are to remake American society, economics and culture in the image of Communism. The activists are indefensible and unabashed radicals, following the Rules for Radicals concepts of Saul Alinsky. They openly and publicly admit both their source of strategy and their aims. Americans are finally listening, but it is debatable how much damage can yet be done before these radicals are actually recognized for what their objectives are.
One observation should set the tone: David Horowitz observed in a recent presentation titled “What We Are Up Against” (see link below—I urge everyone who can to watch—it is important), that Alinsky 1) learned his organizing strategies by apprenticing with Frank Nitty, the Capone mob “czar” who ran the operations while Capone went to prison, and 2) Alinsky’s book “Rules For Radicals” was Originally titled “Rules For Revolution.” The book is a Communist/crime syndicate “how-to” book that is currently in use in the White House. This transfer of Chicago-style mob-influenced politics has been carried to a national level right from the streets of Chicago to the White House.
Horowitz, a very concerned and savvy analyst of radical tactics, strategy and agendas, points out that the reason these movement members are so influential today against the rest of the “sleeping nation” is that Democrats in general and radicals especially are fighters. Conservatives, he says, are “builders,” while the radical left are “destroyers.” This explains why the radical left, funded by numerous foundations, billionaires like George Soros, et al, are holding sway. They own big media by virtue of either being influential or by being physical owners of the resource. So, the major media and major educational operations, including a lot of national education policy, are dominated by those who have fabulous sums of money to throw at them. Conservatives, on the other hand, including the Founders of our nation, were and are uncomfortable with political power. It is not for nothing that Ronald Reagan, possibly the most influential conservative of modern times, quipped that “Those who have the most to lose have done the least to prevent its happening.” Another fact that bears on the current situation is that for the most part, it is citizens, born Americans, who are bringing on this movement for change that may (God forbid) actually bring on a civil war of some kind. One quote struck me as appropriate to describe the modus operandi of current leftist progressive members of our government, including the President: “We believe in the power of persuasion, but if that doesn’t work, we also believe in the persuasion of power.” This quote was attributed to Andy Stern, founder of the Weather Underground, current Obama Advisor, and friend of Bill Ayers, who also was a founding member of the Weather Underground and who is an unrepentant sixties terrorist bomber and currently is an influential educator, and who has received more than fifty million dollars from the hard-left Annenburg legacy to promote his radical agendas in education. This is the same Bill Ayers who Obama at first denied knowing “except to recognize in the neighborhood,” but who hosted a fundraising event at his home for Obama’s senatorial campaign. Additionally, John Holdren, an Obama “czar” has echoed George Soros’ words in saying, publicly, that “we have to deconstruct capitalism.” In the context of what is being done in the Congress and from the White House by presidential order, this makes clear that exploitation of energy resources, advancing American exceptionalism in any way, or even considering that Americans have to have time to “digest” some of the radical and rushed steps being taken by a radical dominated Congress and White House, are not in the cards. These people are not going to give up easily. In view of the Massachusetts election last night, where Ted Kennedy’s seat was, literally, returned to the people of Massachusetts, Nancy Pelosi, Speaker of the House, announced that she was not concerned about it. I believe her words were “We are going to have health care, regardless.” She is probably right. The structure for forcing the immensely unpopular bill, which is getting every day more unpopular, is still intact, whether there is a sixtieth senate vote for it or not. By parliamentary procedure, it can still pass. Remember this: They don’t think they can fail. They are willing to go the whole nine yards to pass this, and other bills like cap-and-tax, and other revenue producing penalizations of the American taxpayer for the advancement of elite political agendas, whether they retain the Congress in November or not. This is the dedication of radical progressive Democrats. We the citizens of the United States have to understand the stakes. They don’t believe we do.
Let me be clear here: Were it not for Glenn Beck’s use of Horowitz’ site listed below http://www.discoverthenetworks.org/default.asp , Van Jones would still be the “green jobs czar” with access to the White House. [An aside here: Those of us who have worked in government know about security clearances and access to classified information. During the “What We Are Up Against” broadcast, this question came up, and the answer seems to be that the FBI background checks that have been for years mandatory to have a White House Pass were summarily suspended by the Obama team. That means that all these radicals, who are advisors to the President currently in the White House, have access to both the White House and the President without ever having had their access scrutinized by any type of security procedure. Given the access from the White House to extremely classified information, we have to deduce that the Obama Team, including Barack Obama himself, has what can only be called a cavalier attitude towards both White House and national security. I consider this a grave oversight on the part of the government.] And all I can say is “Thank God for Glenn Beck. He has been a voice crying in the wilderness, but he just passed his first anniversary at Fox News, and continues his crusade on talk radio. And he’s “just an ordinary guy.” But he’s a patriot and a concerned American.
During the program, Democrat analyst and former presidential advisor Pat Caddell, who has been featured prominently on Glenn Beck’s recent analysis of the “czar” program, pointed out that the Apollo Alliance, and all “green jobs” militancy in the current administration, as well as ACORN and SEIU are a cover for radical operations. The green jobs hype is being used as a patronage system for Communists, in and out of government.
In the resources offered below, I have cited a couple of things that might help folks who read this brief attempt at warning to understand the gravity of our nation’s situation. This is not a game. These people are at war with our way of life and our economic system. They want to replace it with something else, and that something has already failed endlessly around the world in the last century. They hate American exceptionalism. Barack Obama is the first president in American history who does not believe that the United States is an exceptional occurrence in world history. He thinks we should all be part of a global “whole.” This is the Communist International talking. He is their mouthpiece—in the highest office in the land. This, to the ComIntern, is the opening campaign of a war of global conquest. They’ve been waiting for it since Stalin blew them off taking power in the USSR. It is the ideology of totalitarian communitarianism.
Conclusion: If we are going to save our country from this debacle, and if we are going to preserve any semblance of our way of life for those who come after, it now seems to me that we are going to have to get “engaged” in the process like never before. From the local to the national, concerned citizens of all parties are going to have to unite against this sinister attempt to subvert our entire nation and re-direct the largest economy in history off the precipice.
I can’t say it any stronger.
Bob B
Tuesday, January 19, 2010
Brown 52% Coakley 47%...But Will Dem Crooks Cheat?
Martha Coakley just conceded. There is a breath of fresh air tonight, after less than a year of Obamanable government. I'm listening to Sean on Fox for the first time since November and felt that light relief when spring sets in and the snow melts. Actually, we're having a thaw in the Catskills this week too, so maybe we're having an early spring. There's slush all over the place, and Scott Brown won. Yay! Several Democrats in a Fox focus group voted for Brown. They are saying the reasons are health care and government overspending.
After the fact, I'm not surprised at Brown's win. Since I noticed the 2:1 Wall Street donation rate to Obama and the bailout became an issue before the 2008 election, I suspected that Obama's only purpose was to put through the bailout and TARP. He did that and then some, and has been backing Ben Bernanke and the Fed every step of the way. Thus, he has fulfilled his mission on behalf of the Wall Street-Military-Industrial Complex. I told Glenda McGee just a few weeks ago that health care and cap and trade would not pass. I still might have been wrong, but it looks like I wasn't.
Three questions for tonight, one you'll hear on Fox, the other two you won't. First, will the Democrats cheat and delay Brown's swearing in? When Kennedy was elected for the first time the swearing in took one day, according to an announcer on Fox this afternoon. Many of the Democrats in the focus group say that they oppose any delay. If the Democrats act like crooks, they will alienate even more Americans.
Second, and you won't hear this on Fox, I'm not convinced that Scott Brown represents anything other than a reassertion of the status quo, specifically, the big government stasis that has dominated America since the 1960s. I hope he'll prove me wrong. But the fundamental confusion about where the country is going may not have changed. Has it?
Third, and confirming the second point, a large percentage of the Democrats still conceptualize the status quo as "centrist". The status quo is not centrist, it is extremist and socialist. America now is a national socialist state. It is not centrist. It is extremely troubling that many Democrats think that it is.
The Democrats in Congress still may force the health care bill through. If so, they are fools. If health care passes, there will be considerable damage to the economy. Cap and trade, which hopefully will die no matter what, is like a sledge hammer to the real economy. Now it is unlikely to gain traction. The Democrats' forcing health reform will do short term damage. Longer term, though, the Democratic extremists (who call themselves centrists) would be banished for decades.
But would the health care bill be repealed under a future Republican majority? The Republicans have a consistent strike-out record with respect to repeal of failed socialist regulation and spending schemes. Does the election of Brown mean this will change, or do Progressives like Newt Gingrich and John McCain still control the GOP?
After the fact, I'm not surprised at Brown's win. Since I noticed the 2:1 Wall Street donation rate to Obama and the bailout became an issue before the 2008 election, I suspected that Obama's only purpose was to put through the bailout and TARP. He did that and then some, and has been backing Ben Bernanke and the Fed every step of the way. Thus, he has fulfilled his mission on behalf of the Wall Street-Military-Industrial Complex. I told Glenda McGee just a few weeks ago that health care and cap and trade would not pass. I still might have been wrong, but it looks like I wasn't.
Three questions for tonight, one you'll hear on Fox, the other two you won't. First, will the Democrats cheat and delay Brown's swearing in? When Kennedy was elected for the first time the swearing in took one day, according to an announcer on Fox this afternoon. Many of the Democrats in the focus group say that they oppose any delay. If the Democrats act like crooks, they will alienate even more Americans.
Second, and you won't hear this on Fox, I'm not convinced that Scott Brown represents anything other than a reassertion of the status quo, specifically, the big government stasis that has dominated America since the 1960s. I hope he'll prove me wrong. But the fundamental confusion about where the country is going may not have changed. Has it?
Third, and confirming the second point, a large percentage of the Democrats still conceptualize the status quo as "centrist". The status quo is not centrist, it is extremist and socialist. America now is a national socialist state. It is not centrist. It is extremely troubling that many Democrats think that it is.
The Democrats in Congress still may force the health care bill through. If so, they are fools. If health care passes, there will be considerable damage to the economy. Cap and trade, which hopefully will die no matter what, is like a sledge hammer to the real economy. Now it is unlikely to gain traction. The Democrats' forcing health reform will do short term damage. Longer term, though, the Democratic extremists (who call themselves centrists) would be banished for decades.
But would the health care bill be repealed under a future Republican majority? The Republicans have a consistent strike-out record with respect to repeal of failed socialist regulation and spending schemes. Does the election of Brown mean this will change, or do Progressives like Newt Gingrich and John McCain still control the GOP?
Scott Brown Call Centers
Jim Crum e-mailed this message concerning Scott Brown call centers:
http://beltwayblips.dailyradar.com/video/scott-brown-vs-martha-coakley-it-s-all-about/
Otherwise just type it in on Youtube, literally: brown vs coakley call center. Hit enter.
JJC.
http://beltwayblips.dailyradar.com/video/scott-brown-vs-martha-coakley-it-s-all-about/
Otherwise just type it in on Youtube, literally: brown vs coakley call center. Hit enter.
JJC.
Friday, January 15, 2010
Republican Excitement Grows
My in-box is overflowing with messages from friends about a number of developments, bad and good. My neighbor, a life long Democrat, just sent me this message about the Democrats' and Obama's yucky health care reform courtesy of Newsmax:
>Dear Reader:
>Time is critical. Americans all over the country are fed up with the Obama administration. They don't want his radical healthcare program.
Citizens from states like Massachusetts, Nebraska, Florida and others are rising up as never before.
Even in liberal states such as Massachusetts citizens are showing their outrage over the Obama-Pelosi-Reid alliance and it's dismal record at creating jobs and inability to protect us against terrorism...
...You can help this effort by Going Here Now.
The site to which you are directed shows this video:
The famously dynamic and lovely Raquel Okyay, congressional candidate and leader of southern Ulster County, reminds us that:
>A win on Tuesday for Scott Brown, needless to say, will be a big win for the Republican party and a win for those of us fighting against healthcare "reform".
I urge you to do whatever you can to help Scott Brown win.
>Read my commentary here.
In her blog Raquel notes:
>One does not have to be a political mastermind to see what is happening in America today. Glenn Beck’s claim that the Obama administration’s goal is to transform the Nation in a way that mirrors Hugo Chavez’ take- over of Venezuela, indeed, has validity. The amount of government control and over the top spending that the Obama White house and the Democrat controlled Congress have assumed in one year is unprecedented and will take many years to salvage...
>State Senator Scott Brown is running his campaign against “wasteful government spending and higher taxes.”
>...The American people are angry that the President promised that these negotiations would be aired on C-span at least eight times on the campaign trail, and so far, nothing. No one really knows what the final bill will entail, but everyone knows it will raise health insurance costs, and it will ration care.
Phil Orenstein, up and coming party leader of Queens County, New York forwarded a link to the Go West Blog, which "proudly supports Lt. Col. Allen West's candidacy for Congress." West is running in Florida and is a wonderful candidate.
Glenda McGee attended the Kingston, NY Tea Party meeting on Monday night and George Phillips's announcement of his congressional candidacy yesterday. McGee is fighting cap and trade and keeps getting her photo on newspaper covers. One article was about the Tea Party from Oklahoma and they put her picture on the cover even though she lives in the Town of Olive!
Even President Barbara Bowen of the left wing faculty union of the City University of New York, the Professional Staff Congress, and her lieutenant Mariah Berger, have sent around e-mails urging the union's left-to-liberal college faculty membership to make calls in opposition to the bogus health care bill's tax on union benefit plans:
>Dear Professor Langbert,
>Thank you for your response. In her email yesterday President Bowen urged PSC members to take action in support of fair health care reform and in opposition to the proposal to tax “Cadillac” health plans. This position on health care reform is that of the union as a collective, after debate, discussion and a democratic vote. We understand that not all individual members share these sentiments, however, and we appreciate your comments. We respect and value your views and Barbara Bowen thanks you for taking the time to share them.
>Sincerely,
>Moriah Berger
That e-mail really tickled me. I doubt that there are more than ten unions more left wing than the Professional Staff Congress. I also doubt that there was a higher Obama-to-McCain voting ratio in any union in the country than in the Professional Staff Congress. But even the Grasmcian Marxists are complaining about Obama now.
Here is the union president's, Barbara Bowen's, e-mail:
>Dear Colleague,
Today is the labor movement’s National Call-In Blitz to demand fairness to working people in health care legislation. I am asking you to take a minute or two to call your US Representative and Senator today. The AFL-CIO’s call-in line will connect you immediately: 1-877-323-5246. Tell your representative that you support fair health care reform but that you oppose the plan for a 40 percent excise tax on so-called “Cadillac” health plans.
Taxing benefits is bad policy and bad politics. Benefit cuts and increased consumer costs are NOT health care reform.
The Senate bill would impose an excise tax paid by employers on benefit plans exceeding $23,000 for family coverage and $8,500 for individuals. CUNY faculty and staff would not be immediately affected by the proposed excise tax, as our current healthcare benefits fall below the threshold in the Senate bill. But the benefits tax is designed to apply to more plans, and more people, every year. The cap on benefits grows much more slowly than the rate of medical inflation. A plan under the cap today could easily be over the cap tomorrow and subject to a 40 percent excise tax. The Congressional Budget Office estimates that 20% of employee health plans would be affected within 3 years.
The theory underlying this provision is that employers will reduce benefits to avoid paying the excise tax and presumably pay their employees the balance that would have gone to insurance. These increased wages, taxed as regular income, would be used to finance health reform. Assuming employers would voluntarily pass on savings to their workers—a long shot at best—the most likely result will be a reduction in the quality of employee health benefits.
This is a critical week for influencing the final shape of the legislation. PSC members, like millions of other Americans, hoped and fought for single-payer health reform. But this is our chance to make the current bill as fair as we can make it. Please call or email today: http://www.unionvoice.org/campaign/healthcare010810.
We are now closer to reform than we’ve been in generations. We can’t stop now.
In solidarity,
Barbara Bowen
President
>Dear Reader:
>Time is critical. Americans all over the country are fed up with the Obama administration. They don't want his radical healthcare program.
Citizens from states like Massachusetts, Nebraska, Florida and others are rising up as never before.
Even in liberal states such as Massachusetts citizens are showing their outrage over the Obama-Pelosi-Reid alliance and it's dismal record at creating jobs and inability to protect us against terrorism...
...You can help this effort by Going Here Now.
The site to which you are directed shows this video:
The famously dynamic and lovely Raquel Okyay, congressional candidate and leader of southern Ulster County, reminds us that:
>A win on Tuesday for Scott Brown, needless to say, will be a big win for the Republican party and a win for those of us fighting against healthcare "reform".
I urge you to do whatever you can to help Scott Brown win.
>Read my commentary here.
In her blog Raquel notes:
>One does not have to be a political mastermind to see what is happening in America today. Glenn Beck’s claim that the Obama administration’s goal is to transform the Nation in a way that mirrors Hugo Chavez’ take- over of Venezuela, indeed, has validity. The amount of government control and over the top spending that the Obama White house and the Democrat controlled Congress have assumed in one year is unprecedented and will take many years to salvage...
>State Senator Scott Brown is running his campaign against “wasteful government spending and higher taxes.”
>...The American people are angry that the President promised that these negotiations would be aired on C-span at least eight times on the campaign trail, and so far, nothing. No one really knows what the final bill will entail, but everyone knows it will raise health insurance costs, and it will ration care.
Phil Orenstein, up and coming party leader of Queens County, New York forwarded a link to the Go West Blog, which "proudly supports Lt. Col. Allen West's candidacy for Congress." West is running in Florida and is a wonderful candidate.
Glenda McGee attended the Kingston, NY Tea Party meeting on Monday night and George Phillips's announcement of his congressional candidacy yesterday. McGee is fighting cap and trade and keeps getting her photo on newspaper covers. One article was about the Tea Party from Oklahoma and they put her picture on the cover even though she lives in the Town of Olive!
Even President Barbara Bowen of the left wing faculty union of the City University of New York, the Professional Staff Congress, and her lieutenant Mariah Berger, have sent around e-mails urging the union's left-to-liberal college faculty membership to make calls in opposition to the bogus health care bill's tax on union benefit plans:
>Dear Professor Langbert,
>Thank you for your response. In her email yesterday President Bowen urged PSC members to take action in support of fair health care reform and in opposition to the proposal to tax “Cadillac” health plans. This position on health care reform is that of the union as a collective, after debate, discussion and a democratic vote. We understand that not all individual members share these sentiments, however, and we appreciate your comments. We respect and value your views and Barbara Bowen thanks you for taking the time to share them.
>Sincerely,
>Moriah Berger
That e-mail really tickled me. I doubt that there are more than ten unions more left wing than the Professional Staff Congress. I also doubt that there was a higher Obama-to-McCain voting ratio in any union in the country than in the Professional Staff Congress. But even the Grasmcian Marxists are complaining about Obama now.
Here is the union president's, Barbara Bowen's, e-mail:
>Dear Colleague,
Today is the labor movement’s National Call-In Blitz to demand fairness to working people in health care legislation. I am asking you to take a minute or two to call your US Representative and Senator today. The AFL-CIO’s call-in line will connect you immediately: 1-877-323-5246. Tell your representative that you support fair health care reform but that you oppose the plan for a 40 percent excise tax on so-called “Cadillac” health plans.
Taxing benefits is bad policy and bad politics. Benefit cuts and increased consumer costs are NOT health care reform.
The Senate bill would impose an excise tax paid by employers on benefit plans exceeding $23,000 for family coverage and $8,500 for individuals. CUNY faculty and staff would not be immediately affected by the proposed excise tax, as our current healthcare benefits fall below the threshold in the Senate bill. But the benefits tax is designed to apply to more plans, and more people, every year. The cap on benefits grows much more slowly than the rate of medical inflation. A plan under the cap today could easily be over the cap tomorrow and subject to a 40 percent excise tax. The Congressional Budget Office estimates that 20% of employee health plans would be affected within 3 years.
The theory underlying this provision is that employers will reduce benefits to avoid paying the excise tax and presumably pay their employees the balance that would have gone to insurance. These increased wages, taxed as regular income, would be used to finance health reform. Assuming employers would voluntarily pass on savings to their workers—a long shot at best—the most likely result will be a reduction in the quality of employee health benefits.
This is a critical week for influencing the final shape of the legislation. PSC members, like millions of other Americans, hoped and fought for single-payer health reform. But this is our chance to make the current bill as fair as we can make it. Please call or email today: http://www.unionvoice.org/campaign/healthcare010810.
We are now closer to reform than we’ve been in generations. We can’t stop now.
In solidarity,
Barbara Bowen
President
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