VII. YOU TELL ME IT'S THE INSTITUTION. WELL, YOU
KNOW. YOU'D BETTER FREE YOUR MIND INSTEAD.
Unusual for me, I am going to turn it over to a Prog, Lee Siegel, for a little while. In the lead in to his new article "What Occupy Harvard Should Tell Liberal Elite Parents on Thanksgiving," The Daily Beast writes "[A]s the sons and daughters of America’s wealthiest rough
it in Harvard Yard, Lee Siegel offers a plan for when they get home to
their liberal elite parents for Thanksgiving: help Mom and Dad clean up
their own house."
"And the truth is, Mom and Dad, we
no longer have two political parties. We have one party, the Democrats,
divided into a right wing and a left wing. And we have a party, the
Republicans, that has dissipated into a movement, a collection of
intense emotions that have no outlet in a clear political program. When
the head of a household of four, who is earning $60,000 a year, cannot
be convinced that people making several million dollars a year should
pay more money in taxes so that he can afford health care for himself
and his family, common sense seems to have disappeared down the rabbit
hole. Why is it so hard to convince this man, who is decent, rational,
and responsible in other aspects of his life, that his politics are
incoherent?
Here’s why, and pour yourselves some more wine. Liberal elites like you are strangling liberalism.
The man making $60,000 a year who can’t afford health benefits for his family looks at you, the liberal elite—sorry, guys, but let’s call a spade a spade—and sees that the fix is always in. You went to the same private schools. You graduated from the same handful of Ivy League universities. You live in the same exclusive urban neighborhoods, and you summer in the same exclusive enclaves. Your children—like us—network through your pre-established connections to the top of society. You prescribe conduct for others that you will never have to follow yourselves. You pass laws that will never apply to you. You turn on your own constituents, like public-school teachers, at the drop of a hat. You sell out the middle class by passing legislation that makes it almost impossible to declare bankruptcy. You make the middle class pay with soaring premiums for expanded Medicaid programs that will bankrupt state treasuries, thus fueling the backlash against the push for universal health care.
The man you think is a “sucker” because he votes for Republican candidates who don’t seem to give a hoot about him will vote for them every time. He looks at you, the crowd of The-Fix-Is-Always-In, and he casts his lot with the crowd of wealth and initiative.
You see, Mom and Dad, they don’t lie about his prospects. They tell him that he has to sink or swim. They don’t disrespect his willpower by promising that government will make life easier for him. They tell him that they respect his individuality. They tell him straight out what you, the liberal elite, know to be true but will never say. They tell him that life in America is winner-take-all, and that they are the people who will let him keep what he has. They tell him that his religion, his wife’s capacity to reproduce, his children—whether they are “successful” or not—are his treasure. They tell him that they don’t care if he is a person of modest ambition, little sophistication, and humble means. What they value is his capacity to change his own life.
What you tell him is that he should put his life in your hands. Yet you scorn his religion. You mock his faith in the sacredness of conception. You deride his belief in family. You tell him that his love for hunting makes him a murderer, and that his terror at being economically displaced makes him a xenophobe and a racist. Then you emasculate his hope for the future by telling him that if his ship comes in—that dream of a ship that makes the grinding disappointment of daily life worth living through—you’ll help yourself to a big slice of it. And you expect him to believe your rhetoric about fairness and equality when, all the while, you are accusing him of gullibility in his politics and bad faith toward the least fortunate of his fellow citizens. When, all the while, you are living untouched by your own policies. When you are cushioned against life’s hardness, not by government, but by simply knowing other people in your class. You expect him to buy your talk about equitable distribution of wealth when you are sailing through tax loopholes off into the sunset. For this man, his emotions make all the rational sense in the world.
Whew! Sorry for the speech. But before we go back to school next week, we want to clean up our own house. Truth and justice begin at home.
One more thing: Do you mind sparing the Porsche for the ride back? The train is too slow and the Democratic Socialist Club at UMass is serving us breakfast early tomorrow morning."
Here’s why, and pour yourselves some more wine. Liberal elites like you are strangling liberalism.
"Republicans tell him that life in America is winner-take-all, and that they are the people who will let him keep what he has."
The man making $60,000 a year who can’t afford health benefits for his family looks at you, the liberal elite—sorry, guys, but let’s call a spade a spade—and sees that the fix is always in. You went to the same private schools. You graduated from the same handful of Ivy League universities. You live in the same exclusive urban neighborhoods, and you summer in the same exclusive enclaves. Your children—like us—network through your pre-established connections to the top of society. You prescribe conduct for others that you will never have to follow yourselves. You pass laws that will never apply to you. You turn on your own constituents, like public-school teachers, at the drop of a hat. You sell out the middle class by passing legislation that makes it almost impossible to declare bankruptcy. You make the middle class pay with soaring premiums for expanded Medicaid programs that will bankrupt state treasuries, thus fueling the backlash against the push for universal health care.
The man you think is a “sucker” because he votes for Republican candidates who don’t seem to give a hoot about him will vote for them every time. He looks at you, the crowd of The-Fix-Is-Always-In, and he casts his lot with the crowd of wealth and initiative.
You see, Mom and Dad, they don’t lie about his prospects. They tell him that he has to sink or swim. They don’t disrespect his willpower by promising that government will make life easier for him. They tell him that they respect his individuality. They tell him straight out what you, the liberal elite, know to be true but will never say. They tell him that life in America is winner-take-all, and that they are the people who will let him keep what he has. They tell him that his religion, his wife’s capacity to reproduce, his children—whether they are “successful” or not—are his treasure. They tell him that they don’t care if he is a person of modest ambition, little sophistication, and humble means. What they value is his capacity to change his own life.
What you tell him is that he should put his life in your hands. Yet you scorn his religion. You mock his faith in the sacredness of conception. You deride his belief in family. You tell him that his love for hunting makes him a murderer, and that his terror at being economically displaced makes him a xenophobe and a racist. Then you emasculate his hope for the future by telling him that if his ship comes in—that dream of a ship that makes the grinding disappointment of daily life worth living through—you’ll help yourself to a big slice of it. And you expect him to believe your rhetoric about fairness and equality when, all the while, you are accusing him of gullibility in his politics and bad faith toward the least fortunate of his fellow citizens. When, all the while, you are living untouched by your own policies. When you are cushioned against life’s hardness, not by government, but by simply knowing other people in your class. You expect him to buy your talk about equitable distribution of wealth when you are sailing through tax loopholes off into the sunset. For this man, his emotions make all the rational sense in the world.
Whew! Sorry for the speech. But before we go back to school next week, we want to clean up our own house. Truth and justice begin at home.
One more thing: Do you mind sparing the Porsche for the ride back? The train is too slow and the Democratic Socialist Club at UMass is serving us breakfast early tomorrow morning."
And, Mr Siegel nails it, as does my favourite Prog, Walter Russell Mead, on so many occasions - this being merely one - and why The Ferret, Thomas Friedman and the obnoxious, Thomas "What's That Matter With Kansas?" Frank continuously swing wide, miss, and fall on their faces ... all of the time.
The Middle Class knows that Progressive elites hold them in nothing but disdain. Their upbringing, religion, education, hobbies, interests, sports, favourite foods and drinks, homesteads in Flyover America are mocked, hated, dismissed, rejected, and belittled. Yes, Sarah Palin is a small town girl, who went to 5 colleges and had 5 children, one who many in elite circles would have aborted. She also took on corruption and became the governor of her state. There was a time in this country that her trek and success in life would be celebrated ... regardless of whether you agreed with her political positions. Not now. She is stupid, a redneck, ignorant, a rube, classless, an idiot, and an appropriate object of scorn.
The fact of the matter is this: The Middle Class recognises that people like Sarah Palin and Herman Cain know their lives because they live them. The Middle Class doubts seriously that the Obamas know anything about their lives - even though they may. The Middle Class also knows that the Progs' Useful Idiots, who live Ramien Noodle and store name beverage lives, but talk Brie and Chardonnay, have as much contempt for them as those that live in the Hamptons or Malibu do.
"We're a country that is 'just downright mean,'we are 'guided by fear,' 'we're a nation of cynics, sloths, and complacents.'"
- Michelle Obama, 3 March 2008
- Michelle Obama, 18 February 2008
"You go into these small towns in Pennsylvania and, like a lot of small
towns in the Midwest, the jobs have been gone now for 25 years and
nothing's replaced them...And they fell through the Clinton
administration, and the Bush administration, and each successive
administration has said that somehow these communities are gonna
regenerate and they have not. And, it's not surprising then they get bitter, they cling to guns or
religion or antipathy to people who aren't like them or anti-immigrant
sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their
frustrations."
- Barack Obama, 6 March 2008
"...[I]t's not surprising then that they get bitter, they cling to guns or
religion or antipathy toward people who aren't like them or
anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain
their frustrations."
- Barack Obama, 12 April 2008
"When people tell me they've all stressed about racial discord, well, you know, try slavery for a while."
- Barack Obama, 11 April 2008
“This is a great great country that had gotten a little soft and we
didn’t have that same competitive edge that we needed over the last
couple of decades.”
- Barack Obama, 29 October 2011
"Anybody gone into Whole Foods lately and see what they charge
for arugula?" (in an appearance at an Iowa farm)."
- Barack Obama, 27 July 2007
While I will not say that I approve of what happened, I will ask, "Who on Earth could have possibly been surprised by Michelle Obama's reception at NASCAR?"
Let me ask it this way: What do you think would have happened if President George Bush had opened the Oscars?
Who do you think NASCAR fans would want to have a beer with and who do
you think members of the Academy would like to share a bottle of 1963
Pommard Grand Cru with while savouring Wolfgang's latest delectable
creations?
Get real.
VIII. BUT, IF YOU GO CARRYING PICTURES OF CHAIRMAN
MAO...
Music you may or may not
want to read by:
want to read by:
Even the Iranian regime understands what the movement is all about...so
do the North Koreans...as does Hugo Chavez...as does Fidel Castro... as does al Qaeda and as did
Anwar al-Awlaki before he died. They are all down with it, dude.
Capitalism is the antithesis of freedom....according to them. Of course,
Shari'ah Law and Communism MUST be bastions of freedom and liberty in this
alternative universe.
Joseph Arthur - We Stand As One (#occupywallstreet)
We occupy wall street
Take back our soul
Take back our country
Take back control
Take back our health care
Take back our mind
Take back our freedom
Give up the grind
We occupy wall street
No more fear
No more acceptance
Of insanity’s sneer
No more division
No more restraint
Our canvas is freedom
Your blood is our paint
we stand as one
You who have robbed us
You who have lied
You who were greedy
While the needy ones died
You who believed
You were better than them
Who sat in the flower
Ignoring the stem
You who denied them
Doctors and care
Humanity’s basics
As if death were their share
You who denied
The struggles of most
Like a pig you consumed
And like a pig you will roast
we stand as one
We occupy wall street
The system has failed
As the innocent ones
Are beat down and jailed
The criminal minds
have stolen this land
By taking our freedom
And binding our hand
To the cuff of misfortune
To the cuff of our need
To the cuff of self pity
To the cuff of a seed
Lost in the desert
No chance to survive
No love to nurture
No water to thrive
we stand as one
We are Legion
We do not forgive
We do not forget
We occupy wall street
The system has failed
As the innocent ones
Are beat down and jailed
The criminal minds
have stolen this land
By taking our freedom
And binding our hand
To the cuff of misfortune
To the cuff of our need
To the cuff of self pity
To the cuff of a seed
Lost in the desert
No chance to survive
No love to nurture
No water to thrive
we stand as one
The system has failed
As the innocent ones
Are beat down and jailed
The criminal minds
have stolen this land
By taking our freedom
And binding our hand
To the cuff of misfortune
To the cuff of our need
To the cuff of self pity
To the cuff of a seed
Lost in the desert
No chance to survive
No love to nurture
No water to thrive
we stand as one
A chance education
A chance to secure
A place for our families
Our right to a cure
The disease is insane
The disease is just greed
The disease is your pain
Ignoring their need
The disease is your reason
Your will is unchecked
But the blood is all over
The lives you have wrecked
But blessed are the meek
For we stand as one
We stand against
The crimes you have done
we stand as one
In 1969, Bill Ayers and his wife, Bernadine Dohrn, convened a "War Council" in Flint
Michigan, whose purpose was to launch a military front inside the United
States with the purpose of helping Third World revolutionaries conquer
and destroy it.
Taking charge of the podium, dressed in high-heeled boots and a leather mini-skirt – her signature uniform – Dorhn incited the assembled radicals to join the war against "Amerikkka" and create chaos and destruction in the "belly of the beast."
Her voice rising to a fevered pitch, Dohrn raised three fingers in a "fork salute" to mass murderer Charles Manson whom she proposed as a symbol to her troops. Referring to the helpless victims of the Manson Family as the "Tate Eight" (the most famous was actress Sharon Tate) Dohrn shouted:
"Dig It. First they killed those pigs, then they ate dinner in the same room with them, they even shoved a fork into a victim’s stomach! Wild!"
Taking charge of the podium, dressed in high-heeled boots and a leather mini-skirt – her signature uniform – Dorhn incited the assembled radicals to join the war against "Amerikkka" and create chaos and destruction in the "belly of the beast."
Her voice rising to a fevered pitch, Dohrn raised three fingers in a "fork salute" to mass murderer Charles Manson whom she proposed as a symbol to her troops. Referring to the helpless victims of the Manson Family as the "Tate Eight" (the most famous was actress Sharon Tate) Dohrn shouted:
"Dig It. First they killed those pigs, then they ate dinner in the same room with them, they even shoved a fork into a victim’s stomach! Wild!"
We stand against
Your desire for more
Hear how we knock
Soon there won’t be a door
And what you won’t share
Will be ripped from your hands
Your body destroyed
The way fire lands
Burning your homes
The privilege you snake
The payback beyond
Anything you could take
Naked you’ll be
And full of regret
And the way they were treated
You’ll long to forget
we stand as one
Your desire for more
Hear how we knock
Soon there won’t be a door
And what you won’t share
Will be ripped from your hands
Your body destroyed
The way fire lands
Burning your homes
The privilege you snake
The payback beyond
Anything you could take
Naked you’ll be
And full of regret
And the way they were treated
You’ll long to forget
we stand as one
You’ll wish you could go back
and undo whats been done
You’ll wish you were never
Insanity’s son
You’ll wish you were fair
You’ll wish for compassion
But it will be late
And long out of fashion
Strung up you’ll bleed
Like the pig you became
A symbol of hatred
And one with no name
And our country will come back
Belonging to us
Regain it’s spirit
Regain our trust
we stand as one
Regain it’s standing
Regain the world
The dream of our fathers
A new and bold world
Where people have chance
And can live with respect
And people can dance
Beyond their neglect
Where health is a right
And education within
The grasp of the poor
Who may still one day win
We occupy wall street
So that we may begin
To live in a country
Of freedom again.
we stand as one
Regain the world
The dream of our fathers
A new and bold world
Where people have chance
And can live with respect
And people can dance
Beyond their neglect
Where health is a right
And education within
The grasp of the poor
Who may still one day win
We occupy wall street
So that we may begin
To live in a country
Of freedom again.
we stand as one
Yesterday is a memory.
Today is a blessing in order to prepare.
Tomorrow is an opportunity to put your experience and preparations into practise in a real world way that might just save your life and the lives of others.
Know yourself.
Know your enemy's strengths and weaknesses.
Know your strengths and weaknesses.
All warfare is based on deception.
Be extremely subtle, even to the point of
formlessness.
Be extremely mysterious, even to the point of
soundlessness.
Thereby, you can be the director of the opponent's fate.
He who is prudent and lies in wait for an enemy, who is not, will be victorious.
Can you imagine what I would do if I could do all I can?
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