The Obama administration: how tyranny could happen
In reference to this post of mine on the current Democrat agenda to pursue unpopular policies in the face of strong public opposition from the majority of Americans, a number of people have directed me to some well-written, sobering, and thoughtful comments by “Subotai Bahadur” at Belmont Club (here’s one of his/her comments, and here’s another.)
Subotai Bahadur was the name of one of the greatest military strategists of all time, conqueror Genghis Khan’s general. But these comments don’t concern military matters, although they do feature speculation on the strategy of the Obama administration. The points that Subotai Bahadur (the commenter that is, not the general) is making are difficult to summarize; it’s one of those “read the whole thing” situations.
No doubt some of you may consider Subotai’s musings paranoid and alarmist. Perhaps they are; I certainly hope so. This is an old subject of argument on this blog, and I must say I have become far more pessimistic myself over time about the aims of the current administration and its far-Left enablers (and I was fairly pessimistic to begin with).
Here’s a representative excerpt from the Subotai oeuvre:
In all cases, the public polls show massive opposition to the actions of Congress and to the specific programs Obama is pushing. These are massaged before release. The real, private polls commissioned by the politicians have to show worse. And still they do it…
As I said, we have an impasse. The Left has no intention of giving up power. But they act consistently and almost unanimously in ways that leaving me biting my tongue to find ways of describing it in this forum, and actively infuriating huge swathes of the American people. If there are honest elections a whole bunch of them are going to lose power, quite possibly enough to take them out of control of the government.
Politicians in a group when they act consistently and anomalously against what would seem to be their own interests, are usually operating on information not available to anyone else. One also has to add to the mix the question why the Republicans as a party are only offering token opposition to the Democrats, when standing up would rally support to them? What do they know?
When you rule out the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, has to be considered. The only thing that remains, that I can see, is that no matter what they do, they no longer have any fear of facing the voters in an honest election. The specific mechanisms and basis for that confidence have yet to be determined.
Subotai and many others in the blogosphere are the Cassandras. We have some on this blog, people with whom regular readers are probably familiar (FredHjr was a valuable one, but sadly, now he’s gone). Are they telling the truth (see this)? Time will tell. Unfortunately, however, if they are correct, by that time it may be too late.
The commenters assessment of the mechanism are probably correct. But I think they do lack the politician’s feeling for the public (a classic war gamers problem). If we look at Chavez or Morales we can see all these steps as they describe. But the American public is not a South American polis or for that matter a European country of the 1930s. The democrats are acting against the public opinion because it is what they are today.
The leaders are from safe, left leaning districts in California, NY or VT. Their support from labor is not from a Jimmy Hoffa clone but radical university trained labor lawyers like Andy Stern of SEIU. Like Obama they have never had to contest their seats except to another like minded leftist.
I flew from Hartford the other day and was in line with a woman who had a button reading “I think Therefore I’m Liberal”. Obviously from a university town in Western Massachusetts or Vermont, she would surely punish a candidate who deviated. More importantly, in her mindset no “thinking” person would not want single payer health care. They cannot do differently in congress than they are doing today. It will end badly for all of us.
Thos who know the history, like Subotai, and myself, and certain others, like fredhjr…
we ALL know whats coming as we all see clearly. we all accept what our minds tell us as true, ESPECIALLY when its telling us something that we dont like. while the majority of others, use their pleasure as a way to truth… or false truth if you can titilate them while lying.
the other information that Subotai is referring to is a plan. a staged thing… so while we sit here and react to something, they are off already on the next step (a senator said something to that effect yesterday). this is what the communists meant that all others are reactionaries, and they make history.
the person doing the orchestration of events, is making history, and the other one hoping from one foot to the other, and falling into holes, and things is the person reacting.
nice thing about reacting, you can make any one do anything you want that way?
want to make someone jump off a roof?
just get them up there, and in the right balanc,e and then stimulate forcing a natural reaction that is fatal if one doesnt think it through but acts on reflex.
he is more tactical in his talking
i am more urgent and try to prove things
he has given up on proof and has gone for vague logics.
read the biographies of the people who are NOT favored by the intelligentsia (like anne. anne is great. but for them she is great in a particular way. she was too naive and didnt know her history, so her story is limited to a perceptual reality that was already limited by the situations and the people involved. while the others, which we dont study, listen, and so on, they are older, more knwlegeable, less innocent and naive. they can explain why, and what they learned, and how things are, not how they were told how they are).
we are in the first two year honey moon stage, where the despot is showing those signing on, how much more they get.
havent you noticed the raises, the idea that they will come and crush your enemies, and so on.
THESE Are the stages that are kept out of the history books. that you can only learn by experience, or reading and talking to thsoe with first hand experience.
they are like the person being interviewed by the liberal college person that constantly laughs as to that persons completely unreal and untrue ideas of waht happened and the bizare questions they ask.
all over i can draw together the articles that no one is paying attention to. one here by a romanian, the other by an ex jugend, another by another experience. yet they are all the same. like rebranding nestle for the asian market.
something that we hate was rebranded for us
[anyone else but me notice that the things the leftists hate about the church are the key things that a communist state does? ]
good tactics do not depend on your enemy to cooperate DirtyJobsGUy. that is, in chess, one positions things and is patient enough to do so till check mate is reached.
that is, no matter what your oponent does, it doesnt matter, the end is the same and there are no saving plays.
i have sat across people with mate in 10 moves and had to wait as they tried to find the cavalry.
after 200 coutnries, some top intellectuals, billions to do with as they please, and 100 years of development time… you think that they have this down pat… no?
“…why the Republicans as a party are only offering token opposition to the Democrats…”
I believe there is an old political saying to the effect, when your opponent is self-destructing you stand back out of the way.
Yes, we have had this discussion here often, and I have leaned more toward the “they know what they are doing and know it’s evil” view over the last year.
But recently I have backtracked on that. Events at work and home, discussions with committed liberals, and self-examination have reminded me that the ability of human beings to rationalise wrong actions is profound, especially if they can see themselves as a victim in any way. Just because someone should be aware of something, because it’s so frigging obvious that no one could miss it matters very little. Human beings are able to blind themselves from amazing things. Politicians, who are among the least-aware folks on the planet about themselves and their motives, are likely to score ever lower.
Look around you, at in-laws and ex-spouses, bad bosses and shady competitors. When you speak with these people, you will seldom find one who recognises wrongdoing, no matter how obvious. Such people are entirely focused outward, on the injustices being perpetrated against them, real and imaginary. They have rationalised it all. They lie and forget it in an hour – it is those others who they believe are evil. We see the height of this among criminals, deeply concerned about the way they were questioned, whether they had the best lawyer, other people who were marginally at fault.
I know artfl leans toward the evil-awareness side of the explanation, and has experience with this, but I still think he describes a minority. The Ceausescu’s of the world do not know they are evil, but have elaborate self-justifications for themselves. These are not just lies for the public, but lies they tell themselves.
All this to say that many, many liberals strongly believe they are on the side of the angels, and whatever “technically wrong” things they must do to defeat the evil people who are trying to take power from them – these count for nothing, because the sins of the opposition are so much greater.
That’s not likely to work out any better for us. In fact, it may be worse. But they don’t think the fix is in. They think they rightfully deserve to rule, and any laws they break are just minor shenanigans, getting a little of their own back against an unfair system.
AVI: Unfortunately, however, those typical liberals all around us are the useful idiots. Those in power—Obama, Pelosi, etc., are not. They are a very different kettle of fish.
I see a lot of merit in AVI’s analysis above. I also think that a lot of Congressional Democrats may be acting in ways they do not actually understand to be politically suicidal, largely because of the insulated echo-chamber in which they have ensconced themselves.
On the other hand…. This past summer, I asked (rhetorically) of my friend over dinner, “When do you think the shooting will start?” I gave my own answer: shortly after the 2010 elections, because the fraud will be so blatant that everybody will see it; and, I think we will have reached the point when some folks, at the least, will see to it that the Democrats do not steal another seat in the Congress (like Al Franken’s) without paying for it with blood.
Those in power–Obama, Pelosi, etc., are not. They are a very different kettle of fish.
neo: But how much so and how do you know? We’re back to mindreading.
Speaking for myself, I have little trouble imagining that Obama, Pelosi, etc., are in many ways Useful Idiots writ large.
Sure, they know how the sausage is made and where some of the bodies are buried, but that doesn’t quite put them in the same category as Lenin and Hitler.
Consider Obama’s ridiculous kumbaya foreign policy towards our enemies that has earned him several kicks in the teeth.
I think Obama really believes what he is doing and is genuinely surprised that his overtures aren’t resulting in big hugs and acclamation.
Those aren’t the mistakes of a deeply cynical man of power who is capable of coup-making.
Artfldgr has a point. We are following the left so they’re calling the shots, picking the battlefields, et cetera…
If we don’t stop that, we will loose long term.
Even now, while debating this healthcare bill, I don’t see non lefties using it as a teaching moment to explain both the failures of the bill but the economic reasons why we know they’re problems.
I believe the Congress Critters, both dems and Repubs, are too deeply enmeshed in the Washington swamp to recognize what is going on in the country at large. They live in a city where the media and liberal hoi polloi have convinced themselves they know, really know, what’s best for the country. Those rubes in the sticks have never been a problem before. None of them took to the streets against Bush’s outrages, why would they be so against what our enlightened programs? The Repubs have been bludgeoned by the passage of the TARP, the Porkulus Bill, and the first humongous Omnibus Spending Bill. They got no support from the media and, although they did not, for the most part vote for those bills, they seemed powerless to stop the dems. They are starting to stand up on the Healthcare Reform; no longer afraid to be labeled the party of NO. Looking at the polls and deciding it is okay to stand up and be counted. (Some, like Boehner in the House and Coburn in the Senate have been vocal opponents, but the media muted their voices.)
Some see a vast conspiracy and planned takedown of our representative government. They could be right, but I’m still betting on our free speech, freedom of peaceful assembly, and the vote that is coming in 2010. Even the media is starting to see Obama as not up to the job. When Letterman, Leno, and Jon Stewart are mocking him, you know the fix is not in.
At least that’s the way I see it.
I always appreciate Artfldgr’s comments and perspective. While I tend to agree, that some seem to know that the fix is in. I deviate somewhat.
We are not yet at the tipping point. True, the continual Gramscian(sp?) cultural erosion has rendered the public much more susceptible to such threats to our freedom. However, there is still a sizeable contingent within the country that would put up a fight. This contingent is sizeable enough that any action on the part of the left, or whoever, would not be succesful, yet.
Though it is true that both Lenin and Hitler subjugated far larger populations with small, well-disciplined and determined cadres, that is not what we are facing here now, in my opinion. We are facing a group of rather feckless college boys and girls who when confronted with a real fight, will not be up to it. Look at the typical college proffessors, MSM mouthpeices, gliteratti, labor union hacks, Greenpeace fruitcakes, hippies and political hangers on. Think they have the stomach for a real fight that any takeover would require? Think they could get their heads out of their collective asses to run anything if they did win?
We are not yet in desperate enough financial condition to cause mass desperation and unleash real unrest. Most leftists today are comfortable bourgeoisie and while they may raise their clenched fists in solidarity, they will be the first to turn against any real revolution because it WILL require real sacrifice, not just giving up plastic bags and they know that whatever comes afterwards will not be as good as what they have now. An army of Emma Goldmans. I classify these folks as fools whose only concern regarding the sinking ship, is going down first class.
The forces against free democratic forms of government and the primacy of individual rights has far deeper and older roots going back to ancient times. Athens and Rome. Free peoples have historically been the exception, not the rule. I think that what we are seeing now is a historic replay of what has happened to other republics in history.
While Obama, Pelosi, et al seem to take the lefty line, I ascribe their actions and motives more to shortsightedness, incompetance and greed. There is an ever growing number of people who, unable to create wealth, wish to have it redistributed so they can continue on in the manner to which they have gotten accostomed. When we have more who wish to live off of the state than contribute to its growth, the state inevitably collapses.
Today’s democrats, in their lust for power attempt to bring in more groups who will not be assimilated as in the past due to the breakdown of cultural mechanisms which aided that assimilation in the past. Hence the fight against positive ID to vote and the extension of benefits to those who are here illegally, er, I mean who are undocumented. It goes a long way to explain the utilization of groups like ACORN to collect the census data. They are trying to rig the game, in order to concoct a permanent majority and thus assure their position.
They are willing to make this devil’s bargain even though it may destroy the republic as we have known it because of their overwhelming greed and short sightedness. This has happened before. Meanwhile, our enemies watch and wait.
But our fate is still in our hands. For how much longer is anybody’s guess.
Neo,
Thank you so much for linking to Subotai’s various comments. I’m grateful we have this forum and Belmont Club to discuss matters of state.
I appreciate everyone’s thoughts on this thread, and hope that many people will chime in. Together we can prepare each other for the possible train wreck that’s coming.
neo: But how much so and how do you know? We’re back to mindreading.
no, we are not..
we are back to accepting the reality of certain doctrines, and what it means to follow them. we are back to the point of whether we believe in evil
AVI, unlike me, cant imagine that there are a lot of people who like pain, who like to hurt others and are happy to do so. i grew up in a very bad place, my experiences taught me early in life that these people exist, and they want to hurt me, and they are happy to do so if i let them.
you see. if you have had that experience. like those who survived those other states, you would not be giving people a nice pass to keep trying.
you call it mindreading, i dont call it that, because i know what they learned, were taught, what it means, what it calls for, etc.
you call it mind reading because you dont know those things and the best you can do is try to imagine what its like and so your imagination fails you.
when i see a grand master of the order of the camilia, i see a man who wants to exterminate blacks….
when you see them, you wonder if you can read their minds because you were taught to be more reasonable, less judgmental, more tolerant of abberant behavior, and so on and so forth.
i know what the order of the camilia stands for.
if you dont, then you are at the mindreading stage.
its really that simple.
to believe that a kkk member (order of the camilia), doesnt like blacks, is not a hard computation
to understand that a high level nazi who wants more of it, doesnt like jews, is a given
to know that socialism is communism unrealized, its other names, what it stands for, what those who subscribe to it are willing to do, and do do…
you want to save socialism…
A tiger cub is cute, but no matter how much you want to save that cuteness, you still have to deal with the adult when cute is no longer there.
its really that simple… they HAVE to tell the world what they are so their followers can help them, and others can join them without having to actually be members that know each other.
only those not on that side have the luxury of saying maybe they dont mean what they mean
by the way..
by making it ‘mind reading’
he moves everyone into the pile of dont know, and the ones who have been right all along, as just lucky
how nice…
after all, since he is not mind reading, he didnt know. how to change this status of those who did?
easy, make em lucky not smart.
its not the issue that moved us to square one, it was this choice of play that is trying to move us to square one… in this way, the end can be rediscovered, and be thorugh a thoughtful way, and still the others are lucky
maybe some of us are pretending to mind read
others of us never ever had to.
they could see the large neon signs…
what?
do you think they sent out notices to every paper, to all news shows, and others to get with the program?
or did the true believers, and fellow travelers, who know more, know to assemble and move at the large neon flashing sign?
of course they did..
those not in on it, thinks it was this natural thing…
those IN on it, knew that there has been all kinds of stuff like this and that their responsiblity is to stand up and help the cause when they see it.
in a funny way..
everyone BUT those who are the victims knew what was happening.
most of those who knew, wanted it.
only a few of us who knew and didnt tried to tell the masses of ignorant people who didnt know the information to know what was going on.
and we risked our lives for nothing…
since those who werent in the know held on to their reality so hard they didnt even want to take the precaution of choosing another apple from the barrel…
1 there are those that know and are for
2 there are the few that know and are against
3 there are those that dont know and follow
4 there are those who dont know and suspect
5 there are those that dont care cause its impossible
only 1 and 2 really know whats going on..
1 isnt going to tell the others
and 2, the few, trying to tell the huge masses of others cant..
3, 4, 5 spend their time telling us we are wrong
and 1 spends time either making 2 crazy, or confirming the beliefes of 3, 4, 5, so that they think that 2 is a small group.
not that hard to undertstand the dynamic.
whats hard to understand is that there are agencies, and people paid to work out such intricacies for gain.
Chalk me up as one of those who sees that something bad is coming, the fix may be in for 2010 – but an incompetent fix, one so blatant that even the most determinedly obtuse won’t be able to look aside and pretend it isn’t there. I tend not to see a cunning plan (although there may be one there) but rather our political/intellectual/top media class all trapped in an echo chamber of their own devising. I see a lot of barely contained and frustrated rage, as they begin to realize that not everyone agrees with them, that there are, in fact, thoughtful and intelligent people out there, beyond the bubble, who have honestly and carefully thought out their opposition, and taken action on their beliefs. The concentrated venom directed at Sarah Palin, at the various Tea Parties and the thousands-millions of people who participate in them, even towards Joe Lieberman’s wife, of all people.
That rage and contempt will be their undoing. Angry people lash out, randomly. Napoleon was supposed to have counseled to never let anger rise higher than your chin – and I think, although the Tea Partiers may be angry, they haven’t made that mistake. I can see the pattern that Subotai Bahadur sees, but I can also see the strength and determination of a free people.
And always remember: “Yet will I leave seven thousand in Israel, all the knees which have not bowed to Baal, and every mouth which has not kissed him.” – 1 Kings, 19:18
One concern is that the period during which the Weimar Republic suffered inflation that turned into hyper-inflation extended from 1921 to 1923. That is, it took only two years to wipe out the middle class in post war Germany.
So how much of a difference is there between:
(A) the liberals who were certain Bush was going to cancel elections or continue to steal them
(B) the conservatives here who are certain Obama is going to cancel elections or continue to steal them
Different groups of people who have been predicting one American coup or another for decades now. Probably farther back as well.
Being a Cassandra is a cushy gig. If you’re right, you’re total gold; if you’re wrong, as is usually the case, you’re not held to it.
So how much of a difference is there between:
(A) the liberals who were certain Bush was going to cancel elections or continue to steal them
(B) the conservatives here who are certain Obama is going to cancel elections or continue to steal them
Huxley: A great deal. The (A) camp had no evidence that Bush was going to cancel elections, and only loons and the mainstream press persisted in the “stolen election” meme, even after it was proven false.
Those of us in the (B) camp see no consequences to the New Black Panthers and their voter intimidation, the heavy involvement of ACORN and the SEIU in disrupting Tea Party protests, etc. There’s much more evidence of a concerted effort to subvert the electoral process on display with the Obama administration than was ever the case with Bush.
More inductive and less deductive reasoning would help this topic.
I would submit that, over the last several months, the evidence of the recklessness, of the contempt for and disregard for the Constitution, of just how far Left Obama & Co. actually are, has grown to virtually irrefutable proportions, and, as well, the case for Obama & Co. being not only willing but likely to try some sort of functional coup d’etat has been that much more strengthened.
huxley Says:
“Different groups of people who have been predicting one American coup or another for decades now. Probably farther back as well.”
I just think they’ll do some cheating… and if the election is close it could tip it.
But it probably won’t be close……
Now as to causing hyperinflation on purpose to wipe out the middle class / make them more open the ‘change’…. well… I have not seen a lot from Obama to make me think he wouldn’t try it. Sorry.
I often wonder if the coastal elites have any idea of the extent of gun and ammunition ownership in this country as well as the extent of military experience. Until very recently ammo shelves in gun stores were bare.
Neo,
While I think you have a valid point, I beg to disagree.
My feeling after the Kerry debacle was “they believed their own propaganda and failed to steal enough votes.” I think what we’re seeing is part of that — these people actually aren’t seeing the real polls. Any poll that goes against them gets dismissed as ‘right wing’. Ditto any network that tells the truth.
You’re reckoning without the HUGE egos of the principals in this. Obama will never be told the truth, and I doubt the others in positions of influence are any better.
In my own enourmously liberal field, everyone in a position of power thinks we’re solidly behind them. At business meetings they ridicule tea partiers. And those of us who have attended tea parties trade veiled looks. We’re easily half of the people not in a position to flaunt it and who knows how many above — since those have to answer to even bigger liberal fish?
I think insulated and killing the messenger covers it. My son says they can’t possibly MAKE UP enough votes in 10. I’m inclined to agree. I’m inclined to think they have NO idea of the storm heading their way.
Sgt Mom,
I should have answered your comment before replying. Also, all I could hear from your opening was “They have a cunning plan, as cunning as a fox what taught cunningology at Oxford.”
(Sorry.) But I think you are right. They have a plan. It’s not a good plan. (They are the conformists and they are, truly, not that bright. Accolades and compliments have followed from their following the ‘acceptable’ path. They’ve never had to THINK. It’s bad to underestimate an enemy, so don’t, but also don’t overestimate them so much we scare ourselves.) Possibly it involves a turnip.
Subotai’s comment that you quote here is far too conspiratorial for my blood. I doubt very much that anyone has intentions to take our freedom away.
They think they are doing the right thing and they think they are trying to help the common man, but if we keep setting up these giant programs eventually one day we will wake up and find ourselves so far down the road to serfdom that we can’t turn back.
It is not that they are intentionally trying to subvert our freedom, it is that their ideas about how to better the country and their concept of what freedom actually is are hopelessly flawed.
Are you free when you don’t have to worry about your health insurance premiums but you can’t get the health care you need because of rationing? Two completely different concepts of freedom.
Ahha! Another Blackadder fan! I swear, we can sense each other, across the miles and time zones!
And you are right – the elites are so cocooned in their own world – that the fallout will come as a particular shock.
They don’t know – and I would say, we shouldn’t tell them, except that they are so convinced of their own virtue and righteousness that they wouldn’t believe us anyway.
So, who gets to go around with a sponge and a spray-bottle after 2010, cleaning up all the detritus from exploding lefty-lib heads?
It’s true that these wizards probably underestimate (or even discount) their opposition and its love of freedom. It’s also true that until recently the ammo shelves were bare (has that changed? Not so’s I’ve noticed!). But none of that tells me that they’re not gearing up to make the effort, believing all the while that they will succeed. It tells me, instead, that they have no idea of the hell that will be unleashed (upon whose signal?–worth asking, that!) should they try to consummate their awful idea. They–and we–may just be in for a helluva fight.
To Huxley and Jimmy J., I would just suggest that no one who supposes these wizards are preparing the effort some here fear, imagines that they will just simply succeed. We are preparing for what we believe is the fight to come.
On the last (I think) Fox News Sunday, Bill Kristol opined that some (government leftist) people are going to be astounded at the resistance they are about to face if they succeed with their program in the Congress. I think he is right. This doesn’t mean that I think they aren’t about to try, um, a coup–in fact, I think they are almost certain to try. Whether or not they manage to pull it off is very much an open question.
Are you ready for some foooot-baaalll?
I remember that people thought Bush would move to cancel elections. I also recall that people thought the same thing about Nixon, back in the late ’60s-early ’70s. Yet it never happened. Well. I don’t think that is evidence that it can’t, or won’t, happen with this gang. Of course, I’m a conservative, and so I have a view of my group’s enemy that tends to the malicious. But the truth is that the fact that the feared thing hasn’t happened before is not evidence that it won’t happen this time. I really don’t think I’ve ever seen such an active, determined Will to Power in action in my lifetime, at least. And of course we must think on eternal vigilance and all the rest, don’t you know.
The only sign of hope that I’ve been able to glean in recent days is the fact that these guys are pushing awfully hard to get something awfully fast about which, if my misgivings about a grand power-grab are correct, they could afford to be rather more leisurely. They clearly know they have some resistance they need to fear and try to out-flank.
I agree with him about the next elections.
They’ll be fixed.
Look at the facts: A horrible and washed up comedian who from the old SNL, who is also an astonishingly unlikeable person, is now a U.S. Senator – exactly the 60th filibuster=proof one by the way.
That is “impossible” in the America anyone over 16 grew up in. That America is dead and gone. The only way to get it back is the way we got it in the forst place.
Period.
You think pwople want any of that? Or prefer a comfortable slavery. The latter.
Comfortable slavery. I like that. I mean, I like how you put it. That was where I was headed at the end of my comment above.
Mike Mc
It won’t be COMFORTABLE. Those of us who have gown in socialist countries know this.
For that matter, this bunch is worse than the old-style socialists. They are so astonishingly well educated their idea of an economy comes straight out of Hollywood. They think things just appear, made. They think they can knock down the walls and the roof will stay up.
It will be slavery, but far from comfortable, and even the quietest, most meek of people rebell against discomfort. (Not necessarily hunger. Or extreme privation. But discomfort.)
In unrest will you be able to buy food? I would suggest food / water is more important than ammo. Though I would not want to be without any of the above when/if the lights go out.
Well, if it comes to unrest, I think that those of us who have decided to value ammo will have been sufficiently forward-thinking to lay in food and water as well.
Just remembering–as I do–an old Far Side cartoon, make sure you have a good can opener on hand! 🙂
I don’t know – I have as malign a view of the Obami’s intentions as just about anyone, I think and yet…they seem to be the most incredibly incompetent tyrants, which may be what saves us or gives us a little maneuvering room. As Peter Wehner wrote over at Contentions yesterday, “Democrats are pushing for legislation that would take over one-sixth of the American economy – and they are doing it in a manner that insults the memory of Mo, Larry, and Curly.”
http://www.commentarymagazine.com/blogs/index.php/wehner/198431
I mean – they’ve got a filibuster proof Senate and a huge majority in the House – and they can’t pass cap & trade, they can’t pass health care, so far, (and they’ve had 11 months!!!) – what’s taking them so long?!?
I mean, really. I do agree that I think there are some very nefarious anti-democratic tendencies among our current governing crew. But, why don’t they just go ahead and pass this stuff? Who knew the revolution would be brought to us by the Gang Who Can’t Shoot Straight?
I do realize, btw, that they are nevertheless doing significant damage to the country and daily hitting new lows – coverup of New Black Panthers voter intimidation, etc. But, I think their incompetence and narcissism (personal, self-involvement) is edging out, just barely, their totalitarian political instincts. They’re forgetting to grab a lot of real power they could be grabbing because they’re so darn ecstatic with themselves, I think (and in that cocoon as others have mentioned.)
My fear is that, while conservatism is resurgent, I’m not sure we’ve found the right leaders yet. And, we’re going to need someone very, very tough to really clean up the mess and take a lot of heat while they clean out (at least some) of the bureaucracy in Justice, State, CIA and elsewhere that acts against the rest of us.
If we don’t get a reasonably solid cleanup of the corruption, then I fear that the next time the Left is resurgent it won’t be the dreamy-eyed, self-absorbed Obami – it’ll be the for-real Stalinists who keep their eyes on power, not the mirror.
“I doubt very much that anyone has intentions to take our freedom away.”
Maybe. It would be nice if they were not so nasty looking. A little more Hollywood might make me feel better.
I believe that they (the leaders, not the useful idiots) honestly feel they know better than the rest of us and will lead us to their version of utopia. I think they feel they are our betters and will leave no stone unturned to make sure we know our place.
It is my opinion we are playing out the (or maybe just a) final battle of that started with the French Revolution and the aristocracy means to win and take back what it lost.
Years ago I was told that President Clinton would rig up something, declare martial law and there would never be an election again. I laughed.
Several years later I was told that President Bush would rig up something, declare martial law and there would never be an election again. I laughed.
Now. I am still laughing, but I feel like I am whistling past the graveyard.
Maybe 2010 will tell the story.
Who knows…maybe the Aztecs are right after all.
I’m not sure I entirely understand the factual claims in this post. Regardless of one’s political affiliation or views on “leftist” projects, there is no question that the Republican party is blocking absolutely everything the Obama administration is trying to do. Just look at health care: a few short months ago, many of us still thought a public option was possible. Now, it looks like a modest increase to Medicaid is about the long and short of it, if that.
It’s true that the GOP is not offering much in the way of ideological alternatives, but they are certainly blocking the ideological attempts of Democrats. I fail to see how either side, locked in endless obstructionism, could ever find the time or energy to impose martial law on anyone.
Generally speaking, I don’t think the prime movers in this odious political situation are so concerned with depriving us of their freedoms as they are with cementing their own grips on power and influence. That these things will take away our freedoms and prosperity is of little concern to them, as long as they can stay at the top.
It’s a subtle but possibly important difference in emphasis; our loss may *only* be collateral damage.
I don’t think it has occurred to them as significant that an angry enough population can change the rules from the bottom up, because the sufficiently powerful can ride out anything, and they are committed to monopolizing that kind of power.
This view of the rotten bastards as destructively greedy rather than world-class evil may be a more powerful leverage point for convincing the indecisive… 😎
Interesting times ahead.
artfl, you forget who you are talking to here when you think I am naively believing only in nice people. As I shouldn’t have to keep reminding you, you reveal yourself: you are not listening. This is a pretty clear tell that you don’t really care what anyone else says, you just want to tell us what’s up. The long rants are not the result of excitability and getting hot under the collar, they are the result of attempting to pound every nail to the center of the earth.
Of course there are evil brutal people in the world, and I know losts of them, thanks. But these are usually used by the idealogues – they are the folks who would happily turn from killing Jews to killing peasants if that’s what the job was. The idealogues often start out as semi-genuine reformers: Saddam, Ceausescu. As the tyrannical state becomes ensconced, those people have less and less chance of rising to power, and the Soviet-style thug becomes the norm. But at the beginning, the true believers still abound, as they did in Russia in the 20’s and even 30’s before that was pretty much stamped out.
Your data comes from a system where the independent idealism had been beaten out of the young socialists long ago, leaving only the thugs and the marchers. That data is real, but it is not all-encompassing.
Review Solzhenitsyn’s 1914 (and following). Very different from 1954.
“So why the stubborn insistence on passing health reform? Think big. The liberal wing of the party–the Barney Franks, the David Obeys–are focused beyond November 2010, to the long-term political prize. They want a health-care program that inevitably leads to a value-added tax and a permanent welfare state. Big government then becomes fact, and another Ronald Reagan becomes impossible. See Continental Europe.
The entitlement crazes of the 1930s and 1960s also caused a backlash, but liberal Democrats know the programs of those periods survived. They are more than happy to sacrifice a few Blue Dogs, a Blanche Lincoln, a Michael Bennet, if they can expand government so that in the long run it benefits the party of government.
What’s extraordinary is that more Democrats have not wised up to the fact that they are being used as pawns in this larger liberal game. Maybe Mr. Obama will see a bump in the polls if health care passes; maybe not. What is certain is that this vote is becoming one that many in his party will not survive.”
From Kim Strassel at WJS online
I think Piercello comes the closest. It’s a kind of autism.
I look at the dynamics in my office. Beneath the democratic back slapping, it’s very hierarchic. Those at the top are so used to being at the top that they simply assume that everything they do and say is golden. The approbation of the underlings is taken for granted, which is another way of saying that they are part of the decor. (The computers are cranky devils and must be treated with more respect.) This makes for moments of ghastly cluenesses sometimes, such as the time one boss held a mass lay off in the morning and amused the trembling survivors with photos of a big party he threw at his new mansion. I was not the only one thinking of guillotines at that moment.
Are he Obamas, the Reids, the Pelosi’s, etc are engaging in suicidal behavior? That’s up to us.
Huxley: A great deal. The (A) camp had no evidence that Bush was going to cancel elections, and only loons and the mainstream press persisted in the “stolen election” meme, even after it was proven false.
stumbley: “only loons and the mainstream press” — there’s a self-canceling phrase. The stolen 2000 election meme was and still is pretty standard among Democrats I know. Plus you are forgetting Bush’s involvement in 9/11 which about a third of Democrats believe.
As we speak, Democrats are going on about how 52% of Republicans believe that ACORN stole the 2008 election for Obama.
The operation to believe in a coup is the same on both sides of the aisle:
* dial up all the evidence supporting
* dial down all evidence to the contrary
* fill in remaining gaps with a hefty dose of mindreading
* don’t sweat the practical details
The nation is deeply polarized and the two sides are suspicious of each other close to the point of mental illness.
My inclination is to think that the Dems are simply willing to pay the price in the short-term, for long-term and, in their minds, irreversible gains. They are going about this incrementally.
However, in the back of my mind I hear Hayek’s words “Just as the democratic statesman who sets out to plan economic life will soon be confronted with the alternative of either assuming dictatorial powers or anbandoning his plans, so the totalitarian dictator would soon have to chosse between disregard of ordinary morals and failure”.
I’m with Huxley on this one. This is exactly the kind of stuff the Left was saying about Bush: that he would never give up power. Furthermore, one of the things that puzzled everyone on the Left about Bush was why he insisted on pursuing the incredibly unpopular war in Iraq: didn’t he realize most Americans hated what he was doing? How could he persist when most of the country had turned against what he wanted?
Also, commenter Subotai Bahadur assumes some facts I would not consider to be in evidence. For example, his/her claim that public polls are massaged before being released and therefore the private polls must be even worse. Really? Every polling organization adjusts it numbers to downplay opposition to Obama and the Democrats? Even those coming out of Fox News or the WSJ? Similarly his/her claim that Republicans are putting up only token opposition. I don’t like the path the Republicans are pursuing but they’ve managed to hold up health care reform for (depending on what deadline you use) anywhere from 5 to 7 months and it’s still not clear it will be passed. Cap and trade is nowhere; card check is nowhere. Where Republicans have acquiesced – bailouts, stimulus – you can just as easily argue that either the Republicans truly believe we needed to do something to avoid meltdown or that Republicans are just as much in love with pork as Democrats. It doesn’t make them populist heroes but it doesn’t mean they’re going quietly along with a move to tyranny.
In all the discussion of domestic trouble brewing, let’s not forget the international actors.
The terrorists (and their state sponsors) are still watching us closely; count on it. And, while the people who protect America with their lives are not incompetent, and will do their job for their Commander-in-Chief no matter who he is, they will not be as effective if they are hamstrung by their own leaders.
If President Obama truly believes, as he seems to, that he has more to fear from Republicans than from al-Qaeda, or more to fear from Fox News than from Ahmadinejad, then perhaps we will see, God forbid, another 9/11 right here at home.
Of course people will say that it’s Bush’s fault (perhaps the last time that excuse would be used). But that doesn’t matter. How will the American people respond to a President who had ample warning of the threat, but still couldn’t protect them?
President Obama may yet see the day when he yearns for the bucolic innocence of the Tea Parties.
respectfully,
Daniel in Brookline
I will hold back my paranoia until AFTER the U.S. census comes in and the numbers of elected representatives changes according to the new population numbers.
The night of the election, I went to bed early, hoping for the best, prepared for the worst. It would be a bad day coming whatever the outcome.
I think McCain/Palin were an attractive choice at a time where congress needed serious cleaning (corruption of ideas and public funds). The gigantic risk being that their win would almost certainly create a revolution in the country. Not just verbal thanx to the frauds in the MSM and from their counterparts from around the globe (the usual suspects), but worse, like many Americans, I expected violence in the streets coming from the ghettos (those that the community organizer-in-chief had worked accordingly his own carrier: acorn, SEIU, black panthers, nation of islam…)
Shame on the democratic party, DNC,… for choosing a Bill Ayers’ sympathizer for President and not understanding the power at play.
Anyway, America was facing a catch 22 situation and no alternative would go easy. Ironically, having now offered full power to the democratic side (with their mixture of black muslim and jewish radicals) for a last time, there is at least a chance to bring the true peaceful long overdue American Revolution to fruition. That requires the full cooperation of the entire US citizenry. And it did already. (My cup of tea!!)
The Democrats in congress are ignorantly destroying everything they touch. Thank God Patriot Americans know better and before it gets too scary, the country will save herself from disaster. Having said that: it’s a real fight. And it’s a full time vigilance and engagement from all sides.
One thing sure, each time a democrat takes power, despots around the world feel empowered. Leftists are asses. They have no wisdom, no morality. They only care about money. And their own appearance.
The American Constitution will save America and the world. We just need to understand that simple fact. We DO!! God Bless the Founding Fathers. And the American People. And her Military.
Merry Christmas to all. Stop the anger please.
Robert wrote, “It’s true that the GOP is not offering much in the way of ideological alternatives,”
This statement says more about you than anything else.
It tells us that your sources are not informing you well.
It tells us that you should learn more.
There is nothing for us to engage with you about. How do you engage with somebody so badly misinformed???
watching bit Big O’s cop15 speech.
we are so screwed…
I think it’s a mistake to assume the Democrats have a sinister long-range plan about nationalizing health care. They don’t think it will entrench big government, or weaken people’s self-reliance. They don’t think that far ahead — no politician does.
What they think is “We’re going to give people a big gold-plated present and they’ll be so happy they’ll vote for us forever!”
They’ve become so attached to this idea that when people tell them “I don’t really want that present,” they get mad. “You’re mean! You’re just saying that because some BAD PERSON paid you to say it! It’s a nice present! Everyone should like it!”
And it is irrefutable that the Dems believe the 2000 election was STOOOLEN! from them. I noticed an Obama-Biden sign in front of a house nearby, with the silhouette of the state of Florida prominent in one corner. Waving the bloody shirt one last time!
Tacking on to Elise’s comment on Subotai’s comments …
Subotai’s basic argument: “Democrats behaving suicidally? They must have a coup card in their back pocket to play.”
My counter: “Democrats behaving suicidally? What else is new?”
The Democratic Party is now run by its most radical elements, both the old New Left and the new netroots.
They were hard left ideologues in 2004 when it looked like their strident anti-Americanism might well doom the Dem Party entirely — aside from whatever damage it would do to the country. Perhaps some of you remember that brief squeak of Republican triumphalism after Bush’s handy win in 2004.
To my surprise, though, the Democrats doubled down on hating Bush, conservatives, neocons and the Iraq War, and given setbacks in the Iraq War, their take-no-prisoners stridency paid off brilliantly in 2006, then 2008.
Democrats are now in power and they are still moving headlong and heedless in pursuit of their vision. This time I’m not surprised.
So, no, I don’t see the Democrats’ suicidalness as the proof that Subotai claims that they have a coup planned.
It paid off brilliantly only because the republicans leaned into the punch and allowed it to happen. The corruption and sense of entitlement has truely become bi-partisan.
However, the democrats are redefining corruption, greed and venality with breathtaking audacity.
So, no, I don’t see the Democrats’ suicidalness as the proof that Subotai claims that they have a coup planned.
You wouldn’t, as you will discount that end until it happens.
And each step along the way, you will say that I was looking at that for a while
The point is that you have no idea how it works, and so you have no idea if it’s working or not, all you have is your blind faith in the principals that you think are in operation.
They are willing to do the crazy thing that you think doesn’t work. They are willing to do the things that people like you put outside the realm of doing.
You have no idea what it really means to not have any morals, not to be limited by them, not to have any limits on your thinking or options as you a moral person does.
This puts them in a position where they have a free run through the huge open hole that you leave, and others leave. We have no protection from despots, because we don’t believe in them.
How many cans of leprechaun away do you have?
Did you have your car de-gremlined…
Did you remember to wear fairy repellant?
Why not? because you don’t think they are real…
Did you spray tiger repelant and shark repellant on you as you left the house today?
Why not? they are real…
Ah, but you don’t think your going to run into any today… so you dont defend against it.
This is why i said you should be listening to EXPERIENCE, but that would mean doing something that is outside your nature. You ONLY think that those with experience that confirm what you say should have merit (I can quote you).
The reason YOU and others don’t think, that they think that long in a plan, is that you haven’t read the plan… the reason you think they are stupid is that they are willing to do moves and die doing them if it furthers their side and people, your not even willing to accept a negative argument you don’t agree to.
That is you’re not willing to give up your life to the cause you believe in unless you have proof that that is a 100% thing.
They are already fighting the war your still trying to be convinced even exists
The ONE thing staring you in the face is that these incompetents, evil, uncoordinated crazy people. Are actually in a place where you’re discussing that they CAN even attempt a takeover.
Years ago, if I said they would take over the house, and nationalize large swaths of the economy, bring the debt load up so high, it’s higher than all others in history combined. Multiply the monetary supply by 3 or more in one year… start unilaterally disarming us while the other sides are building up. sign a trillion dollar treaty to redistribute wealth internationally. And lots more…
You would say what your saying now
Its always the same message… no matter how far ahead they move
It never changes.
The message is
[hidden clause: no matter how far they have actually gone and succeeded]
There is no way they can continue to succeed and close the deal.
You have no idea how this works (you also don’t want to know)
Any time that someone who does tries to explain it to you, and how they got there, and why they aren’t going anywhere, and that even if they don’t, they have succeeded, and the next set will finish it eventually, while you do exactly the same thing.
Claim that they failed and lost, and it doesn’t count unless they pick up all the jacks at once. While they are sitting there with all your jacks that they picked up one at a time. Oh, well, you followed the rules and lost, they didn’t follow any rules, and won…
You were limited by your own ideas, and they are working that against you.
Your like an immigrant from outer Mongolia plopped down in NY trying to tell the residents how NY works!!!!!!!!!!! why? because you read about NY… and you know all there is.
Well, Dorothy, your not in Kansas any more. the rule book that you had growing up is not there any more, they are playing by the new rulebook.
You never read that rule book, its ideas, its methods. You are stuck, like every general at the next war, fighting the last battle…
Think hard… they are the attackers; they are employing a new paradigm you have never seen to you. And you are applying all the knowledge and limitations of the PRIOR paradigm.
Their tactics have evolved to handle you, while you refuse to evolve to meet them
I can tell you how this all works.
I can lay out the history..
And your snarky answer would be..
If its so easy, why don’t you do it.
And I would answer that is the point..
Its easy, but morally incomprehensible.
And so while one can understand it if they desire
All cant employ it.
Which is why there are camps, and things like that eventually
For all those people, like you, that cant adapt, and would, after the fact, throw wrenches into their completed works.
For failures they sure are doing great…
My counter: “Democrats behaving suicidally? What else is new?”
that suicide is death
death is final
and for dead people they have done very well for themselves, and still have a potentially big wealthy future…
hows that work?
I’m starting to have a bit of hope, a la Huxley and Jimmy J. This is because, as I mentioned above, if these guys have a plan to steal the elections and take over permanently, there’s no reason for them to be in the hurry they seem to be in. If they were that certain, they’d not have to be mounting all these rush-rush power plays–it wouldn’t matter whether they got, say, health care, done by Christmas or not.
Dang, this is interesting to be watching.
However, the democrats are redefining corruption, greed and venality with breathtaking audacity.
not at all
the communists did that
and they are copying them
if you had experience you would not think that they are making up anything. they are collectivists, what they are doing is applying what many many others are working out for them. and i am talkig about experts…
even kennedy asked the kgb for advice
what was that advice?
how to beat reagan who was toppling the soviet union.
but remember they are not with soviet style ideology. even though they are copying it. they are not with that, even though they are asking for advice from them. etc
Regarding Senator Kennedy’s request to the General Secretary of the Communist Party Comrade Y.V. Andropov Comrade Y.V. Andropov
On 9-10 May of this year, Senator Edward Kennedy’s close friend and trusted confidant J. Tunney was in Moscow. The senator charged Tunney to convey the following message, through confidential contacts, to the General Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, Y. Andropov:
Senator Kennedy, like other rational people, is very troubled by the current state of Soviet-American relations. Events are developing such that this relationship coupled with the general state of global affairs will make the situation even more dangerous. The main reason for this is Reagan’s belligerence, and his firm commitment to deploy new American middle range nuclear weapons within Western Europe.
According to Kennedy, the current threat is due to the President’s refusal to engage any modification on his politics. He feels that his domestic standing has been strengthened because of the well publicized improvements of the economy: inflation has been greatly reduced, production levels are increasing as is overall business activity. For these reasons, interest rates will continue to decline. The White House has portrayed this in the media as the “success of Reaganomics.”
Subotai’s basic argument: “Democrats behaving suicidally? They must have a coup card in their back pocket to play.”
no, thats not his argument
his argument has to do with all the knowlege you and others will not let him bring forth as evidence
if he did, then he would be too wordy like me
he knows his history in detail
he is trying to do what people ask me here too
that is tell you in a real short smart way that you can understand that is well written
and what happens? you take that, make it even simpler, and voila, he is outed.
but if he tried to put more… then you would out him as too long, not entertaining, should be shorter.
its a set up…
and its taken from the lefts play book
if they disagree with you, tell them that they are too wordy and such… force them to work 10 times harder on their side to prove to you a point you wont let them prove.
this is called battle by attrition
then when they lighten up. try to meet the requirements, and such… because they think that your honest… they are then not packing enough to over come trite quick flippant summaries.
in all these cases, the snarky ones are winning by other means.
huxley never actually has to make a case
he only has to revuse to accept every case presented.
you dont have to take time to dig deeper than the short answer, since you can make him sound ridiculous for being too short.
you rely on collective ignorance he is battling, to secure your social win. for if others didnt do what you all are doing, and they took the time to learn, the ones using these techniques would be seen as clearly as the ones on the left doing it to those on the right who do know facts!!!!!!!!!
the tactic is not right or left, but not to see it depending on which is delusional’
inch by inche they succed in every point over 40 years
and we are on the run
and they are the stupid idiots who dont succeed.
Democratic districts receive nearly twice the amount of stimulus funds as GOP districts
http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/columns/Report-Stimulus-funds-not-targeted-to-states-that-need-jobs-79530417.html
this is a key point in things.
while people are sying it wont work
they are paying off people who are thinking that if they help, they will be in a better position than ever they could in the old system
how do you think hitler got all the clerks and state on his side? the soviets made daschas… and such to pay off those.
there is a process going on.
its well mapped out and it works
its worked in lots of countries
i will work here.
those who refuse to believe it will work here
facilitate its working
isnt that diabolical?
using your own nature against you?
The decline of the almighty dollar
thehill.com/blogs/pundits-blog/economy-a-budget/72591-the-decline-of-the-almighty-dollar-
Financial and economic leaders around the globe have finally gained an understanding of just how damaged and weakened the United States is becoming with the daily devaluation of the American dollar. Historically, the United States has never experienced a massive collapse of its currency as have Russia, Argentina and other countries.
However, the recklessness of our current fiscal policy is causing other sophisticated global players to get fed up – and for legitimate reasons. They are made vulnerable by the actions of a belligerent few, and are positioning themselves to do what any other sane person would: seek alternatives in case the dollar collapses
didnt germanies collapse come about that destroyed her middle class?
no huxley, they are nto succeeding in bankrupting the US in revenge for doing such to the motherland.
It’s sad to think that right now the defense of our aimless fiscal policy is to hold the other countries so close to our chest that they will drown with us unless we succeed. Unfortunately, we won’t be able to do this forever. What happens when they see the light?
i dont know…
lets ask those who think that they can never take control of the US
MY FAMILY REMEMBERS WHAT IT WAS LIKE TO LIVE IN HYPERINFLATION…
i can clearly tell you what will happen when that hits. the crips, and bloods, and ms13, and tons of other gun toting militarily supplied groups will take over areas… the police will not have enough money, so they will not defend us
your going to spend every dime you have to just get bread… riots. etc.
but dont worry..
they are not going to succeed.
they are way too stupid for that…
and what aoub their freinds back in the motherland?
oh, they have no such firends, despite 100 years of such being caught over and over with no dead spots
BRIC countries (Brazil, Russia, India and China), let me introduce the BRIC-plus-1 and we’ll rename it CRIBS, adding South Africa is already looking to create the next largest world currency – one that will be pegged to oil. This will be an extreme threat to the dollar, because trading oil in dollars is one thing that gives that currency much of its value.
so stupid, they are winning
and not only that.
they are beating all the common man geniuses
“… a quick and easy way to refer to a mode of thinking that people engage in when they are involved in a cohesive in-group; when the members’ strivings for unanimity override their motivation to realistically appraise alternative course of action… Groupthink refers to a deterioration of mental efficiency, reality testing, and moral judgment that results from in-group pressures.” – irving Janis
the reasonable want the group to come back to cohesion, they dont like the group split up with such disruptive arguments. so they pick and choose what evidence they will accept or not, all with the idea not of getting to a right answer (though they think so).
“Highly cohesive groups are much more likely to engage in groupthink, because their cohesiveness often correlates with unspoken understanding and the ability to work together with minimal explanations”
so they dont like it when someone has more information or puts it in. they want cohesivness over validity. they will work with reasonableness to get the outliers in line someway.
they may not realize that they are doing it, but they do, and their goal is group homogenization (even if they are claiming to fight against it!). no posts too long… nothing too unreasonable… stay within the reasonable and accepted boundaries.
that is a weakness that can be exploited, and thats what the LEADERS exploit in their followers when they induce this as a normal state and it reinforces itself.
The closer group members are in outlook, the less likely they are to raise questions that might break their cohesion.
and the less likely they are going to accept the outlier that isnt crowing the same message. aristotlean not empirical..
According to Janis, group cohesion will only lead to groupthink if one of the following two antecedent conditions is present:
Structural faults in the organization: insulation of the group, lack of tradition of impartial leadership, lack of norms requiring methodological procedures, homogeneity of members’ social background and ideology.
Provocative situational context: high stress from external threats, recent failures, excessive difficulties on the decision-making task, moral dilemmas.
but heck. i cant even get them to realizet aht there is tons of science behind this… principals well known… especially by those paid to find them and use them for others gain.
here are the 8 symptoms of groupthink
lets see if the people here can identify whats in play, and who are the players.
Illusions of invulnerability creating excessive optimism and encouraging risk taking.
Rationalizing warnings that might challenge the group’s assumptions.
Unquestioned belief in the morality of the group, causing members to ignore the consequences of their actions.
Stereotyping those who are opposed to the group as weak, evil, biased, spiteful, disfigured, impotent, or stupid.
Direct pressure to conform placed on any member who questions the group, couched in terms of “disloyalty”.
Self censorship of ideas that deviate from the apparent group consensus.
Illusions of unanimity among group members, silence is viewed as agreement.
Mind guards – self-appointed members who shield the group from dissenting information.
excessive optimism.. check
(no matter what happens, it will never happen)
Rationalizing warnings that might challenge the group’s assumptions
“I don’t see the Democrats’ suicidalness as the proof that Subotai claims that they have a coup planned.”
check
Unquestioned belief in the morality of the group
check… they cant even see that their morality is a weakness.
Stereotyping those who are opposed to the group as weak, evil, biased, spiteful, disfigured, impotent, or stupid
Subotai’s basic argument: “Democrats behaving suicidally? They must have a coup card in their back pocket to play.”
My counter: “Democrats behaving suicidally? What else is new?”
check
Direct pressure to conform placed on any member who questions the group, couched in terms of “disloyalty”.
well since we are not a hard group, its not in disloyalty, but how much am i preesured to conform. write smaller, not so extreme with opinions. etc.
so check
Self censorship of ideas that deviate from the apparent group consensus
i dont, but many do..
so check
Illusions of unanimity among group members, silence is viewed as agreement
check
Mind guards – self-appointed members who shield the group from dissenting information.
and who is the mind guard here? the one that will push the reasonable position that the group should take?
so we have all 8 here… but yet, we are not collectivists. right? well, we ahve internalized it, and thats what i said happens.
and of course experience lets one see it, knolw it, now what they are choosing.
Groupthink, resulting from the symptoms listed above, results in defective decision making. That is, consensus-driven decisions are the result of the following practices of groupthinking[5]
Incomplete survey of alternatives
Incomplete survey of objectives
Failure to examine risks of preferred choice
Failure to reevaluate previously rejected alternatives
Poor information search
Selection bias in collecting information
Failure to work out contingency plans.
1 – check… its not going to happen, so why survey alternatives?
2 – check… if its not going to happen, then why survey the alternatives?
3 – check… the risks and key things are being discounted to avoid the wrong conclusion
4 – check… tired of the same evidence that is not accepted being presented
5 – check… refusal to look at hsitorical examples, complain about length so info isnt passed, etc
6 – check…
7 – check
lets see how you avoid it, and if i have been actually trying..
According to Irving Janis, decision making groups are not necessarily destined to groupthink. He devised seven ways of preventing groupthink (209-15):
Leaders should assign each member the role of “critical evaluator”. This allows each member to freely air objections and doubts.
Higher-ups should not express an opinion when assigning a task to a group.
The organization should set up several independent groups, working on the same problem.
All effective alternatives should be examined.
Each member should discuss the group’s ideas with trusted people outside of the group.
The group should invite outside experts into meetings. Group members should be allowed to discuss with and question the outside experts.
At least one group member should be assigned the role of Devil’s advocate. This should be a different person for each meeting.
neo is 1.. and she prevents the group from outing the inconvenient talkers. so check.. she prevents some groupthink.
2 is not pertinent… since no one here will follow links to anything that may disprove them.
3 not pertinent
4 i try, but tactics like above are used. for instance, leaving me out of a list of those saying the same thing… or complaining on lenght. or belitiling the others not here, etc..
5 not pertinent
6 no way… since we are all outsiders, ad those who say things that the resonable dont like are under constant assault (over time). conform, or put up with the negs.
7 At least one group member should be assigned the role of Devil’s advocate.
hey! thats me!
i have even brought up some stuff that is quite pertinent… but the defenders will nver let a long explanation and education develpe
we are going to see ABILENES PARADOX in play
how many know of it?
it applies to obama and what they are doing, and there are ways to create the situation so that that is what you end up with
The Abilene paradox is a paradox in which a group of people collectively decide on a course of action that is counter to the preferences of any of the individuals in the group
everyone can dislike socialism, but will continue to vote it in.
On a hot afternoon visiting in Coleman, Texas, the family is comfortably playing dominoes on a porch, until the father-in-law suggests that they take a trip to Abilene [53 miles north] for dinner. The wife says, “Sounds like a great idea.” The husband, despite having reservations because the drive is long and hot, thinks that his preferences must be out-of-step with the group and says, “Sounds good to me. I just hope your mother wants to go.” The mother-in-law then says, “Of course I want to go. I haven’t been to Abilene in a long time.”
The drive is hot, dusty, and long. When they arrive at the cafeteria, the food is as bad as the drive. They arrive back home four hours later, exhausted.
One of them dishonestly says, “It was a great trip, wasn’t it?” The mother-in-law says that, actually, she would rather have stayed home, but went along since the other three were so enthusiastic. The husband says, “I wasn’t delighted to be doing what we were doing. I only went to satisfy the rest of you.” The wife says, “I just went along to keep you happy. I would have had to be crazy to want to go out in the heat like that.” The father-in-law then says that he only suggested it because he thought the others might be bored.
The group sits back, perplexed that they together decided to take a trip which none of them wanted. They each would have preferred to sit comfortably, but did not admit to it when they still had time to enjoy the afternoon.
It is easily explained by social psychology theories of social conformity and social influence which suggest that human beings are often very averse to acting contrary to the trend of the group. Likewise, it can be observed in psychology that indirect cues and hidden motives often lie behind peoples’ statements and acts, frequently because social disincentives discourage individuals from openly voicing their feelings or pursuing their desires.
The Abilene Paradox is related to the concept of groupthink in that both theories appear to explain the observed behavior of groups in social contexts. The crux of the theory is that groups have just as many problems managing their agreements as they do their disagreements. This observation rings true among many researchers in the social sciences and tends to reinforce other theories of individual and group behavior.
wow.. reams and reams of science and stuff all on how to influence people…
anyone else know all this crud?
The really interesting thing about all this is that we get to find out the answer in the not too distant future: we can reconvene in 11 months and see how the 2010 elections actually turned out. (A statement which I realize perfectly demonstrates my lack of belief in any type of coup between now and then.)
…we can reconvene in 11 months and see how the 2010 elections actually turned out.
From what I’ve seen of Cassandras, they will just move the apocalypse another few years out and usually become even more fervent believers.
See Festinger’s When Prophecy Fails.
Artfldgr, you said,
Agreed, however I was speaking in the context of American politics.
I have to agree with Betsybound’s statement that
I too have said here before that I sense a certain desperation in their headlong rush to enact their legislation in the face of majority opposition. The fact that they are unable to do so despite an overwhelming majority in the house, a veto proof majority in the senate and the presidency seems to support that.
Historically, every free society, like the Athenians and Romans began as a free and disciplined people who had a functioning society and principles. Where citizens contributed to the public discourse and government was limited and kept out of controlling the affais of commerce. Men were free to create wealth. As that wealth grew the societies gradually lost the cohesiveness and cultural discipline that made them great. Government expanded at the expense of freedoms. Taxes increased and wealth creation was diminished. Ever expanding government created employment but governments do not create wealth, they simply redistribute it. Governments and those who ran them held onto power by promising ever more to the citizenry, who had by now become dependent on the state. Collapse finally comes when the state spends more that it and the citizens can produce. States generate revenues through taxes. When there is no wealth to tax, the edifice comes crashing down.
Looking at American and Europen cultures today we see evidence of similar decay.
Studies showing how predator populations in the wild collapse when the predator population becomes too large to be sustained by the game in the area and collapses are analogous to what we are witnessing today. A society that has become ever more affluent and decadent, to the point of being unsustainable. Why? Because the ever expanding govenments which consume ever larger portions of society’s production.
Socialism, communism, fascism, leftist democrats, utopianists, Greenies or simply outright theft, graft and corruptin are all symptoms of that rot, not the cause of the rot.
My view of those who champion limited government, basic individual freedoms and man’s inalienable rights are those who are fighting to keep civilization advancing and prevent the descent into a new dark age. There are many who wittingly or unwittingly want to wreck civilization. Their basis, as I have said here befoe comes from an overwhelming self-loathing, or overwhalming greed and stupidity.
In the final alalysis, I still think that America is the last best hope on earth to stem this slide into darkness.
One proper noun, Artfldgr, just one proper noun is all I ask. Who are they?
An unmistakeable theme in your comments is that you “know how it works” and anyone skeptical or just asking for some kind of clarification, is snarkily dismissing your wisdom and deliberately or inadvertently offering aid and comfort to The Plan — emphasized to indicate the centrality of a well-drafted plan implied by your comments. A discernable actor is required for there to be a well-drafted plan. Who?
I surmise (since you don’t state) that you mean precisely a one-party takeover modeled on, inspired by or perhaps executed by the descendents of the ruling clique from the USSR or the descendants of their operatives in the West. You leave no room for like-minded leftists who infest the universities, media and government to be pulling in the same general direction. The assertions in your comments demand the existence of an organization. I don’t ask you to provide their mailing address. (BTW, does Soros’s attic have its own zip code?) But something concrete somewhere in your comments would be appreciated. Again, who?
That is what I meant in my earlier comment: More inductive and less deductive reasoning would help this topic. My instinctive approach is to be a completist about reading comments on interesting neo-neocon posts (most of them) and I have long I respected and appreciated your contributions, oblique as they are. I like you, I really do. But without you being more specific on occasion, I can’t determine if you are a Cassandra, a Svengali, or a highly intelligent blowhard.
Along the lines of this thread, is a very good read by VDH, please give it a read.
Artfldgr is an artist and as such you should stop over-analyzing each and every move of him. You are free to skip his posts or read them depending on your mood or his own.
He acts like a muse. He never said he has a solution to any problems (unlike me for example) but instead he reports what he has read or experienced. That’s all. He reports, you decide.
Nobody believes in a real ‘coup’. What we are seeing is a bunch of ignoramuses with PHD caught their hands in the cookie jar while making all the wrong choices for America in a time of war and global financial collapse. Then globally complimenting one another for their brilliance.
Drunk with power, still stuck in 19th centuries marxist philosophies, they think they are the hippest on planet earth.
Even Sarkozy in France (pro-America) think politicians are our solution. When I was young, nobody around me thought of politicians as the sexy class. Now for some reasons, they are the new heroes. Thanx to Hollywood again, I can imagine.
Anyway, they want all the glory real artists and real warriors and real creators accomplish daily. If not the glory, a piece of the pie. Money-grabbers, that’s what they are. They claim it’s for the country’s good. Nobody is being fooled no more.
They have created a class of bullies, the unions. And nobody questions the wisdom of that choice. This virus has spoiled every government and every society and as long as there is not a true reverse of that trend, the world is doomed. It is only getting worse and nobody wants to attract another world war.
America has brought many good to the world but lately thanx to her open society, Maoists, teamsters and Union bosses have taken power acting like capitalists, only they are not. They are moochers. Time to let everyone know that
they are cheaters and as such don’t deserve our compassion nor submission no more.
We are not afraid by any of them. Mobsters and slave-owners have no room in America. I thought it was clear.
If the diagnosis is right, then 99% of the problem is solved. I think we have the diagnosis correct finally. Now we must say it LOUD for the world to hear.
The march has started. Voices are multiplying. From everywhere. Peacefully, loudly, beautifully. Each according to his/her own ability.
LOVE!!
Democratic districts receive nearly twice the amount of stimulus funds as GOP districts
I have two problems with using this to argue underlying for unique nefarious behavior. First, here is the Mercatus study on which the above quote is based. I’ve read through it twice (admittedly quickly) and I don’t see a statement that says the study controlled for population density. If I assume – perhaps incorrectly – that more densely populated areas tend to be Democratic (e.g., large cities, States like NY, NJ, CA) then it may be that more money is going to districts with more people. It would be interesting to see what kind of discrepancy exists on a per capita basis.
However, even if the discrepancy persists on a per capita basis I don’t think this tells us much about any unusual tendencies on the part of the current government. I would expect the party that controls Congress and the Presidency to award more money to their own guys than to the other guys. I don’t like it but it’s not a practice peculiar to Democrats or to this government.
Elise,
Districts are broken down by population.
That is why districts in densely populated areas are smaller.
betsybounds–If I understand you correctly, you are arguing that because the Democrats are pursuing their far Left legislative agenda–and having a hard time of it–this tells you that it is less likely that they might also be planning to rig the elections in 2010 and 2012 or, if that isn’t possible, perhaps even staging the equivalent of a coup to stay in power because, if they were planning a coup, they wouldn’t bother with their legislative program, but just go straight to the coup.
First, a coup is their last resort, and a step that can only be taken after many intermediate enabling steps have been taken, the right organizations loyal to Obama have been created, and certain conditions exist. A coup is not possible right now, but a year from now, two or three years from now, many destabilizing and debilitating developments may have taken place (made much more possible and likely, I might add, by the actions and non-actions of Obama & Co.)–say a major Muslim terrorist attack on the U.S. with massive casualties, a general war in the Middle East that–among many other bad results–cuts off our ability to import oil, the collapse of the dollar and/or hyperinflation, or opposition to Obama & Co. here in the U.S. that can be portrayed as some sort of sedition and violent insurrection–developments that may make such a coup, sold as “the unfortunate need for a reluctant government to take control, and restore order “to protect us,”” much more possible.
My answer is also that Obama & Co. are prosecuting a Blitzkreig against our Democracy, our country and us; an all out, dizzying array of attacks on many fronts simultaneously–some attacks are real, some are feints, some important, some not–and a major element of this Blitzkreig is Obama & Co.’s deliberate steps taken to overwhelm us with a very quick operating tempo and immense detail i.e. 2,000 page bills no one has read or understood rammed through Congress without actual understanding, debate and deliberation, to sow confusion, to throw up a smoke screen of disinformation–i.e. “everybody knows the “science is settled” on Global Warming,” and to set up attention grabbing distractions–the MSM is invaluable here for focusing our attention on things like Tiger Woods and his white Ho’s, and the identity and motivation of White House event crashers, rather than on the details of Health Care Reform legislation or on
Cap and Trade (but some of this confusion, disinformation and distraction may also just be the inherent results of the actions they take). Obama & Co. are pursing some lines of attack that they think will succeed, pursuing some lines of attack that they think are long shots, and they likely have multiple backup plans. It may not even all be a tightly coordinated plan but, instead, partly a “conspiracy of shared values,” in which each far Left actor, appointee, official and organization pursues their own self-selected part, but in which all are working toward a common goal understood by all; this self-actualized, dispersed, distributed method of attack was how the Left’s Postmodernism was able to be so successful.
So, I see no contradiction in Obama & Co. trying to get some of their radical, “fundamental transformation of America” accomplished by legislation–which, not coincidentally, keeps a lot of those who would defend our country focused on and busy fighting that agenda and process, trying to get some of their agenda accomplished by regulation, some by the people they appoint, some using the Czar system, some by Cabinet Agency heads and executive agencies like the EPA; and, all the while, setting up organizations and contingency plans to rig the elections–see the Census, illegal aliens and the homeless, sampling algorithms instead of physical counts and ACORN, or even a possible functional coup–not necessarily troops occupying the communications hubs and other centers of power–but effective control of them–if all else fails and Obama & Co. are about to be thrown out of office.
By unleashing this Blitzkrieg they assure themselves that at least some of their agenda becomes law, is embedded in regulation and practice, insure the appointment of many career federal employees, administrators, and judges with lifetime tenure who will influence law and society for decades to come, and also that they will have destroyed or subverted important elements of the capitalist system and democratic government.
If, in the end, they have not scored the touchdown that will win the game, they will have moved the ball that much closer to the goal line.
My parents were refugees from Castro’s Communist Cuba in the early 1960s. In having grown up with my parents, and having had them in my life for all these years (my mom passed away in ’03, my Dad is thankfully still with me), I have had an opportunity to hear their views on a number of issues. As refugees from a Communist country, who were there to see that country lose its freedom and fall under the sway of totalitarianism, and who had to flee their homes in the process, they obviosuly had some strong views on a number of issues.
Looking back on all the years, I can say that their experience of fleeing Communism has had on their views both a positive effect, and a negative effect.
The positive effect is that they knew firsthand the reality of Communism, and were not fooled by the lies and propaganda that the left told about the so-called “workers paradises” that supposedly existed. Nor did they ever fall for the negative anti-Americanism that so many on the left put forth. My parents knew that for all the faults of the United States, that it was this land which gave them freedom, and that there were much morse societies out there (one of which they experineced firsthand).
But there is a negative element to the effect that their experiences have had. Of course, the experience of seeing your country fall to a totalitarian system, and having to flee that country, is very painful in itself. And much like someone who may have been severely burned by fire, and who then developes a phobia toward fire, my parents developed some tendecies of seeing Communism everywhere.
This took on several forms. For example, anytime something resembled the fall of the Batista regime, they assumed that it was the Communists taking their place. My parents were appalled when Ferdinand Marcos of the Phillipines fell, and Corazon Acquino took control. They were sure that she HAD to be a Communist. And what was Ferdinand Marcos if not a Phillipine Batista. It was only years after that they saw she was not a Communist at all. What occurred is that their rationality in this regard was compromised by their (admittedly understandable) reaction caused by their past bad experiences.
(Of course, to be fair, sometimes they were right. For example, the fall of the Somoza regime in Nicaragua did, in fact, lead to the Sandinistas assuming control. But of course, a stopped clock is wrong at least twice a day. I’d rather both clocks and analytical abilities remain fuctioning, and not hindered by irrationalities.)
My point is this: I believe a lot of those who see a coup about to occur are sincere. In fact, I even appreciate their point of view, in that they serve the purpose of providing a warning of what could be. But, ultimately, its my view that they are being miseld by the perceptions. I do not know what has caused them to see an impending coup, and I am sure it may vary individual by individual. But I think, as sincere as they are, that they are getting alarmed by something I simply dont see occurring. The Constitution is still firmly in place, and it will continue to be no matter how many leftists Obama puts in as “tsars.”
What we are experiencing… those who frequent this site… myself included… is the deeply unpleasant experience of having a party in control of Congress and the White House that have views we deeply disagree with. In this, were together… I dont like what the Obama-Pelosi-Reid coalition is doing either. But that doesnt make it a coup, and that doesnt mean that a coup is underway. It means we lost the last election. I myself am ready for 2012, when we can vote into office a new president; and I’m looking forward to the 2010 elections when hopefully take the congress away from Pelosi-Reid.
Of course, I am not going to get those who feel this way to agree. There are some ideas that are so strongly held that they can’t be dislodged. I have such ideas myself. (So do those who believe, sinecerly, for global warming.) But I’ve seen this same reaction among the left when George W. Bush was president, and then before that among the right when Clinton was president, and, yep, I also remember the left’s intense hatred of Reagan. I’ve seen it before, although I will admit it seems to be getting more intense over the years.
I think we all need to get a grip, or the increasing polarization, and intensity, among left and right will cause the conditions that they both claim they dont want: a destabilized and polarized society which would indeed be ripe for a coup.
AcidPoP Says:
Do people who use the word coup not mean what that word implies? This question needs to be answered.
If not, then this whole discussion is being conducted on a faulty basis. My last post, for example, is based on the assumption that those who said “coup” mean “coup” (i.e. an undemocratic complete takeover of our government). If they dont mean this, then this discussion has been unnecessarily inflamatory.
If the concern is really the build up of too many leftist centers of power, in for example,academia and government… then thats the language we should use.
Wolla Dalbo: But how is any of this different from Democrats being Democrats?
Universal healthcare has been high on their wish list since Truman. Environmental catastrophe prevention since Rachel Carson.
If Obama et al. do have big coup plans, what makes you think they have the competence and the ruthlessness to succeed?
Just about everything they have tried since last spring has turned to mud.
J.L.
for one thing they wont have the military to help them. Otherwise, they are still counting on “transforming fundamentally America” as we know it. Making the US constitution (i.e. the soul of America) 100% obsolete.
Right now, the constitution is already a fading document. Just a far away abstract idea. An empty promise.
The tea party movement wants to restore the power of the constitution and give free citizens their original rights back. Property and money included.
Thank to Obama and Co., America has seen the light and is ready to take her country back from 100 years of progressivism. We should be thankful for it.
We should say thanks to The president in fact. The miracle would be for him to wake up too! Then lead the fight against all traitors foreign and domestic.
J.L.: I think AcidPop tuned in late. Those here who speak of a coup, including neo-neocon herself, are speaking of a real coup.
Like you I don’t see the possibility of a coup during Obama’s presidency — unless something on the order of a nuclear war occurred.
nice comments tim…
ack…
too many great comments to comment on…
thanks all for at least turning the objects and entertaining them…
… Also, don’t you see how this WH is trying to make everyone angry – worse, trying to create a race warfare that didn’t exist? It’s working on the black side of the equation. But that’s an old trick from the democrat party. Now on steroid and directly from the WH itself.
That’s how vicious ( drunk/addicted) they are. That’s the main danger when you send true radicals to the WH.
Then you have an army of sycophants (dumb liberal elite) defending their new master. The world is upside down. We are just pretending it’s fine because we don’t want to destabilize the world any further.
But actions must be taken by every patriot in and outside the government to save America and the dollar. Express our view at every turn (thank God for Glenn Beck). Make sure they know that we know what they are up to.
Which is what has saved us for now. The second factor that will save America is that She was already engaged in a war with Islamo-fascism. And Obama could not pretend otherwise. That will keep them in check too.
America is walking on a tight-rope and any wrong move could mean death. It’s not paranoia, it’s a fact. I never thought I would be scared by the US government. I do for the first time. I’m also confident there are enough bright and courageous patriots ready to save their beloved republic if times become too dangerous. They are just quiet but everyone is glued to their TV and computer or whatever it is that they must do to save her. Just quietly. I’m sure even GBush is doing his part to empower America and the free and oppressed world.
yemen has been attacked
J. L.–I appreciate your comments but I think that you are wrong, and for the following reasons:
From what I have observed, all of the claims by the Left the G.W Bush was planning some sort of a coup were devoid of any actual, real world proof; assertions and forebodings, yes, but proof, no.
I contend that in the case of Obama & Co. we do have real world proof; actions that seem inexplicable when we try to fit them into the normal universe of the usual politics in America, but which make much more, and eminent sense, if considered in “outside of the box,” thinking, in thinking that takes account of historical experience in most of the rest of the world that we have been mercifully–so far–spared, and which contains the ideas of massive rigging of elections, and, especially, the formerly “unthinkable” idea of a coup.
The first, telling, most important, and magnesium flare-like sign for me was the focus of the Obama administration, in the first few days/weeks of their new Administration–an Administration that was supposedly focused, laser-like, on all and only those actions necessary to fix our “Economic Crises”–on the Census, and their efforts to get the Census function transferred into the White House.
The Census–placed in the Department of Commerce by the Constitution, and vital as it is for the enumeration of our citizens, the apportionment of Congressional Districts, and, therefore, votes in Congress, and the distribution of Federal funds–is dull as dishwater, and it is normally just not of interest to or addressed very much by any Presidential administration yet, here were Obama & Co. trying to get control over the Census transferred to the White House as one of their first official acts in this “Economic Crisis.”
Then, there were Obama & Co.’s numerous attempts—successful, I might add–to get billions of tax dollars to fund ACORN, and the legislation passed to have vote-fixing, scandal plagued ACORN (this was, of course, before the videos surfaced of ACORN staffers in numerous ACORN offices in different cities advising a Hooker and her Pimp on how to conceal their activities and profits from the police, the government and the IRS, and on how to smuggle in and account for 12 or 13 year old illegal alien girls, smuggled in from Latin America to work as prostitutes in a bordello) involved in hiring all of the enumerators for the upcoming 2010 Census that would, indeed, determine the number of Congressional Districts each State was entitled to–and, thus, the number of Democratic and Republican votes in Congress and the balance of power, as well as which States got how much in Federal aid.
Finally, came Obama & Co.’s nomination of a Harvard “expert” to run the Census who advocated using his mathematical “sampling” in the Census to “pick up” all of those people he believed were formerly uncounted–homeless peoplethe usual physical count of our citizens–calculations that would inevitably add population (and votes in Congress) for the traditionally Democratic strongholds of major East and West coast cities and, particularly, the inner cities.
Then, there was Obama’s otherwise bizarre, ominous and very little reported call in a July 2, 2008 speech on “Service,” that
“We cannot continue to rely only on our military in order to achieve the national security objectives that we’ve set. We’ve got to have a civilian national security force that’s just as powerful, just as strong, just as well-funded.”
See the video here (http://volokh.com/posts/1216451854.shtml). The MSM reported the speech as written, but not on Obama’s inexplicable, highly unusual call for the creation of a “Civilian National Security Force” that Obama inserted into the speech as he gave it, thus absolving themselves of any need to notice it or comment on it, and the one MSM source that did, I believe, comment on Obama’s bizarre and ominous call, blew if off and wrote that is didn’t mean anything at all.
I believe that the otherwise inexplicable (in an “Economic Crisis”) Democratic legislation that became law that quadrupled AMERICORPS, and founded and generously funded four or so massive new “public service organizations” as well as setting up a commission to see how to institute the idea of “mandatory public service,” coupled with the Administration’s nationalization of college loans, set their rates and conditions, and their program to forgive such loans in return for “10 years of service to the government,” when added to Obama & Co’s plans to massively increase–via “tax credits” i.e. disguised welfare checks from the government–the percentage of citizens who pay no taxes–local, State or Federal–from the current (and way too high) 38% to 50%–creating a ready pool of grateful Obama supporters with a lot of time on their hands (since many do not work), who would now vote for Obama en mass, and perhaps do their “mandatory community service” as part of a “Civilian National Security Force, ” as parts of a plan to create that “Civilian National Security Force” as a source of power for Obama & Co. outside of the military.
Add these highly unusual and otherwise inexplicable events together and I believe you are looking at Obama & Co.’s contingency planningat work to rig the upcoming elections, or perhaps even create the organizations–muscle–to stage a coup.
To Baklava’s point above, Elise, each Congressional district now contains about 50,000 people. It’s why the Constitution (Article 1) calls for a decennial census: to determine representation in the House.
So differences in receipt of Federal stimulus funds by different Congressional districts are not explained by differences in population. I suggest “partisan patronage” as a more fruitful line of inquiry.
Artfldgr,
You’re welcome.
As I understand it, State population –as determined by the Census–dictates how many Congressional districts, and therefore how many voting members of Congress each state has; a State that the Census count determines has had a decline in population sometimes has one of its Congressional districts abolished i.e. there are fewer districts, thus fewer Congressmen (who can vote) in that State’s Congressional delegation and it suffers a decline in power–and, conversely, if a State grows in population it acquires more districts–and grows in power, the districts are also configured by each state’s politicians i.e. Gerrymandered, for best political effect by the party in power.
More population also means a greater proportion of various kinds of Federal aid will flow to a state with an increased population, decrease to one with a declining population.
Therefore, if you can influence/rig Census population counts, you can increase or decrease a State’s voting power in Congress, as well as increasing or decreasing it’s receipt of Federal funds. That is why the issue of the fairness, honesty and thoroughness of Census enumerators who count our population, who is counted as being a legitimate–and countable–part of that “population,”and the way that the count is conducted and tabulated is of critical importance.
Sorry to do this again, but here is a very timely article written by Lord Monckton who was/is(?) in Copenhagen.
It’s titled “Is the European police state going global?”
I link it because it fits very well with the topics we have been discussing.
I contend that in the case of Obama & Co. we do have real world proof; actions that seem inexplicable when we try to fit them into the normal universe of the usual politics in America, but which make much more, and eminent sense, if considered in “outside of the box,” thinking, in thinking that takes account of historical experience in most of the rest of the world that we have been mercifully—so far—spared, and which contains the ideas of massive rigging of elections, and, especially, the formerly “unthinkable” idea of a coup.
Wolla Dablo: No, you don’t have “real world proof.” You have a set of suggestive events that could support a coup as well as any number of other, far less diabolical, explanations.
Like Subotai, however, you believe that you are eliminating, in Sherlock Holmes fashion, the impossible, leaving you with what you think is the truth, however improbable, which in this case is a coup.
If your gut is telling you this, fine, go with your gut, but that’s not what my gut is telling me, and it’s certainly not proof you are offering.
i will point it out again
yemen has been attacked
The U.S. has launched two missile strikes against Al Qaeda targets in Yemen, two U.S. officials told Fox News, signaling an escalation of the Obama administration’s fight against the terrorist organization.
JL: there is a difference this time. This is not just the experience of having a president and Congress with which we disagree.
I have been around a long time, and have the perspective of personal experience. Many of those years there was a President and sometimes a Congress I didn’t like. With no previous administration have I perceived anything like what I perceive now with Obama and this Congress. Never has there been such a consistent pattern of lying about matters both great and small, secrecy combined with speed, fundamental misrepresentation of a candidate’s basic stance (running as a moderate but then pulling hard Left), disrespect for the opposition.
I have tried to spell out the particulars in many posts (including an earlier summary here and here). I’m not predicting a coup—I’m not predicting anything, exactly. I’m describing something I see, and I believe the idea is to grab as much power as possible, by whatever means possible, as long as possible, and drag the country further and further to the Left, whether the people want it or not. I have no idea how successful this effort will be, but I think it is real, and I think it needs to be resisted.
“…I don’t see the Democrats’ suicidalness as the proof that Subotai claims that they have a coup planned.”
I hate to inform you, the Dems are not planning a coup, they are executing a coup–even if they are not all aware of it. We’re in the middle of a coup. Right at this very instant, now.
Wolla is right: it’s a blitzkreig. It’s right out in the open for all to see, but we disbelieve the evidence of our senses. We mistakenly assume our republic will last forever. If you ever wondered how the Nazis took over Germany, you can see it in action now. Lies that are obvious and outrageous, but no one wants to be unpleasant and resist.
The Left’s power grab is so criminal, shocking and outrageous, even Rush can’t believe it. Beck’s on the right track, for which he’s been consigned to the lunatic fringe. Perhaps he’s more awake than most.
We speak daily in euphemisms about ‘healthcare’ and ‘the stimulus’, but think: the administration looted the treasury and is giving the money to its political allies; it ran the economy over a cliff–the dollar is virtually worthless; it is killing the middle class by re-distributing our incomes using a series of lies and illegal, unconstitutional, taxes; it is destroying the middle class; it has formed a parallel government via czars having no public accountability; it actively propagandizes our schools, it promotes Obama as a savior rather like Chairman Mao; the president and his wife travel in a large expensive entourage like despots in a third-world dictatorship– I could go on.
Why? The Democrats’ motives are not uniform: some are Chicago hard-cases for whom bribery is a political philosophy and the one-party impulse comes naturally. Some, like the Clintons, Gore, Dean, etc. are re-treads from the 60s who never grew up. Obama’s inner cadre is composed of Van Jone, Valerie Jarrett types–professional marxists and maoists. Some–like Pelosi and Reid–just want power. They probably have no idea what the ultimate effect of their actions will be; they’re in with the in-crowd, and they have no idea–not do they care–what goes on outside DC. When the hard Left prevails–and it will, if we fail to stop it– they’ll be history.
Obama himself is a radical marxist, and he hates our country, out culture, our history–everything.
Do you understand? Our freedom is being lifted right from under us. We are becoming servants of the state, serfs. Small business is dead. Your children are being made paupers. We’re on the verge of a complete economic meltdown and our lives and those of our children have been changed materially for the next decades even if we are lucky enough to be saved.
neo should have some fun with psychology of group denial. We are all so self-deluded that it can’t happen in America, But have you kept up with events in Britain? They’re practically a totalitarian state. It couldn’t happen there, either. Wake up.
“Coup” isn’t exactly the right word because the removal of the existing legal government. What we’re looking at is our government and Constitution being “body snatched”. Same body, an alien brain.
ahem: You provide a good example of the sort of rhetorical overreach that I find so unpersuasive and frankly repellent in these discussions about Obama.
No, the dollar is not virtually worthless, the middle-class is not destroyed, and Britain is not a totalitarian state, practially speaking or otherwise.
I’m not predicting a coup–I’m not predicting anything, exactly.
neo: Then why all these meditations on Obama and tyranny in the United States? Why so much handwringing that such a possibility must be taken seriously?
I’m describing something I see, and I believe the idea is to grab as much power as possible, by whatever means possible, as long as possible, and drag the country further and further to the Left, whether the people want it or not.
One could, and some do, make the same arguments against FDR. I would say that FDR, not Chavez or Lenin, is the real template that Obama and the Democratic leadership has been following.
Interestingly enough, not long after FDR’s presidency began there was a serious coup attempt organized by wealthy businessmen and elements of the military. They were so alarmed by FDR’s politics and they wanted to install a right-wing fascist government in the United States.
If Obama’s administration were to result in a coup, my bet is that coup would be from the right.
I have no idea how successful this effort will be, but I think it is real, and I think it needs to be resisted.
Here you have backed off the coup possibility in favor of the vaguer, more defensible, language of a power grab.
Of course Obama is grabbing power. My gut sense too is that there is something different and more ominous about his efforts than previous modern presidents. Of course Obama needs to be resisted.
But IMO an Obama tyranny in America is strictly fever swamp talk. It inflames some listeners, turns off others, and distracts from more serious discussion of what is really happening and what might be done.
In its most benign form it would be a perpetual city-machine on a national level, which fewer Americans would mind than we’ would like to think. What encourages me somewhat is Boss Obama is also the Messiah, and holding down the two jobs may trip up the little feller but good.
Artfldgr,
What I am reading is…“Along with the two U.S. cruise missile attacks, Yemen security forces carried out raids in three separate locations. As many as 120 people were killed in the three raids…. “
This is all I’ve seen on this so far.
Districts are broken down by population.
That is why districts in densely populated areas are smaller.
Yes, but the breakdown is obviously not perfect. To use the simplest example, the States with only one member in the House of Representatives range in 2000 population from 493,782 (Wyoming) to 902,195 (Montana). It would have been an interesting line of inquiry.
each Congressional district now contains about 50,000 people.
Actually, it’s about 647,000 people per district on average.
So differences in receipt of Federal stimulus funds by different Congressional districts are not explained by differences in population. I suggest “partisan patronage” as a more fruitful line of inquiry.
As I said in my previous comment, I would expect the party controlling the Congress and the Presidency to reward their own. However, population should have been controlled for since district sizes are not identical. It would have been trivial to calculate award by capita for a district, preferably using both the 2000 census numbers and the current estimated population.
I’m also a little confused about what the study tells us regarding the relationship between stimulus money, district income, and district unemployment. Another possibility is that Democrats represent poorer districts that need the money more.
I’m not saying this is not an interesting study. I just don’t think it’s evidence of some uniquely nefarious action on the part of this current government.
Huxley–many months ago I started to write here about us having to use a different and unusual “template” with which to view and evaluate Obama & Co., of the urgent need to “think outside of the box” of our normal, comforting expectations that our past history here in America had told us we could rely on, in which our fairly honestly elected President, who might have various flaws–perhaps stupidity, or arrogance, or the inability to inspire, or articulate his program, and might push for programs some of us might not like–was–we just assumed–fundamentally a person who loved America and Americans, who was steeped in and understood our uniqueness, our culture and traditions and valued them, who believed in America, who would abide by the Constitution, and who had no real ambitions to be our King or some sort of a dictator, someone who loved America and its Democracy and Capitalist system, a President and patriot who would try his utmost to “preserve, protect and defend” our existing system, and had our best interests at heart.
I argued then and continue to argue that we have to adopt the much less comforting template (perhaps we should call it a more Realistic or Machiavellian template) of wholesale deception, revolution and possible tyranny, use a different mindset, look at a whole new range of possibilities and motives, when we try to view and understand Obama and his actions, a template that we here in America have just not had–thankfully– to resort to, as have the people in almost every other country in the world throughout a history of thousands of years of deception, violence and tyranny. That we could not just complaisantly assume that we here in America were immune from such History.
You maintain that “It Can’t Happen Here,” and view things from that perspective–which rules out the use of the expanded range of alternative perspectives and motives that I think it is imperative we use.
I maintain that it can and will “Happen Here,” as it has happened–over and over again, all over the world and throughout human history 99% of the time–if we are not extremely vigilant and sensitive to the signals of the formation of a Tyranny.
We are that 1% exception to the rule and almost unique in human history, but the United States, our Democracy and way of life, are much more fragile that we would like to think–they are at base an idea, the values and ways of behaving and being that we keep in our minds and hearts–and those ideas and ways of behaving, and the institutions that embody them, can very easily be subverted and destroyed, and we can very easily revert and become just another part of that 99%.
I maintain that if we misread and/or misinterpret the signals we are merely going to be fools, but that if the signals are really there and we misread or ignore them, then we are going to end up being slaves, and America as we know and love it could very well be thrown, in the phrase that Trotsky coined, on the “ash heap of History.”
Hux:
You don’t read too widely, do you?
Neoneocon said:
Neo, this is a very important distinction for me.
I must admit that I’ve been having a difficult time with the “Cassandra” arguments, because I’m not entirely certain of what Cassandra’s prophesy is, in this case.
If the concern is what you have asserted in the quote, then I have a lot easier time “wrapping my mind around it,” discussing it, and even agreeing with it. In fact, the excellent article by Victor Davis Hansen cited to by commenter TimP above provides an excellent articulation of this issue. To quote Hanson:
The scenario set forth by Hanson is indeed one I agree is occurring, and which is not only cause for concern, but cause for intense opposition from those whose views are of like kind to that of this blog. I include myself in that group. I agree with TimP that this is an article that readers to this blog should read.
However, what causes me some pause is that there are other commenters, who I believe are fully sincere, and who I fully respect, who seem to feel that were about to enter an era when the United States resembles Poland after the crackdown on Solidarity. As I have often stated, I respect the views of those who feel this way. I even see them as highlighting a worse case scenario which must be avoided, much like George Orwell did in “1984” or Ayn Rand did in “Atlas Shrugged.”
But make no mistake, these commenters do not feel that they are just articulating a worse-case Orwellian future. They truly feel that an oppressive system equal to that of the Eastern Bloc, or at least Chavez-ite Venezuela is about to take over. They do, in fact, believe that a coup is imminent. Note the following quote:
Just like the Nazis? As much as I apprecite their views, I have to stop short of acquiescing to this secnario. To suggest that we are in a situation similar to that of the Nazis or the Communists (and that is what they are suggesting) does two things which are negative:
First, it seriously minimizes what actually happened under the Nazis, the Fascists, and the Communists. Much like leftists have done by referring to the United States as “Amerika,” it trivializes the reality of these actual severe totalitarianisms. Moreover, its not accurate. If we were in a situation similar to that of the nazis or the Communists, this blog would not be up and running; there would be no Fox News to counter the president; there would be no Tea Party protests; there would be no opposition conservative media like National Review or Weekly Standard; Limbaugh and Hannity would have been silenced by now. This is not like the Communists or the Nazis.
Secondly, it creates an unrealistic sense of what is possible. A more realistic viewpoint would point out the tremendous capacity we have within the political system of the U.S. to organize and to stop the Obama-Reid-Pelosi scheme in its tracks. Put another way: its the difference between beleiving our ship is sinking, and believing that its headed the wrong way. If its the former, then theres no hope at all except the drastic measure of finding the life rafts. If its the latter, then there is some capacity to change the course of this ship and get it headed in the right direction. I, for one, have no intention to abandon this ship… I intend to do all I can to get it pointed in the right direction… and I think it can be done.
huxley: I don’t know if you have a reading comprehension problem, a memory problem, or a logic problem, or whether you just haven’t been paying attention to my blog over time. You write:
And you later add that I “have backed off the coup possibility in favor of the vaguer, more defensible, language of a power grab.”
My answer is that there is a difference between a coup and tyranny, and although sometimes the two go together, sometimes they do not. It has been some of the commenters who have focused on the coup possibility, not I. So I have “backed off” from nothing. Sometimes, for the sake of an interesting discussion, I have highlighted or quoted other people who have predicted a coup, but such an event has not been the focus of my own predictions or thoughts. I have used the word “coup” when discussing how Hugo Chavez came to power (here), because that is part of Chavez’s history. But while I do believe that Obama is bent on maximizing the number of liberal Democrat voters by hook or by crook, and maximizing his own power and that of the Left in general, that’s not a coup, nor do I believe (or have ever said I believed) in the idea that he’ll suspend elections.
The best summary of what I think is here. I’ve used the word “tyranny” over and over in reference to what I think this administration (and Reid and Pelosi) have in mind. Tyranny is a general word; not all tyrannies are alike, nor do they all come to power through coups.
And FDR was indeed bent on some things that I consider similar, although he did not succeed in most of them. The fact that FDR tried to pack the Supreme Court, for example, does not make it right, and does not mean he was not bent on consolidating government power (he in fact expanded that power beyond a point that I feel was or is good for this nation). The line from FDR to Chavez is a continuum, not a discrete break.
As for this quote from your comment:
But your first paragraph and your second appear to contradict each other. What you have described in the first paragraph is tyranny (or the very ominous prelude to it).
And remember, what the Nazis were when they came to power is not what they were ten years later. The tyranny there grew and built. Nor did they come to power through any coup. Everything Hitler did was strictly legal. Again, don’t get me wrong—I do not see Obama as Hitler. I see him much more as a potential Chavez wannabee, a smoother and seemingly more erudite (I think his erudition is a veneer, however) version.
Perhaps there is a better word for it than “tyranny,” a term which has multiple definitions. But I haven’t been able to come up with one. The definitions I’m thinking of in terms of Obama are the following:
—a government ruled by a tyrant who uses his power oppressively or unjustly
—a government wherein the rights and Liberties of the people are violated at will by those in power
—-as used in the phrase “tyranny of the majority”
Some of the definitions involve cruelty and absolute power. I am not asserting that, although it’s always a possibility for the future. These things have a tendency to grow once a person or a group gets more and more power. That’s what a great many of our constitutional safeguards are meant to guard against. That is why we must be on guard at the first signs of an administration that wants so badly to circumvent these safeguards. I have never in my lifetime seen any president mount such an assault on freedom of speech, for example.
You can stick your head in the sand if you like, but I would prefer not to. And I believe that doing so is dangerous.
JL: please see what I wrote in the above comment about the Nazis.
There are too many comments here for me to address individually, so I’ll try to pick out the ones floating nearest to the surface of my mind.
Wolla Dalbo just touched on American Exceptionalism, and I think that is pertinent. Unlike almost every other country in history, America was based on an idea rather than on ethnicity, language, or religion. Because of this, Americans have historically been culturally allergic to tyranny. This is probably why the Left has placed such importance on undermining our educational system. Before tyranny could be imposed on us, it was necessary for us to “unlearn” our history. The ideas of the Founders and the founding documents have been de-emphasized and replaced with a more class-based Marxist interpretation of history. The multiculturalists threw out the melting pot and replaced it with the depiction of America as a loose collection of warring ethnic groups and competing special interests.
I don’t think the word “coup” as some have used it is accurate here. I don’t envision Obama personally seizing radio and TV stations, dissolving Congress and the Supreme Court, and making himself dictator. He couldn’t do that without the active cooperation of the U.S. military, and I don’t think they’re inclined to assist him, to put it mildly.
On the other hand, given his Muslim and Marxist upbringing, I think it is clear by now that he has utter contempt for America and its institutions. Culturally and intellectually, he has more in common with Third World despots than with any previous American president. In addition to that, he came up through the corrupt Chicago machine and is well-versed in the art of political thuggery. That makes for a toxic stew, to say the least.
I still see Obama as a front man for the Left. There are others behind the scenes. Certainly George Soros, who has stated that he wants to change America’s form of government. I’m sure there are others too, although I don’t know precisely who they are. Leftists seem to take a long-term, big-picture view. For most of them, it’s enough to just move the ball downfield, even if they don’t personally reach the goal line in their lifetime. There are also many other figures in American government and business who aren’t leftists, but are foolish, feckless, arrogant, and greedy. They are aiding the Left and weakening America, whether they realize it or not.
As huxley said earlier, the dollar isn’t worthless and the middle class hasn’t been destroyed. I would add, “Yet.” Marxists always target the middle class for destruction. Our rampaging deficits cannot be maintained forever. At some point, at the rate we are going, the dollar will collapse. See the excellent economic blog Market Ticker. It could happen with astonishing suddenness, and millions of middle class people would be turned into paupers overnight. The vast majority of people will be utterly blindsided when that happens.
So while I said above that I don’t see Obama making himself a dictator, a sudden major crisis could change the situation radically. In addition to our economy groaning under the weight of exploding debt, his foreign policy of weakness, appeasement, and apology is emboldening our enemies and making war and terrorist attacks more likely rather than less. “Never let a crisis go to waste.” This gang is about nothing if not increasing and extending their power, and will take advantage of every opportunity to do so.
One thing America has going for it that many other countries don’t is the Second Amendment. Ever since November 2008 (and even before then) sales of guns and ammo have broken all records, and manufacturers can barely keep up with the demand. An awful lot of people understand what is happening, and they are not buying these weapons in order to turn them in to the government when ordered to do so. Every would-be dictator and despot must first disarm the people, and America’s founders knew that. We may yet see American Exceptionalism put to the test.
I see there have been about four comments since I began writing mine. It took me over an hour to write, while simultaneously keeping up with the Philadelphia/DC DEATH HELL WINTER HORROR STORM! thread over at GCP.
J.L.–First, let me say that I think our long interlude of two plus centuries of freedom from Tyranny since the Revoluton has made us way too forgetful and much less wary and aware of the possibilities of us sliding into such a Tyranny than we need to be, we lack the experience-based “antennae” –always alert, that those who have experienced such a Tyranny/Dictatorship, like Artfldgr, have developed; we are sitting ducks.
My reply to you is that while I don’t necessarily think that a “coup” is going to occur in the next few months, I do think that there is enough evidence that Obama & Co. are deeply hostile to the United States as it exists today, hold and have articulated in print and on video extremely radical, Communist, Fascist and Maoist ideas inimical to Democracy, the Capitalist system, and our Freedoms, that based on their behavior to date they regard the Constitution as an obstacle, not as a set of boundaries, delimiting and constraining their possible actions, and that Obama & Co. are willing to run roughshod over the democratic process and their opponents among the citizenry in the pursuit of power and some sort of egalitarian, redistributionist Socialist/Fascist/Marxist utopia. A utopia in which an arrogant, militaristic, racist, gluttonous, environment destroying America–in punishment for its manifest and many “sins”–is humbled, impoverished and imprisoned, like Gulliver, by a myriad of restraints, emplaced and administered by a new, far Left nomenklatura.
Given the extremely deceptive and ruthless attitudes and actions so far by Obama & Co.–many way out of the norm and inexplicable when measured against normal practice in our Democracy and history, but much more explicable when measured against the steps that have led to loss of freedom and dictatorships in many other societies–I believe the actions of Obama & co. must be monitored with extreme care, thoroughness and skepticism, and evaluated against all possible outcomes, especially those other than just run of the mill “business as usual” and Democracy.
I have pointed out above what I regard as a few major, telltale signs that Obama & Co.—whatever cover story they are feeding us–are playing a very different game than Democracy and American politics as usual.
As for a “coup,” I first read Edward N. Luttwak’s classic, “Coup d’Etat: A Practical Handbook” many years ago, and I don’t think that what we are likely to be faced with is the classic coup, in which tanks are blocking the thoroughfares, and military forces occupy the seat of government, communication hubs and other key power centers. Rather, I think that we are looking at extreme “bad faith,” at an attempt at internal subversion and Revolution by legislation, administration and intimidation that will only devolve to naked force as a last resort.
What I do see, as one example of many extremely dangerous moves that seem to me to be preparing the way for and pointing toward dictatorship is Obama & Co. trying to create a separate civilian power base outside of the military–his “Civilian National Security Force” (and don’t try to tell me that the proposal and formation of such a “people’s, or mass organization,” such a massive “Civilian National Security Force” is normal practice here in America, cause I ain’t buying) that could be very useful as a loyal force that could be used for things like voting fraud, intimidation, and as a recruiting ground for a few, very willing thugs, if our regular military forces would not comply with Obama & Co.’s commands.
MikeLL Says:
December 17th, 2009 at 9:40 pm
Subotai’s comment that you quote here is far too conspiratorial for my blood. I doubt very much that anyone has intentions to take our freedom away.
No. They simply know that they can run our lives better than we can, and therefore must have the power to do so.
–
Y’all don’t get it – the Democrats actually think they can win with this sucker. Obama needs put some points on the scoreboard, badly, and this bill is the “big accomplishment” he plans to run on in 2012. Because, if you think about it, what else is there? Cap-and-trade isn’t popular, and his Afghan policy is displeasing both sides. As for the congress, they’re counting on an economic bounce next year and the short attention span of the electorate. To ensure the former, look for stimulus 2.0; the latter they just take for granted. Don’t forget all the gerrymandered safe districts, the padding of election roles, and of course the cash that’s being doled out to the “base”.
Huxley
Not that it matters but your conversation is a bore. You sound dishonest. Maybe you are a Russian spy, or … Peggy Noonan?
My two cents.
Thanx.
AcidPop,
Huxley is not such. baiting him with such is just bad form. Huxley means as well as everyone else here who talks regularly and gives up time in their lives to consider and post.
he has an immovable position based on selecting what evidence he will accept as conducive to a conclusion. so he never has to reform his position as his position is always the most reasonable one which results in endless discussion.
he is the kind that is actually easy to con, as all you really have to do is act outside his reasonable framework.
outside that framework there is no guard. its where faeries, and magic and amoral actions all sit.
to beat the reasonable, one only has to grasp and do the unthinkable.
Art, you are absolutely right. I used Huxley as an image to make a general point: One that acts like a prima donna loses the argument. And then the comparisons stand.
I don’t mind to be lectured but I expect to learn from the lesson. And huxley talks out of fear. And fear has its own shortcomings.
Thanx by the way.
Here’s more on the Yemen attack from the Belmont Club.
Of particular interest is Sabotai’s comment, quoted below.
This is Clinton bombing a few tents and the “Milk Factory” all over again.
I found your website on google and read some your other posts. i simply added you to my personal Google News Reader. Keep up the good work look forward to reading more from you sometime soon.