Airing Ayers
One of the saddest effects of this sorry campaign season is that Bill Ayers is a hot commodity again, and the MSM gives him a forum to recast himself as a nice ole pussy cat. Does anyone for a moment think he’ll be honest about himself in the interviews he gives?
It is ironic that attempts to make it clear who he was then—and, far more importantly, what he’s been espousing now and ever since the 80s when he reinvented himself—didn’t quite penetrate most of the voting population because the media wasn’t interested in hurting Obama. But now that Ayers has renewed name recognition, and Obama is the President-elect, Ayers will have an enhanced ability to make it seem like he’s just a nice old educator rather than a terrorist who only abandoned that endeavor to advance the revolution through getting his hands on the minds (I know, mixed metaphor) of our children.
Here’s an excerpt from a comment about Ayers on a thread at Althouse that sums it up quite well:
Pardon me if I ignore Ayer’s bloviations. Pardon me if I am no longer concerned about Ayer’s past or his associations with Obama. Fuck the news media for their exposus interruptus, stalling until after the big Obamagasm to tell us the dirty secrets about their new political lover. Oh! If i’d only known!!
Because it is quite clear that Ayer’s view of the world is prevailing. The radical boomers have indeed won, ‘by any means necessary’ has worked, and now we’ll see what happens. I predict this is gonna really suck, but my opinion and 4 bucks will by me a grande mocha at Starbucks.
And then there’s labor law professor Steve Diamond, a man of the Left who nevertheless has Ayers’ number. His take on Ayers’ recent post-election interviews:
But the larger impression made is of the utter political idiocy of Bill Ayers. He still wants to argue that his violent tactics as a founder and leader of the 70s cult Weather Underground somehow contributed to the peace movement at the time. Instead, of course, he and his wife in arms, Bernardine Dohrn, helped destroy a generation’s efforts on behalf of peace and genuine social justice. But that has not stopped him from re-issuing his apologia for his life, Fugitive Days, as well as co-authoring with Dohrn a new book that makes race the key explanatory variable for what ills America.
The right wing tried, valiantly, to portray Obama as somehow tainted by his association with this political relic. But what is, frankly, more disturbing is how or why Obama would have believed there was any value, whatsoever, to spending any time listening to this guy or his wife, at all.
It is a travesty that the MSM chooses to give this man a bully pulpit to attempt to whitewash his past, present, and future.
Now that Obama is close to being inaugurated, few will know or care about the following. But I wanted to note an exchange between McCain and Obama from the third Presidential debate :
MCCAIN: Well, again, while you were on the board of the Woods Foundation, you and Mr. Ayers, together, you sent $230,000 to ACORN. So — and you launched your political campaign in Mr. Ayers’ living room.
OBAMA: That’s absolutely not true.
From Ayers now:
“We had served together on the board of a foundation, knew one another as neighbors and family friends, held an initial fund-raiser at my house, where I’d made a small donation to his earliest political campaign,” he writes.
Hey, maybe it wasn’t the living room. Maybe it was the family room. Whatever.
Obama has never had to answer for his lies. And neither has Ayers, who doesn’t even claim to be innocent of his crimes [emphasis mine]:
Bill Ayers and [wife] Bernardine Dohrn, best known recently as friends of Barack Obama, disappeared in 1969 after two of their colleagues in the Weather Underground died while building a bomb [that the group had planned to set off to kill serviceman at a Fort Dix dance]. Ayers and Dohrn spent 11 years setting off bombs and putting out statements threatening violent revolution. They promised to kill innocent Americans and praised the lunatic murderer Charles Manson. In 1981 two policemen and a security guard were killed in the botched holdup of a Brinks truck. Fake IDs used to rent getaway cars in an earlier robbery had been traced to a store where Dohrn worked. A grand jury wanted her testimony. She refused. Said she didn’t believe in grand juries. Spent seven months in jail, and then the matter was dropped. Other charges against Ayers and Dohrn were dropped because the evidence was tainted by the Nixon Administration’s illegal wiretaps. Ayers put it well: “Guilty as hell, and free as a bird. It’s a great country.”
Yes, a great country indeed.
No thanks to Bill Ayers.
Hi, Neo,
This would be an excellent place to repost the video of Larry Grathwohl testifying to the Weather Underground’s little discussion of rounding up as many as 25 million Americans into concentration camps and killing them if they didn’t give up on freedom and capitalism.
It’s still on Youtube.
This shows the depravity of their souls better than anything else. And Obama is their man. Their chosen one.
Some bozos in the comments griped that “they [the Weathermen] couldn’t take over the country anyway,” which is breathtaking idiocy, especially in light of the fact that Their Man, Obama, is now going to be president of the United Effing States.
I’ve passed the link around everywhere, and use it whenever anyone tries to “rehabilitate” Ayers’ rep or say he was a PEACE activist.
One reason they get away with it, I think, is that most people picture corruption as fat, old, rich white Southerners – and that stereotype blinds them to the new, hip, younger, more effective and more virulent corruption – that which we are seeing now. It has the face of an aging baby boomer, and the reptilian hooded eyes of a snake. It has the face of young college graduates who are steeped in activism for activism’s sake. Whose major goals have been accomplished, so they are now left with dictating other people’s behaviors as their means of exercising power.
I hope the blinders come off before it is too late. Because that time is at hand.
Ayers calmly lies his way through those interviews. Facts are subjective, why should he bother with them? It chills my spine.
I call attention to Ayers claim that a State Senator asked him to hold the political coffee to launch Barack’s career. This can only be a reference to Alice Palmer. It contradicts Alice Palmer’s specific reply to a journalist’s question. Palmer says she did not instigate that political meeting at Ayer’s house. Rather, she was invited and accepted the invitation.
Ayer’s lie about the coffee comprises consciousness of guilt.
You’ve finally managed to convince me of the truth of your claims. I promise to never vote for William Ayers for president.
I first read about Ayers on David Horowitz’s web site some years back, it really is astonishing, but not so astonishing as shameful, that this walking trash holds a tenured office at a university — does a lack of funding for research breed this need for notoriety and ‘revenge’ — there’s probably a sliver of truth to this, this is how the Left departs from Reason, agitating the other side becomes more important than keeping a level head — thus Neo-liberalism becomes a marketable commodity, rambling a bit, but, yes, Ayers is a scumbag.
Hyman Rosen: What a frivolous and inane comment.
But what is, frankly, more disturbing is how or why Obama would have believed there was any value, whatsoever, to spending any time listening to this guy or his wife, at all.
Obvious value #1: Use them as a stepping stone to bigger things. Ayers is a player, or was, in the Chicago political machine headed by Daley. What’s a young, politically ambitious lawyer to do but play with the pieces available to him on the chessboard of opportunity?
Besides, Ayers’ radical aims and goals are not that far from ‘mainstream’ Progressives like Pelosi and Reed. If you are willing to overlook Ayers’ violent past, as many are, and as Obama was evidently willing to do, and you were the typical Progressive, I think you would be perfectly comfortable “listening” to Ayers.
What used to be generally considered radical moves ever closer to the norm.
grackle: I agree. Ayers’ value to Obama was strategic and practical. But Obama helped him with his radical agenda, as well.
What’s more puzzling, I suppose, is how Ayers ever got so far in academia. Although, come to think of it, that’s not puzzling either.
Obama could never attain a “secret clearance” if applying for a job at the FBI.
However now he has greater than “secret clearance” (there are levels of clearance).
Aint that grand !
Hyman Rosen, your political judgment is both admirable and almost clever. Would you care to offer a moral judgment of someone who associates with the like of Ayers and Dohrn for twenty years?
It isn’t surprising Ayers sponsered Obama:
http://sweetness-light.com/archive/cpusa-and-obama-platforms-are-identical
There is a pretty simple explanation for why Ayers has succeeded in academia after failing so miserably in the anti-war movement: his ideas about education are consistent with those of many in the foundation world and elsewhere. Thus, he gets their financial support.
For example, his work with Obama on the Annenberg Challenge was an effort to support local control of schools in order to tame militant teachers and principals. Ayers and Obama backed a reform bill that stripped principals of tenure and set up watchdog groups to control teachers. Closely related is the idea of “small schools” as a panacea for the ills of large urban school districts. One teachers union activist called the “small schools” efforts of Ayers and his sidekick Mike Klonsky in the 90s (with financial support from Annenberg) “teacher bashing.”
In other words, it is the authoritarian anti-union content of the education work of Ayers, Klonsky and Obama that made them the darlings of groups like the MacArthur Foundation, the Joyce Foundation and the Annenberg Foundation.
Neo,
I’ve been reading the Age of American Unreason by Susan Jacoby. In her chapter on the Sixties. She describes how much power is now in the hands of the Sixties generation and how much of our polarized political landscape is still being shaped by the past battles between The Sixties (think liberals, hippies, anti-war, feminists, black militants, etc) and The Other Sixties (think conservatives, silent majority, Nixon’s election, etc). Your post today makes be think that chapter was all too insightful.
Baklava,
in actuality, he doesnt get highest clearance automatically and its not the first time.
if he cant be cleared, he gets less information…
he isnt the only one sworn to uphold and protect the constitution. 🙂
Ayers made it so far in academia because figures like him give academics a thrill. Academic life is so sheltered, so deeply dull. Academics like to think that their work is transgressive, or “rogue” (that seems to be the new hot term), but the dead air of academic life kills any excitement. It is the tamest life imaginable, so a real former terrorist is a hot commodity. He gives everyone a nice safe nihilistic frisson.
You all continue to have the same misunderstanding that you had before the election, which is why you find it so baffling that Obama won. You believe that you are offering up damning indictments of Obama and others in his milieu, and confounded by the fact that no one seems to be listening, you go off and imagine media conspiracies that are hiding the truth. In fact, you all had an intense, a priori dislike of Obama and have managed to marshal up reams of what you believe are supporting facts to try to convince others that he’s evil (or at least unsuitable to be president). But in fact, what you have are flimsy associations that don’t convince anyone but yourselves of anything.
Reminding people of the sixties in time for this election wasn’t very bright anyway. You just help them remember the other occasion where an unpopular government was sending Americans to fight in a war for which they cared nothing.
Very December 6th.
The picture of him with the American flag bunched at his feet is another big “F you” to Americans. Shameful.
Hyman,
Here’s the deal:
1) Obama has almost no experience and is the least qualified president America has seen. He has zero “executive” experience. His legislative experience had 45% “present” votes and he has nothing to hang his hat on and say, “This is why you should vote for me America”.
2) So, in “assessing” whether or not Obama would be a good president – people ignore the above fact and glom onto the fact that he has made women/men swoon and faint when he gives a good speech.
2.a.) What is in Obama’s speeches? Hope and Change but few details. His details include a tax increase leading into a recession and that makes litle sense. No economic theorist can tell you that a tax rate increase leading into a recession will have a positive impact on the economy.
2.b.) What other details in Obama’s speeches? Details that had Washington Post giving whole articles towards saying that the numbers do NOT add up. This is important. This is NOT the right wing assertion.
3.) Associations like the ones Obama has had show a consistent pattern. It isn’t ‘one’ association. It’s a barrage of information that show what kind of guy Obama is ABSENT a voting record to review. What other information can we go on besides his own books, voting record and relationships and public statements?
It’s be nice if you could hear us as much as you want us to hear you.
Why was America supposed to vote “FOR” Obama except for his promise of ‘change’. What will we be changing to? Higher tax rates, Divesting from the market, corporations struggling to succeed in an ever increasing government state?
We would LOVE for Obama to succeed. We want him to turn this economy around. Short of apologizing for his proposals and assuring America he won’t increase tax rates on capital gain or any bracket of income earner, I see unemployment going up, and MORE DIVESTING as opposed to INVESTMENT.
What gives you the impression that people will invest anything only to have their money taken away more? What gives you the impression that he has any experience of listening to the voters as opposed to going his own stubborn route? What gives you the impression that liberals voted “FOR” something as opposed to voting “AGAINST” bush.
One last point.
Fannie and Freddie gave the second most to Obama (over Chris Dodd). Obama opposed the reform that McCain pushed for in 2006. Teaser interest rates and the government letting that happen because they loved the property taxes that came pouring in was ridiculous. And any American that bought into that mess and now want to blame “corporations” exclusively fail to recognize that in America with the system of capitalism (definition = the people choosing who gets what resources) personal responsibility was lacking and the Democrats care less and less about personal responsibility.
It is Obama and his pals that set up this financial disaster.
1) Having people get credit with nothing down and teaser rates
2) Having people divest from the market so they don’t realize a higher capital gains tax rate.
3) Having businesses invest less in the future knowing a downturn is coming with a recession that will get worse with higher tax rates.
Democrats love class warfare. They got more people to vote with a supposed tax rate decrease for the lower income earners.
The bottom 50% of income earners pay 3% of the income taxes.
The top 10% of income earners pay 71% of the income taxes.
What happens now? Under Obama the bottom 50% will have no investment in the income tax share of the pie? The top 10% of income earners will do everything they can to protect themselves and their income from being taxed.
Herbert Hoover redo. Great Depression 2.0 thanks to a man that had NOTHING to offer America except a few books, speeches and associations that you don’t care about.
Did anybody else find it hilarious the liberals main comeback to Obama and Ayers distributing huge sums to worthless (failed) programs was that Annenberg (the foundation where the grants came from) was a Republican? Gee I think he had been dead for years.
Hyman – Imagined media conspiracies? Get real. Many of the outlets are NOW coming out and saying that they were “shaded” toward Obama. And sorry, but Kennedy and Johnson were the ones who got us mired in Vietnam. And that war was the first time where the MSM found out what kind of power they had to affect the political will of the people. Unfortunately the liberals sacrificed a couple of million people in SE Asia through their pressure to withdraw on a timetable without regard to the consequences.
And I don’t think anyone here finds it baffling that Obama won. I actually think most of us here are smart enough to understand the dynamic of a week republican candidate on the heels of an unpopular president and serious financial situation that the liberals were able to tie to the republicans even though a lot of it was the liberals doing.
Ayers is a worthless piece of humanity but, that being said, I don’t think it was something the republicans should have spent too much time or effort on. They should have understood that in a world where bad actors have a habit of resurfacing as icons of sorts, that this would not matter to the type of people who put Obama over the top
1. White guilters (doesn’t matter if he is qualified – I am “developed” enough to know that it is TIME for a minority to be president)
2. Rich liberals (doesn’t matter who is president or if the economy is up or down I can still make tons of money – and I can probably curry more favor from democrats)
3. Subistancers (Keep those government checks coming – and make ’em bigger)
4. Starry eyed students (All we have to do is talk to our enemies and they will be reasonable. All we have to do is give everyone free health care and make sure they have a car to drive, a place to live, and money to buy the necessities – you know like food, flat screens, and fabulous footwear and everything will work out fine. – Oh and by the way I have never been out in the real world or pay my own bills so that’s why I think that my taxes to cover all that will only be about 10 percent of my salary)
I’ve begun musing as to whether Ayers and Dohrn haven’t pulled off their own quieter version of Manson’s “Helter Skelter.” Their man is in the White House – there is no evidence that he will be able to rule, and perhaps they are the “whitey” to whom he will turn, covertly – that is, if he isn’t their puppet already.
Just a few stray thoughts to keep me awake at night.
Oh and one other thing, Hyman. Doesn’t it scare you that someone who couldn’t even get the security clearance that would allow him to install HVAC on a government installation is going to be privy to every single bit of intelligence information from this country and many others?
watch him get a cabinet position on education reform. or some presidential mandate position.
dane,
he will not become privy to all that information. he will get what he needs to know and thats it. he will not get as much as other presidents might, but he will not get the keys to the kingdom in that way.
we imagine the office to have powers it doesnt, and other things that it doesnt have as well.
there have been prior presidents who have had close compromizing relationships.
harry dexter white was a spy (code name Jurist)
as was Lawrence Duggan (code name Frank). look up who they were and you will be surprised if you dont already know. (and a lot of things the left thinks they are sure of is actually disinformatzia)
the president is not a king… the different bodies of the state have their own mandates and some of their behavior comes from the mandates to protect and serve the people of the US, not the president of the US much to the continued chagrin of the left.
it will remain to be seen what will happen as far as information he will or will not have access to. remember his code name. 🙂
Ayers did prove Hussein O is a bold faced liar who will lie about anything at anytime. We just need to spread that truth and see how the world leaders (who are half honest) treat him and what he says. No way they can believe him so there should be no way they can trust him. Never turn you back on a liar or a thief.
Scrapiron said:
“Ayers did prove Hussein O is a bold faced liar who will lie about anything at anytime.”
I think the realization of the extent to which Obama lied — w/ regard to so many things: associations, promises to take certain actions once President, and so forth is already beginning to occur to a good number of people who voted for him. It may be some time before the eyes of many more are opened. Meanwhile…too late – he’s President.
Speaking of which – has it occurred to others that he has already filled nearly 1/3 of his top positions with Clinton people — because he doesn’t have a clue what to do on his own?
Re: Olderandwheezier’s comments – I do think that Obama is indeed a puppet, tho’ not necessarily that of Ayers or Dohrn. I think they certainly view his election as a means to greater access to that which they want, not to mention access to the President himself. They pay certain political dues (such as throwing a coffee to launch the political career of one of their own) as many in political circles do, with the implicit understanding that that creates a “chit,” so to speak; such “chits” are those “favors” that inevitably are called in.
It is intriguing (disturbing?) to wonder just who the real “puppeteers” are. I don’t think it’s just one or two, but a small cadre of VERY wealthy people or groups that have an agenda (think George Soros, for one). All that money….just where did it REALLY come from? No one even pretends anymore that it was little bits and pieces from the unrepresented in America. (For instance, how did his aunt, here illegally, and living in govt. housing, find an extra $265 to donate to the campaign? I’d be willing to bet there are many more such incongruences in the same vein….) It’s the big money people who largely made Obama election happen, and he owes them (whoever they are) big time. I’ve always wondered if this exists in the election of all Presidents, but it has just seemed so probable in Obama’s case — perhaps because of his complete lack of executive experience, no legislative record in either the U.S. Senate or the Illinois Senate, virtually no Washington contacts — he was a complete newbie — and his complete avoidance of details and particulars regarding the obtuse policies he espoused.
Finally, how ironic is it that Bill Ayers, the violent activist whose efforts were geared toward the destruction of capitalism, has jumped up faster than you can shake a stick (just days after the election of his “family friend,”) to take advantage of the opportunity to sell lots more books and cash in?!
P.S. I agree completely with Mizpants when she explains that Bill Ayers rise to such “esteem” in the academic community is largely due to the fact that “figures like him give academics a thrill.” He’s legendary — (as much in his own mind as anywhere), and his notorious exploits may be the stuff of their fantasies even while they could never bring themselves to act in similar fashion (let alone do so without the least twinge of conscience or regret.)
I think we’re mostly right to beat this drum.
A: I don’t think most people know about this stuff
B: One reason the republican brand is in tatters is the dems non stop campaigning for the last eight years.
Some lefties here can mock people for talking about this stuff, but reasonable talk about it is probably a good idea. If Obama’s positive ratings fall he probably won’t be able to push through the negative parts of his agenda (Ie, I wouldn’t try to stop things we consider positive.. some partisan republicans yes… but not everyone here would)…
Artfldgr, thanks for bringing Harry Dexter White to my attention. Good God! The irony is that McCarthy actually had a point, but then went nuts with it.
csimon, Soros would be my bet too for the master puppeteer. Pace Mitsu et al., I don’t think Obama is clever enough – and certainly not strong enough – to be his own man. He’s basically the spokesmodel for someone, the trick now being figuring out who.
The only consideration militating against the choice of Soros is what exactly he stands to gain. Certainly nothing financially, but even psychically it’s hard to figure out his passion for leftwing causes. Having said that, leftwing politics seem to exert a siren call for a lot of Jews, even wealthy ones, for reasons I have never understood, and probably never will.
A little follow up on my point about the value of continuing trying to get the message out…
http://www.howobamagotelected.com/
Obama didn’t win because his views were popular; he won by clouding them and who he is.
They won the election through a form of deceit, but karma is a bi*ch…. We paid for Bush’s real mistakes, time for them to start paying up.
Many years ago, when I was a sophomore in college studying economics and philosophy, in one of my philosophy courses I heard about a book written by a Brazilian named Paulo Friere. The name of the book is “Pedogogy of the Oppressed.” Since I was really plugging into Marxism at the time, I knew exactly what this book was about. I bought it and read it.
During the past year I’ve been hearing more and more about Bill Ayers (I had heard about him years ago, and much of that knowledge came from Horowitz’ site, frontpagemag.com – AN OUTSTANDING SITE!). His education pedagogy sounds like it is right out of Paulo Friere, in many respects. It is core Marxism, with an emphasis on infusing language with class consciousness. I highly recommend that everyone get this book and read it. It’s a window into the mind of the people driving the trends in education.
And as most of the regulars here know, I left the Left back in 1987. It was a rich and complicated journey that I am glad that I undertook, because I forced myself to push the envelope on the arguments of both the collectivists and the conservatives. Eventually I came out against the socialists and their thought because of severe epistemological flaws in their thought. I know some people who call me a dope for having been a Leftist to begin with, and they assign some very unsavory motives to why I was what I once was, but their conjectures are completely off base. And I’m not a dope. But, there is definite value in knowing both sides very well.
Bill Ayers is NOT the kind of Leftist I would ever consciously choose to be around. Part of the reason why I left the Left was because I saw what the ethics of expediency had wrought in socialist countries. And Ayers is definitely a Leninist in that regard: you do whatever it takes. WHATEVER it takes. To advance the revolution. I remember having to deal with snide and condescending attitudes by other Leftists because I remained a Catholic, eventually entering the Jesuit seminary. People like Billy Ayers STINK TO HIGH HEAVEN. The man who would choose to keep company with the likes of him, even only as a political alliance, has no standards for decency.
I’m sorry, Mr. Rosen, but your flip comment fails to impress me. We all know that Billy Ayers – who also was a rapist (and maybe even a serial one) – was not running for President of the United States. However, it speaks clearly to Obama’s judgment and character that he would work with and ally himself with this guy. And Bernardine Dohrn, who shrieked with delight about the Manson murders and reveled in the gore of it all, is seriously sociopathic too.
Shame on all of academia in this country that it so uncritically accepted this man. The bar just keeps getting set lower and lower. Just as it has been in the academic standards and content for our kids.
Artfl,
I agree with you on a certain level. He will get what ever the CIA and NSA want to give him. However given that the CIA (and the state department) are overwhelmingly staffed with liberal lifetime civil servants I think he will actually get more than the sitting president. I honestly believe it was only military intelligence that kept Bush anywhere near up to speed.
and once again I will state what I have said here previously – I think the stonewalling from the Obama administration will make the current one look like a sieve.
Try to imagine for a moment how this feels to Vietnam vets. We won the war on the ground only to have Congressional liberals sell out South Vietnam after we left. Meanwhile, back home, the liberals and radicals were undermining our country, and now they’ve taken it over. It’s not possible to describe how much that hurts.
Antimedia,
I know it hurts those guys. I was only a few years behind them when I went into Army basic training at Fort Dix in August of 1973. It hurts me too.
I can’t believe Obama is our President-Elect. Maybe we’ll get lucky and it’ll be discovered he’s a citizen of Kenya or something.
What strikes me is the difference between MLK’s strategies – nonviolent resistance – and the violent, anarchist tactics of Ayers’ group.
The gay activists who’ve been taking to the streets seem to be taking plays from Ayers more than MLK, unfortunately – though I don’t expect the leftist illuminati to point that out any time soon.
“held an initial fund-raiser at my house, where I’d made a small donation to his earliest political campaign”
“People like Billy Ayers STINK TO HIGH HEAVEN. The man who would choose to keep company with the likes of him, even only as a political alliance, has no standards for decency.”
Ayers was an absolute idiot.
But for christ’s sake, they were on an educational board together.
“…severe epistemological flaws in their thought”
Couldn’t have described this issue better myself. (By the way FredHjr, I love how you describe the ‘liberals’ you left as one coherent, singular body. You are epistemologically sound :)”
Grow up ladies and gentlemen. Barack Obama isn’t coming to blow up your house. Nor is he about to install Marxism in America. Though he might cut your taxes.
anonymouscoward Says:
“Grow up ladies and gentlemen. Barack Obama isn’t coming to blow up your house. Nor is he about to install Marxism in America. Though he might cut your taxes.”
I know… he wants to do for us what socialists have done to Germany and France… and that’s bad enough (re: no hyperbolic exaggerations required)…
anonymouscoward: I’m always surprised, although I suppose I shouldn’t be, about how some commenters (and this would include you) mischaracterize and exagerate the position of so many with whom they disagree. No one is saying Obama is a terrorist about to blow up houses. Even Bill Ayers gave up that sort of activity quite some time ago.
Did you even read this link that I provided?
anonymouscoward,
How did you find out about our site? I wasn’t aware that we were on the Obamabots’ radar screen.
The Big Epistemological Flaw in Socialist Thought:
Look up the technical term from philosophy called “telos.” It means the logical endpoint of the cosmology inherent in any body of thought. The telos of socialism is Utopia. And that’s the flaw. Originally, when I was a Marxist and Liberation Theology adherent, it was the Pelagian vision which attracted me. But Michael Novak saw it right away back in the Seventies and published many articles wherein he critiqued socialism as incompatible with human nature. His critiques were the ones that I always kept in the back of my mind, because I was always striving to see if there was a way in which human nature could be malleable enough to change and be compatible with collectivist goals. It could not be done, and I tried investigating every conceivable angle. The coup de grace came AFTER I broke with the Left in 1987, which break happened because I came to realize that the socialist experiments before my eyes did not create the New Moral Man. What I later did was some intensive reading into human psychology, genetics, and neuroscience and discovered that evil will always be there. Selfishness will always be there. There will always be sociopaths, messing up the tidy plans to make Heaven come down to Earth. Evil has an organic basis. There is a titanic cosmic battle between the Creator and The Evil One. This thing is way bigger than we are and what our minds can comprehend.
So, I pretty much agree with most of the Church’s social encyclicals on how to make society a little more human and less ruthless, but most of it falls on the decisions of free human beings to take up the moral demand that we take care of one another. Do it directly and personally, not rely on the state to do everything.
Ever notice how the materially comfortable and well in the upper middle class Obamas don’t do diddlysquat for his brother in the slums of Nairobi or his impoverished aunt in the projects of Boston? Hell, she’s given his campaign more money than any help he’s given her. THAT, folks, is very telling.
Socialists believe in using other people’s money to solve the problems they don’t want to use their own money for. Ask billionaire George Soros ’bout that. He doesn’t give to charities. He gives to political organizations and causes that enhance his own power. Da po’ man git nuthin from George…
I think that also one of the reasons why few care about this is that it is expected. Lies? He is a politician – Oh well. Ties to terrorist – didn’t we go through all that with the right wingers during Clintons term? And then, lets not forget 8 years of Bush Derangement syndrome were even wilder things were promised – while not happy with where we are at the world hasn’t caved in on itself either. Is there is anything being said that can not just be filed away under “politician”? Well, not really and it doesn’t take a huge amount of effort to do so.
True, the associations are much worse here. True, they are much stronger. I’ll even say True that we have quite a bit of evidence that Obama directly supports them – but there is no way to differentiate it simply because too many roll their eyes and chalk it up to partisan politics.
You will not that the media also heavily pushes this theme too (all politicians are bad) – it also makes it easy to gloss over anything you are forced to admit too.
Eh, maybe Obama will be that way too – maybe he just used them as stepping stones and will let them sink now that he is where he is at. If so then the next guy down the road will be able to get away with more, if not – well we have to touch the iron at some point to re-learn it is hot. Better now than later I guess.
There are several ideas that we have today that are going this way (the other is the need to fight terrorism) – one of them is going to get us in the end. I fear that with Obama we actually have both at the same time, but then time will tell. It’s even possible Obama will have a true epiphany from a handful of events – after all it isn’t uncommon for that to occur in someone 40’s too. I just would rather not be relying on hope/change in that way (though I guess since he never really said more than hope/change maybe this is what he meant :))
“I know… he wants to do for us what socialists have done to Germany and France… and that’s bad enough…”
Germany’s GDP of $2.807 trillion, built on its status of the world’s largest exporter, gives Germany the third largest economy in the world. France’s GDP is $2.075 trillion. Contrast that with China’s, which is $7.099 trillion. That is, 146 million French and Germans – 11% of the Chinese population – produce 70% of the wealth produced by 1.3 billion Chinese.
That’s not so bad! These countries have large GDP per capita PPP, high literacy rates, high average life expectancies, etc etc etc. They’re doing pretty well for themselves. What, exactly, have socialists like Sarkozy and Merkel done to destroy these countries?
billy,
Would you like to be out of work and looking for a job in France or Germany? Or would your chances of finding gainful employment be better here?
France and Germany have high structural unemployment and it’s been high for decades. We’re talking levels that don’t fall below 8%. Hell, it’s estimated that at the depth of our recession, expected to be in the early part of next year, ours will approach or be around 8%. THAT’S DURING A DOWNTURN in the cycle.
In Europe you tend to either work for government or you work for a large corporation that is subsidized by the government. Very difficult to grow a small business in Europe. It isn’t an environment friendly towards entrepreneurship.
Good point, Billy. Your data establish that the greater the embrace of socialism, the poorer the economic results.
Their per capita GDP is about 2/3 that of the US (see CIA World Factbook, and bear in mind that we pay Europe’s defense costs, apart from, e.g., hairstyling).
Literacy rates, etc. are comparable to those of the Caucasian population of the US. It’s largely American blacksthat drive down our literacy rate.
I have to agree with many of the comments I’ve read on this thread. Oh, thanks Artfldgr, I didn’t know about White and Duggan either.
Unfortunately, I don’t think it will make much, if any difference (God I hope I’m totally wrong about that.) Listening to young, bright engineers in my office makes me realize that many didn’t just drink the Koolaide, it was what was on the menu at school.
Additionally, the MSM, despite their decline has still proven that among low information voters, and they’re a majority, the MSM are still the big mega-phone.
As for the Republicans still in office, well guess what, the big sellout continues.
Baklava, who is a thoughtful commenter stated above
While I agree that the CRA did fan the flames, I would suggest that everyone here also read this.
Most especially the “must read for 2008,” in its entirety.
True conservatism (classical liberalism in other words) and its poor cousin populism have been sold down the river by greed-heads masquerading as free market republicans.
Lenin was right when he said that when it was time to hang the capitalists, they would sell them the rope.
What I’m beginning to think now, and again, I hope I’m wrong is that the right-left, conservative-liberal dichotomies are meaningless. That what is really happening with the left democrats and the moderate republicans, is the engine of historical transformation is gradually, but ever so permanently moving us from a republic into something resembling more of a plutocracy.
Will that kill the engine of creation that has made this nation the world’s wealthiest, freest and most creative? You bet, but by the time it is widely realized, the damage will have been done. Historically, republics and democracies have been the exception, not the rule.
What we are seeing is the victory of big money, the status quo, powers that be, call it what you will, but those sitting out in the ally are those who champion the rights of the individual over the state.
Don’t bet on anyone looking into Obama’s fraudulent contributions, or any of the ‘Friends of Angelo.’ It’s all going to go down the memory hole. Unless ofcourse you’re a conservative.
Enough, today’s been a really bad day and my mood matches it right now.
billy Says:
“What, exactly, have socialists like Sarkozy and Merkel done to destroy these countries?”
Health and literacy, I’m afraid, have to take genetics and culture into account… and no standardized statistics do. It’s pretty well established, for instance, that the French can live on pure butter and have less coronary disease than Americans. It’s either genetics or some other aspect of their diet (re: culture)… not any great moves by their government planners.
As to Sarko and Merkel, neither are socialists… Predecessors were and they’ve basically turned France and Germany into stagnant economies. France was once a world super power, now and small regional power than struggles to keep one aircraft carrier in service.
When I see Ayers appearing on TV in that reptillian manner, the revulsion I feel is really strong. I’m no psychologist, but it strikes me that he must be a sociopath. How can anyone have no regret for the crimes they committed and the destruction they have wrought unless they have no conscience? It’s like looking in the face of a coiled serpent. Very chilling.
That he is continuing the revolution by trying to brain wash children is so Marxist. IMO this man has done, and continues to do, great damage to our society.
Tim P wrote, “Baklava, who is a thoughtful commenter ”
I agree. Well said. 🙂
Tim P wrote, “Enough, today’s been a really bad day and my mood matches it right now.”
Hey, I’ve had those. But today was an extremely good day for me. I took a test this morning and passed. It was my third attempt and this test was one that only 20% of people pass the first time. So I was with the 80% the first two time !! 🙂 Studying for 3 days straight payed off. I read 462 pages. I just came back from the gym and went to the supermarket and my favorite granola bar was 1/2 off.
He He.
Remember, Give of yourself to others; Serve others well and you will be rewarded. Work hard. Keep on keeping on!
Here’s the Zogby poll from HowObamaGotElected dotcom.
Notice that the results indicate that the average Obamabot voted for their man like it was an American Idol contest, and was butt-ignorant of, well, practically everything of substance: EXCEPT the lies and smears against Sarah Palin. This is all down to the stinking media.
IOW, they didn’t ignore Bill Ayers — they didn’t know who the hell he was!
512 Obama Voters 11/13/08-11/15/08 MOE +/- 4.4 points.
97.1% High School Graduate or higher, 55% College Graduates
Results to 12 simple Multiple Choice Questions
57.4% could NOT correctly say which party controls congress (50/50 shot just by guessing)
81.8% could NOT correctly say Joe Biden quit a previous campaign because of plagiarism (25% chance by guessing)
82.6% could NOT correctly say that Barack Obama won his first election by getting his opponents kicked off the ballot (25% chance by guessing)
88.4% could NOT correctly say that Obama said his policies would likely bankrupt the coal industry and make energy rates skyrocket (25% chance by guessing)
56.1% could NOT correctly say Obama started his political career at the home of two former members of the Weather Underground (25% chance by guessing).
And yet…..
Only 13.7% failed to identify Sarah Palin as the person on which their party spent $150,000 in clothes
Only 6.2% failed to identify Palin as the one with a pregnant teenage daughter
And 86.9 % thought that Palin said that she could see Russia from her “house,” even though that was Tina Fey who said that
Only 2.4% got at least 11 correct.
Only .5% got all of them correct. (And we “gave” one answer that was technically not Palin, but actually Tina Fey)
“Hyman Rosen”, your commentary is typical Obamatripe, you’re sitting smug now because you’ve pulled off a coup of sorts. Yes it represents several million, but by actual percentage, still a narrow win. So there are plenty of people out there who (would) appreciate the message of most of the participants of this blog. The one thing you people never address is what your reaction would be if your opposition had run a similar campaign, replete with such dirty politics/practices as organized serial voting and registration fraud, unethical campaign donation/finance issues, and double standards in a range of personal disclosure issues. Ok, I’ll let the accusations of media skewing go, technically it’s their right I suppose, though arguably unethical; But if that be the case, your contrived issues with conservative talk radio fairness are nothing but tripe. You can’t deny the serial attempts at deception practiced by Obama and your campaign, they are well established historical record. You want respect, give it, for starters show us the birth certificate, without a court order, as nothing more than a gesture of good faith. You people are hypocrites of the first order, you know good and well what and why I’m saying it. Enjoy the blog, you’ve come to the right place, the truth will set you free, unless you’re something like a dedicated marxist pervert for whom your goals, and the end justifies any means. Hope you enjoy having your nose rubbed in your own pile of dishonesty…
Artfldgr Says:
he will not become privy to all that information. he will get what he needs to know and thats it.
As Commander and Chief he will be receiving information that if publicly revealed would cause grave damage to national security. He’s probably already received that, since they reported his briefing information exceeded the level that McCain had up to this point.
That he won’t need briefings, for example, to every single CIA investigation going on is true, but that wasn’t the nature of your dumba&& statement since you seem to think we will somehow be sufficiently protected from the rogue President.
The difference between hard Left, like Ayres, and mainstreem “progressives” is only in tactic, not in end goals: subversion and dismantling of Western civilization as we know it. They all must be stopped if we want liberty to survive. There is no “Third way”, no middle ground between communist totalitarism and free society: all transitional stages are inherently instable and in time frame of one generation we either regain all constitutional liberties in their entirety or surrender all them to socialist Utopia.
I’m going to cast a dissenting vote again, Neo, because above all else I believe in the dictum: choose your battles. I’ll say at the outset, Bill Ayres was, is and will always be a despicable human being. I understand the desire of my brothers and sisters to go after him after the election has passed, but I question the wisdom. No one has assaulted the fabric of freedom protecting America while hiding behind its protection than Ayres. He certainly doesn’t try to hide his ongoing work to continue a revolution by warping the educational system. But let’s get one thing straight, if the best we can do is try to link him to Obama through events that occurred years ago we are wasting energy. If he has any influence with Obama at the present time, then by all means, expose it, shout it from the rooftops. The appearance of the troll “Hyman Rosen” ought to be a warning that further debate on Ayres and Obama’s past history is a black hole from which there is no return.
The people like Hyman are in power and we will continue to speak truth to power regardless of how many refuse to listen, for the truth needs to be said. If people are convinced, good, if they are not, then it must be repeated and hammered home.
What did Leftists say about insurgents? That the more of them you kill and oppress, the more crop up. Well, that is not exactly true but it is true here in the US.
We were the occupiers before 2006 and 2008, and now we are the insurgency.
he will not become privy to all that information. he will get what he needs to know and thats it.
obama doesn’t need to know the means and methods used to gather intel. Obama can just leak them by having his cronies in the CIA do it, if he thinks it will boost his poll numbers.
Things were leaking like swiss cheese during Bush, and Bush wasn’t trying to encourage leaks (he wasn’t making examples of them either). If Obama encourages leaks and Axelrod strategically leaks things that serves as rebuttals to public arguments made by us, then that’s a strategic weapon in their hands that they can and will use sooner or later.
# neo-neocon Says:
November 17th, 2008 at 11:37 pm
anonymouscoward: I’m always surprised, although I suppose I shouldn’t be, about how some commenters (and this would include you) mischaracterize and exagerate the position of so many with whom they disagree. No one is saying Obama is a terrorist about to blow up houses. Even Bill Ayers gave up that sort of activity quite some time ago.
Did you even read this link that I provided?
I remember way back when you were writing at blogspot and had all kinds of those people commenting.
Ah, the good old times when we all we had to worry about was terrorists blowing us up.
That would have been very hard when the CIA was under Tenet’s direction. The entire agency has been politicized to the point that it has become rogue. The anonymous leaks originating from the CIA did serious to harm the first Bush Administration.
Witness how Porter Goss, Bush’s successor to Tenet was forced out by entrenched groups from within the CIA.
In short, there wasn’t really much, if anything, that Bush could do about the CIA.
For those who say it’s a moderate tax increase of 36% to 39.6%, remember:
http://hotair.com/archives/2008/11/18/jim-martin-17-hiking-property-tax-assessments/
and the corporate tax rates
and Barney is talking about 44%
Leading into a recession.
These people are …
stupid
Thanks, Beverly, now I’m really depressed. But at least your data indicate why we now have a Prom King going to the White House.
OT
This cheered me up, and I think is a great idea: VI Day.
logern,
That he won’t need briefings, for example, to every single CIA investigation going on is true, but that wasn’t the nature of your dumba&& statement since you seem to think we will somehow be sufficiently protected from the rogue President.
you OBVIOUSLY took the evilyn woodhead sped redding curse…
i responded to a person who said that obama gets to look at everything. i informed them that no he doesnt. i didnt say that this was armor against him knowing something, but that it was showing that he doesnt get EVERYTHING.
you agree with me that he doesnt get everything. i never said that this was protection, only that its not as bad as if he got everything.
so who is the dumba&& now?
you would have been better off keeping your mouth shut and not letting us know who the real dumba&& is.
reading comprehension is a key skill, pleasue use it and things will go a lot smoother for everyone.
Beverly Says:
“Here’s the Zogby poll from HowObamaGotElected dotcom.”
The really funny one was the Obamabots thought Palin said ’57 states’. Because it fits the media narrative that she is an idiot…
Dan: At this point my battle with Ayers is about Ayers himself, not Obama. The latter connection is moot, in practical terms, because Obama has been elected—unless, of course, he were to appoint Ayers to some position as adviser, which I do not think is at all likely to happen.
Ayers still matters, as I wrote before, because of his influence on American education. His connection to Obama matters at this point only insofar as Obama might do things as President to further that radical agenda for education, as Obama did in the past when he served with Ayers on Annenberg. Ayers also matters in terms of the question of how it is that this guy could become an authority on education, of all things, and a respected member of the academic community.
He was being interviewed on NPR this afternoon say, “…we didn’t do enough.” If there was, or ever should be, a battlefield to meet him on…
“Freedom is the freedom to say that two plus two make four. If that is granted, all else follows.”
Neo-Neocon, Ayers matters because the facts matters. Lawrence Duggan, Ed Murrow’s friend, matters because the facts matters.
“facts matter” good typing would help.
The Main Stream Media is making money off the blood and bodies of the innocent and downtrodden, Neo. As to be expected.
Neo-Neocon, Ayers matters because the facts matters. Lawrence Duggan, Ed Murrow’s friend, matters because the facts matters.
People matter more than facts: both for the good and the evil. The facts, thus, only matter because it concerns people and their fates.
…”disappeared in 1969 after two of their colleagues in the Weather Underground died while building a bomb”…
Correction: three people died: Diana Oughton, Ted Gold, and Terry Robbins, also guilty as hell.
Ymarsakar, your point has some merit, and I agree with the value statement that people matter most.
However, when people ignore or deny the relevant facts, bad things tend to happen as a consequence, which ends up hurting people even more. It is possible to live in ignorance and denial, but I don’t recommend it. Ultimately, reality wins, no matter what people want to believe.
I feel great indignation when people make up facts to suit their positions, and when they suppress real facts to protect their interests. I am a realist: people will lie, and they do lie. But it seems to me that people who lie (let’s call it what it is) demonstrate contempt for the people to whom they lie.
This is particularly important in politics, because politics involves the exercise of power, and that implies the ability to hurt people. At its worst, we have seen regimes for whom lying is an essential part of their ethical set and tactics leave large numbers of bodies on the ground.
If anything, there should be greater sanctions for lying in politics than for lying in your private life, as the number of people thereby injured is much, much larger. For my part, I can’t see how utilitarian lying in pursuit of material goals could ever be anything other than profoundly unethical and damaging to the health of society. Perhaps you will make the counter-argument.
So at best, Ymarsakar, I think you have a half-truth, and I continue to share Neo’s sense of outrage over the systematic lying and misrepresentation in the Ayers Affair.