This is one of the signature techniques of the left: The co-option of historical memory. You still have the same outward dress — the cenotaph, the dignitaries, the poppies, the old stooped veterans — but the meaning of the event is hijacked and inverted. The contamination of Remembrance Day by this ghastly woman is disgusting even by her standards.

Source

The blogger with many visions™, in predicting his own story of the days to come, would augment that post with this quote from Stephen Hicks:

"Postmodernists are not individuals who have reached relativistic conclusions about epistemology and then found comfort in a wide variety of political persuasions. Postmodernists are monolithically far Left-wing in their politics...Postmodernists are the most likely to be hostile to dissent and debate, the most likely to engage in ad hominem argument and name-calling, the most likely to enact "politically correct" authoritarian measures, and the most likely to use anger and rage as argumentative tactics. Whether it is Stanley Fish calling opponents of affirmative action bigots and lumping them in with the Ku Klux Klan, or whether it is Andrea Dworkin's male-bashing in the forming of calling all heterosexual males rapists, the rhetoric is very often harsh and bitter."

Labels: liberals

My other brother (not this one) is fairly apolitical but asked when I thought the animosity between the left/right was going to end. I told him that neither McCain or Obama will bring peace because the nation will remain polarized until one side is brought to heel (by force if necessary). The left will never let go of 2000 and the right will never forget the vitriol spewed at GWB for the last eight years. It hasn't helped that people on the left have been whipped into a frenzy and driven to rage by the media, academia, and the arts.

I also find it truly laughable that some of the publications that systematically demonized GWB for eight-years are now asking that Obama be afforded the opportunity to heal the nation (world) unencumbered by rancor and dissent while their unhinged minions engage in lunacy like this (see below) on fresh targets.

Barbarians at the Gates--of the White House
Nowhere has the vileness of the Left been more sickening than in its treatment of Governor Palin...I don't think there is any precedent in our history for the shameful manner in which the Left has treated Sarah Palin...It is interesting to contemplate what a semi-pornographic video about Barack Obama, playing on the same sort of prejudices and stereotypes that are so disgustingly on display in Sullivan's video, would look like. Frankly, I can't imagine such a video being made, let alone featured on the web site of the once-proud Atlantic magazine. But on the Left, anything goes--the more slimy and disgusting, the better.

Labels: left-wing media, liberals, obama

The attacks on Joe Wurzelbacher by the MSM are a bit laughable. Joe was in his yard when Obama approached him but has now earned the ire and scrutiny of the fifth estate. Joe is an affront to the establishment because he has ambition. Joe, like my old Portuguese landlord, wants to do more...to be more...to earn more. And my landlord did. He barely spoke English but he retired to Portugal a very wealthy man.

The other thing about my landlord- he didn't make his money trading paper. He earned it with sweat and I never resented him for it (even when I was writing rent checks).

Perhaps the best summary of where this country is headed is in this article by Mark Steyn.

The heart of the American Dream is aspiration. That’s why people came here from all over the world. Back in eastern Europe, the Joe Bidens and Diane Sawyers of the day were telling Joe the Peasant: “Hey, look, man. You’re a peasant in the 19th century, just like your forebears were peasants in the 12th century and your descendants will be peasants in the 26th century. So you’re never gonna be earning 250 groats a year. Don’t worry about it. Leave it to us. We know better.” And Joe the Peasant eventually figured that one day he’d like to be able to afford the Premium Gruel with just a hint of arugula and got on the boat to Ellis Island. Because America is the land where a guy who doesn’t have a 250-grand business today might just have one in five or ten years’ time.

I think the story of Tito Munoz is equally inspiring because it demonstrates the growing divide between what the liberals think is right for us and what we're individually capable of.

And Obama's spread the wealth scheme is offensive to a free and hard working people...His plan - to spread the economic "success" that his party has engineered in New Jersey and Michigan - will fail because it has since time immemorial.

He is penalizing those who are trying to better themselves. He is stifling innovation and changing the course of a great and prosperous nation. No central planners have ever created prosperity by punishing those who seek to earn more by the sweat of their brow.

"It's not that I want to punish your success. I want to make sure that everybody who is behind you, that they've got a chance for success, too. My attitude is that if the economy's good for folks from the bottom up, it's gonna be good for everybody. I think when you spread the wealth around, it's good for everybody." - Barack Hussein Obama

Labels: economics, left-wing media, liberals, obama

This Op-Ed by Thomas Sowell reminds me of this equally complementary quote by Abraham Lincoln:

"If destruction be our lot, we must ourselves be its author and finisher. As a nation of freemen, we must live through all time, or die by suicide."

Sowell's Op-Ed received a title change in the Connecticut Post from, "Do Facts Matter" to "Don't believe everyone else; this is all the fault of liberals".

Either way, Sowell provides a strong and factual indictment of the high-ranking Democrats (including Obama) involved in the housing crisis as well as the complicity of the media to investigate.

Fact Number One: It was liberal Democrats, led by Senator Christopher Dodd and Congressman Barney Frank, who for years— including the present year— denied that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac were taking big risks that could lead to a financial crisis.

It was Senator Dodd, Congressman Frank and other liberal Democrats who for years refused requests from the Bush administration to set up an agency to regulate Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.

It was liberal Democrats, again led by Dodd and Frank, who for years pushed for Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to go even further in promoting subprime mortgage loans, which are at the heart of today's financial crisis.

Alan Greenspan warned them four years ago. So did the Chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers to the President. So did Bush's Secretary of the Treasury, five years ago.

The root causes of this crisis are being ignored by the media and obscured a cult of personality (Seattle hosts an Obama Youth Parade). Obama and his slippery cohorts have been the beneficiaries. As Sowell writes

The current financial bailout crisis has propelled Barack Obama back into a substantial lead over John McCain— which is astonishing in view of which man and which party has had the most to do with bringing on this crisis.

It raises the question: Do facts matter? Or is Obama's rhetoric and the media's spin enough to make facts irrelevant?

But the country does not deserve to be put in the hands of a glib and cocky know-it-all, who has accomplished absolutely nothing beyond the advancement of his own career with rhetoric, and who has for years allied himself with a succession of people who have openly expressed their hatred of America.

Labels: end times, left-wing media, liberals, obama, weekend

The attempt to centralize all power in the one capital city and, indeed, in its administrative quarter, means the assimilation of all possible rival institutions from monasteries to television stations, from harbour authorities to charitable foundations. All these can be eliminated in the name of democracy or efficiency, and the result is the creation of the one government machine into which all problems are fed and from which all wisdom is to emerge. All that is initially lost is the likelihood of the government's having to listen to informed criticism from outside its inner circle of officials. Thereafter the problems centre upon the growing size and complexity of the central administration. As the civil servants multiply there is an ever-increasing distance between the citizen and the nameless people who will ultimately decide upon his application, protest, or appeal.

- C. Northcote Parkinson

The Fourth Estate has already been absorbed (see below).

A Gallup survey says 52 percent of Americans do not trust news media, up from 30 percent in 1972. Are the two tied? Of course, they are. Who’s responsible for that?

Labels: end times, left-wing media, liberals, quotes

The Anchoress gives a pep talk on media bias after stating the cold hard facts:

By the way, we’re outnumbered. Team Mainstream has all the heavyweights, the guards, the tackles and the microphones, too - so they call the plays the way they see them, regardless of what is actually happening.

This is how I know we're grossly outnumbered:

Immigration 08' (Mobilizing Immigrant Voters) - "Simon Rosenberg has worked in national politics and the media world for more than 20 years."

GOOD Sheet: Coming to America - The GOOD Sheet (progressive agitprop) is being distributed by Starbucks.

Glenn Reynolds echoes The Anchoress:

EARLIER, I promised some thoughts on what to do about the news media's outright campaigning for Obama. They're not just in the tank, they're functioning as arms of the campaign, and Obama's strategy shows that he knows that and is relying on it.)

If you want to have a media environment that isn't dominated by the Gwen Ifills and Keith Olbermanns of the world, you need to ensure that other kinds of voices flourish. That means supporting the alternatives with your eyeballs, your subscriptions, your advertiser-patronage -- basically, your money. Businesses need money to flourish. There's a vast underserved population out there, for news, entertainment, movies, etc., and if people start serving it, the current "mainstream" media won't be so mainstream anymore. So if you're unhappy with current offerings, put your money where your mouth is.

I suppose Glenn's strategy will work until the DEMS pass the Fairness Doctrine.

Labels: democrats, immigration, left-wing media, liberals

Poor Nancy is SO blind with BDS that she's lost all her faculties. I would send her a coupon for some DEPEND® Undergarments if I thought she could figure out how to put them on.

Before your infant mind buys what agitprop CNN/NPR is selling 95 DEMS voted against the bailout (40% of Pelosi's caucus).

Related (Nacht und Nebel)
How the blogger with many visions™ knows the end times are coming.

◙ Exhibit 1 - YouTube pulled the video of the brainwashed children worshipping Obama. The remix can be viewed here.
◙ Exhibit 2
◙ Exhibit 3
◙ Exhibit 4
◙ Exhibit 5

Labels: democrats, left-wing media, liberals, pelosi

...berserk with BDS and maybe in need of medication, out-patient services, and restraining orders.

The Atlantic should have Googled Jill Greenberg before hiring her

Atlantic Monthly Editor to Offer Apology to McCain for Photog’s Doctored Pics

The Atlantic's PR Flacks: Jill Greenberg "Disgraced Herself," But We Stand By the "Respectful Cover" That Did Run

Unrepentant Photographer Turns McCain Into a Monster

That McCain Photo Controversy...

Media Bias: Personnel Is Policy

The Atlantic's McCain Cover

McCain Photo Fallout at The Atlantic

Labels: left-wing media, liberals

While some over privileged folks chase ghosts, prattle on endlessly about community/authenticity and invent injustice and bogeymen Yoani Sánchez fights tropical totalitarianism, one blog post at a time.

Let’s Push Raul Castro into Reforming Cuba
Earlier this year a Cuban blogger named Yoani Sanchez was selected as one of Time Magazine’s 100 most influential list. Sanchez, who faces incredible hardships to post her writings on her blog because of the purposeful lack of Internet access on the island, also won Spain’s equivalent of the Pulitzer Prize. She writes about the absurd nature of life in Castro’s Cuba with her beautifully descriptive prose.

Related
"On Monday, August 24, a dissident punk rocker named Gorki Aguila was picked up by Cuban police for allegedly committing the Orwellian crime of “pre-criminal dangerousness.” Aguila, who fronts a band called Porno Para Ricardo, writes lyrics that are harshly critical of the regime.

On the appointed day, Gorki’s trial was postponed, then postponed again as a throng of supporters and members of the international media waited outside the court. In the matter of just one week, Gorki Aguila went from being a relatively unknown punk rocker to a cause célèbre. Raul Castro officially had a hot potato on his hands. Finally, at 5:00 p.m. (eight hours behind schedule) Gorki was brought into one of the regime’s kangaroo courts. He faced anywhere from one to four years in prison if convicted (everyone gets convicted). Then something unusual happened. The charges were reduced to a simple case of “disobedience” and Gorki was convicted (remember, everyone gets convicted) and sentenced to pay a fine of 600 pesos, which is roughly $40, about two months’ salary in Cuba.

Yes, changes are occurring in Cuba. The going rate for calling Fidel Castro a “c*ck sucker” on the island was reduced from a lengthy prison sentence to a $40 fine, a bargain that is sure to increase the levels of remittances to the island. This was most certainly a change that Raul Castro never envisioned having to make when he ascended to his brother’s throne."

Limestone Commentary
America is great because you can be wildly unproductive, use all kinds of excuses for it, and still call any elected official a c*ck sucker (or retarded cowboy fellow). Even better, Hollywood, academia and the MSM will help you.

Labels: cuba, left-wing media, liberals

This is from The Road to Wigan Pier by George Orwell. He is a hero to the left but his wit (and subsequent conversion) was somehow lost on them.

It may help to refer to zombietime to see how his seventy year-old description still has tremendous relevancy. One of my favorite images is the F*** Middle America in the Hall of Shame. The cranks are also complemented by legions of fabulously wealthy, vacation-home owning, Ivy League educated, Prius driving, Europe traveling, NPR listening, Crate and Barrel shopping limousine liberals. It's Nancy Pelosi meets this guy.

"Question a person of this type, and you will often get the semi-frivolous answer: "I don't object to Socialism, but I do object to Socialists." Logically it is a poor argument, but it carries weight with many people. As with the Christian religion, the worst advertisement for Socialism is its adherents.

The first thing that must strike any outside observer is that Socialism in its developed form is a theory confined entirely to the middle class. The typical Socialist is not, as tremulous old ladies imagine, a ferocious-looking working man with greasy overalls and a raucous voice. He is either a youthful snob-Bolshevik who in five years' time will quite probably have made a wealthy marriage and been converted to Roman Catholicism; or, still more typically, a prim little man with a white-collar drive, usually a secret teetotaller and often with vegetarian leanings, with a history of Nonconformity behind him, and, above all, with a social position which he has no intention of forfeiting. This last type is surprisingly common in Socialist parties of every shade; it has perhaps been taken over en bloc from the old Liberal Party. In addition to this there is the horrible- the really disquieting- prevalence of cranks wherever Socialists are gathered together. Once sometime gets the impression that the mere words "Socialism" and "Communism" draw towards them with magnetic force every fruit-juice drinker, nudist, sandal-wearer, sex-maniac, Quaker, "Nature Cure" quack, pacifist and feminist in England. One day this summer I was riding through Letchworth when the bus stopped and two dreadful-looking old men got on to it. They were both about sixty, both very short, pink and chubby, and both hatless. One of them was obscenely bald, the other has long grey hair bobbed in the Lloyd George style. They were dressed in pistachio-coloured shirts and khaki shorts into which their huge bottoms were crammed so tightly that you could study every dimple. Their appearance created a mild stir of horror on top of the bus. The man next to me, a commercial traveller I should say, glanced at me, at them, and back again at me, and murmured, "Socialists," as who should say, "Red Indians."

Labels: liberals, obama

"But Sarah Palin didn’t court this anger with more anger. That would be a turn-off. What most frustrates Americans is that we are a happy, optimistic, can-do people ceaselessly harangued by media solons, delusional academics, post-sovereign Eurocrats, and the Democrats who love them. While we free and feed the world, they can’t tell us enough that we’re racist, imperialist, torturing louts. We know it’s a libel, an endless stream of slander. But we also know it’s an absurd libel. We’re tired of hearing it, but taking it too seriously would give it power it doesn’t deserve..."

This is every lefty I've ever met. America is ALWAYS wrong and patriotism is the religion of a Neanderthal. The only enlightened people are the intellectuals from the right schools in the northeast, San Franciscans, and Europeans.

Labels: left-wing media, liberals, obama

Some thoughts from Peggy Noonan on Sarah Palin.

Because she jumbles up so many cultural categories, because she is a feminist not in the Yale Gender Studies sense but the How Do I Reload This Thang way, because she is a woman who in style, history, moxie and femininity is exactly like a normal American feminist and not an Abstract Theory feminist; because she wears makeup and heels and eats mooseburgers and is Alaska Tough, as Time magazine put it; because she is conservative, and pro-2nd Amendment and pro-life; and because conservatives can smell this sort of thing -- who is really one of them and who is not -- and will fight to the death for one of their beleaguered own; because of all of this she is a real and present danger to the American left, and to the Obama candidacy.

And Victor Davis Hanson has given us a new definition.

Palinize: to slander and caricature a working-class female public figure for the noble advancement of liberalism.

Labels: left-wing media, liberals, obama

"Fellow citizens: If the Hanoi Hilton could not break John McCain’s resolve to do what is best for his country, you can be sure the angry left never will."

- President George W. Bush

More from the ANGRY left...

I have never seen, and I admit that I could never have imagined, such shameful, out-of-control, frenzied, angry, condescending, and pathetic journalistic malpractice. The ignorant assault on Palin’s accomplishments and experience, the breathless careless airing of deranged rumors about her private life, the staggeringly indecent mistreatment of her teenage daughter in a difficult time, the ill-informed piling on about the vetting process, the self-intensifying circle of tisking nodding heads utterly detached from a straightforward political event, have been amazing and eye-opening.

The reigning emotion of it all has been anger—anger at being surprised, anger at being denied the spectacle...

Labels: liberals

What do you get when you combine a liberal(s) 1st grade grasp of economics with their 3rd grade "mastery" of history?

Obama wants to repeat the mistakes of Herbert Hoover, raising individual and corporate taxes and siphoning needed investment capital out of the markets and into the hands of bureaucrats. It doesn’t seem like much of an economic recovery program.

Source

For conservatives, seeing is believing; for liberals, believing is seeing...

Labels: economics, liberals, obama

Barack Obama Sr., recall, was in the U.S. to study economics to help with the development of his dirt poor, resource rich country, Kenya. (A country the U.S. hoped to save from the clutches of the Soviets and the devastation of communism.) God only knows what he learned at Harvard, but, as the IBD piece mentions, he went home to Kenya where, among his other activities, he wrote an article for the East Africa Journal offering a vivid critique of such capitalist entrerprise as existed in Kenya at the time.

The article, called "Problems Facing Our Socialism," makes the economic case that high taxes are morally and practically good, if the government then uses them to provide for the people. How high should the tax rates be? "Theoretically," he wrote, "there is nothing that can stop the government from taxing 100% of income so long as the people get benefits from the government commensurate with their income which is taxed." Yes, you read it: a 100% tax rate is fine. Obama Sr. continued, " It is a fallacy to say there is a limit (to tax rates), and it is a fallacy to rely mainly on individual free enterprise to get the savings." Free enterprise — bad.

Source: Confiscatory Tax Rate Dreams from my Father

Labels: democrats, liberals, obama

(1) Taking on the Left’s speech-chillers

(2) Editorial: Wine-and-cheese thuggery

(3) Imagine the MSM Reaction...

(4) THE LEFT TAKES THE HIGH ROAD

Labels: democrats, liberals, obama

"But public sentiment might just as easily have switched the other way is press criticism of Soviet objectives, not to mention Soviet atrocities in Eastern Europe, had been as free as it was over Churchill's intervention in Greece. When he sent in British troops to frustrate a Communist takeover, the American newspapers were quick to accuse him of imperialist ambitions."

Countdown to Victory by Barry Turner

The good news now is that a majority of Americans believe the media is biased and in the employ of liberals.

Labels: left-wing media, liberals

"I have always loved longitude, I love latitude; it’s in the stars. But longitude, it’s about time...Time and clocks and all the rest of that have always been a fascination for me."

Nancy Pelosi speaking about a painting in her office, Jan Vermeer's "The Geographer."

[NRO]

Labels: democrats, liberals

"I have become a symbol of the possibility of America returning to our best traditions." - Obama™

Perception

(1) But "citizen of the world" is a utopian, unreal, angelic, inhuman term, an abstraction of the sort that leads to immense bloodshed as human irregularities are hacked off and angularity is loudly planed away...The Berlin speech also explains why Obama is more likely to praise an "ideal" America than the real America. He is bewitched by abstractions and lofty ideals. That is how he touches the secret chords of the heart of so many millions, the teenage romanticism of a world without different real interests, without the clashes of culture, the force of political arguments about who gets what, when, and how. (Source)

(2) It's America's most powerful drug. Once on hopium, you won't care if Iran has nukes or if taxes are raised during a recession or whether Obama keeps flipping and flopping on everything from foreign wiretaps to withdrawing troops from Iraq.

Who cares? Relax. Hopium is your friend. (Source)

Reality

(1) "His [Churchill] good friend, as he liked to call Franklin D. Roosevelt, was of another school of diplomacy. Having served his political apprenticeship in the first German war, he was imbued with the idealism of Woodrow Wilson. The failure of the League of Nations, Wilson's brainchild, only made him more determined to bring his own skills to bear on creating a new world order based on mutual trust."

"But even Roosevelt must have taken a deep breath when he signed up for the Declaration on Liberated Europe which, in theory, committed the Big Three to helping the freed nations 'to destroy the last vestiges of Nazism and Fascism and to create democratic conditions of their own choice'. The President lived just long enough to recognize the depth of cynicism measured by these words. In late March, sixteen Polish resistance leaders were lured to Moscow on the pretense of discussing the agreed broadening of the Lublin administration. Instead they ended up in the Lubianka prison where they were tortured into confessing to fabricated charges..."

Source: Countdown to Victory by Barry Turner

It's a bit "apples to oranges" because Roosevelt actually had experience (unlike Obama™) and Fascists are liberals.

Labels: liberals, obama

There's enough marketing savvy/sizzle in Obama™ the brand to make AdvertisingAge® - The Need for Partnership at a Time of Fragmentation. Obama™ the brand, with it's shiny doubleplusgood newspeak and iPod aesthetics, has many intelligent people fooled.

Related
The Brand Called Obama

Old Glory in Berlin
The television feed of Obama's internationalist speech in Berlin frequently cut to Germans waving American flags. Perhaps it's just the cynic in me, but I noticed that they all appeared to be the exact same size and make. It was almost as if some outside entity (a presidential campaign, perhaps?) handed them out in order to deliver the best possible visual images during the speech. Video of anti-American Europeans once again embracing the stars and stripes in an organic display of hope and unity would certainly be powerful stuff. The question is whether the Obama campaign manufactured this image for political gain. If they did, the press bought it hook, line and sinker.

The digital divide
The gap between technologists supporting Republicans and Democrats continues to widen. In addition to financial support, influential technologists like Chris Hughes are now providing strategic support to Obama.

"In a great collaborative effort, Barack Obama partnered with Chris Hughes, co-founder of Facebook, to develop a web presence and better employ the social networking that helped engage younger voters and clinch the Democratic nomination. The campaign also had a very well-organized grassroots effort with first-hand knowledge of the political climate and voting protocol in each state and the expertise to resonate with local communities. The collective skills of these local partners helped the "Obama brand" connect with its audience and raise capital in record proportions."

The left was quick to embrace the tools built by the technologists. A quick survey of reddit on Friday showed mostly anti-conservative, anti-Semitic or general BDS articles. The "what's hot" of reddit included; Send Rove to jail petition passes 100,000, John McCain Covered Up $4 Billion Theft For Friend, and Lev Leviev, Israel's richest man, buying blood diamonds, funding illegal Israeli settlements in the West Bank, undermining the prospects for Middle East peace.

I'm not sure the technologists are enough to be the margin of victory for Obama in 2008. What is evident is the technologists represent yet another lever in the arsenal of mind-molding establishments that Democrats can depend on in the general election. And what's most frightening about Al Gore's relationship with Steve Jobs (and Sergey Brin's with Obama) is the technology available today assuages the liberal need for a sense of order (more aptly defined as Fascism).

Labels: democrats, end times, left-wing media, liberals, obama