the leftist experience
[T]he moral destruction of communism was worse because the confusion between common morality and communist morality remains deep rooted. With the latter hiding behind the former, it is parasitical and polluting, using common morality to spread its contagion. Here is a recent example: in the discussions that followed the publication of The Black Book of Communism, an editorial writer at the French communist newspaper L’Humanite’ announced on television that 85 million deaths did not in any way tarnish the communist ideal. They represented only a very unfortunate deviation. After Auschwitz, he continued, one can no longer be a Nazi, but one can remain a communist after the Soviet camps. This man, who spoke in good conscience, did not realize at all that he had just articulated his own most fatal condemnation. He could not see that the communist idea had so perverted the principles of reality and morality that it could indeed outlive 85 million corpses, whereas the Nazi idea had succombed under its dead. He thought he had spoken as a great and decent man, idealistic and uncompromising, without realizing that he had uttered a monstrosity. Communism is more perverse than Nazism because it does not ask man consciously to take the moral step of the criminal, and because it uses the spirit of justice and goodness that abounds throughout the earth to spread evil over all the earth. Each communist experience begins anew in innocence.
Alain Besancon, A Century of Horrors, 2007.
American leftists will ridicule their comparison to communists, however, in moral relativity, in masking harmful policies under good intentions, and in denial over their policies’ historical failures, leftists and communists are a distinction without a difference. [Read more…]
John Andrews’ speech in Kiowa
John Andrews’ speech – wmv file, 48 megs.
contrived continuity
The psychological state of the militant is distinguished by his fanatical investment in the system. This central vision reorganizes his entire intellectual and perceptual field, all the way to the periphery. Language is transformed: it is no longer used to communicate or express, but to conceal a contrived continuity between the system and reality. Ideological language is charged with the magical role of forcing reality to conform to a particular vision of the world. It is a liturgical language for which every utterance points to its speaker’s adherence to the system, and it summons the interlocutor to adhere as well. Code words thus constitute threats and figures of power.It is not possible to remain intelligent under the spell of ideology.
The most obvious sign that ideological insanity is artificial is that it is reversible: when the pressure ceases and circumstances change, one gets out all at once, as if from a dream. But it is a waking dream–one that does not block motility and maintains a certain apparently rational coherence. Outside the affected area, which is the superior part of the mind in a healthy person–the part that articulates religion, philosophy, and the “governing ideas of reason,” as Kant would say–the comprehensive functions seem intact but focused on and enslaved by the surreal object. When one wakes, one’s mind is empty; one’s life and knowledge must be entirely relearned.
Alain Besancon, A Century of Horrors, 2007.
The Republican mistake of the 2008 election was to embrace a portion of the left’s ideological insanity to bring in moderates, which ended up ratcheting the debate to the left. Whoever concluded that Republicans could score by giving the ball to the opposition should be fired. [Read more…]
Evan Coyne Maloney
Naming the Swine Flu: a Battle of P.C. Hierarchy
We now have brewing an epic battle that will determine the relative importance of three different groups: Jews, Muslims and Mexicans.
You see, in the Hierarchy of Multiculturalism, when the interests of different identity groups conflict, the arbiters of political correctness must decide which group has the most victim cred. That’s how such disputes are settled: to the victim go the spoils. [Read more…]
blowback
“Because white guilt is a vacuum of moral authority, it makes the moral authority of whites and the legitimacy of American institutions contingent on proving a negative: that they are not racist. The great power of white guilt comes from the fact that it functions by stigma, like racism itself. Whites and American institutions are stigmatized as racist until they prove otherwise. . . . .[T]he larger reality is that white guilt leaves no room for moral choice; it does not depend on the goodwill or the genuine decency of people.” Shelby Steele, White Guilt, 2006.
The moral authority that comes from an absence of moral choice is actually no moral authority. This is a prescription for endless manipulation–by both blacks and whites–which Steele documents at length. He also wrote, [Read more…]
Sunday in Elbert
Andre Glucksmann
The World of Megaterrorism
BY ANDRE GLUCKSMANN
Sunday, March 21, 2004 12:01 a.m. EST
PARIS–Read carefully the statement that claimed responsibility for the Madrid massacres. [Read more…]
Victims of Communism
blanks
From an article by James Bovard.
- Paying people on false pretenses to do unnecessary things is the soul of ____________.
- Nowadays, many ____________ programs are hailed in the media for projects that produce little more than sanctimony among participants.
- ____________ is beloved by politicians because it provides ample photo opportunities of them doing good deeds.
- ____________ has never performed a credible analysis of the value of the service that its members produce.
- The issue is not what ____________ members produce but how it makes people feel about the government.
How many public programs can you name that fit the above model?
last nerves
I don’t really want to know how many last nerves I’ve got left. Each time I think, “That’s it, he’s gotten on my last nerve,” [Read more…]
ecomyths
Bound to Burn
“If we’re truly worried about carbon, we must instead approach it as if the emissions originated in an annual eruption of Mount Krakatoa. Don’t try to persuade the volcano to sign a treaty promising to stop. Focus instead on what might be done to protect and promote the planet’s carbon sinks—the systems that suck carbon back out of the air and bury it.”
hot ‘n cold
Via Getty Images. caption: Handout picture released by the Venezuelan Presidency press office showing the President of the US,Barack Obama (L), and his Venezuelan counterpart Hugo Chavez (R) chatting before the opening of the 5th Summit of the Americas in Port of Spain, on April 17, 2009.
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Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez (R) gives U.S. President Barack Obama a copy of “Las Venas Abiertas de America Latina” by author Eduardo Galeano during a meeting at the Summit of the Americas in Port of Spain, Trinidad April 18, 2009. Obama sat down with South American leaders on Saturday, saying he was ready to listen and learn after promising an era of more regional cooperation and a new start with communist Cuba.
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3 weeks ago:Hugo calls Obama “ignorant”
color me skeptical
“There is no such dichotomy as Reds AND Greens, but Green Reds, and vice versa. It was a deep concern for the livable planet being saved that pointed me originally towards socialism and revolution. That will not change, and Marx only made me a more confirmed green.”
4th estate joined the state
The Little Red Wagon That Can – What I saw at the Tea Party
“These are the same people who rushed en masse to cover Cindy Sheehan and a dozen or so antiwar protesters in Crawford, Texas, rechristening that sad, emotionally unpredictable woman with two of the most cherished words in the English language: Peace Mom. But what was their attitude when thousands of ordinary people gathered in defense of their rights all over the country? “Just move on, folks, nothing to see here.”
Leftwing extremism
Left Wing Extremism: The Current Threat (2001)
Unlike the recent homeland security threat assessment of right-wing extremism that was based on pure speculation, the above assessment of left-wing extremism was based on real threats.
Electoral College
Colorado Democrats intend to eliminate the electoral college in Colorado. [Read more…]
Denver Tea Party
Approximately 5000 people had their cup of tea at the state house in Denver on tax day, and their message to limit spending was heard loud and clear by the Colorado House in session inside the capital building who were, coincidentally, debating the state budget. I did not see a single disruptive demonstrator, nor did I hear any angry conversations. People had a great time; it was a party atmosphere with a serious side. There was no evidence of overriding organization, of Fox News’ involvement, or of any commercial posters or signs of the sort you see at a political party rally.
Videos of speeches:
Gunny Bob
Jon Caldara
Mike Coffman
Tom Lucero
Mike Kopp
Lenina Close
IBD: The Tea Party System
The following pictures are higher density than I usually post so they can be enlarged to read the various signs. Click on them to enlarge. [Read more…]
doublethink
“Tea Party Movement”–the new Weather Underground?
The left needed to declare the war on terror over so they could free up the word “terrorist” to label conservatives, otherwise known as “rightwing extremists” by leftists, fascists, socialists, communists, social democrats, green reds, religious fundamentalists, islamists, various assorted totalitarian thugs, pirates, daily kos readers, george soros contributors, ward churchill clones, and other social defectives.
drink deep
fear itself
On April 13th, 2009 at 6:55 pm, Special K said:
The Department of Homeland Security issued a warning about “right-wing terror groups”–kind of ironic that it came out just days before the TEA protests. [Read more…]
corruption of the curriculum
School curriculum corrupted by politics
“The school curriculum has been corrupted by political interference, according to a new report from independent think-tank Civitas. The traditional subject areas have been hi-jacked to promote fashionable causes such as gender awareness, the environment and anti-racism, while teachers are expected to help to achieve the government’s social goals instead of imparting a body of academic knowledge to their students.
punitive liberalism
James Piereson – Punitive Liberalism
“From the time of John Kennedy’s assassination in 1963 to Jimmy Carter’s election in 1976, the Democratic party was gradually taken over by a bizarre doctrine that might be called Punitive Liberalism. According to this doctrine, [Read more…]
more Delingpole
“One of the things that has always puzzled me about Greens, as no doubt it has puzzled you, is how people who are supposedly dedicated to all the nice things in life–nature, animals, trees–can yet be so astonishingly vicious, nasty, bullying, and downright fascistic in their policies. It’s what makes them such a dangerous political movement. At least with the Nazis you knew where you stood: they were never in it for the peace, love, and harmony. Nor were the Stalinists; nor were the Maoists; nor are the Islamofascists. It’s much easier to take a stand against a cause whose values are quite clearly inimical to your own. Much harder when they’re whispering gently in your ear idyllic visions of a brighter, cleaner, more natural future where the lion shall lie down with the lamb and those Truffula trees will blossom once more.”
Welcome to Obamaland
single-payers don’t pay
Greg Scandlen of the Heartland Institute………….
This study tries to balance the hysteria about cost-shifting from the uninsured to people with private coverage with an analysis of how much cost-shifting is the result of underpayment by Medicare and Medicaid.
The answer, it turns out, is that underpayment by those two public programs dwarfs any problems created by the uninsured. [Read more…]
carbon conceit
“Few challenges facing America — and the world — are more urgent than combating climate change. The science is beyond dispute and the facts are clear.” President Obama
“This is the justification for the imposition of a carbon cap-and-trade system that will cost $2 trillion. But Obama does not understand science. “Settled science” is an oxymoron, and anyone who characterizes science as “settled” or “indisputable” is ignorant not only of science, but also history and philosophy……… President Obama, a lawyer and politician, would now have us believe that the process of history has stopped. For the first time, scientific knowledge is not provisional and subject to revision, but final and settled……… Knowledge begins with skepticism and ends with conceit.” Prof. David Deming
“The presumption of sufficient knowledge for central planning is not new. It’s what Nobel laureate Friedrich Hayek termed the “fatal conceit.” There is no historical evidence that any government has ever planned a major economic intervention that worked as planned, even with mid-course corrections.” William O’Keefe
Discussion Draft Summary – THE AMERICAN CLEAN ENERGY AND SECURITY ACT OF 2009
DISCUSSION DRAFT – American Clean Energy and Security Act of 2009
James Delingpole
From: Welcome to Obamaland
“I could go on but it’s too depressing. I cite them merely to give you a taste of the smorgasbord of scuzzballs, incompetents, timeservers, Communists, class warriors, eco-loons, single-issue rabble-rousers, malcontents, and losers who always rise to the surface during a left-liberal administration.
You’ve seen some of these types in action before. The John Murthas and the Chuck Schumers. The James Carvilles and the Al Sharptons. The Barney Franks and the Henry Waxmans. And it’s bearable when there’s not too many of them. Almost amusing even because they can act as bogeymen: the whacko villains who you just love to hate.
Where it becomes a problem–as you’re about to discover, if you haven’t already–is when your ruling administration consists of nothing but these people. No longer do they qualify as light relief. They become your daily nightmare.”
reparations
Sadly, there is simply no way to fashion a reparations remedy that would not, itself, do an injustice to people completely undeserving of that harm, as if a fair value could even be sorted out. Two wrongs will never make a right.
A crime requires a bad intent and a harmful act. That intention is not inheritable by descendants of slavers. Similarly, causation is not an inheritable trait by distant descendants of original victims.
So long as reparations remain the only end point for this “righteous struggle,” the struggle will have no end.
a parent barometer
Dr. Robert Findling on ADHD mp3 audio, 2 megs
Citation: Ellis B, Nigg J. Parenting Practices and Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder: New Findings Suggest Partial Specificity of Effects. J Am Acad Child Adolesc Psychiatry. 2009;48(2):146-154.
Robert L. Findling, MD, Professor of Psychiatry and Pediatrics, Department of Psychiatry, Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland, Ohio; Director, Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, University Hospitals Case Medical Center, Cleveland, Ohio
free speech
Pat Condell’s application of the language of religious fundamentalism to defend free speech will certainly offend some.
His strongest critics, however, are those who excuse murder and terrorism as acceptable tactics in their struggle for world domination.
Go Pat.
Pat Condell – Free speech is sacred mp3 audio – 3 megs.
standard tactics
(to name a few)
“The system encourages pressure groups to do what they do.”
“Epithets…deaden the debate.”
“The rhetoric of diversity, rights, tolerance, and democracy [is] a cultural struggle over history.”
“Careful wording hides more than it explains.”
“Euphemisms and artful phrases abound.”
“Bias persists.”
“Silences are profound and intentional.”