Once again, I marvel at the blindness, not of the leftists — they know well what it is they’re doing, and they’re more than happy to unleash useful idiots to carry out their political messaging — but rather by rightwing opinion leaders who keep falling back on attempts to shame the left into acting responsibly, as if a good chastisement is all that’s necessary to force statists back into the accepting paradigm that our government and civil society operate as a constitutional republic. Washington Examiner:
Yesterday’s coordinated attempt to shut down trade throughout the United States has made clear that Occupy Wall Street is prepared to cripple the U.S. economy to prove a point they cannot even articulate.
When they’re not trying to cause economic havoc, they are busy draining the treasuries of state and local governments. The Washington Examiner reported yesterday that Occupy DC has cost the Metropolitan Police Department $1.3 million so far. Across the country, Occupy encampments have cost city law enforcement agencies at least $22 million, and that number will surely rise.
Local government budgets are already tight. So are the family budgets of middle-class Americans who depend on our nation’s business and commerce. Perhaps the Occupiers can afford the luxury of setting aside productive activity for weeks and months to create new burdens for the rest of us, but the real 99 percent cannot. It is time for liberal leaders like President Obama to own up to their responsibilities and tell the Occupiers to go home.
Actually, it’s been time to tell the Occupiers to go home for months now. And yet the Administration has continued its support for the “movement,” banking on the proposition that the more pain felt by the “middle class,” the more likely that dwindling demographic is to grow frustrated and lash out, and when they do, they’ll lash out at “the 1%,” which the Democrats are aligning themselves to scapegoat while they paint the GOP as defenders of the “rich.”
Again, this plan is not something new: Cloward-Piven established the framework, and Alinsky wrote a handbook detailing the tactics for priming the populace to accept their roles as soldiers in the revolution — teaching them who to hate, why to hate them, and how to effectively to make manifest that scapegoating in ways that can then be used to great propaganda effect. The left has the mainstream press in its pocket: contemporary mainstream journalism has become nothing more than the propaganda arm of the ruling elite (with the majority of journalists favoring the ruling elite whose politics run toward a command-and-control progressivism); the left controls education, and the heavily-nationalized education industry (and its public sector union employees) has for years preached America’s sins while simultaneously soaking young people in a PC entitlement and esteem culture that prepares them more for protest and making demands than for hard work and earning a living.
— All of which is to say that it’s stunning to me how esteemed opinion leaders of the right continue to close their eyes to the very real attempt at an actual political, cultural, and existential coup — pretending still that the President is a patriotic actor who, if pressured, can be convinced to work in best interests of a free market economy and a free people.
He isn’t, and he won’t.
He’s too busy establishing new cabinet level positions intended to control (and inevitably to politicize and corrupt) manufacturing in the US — all under the auspices of concern and reform.
This moves the US one-step closer to the full nationalization of the manufacturing sector, controlled centrally by DC czars and their bureaucratic offshoots — where winners and losers will be chosen, political favor curried as a result, and unions likely to benefit most.
— Which is why he’d never consider a proposal like Rick Santorum’s (which would reinvigorate the manufacturing sector by cutting taxes and compliance costs to make the US competitive once again); because the object for the left is not reinvigorating the manufacturing sector; the object is to consolidate control over yet another sector of the economy, creating new dependencies, and so new clients for Democrats.
Until we’re willing to label Obama and his Administration what it is — a radical Leftist cabal looking to institutionalize measures that will, over time, complete the usurpation of a free market republic and allow its replacement, democratic socialism, to take “popular” root (here’s a reminder who Obama appointed as his previous “manufacturing czar”) — we won’t be able to effectively fight it.
Instead, we’ll write indignant op-eds calling on Our President to Own Up to His Responsibilities and begin acting as if he’s a representative of a free market economy and a free people whose individual autonomy is paramount.
Which, it is to laugh.
Your self-justifying Occutard moron for today: Denver
(via the always worthwhileDavid Thompson)
Paired off with the Owwies, we have Iran, choosing to shut down the Strait of Hormuz. But the US can talk to them, right? I mean, Iran isn’t an enemy at war with the US since 1979, surely? But Obama’s reaction will be a deep history acknowledging bow, a big ol’ hug and a statement of anti-imperialist solidarity. He’s a sweet talker, our Barry. And he’s got ’em right where he wants ’em.
“Oakland port workers stay home as protesters rally“
@#2
Drill and mine baby, drill and mine. And Popular Mechanics, you can shove your global warming crap where the sun doesn’t shine, move your head out first though.
The Iranians have been making that threat for, what? three years or more? I’m thinking since they took our drone and got away with it, they may just mean it this time.
Re: The OWSers. It’s time the R’s seized the day and rebranded them as Obamavilles.
Quite frankly, I was surprised that the Occupiers weren’t beaten up one side and down the other by the longshoremen trying to get to work. Further, I keep waiting for an enterprising band of inner city yoots to start relieving these wannabe hippies of their gadgets. At gunpoint just to let it sink in. Where’s Fagan when we need him?
Leigh, you’re assuming that the unions and the gangs are completely independent actors. They aren’t. They have the freedom to act within limits. They generally can’t be forced to support an action by another faction of the left but acting in opposition would not be condoned.
The union leadership has been part of the left for a long time. The gangs were one focus of the Community Organizers in the 90s. Money and influence with the cities were offered in exchange for favors that would be asked later.
The left has always liked criminal organizations, being one themselves, and used them as muscle when needed. They consider chaos to be of benefit to their cause and work with any group that will increase it.
I had assumed some overlap, but not to the point of what we are seeing.
I guess if I want to see head-busting, I need to watch more hockey.
It has surprised me too, and not just about the truckers, but as to local contractors, say (or anyone else in a similar situation), who may have a time sensitive contract with pay for performance clauses, and who may already be behind while waiting for some imported appliance or fixture to arrive by Port. Were I them in such a condition (and I have been in the past) I’d be pretty steamed if my job were being held back by a bunch of stooges blocking my shipment.
“I’d be pretty steamed if my job were being held back by a bunch of stooges blocking my shipment.”
Ah, but the occupodpeople have a secret weapon. An enchanting chorus line.
See? You’re feeling cheerier already.
Heh, since I’ve been a lover of American musical theater damn near my whole life long, that right there is excuse enough to start cracking heads.
How long ago was it that we saw the pissed off Union goons blocking the offices at the Port in, was it, Oregon? Six months? A year? I can’t remember if there was arson involved in that one or just a threat thereof. Anyway, I won’t be surprised to see a Port or two destroyed in a wall of flames set by these clowns who are now blocking firefighters and first responders from arriving by land. How big a presence does the Coast Guard have up there? Of course, they are now umbrella-ed under the Department of Homeland Security, so Cousin Janet may just take a “let’s wait and see” attitude before sending in the fireboats.
Again, this plan is not something new: Cloward-Piven established the framework,
HOW DARE YOU MAKE THREATS AGAINST A HELPLESS LITTLE GRANDMOTHER MINDING HER BUSINESS AND KNITTING!
Longview, WA, leigh. Three months ago.
Thanks, Pablo. I knew it was Washington or Oregon.
Instead, we’ll write indignant op-eds calling on Our President to Own Up to His Responsibilities
They do insist on giving the Left the benefit of the doubt: they’re ignorant or misguided or incompetent. Anything but what they are.
Because to come out and Name The Enemy Within The Gates is impolitic and puts you in the same camp as Glenn Beck.
@GeoffB #4
Seriously, the PopMech article on Oil Sands had nothing to do with Garble Worming. Rather, it’s Popular SCIENCE that I won’t let into the house due to their completely abject worship of Gore’s mythology.
Popular Mechanics is really just about the only magazine I can read without popping several brain rivets.
And yet the Administration has continued its support for the “movement,” banking on the proposition that the more pain felt by the “middle class,” the more likely that dwindling demographic is to grow frustrated and lash out, and when they do, they’ll lash out at “the 1%”
That’s strategic thinking, in a way, and it misses the tactical thinking that’s happening in the immediate terms, which is to hammer “one percent” into news readers and viewers over and over and over again, making it simple and effective for Obama to cast any Republican intransigence in Congress in terms of “Republicans standing against 99% of Americans.” And given my interactions with family and cow-orkers over the past couple of weeks, this propaganda is working a treat.
Cast in these terms, the Republicans are even more stupid and feckless in allowing the meme to continue unhindered. At some point, the leadership needs to push back hard against this false definition, stating boldly and clearly that the 99% is really more like 20%, and that they’re looking out not for the Scrooge McDucks and Uncle Pennybagses of the country, but rather for the 60% or more of us who think the government is too fucking powerful and takes too fucking much of our money and runs too fucking much of our lives as it is.
Of course, they won’t. Because they’re stupid and feckless.
[…] that’s right, I said it. Again, this plan is not something new: Cloward-Piven established the framework, and Alinsky wrote […]
Oh, I disagree! They’re a gift that keeps on giving if we can take advantage of it. We need to keep these guys around and hang them like a dead chicken around King Putt’s neck. We need more videos like mojo linked @1. Such courage they have in their convictions! ‘I don’t wanna talk to you, man.’ ‘Don’t broadcast this! Don’t put it on the internet!’ Don’t show the world what a moron I am! It seems they’ve run out of useful idiots and now they’re recruiting useless idiots.
I kinda want to drive up to Oakland and talk to the police about tactics.
No pepper spray. No batons. Don’t give them anything they can use to call brutality. Just make it totally unlivable in the camp sites–make sure to drive by at random intervals in the middle of the night with lights and sirens going. Send plainclothes officers in with boomboxes. Sulfur dioxide is a miracle worker in area denial and completely nontoxic in low ppms while still being horrific to the nose and the sensibilities.
Be as annoying as humanly possible and they’ll leave, just like Denver.
Just to clarify, it’s only a misdemeanor to open up a fire hydrant, right? One that’d be conveniently located near an OWS encampment? On a nice sub-freezing night?
Academically speaking, of course.