Greetings from the Left Coast, where we here at Left Coast Blues do the heavy thinking for those who just can't be bothered.
Seems like a lot of ordinary folks in the middle of the political spectrum are scratching their heads over President Obama’s actions, and wondering what the heck is going on. Buyer’s remorse appears to be setting in as a lot of people are realizing that this was not what they thought they were voting for – nor what Obama claimed during the campaign that he stood for. Perhaps the following quotes will help. They’re all taken directly from the pages of Rules for Radicals – the community organizer’s Bible – and they should help you understand why the Organizer in Chief does many of the things he does.
“An organizer…is in an ideological dilemma. To begin with, he does not have a fixed truth – truth to him is relative and changing; everything to him is relative and changing. He is a political relativist.”
“All of life is partisan. There is no dispassionate objectivity.”
“In this world…’reconciliation’ means that when one side gets the power and the other side gets reconciled to it, then we have reconciliation.”
“The man of action views the issue of means and ends in pragmatic and strategic terms…He asks of ends only whether they are achievable and worth the cost; of means, only whether they will work.”
“…goals must be phrased in general terms like ‘Liberty, Equality, Fraternity,’ ‘Of the Common Welfare,’ ‘Pursuit of Happiness,’ or ‘Bread and Peace.’” (Hope and Change, anybody?)
“Ego must be so all-pervading that the personality of the organizer is contagious, that it converts the people from despair to defiance, creating a mass ego.”
“Before men can act an issue must be polarized. Men will act when they are convinced that their cause is 100 per cent on the side of the angels and that the opposition is 100 per cent on the side of the devil. [The organizer] knows that there can be no action until issues are polarized to this degree.” (Consider for a moment the current effort to demonize health insurance executives, and recall that they're only the latest victims of this strategy.)
“The first step in community organization is community disorganization. The disruption of the present organization is the first step toward community organization…All change means disorganization of the old and organization of the new.”
“There is a way to keep the action going and to prevent it from being a drag, but this means constantly cutting new issues as the action continues, so that by the time the enthusiasm and the emotions for one issue have started to de-escalate, a new issue has come into the scene with a consequent revival. With a constant introduction of new issues, it will go on and on.”
Explains a lot, doesn’t it? But there’s one lesson that Obama has not sufficiently learned, and that is that “people react strictly on the basis of their own experience,” and that “when you go outside anyone’s experience not only do you not communicate, you cause confusion.” You have to understand where the other person is coming from, and Obama doesn’t have the breadth of experience to really understand the majority of middle America.
He doesn’t understand what it’s like to run a small business and have to decide whether you’re going to make payroll or make your mortgage payment this month. He doesn’t understand those people who are bitterly clinging to their guns and religion. He doesn’t understand those people who want the government to defend the country, control the borders, help those who truly need a safety net, and otherwise get the hell out of the way so we can get on with taking care of ourselves and our families. He doesn’t understand why we should be so twisted up about the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, or Bill Ayres, or ACORN, or a Treasury Secretary who didn’t pay all of his own taxes, or a "czar" who casually calls the opposing party a**holes, or a "safe school czar" who admitted that, as a teacher, he had violated a state law by not reporting the sexual abuse when a 15-year-old told him he had had homosexual relations with an adult, etc., etc., etc. And that will ultimately be his undoing.
Thanks for listening.
Tuesday, September 29, 2009
Tuesday, September 8, 2009
The Van Has Left the Building
Greetings from the Left Coast, where we here at Left Coast Blues do the heavy thinking for those who just can't be bothered.
So Van Jones resigns, blaming a “vicious smear campaign” for his troubles. I find that choice of words interesting. Since it was his own statements that ultimately were his undoing, does that mean he’s guilty of a vicious smear campaign against himself?
One of the more incredible statements I’ve heard from the left was that Jones wasn’t a “czar,” he was simply an adviser on “Green Jobs.” Oh, puh-lease. Even the New York Times has referred to him as Obama’s “environmental jobs czar.”
But whether or not you call him a “czar” is beside the point. The point is that Obama has brought over 30 people into his administration, at the very top of the Civil Service pay scale, for positions that unquestionably are intended to help shape policy, but which are not subject to the advice and consent of the Senate as Cabinet positions are. Many of them, like Jones, wouldn’t have had a snowball’s chance in Hades of actually surviving a Senate confirmation hearing. In fact, if the mainstream media was doing its job as an impartial watchdog of democracy instead of acting like a wholly-owned subsidiary of the Democrat party, Jones – as well as some of the other “czars” – wouldn’t have lasted this long.
But the thing that makes me walk away shaking my head is the naiveté of those who say, “Gee, how did this slip past the Administration? Is this another failure of their vetting process?” How many examples do you need before you get it? This wasn’t a surprise to the Administration. They knew full well who Van Jones was, what he believed, and what political positions he had taken in the past. They simply didn’t think there was anything wrong with it. When you are a far-left ultra-liberal, you don’t object to other far-left ultra-liberals – you actively recruit them.
One of the other things my mother used to tell me is that I would be judged by the company I kept. Americans are finally figuring out that the company Obama has kept over the years, and that he continues to keep – as reflected by the people he surrounds himself with in his administration – really do speak volumes about who he is.
Thanks for listening.
So Van Jones resigns, blaming a “vicious smear campaign” for his troubles. I find that choice of words interesting. Since it was his own statements that ultimately were his undoing, does that mean he’s guilty of a vicious smear campaign against himself?
One of the more incredible statements I’ve heard from the left was that Jones wasn’t a “czar,” he was simply an adviser on “Green Jobs.” Oh, puh-lease. Even the New York Times has referred to him as Obama’s “environmental jobs czar.”
But whether or not you call him a “czar” is beside the point. The point is that Obama has brought over 30 people into his administration, at the very top of the Civil Service pay scale, for positions that unquestionably are intended to help shape policy, but which are not subject to the advice and consent of the Senate as Cabinet positions are. Many of them, like Jones, wouldn’t have had a snowball’s chance in Hades of actually surviving a Senate confirmation hearing. In fact, if the mainstream media was doing its job as an impartial watchdog of democracy instead of acting like a wholly-owned subsidiary of the Democrat party, Jones – as well as some of the other “czars” – wouldn’t have lasted this long.
But the thing that makes me walk away shaking my head is the naiveté of those who say, “Gee, how did this slip past the Administration? Is this another failure of their vetting process?” How many examples do you need before you get it? This wasn’t a surprise to the Administration. They knew full well who Van Jones was, what he believed, and what political positions he had taken in the past. They simply didn’t think there was anything wrong with it. When you are a far-left ultra-liberal, you don’t object to other far-left ultra-liberals – you actively recruit them.
One of the other things my mother used to tell me is that I would be judged by the company I kept. Americans are finally figuring out that the company Obama has kept over the years, and that he continues to keep – as reflected by the people he surrounds himself with in his administration – really do speak volumes about who he is.
Thanks for listening.
Sunday, September 6, 2009
Listen With Your Eyes
Greetings from the Left Coast, where we here at Left Coast Blues do the heavy thinking for those who just can't be bothered.
When I was growing up, one of my mother’s favorite sayings was, “What you do speaks so loudly I can’t hear what you say.”
We currently have a President who is a consummate public speaker (at least, as long as the teleprompter is working). His powers of vocal persuasion were honed through his years as a community organizer, where sometimes words are the only tools available to accomplish your goal. Unfortunately, we now see that there is a huge gulf between what he says and what he actually does.
He ran as a post-partisan candidate. He was going to bring us together again. The political climate had become too bitter and divisive, and he embodied the winds of change that would reach across the aisle, mend the partisan divide, and restore unity of purpose to the government. Nothing could be farther from the reality of the “my way or the highway” governing style he has adopted since he took office.
He ran as a moderate. It was just plain silly to call him a socialist. Why, pretty soon his opponents will “be accusing me of being a secret communist because I shared my toys in kindergarten.” (Note: “Ridicule is man’s most potent weapon” - Rule #5 from Saul Alinsky’s Rules for Radicals.) We now see that he is, indeed, what his record as the most liberal member of the U.S. Senate showed him to be – the most far-left President we have had in living memory. Obama and his supporters may object to the “socialist” label, but, as poet James Whitcomb Riley so aptly put it, “When I see a bird that walks like a duck and swims like a duck and quacks like a duck, I call that bird a duck.”
He ran on a platform of fiscal responsibility. He has now presided over the largest increase in the federal deficit ever. And he’s not done yet: He claims that we can provide health care coverage to all of the people who don’t currently have it, without raising taxes (other than on the “wealthy”), and without increasing the federal deficit in the process. It’s simply not possible. The math doesn’t work. Even the Congressional Budget Office says it will cost another $1 Trillion over the next ten years. Let’s put that number into perspective: if you could spend $1 every second of every day of every year, it would take you just over 31,709 years to spend $1 Trillion.
He pooh-poohed the stories about his past associations with radicals and, shall we say, less savory characters. Why, he barely knew Bill Ayres, and besides, most of that stuff happened when Obama was just a kid. And he simply doesn’t remember hearing Rev. Wright saying any of that offensive stuff when he was sitting in the pew. Now look at the collection of radicals, tax cheats, and former communists he has appointed to positions within his administration. Look particularly at the “czars,” who drive public policy, but don’t require Congressional confirmation. (That’s why he hired them as “czars” – he knew they would never survive confirmation hearings.)
I could go on, but you get the idea. If my mother was alive today, I know what she’d say. It’s time to start listening with our eyes instead of our ears.
When I was growing up, one of my mother’s favorite sayings was, “What you do speaks so loudly I can’t hear what you say.”
We currently have a President who is a consummate public speaker (at least, as long as the teleprompter is working). His powers of vocal persuasion were honed through his years as a community organizer, where sometimes words are the only tools available to accomplish your goal. Unfortunately, we now see that there is a huge gulf between what he says and what he actually does.
He ran as a post-partisan candidate. He was going to bring us together again. The political climate had become too bitter and divisive, and he embodied the winds of change that would reach across the aisle, mend the partisan divide, and restore unity of purpose to the government. Nothing could be farther from the reality of the “my way or the highway” governing style he has adopted since he took office.
He ran as a moderate. It was just plain silly to call him a socialist. Why, pretty soon his opponents will “be accusing me of being a secret communist because I shared my toys in kindergarten.” (Note: “Ridicule is man’s most potent weapon” - Rule #5 from Saul Alinsky’s Rules for Radicals.) We now see that he is, indeed, what his record as the most liberal member of the U.S. Senate showed him to be – the most far-left President we have had in living memory. Obama and his supporters may object to the “socialist” label, but, as poet James Whitcomb Riley so aptly put it, “When I see a bird that walks like a duck and swims like a duck and quacks like a duck, I call that bird a duck.”
He ran on a platform of fiscal responsibility. He has now presided over the largest increase in the federal deficit ever. And he’s not done yet: He claims that we can provide health care coverage to all of the people who don’t currently have it, without raising taxes (other than on the “wealthy”), and without increasing the federal deficit in the process. It’s simply not possible. The math doesn’t work. Even the Congressional Budget Office says it will cost another $1 Trillion over the next ten years. Let’s put that number into perspective: if you could spend $1 every second of every day of every year, it would take you just over 31,709 years to spend $1 Trillion.
He pooh-poohed the stories about his past associations with radicals and, shall we say, less savory characters. Why, he barely knew Bill Ayres, and besides, most of that stuff happened when Obama was just a kid. And he simply doesn’t remember hearing Rev. Wright saying any of that offensive stuff when he was sitting in the pew. Now look at the collection of radicals, tax cheats, and former communists he has appointed to positions within his administration. Look particularly at the “czars,” who drive public policy, but don’t require Congressional confirmation. (That’s why he hired them as “czars” – he knew they would never survive confirmation hearings.)
I could go on, but you get the idea. If my mother was alive today, I know what she’d say. It’s time to start listening with our eyes instead of our ears.
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