Just recently, Richard Cohen from the Washington Post penned an editorial claiming Sarah Palin was the new McCarthy of today.
The term Cohen used to represent the new McCarthyism was Palinism.
“…Try this on for size: Palinism. What is it? It is an updated version of McCarthyism, which takes its name from the late Sen. Joseph McCarthy, the Wisconsin liar, demagogue and drunk, and means, according to Wikipedia, "reckless, unsubstantiated accusations, as well as demagogic attacks on the character or patriotism of political adversaries." As far as we know, Sarah Palin is not a drunk.”
Cohen went on to cut Palin down by pointing to our own Senator Murkowski and her comments on the use of the term “death panel.”
“…Yet, you can beat the bushes to a fine powder and find only two Republicans of note -- Sens. Johnny Isakson and Lisa Murkowski -- who had the courage or the decency to tell Palin that she doesn't know what she's talking about.”
That was said by Cohen on August 18th . Things change.
While on the Eddie Burke show last Tuesday, off mic in studio, I told Eddie about the Cohen story and he printed off a copy of the editorial, discussed it on air and then interjected his own comments on how Murkowski was wrong and Palin was right.
On Thursday, two days later in a town hall meeting on the topic of ObamaCare, Murkowski put her two cents in on ObamaCare. And when regular folks spoke on the concern of ObamaCare being a hybrid form of a socialized health care system, Murkowski agreed with the concerns of the people.
Murkowski blasts health care plan at Anchorage forum
“…But some in the audience said the government was taking far too much of a bite at once with such a huge overhaul. Others said that the plan smacked of socialism and that's not the kind of country they wanted to live in.”
When you stop and think about a socialized health care system, you will see further in this written soap box, the left has a fascination with isms.
They have a fascination with socialism, communism/marxism and cronyism. And the left are calling out Palinsim as a catch word to diminish Sarah Palin’s criticism of a socialized ObamaCare.
But there is a beauty in town halls; the people who attend them. They agree with Sarah Palin.
Moreover, the only ism in politics that is bi-partisan, is the word criticism and it can be used quite persuasively in the political debate.
Regardless of the ism used.
And last, when you talk about demagogues and drunkards, Cohen is drunk from using demagoguery.
He has a detection device for demagogues.
However, some words of warning on using the demagogues detection device, one should be careful on using it; it could turn into a recipe for disaster ala the Daily Kos chefs.
Demagogue Obama: The Recipe
by The Smoldering Crone
Mon Jan 28, 2008 at 12:20:43 PM PDT
Demagogue: A person, especially and orator or a politician, who gains power and popularity by arousing the emotions, passions, and prejudices of the people.
• The Smoldering Crone's diary :: ::
• The fictional Elmer Gantry set the gold standard, and history is dotted with them. Barak Obama is joining their ranks. The recipe is as simple as boiling water. But the longer term impact could be devastating.
1. Take one population that is extremely dissatisfied and unhappy with the status quo.
2. Remind them every time you speak how bad everything is wrong and must be changed.
3. Promise to heal these existing ills.
4. Sprinkle as lightly as possible any detail as to what that the solutions might be or how to go about making change happen. That will spoil the whole recipe.
5. Leave plenty of time for the population to fill in all of the gaps for themselves, making it appear that whatever changes will be made are the same ones that each individual wants. That way everyone will be under the illusion that you want what they want.
6. Serve generously, with lots of dressing, at every opportunity.
This dish is often eaten up readily by the young, but it is astounding how many more mature individuals seem to like it.
Note: This recipe contains no meat
Maybe Richard Cohen would like to chew on that recipe for awhile.
A recipe for disaster flavored with socialism perhaps?
Bon Appetit
If the Ism Fits, Wear It
When one talks about the isms of politics, one should wear it proudly and not hide behind Greek pillars and staged events that seem to have the aura of the snake oil salesman circuit when it comes selling a healthy way of life.
In the case of our President Obama, if his socialist agenda fits, then he should wear the socialism banner proudly. And should we be surprised if he doesn’t? Hell yes.
When it came to spreading the wealth, ala Joe the Plumber, Obama wore the socialist agenda well until the polls showed he could lose.
When it came to sitting in the pews of that God damning America, Rev Wright, McClatchy news wrote about Marxism and Christianity meshing together in Rev. Wright’s church (will the new McCarthyism be; cue drum roll………………..… McClatchyism).
“…WASHINGTON — Jesus is black. Merging Marxism with Christian Gospel may show the way to a better tomorrow. The white church in America is the Antichrist because it supported slavery and segregation.
Those are some of the more provocative doctrines that animate the theology at the core of Trinity United Church of Christ in Chicago, Barack Obama's church.
Obama's speech Tuesday on race in America was hailed as a masterful handling of the controversy over divisive sermons by the longtime pastor of Trinity United, the recently retired Rev. Jeremiah A. Wright Jr.
But in repudiating and putting in context Wright's inflammatory lines about whites and U.S. foreign policy, the Democratic presidential front-runner didn't address other potentially controversial facts about his church and its ties.”
Should we surprised that Obama doesn’t like to wear marxism? Hell yes.
He wore it for 20 years so why not now? The reason why he didn’t wear it is obvious, the polls showed he was losing.
When it comes exceptional Americanism, our president is always apologizing for America’s misdeeds against foreign countries and fanning the flames of racial tensions by calling out his white grandmother, discounting his mother’s race through his own identification of his own race and then calling a white police officer’s actions stupid and then having a beer summit over the remarks.
Did he ever apologize for his remarks?
Should we be surprised that he doesn’t wear the banner of exceptional Americanism well?
Hell yes, he was born (stirring the pot here and taking a bat to the hornets’ nest) in Hawaii wasn’t he? But the polls did show his criticism was working overseas.
Exceptional Americanism
George Shulman has written a brilliant book that is at once both classic and timely. While offering new and undoubtedly enduring insights on American politics, political rhetoric, and democratic theory, Shulman also ably embraces one of the most enduring tasks of political theory: explaining the polity to herself. At a time when the election of America’s first black president has produced thousands of column inches, blog posts, and hours of cable-news punditry on the emergence of a supposedly ‘post-racial’ America, Shulman ably reminds us of both the persistence and costs of the trope of racially neutrality in American politics. It is, however, not only what Shulman does in American Prophecy that marks it out as an essential read for scholars of American politics and culture – regardless of their disciplines – but also the way in which he does it. One of Shulman’s central claims about prophetic criticism is that, contrary to the dominant understandings of the genre, it can open up and invigorate democratic debate in a way that brings life to the public sphere. In this sense, perhaps, Shulman’s measured tone, careful arguments, and provocative rereadings of key figures in the history of American thought, along with his compelling case for the inclusion of Toni Morrison within that canon, ultimately serve to make American Prophecy an example of the thing that it studies.
What would you expect from a guy (RED Alert on Palinsim) that went palling around with a unrepentant domestic terrorist named Bill Ayers.
Our president has a history of palling around with a wannabe Latin revolutionary, Bill Ayers, a marxists pastor, convicted felons and big time investors that all can be fitted into one nice ism and that would be cronyism.
If you take the recent announcement that Obama was sending billions to a foreign company in Brazil as opposed to an American company, you have the fix’ns from Obama’s own special recipe to make cronyism.
From Sarah Palin’s book on Palinism.
“…Today's Wall Street Journal contains some puzzling news for all Americans who are impacted by high energy prices and who share the goal of moving us toward energy independence.
For years, states rich with an abundance of oil and natural gas have been begging Washington, DC politicians for the right to develop their own natural resources on federal lands and off shore. Such development would mean good paying jobs here in the United States (with health benefits) and the resulting royalties and taxes would provide money for federal coffers that would potentially off-set the need for higher income taxes, reduce the federal debt and deficits, or even help fund a trillion dollar health care plan if one were so inclined to support such a plan.
So why is it that during these tough times, when we have great needs at home, the Obama White House is prepared to send more than two billion of your hard-earned tax dollars to Brazil so that the nation's state-owned oil company, Petrobras, can drill off shore and create jobs developing its own resources? That's all Americans want; but such rational energy development has been continually thwarted by rabid environmentalists, faceless bureaucrats and a seemingly endless parade of lawsuits aimed at shutting down new energy projects.”
One could argue exceptional Americanism took a back seat when it was learned that Obama supporter George Soros is invested in the company and in Friday’s news, Petrobras saw its highest 2 month rise on a new oil discovery.
Meanwhile, as Soros was shifting his stocks in foreign oil companies, Soros has sold 4 million shares of ConocoPhillips stock (who is involved in the Denali project in Alaska), sold millions of shares in Lowes stock and Walmart stock, good American companies.
Now consider this.
Sarah Palin had the State of Alaska invest 500 million dollars in a pipeline that would be built in part in Alaska and have U.S. natural gas shipped to the U.S. market.
While Obama is investing billions in a foreign company, Obama campaign contributor George Soros is making a lot of dough off the foreign company.
People who make up this movement of crony investors to Obama, are people like George Soros, Warren Buffett and Bill Gates. Big-time money makers and shakers in the political and financial arena and supporters of Barack Obama.
And all of them are not your typical working class, beer drinking "white" guy.
When you examine these "white" guys, interesting events unfold.
You will find George Soros finds his political and economic beliefs rooted in organizations like the Fabian Society; a society where Rose L. Martin, writing in the book, the Fabian Freeway, published by Western Islands, USA, 1966, said, in reference to Fabianism and its objectives:
"The Fabian Society consists of Socialists...the Fabian Society looks to the spread of Socialist opinions, and the social and political changes consequent
thereon..."
In an article written in 2002 by the Guardian titled, The Prophets of Profit it is stated:
"…Just one trade from Warren Buffett, the legendary oracle of Omaha; George Soros, the hedge fund speculator; or Prince Alwaleed bin Talal bin Abdul Aziz al Saud, the Saudi prince reckoned to be the richest man outside America, is, in the words of the Old Testament prophets, 'a sign'.
To understand the market is to follow the prophets, but their power is such that many of their movements are shrouded in secrecy. In the United States, share transaction announcements are delayed for up to six months because they spark mania bordering on anarchy.
But with currency speculation, impact is instantaneous. When on 28 June, Soros said the US dollar could fall 30 per cent by the end of the year, the dollar immediately collapsed to near parity with the euro. Soros's spokesman refused to say whether the fund operating in his name, Quantum, bet prior on a downward movement, but it's possible. Mind you, in subsequent weeks the dollar has clawed back losses. For Soros's sake, let's hope he 'covered his shorts'.
Soros has been one to rail against the presence of George W. Bush in the White House. After blowing $23 million to keep Bush from returning to the Oval Office, Soros told reporters in 2004, if Bush were to be re-elected, he planned to go away to "some kind of monastery to reflect on what is wrong with us.
Well as we all know, Soros did not go to a monastery but he may have visited one in China while he was thinking about destroying the U.S. Auto industry.
How about this gem.
“…By year end, Chrysler LLC will start shipping a China-made car to Mexico, says the car's manufacturer, Chery Automobile Co.Who took over Chrysler?
Still under discussion are Chery-built cars for U.S. dealers of the automaker.
The car for Mexico, sold in China as the Chery A1, will be badged with a Chrysler brand, says Zhang Lin, general manager of Chery International.”
We have come to a point were we do little manufacturing when compared to years past and the trade deficit has grown.
A weak dollar was argued would increase our exports, mainly to China to offset the trade imbalance.
That never came to be. China subsidizes just about everything.
As a side to this, I have a friend from Culiacan, Mexico and she will not buy anything from China. Interestingly she buys goods made in the U.S. She states they are the best product.
On the flip side, she states things in China are not made well. The tariff on certain goods helps, but she will not buy anything from China.
And It always amazes me that U.S. autoworkers still support Democrats when you have this:
Chery cars made in China
Strong and Soros had big plans for the Chery in North America starting in 2007. They were going to flood the market and decimate Ford, Chrysler and General Motors.
Next, from CounterPunch that left leaning on-line rag...
The Faultlines in the US The Decline of the Dollar
The blame it on Bush crowd rhetoric as usual.
Weak Dollar Central to Oil Price BoomHowever straight from the mouths of babes:
Gates joins Warren Buffett in bet that dollar will extend drop
Gates, chairman of Microsoft Corp., said he expects the dollar to extend its three-year drop because of widening U.S. trade and budget deficits.
"I'm short the dollar," Gates told television interviewer Charlie Rose this weekend at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. "The ol' dollar, it's gonna go down.
Berkshire Profit Climbs on Buffett’s Bet Against Dollar
We made one large sale last year. In 2002 and 2003 Berkshire bought 1.3% of PetroChina for $488 million, a price that valued the entire business at about $37 billion. Charlie and I then felt that the company was worth about $100 billion. By 2007, two factors had materially increased its value; the price of oil had climbed significantly, and PetroChina's management had done a great job in building oil and gas reserves. In the second half of last year, the market value of the company rose to $275 billion, about what we thought it was worth compared to other giant oil companies. So we sold our holdings for $4 billion. A footnote: We paid the IRS tax of $1.2 billion on our PetroChina gain. This sum paid all costs of the U.S. government - defense, social security, you name it - for about four hours.
Here you had Democratic supporters who in effect are Obama cronies, hedging the dollar's demise all the while, one is investing in PetroChina in hope that oil will raise in price. And another one was looking at investing in cheaply made cars in China that would be exported to the U.S.
So there you have it, Soros, Gates and Buffett, speculating on the dollar and as anyone knows what Soros' impact was on Great Britain's currency and in Russia, the rubles' decline, well that is old news.
Too bad for us that Buffett made out on the decline in the U.S. dollar while he was investing in PetroChina, a company that was aiding Darfur.
What would Americans say when you had Soros betting on the dollar's decline along with Buffet and Gates, all the while Buffet stood to gain on their pain by betting on the dollars decline and investing in a foreign oil company.
Talk about your Democratic hypocrisy. Got to love them. Soros, Buffett and even Bill Gates.
The irony of the socialist movement is, it will eventually destroy the jobs of those who support the movement.
The term "useful idiots" comes to mind.
Passing the Buck: The Cronyism Continues
To be continued.....
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1 comment:
The reason a weak dollar hasn't boosted exports is because currency valuations have nothing to do with our trade deficit. Since leading the global drive toward trade liberalization by signing the Global Agreement on Tariffs and Trade in 1947, America has been transformed from the wealthiest nation on earth - its preeminent industrial power - into a skid row bum, literally begging the rest of the world for cash to keep us afloat. It's a disgusting spectacle. Our cumulative trade deficit since 1976, financed by a sell-off of American assets, exceeds $9.2 trillion. What will happen when those assets are depleted? Today's recession is the answer.
Why? The American work force is the most productive on earth. Our product quality, though it may have fallen short at one time, is now on a par with the Japanese. Our workers have labored tirelessly to improve our competitiveness. Yet our deficit continues to grow. Our median wages and net worth have declined for decades. Our debt has soared.
At this point, I should introduce myself. I am author of a book titled "Five Short Blasts: A New Economic Theory Exposes The Fatal Flaw in Globalization and Its Consequences for America." My theory is that, as population density rises beyond some optimum level, per capita consumption begins to decline. This occurs because, as people are forced to crowd together and conserve space, it becomes ever more impractical to own many products. Falling per capita consumption, in the face of rising productivity (per capita output, which always rises), inevitably yields rising unemployment and poverty.
This theory has huge ramifications for U.S. policy toward population management (especially immigration policy) and trade. The implications for population policy may be obvious, but why trade? It's because these effects of an excessive population density - rising unemployment and poverty - are actually imported when we attempt to engage in free trade in manufactured goods with a nation that is much more densely populated. Our economies combine. The work of manufacturing is spread evenly across the combined labor force. But, while the more densely populated nation gets free access to a healthy market, all we get in return is access to a market emaciated by over-crowding and low per capita consumption. The result is an automatic, irreversible trade deficit and loss of jobs, tantamount to economic suicide.
One need look no further than the U.S.'s trade data for proof of this effect. Using 2006 data, an in-depth analysis reveals that, of our top twenty per capita trade deficits in manufactured goods (the trade deficit divided by the population of the country in question), eighteen are with nations much more densely populated than our own. Even more revealing, if the nations of the world are divided equally around the median population density, the U.S. had a trade surplus in manufactured goods of $17 billion with the half of nations below the median population density. With the half above the median, we had a $480 billion deficit!
Our trade deficit with China is getting all of the attention these days. But, when expressed in per capita terms, our deficit with China in manufactured goods is rather unremarkable - nineteenth on the list. Our per capita deficit with other nations such as Japan, Germany, Mexico, Korea and others (all much more densely populated than the U.S.) is worse. My point is not that our deficit with China isn't a problem, but rather that it's exactly what we should have expected when we suddenly applied a trade policy that was a proven failure around the world to a country with one fifth of the world's population.
If you‘re interested in learning more about this important new economic theory, then I invite you to visit either of my web sites at OpenWindowPublishingCo.com or PeteMurphy.wordpress.com where you can read the preface, join in the blog discussion and, of course, buy the book if you like. (It's also available at Amazon.com.)
Pete Murphy
Author, "Five Short Blasts"
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