Top 10 Campaign Slogans for Obama/Biden 2012

April 20, 2012

With OFA struggling to come up with a catchy slogan to replace 2008’s “Change We Can Believe In“, True Liberal Nexus decided to brainstorm on the difficult task of  conveying, in a few words, all the many, powerful reasons to re-elect barack obama.  David Axelrod, feel free to use any of the following:

10. Democrats: We Suck Less

9. Take A Look At Those Rich People!

8. Did I Mention I Killed Osama Bin Laden?

7. Romney Hates Women; I Just Pay Them Less

6. WTF

6. WTS (“What Toure Said”)

5. We’re The Ones We’re Still Waiting For

4. Believe Me — I Can Change

3. Happy Days Will Be Here Again, Once Republicans in Congress Start Cooperating

2. Jobs, Jobs, Jobs!

2. Jobs!

1. Never Mind the Bollox; He’s Still Black


(c) 2012 by True Liberal Nexus.  All rights reserved.

7 Comments | barack obama the deceiver, Elections, race card, Satire | Tagged: , , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Matt

Obama v. Marshall

April 6, 2012

According to barack obama, John Marshall, the greatest Chief Justice of all time, was a reckless, activist judge.

Professor obama Gives a Lecture

In a response to press corps questions about last month’s obamacare hearings, our erudite professor/president lashed out at the Supreme Court, in what many saw as a blatent attempt to influence its ruling, in the process embarrasing himself by making several patently false statements about our Constitution and the Judiciary Branch.

Sensing — or perhaps tipped off — that last Friday’s initial vote had gone against his eponymous health care law, obama whined that the High Court was on the verge of taking “what would be an unprecedented, extraordinary step of overturning a law that was passed by a strong majority of a democratically elected Congress.” The boy genius went on to refer to our nation’s highest court as “an unelected group of people [who] would somehow overturn a duly constituted and passed law.”

Ignoring for the moment obama’s standard demogoguery (and, admittedly, calling a slim 7-vote victory as “a strong majority” is better than the Nancy Pelosi’s earlier description of a strict party-line vote as “bipartisan“), it’s important to emphasize the temerity of the president’s comments.  obama insinuated that the Judiciary never does, nor should it ever, overturn laws passed by the Legislative branch.

Activist Judges — Proglodyte Version

That’s a false meme which crops up among right-wingers and proglodytes alike whenever rulings don’t go their way.  As one dolt at The Atlantic wrote following the first ruling against obamacare, “contrary to what many Americans believe, our Constitution actually doesn’t provide for judicial review. The power of courts to invalidate state laws is perhaps implied in the text….”  I guess that’s true, if you count ‘something some Alexander Hamilton dude wrote in this obscure & irrelevant book, The Federalist Papers’, as “implied.”

The “general liberty of the people”, Hamilton argues in Federalist #78, “can be preserved in practice no other way than through” independent courts “whose duty it must be to declare all acts contrary to the manifest tenor of the Constitution void. Without this, all the reservations of particular rights or privileges would amount to nothing.”

Hamilton rejects the claim “that the legislative body are themselves the constitutional judges of their own powers” as unsupported by “any particular provisions in the Constitution.”  To suppose “that the Constitution could intend to enable the representatives of the people to substitute their will to that of their constituents” makes no sense to Hamilton.

It is far more rational to suppose, that the courts were designed to be an intermediate body between the people and the legislature, in order … to keep the latter within the limits assigned to their authority. The interpretation of the laws is the proper and peculiar province of the courts.

obama and the jacobins also choose to ingore another important document.  Art. III, Sec. 1  of the U.S. Constitution, establishes “The judicial power of the United States, shall be vested in one Supreme Court, and such inferior Courts as the Congress may from time to time ordaind and establish” (94 of them at present, including the several that ruled on obamacare).

Art. III. Sec. 2’s provision that “The judicial Power shall extend to all Cases, in Law and Equity, arising under this Constitution,the Laws of the United States … under their authority”, including “controversies to which the United States shall be a Party….”

Faced with the prospect of a ruling he won’t like, our constitutional law professor-in-Chief simply wished away that part of the Constistution that actually provides for judicial review (albeit, not in so many words.)  And this is where the ghost of John Marshall needs to get medieval on obama’s scrawny ass.

Judicial Review — 209 Years Young

If you, non-Harvard-matriculated, non-constitutional-law-lecturing plebeians need to know of one Supreme Court case, it should be Marbury v. Madison (1803), when the Court first struck down a federal law, establishing forever more the principle of Judicial Review.

The great, acclaimed first Chief Justice, John Marshall, whose opinions are considered touchstones by all (legitimate) legal scholars, declared in Marbury v. Madison that it is “emphatically the province and duty of the judicial department, to say what the law is.”  Following the ruling, this principle became known as Judicial Review.  It’s pedantic semantics to argue that Judicial Review was only implied, simply because the 1803-vintage coinage didn’t appear in the 1788 text.

Since 1803, the Supreme court has used its power of judicial review to repeal  nearly a thousand state statutes, including (progs take note) Roe v. Wade. Another 160 acts of Congress, including 6 New Deal laws that overstepped the limits of the Commerce Clause, plus over 50 in the just the past three decades, have been struck down.  That’s about five a year — hardly “unprecedented.”

Homework Assignment … for the Professor

Alarmed by obama’s apparent direct challenge to Judicial Review, the Fifth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals ordered Eric Holder to respond in writing whether “the Department of Justice recognize[s] that federal courts have the authority in appropriate circumstances to strike federal statutes because of one or more constitutional infirmities.”

Holder complied by confirming that “the power of the courts to review the constitutionality of legislation is beyond dispute” while insisting his bosses comments were “fully consistent” with that principle.

Following what must have been a crash refresher course on constitutional law, obama back-tracked on his comments:

The point I was making is that the Supreme Court is the final say on our Constitution and our laws, and all of us have to respect it, but it’s precisely because of that extraordinary power that the Court has traditionally exercised significant restraint and deference to our duly elected legislature, our Congress. And so the burden is on those who would overturn a law like this….

They should have left it at that.  But White House spokesman Jay Carney  blurted out  that the president was specifically referring to “the precedent under the Commerce Clause” regarding a legislature’s ability to address “challenges to our national economy.”  Then the Harvard Law grad put his foot right back into his mouth:

We have not seen a court overturn a law that was passed by Congress on an economic issue, like health care, that I think most people would clearly consider commerce, a law like that has not been overturned at least since Lochner.  So we’re going back to the ’30s, pre-New Deal.

For the record, Lochner v. New York (1905)  predated the New Deal by three decades, is today considered largely irrelevant, and dealt with the Due Process Clause, not the Commerce Clause.

Real-life legal experts were quick to remind obama of U.S. v. Lopez (1995) and U.S. v. Morrison (2000), two quite recent Supreme Court cases where Congress was indeed found to have overstepped its Commerce Clause powers.  Both ruled that, even though a private act (packing a gun to school; beating up women; resp.) might have some aggregate effect on commerce, if not in itself commercial activity, it cannot be subject to regulation.

Calculated Ploy, or Emotional Outburst?

obama’s fractured-fairy tale version of Constitutional law may have been the first shot fired in a ploy to use the obamacare ruling in the election. Or, as fellow true liberal and political commentator, John Smart, surmised, “he lost his temper because he didn’t get his way.  That’s how narcissistic personalities act.”

Quite likely, the primary motive was to save the mandate by shifting a swing vote — Kennedy’s, most would guess.  But consider another possibility — the result obama was trying to influence was not a 5-4 in favor, but to avoid a 6-3 against.  Although the comments & questions of four leftist judges during the hearings mostly indicated support for the law, one line of questioning by Justice Sotomayor raised speculation.  “So … you’re answering affirmatively to my colleagues that have asked you the question, can the government force you into commerce,” she asked Verilli, the government’s attorney.  When he conceded that point, Sotomayor followed up rhetorically, “And there is no limit to that power.”  The need to establish a clear, limiting principle to the scope of Congress’ regulatory power — in this case, why insurance but not broccoli — was the central question on all nine justice’s minds.  It was the lack of clear limits that led courts nearly identical in philosophical spectrum as this one to rule in Lopez and Morrison.
Pols like James Carville believe obama can campaign successfully on a 5-4 loss, presenting it as part of the GOP crusade against ‘our values.’  Tacitly acknowledging that Republicans will control both houses come 2013, obama can offer himself as a ‘last line of defense’. The standard argument, that we need a Democrat in the White House to nominate new justices, will of course be made.  The fresh defeat of a law passed by Democrats contains more potency than the stale, vague threat to Roe, which three decades of conservative majorities on the Court have yet to repeal.

All these propaganda tools are seriously compromised were one of the four presumed ‘solid’ votes for the mandate to flip, especially an obama appointee.  Then the story line goes: ‘This guy devoted the entire first year of his term to getting this law passed,and now it’s wiped off the books.  He wasn’t smart enough to realize it had constitutional issues, nor could he even pick the right judge to uphold it.’

If obama did indeed learn that Sotomayor will rule against, it’s no wonder he lost his cool.

Do I Get My Single Payer Now?

Many progs, in sudden shock & disillusionment that the entire ACA may be overturned — not to mention fearing taunts by coworkers over their “Healthcare: Reformed!” coffee mug — desperately seek a silver lining.  If obamacare must be defeated, they reason, maybe it’s the first step to passing real healthcare reform: a single-payer system that covers absolutely everyone.  The more severely mentally ill believe losing before the Supreme Court was all along part of obama’s secret, multi-dimensional plan to implement single-payer.

Not so fast, gang.  Even assuming you somehow re-elect barry with Dem majorities in both houses while, barry’s simply not interested in single-payer.  In his impromptu teach-in he insisted that “in the absence of an individual mandate, you cannot have a mechanism to ensure that people with preexisting conditions can actually get health care.”   Yet, as Single Payer Action —  you, know, barry, those liberals who filed that amicus curiae brief arguing against your mandate — stated in said brief:

[T]he Government characterizes the provision as necessary to the effective regulation by Congress of the national healthcare market, but disregards the proven success of single payer systems currently operating in the United States…. Congress has already implemented successful single payer systems that provide universal coverage to certain subsets of the population, including Medicare … and the Veterans Health Administration….

No surprise that healthcare experts who supported a national single payer system were banned from testifying before Congress.

A Tough Sell

Whatever the vote, if obamacare is struck down in whole or part, it will make touting the president’s list of accomplishments a tough sell.  To rally ‘the base’, obama may well be forced to promise of single-payer in his second term.  The GOP can easily counter by spinning it: ‘We just got rid of the obamacare y’all hate; now he’s promising to do obamacare all over again!’

Even from people who’d hoped for any kind of healthcare reform, giving obama a mulligan may be too much to ask.  He was handed a ‘mandate’ and large majorities in Congress, and he screwed up.  Those ideal conditions will not be recreated.  When the ACA was first introduced in 2009, it was a major disappointment to those on the far Left.  Now, a failure of obama’s healthcare juggernaut  may bring those long-supressed resentments back to the surface.  Given the efficiency of obama’s propaganda machine, it’s easy to forget the stridency of the voices on the Left originally opposed to obamacare:

  • Democrats “lost the initiative the minute that our party jumped into bed with the insurance companies,” complained Dennis Kucinich.  “This bill represents a giveaway to the insurance industry”
  • “This is essentially the collapse of health care reform” lamented Howard Dean. “Honestly the best thing to do right now is kill [it.]”
  • “From what we know about the bill, it is worse than passing nothing, ” seethed Jane Hamsher of Firedoglake, who found the bill “worse than passing nothing. If I wanted Joe Lieberman writing a health care bill, I would’ve voted for John McCain.”
  • Huffy Poo opined that the bill failed to pass “the first rule of medicine … ‘do no harm.'”

Even those obama slut-monkeys, MoveOn.org, protested outside the White House, issuing a press release complaining “[w]ithout a public option, it’s just a giveaway to the insurance companies, and it does nothing to control costs.”
While obama’s team eventually quelled dissent from the Left,  it has been unable to remedy overall discontent with obamacare.  The latest Gallup poll reported that only 20% of Americans, and just 37% of Democrats, thought the mandate was constitutional; that only 11% of swing state voters feel the law has helped their families; that 53/40, voters favored repeal of the law.  Of the 28 states that filed suits against the ACA, 12 went for obama in 2008.  And Scott Brown tells us all we need to know about how Massachusetts feel about obamacare.

This November, when trying to get out the vote, OFA may find itself fighting the resentment of otherwise dependable voters like this MoveOn member picketing outside the White House in 2009:

“To me, it’s the death of health care.  And that’s sad, because this was a real opportunity. I think people voted heavily Democratic because they wanted something done to solve the health care problem, and instead we’re just getting something that will benefit the insurance companies.”

(c) 2012 by True Liberal Nexus.  All rights reserved.

6 Comments | barack obama the deceiver, Constitutional Law, Democratic ineptitude, Elections, MoveOn, Proglodytes | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Matt

Zimmerman, Martin, and the Trampling of the Constitution

March 28, 2012

The Mob Rushes to Judgement

Within hours of the news of the shooting death in Sanford, FL, the mob had already found George Zimmerman guilty of the “murder” of Trayvon Martin, then spent the next weeks cherry-picking facts to support their verdict.   A superfluous exercise, really, when a single headline had been sufficient for their ‘verdict’:  ‘unarmed black teenager wearing hoodie shot and killed by white man in gated community.’   To the reactionary minds of proglodytes, this was incontrovertible proof of a racially-motivated attack.  The photo of the angelic teen victim was plastered across the MSM, and the Outrage Brigade girded its loins for yet another crusade against  Governor George Wallace   The Sparta, Mississippi PD  the pervasive institutional racism in our society.

The crusade hit a speed bump when the first photo of Zimmerman showed a face possessing decidedly hispanic features (his mother is Peruvian).  For, while proglodytes are convinced that racism lurks in the soul of every Caucasian, they seem incapable of imagining a member of a minority ever hating another minority.  They quickly got over this shock and back to interpreting every nuance of the case as evidence of anti-black bias.

As further, less angelic details about Martin started to trickle in, the Outrage Brigade blocked these from their minds, instead labeling the  revelations  — Martin had been suspended for marijuana possession and/or trespassing, he may have been dealing, a stash of stolen jewelry had been found on his person, he may have punched a bus driver — as a racially-motivated “smear campaign.”

Acceding to the mob’s demands, the U.S. Department of Justice is investigating Zimmerman’s actions as a hate crime.  Regardless of what will eventually be revealed about the events, the DOJ investigation should cause great alarm to all freedom-loving Americans.  To understand why it is so dangerous, we need to first review some of the legal aspects of this story.


A Legal Analysis of the Incident

(Note:  hereafter, I shall refer to Zimmerman as “Z”, and Martin as “M”.  Not for convenience, rather to emulate the standard presentation of case law examples, where the particular characteristics of the participants are irrelevant.)

As far as we know, neither Z nor M did anything illegal up until the moment they encountered each other.  Foolish, or unwise, perhaps, but not illegal.  Z had a right to drive and walk around his neighborhood, and to challenge a stranger.  M had the same right to walk, or even run, around that neighborhood, and to tell a stranger to piss off.

There are also several as-yet undetermined things that may have occurred prior to the confrontation, which we can only speculate on.  In listing them, I make no assertion of their respective validity.

Z may have:

  • been earnestly trying to stop a perceived criminal;
  • been stalking M solely because of his color;
  • recklessly precipitated a physical confrontation;
  • uttered a racial epithet.

M may have:

  • been wandering lost on his first night in the neighborhood;
  • been casing houses for burglaries;
  • been stoned;
  • been scared for his safety;
  • decided to physically confront Z, instead of fleeing or calling for help.

While a few of these possible actions would be, in & of themselves, minor crimes or inchoate offenses, none can be considered the legal cause of M’s death.

Causation & State of Mind

When assessing culpability for a tort or a crime, the law looks for two things, causation, and state of mind (“mens rea”, or criminal intent).

The causation question is commonly phrased thus:  ‘BUT FOR A’s act, would B have suffered the harm?’   The causal link may not be extended infinitely.  But for his suspension, M would not have been in that neighborhood that night.  Yet that does not mean M’s school principle caused M’s death.  The focus is normally placed on the most proximate cause.

The proximate cause of M’s death was the firing of the gun by Z.  This does not necessarily mean, however, that Z is guilty of murder, or any crime.  The circumstances surrounding the action, the events leading up to it, and Z’s state of mind, all are factors.

Criminal codes vary from state-to-state, but most adopt a standard hierarchy, ranging from premeditated murder, through reckless-, then negligent manslaughter, on down to lesser crimes.  The incident does not fit the definition of murder, but could conceivably be deemed manslaughter, were Z found to have acted with reckless disregard of the potential consequences.  Z’s state of mind at the time, as compared to what the average person could reasonably be thinking in that situation, would then be a factor.

Z’s act could also be deemed justifiable homicide, which is not a crime.  You have the right to use deadly force, if you reasonably fear you will be killed or suffer serious bodily harm.  If it is true that, as Z was dialing his cell phone, M violently assaulted Z, knocking him to the ground with a punch to the nose, then straddling him to repeatedly slam his head against the concrete, Z’s fear for his physical safety or life would be eminently reasonable.

All this is for the The State of Florida to decide.  If the District Attorney chooses to make a charge, a grand jury must then be convened to indict. If an indictment is issued, a court would then hear the case, and a jury reach a verdict. If a guilty verdict is returned, finally a judge would levy a sentence.  That’s known as due process under the law.


Reserved Powers

The mob is impatient of that process, though, and has persuaded the DOJ to proceed with a prosecution of Z for hate crime under the Matthew Shepard Hate Crimes Prevention Act (“HCPA“).  That poses dangerous threats to our Constitution, our form of government, and to all our civil liberties.

First, the Constitution reserves for the states what are known as police powers.  These are not just cops issuing speeding tickets, rather all form of regulation in the interests of the health, safety and welfare of the state’s citizens.  The federal government is only supposed to assume police power within the narrow confines of its enumerated powers.  When the HCPA was passed in 2009, some observers noted with concern that it “greatly expands the federal government’s jurisdiction to prosecute cases that properly belong in a state court.”

Laws that expand federal police power always require a “hook” for justification, usually the Commerce Clause.  For the Shepard Act, the 13th Amendment’s banning of slavery was also pressed into service as a “hook” via a painfully convoluted argument:

“For generations, the institutions of slavery and … involuntary servitude were enforced … through widespread public and private violence directed at persons because of their race, color, or ancestry, or perceived race, color, or ancestry. Accordingly, eliminating racially motivated violence is an important means of eliminating … the … relics of slavery ….”

Second, many argue the HCPA violates the 5th Amendment by subjecting citizens to Double Jeopardy, facing multiple trial & punishment for the same offense.  Under the HCPA, the federal government may prosecute “[w]hoever … willfully causes … or … attempts to cause bodily injury to any person, because of the actual or perceived race, color, religion, or national origin of any person” simply if the U.S. Attorney General determines that either:

the verdict or sentence obtained pursuant to State charges left demonstratively unvindicated the Federal interest in eradicating bias-motivated violence; or a prosecution by the United States is in the public interest and necessary to secure substantial justice.

In plain English, if Eric Holder feels Florida’s ultimate punishment of Z is not sufficiently harsh for his taste, he can try Z again in federal court.   Many activists feel this is justifiable, to make up for the “long history in this country, where African-Americans are victims, and state authorities failed to act in a timely and appropriate manner ….”

Additionally, the HCPA seems to punish hatred/bias in isolation.  A main defense of bias crime statutes is that they punish the hate only after it has been manifested in a criminal act.  Z has yet to even be charged with a crime, yet the DOJ is ramping up to prosecute him.  DOJ’s case against Z rests on two elements, and two alone:

  1. M’s skin color was different than Z’s skin color;
  2. Z allegedly uttered a word.

Even if Z did say “coon”  — even if saying “coon” is indicative of his hatred of blacks —  does that merit a life sentence?  The HCPA says it does.  Were Z to be acquitted of all charges in Florida, many believe he still deserves to spend the rest of his days in a federal penitentiary.

Finally, although the Shepard Act contains language assuring that “[n]othing in this Act shall be construed to prohibit any constitutionally protected speech”,  its sanctioning of extremely harsh penalties, based entirely on what a person says, nevertheless creates a Chilling Effect on free speech.

Z, along with every citizen, has a 1st Amendment right to say “coon” or anything they like, however “distasteful and repugnant”.  We also have a right to hate certain groups and to express that sentiment in public (cf. Snyder v. Phelps)  But if certain words are enough to send anyone to prison, no one can ever feel safe saying those words.  Like all hate crime laws, one unavoidable side effect of the HCPA is a gross infringement of our 1st Amendment rights.


The Constitution Trampled Underfoot

The furor over the incident in Sanford, FL is but the latest example of a clash between increasingly polarized philosophical camps.  In their angry scrum to define the narratives that influence both public opinion and public policy, the combatants are trampling our Constitution, and our civil liberties contained therein. The polemics need to end, and the rule of law restored.

(c) 2012 by True Liberal Nexus.  All rights reserved.

7 Comments | Constitutional Law, Equality, Proglodytes, race card, Racism | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Matt

Infidel, Go Home!

February 29, 2012

By now, everyone is familiar with how it was discovered that US military personnel at Bagram Air Base in Afghanistan had been sending copies of the koran to the incinerator.  Afghanis continue to riot in protest; four US soldiers have been killed, and eight wounded, to date in retaliation.  In response to the rioting, obama issued a lengthy, written apology addressed to Hamid Karzai, mayor of Kabul president of Afghanistan.  Karzai nevertheless insists that those responsible for the burnt korans be handed over to stand trial.

Around the world, moslems are protesting in solidarity.  In America, the Right attacks obama for apologizing, while the Left defends him.  In Afghanistan, tempers continue to flare. A young Afghani who worked at Bagram Air base said of his American employers:  “The people who do this are our enemies.  How could I ever work for them again?”

The general consensus in Afghanistan is that us Americans should go home, leaving them in peace to practice their medieval religion.  We should take a hint and start packing our bags.


Apology Not Accepted

Immediately following the revelation of the koran burnings, obama sent a three-page, written apology to Karzai.  In it, he offered his “sincere apologies” and expressed “deep regret” for the torching of the sacred Muslim texts.  “The error was inadvertent,” obama insisted , “I assure you that we will take the appropriate steps to avoid any recurrence, to include holding accountable those responsible.”

Similar prostrations were offered by the US military, NATO, and the State Department:

“We apologize to the Afghan people and disapprove of such conduct in the strongest possible terms. This deeply unfortunate incident does not reflect the great respect our military has for the Afghan people. It’s regrettable.”

“The desecration of religious articles is not in keeping with the standards of American tolerance, human rights practices and freedom of religion.”

The claim that the burnings were accidental seems genuine — to a point.   The korans had been removed  from a library the base ran for prisoners.  It seems the prisoners had scribbled marginalia next to sura, or passages, that justify the use of armed resistance against NATO forces.   (These must have been heavily annotated copies, as the koran contains over a hundred sura promoting violence against infidels.)

So, although knew they were burning korans, our soldiers may well have been unaware that burning korans was such an affront to moslems.  They certainly weren’t burning the korans as an intentional affront to moslems.  They were just following orders:

6.1.2  Utilization of the Bagram incinerator or a properly authorized burn barrel is mandatory for burning classified/sensitive information that cannot be properly disposed of in a shredder authorized to destroy classified information.  All other documents should be shredded before they are discarded.

(It’s doubtful that moslems would be any less irate had the korans been shredded.)

In fact, waste disposal at our many far-flung bases has become a problem that the military has tried to address over the past two years, primarily by building incinerators.  Coincidentally, Bagram was the subject of a 2009 Air Force study on improving waste handling.

NATO has agreed to investigate the burnings, and the US military will be conducting sensitivity training sessions for all personnel in Afghanistan.


When In Bagram…

None of this will appease moslems, however, who believe that any desecration of their magical book is an inexcusable affront to Allah, punishable by death.  Karzai continues to insist that those responsible be handed over to the Afghani government to stand trial.  Under Afghani law — which is essentially sharia — the punishment is death by hanging.

No US president would ever comply to such a request, certainly not one seeking re-election.  Nevertheless, under international law, we may be obligated to do just that.  It all depends on where the burnings took place.

The grounds of an overseas military base, like a consulate or embassy, are considered sovereign soil of the nation operating it.  Within these tiny enclaves, the laws of the operating nation, not those of the host, are in force.  Once they step off-base, however, or out the embassy door, our military and diplomatic personnel are subject to the laws of the host country.  So-called “diplomatic immunity” means embassy staff who violate local laws are simply shipped home.  Soldiers get handed over to the local authorities.  One news outlet described the location of the burnings as “an incinerator near the Bagram Air Base.”   True Liberal Nexus, however, has located documents (link and link) that indicate that the burn piles or incinerator used to burn the korans would have been situated within the base perimeter.  The nuances of international law, though, are unlikely to sooth the rage of the moslems.


Burn, Baby, Burn

It may surprise you to learn that this is not the first time religious texts were burned at Bagram Air Base.  In 2009, thousands of holy books were sent to the incinerator.  Christian bibles.

The Air Force had received an unsolicited shipment of bibles, translated into local languages, from a Christian group.  They’d first been put in the base library, but were recalled to avoid any appearance that part of our mission in Afghanistan was to convert.   At first, the Air Force was going to mark the bibles “Return to Sender.”  Then it reconsidered, fearing that, were the bibles to be later redistributed, it might be misconstrued by Afghanis that the US military was the source.  So they were burned.   No one protested; no one complained; no one was killed.

In 2011, religious freak Terry Jones held a koran burning, condemning a single copy of the words of the prophet/misogynist/rapist/pederast, Mohammed, to the flames.  Worldwide, moslems rioted for two days. In afghanistan, a mob attacked a UN office, killing 24 inside.  In the West, Jones was widely blamed for causing the violence, implying that the moslems who actually did the rioting and committed the murders are either 1) mindless beasts incapable of checking their emotions;  2) justified in their actions.

“It was intolerant and it was extremely disrespectful and again, we condemn it in the strongest manner possible.” — Gen. David Petraeus

“I wish we could find some way to hold people accountable. During WWII, you had limits on what you could say if it would inspire the enemy. Free speech is a great idea, but we are in a war. Any time in America we can push back against actions like this that put our troops at risk, we ought to do that.”  – Sen. Lindsay Graham

“I am disgusted and saddened at the outcome of Mr. Jones’ narrow vision of the world. While we respect freedom of speech, this is tantamount to crying fire in a crowded theater.”  — Rep. Maxine Waters

“Mr. Jones did this, even though he was warned of the consequences..  It is illegal to falsely yell fire in a crowded theater because doing so presents a clear and present danger, and it should be illegal to set fire to the Koran for the same reason. Authorities should immediately begin considering the prosecution of Mr. Jones for inciting a riot.”  — Letter to the editor of the Washington Post

“If the stakes were not so high, if his threatened action did not portend international riots, increase the danger to American troops, and jeopardize the nation’s global standing, the whole thing would be downright laughable”  — Seattle Times

“The planned burning of Korans this weekend would not just be a national disgrace or dangerous for our troops abroad. It could set fire to the very fabric that makes America strong and righteous.” —  Christian Science Monitor

Like Jones’ pyromania, all this threw much heat but little light. One of the few voices defending our tradition of Free Speech was Glenn Greenwald:

“The whole point of the First Amendment is that one is free to express the most marginalized, repellent, provocative and offensive ideas. Those are the views that are always targeted for suppression…. If you’re someone who wants to vest the state with the power to punish the expression of certain views on the grounds that the view is so wrong and/or hurtful that its expression should not be permitted … then you’re someone who does not believe in free speech, by definition; what you believe is that one is free to express only those viewpoints which the majority of citizens (and the State) allow to be expressed.”

What Greenwald understands, contra the State Department, is that the desecration of religious articles is in keeping with the standards of American tolerance, human rights practices and freedom of religion.


Apologizing for the Apology

Yet, for the proglydites of the Left, this double standard is perfectly acceptable.  If a pack of intolerant, illiterate goat-herders think a collection of pulp, ink, glue, and cardboard can be desecrated, then who are we to question that?

Mika Brzezinski, perhaps the dimmest of all the dimwits at Pravda MSNBC, vociferously defended obama’s mewling apology:  “What am I missing?  Let’s say the American flag was inadvertently burned, would that not require an apology from another leader?”

Um, they do burn the American flag all the time, Mika, and on purpose.  I guess you missed how they just did it again in Yemen.  Go ahead, Mika, demand an apology.  Now, people also burn the American flag (or step on it in an alleyway) in America.  The difference is, while some Americans do get all touchy about flag etiquette, burning a flag in America won’t get you executed.

Mika, perhaps you also missed how they burned your obama-messiah in effigy the other day.  Aren’t you offended, Mika?  Or is that sort of thing “understandable” when it’s done by foreigners?

Why, of course it is!  Mika, and the rest of the proglydites at MSNBC set an higher bar for Western civilization than the rest of the world.  Just last April, the Hardball gang twisted themselves into contortions to explain how burning a koran is far worse than burning a bible:

“The thing to keep in mind that`s very important here is that the Koran to Muslims … is not the same as the Bible to Christians…. [I]f you`re a Muslim, the Koran is directly the word of God, not written by man….  That makes it sacred in a way that it`s hard to understand if you`re not Muslim. So the act of burning a Koran is … much, much more inflammatory … than if you were to burn a Bible.”

The pathology that afflicts the Left, causing it to always belittle Western values while ever making excuses for the abominable behavior of other cultures, is a subject better left for another day.  But here’s the sort of apology a real president, who

  1. Treasured and respected our Constitution and our Western values;
  2. Had a pair;

might have issued:

Gosh, I am so terribly sorry this little peccadillo upset y’all so much!  It’s not like we went out of our way to upset you.  I’m sure our boys didn’t even realize that burning a little book was such a big deal to y’all.  See, in our country, we burn things all the time that are sacred to others — like posters of the Pope, rival versions of the bible, and Dixie Chicks CDs.  That’s because, in our country, we value free speech and the separation of church and state.  We came to your country ten years ago to rescue you from the oppressive clutches of the Taliban  — that and to build a pipeline.  But if you insist on remaining stuck in the Middle Ages, then we best be on our way.

In all seriousness, this was an opportunity for the American president to reaffirm the best of American values — not coca cola or consumerism, or drones, but rather freedom of speech, secularism, and tolerance.  Yes, tolerance, because unlike Western society, Islam (and I intentionally paint here with a broad brush; prove me wrong) is utterly intolerant of the beliefs of others.


What Mission?

We initially invaded Afghanistan to rout out the Taliban,  which allegedly had a hand in the 9/11 attacks.  We stayed to reform Afghan society, to bring it into a state of democratic grace, to eliminate corruption in its government, to kill the opium trade, to modernize its infrastructure.   Some say we are there to exploit the country’s natural resources, or to have a springboard for a future attack on Iran. According to General David Petraeus, the primary objective is to create an Afghanistan that is “never again a sanctuary to al-Qaida or other transnational extremists that it was prior to 9/11.”

In December, 2010, when his surge was in full swing, obama paid a surprise visit to the troops in Afghanistan, telling them:

“We said we were going to break the Taliban’s momentum, and that’s what you’re doing. You’re going on the offense, tired of playing defense. Today we can be proud that there are fewer areas under Taliban control and more Afghans have the chance to build a more hopeful future.  You will succeed in your mission.”

US policy, bent on preventing the return of the taliban at all costs, has coddled and propped up the perfidious Karzai, while placating the brutal local warlords.  The 2010 parliamentary elections saw a new generation of warlords “that has risen since 2001 and attained wealth and power through NATO security contracts and lucrative reconstruction deals,” gain office.

As a sop to a populace increasingly squeezed by Kabul and the warlords, half-hearted attempts were made to implement public works projects — which ended up rife with further graft.  Our statesmen are puzzled how this policy could fail in Afghanistan, when it was such a smashing success in Vietnam.

Whatever our motivations, noble or base, we have failed across the board.  The Taliban still controls much of the countryside, and we now are begging them to come to the table and accept a power-sharing agreement.  The heroin trade is like a weed — we hack at the head, but the roots remain, ready to spring up anew.  A decade after we installed him in power, Karzai’s regime is ranked as one of the top three most corrupt governments in the world.  The country is as impoverished and undeveloped as when we arrived.

As implemented by Bush and now by obama, our agenda in Afghanistan is the spawn of the Wolfowitz Doctrine, which, among other things, assumes that forcibly grafting democracy onto a country leads to economic prosperity and an open society.  The fatal flaw of the Wolfowitz doctrine is that it got the causal relationship backwards:  only prosperous, open societies have the wherewithal to sustain a democracy.   In destitute, reactionary Afghanistan, democracy is a farce.

Malalai Joya, one of the few woman elected to the Jirga (parliament), has spoken out against both US policy and the corrupt Karzai regime.  Joya laments that “there are no human rights or democracy in Afghanistan because [the government] is infected with fundamentalism.”

As reward for her efforts to battle corruption and defend women’s rights, Jaya has been kicked out of the Jirga and threatened with rape.  “In our country, to express your point of view is to risk violence and death.”


Welcome to Beautiful Koranistan!

Not sure what we expected, because the Afghan constitution, written in 2004 with our blessing, establishes the country as an islamic republic.  While it includes lip service to equal rights for woman, free speech, and freedom of religion, the Afghan constitution also clearly states that “In Afghanistan, no law can be contrary to the beliefs and provisions of the sacred religion of Islam.”  In practice, the law of the land is sharia:  the 1976 penal code is still in effect, and the constitution gives jurisprudence to Hanafi law (a sharia variant) on matters religious.

Some human rights highlights since the Constitution was ratified:

  • 2005 — Journalist Ali Mohaqiq Nasab receives a two year blasphemy sentence for questioning harsh punishments imposed on women and the punishment of apostasy;
  • 2006 — Abdul Rahman is arrested for converting to christianity — “an attack on Islam”,  punishable by death– but is later released following international pressure;
  • 2007 — The Afghan Supreme Court rules that membership in the Bahai Faith is blasphemy and that Muslims who convert to the Bahai Faith are apostates;
  • 2008 — Following a four-minute trial, journalism student Parwiz Kambakhsh is convicted of blasphemy for allowing an article critical of Islam’s treatment of women to be published in the school paper.  His death sentence is later commuted to 20 years imprisonment;
  • 2009 —  Ghows Zalmai is sentenced to twenty years in prison for publishing an unauthorized translation of the koran;
  • 2009 — Karzai signs The Shiite Personal Status Law, which allows police to enforce a woman’s role as “obedience, readiness for intercourse, and not leaving the house without the permission of the husband,” and affirms that a shiite wife is “bound to preen for her husband, as and when he desires.”  Under the law, a husband may deny his wife food and shelter if she does not meet his sexual needs, including anal intercourse;
  • 2010 — Red Cross worker Said Musa is convicted of conversion to christianity and sentenced to death.  After suffering torture in prison, Musa is released following intervention by NGOs;
  • 2011 — Shoaib Assadullah is arrested for converting to christianity, but later released due to international pressure;
  • 2011 —  After reporting her rape by her husband’s cousin, a 19 year-old woman is sentenced to 12 years in prison for adultery;
  • 2011 —  A case involving an 8 year-old bride, (which technically violated the country’s legal marriage age of 16) is turned over by the government to local tribal leaders for adjudication.  The elders rule that, as the groom had violated the marriage agreement by already having sex with the girl, he must pay a larger dowry.  A human rights report notes that 57% of brides in Afghanistan are under the age of 16.

What do our Western leaders have to say to all this?

“We are not in Afghanistan … to see to it that we make everything right in Afghanistan.  We’re there to defeat al Qaeda.”  — Vice President Joe Biden

“We believe that if we help them secure themselves, by training the Afghan National Army, the Afghan National Police, then we enable that government structure to become much more experienced than it has been.  It’s a young structure and they’re still going through some growing pains.” — Captain Elizabeth Mathia, spokesperson for IFOR

“There is no point in imposing some external model that bears no relation to Afghan realities or traditions.” — Dominic Grieve, UK Attorney General


Infidel, Go Home!

We must face the fact that the people of Afghanistan are stuck in the 9th century, and they like it there.  They have no intention of abandoning the oppression of islamic law, and Western leaders turn a blind eye to all but the most notorious cases.

The Afghanis find our continued presence in their country incompatible with their religion and their culture.  They don’t want our promises of roads and schools and prosperity.  They just want us to leave.

We live in a world where the inadvertent burning of someone’s holy book may be inconsiderate, but can be smoothed over with an apology.  They live (not unlike certain christians in this country) in a pre-modern, shamanistic world, where inanimate objects like books — almost 3/4 of the population are illiterate — are imbued with spirits that can be offended and “defiled”, and where such defilement can only be atoned with blood.

These strict adherents of islam (like the strict jews they cribbed their religion off of) are obsessed with cleanliness, following edicts written long before the discovery of bacteria.  Hence is Allah, the god they fabricated, so enraged over unclean foods, unclean practices, unclean persons.

So we teach our troops not to touch the locals with their left (ass-wiping) hand. Still, our very presence, coming and going as we please, sullies their land and their daily lives.   The frequent contact with our infidel soldiers, especially the female ones, frustrates the good moslem in his obligation to pray several times a day:

“Muslims, draw not near unto prayer….  [If] ye have touched women…then go to high clean soil and rub your face and your hands.”  — sura 4:43

“…if ye have had contact with women, and ye find not water, then go to clean, high ground and rub your faces and your hands with some of it.” sura 5:6

“When one of you prays without a sutrah, a dog, an ass, a pig, a Jew, a Magian, and a woman cut off his prayer, but it will suffice if they pass in front of him at a distance of over a stone’s throw.” Abu Dawud 2:704

To comport with Mohammed’s description of women as domestic animals, we order our female soldiers to wear scarves on their heads.   Yet our very use of women– who islam considers inherently unclean, especially when menstruating — as soldiers is confrontational.  Since the US military does not take female personnel off active duty once a month, a good moslem man stands a high risk of being contaminated when encountering our troops:

“… women’s courses … are a hurt and a pollution: So keep away from women in their courses, and do not approach them until they are clean.” Sura 2:222

Our practice of placing women officers in command of male soldiers must seem barbaric to them:

“Men have authority over women because God has made the one superior to the other…. Good women are obedient…. As for those from whom you fear disobedience, admonish them … and beat them.” sura 4:34

Any surprise, then, when a member of the Afghan parliament, in response to the koran burnings, announces at a rally that  “Americans are invaders, and jihad against Americans is an obligation”?  Or that a local worker feels the Americans “should leave Afghanistan rather than disrespecting our religion, our faith.  They have to leave and if next time they disrespect our religion, we will defend our holy Koran, religion and faith until the last drop of blood has left in our body.”


Religious War, Culture War

The Right in America are happy to treat this as a religious war.  Both Rick Santorum (in earnest) and Newt Gingrich (as demagoguery) have slammed obama’s apology.  The idea of asking Santorum or Gingrich whether the burning of a bible would merit a similar apology has yet to creep into the empty skull of any journalist.

If America is not a “Christian nation”, it is nonetheless a nation of Christians, and most Americans seem to share Santorum’s, et al. — and the Afghanis’ — view of this as a struggle between Christianity and Islam.  The soldier who shot a bullet through a koran a while back didn’t do so because he despised religious tracts in general; he did it because islam was heretical to his particular brand of faith.

The proglydites insist that in this case, we must chose between religious zealotry and touchy-feely, United-Colors-of-Benetton relativism, where every world culture, no matter how odious, must be “respected”, “valued” and “understood.”

That is a false dichotomy, and the Left are as wrong as the Right.  The koran burning, and the reactions to it, highlight a very real culture war, a clash of values.   And our modern, western culture, as exampled by the rights enshrined in the US Constitution, is better in absolute terms than the backwards, islamic culture of Afghanistan, as exemplified by their sharia.  The framers of our highest law were well-read children of the Enlightenment; theirs are superstitious relics of the Dark Ages.

Time to Pack Up and Go

It’s over. Our stated mission has failed, and conditions in Afghanistan have gotten steadily worse over time, not better.  The ways in which we want to improve society in Afghanistan are not ways in which Afghan society wants to improve.  obama’s standard foreign policy approach is to hope a problem just goes away, and he’ll let this problem fester.  Rioting will continue.  The call to bring the “burners” to justice will intensify.  More US personnel will be ambushed and killed. Tensions will rise. The risk that a beleaguered group of our soldiers shoot Afghanis — our Boston Massacre — will increase with each passing day.  The sooner we leave, the better.

A president with intelligence and integrity would realize that the game in Afghanistan is lost; that maligning our cherished Western values is a line that should never be crossed, no matter what’s at stake.  We don’t have that kind of president.

(c) 2012 by True Liberal Nexus.  All rights reserved.

11 Comments | International Affairs, religion | Tagged: , , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Matt

Official Holy Book Burn Days

February 24, 2012

This advisory clarifies confusion over which day is the most offensive to burn a particular holy book.  (Disputes over competing sabbaths were decided by a coin flip, using a ceremonial coin with the face of Mohammed designating Heads, and a graphic depiction of the Virgin Mary being inseminated during the Annunciation designating Tails.)  For maximum outrage of religious fanatics and other mentally ill persons, please torch an holy book only on its designated Burn Day.

 Burn Day Schedule

Friday:  anon. ghost writer — The Koran, 3 Volumes (Vol. I: Mohammed and His Flying Horse; Vol. 2:  Mohammed Seduces Other Men’s Wives;  Vol. 3: How To Decapitate Infidels and Assorted Pork-Eaters)

Saturday:  Leviticus, et al., — Tanakh/Torah, Talmud, any Kabbalah, & asst. Midrashim (subtitled: Why The Thunder God Told Us To Commit Genocide And Avoid Shellfish)

Sunday:  Eusebius, ed. — New Testament (subtitled: A Compilation Of Preposterous 3rd Century Fables About Some Guy Not Found in The Historical Record). Note:  Please properly dispose of rosary beads, crucifixes and assorted statues by depositing them in the Idolatry bin at your local transfer station.

Monday:  Smith, J. — Book of Mormon (subtitled:  Being An Thrilling Account of Jesus’ Sold Out North American Tour, And The Phoenicians Who Used To Live There And Build Pyramids and Other Cool Stuff, As Revealed On Magic Gold Plates That Up And Disappeared One Day; Also Including Interesting True Vignettes Of The Prophets Who Live Inside My Closet)

Tuesday:  Baker Eddy, M. — Science And Health (subtitled:  Or, How I Conquered Psycho-Somatic Illness Through Fantasy).  Tuesday is also the designated day to burn Battlefield Earth, plus all copies of Watchtower and Awake! that create a fire hazard by accumulating behind your screen door.

Wednesday:  anon. — The Atharva-, Rig-, Sama-, & Yajur Veda series.  (transl: The More Gods, the Merrier!;  The More Arms, The Merrier The Gods!;  101 Useful Spells, Incantations, and Curses;  Reincarnation For Dummies).  Note: please do not attempt to burn stones that are shaped like phalluses.

Thursday:  Thursday is a Day of Rest, to collect kindling.

Important:  To reduce smoke nuisance to your neighbors, please burn only one pile of holy books at a time. And never leave piles unattended, or mix books of different, stupid beliefs into one pile.  But no need to ever apologize.

(c) 2012 by True Liberal Nexus.  All rights reserved.

1 Comment | religion, Satire | Tagged: , , , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Matt

unworker 8.3%. month unplus 0.2%

February 4, 2012

say min tru word worker

min work say unworker 8.3%.  month unplus 0.2%.  4 month unplus unworker.  Barack Brother plus leadering make plus work.  BB doubl plus good.  bush unworker 8.5% BB unworker 8.3%.  bush leadering doubl plus ungood.

BB plus leadering make month plus 243000 worker.  plus 10000 metaldig  plus 33000 foodgiv  plus 9700 foodgro  plus 31000 healthgiv  plus 8000 carmake.

Ingsoc population plus 1510000. worker part population unplus 0.3%.  unworker unplus 0.2%   BB plus leadering make unplus unworker 0.2%

plus work.  plus make.  plus unfat new prol.  win war iraq.  win war afghan.  win futur.  prol doubl plus luv BB.  BB watch you.


(c) 2012 by True Liberal Nexus.  All rights reserved.

2 Comments | barack obama the deceiver, Economy, Kool-Aid drinkers, Satire | Tagged: , , , , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Matt

The Four Scandals of barack obama — Part 2: Lightsquared

January 9, 2012

We now come to the first of a trio of scandals involving the most venal and brazen examples in recent memory of apparent bribery at the highest levels of our government.  Three tales of ravenously greedy billionaires, and the tricks turned by a high-priced call girl of a president willing to sell out our Nation’s prosperity and even military security for a few grip in campaign donations.

Scandal #2 — Lightsquared

Background

Lightsquared (“L2”) is a Reston, Virginia-based telecommunications start-up with an extensive satellite network.  L2 plans to link its satellites with 40,000 ground-based stations, then sell access to this network to cable, internet and wireless broadband providers.  L2 has tentative, highly lucrative agreements with several providers, including a 15-year contract with Sprint.  L2 had hoped to open four trial markets by late 2011.

The Plot Thickens

To create its hybrid network, L2 needed a waiver from the FCC, which was tentatively granted in January, 2011, despite fervent objections from telecom experts and the Departments of Transportation, Homeland Security, and Defense.

The bandwidth L2 intends to use sits right next to that used by GPS devices.  GPS is an extremely weak signal.  Preliminary tests showed that L2’s transmissions would cause “catastrophic interference,”  affecting everyone from motorists, boaters, and farmers who now plow their fields using GPS, to — more alarmingly — aviation safety and the military, which relies heavily on GPS.

The White House Connection

Beginning last February, Congress held hearings on whether to confirm the waiver the FCC issued to L2.  The obama administration prepared government witnesses to testify in favor. Really prepared.  One committee member noted that four out of the five statements given at one hearing contained identical paragraphs saying no real interference issues existed, and the sentence “We hope that testing can be complete within 90 days.”

When questioned, the White House Office of Management and Budget (“OMB”) admitted it had edited the statements, but insisted that “coaching” and “providing consistency” in witnesses testimony was “standard practice.”

Two witnesses balked.  Air Force General William Shelton, head of U.S. Space Command, announced he’d been “pressured” to testify that no GPS interference issues exist, when he and the entire military have grave concerns.  Shelton was also “chafed” that OMB inserted the 90-day test deadline into his prepared testimony.

Anthony Russo, another expert government witness, acknowledges that he, too, was “guided” by the White House to testify that interference tests could be completed in 90 days.  Russo refused, as he believed those tests required six months or more.  Several government experts agree: “[t]o pick a number and say the tests have to end by a certain date is not consistent with commission precedent.”

One odd coincidence:  in 2005, obama invested $90,000 in SkyTerra, which later became L2.  The investment took place the very day SkyTerra’s stock soared following a preliminary FCC ruling allowing the creation of its wireless network.  obama apparently sold the stock later at a $13,000 loss. At least two other administration officials still have financial links to L2.

The Payola

Why 90 days?  Because in the Fall of 2011, L2 had planned on opening trial markets in four cities, and L2’s $14 billion contract with Sprint was due to expire on December 31st, 2011 if FCC approval had not been secured. (Sprint has since extended the window another few months.)

Majority owner of LightSquared is Phil Falcone, who made billions on the subprime mortgage bubble.  Falcone also donated heavily to obama and the DNC in 2008.  Just prior to the FCC waiver ruling, Falcone made several visits to White House officials, where he admits he told them the waiver ruling “should not take that long.”

Two days before the waiver was granted, Falcone and his wife each donated the maximum $30,400 to the DNC.  LightSquared CEO Sanjiv Ahuja made his own $30,400 contribution to the DNC on the same day he met with administration officials to discuss the waiver.

An L2 executive next emailed Aneesh Chopra, obama’s chief technology adviser (and former L2 board member):

Hi Aneesh!

I touched base … Sanjiv Ahuja and he expressed an interest in meeting with you.…  He is going to be in DC next week for a fundraising dinner with the President.

To make sure the message was delivered, L2’s lawyer emailed the chief of staff for the White House Office of Science and Technology:

You may recall that you met with Sanjiv Ahuja about a year ago, with Phil Falcone … as Phil & Sanjiv were finalizing their plans for a new wireless broadband network….  Sanjiv will be at a fund-raiser dinner with the President on September 30 and would like to visit with you … and Aneesh Chopra….

The obama administration swears there is absolutely no connection between all this and the FCC’s hurried granting of the waiver over numerous & strenuous objections, or OMB’s witness tampering.

Ahuja is “outraged” by the leak of the emails exposing his crude offer of bribes to the President, and is demanding a Federal investigation into that.   Ahuja drolly notes that the emails cast “serious doubts about the fairness and integrity of the entire process….”

What Lies Ahead

The recently released results of tests, completed this past November by agencies including DoD and the FAA, confirm that up to 75% of all GPS devices would suffer severe disruption by the L2 network.  Additional tests on high-precision GPS used in farm equipment and scientific instruments will be conducted in 2012.

In response, L2 is now offering to reduce the strength of its signals, which it promises would only screw up 10% of all GPS.  Which makes one wonder: if the solution is that simple, why did L2 need the stronger signal in the first place?  Was, just maybe, frakking up GPS part of the business plan all along?

A group of agricultural equipment manufacturers, led by John Deere, have formed Coalition to Save our GPS to lobby against the L2 approval.

The recent NDAA defense bill contained language expressly intended to hold up approval of L2’s network until further tests are completed.  “Our military is heavily reliant on GPS capability to do its job. It is unacceptable for our armed forces to be put at greater risk or made less effective as a result of LightSquared’s operations,” Rep. Michael Turner said in a statement. “Our troops are depending on our government, and the FCC, to do the right thing.”

Congress has repeated its formal request for documents related to the case, which OMB and the FCC have so far ignored, and Issa’s Committee has promised to continue its investigation of  the apparent payola. The chair of the Armed Services Subcommittee on Strategic Forces has also called for hearings on the “irregular process” of L2’s waiver approval.

There’s really no way to put a positive spin on this story.  The obama administration got caught trying to sneak through approval of a disastrous & dangerous business scheme directly on the heels of hefty campaign contributions from a financier obama & Co. have been cozy with for years.  Expect obama to be subpoenaed but refuse to appear, and the FCC to quietly revoke the waiver as ever more Federal agencies and GPS-related industry groups join the pile-on.

On Deck — Solyndra

(c) 2012 by True Liberal Nexus.  All rights reserved.

6 Comments | barack obama the deceiver, Corruption, Democratic ineptitude | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Matt

The Four Scandals of barack obama — Part 1: Fast and Furious

January 6, 2012

As obama’s perpetual campaign kicks into high gear, four potential scandals loom on the horizon that may well derail his reelection hopes and, in a just world, lead to impeachment.

As the most corrupt president since Richard Nixon, it’s no surprise that obama and his administration are neck-deep in scandal.  What’s astonishing is how this Chicago thug has gotten away scot-free for so long.  Yet obama’s decades’ long crime spree may be nearing an end.  This year, ongoing investigations, led primarily by Congressman Darrell Issa and Senator Chuck Grassley, promise to turn Fast and Furious, Lightsquared, Solyndra, and SIGA into household names for Americans, and into “Watergates” for obama.

Scandal # 1 — Fast and Furious

Background

On December 14, 2010, Brian Terry, a federal Customs and Border Protection agent, was shot and killed while battling Mexican drug runners.  It turned out that two of the assault rifles used in the shoot-out had made their way into the hands of the gangsters as part of a Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms (“ATF”) operation known ludicrously as “Fast and Furious” (“F&F”).  Not to be confused with the Vin Diesel franchise, F&F attempted to trace gun purchases back to Mexican drug cartel kingpins by letting guns “walk across the border.”  A lot of guns.  Two thousand guns.  Dealers along the border were told by ATF to ignore background checks and sell weapons to known criminals.

The gun dealers’ reservations about this scheme are on record.  The ATF agents’ reservations  are on record.  And, indeed, it was a stupid plan, with too many guns delivered into the hands of vicious criminals. It sparked unprecedented levels of drug running violence, and it got Brian Terry killed.

The Plot Thickens

But it gets worse.

On February 4, 2011, in a letter to Grassley, Assistant Attorney General Ron Weich wrote

The allegation … that ATF ‘sanctioned’ or otherwise knowingly allowed the sale of assault weapons to a straw purchaser who then transported them to Mexico — is false… ATF makes every effort to interdict weapons that have been purchased illegally and prevent their transportation to Mexico.

When summoned before Congress on May 3rd, 2011, AG Eric Holder insisted

I’m not sure of the exact date, but I probably heard about Fast and Furious for the first time over the last few weeks.

In his June 15, 2011 testimony before Congress, Weich continued to insist that  “[t]he Attorney General … has taken very seriously allegations that firearms … were intentionally allowed “to walk” into Mexico,” had ordered an internal investigation into the matter, and “also has reiterated to Department law enforcement personnel that they are not knowingly to allow any firearms to be illegally transported into Mexico for any reason.”

Too bad for John Mitchell Eric Holder that his subpoenaed emails reveal he’d been receiving weekly updates on F&F since at least July 5th, 2010. Eric, when an AG to perjures himself, it’s not just embarrassing, it’s a felony.

The White House Connection

Last September, Issa & Grassley announced they were expanding their investigation to include three White House staffers, including a Special Assistant to The President, who had been “provided regular updates” on F&F “as early as Summer of 2010.”

The White House swears they were merely “briefed on the toplines”; that no one ever knew “about the investigative tactics being used in the operation, let alone any decision to let guns walk.”  The name “Fast and Furious” was never even mentioned, the White House noted, until after the investigations began.

Yet these updates did speak of a “GRIT Surge Phoenix,” (Gun Runner Impact Teams), and noted the many ATF agents temporarily transferred to work on “firearms trafficking investigations with direct links to Mexican” cartels.

What Lies Ahead

F&F guns have now been linked to eleven other crimes.  The regional ATF chief who ran F&F was sacked, then the director of ATF was forced to resign.

The New York Times revealed last month that undercover DEA agents were involved in smuggling transport millions of dollars in cash across the border in a related “money-walking” scheme aimed at studying and disrupting drug trafficking routes.  And now it seems that at least some of the “straw” buyers in F&F were paid FBI informants.

Several GOP congressmen are calling for a special counsel to determine whether Holder perjured himself.  Over fifty have signed a letter asking Holder to resign.  The lame excuses of Holder and the White House, to the effect of ‘oh, that was a different gun-walking operation we were discussing in those emails’, doesn’t help them.

Expect Issa & Grassely to make the public flaying of Holder long and painful, eventually forcing Holder to resign or face perjury charges.  Many believe obama was also “complicit” in F&F, but Holder will likely fall on his sword rather than rat on the godfather of his crime family betray his president.


Up Next — Lightsquared.


(c) 2012 by True Liberal Nexus.  All rights reserved.

7 Comments | barack obama the deceiver, Corruption, Democratic ineptitude | Tagged: , , , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Matt

President Addresses Kansas High School on the Economy

December 9, 2011

Ima Puma attended the President’s recent speech on the economy.  Applying her mad steno skills, she captured the actual text, which appears below.

Remarks by the President on the Economy in Owatanassami, Kansas

Owatanassami High School

Owatanassami, Kansas

12:59 P.M. CST:   Bell rings.

THE PRESIDENT: Class, be seated.

AUDIENCE: Good afternoon.

THE PRESIDENT:  Well, it is great to be back in the state of Texas. — (laughter) — Did I just say Texas?  I meant Kansas.  I’m from Kansas, as many of you know.  I got my Kansas accent — not the one I use with the CBC; the one I’m using now — from my mother, who moved to Washington at age three.  Her parents were from Texas, too. So my Kansas roots run deep.  Did I mention I’m also Irish?

My grandparents served during World War II. He either liberated Auschwitz, or served in the Navy, or was declared 4F; she posed for that Rosie the Riveter poster.  I got my biceps from my grandmother.  They believed in an America where hard work paid off, and responsibility was rewarded, and anyone could make it if they tried.  I got my moral compass from Rod Blagojevich.

My grandparent’s values gave rise to the largest middle class and the strongest economy that the world has ever known.  Today, for most Americans, hard work has stopped paying off.  Those at the very top grow wealthier from their investments.

We all know the story by now: bad mortgages, risky bets, regulators who looked the other way. And it plunged our economy into a crisis from which we’re still fighting to recover.  This all took place long before I became president, sometime during the middle of Season Two of Mad Men.

And ever since, there’s been a raging debate over the best way to restore growth and prosperity.  It’s left a near-constant state of gridlock in Washington, which ignored my campaign promise to be a transformative light-bringer who will end politics as usual.

But, Owatanassami, this is not just the defining issue of our time. This is a make-or-break moment for my reelection chances.  Because what’s at stake is whether this will be a country where working people can earn enough to raise a family, build a modest savings, own a home, secure their retirement — or one where Goldman Sachs owns my slutty ass.

Now, in the midst of this debate, there are some who want to return to the same practices that got us into this mess.  They want massive bailouts, slaps on the wrist for corrupt financial institutions, lobbyists visiting the White House to write bills.  They want endless, expensive wars, treaties that ship jobs oversees.  They want an ever-rising flood of corporate money influencing politics.  These aren’t Democratic values or Republican values. We’re both in this scam together.

If you believe that this country succeeds when everyone gets a fair shot, when everyone does their fair share, when everyone plays by the same rules, then vote for me.  I’m just as corrupt as my opponents, but I give better speeches.

You see, this isn’t the first time America has faced this choice. At the turn of the last century, Theodore Roosevelt praised the titans of industry and the free market.  But he also busted up some monopolies.  Now, for this, Roosevelt was called a socialist  — (laughter) —  And today, I’m called a socialist, even though I’m actually the lap dog of the titans of industry.  The American people are starting to figure that out about me, which is why I’ve decided to be Teddy Roosevelt in the upcoming election.

Now, I know many of you thought I was Lincoln, or JFK, or Reagan, or maybe Jesus  — (laughter) — I know some of you wish I’d be like LBJ this year — (applause) —  But in 1910, Teddy Roosevelt came to Owatanassami and he talked about wages, unemployment insurance, and reforms in taxes and politics.  I’m talking about these things here, too, which makes me Teddy Roosevelt.

Today, over 100 years later, our economy has gone through another transformation. It’s easy for businesses to set up shop and hire workers anywhere they want in the world. And many of you know firsthand the painful disruptions this has caused for a lot of Americans.  Which is why I recently signed a free trade bill that will send over 500,000 jobs to South Korea, Venezuela, and Panama.

Factories where people thought they would retire suddenly picked up and went overseas. Which is why I circumvented regulations to give start-ups like Solyndra billions of dollars.

Now, just as in Teddy Roosevelt’s time, there is a certain crowd in Washington who say, let’s just cut more regulations and cut more taxes for the wealthy.  Do you get it, now?  I’m Teddy Roosevelt, and the Republicans are the bad guys.  Maybe I should grow a bristly mustache and wear spectacles to drive home the point.  I’m also the 99%.  I’m not Jesus anymore.  Just forget that whole 2008 Jesus thing.

Now it’s time to insert “rugged individualism” into a sentence.  (Applause.)

Now it’s time to blame Bush.  Remember the most expensive tax cuts for the wealthy in history? What did it get us? The slowest job growth in half a century. I’ll need at least another term or two to clean up that mess. You can’t expect me to fix everything during my first 100 days in office — that’d be Franklin Roosevelt, and I’m Teddy.

Now it’s time to blame Congress.  The same folks who are now running Congress gave us weak regulation, insurance companies jacking up people’s premiums with impunity, mortgage lenders tricking families into buying homes they couldn’t afford, an irresponsible financial sector that nearly destroyed our entire economy.  I’ve tried to stop all this, but Congress refuses to pass my jobs bill. (Applause.)

I’d like to mention how I killed Osama bin Laden with a bowie knife, but this is a speech about the economy.

Now, I’m going to talk for the next several minutes about how economic inequality is really bad and hurts us all.  If I go on and on for about seven, eight, nine minutes about how bad economic inequality is and how it hurts us all, just keep repeating for nine whole minutes how really bad economic inequality is and how it hurts us all, sort of like Arlo Guthrie in Alice’s Restaurant, you just might, after nine minutes, completely forget that I’ve done nothing at all about economic inequality, and I have no real plan to do anything about economic inequality, except for my jobs bill, which Congress refuses to pass.  (Applause.)

But this isn’t a speech about economic inequality.  It’s about my reelection.

Now, America has a choice.  It can back the Republicans, which is a race to the bottom, or it can back me, Teddy Roosevelt, which is a race to the top.  Bottom:Top, get it?  I’m top.

AUDIENCE:  Top!

THE PRESIDENT:  Now, I’m going to mention some hook phrases like: everyone getting a fair shot, middle class, working moms, so David Gergen can call me a populist.  But I’m also going to say some vague things about embracing new technology, not punishing anyone for becoming wealthy, getting competitive, so independents won’t think I’m a populist.

Now, I’m going to list several reasons why America is the greatest nation on Earth. (Applause.)  Americans have always been way better than other people, which is why we can win this race to the top.  I’m top.

I should also mention I now support reducing college tuition and some sort of student debt fixing thingie.  This has absolutely nothing to do with the recent Occupy protests on campuses.  As I see all of you sitting here today at Owatanassami High, I realize I’ll need your votes for my 2016 re-reelection campaign.  (Applause.)

We need to rebuild our nation’s infrastructure.  Historically, that hasn’t been a partisan idea. Franklin Roosevelt, a Democrat, did it, as did Dwight Eisenhower, a Republican and — like me — a proud son of Kansas and a chain smoker.  (Applause.)  Even though I’m Teddy Roosevelt, I’m also a little bit FDR and Ike, meaning I’m a little bit Democrat and a little bit Republican.  So, if you’re an independent, you should vote for me.

Let me point to the many wonderful things I’ve already accomplished that are both Democratish and Republicanish:

1. To reduce our deficit, I’ve already signed nearly $1 trillion of spending cuts into law and I’ve proposed trillions more, including cuts to Medicare and Medicaid. (Applause.)

2. We need to extend my payroll tax cut that’s really a gutting of Social Security. It’s about to expire. (Applause.)

3. We have to rethink our tax system more fundamentally. That one you don’t get until my next term.  (Laughter and applause.)

Now, independents loved Bill Clinton.  If you remember, Republicans opposed Clinton when he tried to raise taxes on the rich.  They predicted it would kill jobs and lead to another recession. Instead, our economy created nearly 23 million jobs and we eliminated the deficit. (Applause.)  The only thing Bill Clinton ever did as president was raise taxes on the rich, and it created a booming economy.  The only thing I’ve done so far for the economy — aside from my jobs bill, which Congress refuses to pass (applause) — is to raise taxes on the rich.  OK, no, I didn’t actually raise taxes on the rich when I had the chance.  But I’ve given speeches on raising taxes on the rich.  Now, the Democrats suffered a terrible midterm defeat in 1994, but then America reelected Bill Clinton two years later.  I suffered a terrible midterm defeat, but if I promise to raise taxes on the rich, will you reelect me, too?

Did I mention Warren Buffett agrees with me on the tax thing?  (Laughter.) So do most Americans — Democrats, independents and Republicans.  So most Americans should vote for me, Barack Clinton.  Did I just say Clinton?  I meant Kansas.  Please don’t vote for any Clintons.

I really like the middle class, I do. (Applause.)  I only rescued the big banks to protect the middle class from a second Depression.  It had absolutely nothing to do with the millions of dollars the financial sector donated to my 2008 campaign.  Part of the deal was we put in place new regulations for the financial sector.  And you can all see how well that’s worked out.

But Republicans in Congress are fighting against any regulations on banks.  Is there anybody here who thinks Republicans really like the middle class?

AUDIENCE: No!

THE PRESIDENT: Of course not.  But I’m Teddy Roosevelt;  I’m Kansas, which is a state in the MIDDLE and I promise to fight for the MIDDLE class in my second term, to fight against Republicans who hate the middle class, and to use my BIG STICK to force Congress to pass my jobs bill.

Big Banks, crisis, mortgage abuse, big banks, 99%, follow rules, financial crisis, middle class, the economy.  (Applause.)

Fair share, investing in education, grow, fair shot, follow rules, responsibility, middle class, transform our economy. (Applause.)

Getting parents involved, education, study harder — (laughter) — greater responsibility, mortgages.

Government more efficient, people’s needs (applause), cutting programs, consumer-friendly, save businesses billions, challenging schools, innovative, obligations, results.

And that’s my promise.  Americans need to remember that if something seems too good to be true, it probably is.

“We are all Americans,” Teddy Roosevelt said that day in 1910, “we shall go bottom or top together.”  I’m Teddy Roosevelt.  I’m Kansas.  I’m the middle. I’m top.  So, judge me not on my record these past four years, but on my speeches, Owatanassami!

END

(c) 2011 by True Liberal Nexus.  All rights reserved.

3 Comments | Satire | Permalink
Posted by Matt

Why Occupy Failed

December 6, 2011

Occupy Wall Street has failed.

No doubt many will protest  this judgement, noting that the unconventional movement did much to raise awareness or change the public discussion.  Others will insist that Occupy has yet begun to fight, and will be back in the Spring, pitching tents and drumming on drums in a city plaza near you.

Yet by its own measure, the movement is a failure.  “We will continue to occupy” the several Occupys assured us, “until our demands are met.”  With the dispersal of the OLA camp, the last of the 24/7 presences are gone.  The occupii exited with barely a whimper.  The many homeless, who’d swelled the occupii ranks, simply returned to their usual places of encampment.  The rest sought the refuge of that room above the garage their parents always keep ready for them.

Even had the physical occupations continued, the movement remained stalled so long as it was incapable formulating any specific goals to “occupy” for.  Three months of Working Groups and twice-daily General Assemblies could not come up with a uniform list of demands, or even a “consensus” on whether to have any demands at all.


Occupying for Occupying’s Sake

The insistance on physically holding public spaces was based on a false reading of the “Arab Spring” and Tahrir Square protests.  In Tunisia, Egypt, or Syria, where anti-government protests are quickly and brutally broken up, it was necessary to maintain a continuous presence.  In America, where the government allows its citizens to protest quite freely, a 24/7 presence is neither required nor justified.

By protesting ’round the clock, the occupii acted like cargo cultists, blindly aping the Egyptians’ tactics, treating “occupation” as some magic talisman that brings about revolution.

Before very long, the occupations became about little more than the right to occupy.  The First Amendment’s protection of free speech and peacable assembly was twisted into the right to commandeer public property indefinitely.  In places like Oakland, factions of anti-police, anti-city hall malcontents hijacked the protests.  The original bogeymen, bankers and politicians, were forgotten as the occupii directed their rage at cops, mayors and college deans.


Occupussy

How quickly it’s forgotten that the successful revolution in Tunisia was sparked by the death of a fruit vendor at the hands of the police.  That the protestors in Tahrir Square endured beatings and stabbings by mounted pro-Mubarek thugs.  That protesters in Syria are murdered daily, yet more keep coming out.

Here in the US, the occupii found it intolerable when Oakland restricted their protests to the hours of 6 a.m. to 10 p.m., rejected as insulting Los Angeles’ offer of free office space and farmland, cried ‘tyranny’ when New York asked for a few hours to clean Zucotti park.  If the occupii want to know real tyranny, they should visit Argentina, and speak to the relatives of the 30,000 anti-government protesters who “disappeared” during the 1970s.  They should visit the streets of Berlin, Budapest, or Prague, and imagine ‘occupying’ while a 36 ton T-54 trundles down at you.  They should google the words “tiananmen square.”

Despite their vow to “fight like an Egyptian”, the occupii couldn’t stand up to some “nudging and bumping” by police horses.  The entire movement seemed to melt when hit with a few ounces of pepper spray.  These protesters aren’t tough like the Egyptians — they’re a bunch of occupussies.


We Are Our Demands

Although several regional groups did issue lists of demands, these all proved vague and overbroad.  What started as a singular message  — end corruption on Wall Street — was diffused until every pet cause, every simmering resentment, every inchoate dream, made the roster.

For the occupi cadre, the very concept of issuing specific demands was anathema:

[N]o single person or group has the authority to make demands on behalf of general assemblies around the world.  We are our demands. This #ows movement is about empowering communities to form their own general assemblies…. Our collective struggles cannot be co-opted.

The demand for demands is an attempt to shoehorn the Occupy gatherings into conventional politics, to force the energy of these gatherings into a form that people in power recognize, so that they can … divert, co-opt, buy off, or … squash any challenge to business as usual.

The unwillingness to articulate concrete demands so frustrated sympathetic observers, they felt obliged to pitch in by drawing up suggested demands for Occupy to adopt.  In the October 12th issue of Rolling Stone, Matt Taibbi offered five, narrowly-targeted goals:

  1. Break up the “Too Big to Fail” monopolies
  2. Pay for your own bailouts via a miniscule tax on stocks trades
  3. No public money for private lobbying
  4. Repeal the carried-interest tax break
  5. Ban upfront bonuses for bankers

In a December 4th editorial, the L.A. Times offered its own list of five demands for OLA:

  1. Sweeping financial reform
  2. Makes taxes more fair
  3. Combat corporate influence in politics
  4. Address rising tuition and student debt
  5. Downgrade marijuana from Schedule I status

[h/t Fionnchu]

While the last two objectives might necessitate spin-off movements (Occupy UC & Occupy Humboldt County) the Times’ list was at least a step in the right direction.


The One, Real Occupy Demand

What Taibbi, the L.A. Times, and most of America failed to realize is that, for the occupii, formal demands are moot.  For the occupii reject our present system of government as unworkable.  Occupy was envisioned not as a protest or rally, rather a revolution.  It’s one goal, one demand: to replace our current system of government with an anarchist, direct democracy.  They truly intended to camp-out in public until the rest of the world agreed to scrap our current civilization and replace it with the occupii’ vision of utopia.

David Graeber, a prominent anarchist, and one of the original organizers of #OWS, explains:

Anarchism is a revolutionary political philosophy, theory, and way of living that strives toward a more free and equal society without government, authority, domination, capitalism, or oppression. Key to the anarchist analysis is its unflinching criticism of authority, or of some people holding established power over others.  Anarchism considers government in any form … unnecessary, harmful, and undesirable…. The General Assemblies and committees within Occupy are experiments in this kind of self-management.

The occupii reject as futile any attempt at working within a system that is “absolutely and irredeemably corrupt.”  What’s the point of asking the government to reinstate Glass-Steagall or reverse Citizens United, when we’re on the verge of abolishing government entirely?  “Anarchists wish to see human relations that would not have to be backed up by armies, prisons and police. Anarchism envisions a society based on equality and solidarity, which could exist solely on the free consent of participants.”

Graeber proudly points to occupi’s adherence to five anarchist principles:

1)    The refusal to recognise the legitimacy of existing political institutions — “acting as if the existing structure of power does not even exist.”  Just as Ghandi urged the Indian people to flaunt British regulations on trade, the occupii flaunted city curfews.

2)   The refusal to accept the legitimacy of the existing legal order — “[O]rganisers knowingly ignored local ordinances … simply on the grounds that such laws should not exist.”

3)   The refusal to create an internal hierarchy, but instead to create a form of consensus-based direct democracy — “From the very beginning … organisers made the audacious decision to operate not only by direct democracy, without leaders, but by consensus.”  To avoid either the co-opting of a “formal leadership structure” or a majority “bend[ing] a minority to its will”,”all decisions will, of necessity, have to be made by general consent.”

4)   The embrace of prefigurative politics —

“Zuccotti Park, and all subsequent encampments, became spaces of experiment with creating the institutions of a new society – not only democratic General Assemblies but kitchens, libraries, clinics, media centres and a host of other institutions, all operating on anarchist principles of mutual aid and self-organisation – a genuine attempt to create the institutions of a new society in the shell of the old.”


Occupy = Anarchy

And now we understand.  Occupy was never about something as mundane as ending corruption on Wall Street — it was about transforming society from the bottom up. The little occupy camps were demos of the future anarchist utopia to come.  Once the American people saw anarchy in action, they’d realize that “if we are to live in any sort of genuinely [i.e. direct] democratic society, we’re going to have to start from scratch….”

Graeber admits that

We may never be able to prove, through logic, that direct democracy [is] possible. We can only demonstrate it through action. In parks and squares across America, people have begun to witness it as they have started to participate.

The occupii expected to transform society by showing everyone the wisdom & beauty of things like “Positive Speech,” a “less aggressive and more conciliatory type of communication” that avoids “negative statements which close the door to constructive debate.”  Example: “‘Don’t touch that dog or it will bite you’ could be phrased as ‘Be careful with that dog because it could bite you and neither of us would like that.'”

Leaders would be replaced by “Moderators” whose job was to “bring together the general sense of the Assembly rather than follow a protocol, Ideally, this figure should not need to exist. (everybody should respect everybody).”

In fact, all the quirks of Occupy — the GAs, the hand jive, etc. — have long been hallmarks of the heretofore pathetically inconsequential anarchist movement.  These “new forms of organization” are the anarchists’ very ideology, Graeber emphasized in a 2002 New Left Review article. “It is about creating and enacting horizontal networks instead of top-down structures like states, parties or corporations; networks based on principles of decentralized, non-hierarchical consensus democracy. Ultimately … it aspires to reinvent daily life as whole.“  (Emphasis added.)

Offering a trial sample of anarchy in action is not the worst strategy, as good historical examples are hard to come by.  Tenuous claims are made to assisting the civil rights movement, Vietnam protests, women’s ERA, and the downfall of Miloslovec. The disastrous Paris Commune of 1871 (see excursus below) is sometimes mentioned, but occupii tend to omit anarchy’s crowning achievement: its crippling, via obtuseness and intransigence, of the Republican coalition in the Spanish Civil War, ushering in nearly four decades of Franco’s fascist tyranny.


Time’s Up

This article began with a declaration of Occupy’s failure.  Its founders are convinced Occupy has already succeeded far in excess of their wildest dreams.  ‘We’ve only just begun’, the occupii insist, ‘just give us more time, and we can change the world.’

Perpetual irrelevance breeds habitual indolence.  Having puttered away for decades in obscure organic co-ops & peace centers, having attended innumerable & fruitless gripe sessions in UU community halls, the anarchists who started Occupy never learned how to act decisively or effectively.  This September, they went virtually unnoticed, as usual, while engaged in their latest, futile fist-shake at society: a tiny protest near Wall St.  Suddenly and unexpectedly, OWS made the headlines — courtesy of one cop’s injudicious use of pepper spray — and ignited a dense duff of accumulated resentment among the general population.

The occupii interpreted this spontaneous public outcry as an acceptance of their radical philosophy.  “[I]f any significant number of Americans do find out what anarchism really is, they might well decide that rulers of any sort are unnecessary.”  In that, they are mistaken.  Ordinary people want direct, concrete action taken now, by leaders using the existing political and societal system.  Ordinary people are not willing to wait until an alternate utopia grows “organically” at the speed of mildew.  Ordinary people are certainly not ever going to join experimental tent communes.  Not in a million years.

The clock has run out for Occupy.  Media attention is an evanescent thing.  In this game, dirty laundry is always trumps.  Kim Kardassian and Ginger White did more do sink Occupy than any mayor or police force.

We can only hope that the radicalism and sheer idiocy of the occupii experiment did not overly tarnish the broader, sane movement to end corruption on Wall Street and in Washington.  Now that Occupy has failed, ordinary people can take over, applying the sound principles of hierarchy, leadership, focus, and working within the system.  The occupii should follow the army adage: either lead, follow, or get out of the way.  Since you’ve proven you can’t lead, and refuse to follow, y’all know what to do.


(c) 2011 by True Liberal Nexus.  All rights reserved.


Excursus — Occupy Paris, 1871  (after the jump)

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