Saturday, November 05, 2011

More Leftist "civility"

We’re not certain how many people listen to “progressive” radio host Mike Malloy, but for those of us who don’t Newsbusters does, and has brought to light some of his truly slanderous comments about Glenn Beck and Ann Coulter. Namely that Coulter is a “deeply closeted killer” — who has only refrained from murdering Muslims to now because she hasn’t mustered up the “courage yet” — and that one day she will likely “enter into” a “suicide pact” with Glenn Beck.
Ann Coulter is an incipient, closeted, deeply closeted killer. We all know this. She has talked about going to Muslim countries and killing everybody.

She’s a real murderess, I mean, she really is. Just hasn’t had the courage yet. She will probably enter into some kind of a suicide pact at some point with Glenn Beck.

The segment was not intended to be satirical, these are Malloy’s thoughts in earnest.

More HERE

******************************

Who really built the Hoover Dam?

Hoover Dam has become something of a liberal icon these days. President Obama points to it as an example of the sort of federally funded projects that once “unleashed all the potential in this country” — potential that his next round of stimulus will unleash again.

MSNBC commentator Rachel Maddow has pointed to the 726-foot-high, 660-foot-wide dam as proof that some projects are just too big for private enterprise. “You can’t be the guy that built this,” she tells the TV screen. Only government can, is the implication.

Well, that would come as a surprise to the guy who did build it – or, rather, the guys who did, with their private companies. In the five-year process they discovered, even back then, that the biggest obstacle they faced in Black Canyon wasn’t nature or the Great Depression, but New Deal Washington.

The truth was, construction on the scale of Hoover Dam lay far beyond the powers of the federal government — in 1931 or even later. Four and a half million cubic yards of concrete — enough to build a two-lane highway from San Francisco to New York — and 19 million pounds of reinforcing steel somehow had to be moved into the middle of the Nevada wilderness to construct both the dam and a 1.2-million-horsepower electric plant. Thousands of tons of loose rock then had to be scraped by hand from the surface of Black Canyon, before massive tunnels could be dug to divert the Colorado River to power the plant and then fill a reservoir 115 miles long with a 550-mile shoreline.

The heads of the consortium of six private construction firms that won the $48 million contract, which came to be known as “the Big Six,” weren’t the kind of business leaders who would appear on a presidential jobs commission today. Idaho builders Harry Morrison and Morris Knudsen (of Morrison-Knudsen), Utah Construction’s Bill Wattis, and California road-makers Henry Kaiser and Warren Bechtel (whose company later became the bête noire of the American Left) had all left school early to do manual labor. Kaiser had quit at 14; as a teenager, Bill Wattis had pounded rail spikes for the Union Pacific Railroad; Pacific Bridge’s Charlie Shea smoked foul-smelling cigars and dressed like one of his workmen. Only the heads of the venerable San Francisco construction firm Kahn and MacDonald had ever attended college, and Alan MacDonald had been such a misfit that he was fired from 15 different jobs before partnering with Felix Kahn.

Indeed, in 1931, only Morrison and his architect Frank Crowe knew much about building dams (at one point Kahn and MacDonald had tried their hand at it and failed).

But what they all did have was experience in big construction projects and mines, and a dedicated knack for doing the impossible. They and their workers and engineers built not only the dam, but also all the roads, railways, and other infrastructure necessary to bring in their equipment and materials. Kaiser and his partners even built an entire town (today’s Boulder City) to house their 5,200-strong work force.

And through it all the Six Companies had a running battle with Washington and the Interior Department.

Interior Secretary Harold Ickes had seen the dam as essentially a federal make-work project for the unemployed. Kaiser and his colleagues had to point out that they needed men with genuine skills, not just people willing to turn up for a paycheck. Ickes wanted the door open to union organizing; the builders convinced him the key to happy workers was paying them well, not giving them a union card. Ickes wanted every federal health and safety regulation to be rigorously enforced, and counted no fewer than 70,000 violations of the letter of the contract. They patiently showed him that applying those standards would mean the dam would never be finished on time, let alone on budget

More HERE

****************************

Remember Monica? ("That woman")



Liberals Suddenly Care About Sexual Harassment...Again

Christopher Adamo

It is hard to know where to begin listing the reasons why “liberalism” and “hypocrisy” have become synonymous. But the latest flap over some warmed over charges of “sexual harassment” against Herman Cain is a sterling example. Outrageous though this synthetic controversy may be, it hardly comes as a surprise. Conservatives have been warning for weeks that the left would most certainly engage in just such behavior once Cain’s star began to rise. Yet it is always amazing how shamelessly liberals can ignore the mountains of evidence proving their insincerity while they lecture the nation with almost comical passion.

Nor do they seem to be the least bit aware of how thoroughly they caricature their ceaseless self-glorification. This latest barrage against Cain is nearly satirical, and absolutely reeks with all of the stereotypical bleatings from their leftist strategy book. On the heels of the unsubstantiated and ambiguous claims of Cain’s supposedly crude innuendos, it is a sure bet that he will next be accused of having stolen hubcaps from his subordinates’ cars in Godfathers’ parking lots.

Admittedly, this current chorus of liberal fury exhibits an amazing ability to switch on a moment’s notice from alarm and righteous indignation to total indifference, and back to moral outrage, as varying events have unfolded and either presented a public relations liability or an opportunity to make political hay. Particularly in light of the recent history of real sex scandals perpetrated by prominent liberals, most of which involved substantiated incidents of harassment, assault, and abuse, liberals have been forced into some thoroughly shameless gymnastics in hopes of navigating the gauntlet needed to maintain the moral “high ground.” But of course they are up to the task.

Consider the drastic lane changes that were required in the 1990s, after the 1992 election of philanderer in chief Bill Clinton. After the stormy 1991 Supreme Court appointment of Clarence Thomas, which was punctuated by spurious charges against him of sexual harassment, liberals believed they owned the issue. Despite their failure to thwart his confirmation, they declared a moral victory, and insisted that votes to confirm Thomas constituted acceptance of abusive behavior towards women. For the next few years, they remained on that pious perch, loudly crowing of their superior advocacy of the fairer sex.

However, it was not long before the advent of the Clinton Presidency thoroughly discredited such claims and, more significantly, proved the entire liberal/Democrat establishment to be entirely phony in its professed concern for women in general. From the repugnant treatment of Paula Jones to a physical assault on Kathleen Willey (followed by thuggish attempts to silence her), to the very likely rape of Juanita Broderick to the exploitation of Monica Lewinsky, Clinton revealed an absolute contempt for women, other than as objects of his own amusement and self-gratification.

Even more significant however was the manner in which the entire liberal political cabal not only refused to condemn his actions, but breached every boundary of credibility and decency in order to defend him. New and contorted definitions of “sexual harassment” were concocted by liberal politicians and pundits which somehow always preserved a “safe zone” around Clinton. In other words, the left was not (and never has been) really interested in the proper treatment of women, but only sought to caterwaul about such things on a selective basis when it could gain political ground as a result. So now that the tables have seemingly turned and a Republican is in the crosshairs, the phony empathy and concern spews incessantly from every liberal mouthpiece. As such, the entire affair epitomizes liberal hypocrisy on parade.

But from an even more encompassing perspective, it is ever more apparent that glaring liberal inconsistencies and indefensible contradictions are hardly confined to this one topic. In fact, it is all but impossible to find any issue of supposed concern to the left that is not filled with hype, manipulation, intellectual dishonesty, and total fraud.

More HERE

***************************

Occupiers, Tea Partiers, and the Tenth Commandment

by Jeff Jacoby

AT THE OCCUPY PHOENIX demonstrations, fliers encourage protesters to violently resist police officers, asserting that "you will usually have only two options: submit, or kill the cop." At Zuccotti Park in Manhattan, an Occupy Wall Street protester was sexually assaulted in her tent; according to the New York Post, a woman was raped at the same site a few weeks earlier. In Denver, "Occupy" activists turned on the police, screaming obscenities and knocking a motorcycle cop to the ground. Occupy Oakland grew even more violent, as police were pelted with bottles and rocks, and had M-80 firecrackers thrown at them. And in cities from Boston to Berkeley, Occupy encampments have coincided with surges in vandalism, assault, and theft.

Some individuals have strained to compare the Occupy Wall Street protests to the Tea Party movement. "They're not that different," President Obama told ABC's Jake Tapper. "Both on the left and the right, I think people feel separated from their government." The Daily Show's host Jon Stewart argued: "Here's a group of Americans, disenchanted, railing against big government bailouts…. These protesters, how are they not like the Tea Party?"

But the contrast between the Occupiers and the Tea Partiers could hardly be greater. Tea Party rallies haven't turned public squares into squalid slums or incited protesters to curse the police. What the Occupy movement descended to in less than two months -- the hundreds of arrests, the vandalism, the anti-Semitic rants, the all-night drumming, the public urination -- is like nothing the American public saw in more than two years of Tea Party activism.

That isn't a fluke. When you flout the Tenth Commandment -- "Thou shalt not covet" -- things are apt to get ugly.

The ranks of both the Tea Party and Occupy Wall Street are filled with the frustrated and the fed-up; both movements seek dramatic change in the nation's policies. But the values that propel them are poles apart. The Tea Partiers advocate limited government, personal responsibility, lower taxes, and economic freedom, all within a framework of constitutional restraint. What the Occupiers appear to want above all is to punish the wealthy, to demonize corporations, and to wallow in their own victimhood and sense of entitlement. They claim to represent "the 99 percent." Many would like to "Shut Down the 1 Percent."

Such class hostility pervades the Occupy movement. It is ubiquitous among the signs and chants at the demonstrations ("Wall Street Is Our Street," "Tax the Millionaires," "Human Need, Not Corporate Greed"). It is echoed by media cheerleaders as well. Washington Post columnist Eugene Robinson last week condemned income growth among the highest-earning Americans as "theft," while NBC's David Gregory observed that the Occupiers' demands "dovetail nicely" into Obama's "big message ... of going after Wall Street and the banks, talking about unfairness."

Democratic pollster Douglas Schoen, interviewing some 200 Zuccotti Park protesters, found that most of them share "a deep commitment to left-wing politics: opposition to free-market capitalism and support for radical redistribution of wealth." They favor stiffer taxes on the wealthy (77 percent) and more regulation of business (70 percent), and 31 percent say they would engage in violence to advance their agenda.

The violence is not tangential to the agenda. As the mounting hooliganism at Occupy encampments suggests, where class resentment takes root, predatory lawbreaking frequently follows. When politicians rail against "millionaires and billionaires," when social-activist campaigns scapegoat the "1 percent," it is only a matter of time before thugs feel emboldened to steal, rape, and worse. Class envy is not benign. At its most extreme -- the communist tyrannies of Lenin and Stalin, Mao, and Pol Pot -- it unleashed the bloodiest genocides of the 20th century.

Economic envy may cloak itself in rhetoric about "inequality" or "egalitarianism" or "redistribution of wealth," but its oldest name is covetousness. That is the sin enjoined by the last of the Ten Commandments: "Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor's house; thou shalt not covet thy neighbor's wife, or his manservant, or his maidservant, or his ox, or his ass, or anything that is thy neighbor's."

At first blush it may seem odd that God would ban a mere desire. After all, the other nine commandments concern behavior: idolatry, theft, perjury, and so on. But as a matter of moral and social hygiene, the Tenth Commandment is indispensable. Covetousness -- particularly when it takes the form of class hatred -- is the root of innumerable other evils. From the belief that you don't have enough because others have too much, it isn't that great a stretch to the belief that those who have too much should be forced to make do with less. It shouldn't be surprising when a movement obsessed with what rich capitalists earn rather than with what they produce starts treating other people's property and persons with contempt.

Occupy Wall Street preaches that the "1 percent" got rich by exploiting the "99 percent." The Tea Party believes that with greater freedom and less government, we could all be more prosperous and productive. One is rooted in envy, the other in self-respect. What distinguishes them, you might say, is the culture of the Tenth Commandment. That distinction is showing up in many ways, not least in the latest police reports.

SOURCE

*****************************

ELSEWHERE

Communism dying in Cuba too: "Cuban state media says the government is allowing citizens to buy and sell real estate property for the first time since the early days of the revolution. The reform is the most important yet in a series of free-market changes ushered in by President Raul Castro to breath life into a limping Marxist economy. Communist Party newspaper Granma says in Thursday's edition that the law will take effect Nov. 10. It will apply only to Cuban citizens and permanent residents of the island."

Election Day alcohol tremors?: "If you live in Michigan, you can’t order online from wine retailers in other states, at least not if you want the wine shipped to your door. But action this Election Day far off in Washington State may send tremors across America by cracking open the anti-consumer, anti-competitive alcohol regulations there. Entrenched interests -- particularly alcohol wholesalers -- appear frightful that they will be the ones to suffer from government withdrawal from the industry. But if enthusiasm for such freedom becomes contagious and spreads to other states, consumers will reap the benefits."

Even Dr Livingstone was horrified by black criminality: "The field diary makes clear that Livingstone - an ardent abolitionist - was horrified by the moral character of the freed slaves sent to reinforce his expedition. He describes them as 'senseless slaves with no honor.' In Livingstone's account, they emerge as rebellious and violent - at one point he confides that 'if they go anywhere, I must go with them or murder is certain.' In another passage, dated May 18, Livingstone says the slaves have mutinied and bought guns with his money. Those passages were either sanitized or excised from Livingstone's 1872 journal. Wisnicki claimed that the edits, combined with discrepancies between the field diary and the journal's descriptions of the massacre, suggest Livingstone may have had something to hide about the bloody incident. Mr Jeal acknowledged that the slaves were 'clearly very disobedient and violent men,' but said it was unlikely that they would have gone on a rampage in Livingstone's presence."

My Twitter.com identity: jonjayray. I have deleted my Facebook page as I rarely access it. For more blog postings from me, see TONGUE-TIED, EDUCATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, GREENIE WATCH, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, GUN WATCH, FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS, IMMIGRATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, EYE ON BRITAIN and Paralipomena

List of backup or "mirror" sites here or here -- for readers in China or for everyone when blogspot is "down" or failing to update. Email me here (Hotmail address). My Home Pages are here (Academic) or here (Pictorial) or here (Personal)

****************************

The Big Lie of the late 20th century was that Nazism was Rightist. It was in fact typical of the Leftism of its day. It was only to the Right of Stalin's Communism. The very word "Nazi" is a German abbreviation for "National Socialist" (Nationalsozialist) and the full name of Hitler's political party (translated) was "The National Socialist German Workers' Party" (In German: Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei)

****************************

No comments: