You Might Be a Liberal

by C Edmund Wright

  The story had legs. Within a few days, Obama spokesman Robert Gibbs was threatening Santelli with Chicago style threats, including the words “we know where you live,” from the White House Press Room. Frankly, CNBC was blushing from all of the attention. Squawk Box co-host Joe Kernan, one of the few conservatives on the network in the a.m. besides Santelli and Charlie Gasparino, was even complaining about the white-hot heat of sudden attention. After all, he does work for an NBC property. I suspect he is paid to lose arguments on purpose to make Becky Quick and Carl Quintenilla look good.

  At any rate, the term ‘Tea Party,’ along with Santelli’s passion and eloquence, ignited a flame that simply raced through conservative America like a wildfire. It was not long before any number of groups were incorporating ‘Tea Party’ into their name, and suddenly millions of people who had never paid attention to politics were becoming part time, if not full time, bloggers and organizers. This was not, nor could it have been, astroturfed. Sure, folks like Dick Armey, Newt Gingrich, the Koch brothers and other big hitters got involved. But they were “leading from behind.” The movement was exploding ahead of them.

  The guru of liberal astroturfing, David Axelrod, could not stand it. He insisted, along with the stenographers in the Jurassic media, that it was all staged and planned and facilitated by big corporate money. Now remember that Axelrod created what many think is the world’s first professional full time political astroturfing firm called ASK Public Strategies. They operated out of the same location as a firm called AKP&D Message and Media, which Axelrod created in 1985.

  A study of Axelrod’s career and this firm demonstrates that this is not a man who merely lies as part of his job; his job is to create entire campaigns that are at their very foundation lies. Actually, he is credited for having invented that as an industry. This is what astroturfing is.

  According to Business Week in a piece called “The Secret Side of David Axelrod,” AKP&D Message & Media was in the business of running political issue ads secretly paid for by corporations. Is there any wonder he found a Koch brother under every Tea Party rock? Axelrod was simply practicing classic liberal projection.

  According to the report, Axelrod’s firm created an ad campaign paid for by electric utility Commonwealth Edison that warned of black outs and bankruptcies unless a rate hike was given. The ads claimed, however, that the campaign was paid for by a “concerned coalition of individuals, businesses and organizations” merely apprehensive about the interests of the fine folks of Illinois. Eventually ComEd was outed as the ‘concerned business’ and forced to admit it had bankrolled the entire $15 million astroturfing effort.

  The whole thing was a fake. This is David Axelrod. This is Barack Obama. This is why they think grass roots never really spring up unless they are faked. That’s the only way it happens, from his point of view. This is a related psychosis to the liberal misunderstanding of legitimate business by the way. They also think most business successes are similarly rigged. Thus, many liberal ‘capitalists’ are really involved with some kind of cronyism scheme backed by government power. We have an entire chapter on this. The point is, crony capitalism is the astroturf of free enterprise just as Axelrod’s activities are the astroturf of grass roots campaigning. The same kind of deviant mind is attracted to both notions.

  Later, ASK Public Strategies helped Cablevision, the owner of Madison Square Garden, to create another faux front group of concerned citizens. The assignment was to oppose the New York Jets in their plans to build a new stadium in Manhattan. (And this was before born again Christian Tim Tebow had even joined the Jets!)

  ASK came up with another nauseating name, the “New York Association for Better Choices,” to run anti-stadium television advertisements. And, as luck would have it, this group ran this entire ad campaign without managing to mention that Cablevision paid for the whole damned thing. ASK must be handling Eric Holder’s email trail on Fast and Furious, too. Proving that the Astroturf is always greener, ASK was paid $1.2 million for the phony public service outreach.

  And in a totally unrelated story, of course, Axelrod’s ASK was paid to manage Obama’s 2008 Campaign.

  So is it any wonder that Axe always thinks that every time two or more conservatives are gathered in the name of smaller government, that some evil Big Oil or Big Tobacco or Big Gun corporation is behind it? To him, everything is fake. God bless his wife!

  And when you put this background together with the “community organizing” skills of Barack Obama, you start to get a real clear picture of the liberals who are running the country. Every public outrage is organized by some kind of coalition of concerned so and so’s, leading me to believe that we should firmly clasp our wallet anytime a liberal uses the words “concerned” or “coalition.” This is who they are, and this is how they govern.

  Thus, the Tea Party must be fake. No worries, we’ll fake a counter. We’ll have the ‘coffee party.’ Anabel Park, a filmmaker and merely coincidentally an Obama organizer in 2008, sort of day dreamed the ‘Coffee Party’ into existence one day. With no real basis whatsoever, other than their own editorial fantasies, the NY Times, CBS and other media outlets rushed to proclaim it ‘the next big thing.’ As is typical with liberal grass roots organizations, the roster of attendees at a ‘Roots Camp’ included people from the White House, Harry Reid’s office, the Democratic National Committee, the Center for American Progress, Change.org, the SEIU, MoveOn.org, La Raza, Organizing for America, the Alliance for Climate Protection, NPR, PBS, and Firedoglake.

  Stunning as it might be to contemplate, with such honest and innocent roots, the Coffee Party went no where. They scored no points for originality of concept, either.

  Liberals never give up, however. This is one lesson that conservatives did not learn after Reagan’s wins in 1980 and 1984, nor after The Contract with America Congressional election in 1994. When America wakes up and pays attention to who and what liberals really are, they inevitably turn them out at the ballot box. After this happens, the left simply retools and comes back even harder.

  America woke up in all the major 2009 elections and in the mid terms of 2010 , as we know. And so it followed that, in the fall of 2011, a wacko Canadian group called Adbusters launched a protest in New York’s Zuccotti Park. This group is a self-described “global network of artists, activists, writers, pranksters, students, educators and entrepreneurs who want to advance the new social activist movement of the information age.” I think another name for them could be young unemployed commies.

  Their stated religion is anti-consumerism. According to Wikipedia, this is the official “socio-political movement against the equating of personal happiness with consumption and the purchase of material possessions.” I think Dave Ramsey just calls it debt free. The administration calls it forty-three straight months of high unemployment. Of course, if you are an “artist, activist, writer, prankster,” etc., living in mommy’s basement, you have the luxury of being against people buying stuff.

  This, of course, was the genesis of the Occupy Wall Street movement. This was supposed to be the answer to the Tea Party. There were major differences, of course. First was that the Tea Party had a coherent message that was consistent. Sure, Obama Care may have been the main Tea Party issue, but it was generally a message against the size, scope, reach and power of the Federal Government. Obama Care, debt and deficits, high taxes, and oppressive regulations all fit neatly within that main concept.

  Frankly, it all fits neatly within Reagan’s three legged stool of conservatism, and within the Contract with America, and within the Constitution and the Bill of Rights. While the Tea Party movement was loosely organized at best, and certain factions had certain hot button issues, there was a discernible general coherence to it all. As Rush says, it is a mindset more than a movement.

  Occupy, meanwhile, was an intellectual mess. Actually, it was a hygienic mess and a sexual mess and a criminal mess, as well. It gave us an opportunity to imagine what America would look like if
liberals got their way and these people were the norm. Upon casual observation of Zuccotti Park, it is safe to say that, if that were the case, there would be no civil society, no economy, and no opportunity—except for the chance of a power-grab by totalitarians. Meanwhile, trash, feces, and bitterness would dominate the landscape. Property would be something that you take from others, and government bureaucrats would be the main purveyors of that theft. Or, as Milton Friedman sarcastically called them, “angels” of fairness.

  The OWS mob’s understanding of reality was so stunted that there was never any comprehension of the fact that the iPhones, blankets, food, and even the condoms they depended on, are all products of the free-market capitalist system they want to demolish. OWS was a movement of intellectual children. Their attitude can be summed up by one protestor who was adamantly against “property rights” while clutching his laptop to prevent it from being stolen by another OWC protestor. When asked about the inconsistency of him being allowed to keep his own laptop, he proclaimed that a laptop was “a personal belonging, and not property.” Well.

  And besides, they were just vulgar. Their encampments all over the nation were full of trash and crime, including rape. There was, no doubt, some real tea bagging taking place. And since the OWS folks generally had no adult responsibilities to tend to, they stayed for weeks and weeks. The poor unlucky businesses located nearby sometimes went out of business.

  Now compare this Tea Party rallies, which generally lasted less than one day, since the attendees had something known as real life to get back to. The grounds were almost always left cleaner after these rallies than before. The people themselves were clean cut and happy. There were no reports of any crimes, outside of a few bogus claims of racial-hate violence which were always shown to be set-ups by union would-be actors. In other words, liberals even have to astroturf their response to our legitimate grass roots.

  This stark contrast informs us, with some certitude, that if conservatives ever got our way and the country was full of folks like us, the country would be clean, prosperous, and polite. There would be a significant emphasis on leaving the country better for the next generation, which is a main theme of many Tea Partiers. Opportunity would be there for those who would but pursue it. Property would be something you have the chance to earn and keep. Government would be limited and certainly not central to our lives—indeed, government would protect us from the likes of the mobs. From what I can tell, no one would mistake a police car for a port-a-potty.

  Now, I’m not going to continue too long in this right wing utopian vision other than to say that there has been quite a contrast on display in this country since about 2009. The juxtaposition of the Tea Party and OWS greatly informs the debate. As Paul Ryan recounted in his first speech as Mitt’s VP pick, “America is an idea.” Indeed it is. And that idea has nothing to do with the ideas floating around Zuccotti Park. If America becomes that, the liberals have won and that is their prize.

  YMBAL’S #16

  If you think Richard Nixon started the Vietnam war and JFK got us out of it…

  If you think the last member of the KKK to be in the Senate was a Republican…

  If you have ever lectured a conservative about that ‘great Democrat President’ Abraham Lincoln…

  If you are a gay evolutionist…

  If you scuffed your leather pumps on the way to your last Vegan Support Group meeting…

  If you are not aware that Greenland was once, well, GREEN…

  If you claim that your donations to NMBLA and NARAL are “for the children”…

  If you are convinced that only white people can be guilty of racism…

  If you think that teenager’s sexual habits are totally uncontrollable but that criminals can be rehabilitated in a correctional facility…

  If you think our Constitution is a living, breathing document but the writings of Marx and Engels are written in stone…

  If you think burning the US flag is perfectly reasonable and protected but that burning a cross should be outlawed…

  If your idea of “hell” is having to mind your own business and not being able to control other peoples lives…

  If you think the Ten Commandments in schools will harm the children but that having “Heather Has Two Mommies” studied in class is a good thing…

  If you ever used the story of David and Bathsheeba as a reason for Bill Clinton remaining in office after the Lewinsky affair…42

  If your idea of compassion is to have government give the homeless a shopping cart…

  If you feel a deep sense of common cause with all suppressed groups, except of course for Cubans fleeing Castro…

  If you believe that government should make a special effort to hire minorities, unless those minorities are Clarence Thomas, Condoleeza Rice, etc…

  If you thought of homosexual rights when you heard Ben Franklin referred to as a “gay blade”…

  If you have a $300,000 a year part time gig as a diversity officer at a hospital and claim that you were sacrificing a career in the name of public service by taking that job…

  ...you might be a liberal. (YMBAL)

  “Applications of constitutional text and principles must be open to adaptation and change ... as the conditions and norms of our society become ever more distant from those of the Founding generation.”

  —-Goodwin Liu, Law Professor and Associate Justice Supreme Court of California, nominated for 9th Circuit by Barack Obama

  “Many law professors, and others who hold contempt for our Constitution, preach that the Constitution is a living document. Saying that the Constitution is a living document is the same as saying we don’t have a Constitution. For rules to mean anything, they must be fixed. How many people would like to play me poker and have the rules be “living”? Depending on “evolving standards,” maybe my two pair could beat your flush.”

  —Dr. Walter E. Williams

  17: REAL UNEMPLOYMENT VERSUS OBAMA’S UNEMPLOYMENT

  If you think hope and change means so many folks will give up hope that Obama can change the very meaning of unemployment…

  One thing liberals like to do, especially those in or with a background in academics, is to simply rig whatever metrics are necessary to make their case look better than it really is. Can you say, for instance, global warming and East Anglia?

  Or how about the Obama Administration of “hope and change” and say, jobs?

  “Hope and change” apparently means that the Obama administration is counting on so many Americans giving up hope that the administration can now change the entire metric for measuring unemployment. When you analyze the official Obama Administration unemployment statistics, you have to conclude the strategy is working.

  We all know that Barack Obama’s legacy will be that of a wide swath of destruction across the economy and, in fact, all of American life. And one item you can add to that Obama ash heap will be the trust anyone has in any government statistics, most notably the official unemployment rate. A little more distrust of government would be a good thing, actually.

  No doubt, as the election nears, he will count on bogus statistics on the economy and employment to make his case for re-election. Thank God, we can count on an unbiased and intelligent media to keep him from getting away with it. Ahem.

  Now, for many months the administration has been monkeying with the unemployment figures to hide some of the trauma Obama has inflicted on the U.S. economy. In late 2011 though, the shameful cooking of the jobs report took it to a whole new level.

  For example, in December of 2011, the government through the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) reported that the unemployment rate plummeted nearly half a point in just a month to a level of 8.6%. And it did this on the strength of 120,000 new jobs.

  Now, I hate to quibble, but for the entire length of the Bush administration, we were told every month that it takes 125 to 150,000 new jobs just to keep the unemployment rate stable. Suddenly that kind of growth under Obama sends our unemplo
yment rate spiraling downward. What gives?

  Well, thanks to great work and aggressive tweeting by economist and commentator Jim Pethokoukis—formerly of Reuters and now from the American Enterprise Institute—we know what gives. The universe of potential workers is now so small that it is hiding how weak the employment situation is in our nation.

  In other words, they just flat out changed how we ‘keep score’ on employment. You know, our touchdowns will now count as 11 points. Thank you very much.

  Without getting too bogged down in the weeds of employment statistics, the U3, or headline rate, is what is considered “the” unemployment rate. That is what was reported at 8.6% for November of 2011 and has stayed above eight ever since. On the other hand, the U6 rate combines unemployed and “underemployed,” and is at 15.6%. That’s a great indicator, but the newsmaker is U3.

  The U3 rate is the percentage of the “participating labor force” that is unemployed. That is all well and good, except that the Obama Labor Department has decided that it will simply manipulate the definition of “labor force” to suit its own needs. And what the Obama administration has done is shrink the definition of the “labor force” by pretending that hundreds of thousands of non-working adults are no longer in existence, for all intents and purposes.