Above The Borderline

Kumbaya My Elephant

2009-11-07T12:37:00.000-08:00

“Support our troops—bring them home” and “Dissent is the highest form of patriotism.”

“No conservative reads those bumper stickers and thinks, ‘Hmm . . . so liberals are patriotic! We liberals are universalists and humanists; it’s not part of our morality to highly value nations. So to claim dissent is patriotic—or that we’re supporting the troops, when in fact we’re opposing the war—is disingenuous.

“It just pisses people off.”

Jonathan Haidt
University of Virginia

“Liberals tend to have a very optimistic view of human nature. They tend to be uncomfortable about punishment—of their own children, of criminals, anyone. I do believe that if liberals ran the whole world, it would fall apart. But if conservatives ran the whole world, it would be so restrictive and uncreative that it would be rather unpleasant, too.”

Jonathan Haidt
University of Virginia

“They’re driven by the idea that God gave man dominion over the earth, and keeping the planet healthy is our sacred responsibility. If we simply rape, pillage, destroy, and consume, we’re abusing the power given to us by God...The climate crisis and the economic crisis are interesting, because neither has a human enemy. These are not crises that turn us against an out-group, so they’re not really designed to bring us together, but they can be used for that. I hope and think we are ready, demographically and historically, for a less polarized era.”

Jonathan Haidt
University of Virginia

Read Liberals-Arent-Un-American-Conservatives-Arent-Ignorant by Tom Jacobs @ Utne Reader.

Red State Values

2009-11-05T11:57:00.000-08:00

"A Communist should have largeness of mind and he should be staunch and active, looking upon the interests of the revolution as his very life and subordinating his personal interests to those of the revolution; always and everywhere he should adhere to principle and wage a tireless struggle against all incorrect ideas and actions, so as to consolidate the collective life of the Party and the masses; he should be more concerned about the Party and the masses than about any individual, and more concerned about others than about himself. Only thus can he be considered a Communist.

Every comrade must be brought to understand that the supreme test of the words and deeds of a Communist is whether they conform with the highest interests and enjoy the support of the overwhelming majority of the people. "

Mao Zedong
The Little Red Book

"Reagan Conservatives are those who don't compromise their values. The Republican party needs that these days...yet it seems difficult to find them. Republicans also need someone who can actually orate--someone who is not like a McCain. The Democrats seem to find plenty of skilled salesmen for their cause...but the Republicans are the ones who need them...

"...Conservative values are backed up by historical precedent, logically derived principles, and prudence (practicality). Conservatives love facts. Liberals, Socialists, Communists, and Islamic fundamentalist terrorists hate facts, because to them facts are pernicious things that get in the way of a good ideology--and their irresponsible actions. Speaking of facts, anyone who checks into them will fairly quickly learn that it's Conservatives who make up the intellectual party in politics. Liberals co-opted--that is, stole--that concept in order to grab power..."

Read more @American Conservative Values.

"Americans will respect your beliefs if you just keep them private."

Bill O'Reilly

The International Democracy Conspiracy Continues...

2009-11-04T13:46:00.000-08:00

An International Democracy Conspiracy?

2009-11-03T10:30:00.000-08:00

"A proper measure of democracy should be put into effect in the army, chiefly by abolishing the feudal practice of bullying and beating and by having officers and men share weal and woe. Once this is done, unity will be achieved between officers and men, the combat effectiveness of the army will be greatly increased, and there will be no doubt of our ability to sustain the long, cruel war.

Anyone should be allowed to speak out, whoever he may be, so long as he is not a hostile element and does not make malicious attacks, and it does not matter if he says something wrong. Leaders at all levels have the duty to listen to others. Two principles must be observed: (1) Say what you know and say it without reserve; (2) Don't blame the speaker but take his words as a warning. Unless the principle of "Don't blame the speaker" is observed genuinely and not falsely, the result will not be: "Say what you know and say it without reserve."

Both in the army and in the local organizations, inner-Party democracy is meant to strengthen discipline and increase combat effectiveness, not to weaken them."

Mao Zedong
Little Red Book

On Second Thought...

2009-11-02T10:20:00.000-08:00

"The socialist system will eventually replace the capitalist system; this is the objective law independent of man's will. However much the reactionaries try to hold back the wheel of history, sooner or later revolution will take place and will inevitably triumph.

There is a serious tendency towards capitalism among the well-to-do peasants. This tendency will become rampant if we in the slightest way neglect political work among the peasants during the co-operative movement and for a long period after.

Apart from their other characteristics, the outstanding thing about China's 600 million people is that they are "poor and blank." This may seem to be a bad thing, but in reality it is a good thing. Poverty gives rise to the desire for change, the desire for action and the desire for revolution. On a blank sheet of paper free from any mark, the freshest and most beautiful characters can be written, the freshest and most beautiful picture can be painted."

Moa Zedong
Little Reb Book

Vampire Capitalism

2009-10-31T10:32:00.000-07:00

"Capital is dead labor, which, vampire-like, lives only by sucking living labor, and lives the more, the more labor it sucks."

Karl Marx

Are The Times A Changin'?

2009-10-30T09:57:00.000-07:00

“As people do better, they start voting like Republicans - unless they have too much education and vote Democratic, which proves there can be too much of a good thing”

Karl Rove
"The man who is not a socialist at 20 has no heart, but if he is still a socialist at 40 he has no head."

Aristide Briand
French Prime Minister

"We must help all the young people to understand that ours is still a very poor country, that we cannot change this situation radically in a short time, and that only through the united efforts of our younger generation and all of the people, working with their own hands, can China be made strong and prosperous within a period of several decades. The establishment of our socialist system has opened the road leading to the ideal society of the future, but to translate this ideal into reality needs hard work."

Moa Zeddong
Little Red Book

"The political party that will benefit from the coming realignment is not preordained. The campaigns, candidates, and events of the rest of this decade will determine which party gains the lifelong allegiance of this new generation and, with it, a dominant advantage in the next civic era of American politics."

Morley Winograd & Michael D. Hais
Millennial Makeover: MySpace, YouTube, and the Future of American Politics

...and the walls came tumbling down

2009-10-28T15:05:00.000-07:00

“In the Soviet Union, capitalism triumphed over communism. In this country, capitalism triumphed over democracy.”

Fran Lebowitz

Grave Times For Dead Economists

2009-10-26T14:58:00.000-07:00

“The ideas of economists and political philosophers, both when they are right and when they are wrong, are more powerful than is commonly understood. Indeed the world is ruled by little else. Practical men, who believe themselves to be quite exempt from any intellectual influence, are usually the slaves of some defunct economist.”

John Maynard Keynes (1883-1946)
Economist ,journalist, financier

The Incredible Disappearing Elephant

2009-10-24T13:05:00.001-07:00

Reporting on the new ABC/Washington Post poll has mostly focused on support for a public health care option. But the poll also shows that, while Republicans have succeeded in stonewalling Democratic initiatives in Congress, they have not managed to rebuild their party.

Only 20 percent of respondents identified themselves as Republicans -- the lowest number since 1983.

Read more @Huffington Post.

...not mention of where the TEA Party stands in the numbers.

Becking To Differ

2009-10-23T11:07:00.001-07:00

“That's right. Our march to socialism. You know, some say that Barack Obama, that cat's a socialist, man. Others say, no, no, he's just really unlucky. Every policy he happens to support just, dumb, stupid luck, brings us toward socialism. That's it. I mean, brings us there quickly, like at a trillion times the speed of light. And I know the number "Trillion" because we seem to be using it an awful lot lately. I believe that it's just luck myself, dumb, hapless luck. Sometimes that luck works out perfectly.”

Glenn Beck

Concerning Bush's $3.1 trillion budget for 2009:

"Under the Bush administration proposal, they are building a wall of debt. At the end of his first year, the gross debt of the United States stood at 5.8 trillion [dollars]. If you look at the end of his eight years of responsibility, we see the debt as over $10.4 trillion. That is almost a doubling of the national debt on his watch."

Ken Conrad - Democrat
Senate Budget Committee Chairman

"Obama's a market guy. He's not any kind of socialist at all. He's not challenging the of corporations. The banking reforms that have been suggested are not particularly far-reaching...I mean it's laugh out loud, really."

Frank Llewellyn
Democratic socialists of America

Notes From The Ahmadinejad Wing of the GOP

2009-10-22T18:05:00.000-07:00

"There is a saying that the Jews who are wealthy got that way not by watching dollars, but instead by taking care of the pennies and the dollars taking care of themselves."

Edwin Merwin Jr. and Jim Ulmer
GOP Party Officials From South Carolina
In newspaper op-ed piece

"...the image of the Jew as penny-pincher was a praise of Jewish frugality. In fact, it dates back to the centuries of anti-Jewish persecution in Europe, when Jews were forbidden to own land or conduct any business other than money-lending, which was closed to Christians by Church law. It is an image of a kind and of a time with forcing Jews to wear a badge on their clothing or enclosing them in ghettos, cutting them off from religious, social, and economic freedom."

Matthew Brooks
Republican Jewish Coalition

TEA Party Pooper

2009-10-21T06:48:00.001-07:00

Hudson TEA Party

2009-10-19T18:57:00.000-07:00

Where Are My Snow Shovels?

2009-10-12T17:47:00.000-07:00

I could tell it had snow, before I got out of bed this morning. It was before sunrise and it looked very light out. Sure enough, one look out the window and I could see the snow. When I came home from watching the Twins get swept by the Yankees at 10 PM, the sky was all stars and no clouds. Seeing the snow, it was clear that the reason I took today off from work was going to be delayed...till Saturday, I decided sleeping in on Monday morning was a noble cause. I was half expecting my wife to wake me up and tell me President Obama had won the Nobel Prize For Economics.

Friday, which I also had off and also slept in, the wife did wake me up with the Obama Nobel Peace Prize news. My wife was quite shocked when I dared ask what Obama had done to get the prize. Of course, she has more Obama posters and stickers in her exercise room that I have. The thought never occurred to her that just being Obama was good enough.

I expected conservative talk radio to be on the tipping point of revolution -- as always -- over the news. The convenience store girl was all excited about the news, when I got my coffee. The library lady was excited too. My brother even interrupted his retirement, afternoon nap to call and see what I thought about it all.

It was thinking they should change the name to the McPeace Prize, until I heard that the 1938 Peace Prize was a tie between Hitler and Gandhi. The committee gave the prize to Michael Hansson, President of the Nansen International Office for Refugees. After hearing this and knowing the Obama didn't have any say in the nomination, I figure he was in order for congratulations.

...but then again, maybe politics is like professional wrestling. Things have slowed down with the Town Hall TEA Party meetings, Obama has turn his gaze away from health care to Afghanistan and maybe the conservatives and liberals decided we needed some political spice in our life. Hence, give Obama the prize an give Hannity, Beck and Limbaugh something to get them through the weekend. When you get right down to it, the Nobel Peace Prize is a contradiction in itself. It was founded by the inventory of dynamite.

In 2007, Al Gore was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. Last week I was going through some of my stuff and found a National Geographic from 1976 with an article about the coming Ice Age. This morning I wake up to the second snow fall of the 2009-2010 winter and we are only 12 days into October.

Does anybody know if Gore has to return a portion of his prize, if the world starts cooling down? Maybe he could donate it to the people's in areas that haven't had snow for generations. But then again, my wife reminded me that it's not "global warming," it's "climate change."

Whatever it is, I just hope I can get my shovels and snowblower out of the shed on Saturday.

Really

2009-10-03T16:44:00.000-07:00

Flight Of The Political Bird

2009-09-30T18:58:00.000-07:00

"When politcs goes well, we can know a good in common that we cannot know alone."

Alan Wolfe
The Future Of Liberalsim

"...The sound that awoke me was the outraged cries of the nestling’s parents, who flew helplessly in circles about the clearing. The sleek black monster was indifferent to them. He gulped, whetted his beak on the dead branch a moment, and sat still. Up to that point the little tragedy had followed the usual pattern. But suddenly, out of all that area of woodland, a soft sound of complaint began to rise. Into the glade fluttered small birds of half a dozen varieties drawn by the anguished outcries of the tiny parents.

No one dared attack the raven. But they cried there in some instinctive common misery, the bereaved and the unbereaved. The glade filled with their soft rustling and their cries. They fluttered as if to point their wings at the murderer. There was a dim intangible ethic he had violated, that they knew. He was a bird of death.

And he, the murderer, the black bird at the heart of life, sat on there, glistening in the common light, formidable, unmoving, unperturbed, untouchable.

The sighing died. It was then I saw the judgment. It was the judgment of life against death. I will never see it again so forcefully presented. I will never hear it again in notes so tragically prolonged. For in the midst of protest, they forgot the violence. There, in that clearing, the crystal note of a song sparrow lifted hesitantly in the hush. And finally, after painful fluttering, another took the song, and the another, the song passing from one bird to another, doubtfully at first, as though some evil thing were being forgotten. Till suddenly they took heart and sang from many throats joyously together as birds are known to sing. They sang because life is sweet and sunlight beautiful. They sang under the brooding shadow of the raven. In simple truth they had forgotten the raven, for they were the singers of life, and not of death..."

Loren Eiseley
The Judgement of the Birds

2012 GOTea

2009-09-28T08:49:00.000-07:00

Capitalism: A Love Story

2009-09-26T06:51:00.000-07:00

"Capitalism is an evil, and you cannot regulate evil. You have to eliminate it and replace it with something that is good for all people and that something is democracy."

Michael Moore
Conclusion of upcoming movie Capitalism: A Love Story

In The Sperm Of The Moment

2009-09-24T13:48:00.000-07:00

"In another stunning example of hypocrisy, congressional Democrats are wasting taxpayers' time and resources on a legislative measure to censure Congressman Joe Wilson so they don't have to talk about their exceedingly unpopular health care plan. If we are going to march members down to the well of the House to apologize, Joe Wilson is going to have to get in line behind Nancy Pelosi, who attacked the intelligence community who protects us, Charlie Rangel who cheated on his taxes, Jack Murtha – a walking scandal, and we all know how the Democratic leadership tried to protect William Jefferson. Democrats don't want an apology. They want a side show."

Michael Steele
GOP National Committee Chairman

Free-market Credibility Gap Widens

2009-09-22T19:47:00.000-07:00

"...The public trust deficit hangs over all companies and free-market capitalism, not just the financial sector, and the trust deficit is playing a major role in current debates over increased government regulation of the economy. It is a major mistake for leaders in business and the gatekeeping professions such as law not to undertake a serious self-assessment of responsibility for the current catastrophe with proposals and action to rebuild public trust.

Much is at stake. I am among those millions of Americans who, over the last 40 years, concluded that a strong presumption in favor of market solutions rather than government regulation offered the best hope for addressing many of society's challenges. Both Democratic and Republican administrations supported deregulation of banking and finance, programs to increase home ownership and an easy money policy -- so long as it did not lead to serious inflation.

We trusted in the prudential judgment of business leaders to make rational decisions that would avoid financial catastrophe. But we now are questioning whether we substantially overinvested in the ideology of free-market capitalism.

We realize that capitalism has an inherent struggle in which excessive short-term self-interest and hubris sometimes trump the "self-interest considered upon the whole" that generates long-term wealth creation..."

Neil Hamilton
Star Tribune

Free Market Sole Searching

2009-09-20T18:34:00.000-07:00

"Profit-seeking business is compelled to employ the most efficient methods of production. What checks a businessmans endeavors to improve the equipment of his firm is only lack of capital."

Ludwig von Mises
Human Action

TEA Pee

2009-09-17T19:17:00.000-07:00

Don't Like Your TEA Party "Black"

2009-09-16T19:23:00.000-07:00

"ABC and NBC on Tuesday night joined the effort to undermine the anti-Obama tea party participants by smearing them as racists as ABC framed a story around the proposition “some prominent Obama supporters are now saying” the opposition to Obama is “driven, in part, by a refusal to accept a black President,” while NBC anchor Brian Williams touted how “former President Carter spoke up and spoke out about” the supposed racism. Williams alleged “a certain number of signs and images at last weekend's big tea party march in Washington and at other recent events have featured racial and other violent themes and President Carter today said he is extremely worried by it.”

News Busters

"I think an overwhelming portion of the intensely demonstrated animosity toward President Barack Obama is based on the fact that he is a black man, that he's African-American. I live in the south and I've seen the south come a long way and I've seen the rest of the country that shared the south's attitude toward minority groups, at that time particularly African-Americans, that that racism [unintelligible word] still exists. And I think it's bubbled up to the surface because of belief among many white people, not just in the south, but around the country, that African-Americans are not qualified to lead this great country. It's an abominable circumstance and grieves me and concerns me very deeply."

Former President Jimmy Carter

"They've waved signs likening President Obama to Hitler and the devil, raised questions about whether he was really born in this country, falsely accused him of planning to set up death panels, decried his speech to students as indoctrination and called him everything from a fascist to a socialist to a communist. And that was before Mr. Obama's speech was interrupted by a Representative who once fought to keep the Confederate flag waving over the South Carolina state house. Add it all up, and some prominent Obama supporters are now saying that it paints a picture of an opposition driven, in part, by a refusal to accept a black President."

Charlie Gibson
ABC News Anchor

“People are not just mad at Obama. They're mad at Jesse Jackson, they're mad at Reverend Wright, they're made at Al Sharpton, they're mad at people who have nothing to do with Obama except they all happen to be black.”

Clarence Page
Chicago Tribune

WOLF BLITZER: They've come together under the tea party banner, but within the movement you're going to find individuals outraged over taxes, health reform, gun control and more. But, most disturbing, a very small but vocal minority, they're targeting President Obama's race. Let's go to CNN's Elaine Quijano. She's working this story for us. Elaine, what are we seeing?

ELAINE QUIJANO: Well, Wolf, we have to emphasize by far most tea party protesters are not casting their arguments in what could be seen as a racial light, but a small group of demonstrators is using a controversial image that's been circulating on the Web since July. Within the larger tea party movement that's gained steam across the country, a small but passionate minority is also voicing what some see as racist rhetoric, including this doctored image circulating on the Internet and even some protesters signs like this one in Brighton, Michigan, portraying President Obama as a witch doctor. We took to the streets of Washington to get reaction.

WOMAN: I think it's disrespectful to the office of the President to portray him in this manner. It's racist.

SECOND WOMAN: This is appalling.

QUIJANO: How prevalent were the protesters carrying racially-charged messages? Difficult to quantify? CNN all platform journalist Jim Spellman spent weeks covering the tea party demonstrators as a whole.

JIM SPELLMAN: Only a handful of people seem to outwardly have racial issues with the President, but the more you talk to people, you could sense that it was part of a larger distrust.

QUIJANO: For their party tea party leaders disavow any racist views.

MARK WILLIAMS, TEA PARTY ORGANIZER: I saw very little overt racism or anger, and those were on the fringes and were marginalized.

QUIJANO: They want attention focused on the role and reach of government into people's lives but say that controversial protesters have the right to speak their mind.

Slogans gracing TEA Party signs:

“Bury ObamaCare with Kennedy”

“Change We Don't Believe In”

“Hitler Gave Good Speeches Too”

“Just Say No to Socialized Medicine”

“Throw All of the Bums Out”
---
In the pictures above, how many non-Whites can you find?

From the picture below, can you guess why the TEA Party participants hate ACORN so much?

"President Carter is flat out wrong. This isn't about race. It is about policy. This is a pathetic distraction by Democrats to shift attention away from the president's wildly unpopular government-run healthcare plan that the American people simply oppose."

Michael Steele
GOP Chairman

The Big Republican TEA Party Lie

2009-09-15T09:10:00.000-07:00

“[I]n the big lie there is always a certain force of credibility; because the broad masses of a nation are always more easily corrupted in the deeper strata of their emotional nature than consciously or voluntarily; and thus in the primitive simplicity of their minds they more readily fall victims to the big lie than the small lie, since they themselves often tell small lies in little matters but would be ashamed to resort to large-scale falsehoods. It would never come into their heads to fabricate colossal untruths, and they would not believe that others could have the impudence to distort the truth so infamously.”

Adolph Hitler
Mein Kampf (1925)

"What makes that passage so monstrously mind-bending is that Hitler was accusing the Jews of engaging in the big lie, when in fact the Nazis would be history’s greatest practitioners...The GOP’s avid willingness to wield the big lie makes the comparison valid."

Andrew Leonard
Salon.com