He didn’t leave the left, the left moved to the far left
This is an interesting article from the archives of my old blog. From four years ago, is the story of a former progressive liberal, a campaign worker for Robert Kennedy, Eugene McCarthy, George McGovern and a staffer for hard left democrat Senator Howard Metzenbaum, explains why he is leaving the left, more precisely, the American cultural left and what it has become.
Here are some highlights.
I choose this day for my departure because I can no longer abide the simpering voices of self-styled progressives — people who once championed solidarity with oppressed populations everywhere — reciting all the ways Iraq’s democratic experiment might yet implode.
My estrangement hasn’t happened overnight. Out of the corner of my eye I watched what was coming for more than three decades, yet refused to truly see. Now it’s all too obvious. Leading voices in America’s “peace” movement are actually cheering against self-determination for a long-suffering Third World country because they hate George W. Bush more than they love freedom.
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Susan Sontag cleared her throat for the “courage” of the al Qaeda pilots. Norman Mailer pronounced the dead of Sept. 11 comparable to “automobile statistics.” The events of that day were likely premeditated by the White House, Gore Vidal insinuated. Noam Chomsky insisted that al Qaeda at its most atrocious generated no terror greater than American foreign policy on a mediocre day.
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These days the postmodern left demands that government and private institutions guarantee equality of outcomes. Any racial or gender “disparities” are to be considered evidence of culpable bias, regardless of factors such as personal motivation, training, and skill. This goal is neither liberal nor progressive
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I smile when friends tell me I’ve “moved right.” I laugh out loud at what now passes for progressive on the main lines of the cultural left.
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Who would have guessed that the U.S. senator with today’s best voting record on human rights would be not Ted Kennedy or Barbara Boxer but Kansas Republican Sam Brownback?He is also by most measures one of the most conservative senators.
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All of which is why I have come to believe, and gladly join with others who have discovered for themselves, that the single most important thing a genuinely liberal person can do now is walk away from the house the left has built.
Monday Book Pick – Citizen of the Galaxy
Another classic by the Grandmaster of Science Fiction, Robert A. Heinlein.
Where the New York Times gets its talking points from
Color me not surprised.
The Obama administration doesn’t meet the standards of breakfast foods
Michelle Malkin has a very informative article detailing how our Dear Leader‘s administration fails to meet the standards they want a breakfast cereal to meet.
Here are some of the highlights:
The White House claims 150,000 jobs have been “created or saved.” But since February, the nation has lost more than 1.3 million jobs. The current 8.9 percent unemployment rate in the wake of stimulus passage is worse than the 8.8 percent unemployment figure Obama’s economists darkly predicted if Congress didn’t immediately adopt their recovery plan. (See Innocent Bystanders.)
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Washington told us the “stimulus” projects were “shovel-ready” and would provide immediate relief. They’re not. The New York Times notes that the program “has paid out less than 6 percent of the money, largely in the form of social service payments to states.”Democrat leaders baldly claimed that “There are no earmarks” in the bill. But untold tens of millions of dollars are headed to pet projects such as skateboard parks, tennis and basketball court renovation, the National Zoo, the $11 million Bridge to Microsoft, and Pennsylvania King of Pork Rep. John Murtha’s ghost airport to nowhere.
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How about “Social Security?” There’s nothing secure about it. While Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid scoffed during the Bush years that “the so-called Security crisis exists in only one place – the minds of the Republicans,” the insolvency problem festered. Now, the Obama administration reports that both Social (In)security and Medicare are hurtling toward bankruptcy far sooner than previously estimated. The “trust funds” exist only in the minds of the deluded.
Yup, that’s right, democrat Senator Harry Reid lied to the American people. Instead of telling the truth, he used Social Security as a political tool to attack his enemies rather than do what is best for America. Nobody paying attention should be surprised by this.
The headline the MSM will never run
Filed under: Culture of Corruption, Our Dear Leader, Politics, Taxes, Tea Party
President Obama says, “The Tea Party protesters were right!”
That is the headline the MSM won’t run. The only part of it that isn’t true, is that our Dear Leader didn’t have the testicular fortitude to come out and say it.
What he did say is exactly what the tea party protesters were complaining about:
President Barack Obama, calling current deficit spending “unsustainable,” warned of skyrocketing interest rates for consumers if the U.S. continues to finance government by borrowing from other countries.
“We can’t keep on just borrowing from China,” Obama said at a town-hall meeting in Rio Rancho, New Mexico, outside Albuquerque. “We have to pay interest on that debt, and that means we are mortgaging our children’s future with more and more debt.”Holders of U.S. debt will eventually “get tired” of buying it, causing interest rates on everything from auto loans to home mortgages to increase, Obama said. “It will have a dampening effect on our economy.”
Kim Priestap points out the extreme hypocrisy of BHO’s behavior.
What a joke. Obama sends our deficit and debt levels into the stratosphere, and he has the nerve to actually lecture us about how dangerous that is. That is what the tea parties were all about. Hundreds of thousands of Americans took to the streets on April 15 to protest the outrageous spending the government has been doing under his watch, and what was his reaction? He ridiculed them. Then a few weeks later he goes to New Mexico and delivers a lecture about how irresponsible it is to spend money we don’t have. The gall.
Now that he has put us into the untenable position of having to borrow so much from China, he turns around and says we have to shore up health care. That means the government will spend even more money we don’t have to meddle in our lives.
That’s right kids, the Community Organizer in Chief is going to use this as an excuse to nationalize a large chunk of the National Economy. The same inefficient government hacks who run the Post Office
are going to be telling you what you can have for health care.
America elected a man with absolutely no executive experience what so ever and had never held a real job in his life. If you are surprised by his behavior, you haven’t been paying attention.
Friday B-Movie Pick – Spaceballs
Yup, Mel Brooks takes on the Sci-Fi genre with Spaceballs.
Quote of the Day
Ann Coulter makes a very insightful observation:
“If it were true that conservatives were racist, sexist, homophobic, fascist, stupid, inflexible, angry, and self-righteous, shouldn’t their arguments be easy to deconstruct? Someone who is making a point out of anger, ideology, inflexibility, or resentment would presumably construct a flimsy argument. So why can’t the argument itself be dismembered rather than the speaker’s personal style or hidden motives? Why the evasions?”
Pay attention to how the leftists are framing their “arguments” and “debates” currently. They are short on actual facts and the truth. The focus is on dehumanizing their opponents.
Translating Obamaspeak, Part 2
The second installment in Translating Obamaspeak.
“Cap and Trade” means “Cap and Tax” in English.
“Hope and Change” means “Dope and Fail” in English.
And remember kids, “We have always been at war with Eastasia.”
The Global Warming Crisis is officially over.
Oprah, a major supporter of our Dear Leader and all the politically correct celebrity causes that are popular this week gave this advice to the graduating class of Duke University,
“It’s great to have a private jet. Anyone that tells you that having your own private jet isn’t great is lying to you.”
She is clearly not concerned about the “SUV-years” per mile of carbon produced by her private jet or its effect on the environment.
But then, neither are other rich folks who fly private jets all over the place, such as Al Gore or Laurie David or the rest of the “Gulfstream Liberals.” At least Oprah is honest about it.
Quote of the Day
Jim Treacher nails it concerning our Dear Leader.
“Voting for Obama because you don’t like politics is like eating 3 cheesecakes a day because you don’t like being fat.”