A Purposeful Common Thread of Deceitful Policy/Berhaviour!

Quote of the Day

“Fathom the hypocrisy of a Government that requires every citizen to prove
they are insured……but not everyone must prove they are a citizen”
---
If you are going to Israel and are inclined to attend a fascinating conference and hear one of the best counter-terrorist professors, Dr. Boaz Ganor, among many other experts, then sign up for this invite from my dear friend and Vice President of External Affairs, Jonathan Davis, of Israel's finest private University - IDC Herzliya, Israel.

Let Jonathan know you are doing so at my urging.


The International Institute for Counter-Terrorism (ICT)
Vice President for External Relations, Jonathan Davis
Head of the Raphael Recanati International School


Dear Friends of IDC Herzliya,

Looking forward to seeing you at our 11th World Summit on Counter Terrorism, while discussing Terrorism’s Global Impact. Bon Voyage and see you in exactly two months time between September 11th and 14th 2011!!!

Have a great summer and stay safe. Brachot.


I read and reported on Boaz's: "The Counter-Terrorism Puzzle" several years ago and wish I could be in Israel for this meeting.
---
Sign of the times. Sad indeed. Sweet Tammy's continues to make future plans for expanding its customer base which it should be able to service from its newly rehabbed facility.

Grand opening planned for Sept. 12 and we plan on being there.

As I pointed out recently, small businesses are going to continue feeling restrained from expanding and hiring.(See 1 and 1a below.)
---
From time to time I have written about articles I have read in The Naval War College Journal. They deal mostly with American Naval Power, its future direction and where Chinese Naval power is heading.

I maintain that as a nation's commercial interests expand worldwide it is only a matter of time before that nation's military is also better positioned to argue it needs to expand as well. At the present time, China is building up its fleet of submarines and aircraft carriers but is still a long way from having the diversified support ships necessary to maintain a fleet capable of challenging ours. Consequently, near term, China is developing missile capabilities that can keep our own fleet distanced from areas they deem territorially vital.

Obama has abdicated space exploration to the Russians will his agenda now be to scuttle our naval capabilities? (See 2 below.)

Or maybe Obama's flirtations, tolerance and past appeasement of Assad will simply result in more American embassy hostage takings? Is the ghost of Carter on the horizon. Both presidents are known for projecting weakness. (See 2a and 2b below.)

Is America on a path of retreat? (See 2c below.)

Lloyd Marcus rails against Obama's arrogance of 'transforming our nation.' Marcus writes: "The concept of social justice, government attempting to manufacture equal overcomes, is totally un-American and just plain nuts. And yet, this is obviously Obama's agenda." (See 2d below.)


Meanwhile, Victor Davis Hanson provides the historical root of demagoguery and accuses Obama as a more skilled practitioner than, say Carter. (See 2e below.)


What do all of these article in 2 to 2e have in common. I see a thread connecting behaviour and policy. More importantly I fear Obama's purposefulness is destructive to our nation's well being and I seem not to be alone.
---
Dick
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
1)Dozen Bake Shop to hold farewell bake sale today
By China Millman, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette


Dozen Bake Shop in Lawrenceville, as well as the location in Oakland, will close its doors for good.Starting Sunday, Pittsburgh's cupcake lovers will have two fewer spots to satisfy their cravings.

James Gray and Andrew Twigg, co-owners of Dozen Bake Shop, announced Friday that they are permanently closing their last two locations in Lawrenceville and Oakland.

Six years ago, Dozen Bake Shop was a Squirrel Hill storefront selling whimsical cupcakes. It grew into a local brand with multiple locations and a range of products.

The Pittsburgh Business Times reported on Friday that Mr. Gray has put the bakery up for sale after a substantial decline in business over the last two months forced him to rethink the bakery's future. Also on Friday, the announcement of their decision to close was posted on the Dozen Bake Shop Facebook page.

There were few signs to outsiders that the business was in trouble. On June 28, Dozen Bake Shop announced the hiring of a new head baker and advertised for counter help on its Twitter feed, and it recently launched a mobile cupcake truck.

Dozen's history has been marked by frequent reshuffling of locations. At various times, it has had outposts in Squirrel Hill, Downtown, the South Side and the North Side, as well as Oakland and Lawrenceville.

In the last few years, it has had other financial trouble as well. The business has defaulted on a loan of more than $40,000 from PNC Financial Services Group Inc., and there are several outstanding state tax liens that have not been resolved, according to court records.

Many customers were shocked by the news of the closing, expressing their surprise and disappointment on Dozen's Facebook page.

The Lawrenceville bakery will hold a farewell bake sale today from 9 a.m. until noon with free coffee until it runs out.

Customers who have ordered cupcakes for weddings and parties will be contacted to make other arrangements, according to a post on the bakery's Facebook page. They are working with Vanilla Pastry Studio in East Liberty and the Sugar Cafe in Dormont, both of which sell cupcakes.


1a)Little Hiring Seen by Small Business
By SIOBHAN HUGHES
WASHINGTON—The U.S. labor market could stay sluggish for a while, with small-business executives reluctant to hire amid the murky economic outlook.

Almost two-thirds—64%—of small-business executives surveyed said they weren't expecting to add to their payrolls in the next year and another 12% planned to cut jobs, according to a U.S. Chamber of Commerce report to be released Monday. Just 19% said they would expand their work forces.

This comes after a Labor Department report Friday showed employers added few jobs in June, and unemployment rose to 9.2%. The bleak figures joined other data showing the recovery losing momentum in recent months, which has caused many analysts and policy makers to lower their forecasts for economic growth in the second half of the year.

The Small Business Administration says small businesses, defined as companies with fewer than 500 workers, employ about half of the workers in the private sector. In the Chamber's survey of 1,409 executives, conducted by Harris Interactive, small businesses were defined as firms with revenue of $25 million or less.

More than half of the small-business executives in the June 27-30 survey cited economic uncertainty as the main reason for holding back on hiring. About a third blamed lack of sales, while just 7% pointed to problems getting credit.

"I think it's safer to stay on hold and not hire workers," said Harold Jackson, chief executive of Buffalo Supply, a Lafayette, Colo., distributor of high-tech medical equipment used in operating rooms.

.Mr. Jackson said he has halved his staff to 15 workers since 2009 and was unlikely to start hiring soon even if his business picked up. "I can handle a reasonably large increase in business without having to increase the staff."

Many of the executives surveyed were gloomy about the economy's prospects. About 41% see the business climate getting worse over the next two years, compared with 29% who expect the climate to improve.

The modest hiring plans of small businesses don't make up for the job losses in the past year, when some 29% let go workers, far outpacing the numbers that now plan to hire.

The June survey was conducted while the White House and congressional leaders were working to reach a deficit-reduction agreement that would ease the way for Congress to raise the federal borrowing limit by Aug. 2, in time to prevent a government default on its obligations. Treasury officials have predicted a default could trigger another financial crisis, sending interest rates soaring and causing a recession.

Of the small-business executives who responded, 70% predicted a negative impact for their business in the case of a government default.

"Small-business owners are pretty savvy; they do understand the ramifications for credit," said William Miller, a senior vice president at the Chamber, who owns restaurants in Washington, D.C.

The executives had more confidence in their own futures than in the future of the country. While just 29% said that America's best days were ahead, 39% said their own business's best days were ahead. Some 84% said the U.S. economy was headed in the wrong direction, but 61% thought their own business was headed the right way.

"I'm optimistic about the future, but you still have to find your way through all these issues," Mr. Jackson said.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
2)The Necessity of U.S. Naval Power. Our maritime forces provide an unmatched advantage.
By GORDON ENGLAND, JAMES L. JONES, AND VERN CLARK

All our citizens, and especially our servicemen and women, expect and deserve a thorough review of critical security decisions. After all, decisions today will affect the nation's strategic position for future generations.

The future security environment underscores two broad security trends. First, international political realities and the internationally agreed-to sovereign rights of nations will increasingly limit the sustained involvement of American permanent land-based, heavy forces to the more extreme crises. This will make offshore options for deterrence and power projection ever more paramount in support of our national interests.

Second, the naval dimensions of American power will re-emerge as the primary means for assuring our allies and partners, ensuring prosperity in times of peace, and countering anti-access, area-denial efforts in times of crisis. We do not believe these trends will require the dismantling of land-based forces, as these forces will remain essential reservoirs of power. As the United States has learned time and again, once a crisis becomes a conflict, it is impossible to predict with certainty its depth, duration and cost.

That said, the U.S. has been shrinking its overseas land-based installations, so the ability to project power globally will make the forward presence of naval forces an even more essential dimension of American influence.

What we do believe is that uniquely responsive Navy-Marine Corps capabilities provide the basis on which our most vital overseas interests are safeguarded. Forward presence and engagement is what allows the U.S. to maintain awareness, to deter aggression, and to quickly respond to threats as they arise. Though we clearly must be prepared for the high-end threats, such preparation should be made in balance with the means necessary to avoid escalation to the high end in the first place.

The versatility of maritime forces provides a truly unmatched advantage. The sea remains a vast space that provides nearly unlimited freedom of maneuver. Command of the sea allows for the presence of our naval forces, supported from a network of shore facilities, to be adjusted and scaled with little external restraint. It permits reliance on proven capabilities such as prepositioned ships.

Maritime capabilities encourage and enable cooperation with other nations to solve common sea-based problems such as piracy, illegal trafficking, proliferation of W.M.D., and a host of other ills, which if unchecked can harm our friends and interests abroad, and our own citizenry at home. The flexibility and responsiveness of naval forces provide our country with a general strategic deterrent in a potentially violent and unstable world. Most importantly, our naval forces project and sustain power at sea and ashore at the time, place, duration, and intensity of our choosing.

Given these enduring qualities, tough choices must clearly be made, especially in light of expected tight defense budgets. The administration and the Congress need to balance the resources allocated to missions such as strategic deterrence, ballistic missile defense, and cyber warfare with the more traditional ones of sea control and power projection. The maritime capability and capacity vital to the flexible projection of U.S. power and influence around the globe must surely be preserved, especially in light of available technology. Capabilities such as the Joint Strike Fighter will provide strategic deterrence, in addition to tactical long-range strike, especially when operating from forward-deployed naval vessels.

Postured to respond quickly, the Navy-Marine Corps team integrates sea, air, and land power into adaptive force packages spanning the entire spectrum of operations, from everyday cooperative security activities to unwelcome—but not impossible—wars between major powers. This is exactly what we will need to meet the challenges of the future.


Mr. England is a former secretary of the Navy. Mr. Jones is a former commandant of the Marine Corps. Mr. Clark is a former chief of naval operations.


2a)Clinton: The US has no interest in Assad staying in power

The US embassy in Damascus was mobbed Monday by pro-Assad supporters and a personal attack on Syrian President Bashar Assad was heard in Washington for the first time since he launched his brutal crackdown on opposition in March. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said Assad "is not indispensable and we have absolutely nothing invested in him remaining in power."

US embassy staff sheltered themselves in a fortified wing of the mission as pro-Assad militiamen wrecked the mission's equipment raised the Syrian flag and smeared offensive graffiti on the walls while Syrian security forces stood by and did nothing.


The bottom finally dropped out of Obama administration's policy of granting Syrian President Bashar apparently unlimited leeway, despite his savagery against civilian opponents. The pro-Assad mob broke into the US embassy compound in Damascus which also houses the ambassador's residence. The intruders were still there by nightfall.

Intelligence sources report the ambassador, a small number of personnel on duty and US Marines guarding the building took shelter in a fortified wing of the building behind concrete walls and steel doors. They used a special video link to stay in touch with the situation room of the State Department in Washington.

These small fortress wings are built into US embassy facilities. They are proof against rockets, explosives, aerial attack and terrorists carrying out raids through underground passages. Enough water, food, and medical aid supplies are stocked there to sustain their occupants for a week or more until rescued.

The last time US embassy staff were forced to take shelter in one of these quarters was six years ago. On December 2004, al Qaeda seized the US consulate building in Jedda and killed five non-US employees but failed to break into the fortified room holding the American staff.

Five years ago, the American embassy in Damascus itself was attacked for the first time. On Sept. 13, 2006, al Qaeda detonated a bomb car outside the building as a gang of armed men tried to break in. They too failed to gain entry. This Monday was the first time a large number of intruders has ever managed to storm an American embassy and ambassadorial residential compound in the Middle East.

The invaders clambered over the walls, hung Syrian flags atop the buildings and scrawled graffiti calling the US ambassador "a dog" for visiting Hama protesters with the French ambassador last Thursday.

In Washington, the US State Department summoned the senior Syrian diplomat for a severe dressing-down on the Syrian government's "failure to provide adequate protection for the facility." Syrian forces supposed to guard the mission were accused of "being slow to respond to an attack by supporters of President Assad, an attack incited by a television station heavily influenced by Syrian authorities."

A second mob stormed the French embassy in Damascus, hauled down the French flag and replaced it with Syrian flags. Here, too, Syrian security men watched and did nothing.

Military and intelligence sources report the presumption in Washington and shared in Paris, Ankara, Jerusalem and Beirut, is that the US and French embassies were targeted as a means of warning the West to keep its hands off the Assad regime and stop warning him to abandon his brutal methods of suppressing dissent.

It may be just the first step; Assad's friends - Iran, Hizballah and Hamas – may pitch in later with violent acts against the US and its allies. US forces in neighboring Iraq and the rest of eastern Mediterranean are again on high alert, as are Syria's neighbors – Turkey, Jordan, Iraq and Israel.

Up until last Tuesday, July 5, Washing and Paris believed Assad regime had come around to agreeing to bring the uprising to an end by initiating national dialogue with opposition leaders on political reforms and power-sharing with opposition parties.

Assad appeared to be playing along with the process, suggesting to Washington and Paris that he was finally willing to lend an ear to voices of moderation in the Syrian elite, forswear such repressive methods as live fire against protesters and meet them halfway for a compromise settlement.

Assad dashed this hope Wednesday, July 6 by breaking off contact with the opposition leaders close to Washington and Paris and by suddenly ordering the select group of British and French correspondents, allowed briefly to report from Damascus, to pack their bags and leave. The Syrian ruler did not bother to explain his abrupt about-face to Washington and Paris.

Presidents Obama and Sarkozy retaliated by ordering their respective ambassadors in Damascus, Robert Ford and Eric Chevalier, to visit the center of dissent in Hama last Thursday, July 7, and demonstrate solidarity with the protesters' cause by meeting their leaders.

The Syrian ruler hit back Monday by sending hooligans against their embassies. He was warning them that unless they call off their dogs against him, his next step will be the expulsion of their ambassadors.

Assad chose Monday for his reprisal apparently because the Middle East Quartet was meeting in Washington to discuss steps for reviving Israel-Palestinian peacemaking led by US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. Also in attendance were UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon and the foreign ministers of Russia, Britain and France.
The Syrian ruler seemed to message them the Israel-Palestinian dispute was not the most pressing issue in the Middle East today and to warn them that much tougher developments awaited the region in other trouble spots.


2b)Can Mideast Quartet, meeting today, entice Palestinians to drop plan for UN vote on statehood?
By Howard LaFranchi


Seeing peril from a UN vote in September on Palestinian statehood, they seek a way to bring Israelis and Palestinians back to the negotiating table, which has sat empty for months

The Middle East Quartet, the diplomatic powers focused on encouraging the peace process, is set to meet in Washington today with the aim of paving the way for a relaunch of long-stalled Israeli-Palestinian peace talks.

Prompting the unusual midsummer meeting of the four powers — the United States, European Union, Russia, and the United Nations — is no sudden uptick in violence, and certainly no signs that the two sides are itching to get back to the negotiating table, which has sat unused since last September.

Instead, the impetus is the Palestinian plan to seek a vote by the UN General Assembly in September recognizing the state of Palestine.

Fearing that such a move would divide the international community at a particularly sensitive moment in the Arab world, and could ultimately feed a return to violence, the Quartet wants to set acceptable terms for both sides to resume peace talks in the coming weeks.

The idea is that a return to direct talks broadly following an outline set by President Obama in his May speech on the Middle East would allow the Palestinians to back down from their insistence on a statehood vote.

But even though today's talks will feature the Quartet's power players — Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton will host the meeting — arriving at a restart of peace negotiations is anything but assured.


"The challenge now facing the Quartet is twofold," says Khaled Elgindy, a visiting fellow in foreign policy at the Brookings Institution's Saban Center for Middle East Policy in Washington. The first hurdle will be reaching a "genuine consensus" among the US, EU, UN, and Russia on a statement capable of initiating "a meaningful negotiation process between Israelis and Palestinians."

But even if the Quartet can do that, the looming second uncertainty is "whether anything they say will be sufficient to convince the Palestinians not to go ahead with the UN vote," says Mr. Elgindy, who is a former member of the Palestinian negotiating support team.

The Palestinians say they would return to the table (and they hint they could shelve the September statehood bid) if talks on borders are based on the pre-1967 lines — as outlined in Mr. Obama's speech — and if Israel declares a new settlement freeze.

Yet while Israeli officials say they have been in talks with US officials on acceptable terms for relaunching negotiations, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu maintains the 1967 lines would leave Israel with "indefensible" borders — and he has shown no willingness to renew a settlement freeze.

At the same time, he says declaration of a Palestinian state and its symbolic recognition by the UN General Assembly would poison the peace process for "decades."

But for some Middle East analysts — given that both Israelis and Palestinians say they want a return to talks — finding language for a statement that both sides could sign onto may be the easy part for the Quartet.

The real danger is a Quartet effort that succeeds in relaunching talks for talks' sake, but which lacks any hope of paving the way for meaningful and sustained negotiations, says Aaron David Miller, a public policy scholar at the Woodrow Wilson International Center in Washington.

"The prospects of getting a Quartet statement that the two sides can buy into are actually much better than they were just a short while ago, but the real question here is whether there is anything that can lead to serious and sustained negotiations," says Mr. Miller. "Where it begins to enter the danger zone is when you raise expectations once again — even though the chances of something real and sustained aren't there."

Miller, who served as an adviser to six secretaries of state on the Middle East peace process, says the worst thing now would be one more high-profile ceremony where the US president brings the Israeli and Palestinian leaders together on a stage to launch talks. "It's the kind of scene we've had six or seven times in the last decade or so," he says — only to have it all collapse within weeks or even days.

The Brookings Institution's Elgindy agrees, saying the issue is not more negotiations, but actually getting to a solution.

"The problem … is not in getting the parties to the negotiating table — which has occurred off-and-on for nearly 20 years — but in getting them out of negotiations once they start and into a process that might actually lead to an end of the conflict," he says. "Thus far, neither the US nor the Quartet has put forth a plan that has any reasonable chance of achieving that goal."

The best option Miller sees is what he calls the "iceberg" plan, where very little of a relaunched process would be visible, but where most of the action would be "below the water line" — discreet negotiations between the two parties with parallel American participation and support.

Miller says he envisions a negotiating period of perhaps six months, during which time all sides would agree not to "grandstand," or run out to microphones to make political points.




2c)Our Retreat from Prosperity
By Jack Curtis

The process that built the United States into the world's wealthiest country has reversed; it's tearing down what it once built. Americans once sang proudly of "America the Beautiful"; now they avert their faces in guilty silence while demolishing everything that once defined them. They welcome strangers to replace them. This is an ending; it cannot end well. Long downhill slides never have.

British colonists came to North America for opportunity denied by the rigidities of their home society. The British had made the most of the Industrial Revolution up to that time and they brought that with them. Some tried communal forms of organization; those quickly failed and were replaced by private property, which worked because people produced when they could own and enjoyed the result. Private property was a foundation inducing colonists to produce; a result was their buying and taking land to develop from the Indians, a process that accomplished the replacement of the Indians by the colonists.

Spanish colonization awarded the land to elite settlers and absentee owners who enslaved the Indians to work it rather than driving them off, making a very different society compared to the farmers, traders, and manufacturers who appeared in most of North America. The southern plantations were the closest parallel but for their use of imported Africans to replace Indian labor.

The American who developed out of this was optimistic, ambitious, hardworking, capable, and willing to sacrifice for future gain; what came to be called the Protestant Work Ethic was his sigil. He viewed an enormous land rich in resources, there for the taking. His government saw the lure for other governments and encouraged him to take as far and as fast as he could. The government protected manufacturers, provided farmland to homesteaders, and used huge land grants to encourage universities and railroads; the railroads in turn sold land cheaply to encourage farming, ranching, and mining as sources of business. Roads, canals, bridges, and other improvements were favored. By 1850, the United States had laid the base for its development into world leadership in manufacturing and agriculture. Immigrants from depressed countries flooded into the U.S. to share the opportunity unavailable on such a scale anywhere else, furnishing large amounts of both labor and knowledge. This was a potent mix on a new scale.

American industrialization piled factories onto an agricultural society, accelerating urbanization. As it had in Europe, it displaced people, which provided fertile ground for politicians selling socialism in various forms as a means for relieving the economic distress. In Europe, the socialists were immediate beneficiaries of the Industrial Revolution. In the United States, the Civil War displaced additional people, especially in the South, and fed political corruption. Political reformers clustered around the idea that the solution to such large-scale problems had to be the federal government. Approaching the end of the 19th century, the came to call themselves Progressives and eclipsed Americas' acknowledged socialists. They accomplished their first national political successes with passage of the Interstate Commerce Act, the Sherman Antitrust Act, and the Forest Reserve Act, which began government control of commercial carriers, of corporations, and of natural resources, all before 1900.

The first Progressive president was Republican Theodore Roosevelt; the second, Woodrow Wilson, a Democrat. Both effectively forwarded Federal government control of the U.S. economy. Herbert Hoover, contrary to popular impression, was a Progressive and an activist in expanding government's role; Franklin Roosevelt ran against his spending but many of his Depression policies were rooted in Hoover's, resting in both cases in expansion of government in the economy. Though the legend of Hoover's laissez-faire approach toward the Great Depression still lingers, the truth is much more interesting. Neither president's policies succeeded in relieving the Depression; recovery was built on the growth following World War II.

Let's analyze: Resources, labor, and investment came together in America and government stayed out of the way but for encouragement. That was capitalism, more free and unrestricted than it had been anywhere else, a result of an open land lacking the social and legal restrictions of Europe, magnified by the disparate backgrounds and interests of the new Americans that loosened social boundaries. Such unrestricted capitalism is rare in history and the sheer scale was unique; that was the basis for America's unequaled wealth-production.

The lack of cultural uniformity and cohesion that freed economic forces to operate efficiently accelerated the relentless changes that also provided numbers of displaced people, the losers in the capitalist reward system. Many were only temporary losers but some were stranded. That portion of the "creative destruction" of a free market provided elected politicians with target voters. The Civil War, fought to decide whether industrial or agrarian interests would control policy, added extensively to these displaced voters, strengthening the Progressive movement and opening to it the halls of power. The very factors that provided capitalism its effectiveness also provided the wide range of outcomes, the winners and losers that rewarded politicians for attacking it. They had only to offer government as the equalizer, promising to offset life's unfairness by taking from the rich to give to the poor, and that they found easy to do.

By producing still more losers, the Great Depression vastly accelerated Progressive policies and government growth. World War II added to it. So did such later programs as President Lyndon Johnson's "Great Society." Today, it will require some thought to find an aspect of the economy without government presence. Such omnipresence does not arrive free; it consumes or restricts an increasing share of resources, denying their free-market use. A point where government overwhelms the economy's freedom arrives and it slips quietly into statism.

If free-market capitalism carries the seeds of its own destruction, so does the suffocating, stultifying statism that results from it. Call it socialism, liberalism, Progressivism, Communism, or anything else you like; it ends of its own incompetence. The politicians chasing power have to escalate their promises over time to hold off rivals. The world's resources are finite and at some point, political promises outrun the available resources and the edifice collapses. That's what brought down the Communists and it's what we see happening in Europe and in the U.S. now, with governments quite deliberately pushing things. With green excuses, governments are depressing the living standards of the developed world, primarily by driving up the price of energy and secondarily via regulation, continually limiting industrial production and individual choices. Change comes fast now; technology has changed nothing but it has accelerated response times.

It would be nice to know what will follow the present statist cycle after its financial collapse, but that isn't given us to know. We can predict statism following free-market capitalism and we can predict statism's ultimate collapse, though not neatly wrapped with a date. But it's not far off, by appearances. Statism self-destructs by impoverishing itself; all you have to do is look around.

So free-market capitalism is the natural source of Progressivism and Progressivism is the destruction of free-market capitalism. Free-market capitalism creates wealth; Progressivism destroys wealth, except for the political elite who acquire it via appropriation from others.

Capitalism is the political Ouroboros -- the snake with his tail in his mouth, arising from chaos and descending again into it as he swallows himself. But it's great while it lasts...at least, for the winners. By creating the world's first large-scale majority middle class, it created more winners than any predecessor.

Maybe Americans will revert to their roots, rise up, and restore that which provided their glorious past; no better time to consider that could be imagined.


2d)Social Justice: Obama and the Left's Not-So-Hidden Agenda
By Lloyd Marcus

I consulted my thesaurus because I thought I have been over-working the word "despicable" in my articles. However, my research confirmed the word best describes what passes for the modern civil rights movement and Obama administration.

I watched a video in which Al Sharpton concluded that MLK fought for social justice. He mischaracterized Dr King's dream, saying it was to make everything equal in everybody's house. Sharpton said MLK did not fight simply to put one black family in the White House.

MLK was a Republican. And yet Al Sharpton addressed a congregation of ill-informed blacks, lying to them about MLK's mission. Sharpton thrives on keeping racial tension, suspicion, and hate alive.

To maintain relevance and his cherished seat of power at the Democratic Party round table, Sharpton must continue to deliver a mind-numb, monolithic black vote -- proving himself to be an asset to the furtherance of their social justice agenda. Thus Sharpton's hatred of successful conservative blacks such as I. We threaten his gig.

Ironically, Sharpton is guilty of betraying his race, the very crime of which he accuses black conservatives. Imagine the cruelty of not only allowing a person to believe, but reinforcing the lie that the individual is a pauper, all the while seeing a thousand-dollar bill in the hopeless person's back pocket unknown to him or her.

This is what Sharpton does to black America when he preaches that they are not equal, while in realty, they are extraordinarily blessed to live in the greatest land of opportunity on the planet for all who choose to go for it. Despicable!

Then, there is former Obama administration Green Jobs Adviser Van Jones. Jones is another strong advocate for social justice. Incredibly, this man truly believes fairness is government making everyone's life equal. Jones was forced to resign when Glenn Beck and others raised heck. However, Obama would not have appointed the anti-traditional America radical socialist in the first place unless he agreed with Jones. My fellow Americans, we're in deep trouble.

Patriots, the concept of social justice (government making everyone's life equal) is insane, absurd, and evil. It completely nullifies the human spirit, ambition, freedom to be all one can be, and American exceptionalism -- all the things which have made America great.

In typical mindless "make himself feel good" fashion, a lib once told me, "Everyone deserves to live in a mansion." While sounding compassionate, his statement is idiotic.

When I was 9 years old, my family moved into a brand-new government-funded housing project -- an eleven-story building. As per my recollection, most residents trashed the building. Only a handful displayed gratitude, pride of ownership, and respect for their homes. Poverty-minded "gimme" parasites would turn a mansion into a ghetto.

As I said, the concept of social justice, government attempting to manufacture equal overcomes, is totally un-American and just plain nuts. And yet, this is obviously Obama's agenda.

Please take a moment to comprehend the extreme consequence of Obama's promise to "fundamentally transform America." Think of the unmitigated gall and arrogance in his statement.

Who the heck is Obama to change the vision of our Founding Fathers and shred our Constitution which has made us the most powerful, successful, and altruistic nation on the planet in only 235 years? How dare Obama conclude that America needs a fundamental transformation? Patriots, where is the outrage?

No one has asked, "Mr. President, you vowed to fundamentally transform America. But, into what?"

Lloyd Marcus, Proud Unhyphenated American and Vice Chair, www.CampaignToDefeatObama.com.



2e) The Demagogic Style
President Obama is the new, cool version of the fifth-century Athenian Cleon.
By Victor Davis Hanson

The noun dêmagôgos first appeared in Thucydides’ history, mostly in a neutral, only slight disparaging way (usually in reference to the obstreperous Cleon), in its literal sense of “leader of the people.”

But very soon — in later fifth- and fourth-century authors (e.g., Aristophanes, Xenophon, Aristotle, the Attic orators) — both the concrete and the abstract nouns (demagogue and demagogy/demagoguery) and the verb (to demagogue) became ever more pejorative, describing crass popular leaders who alternately flattered and incited the masses (ochlos). Their trick was to obtain and expand their own personal power by clever rhetoric directed against the better off, coupled with promises of more entitlements for the “poor” paid for by a demonized “them.”

We often associate demagoguery in the U.S. with wild right-wing nationalists or cultural chauvinists, such as Joe McCarthy or Father Coughlin, or with folksy Southern “spread-the-wealth” populists, such as William Jennings Bryan (“The Great Commoner”) or Huey Long. And, of course, abroad there were no better demagogues than Mussolini and Hitler, who both started out as national socialists and then united the classes by transferring class hatred onto foreign bogeymen, in a fashion we later see most effectively in Juan and Eva Perón.

Demagoguery, at its best, requires good oratory and charisma — which is why Jimmy Carter was such a dismal failure at it, despite his half-hearted demonization of three-martini lunches and private yachts at a time of a record misery index that saw high unemployment, out-of-control inflation, and usurious interest rates, coupled with a neutralist foreign policy that had led to Russians in Afghanistan, Communist takeovers in Central America, and American hostages in Teheran. Carter’s mock-serious delivery was so droll, his presence so wooden, that his fist-pounding against “them” turned into caricature.

Under a more skilled practitioner such as Barack Obama, the arts of demagoguery have become somewhat more refined in our time, but they nevertheless follow the same old patterns:

1) The use of an incendiary, but otherwise unimportant, example to whip up anger against the so-called establishment classes

Why mention “alligators and moats,” or claim that doctors wantonly lop off limbs and rip out tonsils, or accuse jet-setting corporate grandees of draining the federal Treasury at the expense of “kids’ scholarships”? The president knows full well that the American-Mexican border is only one-third fenced and the influx of illegal aliens is still considerable. He must appreciate that the vast majority of doctors, in this age of promiscuous malpractice suits, do not insist on dangerous and unnecessary surgeries to gouge the patient. And corporate depreciation schedules for personal aircraft reflect a minuscule cost to the Treasury, one analogous perhaps to the tab for personal jet aircraft for those in federal and state government. If the president cannot adduce cogent arguments to oppose increased oil exploration, then he turns to ridiculous anecdotes about the importance of inflating tires, tuning up cars, and trading in 8-mpg clunkers.

2) The demagogic rejection of demagoguery

Recently the president called for a civil, respectful tone among the parties negotiating the looming debt crisis — a sort of prep for tarring his Republican opponents as holding a “gun” to the “head” of his supporters. In fact, for most of Barack Obama’s career we have seen violent similes packaged with Sermon on the Mount forbearance: Divisive language like “bring a gun to a knife fight,” “get in their face,” and “make them sit in the back seat” is always juxtaposed with lofty appeals for no more red-state/blue-state rancor — in a style right out of the best of the fourth-century Athenian demagogues.

In classical times this technique was known as praeteritio and paralipsis — deploring the very sort of tropes that you are about to embrace. Obama adds a concrete manifestation to his rhetoric: damning “fat cat” bankers and then playing golf more than any other modern president as he courts Wall Street, or deriding private jets but using his own presidential jets to junket the first family to Costa del Sol, Vail, and Martha’s Vineyard.

3) The evocation of anonymous straw men, sometimes referred to as “some” or “they”

In the Manichean world of Barack Obama there are all sorts of such demons, mostly unnamed, who insist on extremist politics — while the president soberly and judiciously splits the difference between these fantasy poles. So for the last three years we have heard, but been offered few details, about the perils of both neo-con interventionists and reactionary isolationists, of both profligate big spenders and throw-grandma-over-the-cliff misers, of both socialist single-payer advocates and heartless laissez-faire insurers who shut emergency-room doors to the indigent in extremis — always with the wise Barack Obama plopping down in the middle, trying, for the sake of all the people, to hold onto the golden mean between these artificially constructed zealots.

4) First-person nausea

The demagogue, in messianic fashion, sees himself as a lone crusader taking on special interests, again always on behalf of “the people.” Almost everything is personalized in these cosmic struggles. So, ad nauseam, we hear of the narcissistic “I,” “my,” “mine,” etc., as if the executive branch is but one man of genius and compassion, set against existential challenges and demonic enemies everywhere.

5) Inconsistency of position, predicated on the (always changing) perception of 51 percent majority opinion

At various times, Barack Obama has lashed out at those who wished to refuse to raise the debt limit, although as a senator that is just how he voted. He deplored the polluting effects of big money in campaigns, only to raise more Wall Street cash than anyone else in presidential history — as he became the first candidate to reject the public financing of general-election presidential campaigns and the limitations on fundraising that such four-decade-old laws entailed. He once decried the very idea of not applying the War Powers Act that as president he has completely ignored. He insisted that drilling and increased supply had little effect on oil-price stability — but maintained that releasing a small amount of oil from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve most surely would. The once-demonized Bush protocols — Guantanamo, tribunals, renditions, intercepts, wiretaps, Predators, Iraq, preventive detention — have been embraced or indeed expanded.

There is never a systematic agenda, a defined foreign policy. Instead, amid a fuzzy ideology of hope and change and spread the wealth, almost any position can be embraced one day and summarily rejected the next — no new taxes in December 2010, lots of them in June 2011; shovel-ready stimulus is once essential, but soon proves not so shovel-ready after all; new federal health care is mandatory, but so are 1,400 exemptions from it — depending on perceptions of what might win over a majority.

What impresses about Barack Obama is his ability to take an ancient art, refine it with an Ivy League veneer, and become a new, cool version of the old Cleon.

— NRO contributor Victor Davis Hanson is a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution, the editor of Makers of Ancient Strategy: From the Persian Wars to the Fall of Rome, and the author of The Father of Us All: War and History, Ancient and Modern.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------