The Ballot vs. the Bullet - Will an Obama Presidency be enough for the Far Left?

There's a great pressure mounting on the Left right now regarding Obama's commitment to strip retroactive immunity from the House FISA bill. The problem is, he's stopped short of promising to filibuster the bill.

According to the Washington Post's The Trail:

Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) today announced his support for a sweeping intelligence surveillance law that has been heavily denounced by the liberal activists who have fueled the financial engines of his presidential campaign.

In his most substantive break with the Democratic Party's base since becoming the presumptive nominee, Obama declared he will support the bill when it comes to a Senate vote, likely next week, despite misgivings about legal provisions for telecommunications corporations that cooperated with the Bush administration's warrantless surveillance program of suspected terrorists.

Obama missed the February vote on that FISA bill as he campaigned in the "Potomac Primaries," but issued a statement that day declaring "I am proud to stand with Senator Dodd, Senator Feingold and a grassroots movement of Americans who are refusing to let President Bush put protections for special interests ahead of our security and our liberty."

Some on the Left are opining that this will affect Obama's contribution levels (which we may already be seeing, as in Patrick's post on McCain nearly outraising Obama in May. Others are much more agitated, such as LivinginReality on the Daily Kos:

More and more, I do not believe that "change" can really happen through the ballot box in this country.

There are other ways that change can happen. But I've pretty much lost all faith in our electoral system ALONE to bring it about.

Rather, our electoral system is designed to take the desire for change, absorb it like a lighting rod, and then channel it into nothingness as it dissapates into the ground. Without some sort of mass movement that exists outside of the electoral system--like militant labor unions, organized civil rights boycotts, or massive anti-war protests that shut things down--the electoral system will, at the most, promise change . . . while changing little or nothing in so far as furthering the interests of the "little people" it is supposed to represent..

In the 1960's, this type of dialogue was discussed openly on camera in the latest technological medium of that time: television. Most famous for his "Ballot vs. the Bullet" speech was Malcolm X, who was no stranger to exploiting the media to communicate his message. In his wake came the 60's radicals preaching revolution on a sliding scale from relatively non-violent "community organizing" to all-out terrorist nihilism (with examples like Saul Alinsky on the forward end and Bill Ayers and Bernardine Dohrn on the rear end of that spectrum).

Eric Hoffer, in his book The True Believer, sees Marxism as one of the chief examples of a mass movement which offers The True Believer a glorious, yet imaginary, future to compensate for the frustrations of his present. Such movements need people to be willing to sacrifice all for that future, including themselves and others. To achieve this aim, such movements need to devalue the past and present. This is not only a criticism of communist tenets specifically; Hoffer's other chief examples are Fascists, Nationalists, and the founding stages of religions.

Marxism has been described as a closed system. Closed systems, like certain re-emerging fundamentalist religions, have several common threads: they claim to represent a universal truth which explains everything and can cure every ill; they can automatically process and reinterpret all potentially damaging data by methods of case-based reasoning. While a principle-based approach might claim that lying is always morally wrong, the case-based approach would argue that, depending upon the details of the case, lying might or might not be illegal or unethical. Closed systems are emotionally appealing and beyond common logic; and can invalidate criticisms by deducing what the subjective motivation of the critic must be, and by presenting this motivation as a counterargument. An example of this last feature might be the disregarding of such concepts as the free market or self determination as instances of false consciousness engendered by bourgeois [or infidel] ideology.

In the Wall Street Journal's Potomac Watch, Kimberley Strassel laments the death of the [culturally conservative, free market economist] New Democrats. Efforts are visibly afoot in Open Left and other "Progressive" websites to eliminate the Bush Dogs in 2008. There can be very little doubt that those left holding the reigns in the Democratic Party will constitute Hoffer's True Believers. And if the ballot does not fulfill their perfect vision of a glorious future, what will they be capable of? If the chilling possibilities do not galvanize the Republican Party to reform and reinvent itself, who will meet their challenge? Young Conservatives, it's time to read your history. Older Conservatives, put aside any differences and align together against a very real potential threat from within the two most dangerous True Believers allied together within and outside the country: Fundamentalist Marxism and Fundamentalist Islam. I truly think that if we underestimate any aspect of this partnership for any reason, it will be a very grave error.

Online Survey Beta Test

Get This - Survey Results - GlowDay.com

What's New From the Peoples Politburo? The "Hate Talk Express"

All Your Base Are Belong To Us

In its indefatigable drive toward community/stakeholder involvement resulting in crackdown on social corruption and hate speech by the Capitalist masses, fueled by a desire to bring the best of Canada's CHRC policies home to the U.S., the representatives of The People have created glorious new People's Website for Truth entitled Hate Talk Express. This will assist greatly all those who resent their privileged bourgeois station in life and deplore capitalism, which actually causes people to work for a living, and assist the oppressed classes by electing a Hopemonger as Premier President. Since U.S. public lacks training to fully understand the moral, social and mental hygiene implications of speaking their racist, hateful minds, they may visit Hate Talk Express where their knowledge deficit can be successfully reprogrammed.

For example:

FOX News host Brit Hume ...summarizes how Obama's new website Fight The Smears states that he has never been a Muslim and has always been a Christian. However, Brit says, Obama's half brother Malik Obama is "not so sure" that this is the case. His half brother apparently stated that: "if elected his brother will be a good president for the Jewish people, despite his Muslim background."

Ignorant public may think this is "news" but Hate Talk Express will allow them to understand the Truth, which is that this is nothing but lies and distortion.

When Cal Thomas says this in a conversation about Michelle Obama on Fox News Watch:

Look at the image of African American women who are on television: politically, you have Maxine Waters of California, a liberal democrat, she's always angry every time she gets on television. Cynthica McKinney, the former congresswoman from Georgia was another "angry black woman." And who are the black women you see on the local news at night in cities all over the country? They're usually angry about something.

Unaware public may think he is merely commenting on observable facts which are broadcast on the news. No! Hate Talk Express will help them to see that in reality, these are Racist Comments on the subject of "angry black women". Cynthia McKinney did not strike a security guard with her cell phone, that lie was a distortion of the generous gesture she made to assist the guard with making a personal call during working hours. Uneducated public should not believe the vile smears of the Republican Attack Machine also known as Fox News!

Uninformed public should never listen to Moammar Quadaffi, who introduced the topic of Barack Obama by stating:

There are elections in America now. Along came a black citizen of Kenyan African origins, a Muslim, who had studied in an Islamic school in Indonesia. His name is Obama.

Barack Obama is not a Muslim! He doesn't even allow Muslims at his campaign events, and he thinks calling someone Muslim is a "smear." Why is Quadaffi repeating this lie? Here's [James Taranto's] theory: A few years ago, President Bush announced that the U.S. and Libya had reached an agreement. He presented this agreement as being primarily about weapons of mass destruction, but what if the real purpose was to make Quadhaffi into a cog in the Republican Attack Machine?

Somebody Set Up Us The Bomb

In addition to keeping a watchful eye on such hate speakers and smear mongers as the evil Brit Hume, Cal Thomas and (qu'elle surprise!) Free Republic, Next Right's Patrick Ruffini has now caught the weather eye, as opposed to the weather underground, of this relentless Freedom Fighter website:

Noted conservative blogger Patrick Ruffini calls Barack Obama a "douche" in his latest post at new right-wing blog site The Next Right. He ends the piece, where he attacks Obama's graphic design team in a silly non sequitur, with the slam for the Obama campaign translating "Yes we can" into Latin.

Clicking on personal file of Patrick Ruffini, above, will indicate no content has been assimilated yet but Hate Talk Expres encourages all responsible public hate-watchers to contribute to his dossier. Anyone wishing to create dossier on neighbors, family members, co-workers and ex-boyfriends is welcome to do so at HateTalkExpress.stasi.org.

Vera Possumas Salutes Great Seal of Obamaland

Yours in Truth and Freedom, Comrade Bunny-Bun

People's Cube - A Cure for Irony?

Schwarzenegger to Bush and McCain: GET OUT

In February of this year, the L.A. Times wrote this about the budget crisis in California:

California's budget shortfall has swollen to $16 billion from $14.5 billion, according to the state's chief budget analyst, who says the governor's proposal for closing the deficit is so flawed that her office took the rare step of drafting an alternative state spending plan for legislators to consider.

The plan offered by Legislative Analyst Elizabeth G. Hill, whom lawmakers of both parties look to for advice on fiscal matters, calls on lawmakers to raise taxes by at least $2.7 billion. It urges them to reject Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's plans for a 10% across-the-board reduction in state spending, suggesting that such an approach is short-sighted.

Today's San Diego Union Tribune had this to say about Schwarzenegger's response to the Republican call for offshore oil drilling - an activity which could provide much-needed income to the state of California:

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger may like John McCain as a presidential candidate, but not enough to drop his opposition to offshore oil drilling off the California coast.

The governor told reporters Wednesday that the state would maintain its long-held stance against offshore drilling, despite the positions taken this week by both the Arizona senator and President Bush. He also suggested that scrambling for new sources of crude oil in response to the recent drastic upturn in fuel prices represented a step backward at a time when America needs to move forward in its quest for energy independence.

A federal moratorium on new oil drilling off most U.S. coastal waters has been in effect since 1981. McCain on Tuesday proposed lifting that ban as part of his energy policy if elected president.

Bush followed suit Wednesday in Washington, releasing a statement urging Congress to lift the ban to allow the United States to boost its domestic oil production.

Schwarzenegger's response: Get out. He said he was willing to hear new ideas to ease the energy crunch, but lifting the offshore drilling ban wasn't among them.

“We're serious about that, and we're not going to change that,” he said.

Schwarzenegger made his remarks moments after delivering a keynote speech at the BIO International Convention at the San Diego Convention Center in which he touted California's place as a world leader in the biotech industry.

The governor used the biotech gathering of scientific minds and venture capitalists to insist that America needed to look for new answers to the long-standing problem of providing affordable energy, including finding “the will to push Detroit and say, 'You make better cars (that can meet) better standards.'

“It's not about going back; it's about going forward. I'm looking for the new deal,” he said.

He also chastised the federal government for failing to move on long-term solutions to the energy problem.

“Washington did not make a plan 10 years ago to make us energy-independent,” he said. “Now, we need to make a plan.

“Anyone who's looking for a solution this year won't find one.”

H/T to Ozzie Nick O'Sullivan for the image.

Barack Obama aide: Why Winnie the Pooh should shape US foreign policy

According to Telegraph UK:

Winnie the Pooh, Luke Skywalker and British football hooligans could shape the foreign policy of Barack Obama if he becomes US President, according to a key adviser.

That "key adviser" would be Richard Danzig, who served as Navy Secretary under President Clinton and is tipped to become National Security Adviser in an Obama White House.

Mr Danzig told the Centre for New American Security: “Winnie the Pooh seems to me to be a fundamental text on national security.”

He spelt out how American troops, spies and anti-terrorist officials could learn key lessons by understanding the desire of terrorists to emulate superheroes like Luke Skywalker, and the lust for violence of violent football fans.

Many thanks to Are We Lumberjacks? for the R&D (Rob & Duplicate) opportunity he has afforded one and all to obtain the latest NSA and SecDef Seals

Cross-posted at The Next Right.

“This is the 24/7 Always-On Campaign!” – Ruffini on C-SPAN, 6/15/08 (partial transcript)

Patrick Ruffini gave a stellar performance on C-SPAN's Washington Journal Sunday morning at 7:30 EST, which is 4:30 PST, which is really, really early. For those of you either didn't hear about the show in time to get up at that ungodly hour and watch or TiVo it, so I will present, for your viewing pleasure, some highlights of the interview with Patrick Ruffini of The Next Right, vs. Matt Stoller of The Open Left.

First of all, what kinds of dogs are they?

In the dog-eat-dog world of politics, being associated with a particular canine breed will make or break a political career. Take, for example, Gene Simmons' explanation of why he voted for Bush-as-Rottweiler vs. Kerry-as-Poodle in his 2006 Interview with Neil Cavuto. I rest my case.

Stoller: In a word, Sulky. Reminiscent of an Australian Cattle Dog. This dog needs loads and loads of exercise and activities. It's a working breed, it's best suited in that environment. Strong willed, it can be aggressivly protective and territorial so it will require a good amount of discipline and training if you want it to fit into an urban environment. Can be hostile toward other dogs.

Ruffini: In a word, Affable. Reminiscent of a loyal, flat-coated Retriever. These are great family dogs because they are intelligent, even-tempered, active, playful and friendly. This dog loves everyone. Highly trainable, but gets bored easily. Needs a lot of attention and affection from its family and vigorous daily exercise. Gets on well with other dogs.

Best Sound Bite:

Patrick wins hands down with “This is the 24/7 Always-On Campaign!” . IMHO, Goldfarb should flash that all over the McBun Report as McCain's new motto.

Transcript Highlights:

Host: [a nice, nondescript man as opposed to "swingin' love babe" Greta Wodell] "We saw, Matt Stoller, the unveiling of Fight the Smears.com, this is a site put forward by the Obama campaign (shows site), and they very directly put on the table some of the stories, for example, that Michelle Obama used the word Whitey, that Barack Obama is Muslim, and that Barack Obama isn’t American – they even post his birth certificate indicating that he was born in Honolulu, Hawaii."

Stoller: "Right, I mean…the whole point of putting these rumors out there which has been consistently done by the Republicans, and by the Right Wing for years is to get people like us to repeat them on television so people believe what…believe that these things are true, it’s a standard way to get rumors out there. Um…and I think one of the things that Obama’s done effectively is to both rebut those smearts, take them on directly, and also to reframe the narrative and show that the people who are putting these smears out there have real policy ideas that they are masking with these smears. They want to keep, for instance, the War in Iraq going, they want to keep civil rights from being extended to all, they want to obscure the fact that we have record income inequality in this country. And it’s easy to say, well, “Barack Obama is a Muslim,” as if being a Muslim is a bad thing, than to actually discuss the real substantive issues and it’s actually quite exploitative of the public debate and it’s something that I think he’s taken on pretty effectively so far and it’s something that we’re going to have to keep taking on to keep a healthy public discourse going."

Illinois caller: “What are we going to do to get the candidates to have some honest conversation with America about illegal immigration, out of control borders, unregulated visa system where people just come into the country and stay, and nobody makes them leave, what are we going to do?” (He said he was for legal, regulated immigration of skilled immigrants, but) “we don’t need illiterate, uneducated people just flooding into the country and straining our social safety net and holding down, driving down wages.”

Stoller: "Well - if you look at what happened with NAFTA, I mean you can’t talk about immigration without talking about trade. NAFTA threw twenty million Mexicans into poverty. And if you are in desperate poverty in Mexico and you have the choice of staying in your circumstances and potentially dying of some disease because of bad sanitation or going to America trying to find some form of work, you’re going to come to America. Just anybody would make that choice. So…and that’s due to our trade policies. So one of the reasons you have so many…um…people coming over to this country is because of trade and actually the same people that are exploiting undocumented workers are some of the same business leaders that are pushing some of these corporate trade agreements. So what we really need to do is re-examine immigration, our immigration policies, in the context of our trade policies which are very, very heavily slanted towards…uh…toward wealthy corporate interests."

Lady from New Hampshire: “Good morning gentlemen, I’m actually a real blog fan, I look at three every day.”
Host: “Which three do you look at?”
Lady from New Hampshire: “Powerline, Hugh Hewitt, and Real Clear Politics”.
Host: “How much time do you spend on the computer?”
Lady from New Hampshire: “Oh – a lot! I’m a teacher, I look at it a lot, um, and in terms of the time I have to do political blogs, I don’t know, maybe 10 minutes a day, um, because I’m doing a lot of other things, but…”
Host: “Why do you do it?”
Lady from New Hampshire: “Well, I find I can get information before, and it’s sort of bubbling up the surface, it’s sort of under the radar screen of the mainstream media, um, and I can sort of digest it a little bit and it’s always fun to watch, um, the mainstream media’s take on it after the fact, I always get a kick out of that [Stoller blanching visibly]. But one of the points I’m calling about is Obama’s new anti-smear website, and your Progressive blogger there was talking about the Republicans are bad and you have to respond to them [Stoller smirking visibly here, LOL, Patrick looking cucumber-cool]. Republican blogs are not the source of a lot of these, um, smears against Obama, it was the Hillary Clinton campaign. From what I’ve seen on the blogosphere, it’s uh, that stuff was coming directly from people on your side of the fence [Stoller looking dyspeptic now]. So before you cast aspersions on all Republican bloggers, um, you should get your facts straight.”

Ruffini: “I agree with that, if you look at the people who were fired during the Primary campaign, if you look at the people who were actively involved in spreading a lot of these scurrilous emails, it came from the other campaign in the Democratic Primary. I’m not aware of any Republican official who was trafficking in the Obama-is-a-Muslim rumors, I mean I think that…John McCain has been extremely vociferous, to a fault many would say, in disassociating himself with anybody who goes even near that.”

Host: (to Stoller) “Did you want to respond?”

Stoller: “Well I mean (laughs)…look…(laughs again)…except for you know…Pastor Hagee, and you know…uh…a large number of…uh…conservative…uh…media partisans who consistently say things like, you know, Ann Coulter – John Edwards is a fag, uh…um…or Rush Limbaugh, who, who talks – you know - he’s consistently racist – and…eh…you know….these kinds of…of…tropes are…pretty standard on the Right Wing, and have been for years. I mean you talk…talk about the origins of the Internet, in the 90’s the Right was quite dominant with Drudge, NewsMax, these sites that talked about Clinton being a cocaine dealer and…um…uh…having…uh…Rush Limbaugh talking about a trail of bodies to the White House that…the…Clinton murders. I mean this isn’t…this is something that conservatives have traded in for…for…probably decades. And it’s not something that’s new, and yeah the Hillary Clinton campaign trafficked in it but it’s coming from the Right, it’s consistently come from the Right, the themes of being a traitor, being uh…uh…effeminate, any of …these…sort of notions, these are conservative rumors put out to mask the fact that conservatives are basically criminals that steal from this country."

Patrick, to his credit as the consummate professional that he is, refrains from leaping across the coffee table, grabbing Stoller by the throat and shaking him like a rag doll, although he is holding both hands in his lap as if to quench the urge. Heh.

So those are some of the highlights, and you can enjoy the whole show, which is chock full o' fun, here on C-SPAN's Washington Journal Archive.

South Park Republicans, Unite!

Benjamin Franklin: I believe that if we are to form a new country, we cannot be a country that appears war-hungry and violent to the rest of the world. However, we also cannot be a country that appears weak and unwilling to fight, to the rest of the world. So, what if we form a country that appears to want both.

Thomas Jefferson: Yes, yes of course, we go to war and protest going to war at the same time....

Benjamin Franklin: And that means that as a nation, we could go to war with whomever we wished, but at the same time act like we didn't want to. If we allow the people to protest what the government does, then the country will be forever blameless.

John Adams: It's like having your cake and eating it too.

Anonymous Hick Redneck Founding Father: Think of it: an entire nation founded on saying one thing and doing another.

John Hancock: And we will call that country the United States of America.

Source: South Park

H/T to Answers.com for the graphic!

Canada's Orwellian Fascism - can and will McCain preserve Free Speech in the U.S.?

I've been following Mark Steyn for years, and his book "America Alone" is an insightful, humorous, well-defined analysis of the island of liberty and freedom of expression that we have become. When I first read the title of the post Fascism Has Come to Canada, I thought perhaps Leviticus 20 was referring to Steyn's thought crime trial this week in Vancouver, B.C. which Steyn, Hugh Hewitt and Rich Lowry have covered in their respective venues.

This video on "Canada's Corrupt Human Rights Commission" was censored from YouTube, but it's currently being independently hosted by a Tory blogger. In it, Ezra Levant, author, journalist, lawyer and conservative political activist, accuses Richard Warman, biggest fan of the Canadian Human Rights Commission which named the Old Testament verse condeming homosexuaity as a hate crime and is allegedly seeking to block foreign (i.e. American) Internet sites for hate speech, as one of the bloggers (using the S/N pogue_mahone) posting that self-same hate speech on the very sites he wishes to block or shut down - akin to an FBI agent planting cocaine on the person he wishes to incarcerate. I don't know where this will lead, but Ezra Levant is at least trying to boldly block the doorway.

If I understand my Libertarian colleagues' concerns about McCain's suppression of free speech with McCain-Feingold, coupled with his insistence on being "respectful" at all times including during the contact sport of political campaigning, combined with the "great man" syndrome which compels him to do "great things", perhaps they would like McCain to emphatically assure us that the U.S. is not going to going to go all weaselly in the way of Canada. Eh?

Today's Must-See TV and Column

Must-see #1 is Thomas Sowell's column about Obama, McCain and Iran on Real Clear Politics.

And for some relief from that prospect, Must-see #2 is this video from, of all places, former mainstream media outlet ABC News on Obama's Bottom 10 Choices for Vice President. You have to see this one to believe that conservatives finally have a real network news ally.

If ABC News and Mitch McConnell continue to display the kind of raw courage we've seen so far this week, I may not have to get drunk on November 5th after all.