Our #1 story discusses how the OWS is becoming a parody of itself. #2 talks of how the facts are conservative and how leftist solutions so often fail. #3 compares the apparent double standard between the way local government is treating the OWS vs the way they treated the TEA Party. Peggy Noonan graces us with article #4 looking at the glue that holds the country together. It is failing us now? #5 brings us good news. Is America heading into a new boom? It appears that just might be the case. #6 looks at the relationship of the enormous cost of college and student loans. #7 gives you a dictionary of liberal terms and what they actually mean. #8 gives us the latest figures on the popularity of Obamacare. It isn’t very good if you are a liberal.
1. Occupy Wall Street starts to Parody itself
OCCUPY WALL STREET IS DESCENDING RAPIDLY INTO A CARICATURE OF THE ORWELLIAN FARCE ON WHICH IT WAS PREDICATED: ANIMAL FARM.
"Never mind the milk, comrades!" cried Napoleon, placing himself in front of the buckets. "That will be attended to. The harvest is more important. Comrade Snowball will lead the way. I shall follow in a few minutes. Forward, comrades! The hay is waiting."
So the animals trooped down to the hayfield to begin the harvest, and when they came back in the evening it was noticed that the milk had disappeared. - Animal Farm, Chapter II
Volunteers who are preparing redistributed food for the OWSers are going on a mini-strike because the one percent in New York City who is unlucky enough not to have a roof over their head has been muscling in on the redistributive bounty of OWS.
“THE OCCUPY WALL STREET VOLUNTEER KITCHEN STAFF LAUNCHED A ‘COUNTER’ REVOLUTION YESTERDAY,” reports the New York Post, “because they’re angry about working 18-hour days to provide food for ‘professional homeless’ people and ex-cons masquerading as protesters.”
What a bunch of Kulaks, those homeless! You know? AS OPPOSED TO THE “TRUE” HOMELESS OF THE OCCUPY WALL STREET CROWD WHO HAVE TO LIVE IN THEIR PARENTS’ BASEMENTS UNTIL THEY GET A JOB.
I guess it takes one professional con man to know another. But I thought Occupy Wall Street was about helping the dispossessed, the homeless or people about to become homeless? Once you go “pro” as homeless, apparently, you don’t qualify for all the perks and benefits that the amateur homeless get. Or maybe the professional homeless don’t belong to the right union….
Ah, the joys of leftist causes. The Animal Farm analogy is perfect for what is going on.
2. The Facts of Life Even for OWS are Conservative
Peeking through Occupy Wall Street's cloudy drum sessions, group speeches, and celebrity visits are a few rays of reality's sunlight. THESE GLIMMERS OF THE REAL WORLD SHOW THAT EVEN THE CAMPERS OF ZUCCOTTI PARK AREN'T IMMUNE TO MARGARET THATCHER'S FAMOUS DECLARATION THAT "THE FACTS OF LIFE ARE CONSERVATIVE."
Conservatism is the natural political outgrowth from the real life experience. HUMANS ARE NATURALLY FLAWED, GREEDY, AND UNTRUSTWORTHY. Conservatives recognize that fact and promote the market system and divided government in order to pit one greedy person against another.
Conversely, the left continually denies and fights against human nature (inevitably losing to it). FOR LEFTISTS, IT'S ALWAYS A MATTER OF FINDING THE RIGHT HUMAN TO RULE -- the disinterested regulator, the consumer-protecting bureaucrat, the messianic president, etc. THAT IS THE NATURE OF THE OWS PROTESTS: TO REPLACE ONE GROUP OF SELF-INTERESTED PEOPLE ON WALL STREET WITH ANOTHER GROUP OF MAGICALLY NOT SELF-INTERESTED PEOPLE IN GOVERNMENT. BUT BECAUSE GOVERNMENT ISN'T MAGIC, UTOPIAS NEVER QUITE WORK OUT IN REAL LIFE -- not even in Zuccotti Park. In one news story after another, Thatcher's "facts of life" are on display. Let's look at four examples….
http://www.americanthinker.com/2011/10/the_facts_of_life_are_conservative_even_in_zuccotti_park.html
Life is tough for liberals if they get power. It never works out as they planned.
3. Double Standards? OWS vs TEA Party
TEA PARTY GROUPS ACROSS THE NATION ARE ACCUSING LOCAL AND STATE GOVERNMENTS OF A DOUBLE STANDARD – CHARGING THEM FEES TO HOLD RALLIES IN PUBLIC PARKS, WHILE ALLOWING OCCUPY PROTESTERS TO SET UP CAMP FOR FREE.
“I find it extremely frustrating and upsetting,” said Colleen Owens, a spokesperson for the Richmond Tea Party. “It is definitely a slap in the face.”
Owens is demanding a refund of about $10,000 from the city of Richmond, claiming her group was charged for rallies at Kanawha Plaza but the Occupy protesters have not been charged….
…. “If they are not going to apply the law equally, then they should refund our money,” she said. “They’ve been camped out there for almost two weeks and they have not paid one dime. They are not being held accountable to follow the law, yet we were expected to follow the law.”
SIMILAR ACCUSATIONS HAVE BEEN MADE BY OTHER TEA PARTY ORGANIZATIONS ACROSS THE NATION – INCLUDING ATLANTA, WINSTON-SALEM, NC, AND NASHVILLE.
Judson Phillips, of the Tea Party Nation, told Fox News that he’s been getting e-mail from conservatives across the country wondering why they were charged by the government to hold rallies….
http://radio.foxnews.com/toddstarnes/daily-dispatch/cities-treating-ows-better-than-tea-party.html
It’s more than a double standard. The TEA Party had rallies that were hours long, clean up after themselves and didn’t require police with riot gear to keep them in control. The OWS has been camping out for weeks, created not only a mess, but attracted vermin and have been a den of crime.
4. The American Glue
….People are increasingly fearing the divisions within, even the potential coming apart of, our country. Rich/poor, black/white, young/old, red/blue: The things that divide us are not new, yet THERE'S A SENSE NOW THAT THE GLUE THAT HELD US TOGETHER FOR MORE THAN TWO CENTURIES HAS THINNED AND CRACKED WITH AGE. That it was allowed to thin and crack, that the modern era wore it out.
WHAT WAS THE GLUE? A LOVE OF COUNTRY BASED ON A SHARED KNOWLEDGE OF HOW AND WHY IT BEGAN; A BROAD FEELING AMONG OUR CITIZENS THAT THERE WAS SOMETHING PROVIDENTIAL IN OUR BEGINNINGS; a gratitude that left us with a sense that we should comport ourselves in a way unlike the other nations of the world, that more was expected of us, and not unjustly—"To whom much is given much is expected"; a general understanding that we were something new in history, a nation founded on ideals and aspirations—liberty, equality—and not mere grunting tribal wants. We were from Europe but would not be European: No formal class structure here, no limits, from the time you touched ground all roads would lead forward. You would be treated not as your father was but as you deserved. That's from "The Killer Angels," a historical novel about the civil war fought to right a wrong the Founders didn't right. We did in time, and at great cost. What a country
BUT THERE IS A BROAD FEAR OUT THERE THAT WE ARE COMING APART, OR RATHER LIVING THROUGH THE MOMENT WE'LL LOOK BACK ON AS THE BEGINNING OF THE GREAT COMING APART. Economic crisis, cultural stresses: "Half the country isn't speaking to the other half," a moderate Democrat said the other day. She was referring to liberals of her acquaintance who know little of the South and who don't wish to know of it, who write it off as apart from them, maybe beneath…
…There's a lot to rebel against, to want to throw off. If they want to make a serious economic and political critique, they should make the one Gretchen Morgenson and Joshua Rosner make in "Reckless Endangerment": THAT REAL ELITES IN WASHINGTON RIGGED THE SYSTEM FOR THEMSELVES AND THEIR FRIENDS, BECAME RICH AND POWERFUL, CAUSED THE GREAT CATERING, AND THEN "SLIPPED QUIETLY FROM THE SCENE."
It is a blow-by-blow recounting OF HOW POLITICIANS—DEMOCRATS AND REPUBLICANS—PASSED THE LAWS THAT ENCOURAGED THE BANKS TO MAKE THE LOANS THAT WOULD NEVER BE REPAID, and that would result in your lost job. Specifically IT IS THE STORY OF FANNIE MAE AND FREDDIE MAC, the mortgage insurers, and how their politically connected CEOs, especially Fannie's Franklin Raines and James Johnson, TOOK ACTIONS THAT TANKED THE AMERICAN ECONOMY AND WALKED AWAY RICH. It began in the early 1990s, in the Clinton administration, and continued under the Bush administration, with the help of an entrenched Congress that wanted only two things: to receive campaign contributions and to be re-elected.
The story is a scandal, AND THE BOOK SHOULD BE THE BIBLE OF OCCUPY WALL STREET. But they seem as incapable of seeing government as part of the problem as Republicans seem of seeing business as part of the problem….
Peggy Noonan’s take on this is more middle of the road than I am, but this is the kind of op-ed is one that everyone should read and think about. I see government as not the solution, but the problem. I think that business’s contribution to the current crisis wouldn’t have happened without the government part, and I’m right. But business did contribute to it. Capitalism isn’t the problem, but crony capitalism is.
5. The Coming American Boom
….Something told me a disturbing irony was about to occur. Consider this: THE USA IS AN ENERGY POWERHOUSE. WE’VE ALL BEEN READING ABOUT THIS LATELY, ALL THAT SHALE IN THE DAKOTAS, THE UNLIMITED NATURAL GAS, THE NEW CONVERSION TECHNOLOGIES, ETC. Turn on the spigot, not only would we not be importing energy, we might even be EXPORTING it in a few years. Good-bye, mullahs. Good-bye, Wahhabi maniacs. We wouldn’t even have to listen to lectures from self-righteous Norwegians!...
…..I have no intention of rehashing all that here, though I’m sure some of our “more constructive” visitors will have something to add. My intent is to point out that IT IS LIKELY A GOOD PERCENTAGE OF THE DEMOCRATIC LEADERSHIP SEES THINGS MORE OR LESS OUR WAY — AT LEAST PRIVATELY. Do you think, say, Robert Rubin really doesn’t want to see more drilling? The man used to run Citibank. What about Rahm Emanuel, who made a fortune on Wall Street in no time flat? William Daley?
I could go on, but you get my point. Even Barack Obama (confused and ideologically deluded as he is) may be playing a cynical game here as well. Liberalism, progressivism — call it what you will — is a protection racket straight out of the Mafia. You say one thing for cover and you do another. And not just in the obvious sense of Al Gore becoming a billionaire over AGW or Arianna Huffington swindling AOL. It filters all the way down.
So while on the one hand Obama may be hiring czars by the dozens, putting bureaucratic martinets in charge of the EPA, and regulating our society into oblivion, THE SPIGOT (SECRETLY, QUIETLY… MAYBE NOT SO QUIETLY EVEN) IS SLOWLY OPENING.
THE QUESTION IS — HOW FAST? AN AMERICAN ECONOMIC BOOM IS COMING, BUT WHEN?...
The article was asking whether this would kick in soon enough to save Obama. Glenn Reynolds doesn’t think so and if what the left always tells us when someone wants to drill somewhere we won’t see anything for another 8 years. However, people are hired to drill, etc., but I tend to agree with Reynolds. It’s happening so the next president will get a lot of credit.
6. The Education Scam
Singing in the populist hymnal he has taken up to secure a second term, Barack Obama raises his voice to the heavens, decrying supposedly bad actors whose selfish conduct he deems the cause of so much middle-class suffering -- the Republicans, the House of Representatives, the millionaires and billionaires with their private jets, the banks.
And yet on Wednesday, HE MOVED YET AGAIN TO ENRICH ONE OF THE SECTORS WITHIN THE AMERICAN ECONOMY MOST RESPONSIBLE FOR THE PROFOUND FINANCIAL PRESSURE ON THE MIDDLE CLASS -- HIGHER EDUCATION.
The staggering inflation in the cost of higher education since the federal government got involved in lending money to Americans for college in 1965 beggars description. One federal study found that BETWEEN 1982 AND 2007, TUITION COSTS ROSE 432 PERCENT WHILE FAMILY INCOME ROSE ONLY 147
It is impossible to imagine that costs would have been even higher had the federal loan system not been in place at all. In other words, WHILE FEDERAL SUBSIDIES HAVE CONTINUED TO GROW, THEY HAVE SIMPLY BEEN GOBBLED UP BY UNIVERSITIES.
According to the invaluable Web site finaid.org, the average graduate of a four-year college in the United States now leaves school saddled with $27,000 in debt. The reforms the president announced to the national student-loan system in front of an audience of screaming college kids in Denver on Wednesday won’t actually do very much to help them -- and will do nothing to help people out of college now and coping with their indebtedness.
THE REFORMS ARE COMPLICATED AND BANAL, BUT THE BEST ANY ELIGIBLE STUDENT CAN GET OUT OF THEM (AND NOT ALL OF THEM CAN) IS AN INTEREST-RATE REDUCTION OF 50 BASIS POINTS, OR HALF A PERCENT.
So say you’re an average student carrying a $27,000 debt. Your monthly payment is about $208. With the reforms Obama is instituting, and ASSUMING AN INTEREST RATE OF 6 PERCENT, YOUR MONTHLY PAYMENT WILL DROP $9 A MONTH TO $199. STAGGERING….
Obama actions are like the Shakespearian line: “It is a tale. Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, Signifying nothing.”
7. How to speak Liberal
Earlier this week, Jonathan Bines did a post called “How to Speak Republican“.
It was very inspirational because I have to tell you, it’s also pretty tough for most people to figure out what liberals mean sometimes. You think they’re on your side, but they’re not. You believe they’re saying “yes,” but they mean “no.” You think they’re offering you a ride home, and next thing you know, you’re at the bottom of a tidal pool and they’re swimming away.
SOMEONE HAS TO TRANSLATE WHAT THEY MEAN. Well, have no fear, because after studying liberals for years, I’ve got the lingo down.
COMPASSION: Feeling good about yourself for wanting to give away money you didn’t earn to people you hope will vote for your side.
“CONSCIENCE OF THE SENATE”: KKK member.
FLAG: Something to be burned and walked on at protests or alternately, waved close to election time.
GREED: Wanting to keep money you’ve earned instead of having it spent on Bridges to Nowhere and government loans to people who’ve contributed to Obama’s campaign….
My favorite was an Unfair Attack which means “You quoted me.”
8. Healthcare law's popularity hits new low
Support for Democrats' healthcare reform has hit its lowest point since the law passed in March 2010, says a new monthly poll from the Kaiser Family Foundation.
After months of split support for the law, 51 PERCENT OF RESPONDENTS TO THE LATEST POLL HAD AN UNFAVORABLE VIEW while only 34 percent had a favorable impression.
The key reason for the change, the poll found, was DEMOCRATS' WANING SUPPORT: Even though they remain more favorable to the law than Republicans and Independents, the proportion of Democrats with favorable views has decreased from about two-thirds to just 52 percent in October….
I don’t think the country will forever remember Barack Obama for what he wanted them to. They will remember him as a disaster.
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