First, regarding this post, I wrote of Masters of Puppets.
AJ, A Jacksonian,
Category Archives: Uncategorized
Time To Negotiate
With terrorists. Says President Barack Hussein Obama.
For his first-ever televised interview, Mr. Obama decided he would grace Saudi-owned, Dubai-based Al-Arabiya news channel television with this honor. Did he then utilize this opportunity as a bully pulpit to point out the obvious: Iran’s misogynistic and homophobic death culture, their insane ways, their lies regarding history and Israel, their insistence on producing nuclear weapons in the most unstable cauldron in the world — absent Pakistan/India?
Uh, no.
Now:
Officials of Barack Obama‘s administration have drafted a letter to Iran from the president aimed at unfreezing US-Iranian relations and opening the way for face-to-face talks, the Guardian has learned.
Even before this letter has been sent, however, Iran fires back and sets their own mandates to be met:
Saeed Leylaz, a Tehran-based analyst, said a US letter would have to be accompanied by security guarantees and an agreement to drop economic sanctions. “If they send such a letter it will be a very significant step towards better ties, but they should be careful in not thinking Tehran will respond immediately,” he said.
Nothing like lending even more credence, veracity and acknowledgment to a terrorist political national power bent on eradicating Israel and every Western nation.
Excellent start, Mr. Obama. You’ll soon discover Iran will honor all agreements and only have your best interests at heart, cheerfully setting Islamism aside for the greater goal of peace.
BZ
“Stimulus” Package?
Where, I ask, in the $1 TRILLION dollar package (to acquire a vote today!), is the “stimulus” in the $4.19 BILLION dollars proposed for ACORN? If ACORN gets this money, it is nothing more than a sure-fire way to profligate not only more and more Demorats, but more persons with outstretched hands.
And, since this proposed stimulus package mostly doesn’t, is everyone aware that ANOTHER stimulus package is already being pushed?
And if anyone is serious about a true stimulus as opposed to a proposal rife with pork ($200 million for the beautification of the National Mall, including $21 million for sod; over $200 million for contraceptives and the abortion industry; $650 million for digital TV coupons; $136 billion for the creation of at least 32 new government programs – as Representative Boehner’s website explains, more than a third of H.R.1’s spending provisions would go towards growing the government—not the economy; $600 million for new cars for the federal bureaucrats; $50 million for the National Endowment of the Arts; $6 billion for colleges and universities; $300 billion to bail out state governments; increased spending on over 150 different federal programs; $335 million for for sexually transmitted disease education and prevention programs), why not enable the obvious (which is screaming to be considered): tax breaks for the middle class and business? Oh no no no, can’t consider that — a tax break for business only benefits tyrannical white male oppressors — despite the fact that small business employs most of the persons in this country — and we can’t give hope or reprieve to those persons on whom we must count for government’s bailout: the basic taxpayer.
Then, on the other hand, in the midst of all this, the really serious issues must be considered, like the Demorat petition to censor Rush Limbaugh, which has conveniently been placed online. Now that’s one helluva priority, majority party.
The GOP can’t be left out of this equation, so they became offended when, on his show, Limbaugh said President Obama is “obviously more frightened of me than he is Mitch McConnell. He’s more frightened of me, than he is of, say, John Boehner, which doesn’t say much about our party.”
Sorry if the truth happens to wound.
Perhaps this is a time to reiterate from my prior post: 1) Alinsky’s Rules #5, 6, 8, 10 and 12; — and 2) Goebbels quote of “It thus becomes vitally important for the State to use all of its powers to repress dissent, for the truth is the mortal enemy of the lie, and thus by extension, the truth is the greatest enemy of the State.”
Finally, I should like to observe: whilst researching this post about the stimulus package, I attempted to acquire the NRCC (National Republican Congressional Committee) website for insight. The problem was, I couldn’t go anywhere on that site without first taking a survey and then mandatorily submitting my e-mail address and zip code. Oh, I take it back: I could go one other place on the site — I could click on DONATE.
Let me be blunt: you are making no, and I mean no friends, GOP, when you set up a home page where it is crystal clear that all you want is an e-mail address for more cash demands. Contributions to you, NRCC? No. Not when you play that little trick.
Plus, allow me to add this little tidbit: it is hinted that the GOP is going to go again with Robert “Mike” Duncan as RNC Chairman.
Uh, like he did so wonderfully this past year?
One more time, I will put you on notice, RNC: just when I was thinking about donating again, if you leave Hunter in place and refuse to install new blood in the form of, say, Michael Steele, you can kiss any future cash from me quite fare-thee-well.
There HAS to be a change, GOP and, right now, I’m not much impressed. Complaining about Limbaugh? Give me a break.
Do your jobs.
BZ
Masters of Puppets
If there’s one thing upon which we should generally agree with regard to the two-party political system in America, it’s this:
- The Demorats know how to communicate;
- The Republicans do not.
GOP command of verbal and written communication ended with Ronald Wilson Reagan. And was found resolutely wanting under our 43rd president.
William Jefferson Clinton was a Master at communications, not just in terms of press releases, agenda, schedule, the media in all its forms, but his personal aura as well. He was crafted, shaped, formed, presently charismatic, purposeful in every event. Yes, WJC has come unwound in his dotage but, during his prime years, he was a Sun Tzu Master. It was once said of WJC: “he could stop for a moment, clasp your hand, look directly into your eyes, and make you feel like you were the only person in the room.” Master, indeed.
Likewise, Barack Hussein Obama is a Master at communications but is even more crafted and custom-created than his predecessor (for whom he owes a great debt of gratitude). Barack Hussein Obama will forever be remembered and associated with his TelePrompTer speeches — as opposed to any forced, instant or extemporaneous sessions which were, ahem, uh, eh, um, not so impressive.
Perhaps it’s time to tear a page from the Obama Playbook, wherein he embraces radical Leftist Saul Alinsky — mentor of both the Clintons and Obamas. Michelle Obama, for example, has already quoted Alinsky in her vaunted August 25th DNC Convention speech of last year.
They include:
RULE 1: “Power is not only what you have, but what the enemy thinks you have.”
Power is derived from 2 main sources – money and people. “Have-Nots” must build power from flesh and blood. (These are two things of which there is a plentiful supply. Government and corporations always have a difficult time appealing to people, and usually do so almost exclusively with economic arguments.)
RULE 2: “Never go outside the expertise of your people.”
It results in confusion, fear and retreat. Feeling secure adds to the backbone of anyone. (Organizations under attack wonder why radicals don’t address the “real” issues. This is why. They avoid things with which they have no knowledge.)
RULE 3: “Whenever possible, go outside the expertise of the enemy.”
Look for ways to increase insecurity, anxiety and uncertainty. (This happens all the time. Watch how many organizations under attack are blind-sided by seemingly irrelevant arguments that they are then forced to address.)
RULE 4: “Make the enemy live up to its own book of rules.”
If the rule is that every letter gets a reply, send 30,000 letters. You can kill them with this because no one can possibly obey all of their own rules. (This is a serious rule. The besieged entity’s very credibility and reputation is at stake, because if activists catch it lying or not living up to its commitments, they can continue to chip away at the damage.)
RULE 5: “Ridicule is man’s most potent weapon.”
There is no defense. It’s irrational. It’s infuriating. It also works as a key pressure point to force the enemy into concessions. (Pretty crude, rude and mean, huh? They want to create anger and fear.)
RULE 6: “A good tactic is one your people enjoy.”
They’ll keep doing it without urging and come back to do more. They’re doing their thing, and will even suggest better ones. (Radical activists, in this sense, are no different that any other human being. We all avoid “un-fun” activities, and but we revel at and enjoy the ones that work and bring results.)
RULE 7: “A tactic that drags on too long becomes a drag.”
Don’t become old news. (Even radical activists get bored. So to keep them excited and involved, organizers are constantly coming up with new tactics.)
RULE 8: “Keep the pressure on. Never let up.”
This should actually be RULE NUMBER ONE for the GOP. Keep trying new things to keep the opposition off balance. As the opposition masters one approach, hit them from the flank with something new. (Attack, attack, attack from all sides, never giving the reeling organization a chance to rest, regroup, recover and re-strategize.)
RULE 9: “The threat is usually more terrifying than the thing itself.”
Imagination and ego can dream up many more consequences than any activist. (Perception is reality. Large organizations always prepare a worst-case scenario, something that may be furthest from the activists’ minds. The upshot is that the organization will expend enormous time and energy, creating in its own collective mind the direst of conclusions. The possibilities can easily poison the mind and result in demoralization.)
RULE 10: “If you push a negative hard enough, it will push through and become a positive.”
This is the Primary Rule taken from the book of the Third Reich’s Propaganda Minister Joseph Goebbels, who said: ” Violence from the other side can win the public to your side because the public sympathizes with the underdog. (Unions used this tactic. Peaceful [albeit loud] demonstrations during the heyday of unions in the early to mid-20th Century incurred management’s wrath, often in the form of violence that eventually brought public sympathy to their side.)
RULE 11: “The price of a successful attack is a constructive alternative.” Never let the enemy score points because you’re caught without a solution to the problem. (Old saw: If you’re not part of the solution, you’re part of the problem. Activist organizations have an agenda, and their strategy is to hold a place at the table, to be given a forum to wield their power. So, they have to have a compromise solution.)
RULE 12: “Pick the target, freeze it, personalize it, and polarize it.” Cut off the support network and isolate the target from sympathy. Go after people and not institutions; people hurt faster than institutions. (This is cruel, but very effective. Direct, personalized criticism and ridicule works.) This worked, in concert with other devices, against Bush.
Joseph Goebbels said at Nuremberg in 1934: “Propaganda is a means to an end. Its purpose is to lead the people to an understanding that will allow it to willingly and without internal resistance devote itself to the tasks and goals of a superior leadership.”
Goebbels’ other major quote is: “If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it. The lie can be maintained only for such time as the State can shield the people from the political, economic and/or military consequences of the lie. It thus becomes vitally important for the State to use all of its powers to repress dissent, for the truth is the mortal enemy of the lie, and thus by extension, the truth is the greatest enemy of the State.” See Rule 10. Great article about the concepts of propaganda here.
See any past, current and/or stated future Demorat tactics in play from that last statement, perchance?
The Republicans are and have been, essentially, too faint of heart. Politics is a Blood Sport and it is all about taking charge of your communications and defining yourself, removing that power from your opponent.
All in all, recently, the Demorats have simply communicated more effectively.
Take note, GOP and Conservatives.
BZ
Sunday Reflections
I suspect this post might just find itself wending all over the map; my apologies up front. It’s been one of those weeks leading to one of those weekends. At this point I don’t know if I’ll insert politics or not. I’m just typing as I insert text into the Blogger “create post” screen. Who knows where this will go? I myself do not.
First, the rain has visited for the past four days straight and that, for me, has been absolutely glorious. There are persons who are overtly influenced by the weather, and most people want to live in a warmer, sunnier climate. I hate the heat and, in Fornicalia, I hate the summer.
I am one of those odd fellows who enjoys a good rainy day, darker skies, colder tempertures, fog and such. Some people hate Seattle for its rain. I could easily live there. Better yet, on my honeymoon my wife and I visited Astoria, Oregon. I could even more easily live in Astoria — say, in retirement. Rainy. Cold. Adjacent the ocean and the massive Columbia River. Watching massive ships wind towards and from Portland through the channel.
There’s a lovely fire in the stove right now as I listen to the rain slide off the metal roof of my cabin and pound the deck in sheets. Throughout all this, the fog is creeping up and out of the Bear River canyon; I’m watching it swirl through my property and up the street. Ahhh. Now that’s relaxing and mesmerizing, both at once.
Earlier today, I caught a Union Pacific train making its way from a local siding onto the mainline track towards Donner Pass in the fog.
A retreat. That’s what this is. My cabin in the mountains is most definitely a retreat. A place where I can release my tensions, where I can bask in the surrounding serenity of the rain, of the snow, of the fog. The closer I get, when going up The Hill at the end of the week, I can literally feel my shoulders lower, my muscles unbunch, my jaw unclench. It’s my weekly release.
Everyone needs their own release mechanism. Their own individual way of dealing with the stressors of the past week. This cabin is my release mechanism.
Yes, it’s more “primitive” than living in certain denser population corridors. I get no cell reception. My only source of TV is via satellite. My internet access is dial-up. The summer fire season scares me shitless. I don’t have sewer access, I have a leach field. I have to shovel snow off my deck every winter and, at my advancing age, I don’t know how much longer I can continue to do this. I’ve lost power for two weeks at a time, had a fallen tree kill my power and phone lines, had to spend $5,000 to professionally fell a massive redwood on my property which threatened the cabin.
I’ve had cars strike my fence, back into it, limbs from trees smash my windows, falling snow and ice dent my brand new RAV-4. I’ve had CalFire write me up for failing to limb my trees. Falling needles and brush once clogged my property and I usually spend at least $500 per year to clear undergrowth and needles. The house has never been air-conditioned. It is heated with propane and the wood stove.
And yet: I love this cabin completely.
Now let me give you the positives.
In the place where I live (you couldn’t even call it a town; the population is around 300), the Postmaster, the B&B operator, the volunteer fire department, the store owner, they all know me by name. I can run up a tab at the store if I want (but I never have). I walk into the post office and the Postmaster just hands me my packages. She chats with me and wishes me well. When I stop for either mail or at the store I always leave the keys in my car; mostly I leave it running if I’m in a rush. Sometimes I’ve left it running for 15 minutes if I’m engaged in a good conversation. Nobody notices, nobody cares, no one wants to steal it.
During the day, I can hear the trains running up and down The Hill. During the night, I can hear the plaintive horns sounding for various crossings. Occasionally a dog barks.
I hear the wind whisking through the pines. I watch the boughs bend and crouch. The wind sounds exactly like a movie. I can see the startled flashes of lightning then the boom of thunder. I can’t hear the freeway some few miles away. I can hear the patter then the storm of rain. In the winter, when temperatures plummet, I can hear the sound of rain diminish. When it becomes totally silent I know: there is snow.
But mostly, what I don’t hear is this: I don’t hear continuous sirens in the night. I don’t hear neighbors fighting. I don’t hear the incessant passage of traffic, the bleating of horns. I don’t hear cop cars, cop helicopters, cop sirens. I don’t hear the beep-beep-beep of backing trash trucks. I don’t hear every stupid manic dog in the neighborhood. I don’t hear the thump trucks and thump cars of ghetto white, black, Mexican, Asian urbans. I don’t hear gunshots.
What I do hear, however, is the English language. Used continuously.
Yes. Some of the few welfare-sloths around me might be dentally-challenged. But they reflect my melanin-count, speak English, work hard as their limited capabilities allow, and are considerate.
I think I finally realize something massive: what I take for granted most urbanites will never experience. And they think me daft and addled. So here’s where I have to acknowledge: I am blessed to the point where most persons cannot conceive of my town.
Yes, I freely admit that I am a dying breed. I am not the future of Fornicalia though — unfortunately — neither are my nieces and nephew. For they are white.
I’ve had a good run. No; I’ve had a great run. I’ve done things likely 99.99% of the population have never done nor will ever do. I’ve taken security oaths I can’t reveal until 2015 at the earliest. If I make it to 2015 I’ll consider that an amazing bonus. I’ve done things that, upon reflection, even I can’t believe.
I’ve always had a job. I threw newspapers at 3 am. I mowed lawns. I shoveled snow and replaced lightbulbs on 20′ ladders. And that’s just in my single-digit years. I’ve worked for 10 radio stations. I took my BA then my Masters. In my late teens I was the Editor for a major 50,000-watt AM radio station and decided what was important in the world. I’ve programmed an FM radio station. I was the traffic reporter for both AM and PM drive in a major market. I managed to, while working for this major AM station, climb hand-over-hand up the Walnut Grove tower to the point where the RF emitted made my hair screech and my blood boil. I suspect that was the point where, quite frankly, I became sterile. That and the nuclear reactor. An issue with my first wife who wanted kids.
All the while I worked as Photo Editor for my college newspaper during the Patty Hearst days. I lived in San Francisco on California Street so I could qualify for SFPD hiring. I frequented the Plough and Stars on Clement (my all-time favorite Irish bar).
I graduated from CSUS but barely, because college was merely a waypoint. I worked for a security agency which guarded a local nuclear reactor facility. I was told I would be a Captain soon, but left the security business. I stood on the Turbine Deck of said facility and touched the exposed top portion of the turbine. The hair stood up on my head. I also gazed down into the Moon Pool of that nuclear facility. The Moon Pool surrounded the reactor core. I’ve seen a reactor core. Myself and my colleagues planned and plotted how we’d attack the facility if we were terrorists, even back in the late 70s. No one wanted to listen to us. I got bored. I left.
In the meantime, I became a ridiculously-young Reserve Deputy with my local law enforcement department. I was paired with my first training officer named Hugh McGraw — a man to whom I owe a major portion of my life.
From there I worked for a coastal Fornicalia sheriff’s department, the FBI, for the US Marshals, then again for my current department.
And then, I think an aberration, I got married for the second time and finally, finally, got respect for work and toil and application, with an appreciation that things don’t just happen in a relationship. You work on them. And with that follows maturity. My wife, therefore, is a remarkable blessing.
Wow. That’s been a journey. And no politics.
This post just drifted where it went.
I suppose those things happen on a Sunday.
BZ