Clipmarks | willhelm's 'liberals' clips

Lanny Davis: "We were wrong"

Tue, 22 Jul 2008 17:19:34 GMT

clipped by: willhelm
clipper's remarks: Thank You, Lannie. It is great to see there are still stand-up people on the left.

From article:

"Maybe another democracy, however imperfect, other than Israel in the Middle East could lead to more moderation, possibly other democracies? Democracies that could serve as bulwarks against al Qaeda-type of terrorist states?"

"And then in early 2007 came the Surge, which so many of us in the anti-war left of the Democratic Party predicted would be a failure, throwing good men and women and billions of dollars after futility. We were wrong."

"The surge did, in fact, lead to a reduction of violence, confirmed by media on the ground as well as our military leaders."

Clip Source: www.huffingtonpost.com

But then came my first moment of doubt.

I saw on TV in early 2005, in their first preliminary democratic elections, long lines of Iraqis waiting to vote under the hot desert sun with bombs and shrapnel exploding around them. Waiting to vote!

And then there was that indelible image -- an older woman shrouded in a carpet-like cape, smiling gleefully and holding her purple finger in the air for the TV cameras, purple with ink showing that she had voted.

Smiling! In the middle of war! With U.S. troops standing nearby!

Wow, I thought. Is it possible I was wrong?

Is it possible, I wondered, that Iraqis truly did want democracy and freedom and the right to vote and government of the people, just as we Americans do? And were willing to fight for it, with our help?

Wouldn't that be a good thing? Even a great thing?

Tags: liberals, iraq war, war on terror

Now who's in denial?

Sat, 12 Jul 2008 06:45:12 GMT

clipped by: willhelm
clipper's remarks: And now with a straight face liberals say we'll have to starve the people in order to save the planet. Now who's in denial?

Clip Source: www.americanthinker.com

Liberals tell us that we mustn't develop energy resources because of the impact on the polar bear -- even though polar bear numbers are on the increase. We shouldn't develop oil resources in ANWR because it is a pristine wilderness. We shouldn't develop offshore oil resources because 40 years ago there was an oil spill in the Santa Barbara Channel. Anyway there's no point in developing oil and gas resources because it won't make any difference to the price of gasoline. Anyway we are running out of oil and gas so there isn't any point in developing any more oil and gas resources. We shouldn't mine coal because coal creates global warming. We shouldn't develop nuclear power because Jane Fonda once made a scary movie about it. We should develop solar and wind power, "renewables," even though both are extremely expensive right now. But we shouldn't build wind farms where Ted Kennedy could see the wind turbines from his window.

Freedom Towers - Socialist Government in Action

Mon, 07 Jul 2008 03:15:32 GMT

clipped by: willhelm
clipper's remarks: "We can count on government planners to produce the most inefficient projects conceivable by the human mind. Manhattan’s Freedom Tower, intended to rise on the site of 9/11 destruction, is an egregious example . . .

...New York City, the nation’s most socialistically ingrained municipality, in the nation’s premier socialist state, has a long history of public works boon-doggles, of which the Freedom Tower is just the latest.

The standard government-planning way to do this is to spend the maximum possible amount of public funds, for the longest possible time, and employ the maximum possible number of unionized workers at the highest imaginable wages. This promotes full employment for voters and life-time tenure for politicians holding the benefits slop buckets at the public pig-feeding trough..."

Good grief I'm glad I don't live in that Hell hole of a state.

Clip Source: www.intellectualconservative.com

New York's slow and extraordinarily costly shamble in rebuilding the World Trade Center after 9/11, now almost seven years ago, is a typical example of socialist state planning. This fiasco is a model for what so-called progressive liberals, led by Senator Barack Obama, intend for socialized strangulation of the entire economy.

In its June 30, 2008, edition, the Wall Street Journal reports:

The rebuilding of the World Trade Center will be pushed back into the next decade and will cost up to $3 billion more than planned. The Port Authority is set to release a report detailing significant delays and cost overruns on construction.

This may be disturbing to taxpayers who foot the bill, but it's really good news for liberal-progressive-socialist politicians, of whom New York State and New York City have an ample supply.

ANWR - Perspective

Thu, 03 Jul 2008 03:52:20 GMT

clipped by: willhelm

Clip Source: globalwarminghoax.wordpress.com

THIS IS WHAT THE DEMOCRATS, LIBERALS AND “GREENS” SHOW YOU WHEN THEY TALK ABOUT ANWR

…and they are right… these ARE photographs of ANWR

ISN’T ANWR BEAUTIFUL? WHY SHOULD WE DRILL HERE (AND DESTROY) THIS BEAUTIFUL PLACE?

WELL… THAT’S NOT EXACTLY THE TRUTH

Do you remember the map?
The map showed that the proposed drilling area is in the ANWR Coastal Plain
Do those photographs look like a coastal plain to you?

WHAT’S GOING ON HERE?

THE ANSWER IS SIMPLE…

THAT IS NOT WHERE THEY ARE WANTING TO DRILL!

THIS IS WHAT THE PROPOSED EXPLORATION AREA ACTUALLY LOOKS LIKE IN THE WINTER

AND THIS IS WHAT IT ACTUALLY LOOKS LIKE IN THE SUMMER

HERE ARE A COUPLE SCREEN SHOTS FROM GOOGLE EARTH

AS YOU CAN SEE, THE AREA WHERE THEY ARE TALKING ABOUT DRILLING IS A BARREN WASTELAND.

HERE IS A PHOTO (SHOT DURING THE SUMMER) OF THE
“DEPLETED WILDLIFE” SITUATION CREATED BY
DRILLING AROUND PRUDHOE BAY *…
DON’T YOU THINK THAT THE CARIBOU REALLY HATE THAT DRILLING?

HERE’S THAT SAME SPOT DURING THE WINTER.

The plausible stretch of the day

Thu, 29 May 2008 05:20:35 GMT

clipped by: willhelm
clipper's remarks: Soros-McClellan connection?
I doubt it.

Clip Source: littlegreenfootballs.com

The company that published Scott McClellan’s new Bush-bashing book is Public Affairs Books, and their Editor at Large is a guy named Peter Osnos: About The Century Foundation.

The owner of Public Affairs Books is a company called Perseus Book Group. Here’s their ownership tree: Perseus Books Home.

The firm is owned by Perseus Funds Group, (holding company Perseus LLC) a capital management firm that grew from about $20 million in 1995 to over $2 billion now. Big infusions of cash seemed to help it grow exponentially and it closed funds almost as fast as it opened them. The board has tons of liberals from the Clinton and Carter Administrations with credentials that almost put Osnos’ to shame as far as far left causes go. Their website is here: PERSEUS - merchant bank and private equity fund management.

If you go to the New York Department of State web site and enter “Perseus” in the “Business Organization” search, you get this on page 2 of the results:

Hi, George!

Option 3

Wed, 07 May 2008 08:06:41 GMT

clipped by: willhelm
clipper's remarks: "Talk-radio's Rush Limbaugh celebrates the success of his "Operation Chaos," as organizers of the Democratic National Convention quietly begin to prepare for a convention that might make Chicago in 1968 look like a garden party. And John McCain, never a particularly religious man, begins to count his blessings."

Clip Source: www.thenation.com

CLINTON AND OBAMA SPLIT INDIANA AND NORTH CAROLINA. Each candidate "scores" a predictable "win" – the New Yorker in an industrialized Middle America state like Ohio; the Illinoisan in a southern state with a large African-American population and a substantial base of college-educated liberals. Both campaigns "spin" their victories. Obama keeps hoping for a "knock-out blow" primary win in a Clinton-friendly state like Kentucky or West Virginia. Clinton starts looking for surprise wins of her own in places like Oregon and Montana. But the formerly unrealistic notion that "this could go all the way to the convention" no longer seems so unrealistic. Talk turns to Clinton strategies to seat delegations chosen in the disputed Michigan and Florida primaries, while the Obama camp parcels out more congressional endorsements. The race gets uglier. There is no end in sight. Everyone goes nuclear as the Democrats confirm that there really is such a thing as "mutually-assured destruction."

Pods or clods?

Mon, 21 Apr 2008 13:36:41 GMT

clipped by: willhelm
clipper's remarks: Another area in which liberals give every indication that they’re from another galaxy is the second amendment. For well over 30 years, Sen. Ted Kennedy, to name one of our more prominent left-wingers, has made it his mission to disarm law-abiding Americans. He would contend that he wants all guns confiscated, but any sensible person knows that the criminal class will always have access to contraband, be it drugs or weapons. But, wouldn’t you think, considering his own personal history, that Kennedy would devote his time and energy to doing away with automobiles and bodies of water?

Republicans wonder why I support John McCain and, in spite of his faults, will vote for him in November. It’s because even if he’s not as conservative as I’d wish, I am convinced he’s an earthling and not a pod. When it comes to presidential elections, I am a realist, not an idealist. From my vantage point, it comes down to settling for half a loaf rather than ending up with a couple of crumbs.

Clip Source: theautonomist.com

Back in the 1960s, the Democrats went in for social engineering in a big way. They concentrated particularly on black Americans. One of the first things they did was to increase welfare, but only to those homes that didn’t have men living in them. That not only created dependency on the part of black women and children, but, inevitably, led young blacks to grow up without male authority figures around to keep them in line.

Single black mothers, more often than not uneducated teenagers, were faced with the prospect of trying to raise and discipline unruly young guys; while far too many black men became as rootless and irresponsible as their offspring.

blacks, whose families, in the main, used to be even more stable than whites during the 30s and 40s, are now in shambles. Half of teenage blacks drop out of high school before they graduate, and 70% of black babies are born to unmarried females.

"Liberals' Desire To Be Loved Is Their Achilles' Heel"

Thu, 27 Mar 2008 22:51:08 GMT

clipped by: willhelm
clipper's remarks: Dennis Prager:
"I believe that naivete about human nature and about evil heads the list. But high up there as an explanation of liberal and leftist thinking is the desire to be loved."

"The most dangerous one is the liberal desire for their country to be loved...The very idea is irrational. Name a country that is loved."

Clip Source: www.townhall.com

I have spent a good part of my life trying to understand people I disagree with, whether on the right or the left, whether members of my own religion or of other religions or of no religion.

In particular, I have wanted to understand people who hold leftist positions. Many people who hold them are personally decent, some very much so -- yet they hold positions that I believe increase cruelty

They also panic easily (e.g., heterosexual AIDS in America, carbon dioxide emissions leading to global catastrophe); and the further left one goes, the more morally confused they are (e.g., the inability to label the Soviet Union an "evil empire"; the exaggeration of America's flaws -- it is sexist, imperialist, racist, homophobic -- and the undervaluing of its virtues).

Why is this? Why do so many good people hold bad positions?

A 12-step program that I doubt would work

Mon, 24 Mar 2008 22:29:00 GMT

clipped by: willhelm
clipper's remarks: Step #6: Repeat after me, “Separation of church and state” exists nowhere in the Constitution. The first amendment does not require the removal of Christmas trees from the village green, the 10 Commandments from court house walls or “under God” from the Pledge of Allegiance. All it does is forbid Congress from establishing a state religion, such as the Church of England, and anybody who tells you otherwise is a liar and, most likely, a card-carrying member of the ACLU.

Step #7 Stop using the word “big” as a pejorative. There is nothing intrinsically bad about big oil, big agriculture or big pharmaceuticals. Overall, they do a very good job of keeping our cars on the road, food on our tables and most of us over 50 alive and functioning. On the other hand, big government, which so many liberals simply adore, represents a usurpation of the allegedly inalienable rights of individuals.

Clip Source: theautonomist.com

Step #1: It is high time that every American be guaranteed the right to speak freely. It is not reserved solely for left-wing college students who wish to take advantage of the first amendment to shout down conservatives. At the same time, they must not construe the conservative’s right to dismiss them as arrogant idiots as censorship.

Step #2: Affirmative action argues that African Americans and Latinos are intellectually inferior and are unable to compete academically unless other students are handicapped because of their race.

Obviously, any American who believes higher taxes are a good thing can do the honorable thing by spurning all deductions and paying Uncle Sam everything up to 100% of his income.

Step #5: Stop insisting that all wars are bad. It only makes you sound daft. Carrying signs that equate a U.S. president, any U.S. president, with Adolph Hitler is not only rude, but suggests you’re certifiably nuts.

The Real New Deal

Thu, 20 Mar 2008 15:53:49 GMT

clipped by: willhelm

Clip Source: hiram7.wordpress.com

Back during his 1976 campaign for president, Ronald Reagan made the offhand comment to Time that “Fascism was really the basis for the New Deal.” When Reagan finally grasped the Republican nomination in 1980, Democrats gleefully retrieved that remark to use as proof of Reagan’s supposed extremism. The media dutifully obliged, pressing Reagan on what he could possibly have meant with such an odd and inflammatory comment.

Reagan defended the remark: “Anyone who wants to look at the writings of the Brain Trust of the New Deal will find that President Roosevelt’s advisers admired the fascist system. . . . They thought that private ownership with government management and control à la the Italian system was the way to go, and that has been evident in all their writings.” This was, Reagan added, “long before fascism became a dirty word in the lexicon of the liberals.”

The legacy of Rousseau and the French Revolution

Thu, 20 Mar 2008 15:15:03 GMT

clipped by: willhelm
clipper's remarks: "No more thorough explication of the liberal fascist agenda can be found than in Hillary Clinton's best-selling book, 'It Takes a Village'," Mr. Goldberg writes. "All the hallmarks of the fascist enterprise reside within in pages." These include the superiority of the state-directed life over individual responsibility, even to the extent of the state having more say than parents in the raising of children.

Mr. Goldberg is not making the point that American liberals are crypto-Nazis. They aren't. The kind of feminine fascist government America would likely see probably wouldn't have concentration camps but would have a Secretary of Hugs. More "Brave New World" than "1984."

Clip Source: www.washingtontimes.com

Fascism, in its various incarnations, is a kind of supercharged nationalism that rejects individual liberty in the name of the state and is often, but not always, racialist, militarist, and expansionist. It's usually hostile to religion, firing God and replacing Him with a secular dictator. Mussolini invented the word totalitarian "to describe a society where everybody belonged, where everyone was taken care of, where everything was inside the state and nothing was outside: where truly no child was left behind."

The first ugly incarnation of fascism followed the French Revolution, which gave us perhaps the first two recognizably modern dictators in Robespierre and Napoleon.

The Path of Most Resistance

Sat, 23 Feb 2008 06:36:41 GMT

clipped by: willhelm
clipper's remarks: If you find yourself on the political right, this is a must-read.

Clip Source: www.americanthinker.com

The Materialist Faith of Communism, Socialism, and Liberalism

For over eighty-five years, America has been incrementally conquered by the same madness-inducing demon of hatred and violence that earlier took over Russia, China, Germany, and Italy.

This demon is embodied in "enlightened" Liberals and the West's transnational "elite," both of which are deeply infected by materialistic Communism (Cultural Marxism) and the delusion that the true enemy of America is always on the Right. Having rejected God and the religious heritage of our civilization, they embrace instead a new order of beliefs of which Communism and Socialism are logical expressions. A new world order is what they seek, but in order that it can emerge, the existing culture must be completely destroyed.

We are All Materialists Now

What is Materialism

Birth of Scientific Materialism: A Brief Historical Overview

The Franco-Germanic Enlightenment

Death of America

Back to Basics - The truth about Statist Totalitarianism

Wed, 20 Feb 2008 04:49:59 GMT

clipped by: willhelm
clipper's remarks: "Fascism's message boils down to "Enough talk, more action!" Its lasting appeal is getting things done."

"In contrast, conservatism calls for limited government, individualism, democratic debate, and capitalism. Its appeal is liberty and leaving citizens alone."

Movement of the Left
* Woodrow Wilson's Progressivism featured a "militaristic, fanatically nationalist, imperialist, racist" program, enabled by the exigencies of World War I.
* Franklin D. Roosevelt's "fascist New Deal" built on and extended Wilson's government.
* Lyndon B. Johnson's Great Society established the modern welfare state, "the ultimate fruition" (so far) of this statist tradition.
* The youthful New Left revolutionaries of the 1960s brought about "an Americanized updating" of the European Old Right.
* Hillary Clinton hopes "to insert the state deep into family life," an essential step of the totalitarian project. She's a "progressive, you know.

Clip Source: www.danielpipes.org

Liberal fascism sounds like an oxymoron – or a term for conservatives to insult liberals. Actually, it was coined by a socialist writer, none other than the respected and influential left-winger H.G. Wells, who in 1931 called on fellow progressives to become "liberal fascists" and "enlightened Nazis." Really.

His words, indeed, fit a much larger pattern of fusing socialism with fascism: Mussolini was a leading socialist figure who, during World War I, turned away from internationalism in favor of Italian nationalism and called the blend Fascism. Likewise, Hitler headed the National Socialist German Workers Party.

fascism uses politics as the tool to transform society from atomized individuals into an organic whole. It does so by exalting the state over the individual, expert knowledge over democracy, enforced consensus over debate, and socialism over capitalism.

Clinton targets Obama's pledged delegates

Tue, 19 Feb 2008 22:06:05 GMT

clipped by: willhelm

Clip Source: www.politico.com

Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign intends to go after delegates whom Barack Obama has already won in the caucuses and primaries if she needs them to win the nomination.

This strategy was confirmed to me by a high-ranking Clinton official on Monday. And I am not talking about superdelegates, those 795 party big shots who are not pledged to anybody. I am talking about getting pledged delegates to switch sides.

What? Isn’t that impossible? A pledged delegate is pledged to a particular candidate and cannot switch, right?

Wrong.

“I swear it is not happening now, but as we get closer to the convention, if it is a stalemate, everybody will be going after everybody’s delegates,” a senior Clinton official told me Monday afternoon. “All the rules will be going out the window.”

On Sunday, Doug Wilder, the mayor of Richmond and a former governor of Virginia, went even further, predicting riots in the streets if the Clinton campaign were to overturn an Obama lead through the use of superdelegates

Tags: liberals

The Fabians

Tue, 19 Feb 2008 19:23:34 GMT

clipped by: willhelm

Clip Source: cepa.newschool.edu

The British counterpart of the German Marxian revisionists and heavily influenced by the English Historical school, the upper-middle-class intellectual group - the "Fabian Society" - emerged in 1884 as a strand of latter-day utopian socialism. They became known to the public firstly through Sidney Webb's Facts for Socialists (1884) and then through the famous Fabian Essays in Socialism (1889) written by the Webbs, Shaw, and others.

The "Fabians" were named after Fabius, the famous Roman general which opposed Hannibal as they were "biding their time" until they would "strike hard". Exactly when this strike would occur was a perennial question. Eschewing the revolutionary tactics of more orthodox Marxians, the middle-class Fabians were more directly involved with politics and practical gains - through contacts not only in the "International Labor Party", trade unions and cooperative movements but also throughout the entire British political apparatus (Liberals and Tories included).

Tags: socialism, progressivism