Hollywood, Howard Zinn and the Fellowship of the Ring

Howard Zinn and Noam Chomsky deconstruct The Fellowship of the Ring. "I’m pretty sure this is a parody, but, really, how can you tell the difference?" Heh.

Radical historian Howard Zinn died a year ago today. But his influence is still very strong.  It would be fine to have the viewpoint of a radical historian broadly considered in America if so many people did not consider it to be the ONLY VALID viewpoint.

Recommended as companion reading to Zinn's signature book: Paul Johnson's A History of the American People.

Former radical Ron Radosh wrote a piece in Minding the Campus the day after Zinn died:

Howard Zinn's death yesterday affords us the opportunity to evaluate the remarkable influence he has had on the American public's understanding of our nation's past. His book A People's History of the United States, published in 1980 with a first printing of 5000 copies, went on to sell over two million. To this day some 128,000 new copies are sold each year. That alone made Zinn perhaps the single most influential historian whose works have reached multitudes of Americans. Indeed, Zinn found that his book was regularly adopted as a text in high schools and most surprisingly, in many colleges and universities. . .

Zinn was aided in getting his book attention by two youthful neighbors, Matt Damon and Ben Affleck. When both became movie stars, they used their celebrity to popularize Zinn's work and to help bring it to a wide audience. As Damon told the press recently, Zinn's message showed that what our ancestors rebelled "against oftentimes are exactly the same things we're up against now." Zinn himself added a few weeks ago that his hope was that his work will spread new rebellion, and "lead into a larger movement for economic justice."

So, Matt Damon ---  from the ultra-rich, insulated, shark-filled artificial world of Hollywood  (a world rife with nepotism,  cronyism and people who believe themselves to be very important)  --- imagines himself to be one of the common folk within   Zinn's "continuous rebellion of the masses against oppression" narrative.  Figures.  Sort of reminds me of the French aristocracy play-acting as shepherds and milkmaids to escape the intrigues of the Court.

From Zinn's perspective, history should not be told from the standpoints of generals or presidents, but through that of people who struggle for their rights, who engage in strikes, boycotts, slave rebellions and the like. Its purpose should be to encourage similar behavior today. Indeed, Zinn candidly said that history was not about "understanding the past," but rather, about "changing the future." That statement alone should have disqualified anyone from referring to him as a historian.

Zinn did not exempt President Barack Obama who he thought was both "a mediocre" and "dangerous president" from his criticism. In the last article he wrote, that appeared in The Nation last week, Zinn argued that Obama's foreign policy was "no different from a Republican," that he was "nationalist, expansionist, imperial and warlike." As for his proposed domestic programs, he found them "limited" and "cautious." He also did not approve of the apparent decision to try those responsible for 9/11, and referred to them as "suspected terrorists," who "have not been found guilty."

Zinn was certainly entitled to his perspective, widely held by many in the academy, but its danger lies in the favorable reception he often got from those who know little. As one of his proteges, Dave Zirin, writes on The Huffington Post: "With his death, we lose a man who did nothing less than rewrite the narrative of the United States." That, precisely, is the problem.

Back in the day when there was still a difference between "liberal" and "leftist", Zinn was investigated by the FBI, like many of the Hollywood Left. They were later successful in demonizing those who questioned their communist affiliations, and the dominant Hollywood culture still endlessly brings up the blacklisting of those years -- while they blacklist others who don't agree with their ideology.

Orson Bean is old enough to have been blacklisted once in Hollywood for being a communist ("kind of cool, except for losing your career") and again for becoming more conservative. He describes the second blacklisting as much more difficult.  Bean's difficult experiences helped lead his son-in-law, Andrew Breitbart, to rebel against the Hollywood Left and become a libertarian/conservative activist.  Funny how these things are connected.

Ultimate Recycling

It's hard to imagine that someone who went to school at Berkeley and who writes as well as Richard Fernandez was once affiliated with a street gang that prowled around a smoky garbage dump.

I finally ran into a photoblog which accurately conveys something of the landscape in certain scenes of my novel, No Way In. The My Sari-sari Store site is a treasure-house of images that capture a world that very few people, least of all the better sort of indigenes, will ever know. The photoblog is subtitled Happyland: a look into the world of the utterly, utterly poor. That is a title of genius which could only have been generated by somebody who truly “knows” that millieu and can be used to describe the entire civilization of the islands. It is not entirely facetious. The people who live in Happyland feel the same sorrow, but also the same joy that every human being feels.

“Sa Tondo man, ay may langit din” is code phrase which means that “we too can reach heaven” and is often uttered in an undertone to assert a fundamental equality of humanity with those who zip by in automobiles. It is the key to deciphering the us versus them dynamic of a Third World society of which the diplomatic set usually knows only the upper crust. The people eating the food salvaged from dumpsters, or living off the trash are brothers in their own way, to the poor in Cairo and those who want a better life. That is the half we should get to know if we want to understand what the societies of our “allies” are really built on. There is value to running around with the English speaking elite, and swap stories of common memories at Georgetown, but it is the people of Happyland, who, in whatever language, make up the bulk of those who are aspirational.

Take a look through the photos:

The photos are great. They are not compositions of pity, but depictions of people whose sufferings while not to be underestimated have a humanity that is not undervalued. I am particularly grateful to Happyland photos for depictions of scavenging, which readers will remember from the book. Note this scavenging is the genteel stuff, not the hard core demonic scene that characterized Smokey Mountain. . . 

I looked up an old Belmont Club post I remembered from before the blog was moved to Pajamas Media, when I only knew Fernandez as "Wretchard".  It is about hazards facing the very poor, including those at Smokey Mountain in the Philippines:

. . . Many years ago I actually lived for some months in and around a dump site far worse than the one which collapsed. It was known as Smokey Mountain; and the infernal fires which arose from it night and day were caused by the spontaneous combustion of organic material underfoot. If anything resembled a terrestrial version of hell, it was Smokey Mountain at night with garbage trucks snaking up the hill amidst pillars of fire and smoke, attended by what seemed innumerable legions of imps. The site was featured in many documentaries which purported to show the horror of life in the Third World, but I can tell you, from first hand experience, that the denizens of Smokey Mountain considered themselves to be comparatively lucky. They had a guaranteed income. . . 

A tremendous amount of recycling was achieved in this way. What you have to understand is that the garbage which finally settled to the bottom of Smokey Mountain had been stripped of its last usable material. It was picked clean. Most of Manila's cardboard, a considerable percentage of its glass bottles and quite a bit of its scrap metal came from the labor of thousands of scavengers. From a certain point of view it was the epitome of "appropriate technology". It was almost fantastically "Green". And come to think of it, it was mostly honest labor.

For those who think that understanding a "carbon footprint" is all there is to knowing about environmentalism, a spell in the Third World would be an interesting experience, though I'm damned if I can say what lesson it conveys. As for myself, I can distinctly recall reading Ignazio Silone's Bread and Wine during that period, a novel about a revolutionary in Italy whose passwords were "never a rose without a thorn". Yes indeed. Never a rose without a thorn.

UPDATE: Wretchard describes in the comments some of the features of society in the Phillippines which make "Happyland" almost inevitable, and how those conditions could be changed.

Newsweek finds a new way to keep the Big Lie alive

NEWSWEEK,  the magazine that the Washington Post sold for one dollar, makes a new effort to remain relevant. They devise a way to further the big lie about a connection between the Arizona shootings and the Tea Party -- indirectly but very obviously, with cover art of an assassin wrapped in an American flag.

The cover story by Jonathan Alter is more than 2,000 words. And what one word does not appear in that article? Zeitgeist. 

Remember when Newsweek used to do reporting?

There is absolutely no excuse for Newsweek's false image of America-loving assassins now that so much is known about the Arizona shooter. Even if they believe The Narrative with all their hearts. The astute Andrew Klavan, way back on January 9:

. . . Indeed, the Left’s hysterical response to all who disagree with it — that they are racist or sexist or “phobic” or somehow reminiscent of Hitler — has become so predictable that satirists, from the libertarian Greg Gutfeld to the liberal Jon Stewart, have made fun of it in routines.

But never mind that, because the Left’s sudden talk about incendiary political rhetoric in the wake of the Arizona shooting isn’t really about political rhetoric at all. It’s about the real-world failure of leftist policies everywhere—the bankrupting of nations and states by greedy unions and unfundable social programs, the destruction of inner cities by identity politics, and the appeasement of Muslim extremists in the face of worldwide jihad, not to mention the frequently fatal effects of delirious environmentalism. Europe is in debt and on fire. American citizens are in political revolt. Even the most left-wing president ever is making desperate overtures to his right.

But all that might be tolerable to leftists if they weren’t starting to lose control of the one weapon in which they have the most faith:  the narrative. The narrative is what leftists believe in instead of the truth.

The Arizona shooter lived in his own dark little world. The Left's utopian dream world is a brighter place, but it isn't sustainable. It's falling apart before their eyes.  Their dark side is becoming more transparent as they become more desperate, and as alternative voices are more accessible.

Daniel Henninger explains one foundation of "The Narrative".

There has been a great effort this week to come to grips with the American left's reaction to the Tucson shooting. Paul Krugman of the New York Times and its editorial page, George Packer of the New Yorker, E.J. Dionne of the Washington Post, Jonathan Alter of Newsweek and others, in varying degrees, have linked the murders to the intensity of opposition to the policies and presidency of Barack Obama. As Mr. Krugman asked in his Monday commentary: "Were you, at some level, expecting something like this atrocity to happen?"

The "you" would be his audience, and the answer is yes, they thought that in these times "something like this" could happen in the United States. Other media commentators, without a microbe of conservatism in their bloodstreams, have rejected this suggestion.

So what was the point? Why attempt the gymnastic logic of asserting that the act of a deranged personality was linked to the tea parties and the American right? Two reasons: Political calculation and personal belief. . .

The divide between this strain of the American left and its conservative opponents is about more than politics and policy. It goes back a long way, it is deep, and it will never be bridged. It is cultural, and it explains more than anything the "intensity" that exists now between these two competing camps. (The independent laments: "Can't we all just get along?" Answer: No.)

The Rosetta Stone that explains this tribal divide is Columbia historian Richard Hofstadter's classic 1964 essay, "The Paranoid Style in American Politics." Hofstadter's piece for Harper's may be unfamiliar to many now, but each writer at the opening of this column knows by rote what Hofstadter's essay taught generations of young, left-wing intellectuals about conservatism and the right. . . 

Read the whole thing.  They REALLY MUST believe that Repulicans are dangerous.  Noam Chomsky is quoted below.  His textbooks recently sold more than any other author at the UCLA bookstore (don't know if he's still the top seller).  He has said, among other things, that we have to be balanced in our thinking about Pol Pot's killing fields in Cambodia -  considering the benefits as well as the losses.  Pol Pot's goal was to totally obliterate the people's memory of their culture so he could build a new, pure one.   The only "benefit" I know of is that he killed off practically everyone who knew how to farm, so the "non-evil" people (those who weren't considered dangerous because the didn't wear eyeglasses or exhibit any significant sign of education) had nothing to eat.:

“The latest election....you could almost interpret it as a kind of death knell for the species," (said) Chomsky, an emeritus professor of linguistics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology."

Oh, boy.

And remember that libeling the Right is the only way the Left can win.

Libeling the Right: The only way the Left can win* in America

Dennis Prager:

Last week, following the murder of six people and the attempted murder of Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords in Arizona, the American people were given a vivid display of the single most important tactic of the left: libeling opponents.

Most Americans have been naively and blissfully unaware of this aspect of the left's arsenal against the right. But now, just as more Americans than ever before understand the left's limitless appetite for political power in an ever-expanding state, more Americans than ever before understand that a key to the left's success is defaming the right.

Read the whole thing, or listen to this related audio. One of the few times I've heard Prager yell.

The Left is starting to have a hard time getting people to believe The Narrative, because leftist policies are failing all over the world.

* Although sometimes the Republicans help them out by doing stupid stuff which they can exaggerate, mock and misrepresent. Non-progressives will usually only vote for a leftist if they think the Right is worse.

Obscure Kennedy History

The Memorial of the Inauguration of JFK

The 50th anniversary of JFK's inauguration seems to have brought out the history buffs. At the 50th anniversary commemoration at the Kennedy Center, they read a poem by Robert Frost, but not the one he recited at the inauguration, nor the one he had intended to read:

Both of these poems are pugnacious, echoing of American exceptionalism, and a bit bloody. The Kennedy's decision to trade them out for "The Road Not Taken," is an interesting one.

Instead, they chose the "The Road Not Taken", which I memorized as a child (got my only standing ovation at school from reciting a Frost poem). The rejection of history at the commemoration is one more indication of how much the dominant culture's values have changed in 50 years. (Though I think "Left on Left violence" actually started out as "Left on Liberal" violence. The political rhetoric of the Democratic Party under Kennedy included many elements of classical liberalism). We need to start using more specific language.

The Prelude to Watergate

Fifty years ago next week, Richard Nixon stood uncomfortably on the Capitol's inaugural platform and watched his rival John F. Kennedy being sworn in as president. "We won" the election, Nixon fumed, "but they stole it from us."

Indeed, the dirty tricks that helped defeat Nixon were more devious than merely the ballot-stuffing of political lore. In one of the least-known chapters of 20th-century political history, Kennedy operatives secretly paid off an informant and set in motion a Watergate-like burglary that sabotaged Nixon's campaign on the eve of the election. . . .

Indeed, the mysterious break-in to recover Nixon's incriminating financial documents convinced him that such burglaries were standard practice in national politics. Nixon vowed that he would never be caught unprepared again, and he ultimately established his own corps of hard-nosed operatives to carry out espionage and sabotage, which culminated in the botched break-in a dozen years later at the Watergate office of the Democratic Party.

A half-century afterward, Washington still lives with the residue of the Kennedys' little-known dirty trick, which helped unleash our modern scandal culture and continues to influence politics and media today.

So, it wasn't just Joe Kennedy paying off the Daley machine in Chicago to stuff ballot boxes? The author of this piece has written a book about the rise of the modern scandal culture during this time period. It's still with us.

Keith Olbermann: First Casualty of the New Civility?

Or maybe the first casualty of the buyout of NBC and its subsidiaries like MSNBC from GE by Comcast.  Al Franken is upset because the FCC approved the sale, which he thinks increases the corporate control of the media.  He may have a valid point. But it's better than government control. And GE is a very big corporation, too.  Franken didn't seem too upset by it's control of the NBC family of stations. GE seemed to get some really special treatment during the Democrat-controlled 111th Congress. And:

The FCC just approved GE’s sale of MSNBC’s parent company — NBC/Universal — to Comcast. The Obama administration just hired GE’s CEO to a big position.

I think some moves are being made behind the scene.

Hey, Olbermann, this was the president you wanted.

Don't feel too bad for Keith. Word is he'll still get his 7 million per year salary for the next couple of years or so. Conservative Bloggers Hardest Hit. Really. Larry O'Donnell and Ed Schultz are hateful, too, but they just don't have Olbermann's mockable ability to project self-importance.  Olbermann has a touch of a sense of humor, too.

Say is isn't so, Keith:  Keith Olbermann GREEDY?  But he's a Progressive.  Forgetting about the Little People on his staff?  Not possible.  He's a Progressive.

James Taranto: "My one regret in life so far: I was "Worst Person in the World" only once. Proud of having beaten out both Louis Farrakhan and John Stossel, though."

Memories:

The keyboard  Video

Daily Caller got under Keith's skin by buying his .com domain name.

Keith takes personal responsibility for Tucson.  Week in review by someone who watched so we didn't have to.

B-b-but… what’s going to happen to the new civility now? "Just kidding. Enjoy your new martyr, lefties!"  Keith's farewell broadcast video.

Snark from the Left: He who must not be named.  (watch video)

The New Civility in Washington D.C.

Well, that didn't last long.  Why is it that almost certain that when liberals (or Democrats) accuse conservatives (or Republicans) of some sin, it is a sin which they have just committed themselves or are planning to commit in the near future?

Relatively moderate Democrat Steve Cohen compared Republicans to Nazis with regard to the health care bill.  Even though Hitler promoted government-run health care.  He later said that he was really only comparing their lies to Nazi propaganda.  But they weren't lying.

Ironically, Cohen had at one time been attacked in an extremely uncivil manner by more liberal Democrats and was defended by conservatives and libertarians.  I heard as a guest on Dennis Prager's program -- TWICE (once when being smeared by his Democratic primary rival (with references both to the KKK and to his Jewish heritage - go figure) and again after his election when his request for membership in the Congressional Black Caucus was rejected even though he represents a majority-black district. I thought he sounded pretty reasonable and have read mostly good things about him.

He seems to have changed.  Note Cohen's ridiculous comparison of the Tea Party to the KKK (with a little reminder of the Nazis thrown in) on radio in the first video here. This vicious, bigoted characterization was accepted nonchalantly by the hosts of the program, probably because they are used to stereotyping Tea Partiers as the wrong kind of white people.  They've chosen their designated villain, and no evidence is necessary.  (Update:  one of these Young Turks is evidently ideological enough to be tapped to come on board at MSNBC after Olbermann's departure).

The second video includes an earlier news report about his Democratic Party primary rival connecting Cohen to the KKK.  This is way too ironic to make sense. Maybe he developed Stockholm Syndrome after he was elected due to pressure by the liberal Democratic juggernaut in the 111th Congress.

Congressman Cohen's speech on the house floor presented an opportunity for a civility test for liberals. Would they speak out against what Cohen said? Jon Stewart did.  (language alert)

Iowahawk is not what most people would call a liberal, but this is very funny. Note the recycle link at the bottom of the piece.

Are there any better ideas for increasing civility in Washington D.C.? How about a return to the principles of classical liberalism?   Some advice from George Washington would probably not hurt, either.

Negotiating childhood disabilities

Movie review of "The King's Speech" with a link to an interview of the leading actor:

I grew out of a stutter when I was a kid so long ago that I had almost forgotten it, but watching "The King's Speech" over the holidays brought back some painful memories. The "King's Speech" is a wonderful movie, the kind that just about the whole family can enjoy together without embarrassment and that audiences spontaneously applaud when the credits start rolling (as the one we were in did).

Also at Powerline, Thomas Sowell (now 80) wrote a book about fighting through the special education establishment in dealing with his son's disability.  Recommended by parents.

Perry Mason could teach today's reporters a few things

Too many reporters in the big national news organzations today take a very superficial, predictable approach to their stories. They shape their stories to fit a pre-determined template, usually based (wittingly or unwittingly) in their political ideology and consistent with stories by their colleagues.

Similarly, in the Perry Mason mysteries on TV, we usually first saw a "Designated Villain" story line, typically set up by the real villain or an accomplice.  This story line was usually reinforced by biased witnesses and  (unintentionally) accepted by unbiased witnesses and the prosecution.   If Perry Mason had not challenged the "Designated Villain" story line in the TV dramas, ALL of his clients would have lost in court.

In the fictional world of Perry Mason, the police and prosecution were usually honorable even if they didn't dig deep enough during their investigations.  Unfortunately, in the real world, not all police or prosecutors are this unbiased and honorable as the ones in these TV dramas. And Perry Mason (like professor K.C. Johnson) would have faced additional challenges in the real world.

We would hope that reporters would act fairly and honorably in gathering and reporting as much pertinent information on their stories as possible - just as we would hope that prosecutors would look into all the evidence fairly before charging a suspect.  Assuming honorable intentions and adherence to established ethical standards, if the prosecution had used some of the investigative techniques used by Perry Mason in the TV stories, there would be fewer people falsely accused of murder in these TV dramas.  Similarly, if reporters in the mainstream media (and their editorial support) did a little more investigation and/or reported fairly on what they found, there would more truth in their reporting and less drama when their reports are challenged by the NEW MEDIA, readers or viewers.

So, how do we spot bias or falsehoods in news stories?

Perry Mason is not conducting classes for incurious or biased reporters (or for their readers or viewers). And most reporters don't have a Della Street or Paul Drake to do research for them, even if they wanted to present a fair and accurate story. So I guess we'll have to turn to attorney Gabriel Malor for a detailed explanation of how bias and false conclusions are introduced into a story.

Malor demonstrates how a (probably idealistic) reporter for CNN reinforced his desired narrative to present a story which would "make a difference", by focusing on a designated villain and reinforcing his case that this villain was a genuine villain without presenting any facts whatsoever to support this designation.  Read the whole thing.  The CNN report came AFTER the initial flurry of national media reports blaming the Tea Party and Sarah Palin for the Arizona shootings had been shot down.  There was no excuse for this desperate  attempt to keep "The Narrative" alive: 

This type of slime job relies on several techniques common to bad fiction, but the central trope is the Designated Villain.

The Designated Villain, like its counterpart the Designated Hero -- about which I wrote here in relation to the President -- occurs when an author violates the "Show, Don't Tell" rule. A character is treated by the author and the other characters as the villain of the work even though the character hasn't actually done anything to justify this treatment. Quite simply since the protagonists oppose him, he must be the bad guy, even if all his evil occurs off screen and is barely mentioned. The villainy has to be assumed by the reader.

Like the Designated Hero, the Designated Villain is very much present in modern reporting. Fortunately, unlike fiction in which the reader has no choice but to accept the assumptions made by the author, we do not have to accept the assumptions of reporters. Here are just a few the CNN reporter uses to designate the Tea Party as the villain of both the Tucson shooting and, illogically, racist violence that occurred fifty years ago:

Malor demolishes the assumptions inherent in the CNN smear job, with the help of Google.  Remember as you read his piece that reporters can access Google, too.  Not to mention search engines designed  precisely to help the media present accurate stories.  And the layers of editors and fact-checkers which are supposed to increase our confidence in the Mainstream Media.  An example of information which could have easily been found by CNN if they were really interested in reporting the truth:

Please, please, please click the second link and watch the whole thing to see the Tea Partiers asking Giffords not to treat them like "a mob" and Giffords talking about the Tea Party and swastikas. That's how far from reality the CNN reporter wanders. Rather than shouting her down, the Tea Partiers tried to get her to state her positions and treat them with respect. In return, she slandered them with a Nazi comparison.

 We need to teach the kinds of analytical skills demonstrated in Gabriel Malor's piece to ALL STUDENTS. Particularly in journalism school, if reporters want to restore some trust in the mainstream media.

This is the problem with designating a villain outside of fiction. The assumptions necessary to make it work depend on the reader to be utterly ignorant of reality. In the real world, charged political rhetoric is common and rarely leads to violence. But to liberals, it is a feature of "right-wing" political speech and someone always ends up getting hurt. Evidence? No evidence required. . . 

Fortunately, the "working press" (particularly the local press) did a better job that the elite national press on this overall issue.  And the New Media helped get the truth out, too.

The Disturbing World of the Arizona Shooter

The initial campaign to connect in people's minds the Arizona shootings with "violent eliminationist rhetoric" from the Right continues in the modified form of a campaign to "tone down" violent rhetoric in politics and the media.  We are now witnessing a more subtle and devious way to connect idea of violent rhetoric from the Right with the Arizona shootings. And it deflects attention from the issues which should be under discussion as a result of this terrible tragedy.

This red herring is especially disingenuous after the shooter's friends have said that he was "on the left" politically in high school then apparently stopped watching the news, didn't listen to the radio and stopped taking sides in the normal political process.  But he was obsessed with the 2007 "new-age" anarchist internet movie "Zeitgeist".  Produced BEFORE Sarah Palin and the Tea Party were in the national news.  The shooter was also reported to have said in 2007 that Representative Giffords was a "phony" because she did not answer to his satisfaction his irrational question about government and grammar. He may have also developed a certain obsession with her.  None of his acquaintances seem to connect him IN ANY WAY with "right wing" politics. RS McCain links Dan Collins, a father whose child developed a rare form of childhood-onset schizophrenia, concerning the thought processes of schizophrenics.

 Pima college has release a disturbing video in which the shooter talks about what he is thinking as he walks around campus. It makes Collins' heartbreaking observations come to life. Drew M. says this  about the video:

This appeared last night and the reaction from folks on Twitter and email was that it's a tough watch.

The guy is genuinely disturbed. We knew that but to hear and see it so clearly is pretty shocking.

I would love to sit with Chris Matthews, Keith Olbermann, Paul Krugman and the like to watch this. Then when it's over, I'd like them to explain to me how they think this broken and damaged man was in any way influenced by the 'tone' of our political discourse. . . .

Also read his quote from a commentator in the New York Times about the misuse of this tragedy to further a political agenda.  (The Times has backed off its original story line, probably due to the rapid response of competitive voices and real journalists).

Getting back to the Zeitgeist thing:  The Zeitgeist movie's producers, like many new-age types, paid attention to conspiracy ideas from across the political spectrum.  But the style of their movie was typical of activist art from the Left, and the movie won an award at a lefty film festival.  No wonder, since it attacked Christianity, suggested that the U.S. government was complicit in 9/11 and warned against "banking interests" and secret plots to start wars.

On the other hand, it also stated that the income tax is unconstitutional.  I haven't yet fully figured out why "truther" anarchist filmmakers who hate Fox News often get along very well with big-government leftists at rallies and activist film festivals. I would expect anarchists and big-government leftists to be ideologically incompatible. But then again, sometimes lefty anarchists espouse some big-government ideas -- which sort of makes them atypical anarchists.

Somehow, I am not confident that Chris Matthews, Keith Olbermann, Paul Krugman and the like will now condemn violent rhetoric and images in left-wing activist "art"   like they condemned violent rhetoric and images from the Right. Art must reflect freedom of expression (unless it is critical of one of the Left's more fashionable "communities" of the moment).  These commentators cannot be consistent and retain their affinity with today's progressives. And they already have a designated villain.

CNN puts itself "in the crosshairs"

This coordinated attempt to shut down vivid speech by the Right is getting very, very silly. In a calculated sort of way. Don Surber makes some important points about surrendering the language* to the Left. From the comments:

I’ve told them what it takes, for us to stop that and return to civil discourse:

WE’LL STOP THE YELLIN’ … WHEN Y’ALL STOP THE LYIN’!

 Byron York documents that before banning 'crosshairs,' CNN used it to refer to Palin and Bachmann.

. . . Mark Preston, CNN's senior political editor, referred to another controversial politician, Republican Rep. Michele Bachmann, as being "in the crosshairs." "Michelle Bachmann is raising lots of money, raising her national profile," Preston said on September 14. "She is in the crosshairs of Democrats as well."

It turns out Preston was back on CNN's air on Tuesday, discussing Palin's recent interview on Fox News. "We saw her on Fox News last night where she is a paid contributor," Preston said. "A kind of a friendly setting, but she defended herself from all the criticism that's been directed at her regarding a Web site that she had put out where she had used crosshairs over 20 Democratic candidates.

NOT TRUE. The crosshairs were over congressional districts on A MAP. Not over candidates. Sort of like the Democratic Party maps with bullseyes over congressional districts.  Was Prestons mischaracterization sloppiness or a calculated effort to suggest more violent imagery, do you think? Either way, it's not acceptable for a senior political EDITOR. York comments:

"Crosshairs" again. Just for the record, CNN anchors, reporters and guests did absolutely nothing wrong with their use of the word in the last month and before. It would be impossible, at least for any reasonable person, to argue that the network's use of "crosshairs" in any of the various contexts it was used, was an incitement to violence by anyone, anywhere. But by announcing that "we're trying to get away" from "crosshairs" and other allegedly incendiary language, CNN is aligning itself with those who blame "rhetoric" for the killings. And by doing that -- plus inviting the public to "hold us accountable" -- CNN could open itself up to an examination of its own uses of the word and accusations that it helped create an environment that led to violence. Does that make any sense at all?

Read the whole thing.

* Richard Fernandez has similar thoughts:

CNN is now apologizing for the use of the word “crosshairs” in general political speech, as shown in the video after the “Read More” jump. The implication is that the word itself has been used to facilitate a hate crime. That is untrue, as former New York City Mayor Ed Koch observes. But maybe the belief is that if a lie is repeated for long enough then it eventually becomes true. Then power follows. “Real power is the ability to define what the fight is about.” The entire discussion moves into a rigged casino. Control words and you control truth. George Orwell understood this so well that he believed one of the first things every totalitarian ideology does is redefine the words in a language, purposefully, forcefully and relentlessly. In his novel 1984, he called this artificial language of totalitarianism Newspeak. . . 

From the comments:

Orwell, indeed, is required reading. “1984″ should be read at least every couple of years (like the Bible?), just to keep us Westerners on our toes. (Dispensations will be available for those who have had to actually live that nightmare.)

Though in this, Orwell merely echoes Humpty Dumpty—another one of my intellectual heroes. . . .

UPDATE: More deception from CNN.  And from the New York Times and Salon:

The New York Times did this earlier, deleting Obama's line about whether incivil debate caused the Tucson shooting -- "It did not," Obama said, fairly directly, contradicting the New York Times' Narrative.


. . . The Narrative is more important than a president's actual words, so the actual words had to be changed to reinforce The Narrative. . .

Can't. Stop. The Narrative.

Reality-based community or community-based reality?

They're like the dead in Sixth Sense -- they only see what they want to see. So they don't know that they're... ghosts of a fallen age.

Kind of seems like that sometimes.

The Establishment

I remember when the Left railed against "The Establishment" in vigorous, and somtimes violent, ways. Shannon Love:

Why is the left hypocritically pushing so hard for “civility” in our political discourse? Why did they try to use the Tuscon shootings to suppress the passionate expression of non-leftists?

I think the answer is simple: Passionate, sometimes even inflammatory, expression is the tool of the revolutionary not the establishment and today, leftists are the establishment.

Plus this interesting observation:

We live today in a looking-glass world in which those who call themselves “progressives” fight for the past and established policies while those who call themselves “conservatives” fight for the future and innovation.

Read the whole thing.

Getting Real about Israel

Melanie Phillips discusses the abandonment of the field of battle in the "information war" to the Left and to those in the UK and in Israel wishing to destroy Israel.

Clarity
Clarity
Clarity

From about the 7 minute point, you may recognize some phenomena which occur in the U.S. as well.

UPDATE: Perhaps someone is taking Phillips seriously. There have been some lucid responses to the American mainstream media's framing of Israel as the "Designated Villain". The devious "Designated Villain" journalistic technique seems to be very popular with our mainstream media's reporters. It's a way to editorialize while seeming to report the news. These smear jobs would be far more acceptable if "designated villain" pieces were included in the opinion pages rather than presented as news reports.  The letter to the editor of TIME magazine by Ron Dermer linked above is an exceptional example of:

Clarity and balance

You might want to follow the links to read responses to various other biased reports by our mainstream media.

Martin Luther King Jr. Commemoration

It's a reminder of what our culture has lost to read the Letter from Birmingham Jail. Which political leaders in our day write in a way which provoke reactions like this so long after the words have been put on paper? And how many of today's college students would be able to appreciate the allusions King made to parts of the then commonly-understood cultural heritage of our country?

UPDATE: William Bennett in 1986 on MLK's change in his field of study from sociology to theology:

Martin Luther King turned to the greatest philosophers because he needed to know the answers to certain questions. What is justice? What should be loved? What deserves to be defended? What can I know? What should I do? What may I hope for? What is man? These questions are not simply intellectual diversions, but have engaged thoughtful human beings in all places and in all ages. As a result of the ways in which these questions have been answered, civilizations have emerged, nations have developed, wars have been fought, and people have lived contentedly or miserably. And as a result of the way in which Martin Luther King eventually answered these questions, Jim Crow was destroyed and American history was transformed.

Plus, comments on some inherent weaknesses in scientific studies, particularly in the social sciences.

Here's a thought-provoking review of a book about MLK's funeral.

The country itself seemed to quake in the shooting's aftermath. Fear of more assassinations and riots was rampant. The Vietnam War raged. President Lyndon Johnson had just announced that he would not seek reelection. The FBI manhunt for King's killer had gone global.

Yet Atlanta stayed calm. . .

King catalyzed positive changes in our society. New weaknesses seem to pop up as we correct old ones. But it's worth remembering King's dream on this day.

UPDATE: Don't forget Sudan's slaves.

p.s.: Did you know that the pacifist Martin Luther King was an advocate of gun rights? Like many other civil rights leaders. Apparently, Michael Moore thinks King was a racist.

The Tea Party is motivated by sex

New theory from the legendary leftist professor of sociology and political science Frances Fox Piven. The audio also reveals a number of additional dopey, bigoted stereotypes about the characteristics of people attracted to the Tea Party. The ONE thing she doesn't mention is the Tea Party's alarm at the aggressive efforts of the 111th Congress and the Obama Administration to take more control and power over large parts of the economy and larger parts of people's incomes, to spend money indiscriminately and to leave the bill for future generations:

That's why they say at their crazy rallies,  "I am angry"  - they have no follow-up line . . .

The disappointing move to the right in the last election was all because of a slight increase in all-white voters over 65 years of age. Meanwhile, in the real world, Shock CBS Poll: 77% of Americans are Extremist Teabaggers, Want to Cut Government Spending.

She is also disappointed in President Obama for not redistributing more wealth.  Wonder if President Obama's former press secretary Robert Gibbs would include her among those in the "professional left" whom he told off?   He thought they were being unrealistic about how far the President could go in imposing their preferred policies, given the makeup of the American electorate.

Don't you feel better knowing that our elite academics are this out of touch with what is really going on? 

 On the other hand, maybe she knows that what she is saying has no basis in fact, but is following the old precepts of "dialectical materialism": only statements which advance the cause of socialism are true.

Her musings on sex and the Tea Party seem to be consistent with the level of careful research which went into some of her  highly practical prescriptions for improving our society:

1. The way to get government to give everyone a guaranteed annual income is to bankrupt the government by intentionally overloading the welfare system. What could go wrong?

2. The unemployed should develop an  angry identity  in the U.S., sort of like the angry people protesting against the insolvency of the governments in Greece and elsewhere in Europe. What could go wrong?

Right now, I'm thinking that taking on tens of thousands of dollars of extra debt to study with the best-known professors in the "soft sciences" may not be such a good idea. Iowahawk had this figured out a long time ago. Classic.

Compassionate Tyranny

“The urge to save humanity is almost always a false-front for the urge to rule it.” – H. L. Mencken

Great minds . . .

“It is said that power corrupts, but actually it’s more true that power attracts the corruptible. The sane are usually attracted by other things than power.”
~David Brin

Camus said something similar I believe. Something like “The salvation of humanity is the alibi of all tyrants.”

“Good intentions will always be pleaded for every assumption of authority. It is hardly too strong to say that the Constitution was made to guard the people against the dangers of good intentions. There are men in all ages who mean to govern well, but they mean to govern. They promise to be good masters, but they mean to be masters.” –Daniel Webster

Support Alternative Media: Some recommendations

The irresponsible "rush to narrative" of the Mainstream Media after the shootings in Arizona last weekend demonstrated that the majority of the "Mainstream" media falls to the left of President Obama's position concerning how news should be reported. And the big media outlets utterly failed to accurately report what was happening at the shooting site. For example, many outlets reported that Representative Giffords was dead. Too bad that journalism schools now teach that the job of reporters is to "make a difference" rather than to "report the news".

 The standards for accuracy in journalism which we relied on in the past seem to have been abandoned. There was little curiosity concerning legitimate issues surrounding the shootings.  Thankfully, there is still some input from the right side of the political spectrum on the opinion pages of major papers.  And it's important to give credit to the lefties when they do a good job.  But in terms of reporting, you will often need to go elsewhere to avoid the "rush to narrative". Local reporting was more accurate than the big national media organizations in this case, and good local reporters should be supported. But where do you go for alternative information on national stories?

If you are a committed progressive/liberal, you need to understand other points of view. Unless you want to become as ineffective in conversations with the Right as this  (Brutal satire alert). You aren't likely to find adequately-detailed alternative viewpoints unless you seek them out. Often, even conservatives have difficulty articulating the philosophical or practical bases for their positions.    If you are a moderate liberal, classical liberal, libertarian or a conservative, you need correct information.  Incorrect assertions are quickly shot down in the center-right blogosphere (and on the "classic" center-left blogs, which are sometimes linked by the sites below). Some interesting sites you could check out and browse occasionally:

If you're short on time, INSTAPUNDIT (libertarian law professor Glenn Reynolds) provides links to sites from across the political spectrum, typically with very short commentary.  Note:  don't expect him to be a conservative.  He's very libertarian on social issues.  Monday mornings are a good time to glance through the first page - he usually includes a weekend roundup.  The search function on the site is quite good. In addition to issues concerning law and politics, he often links pieces on medical and scientific advancements (including nanotechnology and "green" technologies); books and book reviews; photography, cooking, music and assorted other subjects. He rounds up tips on disaster preparedness and recently defended President Obama on the issue of civil defense. Reynolds started blogging to avoid constant worrying when his wife's life was in danger due to a heart condition. She's a clinical psychologist with expertise in violent children who blogs as Dr. Helen.

REAL CLEAR POLITICS presents a convenient overview of the issues of the day, linking mainstream media sites as well as journals and blogs from across the political spectrum without commentary. A good place to go for the text of speeches (on the day they are given or the day after). Their own commentary leans right, although they invite guest commentary from the left.

Don't believe balance is necessary?  The New York Times was probably the worst offender (outside of television) in pushing a pre-determined political narrative concerning the Arizona shootings.  They often seem to set the "narrative" for other mainstream media outlets.  Ed Driscoll posts on the question: How do you solve a problem like Paul Krugman?   He links the Ace of Spades website, where you can find  some crude language (think "South Park Conservatives" - or maybe "South Park Libertarians"). The language is not as bad as on many lefty blogs, but you might want to stick with links to ACE OF SPADES from more "work-safe" and "home-safe" sites.  Ace can be brilliant (for an agnostic, sometimes crude, epileptic attorney) and there are other good (if often snarky) writers at this site. The link here is disturbing, but because it tells the truth -- not because of gratuitous obscenity. “New York Times Tells Lie Big Enough To Earn It Another Pulitzer.” Ouch!!!!.  So mean, Ace.  Do you think you're on Comedy Central or something?  

POWERLINE BLOG (three conservative, Ivy League-type attorneys) puts in a plug for PAJAMAS MEDIA which was started after RatherGate as a loose confederation of libertarian, conservative, classical liberal and international bloggers with a plan to provide a real alternative to the Mainstream Media. Their flippant name comes from mockery of the bloggers "writing in their pajamas in the basement" who challenged the Mainstream Narrative concerning RatherGate -- and beat the "layers of fact-checkers and editors" in the mainstream media (particularly in high-budget television). They have now started producing videos like the Trifecta commentary at the link. Some of the videos are more "professional" than others. PajamasMedia has also started an entertaining and informative group blog, The Tatler, with short entries along the lines of those in the (establishment conservative) National Review's THE CORNER

BELMONT CLUB is one of my favorite sites, for unusual essays inspired by the news and written by Richard Fernandez (Wretchard) - a former Filipino revolutionary who was educated at Berkeley (and elsewhere in the U.S.) and lives in Australia. The place to go if you want to join a discussion about "black swans", "white swans" or developments in network communication. I'm also partial to CLAUDIA ROSETT, a real journalist who monitors the excesses and insanities at the United Nations and elsewhere. MICHAEL TOTTEN is an independent journalist who reports on the Middle East FROM the Middle East.

VICTOR DAVIS HANSON is our neighbor from up the road in Selma. He's a raisin farmer, Fellow at the Hoover Institution at Stanford, and a former Professor of Classics at Fresno State. Sometimes he strays from one topic to another in blog posts, and Wretchard periodically comments on these stream-of-consciousness posts. When VDH writes an essay which sticks to a single subject, it is often brilliant. His dual experience working the land and teaching in academia gives him an unusual outlook.  And then there are his studies of ancient civilizations, languages and his familiarity with modern Greece. As one of the few scholars of ancient and modern warfare in the country, he was an advisor for the movie "300".

Outside the current Pajamas Media umbrella, there's TIGERHAWK, the CFO of a medium-sized medical device company. He's a libertarian/conservative who listens to NPR and reaches out to liberals he loves  from time to time.  He blogs on Blogspot, just like me and Professor Jacobson. I also like Ed Morrissey at HOT AIR.   He used to have an independent blog called Captain's Quarters.  He's a conservative.  His wife, Marcia, is blind and has undergone a kidney transplant.  She blogs at Patheos. TOM MAGUIRE specializes in careful reading. Something not done often enough in today's fast-paced news cycle. Sense of Events posts interesting pieces from a Christian perspective. The Anchoress is even more assertively religious (Catholic) in her writing but often has some very interesting insights into political developments.

There are many other interesting voices out there. You'll find them at links to those above.

 For sites on the Right which occasionally play as fast and loose with the facts as the New York Times regularly does, you could look into the tabloid-style Breitbart sites, Big Hollywood, Big Government, Big Journalism and Big Peace. Breitbart is an activist, like most young journalists today (but on the other side politically from most of them). He is quite confrontational, eliciting howls and venom from the Left, which is used to taking advantage of the typical meek responses from the Right to their lies, bigotry and organized mischaracterizations. Expect uneven quality at these sites - sometimes very good, sometimes with amateurish characteristis. Expect these sites to make errors, but to correct them faster than the New York Times and to give responsible critics space to respond.

I recommend that you avoid the fever-swamp, conspiracy theory-loving sites of all political persuasions, or that you be realistic about their nature when you check them out.

Reports from Eastern Europe

Eastern European governments begin seizing private pensions. Meanwhile, France and Ireland "use" the money in government-structured pensions for other purposes.

Andrew Klavan:

"Free people can treat each other justly, but they can't make life fair. To get rid of the unfairness among individuals, you have to exercise power over them. The more fairness you want, the more power you need. Thus, all dreams of fairness become dreams of tyranny in the end."

On the other hand, Romanian witches are using spells to protest new taxes. Guess you have to scare 'em somehow.

The Case Against Principles in Government

Follow the link.

Humility - Farewell to the 111th

John Boehner's speech impressed some people. Ace:

All the right notes, and I think he means them. What he's stressing is not the details of governance but the central assumption of it -- democracy, where the people rule.

Video at the link.

Roger L. Simon:

Like much of the world that doesn’t live Inside the Beltway, I was only marginally aware of John Boehner until some months ago when it was becoming clear he might be the next speaker. And even then I wasn’t impressed. The man-tan look made me assume he was just another shallow pol.


I was wrong. As of now, I have done a total about-face. In his speech today, John Boehner showed himself to be among the most impressive figures on our political landscape, and he did it by being that rarest of things in politics: a humble human being.

Compare and Contrast. Or, you might prefer to Compare and Contrast.

Boehner's big gavel kind of reminds me of Nancy's horrible "victory walk", (which she staged in order to accuse the Tea Party of being racist and/or violent) but I guess Boehner has a different meaning in mind.

Hope the new Congress can rein in some of the excesses of the 111th Congress. The great Thomas Sowell:

Runaway "stimulus" spending, high unemployment and ObamaCare are all legitimate and important issues. It is just that freedom and survival are more important.


For all its sweeping and scary provisions, ObamaCare is not nearly as important as the way it was passed. If legislation can become laws passed without either the public or the Congress knowing what is in those laws, then the fundamental principle of a free, self-governing people is completely undermined.

Reducing Social Divisions and Inequality: When Liberal Pundits Fight

Do you increase social cohesion and reduce social inequality by reducing income inequality through taxation,  or by limiting cultural and racial diversity, for example, by limiting immigration?  Follow the Links  to read about some in-fighting among liberals* on this issue.  Starting off, conservative/libertarian Tom Maguire points out that the same data can lead to different conclusions if you haven't accounted for all variables:

Yesterday Nick Kristof delivered a daft column invoking income inequality as a proxy for social inequality and arguing that inequality is stressful and bad. . .

The obvious conclusion, based on the examples presented by Kristof, is that racial diversity creates undesirable social stress. An obvious public policy implication is that immigration should be discouraged. Believe it or not, Kristof did not reach those conclusions, since they don't fit his narrative. Instead, he rode the data to his preconceived destination, which is that we need to tax the rich and spread the wealth. Yeah, yeah - if you aren't going to let the data tell its story, why send it on stage? Or, if the data leads to unacceptable conclusions, maybe the premises are wrong (e.g., maybe social stress is bad but it is a necessary consequence of achieving other goods.)

Well. As if on cue, the Times has a front-pager telling us how they reduce income inequality and maintain social cohesion in laudable Japan - they kick out foreigners, thereby propping up wages. . .

OK, it looks like national suicide to me and it could never work in America (nor should it be attempted at this level, although we need stricter border control and workplace enforcement), but this is a country Nick Kristof is holding up as our goal.

Mickey Kaus notes differences between the famous New York Times columnist Paul Krugman and less famous  liberal (and libertarian/liberal) commentators on the issue of immigration. Some of whom seem to have a tendency toward name-calling.

Somewhat-related Graphs: Median income vs. incomes for the top 1% in America over time.  Update:  Tom Maguire has no mercy.

* Well, Mickey Kaus is more moderate than the rest - with some libertarian leanings. I sure wish his Democratic primary challenge to Barbara Boxer had been more successful. But he made some good points with very little money.

Southern Europe's Young See Little Benefit in Education

THE NEW YORK TIMES REPORTS on a "Doomed Generation" of highly educated young Europeans who can't find work??? Pigs fly.

Young people in Europe start to understand the looming demographic crisis.

With pensioners living longer and young people entering the work force later — and paying less in taxes because their salaries are so low — it is only a matter of time before state coffers run dry.

“What we have is a Ponzi scheme,” said Lawrence Kotlikoff, an economist at Boston University and an expert in fiscal policy.

Glenn Reynolds: "Funny how it seems to work out this way everywhere that high-tax, high-regulation schemes are tried, but young people are usually dumb enough not to realize who gets hurt the most. And what happens when a higher education bubble bursts:"

In Italy, Ms. Esposito is finishing her lawyer traineeship at a private firm in Lecce. It pays little but sits better on her conscience than her unpaid work for the government.

“I’m a repentant college graduate,” she said. “If I had it to do over again, I wouldn’t go to college and would just start working.”

John Hinderaker:"It seems to me that the Times conflates several rather distinct issues in chronicling the malaise of Europe's young. It is not obvious that accumulating "certificates" is the optimum path to gainful employment. Europe has long tended to prize credentials over actual productivity, but that is probably a secondary issue in the current crisis. . .

That is what happens when government inserts itself into every employment decision and when labor unions are given quasi-official powers and status. The result is economic disaster, a disaster first suffered by the young. What has happened in Europe, especially Southern Europe, is a flashing red alert, warning the United States not to follow the same path of government interventionism and union empowerment"

Instapundit reader concerning the demographic problems discussed in the New York Times article:

Mark Steyn  has been warning about this for years, most notably in his book America Alone. Except when he broaches the subject he’s accused of being a right-wing lunatic.

Reynolds: "Well, yes. As with the Hitler/Stalin pact, one must not only have the right opinions, one must have them at the correct time."

Wretchard has additional thoughts on the Times piece, including the phenomenon of educated Europeans moving to Latin America for job opportunities:

So for some Europeans it is Costa Rica or bust; where one of the virtues, in common with most of the Third World, is that there are almost no rules. The absence of regulation must make the non-Western world something like the frontier, where both disaster and great fortune seem to lurk right around the corner. . . .

The Hard Left's Latest Ideas for Improving Society

Honored professor of sociology and political science Frances Fox Piven, co-author of the Cloward-Piven Strategy, has some timely advice for the unemployed in America. She wants to foster again what they call over at Protein Wisdom the "blind rage of Cloward-Piven":

they have to develop a proud and angry identity and a set of claims that go with that identity. They have to go from being hurt and ashamed to being angry and indignant

You might think of it as encouraging a generalized, emotional sort of covetousness for revolutionary purposes. Ron Radosh:

What she is calling for is nothing less than the chaos and violence engulfing Europe.

The Cloward-Piven Strategy was one part of American history about which I knew very little until a couple of years ago, when people started pointing out that some of its ideas had contributed to the financial meltdown. ACORN's* agitation for home loans for high-risk borrowers helped to  crash the real estate market in the U.S., and very nearly the financial system of much of the West. Of course, they had big assists from brilliant Ivy League computer modelers on Wall Street and their friends in Government, with their slick computer models for the bundling of bad loans with good loans (and all the reckless behavior which accompanied the acceptance of those models).  Of course, you can't discount  government borrowing and fractional lending by banks. (Too bad American banks were not allowed, or even encouraged, to be as realistic as Canadian banks.) 

But the West's financial system is still limping along.  So far, the hoped-for (by Cloward-Piven types) Rise of the Proletariat Masses to build a glorious new world on the ashes after their planned collapse of the structure of Western civilization has failed to materialize. Even if they did succeed in bankrupting New York City back at the height of their influence. I remember news stories about the bankruptcy of New York City and its relationship to high welfare costs. I DON'T remember hearing that there was a deliberate movement to overload the welfare system. I wonder why the press suppressed this bit of information?

Wall Street and Government financial hotshots (in the recent financial crisis) and the Cloward-Piven bunch (in their dreams to change the world) exhibited a remarkable lack of forecasting abilities. This gives one slight pause about revolutionizing the entire world's economy based on Global Warming computer models and utopian plans for redistributing wealth. Apparently the recent Cancun Climate Conference was more about Climate Justice than about reducing greenhouse gasses.  Even though some UN bureaucrats seem to have some doubts about giving all that money to corrupt, brutal African dictators (or perhaps even to common uneducated Africans). And they may have a point, given the irresponsible reactions of Greeks to the money flowing to their government from other European counties. Although poor, Greece was not exactly a third-world country when the money started flowing in without much effort on the part of the populace.  And when the government ran out of money  --  REALLY ran out of money -- the reaction was rage.  Would not even more irresponsibility be expected if third-worlders were suddenly awash in money they didn't earn?

The trouble is that the Hard Left has always been better at taking over and/or destroying existing institutions than at building new ones.

Frances Fox Piven can look to recent models for her dream of an angry identity-formation from Americans who have been hurt financially by the economic crisis. Richard Fernandez (nom de blog: Wretchard) provides some additional education on the  rise of ANARCHY, once again, in Europe.

In fine anarchists are Red Guards of the European Left, a collection of dupes formed inside the vast and creaky infrastructure of Marxism to advance the interests of one faction against another faction. It is impossible to understand the politics of the Left without grasping that it is all about deniable intimidation. The real problem European anarchism solves is how to send bombs without seemingly sending them, or how to trash the Tory party headquarters in London without really doing it.

Just as Mao’s Red Guards were never about themselves, always about Mao, anarchists are about a larger political question: what is the correct political line? Once the Red Guards of China had resolved that in Mao’s favor they were allowed to rampage for a time to bring hatred down upon themselves and subsequently suppressed, hapless tools to the very end.

Read the whole thing. Wretchard was once part of a genuine rebellion himself (in the Philippines)  and he interacted with revolutionaries who had various ideological reasons for participating in the rebellion.  Some of these revolutionaries seemed more threatening to him than the corrupt, autocratic government against which he was rebelling.

Wretchard's commenters often have some interesting ideas, too.  If you make a comment which he thinks brings something important to the conversation, he may comment on it, as well.  Glenn Reynold notes a few clarifying comments from others on various types of anarchists - some more responsible than others.  A "true anarchy" doesn't sound at all appealing.

I wonder how many generations ahead Fox Pivens was thinking when she called for this angry, indignant reaction from the unemployed in America?  Has she ever considered Thomas Sowell's perpetual question to the utopian thinker, "And then what?"

BLAST FROM THE PAST (circa 1980), Thomas Sowell takes on Frances Fox Piven in the last part of this 6-minute video. He was really feisty back then. Sowell and Fox Piven don't seem to have persuaded each other much in the intervening years.

Additional reading: Life and Death in Shanghai is the story of a remarkable woman's experiences with the Red Guard and the Maoist government after being identified as an "enemy of the people".

Wretchard  comments on VDH's latest piece comparing the behavior of the Left in Greece and California. Can the Left be brought to understand to the reality of the dire situation they are in?

So Hanson says, why not let them have it but make it clear that the state will have to pay for it? Let them see for themselves where the path leads if they won’t listen to reason. . . . .

Maybe they won’t listen to experience either, just as certain types of people keep trying the same thing while hoping for different results. They will press on despite failure, despite debacles and just press the keys harder. But under no circumstances will “sorry, we won’t loan you anything at any interest rate, so please by all means riot all you wish” get anyone else off the hook. Because other people are permanently on the hook. The whole point of socialism is precisely that it’s built on somebody else’s money. If it were built with their money it would be capitalism.

WH Auden observed that “all sins tend to be addictive, and the terminal point of addiction is damnation.” If the Left the world over has reached the point where they have got to have their fix, then neither reason nor experience will be persuasive. . .

The Hard Left aside, even more moderate young Social Democrats of Europe are starting to wake up to the consequences of not asking Sowell's question, "And then what?"   in their social planning. As reported by the NEW YORK TIMES?  Similar education bubble coming to a state near you.  Demographic issues may be a little different.

Video showing the lighter side of Marxism in NYC linked at the bottom of this post.

* Does ACORN really have BILLIONAIRE supporters who need to be informed of their business plans like, maybe, George Soros? Seems odd for a group focused on financial equality.  But then, Soros has justified destroying currencies in his stated quest to create more equitable governments.

UPDATE:  An old Stalinist is also delighted by the world's financial difficulties.   Even Fox-Piven had evolved beyond loving Stalin, I believe.