Archive for the ‘Socialism’ Category

« Older Entries

Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Broadband

Saturday, October 17th, 2009

I think the interwebs are a great thing, but this is ridiculous,

Finland has become the first country in the world to declare broadband Internet access a legal right.

Starting in July, telecommunication companies in the northern European nation will be required to provide all 5.2 million citizens with Internet connection that runs at speeds of at least 1 megabit per second.

The one-megabit mandate, however, is simply an intermediary step, said Laura Vilkkonen, the legislative counselor for the Ministry of Transport and Communications.

The country is aiming for speeds that are 100 times faster — 100 megabit per second — for all by 2015.

“We think it’s something you cannot live without in modern society. Like banking services or water or electricity, you need Internet connection,” Vilkkonen said.

Finland is one of the most wired in the world; about 95 percent of the population have some sort of Internet access, she said. But the law is designed to bring the Web to rural areas, where geographic challenges have limited access until now.

“Universal service is every citizen’s subjective right,” Vilkkonen said.

This strikes me as a great opportunity for the Blogmocracy to extend its growing empire into the previously untapped rural Finnish market. 

All joking aside, this is a perfect example of that perversion of the rights concept, known as “positive rights.”  See, American constitutional liberty rests on the basis of “negative rights” – you are free to do what you want, for yourself, without being hindered by the government, so long as you are not harming someone else.  “Positive” rights turn this on its head, and obligate citizens to provide things to other citizens, thereby placing a burden via the government onto those forced to provide (usually the productive classes).   Yet another bad idea for which we can thank Rousseau. 

Tags: ,
Posted in Europe, Socialism | 182 Comments »

Let’s all be revolutionaries!

Tuesday, October 13th, 2009

That crazy winger over at Renew America is at it again,

“During times of universal deceit, telling the truth becomes a revolutionary act.” — George Orwell

If there was anyone who should know about deceit, it was George Orwell. Orwell — the pen-name for Eric Arthur Blair — was quite an idealistic man. Unfortunately for idealistic people, they are also often naïve, and susceptible to being deceived. Many are unaware of this, but George Orwell — despite the popularity of his antitotalitarian book 1984 — was a socialist. And as a good socialist in the mid-1930s, he went to Spain, to “fight against fascism,” as he put it. What he found out after he had been there for a while, however, was that his erstwhile Stalinist allies in the Spanish Communist Party were not so much interested in rescuing Spain from the fascist clutches of Francisco Franco (which they signally failed to do anyhow) as they were in coercing all the other leftists — including Orwell’s Marxist-but-not-Stalinist group — into seeing things the Stalinist way, or arresting them if they wouldn’t. Orwell — and a lot of other idealists like him — got snookered, but fortunately for him, he was able to get out of Spain without ending up on the wrong end of a firing squad.

He shouldn’t have been surprised, however, but the deceptions of his “allies” and “compatriots.” After all, the first half of the 20th century was a high-water mark for the radical Left. In Russia you had a genuine successful Communist revolution that put the forces of ultrabig government firmly in control of the largest piece of property in the world. Meanwhile, fascism (also a Left-statist philosophy) was rolling to victory in Italy, Germany, and in a host of smaller eastern European countries. The Left — those people who wanted to use the power of government to stamp out traditional society and replace it with devotion to the all-powerful State — were on the march, and could afford a little backstabbing against their useful idiots.

Given all the propaganda flying around in those days, it’s no surprise that Orwell would have thought himself living in a time of universal deceit. The Communists, the Socialists, the Fascists — everyone on the Left was constantly engaged in trying to dupe people into believing falsehoods that would make their particular version of Statism seem acceptable, or at least palatable. This was so even in the USA — let’s not forget the whitewash of the Soviet-engineered famine which killed several million Ukrainians, conveniently covered up by Walter Duranty of the New York Times.

Unfortunately, we here and now in the United States find ourselves living in a similar time of universal deceit.

Revolutionaries?  Sounds subversive. Better go read the rest of it, just to find out for sure!

Tags: ,
Posted in Leftists, Liberal Fascism, Politics, Socialism | 255 Comments »

President Barack Obama wins Nobel Peace Prize

Friday, October 9th, 2009

And why not?  Yasser Arafat got one too, after all,

President Barack Obama won the 2009 Nobel Peace Prize on Friday in a stunning decision designed to encourage his initiatives to reduce nuclear arms, ease tensions with the Muslim world and stress diplomacy and cooperation rather than unilateralism.

Nobel observers were shocked by the unexpected choice so early in the Obama presidency, which began less than two weeks before the Feb. 1 nomination deadline.

White House press secretary Robert Gibbs said Obama woke up to the news a little before 6 a.m. EDT. The White House had no immediate comment on the announcement, which took the administration by surprise.

The Norwegian Nobel Committee lauded the change in global mood wrought by Obama’s calls for peace and cooperation but recognized initiatives that have yet to bear fruit: reducing the world stock of nuclear arms, easing American conflicts with Muslim nations and strengthening the U.S. role in combating climate change.

Really, like we really needed any more evidence than we already had that the Nobel Peace Prize was nothing more than a discredited booby prize given not for genuine accomplishment in the cause of world peace, but rather for tendentious reasons of political correctness.

What’s funny is that the Nobel Committee even acknowledges that Obama’s “initiatives” haven’t done anything at all so far (anything positive, I mean).  They just gave it to him because he’s a popular figure, and because he’s so unlike all those previous American Presidents who were horrible warmongering militarists who did things like protecting Western Europe from the Soviet menace for several decades, followed by killing hundreds of thousands of al-Qaeda terrorists bent on the destruction of Western civilisation.

Ironically, what Obama has done so far will only result in increased tension, conflict, and bloodshed in the future – some of it possibly involving the use of WMDs.   But that’s okay – for the Europeans who run the Nobel Committee, actual progress or substance isn’t necessary, just the right feeeeeeelings, as well as being the celebrité du jour.  And as I’ve noted a few months ago, when it comes to foreign policy, Obama really is America’s first European President,

Obama’s foreign policy approach seems to operate from fundamentally European assumptions. Even the “Right” in Old Europe holds to these, just as much as the Left. These assumptions are often diametrically opposed to American approaches — not just from the perspective of realpolitik and the pursuit of disparate national interests, but also from the very basic and foundational presuppositions under which each side operates.

Obama operates a foreign policy that assumes that bad people just want to talk their problems through, which will always appeal to soft, effeminate Europeans who can’t even stand up to the Islamification of their own continent.  We’ve seen to date how well that works. 

While Obama may be bad for America and bad for the world, he can at least join the pantheon of other failed losers like Jimmy Carter and Yasser Arafat, who have been awarded the Peace Prize for doing absolutely nothing of any real value to the world. 

Tags: , , ,
Posted in Socialism, World | 369 Comments »

Millionaire Filmmaker/America-hating Fat Tub of Goo Michael Moore-on: ‘Capitalism Did Nothing For Me’

Friday, October 2nd, 2009

Citizen Moore

Oh really lard ass? Capitalism did nothing for you?

You obviously didn’t get to look like a fat, disgusting sack of worthless shit because you don’t get enough to eat. Try going to North Korea, where the people have to eat the bark off of trees to attempt to survive, because like all the communist regimes you and the other losers in Hollywood and the dimocrat party admire, they don’t give a rat’s ass if their citizens live or die, as long as they can retain their power.

Think you could have made any of your stupid films, not to mention millions of dollars, from other libtard morons paying $10 or more going to see your worthless and packed-full-of-lies crap in, oh, maybe North Korea?

In 2002, your America-hating anti-gun documentary “Bowling for Columbine”, where you described the U.S.A. as gun-crazed and violent, won the best documentary award at the Cannes Film Festival in Fwance and won the Academy Award in 2003 for Best Documentary.

When it was later revealed that your documentary/film was made with staged or edited content meant to deceive viewers, you defended your outright lies by claiming that you were an “entertainer”.

Same with that other waste of celluloid, “Fahrenheit 9/11″, which was also filled with bullshit, lies and distortions, like when you edited the words of a wounded hero, a young Marine at Walter Reed Medical Center, to make it sound as if he hated the war and President Bush, which was a lie- He was looking forward to going back to Iraq to be with his fellow Marines. What you did was disgraceful. The Marine sued you and you settled the case. Have you no shame, you fat, disgusting, lying, sack of shit?

Try making a film IN and telling the truth about the communist regimes IN Cuba, IN North Korea, or IN China.

And speaking of China, nice pic! You have more chins than a Chinese phonebook, you fat, worthless slob.

Do you honestly think you could have become a multi-millionaire in those commie shitholes by attacking the governments that systematically silence those (and the families of those) who dare to speak out against them, you F’ing idiot?

I detest pieces of shit like you, you pathetic cow, who have nothing good to say about the only country in the world, where someone of your ilk can actually be successful, by attacking exactly what allows you to be successful, and make your millions while you tell out and out lies about our country.

If we had an “Asshole of the Week” award, I’d award it to you, you ungrateful, fat, POS. Now get out of my country!

If you want to read more about the lies in his movies, click here

Okay, I’m done with my rant…

Millionaire Filmmaker Michael Moore: ‘Capitalism Did Nothing For Me’

Documentary film director Michael Moore, who has become a millionaire thanks to the profits from his movies, told CNSNews.com that “capitalism did nothing” for him.

CNSNews.com spoke with Moore on the red carpet at the Uptown Theatre in Washington, D.C., on Tuesday night before the premiere of his upcoming documentary, “Capitalism: A Love Story.”

CNSNews.com asked: “Critics may say, when they see this movie, Michael Moore has amassed a fortune of over $50 million, some have said and –”

Moore said: “Really? Are you kidding me? Seriously? Wow. Where did it go?”

CNSNews.com then asked Moore: “Critics would say he’s [Moore] been very successful under a capitalist system. How would you justify making a movie where you paint capitalism as evil?”

Moore said: “Well, capitalism did nothing for me, starting with my first film.”

“You know, I had to pretty much beg, borrow and steal,” he said. “The system is not set up to help somebody from the working class make a movie like this and get the truth out there.”

“In fact, in Fahrenheit 9/11 if you remember, capitalism, the Disney Corporation, tried to kill that film–tried to make it so that people couldn’t see it,” said Moore. “My book Stupid White Men–Harper Collins tried to kill that book so that people couldn’t see it. It’s only because I put the light of day on it and told people what was going on did people get the chance to see these things.”

Read the rest here, if you’re bored

Posted in Communism, Leftists, Multiculturalism, Political Correctness, Progressives, Socialism | 421 Comments »

Government Motors Kills Saturn

Friday, October 2nd, 2009

Great, I knew I should have bought that Honda instead,

For those who expected General Motors’ once-funky Saturn brand to live on with a new owner, there has been a sad twist. Saturn, once billed as a different kind of car company, appears as dead as Pontiac and Oldsmobile.

At the brand’s 350 remaining dealers around the country, there were high hopes that a deal would be announced for GM to sell the brand to former race car driver and auto industry magnate Roger Penske.

Instead, Penske Automotive Group Inc. announced Wednesday it is walking away from the deal, unable to find a manufacturer to make Saturn cars when GM stops producing models sometime after the end of 2011. GM then announced it would stop making Saturns and soon would close down the brand, just like it did with Oldsmobile in 2004 and soon will do with Pontiac.

The day’s events mean an almost certain end to Saturn, a brand that was set up in 1990 to fight growing Japanese imports. Instead of celebrating a rebirth, the announcements sent dealers scrambling for ways to stay open and preserve about 13,000 jobs.

“I find this hard to believe,” said Carl Galeana, owner of two Saturn dealerships in suburban Detroit. “Everyone’s been saying we’re right at the goal line.”

News flash for Mr. Galeana – people connected with the government lie. Routinely.

However, I suppose that this one can’t be blamed on Obama. Apparently Saturn was running in the red for quite a while, but nobody bothered to do anything about it because it was “hip” and “cool” and appealed to young people, just the sort of idealism that finds things like “making the necessary changes to our business model so that we can become profitable” to be just a tad tawdry.

On a personal note, I guess I’m going to have an even tougher time getting service for the used Saturn Ion I bought earlier this year with the payout from my totaled Scion. Which is a shame, because the Ion is a piece of junk.

Tags: , ,
Posted in Economy, Socialism | 185 Comments »

Michael Moore – A Capitalist Success Story

Wednesday, September 23rd, 2009

In many societies, being fat is a sure sign of wealth and financial success.  Ours is apparently no different,

The bars were sponsored by liquor companies, the kitchen by Lufthansa. One room had marble walls, another, cashmere. Hundreds of guests plucked hors d’oeuvres from Plexiglas trays, but when I reached for a passing tray of pigs in blankets, the waitress tried to stop me. “These are for Michael,” she said.

That would be Michael Moore, filmmaker, who was enthroned nearby on a crowded sofa nibbling from a skewer, which did seem less in harmony with his everyman sneakers and populist persona than a sausage wrapped in fried bread. The Monday night party in Manhattan, which spread over two luxurious penthouse suites, was sponsored by Esquire and tricked out with the magazine’s advertisers’ products. The guests were there to celebrate Moore’s latest movie, which had just had its New York premier uptown.

Capitalism, A Love Story, takes aim at nothing less than the whole capitalist system. It uses all the trademark Mooreisms familiar from earlier works like Bowling for Columbine and Fahrenheit 9/11: Stakeouts, clever editing and innuendo, with the extra-wide filmmaker himself shambling up to corporate headquarters as a self-declared representative of the people. In voice over, he calls capitalism “a system of taking and giving, mostly taking,” and he interviews two priests who call it evil. He praises socialism, and near the end of the film concludes of capitalism that “we have to replace it with something, and that something is called democracy.”

If this were a different kind of movie, it might make sense to point out here that neither capitalism nor democracy nor socialism exist in pure form, and that pretty much every nation in the Western world, including the U.S., combines elements of all three. But Moore, to borrow a phrase coined by a physicist, is “not even wrong.” He makes jokes and tugs at heart strings. He shows pilots who can’t make a living wage, corporations that take out life insurance policies on their workers and families who are thrown out of foreclosed homes. It’s a litany of economic disasters, but it’s not an argument. I’ve heard him compared to Leni Riefenstahl, which is apt insofar as he is a brilliant propagandist. (He’s also fond of cueing Wagnerian-sounding music at dramatic moments.)

It’s been observed that Moore, crusading leftist and now explicit anti-capitalist, has made piles of money from his movies. In a question-and-answer session after Monday night’s screening, an audience member asked Moore if he wouldn’t concede that U.S. capitalism was better than Soviet Communism. Moore replied that the question was “bullsh–” and refused to answer directly, saying that his movie was not about that but about “democracy versus greed.” The hazard of being a professional polemicist, I suppose, is the risk of boxing oneself into intellectual corners. He couldn’t tenably claim that the Soviet system was good for its people, but if he conceded that capitalism had a few things going for it he would have undercut the revolutionary rhetoric that is his bread and butter.

This should drive home the point to us all that whenever you have someone loudly proclaiming that he’s “for the people,” he’s really for his own wallet and his own ability to wield power, first and foremost.  Now, apply that to the conglomeration of cretins who inhabit the Obama administration.  Hypocrisy becomes an art form for those on the Left.

As Sgt. Schultz once said on Hogan’s Heroes, “I am too poor to deserve to be this fat.” 

Michael Moore doesn’t have that problem.

Tags: , , ,
Posted in Leftists, Progressives, Socialism | 79 Comments »

Czar Wars: Obama’s Unelected Regulatory Chief Pushes New ‘Bill of Rights’ by 2020

Saturday, September 12th, 2009

This commie crap is almost right out of Mao’s “Little Red Book”. But who’s shocked? Most of realize who is running our government (for now)- Radical elected and unelected marxists like Obama, Sunstein and Browner.
They and their lackeys in the state-controlled mainstream media claim those of us who think this way are way off base, and even crazy, but when you read, in THEIR OWN WORDS, what some of these radical leftists appointed by The Zero™ actually want to do to America, how can any sane person think otherwise?

Cass Sunstein part of effort to change interpretation of Constitution by 2020

NEW YORK – A government that is constitutionally required to offer each citizen a “useful” job in the farms or industries of the nation.

A country whose leadership intercedes to ensure every farmer can sell his product for a good return.

A nation that has the power to act against “unfair competition” and monopolies in business.

This is not a description of Cuba, communist China or the old USSR. It’s the vision of the future of the U.S, as mandated by a radical new “bill of rights” drawn up and pushed by President Obama’s newly confirmed regulatory czar, Cass Sunstein. Until now, Sunstein’s proposal has received little scrutiny.In 2004, Sunstein penned a book, “The Second Bill of Rights: FDR’S Unfinished Revolution and Why We Need It More than Ever,” in which he advanced the radical notion that welfare rights, including some controversial inceptions, be granted by the state. His inspiration for a new bill of rights came from President Roosevelt’s 1944 proposal of a different, new set of bill of rights.

WND has learned that in April 2005, Sunstein opened up a conference at Yale Law School entitled “The Constitution in 2020,” which sought to change the nature and interpretation of the Constitution by that year.

Sunstein has been a main participant in the movement, which openly seeks to create a “progressive” consensus as to what the U.S. Constitution should provide for by the year 2020. It also suggests strategy for how liberal lawyers and judges might bring such a constitutional regime into being.

Just before his appearance at the conference, Sunstein wrote a blog entry in which he explained he “will be urging that it is important to resist, on democratic grounds, the idea that the document should be interpreted to reflect the view of the extreme right-wing of the Republican Party.”

In his book, Sunstein laid out what he wants to become the new bill of rights, which he calls the Second Bill of Rights:

Among his mandates are:

The right to a useful and remunerative job in the industries or shops or farms or mines of the nation;
The right to earn enough to provide adequate food and clothing and recreation;
The right of every farmer to raise and sell his products at a return which will give him and his family a decent living;
The right of every businessman, large and small, to trade in an atmosphere of freedom from unfair competition and domination by monopolies at home or abroad;
The right of every family to a decent home;
The right to adequate medical care and the opportunity to achieve and enjoy good health;
The right to adequate protection from the economic fears of old age, sickness, accident, and unemployment;
The right to a good education.

Read the rest here

Tags: ,
Posted in Barack Obama, Communism, Democratic Party, Leftists, Liberal Fascism, Multiculturalism, Progressives, Socialism | 157 Comments »

Cuban Court Upholds Two Year Sentence For Protesting

Friday, September 11th, 2009

To many on the left, Communist Cuba and its’ leader-for-life, Fidel Castro, are roll models.

Back in April of this year three U.S. Congresspeople met with Fidel and came back singing his praises.  During the campaign, Obama stated that he would be willing to meet with Castro, and during his Presidency has eased travel restrictions against Cuba. We also cannot forget the official Obama campaign office that proudly displayed the Cuban flag with “Che” Guevara on it.

The adulation however isn’t only among Democrat politicians.  It is very well reported that very famous liberals (including Michael Moore, and  Oliver Stone) have gone on record praising and defending Fidel Cuba.

In their drive to bash the United States, and prop up a dictator the don’t seem to mind that despite a public personal vow of poverty, Fidel Castro is apparently worth $900 million while his citizens starve, or that he jails political dissenters as a policy.

_______________________________________

HAVANA (AP) – A Cuban appeals court upheld a two-year prison sentence for “public dangerousness” against a man who became an Internet celebrity after his drunken rant about hunger on the island was captured by a film crew.

The court rejected Juan Carlos Gonzalez Marcos’ plea for leniency in central Havana on Thursday, according to Richard Rosollo, who observed the hearing on behalf of the Havana-based Cuban Commission on Human Rights and National Reconciliation, a leading rights group.

Gonzalez Marcos, known by the nickname Panfilo, appeared obviously inebriated when he burst into an interview for a documentary on Cuban music, waving his arms and screaming, “What we need here is a little bit of chow!”

He continued for more than 90 seconds, imploring the camera about how Cubans are going hungry in a country where the communist system is supposed to provide for all citizens’ basic needs.

Video of the tirade ended up on YouTube and was viewed more than 450,000 times after being posted in April. It became a rallying cry for exile groups in South Florida, where some hailed Gonzalez Marcos as one of the few Cubans who dare speak frankly about the difficulties of daily life on the island.

In a second video posted on YouTube, Gonzalez Marcos expressed regret that his outburst was used for political ends—but that wasn’t enough to sway the appeals court. Rosollo said Gonzalez Marcos was returned to a prison outside Havana after the hearing.

{The Article}

Tags: , , , , , ,
Posted in Communism, Cuba, Free Speech, Leftists, Progressives, Socialism, World | 67 Comments »

The secret behind Obama’s School Speech

Friday, September 4th, 2009

President Obama is going to speak to America’s Schoolchildren on Tuesday, September 8th. This has caused some angry discussion because parents, the ones who gave birth to and raise the children, were not told about this.

(more…)

Posted in Barack Obama, Communism, Economy, Free Speech, Socialism | 164 Comments »

Cause I’m The Tax Man….Yea, I’m The Tax Man…

Tuesday, September 1st, 2009

Let me tell you how it will be.  There’s one for you; nineteen for me…

View ImageAFL-CIO, Dems Push New Wall Street Tax

The nation’s largest labor union and some allied Democrats are pushing a new tax that would hit big investment firms such as Goldman Sachs reaping billions of dollars in profits while the rest of the economy sputters.

The AFL-CIO, one of the Democratic Party’s most powerful allies, would like to assess a small tax — about a tenth of a percent — on every stock transaction.

…

[Thea Lee, policy director at the AFL-CIO. said that] “The big disadvantage of most taxes is that they discourage some really productive activity,” she said. “This would discourage numerous financial transactions. People flip their assets several times in an hour or a day. They make money but does it really add to the productive base of the United States?”

Lee said that taxing every stock transaction a tenth of a percent could raise between $50 billion and $100 billion per year, which could be used to pay for infrastructure projects and other spending priorities. She said the tax could be applied nationwide or internationally.

…

The AFL-CIO and some allied Democrats would like to cut down on the overall level of trading, or at least give the U.S. government a piece of the action, which would likely tamp down trading.

Democrats and labor officials would also like to take a bite out of Goldman’s profits. Liberals are angry the company, which immersed itself in the frenzy of speculation leading to last year’s financial collapse, is now making huge profits after accepting (and repaying) $10 billion in government aid. Goldman employees are on track to earn an average of more than $700,000 this year.

There is also a growing realization among Obama administration officials and lawmakers that tax increases may be necessary to curb the ballooning federal deficit.

{The Article}

Spreading the wealth around? Check! Attempting to control the free actions of the people? Check! Spending other people’s money? Check! Arrogant attitude about how much others should make? Check!  Check!  Internationalism?  Check!

Ah…this must be “Change We Can Believe In”.

…And your working for no one but me!

__________________________________

Let’s put this Congressional “generosity” in context:

-  Congress’ Travel On Taxpayer’s Dime Rises Tenfold

Tags: , , , , , , , ,
Posted in Barack Obama, Democratic Party, Politics, Socialism | 92 Comments »

« Older Entries