See You Me and Julio and Obama Down by the Schoolyard

With a popular socialist President in office, it is now politically acceptable to ask for things the free market cannot support.

When Julio Osegueda asked President Obama about better McDonald's benefits, he demonstrated two important aspects to the new era we have entered having a far leftist President in office.

(Just because Obama judiciously chose centrists and even Republicans to serve on his cabinet does not mean his left-wing goals are diminished. It simply means he is astute at knowing how to get what he wants, and that is to go at it seemingly more slowly than it would appear--when it appears at all.

(I will explain what I mean about that below. For now, let's get back to Julio, and what his presence and his question means in this political schoolyard, where we are all learning what it means to be in a new world.)

"I've been at the same job, McDonald's, for four and a half years," Julio told the President, "because of the fact that I can't find another job. Now, with the fact that I've been there as long as I've been there, do you have any plan or any idea of making one that has been [sic] there for so long receive any better benefits than they have already received?"

The first important aspect posed by this man's question is the rising tide of popular socialism. What I mean is this: with a popular socialist President in office, it is now politically acceptable to ask for things the free market cannot support, while believing it is your right to have the things that market will not support. The left has always asked for such things; sometimes they have tried to demand them, and sometimes they have gotten what they asked for. Social Security, WIC, income taxes, and a strict limit of one conservative professor at any liberal college are just some of the things the left has been granted.

The price of being the leader in fast-food, where dollar menus are necessary to attract the poorest of customers, does not leave enough in the corporate treasury to raise benefits.

Ahh, but the corporate treasury has billions in it, you say! Look at the latest profit statements by Exon Mobil and WalMart and other leaders in their industry, including McDonalds.

Well, General Motors, Ford, and even Chrysler used to be able to report the same sort of record profits. Most pharmacuticals still do. What were most of these profits used for? Research and development. It now takes hundreds of millions of dollars and many years to get a new drug to market.

But the unions demanded more and more of those profits in wages increases and benefits; the auto makers thought they had to give in, which they did because of government interference through legislation and Federal oversight of union/company negotiations.

Now look at those companies. No, it isn't right when corporate CEOs and COOs and other executives take multi-million dollar payouts after record losses and after taking government bail-out money.

But the fact is, if the government had not screwed up in the first place by interering in the free market place, the economy would be that much freer to grow. With economic growth, new jobs are created. That means that people like Julio can move up the ladder, whether it's the corporate ladder of their present employer, or whether it means moving on to greener pastures. Sam Walton started out at the bottom, too.

Julio is paying the price that Michelle Obama explained: "The truth is, [ ] someone is going to have to give up a piece of their pie so that someone else can have more."

Julio is a small piece of the pie in an economy where millions are out of work and quickly eating every crumb of government pie crust the Feds can find to give them.

As I explained yesterday, the Depression of 1920/21 was tougher than this one, but America bounced back by the end of 1921 because the government kept their hands off the economy, and left the people in their wisdom to find the means of getting themselves back to work.

The second aspect of living under the "guidance" of a popular leftist President is that all those people who believe they deserve and all those who merely hope for more than their employers are giving them, are now free to stand up and ask if the President will help them--without risking the social backlash of appearing to want a bigger piece of the pie when others don't have any pie at all.

In Europe, that lack of risk has been to the advantage of the left for decades. Anytime they don't get what they want, they take to the streets. Often, they had leftist leaders who supported their demands, more or less, which were met in one form or another, leaving the protesters free to go home and wait for the next thing on their list of demands.

America has entered the European world that Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher led them out of, with the support of President Ronald Reagan. But as soon as Mrs. Thatcher left office, the socialist democrats (note the lower case descriptions) won power again. The current Prime Minister of Great Britain, which includes Wales, Scotland, and Northern Ireland, is Gordon Blair who hosted The Socialist International (SI) worldwide organisation of social democratic, labour and socialist political parties and its first meeting of its Commission for a Sustainable World Society, November 2008.

Obama is all about "sustainability." [1] Objective observers and conservatives say sustainability is unsubstainable, writing, "sustainability is a means to justify policies pushed by some interest group" or another [2]; and "Additional policies to promote sustainability are unnecessary as resources have become abundant." [3]

Though the new President has judiciously chosen centrists and conservatives for his cabinet, it was for two obvious reasons: 1) he wanted to get his cabinet up and running faster than any previous administration; and 2) this was because he knew his priorities would have to be slipped quietly into place, like Tom Daschele's health plan, outlined in his book Critical: What We Can Do About the Health Care Crisis, in which he wrote, " Health care system should be run by a board like the Fed," and that it was so important that it should be "slipped" into a spending bill at the last minute so that no debate would be possible.

We are now living in a new "old" world of Marxist ideas that Americans have rejected for decades--except when they were slipped into the national debate like the necessity for "social security" in retirement, or when we were railroaded into things like "income taxes", and now the very un-transparent act of slipping into the "stimulus bill" in the dark of Friday night a plan to put the government in control of all American health services.

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Socialist Browner; A Stimulus by Any Other Name

The Socialist International denounces America’s “neo-liberal market ideology,”and would prefer “global governance.”

President Obama wants to emphasize science so he chose Carol Browner for his “Assistant to the President for Energy and Climate Change.” Browner’s career is not as a climate scientist but an attorney who ran the EPA during the Clinton Administration, so she does not represent “change.”

She also put in a stint with the Socialist International. The 170 members include parties like the Democratic Socialists of America, Canada’s New Democratic Party (NDP), Nicaragua’s Sandinista National Liberation Front (FSLN), the Mongolian People’s Revolutionary Party (MPRP), the Radical Social Democratic Party (PRSD) of Chile, and many others.

The Socialist International denounces America’s “neo-liberal market ideology,” and would prefer “global governance,” ostensibly by wise international socialists such as themselves, as a way to address both economic inequities and the issue of climate change: the Socialist International deploys a commission for climate change calling for so-called rich countries to reduce consumption. [emphasis added]

Carol Browner was one of 14 leaders of this commission. The Obama transition team knew about Browner’s stint with the Socialist International, but recommended her anyway. Conveniently, Browner’s post does not require confirmation. One can only conclude that the Obama administration agrees with Browner’s Socialist International approach, at some odds with the facts.

In December, when much of the country was experiencing extreme cold, the U.S. Senate Environment and Public Works Committee released a minority staff report with statements from many scientists skeptical of climate-change orthodoxy. Environmental physical chemist Dr. Kiminori Itoh says that warming fears are the “worst scientific scandal.” The report also cites Ivar Giaver, a Nobel laureate in physics, who says “I am a skeptic . . . Global warming has become a new religion.” Dr. Joanne Simpson, PhD in meteorology and formerly of NASA, says that “As a scientist I remain skeptical. The main basis of the claim that man’s release of greenhouse gases is the cause of the warming is based almost entirely upon climate models. We all know the frailty of models concerting the air-surface system.”

“I am convinced that the current alarm over carbon dioxide is mistaken,” explains Dr. Will Happer, professor of physics at Princeton and former director of energy research at the Department of Energy. “Fears about man-made global warming are unwarranted and are not based on good science,” Dr. Happer says in the report.
Those fears demonstrate fear for the regulatory, anti-enterprise, and anti-U.S. approach championed by the Socialist International and Carol Browner.

Condensed from "Welcome to Watermelon Season" by K. Lloyd Billingsley, Editorial Director, Pacific Research Institute Vol. 14 No. 5: February 4, 2009 media@pacificresearch.org

Don’t Call It “Stimulus”

David Friedman raises a very good point:
A well chosen name wins an argument by assuming its conclusion. Label cash subsidies to foreign government as “foreign aid” and who can be so hard hearted as to oppose them? Call subsidies to the public schools “aid to education” and you neatly skip over the question of whether additional spending in the public school system results in more education.

And “economic stimulus” is a classic example.

Everyone—including Obama, back when he was running for President—is against deficit spending. Relabel it “stimulus” and everyone is for it. The label neatly evades the question of whether having the government borrow money and spend it is actually a way of getting out of a recession—a claim for which evidence is distinctly thin. It is stimulus, so obviously it must stimulate.

So what should we call it? President Obama’s spending proposal? The deficit-spending package? I think we’d have trouble getting the media to call it the Big Boondoggle. Maybe the government bailout, following the Wall Street bailout and the auto bailout?

Alas, we’re probably stuck debating the “stimulus.” But that means the battle was half lost before it began. Cato at Liberty

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Obama's Game Plan

Listen to the language of [Socialist International],
and realize that Obama uses the same cloaked messages.

I subscribe to Act! For America's email newsletter. "I founded ACT! for America," writes Brigitte Gabriel, "because Islamic militants have declared war on America. I know what this means. For years, I witnessed first-hand how brutally jihadists treat non-Muslims.

"We are in for the fight of our lives and we must ACT! - before it's too late."

Gabriel grew up in Lebanon--when it was a mostly Arab Christian nation, and she watched as the Islamicists took over and the Christians fled, though a few do still remain behind in their native land.

Gabriel is not the only author and/or activist writing and working against, not Islam, nor the Muslim people, but against Islamicism, the insidious fascism in the mindset and the world-view of a comparatively few Muslims who do not recognize human rights. They recognize only the inherent slavery of Muslims to Allah.

In the blog Death By 1000 Papercuts (DBKP), authors "LBG and pat" write: "Once again we find where the most innocent of innocents, children, are being victimized and exploited by those who protest the Israeli siege of Gaza.

"Now we find that children are being exploited by Palestinian supporters in Europe.
During a pro-Palestinian rally in Brussels, children were rounded up in groups then forced to read slogans they clearly did not understand.

"Children were forced to carry banners and placards with messages of hate, while others were forced to wave flags of the terrorist organization of Hezbollah.
Children were allowed to set fire to an Israeli flag then watched as adults stamped on it chanting “Allahu Akhbar”.

"The most shocking exploitation of the children: at the end of the “demonstration”, the children were forced to lie on the ground in a “die-in” symbolizing the children who had perished in Gaza. Yet how many children have died as the result of being used as “human shields”?"

Act!'s recent newspage contained a link to the blog "Atlas Shrugs", in which Pamela Geller writes: "Of all the clergy in America ..... why her? Obama invites Hamas and Muslim Brotherhood linked ISNA [Islamic Society of North America] to offer prayer at inauguration. ISNA was an unindicted co-conspirator in the same Hamas funding case that named CAIR [Council on American-Islamic Relations] as a Muslim Brotherhood group - in the same Brotherhood document that speaks of its goal of destroying Western civilization from within."

Who is this female clergy? "Ingrid Mattson, the first woman president of the Islamic Society of North America," at the National Cathedral, no less. This means she will be speaking to all the members of Congress, all the former Presidents, all of the Supreme Court Justices, anyone who is anyone in Washington, and to the entire world because these events are broadcast so we Americans--and the rest of the world, including Islam--can watch, also. AP

So the President of an American Organization linked to Hamas, the Islamic Brotherhood, and CAIR, has been invited to lead the new President's prayer service. Is Obama an appeaser, rather than a uniter? Keep reading.

In Act!'s newsletter, we read this: "Since we emailed you on Monday and Tuesday about Hamas’ abuse and exploitation of children, the number of views of the video we forwarded (showing Hamas treatment of children) more than doubled. After we sent out the petition launch on Tuesday, the number of views increased by more than 120,000 in less than 24 hours--our bandwidth usage on our website was higher on Tuesday than it’s ever been. Today, we have another video for you to view. You’ll see in greater depth and detail how Hamas is brainwashing children and preparing the next generation of jihadists. The more we in the West see how Hamas is operating, the more we will understand why Israel has no option but to vigorously defend itself."

As if to explain the importance of Mattson's appearance at the Cathedral, Act! continues: "We will also better understand why appeasement of such evil will never lead to peace, but only serves to embolden the radical Islamists whose ultimate goal is to impose their doctrines on the rest of us, by any means possible."

"By any means possible" in this case means being invited by Mr. Obama. Obama is an appeaser. He has actually brought together the left and the right wings of American politics, keeping a Republican Secretary of Defence, nominating other more-conservative-than-liberal people to his Cabinet, while bringing in one avowed Socialist, if not more.

This is not fence-building nor fence-mending. This is compromise, and not of methods or plans or other things that legitimate compromise allows for. This is compromise of the principles of individualism, and because Islamicists want to dominate the earth it is a clear violation of the separation of church and state.

"When president-elect Barack Obama appointed Carol Browner to be his "energy czar" back in December, the conservative blogosphere was buzzing about her being a member of Socialist International, 'the worldwide organisation of social democratic, socialist and labour parties.'

"At the time, she was fourth on the website's list of members in the 'Commission for a Sustainable World Society.'" NewsBusters

The Commission " has been established by Socialist International to articulate from the world of progressive politics a way forward to address global environmental concerns, climate change and the issues of governance required to deal with these common challenges."

Listen to the language of that, and realize that Obama uses the same cloaked messages. Never once did he ever admit to being a Marxist, but never once did he have to deny it because as far as I know no one ever asked him. Telling Joe the Plumber he wanted to "redistribute the wealth" was enough of a give-away, but he deftly managed to get around that thorny issue the way he is maneuvering about the Washington Beltway of politics.

The language is, first, that the Commission will "articulate from the world of progressive politics." "Articulate" used here is "cloak-speak" for "attempt to dictate, cajole, plead, embarrass, harass, and otherwise politically cage the world into progressive politics." Not from rational evidence-based science, but from progressive politics. Progressive itself is cloak-speak for collectivism.

How can I know this? The history of socialist language is full of such examples. The second example of such language is the Commission's statement that they "address global environmental concerns, climate change and the issues of governance required to deal with these common challenges."

Those issues are flatly stated as being progressive-politics oriented. Many of the members of Socialist International are center-left. If we were worried about a "New World Order" during the administration of Presidents Bush 41 and Clinton, we now are going to have Mrs. Clinton as our Secretary of State, Carol Browner as energy czar, and Mr. "redistribute the wealth" Obama as President.

I can't think of a game plan for a "new world order" of "progressive", i.e., socialist, politics than that plan.




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The Free Assemblage of Metaphysical Naturalists LLC.
The Academy of Metaphysical Naturalism TM,
The Academy of Metaphysical Naturalism Blogger TM, and
Academy of Metaphysical Naturalism Blogger Extra TM are the educational arms of the LLC and are:
© 2008-2009 by Curtis Edward Clark and Naturalist Academy Publishing ®

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