Quickie Analysis: Barry's Big Libya Speech

There was a little too much "All About Barry" attitude for my taste - but it wasn't as egregious a hack job of naked self-promotion as  the train wreck that was his Oval Office speech on the BP Oil Spill.  So, I'll let that pass, and give him credit for "growing" in office.

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No, the real problem here is the same problem we had before he began speaking tonight - still way more questions than answers.

I still don't have a clue what the so-called rebels have in mind for a post-Ghadafi Libya.  President WTF didn't have anything to say about that.

I still don't have a clue as to whether President WTF intends to bomb the snot out of the city of Sitre, in the name of  'humanitarian support' to the rebels determined to take that city as their civil war's next strategic objective.  If we do, civilians will die.  If we don't, a stalemate and a divided Libya is probable.  Which will it be, Barry?

Yeah, I heard him say taking sides in an Arab civil war is somehow in our national interest - but I didn't hear any concrete metrics that will determine when we decide to start bombing the snot out of whom going forward.

I also heard him say 'Regime Change' is his official policy, but I didn't hear anything about how to actually accomplish it - except it won't be like Iraq, and the US won't be in the lead.  (Can Barry speak on any subject without a 'Blame Bush' moment?  Sigh.)

I thought I heard something about supporting the universal right of people to be governed by "responsive" governments.  Uhhhhhh, TEA Party?  ObamaCare?

Looks like we just have to bumble along with President WTF.  Everything you heard tonight has a 24 hour expiration.

==

Hey, I've got a better idea - it's a simple two point plan:

(1)  Drill here, drill now.

(2)  Let the Arabs sort out their own damn problems.

Update 03/29/11

Here's a little 'connect the dots' exercise for you this morning.

George Soros ... Open Society Institute ... buckets of money ... Centre for International Governance Innovation ... the Responsibility to Protect principle ... President WTF's 'Humanitarian Imperialism' policy ...
'New World Order.'

A review here.

Stupid or Treasonous? (Shootin’ War Edition)

Short musical break to set the mood.  Lyrics linked here.  Story behind lyrics linked here.




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Now to the point.

Yes, that’s me patting myself on the back. For writing perhaps the most important blog post series in all the history of blog post series’ - my ‘Stupid or Treasonous’ series (2010-01-04, 2010-12-05, 2011-02-26, 2011-03-24).

I’d like to thank my designated foil – The Empty Suit Known as Barack Hussein Obama – for inspiring me to make this post all about me.

It has to be about me – it can’t be about what President WTF is up to in our latest shootin’ war, the one he started in Libya, because it seems no one can figure out that particular Rosetta Stone ….

==

With the ‘Stupid or Treasonous’ series I have been boldly predicting, for five full financial quarters now, the inevitability of impeachment proceedings being brought against the Empty Suit That Occasionally Occupies the White House. Sending the US military on a fool’s errand, into someone else’s shooting war, without so much as a conference call with Congress beforehand, has certainly brought the ‘I’ word to the fore in respectable (congressional) circles of late.  The operative question remains whether BHO’s inevitable impeachment will be due to rank stupidity, outright treason, a combination of both, or we’ll all be so damn fed up we won’t care either way anymore.

Can BHO possibly even be this stupid? He states plainly US policy is that ‘Ghadafi must go.’ Yet he also rules out the use of ground troops, the only reliable means to effectuate regime change known to mankind. The gang of hacks in his administration have fanned out in all directions to tell us that Ghadafi is not a target, yet the President’s policy that he must go is operative; that we will be out in days, yet there is no timeline.

The dizzying swirl of inconsistencies has Verum Serum asking ‘What’s the frequency, Barry?’ Big Lizards is also asking ‘What’s the frequency, Barry?’ Hell, the Speaker of the House is asking ‘What’s the frequency, Barry?’ Nice Deb even wonders if we should be calling the men in white coats to bag President WTF.

Then there’s this distinct possibility: the only way to make sense of it is to connect the dots of which side BHO has come down on in a series of conflicts. That side would consistently be Theocratic Islamists. Right Truth got me started on this angle – the ‘Treasonous’ angle. Have you noticed BHO didn’t lift a finger to help demonstrations against the regime (theocratic Islamists) in Iran, then came down hard against the regime on the side of the Muslim Brotherhood demonstrators in Egypt? Now we have him spending American prestige, treasure, and perhaps even blood (it ain’t over yet) in support of WHO, EXACTLY?

WE DON’T EVEN REALLY KNOW WHO THE LIBYAN REBELS ARE! Liberty Pundits reports Rand Paul, to his credit, has sufficient common sense to ask this primary question.

If we find out, when the next shoe drops, that these Rebels are Radical Islamists and Jihadis – then We The People have every reason to demand our representatives ask serious and deeply troubling questions about where President WTF’s loyalties really lie.

Stream of Consciousness on Leaderlessness

The ‘stream of consciousness’ style seems appropriate now that the republic is reeling from Barack Hussein Obama’s utter abdication of leadership…Chris Plante did an excellent hour of talk radio this morning between 9 am and 10 am on the topic of BHO having blood on his hands in Libya due to his indecisiveness and inaction – the audio can be downloaded here …Yes, Mr. Plante, BHO has blood on his hands in Libya, and here’s why … BHO’s words during the Cairo demonstrations (‘Mubarak must go’) gave the world the impression he would provide material support to demonstrators against Arab dictators … He got lucky in Egypt and got the result he wanted without the need to back up his words (always better to be lucky than good, as they say) … But when he repeated the empty words in Libya (‘Ghadaffi must go’) the bully (Ghadaffi) picked a fight … Barry had no stomach for the fight, preferring instead to speechify on grade school bullies … The so-called ‘Arab Spring’ is now about as operative as that empty campaign slogan ‘Hopenchange’…the silver lining (as it were) might be a swing of the pendulum back toward stability in the region that supplies most of our fossil fuels…but I bet Iran has different ideas, starting with picking a fight against Saudi Arabia over majority Shiite Bahrain…How does ‘Drill Here, Drill Now’ sound now to you libs?


And as bodies burn in Libya…as fuel rods melt in Japan…as our national debt reaches a grim milestone … 90 percent of GDP! … BHO occupies himself with NCAA brackets, vacationing in Brazil, and endless parties in the White House (formerly the residence of the leader of the free world)…Ladies, Gentlemen, citizens of the republic: it’s official, the Empty Suit contains no Emperor…

Flopping Aces has an explanation, though…The Empty Suit contains a sociopath… very comforting.

Speaking of ‘Leadership’, conservatives are starting to break ranks with the House GOP leadership … I am not among the defectors (yet), and here’s why … a government shutdown is inevitable because the Mobocrats, ‘lead’ by the Empty Suit Containing No Emperor, will never accede to any meaningful government spending cuts … therefore, it is strategically imperative for the Mobocrats to receive blame from the public for said shutdown … and astute readers of this blog know I tend toward a very dim opinion of the general public’s civic awareness … but I have articulated on comment boards a strategy to win the fight for their hearts and minds …keep up the short-term CRs tied to real cuts … package the cuts as entire programs or agencies … keep the Mobocrats in the position of defending the indefensible until they finally decide they have no choice but to own the shutdown … Then they own the shutdown ... The numbers really don't matter at this point - the Mobocrats are negotiating in bad faith and we will never get anywhere near meaningful numbers with them holding any power... the task before us right now is to discredit the Mobocrats for the next election cycle…

…But the more I think about the Inappropriated (yeah, that’s a word – I just invented it) $105B for Obamacare, I’m in agreement with what Rep. Mike Pence said on Hannity’s radio show today…pick the fight over the $105B and the rest of the 2011 budget enchilada when the current CR ends in three weeks…the gang of Progressive hacks working for The Empty Suit are burning through that money right now…which makes it an emergency ... conservatives everywhere – gear up for a fight beginning now!

It Ain't a River In Egypt

Whether it’s investigating the very real threat of domestic Jihadism, the ticking time bomb of massive debt at all levels of government, or the obvious need for energy independence – the American Progressive Left doesn’t seem to care at all about solving the actual problems.

Last week Rep. Peter King (NY-3) simply did his job as chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee (WI and IN Fleebaggers could learn a thing or two from that much alone, I think), and held very important hearings on homegrown terrorism being manufactured inside the mosques of a very insular domestic Muslim community. These are congressional hearings that quite literally could prevent things from blowing up and people from dying inside the United States.

How did the Left respond? Well, according to form, actually. The Left tried to change the subject and savage Rep. King’s character and motives.

From ‘Keith Ellison Lied When He Cried’ to ‘Ezra Klein is Amazingly Stupid,' the Left did what it does: obfuscate.

My favorite analysis on the matter was posted at National Review Online.

Cartoon Wars Part I
Tags: SOUTH
PARKmore...

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Exhibit 2 in the case demonstrating the Left’s ‘Head Burying Stupidity’ is their total unwillingness to negotiate with the rest of us in good faith to solve the nation’s crippling government debt crisis.

Their current champion – the Empty Suit Known as Barack Hussein Obama – submitted a laughably unserious 2012 budget proposal, failing to touch even one hair on the chinny, chin, chin of the giant debt troll known as Entitlements. The 2012 budget proposal was an act of abdication by the person who occupies the Oval Office (when not out on the links).

The Left went absolutely apoplectic in Wisconsin when a duly elected legislature and governor attempted to implement transparently communicated campaign promises to close the state’s budget gap. Similar rumblings of Leftist lawlessness have wafted out of Indiana and Ohio. These same rent-a-mobbers will no doubt make their ugly, tyrannical presence known in state capitol after state capitol, and finally in DC, as the budget crisis unfolds. It’s how they “negotiate.” They told you so with their obnoxious chant in Madison - “democracy, this is what it looks like.” (In a pure sense they have a point – republicanism (small r) is so much better at creating prosperous, ordered, civil, societies. Behold pure democracy (small d) in the wild, desperate eyes of the mob.  But I digress.)

The Left is not serious about ‘sharing any sacrifice,’ as rhetorically called for by Barack Hussein Obama. The Left is, however, deadly serious about protecting its piece of the pie. BHO lied when he uttered the words ‘shared sacrifice.’ What he really means is ‘sacrifice for everyone but my Leftist friends.’

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Finally there’s the issue of energy independence for the republic, and its’ relationship to national security. Again, the Left just doesn’t seem to give a damn.

The Left is against drilling for domestic oil. So much so, BHO was willing to lie about his record on this issue. So much so, BHO prioritized telling this lie over the economic well being of the citizenry of the Gulf Coast region, denied permits to drill in the Gulf.

The Left is against burning coal to generate electricity. But also against the only viable alternative that exists today – nuclear. And, ofcourse, they will gin up their well-funded fear-mongering machine to try to leverage the crisis in Fukushima, Japan to further depress this industry.

[Begin: Rational Thinking Break]

The safety system breakdown at Fukushima is the exception that proves the rule. The only other real examples Leftists can point to are Chernobyl and Three Mile Island.

Chernobyl was a shoddy operation run by a Leftist government (Marxist Communist variety). The number of documented deaths associated with Three Mile Island is zero.

The Fukushima plant was hit by a massive earthquake and monstrous tsunami. That the earthquake did not disable it is a testimony to its hardened design. The tsunami waters finally got it, by flooding lower chambers and preventing access to the systems devoted to emergency cooling. The fact that there is still a chance to get the reaction in the plant mostly contained is a testimony to the professionalism and heroism of its Japanese operators and engineers. Prediction: the doomsday scenarios the Left is hysterically predicting as I write this will prove as specious as the doomsday scenarios they predicted for the Deepwater Horizon spill – you know, in the Gulf where there is no longer any trace of the oil spilled.

LibertyAtStake is here to state emphatically the forty year safety record for the nuclear power industry (outside Communist countries at least) is exemplary. The lessons learned from this experience will result in the industry coming up with solutions to survive an 8.9 earthquake plus gigantic tsunami. That is, if the Left allows even one more plant to be built in its hysterical reaction.

[End: Rational Thinking Break]

The only energy sources the Left is *for* are so-called “renewables” that currently supply about 1% (ONE PERCENT) of our national need, even after 35 years (THIRTY-FIVE YEARS) of subsidies rained upon its crony capitalists by the federal government. That means the Left’s energy policy is *for* your standard of living declining, because their plans will supply you with less energy at a higher price.

Their current champion said so on the campaign trail.



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So, why all the ‘Head Burying Stupidity’ from the American Progressive Left? The answer is a wicked stew with three prime ingredients.

First, they hate the United States. This is the “Blame America First” crowd. Every ill in the world is your fault, so you must be punished for your sins. Your standard of living (energy non-policy) and your children’s standard of living (debt non-policy) must be reduced as a demonstration of “fairness” to all the world’s victims of American imperialism. You could say this makes the Left “anti-American.”

Second, they travel in packs, both literally (street mobs) and figuratively (criminally biased MSM). For all of their elitist conceit around being intellectually superior to middle Americans, they are the “anti-intellectuals.” The American Progressive Left has organized itself into a highly cohesive propaganda machine to distort, dismiss, and fabricate facts, with a mission to push a pre-determined agenda. What could possibly be more “anti-intellectual?” This propaganda machine is capable of organizing into lawless rent-a-mobs on the street, as we saw in Madison. All with the no longer merely implicit, now totally explicit, support of the political party they hijacked – the party that shall now be known on this blog as the Mobocrats. You could say this makes them “dangerous.”

Third, they are supremely confident in their own self-righteousness. The ultimate holiness of their ends, in their minds, justifies all possible means. (This observation, btw, has been a prime contributor to the construction of this blogging character: LibertyAtStake, the ant-Progressive. But I digress.) You could say this makes them “relentless.”

You could therefore say the composite is a “relentlessly dangerous anti-American mob.” That is, The Left means to impose the tyranny of their ideology, even if it means using the tyranny of the mob to do it.  Things are going to get uglier before they get better. And as Wisconsin showed us, the Left co-opted the American union movement long ago. You union members – especially the cops – are going to have to decide if you stand with the Leftist mob or with America.

JACK WILEY DITHERS EXCLUSIVE: ERIC HOLDER’S “MY PEOPLE” MEMO

Our  source at the Department of Justice has leaked Attorney General Eric Holder’s  very first official inter-office memorandum to one of our cracker-jack investigative journalists.  This particular confidential source usually feeds us a raging storm of crap, but this memorandum’s content interested us because it seems to have foreshadowed Mr. Holder’s recent testimony on Capitol Hill.

Read the full memorandum and let us know if we should fire our source at Justice for not leaking this to us sooner.

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Memorandum 
 
 
 
 
 

 

 

FOR INTERNAL DISTRIBUTION ONLY

To: All Department Staff
From: The Honorable Eric H. Holder
Date: January 21, 2009
Subject: Department Priorities Under My Management


Now that one of my people has been inaugurated as President of the United States, and he has appointed one of his people as Attorney General of the United States, this department’s priorities will be different than you people may have been used to under previous administrations.

As we move through the next eight years of our peoples’ glorious reign fundamentally transforming America, the day-to-day priorities for you people should be guided by one simple rule: what is good for Eric’s people.

For example, it has come to my attention the Civil Rights Division is about to convict a couple of my people for bravely defending a Philadelphia polling place from voters that weren’t their people. You people are hereby ordered to end this illegal witch hunt.

In case you think my people are limited to African-Americans, let me ask you one question: why did I start this memo referring to the President as one of my people? Don’t you know that Oreo has a white mother? Let me close the memo with some hypothetical guidelines to further elaborate.

If, for example, the people of any state on the Mexican border should take measures to protect themselves from illegal Democrat voters, the Department will immediately sue those people on behalf of our people.

If our people in the Homosexual lobby should file suit against the Defense of Marriage Act, the Department will not defend this unconstitutional law. (I just want to make clear for the record I’m not really one of those people, just that there’s not anything wrong with that.)

If an off-shore oil rig should mysteriously blow up, this Department will do everything in its power to cooperate with lawyers in the Department of Interior to ensure those people in the oil industry have to stop drilling everywhere our people have jurisdiction.

Now, I realize some of you people who are career lawyers in this Department may have a problem with these guidelines. Anticipating this issue, I’ve already cleared with our people in your union permission to allow you people to play Solitaire and view pornography on your government PCs. Our people don’t need your help.

If there are any questions about this policy, just ask any of my people I’ve appointed as a Department Undersecretary.

Sincerely.

Eric H. Holder
Attorney General of the United States

How To Explain What Makes Fleebaggers To Your 5 Year Old

Earlier today, I left the following Random Dropping on Professor Mondo's comment board.  I liked it so much, I promoted it to archivable post tonight.

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A unionized public employee, a Democrat politician, a member of the Tea Party, and a Big Corp CEO are sitting at a table. In the middle of the table there is a plate with a dozen cookies on it.



The TEA Party member used to add 3 cookies to the plate and take out 1, but the economy sucks now; so the TEA Party member added 2 cookies, and took out 2.


The Big Corp CEO used to add 7 cookies to the plate, but the economy sucks now and he has learned about cronyism; so the Big Corp CEO added 6 cookies and took out 3.


The Democrat politician redistributed 12 of the cookies to welfare state dependents and special interests.


The unionized public employee pitched a fit because there were only 3 cookies left, and he had negotiated with the Democrat politician for 9.

Stupid or Treasonous? (‘Coming to a Head’ Edition)

As a reader of blogs, I usually find the “remember you read it here first” blogging style off-putting. I find it a bit pretentious, because, really, how can anybody really know given the vast expanse of the Internet? And who would waste his or her time trying to prove it definitively, anyway? Get a life …. pleeeeeze.


However, the architecture for this blog project is nothing if not “pretentious,” soooooo …….

Can anybody out there identify anyone else who was predicting the inevitability of Impeachment proceedings for Barack Hussein Obama before I was, when I posted “Stupid of Treasonous?” on January 4, 2010? There might be something in the archives of the Impeach Obama Campign blog, but I’m unwilling to devote the time to find out.

But I digress.

Back to the point - I’ve noticed lately the ‘I’ word, sometimes a direct call, sometimes a building of evidence for the case, is coming up a lot lately in the blogosphere.


I do believe it is the kerfuffle in Madison, Wisconsin over the state budget shortfall that has brought things to a head. This awesome show of democracy in action, in the American heartland, has brought the Progressive Left out for us examine in its full glory – in the same way a flashlight shown under a sink in a Cabrini Green tenement brings out the cockroaches.

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News Real Blog cogently connects events in Madison to the future of the republic itself.


American Power reminds us the Progressive Left’s pathology – and their Achilles Heel – is that everything is politics to them.

Hot Air looks at the poll numbers, sees the Progressive Left losing the public relations battle in Madison, and predicts the Progressive Left will lash out as a result. LibertyAtStake certainly agrees with the prediction. Violent protest is in the Progressive Left’s DNA.

The Impeach Obama Campaign thirds the prediction made by Hot Air and seconded by LAS. It won’t be Global Warming that heats up the republic this summer.

Michelle Malkin is maintaining the documentary record of the Left’s initial build up to fury.

Piece Of Work In Progress assists Ms. Malkin in this valuable service to the republic.

Snark and Boobs hones in on a commonality between the union goons and Islamists – violence toward women.

Big Gov explains why Scott Walker is the perfect antagonist to stare down the union rent-a-mob.

Allied Liberty News gives good advice to Governor Walker – fire the AWOL teachers!

Nice Deb documents what it’s like to try to do business with a gang of hacks who see everything as politics.

Sentry Journal presents how far the Progressive Left is removed from our republic’s founding principles.

Doug Ross lays out the choice before us: nothing less than liberty or tyranny.

Pundit and Pundette explain how and why sticking his nose into Madison's business redounds to Barack Hussein Obama’s ultimate decline.

The Right Wing, Nut! reminds us Barack Hussein Obama is a ‘Missionary Man’ (gratuitous Eurythmics reference), with a willingness to lie about the mission in order to further it. It was this sense of mission for the Progressive cause that drove BHO to make that foolish tactical mistake of inserting himself into the Wisconsin debate immediately after submitting his wholly unserious 2012 federal budget proposal. This showed his disrespect for the constitutional concept of federalism and highlighted his hypocrisy on the budget deficit issue.

Right Wing News asks “what are all the secret meetings about, anyway?”

The Impeach Obama Campaign (IOC) takes notice it is gaining recruits. Hell, even Newt smells blood in the water.

iOwnTheWorld sees nefarious intent behind BHO’s unwillingness to defend the Defense of Marriage Act. LAS agrees.

It’s already ‘case closed’ at the Camp of the Saints.

Mind Numbed Robot makes a strong case for ‘Treason.’ LAS comments that ‘Treason’ doesn’t need to be provable if the pattern of ‘Stupid’ keeps building.

Atlas Shrugs tunes into the ‘Stupid or Treasonous (It’s Beginning To Not Even Matter)’ vibe.

I think you get the point. There is more – much more – that could be added to this post from the patriotic network I call the Bob Schieffer Blog Roll.

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The rising call for Impeachment is coming to a head because the Progressive movement, and their current champion – the Empty Suit known as Barack Hussein Obama – are feeling the political heat generated by the great awakening of the American public that is underway. This great awakening produced the TEA Party movement, beginning mere weeks after BHO took office and began to show us his priorities in office. This great awakening is contributing to the rise of the Internet as a source for valuable information, Fox News as a source for fair and balanced news, and the precipitous decline of the criminally biased MSM in the eyes of the public. This great awakening dealt an historically devastating November 2010 election loss to the Empty Suit known as Barack Hussein Obama and the political party his Progressive fellow travelers hijacked long ago. It will deal an even more devastating loss in the November 2012 election to the Donkey Party.


Remember you read it here first. :)

And the pressure applied to the Progressive champion – the Empty Suit known as Barack Hussein Obama – will, I predict, cause him to do desperate things leading to Impeachment articles before we reach November of 2012. He can’t help it – it’s in his Progressive DNA.

Remember you read it here first :)

An Open Letter To Our Unionized Public Servants

Let’s get a few things straight right off the bat.

You work for us - the taxpayers. And don’t give me that tired old line about you paying taxes, too. Every thin dime on that W2 of yours originated from us. The only reason some of the lines on that W2 say “xyz taxes” is the IRS and the other government shysters figured out a long time ago that collecting their vig up front makes most of the citizenry blind to how much is being confiscated. There are really only two big pots of wealth. Pot A is the wealth generated in the private sector. Pot B is the wealth allocated from Pot A to be spent in the public sector. We create what goes into Pot A and pay taxes into Pot B. The government pays you out of Pot B and pretends you pay taxes back into the very same pot. Like I said, you work for us.

If you’re a cop or a firefighter don’t play the “dangerous service” card with me, either. My father was a cop – a damn good one, too – and we’ve had this conversation. We both agree no amount of 'service' gives anyone the right to bankrupt the entire society. In fact, if you are willing to bankrupt the entire society to protect your compensation package – I don’t think you really understand the concept of ‘service.’ This is about society’s checkbook. News flash - we’re broke.

If you’re a teacher, don’t give me any crap about “the children.” If you had dragged either of my kids to Madison – illegally blowing off your job – I can assure you they would have blown you off and found something useful to do. You know why? My wife and I have raised then to be citizens. You (the teachers who dragged their students to Madison in violation of your contracts) are zombies – and you have nothing but contempt from me, my wife, and my kids.

If you’re a paper pusher – I’m in no mood right now to give you the time of day.

Regardless of who you are, if you fit the description ‘unionized public servant,’ understand this – there are a hell of a lot more of us than you. There has to be – just do the math. We create Pot A and contribute toward Pot B. You depend entirely upon Pot B. Are you a citizen or a committed dependent of Pot B? Now is the time to decide. Now means now.

==
 
OK, so now that we’ve done some level setting – let’s talk about what’s going on in Madison.

First...Duh!, we’re broke.

Do you think kicking in half of your retirement fund is a horror? Duh, I contribute every thin dime to my own retirement.

Do you object to contributing a mere 13% to your gold-plated health insurance plan? Duh, I contribute 50% to my tin-plated health insurance plan.

Do you think everyone who has the same bureaucratically defined job code as you should be compelled to contribute dues to the union? Who told you that – the burly guy with the crooked nose?

Bottom Line - You need to decide right now whether you are a citizen or a Union Zombie. If you are a citizen - welcome aboard. If you are a Union Zombie, then I’ll see you in the streets.

Because even our women are ready to throw down.

[|](^_^)[|]
(That means “F-U” – assuming you choose to stand as a dependent of Pot B.)

ACTION REQUIRED: Style Guide Revision

A post to announce our field operatives have submitted a comment to the Suggestion Box that has been accepted by management.

Egypt 2011: Ataturk Vindicated, Or al Banna’s Revenge?

Like the proverbial broken clock that tells the right time twice a day, your ditherer-in-chief had this to say to a student audience on Thursday, trying to explain current events in the Middle East:

"What is absolutely clear is we are witnessing history unfold," Obama told students at Northern Michigan University in Marquette, Mich. "It's a moment of transformation."

Thank you, Captain Obvious.

Of course, Barry naturally failed to fill in the blanks for the eager young minds assembled before him. I, LibertyAtStake, shall step up and correct this egregious error of omission.

What hangs in the balance is no less than this: whether the Middle East shall continue the slow roll toward western modernity started by a guy named Ataturk in the 20th Century; or slip back into the barbaric 7th Century theocratic state envisioned by a guy named Mohammed.

If it breaks the wrong way, consequences could include a world-wide collapse of the energy economy and/or the elimination of Israel, the only truly modern democratic state in the region right now. Your current administration has little influence over which way it will break, and in fact has done everything over the past few weeks to cause it to break the wrong way. At this point, you might as well consult your Ouija board for the answer.
 
==

As one might expect, Wikipedia provides a decent biography for Mustafa Kemal Ataturk (b. 1881, d. 1938), intentionally constructed to aim for objectivity and to present non-controversial facts. This biography makes him out, more less, to be a Turkish George Washington. Substitute “American” for “Turkish” in the lead summary, and you’ll see what I mean.

“[Ataturk] was a Turkish army officer, revolutionary statesman, writer, and founder of the Republic of Turkey, as well as the first Turkish President.”

For the purpose of this post, we shall focus on his policies as “the first Turkish President,” which included the following:

• “…establish[ing] the separation of governmental and religious affairs…”
• “…chang[ing] the classical Islamic education for a vigorously promoted reconstruction of educational institutions.”
• “…personally promot[ing] modern dress for women…”
• “Islamic law [being] separated from secular law, and restricted to matters of religion.”
• “…the education of girls and was establish[ing] the unification of education.”
• “…greater access to a wide variety of artistic activities, sports, and other cultural events.”
• “…commission[ing] the first Turkish operatic work …”
• “…mov[ing] to grant full political rights to women, before several other European nations.”

 In short, Mustafa Kemal Ataturk was determined to lead his fellow Turks away from the oppressive, closed society run by caliphate in the Ottoman Empire of his youth - toward a civilized, open society modeled on his European neighbors.

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In this blog space, I’ve alluded often to a principle tying Newtonian physics to the grand ebbs and tides of history – in particular Newton’s principle stating that for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction.

The Wikipedia article on Ataturk, perhaps bound by its tenants of pure non-controversial objectivity, whitewashes the equal and opposite reaction of Mohammed’s Islamists to Ataturk’s reform program. That would be the founding of an interesting little organization that has been in the news a lot lately – The Muslim Brotherhood. But, we can turn to the capable journalists at Breitbart’s Big Peace to correct the omission.

The aftermath of World War I, with the defeat of the Turkish Ottoman Empire, saw the destruction of the Islamic political authority called the “caliphate.” Mustapha Kemal Ataturk established post-Ottoman Turkey as a secular westernized state and abolished the caliphate. Among his reforms to dismantle the shariah system, Ataturk banned the tradition of growing beards by men and wearing headscarves by women, banned the call to prayer from the mosques, abolished the Turkish language’s script and replaced it with the Latin alphabet, and made the Turkish military the custodians of a new secular tradition.

This did not sit well with Islamic traditionalists. Some became determined to restore the caliphate, if not in Turkey, then somewhere else. One such individual was Hassan al Banna, the son of a Muslim imam who lived outside Cairo, Egypt. In 1928, al Banna founded an organization called the al-Ikhwan al-Musilmin, known in English as the Society of Muslim Brothers or the Muslim Brotherhood (MB).

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The Big Peace article draws on a scholarly work known as “Shariah: The Threat to America,” put out by a panel calling itself “Team B II” and sponsored by the Center For Strategic Policy.

The bottom line conclusion of this panel’s research is basically that the 1928 founding of the Muslim Brotherhood has grown over the years into a world-wide movement to impose Shariah Law as the supreme law – by force when possible, by stealth and deceit where necessary.

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In the eighty years or so since the Cairo founding of the Muslim Brotherhood, Ataturk’s vision has had more visible success in the Middle East’s battle of ideas. Now - this being the Middle East, with zero prior experience in modern civilization, and the progress only having eighty years to unfold, the disciples of Ataturk have mostly been secular despots.

Shah Reza Pahlavi of Iran was such despot with visions of modernizing his country. In 1979, the Islamists scored their first major success by seizing the government of Iran and instilling religious rule.

In 1996, the Taliban wing of the Islamist movement took control of Afghanistan, eventually playing host to fellow Islamists AlQaeda (of 2001 World Trade Tower fame).

Since 2002, Ataturk’s own Turkey has experienced a profound shift in its government’s balance of power, away from the secular military and toward Islamist sympathies.

Also since 2002, the neoconservative interventionist policy of Bush 43 has had some debatable success with modernization, and even democratization, in Iraq and Afghanistan. In Afghanistan, particularly, it is still quite possible all the hard-won gains could be lost with the withdrawal of our military forces.

The Bushies were handed an embarrassing foreign policy loss in 2006, when the Palestinian elections they pushed for yielded Islamist terrorist group Hamas as the winner. There have been no elections since. More recently, the Islamist terrorist group Hezzbollah has seized effective control of Lebanon.

And now we have a secular despot who has fallen in Egypt. Pursuant to this development we have a strange coalition of American Progressives and Neoconservatives who already see a dawning of democracy in that most populous of Arab nations. Some of us see instead the grave risk of a replay to Iran, 1979.

History unfolding, indeed.