Yet ANOTHER commie in Comrade Barack's closet

Reading about Obama's teary-eyed performance at the funeral of Dorothy Height, the Grand Dame of the civil rights movement (http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/worldnews/article-1269836/Obamas-tears-Dorothy-Heights-funeral-Washington.html), I was actually wondering for a moment if I should have a shred of sympathy for the guy:

Tears streaming down his cheeks, grief overcame Barack Obama today as he attended the funeral of the woman he called the 'Godmother' of the American civil rights movement.  The U.S. president was weeping openly as he watched the service for Dorothy Height in Washington today. He delivered the eulogy for Dr Height, whose activisim stretched from the New Deal right up until Mr Obama's election as the first African American president of the United States.

The article goes on to shed crocodile tears for Obama's suffering, and to praise the late Ms. Height,

Dr Height ...often received rousing ovations at events around Washington, where she was easily recognisable in the bright, colourful hats she almost always wore. ...'She never cared about who got the credit,' the president said. 'What she cared about was the cause. The cause of justice, the cause of equality, the cause of opportunity, freedom's cause.'

Blah, blah-blah, blah-blah.

Then it struck me: Just who *is* Dorothy Height? The article really said *nothing* about her of any substance beyond those colorful hats. So I typed into Google "Dorothy Height communist", and the very first thing that came up was an article with this acolade:

Height was among the civil rights movement's most influential leaders, said Jarvis Tyner, executive vice chair of the Communist Party USA.

That came from "People's World", a communist paper self-described as

The People's World / Mundo Popular is a national, grassroots newspaper and the direct descendant of the Daily Worker. Published by Long View Publishing Co., the PW reports on and analyzes the pressing issues and struggles of the day: for workers' rights, peace, equality, social and economic justice, democracy, civil liberties, women's rights, protection of the environment, and more.

Shucks, that sounds just like Comrade Barack.

Seriously, what more do I need to know? The executive vice chair of the American Communist Party loves the hell out of her. Just what was Dorothy doing those 98 years of her life?

Dr. Height was a quietly powerful figure in Washington, meeting with every president since Dwight D. Eisenhower.... Height visited the Obama White House 21 times [emphasis mine], the president said. He noted that she was determined to attend a meeting of African American leaders on unemployment last winter despite an approaching blizzard and being confined to a wheelchair. She would not allow 'just a bunch of men' to control the meeting, Obama said. When Height's attendance became impossible because cars could not reach her snow-choked driveway, he said, she still sent a message with her ideas.

I think I've got a pretty good idea of the ideas that were her message, and why Comrade Barack was shedding so many tears for her.  Sadly, this is what took over so many in the American Civil Rights movement since the 1960s.


http://www.peoplesworld.org/dorothy-height-godmother-of-civil-rights-movement/

Dorothy Height, godmother of civil rights movement

by: Pepe Lozano
April 23 2010

Dorothy Irene Height, a tireless crusader for civil rights, justice and equality for African Americans, women and all working people, died at 98 of natural causes Tuesday.

She is remembered as a pioneering voice of the civil rights movement whose life's work and activism stretched from the New Deal through the 2008 election of President Obama.

In a statement Obama called her "the godmother of the Civil Rights movement" and a hero for all Americans.

"Dr. Height devoted her life to those struggling for equality ... and served as the only woman at the highest level of the civil rights movement - witnessing every march and milestone along the way," said Obama.

It was as a young girl that Height decided to stand up against prejudice and discrimination and fight for access to jobs and education and for voting rights for women and African Americans. As a teenager, she marched in New York's Time Square shouting, "Stop the lynching."

Height was born March 24, 1912, in Richmond, Va., before women could vote and when Blacks had few rights. The daughter of a nurse and building contractor, she excelled in school and at public speaking.

At an early age Height encountered racial discrimination, when at 16, she was accepted into Barnard College in New York. She was invited to the school for an interview but was not admitted because the elite women's college had already reached its quota of two black women. She went on to earn bachelor's and master's degrees from New York University.

In 1980, Barnard College awarded Height its highest honor, the Barnard Medal of Distinction.

After earning her degrees, she became a leader of the Harlem Young Women's Christian Association and the United Christian Youth Movement of North America. During these years Height fought to stop lynching, desegregate the armed forces and reform the criminal justice system.

At age 25 Height met First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt and Mary McLeod Bethune, founder of the National Council of Negro Women. In 1957 Height became that group's fourth president. In that position, she initiated programs to meet the needs of teenage mothers and to address hunger in rural areas. She also organized "Wednesdays in Mississippi," in which black and white women from the North traveled to Mississippi to meet with their Southern counterparts in an effort to ease racial tensions and bridge differences.

She became a natural leader of the civil rights movement in the 1950s and '60s and sought to empower and uplift women, advocating for equal wages for women, child care programs, decent housing and educational opportunities. Height worked with Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and other activists to coordinate the growing movement. She was on the platform near King when he gave his famous "I have a dream" speech at the 1963 March on Washington.

Height was among the civil rights movement's most influential leaders, said Jarvis Tyner, executive vice chair of the Communist Party USA.

"She was the matriarch of the movement," said Tyner. "She was a remarkable leader and her politics were quite progressive and although she is respected as a 'proper lady,' she was a militant fighter."

Tyner noted that Height and others of her generation displayed tremendous courage in speaking out against lynching and battling racial injustice.

"People like Ms. Height planted the seeds which eventually awakened Black voters to unite with others and spread the notion of anti-racist unity among all people," he said.

Fighting racism was the soul of the movement and breaking down Jim Crow laws paved the way for advancing democracy, said Tyner. "And it really made the difference."

Height liked to quote 19th century abolitionist Frederick Douglass, who said the three effective ways to fight for justice are to "agitate, agitate, agitate."

She used to say, "If the time is not ripe, we have to ripen the time."

In a 1997 Associated Press interview, Ms. said, "We have come a long way, but too many people are not better off."

After Obama won the presidential election in 2008, Height told Washington TV station WTTG that she was overwhelmed with emotion.

"People ask me, did I ever dream it would happen, and I said, 'If you didn't have the dream, you couldn't have worked on it," she said.

Height's life work and her commitment to African American liberation was deeply rooted in the fight for human liberation. She envisioned justice for blacks as part of justice for people everywhere in the world.

In recent years Height is known for creating the National Black Family Reunion, an annual celebration in Washington and other cities. She was also one of the few women asked to speak at the Million Man March in 1995.

She received two of the nation's highest honors: the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1994 and the Congressional Gold Medal in 2004.

In a joint statement Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton and former President Bill Clinton said, "Our nation is poorer for her loss but infinitely richer for the life she led, the progress she achieved and the people she touched."

The Psychology of a Spiritual Looter

The one common theme in all the new government laws, policies and edicts coming our way now that Obama and the Democrats have almost unbridled power (and even their many statist allies among the Republicans) -- is power as an end in itself.  They are like thugs in a candy store of helpless victims.  They rationalize every act as "for our own good", but when you see Obama seizing control or ordering the dissolution of entire industries while acting as the behind the scenes puppet master of union goons beating up innocent Tea Party protesters, or even the absolute absurdity of Bloomberg's attempts to regulate **SALT** (an essential nutrient of life!), and now the NY state legislature contemplating making organ donation MANDATORY (see http://wcbstv.com/health/ny.organ.donor.2.1662437.html) you may be absolutely sure that their motives have nothing whatsoever to do with our well-being -- it is all about expressing their desire to exert absolute, unbridled power over all of us, to prove it can be done, to prove that we can be subjugated, to prove that they are in control of not just our existence, but all existence. 

Dwell a moment on why someone would need to do that... the psychology of someone who is terrified to face existence on his own, terrified of independence, crippled--at some deep, unadmitted level--in self-doubt about their own competence to exist.  This manifests as a hatred of every competent being out there--every businessman, every capable person, every rational person, every person of integrity, honesty and loyalty to real values (like the founding principles of the U.S. Constitution), everyone who creates values and happiness on Earth.  As Ayn Rand put it so well, their's is a "hatred of the good for being the good".  The only way they have to express that is a desire to destroy everyone who is an affront to their own inner self-loathing and self-doubt -- traits they desperately seek to conceal from everyone with a veneer of intellectuality, wit, sneers, condescension, and superficial social polish.  Which over time becomes manifested as power-lust and various forms of megalomania.

This is why I say Obama is so great danger -- his entire life has been spent manipulating people, not existence, and his ideology--a form of Castroite Marxism--is formulated to the ultimate form of that end -- destruction of all human life and happiness.

The question of the hour is whether the American public as a whole (excluding those who subscribe to the sadomasochistic serflike mentality that welcomes a healthy regular beating) will stand for it. 

Right now the best thing for the country may be if Obama gets his way on everything as fast as possible -- and I mean months, not years.  He's lusting to be an absolute dictator-for-life: he's got the megalomanical mentality of Nicolai Ceausescu.  Look him up (eg, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nicolae_Ceau%C5%9Fescu) -- former Romanian dictator.  Especially how he got started, how his ideals and his power drove him mad, and his fitting ending, after destroying the economy of that country. 

Unlike Romania, I don't believe that Americans as a whole will tolerate a dictator -- if it happens quickly enough.  And the experience of preventing that could forever stiffen the resolve of this country to ever tolerate it happening again.

 

And the Winner Isn't...

Just to give you an idea how utterly power mad the people running our government are, here's a contest for the best reasons to put a noose firmly around your neck and jump off a high chair:

"President Obama's Environmental Protection Agency is encouraging the public to create video advertisements that explain why federal regulations are "important to everyone."

If this isn't bizarre and stupid, I don't know what is.  Let's hold another contest for home videos explaining why mass extinction events are "important to everyone", also.  We'll run it on "America's Funniest Home Videos" show.

We ought to have a counter contest (is a contest the opposite of a protest?):  Encourage the public to create the STUPIDEST video advertisments explaining why federal regulations are "important to everyone".  Mock the living hell out of these clowns.  I'm sending this idea around to all my favorite media outlets.

http://cnsnews.com/news/article/64297

EPA Contest Seeks Videos Promoting Government Regulations
Monday, April 19, 2010
By Matt Cover, Staff Writer

(CNSNews.com) – President Obama's Environmental Protection Agency is encouraging the public to create video advertisements that explain why federal regulations are "important to everyone."

The contest, which ends May 17, will award $2,500 to the makers of the video that best explains why federal regulations are good and how ordinary citizens can become more involved in making regulations. The videos must be posted on YouTube and can be no more than 60-90 seconds in length.

In the current contest, each video must include the slogan “Let your voice be heard,” and it must direct viewers to the government’s regulatory website www.Regulations.gov . The winning video will then be used by the entire federal government to promote the regulatory process and enhance the public’s participation in it.

The EPA is managing the contest, part of the government’s eRulemaking program, on behalf of the entire government.

As explained in the EPA press release announcing the contest, the purpose of the videos will be to remind the public that federal regulation touches “almost every aspect” of their lives and to promote how important those regulations are.

“The contest will highlight the significance of federal regulations and help the public understand the rulemaking process. Federal agencies develop and issue hundreds of rules and regulations every year to implement statutes written by Congress. Almost every aspect of an individual’s life is touched by federal regulations, but many do not understand how rules are made or how they can get involved in the process.”

The videos should be designed to “capture the public imagination” and to “explain” why government regulations are “important to everyone.”

“With a short 60 to 90 second video, citizens should capture public imagination and use creativity, artistic expression and innovation to explain why regulations are important to everyone, and motivate others to participate in the rulemaking process.”

The videos must both educate viewers on the government’s regulatory process and encourage them to become more involved in it. The videos must remind viewers that regulations are laws written by the executive branch.

“Federal agencies write laws called regulations or rules,” the contest’s information guidelines states. “When Congress writes a statute and the President signs it, it usually doesn’t have enough detail for it to be put into effect. So, federal agencies fill in the details by issuing regulations.”

The videos must also remind viewers that regulations are the law and that they actually outnumber laws passed by Congress on the order of 10-1.

“Regulations have the power of law. Breaking them can result in fines and even jail time. Regulations outnumber Congressional statutes. For every statute passed by Congress and signed into law by the President, federal agencies create about 10 regulations, each of which have the force of law.”

The videos must also explain to viewers how regulations affect the everyday lives of Americans, showing just what the government does that has a “direct impact” on the lives of “every American citizen.”

Regulations have a direct impact on your life and the life of every American citizen,” the information packet says.

“The price of the coffee you drink in the morning is affected by regulations written by the Commodity Futures Trading Commission. The television shows you watch are regulated by the Federal Communications Commission. The quality of the air you breathe is affected by regulations written by the Environmental Protection Agency.”

The winning entry will be the video which best promotes greater awareness of federal regulations, motivates people to participate in it, and tries to change the way most people think about regulation, EPA spokesman Latisha Petteway told CNSNews.com in an email explaining the contest.

“The overall message should promote greater awareness of Federal rulemaking, motivate
others to participate, and perhaps, even change the common perception of Federal rulemaking.”

The winning video will be announced by EPA in June 2010.

Previous government contests dealt with subjects such as reducing water pollution and preventing the flu. Those contests produced videos encouraging people to follow the government's advice on how to prevent storm water runoff and the spread of disease.

Commies in the Closet of Comrade Obama

Reading the Times' story at bottom, I found another commie in Obama's closet:

        Charles Ogletree, Harvard Law School professor.  
        Ogletree taught both Barack and Michelle Obama at Harvard; he has remained close to Mr. Obama throughout his political career.

From Wiki.  I highlight the "Harvard professor" part because it makes the guy extremely influential, and it's clear from the sanitized bio's online that he has been and continues to be extremely influential.

The stuff excerpted below just turned up in a quick search, but what's clear is that the guy is very careful about what gets out in public about himself (he probably wrote the bios himself) -- for instance, he is a prolific writer and legal scholar, but there's not a word in wikipedia about what's in his writings, or what kind of court cases he is so famous for winning.

In researching a guy like Obama or anyone else with connections to communists, it's SO important to look at his teachers, and the teachers of his teachers, and their teachers, ad infinitum.  Also, to look for the euphemisms like "membership in activist" groups.  Or to ask... what does someone do in Cuba, in the 1970s, as part of a student activist group??  Who do you meet with, talk to?  If you are a fellow traveler (as communists like to call themselves, and Ogletree was a Black Panther -- ie, communist bent on radical overthrow of the United States), what do they ask you to do when you go back home?  Etc.

All this is just a very small piece of why I say there is no doubt whatsover that Obama is a communist, and these days, as the evidence mounts, I'm more and more inclined to say that he is actually a mole receiving instructions from overseas.  Probably Cuba or Russia, or both. 

-------------

http://www.answers.com/topic/charles-ogletree

Ogletree became a campus radical, organizing an Afrocentric (though still integrated) dormitory, where he met his future wife, Pamela Barnes. He edited a campus Black Panther newspaper called The Real News and traveled to Africa and Cuba as part of student activist groups.

He attended nearly every day of the trial of Black Power activist and Communist Angela Davis.

Ogletree also gained prominence in 1991 when he was asked by the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People to write up an investigation into the legal career of a former Equal Employment Opportunity Commission chief and African-American judge Clarence Thomas... Ogletree drafted a 30-page report on Thomas that was instrumental in the NAACP's vote of no confidence for the nominee. He later became further embroiled in the battle against Thomas when charges of sexual harassment were leveled against the judge by a law professor and former EEOC subordinate named Anita Hill;

The following year, Ogletree's career at Harvard--whose decision- makers had named him assistant professor in 1989--became the subject of controversy when a paper he had submitted to the school's Law Review Journal was called into question by some of the publication's staff.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Ogletree

In 2004 Harvard disciplined Ogletree for plagiarizing six paragraphs from Yale scholar Jack Balkin's book, What Brown v. Board of Education Should Have Said in his own book, All Deliberate Speed: Reflections on the First Half-Century of Brown v. Board of Education.  Ogletree apologized, saying that he "made a serious mistake during the editorial process of completing this book, and delegated too much responsibility to others during the final editing process.” Former Harvard President Derek C. Bok concluded, "There was no deliberate wrongdoing at all...He marshaled his assistants and parceled out the work and in the process some quotation marks got lost.”

http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/2010/04/18/us/AP-US-Obama-Sharpton-Factor.html?ref=aponline


Ex-Mentor: Sharpton Is Obama's Link to the Streets

By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

Published: April 18, 2010
Filed at 1:00 a.m. ET

NEW YORK (AP) -- The Rev. Al Sharpton is a ''lightning rod'' for President Barack Obama on inner city streets, Obama's former Harvard mentor and friend said Saturday at a forum in Harlem.

But Sharpton, who led the event, told The Associated Press that America's first black president ''has to work both for us and for others,'' and that if Obama were to push a race-based agenda, ''that would only organize the right against him.''

Sharpton spoke on the last day of an annual conference organized by his National Action Network. Speakers included three members of Obama's Cabinet and Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Steele, as well as Charles Ogletree, the president's Harvard Law School professor, now a friend.

''Al Sharpton has become the lightning rod in moving Obama's agenda forward,'' Ogletree told the AP, describing Sharpton as a conduit between the disadvantaged and powerful leaders. ''And he has access to both the streets and the suites, to make sure that the people who are voiceless, faceless and powerless finally have some say.''

Standing at the back of a balcony overlooking Harlem's ornate First Corinthian Baptist Church, the 57-year-old lawyer said that some black Americans may be disappointed the president they helped elect isn't doing more for them.

''And President Obama expected to do a lot more,'' said Ogletree, referring to the challenges Obama faces in two wars and the struggling economy. Still, he predicted, the new health care law would affect uninsured black Americans more than any other segment of the population.

Sharpton clearly was at the center of this forum. Saturday, the front page of The Washington Post featured a photo of him with a headline that read: ''Activist Al Sharpton takes on new role as administration ally.''

He chuckled at the notion.

''I've been as much in this White House as I was in George (W.) Bush's -- it's only when Bush invited me to the White House, it was him reaching out; when Obama invites me, all of a sudden, we're allies,'' Sharpton joked during a break, sitting in a pew on the altar that served as a high-tech stage.

Amid a heated national debate over whether black leaders should align themselves with the president, Sharpton has defended Obama against criticism from television host Tavis Smiley that ''black folk are catching hell'' and Obama should do more to help them.

Black Americans, Sharpton said, ''need to solve our own problems.''

Sharpton told the AP that he is working to expand his Harlem-based organization to 100 cities from the current 42, with about 200,000 members, ''and to really deliver against unemployment that is disproportionate in the black community, and for health care and education reform.''

The four-day conference, focusing on a 12-month plan of action for black leadership, brought together prominent figures from dozens of fields, tackling topics as diverse as finding jobs for men leaving prison and federal subsidies for black farmers.

Sharpton's plan to better life for black Americans measures its success by individual goal-setting -- ''every day, every week, every month,'' said Philadelphia Mayor Michael Nutter.

Nutter has a big goal: to reach and teach a half million adults in his city who are considered ''low-literate,'' which means they can read, technically, but have difficulty understanding a newspaper article or even a utility bill.

''It is impossible for parents to help their children if they can't read,'' said Nutter, who leads the largest American city with a black mayor. ''It is almost impossible to lift yourself out of poverty if you can't function at a high enough level.''

How a Python Devours its Prey

A great article from last fall came back around to me, still fully relevant.  John Lewis writes of a warning from a man appointed by Bill Clinton -- and if he's scared, everyone else should be.

"...mandated fiscal entitlements, projected into the future, are over 52,000 billion dollars. That will equal 90% of all household wealth in the U.S., and will place a burden of over 450 thousand dollars on every household in the land. This is almost ten times the present median household income level... "

"Health care entitlements constitute by far the largest single piece of this economic disaster. Those who think that creating thousands of billions of dollars in new government entitlements--in a health care bill that adds tens of millions of Americans to government programs--will do anything except hasten the coming bankruptcy are out of touch with reality. "

"If fundamental reforms are not begun now, Walker concludes, the United States will experience a financial and political collapse comparable to the fall of Rome."

We only have to review a little Roman history to get the full impact of that last one.

"He stresses that this coming financial meltdown is known by everyone in Washington--but no one wants to acknowledge it. "

I would add:  Obama may not want to acknowledge it;  he simply *wants* it. This is his path to permanent, unbridled power.  I mean that seriously and literally.  Stay tuned.

http://www.capitalismmagazine.com/economics/5631-The-Collapse-America-The-Dire-Message-David-Walker.html


The Collapse of America? The Dire Message of Mr. David Walker

28 August 2009 John Lewis

If fundamental reforms are not begun now, Walker concludes, the United States will experience a financial and political collapse comparable to the fall of Rome.

(read full article at the link)

Pythons in the Pantry

I'm certainly no expert on India, but in response to an acquaintance from India about the problems with that country, (for which reason he renounces his Indian heritage), I offered a side note: that while India has a long religious history which doubtless is the root of many of its problems, and while, arguably, the British brought good things to India when it was a colony (the Western heritage), the Brits also brought to India the noxious ideas of Socialism, which has held India back for decades and decades.

The interesting part is, for anyone familiar with Ayn Rand:  the main architect of India's socialist government was a British intellectual named Harold Laski, who was especially active in the 1920's to post-war 1940's. Laski was a communist and a member of the Fabian Society, formed by people like Bertrand Russell, which still exists today.  Their stated goal was and is the conversion the entire world to Socialism by incrementalism, and they've been working at this since the 1920's.  Their unstated goal (since Fabians are really communists) is Socialism as a stepping stone to full-fledged Communism.  Laski was one of their main and most influential Fabian members at that time.

Ayn Rand wrote that in the mid-1930's someone suggested she listen to a talk by Laski, whom the person thought was "charming" with interesting ideas and not especially left-wing.  At the time, Laski's communism was secret--the modus operandi of the Fabians.  So Rand went.  After hearing him talk, she said,

"It is true that he was not particularly liberal--that is, he was the most vicious liberal I have ever heard in public, but not blatantly so. He was very subtle and gracious, he rambled on a great deal about nothing in particular--and then he made crucial, vicious points once in a while [...] I thought, "There was my character." [...] Years later, I learned that [his] career was in fact somewhat like Toohey's: he was always the man behind the scenes, much more influential than anybody knew publicly, pulling the strings behind the governments of several countries. Finally he was proved to be a communist, which he did not announce himself as or blatantly sound like."

When you see all the post-colonization problems suffered by India, you can place many of them at the feet of this one man.  But the interesting part to me is that, after seeing Laski, Ayn Rand had found the model for the character of Ellsworth Toohey in her novel "The Fountainhead", which she was writing at that time.  And here is Toohey talking about his purpose in controlling people, from the novel:

"I don't want to kill him. I want him in jail. You understand? In jail. In a cell. Behind bars. Locked, stopped, strapped--and alive. He'll get up when they tell him to. He'll eat what they give him. He'll move when he's told to move and stop when he's told. He'll walk to the jute mill, when he's told, and he'll work as he's told. They'll push him, if he doesn't move fast enough, and they'll slap his face when they feel like it, and they'll beat him with rubber hose if he doesn't obey. And he'll obey. He'll take orders. He'll take orders!"

For someone as perceptive as Rand, you can be sure this was the essence of Laski.  In my view, this is also very close to the essence of Obama.  (He is a closet communist himself, though I don't  mean to imply a connection to the Fabians.)

Dancing with the Devil -- or Boinked by the Bolsheviks?

Don't rush to absolve Russians in the plane crash that killed all the top leaders of Poland.  One must consider the source of the news coming out -- Russian.  We don't know that the crash was rigged, but it is consistent with past Soviet/Russian/KGB operations, and remains a definite possibility.  Certainly, one must give weight to incompetence -- but who was flying the plane?  A Polish pilot or a Russian?  Who was in the control tower?  A Russian or a Pole?  Where was the airport?  In Russia or Poland? How do we know the account is true that the control tower warned them away?

 "... its dangerously sharp descent on the last attempt... They estimated after the tragedy that it was off course not only vertically but also horizontally by 150 meters"

Perhaps.  Even in the U.S. accidents of this kind can happen, but almost always only when there is severe wind shear and microburst downdrafts.  This is also consistent with somebody having tampered with the flight instruments. Or with the instrument landing system (ILS), or -- with the signals transmitted from the ground which tell the plane (and the pilot) he is on a proper glideslope.  It would be *extemely* easy to transmit false glideslope signals -- or not -- and put one pilot on a wrong descent path, and another on a proper one. And who would know? A portable transmitter briefly set in position, then carried away afterwards.

So I wouldn't rush to give the benevolent benefit of the doubt to what is, let's face it, a totalitarian country, run by a former communist and KGB spy, who is known to kill his enemies.

We may never know,  but for those who are philosophically predisposed to discount conspiracy theories in favor of the popular press accounts, we have a philosophical issue: what is a "fact" that we may reach any conclusion upon?  Right now we don't have many facts.  Do we have any?  How do we know it was even foggy?  Well, that one seems likely -- it is too hard to fake severe weather for so many people, and weather reports can be checked, etc.

But how do we know the control tower's account is correct that they attempted to wave them off?  They were landing at a Russian military airfield.  The report of attempts to wave off the plane came from Russian sources, etc.  For all we know, that control tower could have been exhorting the pilot to land, rather than waving him off, to make sure he was taking a terrible risk.  It's reported that the previous plane attempting to land was Russian.  How do you know that?  Russian sources.

The satellite photos of the Smolensk airfield and surrounding area are surprisingly good. About 6 inch resolution.  This place is as flat as it gets. Look at the terrain map on maps.google.com.  Or go to Google Earth for a more realistic perspective. Type in "Smolensk, Russia".   The airfield is clearly 110% military -- note the aircraft.  (Note also the very poor maintenance of the runway -- weeds grown through everywhere. Not like any airbase I was ever on.) Reports said they crashed a mile from the runway.  I'm guessing from the west.  Even in fog, with a properly working ILS, I don't see a major problem reaching that runway in flat terrain with properly working ILS.

News reports are now saying the Russians didn't open the black box till the Poles arrived.  Just remember -- It was a Russian plane.  Pretty easy to fake/substitute another black box when you made the plane.

All of the information coming out now is Russian, and all came through the Russian military and the Russian government. We then get it from the AP or Washington Post or NYTimes (those bastions of objectivity), who got it from a Russian news agency, who got it from the Russian government, who got it ....?

So why would Putin have wanted Kaczynski dead?

... "He was a very brave Polish patriot who stood up for freedom. 'He suffered hugely under communism and always stood up for his beliefs, and for his great faith in his country."
   
...The country sent troops to the U.S.-led war in Iraq and recently boosted its contingent in Afghanistan to some 2,600 soldiers.
   
U.S. Patriot missiles are expected to be deployed in Poland this year. That was a Polish condition for a 2008 deal - backed by both Kaczynski and Tusk - to host long-range missile defence interceptors. The deal, which was struck by the Bush administration, angered Russia and was later reconfigured under President Barack Obama's administration.
   
...U.S. President Barack Obama: 'Devastating to Poland, to the United States, and to the world. President Lech Kaczynski was a distinguished statesman who played a key role in the Solidarity movement, and he was widely admired in the United States as a leader dedicated to advancing freedom and human dignity.'
(http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1264964/BREAKING-NEWS-Plane-carrying-Polish-president-crashes-Russia.html)

It's interesting that only two days ago we signed a new treaty with Russia that agrees to eliminate 30% of our nuclear arsenal.  The Russians, however, give up nothing, since most of their nuclear arsenal is no longer working, and they just have to give up those parts.

So let's review the conspiracy theory:

1. Polish president, a long-time thorn in Putin's side;

2. Polish president visits Russia to commemorate Russian acknowledgment of Russian atrocities, flying Russian-made jetliner to Russian military base and crashes 1 mile short of runway in very flat terrain;

3. Obama inks nuclear disarmament treaty with Russia a few days ago and agrees to delay missile defence for Poland.

4. Putin has a long history of killing off the opposition.

I therefore invoke the Goldfinger Principle:  Once is happenstance, Twice is coincidence, Three times is enemy action.

From the perspective of foreign relations / etc, no one has an interest in exposing a mass murder.  Not the Polish government (what are they going to do?), nor the U.S (are we going to start a war over it?  Would Obama do anything to piss off his handlers in Moscow?).   True or not, the accident story will prevail, and in truth, this may be best--for now.  But if Putin gets away with it--assuming he did it--it will establish a very serious precident.

Seriously, doesn't all this have a 1939 feel to it?

De-Barnaclizing for Dollars

I sent out an email on the importance of money raising for activism, and got a response from one of my recipients to the effect that we should  'Vote Republican' to punish the Democrats for introducing Socialism.  My response was

I've nothing against voting Republican (with some exceptions) to punish the Dems, but at the same time, why not steal the money from the Republicans? It diminishes the authority and influence of the Republican leadership. So we put that money behind the best candidates. If that candidate doesn't get the Republican nomination, let him run as an Independent with money from the Tea Party or us.

That gave me the interesting if banal thought: money talks. Always, and especially in politics. Even though the Religious Right has a fairly firm hold on the primary/caucus process of the Republicans, what if the Tea Party was pulling all the money out from under from them? That would give the Tea Party types enormous leverage. Not only in the primaries, but even if the Republicans nominated some undesirable candidate. If they weren't able to adequately support his candidacy, I mean, that candidate's loyalty would only go so far. The Tea Party could function as an unofficial "shadow" party keeping the Republican's honest, so to speak, without actually undermining them with a third party. 

And if the Republicans still chose to ignore the Tea Party and their positions or to nominate the undesirable candidate? -- Screw 'em. Let the Tea Party nominate some "unofficial" candidate to run as an independent. We dun need no stinkin' official party to do that. Just find the legal means to funnel campaign money to him. A few wins by those guys and Republicans might think they were caught up on a mass extinction event. 

My email had also suggested a better "Contract with America" than some of the pathetic examples I've seen floating around, but at a minimum, it should make the main clauses: repeal of the Health Care bill, as part of a main plank of more limited government. 

I would say a Contract with America might generally focus on a policy of repeal -- not just health care. But it's very challenging cause you have this problem: Way too many people go into politics for the money and power (both parties), and the money lies in the political pull and the handouts. One vote on repealing the Health Care bill might get them the reward of an office, but "repeal" as a lingering agenda doesn't offer much opportunity for scamming people or controlling them, and we're a long way from fielding a lot of candidates having "high-enough" motives to eliminate a lot of legislation in big bruising battles, with no quid pro quo. It's an uphill battle. Look how disgracefully the Republican's acted when they controlled Congress under Bush. It was like a busload of drunken frat boys thrown into a cathouse.

Which gets to a thought I've been mulling for some time: what is the motive for anyone to run for political office, even in a perfect world? A lot of unpleasant work in a job as someone who sits through boring committee meetings ad infinitum. As constructed, the system practically begs for altruists and other such types (and almost only those types), except for the rare person of long-range vision who recognizes the benefit to his life in limiting the role of government. Almost any self-interested person who wants a real life with real rewards is not going to easily be highly motivated to give up his business, his career, his privacy, etc, for a few years of "public service" killing off leeches and other such barnacles on the ship of state. 

So how do you motivate such people? The stock answer is that in a properly delimited government, Congress-entities shouldn't be doing much. But still, I'd like to motivate even the best people to not do even more. 

For example, what if the President was rewarded for keeping the government out of our hair? Maybe as a percent of GDP. Nothing gives you a keen awareness of economics like a commission on sales. So (just making this all up without any claim to full cognizance of the practicality or consequences) you let anyone kick in to the "Presidential Slush Fund". A big amorphous pool of money that only gets paid out when the President takes actions that cause GDP to go up. Donors to the fund must be anonymous so the Prez isn't beholden to them. Let's institutionalize anonymous donors, I say. Etc. 

You could take this all the way down through the bowels of government to give every government entity some incentive other than "doing good for people" altruistically, but rather doing good for themselves by doing good for everyone -- by keeping them free and safe. It could be the cop on the beat who gets rewarded for solving crimes. Or the judge who rights wrongs. Whatever. Each gets a material reward: some kind of commission on the individual rights he has protected during the year. 

Let's take self-interest as a concept seriously and practice it. To my thinking, even among practically perfect people (and especially for Mary Poppins herself) there's got to be some material reward keyed to protecting individual rights. I'm not in any sense demoting the fundamental role of philosophy and other values, but if you can institutionalize a proper philosophy, individual rights AND self-interest, you might have an institution with some staying power. A few thousand years at least.