Monday, October 17, 2011

Obama and the Protests......what do you think?

Marchers with Occupy Wall Street lead off a march that included labor unions through Lower Manhattan Wednesday, Oct. 5, 2011, in New York. Unions gave a high-profile boost to the long-running protest against Wall Street and economic inequality, with their members joining thousands of protesters in a lower Manhattan march. (AP Photo/Craig Ruttle)Marchers with Occupy Wall Street lead off a march that included labor unions through Lower Manhattan Wednesday, Oct. 5, 2011, in New York. Unions gave a high-profile boost to the long-running protest against Wall Street and economic inequality, with their members joining thousands of protesters in a lower Manhattan march. (AP Photo/Craig Ruttle)
President Obama’s shock troops are marching in the streets. Occupy Wall Street - a movement composed of communists, anarchists, socialists and anti-globalization student radicals - is spreading. Protests have swelled in cities including New York, Washington, Los Angeles, Chicago, Denver and Philadelphia. The protesters are gaining influence and numbers. A ragtag group of hippie students has turned into a potent political force.
Occupy Wall Street seeks to demonize big banks, large corporations and capitalism. Its goal is to overturn America’s economic structure. The protesters are calling for wealth redistribution, fees on bank profits and massive tax increases on the rich. Many are demanding a socialist revolution - the confiscation of private property and nationalization of the economy. They are the heirs of Karl Marx, Friedrich Engels and Vladimir Lenin. Their aim is to impose the hammer and sickle upon America.
Leftist radicals, such as Michael Moore and Norm Chomsky, have endorsed the anti-capitalist movement. Both men have glorified authoritarian communist regimes - Fidel Castro's Cuba, Hugo Chavez' Venezuela and the old Soviet Union. Their hatred for America has found expression in the rabble on the streets of New York and Washington. Actress Roseanne Barr even has called for the return of the “guillotine.” She wants bankers to be sent to “re-education camps,” and if they still refuse to hand over their profits, they should be beheaded, she says. This is the language of revolutionary terror and Marxist violence.
Mr. Obama has said he “sympathizes” with the protesters - especially their anger at Wall Street and “fat-cat” bankers. For years, he has demonized billionaires and millionaires, jet owners and corporate America. His divisive, irresponsible rhetoric has laid the groundwork for Occupy Wall Street.
The White House connection is even deeper. The protest’s main players all have ties to the Obama administration. Its primary organizer is former Obama “green-jobs czar” Van Jones. Mr. Jones is a self-avowed communist and follower of Saul Alinsky, the radical community organizer who also was Mr. Obama’s intellectual mentor. Mr. Jones said October is the month of the long-awaited “progressive offensive” - the watershed moment when students, labor unions, socialists and civil rights activists coalesce into an anti-Tea Party to blunt Middle America’s growing opposition to Mr. Obama.
Occupy Wall Street also is being supported by MoveOn.org. The group was one of the first to back Mr. Obama’s presidential candidacy when he was still an obscure senator from Illinois. The protests are being funded by socialist billionaire George Soros - a key Obama ally. (Z:  by the way, the Soros spokesmen deny he's funding them.  But, check THIS out) And the protesters are being joined by big labor, the administration’s most powerful constituency.
Hence, Occupy Wall Street is not a spontaneous uprising of disenchanted citizens frustrated with corporate plutocracy and capitalist excess. Rather, it is a planned, manufactured attempt to prop up Mr. Obama’s failed presidency. It is a page taken straight from the Alinsky playbook: Demonize bankers and businessmen in order to divert attention from the real source of our economic woes, Mr. Obama’s policies.
The president inherited a recession, and he has deepened it. His out-of-control spending and trillion-dollar deficits have brought us to the brink of bankruptcy. America’s debt credit rating has been downgraded. Growth has slowed to less than 1 percent. Unemployment has risen above 9 percent. Inflation is rising as consumer confidence declines. Obamacare is strangling job creation and business investment. Mr. Obama has waged war upon the private sector. If those students are truly angry about joblessness and a bleak future, they should direct their fury at the president.
Instead, they mouth leftist pieties. They are a spoiled, dependent and illiterate generation that believes it is entitled to government handouts, state coddling and permanent prosperity. They don’t wish to be self-reliant and make their own way; rather, they want others - successful, productive members of society - to transfer their hard-earned money to subsidize their indolence. They are the kind of deadbeats the welfare state eventually produces - lazy, whining and shameless.
Alinsky argued that an economic crisis inevitably fosters a political crisis. The key for the hard left was to take advantage of our misery to seize power and impose a socialist regime. By sowing street mayhem, Occupy Wall Street is hoping to demoralize and distract Middle America into believing big business is the evil culprit for the financial collapse. The very opposite, however, is true. Meddlesome government intervention caused the housing bubble, the subprime mortgage debacle and the reckless bank lending practices that triggered the Great Recession. The way out is not more statism; it is less. Only a vibrant free market can restore economic recovery and stimulate job growth.
The protesters are not interested in real solutions. They are political activists masquerading as concerned citizens. Progressives are desperate to keep Mr. Obama in office. This is why the president is deliberately encouraging Occupy Wall Street. He hopes to create enough bedlam and then target Republicans, the Tea Party and the rich. He is pursuing the Alinsky strategy of divide and conquer, pitting interest groups and different classes against each other.
Mr. Obama has unleashed class hatred and racial hostility in the pursuit of state socialism. It is clear that his 2008 campaign slogan of “hope and change” was really a thinly veiled rallying cry, not to save the nation, but to precipitate the downfall of American capitalism.
Jeffrey T. Kuhner is a columnist at The Washington Times and president of the Edmund Burke Institute.

Z: Put aside some of the overreaching in this article (I do not think all the protesters are 'illiterate,' for example), put aside some of the truth in the fact that there are some Wall Street companies who've been dishonest, etc., and tell me if his main point has any validity.  How much HAS Obama had to do with this and where do you think it's going?
z
 

29 comments:

Bob said...

The interesting thing to me is that many of the problems the protesters are trying to address are traceable to policies by the Federal Government, including increasing unemployment.

Sure, there is greed in business, but all this hue and cry for income re-distribution and tax the rich originates from jealously and greed in the limited minds of the protesters.

Pris said...

Great post Z.
SEIU has it's hands all over this as well. It is mentioned in the embedded link in Z's presentation.

Former President of SEIU is Andy Stern who has been a regular visitor to the WH. Also, Stephen Lerner, a long time activist with SEIU who has also visited the WH.

Here's an excerpt from a biography on Lerner from Wikipedia:
=======
In March 2011 Lerner told an audience at Pace University in Manhattan of his five-point plan to undermine the entire U.S. economy, a campaign to be led by the SEIU and other unions, with selected community groups serving as fronts.

At the meeting he explained the beginning moment for what would become the Occupy Wall Street movement: "So, a bunch of us around the country are thinking about who would be a really good company to hate? We decided that would be JPMorgan Chase..."

He currently serves on the International Executive Board of the 2.2 million member Service Employees International Union.

========
As you can see, during Lerner's talk, he referred to the Occupy Wall Street movement. That was in March.

Pris said...

Part 2

Of course we know President Obama has long standing ties to SEIU, and was an attorney working for them while a community organizer.

This event is serious, and capable of anything, IMO. Hate is fed there
through class warfare, which the left has embraced for many years.

This is a standard tactic by tyrants, whether communist, socialist, or fascist. It's all the same thing, and it ends with the "useful idiots" being left out in the cold, once power has been achieved by the leaders who propelled it.

You should know tht the CPUSA is supporting this, and has been embraced by the crowd. Also, the AFL-CIO is a participant as well.

Finally, it's important to know that Obama, and other elected Democrats are welcoming the Occupy Protesters.

The fact the Communist Party has joined and been accepted
doesn't seem to have disuaded those politicians to back off.

This is what we are dealing with, so I suggest, if we love our country, and we do, we must dedicate ourselves to vote for whoever runs against this President.

Mark said...

It is a calculated effort to distract us from the current scandals (Lightsquared, Operation Gun Walker, and Solyndra)which threaten his presidency.

If he can keep the country focused on these hooligans, perhaps America won't notice that he's a common criminal.

Lisa said...

There has never been any doubt in my mind this is stemming from the White House.
The democrats are making sure not to let this crisis go to waste although I beg to differ.
Also that Soros, the money manipulator, is the biggest Wall Street Bankster and they passed right by his home to go protest Rupert Murdoch's home? People who actually employ others, unlike Soros who uses his wealth to play God.
Do they even realize how this billionaire is manipulating them?
What I find ironic is how many people of "privilege" are supporting this.
These protesters think that by destroying capitalism there will be fairness? Not with government is calling all the shots.
All I can say is they should be careful what they wish for before it's too late.
Did you hear Obama come out and say "Do not demonize Wall street?" I am guessing he needs their donations for the 2012 election.
Either way I am with Priss we have to support anyone running against this rabble rouser in 2012.
He is definitely not the type of leader for America with his merry band of thugs carrying out his dirty work .
I am just glad we are still able to communicate this away to keep each other informed because these stupid lefties don't realize how easy this privilege can be taken away as well if they give too much over to government,especially this government who seem hell bent on controlling every aspect of your lives.
I just heard that Lefties liberals are e-mailing the protesters telling them what to say and how to act. People like Bill Moyers and other influential liberals and that they plan on using this to turn it into a campaign for Obama.
He better not win in 2012 otherwise this country is screwed. Tis is how 3rd world dictatorships operate.How is he even getting away with this?

Ducky's here said...

I think people are missing the point. We have a problem and actually the demonstrators and the early Tea Party (before it was bought by Dick Armey and the Kochs) agree on many things. They should be talking to each other just as Libertarians are talking to leftists at many of these OWS rallies.

But no, we get co-opted again into thinking we can resolve this by choosing between a Democratic Leadership Council stooge and the 9-9-9 plan.

Huffington has a good article on 9-9-9 today. Turns out it's worse for you than first glance. The 9% "business tax" is a VAT. So you who are making say $40,000 and forced to spend nearly all your income get a 27% tax on top of any state tax, but that isn't being reported.

As long as you think the current system can be resolved within the D/R dichotomy, you're screwed.

OWS is trying to deliver the message, neither Obummer or Pizza Man is going to do anything but screw you. WAKE UP !

Scotty said...

Pris:This is what we are dealing with, so I suggest, if we love our country, and we do, we must dedicate ourselves to vote for whoever runs against this President.

We can't lose focus that we also need to take control in the senate also.

I believe one without the other will end up another wasted effort.

This has been building long before President Obama came along, all being endorsed, sometimes in the shadows by willing progressives. But, if President Obama is our rallying point, so be it, if it wakes some of the folks out of their slumber.

I'm so tired of seeing voter turnouts often times below the 50% of registered voters.

Bottom line, just getting rid of President Obama won't be enough. We need some conservatives with hair enough to drop all this in the laps of the democrats.

If President Obama wants to lend credibility to this movement, republicans must oblige him and make it ALL his! Right now!

I don't see many republicans with the backbone to bring the fight to democrats/progressives.

Scotty said...

Ducky:Huffington has a good article on 9-9-9 today. Turns out it's worse for you than first glance. The 9% "business tax" is a VAT. So you who are making say $40,000 and forced to spend nearly all your income get a 27% tax on top of any state tax, but that isn't being reported.

It's a moot point ducky, even if Herman Cain gets elected it would never come to fruition. There are two many people that are invested in the status quo.

Thersites said...

Awwww. Isn't that cute? All the Lefties are suddenly getting Pizza envy...

Go Herman! The pizza man can DELIVER!

He was once the chairman of the Kansas City Federal Reserve Bank. And unlike Obama and his minions, Hermann ACTUALLY knows what he's doing when it comes to economics.

Thersites said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Ducky's here said...

@Scotty -- It's a moot point ducky, even if Herman Cain gets elected it would never come to fruition. There are two many people that are invested in the status quo.

-------

Yup, we are owned and that is what BOTH the early Tea Party (not the astroturfed transmorgrification) and OWS are trying to say.

Pity they can't get together to figure out how to get this started.

Though I don't think a 27% flat tax is the way to go.

Thersites said...

Pizza Power!

Z said...

Bob....they should definitely be protesting the White House but MAN, the SEIU and all the leftwing groups behind this would never allow that...their buddy's in there! ANd I can't agree with you MORE about the jealousy motivation.

Pris, Both comments are excellent...yes, this has been planned way ahead of time and we know it's not by a bunch or ragtag hippies.
Funny, Herman Cain got annihilated in a Yahoo editorial yesterday suggesting he's supported by the Koch Bros...So, it's not okay for a Republican to be supported by rich Republicans but the media will cover for Soros...

That Commies are involved in the SEIU or this OWS bothers many Americans VERY little. If they said Republicans were involved (and they are), they'd be FREAKING OUT.

Mark, it's doing a lot of things; distracting from Obama's failures and more..

Lisa, sometimes it seems like everything the left does is aimed at making us 'just another Third World country'...these are people who resent their own country's exceptionalism..or what WAS exceptionalism; I see it no longer.

Ducky...I smile when I read your comments which sound like THE TRUTH because you said it :-)

Actually, not to freak you out TOO much, Republicans are in those OWS protests, too....
Instead of mature hearings going over all of this and correcting the problems (sadly, I don't see even an attempt by our White House to do this bilaterally), we're coping Greece and sinking ....

I'm sorry your comments are so riddled with ridiculous comments like the "early Tea Party" (suddenly, you approved of that? Not HERE you didn't :-), etc...because you only sound hateful instead of constructive.

Scotty, I think a lot of leftwingers don't understand that Cain's 999 thing would never make it (what are they THINKING?) but that it's a PLAN and we need to be thinking in that direction...no doubt about it.

Thersites..Math from Moorehouse and Economics from Purdue; with slave ancestors and a dad who was a chauffeur...And Harry Belanfonte, not raised here, says Cain hasn't lived the Black experience.
And Chris Matthews is now saying that Republicans won't elect a Black man .

I'm so freakin' sick of the same hackneyed crap the leftwing's spouting.......thank GOD people are seeming to wake up to this stupidity. I hope they wake up FAST.

Z said...

by the way, Ducky...do you think your smugness and attempts at some kind of silly superiority have ever prompted any decent exchange of ideas with you?

Lisa said...

Ha ha right Z these lefty's make me laugh, the black experience? Since when is being raised poor and your father working 3 jobs not the black experience. I guess the fact that his father actually supported his family isn't' the black experience? I guess that's not liberal enough to have a 2 parent home so nanny state doesn't have to take care of you and buy votes. Oh the horror! Plus working hard to improve yourself is too unrealistic as well.
I guess as long as the left tells the black population that they can never make it then they never will.
I think Cain should be admired and emulated by the black community being he's a thousand times more accomplished than the impostor in the White House.
I guess Obama really lived the black experience with his privileged Ivy League education and him being half white and all his associations being white elitists? Yeah there's the black experience. Geez!

Pris said...

"Scotty:We can't lose focus that we also need to take control in the senate also."

I agree. We have to take control of the Senate as well. You'll get no argument from me on that!

It's clear that elected Democrats are embracing the OWS. May they rue the day!


Save it Ducky, it's obvious the OWS would like to co-opt the tea party movement. Probably part of it's plan.

The thing is, the TP want's smaller government, freedom, to spare our children an unsustainable cost of government, and to be left the hell alone to live our lives without govt. interference.


The OWS want's a socialist nanny state, bigger govt.,and a free lunch! They say they want jobs, and in the same breath want to destroy corporations which hire millions of people.

They hate Wall Street, but their parents and probably some of them have retirement plans and pensions invested in......wait for it, Wall Street.

They rail against the banks, but most people including young people, have savings and checking accounts in.....wait for it, banks!

Not to mention the CPUSA is part of the OWS, anti-semitism is part of it, redistribution of wealth is part of it, and class warfare.

In other words you Ducky, and all the other useful idiots, don't think, you follow blindly over a cliff!

Z said...

Lisa, isn't it astonishing? Yes, if a black man (and, by the way, Cain prefers BLACK to AFRICAN AMERICAN, too) doesn't become a liberal adult, he isn't a Black man, apparently.

This, from the "open minded" left.. :-)

Scotty said...

Yup, we are owned and that is what BOTH the early Tea Party (not the astroturfed transmorgrification) and OWS are trying to say.

Me thinks ya need to ditch those rose colored glasses, ducky

Z said...

Pris, I saw a video a friend sent the other day (Did I send it to you?) of a black woman at the OWS screeching "This is all because of the JEWS and they have to LEAVE THIS COUNTRY"

I"m not kidding. Think the media picked THAT up? nope
But, let ONE interloper show up at a TP event holding a hitler sign and "All Tea Partiers are NAZIS," right?

I've always thought 99.9% of whatever questionable placards at TP events has been leftwing interlopers, anyway. $$$

Scotty said...

Scotty, I think a lot of leftwingers don't understand that Cain's 999 thing would never make it (what are they THINKING?) but that it's a PLAN and we need to be thinking in that direction...no doubt about it.

I agree, Z, at least Herman Cain is offering some type of plan.

I guess I'm a pessimist. I don't see the current tax codes changing very much in our lifetime.

With H&R Block and all the variations of it, tax lawyers, not to mention all that are employed by the IRS. That's what I meant when I mentioned all the folks that are vested in the system as it is. All those folks donate to that same politicians that we do. Problem is they have more cash on hand than you or I do.

Certainly those that lean Karl Roveish would never change the taxation system as it stands, apart from offer a few crumbs here and there with tax cuts. At least not willingly.

Anonymous said...

I love Cain and I am not convinced by the 999 but at least it makes people talk and think.

It's better than the status quo Obama is actually proposing. People in those protests should realize Obama loves hanging out with the fat cats on the golf course or in vacation in MA. Like a typical phony leftist Che-wannabe the masses are only good to be elected, reach power and enjoy the good life.

Back to Cain... The goal of the tax code reform should make people see and feel tax increases so that each individual get involved in monitoring government incompetence and waste. A few ideas:
- Sales tax only. No income tax. This way when the sales tax goes up, everybody feels the pain immediately.
- If income tax remains, no paycheck withdrawal. Annual payment from citizens to the government. This way the big hit on the head makes you think twice. And gov only gets the money at the end of the year and has to plan its budget more carefully.

Mark said...

Here's what I wrote on Facebook today:

The "Occupy Wall Street" protests have now been endorsed by the American Socialist party, Hollywood celiberals, The Communist party USA, a convicted cop killer, The unions, boy President Barry Hussein Soetero Obama, and now the American Nazi party. But...who says they're un-American?

BTW. Who says Herman Cain's 999 plan won\'t work?

When is the last time any candidate directly answered the questions asked of him?

Z said...

Scotty, so true; and, by the way, I'm a little stunned at what a GOP HACK Rove's become. I looked at him as a man of integrity and have heard nothing but very nice things about him from the few people I know who've met him, but he's really in the GOP bag and it bugs me.

FB..I worry so much about 'only sales tax' because I know so many retired or disabled people who live on so little. This would demolish them.(tho I know NO idea won't have pain for some people)
I like your second idea but I fear people would spend it before the tax bill came.........yes, that's STUPID and repercussions would have to be severe enough to encourage them NOT to, but...

Anonymous said...

Z, you're right for retirees. So I'd compensate them for the increase with a cost of living increase on their social security.

And I'll use the opportunity to make social security an option.

As far as people spending their money away, then too bad. The French have to do that every year and we learn to save the money. It's that or the IRS is on your ass.

Z said...

FB, the French don't have withholding tax?

Anonymous said...

The income tax is not withheld on pay check. Only what is called "social charges" is, such as the healthcare insurance tax, the unemployment tax, the CSG, and enough taxes and fees to fill out a 3-page paycheck

Anonymous said...

"The "Occupy Wall Street" protests...."


Why are you surprised? It has always been thus. At least since the Demrats were hijacked by the hoffmans, Dohrns, ayers, weather underground, SDS, tom haydens and jane fondas. Today it's the penns, glovers, clooneys, sarandons that are the lowest scum of the barrel of cheep booze that feeds these cretins.

Anytime you hear "democrat this or democratic" that throughout the world....it's always a fascist, communist, least free, most repressive diabolical murderous, poisonous to liberty and real freedoms.

NK, the former East Germany...anyone of them that calls themselves the Peoples Democratic bullshit form of government.

elmers brother said...

The American Nazi Party has also thrown it's weight behind the OWS Pris .

Pris said...

"The American Nazi Party has also thrown it's weight behind the OWS Pris ."

Yes Elbro, I heard about that today. It's sickening, and it seems the OWS movement will welcome anyone no matter how vile they are.

The left should pay mightily for accepting such scum, but I guess evil begets evil!