11/1/15

POLL: For First Time, Most Democrats View Insane, Failed, Murderous Political Philosophy Favorably

Doug Ross @ Journal

Over at Rasmussen, the pollsters have discovered that — for the first time in history — self-identifiedmembers of the Democrat Party now view socialism favorably.

The man currently running a distant second for the Democratic presidential nomination, Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders, is a self-declared socialist, and most of his party’s voters now have a positive view of socialism. They are almost evenly divided as to whether they like capitalism or socialism more.

Socialism, Communism, Maoism, and National Socialism (e.g., the Nazi Party) are all offshoots of Marxism. They are all branches of the same defective tree.

Marxism has failed in literally every venue it has been tried, despite progressives’ laughable efforts to claim certain countries have implemented it successfully.

No country has and no country ever will, because — as Margaret Thatcher sagely observed — “[the] problem with socialism is that eventually you run out of other people’s money“.

And those who point to the “success” of European countries that still maintain the semblance of civil societies have yet to see the Marxist endgame play out:

• All of these states have rung up immense and unsustainable levels of debt thanks to the socialists’ endless wealth redistribution schemes. Only a series of elaborate can-kicking exercises have kept the European Union from economic collapse.

• Thanks to open borders policies, courtesy of Left-leaning do-gooders, Europe faces demographic upheaval, seen most recently in countries accepting swarms of Islamic immigrants.

Where “Marxism Light” — socialism — gave way to its more extreme flavors (e.g., Communism, Nazism, Maoism) the inevitable result was mass murder by government.

According to a study conducted by academics at the University of Hawaii, Communism in the 20th century alone led tothe murders of 110 million men, women and children.

Isn’t it ironic? When it comes to their own ideologies like climate change, progressives like to shut off debate by claiming that “The science is settled.”

In this case, the record of history is settled. Marxism and it descendents have failed in every situation and in very region across the world.

That the majority of Democrats could embrace such a twisted political philosophy is an indictment of not only our media, but also our failed, union-controlled educational system.

They can’t or won’t appreciate the intricate system of government created by our Framers that inarguably built the most magnificent economic miracle in human history. They live in the lap of luxury, unappreciative and stupefied, unable to explain how even the lowly pencil is made in our society.

Hat tip: BadBlue News.

11/1/15

USA TransNational Report Saturday, 10-31-2015

USA Transnational Report for October 31, 2015.  Happy Halloween!

LIVE – 8 AM EST

Pete_Hoekstra,_official_portrait,_111th_Congress

This week’s topics include:

— Interview with former U.S. Congressman Pete Hoekstra (R-MI), former House Intelligence Committee Chairman, on Hillary, Benghazi, Obama’s foreign policy, and his future plans

— GOP debate – the Mainstream Media has again been exposed as a farce

— Paul Ryan’s election to Speaker of the House, and the abomination of Congress’s budget for Obama’s remaining term … and beyond

— The Syrian Summit in Vienna…. why has Iran been invited?

& more…

You can listen to USA Transnational Report live on JJ McCartney’s Nightside Radio Studios and on Red State Talk Radio.

You can subscribe to USA Transnational Report podcast on iTunes here.

You can also subscribe to our podcast with Podbean, here.

All previously recorded shows are available here, at the links above, or through Spreaker.

11/1/15

The Council Has Spoken! Our Watcher’s Council Results – 11/01/15

The Watcher’s Council

Autumn Foliage

My Turn

Before and After

The Council has spoken, the votes have been cast and the results are in for this week’s Watcher’s Council match-up.

I am a Jew. Hath not a Jew eyes? Hath not a Jew hands, organs, dimensions, senses, affections, passions? Fed with the same food, hurt with the same weapons, subject to the same diseases, healed by the same means,
warmed and cooled by the same winter and summer, as a Christian is?

If you prick us, do we not bleed? – Shylock in Shakespeare’s ‘The Merchant of Venice‘ Act 3 Scene 1

The attempt to force human beings to despise themselves is what I call hell. – Andre’ Malraux

There is no difference whatever between anti-Semitism and the denial of Israel’s statehood. Classical anti-Semitism denies the equal right of Jews as citizens within society. Anti-Zionism denies the equal rights of the Jewish people its lawful sovereignty within the community of nations. The common principle in the two cases is discrimination. – Abba Eban, 1975

http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-_nEAkWOufFU/T366WMxCdrI/AAAAAAAABOg/easpV-8FMnM/s1600/Joshua_Dali_Sun.jpg

This week’s winning essay is Joshuapundit’s Why So Many Jews Support The Left – And Why They’re So Anti- Israel, is my response to a question I get asked frequently that may, perhaps, shed some light on the subject. Here’s a slice:

A good friend of mine forwarded me some questions from someone she knows whom is absolutely baffled.

He’s certainly no anti-semite. But in his contacts with Jews, he finds that many of them while quite intelligent engage in behavior he finds both irrational and inexplicable. Here’s what he basically had to say:

“What baffles me is everyone of them put Obama in office during his first election, and couldn’t understand my disdain for the man. These are intelligent people. Lawyers, investment bankers, stock brokers, etc..They have been voting Democrat for all their lives. {…}

These people are so unfriendly to all things Israel I just don’t understand it. It’s as if they are trying to destroy the country of their origin, or a death wish, I don’t know. They all hated Bush and he loves Israel. I’m confused, because the trouble I see in Israel right now is partly due to them. I feel bad because I so admire Israel and I know if they fall we will be next or at least deep in the fight. Please, enlighten me.”

I only get asked this once a week or so…but I thought I’d share my answer to him with you.

Hello —

Actually, I have a decent perspective on this, as I’m a Jew, a native Californian (gasp!) and someone whom grew up in a home of liberal FDR Jews who always voted Democrat, except for two occasions which I’ll get to shortly and which shed a bit of light on th ematter at hand.

You’re actually asking a lot of different questions here, which I’m going to try and sort out. Here’s what I think you’re asking, and forgive me if I seem to be putting words in your mouth.

Why are so many Jews lefties when they seem to be so smart? Why do they vote Democrat even if it seems to be against their interests? And why would so many vote for Obama, especially when they’ve seen how anti-Israel he is?

That about cover it?

A lot of it has to do with history. Many lefty Jews today are not only rigorously secular, but disdainful of those Jews whom are religious. That also explains why so many of these overtly secular Jews dislike Evangelicals, Mormons and other religious, pro-Israel Christians. To these Jews, all religion represents not only something they’re trying to get away and distance themselves from, but way down deep, a secret source of shame for many. You don’t destroy a part of whom you are without sustaining some damage.

Read this and see if it clears up the history a bit. The short version is that many Jews, once they were freed from the ghettos by Napoleon that they’d been literally locked up in for centuries made a determined attempt to assimilate. They really wanted to be good Germans, French, Austrians, Poles, what have you. It failed utterly. The majority of Europeans simply wouldn’t allow it.

A number of thse Jews made the obvious connection and allied themselves with the Left, especially the Marxists. They stupidly thought that their religion was the only basis for the psychotic hatred they faced, and that religion itself was the reason they were treated the way they were. So they not only gave up all semblance of their own religion, but turned to an ideology that likewise despised all religion while it was essentially creating its own.

To expand that a bit, here in America while there was never legal, government sponsored Jew hatred as there was in Europe and Muslim countries, there was quite a bit of de facto anti-semitism during the period when Jews were heavily migrating to America…say, the 1880’s to about the 1920’s or so and well into WWII.

http://www.blue-route.org/blog/wp-content/uploads/2014/10/Ford.jpg

So just as in Europe, some of these immigrants and quite a few of their offspring born here dropped the Orthodox Judaism they were raised with and much of their religious practices because the emphasis then was on assimilating..being, you know, real Americans like everyone else. That didn’t work so well with many of the Republicans of that time or a lot of other people, but the Left was a somewhat different story, especially once FDR came on the scene. Ironic, of course, since he was instrumental in instituting quotas to stop too many Jews entering the Ivy League.

As for the communists, they were more than willing to recruit what Lenin aptly referred to as useful idiots.Conservative author David Horowitz, whom grew up as a ‘red diaper baby’ in a home where both parents were communists and under what was referred to as Party Discipline give us an illuminating look at how this worked in his autobiography ‘Radical Son.’

What changed things when it comes to the issue you’re talking about was the Holocaust and the recreation of Israel. Realizing that much of the world either participated at worst or at best ignored what amounted to a war against defenseless Jews simply because they were Jews was a traumatic event that changed everything for Jews in places like America whom escaped.

It was a unique event in history for reasons I’m happy to explain to you any time if you’d like me to. In many quarters, it made openly expressed Jew hatred socially unacceptable, at least for a while. And it shamed the world into finally keeping the agreements made after WW I in the original League of Nations Palestine Mandate and the subsequent 1923 San Remo Agreement to create a Jewish State in their ancient homeland on the remaining 21% of the Palestine Mandate that was left.

So for even aggressively secular, left leaning Jews like my parents, Israel was the issue that crossed all lines. It did so because they were the generation that was closest to the Shoah and they realized how important Israel’s creation was to Jews in the Diaspora and their comfortable lives there. And yes, there was also some residual guilt involved, because many of the Jews surrounding President Roosevelt took an active part in successfully combating Jews who wanted the make the ongoing Shoah a major public issue and push FDR to make attempts to stop or at least slow down the carnage of Jews in Europe.

That Jewish identification with Israel especially became apparent after the miraculous Six Day War when Jews around the world suddenly realized they might have lost Israel and had to experience a second Holocaust while the world watched and did nothing.

I mentioned that there were two times my devoutly Democrat parents didn’t pull the lever for Democrats? One occasion was in 1972 when the Angry Left took over the party and the anti-Israel George McGovern was their candidate for president. The other time was in 1980, when Jimmie Carter ran for re-election.

My parents literally hated Nixon and Reagan and they weren’t too pleased with yours truly either when I cast my very first vote ever for Ronaldus Maximus. But they simply weren’t going to vote for anti-Israel candidates. So they just voted for a straight Democrat ticket otherwise and passed up voting for president in those elections.

So what changed that closeness to Israel? Well, three things – the birth and maturity of two generations much further removed from the Holocaust, the ascendancy of a center right government in Israel when the Labor party was literally tossed out of office after the Yom Kippur War fiasco and most of all, the continued movement of the Democrat Party to the far left.

Much more at the link.

In our non-Council category, the winner was Mark Steyn with an interesting piece, Mark SteynFings Ain’t Wot They Used T’Be, submitted by The Watcher.

It’s an interesting piece, looking at some recent events that would have been unthinkable a decade or two ago, but are now ‘depressingly routine’ as he aptly puts it.

Here are this week’s full results. Maggie’s Notebook, The Independent Sentinel, Don Surber and The Noisy Room were unable to vote this week, but none were subject to the usual 2/3 vote penalty for not voting:

Council Winners:

Non-Council Winners:

See you next week!

Make sure to tune in every Monday for the Watcher’s Forum and every Tuesday morning when we reveal the week’s nominees for Weasel of the Week!

And remember, every Wednesday, the Council has its weekly contest with the members nominating two posts each, one written by themselves and one written by someone from outside the group for consideration by the whole Council. The votes are cast by the Council and the results are posted on Friday morning.

It’s a weekly magazine of some of the best stuff written in the blogosphere and you won’t want to miss it… or any of the other fantabulous Watcher’s Council content.

And don’t forget to like us on Facebook and follow us on Twitter… ’cause we’re cool like that, y’know?

11/1/15

Happy Halloween From the Forces of Darkness

By: Cliff Kincaid
America’s Survival

The author of the Snapping of the American Mind explains the dark forces in American culture that are driving people crazy: drugs, abortion, cultural Marxism, and Obama. David Kupelian discusses the presidential campaign on the Democratic side, the communist maniac versus the shapeshifter, and on the Republican side. David discusses the political implications of this struggle and how candidates like Ben Carson and Donald Trump are tapping into the politically incorrect way of thinking and talking, in part by going after liberal media bias. Kupelian also recommends ways out of the mess we find ourselves in. “We need to embrace our faith, our common sense. We have been so beaten down…(But) half of us are still sane.”

Snapping of the American Mind

11/1/15

Bernie Sanders is a Communist Part 1: The Democratic Socialists of America Connection

By: Trevor Loudon
New Zeal

Democratic US Presidential hopeful Bernie Sanders is a pro- totalitarian communist.

Everybody knows that Sanders, the grandfatherly Independent Senator from Vermont is a “democratic socialist.” He’s made no secret of it over the years, proudly proclaiming to anyone who will listen. To most people it’s no big deal: “at least he’s honest,” they’ll chuckle. Most people seem to imagine that Grandpa Bernie’s socialism is benign, owing much more to Sweden than Cuba, much more to modern West Germany, than to the old Soviet-controlled German Democratic Republic.

Senator Sanders

Senator Sanders

But is Bernie Sanders really being honest? What if he is actually more of a communist? A believer in class struggle? Of crushing the free enterprise system?

Firstly, I want to present evidence that Senator Sanders was never a true Independent, as he liked to portray himself before standing as a Democrat. That he is in fact, a member of a semi-secret political organization. Secondly, I want to prove that that organization, in spite of labeling itself ‘socialist,’ is in fact, a communist grouping – with all the negative connotations that it implies.

For several decades, Bernie Sanders has been closely associated with Democratic Socialists of America, the country’s largest openly leftist organization. Senator Sanders has keynoted several DSA conferences, numerous DSA fundraisers have raised money for him, DSA backed his 2006 Senate campaign and now, the group is actively encouraging him to run for the White House in 2016.

Democratic Left, Nov./Dec. 1991

Democratic Left, Nov./Dec. 1991

Sanders, DSA conference Colorado, 1994

Sanders, DSA Conference Colorado, 1994

Bernie Sanders, and Detroit DSA leader David Green, June 25th, 2006

Bernie Sanders and Detroit DSA leader David Green, June 25th, 2006

DSA's Democratic Left, Winter 2007. Sanders thanks DSA for helping him win his Senate race

DSA’s Democratic Left, Winter 2006/2007. Sanders thanks DSA for helping him win his Senate race.

DSA website, accessed December 4, 2014

DSA website, accessed December 4, 2014

But, as far as I’m aware, there has never been any evidence that Sanders is actually a DSA member.

Until now: Madison Democratic Socialists of America has confirmed Senator Sanders’ long suspected DSA membership on page one of their Fall 2014 newsletter (though getting his state of origin incorrect).

Madison DSA News, Fall 2014, page 1

Madison DSA News, Fall 2014, page 1.

Page 1 closeup

Page 1 Closeup

Equally important, we featured a petition to encourage Bernie Sanders – the independent Maine Senator and DSA member – to run for president, collecting over 75 signatures.

Though their geography may be poor, there is no reason to believe that the Madison DSAers were either lying or mistaken about Senator Sanders’ DSA membership status. Membership status is a big deal in leftist organizations. Dues-paying membership elevates one to the elite ranks of the Progressive movement. Formal “paid up” Party membership is not taken lightly. Clearly Sanders’ DSA membership is not for public consumption. Probably the “cheesehead” socialists believed that only sympathizers would ever bother to read their little newsletter.

After all, what’s a little secret between trusted comrades?

So, now I’ve established that Senator Sanders is probably a closet DSAer, why is that of concern?

My contention is simple. Despite using the word “socialists” in its name, DSA is, for all practical purposes, a communist organization. Because most DSAers are also active Democrats, or Green Party activists, the “socialist” label doesn’t meet the degree of resistance, that the more honest description “communist” would.

DSA works very closely with three of America’s leading communist groups – the Maoist-leaning Freedom Road Socialist Organization, the “old guard” Communist Party USA and the CPUSA spin-off Committees of Correspondence for Democracy and Socialism. The four groups have even seriously considered merging in recent years. In June 2013, “The Future of the Left – A Conversation on Socialist Unity” was convened in New York City by the four groups, where the idea of eventual unification was discussed in depth.

DSA draws most of its ideas and inspiration from Chicago radical, Saul Alinsky and Italian Communist Party theoretician, Antonio Gramsci.

Orange County California DSA acknowledged the organization’s debt to Gramsci in its February 1984 newsletter.

gramsci

“Antonio Gramsci was a founder of the Italian Communist Party. He developed theories on “open ended Marxism” and independent Euro-Communism. His writings have remained influential among European parties of the left for several decades. They have also formed a vital part of the ideas that brought about the formation of today’s DSA.”

DSA is completely opposed to the free enterprise system that has made America great. In an article in DSA’s Democratic Left, Spring 2007, DSA National Political Committee member David Green of Detroit, wrote in support of the Employee Free Choice Act (EFCA) or “card check.”

What distinguishes socialists from other progressives is the theory of surplus value. According to Marx, the secret of surplus value is that workers are a source of more value than they receive in wages. The capitalist is able to capture surplus value through his ownership of the means of production, his right to purchase labor as a commodity, his control over the production process, and his ownership of the final product. Surplus value is the measure of capital’s exploitation of labor

Green went on to write:

Our goal as socialists is to abolish private ownership of the means of production. Our immediate task is to limit the capitalist class’s prerogatives in the workplace…

Communist enough for you folks?

Bernie Sanders is no European style social democratic “socialist.” He is a totalitarian communist and he should have the integrity to be honest about it.

Trevor Loudon is the author of The Enemies Within:Communists, Socialists and Progressives in the US Congress.