Greece’s Long Shadow

Feb 13 2012 Published by under salt

The American Thinker has this on our future, happening now in Greece:

The chaos outside parliament showed how tough it will be to implement the measures. A Reuters photographer saw buildings in Athens engulfed in flames and huge plumes of smoke rose in the night sky.

“We are facing destruction. Our country, our home, has become ripe for burning, the centre of Athens is in flames. We cannot allow populism to burn our country down,” conservative lawmaker Costis Hatzidakis told parliament.

The air in Syntagma Square outside parliament was thick with tear gas as riot police fought running battles with youths who smashed marble balustrades and hurled stones and petrol bombs. Terrified Greeks and tourists fled the rock-strewn streets and the clouds of stinging gas, cramming into hotel lobbies for shelter as lines of riot police.

First thing that ran through my head was what Glenn Beck has said a thousand times about fear – that people don’t panic when they are prepared, they panic when they are not prepared, so what does it hurt to stock up on a few things, tuck some cash and hard assets away, etc.

Imagine how different it could have been had they organized locally with their neighbors and said, okay, who can fix a car, who can grow things, who can fish, who knows how to post a website for all of us to stay in touch and organized, who can do this, who can do that, let’s get our heads together and figure out some sort of co-op arrangement with kids, and skills, and chores, so we can be self-sustaining until the bureaucrats straighten this mess out and our businesses open again and everything is running normally again… albeit without all the freebies we’re used to…

I surprised even myself that this was the first thing I though of, as I haven’t watched his show in months. I listen to him on the radio nearly every day, but I haven’t fired up the Roku in a dog’s age. I written before that I can’t devote 2 hours to him every night. When he was on Fox, I could rely on the structure of the show, constrained as it was by the network clock. His first 20 minutes were mandatory viewing, with the following 40 optional. But on GBTV the lack of a clock has loosened his messaging discipline and I’m just not willing to devote that much of my life to it. He’s such a blabbermouth he pretty well fills you in on the radio with everything he does on T.V. anyway, so it just seems a more productive use of my time.

In any case, the first thing that ran through my mind was how what we were seeing in Greece was driven almost entirely by the fact that they are several generations deep into government dependency. “Bootstrap” independence has been socialized out of them. Who is the Greek Glenn Beck? I dare say they do not have one. Had they had just one big voice, somewhere, saying, “Hey – Wake up. Rememeber who you are. Remember your proud heritage.”

I am so grateful to Glenn for that message. I’ve always been a patriot, but it was good to have some reminding as to why, and inspiration to buttress that feeling with reading, and re-reading, with the eyes and soul of a 46 year old woman, not a child on the 4th of July, which is so full of memories for me, and sort of the “book cover” of my soul’s keep of love for the ground beneath.

No responses yet

NYT Giveth, NYT Taketh Away

Nov 19 2011 Published by under salt

I was just about to give The New York Times an “atta-boy” for publishing my comment beneath their story on the Cain/Libya/Taliban dust-up, defending Herman Cain as correct on his assertion that there are, indeed, Taliban among the rebels on the ground in Libya – you know, the rebels who are now in charge, which is exactly what Herman said – when I had withdraw it (the “atta-boy”).

Interestingly, they updated their article overnight,  softening their mockery of him, possibly because they, I dunno, Googled it like I did. My previous post explains why Herman’s statement, rather than showing a paucity of knowledge, in fact, shows a careful – dare I say nuanced – understanding of the rebels-cum-leaders on the ground in Libya. (If Obama, or Hillary had said exactly the same thing Herman said, they would have called it “nuanced” and any honest reader g*ddamned well knows it.) First, here’s my comment:

So what prompted the “atta-boy” withdrawal?

Well, while grabbing the screenshot of it, I looked to the right and saw a “Featured” columns list of headlines.  One of the headlines I swear to God - was:

The underlying assumption of that question, by extension, the publishing of that headline, is so revealing, so packed with meaning, I hardly know where to begin!

First, the easy one:  You can’t have it both ways, New York Times.  You kill whole forests of trees, digital or otherwise, day after damned day asserting the entire GOP are uninformed rubes, which means you, day after damned day, assert that 40% of the country are rubes.  That stat is from a recent, reliable poll – one you people usually hold up like friggin’ tablets of stone – which said that 40% of America self-identifies as conservative (20% self-identifies as liberal – that’s 1/2 as much, for you OWS kids doing the math at home).

Perhaps this explains why “the Republican debates seem to matter so much.”

Perhaps it also explains why your newspapers is bleeding subscribers.  What have you got, maybe a million paying subscribers, right? That’s only twice your arch-enemy, “rodeo-clown” Glenn Beck’s subscriber base for GBTV, which launched, what?  Three months ago?

Beck, who digs up original documents, primary sources, plays audio/video of people saying things in their own words, invites historians, politicians, businessmen on, that you sneer at, who also bring with them original documents, primary sources, and audio/video of people saying things, then give us the links to the original documents, primary sources, and audio/video of people saying things so we can fact-check it ourselves – because he & his guests are not afraid to be “crowd-sourced” and back up on their assertions.

Not a day goes by you don’t hear him say, multiple times, “Go do your own homework on this.  The links up at my blog.”  That means he’s not afraid to be taken in context, understand?  To be “crowd-sourced” on what he asserts.  There’s a whole industry of people who take him on it, too.  You & Media Matters are among the leaders of that group.

You & Media Matters then, reliably, go on to mock – him- , offering up an Alinsky ad-hominem attack on him or his guests, but 99% of the time, that’s all you got.  I defy anyone reading this to go look at the bile Media Matters posts as fact-checking or analysis and you will find the overhwhelming majority of it is tangential noise, attacking the character of the person saying it, but not the core facts themselves.  Let me repeat that:  They are not able to post facts contradicting Beck’s facts.  Got it?

Beck could teach every single on of your how to have the courage of your convictions and do basic friggin’ reporting.  You’ve been around since the 19th friggin’ century, 1860, was it?. Before the Civil War!!!  You’re the paper of f*cking record.

Think that might be a clue why “the Republican debates seem to matter so much”, a**holes?

I’ll have more thoughts on this later.  One involving the Queen of England’s advice to a bride on her wedding night… but I have to go now.  I’ll be back later ;)

 

No responses yet

Sean Hannity, Mark Levin, Glenn Beck & SNARK

Nov 09 2011 Published by under salt

Before we deal with the headline, let’s deal with the matter that prompted it:

I am not normally a cheerleader for Sean Hannity (he annoys me*) but he’s on FIRE today.

He’s got this mash-up of absolutely sickening, over-the-top, just naked racism from talking-heads on NBC while discussing Herman Cain.

It’s so awful… I’m speechless. Truly. If I get a link (and remember to!) I’ll post it.

It’s breathtaking, truly.

*OKAY – NOW THE HEADLINE:

Evidently he hates Glenn Beck.  Evidently he & his BFF Mark Levin (whose book Liberty & Tyranny is a treasure), both, in their BFF way, together, hate Glenn Beck.

Now, understand, I don’t care who likes Glenn Beck or doesn’t like Glenn Beck – Glenn Beck can take care of himself and doesn’t need me!  It’s just so obvious that he’s led the way these last 3 years on 90% of what we know about the ugly under-belly of this Administration that it’s really disingenuous to not give a nod when you use his research!

I’ve heard Hannity go on air with stuff I know he got from Beck.  There’s zero way he got it from anyone else – and 99.99% of the time, he has turned himself into a pretzel, to the point of even editing out Beck’s voice in a two-way interview, to avoid giving him credit!  It’s really unbecoming and childish!  And I can’t believe I’m the only person who has noticed.

When he really lost me was after 8.28.  I made a point to listen to him the Monday after 8.28 to see if he would congratulate his colleague on an astonishingly successful event.  Rush did.  Hannity did not, and I lost a ton of respect for him because of that one omission.  It was a big one. 

You know, I don’t have to personally like the people with whom I agree politically. But I would like to be able to regard them with some measure of respect beyond their political principles.  The snarky nature of the way Hannity & Levin deal with Beck just bugs me.  We need to be able to give ‘atta-boys’ to like-minded countrymen when they do good right now.  It’s critically important. There’s too much at stake.

I hope someone, maybe his wife, can broach this subject with him.  Like I said, I can’t be the only one who has noticed it.

PLEASE click the ‘Like’ or ‘Tweet’ buttons below if you agree, and maybe this post will find it’s way to Hannity or Levin!

No responses yet

Blooomberg’s Riots

Sep 18 2011 Published by under salt

Glenn Beck says union thugs, with a history of violence, might join forces with warmed over ’60′s radicals, with a history of violence, and with anti-capitalists, with a history of violence, to riot and that’s PREPOSTEROUS FEAR MONGERING.

Bloomberg says – specifically – that college graduates – clutching $100,000 degrees & a latte, will riot on their way to their Wall Street interview… cuz it’s a real plus to have FELONY on your resume.

Got it.

No responses yet

It’s a Keeper

May 16 2011 Published by under salt

While I’m an enthusiastic fan of the principles he embraces, I’ve never given a whole lot of thought to Glenn Beck’s art. Eh. Whatever. It’s a hobby. Everyone needs one, and clearly he can paint and draw better than I can, which, admittedly, ain’t saying much. But this? This I can get enthusiastic about. I love this piece. Love, love love it. He described its inspiration as the search for the polar opposite of Truth, as represented by Washington. He knew Deceit was the word, but after starting with Woodrow Wilson to embody it, he then moved to FDR, then finally settled on BHO.

Good choice. Well done. (Oh, and he’s auctioning it off at upillar.)

Truth  for Auction  4x5

2 responses so far