Bill DeBlasio, The New New Left & A New New York City

I have manfully refrained from commenting on the NYC mayor's race; but, now that the Huma/Weiner circus has left town, I really need to ring the alarm bell on how Gotham's citizens are on the verge electing a real socialist as mayor; that socialist being Bill DeBlasio, the Democrat in the race.

Think I'm joking? No less than the New York Times has written about DeBlasio's frankly hard left background which includes extensive work with the Nicaraguan Sandanistas and even a honeymoon celebration (!) in Cuba. The New York Post has reported on his extensive ties with ACORN, including a sound bite from the notoriously avowed red Bertha Lewis. DeBlasio himself allows that he was - and remains - a "progressive" and a "social democrat," and is up front about his Reagan-era work with the Internationale. New left worthies like (yes) Tom Haydn are already looking at DeBlasio's 30% lead and licking their lips at the thought of all that sweet, sweet redistribution. The man is not just a leftist. He is a pinko at the very least,  and not even shy about saying it.

Now, one thing that is important to keep in mind: the fact that DeBlasio was flying down to Nicaragua to "help" the Sandanistas is not just a signifier of his extreme leftism. It's also a sign that he is an idiot, both literally and in the "useful idiot" formulation. I traveled in some real left-wing circles back in those days, and I am here to tell you that even most liberals and lefty types thought that Sandalistas like DeBlasio were fools who were helping prop up a dictatorship. Maybe things have changed, but back then there was no honor in announcing that you had just arrived from a spring break trip to Managua. DeBlasio and the rest of the Sandalistas really put the "simp" (as in "simpleton") in Com-simp.

So are New Yorkers really going elect a guy like this? All those bad ass Gothamites with their attitudes, street smarts, and "yo, yo, yo" are going to pull the lever for a guy who thinks Daniel Ortega and Bertha Lewis are worthy of his attention?

Well, they have to vote for someone, and right now the Republican in the race, Joe Lhota, does not seem like the sort of "someone" who can overcome the lazy inertia of Democrat registration. Successful NYC Republican politicians have been larger-than-life figures who could deliver their bold promises to clean up the city's mean streets. Lhota appears to come from the Todd Akin wing of the party. He once called Port Authority officers "mall cops" (37 of them died on 9/11) and is best known for leading the charge against a dung-covered painting of the Virgin Mary.

Also, Lhota says that - Yes! Absolutely! - he is going to make an issue of DeBlasio's communist past and socialist present, but - no - he is not going to call his worthy Democratic opponent a socialist. I look forward to his concession speech, as Lhota clearly doesn't have the stones to face down the left.

Look, Joe, maybe you think it's de classe' to call your opponent by his real ideological leanings, but you can still call him out without having to label Bill DeBlasio a socialist. Notice anything in paragraph 2 above? The man went to Cuba for his honeymoon! In 1994!! He broke a boycott put in place by JFK!!! He violated federal law!!!! His honeymoon dollars went straight into the pockets of a regime that maintains gulags and throws people in prison for simply speaking out against the government!!!!! What kind of person thinks of Cuba as a romantic spot to celebrate his marriage ???!!!

Listen up, Joe! I'm using all these explanation points because I don't think you understand how easy you could make this into a campaign issue without your having to stoop to (shudder) McCarthyism (i.e. telling the blunt truth)!

The success of Republican and pseudo-Republican governance in NYC has been one of the under-appreciated stories of the last 25 years. Rudy Giuliani came into an urban liberal hellhole and turned it around in short order following policies that any conservative would support. Michael Bloomberg re-registered as a Republican (!) to run as Rudy's successor. This at the same time that it's been conventional wisdom that Republicans can't win in big cities and can't fight liberal machine politics! They can with the right candidates and the right message! Too bad for Chicago and Detroit that they never had their own Rudy/Bloomberg moments. And yet, we are poised to hand the mayor's office off to a "progressive" who has specifically promised to return to the law enforcement and budgeting policies that sent NYC into the toilet. Excuse me, I am running out of foreheads to slap.

The NYC mayor's office has been one of the GOP's real plums for the past 20 years, and yet we're not showing any sign that we intend to fight to hold on to it.

Corner Office: Defending Corporations As People

Does GE have an asbestos underwear division? Because Jack Welch is going to need a triple-pack after daring to write in the WSJ that, to quote Mitt Romney, corporations are people.

Corporations are people working together toward a shared goal, just as hospitals, schools, farms, restaurants, ballparks and museums are. Yes, the people who invest in, manage and work for corporations are there to make a profit. And yes, corporations may employ some bureaucrats, jerks, cheapskates and even nefarious criminals.
But most individuals working in corporations are regular people, people just like you and your friends and neighbors. People who want to make a living and want to make a difference.
... 

This fact is so obvious that there can only be one conclusion drawn when we hear the pronouncement, "Corporations aren't people"—that it's doublespeak. That is, when people say that corporations aren't people, what they really want to say is, "Business is evil." 

They want to say what they feel, which is that capitalism doesn't work, that it's unfair, and that America needs another system—one that, to quote the president himself, "spreads the wealth around." 

Obviously, we're not in that camp. We know capitalism isn't perfect. But free markets are the best system there is to provide opportunity to those with an idea, or simply the motivation to work their butts off to make their lives better. We also know capitalism can spawn bad behavior; greed is part of the human condition and always will be. That's why regulations and controls exist, as they should. 

But this movement afoot that hates on business is craziness. It will destroy America as we know it because very few jobs get created in an environment that's outright hostile to business. And without jobs, the whole thing falls down. It becomes a welfare state. We become a welfare state. 

If that's what you want, we can't change your mind. But in your efforts, stop hiding behind words. Corporations are people. If you want to put an end to corporations, at least say what you mean.

I love that earnest "say what you mean." As if Pres. Obama and Elizabeth Warren, whom Welch quotes at length are ever going to start doing that. 


It's incredible that anyone has to make such a basic point - plenty of whiny liberals work for big corporations, after all, whinging the whole time - but there you are

Only His Hairdresser Knows: Is Obama, or is he not, a Socialist?

This Stanley Kurtz story has been getting a lot of play, as he has dug up more documents establishing that Pres. Obama was a member of a socialist (or at pseudo-socialist) political organization back in his Chicago days. The kicker here is (1) his association with the "New Party"* began in 1996 - not exactly when he was young and foolish - and (2) the Obama's 2008 presidential campaign went to great lengths to deny any connection whatsoever, going as far as to organize a hostile mass call-in to a radio show Kurtz appeared on when he first reported this:

In late October 2008, when I wrote here at National Review Online that Obama had been a member of the New Party, his campaign sharply denied it, calling my claim a “crackpot smear.” Fight the Smears, an official Obama-campaign website, staunchly maintained that “Barack has been a member of only one political party, the Democratic Party.” I rebutted this, but the debate was never taken up by the mainstream press. 

Recently obtained evidence from the updated records of Illinois ACORN at the Wisconsin Historical Society now definitively establishes that Obama was a member of the New Party. He also signed a “contract” promising to publicly support and associate himself with the New Party while in office. 

Minutes of the meeting on January 11, 1996, of the New Party’s Chicago chapter read as follows:

Barack Obama, candidate for State Senate in the 13th Legislative District, gave a statement to the membership and answered questions. He signed the New Party “Candidate Contract” and requested an endorsement from the New Party. He also joined the New Party.

Consistent with this, a roster of the Chicago chapter of the New Party from early 1997 lists Obama as a member, with January 11, 1996, indicated as the date he joined.

Kurtz has done it again, and suggests that he has more information along these lines. I'm sure you'll hearing a lot of talk about "this was litigated in 2008" and "the story is just too complex to gain traction." Well, it's not too complex for the discerning and erudite readers of National Review, not to mention Free Will, so I guess we'll have to be alone in our knowledge. Still, the story's out there, and has been since 2008 (actually 1996 once you remind yourself that Obama was already a prominent Chicago pol so that his membership in the New Party was probably known to folks beyond the Internationale). 


Ultimately, the question isn't really whether Obama called himself a socialist; it's whether he holds socialist beliefs and has governed in a socialist manner. Back in2008, Obama could plausibly brush off claims that his radical ties were of recent vintage. There are no socialists in America! you can practically hear people sputter. Now? After 3+ years of Hope and Change turning to Conflict and Woe, not to mention the nationalization of banks, car manufacturers and the health care system? I think this could find some receptive ears somewhere. 


*gimme a break.

Sotto Voce

This has been a busy week at work, so not enough time to blog. But, that doesn't mean I haven't had time to mutter things under my breath.


1. Mitt Romney's Bay Area fundraiser happened just up the hill from Free Will HQ, but sadly we were not able to attend the $50,000/head affair. I will definitely attend any $50/head fundraisers that Mitt might be holding in the coming months.


2. Good show on Romney's part to head over to the abandoned Solyndra factory, which is just a bridge away from last night's party. One wonders whether this was spur of the moment (tipsy billionaire partygoer: Hey, Mitt, you know that Solyndra factory is right across the San Mateo Bridge!) or if there was a little more planning involved. 


3. The main problem with the Facebook IPO was that everyone was sure that FB was a sure thing. They forget that Google faced a lot of pre-IPO skepticism over its prospects. They also forget that, 20 years ago, Apple was a niche company with a string of failed short-term CEO's and a $5/share stock price. Nothing happens overnight, sadly, even if we keep needing to be reminded of that. 


4. With all the abuse hurled at FB and Morgan Stanley, an overlooked aspect of the FB disaster was the complete breakdown in NASDAQ's trading system. I thought the whole raison d'etre for NASDAQ was that is was more tech-friendly, but it performed worse than the old ticker tape stock exchange. 


5. Come to think of it, there was an IPO a couple months ago by a company (its name escapes me) that designs computerized trading systems and...the system crashed.


6. Another big, unacknowledged loser from the FB IPO was Jerry Brown whose budget forecasts relied quite a bit on the one-time boost of a "pop" that was not to be. See what I mean about people  and sure things?


7. If you asked the Free Will Grandparents, they would likely tell that folks like Dolores Huerta helped to ruin California through their racially-tinged intimidation campaigns against state farmers. No doubt seeing the socialist Huerta receive a Presidential Medal of Freedom from a guy who says he "stole" Huerta's "Yes! We! Can!" slogan (but don't call Obama a socialist!) led to a lot of midnight grave-rolling.


8. Don't even get me started on Obama's "Polish Death Camps" remark. For one thing, I don't think I've ever heard such a phrase. (kinda like "White Hispanic"). "Nazi Death Camps" is the conventional shorthand and has worked well for decades, but I guess the Obamites wanted to get fancy.


9. If you haven't given Spotify a try, you should. There's limitless music available virtually for free, if you can handle sitting through the occasional ads. There's gotta be a catch...


10. The John Edwards verdict is breaking as I write this, and so far it looks like a hung verdict. Not surprising, as there are strong arguments for both guilt or acquittal. Still, if Edwards can get away with receiving a million dollars as a "gift" for non-campaign expenses, that seems like a bigger campaign finance loophole than anything you could point to in the Citizens United case. 


11. Speaking of the Supreme Court, it's hard to believe that in a few weeks we will know whether or not Obamacare will be upheld or struck down in whole or in part. No matter what happens, someone's not going to be happy.

Get Back In The Van: Van Jones Takes Star-Making Turn At Democrat Convention

The CA Democrat Party held its convention over the weekend, and you'll never guess who was the star of the con-fab, drawing praise from bigwigs like John Burton and Nancy Pelosi:

Van Jones, the former Obama Administration green czar who resigned in controversy, appears on the fast track to a political comeback — emerging as a star at this weekend’s California Democratic convention and lauded by House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi as a “leader of the future.” 

Jones, who as head of an activist group called “Rebuild the Dream” has become a leading voice of the Occupy movement, was given the star speaking slot to address hundreds at the kickoff Friday night reception here sponsored by state party chair John Burton. 

To the cheers of the grassroots activists, Jones endorsed a “millionaires’ tax” as a means of firing up younger voters in the 2012 election, saying “that will get their attention.”

That's right, baby! Van Jones is back! And he's ready to make up for lost time after the unpleasantness of a couple years ago:

The effusive reception given to Jones underscores that the former community activist appears in resurgence since the days after the Obama Administration green czar was forced to resign after controversial statements and ties with grassroots groups that Republicans claimed had radical roots. 

Jones apologized for some of his actions, including signing a petition for 911Truth.org which appeared to suggest the Bush Administration “may indeed deliberately have allowed 9/11 to happen.” 

The activist himself joked Friday that the stint with the White House represented “the best six months of my life..followed by the worst two weeks.”

Pardon me, but wasn't the problem with Jones the fact that he was an avowed, unapologetic communist? A communist who gave speeches explicitly calling for the overthrow of "The System" in favor of a "new System?" That 9/11 stuff was just icing on the cake, the bridge-too-far even for his leftist protectors in the White House and in the media. But, no matter, he is ready to fight to re-elect Mr. Moderate himself:

Jones repeatedly won cheers when he defined what he said were the issues and challenges faced by Democrats — and President Barack Obama — as the 2012 election approaches. 

“I’m tired of being accused of being anti-American,” said Jones. “”They call it class warfare…if anything, it’s warfare against people who have no class…they won’t even return our phone calls when our houses are underwater.”

But don't call Obama and Pelosi socialists! (or even leftists) That's H8!


Honestly, this stuff is more funny than anything else. Go ahead and try to get on a state-wide ballot somewhere "Van." I have no doubt you could win a congressional seat in Oakland or some other left-wing hellhole, but if we ever get to the point where Van Jones is any kind of future star of the Democrat Party we'll be so far gone it won't be worth getting upset over. 

Playground: Occupy Oakland Occupies Vacant Lot

The Occupy Oakland crowd, having been evicted from downtown, has now ceased its wanderings and have pitched their tents in a vacant lot at 18th & Linden. Oaklanders, consider yourselves re-occupied!

Occupy Oakland protesters have moved onto a vacant Oakland lot they say is being foreclosed. 

Late Monday night the group announced in a text message that they had moved to a private lot at the corner of 18th and Linden streets in West Oakland. 

About 10 tents and 30 protesters were set up on the lot Monday night. The nearby two-story home is being foreclosed and the protesters told the Associated Press they have permission to be on the lot. 

The camp went up less than a day after roughly 100 protesters were moved out of the final Occupy Oakland camp. Days after clearing out Frank Ogawa Plaza and another vacant lot, police told campers at Oakland's Snow Park early Monday that they too had to move out.

For those who don't know, Oakland is actually a pretty sizable city, and 18th & Linden is a very obscure corner of it. When the Occupiers were in front of City Hall, they could credibly claim to be at the center of things, but now they are simply squatting in a vacant lot in a residential neighborhood. I'm sure the new Occupiees are thrilled. 


(btw, have to love how the reporters working this story continue to present the Occupiers in the best possible light. With one breath they say the vacant lot is "being foreclosed," but with another they only say a near-by house is being foreclosed. Well, which is it?)


All of these machinations underscore how bogus this revolutionary movement is. They're willing to squat on property that doesn't belong to them. They are willing to be arrested for their trouble, but only if the arrests are of the catch-and-release variety that are common in the wake of political protests. But, I'm not seeing any real "To The Finland Station"-style commitment from these guys. Want to watch an Occupier move like lightning? Tell him that the police will seize his $400 tent if he doesn't move it in 5 minutes. How quickly "Hell No, We Won't Go" turns to "Run Away! Run Away!"


If the United States were so awful that it deserves to be Occupied, then nothing should be stopping these guys. That's really the essence of revolution. The Occupiers will respond that they are just behaving themselves to appeal to political moderates, but that only underscores their lameness. They are self-proclaimed revolutionary movement that hides its true aims, and avoids real confrontation with their alleged oppressors. Let them have their "foreclosed" vacant lot. It's all they can manage.

First, We Seize Their Mini-Bars!

This NY Post story is an instant classic. A couple of prominent Occupy Wall Street activists have been caught staying at, get this, the W Hotel. Cue "Animal Farm" analogies.

A key Occupy Wall Street leader and another protester who leads a double life as a businessman ditched fetid tents and church basements for rooms at a luxurious hotel that promises guests can “unleash [their] inner Gordon Gekko,” The Post has learned. 

The $700-per-night W Hotel Downtown last week hosted both Peter Dutro, one of a select few OWS members on the powerful finance committee, and Brad Spitzer, a California-based analyst who not only secretly took part in protests during a week-long business trip but offered shelter to protesters in his swanky platinum-card room.

Sptizer is a 24-year old analyst from Deloitte who apparently hasn't grown up despite working for one of the world's biggest accounting and consulting firms. As it happens the late Free Will Father was a partner at Touche-Ross, one of Deloitte's predecessor firms. All I can say is that Switzer is lucky he wasn't starting out 30 years ago because he would have been able to ply his revolutionary schtick full time  once his bosses found out about this. Still, Switzer seems more of a goof than anything else.

The other guy, Dutro, is a member of the self-selected finance committee, which has managed to take control of OWS's finances. He is one of the leaders of this "leaderless" movement, which means he gets the girls and the graft while the proles are sleeping on paving stones.

Meanwhile, Dutro, 35, one of only a handful of OWS leaders in charge of the movement’s $500,000 in donations, checked in on Wednesday, the night after police emptied Zuccotti Park. 

While hundreds of his rebel brethren scrambled to find shelter in church basements, Dutro chose the five-star, 58-story hotel, with its lush rooms and 350-count Egyptian cotton sheets. He lives only a short taxi ride away in Carroll Gardens, Brooklyn. 

“I knew everything was going to be a clusterf--k in the morning,” he told The Post, alluding to Occupy’s own disruption plans. “How would I get over the bridge when they were shutting it down?” 

The tattoo artist-turned-Occupy money man took the elevator up to the fifth-floor welcome desk, where a disc jockey spins tunes and guests enjoy a vista of the growing freedom tower. 

He said he spent $500 of his own money to get the room because he wanted a good night’s rest ahead of the cause’s two-month ceremony the next day and raucous post-raid protests

Like any good leader, Dutro knows how to splash around some bills to distract from his own comforts.

And he claims he took care of comrades in less-comfortable digs. 

“I took food to all those churches,” he said. “I got them cigarettes.

Ever get the feeling you've been ripped off?

The Post also says that other General Assembly and OWS leaders have been staying at the W and the downtown Marriott. That's an explosive charge, if true, since it makes clear that someone out there is leading OWS, and making out semi-well from the exertions of the Occupiers. The story has been on-line all day. Not only that, every right-wing blog in creation has taken a moment to link and chortle over it. The reaction from OWS? A big fat nothing. Sometimes embarrassed silence speaks louder than words.

UPDATE: and don't forget the last big-shot leftist who got caught at a swanky NYC hotel.

Bring Back Loyalty Oaths: Cal State Faculty Join Occupy Strike

The Bay Area Occupy (This Space) rallies appear to have begun to focus their ire on California's public universities, specifically the cuts and tuition increases that have been all too common the last few years. You can always get students upset about these things, but now the faculty for at least one East Bay university has joined in. 

They pitched no tents. They were struck by no police batons. 

But the hundreds of chanting, dancing, drum-pounding California State University faculty members who converged on CSU's Hayward campus today to demand promised raises did do a "mike check," the Occupy Wall Street movement's signature method of addressing large crowds without a microphone. 

"Mike check!" shouted a voice from within the crowd at Cal State East Bay. "When faculty are forced to leave the CSU for better pay and working conditions, the value of your degree is on the line!" 

Faculty, joined by students and some state lawmakers, repeated his words in the now familiar call-and-response fashion of Occupy protesters. 

Cal State East Bay was one of two campuses in the 23-campus system - the other was Cal State Dominguez Hills - where most faculty walked out of class in a one-day strike to call attention to the cancellation of pay raises and stalled labor negotiations

This is absurd, and not just because a bunch of educated middle-aged teachers are carrying on like they are bad-ass street rebels. (back in my younger days, I would have bust a gut laughing at any of my high school teachers or college professors joining any kind of "movement"). These teachers are one of the reasons why the public universities are in so much trouble, both because of the high cost of employing them, and the low quality of their pedagogy. Yet, clueless students upset about tuition increases are no doubt thrilled to receive this show of solidarity. Uh, guys, these teachers are not your friends. Secretly, they want tuition to go up, so their salaries go up as well. 


Not only that, they are feeding you a steady diet of nonsense, especially those hip professors who use Michael Moore movies as a teaching tool and keep a Nader For President bumpersticker on their office door. They've been telling you about how Republicans and "big business" are evil, but all of these cuts you are protesting - not to mention virtually every other problem in the formerly Golden State - are coming from Democrats in government. Wall Street isn't raising your tuition; Democrats are. 


And not only that, the Democrats - who control virtually every lever of power in the state - haven't lifted a finger trying to cut the real expenses driving the state into a hole: public employee pensions, redistributionist welfare payments, and unchecked illegal immigration. No, it's always students. That's partly because kids are always good for some dramatic "student strike" headlines, but also because there's always another group of students coming along once the previous bunch has graduated. If anyone ever manages to realize they are nothing more than human shields for some retired bureaucrat's pension, they're already long gone. 


It's days like this when you can't help thinking a good loyalty oath would do wonders. 

Piece Corps: Armed Man Shot On Berkeley Campus During Student Strike

In the wake of the high-profile eviction of Occupy Oakland, another East Bay Occupy Movement is gathering strength over at UC Berkeley, a school that feels honor-bound to participate in any and all left-wing movements that might arise. Today was the big "general strike" (by 1,000 students! Big Deal!), but about a half-mile away from the protesters, an armed man entered UC's Haas School of Business and was shot by campus police:

A man with a gun was shot and wounded by police today at UC Berkeley's Haas School of Business, officials said. 

The man was brandishing a handgun in a computer lab when he was shot by one of several campus police officers who converged on the business school near Memorial Stadium at about 2:15 p.m., university officials said. 

The 33-year-old suspect, whose name was not released, "displayed it in a threatening manner," said UC Berkeley Police Chief Mitch Celaya. "The officers, in fear for themselves and individuals around them, fired a shot at the individual, hitting him." 

The suspect is being treated at Highland Hospital in Oakland, Celaya said. His intentions were not immediately known, the chief said. 

At least four students were in the lab at the time of the shooting, said Chancellor Robert Birgeneau. None of them was hurt. 

... 

Officials said there was no immediate evidence that the shooting was related to an Occupy Cal protest on campus, in which protesters are calling on University of California regents with ties to business and finance to do a better job funding the university.

As with the violence that sprang up at the Oakland encampment, I am sure the Occupiers will deny that there was any connection. Hell! (you can here them say) Armed men are shot at the business school everyday! And, it may be that this guy was simply disturbed, confused, or even, Republican. But, I doubt it. The fact is that this latest round of left-wing street theater has attracted an inordinate amount of violence and criminal behavior. The student strike was widely advertised in the Bay Area, and was very much seen as a reaction to the eviction of the Occupy Oakland encampment. Not only that, the rhetoric of the Occupy Movement has been unabashedly confrontational and revolutionary. Maybe this is just an incredible coincidence, but it's still a reminder that the left's methods of street protest will lead to greater and greater levels of violence. 

UPDATE: The gunman has died from his wounds. 

Martyr's Square: Drama Queen Resigns From Oakland Mayor's Staff

The Oakland PD managed to evict the Occupy Oakland encampment without much incident this morning. The Occupiers have apparently returned to the plaza outside City Hall, but now they say they will not camp there, but simply...remain. Clearly, we have not quite reached the end of this. 


In the meantime, let's spare a minute for Dan Siegel, former legal advisor to Oakland's socialist mayor and now an official Martyr For The Cause

Oakland Mayor Jean Quan's chief legal adviser, a longtime friend, resigned Monday after what he called a "tragically unnecessary" police raid of the Occupy Oakland camp. 

Dan Siegel was one of two aides to defect from Quan's administration Monday. Deputy Mayor Sharon Cornu also quit but said her resignation had nothing to do with the police sweep. 

Siegel, a civil rights attorney and one of Oakland's most active and vocal police critics, said the city should have done more to work with campers before sending in police. 

"The city sent police to evict this camp, arrest people and potentially hurt them," Siegel said. "Obviously, we're not on the same page. It's an amazing show of force to move tents from a public place." 

Siegel strongly opposed any plan by the city to take down the month-old camp in the days leading up the police raid.

Laaaaaammmme!


I swear, the gap between the Occupiers' media halo of idealist dreamers versus the grubby reality of a disgusting squat is big enough to drive Michael Moore's food truck through. Siegel calls the peaceful removal of these criminals "tragically unnecessary." What was unnecessary was the faux-drama behind the removal. If they were truly peaceful, they would have left when the first eviction notices were passed out. Instead, they went on a rampage, attacking the police and the City's long-suffering small businesses.  I'd say hiring Siegel to work on the public dime was what was tragically unnecessary. 

Assignment Desk: Liberal Journalists Wonder If, Maybe, They Should Find Out Who Is Behind Occupy (This Space)

After almost two months of Occupy (This Space) protests squatting on public and semi-public land, not to mention the occasional riots and blockades, the NY Times public editor has experienced a random burst of journalism, asking himself, shouldn't we be looking into the people (not to mention the funding and programs) behind the Occupiers? Given that they are essentially calling for the complete re-writing of our Constitution and our economy, I'd say, yeah, you might want to look into that:

The Times has mentioned several times on blogs that Adbusters, a Canadian magazine,first proposed Occupy Wall Street and even set the date. Yet this intriguing nugget of information remains to be developed. Who is Adbusters? How did the idea leap the chasm between conception and action? 

An investigation into origins would lead to the identities of early leaders, at least, and the search for the broader leadership of the movement should continue from there. I polled a group of journalism educators on the question of how The Times should direct its coverage henceforth. Not all agreed on this, but most said it was important to understand who the leaders were and what demographics they represented. The point is: Who is Occupy Wall Street? 

“Leadership tells you a lot about a movement,” Jerry Ceppos, journalism dean atLouisiana State University and formerly executive editor of The San Jose Mercury News, wrote in an e-mail. “But I can’t cite the name of a single Occupy Wall Street leader. I know some members say the groups are ‘leaderless.’ But I have trouble believing this is an entirely organic movement that grew without a leader. I’d push hard to see if there are leaders and to profile them.” 

The push to establish origins and leadership would help surface the demands, or at least the most important underlying issues. Some of these are already clear, as the movement’s rhetoric returns often to income inequality, unemployment and the high cost of education.In its future coverage, The Times should examine how these issues are changing America, giving rise to movements like Occupy Wall Street and its ideological counterpart, the Tea Party.

Occupy, like the Tea Party, is billed as a "leaderless" movement, but that only means there isn't a central office where you can go to find out What They Want and, more important, who can deliver votes and/or $$. But, for a "leaderless" movement, Occupy has managed to attract some hardcore adherents willing to camp out in urban areas, and attract a few thousand riotous supporters when the police threaten eviction. Occupy has also done enough fund-raising such that hundreds of thousands of dollars are sitting in its coffers, with a (self?) selected handful having absolute control over how the funds are disbursed and spent. Occupy even has political spinners of a sort, always ready to excuse away the rapes, murders, deaths, and general squalor that have descended on the encampments. Leaderless these guys are not.  


In the case of the Tea Party, you can trace its origins from conservatives, libertarians, and disaffected independents who gathered in the wake of the leftist governance of the Obama Administration. Spread by blog posts and other social media, they eventually coalesced around the Tea Party name and began to get behind insurgent politicians like Marco Rubio in an effort to re-make the Republican Party in its image. What was unique about the Tea Party was that this was a grassroots conservative protest movement. The right has not been in the habit of Taking It To The Streets, at least not in modern American politics. 


In the case of Occupy, by contrast, they are very much of a piece with the leftist street protests that have been filling the public square, with wildly varying success, since 1789. Ten years ago, they were marching against globalization. Five years ago, they were protesting the Iraq War. This summer, the Bay Area occupiers - acting in concert with the leftist-inspired Anonymous - disrupting service on the local transit agency and protesting its transit cops. Occupy is made up of professional protesters and the college students whom they rely on for cannon fodder. Old reliables like ACORN, Van Jones, and the SEIU - not to mention the American Communist Party and Nazi Party - have offered tactical support. There is nothing new under this particular sun.


Still, someone (or several someones) is directing this stuff. Someone is writing the blog posts, Facebook message, and tweets that are animating the movement. Someone is running the General Assemblies, which are clearly designed to reach a pre-determined "consensus." The Times rightly notes that credit for conceiving Occupy goes to the anti-consumerist magezine Adbusters, which published this blogpost over the summer (sub-head "A Shift In Revolutionary Tactics". Yep! They're jes' folks!), calling for people to march on Wall Street on Sept. 17, which is what happened. I note that the post is unsigned, credited only to the Adbusters staff.  Very egalitarian, but also very suspicious. It's a strange thing when someone is unwilling to sign his/her name to a call for action. It's a reminder that obfuscation about motivation and goals have been a part of Occupy from its inception. 


The official message (from this "leaderless" movement) is that the Occupiers don't like Wall Street bailouts and want more equality and democracy, which sounds OK to the uninitiated, but are pure socialism. That's just what they let us see on the surface. It's anyone's guess what the Occupiers' program really is, but I don't think it's a stretch to say they seek to overthrow America's Constitution and capitalist system and replace it with God knows what. That is the way of the left; sow chaos in the streets, ginned up against The System, and then grasp power when chaos has destabilized the ruling order.  


It can't be denied that Occupy have struck a chord among liberals. Unions, academics, and the media were quick to glom on to the movement. They love the concept of the 99% standing against the 1%. If you are running for office, you have to love those odds. But reality has been more mundane: a few score at each encampment, augmented by hundreds spoiling for a fight whenever the authorities threaten to get serious. They are not the 99%. They are the .00000099%, if that. And yet they aren't going away, and the Democrats are doing little to distance themselves from this unappealing mess. A neat trick for a "leaderless" movement.

Civil War: Oakland's First Husband On The March

The SF Chronicle, which has bought into the "Occupy-Oakland-violence-caused-by-a-fringe-minority" spin - odd that a "leaderless" movement has spin - takes us inside the bunker when Oakland city officials decided to send in the police. News flash: hapless mayor Jean Quan was a spectator during the most important moments of her mayorality. 

Even after the bandanna-wearing, rock-throwing, fire-starting fringe demonstrators took over a downtown Oakland building and blocked off a street late Wednesday, Mayor Jean Quan did not want police to intervene. 

Instead, Quan asked that police hold off on any confrontation until daylight - or, barring that, send in negotiators to try to work out a peaceful resolution. 

"She didn't want to incite the anarchists any more than they already were," said one source who was in the city's emergency operations center when Quan stunned the assembled staffers with her comments. 

Finally, interim Police Chief Howard Jordan, with the backing of City Administrator Deanna Santana, made the call for police to take action. Both were in the emergency center with Quan.

However, the story absolutely buries the lead; mentioning only in passing that Mayor Quan's husband was part of the group that shut down the Port of Oakland.

In fact, eyewitnesses say Quan's husband was among the banner-wavers blockading the port in a nonviolent action earlier Wednesday.

Have to love the characterization of the Port blockade as "non-violent." The Occupiers weren't letting trucks drive in or out of the Port. It's not like the truck drivers were given a choice. Maybe there wasn't any actual physical violence, but the threat of violence was certainly there, and was palpable. Just the sort of thing the mayor's husband should be mixed up in. 


This only underscores that Quan's reluctance to send in the police, and her repeated undercutting of the OPD's efforts, arises from her sympathy with the Occupiers, even as they wreak havoc. Quan is a street activist of long standing. She undoubtedly thrills to the sight of banner waving crowds taking it to the streets to denounce The System. I doubt that she literally approves of the violence of the mob, but she certainly is willing to facilitate it. 


The Free Will Wife is a psychologist and has noted how tired and unhappy Quan has looked in the newspaper photos from the last couple weeks. This one is the "iconic" picture:

Hard to disagree that this is the face of someone who would rather be doing something else, like say marching at the head of a crowd denouncing capitalism.


The Occupy Oakland crowd has already "won" in that they have set up a tent city in front of City Hall - something I could never do, of course - and then successfully repelled the police's attempts to clear them out of what is an illegitimate and disgusting encampment. Quan can't admit this, but she loves this stuff. How wrecking the already wrecked Oakland economy is going to stick it to Wall Street is beyond me, but  that's why I'm not mayor of Oakland. 


Oakland residents can bitch about this now, but they got what they voted for. There was a perfectly acceptable Daley-esque machine Democrat running for mayor last time out, but the progressive left ran a slate of leftists, headed by Quan, who urged Oaklanders to vote for the three of them in Oakland's ranked choice balloting, thus ensuring that Quan, or someone similar, would win the race. At the time, this was seen as a victory for the People over yucky "downtown interests" (yes, Oakland still has "downtown interests"). Guess they didn't realize that when you elect a socialist as mayor, you get mob rule in the streets. 

A Failure Of Memory

James Pethokoukis, writing about the left's obsession with income inequality and the government's role in remedying this alleged problem (but don't call them socialists! That's H8!), reminds us that we should all know better:

This is the one-sentence story now being sold to America: “The middle-class is no better off than it was 30 years ago because the rich greedily grabbed all the money.” If this narrative—that America’s experiment with freer markets, lower taxers, and lighter regulation was a failure—can be successfully planted, it will be easier for Washington to tax, spend, and regulate in the future. And to elect politicians pushing that agenda. 

On its face, the whole storyline’s a laugher—at least to anyone who lived through both the terrible, volatile, inflation-wracked 1970s and then the 25-year boom that followed. Indeed, brand-new research from the University of Chicago and Notre Dame finds “median income and consumption both rose by more than 50 percent in real terms between 1980 and 2009.” Incomes are never equal, of course. And the rich did somewhat better for a variety of reasons, including America’s failed government school system that can’t produce enough skilled workers for America’s high-tech economy.

I was in elementary school during the Carter years. Even us kids were aware that things sucked, and that whiny liberals were a big part of the problem. Shame-faced liberals know this too. I was eating lunch at Le Central in SF a few months ago. As it happened, Willie Brown - that's former SF mayor and CA Assembly Speaker Willie Brown to you, mister - was sitting at an adjacent table with a guy trying to raise $$ for some noble effort. The conversation turned to the Seventies, and Willie's companion admitted that things were so bad back then that he voted for Reagan. Brown said nothing, but his grim silence spoke volumes. How quickly we've forgotten.


It should be the easiest thing in the world to defend the economic and political record of the 25 years that preceded the Crash of '08, especially the Reagan years, but a lot of folks on our side haven't been willing to make that argument. Instead, they followed the Reagan Revolution by arguing for a "thousand points of light" and compassionate conservatism, buying into the idea that conservatives are heartless ideologues who only want the poor to suffer. No, we want everyone to be prosperous enough that they don't need to look to the government for succor.


Voters know the truth. They know what works. Given the chance, they will vote for principled free market conservatism. But, the usually don't have the chance. The media makes life intolerable for popular right-wing politicos, meaning there can never be a conservative equivalent to Ted Kennedy - a movement leader who can draw on decades of life and legislating in the public eye. Meanwhile GOP moderates lose elections on platforms that do little more than nibble at the edges of the welfare state. And, leftists enjoy a political halo that can't dim until their destructiveness becomes so total -whether you are talking about Occupy Oakland or the ruinous Jon Corzine - that even their allies can no longer ignore them. 


Honestly, this sh*t shouldn't be so hard. That's why it's so frustrating to watch the GOP's two "serious candidates." Rick Perry is literally inarticulate, which tells me he doesn't really understand conservatism or free market economics, even if he is instinctively in favor of them. Mitt Romney might be speaking out about cutting spending now, but he is undeniably a part of the wing of the GOP that has spent the last 20 years running away from the Reagan legacy. Is it any wonder there's been some "second look at Gingrich" talk? At least the guy's articulate. 


Again, we know what works. The only people who don't know, alas, are our leaders because they never bought in to what works.

Greek Fire: the Left's Innocent Victims

The Wall Street Journal had a long story over the weekend about the three Greek bank employees who were killed by Greek socialists rioting over the loss of their welfare state.

Above the seething streets of this ancient city, Angeliki Papathanasopoulou—four months pregnant and at work in a downtown bank—tried to soothe her fearful mother on the other end of the phone.

It was noontime on May 5, and the tension was palpable as angry crowds gathered in Athens's main squares, readying to protest deep spending cuts needed to earn an international bailout.

"Don't worry," Ms. Papathanasopoulou told her mother on that May day. "I'm on an upper floor." Besides, the 32-year-old was leaving work early at 3 p.m., for a doctor's appointment to learn whether the child she carried was a girl or a boy.

She never found out. Shortly after 2 o'clock, as the throngs marched past her building on Stadiou Street, hooded men shattered the window, poured gasoline on the floor and hurled in a Molotov cocktail. Toxic smoke filled the three-story bank, sending 24 people who worked there climbing out of windows or clambering onto roofs of adjacent buildings.

Ms. Papathanasopoulou and two colleagues, people who had watched her marry her husband nine months before, succumbed to the thick black fumes before they could make it out.

We keep hearing from the Left about how they have their boots on the neck on this or that corporate bad guy, about how they stay up nights making Molotov cocktails to benefit "the workers," about how they're all about afflicting the comfortable, etc. You know the litany. Yet, it's the workers who end up worse off when the Left has its way. If you are lucky, you end up like Ms. Papathanasopoulou's friends who had to choose between working for real wages overseas or staying home and living in a high tax/low employment welfare state. If you are unlucky, you end up dying in a bank branch because a bunch of rioters couldn't figure out that the "banksters" probably wouldn't be working at the teller windows in the middle of the afternoon.

The Left is not about fairness and equality. It's about revenge and envy. Yet, in order to achieve their cruel utopias, they must destroy more lives than just those among The Rich. There simply aren't enough rich people in the world to satisfy their bloodlust. Middle class strivers are in the cross-hairs, too.

Althouse-esque Post

"I'm not sure I'd describe him as a socialist. I might even say he has a naive and touching faith in capitalism. He believes you can impose all sorts of burdens on the system and it will still work."

The System Works, Pt. 2: Privileged WASP Sentenced to Life In Prison On Cuban Spy Rap

More great news following the sentencing of Lynn Stewart: the retired State Department official arrested last year for spying for Cuba has been sentenced to life in prison. Hope his prison library takes The Nation:

Walter Kendall Myers, 73 years old, and his wife, Gwendolyn, 72, admitted in court to spending nearly 30 years passing classified information to Cuba's intelligence agency.

He was sentenced after pleading guilty to espionage and wire fraud. She was sentenced to 81 months after pleading to conspiracy to gather and transmit national defense information. She is likely to serve 4½ years.

Their story, coming on the heels of the Russian spy ring, reinforces the assertion of counter-intelligence investigators that foreign spy operations in the U.S. are continuing long after the end of the Cold War.

Prosecutor Gordon Harvey described the couple as "traitors." If they loved the Cuban people so much, Mr. Harvey said, why didn't Mr. Myers just donate his wealth to the underprivileged there? They admired the Castro revolution, but didn't defect because they only wanted to admire the revolution "from a safe distance," Mr. Harvey said.

Sounds like a typical American "socialist." They talk a big game about social justice and equality, but they know deep down that they wouldn't last 5 minutes under real socialism.

Myers was a child of privilege: a grandson of Alexander Graham Bell, graduate of Brown, and an employee of the State Department. In other words, he was a member of America's high minded progressive ruling class. What's really damning about him and his cohort is how little difference there is between Myers and his fellow leftists. Absent the Cuban spying, Myers was a Prius-driving, Amerikkka hating, privileged WASP. We've all met guys like him, and plenty of them are inordinately fond of the Cuban revolution. "Progressive" to the end, Meyers offered this as a sort of apologia:

"We acted as we did for 30 years because of our ideals and beliefs," he said. They weren't motivated by "anti-Americanism," he said, but rather their objective was "to help the Cuban people defend their revolution."

Mr. Myers's voice broke twice—when he described his devotion to his wife and his friendships with African-American prisoners, whose oppressed life he said he came to know behind bars. Mr. Myers quoted from Nelson Mandela as he vowed to help make a difference by tutoring fellow prisoners.

Jeez, this guy really puts the "simp" in Com-Simp. The sentencing judge, who is African-American, was having none of Myers' pitiful attempts at racial solidarity:

U.S. District Judge Reggie Walton noted Mr. Myers's background and contrasted it with his own family's American beginnings in slavery. He said he was "perplexed" by Mr. Myers's claims of trying to help the Cuban people, given the regime's human-rights record. Judge Walton said that despite his ancestors' own experience in America, "America is not the devil that you may believe."

Finally! Someone talks back to a hectoring American leftist. Is it so hard for conservative and GOP leaders to do the same?

(Judge Walton, btw, is "one of us," a "tough on crime" jurist appointed to the bench by George W Bush during the judge wars of 2004/2005. Elections do matter, so make sure you register to vote!)

The best part of all this is that, while Myers will die in prison, his wife will be out in about 4 years. Reports indicate that she was the more stridently leftist of the two and no doubt urged on Myers espionage (a similar dynamic was at work in the Hiss and Rosenburg marriages), yet when the time came she was able to take advantage of one of the perks of her sex and obtain a lesser sentence. You didn't really believe all that crap about equality, did you Myers?

Socialism Is Great!

I don't know whether to laugh or cry. In the course of defending a substitute teacher who labeled President Obama a (shudder) "Socialist," the NY Times Ethicist says this about the "meaning" of socialism:

But while this teacher does not transgress ethically, he does seem to fall short intellectually, offering not deft political analysis but slogans and clichés, something you might announce on your own door. (Do substitutes get a door?) Incidentally, not that the president is one, but how does it defame a person to call him a “socialist” (outside of nutty far-right circles) — a set of ideas many advanced Western democracies find congenial, what with the accessible health-care, affordable higher education and good public transportation? (emph. added - P)

Is this guy naive or can he just not handle the truth? "Socialism" is not concerned with "accessible health care," "affordable higher education" or (HAH!) "good public transportation." The US already has all of those in one form or another. Socialism is and always has been about using the power of the state to redistribute wealth so that everyone is more equal in a dollars & cents sense. There's a big difference between having a robust public sector (not socialism) and having a public sector that is the only game in town (socialism).

This crap about "Hey, we just want everyone to share the wealth" or "don't you like convenient public transportation" is nothing more than a subterfuge that hides the coercive and depressing truth about any real socialist economy. (Frankly, erstwhile socialists like Bernie Saunders or the Ethicist wouldn't last five minutes under true socialism). And, it perfectly suits the shallow thinkers like The Ethicist (who is a comedy writer, for Pete's sake) who like the wise-guy frission of supporting "socialism" while living the good life in Manhattan.

Here is a story about what life is like in a real socialist paradise, where everyone has to work for the State and no one is allowed to leave:

Eritrea, which fought its way to independence nearly 20 years ago, is ruled by hard-as-nails former guerrilla fighters who have held firm to their revolutionary Marxist policies and who demand that all young people work for the government, sometimes until their 40s. Anyone who tries to buck this national program, according to human rights groups, is subject to cruelly inventive tortures.

The story ran in The NY Times, of all places. Does The Ethicist get a copy?