Pink Floyd and Jesus

Happy Easter, everybody!

Soros' Shades of Utopia

How did POTUS get here? Many people are asking. Did anybody even know his name before he started campaigning for the U.S. presidency? What can explain his meteoric rise to power? Surely, somebody must have known something about him. If we had wanted a black man in the Oval Office, why not Sharpton? Why not Jackson? Why not Farrakhan? These people have been around for a while - quite long enough to have name recognition. We could have made an intelligent decision - just on the basis of what we already knew of their public record. But Obama? A blank slate? Nothing known about him except that he could walk upright and speak in semi-coherent sentences.

Now, we find, there’s not a dime’s worth of difference between all the afore mentioned. Why not them? Even the Republicans have some attractive black candidates. But they - considered Uncle Tom’s all around - never had a chance. Only Obama - the unknown quantity - snuck through the campaign gauntlet, in part because we wanted a Democrat and we wanted him to be black. How did it happen? Answer: the media.

The media hyped this man no end. Even the lovely and gracious Hillary had to step aside and make her exit stumble. She had all the right credentials to be sure, except she was white (and almost a man). Couldn’t have that. We were singularly determined to go all the way. (Could the Bamster possibly be gay? We were hoping.) Yet, without the Bamster leading the parade, she would have made it to the top.

Somebody knew about Barack Obama. Somebody knew just how to orchestrate the coup. Somebody had to have backed him; groomed him; told him what to say and how to say it. Somebody must have had his boot on the throats of the media, issuing directives. Somebody with a lot of money, who could spread plenty of it around for favors.

Surely, McCain was told how to play his part. Maybe even Hillary. It’s obvious the press was schooled in the intricate steps of the fan dance. Money, not ideology, was the culprit. Who had all that money to spread around, and even some left over to spark a fiscal crisis with?

Who made ‘conspiracy theory’ a naughty word? Who is so sensitive as to orchestrate the removal of talk show hosts that come too close to uttering his secret name? Who declares the wizard’s moneyed curtain ‘do not touch’? It takes no less than Dorothy’s precocious dog, Trump, to pull it aside? Trump too has money.

Does Trump have enough to unmask Soros’ wrinkled face? Maybe not. But he may just be dumb enough to try. The Donald is sick of it. He’s has a business to run and sees his business hitting the skids. He blames Obama. Clearly, he can blame Obama all he wants. That’s what Obama is there for. He’s part of the curtain - a relatively small part, I might add. The very fact that Obama remains vulnerable tells you exactly what Soros thinks of him. Toilet paper. But attack Soros directly - like Glen Beck did - and it’s curtains.

Soros will slough off Obama when the time comes. He’ll slough off anyone; he has no sense of loyalty. Soros is in machine mode; producing revenge against God for a horribly disfigured life, cloaked in shades of Utopia.

http://pkoelliker.blogspot.com/

Chucks

We basically see what we want to see. In the process we miss what is actually there. In 2008, we pinned our hopes and dreams on Barack Hussein Obama. It soon became apparent that we had grossly miscalculated.

In her column, entitled, “Turkey’s Cautionary Tale”, in today’s Jerusalem Post, Caroline Glick cites Turkey as just one example of ’Dreamland’ having been hyped by the western media as the modern face of Islam and portrayed as an example of an Islamic country that the West can actually work with. Not so fast. Glick skillfully ticks off the steps that Turkey has taken since Erdogan’s election in 2002 that puts the lie to any idea of Islamic rapprochement with the West that the western media incessantly claims. I urge you to read it.

Similarly, we’ve been steadily backsliding into the ‘Dreamland’ fantasy of ‘global warming‘, even after the whole thing has been exposed as a hoax.

We continually hear that our economy is improving. But is it? Is this even within the realm of possibility given our present leadership?

Which brings me to Trump. The Left has launched an all-out assault against Trump. This is because it fears him. Again today, on Glenn Beck’s program, Beck’s sidekicks were hammering him, replaying old sound bites in which Trump bashes Bush. Let me remind you, in those days everybody was bashing Bush. In fact, it became our national pastime (sans hot dogs and beer). You could instantly advance to your 15 minute celebrity status by bashing Bush. That’s how we got Obama.

Obama now pretends that all the criticism he’s receiving is just a part pf presidential scenery. Not so. Bush bashing was fun. Now things have turned serious and most of us have sobered up.

In those days, Trump did not speak as a politician. He spoke as himself in the current vernacular. Now he speaks as one of us, alarmed by what has happened. Sure, he knows Schumer and all the rest. He sat at their tables, and they at his. They did not speak politics per se; they spoke deals.

As I’ve said before, Trump seems a patriot; he does not seem ideological. He appears to love America. He understands what has gone wrong. He is confident inside his own skin. He feels he can make a difference.

There are those who say he would split the Republican party and hand a win to Obama. It may well happen that way. But then again it may not. Look at it as a ’hail Mary pass’ by our side; one last chance for us to throw chucks under the runaway chuck wagon. If the wrong Republican is elected, we lose anyway.

http://pkoelliker.blogspot.com/

Bretton Woods' Smoke-Filled Rooms

I have recently devoted considerable space on this blog to corruption in India and to India’s way of dealing with it once it came to light. We’ve seen that the Indian government had to be dragged kicking and screaming into cleaning up its act, largely by the efforts of one, Anna Hazare, who had begun a protest fast till death.

The Indian media jumped on it and splashed it all over the country, and the entire population – particularly its youth – mobilized to force the government to confront various issues. [Kudos to the Indian university professors who must have exerted considerable (positive) influence over their legions of ‘skulls-full-of-mush’ scholars.]

May I be so bold as to suggest that the corruption that has come to light in India so far – bribery, money laundering, dipping into the public trough, influence peddling; trial fixing, cover-up, etc. – is peanuts when compared to what’s going on in the United States today? Bluntly put, there is a cadre of crafty individuals who are working on stealing no less than an entire nation - lock, stock, and barrel. (Let’s just call a spade a spade.)

For a long time now, we’ve had a feeling that something is terribly wrong. It first showed up in policies that seemed utterly insane. It snowballed into the dubious results we are seeing today. These were entirely predictable but are somehow being summarily ignored. People who were beginning to smell a rat were systematically neutered, ridiculed and marginalized.

The things we presently argue about on blogs and on talk shows – the usual Democrat/Republican divide – are now utterly beside the point. This is pure diversion and blame-shifting fun. Even the Islamic vs. infidel argument, as well as the Socialism/Democracy debates we endlessly engage in, are hardly worth mentioning anymore. What is truly important is routinely hidden or swept into inaccessible places - like what’s happening as we speak up at Bretton Woods.

None of the usual left-wing rabble showed up to protest – only a handful to ‘tea party’ people. They were barred from the (closed door) proceedings.

What is going on in New Hampshire is a long way from having to hand a judge a few thousand rupees to get a favorable ruling in a traffic dispute. Though annoying to the individual parties involved, the outcome would hardly determine the fate of a nation.

We often wonder how it is possible to shred our Constitution in plain sight; how we can ignore our border security; how we can nullify contracts with the stroke of the executive’s pen; how we can allow our dollar to slip into oblivion; how we can elect a man to the highest office in the land about whom next to nothing is known; how we can tolerate a Congress that is predominantly ineffective except when it comes to rubberstamping outrage after outrage; how – with all that is happening around us – our media remains silent.

I’m not saying that the kinds of solutions to come out of Bretton Woods palaver are necessarily bad. It may well be the best thing since sliced bread. What is suspect, however, is that the public has been excluded. We are being shaped, and herded into taking positions without explanation. Thanks to our media, which have become pure, unadulterated left-wing propaganda mills; our universities, which have become (in essence) madrassas promoting hatreds and Pavlovian response – thanks to our educational system overall, critical thought in our nation seems to have run its course. We’ve all become victims of an uncertain scheme that, by my calculations, can only end up in servitude for most of us. This is not how it was supposed to be.

It is significant that the one man who had both an inkling of what is going on and the skill to impart its essence, has now been forced from the stage. His departure is being heralded by professional left-wing and right-wing talkers alike. Now, tell me again that we’re not being played by both sides; that there is not effectively only one side: Soros’ side.

Watch closely the choices we will be presented with in our next election charade. The whole thing will hinge on what Republicans manage to come up with. As it looks now, they’ll serve up losers. And even if some standard-issue Republican should catch the public’s fancy, he’ll most likely turn out to be a ‘schlemiel’ like the rest.

Look too at the ones who draw the lion’s share of the Left’s condemnation (Palin, Trump). It is they who, if given even half a chance, are most likely to buck the trends that have been carefully mapped out, and promoted for years - that are only now coming to fruition.

http://pkoelliker.blogspot.com/

Soros: Out For Revenge

Obama’s obvious and consistent mishandling of things has led some to suspect more sinister motives. In the case of Libya, why should any nation allow our president to put it on the hook, especially while Obama himself appears to be in full retreat? Neither has he, our president, demonstrated any particular fealty to the concept of alliance. I do believe that word has gotten out that Obama is only in it for himself – and, quite possibly, for something much worse. I can’t see anyone sticking his neck out for him.

I will say that we, the American people, will ultimately be stuck with what Hillary started. I’ve said it before: the way it stands now; it looks like a win-win for Kaddafi. The only way we can salvage anything at all is by forestalling any outcome whatsoever for as long as possible. I never thought I’d come even close to agreeing with anything Keith Olbermann says. That would put Obama to the left even of Olbermann. Never thought there was so much room remaining there.

What I’m saying is that there may be much more to this (and a whole host of other stories) than how it appears. For instance, why is it that, ever since Obama has been in office, virtually everything has been going south for us? Why does it continue to be so impossible to view every one of Obama’s policy objectives as viable solutions? There appears to be a pattern.

There’s one thing that Beck never mentions: the timeline. I personally believe they’ve already started rolling up the carpets and what remains of our country along with it. It will all be over and done with within the next two years.

Do explore the Soros connection to the ‘London School of Economics’. Make note of all the names that pop up even during a most cursory search – names we have come to associate with the Fabians of today. Imagine how insulted Soros must have felt when the Kaddafi’s kid embarrassed him after he (Soros) had gone to all the trouble of vouching for him, urging his entry into LSE.

There’s a lot more to this story. And it isn’t over yet. There may not be much we can ultimately do about it but, purely out of curatorial interest, let’s begin connecting some dots, just to let them know that we’re on to them; that we’re not total morons.

I don't know if you know this, but Kaddafi is said to have once been on board with Soros' 'Open Society' crap. After the scandal involving his son at LSE, Soros probably got on the phone with Kaddafi and told him his kid is a wanker. And Kaddafi probably told him to kiss his a** and hung up. Nobody talks this way to the man who has all the money in the world.

You want a nice neat string to tie it all together? Maybe it all hinges on an aging nutcase individual having decided to get back at all those whom he perceives as having slighted him. His ‘Open Society’ has probably very little to do with some illusory Utopian vision. What is more than likely is that the whole thing has been constructed as a platform from which to exact revenge.

http://pkoelliker.blogspot.com/

Conspiracy Theory: History In Reverse

I think it’s high time we get away from blindly criticizing Obama; the media; foreign, energy, and fiscal policy; and everything else; and begin connecting some dots. The only one doing it publicly at the moment happens to be Glenn Beck (and we all know what’s happened to him).

On this morning’s program, Beck laid it all out – soup to nuts. The players involve everyone in the Obama administration, union thugs, media flacks, prominent international figures (including Kaddafi) with George Soros at the top pulling the strings. Sounds like crazy talk. Sounds like a conspiracy theory. Those who believe in conspiracies are usually nut jobs. Right? – except when said conspiracy theories turn out to have been right all along. But, by then, conspiracies have become (often tragic) histories. And there’s no more time left to do something about it, other than live with the shame.

It’s not that I agree with all that Beck claims. There are some weak points and stretches. Overall, though, it sounds credible. It certainly does begin giving a shape to all we’ve been talking about (particularly) over the past two years – events that we believed stood alone and thus could be easily dismissed. I’m even starting to wonder about our friend, John Batchelor, and why he has been concentrating so hard on China lately. China, as I see it, is not part of the Soros deal. As such, it can only serve as a distraction from what is happening right under our noses.

Crazy talk or not, the time has come for a deeper examination of events than we’re getting. It’s interesting that there are some things that the media just won’t touch, while obvious examples are being made of those who dare to approach that third (Soros) rail – like Sarah Palin, for instance. (I'm talking about Palin's naked patriotism and her support of Israel.)

Then there is this from the “Business & Media” website (God knows who runs it) that published an article yesterday, entitled, “Unreported Soros Event Aims to Remake Entire Global Economy” by Dan Gainor. I’ve put up the link below (but I’m rather inept at this sort of thing, so I give you the information above as well).

http://www.mrc.org/bmi/commentary/2011/Unreported_Soros_Event_Aims_to_Remake_Entire_Global_Economy.html

It’s not that I’m against trying to remake the world. What I object to is how it’s being done. It’s being done in the proverbial smoke-filled back room by fat-cat elite narcissists. You can be quite certain they don’t have America’s best interests in mind.

http://pkoelliker.blogspot.com/

WAR: Comic Relief

Everywhere I turn today on the radio dial, I hear the usual yuck-yucks and clucks about what Obama did today. The war in Libya is topic number one of course. Japan has fallen to a distant third behind the many marriages of Elizabeth Taylor. Actually, the past few days we’ve seen very little of Obama. It has been Hillary Clinton who’s been out front, trying to explain this and that.

What’s curious about this is that war isn’t at all funny. The yuck-yucks center on the administration’s failure to explain how we got into it and what we can expect. The details we’re given change by the hour and are often contradictory. For instance, Obama claims that it’ll last just a few more days with us in charge, and then we’ll hand it off to some unspecified 'other'. Then, we learn, that nobody else wants it. It’s like watching a group of kids playing hot potato. Or, the kitchen sink gets clogged and we go in with all kinds of ‘shock and awe’ (to borrow a phrase). We ask the kid next door to come over and help. All he brings with him is a screwdriver while we’ve got the 130 ft. snake out. Whom are we hoping to hand off to? It’s comical, in a macabre kind of way. But here we are. The Germans have already pulled out. NATO is hiding in the tall grass. The others were never in. ‘Allies in disarray’ is how Drudge put it.

We’ve seen this before: an administration getting pummeled for deciding to go to war. Whether Kaddafi lives or dies is almost beside the point. It almost seems like the U.S. president is always the ultimate target of our scorn and ridicule; that as soon as any U.S. leader orders military intervention, it’s like, at the same time, he’s holding a loaded gun to his own head.

You might get the impression from reading this blog that I dislike Obama. The truth is I really don’t dislike him at all. His exploits have taken us in many unforeseen (and foreseen) directions. It’s been a blessing to be alive during these times of tumultuous change. The Obamas (in one incarnation or another) have always been with us. We’ve just never put them in charge of anything before. This time we did. And what did we expect? We got exactly what we voted for.
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On today’s Glenn Beck radio program, the name Stephen Lerner surfaced in connection with a union plot to collapse the American economy. Later in the day, Limbaugh also spent a segment on it. This seems consistent with what happened before (just preceding the 2008 election). When the Justice Department was notified, they ignored what must surely constitute a serious threat. Say, the kid with the screwdriver (above) goes home and were to fantasize on Facebook about putting that screwdriver of his through Obama’s eye; he would no doubt get a visit from the Secret Service before sundown. Lerner, apparently is playing for the right team (unions). So, we can assume he can happily fly under the radar, as far as Big Sis is concerned.

http://pkoelliker.blogspot.com/

Condo Shopping in Brazil

We’re all news junkies; that is, we try to keep up with the news on a daily basis. We read the headlines on various sites, as well as our favorite blogs to get some idea about what other people are thinking. We pretty much know that the mainstream media does not tell us the truth; that partisan consideration causes them to steer their intended conclusions toward some unholy end. The same is true of the conservative, or ‘alternative’, media.

I’ve been having some trouble with the internet, especially when trying to stream Glenn Beck’s morning radio show. It suddenly cuts out and I need to go down to the basement and reset the box. Honestly, it’s become a pain to listen, and I no longer listen very often. I also don’t watch much TV - especially in the afternoon. For our family, Glenn Beck has essentially ‘disappeared’.

While visiting my father, he explained to me the purpose of Brazil's new capital (now 50 years old), the building if which he had been intimately involved in. It was envisioned as a world capital housing the leaders of a single world government. Its planners predicted that there would be a war in which much of the world would suffer utter devastation. The site for the Brazilian capital was deliberately chosen as to be as far away from everything as possible and would therefore not be much affected.

The city has strict building codes as to limit its population. The expected overflow was to be housed in any number of satellite cities some distance away. Only the highest elite - the cream of the crop - were to have permission to live within city limits.

This came to mind when I first heard that Obama would be going to Brazil on vacation (or is it to shop for a condo?). Suppose now, that something were to happen here while he is away. It’s not unusual for the leader of a nation to leave his country and, while abroad, there is some kind of coup back home.

Suppose communications were cut. Suppose all we could get on the radio is old episodes of the Prairie Home Companion. Suppose there were no mention of what had happened. Suppose TV screens remained blank; the internet dormant.

Suppose Osama bin Laden were to order all his sleeper cells into action. Suppose some manufactured economic problem were to close the banks. Suppose union thugs and others took it upon themselves to target random ‘rich people’ and Republican legislators.

In very short order, America would find itself turned on its head. There would be utter chaos in the streets – not to mention, in every American heart.

Suppose that by some prearranged signal Israel and Taiwan were attacked, as well as Americans and American interests oversees.

All this would be digestible, except for radio silence. We could respond to most things, but not this. For years now, we’ve known that our media plays fast and loose with the facts. We’ve learned to be discerning and deal with it. But no news? How could we possibly deal with that?

Only those who had been tipped off beforehand would know what to do - only the best organized. The rest of us would miss the sleight of hand until long after the dust has settled and the now familiar faces of our talking heads have faded from memory.

http://peterkoelliker.blogspot.com/
http://pkoelliker.blogspot.com/

The Music Of the Primes

A guitar can be considered both, a musical instrument as well as percussion. Therefore a man alone with a guitar can often make credible music. Percussion came first - the big bang - then another, and another (echoes)… Then came a more gentle sound, probably in the form of wailing. When the wailing adapted itself to the beat, music was born. Finally, there was the ‘word’ and history began in earnest.

Similarly, harmony is a blend of the secular and the spirit. For the spirit to soar, it needs the discipline of a steady pulse. There has been undue emphasis on just pulse lately. Sound has been allowed to become discordant - the din of people expressing disparate agonies - every nation divided, pulling both ways. Voices shouting slogans in short, bumper sticker bursts mimic the staccato of an incomplete drum set. It has become a lingering sign of our times - 'The WHO' destroying their instruments at the end of the set. Drumsticks tossed into the audience. What are they going to do with them except clobber each other?

We are regressing. The drums of war are heard all around. Even God has been roused from his lofty abode and is seen hurling lightning bolts mindlessly here and there. The ground under Haiti trembles, and over a year later we still cannot cope. Iran threatens, and we shrink from our duty to stop it. And today, Japan stands helplessly while watching a wall of water advancing.

America too watches helplessly as it is being consumed by a tsunami of debt. In New York, the most expensive musical ever is being kept off-line while the bodies drop from the wires.

Curious about Spiderman: The day before Glenn Beck quit the airwaves in New York, he delivered and impassioned endorsement of Spiderman. He claimed that it represents a huge step forward in live theater, akin (perhaps) to switching from watching black and white to color TV. He spent a full half hour praising this show, saying (and I paraphrase) it is definitely worth the price of an over-inflated ticket and even the added cost of a flight from anywhere.

I remember thinking that Beck might simply be honoring some contractual obligation. Or, did he really believed what he was saying? I was torn, but leaning towards the latter. For one thing, he had high praise for the script (and music). He warned that liberals - especially New York liberals - would not like the story. Ticket sales spiked immediately after Beck’s show. Then, other reviews started filtering in. These, as expected, were overwhelmingly negative.

It is entirely possible that a conservative narrative cannot survive on Broadway. In today’s hyper-partisan climate, even the skeletal music of Bono, it seems, cannot endure the drumming of the ideological fist.

While in many ways the staccato bursts of gunfire in the Middle East seem to dominate our own narratives, 'The WHO’s classic coda to “My Generation” comes immediately to mind. And with it, the final scene of smashed guitars and sparking amplifiers.

http://pkoelliker.blogspot.com/

Lessons Unlearned

The next time you’re tempted to disparage somebody, Kaddafi, Mubarak, any nation, bedbugs, fleas - anything - make sure you know what you’re doing and why. (I’d be interested in knowing just how many of you still get a chance to listen to Glenn Beck since he’s been dropped from several major radio markets including mine. It’s still possible to hear his radio show on the internet. The connection is often tenuous, but it does appear to run in a continuous if erratic loop on Mercury Radio Arts.)

Anyway, today he gave one of his more lucid rants. Without necessarily meaning to, he described precisely how we got Obama. It started with Bush. Hatred for Bush and anything Republican was whipped up into a frenzy. It came to be known as ‘Bush Derangement Syndrome’. Everyone was invited to join in - and everyone did. By the time the 2008 elections rolled around anyone who was neither Bush or Republican could have been elected, no contest. And ‘anyone’ was. To this day most of us still don’t have no clue just who our man in the White House actually is.

I dare say, we no longer remember exactly why it was we hated Bush so much. Nobody has much scar tissue to show from when Bush was in office. We just hated him, for no particular reason. We hated him just to give expression to our hatred. It was cool to hate; it was the ‘in’ thing to do. The media drove it; Hollywood drove it; universities drove it - and we all went along for the ride.

In our mass-induced hypnotic state, nothing we could foresee could have been worse than Bush. We all fell for it. ‘Anybody’ would save us and cleanse us of the dirt in which we wallowed.

It was perfect. It was like using a saw to cut wood. Two separate pieces. It works every time. We never once asked ourselves who started it and why. Who stood to gain by Obama coming to power? Who supported him? Who also hated Bush so much that they were prepared to cut off their noses to spite our faces? As such we stood with the Left, we stood with Rev. Wright and his liberation theology; we stood with Ahmadinejad, we stood with Chavez and Castro. We stood with the socialists, with the jihadist. We stood with every one of America’s enemies.

What did we expect to happen? Not one of us said, “Hey! Wait a minute. What exactly is going on here?” Instead, we’re still trying to make the wicked step-sister’s foot fit into Cinderella's glass slipper.

It’s a lesson that remains unlearned. To this day we are spurred on to hate our own: Rush, Beck, Savage, Palin and anyone else who might have even a smidgeon of conservative credentials. Tea Parties in the crosshairs; Michelle Bachman, John Bolton, Clarence Thomas, Carl Rove - all strategically lined up for target practice. And shoot we will, as long as we’re served the rhetorical bullets on a silver platter by the media.

If you notice, Obama remains curiously absent the sniper’s target. No one would dare say a thing outright against him. He remains a victim - a victim of the targets he himself has set up. …and victims can never do wrong.

http://pkoelliker.blogspot.com/

Gettysburg (redux)

Maybe we should exorcise the words ‘wrong’ and ‘right’ from our dictionaries. When pundits say that Obama, Kaddafi, Ahmadinejad, Mugabe, Chavez (or whoever) are on the ‘wrong’ side of history while Scott Walker, Sarah Palin, Glenn Beck proclaim themselves to be on the ‘right’ side, it betrays a bias. There are only sides. ‘Wrong’ or ‘right’ are relative to the side one happens to be on. Let us then just say, “There is their side and there is our side.”

We have now established that there are indeed sides. Provided we feel strongly enough to identify our preference, we must then support our side with all we’ve got.

We’re in the midst of a global battle we must win. We can no longer be bystanders because the outcome of this battle will determine our future and the future of our children. It has become pointless to argue about ‘wrong’ and ‘right’. Each side thinks it’s right and that the others are ‘wrong’.

Similarly, ‘left’ and ‘right’ on the political scale has become solely diversion and used by both sides to confuse and obfuscate. You either believe that America has been ‘wrong’ throughout its history or you don’t. You either want to see it torn down, destroyed, to let the phoenix rise from its ashes; or you want to preserve what has already been built.

There is no ‘right’ or ‘wrong’ answer. All that remains for us is to fight impeccably for whichever side we choose.

The winner of this battle will have the right to carry the banner of America. It will be either a ‘new and improved’ America or it will be America as it once was.

After the war has been settled, someone from the winning side will echo some version of President Abraham Lincoln’s stirring ‘Gettysburg Address’ in addressing the nation. It may not be at a cemetery, for (I should hope) we no longer fight our internal wars with guns and bullets. But we will have fought nevertheless. And the spoils will have gone to the victor.
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On the afternoon of Thursday, November 19, 1863, at the dedication of the ’Soldiers’ National Cemetery’ in Gettysburg, PA, four and a half months after the Union armies defeated those of the Confederacy at Gettysburg, President Lincoln delivered what has come to be known as ‘The Gettysburg Address‘:

“Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent a new nation, conceived in liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.

“Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation, so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a great battle-field of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field, as a final resting place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this.

“But, in a larger sense, we can not dedicate, we can not consecrate, we can not hallow this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us—that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion—that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain—that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom—and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.”

Pray to God it will be someone from our side.

http://pkoelliker.blogspot.com/

Let's See How It Plays

Olbermann gone, but not forgotten. Perhaps it all boils down to ratings after all. Olbermann has always been near the bottom of the heap. He has talent, no doubt. His talent was overshadowed by his bias. Once bias has been freely and audaciously exhibited, there is no longer any need to watch. Everyone already knew what was coming.

Olbermann is much too smart to let this happen. I suspect he was encouraged all the way. He knew that his ratings suffered. (They all know.) In fact, he had much larger audiences than what was obvious when his clips were played on much more successful shows. These made him out to be a clown and he readily obliged. Why?

I suspect it’s some version of the ‘fairness doctrine’ again: Olbermann on the Left; Beck on the right. “We’ll get rid of Olbermann, if you get rid of Beck. In fact, let’s get rid of the whole bunch of them: We’ll get rid of MSNBC; you’ll get rid of FOX. Let’s start with Beck and Olbermann and see how it plays.”
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"Despite the fact that Democrat policies are hugely unpopular, two factors have enabled the party to continue to present itself as mainstream.

“The first factor has been the media. As has been their practice forever, it seems; the media have helped Democrats by demonizing the Republicans and rightist politicians. Working hand in glove with leftist politicians, the media have implemented the politics of personal destruction against right-wing leaders. By demonizing the likes of Bush, Cheney, Palin, Limbaugh et al, they have rendered the social cost of supporting Republicans and the Right too high for many Americans to bear.

“At the same time, the media have colluded with the Left to present leftist leaders as earthy, heroic, sophisticated and responsible statesmen. By keeping the content of their policies firmly out of the discussion and framing the debate instead around personal attacks and symbols, the media have successfully kept conservative leaders on the defensive and shielded leftist politicians from substantive attacks on their radical policies.“

The preceding has been taken from Caroline Glick’s latest article in the Jerusalem Post. It is not about America. It is about Israel. I’ve taken the liberty of changing a few words.

http://pkoelliker.blogspot.com/

Where's Waldo?

You already know how I feel about Hu Jintao's atate visit to Washington, so I won’t even go there; except to quote from a WSJ editorial this morning: “Of all the differences between dictatorship and democracy, probably none is so overlooked as the ability of the former to project strength, and the penchant of the latter to obsess about its own weakness.” This quote was written under the heading, “RED SCARE REPRISE”. Now, apply this bit of wisdom to our own Democrat and Republican parties today.
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I must say, I've been missing Beck on the radio each morning. His replacement here in New York means well but is an utter lightweight. It's like going from putting cream in your tea to putting in water. WOR gave ‘low ratings’ as a reason for dropping Beck. I happened to run across a ratings book (on the net) since. There is no way that Beck had low ratings - even in New York!!! WOR is lying big time.

Also, when you google "Batchelor leaving WABC” (some time ago) or “Curtis Sliva leaving WABC” (more recently) you get no less than eight pages of material to choose from. Googling "Beck leaving WOR (in New York)" gives you just two stories (one is a re-cap of the other). Beck is much bigger than Batchelor (in terms of ratings), yet there is practically nothing reported about Beck being dropped anywhere. No talk show host has talked about it. To my knowledge, not even Beck has mentioned it.

I’m not a Beck junkie. I haven’t gone chasing after Beck, either on the radio dial or on the net. Yet, this says to me ‘news blackout’ - like what we experienced during the oil spill, and the sinking of the Cheonan.

If this can happen, anything can happen. People can just ‘disappear’, legislation can be passed without the knowledge of those affected, election results can be manipulated, or falsified outright, etc.

This, to my mind, is a big deal. It could be an indication of where we are headed. Up until now, we’ve all been painfully aware that the media slants the news. But what are we to say if there is no news to slant?

Sure, there are plenty of links out there where you can stream Beck’s radio program, jihad, porn or anything else you might want. But that isn’t really my point, is it? It’s not a matter of having accessibility to news. There are millions of people in North Korean work camps as well. Each and everyone of them knows exactly what’s going on there. But you never hear from them, do you? It’s as if they don’t exist.

The third-highest rated radio program is shut out of the biggest American media market. And nobody talks about it!? That’s what I find disturbing!

http://pkoelliker.blogspot.com/

More Christians Than Lions

There’s another narrative here that the media couldn’t quite bring off; but, God knows, they tried. That was to say, because of Obama’s visit to the hospital, Giffords opened her eyes. It would have made for terrific copy world-wide. It would have gone along seamlessly with an earlier thread: Obama as messianic figure.

All the other stuff worked. They really can’t complain. Sarah Palin, Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck, Tea Party - all in the dog house. The need for yet more money to treat people with psychological problems and to house psychopaths; maybe even a brand new Federal department complete with death panel czar to oversee it all. More welfare for the afflicted; higher taxes, of course. More money for education; more gun control… on and on it goes.

Finally, it’s all Republicans’ fault. Listening to Aaron Klein broadcasting from Israel last Sunday, he related how Israelis were convinced that Jared Loughner was a right-wing tea party member - and these were people working in news rooms!

In India, it’s the same story.

There are more Christians than lions; but, hell, you’d never know it.

http://pkoelliker.blogspot.com/

Liberals - 1; Conservatives - 0

January 8th, 2011

Urgent: Flash e-mail from the White House: A message from OFA (Organizing for America) national volunteer coordinators:

Dear Blogger: By now you’ve heard the news. Time to mobilize. What just happened in Arizona (where else?) is more than murder. This is our opportunity to invigorate some of our policy objectives. Target gun control and talk radio (Limbaugh, Beck, etc.). Target the internet and capital punishment. Target Palin. For suggestions, go to xxx@yyy.com for templates and suggestions.

Get busy. Support the cause. Support Democrats. Support your president. Prizes for the most e-mails sent.

Remember, never let a crisis go to waste.
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The above fiction is nevertheless believable. How else can we explain the current feeding frenzy in the press and on the blogs? Clearly, what happened was a personal tragedy for all those hurt and killed. Also clear is that it’s a stretch to involve people who had nothing whatsoever to do with it.

More than the wounding and murders themselves, the real tragedy is what immediately followed. I differ from Limbaugh in one important respect: Whereas he sees it as a one last-ditch desperate effort - a ‘Hail Mary pass', if you wish - by liberalism losing steam, I see it as only the beginning - the opening salvo of what we can expect for the next two years. The media and Democrats are scoring big.

This morning, ‘The Hindu’, Chennai’s hometown newspaper will carry Paul Krugman’s column entitled “Climate of Hate”. In it he implicates and smears everyone who does not agree with his radical views. Indians will read this and, hearing no other American voices, will shake their heads sadly. Some who have relatives abroad will send e-mails to caution them. They will warn them of the Tea Parties, talk radio, FOX, the GOP, Palin, Beck, O’Reilly, conservatives, etc. All this will be done out of genuine concern and in good faith.

Talk show hosts are feeling the need to defend themselves today. Their faithful - even if in the numerical majority of the population - agree with them. But as a part of the overall national narrative they remain marginalized. Their protestations sound somehow hollow as the ball continues to roll left.

Liberals - 1; conservatives - 0

http://pkoelliker.blogspot.com/

The Stoning Of Sarah

The Left certainly was more than ready for this one. It’s almost as if their talking points had been already scripted and sitting right there in the ‘out’ tray for months, just waiting for the inevitable moment to materialize. The media was already suited up, (ink)jets scrambled. It was the moment they had been waiting for: the opportunity to strike a blow against such perennials as gun rights, the tea parties, and talk radio. Well done, Left!

No time was lost on reflection. Facts that didn’t quite match evaporated before our very eyes. Websites scrubbed. Beck dropped. The rugs had been lifted to accommodate whatever was inconvenient to dispose of properly.

Some months ago a website (I forget which) posted a video of the stoning of a young girl somewhere in Pakistan. Nothing was left to the imagination. At the time, I wondered not just about the vicious frenzy of those throwing the stones, but also of the passive nature of those watching, and filming. The filming, especially, bothered me. “How sick!” I thought.

But then I realized that those filming couldn’t possibly be sitting around watching this again and again over popcorn and beer. There must be something more to it.

Maybe they were crying out for help. Maybe it was the only way they could think of to expose the madness. It was for us to see - to be outraged, as they were - to be moved to intercede; to take charge; to rescue them from their bloody Islamic hell. At considerable risk to themselves, they succeeded in smuggling the video out to what they believed to be the beneficent West, only to be shelved there and ignored.

We too have a bloody woman on our hands. Only, for us, it doesn’t seem to be enough. We want more. We want Sarah Palin’s head mounted on a stake to be paraded through our streets. We want Limbaugh and Beck. We want the population disarmed and helpless, at the mercy of thugs and tax collectors. We want the Tea Parties castrated and silent. We want our Constitution shredded. It is now clear that this is the official narrative of our intent.

We’ve just come from celebrating an election (in which the wrong party made huge gains). Some of us had been full of hope that things will improve with the infusion of fresh blood. That much we got. We were eagerly awaiting the first signs of change, of rebuilding that which had slipped away during the past two years. Now all of it has been overshadowed, sidetracked, postponed - the momentum lost. Who wins? Not democracy; not freedom. We’ve exploited our opportunity to take a step backwards. We’ve been derailed, stifled, disheartened. We’ve once again come face to face with just how fragile our system has become. We’ve become irritable and irritating in the same breath.

Those cell phone Pakis must be crying. America will not help. America can’t even help itself.

http://pkoelliker.blogspot.com/

Stop The Presses: Wrong Guy!

I really thought today was the day when it begins. The left-wing bloggers were all in position, ready to go. Some even jumped the gun. They were not listeners to the John Batchelor Show. If they had been, they would have known that the first three reports are always wrong.

No, the shooter was not the one they expected. He did not follow the approved script. His car radio was not tuned to Limbaugh, his trunk was not filled with Beck paraphernalia. He did not carry a copy of the Constitution in his pocket. He was not a card-carrying member of any Tea Party. Instead he was a nut job, pure and simple.

He did us a favor by posting unintelligible material on the internet that points to a severely diseased mind. He posted a video of himself burning the American flag (a hat tip to Bill Ayers, perhaps). There were some books on his reading list, but most of them solidly left-inspired.

As more and more facts leaked out, the Left began backing off. This was not their guy. They would have to wait for another, more suitable to their purpose.

I hadn’t really heard the news until late. One tends not to listen to radio much, especially on weekends when it’s snowing. I had just finished posting King Crimson. The devil made me do it. Then, I went back and listened to the words…

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Someone To Bury Us

There was a profound difference between Beck’s and Colbert’s/Stewart’s rally. (I haven’ heard the numbers comparison yet.) The networks steered clear of this one because they felt embarrassed. So did most Democrat politicians.

The difference between Beck’s and today’s rally is the difference between old and new. In the pre-Obama days, a large part of the American Dream was perceived as our children doing better than ourselves. That’s why many of us risked everything to get here. Today, it can be summed up by the adage: We bear our children as to have someone to bury us.

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Cleanliness Is Next To...

One way one may classify groups and attach labels to them is by the way they behave. There have now been two marches on Washington recently, the first said to have been organized by Glenn Beck; the second by a variety of factions, most loyal to the president of the United States, consisting of union members and a variety of left-leaning organizations, communists, socialists, student groups, community organizers and welfare recipients.

No doubt, there is some significance in who was there first, as there was some significance in the raw numbers of those attending each event. It has been generally acknowledged that the Beck rally was bigger. This could mean that Beck’s followers are more enthused. It could also mean that Beck’s followers have the momentum while last weekend’s rally was no more than an afterthought - a hurried attempt at playing catch up.

Numerical data, however, can be manipulated. Already I hear conflicting assessments. More to the point, perhaps, is the visual part. By all accounts, the people attending the Beck rally were considerate of each other and scrupulously clean, leaving very little (if any) trash behind. Not so the people attending last weekend’s rally. There were said to be literally mountains of trash left behind for others to clean up.

This fact alone clearly betrays a state of mind. Last weekend’s marchers apparently thought of them selves as ‘entitled‘. They seemed okay with leaving a mess.

A common observation by Westerners is that India is ‘dirty‘. This, despite handleless brooms being available in virtually every shop, and those same brooms being in motion several times a day, moving trash from one place to another. Philosophically, it may be attributed to a bias toward maintaining internal spaces (the mind) rather than the street. Culturally, it could indicate the expectation that someone of a lower caste will clean up. Middle and upper class Indians seldom do things for themselves. They employ maids, cooks and drivers. It never occurs to them to pick up after themselves, to wash dishes, clothes, etc.

Dependence is not a circumstance that will get us far. Already, it has a become a problem in India finding help. In Bombay, the maids have organized into unions. It is they who are likely to dictate terms: “I don’t do windows.”

Back in the ‘90’s, I took the kids out West for a tour of the National Parks. We rented a car and spent about three months on the road. I was surprised in flipping through the stations on the radio how many music formats were dedicated entirely to the to the ’60’s and ‘70’s. New music was almost impossible to find. It may just be that Californians have never grown up. What they have term as ‘progressive’ is merely a throw-back to a bygone era - glorious as it was in its certainty of immortal youth, promise and fantasy. It’s always hard to change when one stubbornly decides to dig in one’s heels and swim against the tide. I don’t remember all those Haight-Asbury apartments as having been all too clean.

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They Are Mocking Us

“Stop following me.”

“Stop following me.”

“Go away!”

“Go away!”

“Leave me alone.”

“Leave me alone.”

“Stop hitting me.”

“Stop hitting me.”

“I’m telling Mom.”

“I’m telling Mom.”

Remember when the bully in the schoolyard or an older brother, perhaps, used to do this: repeat everything you said with the smirk of superiority on his face? He was mocking you and you would eventually dissolve into tears. This is exactly what the infantile, bullying Left is doing in response to Glenn Beck’s 8/28 gathering in Washington at the Lincoln Memorial. They are mocking us. They are attempting to diminish the gravity and sacredness of what happened there. They are showing themselves as arrogant, as disrespectful of the genuine impulse that had brought so many people from all over the country together.

Just the other day, they mocked Congress itself by inviting one of their funnymen flamethrowers to discuss a dead-serious subject on Capitol Hill. They’ve been mocking Sarah Palin and the Tea Parties and anyone whom they perceive as a legitimate threat to the continuance of their disastrous policies for as long as I dare to remember. Their attacks on these good people have been constant and merciless

Every word out of the mouth of our historic president is a mockery. He talks about the failure of education, about the failure of the housing market, about the failure of journalism, the auto industry, banking, the military, etc. never mentioning that it was he and his party that were the primary reason for these failures. And to drive the point, he recklessly proposes more of the same. Failure has become the new norm.

He mocks the polls, elections, democratic governance in general. He is mocking us as if he knows enough is in place to deny us the power to affect even an iota of change. He is supremely confident that his Marxist revolution is close to fruition on American soil. If history is any gage, he and his minions will gather on the National Mall and spew anti-American obscenities on this sacred ground.

He is confident that the mosque on Ground Zero will stand to be celebrated throughout the Muslim world on the tenth anniversary of 9/11.

They are mocking us daily. In order to get them to stop, we must think back to the schoolyard and figure out what we eventually did to put the bully his in his place.

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