Guest Contributer: Tom From NJ: Big Starker & Little Schnook

Support for public unions certainly is the Progressives' current litmus test and grand tactic, so it is right to identify the unions as part of their sine qua non. But I'd like to take things a step further. In terms of strategic goals, the Progressive sine qua non is POWER, grabbing it, using it, keeping it. This is why the public unions are playing such a critical role in the Progressive coalition because they understand power and will let nothing -- not the law, the constitution, or the political process -- get in their way. The rest of the Progressive coalition is composed mainly of eggheads, far-left ideological cranks, MSM types, Alinsky disciples, elderly hippies and others of the drug-addled classes, professional agitators (aka. Community Organizers), permanent collectors of welfare and SSI, etc., and therefore lack the muscular intimidation factor that union thugs always bring to the table, even when allegedly "representing" school teachers (Miss Bishop and Mr. Chips are long gone!). As Andy Stern said when he was still head of the SEIU, "If the power of persuasion fails, we will use the persuasion of power."

The Progressive movement of today reminds me of the ninety-pound weakling in school who gives his lunch, his allowance money, whatever it takes, to make some muscle-bound brute his loyal protector and keep him that way. Thus can Little Schnook talk and act big, because he knows he has Big Starker around to do his dirty work for him. Despite his "cool" self-image and basketball pretensions, Barack Obama is Little Schnook. His alleged street smarts and Chicago toughness are a pose made even remotely credible --although not abroad, apparently -- largely by his association with Big Starker, i.e., the labor movement, especially the public unions. BTW, Saul Alinsky was just the same, basically an egghead sociologist who liked to pose as a streetwise tough guy, especially when safely in the friendly company of real tough guys. But I digress.

The American political "game", if you will, has rarely been played for stakes higher than those on the table right now and right through November 2012. The Progressives know this and so do their great comrades, the public unions, and they do not intend to give up power no matter what We the People may say at the polling place. What is the true Progresssive idea of "democracy" today? Check out Wisconsin 2011 or -- same thing --St. Petersburg, Russia, 1917. In both cases, the Little Schnooks cheered on the Big Starkers as they applied "the persuasion of power" to their opposition. Of course, the Russian "workers" were far more successful in grabbing, using, and keeping power than their American counterparts have been to date. However, hope springs eternal, especially in those radical precincts where, in the end, power is really the only sine qua non. Of course, between now and 2012 it may become increasingly unclear who is master and who is servant, Little Schnook or Big Starker.

Afghanistan: Too Failed To Fail

Let’s not forget, America too is too “failed to fail” - just like it is axiomatic in the Democrat (and to some extent in the Republican) Party where you have failure propping up failure. Drugs? No problem. Deficits? No problem. Illegal immigrants? No problem. Corruption? No problem. Etc. As always, the American taxpayer can be expected to shoulder the load. How much longer? Unknown.
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Little by little, the Left is exposed - like peeling an onion. This week, the article entitled, “America’s Ruling Class - And The Perils of Revolution” by Anglo M. Codevilla in The American Spectator was discussed widely on conservative talk radio. Yesterday and today, The Daily Caller in articles by Jonathan Strong exposes the MSM. These articles read in tandem pretty much lay bare the bones of what we’ve all been puzzling about, namely the spectacularly rapid and unfortunate rise of Progressivism in America.

Whether or not we can regard these developments as an autopsy is still to be determined. From where I sit, there’s still plenty of life left in the old carcass; still too many people determined to endorse all the wrong moves. Case and point: By all accounts, ‘global warming’ as a viable concern should long ago have been declared dead and buried. Yet, I find it still stirring. And we will likely be saddled with ‘cap and trade’ because of it - never mind that the data is fraudulent. It was never about ‘saving the earth’ anyway, as Codevilla explains. It was always about power and outright theft.

Such revelations would never have come to light under McCain (just as it never really happened under Clinton and the Bushes). It’s just that Obama has been clumsy enough to spill the beans. No doubt, Hillary will be called upon to save the day.

They're not stupid if they don't know.

The legislative process on display in Washington this week seems like an echo of the very same process that elected Barack Hussein Obama over a year ago. The big story here – as then – is the American media which views the whole thing as a horserace between the evil Republicans and the saintly Democrats, refusing to examine the broader issues of viability and consequence. The difference is that between then and now the American people appear to have awakened. They have come to recognize that a Trojan horse sits in the White House, but find themselves powerless to act. Their own soldiers are under siege, held at political gunpoint and forced to commit unspeakable acts of betrayal.

While still too many of us see this as a contest between skins and shirts, there is no doubt that if the current health care tussle on The Hill – now beginning to resemble the Afghan (national) sport of Buzkashi (in which the object is to get a goat carcass across the goal line) – were subjected to a direct popular vote, it would go to the skins by a considerable margin. It is the margin that is troubling here. It ought to be 100% against – not some version of 50 -50.

Still, it would not be fair to call those who support the bill ‘stupid’. You’re not stupid if you don’t know. Access to information has been so bifurcated in our country as to make a bridging of the chasm improbable, if not impossible. Whereas you and I have learned of the outright fraud and misapplication of science in order to affect social engineering, the readers of The New York Times and The Washington Post know none of it. Mainstream broadcast news and print still tout ‘global warming’ as a serious issue. They still tout Obama as a ‘savior’ figure. They still tout Republicans, industry and capitalism as essentially evil. They ignore fiscal debt and deficits. They refuse to delve into the reason for why so many jobs have disappeared from the American scene. They discount the dangers of continued fiscal mismanagement.

Ditto, our schools and universities...

They’re not stupid if they don’t know. How can they know? Listening to talk radio, they’ve been taught, is stupid. It merely represents the rantings of a dying breed of greedy men and earth destroyers. They’ve been assured that theirs is a higher purpose. They’ve been meticulously groomed to pursue ‘social justice’.

Our kids have been commandeered into a kind of jihad. Our schools and universities are madrassahs where they are fed a steady diet of socialist propaganda. Not unlike the Arabs who have been taught to hate Jews, our kids hate us. They hate our jobs, our religions, our way of life. Is it working? Will familial ties snap? Unknown. Will they inform on us when the time comes. Unknown. Will they turn against us when the mob attacks? Unknown.

The latest drive in teaching American history is to start with Woodrow Wilson while ignoring the founders and framers and even the Civil War. The rationale is that an understanding of modern American history is more immediate and pertinent to current times. Coincidentally, Woodrow Wilson’s presidency marks the beginning of progressivism in America. I often hear Wilson and especially FDR lumped in with Obama lately. While it is true that progressives of the past also envisioned global state control (socialism), early progressives differ from Obama as night differs from day. Wilson and FDR were patriots. True, they envisioned a single (benign) authority ruling the world, but they took it for granted that this authority would be American. Obama on the other hand so hates the supposed county of his birth, he would quite happily cede control elsewhere. In fact, I maintain that he undestands his personal mission as sacrificing America and handing its sacrificial scalp to whoever steps forward to accept it.

First They Came...

"THEY CAME FIRST for the Communists,
and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a Communists.

THEN THEY CAME for the Jews,
and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a Jew.

THEN THEY CAME for the trade unionists,
and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a trade unionist.

THEN THEY CAME for the Catholics,
and I didn’t speak up because I was a Protestant.

THEN THEY CAME for me
and by that time no one was left to speak up."

The above is a popular quote attributable to Pastor Martin Niemöller (1892–1984) about the inactivity of German intellectuals following the Nazi rise to power and the purging of their chosen targets, group after group. The present ‘health care’ drama is a classic modern-day example of just what the good German pastor was talking about. Legislators are being given a false choice to vote either yes or no on a deeply flawed bill. In effect, they’ve been given a loaded gun. Either way they vote, they fatally damage themselves and, with it, their institution.

Some of our representatives have already recognized the ploy. After a long and prolific career sucking at the public troth, they have recused themselves; jumped ship. It was the only way to avoid a virtual bloodbath of embarrassment. Their intimate and long association with Washington high jinx has taught them that the gig is now up; that the progressives now rule; and that there are no longer any rules.

They recognized that they’ve been playing along without it ever having occurred to them that some day they too might stand in the cross hairs. They’d stood by and watched as the courts have been polluted; as once mighty industrialists and financiers have been dragged in front of congressional kangaroo courts and publicly castrated; as the desperate cries of the American people have been deliberately ignored; as our country’s founders have been discredited; our Constitution shredded; our press hobbled; religion disparaged; etc.

There’s no one left to save them now. Even the occasional sane utterance is but spit in the wind. The progressives are on the march. What will stop them? The military? What, military? You mean the one that’s still arguing about ‘don’t ask; don’t tell’? The military that’s already been issued its own poisoned pill to swallow?