Still trying to get back in the swing of things, so here’s a LinkSwarm for a lazy Friday:
Across the paper’s many departments, though, so many share a kind of political and cultural progressivism — for lack of a better term — that this worldview virtually bleeds through the fabric of The Times.
As a result, developments like the Occupy movement and gay marriage seem almost to erupt in The Times, overloved and undermanaged, more like causes than news subjects.
You may not be aware, but Occupy [Place Name Here] had their national gathering in Philadelphia this week. Via Twitter, we have a picture of their national march.
Really? That’s it? 45 people? Even the crappiest local science fiction convention I’ve been to had more members than that. And I dare say they average Texas Senate Race forum had at least four times as many people as that (mainly because by then all the seats had been filled and hey wouldn’t let additional people in).
When will the national media stop pretending that Occupy is even remotely important?
(Hat tip: SooperMexican’s Twitter Feed.)
It would appear that the Plano bombing suspect is one Anson Chi, based on the following:
More details when I have them…
Added: More details Here. While Chi is not a fan of Obama or the IRS, he’s also not a fan of Christianity, genetically modified food or corporations, which makes him a very atypical Ron Paul supporter.
A few more details are dribbling out about the alleged Plano gas pipeline bomber.
Among the most interesting:
No job, backpack, hates technology. Let’s see: Who does that description fit?
Is it too soon to guess at an Occupy Wall Street connection? Probably. There’s only a few shreds of evidence. And yet, want to guess what the most recent concern on the Occupy Dallas website was?
Would you believe “Protecting our Community from Gas Drilling”? Indeed it seems to be a continuing concern.
Certainly other Occupy [Place Name Here] factions have been indicted in bomb plots. And as for the bomb detonating prematurely and injuring the bomb maker, well, let’s just say that such incidents are hardly unknown among the radical left.
This is all very speculative and tentative, and the bomber could still be a lone nut. But at least the Occupy Dallas connection would explain the bomber’s motivation.
Now that a week has passed since Scott Walker’s decisive victory in the Wisconsin recall election, I wanted to touch on one issue that helped contribute to the left’s defeat in the recall, namely the narcissistic infantilism displayed among a small, but highly visible, set of Wisconsin liberals. Their actions helped Walker win the recall election.
First up, let’s take a look at their whiny self-regard, as exemplified by Crying Man:
“We worked so hard.” Well, too bad; Republicans worked harder, out-hustled and out-voted you. It’s like a member of Generation Participation asking for a good grade just because they showed up and tried, even though they got the answers wrong. “I worked so hard! Can’t you just give me an A?” And complaining that it’s “the end of Democracy” because your side lost is such pure narcissistic, drama queen behavior that I’m surprised to hear it from anyone over the age of twelve. Did he shout “You’re the worst dad in the world!” the last time his father refused to let him borrow the car keys?
Or take the liberals shown here the day after the election:
So, while all of you in the People’s Republic of Madison were having your Happy Singalong Drum Circle, Republicans were manning phone banks, registering voters, and running Get Out the Vote drives. Maybe the first two or three days of singing and drumming helped the cause by drawing attention to the fight; after that they were an exercise in petulant self-indulgence.
And speaking of self-indulgence, drama queens and that video, what did the two liberals haranguing CNN’s bus driver think they were accomplishing? You lost. Whining about them calling the election earlier than you thought they should, especially after they were proven correct, is like an eight year old throwing a temper tantrum because she doesn’t want to go to school.
Also, notice something else about those two videos: all the use of personal pronouns. I, my, we, etc., as though the results of the election were a personal affront. Here’s a hint, Dorothy: It’s not about you, it’s about good governance and the will of the voters in a democratic republic.
Of course, don’t forget about how liberals kicked off their pro-union, anti-Walker protests last year:
Was there not a single adult among all the recall supporters to go “Hey, wait, acting like complete assholes might alienate voters”? Did they forget that they were in the Midwest, where “direct action” isn’t considered cute or “empowering,” but as rude jackassery?
A certain class of liberals seems to miss the excitement of the early civil rights protest era, missing the fact that Madison in 2011 is not Selma in 1959. Your actions aren’t aimed at convincing voters, but at drawing personal attention to yourself for throwing a hissy fit. “Look at me! I’m a college radical! My ideas are more important than yours, and I’ll scream and shout until I get my way!”
Here’s Amy L. Geiger-Hemmer describing all the ways recall supporters alienated voters:
Without your tantrums, outbursts and boorish behavior we might have stayed home for this election. Without your filthy, pot smoking hemp-headed minions occupying and violating the Capitol we might have been complacent. Without your obnoxious protests, boycotts and other actions from your union playbook, we might have sat this one out.
But you couldn’t hold back. You couldn’t restrain yourselves and behave like adults. You couldn’t accept the 2010 election results. We sat and watched as you erupted in a juvenile hissy fit that embarrassed Wisconsin . The spectacle you created is what motivated us. And thanks to your ill-mannered behavior, we won.
Read the whole thing.
Still another sign of their infantile infatuation with 1960s radicals was their use of Socialist Realism iconography for their signs:
Did they really think signs that could have been created under the regimes of Joseph Stalin or Fidel Castro were a swell way to win over independent voters? Or did they just not care? (Psst: Here’s a hint guys: The real solidarity was fighting communist puppets, not democratically elected state officials.)
But what it all boils down to is bunch of privileged, white, well-to-do radicals, many in their 20s, more interested in politics as a form of external therapy and personal attention than with actually accomplishing anything. All their screaming, drum-banging tantrums not only failed to accomplish anything, but like the similar actions of Occupy Wall Street, they were counterproductive exercises that alienated independent voters and potential allies.
And judging from the blog posts of people who hang out in places like Daily Kos and Democratic Underground, they still don’t seem to have learned a thing.
In the 2010 special election to replace fill the Massachusetts Senate seat held by the late Ted Kennedy, Scott Brown, with massive support from the newly organized Tea Party, managed to eek out a win in a Republican wave year by just under 5 points.
But this year is different. This year the Obama Reelection machine is in full gear, Democrats won’t be caught napping again, and instead of the hapless Martha Coakley, Brown is facing liberal darling and Occupy Mama Bear Elizabeth Warren, who has already raised almost $9 million.
This year Scott Brown is leading Warren by ten points.
(Hat tip: Instapundit.)
Real Estate agent Virgil Bierschwale sent me an email to note that he was joining the senate race; presumably the Texas senate race, although his text-heavy website does not mention our fair state until a good way down the page. (Pro-tip: It helps if you let people know what state you’re running in at the very top of your webpage.)
Mr. Bierschwale seems to be a disgruntled former Republican upset over free trade, globalization, and Grover Norquist (not necessarily in that order). As Mr. Bierschwale seems to approve of the Occupy Wall Street crowd, it does seem that he’s running in the right primary. Now we’ll see if he has the drive and stamina to zoom past Stanley Garza and challenge Sean Hubbard for second place…
Sometimes different stories you’re following twine together in weird and unexpected ways. Today it’s news from MEMRI that former mujahideen commander, Islamic radical, and all-around-asshole Gulbuddin Hekmatyar is taking credit for inspiring Occupy Wall Street.
If you don’t remember Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, he first rose to prominence as commander of the Hezb-i islami faction of the mujahideen fighting the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in the 1980s. Fighting the Soviets was pretty much the last decent thing Hekmatyar ever did, and he wasn’t very good at it, especially compared to his chief rival, Ahmed Shah Massoud, commander of Jamiat-i Islami, who was one of the greatest guerrilla warfare commanders of the 20th century. If “Hezb-i islami” sounds an awful lot like “Hezbollah,” that’s because they’re both different branches of the same transnational affiliation of radical Shia Islamic fundamentalism. Hekmatyar the sort of guy who thought the Ayatollah Khomeini was too much of liberal softie. Hekmatyar spent almost as much time fighting Massoud as he did fighting the Soviets, and after the Soviets left he changed sides so many times in the various Afghan civil wars that followed (in the government, out of the government, with the Taliban, against the Taliban, etc.) that it’s hard to keep track. He was also one of Osama Bin Laden’s drinking buddies in the 1990s. Pretty much anytime he showed up was bad news for Afghanistan, and now he’s one of the head jerks fighting the Afghan government.
Now he’s taking credit for “inspiring” Occupy Wall Street. Yeah, right. I think you would be hard-pressed to find anyone at Occupy Wall Street that had even heard of Gulbuddin Hekmatyar (or even any foreign political figure before Bush43 that isn’t featured on a t-shirt).
I haven’t been covering Occupy [Place Name Here] because other people have been doing such a bang-up job of it, and because, objectively, it simply isn’t important. But the latest development is too tasty not to mention.
A few weeks ago, when it turns out there was $500,000 just sitting in a bank to support OWS, the “leaderless movement” suddenly found out that they had leaders, who appeared without all that pesky “democracy” and “consensus” they kept talking about:
On Sunday, October 23, a meeting was held at 60 Wall Street. Six leaders discussed what to do with the half-million dollars that had been donated to their organization, since, in their estimation, the organization was incapable of making sound financial decisions. The proposed solution was not to spend the money educating their co-workers or stimulating more active participation by improving the organization’s structures and tactics. Instead, those present discussed how they could commandeer the $500,000 for their new, more exclusive organization. No, this was not the meeting of any traditional influence on Wall Street. These were six of the leaders of Occupy Wall Street (OWS).
Occupy Wall Street’s Structure Working Group (WG) has created a new organization called the Spokes Council. “Teach-ins” were held to workshop and promote the Spokes Council…
According to Marisa Holmes, one of the most outspoken and influential leaders of OWS, the NYC-GA started receiving donations from around the world when OWS began on September 17. Because the NYC-GA was not an official organization, and therefore could not legally receive thousands of dollars in donations, the nonprofit Alliance for Global Justice helped OWS create Friends of Liberty Plaza, which receives tax-free donations for OWS. Since then, Friends of Liberty Plaza has received over $500,000. Until October 28, anybody who wanted to receive more than $100 from Friends of Liberty Plaza had to go through the often arduous modified consensus process (90% majority) of the NYC-GA—which, despite its well-documented inefficiencies, granted $25,740 to the Media WG for live-stream equipment on October 12, and $1,400 to the Food and Medical WGs for herbal tonics on October 18.
At the teach-in, Ms. Holmes maintained that while the NYC-GA is the “de facto” mechanism for distributing funds, it has no right to do so, even though she acknowledged that most donors were likely under the impression that the NYC-GA was the only organization with access to these funds. Two other leaders of the teach-in, Daniel and Adash, concurred with Holmes.
Ms. Holmes also stated at the teach-in that five people in the Finance WG have access to the $500,000 raised by Friends of Liberty Plaza. When Suresh Fernando, the man taking notes, asked who these people are, the leaders of the Structure WG nervously laughed and said that it was hard to keep track of the “constantly fluctuating” heads of the Finance WG. Mr. Fernando made at least four increasingly explicit requests for the names. Each request was turned down by the giggling, equivocating leaders.
The leaders of the Structure WG eventually regained control of the teach-in. They said that they too were unhappy with the Finance WG’s monopoly over OWS’s funds, which is why they wanted to create the Spokes Council. What upset them more, however, was the inefficient and fickle General Assembly. A major point of the discussion was whether the Spokes Council and the NYC-GA should have access to the funds, or just the Spokes Council….
When my turn came to speak, I brought up the plans of “the leaders of the allegedly leaderless movement” to commandeer the half-million dollars sent to the General Assembly for their new, exclusive, undemocratic, representational organization. Before I could finish, the facilitators and other members of the OWS inner circle started shouting over me. Amidst the confusion, the human mic stopped projecting what I, or anybody was saying. Because silence was what they were after, the leaders won.
Eventually one of the facilitators regained control of the crowd and explained that I was speaking “opinions, not facts,” which is why I would not be allowed to continue. He also asserted untruthfully that I had gone over my allotted minute. Notably, the facilitators and members of the OWS inner circle regularly ignore time restrictions.
This reaction shouldn’t surprise anyone. It is reasonable to expect any undemocratic organization to be co-opted eventually by a vocal minority or charismatic individual. On Friday, October 29, the proposal to create the Spokes Council was put to the NYC-GA for a fifth time, and finally received a 90% majority. The facilitators assisted the process by denying two vocal critics of the Spokes Council their allotted time to speak against it.
So who is party of the shadowy “Finance Working Group”? Well, one of them is “Pete Dutro, 34, a tattoo artist and former software project manager who dropped out of an NYU finance degree program to join the occupation.”
It must be a real hardship for Dutro to give up his education to handle all that money while sleeping in a park. Or it would be, if he weren’t using that money to stay in a $700 a night hotel.
Fritz Tucker, the Occupy participant quoted so extensively above, said of the funding takeover that “I felt like I was watching a local production of Animal Farm.” Having already deployed that metaphor, one wonder what he would have left to say about Mr. Dutro’s swanky hotel. If you put that in a novel, your editor would make you take it out because the symbolism was too heavy-handed.
From the very first Occupy Wall Street has struck me as a movement ginned-up by Obama’s left-wing allies, using a mixture of the usual circus who attend any left-wing rally plus some paid stooges and naive joiners, designed to distract attention from Obama scandals like Fast and Furious and Solyandra, and created out of a sense of “Tea Party Envy” on the left. But while Tea Party and Occupy Wall Street tentatively agree on one big economic problem (namely, crony capitalism), their approaches to solving it are radically different. The Tea Party wants to get rid of the cronyism, but the Occupy Wall Street crowd wants to keep the cronyism, but get rid of the capitalism.
In some ways you have to admire the efficiency of the operation. After all it took more than 200 years of the Republic before people like Nancy Pelosi and John Kerry were able to pervert democratic institutions the system enough to reap the full benefits of crony capitalism, but Pete Dutro has managed to go from misplaced idealism to outright looting in under two months!
Despite the risible “99%” posturing, Occupy Wall Street is being run by, and for, the Democratic Party and their left-wing fellow travelers: ACORN, unions, the MSM. (Has any Occupy [Place Name Here] protester ever called for smaller government and less spending?) Which is why its ironic that the only people it’s actually inconveniencing are those who live and work in the hearts of very large metropolitan areas, i.e. largely the same Obama-voting urban liberal elite who already seemed to believe in the risible class war tripe peddled by the Occupy Wall Street crowd. All it’s doing now is eating up municipal budgets and alienating independent potential Obama voters.
A few more random Occupy Wall Street tidbits:
