I was going to write about the Obama/Boehner speech timing dust-up this week, but that’s already over. And I was going to write about Obama’s upcoming “jobs speech” that will undoubtedly be all the rage this week, but what’s the point in writing a long piece about something that can be summed up thusly: blah, blah, I’m doing all I can. Blah, spend billions. Blah, infrastructure. Blah, inherited. Blah, let me be clear. Blah.
Won’t people please stop not letting the man be clear? Just once?
Read anything anyone has written about Obama’s other “major” speeches on jobs and you’ll pretty much know what he’s going to say Thursday.
It’s Labor Day weekend, so I’ve decided to unionize myself for 3 days and go on strike, just to see what it’s like. By “strike” I mean drink alcohol and sleep in everyday.
Anyway, enough preamble, on with the show.
The Death Throes Of Progressive Tactics?
While you were off enjoying your August, several members of the Congressional Black Caucus were traveling the land spreading good cheer.
They went on a four-city bus tour they call the “For the People Jobs Initiative.” On our dime, they traveled to Detroit, Atlanta, Los Angeles and Miami to hold jobs fairs and give speeches to the un- or underemployed.
It wasn’t enough to undertake this blatant campaign trip on our dime. These “leaders” had to set their constituents straight on who their friends are in Washington.
It’s not the Tea Party. That’s for sure. The Tea Party, said Rep. Maxine Waters, D-Calif., “can go to Hell.” Why? Because it is racist and wants to lynch black people, according to Rep. André D-IN. Seriously. They’re still saying that stuff. It’s like the greatest hits of broken record, over and over, relentlessly, for more than 50 years now.
And they’re not alone. Much of the media and political left join in the chorus. Dylan Ratigan rages daily on his show on MSDNCNBC about how Republicans and their masters on Wall Street (news to the Obama ’08 fundraising team, but no matter) are robbing the “little guy” of his chance at the American dream. The racial undertones are impossible not to notice.
But what is racism? Is it not caring about the melanin in someone’s skin? Or is it seeing the melanin levels and immediately making assumptions about people based on that?
We can see which the left would choose based on its actions in the war on poverty. Poverty programs – from Title I schools to TANF to food stamps – are administered according to racial quotas. They say they’re about poverty, but they’re not. They’re about race because the left equates race with poverty. They think if you’re black, you should be poor. If you are poor, it’s not your fault. If you’re not, you’re a turncoat and a victim (always a victim of something) of Stockholm Syndrome.
Seriously again. That’s what former actress and comedienne Janeane Garofalo said about Herman Cain, Clarence Thomas and other black conservatives … that they were suffering from “Stockholm Syndrome” because they don’t conform to the way she and other progressives believe they should think.
Truth is the poor are victims, as are blacks and Hispanics and all the “minority groups” catered to by politicians such as our friends on the bus tour. But they’re not victims of society. They’re victims of race and poverty hustlers, progressive leaders and their pals in the media whose jobs depend on creating a permanent, dependent underclass.
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They heap on the rhetoric – because you’re black/Hispanic/poor, the deck is stacked against you. Your own abilities offer no hope out of your predicament. If you come to believe otherwise … if you come to believe there is a better way out of poverty than government handouts, that we’re responsible for our own outcomes .. you threaten their scam.
And there’s no accountability in the media because most of those in the news business swallow this groupthink whole. Remember the birthers? Remember how every time a conservative got behind a microphone, he or she was asked to denounce the birthers? Heard anyone asked to defend Garofalo’s comments? They’re just as crazy, yet conservatives are held accountable for their fringe and progressives are...well, actually all fringe.
It’s begun to dawn on the left that this game of divide and conquer doesn’t work as well anymore, which explains their anger management problems of late. Conservatives of color are popping up all over. They and others are recognizing that poverty programs don’t do much to alleviate poverty, that making the rich poor simply leaves us with no rich and that – as the August job numbers remind us – nobody gets a job out of government “stimulus.”
The Blame-Wall Street gimmick is running its course as well as Americans come to realize no industry has ever been regulated into wealth and that many corporations – shhhh – don’t really hate regulations. In fact, they see them as profit centers or barriers to entry for competitors. And they pay big bucks – to liberal politicians – to preen about talking of what’s “good for the people” and “good for the environment” and to enact these regulatory cash cows.
We’ve moved past our obsession with race – those born after the riots of the ‘60s think little of skin color; their children think even less. Working together fixed that. In the workplace, everyone can see what everyone else is made of. Smart, disciplined people of any race usually succeed, and lazy and selfish people usually fail – regardless of background. Plus, as Americans, we’ve always reveled in the success of the underdog and admired the self-made made man or woman.
Ironically, President Obama is as good example of this. It wasn’t government programs or race-based preferences that brought him from a mixed-rate birth and uneven upbringing to the pinnacle of power. It was talent and hard work and dedication. I still cringe when I hear people call him the first black president. It’s not being black that’s so incredible, it’s being president. Only 43 other humans have achieved this. The qualifiers serve only to cheapen the accomplishment and feed the narrative of victimhood. Someday we’ll get past these first-black-to-accomplish-X and first-Hispanic-to-accomplish-Y moments, and I hope it happens quickly so we can stop hearing about it.
That’s when you know racism truly has reached its death bed – when race truly doesn’t matter, when it’s not used to shoehorn us into molds that don’t apply. But don’t expect it to die a quiet death. The left has too much invested in race-based victimology to ever simply let it go.
In the meantime, you can feel the anger as it emanates from the Congressional Black Caucus bus tour or the rhetoric of any progressive on TV or print, or the buffoonery of the jump-to-the-front-of-the-parade types, such as Al Sharpton (an official MSNBC host now). They know they’re wrong. We know they’re wrong. What’s making them so angry is they realize – finally – everyone else is catching on to the fact that they’re wrong.
Also-Ran Stories
For Those Of You About To Rock (We Arrest You).
Do you own a Gibson guitar? Whether you know how to play one or you’re like me, someone who has a guitar hanging on the wall because the only thing I can do to a guitar is “Pete Townsend” it against the floor, you’d better make sure it’s the “right” kind of guitar...or else. The federal government sent a team of heavily armed agents into two Gibson factories this week because they are using the wrong kind of wood. Not the wrong kind of wood according to US law, but the wrong kind according to foreign law. You read that right - Gibson didn’t break US law, but the US government raided them on suspicion of breaking foreign law. As Andrew Langer points out, Gibson kissed all the right butts in the environmentalist community, but there’s no kissing it long enough because you exist wrong when you own private property. Gibson learned a lesson yet learned by far too many companies in this country who fund the left-wing industrial complex hoping to keep them at bay, that these leftist groups will happily take your money but it will never be enough to get them to forget that you’re a capitalist enterprise and they hate capitalism. They may not come at you first, but they will come at you, and they’ll come at you like a rabid spider monkey who thinks your face is made of bananas. As an added bonus, the President Obama’s Justice Department made it clear to Gibson CEO Henry Juszkiewicz that in an age of 9.1 percent unemployment, they could avoid all this harassment in the future by manufacturing their product in Madagascar. Seriously. So before you flip over from the President’s speech to the NFL this Thursday, keep in mind he’s only talking about creating jobs in industries and for businesses he and his friends like...which may or may not be yours.
Kiss Of Death - Thy Name Is Praise. How does a small company burn through $535 million dollars in one year? Aside from a money bonfire, I really have no idea. Frankly, I don’t care how a company does it, except when it’s our money. Enter Solyndra, a solar energy company based in California. They filed for bankruptcy this week a year after being the recipient of a half billion dollars in loan guarantees from taxpayers. What, you don’t remember signing the paperwork to authorize essentially giving a company you’ve never heard of $535 million of money we don’t have? Neither do I. You can read all about the sweetheart deal a major Obama fundraiser got, and blew, here. Solyndra is yet another in a long line of companies to be praised as the future of employment and American business by President Obama...and then go out of business. You can tell the economy is bad when praise from the President in front of a national audience comes with free Chapter 11 paperwork. The President loves “green jobs” the way some people love unicorns, which is fitting because neither are real. I’m all for cars that operate on spit and a desire to make them run, but until a car like that is invented, we’re stuck with the ones that run on gasoline. So-called “green jobs” are a fraud, a scam. They won’t always be, it’s likely someday the technology will exist to make our lives like the Jetsons, but not today. We need to stop wasting money chasing unicorns and leave businesses alone to sink or swim on their own. If someone builds a bigger mousetrap the people will buy it, we don’t need government involved. With government picking winners and losers in the market place, and using our money to do it, the well-connected political donors will always be the winners, and us...Well, you know the rest.
And In The End...
Not The Answer You Want To Give To The Question: What Are You In For? I never park in a handicapped spot, even after hours when the lot is empty, and have no respect for anyone who doesn’t belong there who does. My mother lost her right leg above the knee when I was 9, so I’ve seen first-hand the importance of those spots to those for whom they were designed. But if you’re going to (for some weird or lazy reason), turning yourself in for the ticket you deserve is a mark of good character. That’s how the story of Michael Andes begins...but that’s not where it ends. Andes called the police to report himself and that’s when the fun began. When the police showed up, Andes became belligerent, refusing to cooperate “and took an aggressive stance at the officers.” He was tased and arrested, then proceeded to cry like a little girl with a skinned knee in his mugshots. Seriously, click the link. You can’t make this stuff up. He was released on $1,000 bond and got a ticket for parking in a handicapped spot. The lesson here is simple - don’t be a jackass. It’s not complicated, it’s pretty easy not to do, yet it all too often seems a bridge too far for too many people these days.
That’s all for now. Happy Labor Day.
Go about your week.
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