Indoctrination: What the Occupiers Believe and Why They Believe It

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NYPD arrest Occupy Wall Street protesters on the Brooklyn Bridge, Oct. 1

“In the hands of a skillful indoctrinator, the average student not only thinks what the indoctrinator wants him to think . . . but is altogether positive that he has arrived at his position by independent intellectual exertion. This man is outraged by the suggestion that he is the flesh-and-blood tribute to the success of his indoctrinators.”
– William F. Buckley Jr., Up From Liberalism (1959)

“We have a class called 21st Century Challenges and Choices. They’re studying the current world. They went on a field trip to see Occupy Denver.”
— Dierdre Cryor, principal, St. Mary’s Academy

“We want them to see the democratic process in action.”
— Celia Bard, Social Studies Department chair, St. Mary’s Academy

“You’re f–king up our future. . . . What do you think we learn at school? This is what we learned about. . . . We’re the 99 percent.”
— 17-year-old student, St. Mary’s Academy

Workers World Party national conference, New York, Oct. 8

“An epic battle is underway for the direction of our country. The Occupy movement is not alone. . . . We stand with the courageous young people who have sparked this movement and join with the occupiers who are putting themselves on the line to transform our nation and achieve a secure and sustainable future. . . . The time has come to put people before profits.”
— “Communist Party heralds Occupy Wall Street movement,” Oct. 18, 2011, CPUSA.org

“How do you tell a Communist? Well, it’s someone who reads Marx and Lenin. And how do you tell an anti-Communist? It’s someone who understands Marx and Lenin.”
— Ronald Reagan, Sept. 25, 1987

During today’s first anniversary broadcast of Da Tech Guy‘s radio show on WCRN, Jeff Goldstein of Protein Wisdom was discussing his video of Catholic schoolgirls who took part in an Occupy Denver protest against last weekend’s BlogCon:

In discussing the beliefs of the Occupiers, including these 17-year-old girls who attend a private Catholic academy where the tuition is $14,000 a year, Jeff suggested they had been “indoctrinated.” This called to mind Buckley’s description of indoctrination in Up From Liberalism, and made me wonder how these girls were taught that they are “the 99 percent” on whose behalf the Occupiers claim to speak.

Born in 1994, these girls cannot possibly have any useful memory of political events prior to the Bush presidency. They were in first grade during the 2000 election and were 14 when Obama was elected. Therefore whatever “knowledge” they have of history is what they have been taught, and the content of that curriculum undoubtedly accounts for their sympathy with the Occupy movement. Continue reading Indoctrination: What the Occupiers Believe and Why They Believe It →

‘Gentleman’ Jim Moran, Civil Servant

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by Smitty

That is, for ‘Civil’ means ‘Selfish’, along with ‘Overlord’ values of ‘Servant’. Remember when your retirement investments did a face plant during the 2008 election season?

Here is a brief tidbit from Throw Them All Out by Peter Schweizer. Chapter 2. Crisis For All, Opportunity For Some (emphasis original)

On Tuesday, September 16, 2008, when Henry Paulson and Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke held another of their terrifying closed-door meetings with congressional leaders (two days before the “ashen-faced” meeting), the stock market had dipped only a few percentage points, and most people assumed that the financial crisis was a disruption that would have just a limited effect on the broader economy. But what Paulson and Bernanke told lawmakers on September 16 made it clear that the public’s perception was wrong. Paulson, in his memoir, explains that during the meeting he outlined that the federal government was going to bail out the insurance giant AIG and that the markets were in deep trouble. “There was an almost surreal quality to the meeting,” he recounts. “The stunned lawmakers looked at us as if not quite believing what they were hearing.”

The next day, Congressman Jim Moran, Democrat of Virginia, a member of the Appropriations Committee, dumped his shares in ninety different companies. Moran is a former mayor and city councilman of Alexandria, Virginia. Earlier in his political career he had faced legal charges for casting a vote on the Alexandria City Council that helped a developer friend win a bid for a lucrative plot of land. Moran pleaded no contest to a misdemeanor charge and resigned. It did not stop his career. He was elected mayor in 1985, and to Congress shortly after. (It’s interesting to note that legal standards IN Virginia are apparently higher than those of the U.S. Congress. Had moran cast that same vote in Congress, there would be no cause for any charges.)

This post is reprises a post of a couple days back: ‘Gentleman’ Jim Moran Appreciates Him Some Real Nice Assets, and offers some context. I’m about 1/4 through Schweitzers book. Also not looking too good so far are Princess Pelosi and Senator ‘Stuck in Iraq’ Kerry. We’ll see if my ‘good gentleman’ Congressman appears in any further heists.

Arguing Jim Moran’s end of things–wait while I put on my mean old, hard-drinking, condescending, Ruling Class Overlord hat–everything he has done is perfectly, strictly legal. Furthermore, ‘they’ probably did worse, and ‘anyone’ could have done the same, if they had clawed their way up to a senior Democrat leadership position. The rationalizations are classic, straightforward, and vanish in a puff of hatred when the voters ‘call’ a Moran on his tendency to ‘put’ the tire iron alongside the voter head.

I’ve been voting against ‘Gentleman’ Jim for the last five elections. 2012 will be the second round since realizing that there is a moral imperative to stand up against the kind of falsehood that Moran represents. Moran brings a particular flavor of evil to the job, as we live in the shadow of Mount Vernon, the home of George Washington. It’s purely conter-factual to speculate how Washington would have reacted to Moran, but one would venture something involving a musket with a fixed bayonet would occur. Help Virginia relieve the Congress of ‘Gentleman’ Jim Moran. Support Patrick Murray.

Update: via American Power: Nancy, you ignorant Jane Curtin reference!

 

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Is This It? Newt Says GOP Choice Will ‘Come Down to Mitt and Me’

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Thirty-three months after the first Tea Party rallies, we are presented with a choice between Mr. “It’s His Turn” and Mr. Speaker:

A surging Newt Gingrich said he’s bracing for searing political attacks from all sides now that he’s the latest front-runner in the cutthroat Republican bid for president — and he predicted the GOP nomination will come down to him and Mitt Romney.
“I fully expect the effort will be made over next three weeks by the Obama people, by other people who want the nomination and the news media to scrutinize me,” the former U.S. House speaker told the Herald in an exclusive interview. . . .
“I really see Mitt and I as co-front-runners,” said Gingrich, adding that the nomination battle is “going to come down to Mitt and me.”
“The one consistency is that Mitt has a hard time getting over 24 or 25 percent (in the polls),” he added. “Everyone was looking for the next ‘Not Mitt.’ ”

Really? The next “Not Mitt” is a golden oldie blast from the past? Back to the days of mullets, when MTV played music videos?

(Via Memeorandum.)

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Today: Da Tech Guy on Da Radio Celebrates Da First Anniversary

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Our friend Pete Da Tech Guy has been broadcasting weekly on WCRN 830 AM — a 50,000-watt powerhouse in Worcester, Massachusetts — for a year now. Today’s broadcast at 10 a.m. ET is his first anniversary show, and his guests will include Professor Glenn Reynolds among others.

You can call 888-9-FEDORA (888-933-3672) to congratulate Pete during the show today or, better yet, you can go hit Da Tip Jar. (I did.)

If you’re in the central Massachusetts area, you can join Pete and his friends at Border Grille (246 Mill St., Leominster) for a special anniversary lunch today at 1 p.m. Considering that the Border Grille features more than 100 different brands of tequila, I’m sure it will be a memorable fiesta.

Occupy Sexual Assault: Disrespect for Private Property Has Consequences

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Celebrations of sociopathic tendencies — and demonizing wealth is sociopathic — tend to attract maladjusted deviants:

ST. LOUIS (KMOV) — A 20-year-old woman participating in the OccupySTL protest reported to police that a man sexually assaulted her while she was in her tent on November 8, three days before tents were removed by the city. . . .
Brian E. King, 38, was charged with first degree sexual misconduct after police said he crawled into the victim’s tent and touched her breast. The assault happened on November 8 at the encampment that used to be set up in Kiener Plaza.

Perhaps the suspect will claim he was acting upon the “social justice” rationale of the movement: He represents the 99% of guys who are unfairly deprived of their equal opportunity to grope the breasts of cute 20-year-old chicks. Fight the System!

UPDATE (Smitty): welcome, Instapundit readers!


Doug Hoffman Forgives Newt Gingrich?

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When Professor William Jacobson called this to my attention, I could scarcely believe it, yet Dave Weigel has the story:

So what does Hoffman think? Is Newt to be trusted?
“I support all the candidates running right at the moment,” said Hoffman. “Any one of them would be better than the current president, and that definitely includes Newt Gingrich. Newt apologized to me for not endorsing me, and that’s water over the dam, I think.”
Right before the election, Gingrich apologized publicly for endorsing Scozzafava. Sometime after the election, he called Hoffman to tell him personally.
“He was very sincere in his apology,” said Hoffman. “He was given misinformation as to what this race was all about, and what the other candidate was all about. The people in this district, the sort of local leaders who had endorsed Scozzafava, fed him the wrong information. I don’t think it was an error in his judgement. I would advise other conservative Republicans: Don’t hold this against him.”

Wow. Just . . . wow.

Dave e-mailed me his story and I told him I’d already seen it, but replied to the effect that perhaps, after 14 years in Washington, I’ve finally “gone native.” Anybody in Washington who got screwed over as badly as Hoffman got screwed over by Gingrich would insist on exacting their bloody retribution as a matter of principle, as a warning to anyone else who might be tempted to do the same.

If you let yourself be treated like a doormat, you can’t complain about the footprints on your back. Capische?

Imagine if the shoe had been on the other foot. How would Newt have reacted if Hoffman had done to him what he did to Hoffman?

Even if it was a sincere mistake — Gingrich being “given misinformation,” as Hoffman says — wasn’t Gingrich obligated to double-check his facts before going on Fox News the third or fourth times to praise Scozzafave and trash Hoffman? At the time, everybody who knew anything about the NY-23 race knew Newt was wrong, and yet he refused to walk-back his endorsement of Dede until after she quit and endorsed the Democrat.

“Water over the dam”? Doug, you’d be Congressman Hoffman today if Newt hadn’t spent two weeks in October 2009 going on TV — again and again and again — to badmouth you as a dangerous extremist.

This forgive-and-forget turn-the-other-cheek stuff is fine as a moral ideal, but moral idealism and three bucks will get you a cup of coffee in Washington, and in the time it takes to drink that cup of coffee, you’ll get backstabbed by a half-dozen of your “friends” who figure you for a weakling. It’s like being the slowest wildebeest in the herd when a hungry lion leaps out of the bushes down by the watering hole. Next thing you know, vultures are picking your bones.

So Doug Hoffman has forgiven Newt Gingrich, but that doesn’t mean I’m obligated to emulate Hoffman’s Christian example.

“You Still Have to Answer for Santino, Carlo.”


A Quick Search On ‘Waxman’ In
‘Throw Them All Out’ Turned Up Nothing

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by Smitty

Still in the first chapter of Throw Them All Out on the Kindle. No mention of Waxman for a text search or in the index. Yet this piece in CNSNews makes you wonder if he’s scoring bank or just a kool-aid quaffer:

Representative Henry Waxman (D-Calif.), the ranking Democrat on the House Energy and Commerce Committee, said that Department of Energy subsidies, such as the the failed $535-million loan guarantee to solar company Sloyndra, were “saving” people from “fires, droughts and floods” that are caused by global warming.
“I want to put this in perspective Dr. Chu,” Waxman told Energy Secretary Steven Chu on Thursday at a House Energy and Commerce subcommittee hearing on the Solyndra failure. “You’ve been trying to move our nation toward a clean energy economy. And that’s essential to protect American families from fires and droughts and floods and other extreme weather that climate change will bring.”

Maybe with eight years in, he’s not getting cut into the really good deals like my Congresstool, ‘Gentleman’ Jim Moran. Or, the honest people of Waxman’s district aren’t looking hard enough at the record to locate the graft.

What a fascinating contrast: the revelations of Congressmen doing things that may not be strictly illegal, but certainly shall not pass the smell test, while simultaneously blowing off the basic job of running the country’s budget, as exemplified by the Stupor Committee. Don’t even bother with anger, people. Instead, harden the resolve to get involved and deliver an anti-incumbent tsunami next November that will make 2010 seem a mere pump-priming.

Reader Robert Birch sends the following quote:

“In politics, stupidity is not a handicap.” ? Napoleon Bonaparte

Update: linked at Katy Pundit