THE NEO-MARXIST AGENDA OF THE ANTI-MILITARY LEFT

On January 29 of this year, the Berkeley City Council called the US Marines "unwelcome", "uninvited", and told them to get out of their city. They authorized the radical group, Code Pink, to harass the local recruiting station by granting them a preferred parking space in front of the office and waiving any permits they might need for 6 months of 'activity'.

This sort of floridly anti-military and anti-American behavior on the part of the nut clusters on the political left seems to be a fairly frequent occurrance in this day and age. Berkeley happens to be one of the main players in these little psychodramas, but you can find the same sort of moral insanity wherever the species academicus pseudointellectualis runs rampant, i.e., in most university towns.

The same manics who espouse the "military oppresses and victimizes our children" meme--which was the Berkeley City Council's righteous explanation of their scurrilous behavior--will often rapidly shift into a somber depressive mode at a moment's notice and, as evidence of their devout "support of the troops", will tut tut about the terrible victimization of the poor, oppressed and helpless 'children' who serve in the U.S. military.

Thomas Sowell made an excellent point about this sometime back when he discussed the way the left "support the troops":

The front cover of Newsweek's March 5th issue featured a woman with amputated legs and a sweatshirt that said "ARMY" across the front. Inside, there were pages and pages of other pictures of badly wounded and disfigured military veterans, in a long article that began under the big headline: "Forgotten Heroes."

The utter hypocrisy of all this can be seen in the word "heroes." There have been many acts of heroism among our troops in Iraq -- but those heroes didn't make the front cover of Newsweek.

One man fell on a grenade to protect his buddies, smothering the fatal blast with his body, so that those around him might live when he died. But that never made the front cover of Newsweek. It was barely mentioned anywhere in the liberal media.

They are not interested in heroes. They are interested in depicting victims -- in the military as in civilian society...

After generations of dumbed-down education in our schools, perhaps it is inevitable that there would be large numbers of people who have no way of separating rhetoric from reality.

The reality is that many of those in the media and in politics who are constantly talking about "supporting our troops" or "honoring our troops" have for years been in the forefront of those criticizing or undermining the military, long before the Iraq war.

Ahhhh...victimhood.

Now this is a theme the political left really gets behind! And it regularly alternates with the regularly recycled one about the US military being murderous, raping oppressors, who seduce foolish children into joining their ranks--in Berkeley and elsewhere.

Until recently, almost all of the leftist rhetoric against the Iraq war has focused dramatically on the toll it has taken on our military. This was seen in the daily death counts; the portentous talking heads seriously intoning about the latest explosions and such. How horrible and tragic it all is blah blah blah.

You saw a lot of this until the troop surge began to dramatically cut back on the American casualties in Iraq.

But as Sowell notes, parading casualties in front of the public is not the same thing as "honoring our troops." Honoring them means that we need to talk about the good things they have done; their achievements. But on those realities, the left and their Democratic mouthpieces in Congress and the MSM are almost completely silent.

Simply "pointing out that someone is dismembered or disfigured" is not "honoring" them.

Honoring them is recognizing their sacrifice by placing it in perspective.

No one in the MSM, for example, has ever acknowledged that those who join the military and put their lives on the line for their country do so voluntarily and that they see it as a profession; with professional risks that they are willing to take.

Almost always, the focus of such stories is on the few souls who deeply regret having made the choice to serve and now want to break their committments and walk away from it all. Such morally vacillating individuals are celebrated for "coming to their senses" and heroically "speaking truth to power". That they made a choice and that the honorable thing would be to live with the consequences of that choice is never discussed. It is considered a "travesty" that they have consequences--like a court martial--at all.

Almost everything that is reported is designed to demonstrate what an awful war the poor victimized soldiers have to fight in. And how inconsiderate and uncaring the evil Bush Administration is toward their plight.

You may have noticed that, for the most part, there are only two ideological templates that exist for journalism regarding the U.S. military: Either, (1) they are the poor helpless victims of an oppressive military system and the current political administration which horribly abuses them; OR, (2) they are the brutal, savage, sadistic psychopaths that enjoy inflicting death and misery and who are encouraged to do so by the oppressive military system and the current political administration.

Just yesterday, the "Abu Ghraib" storyline has come back into the news cycle, as it always does when things are going really well in Iraq. This happens to remind us that there are indeed real psychopaths who join the military--though I would say real psychopaths are also highly represented in leftist "antiwar" organizations like Code Pink et al.

In that regard, you might recall the recent attempt by the NY Times to smear soldiers returning from Iraq by portraying them as vicious murderers unleashed on the hapless American population. Too bad the paper forgot to put that information in context, too.

There is no middle ground on this subject for the political left and its allies in the media. They simply flip-flop between the 'oppressed victim' or 'brutal oppressor 'meme, depending on which one suits their purposes at the moment.

This bipolarity reflects the way the political left views the world.

This just happen to dovetail nicely with the same old, tired marxist view of the world; where a person must be either one of the "oppressed" victim class or one of the brutal "oppressor" class.

Karl Marx may well be the most popular figure never mentioned journalism schools these days, and all journalist wannabees are consciously trained to bring the marxist perspective (sometimes referred to as standing up for "social justice" in the nether realms of neo-marxism) into every article and story as part of the journalist's role of being an advocate for 'truth, justice and the socialist way'.

Sadly, many other professions--like teaching-- have surreptitiously adopted this sad ideology as the unspoken premise of required coursework--just take a look at many of the topics now required in academic curricula for the social sciences .

Caught up in the marxist agenda of their postmodern rhetoric--with which they hope to "make the world a better place"--the graduates of these programs march in lockstep with the other "oppressed" people of the world, including the poor victimized terrorists and all the helpless and persecuted dictators and tyrants who also only want to make the world a better place (with them in charge, of course).

But if you speak to the vast majority of military personnel; or read the blogs and letters they write home about their experiences, they will give you a perspected that does not depend on the marxist dialectic template; and which also presents a more realistic and honest portrayal of events.

In their own writings you can clearly see the honor they bring to their mission; and the everyday valor and courage they live as they serve their country.

The important point is this: the grim costs of any war or conflict--which include the damaged lives and bodies of the soldiers depicted in the latest round of MSM handwringing over Walter Reed, as well as the death of every soldier in Iraq and anywhere--must always be placed in the context of how much peace and security have their sacrifice, given voluntarily and with honor, brought to the country and people they willingly serve?

The inescapable truth is that there has not been another 9/11 to date on our soil. This reality was an unimaginable one after that horrific day in our history. No one thought that we would be spared for the next 5 years. Yet that is exactly what has happened; and the only conclusion that can be drawn is that it is the bold (and occasionally flawed) actions of our military--in Iraq and Afghanistan, along with other efforts by this administration, that have made us safe during this time. And, other areas of the world (e.g. Europe-- whose countries are in full appeasement mode) have not been.

James Lewis remarked at American Thinker in an editorial about the utter moral vacuity of the left and its media partners:

The greatest disappointment since 9/11/01 has been the total moral vacuity of the Left—a complete and utter nullity—both here and in Europe. Today, five years later, psychological denial still rules the day, and the few Democrats who raise their heads above the screaming mob are chased out, like Joe Lieberman and Zell Miller.

One-third of American voters are still being suckered by the left-wing media, who live in some sort of Toon-Town where you can Have your Cake and Eat it Too, where Lunches are Free and Health Care is Too, and where there are no ideological killer movements in this world, and to achieve World Peace you just have to point your finger at the “Warmongers” and scream really loud. The Left is now populated by “mewling, puking infants,” as William Shakespeare put it, utterly lacking an understanding of the world as it is.

Now, of course, we daily the Obama Messiah preaching the same neo-marxist BS, but its stench is perfumed by a charismatic personality and tempered by the emptiness of his lovely words. Obama talks of "change", but even the briefest glance at his specific programs are the same old same old the left has been preaching for decades. He and Hillary represent the newest 21st century version of that BS. The difference between them is that Obama really means it; and Hillary just says whatever she thinks she needs to to win.

So Barack gets high marks for ideological honesty, at least. If the American people stop swooning over his charisma and actually look at what he suggests we do in a number of areas and then vote for him anyway...they will have been seduced by a pretty face and smooth talk just like any other rube.

Getting back to the two-sided military template of the left, if you extricate yourself from all the postmodern neo-marxist rhetoric for just a brief moment, you might reflect that the greatest way to honor the members of our military is to give them the status of real human beings with free will--and not automatons of a ridiculous marxist dialectic, i.e., they are neither oppressors nor are they oppressed--who have chosen to fight for this country; and who want only to complete the mission they have been given with honor and integrity. They are willing to cope with the consequences of their choices and they do so on a daily basis.

And in this postmodern day and age, that accomplishment is truly, remarkably heroic.

UPDATE: REST IN PIECES

Apropo to the post immediately below this one, if what The Jawa Report posts turns out to be true, then this it is great news for humanity:

February 28, 2008
American Traitor Adam Gadahn is Dead Update

A source tells The Jawa Report that Adam Gadahn is dead***Sticky: Scroll down for newer posts***
Is American al Qaeda member and indicted traitor Adam Gadahn dead? Shortly after a U.S. Predator drone attack killed Abu Laith al-Libi last month rumors began to circulate on Islamic message board that Gadahn had been one of those killed in the raid. Later, a Pakistani newspaper quoted "sources" saying Gadahn was killed.

There are "too many body parts" for absolute confirmation at this time apparently....

ADAM GADAHN, REST IN PIECES

WHY JOHN DONNE WAS WRONG

No man is an Island, entire of itself; every man is a piece of the Continent, a part of the main; if a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe is the less, as well as if a promontory were, as well as if a manor of thy friends or of thine own were; any man's death diminishes me, because I am involved in Mankind; And therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; It tolls for thee.

--John Donne, Meditation XVII

On the whole, I consider myself extremely pro-human--radically so, in fact. I've spent most of my professional life as a psychiatrist being "involved in Mankind". And, when you think about Donne's quote above, it boils down to the reality that when you define the essence of what it means to be 'human' or a part of 'mankind'; it define thee.

Mike Baker explains this quite eloquently:

Just the other night, while having our usual Wednesday happy hour at the office ....one of the interns asked if I thought it was morally okay to be happy that the senior Hezbollah terrorist Imad Mughniyeh had just been blown up in a car bomb in Damascus, Syria.

A young, idealistic intern, just at the beginning of life’s journey — all full of beans and optimism. As I silently pondered how the folks at Bakers make their bourbon so yummy, I also took a minute to consider how best to answer the intern’s stupid question. The pause clearly made me look wise. Wise and sensitive to her concern.

I sat down, snagged a couple of cashews, which I think go really well with bourbon, and stared hard at the intern.

The fact that just that morning I had declared it “Mughniyeh Finally Got What He Deserved By Being Blown Straight To Hell Day" at the office, with a banner, refreshments and everything, clearly had made her think I was insensitive to his death.

The rest of the staff sat quietly waiting for an answer. “Did I think it was morally okay to be happy that Mughniyeh got all blowed up?"

Time for an answer....

I said that every human life starts out as precious; something to be treasured, valued and treated with dignity and respect.

But then some of those lives veer off track, becoming murderers, pedophiles or in Mughniyeh’s case, a butchering terrorist with the blood of several hundred innocent people on his hands. At the point where these individuals choose to carry out heinous acts, they opt out of civilization and all those lofty, righteous ideals regarding the treatment of human life.

That’s the point where I no longer feel a moral obligation to worry about how they are treated. If you choose to become a terrorist, I choose to view you as less than human. We’ve all got free will. Ain’t life grand?

Now, of course, there are loads of people who bang on about the values of our country, and how treating even one terrorist improperly eats away at our principles and makes us less American.

Whether celebrating the termination of a bloodthirsty killer or using an aggressive technique in very limited circumstances to gather information from the high value detainee who doesn’t respond to kindness, the theory goes that we are debasing ourselves, chipping away at our humanity, causing the rest of the world to hate us or contributing to the destruction of our planet.

Something like that.

Well, take a deep breath, count to three, and in a clear, strong voice say, "What a load of crap."

John Donne was wrong, you see, because his geographical metaphor does not begin to capture the complexity of the human experience. 'Clods' of dirt make no choices in the course of their inanimate existence and are battered by the waves of environmental reality. Every clod is at the mercy of these forces and cannot choose to betray 'clodness'. But there are some human beings who willfully and deliberately betray their humanity, and because of that betrayal, their continued existence diminishes me and every other human being who remains involved in mankind. This happens, not in some theoretical or abstract sense of the concept of 'mankind', but in the real lives of real human beings living on planet earth.

These human-but-not-human monsters that live among us, who delight in destroying, defiling and dismembering their fellow humans, deserve many bells tolling in celebration of their passing from this time/space continuum to a place where they can rot for the rest of eternity--as mere, inanimate clods of dirt.

As Baker suggests, they made a deliberate choice to leave the human family; and, truth be told, the human family is much better off without them.

Instead of thinking of mankind as Donne's continent, think of it as a living, breathing collection of flesh and blood. People like Mughniyeh-- or any other terrorist who joyfully commits him or herself to butchering his fellow humans in the name of some abstract utopian ideal-- has devolved from a human being to nothing but a cancerous growth eating away at the entire body of humanity. As long as that cancerous growth is allowed to grow, the entire body is 'diminished.' When the Mughniyeh cancer is cut out, the body becomes healthier.

I don't know about you, but I can live with that metaphor; and further, like Baker, my humanity (and longevity) is only enhanced when any cancer preying on the body is completely and thoroughly obliterated.

THEY DON'T NEED NO STINKIN' FACTS

Oh dear. Do Al Gore and the Envirofacists have it all wrong?

Twelve-month long drop in world temperatures wipes out a century of warming

Over the past year, anecdotal evidence for a cooling planet has exploded. China has its coldest winter in 100 years. Baghdad sees its first snow in all recorded history. North America has the most snowcover in 50 years, with places like Wisconsin the highest since record-keeping began. Record levels of Antarctic sea ice, record cold in Minnesota, Texas, Florida, Mexico, Australia, Iran, Greece, South Africa, Greenland, Argentina, Chile -- the list goes on and on.

Meteorologist Anthony Watts compiled the results of all the sources. The total amount of cooling ranges from 0.65C up to 0.75C -- a value large enough to erase nearly all the global warming recorded over the past 100 years. All in one year time. For all sources, it's the single fastest temperature change ever recorded, either up or down.

Scientists quoted in a past DailyTech article link the cooling to reduced solar activity which they claim is a much larger driver of climate change than man-made greenhouse gases. The dramatic cooling seen in just 12 months time seems to bear that out. While the data doesn't itself disprove that carbon dioxide is acting to warm the planet, it does demonstrate clearly that more powerful factors are now cooling it.

The question comes down to whether or not all that supposed "scientific consensus" on the inevitability of global warming is anything but hype designed to empower leftist politicians who hold the quasi-religious belief that human activity must be controlled for 'the good of the planet'. Some of the more deranged have even suggested that politicians who ignore global warming science should be thrown in jail. Interestingly, that's the same useful technique the Soviet Union used to achieve scientific "consensus" on a number of issues.

I wonder what the envirofascists think should be done if people ignore global cooling ? I'm sure they will have a brand new justification for asserting control over others. When facts get in the way of emotion, who needs those stinkin' facts? I'm sure Al Gore and his many fans answer to a higher, truthier reality--the one where they are in charge and we bow and scrape to their will.

CRAZY

Cartoons by Mike Lester

IT WAS 15 YEARS AGO TODAY, AL QAEDA TAUGHT THE BAND TO PLAY...

Remembering the first WTC bombing whose anniversary is today:

On the morning of February 26, 1993, Islamic militants steered a nondescript Ryder van through the winding darkness of the parking garage under the World Trade Center. They had spent years planning this moment in secret meetings at mosques and jailhouses, in rural outposts that served as paramilitary camps, and in safehouses where explosive compounds were mixed in makeshift labs.

Loaded into the van’s rear compartment was a 1,400-pound chemical bomb.

The 'silver lining' of the resultant devastation was that the terrorists miscalculated and did not manage to bring down the towers like they intended, and thus did not cause the degree of terror they had hoped to do.

McCarthy notes, "In hindsight, we now know the silver lining caused us to miss the ferocity and determination of our enemies."

This was in 1993. Then there was Bin Laden's February 23, 1998 declaration of war on the US and Israel for a variety of "crimes" against Islam (including, btw, Iraq--remember, this was 1998):

[...]in compliance with God's order, we issue the following fatwa to all Muslims:

The ruling to kill the Americans and their allies -- civilians and military -- is an individual duty for every Muslim who can do it in any country in which it is possible to do it, in order to liberate the al-Aqsa Mosque and the holy mosque [Mecca] from their grip, and in order for their armies to move out of all the lands of Islam, defeated and unable to threaten any Muslim. This is in accordance with the words of Almighty God, "and fight the pagans all together as they fight you all together," and "fight them until there is no more tumult or oppression, and there prevail justice and faith in God."

The Clinton Administration barely noticed then, and the heirs of that Administration, as well as almost the entire Democratic Party, remain clueless now--about the threat, and about the intentions of the enemy.

Recently, Henry Kissinger told Der Spiegal magazine that:

SPIEGEL: Isn’t German and European opposition to a greater military involvement in Afghanistan and Iraq also a result of deep distrust of American power?

Kissinger: By this time next year, we will see the beginning of a new administration. We will then discover to what extent the Bush administration was the cause or the alibi for European-American disagreements. Right now, many Europeans hide behind the unpopularity of President Bush. And this administration made several mistakes in the beginning.
[…]
Kissinger: … But I do believe that George W. Bush has correctly understood the global challenge we are facing, the threat of radical Islam, and that he has fought that battle with great fortitude. He will be appreciated for that later.

SPIEGEL: In 50 years, historians will treat his legacy more kindly?

Kissinger: That will happen much earlier.

Specifically, Kissinger believes that Bush managed to take the fight to the Islamists and by doing so has changed the dynamics of the conflict to the advantage of the west. You've got to wonder how many bombings and how much further loss of life in the homeland would have been tolerated by a Gore administration; and if they would have ever come to understand the global nature of the threat. Certainly, the party of Gore, of Clinton, of Obama still do not.

Soon the world will not have a visceral hatred of George W. Bush--a relative visionary in a world of near-sighted, and ideologically-limited leftists, obsessed with their loss of power, influence, and relevance in the new century--to be a shield against the reality of Islamic fanaticism.

So, may I introduce to you/ the act you've know for all these years,/ O.Bin Laden's jihad terror thugs.

GET ALONG EU DOGIES ?

Victor Davis Hanson's essay titled"Yippie Ti Yi Yo Europe" evaluates some the serious challenges that are facing Europe:

In the last few days, we’ve been reminded yet again that Europe’s radical secularism, atheism, socialism, multiculturalism, childlessness, and aging population make a fascinating but unstable mix — a lovely, fragile orchid in a thinly protected greenhouse.

Kosovo has just declared its independence from Serbia, and what follows could be nightmarish. An oil-rich, bellicose, and rearming Russia doesn’t much like the new breakaway state. But France, Germany, and most of the European Union — other than its Orthodox members and those in close proximity to Vladimir Putin — encouraged it. To paraphrase Joseph Stalin, “How many divisions does the E.U. have?”

Hanson then goes on to list the various dilemmas of the Europeans, who secretly would like nothing better than to have some US "cowboys" come and rescue them.

How do all these diverse narratives and agendas add up? The vauntedEuropean multicultural, multilateral, utopian and pacifist worldview is now on its own and thus will get hammered as never before in the unrelenting forge of history. Very soon there will be no more George W. Bush to dump on, hide behind, and blame for the widening cracks in the Atlantic alliance. Instead Europeans may well have to call on the old pro, Commander-in-Chief Barack Obama, to lead them in negotiating sessions with jihadists, Iran, and Russia....

Europe is in a classic paradox. Emotionally and culturally, Europeans are invested in a leftist such as Obama who reflects their soft socialist values and fuzzy multilateralism. But given their inherent military weakness and rough neighborhood, they have grown to count on an antithetical America — religious, conservative, militarily strong — that is not afraid to use force to fulfill its obligations to preserve the shared Western globalized system from its constant multifarious challenges. I’m not sure they privately want a President Obama calling Sarkozy or Merkel and announcing, “I think we should co-chair a worldwide Islamic conference to hear out Iran’s grievances.” Much better it would be for the U.S. to ensure that Iran doesn’t get the bomb — at which point the French elite would trash America in Le Monde for being unilateral, cowboyish, and preemptive.

Ah well, even if the Europeans are beginning to wake up to their obvious vulnerabilites in a world without a strong U.S. presence--i.e., one where the U.S. has instead embraced a cozy Euro-style leftism--they might just have to live with such a reality.

They won't like it much.

Because when their radically secular atheistic, multiculti socialist ethic hits the fan(aticism) of radical Islam, and all those "peace", "love", "brotherhood", and "tolerance" messages they spout fail to protect them; they will either get steamrolled into submission; or they will have to re-evaluate the functionality of their fuzzy ideology in the real world.

Underreaction and its consequences may ultimately help to focus the mind on reality.

Read Hanson's entire discussion. In one respect, I suspect that VDH is incorrect, however; it may well be Europe's 'misfortune' to be faced with these dilemmas and challenges, but ultimately, if the US pretends it's 'none of our own', we may be swept up anyway in the painful repercussions of European disintigration.

The Sanity Squad discuss some of the implications of the Kosovar declaration of independence for the EU and the US on BlogTalkRadio. Click on the button below to listen:

SANITY SQUAD AT 8PM TONITE !

After a two week break, the Sanity Squad will return tonight to discuss recent ominous events that have been significantly under-reported by our crack MSM. The Balkan policies started in motion by Bill Clinton began to come to fruition in the last week with the declaration of independence by Kosovo. The EU and America support their independence but the picture is quite a bit more complicated. Join Dr. Sanity, Shrinkwrapped, Neo, and (insert Royal wave here) ourselves as we attempt to elucidate.

The podcast can accessed from the Sanity Squad BTR Homepage.

The call in number is is (646) 716-9116.
As a reminder, there is no crying in baseball, therapy or podcasts.

THE DEMOCRATS' COLLECTIVE COGNITIVE CATATONIA

Hear no evil:

On February 16, last year's bipartisan legislation governing the collection of foreign intelligence and protecting from liability all persons who comply with federal directives to assist in such collection--the law otherwise known as the "Protect America Act of 2007"--expired, having exhausted its six-month, 15-day statutory lifespan. At which time the federal government's ability to pursue suspected terrorists and emerging threats was dealt a serious blow. You can thank House Democrats for the whole sorry mess.

The Democratic leadership denies this, of course, having adopted an Alfred E. Neuman "What, Me Worry?" approach to national security. The lack of a new statute "does not, in reality, threaten the safety of Americans," protests Senate majority leader Harry Reid....

This demonstrates a fundamental lack of seriousness about national security on the part of congressional Democrats. Newsflash: The United States faces a persistent threat of attack from a terrorist organization with global reach and the desire to massacre as many innocent people as possible. Do House Democrats really want to make the terrorists' jobs any easier?

Well truthfully, they don't really care about the terrorists' 'jobs' as long as they have job security--and the White House.

See no evil:

Whew, that was a close one. We suffered a big attack and were in mortal danger for a while, but we are safe now. Thank God, the war on terror is over. There are no Islamic extremists. Homeland security is not an issue. The only problem in Iraq is how to get out.

Wait, this is news to you? Then you didn't watch the Democratic debate Thursday. Or maybe you did watch, but since those unpleasant topics were completely or mostly ignored, you assumed the war was over and went to bed believing peace is at hand and Santa Claus is busy making toys at the North Pole.

It's not your fault. It's the Democratic presidential candidates who are sleepwalking through history....

While Bush's flawed handling of Iraq is a main reason, the unwillingness to separate his failure from the overriding truths of the continuing terror threat will come back to haunt not only Democrats, but the nation.

Consider that what was once called a generational war against an existential threat is now by unanimous consent of the candidates only a misguided Republican war in Iraq that must be ended immediately. What was once a bipartisan concern about the new phenomenon of lethal nonstate actors such as Al Qaeda has been reduced to denunciations of waterboarding and attacks on the Patriot Act.

Speak no evil :

We scanned the transcripts of Saturday's debates hosted by ABC News and tallied up the references to Islamic terrorism. The rhetorical divide between Democrats and Republicans on that score alone — ignoring the yawning gaps in policy — is stunning.

None of the four Democrat presidential candidates — despite running for an office that demands they lead the ongoing global war against Islamic extremists — could bring himself or herself to define the enemy we face as Islamic.

Their combined references to "Islam" or "Islamic" totaled zero — even though moderator Charles Gibson prompted them with a question about "Islamic radicals" threatening the U.S. with nuclear terrorism.

But Democrats refused to go there.

That's because to "go there" would force them to acknowledge some painful realities that they are not capable of dealing with.

Then there's this article, in which the LA Times re-starts the meme about how Bush supposedly "exaggerates" the intelligence that will be lost from the Dems failure to enact the reform bill--undoubtedly so they could "speak truth to power" and stand against the usual "fear and warmongering" of the Bush Administration. Andy McCarthy of The Corner has this to say:

The impression, of course, is that the administration overstated its case that the intelligence community has lost information due to the shameful failure of House Democrats to enact the intelligence reform bill that passed the Democrat-controlled Senate by an overwhelming bipartisan margin. If one reads what was actually said, however, it's obvious that that's not what happened.

Read his entire discussion to understand how the Administration is actually sounding an alarm that neither House Democrats nor the Los Angeles Times seem to want to hear.

You could interpret all this behavior as symptomatic of a combined hysterical blindness, deafness and dumbness--but it is far too perverse and immutably out of touch with reality for it to be a simple neurosis. What we are witnessing is a collective cognitive catatonia that has makes the Democrats completely irrelevant in the 21st century.

Catatonia is a state of apparent unresponsiveness to external stimuli in a person who is apparently awake; and perfectly describes the present state of the Democratic party and its leftist base.

The first signs of this dysfunctional collapse were clearly evident during the Clinton Administration:



As reality becomes even more threatening, the process has accelerated to a ludicrous degree--witness how the Democrats in Congress aggressively pursue an agenda to keep the American people safe...from the terror of professional baseball players who use steroids:



And, after this country is attacked again by the Islamic jihadists who have every reason to believe that the U.S. is still a paper-tiger, the terminal phase of the dysfunction will begin when these same Democrat denialists shamelesly dance around to avoid any responsibility for the consequences of their inaction; and instead, will find numerous excuses to Blame Bush, Blame the Republicans, Blame the Military, Blame Business--anybody but themselves and the failed ideology they worship.

But it will be too late for them--and unfortunately, the rest of us--by then.

CARNIVAL OF THE INSANITIES

Time for the weekly insanity update, where the insane, the bizarre, the ridiculous, and the completely absurd are highlighted for all to see! This has been a week of rare idiocy (as always!). So, if you want to remain sane, the best thing is to poke some fun at the more egregious absurdities.

Send all entries for next week's carnival to Dr. Sanity by 8 pm ET on Saturday for Sunday's Carnival. Only one post entry weekly per blogger, please. And you might read this before submitting an entry
**NOTE: I am now getting many more submissions than I can possibly include in the weekly Carnival. Please don't be offended if your submission is not used (oh, okay, be as offended as you like) as it only means that for a variety of reasons I wasn't able to fit it into the "flow" as I put together each Carnival.


REMEMBER, THERE ARE SO MANY INSANITIES AND SO LITTLE TIME!!!

1. Hu's on first?

2. Happy National Insanity Day! We celebrate on this blog every day!


3. Who could be on the short list to replace him? The real reason he retired! Soon he will meet his ideological maker, and they can be dance together . But, we all must be kind to him, musn't we?

4. GWB, zombiekiller! And much more, too.

5. Maybe he should have stuck with art...or drawn some Mohammed cartoons? Madness!

6. The little country that could! The sharia suffragettes stand up! Fighting against those who are absolutely ruthless about their desire for a kinder, gentler world.

7. The tragedy of OCS...donate now! Unplugged and nasally congested....an utter obama-nation! Committing obamacide? Maybe that's a bit much, but it is a loonar eclipse! Or, subtle sexism at least.


8. Easy to confuse the two? Little known facts about BHO.

9. At wit's end: a dickerfest; but too busy managing baseball to have time to manage national 9. security. Will a surge work or should she just keep "soldiering" on....


10. Soon we're going to need a completely new Diagnostic & Statistical Manual in Psychiatry just for the political left and their creative psychopathologies! Not to mention the technogeek disorders.

11. Democrats and the US Marines... [Gray] Lady in Red....the vanishing story....Do you see a pattern here?

12. If global warming caused the Muslim riots, then why isn't this plausible too? Put your money where your 'myth' is!

13. Have we forgotten that terrorism kills? Apparently some have. Shut up and keep digging.

14. Why the government shouldn't be in the health care business.

15. Google's freedom of speech. The mother of all pork projects and the mother of all hit pieces. Don't take it at face value!

16. For the first time he's proud to be an internet blogger! Liveblogging the [mostly] live bloggers liveblogging the debate.


17. The only way to be able to finish high school if you're a Palestinian.

18. Why tip? An embittered wife...children who lie; and a killer frog.


19. Always check your kid's homework.

20. Political neologisms! Leave a suggestion.

21. Hooray for the Italians! Meanwhile, Smilin' Bob ain't smiling any more....

***************************************
Carnival of the Insanities can also be found at The Truth Laid Bear's ÜberCarnival and at the BlogCarnival.

If you would like to Join the insanity, and add the Carnival of the Insanities button to your sidebar (clicking on it will always take you to the latest update of the Carnival), click on "Word of Blog" below the button to obtain the html code:

Heard the Word of Blog?

WILL THE IRANIAN CIRCLE REMAIN UNBROKEN ?

So, let's recap.

First:
The National Intelligence Estimate was made public in December, 2007 and was widely reported as contradicting the Bush Administration's position on Iran:

A new assessment by American intelligence agencies concludes that Iran halted its nuclear weapons program in 2003 and that the program remains frozen, contradicting judgment two years ago that Tehran was working relentlessly toward building a nuclear bomb.

The conclusions of the new assessment are likely to reshape the final year of the Bush administration, which has made halting Iran’s nuclear program a cornerstone of its foreign policy.

The assessment, a National Intelligence Estimate that represents the consensus view of all 16 American spy agencies, states that Tehran is likely keeping its options open with respect to building a weapon, but that intelligence agencies “do not know whether it currently intends to develop nuclear weapons.”

Democrats and the antiwar crowd were ecstatic at this turn of events because the NIE effectively tied the hands of the President and seemed to make it practically impossible for him to be able to put a military option for dealing with Iran on the table. It also affirmed their core belief that Iran--with or without nukes--was less dangerous than the evil BusHitler and American Imperialism.

Second:
Israeli intelligence sharply disagreed with the NIE about Iran's nuclear capabilities and intentions:

Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak said, in an interview published Saturday, that Iran is "quite advanced" in its work on atomic weapons and may already be fashioning a nuclear warhead.

"We suspect they are probably already working on warheads for ground-to-ground missiles," Barak said in an interview with The Washington Post and Newsweek magazine.

He also suggested that Iranians "probably ... have another clandestine enrichment operation beyond the one in Natanz."

The remarks were in stark contrast the conclusion of a US National Intelligence Estimate released late last year that said Tehran had abandoned its quest for nuclear weapons as far back as 2003.

Barak sharply disagreed with this assessment.

"Our interpretation is that clearly the Iranians are aiming at nuclear capability," he said.

Clearly Israel has some excellent reasons to be a bit more suspicious about Iran's nuclear ambitions because this is the same regime that has threatened to "wipe" them "off the map"; idolizes Hitler and denies that the Holocaust even happened; even as it vows to continue the work of the 3rd Reich and regularly exhorts its citizens to "slaughter the Jews".

Third:
President Bush tries to put some positive spin on the NIE and emphasize the portions of it that "connect the dots" --something which he was viciously criticized for not doing prior to 9/11 (though he'd only been in office a mere 8 months and we now know that the 9/11 attacks were planned for years before they were carried out)Watch how relentlessly the MSM reporters try to make it seem like he must be lying to us about the threat of Iran:


And then, this week, , EU "experts" are suddenly shocked! shocked! to discover that Iran may have a nuclear weapon by the end of the year:

New simulations carried out by European Union experts come to an alarming conclusion: Iran could have enough highly enriched uranium to build an atomic bomb by the end of this year.

Could Iran be building an atomic bomb? When the US released a new National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) late last year, it seemed as though the danger of a mullah-bomb had passed. The report claimed to have information indicating that Tehran mothballed its nuclear weapons program as early as autumn 2003. The paper also said that it was "very unlikely" that Iran would have enough highly enriched uranium -- the primary ingredient in atomic bombs -- by 2009 to produce such a weapon. Rather, the NIE indicated "Iran probably would be technically capable of producing enough (highly enriched uranium) for a weapon sometime during the 2010-2015timeframe."

It didn't take long for experts to question the report's conclusion that Tehran was no longer interested in building the bomb. And now, a new computer simulation undertaken by European Union experts indicates that the NIE's time estimates might be dangerously inaccurate as well -- and that Iran might have enough fuel for a bomb much earlier than was previously thought....

Oh dear.

So, will we do what is necessary? Will Israel? Will anyone? Will this insane Iranian circle game just keep going round and round and round until the apocalyptic vision of the Islamofascists of Iran and Al Qaeda comes to pass?

REPRISE:

THE IRANIAN CIRCLE GAME

Yesterday the UN got to wondering,
If Tehran would ever get a clue?
A fearful world could hear the mullahs thundering
That Islam had to have a nuke or two.

As Mahmoud ambles slowy through the seasons
And the mullahs play their games with the EU
They give words, excuses, promises and reasons;
Then provoke and bluster seemingly on cue.

And the seasons they go round and round
And the lying mullahs go up and down,
The West is captive to taquiyya every day
We can’t believe a single thing they say
Their words and deeds are lame...
So we go round and round and round
In their circle game.

Ahmadinejad waits for the 12th Imam now,
Sure that Blair or Bush won't rein him in;
And he's got those fifteen British prisoners
That he can use for diplomatic spin.

And the seasons they go round and round
And the lying mullahs go up and down,
We’re captive to taquiyya every day:
We can’t believe a single thing they say
Their words and deeds are lame...
So we go round and round and round
In their circle game.

The years go by and soon they'll have their weapon,
And the left will still be blaming Bush,
It's true;
Meanwhile Iran won't care what toes they step on,
As they proceed to wipe out all the Jews.

And the seasons they go round and round
And the lying mullahs go up and down,
We’re captive to taquiyya every day:
We can’t believe a single thing they say
It's just insane...
Can't someone put a stop
to their circle game?

UPDATE ON LAST POST: IVY LEAGUE TERRORISM ?

When does Ivy League populism meet Ivy League terrorism? How about this?

In 1995, State Senator Alice Palmer introduced her chosen successor, Barack Obama, to a few of the district’s influential liberals at the home of two well known figures on the local left: William Ayers and Bernardine Dohrn.

While Ayers and Dohrn may be thought of in Hyde Park as local activists, they’re better known nationally as two of the most notorious — and unrepentant — figures from the violent fringe of the 1960s anti-war movement.

Now, no one is claiming that Obama is good friends with these 60's thugs who have found their niche in academia, but he did bother to get their blessing when he started his political career.

As Captain Ed notes:

Which brings us to the visit of Barack Obama and the apparent blessing he received from Ayers and Dohrn. This doesn't mean that Obama professes the same support for political violence as the Weather couple, but it does show a lack of backbone in rejecting those that do. If Obama can't stand up to two discredited American terrorists in Chicago ... well, you get the drift. What does it say about Obama's politics that Ayers and Dohrn approved of him, and what does it say about Obama that he felt he needed their blessing?

Let's also look at the mainstream media disinterest in this story. Imagine what the media would report if John McCain had met with Timothy McVeigh in 1995 to secure his blessing for re-election to the Senate, or if he had met with Eric Rudolph the following year. After all, both men planted bombs to effect political change in which they completely believed. Rudolph killed about the same number of people as the Weather Underground did. None of these people ever repented of their actions.

Would the media be as understanding? Would it fall to Politico to report it, or would the New York Times have it in a two-column, front-page spread next to a picture of a smiling Barack Obama?

Excellent question. But I think we all know the answer.

Oh, and, it bears mentioning that:

If you can't tell, Ayers didn't grow up on the mean streets: His father was a multimillionaire Northwestern University trustee, and since he and his wife left the underground in 1981, and charges against them were dropped (surprise, surprise, the FBI broke the law going after them) they've found respectable perches in Chicago academia. They had it made: Steady jobs, scholarly respect, wink-wink radical chic. They seemed genuinely rattled and pissed off that, after 9/11, people were criticizing their Weather days again.

IVY LEAGUE POPULISM AND THE PATH TO POWER

Victor Davis Hanson has nailed the dynamic of the "Ivy League Populist":

The rhetoric of Sens. Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton about the sad state of America is reminiscent of the suspect populism of John Edwards, the millionaire lawyer who recently dropped out of the Democratic presidential race.

Barack Obama may have gone to exclusive private schools. He and his wife may both be lawyers who between them have earned four expensive Ivy League degrees. They may make about a million dollars a year, live in an expensive home and send their kids to prep school. But they are still apparently first-hand witnesses to how the American dream has gone sour. Two other Ivy League lawyers, Hillary and Bill, are multimillionaires who have found America to be a land of riches beyond most people's imaginations. But Hillary also talks of the tragic lost dream of America.

In these gloom-and-doom narratives by the well off, we less fortunate Americans are doing almost everything right, but still are not living as well as we deserve to be. And the common culprit is a government that is not doing enough good for us, and corporations that do too much bad to us.

You have to admit, it's a bit strange that all these multimillionaires who have greatly benefited from the freedom and opportunity offered by this country are competing with each other to see who can yell the loudest that the American dream is lost?

What's going on here is not just a case of pessimism about what America stands for; it is a deliberate, calculated attempt to manipulate and appeal to one of the worse aspects of human nature--primitive envy--and stoke the fires of resentment and entitlement.

The message from the Democatic presidential candidates is almost exactly identical and it is the same message their party has been promoting (except, of course, when THEY are in the White House) since the 60's: Things are BAD! Poverty is INCREASING! DOOM DOOM DOOM! You foolish people out there only think you are content!

Don't you know that there are people in this very country who are richer than you are? There are even (gasp!) people who are smarter, more talented, and happier than you could possibly ever be!

Is this fair? Is this something that we have to put up with in our politically correct, culturally diverse, and oh so egalitarian society? You don't have to be satisfied with life, liberty and only the pursuit of happiness-- WE CAN GUARANTEE HAPPINESS FOR YOU!

You only think this is a land of opportunity...but vote for ME and you will see how much MORE you will have!

And now we have Barack the Messiah, who manages to cloak this same old tired egalitarian message in his lovely rhetorical babblings about "hope", and "change", and "yes we can"--as if he were actually appealing to the best, instead of the worst within each of us.

It all reminds me of the scene in the movie "Key Largo" where Frank McCloud confronts the criminal thug, Johnny Rocco:

Frank McCloud: He knows what he wants. Don't you, Rocco?
Johnny Rocco: Sure.
James Temple: What's that?
Frank McCloud: Tell him, Rocco.
Johnny Rocco: Well, I want uh ...
Frank McCloud: He wants more, don't you, Rocco?
Johnny Rocco: Yeah. That's it. More. That's right! I want more!
James Temple: Will you ever get enough?
Frank McCloud: Will you, Rocco?
Johnny Rocco: Well, I never have. No, I guess I won't.

We have become a country of thuggish Johnny Roccos.

The Democratic Party is there for all you unhappy people who want MORE--but who don't want to work for it. They will tell you that you are entitled to it; that it is your right and that they will get it for you! Yes they can!

Ironically, they can even while they proselytize with their trademark intellectual and moral superiority, against the wickedness and selfishness of our materialistic/capitalistic society.

Only in the incredible wonderland of their benevolent neo-marxist uptopia is it possible to have your cake and eat it too.

Progressives such as Clinton an Obama, operate under an economic model that is more genetic as opposed to cognitive. They are still functioning with the herd mentality and have yet to embrace modern civilizization or individualism, preferring instead to function on an instictual, rather than a rational level. This is why they find capitalism and market economics so repugnant.
From a recent article by Andrew Cassel:

In other words, to have an intuitive grasp of economics, you might just need to take a step or two up the evolutionary ladder."Finally, it all makes sense!The economic primitivism that is unceasingly promoted by the political left is a remnant of the cave-dwelling days of mankind; an idyllic era of history to which the left desperately yearns to return.

The word "progressive" is thus a simple rhetorical manipulation to diguise the essential backwardness of the left's economc thinking.It also might explain the sense of solidarity that many leftists feel with the various primitive cultures still existing in the 21st century. Try as they might, they just can't hide their admiration for cave-dwellers like Osama; or the egalitarianism of the most backward societies on the planet.

The "Ivy League populists" of the left (and there are a few on the right, also) are always willing to give away other people's money and denigrate other people's success; but you don't see them living in ordinary homes or taking regular commercial flights to do their campaigning. Yet, how is it they always get away with the ridiculous assertion that they are somehow "champions" of all of us little people?

The left is so immersed in class envy and socialist rhetorical bullshit, they haven't seemed to notice that this is the same bankrupt ideology that could never deliver on any of its promises in the last century; and will never deliver in this one either (just ask the people of Venezuela as their economy goes down the proverbial toilet).

But hey! Class warfare is a well-trod path to power. Look at Hugo Chavez. Having duped the peasants of his country into a state of perpetual envy and entitlement, he now is poised to dupe them into endless, perpetual Hugo-ness by making himself their Dictator for Life! I mean, isn't that so cool?

No wonder the left loves him so. He's very good at what he does. They undoubtedly envy him and wish they had his cojones.

Thomas Sowell wrote in a one of his many columns on the subject:

People in the media, in academia and among the intelligentsia in general who are obsessed with "disparities" in income and wealth usually show not the slightest interest in how that income and wealth were produced in the first place.

They are hot to redistribute the existing income and wealth but seem wholly unaware that how you do that today can affect how much income and wealth will be produced tomorrow. Any number of schemes for redistributing wealth have ended up redistributing poverty in a number of countries.

"Progressives" in the media and among academics and intellectuals claim to be interested in ending poverty but the production of more output is the only way to end poverty for millions of people.

It not only can be done, it has already been done in many countries, for all countries were once very poor by today's standards. But most self-styled "progressives" show virtually zero interest in economic history or in economics in general.

Sowell is absolutely correct. As I have said multiple times, poverty has a cure and it it capitalism. But for the left--those "progressives" that Sowell identifies, to embrace that cure would require letting go their death-grip on an ideology whose economic redistribution plans have repeatedly been shown to be catastrophically ineffective and oppressive in the real world.

Indeed, their "progressive" ideology has, in fact, caused all the societies which believed in it to regress economically and politically; causing misery and death for many millions of souls.

If trillion of dollars in investment and aid hasn't been able to raise economic output in such countries, then what can? It turns out that democratic institutions and economic freedom have been shown to be the key determinants of growth and have "a positive influence on economic growth, while foreign aid does not."

In other words the alleviation of poverty is directly linked to economic freedom. The more liberty; the more people are free to pursue their own happiness, the less poverty.

And, needless to say, the LESS government interferes in economic matters, the more freedom each individual has to pursue his or her happiness.

It is economic freedom that is the true cure for poverty. Not taxes. Not regulation. Not government control of the economy and redistribution of wealth; but capitalism. And, it is important to note that economic freedom is unachievable without political freedom. That is the link between poverty and governance. It is not enough to have a superficial form of democracy like the Palestinians, Iranians or the Venezuelans. The proof of a free country is more than just getting to vote for various thugs and criminals once in a while. It is in being able to pursue your own, individual goals and happiness freely without interference or contrary demands from the state.

Programs that originate with the "best of intentions" end up doing exactly the opposite of what was intended. Yet, many people are so ideologically committed to one way of thinking that they not only refuse to change, but keep pouring money into programs that can be shown to actively harm the people they are meant to help--encouraging dependence rather than autonomy; a sense of entitlement, rather than a sense of personal accomplishment; and reinforcing stereotypes they were meant to end.

What makes matters worse is that the "champions of the poor and oppressed" (as progressives of the left like to think of themselves) then virtually demonize anyone who suggests an alternate strategy-- even when that strategy has been proven to work.

We see this time and again in their portrayal of Republicans as people who "hate the poor" or as racists, whenever they suggest that pouring money into some programs has not worked or even diminished the problem of poverty. The radical idea that maybe there may be other solutions that encourage independence and self-sufficiency are reflexly deemed as insulting, demeaning, or damaging to the self-esteem and feelingz of the poor.

Such programs are basically all show and no substance. They make the people who propose and maintain them feel good, but do little to change the underlying causes of poverty and, in fact, reinforce the dynamics that perpetuate it.

The true believers of the political left become hysterical and incapable of reasonable discussion at this point; and psychologically it is apparent that their beliefs on this subject serves an intense psychological need. They need to portray their enemies as racist, sexist etc. because their demonstrable behavior often belies their own glorious rhetoric.

This is a very convenient psychological ploy that prevents these progressives from ever having to acknowledge their own innermost prejudices and biases, and hence they can easily convince themselves that their own racist, sexist behavior is appropriate--or even serves some "higher good". In the psychiatry business, we refer to this psychological maneuver as "projection". It requires considerable self-deception and this is usually achieved by "talking the talk" of equality, but "walking the walk" of egalitarianism.

That is how "life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness" has slowly morphed into "from each according to his abilities to each according to his needs" as the mantra of the Democratic party.
"From each according to their ability blah blah blah.." has NEVER worked anywhere it has been tried. The only result has been dragging everyone down to the level of poverty and misery and keeping them there. There are many people --both Democrats and Republicans-- who genuinely want to end racism and poverty. Many sincerely want to help the poor to have better lives. So, the question is: why not go with what works, instead of what doesn't and has never worked?

Redistributing wealth--the method of choice promulgated by the political left--is a scam that so-called "progressive" con artists have played for many decades now. What they actually do is redistribute poverty because their goal of the scam, as Sowell brilliantly notes, is to give themselves "sweeping powers to control other people's lives, in the name of curing the ills of society."

Scratch a progressive leftist, and you will see that underneath the caring, compassionate exterior he or she presents to the world, is the con artist/tyrant whose primary desire is control over others.

And, the more charasmatic the progressive; the more they can disguise their desire for power in some sort of "selfless" desire to lead you to the promised land where you will all be above-average and rich like they are--the more dangerous such a person is to the real American dream.

Leszak Kolakowski, a Polish philosopher expelled from the Communist Party in 1968 for his heretical views made the following keen observation about the morality of socialism (from My Correct Views on Everything:

Socialism as a social or moral philosophy was based on the ideal of human brotherhood, which can never be implemented by institutional means. There has never been, and ther will never be, an institutional means of making people brothers. Fraternity under compulsion is the most malignant idea devised in modern times; it is the perfect path to totaltarian tyranny.

One of the most important intellectual breakthroughs I achieved while studying economics in college, was the realization that the social engineers of the political left, motivated as they are by their creative utopian aspirations--expressed by the desire to impose (forcibly, if necessary) universal peace, social justice and brotherhood upon humanity--are completely oblivious to the malignant side of their own natures. Both they and the capitalist entrepreneurs of the right who they despise so vehemently are driven by the darker human emotions: envy, greed and a need to dominate others.

However, there is an extremely crucial difference between them:

The do-gooder leftist in all the various ideological incarnations--the antiwar crowd, the environmental crowd, the communists, socialists, and assorted collectivists--offers the rationale that he does what he does for the "common good" and for "social justice", "peace" and "brotherhood". His high-minded, self-righteous rhetoric justifies (to him anyway) imposing his will and beliefs on others for their own good; and he will not hesitate to use whatever coercive capablity he has at hand to get others to do what he wants and what he says.

The capitalist, on the other hand, is overtly out to pursue his own selfish profit, and understands he must use persuasion. That is, he must convince people that his ideas and the products of his mind are better than all the rest so that they will be willing to part with their hard-earned money to possess them. His desire for power over others is manifested in an indirect manner because people must want what he has to offer and believe that they will benefit from an interaction with him.

There is no parallel social limitations on the behavior of the leftist. This tyrant wannabe does not feel the need to convince others of the veracity or even the effectiveness of his ideas; nor does he accept defeat when others are not interested or resist their implementation. He knows in his heart what is best for everyone, and he will use coercion if necessary. He will not allow options; nor will he permit others do do what they think is right for themselves. Their feelings or concerns are a matter of complete indifference to him. Only his own matter.

The leftist's desire for power is direct and absolute; and this is a direct consequence of his utopian ideology.

And there is no area of your life which will escape his intrusive psychopathology, because he justifies it by saying he is really doing it for your sake.

The clever leftist always manages to hide these darker motivations--the envy, greed, and desire for power--and pretend they don't even exist--even to himself. He tells himself he does not possess such dark motives; that his motives are pure and uncontaminated by the kind of self-serving goals the selfish capitalists pursue. The banal platitudes and silly slogans he chants during his protest marches make him feel oh so good about himself--and if he is charismatic, he will make you feel good about yourself. Experiencing too much knowledge and insight about his inner state would make him extremely uncomfortable; perhaps even causing him to question some of his basic assumptions about himself or his beliefs.

This is the essence of the "dilemma of the utopians". They see themselves as so pure and righteous; so correct and virtuous; how is it possible that their beautiful utopian dreams always turn into such horrible human nightmares?

You can then count on the true leftist believer to close his eyes not only to his own internal reality, but also to the external reality that proves the uselessness of his beliefs in the real world.
Siggy writes:

Many on the left believe their agenda is driven by a piety that only they, in their heightened awareness, are capable of. Their motives are pure, they say. Disagree with them and you are evil. They are true believers, and as such, they are entitled to make decisions for others, on behalf of others and despite others. They love their fellow man, they say. They hate injustice, they say. They are true believers in the highest calling of mankind.

Well, the Nazis were true believers, too. There were communists that were true believers and they have the blood of 50 million people on their hands. The North Vietnamese killed 2-3 million after we left Vietnam. Castro and Che slaughtered hundreds of thousands between them. African communists have shed the blood of millions.

All of the aforementioned were true believers. All of them believed they were serving the best interests of mankind.

Being a 'true believer' is no mark or guarantee of moral or ethical superiority.

That applies to all 'true believers' of every political, religious or ethical stripe. When you are not open to new ideas, thoughts or challenges, you are no better than ther legions of evil 'true believers' that preceded you. This latest crop of 'true believers' are intellectual pygmies, the 'useful idiots' and apparatchiks of our time, afraid of debate and most of all, afraid of accountability.

They are the true enablers of evil. They deliberately choose blindness and deafness, so as to affirm their 'righteousness.' They see themselves as charged with a mission-- to blind and render deaf others, so that their status might be validated. Without their distortions,evil would be held to account. Instead, evil is allowed to flourish.

They are no more than the fertilizer for evil, violence and death.

The current crop of Democratic presidential candidates with all their Ivy League populism, promises wealth and happiness and justice and brotherhood. They talk about hope and change and fairness--if you do as they say (but not as they do, of course). They denounce their own wealth, even as they promise to get it for you. But what they and their brothers on the left have always delivered is an increase in poverty, a decrease in liberty; and ever more envy and entitlement.

If either one ends up getting elected, it will be no different this time around.

YES THEY CAN

Cartoons by Chuck Asay

LIES, DECEIT, AND THE SHAME CULTURE

In this post I discussed in detail some of the key issues inherent in all shame cultures, and Islamic cultures in particular. In that piece, I quote David Gutmann on the Arab psyche :

The Arab world is suffering a crisis of humiliation. Their armies are routed not only by Americans, but also by tiny, Jewish Israel; and as Arthur Koestler once remarked, the Arab world has not, in the last 500 years or so, produced much besides rugs, dirty postcards, elaborations on the belly-dance esthetic (and, of course, some innovative terrorist practices). They have no science to speak of, no art, hardly any industry save oil, very little literature, and portentous music which consists largely of lugubrious songs celebrating the slaughter of Jews.

Now that the Arabs have acquired national consciousness, and they compare their societies to other nations, these deficiencies become painfully evident, particularly to the upper-class Arab kids who attend foreign universities. There they learn about the accomplishments of Christians, Jews, (Freud, Einstein, for starters) and women. And yet, with the exception of Edward Said, there is scarcely a contemporary Arab name in the bunch. No wonder, then, that major recruitment to al-Qaeda's ranks takes place among Arab university students. And no wonder that suicide bombing becomes their tactic of choice: it is a last-ditch, desperate way of asserting at least one scrap of superiority—a spiritual superiority—over the materialistic, life-hugging, and ergo shameful West.

Distorting the truth is the only way that they can avoid shame and maintain honor. Thus they resort to secrecy, deception, distortion and outright lying as legitimate strategies for protecting and augmenting their honor.

Let's look at one example of this from yesterday's news:

Larijani: US root cause of terrorism worldwideRegional-Iran-USA, Politics, 2/19/2008

Iranian Secretary of Iran's Human Rights Headquarters Mohammad-Javad Larijani said in Tokyo on Sunday that the US claims it has launched campaign against terrorism but the reality is that the country itself is the root cause of terrorism worldwide.

Larijani, who is on an official visit to Japan said that Iran believes the US pro-terrorism policy has damaged its reputation and brought it a fiasco.

He said what Israel is doing now has further disgraced it. The Israelis officially announce that they intend to assassinate Palestinians and surprisingly, the White House supports their acts, he added. He said all the countries pursuing terrorist methods worldwide would pay a dear cost for it too.

Now, who is going to believe such nonsense (besides the useful idiots from Code Pink and all the other America-hating lefty groups, of course)? The assertion in the article is really not much different from suggesting that women who don't wear a hijab or burka are responsible for their own rape.

Or, by the same sort of 'logic' we ought to conclude that Al Qaeda and Hamas must be the root causes of Freedom and Democracy!

It's hard to imagine that Larjani actually believes the BS coming out of his own mouth because that would require an almost infinite amount of cognitive dissonance which would surely cause his brain to self-destruct in protest.

Left unaddressed, any and all forms of psychopathology will inevitably escalate; and the lies and deceit (including self-deception) necessary to maintain honor and avoid shame will eventually rise to an even higher and more dangerous pathological level-- as demonstrated by the frank paranoia and psychological projection demonstrated in this article from MEMRI:

The Darfur region of Sudan first made headlines in February 2003 with news of massacres, rapes, mutilations, and other atrocities perpetrated by the Sudanese government and its allied armed Arab militia, the Janjaweed, against civilians in the black Arab and non-Arab south. Shortly thereafter, the Arab and Iranian media came out with reports explaining these events as the result of a conspiracy. The campaign was led by the most influential Arab and Iranian newspapers and TV channels, and was enhanced by leading Middle East religious figures, heads of state, members of academia, and other notable individuals.

According to these media reports, what was really happening in Darfur involved secret plans to create a Christian state in Sudan; a Jewish attempt to annex the African country to become part of Israel; a U.S. government effort to control Sudanese oil, uranium and other natural resources; plots by U.S. presidential candidates; and a U.S. government attempt to deflect attention from its actions in Iraq, as well as schemes by Jews, Freemasons, the United Nations, and the African Union. The Protocols of the Elders of Zion have also been cited as evidence to prove the existence of a conspiracy in Darfur.

As the conspiracy theories expanded, a new phenomenon developed - namely, downplaying and even denying the atrocities taking place in Darfur. The deniers have included the Sudanese and Iranian leaderships and the Arab government-controlled media. It must be noted that this phenomenon is strikingly similar to Holocaust denial, and in fact many proponents of the Darfur denial have been known to question the Holocaust.[emphasis mine]

If you understand that safeguarding honor, avoiding shame, and protecting the image of Islam are absolute imperatives for the Arab world, then you will understand why that world is prone to falling back on the most primitive and infantile of psychological defenses--including denial, distortion, and projection.

Even more honor can be accumulated if one can deftly turn the tables and insinuate that the shame that rightly belongs to you really belongs to the enemy! Thus, you can describe yourself as the "freedom-loving", while your enemy is the "real" malignant terrorist. You can pretend your religion is one of "peace"; and all others are evil, crusading and genocidal dogmas (even as you loudly and vocally proclaim the goal of establishing a world-wide caliphate of Islam and sharia law). Rhetorically speaking, there is no end to the number of ways you can distort or invert reality!

You can do all this not only with a straight face, but with a sincerity and righteousness that would make the most ruthless and brutal dictator humbled and proud to be associated with you.

What does truth matter, when honor is at stake? Who cares about logic or reality when you have the world to conquer and infidels to force into submission.

And, it doesn't even really matter if anyone actually believes your lies and distortions or not; as long as they keep quiet and don't contest it, you're home free--with your honor intact and your enemy's in tatters.

Isn't Allah just great?

BEYOND PARODY

Victor Davis Hanson comments on the 'Orwellian Democratic message to the white male':

If you're African-American, then it's OK that you express racial solidarity and vote for Sen. Obama by margins approaching 90 percent — while at the same time white males must prove that they are not racialists by having the courage to 'do the right thing' by likewise voting for an African-American. That apparently would make Michelle Obama proud of her country for the first time in her life.

If you vote for Hillary, likewise you transcend your gender and do the right thing — and so join the legion of feminists for whom her shared womanhood was their signature issue.

But if you were to vote for John McCain? You would, of course, reveal a tribal mentality by forgoing principle and obviously allying yourself along comfortable racial and gender lines.

Meanwhile, for the first time in her entire adult life, Michelle Obama--educated at a high-class Ivy league school and then Harvard for law school--finally has found something to be proud of in America.

The Democrats show to the world the blatant racism, sexism and underlies their multiculti ideology of victimhood; they hold up their perverted obsession with both race and sex as some sort of dystopian ideal-- and Michelle Obama is proud?

This is the kind of America that Obama can be proud of? This is the sort of America that we should hope for? The kind where everything is determined by identity politics and the only thing that really matters is race and gender? The kind where the content of one's character is always trumped by the color of one's skin or the absence of a "Y" chromosome?

Excuse me while I vomit.

I have always been fascinated by what motivates people to behave in vile and despicable ways. It is part of the reason I became a psychiatrist--to try and understand that dark side of human nature (ok...also to try and understand my own dark side, if I'm completely honest).

The evil within men's souls (and women's, of course) hides behind many different masks. We all want to see ourselves as exemplifying the things we consider good; and, of course, we want others to see us that way, too. But the uncomfortable reality is that our darker self is always right there lurking beside our idealized image of ourselves.

How you deal with that dark side and its manifestations in the real world is a task far more important and than all the good intentions in the universe. I suspect this is why the Greek philosopher and sage Thales first admonished his fellow humans to, "Know thyself"; and the call was picked up independently in both the East and West by such luminaries Lao Tzu, Socrates, Alexander Pope, and Sigmund Freud.

It is not an easy business to know yourself. In fact, it is often quite disconcerting and sometimes very painful to look in the mirror of insight; and to acknowledge the dark side that can casually slip in to contaminate--and ultimately sabotage-- all the excellent intentions of the good side.

Insight is a wonderful thing. The power or act of seeing into a situation and apprehending the inner nature or motivation of one's self--especially the why--can be extremely liberating, as it was for Susan. Only by being aware of these kind of hidden truths and inner motivations can a person gain control over them and correct the behavior that they generate.But insight can also sometimes be devastating

In fact, the real problem of not knowing one's self, and trying to avoid devastating self-awareness, is that the dark side is perfectly content to let the light side believe that goodness and light are running the show. The dark side is actually an expert at finding creative and disguised ways to express its destructiveness.

I am, of course, speaking about the unconscious mind, where the darkness can almost always be found in each of us. The last thing that our dark selves wants is for its unconscious processes to be made conscious through the development of insight and self-awareness; precisely because that is the only way to alter the self-destructive path that an individual or a group may sometimes be on.

Sometimes they can even convince themselves that because their behavior has some good intention or idealized fantasy behind it--that it represents 'hope' or 'change' or 'progress' or 'social justice'--it doesn't matter that, in the real world, its consequences are exactly the opposite of the expressed ideal.

That is how that dark side works--behind the mirror; hidden behind the lovely mask of goodness and love and compassion.

The political left has turned this psychological mechanism into a true art form. How else does any reasonable person explain fighting racisim by emphasizing race and making choices based on it. Eliminating gender bias, by being biased about gender. Tolerance expressed by self-righteous intolerance... and so on, ad infinitum.

Betsy once wrote about a perfect example (via Thomas Sowell) of how, in the name of 'racial equality', some people feel justified in engaging in the most perverse racism:

The very people who claim to live for the day when no one will pay attention to race are themselves constantly paying attention to race and making sure that no one can forget it. They'd prefer that black authors lose customers because people wouldn't think to look in the African American section for a child development book than that they turn a blind eye to what might be in the best commercial interests of the author.

This is how intentions have become more important than outcome; and how--as long as you claim good intentions--you can pretty much get away with anything.

Another way of putting it is that it exemplifies how emotions and the need to feel good about one's self are more important to some people than reality.

This is the same psychological maneuver that allows people to claim they are champions of free speech, as they diligently work to silence anyone with views that differ from their own.

It permits some male religious fanatics to believe that by subjuging women and making them invisible, they are virtuously protecting society from the evils of women's sexuality; when what the society really suffers from is the evils of their own perverted sexuality. They delude themselves--and sometimes the women--into believing such nonsense so that they can maintain the illusion of being honorable men.

Sorry, guys. Know thyself. Your behavior only demonstrates for any outside observer that you are frightened little boys; sexually inadequate and completely unable to control your own sexual impulses, and needing to blame your own animal behavior on the opposite sex. In other words, dears, you are nothing but savages who are unable to live in a civilized world.

Savages protect their fragile self by subjugating those who are perceived as weaker. They then rationalize that they are superior to those so subjugated. In fact, this is the only way he can maximize his "honor"--the name of the particular mask this type of savage hides behind.

In Arab/Islamic culture (and other shame cultures), women are one of the primary instruments of achieving "honor". Hence the bizarre and distorted attitude that the culture has toward women and the exaggerated means by which "honor" must be maintained. So strong is the cultural pressure, even women buy into the delusion.

In a culture where avoidance of shame is a primary function, it is much harder to know thyself. Everyone else's success can only excacerbate one's own failures and humiliations. In other types of cultures (e.g., a guilt culture),when one feels shame, huge efforts are made to correct and improve behavior. But in the Arab world, pride can be regained not by excelling or achieving;or by making amends; but only by destroying that which is more successful. Only then will the humiliation no longer exist.

No matter the cost to the society, culture, individual or community, destruction is preferable to achievement; and being perceived as honorable and virtuous is far more important than actually being honorable and virtuous.

Likewise, in today's leftist culture, being perceived as "good" is much more important than actually doing good; hence the emphasis on show and the endless rhetoric about hope and change. The endless marches and protests and such. Participating in these useless activities has little to do with bringing peace, brotherhood or social justice into the world. But, as I have noted before, it serves the primary purpose of making participants feel good and virtuous about themselves. And that is the only thing that matters to these uninsightful, pathetic do-gooders. The kind who are unable to find anything good to say about a country that gave them unlimited opportunity, and the freedom to pursue their dreams.

They are almost always completely unable to see how their behavior facilitates and encourages exactly the opposite of their stated intentions:

instead of achieving peace; they make it possible for the destoyers and murderers of the world ot operate freely and with complete impunity; permitting them to get away even with genocide without having to suffer any consequences; as they appease and rationalize murderous behavior.

instead of achieving brotherhood; they have gone over the top to emphasize the differences between people; and pit group against group with identity politics and multicultural dogma;

instead of generating tolerance and love, they facilitate a perverse intolerance and hatred; spewing it forth with unbelievable venom toward those who don't happen to agree with them;

instead of bringing about social justice; they end up actively supporting, justifying and protecting the most despicaable dictators and thugs the world has ever known.

instead of truly championing the oppressed--the poor, the discriminated against, the victimized-- they have become invested in making them their "pet victims "and nourishing and promoting their victimhood for all eternity. They don't care about developing or supporting programs that empower their pets, they are only concerned feeling good about themselves and promoting their agenda. Note how any who escape from their victimhood scam and actually begin to think for themselves are branded "traitors" to their eternally oppressed race or gender or whatever.

and, last but certainly not least:

Instead of creating an environment where 'hope' can thrive; or where 'diversity' really means celebrating differences, they will end up creating a dead-end world where opportunity and freedom slowly wither away and die as people are encouraged to be perpetual victims and express their eternal outrage that one group may ending up achieving more than another.

Know thyself. They are completely unable to appreciate how much evil their behavior rationalizes and encourages; nor do they have the slightest interest in how the consequences of their behavior are exactly the opposite of the very principles they claim to believe.

"But, we meant well!" is the operating slogan of pretty much all these hapless do-gooders and utopian reformers as they hack out a path in the world that is littered with the miserable lives and bodies of those who are unfortunate enough to have them as champions.

Just ask Hugo Chavez' people in a year or two when Venezuela's standard of living declines even further and their freedoms shrink beyond imagining. The only way a Chavez, or a Castro, or a Ahmadinejad; or groups like Hamas and Al Qaeda can maintain their control over others is if they succeed in externalizing the blame for all their own pathology; and then indoctrinating the next generation into the same psychological blindness and hate. that brought them to their present dyfunctional state.

Utopian dreams always morph with very little effort into totalitarian dreams. Without the courage to look in the mirror of insight, the idiots will always return :

Throughout the 20th century, Latin America’s populist leaders waved Marxist banners, railed against foreign imperialists, and promised to deliver their people from poverty. One after another, their ideologically driven policies proved to be sluggish and shortsighted. Their failures led to a temporary retreat of the strongman. But now, a new generation of self-styled revolutionaries is trying to revive the misguided methods of their predecessors.

Ten years ago, Colombian writer Plinio Apuleyo Mendoza, Cuban writer Carlos Alberto Montaner, and I wrote Guide to the Perfect Latin American Idiot, a book criticizing opinion and political leaders who clung to ill-conceived political myths despite evidence to the contrary. The “Idiot” species, we suggested, bore responsibility for Latin America’s underdevelopment. Its beliefs—revolution, economic nationalism, hatred of the United States, faith in the government as an agent of social justice, a passion for strongman rule over the rule of law—derived, in our opinion, from an inferiority complex....

The Idiot’s worldview, in turn, finds an echo among distinguished intellectuals in Europe and the United States. These pontificators assuage their troubled consciences by espousing exotic causes in developing nations. Their opinions attract fans among First-World youngsters for whom globalization phobia provides the perfect opportunity to find spiritual satisfaction in the populist jeremiad of the Latin American Idiot against the wicked West.

There’s nothing original about First-World intellectuals’ projecting their utopias onto Latin America. Christopher Columbus stumbled on the shores of the Americas at a time when Renaissance utopian ideas were in vogue; from the very beginning, conquistadors described the lands as nothing short of paradisiacal. The myth of the Good Savage—the idea that the natives of the New World embodied a pristine goodness untarnished by the evils of civilization—impregnated the European mind.

Vargas Llosa refers to what brings out the "idiot" as an inferiority complex. But more than that, it is an inferiority complex that hides behind a mask of superiority and moral righteousness.

Know thyself.

When you think about it, the psyches of those who live in such cognitive dissonance have developed a most clever way to disguise the fundamental sense of inferiority; and to hide from the reality of their own racism or sexism. The mask hides all those inadequacies and keeps them from discovering--let alone learning how to control--their own dark side. This is the pathoogy that allows them to unconcernedly act out their darkest and most contemptible wishes and drives in reality, while patting themselves on the back for being so virtuous and good. Brilliant!

That's how you can transform a perfidious concept like "affirmative action" (meant to "level the playing field", but in reality has only facilitated and encouraged racial stereotyping and promoted all-around mediocrity) which glorifies and transforms racial quotas into a "positive" consequence of leftist dogma! That is how discriminating on the basis of race --the definition of racism--became one of the mantras of all the mindless leftist droids.

So what does it mean to a psychiatrist when a person (or group) say they stand for one thing, but their individual and collective behavior demonstrate exactly the opposite?

In psychoanalytic theory, a reaction formation is a neurotic psychological defense mechanism in which anxiety-producing or unacceptable emotions are replaced by their direct opposites. A projection is the much more primitive precursor of this type of defense (discussed here , here and here. Both defenses are deployed when the dark side of the self is kept out of consciousness; and they work behind the scenes to obliterate and obscure an awareness of one's real motivations and feelings. Under the mask provided by these defenses, the consequences of one's emotions or behavior are able to be ignored or dismissed, and the individual or group is able to convince themselves that the darkness within is actually external.

I notice in this Wikipedia article about reaction formation, the author very kindly produced three examples of individuals or types that engage in the neurotic behavior of reaction formation. All three examples are typical of the heart and soul of modern leftist thought and contemporary Democratic policies: the homophobic behavior of rednecks; the hypocritical behavior of Republicans( Mark Foley is mentioned) and those on the religious right who secretly are into pornography while publically expressing anti-porn views. Indeed, all three individual examples are good ones of the pathology in question.

What makes me laugh is how this Wikipedia exposition is itself a perfect example of a reaction formation (at best) or a projection (at worse). I suspect (but obviously don't know for sure) that the author is of the leftist political persuasion; because it is clearly desperately important for him or her to demonstrate how the members of the political right engage in this kind of pathological behavior. The hypocrites who are so religious, yet engage in secret pornographic entertainment; the homophobic rednecks who fear their own homosexual thoughts and lash out at gays--these are his/her examples.

But let me explain the difference between those individual examples and what I am talking about. Reaction formation is a well-used and rather ubiquitous human psychological defense mechanism. It represents a strategy employed by dysfunctional individuals of both the left and right political persuasion--anyone who will not willingly look in the mirror of insight. The human condition has plenty of these neurotically impaired people. The damage that such individuals do to their own lives and to the lives of their loved ones is often very great.

However, consider for a moment the consequences of this defense mechanism when an entire group, culture or religion uses it regularly--and even manages to institutionalize it as a group imperative. The ripple effects are not localized to the immediate vicinity of their loved ones or co-workers. Its impact is wide-spread; and when amplified by the MSM, mass hysteria is generated and the large-scale emotional dysregulation goes well beyond damaging a few people; to negatively impacting large groups or nations of people.

Just like paranoia and projection (which are more psychotic than neurotic defenses) large groups can take up the banner of psychological dysfunction and actively encourage members to act mentally unbalanced for the sake of the group.

This kind of group or cultural dysfunction has somewhat more severe repercussions, as you might imagine, because group psychopathology can lead to misery on a large-scale and unbelievable atrocities that are sanctioned by the group.

There is no dysfunction like group dysfunction, I always say, to really screw up the entire world; and at this moment in time, the Democratic party, a card-carrying member of the political left and its its allies here and abroad, wins the Worldwide Group Psychopathology Award hands down.

Siggy notes:

In reality, the 'progressives' are actually regressive. It is because of the single minded, lockstep thinking that we find ourselves in the messes we are in. They believe in the 'My way or the highway' kind of thinking. Disagree with them and the world is coming to an end. The vitriol and visceral hatred of the current administration is a good example. No difference of opinion will be tolerated. Disagree and the well oiled machine of personal destruction comes out.

As their failures become more pronounced, the levels of anxiety and hysteria rise: the conspiracy theories escalate; and the reaction formation is ratcheted up even further. They will never willingly look in the mirror or explore their own inner darkness to try and understand how they have become the very evil they denounce.

That is the only way they will ever get beyond race and gender...and beyond the laughable parody of 'hope and change' they have become.