THE VICTIMHOOD HEIRARCHY; or, THE LEFTIST FOOD CHAIN

oMark Steyn has a humorously appropriate post on the insanity of promoting the "diversity" thingy:

Celebrate Diversity

There'll be a lot more of this in the future:

French Gay Soccer Team Snubbed By Muslim Team

The gay team has accused the Muslims of homophobia. But isn't accusing Muslims of homophobia a bit Islamophobic?

I'm afraid that the gay soccer team is in for a rude awakening if they expect outrage on the political left for their plight....

The gay soccer team's dilemma should make you wonder how the leftist elites determine which of their special victims' groups will prevail when there is a conflict between them?

I wrote about the socialist food chain here, and I update that post below, because it remains relevant.

This article by Johann Hari along with Steyn's post above give us a hint as to how the left's "victimhood food chain" is constructed:

Do you believe in the rights of women, or do you believe in multiculturalism? A series of verdicts in the German courts in the past month, have shown with hot, hard logic that you can't back both. You have to choose....

In Germany today, Muslim women have been reduced to third-class citizens stripped of core legal protections - because of the doctrine of multiculturalism, which says a society should be divided into separate cultures with different norms according to ethnic origin....

Indeed, in the name of this warm, welcoming multiculturalism, the German courts have explicitly compared Muslim women to the brain-damaged. The highest administrative court in North Rhine-Westphalia has agreed that Muslim parents have the "right" to forbid their daughter from going on a school trip unless she was accompanied by a male family member at all times. The judges said the girl was like "a partially mentally impaired person who, because of her disability, can only travel with a companion".As the Iranian author Azar Nafisi puts it: "I very much resent it when people - maybe with good intentions or from a progressive point of view - keep telling me, 'It's their culture' ... It's like saying the culture of Massachusetts is burning witches." She is horrified by the moves in Canada to introduce shariah courts to enforce family law for Muslims.

This 21st century application of one of the left's favorite canards, "social justice", has been seen quite a bit since the socialist remnants from the last century began to stage their comeback from a well-deserved near-extinction.

This socialist revival and the strategies now being used to once again foist Marxist/socialist/communist policies in democratic and free countries has many important implications --not the least of which is described in the above article.

To understand the left's logic, we must examine what I call the socialist victimhood "food chain."

While there are always quite a few "victim" groups (i.e., "oppressed peoples") on the Socialist Animal Farms of the world, some groups are far more important than others.

As the examples above demonstrate, a theoretically "oppressed" culture or religion's status as "victimized" allows (nay, it demands) the consequent suppression of any uppity victim classes subsumed within it (e.g., Women or Gays) who try to rise above their assigned place in the utopia to come.

From the perspective of the socialist utopian, what matters more than Women's rights or Gay rights, are the rights of the designated "oppressed culture." The dogma of multiculturalism trumps the lesser dogmas of feminism or gay pride. This is probably because for the socialist utopian, might makes right and the needs of the many always outweigh the needs of the few--and the few better remember that fact, or else.

In the socialist utopia, there is no room for individuality or personal preference; or tolerance for differences. You always must subsume yourself to the collective; and the bigger the collective, then the more power victimization can be exploited.

For example, we know from our experience of watching the compassionate people of the left, that blacks, women and gays lose their cherished victim status if they dare to become Republicans (shocking, I know); and, to a lesser extent, if they choose to be Christian (except for most those radical dominations, who have seen the secular light--or, who preach against American imperialism, and the evils of capitalism, of course).

Being black trumps being a woman or gay (i.e., there is more "social justice" mileage to be squeezed out of the oppression of blacks, i.e., racism, than there is from the oppression of women (sexism) or even gays (homophobia). Just ask President Obama and his supporters.

The oppression of Jews is completely ignored because of the animus the "enlightened" have toward Israel; and anti-semitism, which in past times would have had a victimhood ranking up close to the level of dark-skinned people (probably because those who founded the Jewish state were dedicated socialists--unfortunately, they soon realized that in real life, Marxist ideology doesn't work too well); but anti-semitism no longer is a compelling issue for the socialists. In fact, they are among its worse practitioners as socialism has spread throughout the Middle East.

So far, we have established that the culture (except for Western culture, which is uniquely evil and oppressive) is very high up on the food chain, and can eat and kill with impunity. Is there any group that trumps the culture?

Again, there are hints of how socialist logic deals with this. The needs of the nation will trump a protected/victim culture for the same reason that being an independent woman, black or gay person loses their victim status: they act independently of the socialist gestalt (i.e., they refuse to stay in their pre-determined place in the food chain and dare to be different).

Thus, Saddam the socialist Ba'athist could rightly gas the Kurds and no one payed much attention to it. Darfur shows that even genocide is acceptable to the socialist logician, who must always take into account the following factors:

1) which group is larger (oppressed nations or religions > cultures > sub-cultures > small groups, e.g., "Democrats", > individuals, e.g., blacks, women, and gays;

2) When there is a conflict among groups at the same level of the chain, then precedence is given to the "purer" victim--i.e., those who know their place in the chain, are willing to remain victims for all eternity, and take no actions to stop being victims--even celebrating their status as victims.

Thus, for example, the Palestinians' as a group (considered an oppressed nation for reasons that elude me) have such a high 'victimization quotient', they can freely and "justly" oppress or kill any members of their own society that are not considered "good" Palestinians, as well as anyone outside their society with impunity (i.e., Israelis). Because the Israelis have such a low quotient, they are not even permitted to kill in self-defense.

The same dynamic occurs when Muslim extremists (the extremely oppressed variety of Muslim) kill other Muslims (just ordinary oppressed Muslims) ; or when they kill Christians; or when they kill just about anyone in their usual indiscriminant manner. But Americans who take extraordinary precautions in war as in peace not to kill innocent people are damned to hell when they attack even the extremist Muslims who repeatedly try to kill them and state their intent at regular intervals.

Are you with me, so far? I realize it's pretty convoluted, but when you subscribe to postmodern logic, it makes a kind of perfect irrational sense.

Islamic fanatics can behead and mutilate non-combatant men and women at will. Americans are prohibited from humiliating Islamic fanatics or even frightening the poor dears (it is called "torture") ; Moderate Islamics can prohibit Westerners living in Islamic societies from owning a Bible; and punish them severely if they do; but Americans are not permitted to show any disrespect, let alone spit on a Koran even in America.

Clearly, if you are NOT one of the designated victimized or oppressed cultures, nations, or groups, then you and your non-victim-designated members are at the bottom of the socialist food chain and anything bad that is done to you by those above you in the food chain must be your own damn fault. This includes those who are Western, American/Israeli, Caucasian, Republican, conservatives, Rich, Capitalist, Christian, male, heterosexual and so on down the chain.

Hence, you can clearly see the intellectual origins of the many slogans that epitomize modern-day socialists and the left in general:

IMPERIALIST AMERICA IS HUMANITIES NUMBER ONE ENEMY

DEATH THE THE WORLD'S NUMBER 1 TERRORIST: BUSH & HIS SHEEP

KILL TERRORISTS: BOMB BUSH IN HIS F****ING HOUSE

WE ARE ALL PALESTINIANS

IMPEACH THE GRINGOS

CONDI: I'M FIGHTING FOR WHITEY

BEHEAD THOSE WHO INSULT ISLAM

ZIONIST PIGS

I LOVE NY EVEN MORE WITHOUT THE WORLD TRADE CENTER

NAZI KIKES OUT OF LEBANON

FUCK MIDDLE AMERICA

SMASH THE JEWISH STATE

And so on, ad infinitum, in the wonderfully peaceful and loving socialist manner we came to know so well in the last century.

Clearly, when all of humanity is at stake; when the socialist utopia is at-hand; lines must be drawn and the masses must be kept in their appropriate places in order to achieve social justice, peace, and universal brotherhood.

Got it?

CLASSIC INSANITY

"The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results."

I'm sure you've all heard this famous definition of insanity, which is quoted frequently, and is alternately attributed to Ben Franklin, or maybe Albert Einstein, or possibly some football coach somewhere. Whoever it was who said it first, the phrase remains popular because it has a lot of face validity and common sense behind it; and it happens to be a powerful and fairly compelling statement about the intractibility and the pervasiveness of psychological denial and a refusal to face reality as the underlying foundation of insanely dysfunctional behavior.

Well here is a perfect example of insanely dysfunctional behavior, and how the Democrats and their clueless leader wish to repeat the mistakes of the past; but this time make them even worse:

As we try to shake off the financial crisis, here’s a bright idea. Take a law that has led to the writing of an enormous amount of bad mortgages and expand it. Then take enforcement away from bank examiners and give it to housing activists. Sound like a poisonous cocktail? Well, it is what the Obama administration and Democrats are currently stirring up on Capitol Hill.

The White House and Congress want to expand a 30-year-old law–the Community Reinvestment Act–that helped to fuel the mortgage meltdown. What the CRA does, in effect, is compel banks to seek the permission of community activists to get regulatory approval for bank expansions and mergers. Often this means striking a deal with activist groups such as ACORN or unions like the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) and agreeing to allocate credit to poor and minority areas that are underserved.

Expanding the Community Reinvestment act is indeed a "poisonous cocktail" as the author notes in the Forbes article. It is also the kind of classic political insanity we have come to expect from the postmodern political left, who are not so much the "champions of the poor" as they are the champions of self-delusion.

Scott at Power Line suggests that perhaps Obama has had "a teachable moment" in the Olympics debacle; and that there are "limits to narcissism". Well, I beg to differ. Obama is not in therapy (where there might be a reasonably positive prognosis). Furthermore, he sees himself as our teacher; not as someone who needs teaching.

We already see how this (and many other) "teachable moments" will play out--nothing will be learned, and there will be only an escalation of classic insanity.


UPDATE: In a related post, the Anchoress wonders if Obama knows who he really is--and who we really are?

FREE RADICALS

Byron York talks about the continuing battle over Obama appointees with a radical past (and present):

But the war that has become unexpectedly intense in recent days isn't about any particular policy. It's the war over personnel -- the president's choices to fill important but not necessarily high-profile jobs in his administration.

Some of Obama's choices have been people with radical pasts -- or radical presents. Others are so overtly political that they can't see any line between serving Obama and serving the public. The presence of each has made it increasingly difficult for their boss, the president, to present himself as a centrist.

First was Van Jones, the Obama "green jobs" czar who once signed a petition supporting the "9/11 truther" movement; who was a self-professed communist during much of the 1990s; who supported the cop-killer Mumia abu-Jamal; and who accused "white polluters" of "steering poison into the people of color communities." Under fire for his extremist views, Jones disappeared in an unusual middle-of-the night resignation on Sept. 5.

Then there was Yosi Sergant, who, as communications director for the National Endowment for the Arts, crossed an entire football field of ethical lines by using his office, which is intended to promote the arts in America, to instead enlist artists to work on behalf of specific Obama initiatives. He resigned Sept. 24.

Now comes Kevin Jennings, the gay activist who heads the Education Department's Office of Safe & Drug Free Schools. Jennings founded a group called the Gay, Lesbian, and Straight Education Network and has devoted his career to introducing the topic of homosexuality into every American classroom, including elementary schools.

But as York notes, this is likely the tip of an iceberg:

Does anyone believe that Jones, Sergant and Jennings are the only Obama officials about whom truly serious questions can be raised? While Obama's other wars will someday end, this one might last the entire administration.

I seem to recall candidate Obama pooh-poohing the idea that he was a socialist or a radical himself. As proof of this, he asked that we "judge him by the people with whom he surrounds himself"; so it is hardly a coincidence that he has surrounded himself with people with strong ties to communism, socialism, and other radical left views--far out of the mainstream of America. Nor is it surprising that the questionable connections of many of his advisors are not deep in the past, but robustly are continued to this day.

Obama made himself out to be a calm, reasonable centrist; one who was willing to listen to all sides and who would govern sensibly and rationally. He basically duped a lot of Americans into believing this BS with his golden rhetoric--when all you had to do was to look at whom he surrounded himself with then.

It should be obvious to all by now, that people like the Reverend Jeremiah Wright and the Bernadine Dohrn-William Ayers' connection were not outlying data points on the graph of Obama's character; instead, they represented in a very fundamental way the essence of the Man Who Would Be King.

Obama is hardly a centrist. The aura of "calm" can now be recognized for what it always represented: an unwillingness to commit himself to any action that is not explicitly delineated by his ideology. Obama is not a reasonable man who solicits a variety of opinions and comes to a mature decision--no, he is a manipulative man who pretends to care about what others think because he knows that he has to; but then ignores them and marginalizes those who disagree.

In short, Obama is a leftist ideologue, steeped in postmodern rhetoric and tactics. He is determined to foist his socialist and profoundly anti-American agenda on this country.

And, if we are to judge him by those with whom he surrounds himself--like, Jones, Sargent and a whole host of others; then we must come to the inevitable conclusion that he is not different from them; and, in fact, believes in pretty much the same things that they do. Unfortunately, though, as President of the greatest country on earth, he is likely to cause even more damage than any one of them could ever hope to inflict.

OH NO !

This probably explains why General Petraeus has not been in the public spotlight recently....

I hope he does well; we certainly need his leadership right now.

TWITTER APP

Finally, a really really useful application for Twitter! (h/t The Corner)



[See Dilbert strips here]

I actually set up an account on Twitter; but I found that posting was an arduous exercise in self-absorption. It seemed a complete waste of time to me. OTOH, I can see how useful it would be in reporting on breaking events and getting a message out under difficult circumstances (as it was in the Iranian protests). But, for day to day info on what someone is doing or thinking--well, frankly, that doesn't seem overly fascinating to me.

What do you commenters think?

GLORY TO POSTMODERNISM SCIENCE !

From American Thinker, I found the link to this article in The New Scientist--which is absolutely astonishing (not in a good way, I might add):

If you want to get a message across to the public, don't obsess about facts. Just look at Al Gore's climate change documentary An Inconvenient Truth, Olson says. The film contained more than a few factual errors, but it also had a profound influence on the world's attitude to climate change. Perhaps compromising on accuracy is a necessary evil...is this really the right way for scientists to go? With climate change, perhaps the end justifies the means... given Gore's success and the prevalence of scientific illiteracy, it remains an interesting path to consider.

In other words: truth is irrelevant, lying is perfectly ok, and "compromising on accuracy is a necessary evil" --particularly when it is some important issue like climate change...or any other issue deemed important for social policy by the political left. It is, after all, for our own good! A "greater good" !

Stephen Hicks in his book quotes Frank Lentricchia, a noted Duke University literary critic. Postmodernism, says Lentricchia, "seeks not to find the foundation or conditions of truth but to exercise power for the purpose of social change."

Apparently, it's not what is true, it's what you can convince others to believe that matters.

Think about that for a moment...and consider how far humankind would have progressed out of its caves and slime if man's rational faculty had been discarded with the aplomb that The New Scientist dismisses it.

Postmodernism deliberately eschews truth and reason and reality. It insists that our minds are not capable of even knowing reality. Under such conditions, what good is science, you may ask?

Well, those who adhere to postmodern ideas prefer to exercise power to force social change. They live in a world of contradiction and emotion. Their strategy is not to persuade people to accept their ideas, but to confuse them; to distort the truth, propagate lies and smears; and to use whatever rhetoric is necessary to accomplish their purposes. Science is particularly useful if it can be manipulated to make those who oppose your ideas to STFU.

The politically useful concept of "social justice" is far more important than reality or truth; and the way that you can expedite the acceptance of unpalatable social policies is to use science to demonize your enemies or to pronounce that there is a "scientific consensus" on a contentious issue.

This is what your typical leftist postmodern progressives has in mind for the future of science. Instead of a dedication to reality and truth, science will be used to foist leftist ideology down the throats of the populace. And if you think this is unlikely, then you probably never visited the Soviet Union during their communist heyday. I have. And one of the things I remember most clearly is how all the scientific "academies" were emblazoned with banners that proclaimed in bright red letters, "GLORY TO SOVIET SCIENCE!". Meanwhile, the scientists in these prestigious academies were desperate for a glimpse of objective truth and any reality that existed outside the dictates of the Communist Party, which controlled every aspect of their work.

Fortunately, there are still some independent and non-government controlled minds out there searching for truth...but the same kind of "new" and "progressive" science (that made the Soviet Union the progressive third world country it was)--where the goal is implementing "social justice" and not uncovering truth or reality--is brought to you by today's postmodern political left; who, with a little utopian luck, will have us back in our caves, mucking around in the primeval ooze in no time!

IT'S ALL ABOUT HIM

(I was gonna apologize to Afroman, but he was high)


I was gonna clean up the mess that Bush left for me,
I was gonna fix everything cause I'm the new deity
But things are still all messed up, because you see,
- It's all about me; all about me; it's all about me!

Da da dumb dumb dumb dumb dumb

I was gonna go to Denmark and charm the IOC
I coulda talked about Chicago but I talked about me;
Now the Olympics are going to Rio far over the sea
- cause it's all about me, all about me, it's all about me....

Da da dumb dumb dumb dumb dumb

I was gonna talk to my Generals, but I was busy
I have loads of stuff that's higher priority
Like giving more campaign speeches on your TV
- and I talk about me; talk about me; I talk about me...

Da da dumb dumb dumb dumb dumb

I was gonna reform health care and make it all free,
I was gonna make all those doctors defer to me!
But I outsourced the job to Nancy Pelosi
- cause it don't bother me; don't bother me; don't bother me...

Da da dumb dumb dumb dumb dumb

I was gonna engage Iran to huddle with me
I was gonna make 'em understand that they can trust me
Now they're dropping bombs indiscriminately --
Guess they listened to me; listened to me; listened to me...

Da da dumb dumb dumb dumb dumb

I was gonna save the world and the people would see
As Secretary General they'd all turn to me
I'd heal the planet and lower the sea
- cause it's all about me; all about me; all about me

Da da dumb dumb dumb dumb dumb

The messiah of hope and change, I can make you happy
It's the first post-racial Presidency-
Except that you're a racist if you don't agree
- cause it's all about me; all about me; it's all about me!

I was gonna be the best President I ever could be
I was gonna suck up to tyrants and make them love me
Cause I'm uniquely qualified to bash my country
- since it's all about me; all about me; all about me....

Da da dumb dumb dumb dumb....DUMB

UPDATE: It was suggested to me that I link to the original song by Afroman...so here it is in all its glory (and I linked it above, too).

HEH

From The Corner:

Top 10 Reasons Chicago Didn't Get the Olympics

An e-mail:

10. Dead people can't vote at IOC meetings
9. Obama distracted by 25 min meeting with Gen. McChrystal
8. Who cares if Obama couldn't talk the IOC into Chicago? He'll be able to talk Iran out of nukes.
7. The impediment is Israel still building settlements.
6. Obviously no president would have been able to acomplish it.
5. We've been quite clear and said all along that we didn't want the Olympics.
4. This isn't about the number of Olympics "lost", it's about the number of Olympics "saved" or "created".
3. Clearly not enough wise Latina judges on the committee
2. Because the IOC is racist.
1. It's George Bush's fault.

Gee, the Obama charm seems to be wearing a bit thin on the international (and national) stage....ah well; it could have been worse, I suppose. Tehran could have been chosen to host the 2016 Olympics.

HOW TO HAVE YOUR BOMB AND ENHANCED GLOBAL STANDING TOO !

The secret is to have an oblivious US President who thinks "engagement" is some sort of holy grail and that he is the messiah who will bring peace to the world:

As the Wall Street Journal’s editors observe, the Geneva talks have revived the reputation of the despotic regime....

And like the missile-defense capitulation, we’ve gotten precious little for this. We’re now sucked into a process of meetings, and the inspection of Qom will take place with plenty of time for the Iranians to “clean the place out.” We now begin the familiar dance of endless talks, quibbles about inspections, and compromises on verification–all culminating in the realization (eventually) that a secretive, despotic regime is on track to engage in nuclear blackmail.

Of all this Obama seems blissfully unaware. We’re finally engaging! We’re getting down to business. This is constructive, he gushes. Well, for Iran certainly. The mullahs are getting what they want (the limelight on the world stage and plenty of breathing room), now with a nod of approval from the president. As the editors note, Geneva gives Iran “new legitimacy, and new hope that they can have their bomb and enhanced global standing too.” And to boot, it’s all been made possible by the American president, who gave the Iranians all the breathing room they needed, welcomed them to Geneva, lifted not a finger to aid (rhetorically or otherwise) the democracy protesters, and now praises the regime for doing nothing concrete at all to halt its nuclear program.

Or, as Charles Krauthammer notes this morning: "When France chides you for appeasement, you know you’re scraping bottom."

How low can we go? Well, Krauthammer's piece ends with this: "Bismarck is said to have said: “There is a providence that protects idiots, drunkards, children, and the United States of America.” Bismarck never saw Obama at the U.N. Sarkozy did."

Please read the entire article because it showcases the unbelievable and insane grandiosity of the current U.S. President, whose narcissism seems to know no bounds.

It's all about Obama, all the time. He is prancing around now, talking like a big man now, demanding action (and using the royal "we") like some non-magical Gilderoy Lockhart; but that's all we are likely to get from him: words, words, words. When push comes to shove, he will try to erase our memories of his fecklessness by his golden rhetoric--and of course, by blaming someone else for his own incompetence and insufferable arrogance.

Obama's clear pattern of positively reinforcing the negative behavior of our enemies as we simultaneously negatively reinforce every effort to confront and deal with that negative behavior indicates a psychological denial and delusion so profound that it is simply stunning in its pathology.

No matter how you look at it--either from a behavioral or a psychological perspective--it seems clear that things are only going to be going from bad to worse in the immediate future.

In the end, Obama's grandiose dithering and the lunatic actions of Democrats in Congress (and leftists everywhere) are likely to get us all killed.

NEW COMPUTER !

I have finally made the decision to go Mac and bought my new MacPro last night. Blogging will be light as I navigate the ins and outs of my new toy and get it all set up and configured--and readjust my brain to use it!

This is gonna be fun....

HOW DREAMS DIE IN THE ERA OF HOPENCHANGE

Appealing to the Obamessiah for funds isn't hard if you use the right 'hook':



(Day by Day by Chris Muir) (and, thanks OBH)

HELL NO !

My daughter showed me this youtube video, which is pretty good:

NEOCONSERVATIVE REALISM

Bret Stephens in the WSJ suggests that the "evil neocons" are actually the real foreign policy “realists”--in that they are able to focus on...reality, instead of all the hoping, wishing, and dreaming that is essential to the utopian fantasies of the left:

The other day I was asked by a writer for a mainstream French newspaper to say something about the "return" of the neoconservatives. His thesis seemed to be that the shambles of Barack Obama's foreign policy had, after only nine months, made what was thought to be the most discredited wing of an ostensibly brain-dead conservative movement relevant again. And France—no longer straining at the sight of Michelle Obama shopping in Paris's 6th arrondissement—is taking notice.

My answer was that the neocons are back because Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Kim Jong Il and Vladimir Putin never went away. A star may have shone in the east the day Barack Obama became president. But these three kings, at least, have yet to proffer the usual gifts of gold and incense and myrrh....

All this must, at some level, come as a surprise to an administration so deeply in love with itself. "I am well aware of the expectations that accompany my presidency around the world," Mr. Obama told the U.N.'s General Assembly last week with his usual modesty. He added that those expectations were "rooted in hope—the hope that real change is possible, and the hope that America will be a leader in bringing about such change."

Yet what sounds like "hope" in, say, Toronto or Barcelona tends to come across as fecklessness in Warsaw and Jerusalem. In Moscow and Tehran, it reads like credulity—and an opportunity to exploit the U.S. at a moment of economic weakness and political self-infatuation.

For those much-scorned neocons, none of this comes as a surprise. Neoconservatives generally take the view that the internal character of a regime usually predicts the nature of its foreign policy. Governments that are answerable to their own people and accountable to a rule of law tend to respect the rights of their neighbors, honor their treaty commitments, and abide by the international rules of the road. By contrast, regimes that prey on their own citizens are likely to prey on their neighbors as well. Their word is the opposite of their bond.

That's why neocons have no faith in any deals or "grand bargains" the U.S. might sign with North Korea or Iran over their nuclear programs: Cheating is in the DNA of both regimes, and the record is there to prove it. Nor do neocons put much stock in the notion that there's a "reset" button with the Kremlin. Russia is the quintessential spoiler state, seeking its advantage in America's troubles at home and abroad. Ditto for Syria, which has perfected the art of taking credit for solving problems of its own creation.

Where neocons do put their faith is in American power, not just military or economic power but also as an instrument of moral and political suasion. Disarmament? The last dictator to relinquish his nuclear program voluntarily was Libya's Moammar Gadhafi, who did so immediately following Saddam Hussein's capture. Democratization? Contrary to current conventional wisdom, democracy is often imposed, or at least facilitated, by U.S. pressure—in the Philippines, in the Balkans and, yes, in Iraq. Human rights? Anwar Ibrahim, the beleaguered Malaysian opposition leader, told me last week that "the only country that can stand up" to abusive regimes is the United States. "If they know the administration is taking a soft stance [on human rights], they will go on a rampage."

And, it isn't just in the realm of foreign policy that neoconservatives are much more in touch with the real world:

...Robert Smith at American Thinker believes that the left is in real crisis, facing not a temporary electoral setback in Europe but an existential crisis; that it is self-destructing at such a rate that the very swiftness of its collapse threatens to be a catastrophe in its own right.

Less than a year into his presidency, Barack Obama’s world grows bleaker. Liberalism’s world is bleaker. At home and abroad, liberalism, as advanced by the President, is failing. Are we witnessing the beginnings of another historic event, loosely comparable to the fall of communism twenty years ago? Now the fall of liberalism? … Overseas, the nation’s enemies, who only a short time ago feared us, now scheme to overtly or surreptitiously challenge us. Our allies in Europe, Asia and the Middle East, some of whom resent our power, must confront an ugly question: What happens in a world absent sufficient projections of American power?

Smith isn’t alone in worrying about the frenetic pace at which events are moving. And it is not the change but the rate at which it is accelerating that really raises concerns. Some months ago it became evident that blunders were piling on so fast, and they were of such enormity that they fed each other, like a patient facing multiple organ failure. The Left was self-medicating itself so catastrophically, and smashing up so many things so quickly that there simply wasn’t enough outrage in the world to even keep track of it.

European socialism was fantasy viable only while the US successfully performed the role of global system administrator. With Barack Obama crashing subsystem after subsystem, the socialist appendages are powering down. Without free energy from the capitalist system they despise, socialism is indeed doomed. What no one anticipated was how quickly the end might come. It would be really interesting if the key problem in the next few years turned out to be not about how to defeat the left, but how to survive the maelstrom left by its sinking. There is some sense in the Left that things are no longer the same. But that’s a mistake. They have never changed.

If you listen at all to the MSM, you might begin to think that neoconservativesm is either in dissaray, dead and abandoned by all its former adherents. With the death of the great Irving Kristol, the Times Online proclaims the "end of the neocon era."

They wish.

Neoconservatism has been pronounced dead by its opponents many times in the decades since its ideas were first formulated. The reasons tha these rumors of its death are constantly exaggerated is due to the fact that the philosophy underlying neoconservative policies is extremely threatening to today's postmodern political left.

Today's left is a nothing more than the hallow shell of what was once known as "liberalism"; and it is held together by the empty and meaningless rhetoric of postmodern intellectual nonsense, otherwise known as political correctness and multiculturalism (or, cultural relativity).

Neoconservatism as an intellectual theory actually arose from the observation in the 1960's that classical liberalism had been hijacked by the left and its essence literally reconstructed to suit the needs of dead-end socialists and communists, finally beginning to realize that the jig was up for them.

All over the world it was becoming more and more obvious that political and social collectivism was an abject failure. Wherever these ideologies were implemented, their policies led to intractable poverty and economic misery; and inevitably the economic policies were accompanied by oppression, tyranny, and the crushing of the human spirit.

I have discussed elsewhere how the recent revival of socialism and its collectivist/totalitarian agenda in the late 20th and early 21st century was made possible by the adoption of postmodern epistemology, rhetoric and politics by western intellectual elites:

The rise of neoconservatism in the latter part of the 20th century represents the only modern intellectual counter and the only known antidote to the infection of postmodernism and its resultant toxic effects on philosophy, politics and rehtoric.

In order to succeed in undoing and undermining the clear and unambiguous evidence of socialism's and communism's utter human toxicity, the totalitarians of the political left had to undermine nothing less than reality, reason, and truth.

Furthermore, they had to deconstruct and invalidate human consciousness, making sure that the everyone understood that the only apparatus available to humans for perceiving reality--the mind--was completely unreliable, and that the evidence of the senses must therefore be discounted. This intellectual strategy has resulted in a pervasive moral and cultural relativism; and an intellectual nihilism that has permeated all aspects of society and intellectual thought.

Words and language are redefined to mean whatever is wanted/needed in the moment to persuade; history is deconstructed--ostensibly to expose it's lies, but really to render it meaningless and irrelevant to the present; and the ideas and values that are the foundation of Western Civilization are mocked and shown by postmodern "logic" to be no better than any other random ideas.

For the left, freedom's just another word for nothing left to lose--and not much different from slavery anyway; democracy is just as much a fraud as tyranny; that which was always considered the good, is really just as evil as evil; and so on. Twentieth century postmodernists thus set themselves up as culturally and morally superior to all other humans in history, and with the postmodern relativistic advantage, they could pass judgement on everyone and everything. Thus from the superior postmodern perspective, there was nothing of value to learn from a slave-holding--and clearly imperfect-- Thomas Jefferson; there is no moral superiority in a system that strives toward increasing individual human freedom and dignity compared to a system that doesn't even recognize the rights of the individual. There is no difference between right and wrong; good and evil--all are suspect, all are hypcritical, all are imperfect; and thus all such concepts are rendered irrelevant.

By disgarding reason and reality; by abandoning the past and embracing moral and cultural relativism, the left has brought us to this place where we are morally and physically paralyzed. We place greater value on beautiful words and rhetoric than on behavior; what is said, instead of what is done; we seem unable to distinguish between the deliberate targeting and killing of innocents and the accidental and unavoidable killing of innocents despite herculean efforts to avoid it; between waging war to give people a chance at freedom and democracy; and waging war for domination and imperialism; between standing up for what is right and accepting the consequences, and abandoning one's values and surrendering with "honor" to the scum of the earth.

Do our current leaders have the moral will to actually win the war in Afghanistan now that the morally bankrupt left is calling the shots? I sincerely doubt it. Even as I write this, our Dear Leader is heading off to lobby for the Chicago Olympics and can't be bothered to meet or discuss strategy with the General he appointed to oversee the war . This more than anything highlights the ridiculous priorities and broken moral compass of the political left.

Yet, these are the same political ideologues who have established themselves as the arbiters of moral behavior by enabling and encouraging amoral and immoral behavior; of being "reality-based" without the necessity of having to acknowledge reality; of speaking "truth" to power, without being capable of recognizing truth (isn't all truth relative, after all?).

Neoconservative philosophy represents the beginnings of a neo-rationalism that just might be able to offer new solutions for the intractable national and international problems that have spilled into the 21st century. Neoconservativism is realism. not utopian fantasy. Promoting and standing up with the Democratic and free regimes of the world is far more reality-based and consistent with our national interest than the bizarre and unrealistic high school rhetoric of "universal nuclear disarmament"--which was a pipe dream in the late 1960's when my own high school debate team passionately argued, "Resolved: Nuclear weapons should be controlled by an international organzation."

I like to think that I've grown up since those days and come to understand something about human nature and the realities of the world; as well as the persistence of evil. To watch my own country descend into such histrionic adolescent fantasies and wishful thinking is rather painful.

I am proud to consider myself a neoconservative, which I find to be the only political philosophy that faces the unpleasant realities of the world unflinchingly, but at the same time encourages the optimization of human freedom around the globe as the best means to promote continued American progress and our national security.

By proudly reclaiming the history of Western Civilization, which has been the history of the triumph of human liberty over tyranny; built slowly upon great idea after great idea; and which always strives for the good, but is never perfect; neoconservatism remains the only antidote for anti-reality, anti-mind, and anti-truth postmodern leftist relativism.



[Cartoons by Henry Payne]

WHERE IS OBAMA TAKING US ?

The evidence is accumulating...and all anyone ever had to do was to delve into his political associations:

No doubt, some will dismiss the newly revealed connections between the Obama administration, Patrick Gaspard, Bertha Lewis, and ACORN as "guilt by association." Yet it seems to me that the evidence points to something more significant than that. We are talking about a persistent and shared political-ideological alliance between President Obama and the complex of community, labor, and party organizations controlled by ACORN. (See especially "Life of the New Party" for more on New Party ideology.) Again, the Gaspard issue is new and needs further investigation and consideration. Yet preliminary indications are that the Gaspard-ACORN-Bertha Lewis-New Party-WFP-SEIU ties are significant, and tell us something disturbing about the political ideology and intentions of President Obama. In particular, the connection between Gaspard, Lewis, the New Party, and the Working Families Party ought to draw our attention back to what may ultimately be the most important Obama-ACORN tie of all, his time with Chicago’s New Party.

Read it all. You can tell a lot about a man (or woman) by looking at the company he keeps.

And, I would like to point out that "keeps" is in the present tense, not the past tense. These people from the "past" still surround Obama now that he is POTUS. This is not a coincidence, and Kurtz is absolutely correct that this information is incredibly significant, whether the legacy media decide they will look at it or not.

Why? Because it tells us where Obama is really trying to take this country, and what his real agenda is. Nothing is more relevant than that.

Read Kurtz's other articles ("Something New Here," and "Life of the New Party.") on Obama and his questionable associations; associations that, when taken as a whole, are not only extremely revealing, but should be of concern to all Americans--and should have been something that was explored in minute and repetitive detail before this guy was elected to any position of importance.

Now, ask yourself why this simple investigative journalist task was never done (except by Kurtz) and why it never made big news? Because this is precisely the kind of important information that is needed to determine the character of a man.

I never attribute to malice, what can be explained by sheer stupidity; but in this case, I am beginning to believe that there was a lot of malice aforethought by a lot of people in order to hide, obscure and/or delete any information that might dent the pre-fabricated and carefully polished image of the new messiah.

Or, I could just be paranoid.

I guess the truth will be apparent when we arrive at Obama's final destination.

PERSONAL RESPONSIBILITY AND THE GOLDEN AGE OF NARCISSISM

From Mark Steyn's column this week, "Dislike Obama? You Must Be Racist":

Melissa Harris-Lacewell, professor of African-American studies at Princeton, was invited on to National Public Radio to expound on the use of “racial code words” in “the current opposition to health care reform.” For example, explained professor Harris-Lacewell, “language of personal responsibility is often a code language used against poor and minority communities.”

“Personal responsibility” is racial code language? Phew, thank goodness America is belatedly joining Canada and Europe in all but abolishing the concept.

“Code language” is code language for “total bollocks.” “Code word” is a code word for “I’m inventing what you really meant to say because the actual quote doesn’t quite do the job for me.” “Small government”? Racist code words! “Non-confiscatory taxes”? Likewise. “Individual liberty”? Don’t even go there! To an incisive NPR racism analyst, the elderly gentleman telling his congressman “I’m very concerned by what I’ve heard about wait times for MRIs in Canada” is really saying “I’m unable to overcome my deep-seated racial anxieties about the sexual prowess of black males, especially now they’re giving prime-time press conferences every night.” With interpreters like professor Harris-Lacewell on the prowl, I’m confident 95 per cent of Webster’s will eventually be ruled “code language.”

For years now, pop psychology and its gurus have mesmerized the culture at large. All their self-help tenets have percolated through K-12 educational curricula; and been accepted wholeheartedly by the cultural elite of Hollywood and the intellectual elite of academia.

The triumvarate of contradictions that claims to be based on "scientific" psychology includes the hyping of (1) self-esteem (increasing your self-worth without having to achieve anything); (2) hope (achieving your goals without any real effort) and (3) victimhood (it's not your fault that you haven't achieved anything or made any effort). See here for more discussion.

These three fundamental axioms of leftist thought have risen to prominence in our society as the denigration of the concept of personal responsibility has taken hold. In fact, as you can see from Steyn's column above, the very use of the words have become politically incorrect--racist, even--primarily because personal responsibility is not compatible with the leftist definition of those three fundamental axioms.

After several decades, the intellectual impoverishment brought about by faux self-esteem, fairy-tale utopian fantasies, and eternal victimhood--all pseudoscientific psychological deceptions designed to maintain dependence on leftist ideology-- are now becoming apparent:

Over a 20-year span beginning in the early 1970s, the average SAT score fell by 35 points. But in that same period, the contingent of college-bound seniors who boasted an A or B average jumped from 28% to an astonishing 83%, as teachers felt increasing pressure to adopt more "supportive" grading policies. Tellingly, in a 1989 study of comparative math skills among students in eight nations, Americans ranked lowest in overall competence, Koreans highest — but when researchers asked the students how good they thought they were at math, the results were exactly opposite: Americans highest, Koreans lowest. Meanwhile, data from 1999's omnibus Third International Mathematics and Science Study, ranking 12th-graders from 23 nations, put U.S. students in 20th place, besting only South Africa, Lithuania and Cyprus.

Still, the U.S. keeps dressing its young in their emperors' new egos, passing them on to the next set of empowering curricula. If you teach at the college level, as I do, at some point you will be confronted with a student seeking redress over the grade you gave him because "I'm pre-med!" Not until such students reach med school do they encounter truly inelastic standards: a comeuppance for them but a reprieve for those who otherwise might find ourselves anesthetized beneath their second-rate scalpel.

The larger point is that society has embraced such concepts as self-esteem and confidence despite scant evidence that they facilitate positive outcomes. The work of psychologists Roy Baumeister and Martin Seligman suggests that often, high self-worth is actually a marker for negative behavior, as found in sociopaths and drug kingpins.

We see the people who have inhaled this "psychology-lite" everywhere around us, and in all levels of society. Particularly we can notice it in the elites of Hollywood and Academia; who alternate between acting out their narcissistically empowered superiority -- demanding to be noticed, admired and loved (by you); and playing the narcissistically empowered victim -- demanding their inalienable rights and priveleges (at your expense).

But the real victims of all this hype are our children, because these foolish notions, without a scintilla of scientific evidence and only becaue it makes some people feel good about themselves, have become the pop psychology dogma of public policy in education; and the corollary of their implementation is an equal and opposite de-emphasis on taking personal responsibility for one's actions and behaviors and accepting the consequences, both good and bad. One's character is not only determined by successes in life, but by how failures are dealt with. Self-esteem is the by-product of negotiating those successes and failures with integrity and honesty. "Hope" is meaningless unless it escapes the land of fantasy and conforms with reality; and victimhood should only be a transient state that motivates a person to change behavior--not a celebration or a way of life.

For many on the left side of the political spectrum, the concept of "personal responsibility" is inextricably linked to conservative moral principles; to business success and capitalism; and to the bugaboo of collectivists everywhere, individualism. It is no secret that the political left has idealized certain social and political systems because they suppressed the individual and elevated the state, insisting that individuals had no right to exist for their own selves, but only to serve others.

Those on the left mistakenly believe that it is individualism and "evil" capitalism that is linked to narcissistic behavior. But as I have explained in previous posts, there is a flip side to "selfish" or "grandiose" narcissism-- and that is narcissism rooted in idealism, rather than selfishness; or "idealistic" narcissism (discussed at some length here if you are interested). This second kind of narcissism (the flip side of the coin, if you will) is less obvious to an observer, since it is disguised with a veneer of concern for others. But it is equally—if not more—destructive and causative of human suffering, decay, death and misery. Both kinds of narcissism are a plague on the world; and both are well-traveled avenues for limiting freedom and imposing tyranny. The "grandiose" narcissism is the stimulus for individual tyrants, while the "idealistic" narcissism leads to groups imposing their will on others.

The idealistic narcissist is invested in utopian fantasies. Their self-esteem is derived from the power they feel in controlling the lives of others, and they desperately need to maintain a constant supply of "victims" they can pretend to champion. In general, they are extremely resistant to taking responsibility for their own behavior or the implementation of their utopian dreams--all of which have been emotionally catastrophic for the individuals in the system. Is it any wonder that the political left identifies personal responsibility as a dangerous and radical concept? In a world where personal responsibility and accountability for one's behavior is expected, they themselves would have to answer to that thing we call "reality."

This they cannot and will not do.

Hence they have constructed a whole system ("political correctness") to stigmatize and intimidate those who believe that self-esteem must be earned by achievement and is dependent on one's choices and actions; that "hope and change" come about not by wishing and lovely rhetoric, but by doing; and that your current bad situation may not be (entirely) your own fault, but by constantly externalizing blame for that situation, you miss opportunities to make necessary changes in your own behavior that keep you down. By taking responsibility for your own life, you stop waiting to be rescued and do what you have to do to rescue yourself. You can stay a "victim" and wallow in "victimhood", but the essence of maturity and adulthood is taking charge of your own life and not letting others dictate who you should be, or what you should do.

Unhealthy narcissism (yes, a certain amount of narcissism not only can be healthy, it is essential to function optimally in life) is encouraged by the "self-esteem gurus" in education, whose nonsense continues to reinforce the inappropriate grandiosity of young children by facilitating a faux self-esteem; just as the radical environmentalists and politically correct, kumbayah types (among other groups) continue to reinforce the malignant selflessness that comes from fervently believing in the perfectibility of human beings.

Between the two influences unleashed on the vulnerable minds of our children, is it any surprise that by the time they get to college, kids are either dysfunctional, self-absorbed narcissists; naively malignant do-gooders; or (at best) completely and irrevocably cynical about the pervasive indoctrination and anti-intellectualism they have been subjected to in their educational careers?

As this article from the LA Times says somewhat understatedly, "Gen Y's ego trip is likely to take a nasty turn". Yes, we are already seeing the consequences on a daily basis.

Welcome to the Golden Age of Narcissism! Please check all personal responsibility, common sense and reality at the door before entering....

A FESTIVAL OF LIBERAL HYPOCRISY

Rich Lowry:

We are experiencing a festival of liberal hypocrisy on the Afghan war, as all the left-wing doves who touted the war as absolutely essential for years back off now that it's no longer a politically convenient war....

Read it all.

But we always knew it would come to this, didn't we? The left has no real principles except the desire for power; no real moral compass except for spinning moral relativism...they waft around like feathers in the ever-changing political winds. They were "willing to use any club with which to beat the Bush administration and to trumpet the amazing qualities of Barack Obama."

And like the messiah they adore, they will vote "present" on Afghanistan, then shrug their shoulders, ignore the advice of their Generals, and then say, "What more could we do?".

Pathetic.

LACK OF POLITICAL WILL ? HOW ABOUT POLITICAL GRANDIOSITY?

Anne Bayefsky:

...[W]hen President Obama addressed the General Assembly and Security Council he already knew that Iran was ignoring international standards, and its latest violations endangered international peace and security more than ever before. And yet he deliberately refused to put Iran on the agenda of the Council summit — the same Council that he claimed bore responsibility for responding to such threats.

President Obama knew that if the magnitude of the Iranian threat were revealed yesterday, the emptiness of his resolution would have been embarrassingly obvious and his cover blown. In public, at the highest levels of the U.N, he heralded generalities as significant. In private, he was petitioning lower levels of the U.N. to act on startling specifics of the Iranian threat.

Why did the president not present this same evidence to the Security Council, the body with “the authority and the responsibility to respond”? Why did he not challenge world leaders to deal with the same Iranian threat that he privately was pressing upon U.N. bureaucrats?

There is only one possible answer: President Obama does not have the political will to do what it takes to prevent an Iranian nuclear bomb.

Is it really a lack of political will? Or is it political grandiosity and malignant narcissism playing itself out on a world stage?

I do not happen to believe that Obama will do what is necessary to protect this country from the the Iranian threat. The only "evil" he has ever been able to internalize is that of the "social injustice" of capitalism and America, taught to him all through his life by his mother and father figures like Frank Marshall Davis and Jeremiah Wright.

Psychologically, he can't protect us, even if he wanted to. He is bound up in and obsessed with his own personal, unresolved conflicts and caught up in a destructive repetition compulsion; and having a Daddy who was interested in protecting little Barry's world is not something he can relate to.

All the world's his stage now--a stage he can use to act out those malignantly narcissistic defects manifested in his cold grandiosity and in his "selfless" devotion to pursuing what the left insists on calling "social justice"; but which in the cold light of reality always turns out to be the pursuit of power over others .

Remember Obama's really tough response to North Korea's missile launch?

North Korea’s development and proliferation of ballistic missile technology pose a threat to the northeast Asian region and to international peace and security. The launch today of a Taepo-dong 2 missile was a clear violation of United Nations Security Council Resolution 1718, which expressly prohibits North Korea from conducting ballistic missile-related activities of any kind. With this provocative act, North Korea has ignored its international obligations, rejected unequivocal calls for restraint, and further isolated itself from the community of nations.
We will immediately consult with our allies in the region, including Japan and the Republic of Korea, and members of the U.N. Security Council to bring this matter before the Council. I urge North Korea to abide fully by the resolutions of the U.N. Security Council and to refrain from further provocative actions.

The man is all talk and aggressive inaction when it comes to national security. Other leaders have noticed and have begun to mock his childish agenda--even if our own media haven't:

“President Obama dreams of a world without weapons … but right in front of us two countries are doing the exact opposite.

“Iran since 2005 has flouted five security council resolutions. North Korea has been defying council resolutions since 1993.

“I support the extended hand of the Americans, but what good has proposals for dialogue brought the international community? More uranium enrichment and declarations by the leaders of Iran to wipe a UN member state off the map,” he continued, referring to Israel.

The sharp-tongued French leader even implied that Mr Obama’s resolution 1887 had used up valuable diplomatic energy.

“If we have courage to impose sanctions together it will lend viability to our commitment to reduce our own weapons and to making a world without nuke weapons,” he said.

Mr Sarkozy has previously called the US president’s disarmament crusade “naive.”

He has enough political "will" to support the ranting Zelaya (yet another Chavez wannabe south of us) and, interestingly, always seems to come down on the side of those who dislike and even hate his own country. Obama needs to stop dreaming and wake up to the reality in front of him...but pointing out something like that to a person acting out his own personal psychopathology and grandiose fantasies on a world stage, while little children are singing praises to his wonderfulness and the left is reinforcing and enabling and excusing that gradiosity, would be therapeutically ineffective.

The American people have to find the political will to vote this disaster and his clowns in Congress out of office as soon as it is humanly possible.

UPDATE: The left is simply in awe of Obama, the World Chessmaster! (see comments about enabling grandiosity above) Yeah, right:

A sheriff who spends months convincing gangsters that his gun is unloaded may suffer from a credibility deficit when he tells them to come out with their hands up or else. But all this may yet succeed in prying an agreement from a regime which just demonstrated its willingness lie until it is caught. And when that agreement is to hand it will resolve everything, as we all know, even if you can’t believe a word on it.

But then it's all part of the "hope and change you can believe in" package!

UPDATE II: Still appropriate:

"A RARE MOMENT OF TRUTH IN A CESSPOOL OF LIES"

That's what Scott Johnson calls Bibi Netanyahu's speech to the UN. And I completely concur.



Part 2 of the video of Netanyahu's speech is here, part 3 here, part 4 here.

I'm away on travel and don't have a lot of time to blog at the moment. Back by the weekend. Watch the videos.

Anyone who believes that the U.N. is a force for good in the world today is fundamentally out of touch with reality...and that, sad to say, includes the current POTUS. The U.N. has no shame; and its continued existence only serves to advance the delusions of psychotics like Ahmadinejad and Chavez and Qaddafi; and to further tyrannanical regimes by legitimizing them.

The U.N. should rightly be recognized as a disgusting cesspool; it has morphed from an idealistic dream into a League of Looters.

It is far past time for those countries that still believe in Freedom to accept that this utopian fantasy was just another in a long series of terrible, horrible mistakes that has had a greater role in increasing world suffering and misery, rather than ending it.

If any idealists still exist after watching the way the UN has worked over the last half century and more, then I would suggest that they cut their losses and next time around, come up with a less grandiose body whose membership would be restricted to those countries that demonstate a committment to real freedom--both political and economic-- for their citizens--and not the "Jimmy Carter" kind of country that pretends to have democratic elections so some despot can get the former President's approval and high fives from other tyrants in key UN positions.

What is needed is a League of Liberty to promote and encourage democratic and free institutions around the world.

League of Looters versus League of Liberty. A real no-brainer in my opinion.

OBAMA AND THE U.N. LORDS

(With much appreciation for Lewis Carroll's "The Walrus and the Carpenter" from which the meter (and more) were rather shamelessly stolen)

The sun shone down on Turtle Bay,
as if to pick a fight:
It did its very best to bring
The actions there to light--
And this was odd, because it was
The middle of the night.

The moon was shining sulkily,
Because she thought the sun
Had got no business to be there
After the day was done--
"It's very rude of him," she said,
"To come and spoil the fun!"

The Council members all were there,
Security was loose.
You'd never hear the drums of war
Since they'd declared a truce!
But still all fighting carried on--
As if it were obtuse.

Obama and the U.N. Lords
Were walking hand in hand;
They wept like anything to see
Such discord in the land:
"If peace were only breaking out,"
They said, "it would be grand!"

"If I looked them clearly in the eye
And used my magic voice.
Do you suppose," Obama said,
"That they would have a choice?"
"I doubt it," said the U.N. Lords,
And shed a happy tear.

"O nations, come and walk with us!"
Obama did entreat.
"A pleasant walk, a pleasant talk,
Before the Council Meet.
We extend to you our unclenched fist,
To show there's no deceit."

Some smarter nations looked at him,
But didn't say a thing:
They saw the glitter in his eyes,
And knew what that would bring;
They would not walk, they would not talk
They understood the sting.

But several nations hurried up,
All eager for this prize,
They claimed they never got respect
They felt so victimized,
And this was odd, because, you know,
They always uttered lies.

Four other nations followed them,
And yet another four;
And thick and fast they came at last,
And more, and more, and more--
All looking for someone to blame,
And Obama had the cure.

Obama and the U.N. Lords
Talked on for hours it seemed,
And when they stopped the nations all
Smiled--in fact they beamed
And all the nations stood and clapped
It was all that they had dreamed.

"The time has come," Obama said,
"To talk reality:
Of peace--and nukes--and climate change--
Of brotherhood--and Me--
And why I am so wonderful
I'm sure you all agree."

"Oh yes," the first four nations said,
"Now that we've have our chat;
You've left us really speechless,
And eager for combat!"
"No hurry!" said the U.N. Lords.
There's lots of time for that.

"A sacrifice," Obama said,
"Is what we chiefly need:
I offer up my own dear land
A land that's filled with greed--
Now if you're ready, nations all,
You can begin to feed."

"Yes, how kind you are!" the nations cried,
And never skipped a beat.
"After kindness and naivete,
We cheer on your defeat!"
"Ah social justice!" Obama sighed.
"It's all so very neat..."

"It seems a shame," Obama said,
"To waste my special gift;
It could be used for all you know--
To give the world a lift!"
The Nations said nothing but
"That's spreading it too thick!"

"We weep for you," the Nations said:
"We deeply sympathize."
With sobs and tears they sorted out
Their peaces of the prize,
Holding up their handkerchiefs
Before their streaming eyes.

"O Nations," said the U.N. Lords,
"We need a man like O!
He can lead us all to hope and change!'
And steer us far from woe--
And as Secretary General
He'll put on a lovely show.

---------------------------

Obama's speech to the UN.

Jennifer Rubin:

Now, in his four pillars of foreign policy, what was missing? Why, human rights and democracy, of course....The president keeps telling us he isn’t naive (funny how Ronald Reagan and even Bill Clinton didn’t have to keep compulsively telling us that). Well, maybe he’s just incredibly cynical. Or uninterested in facing the real dangers to America and its allies. In his view, they simply don’t exist.

Ahmadinejad is now speaking lecturing us in morality at the U.N.

UPDATE: They are both anti-capitalist, anti-Imperialism, social justice seekers. Take your pick as the Demagogue of the Day:



VS

ANTI-REALITY

We are in the middle of a war in Afghanistan (you know, the "good war"-hahaha) and our busy little President suddenly can't seem to find any time to formulate a coherent policy or even discuss it with his Generals. But, you've probably noticed that Obama the Wonderful has all the time in the world to lecture our kiddies about their schoolwork; make a full Ginsburg of the TV News shows AND Letterman to pimp his Health Care reform; and to voice his irritation that there is not yet peace in the Middle East (how dare they ignore The One??). Not to mention the enormous amount of time he's wasting denegrating our countryto all the looters at the UN--while proudly pointing to his own "accomplishments" and wonderfulness on climate change. What a guy! A Man for the World.

Many Americans are slowly coming to realize that the only imminent "irreversible catastrophe" is the Obama Administration's plans for transforming America into a third world country. Yes he can.

Even in Europe, they are beginning to wake up to the fact that the Messiah is in over his head.

Cliff May notes:

This is a dangerous game. We blame ourselves for a crisis that may or may not exist: Are we really certain that the world is warming up dangerously, that industrial development is causing it, and that we can “fix the problem” without returning to a 19th-century economy?

Then, we grin as we are criticized by all and sundry.

Meanwhile, those gathered at the U.N. and the media covering them avoid talking about Islamist terrorism, genocide in Darfur, brutal suppression in Iran by a regime that is attempting to acquire nuclear weapons, and similar unfashionable topics.

It’s unreal. Or maybe it’s surreal.

This is not only UNreal, it is aggressively anti-real.

UPDATE: Oh yes, reality is a bitch.