Tuesday, February 08, 2005
Random Stuff
A brief essay on the life of Che from the standpoint of someone -- like myself -- who doesn't like socialist autocrats:
"...Guevara’s autobiography, The Motorcycle Diaries, has been made into a movie that received a standing ovation at the Sundance Movie Festival in 2004. Steven Soderbergh, the director of “Traffic”, “Oceans Eleven”, “Erin Brockovich”, “Oceans Twelve”, and numerous other television and movie projects announced that he will begin shooting another movie on Che Guevara’s life in early 2005. There are numerous websites dedicated to propagating the myth of Che and selling merchandise with Che’s image on it. Even the major retailer Burlington Coat Factory has featured Che shirts in its advertising. However, what has gotten lost in the cult of Che is the simple fact that he was nothing more than a spoiled rich punk who used murder to gain personal power..."
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Milking The Multi-Cultural Facade
Speaking of "intellectuals," academics, and political correctness, what's up with this Ward Churchill guy who compared the victims of 9/11 to Nazis because they "supported the mighty engine of profit..."? Okay, he's obviously a typical academic Leftist, mad that his brilliant observations haven't won him power, wealth, and adulation in the capitalist marketplace. What gets me about the whole deal is the phony response from fellow jerks in the academy. Some students and fellow faculty members are crying the usual, "witch-hunt" and "academic freedom" con-screed. This is coming from the same group of Jacobin clowns who have turned American colleges into ideological indoctrination camps where one's free speech can get one sent to "diversity training" seminars or booted from school completely -- especially if your a heterosexual, non-Leftist, "Euro-American."
The center of the current controversy -- Ward Churchill -- is threatening to sue if he's fired. Imagine that, then he can get some of that capitalist cash -- without even having to create or sell a product!
Churchill has thus far headed The University of Colorado's "Ethnic Studies" department touting added expertise by virtue of his bogus "one-sixteenth Cherokee" family lineage. An interesting article in the Rocky Mountain News tells us how much this Marxist intellectual really cares about free academic expression when a student doesn't tow the party line.
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Every Second-Grader Knows Capitalism Is Evil
This article should raise the eyebrows of anyone who is wondering why tax-funded compulsory education is being directed to advance the values and agendas of the Jacobin crowd:
"...just one example of a startling new trend driven by left-leaning social and environmental activists who are now reaching into schools and homes not only to generate kiddie-pressure on targeted businesses, but also to get a hold of children's developing value systems - the younger, the better - and to characterize businesses as the Darth Vaders of the grown-up world."
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An insightful inquiry into how newsroom bias works:
"...When looking at media coverage under the Reagan and Bush Sr. administrations as compared to the Clinton administration, you’d walk away believing that Clinton cured homelessness. The Media Research Center has documented that in 1990, when Bush Sr. was president, there were seventy-one homeless stories on the CBS, NBC, and ABC nightly newscasts. Yet in 1995, when Clinton was president, the number had been reduced to nine. If you were just thinking, “Well, Clinton did fix homelessness,” then the biased reporting has been effective. If Clinton cured homelessness, then why, only three weeks after Bush Jr. was sworn in as president in 2000, were there reports on ABC World News Tonight that claimed, “In New York City the number of homeless in the shelter system has risen above twenty-five thousand a night for the first time since the late 1980s.'..."
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Clifford May ponders the usual UN approach to violence and tyranny:
"Last week, members of a separate U.N. commission appointed by Secretary-General Kofi Annan demurred. They said they were unable to find “sufficient evidence” to conclude that those responsible for the mass murders, rapes, home burnings and ethnic cleansing [in Sudan] acted with “genocidal intent.” Instead, they said that what had taken place were “crimes against humanity with an ethnic dimension." (Well then, no big deal).
Surprisingly, Kofi Annan at least actually expressed some approval that the citizens of Iraq got to vote -- no thanks to him or his organization -- so, we'll let him slide a bit this week.
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A good article on, "After Socialism.":
"...The cognitive behavior of Western intellectuals faced with the accomplishments of their own society, on the one hand, and with the socialist ideal and then the socialist reality, on the other, takes one's breath away. In the midst of unparalleled social mobility in the West, they cry "caste." In a society of munificent goods and services, they cry either "poverty" or "consumerism." In a society of ever richer, more varied, more productive, more self-defined, and more satisfying lives, they cry "alienation." In a society that has liberated women, racial minorities, religious minorities, and gays and lesbians to an extent that no one could have dreamed possible just fifty years ago, they cry "oppression." In a society of boundless private charity, they cry "avarice." In a society in which hundreds of millions have been free riders upon the risk, knowledge, and capital of others, they decry the "exploitation" of the free riders. In a society that broke, on behalf of merit, the seemingly eternal chains of station by birth, they cry "injustice." In the names of fantasy worlds and mystical perfections, they have closed themselves to the Western, liberal miracle of individual rights, individual responsibility, merit, and human satisfaction. Like Marx, they put words like "liberty" in quotation marks when these refer to the West..."
************************************
Observation:
A socialist is a little more insightful than a communist in that they recognize they can't continue to take other people's money if they seize it all at once -- kind of like mugging on the installment plan.
more next Monday...or thereabouts
"...Guevara’s autobiography, The Motorcycle Diaries, has been made into a movie that received a standing ovation at the Sundance Movie Festival in 2004. Steven Soderbergh, the director of “Traffic”, “Oceans Eleven”, “Erin Brockovich”, “Oceans Twelve”, and numerous other television and movie projects announced that he will begin shooting another movie on Che Guevara’s life in early 2005. There are numerous websites dedicated to propagating the myth of Che and selling merchandise with Che’s image on it. Even the major retailer Burlington Coat Factory has featured Che shirts in its advertising. However, what has gotten lost in the cult of Che is the simple fact that he was nothing more than a spoiled rich punk who used murder to gain personal power..."
Milking The Multi-Cultural Facade
Speaking of "intellectuals," academics, and political correctness, what's up with this Ward Churchill guy who compared the victims of 9/11 to Nazis because they "supported the mighty engine of profit..."? Okay, he's obviously a typical academic Leftist, mad that his brilliant observations haven't won him power, wealth, and adulation in the capitalist marketplace. What gets me about the whole deal is the phony response from fellow jerks in the academy. Some students and fellow faculty members are crying the usual, "witch-hunt" and "academic freedom" con-screed. This is coming from the same group of Jacobin clowns who have turned American colleges into ideological indoctrination camps where one's free speech can get one sent to "diversity training" seminars or booted from school completely -- especially if your a heterosexual, non-Leftist, "Euro-American."
The center of the current controversy -- Ward Churchill -- is threatening to sue if he's fired. Imagine that, then he can get some of that capitalist cash -- without even having to create or sell a product!
Churchill has thus far headed The University of Colorado's "Ethnic Studies" department touting added expertise by virtue of his bogus "one-sixteenth Cherokee" family lineage. An interesting article in the Rocky Mountain News tells us how much this Marxist intellectual really cares about free academic expression when a student doesn't tow the party line.
Every Second-Grader Knows Capitalism Is Evil
This article should raise the eyebrows of anyone who is wondering why tax-funded compulsory education is being directed to advance the values and agendas of the Jacobin crowd:
"...just one example of a startling new trend driven by left-leaning social and environmental activists who are now reaching into schools and homes not only to generate kiddie-pressure on targeted businesses, but also to get a hold of children's developing value systems - the younger, the better - and to characterize businesses as the Darth Vaders of the grown-up world."
An insightful inquiry into how newsroom bias works:
"...When looking at media coverage under the Reagan and Bush Sr. administrations as compared to the Clinton administration, you’d walk away believing that Clinton cured homelessness. The Media Research Center has documented that in 1990, when Bush Sr. was president, there were seventy-one homeless stories on the CBS, NBC, and ABC nightly newscasts. Yet in 1995, when Clinton was president, the number had been reduced to nine. If you were just thinking, “Well, Clinton did fix homelessness,” then the biased reporting has been effective. If Clinton cured homelessness, then why, only three weeks after Bush Jr. was sworn in as president in 2000, were there reports on ABC World News Tonight that claimed, “In New York City the number of homeless in the shelter system has risen above twenty-five thousand a night for the first time since the late 1980s.'..."
Clifford May ponders the usual UN approach to violence and tyranny:
"Last week, members of a separate U.N. commission appointed by Secretary-General Kofi Annan demurred. They said they were unable to find “sufficient evidence” to conclude that those responsible for the mass murders, rapes, home burnings and ethnic cleansing [in Sudan] acted with “genocidal intent.” Instead, they said that what had taken place were “crimes against humanity with an ethnic dimension." (Well then, no big deal).
Surprisingly, Kofi Annan at least actually expressed some approval that the citizens of Iraq got to vote -- no thanks to him or his organization -- so, we'll let him slide a bit this week.
A good article on, "After Socialism.":
"...The cognitive behavior of Western intellectuals faced with the accomplishments of their own society, on the one hand, and with the socialist ideal and then the socialist reality, on the other, takes one's breath away. In the midst of unparalleled social mobility in the West, they cry "caste." In a society of munificent goods and services, they cry either "poverty" or "consumerism." In a society of ever richer, more varied, more productive, more self-defined, and more satisfying lives, they cry "alienation." In a society that has liberated women, racial minorities, religious minorities, and gays and lesbians to an extent that no one could have dreamed possible just fifty years ago, they cry "oppression." In a society of boundless private charity, they cry "avarice." In a society in which hundreds of millions have been free riders upon the risk, knowledge, and capital of others, they decry the "exploitation" of the free riders. In a society that broke, on behalf of merit, the seemingly eternal chains of station by birth, they cry "injustice." In the names of fantasy worlds and mystical perfections, they have closed themselves to the Western, liberal miracle of individual rights, individual responsibility, merit, and human satisfaction. Like Marx, they put words like "liberty" in quotation marks when these refer to the West..."
Observation:
A socialist is a little more insightful than a communist in that they recognize they can't continue to take other people's money if they seize it all at once -- kind of like mugging on the installment plan.
more next Monday...or thereabouts
