From the beginning, people have been confused about just who Barack Obama is; a common Chicago street thug, a hard-edged, get-even socialist, or a puppet, singing and dancing for some as yet unrevealed master(s).
     When George W Bush assumed office he believed he could "work with" the Democrats in Congress pretty much as he had in Texas. It's not so much that he couldn't, than the seeming fact that it never sunk in that he couldn't that was his undoing. If they had tied him to fence post and pulled his pants down the Democrats couldn't have had their way with him any more than they did...except for that one thing, the war on terror.
     After last night's performance I wonder if Obama will ever learn that what started out as a very convincing man has ended up a parody of himself in eight short months.
    But still, we are left wondering; is the President's inability or unwillingness to deliver to the American people and the Congress particulars about health care "reform" part of a grand strategy, laziness or cowardice?
    When Obama and the Congress began this process, he simply passed off to Reid and Pelosi the chore of filling in the blanks, coming up with details. The House came up with a bill (actually more than one) that had worked itself through a few committees and pretty much reflected what Pelosi, Waxman and a few others wanted in a "reform" package, namely a complete takeover of America's health care. Every "lie", from death panels, rationed care, and rather quick path to single-payer, were (still are) in that bill.
    In opposition, the people came out from the woodwork in droves. Obama said the claims were all lies, but never once, (still hasn't) filled in the blanks with details. With no "X's" and "O's", the people were right, Obama wrong.
    It was determined early on that what he wanted was a blank check based on broad general feel-good themes, i.e. high public-poll approval for a "plan" that hadn't been formulated and presented to the public yet. All the Dem's wanted that, too, as that is line of least resistance. Obama's charm and persuasion could bring them over. Instead, polls moved south. As that quest for general authority diminished in the public's eye, and the Senate struggled with every device known to man to "fool the people" still one more time...its plan is still in the hopper...Obama still refused (or abstained) to provide details for that plan that is running around in his mind.
   Last night was his big chance. His last chance. His last stand. But instead of delivering a stern message to Congress, with particulars about what he wanted in "his plan", he fell back to what he believes is his best, and probably is his only skill...tap dancing and a song. If he'd only worn a top hat and tails.
   I sincerely believe that is all he has...answering several questions for Obama-watchers out there.
   Regardless of the "grand plan", Obama is a coward in its execution, and if he has handlers, they have noticed this and consider it a growing liability...especially if he continues to believe he can talk America out of its knickers every time we need to be convinced about a thing. His inability to deliver a constant message is but one problem. The other is the constant cry-wolf whine. Even his own party, who cynically complains about the GOP or Bush at every chance, see a sincerity in Obama's "pity me" posture that is unnerving. And the people sense it the same way a dog senses fear. Last night that fear was palpable.
   For awhile, people said Obama was a better liar than Clinton, but even in the toughest of times, Clinton could lie with aplomb. Maybe he just believed his own stuff more than Obama does, I can't say.
   Remember, Obama called this meeting...unprecedented in scope, history, and in the end, insincerity. As a bold gambit, it ranked right up there with Custer splitting his men.
   And as Johnny cash wrote about Custer in 1965, "Well, he won't do that again."
 Bernard Chumm
   

    Again, I apologize for repeating things, but as events change things, we need to step back and take a look at just where we are, moving into the Fall, and the Winter of our discontent.
    The strategy seems clearer now, as does the mission of two very important classes of people; the Tea Party-9/12'ers and the Small business class, delat with in Part IV.

     My biggest concern, in the first part of this position paper, was to go over the problems "our army", to which myself and my colleagues belong (under our real names) are about to face in the political arena as we move through the winter. Barring some outlandish "event" from the government (we have several scenarios in mind, and suggest all of you collaborate with one another as to your own ideas), we are headed toward crucibles when the GOP will reach out wanting to bring us (back) under their umbrella and we enter the election cycle. If we can't get together on platforms and candidates, many GOP congressmen in what were once safe Republican districts will find themselves in tough (and acrimonious) primaries, in which the losing party is likely to do the teat-fit thing and sit out the generals.
    Since Bush's last term, the class distinctions within the GOP leadership have become palpable, centered around social-conservative issues such as right-to-life, but also demographic, urban-surburban versus small town and rural.
    Big-tent GOP Olympia Snowllins-like moderates envision a party not unlike the Democrats, many disparate, even antagonistic elements, coming together every political season to defeat a common opponent and then, splitting up the spoils for as long as they can hold power. To them politics is the end game, power the prize. As George Wallace once said, "not a dime's worth of difference", and in Meg Whitman's vision of quality, not an ounce's worth of distinction except as a method of branding. In other words, how do you make one of two nearly identical pieces of cheese more desirable to the consuming public? Name recognition. Great label. Better packaging. Affordable price. Still, rat cheese by any other name is still rat cheese.
    I know the problem anyone with passion for a cause, an idea, or a deep belief in one of those things bigger than ourselves...you know, Liberty, Honor, fundamental Good or Truth...has in trying to weave those notions into a political debate with an OSM (Olympia Snowllin moderate). Deer in the headlights. They have absolutely no connection to what you are talking about, except that in your group of two, one is a real dumb-arse...a point about which they are usually correct.
   They want our vote, but not our opinion. They want our money, but not our contributions. They want our supplications, but not our patronage. They invite us over for Thangsgiving dinner, but we sit at the fold-out card table over in the corner. We're the red-headed step child.
   In virtually every district in America, in every state GOP, this "class" battle is being played out, and has been played out since George W Bush was sworn in the second time. The complete collapse of OSM's demographic appeal in the 2006 midterms, and nationally in 2008 (which naturally they laid at the feet of Sara Palin) did nothing to deter them from believing in the ultimate rightness (sic) of their views, for they could never imaine a world, or a party, driven by ordinary men and women. And by "ordinary", I'm sorry, you guys who got rich in retail or industry and who are now funding much of the rebellion, they mean ordinary-at-birth. Much like John Kerry, many Republicans have their own dreams of bloodline.
   Wherever we may beat them in the primaries next year, they are nothing if not twice as capable of sucking their thumb in a corner as are conservative activists. They will stay home in the general, handing the district over to the Democrats.
   But I'm sorry to tell you this, Leftist "plotters and planners" (which is also what we do here at SICCM) already see this collision looming, explaining much of their disinterest in what we're doing now. They know we will collapse, one or the other of us, Rebels or OSM's taking our ball and glove and going home...yet again.
   As an old marriage counselor, I have to counsel you now: One of us has to be the adult. One of us has to have our gaze fixed firmly on the prize, while keeping our own counsel, as we first disptach the common enemy. This is the one thing the Left believes we (the Rebels) cannot do, for the simple fact that we believe in immutable things, which they consider to be liabilities in their world view of politics and power. Still, if they leave you (us) no option, and wish to move forward on a platform about which we cannot compromise, when in doubt, always take the high road.
    This position of majesty is the context in which the GOP will reach out, so gird yourself. Practice the phony smile, the limp handshake. Read Dumas. And for godsakes, learn to control your gag reflexes.
    We'd love to see the GOP reach out sooner, not later, but I doubt they take us seriously yet, despite the body blows we've delivered at Town Halls across the country this recess.The expected size of the turnout on 9/12 should also turn their heads. Whatever bruises Obama and the Democrats have now, and it's arguable they have any, we delivered them, not the GOP.
     (Watch Virginia, as the gubernatorial election here will give you all some insight as to the dynamics of how this outreach may play out in the 2010 cycle. So far I haven't seen any, although, but so far no national issues other then "Bush" have been on the table.)
     The first political hurdle, then, is getting past this first crossroads intact, and by "intact", I mean arm and arm with the Republican Party.
I know it's hard to hold your nose with both arms interlocked, so carry a clothespin. But we must win the political battle with the Left, and we must win sooner, not later. The Left has the political might, and present intent, to set us and the Constitution, and your children and grandchildren's prospects for freedom back sixty years. Politics is not the end game here, as many of you believe. It is the lynchpin that will allow us to shorten the culture war and the end game by perhaps forty years. Think of that in terms of the great grandchildren you will never know. Think about it.
     I know others have preached a third paty movement, but for one to succeed you have to build a base from the grass roots up in order to even get onto ballots, let alone win elections. That will take years, many election cycles and that will be too late. We aren't fighting a benign paper tiger, here. The prize, Colleagues. The prize.
    And besides, everything we have to do to get a third party off the ground we can do much more easily within the Republican Party simply by changing its face, and its soul, from within and from the bottom up. That can start right now, not several elections from now. For one, conservative congressmen can set up their own caucus right away. Already many of you are presenting congressmen with pledges and contracts. Good idea. Yeah, I know, they may lie, just as they did with the term limit pledge, but the fact they are still in office is our fault, not theirs. We didn't hold them to that promise. So maybe we need to begin getting pledges and contracts from ourselves. Remember the Apostles' Creed? (That's for those of you who read.) I carry one around in my wallet.
    (One note: I mention very little here the role of talk radio and popular conservative pundits such as Ann Coulter and Michelle Malkin. For one (and we've made this lamentation before), they seem to be stuck on Politics, and more specifically the information part of politics, and less on action; i.e, "Now that I've told you these new and revealing things, what are you going to do with this information?" Now Glenn Beck has been behind the 9/12 Project, so he does seem to understand that knowledge alone won't fix anything, but I'm not sure where his vision fits into the larger fight.  We all know what the problem is. Saying it in new and different ways each day really doesn't move the ball down the fairway...except to give many people a false sense of security, sort of like the fellow who attends church each Sunday. They think they've paid their tithe that week. The real soldiers of the Rebellion are listening to the radio less and less, and that's because they simply don't have time. That's as it should be. You read, then put Levin's book, Beck's book, The 5000 Year Leap (super!) on the book shelf, tabbed and underlined, and you sit around and discus with others how you're going to put more boots on the ground. Politics and beyond are now at that stage. We didn't need Edward R Murrow reporting on the radio after Pearl Harbor. We were too busy planting Victory gardens and joining scrap drives. Get it?)

     Just so you'll know what lay ahead, in terms of time and effort, sit down to read this series, because you have to know you have to be in this for eight to ten years, just in the political phase. Not three. It will be long slog, so you have to "set your jaw for it", as Moses usd to say.
     This "take-over" of the republic and the scuttling of the Constitution has been in the planning stage for fifty years and execution stage for about nine years....since 2000 at least.  And it's been in the hoping stage since 1787. So, we can't take it back overnight.

     There are three fronts; the Political, the Institutional and the Cultural.
     The Political Front, the battle we are now fighting, is the lynchpin, for if we (the constitutional forces) can regain political control, and use that power to undo what has been done in this Congress, then we can shorten by a full generation, about forty years, the return of our culture to one of gratitude and fealty for this wonderful gift of freedom.
     But Politics is not the end game...regaining the Culture is...and there, except in our homes, we aren't even fighting that battle. This is why I have been so critical of so many "public" conservatives, especially in business, who really are defending little more than their own front doors. "Screw the neighbors" seems to be the very un-American rallying cry of many business conservatives these days.
    Only someone else did go after the neighbors, and now have them by the throat, and we find ourselves surrounded. As I wrote earlier, the rich can always move to New Zealand, but most of us have to reinforce our doors, shutter the windows with steel and put in firing slits in between the chinks in the logs. Bad thinking, all around, I'd say. The days when all you have to do is go out, work hard, play by the rules, and take care of your nest...and your elected leaders and the Constitution would take care of you...are long gone.
     The Institutional Fronts (in Part III), are especially 1) the bureaucracy, who our taxes feed, but who has all sorts of no-knock licenses to enter our homes, our bank accounts and our inner sanctums of life and 2) the schools, who with malice aforethought, try to unteach every value we impart to our children. They are the principal means by which we have to use the Political to regain the Culture. They are the means to Evil's ends in our lives, so they must likewise be the means to our rescue...by undoing them. (Don't worry, we know how to undo that, even if you don't. It's easy. Requires only willpower...and a steel jaw. And a greater sense of reciprocity to your neighbor.
     But the Culture (Part IV) exists outside the school system, or the long reach of federal, state, city and education  bureaucrats. It thrives mostly in the free market, our markets, where, by our constitutional standards, no law, but only the power of moral suasion and good sense can do battle...and win. The Pop Culture thrives on materialism, ingratitude, vanity, appetites, even narcissism (just Google the Seven Dealy Sins), and laziness. Its religion is self indulgence. We have to make virtue "cool" again.
     Even if we win all the political battles, we have to count on twenty years to reverse this current trend in Culture, especially among the youth, where we have to get to them young, and forbid the state to get to them at all. Try sixty years if we lose the political battles.
     We have included some suggestions that have been on our plate since the election, analyzing what may lay ahead. I address these suggestions you, the Rebels, but also to a different group of rebels, men and women who have so far remained rather quiet, but which I addressed in a previous talk in Georgia last month, for what this "cultural rebellion" requires is money and paid professionals.
     No, you won't be sending any to me. I'm not a TV preacher.

My End Game
     My end game here is to give advance warning to Town Hall-9/12 rebels already out there about the long fight that lay ahead. Don't think you can win this health care fight, or the 2010 elections then walk away...for the other side surely won't...and they have more money and are years ahead of us in planning. They already have a paid army.
     My end game here is also to forewarn you that when you come up to these crossroads that lay ahead in the near future, if beaten down or beaten back, 1) don't take your ball and glove and go home. You already know you have only 1) the choice to form your own political party, (a third party) then watch it and your movement waste away, or 2) reform the GOP from within. "Moderate" is a convenient term used by people who think politics is not only the end game, but the only game, and in that game you gather as many people as you can under one very small flag. Instead, gather yourselves under a huge flag, a banner of indestructible values as laid out in the Constitution, and common sense writ large by centuries of truth and proof, and the GOP will some day be yours...not the party of Ronald Reagan, but something infinitely better, a party that takes up where Reagan left off. Let those "moderates" form their own party, or fade away. But as is more likely, most will come over to your side...for you see, Courage feels good once tried, and most moderates are either class-based elitists (a few, who always lean Left), or are afraid to stand boldly under any banner for fear of being chastised or called out. I'm betting on the latter. Olympia Snowe is a milquetoast because she gets paid very well to be one. Her iffiness is justified every time she gets a campaign contribution, opens her pay envelope, or gets an "attagirl" from Barbara Boxer (Gad!). Still, I'd wager there are senses you all have tasted she'd give worlds to taste, especially that sensation of your nostrils flaring as you can feel your own spine stiffening. I'm serious. I've seen a board member's (of a large public corporation) hand tremble as he poured a congratulatory shot of Cutty Sark for having voted "no" (for the first time) at a board meeting. These are interesting studies and I've seen 'em.
    Many moderates will feel good once they've tried on the cloak of courage. Like a good Scotch, "Good" tastes so much better when not diluted with branch water...or "attagirls" from Barbara Boxer.
    Just don't hand any more elections to the Left because you don't like that snotty person who tries to take over every meeting. What band parent hasn't known them? Stand up. Be heard.
    2) Win or lose in the national elections, you have to turn that energy back to local and state issues. That's where you will confront the institutional roadblocks; the school systems, the NEA, political correctness, and city hall careerists, from housing inspectors to ward heelers. That is where you can save up to 20% of your state's budget no matter who your district sends to Congress. That's where you can take back your schools, and your universities...and the NEA be damned. That's where you can improve the quality of readin', 'riting and 'rithmatic without either the help or permission the Department of Education, and where you can reduce the high cost of college educations by the simplest of formulas...firing people, and firing the people who won't fire people. That's where, in ten years you will find a governor and several congressmen, none of whom are currently on any GOP "Watch" Or "Up-and-Coming" list. As these people grow in politics it's your job to make sure their heads don't grow proportionately. Then, the Party will be yours.
      You will learn, just as the Founders told us, the greatest duty, and the greatest virtue of citizenship, is vigilance...and steel toed boots.
Part III coming soon.
Vassar Bushmills
   
     

     It was a great gambit. As expected President Obama's much-feared school speech was as ordinary a "you can do it" speech as the ones given by past presidents. Nothing to fear.
     Not so fast.
     First, we all know about the unprecedented (and quite frankly, illegal) attempt by the Department of Education to provide teaching aids to schools directly, circumventing legally mandated methods of instruction. The press and prominent Democrat talking heads omit this very serious fact routinely. But these teaching aids, even if benign, which they were not, were aimed directly to teachers, many of whom are very sympathetic to Obama and his message, and through them to serve as a way to identify students and families who do not support Obama's policies/socialist agenda.
     But this was a win-win for Obama, and a lose-lose for schools, and parents who opted out.
     First, with all the furor, all Obama had do was change his speech (he had more than one drafted). Had the nation simply rolled over we'd have gotten a different speech, more like the one given to the AFL-CIO.
     DOE simply redrafted their teaching aids. They didn't withdraw them, however, validating the precedent.
   
     Now, we know something of the way this gang from Chicago plays, and how you play is by causing your enemies to expose themselves. This is not unlike the Fasco-socialists in Europe in the 1930s by the way. So now, Obama and the DOE knows who its friends are...in Virginia, in Texas, in Florida...school district by school district. Can election challenges and financial punishment be far behind?
    Similarly, where private parental option was allowed, to opt out (we  believe an opt-in policy would have been more fair), now individual teachers (Obamailis make up 50% or more of teachers in most schools) know by name, students and families who are unsupportive of Obama. This is no different than, in the 1950s in East Europe, finding out who were still secretly practicing Christianity at home.
    The chilling effect is easy to understand. A school district in Texas says "no" and suddenly finds itself cut off from certian state funds. Case closed. They either repent or bleed. An A-student in Hampton needs an "A" to bolster his/her application to Johns Hopkins. Guess what?
    People are taught to go along with a cattle prod.
    As my friend Vassar Bushmills is working on, on this site, this ability to punish students and their families is non-official in most cases, and outside the political or even legal arena to punish. Theres' little the politicians can do about it.
    Nor does our side yet have the ability to fight back in the same manner. As Bushmills says, we are years behind the Left in fighting dirty and making those will make what is about to happen, happen, pay.
    But we will get better. Let's hope sooner.
BC
   

   Since Glenn Beck and FoxNews can lay claim to the "dismissal" (yes, he was ordered to resign) of Van Jones, I'll let Mr Beck tell us what we learned about going after race-baiters such as Mr Jones.
   There is another lesson, however. Jones, like Obama, is an Ivy Leaguer, a "Stepford Jefferson" without any street cred. Both Obama's cabinets, front office and kitchen, are filled with this type...filled with anger (see Vassar's "Mother of all Liberalism" to better understand this rage), but also, being middle class..as was Marx, as was Lenin, as was Castro, as was almost everyone who signed up to follow the path of get-evenism, never having really grabbed any bull by the horns...which is not the same as grabbing a 'ho by the ears.
    Some of the old Black Panthers from the 70's must have to really stifle the chuckles listening to thes eguys talk tough. My dad said at the American Legion after WWII it was the reservists who talked that way. Same oh, same-oh.
    More on this type later as a profile is beginning to develop, but understanding that "type" is a lesson we can learn.
    As for the lessons they learned: 1) use pseudonyms when possible, 2) never sign anything you aren't willing to die to defend 3) and never, never stand up in front of a crowd and talk that tough talk without first clearing the room of all cell-phobes, videos, tape recorders etc. Dump the vanity trips.
    Even as I write this, Obama talent teams are revising their search criteria to find people have been less, even in-conspicuous with their racism and leftism...although they did get the hint from the mainstream media that calling Republicans "a-holes" and signing onto the 9/11 Doubters theory was seen as much worse than you know, throwing out the Constitution and replacing it with a race-based, get-even Marxist regime. Hell, they may try to run it past us again.
   Still, I think they will try to be less noticeable. Again based on the notion that Van Jones was a type, a very ordinary type, not particularly smart or bright, but yes, "artikulat" as Rev Al is wont to say, a replacement should be easy to find. They may even run across my son's name. (We have our sleepers, too.) In terms of pure quality the average 19 year old in Mom's basement could replace him.
    Lesson learned? Be more like Al Qaida, and less like Erkel.
Bernard Chumm
  

    A lot of what I say here we've said here before over the past ten months. It just needs to be repeated in light of events as they unfold.

    Last year we tried to imagine how three or four people sitting around a dinner table could turn into a movement.
    Indeed, they have, simply by finding a lot of other twosomes and foursomes sitting around still other tables. Together they (you) have exceeded all expectations, taking this Hell-fer-certain fight to the Congress now, rather than wait til campaign season next year. The Democrats' and Obama's hasty and wrong-headed legislative plans helped keep this pot stirred and boiling. It may even have been their undoing. For truly, now is the time, not next Fall.
    But the movement, (we like to use "Rebellion" even though the real revolution is being carried out by the other side) still has one or more crucibles to face in the coming months within its own ranks, and on its own side of the issues before the politics of it all will play out. First of all, the Rebellion is still only a political movement, and not one yet capable of reaching out to treat the underlying cancer that is this leftwing gang of mobsters. So our Rebellion is still playing defense for the most part.
    Defense! you ask? Well, actually, yes, for that's what I call racing around 200 acres of farmland trying to find your prize mare and lure her back to the barn...after having kept the barn door open for years. Removing Obama, and his kind, and the criminal leftist elements in Congress, and their kind is little more than getting that mare back into the safe confines of the stable. The real task is what comes next...restoring the proper relationship between the Congress and the People and the Constitution.
    The hard job, after the politics, especially in light of the anger, pain and fear that will still be fresh in our memories, will be insuring that gate stays protected by your neighbors and your neighbors' children, and your children and your children's children. For a very long time. And the only way that can happen will be to re-learn and re-teach the true blessing of having that wonderful, magical animal in the first place, and re-earn the simple laws of vigilance and duty of the ordinary citizen in keeping it protected.

    So first, we need to consider what lay ahead in the coming months within our own ranks, for there is a collision coming. That will be our first hurdle.
    Around the country some of the groups that make up the organizing center of the Tea Party and 9/12 groups (there are hundreds), are themselves guided not just by those foursomes gathered around the kitchen table, but with the financial support of some very successful men and women...and also some very vain ones, people who, just like me (with one or two minor exceptions) think they have the answer to just about everything...if only given the chance to prove it. It has been with these people in mind that we've stayed in the dark and written so much about leadership these past months, for as a simple mathematical probability, most of them will prove not to have the requisite amount.
    And then there's the Republican Party, wearing what they think is the five hundred dollar suit (in olden times it was a simple laurel wreath) of leadership. Well, we already know how that tune has played inside our rebel camps. You can't lead if the only people who will follow are all members of the same fraternity, Gamma Omega Pi.
    It wasn't for nothing that so many of us became GDI's.
    At some point, this Fall maybe, the winter for sure...the bad guys still have a lot to say about when...these orbiting planets of rebellion will begin to cross each others paths. There will be a reaching out, from both the rebels and the GOP, and try to find common ground on the issues of leadership, i.e., who will carry "our" banner next Fall, as well as our platforms and policies.
    (There is much history when a revolt from the bottom finally has to learn to melt into or at least cooperate with the old hand politicians. Remember William Wallace in "Braveheart'? Wallace had to work with the Scottish nobility, who needed his twice as much, so had to watch his back as much as the English at his front. Indeed, that's how he got it in the end, only the Brits got the pleasure of drawing and quartering him.
   The Good News, of course, is that our side knows exactly what issues and principles we will not, cannot compromise...while the Bad News is it has been so long since the Republicans ever had to consider those things, they may screw the pooch before they even have time to learn those things matter to the citizenry again...or should matter to them as well. If I sound cynical about the constitutional dedication of the GOP, it's because I am, but still, I urge patience with one another. Trust but verify.
    But I don't want to damn the GOP too unfairly. We rebels have our own failings. I was telling my son the other day that teatty-babyism is not a partisan political trait. It is generational, and inhabits the Right every bit as much as it does to the Hole-in-the-Soul gang on the Left. In 2006, the Right, conservatives, many of whom are now at the center of our Rebellion, threw just such a teat fit, stayed home, and gave the Congress over to the Democrats. They even had the temerity to brag the GOP had it coming.
    Their only mistake, despite our protests, (and Rush Limbaugh's, who still has the fire in his belly), is that they underestimated the nature of the people they turned congressional control over to, as if they could just go back and kick them out whenever they wanted. They thought the Democrats were just another political party vying for power, never believing they could really be a criminal gang, or worse, an ideological one at that...playing for all the marbles, to end the impermanence of political power as envisioned in our Constitution. In 2006, staying home, they shot spit wads with rubber bands at knife-toting gangsters.
    That was a mistake.
    But a mistake repeated is stupidity, and by Thunder, they did it again in 2008. I am quite certain that in the most private recesses of some of their hearts now, amidst almost frantic moves forward to undo now their own mistakes, is some very fancy footwork trying to cover up the footprints of those prior retreats in 2006 and 2008. Yes I said "retreat", for when someone picks up his ball and bat and heads home, even as many of you proudly boasted back then...it is a retreat, for you left the fighting to others....who proved to be wiser than you.
    I once wrote here that George W Bush did not have the authority, from God or the Constitution, to turn the other cheek when it was my face being slapped. And I say to you now, you do not have the authority to lead a fight in my name on a battlefield from which twice you retired. You can fight alongside me, but show a little humility, fer godsakes. We already know there will have to some accommodations and compromises made if we are to prevail, and I'm damned if I am going to stand by and watch a three-peat of the teat fits some of you threw in 2006 and 2008. Keep your eye on the prize and your vanity zipped.

    But let's say we win in 2010 and actually throw the Democrats out, or at least get back into that filibuster range in the Senate. Now that the White House is its own power cell, we have to do it all over again in 2012. So we can't rest.
    Let's say we win again.. And let's say the next Republican Speaker of  the House doesn't let it all go to his head, and start trying to be a power broker instead of an advocate of the people, and try to seduce secretaries over that fine oak desk that comes with the office, etc. Let's say the new Senate leader's country club had only nine holes, and his shirts were Pima cotton rather than Egyptian, and he got them at Jos A Banks...during the two-for-one sale. Let's say they both actually begin to right the national applecart with a firm and steely resolve, instead of that hands-across the aisle surrender of past leaders. Let's say they respond with eyes as black as coal every time the new Democrat leaders (Harry will be in jail, Nancy in an asylum to escape jail) whine or complain.
    In other words, let's say everything you dreamt of happens. Still, the Left will simply go back to what they were doing from 1968 thru 2008. George Soros and others will still be spitting out money like nickle slots off the Strip, and the schools will still be spitting out one hundred Van Jones, headed for Yale, for every little Glenn and Rush baby whose mom accidentally finds the AM dial on the radio.
   We will still be losing the war.
   We have to do other things...each according to our abilities and means, and we have to begin thinking about those things now, for if we lose in 2010, or 2012, or if, as Glenn Beck suggests, there is that "event" that will enable the government to suspend the Constitution, or shut down our communications, or force us into "re-orientation camps" in Nevada, "those things" will be all we will have, and we will be transported back to 1950, just like the Left did, with fifty years of building from scratch staring us in the face.
    So tell me, just how will you, at 45, maybe 50, organize the rest of your life to set into motion, to plant a tree that will not bear fruit until your grandchildren have children?
    Some of you will simply, for a third time, pack up your goods, and buy a vacation villa next to a golf course in the Lesser Antilles and become a sovereign nation of one, which so many self-proclaimed conservatives have always sort of been anyway.
    But most of us can't. A few of us won't.
    Part II, coming up.
    What to do, what to do?
Vassar Bushmills

     (From a talk given by Vassar Bushmills to a north Georgia business group in mid-August)

     Maybe it's time to re-think the term "Civil War" in light of current events. One of my Russian associates mentioned to me last year that the term seemed not to fit. She said, "If born in Georgia, you fight with Georgia. If Indiana, you fight with Indiana. To me it seems War With States fit better."
     It does seems to me a civil war involves more of a choice about sides, and in 1860, most people had their choice made for them simply by where they were born. So, there's something to what Ivana Belusova's said, especially when you consider the reasons a farm boy from north Georgia signed up to fight and the reasons a farm boy from Indiana signed up to fight didn't quite gibe. They weren't quite fighting for or against the same things.
     The real civil war, as I see it, was our Revolution, when neighbors, the friend sitting with you at the tavern, the merchant down the street, the farmer down the lane, all had to make a choice. It's a gut-wrenching thing to have to sit down and choose between deeply held beliefs on the one hand and friends, public station, and financial interests on the other. But as Steve McQueen once said, "You've never played the game until you've played for more than you can afford to lose."

    Without knowing your personal predilections, tonight I am here to tell you the Thunder is about to be called down and you need to consider some of your choices in this current Rebellion. There is more than one.
    But first I want to put you in mind of the choices those men and women had to make back in 1776. They enjoyed a luxury I'm afraid the American professional and business community won't be allowed this time around, for you are not just a potential player, you are also an objective, a pawn in at least one side's strategy.
    For a little history, try to recall that part of the Declaration of Independence almost no one reads, where Thomas Jefferson laid out a bill of particulars, an indictment, against King George in July, 1776. He was calling down the thunder on the British Crown for a war that had actually begun a year earlier at Lexington and Concord. The Continental Congress was giving the Rebellion a legal license.
    That's where we are now...the year before, for in like manner, millions of Americans, ordinary citizens, perhaps even a few here tonight, have already made an irrevocable choice, just like those men at Bunker Hill. What those American rebels are waiting for are leaders to step forward, and scribes to set it all down, so as to give a keener direction and form to what they are doing. They'd like your leadership, and they need your money, for no one yet seems to know what shape this Rebellion will take. Some of you want to, but can't. Some of you aren't sure, so want to wait. And some of you just plain don't want to, just as few of you have already signed up.
      You see, this "thunder" is like a rolling peal, not a sudden clap, that goes away as quickly as it got here. Most of us look to the national elections of 2010 as when that bolt of lightning will strike, that turning point, where a few senators, and every congressman will stand election, and hopefully, the worst ones will be thrown out. Then things will turn around, that's what I'm hearing. This explains the small business sector's unwillingness to get actively involved now.
     Let's hope you are right.
     But also let's hope this is not wishful thinking, for the other side also knows our hopes, and has their own plans to deny us. Let's hope they are thinking inside the box, just like we are, and this is just a very political atmosphere rather than a coup, as some call it, or a socialist take-over as others call it...for each, if true...carry a logic which, whether you like it or not, is way, way outside the box.
    And let's not forget whatever this is, politics-gone-bad, socialism, it cannot be cured by a single election, or even a string of them, for we also know the enemies of liberty in this country have been at work in extra-legal ways, well outside the political sphere for years, and will continue to do so, no matter who runs Congress, the state house, or sits in the White House. Today they move and act as if there is nothing we can do to stop them. They fell they are holding all the aces. They have hundreds of millions of dollars and are wiling to spend them. And while we may have a few million, we seem less willing to spend it...and worse, don't seem to know how, because we can't really agree on the size, scope, or seriousness of the threat.
    Trust me, those rebels who have already declared themselves, and hit the streets, they know.
    I belong to a group of analysts who see this fight progressing in a similar way to 1776, at least for a few months. There may be a quickening, which we are not prepared to do anything about, I'm afraid. And that is also why I am talking to you here.
    When there's a fight, even in a saloon, the inclination is for most people to hold their counsel quietly and move off to the side to see how the more vocal holders of those positions fare, slugging it out. In truth, Good sense and prudence generally dictates this is the best policy until the way is more clearly lit. And many of you, over cocktails, have already voiced an opinion that it's best to wait to see not only how the 2010 elections turn out, but also how and when the economy turns around. When that turns around, everything will be all right. That seems to be the conventional wisdom.
     On that, two observations. In the first civil war, back in 1776, most of the people indeed did sidle off to the side, and wait to see who would win. Almost half, in fact. As you might guess, this sentiment was more prevalent in the north and larger cities, like New York, Boston and Philadelphia, but also in southern ports like Norfolk, Savannah  and Charleston.
     Why? You guessed it, working for or with the King...called "state jobs" these days...was good business, especially in those places.  Probably no more than a third of the people openly declared for Rebellion, mostly small farmers and small business, while about 20% sided with the King, most of those having a vested financial interest in seeing him stay in power. Unfair you say? Not really, considering the Tories didn't have to fight. The King sent his own armies, while the rebels had to raise an army from their 35%, and couldn't tax a soul to buy rifles or cannons or uniforms.
     The rest? They just waited to see who would win, so they could sidle up to the winner and say "I was always in there pulling for you, George."
      Only which George?
      Betting parlors in London were laying 14 to 1 on King George.
     As good businessmen, you, and me, an old Kentucky football fan, we both know you never gamble with your sentiments. You keep your mouth and your wallet closed, no matter how hard you may want the 'Cats to beat Tennessee....which could happen just any year now.
     There was also in 1776, just like today, a class issue. The colonies had a rich merchant class, but an even older landed gentry, a true aristocracy alongside the many small free farmers. Many with "Sir" in the front of their names. People forget that many of the southern delegates to Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia were from this landed aristocracy, and all...all...were roundly chastised, then denounced, then expelled by other members of their class for having taken the side of the common man. Thomas Jefferson, being Virginia aristocracy, was especially berated for this "betrayal of his class".
     So, just remember, those men who signed the Declaration in 1776, really did offer up their "lives, fortunes and sacred honor."
     The second point is a question;  Just when does an economy cease being an economy?
     In my view that occurs when the economy no longer operates according to economic principles, but rather political ones.
     Now in truth, every aspect of our economy has operated under some sort of political umbrella...some free market purists would even say "cloud"...since the days of FDR. But leafing through history it's easy to see that an economy is no longer free when it shows good numbers only when the politicians want it to show good numbers. If you know some old timers who recall the Great Depression, most everyone of them will tell you that FDR saved us, even though the unemployment rate hovered around 17% from 1933, when he took office, to 1939, when they stopped keeping records. It was an illusion of sorts. You can cook the books, or you can simply have the media say the sky is blue when it isn't, or it looks like rain, when it isn't...and people will respond by either believing you or not believing you. They believed FDR, in part because he sounded kindly and gentle on the radio, but also in part because (and there is some history to back this up) his administration intentionally made things worse so that the people would accept almost any policy by the government that would bring back a sense of normalcy.
    After six years, 17% unemployment did in fact seem normal. Six years is a long time. By 1939, an entire generation had moved into adulthood in that period. Do you know how many young adults in America today weren't even alive when the Soviet Union existed, what, just 19 years ago? Add to that the number who were in diapers, or 1st Grade, or even middle school, then you can see what even six years can do for a president with a "grand plan".
     FDR's planners needed several years to set into place the bureaucratic institutions they wanted, so they didn't want any quick fixes in 1933. They had to drag it out, and he had masters in the public affairs to convince us things were better when they were. Making time work to their advantage is a thing our adversaries know, that we seem not to pay too much attention to.
    We still have many of those institutions created in the 1930s, and they have been a cancer on our economy since, for men have long since figured out how to do what they did better, and less expensively. What no one has figured out is how to get rid of them. The feudal system hovered over Europe for a thousand years for the very same reason.
    My business is knowing the minds and arts of  those central planners, and I learned this from the masters in the communist bloc, the old USSR. I can say with certainty that what they want to achieve today is a level of control over our economic comings and goings that was undreamt of even in FDR's day and which only a generation ago would have been viewed as criminal and treasonous.
     For twenty five years I have preached against the cancerous effects of large bureaucracy, and have often called for an across the board reduction of 20%-25% in big business and big government. You may not agree, or think that this is even feasible. Still, I could do it with my eyes closed. I won't argue that here. But what you must know is that on the other side of the table have been men, who for twice as many years as me, have called for a reduction of 20%-25% in the overall size of the US economy, in the private sector, and for that reduction to be stapled to a near no-growth national economic policy. Obviously, this is not something they want to advertise...mainly because of you. They want to keep you, American small business standing on the sidelines...standing on the sidelines, waiting for the economy to turn around.
    Now, I don't wish to start a debate here, but simply ask you to go home, pull out a piece of paper and sit down and compute where you and your business will fit into an economy that is reduced by 25%...forever.
    I can tell you tonight, as the great Nez Perce Chief Joseph said, if they have their way, from where the sun now stands, the economy as you knew it will never come back. Instead of a turnaround, what you may actually be waiting for is to get a piece of a pie that has been nearly quartered.
    My point is, those people who hold to that no-growth economic viewpoint now surround our president, and were hired by him as "czars", circumventing the public vetting process before they took their new positions. They can wield a power no Constitution ever permitted. And on that you have to take sides.
    Which takes us back to you and King George, for even under a King, there can be big winners in the private sector, especially those who are waiting for the economy to turn around...as soon as the king wins.

    Why I say these things now, and which you may think is a little premature, is, as I stated earlier, the thunder is about to be called down...with you or without you. The people who are out there are not about to be moved or shaken. They may lose, and if they do, it will not be pretty. As for an electoral victory in 2010, I give it no better than 50-50 now. Sorry, but the arrogance, especially by members of Congress who should be quaking in their boots right now, and the stakes...all the marbles...tells me they have some cards up their sleeve we don't yet know about, and quite frankly, many of us wouldn't believe even if we did know.
    About those stakes, I recall polling some business groups in September 2008, M'Cain versus Obama, and M'Cain won hands down. Me and one other said Obama would win. As a stock market analyst might say, on the technicals, M'Cain was head and shoulders better. But there were invisibles no one accounted for. One was the intense dislike for M'Cain by conservatives versus the (then) uncertainty about Obama, who seemed like a genuinely nice fellow. But the greatest "invisibles", which you may not have your ear tuned to anymore, are 1) the criminal aspect of party politics now, and the willingness and incredible ability of the Democrats today to target specific districts and precincts within a district to turn an election in the way they want, and 2) the general murmur and chaos of what National Review magazine back in the 1980s used to call "alienism" in the popular culture. By that  I mean a genuine hatred for anything even remotely good about the United States, its history, its institutions, its decency, its virtue...I could go on....especially by our young people. You have to admit, kids are easy targets, if the packaging is right.
    For close to twenty years, hundreds of millions of dollars have been pumped in, from people and organizations you have never head of, into virtually every way to get a message out to a young person; advertising, pop music, video games, film, and now computers and the internet, and especially public schools, with a view of having those kids grow up rejecting almost every value taught at home, or contained in the Constitution and an orderly moral society. There are now millions of them, from 6th grade through law school, all with this newly-conditioned hole in their soul.
    This is where I have to challenge your conservatism, since for many of you, it ends at your front gate. In doing so, you are creating an island around yourself, in Churchill's words, trying to insure you are the one the alligator eats last. I've been watching this for twenty years, so I know this is true. This isn't conservatism.
    Now, socialists in-power are not the same as socialists out of power, trying to get in, and much of the things they did to get power will suddenly stop, leaving many of the useful idiots high and dry that opened the doors for them. Watch for it. Were we mere spectators, we might find it amusing, a little justice being dispensed.
    At some point the Left's objective will be to get us to "thank them" for stopping doing to us what they had been doing to us.
    Think about that for a moment. It works. For a generation people nearly worshipped FDR for finally easing a pain he intentionally kept alive for six years. Between 1929 and 1935 Adolf Hitler filled Germany with swarms of thug Storm Troopers, gangs who stood on street corners and threatened and harangued citizens in every town and city. Suddenly, around 1935, Hitler purged them and took the Storm Troopers off the streets and even had some of the leaders taken out and shot.
   And the people loved him even more for it.

    If you think I came here to lure you over, and ask you to stand and announce for the Rebellion now, I do...but I didn't. There are risks involved many of you really can't afford to run. And quite frankly, we may need you elsewhere, doing other things.
    What I came here to do was to ask to think outside the box, and to plan, and to ask you to think in covert ways you probably never thought would ever be necessary in America. An old friend and mentor of mine, now passed, told me some years ago that in almost all the world, except America, including most of Europe, for a man to carry on private business, genuinely free business, he has to treat it as a covert operation. I've been around enough to know this is generally true. Sadly, this will be true even here in the not too distant future.
    So now it may be time to begin coming up with some personal Plan's B and C, for even if the good guys win in 2010, they still must win again in 2012, for the White House has become its own power center, apart from Congress. Remember, the czars have extraordinary rule-making power.
    As for the Rebels out there, they may have the power to win elections, but they don't yet have the power or means to do what comes next. And without leadership, they are still a mob. Without the tools to understand the nature of the enemy they've come up against, especially after the elections, they all have bulls-eyes on their backs, as they have been very public about their opposition, much like the hippies in the 1960s that Hoover liked to photograph.
   On your plate you found a small handout about what I call the "Ring of Fire" American citizens must confront in beating back this enemy.
    I am here to ask that you join with your neighbors and colleagues to begin providing tools for the citizens out there on the front lines. I am not asking you to declare, for as I said, I know many of you cannot.
    Let me give you a little story. Last year, I met with a small business group, four men, in a small midwestern city. This was just after the election, and they were alarmed by some of the undercurrents in their area, and concerned about the stiffness of their congressman's backbone. Two were corporate officers, both unable to take any public political position. Also, in light of what they wanted to do then...I expect that has changed by now...they didn't want to wake up one morning to find a rent-a-mob with placards protesting in their front yards. They simply wanted to create a "cell" (my term, not theirs) who would serve as watchdogs over local congressional affairs and serve as intelligence-gathering source for what they considered to be anti-American activities there...mainly from a small college. I gave them a little briefing about the history of grass roots left wing political activities...which I now offer on the internet for free...you know, how they're set up, how they get and give marching orders, how they are funded...who goes out and actually hires those goons who show up in your front yard...phone calls have to made, checks have to be cut...and we had a long talk about the chilling effect of what happens to many of these people when you fight back...and they don't know who "you" are, or where you are located, or how you are funded, how many people, etc. In short, I gave them a list of missions that would enable the to become flies in the Left's buttermilk.
    Of course, these were mostly tactics for playing defense. There comes a time when they will want to start playing offense. We discussed using local media, and going after icons of the Left in places conservatives haven't been seen in years, even FM radio. It will surprise you, but when gotten to young enough, the Constitution, George Washington, morality, good manners, you name it, can be affixed in a young person's mind...as cool....without requiring a single lecture from parents. In short, gave them some ideas, which, with good people, they will build on to cover a virtual beehive of activities...all an arm and half's length away from the four men sitting there at the conference table with me.
    And no, I'm not that smart. I simple used the Left's playbook and turned it around, on the simple thesis that when Good and Evil confront one another on level ground, it will always be Evil who blinks. As my dad used to say, "it may require a two-by-four across the nose first, to get their attention", but Evil always tucks and runs. Just don't bring knives to a gun fight. Know your enemy.
    This is the one disability that George Soros, and all his partners in this crime have, and that is we don't have to match him dollar for dollar. But we do have to come up with some money. The operation in the midwest has been going for around nine months now. It was set up for two people at an expected annual cost of $125K-$150K per year. I think they were organized under a non-profit set-up. For a congressional district of 700,000 and an urban area of around 100,000, that doesn't seem like much. I expect they will grow...but through their own networks, I believe they will also have the money to grow.
    I know they are involved in the Tea Parties, and have a couple of web sites, and I know they are involved in gathering intel on local Leftwing groups and are engaged in "Agitprop" (an old Communist term) projects, whihc is nothig more than putting dead flies in people's buttermilk, none of which should ever bear their fingerprints.
    It is about this aspect of fighting back I am speaking to you tonight. I only bring this up, for there is much that will need to be done after the 2010 elections, win or lose. The rebels out there are running basically a political campaign, but without a party banner, or a candidate. Only a platform, sometimes of only one issue. The real war will continue, whether they win or not. There will still be politically correct school teachers, or vice principals stomping on some kid's right to pray, or just voice opposition to Al Qaida. There will still be outrages.
    But if they lose, and are squashed like bugs...and you have to hold that out as a possibility...as one of my partner's on the West Coast says, he smells a "quickening"..these little agitprop groups may be all the community and the people will have. It may come to that.
    So, if prudence tells you to stand on the side and wait, I'm telling you here are some things you can do.
  

   

    Some comment needs to be made about the Obama school speech.
    On its face, it's harmless...a shame other presidents haven't done it..at least if you believe in the President-is-our-Daddy rag.
    Post-speech we can speak to the posing and preening, the cult of self, and the naked advertising of what is clearly now a very partisan political issue...but maybe none of that will happen. Maybe all he'll do is give them a buss on the butt and send them off happily to school.
    Right now the only "news" is how people feel about it. As expected, a lot of parents, a very lot of parents, are dead-set against it....going so far as to either keep their children home or ask they be excused from having to watch/listen to it. And so far schools seem willing to oblige this very same request for parents they have steadfastly denied on the school prayer issue, namely allowing children to be targeted for ostracism for removing themselves from the herd. Apparently Obama's herd is held more dearly than God's (however you conceive Him to be) herd. In fact, we know so.
    Parents committees are already gearing up to prevent using tax money to pay for DVD's, which, in our view should be a firing offense.
    On the other side, we don't hear from parents who are for it. There is no Obama cheering section at the PTA. That comes from the Obama cheering section of the NEA and state affiliates, as well as local councilmen and women, and board members....the same ones who took the day off for the inauguration. As self-appointed ombudsmen, they do the kids' parents' cheering for them....
    ....while we continue to do the praying.
Bernard Chumm

     Just as the Virginia GOP was feeling a little comfortable with a solid lead in the race for Governor, the Dem's uncovered (don't they always?) a graduate thesis from about 20 years ago in which GOP candidate Bob McDonnell had some harsh things to say about working wives, homosexuals, and loose sex....all this from a Democrat Party campaign video. This was not a bombshell out of the blue, so we know to expect a well coordinated attack.
     And sure enough, quick to follow on statewide news radio were hand-picked college profs (not a lot of GOP sympathy there) who said it's awfully difficult for a leopard to change his spots in twenty years, saying in essence he must still harbor these god-awful notions such as promiscuous sex being bad for society.
     Then today, the Washington Post followed with the expected profile of a candidate on the ropes, backpedaling, trying to turn things around.
     At the same time the Dem's launched a new Creigh Deeds (Dem candidate) ad linking him, and his style, to Virginia's one popular senator (and former governor) Mark Warner.
     Yep, it's "Macaca" all over again, and apparently McDonnell is going to play his hand the same way George Allen did, which means, for the rest of the way out, into the debates, the story will no longer be what McDonnell wrote 20 years ago, but rather his weakness in being able to confront the story and defend himself. In George Allen's case back in 2006, when he lost the GOP senate seat to Jim Webb, he had a bullseye on his back for two weeks before he ever knew it was there.

      Considering the deep regret Virginia voters feel for 1) having allowed themselevs to be played by the media the way they were in 2006, and 2) having tossed out a perfectly good man in exchange for a blustering buffoon, it would seem to me that the McDonnell camp could profit by linking this obviously well-coordinated campaign with the Webb campaign and the buyer's remorse Virginians generally feel now, two years down the pike.
      Also, people can change over twenty years. Hell, I had high praise for George W Bush only three years ago. (I still do on a couple of counts.) What people ordinarily can't do is a complete about-face, without a serious change in life, such as a "come to Jesus" moment. I've just never heard of a "come to Gayness" moment...at least if you're straight.
      At the core of McDonnell's "three sins" twenty years ago are some very defensible cultural positions, positions which can still be defended today, only modified after twenty additional years of additional life experiences. (Republicans are notable among the political parties for having become Republicans long before they actually had any life experiences, which is sort of like being born Baptist, hating beer long before ever having taken a swig.)
      The working wife/mom issue is the least defensible, but only to the extent that high taxes have forced a lot of women into the work force that would rather be at home. The working wife and career wife are two entirely different beings, only, the Dem's get the journalistic benefit of melding the two for propaganda purposes.
      McDonnell has run so far a traditional Republican campaign, neither alarming nor embracing the rising anti-federali, pro-family, pro-traditional values fervor scurring around the state right under his nose. But high among the anger feeding the Tea Partiers is the role of pop culture in bringing down American civilization as they see it. And they see much of the pop culture negatives (homosexuality and loose sexual mores) as being there on purpose. planted by people with the intent on bringing our culture down.
      On homosexuality, McDonnell would be stupid to say he'd changed his moral perspective. We are a live-and-let-live society. I'd like to hear Deeds say he's "fer it" as an equal moral alternative, while stating his church membership is still up to date. To decry, even in the 1980s, the role rising public displays of homosexuality had had, or would have, is one matter. To recommended public measures to somehow punish homosexuality would be quite another. None has ever occured, except in the forever fertile minds of forever-victims gays, who make up a sizeable number of the gay community. It was the gay community that came out and demanded equal, special and non-existent (such as being "approved") rights. If the Dem's want to confuse moral disapproval, but tolerance, with homophobia, fine. I can count ten new voters to McDonnell's camp for every one lost, if that is to be the Democrat's case.
     And the same goes for "fornicators". Even my sister's black cat could give a twenty minute sermonette on the damage done to society (not to mention the health care industry...wait'll they find out many STD's will not be covered under Obamacama!) with guys and gals who hook up with twenty, thirty different partners per year.
     Again, McDonnell can afford to lose those voters.

      All in all, I see this as winner, if only McDonnell can link the Democrat candidate with Webb rather than Warner, and in the process, show himself to be a better street fighter than Allen.
     When in doubt, always take the high road.
Vassar Bushmills

    

    This is not about the death of Edward M Kennedy, although the crocodile grief from that show does make this all the more meaningful.

    I was watching "How Green Was My Valley" last night, and every time I see it, a new observation pops in my head. The story is about the Morgan family, 5 sons and a daughter, living in a Welsh coal mining town in the late 19th Century. In one scene two of the sons lose their jobs at the mine and say, rather matter-of-factly, "Then we'll go to America to find work." Still, you could see the grief in their eyes, and immediately the thought enters your own just how tough that must be, living under the same roof all your life, then suddenly pulling up stakes to find work elsewhere...not in the next valley, mind you, or a day's train ride down to London, but across the ocean.
    Then the camera pans to their mother (played by Sara Allgood), and without a word, that grief is multiplied by ten.
    Remember Neil Diamond's song in 2000, "Coming to America" or the upbeat theme song from Eddie Murphy's comedy film by that same title? Tain't so.
    Of all the things people carried in their valises, coming to America, at the top that suitcase, and heaviest by far, was the grief of saying goodbye to loved ones, knowing that it as likely you'd never see them again. And that grief was doubled by those left behind. We should never forget that the people who left Europe's, Asia's, even Africa's shores, were life's losers there. They were the detritus, humanity's cast-offs. And they built the greatest country the world has ever known.

    Sitting with Moses Sands in a bar in the mid-90's in Budapest, Moses suddenly asked, "When you get back look up some information for me, when you get a chance. Find out if the Pilgrims or original Jamestown settlers ever got any letters from their families back in England."
    It is funny, isn't it, that while he are taught as young school kids about those original founders, never are we told of the unimaginable pain they must have felt for parents, brothers or sisters left back in Europe, or, vice versa, what those people left behind must have grieved over loved ones they'd never see again, maybe never knowing if they were alive or dead.
    Except for a few entrepreneurs who came to America under land grants or license to ship the King's goods, almost every person who ever came to America, was loaded down with that pain. Almost every person who came to America came because he had to, because there were no jobs, no more room in the house, no food. The Irish were starving, the Jews running away from pogroms in Russia, the Italians because of failed crops, the east Europeans because of the loss of jobs.
    American literature was filled with their stories, for it moved on unabated until the mid 1900s, since, just as the Irish, Swedes and Italians were getting off the boat at Ellis Island, second generation Americans were forging their way West where there was still land, or jobs in the gold, copper, or silver fields. But being illiterate, most folks back home never heard from them again.
   Into the 1940s, American film was filled with this one grief, a thing which everyone shared in those day. Everyone in America empathized with the pain of Mrs Morgan as she had to send her sons off. Remember "Goin My Way", where a young priest (Bing Crosby) had been sent to replace an aging priest (Barry Fitzgerald)? At the very end, they had brought Barry's dear mother over from Ireland, a lady in her 80's who he hadn't seen for nearly 60 years. There wasn't a dry eye in the house.
    I personally know the story of man who came to Ohio from Czechoslovakia in the 1930s, leaving a wife and son back home. He stayed and worked for five or six years, built up a nest egg, then returned to Slovakia to bring his wife back. But his son, by then about 10, had to stay back, as he was the heir to the family lands. It was custom, so he was boarded with uncles. Then came the Nazis and the War. Then the Communists.
    Neither of them ever saw their son again. They came back to Ohio, had four more children, raised them, and except for the youngest, who met his eldest brother while serving in the Army in the 1970's, none ever met their brother.
    Mama M wrote him once a week for nearly fifty years, until he died in the late 1980s. He wrote back maybe once a month, but in the 1950s through 1970s many of the letters had been redacted (censored) as the Communists didn't want anyone telling the outside how miserable things were there.
   I once asked Mama about this, and she only turned her head. She never spoke of the incredible weight she carried with her every day until she died. No one in the family had ever seen those letters, as none of the other sons could read or write Slovak.

    Today, of course, you can go to JFK and watch "refugees" from Russia, east Europe, China, get off the plane and the first thing they do is open their cell phone to say they are here. Even illegals sneaking across the border leave a paper trail up to the jumping off place before they try to cross the river in Texas or run the gauntlet from Sonora to Arizona. Once safely across, everyone back in Chiapas knows it in a very short time.

    America is the greatest country in the world precisely because of that cross of grief our forebearers carried. It is a grief we wish on no one, which is why we would like to see democracy grow elsewhere, just to spare them that one weight.
    But it will always be part of the shoulders we stand on, lest we forget.
Vassar Bushmills
   

     Just so no one thinks this will be a cakewalk, or one of those three-punch, thirty second knock-outs come November 2010.
     There are three, more likely four, armies we will have to confront, in succession, sort of like moving up in rank in a video game, if we are indeed going to restore the Constitution, its vision, and the proper role of the people in this Republic.
     The political fight is but the first one, and by far the easiest. We are all marching toward that show-down now, but we must know all those armies are arrayed against us, each defending his piece of territory.
     It's true...nothing gets done without first throwing out the crooks in Congress, who are both shields and conspirators with genuine criminals.
     But from the actions of the President in announcing his czars, and the ideological make-up of that group, to Eric Holder and his mission against national security, it as also clear that the White House has created its own nest of vipers, standing aside from the usual suspects in Congress.
     So even as we prepare for this fight in 2010, we must make plans for 2012, for none of this can be undone without sweeping both.
     And we're not even sure we have a party yet, let alone named leaders.

     But if we win, there is then the many legal battles that will follow. Our new replacements in Congress, and hopefully the White House will have to run specifically on the foundation of sweeping out the old, top to bottom. So learn to fight dirty. Call down the thunder. Tell them we are coming for them, and tell them all to get lawyers or plane tickets to countries with no extradition treaties.

     This is when we will run into the real armies, the ones with tire chains, guns and knives, real firepower plus lots of lawyers. There are more than one, for you see, while there were always men waiting out there to seduce a congressman with a bribe from the first days of the republic, the nature and content of those crimes and ciminals has changed.
     There have always been business interests seeking special favors from government, so many, that all have been conveniently dumped into the same whiskey barrel so as to protect any and all who might wish to take a dram. The Constitution allows, even encourages citizens to petition government, and lobbyists, (what the other side calls "special interests") are the natural creation of that right. Most business interests speak for thousands, if not hundreds of thousands of citizens.
     For the longest time these lobbyists spoke for working citizens, but in the last forty years there has arisen lobbysists of equal strength speaking for the non-working citizens, some of whom are genuinely helpless. It has generally been the clash between these two armies that has created the perfect storm from corruption among Congress and government employees, for both these armies have at their hearts ideologies that are antithetical to one another...free markets and statism.
     It has been a win-win for Congress, for it allows them to both lambaste special interests, while giving them their ear....and their favor.
In the process there has arisen in Congress the same sort of person who has taken over corporate America the past twenty years...men and women who came to town with the specific purpose of gaming the system, and coming away rich for the effort.
     In the past Congressmen were merely seduced, like lonely husbands away on a business trip, but now they come with briefcases and flies open, looking for brothels. I am quite certain John Murtha was a bandit with larceny on his mind before he ever came to Washington. Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac have been the personal piggy-bank of the Congressional Black Caucus for years. Entire states have been corrupted, or almost, (New Jersey), so that not even a local councilman or state office holder can be elected without falling into the web. And even the most straight and narrow Republican now just stands around, first with deer-in-the-headlights disbelief, then with the quiet understanding that even he benefits from this crime ring. So he shuts up. He yells and bellows on cue, but has yet to back up to the pay window on pay-day. From time to time a lone Congressmen will retire back to Texas just as broke as when he started, but that is the rare, rare exception. Not knowing how to fight back, most just lift that barge and tote that bale, and take very long showers at night.
    So even if we win in 2010 and 2012, and can undo legally what has been wrought, various crime factions have hung a collar of fire around Congress that will remain. That collar of fire will also have to be dealt with, knowing it is the criminal side who will determine the stakes in the fight. "Guns or knives, Butch."
    Then there is that "other" more ideological army we will have to contend with. They were always there, too, for as I've written, the hatred for the American can-do attitude and freedom predates America and Karl Marx by two thousand years. Only in this White House they come in full dress get-even regalia. And they are armed. We have run into a few at some town halls, union thug hirelings. And they have their own business alliances with business. Obama just gave George Soros two billion for off shore drilling in Brazil. They own their own banks, car companies, and oil and steel can't be far behind. They have the ability to put any company now, or even entire business lines, out of business if given the "special license" to do so with enabling health care legislation.
    And as I am sadly finding out in my travels, they "own" small business by having taken them from the fight on the mistaken belief 1) the economic recovery is just around the corner, 2) that it will fix everything, and 3) the economy is still subject to the law of free market economics...instead of the laws of political expedience.

    I don't want to frighten you. This is just how it will be. I still think Washington had the tougher problem at Brooklyn Heights, but he also knew what lay ahead. Gird yourselves.
    And watch yer topknot.
Vassar
   
    
 

   You heard it here first.
    From a California correspondent that even Henry Waxman is hiding from voters this vacation season, one has to wonder, when even "safe" Dem's feel their seats may not be safe.
   If there is truth, and the drumbeat is rising, not falling, still fifteen months in advance of the election, can even the vaunted ACORN be stretched too thin?
   We warned in November, 2008 that the first step would be to make every state and county registrar be fearful for their very lives.  They are the fulcrum. Keep it up, kindred spirits.
BC

     It isn't nice to speak ill of the dead, so Bernard Chumm begged off providing a eulogy here. I like the way William Kristol on Fox News danced around Kennedy's personal failings (they were many, many and not just one car wreck and act of cowardice). He said he couldn't understand why Kennedy had remained an unrepentant "liberal" (there's that word again) for so many years, watching it fail over and over again.
     In that comment I found a teachable moment, for we covered Kennedy's type in our recent piece of the Mother of all Liberalism. Ted Kennedy remained a liberal for precisely the same reason Kim Philby remained a Communist, his vanity would not allow him to repent on a single act or thought he had done in his life. Teddy clung to the cross of liberalism to protect the inerrancy of his own choices...just like Philby did Stalinism. The ultimate vanity. Courage, fortitude, truth, fealty to the cause, all had nothing to do with it.
    Teddy was the mother of all spoiled kids. He cheated at Harvard, but the worst he had to pay was three years at Charlottesville. Indifferent to the pain and misery of others, just as Karl Marx was, the only contrition he felt about Mary Jo Kopechne was the lasting stain that event caused him. The ultimate of frat pranks, I suppose, almost 25 years after being elected to the Senate, was when Kennedy and "best friend" Chris Dodd (we can't wait to see him frog-marched on the way to arraignment) made a "senator sandwich" out of a waitress at La Brasserie in 1985. As always, he skated.
    Edward Kennedy, 1932-2009, RIP in whatever level of eternity Dante deems is best suited to your enormous appetites.
VB

     Several months ago we wrote here that the revolution, if were to begin, would begin by citizens just sitting a table and deciding something has to be done.
     We weren't the only ones, but others also tried to surmise how that might play out; how four here, five there, would find a common place to meet, then meet with others, and shortly a movement would be born. We suggested an AGITPROP unit, or at least an Agitprop function, of creating events and a central clearinghouse for these various groups to meet another and coordinate activities.
     I'm not sure who first started the Tea Party clatches, as there doesn't seem to be a brand-named sponsor. They seem pretty spontaneous, grabbing an effective theme. The same for Glenn Beck's 9/12 Project, coming to fruition in just two weeks, where, in my town at least, a few thousand will drive to Washington to show support.
     From Kankakee to Corvallis to Richmond, we're seeing dozens of groups...per city...pop up, representing thousands of people and hosting events almost weekly. Here in the Richmond area, the afternoon local AM talk radio host, Doc Thompson, and the station's website has become the unofficial clearinghouse for all these groups, a one-stop shopping for upcoming events. And in an off-year, when no one in Congress is running for office! The pitch is nearing fever, and the temperature going up, not. I expect a hot, hot winter.
    So far, so good. The citizens are rising much faster that most people had imagined. A few key pieces are missing. Earlier in the year we published a list of things that needed to be done in the cultural area, such as beginning the war to take back the pop culture, one carload at a time. We also noted a need to be able fight fire with fire when needed, and suggested these groups collaborate in being able to identify and punish paid provocateurs of the Left (rent-a-thug, ACORN, that sort). Not hard, but expense is required.
    The next big crossroads will be leadership.
    Many of the groups we've been watching, even locally, were founded by people with large egos, especially about their own leadership qualities. While I still believe the people will recognize the real deal when they see it, the possibility exists for some friction as the time nears when this fever pitch movement has to turn to more conventional political action, such as elections and policy platforms. Asa we have said, some local and statewide initiatives, such as taking back the schools, are almost as important as the national crisis, especially if state supremacy is to be re-established.
    I'd like them begin to look at these local and state-wide issues, not just national health care or cap and trade. The high cost of college is one, especially since much of those costs each year go toward expanding the left wing of the academy on campus. Our local morning talk show host is sponsoring an online 10th Amendment petition...over 10,000 signatures so far.
    There's enough issues for everyone to get involved.
    But come Spring 2010 there will be a hint of election in the air. Then, all these various grass roots organizations will begin hearing from the GOP, as well as a counter-claim from local organizers who've been with the movement from the outset, claiming, just like Al Sharpton, more street cred than the GOP. Territorial friction might ensue, especially if the movement folks don't like the local GOP candidates, or the GOP won't take on some of their platforms. (It would be nice to get the GOP to sign onto the simple policy of actually reading legislation before voting on it, rather than condescending to us reg'lar folks about the duh! inconvenience of it all. "Hell, nobody reads legislation anymore, lady! Get with it! This is the 21st Century, not Eisenhower's Congress.")
    I doubt the GOP sees this coming, assuming once again that they will be the natural beneficiary of this movement, even as they stand mutely by while paid Democrat thugs beat some of these people senseless.
    Yes, I see a problem looming, and once again, I can see this many in this movement simply doing a wheelie and going back home, just like they did with M'Cain, handing the Dem's one more victory.
    All we can do is caution everyone to keep the eye on the prize, which is issues, not personalities, and trust your gut about leadership.
   Then there's the Cult effect.
    I recall a very rural Baptist Church in Central Kentucky many years ago. It was put together with the hard work of a founding deacon, who, after the pastor moved away, took over the church as an unordained minister. For twenty year he pastored that flock, built a new church, and a steady congregation of nearly hundred. Then suddenly, around 1970, while on vacation, he died.
    The parishioners, all way out there in the sticks, had never really known any other preacher, or source for the Word, so they just decided to rename the church after the dear departed, and decided to add a verse or two to the book of Acts, saying that "he" would come back some day. They had gone from church to cult in a very short time indeed. When I finally left that region in 1989, they were still waiting for Brother Fred's return.
    Of course, that church is no more, only a handful of the original members still alive. There's a law here. You see, cults have a real problem with regenerating themselves. Mr Obama will learn this shortly. In my lifetime JFK came the closest, as anyone who was anywhere on November22 1963 still knows today where they were on November 22, 1963. The day after the last person who can remember that dies, you'll be able to pick up JFK memorabilia on eBay at one of their 99-cent sales.
    This is only a warning, but the grass roots movement is still in that vulnerable cult of personality phase of their existence. When a cult figure dies or passes away, all that is left is a vacuum, and emptiness. Part of the cultural abyss we're in today is because of the vacuum left by JFK's untimely shooting, which was preceded by a cynical press's decision to deify this skirt-chasing cad in the first place...all because he was a well spoken, suave, sophisticated Harvard man, which, after fifteen years of midwestern folksiness, the country needed badly. Sound familiar?
    As bad as that was...it will be another 50 years before historians can properly look at the JFK-effect on American culture and politics (without being drawn and quartered)...it can be much worse if we finally give some Huey Long their day in the sun. Adolf Hitler proved in the early 30s that the more surreal the real becomes, as Germany became under Weimar, the more ordinary a man like ol' Schicklegrubr seemed.
   Our movement is stuck between two potential disasters; another electoral stay-home over grievances with the GOP and some candiates or, following blindly behind some vainglorious sweet-talking sunavabitch.
   So watch your understanding of the Constitutional purpose closely, and cling your values close to your breast. Trust me, there's more than just one enemy out there. Those values are all you will have when it comes time to choose leaders.
VB
   
   
   

   In a word, "They aren't worth it. Critics were right, Muslims can't handle democracy."

   Forget the reality of fraud, or how much (compared to Philadelphia? ACORN?) or corruption (compared to Barney Frank, Chris Dodd, Fannie Mae/Freddy Mac?). Seriously, folks.
   Look for the media to follow a trail of justifications for Obama simply to chuck the whole Afghanistan involvement. Obama's fecklessness  is already setting up a Vietnam comparison, and re-run, only, unlike Johnson-Nixon, having no great animus toward the evil-empires-in-waiting in the world, Obama won't feel compelled to stay the course for some global/national security objective.
   How could Karzai be so stupid and shortsighted? Not only has he maybe signed his own death warrant, Afghanistan and the Taliban may yet be the next nuclear power in the region.
   Now there's a sobering thought...only, it won't be George Bush's fault.
Bernard Chumm
  
  

    Reported to me today from a friend in Georgia about a small confrontation in an Irish pub in Buckhead:

    A couple of Obamaili anti-war types were getting a little loud, standing next to a young fellow sitting next to them drinking a beer with his left hand, seeing he had no right one.
    After some rather rude comments about murder, occupation, the standard drill, the ex-soldier said, "I think you're wrong about that."
    If you were expecting shillelagh law, you'd be disappointed. The two lefties turned and took the soldier to task, but in a polite, albeit in that condescending, sorry-about-the-hand-but-you're-still-a-dumb-arse way they're trained to speak in public.
    They laid out the case for Bush and WMD's. The soldier simply shook his head, and said, "Sorry, you're wrong on that account." Then they made the case for the Haditha massacres. Again, just an "Oops, wrong again." with a grin. Not once did they ask him to tell them where they were wrong (which is a dead giveaway, by the way), but rather, went right on over to Abu Ghraib and GITMO. A small crowd began to gather, about 50-50 my friend said. The veteran seemed to know where he was going, but no one else did.
    Finally, the tall one, looking around seeing they were among as many friends as enemies, said, "Come on, soldier, let's hear it. Give us your best shot."
    The vet looked them both, "The way I see it, the time has long passed for exchanging insults, or even swapping facts. Nothing I could say would ever change your mind, just as nothing you could say would change mine. Everyone in this room agrees to that one fact. I can find no profit in beating my chest over a thing as insignificant as to whether you get your facts straight.
    "All I do know is that when it is over....really over...one of us is going to be standing with his foot on the other's chest. I plan for that foot to be mine. In fact, I know so.
    "You called down the thunder, friend, not me."
     My friend says you could see the blood leave a few of their faces....then they left.

     Laisser les bons temp rouller!