The 2012 word of the year ought to be “emboldened,” in reference to the radical left, the anti-freedom elements of our society: the union operatives, naive but militant Occupy, radical anti-Americanists, and leftist community organizers.
During my lifetime, there has always been an undercurrent of collusion between our public school systems and anti-America, anti-freedom philosophies. But they are now emboldened to profess the alliance in the open.
- School teachers proudly marching with radical left, holding communist signs and wearing Che Guevara clothing
- Teachers union operatives attending a public Marxist Conference…….And a national university, Northwestern, hosting it….
- Bill Ayers celebrating the Left’s “absolute access” to classrooms at a NYC meeting of leftists
Union operatives using physical violence in the open to attack a peaceful gathering of people, many elderly. TSA agents publicly ridiculing and questioning me and my traveling companions for opting out of the naked scanner. Local politicians proudly challenging the Constitution and wielding power they might have done only in secret before (Chicago has led the country in this):
- Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel announcing raids on gun shops OUTSIDE the city limits
- Chicago Alderman Moreno boasting about using his office to penalize a company for its owners’ free speech–and local leftists supporting his crackdown against free speech in the streets
Of course, we have President Obama and his extreme agenda, emboldened through his recent reelection.
[Add your example here]
How did their movement become emboldened? (And it is “emboldened,” and not empowered, as I would say many Americans, particularly women, have been through the citizen grassroots Tea Party movement.) Mostly, a lack of fear of reprisal, either due to putting their own safety aside, or by having been assured cover, has allowed them to do so.
A reader of this site I was speaking with, who immigrated to the United States from a communist country, said that amongst his friends, they have a phrase to describe what happened in their countries: “first came the pen, and then the fist.”
First the media softened the environment, and only then rulers like Ho Chi Minh came to power.
It is the media that has provided cover for the Emboldenment of the anti-freedom groups of 2012. It is here that we need to bring our battle, for the media sets the narrative, chooses the protagonists and the scapegoats, and picks what is news, and what the public will never hear about. It is local media, above all, that reaches households on a daily basis who aren’t attuned to politics.
I’ve been observing my local media channels: ABC, NBC, CBS, PBS, and the incredible emboldenment of their reporters to refuse to report–and scoff at those who would challenge them–any news that does not fit their narrative. They no longer hide it, they’ve talked on camera about their plans to refuse to cover events. NBC Chicago reporters have now, multiple times, exposed themselves without fear. For who will report it?
If you plan to write your congressman or attend a townhall meeting, consider calling out your local t.v. station instead. Write a letter to the editor describing their actions rather than a politician’s.
The mainstream media has successfully softened the environment; the politicians we elect and the decisions they make are just manifestations of a media-indoctrinated culture.
Let’s make the word of 2013: Insurrection. (Legal, of course.)
Insurrection against the local media
Insurrection against the teachers union and their stranglehold over the next generation
Insurrection against keeping quiet at the dinner table or at your church
Insurrection against the elements that no longer keep quiet about their desire to destroy America, and more important, the limits America was founded to restrict against its government.
If we don’t insurrect (legally) in 2013, emboldenment will be outshone by persecution, of which we who support freedom and America have already had a taste.
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Comments
Anne-One of the reasons the unions and Ayers are so bold is because they use Orwellian terms like rigor, excellence, and quality that do not mean what people assume. Secondly, people are assuming the left is teaching a radical agenda. Less than that since there is little content there is the pure psycholgizing of the classroom.
Ayers knows how important the Standards for Teaching and Learning and social and emotional learning are to the real Common Core implementation but it is below most people’s radars. One of the most talented reformers in my opinion had never thought to look at accreditation to see how it affected what must, or could not, occur in the classroom. The Left knows all that and is taking advantage of it.
http://www.invisibleserfscollar.com/excellence-means-education-putting-what-we-feel-wish-for-and-think-in-harmony/ is based on what the former Chairman of the Psych Dept at U-Chicago aspires for in the classroom. His work is coming in through the teacher professional development, effective teacher evals, and what is actually being assessed in those poorly understood performance reviews. The ones funded in the 2009 Stimulus Act.
People just do not understand that student “growth” and “achievement” have been redefined as largely affective values, attitudes, and beliefs. Especially those that dovetail with Amitai Etzioni’s Communitarian agenda.
The Left will be less emboldened in 2013 if Americans better understand exactly what has been going on for the last 20 years. And how it has now been nationalized. K-12 and higher ed.
I can’t believe I just typed that with gifts to wrap but your reference to Ayers and public schools was too important not to respond to.
[…] Anne Sorock has more on the lefties […]
The left has always been highly aggressive. You’re right that, lately, they seem to have ratcheted up the intensity. I wonder, though, if this is in part because they are finally seeing significant push-back in the form of Tea Parties.
If so, then that means we have to push back even harder, just as you say.
Thanks. One of the best pieces I’ve read at LI.
I’m ready.
It wouldn’t be so hard I think to sell a Great Compromiser after all this discord. By that I mean a Republican candidate for peace that’s willing to cut the military budget in return for social spending cuts. … then go ahead and dismantle 90 percent of the federal government including central banking system….. are we sure a legal insurrection will be enough?
I agree about the media but here’s what I don’t get about it. ABC is owned by Disney. NBC is majority owned by Comcast. CBS was spun off from Viacom. Disney, Comcast, and CBS are publicly traded. As is The New York Times and Washington Post.
So why do these major media corporate Goliaths allow their employees to spew so much anti-American, anti-freedom propaganda?
As publicly traded corporations, they have a fiduciary duty to their shareholders. Is it in their shareholders best interest for their employees to regularly engage in anti-American, anti-freedom propaganda?
I don’t understand it.
I agree with you. I don’t get it either. There seems to be something odd here.
Also, don’t you get tired of hearing that the MSM is dying? They have enormous influence over thought, or what passes for thought. Rumors of the decline simply lull opponents to sleep. Conservatives need to wake up and insurrect (???) er, create and insurrection. (I am always looking for that pithy catchphrase…like the vacuous “hope and change” that caused such a tidal wave)
Perhaps somebody should investigate the ownership of those stocks. It would not surprise me if they all turned out to be concentrated in a few hands, either owned by leftists (Warren Buffett comes to mind) or in institutions or funds they control such as CalPERS.
But I wouldn’t suggest a takeover attempt on any of them, because it would largely be a waste of money. The Internet is a better alternative because it enables us to bypass the traditional Big Media and its control of what’s “mainstream”. Let’s make 2013 the year most of us unplug from those media and let Hollywood wither on the vine.
To get an understanding of this media grip and its history, may I suggest looking at the video, Behind the Big News. It explains a lot,
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zrf2R3UHhKo
Superb article!
It is critical that GOP leaders stand-up and call these thugs “Socialists” and expose their evil Socialist goals.
Alas, we have cowards – from Boehner to McConnell to all of the RINOs. They are simply afraid to even say the word “Socialist” let alone the more accurate description – Communist.
Where are the Conservative Constitutional/TEA Party patriots to stand-up for America? (rhetorical)
The rules changes pushed through at the 2012 GOP convention amount to a successful (if somewhat crooked) defeat of the patriots’ attempt to perform a hostile takeover of the GOP. In short, the Republican party has sold us out.
We must make them pay for that.
I urge the remaining “TEA Partiers” to either form our own party, or defect to the Libertarian or Constitution parties (unless you happen to live in the district of one of the few patriot GOP incumbents – Rand Paul, Tom Coburn, Tom McClintock, and one or two others).
I am not asserting that minor parties have a real chance to win elections. Rather, I’m proposing what amounts to a strike against the GOP leadership. They must be given an ultimatum: stop nominating RINOs and sellouts like John Boehner, or forfeit our support and never win another vote.
We could and should have done this in the 2012 election, but most of us stupidly wimped out and supported “Obama Lite”. If the “TEA Party” continues to be that stupid, I will abandon them.
1. Afaic attacks on the Left can wait. What’s needed first is an affirmative vision which:
a. the conservative coalition can unite behind, and
b. which attracts today’s counterparts to the Reagan Democrats.
Simultaneously needed is a constructive analysis of why November’s winnable election was lost.
2. If the blocs within the GOP don’t want to reach a mutual accommodation, they should consider whether they prefer President Elizabeth Warren and a Democratic Congress and SCOTUS. (An indication of how the wind is blowing: some on the Left are characterizing Obama as centrist or even center-right.)
Miss Anne, have you been sitting at our dining room table? You sound just like my husband and I! That is one of the best articles carried on LI to date. Thank you so much for sharing it. I would like to add, too, that one reason evil is so emboldened is that there are so few real Christians any more. There needs to be evangelism for Christ on a major scale to bring our nation back to God and RIGHT thinking.
At this point, I feel like conservatives are the Old Testament prophets of our time. And nobody’s listening.
Important reads: The Conservative Foundations of the Liberal Order: Defending Democracy Against Its Modern Enemies and Immoderate Friends by Daniel J. Mahoney and Unlearning Liberty: Campus Censorship and the End of the American Debate by Greg Lukianoff.
“Let’s make the word of 2013: Insurrection. (Legal, of course.)”
Hmmm. Totally legal?
Can we at least carry a double-0 license to mock?
LOL, that gave me a good laugh. They’ll have to pry our license to mock from our cold dead fingers.
The left is emboldened because Establishment chicken-hearts like Old Man Bush, Bob Dole, John Boehner, and other such fools refuse to confront them. Most of all, George W. Bush who for eight years sucked up to the Democrats while abusing the conservatives who elected him.
The left is pure evil, tireless because evil has infinite reserves of energy. (An interesting point of psychology, but I digress.) Our “leaders” do “hit and run” campaigns, then stop fighting when we win a small battle. (Or often give up if we lose.) The Left never lets up, win or lose, and wind up winning every key battle. They are perilously close to winning the war. If, in fact, they have established a national Chicago-style machine, as may be true, we have lost the war, and the Republic.
Those who allegedly represent conservatives are ashamed of us: boundlessly charitable to Democrats, unremittingly, even sinfully, harsh to conservatives.
Prime example: a President authorizes a slap on the wrist for Sandy Burgher, caught stealing Top Secret documents from the National Archives and doing who-knows-what with them. The same President hammered Scooter Libby as a “convicted felon” and practically gloated that “he and his family will have to live with the consequences” — Libby having been convicted by a rigged prosecution/show-trial worthy of Stalin’s USSR. The President in both cases: George W. Bush, the man who personally decimated the GOP, organized conservatism, and the Reagan Revolution.
God help us: despite the grassroots’ best efforts, Divine intervention is the only agency that can save us now, because Evil, in the form of Democrats and their cowardly GOP collaborators, is in the ascendant.
What we need: bold, courageous leaders to stand up and be counted and drive back the arrogance and moral degeneracy of the media. What we get: corrupt, cowardly, milquetoast ninnies like John Boehner.
In short, liberalism is emboldened because Republican leaders are spineless, cowardly, treacherous ninnies who, like 1930s European leaders, have spent generations appeasing evil in the mistaken belief that this is not only possible, but laudable.
Bullies become emboldened by a lack of a response from their victim, and/or authority.
In this case, it’s the lack of response by enough voters, and lack of response by the GOP (which probably caused the tepid voter response in the first place, Vacuums will be filled — with anything.)
Great post! You said exactly what I was trying to say in my post above, but a lot more clearly and succinctly.
The voters will respond when they’re offered a real choice. You can’t expect them to come out in force when Tweedledum is running against Tweedledee.
If you want to hit the Left, hit them in the pocketbook: (1) Take your kids out of public schools and push for vouchers if you don’t already get them, (2) get everyone you can to stop watching MSM – they make their living selling eyeballs.
Second, reduce people’s perceived need to depend on the government, and their sense of social isolation: join a Service organization, and then get 1 other person to join. Then work that organization – get people to donate to it. And push the govt to allow use of govt resources to enable them.
Third, push hard to eliminate tax deductions that the Left loves – we need more tax money – there’s lots of ‘non-profits’ that are clearly political. let’s get rid of all of those ways fat-cats (who happen to be liberal) get to avoid taxes. No lefty can possibly complain.
What happens when communist/socialist/progressives run things?
Detroit and California happens.
Here are photos comparing Europe under communism and now:
http://directorblue.blogspot.com/2012/12/before-and-after-capitalism-vs-socialism.html
The only thing that can work at this point is people in the streets. That is why 2010 happened. The low information voter tends to take passion as a crusade for right. The left has known this since forever. They know the media will spread their word if even a few leftists are “protesting”. And the MSM will not report conservative views unless conservatives also hit the streets. We did in 2010. We showed up at the Dems town halls and confronted them. Glen Beck had the huge gathering in DC. The result was a drumming of Dems at the pols.
Now, conservatives sit in silence as the nation is “transformed”. Our inept leadership in DC dooms us further. But it will take insurrection to fight this scourge. I doubt now it will ever happen. We should be out in the streets in front of every major newspaper building or MSM tv station bringing attention to the lack of coverage and the bias. But we don’t. We sit and stew in silence and without action. We saw what worked and we now abandon it.
You are right. It was the “in your face” confrontations with elected officials at town hall meetings that got their attention and energized people.
The ruling class doesn’t trust the people and becomes extremely frightened and upset when the rabble don’t acknowledge their betters by staying home and voting for who they are told to vote for.
The key to victory is to attack on every front-local, state and national, media, and demonstrations aimed at the pivot points of our opponents, including the media. And culture and education.
So that no one will misunderstand what I am saying, I am not advocating violence. I am however advocating an aggressive response.
If we can’t elect officeholders who respect the people, perhaps we can educate them to fear the people. The result usually is the same.
I don’t know why conservatives can’t get together and produce free local news on the internet to compete with their local papers. All it would take is a program template and a few volunteers. Doing the boring task of reporting on school and road closings, local sports, obituaries, and weather without any editorializing would decimate the local newspaper publishers who are usually liberal. It would remove a large bit of training opportunities for liberal journalism students, while providing opportunities for conservatives. This would not be a very big investment. Why aren’t our think tanks providing programming templates for this?
Communists are emboldened by violence and the threat of violence. Solzhenitsyn has asked what would have happened if someone had answered the first ‘knock on the door’ with a gun instead of surrender.
Good article. Keep comparing to Communism and you’ll always know their next steps.
Karl
teapartydoc has a good idea. Here’s another: pamphleting! Follow the original Thomas Paine’s plan to get the message out. No one but lefties subscribe to news ‘papers’ anymore and the low-information voters don’t read blogs. Go to the theaters on Saturday afternoon and put leaflets under the windshield wipers urging patrons to say “no” to Hollywood violence and liberal values. Do the same thing at the shopping mall and leave flyers that promote conservative ideas. Keep it simple and provide website addresses on the flyers. What if Heritage or Freedom Works or Cato provided PDF flyers that we could easily print out? We could reach thousands on a single weekend.
Based on a search I just got this morning apparently the Left is now arguing that it is erroneous to call Karl Marx a false prophet anymore as became the accepted argument after the fall of the Berlin Wall. That the survival and in fact dominance of Marxist cultural theory in the 90s until now, which is actually escalating with the US federal government’s express adoption of it in July in its Education for Life and Work report http://www.invisibleserfscollar.com/so-now-common-core-rejects-individual-thinking-to-embrace-soviet-psychology-ecology/ is vindication of Marx.
As a practical matter the Left is now using its monopoly over higher ed funding through taking over the student loan program and its alliance with the accreditation agencies who can dictate curriculum, admissions, and classroom practices to push cultural Marxism. Then its mere presence vindicates Marx all along and becomes the rationale for even more government dictation over the economy and individual behaviors.
Only difference is that we are looking at more Fascism than no private property. Owners lose a great deal of the benefit of what they technically own though.
I will see if that is a fluke interest or part of an organized argument coming out of a conference. (Which creates the same basic search over several days.) What an odd time to think of defending Marx. The schemers seem to never rest these days.
Keep your powder dry, and your aim true.
Don’t exclude mass civil disobedience as a useful tool. When fascist statists like Cuomo suggest gun confiscation the answer isn’t fantasizing about shooting law enforcement officers nor is the answer writing the gerrymandered progressive legislators pleading for respect of our Constitutional rights. The first will get you jailed or killed and the second will merely be the basis for laughter.
But thousands of people both protesting and destroying property (Leftist media equipment comes to mind as well) in their righteous anger will make an impression upon the statists. It is likely that some will be seriously hurt, even die, but that is a price that must be paid.
Enough with protests where we are so proud of how much cleaner the locations were left and how peaceful the demonstrations were. It is past time to back our belief in (truly) liberal governance with more than just words and an apologetic attitude. The third that do not care will not care that we are defeating the Leftist third of the USA through direct action. They just want a peaceful existence and, in their ignorance, would give their birthright away for illusory security.
Count me out. Those who destroy innocent people’s property forfeit the moral high ground forever.
My motto for the new year is “Don’t Feed the Beast”. I will examine every aspect of my spending and will find alternatives to or boycott any business or organization which wants to take my liberty. HBO…gone. Insurance company associated with Warren Buffet…gone. Local newspaper…gone. Proxies for investments with liberal activist boards will always be voted against the board. I vow to look for any and every legal (for now) opportunity to obstruct and harass leftist businesses and organizations. I will not cooperate with my enemies any longer.