I don’t know the technical definition of Marxism, but I know it stinks. In fact, I bet it smells a lot like the putrid odor that is wafting out of Congress these days.
Something in those hallowed halls has gone terribly...rotten.
The House of Representatives, once populated by great men, great thinkers, great lovers of individual freedom and protectors of private property, is now, through its Democrat majority, a fully-baked product of the Obama Administration – a cesspool of radical thought, and even more radical legislation.
That we sent to Congress an individual who so comfortably swims in those foul waters is a measure of our gullibility. Gullibility and simple trust that this man would go to Washington and fight the good fight – fight to keep us free, as he is supposed to do. Fight to protect and defend the Constitution, as he is sworn to do.
Instead, time and time again he votes to enslave our economy, and by extension enslave us, to a gaggle of federal bureaucrats.
Worse yet, he votes with liars and America-haters. He votes with thugs and sneaks. He’s part of a majority that promised transparency, yet rams bills through with 300-page amendments issued in the blackest part of night, bills that are so impactful that they transform the basic relationship between government and private industry; bills that are passed before they are even presented in their final form, and hence, cannot even have been read.
I cannot call this representation, and I cannot sit idly by and pretend that a few bucks and a few jobs is a fair tradeoff for the destruction of the country that I love. American men and women have died to defend our rights and liberties for over 200 years, but now the ghosts of those brave soldiers must look on in horror, as our current so-called “representatives” filch those liberties, piece by piece, in the middle of the night like a gang of sneak-thieves.
Reprehensible. I don’t know whom you represent, Michael McMahon, but it sure ain’t me.
I cannot promise that you will be defeated in 2010, Congressman, but I do promise you this: by the time Staten Islanders march into that voting booth, they will be educated. They will know how you are voting, and what the real impacts of those votes will be – not the fluffy spin you will put on them in a four-color brochure.
No, I cannot reach everyone in the 13th, I don’t have the money or the platform - but I won’t stop trying. Your votes, and your often-insulting defense of them, have succeeded in creating a small, tough core of activists on Staten Island. Probably nothing for you to worry about – yet. But every day, the word seeps out to more and more people, and more and more people become aware and alert…and engaged.
To whatever extent I have anything to say about it, Congressman McMahon, Staten Islanders will not be sleep-walking into the voting booths in 2010. They will be voting with their eyes wide open.
We are paying attention, now. House by house, block by block, Staten Islanders are being roused from their slumber.
Sunday, June 28, 2009
Friday, June 26, 2009
Gotta love it. Gotta.
"Three things taught me conservative love,
Jesus, Ronald Reagan and Atlas Shrugged"
Yup. That pretty much covers it.
Jesus, Ronald Reagan and Atlas Shrugged"
Yup. That pretty much covers it.
Sunday, June 21, 2009
Some Words on Father's Day
Happy Father’s Day, everybody. Even if you, personally, are not a Dad, the fact is we all have one, so we should all celebrate the day.
My Dad is 84, and I consider myself blessed, and more than a little lucky, that he is still with us and enjoying life; I'm 57, so very few of my friends and relatives can say the same. But I remember them all, all the Dads of my youth; so many different personalities and styles, all of them patriotic Americans, most only a generation removed from the old country.
They all, to a man, believed in the greatness of America, taught us to work hard, taught us that there is no free lunch, taught us to have compassion for those less fortunate and to be generous with them, taught us to struggle for a better life, and told us that having achieved it, no man could take it from us.
Would that the men who now run this country been taught the same way.
My father enlisted in the Marine Corp the day he turned 18, in 1943, and after a year of stateside training was shipped overseas. There, on Guam and Iwo, he trained for amphibious landings. By that time, the United States Navy and Marine Corp had island-hopped almost all the way across the Pacific – almost. There was still one to go before the invasion of Japan, and that was Okinawa.
PFC Frank Santarpia, Company I, 3rd Battalion, 29th Marine Regiment, 6th Marine Division, 20 years old, went ashore with the first wave on the morning of April 1, 1945: Easter Sunday.
There’s no time or space here for the details, but suffice it to say that Okinawa, which was in such close proximity to the home islands of Japan that it was within the prefecture of the city of Tokyo, was the most heavily defended island of the entire war.
By the time the island was secure, 12,513 brave American men were dead. Mull that number over in your mind for a moment. Twelve thousand, five hundred and thirteen. In an action that took less than six weeks.
The wounded numbered 38,916, and my father was one of them; he was shot on May 16th, during the Battle of Sugar Loaf Hill. He received a Purple Heart, spent three weeks in a makeshift island hospital, and was sent back to his platoon before the operation was completed.
And as brave as he was, as unbelievable as his story is, he was far from unique. He did his job alongside tens of thousands of other Marines and soldiers. In the same mold as any other American fighting for freedom, his actions represented the norm, not the exception – and every single detail about that battle had to be coaxed from him; he never talked about it voluntarily, and never thought it was anything special.
So here’s a salute to our fathers. May we celebrate the ones that are with us, and never forget those who are not. I remember you all: Al, Gerard, Sebastian and Ralph Santarpia, my father’s brothers; Ed Coyle, my father-in-law; Joe Graziano, Dan Rago, Frank Guigno, Russ Sabatino, Tony Muccio – the fathers of my friends, and all important, in their own way, in shaping my life.
I hope, dear readers, that you were as lucky as I - to have known such men.
We are what they made us.
My Dad is 84, and I consider myself blessed, and more than a little lucky, that he is still with us and enjoying life; I'm 57, so very few of my friends and relatives can say the same. But I remember them all, all the Dads of my youth; so many different personalities and styles, all of them patriotic Americans, most only a generation removed from the old country.
They all, to a man, believed in the greatness of America, taught us to work hard, taught us that there is no free lunch, taught us to have compassion for those less fortunate and to be generous with them, taught us to struggle for a better life, and told us that having achieved it, no man could take it from us.
Would that the men who now run this country been taught the same way.
My father enlisted in the Marine Corp the day he turned 18, in 1943, and after a year of stateside training was shipped overseas. There, on Guam and Iwo, he trained for amphibious landings. By that time, the United States Navy and Marine Corp had island-hopped almost all the way across the Pacific – almost. There was still one to go before the invasion of Japan, and that was Okinawa.PFC Frank Santarpia, Company I, 3rd Battalion, 29th Marine Regiment, 6th Marine Division, 20 years old, went ashore with the first wave on the morning of April 1, 1945: Easter Sunday.
There’s no time or space here for the details, but suffice it to say that Okinawa, which was in such close proximity to the home islands of Japan that it was within the prefecture of the city of Tokyo, was the most heavily defended island of the entire war.
By the time the island was secure, 12,513 brave American men were dead. Mull that number over in your mind for a moment. Twelve thousand, five hundred and thirteen. In an action that took less than six weeks.
The wounded numbered 38,916, and my father was one of them; he was shot on May 16th, during the Battle of Sugar Loaf Hill. He received a Purple Heart, spent three weeks in a makeshift island hospital, and was sent back to his platoon before the operation was completed.
And as brave as he was, as unbelievable as his story is, he was far from unique. He did his job alongside tens of thousands of other Marines and soldiers. In the same mold as any other American fighting for freedom, his actions represented the norm, not the exception – and every single detail about that battle had to be coaxed from him; he never talked about it voluntarily, and never thought it was anything special.
So here’s a salute to our fathers. May we celebrate the ones that are with us, and never forget those who are not. I remember you all: Al, Gerard, Sebastian and Ralph Santarpia, my father’s brothers; Ed Coyle, my father-in-law; Joe Graziano, Dan Rago, Frank Guigno, Russ Sabatino, Tony Muccio – the fathers of my friends, and all important, in their own way, in shaping my life.
I hope, dear readers, that you were as lucky as I - to have known such men.
We are what they made us.
Friday, June 19, 2009
It is time.
Something must be done.
We are already, in a few short months, past the point of hoping that our Congressman will awaken from his Obama-induced slumber and start voting to protect and defend the Constitution of the United States.
Instead, we, his constituents, are less and less free every day, while our government grows larger and larger, loots our life savings, bankrupts the treasury, and spews ever-more fantastic lies about "hope" and "change."
There is no hope for the individual, only for the collective. And the change? The change is that now the looters are accepted in the halls of Congress, and usurpers are installed as "czars."
Congressman Michael McMahon votes us into the twilight world of soft tyranny, time and time again, and I am done asking why. Each week brings a new crisis, a dire threat – and always the only solution is to give up a little more of our freedom. With every new crisis and new "solution," the economy shrinks, our liberties evaporate, our options dwindle - but the government never shrinks, it expands and grows ever larger and more powerful.
With the transparency of a heavy fog, bills are rammed through committee, rammed through Congress, and every one, every one, makes us less free, gives us less choice, makes us less independent, makes us less American. That is always their solution – it is the solution of the tyrant.
I'm sick and afraid, but my sickness and fear is hardening into anger and resolve. We will rally again this summer, my dear fellow patriots, we cannot wait for 9/12.
Will you join me?
We are already, in a few short months, past the point of hoping that our Congressman will awaken from his Obama-induced slumber and start voting to protect and defend the Constitution of the United States.
Instead, we, his constituents, are less and less free every day, while our government grows larger and larger, loots our life savings, bankrupts the treasury, and spews ever-more fantastic lies about "hope" and "change."
There is no hope for the individual, only for the collective. And the change? The change is that now the looters are accepted in the halls of Congress, and usurpers are installed as "czars."
Congressman Michael McMahon votes us into the twilight world of soft tyranny, time and time again, and I am done asking why. Each week brings a new crisis, a dire threat – and always the only solution is to give up a little more of our freedom. With every new crisis and new "solution," the economy shrinks, our liberties evaporate, our options dwindle - but the government never shrinks, it expands and grows ever larger and more powerful.
With the transparency of a heavy fog, bills are rammed through committee, rammed through Congress, and every one, every one, makes us less free, gives us less choice, makes us less independent, makes us less American. That is always their solution – it is the solution of the tyrant.
I'm sick and afraid, but my sickness and fear is hardening into anger and resolve. We will rally again this summer, my dear fellow patriots, we cannot wait for 9/12.
Will you join me?
Tuesday, June 16, 2009
Keep Your Eye on the... Cowbird?
I witnessed a peculiar scene playing out in my backyard the other day, as I sat drinking my morning coffee. It involved a pair of birds that had alighted on the flat top of the railing that surrounds my deck, right outside the kitchen, beyond a pair of sliding glass doors.
That they had come to the railing was not a big surprise, since it was loaded with mixed seeds and nuts. This gourmet repast goes out, courtesy of moi, every morning, because it attracts a nice variety of colorful – and vocal – birds, creating a fascinating little panorama right outside my kitchen. I rarely breakfast alone.
The birds, of all species, usually take care of feeding themselves, except for certain brief periods in the late spring, like now. Then, you will occasionally see a parent bird feeding its chick. You know it’s a chick – as opposed to an adult – because, well, you can just tell. Immature and awkward in appearance, the hatchling is also devoid of the bright, fixed colors of the adult, and tends to vibrate, rather than flap, its wings, even while stationary and perched. It is also usually squealing to be fed, not unlike the newly arrived of any species.
What made this particular scene so unusual, though, were the two birds involved. The parent was a common house sparrow; small, quick, grayish-brown, an urban survivor that was the most common sighting for a kid like me, growing up in Brooklyn. I guess I’ve seen more sparrows than any other species – pigeons included.
Mom or Dad? Who knows? In this story it doesn’t matter. What does matter is that the parent was feeding the chick; picking up a seed, shelling it, and hopping over to the stationary hatchling as it chirped and fluttered impatiently for its breakfast, bill agape. The adult would then delicately place the seed directly into its offspring’s throat, and without delay would hop away again to pick at the next seed, the process repeating for several minutes, or until a bigger, bossier bird came along and shooed them both away.
It was the chick that caught my attention. Hatchlings seldom have the same coloration as adults, so the disparity displayed in shades of grey and brown really was of no consequence - but it just didn’t look like the parent. Close examination, and lots of reading, would have revealed a great many ornithological differences between the two, but the thing that even the most casual bird-watcher couldn’t miss was the size.
The chick was twice as big as the parent.
This led to a double-take and some hard thinking; nothing about this hungry little dependent said sparrow. I sipped and pondered. Maybe it was a sparrow; I like watching birds, but I’m no bird-watcher, if you know what I mean. Maybe sparrow offspring looked like that – but that really didn’t make sense. What newborn is larger than its parents, and grows smaller as it matures? None I could think of, and hey, I’ve been watching all those nature channels for years. Research was in order. And that meant Google.
Now, with tongue firmly implanted in cheek, I will tell you that I’m not going to give away my search engine "secrets" – those are proprietary formulae – but let’s just say I got my answer, complete with pictures, in short order. The parent was, of course, a sparrow; the chick, however, was not. It was a baby cowbird.
Cowbirds, the adult version, look to my rank amateur eyes like small crows, with a sleek coloration that looks pitch black from a distance, but which can have an ultra-dark green sheen to it when seen up close. What makes them so easily identifiable are their brown heads. Pretty unremarkable bird, really, except that it has evolved a most unusual method of child-rearing – it lets somebody else do it.
Since the staple of the cowbird’s diet, in nature, is insects, not the seeds on my railing, it has taken to following, well, cows. When a large number of bovines move through a field, they stir up vast quantities of delectables for the bird, which therefore makes a life’s work of following the herd. This leaves no time for stay-at-home moms and dads.
So what mom does is lay her egg in someone else’s nest. Just like that. She’s not particular, virtually any nest will do; it matters not to her if the eggs are of a different size or color. What she knows is that the instincts of the host birds will insure that her offspring is properly cared for in ovum, and carefully protected, fed and tended for as a hatchling.
The scientific name for this phenomenon is parasitic brooding, and it has a dark side. Cowbird chicks are very aggressive, grow very quickly, and tend to consume most of the food brought back to the nest. This has an effect on the rest of the brood that is about as bad as one would expect – they starve to death, and if they don’t starve, they are pushed out of the nest very early on by the much larger cowbird hatchling. Either way, all the resources of the diligent parents are lavished on the offspring of another mating pair – and to boot, not even a pair of the same species.
It is taking place right before my eyes, even as I write this. I am watching a poor, hard-working sparrow busting its tail-feathers to feed this fledgling that is not its own, and the cowbird chick, for its part, is insistent, hounding the surrogate mother incessantly, its appetite never satiated, its beak never closed longer than the moment it takes for it to swallow.
As I watch I notice something else: when the sparrow leaves the fence for a bit, maybe to rest, maybe because it is frightened momentarily by something it sees, the cowbird begins to feed itself. It moves along, quite capably, pecking at the seed mix – that is, until the sparrow returns. The chick then reverts to its dependent posture, mouth open, waiting to be fed and never getting enough.
I cannot get angry at the workings of nature; everything that is playing out before my eyes is instinct that has been honed by tens of thousands of generations of adaptation – it is an evolutionary fugue being performed so exquisitely none could doubt the hand of God in the process. Nature, as we all know and have heard many times, can be infinitely beautiful – but also unspeakably cruel. So, as I said, I cannot get angry. But I do.
I think of the mating pair of sparrows and imagine they feel despair. I imagine that they had hopes and dreams for their offspring, whom they wanted to nurture and prepare for life, and for whom they worked so diligently to build a protected and secure nest. I imagine their confusion at the disappearance of the eggs or the brood, and wonder if they are aware that their nest has been hijacked, dismayingly, from within, and that they now expend their resources and energy taking care of the offspring of another.
Of course I know that they “feel” nothing, and are “aware” of none of those things, but what human being cannot feel empathetic sorrow for the sparrows, and narrow-eyed animosity toward the cowbird?
That we - human beings - are part of nature is undeniable, and I believe that all life forms, sentient and otherwise, which share this planet must adapt to each other, symbiotes and parasites alike. Indeed, human frailty might determine that some of the unfortunate among us might be rendered dependent upon the good nature and good will of others. An accident, of birth or beyond, may render one helpless, and in need of complete and total care. Only the most heartless man could or would deny another man such attention.
But there is a point at which I draw the line; where I refuse to lift a finger. That is when I am looked upon as a human sparrow through the eyes of a human cowbird. And when my government, through policies which are mistaken, misguided and self-serving, subjects me to the same treatment as the sparrow, well, I refuse to accept that, too.
That they had come to the railing was not a big surprise, since it was loaded with mixed seeds and nuts. This gourmet repast goes out, courtesy of moi, every morning, because it attracts a nice variety of colorful – and vocal – birds, creating a fascinating little panorama right outside my kitchen. I rarely breakfast alone.
The birds, of all species, usually take care of feeding themselves, except for certain brief periods in the late spring, like now. Then, you will occasionally see a parent bird feeding its chick. You know it’s a chick – as opposed to an adult – because, well, you can just tell. Immature and awkward in appearance, the hatchling is also devoid of the bright, fixed colors of the adult, and tends to vibrate, rather than flap, its wings, even while stationary and perched. It is also usually squealing to be fed, not unlike the newly arrived of any species.
What made this particular scene so unusual, though, were the two birds involved. The parent was a common house sparrow; small, quick, grayish-brown, an urban survivor that was the most common sighting for a kid like me, growing up in Brooklyn. I guess I’ve seen more sparrows than any other species – pigeons included.Mom or Dad? Who knows? In this story it doesn’t matter. What does matter is that the parent was feeding the chick; picking up a seed, shelling it, and hopping over to the stationary hatchling as it chirped and fluttered impatiently for its breakfast, bill agape. The adult would then delicately place the seed directly into its offspring’s throat, and without delay would hop away again to pick at the next seed, the process repeating for several minutes, or until a bigger, bossier bird came along and shooed them both away.
It was the chick that caught my attention. Hatchlings seldom have the same coloration as adults, so the disparity displayed in shades of grey and brown really was of no consequence - but it just didn’t look like the parent. Close examination, and lots of reading, would have revealed a great many ornithological differences between the two, but the thing that even the most casual bird-watcher couldn’t miss was the size.
The chick was twice as big as the parent.
This led to a double-take and some hard thinking; nothing about this hungry little dependent said sparrow. I sipped and pondered. Maybe it was a sparrow; I like watching birds, but I’m no bird-watcher, if you know what I mean. Maybe sparrow offspring looked like that – but that really didn’t make sense. What newborn is larger than its parents, and grows smaller as it matures? None I could think of, and hey, I’ve been watching all those nature channels for years. Research was in order. And that meant Google.
Now, with tongue firmly implanted in cheek, I will tell you that I’m not going to give away my search engine "secrets" – those are proprietary formulae – but let’s just say I got my answer, complete with pictures, in short order. The parent was, of course, a sparrow; the chick, however, was not. It was a baby cowbird.Cowbirds, the adult version, look to my rank amateur eyes like small crows, with a sleek coloration that looks pitch black from a distance, but which can have an ultra-dark green sheen to it when seen up close. What makes them so easily identifiable are their brown heads. Pretty unremarkable bird, really, except that it has evolved a most unusual method of child-rearing – it lets somebody else do it.
Since the staple of the cowbird’s diet, in nature, is insects, not the seeds on my railing, it has taken to following, well, cows. When a large number of bovines move through a field, they stir up vast quantities of delectables for the bird, which therefore makes a life’s work of following the herd. This leaves no time for stay-at-home moms and dads.So what mom does is lay her egg in someone else’s nest. Just like that. She’s not particular, virtually any nest will do; it matters not to her if the eggs are of a different size or color. What she knows is that the instincts of the host birds will insure that her offspring is properly cared for in ovum, and carefully protected, fed and tended for as a hatchling.
The scientific name for this phenomenon is parasitic brooding, and it has a dark side. Cowbird chicks are very aggressive, grow very quickly, and tend to consume most of the food brought back to the nest. This has an effect on the rest of the brood that is about as bad as one would expect – they starve to death, and if they don’t starve, they are pushed out of the nest very early on by the much larger cowbird hatchling. Either way, all the resources of the diligent parents are lavished on the offspring of another mating pair – and to boot, not even a pair of the same species.
It is taking place right before my eyes, even as I write this. I am watching a poor, hard-working sparrow busting its tail-feathers to feed this fledgling that is not its own, and the cowbird chick, for its part, is insistent, hounding the surrogate mother incessantly, its appetite never satiated, its beak never closed longer than the moment it takes for it to swallow.
As I watch I notice something else: when the sparrow leaves the fence for a bit, maybe to rest, maybe because it is frightened momentarily by something it sees, the cowbird begins to feed itself. It moves along, quite capably, pecking at the seed mix – that is, until the sparrow returns. The chick then reverts to its dependent posture, mouth open, waiting to be fed and never getting enough.
I cannot get angry at the workings of nature; everything that is playing out before my eyes is instinct that has been honed by tens of thousands of generations of adaptation – it is an evolutionary fugue being performed so exquisitely none could doubt the hand of God in the process. Nature, as we all know and have heard many times, can be infinitely beautiful – but also unspeakably cruel. So, as I said, I cannot get angry. But I do.
I think of the mating pair of sparrows and imagine they feel despair. I imagine that they had hopes and dreams for their offspring, whom they wanted to nurture and prepare for life, and for whom they worked so diligently to build a protected and secure nest. I imagine their confusion at the disappearance of the eggs or the brood, and wonder if they are aware that their nest has been hijacked, dismayingly, from within, and that they now expend their resources and energy taking care of the offspring of another.
Of course I know that they “feel” nothing, and are “aware” of none of those things, but what human being cannot feel empathetic sorrow for the sparrows, and narrow-eyed animosity toward the cowbird?
That we - human beings - are part of nature is undeniable, and I believe that all life forms, sentient and otherwise, which share this planet must adapt to each other, symbiotes and parasites alike. Indeed, human frailty might determine that some of the unfortunate among us might be rendered dependent upon the good nature and good will of others. An accident, of birth or beyond, may render one helpless, and in need of complete and total care. Only the most heartless man could or would deny another man such attention.
But there is a point at which I draw the line; where I refuse to lift a finger. That is when I am looked upon as a human sparrow through the eyes of a human cowbird. And when my government, through policies which are mistaken, misguided and self-serving, subjects me to the same treatment as the sparrow, well, I refuse to accept that, too.
Thursday, June 11, 2009
Our Country Is Calling
Our country is under attack. We may not recognize it - this attack didn't arrive suddenly and viciously on a peaceful Sunday morning in December in 1941. It didn't arrive with the sickening scream of jet engines out of the clear, crisp skies of a September day in 2001. But it arrived just as assuredly - and just as viciously.
This attack started at a Presidential inauguration in January of 2009. The enemy is our own government.
Over two centuries ago, a group of men wrested their freedom from an oppressive master in a bloody and protracted war of independence; they fought and died for liberty, and the God-given right of men to live free, to work for themselves and for no other, and to keep for themselves and their families the fruits of the labor.
To insure that freedom not only for their children and grandchildren, but for posterity, they drafted for us a set of rules - rules which would limit the power of the new federal government they were creating. Rules that protected the rights of individuals, and individual states, from the danger of a tyrannical consolidation of power.
Rules they called the Constitution of the United States of America.
Underlying every war that our nation has ever fought, and every drop of blood spilled on her behalf by every son and daughter, was the protection of that document. We were created as a nation of laws, not of men, and we meant to stay that way.
Now our Constitution is under the most insidious kind of attack. It is being destroyed by men who, under guise of offering a helping hand, steal a little bit of our freedom, our liberty and our individuality every time they enact a law or impose a regulation under the banner of “change.” And bit by bit, they are trying to conquer the soul of our country.
Our professional military cannot protect us now. Just as in our fight for independence centuries ago, the soldiers on the front lines of this battle will be ordinary citizens; citizens for whom liberty is as necessary for life as oxygen - they cannot live without it. Citizens who believe that the Constitution is a document so noble, and so necessary, that it must be defended at all costs.
Are you one of them? Join us on September 12, 2009. We are taking the battle for the soul of America to Washington D.C. We will tell our government, up close and in person, that if they continue to dismiss and ignore the protections guaranteed to us by the Constitution of the United States, they will no longer be our government.
Wednesday, June 10, 2009
Who IS my Congressman?
I’d like to know who my Congressman is. Yes, I’m aware of his name, it’s Michael McMahon; I just don’t know who he is, and I’d really like to.
I’m also aware of his party affiliation, and in times past that might have been all I needed to know, but it’s hard to recognize the Democratic Party these days. That they have been wandering to the Left for decades is not a surprise – that they have become so brazenly and fully anti-capitalist is.
So I look at Congressman McMahon and wonder if he’s advancing an agenda he believes in, or if he’s just going along for the ride - someday I’d like to ask him.
Really, I would - heart-to-heart, as a neighbor, not as a constituent. I’d say, “Do you really believe in the President’s anti-capitalist agenda? Do you really believe that the free market is a failed concept? Do you really believe that an economic downturn, no matter how serious, is an excuse to scrap the whole system; to take a headlong dive into European-style socialism?”
Because that’s the way my Congressman is voting.
I met him once at a campaign get-together in the lovely backyard of a North Shore friend; a biergarten-style barbeque on a beautiful early-fall evening. My impression was that of an exceedingly nice guy, very bright, ambitious and in possession of all the skills necessary to be a highly successful politician. I saw no indications that I was meeting a socialist – or, at least, an enabler of socialism. Or was I?
And that gets to the crux of the matter. IS my Congressman a socialist, or does he just vote that way? He is voting with the majority on bills that are changing the American landscape not in subtle ways, but in a series of violent, seismic shifts to the left; is he cowed into doing so because of his freshman status? Does he fear that crossing party lines will result in lukewarm support from the DCCC in 2010 – his first re-election attempt and the one in which House members are most vulnerable?
Or has he actually bought into what his party is attempting to sell?
Congressman McMahon, Staten Islander, regular guy, solid American citizen, was born in the biggest melting pot the world has ever known. If he was like me, and like so many other sons or daughters of so many other immigrants, he grew up proud of his heritage, but understanding that he was an un-hyphenated American before all else, and that he had every right to claim the same mantle of rugged individualism and personal responsibility as the earliest settlers, revolutionaries, pioneers, and lovers if liberty.
How then can he vote with his party’s majority? How then can he stand proudly next to the likes of such odious blame-America-firsters as Nancy Pelosi, Barney Frank and Steny Hoyer? How then can he look us all straight in the eye and say that yes, he STILL believes we are a nation of rugged individualists, who accept personal responsibility as part of the cost of maintaining our individual liberties? How then can he not realize that the moment you allow the government to become the chief supplier of sustenance for yourself and your family, you have sacrificed the one thing that has made you uniquely American – the freedom to follow your own path, whether it leads to success or to failure?
Congressman, during our conversation I would like to ask you if you believe, as I do, that the leadership of your party is doling out goodies in unprecedented sums in order to buy perpetual power, and do you support this? I, for one, harbor a dread that this is no longer a government of, by and for ALL the people. Why is it that I’m feeling that this is a government FOR some of the people, and AGAINST others?
There is nothing more American than strong differences of opinion between supporters of different political parties – it has been going on since before the Declaration of Independence. But here, now, something is amiss; some much greater issue has taken center stage. Whatever our political differences have been in the past, the one underlying belief was that we, as American citizens of any political stripe, would always be protected by the rule of law and by the Constitution; beliefs which transcended party lines.
I fear that this is no longer the case, and I want my Congressman to give it to me straight: is he joining forces with those who would strip us of our Constitutional guarantees, or will his birthright as a free and independent American lead him to use his voice - and his vote - to protect and defend the documents and traditions that have given our citizens more liberty and opportunity than any other civilization in the history of the world?
Over the centuries, America has survived wars and upheavals that have threatened its very existence, but America has never been faced with the danger it confronts now. A President has taken power - along with a Congress that has an almost filibuster-proof majority - and this President and this Congress are taking our country on a path very, very far from the America of our forebears.
So Congressman McMahon, if we ever do get to sit down together again, just to talk, a couple of Staten Island guys born in roughly the same place at roughly the same time, please be prepared to field this question: Do you stand with the America envisioned by Barack Obama and so many in your party?
Or do you stand with the real America? The America of our Founding Fathers, indeed, the America of our own fathers.
I’m also aware of his party affiliation, and in times past that might have been all I needed to know, but it’s hard to recognize the Democratic Party these days. That they have been wandering to the Left for decades is not a surprise – that they have become so brazenly and fully anti-capitalist is.
So I look at Congressman McMahon and wonder if he’s advancing an agenda he believes in, or if he’s just going along for the ride - someday I’d like to ask him.
Really, I would - heart-to-heart, as a neighbor, not as a constituent. I’d say, “Do you really believe in the President’s anti-capitalist agenda? Do you really believe that the free market is a failed concept? Do you really believe that an economic downturn, no matter how serious, is an excuse to scrap the whole system; to take a headlong dive into European-style socialism?”
Because that’s the way my Congressman is voting.
I met him once at a campaign get-together in the lovely backyard of a North Shore friend; a biergarten-style barbeque on a beautiful early-fall evening. My impression was that of an exceedingly nice guy, very bright, ambitious and in possession of all the skills necessary to be a highly successful politician. I saw no indications that I was meeting a socialist – or, at least, an enabler of socialism. Or was I?
And that gets to the crux of the matter. IS my Congressman a socialist, or does he just vote that way? He is voting with the majority on bills that are changing the American landscape not in subtle ways, but in a series of violent, seismic shifts to the left; is he cowed into doing so because of his freshman status? Does he fear that crossing party lines will result in lukewarm support from the DCCC in 2010 – his first re-election attempt and the one in which House members are most vulnerable?
Or has he actually bought into what his party is attempting to sell?
Congressman McMahon, Staten Islander, regular guy, solid American citizen, was born in the biggest melting pot the world has ever known. If he was like me, and like so many other sons or daughters of so many other immigrants, he grew up proud of his heritage, but understanding that he was an un-hyphenated American before all else, and that he had every right to claim the same mantle of rugged individualism and personal responsibility as the earliest settlers, revolutionaries, pioneers, and lovers if liberty.
How then can he vote with his party’s majority? How then can he stand proudly next to the likes of such odious blame-America-firsters as Nancy Pelosi, Barney Frank and Steny Hoyer? How then can he look us all straight in the eye and say that yes, he STILL believes we are a nation of rugged individualists, who accept personal responsibility as part of the cost of maintaining our individual liberties? How then can he not realize that the moment you allow the government to become the chief supplier of sustenance for yourself and your family, you have sacrificed the one thing that has made you uniquely American – the freedom to follow your own path, whether it leads to success or to failure?
Congressman, during our conversation I would like to ask you if you believe, as I do, that the leadership of your party is doling out goodies in unprecedented sums in order to buy perpetual power, and do you support this? I, for one, harbor a dread that this is no longer a government of, by and for ALL the people. Why is it that I’m feeling that this is a government FOR some of the people, and AGAINST others?
There is nothing more American than strong differences of opinion between supporters of different political parties – it has been going on since before the Declaration of Independence. But here, now, something is amiss; some much greater issue has taken center stage. Whatever our political differences have been in the past, the one underlying belief was that we, as American citizens of any political stripe, would always be protected by the rule of law and by the Constitution; beliefs which transcended party lines.
I fear that this is no longer the case, and I want my Congressman to give it to me straight: is he joining forces with those who would strip us of our Constitutional guarantees, or will his birthright as a free and independent American lead him to use his voice - and his vote - to protect and defend the documents and traditions that have given our citizens more liberty and opportunity than any other civilization in the history of the world?
Over the centuries, America has survived wars and upheavals that have threatened its very existence, but America has never been faced with the danger it confronts now. A President has taken power - along with a Congress that has an almost filibuster-proof majority - and this President and this Congress are taking our country on a path very, very far from the America of our forebears.
So Congressman McMahon, if we ever do get to sit down together again, just to talk, a couple of Staten Island guys born in roughly the same place at roughly the same time, please be prepared to field this question: Do you stand with the America envisioned by Barack Obama and so many in your party?
Or do you stand with the real America? The America of our Founding Fathers, indeed, the America of our own fathers.
Monday, June 8, 2009
Barack Obama. God? Or Idiot...
Evan Thomas of Newsweek blew out all the stops this week in an appearance on MSNBC. Try not to read this after eating:
Reagan was all about America, and you talked about it. Obama is ‘we are above that now.’ We’re not just parochial, we’re not just chauvinistic, we’re not just provincial. We stand for something – I mean in a way Obama’s standing above the country, above – above the world, he’s sort of God. He’s...going to bring all different sides together.Now contrast this view with some reality - an unteleprompted, unscripted attempt at answering a DIRECT question on a DIRECT issue. He takes more than 3 minutes to say, essentially, nothing - fumbling, bumbling and obfuscating in a way that would have had the media convulsed with alternating fits of laughter and outrage had it been George Bush:
Fourth Estate? Fifth Column.
The term Fourth Estate, of course, refers to the press; “press” being a now-archaic description hearkening back to a simpler time when delivering news was strictly a function of metal, paper, ink, and the time it took to get it to the reader – no electricity involved. We need not go into how different things are today.
To the best of our knowledge, Edmund Burke coined the term in the House of Commons a short time after the French revolution. The first three estates, as defined by Louis XVI some years earlier, were the clergy, the nobles and the commoners. Burke is said to have gazed up at the Press Gallery and said, “Yonder lies the Fourth Estate, and they are more important than them all.”
Likewise, most of us are aware of the phrase "Fifth Column;" it refers to a dangerous enemy unit that operates clandestinely within the borders of one's own country. The concept originated during the Spanish Civil War with a radio address by insurgent General Emilio Mola, who broadcast the news that his four military columns laying siege to Madrid would be supported by a "Fifth Column" of supporters operating surreptitiously within the city.
Of course, paranoia can lead a nation to fear a Fifth Column that doesn’t exist; the most obvious example in our recent history being the belief that Japanese-Americans represented an internal threat as both spies and saboteurs during World War II, an erroneous conclusion that led to the unfortunate internment of hundreds of thousands of otherwise loyal Americans.
Generally, all Fifth Columns, whether real or imagined, share one commonality: they operate in the shadows. Their members listen behind doors, peep through keyholes, secretly sabotage power plants and transportation hubs and above all, keep their nefarious actions hidden and secret. They wait silently, patiently, until the day finally comes when they can rise up, shed their sheep’s clothing, and proudly affirm their support for the cause that has brought about the destruction of the society in which they so traitorously intermingled.
Not anymore. America’s Fifth Column, fully-operational and horribly dangerous, operates in full view of the public. In fact, they fight amongst themselves for the privilege of being the most visible, as they do their damndest to bring about the destruction of our country as we know it. America’s Fifth Column is its Fourth Estate.
Formerly known as the “Watchdogs of Democracy,” today’s media has become the propaganda arm of the American Left. As vigilant, and destructive, as a starving pit bull during the Bush years, this once snarling beast has now become a pussycat, rubbing at his ankles and purring as President Obama scratches behind its ears.
When the former Republican administration occupied the halls of power, this Fifth Column was capable of almost any calumny, no matter how destructive. Indeed there were cases which, in other generations or situations – would have been considered treasonous. No single matter relating to the conduct of the Iraq War was beneath scrutiny, nor was any misdeed – real or imagined – on the part of the military allowed to go unreported, national security be damned. It seemed that the only standard used to determine what was “fit to print” was the degree to which a story could be used to damage the Bush White House.
Hence endless days, weeks, months and finally years of wailing and gnashing of teeth over Abu Ghraib and Gitmo, rendition and “domestic spying,” endless apologies to the world and boundless recriminations at home.
Former Vice President Cheney saw fit a few weeks ago to single out one particular organization by name:
With the advent of the Obama candidacy and the subsequent descent into the nether-regions of crazed adulation and tingly legs by the “I’m Just Mad About Barry” media, they suddenly and inexplicably lost the ability to investigate. Like a new and potent Andromeda Strain, America’s Fifth Column mutated into a different and even more dangerous pathogen, lethal in its ability to mask and cover all symptoms of the Obama Administration’s rush to insert its tentacles into every aspect of our lives.
The media became not only incapable of any sort of criticism of the party in power, but of any sort of critical thought.
End of Part 1
To the best of our knowledge, Edmund Burke coined the term in the House of Commons a short time after the French revolution. The first three estates, as defined by Louis XVI some years earlier, were the clergy, the nobles and the commoners. Burke is said to have gazed up at the Press Gallery and said, “Yonder lies the Fourth Estate, and they are more important than them all.”
Likewise, most of us are aware of the phrase "Fifth Column;" it refers to a dangerous enemy unit that operates clandestinely within the borders of one's own country. The concept originated during the Spanish Civil War with a radio address by insurgent General Emilio Mola, who broadcast the news that his four military columns laying siege to Madrid would be supported by a "Fifth Column" of supporters operating surreptitiously within the city.Of course, paranoia can lead a nation to fear a Fifth Column that doesn’t exist; the most obvious example in our recent history being the belief that Japanese-Americans represented an internal threat as both spies and saboteurs during World War II, an erroneous conclusion that led to the unfortunate internment of hundreds of thousands of otherwise loyal Americans.
Generally, all Fifth Columns, whether real or imagined, share one commonality: they operate in the shadows. Their members listen behind doors, peep through keyholes, secretly sabotage power plants and transportation hubs and above all, keep their nefarious actions hidden and secret. They wait silently, patiently, until the day finally comes when they can rise up, shed their sheep’s clothing, and proudly affirm their support for the cause that has brought about the destruction of the society in which they so traitorously intermingled.
Not anymore. America’s Fifth Column, fully-operational and horribly dangerous, operates in full view of the public. In fact, they fight amongst themselves for the privilege of being the most visible, as they do their damndest to bring about the destruction of our country as we know it. America’s Fifth Column is its Fourth Estate.
Formerly known as the “Watchdogs of Democracy,” today’s media has become the propaganda arm of the American Left. As vigilant, and destructive, as a starving pit bull during the Bush years, this once snarling beast has now become a pussycat, rubbing at his ankles and purring as President Obama scratches behind its ears.
When the former Republican administration occupied the halls of power, this Fifth Column was capable of almost any calumny, no matter how destructive. Indeed there were cases which, in other generations or situations – would have been considered treasonous. No single matter relating to the conduct of the Iraq War was beneath scrutiny, nor was any misdeed – real or imagined – on the part of the military allowed to go unreported, national security be damned. It seemed that the only standard used to determine what was “fit to print” was the degree to which a story could be used to damage the Bush White House.
Hence endless days, weeks, months and finally years of wailing and gnashing of teeth over Abu Ghraib and Gitmo, rendition and “domestic spying,” endless apologies to the world and boundless recriminations at home.
Former Vice President Cheney saw fit a few weeks ago to single out one particular organization by name:
The shockingly biased coverage of George Bush and his administration gave critics of the media plenty of ammunition with which to attack, but all attempts to call the media to task sputtered ineffectually under the onslaught. Undeterred, the American Fifth Column had much more, and much worse, in store.“The [Terrorist Surveillance]program was top secret, and for good reason, until the editors of the New York Times got it and put it on the front page. After 9/11, the Times had spent months publishing the pictures and the stories of everyone killed by al-Qaeda on 9/11. Now here was that same newspaper publishing secrets in a way that could only help al-Qaeda. It impressed the Pulitzer committee, but it damn sure didn’t serve the interests of our country, or the safety of our people.”
With the advent of the Obama candidacy and the subsequent descent into the nether-regions of crazed adulation and tingly legs by the “I’m Just Mad About Barry” media, they suddenly and inexplicably lost the ability to investigate. Like a new and potent Andromeda Strain, America’s Fifth Column mutated into a different and even more dangerous pathogen, lethal in its ability to mask and cover all symptoms of the Obama Administration’s rush to insert its tentacles into every aspect of our lives.
The media became not only incapable of any sort of criticism of the party in power, but of any sort of critical thought.
End of Part 1
Saturday, June 6, 2009
Two Presidents. Two Speeches. One Damned Shame.
The evening of 6 June, 1944. D-Day. The President addresses the nation:
The afternoon of 3 April, 2009. The President, speaking in France:
And so, in this poignant hour, I ask you to join with me in prayer:
Almighty God: Our sons, pride of our nation, this day have set upon a mighty endeavor, a struggle to preserve our Republic, our religion, and our civilization, and to set free a suffering humanity.
Lead them straight and true; give strength to their arms, stoutness to their hearts, steadfastness in their faith.
They will need Thy blessings. Their road will be long and hard. For the enemy is strong. He may hurl back our forces. Success may not come with rushing speed, but we shall return again and again; and we know that by Thy grace, and by the righteousness of our cause, our sons will triumph.
They will be sore tried, by night and by day, without rest -- until the victory is won. The darkness will be rent by noise and flame. Men's souls will be shaken with the violences of war.
For these men are lately drawn from the ways of peace. They fight not for the lust of conquest. They fight to end conquest. They fight to liberate. They fight to let justice arise, and tolerance and goodwill among all Thy people. They yearn but for the end of battle, for their return to the haven of home.
Some will never return. Embrace these, Father, and receive them, Thy heroic servants, into Thy kingdom.
And for us at home -- fathers, mothers, children, wives, sisters, and brothers of brave men overseas, whose thoughts and prayers are ever with them -- help us, Almighty God, to rededicate ourselves in renewed faith in Thee in this hour of great sacrifice.
Many people have urged that I call the nation into a single day of special prayer. But because the road is long and the desire is great, I ask that our people devote themselves in a continuance of prayer. As we rise to each new day, and again when each day is spent, let words of prayer be on our lips, invoking Thy help to our efforts.
Give us strength, too -- strength in our daily tasks, to redouble the contributions we make in the physical and the material support of our armed forces.
And let our hearts be stout, to wait out the long travail, to bear sorrows that may come, to impart our courage unto our sons wheresoever they may be.
And, O Lord, give us faith. Give us faith in Thee; faith in our sons; faith in each other; faith in our united crusade. Let not the keeness of our spirit ever be dulled. Let not the impacts of temporary events, of temporal matters of but fleeting moment -- let not these deter us in our unconquerable purpose.
With Thy blessing, we shall prevail over the unholy forces of our enemy. Help us to conquer the apostles of greed and racial arrogances. Lead us to the saving of our country, and with our sister nations into a world unity that will spell a sure peace -- a peace invulnerable to the schemings of unworthy men. And a peace that will let all of men live in freedom, reaping the just rewards of their honest toil.
Thy will be done, Almighty God.
The afternoon of 3 April, 2009. The President, speaking in France:
In America, there is a failure to appreciate Europe's leading role in the world.
Instead of celebrating your dynamic union and seeking to partner with you to meet common challenges, there have been times where America has shown arrogance and been dismissive, even derisive.
Friday, June 5, 2009
Obama's Great SCAM and Other Acronyms
That's how I'm going to be referring, from this point forward, to the greatest weapon in the President's arsenal. SCAM is my new acronym for State Controlled American Media.
(That little short-cut works so well, doesn't it? Choose an appropriate adjective to place before it, and see how trippingly it rolls off the tongue: dangerous SCAM, huge SCAM, deceitful SCAM; see what I mean?)
Moving along, the Administration's agenda will hereinafter be known as the President's War on the Constitution, or PWOC, for short. Obama's main allies in this war are the AIDS, a.k.a. the Alliance of Insane Democrat Senators. So let's float a trial balloon: "In the PWOC, both Obama and his AIDS are using a powerful SCAM to achieve their nefarious goals."
Now right there you see the reason for this post: I used three words to take the place of twelve. So why is that important? Well, off the top of my head, I would think it would be valuable in writing Letters to the Editor, which are, in the case of the Staten Island Advance, capped at 200 words.
Plus, I thought SCAM was a pretty snappy replacement for MSM, and the PWOC describes exactly what is going on without mincing words, and without resorting to tired, old descriptives that are not really accurate, like Fascism, Marxism or Socialism.
(That little short-cut works so well, doesn't it? Choose an appropriate adjective to place before it, and see how trippingly it rolls off the tongue: dangerous SCAM, huge SCAM, deceitful SCAM; see what I mean?)
Moving along, the Administration's agenda will hereinafter be known as the President's War on the Constitution, or PWOC, for short. Obama's main allies in this war are the AIDS, a.k.a. the Alliance of Insane Democrat Senators. So let's float a trial balloon: "In the PWOC, both Obama and his AIDS are using a powerful SCAM to achieve their nefarious goals."
Now right there you see the reason for this post: I used three words to take the place of twelve. So why is that important? Well, off the top of my head, I would think it would be valuable in writing Letters to the Editor, which are, in the case of the Staten Island Advance, capped at 200 words.
Plus, I thought SCAM was a pretty snappy replacement for MSM, and the PWOC describes exactly what is going on without mincing words, and without resorting to tired, old descriptives that are not really accurate, like Fascism, Marxism or Socialism.
Thursday, June 4, 2009
Today's Quote
"Good intentions will always be pleaded for every assumption of authority. It is hardly too strong to say that the Constitution was made to guard the people against the dangers of good intentions. There are men in all ages who mean to govern well, but they mean to govern. They promise to be good masters, but they mean to be masters."~Daniel Webster
The Descent Into Madness Continues.
One might even say that the descent is accelerating.
The corruption of the American electoral process continues unabated, as the federal government yet again rides roughshod over the states.
From today's IBD editorial:
This cannot be rushed - to do it, they need to maintain perpetual power. To do that, they need to control the voting process in a way that appears to be democratic, but is, in reality, rigged in their favor. Hence the DOJ ruling.
And by the way, where is the criminally negligent "Watchdog of Democracy" media on this subject? We'll discuss that soon.
The corruption of the American electoral process continues unabated, as the federal government yet again rides roughshod over the states.
From today's IBD editorial:
The Justice Department has told Georgia that the state cannot impose its proof-of-citizenship requirements at the ballot box.The rule of law is being abandoned in bits and pieces - but like a frog floating contendedly in a pot of water, the average American citizen is paying little or no attention as the heat is being turned up in small but steady increments. The Obama administration's ultimate goal? To boil away our liberties before we can make the leap to freedom.
The order came only days before it was reported that Justice had decided in the middle of May it would drop a complaint against three members of the New Black Panther Party for Self-Defense.The men, who reportedly uttered racial slurs while dressed in paramilitary clothing, had been accused of intimidating voters on Election Day last year at a Philadelphia precinct.
The Washington Times says that "political appointees" at Justice "overruled career lawyers and ended a civil complaint." Federal authorities had charged King Samir Shabazz, who carried a nightstick at the voting precinct, Malik Zulu Shabazz and Jerry Jackson of violating the 1965 Voting Rights Act.
That same Justice Department told Georgia last week that it cannot check Social Security numbers and driver's license data to confirm U.S. citizenship of prospective voters. The department reasoned that the state's system was often inaccurate and has a "discriminatory effect."
But what could be more inaccurate than having no system at all to confirm that the people voting in American elections are truly Americans? We have to agree with Georgia Secretary of State Karen Handel, who said that "politics took priority over common sense and good public policy."
[snip]
Yet it appears that Justice wants to make sure noncitizens have the same access to the American ballot box as citizens, and either doesn't care where that leads or is part of an attempt to make transformational changes to the U.S. system of government.
That same federal department, by dropping the case against members of the New Black Panther Party for Self-Defense, has also clearly indicated that groups willing to resort to violence, both real and implied, to hijack elections are free to harass Americans on their way to the voting booth.
This cannot be rushed - to do it, they need to maintain perpetual power. To do that, they need to control the voting process in a way that appears to be democratic, but is, in reality, rigged in their favor. Hence the DOJ ruling.
And by the way, where is the criminally negligent "Watchdog of Democracy" media on this subject? We'll discuss that soon.
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