Has Occupy Wall Street always planned to  ‘occupy’ a slightly bigger turf?

C.B.S. News reports that

plans are found in a document posted online by an “Occupy Wall Street” working group, titled “The 99 Percent Declaration.” The document proposes a National General Assembly to be held in Philadelphia starting on July 4th, 2012

A non representative sample of ex hippies, anarchists, frustrated, debt laden publicly educated college students, a smattering of Communists, and sundry upset ‘average folk’, heavily organized and gleefully compensated by Big Labor says their

 Assembly would operate similarly to the original “Committees of Correspondence” — the Founding Fathers who met in Philadelphia prior to what the group refers to as “the first American Revolution.

OWS’s month-long siege has resulted in hundreds of arrests across the country for violent, disruptive, criminal behavior.

Philadelphia’s Mayor states

We need to better understand what it is they want to do, where and what it’s all about. But I welcome the discussion.

His statement is suggestive that OWS has not made any official contact with the city, and the message and the intent of Occupy Wall Street cannot be more clear.

Questioned about potential unrest when OWS’ Philadelphia wing must relocate themselves in a month, the City’s Managing Director Rich Negrin responded

That’s the kind of showdown that some folks would like. That’s a minority of the folks. In large part, they’ve been incredibly cooperative. (But) there are small groups who infiltrate the ranks, like the anarchists and others, who don’t care about the government, just care about chaos. Let’s hope those folks are not in the majority.

Negrin is hoping for too much.

An unruly crowd with a violent streak  openly calling itself, by inference, a “revolution”?

Has Occupy Wall Street forgotten about the Tea Parties, a roughly three-year old,  non violent Constitutionally minded movement? Of course they haven’t. OWS is capitalizing on the Tea party’s success, while displaying none of that movement’s principled behavior or goals.

The fundamental difference between the Tea Parties and these ‘Occupier’s’ cannot be more stark. The Tea Parties have dedicated themselves to cementing  the Republic back on its Constitutional foundation. Occupy Wall Street, on the other hand, disingenuously clubs the nation over the head with the flawed symbolic nature of “The 99 Percent Declaration” and plans for a ‘National Assembly.

OWS clearly has no fidelity to the Constitution. OWS wishes instead to dismantle it. OWS presents itself as the philosophical, political, and moral doppelgänger of the Tea Party Movement.

It certainly is.

One group is a recognizably non violent group of Constitutionalists dedicated to a Republic of United States. The other is a radical group of ‘occupiers’ calling for revolution with a  tendency towards violence, an open loathing for free markets, and an apparent willingness to evade the role the State has played in creating the excess they decry.

These ‘occupiers’ ignore Government’s role in the nation’s financial crisis because they intend to take the government over.

They seek to occupy much, much broader turf.

The radical moving bodies who call themselves ‘Occupy…(fill in the blank)’ are not a revolution, nor are they a political movement. ‘Political movement’ presupposes agreed upon and understood political concepts and a coherent set of moral and practical terms or goals.

The goal of OWS is obvious. It is neither moral nor practical — except through force — which OWS clearly has no problem using to obtain its goal. [warning: link contains explicit language]

With it’s violence, it’s arrogance, and its contempt for 200 years of America’s history and Her (albeit flawed, but fixable) institutions, Occupy Wall Street is not a movement, it is a coup.

Occupy Movement To Hold National General Assembly In Philadelphia July 4, 2012 « CBS Philly.

as previously published on examiner.com [local edit]

The associated Press reports that

Social Security recipients will get a raise in January — their first increase in benefits since 2009. It’s expected to be about 3.5 percent.

Some 55 million beneficiaries will find out for sure Wednesday when a government inflation measure that determines the annual cost-of-living adjustment is released.

Hadenough.us has to ask: lucky timing for seniors and Washington “leaders”, or a transparent attempt to swing votes in 2012?

via Social Security To Hand Out First Raises Since ’09 | Fox News.

as published on examiner.com

This week Freshman House member Jeff Landry (R-LA) displayed political courage and an understanding of the irrationality that lies in ethical compromise. Landry chose not to provide President Obama moral sanction and refused to  join his GOP colleagues in their sit down with President Obama over the federal budget.

Congressman Landry articulated the reasons for his decision, saying

I don’t intend to spend my morning being lectured to by a president whose failed policies have put our children and grandchildren in a huge burden of debt

Understanding that the GOP have  the rational, moral,  and practical arguments in their favor and have nothing to gain from talks with Obama, Landry gave further clarity for his rejection of the Obama invite, saying

I’m not going to the White House to negotiate with myself

Refusing to provide moral cover for the President, Landry declared he would not

partake in his [Obama’s] political grandstanding that will ultimately do nothing for debt reduction and job creation

Landry clearly understands  a philosophical premises  championed by philosopher Ayn Rand:  in any collaboration between two or more parties holding opposite principles. it is the irrational side which will win.

In the meantime, back in May,  Times Union Editor cum wannabe ethicist Rex Smith displayed the philosophical root of ethical compromise, the idea that there is a fundamental breach between the practical and the moral. He also displayed the ethical evasiveness and the  inevitable smuggling in of moral premises that is part and parcel of Pragmatism’s techniques.  Pragmatism is of course  a political theory that has neither morality not practicality on its side. 

image courtesy of yahoo images and gimmejustice.com

As published on examiner.com

Today was the day we were to remember and honor America’s fallen.

Just a few months ago Democratic House members chose to disgrace that noble body they sit in as well as  our fallen heroes by taking a big slice out of the spirit of the Constitution from which our leaders get their authority.

Each of us owe our liberties to the Constitution. That inspired document is the thing our fallen have given their lives to preserve and protect.

On this Memorial Day I fear for my nation and our Republic if the spirit of a resolution introduced by House members regarding anti Muslim speech and bias is accepted by Congress (or by the people).

Representatives John Conyers, Jr., Andre Carson, and Hansen Clarke chose in  March to introduce a resolution in the people’s House of Representatives that stinks of authoritarianism, tyranny,  and censorship.

Congressional Resolutions define the sense of life of that body. 

H. RES 283 states that the members who sign on to it are

expressing the sense of Congress that the federal government should take steps to counter anti-Muslim sentiment

that this anti Muslim sentiment

should be addressed by official government policy

which would

take steps to counter the growth in anti -Muslim sentiments, targeted rhetorical attacks

[read the full resolution here.}

We must keep in mind that this resolution is

expressing the sense of the House of Representatives.

If accepted by Congress, our leaders will be acknowledging that they believe that the Federal government of the United States may, as it deems necessary, use the force of government policy and the mechanism of law to counter the sentiments and rhetoric of the people of the United States.

In other words, Congress would be stating in this resolution that speech by individual citizens of a free republic  may be countered (of course no clarity is given as to what ‘countering’ would entail) simply because some in Congress (or anywhere) might not agree or approve of the speech in question.

When a free nation has degenerated to such a point that Representatives of the people  expressly declare that they believe that they can and should ‘counter’ the sentiment or speech of that people, I worry for my nation.

When my leaders  do not grasp that they are violating the very document that they themselves derive their power from, and that they are shutting down voices of people who have chosen them , and yet are doing so in the name of ‘free speech’,  I fear for my Republic.

as published on examiner.com

Conservative and liberal “commentators” (read: opinion hacks who pretend they are journalists) love a good scandal, controversy, or public disagreement. When they can’t find one, they make one up with the old stand by of “X is raising eyebrows”, all the while  conveniently failing to identify any actual individuals whose eyebrows have been set high upon the forehead.  The Left is aghast at Conservatives at Fox and other outlets who are atwitter over what Conservatives view as the latest in a long line of poor reasoning and outright poor taste from the White House. Of course,  one must ask when aren’t Conservatives incensed over the actions of liberals?.

The political and media Left wishes to have the public believe that First Lady Michelle Obama’s White House  invite to hip hop artist Common, and his subsequent visit, is just one of those ginned up controversies.

The Liberal left insists that Common’s visit is a non sequiter.  Online supporters of this view go so far as to suggest that the invite was a baiting game: invite the most innocuous black artist one can find so as to drive those big old bigots on the Right into a tizzy.

as published on examiner.com

It is always fascinating when celebrities and politicians  display their moral bankruptcy and pontificate about the supposed moral equivalency between brutal killers and American military actions or American justice (especially in times of war).  It is amazing when they simultaneously bristle at the idea that they might indeed be showing hatred towards their country and its government. It’s almost as if they do not recognize the nature of their own beliefs. It is as if they do not grasp that appeasement and apologies  to human evil empowers it.  Say it ain’t so.

These moral traitors do not grasp that when we forget or ignore the distinctions between good and evil, we gloss over the nature of both.  When this occurs  we will always end up sacrificing that which is good for the sake of that which is not.

as published on examiner.com

Reviews by a critic with the caliber of Roger Ebert, half of what was the most noteworthy film critic team of the past twenty-five years; venerable critic of the Chicago Sun Times, these reviews are not a small matter. The opinions of critics such as these are not to be taken lightly, nor treated as if they have not occurred.

Roger Ebert and his fellow critics can make or break a film. They are the moderating voice and minds for America’s movie attendees, helping movie pickers sift the chaff from the wheat to determine the best film on which to lay their ten bucks.  They also help movie goers understand, amid the din of post film theater chatter and concession stand sticker shock, just what they saw up on the screen.

Such worshipful views of professional criticism are held only by those who read reviews and expect enlightenment and a release from the responsibility of making informed, rational judgments. Such are positions usually held by those who accept at face value a critic’s coronation (or execution) of a film, and are unwilling to express or experience independent thought.

[Originally published at “Just a Thought — Mental Illness Meets Common Sense”]

Today is April 15th.  It is Tax Day, 2011 [tax day actually moved up a few days, but you get the picture]. With it comes the release of Atlas Shrugged The Movie Part One.

I’ve been a fan of the novel Atlas Shrugged and a student of Ayn Rand’s philosophy for nearly twenty years.

Objectivism has allowed me to shrug off  what should have been a completely  debilitating illness.  Without Objectivism it is doubtful I would have maintained full employment, written a book, maintained a home, or be writing this or anything else.  My ability to manage a foot and a half in reality and reason – via Objectivism, mitigates against much of the effects of my schizophrenia.

image from Jim Dollar’s photostream -yahoo images

A seasoned, professional,and philosophically astute analyst can, like few others, recognize the goals and the outcomes of political policy.  At the least, barring that, he can ask the correct questions.  In doing so, these thinkers can help us understand the actions of government and its policy makers.  An astute analyst can provide, with his thoughtful and probing questions, the tools we need to grapple with the world we live in.

Those tools were provided this week by no less a gifted intellectual and seasoned analyst than Comedy Central’s comedian cum wannabe journalist Jon Stewart.

I am no fan of Jon Stewart as pundit.  His political “thinking” is of such a nature that one can become equally informed by gleaming wisdom and insight from teen created video blogs and Facebook discussions.  This week, however, Stewart asked by sheer common sense inquisitiveness, and by the grace of the law of averages, the precise  questions that lead to much needed answers.

Official Atlas Shrugged The Movie (part one) movie poster

as published on examiner.com

Fifty years plus have passed since Ayn Rand published her masterpiece of philosophy and Romantic literature.  Fifty plus years later and Conservatives still do not get Atlas Shrugged, nor do they apparently care to.  To paraphrase the epithet that Conservatives love to apply to the anti  Palin mentality, a label that has already become a worn out cliche — the traditional Right has spent the past fifty  plus years wallowing in “Rand Derangement”.

This derangement takes the form of the typical Conservative’s pathological need to distance themselves from Rand while simultaneously recognizing her influence, her prescience, and her grasp of ethical  and ideological truth.  Fifty plus years of history validating Ms. Rand’s premises and prophecy cannot be evaded, even by the Masters of Evasion within Conservative circles.

No one today can,  with either a straight face or with intellectual honesty, fail to acknowledge Mr. Rand’s achievements.  Those achievements can be and are still, however,  misrepresented, appropriated, and maligned — particularly by those threatened most by the ideas themselves.

I’m speaking of course of Religious Conservatives who evade the reality of Ayn Rand’s ideas so as to hide from themselves their own ideological bankruptcy.  I speak also of Conservatives who know full well that traditional Conservatism is as dead as the ghosts and corpses it tries to worship.

One week from tomorrow (4/15/2011) part one of a three part film version of Atlas Shrugged will be released to a movie going public.  That public has been saturated in treacle, terror, timidity, and toneless banality for so long it mistakes rehashed comic book plots and overly redone thirty year old classic films as original, entertaining,  and risky.

Those who attend such inane films (usually  in vain attempts to find in these movie’s moderately romantic style of story telling some form of original thought and some heroes to admire and aspire to be) will finally have the opportunity to enter  Galt’s Gulch.

True to form for Conservatives, the reviews, near reviews, reviews of reviews, and non review hatchet jobs are in — and ain’t they pretty?