Which of these may be in play?

RULE 1: "Power is not only what you have, but what the enemy thinks you have." Power is derived from 2 main sources - money and people. "Have-Nots" must build power from flesh and blood. (These are two things of which there is a plentiful supply. Government and corporations always have a difficult time appealing to people, and usually do so almost exclusively with economic arguments.)

RULE 2: "Never go outside the expertise of your people." It results in confusion, fear and retreat. Feeling secure adds to the backbone of anyone. (Organizations under attack wonder why radicals don't address the "real" issues. This is why. They avoid things with which they have no knowledge.)

RULE 3: "Whenever possible, go outside the expertise of the enemy." Look for ways to increase insecurity, anxiety and uncertainty. (This happens all the time. Watch how many organizations under attack are blind-sided by seemingly irrelevant arguments that they are then forced to address.)

RULE 4: "Make the enemy live up to its own book of rules." If the rule is that every letter gets a reply, send 30,000 letters. You can kill them with this because no one can possibly obey all of their own rules. (This is a serious rule. The besieged entity's very credibility and reputation is at stake, because if activists catch it lying or not living up to its commitments, they can continue to chip away at the damage.)

RULE 5: "Ridicule is man's most potent weapon." There is no defense. It's irrational. It's infuriating. It also works as a key pressure point to force the enemy into concessions. (Pretty crude, rude and mean, huh? They want to create anger and fear.)

RULE 6: "A good tactic is one your people enjoy." They'll keep doing it without urging and come back to do more. They're doing their thing, and will even suggest better ones. (Radical activists, in this sense, are no different that any other human being. We all avoid "un-fun" activities, and but we revel at and enjoy the ones that work and bring results.)

RULE 7: "A tactic that drags on too long becomes a drag." Don't become old news. (Even radical activists get bored. So to keep them excited and involved, organizers are constantly coming up with new tactics.)

RULE 8: "Keep the pressure on. Never let up." Keep trying new things to keep the opposition off balance. As the opposition masters one approach, hit them from the flank with something new. (Attack, attack, attack from all sides, never giving the reeling organization a chance to rest, regroup, recover and re-strategize.)

RULE 9: "The threat is usually more terrifying than the thing itself." Imagination and ego can dream up many more consequences than any activist. (Perception is reality. Large organizations always prepare a worst-case scenario, something that may be furthest from the activists' minds. The upshot is that the organization will expend enormous time and energy, creating in its own collective mind the direst of conclusions. The possibilities can easily poison the mind and result in demoralization.)

RULE 10: "If you push a negative hard enough, it will push through and become a positive." Violence from the other side can win the public to your side because the public sympathizes with the underdog. (Unions used this tactic. Peaceful [albeit loud] demonstrations during the heyday of unions in the early to mid-20th Century incurred management's wrath, often in the form of violence that eventually brought public sympathy to their side.)

RULE 11: "The price of a successful attack is a constructive alternative." Never let the enemy score points because you're caught without a solution to the problem. (Old saw: If you're not part of the solution, you're part of the problem. Activist organizations have an agenda, and their strategy is to hold a place at the table, to be given a forum to wield their power. So, they have to have a compromise solution.)

RULE 12: Pick the target, freeze it, personalize it, and polarize it." Cut off the support network and isolate the target from sympathy. Go after people and not institutions; people hurt faster than institutions. (This is cruel, but very effective. Direct, personalized criticism and ridicule works.)

Confessions of an Obama supporter

An anonymous post of unknown origins. Could this be true?

by Found: An Obot Confession | 2008-10-28 06:19:11

sarah p Says:
October 27, 2008 at 5:04 am
Ok, I want to clear my conscious a little. Hopefully you could make a blog post to help some fellow clinton supporters out.

I work for a campaign and can’t wait for this week to be over.

I was doing it for a job. I was not a fan of any candidate but over time grew to love HRC.

The internal campaign idea is to twist, distort, humiliate and finally dispirit you.

We pay people and organize people to go to all the online sites and “play the part of a clinton or mccain supporter who just switched our support for obama”

We do this to stifle your motivation and to destroy your confidence.

We did this the whole primary and it worked.

Sprinkle in mass vote confusion and it becomes bewildering. Most people lose patience and just give up on their support of a candidate and decide to just block out tv, news, websites, etc.

This surprisingly has had a huge suppressing movement and vote turnout issues.

Next, we infiltrate all the blogs and all the youtube videos and overwhelm the voting, the comments, etc. All to continue this appearance of overwhelming world support.

People makes posts to the effect that the world has “gone mad”

Thats the intention. To make you feel stressed and crazy and feel like the world is ending.

We have also had quite a hand in skewing many many polls, some we couldn’t control as much as we would have liked. But many we have spoiled over. Just enough to make real clear politics look scarey to a mccain supporter. Its worked, alough the goal was to appear 13-15 points ahead.

see, the results have been working.
People tend to support a winner, go with the flow, become “sheeple”

The polls are roughly 3-5 points in favor of Barack. Thats due to our inflation of the polls and pulling in the sheeple.

Our donors, are the same people who finance the MSM. Their interests are tied, Barack then tends to come across as teflon. Nothing sticks. And trust, there were meetings with Fox news. The goal was to blunt them as much as possible. Watch Bill Oreilly he has become much more diplomatic and “fair and balanced” and soft. Its because he wants to retain the #1 spot on cable news and to do that he has to have access to the Obama campaign and we worked hard at stringing him a long and keeping him soft for an interview swap. It worked and now he is anticipating more access. So he is playing it still soft.

This is why nothing sticks.

The operation is massive, the goal is to paint a picture that is that of a winner, regardless of the results.

There is no true inauguration draft or true grant park construction going on. There will be a party, but we are boasting beyond the truth to make it seem like the election is wrapped up.

Our goal is to continue to make you lose your moral. We worked hard at persuasion and paying off and timing and playing the right political numbers to get key republican endorsements to make it seem even more like it was over and the world was coming to an end for you all.

There is a huge staff of people working around the clock, watching every site, blogs, etc. We flood these sites. We have had a goal to overwhelm.

The truth is here. I could go on and on, but you get the picture.

I am saying this because I know HRC was better for the country, and now realize this. I was too late by the time I connected to her. To me Barack was just a cool young dude that seemed like a star. I didn’t know him or his policies, but now I understand more than I care to and I realize his interests are more for him, and the DNC and all working like puppets with dean. I always thought a president wanted the better good for the country. The end result I see is everyone dependent on the government, this means more and more people voting for the DNC. This means the future is forever altered. I don’t see this as america, so I am now supporting John Mccain.

Sarah Palin is a huge threat, and our campaign has feared her like you can’t imagine. If it seems unfair how she has been treated, well its because she has had a team working round the clock to make her look like a fool.

this is a big conspiracy and I am so shocked that its not realized.

We released a little blurb the other day that the Obama campaign was already working on reelection and now putting our efforts towards 2012. This was to make it seem like it was above us to continue caring about 2008. Trust me, its a lie. David is very smart, but its a sticky ugly not very truthful kind of intelligence.

Its not over yet, but I think the machine is working. And its a hill to climb.

I will be quitting my post on nov 5th and my vote will be for John Mccain. Fortunately, my position has been a marketing position and I don’t feel I had any part of anything I would feel guilty for. But I look forward to getting out of this as the negativity and environment upsets me.

I wish you all well, and goodluck.

PS my name is not really sarah. but I am a female and I understand your plight.

FOUND! 2001 Obama Interview-Redistribution of Wealth

Drudge Headline to this video:

Description on this video header from "Naked Emperor News"
Obama Bombshell Audio Uncovered. He wants to Radically Reinterpret the Constitution to Redistribute Wealth!!
In a 2001 Chicago Public Radio Interview
Obama is discussing the best way to bring about a Redistribution of Wealth!!!
This Video Exposes the radical underneath the rhetoric!!

!

"Imagine" NoBama (alternative lyrics)

Dedicated to those Patriot PUMA's - Andrea and COUNT US OUT

http://countusout.wordpress.com/

Imagine there's no “O”logo
on coach he still flies
Hillary running for POTUS,
PUMAs battle cry
Imagine all the people
That would be happy today...

Imagine there's no O’Bootcamps
It isn't hard to do
Children in the playground,
No youtube indoctrination too.
Imagine all the people
Living life in peace...

You may say I'm a rebel
But I'm not the only one
I hope someday you'll join us
And our party will be as one.

Imagine no Pelosi,
Brazile and Dean too
No need to steal votes
No election coup
Imagine all the democrats

Like our parents were before...

You may say I'm a PUMA
But I'm not the only one
I hope someday you'll join us
And McCain will beat this con…

Answer to the Obama REVOLUTION (alternative lyrics)

You said you wanted a revolution
Well we know
You just want to please the world

You tell us that it's not social-ism,

Well you know,

You just want to rule the world
When you talk about "re-distri-bution"
Don't you know that you can count us out (h/t)

Don't you know were gonna stand
up and fight

and fight

and fight

You say you got a real solution,
Well we know,
Were not hip to Obamas plan.
You tell us its pa-triot-ism,
Well we know,
We're not sayin yes we can!

But if you want to send money to ACORN to step on our rights
We can tell you were gonna stand up and fight

Don't you know were gonna stand up
and fight

and fight

and fight

You want government to change the constitution,
Well we know,
You and Pelosi better change your minds instead.
You tell us that its your contribution,
Well don't you know,
Were not layin down and playin dead.

And when you go blurbing on books by Will-iam Ay-ers,
We're gonna remind people of his rein of terror,
Don't you know were gonna stand and fight.
and fight

and fight

and fight

(added verse)

Don't you know we’re gonna stand
and fight.

Our enemies on their knees is our solution,
And we know,
You say if we eat what we want the world won’t like us.
Inflate our tires to change our gas consumption,
Well we know,
If we drill now we can tell them to bite us.
Then you want us to hand over our SUV’s,
We’re gonna remind you we’re in the land of the free

Don’t you know if we vote McCain we’ll win the fight

And it’ll be...

Alright...

Alright...

Alright!

(H/T to Count Us Out for finding this video and adding it to their blog.)

Goldwater's 1964 Acceptance Speech

The following is the partial text of Barry Goldwater's 1964 speech at the 28th Republican National Convention, accepting the nomination for president. Provided by the Arizona Historical Foundation

The good Lord raised this mighty Republic to be a home for the brave and to flourish as the land of the free-not to stagnate in the swampland of collectivism, not to cringe before the bully of communism.

Now, my fellow Americans, the tide has been running against freedom. Our people have followed false prophets. We must, and we shall, return to proven ways-- not because they are old, but because they are true. We must, and we shall, set the tide running again in the cause of freedom. And this party, with its every action, every word, every breath, and every heartbeat, has but a single resolve, and that is freedom - freedom made orderly for this nation by our constitutional government; freedom under a government limited by laws of nature and of nature's God; freedom - balanced so that liberty lacking order will not become the slavery of the prison cell; balanced so that liberty lacking order will not become the license of the mob and of the jungle.

Now, we Americans understand freedom. We have earned it, we have lived for it, and we have died for it. This Nation and its people are freedom's model in a searching world. We can be freedom's missionaries in a doubting world. But, ladies and gentlemen, first we must renew freedom's mission in our own hearts and in our own homes.

Rather than useful jobs in our country, people have been offered bureaucratic "make work," rather than moral leadership, they have been given bread and circuses, spectacles, and, yes, they have even been given scandals. Tonight there is violence in our streets, corruption in our highest offices, aimlessness among our youth, anxiety among our elders and there is a virtual despair among the many who look beyond material success for the inner meaning of their lives. Where examples of morality should be set, the opposite is seen. Small men, seeking great wealth or power, have too often and too long turned even the highest levels of public service into mere personal opportunity.

Now, certainly, simple honesty is not too much to demand of men in government. We find it in most. Republicans demand it from everyone. They demand it from everyone no matter how exalted or protected his position might be. The growing menace in our country tonight, to personal safety, to life, to limb and property, in homes, in churches, on the playgrounds, and places of business, particularly in our great cities, is the mounting concern, or should be, of every thoughtful citizen in the United States.

Those who seek to live your lives for you, to take your liberties in return for relieving you of yours, those who elevate the state and downgrade the citizen must see ultimately a world in which earthly power can be substituted for divine will, and this Nation was founded upon the rejection of that notion and upon the acceptance of God as the author of freedom.

Those who seek absolute power, even though they seek it to do what they regard as good, are simply demanding the right to enforce their own version of heaven on earth. And let me remind you, they are the very ones who always create the most hellish tyrannies. Absolute power does corrupt, and those who seek it must be suspect and must be opposed. Their mistaken course stems from false notions of equality, ladies and gentlemen. Equality, rightly understood, as our founding fathers understood it, leads to liberty and to the emancipation of creative differences. Wrongly understood, as it has been so tragically in our time, it leads first to conformity and then to despotism.

Fellow Republicans, it is the cause of Republicanism to resist concentrations of power, private or public, which enforce such conformity and inflict such despotism. It is the cause of Republicanism to ensure that power remains in the hands of the people. And, so help us God, that is exactly what a Republican president will do with the help of a Republican Congress.

It is further the cause of Republicanism to restore a clear understanding of the tyranny of man over man in the world at large. It is our cause to dispel the foggy thinking which avoids hard decisions in the illusion that a world of conflict will somehow mysteriously resolve itself into a world of harmony, if we just don't rock the boat or irritate the forces of aggression - and this is hogwash.

It is further the cause of Republicanism to remind ourselves, and the world, that only the strong can remain free, that only the strong can keep the peace.

Now, I needn't remind you, or my fellow Americans regardless of party, that Republicans have shouldered this hard responsibility and marched in this cause before. It was Republican leadership under Dwight Eisenhower that kept the peace, and passed along to this administration the mightiest arsenal for defense the world has ever known. And I needn't remind you that it was the strength and the unbelievable will of the Eisenhower years that kept the peace by using our strength, by using it in the Formosa Straits and in Lebanon and by showing it courageously at all times.

It was during those Republican years that the thrust of Communist imperialism was blunted. It was during those years of Republican leadership that this world moved closer, not to war, but closer to peace, than at any other time in the three decades just passed.

The Republican cause demands that we brand communism as a principal disturber of peace in the world today. Indeed, we should brand it as the only significant disturber of the peace, and we must make clear that until its goals of conquest are absolutely renounced and its rejections with all nations tempered, communism and the governments it now controls are enemies of every man on earth who is or wants to be free.

We here in America can keep the peace only if we remain vigilant and only if we remain strong. Only if we keep our eyes open and keep our guard up can we prevent war. And I want to make this abundantly clear - I don't intend to let peace or freedom be torn from our grasp because of lack of strength or lack of will - and that I promise you Americans.

I believe that we must look beyond the defense of freedom today to its extension tomorrow. I believe that the communism which boasts it will bury us will, instead, give way to the forces of freedom. And I can see in the distant and yet recognizable future the outlines of a world worthy our dedication, our every risk, our every effort, our every sacrifice along the way. Yes, a world that will redeem the suffering of those who will be liberated from tyranny.

I know this freedom is not the fruit of every soil. I know that our own freedom was achieved through centuries, by unremitting efforts by brave and wise men. I know that the road to freedom is a long and a challenging road. I know also that some men may walk away from it, that some men resist challenge, accepting the false security of governmental paternalism.

And I pledge that the America I envision in the years ahead will extend its hand in health, in teaching and in cultivation, so that all new nations will be at least encouraged to go our way, so that they will not wander down the dark alleys of tyranny or to the dead-end streets of collectivism. My fellow Republicans, we do no man a service by hiding freedom's light under a bushel of mistaken humility.

I seek an American proud of its past, proud of its ways, proud of its dreams, and determined actively to proclaim them. But our example to the world must, like charity, begin at home.

In our vision of a good and decent future, free and peaceful, there must be room for deliberation of the energy and talent of the individual - otherwise our vision is blind at the outset.

We must assure a society here which, while never abandoning the needy or forsaking the helpless, nurtures incentives and opportunity for the creative and the productive. We must know the whole good is the product of many single contributions.

I cherish a day when our children once again will restore as heroes the sort of men and women who - unafraid and undaunted - pursue the truth, strive to cure disease, subdue and make fruitful our natural environment and produce the inventive engines of production, science, and technology.

This Nation, whose creative people have enhanced this entire span of history, should again thrive upon the greatness of all those things which we, as individual citizens, can and should do. During Republican years, this again will be a nation of men and women, of families proud of their role, jealous of their responsibilities, unlimited in their aspirations - a Nation where all who can will be self-reliant.

We Republicans see in our constitutional form of government the great framework which assures the orderly but dynamic fulfillment of the whole man, and we see the whole man as the great reason for instituting orderly government in the first place.

We see, in private property and in economy based upon and fostering private property, the one way to make government a durable ally of the whole man, rather than his determined enemy. We see in the sanctity of private property the only durable foundation for constitutional government in a free society. And beyond that, we see, in cherished diversity of ways, diversity of thoughts, of motives and accomplishments. We do not seek to lead anyone's life for him - we seek only to secure his rights and to guarantee him opportunity to strive, with government performing only those needed and constitutionally sanctioned tasks which cannot otherwise be performed.

We Republicans seek a government that attends to its inherent responsibilities of maintaining a stable monetary and fiscal climate, encouraging a free and a competitive economy and enforcing law and order. Thus do we seek inventiveness, diversity, and creativity within a stable order, for we Republicans define government's role where needed at many, many levels, preferably through the one closest to the people involved.

Our towns and our cities, then our counties, then our states, then our regional contacts - and only then, the national government. That, let me remind you, is the ladder of liberty, built by decentralized power. On it also we must have balance between the branches of government at every level.

Balance, diversity, creativity - these are the elements of Republican equation. Republicans agree, Republicans agree heartily to disagree on many, many of their applications, but we have never disagreed on the basic fundamental issues of why you and I are Republicans.

This is a party, this Republican Party, a Party for free men, not for blind followers, and not for conformists.Back in 1858 Abraham Lincoln said this of the Republican party - and I quote him, because he probably could have said it during the last week or so: "It was composed of strained, discordant, and even hostile elements" in 1858. Yet all of these elements agreed on one paramount objective: To arrest the progress of slavery, and place it in the course of ultimate extinction.

And let me remind you also that moderation in the pursuit of justice is no virtue.

The beauty of the very system we Republicans are pledged to restore and revitalize, the beauty of this Federal system of ours is in its reconciliation of diversity with unity. We must not see malice in honest differences of opinion, and no matter how great, so long as they are not inconsistent with the pledges we have given to each other in and through our Constitution.

The American Revolution

By BringItOn

I pray that all of you have begun the week on a great start. I have been hearing the chaos that is going on in the news, in the financial markets and its effects on the world around us and it's just amazing. More than anything, however, in the last few days I am noticing another event that we as Americans are embarking on- A New American Revolution. I was researching the Internet tonight to find out more information about the first American revolution and what it was all about and surprisingly I found that it was liberalism that fuel this movement for America to separate herself from the British rule of those times. But liberalism held a concept that was even more surprising - the introduction of Republicanism. I was startled by this finding. To learn that in those times liberalism had to do with Republicanism and now liberalism is the greatest opposition of Republicanism leaves me astound. How time changes things. So I found this brief description of what the first American Revolution was about:

The American Revolution included a series of broad intellectual and social shifts that occurred in the early American society, such as the new republican ideals that took hold in the American population. In some colonies, sharp political debates broke out over the role of democracy in government, with a number of even the most liberal Founding Fathers fearing mob rule. The American shift to republicanism, as well as the gradually expanding democracy, caused an upheaval of the traditional social hierarchy, and created the ethic that formed the core of American political values.

Can you belief this? Now approximately 48% of our country's population has shifted to a transforming ideology of liberalism that will not liberate us but destroy us. In the center of this chaos on Wall Street are many politicians of the Democratic Party. With the media by its side and their bedroom ties to the greed on Wall Street we have witnessed the remarkable display of stealth politics. Senator Obama's connection with many of these corporations has gone totally untouched by the media. The Democratic leaders in Congress continues their attempts to paint the Republicans as being responsible for the collapse on Wall Street and this is astonishing. I am totally in disbelief at how the Democratic controlled everything has taken us all hostage. If further signals that this election is not about politics but is a planned strategy to hijack America. This revolution will not be fought with Bayonets or muskets. It will be fought with money and power. Our country is definitely shifting in ideology, values and principles just are our country did in 1765, resulting in America's separation from the British Rule. Today, the revolt involves a more abstract conflict.

The American Revolution of 2008 involves the principles of faith, values and traditional American beliefs. The Democratic Party of today consist of several groups that oppose the traditions of America. They consist of Atheist, New Agers, Socialist, and a smorgasbord of many other non-traditional attitudes. I see the collapse of Wall Street as a sinister maneuver in implementing the party's socialist agenda. Blacks, of whom 90% support the Democratic Party is longing for a socialist government. They view socialism as their last hope of achieving equality in this country. A gross misconception popularized by politicians and community activist who used the plights of Blacks to achieve their own selfish ambitions. Each day I see John McCains numbers going down in the polls, I wonder, "how can this be", with all the facts of this financial debacle pointing to leaders in the Democratic Party, how can Barack Obama be leading in the polls.

And then it hit me, this election has nothing to do with leadership as we know it. This is a revolt of the traditional ideologies of America. This election is about avenging this nation and not about the health of its future. Barack Obama and his cohorts are charging a revolt against who we are as Americans. They are preparing their assault and they have taken aim and we on the opposing side are their enemies. We as Republicans and conservatives are to them, what the British were to America in 1765. It appears that their stealth fighters are eliminating their most vulnerable targets, but November 4th is their biggest prize. If our party does not mobilize and began to take this election seriously, we will find ourselves as POW's come November 5th. We must take note of the revolution that has begun and fight for the good of our nation. Our vote in November will serve as bayonets and muskets. They will serve as the cannon launching from the seas. It is our vote that will serve as the weapon in our hands and we must be in step with the mission of our army. The New American Revolution has begun and we have been called to fight.

FREEDOM

Twenty six years ago, our country was engaged in a cold war with the soviet union--who suppressed human rights, elections, speech, and a free press. The soviet union collapsed under an oppressive economic system in which few prospered. Twenty six years ago, it was them--not us.

While we won the cold war, we've accepted too many of their failed economic policies and we are facing a corporate bailout of astronomical proportions. Before we leap into "owning" the failures of these companies, I hope we look back from where we came and look ahead to where we want to go. The idea of our government taking on the burden of these failed (private) corporations is chilling but its due to our government going where it never should have gone. We forced these businesses into taking these risks and never addressed how to handle the ramifications if they should fail. I don't know what the best course is now, but in the least, we should at least learn from our mistakes and prevent it from happening again.

While being historical in positive ways, in 2008 we also went where we never should have gone in others. Martin Luther King Jr. would have been pleased that 40 years after his "Dream" speech, an African American has been nominated by a major party for President of the United States. Eighty-eight years since the beginning of female suffrage, a woman has been nominated by the Republican party for Vice President. Three-hundred and four years since John Campbell first published the Boston News, the independent media has died.

As for me, 2008 will always be memorable because this was the year when we crossed several lines and started to become our own enemy. In 2008, we allowed elected officials to chose primary dates that would silence the votes of citizens. In 2008, we allowed our "free press" to thumb their noses at objectivity and attack a 17 year old daughter of a candidate. In 2008, the media chose a Presidential candidate and hid negatives from the public in an effort to get him elected. By 2008, we stopped paying too much attention to politics and assumed that freedom was a birthright and not a product of hard work and blood. I recall the wisdom of the words spoken by Ronald Reagan,

"Freedom is never more than one generation away from extinction. We didn't pass it to our children in the bloodstream. It must be fought for, protected, and handed on for them to do the same, or one day we will spend our sunset years telling our children and our children's children what it was once like in the United States where men were free."

If you want to see how much things have changed in 26 years, read a few excerpts from President Ronald Reagan who was speaking to the House of Commons on June 8, 1982.
The objective I propose is quite simple to state: to foster the infrastructure of democracy, the system of a free press, unions, political parties, universities, which allows a people to choose their own way to develop their own culture, to reconcile their own differences through peaceful means."

This is not cultural imperialism; it is providing the means for genuine self-determination and protection for diversity. Democracy already flourishes in countries with very different cultures and historical experiences. It would be cultural condescension, or worse, to say that any people prefer dictatorship to democracy. Who would voluntarily choose not to have the right to vote, decide to purchase government propaganda handouts instead of independent newspapers, prefer government to worker-controlled unions, opt for land to be owned by the state instead of those who till it, want government repression of religious liberty, a single political party instead of a free choice, a rigid cultural orthodoxy instead of democratic tolerance and diversity.
Our military strength is a prerequisite to peace, but let it be clear we maintain this strength in the hope it will never be used, for the ultimate determinant in the struggle that's now going on in the world will not be bombs and rockets but a test of wills and ideas, a trial of spiritual resolve, the values we hold, the beliefs we cherish, the ideals to which we are dedicated.
Well, the task I've set forth will long outlive our own generation. But together, we too have come through the worst. Let us now begin a major effort to secure the best -- a crusade for freedom that will engage the faith and fortitude of the next generation. For the sake of peace and justice, let us move toward a world in which all people are at last free to determine their own destiny."


________________________________________

________________________________________

The End of an Empire is Messy

How do you start a revolution without shedding blood or overtly overthrowing the government? Is bloodshed necessary? Follow the path of William Ayers and the Weather Underground for answers.

"In 1969, a small group of leftist college student radicals announced their intentions to overthrow the U.S. government in opposition to the Vietnam War", according to Wikipedia."

As a cofounder of the Weather Underground, Ayers sought to start a revolution in the 60's and 70's, deploying bombs against American citizens as the need arose. Although never being convicted of a crime due to a technicality, Ayers proclaimed on September 11, 2001 that "I don't regret setting bombs" and "I feel we didn't do enough"--when asked if he would do it all again, he saidas "I don't want to discount the possibility."

Fast forward to November, 2006, when Ayers spoke in front of a “distinguished” group of guests in Venezuela, including Hugo Chavez, and said "the profound educational reforms underway here in Venezuela under the leadership of President Chavez. We share the belief that education is the motor-force of revolution, and I’ve come to appreciate Luis (educator) as a major asset in both the Venezuelan and the international struggle—I look forward to seeing how he and all of you continue to overcome the failings of capitalist education as you seek to create something truly new and deeply humane. Thank you, Luis, for everything you’ve done" (http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2099317/posts)

"I also thank my youngest son, Chesa Boudin, who is interpreting my talk this morning and whose book on the Bolivarian revolution has played an important part in countering the barrage of lies spread by the U.S. State Department and the corrupted North American media."

Ayers went on to speak of educators he admires, "They were following Dewey and DuBois, King and Helen Keller who wrote: “We can’t have education without revolution. We have tried peace education for 1,900 years and it has failed. Let us try revolution and see what it will do now.”

Ayers began his career at 20, working at Head Start. (Sound familiar?)

"I taught at first in something like a Simoncito—called Head Start—and eventually taught at every level in barrios and prisons and insurgent projects across the United States. I learned then that education is never neutral. It always has a value, a position, a politics. Education either reinforces or challenges the existing social order, and school is always a contested space – what should be taught? In what way? Toward what end? By and for whom? At bottom, it involves a struggle over the essential questions: what does it mean to be a human being living in a human society? Totalitarianism demands obedience and conformity, hierarchy, command and control. Royalty requires allegiance. Capitalism promotes racism and militarism – turning people into consumers, not citizens."

Ayer's continued, praising Venezuela's educational reform as well as "enlightenment and liberation".

"Let those of us who are gathered here today read this poem as “The Teacher’s Obligation.” We, too, must move in and out of windows, we, too, must build a project of radical imagination and fundamental change. Venezuela is poised to offer the world a new model of education– a humanizing and revolutionary model whose twin missions are enlightenment and liberation"

Ayers clearly illustrated that educational reform was a means to change from capitalism, racism and militarism to a more humane and revolutionary model, as enacted by the Venezuelan government under Hugo Chavez. Does Obama share his desire for educational reform? I checked his website which included the following plan to "assist" parents with "zero to five" universal pre-school and quadrupling the budget for "Early Head Start"; Obama's plan also includes a "voluntary" assessment for teachers and churning out 30,000 recruits to high need schools (see below).

Early Childhood Education · Zero to Five Plan:

The Obama-Biden comprehensive "Zero to Five" plan will provide critical support to young children and their parents. Unlike other early childhood education plans, the Obama-Biden plan places key emphasis at early care and education for infants, which is essential for children to be ready to enter kindergarten. Obama and Biden will create Early Learning Challenge Grants to promote state "zero to five" efforts and help states move toward voluntary, universal pre-school.

· Expand Early Head Start and Head Start: Obama and Biden will quadruple Early Head Start, increase Head Start funding and improve quality for both.

· Affordable, High-Quality Child Care: Obama and Biden will also provide affordable and high-quality child care to ease the burden on working families.

Obama even has ideas on the teachers who will educate the children.

· Prepare Teachers: Obama and Biden will require all schools of education to be accredited. Obama and Biden will also create a voluntary national performance assessment so we can be sure that every new educator is trained and ready to walk into the classroom and start teaching effectively. Obama and Biden will also create Teacher Residency Programs that will supply 30,000 exceptionally well-prepared recruits to high-need schools.

(Source: http://www.barackobama.com/issues/education/)

---

Barack and Michelle Obama seem to share the same vision for the youth of this country as well as recruiting teachers. She was stumping on October 1, 2008 exhorted:

“....young American's to give back to their communities by "decid[ing] to walk away from big-paying jobs to maybe teach or work in the community." Michelle and her husband did this, but she also recognized an ever growing problem that "when you do [work in the community] and you've gone to great schools, you find your salary isn't enough to cover the cost of your debt... We want a president who knows that the importance of education should not be dependent upon whether you can afford it." (Source: http://firstread.msnbc.msn.com/archive/2008/10/01/1476453.aspx)

Though we know very little of Mrs. Obama's social positions, we do know that she said this about redistribution of wealth:

"Most Americans, she said, don't want much."

"They don't want the whole pie," she told the women. "There are some who do, but most Americans feel blessed just being able to thrive a little bit. But that is becoming even more out of reach."...

"If we don't wake up as a nation with a new kind of leadership...for how we want this country to work, then we won't get universal health care," she said.

"The truth is, in order to get things like universal health care and a revamped education system, then someone is going to have to give up a piece of their pie so that someone else can have more."

Who knows if Barack and Michelle Obama, William Ayers, Hugo Chavez and Vladimir Lenin have similar ideas about education? Oh, did I forget to mention Lenin? In a speech given in front of an enthusiastic crowd in 1920 he described the process of changing a capitalist society into a communistic one as follows:

"It is all the more necessary to dwell on this question because in a certain sense it may be said that it is the youth that will be faced with the actual task of creating a communist society. For it is clear that the generation of working people brought up in capitalist society can, at best, accomplish the task of destroying the foundations of the old, the capitalist way of life, which was built on exploitation. At best it will be able to accomplish the tasks of creating a social system that will help the proletariat and the working classes retain power and lay a firm foundation, which can be built on only by a generation that is starting to work under the new conditions, in a situation in which relations based on the exploitation of man by man no longer exist.

How? Lenin explains:

“And so, in dealing from this angle with the tasks confronting the youth, I must say that the tasks of the youth in general, and of the Young Communist Leagues and all other organizations in particular, might be summed up in a single word: learn.”

"Of course, this is only a "single word". It does not reply to 20 the principal and most essential questions: what to learn, and how to learn? And the whole point here is that, with the transformation of the old, capitalist society, the upbringing, training and education of the new generations that will create the communist society cannot be conducted on the old lines. The teaching, training and education of the youth must proceed from the material that has been left to us by the old society. We can build communism only on the basis of the totality of knowledge, organizations and institutions, only by using the stock of human forces and means that have been left to us by the old society. "Only by radically remolding the teaching, organization and training of the youth shall we be able to ensure that the efforts of the younger generation will result in the creation of a society that will be unlike the old society, i.e., in the creation of a communist society."

YIKES! Why did this come to mind? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cdPSqL9_mfM

"That is why we must deal in detail with t he question of what we should teach the youth and how the youth should learn if it really wants to justify the name of communist youth, and how it should be trained so as to be able to complete and consummate what we have started."

"You have to build up a communist society. In many respects half of the work has been done. The old order has been destroyed, just as it deserved, it has been turned into a heap of ruins, just as it deserved".

From William Ayers blog: "The end of an empire is messy at best...and this one is ending like all the rest.” Randy Newman

"The ground has been cleared, and on this ground the younger communist generation must build a communist society."

YIKES again! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0mvP0ArKIGY

Unfortunately, in Lenin’s vision, fifty year olds were not expected to see the glory land.

“The generation of people who are now at the age of fifty cannot expect to see a communist society. This generation will be gone before then. But the generation of those who are now fifteen will see a communist society, and will itself build this society. This generation should know that the entire purpose of their lives is to build a communist society. In the old society, each family worked separately and labor was not organized by anybody except the landowners and capitalists, who oppressed the masses of the people.”

So has Bill Ayers been rehabilitated? Or has Bill Ayers found comrades in a bloodless battle to indoctrinate the youth, overthrow capitalism and start a communist revolution? From his "reunion" speech at Michigan State University in November, 2007:

"I saw a world in flames...
We had a view that we could change things. We believed that we could make a difference. Together we really are going to change things."

"We have to open our eyes and see the world as it is. Get a vision of what else could be what the options are, what the alternatives are.
I love the slogan from the world social forum, another world is possible."

"I think this is a moment of unprecedented opportunity for movement building. By that I mean a movement is quite different than a project or an organization or a campaign although all those things are part of it. A movement is when people can make the connection between, as we used to say in the civil rights system...between a rotting shack and a rotting system."

Somehow when Ayers says “the end of an empire is messy”, it doesn't sound patriotic.