Posted on 03/05/2009 10:11:17 AM PST by jazusamo
I’m glad to report that I’m all charged up as a result of my column on Amnesty International (also known as Anti-Semitism International) and the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU). That column ran yesterday in The Bulletin.
In it, I showed that Amnesty International and the American Civil Liberties Union are on a lower moral plane than the mass murderers and genocidal maniacs that make up Hamas and al-Qaida. At least the latter two admit their purposes.
In its charter, for example, Hamas advocates the slaughter of innocents. So at least they have the honesty lacking in Amnesty International and the ACLU, which hide under a statement of lofty purposes and noble aspirations, but in fact are on the side of terrorists and the enemies of America.
I urged readers to stop their contributions to Amnesty International and ACLU. The first e-mail on the column was from a reader who had been conned by the claims of these two groups and was not aware of the impact of their action. The reader said she had been giving to these two groups but now would stop.
She wrote, “I started recently supporting these organizations. I understand Amnesty International fights torture and the ACLU did some advertising about helping people in American prisons. I found their pitch compelling. Now, they are both off my list.” Both of these groups depend on voluntary contributions, so I hope somehow those contributors can get the word and stop contributing. I’ll be glad to speak at the funeral of Amnesty International and the ACLU.
I’m also charged up because the second e-mail on the column was from an author and media critic I have a great deal of respect for. He wrote, “Bravo, bravo, bravo on Wednesday’s column in The Bulletin on the ‘human rights’ group Amnesty International (better known as Anti-Semitism International) and the ACLU. Those groups are now wearing no clothes, and their true nature is now apparent. Kudos to you for pointing that out, even if it is politically incorrect. You’ll probably be banned from Britain and indicted for war crimes in Spain.”
I comment on those e-mails not to pat myself on the back, but to demonstrate the importance of getting the word out on important matters that the mainstream media won’t report on or plays down into virtual disappearance. If we continue to make decisions on the basis of mainstream media reporting, we are doomed.
Rush Limbaugh
Controversy
Now I’d like to turn to the Rush Limbaugh controversy, because it tells you a lot about American politics. It flared up when President Barack Obama’s chief of staff, Rahm Emanuel, struck out against conservative talk show host and icon Mr. Limbaugh. He tried to put him down by saying Mr. Limbaugh wants Mr. Obama to fail.
That shows you Mr. Emanuel and the Obama team are playing the same old sleazy politics of old, which they so roundly criticized in endless refrains during the campaign and now when they attempt to govern. Anyone who heard Mr. Limbaugh’s comments knows they were taken out of context, and deliberately so, in a matter that reveals Mr. Emanuel and the Obama administration to be bold-faced liars. In fact, the leadership of the Democratic Party has gone along with this strategy, demonstrating it has no compunctions about a little lie here and there.
Mr. Limbaugh made it clear he wants Mr. Obama’s socialist, anti-liberty, anti-capitalist, anti-free-enterprise and anti-free-market economy to fail. What he said is a statement of the obvious and a reaffirmation of the most common sense principles. Yet, Mr. Emanuel, in the worst tradition of corrupt and dishonest Chicago politics, made the statement out of context to try to put Mr. Limbaugh in the light of an irrational naysayer. That’s why he also said Mr. Limbaugh was the leader of the Republican Party. That makes their phony case that the Republicans and their leader are just naysayers standing in the way of Mr. Obama’s much-needed change, hope and all that jazz.
The Obama people have undoubtedly made a calculation that thanks to the dishonest, biased and fraudulent reporting of the mainstream media, most people will not know the context of Mr. Limbaugh’s remarks. So this Democratic propaganda, to be launched by Obama spokesmen and in political ads, will be convinced Republicans are just obstructionists, with no vision or plan of their own.
It may well be that this Democratic strategy will backfire. First, it will help drive up Mr. Limbaugh’s already huge ratings, with some 19 million listening to him and with a much larger and loyal following. This will enable Mr. Limbaugh to convert growing numbers to the conservative point of view. It may also drive up the ratings of talk radio in general, as people who tune into Mr. Limbaugh are also likely to come across other powerful voices of conservatism such as Sean Hannity, Dennis Prager, Hugh Hewitt, Michael Savage, Mark Levine, and Michael Medved. Even those who don’t like Mr. Limbaugh are likely to find others with a softer edge that they may find more likeable.
In my view, Mr. Limbaugh is the best communicator in politics today, in either party. He is also one of the most insightful and creative political analysts. He is one of the few great idea men in either party. This is the most powerful combination.
And that combination becomes even more powerful because he broadcasts three hours every weekday, formulating ideas, analyzing policies, and criticizing the fast flowing mistakes of the Democrats and the Obama administration. In addition, he publishes a monthly newsletter and maintains a Web site to get the word out.
Mr. Limbaugh has another advantage over national party chairmen and presidents. They come and go, but Mr. Limbaugh has been around for 20 years and is likely to be around for many more.
Apparently some people think Mr. Limbaugh was insulted by being called an entertainer. I would consider that a compliment. If you want to communicate, you better learn to entertain if you want people to listen. I spent a long time teaching at colleges and universities, and I learned in a hurry if you want students to listen, even some of the dedicated students, you better learn to entertain as you communicate. Of course, if you want to be a successful student and learn as much as you can, you better learn to listen to professors who don’t entertain.
The Democrats would like to demonize Mr. Limbaugh. They attempt to paint him not only as a naysayer but a right-wing extremist. The Democratic Party thinks if you’re not a socialist, you’re a right-wing extremist. The Democratic Party thinks if you don’t want to expand government, raise taxes and pile on regulation, you’re a right-wing extremist. They may be partially successful with the help of the mainstream Democratic puppeteers. But they may fail, with the growing impact of the alternative media, conservative talk radio, and the experience of the disaster Democratic socialism is likely to bring upon us.
That brings us to the latest policy disasters of the Obama administration — the letter to Russian President Dmitry Medvedev to make a deal involving our giving up our missile defense plans for Eastern Europe for Russia’s help in stopping Iran’s nuclear program.
With that single letter, Mr. Obama and company exposed their inexperience, their amateurish approach to diplomacy and their weakness in dangerous times.
The first shocker about this move is that it looks like we’re selling out Poland, Czechoslovakia and the rest of Eastern Europe. They agreed to the missile plans, putting their neck out, even in the face of Russian power and intimidation. Now we pull the rug out from under them, and make it obvious we are willing to abandon their defense and our pledges and promises.
That’s bad enough. What’s worse is that we show weakness not only to Russia but the rest of the world. And the Russians don’t even take Mr. Obama’s overture seriously, rebuffing his letter and saying they are willing to talk about missile defense but no haggling.
The Russians, in other words, will give us nothing, but are willing to talk to us about how we should back down on missile defense. They have seen Mr. Obama in action and know he has the talking and negotiating disease. He wants to talk and negotiate even when it will accomplish nothing and cost us in various dangerous ways.
Our negotiations with Iran, for example, will accomplish nothing but lend credibility to that rogue regime and give it time to finish developing nuclear weapons. Iran, I’m sure, will be glad to negotiate forever.
The letter was ill-conceived for another reason. It was based on the theory that if Iran’s nuclear program were stopped, then there would be no need for missile defense. That is simply not true, as Iran is not the only rogue nation in the region and it is not the only one that poses a missile threat.
John Bolton, a former U.N. ambassador, offered a devastating critique of the letter to Russia. He said if any overtures were to be made, they should have been made behind the scenes. With sending a letter that was publicized, the Obama people displayed weakness and suffered humiliation when Russia snubbed the approach.
Mr. Bolton compared this negotiating failure with Henry Kissinger’s behind-the-scenes negotiations with China, which were only made public after an agreement had been reached. When you elect an amateur to conduct foreign policy, don’t be surprised when you get bad results. And he can surround himself with a million wise experts, but the man in the middle still has to make decisions. And if he is an amateur, if he is inexperienced and if he is untested, all the experts in the world may not help.
There’s one other issue concerning those who wish failure on persons or institutions. A Colorado congressman told a meeting of bloggers that they and other media are responsible for the demise of the Rocky Mountain News, the Denver newspaper that recently closed down.
The Democratic Congressman, Rep. Jared Polis, said, “I have to say, that when we say, ‘Who killed the Rocky Mountain News?’ we are all part of that, we truly are. For better or worse, and I argue that it’s mostly for better … Media is dead, and long live new media, which is all of you.”
Later he apologized, saying he did not wish to offend or anything less than a strong sense of remorse for the demise of the Rocky Mountain News. He also regretted the loss of jobs and the silencing of a voice in the state.
I haven’t followed the Rocky Mountain News, but if it is like the mainstream media, he should not have apologized, but instead have celebrated. I think that it would be a great benefit to the country if The New York Times, The Philadelphia Inquirer, the Los Angeles Times, the Washington Post, the Chicago Tribune and the rest of the mainstream media. They represent voices that are best silenced. Of course, it is unfortunate people would lose their jobs, but when people are at work producing the biased journalism of the mainstream media, they should lose their job and hopefully find more constructive work.
One of the many advantages of liquidating mainstream media outlets is it would force people to go to the alternative media, where they would find vitally important information that is mostly missing from the mainstream media.
For example, in the mainstream media, they would have found information on the negatives of the Obama candidacy, not just the positives that is all the mainstream media reported on. Had their been more reliance on the alternative media, they would have realized they were electing an inexperienced, untested, unvetted, radical leftist and socialist politician that came out of the sewer that is the Chicago Democratic political machine.
Had they been reading the alternative media, they would be more aware of the threat of the stealth jihad and of Isamofascism. They would be more likely to be acquainted with the work of Steven Emerson and his Investigative Project on Terrorism, the leading authority on the subject with a series of books (the latest is Jihad Incorporated: A Guide to Militant Jihad in the U.S.) and a valuable Web site. They would be aware of the work of Robert Spencer and his books, including the most recent, The Stealth Jihad.
They would also be familiar with the work of Mark Steyn, America Alone; Melanie Phillips, Londonistan; Bruce Bawer, While Europe Slept; and Bat Ye’or, Eurabia. These people have painted a powerful picture of how Europe has almost surrendered to Islamofascism and the stealth jihad and how and why America may be next.
Yes, the mainstream media may be fatal to America if we don’t wake up. Its censorship of news we should know about but don’t always now get and its political correctness is a lethal cocktail in an age of terrorism and a world with many rogue nations.
Herb Denenberg is a former Pennsylvania Insurance Commissioner, Pennsylvania Public Utility Commissioner, and professor at the Wharton School. He is a longtime Philadelphia journalist and consumer advocate. He is also a member of the Institute of Medicine of the National Academy of the Sciences. His column appears daily in The Bulletin. You can reach him at advocate@thebulletin.us
That second acronym stands for Anti-American Communist Libertine Union.
Very good read. Right on the mark.
Rush is truth. Liberalism/Communism/Socialism/Marxism is the lie of pseudo-prosperity via totalitarian control under the guise of “compassion.”
In the end, Marxism and Islamo-Fascism end in death.
Our Constitutionally-unqualified Kenyan is a Marxist Muslim.
You do the math.
Good post. It goes farther back (re: Limbaugh) than that Herb, but a good post nonetheless.
Good for Herb Denenberg
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