Free Republic

"On top are the Haves with power, money, food, security, and luxury. They suffocate in their surpluses while the Have-Nots starve. Numerically the Haves have always been the fewest. The Haves want to keep things as they are and are opposed to change." Saul Alinsky, Rules for Radicals It is ironic that the people described as Haves in Saul Alinsky's community organizing primer Rules for Radicals mirror public sector unions so closely. Alinsky had a cluttered view of the world, full of contradictions and conspiracies and moral convolutions to justify his tactics. His wretched little book will probably vex us...

Subject: Daschle, Rangel, Dodd and Bertrand de Juvenal Jonah, I picked up De Juvenal’s The Ethics of Redistribution and came across this timely quote in the introduction: “We may well wonder which of these two closely linked phenomena is predominant: whether it is redistribution or centralization. We may ask ourselves whether what we are dealing with is not a political even more than a social phenomenon. This political phenomenon consists in the demolition of the class enjoying ‘independent means’ and in the massing of means in the hands of managers. This results in a transfer of power from individuals to...

MOSCOW, September 22 (RIA Novosti) - Russia's gold and currency reserves grew $3.1 billion in a week to reach $155 billion September 16 against $151.9 billion September 9, the Central Bank said Thursday.

SACRAMENTO (AP) - The split between the haves and the have-nots among California tribes widened Wednesday, when disenfranchised Indians formed a new organization and asked Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger to halt casino negotiations until tribes create courts to resolve membership disputes. Several hundred Indians gathered on the Capitol steps to begin collecting signatures for an appeal to Schwarzenegger, and for a petition asking Congress to hold a hearing on current law that gives tribal councils nearly unfettered freedom to decide who belongs to a tribe. "As soon as they get casinos, they start looking to kick people out," said Eddie Vedolla...

Spending: Having spent themselves into a hole, politicians are trying to make us feel sorry for them as they devise ways to climb out with anything but real cuts. Watch your wallet and listen up. The terms used as they work through their problems are right out of Alice in Wonderland. Herewith, a short though incomplete list. cuts, n. Reductions not in dollars spent but in the rate at which spending is allowed to increase. The University of California budget, up 68% in eight years, is said to face "extraordinarily significant cuts," though it's scheduled for a 4.9% increase. Draconian,...