Coming sooner or later, Red Guards (those cute li’l zealous youngsters did in the Kulaks, Mao’s troublesome middle class, all urban Cambodians, et cetera) loose on the producers, who will by then have been branded –via colorful poster art stuck all over every surface in the barrios depicting fat ugly ”greedy hoarders” as ”enemies of the state”. Doubt if it’ll get this bad but there’s no longer much of anything institutional in the way (as we can say in so many ways on so many terrible repressions of human rights, helping install Chavez –not to mention the Mullahs of Tehran –deserves a great big thank you Jimmy “Mr. Human Rights President” Carter.

Re Mark Lloyd’s euphemisms (”critical” means ‘uncritical of Marxism alone’ and ‘democratic’ means ‘everybody in the politburo gets a vote’), a question we need to ask him is, why the euphemisms, Mr. Lloyd? Why do you feel it is necessary to ‘code’ your language?

I mean, isn’t that the hallmark of a secret agenda, an underground organization, a political conspiracy? As everybody who can read –and is over age 12 –completely understands?

People always like to root for the underdog, which is why socialist/communist governments always try and present themselves as analogous to the poor, down trodden souls they habitually repress.

Cough Cough… BRRRHFFRRIIT!

As close as you can get to the above is that is that a very very teeny tinyl block of “conservatives” say with real world practical conviction that the “inalienables” are “given” to us by a supernatural being (as opposed being a core requirement of secular or even deist “natural law”), and there, of course, the local witchdoctor then gets his say as to what is kosher and what is not.

Obama himself accepts this having supported it in the UN. But we have known for a while that he only believes that the Free Speech is Free Speech when you agree with him.

Most conservatives, and that certainly includes an landslidable majority of religious conservatives, know that the above is BS.

The only exception I can see is pornography where the liberal (taking the feminst argument), moderates and conservatives, want it out of innocent and not-so-innocent sight.

For instance, some food products produced within the nation are in short supply given the Chavez government’s price caps being well under the cost of production. Cattle ranchers, for instance, are more likely to hold their cattle, slaughter and sell on the black market because the price the government caps for cattle is below the cost of production accounting for the 35-45% annual inflation. Shortages have gotten so bad that the government has had to import food, yet the report is that at least half of this product is being improperly handled through import causing perishables to be destroyed. Once again, further inflation of the currency is required to sustain all the imports which, combined with the price caps, is destroying all legal local production.

Appropriately, the very poor that facilitated Chavez’s rise has been hit the hardest. The working poor has seen wages frozen, but adjusting for inflation, now at a fraction of their original value. The unemployed poor are now in much greater numbers than before Chavez. Once again, the Marxist redistribution models have been shown to be an utter failure, yet President Obama seeks to replicate them here, leading with healthcare.

Regarding the perception of Venezuelans on Obama, there appears to be great surprise that the American public is “so overwhelmingly stupid.” Embracing con-artist populists and thugs is something akin to the third world, not to America. There’s amusement but also disappointment that so many Americans are both stupid and lazy, seeking the ill-gotten gains from a populist who appropriates Bernie Madoff financial schemes. Also, Obama’s rejection of Honduras’ legitimate government has been seen as hegemonic and interventionist, as bad as the colonial strong-arming of previous decades administrations.

Hmmm, can YOU name a few on the right (conservatives?) who believe this?

Hence–the outcome–which we have been watching for decades, is almost pre-ordained.

And the internet is in their sights now.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democratic_centralism

I don’t mean to sound like an old fuddy-duddy but when I was very young, in the fifties, there was a great deal of speech that was tacitly tabooed. Perhaps some of it was a sign of our repressive times, but the sense that 4-letter words, that dirty jokes in the presence of a woman, that surliness or “backtalk” or even “cockiness” toward our elders, our customers, and about any person of authority were inappropriate led to a more respectful community. A community that needs rules rather than a generally agreed upon propriety and respect for others has lost the battle before it even begins.

I am not surprised that those on the left see a need for such rules – they don’t recognize the respect for others that underlies those old proprieties and so, besides constantly being rude, are incapable of internalizing a mode of behavior that should be part of who we are and not achieved through obedience gained by the threat of punishment. If it is internalized and we remain aware of our own values (respect for others and respect for the truth), then generally we know when respect for the other has a lower priority than the truth. We don’t always – of course. Sometimes we are too polite and sometimes we are too rude. But you have to have some idea that there is a truth and sufficient humility to realize you should show respect to others.

People who don’t know the post-modern academic jargon assume “critical” means “skeptical” or “analytical,” but in the post-modern usage it means “criticizing capitalism, America, tradition… whatever is the leftist, po-mo target.” Which is a step toward tearing it down.

So, if when you read that quote you thought “critical” meant “analytical,” go back and re-read it with this in mind.

And don’t think for a second that big corporate America doesn’t stand behind this as well. Corporate America wants stability at any cost. Corporate America doesn’t need free speech and will oppose it in the future. If the elite can’t get “hate speech” (read: hatespeech as anything that opposes the narrative I described) outlawed by the law, they’ll rely on their friends in industry to do it.

Any threat to the Leader’s personal power has to be dealt with ruthlessly. You sell that to the people by saying it’s a threat to them. The Leader poses as Horatius at the bridge, guarding the People from their enemies. He’s holding Glenn Beck at bay! If it weren’t for Dear Leader, Beck would be beating down your very door!

It’s a powerful narrative. But it works best when the people feel helpless and hopeless (see FDR). If they’re accustomed to building and controlling their own institutions, if they can get ahead by honesty and hard work, if they can solve their own problems, they see it for the cheap narcissistic melodrama that it is.