How A Tea Party Movement Defeated Socialism... In Sweden

04/20/2014

This post is in many ways a sequel to my last post, "Why Socialism Needs Christianity", in which I discussed how Christianity helped make the welfare state function in Sweden.

I mentioned in my last post that the Social Democrats have dominated Swedish politics - they held power from 1932 to 1976! That is, to my knowledge, a world record in a democracy.

This article, however, won't focus on the 44-year reign itself. Rather, what I would like to discuss are the events that led up to the end of the Social Democrat time in government: The election of 1976.

First, let me provide you with a bit of background:

Sweden has experienced three decades of (nearly uninterrupted) high growth. We and our welfare state has become the envy of the world. Our national self-esteem is naturally quite high - how could it not be? Everybody wants to be like us! That must mean we're doing something right.

The social democrats have been in government since 1932. Like the Democrats, they came to power during the great depression - which was blamed unfairly on the conservative government at the time - but unlike the Democrats in the US, the Swedish Social Democrats managed to hang on to power for more than just a paltry 20 years. I should explain that Sweden is a parliamentary democracy without a constitutional court, which effectively means that the government can do whatever they want.

You may think that this would have turned Sweden into a  communist nightmare - 44 years of uninterrupted, un-restricted leftist government does sound like something out of a horror movie after all!

However, while Sweden took a decisive turn to the left, we never went communist. The Social Democrats was probably the only left-winged party in Europe that clearly, unapologetically and in no uncertain terms distanced itself from the Soviet Union.

During World War II, in the interest of national unity, the Social Democrats invited all the other parties represented in the Swedish parliament to join them in a coalition government for the duration of the war. Of course, the social democrats were still the biggest party in the parliament and so the other parties didn't really have much influence, but it was a nice gesture. However, here's the thing: The Social Democrats did not invite the Communist Party, even though they were represented in the parliament. They were willing to co-operate with the conservative party, but not the communists. In fact, during WWII, many communists in Sweden were imprisoned because they were seen as posing a threat to national security.

Also during WWII, in breaking with Sweden's neutrality policy, we allowed 8000 soldiers (volunteers) to go to Finland and fight against the Soviet Union (Additionally, we also donated 131 000 rifles, 42 000 000 rounds of ammo, 8 airplanes,100 Anti-aircraft cannons,  132 anti-tank cannons with 256 000 grenades and 132 field guns to Finland).

Basically, while the Social Democrats were no fans of the US and American capitalism, they also made sure everyone knew that they hated communism at least as much.

The Social Democrats also for the most part believed in Christian values. To summarize, they were economically left-winged, socially moderate, foreign policy isolationists.

Then, starting in the mid-late 1960's, things began to change. Here is a (incomplete) list of things the Social Democrats did in the 10 years that preceded the 1976 elections:

- They removed Christianity from the school curriculum. 2 million Swedes (out of 8 million in total) signed a petition to oppose this, but the Social Democrats refused to budge. Evangelical Christians at this point abandoned the Social Democrats and formed their own party, Christian Democratic Unity (now Christian Democrats). This party is today represented in the Swedish parliament.

- They legalized abortion up until 18 weeks (available until week 22 under certain circumstances).

- They destroyed our relationship with the United States. The Swedish Prime Minister at the time (Olof Palme, 1972) compared the bombing of Hanoi to famous war crimes such as Treblinka and Katyn. The US foreign department was outraged and broke off diplomatic relations with Sweden. Olof Palme was later assassinated, and to this day some Swedish leftists are convinced that the CIA did it.

- They legalized child pornography - yes, you read that right! Child pornography was legalized in 1971 (effective from '72) and was traded openly.

- They began a process that, had it not been interrupted by the right-winged victory in '76, would have led to the complete nationalization of the entire private sector. The plan was to establish "Employee funds": Every year, every company with more than 50 employees would have to use a share of their profit to buy back shares in their company, shares that would be transferred to the labor union. After only a few years, the union would own a majority of the shares and be able to control the company. It should be managed that in Sweden, all labor unions are members of an umbrella organization known as Landsorganisationen, LO. Had this plan succeeded, LO would have owned almost every company in the country! In essence, this plan would have turned Sweden into a communist country.

There are many more examples of course, but you get the idea: The Social Democrat party had gone nuts! In particular the last point was very uncharacteristic of them - they had always distanced themselves from communism, and here they were, plotting to turn Sweden into a communist state!

What happened? How could they possibly go so wrong, so fast? Some may think that the Social Democrats had always been "closeted" communists, waiting for an opportunity to show their true colors. However, there is a much simpler explanation:

What happened in the late 1960's is that the Social Democrats got their very own Tea Party movement. This movement was called "68-vänstern", approximately translated to "the left 0f 68" in English. A radical grassroots movement, dominated (at least initially) by students and academicians, which promoted extreme egalitarian policies (such as the employee funds) as well as "free love" and radical social liberalism (which among other things led to the legalization of child pornography). 

As you've probably noticed, their goals were not similar to the goals of the Tea Party movement in the US - but their methods were. 

They never had support from a majority of the Swedish population, but they were louder and more obnoxious than all their opponents combined, and therefore, their ideas were given more space than they deserved. They had catchy slogans and one-liners, but really no well-thought out arguments. They made the establishment in the Social Democrats nervous - the truth is, the establishment in the party never really liked the Employee funds, but they were forced to agree to them because they feared that these extreme leftists may otherwise stay home or vote communist. Basically, the Social Democrats' left turn was caused not by a change in national sentiment or a change in the attitude of the leadership, but by an extreme grassroots movement which held that purity was more important than winning elections.

In the months before the 1976 election, polls showed that more than 60 % of Swedish voters thought that the Social Democrats were too far to the left. The Social Democrats refused to take this seriously; after all, they had won every election in the last 44 years – how could they lose this one?

And as for the grassroots movement within the party, they were quite clear that they would rather lose than compromise on their purity. Sounds kind of like another movement you may have heard of, doesn't it?

On the other side of the aisle, the right-winged parties saw an opportunity arise: They had been out of power for almost half a century, but now, with the extreme left-turn of the Social Democrat Party, they realized that the election of 1976 meant they finally had a realistic chance of ending their losing streak.

And they were NOT going to let this opportunity slip out of their hands. If you're a conservative in Sweden, you only get so many chances to win an election in your life (on average about 1 every 20 years or so). So while the Social Democrats were busy fighting amongst themselves, the right-winged parties - there were three of them - united. They would still be three separate parties (they still are to this day), but they began to co-operate and find common ground. This made a lot of sense: One of the reasons why the political right in Sweden had such a hard time winning elections was because they were divided, while the left was united. Voters knew what they would get when they voted Social Democrat - they were a safe, proven option. The right-winged parties, because they never agreed on anything before the election and typically campaigned just as much against each other as they campaigned against the Social Democrats, seemed like a much riskier bet.

In the election campaign of 1976, the right-winged parties largely refrained from attacking one another, instead presenting a united front against socialism. They agreed before the election that if they won, the leader of the Farmer's league (one of the three parties) would become Prime Minister. In previous elections, the three right-winged parties had never been able to agree on which one of the three party leaders would become Prime Minister if they won the election. The man they chose as their PM candidate was named Thorbjörn Fälldin (try and pronounce that!). Fälldin came from a simple, working class background: He grew up on a farm in northern Sweden (the same area where I grew up), and he himself was a farmer before entering politics in his 30's. His background combined with his humble personality made it impossible for Social Democrats to convince voters that he was an evil aristocrat who would turn Sweden into a capitalist's paradise (I wish...).

Suddenly, the roles were reversed: The right-winged parties were talking about issues that mattered to average people, while the Social Democrats were busy addressing issues no-one but the hardcore left cared about. While the Social Democrats were trying to convince Swedish voters about the benefits of nationalizing the private sector, Thorbjörn Fälldin and his Centre Party campaigned against nuclear energy (something a majority of Swedes had opposed since the Three Mile Island accident). The right-winged parties had, after over 40 years in opposition, realized that the key to winning elections is to talk about the subjects that people want to talk about – sure, as a right-winged politician you may like to talk about tax cuts and deregulation, but if the voters would rather that the conversation be centered around nuclear energy and childcare, then that’s what you should talk about.

Another contributing factor was the weakening economy. When this election rolled around, it was becoming increasingly clear that the post-war boom was finally over. While the right-winged parties acknowledged the challenges that laid ahead, the Social Democrats really only had one solution, which was to hand over ownership of the private companies (the ones who hadn’t already gone bust!) to the labor union. A labor union which polls showed most Swedes agreed already had too much power.

A Social Democrat demonstration in 2010

Conclusion

The right-winged coalition government remained in power until 1982. The Social Democrats were back in power, but the leftist grassroots movement – the “left of 68” – was no longer a major force in the party and hasn’t been since. The party today is more moderate than it was in the 1970’s – they no longer support employee funds (and the fact that they once legalized child pornography is not something they like to be reminded about). You could say that they learned their lesson, but in many ways they didn’t: To this day, the Social Democrats reject Christianity and Christian values – they are in complete denial about the importance that Christian ethics played in making their policies work during the four decades they spent in power. While the Fälldin government was able to stop the employee funds and ban child pornography, the secularization process started by the Social Democrats went on largely uninterrupted. While the left of 68 never regained power over the Social Democratic Party, to this day they retain massive influence in the media. Today more than 85 % of Swedes identify as atheist, and less than 5 % attend church regularly.

What lesson can we learn from this then? The Social Democrats were the most powerful party in the democratic world. They had won every election 44 years in a row – half the Swedish population hadn’t even been born when Sweden last had had a non-social democrat government. Yet, they were destroyed from the inside by a radical purist movement which was out of touch with the mainstream. If not even the most powerful party in the world could withstand a movement similar in attitude to the Tea Party movement, what chance does the Republican Party have?

If the GOP is to ever win an election again, it must learn from history. No party that allows a fringe movement of extremists to write its platform can ever win an election. Not even one that has governed for 44 years straight, and certainly not one that hasn’t been in government for 8 years (in 2016) and that doesn’t even have a fraction of the political capital that the Swedish Social Democrats had in 1976.

I’ll stop here. Thank you for reading – I’ll write more about the history of Sweden and the Swedish welfare state if anyone is interested. Also if you’re on twitter you can follow me at @nationstatist.

source

WSOC News Video: North Carolina Hospital Cuts Pay For Nurses Due To ObamaCare

04/20/2014

Democratic KY House Speaker Stumbo claims his twitter account was hacked before anti-McConnell tweets

04/20/2014

Yeah. Right...

Via FOX News:

Kentucky's House speaker says someone hacked into his Twitter account to post inflammatory comments about U.S. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell.
Democratic Speaker Greg Stumbo took to Twitter to distance himself from the criticism directed at the five-term Republican senator from Kentucky.
Stumbo tweeted he was unaware the anti-McConnell comments had been posted Thursday night until he was notified in a phone call.
The speaker explained that his personal Twitter account had been hacked and he was changing his password.

Here is what was tweeted.

From 8:31 p.m. to 8:46 p.m. Thursday, these political tweets appeared on Stumbo’s account:
*To Rich Mitch you sent our young men to war which was useless how about making your military file public? The dead deserve it.
*Check Mitches net worth over these years and @compare it to the average Kentuckian he gained you lost and this why he wants to be re-elected?
*Mitch McConnell went to Congress with an average net worth CHECK IT OUT NOW he made millions you went broke
*My God the Republicans who causes the Hoover and Bush/McConnell recessions think people believe them HELLO

Update on the blood libel/Visa story (updated)

04/20/2014

As of this moment, Egyptian women's magazine El Kebar still has the article saying that Jews kill Gentiles to add their blood as an ingredient for Passover matzoh online.

And it still has the same Visa pop-up ad, 48 hours after first being informed about it.

So, whether they like it or not, Visa is still associated with perhaps the most offensive and libelous article against Jews imaginable.

The Visa representative told me that he would keep me informed of what was going on, but I have not heard anything since Friday.

Meanwhile, I looked a bit at Egypt Post, which is likely to be the Visa partner that actually placed the ad.

It turns out that Egypt Post is not a newspaper as I had assumed, but in fact it is Egypt's postal service. They do offer Egypt Post-labeled Visa cards. It is a governmental organization. 

Which means that at the very least, the Egyptian government is literally sponsoring the most vile antisemitism imaginable, in Visa's name.

The chairman of Egypt Post is Dr. Ashraf Gamal El Din. He has degrees from British and Canadian universities, so he must know English.  Here is his Facebook page, in case you want to ask him about whether he supports the hate and bigotry that was in that article.

UPDATE: Visa's spokesperson contacted me to say that they are working hard over the holiday weekend to identify and contact the right people to take the ad down, and he again emphasized that the article was intolerant and intolerable. On the other hand, he expressed frustration because (as I wrote Friday) Visa's hands are tied because they do not have a direct relationship with El Kebar and they have to go through proper channels, and within the context of their existing contracts, to try to take care of this, and it takes time.

Posted by Elder of Ziyon at Elder of Ziyon blog

"You mess with such people at your own deadly peril." My Patriot's Day Speech in Bunkerville Nevada Upon the Occasion of Harry Reid Winning the 2014 "Incitement to Civil War Trophy."

04/20/2014

My name is Mike Vanderboegh and I'm here representing the estimated 3 million Three Percenters around the country.  I don't represent the Bundys nor the Oath Keepers but we are here to stand with them.  I first would like to say what an honor it is for me to be here in Nevada on this Patriots' Day.  Although I hale these days from the great free state of Alabama, I was born in Michigan and have always considered myself a Wolverine.

You know when I was ten or so, I visited my Grandpa and Grandma Vanderboegh's farm near Lake Michigan one summer for several weeks as we did every summer when I was growing up.  That particular
summer, I witnessed a short but acrimonious argument between my grandparents that ended with my grandpa's ignominious retreat out of the house into the safety of the barnyard.  I can't remember what the argument was about, but I followed along,  convinced in my ten-year-old sense of justice that he was right and grandma was wrong.  I tried to persuade him to go back in and restate his case.  He turned on me, leaned down into my face and said these words of wisdom that I never forgot: "Son, you don't poke a wolverine with a sharp stick unless you want your balls ripped off."

Now I was just ten but I knew that Grandpa was somewhat of an expert about wolverines and testicles because when he was young, he'd run into a momma wolverine in her den when he was out hunting and she had darn near got his.  His shotgun was knocked out of his hands and he had to kill that wolverine with his hunting knife but almost bled to death from the wound on his inner thigh before he could stagger home.  My father used to delight in telling the story about how he almost got prevented from existence by the inch or so that that momma wolverine had missed the family jewels.  I also knew that Grandpa wasn't talking about vicious animals but that people could act just as bad if you provoked them.  People can be wolverines when they need to.  I think y'all know a little about that.  I'm sure that the BLM rangers were grateful they got out of Clark County with their testicles intact -- even if their manhood was somewhat shamed in the process.

"History is written not by the historians but by the people who lived it."  

So says William Hallahan, in his book The Day the American Revolution Began about the 19th of April, 1775.  And as I stand here today in the Nevada desert, I see a whole host of historians who lived it --and wrote it.

Now what Hallahan says is true, but I would refine it further.  History is written not by the historians BUT BY THE PEOPLE WHO LIVED IT AND WHO MADE IT HAPPEN.

This is nothing new.  Throughout our own history, these self-made historians are most often just  simple, ordinary people, people who are nothing special  - not rich, not powerful in and of themselves, not influential, not even respected by those who claim to be their betters -- but people who know who they are; people who know who God is; people who know the difference between right and wrong, good and evil, tyranny and liberty and cannot be persuaded otherwise by all the seductive lies that others tell to hide their evil intentions behind. 

In ordinary times it takes very bad behavior on the part of a government to provoke such people into action for they are first and foremost pragmatic realists.Knowing who they are, and how the world works, and of the chronic follies and corruptions of man, they don't expect much from governments, content to live their lives, raise their families, enjoy life and love and friendship, to worship God, to work hard and make a living around and despite those follies and corruptions, because they understand that THAT is what makes life important and worth living. 

When a father sees his kids at play, learning with breathless excitement the everyday miracles that make up God's world -- when he sees his wife's love and care for them in a million ways despite all the aggravations and distractions of daily life -- when at the end of a long day he sees her exhausted and distracted -- no longer the young girl he married but with this inner core of steel wrapped in boundless love  -- when the light hits her mussed-up hair and her careworn face just right -- well, a man will do anything to protect those moments, to shield those people he loves from the evil that he knows always lurks right outside the door.   He will do anything -- ANYTHING -- to protect their future and the time-tested principles that secure that future.

And I tell you now -- and I proclaim to the world -- to all the would-be tyrants in this country who would victimize such honest, simple people with their evil corruptions, their follies, their schemes of power and their insatiable appetites for other people's liberty, property and lives -- 

YOU MESS WITH SUCH PEOPLE AT YOUR OWN DEADLY PERIL. 

Yes, history is written by the people who lived it and made it happen, but it is also true that such people , at any time in our history, never have been more than a determined minority.  In the war of independence that we celebrate here today, there were never more than three percent of the American colonists who actively
took the field against the forces of the King.  Although this was long before opinion polls, they probably represented no more than a third of the total population.  Another third supported the King of England and a further third blew with the wind and took what came.  When I founded the modern Three Percent movement it was this determined minority that I had in mind.

Today's Three Percent have drawn a line, just as you here drew a line, that we will not cross.  We Three Percenters state very plainly to would-be tyrants that we will not disarm.  They cannot convince us.  They cannot intimidate us. They can kill us, if they think they can, but they should remember that we'll shoot back.  That is the calculation that you presented the federal government the other day.  They came to force you with state-sponsored violence. They came to bend you to their will.  But they discovered that you would not be bent.  On that day, they didn't like the odds.  But the odds would have meant nothing without your determination.  And you WERE determined.

As I said, in ordinary times it takes very bad behavior on the part of a government to provoke such people into action -- BUT THESE ARE NO ORDINARY TIMES.  You know that -- in your head and in your gut -- or you would not be here today.  You would not have accomplished what many thought was flatly impossible a few days and weeks ago.  You know why you came here and stood in the gap, interposing with your own bodies, at the risk of your lives, that dangerous ground between liberty and tyranny.

You know in your inner hearts why each of you came here, I need not explain it to you.  Nor am I going to waste your time running down the particulars of the general indictment of the very bad behavior of the federal government and their lackeys at the state and local level over the past two decades by the corrupt leaders of both political parties.  Others have done so, as I have done myself in other places and times.  It is not necessary here, today, to bore you with the litany of evil actions and malign intent of the self-appointed Mandarin class of collectivists who have been quietly and slowly overthrowing the rule of law and the Founders' Republic for generations now.

What IS necessary is to state the obvious conclusion of that indictment very plainly -- that our present-day so-called leaders have demonstrated themselves to be the domestic enemies of the same Constitution that they swore an oath to uphold -- they are, in fact, the same domestic enemies that the Founders warned us about, that they knew in their wisdom -- from their study of history and their knowledge of fallible men -- who would one day come to try to wreck the enterprise of liberty that the Founders fought and bled and died to secure.  And one further point -- being domestic enemies of the Constitution and the rule of law these evil men and women have declared thereby that they are the enemies of ALLthe futures, of ALL the lives, and of ALL the families of those simple, decent people -- of you and me and all who have until now tolerated their increasingly bad behavior.

Indeed, it is because we never effectively pushed them back when we could do so without violence that we find ourselves here, today, with the Founders' original choice on that 19th of April so long ago: are we going to submit and be slaves or shall we fight?  And you, you self-made historians, answered that question here, in the desert, in direct confrontation with the paid lackeys of the most powerful government on the planet.  You were ready to fight, and to die, in answer to that question.  For you are free Americans, all of you.  And as you stood, the other side blinked, and hesitated, and then ran.

You know, we ourselves are as responsible for the present sorry state of affairs as the collectivist revolutionaries who now hold the reins of power and who sent the BLM thugs against the Bundys.  For  decades we never punched them in the nose when we had the chance so they kept pushing us back from the traditional exercise of our God-given, natural and inalienable rights to liberty and property that the Constitution doesn't create but merely codifies.  We never punched them in the nose, politically or otherwise, we just backed up, grumbling. 

Now our backs are to the wall, and it is going to take more than a punch in the nose to recover our lost rights and to dispel this clear and present danger to ourselves, our children and all of our futures.  The collectivists -- who respect and obey NO law that they disagree with --have skillfully used our "law-abidingness" against us.  But now they  have mistaken our previous inaction for a license to further oppress us.  Now, it will take more than a punch in the nose to discourage them.

From Nevada to Colorado to New York and various places in between, they have decided to declare us "law breakers" thinking that once again we will knuckle under.  They discovered here in the Nevada desert -- and they will contiue to discover it elsewhere -- that the law protects them from us far more than it protects us from them.  The only question is, what will be the cost of their education now compared to what it would have been had we come together and acted earlier?

They blinked and retreated here, for now.  They will try again, if not here then in some other place for some other flimsy tyrannical excuse, some other evil wrapped in an allegedly benevolent lie.  Rest assured, they will try again.  And we must be ready. We must remain vigilant. 

But however we arrived at this place, we ARE here, now, and there is no changing it.  When you stood beneath the bridges we -- all of us, all across the country -- in those long moments we were staring civil war in the face. All over this country at this moment WE ARE STILL STARING CIVIL WAR IN IT'S BLOODY FACE.  To believe otherwise is to whistle past the graveyard of our own history.  We have, to use the blunt words of my Michigan farmer Grandpa Vanderboegh, arrived at "nut cuttin' time."


John Locke said it first and best in his Second Treatise on Government:

“Whenever the legislators endeavor to take away and destroy the property of the people, or to reduce them to slavery under arbitrary power, they put themselves into a state of war with the people, who are thereupon absolved from any further obedience and are left to the common refuge, which God hath provided for all men, against force and violence.” 

Now Locke wrote that in the 18th Century, but is there a better description of what the federal government is trying to do here in the west in  the 21st Century than that?  Is there a more accurate description of what  the states of Colorado, Connecticut, Maryland and New York are attempting to do to their own people with firearm registration and confiscation?   They have "put themselves into a state of war with the people" and we, the people, are absolved by their tyrannical actions from any further obedience. 

This is not about tortoises and cattle.  It is not about who controls the vast lands claimed by the federal government.  It is not about "the children" or "common-sense gun safety" or any of the many lies that are spun to conceal the iron fist of arbitrary power.

It is about control.  It is about who serves whom.  We are divided now, as they were in 1775, by the answer to the most fundamental of questions: Does the government serve the people or do the people serve the government?  Who serves whom?  What do you think?


Right.  Now we believe, as did the Founders, that government should serve the people.  It is evident that many others believe differently.  But this is not a question whose differing answers can be compromised, or negotiated or finessed.  It is one or the other -- that of individual liberty codified by the Constitution and the rule of law under the Founders' republic, or the rule of man as represented by the law of the jungle backed up by the iron fist of tyrannical government.

Harry Reid understands this.  You all saw what he said the other day: "This isn't over," he threatened.  And you know what? He's right.  It can never be over until one side or the other wins.  And don't think he's just talking about the Bundys.  He is promising us all civil war  on a vast scale because state-sponsored violence is the only way they can win the argument with free people, especially free people who are armed and willing to use those arms in defense of liberty.   Ole Dirty Harry understands that.  But he mistakes the character of the people he wishes to victimize and subjugate.  He mistakes you.  He mistakes the true nature of all free Americans who intend to remain free.  And history has shown that mistake to be a terminal one for many tyrants.  For there are laws higher and older than any of Harry Reid's unconstitutional "laws," one of which is the Law of Unintended Consequences. 

You know back in Alabama we understand a thing or two about civil wars. We not only foughtIN the War Between the States, but we fought a war WITHIN our state, between former friends and neighbors, and there is no conflict more ghastly.  When the perfumed princes of the Mandarin Class that seeks to rule you propose to make to you knuckle under to their unconstitutional will, they forget these things.  They forget that wars once started, especially civil wars, have a way of spinning out of control of the war makers, a way of eating up the guilty and the innocent alike and they engender hatreds that never go away.

Were Harry Reid right here in front of me -- assuming I could keep y'all from tar and feathering him for a moment -- I'd tell him a story from Alabama's civil war, a story of Jenny Brooks' soap dish,  a story that has particular relevance for him today.  Like all the best stories it has the advantage of being true.

When the United States government determined to remove the Indian tribes from our state in what became the Trail of Tears, the woman who became  known as Jenny Brooks, and later after her remarriage as Aunt Jenny Johnson, was a just slip of a girl, a full-blooded Cherokee whose family declined the honor of obeying the "lawful orders" of the the federal government and hid themselves up in the mountains of north Alabama.  In this, they were assisted by a family friend, a white man named Henry Brooks.  As might be expected, the young girl fell in love with her family's saviour, and later, at the age of 14, she married Henry, a man 20 years her senior.  But the marriage "took", as they say in the hills, and by the time this story really begins in 1863, Jenny was herself in her thirties and she had given Henry eight children, four of whom were boys.

Now Henry Brooks was a unionist like most of his neighbors and they had sent an anti-secession delegate to the convention down in Montgomery in 1861, a young school teacher named Chris Sheats.  When Sheats refused to vote for the Confederacy, he was beaten and jailed by his fellow delegates, and was released after the so-called "unanimous vote" to go back to the hills with the planters' warning that there was plenty more where that came from.  Sheats and the mountain folk of north Alabama tried to be left alone, just as today we want to be left alone, but the government, with its draft laws and tax-in-kind laws that stole food out of the mouths of their children, wouldn't let them alone.

Those of you who have seen the movie Cold Mountain will recognize a fragment of this story which was borrowed from the Brooks' saga, but that was fiction shoe-horned into a love story.  This is a love story, all right, but of a different sort.

One day in 1863, a Confederate Home Guard party of eight men, duly sworn and heavily armed "law officers" of the Confederate state and national governments came riding down the Byler Road to the Brooks' home place.They surprised Henry Brooks, disarmed him, and began to torture the old man for the whereabouts of his 17 year old son so they could carry the boy off to the war as an unwilling conscript.  Brooks refused to tell them, so they threw a rope around his neck and alternately raised and lowered him from a tree in his front yard, torturing him to tell.  The boy, who was hiding in the barn, couldn't stand it and ran out only to be shot to death by the Home Guard. They then turned their weapons on Henry Brooks still hanging in the tree and "shot him all to pieces."  Jenny and the other seven children were forced to stand and watch as her husband and son, their father and brother, were murdered. When the Home Guard left, they were laughing.

 They were laughing because they mistook the character of the people they victimized.  They mistook the character of Jenny Brooks.

After Jenny had lowered her husband's body out of the tree and laid it out beside that of her oldest son, she gathered her three remaining sons (the youngest one was still suckling at her breast), and had them swear a Cherokee blood oath -- or swore it for them -- that they would not rest until all eight of those murderers -- those duly-appointed law enforcement officers carrying out the will of their government -- were dead.  This began a forty year feud, the last shots of which were fired in McCurtain County Oklahoma in 1904.  In the end, Jenny Brooks had her reckoning -- she kept track of it on a hickory stick.

On that stick were 7 big notches (the eighth man disappeared, abandoned his family and property, changed his name, and was never seen in north Alabama again).  Interspersed between the big notches were 24 little notches, men, friends, family and neighbors of the Home Guardsmen, who had the misfortune to get in the way of the Brooks' clan and their prey.  So that stick represented 31 dead men. Along the way, Jenny lost all her sons but one and several sons-in-law, to the feud, but she counted herself as satisfied.

Jenny got the first one herself, the leader of the bunch, when she ambushed him a few months later as he rode out from his house, shooting him from his horse.  She dragged him off into the woods, took out her kitchen knife, cut the man's head off and put in a tote sack.  She carried that grisly trophy home, threw it in the lye boiling pot that she used to make soap, cooked it all away until she had nothing left but the man's brain pan, minus even the jawbone.  She then turned it upside down and used it as a soap dish for the rest of her life.

True story.

Jenny lived on into her nineties, outliving all her sons, and in later years converted to Christianity and became known by the honorific of Aunt Jenny.  She did many good works for the poor in Winston County, and when she was dying hundreds of her church friends and extended family gathered around her cabin to pay homage to the woman who had become the patron saint of the mountain Unionists.  When the moment of her passing was near, her pastor asked Jenny if there was anything else they could do for her, anything else she wanted, fishing, probably, for a confession of her sins.

"Yes," she said weakly, "I'd like to wash my hands."  And so they brought Jenny a pan of water and her soap dish and she washed her hands one last time in that murderer's brain pan before she crossed over to meet God.

That's Winston County Alabama, where Aunt Jenny's descendants still live in considerable numbers and still tell that story today with awe and with pride.  That's what happens in a civil war, I would counsel Harry Reid.  And I would caution him that civil wars haven't gotten any more civilized in the centuries since Jenny made her soap dish.  So Harry and his federal friends -- the war makers and decision takers who think that the rest of us serve them and their power -- those who in Locke's words would put themselves into a state of war against their own people, should be careful  what they wish for.  For like the Home Guard who rode away laughing from the Brooks cabin in 1863, they might just unexpectedly get what they deserve.

And like the bully boys of the BLM, whose violent conduct earned themselves an armed response from an aroused people, they will be astonished when it happens.  But that is only because they forgot the words of that most under-appreciated American poet and philosopher, Frank Zappa, who said in 1965:

Do you love it?
Do you hate it?
There it is, 
The way you made it.

Hell, it is said, is the truth perceived too late to do anything about it. 

Harry Reid calls us "domestic terrorists" and promises us "This isn't over."  Based on the warning y'all gave him and his bully boys last week, he should fervently pray that it is.  As for me, I will send him this soap dish, the "Jenny Brooks Trophy for Incitement to Civil War," as a reminder with this message:

Don't poke the wolverine with a sharp stick, Harry, unless you want your balls ripped off. 

Thank you.

"Wolverines!"

AWESOME WORK!: 19 immigrant-rights activists arrested at Suffolk jail

04/20/2014

Nineteen advocates for immigrants were arrested Thursday after blocking the entrance to the Suffolk County House of Correction in a dramatic call for a halt to deportations.

Advocates have held vigils at the Boston jail for years, but on Thursday, men and women knelt in front of the jail’s main entrance, locked arms, and refused to budge despite officers’ orders to move.

“We’re saying enough of deportations,” shouted Gladys Vega, executive director of the Chelsea Collaborative, a nonprofit, as she knelt on the ground before her arrest. “We’re here demanding justice and a stop to the deportations and the separation of families.”

More than 150 other protesters from Vermont, Connecticut, and across Massachusetts marched nearby, carrying signs and chanting, “Shut down ICE,” and “Shame on Suffolk County,” which puts immigrants held for civil immigration violations in the same complex as criminals.

The protest is part of a national campaign to pressure President Obama to use his executive authority to curb deportations. The event was held during Holy Week as a backdrop for the advocates’ call for a compassionate response to the nearly 12 million immigrants here illegally, including about 160,000 in Massachusetts.

One protester held a sign calling Obama the “deporter in chief,” for presiding over roughly 2 million deportations since he took office, even as he fights for a path to citizenship for immigrants here illegally.

Besides Vega, among those arrested Thursday were Maria Peniche, a college student from Mexico who grew up in Revere; Andres del Castillo, the American son of a Colombian immigrant who was raised in Winthrop; and Peter Knowlton, a labor leader in Massachusetts.

A spokesman for Suffolk County Sheriff Steven Tompkins said police arrested the protesters on charges of disorderly conduct and trespassing.

Immigration and Customs Enforcement said the agency is carrying out its duties.

“While we continue to work with Congress to enact common-sense immigration reform, ICE remains committed to sensible, effective immigration enforcement that focuses on its priorities, including convicted criminals and other public safety threats,” spokesman Daniel Modricker said.

Groups that favor tougher immigration laws say the rising deportations reflect a small percentage of those who are here illegally. Last year’s federal records show that most deportees were recent border crossers or criminals, both among ICE’s top priorities.

“It’s unrealistic to expect that enforcement can be scaled back much more than it already has been,” said Jessica Vaughan, director of policy studies for the Center for Immigration Studies, a Washington think tank.

Peniche, 23, came to the United States from Mexico when she was 10, brought illegally across the border by her parents. They raised Peniche and her brother in Revere, but despite getting good grades, Peniche was ineligible for college financial aid. In 2012, the family returned to Mexico.

A few days after they left, President Obama granted temporary legal residency to students such as Peniche.

The family later returned to the United States, and they are seeking asylum. Since then, both Peniche and her parents have been detained after separate acts of civil disobedience.

“I know what it’s like to be treated like a criminal without doing anything,” Peniche told the crowd Thursday before her arrest. “My family deserves to be together.”

source

I Couldn't Have Said It Better Myself: In The Words of Ragin' Dave

04/20/2014

Corruptocrat Harry Reid called protesters "Domestic Terrorists"

Really, Harry, you worthless, corrupt piece of crap?

Maybe of you spent half as much energy protecting our border as you did trying to push ranchers off of their land 

so that you can make sweetheart deals with Chinese businessmen, you wouldn't have any protesters there at all.

Hey, you know who else could be called a "domestic terrorist"?  George Washington.  Thomas Jefferson. 

 Patrick Henry.  Knox, Adams, Franklin, and a whole lot of people who stood up to government tyranny and told

 the people who would lord over them to piss up a rope.

So fuck you, Harry.  Go fuck yourself sideways with a chainsaw, you Marxist cankersore.

Excellent Article: Climate "science" as medieval theology

04/20/2014

The CRU graph. Note that it is calibrated in tenths of a degree Celsius and that even that tiny amount of warming started long before the late 20th century. The horizontal line is totally arbitrary, just a visual trick. The whole graph would be a horizontal line if it were calibrated in whole degrees -- thus showing ZERO warming

Re: "Why climate deniers are winning: The twisted psychology that overwhelms scientific consensus" -- by Paul Rosenberg

The Rosenberg heading above leads into a long article. The article is too long to reproduce here but I thought I might make a few comments.  I initially found it fascinating that the author is  an Al-Jazeera journalist with an Ashkenazi surname.  

The article is mainly a discussion of work by our old friend Lewandowski.  And it is notable that NOT ONE climate fact is mentioned in the article.  That Warmists are desperately short of congenial facts probably explains that but it certainly does not inspire confidence in the article.  Skeptics, by contrast usually hit you with a graph or two or some statistics at least:  An instructive difference.

Like so many Warmists, Rosenberg refers to "the science" but never says what it is.  How does  the absence of warming for the last 17 years fit in with science?  From Rosenberg you would never know.

The rationale for this strange behaviour by Warmists is usually an appeal to authority in the best Fascist style.  Scientists trust the facts.  Fascists trust authority.

And trusting authority is so ludicrous!  I am also a health  blogger and the number of occasions -- even in recent years -- when the conventional wisdom has gone into reverse is phenomenal.  The cause of stomach ulcers, the proper treatment of snakebite, the cure for peanut allergy, the role of dietary fat are just some of the 180 degree turns that come into mind in medical science.

I am suffering from a mild bout of diverticulitis at the momnent and I note that many of the diet recommendations for us sufferers have also recently been shown to be the reverse of the truth.

What sane person would "trust the experts" under those circumstances?  Lewandowski's central claim is that mistrust of scientific conclusions is paranoid but I think that the cases I have just mentioned show that a skeptical approach to accepted science is simply well-informed.  That's why skeptics use all those graphs and statistics. They are well-informed, not paranoid.

So Rosenberg and others have built their castles on sand.  The consensus could switch overnight (as it does at times) and they would be left washed away and with nothing to stand on.  I may even live long enough to see that happen and have a laugh at it.

So the Rosenberg/Lewandowski theoretical edifice is superficially a substantial and impressive one but its lack of foundations make it no more important than medieval theology.







Local Wind Law Options

One of the most frequent requests we get at Alliance for Wise Energy Decisions (AWED), is for help in writing a local industrial wind energy ordinance. (We'd appreciate your feedback if you have anything to contribute to this issue.)

An underlying assumption of our recommendations, is that the majority of the local legislators are genuinely focused on what is in the best interest of: neighbors to such a project, community businesses, and the local environment.

In the unfortunate case where representatives have been co-opted, the basic choices are: 1) if they are open-minded, educate them back to reality, 2) replace them with citizen-oriented people, or 3) sue them to act responsibly [a federal section 1983 lawsuit is the most powerful option available].

Even when the community has conscientious representatives, an industrial Wind Energy Facility (WEF) is a unique, highly technical matter that local legislators rarely have expertise with. That’s the reason the WiseEnergy.org website was created: to educate citizens and their representatives on industrial wind energy.

After you have educated, citizen-oriented legislators, what are your ordinance options? There are two primary ways you can go with industrial wind energy: 1) regulate it, or 2) prohibit it. There are some interesting options here, so let’s look at these closer...

Regulate Wind Energy —

In North Carolina we have taken this route — and it has proven to be very successful. The KEY premise behind this choice is that regulations are not about excluding wind energy, but rather to provide reasonable protections to citizens, existing businesses and the local environment. I can not emphasize the importance of that perspective too strongly!

What protections are reasonable? There are literally dozens of complications from wind energy development, so we have condensed them down to the five most important concerns that need to be properly addressed by a local ordinance: 1) Property Value Guarantee, 2) Property Line Setbacks, 3) Noise Limits, 4) Environmental Tests, and 5) Decommissioning.

In each of these areas, the conditions should be written based on: a) scientific evidence, and b) legal precedent. See this discussion for more specifics about each of the five key regulated matters.

Since wind energy is a relatively new legal matter, there may not be a lot in the way of case law. In that situation, our advice is to extract what relevant material there is (maybe from other seemingly unrelated areas), and then to forge ahead writing a law that provides protections that are in the best interest of the community.

There are many communities throughout the US that have written good wind regulations (e.g. Sumner (Maine), Eddington (Maine), Sweetwater (Wyoming), Trempealeau County (Wisconsin), Madison (Idaho), and Jackson (Maine)).

In our view the absolute best example of a regulatory local wind ordinance is Carteret County (NC), closely followed by the Town of Newport (NC). Let me know any questions on either of these.

Prohibit Wind Energy: Option 1 —

One of my other activities has been to assist my NY town in fighting off a proposed major commercial water extraction business. Over the last ten years the history of this is a very long story — but so far we have been successful. Right now the town is reviewing its options for an ordinance, and we have been ably assisted by some very competent attorneys.

One proposal put forward is an outright prohibition of commercial water extraction. Briefly, the recommended strategy is not to single out that one activity, but rather to include it with a smorgasbord of other “objectionable” business ventures — that are defined as “prohibited uses.”

In doing some research on the origins of this measure, it seems that it came about because a NY town wanted to prohibit fracking. What they came up with is no small matter, and has even gotten the attention of the NY Times.

When I first saw this draft ordinance, I immediately thought that wind energy could easily be inserted as one of the several prohibited items. I’ve taken the liberty to tweak the words a bit to demonstrate how wind energy could be incorporated, and am sharing that with you. For NYS people I can put you in touch with the competent attorney responsible for the original document.

Prohibit Wind Energy: Option 2 —

Under the category of “There’s more than one way to skin a cat” you should be aware of an organization called Community Environmental Defense Legal Fund (CELDF). They go about addressing these types of situations (industrial wind energy) in a completely different way.

My layperson’s translation is that they feel that corporations (e.g. wind developers) have usurped rights that they are not Constitutionally entitled to.

Their strategy is to have community meetings to educate citizens about that, and then assist them in writing a law to protect their inherent interests.

Several communities have passed laws prohibiting industrial wind energy (among other things). Here is a sample story about the Town of Grafton (NH) and the accompanying CELDF press release.

Here is the law passed by Sugar Hill (NH), prohibiting industrial wind energy provided by outside developers. This background document prepared for those citizens beforehand is very instructive... The Town of Wales (NY) passed a similar law against fracking, which could be modified to include wind energy.

The possible downside of this approach is that the community is actually taking on bigger (e.g. Constitutional) issues. However, it may be appropriate, and others are doing it. For those interested, I can put you in touch with the appropriate CELDF personnel.

This was written from a US perspective, but even within the US, every state has their own quirks. Whether citizens fighting wind energy are in the US or not, there are some ideas here that can be adopted for their circumstances.

The bottom line is that we are in a serious fight, so the more options we are aware of — and take advantage of — the better.

Email from John Droz, jr.



The eroding case against carbon dioxide

When I hear concerns about soil erosion, I always think about my grandma. She was an amazing woman. She grew up in Huron in the heart of the Great Depression, which just happened to coincide with the Dust Bowl. Growing up, my sister and I listened to her stories of dealing with the dust storms, stuffing rags in the window sills and the cracks around the doors in an attempt to keep the dust out of the house. Despite her best efforts, a fine film of dust would still cover the interior of the house.

The dust from the Dust Bowl claimed crops, cattle, and the lives of two children in Huron. To this day, when contractors cut into houses that survived the Dust Bowl, they find sand in between the interior and exterior walls. The Dust Bowl eroded more than the soil; it eroded a way of life.

Erosion is a problem that persists to this day, and it’s responsible for dust storms, mudslides and sinkholes. Fortunately, plants in forests, grasslands, and everywhere else set roots in the soil and help the soil stay put, and plants around the globe are getting a boost from increased levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.

Although many people, spurred by the U.N.’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, think “going green” means using less carbon dioxide, plants prefer just the opposite.

We all know plants need carbon dioxide to breathe, but many don’t know plants turn that carbon dioxide into carbon in the form of the roots, stems, trunks, branches, leaves, and fruit with which we are more familiar. And according to a new study by the Nongovernmental International Panel on Climate Change, the more carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, the greener the planet gets.

The report, Climate Change Reconsidered II: Biological Impacts, published by The Heartland Institute (where I am a research fellow), cites thousands of peer-reviewed studies rising atmospheric CO2 levels are helping almost all plants grow bigger, become more efficient in using water, and better withstand the stress of high air temperature.

In a way, this CO2 enrichment of the atmosphere is to plants like an oxygen mask is to a winded football player — helping to prepare him for the next play.

More CO2 in the atmosphere also means plants start to grow in places they couldn’t before, reducing the amount of erosion and, consequently, dust in the air in places around the globe, while increasing the potential for agriculture and wildlife habitat as the range of certain plant species expands.

Increased levels of CO2 also have been found to increase the fine-root density in some plants by up to 184 percent, and a 55 percent increase in above ground biomass despite water and nutrition limitations — meaning plants become better at anchoring the soil in place and allowing water to permeate the surface, which is especially important during droughts.

This would have been great news for my grandma and everyone else who survived the Dust Bowl. Improved farming techniques have played an important part in reducing the amount of erosion around the world, and these efforts certainly will be helped by having more CO2 in the atmosphere. Instead of being a detriment to plant growth, more CO2 acts as a fertilizer, making plants grow bigger, faster, more resilient, and more abundant, greening the world we live in.

SOURCE





The dark side of solar

It is amazing that something that seems as up-beat as “free” electricity from the sun can have such a dark side.

I started covering some of the shenanigans from the solar industry last summer when I wrote about the “Green Tea Party” in Georgia. I had no idea what a can of worms I’d opened. In September, I wrote about the net-metering battle taking place in Arizona—and pointed out the national implications of what was playing out there. The following month, I addressed, what I believe, is an organized effort by the industry, to co-opt the language of the free-market/conservative/limited-government thinking population in an effort to convenience them that government-mandated and -subsidized solar energy was a good thing. Last month I warned consumers of solar scams in a column I wrote titled “Clouds on the solar horizon.”

I have spent months on an investigation into the cronyism, abuse, mismanagement, and violations involved in Abengoa Solar, the Spanish company that received $2.8 billion in taxpayer funding—most of it through the 2009 Stimulus Bill. My exposé was published earlier this week in the Daily Caller.

Within the past few weeks, I’ve been getting harassing phone calls from a solar supporter—so much so, that I’ve had to block his numbers.

I’ve even earned a mention in a Cleantechnica.com post on “How To Write A Hit Piece On The Solar Industry In 6 Steps.”

Apparently there is a perception that I am anti-solar, when in reality I wish I could afford solar panels on my roof because I could use some “free” electricity—but what I am, is strongly free-market. I despise government picking winners and losers. And, my green energy investigations have proven that solar is at the center of the corruption.

Now, I find out that a solar advocate and employee of SunRun—one of the solar leasing companies that Christine Lakatos and I have covered as a part of our “Green-energy crony-corruption scandal”—has been trying to influence Wall Street analysts in an attempt to “damage investor confidence” in Arizona Public Service (APS). APS is the company at the forefront of changing current netmetering policies to avoid having to increase rates on the majority of consumers.

In an email to Rajeev Lalwani, an energy sector analyst with Morgan Stanley, SunRun Inc., public policy manager Kim Sanders attempts to influence Lalwani saying: “I wanted to share a bit more info that indicates this is just the tip of the iceberg.”

Do these people have no shame? Or, are they behaving like desperate cornered rats, because they fear the taxpayer-funded gravy train is about to hit the stop block?

In an April 10 letter to SunRun Chief Executive Edward Fenster, Arizona Corporation Commission (ACC) Chairman Bob Stump points out that Sanders’ efforts have “the potential to affect adversely millions of ratepayers in APS territory.” Stump points out that these ratepayers are the very people that the ACC is “charged to protect.”

Stump explains that this is because, negatively influencing the “judgement of Wall Street analysts” could “damage investor confidence in APS, undermine its capacity to borrow at reasonable rates, and damage the company’s shareholders, many of whom are Arizonans on fixed incomes and retirees.”

He likens the behavior of the “solar advocacy community” to “bulls in china shops” and concludes the letter stating that “such behavior” inflicts harm to “solar in Arizona.” Stump states: “Attempts to ‘disrupt the utility monopoly model,’ as one solar activist put it, should not entail damaging Arizona ratepayers.”

This shameful behavior addressed in stumps’ letter, and engaged in as revealed in my previous reporting, on the part of the “solar advocacy community” wouldn’t be needed if the industry could stand on its own in a true free market.

Both consumers and regulators need to be cautious when inviting in the wolf in sheep’s clothing that is the commercial solar industry.

SOURCE





Climate change proponents using 'mediaeval' tactics

Says senior Australian government minister

George Brandis has compared himself to Voltaire and derided proponents of climate change action as "believers" who do not listen to opposing views and have reduced debate to a mediaeval and ignorant level.

In an interview with online magazine Spiked, the Attorney-General also declares he has no regret for saying Australians have the right to be bigots and accuses the left of advocating censorship to enforce a morality code on the nation.

It comes as former Australian of the year Professor Fiona Stanley said climate science had been denigrated through politicisation and denial, and issued a stinging attack on the federal government for the absence of a specific department to tackle global warming.

Senator Brandis, who is driving reforms to Australia’s racial discrimination act, describes the climate change debate as one of the “catalysing moments” in his views on freedom of speech.

While he says he believes in man-made climate change, the Queensland senator tells the magazine he is shocked by the “authoritarianism” with which some proponents of climate change exclude alternative viewpoints, singling out Labor’s Penny Wong as “Australia’s high priestess of political correctness”.

He said it was “deplorable” that “one side [has] the orthodoxy on its side and delegitimises the views of those who disagree, rather than engaging with them intellectually and showing them why they are wrong”.

As examples, he points to Senator Wong and former Prime Minister Julia Gillard, who he accuses of arguing “the science is settled” to shut down political debate on climate change.

“In other words, 'I am not even going to engage in a debate with you.' It was ignorant, it was mediaeval, the approach of these true believers in climate change,” he said.

Senator Brandis also defended comments he made in the Senate, where he argued for the right of Australians to be bigots as justification for changes to section 18C and 18D of the racial discrimination act.

“I don’t regret saying that because in this debate, sooner or later – and better sooner than later – somebody had to make the Voltaire point; somebody had to make the point [about] defending the right to free speech of people with whom you profoundly disagree.”

Senator Brandis said there had been a shift in Australian politics, claiming it was now the “Tory point of view”, rather than the left, that fell on the side of liberation and free speech.

“Now, the left has adopted a reasonably comprehensive secular morality of its own, which it now seeks to impose upon society,” he said.

“And it’s prepared to impose that secular morality on society at the cost of the freedom of speech which it once espoused.”

SOURCE

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For more postings from me, see  DISSECTING LEFTISM, TONGUE-TIED, EDUCATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC and AUSTRALIAN POLITICS. Home Pages are   here or   here or   here.  Email me (John Ray) here.  

Preserving the graphics:  Most graphics on this site are hotlinked from elsewhere.  But hotlinked graphics sometimes have only a short life -- as little as a week in some cases.  After that they no longer come up.  From January 2011 on, therefore, I have posted a monthly copy of everything on this blog to a separate site where I can host text and graphics together -- which should make the graphics available even if they are no longer coming up on this site.  See  here or here

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