American Thinker: Cloward-Piven Government

American Thinker: Cloward-Piven Government
Cloward-Piven Government
By James Simpson
It is time to cast aside all remaining doubt. President Obama is not trying to lead America forward to recovery, prosperity and strength. Quite the opposite, in fact.

In September of last year, American Thinker published my article, Barack Obama and the Strategy of Manufactured Crisis. Part of a series, it connected then-presidential candidate Barack Obama to individuals and organizations practicing a malevolent strategy for destroying our economy and our system of government. Since then, the story of that strategy has found its way across the blogosphere, onto the airwaves of radio stations across the country, the Glenn Beck television show, Bill O'Reilly, and now Mark Levin.

The methodology is known as the Cloward-Piven Strategy, and we can all be grateful to David Horowitz and his Discover the Networks for originally exposing and explaining it to us. He describes it as:

The strategy of forcing political change through orchestrated crisis. The "Cloward-Piven Strategy" seeks to hasten the fall of capitalism by overloading the government bureaucracy with a flood of impossible demands, thus pushing society into crisis and economic collapse.


Richard Cloward and Frances Fox Piven were two lifelong members of Democratic Socialists of America who taught sociology at Columbia University (Piven later went on to City University of New York). In a May 1966 Nation magazine article titled "The Weight of the Poor," they outlined their strategy, proposing to use grassroots radical organizations to push ever more strident demands for public services at all levels of government.

The result, they predicted, would be "a profound financial and political crisis" that would unleash "powerful forces ... for major economic reform at the national level."

They implemented the strategy by creating a succession of radical organizations, most notable among them the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN), with the help of veteran organizer Wade Rathke. Their crowning achievement was the "Motor Voter" act, signed into law by Bill Clinton in 1993 with Cloward and Piven standing behind him.

As we now know, ACORN was one of the chief drivers of high-risk mortgage lending that eventually led to the financial crisis. But the Motor Voter law was another component of the strategy. It created vast vulnerabilities in our electoral system, which ACORN then exploited.
ACORN's vote registration scandals throughout the U.S. are predictable fallout.

The Motor Voter law has also been used to open another vulnerability in the system: the registration of vast numbers of illegal aliens, who then reliably vote Democrat. Herein lies the real reason Democrats are so anxious for open borders, security be damned.

It should be clear to anyone with a mind and two eyes that this president and this Congress do not have our interests at heart. They are implementing this strategy on an unprecedented scale by flooding America with a tidal wave of poisonous initiatives, orders, regulations, and laws. As Rahm Emmanuel said, "A crisis is a terrible thing to waste."

The real goal of "health care" legislation, the real goal of "cap-and-trade," and the real goal of the "stimulus" is to rip the guts out of our private economy and transfer wide swaths of it over to the government to control. Do not be deluded by the propaganda. These initiatives are vehicles for change. They are not goals in and of themselves except in their ability to deliver power. They and will make matters much worse, for that is their design.

This time, in addition to overwhelming the government with demands for services, Obama and the Democrats are overwhelming political opposition to their plans with a flood of apocalyptic legislation. Their ultimate goal is to leave us so discouraged, demoralized, and exhausted that we throw our hands up in defeat. As Charles Rangel* said, "the middle class will be too distracted to fight."

These people are our enemies. They don't use guns, yet, but they are just as dangerous, determined, and duplicitous as the communists we faced in the Cold War, Korea, Vietnam, and bush wars across the globe, and the Nazis we faced in World War II.

It is time we fully internalized and digested this fact, with all its ugly ramifications. These people have violated countless laws and could be prosecuted, had we the political power. Not only are their policies unconstitutional, but deliberately so -- the goal being to make the Constitution irrelevant. Their spending is off the charts and will drive us into hyperinflation, but it could be rescinded, had we the political power. These policies are toxic, but they could be stopped and reversed, had we the political power. Their ideologies are poisonous, but they could be exposed for what they are, with long jail sentences as an object lesson, had we the political power.

Every single citizen who cares about this country should be spending every minute of his or her spare time lobbying, organizing, writing, and planning. Fight every initiative they launch. It is all destructive. If we are to root out this evil, it is critical that in 2010 we elect competent, principled leaders willing to defend our Constitution and our country. Otherwise, the malevolent cabal that occupies the government today will become too entrenched.

After that, all bets are off.

WAYNE ALLYN ROOT: Barack Obama: The great jobs killer - Opinion - ReviewJournal.com

WAYNE ALLYN ROOT: Barack Obama: The great jobs killer - Opinion - ReviewJournal.com

With the US trapped in depression, this really is starting to feel like 1932 - Telegraph

With the US trapped in depression, this really is starting to feel like 1932 - Telegraph

The Clue Batting Cage: Out of the Doldrums

The Clue Batting Cage: Out of the Doldrums: "ne of my favorite books from my childhood was Norton Juster's 'The Phantom Tollbooth'. I've read it many times, and it had a significant impact on my imagination & sense of humor -- and the way I think. In other words, who I am."

Curmudgeonly & Skeptical presents Boned Jello

Curmudgeonly & Skeptical presents Boned Jello

The Middle Wife

The 'Middle Wife' by an Anonymous 2nd grade teacher .

I've been teaching now for about fifteen years. I have two kids myself, but the best birth story I know is the one I saw in my own second grade classroom a few years back.

When I was a kid, I loved show-and-tell. So I always have a few sessions with my students. It helps them get over shyness and usually, show-and-tell is pretty tame. Kids bring in pet turtles, model airplanes, pictures of fish they catch, stuff like that. And I never, ever place any boundaries or limitations on them. If they want to lug it in to school and talk about it, they're welcome.

Well, one day this little girl, Erica, a very bright, very outgoing kid, takes her turn and waddles up to the front of the class with a pillow stuffed under her sweater.

She holds up a snapshot of an infant. 'This is Luke, my baby brother, and I'm going to tell you about his birthday.'

'First, Mom and Dad made him as a symbol of their love, and then Dad put a seed in my Mom's stomach, and Luke grew in there. He ate for nine months through an umbrella cord.'

(She's standing there with her hands on the pillow, and I'm trying not to laugh and wishing I had my camcorder with me. The kids are watching her in amazement.)

'Then, about two Saturdays ago, my Mom starts saying and going, 'Oh, Oh, Oh, Oh!' Erica puts a hand behind her back and groans.

'She walked around the house for, like an hour, 'Oh, oh, oh!' (Now this kid is doing an hysterical duck walk and groaning.)

'My Dad called the middle wife. She delivers babies, but she doesn't have a sign on the car like the Domino's man. They got my Mom to lie down in
bed like this..' (Then Erica lies down with her back against the wall.)

'And then, pop! My Mom had this bag of water she kept in there in case he got thirsty, and it just blew up and spilled all over the bed, like psshhheew!' (This kid has her legs spread with her little hands miming water flowing away. It was too much!)

'Then the middle wife starts saying 'push, push,' and 'breathe, breathe.

They started counting, but never even got past ten. Then, all of a sudden, out comes my brother. He was covered in yucky stuff that they all said was from Mom's play-center, (placenta) so there must be a lot of toys inside there. When he got out, the middle wife spanked him for crawling up in there.'

Then Erica stood up, took a big theatrical bow and returned to her seat.

I'm sure I applauded the loudest. Ever since then, when it's show-and-tell day, I bring my camcorder, just in case another 'Middle Wife' comes along.

Relief Well Operations Overview - Kent Wells and Relief Well Team - 27 June 2010

Relief Well Operations Overview - Kent Wells and Relief Well Team - 27 June 2010

My Yahoo!

My Yahoo!
Relief well
http://bp.concerts.com/gom/reliefwellgraphics062710.htm
CLICK

Curmudgeonly & Skeptical presents Boned Jello

Curmudgeonly & Skeptical presents Boned Jello:

New Computer
"Put a monitor on each computer, set them side by side, turn both computers on, install Synergy (free!), and use one keyboard/mouse to control them both seamlessly.

You can thank me after you try it, heh.
# posted by Anonymous Anonymous : 6/26/10 8:47 PM

~
I'll second the vote for synergy.

Or, if you have vmware, you can make a 'copy' of your old computer and run it inside a virtual machine on your new desktop

(the converter may be available for free, and vmware player is also free - so it should only cost you time)
# posted by Blogger pdwalker : 6/26/10 8:59 PM"

http://www.keeskennis.blogspot.com/

http://www.keeskennis.blogspot.com/

So the witch, slowly enters the front door of a sex shop. Obviously very unstable on her feet, she wobbles the few feet across the store to the counter. Finally arriving at the counter and grabbing it for support, stuttering she asks the sales clerk, "Dooo Youuuu have dilllldosss?"

The clerk, politely trying not to burst out laughing, replies, "Yes we do have dildos. Actually we carry many different models."

The witch then asks: "Doooo youuuu carrryy AAA pppinkk onnees, Tttenn inchessss lllong aaandd aabboutt ttwoo inchesss ththiickk... aaand rrunns by bbaatteries?"

The clerk responds, "Yes we do."

"Ddddooo yyoooouuuu kknnnoooww hhhowww tttooo ttturrrnnn ttthe ssunoooffabbitch offfff?"

Curmudgeonly & Skeptical presents Boned Jello

Curmudgeonly & Skeptical presents Boned Jello: "Political correctness is a doctrine, fostered by a delusional, illogical minority, and rabidly promoted by an unscrupulous mainstream media, which holds forth the proposition that it is entirely possible to pick up a turd by the clean end."

The Oil Drum | BP's Deepwater oil spill - the Department of Energy papers - and Open Thread 2

The Oil Drum | BP's Deepwater oil spill - the Department of Energy papers - and Open Thread 2

Microbes

Velociworld: Comment on A Maudlin Aside

Velociworld: Comment on A Maudlin Aside: "'There ain't nothing we can do as individuals that the government can't do more poorly, more insensitively, and more inefficiently.

It's the American Way.'

Au contraire, mon fr�re. It's not just the American Way, it's the Governemnt Way, irrespective of nationality."

The Oil Drum | Drumbeat: June 19, 2010

The Oil Drum | Drumbeat: June 19, 2010: "The mature offshore Cantarell fields continued to decline, producing 501,000 barrels per day in the June 1-13 period compared with 511,000 in the May 1-30 period, according to the hydrocarbons commission.

...Pemex has seen oil production decline from a peak of 3.4 million barrels a day in 2004, mostly as the decades-long 'easy oil' from Cantarell has been difficult to replace."

Where Gulf Spill Might Place on the Roll of Disasters - NYTimes.com

Where Gulf Spill Might Place on the Roll of Disasters - NYTimes.com

The Oil Drum | Deepwater Oil Spill - A Longer Term Problem, Personnel - and Open Thread 2

The Oil Drum | Deepwater Oil Spill - A Longer Term Problem, Personnel - and Open Thread 2

Vinegar and Honey

Vinegar and Honey: "When people are forced to remain silent when they are being told the most obvious lies, or even worse when they are forced to repeat the lies themselves, they lose once and for all their sense of probity. To assent to obvious lies is to co-operate with evil, and in some small way to become evil oneself. One's standing to resist anything is thus eroded, and even destroyed. A society of emasculated liars is easy to control. ~Theodore Dalrymple"

A Time For Choosing

A Time For Choosing

Robert Bryce, writing for Forbes magazine gives us all a serious dose of reality:

The Real Problem With Renewables

The growing oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico has, predictably, resulted in a new chorus of voices calling for increased use of renewable energy sources. But over the past five decades renewables have actually been losing market share.

In 1949 nearly 91% of America’s total primary energy came from coal, oil, and natural gas. The balance came from renewables, with hydropower being a dominant contributor. By 2008 the market share for coal, oil and natural gas, along with nuclear, had grown to 92.5% of total primary energy in the U.S. with the remainder coming from renewables.

Given the raging hype over renewable energy sources, those numbers, which are readily available from the Energy Information Administration, are remarkable. Over the past six decades tens of billions of dollars have been spent on renewable and alternative energy schemes such as wind energy, solar energy, corn and other biofuels, and electric cars. All have aimed at cutting our hydrocarbon use. And yet only nuclear power, which went from zero to about 8.5% of the U.S. primary energy over that time frame, has managed to steal significant market share from coal, oil and natural gas.

In other words, despite these huge investments, renewables’ share of the energy market has been shrinking. What’s happening? While conspiracy theorists may want to believe that Big Oil, Big Coal and Big Nuclear are stifling the growth of renewables, the simple truth is that coal, oil, natural gas and nuclear can satisfy the Four Imperatives: power density, energy density, cost and scale.

The Four Imperatives provide a simplified way to analyze the physics and math that rule our energy and its delivery, the latter better known as power. Before going further we must differentiate between energy and power. If you recall your high school physics, the definitions are straightforward: Energy is the ability to do work; power is the rate at which work gets done. Put another way, energy is an amount; power is a rate. And rates are more telling than amounts.

The first of the Four Imperatives, power density, is the most telling of the rates. Power density refers to the energy flow that can be harnessed from a given unit of volume, area or mass. Common metrics of power density include: horsepower per cubic inch, watts per square meter and watts per kilogram. And given the current infatuation with renewable energy sources like wind and solar, the essential metric for power density is watts per square meter (W/m2), which shows how much power can be derived from a given piece of real estate. It is also the metric that exposes the inherent weakness of sources like corn ethanol, wind energy and solar energy. If a source has low power density, then it will likely require too much real estate, material or space to provide the power that we demand at prices we can afford or in the vast quantities that the world needs.

The production of corn ethanol is a loser for many reasons. Just a quick glance at corn ethanol’s power density–just 0.05 W/m2–shows why the fuel makes no sense from a physics standpoint. Corn ethanol’s low power density is inherent in all biomass, which leads us to the second of the Four Imperatives. Energy density refers to the quantity of energy that can be contained in a given unit of volume, area, or mass. And the low energy density of biomass–corn, switchgrass, wood, etc.–makes it difficult to produce sufficient amounts of energy without occupying huge swaths of land.

Now let’s consider the power density of wind energy, which is about 1.2 W/m2, and solar photovoltaic, which can produce about 6.7 W/m2. Both sources are superior to corn ethanol (nearly everything is), but they are incurably intermittent, which makes them of marginal value in a world that demands always-available power. Nor can they compare to the power density of sources like natural gas, oil and nuclear. For instance, a marginal natural gas well, producing 60,000 cubic feet per day, has a power density of about 28 W/m2. An oil well, producing 10 barrels per day, has a power density of about 27 W/m2. Meanwhile, a nuclear power plant like the South Texas Project–even if you include the entire 19 square-mile tract upon which the project is sited–produces about 56 W/m2.

Simple math shows that a marginal gas or oil well has a power density at least 22 times that of a wind turbine while a nuclear power plant has a power density that is more than 8 times that of a solar photovoltaic facility. Those numbers explain why power density matters so much: if you start with a source that has low power density, you have to compensate for that low density by utilizing more resources such as land, steel, and ultra-long transmission lines. Those additional inputs then reduce the project’s economic viability and its ability to scale.

That can be understood by comparing the land use needs of a nuclear plant with those of a wind energy project or a corn ethanol operation. The two reactors at the South Texas Project produce 2,700 megawatts of power. The plant covers about 19 square miles, an area slightly smaller than the island of Manhattan. To match that output using wind energy, you’d need a land area nearly the size of Rhode Island. Matching that power output with corn ethanol would require intensive farming on more than 21,000 square miles, an area nearly the size of West Virginia.

Environmental groups and many politicians in Washington insist that the U.S. must lead the effort to develop renewable energy sources, with wind, solar and biomass being the lead components. But doing so will mean replacing high-power-density sources that are reliable and low cost with low-power-density sources that are highly variable and high cost.

The ugly oil spill in the Gulf may continue growing in size. In response the Obama administration may approve more projects like Cape Wind, the controversial offshore wind energy project in Massachusetts. And Congress may pass another energy bill that gives yet more mandates and subsidies for renewables, but try as it might, Congress cannot repeal the laws of physics.

Robert Bryce is a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute. His newest book, Power Hungry: The Myths of “Green” Energy and the Real Fuels of the Future, was released last month.

Look, I’m an “all of the above” kind of guy on energy. I truly believe that we will always need oil and natural gas as our primary energy source. That’s why I support Sarah Palin and her efforts so vigorously. She understands that we need oil, natural gas, and coal, as well as nuclear energy and renewables.

It’s criminal that France gets over 75 percent of it’s electricity from nuclear powered generation plants, and we don’t. FRANCE!

From the World Nuclear Association:

France derives over 75% of its electricity from nuclear energy. This is due to a long-standing policy based on energy security.

France is the world’s largest net exporter of electricity due to its very low cost of generation, and gains over EUR 3 billion per year from this.

France has been very active in developing nuclear technology. Reactors and fuel products and services are a major export.

It is building its first Generation III reactor and planning a second.

You can read more about what can only be described as an incredible success story here.

Frankly, this is embarrassing to no end. How in the hell can America, the greatest nation the world has ever known, sit back and let FRANCE lead the world on nuclear energy production?!?

The environmental moon-bats go crazy when you mention nuclear as a source of energy, but America has had nuclear powered submarines for almost 60 years and nuclear powered aircraft carriers for almost 50 years without incident.

The United States launched the USS Nautilus, the first nuclear submarine, in 1954. Nautilus could circle the world underwater for up to four months without resurfacing.

USS Enterprise (CVN-65): 93,500-ton nuclear-powered supercarrier commissioned in 1961. First nuclear-powered aircraft carrier. Scheduled for decommissioning in 2013, may be extended to 2014-2015.

My thinking is a nuclear power plant on the ground is a heck of a lot safer than one in combat conditions, and yet, here we are.

Why aren’t we building nuclear plants at the rate Starbucks was throwing up coffee shops at one point?

Stupidity!

I think Cracked Magazine (of all places) got it absolutely right in this article:

The 5 Most Ridiculously Over-Hyped Health Scares of All Time

# 5 Three Mile Island

On March 28, 1979, what should have been a minor plumbing problem somehow escalated into a reactor fuel meltdown at the Three Mile Island Nuclear Station in Pennsylvania. Within five days, the Governor had ordered the evacuation of all children and pregnant women, within a five-mile radius of the area. Since that time, the name Three Mile Island has been synonymous with nuclear disaster. Hooters even named one of their hottest (and most delicious) wing sauces after it!

But unlike other nuclear disasters, Chernobyl for example, which caused at least 4,000 eventual deaths, Three Mile Island was responsible for a whopping zero fatalities. In fact, there weren’t even any injuries. Later tests revealed that the level of radiation people were exposed to in the five-mile radius was equivalent to the amount of radiation a person is exposed to while flying on a commercial airliner. In other words, the danger was nil.

So why all the ruckus? Much like that restraining order Catherine Zeta-Jones slapped us with a few years back, we blame Michael Douglas for this.

Just 12 days prior to the incident at TMI, The China Syndrome premiered. In the film, Michael Douglas plays a television news reporter who surreptitiously films a nuclear power plant crew as a near meltdown is taking place. As luck would have it, the events depicted in the movie almost perfectly mirrored what occurred at TMI. With the movie stirring public debate about the safety of nuclear power, there was no way the incident at TMI occurring just days later would do anything less than scare the ever-loving crap out of people. And that’s exactly what it did.

In 1979, Three Mile Island killed fewer people than ….

ROBOTS ATTACKS!

Ford factory worker Robert Williams was killed when a robot hit him in the head, thus outranking Three Mile Island’s death toll, 1-0.

This is a great piece on a lot of stupidity by politicians, environmentalists, and so on. You can read about all 5 here, though I must throw out a language warning for our more genteel readers.

Look, Obama is asking the wrong question. The question is not why we can’t get off of oil. Nope, the real question Obama and the nation should be asking is:

If we can put a man on the moon, why can’t we beat the French and get more than 75 percent of our electricity from nuclear?

Grouchy Old Cripple

Grouchy Old Cripple
joke
Jimmah Carter joke updated to Obumfuck.

Why does JHE always lay on the bottom during sex?

Because all he knows how to do is fuck up.

Net Oil Importers � Crude Oil Peak

Net Oil Importers � Crude Oil Peak

List of graphs of net oil importers